conflict

Are restrictions on pro-Palestine speech ‘the new McCarthyism?’

From The Bottom Line – 8 Sep 2024 | Updated a day ago

Is there an attempt to chill debate on Palestine and Israel on both sides of the Atlantic?

The United States, and the West in general, are in a “dire period” of repression of speech on Palestinian freedom or criticism of Israel, argues Dima Khalidi, founder of Palestine Legal.

Khalidi tells host Steve Clemons that despite strong constitutional protections for free expression, “there seems to be this exception when it comes to Palestine”, as witnessed by the wave of censorship, intimidation, firings and restrictions on activism in the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza.

https://aje.io/1zxct0

The Military-Industrial Complex | Jim Garrison

In 2023, the United States military’s annual budget was $1 trillion. Both political parties in our government have been influenced by the war industry, defense contractors, and private interests. As President Eisenhower warned in his farewell address, “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist” unless we, the people, become an informed citizenry and begin dismantling the National Security State and the Military-Industrial Complex.
At the core of the Military-Industrial Complex are private defense contractors, who are reported to be in possession of exotic non-human technology, often referred to as Technologies of Unknown Origin (TUO).
These private entities are working to reverse engineer Non-Human Intelligence (NHI) technologies to create next-generation weaponry. It’s imperative that we prevent this technology from being weaponized.
Join our Citizens for Disclosure movement and demand UFO/UAP transparency *

newparadigminstitute.org

NewParadigmInstitute & @NewParadigmInst

https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1800590941205766144/pl/pUtXYnxDudvzT8rK.m3u8?tag=16

An Endangered Planet

An Endangered Planet


To be a man is to be limited and mortal. To be on earth is to live within a finite and restricted environment. Life is sustained by a thin belt of atmosphere above a skin of earth crust. The life-support system based on air, earth, and water is delicate, subtly intertwined, and remarkably intricate.
The Need for Limis. The rise of the industrial state, and with it, science and technology, has led us to overlook these conditions of finitude and fragility. We have come to accept theories of progress and of inevitable development that look toward an indefinite improvement of the human condition by continuous economic growth made possible by an endless sequence of technological improvements. We have identified growth and expansion with progress, and we have not acknowledged the existence of any limitations on progress. The decline of an active religious consciousness in our century has reinforced this habit of inattentiveness toward the limits and contingencies that surround our individual and collective presence on earth. In earlier periods of history the active presence of religious thought helped keep alive the distinction between the finite and the infinite.

This Endangered Planet

Schumer Urges New Leadership in Israel, Calling Netanyahu an Obstacle to Peace

The top Senate Democrat, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the United States, spoke from the Senate floor to condemn Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and call for elections to replace him.

Senator Chuck Schumer

https://bit.ly/3vclJxo

Business of War Is Booming as Orders Surge at Top Global Arms Firms


URL: https://www.commondreams.org/news/arms-trade-2666819054

Author: Brett Wilkins Dec 28, 2023

Orders at many of the world’s biggest arms companies are “near record highs” due to rising geopolitical tensions in recent years, ananalysis published Wednesday by _Financial Times _revealed.

The London-based newspaper analyzed the order books of the world’s 15 top arms makers and found their combined backlogs were $777.6 billion at the end of 2022—a 10% increase from 2020.

According to_FT_:

The trend’s momentum continued into 2023. In the first six months of this year—the latest comprehensive quarterly data available—combined backlogs at these companies stood at $764 billion, swelling their future pipeline of work as governments kept placing orders.

The sustained spending has spurred investors’ interest in the sector. [Member of Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment’s] global benchmark for the industry’s stocks is up 25% over the past 12 months. Europe’s Stoxx aerospace and defense stocks index has risen by more than 50% over the same period.

Private equity firms including BlackRock, Vanguard, Capital Group, and State Street are dominant or major shareholders in most of the weapons companies analyzed by_FT_. These Wall Street speculators are “the ones driving the perpetual wars to maintain their bankrupt financial system,” according to the International Schiller Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

“In the U.S., the defense budget was $858 billion in 2023, and it is rapidly heading towards $1 trillion per year,” the institute said last week. “Meanwhile our highways and railroads, our bridges and tunnels, our hospitals and schools are crumbling. And the rest of the world also desperately needs American technology and capital goods to help their development, working with China and Russia, rather than driving the planet towards World War III against them.”

The West’s scramble to arm Ukraine’s homeland defense against ongoing Russian invasion and occupation played a significant role in surging arms orders.

For example, Hanwha Aerospace, South Korea’s largest weapons manufacturer, recorded the biggest increase in new orders—FT says its backlog soared from $2.4 billion in 2020 to $15.2 billion at the end of last year—largely due to sales of K-9 self-propelled howitzers to countries supplying arms to Ukraine.

Rheinmetall, a German firm that makes Panther main battle tanks, nearly doubled its backlog from $14.8 billion to $27.9 billion, also in large part because of Ukraine-related sales.

However, many of the company’s swollen backlogs predate the Ukraine war, which began in February 2022.

“The reality is lead times for policymaking, budgets, and placing orders are so long that the invasion of almost two years ago is only just appearing in orders and barely in revenues, except for a few shorter-cycle specialists such as Rheinmetall,” Nick Cunningham, an analyst at the insurance firm Agency Partners, told_FT_.

Israel’s assault on Gaza—which began in October and is already one of the most devastating in modern history, with an average of 1,000 bombs dropped daily on the densely populated strip—is not included in FT‘s analysis, but is a boon to arms-makers and a large part of the reason why last year’s record backlogs are expected to reach new heights in 2023 and beyond.

As Common Dreamsreported earlier this year, global military spending rose to an all-time high of over $2.2 trillion last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.