The Digger

March 13, 2019 " Information Clearing House "   -   An article I published close to five years ago, “ Putin to Western elites: Play-time is over ”, turned out to be the most popular thing I’ve written so far, having garnered over 200,000 reads over the intervening years. In it I wrote about Putin’s speech at the 2014 Valdai Club conference. In that speech he defined the new rules by which Russia conducts its foreign policy: out in the open, in full public view, as a sovereign nation among other sovereign nations, asserting its national interests and demanding to be treated as an equal. Yet again, Western elites failed to listen to him. Instead of mutually beneficial cooperation they continued to speak the language of empty accusations and counterproductive yet toothless sanctions. And so, in yesterday’s address to Russia’s National Assembly Putin sounded note of complete and utter disdain and contempt for his “Western partners,” as he has usually called them. This time he c...

I've pasted the article in up to the Jimmy Dore Show video, a good one called "Beware Russian Anchor Babies! - says NBC News." Yes, it's true, the liberals are xenophobes too, as long as it's those genetically anti-West Russians we're talking about. What follows is some corrective history of WWII. ``````````````````````````````````````  Published on  Mar, 9, 2019     Comments 56 The Orientalism of Western Russophobia Max Parry An illustration from a Wall Street Journal article entitled “Russia’s Turn to its Asian Past” depicting Vladimir Putin as Genghis Khan. Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the publication of Edward W. Said’s pioneering book,  Orientalism , as well as fifteen years since the Palestinian-American intellectual’s passing. To bid farewell to such an important scholar shortly after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Said fiercely criticized until his dying breath before succumbing to leukemia, made an already ...

I wasn't sure which article to put up regarding Chelsea Manning's recent imprisonment, but chose Ball's because of his suggestion toward the end. However, wsws.org's latest coverage makes an interesting and very disturbing observation:  " Notably, neither  Jacobin  magazine, associated with the Democratic Socialists of America, nor  Socialist Worker , the publication of the International Socialist Organization, has reported the jailing of Manning. Neither Senator Bernie Sanders, nor Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Talib and Ilhan Omar have spoken a word in her support." https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/11/pers-m11.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ March 10, 2019 " Information Clearing House "   -    As I write these words, Chelsea Manning is in a jail cell. This is not her first time in US prison: she spent nearly seven years in US jail, first awaiting trial and then post-conviction – after a guilty plea – on 22 counts ...

Anti-Semitism Pandemic! Get the kids into the house! Lock your doors! Board up the windows! Break out the gas masks and hazmat suits! According to the corporate media, we are now officially deep in the throes of a deadly anti-Semitism pandemic! And just as the threat of mind-controlling Russian influencers was finally waning! It seems the fabric of Western democracy just can’t catch a break these days. The origins of this pernicious, panic-inducing pestilence remain shrouded in mystery, but epidemiologists now believe that it began in the Spring of 2015, shortly after the resignation of Ed Milliband as UK Labour Party leader, and went global in the Summer of 2016, right around the time of the Brexit referendum and the nomination of Donald Trump. (Although the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming, to date, there exists no conclusive proof that Russian bio-weapons designers cooked up the virus in a hotel in Salisbury and sprayed it onto anyone’s doorknob.) Virologists are w...

I put this up the other day but made an error in it, tried to fix it, and something f'd up. But I find this astonishing and certainly would like a discussion on it.  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bonnie Faulkner interviews Alison Weil. Guns + Butter's description:  "We discuss Alison Weir’s extended essay, published as a pamphlet, “The International Campaign to Criminalize Criticism of Israel”; the traditional definition of anti-Semitism and the new “improved” 3-D definition of anti-Semitism; the history of the campaign to criminalize criticism of Israel; the many international and national organizations that have adopted and promote the new definition; policing the new anti-Semitism on college campuses; thought crime; AIPAC and ADL; the crack-down on pro-Palestinian political activity; the multiple hundreds of groups that lobby for Israel; current congressional legislation." The link to the audio interview is here:  http://gunsandbutter.org/blog/2019/03/07/the-g...

March 9th, 2019 For a while, all the guns have fallen silent. I am near Idlib, the last stronghold of the terrorists in Syria. The area where the deadliest anti-government fighters, most of them injected into Syria from Turkey, with Saudi, Qatari and Western ‘help’, are literally holed up, ready for the final showdown. Just yesterday, mortars were falling on villages near the invisible frontline, separating government troops and the terrorist forces of Al Nusra Front. The day before yesterday, two explosions rocked the earth, only a couple of meters from where we are now standing. They call it a ceasefire. But it’s not. It is one-sided. To be more precise: the Syrian army is waiting, patiently. Its cannons are pointing towards the positions of the enemy, but the orders from Damascus are clear: do not fire. The enemy has no scruples. It provokes, endlessly. It fires and bombs, indiscriminately. It kills. Along the frontline, thousands of houses are already ruined. No...