12.11.2018

Mothers of the world

This is a text that I wrote already in 2011. A revised and updated version is in order because many things changed since then, and they did not change for the better.

When I published the piece in 2011, one woman reader complained, that this appeal puts undue responsibility on mothers. To make it clear, this text is not about responsibility and accountability, it is not meant to hold anyone liable or absolve from responsibility. It was not written in search of culprits, but in search for possibilities to make this world a better place.

PREFACE

It happens quite often that in the early morning (4 AM to 6 AM) one of the cats scratches on my bedroom door to wake me up and after that I lie in my bed in a transitional state halfway between sleep and waking. As I’m lying there, my mind goes on a journey and constructs stories that are often extensive and very detailed. A psychologist would label this as “lucid dreams.” The stories usually vanish from my consciously accessible memory after some hours though they sometimes come up again in situations and at times when I never would expect it.

A few days ago I wrote song lyrics with the title: Mothers of the World, and since then my thoughts and dreams are evolving around the idea, that the demise of humans and the catastrophic breakdown of the ecosphere can only be avoided by a concerted effort of all mothers, aided of course by their not testosterone-driven fellow humans.

Mothers are the most influential and revered persons. The closest interhuman relation is the relation between a mother and her child. The deepest love is the love between a mother and her child. We spend the first nine month of our life inside her and after birth many years with her while she cares for us, nurses us, teaches us, advices us. We spend many happy moments sucking her nibbles, resting in her arms and sitting on her lap.

Mothers have influence, and that applies to human mothers as well as to mothers of other species. All my cat friends (except Gandhi Jr.) start kneading and purring when they sit on my lap. They have adopted me as their step mother and kneading reminds them of their time with the mother cat. Cindy, who sadly died some years ago, also liked to nibble on the palm of my hand and she did that with great perseverance for many minutes. When she stopped, she stood up, stretched herself while looking at me, and finally laid down with a big sigh. She always seemed to be very happy and content after this exercise.

All my feline companions are spayed, but Princess Min Ki gave birth to a litter of  kitten when she still lived at a nearby farm. Shortly afterwards she moved to me and when it became clear, that she would stay, I brought her to the vet and she got fixed just like it had happened to the other cats. It seems though, that the experience of being a mother strongly shaped Princess Min Ki’s character and when Cindy and Wendy joined the family as tiny little kitten, she took care of them and taught them the tricks and trades of cat life. Cindy and Wendy grew up and developed strong and distinct personalities. Yet, even as they became independent and headstrong (like most cats), they still revered and adored their step mother Princess Min Ki.

A mother will try to educate her child in the best possible way, a mother certainly will try to give her child a good start in life. In a rapidly changing and increasingly complicated world a mother though may not have a clear idea, what she has to teach her child in order to guarantee a happy life, secure the survival of the species, and avoid ecological destruction. And in addition to that uncertainty a mother may be in distress and destitute, and for that reasons not be able to provide the best possible care for her child.

On a side note: Why should a mother not be able to provide good care for her child? The answer: 1.2 billion children (every second child on this planet) are threatened by conflict, poverty, and discrimination. That seems to be an enormous number and one wonders, if anybody can grasp, what “1.2 billion” really means.

Of course, there are even larger numbers, numbers that exceed our imagination even further. For instance: The worlds total military spending for 2017 was an estimated 1739 billion US$. Or: The 2,200 billionaires of the world have a combined wealth of 9.1 trillion (9,100,000,000,000) US$. 

BlackRock, the world’s largest AMC (Asset Management Company), controls assets worth 6.3 trillion US$, Vanguard Group, the second largest AMC, controls assets of over 5.1 trillion US$.

The issues of military spending, of inequality and exploitation cannot be addressed here, they were discussed in earlier blog posts and will be prominent topics also in the future. Similarly overpopulation, another related issue, would take us far away from the initial theme though some ideas and proposals are worth mentioning:

Contraception should be cheap and easily available, adoptions should be encouraged, fertility treatments discouraged, a temporary “no-child-policy” put in place in certain countries.

7.6 billion people are hard to feed!

Back to the original theme. The following text is a compilation of dreams that I had in the last weeks. As I continue dreaming, other texts may follow.

MOTHERS OF THE WORLD

Mothers of the world,
Teach your children well
You can save the world,
Only you can do it.

What will you teach your child?

You will teach your little girl, that she is clever and able to reach any goal and fill every position. That together with her sisters she can break the evil brotherhood of greedy, immoral, ruthless, warmongering men. That she can outwit them and destroy their networks and their systems of repression and exploitation.

You will teach your little girl, that she has to learn, acquire skills, find out what her talents are, and get the best education, so that she can start to work in various fields of science or in public services. And that she has to use the acquired knowledge to invent and develop sophisticated tools that make it possible to break the evil brotherhood of men.

You will teach your little girl that she shall focus on this goal and not let herself get distracted by stupid games or cheap amusement. That she needs to ignore trends, fashions, not give in to peer pressure, avoid the brainwashing from TV, social media, and advertising; that she has to consume any kind of media selectively and in moderation.

You will teach your little girl that she doesn’t need fancy gadgets and fashion clothing. That she shall not waste her precious time with superficial men, except when they either accept her leadership or are useful and helpful to advance her career and reach her goals.

You will teach your daughter to spend her time wisely and not get overwhelmed by the deluge of useless information.
You will not be the only mother who teaches her daughter in this way and there will be many other young girls who grow up like her. They will be inspired by the same ideals, they will get a solid education and go on to infiltrate businesses and institutions. They will howl with the wolves, apparently being compliant and complicit, while carefully implanting the seeds of change in the minds of their audience or secretly creating tools and structures to prepare for the revolutionary change that will destroy the plutocratic system and end the reign of the billionaires, oligarchs, industrialists, or whatever they are called.

These bright and confident young women will join one of the secret sisterhoods that have sprung up in most countries. The sisterhoods are decentralized networks which provide information, advice, and hands-on support to their members. They have no headquarters or command structures, but they appropriate corporate or state resources and allow a natural hierarchy where charismatic and ingenious members lead and give orders.

State agents trying to infiltrate the sisterhoods and criminalize them with sting operations or entrapment schemes will be easily exposed by EEG brain wave and fNIRS lie detection, sisterhood cells may also be abruptly liquidated and/or reconstituted.

Your daughter will become a media expert or a journalist or an artist and she will use her training in psychology and neurology and her artistic talents to produce seemingly benign popular entertainment, news reports, and artworks with embedded hidden patterns and subliminal messages. The patterns and messages will be based on new findings about visual and audial perception, cognition, linguistics, and they will seep into the brains of the viewers and listeners to accumulate there. They will be lingering in the unconsciousness, waiting to be activated with a master password (consisting of a text, a picture, or a video sequence).

Your daughter will work in a pharmaceutical laboratory and will together with her sisters in mind develop new medical drugs that influence brains in more subtle and sophisticated ways than any existing medications. She will work on drugs which reduce aggressions and increase feelings of empathy and caring.

She will secretly develop drugs that women all over the world can use to sedate their violent husbands and convert them to obedient servants and supporters of their feminist agenda.

She will develop psychedelic drugs and hallucinogens which induce perfect bliss without any ascertainable side effects. These drugs will be very expensive and only the superrich will be able to afford them. The undetectable longterm side effects of these drugs will be increased empathy, reduced aggression, but also cognitive impairment.

Your daughter will work in a biology laboratory to become an expert in gene editing with CRISPR. She will secretly develop bacteria that infect wales, dolphins, and other endangered species all over the world. The bacteria will not harm the animals, but it will make their meat unsafe and dangerous for human consumption and the hunting of these animals will stop because nobody will take the risk and eat the meat.

She will develop other infectious agents that cause epidemics in industrial animal factories, forcing all industrial producers of pork, cattle, and poultry out of business and fomenting a change in the daily diet of people around the world as well as a change of agricultural practices and policies. These changes will result in the reassignment of farmland to grow crops for direct human consumption, in addition they will allow sweeping land reform programs and a shift back to small scale farming.

She will create aggressive and fast spreading “diesel bugs” (bacteria, fungi, and algae which live in fuel tanks and pipelines). The microbes will clog filters, wreck engines, corrode fuel tanks, and even put oil wells and refineries out of business.

She will develop a contagious fungus that makes ink unreadable, causes documents to deteriorate and to turn into dust, and can be easily disbursed as a powder.

Your daughter will work as an engineer, developing sophisticated tools and energy efficient little machines that will allow small farmers to grow their crops without fuel or chemicals and enable them to outperform their industrial competitors. She will develop new types of sailing ships, trains, airships (dirigibles, blimps), and other means of transport that will replace cars and trucks.

She will work as a physicist, she will become an expert in quantum mechanics and discover new phenomena that will allow to change the molecular structure of materials with a combination of electromagnetic radiation of specific wavelengths. Together with her sisters she will invent a device that scans the surrounding area with beams of electromagnetic pulses in order to detect and neutralize combustable or explosive substances. The device will be called “Explosion Disabler”.

The powerful nations will be terrified by this invention and the governments will try to prevent proliferation even harder than they ever tried to prevent nuclear proliferation, but the knowledge will be spread by the secret network of the sisters and some small independent nations will secretly start producing Explosion Disablers in big numbers and distribute them to activists and dissidents all over the world. The soldiers and policemen will pull the triggers but nothing will happen and the gunners will push the buttons in vain and the terrorists will not be able to explode their suicide vests or roadside bombs. The armored carriers, tanks, and caterpillar D9 bulldozers will stand still because the combustion engines will stop working when they are scanned by the Explosion Disabler. The helicopter gunships will fall to the ground and the bombs, grenades, and mortars will not explode.

Your daughter will work in computer sciences, creating computer games which in nuanced and imperceptible ways will change the attitudes and value systems of the players and in addition to that will infect the brains of the players with secret patterns similar to the ones that are created by her sisters and transported via news broadcasts, entertainment programs, social media, and artworks.

Your daughter will go on from there and find out the secret backdoors, codes, and passwords of this interconnected world and she will defeat all security blockages. Together with her sisters she will write software that infects the networks of the evil brotherhood of men. She will get access to the most powerful supercomputers either as an operator or an assistant or the spouse of an operator. Together with her sisters she will utilize the supercomputers to develop even more sophisticated and capable software which can break all encryptions, bypass all firewalls, take over all networks, and completely reorganize the computers of the world. The supercomputers will also develop administrative models and schemes that are able to replace the old network organizations, installed by the evil brotherhood of men, in just a few hours.

And then, one day the sisters will send out the master password across all channels and they will place it on all websites. The subconscious patterns that have accumulated in most brains will become active and people will suddenly realize that they were indoctrinated and misinformed. They will realize, that they were exploited and misused and that their consumerist lifestyle is distressing, unhealthy, unsatisfying, unsustainable, and immoral.

People will drop out of the rat race, they will leave the cities and join rural farm communes and small rural workshops. They will stop consuming and stop buying new gadgets and they will become self sufficient and self reliant. The soldiers, policemen, private security contractors, and other low ranking members of the state suppression apparatus will lay down their weapons and the assistants and henchmen, the lackeys and minions of the ruling class will declare their guilt, apologize, and join a general campaign of disobedience, leaving their masters alone, helpless, and unprotected.

At the same time the sisters will activate their software and networks all over the world will break down or be taken over and the networks will be reorganized according to the schemes that the sisters secretly developed. The bankers and traders will stare at empty screens and the shares of the billionaires and millionaires will be gone; the loans will be void, all debts be cancelled, and houses will belong to the people who live in them while factories and shops will belong to the workers.

All the bankers and traders, billionaires and millionaires will run to the vaults and search in the shelves hastily and frantically for the documents which state their wealth, but when they find them the documents will be unreadable or turn to dust in their hands, because the sisters will have spread the special fungus that destroys paper and ink.

There will be no investment banks, no stock markets, no hedge funds, no asset management, and the commodity markets and central banks will be replaced by new distribution models which the sisterhood developed with the help of supercomputers, resembling rather UN relief agencies than capitalist institutions. Banks, asset management companies, insurances, equity firms, and other corporations will become public services after being instantly reshaped by the most powerful self organizing and self adjusting computer software.

And the drone operators and gunners and the generals in their command centers will see the screens go black and the operators and gunners will fiddle with the controls and the generals will shout commands but it will have no effect at all because they will be disconnected and completely isolated in their headquarters deep under the mountains.

The codes to launch nuclear missiles will not reach the rocket silos or submarines, army units will stay in the barracks and disarm, while the predator drones, jet fighters, cruise missiles, and laser guided bombs will fall to the ground and never reach their targets.

There will be peace on earth and it will be the dawn of the glorious age of the matriarchy.

EPILOQUE

Readers may ask: “But what’s about the boys? Don’t they deserve similar nurturing and guidance?”

Of course they deserve it and they should get the same attention and love as girls. In todays patriarchal society boys usually receive preferential treatment anyway.

Boys are much more driven by their hormones (especially testosterone) than girls, and when they reach adolescence they often will go their own way and follow their primal urges. The young men will compete for the attention of females, they will try to impress women with temerity and bravado. They will try to knock out competitors, often making foolish and ill-considered decisions they may regret only when they are already in deep trouble.

Well, not all boys are like that, but the majority are. While evolution has programmed women to preserve life, it has programmed men to destroy the lives of competitors. This is not what is needed in todays state of the world!

Buddhist monasteries would be a viable alternative. The method worked well in Asian societies for a thousand years but unfortunately has gone out of favour in modern times.

What else could be done short of obligatory castration, leaving only a few stallions for reproduction?

Boys should be educated to respect, appreciate, admire, support women. They should be educated to accept and back women leaders.

Nothing less will do.

Mothers of the world
It’s engraved on a tablet
Encoded in a chaplet
That you must save the planet


Mothers of the world
There’s silence you have heard
There’s darkness you have seen
Blood stains you had to clean


These uniforms remind the living
The gift of violence keeps giving
So many lives broken and cut
So many corpses drenched in blood


Those who resist insanity
Who want to save humanity
They will be silenced or ignored
Live by the sword, die by the sword


The mothers have to tend the graves
In silence they then watch the waves
Is it still worth to bear a child?
She wept quietly, then she smiled


There’s love you have to give
There’s trust you will receive
You teach it and you state your will
“Never wage war and never kill”


Whisper it softly in its ear
Teach it, explain, and make it clear
That life is precious, and it will
Never wage war and never kill


And if it now is unconcerned
It will remember what it learned
The promise it has to fulfill
To end all wars and never kill


The senseless slaying can’t be done
If it objects to take a weapon
Make sure, that your child never will
Take part in war or start to kill


Life can be hard, it could get worse
It could turn into hell on earth
Object, obstruct and call out loud
No nuclear bomb, no mushroom cloud


Avoid the pain, avoid the harm
Don’t fight, just desert and disarm
There is no peace on earth until
Men end all wars and cease to kill


This is, what you will teach your child
It will remember, that you smiled
It will follow your stated will
That it shall never ever kill

02.11.2018

Links November 2018

Most of us obtain our knowledge of the world by two different channels. Some things we discover from personal experiences and the direct messages of our senses, other information comes to us via external sources such as books, media corporations, and the internet. A crisis may develop when we discover that these two information channels are in sharp conflict.

Trustful media consumers will eventually suffer from cognitive dissonance, a mental discomfort and psychological stress which is experienced by people who simultaneously hold two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values.
More skeptical media users will desert corporate media, the established “alternative media,” and social media platforms to look for other information sources.

The blogosphere, independent journalists, and issue forums are still a viable option and a good chance to avoid corporate media brainwashing. One could of course investigate personally what is going on in the various corners of the globe, but that is dangerous, expensive, and long distance travel is ecologically harmful.

Having personal connections with people in other continents, building friendships and exchanging private thoughts with them will give you insights about what is really going on in their place. Speaking foreign languages fluently will allow you to discover hidden elements and subtleties in their stories, revealing aspects of their life that they themselves maybe are not even aware of. Unfortunately I can only speak two languages fluently, I’m not talented in languages.

Video chat could be the ideal way to build strong relationships with overseas people. I liked to use Skype, but after Microsoft bought Skype in 2011, it damaged and impeded the service with subsequent updates to a level where it is nearly unusable. Facebook’s Messenger video chat is out of the question. If you know an unobtrusive video chat service please let me know, I’m thankful for every hint. 

I would like to have more interaction with other bloggers, at least with the ones who are subscribers and readers of my blog. I should comment their texts, carefully read them and discuss their ideas, or at least encourage them with a click on the “like” button.

I should publish posts here more regularly.

If I only would have enough time for such activities. Compiling or composing a blog post takes a whole day or longer. Some bloggers publish several pieces a week, how are they able to do it? They are probably better writers, are more clever than I am, don’t mind to sit on the computer for hours.
I do what I can, telling the little wisdom which I gathered throughout my life in random and rare postings, hoping that it is helpful to the casual visitor.

I found this email in my inbox:

I’m writing to you in place of William Blum.
I’m his friend, his ex-wife, and the mother of his son, who lives in Germany.
He will not be able to write his 
Anti-Empire Report.
He had a very bad fall in his apartment. There he lay for many hours, maybe up to two days, unable to move, until a friend found him.
He was taken to the ICU. He is no longer in critical condition, but he is still confused, extremely weak, and can’t move his right arm.
He has been in the hospital for more than two weeks now, and it is impossible to say how much longer he has to stay there, and he will certainly need long-term care.
As you may guess, he does not have the best of insurances. Which means: he eeds your help!
If you wish, you can donate to Bill using the button below:
DONATE


Feline and horse news:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/esmod-international-fashion-show-cat-runway-istanbul-turkey/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cats-may-have-duped-us-about-being-great-rat-catchers/
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-46031042?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cvjk7vv0w40t/cats&link_location=live-reporting-story
https://www.treehugger.com/animals/why-miniature-horses-make-such-great-service-animals.html

Environmental news:

According to the WHO (World Health Organization), nine out of 10 people in the world breathe polluted air and seven million people die every year due to exposure to fine particles, with outdoor air pollution comprising the lion’s share.
The US federal Climate Prediction Center foresees an El Niño system, a band of warm water that periodically appears in the Pacific Ocean, developing in time for this upcoming winter. This means that 2019 will likely be the hottest year in recorded history.

USA Today reported this latest harbinger of a climate apocalypse with the headline: “Forecasters Say El Nino Will Keep Cold Under Control.

The article twice tells that El Nino is a “natural climate pattern,” but never mentions that it is occurring in the context of human-caused climate change.

David Sirota writes: The planet’s biggest shield against climate change – the Amazon rainforest – was just put under the control of a maniacal right-winger who will likely pursue a deforestation plan. This will get zero media coverage, even though it threatens the survival of all life on Earth.

Frederick Engels warned in the nineteenth century, “Let us not…flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first.”

https://ensia.com/articles/wild-greens/
https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/how-did-farmer-brown-bring-his-dying-land-back-brink
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2166542/air-pollution-killing-1-million-people-and-costing-chinese
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/10/02/report-nitrate-drinking-water-costly-problem-for-small-rural-cities The bane of industrial farming.
https://meta.eeb.org/2018/10/03/how-did-this-small-italian-town-take-on-the-powerful-pesticide-industry/ Four years after voting against pesticide use lawyer for industry and trade unions still block the implementation.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/05/drought-laden-rainforests/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/05/north-carolina-farmers-learned-nothing-from-previous-hurricanes-as-over-4-million-animals-drown-during-florence/
https://www.treehugger.com/green-home/what-our-mothers-can-teach-us-about-plastic-free-living.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45775309 From the special report about climate change, recommendation of lifestyle changes:
• buy less meat, milk, cheese and butter and more locally sourced seasonal food – throw less of it away
• drive electric cars but walk or cycle short distances 
• take trains and buses instead of planes 
• use videoconferencing instead of business travel 
• use a washing line instead of a tumble dryer 
• insulate homes 
• demand low carbon in every consumer product.
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-will-increase-deaths-by-suicide-102156
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/10/06/655135633/fda-bans-use-of-7-synthetic-food-additives-after-environmental-groups-sue Synthetic flavors for synthetic industrial food. If nature collapses, our food will be made from algae, grown in gigantic pools. Or it will be harvested from cloned meat. Or be made of synthesized carbohydrates, proteins, fats, fibers, and alcohols plus excavated minerals, all processed and mixed in large chemical laboratories and chemical plants. Chose the formula you like best.
https://news.mongabay.com/2018/10/plastic-trash-from-the-sachet-economy-chokes-the-philippines-seas/
https://news.mongabay.com/2018/10/plastic-trash-from-the-sachet-economy-chokes-the-philippines-seas/ Robotic bees if the real ones die out. Will they also reproduce by themselves or does one need an energy and resource intensive factory to mass-produce them? Will they need batteries which have to be recharged or replaced?
I’d stick with the real bees, that seems to be the far more sensible solution.
https://qz.com/1419211/the-worlds-worst-plastic-polluters-ranked/
https://www.thecut.com/2018/10/why-is-everybody-freaking-out-about-declining-sperm-counts.html A wide-ranging and informative article.
https://monthlyreview.org/2018/09/01/making-war-on-the-planet/?utm
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/arctic-council-mercury-pcb-report-1.4863930 Climate change alone would be bad enough, but chemical pollution makes it even worse. And few ask, if we humans are really immune against the poisons, which we constantly emit in gigantic amounts into air, water, and soil.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/plastic-pollution-south-atlantic_us_5bc788f4e4b0b7cd198dbbbc
https://meta.eeb.org/2018/10/12/breaking-a-third-of-chemicals-break-european-safety-laws/
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-mental-health-extreme-weather-stress-depression-us-ipcc-a8583601.html?
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/plastic-watch-recycling-woes.html
https://truthout.org/articles/eating-locally-and-in-season-is-it-really-better-for-the-environment/?key=45584594
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/29/air-pollution-worlds-children-breathing-toxic-air-who-study-finds We all pollute the air, some of us more, others less, and we all get sick from air pollution. Dr Maria Neira, WHO director of public health and the environment, knows what to do:
“…accelerating the switch to clean cooking and heating fuels and technologies, promoting the use of cleaner transport, energy-efficient housing and urban planning […] preparing the ground for low-emission power generation, cleaner, safer industrial technologies and better municipal waste management.”
Simple and straightforward, but where shall the money for these measures come from? The big corporations and the billionaires of the world will not pay, they rather want more tax cuts “to support economic growth and innovation.” And the governments obey and impose austerity which means that most environmental programs are starved of funds or terminated.
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/31/wilderness-areas-vanishing-worldwide-report-says/1832558002/

Economic news:

http://www.intellinews.com/moscow-blog-capital-flight-figures-to-make-your-eyes-water-148974/ The global financial system is designed to exploit connected countries by the triad of Anglosphere, Western Europe, Japan + Asia Tigers. This could be easily changed by:
a) exiting the global financial system.
b) setting up bilateral clearing houses between nations which want to maintain trade relations.
c) increasing self sufficiency and barter trade.
Russian dependence on oil and gas sales is a problem, but this could be alleviated by increased sales to China (this is already gradually happening). From an ecological point of view, the Russian fossil fuels should remain in the ground anyway.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/imf-wb-wto-scaremongering-threats-on-de-globalization-and-tariffs-the-return-to-sovereign-nations/5656922
http://www.atimes.com/article/who-has-the-real-leverage-on-us-treasuries/?utm

Media and technology news:

http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2018/883-blanket-silence-corporate-media-ignore-new-report-exposing-distorted-and-misleading-coverage-of-corbyn.html
https://daily.jstor.org/seymour-hersh-future-american-journalism/
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/10/05/pers-o05.html Internet censorship is real, and, as inequality and with it social tensions rise, it inevitably will get worse. Dark and dangerous times are ahead.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/ralph-nader-advertising-is-destroying-the-internet/
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/10/11/cens-o11.html
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/10/12/facebook-twitter-purge-more-dissident-media-pages-in-latest-escalation/ Contains some links to independent news sites.
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2018/884-caught-in-the-cross-hairs-media-lens-and-the-mystery-of-the-wikipedia-editor.htmlWikipedia as a political tool, edits by Philip Cross (Oliver Kamm).
https://off-guardian.org/2018/05/15/wikipedia-takes-down-article-on-philip-cross-life-bans-author/
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/10/24/facebook-censorship-of-alternative-media-just-the-beginning-warns-top-neocon-insider/
Imperial news:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-white-house-climate-change-731440/
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/thats-hell-act-call.html? Joan Baez exposed (unmasked). Don’t miss the comments.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/01/the-odyssey-of-otis-rush-1934-2018/ Must read.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/typhus-reaches-epidemic-levels-parts-los-angeles-area-n917271
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/10/10/letter-realities-of-life-as-a-homeless-woman-in-san-jose/
https://truthout.org/articles/more-than-3-6-million-us-children-dont-have-affordable-health-care/.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/10/24/home-o24.html
https://www.ehn.org/us-dams-are-in-disrepair-2608360261.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/10/25/rail-o25.html Killing public transport.
https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/14-yr-long-gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-may-become-us-worst-offshore-disaster-118102200390_1.html
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/10/23/women-march-on-the-pentagon/The brave people who protest war and drone killings still exist and keep hope alive.
https://www.marchonpentagon.com/march
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/31/the-hypocrisy-of-the-united-states-cuba-edition/
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/11/02/pers-n02.html Well formulated, well meant, and hopeless. We know that all, we have passed the state of analyzing, revealing, and shaming. But maybe this is only the visible and publicly accessible part of a movement which clandestinely works systematically and determined on a new consciousness, a new culture, a new society, a new economic, social, and political order.

Imperial conquest news:

According to the US Department of Commerce, defense industries account for nearly 15 percent of the economy, employ millions of people, and are a major revenue generator.
https://www.statista.com

Speaking at a campaign rally in Nevada, President Donald Trump said that Washington will repudiate the 1987 INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) treaty and develop intermediate range nuclear missiles. “We’ll have to develop those weapons,” he said. “We’re going to terminate the agreement and we’re going to pull out.”

With this decision, Washington is scrapping the entire nuclear arms control framework that emerged from the Cold War. In 2001, Washington repudiated the 1972 ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) treaty, so it could begin working on a “Star Wars” anti-ballistic missile system to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles. Now it is scrapping the 1987 treaty that bans US or Russian production and deployment of nuclear missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. For the first time since 1972, there will be no treaty limiting the major powers’ deployment of nuclear arms.

With the nuclear powers intent to spend massive sums on their arsenals of missiles and nuclear warheads, led by the USA, who pledged in 2014 to spend one trillion US$ to modernize its nuclear arms, not only essential social resources are squandered but humans are edging even closer to the unimaginable catastrophe of a nuclear war. The costs of this insane policy will be borne by the ordinary people through austerity and attacks on living standards.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/everyone-washes-their-hands-as-gazas-economy-goes-into-freefall/5655785 Is Gaza the biggest concentration camp in history? 1.3 were sent to Auschwitz, 1.1 million died there, 90 percent of them Jews. 1.8 million Palestinians live in Gaza, but until now only between 4,000 and 6,000 have been killed. Norman G. Finkelstein counts 13,190 casualties till September but that includes also wounded, who maybe will be able, if they are lucky, to recover.
A cynic would say: “still a long way to go, till Gaza reaches Auschwitz status, but progress is being made.”
https://www.mintpressnews.com/meet-ten-corporate-giants-helping-israel-massacre-gaza-protesters/250617/
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Imprisoned-Palestinian-Author-Threatened-With-Harsher-Punishment-If-He-Publishes-Book-20181016-0008.html Make their lives as miserable as possible and humiliate them at any chance.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/10/08/isra-o08.html defending the moral high ground.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/18/israels-psychological-obstacles-to-peace/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/02/regime-change-2-0-is-venezuela-next/
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176474/ The USA exits some treaties and rejects the jurisdiction of the ICJ (International Court of Justice), after earlier already having rejected the jurisdiction of the ICC (International Criminal Court). 
We knew it before: The USA simply is above the law.
http://www.atimes.com/the-royal-touch-how-saudi-money-keeps-washington-at-war-in-yemen/?utm
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-behravesh-khashoggi-commmentary/commentary-how-khashoggis-disappearance-could-change-middle-east-politics-idUSKCN1MK1VZ
https://www.rt.com/news/441450-khashoggi-body-cut-pieces/ Americas precious ally, helping to uphold democracy and human rights in the Middle East.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/10/saudis-stonewall.html#more Gut-wrenching.
https://washingtonsblog.com/2018/10/jamal-khashoggi-where-the-road-to-damascus-the-path-to-9-11-converge.html Very detailed. Recommended reading!
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/08/the-incessant-drumbeat-of-mortal-danger/
https://www.quixote.org/nica-act-2-0-its-back-and-even-worse-than-before/
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/10/17/congo-in-the-abyss/ The cynical military and political games which colonial powers (USA, France, Britain) play in Africa have one main purpose: To make sure, that Western companies retain easy access to mineral and agricultural resources. Paul Kagame and Joseph Kabila are exemplary figures of the “comprador” class, selling their country to the highest bidder with no moral restrictions.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/norway-middle-natos-arctic-wargames/5657722

Armageddon news:

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/04/charting-a-jagged-course-through-the-apocalypse/ Not for the faint hearted.
https://grist.org/article/with-the-world-on-the-line-scientists-outline-the-paths-to-survival/
https://therealnews.com/stories/michael-mann-we-are-even-closer-to-climate-disaster-than-ipcc-predicts
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/05/why-the-next-four-months-are-crucial-for-future-of-planet-climate-change Climate change may be the defining issue now, but wait, till the impact of deforestation, soil erosion, mass extinction, collapse of ocean eco-systems, and steadily rising chemical and radioactive contamination of the biosphere starts hurting. The environmental catastrophes could come blow after blow, leaving humans speechless, helpless, hopeless.
People will stare flabbergasted at their smartphone screens, wondering why the pizza from Amazon or any other food service is not available anymore, wondering why their chronic allergies, their kidney and liver problems, their asthma cannot be healed. When they lift their eyes from the screens they will see a world so weirdly and spookily different from their familiar online reality, that they will instantly goggle at their smartphones again.
Eventually the smartphone batteries will be empty and there will be no electricity to recharge them. Other communal services may have broken down too. And people, abandoned by their trusty and for so many years largely reliable smartphones, will run out as hunger starts to hurt, only to find, that shops are closed, while armed looters and robbers, many of them policemen and soldiers, roam the otherwise dark and eerily quiet streets and avenues.
https://naples.floridaweekly.com/articles/under-our-toxic-sea/ Most environmental news could rightfully be categorized as armageddon news. The dying of all marine life because of low oxygen could subsequently make life on land impossible as well.
https://eand.co/how-capitalism-torched-the-planet-and-left-it-a-smoking-fascist-greenhouse-fe687e99f070 Very well written and interesting to read. But the assumption that capitalism inevitably will implode into fascism is not evident and fascism is not clearly defined. Amy Rand’s rational selfishness (homo economicus) and the invisible hand in markets are not a necessary ingredient of fascism. Fascism rather is the culmination of cultural, social, economical, political tensions and grievances which tear the social fabric apart, weaken established institutions, and open opportunities for extremists and ruthless dictators to take over.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2018/10/un-says-climate-genocide-coming-but-its-worse-than-that.html It’s like pleading and talking to the deaf.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/26/the-great-drought/
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/trump-surrenders-to-john-bolton-on-russia-and-arms-control/

Uncategorized news:

https://amp.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/29/so-is-it-nature-not-nurture-after-all-genetics-robert-plomin-polygenic-testing That genetic inheritance (nature) together with environmental impacts (nurture) define our personality and talents is nothing new, the controversy is about the weight of each component. As our genes cannot be influenced, except by selective breeding (eugenics), the only possibility to improve is by family uprising, education, and lifelong learning.
https://theintercept.com/2018/10/08/brazils-bolsonaro-led-far-right-wins-a-victory-far-more-sweeping-and-dangerous-than-anyone-predicted-its-lessons-are-global/ The unraveling of society. This will be replicated in many countries as the breakdown of ecosystems and the subsequent scarcity of basic resources will cause the breakdown of the established order and the abandoning of the social contract.
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2018/10/brazil-set-elect-fascist-president-and-business-board
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/More-Migrant-Caravans-To-leave-from-Honduras-El-Salvador-20181021-0006.html

News from cat land:

The world is still largely intact here, though signs of environmental degradation (changing weather, changing vegetation, less insects and other wild life, drought) can only be ignored and willfully overlooked by insensitive and ignorant people.

Yesterday I harvested the last grapes. A good part of them are not completely ripe and therefore sour, but as the season progresses and it most likely will not be warm and sunny enough anymore to let them ripe completely I finally put them in. I will mix the sour grapes with apples and canned berries to form together with rolled oats, cacao powder, and herbal tea my kind of muesli.

People, who are used to a more traditional and conventional diet will shudder at the description of this meal, and they will assume that eating so much fruits, no meat, and no dairy products inevitably will cause diarrhea and all kind of other health problems. But the digestive system can adapt to a wide range of diets if enough essential nutrients and enough fiber are ingested.

Adaption takes time and changes in diet should be gradually and well planned. We undeniably are omnivores and some people may have difficulties to live completely without meat. I suffer from iron deficiency, though there are no symptoms and I’m only reminded about it by my physician during the annual health check.

I don’t buy pet food from Nestle, Mars, or other corporations, and always order organic cat food online. During spring and summer mice are a big part of the cats diet but in winter natural food is hard to come by. Two of my feline friends, which I will not name and embarrass, are also a bit clumsy or maybe lazy, they prefer pet food. Occasionally I cook a chicken (organic surely) for them and I eat a little bit of it myself. The cats are always thrilled when they find out that we eat the same food.

I have still not taken anything from the four freezers, which are completely full and also didn’t visit a supermarket for weeks.

A woman who switched to natural gas heating (bad move in my opinion) wanted to get rid of her stored firewood, and I bought it cheaply. Loading, unloading, and stacking it into a stable woodpile at the only place in the garden which still has not been occupied by berry bushes, fruit trees, and grape vines is back-breaking work. Two thirds of the wood is collected, the last third will be fetched in February. The wood is of excellent quality, dry, mostly beech, cut and split into handy pieces.

The cats are fine. Most of them were at the vet for their annual physical, including vaccination and anti worming pills. Princess Min Ki had a black spot on her snout which worried me because it reminded me of Miss Marples deadly skin cancer, but the black spot fortunately has disappeared now.

Gandhi Jr, Linda, Lucia, and Princess Min Ki regularly have scratches on their snouts and ears, a sign that they vehemently defend the garden from invading foreign cats.

We got a new family member which is seizing a significant part of my time and my heart. This is the risk of volunteering in an animal asylum. I will tell more in another post.