Intrepid Report: Week of August 14, 2017

Intrepid Report Newsletter
We cannot keep publishing without your help. We rely on you to help us pay our monthly expenses. So please Donate  Monday A national calamity in the making By Robert Reich The violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, Saturday is a national calamity. It is a product of white supremacists and home grown terrorists. Neocolonialism can now be added to Trump’s ‘rap sheet’ By Wayne Madsen The Trump administration and its spokespeople have dusted off many sordid relics of America’s past and now colonialism can be added to the Trump “rap sheet.” Not content with calling for the repeal of the 17th Amendment, which would abolish the direct election of U.S. senators, and dabbling in Jim Crow policies with a regressive civil rights policy, the Trump administration nominated as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas San Diego businessman and early Trump supporter Doug Manchester. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Manchester called the independent Commonwealth of the Bahamas a U.S. protectorate. On July 10 of this year, the Bahamas celebrated 44 years of independence. The Grand Old Party’s over. Make way for the Trump Party. By Michael Winship You’ve probably heard the story. It’s said that in ancient Rome, the emperor had a member of the Praetorian Guard who, amid all the pomp and all the accolades, would stand behind him and murmur: “Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.” Freedom Rider: The defeat of American workers By Margaret Kimberley American workers have been completely crushed by capitalism. That is the goal of the capitalists after all, but working people in this country have fallen further and faster because they are without any political friends and because they declare allegiance to a compromised political party. The evidence can be seen in the vote against union representation at the Renault-Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi. Additional proof of the assault can be seen in the decision by the state of Wisconsin to promise electronics giant Foxconn $3 billion in subsidies to create 3,000 jobs. The Cold War roots of a new Korean War By Jacob Hornberger While President Trump’s impulsiveness and erratic behavior is clearly bringing America closer to war with North Korea, the real root of the Korean crisis lies not with him but rather with the Pentagon and the CIA, whose overwhelming power within the federal governmental structure is what really governs foreign policy, especially with respect to Korea. Tuesday Making America hate again By Robert Reich Two days late, Donald Trump has finally condemned violent white supremacists. He was pushed into it by a storm of outrage at his initial failure to do so in the wake of deadly violence to Charlottesville, Virginia. We saw into your soul, Donald Trump, and there was nothing there By Michael Winship Enough. Heading for US military action against Venezuela? By Stephen Lendman Washington already is waging political and economic war on the country, along with months of CIA-orchestrated street violence, responsible for scores of deaths, hundreds of injuries and numerous arrests made in an attempt to restore order. What threat? By Frank Scott Every twittish utterance from our AIC* is likely to get a full panic response from Imperial Control and its lapdogs in government and media, and his latest blurtings about fire and damnation if North Korea were to attack is no different in essence, but worse in substance. While his dimness is to be expected, reactions from alleged liberals, progressives and much of what passes for an American left speaks for historically underprivileged mentalities that make Trump’s own formed-by-popular-media consciousness seem almost sophisticated. And empires die By Philip A Farruggio That was from the song And Flowers Die, by prolific composer Michael Palermo and this writer as lyricist. How appropriate to compare this song with the ‘death song’ of our Military-Industrial Amerikan Empire, now in only its 72nd year of prominence. How great and powerful our empire was for so long. We controlled the economies and governments of so many countries, even continents. Now it is the autumn of our status as Number One. The Asian rim, as many refer to it, being led by China and all those other nations in that region, will become the future economic powerhouse of this planet. Wednesday Neocon Pence calls democratic Venezuela a hemispheric and US threat By Stephen Lendman In Colombia visiting narco-terrorist/Nobel Peace Prize winning President Juan Manuel Santos, Pence threatened Venezuela, saying, “President Trump has made it very clear that we will not stand by while Venezuela collapses into dictatorship.” Frightening rhetoric but will there be war? By Linda S. Heard US President Donald Trump is certainly taking a different approach from his predecessor in tackling the threat from North Korea’s nuclear weapons. He has adopted the type of macho language used by George W. Bush’s Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who warned Pakistan in the aftermath of 9/11 that if it didn’t cooperate it would be bombed back “to the Stone Age.” George Orwell and Mohammed Atta were here By Linh Dinh In 1937, Orwell was shot in the neck during the Spanish Civil War. Known mostly as a political allegorist, Orwell was also a master at describing all that is see¬n, heard and felt, so in Homage to Catalonia, you can read about his near death experience, “Roughly speaking it was the sensation of being at the center of an explosion. There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of light all around me, and I felt a tremendous shock—no pain, only a violent shock, such as you get from an electric terminal; with it a sense of utter weakness, a feeling of being stricken and shriveled up to nothing. The sandbags in front of me receded into immense distance. I fancy you would feel much the same if you were struck by lightning. I knew immediately that I was hit, but because of the seeming bang and flash I thought it was a rifle nearby that had gone off accidentally and shot me. All this happened in a space of time much less than a second.” Brave new food so safe it’s not even labeled By Martha Rosenberg Almost every issue that food activists care about—unlabeled, dangerous ingredients and drug traces; crowded, polluted farms that harm workers and the environment; Agribiz cornering the food supply and destroying family farms; and animal suffering—is magnified when genetically modified (GM) or genetically engineered (GE) animals are added into the equation. He’s got the whole world in his hands By Missy Comley Beattie I don’t know about you but I’m pretty fucking calm right now. Maybe even slightly giddy. You see, I was raised in the Baptist Church. Sunday school. Bible school in summer. I memorized so much scripture I was rewarded. Honored to carry the American flag from point A to point B in the auditorium. March, march, marching in obedience. Church. Sermons that scared the Hell right out of me. I attended more than a few tent revivals in Kentucky. Got dunked when I was 12 or so, I think, because my sister made that faithful decision to turn her life over to Christ and I wanted in on the act. As Dr. Phil would ask, “How’s that working for you?” Until this moment not so great. But I digress. Thursday America is at the tipping point between fascism and democracy By Wayne Madsen The mass media is being used by the neo-Nazi and neo-Confederate movements to give greater exposure to far-right leaders like Richard Spencer, Jason Kessler, Jack Posobiec, Preston Wiginton, and the most recent self-outed Nazi, broadcaster Alex Jones, to mainstream them and their dangerous ideology. This is similar to the methods used by Adolf Hitler to increase his exposure from a few beer-and-urine-reeking halls in Munich to all of Germany. Vassal aristocracies increasingly resist control by US aristocracy By Eric Zuesse The tumultuous events that dominate international news today cannot be accurately understood outside of their underlying context, which connects them together, into a broader narrative—the actual history of our time. History makes sense, even if news reports about these events don’t. Propagandistic motivations cause such essential facts to be reported little (if at all) in the news, so that the most important matters for the public to know, get left out of news accounts about those international events. ‘Fascism is not an opinion’ By Dave Alpert The title of this article is a quote from Mark Bray, an historian of human rights, terrorism and political radicalism in modern Europe who is currently a lecturer at Dartmouth College. He is the author of the forthcoming book, “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.” Freedom Rider: The Root and Russophobia By Margaret Kimberley The scoundrels and misleaders in the Democratic Party are leaving no stone unturned in their effort to escape responsibility for their ignominious defeats. There is no evidence of the Russian government “hacking” the election. Instead evidence points to a leak at the Democratic National Committee which revealed the gory details of their corruption and incompetence. For they are jolly good fellows! ‘I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I speak the truth, and they never believe me.’ By Joseph M. Cachia Did they hug and kiss?? That would have made the day! Neither did they hold hands! The pope, while looking just glum never permitted any other niceties, much less holding hands. Friday Talk emerges of a diplomatic boycott of the Trump administration By Wayne Madsen There is increasing chatter among mostly European diplomats that their nations’ displeasure about President Donald Trump would best be shown by staging a diplomatic boycott, namely, recalling ambassadors in Washington and leaving only chargés d’affaires in charge. This type of measure has been used in the past to show opposition to the domestic and foreign policies of foreign governments. Recently, Saudi Arabia led such a boycott, albeit for spurious reasons, against Qatar. Many nations have recalled their ambassadors to Israel following moves by that country against Palestinians. Trump’s civil war By Robert Reich Trump’s unwillingness to denounce the white supremacists who came to Charlottesville last weekend bent on violence has been part of his political strategy from the start. Trump keeps his promise—and delivers hate Those who voted for Trump got exactly what they voted for. There was no false advertising. There was no deception. By Christian Christensen There are many, many people in the United States right now wondering how we got to this point. How we could have a president of the United States unwilling and unable to clearly and firmly condemn white supremacy in his country? How we could have a president of the United States so devoid of humanity, insight and fundamental decency? And, I say “we” as a citizen of the United States. Al-Araqeeb Village: Palestinian Bedouins refuse to surrender 116 times By Ramzy Baroud On August 1, the Palestinian Bedouin village of Al-Araqeeb was destroyed for the 116th time. As soon as Israeli bulldozers finished their ugly deed and soldiers began evacuating the premises, the village resident immediately began rebuilding their homes. Waiting for a grown-up in the White House Donald Trump is turning the presidency into a day care center for his troubled inner child. By Michael Winship This presidency is unconstitutional. The Constitution says you have to be at least 35 to serve in our highest office and our incumbent tantrum-in-a-suit is emotionally 6 years old.
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