World News davel • Now • 100%

John Mearsheimer Is Not Very Impressed With Israel’s Shock and Awe Campaign Against Hezbollah

The Spectator interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_USzVCWzh10

World News davel • Now • 100%

Jonathan Cook: In killing Nasrallah, Israel chose to open the gates of hell. We'll all pay the price

jonathancook.substack.com

>Israel’s decision to assassinate Nasrallah, using some of the enormous bunker-busting bombs the United States has been arming it with, is beyond foolhardy. It is outright deranged. Israel has removed – and knows it has removed – a moderating influence on Hezbollah. > >Israel’s action will achieve nothing apart from teaching his successor, and leaders of other groups and countries labelled as terrorist by western governments, several lessons: > >- That Israel, and the West standing squarely behind it, do not play by any known rules of engagement, and that their opponents must do likewise. The current restraint from Hezbollah that has been so baffling western pundits will become a thing of the past. > >- That Israel is not interested in compromise, only escalation, and that this is a fight to death – not just against Israel but against the West that sponsors Israel. > >- That Israel's ideological extremism – its Jewish supremacism, and its endless craving for Lebensraum – must be met with even greater Shia-inspired extremism. > >Decades of western terrorism in the Middle East unleashed a Sunni nihilism embodied first in al-Qaeda and then in ISIS. >Now, the West, via Israel, is fomenting for the Shia resistance its own ISIS moment. The moderates in what the West dubs “terrorist organisations” have once again lost the argument. Why? Because the US imperial project known as “the West” has once again demonstrated it will not compromise. It demands full-spectrum, global dominance – nothing less. > >Israel may make very short tactical gains in killing Nasrallah. But we will all soon feel the whirlwind.

GenZhou davel • Now • 100%

New translation of Capital vol. I by Paul Reitter released today

press.princeton.edu

>**On the Choice of Edition** > >This is the first time that the second German edition of Capital volume 1 has been translated into English. The second edition of 1872 was the last authorized text of volume 1 published in the original German, in the sense that it is the last one that Marx revised himself and approved for publication. - [Anna’s Archive](https://annas-archive.org/md5/abebaa739c328a6b12f7e42c1e5f25d0) - [Paul Reitter, Ohio State U. Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures](https://germanic.osu.edu/people/reitter.4)

Comradeship // Freechat davel • Now • 100%

https://lemmygrad.ml/search?type=Users&q=☭


US News davel • Now • 98%

The Grayzone caused ‘biggest PR fiasco in history’ for US govt regime change arm [NED], leaked emails reveal

thegrayzone.com

Honestly this all seems too good to be fully true to me, like a wish fulfillment fantasy. The NED’s new guard installed at this high a level can’t be this ignorant of the org’s purpose, right? Or perhaps they really can be. Perhaps senior NED staff will have to be re-replaced, or else the whole project scuttled and replaced by something else. Maybe this kind of work has to return to its clandestine roots.

www.projectliberty.io

(Not exactly media criticism, but there is no c/fediverse comm here 🤷) [Frank McCourt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_McCourt_(executive)) >In 2013, he donated $100 million to establish the [McCourt School of Public Policy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCourt_School_of_Public_Policy), the ninth school of Georgetown University. He made a second $100 million gift to Georgetown University in March 2021, for the express purpose of ensuring that "the McCourt School can open its doors more widely and build a pipeline of future public policy leaders that reflects the true diversity of our communities." >In 2021, he founded the non-profit Project Liberty. The initiative has multiple components which includes the development of the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP), the founding of the McCourt Institute with founding academic partners Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and Sciences Po in Paris, and a network of partners within the Unfinished network > >In 2023, he transitioned from CEO of McCourt Global to executive chairman and announced Shéhérazade Semsar de Boisséson, former *POLITICO Europe* CEO, as McCourt Global's CEO. > >In 2024, he announced plans to build a consortium to buy the US arm of TikTok. - Project Liberty: https://www.projectliberty.io/ - “DSNP stands for Decentralized Social Networking Protocol”: https://www.projectliberty.io/dsnp/ - DSNP\.org Blog, May 2024: [Announcing the Publication of the DSNP Governance Framework v.1](https://dsnp.org/blog/2024/05/23/announcing-governance-v1.html) - Forbes, 2022: [Transforming The Internet With Project Liberty](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomdavenport/2022/11/18/transforming-the-internet-with-project-liberty/) - Semafor: [Tech critic McCourt mounts TikTok bid](https://www.semafor.com/article/05/15/2024/tech-critic-frank-mccourt-mounts-tiktok-bid) - McCourt School of Public Policy @ Georgetown University: https://mccourt.georgetown.edu Discovered in a lemmy\.ml/c/privacy post today: [Project Liberty](https://lemmy.ml/post/18542051)

World News davel • Now • 100%

Ultra-nationalist linked to Maidan false flag assassinated | Kit Klarenberg @ The Grayzone

thegrayzone.com

>Volodymyr Zelensky’s government may have also sought to undermine Azov, as two bloody friendly fire incidents suggested. First, in [July 2022](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/29/russia-accuses-ukraine-of-killing-pows-with-himars-system), a Russian pre-trial detention center was reportedly struck in a HIMARS missile strike, killing 40 prisoners from the Azov Regiment. Then, in [January 2024](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/24/russian-military-plane-crashes-near-ukraine-border), a plane carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs was shot down in Belgorod. Many on board were Azov members. > >Accordingly, Farion’s assassination raises the question of whether civil society actors rejecting any form of settlement with Moscow are being eliminated too. The CIA spent expended heavy resources to training a dedicated [assassination squad](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/23/ukraine-cia-shadow-war-russia/) for Kiev. The unit is so effective, US officials fear its operatives could go rogue and execute targeted killings the world over, with one former senior CIA figure reportedly warning: “We are seeing the birth of a set of intelligence services that are like Mossad in the 1970s.” The Washington Post has reported that Ukraine’s proficiency at such operations “has risks for Russia… but it carries broader risks as well” for the rest of the world. > >If a CIA-backed outfit in Ukraine is turning its guns on its former sponsors, it would follow a well-document history of blowback. Whether or not Farion’s assassination was the product of an intelligence intrigue, it is clear that Kiev’s chickens are coming home to roost.

The previous books in the series were [*The Collapse of Antiquity*](https://michael-hudson.com/2023/03/the-collapse-of-antiquity-release/) and *[…and forgive them their debts](https://michael-hudson.com/2018/08/and-forgive-them-their-debts/)*. I don’t know how he cranks these out, on top of his articles, [YouTube series](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDAi0NdlN8hMl9DkPLikDDGccibhYHnDP), and endless interviews.

www.midwesternmarx.com

Found from [S4A’s Mastodon post](https://ioc.exchange/@socialismforall/112849704941615881). S4A is an ultra-leftist, but he has his moments. >People often ask me what I think about Midwestern Mussolini. I think they're shit. > >This whole article, "In Defense of the MAGAcommunism Strategy," dated May 27, 2024, lays out praise for Jackson Hinkle, who has stated that Marxism isn't about abolishing private property (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDXG4h5w1bY ), and Infracel, who…where even to begin there (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4ntTm-XBa4 )? Those two aren't spreading Marxism but a toxic synthesis of revisionist Browderism, cultish Lyndon Larouche-ism and neo-fascist Duginism. We generally call the end results, the pathetic wastes of life who believe in that garbage, "patsocs" ("patriotic socialists," stemming from one of their early controversies) or "nazbols" ("national bolsheviks," after the associated fascist-with-red-symbolism movements). And for Hinkle and Infracel, and I guess the Midwits now too, "grifter" also fits well. The right wing may have bad politics, but they sure have more money! (Hinkle's former mentor, Jimmy Dore, can tell you all about it.) > >The article begins by talking about the author's sports coach, who supports Trump and "wants a political and economic revolution." Does he though? What you tend to find in that camp aren't anything like revolutionaries but confused and hateful bigots who're invested in every reactionary prejudice there is. We know this because decent people with any amount of solidarity refuse to stand with the shit the Trumpers do publicly and have been doing publicly for a long time. While a few of them may come around some day to some extent, most of them will remain on the capitalists' side for life and as hazards to a genuinely revolutionary working-class movement. In the short term, it's more realistic to plan to face them in combat than it is to think they'll willingly renounce their ignorance. > >And what do Trumpers mean by an "economic revolution"? There are only two possibilities for running an advanced industrialized society: capitalism and socialism. And Trumpers definitely don't want socialism. Rather, what you get out of them tends to be crudely stated, petty-bourgeois, fascist middle-class politics. Instead, communists - which, again, to be clear, Hinkle and Infracel are not - generally should speak firstly to the advanced masses, who can help to guide the middle masses and to contain the backward, most ideologically captured masses. In other words, we don't start with the least class-conscious people who are tailing the 1% the most. Unfortunately, this describes a lot of the US population, but it is what it is, and denying that will get you nowhere you want to go. > >Finally, the author states, "I haven't agreed with 100% of what Jackson Hinkle has said in the past three years," and yeah, I sure hope not, but let's be real: the Midwits agree with enough of Hinkle's 💩 to get on board with the founding of his new, fascist political party, the deceptively titled "American Communist Party" (ACP). > >Give these 🤡 🤡 🤡 a very wide berth.

GenZedong davel • Now • 100%

Gerald Horne understands critical support for anti-imperialist states like Russia, China, and Iran

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Horne

China davel • Now • 100%

New Breakthrough News show: The China Report

www.youtube.com

>Our understanding of China — and U.S.-China relations — has become a defining feature of all global politics. The China Report is a new show produced in collaboration with Pivot to Peace where every week, hosts Amanda Yee and KJ Noh will be helping through all the propaganda with an independent view of the country we are told to hate, but know so little about. First two episodes: - [Exposed: Pentagon Ran Covert Anti-Vax Operation to Discredit China](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KApNmpAVuLo) - [WSJ Accuses China of Secret Spy Bases in Cuba: Cold War Madness Gets Crazier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pdhy2lzbZk) I’d never heard of Pivot to Peace. - https://peacepivot.org/ - https://www.youtube.com/@pivottopeace2492

jonathancook.substack.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Cook

US News davel • Now • 100%

Seymour Hersh: The Foreign Policy Biden is Putting On the Ballot

seymourhersh.substack.com

Hard paywall. --- I was admonished early in my reporting career by William Shawn, the famed editor of the New Yorker for thirty-six years, to “use words” instead of cliches, and always try to do so. But it is time to talk about the foreign policy elephants in the room in the current crisis over Joe Biden’s political future, which is also the immediate future of the fractious Democratic Party. And they are the current disasters in Ukraine, where a reviled Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is winning, and in Gaza, where Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is losing a murderous war with Hamas and the respect of much of the world. Joe Biden’s policies in both instances have been both a political and a humanitarian disaster. Biden and his foreign policy gaggle, led by Antony Blinken, his secretary of state, and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, helped to provoke a war in Ukraine and have supported Netanyahu with words and a lot of American bombs and other weaponry in his decision to respond to the Hamas assault last fall with an all-out war against Hamas that has devastated the innocent civilian population of Gaza. Yes, Putin initiated the war in Ukraine, but there are many in the foreign policy world here and in Europe who believed that he might not have done so had the White House earlier authorized Blinken to assure Putin that Ukraine would not become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO begins a seventy-fifth anniversary meeting today in Washington and, according to a predictable announcement to the press, it “will focus on ways to reassure Ukraine of NATO’s enduring support.” Despite some early losses, Russia, with its advantage in air and ground forces, is now dominating the war and, despite scant interest in Washington, there are serious peace talks going on. A senior American official told me that Putin “has what he wants” in Ukraine and delayed an all-out assault on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, while a possible settlement is being negotiated, with no known direct involvement of the crisis-ridden White House. It also is not clear what the future holds for Volodymyr Zelensky, the reportedly dispirited president of Ukraine. “No one knows what is going to happen to Zelensky,” the official told me. “The chain for him is getting shorter by the day.” Constant Russian attacks on power stations have left urban areas throughout the country, including Kiev, with only a few hours of power a day—not enough to prevent refrigerated food from going sour. Russia began targeting energy facilities throughout Ukraine in March, according to Reuters; the projected cost of repair and replacement is, as of late June, more than $16 billion. Russia escalated its missile attacks yesterday on cities across Ukraine, with one missile striking a major children’s hospital in Kiev, killing at least thirty-six people and injuring 140 others. It was not immediately known how many victims were children. The political situation in Israel is equally grim, as the Israeli government—still being supplied daily by the Biden administration with American 2,000-pound bombs—continues to pound away in its more and more unsuccessful war against Hamas. The IDF was unable on October 7 to prevent Hamas from seizing hundreds of hostages. The mood of anxiety and fear has darkened, increasing Netanyahu’s political hold on many with his insistence that Israel will stay in Gaza until victory over Hamas is achieved. It has been a tour de force for Netanyahu, given the clear evidence that Israel has not come close to winning the war against Hamas, despite constant bombing and tank shelling and promises of victory. Most recently, the IDF staged a massive attack in what was said to be a tunnel complex in Gaza’s south, allegedly the last redoubt of Yahya Sinwar, the military leader of Hamas who is widely believed to be the mastermind of last year’s attack. At least two battalions were sent late in May into the tunnel complex, accompanied by sapper units whose soldiers had special training in the use of explosives. The operation produced no sign of Sinwar nor any hostages, and no accounting of combat deaths or injuries was forthcoming from the IDF or the prime minister’s office. Ceasefire talks between Israel and the Hamas leadership have been going on, fitfully, for months—most recently in Cairo—with the involvement at various times of Blinken, Sullivan, and William Burns, the CIA director, but there has been no sign of an agreement. The American official with whom I’ve discussed the negotiations has consistently explained that it is his belief that Netanyahu will never agree to a release of prisoners in return for an Israeli retreat from Gaza because that would be a defeat, leaving Hamas still in control. The number of Israeli prisoners officially reported to be in Hamas’s custody is 116, while fifty hostages reportedly died, or were killed, while in captivity. In my reporting, I have found consistent skepticism about those numbers. There are knowledgeable Americans who believe that only very few hostages who were in the Hamas tunnel system have survived, but do not know how many hostages may have been placed in Hamas and civilian apartments and homes throughout Gaza. Two days ago the New York Times depicted the issue in simple terms. Netanyahu has “vowed to destroy Hamas and topple its rule” in Gaza, the paper said, and Hamas “hopes that a permanent cease-fire will allow it to cling to power.” Meanwhile, the Israeli bombing and ground assaults continue, as Hamas has not only survived the onslaught but is known to control much of the flow of food and other goods into Gaza. Corruption continues to be rampant, as Hamas and smugglers constantly appropriate the relief goods and either sell the goods themselves or deliver them to black market operators throughout Gaza. The number of deaths in Gaza from the Israeli bombings and other attacks was officially listed as of mid-June by the Gaza Health Ministry at more than 37,000, with a significant percentage of those being members of Hamas. I reported this two weeks ago and noted that the actual number of deaths is impossible to estimate, given that many of the Gazans who did the counting have been slain by Israeli bombing. On July 5, The Lancet, a 200-year-old medical journal published weekly in London, published an online research paper—it did not go through peer review—stating that the number of indirect deaths per reported deaths in a combat zone such as in Gaza could be as much as four to one, meaning that the actual death total in Gaza could reach as many as 186,000 deaths, or up to 9 percent of the population. I asked an old Israeli friend, with many combat medals, who has operational knowledge of what has been going inside Gaza, why Israel, with all of its bombs and tanks, has not been able to win the war. He spoke like the battlefield commander he once was. “The IDF,” he said, “has destroyed Hamas’s military structure and pushed them back to be the rag-and-sandals terror band they were before. Their supply line from Iran to Egypt” via 30 tunnels under Gaza “was cut” by IDF bombings and ground attacks. Despite that, he added, the Hamas “underground city” remains to some extent operational. The real issue, he said, was that the Hamas leadership—mainly Sinwar—and the Israeli leadership—mainly Bibi—share at least one thing in common: “Not caring for their people” but “only caring for their own political survival. For this reason, Bibi will not allow the proposed hostage deal to materialize as then he loses his coalition. Bibi succeeded, and I give him credit for this, to turn the hostage issue into a political issue rather than a moral and humanitarian issue, and painted all supporters of such as leftists, the worst curse nowadays here. “No matter what Bibi does,” the retired officer added, “we were defeated by a rag band mainly because of built-in ignorance and [note cut] arrogance.” Whatever the end result, the driving force in the recent round of negotiations between Israel and Hamas has not been Joe Biden. He has repeatedly offered his support for Israel along with American arms and has not focused on the catastrophic Israeli bombing of Gaza and its consequences, to the despair of many, especially the young, in America and the world. His foreign policy aides, most notably Blinken, have spent months traveling to the Middle East in support of complicated peace talks that provided no hint of presidential input or other forms of his direct involvement. The American ambassador to the United Nations, clearly at the direction of the White House, has consistently protected Israel from Security Council sanctions, often as the sole nation in Israel’s support. In late May the president made a hastily arranged televised statement from the White House in which he proffered a three-stage peace proposal that he initially, and incorrectly, claimed had come from the Israelis. The proposal has been a basis for continued talks between Israel and Hamas, often through third parties, that have failed to produce a settlement. But otherwise, the president has not been a presence in the talks going on now in the Middle East, nor has he been a direct player in any way in the fitful peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. His primary role has been to successfully advocate in public and with the Congress for many billions in support of arms and military goods for Ukraine. The case against the continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency and for his replacement by another Democratic candidate goes far beyond the question of this health and mental acuity. He has talked about peace in Ukraine and the Middle East but has chosen not to be a public force for it. Whether Biden’s flaws are due to a lack of character or undisclosed infirmity—or just old age—America and the world need more, much more, from a president.

www.dropsitenews.com

- Scahill: [I’m leaving The Intercept and starting Drop Site News](https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/im-leaving-the-intercept-and-starting) - Ryan Grim: [This is an email I never thought I'd be sending](https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/this-is-an-email-i-never-thought) There seems to be a rash of exoduses from The Intercept going on. Two months ago, Ken Klippenstein quit for [The Grayzone](https://thegrayzone.com/author/ken-klippenstein/): [Why I'm Resigning From The Intercept](https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/why-im-resigning-from-the-intercept) You may recall Glenn Greenwald’s exit in 2020. - [My Resignation From The Intercept](https://greenwald.substack.com/p/my-resignation-from-the-intercept) - [Article on Joe and Hunter Biden Censored By The Intercept](https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-biden-censored)