What a coincidence! All members of the new Syrian cabinet have citizenship in Turkey!
Who would have thought….
“In retrospect it’s obvious. The “Transitional” Government ministers are appointees of dictator and self proclaimed President Jolani – Members of the HTS ruling cabal that won the ‘dog eat dog’ battle with 50 other jihadi sects in the Idlib enclave.
Idlib became a protectorate for Al Qaeda, with at least a dozen Turkish bases where conscripts served as human shields against bombing by Damascus or Russia.
Idlib is on the Turkish border, all armaments,”Western Aid” and trade came via Turkey, and with a control pricetag
– So its obvious that the HTS ruling elite were given Turkish citizenship, and access to homes, bank accounts, holidays, hospitals, etcetera in Turkey.
The term ‘Deep State‘ originates in Turkey where an ultra nationalist nazi underground ran the State for decades.
So… there is a now “Transitional” corrupt TURKISH government in Damascus.
But transitional to what?.. As mass killings, poverty, chaos, Al Qaeda, ISIS and Israeli terrorist factions spread like metastatic cancer across the ruined State”…
Trump seeks autocratic technocratic World power- Led by far right bllionaires and mega Corporations -With the rest of us muzzled, pauperised or just culled-Unless forced he won’t be satisfied with ‘concessions’-like personal rights or saving our Biosphere.
He will just grab everything he can get.
Eight Simple Steps towards Revolution – An Occupy Manifesto-2012
Over the winter, the social momentum that picked up with the occupation of Zuccotti Park has predictably cooled. We can be sure that conflict will intensify again soon, whether with the coming of spring or later; if overseas examples are any indication, we should anticipate new waves of unrest, each sweeping in new sectors of the population. In hopes of helping to prepare for the next phase, we present an eight-point program distilled from the experiences of the last several months.
Once again, please forward this and print out copies to distribute in your community!
People in North America are already under a spell: the spell of private property, of the legitimacy of government, of hopelessness.
None of these are inherently real; they derive their reality from our collective belief and activity. You have to be hypnotized indeed to believe that property is more sacred than the needs of human beings—that the decisions of the government are more legitimate than your own judgment.
To break this spell, cast another. When a few people invest themselves entirely in another vision of reality, they open up space for others to invest in it as well. It doesn’t have to be realistic at first—it just has to spread until it creates the conditions of its possibility. The original call to occupy Wall Street was an example of such a spell. What could take us further?
Facebook and Twitter notwithstanding, we’re more isolated today than ever. There is a fundamental difference between merely circulating information and making connections that enable people to act together. In an era when social networks are effectively mapped and contained, it’s subversive to make these connections beyond your usual social milieu; some of your friends may not have much fight in them after all, while others with goals complementary to yours might be very different from you.
You can’t expect other people to leave their comfort zones unless you’re prepared to leave your own.
Together we can do anything.
Preparing a revolution isn’t a matter of a radical minority building up the skills and resources to change the world; when enough of us get together, we have access to the knowledge and resources of our whole society. It’s not our job to orchestrate every aspect of the struggle, nor could we; we just have to create conduits through which subversive practices and momentum can flow. Preparation could go on endlessly, as the world goes on changing—circulation is what counts.
Until there’s something new happening, something that interrupts the status quo, there’s no reason for anyone to pay attention. It’s not enough to try to start a dialogue in a vacuum; for people to take the dialogue seriously, there has to be something to talk about. Don’t just chant that another world is possible; manifest it, so everyone who might believe in it can. Don’t just talk about abolishing capitalism; pick a pressure point, have a go at it, and see who joins in.
Build the will.
Nowadays most of us don’t know our own strength. We’re not used to relying on our own capabilities; we assume we can always be defeated. Most of the strength of those who hold power is founded on this defeatism. But a little courage can be infectious, and once people get used to wielding power together they won’t quickly give it up.
The first compromise is the last one. Over and over, our occupations and movements are undermined one compromise at a time. Whenever we concede anything, we set a precedent that will be repeated again and again, emboldening those for whom it is more convenient for us to remain passive.
If police don’t arrest us when we stand up for ourselves, it isn’t because they support us, or because we’re within our legal rights—it’s because we’ve mobilized enough social power to make them back down. Timidity, placation, and obedience only detract from this leverage.
Address the 99%, not the 1%.
Demands oriented towards those in power direct the focus away from what we can do ourselves; joint action, on the other hand, empowers us and creates a space where we can weave our differences into collective strength.
To put this in the language of the Occupy movement, why address demands to the 1% at the top of the capitalist pyramid, who will never share our priorities? Why not instead address proposals to the rest of the 99%, whose combined power could render the authority of the 1% meaningless?
We’ve been taught by a thousand classes, newspapers, and job interviews to present everything in the language and logic of our superiors. We must finally learn to speak each other’s languages, to make proposals that are relevant to our own needs rather than “realistic” in the framework of our rulers.
This means dispensing with every conception of legitimacy we inherited from the prevailing order—not just the authority of the politicians and the courts, but also academic prestige and middle-class “common sense” and activist credentials—in favor of value systems that legitimize our voices and our resistance on our own terms.
Aim beyond the target.
Often, to accomplish small concrete objectives, we have to set our sights much higher.
Conversely, it sometimes happens that we accomplish what we set out to easily enough, but have no idea what to do with the new opportunities that open up next. Every time we act, let’s act in a way that points towards the world we want and equips us to go on moving towards it.
The most important thing is not whether we achieve our immediate goals, but how each engagement positions us for the next round.
In this post Laura Riggi from University of Wageningen (Netherlands) presents her work ‘Strip-cropping legacy enhances potato plant defence responses to aphids via soil-mediated mechanisms’.
She talks about the importance of diversity for agriculture, discusses the connections between above- and belowground organisms, and shares how her love for arthropods guided her to made agriculture more […]
Would you believe it?! Donald told 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first presidency Wikipedia
US defense stocks took a sharp dive this week after President Donald Trump announced that he could slash military spending in half. The announcement came amid a wider cost-saving push by his administration.
Lockheed Martin (-4.86%) and Northrop Grumman (-6.58%) as well as General Dynamics (-5.30%),
Days earlier he ordered a US IRON DOME with a 10 TRillion $$ pricetag
Speaking at a White House press conference on Thursday, Trump said he planned to discuss a potential reduction in defense budgets with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
“At some point, when things settle down, I’m going to meet with China and I’m going to meet with Russia… and I’m going to say there’s no reason for us to be spending almost $1 trillion on the military… and I want to say let’s cut our military budget in half,” Trump said.
Defense firms have enjoyed increased demand for weapons and military equipment since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Lockheed Martin, the primary producer of the F-16 fighter jets and Patriot missile systems used in Ukraine, posted a 21% year-on-year increase in revenues in 2023.
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Welcome to the Truth.free USA
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The new US administration has so far sent mixed messages on military spending. Trump has tasked Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency with cutting federal costs, including at the Pentagon. The president has also pushed for a quick resolution of the Ukraine conflict, announcing imminent talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
The current $1 trillion in annual US military spending accounts for about 3.4% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said during his confirmation hearings at the US Senate in January that he wouldn’t want to spend less than 3% of GDP on defense.
J.D. Vance, Vice President of the United States of America, and Annalena Baerbock , Foreign Minister, BURY Western Alliance at the Munich Security Conference – February 13 2025
The European Union was never in the driver’s seat on the Ukraine conflict. And now that same toddler sitting in the back with the plastic Fisher-Price steering wheel is throwing the kind of full-blown crimson-faced meltdown that makes adults chuckle.
How many times was the EU told, including by its own citizens with sledgehammer subtlety at the ballot box, to stop kissing Uncle Sam’s butt and start covering its own? Instead, its leaders cribbed America’s talking points, completely oblivious as they indulged in economic seppuku.
The EU’s entire economy-wrecking “strategy” over Ukraine was based on the fantasy that they were America’s little bro, not being used as naive pawns in a grand game that would knock them right off the chessboard.
If Washington had picked peace over profit from the start, the closest thing that the Euroclowns would have seen to a military confrontation with Russia in Ukraine would have been playing Sergeant Savoir-Faire back home, armed with a map of the nearest coffee shops and a five-course lunch.
And now the previously unthinkable has happened. The jig is up on Biden’s ridiculous scam of vowing to do “whatever it takes” for Ukraine to beat Russia on the battlefield – mainly by dumping cash into US weapons which miraculously get lost en route to the frontlines after the cheque clears.
Nice racket. Too bad it’s getting people killed – something Trump’s made it clear he’s not exactly a fan of. Looks like he’s finally asked himself if there’s a way for the US to keep feasting on cash without a body count in Ukraine. Spoiler alert: he found a way, apparently. Several, in fact.
Cutting to the chase through all this messy death and destruction stuff, Trump just wants to wrap up the fighting and have Ukraine hand over its resources to cover US spending — most of which has already gone straight into the pockets of American weapons industries.
And can he keep the weapon sales flowing, even without active conflict? Absolutely. Just tell NATO countries to cough up some cash for the sake of “preventive defense,” like he’s been doing relentlessly.
A solid 90% of EU-bought weapons are already American, according to last year’s EU competitiveness report. And that’s not changing anytime soon – unless the EU’s itching for a tariff-spanking.
A group of European foreign ministers have issued a statement insisting that Ukraine and the EU must be at the table for any peace talks. Yeah, they’re at the table alright – the bib-wearing kiddie table, along with Ukraine.
And while they’re busy twisting balloon animals and tossing around buzzwords like ‘enhancing support for Ukraine,’ totally immersed in their ‘choose your own adventure’ game where they’re obviously ‘winning,’ it turns out that Russia and the US – Putin and Trump – did something totally wild.
They picked up a phone. Probably even a landline, like something out of a history book. All while the EU was bravely ‘sticking it to Putin’ by flaming him on social media while wiping croissant crumbs off their keyboard between sips of overpriced lattes.
In the wake of that call, Trump announced the start of immediate negotiations for peace.
And now the EU is acting like it’s just been dumped by Uncle Sam, who’s committing the added insult of hanging around with the guy on whom they’ve been obsessively hating.
“If there is agreement made behind our backs it will simply not work because you need for any kind of deal, any kind of agreement, you need Europeans to implement this deal. You need the Ukrainians to implement this deal,” said the bloc’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas.
The agreement is actually being made right in front of your face and ours, for once – unlike the back-room shenanigans between bloc officials and the Biden administration, which ultimately lured the EU economy straight off a cliff with EU “leaders” serving as willing lemmings, sanctioning their own Russian supplies of virtually everything critical to their economy.
Now the German defense minister is yelling from the kiddie table over to the adult table, trying to tell Trump and Putin how they should be conducting their negotiations.
“From my point of view, it would have been better to talk about Ukraine’s possible membership of NATO or the country’s loss of territory only at the negotiating table and not take it off the table beforehand,” said Boris Pistorius.
Everyone’s really keen to hear advice for peace from folks whose strategy so far has resulted in perpetual war.
That’s barely a step above Elon Musk’s toddler, X – the one who was chiseling away at Mount Nostrildamus for the cameras while standing beside his dad and Trump in the Oval Office the other day – offering Trump and Putin his take on negotiated peace in Ukraine.
Sounds like Western European leaders are currently experiencing all five states of grief at once, while frantically refreshing their inboxes to see if either the US or Russia have noticed their total meltdowns and slid into their DMs – and not just taken their freakouts as confirmation that ghosting them entirely was maybe the best way to handle the situation when they’re sounding like they’re on the verge of throwing every dish in the cupboard straight across the room right now.
“All we need is peace. A JUST PEACE. Ukraine, Europe and the United States should work on this together. TOGETHER,”insisted Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on social media.
”Russia has to be forced to peace,” said Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze. No, dear, YOU have to be forced to peace. Now, please just go back to the kiddie table and wipe the spaghetti off your face.
European ministers and delegations had been meeting in Paris earlier this week for what they thought was an important strategy session – only to realize that they were basically just holding the equivalent of a corporate teambuilding exercise.
While they were making all kinds of grand public proclamations in their echo chamber, like they were all jockeying for roles they could play in any eventual peace negotiations, it turns out that Trump and Putin were already finalizing the casting, and were even talking about bringing the curtain up.
And they were suggesting that would be a two-man show, not an ensemble slapstick comedy featuring the EU big top circus troupe.
European diplomats are now telling the Financial Times that they figure they’ll be expected to foot the bill for Ukraine’s reconstruction – because Trump will insist on it – and also send troops to enforce a deal they had zero say in while the US refuses military involvement.
Which is like getting handed a massive dinner check for a meal you didn’t even get to touch.
Just picture it: EU soldiers walking around Ukraine at EU taxpayer expense to protect American resource ventures while US troops stay home, as Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has already stipulated, by adding that the EU needs to honor its commitments.
And Vice President J.D. Vance joined in the Trump administration’s stereoscopic spanking of the EU during their visit to the bloc by telling Europeans repeatedly – both during an artificial intelligence summit in Paris and before the Munich Security Conference – to stop censoring information and views they don’t like under the guise of it somehow being a peril to democracy.
The EU media has already suggested that it looks like the EU’s role is basically to shut up and accept the result of negotiations – like it has been kicked right out of the group chat before it even had a chance to log on, and still has to comply with the outcome of the meeting.
Basically, at this point, Trump sees Europe as an ATM. Putin sees Europe as background noise. And Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky probably just sees his gravy train’s looming derailment.
Trump and Putin are already debating between caviar and steak for their peace talks while the EU stands outside like a rejected clubber, begging the bouncer to “check again, bro” – meanwhile, Zelensky is eyeing that tablecloth like a pyromaniac.
Love is a quality of attention, a sensitivity to the world and everything that is possible in it.
When we fight on the basis of what we love, rather than in service of ideology or cowardice, we open ourselves to serve as a channel through which everything beautiful in the world can defend itself.
To choose love is to choose to keep feeling the blows when others are under attack—everyone facing felony charges, everyone threatened with deportation, everyone facing water cannons and rubber bullets, all the rivers and animals and plants that sustain us despite all the violence inflicted upon them. Love is not reducible to peace..
The Free 