Scott Ritter discusses the history of Ukraine, and also Sahel, Brics and Israel

Australia’s oldest pottery

https://humanities.org.au/power-of-the-humanities/co-design-research-with-traditional-owners-jiigurru-lizard-island/

Student protests in USA

Will they make a difference. Times are different and the leaders in the west do not seem to care much for the interests of the people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qaq3FghN7t4

David Shulman writes about Palestine

Many of them behind paywall https://www.nybooks.com/contributors/david-shulman/ https://nikhiletc.wordpress.com/2017/07/01/music-culture-history-a-conversation-with-david-shulman/

An interesting book.

“In the world of measurement, this blackboxing of the kilogram’s definition might seem retrograde, shutting ordinary women and men out of a field that affects their lives. It’s the sort of alienation that motivates anti-metric campaigners and the exact opposite of the medieval pietre di paragone that let anyone verify units of measure with their own hands and eyes. But increasing precision in measurement and the subsequent increase in obscurity is a direct result of the fusion of science and industry; a precursor to and product of the benefits of the contemporary world. And this is the bargain we have made for our current comforts. Who cares how units of measurement are defined, as long as the benefits remain? Perhaps one fair way to judge the situation is with Peirce’s philosophy of pragmatism, which he once suggested was only a restating of Jesus’s wisdom: ‘Ye shall know them by their fruits.’45 In this case, the fruits of modern 307measurement are the fruits of the modern world, for better or for worse.” Excerpt from Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement James Vincent

From Scott Ritter about developments in Sahel

from 34 minutes onwards

Switching off

Inam slowly switching off from Ukraine and Israel conflicts. It seems to me that they will continue for some more months if not years. even though they seem to be momentous changes, they will be slow i think. Ine telling fact is that US has not been able to subdue Yemen so far. May be that is an indication of things to come.

Fake reality

'Baerbock reportedly recommended that Israel stop circulating the photos of life supposedly returning to normal in the Palestinian enclave “as they don’t portray the real situation in Gaza. There is hunger in Gaza.” At this point, Netanyahu is said to have raised his voice and insisted, “It’s real. It’s reality. It’s not like what the Nazis staged, we’re not like the Nazis who produced fake images of a manufactured reality.” From https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/were-not-like-the-nazis-netanyahu-reportedly-bickered-with-german-fm-over-famine-in-gaza/

The Duran on Israeli-Iran conflict

Scott Ritter on the overall conflict situation

Dr, Koneru Satya Prasad

Here is a brief account of the founder Dr. Koneru Satya Prasad. He came through NHS. I had the pleasure of meeting him a few times and visited Heal Paradise School in Thotapalli. Also taught a bit of mathematics. It is amazing what one man can do. Unfortunately manyof the videos are in Telugu. He sort of shuns publicity. I am visiting his videos again to get a bit of inspiration When I am loosing enthusiasm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_and_Education_for_All

A happy day

A happy day for me. I was working off and on with Aruna Tella who was in charge of Swadh Greh in Ongole looking after distressed women for several years. About six years ago we had one more of those cases ( about 1500 such women passed through the centre in Ongole) of women in trouble with her husband who came with two children. I knew about Heal Paradise school through my cousin Gadde Babu Rajendra Prasad who used to contribute 90 percent of his pension to the school and went there a few times to teach mathematics. We suggested sending the children to that school and they were accepted. Then a bureaucrat in charge for A.P government intervened saying that only children from Krishna District were eligible for entry in the school though the school was meant for all Indians. Then Aruna intervened and urged the people in charge of the school to fight. The authorities gave in. Today in a video call Aruna showed me the children. They are in classes 9 and 10 now. The mother has a job, earning twenty thousand rupees a month. They all looked healthy and happy. Meanwhile, the school has become a college and they can finish their degrees from there. Kudos to Aruna and Heal Paradise. https://healcharity.org/what-we-do/heal-projects/heal-paradise

Brian Berletic on US playbook from 2009

But the conditions have changed.

Michael Hudson again

posted before and posting again because of interesting comments. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/04/michael-hudson-the-truth-about-the-destruction-of-the-palestinians.html Pepe Escobar commentary https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/04/15/the-gaza-genocide-as-explicit-policy-michael-hudson-names-all-names/ one comment. vao April 15, 2024 at 4:19 am Everything that Israel is doing to the Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere throughout Israel was all pioneered in Vietnam. Many — if not most — of what Israel is doing against Palestinians has a solid colonial tradition that predates the Vietnam war. Thus, at the same time the USA was implementing strategic hamlets in Vietnam, the Portuguese were proceeding with a “rural reorganization” of their colonies, concentrating the native population in “villages” (aldeamentos) — enclosed with barbed wire and with a small military post in the centre (so that the locals would act as a human shield in case of attacks by the guerrila). But neither the American nor the Portuguese had invented anything: the French had already practiced the same policy with their “regrouping centres” (centres de regroupement) during the Algerian war — where they ended up parking 2.5 millions natives. And they were not the first to have done something like that: the British created the “new villages” during the “Malayan emergency” — again, concentrating people in villages enclosed with barbed wire, watchtowers manned by guards with instructions to shoot to kill. It’s been carved up into districts requiring electronic passes from one sector to another to go into Israel, to go to Jerusalem, or to go to Israel for jobs to work. Again, a standard colonial practice. In French colonies, the native population was assigned to districts, within which it could move freely. To travel to another district, it was necessary to get a written authorization, presenting a roadmap (where one wanted to go, when, and the route). Woe to those who, when presenting their laissez-passer, were found to be infringing its roadmap. In addition, the local population was subject to curfews. A similar system (including curfews) existed in Belgian colonies, but it was possible to obtain a travel permit valid for a limited period (typically 2 months), renewable for a fee. In Portuguese colonies, natives had to carry a “native booklet” with which they had to justify their presence in any place outside their district. It was basically a log book dated and signed by the employer or civil servant. Also curfews. Other colonial powers also had a variety of comparable approaches for imposing the control of movement on local populations. Even the segregation practices in occupied Palestine (roads reserved to Israelis, streets where one side is for Palestinians and the other for Israelis, settlements that Palestinians are not allowed to enter, hospitals where maternity wards are separated by ethnic background, etc) are actually inspired by colonial practices. Italians were the most extreme in that matter, followed by Portuguese, Belgians, British, Dutch, French. Apartheid itself was a colonial system in a post-colonial world — it did not invent anything that had not been already implemented in the colonial realm before (especially in Italian colonies under fascism). Genocide? A typical colonial practice. We could go on. It is useful to realize that, if the zionist movement was led by, and the State of Israel created by Jews originating largely from Eastern Europe (Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Jabotinski, Sharett, etc), the foundation and build-up of zionism was largely the work of Jews originating from Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire (Herzl, Arthur Ruppin, Franz Oppenheimer, Davis Trietsch, Otto Warburg). And for them, the models to apply in order to build a state for the Jews were to be found in the German and French colonies.

Alastair Crooke after Iran attack

Can Iran afford to stand

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/04/14/iran-refuses-to-bow-can-it-afford-to-stand/ "For the Iranian leadership in Tehran, meanwhile, the law of unintended consequences will be being heavily weighed when it comes to any response to Israel’s recent airstrike. How can the current regime be confident of mass support at home for direct military confrontation with Israel, much less the Americans too? The brief but militant “Hijab Protest” in the summer of 2022 exposed fissures within Iranian society that remain extant if hidden for now. The risk of those social fissures being rent asunder again is a stark one, going forward."

Michael Hudson interview, video with transcript

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNu_OGbqyWk https://michael-hudson.com/2024/04/gaza-the-strategic-imperative/

Scott Ritter in the recent Iranian response

Simplicius on Iran’s response to Israeli attack in Syria

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/iran-breaches-anglo-zionist-defenses

Israel requests security council (UNSC) meeting

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-security-council-aims-meet-sunday-iran-attack-after-israel-request-diplomat-2024-04-14/

Bibi-Modi ‘bromance’

https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/labor-and-the-bibi-modi-bromance/

Russia-China alliance

Brian Berletic on profits over purpose

Karl Sanchez on NATO

https://karlof1.substack.com/p/gt-presents-two-views-on-nato “The problem I see stems from the attitude in South Asia from both India and Pakistan despite their belonging to SCO. Why that is stems from their fence-sitting diplomatically and failure to be 100% Anti-Colonial, facts Russia and China are aware of. As Mr. Pang described, NATO’s expansion is a semi-warlike effort since it aims at total global control as the header picture suggests.”

Some exercises to help with sleep

May help. inused to these until ten years ago. May be it is time again. https://www.self.com/gallery/bedtime-stretches-better-sleep

Scott Ritter at Judging freedom

Simplicius on Janet Yellen’s recent trip to China

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/yellen-dispatched-to-beg-china-for

Karl Sanchez discusses Alastair Crooke and Jacques Baud

https://karlof1.substack.com/p/crooke-the-art-of-war-different-thinking https://karlof1.substack.com/p/another-crooke-monday-revulsion-escalates

T.M.Krishna controversy makes it RT

https://www.rt.com/india/595480-high-priests-of-music-india-tm-krishna-brahmins/

Alastair Crooke: Western Thinking About War.

see also https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/the-art-of-war--different-thinking-systems

Apparently Russia names the divers involved in Nord Stream attack

https://www.southfront.press/breaking-moscow-named-ukrainian-divers-who-attacked-nord-stream/

Transcript of ‘ The Duran: US Economic Decline and Rise of Greater Eurasia – Michael Hudson, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen’

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/04/the-duran-us-economic-decline-and-rise-of-greater-eurasia-michael-hudson-alexander-mercouris-glenn-diesen.html

Isaac Simpson in Dark Futura

There are lots of references to things i fo not know but there are also passages like this "In both capitalism and democracy, the only way to get things done is via implementation of propaganda campaigns by non-public individuals. In order to be successful, these campaigns must: Unite demographic subgroups around a single initiative using entities that those subgroups trust. Benefit the shared interests of the entities in question. Use or create a “moment in culture.” A brief explanation of these phrases. First, all societal projects are propaganda initiatives. There is simply no other way to realistically get things done in bottom-up structures like democracy and consumer capitalism. You have to move the masses, and the only way to move the masses is through propaganda. Second, every propaganda initiative must seek to unite different subgroups around a single cause; and the best way to do that is to appeal to “leaders” (more often celebrities, brands, universities, media companies, scientists, etc.) of those subgroups. Third, in order to fully participate, these “leaders” must have skin in the game—you can’t merely appeal to these entities rationally or emotionally (e.g. “a poster”), they must have a shared economic interest in the propaganda initiative (“an economy”). One of these interested parties must be the media itself. And finally, fourth, the only way to successfully deliver the message of the propaganda initiative is by either hijacking an existing “cultural moment” (e.g. the Super Bowl) or by creating one yourself. This is how you further ensure media complicity." stemming from the work of Edward Bernays. https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/cthulhu-gazes-right

Killing food aid workers

Andre Martysnov interview of Jacques Baud a month ago

Brian Berletic on US-ISIS connections

Garland Nixon with Laith Marough

discussion about Middle East including Turkish lical elections.Seems optimistic