Beneath the surface of these events is the daily life of Palestinians in the West Bank — their economy, their social life, their mental and physical health, their access to water, housing, and education, their absolute lack of security, and their increasingly fading horizon for a future in their country.
This reality, and the engineered coercive environment created by decades-long Israeli policies, are the single most important and ongoing event, without which any escalation of Israeli violence in the West Bank becomes impossible to fully appreciate. It is an accumulation of separated events, through which Palestinians appear only as background noise, always in the same role: passive receivers of Israeli violence, or perpetrators of violence themselves (most often leading to their own death), without context.
USA!
USA!
Say it with me!
https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-military-spending-2024
The United States—whose Republican lawmakers are currently cooking up a plan to give even more money to a Pentagon that's never passed an audit—led all countries, with $997 billion in military spending. The report points out that the U.S. not only allocated "3.2 times more than the second-largest spender," but also "accounted for 37% of global military expenditure in 2024 and 66% of spending by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members."
You know the world is in a bad spot when the Weather Channel is finally reporting how we're on the verge.
A new study published in the European Geosciences Union paints a remarkably grim picture. It highlights threats such as the collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet, dieback of rainforests and rapid thawing of permafrost. These changes would severely impact human well-being and global stability.
I've been a subscriber to Caitlin Johnstone's writings for some time - which are listenable to on YouTube.
She really knocks it out the park. But this particular one is very much what we as both a species and individuals need to do in life - if we are all to survive.
Well two really, from Ajamu Baraka,
Systematic rape; the science of torture; burnings of towns and cities; sterilizations; chattel slavery; genocides; eugenics; concentration camps; world wars; colonial fascism are the unique products of Western civilization to global history over the last five hundred years. Therefore, how could anyone, except for the most naive, dishonest, or blind, believe that something called human rights could emerge out of the cultural milieu of ongoing and naturalized colonialism and Western imperialism?
What are the outcomes of this ongoing global destruction? Well two possibilities -
The global reorganization of capital and the global capitalist system can only lead to two outcomes. Structural constraints on capital with a corresponding reorganization of trade and global production informed by a cooperative ecosocialism and people(s)-centered human rights or a prolonged period of global fascist barbarism and the real possibility of human extinction.
But those of us who aren't white know otherwise.
Without justice, there can never be peace. And without peace, there can never be healing.
A crime was committed - that of mass murder, including Fatima.
While we don't know exactly who did this, we do know who was responsible and why.
It's not a bug.
It's not a feature.
It's the basic system operation.
And it's intended to be this way for those who control it - the rich and powerful.
https://scheerpost.com/2025/04/16/slow-pay-low-pay-or-no-pay/
And how and why.
It's taking a basic general set of principles and applying them locally -
The critical role of local self government
Pinarayi acknowledged the crucial role played by the local self government bodies such as “gram panchayats” (village council) and municipal corporations in the success of the EPEP in the state.
Communist Party of India (Marxist), the key constituent of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in the state, has maintained that the LSGs are the most vibrant part of the governance mechanism. The communist movement in the country and particularly in Kerala has always focused on strengthening decentralization and the LSG bodies for a more people-centric approach to development.
The belief in the LSGs people-centric approach was a crucial factor in them becoming a key mechanism for the extreme poverty eradication program in Kerala under the LDF. LSGs were involved in doing the grassroots surveys to identify the destitute families. They were also responsible for identifying the specific needs of families, as well as both the preparation and execution of the micro-level plans, known as the extreme poverty sub-plans.
This one -> https://scheerpost.com/2025/04/15/jeffrey-sachs-giving-birth-to-the-new-international-order/
While I can see both Russia and eventually China supporting India as a permanent member of the UN Security Council (both that council, the UN, and their relevance are topics for another day) - I seriously doubt any of the Western nations would.
After all, they haven't up till this point. And given their desire to cling to their 'privileged position', they'd lose some of that and more if India were there.
Two of those tools in support of the lies and propaganda are 1) Projection; and 2) Deflection.
1) Projection
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/04/11/israeli-tv-network-spikes-story-exposing-oct-7-hero/
After public pressure, the network suppressed a report on a key voice in Israel’s Oct. 7 PR campaign whose lies about Hamas rapes and rescuing 750 hostages were cited by the U.N. and filmmaker Sheryl Sandberg. Wyatt Reed reports.
2) Deflection
... Americans.
A new Pew survey has found that the majority of American adults — 53% — have an unfavorable view of Israel, a figure that has risen in recent years.
In March 2022, Pew conducted a similar poll that found 42% of US adults viewed Israel unfavorably. The rise in the negative view of Israel comes in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack and Israel’s unleashing of its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, which Americans have been able to follow closely on social media.
Yes I know they've won six in a row. And I know they've beaten many of the Atlantic Division teams recently (including the defending Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers).
Winning against Ottawa, Toronto, and Carolina will be difficult. But if they sneak a victory in one of those, plus another against Chicago, they might be able to punch their ticket to the playoffs,.
Great speech.
https://blackagendareport.com/speech-white-supremacy-us-history-theodore-w-allen-april-28-1973
A choice bit -
It is all right to fight for a greater share of jobs for Blacks, but can that be done when white workers are being laid off?
It is all right to organize a plant on the basis of a strong stand against job discrimination against Black workers, but when the organizers go after the white workers will they refuse to soft-pedal that issue?
It is all right to be for better housing and schools for Blacks but when the mortgage-ridden, speeded-up, moonlighting white worker is being talked to will the organizer ask him to stand out for an open community—property values be damned?
Unless we can answer yes to such critical questions which sooner or later must come down, then we are not really fighting racism, but once again taking the bourgeois road of "the Southern vote" and the "Southern strategy." In Shaw's words, "the direction of least resistance rather than line of greatest advantage." (“Man and Superman,” Act III)
Socialist revolution is not possible where the majority of the workers do not want it and workers who want white-skin privileges do not want socialism.
The real question is - how long has this been going on?
https://scheerpost.com/2025/04/08/un-exposes-systematic-israeli-rape-of-palestinians/
By Kit Klarenberg / Substack
On March 13th, the UN Human Rights High Commission published a horrifying report exposing in oft-emetic detail how the Zionist entity has employed “sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians” on an industrial scale since the Gaza genocide erupted in October 2023. The UN concludes these hideous acts are a central component of Israel’s “broader effort to undermine [Palestinians’] right to self-determination,” their systematic nature pointing unambiguously to endorsement by Tel Aviv’s military and political leaders.
The report records, “sexual and gender-based violence is by no means a new element of the Israeli occupation.” However, in the wake of October 7th, there has been a “sharp increase in sexual violence against Palestinian women and men”, both by Zionist Occupation Forces and settlers. The UN encountered no obstacles collecting voluminous highly incriminating evidence of this vile abuse. In addition to a welter of victim and witness testimony, perpetrators often voyeuristically captured themselves and their confederates openly committing these crimes on camera.
Caitlin Johnstone.
Opposing an active genocide is just the bare minimum requirement for not being a shitty human being. It’s no more “virtuous” than pulling a drowning toddler out of your pool; it’s just what one does when one is not a complete psychopath.
Those who call it “virtue signaling”, or accuse anti-genocide demonstrators of participating in some kind of fashionable social media trend, are confessing something very revealing about who they are as individuals. They are admitting that they cannot imagine any reason why anyone might take a forceful stand against an ongoing genocide unless it brought them social clout. They are admitting that they are bad people.
Those of us who have dedicated our time to opposing the genocide in Gaza are not doing anything special, noble, or exemplary. We won’t look back on our action with pride, we’ll just have the ability to look back on our lives at this point in history without shame. When our grandchildren ask us what we did about the Gaza holocaust, we won’t feel the need to lie or hang our heads. That’s it.
The fact that those of us who are aggressively opposing this genocide make up such a small percentage of our society does not say wonderful things about us, it says terrible things about our society. How pervasively our hearts and minds have been poisoned by propaganda and the self-centeredness of capitalism. How warped and twisted our consciences have been made. How many of us have failed to mature as individuals during our time on this planet.
Yemen.
That is a follow up to this post (https://vultcult.blogspot.com/2025/03/oh-look-us-crapitalism-threatening.html).
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/04/02/exxon-essequibo-and-imperialism/
https://liberationnews.org/exxon-essequibo-and-imperialism/
Great deep-dive into the historical backstory and context of what's driving events today.
