Cuba, a small island with a population of only 11 million people and few resources has been the target of US imperialism since its revolution in 1959. It has been subject to invasions such as that at the Bay of Pigs, many assassination attempts of Fidel Castro, and the US has imposed a crippling blockade for years. However, under the Trump and Biden administrations these attacks have been stepped up. Trump greatly increased the sanctions against Cuba and labeled it as a terrorist country. This further hindered its ability to trade with other countries as banks and markets were closed to Cuba causing severe shortages and hardships for the Cuban people. The Biden administration maintained these increased sanctions and the terrorist label and is trying to organize demonstrations against the Cuban government based on dissatisfaction with the shortages. This is especially criminal during the COVID-19 crisis, during which the US sanctions have not allow medicine or medical equipment into the country.
Pro-government protest in Cuba that the corporate media said was anti-government
The US does not fear Cuba militarily or as economic competition. It fears Cuba because of its example to the rest of the world, especially to Latin American countries, as they move forward in breaking away from US imperialism and its neo-liberal economic policies. While the US will not provide healthcare for all, even during this pandemic, Cuba provides free healthcare and education for all. Even with the sanctions-imposed limitations on medicine and medical equipment, Cuba has done remarkable well in containing the virus and even sent doctors to help out in other countries. It prioritizes the needs of the Cuban people not the corporations, banks, and billionaire class. The example of people over profit is one that the US cannot tolerate, and so they attack Cuba.
On November 15, Cuba started opening up after restrictions due to the COVID pandemic. Biden used this day to call for demonstrations in Cuba against the government. This call has proven to be a failure as demonstration did not materialize anywhere on the island. While the Cuban people and Cuban government will have to deal with this intervention and the discontent due to shortages and the pandemic, we in the US must show our solidarity with Cuba and oppose our government’s interference in the internal affairs of Cuba and other countries throughout the world.
Demonstration were called in a number of US cities on November 15 to express solidarity and help inform the people of the US of the criminal role the US government plays in Cuba. This crisis will not end on November 15. We must step-up our efforts to show solidarity and stay the hand of US imperialism.
Hands off Cuba!
End the Blockade!
End all Sanctions!
End US meddling in the affairs of other countries!
An Iraq veteran gave George W. Bush a stark reminder this past weekend that although he’s now a liberal media darling, there are plenty of Americans who remember the lies that led to millions of deaths.
Corporal Mike Prysner was captured on video launching into a tirade against Bush during a speech in Beverly Hills.
“When are you going to apologize for the million Iraqis who are dead because you lied?” Prysner yelled at Bush.
“You lied about weapons of mass destruction! You lied about connections to 9/11! You sent me to Iraq! You sent me to Iraq!” Prysner continued.
Bush can be heard responding “you said you’d behave yourself.”
As he was bundled out of the room, Prysner demanded Bush “apologise” adding “my friends are dead, you killed people.”
Watch:
Iraq was destroyed politically, physically, and socially by the US attack on Iraq for the sole purpose of ‘regime change’. The country’s infrastructure has never been repaired, and many Iraqis do not have adequate electricity, water, food, or medicines.
Steven Sahiounie, Who Tried to Kill Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Kadhimi?
Aotearoa 4 Assange and an international panel of experts will call upon the New Zealand government to lead the way home for Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange, by welcoming him to our shores.
Zoom link below.
Check local time:
Tue Oct 26, 9am (Auckland) Tue Oct 26, 7am (Melbourne) Mon Oct 25, 9pm (London) Mon Oct 25, 4 pm (Boston) Mon Oct 25, 1pm (San Fran)
Speakers:
DANIEL ELLSBERG (USA) – The Vietnam War’s whistleblower. Ellsberg revealed the brutal reality of the war, versus the official narrative given by the US Government. Ellsberg, similar to Assange, was charged as a spy.
DEEPA DRIVER (UK) – Assange trial observer, and academic on transparency and accountability of financial organisations.
HON MATT ROBSON (NZ) – New Zealand’s Former Minister of Justice, and one of the lead campaigners for Ahmed Zaoui.
GREG BARNES SC (AUS) – Australian Human rights lawyer, author and senior counsel.
MATT BRENNAN (NZ) – Chair person of Aotearoa 4 Assange.
Since at least the start of the 21st century, if not earlier, two global trends have emerged very clearly. Firstly, increased North American and European aggression overseas has been accompanied by increased economic and political domestic repression in the US itself and its allied countries. This domestic repression has reached unprecedented levels over the last two years,
Secondly, despite the apparent demise of Western led economic globalization, North American and European corporate influence under various guises has co-opted international policy making and governance, as writers from Cory Morningstar to Iain Davis have reported in detail for many years.
In the context of these and other trends, Nicaragua’s resolute defence of its national sovereignty and its very successful economic, social and environmental policies have made this tiny country of around 7 million people the target of US and allied country aggression. As it nears its general elections next November 7th, Nicaragua is the country in Latin America and the Caribbean most under attack by Western governments, their countries’ corporate and alternative media and their international NGOs for the following reasons:
its health system has been among the most successful in the world addressing COVID-19 with no economic restrictions and without closing schools
it is among the most gender equal countries in the world
its model of regional autonomy for the country’s indigenous and afro-descendant peoples is the most progressive and advanced in the hemisphere
it plays a leading role criticizing rich countries in international discussions about global environmental policies
it’s education system is among the most innovative and progressive in Latin America and the Caribbean
it’s public health system is the most extensive and modern in Central America with 21 new hospitals, 46 hospitals remodeled and modernized along with 1,259 health posts, 192 health centers and 178 hostals for expectant mothers
its highway infrastructure is among the best in Latin America and the Caribbean
it is among the safest countries in all the Americas
it is the most successful country in the region combating drugs trafficking and organized crime
it’s economy is among the most successful in the region because it is also the most democratically socially structured and practically self-sufficient in food production
it enjoys excellent diplomatic relations with the broadest range of majority world nations of any other country in the region
These achievements of Nicaragua’s government and people are all based on the historic 1969 revolutionary program of the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN). They contrast sharply and strongly with the relative respective policy failures of countries in the region allied to the US and Europe. These include not just all Nicaragua’s Central American neighbors but even much bigger and supposedly more developed countries like Chile and Colombia. This straightforward fact is systematically suppressed because it is embarrassingly inconvenient for the fascist configuration of corporate and State power now dominating North America and Europe.Being Made Invisible
Thus, Nicaragua is the target of false reporting by Western media and NGOs, smearing its government as anti-democratic, corrupt and incompetent when the truth is precisely the reverse. This kind of reporting is very similar in the cases of Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela. Western governments and their allies have successfully attacked the peoples of those three countries, setting back their social and economic development by various means, including military aggression and sabotage, all kinds of economic aggression as well as outright political intervention. With very few exceptions, Western corporate and alternative media and NGOs support this perverse criminality.
They report uncritically that their governments seek to promote freedom and democracy for the peoples whose lives they in fact destroy. In Nicaragua’s case, following the failed regime change attempt in 2018, the corporate owned US government and its allies have intensified economic aggression, as well as diplomatic, media and NGO driven psychological warfare against Nicaragua’s people. They want to destroy the country’s prospects of continuing successful social and economic development, just as they have tried to do to the peoples of Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela.
Even so, all the signs are that Nicaragua’s people will vote massively on November 7th in support of their country’s Sandinista government. They will do so because their lives have changed radically for the better in every area of national life over the last 14 years since President Ortega took office in January 2007. People everywhere should defend Nicaragua’s challenge to the increasingly repressive tyranny of Western elites because in doing so they will be defending their own right to sovereign autonomy and independence.
Stephen Sefton, renowned author and political analyst based in northern Nicaragua, is actively involved in community development work focussing on education and health care.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
From Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space October 15, 2021
Big western ‘democracy’ nations have been training the Nazi’s in Ukraine.
The mainstream corporate media has finally admitted that the US, European Union members states, and Canada have been training Nazi-saluting fascists to fight Russian speaking citizens in Ukraine whose only crime is they live near the Russian border and speak Russian.
This is state-sponsored terrorism.
The Ottawa Citizen newspaper in Canada reports on new study done by American University. This is what many of us have been saying since the 2014 US orchestrated coup d’état in Kiev where Nazis were installed into prominent high level positions in the new government.
That government began waging war on the Donbass region of Ukraine – on the east side of the country.
If you’d like to see Obama’s training program of the Nazi’s in Ukraine by Army Special Forces from Fort Carson, Colorado click youtu[dot]be/nxeZFS9hTUg
Secretary of War Lloyd Austen and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
From Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
October 23, 2021 by Bruce Gagnon
It didn’t take long for the US to up the ante with China and Russia. So soon after the crushing defeat from 20 years of death and destruction in Afghanistan [the war against the people of Afghanistan officially started in 1979 under President Carter — at least 41 years of death and destruction] we find Washington stirring the fire pit and looking for more trouble.
It’s really no surprise. Just take a close look at US history – one filthy war after the other.
Just this past week we’ve seen ‘F the EU’ Victoria Nuland go to Moscow hoping for an audience with Putin. She only got to meet with lower level, but competent Russian diplomats, and came away with nothing other than furthering the divide between our two nations. Actually, that might have been the US strategy.
The word is that Nuland went in with a list of Washington’s demands. Russia said ‘nyet’ and handed Nuland a list of their own. Of course Nuland said ‘No’ and was then sent packing back to the US.
Secretary of War Lloyd Austin (former Raytheon board member) just stopped in Georgia, Ukraine, and Romania before heading to Brussels for hand-wringing with the NATO clowns.
Austin stated during a news conference in Bucharest that the purpose of these visits was to highlight “the importance of deepening cooperation among our Black Sea allies and partners to deter and defend against Russian malign activities in the region.”
That’s the political hype. His real purpose in Georgia, Ukraine, and Romania? Spur them to make trouble for Moscow in any way and every way they possibly can. And I’m sure Austin said the magic words, ‘Of course the US will back you if you get into a fight with Russia. First, we’ll supply you with more weapons and plant more of our troops in your nation to protect you from the Russian bear.’
At the Brussels meeting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the following:
Allies will kick off a $1.16 billion NATO Innovation Fund to develop dual-use emerging and disruptive technologies. NATO will also establish its first artificial intelligence strategy to incorporate data analysis, imagery, and cyber defense.
The allies are spending more on defense and they agreed to increase the readiness of forces.
Significant improvements are being made to alliance air and missile defenses. NATO calls for strengthening conventional capabilities with fifth-generation jets, adapting exercises and intelligence, and improving the readiness and effectiveness of the nuclear deterrent.
We exchanged views on how to preserve the gains and ensure Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for terrorists.
NATO’s new strategy ensures that the alliance will have “the right forces in the right place at the right time.”
They also characteristically took at shot at China from behind the safe walls of NATO HQ in Brussels with a stream of rhetoric.
Austin’s remarks followed the completion of a two-day NATO ministerial where he said officials offered “unique perspectives” on China, which he noted remains the Pentagon’s “primary pacing challenge.”
“Indeed, I applaud NATO’s work on China and I made it clear that the United States is committed to defending the international rules-based order which China has consistently undermined for its own interests,” Austin told reporters.
At an October 21 CNN town hall, Joe Biden was asked about China.
“I just want to make China understand that we are not going to step back, we are not going to change any of our views.” Biden said. Asked whether the US would come to Taiwan’s defense if it were attacked, he replied: “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.”
Now let’s analyze this NATO meeting and the comments on China just a bit.
First, who has Russia invaded? Since the US orchestrated coup in Ukraine in 2014 (when the Russian-ethnic people in Crimea voted to ask Russia to take them back into the federation) there has been no invasion of anyone near its borders. At the same time US-NATO has been holding war games repeatedly all along Russian borders. When Moscow has responded by holding counter-war games inside its own country Washington and Brussels have howled in condemnation. Talk about a double-standard!
And please note the words above by Austin – “I applaud NATO’s work on China” – just what does that mean?
NATO has gone global. The North Atlantic Treaty Alliance has now decided that it should be ‘defending democracy in the Pacific’. Who is the aggressor in this case? What right does NATO have to decide it is the new global cop?
Can’t lick Afghanistan so let’s take on China & Russia
NATO has no legitimate reason to exist today – the Soviet Union and their Warsaw Pact Alliance are long gone. Russia just built an undersea natural gas pipeline called Nord Stream 2 to furnish fuel to Europe in order to help alleviate their current energy crisis. It’s a big business deal for Moscow. Why would Russia want war with Europe?
The insanity of US-NATO is exposed for anyone willing to see the obvious. Washington and Brussels got their high-tech asses kicked by a ill-armed rag-tag but determined Taliban in Afghanistan. Now they somehow dream that they can take on both China and Russia who have formed a military alliance as they watch the NATO endless war machine heading their way.
I understand that all these moves by US-NATO absolutely benefit the military industrial complex which has installed one of their agents (Lloyd Austin) as secretary of war. But do these psychopaths actually believe they can start a war with China and Russia and possibly win? Don’t they know that such a war would go nuclear in a hot flash?
It’s obvious that the US-NATO war cabal are blinded by power and greed. There can be no other explanation that comes close to making sense.
It’s a dangerous and dirty game these fat cats are playing – at the same time that climate crisis rages in our faces, legions of people face evictions from their homes, and the basic cost of living goes sky high.
Are we heading for a collapse in the US and around the globe? How could that not be happening under these present conditions?
And the US-NATO response?
How about another war?
Which party in Washington is leading this descent into hell?
>>>>>>DEADLINE TO COMMENT — THIS SATURDAY, JULY 10<<<<<<
Please submit some testimony, however brief, about these doomsday weapons. COPY AND PASTE FROM TEMPLATE BELOW. E mail comments to jfceaoea@govsupport.us
The Pentagon’s Proposed Action entails up to six flight test launches at up to four different launch locations per year, over the next 10 years. Test objectives are expected to dictate range selection from Atlantic and Pacific test ranges. IMPACTS TO MARINE LIFE FROM SPENT STAGES AND HYPERSONIC PAYLOAD HITTING OCEAN WILL BE SEVERE.
Notice #: 0001329762-01 Notices of Availability Posted at classifieds.thegardenisland.com/legal-notices/notices-of-availability/0001329762-01/
This short video shows what hypersonic missiles are and how dangerous they are to life on Earth.
This PEA/OEA is being prepared as a Programmatic Environmental Assessment (EA) to provide an analysis of multiple launch locations that will be available to the test directorates over the next 10 years.
The U.S. Army RCCTO and U.S. Navy SSP are considering four launch locations: one on the west coast and one in Hawai`i, both with impact sites in the Pacific Ocean, and two launch locations on the east coast, with impact sites in the Atlantic Ocean. The Pacific locations analyzed are the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawai`i; Vandenberg Space Force Base, California; and BOA impact sites in the Pacific Ocean. The east coast locations include the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia; Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida; and Atlantic BOA impact sites.
Public comments on the Draft JFC PEA/OEA and Draft FONSI will be accepted from June 11, 2021 to July 10, 2021 and can be provided in either of the following ways:
(1) E mail comments by July 10, 2021 to jfceaoea@govsupport.us (2) Mail comments, postmarked no later than July 10, 2021, to: USASMDC ATTN: SMDC-EN (D. Fuller) P.O. Box 1500 Huntsville, AL 35807.
Public comments from Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
To jfceaoea@govsupport.us
Regarding: Joint Flight Campaign PEA
Our organization opposes the proposed action which entails up to six Hypersonic flight test launches at up to four different launch locations per year, over the next 10 years. Test objectives are expected to dictate range selection from Atlantic and Pacific test ranges. We believe the following:
Testing of Hypersonics will dramatically escalate the nuclear arms race/new Cold War
Our nation can’t afford another arms race — especially one in space
We need to be spending our national treasury on dealing with our real enemy — climate crisis and growing economic inequality
Toxic rocket fuel exacerbates an already grave climate crisis
It’s time the warmongers listened to the taxpayers
USASMDC ATTN: SMDC-EN (D. Fuller), P.O. Box 1500, Huntsville, AL 35807 Via email: jfceaoea@govsupport.us
Dear Mr. Fuller,
I served 29 years in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel. I was also a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in U.S. Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia.
I have lived in Honolulu, Hawai’i for 21 years. I am very concerned about the testing of hypersonic missiles and other missiles at the Kauai Barking Sands Missile Test Site. As I understand, the U.S. military is asking that Barking Sands will be used six times a year for ten years to test the hypersonic missiles.
I strongly believe the U.S. government’s testing of hypersonic missiles will greatly increase the nuclear arms race and create a new Cold War.
I also believe testing at Barking Sands Kauai will make the small Hawaiian Islands a major target for retaliation if the U.S. fires hypersonic missiles at China, Russia or any other country.
We in the U.S. can’t afford another arms race, particularly a weapons race in space. We need our taxes to deal with the climate crisis and the economic inequality we find in our own country.
And the toxic rocket fuel increases the challenging climate crisis we face.
The hypersonic rockets are not needed for our national security.
Diplomacy, not hypersonic rockets and war, are what will ensure our national security.
This is the second in a series of articles coinciding with Independence Day in the U.S. We are looking at themes related to industry vs. non-industry science, captured regulators, and other issues around the topics of independence and interdependence, regarding involuntary, ubiquitous EMF/RF and 5G exposures. Thank you for reading.
“An Anti Imperialist Ponders the 4th of July and its Meaning for His Newborn Child”
“On his newborn daughter’s first July 4th holiday, an anti-imperialist writer ponders what he hopes for her to come to understand about her nation of birth.
Gabriela, you are part of the four percent of the world’s population that celebrates today, July 4th, as Independence Day. We are in the extreme minority of the earth’s inhabitants that claim citizenship within the belly of the beast of the global empire, the United States.
Questions that usually go unasked on this day include: Why are we celebrating this nation? What, if any, benefits have been brought to the world by the existence of the United States?
My hope is that as you age you consider these questions and investigate some of the assumptions many Americans hold about their nation. This day can be an opportunity to make an honest assessment of this country’s past and present, with the goal of working toward a more humane future. During this reflection, your father hopes that you take into account the following considerations.
You have been born into an empire with asymmetric power!
Gabriela, your incidental birth within the United States means you are part of a citizenry that has a collective proverbial gun pointed at the people of the rest of the world. You are a member of a nation that holds unprecedented military and economic power on the global stage. This understanding should serve as a framework for all exploration into your nation’s relationship with the global community.
Comparing the U.S. military budget to other supposed rivals becomes almost comical, with Russia spending just over $60 billion, Iran spending $15 billion, and North Korea’s budget remaining lower than that of the New York City police department at $4 billion. Further illustrating this asymmetric power in the globe are the 800 foreign military bases possessed by the U.S. compared to a combined 70 possessed by the rest of the world’s nations.” – By Matt McKenna
Koohan Paik-Mander, a board member of the Global Network, discusses the US empire’s strategy of fighting wars from both space and the sea in her article, Countering the “China Threat”–At What Price?
“In early June 2021, in a classified directive to Pentagon officials, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin slammed the former Trump administration for talking big but never taking action to counter ‘the China threat.’
Austin made it clear that things would be different under President Biden. His ‘tough guy’ rhetoric strikes just the right tone for a massive, costly, military-infrastructure overhaul that would render the conventional warfare of the twentieth century unrecognizable: more nukes, fewer troops, and an omnipotent 5G network.
The goal of this overhaul is to give the United States and its allies the ability to summon, at once, unmanned military forces to rain terror down on any spot in the world—a swarm of drones, hypersonic missiles, submarine torpedoes, and bombers—all with the ease of calling an Uber.”
“[ ]…even more expansive swaths of the ocean are being set aside for year-round military exercises.
The most egregious example is the MITT (Mariana Islands Training and Testing), a plan to transform over a million square miles of biodiverse ecosystems into the largest-ever range complex for bombing and firing practice. The impacted area would be larger than the states of Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, and New Mexico combined.
The largest multinational open-ocean military exercises in history will take place here, home to 26 species of cetaceans. The navy itself estimates that its activities will maim or kill over 81,000 whales and dolphins per year. And that doesn’t count the ecological casualties anticipated in other existing exercise ranges, such as those around Hawaii, California, Alaska, Australia, in the Sea of Japan, and in the Bay of Bengal.” – Koohan Paik-Mander
Read the rest of Koohan Paik-Mander’s article here.
Bright Green Lies
In a recent interview referencing the new book Bright Green Lies, author Derrick Jensen invites the listener to “Make your loyalty to the natural world.” He notes that
“The environmental movement has been captured. At one point it was about protecting wild places and wild beings. And these days it has become about powering industrial civilization.
One example of this – You can have 100,000 people who march on the streets of whatever city, if you ask why they are marching – they’ll say, ‘we want to save the planet.’ If you ask their demands – what they’ll say is ‘We want subsidies for wind and solar industries.’
It is an extraordinary coup –I cannot think of any other social movement in history that has been so completely captured and turned into a lobbying arm for a sector of industrial capitalism. That’s terrifying.”
His interview was posted in early June of 2021.
The Co-opt of Environmentalism is Insignificant Compared to Post-Covid Wireless/5G Disaster Capitalism, Which Is Not Even Capitalism
I agree with everything that Derrick Jensen says, except that I can think of something even more terrifying than the fact that so many major environmental groups are a lobbying arm for industrial capitalism.
Post-covid, worldwide, beyond the capture of environmental organizations and the Bright Green Lies, society at large – including the health care sector, the education sector, the Black Lives Matters movement, rural America, banking, the utility sector, entertainment, finance, investment, agriculture, military, academia, human rights, and nearly all sides of political divides – has been co-opted to support the roll-out of the unsafe, insecure, unsustainable, surveillance and warfare-enabling, planet-destroying, space-invading, invisible, wireless 5G/broadband telecommunications network.
As Matt McKenna cautioned his newborn daughter, the U.S. does have its guns pointed at the rest of the world. And, increasingly, it also has its weapons pointed at its own people, as well as the ecosystem, including earth, sea, sky, and space.
Patricia Burke works with activists across the country and internationally calling for new biologically-based microwave radio frequency exposure limits.She is based in Massachusetts and can be reached at stopsmartmetersMASS@gmail.com.
A CALL TO CHANGE THE PUBLIC CONVERSATION TEN URGENT STEPS FOR NUCLEAR ABOLITION
Stop making new weapons!
Institute a moratorium on any new weapons, laboratories, delivery systems!
No refurbishing or “modernization” of old weapons! LET THEM RUST IN PEACE!
Immediately separate all nuclear bombs from their missiles as China does.
Take up repeated offers from Russia and China to negotiate treaties to ban space weapons and cyberwar and dismantle Trump’s Space Force.
Reinstate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Remove U.S. missiles from Romania and Poland.
Remove U.S. nuclear bombs from NATO bases in Germany, Holland, Belgium, Italy, and Turkey.
Sign the new Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Take up past Russian offers to reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals from what is now 13,000 bombs to 1,000 each, and call the other seven nations, with 1,000 nuclear bombs between them, to the table to negotiate for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons as required by the Nonproliferation Treaty of 1970.
Free Ukraine Now 