Gisteren
op BBC World Service nieuws over een onderzoek van de Queen Mary
University (of London >> QMU) naar de gevolgen van luchtvervuiling op het
functioneren van het hart.
Zelfs
lage niveau’s van luchtvervuiling veranderen de structuur van het
hart, veranderingen die ook te zien zijn bij de vroege stadia van
hartfalen……..
Alweer
een studie die aantoont dat de werkelijke schade van luchtvervuiling
veel verder gaan dan ooit gedacht….. Het is al zo dat rond de
18.000 mensen* jaarlijks vroegtijdig overlijden ten gevolge van
langdurige auto-uitstoot inademing, mensen die na een akelig ziekbed
overlijden aan kanker…..
Toch
maakt bijna niemand zich daar druk over, nee het roken moet aangepakt
worden, de staatssecretaris van ‘Volksgezondheid’, Blokhuis (CU) wil
ook het roken op terrassen verbieden, terwijl je daar veelal wordt
vergiftigd door de uitlaatgassen van auto’s…….
De
hoogste tijd dat de landelijke politiek eindelijk beslist dat auto’s voor het
grootste deel uit steden moeten verdwijnen, i.p.v. het bouwen van nog
meer parkeergarages tegen of in de binnensteden door de vingers te zien…….
New
research links low levels of air pollution with serious changes in
the heart
Researchers
from Queen Mary University of London have found that people exposed
to air pollution levels well within UK guidelines have changes in the
structure of the heart, similar to those seen in the early stages of
heart failure.
It
looked at data from around 4,000 participants in the UK
Biobank study,
where volunteers provided a range of personal information, including
their lifestyles, health record and details on where they have lived.
Participants also had blood tests and health scans, and heart MRI
(magnetic resonance imaging) was used to measure the size, weight and
function of the participants’ hearts at fixed times.
Pollution
levels within UK guidelines
The
team found a clear association between those who lived near loud,
busy roads, and were exposed to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) or PM2.5 –
small particles of air pollution – and the development of larger
right and left ventricles in the heart. The ventricles are important
pumping chambers in the heart and, although these participants were
healthy and had no symptoms, similar heart remodelling is seen in the
early stages of heart failure.
Higher
exposures to the pollutants were linked to more significant changes
in the structure of the heart. For every 1 extra µg per cubic
metre of PM2.5 and for every 10 extra µg per cubic metre
of NO2, the heart enlarges by approximately 1 per cent.
In
the study, average annual exposures to PM2.5 were well within UK
guidelines (25µg per cubic metre), although they were approaching or
past World
Health Organisation (WHO)
guidelines (10µg per cubic metre).
‘Doctors
and the general public all need to be aware’
Air
pollution is now the largest environmental risk factor linked to
deaths in England. The UK Government’s consultationon
their draft Clean Air Strategy closes on 14 August 2018, which
commits to halving the number of people in the UK living in areas
where PM2.5 levels exceed WHO guidelines (10µg per cubic metre)
by 2025. Following this research, the BHF are calling for this action
to go further to reduce the health impacts of toxic air as quickly as
possible.
Dr
Nay Aung who led the data analysis from Queen Mary’s William
Harvey Research Institute and
Barts Health NHS Trust said: “Although
our study was observational and hasn’t yet shown a causal link, we
saw significant changes in the heart, even at relatively low levels
of air pollution exposure. Our future studies will include data from
those living in inner cities like Central Manchester and London,
using more in-depth measurements of heart function, and we would
expect the findings to be even more pronounced and clinically
important.
“Air
pollution should be seen as a modifiable risk factor. Doctors and the
general public all need to be aware of their exposure when they think
about their heart health, just like they think about their blood
pressure, their cholesterol and their weight.”
Professor
Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director at the BHF said: “We
can’t expect people to move home to avoid air pollution –
Government and public bodies must be acting right now to make all
areas safe and protect the population from these harms.
“What
is particularly worrying is that the levels of air pollution,
particularly PM2.5, at which this study saw people with heart
remodelling are not even deemed particularly high by the UK
Government – this is why we are calling for the WHO guidelines to
be adopted.”
This
research was a collaboration between Queen Mary University of London,
Barts Heart Centre and the University of Oxford.
More
information
Research
paper: ‘Association between ambient air pollution and cardiac
morpho-functional phenotypes: Insights from the UK Biobank
population imaging study’ by Aung et al. Circulation.
=================================
* 18.000 mensen die vroegtijdig overlijden? Hier een deel van een bericht dat ik op 16 mei jl. publiceerde: de Nederlander leeft door de uitstoot van o.a. auto’s, vliegtuigen en kolencentrales 13 maanden korter. Dit cijfer werd eerder vorig jaar ook door Milieudefensie naar buiten gebracht en zou in feite een gemiddelde moeten zijn.
Als je 17 miljoen (Nederlanders) maal 13 maanden berekent kom je op 221 miljoen maanden uit, ofwel 18.416.666 jaar. Stel dat de gemiddelde Nederlander 70 jaar oud wordt, zou dit een aantal van 263.095 mensenlevens opleveren……..
Bovendien is de vaststelling dat mensen 13 maanden korter leven een gemiddelde, terwijl er daadwerkelijk veel mensen, zoals gezegd 18.000 (al is dat aantal waarschijnlijk zelfs veel hoger….) wel degelijk vroegtijdig overlijden aan alleen de gevolgen van langdurige inademing van auto-uitstoot en dat zoals gezegd na een akelig ziekbed……. Daarnaast is dit een extra kosten opdrijvende factor voor de totale Nederlandse zorgkosten……
Lees
het volgende uitstekende artikel van Mike ‘Mish’ Shedlock, eerder
geplaatst op Mish Talk, de site van Shedlock, een artikel over de
handelsoorlog die Trump heeft ontketend met China, volgens Shedlock
niet alleen een dom ‘beleid’, maar ook uiterst hypocriet en
contraproductief.
The U.S. turned up the
heat Wednesday on China, with the Trump administration threatening to
more than double proposed tariffs on imports while Congress passed a
defense bill designed to restrict Beijing’s economic and military
activity.
The moves come as Beijing
and Washington have failed to ease an escalating trade dispute,
prompting the administration to seek additional leverage. The
administration, which has already affixed tariffs on billions of
dollars in Chinese imports, said it would consider more than doubling
proposed tariffs on a further $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to
25%, up from an original 10%.
Meantime, the Senate
approved a defense-policy bill that both tightens U.S.
national-security reviews of Chinese corporate deals and revamps
export controls over which U.S. technologies can be sent abroad. The
bill, which also restricts Beijing in areas ranging from cultural
activity to military exercises, passed the House a week earlier and
President Trump is expected to sign it into law.
Administration officials
are confident they have the upper hand in the trade fight because the
U.S. economy is strengthening while the Chinese economy shows signs
of growing slack. Moreover, China is more dependent on trade than the
U.S.
But that confidence so
far hasn’t translated into action.
President Trump has
threatened to apply tariffs to all $505 billion in Chinese goods
entering the U.S. if the two are unable to reach a settlement.
Washington has already applied tariffs to $34 billion worth of
Chinese imports, with another set of duties on $16 billion in goods
scheduled in the days ahead.
The U.S. threatened
Wednesday to make the next round of tariffs more punitive. In a
Monday White House meeting, Mr. Trump dismissed the original
administration plan for a 10% tariff on $200 billion in imports—the
next step in Mr. Trump’s escalation—and had his team bump up the
levy to 25%.
Another Tariff
Backfiring Moment
The administration didn’t
spell out a particular rationale for increasing the tariff. People
familiar with White House discussions say the reasons include anger
over the Chinese government’s failure to approve the merger of
U.S.-based Qualcomm Inc. and Dutch chip maker NXP Semiconductors ,
which forced the companies to scrap a deal aimed at boosting
Qualcomm’s reach into new markets.
Both sides lose. That’s
exactly what happens in trade wars.
More Losses
Coming
The proposed tariff
increase poses big risks for both the U.S. and global economy. A 25%
tariff would boost the cost of a range of U.S. imports at a time when
inflation has begun to pick up. It would become another factor for
the Federal Reserve to consider as it decides how quickly to raise
interest rates.
“This gets you
nothing,” said Fred Bergsten, founder of the Peterson Institute for
International Economics, a Washington, D.C., free-trade think tank.
“It adds to inflation pressure and interest rates and [would]
strengthen the dollar, which makes trade situation even worse” for
the U.S., he said.
It gets less than
nothing. Inflation will be temporary, and it will be followed by a
deflationary collapse in trade.
Three Ways China
Can Retaliate
Let the Yuan slide 25%
negating the tariffs.
Further limit US firms
ability to do deals in China
Halt
Rare Earth Exports. Rare earths are 17 minerals used to make cell
phones, hybrid cars, weapons, flat-screen TVs, magnets,
mercury-vapor lights, and camera lenses.
Option one has capital
flight risks for China of course. But US tariffs pose numerous risks
to the US and global economy as well.
Option two is a given.
Option three is rarely
discussed, but China has at least 80% of the global market.
Back in 2010, “rare
earth elements” became a hot topic in the national security and
foreign policy fields, mainly because of the political, economic, and
security turmoil that followed China’s defacto embargo of those
elements. In September of that year, China (the major supplier of
rare earth elements) suddenly reduced its export quotas by 40 percent
— not long after the collision of a Chinese fishing ship and a
Japanese Coast Guard vessel in the East China Sea. Due to the export
restriction, Japan found it difficult to fill its domestic rare earth
demands, and as a result the world market price of the elements
skyrocketed.
Eventually, when the WTO
ruled against China’s export restriction in 2014, and the market
price went back to the original (or even lower) level, media coverage
on rare earths declined dramatically. Are the risks in the rare earth
supply chain really gone? Probably not.
Called “the
vitamins of modern society,”
rare earth elements play a critical role in our daily life — in
both the economic and security domains. These elements are key
components of a vast array of products, including smart phones,
computers, light bulbs, electric cars, wind turbines, satellites,
cruise missiles, and stealth aircrafts. Some elements, like neodymium
and dysprosium, are highly demanded for the production of permanent
magnets, which are used for sensors and motors of these products. The
most noteworthy fact is that the more we go green and
technology-oriented, the more important these elements become to our
society.
Today, China enjoys a
monopoly in the rare earths market. It is estimated that in
2016, more
than 80 percent of
rare earth elements produced in the world were excavated in China.
The country is also believed to hold more than 30 percent of the
planet’s remaining rare earth element reserves. While many stopped
paying attention to rare earths after the dispute settlement at the
WTO, the market has been preparing for more potential turmoil.
It is costly to find
alternatives to low-priced Chinese rare earths, whether those
alternatives are opening and reopening mines, inventing new recycling
process, or developing substitutes. Nonetheless, in the current
situation, where China not only has major control over global supply
but has also begun stockpiling in preparation for future market
demand, continuing efforts to diversify the supply chain portfolio
are critical for the United States and its allies — from both
economic and security perspectives. It is not sustainable to rely on
Chinese rare earths, although they look very cost-effective in a very
short term. Now is the time to revisit the powerful dynamics of rare
earth elements and to establish a strategy to win the
soon-to-be-more-competitive battle of the market.
The Verge contradicts its
own headline in the body.
The whole process is
“expensive, difficult, and dangerous,” says former rare earth
trader and freelance journalist Tim Worstall. He tells The Verge
that, because of this, the West has been more or less happy to cede
production of rare earths to China. From the 1960s to the ‘80s, the
US did actually supply the world with these elements; all extracted
from a single mine in California named Mountain Pass. But in the
‘90s, China entered the market and drove down prices, making
Mountain Pass unprofitable and leading to its closure in 2002.
Worstall says there are
many reasons production moved overseas. Some of these are familiar:
cheap labor costs and a willingness to overlook environmental damage,
for example. But there’s also the fact that rare earth production
in China is often a byproduct of other mining operations. “The
biggest plant there is actually an iron ore mine which extracts rare
earths on the side,” says Worstall. This means that, unlike the
Mountain Pass mine, producers aren’t reliant on a single product.
“If you are trying to only produce rare earths, then you’re
subject to the swings and roundabouts of the market.”
In a paper describing
the Minamitori find published in Nature
Scientific Reports,
the Japanese suggest a hydrocycle could use centrifugal forces to
quickly separate out a lot of the unnecessary materials in the sea
mud. But this method is unproven.
“Nobody has ever done
it before, and no-one has proved it can work at an industrial scale,”
says Professor Frances Wall of the Exeter University’s Camborne
School of Mines. Wall tells The
Verge that
the Japanese team are doing “some nice work,” but says a huge
amount of research has yet to be done before the seabed becomes a
reliable source of these important elements. “There have been
literally hundreds of exploration projects [that have found rare
earth metals] and they’ve not been able to go forward through
production because they can’t prove they’ll make any money,”
says Wall.
Where’s the Mine?
Rare earths may not be
that rare but how long does it takes to start a mine and produce what
you need?
It was a WTO ruling that
eventually led to the price collapse, some four years later! And if
Trump has no use for the WTO, maybe China will decide the same thing.
Alleged Steel
Glut
Let’s step back for a
moment and look at what started this trade war: An alleged steel
glut. China supposedly was dumping steel below cost.
Complaining about
“dumping” is idiotic. If someone is providing goods cheaper
than you or they can make them, you are getting one hell of a good
deal! Period. End of story. If it hurts steel manufacturers, then it
benefits thousands of other companies that use steel.
And tariffs pick winners
and losers, mostly losers, all but the steel industry in fact. To
argue about this is absurd.
When someone Tweeted
about a steel glut today, I responded:
If
there is a “steel glut” then there is a “soybean
glut”. There are tens of thousands of gluts. Literally every
export can be deemed a glut.
And
again, if China is indeed subsidizing steel, then we should be
eternally grateful. Instead, Trump spits in their face.
Amazing.
By
the way, the US subsidizes Boeing and the entire defense industry by
fighting needless, counterproductive wars. And what about the sugar
lobby? Ethanol?
So
not only are we stupid, we are hypocrites.
Mike
“Mish” Shedlock
=============================
Voor meer berichten over deze handelsoorlog, klik op het label met die aanduiding, direct onder dit bericht.
Het
was al wel duidelijk, toen de VN een rapport uitbracht over de
schrijnende armoede onder een groot deel van de VS bevolking, dat de
Trump administratie dit niet zou pikken en inderdaad zo
gebeurde……
Met
veel pompeuze omhaal probeerde Trump gehakt van dit rapport te maken,
terwijl het VN rapport NB was gemaakt uit gegevens van… de VS
overheid….. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Niet getreurd zal men hebben
gedacht, immers er zijn denktanks genoeg in de VS die alles willen
verklaren wat je maar wilt……..
The
Heritage Foundation, een neoliberale rechtse denktank, die hoewel
gevuld met welgestelde schoften*, al een rapport klaar had waarin werd
gesteld dat het aantal mensen dat in extreme armoede woont in de VS, de 250.000 niet te boven gaat, terwijl de VN sprak over 18,25 miljoen
mensen, waaronder een enorm aantal kinderen….. Kinderen die door deze armoede
gegarandeerd een trauma voor het leven oplopen, zeker gezien de grote
verschillen die zij dag in dag uit om zich heen, dan wel op tv
zien…. Bovendien wordt je in de VS al vroeg op school gepest als je
ouders arm zijn, ‘jouw ouders zijn losers, dus ben jij dat
ook…….’
Uiterst schandalig ook: de Council of Economic Advisers gaf de Trump administratie zelfs de tip niet te spreken over het feit dat de lonen amper zijn gestegen, daar dit in het straatje van de democratische oppositie past……. Terwijl een grote groep arme VS burgers meer dan één baan heeft en ondanks dat zo weinig verdient, dat ze niet rond kunnen komen…….
Lees
het volgende artikel van Jake Johnson dat gisteren verscheen op
Common Dreams en zie ons voorportaal…. Meer en meer probeert het
neoliberale tuig als leugenaar Rutte de situatie in de VS te kopiëren
naar Nederland……… Zie alleen al de klassenverschillen in
zorg, onderwijs en huisvesting, waar NB de armste Nederlanders
relatief het meest moeten betalen voor een onderdak, een schandaal
waar zelfs partijen als de SP aan hebben meegewerkt…… Iedereen
moet een derde van zijn inkomen verwonen aldus de SP >> mailwisseling
in mijn bezit….. Reken maar uit wat je dan overhoudt van een netto inkomen dat rond de € 1.200,– per maand ligt (en dat is een nog relatief hoog inkomen), waar ook nog eens de belastingen, stroom en gas van moeten worden betaald en wat betreft de laatste 2: dat door mensen die in veelal slecht of niet geïsoleerde woningen zijn gehuisvest…..
Published
on Friday, August 03, 2018 by Common
Dreams
‘Insidious’:
Emails Show Trump White House Lied About US Poverty Levels to
Discredit Critical UN Report
With
its attempt to falsify statistics and whitewash uncomfortable facts
about poverty in America, the White House once again demonstrated its
“contempt” for the poor, one critic argued
President
Donald Trump shows an executive order after signing it beside members
of his cabinet in the Oval Office of the White House on March 17,
2017 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images) (deze schoften staan zelfs te klappen als Trump een harde scheet laat….)
Infuriated
by a scathing
United Nations reportestimating
that over 18 million Americans are living in “extreme poverty”
and accusing the Trump administration of “deliberately”
making such destitution worse with its tax cuts for the rich, the
White House insisted in its June
responseto
the U.N. analysis that the United States is overflowing with
“prosperity” and that claims of widespread poverty are
“exaggerated.”
But
internal State Department emails and documents obtainedby Foreign
Policyand
the non-profit journalism website Coda Story show that the Trump
administration ignored advice of White House economic analysts and
knowingly lied to the public about the severity of American poverty,
which the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights
Philip Alston described as “shocking.”
Foreign
Policy reported
on Thursday that officials who were consulted last-minute on a draft
of the White House’s rebuttal of the U.N. findings “questioned
the accuracy of the data the administration was citing.”
Despite
the fact that the U.N. analysis cited government statistics to
bolster its claims about poverty in America, the Trump administration
opted to draw from a report by
the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which concluded that 250,000
Americans are living in extreme poverty—a stark contrast to the
U.N.’s conclusion that the correct number is 18.25 million.
The
Heritage report cited by the White House also concluded that the
conditions of the poor must be improving because many families living
in deep poverty own cell phones and DVD players.
“What
is your source for stating material hardship is down by 77 percent
since 1980?” Trudi Renwick, an economist at the Census Bureau,
wrote in an email questioning the Trump administration’s rebuttal to
the U.N.
Foreign
Policy reports
that it is unclear whether Renwick received a response, and the White
House kept references to the Heritage report in the final version of
its response.
This is not as dramatic as Trump’s tweets or bald-faced lies at press briefings. But in a way it is far more insidious; the contempt for facts is pervasive and maddening.
One
economic adviser also urged the White House to “not get into”
America’s steady economic growth, writing: “Already 8-9 years
long… which started under Obama and we inherited and then expanded.
But it will end prob[ably] in 1-2 years.” The Trump
administration ignored this advice, touting a “new era of
economic growth.”
While
the White House brushed aside the concerns of some officials, they
did modify parts of their response to the U.N. after advisers
questioned how truly prosperous the American economy is under Trump.
“Wages
haven’t really picked up, other than for supervisors,” an
official from the Council of Economic Advisers wrote in response to a
line in an early draft about workers’ salaries rising.
“This
triggers the left—best to leave it off.”
The
line was deleted from the final document.
In
contrast to the officials who raised questions about the White
House’s economic claims, Mari Stull, a senior State Department
adviser, attacked the U.N. report as “propaganda” in emails
and mocked the U.N.’s accurate claim that American child poverty
rates are among
the highest in the industrialized world.
“Based
upon my own experience, my sons are destitute poor and living off the
welfare state of Mom—so guess they contributed to the ‘youth
poverty’ crisis in America,” Stull wrote.
Bathsheba
Crocker, a former U.S. diplomat and vice president of humanitarian
policy at CARE, called Stull’s comment “unbelievable” and
wrote that it demonstrates once again the “contempt” the
Trump administration has for poor Americans.
Zoals
eerder o.a. op deze plek betoogd, concludeert ook Noam Chomsky dat de Israëlische bemoeienis met de VS verkiezingen veel verder gaat dan
wat men Rusland in de schoenen probeert te schuiven en dat laatste zonder maar één flinter aan
bewijs…..
Met
veel ophef sprak de Palestijnenslachter Netanyahu in 2015 het Congres
toe, zelfs zonder eerst te overleggen met de president, destijds ‘vredesduif’ Obama…… Dan zijn er nog de reguliere (massa-) media in de
VS, die fungeren als lobbyisten voor de fascistische apartheidsstaat Israël en knippen na elke klapscheet van een Israëlische politicus……
Chomsky
wijst op het zogenaamde democratische proces in de VS en stelt
volkomen terecht dat er geen sprake is van een functionerende democratie in de VS
(overigens geldt dit ook meer en meer voor landen in de EU, zelfs voor Nederland…), volgens Chomsky moeten we in de VS spreken van een
‘billionaire
corporatocracy’, niet het volk maar de 1 procent (van welgestelden, waar veel zionisten tussen zitten) en grote bedrijven worden door
de politiek in de VS bediend…… (oh ja en niet te vergeten de belangenbehartiging voor Israël en wat andere
‘fijne fascistische landen’ als Saoedi-Arabië ‘natuurlijk’)
Zelfs
als zou Rusland hebben geprobeerd de verkiezingen te manipuleren,
hebben ze dat op een manier gedaan die totaal geen zoden aan de dijk
zet, althans als je alleen al het bedrag aan reclames door ‘Rusland’
geplaatst op sociale media in ogenschouw neemt, kunnen die niet eens
in de schaduw staan van de bedragen die worden misbruikt voor deze
presidentsverkiezingen……
Voorts
is daar de zogenaamde manipulatie door hacks en door het lekken van
documenten van de democraten naar WikiLeaks, alweer geen flinter aan
bewijs. Bovendien komt deze claim uit de smerige koker van Clinton en
haar aanhangers, om zo de aandacht af te leiden van het smerige spel
waarmee zij tot presidentskandidaat van de democraten werd verkozen, een smerig
spel tegen de enige kandidaat die er toe deed, Bernie Sanders…… Ofwel: je speelt een smerig spel, waarvan de bewijzen op straat komen
te liggen, maar je doet verder geen onderzoek naar dat smerige spel……. Sterker nog: je beschuldigt de klokkenluider en stelt plompverloren dat deze buiten het democratisch comité te vinden moet zijn, vervolgens ga je op zoek naar die klokkenluider* en schuift Rusland de schuld in de schoenen, de aanzet tot het nieuwe ‘McCartyisme’ in de VS en een verdere aanjager voor de herintroductie van de Koude Oorlog..!!! (‘natuurlijk’ worden daarmee ook nog eens de belangen van het militair-industrieel complex gediend……)
Ongelofelijk!!
Lees
het volgende artikel met de zienswijze van Chomsky en oordeel zelf:
Noam
Chomsky: “Israeli Intervention in US Elections Overwhelms Anything
Russia Has Done”
(ZHE) — Well,
this is going to make the weekend’s political conversations a
little more awkward around America.
As
the mainstream media (and even the leftist politicians) begin to back
quietly away from the “collusion” narrative, they remain
increasingly focused on Russia’s “evil” efforts at “meddling”
in the US election and “interfering with our democracy,” or some
such hysterical phrase.
And
that is what makes the comments by mainstay of world-renowned
political dissident and liberal-thinking hero Noam Chomsky’s
comments in the following interview with Democracy Now so ‘awkward’
for the Trump-hating members of society.
(Let wel: dit is niet de video van Democracy Now, met o.a. Chomsky en gepresenteerd door Amy Goodman uit het originele artikel, klik daarvoor op deze link)
…so,
take, say, the huge issue of interference in our pristine
elections. Did
the Russians interfere in our elections? An
issue of overwhelming concern in the media. I mean, in most of the
world, that’s almost
a joke.
First
of all, if you’re interested in foreign interference in our
elections, whatever
the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as
compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with
enormous support.
Israeli
intervention in U.S. elections vastly overwhelms anything the
Russians may have done…
I
mean, even to the point where the
prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, goes directly to Congress,
without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with
overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president’s policies
– what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015….
Did
Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress
trying to – calling on them to reverse U.S. policy, without even
informing the president? And
that’s just a tiny bit of this overwhelming influence.
So
if you happen to be interested in influence of – foreign influence
on elections, there are places to look. But even that is a joke.
I
mean, one
of the most elementary principles of a functioning democracy is that
elected representatives should be responsive to those who elected
them. There’s nothing more elementary than that. But we know very
well that that is simply not the case in the United States.
There’s
ample literature in mainstream academic political science simply
comparing voters’ attitudes with the policies pursued by their
representatives, and it shows that for a large majority of the
population, they’re basically disenfranchised. Their own
representatives pay no attention to their voices. They
listen to the voices of the famous 1 percent – the rich and the
powerful, the corporate sector.
The
elections—Tom Ferguson’s stellar work has demonstrated, very
conclusively, that for a long period, way back, U.S. elections have
been pretty much bought. You can predict the outcome of a
presidential or congressional election with remarkable precision by
simply looking at campaign spending. That’s only one part of it.
Lobbyists
practically write legislation in congressional offices.In
massive ways, the concentrated private capital, corporate sector,
super wealth, intervene in our elections, massively, overwhelmingly,
to the extent that the most elementary principles of democracy are
undermined. Now,
of course, all that is technically legal, but that tells you
something about the way the society functions.
So, if
you’re concerned with our elections and how they operate and how
they relate to what would happen in a democratic society, taking a
look at Russian hacking is absolutely the wrong place to look. Well,
you see occasionally some attention to these matters in the media,
but very minor as compared with the extremely
marginal question of Russian hacking.
And
I think we find this on issue after issue, also on issues on which
what Trump says, for whatever reason, is not unreasonable. So, he’s
perfectly right when he says we should have better relations with
Russia.
Being
dragged through the mud for that is outlandish, makes – Russia
shouldn’t refuse to deal with the United States because the
U.S. carried out the worst crime of the century in the invasion of
Iraq, much worse than anything Russia has done.
But
they shouldn’t refuse to deal with us for that reason, and we
shouldn’t refuse to deal with them for whatever infractions they
may have carried out, which certainly exist. This is just absurd. We
have to move towards better – right
at the Russian border, there are very extreme tensions, that could
blow up anytime and lead to what would in fact be a terminal nuclear
war, terminal for the species and life on Earth. We’re
very close to that.
Now,
we could ask why. First of all, we should do things to ameliorate it.
Secondly, we should ask why. Well, it’s because NATO expanded
after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in violation
of verbal promises to Mikhail Gorbachev, mostly under Clinton, partly
under first Bush, then Clinton expanded right to the Russian border,
expanded further under Obama.
The
U.S. has offered to bring Ukraine into NATO. That’s the kind
of a heartland of Russian geostrategic concerns.
So,
yes, there’s
tensions at the Russian border – and not, notice, at the Mexican
border. Well,
those are all issues that should be of primary concern.
The
fate of – the
fate of organized human society, even of the survival of the species,
depends on this. How
much attention is given to these things as compared with, you know,
whether Trump lied about something? I think those seem to me the
fundamental criticisms of the media.
So
to sum up – Trump’s
right about better relations with Russia – the fate of the world
depends on it, Russia did nothing of note, Russian hacking is
extremely marginal, Israel is the real meddler, US democracy no
longer exists, the billionaire corporatocracy runs America.
Is
Noam Chomsky a “puppet of Putin”? Did the veteran political
dissident just become a “useful
idiot”?
Well he must be an anti-semite, right? We look forward to Adam
Schiff’s response to this crushing blow to the left’s
‘russia-russia-russia’ narrative.
* Onder andere Seth Rich, een ontevreden DNC medewerker, lekte documenten naar WikiLeaks, daar hij pissig was over deze gang van zaken. Deze Rich werd, oh wonder, kort daarna vermoord op straat, volgens de politie een roofoverval, terwijl er niets van waarde werd gestolen en waardevolle spullen had Rich tijdens die ‘roofoverval’ voldoende ‘op zak…’
Professor
Stephen Cohen prikt in een interview dat Aaron Mate afnam, fijntjes door de
Putin – Trump hysterie heen, de hysterie die in de VS ontstond na het gesprek dat
Putin en Trump voerden in de Finse hoofdstad Helsinki. Men raakt er
in de VS weer niet over uitgesproken, al heeft dat alles met de reguliere, over het algemeen rechtse neoliberale pers in de VS te maken,
uiteraard aangevuld met de democratische en republikeinse politici
die openlijk lobbyen voor het militair-industrieel complex……….
Vanaf
het eind van de Sovjet-Unie tot de ontmoeting van Trump en Putin, zet
Cohen duidelijk uiteen hoe we zijn voorgelogen, bijvoorbeeld over ‘de
oorlog van Rusland tegen Georgië’, via Oekraïne, De Krim tot
Syrië…..
Voorts
moet ik Cohen gelijk geven als hij stelt dat we nu blij mogen zijn met
Trump als president, daar hij niet meegaat in de oorlogshitserij die
zoveel VS politici in hun greep houdt. Zoals op deze plek al eerder gesteld,
wat is erop tegen dat men met elkaar spreekt en probeert oorlog te
voorkomen??? Oké Trump is een beest, maar liever een beest dat niet aanvalt dan bijvoorbeeld Obama die 2 volledige termijnen in illegale oorlogsvoering was verwikkeld, zelfs 2 illegale oorlogen extra begon en veel meer bommen liet afwerpen dan Bush in 2 termijnen…….
Cohen stelt voorts terecht dat het onder eerdere
presidenten de normaalste zaak van de wereld was om te spreken met
de Russische collega’s, terwijl dat nu als verraad wordt
neergezet, alleen om Trump af te kunnen zetten en ongebreideld oorlog te kunnen voeren, zoals de VS gewend is te doen…….
Cohen gaat ook in op de beschuldiging dat Putin journalisten laat vermoorden, terwijl daar geen bewijs voor wordt geleverd, sterker nog: Cohen stelt dat deze moorden alles te maken hebben met de georganiseerde misdaad in Rusland……
Lezen mensen en geeft het door, de hoogste tijd dat we met z’n allen weer ons gezonde verstand gebruiken en ons niet langer laten voorliegen en gek laten maken door de reguliere media en het grootste deel van de politici in ons land!
Video:
Debunking the Putin Panic With Professor Stephen Cohen
(RN) — President
Trump’s warm words for Vladimir Putin and his failure to endorse
U.S. intelligence community claims about alleged Russian meddling
have been called “treasonous” and the cause of a “national
security crisis.” There
is a crisis, says Prof. Stephen F. Cohen, but one of our own making…
Part
1:
AARON
MATE: It’s
The Real News. I’m Aaron Mate.
The
White House is walking back another statement from President Trump
about Russia and U.S. intelligence. It began in Helsinki on Monday,
when at his press conference with Vladimir Putin, Trump did not
endorse the claim that Russia meddled in the 2016 election. After an
outcry that played out mostly on cable news, Trump appeared to
retract that view one day later. But then on Wednesday, Trump was
asked if he believes Russia is now targeting the U.S. ahead of the
midterms.
DONALD
TRUMP: [Thank]
you all very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.
REPORTER: Is
Russia still targeting the U.S. [inaudible]. No, you don’t believe
that to be the case?
DONALD
TRUMP: Thank
you very much, everyone. We’re doing very well. We are doing very
well, and we’re doing very well, probably as well as anybody has
ever done with Russia. And there’s been no president ever as tough
as I have been on Russia. All you have to do is look at the numbers,
look at what we’ve done, look at sanctions, look at ambassadors.
Not there. Look, unfortunately, at what happened in Syria recently. I
think President Putin knows that better than anybody. Certainly a lot
better than the media.
AARON
MATE: The
White House later claimed that when Trump said ‘no,’ he meant no
to answering questions. But Trump’s contradiction of U.S.
intelligence claims has brought the Russiagate story, one that has
engulfed his presidency, to a fever pitch. Prominent U.S. figures
have called Trump’s comments in Helsinki treasonous, and compared
alleged Russian e-mail hacking and social media activity to 9/11 and
Pearl Harbor. Those who also question intelligence claims or
warmongering with Russia have been dubbed traitors, or Kremlin
agents.
Speaking
to MSNBC, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul
declared that with Trump’s comments, the U.S. is in the midst of a
national security crisis.
MICHAEL
MCFAUL: Republicans
need to step up. They need to speak out, not just the familiar
voices, because this is a national security crisis, and the president
of the United States flew all the way to Finland, met with Vladimir
Putin, and basically capitulated. It felt like appeasement.
AARON
MATE: Well,
joining me to address this so-called national security crisis is
Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus at New York University and
Princeton University. His books include “Failed Crusade: America
and the Tragedy of Post-Soviet Russia,” and “Soviet Fates and
Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War.” Professor
Cohen, welcome. I imagine that you might agree with the view that we
are in the midst of a national security crisis when it comes to
Russia, but for far different reasons than those expounded on by
Ambassador McFaul.
STEPHEN
COHEN: There is a national security crisis, and there is a
Russian threat. And we, we ourselves here in the United States, have
created both of them. This has been true for years, and now it’s
reached crisis proportion. Notice what’s going on. A mainstream TV
reporter shouts to President Trump, “Are the Russians still
targeting our elections?” This is in the category “Are you still
beating your wife?” There is no proof that the Russians have
targeted or attacked our elections. But it’s become axiomatic. What
kind of media is that, are the Russians still, still attacking our
elections.
And
what Michael McFaul, whom I’ve known for years, formerly Ambassador
McFaul, purportedly a scholar and sometimes a scholar said, it is
simply the kind of thing, to be as kind as I can, that I heard from
the John Birch Society about President Eisenhower when he went to
meet Khrushchev when I was a kid growing up in Kentucky. This is
fringe discourse that never came anywhere near the mainstream before,
at least after Joseph McCarthy, that the president went, committed
treason, and betrayed the country. Trump
may have not done the right thing at the summit, because agreements
were reached. Nobody discusses the agreements. But to stage a
kangaroo trial of the president of the United States in the
mainstream media, and have plenty of once-dignified people come on
and deliver the indictment, is without precedent in this country.
And it has created a national crisis in our relations with Russia. So
yes, there’s a national crisis.
AARON
MATE: Let
me play for you a clip from Trump’s news conference with Putin that
also drew outrage back in the U.S. When he was asked about the state
of U.S.-Russia relations, he said both sides had responsibility.
DONALD
TRUMP: Yes,
I do. I hold both countries responsible. I think that the United
States has been foolish. I think we’ve all been foolish. We should
have had this dialogue a long time ago. A long time, frankly, before
I got to office. And I think we’re all to blame. I think that the
United States now has stepped forward, along with Russia, and we’re
getting together, and we have a chance to do some great things.
Whether it’s nuclear proliferation, in terms of stopping, because
we have to do it. Ultimately that’s probably the most important
thing that we can be working on.
AARON
MATE: That’s
President Trump in Helsinki. Professor Cohen, I imagine that this
comment probably was part of the reason why there was so much
outrage, not Just of what Trump said about the claims of Russian
meddling in the election. Can you talk about the significance of what
he said here, and how it contradicts the, the entire consensus of the
bipartisan foreign policy establishment?
STEPHEN
COHEN: I
did not vote for President Trump. But for that I salute him, what he
just said. So far as I can remember, no wiser words or more important
words have been spoken by the American president about Russia and the
Soviet Union since Ronald Reagan did his great detente with Mikhail
Gorbachev in the late 1980s. What
Trump just did, and I don’t- we never know, Aaron, how aware he is
of the ramifications of what he says. But in this case, whether he
fully understood it or not, he just broke with, and the first time
any major political figure in the United States has broken with the
orthodoxy, ever since at least 2000. And
even going back to the ’90s. That all the conflicts we’ve had
with post-Soviet Russia, after communism went away in Russia, all
those conflicts, which I call a new and more dangerous Cold War, are
solely, completely, the fault of Putin or Putin’s Russia.That
nothing in American policy since Bill Clinton in the 1990s did
anything to contribute seriously to the very dangerous conflict,
confrontation we have with Russia today. It was all Russia’s fault.
What
that has meant, and you know this, Aaron, because you live in this
world as well,it
has meant no media or public dialogue about the merits of American
policy toward post-Soviet Russia from Clinton, certainly through
Obama. It
may be changing now under President Trump. Not sure. It means if we
don’t have a debate, we’re not permitted to ask, did we do
something wrong, or so unwise that it led to this even more dangerous
Cold War? And
if the debate leads to a conclusion that we did do something unwise,
and that we’re still doing it, then arises the pressure and the
imperative for any new policy toward Russia. None of that has been
permitted, because the orthodoxy, the dogma, the axiom, is Putin
alone has solely been responsible.
So
you know, you know as well as I do what is excluded. It doesn’t
matter that we moved NATO to Russia’s borders, that’s not
significant. Or that we bombed Serbia, Russia’s traditional ally.
Or that George Bush left the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which was
the bedrock of Russian nuclear security and, I would argue, our own.
Or that we did regime change by military might in Iraq and Libya, and
many other things. Or that we provoked the Ukrainian crisis in 2004,
and supported the coup that overthrew a legitimate, elected,
constitutional president there. None of that matters. Oh, it was kind
of footnotes to the real narrative. And the narrative is, is that a
Russian leader Vladimir Putin in power was a horrible aggressor.
Killed everybody, somehow, with secret poisons or thieves in the
night who opposed him. And began this new cold or even worse war with
the United States.
No
historian of any merit will ever write the story that way. It’s
factually, analytically, simply untrue. Now Trump has said something
radically different. We got here in these dire circumstances because
both sides acted unwisely, and we should have had this discussion a
long time ago.
So for that, two cheers for President Trump. But whether he can
inspire the discussion that he may wish to, considering the fact that
he’s now being indicted as a criminal for having met Putin, is a
big question.
AARON
MATE: So
a few questions. You mentioned that some agreements were made, but
details on that have been vague. So do you have any sense of what
concretely came out of this summit? There was talk about cooperation
on nuclear weapons, possibly renewing the New START Treaty. We know
that Putin offered that to Trump when he first came into office, but
Trump rejected it. There was talk about cooperating in Syria. And,
well, yeah, if I can put that question to you first, and then I have
a follow-up about what might be motivating Trump here. But first,
what do you think concretely came out of this?
STEPHEN
COHEN: Well,
look, I know a lot, both as a historian, and I’ve actually
participated in some about the history of American-Russian,
previously Soviet, summits. Which, by the way, this is the 75th
anniversary of the very first one, when Franklin Roosevelt traveled
to Tehran to meet Stalin. And
every president, and this is important to emphasize, every president
since
Roosevelt
has met with the Kremlin leader. Some many times, or several times.
So there’s a long tradition. And therefore there are customs. And
one custom, this goes to your question, is that never, except maybe
very rarely, but almost never do we learn the full extent and nature
of what agreements were made. That
usually comes in a week or two or three later, because there’s
still the teams of both are hammering out the details.
So
that’s exactly what happened at this summit. There was no
conspiracy. No, you know, appeasement behind closed doors. The two
leaders announced in general terms what they agreed upon. Now,
the most important, and this is traditional, too, by meeting they
intended to revive the diplomatic process between the United States
and Russia which has been badly tattered by events including the
exclusion of diplomats, and sanctions, and the rest. So to get
active, vigorous diplomacy about many issues going. They
may not achieve that goal, because the American media and the
political mainstream is trying to stop that. Remember that anything
approaching diplomatic negotiations with Russia still less detente,
is now being criminalized in the United States. Criminalized. What
was once an honorable tradition, the pursuit of detente, is now a
capital crime, if we believe these charges against Trump.
So
they tried to revive that process, and we’ll see if it’s going to
be possible. I think at least behind the scenes it will be. Obviously
what you mentioned, both sides now have new, more elusive, more
lethal, faster, more precise nuclear weapons. We’ve been developing
them for a long time in conjunction with missile defense. We’ve
essentially been saying to Russia, you may have equality in nuclear
weapons with us, but we have missile defense. Therefore, we could use
missile defense to take out your retaliatory capacity. That is, we
could stage the first strike on you and you would not be able to
retaliate.
Now,
everybody who’s lived through the nuclear era knows that’s an
invitation to disaster. Because like it or not, we’ve lived with a
doctrine called MAD, Mutual Assured Destruction, that one side dare
not attack the other with a nuclear weapon because it would be
destroyed as well. We were saying we now have this primacy. Putin,
then, on March 1 of this year, announced that they have developed
weapons that can elude missile defense. And it seems to be true. In
the air and at sea, their dodgy, darty, quick thing- but they could
avoid our missile defense. So where we are at now is on the cusp of a
new nuclear arms race involving more dangerous nuclear weapons. And
the current START, New START Treaty will expire, I think, in three or
four years. But its expiration date is less important that the
process of talking and negotiating and worrying officially about
these new weapons had ended.
So
essentially what Trump and Putin agreed is that process of concern
about new and more dangerous nuclear weapons must now resume
immediately. And if there’s anybody living in the United States who
think that that is a bad idea they need to reconsider their life,
because they may be looking into the darkness of death. So
that was excellent. Briefly.
What
I hope they did- they didn’t announce it, but I’m pretty sure
they did- that there had been very close calls between American and
Russian combat forces and their proxies in Syria. We’re doing a
proxy war, but there are plenty of native Russians and Americans in
Syria in a relatively small combat cell. And there have been
casualties. The Russians have said at the highest level the next time
a Russian is killed in Syria by an American-based weapon, we will
strike the American launcher. If Russia strikes our launching pads or
areas, whether on land or sea, which means Americans will be there
and are killed, call it war. Call it war.
So
we need to agree in Syria to do more than, what do they call it,
deconfliction, where we have all these warnings. It’s
still too much space for mishap. And what I hope it think Trump and
Putin did was to try to get a grip on this.
AARON
MATE: Stephen
F. Cohen, professor emeritus at at Princeton University and New York
University, thank you. And stay tuned for part two. I’m Aaron Mate
for The Real News.
*
* *
There
is much to criticize the Russian president for, says Professor
Stephen F. Cohen of Princeton and NYU, but
many US political and media claims about Putin are false – and
reckless…
Part
2:
AARON
MATE: It’s
The Real News. I’m Aaron Mate. This is part two with Stephen Cohen,
professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and
Princeton. In part one we talked about the uproar over the
Trump-Putin summit, and Trump’s comments about the U.S.
intelligence community and about cooperation with Russia. Now
in part two we’re going to get to some of the main talking points
that have been pervasive throughout corporate media, talking about
the stated reasons for why pundits and politicians say they are
opposed to Trump sitting down with Putin.
So
let me start with Jon Meacham. He is a historian. And speaking to
CNN, he worried that Trump, with his comments about NATO calling on
the alliance to pay more, and calling into question, he worried about
the possibility that Trump won’t come to the aid of Baltic states
in the event that Russia invades.
JON
MEACHAM: And
what worries me most is the known unknown, as Donald Rumsfeld might
put it, of what happens next. Let’s say Putin- just look at this
whole week of the last five, six days in total. What happens if Putin
launches military action against, say, the Baltics? What, what is it
that President Trump, what about his comments that NATO suggest thar
he would follow an invocation of Article 5 and actually project
American force in defense of the values that not only do we have an
intellectual and moral assent to, but a contractual one, a treaty
one. I think that’s the great question going forward.
AARON
MATE: OK.
So that’s Jon Meacham speaking to CNN. So, Professor Cohen, putting
aside what he said there about our intellectual values and strong
tradition, just on the issue of Trump, of Putin posing a potential
threat and possibly invading the Baltics, is that a realistic
possibility?
STEPHEN
COHEN: So,
I’m not sure what you’re asking me about. The folly of NATO
expansion? The fact that every president in my memory has asked the
Europeans to pay more? But can we be real? Can we be real? The only
country that’s attacked that region of Europe militarily since the
end of the Soviet Union was the United States of America. As I
recall, we bombed Serbia, a, I say this so people understand, a
traditional Christian country, under Bill Clinton, bombed Serbia for
about 80 days. There is no evidence that Russia has ever bombed a
European country.
You
tell me, Aaron. You must be a smart guy, because you got your own
television show. Why
would Putin want to launch a military attack and occupy the Baltics?
So he has to pay the pensions there? Which he’s having a hard time
already paying in Russia, and therefore has had to raise the pension
age, and thereby lost 10 percentage points of popularity in two
weeks? Why
in the world can we, can we simply become rational people. Why in the
world would Russia want to attack and occupy Latvia, Lithuania, and
Estonia? The only reason I can think of is that many, many of my
friends love to take their summer vacations there. And maybe some
crazy person thinks that if we occupy it, vacations will be cheaper.
It’s crazy. It’s beyond crazy. It’s a kind-.
AARON
MATE: Professor
Cohen, if you were on CNN right now I imagine that the anchor would
say to you, well, okay, but one could say the same thing about
Georgia in 2008. Why did Russia attack Georgia then?
STEPHEN
COHEN: I’m not aware that Russia attacked Georgia. The
European Commission, if you’re talking about the 2008 war, the
European Commission, investigating what happened, found that Georgia,
which was backed by the United States, fighting with an
American-built army under the control of the, shall we say, slightly
unpredictable Georgian president then, Saakashvili, that
he began the war by firing on Russian enclaves. And the Kremlin,
which by the way was not occupied by Putin, but by Michael McFaul and
Obama’s best friend and reset partner then-president Dmitry
Medvedev, did what any Kremlin leader, what any leader in any country
would have had to do: it reacted. It sent troops across the border
through the tunnel, and drove the Georgian forces out of what
essentially were kind of Russian protectorate areas of Georgia.
So
that- Russia didn’t begin that war. And
it didn’t begin the one in Ukraine, either. We did that by
[continents], the overthrow of the Ukrainian president in [20]14
after President Obama told Putin that he would not permit that to
happen. And I think it happened within 36 hours. The
Russians, like them or not, feel that they have been lied to and
betrayed. They use this word, predatl’stvo, betrayal, about
American policy toward Russia ever since 1991, when
it wasn’t just President George Bush, all the documents have been
published by the National Security Archive in Washington, all the
leaders of the main Western powers promised the Soviet Union that
under Gorbachev, if Gorbachev would allow a reunited Germany to be
NATO, NATO would not, in the famous expression, move two inches to
the east.
Now
NATO is sitting on Russia’s borders from the Baltic to Ukraine. So
Russians aren’t fools, and they’re good-hearted, but they become
resentful. They’re worried about being attacked by the United
States. In fact, you read and hear in the Russian media daily, we are
under attack by the United States. And
this is a lot more real and meaningful than this crap that is being
put out that Russia somehow attacked us in 2016. I must have been
sleeping. I didn’t see Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and 2016. This is
reckless, dangerous, warmongering talk. It needs to stop. Russia has
a better case for saying they’ve been attacked by us since 1991. We
put our military alliance on the front door. Maybe it’s not an
attack, but it looks like one, feels like one. Could be one.
AARON
MATE: OK.
And in a moment I want to speak to you more about Ukraine, because
we’ve heard Crimea invoked a lot in the criticism of Putin of late.
But first I want to actually to ask you about a domestic issue. This
one is it’s widely held that Putin is responsible for the killing
of journalists and opposition activists who oppose him. And on this
front I want to play for you a clip of Joe Cirincione. He is the head
of the Ploughshares Fund. And this is what he said this week in an
appearance on Democracy Now!.
JOE
CIRINCIONE: Both
of these men are dangerous. Both of these men oppress basic human
rights, basic freedoms. Both of them think the press are the enemy of
the people. Putin goes further. He kills journalists. He has them
assassinated on the streets of Moscow.
Donald
Trump does not go that far yet. But I think what Putin is doing is
using the president of the United States to project his rule, to
increase his power, to carry out his agenda in Syria, with Europe, et
cetera, and that Trump is acquiescing to that for reasons that are
not yet clear.
AARON
MATE: That’s
Joe Cirincione.
STEPHEN
COHEN: I
know him well. It’s worse than that. It’s worse than that.
AARON
MATE: Well
Yes. There’s two issues here, Professor Cohen. One is the state of
the crackdown on press freedoms in Russia, which I’m sure you would
say is very much alive, and is a strong part of the Russian system.
But let’s first address this widely-held view that Putin is
responsible for killing journalists who are critical of him.
STEPHEN
COHEN: I
know I’m supposed to follow your lead, but I think you’re
skipping over a major point. How
is it that Joe, who was once one of our most eminent and influential,
eloquent opponents of nuclear arms race, who was prepared to have the
president of the United States negotiate with every Soviet communist
leader, including those who had a lot of blood on their hands, now
decide that Putin kills everybody and he’s not a worthy partner?
What happened to Joe?
I’ll
tell you what happened to him. Trump. Trump has driven once-sensible
people completely crazy. Moreover, Joe knows absolutely nothing about
internal Russian politics, and
he ought to follow my rule. When I don’t know something about
something, I say I don’t know. But what he just said is ludicrous.
And the sad part is-.
AARON
MATE: But
it’s widely held. If it’s ludicrous-. But widely held, yeah.
STEPHEN
COHEN: Well,
the point is that once
distinguished and important spokespeople for rightful causes, like
ending a nuclear arms race, have been degraded, or degraded
themselves by saying things like he said to the point that they’re
of utility today only to the proponents of a new nuclear arms race.
And he’s not alone. Somebody called it Trump derangement
syndrome. I’m
not a psychiatrist, but it’s a widespread mania across our land.
And when good people succumb to it, we are all endangered.
AARON
MATE: But
many people would be surprised to hear that, because again, the
stories that we get, and there are human rights reports, and it’s
just sort of taken as a given fact that Putin is responsible for
killing journalists. So if that’s ludicrous, if you can explain why
you think that is.
STEPHEN
COHEN: Well, I
got this big problem which seems to afflict very few people in public
life anymore. I live by facts. I’m
like my doctor, who told me not long ago I had to have minor surgery
for a problem I didn’t even know I had. And I said, I’m not going
to do it. Show me the facts. And he did. I had the minor
surgery. Journalists
no longer seem to care about facts. They repeat tabloid rumors. Putin
kills everybody.
All
I can tell you is this. I
have never seen any evidence whatsoever, and I’ve been- I knew some
of the people who were killed. Anna
Politkovskaya, the famous journalist for Novaya Gazeta was the first,
I think, who was- Putin was accused of killing. I knew her well. She
was right here, in this apartment. Look behind me, right here. She
was here with my wife, Katrina vanden Huevel. I wouldn’t say we
were close friends, but we were associates in Moscow, and we were
social friends. And
I mourn her assassination today. But I will tell you this, that
neither her editors at that newspaper, nor her family, her surviving
sons, think Putin had anything to do with the killing. No
evidence has ever been presented. Only media kangaroo courts that
Putin was involved in these high-profile assassinations, two of the
most famous being this guy Litvinenko by polonium in London, about
the time Anna was killed, and more recently Boris Netsov, whom, it’s
always said, was walking within view of the Kremlin when he was shot.
Well, you could see the Kremlin from miles away. I don’t know what
within the view- unless they think Putin was, you know, watching it
through binoculars. There is no evidence that Putin ever ordered the
killing of anybody outside his capacity as commander in chief. No
evidence.
Now,
did he? But we live, Aaron, and I hope the folks who watch us
remember this. Every professional person, every decent person lives
or malpractices based on verified facts. You go down the wrong way on
a one-way street, you might get killed. You take some medication
that’s not prescribed for you, you might die. You pursue foreign
policies based on fiction, you’re likely to get in war. And
all these journalists, from the New York Times to the Washington
Post, from MSNBC to CNN who churn out daily these allegations that
Putin kills people are disgracing themselves. I
will give you one fact. Wait. One fact, and you could look it up, as
Casey Stengel used to say. He was a baseball manager, in case you
don’t know.
There’s
an organization called the Committee to Protect American Journalists.
It’s kind of iconic. It does good things, it says unwise things. Go
on its website and look at the number of Russian journalists killed
since 1991, since the end of the Soviet Union, under two leaders.
Boris Yeltsin, whom we dearly loved and still mourn, and Putin, whom
we hate.Last
time I looked, the numbers may have changed, more were killed under
Yeltsin than under Putin. Did Putin kill those in the 1990s?
So
you should ask me, why did they die, then? And
I can tell you the main reason. Corrupt business. Mafia-like business
in Russia. Just like happened in the United States during our
primitive accumulation days. Profit
seekers killed rivals. Killed them dead in the streets. Killed them
as demonstrations, as demonstrative acts. The only thing you could
say about Putin is that he might have created an atmosphere that
abets that sort of thing. To which I would say, maybe, but originally
it was created with the oligarchical class under Boris Yeltsin, who
remains for us the most beloved Russian leader in history. So that’s
the long and the short of it. Go look at the listing on the Committee
to Protect Journalists.
AARON
MATE: OK.
So, following up on that, to what extent- and this gets a bit into
history, which you’ve covered extensively in your writings. To what
extent are we here in the West responsible for the creation of that
Russian oligarchal class that you mentioned? But also, what is
Putin’s relationship to it now, today? Does he abet it? Is he
entrenched in it? We hear, often, talk of Putin possibly being the
richest person in the world as a result of his entanglement with the
very corruption of Russia you’re speaking about. So both our role
in creating that problem in Russia, but then also Putin’s role now
in terms of his relationship to it.
STEPHEN
COHEN: I’m
going to give you a quick, truncated, scholarly, historical
perspective on this. But this is what people should begin with when
they think about Vladimir Putin and his 18 years in power. Putin came
to power almost accidentally in 2000. He inherited a country whose
state had collapsed twice in the 20th century. You’ve got to think
about that. How
many states have collapsed that you know of once? But the Russian
state, Russian statehood, had collapsed once in 1917 during the
revolution, and again in 1991 when the Soviet Union ended. The
country was in ruination; 75 percent of the people were in poverty.
Putin
said- and this obsesses him. If you want to know what obsesses Putin,
it’s the word ‘sovereignty.’ Russia lost its sovereignty-
political, foreign policy, security, financial- in the 1990s. Putin
saw his mission, as I read him, and I try to read him as a
biographer. He says a lot, to regain Russia’s sovereignty, which
meant to make the country whole again at home, to rescue its people,
and to protect its defenses. That’s been his mission. Has it been
more than that? Maybe. But everything he’s done, as I see it, has
followed that concept of his role in history. And he’s done pretty
well.
Now,
I can give you all Putin’s minuses very easily. I would not care
for him to be my president. But let me tell you one other thing
that’s important. You evaluate nations within their own history,
not within ours. If
you asked me if Putin is a democrat, and I will answer you two ways.
He thinks he has. And compared to what? Compared to the leader of
Egypt? Yeah, he is a democrat. Compared to the rulers of our pals in
the Gulf states, he is a democrat. Compared to Bill Clinton? No, he’s
not a Democrat. I mean, Russia-. Countries are on their own
historical clock. And you have to judge Putin in terms of his
predecessors. So people think Putin is a horrible leader. Did you
prefer Brezhnev? Did you prefer Stalin? Did you prefer Andropov?
Compared to what? Please tell me, compared to what.
And
by the way, that’s how that’s how Russians-. You want to know why
he’s so popular in Russia? Because Russians judge him in the
context of their own what they call zhivaya istoriya, living history;
what we call autobiography. In
terms of their own lives, he looks pretty darn good. They complain
out him. We sit in the kitchen and they bitch about Putin all the
time. But they don’t want him to go away.
AARON
MATE: All
right. Well, on that front, we’re going to wrap this up there.
Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York
University and Princeton. His books include “Failed Crusade:
America and the Tragedy of Post-Soviet Russia,” and “Soviet Fates
and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War.”
Professor Cohen, thank you.
STEPHEN
COHEN: You
forgot one book.
AARON
MATE: I
did not say I was reading your, your complete bibliography.
STEPHEN
COHEN: It’s
called-. It’s called “Confessions of a Holy Fool.”
AARON
MATE: Is
that true? Or are you making a joke.
STEPHEN
COHEN: Somewhere
in between. [Thank you, Aaron.]
AARON
MATE: Professor
Cohen, thank you. And thank you for joining us on The Real News.
Het
Wereldvoedselprogramma van de VN (WFP) heeft een waarschuwing doen
uitgaan dat de illegale oorlog die de Saoedische coalitie, o.l.v.
NAVO-lid VS voert in Jemen, ertoe heeft geleid dat 8 miljoen mensen
zeer dringend voedsel nodig hebben om te kunnen overleven en dat
rond de 22 miljoen Jemenieten op korte termijn humanitaire hulp als
een dak boven het hoofd en/of medische hulp behoeven (een aantal van
de eerder genoemde 8 miljoen, bevindt zich in de groep van 22 miljoen
die daarna werd genoemd)……..
WFP
woordvoerder Frances Kennedy stelt verder (ten overvloede) dat de
infrastructuur van Jemen voor het grootste deel in puin ligt, ‘door
de strijd in het land’ (ofwel door de illegale oorlog die de
Saoedische coalitie voert tegen de sjiitische bevolking van
Jemen*)……
Hieronder
het bewuste artikel met de woorden van Kennedy, een artikel dat op Middle East Monitor (MEMO) werd geplaatst. Van het
verhaal klopt niet veel, behalve dan het feit van de uitzonderlijke noodsituatie
in Jemen, een situatie die al veel langer aanwezig is dan Kennedy doet vermoeden…. Zo wordt er niets over het begin van de
strijd gezegd (al was die strijd nooit ver weg in dit voormalige
protectoraat van de Britten, waar het westen de grenzen als op zoveel
plaatsen in het Midden-Oosten totaal belachelijk met meetlatten heeft getrokken en waar aartsvijanden bij elkaar in één land kwamen te
wonen…..)
Voorts niets
over de terreur van IS en Al Qaida tegen de sjiitische bevolking van Jemen,
sterker nog als je het relaas leest zou je denken dat de Houthi’s met die agressie zijn begonnen, de Houthi’s die godzijdank een goed functionerende strijdmacht hebben**.
Het is trouwens een dapper staaltje vechtkunst van de Houthi’s, het
zo lang uithouden tegen de moderne legermacht van SA en de Verenigde
Arabische Emiraten (VAE), met hun straaljagers, bommenwerpers, helikopters en raketten, terwijl ze zelf niet over een luchtmacht
beschikken……… Sterker nog: deze dictatoriale terreurstaten, die illegaal in Jemen strijden, worden ook nog eens op meerdere manieren gesteund door de VS, de sterkste legermacht op aarde (tevens de grootste terreurentiteit op aarde) en door Groot-Brittannië (waar de VS en G-B ook nog eens NAVO partners en beiden atoommacht zijn….)……
Volgens
Kennedy escaleerde de strijd in 2015 toen de Houthi’s steeds meer
gebied veroverden, echter de strijd was voor de Houthi’s toen al lang
bezig en inderdaad ze bestreden de genoemde terreurgroepen met
succes, overigens gesteund door een fiks deel van de Jemenitische
legermacht, die zich bij de Houthi’s aansloot…….
Ja
Kennedy, de infrastructuur ligt grotendeels in puin en dat is
voornamelijk aan de illegale bombardementen van Saoedi-Arabië te
danken, die willens en wetens deze infrastructuur bombardeerden,
waarbij ook ziekenhuizen, scholen, elektriciteitscentrales en
waterzuiveringsinstallaties, inclusief watervoorzieningen als doel
dienden…… (allen enorme oorlogsmisdaden….) Nog maar een fikse maand geleden bombardeerde dit
geteisem een net geopend ziekenhuis van Artsen Zonder Grenzen (MSF) voor het enorme aantal cholera slachtoffers, gelukkig waren er nog geen patiënten of personeel in
het ziekenhuis…..
Die
cholera en later difterie uitbraak is één op één te danken aan de
Saoedische coalitie…… Ook dat wordt niet door Kennedy
genoemd…..
Het
ergst van al is wel dat Kennedy het woord genocide niet in de mond
neemt, want daar is wel degelijk sprake van in Jemen, een genocide
tegen het sjiitische deel van de bevolking……..
Volgens
de VN, waarvan zoals je kon lezen WFP onderdeel uitmaakt, is het aantal dodelijke burgerslachtoffers meer dan 15.000 (ofwel vermoorden….), dit als gevolg van de Saoedische oorlog tegen het grootste deel van de Jemenitische bevolking (sjiieten), terwijl het
werkelijke aantal volgens deskundigen veel hoger ligt, zelfs meer dan het
dubbele, dus meer dan 30.000 vermoorde Jemenieten (waaronder veel kinderen)…….
De VN en het Internationaal Strafhof zouden eindelijk de VS, Saoedi-Arabië, de VAE en Groot-Brittannië
aan de paal moeten nagelen voor het uitvoeren van een genocide….. G-B levert Saoedi-Arabië munitie, wapens en militaire hardware, dus rollend,
varend en vliegend oorlogstuig en traint ook nog eens Saoedische
militairen….. De VS tankt het vliegend oorlogstuig van de Saoedische
coalitie in de lucht bij, voor een ‘zo goed mogelijk resultaat’ (zoals gisteren het bombarderen van een ziekenhuis***),
voorts heeft het clusterbommen en andere munitie geleverd aan S-A,
dit nog naast wapens en militaire hardware (hetzelfde soort moordtuig
dat G-B levert). Ook coördineert de VS de bombardementen en helpt deze
vereniging van terreurstaten op zee mee aan een blokkade, zodat er
maar mondjesmaat hulpgoederen het land binnenkomen…. Vandaar dat het
ook zo’n schande is, dat deze moorddadige coalitie de enige havenstad
van de Houthi’s, Hodeida bestookt en wil innemen…..
Kennedy
is veel te laat met haar waarschuwing en komt met veel te weinig feiten, waarom noemt ze bijvoorbeeld de rol van de VS en
Groot-Brittannië niet?? Ach ja in dienst van de VN en die wil hun
gastheer de VS niet tegen de haren instrijken…… (hoogste tijd dat
het hoofdkantoor van de VN wordt verplaats naar buiten de VS!) Waar
nogmaals niet vergeten moet worden dat de werkelijke agressors in
eerste instantie IS en Al Qaida zijn (met hoofdverantwoordelijke Al-Hadi, voor de aanwezigheid van deze terreurgroepen in Jemen, Al-Hadi de zogenaamd huidige president)…. Waar later de broodheren van
deze 2 terreurgroepen, S-A, de VS en de VAE zich illegaal in deze strijd mengden, daar de door hen gesteunde terreurgroepen dreigden te worden vernietigd door de
Houthi’s………
En
Kennedy? Die moet zich de ogen uit het hoofd schamen!!
22
Million People in Yemen Urgently Need Humanitarian Aid
(nog een schreeuw om hulp voor het volk van Jemen:)
(MEMO) — The
World Food Program has warned that the war has left eight million
Yemenis in dire need of food assistance to survive, Al
Jazeera reported
WFP Communications Officer, Frances Kennedy, said that around 22
million Yemenis need humanitarian aid, be it shelter or
health-related support.
She
added that the country’s infrastructure has been greatly damaged in
several areas due to the ongoing battles.
Kennedy
noted that the humanitarian situation in Yemen necessitates putting
pressure on political actors in order to end the conflict.
The
conflict in Yemen escalated in 2015 when Saudi Arabia and its
Sunni-Arab allies launched a massive air campaign aimed at rolling
back Houthi gains. The group had taken control of the capital, Sanaa,
and large swathes of the country forcing the internationally backed
government into exile.
Three
years on, more than 15,000 Yemenis have been killed, according to the
UN, and millions continue to suffer in what it has declared as the
worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
* Deze oorlog is illegaal en gezocht door de reli-fascistische dictatuur van S-A. De eerder zelf
opgestapte president Al-Hadi werd door S-A onder druk gezet
zijn presidentschap weer op te pakken, zodat hij S-A te hulp kon
vragen en dit land de strijd tegen de sjiitische bevolking van Jemen
kon starten……… Men loog daarbij dat er Iraanse militairen mee
zouden vechten aan de kant van de Houthi’s tegen destijds de
terreurgroepen IS en Al Qaida die van al-Hadi hun ‘tenten mochten
opslaan’ op Jemenitische bodem, waarna ze vrijwel onmiddellijk
slachtingen onder de sjiitische bevolking begonnen aan te richten……….. Nog
steeds beweert men, zonder ook maar een flinter aan bewijs, dat Iran
meevecht in Jemen en daar wapens en raketten levert (nogmaals: zonder
ook maar iets dat op een bewijs lijkt…..)……
** De Houthi’s die met succes deze terreurgroepen hebben bestreden, i.t.t. de VS dat in Syrië meer dan 1,5 jaar lang zogenaamd IS bombardeerde, maar daar niets mee bereikte, pas nadat de Russen Syrië hielpen in de strijd tegen IS en andere terreurgroepen (‘gematigde rebellen’), begon de VS met haar strijd tegen tegen IS en dat nog in zeer beperkte mate, wat dan weer met de wil van de VS te maken had, Assad te wippen als president. De oorzaak van de oorlog in Jemen, is de opstand die de VS, met hulp van Saoedi-Arabië, Turkije, Groot-Brittannië opzette in dit land, een opstand waartoe de eerste aanzet door de VS in 2006 werd gedaan (volgens officiële VS documenten, o.a. op WikiLeaks te vinden)…….
Voor meer berichten over de genocide in Jemen, klik op de bewuste labels, direct onder dit bericht, klik op MSF (Artsen Zonder Grenzen) voor het bericht over het ‘cholera ziekenhuis’ dat werd vernietigd door de Saoedische terreurcoalitie.
Zomaar
een bericht van Hebron Freedom Fund over een 28 jarige man met het syndroom van
Down, gearresteerd door ‘dappere’ Israëlische militairen…….
Naast
het opzettelijk vermoorden van kinderen, ziet het psychopathische uiterst gewelddadige Israëlische leger
bij tijd en wijle de kans schoon om ook invaliden te vermoorden, dan
wel zwaar te verwonden…..
Onlangs heeft datzelfde Israëlische leger zelfs
een man met het syndroom van Down gearresteerd, zijn hand gebroken en
hem na 3 dagen pas weer vrij gelaten………
Hoe
is het godverdomme mogelijk dat er nog steeds mensen zijn die zich
blijkbaar wel kunnen vinden in alle terreur die de fascistische
apartheidsstaat Israel uitoefent op de Palestijnen…..???
Hebron
Freedom Fund
July
20, 2018
28-year-old
Mahmoud Zayed with special needs (down syndrom) was brutally arrested
by the Israeli army in the Bab-al-Zawiah area in Hebron right
near the checkpoint to enter Shuhada Street. During his arrest, the
soldiers broke his hand. Mahmoud was held for three days before
finally being released.
=====================
Vanmorgen op BBC World Service radio (rond 8.25 u.) een minutenlang verslag over een jongen met het syndroom van Down, die door de Zweedse politie werd doodgeschoten, daar deze jongen, die op het niveau van een 3 jarige leefde, met een speelgoedpistooltje op straat liep….. Inderdaad een schande, maar waarom kan de BBC geen aandacht schenken aan de barbaarse behandeling van een Palestijnse man met hetzelfde syndroom…?? Nee, daar heeft de BBC geen tijd voor, liever maakt men Jeremy Corbyn openlijk te schande door te beweren dat hij een antisemiet is (o.a. naar aanleiding van een gesprek dat Corbyn een paar jaar gelden had met Hajo Meyer (overleden op 23 augustus 2014) van Een Ander Joods Geluid, NB een overlevende van de nazi-Duitse doodskampen…… Overigens is deze berichtgeving op o.a. de BBC over Corbyn haatzaaiend en ophitsend, mocht iemand Corbyn vermoorden of verwonden, is de BBC één van de hoofdverantwoordelijken……
In
Nederland hebben we natuurlijk geen tijd voor alweer een door de
Saoedische coalitie gebombardeerd ziekenhuis in Jemen en dan ‘met nog
maar 50 doden’, er zijn veel belangrijker zaken, zoals meer dan 5
minuten geouwehoer over een koekjesbijbel op Radio1, vanmorgen voor
9.30 u., dus in het ‘onafhankelijke’ NOS journaal……..
Het
is in de VS niet anders, de reguliere media doen er ook daar het
zwijgen toe…..
De
aanvallen van de Saoedische coalitie worden dan ook geregisseerd door
de VS, daarnaast tankt de VS de straaljagers en bommenwerpers van de
Saoedische coalitie af in de lucht, zodat het psychopathisch geteisem zo efficiënt mogelijk hun moorddadig werk kan verrichten…..
Terwijl
een groot deel van de VS bevolking amper of geen toegang heeft tot de
gezondheidszorg, worden er kapitalen gestoken in de genocide die de
Saoedische coalitie uitvoert in Jemen…… Een genocide niet alleen door bombardementen op ziekenhuizen, scholen, huizenblokken, waterzuiveringsinstallaties, elektriciteitscentrales, maar ook door blokkades op land en zee (aan de laatste blokkades werkt ook de VS mee), zodat humanitaire goederen amper de zo geplaagde sjiitische bevolking kunnen bereiken…….
Door bombardementen op de infrastructuur is er al geruime tijd sprake van een cholera uitbraak, die werd gevolgd door een difterie uitbraak, dit nog naast de honger, die al meer dan 2 jaar aanhoudt….. (op een later tijdstip meer daarover) Dit alles heeft al een enorm aantal mensen het leven gekost…..
Weer kijkt de wereld toe terwijl er een genocide plaatsvindt………
Waar
blijft het Internationaal Strafhof met het vervolgen van de
Saoedische coalitie, inclusief de VS en Groot-Brittannië, daar die
laatste 2 één en ander mogelijk maken en daar zelfs bij helpen…..??
Media
Silence After US-Backed Attack on Hospital Kills Dozens in Yemen
(CD) — As
some of America’s most prominent corporate media outlets continued
their lengthy blackout of
Yemen’s deepening humanitarian crisis—a catastrophe made possible
by the U.S. government’s enthusiastic military
and political support for Saudi Arabia’s years-long assault on the
starving nation—the Saudi-led coalition on Thursday reportedly
killed as
many as 50 people and
injured dozens more in a massive bombing campaign targeting
the Yemeni
port city of Hodeidah.
Horrific
images, videos, and witness accounts of the bombing quickly began
circulating on social media after airstrikes pounded the vicinity of
al-Thawra, Hodeidah’s main public hospital.
“It
is a very painful sight, parts of bodies are everywhere around the
hospital gates,” an eyewitness toldReuters,
as Yemeni journalists and American activists intensified calls for
the U.S. media to stop looking the other way while the Trump
administration fuels the ongoing massacre of Yemenis with weaponry
and intelligence.
Ahmad
Algohbary, a Yemeni freelance journalist, offered a glimpse at the
aftermath of the Saudi-led coalition’s bombing campaign in an
effort to “bring attention to the reality” of Yemen’s
situation, which has been described as the worst humanitarian crisis
in the world.
Responding
to Algohbary’s photo of a Yemeni
woman grasping her starving child,
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—one of the few members of Congress who
has been consistent and outspoken in his opposition to America’s
central role in Saudi Arabia’s assault on Yemen—wrote on
Twitter: “As a father, this absolutely breaks my heart. The world
must act.”
“We
must stop Saudi’s bombing of Hodeidah. We must demand that the
violence end,” Khanna added. “This crisis is a moral stain on all
of us who are in a position of power and are failing.”
Twenty six people were killed and 35 others were wounded in Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the fishing port and fish market in the Yemeni city of Hodeidah. (via @Reuters)
These are U.S. weapons being used to carry out the slaughter. Tell Congress to stop investing in weapons and militarism. It is killing innocent people. We need to #DivestFromWar. Reach out to your representatives NOW: http://codepink.org/no_campaign_contributions …
Increasingly,
activists and independent journalists have been using their social
media platforms to pressure corporate media outlets that are failing
to adequately cover the crisis in Yemen,
which dates back to 2014.
“While
[it’s] disgraceful that MSNBC hasn’t
been covering the world’s most significant humanitarian crisis, the
problem runs much deeper,” writer Walker Bragman noted on
Twitter. “Corporate media, for the sake of ratings, has sanitized
the news, allowing Americans to live in ignorant bliss of U.S.-linked
war crimes.”
“Instead
of providing healthcare to sick Americans or education, this is what
your tax dollars are going towards,” noted one
Twitter user. “Enough is enough.”
There are videos coming out of Yemen — check out @WalkerBragman‘s TL for a look if you must — that as a parent are too upsetting for me to retweet, and are deeply disturbing considering the US role.
The
latest massacre of Yemeni civilians comes amid the Saudi-led
coalition’s effort to seize Hodeidah from Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
As Common
Dreamsreported,
international aid groups have warned that an attempt by the Saudi-led
coalition to take control of the port city could imperil shipments of
life-saving food and medicine to millions of Yemenis as they face
widespread food shortages and a worsening
cholera epidemic.
The
advocacy group Save the Children warned that
3,000 Yemeni children are being displaced from Hodeidah each day as
the Saudi-led coalition continues to bomb and attack the city.
Soon
after the Saudi-led coalition began bombing Hodeidah on Thursday,
Martin Griffiths, the United Nations special envoy for Yemen, told
the U.N. Security Council that he plans to bring representatives of
the Saudi-led coalition—which includes the United Arab Emirates—and
the Houthi rebels together for peace talks in September.
Het is de hoogste tijd voor een echt nieuwe orde: een natuurorde voor de hele wereld! Een orde met een gelijke (eerlijke) vertegenwoordiging voor: -de aarde, -planten en bomen, -dieren en voor de mens.
Dit daar de mens maar tijdelijk te gast is op de aarde en deze in zeer korte tijd bijkans de nek heeft omgedraaid……. (inclusief een groot aantal diersoorten)
Het is de hoogste tijd voor een echt nieuwe orde: een natuurorde voor de hele wereld! Een orde met een gelijke (eerlijke) vertegenwoordiging voor: -de aarde, -planten en bomen, -dieren en voor de mens.
Dit daar de mens maar tijdelijk te gast is op de aarde en deze in zeer korte tijd bijkans de nek heeft omgedraaid……. (inclusief een groot aantal diersoorten)
