Note that the UK Government just banned entry of two American citizens -- @cenkuygur and @hasanthehun -- not because they criticized or worked against the interests of the UK.
It was solely because they criticize and oppose the one country deemed sacred and off-limits in the UK and so many other wester countires: Israel.
The UK under Labour is also regularly arresting its own citizens for peacefully protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza (including old British ladies and countless Jewish activists at these protests, though they remain free to protest *in favor* of Israel or against any other country).
This is all driven by the same dynamic that caused the Trump Admin -- as one of its very earliest top priorities last year -- to force US universities to expel American students protesting Israel, to deport others who merely criticized Israel, and to implement aggressive speech codes to protect Israel from common criticisms (even though one is free to say all the same things about any other country, including the US).
Why does this one small country command such special, elevated, supreme status and attention in so many western countries? It's way past time to give that question the attention it deserves and to finally put and end to it.
Thoughts on a comment section: When a problem arises in this country that an individual has no ability to change (or has really any say in at all), others will aspire to blame the individual for noticing. They immediately fight each other instead of facing reality.
Instead of ever admitting this is actually about a corrupt control system, the slavery mindset inherent in being born and raised inside such a soulless machine comes complete with a kneejerk reaction to blame the slavery on the enslaved individuals themselves.
Food too expensive? Eat beans and rice or nothing, but don't you dare complain. Housing too expensive? Move to a moldy shack in the middle of bumf*ck nowhere where you won't even be able to get a minimum wage job. It's not that your money has been devalued to the point that actual Monopoly money from the board game is worth more now. It's not that this rigged system has been sucking wealth to the top for years. It's you wanting any quality of life at all for yourself when at least prisoners who have been locked up in actual jail don't have to worry about having food and water and a place to sleep at night like you do every single day the longer this continues.
As a pattern, this is everywhere. If you pay attention for more than five minutes, you will see it every time, too. Every. Single. Time. Hardly anyone ever asks why people have been programmed to immediately react this way. There are many reasons I figure, but first and foremost it's a trigger implanted to keep us divided and fighting amongst ourselves and shamed into silence about our circumstances. Why? Perhaps because uniting is the most dangerous thing to this hideous beast system.
The psychological programming in the US is the stuff only monocled and thin twisty mustachioed supervillians with creepy, heartless laughs that make your spine jolt at the sound could have ever dreamed up.
The Millennial had a childhood at least. Anyone born in that narrow window in which they finished high school before smart phones and the internet became the only real place left.
Zoomers cannot even reflect back on a childhood. They get the same or worse economic collapse, admittedly was 2008 ever fixed really? But it all doesn't matter. its close to 20 years ago now, the boat has sailed.
For Zoomers? or Alpha? Fuck I don't even know what to tell them.
"I don't think anyone who knows anything about anything takes anything you say seriously."
"The West is led by monsters and you are friends with those monsters."
-- Prof. Marandi to Piers Morgan
So much depression, anxiety, and stress is caused by capitalism. We really need to talk about how the inability to meet our basic needs, and how giving away 80% of our days to jobs that drain and exploit us, leads to serious mental health issues for so many people.
The US actually has an obvious way out of its disastrous war against Iran and the mess it finds itself in the Middle East and with the global economy:
(1) Send a proper negotiating team to meet the Iranians. Ditch Witkoff and Kushner.
(2) On nuclear enrichment take the deal on offer;
(i) a 5 year moratorium on uranium enrichment;
(ii) enrichment up to 3.6% thereafter;
(iii) dilution of the existing stockpile which however remains in Iran;
(iv) the return of the IAEA inspectors (surprisingly the Iranians apparently agreed to this before the war);
(v) no sunset clauses.
(3) Agree a full lifting of sanctions. This should be done immediately NOT in a phased way with the primary agent being the UN Security Council. By now the Iranians deeply mistrust any phased removal of sanctions and would probably not agree to it. Besides phasing the removal of the sanctions keeps the US tied in, when the whole objective should be to get out;
(4) Close the US Persian Gulf bases, which the war has exposed are useless and a stategic liability;
(5) negotiate a return to free transit through the Strait of Hormuz, returning to the situation which existed before 28th February. This may seem impossible but the pre war status quo actually suited the Iranians well and the US will have strong support from China and Russia if it pushes for it as part of a global agreement;
(6) negotiate security guarantees for both Iran and the Persian Gulf States, guaranteeing them against future attack, confirmed by a UN Security Council Resolution; and given by China and Russia as well the US.
(7) Agree to Russia and China acting as guarantors of Iran's commitments on enrichment (see (2) above). The Russians have already offered to do this multiple times and if asked the Chinese will agree also. Russia and China strongly oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons so they have every incentive to ensure Iranian compliance with their enrichment obligations.
The US has already dropped its demands for limits to Iran's ballistic missile programme, an end to Iranian support for Hezbollah, the Iraqi militias, and the Houthis and for sweeping internal changes in Iran, (see my video of yesterday).
There is no sense in harping on about Iran declaring that it has no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons. It has made that very declaration multiple times and is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This demand is otiose and silly.
In return insist that Iran drops its demand for reparations from the US. I don't believe the Iranians believe in this demand. They must know that the Americans will never agree to it, and wouldn't pay reparations anyway even if against all expectations they did agree to it. For the Iranians getting the sanctions lifted is the prize. The demand for reparations muddles the issue.
The US should also encourage the Iranians and the Gulf States to set up with each other some sort of regional security structure to safeguard peace and freedom of navigation in the Gulf. The Chinese and the Russians have suggested it and it serves the interests of all parties. However this is something the regional states must agree with each other. The US should not let itself get bogged down in negotiations on this issue.
The approach I have suggested not only extricates the US from an unwinnable war. It also provides for an agreement which satisfies the core interests of all parties. Objectively it is good for both Iran and the US.
The Iranians would see the end of the long economic siege they have endured since 1979, giving their economy a route to grow. They would also get some reassurance for their long term security, though there can never be a full guarantee of this in the Middle East.
The Americans would get strong guarantees that Iran will never become a nuclear power, something it doesn't appear to want to become anyway. They would also bring to an end their long debilitating entanglement in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, which is what ever since Obama announced a 'pivot to Asia' they have said they want.
None of this should be difficult to agree. An agreement that so obviously satisfies the core interests of all sides never is
What stands in the way is that in the US it would be presented as a defeat, even though objectively, in the long term, it should be seen as a deliverance. The 'hyperpower' cannot fail in a war, especially against a country like Iran, and even though 'victory' now looks unattainable, it must be sought anyway, regardless of cost.
Moreover in Israel such an agreement would be treated as a disaster, failing to achieve the obsessively desired objective of regime change in Tehran, so earnestly needed in order to achieve Israel's maximalist objectives, even though by now it ought to be obvious that this objective is unachievable.
So we will probably see the negotiations fail, if they take place at all, which to say the least, currently looks doubtful.
Instead of a perfectly attainable and mutually beneficial agreement we are therefore likely to see a long, pointless and extremely dangerous struggle, ending almost certainly in a US defeat, leading to a global economic catastrophe.
The lesson, which in Washington they never seem to learn, is that if you play for all or nothing, you risk ending up with nothing. That however is where we are heading at the moment
@MearsheimerJ@TheGrayzoneNews@LarrySonar21@Glenn_Diesen@ggreenwald@Consortiumnews@aaronjmate@RnaudBertrand@barnes_law@RealPepeEscobar@AXChristoforou
https://t.co/fk8WEAbvyG
Australia has the most overpriced and unaffordable homes in the world.
Australians are enslaved to million-dollar mortgages, inflation is out of control, and interest rates are going up.
Australia has no vision for the future.
It can't even see the slow-motion train wreck.
@NostalgiaFolder Society has become so psychotic, irrational, bland, and soulless, seeing a 60 second video of a beach I've never been to from 2000 gives me depressing levels of nostalgia.
I really don't boomers understand how bad the situation is with young people.
The seeds of the next revolution were sewn when the boomers decided everyone else should socialise their entire lives yet get nothing in return.
I really do not think people are prepared for what a future where 'no one cares' anymore looks like.
It's not just the poor people that won't care either - it's the smartest, most highly educated people - who correctly conclude there is no winning path in the current system and so would rather tear it to the ground.
If people have nothing left to lose, the results really are quite predictable.
You really can't claim to be a civilisation that cares for the future when you have a gerontocracy running the place and every single social metric year after year gets worse, but stonks only go up and tech bros only get richer - their reward for automating everyone out of existence?
Like has the penny dropped for people yet where this inevitably leads?
It's insane how stupid this all is.
Everyone is corrupted by a system that is itself deeply corrupted.