EDITOR—Garland and Joti analyse the current historical juncture, essentially but the latest and gravest global structural crisis of capitalism, arguing that helping to stabilise the system now is only to prolong the agony of 99% of humanity, and, equally important, increase the risk of seeing the entire planet go up in nuclear flames as a result of some desperate provocation by the hypocritical oligarchic capitalist elites concentrated in the “collective West”. The “collective West values’ paradigm”—grounded in unipolar supremacism and exploitation— is over. It has reached the end of its political, scientific and economic line. As heroic Russia has finally demonstrated, it lacks the capability to impose its will on other nations by military force. The US and its vassals—as the cases of Ukraine, Palestine, Taiwan and other theaters of manufactured conflict and horrendous crimes clearly show—are now completely devoid of moral legitimacy.
IDIOTIZED PUBLICS
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How America’s Military-Industrial Complex Wins All of Its Wars Against America’s Taxpayers
by eric zuesse15 minutes readERIC ZUESSE—The “Supplemental” this year (Ukraine+Gaza+Taiwan) totals to $95.3B, which causes the original $886B ‘Defense’ (or Aggression) budget for this fiscal year to be: $886B+752.5B+95.3B=$1,733,800 billion, or $1.734T. However, even that is incomplete, because the entire U.S. intelligence community, CIA, DIA, and the many others, is classified, its budgets are secret, hidden from the public, and, of course, these are also important parts of the U.S. military; so, perhaps annual U.S. military spending is now around $2T. On 12 March 2024, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence headlined “DNI RELEASES FY 2025 BUDGET REQUEST FIGURE FOR THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM” and publicly revealed (in accord with a 2007 law) “the aggregate amount of $73.4 billion in requested appropriations for the Fiscal Year 2025 National Intelligence Program (NIP),” and on 20 April 2024 I shall request from the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community the IC’s latest Audit Report in order to determine how complete that $73.4B figure is. I start with the assumption that it is the bare minimum of what the complete number is, and that what the maximum might be, and what the reality is, have remained top secret in this dictatorship.
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TNA—The New Arab also spoke to Michael, a 77-year-old former US veteran from Seattle, USA. He said his decision to participate in the flotilla was a way to atone for his involvement with the US army in Vietnam.
“This is a dangerous journey to undertake, and I do ask myself, why am I here? My wife asks me why I am here. I was drafted into the Vietnam War in 1965, I was just out of high school. At the time I understood what conscientious objection was, but I did not have the courage to fight against the US military and say, no!
“But now, I am older, and as I watch what is happening to the people of Gaza, I am appalled. It is not only the children, although that is what hits me the most. But now, it is the time to object to what my country, the US is doing. This is what conscientious objection is about. I am putting my body, my money, my time, my everything on the line to say, ‘I object to what my country is doing, we should not be doing this’. I want to stand up for those people in the US who agree with what I am doing and represent my country on this journey,” said Michael. Michael said he draws courage from the people of Gaza.
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Occupied Nation: How the CIA Created Modern Germany
28 minutes readKIT KLARENBERG—Those few analysts who predicted the invasion of Ukraine well in advance universally failed to anticipate Berlin would support and facilitate any U.S. counterattack, particularly in the financial sphere. They believed Germany possessed the requisite autonomy and sense not to commit willful economic suicide in service of Empire. After all, the country’s stability, prosperity and power were heavily dependent on cheap, readily accessible Russian energy. Voluntarily ending that supply would be inescapably disastrous. For this failure, they can be forgiven. Berlin, particularly in the wake of reunification, has successfully presented itself to the world as sovereign, led by sensible people acting in the best interests of their nation, and Europe. In truth, ever since 1945, Germany has been a heavily occupied nation, drowning under the weight of U.S. military installations, and its politics, society and culture aggressively shaped and influenced by the CIA.
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CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—If the mainstream western worldview was accurate, we wouldn’t see western officials standing behind podiums justifying the mass slaughter of civilians and denying obvious Israeli war crimes day after day and month after month — because in the mainstream western worldview murdering civilians and facilitating war crimes is something that is only done by illiberal, undemocratic countries to the east and the south.