swift – Radio Free

Xi the Merciful?

Godfree Roberts — Fri, 02 May 2025 14:45:33 +0000

The world needs an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and able to remain stable in the long run, removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies.

— PBOC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan, October 9, 2009.

Only Xi can rescue Trump from his self-created tariff blunder, but his price will shock the West.

The Story So Far

President Trump’s tariffs will barely affect China’s GDP growth but, says Molson Hart, by April 10 America will face an economic catastrophe worse than the global financial crisis (GFC), as hospitals close and the bond market triggers hyperinflation.

As my subscribers know, China began preparing for this moment in 2009, when the PBOC¹ started developing mBridge, the international trading platform on which countries trade in their own currencies quickly and securely. mBridge has been operating smoothly since 2022.

Next came CIPS, China’s alternative to SWIFT’s slow, expensive, insecure, dollar-denominated system. CIPS daily transaction volume surpassed SWIFT’s last week.

But by far its most ambitious project was an international reserve currency modeled on Keynes’ bancor² system, which makes surplus countries invest their excess foreign reserves abroad and deficit countries reduce their foreign borrowings accordingly. Keynes proposed the bancor at Bretton Woods in 1945 when, after centuries as the world’s reserve currency, the pound sterling could no longer afford to serve both domestic and global needs. The United States rejected it, insisting that the dollar replace the pound. President Trump recently admitted that the United States is fast approaching that moment.

The PBOC aimed to introduce the bancor in the late 2030s but will bring that forward , to save the US dollar from collapse. It will also support America as it adapts to the new regime. Then, freed of international obligations, the RMB, the USD and the Euro can focus on domestic priorities.

The rescue

PM Li Qiang, who has known him since their Shanghai days, will invite Elon Musk and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to convey the bancor offer to the White House and even allow Trump to claim credit for it. Implementation will require years of patience, trust and skill, but Trump has no alternative. War is definitely not one: the US was never a match for China militarily, as Beijing demonstrated in 1951. Nor is a trade war: China’s GDP will be unaffected by tariffs and grow 5.4%, by $1.7 trillion, this year while America’s is already contracting.

Xi the Merciful

Moral leaders whose own states always act correctly will unfailingly attain primacy. States wishing to exercise humane authority must be the first to respect the norms they advocate, because leaders of high ethical reputation and great administrative ability are attractive to other states and, since the domestic determines the international, winning hearts and minds is more important than winning territory. Being compassionate in great matters and overlooking small ones makes one fit to become lord of the covenants. Rulers win leadership by acting morally and, by presiding over the meetings of other states, earn international acknowledgement of their humane authority.

— Xunzi, 300 BC.

Beijing is hunting much bigger game than tariffs: the liberation of Palestine. China, Palestine’s oldest and most loyal friend, has endured America’s genocidal mania for generations and now has the tools to end their shared misery.

Every major US industry, from arms to hi-tech to automotive, relies entirely on Chinese rare earth metals and lacks the skills to manufacture them. Beijing restricts REM exports and forbids foreign buyers, like Occupied Korea, to on-sell them to the West. If the US wants them, it must end the genocide before the last of its REM stockpiles is exhausted: eight months at most. The clock is running down.

This year, we will witness the most momentous events since WWII. Global leadership will return to Asia, America will enters its post-imperial twilight, and Palestine will become free and independent, and the Zionists return to Ukraine whence they came.

Appropriately, Xi is in Moscow today…to celebrate Victory Day.

They’ve won.

ENDNOTES:

The post Xi the Merciful? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

1 China and the Central Bank of Russia, whose head is the world’s best central banker, created these facilities. I omitted this to save time and space.

2 The so-called Triffin Dilemma.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Godfree Roberts.

CPJ calls for swift investigation into killing of Peruvian journalist Gastón Medina

CPJ Staff — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 20:29:53 +0000

Bogotá, January 21, 2025—Peruvian authorities should swiftly and comprehensively complete their investigation into the killing of journalist Gastón Medina, determine if he was targeted for his work, and hold those responsible to account, said the Committee to Protect Journalists on Tuesday.

“Peruvian authorities must conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into the killing of Gáston Medina and ensure that those responsible are held to account,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director in New York. “To break the cycle of impunity that has plagued journalist killings for years, the Peruvian government must act decisively with a swift and credible inquiry that uncovers the truth, identifies all perpetrators, and delivers justice.”

On Monday, January 20, Medina, 60, the owner and news director of the independent TV station Cadena Sur in the south-central city of Ica, was leaving his home when he was shot by a gunman and declared dead at an Ica hospital, according to the National Association of Journalists of Peru (ANP). The Peruvian news website La Lupa reported that Medina was hit by at least eight bullets and that the gunman escaped on a motorcycle.

In a statement, the ANP said Medina’s killing came in the wake of his TV reports on criminal groups that are allegedly extorting Ica’s bus drivers and on alleged irregularities by the Ica city and regional governments.

Medina had previously been the target of violent attacks due to his journalistic work. In February 2022, he received a death threat along with a bullet that was sent to his office following his reporting on allegations of cost overruns at a state-run hospital in Ica. In September 2022 an explosive device denotated outside his station’s premises after Medina reported on allegations of corruption by a then-governor.

Ica Mayor Carlos Reyes told reporters that police are investigating the killing of Medina and called on local residents to collaborate. Peru’s Attorney General’s office said in a statement that it has opened an investigation into the killing and published a photo of the alleged gunman aboard a motorcycle holding a pistol.

CPJ’s calls to the Attorney General’s office were not answered.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Kamala Harris’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza ‘betrayal of true feminism’

APR editor — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 09:45:24 +0000

Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue to look at Donald Trump’s return to the White House, we turn now to look at what it means for the world, from Israel’s war on Gaza to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. During his victory speech, Trump vowed that he was going to “stop wars”.

But what will Trump’s foreign policy actually look like?

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Fatima Bhutto, award-winning author of several works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Runaways, New Kings of the World. She is co-editing a book along with Sonia Faleiro titled Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, due out next year. She writes a monthly column for Zeteo.

Start off by just responding to Trump’s runaway victory across the United States, Fatima.

Fatima Bhutto on the Kamala Harris “support for genocide”. Video: Democracy Now!

FATIMA BHUTTO: Well, Amy, I don’t think it’s an aberration that he won. I think it’s an aberration that he lost in 2020. And I think anyone looking at the American elections for the last year, even longer, could see very clearly that the Democrats were speaking to — I’m not sure who, to a hall of mirrors.

They ran an incredibly weak and actually macabre campaign, to see Kamala Harris describe her politics as one of joy as she promised the most lethal military in the world, talking about women’s rights in America, essentially focusing those rights on the right to termination, while the rest of the world has watched women slaughtered in Gaza for 13 months straight.

You know, it’s very curious to think that they thought a winning strategy was Beyoncé and that Taylor Swift was somehow a political winning strategy that was going to defeat — who? — Trump, who was speaking to people, who was speaking against wars. You know, whether we believe him or not, it was a marked difference from what Kamala Harris was saying and was not saying.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Fatima, you wrote a piece for Zeteo earlier this year titled “Gaza Has Exposed the Shameful Hypocrisy of Western Feminism.” So, you just mentioned the irony of Kamala Harris as, you know, the second presidential candidate who is a woman, where so much of the campaign was about women, and the fact that — you know, of what’s been unfolding on women, against women and children in Gaza for the last year. If you could elaborate?

FATIMA BHUTTO: Yeah, we’ve seen, Nermeen, over the last year, you know, 70 percent of those slaughtered in Gaza by Israel and, let’s also be clear, by America, because it’s American bombs and American diplomatic cover that allows this slaughter to continue unabated — 70 percent of those victims are women and children.

We have watched children with their heads blown off. We have watched children with no surviving family members find themselves in hospital with limbs missing. Gaza has the largest cohort of child amputees in the world. And we have seen newborns left to die as Israel switches off electricity and fuel of hospitals.

So, for Kamala Harris to come out and talk repeatedly about abortion, and I say this as someone who is pro-choice, who has always been pro-choice, was not just macabre, but it’s obscene. It’s an absolute betrayal of feminism, because feminism is about liberation. It’s not about termination.

And it’s about protecting women at their most vulnerable and at their most frightened. And there was no sign of that. You know, we also saw Kamala Harris bring out celebrities. I mean, the utter vacuousness of bringing out Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé and others to talk about being a mother, while mothers are being widowed, are being orphaned in Gaza, it was not just tone deaf, it seemed to have a certain hostility, a certain contempt for the suffering that the rest of us have been watching.

I’d also like to add a point about toxic masculinity. There was so much toxicity in Kamala Harris’s campaign. You know, I watched her laugh with Oprah as she spoke about shooting someone who might enter her house with a gun, and giggling and saying her PR team may not like that, but she would kill them.

You don’t need to be a man to practice toxic masculinity, and you don’t need to be white to practice white supremacy, as we’ve seen very clearly from this election cycle.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, Fatima Bhutto, if you look at what Trump represented, and certainly the Muslim American community, the Arab American community, Jewish progressives, young people, African-Americans certainly understood what Trump’s policy was when he was president.

And it’s rare, you know, a president comes back to serve again after a term away. It’s only happened once before in history.

But you have, for example, Trump moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. You have an illegal settlement named after Trump in the West Bank. The whole question of Netanyahu and his right-wing allies in Israel pushing for annexation of the West Bank, where Trump would stand on this.

And, of course, you have the Abraham Accords, which many Palestinians felt left them out completely. If you can talk about this? These were put forward by Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who, when the massive Gaza destruction was at its height, talked about Gaza as waterfront real estate.

FATIMA BHUTTO: Absolutely. There’s no question that Trump has been a malign force, not just when it concerns Palestinians, but, frankly, out in the world. But I would argue there’s not very much difference between what these two administrations or parties do. The difference is that Trump doesn’t have the gloss and the charisma of an Obama or — I mean, I can’t even say that Biden has charisma, but certainly the gloss.

Trump says it. They do it. The difference — I can’t really tell the difference anymore.

We saw the Biden administration send over 500 shipments of arms to Israel, betraying America’s own laws, the fact that they are not allowed to export weapons of war to a country committing gross violations of human rights. We saw Bill Clinton trotted out in Michigan to tell Muslims that, actually, they should stop killing Israelis and that Jews were there before them.

I mean, it was an utterly contemptuous speech. So, what is the difference exactly?

We saw Bernie Sanders, who was mentioned earlier, write an op-ed in The Guardian in the days before the election, warning people that if they were not to vote for Kamala Harris, if Donald Trump was to get in, think about the climate crisis. Well, we have watched Israel’s emissions in the first five months of their deadly attack on Gaza release more planet-warming gases into the atmosphere than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations release in a year.

So, I don’t quite see that there’s a difference between what Democrats allow and what Trump brags about. I think it’s just a question of crudeness and decorum and politeness. One has it, and one doesn’t. In a sense, Trump is much clearer for the rest of the world, because he says what he’s going to do, and, you know, you take him at his word, whereas we have been gaslit and lied to by Antony Blinken on a daily basis now since October 7th.

Every time that AOC or Kamala Harris spoke about fighting desperately for a ceasefire, we saw more carnage, more massacres and Israel committing crimes with total impunity. You know, it wasn’t under Trump that Israel has killed more journalists than have ever been killed in any recorded conflict. It’s under Biden that Israel has killed more UN workers than have ever been killed in the UN’s history. So, I’m not sure there’s a difference.

And, you know, we’ll have to wait to see in the months ahead. But I don’t think anyone is bracing for an upturn. Certainly, people didn’t vote for Kamala Harris. I’m not sure they voted for Trump. We know that she lost 14 million votes from Biden’s win in 2020. And we know that those votes just didn’t come out for the Democrats. Some may have migrated to Trump. Some may have gone to third parties. But 14 million just didn’t go anywhere.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Fatima, if you could, you know, tell us what do you think the reasons are for that? I mean, the kind of — as you said, because it is really horrifying, what has unfolded in Gaza in the last 13 months. You’ve written about this. You now have an edited anthology that you’re editing, co-editing. You know, what do you think accounts for this, the sheer disregard for the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza?

FATIMA BHUTTO: It’s a total racism on the part not just of America, but I’m speaking of the West here. This has been betrayed over the last year, the fact that Ukraine is spoken about with an admiration, you know, Zelensky is spoken about with a sort of hero worship, Ukrainian resisters to Russia’s invasion are valorised.

You know, Nancy Pelosi wore a bracelet of bullets used by the Ukrainian resistance against Trump [sic]. But Palestinians are painted as terrorists, are dehumanised to such an extent. You know, we saw that dehumanisation from the mouths of Bill Clinton no less, from the mouths of Kamala Harris, who interrupted somebody speaking out against the genocide, and saying, “I am speaking.”

What is more toxically masculine than that?

We’ve also seen a concerted crackdown in universities across the United States on college students. I’m speaking also here of my own alma mater of Columbia University, of Barnard College, that called the NYPD, who fired live ammunition at the students. You know, this didn’t happen — this extreme response didn’t happen in protests against apartheid. It didn’t happen in protests against Vietnam in quite the same way.

And all I can think is, America and the West, who have been fighting Muslim countries for the last 25, 30 years, see that as acceptable to do so. Our deaths are acceptable to them, and genocide is not a red line.

And, you know, to go back to what what was mentioned earlier about the working class, that is absolutely ignored in America — and I would make the argument across the West, too — they have watched administration after, you know, president and congressmen give billions and billions of dollars to Ukraine, while they have no relief at home.

They have no relief from debt. They have no relief from student debt. They have no medical care, no coverage. They’re struggling to survive. And this is across the board. And after Ukraine, they saw billions go to Israel in the same way, while they get, frankly, nothing.

AMY GOODMAN: Fatima Bhutto, we want to thank you so much for being with us, award-winning author of a number of works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Runaways and New Kings of the World, co-editing a book called Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, due out next year, writes a monthly column for Zeteo.

Coming up, we look at Trump’s vow to deport as many as 20 million immigrants and JD Vance saying, yes, US children born of immigrant parents could also be deported.

Republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Kamala is the In-Girl

B.R. Gowani — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 17:14:06 +0000

IMAGE/Monthly Review

The criteria for winning a presidential debate is very simple: the candidate who fumbles less, makes less mistakes, avoids too many verbal gaffes, etc., who is able to present a rosy picture for the future, and, who believes in people’s “ambition, the aspirations, [and] the dreams,” is the winner — provided all bullshitting is done with a serious face.

However, it’s entirely a different matter whether that person has any genuine solutions to the problems majority of the people face.

Exactly eight years ago, first time in US history of 240 years, a woman had a chance to reach the highest office — Hillary Clinton won popular votes by almost 3 million votes, but that rare opportunity was snatched away by the Electoral College. The victory went to Donald Trump, a slowly evolving fascist. It is to be remembered that Clinton was not that woman progressives have been waiting for.

This time, another woman, Kamala Harris, is in the race for presidency. Her opponent is none other than Trump. Harris was not in the competition but got her opportunity when the Democratic establishment realized, after the Biden/Trump debate, that the horse they have been trying to steady for three and a half years cannot any more stand on its own, and could give up any moment.

Thus, Joe Biden was pushed aside with a tribute that he left the race for a second term out of patriotic duty. Everyone knows that almost no one gives up power, whether s/he is an authoritarian or a “democrat,” without a rough push.

Kamala is the in-girl

Kamala is the in-girl — so many love and support her, not only most of the Democrats but also some prominent Republicans! Within 36 hours of Biden’s decision not to run, and his nominating of Harris as his successor, Harris campaign raised $100 million that jumped to $310 in less than two weeks, with new donors contributing two-thirds of the amount. By September 6, the number had nearly doubled to $615 million. Andrew Byrnes, a tech policy strategist and Harris fundraiser, said the amount he raised for Kamala in one week was double the amount he raised for Biden in a whole year.

In two months, the amount rose to $1 billion. No other presidential candidate has accumulated such a huge amount in such a short period!

Trump is no match for Harris in fundraising despite the fact that his campaign received $100 million from Miriam Adelson who likes Trump so much that she said “Book of Trump”¹ should be added to the Bible, i.e. the Old Testament. Trump allied PAC also got $150 million from Timothy Mellon. Trump’s equally nasty buddy Elon Musk has contributed $76 million.

Trump is the best thing that has happened to the Democratic Party. Most Democrats never tire of ridiculing him. This enables them and the Democrat-leaning news media to keep their supporters busy in Trump’s antics and eccentricities and thus saves the party from answering hard questions.

MSNBC is also known as MSDNC or Democratic National Committee mouthpiece. MSNBC is a cheerleader for the Democrats. Biden and Harris regularly watch MSNBC’s Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. “A Jacobin analysis of six months of its Gaza coverage reveals an unflagging role cheering on Israel’s genocide.”

Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder and billionaire, is backing Kamala because he wants to get rid of Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Billionaire Mark Cuban endorsed Harris too for the same reason: dump Khan.

Sheryl Sandberg is “thrilled to support” Kamala,² because

She is an accomplished leader, a fierce advocate of abortion rights, and the strongest candidate to lead our country forward.

Ron Conway, a billionaire, has asked tech community to join hands to salvage “our democracy” by getting behind Kamala, whom he has known “for decades” to prevent Trump’s reentry into White House. Conway says she is an “advocate for the tech ecosystem since the day we met.”

Melinda French Gates ($13 million), Reed Hastings (Netflix), George Soros and Alex Soros, Vinod Khosla, Jeffrey Katzenberg (former president of Walt Disney Studios), Bill Gates ($50 million), and other billionaires numbering 81 (or more) have joined the Kamala bandwagon, whereas, Trump has 52 billionaires with him.

Billionaires’ bribes count. Harris, who was with Biden’s plan of raising capital gains tax from 23.8% to 44.6%, opted for 33%, instead.

More than 90 business leaders, including over a dozen billionaires, wrote and signed an endorsement letter to Harris.

“Her election is the best way to support the continued strength, security, and reliability of our democracy and economy. … [She] ensure[s] American businesses can compete and win in the global market. … she will strive to give every American the opportunity to pursue the American dream.”

These billionaire and multimillionaire business people have nothing to do with democracy. The main thrust of the letter is US “businesses can compete and win in the global market,” under Harris, that is, the US government either diplomatically or through military force opens up foreign markets for them like US Commodore Matthew Perry forced Japan to open up for business in 1853. The other fallacy is that Kamala will try to provide people with “the opportunity to pursue the American dream.”

A few corporations are controlling most businesses in US. People are free to dream but whose dreams get realized is decided by the people in power.

Many US presidents, have warned about the increasing corporate power and its harmful effect on country. Thomas Jefferson had hoped in 1816 to “crush” the corporate power which was challenging government and defying laws. Instead the corporations crushed the government power and as journalist and novelist Theodore Dreiser puts it, “the corporations are the government.” (China is a capitalist country but the government controls the capitalists; this is anathema to the US; it wants China to go the US way.)

Women are elated with Harris entering the race for two main reasons: one is that someone from their gender has a chance to win and the other is Harris’ support for abortion. Sadly, most of these women have no Palestinian and Lebanese women and children on their mind.

Porn actors, some of them, are spending over $100,000 in seven swing states in support of Harris because they fear Trump presidency and Project 2025 will ban the porn industry. Harris should thank them but should ask them to stop violence and degradation of women in many of their videos.

Jeff Bridges extended his support to Kamala who is “just so certainly our girl.” He proudly proclaimed: “I’m white, I’m a dude, and I’m for Harris.” Bridges was a part of White Dudes for Harris Zoom call; over 180,000 joined in and raised about $4 million for her campaign. The invitation to join in was based on: “Are you a white guy who believes in science, human rights, and democracy?”

There have been several similar events: such as Latinas for Harris; White Women: Answer the Call; the Black Women Zoom; Caribbean-Americans for Harris; South Asian Women for Harris; Disabled Voters for Harris; Black Men for Harris; Win With Black Women; and South Asian Men for Harris.

Salman Rushdie, an author, joined the South Asian Men for Harris virtual meet and declared he’s in for Harris “1,000 per cent.”³ One could understand Rushdie’s worry as a writer because if Trump wins and turns dictator, of which there are great chances, then he and his ministers, like Elon Musk, won’t tolerate any kind of criticism. The Kamala government would let them write in small publications and press which have limited reach and do not disturb or threaten the ruling class and the system.

Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift is for Kamala too because “She is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.”

Billionaire Swift resides in her own bubble and is unaware that, until now the US has been led by calm leaders, but most people have achieved nothing but decline.

In 1982, when the Forbes 400 list was initiated, one could join the list with $100 million ($300 million in today’s money). There were only 13 billionaires then. Today, you need eleven times that amount or $3.3 billion to be one of 400 wealthy in US. So, 400 billionaires made it to the list but 415 individuals couldn’t make it, including Oprah Winfrey who has $3 billion, less than the required $3.3 billion.

What about the rest of the people? A whopping 37% of people in US have less than $400 in savings!

Singer-songwriter Beyonce joined Kamala at a rally in Houston to extend her support. Many celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eminem, Bruce Springsteen, Patti LaBelle, Jennifer Lopez, Jamie Lee Curtis, George Clooney,⁴ and Sarah Jessica Parker (who is voting for Kamala for 31 things, including “For our military, past and currently serving” but not for peace or ceasefire in Gaza).

Dick Cheney, the Vice President in George W. Bush regime and one of the major architects of the Iraq War, a Republican, has also announced that he’ll vote for Kamala Harris.

“[There had] never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump”

“He [Trump] tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him.” “He can never be trusted with power again.”

“As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our constitution.” “That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice-President Kamala Harris.”

Liz Cheney, a Republican and Dick Cheney’s daughter, supports Harris too, and joined her campaign events thrice in early October. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , the progressive supporters and Democrats like Harris, are campaigning for her but have not been invited to appear with Harris, as yet.

Liz Cheney criticized Trump: “He is petty, he is vindictive, and he is cruel.” If she had not mentioned Trump’s name, one would have assumed she was talking about her dad Dick Cheney who is not any better, in any respect, but is worst than Trump –until now. Liz Cheney also added: “Violence does not and must never determine who rules us. Voters do.”

Trump called Dick Cheney (whose approval rating, when he left office, was mere 13%) a “King of Endless, Nonsensical Wars,” and blasted both father- daughter duo on his TruthSocial account.

“… Her father, Dick, was a leader of our ridiculous journey into the Middle East, where Trillions of Dollars were spent, millions of people were killed – and for what? NOTHING! Well, today, these two fools, because the Republican Party no longer wants them, endorsed the most Liberal Senator in U.S. Senate, further Left than even Pocahontas or Crazy Bernie Sanders – Lyin’ Kamala Harris. What a pathetic couple that is, both suffering gravely from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Good Luck to them both!!!”

Trump is correct about Dick Cheney. He was George H.W. Bush’s Defense Secretary when US went to war against Iraq and destroyed that country. Dick Cheney was Vice President of Bush Jr., when US devastated Afghanistan in 2001, and again went to war against Iraq, in 2003.

Trump lies a great deal but then every now and then he also shows a mirror of the US empire, and its imperialist crimes. Trump once told Bill O’Reilly, “We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think — our country’s so innocent?” Or just recently he said: Trillions of Dollars were spent, millions of people were killed. Now this kind of talk can’t be conducive to people running the empire because they suffer from spectrophobia.

238 staffers from four previous Republican governments and many more, including John Negroponte, one of the criminal minds of US imperialism, endorsed Kamala. Barbara Pierce Bush (daughter of former Republican president George W. Bush) is supporting Kamala with the hope the US moves “forward and protect women’s rights.”

Why so many wealthy and powerful people have gotten behind Kamala? The reasons, as we have seen vary, but the most important one is that Kamala will maintain the statue quo. She’s not going to make any drastic changes, but just the cosmetic type.

On the other hand, many rich, and not very rich, in the ruling class are scared of Trump’s unpredictable nature. The wealthy class may benefit much more under Trump than under Harris. In 2017, Trump lowered the corporate tax rate from (Obama government’s) 35% to 21% and corporations benefited a lot. (Biden raised it to 28% and not the 35% it used to be during his vice presidency.)

Trump may concentrate on domestic issues rather than waging foreign wars; but, then if something triggers him, or he is incited by his aides, or perceives a threat from foreign leader(s), then he may go unhinged.

Biden praised Liz Cheney’s “courage” to appear with Harris. “I admire her. Her dad and I worked together a long, long time.” Biden, like Cheneys, loves violence and war. Republicans and Democrats working together can screw the people within and without the US. It becomes so much easier to wage a war against “foreign enemy” when both parties are working together.

Trump will probably do within the US, what the US has been doing to the world for several decades. He will unleash the army on his opponents and critics. Here is Trump:

“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within, Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our Country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”⁵

Irony

In 2021, Trump’s vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance had portrayed Vice President Kamala Harris and other women Democrats as, “a bunch of childless cat ladies miserable at their own lives.”

During the presidential debate in September 2024, Trump falsely charged Haitians residing in Springfield, Ohio, of “eating the dogs … the cats … the pets of the people that live there.”

On October 31, Trump said “Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I am going to protect them.”

On October 27, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made racist fun of Latino people by saying “These Latinos, they love making babies,” he called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage,” and repeated the lie about Haitians eating pets.

Donald Trump and his team, it seems, is striving to lose the election. Despite that, the polls show a tight race between Trump and Harris.

On Harris’ side, she is careful but had to distance herself from Biden telling Latinos “The only garbage I see floating out there is his [Trump] supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.” Harris has yet to comment on former president Bill Clinton‘s “racist Michigan speech” as Sanjana Karanth puts it. Bill Clinton said:

“I understand why young Palestinian and Arab Americans in Michigan think too many people have died — I get that, but…” “Hamas makes sure that they’re shielded by civilians, they’ll force you to kill civilians, if you want to defend yourself.”

Harris is very popular, was able to amass great amount of money, got lot of support but somehow the polls — which may be wrong , as often happens — are not favoring her. Who knows, as investigative reporter Dave Lindorff points out, Harris could win if she gets “secret women’s vote” in rural Pennsylvania similar to what happened in Kansas in 2022 regarding the banning of abortion referendum. Julia Roberts encouraged women to exercise their right to choose, within the privacy of the election booth:

This is an election where voters will decide between possible drastic changes that result in fascism, versus, maintaining the unjust pro-war inegalitarian status quo.

However, those who are fed up with the two main lesser and greater evils, there are two other candidates to choose from who are anti-war and pro-common people: Jill Stein of Green Party and Claudia De la Cruz of Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL).⁶

ENDNOTES:

The post Kamala is the In-Girl first appeared on Dissident Voice.

1 Miriam Adelson wrote in her paper Israel Hayom: “Would it be too much to pray for a day when the Bible gets a ‘Book of Trump,’ much like it has a ‘Book of Esther’ celebrating the deliverance of the Jews from ancient Persia? “Until that is decided, let us, at least, sit back and marvel at this time of miracles for Israel, for the United States, and for the whole world.”

2 In June 2024, Kamala Harris joined by Sandberg screened Sandberg’s documentary Screams Before Silence at the White House. The film was about alleged rapes by Hamas members — a long debunked theory. See Briahna Joy Gray’s detailed expose about the entire issue.

3 Once accepted by US mainstream, which Rushdie has been, he toned down or ignored the crimes of the US, and its ally, Israel. There was a time when Rushdie was for the Palestinian cause; he interviewed Professor Edward Said, the most prominent Palestinian in the Western world then. Last year, Rushdie repeated the Western line of argument labeling Hamas “as a “terrorist organization.” One should have asked Rushdie as to how the occupied people should fight their occupiers.

4 In March 2012, George Clooney was arrested in Washington DC while protesting in front of Sudan’s embassy for violence in South Sudan. He then boasted: “We are the antigenocide paparazzi.” But nowadays Clooney is careful what he says: “I’m very careful not to use words like genocide, occupation, colonialism, open-air prisons — despite believing they do accurately describe what’s happening in Gaza. Those put a target on your back. I also don’t use the word unprovoked. A lot of people say October 7 was “unprovoked.” Well, it’s a massive chicken-and-egg situation, this back-and-forth. Also, I didn’t know the word cease-fire would be such a problem! I would hope we don’t want wars!”

5 See “Making America Great, Again? Racism, Poverty, Violence…“

6 See also “A Moral Imperative for the 2024 US Elections.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

Seven Pacific no votes in ‘historic’ UN General Assembly demand for swift end to Israeli occupation

APR editor — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 23:20:19 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding that the Israeli government end its occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months — but half of the countries that voted against are from the Pacific.

Affirming a recent International Court of Justice opinion that deemed the decades-long occupation unlawful, the opposition from seven Pacific nations further marginalised the region from world opinion against Israel.

Earlier this week several UN experts and officials warned against Israel becoming a global “pariah” state over its almost year-long genocidal war on Gaza.

The final vote tally was 124 member states in favour and 14 against, with 43 nations abstaining.

Pacific countries that voted with Israel and its main ally and arms-supplier United States against the Palestinian resolution are Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Tonga and Tuvalu.

Kiribati, Samoa and Vanuatu abstained while Solomon islands voted yes. Australia abstained while New Zealand and Timor-Leste also supported the resolution.

Pacific countries have been the target of an Israeli diplomatic, aid and media influence push in recent years.

The Palestine-led resolution, co-sponsored by dozens of nations, calls on Israel to swiftly withdraw “all its military forces” from Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Palestine is a permanent observer state at the UN and it described the vote as “historic”.

Devastating war
Like the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion in July, which found the occupation “unlawful”, the resolution is not legally binding but carries considerable political weight.

The court’s opinion had been sought in a 2022 request from the UN General Assembly.

The UNGA vote comes amid Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, which has killed more than 41,250 Palestinians.

The United Kingdom, which recently suspended some arms export licenses for Israel, abstained from yesterday’s vote, a decision that the advocacy group Global Justice Now (GJN) said shows “complete disregard for the ongoing suffering of Palestinians forced to live under military-enforced racial discrimination”.

However, other US allies such as France voted for the resolution. Australia, Germany, Italy and Switzerland abstained but Ireland, Spain and Norway supported the vote.

“The vast majority of countries have made it clear: Israel’s occupation of Palestine must end, and all countries have a definite duty not to aid or assist its continuation,” said GJN’s Tim Bierley.

“To stay on the right side of international law, the UK’s dealings with Israel must drastically change, including closing all loopholes in its partial arms ban and revoking any trade or investment relations that might assist the occupation.”

NEWS: UN General Assembly adopts resolution demanding that Israel brings to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory without delay and within the next 12 months.https://t.co/Vj0Ve1lLBi pic.twitter.com/2rKKvDNDqd

— United Nations (@UN) September 18, 2024

BDS welcomes vote
The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement welcomed passage of the resolution, noting that the UN General Assembly had voted “for the first time in 42 years” in favour of “imposing sanctions on Israel”, reports Common Dreams.

The resolution specifically calls on all UN member states to “implement sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against natural and legal persons engaged in the maintenance of Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, including in relation to settler violence.”

The resolution’s passage came nearly two months after the ICJ, or World Court, the UN’s highest legal body, handed down an advisory opinion concluding that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal and must end “as rapidly as possible.”

The newly approved resolution states that “respect for the International Court of Justice and its functions . . . is essential to international law and justice and to an international order based on the rule of law.”

The Biden administration, which is heavily arming the Israeli military as it assails Gaza and the West Bank, criticised the ICJ’s opinion as overly broad.

Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement that “the Biden administration should join the overwhelming majority of nations around the world in condemning these crimes against the Palestinian people, demanding an end to the occupation, and exerting serious pressure on the Israeli government to comply”.

“We welcome this UN resolution demanding an end to one of the worst and ongoing crimes against humanity of the past century,” said Awad.

The UN General Assembly votes for the end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and for sanctions . . . an overwhelming “yes”. Image: Anadolu/Common Dreams

Turning ‘blind eye’
Ahead of the vote, a group of UN experts said in a statement that many countries “appear unwilling or unable to take the necessary steps to meet their obligations” in the wake of the ICJ’s opinion.

“Devastating attacks on Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territory show that by continuing to turn a blind eye to the horrific plight of the Palestinian people, the international community is furthering genocidal violence,” the experts said.

“States must act now. They must listen to voices calling on them to take action to stop Israel’s attacks against the Palestinians and end its unlawful occupation.

“All states have a legal obligation to comply with the ICJ’s ruling and must promote adherence to norms that protect civilians.”

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and subsequently annexed the entire holy city in 1980, reports Al Jazeera.

International law prohibits the acquisition of land by force.

Israel has also been building settlements — now home to hundreds of thousands of Israelis — in the West Bank in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which bans the occupying power from transferring “parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

CPJ, partners call for swift trial after ex-governor surrenders over Philippine journalist’s murder

Committee to Protect Journalists — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 19:14:57 +0000

New York, September 11, 2024—A coalition of three international press freedom organizations on Wednesday called for a swift and impartial trial after fugitive ex-governor Joel T. Reyes surrendered to authorities in connection with the 2011 murder of Philippine broadcast journalist Gerry Ortega.

“This is long overdue. Former governor Joel T. Reyes has evaded justice for more than 13 years, there must be a swift and impartial trial now without any further delay,” said the coalition, consisting of Free Press Unlimited (FPU), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), in a statement.

“We hope this new development brings justice a step closer for the Ortega family and call on the Philippine authorities to do everything they can to ensure justice is delivered for this senseless murder. The international community will be watching the trial closely, as the Ortega murder is emblematic of the entrenched impunity in media killings in the Philippines.”

Ortega, an environmental journalist based on the island of Palawan in the Philippines, reported on corruption within the administration of ex-Palawan governor Reyes before he was murdered in 2011. Reyes had been in hiding despite an arrest warrant issued against him in 2023.

Reyes’ surrender came after a successful legal bid to have his trial transferred to a court in Quezon City, near the capital Manila. The Ortega family had wanted the trial to stay in Palawan, but a Philippine court recently rejected the family’s legal plea. No date has been fixed for the start of the Reyes trial in Quezon City.

The three press freedom groups, who together form the ‘A Safer World for the Truth’ initiative, met with the Philippine authorities in Manila earlier this year to present new leads that could lead to the arrest of Reyes. The coalition has investigated the Ortega case since 2020 which showed damning evidence of Reyes’ role in the journalist’s murder. Since 1992, 96 journalists have been killed in connection with their work in the Philippines.

###

Spokespeople are available for interviews in English:

Free Press Unlimited (Amsterdam): Jos Bartman bartman@freepressunlimited.org

Committee to Protect Journalists (Frankfurt/New York): Beh Lih Yi, lbeh@cpj.org; press@cpj.org

Reporters Without Borders (Taipei/Paris): Aleksandra Bielakowska, abielakowska@rsf.org

###

A Safer World For The Truth is a collaboration between Free Press Unlimited (FPU), Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). We investigate murders through a series of cold case investigations to push for justice on the national level, and we organize the People’s Tribunal on the Murder of Journalists to put a spotlight on states’ obligation to protect journalists and to investigate all attacks against them. To learn more about the project, visit our website https://www.saferworldforthetruth.com/.

Please see A Safer World for the Truth report about Gerry Ortega’s case published in 2022.

About the partners:

Free Press Unlimited (FPU): Free Press Unlimited is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Free Press Unlimited helps local journalists in conflict areas to provide their audience with independent news and reliable information. The information that people need to survive and give shape to their own future. – freepressunlimited.org

Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ): The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. Based in New York, we defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal. – cpj.org

Reporters Without Borders – known internationally as Reporters sans frontières (RSF) – is an international non-profit organisation at the forefront of the defence and promotion of freedom of information. RSF acts globally for the freedom, pluralism, and independence of journalism and defends those who embody those ideals. Recognised as a public interest organisation in France since 1995, RSF has consultative status with the United Nations, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and the International Organisation of the Francophonie (OIF). Founded in 1985 and headquartered in Paris, RSF has 13 country sections and bureaus, including a bureau in Taipei and section in Berlin, and a network of correspondents in more than 130 countries. – rsf.org

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Did Taylor Swift say the US couldn’t prevent an invasion of Taiwan? | Radio Free Asia (RFA)

Radio Free Asia — Thu, 16 May 2024 14:49:14 +0000

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

Edge of Sports: Hold On, Not So Swift

Dave Zirin — Wed, 08 May 2024 00:14:02 +0000

The far-right has bad blood with pop star Taylor Swift and her football-playing, pro-vax beau. Whose side is the NFL on?

This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Dave Zirin.

Blinken buys Taylor Swift LP during China visit | Radio Free Asia (RFA)

Radio Free Asia — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 20:02:10 +0000

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

U.S. Secretary of State Blinken meets with Xi, buys Taylor Swift LP | Radio Free Asia (RFA)

Radio Free Asia — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 19:31:53 +0000

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

In Denver, e-bike vouchers run out as fast as Taylor Swift tickets

Gabriela Aoun Angueira — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 08:45:00 +0000

At 11 a.m. on the last Wednesday of February, Denver opened the first application window of the year for its e-bike rebate program, which offers residents upfront rebates of $300 to $1,400 for a battery-powered bicycle. Within three minutes, all of the vouchers for low and moderate income applicants had been claimed. By 11:08 a.m., the rebates for everyone else were gone too, and the portal closed.

Even in its third year, Denver’s ambitious campaign to get residents to swap some of their driving for riding remains as popular as ever. “It’s exciting that people are really interested in this technology,” Mike Salisbury, the city’s transportation energy lead, told Grist. “Every trip we can convert to an e-bike will be a big climate win.”

Transportation is among the biggest sources, if not the biggest source, of a city’s carbon emissions. To cut that footprint, officials often turn to costly, intensive transit projects and building out electric vehicle infrastructure. Denver is doing those things, but also propping up smaller forms of mobility. It spent more than $7.5 million in just two years on e-bike vouchers, supporting the purchase of nearly 8,000 of the battery-powered bicycles, which can zip along at up to 28 mph, power up hills, and carry passengers or cargo.

“We’re just very bullish on e-bikes,” said Salisbury. “They have this huge potential to replace vehicle trips.”

The vouchers are saving some 170,000 miles in car trips per week and around 3,300 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, according to the city. Its Office of Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency calls it “one of the most effective climate strategies that the city and county of Denver has deployed to date.”

There are about 160 of these incentive programs across the U.S. and Canada, and while Denver wasn’t the first to implement one, the size and success of its undertaking has attracted the attention of other governments and utilities. Congress is taking note as well: California Representative Jimmy Panetta reintroduced the federal Electric Bicycle Incentive Kickstart for the Environment Act, or E-BIKE Act, which would offer a 30 percent federal tax credit for e-bike purchases, last year.

Funded through a voter-approved $40 million Climate Protection Fund, which directs a portion of the city’s sales tax toward decarbonization initiatives, the program offers income-based rebates that can be redeemed at designated bike shops. Providing the discount at the register helps those who might otherwise be unable to afford the upfront cost, which typically begins around $1,200 and can reach several thousand dollars.

Residents making less than 60 percent of the area median income of around $52,000 can get $1,200 for a standard e-bike and $1,400 for a cargo model (useful for carrying gear, making deliveries, or hauling kids). Moderate-income recipients receive between $700 or $900, and everyone else can get $300 or $500. Online applications open several times each year and vouchers are offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

Denver residents redeem the rebates of $300 to $1,400 directly at designated bike shops, alleviating the need to make a hefty upfront payment. Hyoung Chang / The Denver Post via Getty Images

The goal is to reduce emissions from the transportation sector, Denver’s second-largest contributor of greenhouse gases, by targeting short vehicle trips. According to Salisbury, 44 percent of residents’ trips are under 5 miles and most are under 10, feasible distances to travel on an e-bike.

“E-bikes aren’t going to replace every single trip for every single person,” he said. “But there’s this huge potential to replace, especially in an urban environment, shorter distance trips that someone is making by themselves. Or they can use an e-cargo bike to take their kids to school.”

That’s one of the many ways Jeff Gonzales, a marketing professional and father living near the University of Denver, uses the power-assisted bike that he bought two years ago with the help of a voucher.

At the time, Gonzales drove a customized Toyota Tacoma pickup. “It was awesome, but it was a gas guzzler,” he told Grist. Gas was so expensive that he and his wife were trying to minimize their driving as much as possible. But their two toddlers were getting too heavy to tow with the family’s bike trailer, affectionately called “the chariot.” When an employee at his local bike shop mentioned the rebates for power-assisted bicycles, he decided to take one for a test ride.

“I was like, ‘This is pretty cool,’ and then I asked them, ‘Can I hook the chariot behind it?’ They said ‘Absolutely.’” Gonzales sold his truck, applied for a voucher, and bought the bike. He began riding it to the grocery store, taking the kids to school, and even making the 24-mile round-trip commute to his office twice a week.

“That first summer we had it, I think there were times that we didn’t get in the car for about two weeks at a time,” he said.

After selling his pickup truck, Jeff Gonzales began using an e-bike to take his kids to school and commute to work. Courtesy of the City of Denver / Jeff Gonzales

In a 2023 survey of voucher recipients, 43 percent of respondents cited commuting as their primary reason for getting an e-bike, and 84 percent said the machines replaced at least one vehicle trip per week. The city estimates that recipients are eliminating a weekly average of 21 miles in their cars.

Commuting on two wheels often allows riders to avoid traffic or take more direct routes than those offered by public transit. “People are sharing feedback with us on how it’s enabled them to get to their job much faster, easier, at a much lower cost, without having to make two or three transit transfers to get to a place,” said Salisbury.

Gonzales said he often finds biking to work quicker, but even when the ride doesn’t save time, it’s more enjoyable. “It sucks to sit in traffic,” he said. “I’d rather be moving on a bike, and if I get tired, I can increase the power level, but I’m still moving.”

The clean energy nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute, or RMI, found that if the country’s 10 most populous cities shifted a quarter of all short vehicle trips to e-bike rides, they could save 4.2 million barrels of oil and 1.8 million metric tons of CO2 in one year. That’s the equivalent of taking four natural gas plants offline. As an added bonus, those riders also would save a combined total of $91 million per month in avoided fuel and vehicle maintenance costs, according to RMI.

But a recent study from Valdosta State University and Portland State University questions the cost effectiveness of achieving greenhouse gas emissions this way. “Even when e-bike incentive programs are designed cost-effectively,” the authors concluded, “the costs per ton of CO2 reduced still far exceed those of alternatives or reasonable social costs of GHG emissions.” A rebate program can still be beneficial, the study concludes, but may need to be justified through its additional benefits, like promoting exercise and relieving traffic congestion.

Salisbury said the report’s critique overlooks how cities must tackle emissions in multiple ways. “There are lots of other things the city is working on, like building bus rapid transit and other infrastructure, but those take a long time,” he said. “If we want to see reductions as soon as possible, we need to look at programs that can contribute to that right away.”

Swiftie Nonsense Down Under

Binoy Kampmark — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 10:33:11 +0000

Gaza. Palestinians. Israel. Genocide. Taylor Swift? This odd cobbling of words is the extent celebrities make a mockery of serious conversation, even in such middle-brow outlets as Australia’s Radio National. Admittedly, it was breakfast, and the presenter a seasoned impressionist of journalism, but surely listeners did not have to know that Swift’s private jet had just arrived in Melbourne, making it an occasion of national significance?

Ground had already been tilled, and seeds scattered, by desperate academics keen to draw gold dust from the Swift worship machine at Melbourne’s Swiftposium 2024. Seriousness was not the order of the day and papers such as “Taylor Swift and the Nuremberg Effect on Teenage Girls” were never going to feature on any panels. Instead, it was an event to give academic circuitry – and sophistry – its deservedly bad name. “We thought we’d be having a small conference with 50 researchers in two rooms in our Faculty,” remarked Eloise Faichney, chair of the Swiftposium Steering Committee. “Then, when we ended up in publications like Rolling Stone and The Guardian, demand from the academic community to take part was like nothing I’ve ever seen before for an academic conference.” Faichney evidently knows little about the bandwagon effect of the academic scavenger, always engaged in a futile quest to find false novelty among the same bones of an argument.

And they were not the only ones. Members of the fourth estate, and many offshoots of that once revered profession, have fallen for the Swiftian rhetoric, be it in terms of the harmony effect or economic stimulus. Forget monetary or fiscal policy; get Swift to do a tour and she will add tens of millions of dollars to the country’s cash registers. Take, for instance, the following, near shameful selection of predicted returns, which the Australian historian, Humphrey McQueen, valuably gathers for us: the Australian Financial Review, A$140 million; the Daily Telegraph, A$130 million to New South Wales; the Herald-Sun, a staggering, fanciful A$1.2 billion for the state of Victoria alone.

A less noted fact is that the Swift phenomenon is costly, inflationary and exploitative. As The Daily Telegraph reported in January, airlines such as Virgin, Qantas and Jetstar were all cashing in on spiked prices, hoping to squeeze every little bit of cash from passengers, Swifties or otherwise. A one-way flight from Brisbane to Sydney with Jetstar would cost anywhere between A$399 to A$460 on the planned Sydney tour date on February 23, as compared to A$92 to A$123 the week prior. Hotels were hardly going to miss out either on the lucrative bonanza: the Marriott Sydney Harbour’s prices, for instance, rising from the pre-Swift level of $A589 to an unforgivable $A1039.

All of this served as the teaser for Swift’s mid-February arrival. Bulletins, even of such self-professed, serious news hounds as those at the twenty-four-hour ABC network, would furnish updates on the songstress’s movements. Every banal detail became significant, the fans worthy of top billing as interviewees.

Political maturity and cultivated disinterestedness also went out the window, expelled with glee. Here was a chance to get close to the phenomenon and cultivate voters – current and future – and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was not going to miss out. In an interview with Hit WA FM, he professed his delight and anticipation in attending one of Swift’s shows. “I am going to Tay Tay,” he sighed. In cringingly shallow fashion and for pure effect, he even suggested that opposition leader Peter Dutton might have a preference for the Canadian rock band Nickelback, a truly wicked contrast. “Or, the angry death metal stuff.”

Newspapers such as The Guardian Australia even urged the PM to get with the Swift program, as her “ubiquity in a fragmented world might carry some broader lessons for a man with a more modest megaphone at his disposal.” She offers, for instance, lessons in collaboration. She had “used her fame to build a network of grassroots support that has its own power, energy and agency.” And, in case you were not listening, Mr Albanese, she offered a “sense of shared joy” instead of privileging conflict.

On the other side of this gushing sludge, the Swift phenomenon manifests as a brooding presence for reactionaries worried that her influence is clandestine and planned by a politburo central committee. Or, perhaps, the Pentagon. Steady yourself, warn the likes of Jesse Watters of Fox: he has evidence that “the Pentagon psychological-operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset.” In some GOP circles, the singer is a deeply embedded psyop with collusion from the NFL. The lunacy comes full circle and Swift is very happy to tease it, telling The Washington Post in 2022 that she, and her legion of fans, have “descended into color coding, numerology, word searches, elaborate hints, and Easter eggs.” Threatening stuff.

This Styrofoam performer, this master of magisterial vacuity, who is all machine, promotion and blare, has perfected the insubstantial, promoted a competent formula and boosted it. In some ways, she has the hallmarks of Tony Blair and the New Labour experiment: start solidly, proclaim a genre, an ideology – then subvert it, discarding most of it on the way. Sincerity evaporates in the heat of its confection. Her success lies in her ability – and that of the Swift dissemination army – to mobilise the image of Swift. Everything else is just costumery, flying private jets, victimising people who monitor her flight paths, and being given stock market advice by Daddy.

The post Swiftie Nonsense Down Under first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Illuminati Rejoice as Demons and Taylor Swift Win Super Bowl

Abby Zimet — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:26:34 +0000

Dear Lord. A blasphemous Super Bowl just broke right-wing brains: Team Soros beat Team Jesus. They sang a Black national anthem, Travis wore a sparkly outfit, Usher danced in a Satanic pit, "pure evil" Pfizer ran an ad, woke Jesus ads preached tolerance - "This feet-washing is heresy" - and the "Aryan goddess" was exposed as a beer-chugging, demon-calling, child-blood-drinking Pentagon psy-op who rigged the game with her vax-shilling boyfriend to elect Biden and beget End Times. Truly, the righteous lament.

The right has, of course, been melting down for a while over the pop megastar. Their multi-pronged "holy war" on one of the most successful musicians of all time makes as much sense as all their other cultural crusades against often iconic scapegoats - Disney, Target, Bud Light, Major League Baseball and more recently the life-saving Pfizer - proving, writes one sage, "The culture MAGA Republicans are at war with is America." In Swift's case, their unhinged choice of target is both deeply perplexing and entirely understandable: An uber-successful, wildly popular, young, independent, attractive, forceful woman who in a 17-year career has built an empire worth over $1 billion - and responded to the loss of control of her music by re-recording it over time while also putting out new music - has to be a huge threat to the fragile egos of countless American men. And that was before her three-hour, global Eras Tour that crashed Ticketmaster when it sold 2 million tickets in a day and is now on track for a record-setting $1 billion in sales, more than 42 nations' yearly economic output.

There's also her record-smashing Eras concert film, her declaration of solidarity that the tour, Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour and Greta Gerwig’s "Barbie" rendered last summer "a three-part..feminine extravaganza," the fact a class at Harvard about her music that reportedly compared her to Wordsworth is one of at least 10 schools that include her in their curriculum, and her choice as Time's Person of the Year, complete with gushing accolades: "Her celebrity, which emits so much light it can be blinding, is without contemporary precedent...She has harnessed the power of the media (to) create (a) narrative world in which her music is just one piece in an interactive, shape-shifting story." Guess who was pissed? The forever narcissistic Bad Orange Guy fumed it "obviously" made no sense she, not he, was chosen; he also babbled that if Swift didn't support him she would be "disloyal to the man who made her so much money" after the the J6 Rioter Choir's biggest fan cluelessly signed an act upgrading copyright protections which Congress passed while he was golfing.

Swift has shied away from overt politics - and hasn’t endorsed Biden yet - but she's supported LGBTQ and abortion rights and decried Trump as a wannabe "autocrat." Most perniciously, she's urged her 279 million Instagram followers to vote and (gasp) posted a link to Vote.org; it prompted a huge rise in registrations, especially from 18-year-olds. Given her vast influence - and the fact of 41 million Gen Z voters, 8 million first-timers - GOP operatives are freaking their only Big Names are...Kid Rock? Lauren Boebert? Ted Nugent? And, for broken Steve Bannon, Mr. Pillow: "They hate Mike Lindell so much because of (what) he says as the apostle of the stolen election." No wonder they've desperately pivoted to the bonkers Swift-as-Pentagon-asset narrative. "I wonder who got to her?" muses Jesse Waters, who notes she "might not even know she’s being utilized in a covert manner to swing voters" before turning to a Tucker trick. "There is very slim evidence, but we're curious." When Waters asks a fellow-traveling FBI agent, "Is this feasible?" he shakes his head in despair. We know how he feels.

Still, forget the Pentagon; we should worry about Satan. Bewailing, "We have had enough of Taylor Swift," extremist Christians are so sure she's summoning demons on the Eras Tour they have a petition asking her to please stop even if she's only doing it by accident, which alas is "sort of irrelevant to the demons." Nashville "exorcist" Father Dan Reehil cites Swift's song Willow, which she's actually said is like "casting a spell to make someone fall in love with you," plus she and the dancers dress in black capes with orbs, which is just like witchcraft. Even if she's unaware, Reehil says, she's "probably attracting a lot of demons to her concerts," and fans should know the spiritual danger they face. "You have these little girls who literally worship her (and) could be attacked by demonic forces...I would say don't do it." Other believers are suitably horrified, especially since "the demons get angry every time you mention God." Said one who'd seen concert video. "Nope! Get that evil out of here!" Then again, a fan posted, "Yes! Summon the demons, bitch!" And JoeMyGod argues, "Shes not summoning demons - just voters."

Still, it got worse. Having desecrated Time Magazine, capitalism, autocracy and God, Swift moved on to football, using her unholy tricks (and probably a black dress) to seduce popular if vaccinated Kansas City Chiefs' tight end Travis Kelce. Fox heads exploded: See? Life is all just a deep-state, Soros-funded, pedophiles-in-a-pizza-parlor conspiracy where agents of shadow forces control the world and the cute, young, commie, talented people get all the good stuff. And they don't even have hats: "No wonder MAGA sad." David Letterman called the giddy couple "a lovely thing...a glowing, bright light of goodness in the world." As is their wont and chosen task, ugly, envious, small-minded MAGA seethed, especially when the Chiefs made it to the Super Bowl: "NFL is totally RIGGED for the Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift, Mr. Pfizer to spread DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA. It’s all been an op since day one." Their "limply misogynist" rage was so over-the-top - she's homely! she's encouraging women not to get married! - even a Fox sports host had to ask all the "sad guys" she'd never pay attention to, "What does this say about your life?"

Colin Cowherd’s message to those bothered by Taylor Swift’s NFL presence www.youtube.com

What it says about Kelce's life is that he got a massive PR boost, and Swifties made sales of his jersey spike by 400%. By all accounts he's a middle-of-the-road guy who supports Black Lives Matter, both the 2nd Amendment and common-sense gun laws, and Biden for "trying to bring people together and find solutions to the challenges we face as a country." But because he once appeared in a Pfizer ad promoting the COVID vaccine, to MAGA lunatics he's "a guy who gets paid millions of dollars a year to throw a ball around while promoting poison death shots." Rumble host Stew Peters went further, as he often does, calling for
Swift and Kelce’s execution because the ad was "leading people to their slaughter." Besides, scoffed another MAGA mastermind, "Major league sports itself is nothing but a psy-op, with kids plugging into the cycle of going to indoctrination camps." The idiocy astounds: One more time, in one inept swing, the right wing picks a fight with all that America holds dear: Its most popular singer, sport, sports event and TV show of the year.

Leading to Sunday's game, the rancor feverishly notched up from The Federalist's 2,500-word manifesto, "Taylor Swift’s Popularity Is A Sign Of Societal Decline." Laura Loomer, Stephen Miller, End of Wokeness ominously raved: "If you don’t think the regime has plans to weaponize her for 2024, you haven't been paying attention," her rise is "not organic," her "cult-like following” (LOL) will "drink poisoned Kool Aid for her,“ "Please don't listen to everything she says." Madman Jack Posobiec: "The Taylor Swift girlboss psyop has been fully activated," from her "vaccine shill boyfriend" to her "2024 voter operation, it’s all coming." Then, "THE CHILDLESS, UNMARRIED ABORTION ARMY MOBILIZED BY BARBIE, TAYLOR SWIFT AND TIKTOK (Is) CRUSHING REPUBLICANS. This is what happens when we cede culture to the Left." Snarked one skeptic on the impressively Byzantine plot of Swift hooking up with Kelce to rig the playoffs to help Biden: "That’s where we shine. We can’t get free healthcare but perfectly execute a Riddler-esque conspiracy to ruin a football game."

And so she did. Once Swift made the much-scrutinized, planet-warming trek from Tokyo to Las Vegas, right-wing critics turned the game into "rage-bait," grousing about every political or cultural grievance they could find or manufacture. When Kelce paraded in wearing a glittering, $3,000 Amiri outift: "Straight men do not dress like this." When Andrea Day sang "Lift Every Voice and Sing," known as the Black National Anthem - added to Reba McEntire's national anthem and Post Malone's "America the Beautiful" - Matt Gaetz shrieked they were "desecrating" something and told his "wife" they weren't watching the game. When a Pfizer ad touted their cancer research, it was (falsely) argued of their vaccines: "Cancers up EVERYWHERE...These people are pure evil." When Kelce yelled at the coach, belying his "golden retriever" boyfriend" rep: "Vaxxed out of his mind. That's what happens when you wash down your 7th Pfizer jab with Bud Light." When Swift drank a beer, which no one has ever done at a football game: "We don’t need to be glorifying public intoxication," and she was "pounding beers with Satanists."

Who were, it turns out, everywhere. She wore red - not for the Saints, but for her Child Blood Drinking Cabal - and had fun, always suspicious. Usher - shirtless - danced in a fire pit with Illuminati sun symbolism. And her rapper friend Ice Spice - not a drink at Starbucks - was clearly "throwing up demonic signs" by making "devil horns" with her hands while wearing a Satanic upside-down cross and all black in a sinister representation of "the next celebrity to go down a dark road": "Demon summoning," wrote a former Fox producer. "God rebuke the evil and witchcraft of this generation...It’s all spiritual warfare." Also, the ads for He Gets Us, from the phobic Hobby Lobby, showed a woke Jesus washing the feet of several "others" - a black man, a pro-choice activist - and asked, "How can we do the same?", thus definitively proving - along with how the 49ers were way ahead but they kept counting the points so the other team won - "the Super Bowl is nothing but a major Satanic ritual" and "Progressivism will hollow out your religion and wear its skin like a trophy." And then came Dark Brandon, gloating, "Just like we drew it up." Damn. Lucifer wins again.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

Regarding Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and Thorazine Shortages

Thomas Knapp — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 06:54:40 +0000

Photograph Source: Paolo V – CC BY 2.0

The fix, it seems, is in — for both Super Bowl LVIII and the 2024 presidential election.

MAGA media are alight with claims (or, in some cases, mere “just asking questions” trolling) about a plot to use a Kansas City Chiefs win in the former to amp up a Joe Biden endorsement from an “artificially culturally propped-up couple” (per Republican presidential also-ran Vivek Ramaswamy) in the latter.

No, I’m not kidding. Real people are really pushing this.

I’m far from personally immune to the allure “conspiracy theories.” For example, I’m pretty sure US government actors participated in a conspiracy to assassinate JFK, and I doubt that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself.

But this one has me finally starting to understand a weird 21st-century youth expression: “I can’t even …”

Consider, for starters, Ramaswamy’s “artificially culturally propped-up couple” musing.

Taylor Swift released her eponymous debut album (about six million copies sold) in 2006. She picked up her first Grammy nomination in 2008. She’s won a total of 12 Grammys, sold more than 200 million albums, and recorded more Number One albums than any woman in history. She’s basically the most popular person in the world, and the Democratic National Committee didn’t engineer that popularity. Nor, for the most part, has she ever been a very “political” celebrity.

Travis Kelce was drafted by the Chiefs in 2013 and has since become the greatest tight end in NFL history. He’s broken numerous records individually, in cahoots with quarterback Patrick Mahomes, and as part of a team that’s on its way to its fourth Super Bowl in five years. He’ll be a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee when the time comes for that. The only even moderately “political” endorsement I can think of that he’s ever publicly made was for a COVID-19 vaccine also heartily endorsed by … wait for it … Donald Trump, who takes credit for its development at every opportunity.

Politics didn’t make these two popular and well-known. They accomplished that themselves. Even if Joe Biden needs them, they don’t need him. But if they want a reason to endorse Biden, the MAGA weirdos are giving them one in the form of truly next-level wingnuttery.

A better idea:

Swift and Kelce are natural-born American citizens whose 35th birthdays fall before January 20, 2025. Instead of them endorsing Biden, maybe he should endorse THEM as the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential ticket. Right after the Chiefs win the Super Bowl. As, assuming it’s not rigged, they shall.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Thomas Knapp.

Extreme heat led to a Taylor Swift fan’s death in Brazil. Could it have been prevented?

Akielly Hu — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 09:30:00 +0000

Taylor Swift’s show at an open-air stadium in Rio de Janeiro this past Friday was supposed to be a raucous kickoff to the pop star’s first concert tour in Brazil. Instead, fans across the world were left reeling after a concertgoer died from extreme heat minutes into Swift’s Eras Tour performance.

23-year-old Ana Clara Benevides Machado traveled 880 miles and waited in line outside for more than eight hours, along with tens of thousands of other fans, to see her favorite artist. That day, the heat index, or “feels-like” temperature accounting for humidity, soared to an all-time high of 138 degrees Fahrenheit in Rio. Brazil was sweltering through its eighth heatwave of the year — and it’s only spring. More than 1,000 people fainted from heat exhaustion inside the venue; others were vomiting.

Benevides lost consciousness just minutes into the set, during the song “Cruel Summer,” and later died of cardiac arrest at a nearby hospital.

Researchers have documented how hot weather vastly increases the risk of heart failure and other cardiovascular issues. Concertgoers say Time for Fun, the Brazil-based entertainment company running the event, refused to let people bring in water despite the heat, and blocked air vents in the venue to prevent people outside from listening in. Swift postponed her second show in Rio, originally scheduled for Saturday, to Monday night, citing safety concerns due to the ongoing high temperatures. She also put out a statement on Instagram saying she was “devastated” by Benevides’ death. “This is the last thing I ever thought would happen when we decided to bring this tour to Brazil,” Swift wrote. (Time for Fun did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

The Swift concert disaster comes on the heels of a summer where fans experienced heat illness at a Beyoncé concert in Maryland and at an Ed Sheeran concert in Pittsburgh. These incidents serve as a stark reminder of the dangers of extreme heat, which will only grow worse as heatwaves intensify as a result of climate change. But they also demonstrate that event mismanagement and a lack of heat preparedness can be deadly. Most heat-related deaths and illnesses, including at concerts and other large events, are preventable, climate health and heat safety experts told Grist. To avoid future injuries, concert organizers should take steps to proactively plan for heat, communicate health advisories and safety measures in advance, provide water and on-site medical care, and ensure proper airflow and ventilation.

“People go to these events to have fun. You never go to one of these thinking something horrible is going to happen,” Kevin Kloesel, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Oklahoma, told Grist. “So it’s incumbent upon the event organizers to make sure that it is the safest environment possible.”

Kloesel, who oversees weather forecasting and safety for around 400 annual outdoor events at the University of Oklahoma, said that when it comes to extreme heat, event organizers need to provide three key things: shade, hydration, and air movement. For example, setting up canopies to shade the endless lines concertgoers stood in for hours in Rio would have been one easy way to cool people down. Having enough water on hand, and providing it to attendees for free, is also crucial. Organizers should also find ways to ventilate the event space, including, potentially, by reducing seat capacity.

Fans wait in line outside the Nilton Santos Olympic stadium for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert during a heat wave in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday. The show’s postponement was announced hours before the star was scheduled to appear. Silvia Izquierdo / AP Photo

Morgan Zabow, a community heat and health information coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Program Office, specified that indoor venues should provide air conditioning and not rely solely on electric fans, which can make stifling conditions worse by blowing hot air at a faster rate.

Event organizers should also send out health advisories via text message or email well in advance, Zabow said. Those messages could include heat forecasts and tips to stay cool, like regularly drinking water and avoiding sugary beverages, caffeine, and alcohol, which can inhibit the body’s ability to cool off. Wearing loose, light-colored clothing is another preventative measure advisories could recommend.

But even with these precautions, heat can still take a toll, especially for people who are older or have pre-existing medical conditions, or those from cooler climates who aren’t used to hot weather. That’s why having easily accessible medical staff on site is so important, Kloesel said. At football games, Kloesel and University of Oklahoma staff arrange cooling tents with medical personnel around the field in case attendees fall ill.

There are also ways to avoid the heat altogether. In Arizona, it’s become increasingly common to delay sports practices and other events until later in the evening when it cools off, said Ladd Keith, a heat policy expert and professor of urban planning at the University of Arizona. Kloesel noted that if concerts created more reserved seating, people wouldn’t have to line up outside for hours to secure a spot. Canceling or postponing events, as Swift did for her second concert in Rio, is another option. Organizers can also consider shifting summer events to a cooler season like fall or winter. All these steps, experts stress, require careful and intentional planning far in advance.

Individuals can take steps to stay safe, too. Keith noted that heat can affect anyone, including young people and those in good health — as the Taylor Swift concert demonstrated. Zabow suggested using a buddy system in which friends monitor one another for symptoms of heat exhaustion, including heavy sweating, dizziness, and nausea, and leave early to get help if needed. “I know it’s hard to leave a stadium early and miss things, but your life is so much more important,” she said.

At Swift’s concert on Friday, however, attendees said Time for Fun had blocked exits, making it difficult to leave. The company announced new measures to provide water and emergency responders Saturday morning. Meanwhile, Brazil’s consumer protection agency has announced that the federal government plans to investigate Time for Fun.

“It is heartbreaking that preventable things happened,” Kloesel said. “You have to know your venue, you have to know your fans, and you have to have a way of taking care of them and mitigating that risk as much as you possibly can, rather than just leaving it to chance.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Extreme heat led to a Taylor Swift fan’s death in Brazil. Could it have been prevented? on Nov 22, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Akielly Hu.

Taylor Swift and the End of the Hollywood Writers Strike: a Tale of Two Media Narratives

Aarushi Bhandari — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 05:54:07 +0000

Image: JSC and AI Art Generator.

This fall, I’ve been starting my sociology classes by asking my students to share some uplifting news they’ve come across.

On Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023, they were abuzz about Taylor Swift’s appearance at the Kansas City Chiefs game on Sunday. Swift and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce had left Arrowhead Stadium together in Kelce’s convertible, confirming dating rumors.

As a scholar of the attention economy, I wasn’t exactly surprised. Many of my students love Swift’s music, and the story had dominated major social media platforms like X, formerly known as Twitter, as a trending topic.

But I was taken aback when I learned that not a single student had heard that the Writers Guild of America had reached a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP, after a nearly 150-day strike. This historic deal includes significant raises, improvements in health care and pension support, and – unique to our times – protections against the use of artificial intelligence to write screenplays.

Across online media platforms, the WGA announcement on Sept. 24, 2023, ended up buried under headlines and posts about the celebrity duo. To me, this disconnect felt like a microcosm of the entire online media ecosystem.

Manufacturing consent online

It almost goes without saying that news and social media platforms promote some stories and narratives over others.

This particular occurrence is fascinating, however, because the AMPTP represents some of the media conglomerates that directly disseminate news. For example, CNN is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a member of the AMPTP.

At the time of this writing, CNN.com has three headlines about the WGA strike and eight headlines about Swift at the Chiefs game.

Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s 1988 book “Manufacturing Consent” outlines the problem of media ownership by conglomerates. According to this theory, powerful interests control narratives, in part, by owning news sources.

There’s a free press in the U.S. But Herman and Chomsky argue that the news that reaches everyday people tends to be framed by a set of assumptions that align with the ideological interests of the media corporations and their advertisers: maintaining the economic status quo and spurring consumerism.

In the U.S. today, six conglomerates own and control 90% of media outlets.

Per Pew Research Center data, a majority of Americans get their news from online sources. Scholars have since adapted Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model to explain how social media ecosystems function.

The role of algorithms is a key focus of emergent research on manufacturing consent online. Sociologist Ruha Benjamin’s work consistently shows that algorithms are encoded with their developers’ biases. Other studies show that critiques about algorithmic biases are suppressed by corporate digital media platforms through strategies like shadow-banning, which refers to covertly banning users of concern without their knowledge. These algorithms determine what is trending on websites like X. This, in turn, influences trends on other platforms, like Google searches.

Google trend results show an enormous increase in search queries about Travis Kelce since Sept. 20, 2023, with the WGA strike victory receiving almost no interest in comparison. The massive gap in interest between these topics serves as an example of algorithms supporting trending topics over other newsworthy content.

A Google Trends graph shows online searches since Sept. 20, 2023, for ‘Travis Kelce,’ represented by the blue line, and ‘WGA,’ represented by the red line. Aarushi Bhandari/Google Trends, CC BY-SA

Another key focus of the propaganda model for social media is targeted advertising.

Unlike their predecessors in television, social media companies use “big data” to know users intimately and present ads that are personalized to each user. This strategy includes guerrilla marketing techniques like the ones employed by several companies after Swift’s appearance.

For example, the National Football League changed its X bio to read “NFL (Taylor’s Version).” Sales of Kelce’s jersey skyrocketed in the few days after Swift’s appearance at the Chiefs game. Hidden Valley Ranch changed its X handle to “Seemingly Ranch” after a Swift fan account noted that during the game, Swift had dipped her chicken fingers in “seemingly ranch.”

Corporate media coverage of labor issues

The muted coverage of the writers strike fits into a longer historical pattern of tension between labor movements and corporate media.

In many cases, corporate media has framed disproportionately negative narratives about strikes and union activities.

For example, an analysis of media coverage of tensions between the United Auto Workers and General Motors from 1991-93 found that major newspapers, including The New York Times, consistently framed GM’s position in a positive light, while crafting significantly more negative stories about the strike and autoworkers. Similar patterns are visible in media reporting on the 1993 American Airlines flight attendant strike and the 1997 United Parcel Service strike.

When not covering labor issues in a negative light, corporate media has a track record of ignoring and minimizing these issues. Communications scholar Jon Bekken’s meta-analysis of media coverage discovered substantial drops in coverage of labor issues by major outlets like the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times and CBS throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century.

This historical dynamic is beginning to change. Increasing public support for labor unions and worker action have made it difficult to ignore the bubbling currents of organized labor across many industries, from Starbucks to autoworkers.

Today, 58% of Americans support the ongoing United Auto Workers strikes against GM, Ford and Stellantis, the company that makes Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles.

Despite corporate ownership and biased algorithms, labor movements have managed to secure public support, demonstrating that Americans are increasingly aware of their own class interests. During such a fraught political climate for the economic status quo, the WGA victory is a major indicator that strikes work.

So, amid these tensions, a feel-good story about Taylor Swift and football is a gift to media executives – and one that helps sell more ranch dressing, too.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Aarushi Bhandari.

The Taylor Swift Exploitation Machine

Binoy Kampmark — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 05:51:21 +0000

The post The Taylor Swift Exploitation Machine appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

The Taylor Swift Exploitation Machine

Binoy Kampmark — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 21:23:17 +0000

She doesn’t love you, she doesn’t care for you, and she doesn’t know you. But does her team pretend to, confecting an image of faux empathy and interest, sorting out the wheat from the chaff. The predatory, fan sucking phenomenon of the Taylor Swift marketing machine is something to behold. Leaving aside the sort of music that will eventually be tinned like a footnote memento of history, Swift has become a corporate phenomenon, a Mammon beast of vast scale and proportion. And like most corporate phenomena, they tend to be predatory.

A central aspect to the Swift machine is the use of a ticket sales scheme that is intended to channel tickets to the faithful. The faithful, as it were, are a sad, though dedicated bunch, deluded and easy to please. Like cultish, parched devotees, they must show their stripes by essentially promoting Swift’s brand. Purchasing merchandise related to the star is mandatory. They are required to drivel and slobber on social media about their object of adoration. In doing so, they stand a damn well better chance of securing pre-sale concert tickets.

In 2017, this practice was already being noted by such figures as Shikari frontman Rou Reynolds. “The most sickening thing is that this ultra-capitalistic exploitation of fans is beneath a veneer of morality – stopping ticket bots/touts.” In the view of Reynolds, “Bots/touts fleece fans by reselling tickets for a higher price. She’s not stopping them, she is replacing them. She is fleecing her own fans.”

The fleecing has been going on for some time. And fans, being the tolerant and hoodwinked creatures that they are, are willing to ignore it. Put it down to the emotional stunting of the global pandemic, the anxieties, the round-the-clock listening to the Swift oeuvre. It is for that very reason that the pop figure is earning more than $13 million from each “Eras” tour engagement ($300 million was raked in from 22 dates), and is set to draw in something like $1 billion when the tour concludes in London next year.

It is reported that Swift is charging $254 per ticket (this varies depending on venue and scale), a figure that pales before the resale figures that can reach, quite literally, into thousands of dollars. Seeing her perform will empty your wallet to an amount twice that from her 2018 “Reputation” tour, meaning that the singer has outpaced the industry average increase of $37 during that time. The secondary market of resales, which is sometimes aided by promoters who directly distribute tickets to brokers, will see staggering prices via such outlets as Stubhub. For an arena show in Minneapolis, Swift tickets were going for $900 to $12,000.

The killer feature of the Swift business model is that she offers various price differentials, and ruthlessly exploits them. Like an airline seeking a particular type of patron for hardly much in return, she offers the generic, the dull, the back-at-stadium options. But then come the florally couched “VIP packages” that include trinkets, posters, tote bags (do you feel proud of yourself?).

For the soppy, brain softened types, gooey at the prospect of greater access to their heroine, this is bound to make the wallets that much easier to purloin. And it shows. Individuals such as one @AirlineFreak (yes, don’t reveal your actual name) spoke about travelling some 8,600 miles to the US for a concert and penning on a Reddit thread confessing to paying “an eye watering $3,500 something for 2 mid-section tickets for ATL night 1.” While punishing on the expense account, to see Swift was most certainly “worth it.” You get what you deserve.

Swift certainly knows a thing or two about cash. That, at least, is the impression we are left with. She avoided a sponsorship deal with the now bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, worth $100 million, preferring to place her money in a niche mutual fund. The source for this is hedge fund manager Boaz Weinstein, who so happens to know the singer’s daddy, Scott, himself a former broker at Merrill Lynch. If you can trust hedge fund managers of any stripe, Weinstein insists that Swift “invests in discounted closed end funds”.

The focus now has been to move the pricing issue away from Swift to those fiendish ticket scalping websites, suggesting that she is somehow innocent about the very beast she has helped create. An article in CHOICE published in late June described it thus: “Limited VIP packages to Swift’s Sydney and Melbourne shows went on sale on Monday. Scalpers wasted no time in exploiting the high demand, seeking to resell the tickets at excessively high mark-ups.”

True, but the true reason that such fees are ever contemplated must rest with the besotted fans who nourish the exploitative Swift Entertainment Industry. Forget the living crisis, the leaner budgets, the climate catastrophes. A certain singer is waiting for your cash.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

CPJ urges swift probe into Polish police over forcible removal of journalist from protest

Erik Crouch — Fri, 21 Jul 2023 14:05:10 +0000

Berlin, July 21, 2023 — Polish authorities should investigate the forcible removal by police of freelance photojournalist Maciej Piasecki from a recent climate protest, and allow journalists to work without interference, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

During a climate protest in Warsaw on Friday, July 14, as police attempted to subdue and detain a protester, a group of six or seven officers forcibly removed from the scene freelance photojournalist Maciej Piasecki, who was on assignment for privately owned news website OKO.press, preventing him from documenting events, according Piasecki, who spoke with CPJ via messaging app, his employer, and other media reports.

The incident, at around 2 p.m., was captured in a video published by OKO.press and corroborated by Piasecki and those reports, which said it occurred during a demonstration in which activists glued their hands to the pavement outside the Ministry of Climate and Environment.

Police removed protesters from the scene by violently apprehending them, according to Piasecki and OKO.press. As Piasecki covered these events live on his TikTok channel, officers shouted to each other instructions to remove him from the scene as well, as seen in video reviewed by CPJ.

Piasecki can be heard saying that he wants to continue covering the events, according to an OKO.press transcript. Police then pushed him aside, and the video shows the police officer grabbing his neck from behind and dragging him toward the ground. Piasecki told CPJ and local media that he did not resist and was not injured, but the officer broke his own leg as they fell to the ground.

A group of seven or eight police then pressed Piasecki to the ground, allegedly twisting his hands, before handcuffing him, confiscating his camera, and taking him to a police station where he was detained for six hours, searched, and questioned in the presence of his lawyer, according to Piasecki and those reports.

“Polish authorities should conduct a swift and transparent investigation into the detention and forcible removal of freelance photojournalist Maciej Piasecki from a recent climate protest and ensure that members of the press can report on events of public interest without police interference,” said Attila Mong, CPJ’s Europe representative. “Journalists deserve police officers’ protection during protests. Unless authorities have something to hide, they must ensure that reporters can cover issues of public interest without fear of police interference.”

The police threatened to press charges against Piasecki for allegedly ignoring their orders and violating the bodily integrity of police officers, but released him without charge, according to OKO.press and Piasecki. He told CPJ and local media that police returned his camera on July 17, and when he collected his equipment, police confirmed to him that no charges would be brought against him.

“The police obstructed my work since the beginning of the protest, despite… the fact that I was wearing my press ID visibly on a lanyard on my neck,” Piasecki told CPJ.

The protesters were rallying against the forced removal the previous day of fellow demonstrators who had maintained a blockade against intensive logging in Poland’s Carpathian Mountains.

“When police earlier asked me to show my credentials, I showed them my card,” Piasecki said, adding that some officers attempted to block his camera’s field of vision as the protesters were met with force. He insists that other than stating his intention to carry on working, he did not resist the officers in any way.

In an email to CPJ, Warsaw Metropolitan Police spokesperson Sylvester Marczak said that authorities would conduct an investigation into the reporter’s detention “to clarify all circumstances.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

CPJ calls for swift and credible investigation into burglary of Ethiopia Insider office

Committee to Protect Journalists — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 21:50:57 +0000

Nairobi, July 20, 2023—In response to the recent burglary of the privately owned news outlet Ethiopia Insider, including the stealing of video production equipment, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement:

“The burglary of Ethiopia Insider, an outlet with a reputation for critical and independent journalism, could have a devastating impact on its operations,” said CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, Muthoki Mumo. “Police should investigate this incident, transparently determine its motive, and hold those responsible to account. A credible investigation will go far to reassure other media outlets that they are safe in Addis Ababa.”

Around 7 a.m. on July 17, an Ethiopia Insider employee reporting for work found that the outlet’s office in Addis Ababa, the capital, had been robbed overnight. A locker, cabinet, and drawer were broken into, and three cameras, a smartphone, four laptops, and six camera lenses were taken, according to a statement issued by Haq Media and Communication, which manages Ethiopia Insider, and Tesfalem Waldyes, the outlet’s cofounder and editor-in-chief.

The office’s door was not broken or its lock tampered with, Tesfalem told CPJ, saying the outlet had reported the incident to police, who were investigating. Tesfalem said he did not know who was behind the burglary, but believed that the incident was “not a random robbery.” He noted that Ethiopia Insider shares a building with a photo studio, which owns similar equipment but was not robbed.

Tesfalem said it was possible that that equipment was “selectively” taken to do the most harm to the company’s video reporting capabilities, noting that other valuables, such as lighting equipment, microphones, camera batteries, and an audio recorder were left behind.

Over the last three years, CPJ has documented a difficult environment for journalists in Ethiopia, characterized by frequent arrests and physical attacks on journalists, the expulsion of at least two foreign correspondents, and internet disruptions.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The Fall of the West

Paul Larudee — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 16:00:50 +0000

In his bestselling book of 1987, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, historian Paul Kennedy chronicles the rise of western power and its world dominance from 1500 to the present. He reports that the rise was not due to any particular event, nor even an unusual series of events. It was, in fact, neither foreseen nor even recognized until it was already well under way, although it may be accurately ascribed to multiple factors, which Kennedy discusses. The same may be said of the ongoing fall of western power.

Although the decline of the West is rapidly becoming more evident to informed observers of current events, the start of that decline is less easy to pinpoint, in part because it seemed less inevitable and more reversible until quite recently. Was the high point the Austro-Hungarian Empire? Victorian England? The U.S. Eisenhower administration? Some might date it from the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, marking the beginning of the truncated “New American Century.”

That “century” appears to be ending in the manner of so many other powers that fill the pages of Kennedy’s book – through imperial overreach, excessive military spending, lagging economic productivity and competitiveness, and failure to invest in the physical, technical and human resources necessary to remain a dominant power. In short, the West is flagging.

The signs for this are too evident to ignore. The industrial base of the West is withering. Post-WWII, the U.S. dominated because it was the only major industrial power to survive unscathed, and its investment in western Europe and Japan increased the wealth of all three. Over the last half of the 20th century, however, these economies began to shift much of their industry to countries with cheaper labor and more efficient production, such that by the 21st century much of their manufacturing capability had vanished, and they became mainly consumer societies.

2023 has become a watershed year for the power shift, due to dramatic western weaknesses exposed by the Ukraine war. The war revealed that a relatively modest economy (Russia) had the capability to outproduce the U.S. and all the NATO countries combined in war materiel. The U.S. “arsenal of democracy” and its European partners proved unable to provide more than a fraction of the weapons and ammunition that Russia’s factories produced. Ukrainian soldiers supplied by NATO countries found themselves vastly outnumbered in tanks, artillery, missiles, unmanned and manned aircraft, and even the latest hypersonic and electronic weapons that were arrayed against them in seemingly limitless supply. The U.S. and European NATO partners could only cobble together small numbers of incompatible weapons from their diminishing inventories, and make promises of future deliveries after months or years.

But the U.S. and its allies were not counting on physical weapons alone. They weaponized the U.S. dollar, through seizures of Russian accounts in U.S., European and other banks totaling more than $300 billion, and through application of economic sanctions, including expulsion of Russian banks from the SWIFT dollar trading system. This also backfired.

First, Russia retaliated by seizing U.S. and European assets within Russia, in equal or greater amounts. Second, they “pivoted east,” negotiating new trading partnerships with China, India and other countries. Third, they and their new partners, including other targets of U.S. sanctions, began to develop financial agreements to displace or reduce the use of SWIFT. Even countries that had heretofore not been threatened with asset seizure or economic sanctions, like Brazil, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia, joined these agreements, in order to expand their trading base, and as insurance against use of the USD for financial pressure or threats. The result was that the Russian economy proved astonishingly resilient – moreso even than many of the NATO countries. The Russian GDP fell by less than 2% in 2022 and is expected to rise by up to 2% in 2023, despite the war and sanctions. Russia has opted for a sustainable but inexorable war with less than 1/6 the casualties of Ukraine. Visitors report that it hardly feels like a country at war. The annual St. Petersburg Economic Forum attracted 17,000 participants from 130 countries and concluded 900 deals and contracts worth 3.9 trillion rubles ($46 billion).

The decline of Europe was further illustrated by the consequences of the US bombing of the Nordstream gas pipelines in September, 2022, and the sanctions on Russian natural gas and petroleum products imposed by NATO. Together, these ended the competitiveness of the European economies, which had hitherto thrived on accessibility to cheap Russian fuel. As predicted by Radek Sikorsky, MEP, this meant

… double-digit inflation, skyrocketing energy prices, and electricity shortage, … Germany will be deindustrialized, … German industries, scientists and engineers will move to the US, who will generously accept them.

And Europe will be set back a couple of decades. Already, most European countries — France, Italy, Spain etc. — have had zero growth in GDP-per-capita for more than a decade. Add in inflation, the standard of living will soon be down 30-40%.

In effect, the U.S. had defeated its NATO “partners” (mainly Germany) and cannibalized their industries for the sake of its own benefit, potentially short-lived.

But the United States believed that its mighty dollar could offset its faded industry and increasingly toothless military – that it could be printed in unlimited amounts without losing value, and could become its most powerful weapon. The history of this dollar began in 1971, when President Richard Nixon announced that, in effect, the U.S. dollar would no longer be backed by gold, but rather by whatever the dollar could purchase in the U.S., i.e. by the U.S. economy itself. This became widely accepted because a) the U.S. was the world’s largest economy, b) the two great international regulatory financial institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, were also based on the dollar, and c) nearly all the world’s countries outside of the Soviet Union and other socialist societies used the dollar as the reserve currency for their own money. In addition, the world shed fixed exchange rates, with their troublesome periodic revaluations, for floating rates, which generally made the changes more gradual and more stable for the major currencies, and especially the dollar.

The effect of so many dollars circulating so widely was to invest most of the world in protecting its value. The more a country’s non-dollar currency became based on the dollar as its reserve currency, the more the incentive for that country to defend the dollar. Later, as the U.S. began to lose its industry, it came to depend on this value to maintain its economy. It marketed its debt to other countries and “persuaded” other countries to fund U.S. bases on their territories for the purpose of “mutual defense.” This is part of the reason the U.S. now has more than 800 military bases worldwide. Although the U.S. national debt is, at time of writing, more than $33 trillion, the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board seem to think that they can continue to unload it without limit onto other countries.

Decision makers in the U.S. seem to think that they have found the goose that lays the golden egg: when they need more money, they have only to borrow indefinitely and market their IOUs to buyers, many of whom don’t really have the option of saying no. Thus, for example, it used unlimited borrowing to fund without hesitation a very costly Ukraine war by more than $100 billion in 2022 alone, while denying basic services to its own citizens.

But borrowing is not the only way that the U.S. raises funds. Given the stability of the dollar, many countries store or invest them in the U.S. But when a country has a disagreement with the U.S., or chooses a leadership or policies not approved by the U.S., the U.S. is not above confiscating those funds. In 2011, this is what it did with $32 billion of Libyan funds, the largest but by no means the only such confiscation of another nation’s funds at that time. Since then, similar confiscations have occurred with Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Afghanistan and other nations. Eclipsing Libya, however, was the confiscation of Russia’s $300 billion by the U.S and its mostly NATO allies, an estimated $100 billion of it by the U.S. alone.

Recently, however, other countries are becoming wary of the U.S. and choosing other options that reduce their participation in what they view as a Mafia-style protection racket as well as their placement of assets in places where they could be confiscated in case of disagreement. As noted earlier, a growing number of countries are opting to either bypass the dollar-based SWIFT system, or to complement it with new agreements where goods are paid in another currency or with multiple currencies. Even Saudi Arabia has begun accepting payment in Chinese Yuan and paying Russia in rubles. In addition, China and other countries have decided to limit or reduce their USD exposure. So far, this has had no appreciable effect on the value of the USD. But if the dollar starts to become less desirable, it may become a questionable investment, in which case the U.S. risks losing its status as a world power – even a modest one. At that point, having demolished German and other European access to cheap fuel, the U.S. will join the rest of the west in its decline, leaving the rising economies of China, India, Brazil, Russia and other countries in Asia, Latin America and possibly Africa to displace them.

Is the Dollar overvalued? By the laws of supply and demand, one could argue that it is not. But it is a fair question when the supply is enormous and growing, and the demand is artificial and coerced. What will happen when the dollar’s near monopoly as an exchange medium ends? The dollar has not always been the preeminent tool for pricing international transactions. At the turn of the 20th century, the British pound sterling was literally the gold standard. But the British economy was fading, and the pound continued to fall against both gold and the USD. Now, although it is still a major currency, it is a mere shadow of its former self. If or when the many dollars worldwide come home to claim their true value, we may discover that they buy little more than castles of sand.

When world power has shifted elsewhere, the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, France and the entire West may come to depend for glory upon their historical and cultural treasures, like the ones of other bygone civilizations that western tourists once visited so widely.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Larudee.

Whither Multipolarity in a Changing World Order

Roger D. Harris — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 14:11:47 +0000

The Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci presciently observed: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

This period that we live in is arguably shaped by three elements: two moribund (the implosion of the USSR and the centrality of US imperialism) and one vital (the promise of multipolarity). The camp associated with the US is consolidating at the same time that a countervailing multipolar tendency is emerging. Major changes are reshaping the world order, I contend, but the outcome is not yet clear.

While factors such as the status of US dollar dominance are important, the deeper issue is the condition of the popular classes and the strength of their institutions, which need to be the measure for determining which way the geopolitical winds are blowing.

Moribund symptoms of the interregnum

The first symptom is the implosion of the Soviet Union and with it the dissolution of the socialist bloc. Although occurring over 30 years ago, the long-term consequences may not be sufficiently appreciated in current leftist analyses. Contributing to this oversight is an underlying anti-communist bias which, contrary to all historical evidence, associates capitalism with democracy and self-actualization.

China has emerged as a world power and even as a possible contender to US hegemony. But China has also become thoroughly integrated into the international capitalist market. In the absence of a socialist bloc, countries striving for socialist development – e.g., Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Belarus, People’s Republic of Korea, Eritrea, Laos, etc. – must also struggle in this market. There they are vulnerable to economic warfare designed to overthrow their political leadership.

Chinese initiatives such as the Belt and Road offer trade and a vital life support to countries like Cuba. But the Chinese initiatives do not rise to the level of the socialist solidarity of the former USSR, which enabled countries like resource-poor Cuba in that former time to achieve first world standards in, for example, health care and education.

The second symptom is the US as the sole imperialist superpower. No other nation comes close to its military, economic, political, and even cultural domination. Understanding the centrality of US imperialism, I contend, is essential to comprehending the interregnum.

Yes, we live in what Lenin called the age of imperialism and all powers have some elements of imperialism. But the contemporary political terrain is not primarily characterized as one of multiple rival imperialisms comparable to the run-up to World War I. Then, Lenin argued, the workers of the world had no stake in which imperial power prevailed.

Today, for instance, the working class has a stake if the proxy war in Ukraine leads to the dissolution of Russia. Surely the west would make the Russian working class pay for the sins of its “oligarchs.” As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented, “everything that is happening in and around Ukraine is part of the unfolding fight for the future international order.”

Promise of a multipolar world

The third symptom of the interregnum is the promise – but not yet the reality – of a multipolar world. This hopeful trend portends new openings in an evolving historical dynamic.

A majority of the world’s population has remained neutral in the Ukraine conflict, despite strong US/western pressure. A host of non-western-aligned economies are making tentative steps to transacting commerce in currencies other than dollars, pounds, yens, or euros. A so-called Pink Tide in Latin America has replaced a number of conservative regimes. China is emerging not only as an economic power, but diplomatically has helped broker closer relations between traditional adversaries Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as floated a peace proposal for Ukraine.

All these favorable developments foreshadow a change in the geopolitical climate. The vision of a multipolar world informs the progressive impulse for a better world.

Such a world is possible only if the centrality of US imperialism is replaced by a new order. Such a reordering is a necessary pre-condition for a better world. Currently a realignment is being led by major counter-hegemonic powers such as China and Russia and more regional powers such as Brazil and Iran (and before its dismembering by Libya in Africa).

Multipolarity is not the ultimate goal, but it is an intermediary step in the struggle against imperialism. More than just a reshuffling of the deck of world power relationships is needed.

War with China

Overarching the interregnum is the specter of US preparations for a war with China, perhaps as soon as the turn of this decade. The quasi-governmental RAND Corporation prepared the strategic planning document, “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable,” commissioned by the US Army. Released in 2016, such a confrontation does not appear so unthinkable today.

Even some mainstream sources recognize that the Ukraine conflict is but a prelude to war with China.

The US juggernaut is lurching to war. Once pivoted to Asia, it does not appear to be equipped with a steering wheel, let alone brakes. Opposition to such a confrontation is virtually absent at the elite level. Both parties of capital compete with each other over which can be more Sinophobic. The Democrats, in particular, used to have dissenting voices, but now have embraced neo-conservatism. They exhibit an imperialist unity that is the envy of the Tea Party Republicans.

Meanwhile, a mass peace movement is AWOL. Oddly, the libertarian right is sounding more like peaceniks than some putative liberals who are shrieking “Slava Ukraini.”

War with China is not inevitable; China could be blackmailed into accommodation. The US, meanwhile, is crazy enough to precipitate a nuclear apocalypse. Remember that just two days after Hiroshima came the capricious genocide of Nagasaki.

Changes in US imperialism

While the core nature of US imperialism endures, the tactics appear to be altering in the following three instances.

First is the termination of the Pax Americana project. At one time the US exercised its hegemonic role to impose stability and order, such as working to install absolute monarchies in the Arabian peninsula. No longer is the “rules based order” orderly.

Today the hegemon is forever stirring up the pot, promoting chaos. Witness the plight of Syria, Afghanistan, and Libya. Washington has been promoting jihadism in the Muslim world. As Brookings reported, the US “enabled Al Qaeda.”

The country in the Western Hemisphere which has most “benefited” from US beneficence is Haiti. After two US-led coups and a disastrous US-led military occupation, there isn’t even a functioning government that could be Washington’s puppet.

International nuclear peace agreements are being systematically dismantled as the US leads a deranged race to “modernize” nuclear arsenals. AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines are being deployed in the Indo-Pacific. Meanwhile Biden bellicosely proclaims, “America is back,” making one nostalgic for Reagan.

The relatively recent (2006-2008) military penetration of Africa by the US AFRICOM unified combat command, with military relations in 53 of the 54 countries on the continent, has already contributed to major instabilities, especially in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region.

Second, the US has imposed sanctions on over 40 countries, some one-third of humanity. These unilateral coercive measures are in effect a self-imposed boycott and are illegal under international law. Gone is the gunboat diplomacy to open countries to so-called “free trade.” Instead, the battleships are being deployed to close markets and prevent trade such as the US’s pirating Iranian fuelers enroute to Venezuela.

And third, US dollar (USD) dominance is under siege with the country that prints the banknotes complicitous in the attack. It is Washington that expelled Russia from the dollar-dominated SWIFT network, forcing Moscow to explore alternatives.

The way that international finance operates in times of uncertainty is for investment to gravitate to the world’s reserve currency, which is currently the USD. Although dollar dominance does not currently have a contender, the USD share of global central bank reserves has eroded from roughly 70% to under 60% in the last two decades.

Ever since Nixon took the USD off of the gold standard in 1971, and even before, the Chicken Littles have been declaring the demise of the mighty greenback. Yet the dollar still is involved in 90% of all foreign exchange transactions and nearly two-thirds of the issuance of securities. Even a third of the trade of the two countries most in the crosshairs of US imperialism – China and Russia – is denominated in currencies other than their own. Currently only 2% of world trade is denominated in Chinese renminbi.

The would-be BRICS alliance

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) are a loose amalgam but far from a unified alliance.

Lula de Silva, the newly elected president of Brazil, issued a joint statement with US President Biden condemning the invasion of Ukraine by BRICS partner Russia and voted with the US on most UN General Assembly resolutions on the conflict. Brazil also participated as an observer in recent 30-nation US-Thailand war games.

However, Brazil continues to resist western pressure to directly supply Ukraine with arms. Weapons sales account for 5% of the Brazilian economy with the US being the largest customer. And 72% of the UN Security Council (by population) backed Russia’s call for a UN investigation of the Nord Stream bombing, with Brazil voting for the resolution along the Russia and China.

Although BRICS partner India has ignored US/western demands to boycott fuel from its BRICS partner Russia, India has nonetheless joined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad. This US-led anti-China military alliance, known as the “Asian NATO,” is hardly a harbinger of declining US influence in the Global South.

Consolidation of NATO

NATO is much more than an alliance. It is an imperial army under US command, whose constituents have relinquished sovereignty for integration.

Just a few years ago French President Emmanuel Macron declared NATO “braindead,” while key ally Germany was moving in the direction of reducing its investment in NATO. That refreshing breeze has reversed direction and has assumed gale force proportions.

Rather than languishing, NATO has in fact consolidated. Now its partners have upped their military expenditures, sacrificing domestic development, as they increase their purchase of military equipment from the US. Particularly ominous is the inclusion of traditionally neutral Sweden and Finland on or near the borders of Russia.

Meanwhile, Japan is emerging as the third largest military after China. The former Axis power is an immediate neighbor of China and part of the US strategy to militarily encircle China.

The larger Atlanticist project

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the empire’s Praetorian guard, is the military component of a larger project of US world domination in concert with its western European subalterns and Japan. While the outcome of the Ukraine conflict is to-be-determined, its immediate effect has been the successful economic severing by the US of western Europe from the rest of Eurasia.

Berlin could have moved toward closer economic cooperation with Moscow, which would have vastly benefited both economies. Instead, the opposite has been accomplished by US intervention with Germany cutting itself off from Russia in favor of buying far more costly fuels from across the Atlantic Ocean.

Based on the cui bono test (who benefits) and Seymour Hersh’s report, the US can be credited with bombing the Nord Stream pipelines and has done so with impunity. This does not suggest a hegemon in terminal decline.

Notably, however, countervailing movements toward unity among the excluded majority of humanity in the Global South are also occurring. Witness revitalized regional alliances such as CELAC, the BRICS’s New Development Bank as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Group of 77, the Belt and Road Initiative, the Shanghai Cooperative Organization, etc. Likewise, greater military cooperation is being implemented by China, Russia, Iran, and some others. These counter-hegemonic efforts hold great promise, but to date have nowhere nearly achieved the levels of integration as the US-led initiatives.

How do we know when a new world order has emerged?

It is important not to confuse aspirations with reality. It is still too early to celebrate the achievement of a multipolar world, though the signs are auspicious.

For sure, the international geopolitical scene has become more volatile, unstable, and disorderly. But that is not the same as advances for the popular classes, which should be our metric. For example, the US defeat in Afghanistan was not the same as a people’s victory.

A further admonition is in order. Due to the failure of neoliberalism – the current form of capitalism – a populist right has emerged in reaction. The new far-right prime minister of Italy has expressed sentiments favorable to Mussolini. Modi in India represents a reactionary fundamentalist Hindi current. Bukele in El Salvador, after trampling civil liberties in a crackdown on gangs, enjoys astronomical 90% approval ratings.

The ever more manifest bankruptcy of the liberal/social democratic model does not guarantee a progressive outcome.

Finally, for those of us who still consider themselves to be socialist, we should not abandon the goal of socialist revolution. Yet there has been no major socialist revolution in the last half century, and no new socialist revolutions are on the horizon. A further sobering reality is that all existing polities, which have been striving for socialism, are struggling for survival, retrenching, and being forced to adopt neoliberal remedies.

The possible exception is China, although it has been experiencing a slowing of economic growth and a slight deterioration of working-class living standards. Nor has China been immune from adopting neoliberal measures. Yet, overall, China holds great promise as the center of a counter-hegemonic tendency.

And even more significant are the internal contradictions of a decadent capitalism, which have not fully matured but which foretell a changing world order. But before the left can write the obit on capitalism, recall the system’s ability to paper over contradictions with military Keynesianism, quantitative easing, and most recently with the post-COVID rebound.

We will know that a new multipolar order has emerged when the material conditions of the people of Haiti, Afghanistan, Syria, Cuba, etc. begin to improve rather than continuing on the current trajectory of ever increasing immiseration. Likewise, institutions of working class power, such as unions and leftist parties, will be ascendant in leading the transformation.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Roger D. Harris.

Big Tech to Congress: Listen to Taylor Swift and Go After Ticketmaster, Not Us

Ryan Grim — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 12:00:22 +0000

Silicon Valley dodged a hail of congressional bullets through the last several months of 2022. A suite of antitrust legislation threatened to puncture the industry’s monopolistic business model, but the bills never left the upper chamber.

The legislative package represented the most advanced legislative threat to Big Tech since the industry’s birth. Several bills passed through the House of Representatives and others, sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Following the November elections, which saw Republicans take over the House, Big Tech’s Washington lobby kicked it into higher gear, working to make sure the threat didn’t materialize in the next Congress.

And they found an unlikely hero: Taylor Swift.

In mid-November, Swifties looking to secure tickets to the singer’s upcoming Eras Tour were foiled en masse by monopolistic incompetence of Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, which melted down amid the surge in demand. It was a poignant demonstration of monopolism run amok — and of what a mistake it had been for the Obama administration to have greenlighted the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger that effectively ended competition in the ticketing industry.

Politicians dutifully denounced the decrepit company, and Big Tech spied an opening to deflect and distract.

The next day, the lobbying firm NetChoice, which represents the Big Tech conglomerates in Washington, urged Congress and antitrust policymakers to focus their attention on Ticketmaster.

“Congress and progressives like Amy Klobuchar are spending all this time going after tech leaders including Meta, Google, Amazon and Apple, which are far from monopolies,” NetChoice policy counsel Jennifer Huddleston said in an email November 16 to press and Washington power brokers. “Instead, the government should use existing laws and resources to protect consumers and investigate Ticketmaster’s anti-competitive practices in the concert marketplace.”

For its first hearing of the year on Tuesday, January 24, the Senate Judiciary Committee chose to target Live Nation, with Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in a panel titled, “That’s the Ticket: Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live Entertainment.”

The hearing included testimony from Joe Berchtold, president and chief financial officer of Live Nation Entertainment; Jack Groetzinger, CEO of SeatGeek; Jerry Mickelson, CEO and president of Jam Productions; and musician Clyde Lawrence of the band Lawrence; and advocates on both sides of the issue.

Right now the The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on Ticketmaster, and whether or not the company has monopoly power, controlling too much of the ticket industry and driving up prices.
Senator Amy Klobuchar kicked it off with a reference to Taylor Swift. ? pic.twitter.com/FjhBR5JCJe
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) January 24, 2023

The choice of hearing sends a signal regarding congressional priorities, and Swifties and Big Tech alike celebrated the coal-raking of Ticketmaster. Indeed, there are few companies less popular for better reasons than Ticketmaster, which controls some 80 percent of the concert venue market.

Another real time fact check on Live Nation-Ticketmaster's spin. Their claim that they only control about 50-60% of the ticketing business is bogus. pic.twitter.com/tJURM4gcWc
— American Economic Liberties Project (@econliberties) January 24, 2023

Big Tech’s targeting of Ticketmaster is far from altruistic, however. On Tuesday, Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel of NetChoice, laid out the industry’s interest in the case. The Ticketmaster example, Szabo said in a statement, shows that, actually, there’s no need for all the work Congress and federal antitrust regulators like FTC Chair Lina Khan are doing to rethink competition policy in order to encompass industries like Big Tech. Ticketmaster is such a flagrant example of monopolistic practices, yet regulators have done nothing to break them up. If Washington won’t even bother with the low-hanging fruit, how can it chop down trees in Silicon Valley?

"There's literally not been a single time in our career where we've played at a Live Nation venue where we had any opportunity to not have Live Nation be the promoter or Ticketmaster be the ticketing company." - @lawrencetheband
This is what a monopoly looks like. pic.twitter.com/5RnVgBn8Wb
— American Economic Liberties Project (@econliberties) January 24, 2023

The industry also implied that reforming antitrust laws might make it harder to go after Ticketmaster, though that’s not the case. Szabo’s statement said:

We have seen Ticketmaster pressuring artists and venues to use their system, withholding thousands of tickets from sale to the general public, and helping ticket speculators circumvent anti-bot protections. At the same time, consumers can’t get access to tickets, and prices have continued to skyrocket—a clear example of consumer harm.

It’s obvious that this presents an antitrust enforcement action under the consumer welfare standard—the current legal framework in the U.S. for bringing antitrust cases. This already-existing legal criteria is meant to deter the government from targeting businesses based on political leanings. Under the consumer welfare standard’s 3-pronged test, the government must show a company’s market power, abuse of that power and proof that the company’s actions resulted in consumer harm. Clearly, LiveNation’s practices would fit under this framework.

Yet the Biden administration and progressives in Congress have been trying to change these effective guidelines to serve their own political goals. It’s mind-boggling that Biden’s Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission have wasted taxpayer resources and pursued legally-questionable antitrust enforcement actions, while simultaneously failing to address this clear case of consumer harm and anti-competitive practice in the ticket sales market.

While we’re glad to see the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is taking these anticompetitive practices seriously, antitrust law would not need to be changed to bring an enforcement action against LiveNation/Ticketmaster for this fiasco.

The argument did not appear to persuade the Department of Justice, which announced on Tuesday it plans to sue Google — again — for monopolizing the online ad market.

In testimony prepared for the Judiciary Committee, Live Nation’s president argued that Ticketmaster wasn’t all that bad. “Ticketmaster comes under a lot of criticism, and I look forward to addressing that today,” he said in prepared remarks. “But I can say with great confidence that technologically Ticketmaster is a much better ticketing system today than it was in 2010.”

Aside from Big Tech, railroad workers and antitrust advocates have been pushing Congress to take a stand against a merger between two of the few remaining railroad companies that have yet to be consolidated, Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern. Durbin, the chair of the Judiciary Committee and Senate majority whip, has publicly opposed that merger.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Ryan Grim.

With GOP House Control Looming, Pascrell Calls for Swift Release of Trump Tax Records

Kenny Stancil — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 18:44:37 +0000

It took U.S. House lawmakers more than three-and-a-half years to get their hands on former President Donald Trump's federal tax returns, but with Republicans assuming control of the chamber next month, Democrats are quickly running out of time to examine and publish the highly sought-after records.

"There is no one in this country... that is above the law."

That's the stark warning issued Thursday by Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), who told Punchbowl News: "There's a time factor here. We got [until] January 3. And that doesn't count up to too much time to me."

Pascrell's comments came after he and other Democratic members of the House Ways and Means Committee, which obtained six years of Trump's tax returns on Wednesday following a prolonged legal battle in which the ex-president fought against sharing the financial documents that all of his predecessors since the 1970s had willingly disclosed, met in Chair Richard Neal's (D-Mass.) office.

As Punchbowl News reported Friday, "Neal is facing pressure from Ways and Means Democrats to move quickly to analyze Trump's returns—and possibly release them to the public—before Republicans take over and make the whole question moot."

"But Neal is providing little detail about how he plans to spend the next 32 days," the outlet noted. "In fact, the Massachusetts Democrat wouldn't even acknowledge gaining access to six years of Trump's tax returns, citing privacy laws. His nonanswer comes despite the Treasury Department saying this week it had turned over the information to the panel after the Supreme Court declined to intervene in the long-running battle with Trump."

On more than one occasion, Trump—who officially launched his 2024 campaign last month—argued in court that if Democrats were to obtain his tax records, they would immediately leak them to hurt him politically. Neal's awareness of this claim was evident as he answered reporters' questions on Thursday.

"It's very sensitive information," said Neal. "We intend to deal with it professionally the way that we have."

In contrast to the committee chair's hesitant approach, multiple Democrats on the panel, including Pascrell and Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), have made clear their desire to make Trump's tax returns publicly available.

Speaking with MSNBC on Thursday, Pascrell said, "I want them all released."

"These records are so important. The delay has been as long as the Civil War," Pascrell continued. "This is unprecedented in every way. This isn't about one man. This is not about just one part of the law. This is whether we affirm that there is no one in this country—be it the president, a congressman, or whomever—that is above the law. And we intend to follow through on this."

Democrats will be racing against the clock, however.

According to Punchbowl News:

The only real information Neal divulged was that he has appointed an undisclosed number of staff to serve as "agents"—experts who can officially review Trump's tax documents.
Democrats on the panel didn't get much more info from Neal in their closed-door meeting either, according to several members we checked with after. The discussion was tense at times, with members "extremely frustrated" about the lack of transparency regarding next steps with so little time left, one Democrat told us. Led by some of their senior colleagues on the panel, Neal was grilled about his intentions and offered little on his plans.

Doggett, for his part, predicted that "before January 3, we will get some opportunity to determine—probably in executive session—whether what [the agents] found justifies our taking some further action, which could include, but does not necessarily include, releasing those to the public."

"Personally, my opinion is that it'd be very difficult for even the most skilled agent to review these documents thoroughly," he added. "I believe that reviewing them thoroughly may well indicate the need to look at some of the documents we don't even yet have."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

‘Break Up Ticketmaster,’ Chorus of Lawmakers Demands Amid Taylor Swift Fiasco

Julia Conley — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 14:39:14 +0000

Without explicitly mentioning pop star Taylor Swift and her upcoming tour, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke up for fans who spent hours on Monday trying to get concert tickets only to wait in a queue of thousands of people and in some cases be automatically logged out by ticketing giant Ticketmaster before they could make a purchase.

The significant technical glitches, as well as price-gouging on Ticketmaster's resale platform, are the result of the 2010 merger between the company and Live Nation, which was approved by the Obama administration's Justice Department, suggested Ocasio-Cortez and other critics.

"Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly," tweeted the New York Democrat. "Break them up."

As Chokepoint Capitalism author Cory Doctorow explained in a video released by progressive media organization More Perfect Union on Tuesday, elected officials from both sides of the aisle helped create a live music market in which Ticketmaster controls 80% of venue ticket sales.

"How can Ticketmaster get away with it? Because they are the bullies of the music industry playground."

Near-total control of the market has allowed the company to introduce an algorithmic "dynamic pricing" model, which pushes prices as high as $5,000 per ticket in the case of one recent Bruce Springsteen tour, as well as leaving customers without other options if they run into major technical difficulties.

"How can Ticketmaster get away with it? Because they are the bullies of the music industry playground," said Doctorow. "Ticketmaster and Live Nation... can basically do whatever they want because they have seized control over every aspect of the live music industry by creating a monopoly. This ticketing cartel has the power to destroy venues and artists who refuse to work with them. They even have their own resale platform and they encourage ticket resellers to gouge fans."

"All of these exploitative practices make Ticketmaster execs very, very rich," added Doctorow, pointing to the $70.6 billion compensation package given to Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino in 2017.

Ticketmaster defended itself Tuesday, saying the technical issues were the result of "historically unprecedented demand" for tickets, but Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.)—one of several Democratic lawmakers who last year called on the Biden administration to revisit the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger—noted that the company charges numerous processing and convenience fees which, according to More Perfect Union, now equal 78% of ticket costs.

"You would think the endless list of service and convenience and other fees would help Ticketmaster run a smooth webpage, but that isn't the case," Pascrell told The Hill. "The only three constants in life anymore seem to be death, taxes, and fan frustration with Ticketmaster."

The ticketing fiasco came weeks after President Joe Biden announced his administration is cracking down on "junk fees" that banks charge customers "because they can." The Federal Trade Commission launched a rulemaking process to "broadly reduce junk fee practices across the economy, including for event ticketing, hotels, funeral homes, and any other industry that uses mandatory fees."

Now, said lawmakers including Pascrell, Ocasio-Cortez, and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), the Biden administration must "break up Ticketmaster."

"Ticketmaster's excessive wait times and fees are completely unacceptable, as seen with today's Taylor Swift tickets, and are a symptom of a larger problem," said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.). "It's no secret that Live Nation-Ticketmaster is an unchecked monopoly."

"The merger of these companies should never have been allowed in the first place," he added.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Julia Conley.

Missing PNG cop found dead, police chief vows ‘swift justice’

APR editor — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 05:53:16 +0000

By Rebecca Kuku in Port Moresby

Local government officials in Papua New Guinea have offered a cash reward for information after the body of policeman Senior Constable Nelson Kalimda — whose body went missing in Tari, Hela — was found yesterday in Margarima.

The body of Papua New Guinean policeman Constable Nelson Kalimda — who went missing in Tari, Hela — was found yesterday in Margarima after the provincial government put up a cash reward.

Provincial police commander Robin Bore confirmed that the body had been found at the Andapali River in Margarima, near the Margarima-Kandep road.

READ MORE: Other reports on PNG violence against police

How The National reported the story on its front page today. Image: The National

“We have brought late Kalimda’s body back to Tari,” Commander Bore said.

Police Commissioner David Manning last night said that for those who wore the police uniform this was a personal loss.

“This is someone who has a family, who has served with us, below us or above us. He was one of us,” he said.

“We swore an oath to serve and we will continue to serve despite this loss

‘Our profession has risks’
“Ours is a profession that comes with risks.”

Manning said investigations were being led by some of the most capable officers in the PNG police force to bring swift justice on those involved in the death of Kalimda.

“I issue them a clear warning to anyone involved with Senior Constable Kalimda’s death to not resist arrest when police catch up with them.

“If these suspects threaten police with weapons, our police personnel have full authority to escalate the use of force and to use all appropriate means necessary to take control of the situation.

“Police have made two arrests so far and there are four other persons of interest that are the subject of an ongoing search.”

Kalimda was part of a team that escorted exam papers into Tari and he went missing on October 20.

He was last seen driving out of a guest house in Tari. His car was found last Thursday, a week after he was first reported missing, in a deserted area at the Komo-Hulia district, near Ambua.

Police assisted with fuel
Governor Philip Undialu said the provincial government assisted police with fuel and funding in the search for Kalimda.

Undialu said a suspect from the area had confessed to killing Kalimda in a phone conversation and said that he had thrown Kalimda’s body into the Andapali River.

He said that after the provincial government received the information, a reward was offered for the community to assist police and the PNG Defence Force to find Kalimda’s body.

“The body was recovered just this afternoon [Sunday] by a group of youths, and we will pay them a reward.”

Undialu also called on the suspect, whose identity is known, to surrender to police and appealed to the community to help bring in the suspect.

Rebecca Kuku is a journalist for The National newspaper. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Malaysia to push ASEAN for swift decision on Myanmar 5-point consensus

By Shailaja Neelakantan for BenarNews — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 11:05:12 +0000

Kuala Lumpur plans to press ASEAN into deciding the fate of its five-point consensus on Myanmar before the regional bloc’s summit in November, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said Monday in New York on the eve of high-level proceedings at the U.N. General Assembly.

By November the bloc will need to decide whether the consensus its leaders had agreed on with Myanmar in April 2021 should be junked, said Malaysia’s outspoken top diplomat, who has consistently taken the lead on post-coup Myanmar issues at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Saifuddin spoke to reporters as part of a panel after he met with Burmese opposition members in New York. Monday’s meeting took place amid reports that the junta forces had fired on a village school in Myanmar’s Sagaing region, killing at least seven children, in what appeared to be the deadliest incident involving children since last year’s military coup.

Saifuddin questioned the validity of the consensus.

“Between now and November ASEAN must seriously review if the 5-point consensus is still relevant and decide if it is still relevant. By the time we meet in November, we must ask hard questions and have an answer,” Saifuddin said as he addressed reporters afterwards at Malaysia’s diplomatic mission to the United Nations.

“If it is not working we have to decide what’s next. We cannot go in November and then start talking about it. We have to do the groundwork now.”

The Myanmar military meanwhile has blithely ignored the five-point consensus it agreed to with ASEAN last year, one of the main points of which was an end to violence. Its forces have also killed more nearly 2,300 people since the generals seized power by toppling an elected government on Feb. 1, 2021.

In July, Saifuddin had raised the prospect of scrapping the consensus to resolve Myanmar’s post-coup crisis, after the Burmese junta “made a mockery” of it by executing four political prisoners.

The consensus had called for an end to violence; constructive dialogue among all parties; the mediation of such talks by a special ASEAN envoy; the provision of ASEAN-coordinated humanitarian assistance and a visit to Myanmar by an ASEAN delegation to meet with all parties.

Activists and analysts have lambasted the Southeast Asian bloc for the failed five-point plan to restore democracy to Myanmar, because the junta and its leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, have ignored every point they agreed to 17 months ago at an emergency ASEAN summit in Jakarta.

On Monday, the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights called the five-point consensus an “unmitigated failure.”

“We have to develop a new model, the way forward is the NUG should be a part of this,” said APHR Chairperson and Malaysian MP Charles Santiago, who attended the press briefing with Saifuddin.

“The NUG has no role to play in the existing model, but now the NUG should be part of the rebuilding of Myanmar,” Santiago added.

The NUG, or the National Unity Government, is the parallel civilian government of Myanmar.

On Monday, Saifuddin also expressed his disappointment with the extent of ASEAN’s dialogue with the Myanmar opposition, namely the NUG and the NUCC, a body of opposition stakeholders.

“Malaysia is not satisfied with the engagement [of ASEAN with the NUG and NUCC] because we have made this call months ago that ASEAN should engage with the NUG and NUCC,” he said.

“There must be consultation between ASEAN and stakeholders, with a clear endgame and the endgame is return to democracy in Myanmar.”

Malaysia was the first ASEAN member to officially contact Myanmar’s shadow, civilian government.

Saifuddin said the NUG in recent months had worked to bring together all the ethnic communities of Myanmar.

“In the past few months, the NUG has done a wonderful job of confidence building in all stakeholders. We have probably not seen such unity among all stakeholders ever,” he said.

“ASEAN must engage with the NUG, and this is something we will again bring up on the 22nd,” he said.

ASEAN foreign ministers are scheduled to meet informally Sept. 22 on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Shailaja Neelakantan for BenarNews.

CPJ calls for swift, transparent investigation into shooting death of Al-Jazeera’s Shireen Abu Akleh while reporting in West Bank

Jennifer Dunham — Wed, 11 May 2022 12:38:28 +0000

Beirut, May 11, 2022 – Israeli and Palestinian authorities must conduct a swift, immediate, and transparent investigation into the killing of Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank today, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.

On Wednesday, May 11, Abu Akleh, a prominent Palestinian-American correspondent for Al-Jazeera Arabic, was fatally shot in the head while she was covering an Israeli army operation in the West Bank town of Jenin, according to a report by Al-Jazeera , a video of the aftermath of the shooting posted on Twitter by Al-Jazeera, and multiple news outlets. She was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead shortly afterward, according to those sources. In the video, Abu Akleh is seen wearing a vest marked “Press.”

“We are shocked and strongly condemn the killing of the prominent Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank while doing her job and while clearly identified as a journalist,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour in Washington, D.C. “We call for an immediate and thorough investigation into her killing. Journalists must be able to do their jobs safely and freely without being a target.”

A screenshot from Al-Jazeera Arabic shows reporter Shireen Abu Akleh lying on the ground after she was fatally shot in the West Bank city of Jenin on May 11, 2022. (Al-Jazeera/YouTube)

A producer for Al-Jazeera, Ali al-Samoudi, was also shot and injured while working in the same area; he was treated in a local hospital and is in stable condition, according to Al-Jazeera English.

In a statement, Qatari-based Al-Jazeera alleged that Israeli forces had targeted Abu Akleh.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett denied those allegations in a statement on Twitter. CNN reported that the Israeli Defense Forces said its forces had been operating in the area “to arrest suspects in terrorist activities,” and that both Palestinian suspects and Israeli forces were firing at the time. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said in a tweet that Israel offered to conduct a joint investigation into her death with the Palestinians.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides in a Twitter post confirmed that Abu Akleh was an American citizen and called for a thorough investigation into the circumstances of her death.

CPJ emailed the media and North America desks of the Israeli Defense Forces, but did not receive an immediate response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Jennifer Dunham.

The West’s SWIFT Kick is Aimed at Russia, But it Will Also Hit the US Dollar

Thomas Knapp — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 09:06:36 +0000

As part of the western response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, several regimes acted on February 26 to exclude certain Russian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) network. As of March 1, Reuters reports, SWIFT says it’s awaiting a list of the sanctioned banks so that it can cut them off.

SWIFT is a messaging service that connects banks worldwide. It’s not a bank itself. It’s not even, strictly speaking, a payment network. It carries instructions for transfers, but the transfers take place via other networks. It’s just one moving part in the world’s complex finance and trade system.

As with most such measures, giving Russian banks the boot from SWIFT is certain to hurt the sanctioners along with the sanctioned. In this case, the potential victims with the most to lose are the issuers and holders of US dollars.

Dollars aren’t the only currency that gets moved using SWIFT, but the dollar is the de facto “global reserve currency” and thus the most affected by such moves. Nearly everyone accepts the dollar. Nearly everyone wants to have a fat stack of dollars on hand. In particular, global trade in oil has been powered by the “petrodollar” for nearly 50 years.

If you want to buy a barrel of Brent crude from most sellers, you need to be able to plunk down (as I write this) 105.46 US dollars. Not 395.72 Saudi riyals. Not 7,983.35 Indian rupees. Not 665.78 Chinese yuan. $105.46 or no sale.

What happens when one of the world’s largest oil producers is 1) cut off from SWIFT; 2) doesn’t want US dollars as much as it used to because other sanctions make those dollars difficult to spend; and 3) has trading partners who are watching these sanctions and fear they could be the next victims? Well, this:

A “rupee-rouble trade arrangement may get a push now that Russia is out of SWIFT,” reports The Times of India. China will presumably likewise increase its yuan-ruble trade with Russia.

The Times of India article reveals that this isn’t a sudden development: “India had entered into a rupee-rouble trade arrangement with Russia earlier to shield the two nations from unilateral sanctions from the United States.”

What makes the dollar valuable? The same thing that makes anything valuable: People wanting it. Between China and India, more than a quarter of the world’s population are in the process of wanting the dollar less than they used to. That, in turn, makes every dollar in your pocket worth less than it once was.

In the short term, the SWIFT kick and other sanctions may hurt Russia more than they hurt you. But the uncontested reign of the US dollar among global currencies seems to be nearing its end, in part because the US government is driving the world away from it with the constant threat of sanctions.

The smart move for Americans? Hold as few dollars as you can get by on. Trade your dollars for gold, silver, and cryptocurrency while they’re still worth something, to someone, somewhere.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Thomas Knapp.