Links June 2019

More hyperlinks, less text this month.

Nobody writes, what I think. Am I really that wrong, trapped in my distorted universe of erroneous assumptions? And if I’m wrong, why are most developments proving me right?

A born skeptic, heretic, dissenter, and nonconformist, my misgivings, suspicions, and doubts were confirmed at every step of my way. Education, conditioning, re-education, indoctrination, brainwashing by family, school, institutions, advertising, and media could not pacify and appease me, good old government propaganda just bored me. It’s all lies, mirage, chimera — that’s my final word.

Of course, being reasonable, not overdoing it, keeping the right balance is difficult.

Sifting through old posts, it seems to me that some of my writings could be misunderstood as patronizing, as smug, presumptuous, and even arrogant. Though I have written again and again that I don’t claim to know the absolute truth and am ready to question even my most hardcore beliefs, in the many instances where I strongly disagree with the experts, pundits, specialists, scientists, and analysts of mainstream media and of government or industry funded think tanks or research institutes, I could occasionally indeed appear as overconfident and overbearing.

Well, these experts, pundits, specialists, scientists, and analysts don’t even get the weather forecast right, not to mention their failure to develop appropriate social, economic, and ecologic remedies for the countless existential problems humanity is facing.

That’s the reason I still dare to present my often divergent and contrasting opinion, based on common sense, life experience, some expertise, and some science. Expertise and science are preferably derived from minority, rogue, and unauthorized sources.

Nobody writes, what I think. Nobody writes for instance:

Stop the machines, switch off the loudspeakers and screens, quit the apps, ground the airplanes, park the trucks, cars, and trains.

Enjoy the silence.

If the silence makes you uncomfortable, because all the unpleasant, disturbing memories that you tried to suppress your whole life come up again and haunt you, go out and find a fried, or simply ask somebody for help.

Maybe you will encounter a person which just like you is haunted by suppressed memories. You could exchange experiences with her or him, talk about your anxieties, resentments, aggressions, and traumas.

Talking and listening alone will ease some tensions and lift some of the burdens which industrialized, computerized, commodified, commercialized consumer society has put onto your shoulders.

Maybe you could make a walk in the forest together, listening to the whispering leaves and the tweedling birds? Maybe you could arrange another meeting, growing mutual trust and respect, getting used to each other, accepting each one’s antics and quirks?

Maybe you could, if the moment is right, look deep into each others eyes, hold hands, hug each other, feel each other?

If you live in the wrong place (in a big city for instance), it could be that you don’t find anybody who is willing to help and share. So many people are screwed up, petrified, are soulless, walking zombies.

Even if you live in the right place, with lush nature, a largely intact social fabric, and a culture of kindness and peace, you have to be on guard and beware of criminal, sociopathic predators. They wait for a chance to jump onto you, rob you, suck you dry.

We live in a dangerous world. Anyway, if you are not able to find a tender-hearted, generous, affectionate soul, you can still visit an animal shelter and take home one of the cats from there. The cat was lonely just like you. Now you have each other. Talk with you feline friend, she will listen and purr. Everything will be fine, life will be easy, and life will be good.

Feline news:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0211862
https://mymodernmet.com/brigitte-schuster-cat-ladders/
http://hatchingcatnyc.com/2019/05/19/lillian-russell-fishing-cat-dyker-meadow-ii/
https://www.thedodo.com/close-to-home/shelter-takes-in-box-of-39-kittens
http://www.iheartradio.ca/cjad/news/animal-rescue-service-makes-saving-animals-from-flood-zones-its-mission-1.9159077
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/05/researchers-strapped-video-cameras-16-cats-and-let-them-do-their-thing-here-s-what-they? s
http://hatchingcatnyc.com/2019/06/02/cats-bronx-tenement-saintanns/
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/729778649/new-york-is-one-step-closer-to-becoming-first-state-to-ban-cat-declawing
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7103979/Larry-Downing-Street-cat-takes-shelter-Donald-Trumps-armoured-limousine.html
http://hatchingcatnyc.com/2019/06/14/chevalier-cats-carnegie-hill-part1/
http://hatchingcatnyc.com/2019/06/18/chevalier-cats-carnegie-hill-part2/ 

Environmental news:

The weather becomes more and more unpredictable. An estimated 40 percent of India is facing drought and more than 500 million people living in at least 10 states are badly affected. After the wettest 12 months in the USA since records began, fields in the Midwest are flooded or soil is waterlogged, which makes planting crops (mainly corn and soy) very risky.

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/06/article/india-confronts-unprecedented-water-crisis/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/15/heavy-metals-and-dangerous-chemicals-still-poisoning-europes-seas
https://www.ehn.org/monsanto-trial-in-st-louis-on-roundup-2637374300.html Cancer victims sue Bayer/Monsanto because the corporation did hide or downplayed the risks of using the pesticide roundup.
https://timesofsandiego.com/tech/2019/05/16/maker-of-weed-killer-roundup-raps-ucsd-study-showing-link-to-liver-disease/
https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-town-didnt-want-to-be-a-radioactive-waste-dump-th-1834789264
https://truthout.org/articles/exposing-the-dirty-business-behind-the-designer-label/ Buy your cloth at the flea market.
https://dgrnewsservice.org/civilization/ecocide/toxification/to-save-the-planet-apply-poison/
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/05/plastic-and-climate-change-the-hidden-costs-of-a-plastic-planet.html
https://gizmodo.com/a-new-diet-study-confirms-your-worst-suspicions-about-u-1834818556
https://www.ibtimes.com/hydropowers-dangerous-bid-re-cast-itself-green-2793069
https://truthout.org/articles/plastics-industry-on-track-to-burn-14-percent-of-worlds-remaining-carbon-budget/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/may/17/air-pollution-may-be-damaging-every-organ-and-cell-in-the-body-finds-global-review
https://meta.eeb.org/2019/05/23/chemical-dieselgate-on-eve-of-eu-election/
https://features.propublica.org/brazil-carbon-offsets/inconvenient-truth-carbon-credits-dont-work-deforestation-redd-acre-cambodia/ Carbon credits don’t work.
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2019/05/is-the-world-really-overpopulated/Gizmodo asked the experts, if there is an overpopulation crises, and the experts said: Of course not, because we have technological fixes, the populations with high birth rates (the brown people) don’t consume that much anyway, and there is enough food.
The experts forgot, that humans need more than food: We need clean, unpolluted air, we need potable water, we need pristine soil and an intact ecosystem to provide food without the thousands of poisons that human activity produces and spreads across the globe.
The experts forgot, that we cannot dupe the second law of thermodynamics. All the promising “green” technologies which should aid us and help us to live carefree without resource scarcity fail in practice, using immense energy and materials to be set up and then causing “unforeseen” problems.
http://artforculturechange.org/the-horrific-human-supremacy-of-jeff-bezos
https://www.hcn.org/issues/51.9/agriculture-can-small-scale-farmers-grow-a-healthier-california
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/28/plastics-toxic-america-chemicals-packaging Grow your own food, or buy it directly from people who grow it.
https://www.dw.com/en/riesling-wine-holding-out-between-pesticides-and-climate-change/a-48748575
https://aeon.co/ideas/nuclear-power-is-not-the-answer-in-a-time-of-climate-change
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/05/glyphosate-use-surges-in-midwest-lawsuits-mount-what-will-supremes-say.html
https://www.globalresearch.ca/glyphosate-front-groups-fraud-deception-toxic-tactics/5679596
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/the-great-insect-dying-vanishing-act-in-europe-and-north-america/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/plastic-pollution/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/06/plastics-microplastics-ocean-study?
https://www.apnews.com/e9c5fa42a1244de48e3edea7a1bb14eb PFAS (polyfluoroalykyl substances) are everywhere forever.
https://www.treehugger.com/plastic/recycling-has-no-impact-when-it-comes-amount-being-produced.html 

Economic news:

https://meta.eeb.org/2019/05/16/imf-highlights-e260bn-gift-to-eu-fossil-fuels/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/24/chin-m24.html The economic war between USA and China heats up.
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/06/03/reclaiming-billionaires-wealth/

Media and technology news:

God used to know our inner secrets, our deepest fears, darkest thoughts, and greatest hopes. Now Google does.

All of us have become like good Catholics from the Middle Ages, who were regularly going to the Confessional, doing so completely voluntarily and letting the people who ruled their lives know their most intimate secrets.

Today the confessional is a computer or smartphone, and the priest is Google.

“The internet was hardwired to be a surveillance tool from the start” (Yasha Levine).

Russian President Vladimir Putin has more than once referred to the Internet as a CIA tool.

The Passion of Julian Assange:

UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer: “In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonize and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law. The collective persecution of Julian Assange must end here and now!”

“In the course of the past nine years, Mr. Assange has been exposed to persistent, progressively severe abuse ranging from systematic judicial persecution and arbitrary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy, to his oppressive isolation, harassment and surveillance inside the embassy, and from deliberate collective ridicule, insults and humiliation, to open instigation of violence and even repeated calls for his assassination.”

Nils Melzer clarified later on:

“We also have to take a step back and look at this whole narrative of suspected rapist; narcissist; selfish, ungrateful person; hacker, and scratch the surface and see what’s below there. When I was first approached by his defense team seeking protection from my mandate in December last year, I was reluctant to do so, because, me, too, I had been affected by this prejudice that I had absorbed through all these public narratives spread in the media over the years. And only when I scratched the surface, I saw how little foundation there was to back this up and how much fabrication and manipulation there is in this case.“

Maybe we should scratch the surface also in the cases of Milosevic, Castro, Aristide, Chavez, Maduro, Gaddafi, Assad, Putin, and other persons who stand or stood in the way of the empire and were mercilessly defamed and slandered by Western mass media.

Nils Melzer gave interviews to BBC and Sky News, but they were not aired. When it comes to propaganda, lies by omission are even more pernicious than outright lies because they are difficult to confront.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/21/mann-m21.html About Manning and Assange.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/23/assa-m23.html
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/05/31/the-un-torture-report-on-assange-is-an-indictment-of-our-entire-society/
https://lobelog.com/newspaper-of-wreckage/ About New York Times’ war propaganda.
http://blogengine.hellevig.net/post/2019/05/13/The-oligarchy-wields-totalitarian-control-over-the-media-through-just-a-few-corporations.aspx
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/05/11/silicon-valley-giants-collaborate-with-the-us-government-on-venezuela/
https://www.globalresearch.ca/western-media-death-cult-perpetual-war/5678623
http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2019/904-life-or-death-corporate-media-or-honest-media.html
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/29/the-western-media-is-key-to-syria-deceptions/
https://www.dw.com/en/as-extinctions-loom-biodiversity-warnings-fail-to-resonate-with-governments-media/a-48819307 One royal baby is more important than mass extinction of a million species.
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/06/02/speeding-into-the-void-of-cyberspace-as-designed/
https://takebackyourpower.net/un-staff-member-5g-is-war-on-humanity/
https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-trust-project-big-media-and-silicon-valleys-weaponized-algorithms-silence-dissent/259030/

Imperial news:

The richest 10 percent of households now represent 70 percent of all US wealth. The three richest billionaires (Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates) own more than the bottom half of US society.

http://blogengine.hellevig.net/post/2019/05/13/Extreme-concentration-of-ownership-in-the-United-States-.aspx
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/18/floo-m18.html Sea level rise will make many iconic US cities uninhabitable and New Orleans will be one of the first.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/05/the-federal-government-has-poured-millions-into-failing-charter-schools-in-louisiana.html
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/america-growth-illusions-declining-wellbeing-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2019-05

Imperial conquest news:

SIPRI estimated that global military spending in 2018 rose to $1,822 billion.

John Bolton hates the governments of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, calling them the “troika of tyranny” and the “three stooges of socialism.” He is determined to use his time as US National Security Advisor to eliminate the vestiges of socialism in Latin America. He has openly stated that the 1823 Monroe Doctrine is “alive and well,” conveying that the USA will dictate the terms of governance in the Western Hemisphere, by economic pressure or military force if necessary.

Despite the island’s devastation from Hurricane Irma and additional restrictions from the Trump administration in 2017, Cuba had a record number of visitors in 2018–4.75 million, with the US and Canada being the largest contributors. In just the first four months of 2019, over 250,000 US visitors traveled to Cuba, an increase of 93 percent from the same months in 2018.

New US travel restrictions will prohibit group educational trips to Cuba, known as “people-to-people” travel, as well a visits from recreational vessels, private aircraft, and passenger vessels. The will impact an estimated 800,000 cruise passenger bookings, cutting the island out of millions of dollars a year in docking fees and payments for on-shore excursions.

Cuba is struggling to pay imports of basic food and other supplies following a drop in aid from Venezuela. The new travel restrictions will surely hurt.

Caitlin Johnstone writes:

At this point you almost wish America would just pick a target and stick with it. The US war machine is like a belligerent drunk at a pub with a broken bottle in his hand, menacing customer after customer while everyone silently prays he has a few more drinks and passes out on the floor. From Iran to Venezuela to Syria and more, the agenda to bully all the world’s nations into allowing themselves to be absorbed into the blob of the US-centralized empire is causing conflict after conflict all around the globe, with devastating consequences for the civilians caught in the crossfire.

You may be certain that Syria remains a geostrategically crucial location for the empire because they keep working on manufacturing consent for interventionism there. They work to manufacture that consent because they need that consent; if everyone saw their government doing horrific things they widely disapproved of, the illusion of freedom and democracy would be shattered, and they’d lose their ability to propagandize the masses. Without the ability to propagandize the masses, they could not rule.

So the good news is that we can slow them down by using truth to disrupt their use of their narrative control arsenal. The bad news is that they’re as depraved and determined as ever.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/18/u-s-sanctions-economic-sabotage-that-is-deadly-illegal-and-ineffective/
https://fair.org/home/for-corporate-media-space-belongs-to-washington
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/17/eyewitness-in-venezuela-a-14-year-perspective/
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/us-bid-destroy-venezuela-threatens-foundations-international-law-ambassador-warns
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/21/venezuela-amnesty-international-in-service-of-empire/
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/How-Venezuelans-Turn-to-Collective-Action-to-Defy-US-Blockade-20190602-0014.html
https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/truth-vanishes-in-a-cloud-of-poison-gas/
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/douma-syria-opcw-chemical-weapons-chlorine-gas-video-conspiracy-theory-russia-a8927116.html
https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2019/05/25/liberate-syrias-idlib-precisely-for-the-civilians-that-america-fakes-concern-over
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/05/20/the-struggle-is-the-meaning/
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Trial-is-Political-Persecution-Argentine-Ex-President—20190521-0010.html
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2019/05/america-you-are-fired.html Right about gold and shale oil, but otherwise far too optimistic about the possibility to disable the empire peacefully. Sympathetic to nuclear energy.
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/05/21/how-the-wests-war-in-libya-spurred-terrorism-in-14-countries/ And what about the Libyans? How did they fare after the “liberation” from Muammar Gaddafi?
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/06/03/stat-j03.html The looming war against China.
https://truthout.org/articles/the-us-cult-of-bombing-and-endless-war/ In 2016, the USA dropped at least 26,172 bombs in seven countries, the bulk of them in Iraq and Syria. In 2017, the USA and allies dropped more than 20,000 bombs onto “IS capital” Raqqa.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/haiti-silent-chaos/5680132 The Western press doesn’t write anything about Haiti, because US culpability is so embarrassingly clear.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/pentagon-trump-cyber-attacks-on-russia-848695/
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/06/16/russia-experts-2017-prophecy-about-the-nuclear-threat-of-russiagate-is-coming-true/
https://truthout.org/articles/we-are-witnessing-imperial-decline-in-an-age-of-planetary-decline/ Many good points, but it shows no way out and makes no suggestions how to relieve the growing pain.

The war against Iran has already begun, unofficially but forcefully.

Bombs and missiles are not raining down yet, but the USA tries to destroy the Iranian economy. The Trump administration has sanctioned the oil sector, the metals industry, and military leaders by cutting them off from the US-led international financial system. To coerce unhappy Western allies into compliance, Washington has threatened to cut off their companies as well if they continue doing business with Iran.

The USA has targeted Iranian oil shipments since May 2, when it announced its intention to “bring Iran’s oil exports to zero, denying the regime its principal source of revenue.” China, India, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, and all other Iranian trading partners are pressured to end oil purchases.

More than 800 Iranian banks, companies, and individuals have been targeted. Foreign or US companies who try to do business with Iran are severely penalized. The US goal is to completely cut off Iranian oil sales and blockade the country economically.

US economic warfare on Iran has caused the value of the country’s currency, the rial, to plunge. This, in turn, has led to a sharp increase in the prices of imported goods. By raising the cost of imports, the currency collapse has sparked a massive inflation. Inflation is running at 40 percent, it has bankrupted businesses and put many imported goods, such as critical medicines, beyond the reach of ordinary Iranians. The IMF predicts that the economy will continue to undergo significant contraction which will increase the misery of ordinary Iranians.

If Iran retaliates in one way or the other, the USA will use this as justification to strike militarily. The United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet patrols the Persian Gulf. US forces are deployed in Iraq to the east, Afghanistan to the west and in other neighboring countries, including Turkey, Bahrain, and Qatar. Recently, Washington has increased its military pressure, sending the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (with 40 F-18 Super Hornets), accompanying ships, the amphibious assault ship USS Arlington (with troops, vehicles, and helicopters), a bomber task force (B-1, B-52H), and two squadrons of F-35A stealth fighters to the region.

Armageddon news:

https://aeon.co/ideas/civilisational-collapse-has-a-bright-past-but-a-dark-future
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/05/article/clash-of-civilizations-or-crisis-of-civilization/
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Risk-of-Nuclear-War-Now-Highest-Since-World-War-2-UN-20190521-0026.html
https://www.globalresearch.ca/pentagon-nuclear-war-plans-fallout-would-have-wiped-out-many-more-countries-previously-estimated/5679722
https://truthout.org/articles/what-would-it-mean-to-deeply-accept-that-were-in-planetary-crisis/
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/rumors-of-war/
https://truthout.org/articles/arctic-is-thawing-so-fast-scientists-are-losing-their-measuring-tools/
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/06/article/global-warming-threatens-human-civilization/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01735-0 Ebola in DRC.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48615667
https://monthlyreview.org/2019/06/01/superbugs-in-the-anthropocene/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/10/americans-extinction-denial-syndrome/ 

Uncategorized news:

https://scroll.in/article/923803/india-is-fighting-for-her-soul-arundhati-roy-on-fascism-modi-and-being-a-writer-in-todays-world
https://www.modernhealthcare.com/safety-quality/161000-avoidable-deaths-occur-hospitals-annually-leapfrog-group-finds
https://voxeu.org/article/advertising-major-source-human-dissatisfaction
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/05/ankara-garbage-collectors-make-music-out-of-trash.html
https://aeon.co/ideas/youre-simply-not-that-big-a-deal-now-isnt-that-a-relief? My favorite text this month. I even read it twice.

News from cat land:

The cats are healthy and they enjoy the warm weather. They keep the garden clean from mice, voles, and rats, unfortunately they also kill frogs, toads, blindworms, lizards, birds, and moles. I try to create as many hideouts for amphibians and reptiles as possible, unfortunately these hideouts are also used by the rodents. Tricky! Does anybody have a solution?

The snails, slugs, beetles, millipedes, and woodlice are active again. Pumpkins, caigua (cyclanthera pedata), coneflower (echinacea), thyme have to be raised in especially protected places which cannot be easily reached by the pests. 

Mites, aphids, and caterpillars attack the berry bushes and grapevines, fortunately the spiders (heaven bless them) mostly take care of them. Some fruit trees (cherry, pear) suffer from fungal infections. The peach trees are fine, peach leaf curl is not completely eradicated but under control. It’s just a minor nuisance. Powdery mildew has infected some glover plants, but until now has not spread (grapevines could be vulnerable).

At least one hedgehog roams the garden. I’ve seen the droppings since some time but yesterday I encountered one face to face. The hedgehog looked at me shortly before disappearing in the bushes, grunting and snorting. Hedgehogs eat slugs and snails, but they unfortunately also kill blindworms and when they dig for slugs they cause some damage to strawberry plants and other ground cover vegetation.

Everything grows like crazy, especially the blackberries and grapevines. More CO2 in the atmosphere and higher UV radiation (because of the thinning ozone layer) increase photosynthetic metabolism but also make the plants more vulnerable to diseases and pest infestations.

My oldest grapevine didn’t wake up from hibernation and I was very sad. I looked at it and said to myself: “If you only would grow at least one leave, please!” Getting myself ready to cut the vine down I indeed discovered a little leave, and then even a second one. So I just pruned my old plant friend drastically (though carefully) and when I looked the next day there were two more leaves growing. The day after that I counted already eight leaves and now they are too many to count. My old friend will survive, it probably will not have fruits this year, but next year will be great again. I’m so relieved!

After a short period of rain it is now dry again and I have to irrigate the garden excessively. Being a subsistence gardener is laborious and challenging. 

Links May 2019

This world is full of mysteries and there is so much we don’t know or are unable to understand. Astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson once said: “The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” So, be careful with your assessments and be aware, that truth is what you at this moment believe to be the case or what appears to have happened. Even when the evidence is clear and all data point to one outcome, “it ain’t necessarily so” — and life may have the most surprising twist and turns in store.

It rained. Beautiful, live giving rain. It is cold and uncomfortably wet outside, time to sit down and write a few notions or sing a little, innocent song. Like this one:

Imagine, there’s a state of mind
Where troubles are all left behind
Where one is easy, calm, and kind
Eager to listen, search, and find

Where all is true, nothing’s concealed
And plains are not a battlefield
Where crimes of war have been revealed
No hate, no open wounds, unhealed

No plans of war to be enacted
And calls for peace are not rejected
Sages and saints will be elected
The weak and poor not be neglected

Ditching old habits can be tough
We don’t need more, we have enough
Bright beauty of the stars above
The final, sacred word is: Love

We live in the era of post-truth, a reality confirmed again by mainstream media coverage of the latest events in Venezuela. No meticulous and accurate situation reports, no weighing of evidence, no honest and astute analysis. Instead round the clock fact free propaganda.

Juan Guaido called it the moment for Venezuelans to reclaim their democracy once and for all. But as the hours dragged on, he stood alone on a highway overpass with his friend Leopoldo Lopez (leader of the right-wing Voluntad Popular party) and the same small cadre of 25 military defectors. No other soldiers and no civilians had joint them.

As Guaido’s “Operation Liberty” fizzled, months of insistence, that the people of Venezuela stood with him basically went up in smoke.

The Miami Herald nevertheless insisted, that the “military rebellion” in Venezuela “can be called many things. But don’t call it a coup attempt.”

CBS, Reuters, and CNN chose the word “uprising,” NPR and the New York Times chose “protest,” and Yahoo! News went with the phrase “high-risk gamble.” BBC, the Guardian and Al-Jazeera only used the word “coup” in quotations.

CNN told viewers, that the US must “root for the people” of Venezuela, before explicitly stating, “Rooting for the Venezuelan people means hoping that Maduro will step down” (the people of Venezuela apparently are the white upper class Venezuelans who wholeheartedly agree with the US government). CNN also aired a report claiming, that the forces of “socialist dictator” Maduro were “mowing down citizens in the streets.”

Caitlin Johnstone wrote on her blog, what the main players in the Venezuelan crisis would say, if they were honest:

Juan Guaido: I would like to be regarded as the interim president of Venezuela because the current president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, stands opposed to the interests of the political bodies with which I have aligned myself. Also, he stands opposed to my own personal ambitions of becoming powerful.

Washington, DC: We too would like for Juan Guaido to be regarded as the interim president of Venezuela, because the current President of Venezuela is too cozy in policy and practice with our geopolitical opponents. We would not mind this so much if Venezuela didn’t sit atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves. If we can’t control what happens to those oil reserves, we won’t be as dominant on the world stage.

US allies: We too would like it if Juan Guaido were president instead of Nicolas Maduro, because that’s what the United States wants and it is in our interests to go along with whatever they say. If we go along with Washington’s dictates we are treated favorably, whereas if we don’t we’ll end up getting treated the way the Venezuelan government is being treated currently.

Donald Trump: I’ve been told by the neoconservatives who I have appointed to guide my foreign policy that it would be good for America’s resource control agendas if I apply more sanctions to Venezuela’s economy at this time. This will force the Venezuelan civilians, and more importantly their military, to overthrow Maduro or else see their loved ones die of malnutrition and lack of healthcare.

John Bolton: I too encourage Venezuela’s citizens and military to turn against their government and begin inflicting violence upon it until Nicolas Maduro is either dead or removed from power. If you do this, you won’t have to starve and die because of our steadily increasing sanctions, and we’ll get to control the oil that your country happens to sit on top of. As an added benefit, hurting large numbers of human beings gives me sexual gratification.

CIA [via bullhorn]: Umm, excuse me, Venezuelans? This is the CIA. Will you all please start having a civil war now to overthrow your government? That would make us very happy, thank you.

Mainstream media: The US government, and of course the powerful unelected individuals who run it from behind the scenes without any accountability or oversight from the public, is attempting to topple Venezuela’s only recognized government using starvation sanctions, CIA operations, and an open campaign to delegitimize the sitting president of that nation. They are doing this because controlling as much of the world’s oil supplies as possible helps them to control the world, and controlling the world is what they want to do. These are the things we would be telling you if we weren’t owned by the same plutocratic class which owns the US government.

Wealthier Venezuelans: We would like to see Nicolas Maduro replaced with a government installed by the United States and its allies, because we feel that that would benefit us financially.

Juan Guaido: I am now standing here with Leopoldo Lopez and a handful of military personnel in an attempt to persuade Venezuela’s military to turn against Nicolas Maduro and begin killing anyone who stands in their way. I went to university in the United States of America.

Leopoldo Lopez: I too went to university in the United States of America. Also, I would like to be the regular president of Venezuela when Juan Guaido is done being the interim president of Venezuela.

Venezuelans: This is awful and we hate all of this.

Mike Pompeo: It is good that all of these things are happening. Definitely keep doing all of these things everyone.

Juan Guaido says, he is considering asking the USA to launch a military intervention.

Erik Prince (founder of the once prominent private security firm Blackwater and an ardent supporter of US President Donald Trump) discussed a plan in private meetings with US and European officials of employing 5,000 mercenaries to help topple Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro.

5000 young stuntmen
Will stumble more often
Approaching the brick wall
That will be their last call
This wall has no bypass
And so they will die fast
As dreams turn to dust
And present to past

5000 young widows
Are tapping with their toes
The chorals sound nice
As they are sung twice
The brass band is playing
The preacher is praying
The church bells are ringing
Sweet angels are singing

The dues are all paid now
The memories fade now
The lawsuits are settled
The big fights are battled
A new generation
Will seek recreation
Give in to temptation
And fight for the nation

(Or for money).

A report co-authored by Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs for the US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research estimates, that 40,000 Venezuelans died because of Western sanctions, a partly blockade, and other economic warfare measures.

This finding is based on an estimated 80,000 people with HIV who have not had antiretroviral treatment since 2017, 16,000 people who need dialysis, 16,000 people with cancer, and 4 million with diabetes and hypertension (many of whom cannot obtain insulin or cardiovascular medicine).

The sanctions are depriving Venezuelans of lifesaving medicines, medical equipment, food, and other essential imports. This is illegal under US and international law, and violates treaties that the USA has signed.

Question time

How does one detect propaganda? What is propaganda? Are lies, omissions, misinterpretations, euphemisms, fabrications propaganda?

Didn’t state sponsored lies play a crucial ideological role in justifying US / NATO wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, didn’t they legitimate the use of torture under the Bush administration, and cover up crimes of the financial elite in the economic crisis of 2008?

How to distinguish between facts and fiction, knowledge and falsehoods, good and evil?

How to distinguish between cynics, hypocrites, pretenders, and true believers? 

How to distinguish between careerists, media mercenaries (journalists for sale), ideologists, reporters, researchers, analysts, teachers, sages, and prophets?

Can heuristics be helpful? What about intuition? Are mathematical equations the only way to find out, what’s really going on?

Does language serve to depoliticize and infantilize as it offers no way for individuals to translate their private troubles into broader systemic considerations? What is manic consumerism? Magic populism?

Should poetry rhyme? For instance: Privatization, deregulation, militarization, criminalization, financialization. Or: Arrogance and ignorance, audacity, stupidity, depravity, profligacy, indecency, ferocity, atrocity, monstrosity. Or: Education, information, exhortation, obfuscation, defamation, domination, exploitation, isolation, alienation, hibernation.

Do with that, what you want, I for my part go now into the garden to plant some additional blueberry bushes and weed out fig buttercup, ground elder, and creeping buttercup.

Feline news:

https://mymodernmet.com/the-traveling-cats-japan/
https://www.keyt.com/news/santa-barbara-s-county/missing-cat-returns-home-475-days-after-it-went-missing-in-the-montecito-mudslide/1073956466
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-48223182/bobcat-coaxed-down-from-florida-power-pole
https://www.foxnews.com/great-outdoors/cat-rides-utah-to-florida
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-48122651
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/05/gabriel-r-i-p.html
http://hatchingcatnyc.com/2019/05/13/lillian-russell-cat-dyker-meadow/ 

Environmental news:

We are all hypocrites, aren’t we? We are all pretenders and fakers: we are all liars — more or less. In this competitive society one can only succeed by lying, faking, and pretending. 

We deceive ourselves, being proud of booking an eco-hotel when the airplane which brings us to our holiday destination burns more fuel than we can save in a lifetime.

We are proud of replacing old appliances with new energy efficient ones, even as the manufacturing of the new devices uses more resources and energy than they can possibly save in a decade.

We buy organic produce from companies who hijacked the “organic” label and devoid it of any meaning instead of buying it from the farmer or growing it by ourselves.

We spend our time and energy working in a useless job for the benefits of parasitic shareholders instead of joining a co-op.

https://ensia.com/notable/1-5-degree-lifestyle-carbon-footprint/ Reducing our carbon footprint by 80 to 93 percent? Which politician dares to demand this?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/22/chernobyls-deadly-effects-estimates-vary/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/bumblebees-decline-pollinators-1.5106260 Bumblebees are one of my favorite fellow species. I often touched them, rescued them when they had fallen into a rain water barrel, I grew lot of echinacea, which they like very much, they were sitting on my hand, resting before continuing to search for food. When one guy told me, that they sting and that it will hurt more than any wasp sting, I was surprised. They never stung me and I don’t expect ever to be stung – they know that I’m their friend.
https://truthout.org/articles/the-world-is-burning-and-those-in-power-are-stoking-the-flames/ The world is burning, the calls for action and for a change of direction become more desperate, the broad public remains unmoved and tries to look and listen away. Collective suicide of the incorrigible and irredeemable, collective murder of the lucid and rational minority, of the ones who unsuccessfully warned and tried to convince.
https://dgrnewsservice.org/resistance/direct-action/property-destruction/a-modern-eco-sabotage-manifesto/
https://truthout.org/articles/a-lethal-industrial-farm-fungus-is-spreading-among-us/
https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/trees-dont-grow-on-money-or-why-you-dont-get-to-rebel-against-extinction/ Environmental movements frequently get hijacked by industry and financial establishment. Therefore: Camouflage, move at night, coordinate via informal communication channels, be creative and surprise them (everything else what needs to be done and how it has to be done you have to imagine by yourself).
https://www.globalresearch.ca/glyphosate-worse/5674472 The poisoning of everything.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/28/if-we-care-about-plastic-waste-why-wont-we-stop-drinking-bottled-water
https://truthout.org/articles/hydroponically-grown-produce-threatens-real-organic-agriculture/ It’s a fraud, everything is a fraud. That’s the way Western consumer economies work.
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/05/opinion/flying-into-climate-crisis/ Vastly expanding (flyaway) air travel contributes to runaway climate change. And hypocrites in the need of self-promotion fly to environmental congresses and demos.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190430121755.htm Rapid permafrost thaw.
https://www.politico.eu/article/why-we-dont-know-if-plastics-are-safe/
https://dgrnewsservice.org/civilization/ecocide/the-problem-with-putting-a-price-on-nature/ Important, please read.
https://www.ehn.org/benefits-of-free-flowing-rivers-2636604106.html
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190507-weeds-a-surprising-way-to-fight-climate-change 

Economic news:

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-trend-is-not-your-friend/  The collapse of US-Chinese trade negotiations may be marked by historians as the day that globalization died.
https://truthout.org/articles/explosion-of-interest-in-worker-cooperatives-drives-economic-changes/
https://truthout.org/articles/the-public-banking-revolution-is-upon-us/
https://truthout.org/articles/new-report-shows-how-world-bank-enables-corporate-land-grabs/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/27/land-a27.html Only 8.5 percent of Britain’s land is owned by the public, everything else is owned by aristocrats, corporations, and oligarchs.
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/04/opinion/bri-brings-a-competitive-advantages-in-infrastructure-financing/
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3007906/weaponisation-us-dollar-end-its-economic-ascendancy-asia-chinas
http://evonomics.com/how-to-destroy-neoliberalism-kill-homo-economicus/Nick Hanuer, winner of the MIT Humanist of the Year award, paints a much too rosy picture of capitalisms potential to benefit humanity and be a “force for good,” but he at least addresses some crucial issues.
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/05/09/the-climate-movement-what-next/ Must read!
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Irans-Master-Plan-To-Beat-US-Sanctions.html 

Media and technology news:

https://www.localfutures.org/is-5g-worth-the-risks/ Supporters of wireless technology argue that electromagnetic radiation in the radio frequency band and below, meaning everything below 100 GHZ, is not ionizing and therefor cannot cause DNA damage in cells. They argue further that the radiation intensity is too small to cause any king of effect (thermal or magnetic resonance) in cells.

This is wrong, the amount of ionized atoms indeed diminishes with lower frequencies but there is no point where the ionizing effect completely disappears. About the intensity: The inverse-square law of physic states, that a specified physical quantity or intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source of that physical quantity. Which means that a radio signal has to be quite strong to be detected by the antenna of a receiver a few kilometers away. The antennas of both mobile phones and cell phone towers don’t send beams of radiation, they emit their radiation evenly in every direction, so the inverse-square law fully applies.

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/05/article/big-brother-adds-brains-to-eyes/
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/googles-sensorvault-can-tell-police-where-youve-been Bury your mobile phone.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3006933/forget-hype-why-5g-about-disappoint-you Fingers crossed, that the author is right.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/5g-the-big-picture/
https://truepublica.org.uk/global/what-you-dont-know-about-5g-but-will-find-out-when-its-too-late/
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/the-dangers-of-5g-to-childrens-health/
https://emfscientist.org/index.php/emf-scientist-appeal
http://www.5gappeal.eu/the-5g-appeal/
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/05/01/assange-sentenced-50-weeks-for-bogus-bail-charge/ The Passion of Julian Assange.
https://gowans.blog/2019/05/02/jacobin-stabs-venezuela-in-the-front/ About Jacobin magazine and the US “Left.”
http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2019/902-40-000-dead-venezuelans-under-us-sanctions-corporate-media-turn-a-blind-eye.html
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/05/05/on-venezuela-tucker-airs-anti-trump-ideas-while-maddow-wants-john-bolton-to-be-more-hawkish/
http://johnhelmer.net/reuters-bites-off-tongue-in-us-war-against-venezuela-rosneft-forces-withdrawal-of-news-fabrication/.
https://fair.org/home/distorting-democracy-in-venezuela-coverage/
https://fair.org/home/for-nyt-israel-is-always-nearing-apartheid-but-never-quite-gets-there/ Even more “fair and balanced” than Fox.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/06/big-tech-and-the-rise-of-surveillance-capitalism/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/11/hale-m11.html US indicts drone program whistleblower. 

Imperial news:

“Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment…but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”

Howard Zinn. This quote appears in the book Speaking of Peace: Quotations to Inspire Action.

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-trend-is-not-your-friend/ (Already listed in economic news, but I repeat it here because of its importance).
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/26/death-can-be-a-slow-traveler-peltier-mumia-and-rap-brown/ About US political prisoners.
https://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-vz-embassy-protection-collective.html
http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2018/07/how-defence-industry-buys-washington.html Lobbying = corruption, election campaign contributions = corruption.
https://truthout.org/articles/the-us-is-spending-1-25-trillion-annually-on-war/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/09/the-melting-of-the-fortress-of-solitude/ A poetic rant about US culture.
https://truthout.org/audio/how-does-the-us-compensate-the-world-for-the-damage-it-has-done/ 

Imperial conquest news:

Donald Trumps neocon handlers (advisors) want war with Iran, as the blockade and the economic war against Venezuela is apparently not sufficient to satisfy their bloodlust.

The USA and Britain have been meddling in Iran since the 50s, when they installed the conservative dictatorship of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi by overthrowing the democratic government of Mohammad Mosaddegh, which was threatening their monopoly on oil. Then during the Iran-Iraq war 1980 to 1988 the USA supported Iraq and Saddam Hussein who committed war crimes against the Iranians and fought a needless WW1 style trench war which led to a million dead for nothing. The US also shot down an Iranian civilian passenger jet in 1988, killing 290 innocent people, including 66 children.

Until the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, the political climate between the nations remained hostile, but the deal allowed both sides to begin a process of reconciliation. For a short time it appeared that both sides wanted to end the period of sour relations, but then the USA unilaterally pulled out of the agreement despite its European allies and Iran itself wanting the deal to continue.

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/22/the-buried-maidan-massacre-and-its-misrepresentation-by-the-west/
https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Politics-of-Culture-in-US-The-Invisible-Hand-of-the-Market-20190415-0012.html
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Venezuelan-Authorities-Identify-5-Electrical-System-Saboteurs-20190423-0025.html
https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-economic-terrorism-genocide-people-venezuela/5676366
https://truthout.org/articles/us-led-bombing-campaign-in-syria-killed-1600-civilians-leaving-raqqa-destroyed/
https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-nato-attack-afghanistan-iraq/5676038
https://truthout.org/articles/six-ways-to-curb-the-uss-military-machine/
https://mideastshuffle.com/2019/05/05/interview-on-the-end-of-the-syrian-war-and-the-post-imperial-middle-east-part-2/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/09/the-militarization-of-empathy/About war propaganda, selective empathy, and US warcrimes.

Armageddon news:

Wow – gasping for air. Perturbed, desperate, wretched, dispirited, shocked, horrified, sickened. The prophets of doom are getting pretty good at presenting their apocalyptic visions. Science is on their side and every new study surpasses the previous already dire and frightening projections.

So – we are done, basically. Maybe we will have another few more or less comfortable or at least bearable years. Have the opioid overdose ready. Don’t forget to euthanize your beloved pets first. Your spouse and children will have to make the decision by themselves when to escape the hell which will be life on this planet in a few years.

The last one to go shall not forget to turn off all lights and appliances. Don’t forget to phone the undertaker before you lose consciousness, so that your body is collected and disposed of in an orderly way.

As if this would matter in the final stages of civilizations collapse. 

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/09/imagination-and-nuclear-weapons/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/23/the-coming-ebola-epidemic/
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/04/climate-change-book-.nd-of-ice/
https://truthout.org/articles/landmark-un-report-to-show-we-are-in-a-human-induced-extinction-crisis/
https://meta.eeb.org/2019/05/06/environmental-emergency-major-assessment-reveals-humanity-entering-danger-zone-as-1-million-species-risk-extinction/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/03/climate-crisis-is-about-to-put-humanity-at-risk-un-scientists-warn
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48169783
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/05/article/killing-nature-while-playing-geopolitics/
https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/blb6wq/found_this_thought_it_was_pretty_good_for_people/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/08/adult-lifestyles-sentence-kids-to-1000-years-of-deadly-heat-waves/
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/bill-mckibben-and-elizabeth-kolbert-on-the-un-extinction-report “We’re not playing for stopping climate change. We’re playing maybe for being able to slow it down to the point where it doesn’t make civilizations impossible.”

In case, that you are not a wimp, who falters as troubles mount, in case that you are not an idiot who cannot grasp the severity of the situation, in case that you are not a psychopath who revels in the misery of fellow creatures:

Stem the tide, fight heroically, unhesitating, tenacious till your last breath against the exploitation, the poisoning, the destruction of nature. Become a role model, a teacher, a prophet, a saint. 

Become the savior of life, the irresistible force of kindness and grace, the shining star, the white knight, the guarding angel, the one who unites humanity, who leads the way, who inspires, arouses, awakens human ingenuity, perseverance, and toughness to overcome the deadly dangers and let the forces of evil melt away.

“But I’m just struggling with my own shortcomings, with the burden of anxieties, phobias, blockages, traumatic memories, and miseducation. How can I ever be a role model?”

Don’t worry, you don’t need to be perfect and you will grow with the challenge. You only need to stop being self-centered. Look at the situation as a detached, uninvolved observer. Just do what is needed, do it systematically, stay calm and composed whatever may happen. Take your time, wait for your chance, be fearless. What should you fear? Death? You will die anyway one day or the other.

One last note:

Don’t forget the importance of curbing human population, though this will happen anyway involuntarily if humans don’t address the problem on their own.

Uncategorized news:

https://aeon.co/essays/face-it-a-farmed-animal-is-someone-not-something?utm
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/10/i-like-to-operate-bhutans-pm-spends-weekends-as-a-surgeon
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/05/07/5-httlpr-a-pointed-review/ Don’t believe the experts, and especially not those who want to sell something.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48249477 

News from cat land:

The cats are fine, they are innocent, lovely, adorable, enjoying spring. It is Rita’s first spring and she is completely exited. I just saved a blindworm from her. Blindworms (or slowworms) can live 30 years and longer. I like them, though they are not as cuddly as cats. To be precise, they are not cuddly at all, but just like toads and frogs they are useful to reduce slugs and snails.

Blindworms, toads, frogs, bumblebees, they all are endangered and their populations decline, I’m proud that they have found a home here. Please make your surroundings hospitable for them wherever you are.
Back to the cat family