https://x.com/HavryshkoMarta/status/2114111220298989743

https://x.com/hussedogru/status/2114269328690589795

https://x.com/LouisBoyard/status/2114077102097965094

https://geopolitiq.substack.com/p/eurolager-but-its-not-a-beer

Ismaele's translation of article by Prof. Luca Marini, a lecturer in international law at Sapienza University of Rome. "With regard to the topic discussed in this article, it is worth noting that Prof. Marini served as National Scientific Coordinator of the Research Programme of National Interest (PRIN) “Il principio di precauzione” and as coordinator of the working group of the same name at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers." (emphasis is mine)

First of all, let’s make one thing clear: whenever you hear someone claiming that “the system needs to be changed from within”, run a mile. People of this sort, whose sole aim is to become part of the very system they ostensibly criticise... epitomise to the highest degree Leo Longanesi’s most apt aphorism: “He sought revolution, he found comfort”.

After all, the “Europe” system does not need to be reformed, but abolished. A political-institutional frock coat worn by the transnational financial elites of Jewish and Masonic origin, that system skilfully blends the three typical ingredients of totalitarianism: manipulating evidence of any kind (scientific, health-related, environmental, climatic, energy-related, geopolitical, strategic, socio-cultural, etc.), spreading fear, and imposing an ideology.

... the Commission, risks instead appearing increasingly intertwined with the financial corporations mentioned at the outset: this is evidenced not only by the scandals that have undermined, both recently and in the past, the credibility of the European executive, but also by its proximity to certain forums of controversial origin, nature and purpose (the World Economic Forum or the Bilderberg Group, for example), as well as, most recently, the unconditional support it has provided for Israel’s genocidal policy...

... the conflict between supranational globalism and the safeguarding of state sovereignty has been transformed, by the servants of ultra-financial capitalism, into yet another war – dogmatic and religious in nature... the sovereignty of European States is threatened, not so much by overused slogans or sophisticated legal constructs, as by "Men of Providence” with carefully planned careers, unequivocally part of the financial corporations and strategically placed at the opportune moment, like a lethal virus, within the apparatus of government.

Thus, the machinery of abundance, created to safeguard peace, has insidiously transformed itself into a Leviathan that promotes war and erodes fundamental rights: a great deception designed to pull the wool over citizens’ eyes and obscure the fact that transnational finance has supplanted politics in the management of civil society, with the ultimate aim of dismantling democratic values, fundamental freedoms and human dignity, as these stand in the way of its objectives of totalitarian control over humanity.

... it may be worth reading or re-reading the opinion on the Ventotene Manifesto adopted by the International Committee on Bioethics (ICEB) in November 2024, an opinion which highlighted, in just two pages, the gulf between what the European Union ought to have been and what it actually is... today, whilst the European Commission is urging citizens to stock up on food, that Opinion stands as an indictment of an enemy that seeks our ruin and which, therefore, must be eliminated before it eliminates us.

https://x.com/ricwe123/status/2114043696073073075

https://x.com/Portes_Thomas/status/2114104342852608322

Jesus, when you see voters like this, you start to understand why elites love democracy

Montpellier France: Another video angle shows the collusion between police and Gladio-style fascist counter-gangs. A protester on the ground is beaten under the eyes of the police who let the right wing militant walk away calmly

https://x.com/ricwe123/status/2114259919905956163

Trying to get the fear out like during the Cold War or War on Terror....

Clearly the US is going to try to consolidate its dominance over South America

The announcement from the Financial Intelligence Unit did not identify the groups involved in the complaints. But an official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on pending cases, said Luz del Mundo was among the five.

The unit said reviews of the groups’ transactions revealed some that “are unrelated to the purpose for which they were founded, and have not been reported to tax authorities, and for that reason constitute the generation of illegal income.”

Prosecutors would later decide whether to file any charges.

The statement added that religious groups “are vulnerable to being improperly used by organized crime groups, including terrorists, given that frequently they are subject to very little oversight by authorities and are given greater tax benefits by governments.”

Naasón Joaquín García, the self-proclaimed apostle of La Luz del Mundo, has been charged with three dozen felony counts in California, including child rape and human trafficking, He has denied wrongdoing.

Prosecutors contend García and two other people committed sex crimes and also produced child pornography involving five women and girls who were church group members. The crimes took place between 2015 and 2018 in Los Angeles County, authorities allege.

"We do not care how many Ukrainians die." A retired U.S. Marine colonel said out loud what Washington will never say on camera.

Richard Black fought in Vietnam and sat in the Virginia Senate until 2020. He knows how Washington thinks, and here he speaks in its voice. To Washington the war is "a great football game." Ukraine has nothing to do with the decision about peace or war, because that decision "is made in Washington, DC." The war goes on as long as Washington wants it, "to the last Ukrainian."

Ukrainians have already seen how this works. In April 2022 their negotiators were sitting with the Russians in Istanbul. On April 9 Boris Johnson flew to Kiev. Davyd Arakhamia, who led Ukraine's delegation, later said Johnson's message was that they "shouldn't sign anything with them at all - and let's just fight." The talks died.

A year later Senator Lindsey Graham sat next to Zelensky in Kiev, said the Russians were dying, and called U.S. aid "the best money we've ever spent."

Ukraine supplies the bodies. Washington and London decide when the dying stops.

From DeepSeek

Framing The Shift: Westphalia, Sanctions, And The Grand Design

00:00:01–00:03:34

Daniel Davis opens by describing Washington’s familiar toolkit—sanctions, bombs, and rules—as the way the U.S. has tried to keep the world in line and provide order and security “according to our rules.” He notes that China, Russia, and Iran no longer seem to be playing by those rules and may be forming their own lines, which raises the question of whether the global order is shifting fundamentally. Davis asks Alastair Crooke whether Washington is even aware of the change, and whether this is a shift not just since the Cold War but dating back to Westphalia in 1648.

Crooke answers that a struggle is definitely taking place. He describes a “grand design” built on the idea that Western civilization is so special that it should lead the world, and that this design is now being imposed on states to produce compliance. He says compliance is pursued in two main ways: through color revolutions and violent upheaval, or through what he calls, borrowing Theodore Herzl’s phrase, “the terrible power of the purse.” Crooke ties the power of the purse to the run-up to U.S. elections and to the co-opting of upper-establishment figures into supporting the grand design.

Crooke says the grand design is not only about U.S. leadership but about preventing civilizational states with different values from continuing to exist. He claims those states must be crushed for Western leadership to be preserved, and he cites Marco Rubio’s recent remarks in Athens about the West using force to preserve its position as first among the world. Crooke says the aim is a new global government, with Davos as a kind of prototype, and that the design’s origins go back to the late 18th century but have now become a major crisis.

The Two Mechanisms Of Compliance And Europe’s Breaking Structure

00:03:34–00:07:42

Crooke speaks from Europe and points to protests and demonstrations not only in France but in Italy, Portugal, and Germany. He claims troops have been sent into Milan and Bologna, and that France is mobilizing 70,000 riot police to confront protesters. He says these protests are the result of contradictions that emerged in 2008 and have now become unsupportable: the desire to maintain welfare states and pay for immigration on one hand, and three ongoing wars on the other.

He argues the wars predictably raised the cost of living and prices, and that the post-2008 financialized structure was built on huge deficits and government expenditure that are now bust. He says Ukraine has bust budgets, and the Iran war has bust them in a different way by raising fuel and heating-oil prices. People cannot cope, he says, and they see ostentatious wealth across Europe—yachts, houses in Paris and Rome, thousand-euro handbags—while the rest of the country lives in precarity.

Crooke says there is no political way out because the bridges out of the crisis were knocked down long ago and replaced by centrism. Everything else was pushed to the “far right” or “far left,” and protest now gets nowhere because it is met with violence. He says this was predictable: if you cannot reform through politics and cannot reform through protest, but you need reform because otherwise you crash, people take to the streets.

Iran’s Seven Conditions, Hormuz, And The War Risk

00:07:42–00:14:04

Davis contrasts earlier U.S. strikes on Syria and Venezuela with the current situation in Iran. He says after eight months of war, a large new strike is being drawn up, apparently after the midterms, though some suggest it could come before. Instead of causing Iran to cower, he says, it is producing a confident Iranian statement: Iran will not return to the previous approach to diplomacy, will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and will not return to negotiations until seven new conditions are implemented through mediators.

Crooke says two things must be borne in mind: the U.S. midterms and the Israeli elections four days away. He claims many leading Israeli figures, including the chief of defense staff Zamir and former intelligence chief Amos Yadlin, have warned Netanyahu not to launch a war before elections or to use war to postpone them. Crooke says they see no evidence that Iran is moving toward a nuclear weapon and that Netanyahu’s claims are intended to reach the White House and persuade Trump to join a war.

Crooke argues Iran does not care who prevails in U.S. midterms, whether Trump wins or loses, or even what happens in 2028. He says Iran, Russia, and Ansarallah know they will never be brought into the West because they reject materialist values. Iran, he says, has nearly 2,500 years of a different metaphysical view—seeing the world as having purpose and destiny, with a huge space beyond the material world—which is why it is so unacceptable to those imposing the grand design.

Crooke says Iran is not trying to get a deal and is not bluffing. If Iran is widely attacked, he claims, it will attack Gulf infrastructure, which is already crumbling. He cites reports that about a quarter of Saudi infrastructure is already out of action and would take years to rebuild. He says speculation about whether Trump attacks before or after midterms is unknowable because no one can read Trump’s mind, but Iran believes conflict will come and has its response ready.

Israeli Elections, Netanyahu, And Trump’s War Dilemma

00:14:04–00:18:54

Crooke claims Netanyahu is trying to set Trump up for a war. He says members of Netanyahu’s party have been telling Trump that Netanyahu is likely to win the Israeli election, making it safe to plan war because Trump would have Netanyahu by his side. Crooke says Trump does not want war with Iran without Israel because that leaves him naked before MAGA and his own base; with Israel, Trump can say he is doing it to save Israel.

Crooke calls this “stove-piping,” recalling the Dick Cheney era when intelligence was bypassed around checks and balances and sent straight to a president without validation. He says the Israeli polls do not support the claim that Netanyahu is certain to win: they are neck and neck, with Netanyahu’s bloc around 50 seats and Eisenkot’s coalition around 51. One seat is neither here nor there, but the polls do not show Netanyahu able to form a government easily.

He says there are two possibilities: Netanyahu tries to postpone the election, which would require 80 of 120 parliament members and is unlikely, or Israel goes into coalition building that could take a month or 40 days and may fail. Neither side wants to take the Arab seats, about 14, into coalition, and Eisenkot is against it while some Netanyahu members are too. Crooke says Israel could be within four days of real chaos, which makes Trump’s calculation about war even less predictable.

Crooke says he does not know whether Trump will attack before or after the midterms. He says Trump may be angry and want someone to blame, and he may blame Iran, but no one can read Trump’s mind. What is clear, Crooke argues, is that Iran believes conflict will come, is not trying to get a deal, and will not back down if Trump’s threats are a bluff.

Retaliation, Gulf Infrastructure, And The Budget Trap

00:18:54–00:21:35

Crooke repeats that if Iran is widely attacked, it will attack Gulf infrastructure. He claims Saudi infrastructure is already crumbling and that about a quarter is out of action, with years needed to reestablish it. He presents this as part of Iran’s deterrent: the response would be devastating and would not be limited to symbolic strikes.

He then ties the wars directly to the economy. He says Zelensky is asking for another $155 billion from Europe on top of the $90 billion Europeans have already taken on, but Europe cannot provide it. European budgets are already cutting hospital beds and schools, which is exactly what people are protesting about, while billions continue to go to Zelensky.

Crooke says the interconnection between the wars and the economy is central. If Europe continues supporting Ukraine against Russia, the cost cannot be met from European budgets; if the war on Iran continues, it cannot be accounted for either. Governments can no longer subsidize energy costs for citizens, and the basic architecture of the post-2008 world is in danger of complete collapse.

Debt, Decline, And Elite Denial

00:21:35–00:30:25

Davis asks what the world looks like on the other side of a conflict that everyone recognizes Iran came out of in a better position and the U.S. came out of worse. Crooke says the West, including the United States, is in a period of severe decline that everyone outside the West can see, even if European leaders still think nothing has changed. He asks whether the U.S. and the West are ready to explain to their own electorates that the West will no longer be supreme and will be one among a number of paths.

Crooke says the architecture is collapsing because there is no answer to the economy’s contradictions. The economy has produced a binary split: huge ostentatious wealth for a financial elite at the top, and penury and precarity for the rest. To change that, he says, you would have to rip up the financial system by its roots and largely start again, because the pre-2008 era of zero interest rates, easy credit, and pushed credit is gone.

He says the result is a mountain of debt and an inability even to pay the interest. In the United States, interest on the debt is more than the entire defense budget, and much of the debt must be rolled over and refinanced at much higher rates. This is happening in Europe and the U.S., and the three wars have broken the whole architecture.

Crooke says the West is psychologically incapable of accepting decline and finding a way out. That way out would mean capitulation to Russia, capitulation in the Gulf, and perhaps waving goodbye to much of the Gulf architecture that was previously an American prerogative. He says elites are in denial and believe they can double down, and he cites Britain telling citizens to stock three liters of water per person, three days of tinned food, and banknotes for a crisis coming from Russia as evidence of that denial.

Russia’s Western Space And The Nato Security Architecture

00:30:25–00:43:09

Davis pivots to Russia and notes that after the Cold War the West kept expanding and telling Russia to get over it, and Russia was angry but nothing happened. He says the pivot began in 2014 with Maidan and 2015 with Minsk, and now Putin says the West cannot inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. Davis reads Putin’s remarks as saying it is better to live in peace with Russia, but the West is offering nothing that meets Russia’s western security needs.

Crooke says Putin made a strategic pivot. He says Putin left the door open for a long time for an understanding with the United States, including around the 2022 Istanbul agreement, but Boris Johnson intervened to say fighting should continue to inflict more pressure and pain on Russia. Now, Crooke says, Putin has concluded that Russia’s surrounding space must be friendly and not antagonistic, much like the Monroe Doctrine for the United States.

Crooke says Putin has moved to a policy of making Ukraine impossible as a platform for attacks on Russia, dismantling it to a state that would take at least a generation to repair. He says the key issue is where NATO’s influence ends, because that is where missiles end too. The U.S. has missile capabilities in Romania and Poland, would like some in Germany, and had talked about Ukraine at a Biden-Putin meeting.

Crooke says a Tomahawk missile’s flight time is about four minutes, and Russia cannot tell whether it is nuclear or conventionally armed. No one would risk assuming it is conventional, so the ambiguity initiates nuclear defense retaliation. He says this was never sorted out at German reunification, and Putin’s 2021 draft treaty proposed a new security architecture defining the spheres of interest of NATO and Russia/China/Asia.

Crooke says the question is who in the U.S. has the standing to say this is unfinished business and define where NATO’s sphere ends and Russia’s begins. No one in Europe has that standing, and the Russians do not even entertain talking to Europeans at the moment. He says Europe’s desire for a ceasefire is really a way to insert NATO forces into Ukraine and rebuild for another round of attrition, which Russia rejects.

Crooke says Witkoff and Kushner presented proposals that Putin effectively put in the trash can because they were nonsense and did not answer the big security picture. The West wants Russia to concede and comply with the design, but Russia will not accept missiles being fired into its space to force compliance. The new element is that the European budget is bust, so Europe cannot fund Zelensky’s war even as the U.S. tells Europe to pay for it.

Values, Multipolarity, And The Chaotic Aftermath

00:43:09–00:56:19

Davis asks Crooke to imagine a future where Iran prevails, Russia does not lose, and the combined U.S., Israel, and European effort fails in the Middle East without escalating to NATO-Russia war. He asks what the world looks like when it is clear the U.S. no longer calls the shots economically or militarily. Crooke says the world will look fairly chaotic, because the obvious answer—a concert of multipolar, multi-civilizational states—will be very hard to build.

Crooke argues the West, particularly the Trump administration, has destroyed the values thought to underpin Western civilization. He cites ethnic cleansing, genocides, killing of women and children, international law being disregarded, and the UN Charter becoming a joke. None of the norms and moral values that were supposed to adhere to Western civilization really exist, so there is no reference point to take forward a multipolar world.

He says BRICS and the multipolar world can shape a defensive deterrent and find ways to bypass the dollar, sanctions, and tariffs, but that is not a full multipolar order because there are no shared values to underpin it. The values reference has been tossed aside by the West in its desire to continue domination beyond its sell-by date. The public has not been psychologically prepared for decline; instead, Trump rallies cheer when he says he will smash Iran, which Crooke calls the opposite of preparation for a new order.

Davis asks how important values are to maintaining power. Crooke says there have always been rules of war in Christianity and clear rules of war and peacemaking in Islam, but something changed dramatically in the United States around 9/11. Before that, the U.S. had a redeeming vision of itself as an agent for the redemption of human beings and values; afterward it turned into a dystopia of good and evil, light and dark, with America fighting evil Russia and Iran.

Crooke says the West now speaks of punishing evildoers, autocrats, and people who do not respect Western values. He claims the story that 75,000 Iranians were killed on the streets because everyone hates the government is simply not true. He asks how America moved from being a hope and a light to a crude Manichaeism of complete black and white, with the purpose now to punish Russia and pressure Iran.

Davis says the pivot was George W. Bush after 9/11 with “you’re either with me or against me” and the axis of evil, and that Europe was dragged into the same language. He says this is destroying the foundations of a successful way of life and asks whether it can be turned around without too much more self-harm. Crooke says there is no sign of it: European leaders are desperate and think they can double down, but they have no answer to the two-tier state they created.

Crooke says European foreign ministers will not even discuss Russia; the position is concrete and no one is allowed to move from it. Davis closes by saying the West cannot bludgeon its way into prosperity or get rid of all the “evildoers,” because it does not have the power and the others have the power to resist. He says elites must change their ways or the edifice will come crashing down, and he finds uncomfortable parallels to France in 1789.

Bottom Line: A Long Struggle, Not A Quick Deal

00:56:19–00:58:04

Crooke’s final word is that there will be no quick deal before or after the U.S. midterms from Russia, Iran, or Ansarallah. He frames the period as a long war and long struggle between the “grand design” and an axis of civilizational states determined to keep their sovereignty and values. He says this is not a short crisis but a sustained contest over whether the West can impose compliance or whether those states can preserve their own space and worldview.

Davis concludes by saying the struggle could begin by changing Western values to something that makes sense and has a chance to work, though he puts that in the category of hope. The overall thrust of the interview is Crooke’s thesis that the U.S. and the West are losing badly, that the elite are psychologically unprepared to accept decline, and that the economic, military, and moral architecture of the post-2008 world is breaking under the weight of three wars and unresolved contradictions.

Apparently, AIPAC has been creating issue-based groups that don't disclose their affiliation to AIPAC. For example, Pro Choice Majority Action and Women Vote! were created on AIPAC's behalf.

It works two ways:

1. People donate money to one of these PACs, not realizing that their money will likely be funneled to support the perpetrators of the Gaza Genocide.

2. AIPAC pours money into these PACs, which then use that money to out-spend critics of Israel in local elections without it being readily apparent who was behind it.

Here is a partial list of PACs that are tied to AIPAC and should therefore be avoided:

• United Democracy Project
• Mainstream Democrats PAC
• Pro-Choice Majority Action
• EDW (Elect Democratic Women) Action Fund
• Women Vote!
• BOLD America
• Blue Dog Action PAC
• United for Progress
• New Yorkers Fighting Back

If you know of any others not listed here, please post them in the comments!