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September 1, 2022

Articles in this Issue:   Nuremberg and Media Fritz Pointer   The West’s Dangerously Simple-Minded Narrative About Russia and China Jeffrey D. Sachs   Notes from Caitlin Free Speech Doesn't Matter if Propagandists Determine What People Say Caitlin Johnstone   Military Defense Needs New Thinking Marc Pilisuk   The Planned Plunder of Ukraine by Western Financial Vultures Eamon McKinney   Ukraine and the Politics of Permanent War Chris Hedges   Germany inaugurates world’s first hydrogen-powered train fleet Aljazeera.com/news Einstein on Peace: "...I have become a kind of enfant terrible in my new homeland, due to my inability to keep silent and to swallow everything that happens there." "Unfortunately, the most farsighted among the people in this country have been so intimidated by the pseudo-patriotic pressures to which they have been exposed that their scope for effective action has been greatly reduced."

Nuremberg and Media* Fritz Pointer

Who knew? I certainly didn’t know that journalists were among those prosecuted for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity during the Nuremberg Trials post-WWII.  It intrigued me even further to read that my namesake, Fritzsche (nickname, Fritz) that is, Hans Fritzsche was one of those defendants. The Nuremberg prosecution argued: “By virtue of its functions, the German Press Division (think ABC, NBC, FOX, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, CBS, NY Times, Washington Post) became an important and unique instrument of the Nazi (think Project For the New American Century - PNAC) conspirators, not only in dominating the minds and psychology of Germans but also as an instrument of foreign policy and psychological warfare against other nations.” The indictment of, Fritz, not me, the German media chief, for war crimes, is certainly different from America today when “Whistleblowers” exposing war crimes are indicted and prosecuted. The indictment against Julian Assange is having a chilling effect on American journalism as it has been practiced for generations. It is aimed straight at the heart of the First Amendment.  The charges focus on receiving and publishing classified material from a government source. That is something journalists do all the time. This is what the First Amendment is designed to protect: the ability of publishers to provide the public with the truth. Of course, an Administration that conflates personal attacks with the press an ‘enemy of the people' would launch this attack. In attacking the media, it is attacking the people.  The truth is that a revengeful U.S. government was exposed with clear evidence of committing war crimes, meddling in other nations' internal affairs, and spying on adversaries, allies, and citizens alike, and in response imprisoning and charging the journalist who exposed these crimes. This speaks with tremendous force to the role of the US media owners in today’s world affairs. American Propaganda Brings Memories of Nazi Germany Today, billionaire-controlled media propaganda is clearly a factor in preparing and conducting acts of aggression: by “Manufacturing Consent” by “Perception Management,” and by using Media Folks (journalists) who are CIA Assets (Operation Mockingbird), the American people are encouraged to accept obediently the criminal behavior of America’s endless regime change wars. We would all do well to read Dr. Brian Covert author of “Played by the Mighty Wurlitzer: The Press, the CIA, and the Subversion of Truth,” which is the sixth chapter within Censored 2017.  Television networks and leading newspapers are the prime sources of information for tens of millions of people in the U.S. However, these so-called “public” media are in the hands of giant firms, controlled by fabulously wealthy individuals who will stop at nothing to defend their profits and property. The bodies, the corpses of thousands, or, if necessary, millions of Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, Sudanese, Iranians, Palestinians, and others are a small price to pay, as far as the media billionaires are concerned, for achieving American military and economic domination of the globe. Today, the basic method of American propagandistic activity, as in Nazi Germany, is in the false presentation of facts (e.g. Mexican immigrants are rapists, drug dealers, and criminals), the dissemination of provocative lies (e.g. America is a white man’s country) and the systematic deception of public opinion (Americans want endless wars for national security) are as necessary to the US for the realization of its plans for military and economic global domination, as are the production of military equipment and the drafting of military plans. Without deliberately spreading lies and rumors, attacking freedom of the press and of speech and arresting journalists it would not be possible for American endless war to pursue its stated goal of “full-spectrum global domination” and to put in practice the war crimes and crimes against humanity of which it is guilty. In this U.S. propaganda system, it is the daily press and television that are the most important weapons and are all as guilty of war crimes as Hans Fritzsche and the propaganda work he did for the Nazis. The Constitution for the Federation of Earth (aka Earth Constitution) available and recommended as a viable and useful document for United Nations Charter Review states: Article 12 “Bill of Rights for the Citizens of Earth” 12.3: “Freedom of thought and conscience, speech, press, writing, communication, expression, publication, broadcasting, telecasting, and cinema, except as an overt part of or incitement to violence, armed riot or insurrection.” And, 13.3 states: “Full access to information and to the accumulated knowledge of the human race.”  Today, with the role of the American press in habituating the American people to the suffering of other peoples and, even, urging war crimes, like extrajudicial murder and assassinations of a country’s leader; it is possible that many Americans would never have participated in or tolerated the atrocities being committed throughout the Middle East, had they not been conditioned, inured, goaded, manipulated by constant media propaganda and lies. The media’s very success in manipulating public opinion is one of the strongest proofs of its culpability in the commission of war crimes.  [*First published 3/6/20 in DWF NEWS.]  Fritz Pointer is a retired professor of English and African American Studies. He has published numerous scholarly and creative works and articles such as “African Oral Epic Poetry: Praising the Deeds of a Mythic Hero” (2013). The older brother of the internationally known singing group, The Pointer Sisters, he co-authored “Fairytale: the Pointer Sisters’ Family History" (2020). Prof. Pointer’s main interests include combating racism, advancing human rights, ending war, eliminating nuclear weapons, and nonviolent solutions to global problems.

The West's Dangerously Simple-Minded Narrative About Russia and China Jeffrey D. Sachs / Common Dreams

President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping give statements for the press. Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The overwrought fear of China and Russia is sold to a Western public through manipulation of the facts. EXCERPTS: The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts. The relentless Western narrative that the West is noble while Russia and China are evil is simple-minded and extraordinarily dangerous. It is an attempt to manipulate public opinion, not to deal with very real and pressing diplomacy. The irony is that since 1980 the US has been in at least 15 overseas wars of choice (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Panama, Serbia, Syria, and Yemen just to name a few), while China has been in none, and Russia only in one (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union. The US has military bases in 85 countries, China in 3, and Russia in 1 (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union.  READ MORE

Notes from Caitlin Free Speech Doesn't Matter if Propagandists Determine What People Say Caitlin Johnstone

EXCERPTS (lightly edited): None are more hopelessly ignorant than those who falsely believe they’re informed.   None are more hopelessly propagandized than those who don’t know they are propagandized.   We grow up saturated with US empire propaganda in the west. We marinate in it. It pervades our consciousness. But because it’s all we’ve ever known, most of us don’t even notice it. We think it’s normal that we’re always told our government is on the good and righteous side of every international conflict. We think it’s normal that we hear constantly about the tyranny of foreign governments while only occasionally hearing about bad things our own government did years ago (but it was an innocent mistake and it’ll never happen again). Propaganda is the single most overlooked and underappreciated aspect of our society. It controls how the public thinks, acts, votes, and behaves, but hardly anyone ever talks about it. Because the sources they’ve been trained to look to for information never say anything about it. ... Sure, if what they’re saying goes against the interests of the western empire they won’t be allowed to speak on any large platforms where they might infect the mainstream herd with the wrong thing, and sure if what they’re saying is really inconvenient they might get banned from even speaking on any of the major online platforms, but they still get to speak. Alone, where no one can hear them. Preferably into a hole in the ground. If speech wasn’t free, people would realize they’re being oppressed, but if people started using their speech to voice real grievances about real power, they would swiftly discover that their speech is being ignored and power is doing as it likes. So inconvenient speech is curtailed by propaganda, by censorship, by algorithm manipulation, and by media marginalization. People are kept hopelessly enslaved by giving them the illusion that they are free, and any voice which interrupts that illusion is silenced by whatever means necessary.  READ MORE

Military Defense Needs New Thinking Marc Pilisuk

"Critical steps could begin with the budget. With no sacrifice to US security, the US military budget could be reduced by $350 billion with funds redirected..." The US Pentagon FY 2021 budget calls for $705.4 b. up from $704.6 in FY2020, amounting to more than half of all discretionary funding and exceeding the military spending of the next 10 countries combined: supporting 800 military bases in 70 countries. Military actions since the end of WWII have permitted the killing of 20 million people, intervention in foreign elections, and assassinations of foreign leaders. With each new war, the proportion of deaths and casualties has shifted dramatically from soldiers to civilians. Bolstering regimes guilty of human rights atrocities has not brought greater security to the US but has led instead to extremes of poverty, hunger, and mass migrations. Soldiers who have no role in starting wars are praised as heroes but are returned with incapacitating disabilities including loss of limbs, PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury. Significant numbers are homeless.  READ MORE

The Planned Plunder of Ukraine by Western Financial Vultures Eamon McKinney

The Western financial vultures are already deciding who gets what from what remains of the Ukrainian carcass, an exercise they are well practiced in. Representatives from the EU, the U.S., Britain, Japan, and South Korea meet in early July in Switzerland to discuss the cynically named “Ukrainian Recovery Conference”. A more honest title would have been “How the financial powers can profit from the devastation we caused” But they prefer more innocuous handles. The Western financial vultures are already deciding who gets what from what remains of the Ukrainian carcass. It is an exercise they are well practiced in. The same Neo-liberal shock therapy imposed on Russia following the break up of the Soviet Union is precisely what is planned for post-war Ukraine. Privatization of State sector assets, reform of the labor laws (strong in Ukraine) land reform, and the sale of Ukrainian land and assets to foreign investors. Or more plainly, the rape of Ukraine and the imposition of a Western-backed Corporate State. READ MORE... Dr. Eamon McKinney is an eminent Sinologist with more than 40 years’ involvement in China foreign business. He is C.E.O. and founder (1985) of CBNGLOBAl, his company has managed more than 300 major China-Foreign projects. He lives in Qingdao, China

Ukraine and the Politics of Permanent War Chris Hedges  The Chris Hedges Report

War Inc. - by Mr. Fish

Permanent war requires permanent censorship. EXCERPTS: No one, including the most bullish supporters of Ukraine, expect the nation’s war with Russia to end soon. The fighting has been reduced to artillery duels across hundreds of miles of front lines and creeping advances and retreats. Ukraine, like Afghanistan, will bleed for a very long time. This is by design.   War is the primary business of the U.S. empire and the bedrock of the U.S. economy. The two ruling political parties slavishly perpetuate permanent war, as they do austerity programs, trade deals, the virtual tax boycott for corporations and the rich, wholesale government surveillance, the militarization of the police and the maintenance of the largest prison system in the world. They bow before the dictates of the militarists, who have created a state within a state. This militarism, as Seymour Melman writes in The Permanent War Economy: American Capitalism in Decline, “is fundamentally contradictory to the formation of a new political economy based upon democracy, instead of hierarchy, in the workplace and the rest of society.”   "If permanent war is to be halted, as Melman writes, the ideological control of the war industry must be shattered. The war industry’s funding of politicians, research centers and think tanks, as well as its domination of the media monopolies, must end..."READ MORE

Germany inaugurates world’s first hydrogen-powered train fleet Aljazeera.com/news    24 Aug 2022

A fleet of 14 trains powered entirely by hydrogen is launched in Germany’s Lower Saxony state. Germany has inaugurated a railway line powered entirely by hydrogen, a “world premiere” and a significant step forward for green train transport despite nagging supply challenges.   A fleet of 14 trains provided by French industrial giant Alstom to the German state of Lower Saxony has replaced diesel locomotives on the 100km (60 miles) of track connecting the cities of Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervoerde and Buxtehude near Hamburg. Billed as a “zero emission” mode of transport, the trains mix hydrogen on board with oxygen present in the ambient air, thanks to a fuel cell installed in the roof. This produces the electricity needed to pull the train.   Regional rail operator LNVG said the fleet, which cost 93 million euros ($93m), would prevent 4,400 tonnes of CO2 being released into the atmosphere each year.   The entire sector, whether it be road vehicles or aircraft, not to mention heavy industry such as steel and chemicals, is eyeing hydrogen to slash CO2 emissions.   Furthermore, hydrogen is not necessarily carbon-free: only “green hydrogen”, produced using renewable energy, is considered sustainable by experts.   The French research institute IFP specialising in energy issues says that hydrogen is currently “95 percent derived from the transformation of fossil fuels, almost half of which come from natural gas”.   Partnerships have recently been signed with India and Morocco, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz sealed a green hydrogen deal with Canada on a visit this week, laying a path for a transatlantic supply chain.

dwfed@dwfed.org DWFED.ORG

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