Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Category: Outlook (Page 1 of 6)

Holding our breath

27.08.2024 /

It is not easy to gauge the political temperature in my country these days. Not easy at all. Corporate news outlets persist in doing what they are paid to do, which is to keep us in the dark.

We were told, yes, that Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan had been sentenced to a good many years’ imprisonment, but we were not told that this was a US-orchestrated regime change operation. We were told that the PM Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh was forced to resign due to violent demonstrations. We were not told that this was another US-orchestrated regime change operation and that India is now squeezed between two US puppet states. The USA is protecting us, defending Democracy.

Democracy? Well yes, if you consider votes cast by a blindfolded electorate watertight evidence.

While Harris et al. are gushing all over our screens and newspapers – opening a paper is akin to eating a pound of cotton candy – some of us ask ourselves whether WWIII will start in the Middle East or in Europe. Harris is “tough”, though, and will make no concessions. Bring ’em on, she seems to say. The bipartisan magazine Responsible Statecraft is not impressed. Harris appears to share the Neocon view, writes Jack Hunter, that

diplomacy could prevent war, their primary goal, so better to avoid it. A tried and true method in preventing diplomacy is to accuse anyone who wants it of siding with America’s enemies.

In contrast, the magazine Foreign Affairs reassures its readers with the article “What Was the Biden Doctrine?”:

… it is clear that the past four years have witnessed remarkable achievements in foreign policy…the active pursuit of diplomacy… demonstrating a grasp of the traditional elements of statecraft…

How many Europeans read Foreign Affairs? How many Europeans read Responsible Statecraft? I have absolutely no idea. One thing is pretty sure though: Our own mainstream media is likely to parrot the former rather than the latter.

Last night I joined a few old friends for a drink down town. I know they still follow the mainstream news outlets, the news outlets they have been taught to trust as “objective”. For some mysterious reason, “objective” is seen to be synonymous with “neutral”, at least in this country. If the reporter claims to be – and convinces the reader that he or she is – “neutral”, i.e. neither left-wing nor right-wing, most Norwegians believe she will be more likely to “objectively” discern what is good (or correct) from what is bad (or disinformation), than if she is strongly opposed to mainstream policies.

You will have noticed that I did not provide any link to Foreign Affairs. I believe that the agenda of most Foreign Affairs contributors is continued US global supremacy at all costs, an agenda I strongly object to. So you are right to assume I am anything but “neutral”.

My friends knew that I have not been neutered (pun intended). They know I am angry. But I love my friends, so I have learnt to shut up, and since they love me, they allow me to keep my peace. We do not discuss foreign affairs. Period. As for domestic affairs, the so-called “objective” and “neutral” press is mostly interested in the Norwegian Royals’ domestic problems and my friends are as indifferent to the Royals as I am. So I wonder: What do my friends really make of the “news”, all told?

Last night, I informed them that Associated Press had reassured me that the cat Sam had been reunited with his mistress (name not given by AP) after 11 years’ painful separation. My friends raised ironical eyebrows and retorted that the Norwegian press, on the other hand, was currently devoting most of its attention to the circus of the upcoming US elections. I interpreted this as an expression of dissatisfaction with the Norwegian press.

And since most of us in this country are very distressed about the vicious extermination of all fellow human beings from Gaza, I thought it might be safe to comment that from the few surviving Palestinians’ perspective, at least, it did not matter who became president, since AIPAC gives generous “donations” to both candidates and will make sure that Netanyahu gets what he wants regardless. “No US president can ever refuse whatever the Israeli government asks for,” I declared and received blank stares in return.

What did those blank stares express? I don’t know, because I did not press the point.

I assume my interlocutors still firmly believe that Putin is a new “Hitler”. After all, that is what they’ve been told day after day, just as they’ve not been told about AIPAC and FARA.

On the other hand, many people have learnt to appreciate Aljazeera over the years as an addition to N.Y. Times. Many also know Palestinian refugees living here. Finally, a growing number believe that what has been going on in Gaza has surpassed, in sadism if not in scale, Holocaust itself. Finally, the USA has made no attempt to conceal that they have sent billions and billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and other military aid to Israel over the past year. Yes, team Biden says they want Israel to stop the mass killing of defenceless human beings, but words have decisively been contradicted by facts. And weapons and military support are definitive facts.

So do my friends believe that the USA is not complicit in the ongoing genocide? And if we insist on using the Hitler-analogy, who is then the modern-day Hitler?

We are being kept in the dark. Yet even in the dark, a person might see the red-hot metal of distant burning tanks and smell the distant human flesh. Even in the dark, we can hear sirens.

Overwhelmed and overpowered

19.07.2024 /

The “West”, meaning the USA and their coterie of client states are currently engaged in two wars, in Ukraine and in the Middle EAst.

Most of us who live in US client states in Europe were knocked out of our political lethargy when we learnt that Europe was at war again “for the first time since WWII” (forgetting that we – NATO – bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days in 1999, effectively destroying Yugoslavia).

We have also recently witnessed unimaginable horrors in the Middle East, starting on October 7, 2023. We were at first told that Israeli babies had been beheaded, after which we witnessed Israeli retaliation to a degree that nobody could deny was disproportionate. I know for a fact that many of us have often wept over the news on Aljazeera.

Now, we have gotten used to the idea that we might well be on our way into a new world war, in which “tactical” nuclear weapons will most likely be used. We have gotten used to the idea that a ferocious attempt is being made to exterminate the Palestinian people, and we see that those who rule the countries we live in are “aiding and abetting” Israel’s viscious crimes in a number of ways.

We recognise that there is absolutely nothing “we”, citizens of the client states, can do about either of these situations within the framework of “Democracy” as it has been defined for us. Voting for the “left” or the “right” makes no difference, demonstrations and protests lead nowhere but to a few arrests and business as usual. So we are for the most part silent.

Cynics may tell you that the reason we are silent is that the entertainment value of the two wars has flagged.

My view is different: Lethargy is not a sign of boredom but of impotence. I believe that “democracy” is no more than a buzzword used for propaganda purposes in “the West”, to emphasise the distance between “us” and “them”. It is not a reality. At least not in Europe or the USA.

For the umpteenth time, I urge you to read 1984 by George Orwell.

***

For me, the Eureka moment came in the wake of a very slow process. Anyone who has followed what I have written here since 2008 will see that I have come a long and disheartening way.

I have been a slow learner, alas. I was lazy in school, and had mediocre marks. I was sincerely polite to my teachers, some of whom I liked very much, and I never ever considered rebellion of any kind. As I grew older I became somewhat more academically competitive, though never to the point of wanting to break the sound barrier.

In 1986, when US bullies took it into their heads to bomb Libya – just like that – I was, however, outraged, shocked beyond words. I had somehow missed the part in our curriculum according to which the USA may bomb whoever / whatever / whenever it wants to. I was milking the cows, I remember, and I heard the news on the radio in the cow shed. There was no interrupting the routine with the cows and I had to go on milking them in spite of my rage, so I actually composed almost the only poem I ever made, and a melody too, which I hissed again and again until my chores were done.

At the time, I was a Newsweek subscriber, and I considered myself a well-informed person. But as I now know, the US press is the least recommended bulwark against ignorance. At any rate, studies, work, kids, etc. caught up with me, and then Clinton took over, “at last”.

Everybody knew, at the time, that the Republicans were the ones who wanted to ban trade unions, bomb communists to kingdom come, and kill blacks. So I knew that the Republicans were “bad”. Bear in mind that designating somebody as “bad” tends to mean there must be a “good guy”.

None of us were taught in school to fiercely distrust “bad guy / good guy” narratives. (They still don’t teach that, not in school and certainly not in the media.) Above all, we were none of us taught to be wary of media framing.

Only much, much later, not least thanks to a wonderful US documentary – Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job – did I realise that Clinton was much to blame for the terrible 2007-2008 financial crisis that rocked the world. Yes, the entire world suffered heavily. And Clinton was behind the bombing of Yugoslavia, too, in Europe, in 1999.

But Clinton played a decent trumpet! And he had a disarming smile. I am guilty as charged: I found him charming. I found Obama charming, too. Charm has been the Democratic party’s ticket to the White House. We blamed the Republican Party for all that was wrong in the USA. We? I! I was blind. I believed in good guys versus bad guys.

Mind you, already in 2014, I read Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, all of It! A very polite, quietly precise firebomb of a book. I even read the sequel Capital and Ideology (2020). I should have seen the full picture then. Still, the pieces to the puzzle didn’t quite fall into place until the conjunction of the Ukraine war and the Gaza war. What then became more than obvious was:

Rule of Law is b-s.!

Meanwhile, the 12-year political imprisonment of Assange (without a trial!) while the press tirelessly peddled US propaganda and suppressed dissident views, has demonstrated that

Freedom of the press in the West is b-s.

Democracy, however, is not b-s, but truly something worth fighting for. What we have here and now, though is not Democracy; it’s a fraud. Counting pieces of paper in a ballot box every four years is a fairly expensive way of masking that citizens of Western countries have no say whatsoever about what happens to their society.

We, the defrauded citizens want to believe we are being governed for our own good, with wisdom. Had I been a psychodynamic therapist, I would have posited that we – all human adults – long for the continued guidance of a loving parent. Alas, our “parents” do not have our interests at heart but their own. The continued guidance – be it Republican or “Dem”, be it Labour or Tory – serves the single purpose of perpetuating, one way or another, status quo, the rule and continued enrichment of the oligarchy.
























































Literature – letter to a king

04.07.2024 /

I am currently reading The Years, Virginia Woolf’s last novel, published in 1937. Actually, I bought the book accidentally, in French, mistaking it for Ernaud’s Les Années.

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse happen to be among the very few books I have read twice. Having dutifully read some 20 % of The Years in French, I therefore decided that even the French language cannot do justice to Virginia Woolf’s beautiful prose. So I bought the book in English, too.

I haven’t finished it. Superb literature is often like a box of chocolates – you don’t want to eat more than “two or three” at a time – but I already consider this novel superior to the two she is best known for, because it delves deeply into the nature of society itself. I will not go into detail, since this blog is not, after all, about literature.

Why do I speak of it then, The Years? Because in it, Woolf mentions a hero, Parnell, presumably Charles Parnell, reviled and adulated. I had to look him up .

At the time, I have just learnt, the press was very keen to trumpet certain aspects of his private life. But we now know that he was a formidable opponent of “landlordism” and “British misgovernment”.

…within two decades absentee landlords were almost unknown in Ireland. He created single-handedly in the Irish Party Britain’s first modern, disciplined, political-party machine. He held all the reins of Irish nationalism and also harnessed Irish-America to finance the cause. He played an important role in the rise and fall of British governments in the mid-1880s and in Gladstone’s conversion to Irish Home Rule.

Wikipedia as at 4 July 2024

Reading about him reminded me that often – very often – we don’t realise until after a person’s death how much we owe him or her. Parnell was only 45 when he died.

Assange might well have died just 10 years older, had he not been released in the nick of time. That does not mean that we can forget all about him, though. On the contrary, it is vitally important that we examine and understand what Wikileaks revealed. Only by knowing the world we live in can we change it for the better.

Of course you have heard of and probably even seen the video footage “colateral murder”. It it is merely the tip of an iceberg.

In 2019-2020, a series of 9 (or 10) articles attempted to summarise what Wikileaks had revealed. There is a shortcut to the story:
Marjorie Cohn’s recent analysis Here’s What He’s Given Us.

Or: If you wish to go to the sources, here’s from the horse’s mouth: Wikileaks .. the lot

As for Julian Assange’s own literary output, his letter to King Charles (dated 5 May 2023), may perhaps serve as an example.

The hero and the villain

30.06.2024 /

Team Biden eventually considered it expedient to offer Assange a filthy plea deal. Do I thank them? Certainly not, though like everyone else, I’m relieved that the barbaric mistreatment of Assange has come to an end. So are, I suspect, Biden’s few remaining supporters.

Please note that even Associated Press (AP) comments the public’s distrust of their rulers in the USA and the UK. As we have seen in the recent “European elections”, such distrust is widely shared throughout much of Europe. Why? Well, the media are full of confounding explanations – naturally – that’s what the media do for a living: confound us. I prefer the explanation given by the comedian George Carlin back in 2005. Some things never change.

I put to you that “a constitutional state” is one in which governmental power is firmly and consistently constrained by the law. The Assange case has patently demonstrated the subservience of the British judiciary (i.e. Law) to Government. This is all the more striking since the latter (Government) is that of a foreign country, the USA. In short, the case has effectively demonstrated that the US and the UK are not constitutional states, and the UK is hardly even an independent one.

That US presidents and their teams care naught for “rule of law”, except as a tool to subjugate other nations, should come as no surprise to anyone. That concepts such as “justice”, “fairness” and “due process” are secondary, in the USA, to personal ambitions was clearly demonstrated in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, which rewarded those who had made the crash happen with impunity and struck down the millions of victims in poverty and despair.

What is relatively new to some of us is the incestuous relationship between government and the corporate media. Even AP has noticed: “Nearly three-quarters of American adults blame the news media for dividing the nation.” Just so. Perhaps US citizens have grown wise to the collusion between e.g. the N.Y. Times and the currently ruling set. Will Times loyalties shift when a new master enters the White House?

In Norway, middle-aged people still subscribe to and read daily papers. The rising cost of living has not yet strangled their budgets or their confidence in the authorities. Younger people however, are wading in deeper water. Heavily indebted, they are so fearful of the future that they are reluctant to make babies. The suicide rate is rising.

My favourite news outlet was the Guardian. I repeat: was. I pretty abruptly stopped following the Guardian at about the time Assange was kidnapped by the British police. Why? Because the Guardian had been subtly vilifying Assange, suggesting this, that and the other. I ascribed the character assassination to shame: The Guardian had disclosed Cablegate encryption passwords and was thus the direct root of the US claim that Assange had jeopardised lives. So the paper had to imply that Assange was not worth any tears. That is what I thought back then.

Now, however, I see there may be another source of depravity in the above-mentioned incestuous relationship between governments (in plural) and the media: Keir Starmer. Yes, he is my villain for today: It is very likely that he plotted with the US authorities to destroy Assange’s life and his reputation.

We don’t know, of course, exactly what went on during the meetings between the Starmer delegations and their US counterparts during his visits to the USA in 2009–2013, because the relevant minutes – from all four trips – were allegedly destroyed, which in itself is pretty damning (admittedly circumstantial) evidence. But there is no doubt that Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) from 2008-13. And we do know that Starmer is not a “gentleman” when he feels like, for instance, getting rid of a political competitor. Moreover, Starmer was then, and is still, masquerading as a “Labour” politician.

So yes, I believe Starmer is a villain. And he will no doubt be the next PM of the UK. He will presumably treat the Guardian kindly for past and future services.

As for the hero, need I tell you?

I missed the jokes

29.06.2024 /

I am not and never have been in thrall to US entertainment, so I never heard the late comedian George Carlin. To be honest, I might not have appreciated him back then (he died at the age of 71 in 2008) because I was not partial to foul language. Now, of course, thanks to rap, the F-word, the P-word and S-word tend to occupy 40 % of many people’s polite conversation, so I’ve stopped noticing.

Thanks to Glenn Greenwald, I have just been introduced to a taste of Carlin’s acerbic humour. Not just a taste: I was instantly mesmerised and spent the better part of the afternoon digging up Youtube clips of his angry diatribes.

I case you haven’t heard George Carlin, and in case you don’t follow Glenn Greenwald on Rumble (in which case you are missing an extremely eloquent source of lots of well-referenced information) I am pasting, below, a Youtube clip of “You have no choice”. The sound clip has been embellished with animation. You may or may not approve. Moreover, it skips the previous part of Carlin’s talk, presumably because that part ridicules not only obesity but makes rather cruel fun of obese people. You will find it, however, searching for Carlin HBO 2005 Life is worth losing. And I must shamefully admit it is hilarious. But here is the part “You have no choice”.

The inscrutable ways of the brain

27.05.2024 /

Climate and ecology activists, e.g. in Extinction Rebellion, are often bitterly accused of moralising. The rest of us, all who do not follow their rigorous precepts, are made to feel we are an abomination to the planet.

I am certainly not innocent in this context. Although far from being an activist, I tend to consider all but basic consumption morally reprehensible, and you may have noticed how I refer to Norway’s former prime minister, Mr ProudRock and his ilk. After all, I’m only human, and if I feel that somebody has committed treason, I refuse to apologise for being very angry.

On the other hand, I know perfectly well that neither anger nor for that matter any other emotion helps solve the crisis at hand. Only a conscientious examination and a level-headed analysis of the situation will yield sensible solutions.

I happen to know somebody who has taken part in atrocities under Mr ProudRock’s command, committed war crimes, that is. Yes, that person is actually a very dear friend of my family. Notwithstanding his participation in war crimes, he is one of the most gentle-mannered people I know. His generosity verges on self-effacement and his willingness to care for the weak and disabled far outshines that of most people I know, certainly mine. How does he do it, I wonder?

The one-word answer to the question popped up at once in my mind: “Compartmentalisation”.
“Compart- what?” was the next thought. Is that a word?
Well, it must be, since I used it.
Does it mean what I feel it means?

I looked it up. Yep, compartmentalisation, on the dot. Exactly what I thought it meant … “to avoid cognitive dissonance”.

Now I am not going to pretend that I invented the term all over again. On the contrary, I must have heard or read the word so often that I actually stored it. I will even have come across a definition of sorts, probably on several occasions, and stored that too. I just didn’t know it, because neither the unwieldy word nor even the concept was of any use to me.

Until now, when all of a sudden, the word was eminently useful, pin-prick accurate, in fact.

Our dear friend has compartmentalised his life. And my friends, who almost all fervently clamour for more weapons to Ukraine, must believe that I am compartmentalising too. After all, what I defend with regard to Ukraine (inter alia a cease-fire in Ukraine and a negotiated long-term end to the war – be it cold or hot – between Russia and the USA/EU) is deemed morally reprehensible, though most people consider me relatively decent in other respects.

The ways of our brains are indeed inscrutable.

Break

17.04.2024 /

I’ll be taking a break now for a while. I have to devote some time elsewhere, in my own language, which is Norwegian.

Besides, as far as I’m concerned, there’s not much more to be said about the Ukraine war and the lies we so relentlessly are being spoon-fed by the mainstream press. There is not much more to be said, either, about the genocide being committed by Israel, the USA and the EU who are, moreover, virtually begging Iran to start world war III …, no, I’d better say no more.

It’s all so psychopathic that if I say anything else, I’ll be guilty of “hate crime”, and I would rather not go to jail.

I will however take the liberty of quoting Australia’s former Prime Minister Paul Keating. He was referring (in 2023) to NATO and to my country’s former Prime Minister:

Exporting that malicious poison to Asia would be akin to Asia welcoming the plague upon itself. With all of Asia’s recent development amid its long and latent poverty, that promise would be compromised by having anything to do with the militarism of Europe – and militarism egged on by the United States.

Of all the people on the international stage the supreme fool among them is Jens Stoltenberg, the current Secretary-General of NATO. Stoltenberg by instinct and by policy, is simply an accident on its way to happen. In February he was drawing parallels between Russia’s assault on Ukraine and China saying, ‘we should not make the same mistake with China.’ That is, that China should be superintended by the West and strategically circumscribed.

Stoltenberg, in his jaundiced view, overlooks the fact that China represents twenty per cent of humanity and now possesses the largest economy in the world. And has no record of attacking other states, unlike the United States, whose bidding Stoltenberg is happy to do.

http://www.paulkeating.net.au/persistent/catalogue_files/products/20230709nato.pdf

As for the suppression and criminalisation of anti-Zionism in the USA and EU, it is better dealt with in the affected countries. (Norway has fortunately taken a different tack on that score at least.) In the USA, I think the most powerful voice against the suppression of dissident views, including not least anti-zionism, is Glenn Greenwald’s. I very warmly recommend Glenn Greenwald’s channel on Rumble.

My greater worries now, however, concern recent dramatic developments in my own country (no doubt with pressure from the “supreme fool”, the “accident waiting to happen” mentioned by Paul Keating): what to my mind is the virtual handover of Norway’s sovereignty to the USA. You will find very little information about this online. The press dares hardly whisper. Agreements have been signed according to which Norway gives the US the right to establish military bases in Norway’s 12 main military stations – bases in which the US will have exclusive right of access. There are those who maintain that the US armed forces will be able to carry on in Norway as though they were at home. It is reputed, for instance, that if any US citizen or members of his or her family commits a criminal act in Norway, he or she will not be prosecuted here; If a Norwegian citizen inadvertently trespasses on US security zones (in Norway!), for instance during the transportation of troops, the US forces may open fire on him/her.

Norwegian authorities will not have the right to inspect these bases, and nothing guarantees that nuclear weapons will not be stored there. We have long followed US orders in the matter of foreign policy, we are now finally a US puppet, virtually an occupied state, but nobody is rushing to defend us against the USA.

So I shall have to write elsewhere for a while, and in Norwegian.

Overstory

27.01.2024 /

Things are not looking good for Ukraine, but at least the country seems able to strike Russian oil depots and refineries, thus in effect striking the rest of us. All our efforts day after day – yours and mine – to reduce our carbon footprints are derisory compared to the output of a few hours’ conflagration in a refinery, be it Russian, Ukrainian or Middle Eastern.

Clinging to hope

In the Northern hemisphere, most of us make at least some effort to “help save our planet”. Many of us forego heating our dwellings in winter. We loyally wait for buses and trains rather than drive, cut back on meat consumption and plane trips … All for nothing, when all that oil goes up in flames.

The other day, I found myself admiring a beautiful website advocating ecologically sound policies for all of mankind, no less. It is unfinished, true, and some of the links go nowhere, but others convey earnest commitment and innocence. Whoever the “we” is, these people appear to believe that what they are doing makes a difference. In a sense they are right, inasmuch as I, least, was moved by their site.

However, I lack their faith. I believe that with the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza and USA’s complicity in it, very few people retain much faith in establishment. People grimly go about their business, look after each other as best they can, share a beer or three on Saturday night, but shake their heads when asked about the future.

All the same, grimness is not without strong points. Have you heard of VIPS, VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY? It was founded, it seems by Ray McGovern, a brave man. I recommend the Wikipedia article about him (as at 27 Jan 2024). And, as we see when reading the wry


VIPS MEMO: To Biden — Avoid a Third World War,

Mr McGovern is not alone. I strongly recommend the VIPS MEMO (and I reproduce all the capital letters with great pleasure, as they are well-deserved by VIPS). I haven’t had such a good, healthy laugh for a long time as when I first read it.There might be something “rotten in the state of Denmark”, but fortunately, there are – in spite of mainstream media – forces for the good there, as well.

Whitherto

19.01.2024 /

Where are we heading? I wonder.

When the USA and the UK and Israel (attacks against Palestine, Lebanon and Syria) go around bombing countries they dislike, there is reason to fear anarchy in the worst sense of that word. For one thing: If they can do it, why can’t anyone else? One or more of the global south countries that nurture well-founded grudges against neo-colonialism, perhaps?

Admittedly, the Houthis targeted ships entering the Red Sea. But those ships were potentially carrying military supplies to Israel, a nation in the process of committing a genocide. Moreover most European nations are vassals of the USA and therefore support the said genocide, so to the extent trade to Europe is blocked – the effect is intentional. (The EU has made their support to the genocide all the more clear by introducing additional “sanctions” this week against Hamas, that is to say against the Gazans and Palestinians in the entire area.)

Moreover, Houtis were operating in their own back yard, as it were. Look at the map:

Has Eritrea asked the USA /UK to intervene?
Has Saudi Arabia?

Has Sudan?

Has Egypt?

There are those who maintain that the Biden administration has violated the US Constitution by attacking a country without Congressional permission.

(I admit for the record that Jens Stoltenberg did not ask the Norwegian National Assembly for permission when he decided, possibly already then vying for the position he now holds – who knows? – that Norway should bomb Libya to kingdom come.)

I don’t much care about the US Constitution. True, the famous first amendment protects free speech, but the second guarantees the right to bear arms. However, I do understand that most citizens of any state, mine or yours, do not want to be dragged into a war, not to mention a World War, without being asked. And US / UK actions with regard to Ukraine, Palestine and Yemen are supremely reckless. Those boys upstairs, evidently just love war games. After all, their own children in prep schools will not be the ones to get killed.

Since the USA, and its lapdog the UK, are attacking the distant and relatively poor country Yemen, lets look at international law, the UN Charter. Take a look at Articles 33 through 51, snippets of which I include below:

The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.

Article 33

Should the parties to a dispute of the nature referred to in Article 33 fail to settle it by the means indicated in that Article, they shall refer it to the Security Council.

Article 37

The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, ….

Article 41

Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.

Article 42

And, finally:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.

Article 51

I cannot see that the USA / the UK have been attacked by Yemen or by any other country. Declarations issued by their top guns, according to which they are “not at war with Yemen” amount to no more than a play with words. They have repeatedly bombed Yemen, and though Yemen cannot harm the USA / UK, powerful allies of Yemen might take it into their heads that enough is enough. And frankly, can you blame them? After all, the one party to all these disputes that systematically disregards “rule of Law” is the USA. Oh yes, and Israel, of course.

Where does all this lead us? I’m just a human without powers of any kind. I have no gun, no powerful friends in high positions. I don’t adhere to any religious or political group, but my blood seethes. I am impotently furious!

In the USA, however, fury could take on an altogether different dimension, and there is quite a scenario straddling the horizon: It appears that the winner of the next presidential election would under normal circumstances be Donald Trump. It also appears that they are trying convict and sentence the said Donald Trump to a prison sentence. Regardless of whether they convict him to prevent his election or after, people – possibly more than half the population – will be furious.

One furious person can be disregarded. The interesting question here is whether loyal supporters of the Democratic Party will be in favour of applying the same measures against furious Trump voters as their government is applying in the Middle East. Something like the Jakarta Method, perhaps?

As Emmanuel Todd has allegedly said:

The idea that, under the pretext that a country is democratic, its citizens, after an internal debate, can legitimately decide to bomb the citizens of another country is an idea that will end up killing democracy. The United States is a greater danger to peace than Iran.

Wikipedia as at 19 January 2024

For those of you who read French, his last book La Défaite de l’Occident was published last week. Not unexpectedly, Le Monde assassinates the book. All the more reason to read it.

Cartel

13.01.2024 /

What’s the matter with those people? Running around the world shooting and killing as though they were a drug cartel…! The cartel barons in Washington take it into their heads to go off and bomb Jemen, and since self-gratification is Law for cartel barons, there is nothing to stop them from doing just that: bombing Jemen. Presumably to kill and intimidate. Have they been watching too many video games? Raised in the lap of luxury, most of them – spoilt brats, no doubt – they act as though stimulated by the drugs they are so fond of pretending to make war against. They are, in general, pathologically fond of making war – wars, I should say, because one war at a time apparently affords insufficient stimulation. To get really high, they might need a WWIII.

Killing is just a game to them, it seems, as demonstrated by the famous video footage referred to as “Collateral Murder“, made available to the public by the heroic, if not yet martyred, Julian Assange.

Anyway, the Washington barons are relatively close to home in Jemen, as it were, because they have no less than 120 military bases in Japan. Actually, I thought they had 130 bases there, but according to Al Jazeera, there are only 120. As you see, I know little about Japan, but I gather that after WWII, having murdered, at two swell swoops, approx 200 thousand mostly civilian Japanese, the USA imposed total demilitarisation on Japan. Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution, once Japan had been granted independence again in 1952, reaffirmed Japanese pacifism; a good thing, as it turned out, because the country’s scarce resources could be devoted to reconstruction.

Now I ask you: To what extent is a country with 120 US military bases and, according to Al Jazeera (which normally, if not during the Gaza stand-off, is pro-USA) 53,700 military personnel, a free country? 120 military bases is, or are, no joke. A German journalist referred to Japan as “USA’s aircraft carrier”.

For the record, I add that according to Al Jazeera, (by the way, not as at today, but as at 10 September 2021) the USA has 73 military bases in South Korea (Can you honestly blame Kim Whatsisname for his belligerent posturing?)

Do I want
a) China to conquer the world?
b) Russia to conquer the world?
c) the USA to conquer the world?

Replies: a) no, b) no, c) no

Do I think
a) China will attempt to prevent WWIII
b) Russia will attempt to prevent WWIII
c) The USA will attempt to prevent WWIII

Replies: a) yes, b) yes c) no

Do I think the USA is contributing in any meaningful manner to world peace? NO!!!

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