Fear not, tomorrow will come

Look at its astonished face

Locked in place

To think it cannot look away

Not once

Forgive us

Some things

Are unspeakable

Even in reflection

I bathed in moonbeams last night

Showered in its fulgent light

A man shaped moonflower

Stared up from out

This deep dark well

Struck dumb in ignorance

As weightless wisdom

Irradiated my marrow

Like x-rays

(I’m bones
Dem bones, dry bones)

I was rendered transparent

Stupefied by starlight

That sees through everything

to see if you

were enjoying Joep

as much as I

the Dutch poet

at the pulpit

(in his sanctuary)

striking looking

like an

Old Testament

prophet

I heard the keys

gentle Goliath

struck

to unlock

the magic wooden box

and the sounds drifted up

t'wards heaven

(if they ...escape

...the vaulted nave)

I wondered if

we too

are music

trapped vibrations

echoing off the walls

until one day we are

at rest, as one

with all around us

(the self absorbed)

eternally fading minor notes

still part of the greater song

I felt you tremble

watched mute

as your body racked

with stifled sobs

so English not to cause a fuss

(you know for Scots it's all about us)

the impoliteness of your grief

caught you unawares

washing through you like a wave

carrying everything to nothing

from everywhere to nowhere

I touched you to say

I am here

I care

and wondered if it was

just the piano chords

that brought you back

to Jim

(you played them to him as he died)

I imagined what hurt most

was the silence

between each stroke

all those quiet notes

we sometimes hear

so much space within

between every thing

was it there you found your Dad again?

Etude - redux

Listen to Etude - redux on Spotify. Song · Joep Beving · 2025

https://spotify.com

Elon Musk – Part 1: The Crusader Behind The Mask?

Elon Musk - Part 1: The Crusader Behind The Mask?

Elon Musk is a deeply conflicted character. Intelligent, driven, troubled and dark...

http://compossible.blog

Elon Musk – Part 2: The Limits of Free Speech & The Paradox of Tolerance

Elon Musk - Part 2: The Limits of Free Speech & The Paradox of Tolerance

We look at the dark wizard's takeover of the public forum and his Stalinist tendencies

http://compossible.blog

Elon Musk – Part 3: The Death Star

Elon Musk - Part 3: The Death Star

We watch in horror as the Empire of The Dark Enlightenment grows

http://compossible.blog

The Rape of Europa: Sovereignty, Security & The Ethical Tech Opportunity

The Rape of Europa: Sovereignty, Security & The Ethical Tech Opportunity

Europe must create strategic, digital and military sovereignty and forge a new identity now or forever remain a US vassal state in chains, fettered and preyed upon.

http://compossible.blog

The Overlapping Crises of Climate Change, Biodiversity Loss and Political Dishonesty

The Overlapping Crises of Climate Change, Biodiversity Loss and Political Dishonesty

The planet is confronting a dual ecological crisis of unprecedented scale and speed: climate change and catastrophic biodiversity loss

http://compossible.blog

Green Energy: Delay for Another Day

Green Energy: Delay for Another Day

Responses to the recent Australian Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy.

http://compossible.blog

Project 2025 & the Urgent Need for A Defence of American Democracy

Project 2025 & the Urgent Need for A Defence of American Democracy

American democracy is under attack from a profound and existential threat.

http://compossible.blog

The Power Playbook Of The Right

The Power Playbook Of The Right

Autocracy, Democratic Backsliding, and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism - The Forces Reshaping Europe

http://compossible.blog

AI: Ethics, Governance, Law & Society

AI: Ethics, Governance, Law & Society

AI: Ethics, Governance, Law & Society

http://compossible.blog

“I feel that the four big AI CEOs in the U.S. are modern-day prophets with four different versions of the Gospel ..telling the same basic story that this is so dangerous and so scary that I have to do it and nobody else.”1

(Max Tegmark)

We enter a new age of AI , with some American snake-oil salesmen promising AI (and themselves) as a saviour to solve all of our ills (a new era of ‘psychohistory’ – but more Wizard of Oz style). Thank goodness for Demis Hassabis.

However, in this article (for which I used AI for research and content), I contend that we can also use of AI as part of a new integrated social science and as a powerful tool for public policy guided by our demand for a fairer safer society and sustainable economic policies.

AI has a stronger role to play in managing our socio-economic and ecological issues and creating a fairer society if we manage the risks carefully. The realisation of AI’s benefits is entirely contingent on who controls the technology and for what purpose. Unless we rebuild our political and economic systems, AI will too often be a super-weapon used by the powerful few against the many.2

Leveraging AI for Public Good While Safeguarding Our Future

The twenty-first century is defined by complex, interconnected crises, from climate collapse to rampant inequality.

For any progressive movement dedicated to systemic, structural reform and social justice, traditional policy methods (often based on linear or speculative assumptions) are no longer sufficient. A need highlighted by the failure of conventional models to anticipate or explain systemic shocks like the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC). As former European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet noted during the global financial crisis, policymakers felt “abandoned by conventional tools” as existing macro models “failed to predict the crisis and seemed incapable of explaining what was happening.” This analytical gap has created a strategic imperative for more adaptive and granular methods.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not a utopian solution, but it is an essential tool for achieving genuine societal resilience.

We must strategically deploy AI for public good while embedding robust guardrails—such as transparency, accountability, and citizen participation—to prevent the technology from becoming a tool for centralized control, commercial co-option and environmental harm.

This article outlines the applications of these computational paradigms—data-driven forecasting and agent-based simulation—their core challenges, and the profound governance imperatives that accompany their adoption.

The dual emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Computational Social Science (CSS) offers a transformative response to the changes and challenges we face. Together, these tools enable a shift from static, equilibrium-based analysis to dynamic, data-rich modelling (which is necessary for the chaotic non-linear agent based world we live in) in a reinforcing positive synergistic loop:

• data-driven forecasting helps predict what might happen

• while agent-based simulation helps explore why it might happen and test the impact of “what if” policy interventions

Bank Fraud: Before deep diving in, let us begin by using an easy to understand example of the predictive power of AI-driven pattern analysis combined with the explanatory and exploratory capabilities of LLMs and agent-based simulations. Let’s use the example of AI tools for payments fraud management – this can involve three different interacting AI tools:

• Machine Learning (ML): Great for fraud pattern analysis and prevention (real-time detection, risk scoring, anomaly identification).

• Large Language Models (LLMs): Useful for agent testing (specifically, acting as sophisticated “adversarial agents” or to help create realistic synthetic attack scenarios to challenge ML models).

• Agent-Based Modelling (ABM): Useful for systems modelling (simulating the dynamic, complex interactions between various entities—customers, fraudsters, banks—to understand systemic risk and network effects).

AI is not usually a homogenous singular program (or a magic black box to simulate human intelligence). It is a collection of different technology tools that are more or less integrated to achieve a target outcome.

There are critical technical and resource barriers to implementation of suitable AI tools for public goods – and crucial societal and governance challenges that must be navigated if we are to harness these new technologies responsibly and ensure the benefits to all outweigh the costs and risks for many.3

AI as An Engine of Public Good

Optimising Economic Justice and Policy

• Designing Optimal Progressive Taxation: We can utilise frameworks like the “AI Economist,”5 which employs Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL), to model sophisticated economic systems. Simulations show that AI-designed tax policies consistently achieve a better balance of equality and productivity, leading to higher overall social welfare compared to existing models. This helps ensure that progressive tax reforms better achieve their intended outcomes and are not just popular populist slogans (which may in fact worsen the economy and the unequal distribution of wealth).

• Strategic Shock Modelling: For major structural changes, such as nationalising utilities6 (like Thames Water, as the Green Party UK have promised to do7), advanced AI models based on game theory can simulate the actions of diverse stakeholders and market forces (in addition to the expected captured media resistance). This strategic foresight helps policy designers select optimal legislative and communication pathways to maximise the chance of a successful, non-disruptive transition.

• Policy Automation: AI-Enhanced Policy (AEP) tools can automate and accelerate necessary regulatory processes, such as Automated Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA), crucial for governing during periods of planned structural change.

Accelerating Climate Action and Ecological Resilience

The green transition demands technological sophistication, which AI can deliver. AI offers transformative solutions essential for decarbonisation and ecological resilience.

• Smart Grid Optimisation: AI is leveraged for optimising the flexible energy grid and enhancing demand-side management to accelerate renewable integration. Implementing advanced neural networks for forecasting wind and solar power output can increase the value of renewables and reduce the necessity for high-carbon backup sources.8

• Planetary Monitoring: AI-powered systems can revolutionise biodiversity monitoring9 by processing vast datasets from Earth Observation (EO) and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). This enables rapid identification of invasive species, early detection of harmful algal blooms (HABs), and near-real-time tracking of changes in marine ecosystems.10

• Green Science Discovery: AI can dramatically accelerate the discovery of new materials, such as Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs), which are critical for green technology applications like direct-air carbon capture.11

• Public Safety and Health: AI can be used to model and analyse extreme weather events (like floods and droughts)12 to improve disaster preparedness and optimise resource allocation. In urban areas, AI tools like DeepMind’s “Green Light” can optimise traffic lights to reduce stop-and-go traffic, lowering vehicle emissions and improving urban air quality.13

Data-Driven Forecasting: Enhancing Predictive Capabilities with Artificial Intelligence

The strategic importance of data-driven forecasting is growing rapidly. Fueled by the proliferation of big data from digital sources and the maturation of advanced machine learning algorithms, this approach represents a significant leap beyond traditional forecasting methods. It enables more granular, timely, and adaptive predictions for economic, environmental, and social systems, offering policymakers more actionable and responsive insights.

Current Applications and Methodologies

AI-powered forecasting is being applied across a diverse range of domains, leveraging machine learning to identify complex patterns and relationships that are often invisible to conventional analysis.

Simulation and Emergence: Agent-Based and Computational Social Science Models

Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) offers a fundamentally different “bottom-up” paradigm for analysis.15

Instead of modelling aggregate variables, ABM simulates macroeconomic and social dynamics from the ground up, based on the interactions of numerous heterogeneous “agents” (e.g., households, firms, individuals).16

Its strategic value lies in its ability to explore out-of-equilibrium dynamics, path dependencies, and emergent phenomena—complex system-wide behaviours that arise from simple micro-level interactions and are often beyond the scope of standard equilibrium models.

Specific applications include stress-testing economic policies against a range of scenarios, assessing the equity implications of urban planning decisions, and modelling the effectiveness of public health interventions. This moves policymaking from a reactive posture to a proactive, experimental one. These simulation techniques provide a virtual laboratory for policy experimentation. However, their reliability is contingent on overcoming significant data, validation, and resource hurdles—challenges they share with the data-driven forecasting models.

Core Principles and Methodologies

The ABM approach is defined by its focus on individual actors and their interactions within a simulated environment.

• Defining the Agent: An “agent” is a computational entity characterised by four key abilities: autonomy (acting without direct control), social ability (interacting with other agents), reactivity (perceiving and responding to its environment), and pro-activeness (taking initiative to pursue goals).

• Contrast with System Dynamics (SD): While ABM focuses on micro-level interactions to understand emergent macro behaviour, SD modelling takes a top-down, aggregate view of a system, focusing on the feedback loops and flows between high-level components.

• Standardisation and Transparency: To improve consistency and reproducibility, the ODD (Overview, Design Details concepts)17 protocol has been developed. It provides a standard framework for describing agent-based models, making them more transparent and easier for others to understand, critique, and replicate.

Applications in Policy Analysis and Social Science

By simulating the behaviour of individual actors, ABM (and related computational models) provide a virtual laboratory for exploring complex policy questions across a wide range of fields.

• Macroeconomic Policy Analysis: Large-scale models like Eurace@Unibi18  are used to analyze the effects of economic policies by capturing the heterogeneity of firms and households. For example, these models can study the impact of labour market frictions on economic cohesion between different regions, revealing dynamics that are obscured in representative-agent models. They have also been used to model the effects of Basel II/III banking regulation on the financial fragility of the macroeconomic system.19

• Public Policy Experimentation: Simulation allows policymakers to explore policy trade-offs and potential unintended consequences in a controlled, virtual environment. This approach has been used to evaluate complex scenarios such as the effectiveness of different COVID-19 mitigation strategies20 and the potential impact on crime rates of shifting municipal funding between policing and social programs. However, studies on the impact of the use of AI during COVID-19 are also crucial to situate this in a wider social context.21

• Technology and Innovation Diffusion: ABMs are widely used to model how new technologies, behaviours, or ideas spread through a population.22 These models can simulate the adoption of rooftop solar panels or energy-saving practices, taking into account factors like social influence, network structure, and consumer preferences to inform policy interventions.

• Long-Term Historical Analysis: Projects like Seshat: Global History Databank23 demonstrate the power of computational methods for long-term social science. By converting vast amounts of historical and archaeological information into structured, machine-readable data, researchers can rigorously test competing theories about the evolution of complex societies and the drivers of inequality over millennia.

Critical Challenges and Implementation Barriers

Despite their transformative potential, policymakers must recognise that AI and computational models are not turnkey solutions. Their development and deployment are resource-intensive and confront significant operational and technical challenges related to data quality, model validation, computational cost, and human capital. Policymakers also need to identify AI and technology champions, that share their core social and political concerns, to help drive careful technological adoption in their social and political movements.

Data-Related Challenges

• Data Quality and Bias: The performance of any AI model is contingent on the quality of its training data. Datasets require rigorous cleaning and pre-processing to handle missing values, outliers, and noise. More critically, inherent biases in data—such as representation bias (under-representing certain groups, e.g., a medical dataset that under-represents women, leading to less accurate diagnoses), measurement bias (inaccurate data collection), and confirmation bias (reinforcing existing beliefs)—can lead to unfair, inaccurate, and discriminatory outcomes, particularly for marginalised communities.

• Data Accessibility and Infrastructure: The effective use of these technologies depends on reliable infrastructure, including electricity, internet connectivity, and data storage. The “digital divide” remains a key barrier, as limited access to digital devices and connectivity in developing or underserved regions prevents equitable access to AI-driven resources and widens existing disparities.

• Interpretability and the “Black Box” Problem: The complexity of many advanced AI models, particularly in deep learning, creates the “black box” effect where the reasoning behind a prediction or decision is not easily understood. This lack of transparency can erode trust, hinder accountability, and limit the model’s utility in high-stakes domains like medicine and criminal justice, where explaining the rationale for a decision is critical.

• Validation and Calibration: Validating complex simulation models is a persistent challenge, especially when comprehensive real-world data for direct comparison is unavailable. For ABMs, an “indirect calibration” approach is often used, where the model is validated by its ability to reproduce known real-world patterns or “stylised facts” (e.g., business cycle fluctuations). This often requires a layered validation approach that incorporates feedback from domain experts to ensure the model’s assumptions are plausible.

• Human Behaviour Modelling: Representing human decision-making is a primary challenge in social simulation. Human behaviour is not easily reduced to simple rules; it is a complex interplay of social interactions, learning, memory, and emotions. Capturing this richness and heterogeneity accurately within a computational model remains a significant hurdle. Gamification and game theory are key conceptual and operational tools within such AI models.

Resource and Capacity Hurdles

• Computational Cost: The financial and environmental costs of AI can be substantial. Training large-scale models, consumes massive amounts of electricity and generates a significant carbon footprint. For example, training GPT-3 was estimated to release 552 metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the annual emissions of 123 petrol cars.24

• Skills Gap: A significant shortage of skilled personnel exists. Training in computational methods is not yet a standard part of most social science curricula in the UK, creating a gap between the demand for data scientists and modellers and the available supply. However, training is available through dedicated university centres, like the Nuffield Foundation funded Q-Step Centres25, and specialised Master’s programs offered by institutions such as The University of Manchester. More drive and engagement is needed in this area and it should be an area the UK is a world leader in (if it could get its act together).26

Strategic Implications for Policymakers

Addressing these barriers requires a deliberate, multi-pronged policy strategy:

• First, to combat data bias, policymakers should mandate the development of data quality standards and fairness audits for AI systems used in the public sector.

• Second, bridging the digital divide necessitates targeted investment in broadband infrastructure for underserved regions.

• Third, the skills gap requires strategic investment in human capital. Policymakers should consider funding interdisciplinary university programs that merge social and computer sciences, expanding public-sector data science fellowships, and partnering with AI institutes and UK based development and commercial projects (like Deep Mind) to up-skill colleagues and the civil service.

• Finally, mitigating computational costs involves promoting research into more energy-efficient AI architectures.

These technical and operational challenges do not exist in a vacuum, they create and compound broader societal risks and governance imperatives that must be addressed proactively.

Societal and Governance Imperatives: Navigating the Risks of AI-Driven Analysis

Amplification of Socio-Economic Inequality

There is documented evidence that the current trajectory of AI investment is linked to rising income disparities.27 This occurs through several mechanisms:

• AI disproportionately benefits highly skilled workers while displacing lower-skilled jobs involving repetitive tasks. This accelerates the need for universal basic income (UBI) to be implemented28 ad well as the use of AI to monitor and take action on poverty, deprivation and inequality.29

• It concentrates wealth among technology owners and a small number of dominant “superstar firms” that can afford the immense capital and talent required for cutting-edge AI development.

This dynamic has given rise to concerns about what economist Jean-Paul Carvalho has termed “techno-feudalism”

A future where the dispensability of human labour could sharply increase the power of financial capital, creating unprecedented divisions between a technological elite and the general population. This also requires major publicly funded re-skilling initiatives for renewable energy sectors, data science, AI and other skills essential for a high value service based economy (as well as a rejuvenated manufacturing base in the UK).

Erosion of Democratic Norms and Concentration of Power

AI also poses a significant risk to democratic governance by creating powerful tools for surveillance and control.

• Elite Domination: Empirical research shows that in many Western democracies, policy decisions already strongly align with the preferences of the wealthy rather than average citizens. AI could exacerbate this by giving powerful interests new tools for influence.

• Surveillance & Control: AI-powered surveillance systems facilitate the detection of “subversive behaviour” and can discourage dissent. The extensive use of AI for social control and management of people, as seen in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and China, demonstrates how this technology can be used to entrench authoritarian tendencies and erode civil liberties.30 The USA appears to be desperate to also become a leader in this space and the UK is likely following it (as usual!).

AI: not just a technofascist tool

How to use AI as a positive tool

http://compossible.blog

Establishing Robust Governance and Regulatory Frameworks

To navigate these risks, governance frameworks must be built on a foundation of core ethical principles:

• Accountability and Governance: Clear lines of responsibility must be established for the outcomes of AI systems across their entire life cycle, from development to deployment.

• Transparency and Explainability: The “black box” problem must be mitigated to ensure I-driven decisions can be understood, scrutinised, and challenged by those they affect.

• Fairness: It is imperative to actively identify and mitigate biases within AI systems to prevent the perpetuation of historical and systemic discrimination.

• Safety, Security & Robustness: AI models must undergo rigorous validation and testing to ensure they are reliable, secure from manipulation, and perform as intended.

• Human Oversight: AI should be designed to augment, not replace, human judgment. For critical decisions, a human must remain “in the loop” (directly involved) or “on the loop” (able to intervene and override the system).

Globally, different regulatory strategies are emerging. The UK has adopted an incremental, sector-led approach, empowering existing regulators to develop context-specific rules. In contrast, the European Union has pursued the comprehensive, risk-based AI Act, which classifies AI systems into different risk tiers with corresponding legal obligations.

The Centrality of Public Trust

Ultimately, the successful and beneficial integration of AI into society turns on public trust. Various survey data reveals that a lack of trust is a major barrier to adoption, including a lack of trust in AI-generated content and concerns about privacy and data security.31 Critically, there is a strong positive correlation between public engagement and interest in deploying AI for useful purposes and trust in a government’s ability to regulate it effectively. This underscores that robust, transparent, and accountable governance is not a barrier to innovation but a prerequisite for it.

Strategic Implications for Policymakers

Effective governance is the primary tool for mitigating societal risks and building public trust. Policymakers must move beyond high-level principles to establish concrete regulatory mechanisms. This includes creating clear liability frameworks that assign responsibility for AI-induced harms, mandating public registers and impact assessments for high-risk AI systems used in the public sector, and establishing independent auditing bodies to verify claims of fairness and safety.

Adopting a flexible, risk-based approach, similar to the EU’s AI Act, allows for stringent oversight where risks are high (e.g., justice, healthcare) without stifling innovation in low-risk domains. However, this requires much more honesty, than we have had to date, about the risks of giving Govt contracts for our sensitive data to entities linked to human rights abuses, such as Palintir.32

Harnessing AI’s potential responsibly requires a multi-faceted strategy that combines technical solutions with strong legal and ethical guardrails including corporate governance verification of key suppliers.

The Environmental Footprint of AI

The pursuit of AI benefits must directly confront its enormous resource consumption, which includes substantial electricity use, water strain, and extractives required for proliferating data centers. This environmental liability is known as AI’s Footprint.

• The Risk: Training and deploying LLMs requires substantial computing power, significantly contributing to carbon emissions. The environmental burden includes direct impacts (energy, water) as well as indirect risks (stimulating excess demand for finite resources). Environmental ecosystems must be recognised as a top-level risk category.

• Our Progressive Guardrails: We must ensure AI is deployed as a net-positive force for decarbonisation by prioritising high-impact applications (AI’s Handprint) over high-cost, low-impact uses.

• AI Governance: Our governance framework will require mandatory efficiency labelling for hardware and AI systems to guide procurement toward less resource-intensive choices.

• Algorithmic Impact Assessments (AIA): we must enforce AIA’s analogous to Environmental Impact Assessments—to evaluate the potential environmental threats of new AI systems prior to scaling and ensure that systems align with sustainability and equity goals.

Foreign Ownership and Control (Sovereignty)

The development of advanced AI risks accelerating the concentration of economic and political power within a few tech giants.

This centralised control, often held by powerful foreign entities, threatens to make AI a tool of unjust corporate dominance and compromises national sovereignty.

• The Risk: Reliance on closed, proprietary models from dominant players consolidates control over the underlying infrastructure and data.

• Foreign Control & Influence: Furthermore, the outsourcing of critical functions like education, defence, or social safety nets to foreign AI companies raises serious questions about national sovereignty. This concentration also leads to heightened security risks and the potential for unfair influence on regulatory frameworks.33

• Progressive Guardrails: We must champion the democratisation of AI development by mandating the use of open-source models and verifiable data across public services to mitigate the risks associated with opaque, commercially developed “black box” models. This approach counteracts monopolisation and fosters innovation by reducing reliance on a few dominant players.

• We should establish Public Data Sovereignty Trusts and Verifiable Data Audit (VDA) infrastructure to secure data ownership and public confidence.

• We must invest in building a robust domestic public AI ecosystem to ensure that critical functions benefit the UK and our European partners and are free from direct and indirect foreign interference. The EU has shown us the way with its multi-lingual LLM foundation model – Tilde.34

Transparency and Explainability (The “Black-Box” Problem)

Public trust in AI systems, particularly in governance, is entirely contingent upon establishing institutionalised transparency. The opacity of many complex AI systems poses a primary concern.

• The Risk: As noted above, many advanced Machine Learning models operate as “black boxes,” meaning their decision-making processes are not always transparent or easily understood. This opacity makes human auditing difficult, erodes public trust, and complicates the challenging of decisions. Without transparency, it is nearly impossible to evaluate the rationale must treat Explainable AI (XAI) as both a technical solution and a societal imperative. XAI ensures systems are interpretable, transparent, and aligned with ethical standards, providing clear and understandable rationales for recommendations. We will develop frameworks to ensure individuals can obtain a factual, clear explanation of decisions, especially in cases of unwanted outcomes.

• Accountability: Policies must mandate human accountability by affirming that AI models are predictive tools, not decision-makers. Human experts must provide context, interpret results, and address issues that AI systems might overlook.

• Participation: We must prioritise citizen participation and inputs into policy-making to build trust and wider awareness of AI deployment.

Towards Responsible Integration in Public Policy

Artificial intelligence and computational modelling offer a paradigm shift for economic and social analysis. As complementary tools, data-driven forecasting can predict what may occur with greater accuracy, while agent-based simulation provides a laboratory to explore why it occurs and test policy interventions.Together, they provide capabilities that far exceed the reach of traditional methods, giving policymakers powerful new instruments to design more responsive and effective governance for an increasingly complex world.

Agent-based simulation provides a “policy laboratory” to de-risk and optimise decision-making. Policymakers should use ABMs to conduct in silico experiments before deploying real-world policies. This allows for testing the potential second- and third-order effects of legislation, identifying unintended consequences, and evaluating the differential impacts on heterogeneous populations.

However, this transformative potential is matched by significant risks. These are not merely technical challenges of data quality or model validation; they are profound societal risks. AI’s current trajectory threatens to amplify socio-economic inequality, concentrate power, worsen environmental harms and erode democratic oversight.

The challenges of bias, transparency, and accountability are not peripheral concerns but central to the responsible deployment of these AI systems.

Implementing the Governance Roadmap

Implementing AI solutions for public good requires a number of different approaches and steps. The strategic path forward requires a two-pronged strategy of Proactive Capability Building and Adaptive Governance.

Key actions needed include:

• Investing in modern data infrastructure to support real-time data ingestion and processing.

• Establishing dedicated data science units within government agencies to develop and maintain forecasting models.

• Integrating these more accurate and timely predictions into budgetary planning, infrastructure development, and crisis response protocols.

Policymakers must first actively build capabilities by investing in data infrastructure, fostering interdisciplinary research, and closing the critical skills gap. Simultaneously, they must construct robust, adaptive, and human-centric governance frameworks that establish clear principles of accountability, fairness, and transparency. This ensures that human judgment remains central to critical decisions and builds public trust through effective regulation:

• Phase 1: Foundation (Ethics & Data): Mandate Algorithmic Impact Assessments and establish Public Data Sovereignty Trusts.

• Phase 2: Governance (Transparency & Accountability): Implement mandatory efficiency labelling for AI systems and establish independent auditing bodies.

• Phase 3: Scaling (Sovereignty & Public Investment): Invest in a robust domestic open-source AI ecosystem and mandate the use of Explainable AI (XAI) in all high-stakes public-facing systems.

The ultimate goal is not technological advancement for its own sake, but the careful and responsible integration of these tools to foster more effective, equitable, and just societies.

AI – A New Tool To Serve Humanity

The choice is not whether to use AI, but whether we will allow it to concentrate power, or harness it as the most powerful tool ever created for a fairer, safer, and more sustainable world.

By integrating AI development with core progressive values—Ecological Wisdom, Social Justice, and Grassroots Democracy—and establishing comprehensive governance frameworks that prioritise transparency, sustainability, and data sovereignty, we can channel AI’s powerful potential toward creating a demonstrably better society.

AI is a communal technology and, in the case of LLMs, it is literally built on the existing corpus of all human knowledge. AI should also be a public good, let’s make sure it is.

Footnotes

1. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/silicon-valley-mark-zuckerberg-peter-thiel-god-nobel-prize-b2816511.html ↩︎

2. https://jasonhickel.substack/why-capitalism-is-fundamentally-undemocratic ↩︎

3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12289707/ ↩︎

4. Bank of England: “Infusing economically med structure into machine learning methods (2025) “how economic theory can be integrated into machine learning (dels ance their interpretability and applicability for policy analysis” https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2025/infusing-economically-motivated-structure-into-machine-learning-methods.pdf ↩︎

5. https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.02755 ↩︎

6. https:bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy50vklw4vdo ↩︎

7. https://greenparty.org.uk/2024/06/26/plan-for-our-rivers-greens-say-privatise-water-companies-invest-in-sewage-infrastructure-and-give-regulator-real-teeth/ ↩︎

8. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261925007469 ↩︎

9. https://pml.ac.uk/news/revolutionizing-biodiversity-monitoring-the-power-of-ai-and-new-technologies/ ↩︎

10. https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-projects/ai-and-autonomous-systems-assessing-biodiversity-and-ecosystem-health ↩︎

11. https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/ai-enables-quicker-search-for-mofs-to-soak-up-carbon-dioxide/4022023.article ↩︎

12. https://wmo.int/media/magazine-article/future-of-flood-forecasting-technology-driven-resilience#:~:text=The%20Ministry%20is%20now%20advancing,to%20generate%20dynamic%20flood%20simulations. ↩︎

13. https://publicpolicy.google/resources/europe_ai_opportunity_climate_action_en.pdf ↩︎

14. It achieved a normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) of just 7.8%, a significant improvement over the 16.5r rate of the persistence model baseline. ↩︎

15. https://hai.stanford.edu/policy/simulating-human-behavior-with-ai-agents ↩︎

16. See e.g.:

    

17. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228969790_The_ODD_protocol_A_review_and_first_update ↩︎

18. https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00339756v1/document ↩︎

19. https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/fakultaeten/wirtschaftswissenschaften/lehrbereiche/etace/eurace@unibi/ ↩︎

20. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-17892-8 ↩︎

21. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-025-04564-x ↩︎

22. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314403909_Agent-Based_Modeling_of_Energy_Technology_Adoption_Empirical_Integration_of_Social_Behavioral_Economic_and_Environmental_Factors ↩︎

23. https://seshatdatabank.info/ ↩︎

24. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_artificial_intelligence ↩︎

25. https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/students-teachers/q-step ↩︎

26. https://businesscloud.co.uk/news/the-alan-turing-institute-behind-the-unrest-at-the-ai-powerhouse/#:~:text=Staff%20submitted%20a%20whistleblowing%20complaint,defined%20by%20fear%20and%20defensiveness. ↩︎

27. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/three-reasons-why-ai-may-widen-global-inequality ↩︎

28. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2025/04/29/universal-basic-income-as-a-new-social-contract-for-the-age-of-ai-1/ ↩︎

29. https://healthandscienceafrica.com/2025/08/artificial-intelligence-universal-weapon-against-poverty-in-africa-tech-expert/ ↩︎

30. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/970356 ↩︎

31. https://www.iod.com/news/science-innovation-and-tech/major-blockers-to-ai-adoption-in-british-business/ ↩︎

32. https://goodlawproject.org/palantir-poised-to-cash-in-on-wes-streetings-nhs-plan/ ↩︎

33. https://www.intereconomics.eu/contents/year/2025/number/2/article/big-tech-and-the-us-digital-military-industrial-complex.html ↩︎

34. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/eu-funded-tildeopen-llm-delivers-european-ai-breakthrough-multilingual-innovation ↩︎

Discover more from Compossible – that which can live together

• this is a line borrowed and repurposed from the end of George Orwell's '1984'

  ---

Selection of Poems

A selection of my poems

https://paragraph.com

And shake my tired head

Another day...

I heat the old cold coffee

Then the panic hits me

'My God!, you lunatic!

What have you done?

Look what you wrote!

Do you remember what you said?

You imagined it all!'

Dreadful waking fever dreams

Cursed amygdalan frenzies

...Then it starts again

A sinking seeping sadness

Creeping in

That feeling of this world

Breaking

Like waves of the sea

Crashing on us, on me

Suffering swelling

Hate virus spreading

Until empathy is madness

And if you're not insane

In this way, in this world

You too must be crazy

(And again the words

Or my skills fail me)

These days I often fall out of bed

(Stupefied by senseless times)

I stand to attention

Ready again to wrestle 1

That dark angel2

A never-ending war

At best, to draw

Unspeakable sounds

From out of thin air

Isn’t so much pain-earned art

Just a richer description

Of the ‘self’ in fall?

The craft keeping alive

A feeling of complete control

Yet, it is only mastery

Of the strokes we use to trace

The destruction of that place

We thought our home

The song of a soul

That must suffer to grow

Crying out, in a kind of praise

For God's most awful

Gifts of grace3

The unwanted loved lament

Resonating

Each reverberating

Breaking heart

And though we poets know

Our universe ensures

All fools who sing

The Truth must fail

Yet, still we vow

To speak that truth

(The part we are blessed to hear)

Until

The end

Footnotes:

1. Read my 'translation' of Rilke's 'The Watcher'

2. “...Because you do not wrestle with your angel.
   Because you dare to live without God.
   Because your cowardice has led you to believe that the victor does not limp.“
   (Leonard Cohen, 'Book of Mercy')

3. "He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God"
   
   (Aeschylus c.525–456 bc, from 'Agamemnon')

“...empires rise and fall at a wave of the pointer, the blood is blotted out – And only one small boy, who was not paying the least attention, will ask between two victorious wars: and did it hurt in those days too?“

(Miroslav Holub, tr. George Theiner)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Diversity is life

3. Peace Can Be War too

4. Ukraine

5. Genocide is good for business

6. The destroyer of worlds

7. Our world today is the one Eisenhower warned about

8. Remembering the atomic atrocities

9. Further research

Introduction

So many of our global political issues, and so much human suffering, stem from the increased militarisation that was necessary during WWII but that continued long after to today.

Before discussing the US-Israeli war machines, we should remind ourselves of the urgent necessity of cooperation of all the world’s powers, countries and people to find solutions to the many issues that humans and others species currently face. We must be honest about the great challenges we face, the fact that we are quite simply running out of time. We must ensure that all of our leaders are fit for the enormous task ahead.

We can only solve these issues by working together globally, relying on science and technology to help us and good faith.

The fascist autocrats, that we must now resist and defeat, know very well what the science tells us all. They lie about it, not because they are anti-science but because they have no desire to be part of the solution. They are anti-truth, anti-justice and anti-humanity. They are like the cannibals in the story The Road, just in their case they actively hasten the degradation of the world and human civilisation. They want to create a ‘man eat man, woman and child’ world and aim to ensure they are first to the table with sharpened knives.

Europe is on the Menu

How Europe can survive the new Russian-American-Israeli Axis powers

https://paragraph.xyz

We must resist 

The Men

Who will

(For starters)

Wolf down

Our children 

We Must Resist

We are the flames We carry the fire

https://paragraph.xyz

Diversity is life

Planet Earth relies on a wonderful diversity of life-forms to maintain its ability to support all life throughout the biosphere.

“the truth is that the Earth’s environment has been massively adapted to sustain habitability. It is life that has controlled the heat from the Sun…the Sun is gradually emitting ever more heat. In fact, over the last 3.5 billion years its output has increased by 20 per cent. This should have been enough to raise the surface temperature of the Earth to 50°C and bring about a runaway greenhouse effect that would have sterilized the planet. But it didn’t happen. “

(James Lovelock, ‘Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence’)

However, we continue to destroy the planet’s capacity to carry us and so many other wonderful species.

We accelerate into a man-made natural catastrophe which could destroy Earth as home for humans and many other complex life-forms.

The risks are so serious and startling they require all the major countries and powers to collaborate in ways never before managed or imagined, if we are to avoid billions of deaths and a severely depleted natural environment. A runaway fiery catastrophe.

Indeed, the planet could very soon become so degraded that it is pushed past a point of no return.

“The best available data suggests that what we decide over the next 10 years will determine the long-term fate of human civilization.”

MIT Predicted in 1972 That Society Will Collapse This Century. New Research Shows We're on Schedule - Environment Institute

A 1972 MIT study predicted that rapid economic growth would lead to societal collapse in the mid 21st century. A new paper shows we're unfortunately right on schedule. Image: Getty A remarkable new study by a director at one of the largest accounting firms in the world has

https://www.enviro.or.id

Yet much of the world is still practising a business as usual growth model. Despite such an approach making it impossible to meet our global warming mitigation targets. Research shows that an updated version of the ‘Business As Usual’ (BAU) scenario, with slightly modified assumptions shows “a clear collapse pattern” with “a steep decline to set in around 2040”. 

According to Gaya Herrington’s analysis, this scenario indicates economic and industrial growth stopping and then declining, which would “hurt food production and standards of living”. (Gaya Herrington, ‘Update to limits to growth‘, 2020)

Other studies confirm that we must rapidly recalibrate our global efforts to an extraordinary degree – to save the human species from a future that no one would wish to live in (even if they could survive).

Instead of using our collective intelligence to solve these urgent problems, a new coalition (a new Axis powers) comprised of Russia-America-Israel believe that now is the time to carve up the world.

Trump and his friends want to remove or criminalise environmental protections, eradicate civil rights and make much of the world into their personal fiefdoms.

Netanyahu is systematically dismantling the Israeli democracy (that exists for Jewish Israelis) whilst aiming to make ethnic cleansing and Genocide great again.

Putin’s aggression in Ukraine has resulted in up to 1 million casualties on both sides, as well as widespread systematic torture, rape and the forced abduction of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children.

All of the Axis powers publicly gloat about committing crimes against humanity. The very antithesis of all that is blessed or holy (whole) in our universe.

Trump and his collection of international fascist friends

want to turn the world into Mordor

In short, this is precisely the opposite of what the world needs to solve our myriad complex problems. They can only be solved by collective universal collaboration and cooperation, based on respect for diversity of humans and all life-forms.

Towards a universal ethical framework

"At this stage of history ... either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community-interests, guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and concern for others; or ... there will be no destiny for anyone to control."

https://paragraph.xyz

Peace Can Be War too

Between WWII and the break up of the USSR, America has been involved in more than 90 wars, regime changes, coups, insurrections and support of bloody dictators.

It is very hard to get agreement on the exact numbers but tens of millions of civilians have been killed and tens of millions of people have been displaced.

“The United States’ (US) extensive overseas military engagements since World War II have resulted in millions of deaths worldwide. Since 1945, the US has used its global network of bases and military agreements to invade or intervene in 96 countries“

(IBON Foundation)

Global victims of US military aggression

US' military interventions globally range from direct military actions to covert operations to military support for client states. Lasting from days or weeks to over many years, these result in significant loss of life.

https://www.ibon.org

With a peace this bloody, who needs wars?

Obviously, because nearly all of this happened elsewhere, most people in Europe and America are largely oblivious. Most of the mainstream media has no financial incentive to report the truth.

After the break up of the USSR and the end of the cold war, US military spending declined significantly (the so-called peace dividend). When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, American military spending stood at 7% of GDP.

USA Facts

However, that peace dividend did not last for very long. American geopolitical power is based on being able to enforce its will against nearly any other country in the world (irrespective of international laws). Perpetual war is baked into the American political system.

Without perpetual warfare, the US would soon lose its military dominance and technological edge in new weaponry and war machines. This would force its administration to have to comply with international laws, and to collaborate and cooperate with others. It has evinced no desire to do so since WWII.

“At least 50 U.S. lawmakers or members of their households are financially invested in companies that make military weapons and equipment—even as these firms “receive hundreds of billions of dollars annually from congressionally-crafted Pentagon appropriations legislation“

'Obvious Conflict of Interest': Report Reveals 50+ US Lawmakers Hold Military Stocks | Common Dreams

"It's abjectly terrifying that the personal benefit of any member of Congress is factored into decisions about how to wield and fund the largest military in the world," said one critic.

https://www.commondreams.org

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. 
Ignorance is strength“
(George Orwell)

US military spending has increased more than 48% in real (inflation-adjusted) terms in the first 24 years of this century. This growth has occurred despite the end of the Iraq War and the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

US military spending is currently around $900 billion (3% of GDP). However, this only tells part of the story. If we factor in all Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and direct sales between 2019 and 2023, the United States accounted for 42% of global arms exports.

Ukraine

In 2022, the year of the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine, arms transfers through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program increased year-over-year by 49% to $51.9 billion and Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) transactions increased by the same percentage to $153.7 billion.

In 2024, the United States’ Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) of military equipment reached a combined total of approximately $318.7 billion.

United States Fiscal Year 2024 Arms Sales Set New Record - Defense Archives

The United States continues to sell record breaking amounts of arms on the global market, with $318.7 billion in total sales in Fiscal Year 2024, per US State Department figures released last Friday. This is the third consecutive year that has seen the total increase, driven in large part by Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine, [...]

https://defensearchives.com

Sustained warfare is really great

for some American corporations, investors and politicians

but really terrible for nearly everyone else.

This extraordinary level of foreign purchases, represents substantial growth from the Cold War period, when US arms exports totalled approximately $13.4 billion annually (1987-89 average), representing 0.28% of GDP. With US GDP of approximately $29 trillion in 2024, the $318.7 billion in all foreign military sales that year accounts for about 1.15% of the US GDP.

The proportionate scale of American military spending is evident when viewed in relation to other major powers:

• The US spends approximately 4 times more than China on defence

• US military expenditure is nearly 7 times larger than Russia’s defence budget

• American defence spending exceeds the combined military budgets of the next 10-12 largest defence spenders globally

The turbo-charging of EU defence - explained

As the European Commission sets out its vision for a single market for defence in its white paper due on Wednesday, we take a close look at global and European trends and the industry's readiness to meet new challenges.

https://euobserver.com

With these statistics it is no surprise that increased foreign military purchases of US weapons are a key component of the Project 2025 authoritarian fascist takeover of America first and then – working as part of the new Axis powers – much of the rest of the world.

Project 2025 - the Takeover

Project 2025 and the 180 Day Playbook Tracker

https://paragraph.xyz

A Great Wave Cometh

How to prepare for the fire and the storm

https://paragraph.xyz

These mafioso warlords want the rest of the world to pay continuous tribute to them. For Trump and his collaborators, that plan includes further strengthening the American industrial-military base (using other people’s money), making those other countries even more dependent on America for those weapons to be able to work. A perpetual cycle of servitude, where the enslaved pay for their own increasingly advanced and secure chains.

The American military strategy, is a great strategy

only if the rest of the world is both stupid and scared.

Sadly, this American strategy is not a product of wild outlandish speculation. Indeed, it has worked very well in Europe for decades, and it is a fair reflection of Europe’s historic geopolitical and military lack of intelligence (excluding France).

Between the start of Russia’s war in 2022 and June 2023, 78% of defence acquisitions by EU member states were made from outside the EU, with the U.S. alone representing approx 64%.

“While the U.S. supplied 52 percent of European NATO members’ military equipment between 2015 and 2019, the share rose to 64 percent in the subsequent five-year period.“

US dominates European weapons purchases: report

European NATO members have become even more dependent on U.S. weapons than before, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released Monday. European ar...

https://www.politico.eu

Country breakdown:

Can Europe's arms industry challenge US market dominance? - DW - 03/12/2025

Europe is re-imagining its entire security architecture and defense capacity amid concerns over both Russia and the US. With the bloc still buying huge amounts of US arms, can its own companies ever catch up?

https://www.dw.com

• Norway, Sweden, Italy, and the Netherlands: Over 90% of their arms imports came from US suppliers between 2020 and 2024.

• The UK: Sourced over 80% of its arms imports from the United States during 2020-2024.

• Germany: Experienced a dramatic increase in US arms imports, rising from less than 10% in the 2015-2019 period to 70% in 2020-2024.

• Poland: Is a significant purchaser of US equipment (such as F-35s and Abrams tanks), however IISS data suggests that between February 2022 and September 2024, Poland spent almost as much on European equipment (37%) as on US systems (38%). Contracts with Korean firms during this period also amounted to 25%.

European countries have been funding the American-Israeli war machine without any thought or strategic planning. They have failed to consider the basic question of whether this purchase of US-Israeli weaponry actually secures and increases European defensive capabilities.

Europe United ? - the Union is born

Do you remember where you were, when the union of Europe finally began? It wasn't in 1957 or even 1993. It was the day that President Zelenskyy of Ukraine went to the White House and was ambushed live on TV by some mafia thugs.

https://paragraph.xyz

There is also the shocking cost of our hypocrisy in largely supporting a US-Israeli Genocide – the great mass sacrifice of 20,000 or more Palestinian children.

Moloch for the Minotaur

And we / Who did not / Light the fires or / Wield the knife / Can never be cleansed

https://paragraph.xyz

“Every war is a war against children.”

Eglantyne Jebb

Ukraine

It is clear that America has benefited the most from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, receiving hundreds of billions in weapons orders and military funding.

In addition, some of the responsibility for the conflict must also be laid on America, given that it actively encouraged Ukraine to join NATO despite knowing that the Russian administration had always considered this a red-line – due to the understandings between the superpowers reached during and after the fall of the USSR.

 “U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University“

NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard

Angela Merkel was also well known for treating the Russian fears of NATO expansion seriously.

That said, this is still not a sufficient justification for the invasion of Ukraine and, if it was the real reason, a peace plan could be established immediately which prevented Ukraine from joining NATO whilst protecting its territorial and political integrity and sovereignty. Putin has shown no desire for such a peace plan, and instead seeks unilateral disarmament of Ukraine, to keep the territory Russia has invaded and for the installment of a Russian-puppet President.

In addition, the other reasons given by Russia for the invasion are Putin’s lies that it was necessary for Russia to do so “to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine”.

In fact, Russia and Israel are the greatest supporters of far-right and neo-Nazi groups across Europe.

Genocide is good for business

The military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned about has found one its most stable profitable manifestations in the US-Israel relationship. A marriage made in war-mongering fascist heaven.

The US is the world’s largest arms exporter (42%), and Israel is the eighth-largest (3.1%). Their combined influence on global arms markets is without peer.

In addition to European countries, major purchasers of US weaponry include Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Qatar. India and Germany are also significant buyers of Israeli weapons. The arms exports of the USA and Israel also contribute to militarization in many other regions including the Middle East and South Asia (they are largely agonistic as to who buys the weapons).

Israel is the US’s laboratory for the dark arts: the attack dog of the Middle East and the experts in perfecting murder, torture, misinfo (Hasbara) and the use of cutting edge technology to control, compromise and inflict suffering on people.

Israel operates under a ‘Permanent War Economy’ where military considerations are deeply integrated into its identity and economy, with technologies often tested on Palestinian populations before international marketing.

Mowing the Lawn: The Genocide Industry

Finance editor Ed Ongweso on Israel's strategy to weaken Palestinians' ability to resist through the use of technology and water deprivation.

https://logicmag.io

In many ways, geopolitically, Israel must be seen as the 51st State of America.

By February 2022, the total bilateral military assistance from the U.S. to Israel had reached approximately $150 billion (non-inflation-adjusted) since WWII.

Since the conflict in Gaza began in October 2023, the U.S. has spent over $18 billion on military aid to Israel and committed, in an MOU, to spend an additional $20bn by 2028. As with US support for Ukraine, much of this support feeds back to US arms manufacturers. However, a unique feature of the relationship is Israel’s privileged position in being allowed to use U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for ‘offshore procurement’ – purchasing from Israel’s own defence industry.

The 51st state relationship has enabled Israel to build significant military capabilities to become a genocidal expert in addition to its world leading expertise:

(i) in spyware (frequently used against politicians, lawyers, human rights experts, judges etc) where it also collaborates with Russia as well as far right groups around the world and in Europe; and

Critics of Putin and his allies targeted with spyware inside the EU

Israeli-made Pegasus cyberweapon used in hacking attempts on at least seven journalists and activists in EU

https://www.theguardian.com

(ii) the use of AI to surveil and kill civilians.

'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing spree in Gaza

The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local Call reveal.

https://www.972mag.com

In addition, US defence contractors openly acknowledge the financial benefits derived from conflicts involving Israel and state that it is “good for business”. The CEO of RTX (formerly Raytheon), America’s largest defence contractor and a major Israeli weapons manufacturer, bluntly declared after the war on Gaza commenced “across the entire Raytheon portfolio, you’re going to see a benefit of this restocking”.

Companies Profiting from the Gaza Genocide

The companies listed here have provided Israel with weapons and other military equipment used in its attacks on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria since October 2023. *Companies marked with (*) are included in our divestment list .

https://afsc.org

We should therefore expect a forever war in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The Palestinian people of Gaza and the West Bank are currently the main victims of this military-industrial complex.

Israel/Palestine: An Abyss of Human Suffering in Gaza

The Israeli military killed, wounded, starved, and forcibly displaced Palestinian civilians in Gaza in 2024, and destroyed their homes, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure at a scale unprecedented in recent history.

https://www.hrw.org

However, the people of Europe cannot be complacent, and may soon find that conflict is not contained to Ukraine and our children are next.

Indeed, if the fascists are unopposed or win, once they run out of easy weak targets, we should expect war to be waged against their own people (as Trump’s administration is already showing).

“In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word ‘war’, therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist.“

(George Orwell, 1984)

Fascist regimes are cannibalistic. They always eat their own too.

We Must Resist

We are the flames We carry the fire

https://paragraph.xyz

The destroyer of worlds

“Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

(Oppenheimer citing the Bhagavad Gita)

To understand how we got here there are, of course, many complex interacting forces at work. There is the traditional historic analysis – which sees American imperialism within the context of a long line of empires going back before the British all the way to the Romans.

It is true, all countries or civilisations require military power to maintain and defend their territory. The great empires also focus on enlargement (whether by force or agreement). Those that have the power to enforce their views on weaker people and territories will also have the power to determine what is right and wrong, what is lawful and punishable.

We are told that history is written by the victor. Churchill is often attributed with this phrase – though he in fact said:

“I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself”

(Winston Churchill, House of Commons on Jan. 23, 1948)

Even when the laws in place determine such acts are unlawful, misdeeds and immorality are of course capable of being dealt with by ignoring the laws in a culture of immunity and impunity (the Iraq war, Nicaragua, Trump’s sedition etc).

“..Yet law-abiding scholars write: Law is neither wrong nor right, Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by times..”

(W. H. Auden, ‘Law Like Love’)

The macro-historical approach is of course useful but, in this article, I want to take a different approach and zoom-in on a specific moment in time. A moment when I believe the US military war machine crossed a rubicon and turned from a (largely) justifiable defence footing to that of a violent worldwide aggressor without compunction. A moment when the baton of imperial cruelty and violence of European civilisations was definitively passed on to the new Europeans of America as the global superpower.

For me, that moment occurred towards the end of WWII. With the unjustified purposeful destruction of the civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The greatest of war crimes, by any other country in any another time.

In analyzing these events, firstly, one should be aware that we must always give a huge discount to any narrative which we find too comforting.

As an experiment, ask a few of your more thoughtful friends what they think about the use of atomic bombs in Japan. I have tried it, nearly everyone repeats to me the historic party lines “it hastened the end of WW11”, “it saved lives”. It soon became clear from such discussions, that none of the people asked had actually looked at this point in history, and yet they seemed remarkable confident with their blithe ethical assessments about the moral rightness of killing civilians with atomic weapons. It truly is a short walk from that position to justifying other atrocities such as Vietnam, Iraq and the Genocide in Gaza.

This is also not a ‘woke’ apology for winning WWII. I simply ask whether the danger is that Nazi’s were so clearly evil, we have never had to come to terms with our own part in the causes of WWII and our own war crimes. A less evil opposition might have forced us to look in the mirror more. We have never wanted to face the self-serving justification for our intentional mass killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

"My God, what have we done?”
(Capt. Robert Lewis,
co-pilot of the Enola Gay)

In addition, we have often used success in WWII to deprecate or forget our own imperial crimes. To avoid facing up to the historical injustices perpetuated by capitalist 'democratic' societies – and to ignore our continuing depredations (e.g. in America against the large population of black people who still did not have equal rights and opportunities after WW11).

“The Second World War conveniently wiped the slate clean for the liberal elite, as if they had had no involvement in countless genocidal projects throughout the era of colonialism.”

(Aurelien Mondon, ‘Really existing liberalism, the bulwark fantasy, and the enabling of reactionary, far right politics‘)

“I have always condemned the use of the atomic bomb against Japan but I could not do anything at all to prevent that fateful decision”

(Albert Einstein)

Given the factual and counterfactual difficulties and the scale of intentional civilian suffering, we must be particularly careful when evaluating the ethical justification for events especially if we benefit emotionally from holding those views (writing from the ‘victorious’ side that committed the horrific acts).

Some say that by the time of the bombing the Japanese knew they were defeated, and the Russian intervention was more important than the bombs in ending the war. From this perspective, the bombs were more a show of strength aimed at terrifying the Russians than any attempt to avoid further loss of life.

Opinion | Did America Have To Drop the Bomb?Not to End the War, But Truman Wanted To Intimidate Russia

THE AMBASSADOR HAD just had a long private meeting with President Harry S Truman, in office less than six weeks following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Truman had told him two extraordinary things: First, if all went well, the United States would soon possess a weapon of awesome and hitherto unknown power.

https://www.washingtonpost.com

“Some girls could not close their eyes. Some girls – their lips were all melted with their chins so they could not close [their mouths].”
(Koko Kondo)

These events remind us that, even if we are on the winning side of a war, we must always be skeptical and critical of our leaders and their purported aims and justifications (including post rationalisations as per Sec. of War, Henry Stimson).

Otherwise we are simply asserting that ‘might is right’.

There is good evidence that Pres. Truman was misled about Hiroshima being a military target and base and that he also was not advised of the bombing of Nagasaki. An earlier draft of his press release to be published following the bombing stated:

“The world will note that the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima which is purely a military base. This was because we did not want to destroy the lives of women and children and innocent civilians”.

(Pres. Truman)

After the Hiroshima bombing, and before Truman knows the full extent of civilian casualties, the reference to Hiroshima as a purely military target is edited to indicate that it was not “purely military”. Once he discovered the true nature of Hiroshima (a city with a military base) he ordered a halt to further use of nuclear weapons, saying again that he could not deal with the idea of killing “all those kids.”

A "purely military" target? Truman's changing language about Hiroshima

A remarkable set of speech drafts from August 6-9th, 1945, shows an evolution in Truman's thinking about the bomb - from an unambiguous good, to a horror that needed to justified.

https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

Truman was consistent about not wanting to use the atomic bomb on civilians whereas his military advisors were not concerned by that suffering. America has changed a lot since WWII, now the Presidents also have no concern about killing women and children.

“Secretary of War Stimson… informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan…the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test..and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.”

(Gen. Eisenhower)

General Eisenhower was in as good a position as nearly anyone to assess whether dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was necessary to bring the war to halt. His position was clear that it was not and he noted Sec. Stimson “was deeply perturbed by my attitude…”:

“my belief [was] that Japan was already defeated … and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid…the use of a weapon whose employment was…no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives…”
(Eisenhower)

Two consecutive US Presidents appear to have been misled or had grave misgivings about the alleged reasons for using the atomic bombs. It is more than striking (it is chilling), that a military establishment man like Eisenhower went on to warn about the dangers of the establishment of a “military-industrial complex” in his last message to the American public.

Farewell address by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961; Final TV Talk 1/17/61 (1), Box 38, Speech Series, Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower as President, 1953-61, Eisenhower Library; National Archives and Records Administration

Eisenhower’s Farewell Address

President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address (1961)

EnlargeDownload Link Citation: Farewell address by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961; Final TV Talk 1/17/61 (1), Box 38, Speech Series, Papers of Dwight D.

https://www.archives.gov

“we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence..by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power..will persist.”
(Eisenhower)

Our world today is the One Eisenhower Warned About

The world we live in is precisely the world Eisenhower tried to warn us about, where American might is right and there is serious money made from bombing large parts of the planet and killing millions of men, women and children. It makes little difference whether red or blue figureheads are in the White House.

We have a natural blind spot to our own failings, especially when there is money to be made from mass murder.

I was very disappointed with the film Oppenheimer because it did not close the film with a look at the impact of the atomic bombs on real Japanese civilians. Too much truth for Western audiences to buy presumably. Ethical and artistic cowardice by the director (with serious consequences).

Since WWII, the USA (often with allied support) has maintained military dominance over the world at the cost of terrible suffering for many millions of people in many different countries.

Some will say that this is the cost of a fragile global peace and is an imperial norm, but I fundamentally disagree. Never has there been a more murderous destructive ‘peace’ in the history of the world.

In this same post-war period, even Russia has been in no way nearly as aggressive to other countries as America.

China’s aggression has largely been confined to the destruction of many of its own people between WWII and the 1970s. In addition, more recently, there has been the persecution and crimes against humanity of the Muslim Uighur peoples in Northwest China. Russia has also been extraordinarily murderous and brutal to its own people in the decades after WWII, in addition to horrific destructive wars in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Ukraine more recently. Is it really any surprise that Russia and America make such good bedfellows with the Trump administration?

You still find apparently intelligent people (who I assume read history books) saying things like: “The United States is the incarnation of enlightenment. Never in history was a hegemon this unselfish”. Yep, keep dreaming that American dream.

Yet no one can advise with any accuracy, even to within a figure of 5 million, how many people have been killed, injured, tortured and displaced in the last 80 years: due to US military aggression, covert operations, overthrown governments, supported dictatorships and the rest of its arsenal of tools used to dominate or extract value from other people.

“the CIA dropped more explosives on Laos than the official air force

dropped on Germany during all of the Second World War“

What is striking is the ignorance of most people in America and Europe about the impact of this military-industrial complex and sociopathy on the rest of the world, presumably because they think it has been good for us and that’s all that matters really.

To take just one, of a hundred examples, look at the appalling treatment of the people of Laos:

I have visited Laos and it was the most beautiful country I have ever been to. It has a strong Buddhist culture and the people are generous and warm-hearted. The USA conducted a secret, unlawful and immoral war against it and has never made reparations for it.

Of course, all dominant imperialist mind-set empires are cruel in the means used for maintaining their position. The question in those societies, is who chooses how cruel and who benefits from that cruelty. A cursory glance at modern history shows the people are lied to continuously, to justify the unlawful and unnecessary use of force and to perpetuate the machines of war.

935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of Americ...

Read 37 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Facts are and must be the coin of the realm in a democracy. Unfortunately, for citizens in ...

https://www.goodreads.com

This disconnect between public reasons given for extraordinary violence and the actual motives seem even further apart today than ever. The WMD lies based justification for the Iraq war was the latest pinnacle of this disconnect. Lies that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Currently we see the military and political lie machine in full force in Israel, where the US is fully behind a Genocide of Palestinian civilians who were already living under a cruel and barbaric apartheid regime for decades. I hope we one day we will discover the full extent of Israeli lies used to justify the genocide in Gaza and the destruction and displacement now occurring in the West Bank and Syria.

Amnesty International concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza

Amnesty International's research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.

https://www.amnesty.org

In any event, if we are to improve, we must start with a lot more honesty about how we got here, with knowledge of who actually makes decisions that kill or hurt millions of people and what is the quality of information behind those decisions. Like a detective we must start by asking in every military conflict ‘Cui Bono?’ Who benefits?

Also, look what happened to the last US President that started to really preach the language of peace (leaving aside his failings and his own record of aggression):

“the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women”

Kennedy was killed only a few months after making this speech.

Are we to believe entirely coincidentally?

So where do we go from here?

The American war machine created during WWII is out of control. It makes little difference whether a Democratic party or a Republican party is in power (as Obama and Biden showed).

As with America’s economic issues, the issues are much deeper than party politics and go the heart of who actually runs America (as Eisenhower warned). The imperialist mind-set is precisely the opposite mindset to that which we are going to need to solve our global problems collectively.

We must not confuse the non-violence of necessary self-defence with the violence and wage of war of aggression and the military industrial complex.

In WW2, the Americans came to the defence of the allied powers. This time Europe must come to its own defence, and to the defence of the many weaker nations now facing the aggression and rapacity of the new Axis powers of Russia-USA-Israel.

Europe United ? - the Union is born

Do you remember where you were, when the union of Europe finally began? It wasn't in 1957 or even 1993. It was the day that President Zelenskyy of Ukraine went to the White House and was ambushed live on TV by some mafia thugs.

https://paragraph.xyz

In the current necessity for European rearmament with non-US weaponry and technologies, we must never forget the purpose of this rearmament.

It must be intended solely to ensure that we are one of the great powers of the world, and that those great powers are the ones willing to collaborate and cooperate to ensure our planet is hospitable to all life-forms and human civilisation. We must turn away from the imperialist mindset, consign it to history, so that we can collaborate on a planetary basis and use our technologies to make life better for all and ultimately ensure it is viable at all. In the meantime, we work, hope and prey for that day when peace reigns on Earth:

“Let it come like wildflowers, suddenly, because the field must have it: wildpeace.”
(Yehuda Amichai)

Remembering the atomic atrocities

Let us also never forget the terrible human cost in Japan of our actions.

In Hiroshima alone 70 per cent of all buildings were destroyed and it caused an estimated 140,000 deaths by the end of 1945 (getting close to half of the largely civilian population), along with increased rates of cancer and chronic disease among the survivors.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

The two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of people, and their effects are still being felt today.

https://www.icanw.org

Iri and Toshi Maruki are the subject of the documentary ‘Hellfire: A Journey from Hiroshima‘. They went to Hiroshima after the destruction of the city and tried to help survivors. Visions of charred bodies and the smell of death stayed with them long after.

The Hiroshima Panels | Maruki Gallery For The Hiroshima Panels

We lost our uncle to the atomic bomb. Two young nieces were killed. Our younger sister suffered burns, and our father died after six months. Many friends and acquaintances perished. Iri left for Hiroshima on the first train from Tokyo, three days after the bomb was dropped. Toshi followed a few days later.

https://marukigallery.jp

“They lay dead in heaps along the riverbank, their heads pointing toward the water they had been seeking. Having reached the river, the water remained out of reach below the steep bank, and they died with their thirst unquenched.“

“Parents were forced to abandon children pinned under fallen houses, children abandoned parents, husbands abandoned wives and wives husbands…Still, in the midst of this, many witnessed the miraculous sight of children who survived, held tightly in their dead mothers’ arms.“

In Nagasaki (which was actually a fall back secondary target for the city of Kokura), the plutonium atomic bomb exploded near the Urakami Cathedral killing an estimated 80,000 people within the year (including as many as 10,000 Christians)

Atomic Bombing in Nagasaki and the Urakami Cathedral - Google Arts & Culture

10,000 Christians out of 15,000 lost their lives

https://artsandculture.google.com

“..it is thought that about 140,000 of Hiroshima’s 350,000 population were killed …and that at least 74,000 people died in Nagasaki. The nuclear radiation..caused thousands more people to die from radiation sickness…Survivors faced a horrifying aftermath in the cities.“

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 75th anniversary of atomic bombings

It is 75 years since the US dropped atomic bombs on the two Japanese cities, leading to WW2's end.

https://www.bbc.com

Recommended documentary (including interviews with US servicemen) – White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (HBO).

Statue of Mother and Child in the Storm, by Balon Greyjoy – Own work, CC0, – Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

Further Research

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum collects and displays belongings left by the victims, photos, and other materials that convey the horror of that event, supplemented by exhibits that describe Hiroshima before and after the bombing and others that present the current status of the nuclear age.

https://hpmmuseum.jp

NAGASAKI PEACE official website of Nagasaki City

This is an official website of Nagasaki City for learning about the atomic bomb and creating peace. Information on Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum and Peace Park, records of the atomic bombing, and efforts to abolish nuclear weapons and promote peace are introduced.

https://nagasakipeace.jp

A Great Wave Cometh

How to prepare for the fire and the storm

https://paragraph.xyz

Fearful people

Do terrible things

They are so easily tempted

Frightened into

Wagering with Satan

Guaranteed

Damnation  

The people of Canaan

(To appease

Great powers or

Avoid defeat)

Sacrificed

Their most innocent

(Some say to Yahweh) 

A dreadful gift 

No din of drums

Could ever drown

The sounds

Of children

Shrieking out

In their

Unbearable

Honour

And yet this cult

Can still be found

Even here in

Great Europa

Where learned

Democrats

Perfect

An age-old

Substitution trick

Gifting the

Gods of war

The beloved

Of another tribe

In place of

Our own

In Gaza alone

Twenty thousand

Or more

Little

Loving

Burnt offerings 

Screaming

And this poem

My pathetic expiation

Yet still

The malevolent 

Kahanist devils

Can not be placated

And the raging

Blood-lust of the

American bull

Will not be sated

And we

(Who did not

Light the fires or

Wield the knife)

Can never be cleansed

Can never get this 

Damned blood 

Off our hands

Further reading:

The evolving story of Moloch as a form of child sacrifice: traditionally it was considered to be an old Canaanite god but more recently the evidence points to Moloch being the name for the sacrifice itself. Traditionally, Moloch was soften described as a practice of placing children inside or on a burning hot metal effigy. The effigy has the body of a man and the head of a bull and its arms are held out ready for offerings. However, it is still not clear whether it was an actual child sacrifice or a pagan hangover which involved a painful fiery rite of passage.

Wikipedia is a good start to research this practice and has some great sources. This one is particularly good ‘Human sacrifice in Jewish and Christian tradition. Brill. pp. 109–132. ISBN 978-9004150850.

According to tradition, the Minotaur was a part man part bull offspring of King Minos of Crete’s wife Pasiphaë and a bull that she was impelled to fall in love with. This was as punishment from Poseidon to Minos for substituting the bull in a sacrificial offering that was made to Poseidon. The Minotaur was held in a labyrinth in Crete. Every nine years the people of Athens had to choose seven men and seven women to be offered as sacrificial victims to the Minotaur in retribution for the death of Minos’s son Androgeos.

Child sacrifice in Gaza:

The conflict in Gaza has been particularly deadly for Palestinian children

These serious violations of children's rights flout IHL. The ceasefire agreement must put an end to this suffering. We have not forgotten the suffering endured by Israeli children.

https://onu.delegfrance.org

As of 4 March 2025, over 50,000 people – 48,405 Palestinian[3][8] and 1,706 Israeli[b] – have been reported killed in the Gaza war according to the official figures of the Gaza Health Ministry, as well as 166 journalists and media workers,[c] 120 academics,[27] and over 224 humanitarian aid workers, a number that includes 179 employees of UNRWA.[28] Scholars have estimated 80% of Palestinians killed are civilians.[5][4][6][29] A study by OHCHR, that verified fatalities from three independent sources, found that 70% of the Palestinian killed in residential buildings or similar housing were women and children.[30][31] (Wikipedia)

The estimated number of children killed as of 09 March 2025 is now over 20,000:

"As of March 2025, the total Palestinian death toll in Gaza exceeds 48,000, with women and children constituting between 53% and 70% of fatalities, depending on the timeframe and methodology of analysis."

Perplexity Deep Research Study

A Great Wave Cometh

How to prepare for the fire and the storm

https://paragraph.xyz

Twenty to One

"The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."(Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, circa 431 B.C.E)...

https://paragraph.xyz

The Witching Hour

Who will watch the Unwatched Time

https://paragraph.xyz

Commentary:

The central premise of the poem is that Europe has been giving their tribute to the American gods of war for a long time. This appeasement has involved sacrifices of many lives over the last 80 years since WW2. In truth, too many were largely fine with these sacrifices (Moloch) to the Minotaur as long as it was other people’s children – particularly Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East. However, that is no longer enough. In seeking to avoid facing the growing problem of American-Israeli violence we have helped to increase the power of the Minotaur which now demands ever greater tribute and sacrifices – and so our children may be next anyway.

Arabs and Muslims are the 21st century’s Jews. The undefended vilified ‘other’. It is Nazified thinking either by racist fascists or, more banally and more often, those that have thoughtlessly forgotten to pay attention to recent European history and basic ethical principles. It must never again for everyone or it is for no one.

If you would like to know more about the Kahanist alliance with Likud (the party leading the Israeli Govt) I recommend reading this article and this.

For the record: I am pro-Jewish just not fascist Jews who are in love with murder and cruelty and who will also destroy Israel eventually (just as Hitler destroyed Germany).

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2. European for the people

3. Operation Deep Sleep

4. Operation Clusterfuck

5. Empathy is the only cure

6. China

7. Repent

8. A new European identity

9. Notes

10. Further reading

Do you remember where you were, when the union of Europe finally began?

It wasn’t in 1957 or even 1993.

It was the 27th of February 2025: the day that President Zelenskyy of Ukraine went to the White House and was ambushed live on TV by some mafia thugs. Terrorists in suits.

Zelenskyy fought bravely to make his points, but it was finally clear to many people (and leaders) watching that Europe was now on its own. The US can no longer be safely considered an ally and indeed must be considered an adversary in the new Axis powers of Russia-USA-Israel.

Europe is on the Menu

How Europe can survive the new Russian-American-Israeli Axis powers

https://paragraph.xyz

“...Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again…“

(W. H. Auden)

I remember visiting Brussels some years ago as a guest of a government. When dinner finished I asked the various civil servants a question that had long troubled me: what they thought it would take to make the man or woman on the street feel more European?

This question was met with a long silence.. eventually someone said that's a good question.

I thought then that the leaders and many people working on the European Project had not thought about the most crucial issue:

What does it mean to be European for the people?

Now we must ask and answer that question together. Not just as lawyers, bankers and politicians, but as people who need to protect each other. It must be more than a matter of geography.

You may think this premise is ridiculous, after all you likely feel European as I do. Good. You are likely well educated and well off, you may even be an intellectual. This criticism is aimed squarely at people like us, not those who do not identify strongly with a European identity. Our job is to bring those who do not feel European into the fold, they tend to be older or poorer and common identity is key to ensuring we have social cohesion (and do not lose people to nationalistic or fascistic movements that can provide identity). Great civilisations invest in a shared greater identity and recognise the fundamental role of unconstrained inequality and economic alienation in driving extremism.

Look at how much we enjoy beating the Americans at golf in the Ryder Cup. That’s about all we have in sports to bond together. We need much much more. No longer competing on the world stage just as nations. We need an identity above that to meet the world with and to defend ourselves with. We need a European team for the Olympics.

That also means telling leaders of countries that do not share our core values (and I don't mean just maximum debt to fucking GDP ratios - yes I am looking at you Germany) that they must be suspended or leave. Countries like Hungary, who have a leader that undermines Europe working in concert with the new Axis powers. If the people in Hungary want to stay they will find a way to change leadership, let's give them a good reason to resist. In any event, it weakens the whole of Europe for us to allow the enemy within. Politicians need to wake up to the new brutal reality before Europe is hollowed out, full of holes like Swiss cheese.

Likewise we (Europe including the UK) cannot claim any belief in democracy, freedom and international laws and treat American and Israeli genocide of the Palestinians like it is just distasteful (but they can still be friends). In a sense they are more honest. They show they are adversaries. Why don't we act accordingly?

Most of our leaders have been acting like fools. We can all see those in the world that wish to devalue diversity of cultures, nations and people. Leaders and groups that are serial abusers of women and children. Building nationalistic nativist fascist networks in Europe.

“And yet human beings continue to dream their great dream and none wakes up from it. From past to present they have always been busy harming and murdering one another. What ignorance! It is all very sad.”

(Zhang Daye, tr. Xiaofei Tian)

The European dream is built on historical adversity between us and a newer stronger belief in the diversity of race, religion and beliefs. If we don’t value diversity no one will. So our leaders need to start acting like it matters. It’s non-negotiable.

“Si hay hombres que contienen un alma sin fronteras,
una esparcida frente de mundiales cabellos,
cubierta de horizontes, barcos y cordilleras,
con arena y con nieve, tú eres uno de aquellos.

…Con un sabor a todos los soles y los mares,
España te recoge porque en ella realices
tu majestad de árbol que abarca un continente.

A través de tus huesos irán los olivares
desplegando en la tierra sus más férreas raíces,
abrazando a los hombres universal, fielmente.“

(Miguel Hernández)

“The floating life is but as a dream; how much longer can we enjoy our happiness?”

(Li Bai, Chinese poet 701-762 AD)

Europe is just starting to awake from an 80 year long deep geopolitical sleep.

In writing these recent political articles I have had to do a lot of research, and so I must point out the extraordinary complacency in Europe. The complete lack of an integrated strategic plan to protect us from this day (as President von der Leyen partly acknowledges in her statement below).

The lack of European preparedness is breath-taking and appalling. The mindless levels of wishful thinking that must have informed so many decisions for decades. The lack of any game theory based strategy by our politicians. We had one plan: do what the Americans say and shut up and go back to sleep after we watch them kill and displace millions of other people.

I have to assume our intel and military agencies have been warning them about the increased risks from our friendship with the American psycho, since before Trump’s first presidency, but I expect that is a dangerous assumption. 

Did we outsource our intelligence to the USA and Israel as well as our defences?

Thank God for French stubbornness, for not buying into the Anglo-American dream. Well done President Macron! for continuing to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent and for trying to rally the European troops.

"We are living in the most momentous and dangerous of times. I do not need to describe the grave nature of the threats that we face. Or the devastating consequences that we will have to endure if those threats would come to pass. Because the question is no longer whether Europe's security is threatened in a very real way. Or whether Europe should shoulder more of the responsibility for its own security. In truth, we have long known the answers to those questions."

President von der Leyen

Negligent is too kind a word for what we have seen for the last 25 years, particularly when it was clear that America had increased in its militarism, lies in the pursuit of illegal murderous wars and extremist political establishment aka the Republican Party.

And don’t dare say ‘how could we have known‘? This is decades in the making, Trump just accelerates it.

Europe is full of A'holes

Europe is full of American shaped holes: what's the plan if the biggest risk to European security is America?

https://paragraph.xyz

Whilst Trump, the GOP and a myriad of international players and a network of dark money others built the new fascist dream, Europe has been increasing its American military dependency. Even handing over 50+ bases to America in the Nordic region giving a direct line of staging posts all the way from Russia to Norway. Great work Europe!

This mess has left us needing to do a rapid 180 degree turn to protect our territorial integrity, to give modern Europe a chance to grow into adulthood. It has allowed the two sociopathic countries that benefit the most from war in Ukraine to dictate the terms.

The Perpetual War Machine

The American-Israeli war machine and the profits from mass murder and a destabilised world

https://paragraph.xyz

It has also coarsened our souls and made us great hypocrites whilst we witness, or even support, the suffering of people in other places (Iraq, Syria, Palestine) if the US-Israel demand it as tribute and sacrifice. All so that we can feel safe, and to hell with human rights and international laws.

Now the chickens have come home to roost.

“No man is an island, Entire of itself;

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,

As well as if a promontory were: As well as if a manor of thy friend’s

Or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.”

(John Donne)

Here’s the thing: the reason so many bleeding-heart woke tree-hugging hippies care so much about what happens (by us or in our name) to the biosphere, other species and to other people around the world is because we know that everything is connected .

Yes we read history books. We read philosophy, science journals (and poetry!) but, more importantly, it is not a cold intellectual practice. We see culture and knowledge as a way to connect to different people and different times and places. We try to see the world from the inside out (from the perspective of others) and not top down or based purely on consideration of profit. We try to develop our souls as well as our minds, and there intelligence is not that relevant but openness to fellow feeling and suffering is. We use our imaginations to try to share in “the eternal reciprocity of tears”.*

We know that being a great leader is similar to being a great parent. We know that most people are not bad, but we all need the right influences and sometimes positive interventions. We know dehumanizing people is a disease, it’s a virus that spreads until one day it infects your neighbours, your family, you. 

“The capacity for evil can spread like an epidemic“

(Elisabeth Young-Bruehl on Hannah Arendt)

Do you finally get it? We are selfish.

It’s just a very old form of selfishness. It is also known as compassion and empathy. Buddha and many other great leaders taught it.

It has an amazing Return On Investment on every metric that actually counts. We shout out for, and support, people being oppressed because we know it could be us or our partners, siblings or children in any other time or country. Our leaders prove that to us very well, by supporting illegal wars in our names against civilians including women and children (as long as we are not on the end of the bullet or the bomb).

"the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy"

(Elon Musk)

Sure, compassion and empathy might not make you richer but who gives a flying fuck in the long run. If your main measure of the worth and value of life is like that then you must ignore the suffering of millions of other people and the destruction of Earth’s capacity to support all life. What sort of parent would measure the value of their children and the quality of their parenting just in monetary terms?

That parental spirit of love, compassion and support is how we need to treat the wider world: as if it is an extension of our children and they an extension of it. Why?  Because it is a scientific fact and spiritual truth. We all are just an inter-connected part of the living skin of this tiny rock hurtling through space. None of us are going to Mars. “Nobody gets out of this world alive”, so make your time and your impact on others count.

We have planetary wide problems that need global human coordinated solutions. Instead of being ready for it, we are now entering into a Game of Thrones/1984/Goodfellas  mashup and Europe is woefully unprepared.

So if you are a leader, now is exactly the right time for you to step up, get serious or vacate your office. Get focused. Get your head in the game. Your children and ours are counting on it.

We are going to need all the big talking European leaders to back up their words. If we care for democracy, rule of (fair) laws, human rights and territorial integrity we must fund it and defend it (and ensure we buy European weaponry and technology developed and maintained here). If you are not up for that battle, then resign now and make space for someone with some fight in them. We are going to need that fighting spirit to get through this next 10 years of the developing 4th Reich (though this one is corporatist and international).

"we will shortly propose to activate the national escape clause of the Stability and Growth Pact. It will allow Member States to increase significantly their defence expenditures without triggering the Excessive Deficit Procedure. For example: If Member States would increase their defence spending by 1,5% of GDP on average this could create fiscal space of close to EUR 650 billion over a period of four years."

(President von der Leyen)

Press statement by President von der Leyen on the defence package

We are living in the most momentous and dangerous of times. I do not need to describe the grave nature of the threats that we face. Or the devastating consequences that we will have to endure if those

https://ec.europa.eu

Whilst we are airing our dirty laundry, we must also talk about our disastrous foreign policy approach to China.

I would like to assume it is obvious to all European leaders (at the moment I have very little evidence to have much faith on this point) – that there is a short window to realign our interests with China. It needs to happen quickly. There is an opportunity, especially if they can see Europe is getting its act together collectively and no longer acting as a client state of America.

Unfortunately, right now we have a Mark Rutte type trans-atlanticist foreign policy leader in Kaja Kallas. who sees China as one of the biggest threats to Europe, somehow still managing to ignore the fascist takeover of America and the Russia-US-Israel axis powers that actively seek to destroy the EU from without and within.

A Great Wave Cometh

How to prepare for the fire and the storm

https://paragraph.xyz

Project 2025 - the Takeover

Project 2025 and the 180 Day Playbook Tracker

https://paragraph.xyz

I can only agree with a Chinese commentator who said:

“To flatter Trump, they are willing to sacrifice China, which could have been a strategic partner for Europe. … With such individuals steering Europe’s strategy, it’s hard not to feel pessimistic about Europe’s future. What awaits Europe is an even harsher blow. Facing such a Europe, we need not get angry. Having already abandoned illusions about the US, China should now also let go of expectations for Europe.“

(Guanxin)

China is well aware it is in a marriage of convenience with Russia. One that may not be in its interests once the Russia-US-Israel Axis powers get in full flow. Before anyone gets shirty about China (usually comparing it negatively to freedom loving America), I include my favorite Chinese put down of an American politician.

Hard to disagree.

There is no way of sugar coating it. European (including British) international diplomacy and geopolitical strategy has been a shit show for a long time. Instead of deleveraging from an abusive American partner we have continued to double down (even with Trump in the wings). Buying billions more in weaponry from them recently, even when European alternatives were available. Pushing China even further away when Trump was running for office again. Utter madness.

No wonder Xi Jinping doesn't take many in the West seriously. Would you if you were him?

Yes, I am aware that China is supporting Russia, particularly on trade, but here are some questions:

• Have they abandoned us?

• Did we spend the last 80 years bending over backwards to please them and now they put the knife in our back?

• Or, have we been barking at them whenever the Americans blew the dog-whistle?

We have acted as a client state to the USA for a very long time.

Of course, I am not saying we need to become like China. It’s a practical political point about ensuring we are realigned to protect Europe the best we can. Right now we have failed to do that, and we increased our dependence on an international criminal mafia style enterprise.

I am also not whitewashing China. I am not suggesting it has the best record on human rights and individual freedoms. Nor am I saying that they have our best interests at heart. What I am saying is: Europe has failed to give China good enough reasons to care about our interests.

That’s a huge political failure.

Also, I must ask, is there evidence of them funding right wing extremists in Europe and undermining our elections like Russia and our erstwhile allies USA-Israel?

In short, I am saying I think it’s a bloody big shame that we have had one geopolitical strategy for decades. Appeasing America at all costs. That was stupid. That stupidity is currently plain to see. It was on display for all to see when the only independent nuclear power supporting Ukraine and Europe at the UN was France. I expect us to do better or quite simply we shall fail.

That said, it must be galling to be a European leader that supported mass child sacrifice in Gaza (over 17,000 children killed) and yet still the US & Israel voted against us in the UN. Such chutzpah!

Moloch for the Minotaur

And we / Who did not / Light the fires or / Wield the knife / Can never be cleansed

https://paragraph.xyz

We cannot fix this unless we start by admitting the absolute clusterfuck that has been our multi-decade strategic ‘plan’. If you can’t do so, then you are not going to be the right person to fix it. We need to be street-smart and extremely skeptical when dealing with adversaries.

In addition, China knows more than anyone else what happens when you lack geopolitical strategic thinking. China was carved up in the 19th and 20th centuries by Western powers and Japan after the Opium wars. It resulted from many failures. These included, as Wei Yuan noted, a failure to appreciate the nature of the threats it faced, to challenge British maritime strength, to take action against internal traitors and agents of foreign powers. In short, it was asleep at the wheel whilst the world had changed rapidly around it. Europe too has been in a deep geopolitical sleep and needs leaders with intelligence and grit to sound the alarm and wake up.

“It is only the true genius who can take opportunity by the forelock! But the next best thing is to repent… Repentance followed by the capacity to change for the better, will..enable us to repair our errors at some future time.”
(Wei Yuan, c.1842)

That's it. I have said it, so that we can move on to the end of this article. The nicer part of this sweary word sandwich.

All is not lost. We must turn this disgust at the abusive treatment of President Zelenskyy – and the abandonment of the long European alliance with America and Israel – into transformative action.

We must value our shared histories and build a new European cultural identity connecting each of us across and beyond our nations. It took this to make us wake up to the need for an identity that is greater than just EU laws and economics.

It took this threat for many people to realise there is a European identity beyond the formalistic and financially focused EU project. European (including UK) leaders can capitalise on this public support to push through long needed political reforms, investments and coordinated action.

We and our leaders must act now to save Europe as a nascent community. Being European can finally be a real identity, if we coordinate together and show the value of our cultural and human diversity. Let us make it a reality.

Let us not allow the new common European identity to die in its infancy.

It is bitterly ironic that the mafia-like gang, currently seeking to destroy the united part of the USA, may be the missing impetus to finally make Europe united.

Slava Ukraini!

Salva Europa!

Save Europe!

Finally, like many of you, I am a peace loving person. In this process, we will need to build structures and processes that are useful for defence but dangerous as weapons if misused against weaker nations and peoples.

We must not lose our humanity and love of kindness, in this fight against new international fascists.

“…Dabei wissen wir ja:
Auch der Haß gegen die Niedrigkeit
Verzerrt die Züge.
Auch der Zorn über das Unrecht
Macht die Stimme heiser. Ach, wir
Die wir den Boden bereiten wollten für Freundlichkeit
Konnten selber nicht freundlich sein…”

(Bertolt Brecht)

Whilst we rearm for our survival, we must also restructure our societies and our economies to avoid future conflict and for the long term survival of our and many other species on Earth.

Our current form of capitalism is fundamentally opposed to democracy and to life on Earth, we must address this.

““La révolution du XXe siècle a séparé arbitrairement, pour des fins démésurées de conquête, deux notions inséparables. La liberté absolue rallie la justice, la justice absolue nie la liberté. Pour être fécondes, les deux notions doivent trouver, l’une dans l’autre, leur limites”“

(Albert Camus)

A Great Wave Cometh

How to prepare for the fire and the storm

https://paragraph.xyz

Notes:

W. H. Auden was a great ‘didactic’ poet who wrote primarily about love, politics and religion. His poetry can often be read as a warning about the dangers of excessive intellectualism. He was born in England and moved to America during the war. To my mind, he is the best poet who wrote about the rise of Nazi Germany and WWII, despite not being engaged in battle. Extract from the poem ‘September 1, 1939’.

Miguel Hernández fought against the fascist forces led by General Franco during the Spanish civil war. He was arrested multiple times after the war for his anti-fascist sympathies, and was eventually sentenced to death. His death sentence was commuted for a prison term of 30 years (so that he would not become a martyr like Federico García Lorca who was murdered by Franco regime officials in 1936 soon after the war broke out). He was kept in various prisons, under extraordinarily harsh conditions, until he died of tuberculosis in 1942. Extract from the poem ‘Al soldado internacional caído en España’.

John Donne was a metaphysical poet, cleric and member of Parliament. He was born into a catholic family in England in 1572, at which time practicing Catholicism was prohibited. Poem is ‘No Man Is An Island’.

*"the eternal reciprocity of tears” is the last line from ‘Insensibility‘ by Wilfred Owen. Owen is a hero of mine who fought and died in WW1. He died in a war that he did not believe in so that he could warn people in Britain about its futility. This line is from the last stanza:

"…But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,

That they should be as stones. 

Wretched are they, and mean

With paucity that never was simplicity.

By choice they made themselves immune

To pity and whatever moans in man

Before the last sea and the hapless stars;

Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;

Whatever shares

The eternal reciprocity of tears.“

Bertolt Brecht is a renowned poet and playwright. He fled Nazi Germany in February 1933, just after Hitler took power. He is a controversial character due to his strong support for communism, even after it was being used, as purely intellectual scaffolding, by Joseph Stalin for the most brutal murderous authoritarian regime in the world. Extract from the poem ‘An die Nachgeborenen’.

Albert Camus was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44. He took an active role in the underground resistance movement in France. In this quote, Camus reminds us that freedom requires some inequality (useful inequalities), whereas justice requires that inequality to be constrained, otherwise freedom is empty for those without power or sufficient resources. That is the essence of what I mean when I say our form of capitalism must change: to provide more freedom to the majority and more sustainable measures of economic success. Extract from the long essay ‘The Rebel’.

Further reading

Moloch

And we Who never Lit the fires or Wielded the knife Can never be cleansed

https://paragraph.xyz

Can Europe replace the US in Ukraine?

Losing U.S. backing will be a blow, but Ukraine has the means to keep fighting with help from its European allies.

https://www.politico.eu

An Action Plan for EUrope

The EU and wider Europe+ must get their priorities right

https://minnalander.substack.com

Blues for Ukraine

Russia and America have more in common than their betrayal of Kyiv.

https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com

Europe is on the Menu

How Europe can survive the new Russian-American-Israeli Axis powers

https://paragraph.xyz

European Defence and ReArm Starter Pack

Like many poets and prophets, Leonard was (we hope) not wrong - just early.

"It's coming to America first / The cradle of the best and of the worst / It's here they got the range /And the machinery for change / And it's here they got the spiritual thirst / It's here the family's broken / And it's here the lonely say / That the heart has got to open / In a fundamental way / Democracy is coming to the U.S.A"

It's official: democracy is delayed (again).

Criminal Conspiracy

In the meantime, a criminal conspiracy of corrupt sadists takes control of the main levers of power in America. We watch them implement their published plan to destroy the US federal government system (Executive, Legislative & Judicial) in favour of a dictatorship. Before you get smug or comfy, this is not an American movement – it is internationalist and has spread across western democracies.

Right now the same forces of dark money and extremism are systemically undermining your media, your political parties and your system of representative democracy in readiness for the next elections.

Prof Julia Steinberger 🌹🌱🌍 #ClimateAction #Fightfascism (@jksteinberger.bsky.social)

The neoliberal dream of fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch was always the destruction of US democracy and the elimination of government (except for its repressive organs police, courts, prisons, military ofc), and now he has won. What now? A 🧵. 1/ t.co/FKxxmLyfce

https://bsky.app

Ten Articles Explaining the 2024 Election

Some background reading

https://sarahkendzior.substack.com

Project 2025

Despite hundreds of Republicans and extremist organisations preparing and publishing a 900+ page manifesto in 2023 (and despite the execution of the 180 day transition plan before our very eyes) it seems that most of the Democratic party and the mainstream media have done little to prepare for this time. Indeed, in many cases they seem to have simply facilitated the transfer of power. The coup clearly happened many years ago, we now watch the victors mopping up. It is the only plausible explanation for the Vichy-like response from nearly all of the Democratic party.

Maybe one day we will discover whether it was due to genuine support, fear, greed or an unhealthy mixture of all. Whatever. We are here now and now is all we have.

So what is this Project?

"a systemic, ruthless plan to undermine the quality of life of millions of Americans, remove critical protections and dismantle programs for communities across the nation, and prioritize special interests and ideological extremism"

The People's Guide to Project 2025

We read Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership so that you don't have to.

https://democracyforward.org

The 180 Day Playbook

The playbook was referenced but not published with the Project 2025 manifesto, however we see it in action in what can only be described as a blitzkrieg of illegality. It aims to overload the capacity of the system and of people to respond.

The playbook is also aimed at guaranteeing that the legal system will be shock-loaded to breaking point. The law moves much more slowly than Trump and his goons can break things, and they are relying on this (in addition to their capture of some of the Supreme Court judges).

"Russell Vought, one of the architects behind Project 2025, believes there is nothing left to conserve. He desires revolution – and to burn down the system...Vought claimed he and his team had already drafted hundreds of executive orders and regulations; he specifically emphasized executive orders to implement the mass deportation of more than 20 million people as quickly as possible."

Meet the Ideologue of the "Post-Constitutional" Right

Russell Vought, one of the architects behind Project 2025, believes there is nothing left to conserve. He desires revolution - and to burn down the system

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com

What is fascism?

We can call what we see many things. Best to keep it simple to make it easier to rally people and coordinate (and given the strong historical analogies):

"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power."

(Franklin D. Roosevelt)

In any event, whatever Trump, Musk and goons represent in themselves, the power behind them is private capital (and foreign powers) that have taken over the American State decades ago.

The Gorge of Greed

It was inevitable that our largely symbolic democracies would face a day of reckoning. It has been as clear as day – to any honest analyst – that the reality of modern capitalism and democracy are fundamentally opposed to each other.

The problem is that we all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor. (Martin Luther King)

It is no surprise that the problems in our societies and politics (including unjust inequality) have accelerated since the Global Financial Crisis, when the public were forced to indemnify the private sector (and politicians) for their own failings and corrupt practices. Every crisis since (including COVID) has become a tool for a co-ordinated free for all from public funds.

You cannot have a fair distribution of responsibility, influence and reward for all, under a system that supports such great disparity of wealth and power – and where representatives are voted in by the people but yet are sponsored by and appear to be only accountable to the powerful. Political power and wealth cannot be so artificially segregated in the new system we need to create after the storm.

The top 0.1% of Americans control $22 trillion in wealth. The bottom 50% control $3.8 trillion in wealth. (Robert Reich)

Extremist Capitalists

So we must now face-off against those people who – in order to continue this trajectory of inequity – model their revolution on the rise of the Nazi party in Germany and are very happy to:

"use the electoral process of democracy to destroy democracy.”

The extremist internationalist capitalists ('fascists' is much easier) are, as always, better organised than the rest of us. So they decided to take a leaf (actually more like the whole library) out of the Nazi propaganda and political playbook. This includes the use of 'projection' propaganda – to accuse others of that which you are busily and secretly doing yourself.

We watch them set fire to the political and legal structures in place that gave people even a very limited form of influence on the qualitiy of their lives (perhaps before they voted to express how little they get out of the current economic system and tried to obtain real change).

"In the past, the U.S. has sometimes been described..as a one-party state: the business party, with two factions called Democrats and Republicans. That is no longer true. The U.S. is still a one-party state, the business party. But it only has one faction: moderate Republicans, now called New Democrats (as the U.S. Congressional coalition styles itself).

There is still a Republican organization, but it long ago abandoned any pretense of being a normal parliamentary party. Conservative commentator Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute describes today’s Republicans as “a radical insurgency — ideologically extreme, scornful of facts and compromise, dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition”: a serious danger to the society.

The party is in lock-step service to the very rich and the corporate sector. Since votes cannot be obtained on that platform, the party has been compelled to mobilize sectors of the society that are extremist by world standards."

What is most striking is that this collapsing of at least notional democratic structures (to reflect the reality of capital structures) has happened during a period of extraordinary growth in wealth inequality. For example, in the USA, the Republicans (and their backers) are not fighting a defensive rearguard action to maintain inequitable levels of inequality. Instead, the increase in unjust wealth inequality and the lack of consequences for corruption and illegality is simply more high-octane fuel to power the takeover (to a system that dispenses with any checks on that very same illegality and inequity). Then laws are changed and what was inconceivably immoral and illegal becomes the new norms. We have seen this all before.

This accelerating dynamic is why the system is completely broken, and also why it can not go back to its previous structure. Those funding the breakdown of our (even largely symbolic) democracies are very unlikely to quit, find their souls and repent or start caring for others and all life on planet Earth. Anyone who thinks we can deal with this crisis purely politically, by way of moderate reform, is kidding themselves and you.

The long-standing post WWII equilibrium has fully broken. Now only a full-scale political and economic restructuring is going to work to redress the imbalances and lead to a new peaceful equilibrium.

Fascist Propaganda and Misinformation

Make no mistake they are experts at Nazi systems of misinformation, fear and control. They have actively studied them (e.g. Trump apparently kept a copy of a book of Hitler's speeches next to his bed).

Consider the success of Israeli Hasbara, where they have persuaded many that it is racist to protest a brutal occupation and Apartheid regime that has been supported by America in its oppression of Palestinians for decades.

The success of the propaganda is astonishing. Consider the purported justifications for this Genocide against mostly women and children, by an Israeli leader that supported Hamas (see Further Research below) to keep Palestinians weak and divided.

The English language is not up to the task of providing words for this level of despicableness. All this murder, torture, rape and suffering to avoid a Palestinian State at all costs. All this despite the lack of elections in Gaza since 2006 (and the median age in Gaza is 19).

The river to the sea is Likud policy for Israelis (since at least the 1970's). Ethnic cleansing and mass murder is the goal. This is why they are happy to gloat about their depravity – but heaven forbid we speak honestly about this or we might risk getting labelled, investigated or sacked as anti-semites. As if somehow, in this weird alt-right moral universe, that might be worse than being actual sadistic mass murderers!.

“You are a slow learner, Winston."
"How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."
"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.” (George Orwell, 1984)

Israeli and American politicians (and their supportive entrepreneurs and media owners around the world) implement or provide cover for Nazi and Stalinist tools of indoctrination and lies in front of our very eyes – with little demur by the influential and powerful within our Western democracies. This has emboldened them – so now it's masks off and time for the knives, complete with Sieg Heils.

And if you want to know which other people or powers support it, are compromised or are simply too greedy to care, look at who downplays this threat. Watch those who suggest we should be open to or could learn from Trump, Musk and the rest - that we should have humility in the face of fascism.

All the wrong lessons from history

"Your prayers are for prey

All you see is your suffering

Everything not you

Must be sacrificed, slew"

(from 'Mantle')

Mantle

Each day we watch Astonished As you grow in strength Into your blood feathers

https://paragraph.xyz

Our allied fascists currently governing Israel are now deeply integrated with US, UK, Australian and other western governments, political parties, media, militaries, and even police forces.

The Likud leader Netanyahu smirks whilst Trump describes the destruction and Genocide the US and Israel (with European support) have visited on the Palestinian people – including over 40,000 women and children in Gaza (many shot with sniper rifles).

Israel and the US are aiming to finally complete (after decades of determined effort) the full house of crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people. This is in addition to war crimes. All for political purposes in order to take their land. The very definition of terrorism.

Trump says Palestinians have 'no alternative' but to leave Gaza

President in effect endorses ethnic cleansing of territory before hosting meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu

https://www.theguardian.com

We need to be more forthright about how deeply the Israeli government plays the game of propaganda and terror – Israel are the world's experts – and how much the US relies on it and uses the same tactics. They have been the American attack dog for many years in the Middle East, but also as an outsourced black ops specialist around the world (including in most Western democracies). They excel at the use of spyware, blackmail, threats and compromising people, illegal surveillance and other technologies and processes to systematically monitor, mute and ultimately destroy people. They have their own agenda too, but for geopolitical purposes they are the real 51st State. That's also why so much funding for the GOP and Trump comes through Israeli connections.

“Palestine is Israel's workshop, where an occupied nation on its doorstep provides millions of subjugated people as a laboratory for the most precise and successful methods of domination. Israel as the ideal ethnonationalist model is reliant on being able to commercialize this message,” Loewenstein writes. “Although some countries want Israeli arms or technology just to spy or disrupt dissident behavior and have no interest in building their own ethnoreligious entity, many others buy into the myths about Israeli racial supremacy and want to emulate it in their own countries.”

Mowing the Lawn: The Genocide Industry

Finance editor Ed Ongweso on Israel's strategy to weaken Palestinians' ability to resist through the use of technology and water deprivation.

https://logicmag.io

All of these people have truly learnt all the wrong lessons from history.

The bitter irony is that many of us that protest the current fascist state of Israel actually support the existence of Israel. It is like being pro-German and protesting the Nazis, the two views are not incompatible – indeed, as history shows, they are ultimately the same position.

Chutzpah

It takes chutzpah, Writing poems To the Israelites.

https://paragraph.xyz

"The profound change that has occurred in Israel is best exemplified by the war in Gaza. Almost everything about it was meant to appease the fascist, racist, pro-population-transfer far right; and the spirit of Kahanism seized control of its goals and conduct. It wasn't only the scale of the army's cruelty; it was, above all, the way in which cruelty was rendered into a value in Israeli society as a whole, into an opportunity, an asset, a miracle. Cruelty as something to be proud of, to aspire to, to boast of and to flaunt." (Gideon Levy, Haaretz)

'No innocents in Gaza': Reflecting on Israel's first fascist war | Opinion

The War That Is Supposed to End Sunday Will Go Down in History as the First Kahane War. It Is Fundamentally Different From All of Israel's Previous Wars.

https://www.haaretz.com

Justice has fled, 

Dumb, blind and deaf 

All that remains

Is the sword

(Eyeless in Gaza)

The death of largely symbolic democracies

It's true to say we have had largely symbolic representative democracy in the West (and particularly the US) which always protected capital. As Chomsky noted in 2013, the Republicans realised that even that doesn't work for them anymore (because it's very hard to persuade people to vote to have increasingly less of the pie). So they stepped out of the paradigm into extremism many years ago.

This painful equilibrium we have had prevents any real change in the dynamics of representative democracy to genuine democratic policies – the primacy of capital and the war machine must be maintained at all costs. It is how the great democracy lets you choose only between different colours for your support of Genocide, but not whether you would like to stop killing so many women and children.

The US has also created a culture of immunity, impunity and exceptionalism causing great devastation to many people and the biosphere.

It seems obvious that a mafia style gang would see the value of leading such a government and political system and go further in seeking to enshrine immunity from illegality.

"the American dream of prosperity at home and supremacy abroad has long masked a much more cynical and transactional order – one that Trump is both exposing and entrenching."

Trump 2.0 is exposing American exceptionalism for what it is - and has always been | Nesrine Malik

Guantánamo Bay? Imperialism? Alliances with billionaires? Those shocked at the president's early moves have forgotten what came before, writes Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

https://www.theguardian.com

Manifest Destiny

In a sense, the Republican party has just decided to dispense with the democratic window dressing in America to go full fascist dictatorship.

In that respect, Trump and his gang are not a discontinuity but an acceleration of the reality of what the American Dream has all too often been (for most people in America and around the world): a nightmare of racist sexist economic exploitation of the weakest; prairie predators on the prowl; manifest destiny made flesh; a mirror to a dark soul. The American people (and the rest of us) must wake up, and that soon.

If you don't believe me, try to find out, even to the nearest 5 million people, how many American Indians and how many black people were killed to found the American dream?

If you think that's unfair, try answering how many people have been killed due to unjust or illegal wars, covert operations, or in support of coups or authoritarian regimes by dictatorships carried out, funded or supported by the USA since WWII?

I can wait...

“For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.” (Winston Churchill)

The history consumed by most people is always written by the victor, real history "is only ever preserved in the dark".

This statement is not even anti-American sentiment. America is not the first brutal imperial empire (though its people are particularly well trained to be extraordinarily ignorant or blithe about the chasm between its founding ideals and the way it treats most people).

My sentiment is ultimately anti-imperialist, anti-racist and anti-ubernationalist. In addition to the obvious point, that they are repulsive ideologies that belong in the past, none of them can solve our global issues including our impact on all life on Earth including our chances of survival as a species.

Don't get me wrong: Americans, like the rest of us, have their better angels too (though they have an exemplary record of murdering them – Lincoln, MLK, Malcolm X). Indeed, even war-mongering President Bush managed an extraordinary achievement with the anti-AIDS PEPFAR project which is estimated to have saved over 20m lives.

Impact of recent U.S. decision on the global HIV response - The global impact of PEPFAR to date

The importance of the United States contribution to the global HIV response cannot be overstated. Since its creation in 2003, PEPFAR has saved more than 26 million lives by investing in critical HIV prevention, treatment, care and support programs in 55 countries.

https://www.unaids.org

However, America's current leaders and most of their media either support the Satanic forces taking control (taking it back to the worst aspects of its nature) or have allowed it or are apathetic to it.

The Status of President Trump's Pause of Foreign Aid and Implications for PEPFAR and other Global Health Programs | KFF

This policy watch provides an overview of the Trump administration's executive order to pause all foreign aid programs, including for global health, and related actions to date.

https://www.kff.org

This process has been happening for decades and is largely indifferent to the false choice offered of only red or blue instruments of capital and warfare. It is fair to say that America has never yet really wrestled with its own dark side – its terrible violent soul.

"...Because you do not wrestle with your angel.

Because you dare to live without God.

Because your cowardice has led you to believe that the victor does not limp."

(Leonard Cohen, 'Book of Mercy')

Mirror, Mirror...

Before we move on we should pause a moment to look at ourselves. We always see as if through a mirror, darkly.

The corruption I contest is in myself and each of us too. After all, America's psyche and journey is currently mirroring and echoing the deep darkness that has manifested elsewhere (in all times) – not least in 1930's Europe. When the heart of darkness of nationalism and racism was watered in fear and self-loathing and flowered into frenzied hatred (and moral insensibility) in the cauterised collective German soul.

"O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy."

(William Blake)

America never really came face to face with the full horrors of fascism, perhaps because it happened elsewhere and not on its doorstep. Now it must face it and defeat it.

We cannot oppose those that would try to 'other' the darkness in their souls and in the world – by attacking the weakest and most vulnerable – if we ignore (i.e. 'other') the risks of our own corruption.

We cannot win against them by refusing to see the darkness in ourselves. Indeed, they tap into this darkness in us very effectively - encouraging us to join them or at least to turn our faces away from what we do not wish to see. They try to make greed, hatred and sin into a virtue and aim to turn compassion and honesty into a vice.

They encourage that voice which whispers 'let someone else speak out, let someone else do something about it'. It is the voice that says in every age (substitute with the 'other' as needed): 'but I am not a Jew, or black, or Muslim, or Palestinian, or a woman, or transgender or poor or...'.

If you have older children, I recommend watching 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' with them. After the end – and the terrible silence that envelops your family as you watch your child process the horror – will you sit there and honestly tell them that it could never happen again?...when it is happening to Palestinians now and when the process of dehumanisation of others is starting to gather more strength. Remember also, it was just not the Jewish boy who was destroyed, the family that facilitated that destruction also sacrificed their child to the hatred of the Holocaust.

We can no longer sacrifice children, each other and the wider living world to the Moloch or to Mammon. We must wake up from the collective madness that threatens to descend on us yet again.

A dangerous equilibrium

Being honest with ourselves, a great forest fire was inevitable. A Trump shaped fireball will now ignite the flames across the world.

It's true the world needed the equilibrium to break down, we needed a step change.

A rational caring human would have liked that to not be led by this collection of racist sexual abusers of women and (allegedly) children – led by a man accused of rape, harassment or assault of 25 women and a 13 year old girl. Instead we hoped for a new way of distributing information and decision making that protects each of us, other species and ensures a viable biosphere on planet Earth.

Fell on Black Days

2020 has awakened us to the Black Days constructed while we slept. Now we act, and not just to avoid the worst excesses of the

https://www.epsilontheory.com

The conflagration was coming. We thought climate change and the need to fundamentally change our relationship to our environment, to other species and planet Earth would be the catalyst for change and not these arsonists who have misplaced their souls. Now we need to make it through to rebuild a better ethical, economic and political construct for our world.

Evolutionary theories tell us that new forms of life are only possible when there is free space in the ecosystem. We now must watch the forest burn and lament the suffering (rightly) but we must also stay focused on what becomes possible once the fires have died down.

What is possible is a new form of distributed decentralised democracy and economies not built on subjugation of others and destruction of the biosphere

And so we must be the firemen trying to save what we can in the fire, but we must also be the dreamers and activists of a new world to come that is based on respect for diversity.

Diversity of power, opinion, wealth, races, gender, religions and of species. A world where the maximum compatible freedom of action is available for the greatest diversity of people and other life-forms. This universal truth must be central to our ethics and not just the limited, and now under fire, notions of human rights.

Towards a universal ethical framework

"At this stage of history ... either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community-interests, guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and concern for others; or ... there will be no destiny for anyone to control."

https://paragraph.xyz

Economically it is not a philosophy of equality (as justified inequalities are useful), but of useful and constrained inequality that is equitable – so that more people can enjoy life and achieve their potential within a world that can sustain complex life.

Inequality and Inequity

Exploration of the difference between necessary useful inequalities and inequities that are not good for us collectively

https://paragraph.xyz

The parable of the poisoned arrow

We see many people already arguing about who is most to blame: Putin, Trump, Musk, the Koch brothers, the GOP!, the neo-liberals..

Or who is culpable for failing to respond seriously or for folding: the Democratic party, the centrists, the leftists, the traditional liberals, much of the mainstream media..

I get it, but we can argue about primary liability and contributory negligence all day - let's not spend our time shifting deckchairs on the Titanic.

We do need to know the hidden wealth and power that drives these forces we face. We do need to know the full extent of the international criminal conspiracy if we are to fight it. We also need journalists and civil liberties organisations to keep digging and, perhaps, when we get through this we will get many more shocking answers about how we reached this point. See Further Research below.

However, let's stay focused on what we need to do now. A great wave is coming and the boat is on fire and sinking.

We need to coordinate a coalition of the willing built on core values we can all agree on. An opposition for this war that is upon us, whether we know it or not.

“Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.” (Aragorn)

"It's just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me... until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short... until I know his home village, town, or city... until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird....' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.' The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him." (Wikipedia)

A wartime coalition of the willing

Governments create war cabinets that cross political lines at times of great need. Capitalist fascists are the new internationalists & they are waging war on our societies.

Opposition parties must now do the same if the Government in their country is supporting the international fascists. We are at war, it's resistance time.

We need two main things to coordinate a response in the short-term:

• A 5 point plan that any people, politicians and parties in the coalition of the willing can agree on that deals with these threats;

• A clear filter to help us be sure we are on the same side and that we want to solve the problems that got us here once the war is over.

For example, this could be our filter:

1. Do you care about all human beings & other species?

2. Do you see the current crisis as one primarily due to the primacy of capital above all else (including fairness, economic usefulness and protection of the biosphere)?

3. Do you agree that a criminal conspiracy has taken advantage of our subservient representative democracies?

4. Are you willing to fight to change our failed democracies, economies and means of distributing capital to build something better?

5. Are you willing to collaborate?

   If yes, welcome to the war alliance. You are in.

We also need a symbol we can get behind and a slogan or rallying call, otherwise we will be uncoordinated and drowned in the noise generated from the forces we oppose.

In addition, we need to be expert at mass communication and coordination (whilst protecting ourselves from mass surveillance and unlawful targeted surveillance).

Let us also not forget, people like Trump and Musk are the tip of the iceberg. Removing them would just allow some other extremists to take advantage of this broken system of dark money, criminality and venality. The whole system of democracy and the distribution of capital needs to be rebuilt.

The Coming Crash

Be clear in your mind, they fully intend to crash the world economy for various reasons (likely later this year).

Firstly, the lessons they learned from history is that fascism thrives in times of economic bleakness. They are very well aware of the economic conditions that allowed Hitler to usurp the German democratic system.

"When Hitler had vowed in court, in September 1930, to destroy democracy through the democratic process, a judge asked, “So, only through constitutional means?” Hitler replied crisply, “Jawohl.”

How Hitler Used Democracy to Take Power

The vital lesson of how Adolf Hitler took advantage of democracy to become a dictator.

https://time.com

They want people scared, desperate, confused, angry and vulnerable so they can play us all off against each other. People will find it harder to coordinate and protest for their rights when they are desperately trying to pay their healthcare costs, rent and for food (all of which are already rising rapidly thanks to the Trumpian nightmare).

In addition, some analysts (particularly notably that brave lady of St. Louis - Sarah Kendzior) suggest Trump has long planned to set fire to the US system to take advantage of the fire sale post-USSR collapse style.

"Yes, they want to crash the economy. As I note in my books and articles, Trump admits this openly, and it’s reflected in the mafia and corporate raider world from which he and his cohort emerged."

Questions Answered: Trump Term Two

My advice on surfing the blood-dimmed tide in the latest reader Q & A.

https://sarahkendzior.substack.com

"You know what solves it? When the economy crashes, when the country goes to total hell and everything is a disaster. Then you’ll have a [chuckles], you know, you’ll have riots to go back to where we used to be when we were great.” (Trump, 2014 when defending Russia on Fox News)

I expect the crypto markets will provide the exit liquidity for them just before the wheels come off.

Democracy is an attitude not an act (DANA) - It's Resistance Time

Being democratic is an attitude. It's not something you can outsource with a tick every 4-5 years.

Resistance is not just being against the minority of money-loving monsters in power, whether actual - e.g. the USA and Israel - or pulling many of the levers behind the scenes – e.g. the UK and Australia. It must also become a movement to:

1. Protect the biosphere & species diversity as well as human diversity

2. Transform economic structures - this capitalism & real democracy are simply not compatible.

We do not have to know the exact nature and details of the new economic and political structure to collaborate - just the broad principles. For example, that economic structures and wealth distribution must be actually useful (still allowing for beneficial inequalities) and they must service our chosen democratic political structures and goals (quality of life and contentment, respect for all people, human and species diversity, sustainable development etc,).

3. Facilitate decentralised media and decentralised platforms for information dissemination and validation

4. Create real participatory democracy - where intention, attitude and acts combine to ensure we are all responsible for and beneficiaries of the systems for making collective decisions

In short, this crisis and its ultimate resolution forces us to ensure that capital and political power can no longer be so centralised (or so artificially distinguished) in a manner that makes the holders of capital the masters that will always be able to game any system so as to 'win'.

This zero sum game approach to winning makes a very very small percentage of people even more powerful and wealthy – at the cost of abuse of the other / the weak and vulnerable, dehumanisation and leading to more crimes against humanity, less enjoyable lives for nearly everyone else, less useful freedom for all (economically), the death of even notional democracy etc.

Ultimately this winning will result in the destruction of the life-carrying capacity of our planet for all complex life. So much winning...

So prepare right now for the crash coming as well as the hard battles in the long war we face.

Support independent journalism and the braver media organisations. Support human rights, civil liberties and other groups that do extraordinary work to protect the injured, the vulnerable, the voiceless and powerless.

Anja Neundorf (@anjaneundorf.bsky.social)

4/ The biggest surprise? Media indoctrination and civil liberties repression are the most predictive of autocratic survival. These findings have big implications for "information autocracies" in the digital age.

https://bsky.app

Love your neighbour

Times like these show us how it could be so easy to crucify a man who told us our duty is to love each other. We live in a time of the preaching of dis-compassion, when the parable of the Good Samaritan is inverted to become a warning about the dangers of do-gooders (who should be cast out for their compassion).

The so called 'Christian' fundamentalists that have joined Trump's alliance of extremists are no better than the Ku Klux Klan. The Kahanists and religious Zionists in Israel (like Ben-Gvir - Israeli Minister of National Security) are equally repulsive racist terrorists.

As the Dalai Lama says compassion (a kind of kindness) must be our only philosophy and religion.

The Buddhist concept of compassion is a better approach than the simplistic abstractions of the concept of 'love', because it is practical. It joins the feeling of wonder and joy at being just a tiny part of all of life's wondrous forms with how we should act using contemplation and reason.

"...Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."

(Mary Oliver, 'Wild Geese')

Although the road to compassion may start as a motive emotion, it is important to realise that compassion is not a surfeit of feeling towards others – an excess of feeling that could be exhausted.

We see this serene universal compassion most in the figure of Gautama Buddha. Compassion is wisdom. This wisdom contains within it a reduction of the pain of the ‘feeling’ of aloneness, and a diminution of a false sense of an important, separate ‘self’. This sharing allows us to connect with the Earth and its other life-forms and the flow of the energy of life. It roots us like a tree and helps us to weather the storms.

It seeks to look beyond the surface of relative form to the deeper nature of impermanence and the commonality of all life. It is a state of mind that requires careful work to maintain.

Whether you are religious in the traditional sense or not you should understand the importance of community, common practices and communal comfort in times of great upheaval and change (an Axial Age).

The importance of humility is crucial too, it means being connected to the earth (humus) and to see ourselves as part of it not above it. It carries us all, whether we think it or not. A new humility for humanity would enrich us all.

As George Monbiot notes, we need to consider what we can do to start to build / get involved with resilient mutual support structures in our communities.

Pacifism vs non-violence

Many confuse non-violence with pacifism. For example, reasonable self defence is an act of self love (not hatred or anger directed at others) and so can be considered non-violent (e.g., under a Buddhist analysis). This distinction is crucial to understand, to take affirmative action and, most importantly, to avoid becoming the very thing you should be contesting (let's call this 'Israel Syndrome').

"when one is moderate in the pursuit of justice for human beings, I say he’s a sinner" (Malcolm X)

We are the flames

Life survives and perpetuates through the maximal diversity of compatible (compossible) life-forms having freedom to act (to be different).

Our duty is to give the fire of life the best chance of succeeding against the odds and deep time (with an abundance of humility about what will succeed):

We are the flames,

We carry the fire 🔥

We Must Resist

We are the flames We carry the fire

https://paragraph.xyz

Give us courage

A great wave cometh and our boat is sinking:

God, or whatever power of good is in the universe, please give me strength to be a good father, husband and neighbour.

Please give us the courage to love and protect each other, no matter how dark it gets.

Help us to speak honestly and clearly, without favour or fear.

Help us to weather this storm together.

Humility and compassion are endless. They are our only refuge and redemption.

A note on the use of God:

If it bothers you, substitute 'good' for 'god' in my article, as that is the sense in which it is used.

Further research and reading:

Project 2025

Project 2025 - the Takeover

Project 2025 Tracker

https://paragraph.xyz

The importance of independent Media

The Centrists Cannot Hold: Client Journalism and Our 'Concierge Media' Are Threatening Liberal Democracy

Obeying in advance by US and British media means they cannot combat the march of the hard right Broligarchs

https://bylinetimes.com

Non-violence vs Pacifism

Mandela's Strategic Decision

Examine Nelson Mandela's emotional rejection of a 1985 offer by the South African government to free him if he renounced violence and abstained from politics.

https://www.facinghistory.org

The Buddha Taught Nonviolence, Not Pacifism - Barre Center for Buddhist Studies

Paul Fleischman is a psychiatrist and a Teacher of vipassanā meditation in the tradition of S.N. Goenka. He is the author, among other works, of Cultivating Inner Peace and Karma and Chaos. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I have found myself musing about non­violence, its contributions, its limits, and its place in [...]

https://www.buddhistinquiry.org

Israel

A brief history of the Netanyahu-Hamas alliance | Opinion

For 14 Years, Netanyahu's Policy Was to Keep Hamas in Power; the Pogrom of October 7, 2023, Helps the Israeli Prime Minister Preserve His Own Rule

https://www.haaretz.com

▼Articles:

'Tip of the iceberg': How foreign sex offenders find refuge in Israel

While the Interior Ministry Says Rabbi Baruch Lanner Will Not Be Allowed to Make Aliyah, Advocates' Group Says About 100 Rabbis, Teachers and Other Figures Who Have Been Accused, Charged or Convicted of Sexual Abuse Overseas Have Already Found Refuge in Israel

https://www.haaretz.com

Listen: The Gaza 'war' was a lie, as is the ceasefire. Trump just told you

Read by Matthew Alford

https://jonathancook.substack.com

What Palestinian Children Face in Israeli Prisons

Under Israel's draconian military laws, Palestinian children are systemically imprisoned. Here's what they face in detention.

https://time.com

Israel must be added to UN's sexual violence blacklist

Palestinian sexual violence reports blocked from investigation by Israeli authorities.

https://euromedmonitor.org

ICC issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant and Hamas commander

The UN-backed International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, together with a former Hamas commander, citing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

https://news.un.org

Episode 1: Start-Up Nation

Listen now (41 mins) | Investigative journalist Antony Loewenstein questions the narratives he was taught growing up in the Jewish Diaspora as he traces the origins of Israel's military-industrial complex, examining how Israel became one of the world's leading arms and tech exporters.

https://www.dropsitenews.com

Massive data leak reveals Israeli NSO Group's spyware used to target activists, journalists, and political leaders globally | Amnesty International NZ

NSO Group's spyware has been used to facilitate human rights violations around the world on a massive scale, according to a major investigation into the leak of 50,000 phone numbers of potential surveillance targets. These include heads of state, activists and journalists, including Jamal Khashoggi's family.

https://amnesty.org.nz

True Faith

Bishop who angered Trump with call for mercy says she will not apologize

Mariann Edgar Budde defends sermon asking president to show compassion to immigrants and LGBTQ+ people

https://www.theguardian.com

Cruelty is the point

Trump is unleashing sadism upon the world. But we cannot get overwhelmed | Judith Butler

Those who celebrate his defiance and sadism are as claimed by his logic as those who are paralyzed with outrage

https://www.theguardian.com

Stay safe online

Guidance on online safety - this is not just for Federal workers or Americans. Everyone needs to get serious now. Close your X, leave Starlink, FB etc. Check your security settings. Protect yourself now. Don't wait please.

Federal workers: Here's how to lock down your communications

Under the new administration there's an increased need for digital security. Here's how everyone, even you, can communicate and post safely, from using Signal to thinking twice about what you post on Instagram.

https://www.washingtonpost.com

UK

Israel's 'genocide general' welcomed in London - and the media yawns

Why is it only Declassified seeking to hold to account General Basyuk, who oversaw Israel's slaughter in Gaza, as he meets UK officials?

https://www.declassifieduk.org

▼More articles:

The IDF should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize - The Jewish Chronicle

Thank God Israel had the courage to sometimes ignore its most powerful ally

https://www.thejc.com

Israel lobby funded half of Keir Starmer's cabinet

Exclusive: Labour's top team has accepted hundreds of thousands of pounds from pro-Israel funders.

https://www.declassifieduk.org

Europe

Far-Right Parties in Europe Have Become Zionism's Greatest Backers

The far right in Europe has a long and shameful history of antisemitism. Yet as the far right seeks to renew its image and make electoral gains, emphatic support for Zionism has become a key pillar of the project, while hatred of Jews has been supplemented with newer forms of racism and xenophobia.

https://jacobin.com

Germany

Elon Musk makes surprise appearance at AfD event in eastern Germany

Tycoon tells 4,500 people at campaign event in Halle to be proud of German culture in speech via video link

https://www.theguardian.com

Australia

New Federal Hate Speech Offences and Mandatory Minimum Prison Sentences Enacted

The new laws will see the introduction of additional hate speech offences, harsher penalties for existing offences and mandatory minimum prison terms.

https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au

There Is No Antisemitism Crisis In Australia. It's A Carefully Constructed Lie.

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Caitlin Johnstone):

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one

A New World Order

Trump's Mafia Shakedown Might Destroy NATO-if We're Lucky

America's greedy gangster president is forcing European elites to finally reckon with the high price of protection

https://www.thenation.com

▼More articles:

Has the time come for European defence?

European defence has been a key issue since at least 1948, with the Treaty of Brussels between France, the United Kingdom and the three Benelux countries. At the time, the spirit of the signatories was still to guard against the threat posed by Germany, which was still fresh in people's minds (following on from the Franco-British alliance treaty of Dunkirk in 1947).

https://www.robert-schuman.eu

Trump Pentagon pick attacks UN and Nato and urges US to ignore Geneva conventions

Revealed: Pete Hegseth writes scathingly of key institutions and says 'If you love America, you should love Israel'

https://www.theguardian.com

'Trump's Return Must Be a Turning Point for the UK to Stop Pandering to America and Forge a Brighter Future With Europe'

Trump is taking the US in a dark direction and we must not let ourselves be dragged along with him, argues Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer

https://bylinetimes.com

Trump's proposed 'land grabs' mean US now seen as a risk, says Munich security report

Report published before international summit suggests US is moving away from a global leadership role

https://www.theguardian.com

China's Trump Strategy

Beijing is preparing to take advantage of disruption.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com

President Macron proposes a European defence initiative

In a speech at the Sorbonne on 25 April, President Emmanuel Macron called on France's European allies to develop a credible strategic concept over the coming months for defending the continent based on their own capabilities. These moves would count as part of the effort to build NATO's "European pillar", but also allow the European countries to defend themselves on their own "when necessary".

https://www.osw.waw.pl

Europeans are right to be angry with Donald Trump, but they should also be furious with themselves | Andrew Rawnsley

The betrayal of Ukraine is a final warning to the UK and its continental allies to put a lot more energy and money into rebuilding their defences

https://www.theguardian.com

Financial Times: Vance's real warning to Europe

Bloomberg: Trump Tells Europe to Buy American Arms to Keep NATO Strong

An Axial Age

The Four Horsemen of the Great Ravine, Part 1

Every so often, things fall apart. In the words of those who lived it, here are the vibes and the semantic signatures of the twentieth

https://www.epsilontheory.com

▼More:

The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religiou...

Read 331 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. In the ninth century BCE, the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world crea...

https://www.goodreads.com

The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy-What the Cycle...

Read 889 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. NATIONAL BESTSELLER. Discover the game-changing theory of the cycles of history and what...

https://www.goodreads.com

Climate Change

https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/degrees-matter

Global Warming of 1.5 ºC

An IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.

https://www.ipcc.ch

Twelve months at 1.5 °C signals earlier than expected breach of Paris Agreement threshold - Nature Climate Change

The 12 months before July 2024 were more than 1.5 °C warmer than the pre-industrial baseline. Using climate models, the author shows that the first year that exceeds 1.5 °C of warming most probably also occurs within the first 20-year period with an average temperature that exceeds temperature targets.

https://www.nature.com

The Atlas Network - a group of extreme climate deniers and supporters of dictatorships

What links Rishi Sunak, Javier Milei and Donald Trump? The shadowy network behind their policies | George Monbiot

The Atlas Network's dark-money junktanks are behind neoliberal policies around the world, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

https://www.theguardian.com

What we are up against

Exposing the secret history of the making of the climate crisis should change everything about how we act to stop it. This has been covered and evidenced over and over, so I will just restate the...

https://jksteinberger.medium.com

"I think we have to assume, after the events of the last 10 days, that we cannot in any way count on America as an ally" (03 March 2025)

General Sir Alexander Richard David Shirreff, KCB, CBE - retired senior British Army officer and author. From 2011-2014 he served as NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

This is a companion article to 'Europe is on the Menu' (I recommend reading that first if possible - as it is not all doom and gloom I promise, though it is pretty sobering):

Europe is on the Menu

How Europe can survive the new Russian-American-Israeli Axis powers

https://paragraph.xyz

First up, this article is not anti-American despite the tongue-in-cheek title. I have great sympathy for the majority of Americans that are now suffering this fascistic sadistic American administration and did not vote for Trump. However, this is not just about Trump. America has been lurching ever further right at least since Reagan (with a few pauses or breathing spaces in between).

That said, this American administration is full of a'holes and they are currently rapidly changing the guard. This means new Generals and officers that are, above all, loyal to Trump and the MAGA fascists. Europe has very little time to prepare for the worst.

"The US is now the enemy of the west" (Financial Times)

Europe is currently increasing its military spending massively and preparing for territorial risks focusing primarily on the threat of Russia.

However, it is obvious to anyone the biggest risk European countries (and the still nascent European project) face is in fact from this fascist America administration.

If you do not have time to read my previous articles about Trump - and this collection of internationalist extremists including about Project 2025 - then please just read this short summary (People's Guide) prepared by a US civil liberties organisation.

"a systemic, ruthless plan to undermine the quality of life of millions of Americans, remove critical protections and dismantle programs for communities across the nation, and prioritize special interests and ideological extremism" (The People's Guide to Project 2025)

A Great Wave Cometh

How to prepare for the fire and the storm

https://paragraph.xyz

Project 2025 - the Takeover

Project 2025 Tracker

https://paragraph.xyz

Does anyone seriously think this collection of fascist racists (with a predilection for sexual abuse of women and children) have any interest in protecting the European Union, European countries, democracy, the rule of law or human rights?

The question no one dares ask: what if Britain has to defend itself from the US? | George Monbiot

So much of our intelligence and military systems are shared or reliant on the US - if it becomes the enemy, it is already inside the gates, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

https://www.theguardian.com

Europe is in a complete mess when it comes to ensuring it has strategic and tactical military independence since it has largely trusted (and paid) the US for its defence needs:

• 78% of total procurement spending went to non-EU suppliers between mid-2022 and mid-2023.

• 63% of total procurement spending went to the US between mid-2022 and mid-2023.

• 80% of Member States’ defence investments since 2022 have been implemented with non-EU suppliers (i.e. the situation is worsening).

• 89% increase in acquisitions made through the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) in the EU between 2021 and 2022.

EU buys too much defense equipment abroad, especially from US: Report

European Union countries are buying too much of their defense equipment abroad and failing to invest in joint military projects, a landmark report warns.

https://www.defensenews.com

Project 2025 includes the strategy to increase foreign spending on US weaponry. In effect to ensure weaker countries continue to fund the US war machine (to further dominate them).

“[aim to] reverse the recent dip in FMS [Foreign Military Sales] to ensure both that our partners remain interoperable with the United States and that our defense industrial base regains much-needed capacity in preparation for future challenges.” (Project 2025)

See also: Trump tells Europe to buy American weapons to keep NATO strong

The USA has long made efforts to keep Europe reliant upon it for military and security purposes enabled by a succession of NATO chiefs including Europeans like Mark Rutte.

Peter Howitt (@peterhowitt.bsky.social)

Mark Rutte is an enabler of a fascist state that is currently seeking to harm Europeans, its neighbours and most of its own people. Shame on him and all who sail with him.

https://bsky.app

"We will need 10 years to free ourselves from American influence through massive local and European investment.” (President Macro)

I have no specialist knowledge in military matters or technical issues. I have therefore collated diverse up to date useful sources of data and generated a series of AI summaries on the European Defence Industry Capabilities and Dependencies.

It is obvious from a cursory review of the sources that decoupling from dependency on the US is a multi-year project with very significant risks now the US is not an ally.

European Defence Capabilities & Dependencies

AI generated overview of the current state of European defence capability, spending, and capacity, focusing on operational and technical independence issues drawing on a wide range of sources

https://paragraph.xyz

Every Euro or dollar spent on buying American-Israeli weapons means two terrible things:

1. Europe is funding the USA to replenish its stock of military material with newer weaponry whilst further increasing European dependence on the USA: in respect of complex weaponry we must expect they will have built in back doors (kill switches) and in respect of electronic equipment, that where technically feasible, it will be used to spy on European armed forces. In addition, supplies can be stopped at any time.

2. Europe is funding the fascist takeover of America and much of the Western world (Project 2025) including itself.

Increased European military and related technologies (such as telecommunications) spending could be used to advance European built and maintained technologies, European industrial bases and provide jobs for Europeans at a time when the global economy is about to go into free-fall. It would also have the effect of bringing Europeans together to defend each other and collaborate.

Instead we are outsourcing our security to a rapacious administration in America that forms a new Axis of powers Russia-USA-Israel.

Israel's UN vote against Ukraine is about much more than just backing Trump

The Netanyahu Government Is Moving Toward Russia, Away From Ukraine, and Also Closer to Vladimir Putin's Favored Disruptor Parties in Europe. It Is Something Jerusalem's Western Allies Will Have to Consider Going Forward

https://www.haaretz.com

"Many of these countries have been poisoned by intrigue before they were struck down by violence. They have been rotted from within before they were smitten from without. How else can you explain what has happened to France?-to the French Army, to the French people, to the leaders of the French people?" (Winston Churchill)

Actually, today it is France that should be applauded for maintaining a degree of independence from US military dominance.

Europe is currently rotting from within. We have allowed enemies of democracy, human rights and diversity to infiltrate our societies, media and political establishments. They actively seek to destroy Europe as a super-state whilst it is still a youth and they are supported by Russia, Israel and this US administration.

"For the purposes of this report, Europe corresponds with the United States European Command (EUCOM) AOR. CRS identified 31 persistent bases and 19 other military sites to which DOD has access in the region.41 As of March 2024, approximately 67,200 active-duty servicemembers were permanently assigned to overseas bases in Europe, with the largest contingents assigned to locations in Germany (35,068), Italy (12,375) and the United Kingdom (10,058)... In June 2024, the White House stated in a letter to congressional leaders that “approximately 80,000 United States Armed Forces personnel are assigned or deployed to North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] countries in Europe, including those deployed to reassure our allies and to deter further Russian aggression.”

Taken from: U.S. Overseas Basing: Background and Issues for Congress , July 10, 2024  https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/R48123.pdf

However, the situation in Europe is much worse than this 2024 report might suggest.

In the last few years, the US has actively been seeking to massively increase the presence particularly in the Nordic region - going from one base in Greenland and one in Iceland to 47 bases and areas in total. It has done so with bilateral (non-NATO) agreements, which makes matters worse.

"The proposed eight areas amount to a tripling of US bases in Norway. Together with the corresponding bases that the US has requested in Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, the US will go from having one military base in Iceland and one in Greenland to having a total of 47 bases in the Nordics – of which 15 are on the Cap of the North,"

Norway's Parliament Agrees to Give the US Access to New Military Areas in the North

On Thursday, the Norwegian parliament voted in favor of giving US forces unimpeded access to several additional military areas, not least in the North. Norway should keep up with Sweden and Finland, recommended the Norwegian Intelligence Service - while others express concern for the policy that aims for low tension in the High North.

https://www.highnorthnews.com

These agreements, instigated by America, give the American military extraordinary power in the relevant locations. From the American side, people like Antony Blinken have been instrumental in ensuring they have been implemented.

The US initiative to implement these new bases bilaterally in these last few years is chilling. They have just voted against Ukraine and Europe with Russia and Israel in the UN. If you are not deeply worried you have simply not being paying any attention.

It would be a grave error of judgment to think that Blinken and the Biden administration can be trusted more than Trump on geo-political issues. For the purposes of European defence strategy and game theory, these administrations must be be treated as a continuity (whatever assumptions you want to make to help you sleep more comfortably). A mistake on this matter will costs millions of lives and ruin Europe for generations and potentially for ever (in respect of a collective European community).

So the question is why would an administration that was planning to side with Russia against Europe want over 40 non-NATO bases stretching from Russia to Norway?

As former US Secretary of State – Antony Blinken – recently reiterated, this is a world where long-standing American foreign policy is literally 'you are either at the table or you are on the menu'.

"It appears that Blinken does not need to be coerced: when it comes to abetting Israeli war crimes, he is a volunteer. Biden and Blinken’s collaborative efforts to destroy Israel’s proclaimed enemies date back decades. In 2003, they sought to partition Iraq along ethnic lines; their destructive plan was rejected. Since October 2023, they have repeatedly defended Israel’s war crimes and played down the enormous Palestinian death toll. Blinken has been accused of violating the Leahy Law by refusing to sanction Israeli soldiers who committed rape and murder. Blinken’s absolutist stance on Israel is part of why people quit the Biden administration.

Red Lines

The red line is blood, and the US is letting it run.

https://sarahkendzior.substack.com

Be very clear, Europe is on the menu and the Nordic region all the way to Norway looks very appetising.

Europe is on the Menu

How Europe can survive the new Russian-American-Israeli alliance

https://paragraph.xyz

I have to also ask the questions:

1. WTF has happened to our intelligence capabilities? Do we run everything through the USA and its 51st State of Israel?

2. How have we got here? Is it the same way America got to the point of having a criminal conspiracy take over their Government nearly 10 years ago?

3. Have we let ourselves we boiled slowly so that we never even noticed that we were the dinner?

In the agreed areas, the USA will be able to exercise and train, deploy forces, and store materiel – jointly with the respective country. American forces can also gain exclusive access and right of use to parts of these areas by separate agreement.

American force members can exercise authority over the citizens of the country in question within and in the immediate vicinity of such areas. In extraordinary cases, American forces may also take such measures beyond the immediate vicinity of agreed areas.

"Power can thus be exerted by any American troop member towards Norwegian civilians to restore order or protect the force," wrote the Judge Advocate General, Sigrid Redse Johansen, in a hearing note." Norway's Judge Advocate General (military prosecuting authority) and the Director of Public Prosecution (supreme civilian prosecuting authority).

I have created a map showing all active and planned US bases in Europe which I will maintain.

Note particularly the extraordinary way in which the new American bases lead all the way from Russian to Norway. If America is now the biggest threat to Europe, then we have effectively provided them with a road and route map to our own defeat via the Northern route.

US Military Bases in Europe - Google My Maps

Active and planned

http://google.com/maps

Where are US military bases in Europe?

Military bases overseas are considered as proponents of the U.S.' power beyond its territorial bounds, according to a congressional research service report.

https://www.newsweek.com

"[Norway] probably ha[s] Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth elements and metals."

It is also interesting to note the coincidence of the new US military bases with many major mineral deposits in Northern Europe. As we know this drives much of the current American geopolitical strategy (Ukraine, Greenland, Canada).

We have zero reasons to hope that access to natural resources is not driving American calculations in respect of Northern Europe (and every reason to suspect it is!).

Map reveals where world's rare earth minerals are located

Their role in technology and the global economy has made countries with rare earths a key focus in geopolitical discussions.

https://www.newsweek.com

Trump's Chaotic Agenda Has a Critical Through Line

What do Greenland, Canada, and Ukraine have in common? Critical minerals.

https://foreignpolicy.com

Donald Trump says he believes the US will 'get Greenland'

The president told reporters the island's 57,000 residents "want to be with us".

https://www.bbc.com

If you live in Norway, Sweden, Denmark or Finland write to your local politician and the defence minister and ask them what strategic risk analysis they have done for these risks. Don't let them off with saying they couldn't have known. These risks started to grow a decade ago, when Trump first ran for President and they accelerated when it was clear he would not be prosecuted for sedition.

Can Europe replace the US in Ukraine?

Losing U.S. backing will be a blow, but Ukraine has the means to keep fighting with help from its European allies.

https://www.politico.eu

I must point out the extraordinary complacency in Europe. It has left us needing to do a rapid 180 degree turn to protect our territorial integrity, to give Europe a chance to grow up from a youth into adulthood (and thank God for French stubbornness in not buying into the Anglo-American dream).

If my words, or these inconvenient facts, sting – well good!

Let it sting you into coordinated action (as I try to sting myself).

European Defence

Join the conversation

https://bsky.app

"In February 2024, Norway agreed to amend a 2021 defense agreement with the U.S. to allow unimpeded access to 12 military areas in Norway, up from four. On May 30, 2024, the parliament in Oslo approved the agreement 85-12."

Norway triples U.S. base access in new accord between NATO allies

Norwegian troops take part in Nordic Response, a large-scale NATO exercise in the spring of 2024. Recently, Norway announceed a major boost in defense spending and signed an agreement with the U.S. to allow more collaboration between the allies. AFP/

https://thewatch-journal.com

Norway has expanded its defense agreement with the United States, increasing the number of pre-defined military facilities and areas from 4 to 12. This includes new areas in northern Norway such as Andøya, Bardufoss, and Setermoen.

U.S.-Norway Supplementary Defense Cooperation Agreement (SDCA) - United States Department of State

On April 16, the United States and the Kingdom of Norway concluded the recently negotiated Supplementary Defense Cooperation Agreement (SDCA). The United States and Norway are founding members of NATO and have enjoyed more than seventy years of close and strategic defense relations both bilaterally and through NATO.

https://www.state.gov

https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/077c7bbef47a4ea4bc756b1703ea9c9d/avtaltetekst-sdca-engelsk.pdf

New Agreement Gives US Access to Four New Military Areas in the North

Norway and the US agree to expand their defense cooperation agreement to include new agreed areas. In Northern Norway, these are Andøya and Bardufoss air stations, Setermoen garrison, as well as a mountain complex in Evenes municipalty. The Norwegian parliament must approve the agreement.

https://www.highnorthnews.com

"It also allows for deployment of U.S. military personnel, weapons, ammunition, and military equipment in Finland. In addition, the agreement covers the establishment of certain military zones, which will include facilities that will be accessible only to U.S. personnel."

Finland allows the US to use 15 of its military bases

On July 1, the Finnish Parliament unanimously approved the Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) with the United States

https://mil.in.ua

Finland signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement with the U.S. in December 2023, granting American forces access to 15 installations across Finland, including 5 locations in Lapland. In addition to some exclusively American only bases.

https://news.usni.org/2023/12/21/new-pact-gives-u-s-military-access-to-15-bases-in-finland

https://www.defmin.fi/en/areas_of_expertise/international_defence_cooperation/international_conventions/defence_cooperation_agreement_with_the_united_states_(dca)#d8797f72

Sweden approved a Defense Cooperation Agreement with the U.S. in June 2024, giving U.S. forces access to 17 Swedish military bases and training grounds.

https://www.government.se/government-policy/military-defence/defence-cooperation-agreement-with-the-united-states

https://www.government.se/contentassets/ad5f87be923e4065b658189a9294f480/agreement-on-defense-cooperation-between-sweden-and-the-united-states-of-america.pdf

ANNEX A - Bases

• Berga: Regimental Area and Exercise Area 

• Boden: Regimental Area and Exercise Area 

• Halmstad: Regimental Area and Air Base 

• Härnösand: Exercise Area and Harbor 

• Kiruna: Military Camp and Exercise Area 

• Kristinehamn: Regimental Area and Exercise Area 

• Kvarn: Military Camp and Exercise Area 

• Luleå: Air Base 

• Ravlunda: Military Camp and Exercise Area 

• Revingehed: Regimental Area 

• Ronneby: Air Base 

• Såtenäs: Air Base 

• Uppsala: Air Base 

• Vidsel: Airport and Test Range 

• Visby: Regimental Area and Exercise Area 

• Älvdalen: Military Camp and Exercise Area 

• Östersund: Military Camp and Exercise Areas 

”The Defense Cooperation Agreement is a historic agreement for Denmark. It will strengthen defense and security cooperation with our most important ally. Strong bilateral ties and close cooperation with the United States in NATO are crucial for our security in Europe. The agreement will improve access to Danish territory for American military personnel. This will enable the United States to contribute even more to our collective defense and deterrence in Europe – a core responsibility for NATO”, says Danish Minister of Defence Troels Lund Poulsen." 

Specifically, the agreement will allow American personnel access to three Danish air bases in Karup, Skrydstrup, and Aalborg. In addition Denmark is actively encouraging this Trump administration to take greater control over Greenland at a time when he is threatening to take it away from Denmark.

"Denmark offers Trump to increase US military presence in Greenland"

https://www.fmn.dk/globalassets/fmn/dokumenter/nyheder/2023/-us-denmark-dca-den-prime-english-20dec2023-.pdf

Annex A:

• Karup Air Base

• Skrydstrup Air Base

• Aalborg Air Base

1. https://www.thebarentsobserver.com/security/norway-expands-defense-agreement-with-american-troops/164892

2. https://ground.news/article/the-united-states-will-gain-access-to-47-military-bases-in-the-nordic-region-what-are-they-going-to-use-them-for

3. https://news.usni.org/2023/12/21/new-pact-gives-u-s-military-access-to-15-bases-in-finland

4. https://www.dw.com/en/sweden-approves-controversial-us-defense-deal/a-69415814

5. https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/new-agreement-gives-us-access-four-new-military-areas-north

6. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/defence-numbers/

7. https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence/news/draghi-urges-member-states-to-adhere-to-ambitious-defence-industry-reform/

8. https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-defence-industry/edis-our-common-defence-industrial-strategy_en#languages

9. https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/european-defence-industrial-strategy-hostile-world

10. https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-defence-industry/edis-our-common-defence-industrial-strategy_en

11. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/09/09/eu-buys-too-much-defense-equipment-abroad-especially-from-us-report/

    For a big picture overview of where I think we are see:

A Great Wave Cometh

How to prepare for the fire and the storm

https://paragraph.xyz

"I’m here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States from being the primary guarantor of security in Europe.”

US Secretary of Defence, February 12, 2025.

A silver lining?

Let's get it out of the way up front. In principle, there is nothing wrong – and potentially much to be gained for Europe – in the US withdrawing from its post-WWII alliance with European powers and potentially even from NATO.

Trump's Mafia Shakedown Might Destroy NATO-if We're Lucky

America's greedy gangster president is forcing European elites to finally reckon with the high price of protection.

https://www.thenation.com

However, the challenges in Europe becoming defensively independent from the US are very considerable. It is clear – even to a layman with no technical skill or expertise like myself – that achieving technological, military and wider security independence will take extraordinary focus and will need to be done in multiple stages over the next 10 years.

Europe is full of A'holes

Europe is full of American shaped holes: what's the plan if the biggest risk to European security is America?

https://paragraph.xyz

An Unholy Alliance

The European alliance with the USA has long been against Europe's own best interests, forcing it to placate a sociopathic uber-bully that has little care for international laws, the rule of law and democracy. Killing millions of civilians illegally without any consequences to the perpetrators – ever. Even in respect of the 2003 Iraq war, when a number of major European governments (e.g. Germany and France) opposed the invasion and the people marched in their millions to protest US aggression (in what is widely described as the largest public protest movement in history), we must ask what were the consequences to the US of their unlawful aggression?

The USA has also strongly encouraged Europe to reject China as a potential trading and geopolitical partner (and counter to American and Russian aggression), the manner and timing of which already seems like negligence (by the whole European political establishment).

The USA has also forced Europe to reject China as a potential trading and geopolitical partner (and counter to American and Russian aggression), the manner and timing of which already seems like negligence (by the whole European political establishment).

New EU diplomat vows tough stance on China, strong alliance with US

Former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas will begin a five-year term serving as the European Union's new foreign policy chief on December 1

https://www.voanews.com

In short, a naive desire not to face obvious facts, an understandable post-WWII reluctance to be properly armed and a degree of self-protecting moral cowardice has allowed European (including UK) leaders to avoid the obvious reality of what a US led NATO has long been (for decades).

That all changed last week.

The face-eating leopards came to town, and Europe was on the menu.

International Crimes

Before getting into the heart of the issue, we need to face facts.

America and Israel are brutal war-mongers which pay no respect to any of the international laws created, after the horrors of Nazi Germany and WWII, to protect all people from crimes against humanity.

Noam Chomsky: The US-Led "War on Terror" Has Devastated Much of the World

Twenty years ago this week, the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, whose origins date back to 1979 when Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan, hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in the United States. Shortly thereafter, the administration of George W.

https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com

"The U.S. post-9/11 wars have forcibly displaced at least 38 million people in and from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya and Syria. This number exceeds the total displaced by every war since 1900, except World War II."

Human Costs

The Costs of War Project is a team of 35 scholars, legal experts, human rights practitioners, and physicians, which began its work in 2011. We use research and a public website to facilitate debate about the costs of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

https://watson.brown.edu

The illegal wars and sponsorship of terrorism and dictators by America have also been a prime cause of many of the immigration issues in Europe, which are being used to radicalise Europeans against immigrants and Muslims particularly.

Most of the tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children killed in Gaza by America and its 51st State in this Genocide are civilians. You could say they have been paying with their lives so that Europeans can feel safe under the American shield.

We can all see clearly the unswerving US-Israeli commitment to the decades (and centuries) old blueprint: murder, pillage, segregation and mowing the lawn until the Palestinians are like American Indians in their own land – isolated pools of sub-people with their families, communities, history and culture destroyed.

As if we have learnt nothing from the Holocaust.

Now Gaza is finished, the West Bank will be Gazafied.

Gazafication of the West Bank won't solve Israel's security problems. It has to stop | Editorial

While the World's Eyes Are Fixed on What Is Happening in the Gaza Strip, the "Gazafication" of the West Bank Continues. Operation Iron Wall in the West Bank Has

https://www.haaretz.com

“One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” (Omar El Akkad)

'I'm sitting on the side that's launching bombs': author Omar El Akkad on the hypocrisy of the west

The award-winning writer's new book contends with how the war on Gaza shattered his fragile faith in the so-called free world

https://www.theguardian.com

Yet, rather than Palestinian civilians and the Palestinian people being supported by Europe – based on our principles of humanity, democracy, human rights and rule of law – we have largely facilitated or ignored this horror.

'No innocents in Gaza': Reflecting on Israel's first fascist war | Opinion

The War That Is Supposed to End Sunday Will Go Down in History as the First Kahane War. It Is Fundamentally Different From All of Israel's Previous Wars.

https://www.haaretz.com

You can smell our European hypocrisy all the way to Mar-a-Lago.

Betrayal

“Those who thought America was a friend or ally, notably Ukraine and Nato, are dropping once safe assumptions to cope with a world in which America is an unabashed predator.”

America has turned on its friends

Donald Trump's abandonment of allies is real and will endure

https://www.ft.com

Some analysts have long said that Trump and the mafia state rule he represents would support Russia against Ukraine - after all birds of a feather flock together:

"Contrary to Joe Biden, oligarchic rule — mafia state rule — did not just begin. It has been the framework for international relations for decades and Trump only accelerates it...guesses on foreign policy: Trump will back Putin and frame Russian theft of Ukrainian territory as “peace.”

Questions Answered: Trump Term Two

My advice on surfing the blood-dimmed tide in the latest reader Q & A.

https://sarahkendzior.substack.com

Yet, apparently, it still took European leaders by surprise to hear the Americans regurgitate Kremlin propaganda so openly and brazenly (again) in this last week.

With Trump going so far as to blame Ukraine for encouraging Russia to invade it (presumably a tactic he has honed in his own defence with the numerous alleged sexual assault and rape victims including a girl aged 13):

U.S. President Donald Trump denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as a "dictator" on Wednesday and warned he had to move quickly to secure peace or risk losing his country, deepening a feud between the two leaders that has alarmed European officials. The extraordinary attacks - a day after Trump claimed Ukraine was to blame for Russia's 2022 invasion - heightened concerns among U.S. allies in Europe that Trump's approach to ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict could benefit Moscow.

Trump tells 'dictator' Zelenskiy to move fast or lose Ukraine

The extraordinary attacks heightened concerns among U.S. allies in Europe that Trump's approach to ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict could benefit Moscow.

https://www.reuters.com

Trump also asserted, following Kremlin propaganda, that Zelenskyy's approval rating in Ukraine is just 4%, which Zelenskyy quickly refuted:

"We have evidence that these figures are being discussed between America and Russia. That is, President Trump ... unfortunately lives in this disinformation space," Zelenskyy told Ukrainian TV.

Trump reacted badly to being presented with a simple truth by a very brave man that is willing to fight and die for his country (not something that draft-dodging Trump would ever be willing to do).

As is so often the case Der Spiegel hits the nail on the head when it comes to Trump. This is the look of someone who believed America was its ally. Expect similar faces across the world as people realise the unbounded rapaciousness of Trump 2.0.

By way of reminder, Ukraine was given security and territorial assurances (primarily by Russia, the USA and the UK) when it agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in 1994 (following the break up of the USSR).

"The signature of the so-called Budapest Memorandum concluded arduous negotiations that resulted in Ukraine’s agreement to relinquish the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, which the country inherited from the collapsed Soviet Union, and transfer all nuclear warheads to Russia for dismantlement. The signatories of the memorandum pledged to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and inviolability of its borders, and to refrain from the use or threat of military force"

It has since been encouraged to join NATO by the USA and other alliance members for more than two decades and throughout the period of successive Russian invasions which started in 2014:

"We reiterate the decision made at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP) as an integral part of the process; we reaffirm all elements of that decision, as well as subsequent decisions, including that each partner will be judged on its own merits.  We stand firm in our support for Ukraine’s right to decide its own future and foreign policy course free from outside interference. "

Preparing for the new Axis of powers Russia-US-Israel

"Russia is already aggressive towards the whole of Europe. It's started. It's got a strong army, it's attacking us on information, cyber, migration. I can mention other things. It's destabilizing us.. it's provoking us, testing us at sea, in the air" (French President Macron)

We note the obvious treachery of this American government. The USA has encouraged Ukraine to be closer to NATO and then now blames it for being invaded by a lawless brutal Russian dictatorship (that has used the process of Ukraine's closer relationship with NATO as justification for its invasions). Indeed, the USA seeking reparations from Ukraine for defending itself in these circumstances is sadistic.

"Recoup the costs"

The sadism of American policy to war-torn Ukraine

https://snyder.substack.com

Leaving that aside, as a merely quibbling ethical detail, Trump sees it as seeking a return on America's previous investment in defending Ukraine. Yet I will say something for Trump, he is equally willing to plunder his own country and destroy his own people as he is with US allies:

Project 2025 - the Takeover

Project 2025 Tracker

https://paragraph.xyz

Trump's view is that Russia and the USA should be allowed to carve up Ukraine as they see fit and tell Ukraine and other European countries the outcome of that negotiation. He even seemed outraged that anyone could have an objection to such a plan. (In fact it is much worse than that, since Trump has openly talked about partnering with Russia in a nuclear powered alliance to terrorise other nations since the 1980's - see below).

Donald Trump says Ukraine could have made a deal earlier

The US president dismisses concerns Ukraine is not involved in peace talks and says he is confident in success.

https://www.bbc.com

It is interesting to note that no mention is made of the fact that European countries have provided more support than America to Ukraine since the 24th February 2022 invasion.

"First of all, we need to look precisely at the numbers. During three years of the (full-scale) war, EU support to Ukraine, which includes military support, budgetary support, and humanitarian support, was around 134 billion euros ($140 billion). If you calculate the same support from the United States, it's around $100 billion." (Andrius Kubilius, European Commissioner for Defence and Space)

'Europe did more than the U.S.' - EU defense commissioner pushes back against Trump accusations

Editor's note: The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Donald Trump's return to the White House has forced Kyiv and other European capitals to ask themselves a sobering question: What will happen to Western support for Ukraine if the U.S. withdraws? The U.S. has been, by

https://kyivindependent.com

Meanwhile Musk didn't skip a beat in his support of the proposed carve-up, threatening to withdraw the Starlink service used by Ukraine to defend itself:

US threatens to shut off Starlink if Ukraine won't sign minerals deal, sources tell Reuters

The U.S. first raised the prospect of shutting off Starlink service after Zelensky rejected the deal presented on Feb. 12. Starlink terminals are critical in securing Ukraine's battlefield communications.

https://kyivindependent.com

Whilst Musk also continued his support for the far-right AfD in the current German elections:

Far-Right AfD Rises in Germany, Boosted by Trump Backing

A pivotal endorsement from Elon Musk came in the form of a tweet: "Only the AfD can save Germany."

https://time.com

Thankfully Mark Cuban entered the fray, as ambassador for the humane face of billionaire capitalism, explaining precisely how much dignity, honour and democracy matter when there is another dollar to be made:

Indeed, this kind of no-nonsense clear-eyed transactional thinking begs a deeper question that liberals seem too wet to ask. So I will ask it:

Why does France and the UK not join the carvery?

Yes, it might be considered a form of cannibalism (if you have any European instincts or any ethics at all) but who cares in this neo-genocidal world.

As former US Secretary of State – Antony Blinken – recently reiterated, this is a world where long-standing American foreign policy is literally 'you are either at the table or you are on the menu'.

Trump just takes this long-standing US foreign policy to its final conclusion – demonstrating clearly the truism that there is no honour amongst thieves:

"His geopolitics is one in which carnivorous great powers cut deals with each other and the smaller ones fall into line or get crushed underfoot. If you are genuinely shocked by these developments, I can only assume you haven’t been paying much attention."

Europeans are right to be angry with Donald Trump, but they should also be furious with themselves | Andrew Rawnsley

The betrayal of Ukraine is a final warning to the UK and its continental allies to put a lot more energy and money into rebuilding their defences

https://www.theguardian.com

Indeed, I must ask why should the UK not also get in on this succulent fascist feast?

"In total, the UK has committed £12.8 billion for Ukraine:"

After all, the UK is outside of the EU now and is one of the only two European nuclear powers (though unlike France it is not an independent nuclear power - see below). The UK has also been a generous supporter of Ukraine in its hour of need and some ROI must be expected by all.

In fact, if you could bring yourself to stop your moralising for a moment – and start to think more clearly (like the Masters) – why stop at carving up Ukraine?

There are plenty of resource and financially rich countries (without nuclear weapons) all the way until you get to the French border.

That's a lot of food for the table for this coalition of cannibals:

"We must resist 

The Men

Who will

(For starters)

Wolf down

Our children"

We Must Resist

We are the flames We carry the fire

https://paragraph.xyz

This new axis of evil is monstrous. They want to make us all refugees of a post-truth world.

"They say Zelenskyy is a dictator, that free speech is in danger in Europe, that the EU is turning its back on democracy. If we maintain our capacity for truth, we realise that they are turning the world on its head...Don’t become confused. It is Putin who is the dictator. It is Putin who assassinates journalists. It is Vance's own administration that punishes reporters depending on their style guide, or threatens them with jail when they break critical stories. It is Trump who tried to overthrow a US election" (Ian Dunt)

The lies are the point

The Ukraine war has never been entirely military, or even territorial. It is epistemic.

https://iandunt.substack.com

So a war for the integrity of Europe itself and the European soul must now be waged.

The long-standing question as to what it means to be European must now be asked and answered, and it cannot be answered by a purely technocratic European project. The democratic deficits within Europe must be addressed and a strong cultural program must be embarked on, if we are to give people an alternative to finding meaning and a sense of identity in far right, nationalistic, nativist, racist and anti-democratic parties.

Reducing our reliance on the USA and its 51st State

For decades we have allowed US-Israeli integration into European politics and political funding, intelligence agencies, military collaboration, our media and even our police forces.

UK psychological warfare unit collaborated with Israeli army

Exclusive: The British army's 77th brigade held secret exchanges with the IDF, leaked files reveal.

https://www.declassifieduk.org

The UK has made itself entirely dependent on the USA for its own nuclear deterrent, in effect making it a vassal (or client) state. This is partly why it has justified its engagement in illegal wars (e.g. Iraq) when pushed by its sponsor. Claims of operational independence ring hollow, particularly when you have not managed a successful missile test since 2012 (despite paying billions of dollars a year to the US).

Trident missile test fails for second time in a row

The UK's nuclear deterrent failed to fire a test missile reportedly landing close to the launch site.

https://www.bbc.com

Europe targets homegrown nuclear deterrent as Trump sides with Putin

Germany's Merz says Britain and France may need to "share" their nuclear weapons as America can't be relied on to defend NATO.

https://www.politico.eu

"But changing a fundamental culture, such as exists in the British Deep State with regards to America, is incredibly hard to do and would need an entirely new leadership determined to make it happen." (Arthur Snell)

Unravelling the Atlantic alliance will be hardest for the UK and hardest of all for the UK's spies

In fact, I doubt it can be done

https://arthursnell.substack.com

In addition to involving us in illegal wars and war crimes, the USA and its 51st State leverage their military and technological dominance to support far right groups across Europe. This includes the use of spyware against human rights activists, journalists, lawyers and politicians within Europe and by dictatorships around the world. See Spyware in Further Reading below.

Everyone in Europe knows that Israel has been actively supporting the march to the far right within our fragile representative democracies for years.

Israel's Relations with the European Far Right: Implications for Czechia and the EU | Ústav mezinárodních vztahů - Expertise to impact

In his article for for our publication Analýzy ÚMV Azriel Bermant focuses on the challenges Czechia faces in balancing its historical support for Israel with its commitment to democratic values, human rights, and EU cohesion.

https://www.iir.cz

Now that America and Israel are clearly openly fascist states, any person or party actively supporting them or receiving funding from is advocating to make Europe more vulnerable to Trump's specialism - the Shakedown – and to further Russian aggression.

In my view, this is now tantamount to treason (though technically that charge might only apply to foreign powers openly at war with your country) and there are also anti-terrorism, foreign interference and bribery laws that are relevant (though the US is currently actively dismantling its domestic and foreign corrupt practices and bribery laws). I also consider any American supporting Trump and his government to be an American traitor too.

The question is whether European leaders have:

(i) the courage and honesty to face the existential risk facing us; and

(ii) the practical and political skills to create a long-term roadmap to European independence;

in the face of our extraordinary over-reliance on US technologies and military systems (that cannot be jettisoned at a whim).

We have a European crisis and, in many ways, it is a crisis that has been enabled by many political actors within Europe. The desire to rely on America to keep us all safe. In addition, the adoration of wealth and genuflecting to the most powerful is not an American national problem, we have also allowed it to eat into all of our societies to a large degree.

We have allowed ourselves to be ever more dependent on the uber-bully and we have let very powerful and dangerous people control much of our media and infiltrate our political establishments.

NATO & US Support - the Trojan Horse

Project 2025 includes the strategy to increase foreign spending on US weaponry. In effect to ensure weaker countries continue to fund the US war machine (to further dominate them).

“[aim to] reverse the recent dip in FMS [Foreign Military Sales] to ensure both that our partners remain interoperable with the United States and that our defense industrial base regains much-needed capacity in preparation for future challenges.” (Project 2025)

See also: Trump tells Europe to buy American weapons to keep NATO strong

Europe has largely gone along with this strategy of dependence rather than face up to the realities that have existed for decades and which accelerated when Trump first took office in 2017.

Much of the technology bought from America and Israel will likely have backdoors built into it (see France's 'kill switch' on Exocet missiles) making it effectively useless if the US desires it. It will also consist of some of the most advanced surveillance technology in the world, to be used against the purchasing nations. Like spyware on steroids.

Europe Is On the Menu

"We have a clear understanding from different EU intelligence services that Russia could be ready to test the European Union before 2030." (Andrius Kubilius)

"Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table"

(T.S. Eliot, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock')

Europe faces an existential threat due to a combined concerted attack from East and West. It must awake from its etherized torpor before it is eaten.

This requires developing and deploying European based military and communications technologies that can be safeguarded against foreign agents, as well as an acceleration of algorithmic and content audit and regulations to prevent and punish (including prohibition) of platforms that clearly promote extremist misinformation in social media and news media. It requires prohibition and punishment of agents of foreign powers that facilitate or are funded by adversaries to undermine our countries.

Between Russia and Elon Musk, German Voters Face a 'Dual Front' of Disinformation

In the first major European vote since President Trump's re-election, influence campaigns are targeting Germany from two sides.

https://www.nytimes.com

In the 20th century the risk to European countries came from its heartland of Germany, and it almost failed to wake up in time to meet the threat (partly due to the remembered pain of WW1) – we also always honour the men and women from the USA, Canada and many commonwealth and allied countries that made their sacrifice at the hour of need.

This time the threat is from Russia and the US-Israel. Yet again, the memory of the terrible suffering of the last great war on European lands is part of the reason European powers have been so complacent – too slow to face up to the risks and take the necessary actions. The fact that the threat is now also coming from our long-time ally – the USA – makes it almost incredible.

Trump is currently replacing seasoned veterans in the US military with those that can follow orders (presumably the type of people that are good at making trains run on time)

Trump administration fires top US general and Navy chief in unprecedented purge of military leadership | CNN Politics

In an unprecedented purge of the military's senior leadership Friday night, President Donald Trump fired the top US general just moments before his defense secretary fired the chief of the US Navy and the vice chief of the Air Force.

https://edition.cnn.com

Trump: 'I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had'

The Republican nominee's preoccupation with dictators, and his disdain for the American military, is deepening.

https://www.theatlantic.com

Quite simply, Europe is not properly structured for the increasingly hostile geopolitical environment it finds itself in and which it has known about for over a decade. It also seems to be still asking itself the wrong questions and not doing worst-case scenario planning.

As part of the US-Russian shakedown, J.D. Vance made an extraordinary attack on European democracy and regulation of technology (like X) that is being used to spread extremist misinformation and to radicalise people to extremism and authoritarianism.

“The threat that I worry most about, vis-a-vis Europe, is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. “What I worry about is the threat from within: the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.”

(J. D. Vance, US Vice-President)

Zelensky meanwhile continues to tell it to us straight and clear what we need to hear:

“The time has come— [a]European armed forces must be created.”

(Zelensky, Munich conference)

It's Time for Europe to Do the Unthinkable

Brussels has slavishly followed Washington for too long-and forgotten how to advance its own geopolitical interests.

https://foreignpolicy.com

The unholy Russian-US alliance now seeks to both squeeze and hollow out Europe, making it vulnerable to further predations from East and West. Once the protection racket is in place – and asset streams are in full flow – they will allow European countries to be just strong enough to make their protection payments whilst making sure they are weak enough to continue being servile vassals. There is little scope for allowing a European Union to exist in such a strategy.

If this sounds extreme, this American government is now described as an adversary to Europe in an article in the Financial Times. Adversary is a particularly apt choice of words given that 'Satan' evolved from the Hebrew word for adversary.

"The interference in the German elections by Elon Musk and Trump's Washington was no less radical and outrageous than that of Moscow." (the new German Chancellor Merz)

"[With] The proposed eight areas..together with..bases that the US has requested in Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, the US will go from having one military base in Iceland and.. in Greenland to.. a total of 47 bases in the Nordics" (2024)

https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/norways-parliament-agrees-give-us-access-new-military-areas-north

Looking forward, I obviously do not see the US becoming the same as a modern version of Nazi Germany. My points made here and elsewhere are about the tactics that have been borrowed by the US and its 51st State from the Nazis – including some of the extreme racism and wicked propaganda, the love of cruelty and the general dehumanisation which the Nazi's excelled at.

It is still not too late for Europe

It is getting late in the day but it is not too late for Europe (which includes the UK!).

Russia's GDP is less than that of the UK, and the combined GDP of the whole of Europe (including the UK) is around 10 times greater than that of Russia (the below shows just the EU GDP).

Europe also has some of the strongest armed forces in the world (the UK, France and Italy are in the top 10 military powers).

In addition, Russia is struggling to finance the war on Ukraine and was desperate for Trump to win the US elections knowing he would act this way.

"Putin's war economy has painted him into a corner, making it impossible for him to back down. His continued grip on power is now fully dependent on his ability to bankroll arms production and pay his troops. Without a steady flow of state orders for the war industry, the Russian house of cards will inevitably collapse. Europe has the means to target key vulnerabilities in the Russian economy, thereby undermining Putin's war economy and strengthening the continent’s long-term security."

Can Russia Transition to Peace? - SCEEUS

SCEEUS Commentary No. 5, 2025 | Can Russia Transition to Peace? by Stefan Ingvarsson and Aleksandr Golts | Centre for Eastern European Studies, SCEEUS

https://sceeus.se

However, Europe lacks strategic direction, coordination and basic honesty about the nature of the threats it faces. It also needs a much more positive relationship with China and most of the Southern hemisphere countries in addition to countries like Canada and Mexico (that will also soon face potentially existential threats).

"To start, Europe must rid itself of the dangerous illusion that it is weak—and stop acting like it” (Sanna Marin, former Prime Minister of Finland)

Now is the time for Europe to show strength, not division, argues Sanna Marin

Finland's former leader makes the case for stumping up tens of billions more for Ukraine | By Invitation

https://www.economist.com

European powers should seek to negotiate a peace in Ukraine from a position of strength without any American involvement. History shows us that a weak peace negotiated by America and Russia will only prolong conflict in Europe and avoid an honest reckoning with the new US-Israeli-Russian axis.

It is a Republican (of all people) that has made clear that there is only one strategic option that protects Ukraine, and the rest of Europe, from the new Russian-American alliance. We must freeze Trump out, if we are to avoid further pillage and endless mafia-style protection payments:

Hungary

Europe also needs to get its house in order and ensure all countries support democratic values and the rule of law. It must immediately take serious action against Hungary and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the great European dictator and supporter of Putin and Trump.

"the EU should invoke Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) to address Hungary’s violations of core EU values and the undermining of unity. This article allows for the imposition of sanctions, including suspending Hungary’s voting rights in the Council in cases of a 'clear risk of a serious breach' of EU values."

Does Hungary still belong in the European Union?

Sebastian Contin Trillo-Figueroa and James F. Downes argue that the EU faces a dilemma: should it pursue continued enlargement, or contract its membership by removing troublesome member state Hungary? Reaching a decision involves a complex trade-off between the need to increase EU influence and to maintain a unified, cohesive membership.

https://theloop.ecpr.eu

This should involve, at a minimum, removal of their voting rights, suspension of financial transfers and any other measures that are lawful until they either act like a democracy or leave the EU.

How Orban Became Putin's Pawn

Among all of Russia's useful idiots, few have sought to make themselves more useful than the Hungarian prime minister.

https://foreignpolicy.com

Their democracy died. They have lessons for America about Trump's power grab.

Hungarians who lived through Viktor Orbán's 2010 attack on democracy warn Americans: Act now, before it's too late.

https://www.vox.com

European Defence Industrial Strategy

"The European defence market remains highly fragmented. The lack of joint defence procurement and national preferences for defence spending translates into inefficient, small scale, and relatively high costs production across the EU...with only 6% of defence research and technology (R&T) funding and just 18% of total defence..spending dedicated to European..projects.. 78% of the defence acquisition .. were from non-EU countries, with the US alone accounting for 63%" (Andrius Kubilius, EU Commissioner)

A comprehensive and coordinated European Defence Industrial Strategy is needed to defend Ukraine and the rest of Europe and for long-term strategic purposes. We cannot build independent security whilst spending over 60% of our budget is spent on American and Israeli weaponry.

A drastic realignment between the UK and Europe is also needed so that the cost and technologies involved in maintaining a nuclear deterrent is shared across Europe and is entirely independent from foreign powers.

This strategy does not require political and military unilateralism, which would be very difficult with the EU and wider European powers. Instead it needs to combine the best capabilities of each European partner in terms of human resources and technology capacity with the benefits of an integrated intra-European market. However, military experts in Europe will know what is needed better than I.

"European countries should..develop a cost-effective rearmament strategy. Countries pursuing goals individually would be ineffective... A more integrated market for defence products would lead to greater economies of scale, resulting in lower prices and more defence readiness. Europe should aim at greater market integration for defence rather than at protecting smaller national markets."

A European defence industrial strategy in a hostile world

Any strategy will need to take account of evolving Russian capacities, evolving political willingness and evolving defence industrial capacities

https://www.bruegel.org

We also do not need a unitary European armed forces controlled by one organisation and one chain of command. It can be more like an intra-European NATO where armed forces, weaponry and technologies are able to be fully integrated and coordinated as needed and with minimum commitments to spending and armed force services staff by all.

"I agree. NATO should be doing more in terms of defense. But spending under duress and on capital-intensive US weapons systems, satisfying Trump’s desire to reduce US trade deficits—is not obviously the right way to go." (Peterson Institute for International Economics)

Europe (which as a reminder includes the UK) probably needs to spend over €800bn in the next few years on ensuring it has the right personnel, technologies, weaponry and communications infrastructure to ensure fully independent battle readiness.

European powers should no longer be allowed to purchase weapons from the USA-Israel unless absolutely necessary and on a limited short-term basis. Where they are acquired it must be on the assumption of serious mistrust in their reliability, operability and continued supply in a worst-case scenario:

Germany begins construction of infrastructure for Arrow 3 missile defence system

Germany has started construction of infrastructure for the Israeli-developed Arrow 3 missile defence system at Holzdorf Airbase, located approximately 75 kilometres south of Berlin.

https://defence-industry.eu

This process of decoupling and independence would also have a dramatic positive effect on employment and European economies, just at a time when a severe global financial crisis intentionally accelerated by Trump and his goons is likely – this in turn can protect against some of the radicalisation such poor economic conditions will foster in Europe.

A Great Wave Cometh

How to prepare for the fire and the storm

https://paragraph.xyz

Shades of 1984

Unless Europe wakes up soon, I see a world dangerously similar to that envisaged by George Orwell in 1984. One where three dominant superpowers maintain control over most of the world.

"the three philosophies are barely distinguishable.. Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of..leader, the same economy existing..for continuous warfare. It follows that the three super-states not only cannot conquer one another, but would gain no advantage by doing so." (George Orwell, 1984)

Certainly America and Russia are beginning to seem indistinguishable as autocratic oligarchies (though the USA has more lawyers).

Indeed, it is interesting that it was in the 1980's that Trump was already publicly talking about partnering with Russian in a geo-political alliance that relied on threatening other countries with nuclear weapons to make them do deals (and ensuring countries like France did not have independent nuclear deterrent capabilities to resist).

But what about the French?” I ask Trump. “They—”

“I’d come down on them so hard,” he says. “Because I think they’ve been the worst example of—”

“But they already have the bomb. Do you think they’ll give it up?”

“Well, I tell you if they didn’t give it up—

..If they didn’t give it up—and I don’t mean reduce it, and I don’t mean stop, because stopping doesn’t mean anything. I mean get it out. If they didn’t, I would bring sanctions against that country that would be so strong, so unbelievable... ”

Trump Has Been Thinking About Nuclear Proliferation Since 1987

Donald Trump with his finger on the nuclear trigger. Donald Trump with the nuclear "football," the so-called black briefcase of doom, always within rea ...

https://www.slate.com

America has been taken over by a criminal conspiracy supported by foreign state agents and corporate donors, these fascist forces are currently trying to help ensure that Russia is one of the three superpowers and Europe is on the menu.

It is hard to believe this, not because of the lack of evidence, but simply because we do not want to believe it. Our leaders can not afford such wilful ignorance to the realities of the world, otherwise we will all have our faces eaten off.

The leopards are on the prowl, and we know (deep down) we helped let them loose.

It's time to wake up.

“Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number-
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many-they are few.”

(Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Masque of Anarchy: Written on Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester 1819)

Notes:

In this article I specifically distinguish between the EU and Europe. They are not the same thing and some strong countries outside of the EU are European (e.g. the UK and Switzerland) – whereas other countries (like Norway) are in the wider European Economic Area grouping with the EU member states. The UK's future is with a strong European community and the younger generations are very clear about this. Indeed most British people now admit leaving the EU was a mistake:

"Just three in ten Britons (30%) now say that it was right for the UK to vote to leave the EU"

A mistake that was encouraged by Russian interference and by right-wing nationalistic opportunists and corrupt Conservative politicians that did not care that it would shrink the British economy (as long as they got a larger share of the pie).

Brexit, Trump, Russia Archives

2020 US Presidential Election, 2024 US Presidential Election, Brexit, Democracy, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Foreign Affairs, Media, Nigel Farage, Populism, Rupert Murdoch, Russia, Social Media, Steve Bannon, Tech, Data and Algorithms, UK Politics, United States of America, US Politics, Vladimir Putin

https://bylinetimes.com

Leaving aside the corrupt Brexit clusterfuck, it is crucial to note that: most British people support protection of Ukraine and Europe rather than being allied with the USA.

Further reading

The Takeover of America:

Donald Trump's Putinization of America

Susan B. Glasser writes about Donald Trump's actions on Ukraine and more, and his moves toward the Russian President Vladimir Putin's brand of authoritarianism.

https://www.newyorker.com

Project 2025 - the Takeover

Project 2025 Tracker

https://paragraph.xyz

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump an...

Read 671 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. From New York Times bestselling author Sarah Kendzior comes the bitingly honest examinatio...

https://www.goodreads.com

International Law

Chomsky: 20 Years After Iraq War Vote, US Continues to Flout International Law

October 16 marks the 20th anniversary of the vote to authorize the war on Iraq, which killed more than 800,000 people.

https://truthout.org

Up to Six Million People: The Unrecorded Fatalities of the 'War on Terror'

Nafeez Ahmed examines the direct and indirect deaths of the post 9/11 era, as a new kind of state-sanctioned mass violence became globalised and normalised

https://bylinetimes.com

WORLD COURT SUPPORTS NICARAGUA AFTER U.S. REJECTED JUDGES' ROLE (Published 1986)

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

https://www.nytimes.com

World Court Findings on Israeli Apartheid a Wake-Up Call

The International Court of Justice's (ICJ) July advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is a landmark ruling.

https://www.hrw.org

Israel defying ICJ ruling to prevent genocide by failing to allow aid into Gaza

One month after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered "immediate and effective measures" to protect Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip from the risk of genocide by ensuring sufficient humanitarian assistance and enabling basic services, Israel has failed to take even the bare minimum steps to comply, Amnesty International said today.

https://www.amnesty.org

Israel/OPT: Netanyahu, Gallant and Al-Masri must face justice at the ICC for charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity

Responding to the news that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel; Yoav Gallant, former Israeli Minister of Defence and al-Qassam brigades commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri , known as Deif, (in the absence of confirmation of his reported death), for charges of war crimes and crimes [...]

https://www.amnesty.org

ICC: Dozens of member states back top criminal court after Trump sanctions

A majority of member states, including the UK, Germany and France, said the court was "vital" for international justice.

https://www.bbc.com

The Betrayal

Budapest Memorandum at 25: Between Past and Future

On December 5, 1994, leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation met in Budapest, Hungary, to pledge security assurances to Ukraine in connection with its accession to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear-weapons state.

https://www.hks.harvard.edu

Trump's betrayal of Ukraine has emboldened Putin and pulled the rug from under Nato allies | Simon Tisdall

The ramifications of the president's appeasement of Russia will be felt widely, not least in the alliance he recklessly undermined

https://www.theguardian.com

Team Trump wants to get rid of Volodymyr Zelensky

America's president calls Ukraine's president "a dictator" | Europe

https://www.economist.com

'There Is Nothing 'Natural' About Donald Trump's Predatory Exploitation of Ukraine'

The US President's attempts to extort Ukraine for its natural resources, while abandoning its fate to Russia, is a return to the worst imperial politics of the past, argues Aleksandar Djokic

https://bylinetimes.com

Trump's true enemy isn't China or Russia but liberal democracy

The new Cold War between Europe and America

https://nickcohen.substack.com

The Transatlantic Alliance in the Age of Trump: The Coming Collisions

Europe is now staring at the beginning of a new post-American age. The policy collisions to come will be transformative for transatlantic relations and will reshape the transatlantic alliance.

https://www.csis.org

'F**k Trump': Kyiv Faces the Darkest Hour

Chris York explores the mood in the capital as Ukrainians try to make sense of the US President's support for the Kremlin

https://bylinetimes.com

In the global clash between democracy and oligarchy, the US is switching sides | Robert Reich

As Trump empowers Russia and the far right, he is laying the foundation for undermining democracies around the world

https://www.theguardian.com

Trump's bullshit blitz has Europe on its knees | Stewart Lee

For the US president's cheerleaders, the whitewashing of the deaths of ten of thousands of Ukrainians is a small price to pay for sticking it to the wokerati

https://www.theguardian.com

Europe's Defence Options

Europe Faces Putin Without America's Help

European democracies must stop infantilizing themselves.

https://www.theatlantic.com

Ready for Combat? The Future of the European Defense Industry

"The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the aid that Europe subsequently sent to Ukraine revealed that the European defense industry was in a dire situation."

https://hir.harvard.edu

The new EU Commissioner for Defence and Space - UK in a changing Europe

Pilar Maria Bolognesi explores the appointment of the first Commissioner for Defence and Space and what it will mean for EU security.

https://ukandeu.ac.uk

Britain and France working on plans for 'reassurance force' to protect Ukraine

Officials say the proposal would involve less than 30,000 troops and be concentrated on air and maritime defence

https://www.theguardian.com

Northern lights: How a Nordic-Baltic coalition of the willing can do even more for Ukraine

The NB8 countries are some of Ukraine's most steadfast supporters. Amid shifting transatlantic politics, their role in strengthening Ukraine's defence is set to become increasingly vital...

https://ecfr.eu

Europe targets homegrown nuclear deterrent as Trump sides with Putin

Germany's Merz says Britain and France may need to "share" their nuclear weapons as America can't be relied on to defend NATO.

https://www.politico.eu

Ukraine war facts (and combatting disinformation):

Institute for the Study of War

US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff referred to the early 2022 Istanbul protocols as offering "guideposts" for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on February 23. An agreement based on those protocols would be a capitulation document.

https://understandingwar.org

Institute for the Study of War

Russian forces currently occupy around 20 percent of Ukraine, leaving the remaining 80 percent of the country under Ukraine's sovereign control. At the current rate of advance, it would take Russian forces over 83 years to capture the remaining 80

https://www.understandingwar.org

Kompromat:

How Trump fulfilled a 30-year fantasy of becoming president, with a little help from the Kremlin

Donald Trump likes to present himself as a neophyte and political outsider, but that's not even remotely true. He fantasized about a run for president as early as 1987. Now with the help of the Republican Party and, it seems, the Russians, he's finally in. Debunking the “new guy” myth:

https://thecorrespondent.com

Here's why Trump colludes with Putin!

London, UK - 24 July 2018 It's now shockingly clear that Donald Trump is Putin's poodle. We report FIVE FACTS everyone should know about Trump's Russian money laundering & his high level links to the Kremlin & Russian oligarchs. Trump is financially, politically & morally compromis

https://www.petertatchellfoundation.org

Donald Trump Was Recruited by the KGB Under Codename 'Krasnov' Claims Former Soviet Spy Chief

A former senior KGB chief claims Trump was recruited by them in 1987 due to his role as a prominent US businessman

https://bylinetimes.com

Trump is Putin's sock puppet. The proof has been hiding in plain sight all along.

Next time a Russian troll claims Russiagate is a hoax, show them this post and tell them to fuck off.

https://worldwar3.substack.com

Just Answering Questions: The Flamethrower!

On the election, war with Iran, Trump, Epstein, DOJ complicity, and more.

https://sarahkendzior.substack.com

The Trump-Vance-Musk-Putin plan

Making the world safe for oligarchy

https://robertreich.substack.com

US - European Defence Issues

Norway's Parliament Agrees to Give the US Access to New Military Areas in the North

On Thursday, the Norwegian parliament voted in favor of giving US forces unimpeded access to several additional military areas, not least in the North. Norway should keep up with Sweden and Finland, recommended the Norwegian Intelligence Service - while others express concern for the policy that aims for low tension in the High North.

https://www.highnorthnews.com

Swedish MPs green-light controversial US defense deal

The deal gives the US access to 17 military bases and training areas in Sweden.

https://www.lemonde.fr

U.S. Security Cooperation With Finland - United States Department of State

The United States and Finland enjoy an enduring partnership as NATO Allies and close friends. Finland formally joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on April 4, 2023. However, our security partnership has steadily broadened and deepened since 1994, when Finland first joined NATO's Partnership for Peace program.

https://www.state.gov

How Britain's impoverished military could spend its extra money

After decades of decline and reliance on the US, Trump could 'switch us all on and off', an insider warns. The services must identify key areas of investment

https://www.thetimes.com

UK/USA: Amendment to the Agreement for Cooperation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defense Purposes [CS USA No.1/2024]

This treaty was presented to Parliament in July 2024.

https://www.gov.uk

Spyware:

How Europe became the Wild West of spyware

Forget the EU's reputation as a global tech enforcer. For surveillance companies, it's a place where anything goes.

https://www.politico.eu

A Web of Surveillance: Unravelling a murky network of spyware exports to Indonesia - Amnesty International Security Lab

A web of surveillance research reveals evidence of extensive sales and use of spyware and other surveillance products in Indonesia.

https://securitylab.amnesty.org

▼Further reading:

Spying, hacking and intimidation: Israel's nine-year 'war' on the ICC exposed

Exclusive: Investigation reveals how intelligence agencies tried to derail war crimes prosecution, with Netanyahu 'obsessed' with intercepts

https://www.theguardian.com

The U.S. Bought Pegasus for Colombia With $11 Million in Cash. Now Colombians Are Asking Why

The White House has refused to disclose how much data it gathered in partnership with the country's intelligence agencies

https://www.dropsitenews.com

Serbia: Authorities using spyware and Cellebrite forensic extraction tools to hack journalists and activists

Serbian authorities are using spyware and Cellebrite forensic extraction tools to hack journalists and activists in a surveillance campaign.

https://www.amnesty.org

Global: 'Predator Files' spyware scandal reveals brazen targeting of civil society, politicians and officials  - European Institutions Office

Shocking spyware attacks have been attempted against civil society, journalists, politicians and academics in the European Union (EU), USA and Asia, according to a major new investigation by Amnesty International. Among the targets of Predator spyware are United Nations (UN) officials, a Senator and Congressman in the USA and even the Presidents of the European Parliament and Taiwan. The investigation [...]

https://www.amnesty.eu

How Israel's Pegasus Spyware Stoked the Surveillance Debate

Israel reportedly used NSO Group's Pegasus spyware as a diplomatic bargaining chip, and its misuse by many governments has intensified the bigger debate about surveillance technology.

https://www.cfr.org

EU failure to rein in spyware reflects lack of political will, parliamentarian says

"They know what they have to do," said Sophie in't Veld, who led the European Parliament investigation into spyware. "The problem is they don't want to do it."

https://therecord.media

Buying Spying: How the commercial surveillance industry works and what can be done about it

Updated April 18, 2024: A PDF of "Buying Spying: Insights into Commercial Surveillance Vendors" with updated graphics was uploaded. There are no substantive changes to the text of the report.Spyware is typically used to monitor and collect data from high-risk users like journalists, human rights defenders, dissidents and opposition party politicians.

https://blog.google

Pegasus probe in Poland reveals unprecedented use of spyware by previous government

The new liberal majority has set up a parliamentary commission of inquiry to shed light on the use of the spying software by the previous populist government, particularly against opposition figures.

https://www.lemonde.fr

European Media Freedom Act falls short in safeguarding journalists - European Digital Rights (EDRi)

It alsoraises concerns about Article 17 and the "media exemption", potentially undermining the Digital Services Act (DSA) provisions.

https://edri.org

The Technology the Trump Administration Could Use to Hack Your Phone

Other Western democracies have been roiled by the use of spyware to target political opponents, activists, journalists, and other vulnerable groups. Could it happen here?

https://www.newyorker.com

What happened in Hungary since the Pegasus spyware revelations - Direkt36

The Hungarian broker company involved in the purchase of the spyware that hacked phones launched a series of lawsuits against us and other media outlets, but lost all of them. In the meantime, however, real investigation into the circumstances of the surveillance has been very slow due to the authorities' resistance.

https://www.direkt36.hu

Former Austrian Chancellor and ex-NSO Chief Start Cybersecurity Firm

Former chief executive of the controversial Israeli spyware company NSO Group, Shalev Hulio, has partnered with Sebastian Kurz, Austria's ex-Chancellor who was forced to resign following a corruption investigation last year, to launch the cybersecurity startup "Dream Security".

https://www.occrp.org

Pegasus: Spyware sold to governments 'targets activists'

Israeli tech firm NSO denies media reports that its software has been sold to authoritarian regimes.

https://www.bbc.com

Another Israeli spy app has been sold to 10 countries, researchers say

Citizen Lab and Microsoft report the hacking tool QuaDream has been used against politicians and journalists, but they did not identify the victims.

https://www.washingtonpost.com

Notorious 'Predator' spyware firm Intellexa hit with new US sanctions - ICIJ

As the United States clamped down on the Intellexa group for the second time this year, advocates criticized Europe's lack of action against commercial spyware creators.

https://www.icij.org

Probe clears Greek government agencies in spyware scandal but opposition calls it a cover-up

Officials in Greece say an investigation has cleared the country's security agencies of involvement in an international spyware scandal that triggered U.S. sanctions earlier this year.

https://apnews.com

Investigation: Israeli surveillance technology and spyware sold to Indonesia

A Joint Investigation by Amnesty International and Haaretz Has Revealed That Indonesia, Which Has No Diplomatic Ties With Israel, Imported Israeli Spy Tech. Then Singapore Found Out About It

https://www.haaretz.com

NSO's cash-for-spyware deal sparks criminal probe in Colombia

Israel's Defense Ministry Actively Supported NSO's Sale of Spyware in Exchange for Millions in Cash, Flown to Israel by Private Jet, but Colombian Authorities Deny Purchasing It. Colombia Has Severed Diplomatic Relations With Israel, Which May Complicate Their Ability to Obtain Legal Assistance From Israel

https://www.haaretz.com

Human Rights Watch Among Pegasus Spyware Targets

The targeting of a Human Rights Watch staff member with Pegasus spyware underscores the urgent need to regulate the global trade in surveillance technology.

https://www.hrw.org

1,400 Pegasus spyware infections detailed in WhatsApp's lawsuit filings

The filings, part of a lawsuit WhatsApp filed against the NSO Group in 2019, shine a light on how Israel-based NSO Group - a notoriously secretive company - operates the powerful Pegasus spyware on behalf of government customers.

https://therecord.media

The GDPR Is Just the Latest Example of Europe's Caution on Privacy Rights. That Outlook Has a Disturbing History

The law represents an approach to privacy shaped by both the Holocaust and Stasi surveillance in East Germany

https://time.com

Israel

Israel is sleepwalking into Jewish fascism

Israel Election | When the Books Are Written About How Israel Became an Illiberal Abyss, the Tools Netanyahu Provided to a Far Right Normalized by the Media Will Be Seen as a Key Turning Point

https://www.haaretz.com

Amnesty International concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza

Amnesty International's research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.

https://www.amnesty.org

Israelis were mostly unbothered about NSO's spyware - until it was reportedly turned on them

The Israeli firm's Pegasus surveillance technology is facing heightened scrutiny after a news report it was used by Israeli police.

https://www.washingtonpost.com

'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing spree in Gaza

The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local Call reveal.

https://www.972mag.com

UK-Australia-US (AUKUS)

https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/international-agreements-committee-treaty-on-aukus-naval-nuclear-propulsion-and-amendments-to-uk-us-mutual-defence-agreement/

UK-Israeli cooperation

Met Police linked to Israel as it gears up for pro-Palestine protests

Senior Metropolitan Police officers are regular attendees at a think tank closely tied to Israel's military and intelligence services and have accepted hospitality from its embassy in London.

https://www.declassifieduk.org

Middle East Monitor: A UK Stasi?

British police seize electronic devices in raid on journalist Asa Winstanley's home - Committee to Protect Journalists

New York, October 29, 2024-The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on British authorities to cease using counter-terrorism laws to intimidate the press after police raided the London home of journalist Asa Winstanley on October 17 on suspicion of "encouragement of terrorism." According to Winstanley's employer, Palestine-focused news site The Electronic Intifada, the raid was in connection with Winstanley's social...

https://cpj.org

Weaponising Anti-Semitism

Read 17 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. "For five years Jeremy Corbyn was portrayed as a bigot leading an anti-Semitic Labour Party...

https://www.goodreads.com

I Have Been Stopped Under Schedule 7 Of The Terrorism Act 2000. What Are My Rights?

Our criminal defence experts explain the Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and what your rights are if you be detained by by a constable, immigration officer or customs officer.

https://www.hja.net

OpenDemocracy: Firm behind £4m Labour Party donation invested in weapons for Israel

Who funds Labour Friends of Israel - and why won't it say?

LFI is one of the largest lobbying forces in British politics, but refuses to disclose its sources of income. What is it hiding?

https://www.declassifieduk.org

Saudi Arabia: UK Court Accepts Case About Saudi Spyware Use

The UK High Court issued an order on October 11, 2024 granting permission to a Saudi human rights defender who lives in the UK to bring a case that accuses the government of Saudi Arabia of using spyware against him.

https://www.hrw.org

Preparing for the fire and the storm

A Great Wave Cometh

How to prepare for the fire and the storm

https://paragraph.xyz

A Great Wave Cometh

How to prepare for the fire and the storm

https://paragraph.xyz

"a systemic, ruthless plan to undermine the quality of life of millions of Americans, remove critical protections and dismantle programs for communities across the nation, and prioritize special interests and ideological extremism" (The People's Guide to Project 2025, see link below)

Project 2025 aims to deconstruct federal agencies and centralise power in the presidency, which could potentially isolate states with a focus on reducing federal oversight and control. It advocates for a "unitary executive theory," which posits that the entire executive branch should be under the direct control of the President. This would eliminate the independence of agencies such as the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Project 2025 proposes dismantling or significantly reducing the authority of several federal agencies, such as the Department of Education, the Department of Commerce, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It also calls for abolishing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). By eliminating or weakening these agencies, the ability to regulate bad actors would be intentionally seriously curtailed.

The plan proposes cutting federal loan programs, such as those that help parents of college students, graduate students, and immigrants afford higher education. It also seeks to eliminate the Head Start program, which serves over one million children, and cut funding for public transportation projects. Additionally, the project advocates restricting safety nets for farmers. By reducing federal funding and support, Project 2025 would isolate states which lack the resources to make up for these cuts.

This Takeover has been a long time coming. The coup happened years ago - this is the mop-up operation and victory march.

U.S. Is Added to Human Rights Watchlist

The United States was added Sunday to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, due to declining civil liberties.

https://time.com

An in-depth analysis of over 120 documents including thousands of sources provides the following summary:

"the sources provide substantial evidence that Donald Trump's administration, Project 2025, and the 180-day takeover plan exhibit a strong alignment with the characteristics and tactics of extreme authoritarian and fascist regimes. The focus on centralising executive power, dismantling checks and balances, weaponizing government agencies, suppressing dissent, undermining democratic norms, and embracing a specific ideological agenda raises serious concerns about the future of democratic governance in the United States"

The below articles and sources are arranged thematically - see table of contents drop-down below:

Note: I call what we are seeing fascism. Yes, it is a new form which is internationalist, corporatist, nativist etc but it is still far-right. Fascism with less ideology and more grift (and makeup it seems). In any event 'fascism' will do until a better catch-all word comes along for what is, in essence, a coalition of criminal private capitalists seeking to control and destroy our societies.

The 'Threat to Democracy' Is Over

It's time to admit that the fascism we feared is already here.

https://www.contrabandcamp.com

Legacy of the "Dark Side"

Two decades after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the arrival of the first terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay on January 11, 2002, many Americans may not recall details of the systematic abuses carried out by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and US military against hundreds if not thousands of Muslims detained as part of what President George W.

https://www.hrw.org

It didn't start with Trump: The decades-long saga of how the GOP went crazy

The modern Republican Party has always exploited and encouraged extremism.

https://www.motherjones.com

Chomsky: 20 Years After Iraq War Vote, US Continues to Flout International Law

October 16 marks the 20th anniversary of the vote to authorize the war on Iraq, which killed more than 800,000 people.

https://truthout.org

"The U.S. post-9/11 wars have forcibly displaced at least 38 million people in and from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya and Syria. This number exceeds the total displaced by every war since 1900, except World War II.”

Human Costs

The Costs of War Project is a team of 35 scholars, legal experts, human rights practitioners, and physicians, which began its work in 2011. We use research and a public website to facilitate debate about the costs of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

https://watson.brown.edu

Trump 2.0 is exposing American exceptionalism for what it is - and has always been | Nesrine Malik

Guantánamo Bay? Imperialism? Alliances with billionaires? Those shocked at the president's early moves have forgotten what came before, writes Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

https://www.theguardian.com

▼More articles:

De-Americanizing the World

The Noam Chomsky Website.

https://chomsky.info

On Reagan's Legacy

The Noam Chomsky Website.

https://chomsky.info

The End of Days Inn

What Trump's team wants to do to America, and how to fight it.

https://sarahkendzior.substack.com

Trump's non-stop lawlessness is because he was never held accountable for his crimes

Criminals like Trump will keep criming

https://deanobeidallah.substack.com

▼More articles:

Criminal records of Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump include rape, domestic violence

Dozens of Jan. 6 defendants who received pardons from President Trump had past criminal convictions for charges including rape, manslaughter, domestic violence and drug trafficking.

https://www.npr.org

https://democracyforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2024-05_Peoples-Guide-Pro-2025.pdf

https://www.americanprogress.org/series/project-2025-exposing-the-far-right-assault-on-america/

▼More Project 2025 articles:

Democracy Playbook 2025

Norm Eisen and Jonathan Katz provide actionable steps for democratic actors in the U.S. and globally to strengthen democratic institutions and resist illiberal forces.

https://www.brookings.edu

'Reboot' Revealed: Elon Musk's CEO-Dictator Playbook

In 2022, one of Peter Thiel's favorite thinkers envisioned a second Trump Administration in which the federal government would be run by a "CEO"

https://www.thenerdreich.com

Here's How Trump's Executive Orders Align With Project 2025-As Co-Author Nears Senate Confirmation

Trump has long distanced himself from the controversial policy blueprint Project 2025, but is still taking steps that reflect its policy proposals.

https://www.forbes.com

Russell Vought takes over as CFPB's acting head

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought has taken on the role of acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to an OMB spokesperson and a source familiar with the situation.

https://www.nbcnews.com

Opinion | The assault on DEI? It's aimed at resegregation.

The GOP leaders attacking inclusion programs want to go back to an era when White men ran everything

https://www.washingtonpost.com

He's anti-democracy and pro-Trump: the obscure 'dark enlightenment' blogger influencing the next US administration

Key figures in the incoming administration follow Curtis Yarvin, who's pushing for an autocratic takeover of the US

https://www.theguardian.com

The Path to American Authoritarianism

America is on the cusp of competitive authoritarianism. The Trump administration has already begun to weaponize state institutions and deploy them against opponents.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com

Meet the Ideologue of the "Post-Constitutional" Right

Russell Vought, one of the architects behind Project 2025, believes there is nothing left to conserve. He desires revolution - and to burn down the system

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com

Project 2025: What It Means for Women, Families, and Gender Justice - National Women's Law Center

As a 501(c)(3) organization, NWLC does not endorse or oppose any candidate for elected public office. Project 2025 is a 900-plus-page handbook assembled by the Heritage Foundation, a leading conservative think tank, with at least 140 former Trump administration officials involved in its drafting.

https://nwlc.org

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025-would-destroy-the-u-s-system-of-checks-and-balances-and-create-an-imperial-presidency/

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-top-5-ways-project-2025-would-hurt-disabled-people/

The right's decade-long lurch toward Vladimir Putin's Russia

President Donald Trump's actions over the past few weeks have drawn cheers from Russian President Vladimir Putin's government - and with good reason. Trump falsely blamed Ukraine for the war that began with Russia's 2022 invasion and described Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky as a "dictator," then threw him out of the White House following a public confrontation.

https://www.mediamatters.org

Professor Christina Pagel has prepared and maintains a very detailed spreadsheet of the authoritarian takeover - available at her Substack.

"So this is how liberty dies... " Making sense of Trump's first three weeks

Where I categorise 76 Trump administration actions from the last 3 weeks and show how they align with the authoritarian playbook

https://christinapagel.substack.com

▼More tools:

The Contrarian | Substack

Unflinching journalism in defense of democracy.

https://substack.com

Prof Christina Pagel (@chrischirp.bsky.social)

🧵"So this is how liberty dies..." Trump's first 3 weeks have been a relentless flood of actions. It's incredibly hard to keep up. I've gone through 69 actions & mapped out the pattern - showing how they fall within 5 broad domains consistent with authoritarian states 1/9

https://bsky.app

What Elon Musk wants is worse than you think | Will Bunch Newsletter

Plus, a new breed of journalists just might save America.

https://www.inquirer.com

▼The blitzkrieg:

Today, Right Now, is the Easiest Moment To Draw the Line Against Donald Trump

There is no other cavalry coming.

https://www.doomsdayscenario.co

Trump's Day One Executive Orders Revived Immigration Policies From His Last Four Years in Office, and Went Beyond

By the end of his first day in office, Donald Trump revived many of the same programs and policies he'd previously tried over four years during his first administration. And then some.

https://www.propublica.org

The NSA's "Big Delete"

Today, the National Security Agency (NSA) is planning a "Big Delete" of websites and internal network content that contain any of 27 banned words, including "privilege," "bias," and "inclusion." The "Big Delete," according to an NSA source and internal correspondence reviewed by Popular Information, is creating unintended consequences.

https://popular.info

The Fu*king Nightmare

Trump II, week 2

https://robertreich.substack.com

Notes on the Crises

Until Further Notice, Comprehensive coverage of the Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025

https://www.crisesnotes.com

Exclusive: Musk aides lock workers out of OPM computer systems

The systems include a vast database of federal-employee data.

https://www.reuters.com

In Breaking USAID, the Trump Administration May Have Broken the Law

ProPublica's reporting provides new details about what legal risk officials were prepared to take and what laws they may have violated on their way to creating a "constitutional crisis."

https://www.propublica.org

18 Thoughts On The Omnicrisis

How to keep Donald Trump's provocations sorted so we don't lose focus.

https://www.offmessage.net

Pentagon Cuts Threaten Programs That Secure Loose Nukes and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Documents obtained by WIRED show the US Department of Defense is considering cutting up to 75 percent of workers who stop the spread of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.

https://www.wired.com

Trump: 'I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had'

The Republican nominee's preoccupation with dictators, and his disdain for the American military, is deepening.

https://www.theatlantic.com

Trump Abruptly Fires Military Officers Amid DEI Pushback

This comes as the Trump Administration seeks to rid the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.

https://time.com

Before we continue with more info on the Takeover, just a quick a reminder that our belief in democracy is a state of mind and a daily practice. It is belief in the value of all people, in diversity. The current system of representative democracy is largely symbolic, so this crisis also has within it the seeds of hope for a better society and system that distributes wealth and political power more fairly.

So what can we do?

We can focus on community coordination, meet with people (in real life) to share our concerns and more importantly work on ideas on how to be stronger together. They want each of us to be alone, doom-scrolling on our devices – atomised. Resist that, there is strength in numbers and in strengthening the bonds of care between us. Compassion must be at the heart of our practice.

Jeremy David Engels (@jeremydavidengels.bsky.social)

Good morning friends! Did you know that in the ancient languages of India the word for mindfulness means to remember? To remember to take a deep breath. To remember to feel your feet under you. To remember to come back to the present moment. To remember that you belong.

https://bsky.app

"He knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers. Those vote-counting computers. And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide,” (Donald Trump)

Nazi propaganda trick of Projection?:

"In his analysis of Nazi propaganda, Ellis Freeman identified an influence tactic based on projection: accusing another person of the negative traits and behaviors that one possesses and exhibits with the goal of deflecting blame away from one’s own misdeeds and toward the accused."

Mike Rothschild (@rothschildmd.bsky.social)

"All elections are rigged and Democrats don't exist" is the kind of paranoid delusion that once got you shunned from society and maybe committed. Now it gets you retweeted by the defacto president and the adoration of thousands of other cultists.

https://bsky.app

▼More articles:

Cyber-Security Experts Warn Election Was Hacked

'Musk is guilty as fuck'

https://www.planetcritical.com

SAVE ACT: "While the vast majority of Americans have a birth certificate, tens of millions of married women could not present their birth certificate as proof of citizenship under the SAVE Act, as it does not display their current legal name."

The Coming Attack on Free and Fair Elections

If we truly care about the future of free and fair elections, we must take the threat Trump poses to our elections literally and seriously.

https://www.democracydocket.com

CISA Puts Election Staff on Administrative Leave

The agency is a crucial resources for helping states administer safe and secure elections.

https://www.democracydocket.com

Project 2025 - A Threat to Public Health

Project 2025 is a set of policy recommendations intended as guidance for the next administration. While it was developed as guidance for the 47th President, the ideas and policies are also being proposed by members of the U.S. House and Senate and state governments.

https://www.apha.org

Republicans say Medicaid is safe. But budget math says otherwise : Consider This from NPR

House Republicans have to get their spending bill passed by Friday to avoid a government shutdown. They can likely afford to lose just one vote. And that's the easy part. Then they'll have to get working on their plan to extend 4.5 trillion dollars in tax cuts passed under the Trump administration - a plan that will require huge cuts in government spending.

https://www.npr.org

How Project 2025 Would Devastate Public Education | NEA

The 900-page blueprint for a second Trump presidency would gut federal education funding, sanction discrimination against LGBTQ+ students, divert taxpayer funds to private schools, and codify book bans and classroom censorship on a national level. That's just the beginning.

https://www.nea.org

US education department to lay off 1,300 people as Trump vows to close agency

Firings announced Tuesday as administration decried as 'detached from how Americans live'

https://www.theguardian.com

The universities are next

Friends,

https://robertreich.substack.com

SCOOP: Emails Show Mahmoud Khalil Asked Columbia for Protection a Day Before He Was Detained

"I haven't been able to sleep, fearing that ICE or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm."

https://zeteo.com

▼More articles:

Universities Have Been Doing Trump's Work for Him

The University of Chicago, despite its free speech reputation, has laid the groundwork for the president's threats against students who protest for Palestine.

https://www.thenation.com

Can academic freedom survive Donald Trump's plans for thought control?

The president's aim to remove power from universities and punish so-called "woke" ideology has chilling implications for free speech globally

https://www.indexoncensorship.org

Historians' council vetoes Gaza scholasticide condemnation

American Historical Association convention-goers overwhelmingly passed the statement on Jan. 5, but the group's top elected body has vetoed it without letting all AHA members vote. The American Historical Association's top elected body has shot down a resolution opposing scholasticide in Gaza, after members who attended its annual convention approved the statement early this month by a 428-to-88 margin.

https://www.insidehighered.com

Trump's Reign of Terror on Schools-and How We Fight Back

It's not enough to be afraid of the laws and rules we don't want to see in schools. We have to clarify our visions of what we are fighting for.

https://inthesetimes.com

'Reeks of McCarthyism': outrage after Ice detains Palestinian student activist

Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil a 'targeted, retaliatory' attack on his first amendment rights, say civil rights groups

https://www.theguardian.com