Antinuclear

US deployment of nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to Australia’s north likely to fuel China tensions

US-funded upgrade of Tindal airbase in Northern Territory will allow it to house up to six B-52s, as minister says Australia must remain ‘vigilant’

Guardian Daniel Hurst 31 Oct 22,

An expanded Royal Australian Air Force base in the Northern Territory will have space for up to six American nuclear-capable B-52 aircraft as part of a US-funded project that is likely to fuel tensions with China.

Officials in Canberra confirmed that the US-funded aircraft parking apron at RAAF Base Tindal, 320km south-east of Darwin, would be capable of accommodating up to six B-52 aircraft, but said it could also house other aircraft types……………..

the detailed plans – first reported by the ABC on Monday – suggest the new Labor government has locked in plans initiated under the former Coalition government to expand visits to Australia by US aircraft.

The B-52 is a long-range, heavy bomber that can carry out ocean surveillance and anti-ship operations and “can carry nuclear or precision guided conventional ordnance”, according to a US government summary………………………………….

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, told reporters at a regular briefing that China “urges the parties concerned to abandon the outdated Cold War and zero-sum mentality and narrow minded geopolitical thinking, and to do something conducive to regional peace and stability and enhancing mutual trust between the countries.”

He said defence and security cooperation between countries should “not target any third parties or harm the interests of third parties.”…………………..

Former prime minister Scott Morrison revealed in September last year that he expected the US to increase its military presence in the region while Australia awaits nuclear-powered submarines under the Aukus deal – the first of which were at that stage expected to be ready by the late 2030s.

Senior ministers Peter Dutton and Marise Payne held annual talks with their US counterparts in Washington DC a day after the Aukus announcement, and also flagged plans for more US military deployments to Australia.\

…………………………… The new details of the project are likely to trigger a reaction from the Chinese government. Chinese state media have previously quoted domestic analysts as saying Australia could “essentially become an overseas bomber base of the US”.

While the Albanese government has sought to “stabilise” the relationship with China through a change in “tone” and several ministers have now met with their counterparts, Canberra’s fundamental defence posture remains as it did under the Coalition.

Earlier this month the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, signed a new security declaration with his visiting Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, to deter “aggression and behaviour that undermines international rules and norms”.

The deal commits Australia and Japan to consult each other on how to respond to regional crises, and is expected to pave the way for greater sharing of intelligence and strategic assessments about China’s intentions…………………. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/31/us-air-force-deployment-nuclear-capable-b-52-bombers-australia-northern-territory

October 31, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

THE BIGGEST LIE – ADDICTED TO WAR – WHAT MOST AMERICAN PEOPLE DON’T KNOW and DON’T WANT TO KNOW

The mainstream media will never tell the truth about this, as they are owned by the very people and corporations who make huge profits from U.S. wars. 

THE BIG LIE is so big and so complete in the United States. It’s like mass hypnosis. Like mass brainwashing. ………  Most Americans are taught to believe that we are The Good Guys. And once again, most people are not taught about the true nature of U.S. foreign policy

 THE BIG LIE is so big and so complete in the United States. It’s like mass hypnosis. Like mass brainwashing. ………  Most Americans are taught to believe that we are The Good Guys. And once again, most people are not taught about the true nature of U.S. foreign policy

https://www.addictedtowar.com/the-big-lie, By Frank Dorrel – Publisher of ADDICTED To WAR: www.addictedtowar.com, 31 Oct 22,

What Is This BIG LIE – I Am Talking About? ………………..

Well, it’s not Donald Trump claiming that he won the 2020 election for President……….

I’m not talking about Climate Change/Global Warming.…. now heating faster than expected

I’m not talking about Systemic Racism in the United States.………. this terrible situation.

I’m not talking about The Prison Industrial Complex…………  this sad story is not really a secret

I’m not talking about Poverty and Homelessness…………. very sad situation happening to millions of American people.

I’m not talking about COVID, the pandemic that has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American people in the last two years

THE BIG LIE

The BIG LIE I am talking about has to do with U.S. foreign policy and U.S. wars, both overt and covert. We are not told the truth about them or that the U.S. is a Global Empire that controls much of the World through force and power and threatens Third World countries, who are not willing to do as we say. Most American people do not know these things. Most do not believe these things are true. And most people are not willing to take a closer look at all of this.

I suggest you go to my website to see what I am talking about. Go to the Film Page: www.addictedtowar.com/films  and watch as many of these important anti-war films as you can. They are all on YouTube and can be watched for free. Take as long as you need. I do not think you will find another list like this anywhere on the Internet. I have watched all of these films at least two or more times. Every one of them is very well done. Altogether, they reveal THE BIG LIE. These films are never aired on television. Not even on PBS.

Go to the Talks and Interviews Page: www.addictedtowar.com/talks-interviews  – and watch and listen to as many of them as you can. The very first talk is by Martin Luther King Jr. It’s titled – BEYOND VIETNAM: A Time To Break Silence. Once again, take your time to watch these talks by these activists. They reveal the horrors our country has been committing all of these years with its many wars against innocent poor people around the World.

THE BIG LIE

I am talking about is what Martin Luther King Jr. said in his BEYOND VIETNAM Speech: “The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in The World Today, My Own Government.” The Military, the Oil Companies, the Corporations, the Weapon Makers, the Bankers, the Mainstream Media & the Politicians, also known as The Military-Industrial-Complex. They make war for profit and also to control the resources of the World. And WE, the PEOPLE are LIED to about this. One of their biggest weapons is propaganda. And they really know how to use it. It is a global battle of the rich versus the poor. And war is, for the most part, racist. We bomb, invade and kill mostly people of color.

Read this article by James Lucas titled: THE UNITED STATES HAS KILLED MORE THAN 20 MILLION PEOPLE IN 37 NATIONS SINCE WWII: https://popularresistance.org/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-in-37-nations-since-wwii  

Read this article by Professor Larry Mosqueda of Evergreen State College titled: SHOCKED and HORRIFIED, written on September 15th, 2001: www.globalissues.org/article/257/shocked-and-horrified

The mainstream media will never tell the truth about this, as they are owned by the very people and corporations who make huge profits from U.S. wars. Most people in the government will not talk about or look at this. If they were to do so, they would become outcasts and pariahs, shunned by others in the government. And for the most part, people in the military will not look at or talk about these things. However, some have spoken out. And many of them are listed on my site. The one group that does look at this issue is the Anti-War Movement. We are part of the alternative media in this country. You can see who some of these organizations are by going to: www.addictedtowar.com/sources-and-websites  . CovertAction DEMOCRACY NOW, is on this list.

There is an anti-war movement in this country. But it’s just not big enough to make much of a difference. Most people are not taught about these things in their schools, in their churches, or by their parents. And they won’t learn about THE BIG LIE by watching the mainstream news on television or by reading the mainstream newspapers.

HOW DID I LEARN ABOUT THE TRUE NATURE OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY?

I first started learning about all of this when I discovered KPFK 90.7 FM Radio in 1980. KPFK is part of the Pacifica Network: https://pacificanetwork.org   – consisting of five radio stations in this country. They are KPFA in Berkeley, KPFK in Los Angeles, WBAI in New York, WPFW in Washington DC and KPFT in Houston. The first Pacifica station was KPFA in Berkeley. It was started in 1949 by Lou Hill, a man who refused to go to World War II. He wanted to have a station that was against war, dealt with social injustice and had no commercial sponsors so that the truth could be told. I discovered KPFK by chance. No one told me about it.

I had a job as a driver for the University of Southern California. I drove about 200 miles a day. One day in 1980, I was turning the FM channels and heard Alan Watts talking on KPFK. He was an amazing storyteller, a philosopher of sorts, and very interesting to listen to. He was already dead when I started listening to him. So every Monday at 2:00 PM, I put on KPFK. Then one Monday, I left the station on and heard Noam Chomsky talking about U.S.-supported death squads in El Salvador.

That was the beginning for me. From that time on, I listened to KPFK as much as possible. I discovered many other truth-tellers on KPFK, talking about U.S. foreign policy, who you would never hear on the mainstream media. People like Howard Zinn, Ramsey Clark, Michael Parenti, Daniel Ellsberg, John Stockwell, Philip Agee, S. Brian Willson, Roy Bourgeois, Medea Benjamin, Kathy Kelly & many others. Then I discovered Blase Bonpane, who had his own weekly program on KPFK called WORLD FOCUS.

I began listening to Blase every week. Soon he became my mentor. The more I learned about what the U.S. had been doing with its foreign policy, the more upset I got. During the listener-sponsored fund-drives, I would order books and talks by these truth-tellers. Whenever they came to Los Angeles to speak, I would go to listen to them in person. I joined the Veterans For Peace group in Los Angeles and would go to their meetings. It was there that I met Tony Russo and learned so much about what he called THE U.S. WAR IN VIETNAM. Tony had been partners with Daniel Ellsberg in revealing The Pentagon Papers.

At that time, I was learning about what was happening in Nicaragua, with the U.S. supporting the Contra’s and the history of U.S. interventions there. The more I learned, the worse it got. I had no idea that my country, the United States, had been doing so many terrible things to innocent poor people all over the World. I went to hear John Stockwell at least three times. He had been a marine and was the CIA Station Chief in Angola. The stories he told about the atrocities the CIA had been committing around the World were absolutely chilling. You can hear him giving an amazing talk in 1989 here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmYZ_kWHk3Q  .

It was on KPFK that I first heard about S. Brian Willson, as he and three other veterans began their VETERANS FAST FOR LIFE on the Capitol Steps in Washington DC in 1986. They were protesting U.S. foreign policy in Central America; in Nicaragua,

El Salvador and Guatemala. They fasted for something like 40 days and got a lot of attention all over the country through the Pacifica Network and the anti-war movement. I sent them a $100 donation and a letter of support. And I went on a march supporting these four veterans, S. Brian Willson, Charlie Liteky, Duncan Murphy and George Mizo – in Downtown Los Angeles and marched with a big crowd, right behind Jackson Browne and Kris Kristofferson.

On September 1st, 1987, I heard Blase Bonpane say on KPFK that Brian Willson had been run over at The Concord Naval Weapons Station in Northern California by a train that was carrying weapons to be shipped to Central America and used to kill innocent people there. Brian lost both legs but survived the attack. One year later, he came to Los Angeles to give a talk, which I heard about on KPFK. I went to hear him and my life was changed forever. To this day, I have never heard anyone speak quite like Brian did that night. He was so clear with his message against the U.S. war in Vietnam. I’ll never forget one thing he said: “How could I have gone 10,000 miles across the ocean to take part in killing people I did not know anything about”. Brian had been a believer in that war. He was a conservative republican, an anti-communist and an All-American young man. But he had his epiphany when he witnessed a fishing village in Vietnam that we had bombed & napalmed. He was sent to inspect the success of this mission. He saw maybe 100 people, all of them dead or dying. No soldiers. No weapons. Only women, children and a few older men. He went to four other villages that week and observed the same thing. We were killing villagers and reporting that they were V.C. or Viet Cong. Brian started to speak out against what he had witnessed and soon he was sent back to the States. Some years later, he became a full-time anti-war activist. Brian’s mantra is: We Are Not Worth More. They Are Not Worth Less.

Everything that Brian writes about on his website is well worth reading: www.brianwillson.com . You can watch Brian at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ_cO1wC0yI  – An excellent film about Brian titled: “PAYING THE PRICE FOR PEACE: The Story of S. Brian Willson” – can be rented or bought at: www.addictedtowar.com/about-paying-the-price . I was the associate producer on this amazing film. Brian is the last segment in my film: “What I’ve Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy: The War Against The 3^rd  World.”  If you have never seen my film, please take the time to watch it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gMGhrkoncA  . And once again, watch the films on The Film Page and the talks on The Talks & Interviews Page. In doing so, you could earn what would be like the equivalent of a PH.D in: The True History of U.S. Foreign Policy.

There is also the Book Page, which lists over 90 excellent books you can read, most on the topic of U.S. Foreign Policy: www.addictedtowar.com/books  .

HOW DO THEY GET AWAY WITH ALL OF THIS?  WHY MOST PEOPLE CAN’T SEE THESE TRUTHS?

Here is why I believe that most Americans cannot and will not see these truths that I have been talking about. THE BIG LIE is so big and so complete in the United States. It’s like mass hypnosis. Like mass brainwashing. Like something out of Orwell’s book 1984. I believe the biggest tool for brainwashing is the television set that we watch. Most Americans are taught to believe that we are The Good Guys. And once again, most people are not taught about the true nature of U.S. foreign policy in their schools, in their churches or by their parents. And they won’t learn about THE BIG LIE by watching the mainstream news on television or by reading the mainstream newspapers.

I Think The Following Is A Very Important Point In All of This!

Many people have lived a pretty good life here in the United States. They have had a lot of freedom and have been given a lot of opportunity to do what they want, to go for their own special dreams. Not everyone gets there, but at least, many have had that chance. This doesn’t necessarily happen if you are Black or Latinx or Native American or poor. And many people have had various problems fitting in our society and end up unhappy and discontented. But this is America. The Land of The Free and The Home of The Brave. There are so many things here that people appreciate. This is certainly true in my case. And many people have come here from other countries in order to have a better life. And ironically, many of these people have come from some of the very countries we have attacked and invaded. We have had it good here compared to them.

But do these facts make it OK to have a foreign policy that has literally killed millions of innocent people and ruined the lives of many millions more, all for lies?

We are told that our military goes into other countries to help the people and bring freedom and democracy. But of course, that is not what has been happening with our foreign policy. How do you help people when you invade them, drop bombs on them, send in drones to kill them, place sanctions on them and support dictators who oppress them. Most Americans do not want to believe or accept that our country has been doing these horrendous things and still is. And the policies of the U.S. also has ruined the lives of millions more people all over the World. This is not what most American’s believe. It’s much easier being ignorant than it is to realize that this is happening and has been happening all along.

For those of us who have come to understand these things, it is not easy, as we learn that others do not want us to tell them about this or to try to educate them about this. And since the vast majority of Americans do not know or believe these things, it’s very easy to dismiss those of us who do, calling us crazy or conspiracy theorists, without ever looking at the evidence we have to show them. I cannot tell you how many friends I have had in my life who are no longer my friends. Many will not call me back or respond to emails I have sent them about this. It is an amazing thing to experience. After over 40 years of being an activist, I do understand why people do not want to know. It’s just too painful to know. It’s simply easier not to know. Life can be hard. Life can be difficult. And it certainly is now with all that we are dealing with. But life is so much easier not having to deal with the information I have been talking about. However, by denying these truths, we unknowingly support the deaths and destruction of millions.

I do want to say that most of the people who have been involved, in one way or another, in carrying out these barbarous acts committed by the U.S. are not necessarily lying. For the most part, they are simply following orders. The soldiers follow orders. The politicians go along with what they are told. And the reporters in the mainstream media don’t really do true journalism. They get their stories from the State Department, the CIA or other government sources. They don’t investigate on their own to see if these stories are really true or not. The victims of U.S. foreign policy are in other countries, out of sight, out of mind. And the people I have just mentioned will not look at the information we in the anti-war movement try to give them. So the terrible, horrible and unbelievable things our country does happens because we live THE BIG LIE here in the United States.

I want to close with something important that Blase Bonpane said back in 2009. He said:

“The reason he did his anti-war work was because he wanted to stop his country (United States) from killing millions of innocent people all over the world”.

What Blase said is the very same reason why I have been doing my anti-war work all of these years. Blase was loved and respected by so many people. He died in 2019.

And I also want to thank all of the Truth-Tellers and Anti-War Activists I have mentioned in this article and who are on my website – for being my teachers, and for continuing to do this important work. The question is how can we reach enough people to change from being a war-like country to a Peace-Like country? Peace means that we help people in other countries and in our own country. We do not invade them, we do not bomb them, we do not starve them and we do not kill them.

You can read the 2004 edition of ADDICTED To WAR: www.addictedtowar.com/read-book  . The 2015 edition can be purchased here: www.addictedtowar.com/store  . ADDICTED To WAR is a book that most everyone (12 years and older) can read and understand. Hundreds of high school teachers and college professors have used it in their classrooms. We need to have more teachers and professors using it. When I was in high school, a book like ADDICTED To WAR could never have been used in class at all.  I have read it every year since we first published it in 2002. I always think what a fantastic, one-of-a-kind book ADDICTED To WAR is.

In 2000, I put together my film compilation titled: “WHAT I’VE LEARNED ABOUT U.S. FOREIGN POLICY: The War Against The Third World.” I updated it in 2015, adding three new segments.

It can be seen here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gMGhrkoncA  –  If you have not seen it, please do. 

Publisher: ADDICTED To WAR

Associate Producer: PAYING THE PRICE FOR PEACE: The Story of S. Brian Willson

Producer: What I’ve Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy:

Member: Veterans For Peace

310-838-8131

us.addicted.to.war@gmail.com

frank.dorrel@gmail.com  

www.addictedtowar.com

October 31, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

New Study Finds The Rest Of The World Supports China And Russia

A puzzling observation in today’s world is that almost no Western leader has laid out a positive vision for the future.

Take Biden for instance. His big vision is “democracies vs autocracies”. Meaning his vision for the future of the world is conflict. How positive is that?

There’s simply nothing to join! Except conflict, I guess, but you join a conflict to fight for a vision – for a better world – the conflict itself cannot be the vision!

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/new-study-finds-the-rest-of-the-world?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=81628548&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email Caitlin Johnstone, 31 Oct 22,

The US is preparing to station multiple nuclear-capable B-52 bombers in northern Australia in what the mass media are calling a “signal to China,” yet another example of Australia’s forced subservience as a US military/intelligence asset.

“Having bombers that could range and potentially attack mainland China could be very important in sending a signal to China that any of its actions over Taiwan could also expand further,” Becca Wasser from the Centre for New American Security think tank told the ABC.

“This is a dangerous escalation. It makes Australia an even bigger part of the global nuclear weapons threat to humanity’s very existence – and by rising military tensions it further destabilises our region,” tweeted Greens Senator David Shoebridge of the incendiary provocation.

A new Australian Financial Review article titled “Australia’s alliances in Asia are a tale of two regions” candidly discusses the Biden administration’s recent sanctions geared toward kneecapping the Chinese tech industry in what the author James Curran correctly says “is unambiguously a new cold war.” Curran describes the impossible task Australia has of straddling the ever-widening divide between its number one trading partner China and its number one “security” partner the US, while Washington continually pressures Canberra and ASEAN states toward greater and greater enmity with Beijing.

“ASEAN countries, as much as Australia, have much at stake in resisting the onset of a bifurcated world,” Curran writes.

But that bifurcation is being shoved through at breakneck pace, using both hard and soft power measures. Australians have been hammered with increasingly aggressive anti-China propaganda, and as a result nearly half of them now say they would be willing to go to war to defend Taiwan from an attack by the mainland, with a third saying they’d support a war against China over the Solomon Islands.

A recent Cambridge study found that this hostility toward China has been on the rise in recent years not just in Australia but throughout the “liberal democracies” of the US-centralized power alliance. But what’s interesting is that public opinion is exactly reversed in the much larger remainder of the Earth’s population, with people outside the US power cluster just as fond of China as those within that power cluster are hostile toward it. This relationship is largely mirrored with Russia as well.

“Among the 1.2bn people who inhabit the world’s liberal democracies, three-quarters (75%) now hold a negative view of China, and 87% a negative view of Russia,” the report reads. “However, for the 6.3bn people who live in the rest of the world, the picture is reversed. In these societies, 70% feel positively towards China, and 66% positively towards Russia.”

The report finds that in the “developing” world, approval of China is higher than approval of the US:

“For the first time ever, slightly more people in developing countries (62%) are favourable towards China than towards the United States (61%). This is especially so among the 4.6bn people living in countries supported by the Belt and Road Initiative, among whom almost two-thirds hold a positive view of China, compared to just a quarter (27%) in non-participating countries.”

The report finds that while Russia’s approval has plummeted in the west, it maintains broad support in the east despite the invasion of Ukraine:

“However, the real terrain of Russia’s international influence lies outside of the West. 75% of respondents in South Asia, 68% in Francophone Africa, 62% in Southeast Asia continue to view the country positively in spite of the events of this year.”

I first became aware of the Cambridge study via a Twitter thread by Arnaud Bertrand (who is a great follow if you happen to use that demonic app). Bertrand highlights data in the study showing that US-aligned nations’ opinion of China began plummeting not after the Covid outbreak in late 2019, but after 2017 when the US began ramping up its propaganda campaign against Beijing.

Apart from the fact that the USA’s immensely sophisticated propaganda machine naturally focuses primarily on where the world’s wealth and military firepower rests while pushing its global agendas, and apart from the fact that those in Belt and Road Initiative countries apparently believe they benefit from their economic relationships with China, the disparity between the “developed” and “developing” worlds in their perceptions of the US and its enemies may also be partly explained by another thought-provoking Arnaud Bertrand thread, which I will quote in its entirety here:

A puzzling observation in today’s world is that almost no Western leader has laid out a positive vision for the future.

Take Biden for instance. His big vision is “democracies vs autocracies”. Meaning his vision for the future of the world is conflict. How positive is that?

Contrast this with China: between “national rejuvenation” and “common prosperity” at home and the “global security initiative” as their vision for improved international relations; everyone is very clear on the journey they’re embarked on.

This is a key, if not the key reason why the “West” has no chance in hell to convince the “rest” to join them.

There’s simply nothing to join! Except conflict, I guess, but you join a conflict to fight for a vision – for a better world – the conflict itself cannot be the vision!

This reminds me of what George Kennan, the architect of the cold war, wrote: to win he said that America had to “create among the peoples of the world generally the impression of a country which knows what it wants, which is coping successfully with the problems of its internal life and with the responsibilities of a World Power, and which has a spiritual vitality capable of holding its own among the major ideological currents of the time”

Does America give this impression today?

Even in my own country, France. Ask any French person what Macron’s vision for the future of France and the world is, what the grand plan is, and you’ll get very puzzled looks. “Reform the pension system so we have to work longer?”

The truth is there’s nothing, nada, rien! 

What we have essentially in the West are political operators. They think their jobs are to get reelected and to attempt to move whatever metrics the electorate cares about: GDP, unemployment, debt levels, CO2 emissions, etc. Actual leaders have gone extinct (or gone East).

It’s actually quite sad, really speaks to the levels of intellectual decrepitude in the West today. The time of the Enlightenment, the big revolutions is well and truly gone. We’re stuck with our mediocre operators.

It’s also why this is such a dangerous time. A positive vision brings confidence, it brings hope, it motivates, it makes people look forward to what’s to come. The West has none of that today.

The future is scary, the dominant feelings are fear and anger.

And when there’s a lot of fear and anger, these feelings need to be directed somewhere. And our operators certainly don’t want it to be them! So it’s China, Iran, all those “foreigners” who “hate our freedom”.

Perfect recipe for a very bad conflict…

Please, don’t get fooled!

Bertrand’s musings echo a recent quote by Professor Jeffrey Sachs at the Athens Democracy Forum: “The single biggest mistake of president Biden was to say ‘the greatest struggle of the world is between democracies and autocracies’. The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises of environment and inequality.”

Indeed, we could be striving toward a positive vision for the future, one which seeks “common prosperity” and “improved international relations,” one which works to remedy inequality and address the looming environmental crisis. Instead the world is being bifurcated, split in two, which history tells us is probably an indication that something extremely terrible is on the horizon for our species unless we drastically change course.

It’s worth keeping all this in mind, as nuclear-capable bombers are deployed to Australia; as NATO weighs moving nuclear weapons to Russia’s border in Finland; as the Biden administration goes all in on economic warfare with China regardless of the consequences; as Russia accuses the US of “lowering the nuclear threshold” by modernizing the arsenal in Europe into “battlefield weapons”; as the Council on Foreign Relations president openly admits that the US is now working to halt China’s rise on the world stage; as China declares its willingness to deepen ties with Russia on all levels.

We could have such a wonderful, healthy, collaborative world, and it’s being flushed down the toilet because an empire is using its leverage over the wealthiest populations on our planet to work toward dominating all the other populations. This stupid, insane quest to shore up unipolar planetary domination is costing us everything while gaining us nothing, and it’s going to be the poorest and weakest among us who suffer the most as a result.

October 31, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

THE BIGGEST LIE – ADDICTED TO WAR – WHAT MOST AMERICAN PEOPLE DON’T KNOW and DON’T WANT TO KNOW

The mainstream media will never tell the truth about this, as they are owned by the very people and corporations who make huge profits from U.S. wars. 

THE BIG LIE is so big and so complete in the United States. It’s like mass hypnosis. Like mass brainwashing. ………  Most Americans are taught to believe that we are The Good Guys. And once again, most people are not taught about the true nature of U.S. foreign policy

 THE BIG LIE is so big and so complete in the United States. It’s like mass hypnosis. Like mass brainwashing. ………  Most Americans are taught to believe that we are The Good Guys. And once again, most people are not taught about the true nature of U.S. foreign policy

https://www.addictedtowar.com/the-big-lie, By Frank Dorrel – Publisher of ADDICTED To WAR: www.addictedtowar.com, 31 Oct 22,

What Is This BIG LIE – I Am Talking About? ………………..

Well, it’s not Donald Trump claiming that he won the 2020 election for President……….

I’m not talking about Climate Change/Global Warming.…. now heating faster than expected

I’m not talking about Systemic Racism in the United States.………. this terrible situation.

I’m not talking about The Prison Industrial Complex…………  this sad story is not really a secret

I’m not talking about Poverty and Homelessness…………. very sad situation happening to millions of American people.

I’m not talking about COVID, the pandemic that has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American people in the last two years

THE BIG LIE

The BIG LIE I am talking about has to do with U.S. foreign policy and U.S. wars, both overt and covert. We are not told the truth about them or that the U.S. is a Global Empire that controls much of the World through force and power and threatens Third World countries, who are not willing to do as we say. Most American people do not know these things. Most do not believe these things are true. And most people are not willing to take a closer look at all of this.

I suggest you go to my website to see what I am talking about. Go to the Film Page: www.addictedtowar.com/films  and watch as many of these important anti-war films as you can. They are all on YouTube and can be watched for free. Take as long as you need. I do not think you will find another list like this anywhere on the Internet. I have watched all of these films at least two or more times. Every one of them is very well done. Altogether, they reveal THE BIG LIE. These films are never aired on television. Not even on PBS.

Go to the Talks and Interviews Page: www.addictedtowar.com/talks-interviews  – and watch and listen to as many of them as you can. The very first talk is by Martin Luther King Jr. It’s titled – BEYOND VIETNAM: A Time To Break Silence. Once again, take your time to watch these talks by these activists. They reveal the horrors our country has been committing all of these years with its many wars against innocent poor people around the World.

THE BIG LIE

I am talking about is what Martin Luther King Jr. said in his BEYOND VIETNAM Speech: “The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in The World Today, My Own Government.” The Military, the Oil Companies, the Corporations, the Weapon Makers, the Bankers, the Mainstream Media & the Politicians, also known as The Military-Industrial-Complex. They make war for profit and also to control the resources of the World. And WE, the PEOPLE are LIED to about this. One of their biggest weapons is propaganda. And they really know how to use it. It is a global battle of the rich versus the poor. And war is, for the most part, racist. We bomb, invade and kill mostly people of color.

Read this article by James Lucas titled: THE UNITED STATES HAS KILLED MORE THAN 20 MILLION PEOPLE IN 37 NATIONS SINCE WWII: https://popularresistance.org/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-in-37-nations-since-wwii  

Read this article by Professor Larry Mosqueda of Evergreen State College titled: SHOCKED and HORRIFIED, written on September 15th, 2001: www.globalissues.org/article/257/shocked-and-horrified

The mainstream media will never tell the truth about this, as they are owned by the very people and corporations who make huge profits from U.S. wars. Most people in the government will not talk about or look at this. If they were to do so, they would become outcasts and pariahs, shunned by others in the government. And for the most part, people in the military will not look at or talk about these things. However, some have spoken out. And many of them are listed on my site. The one group that does look at this issue is the Anti-War Movement. We are part of the alternative media in this country. You can see who some of these organizations are by going to: www.addictedtowar.com/sources-and-websites  . CovertAction DEMOCRACY NOW, is on this list.

There is an anti-war movement in this country. But it’s just not big enough to make much of a difference. Most people are not taught about these things in their schools, in their churches, or by their parents. And they won’t learn about THE BIG LIE by watching the mainstream news on television or by reading the mainstream newspapers.

HOW DID I LEARN ABOUT THE TRUE NATURE OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY?

I first started learning about all of this when I discovered KPFK 90.7 FM Radio in 1980. KPFK is part of the Pacifica Network: https://pacificanetwork.org   – consisting of five radio stations in this country. They are KPFA in Berkeley, KPFK in Los Angeles, WBAI in New York, WPFW in Washington DC and KPFT in Houston. The first Pacifica station was KPFA in Berkeley. It was started in 1949 by Lou Hill, a man who refused to go to World War II. He wanted to have a station that was against war, dealt with social injustice and had no commercial sponsors so that the truth could be told. I discovered KPFK by chance. No one told me about it.

I had a job as a driver for the University of Southern California. I drove about 200 miles a day. One day in 1980, I was turning the FM channels and heard Alan Watts talking on KPFK. He was an amazing storyteller, a philosopher of sorts, and very interesting to listen to. He was already dead when I started listening to him. So every Monday at 2:00 PM, I put on KPFK. Then one Monday, I left the station on and heard Noam Chomsky talking about U.S.-supported death squads in El Salvador.

That was the beginning for me. From that time on, I listened to KPFK as much as possible. I discovered many other truth-tellers on KPFK, talking about U.S. foreign policy, who you would never hear on the mainstream media. People like Howard Zinn, Ramsey Clark, Michael Parenti, Daniel Ellsberg, John Stockwell, Philip Agee, S. Brian Willson, Roy Bourgeois, Medea Benjamin, Kathy Kelly & many others. Then I discovered Blase Bonpane, who had his own weekly program on KPFK called WORLD FOCUS.

I began listening to Blase every week. Soon he became my mentor. The more I learned about what the U.S. had been doing with its foreign policy, the more upset I got. During the listener-sponsored fund-drives, I would order books and talks by these truth-tellers. Whenever they came to Los Angeles to speak, I would go to listen to them in person. I joined the Veterans For Peace group in Los Angeles and would go to their meetings. It was there that I met Tony Russo and learned so much about what he called THE U.S. WAR IN VIETNAM. Tony had been partners with Daniel Ellsberg in revealing The Pentagon Papers.

At that time, I was learning about what was happening in Nicaragua, with the U.S. supporting the Contra’s and the history of U.S. interventions there. The more I learned, the worse it got. I had no idea that my country, the United States, had been doing so many terrible things to innocent poor people all over the World. I went to hear John Stockwell at least three times. He had been a marine and was the CIA Station Chief in Angola. The stories he told about the atrocities the CIA had been committing around the World were absolutely chilling. You can hear him giving an amazing talk in 1989 here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmYZ_kWHk3Q  .

It was on KPFK that I first heard about S. Brian Willson, as he and three other veterans began their VETERANS FAST FOR LIFE on the Capitol Steps in Washington DC in 1986. They were protesting U.S. foreign policy in Central America; in Nicaragua,

El Salvador and Guatemala. They fasted for something like 40 days and got a lot of attention all over the country through the Pacifica Network and the anti-war movement. I sent them a $100 donation and a letter of support. And I went on a march supporting these four veterans, S. Brian Willson, Charlie Liteky, Duncan Murphy and George Mizo – in Downtown Los Angeles and marched with a big crowd, right behind Jackson Browne and Kris Kristofferson.

On September 1st, 1987, I heard Blase Bonpane say on KPFK that Brian Willson had been run over at The Concord Naval Weapons Station in Northern California by a train that was carrying weapons to be shipped to Central America and used to kill innocent people there. Brian lost both legs but survived the attack. One year later, he came to Los Angeles to give a talk, which I heard about on KPFK. I went to hear him and my life was changed forever. To this day, I have never heard anyone speak quite like Brian did that night. He was so clear with his message against the U.S. war in Vietnam. I’ll never forget one thing he said: “How could I have gone 10,000 miles across the ocean to take part in killing people I did not know anything about”. Brian had been a believer in that war. He was a conservative republican, an anti-communist and an All-American young man. But he had his epiphany when he witnessed a fishing village in Vietnam that we had bombed & napalmed. He was sent to inspect the success of this mission. He saw maybe 100 people, all of them dead or dying. No soldiers. No weapons. Only women, children and a few older men. He went to four other villages that week and observed the same thing. We were killing villagers and reporting that they were V.C. or Viet Cong. Brian started to speak out against what he had witnessed and soon he was sent back to the States. Some years later, he became a full-time anti-war activist. Brian’s mantra is: We Are Not Worth More. They Are Not Worth Less.

Everything that Brian writes about on his website is well worth reading: www.brianwillson.com . You can watch Brian at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ_cO1wC0yI  – An excellent film about Brian titled: “PAYING THE PRICE FOR PEACE: The Story of S. Brian Willson” – can be rented or bought at: www.addictedtowar.com/about-paying-the-price . I was the associate producer on this amazing film. Brian is the last segment in my film: “What I’ve Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy: The War Against The 3^rd  World.”  If you have never seen my film, please take the time to watch it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gMGhrkoncA  . And once again, watch the films on The Film Page and the talks on The Talks & Interviews Page. In doing so, you could earn what would be like the equivalent of a PH.D in: The True History of U.S. Foreign Policy.

There is also the Book Page, which lists over 90 excellent books you can read, most on the topic of U.S. Foreign Policy: www.addictedtowar.com/books  .

HOW DO THEY GET AWAY WITH ALL OF THIS?  WHY MOST PEOPLE CAN’T SEE THESE TRUTHS?

Here is why I believe that most Americans cannot and will not see these truths that I have been talking about. THE BIG LIE is so big and so complete in the United States. It’s like mass hypnosis. Like mass brainwashing. Like something out of Orwell’s book 1984. I believe the biggest tool for brainwashing is the television set that we watch. Most Americans are taught to believe that we are The Good Guys. And once again, most people are not taught about the true nature of U.S. foreign policy in their schools, in their churches or by their parents. And they won’t learn about THE BIG LIE by watching the mainstream news on television or by reading the mainstream newspapers.

I Think The Following Is A Very Important Point In All of This!

Many people have lived a pretty good life here in the United States. They have had a lot of freedom and have been given a lot of opportunity to do what they want, to go for their own special dreams. Not everyone gets there, but at least, many have had that chance. This doesn’t necessarily happen if you are Black or Latinx or Native American or poor. And many people have had various problems fitting in our society and end up unhappy and discontented. But this is America. The Land of The Free and The Home of The Brave. There are so many things here that people appreciate. This is certainly true in my case. And many people have come here from other countries in order to have a better life. And ironically, many of these people have come from some of the very countries we have attacked and invaded. We have had it good here compared to them.

But do these facts make it OK to have a foreign policy that has literally killed millions of innocent people and ruined the lives of many millions more, all for lies?

We are told that our military goes into other countries to help the people and bring freedom and democracy. But of course, that is not what has been happening with our foreign policy. How do you help people when you invade them, drop bombs on them, send in drones to kill them, place sanctions on them and support dictators who oppress them. Most Americans do not want to believe or accept that our country has been doing these horrendous things and still is. And the policies of the U.S. also has ruined the lives of millions more people all over the World. This is not what most American’s believe. It’s much easier being ignorant than it is to realize that this is happening and has been happening all along.

For those of us who have come to understand these things, it is not easy, as we learn that others do not want us to tell them about this or to try to educate them about this. And since the vast majority of Americans do not know or believe these things, it’s very easy to dismiss those of us who do, calling us crazy or conspiracy theorists, without ever looking at the evidence we have to show them. I cannot tell you how many friends I have had in my life who are no longer my friends. Many will not call me back or respond to emails I have sent them about this. It is an amazing thing to experience. After over 40 years of being an activist, I do understand why people do not want to know. It’s just too painful to know. It’s simply easier not to know. Life can be hard. Life can be difficult. And it certainly is now with all that we are dealing with. But life is so much easier not having to deal with the information I have been talking about. However, by denying these truths, we unknowingly support the deaths and destruction of millions.

I do want to say that most of the people who have been involved, in one way or another, in carrying out these barbarous acts committed by the U.S. are not necessarily lying. For the most part, they are simply following orders. The soldiers follow orders. The politicians go along with what they are told. And the reporters in the mainstream media don’t really do true journalism. They get their stories from the State Department, the CIA or other government sources. They don’t investigate on their own to see if these stories are really true or not. The victims of U.S. foreign policy are in other countries, out of sight, out of mind. And the people I have just mentioned will not look at the information we in the anti-war movement try to give them. So the terrible, horrible and unbelievable things our country does happens because we live THE BIG LIE here in the United States.

I want to close with something important that Blase Bonpane said back in 2009. He said:

“The reason he did his anti-war work was because he wanted to stop his country (United States) from killing millions of innocent people all over the world”.

What Blase said is the very same reason why I have been doing my anti-war work all of these years. Blase was loved and respected by so many people. He died in 2019.

And I also want to thank all of the Truth-Tellers and Anti-War Activists I have mentioned in this article and who are on my website – for being my teachers, and for continuing to do this important work. The question is how can we reach enough people to change from being a war-like country to a Peace-Like country? Peace means that we help people in other countries and in our own country. We do not invade them, we do not bomb them, we do not starve them and we do not kill them.

You can read the 2004 edition of ADDICTED To WAR: www.addictedtowar.com/read-book  . The 2015 edition can be purchased here: www.addictedtowar.com/store  . ADDICTED To WAR is a book that most everyone (12 years and older) can read and understand. Hundreds of high school teachers and college professors have used it in their classrooms. We need to have more teachers and professors using it. When I was in high school, a book like ADDICTED To WAR could never have been used in class at all.  I have read it every year since we first published it in 2002. I always think what a fantastic, one-of-a-kind book ADDICTED To WAR is.

In 2000, I put together my film compilation titled: “WHAT I’VE LEARNED ABOUT U.S. FOREIGN POLICY: The War Against The Third World.” I updated it in 2015, adding three new segments.

It can be seen here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gMGhrkoncA  –  If you have not seen it, please do. 

Publisher: ADDICTED To WAR

Associate Producer: PAYING THE PRICE FOR PEACE: The Story of S. Brian Willson

Producer: What I’ve Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy:

Member: Veterans For Peace

310-838-8131

us.addicted.to.war@gmail.com

frank.dorrel@gmail.com  

www.addictedtowar.com

October 31, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

All at Once Mainstream Pundits Push for WW III

When they’re not arguing that World War Three is coming and we must all prepare to fight it and win, they’re arguing that a global conflict is already upon us and we must begin acting like it, as in last month’s New Yorker piece “What if We’re Already Fighting the Third World War with Russia?”

These Beltway swamp monster pontifications are directed not just at the general public but at government policymakers and strategists as well, and it should disturb us all that their audiences are being encouraged to view a global conflict of unspeakable horror like it’s some kind of natural disaster that people don’t have any control over.

Every measure should be taken to avoid a world war in the nuclear age. If it looks like that’s where we’re headed, the answer is not to ramp up weapons production and create entire industries dedicated to making it happen, the answer is diplomacy, de-escalation and detente.

 https://consortiumnews.com/2022/10/28/all-at-once-mainstream-pundits-push-for-ww-iii/ October 28, 2022, Caitlin Johnstone says it should disturb everyone in the nuclear age that writers at influential publications frame the rise of a multipolar world as something that must inevitably bring on unspeakable violence and human suffering.

Mainstream punditry in the latter half of 2022 is rife with op-eds arguing that the U.S. needs to vastly increase military spending because a world war is about to erupt, and they frame it as something that happens to the U.S. as though its own actions would have nothing to do with it.

As though it would not be the direct result of the U.S.-centralized empire continually accelerating towards that horrific event while refusing every possible diplomatic off-ramp due to its inability to relinquish its goal of total unipolar, planetary domination.

The latest example of this trend is an article titled “Could America Win a New World War? — What It Would Take to Defeat Both China and Russia” published by Foreign Affairs, a magazine that is owned and operated by the supremely influential think tank the Council on Foreign Relations.

“The United States and its allies must plan for how to simultaneously win wars in Asia and Europe, as unpalatable as the prospect may seem,” writes Thomas G. Mahnken, adding that in some ways “the United States and its allies will have an advantage in any simultaneous war” on those two continents.

Mahnken doesn’t claim a world war against Russia and China would be a walk in the park; he also argues that in order to win such a war the U.S. will need to — you guessed it — drastically increase its military spending.

“The United States clearly needs to increase its defense manufacturing capacity and speed,” Mahnken writes. “In the short term, that involves adding shifts to existing factories. With more time, it involves expanding factories and opening new production lines. To do both, Congress will have to act now to allocate more money to increase manufacturing.”

But exploding U.S. weapons spending is still inadequate, Mahnken argues, saying that “the United States should work with its allies to increase their military production and the size of their weapons and munitions stockpiles” as well.

Mahnken says this world war could be sparked “if China initiated a military operation to take Taiwan, forcing the United States and its allies to respond,” as though there would be no other options on the table besides launching into nuclear-age World War Three to defend an island next to the Chinese mainland that calls itself the Republic of China.

He writes that “Moscow, meanwhile, could decide that with the United States bogged down in the western Pacific, it could get away with invading more of Europe,” demonstrating the bizarre Schrödinger’s cat Western propaganda paradox that Putin is always simultaneously (A) getting destroyed and humiliated in Ukraine and (B) on the cusp of waging hot war with NATO.

Again, this is just the latest in an increasingly common genre of mainstream Western punditry.

In “The skeptics are wrong: The U.S. can confront both China and Russia,” The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin wags his finger at Democrats who think aggressions against Russia should be prioritized and Republicans who think that military and financial attention should be devoted to China, arguing por que no los dos? (Why not both?}

In “Could The U.S. Military Fight Russia And China At The Same Time?“, 19FortyFive’s Robert Farley answers in the affirmative, writing that “the immense fighting power of the U.S. armed forces would not be inordinately strained by the need to wage war in both theaters” concluding that “the United States can fight both Russia and China at once… for a while, and with the help of some friends.”

In “Can the U.S. Take on China, Iran and Russia All at Once?” Bloomberg’s Hal Brands answers that it would be very difficult and recommends escalating in Ukraine and Taiwan and selling Israel more advanced weaponry to get a step ahead of Russia, China and Iran respectively.

In “International Relations Theory Suggests Great-Power War Is Coming,” the Atlantic Council’s Matthew Kroenig writes for Foreign Policy that a global democracies-versus-autocracies showdown is coming “with the United States and its status quo-oriented democratic allies in NATO, Japan, South Korea, and Australia on one side and the revisionist autocracies of China, Russia, and Iran on the other,” and that aspiring foreign policy experts should adjust their expectations accordingly.

When they’re not arguing that World War Three is coming and we must all prepare to fight it and win, they’re arguing that a global conflict is already upon us and we must begin acting like it, as in last month’s New Yorker piece “What if We’re Already Fighting the Third World War with Russia?”

These Beltway swamp monster pontifications are directed not just at the general public but at government policymakers and strategists as well, and it should disturb us all that their audiences are being encouraged to view a global conflict of unspeakable horror like it’s some kind of natural disaster that people don’t have any control over.

Every measure should be taken to avoid a world war in the nuclear age. If it looks like that’s where we’re headed, the answer is not to ramp up weapons production and create entire industries dedicated to making it happen, the answer is diplomacy, de-escalation and detente.

These pundits frame the rise of a multipolar world as something that must inevitably be accompanied by an explosion of violence and human suffering, when in reality we’d only wind up there as a result of decisions that were made by thinking human beings on both sides.

It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s no omnipotent deity decreeing from on high that we must live in a world where governments brandish Armageddon weapons at each other and humanity must either submit to Washington or resign itself to cataclysmic violence of planetary consequence. We could just have a world where the peoples of all nations get along with each other and work together toward the common good rather than working to dominate and subjugate each other.

As Jeffrey Sachs recently put it, “The single biggest mistake of President Biden was to say ‘the greatest struggle of the world is between democracies and autocracies’. The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises of environment and inequality.”

We could have a world where our energy and resources go toward increasing human thriving and learning to collaborate with this fragile biosphere we evolved in. Where all our scientific innovation is directed toward making this planet a better place to live instead of channeling it into getting rich and finding new ways to explode human bodies.

Where our old models of competition and exploitation give way to systems of collaboration and care. Where poverty, toil and misery gradually move from accepted norms of human existence to dimly remembered historical record.

Instead we’re getting a world where we’re being hammered harder and harder with propaganda encouraging us to accept global conflict as an unavoidable reality, where politicians who voice even the mildest support for diplomacy are shouted down and demonized until they bow to the gods of war, where nuclear brinkmanship is framed as safety and de-escalation is branded as reckless endangerment.

We don’t have to submit to this. We don’t have to keep sleepwalking into dystopia and Armageddon to the beat of manipulative sociopaths. There are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and we’ve got a whole lot more at stake here than they do.

We can have a healthy world. We’ve just got to want it badly enough. They work so hard to manufacture our consent because, ultimately, they absolutely do require it.

October 31, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Rooftop solar take another significant bite out of Origin customer volumes — RenewEconomy

Rooftop solar takes more volume away from retail markets, but Origin gains from big business wind and LPG windfall. The post Rooftop solar take another significant bite out of Origin customer volumes appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Rooftop solar take another significant bite out of Origin customer volumes — RenewEconomy

October 31, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

WA takes next big step towards Made-in-WA turbine industry ahead of wind energy boom — RenewEconomy

State government commissions a full feasibility study to find out what it will take to start building wind turbines in WA. The post WA takes next big step towards Made-in-WA turbine industry ahead of wind energy boom appeared first on RenewEconomy.

WA takes next big step towards Made-in-WA turbine industry ahead of wind energy boom — RenewEconomy

October 31, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

World is heading for 2.4°C to 2.8°C warming: State of the climate ahead of Cop27 — RenewEconomy

Emissions are still rising, pledges to 2030 put the world on track for 2.5C of warming but fossil fuel demand is nearing its peak. The post World is heading for 2.4°C to 2.8°C warming: State of the climate ahead of Cop27 appeared first on RenewEconomy.

World is heading for 2.4°C to 2.8°C warming: State of the climate ahead of Cop27 — RenewEconomy

October 31, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

State and federal support key to Australia becoming a critical minerals super power — RenewEconomy

Australian public financial capital initiatives will pay a fundamental role in accelerating the development of critical mineral supply chain value-adding projects. The post State and federal support key to Australia becoming a critical minerals super power appeared first on RenewEconomy.

State and federal support key to Australia becoming a critical minerals super power — RenewEconomy

October 31, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment