from O Society by MoA edited by O Society Oct 14, 2020 ,

John Kiriakou, who blew the whistle about CIA torture under the Bush regime, warns of the foreign policy a Joe Biden administration would pursue:

Literally the last thing I would do is to urge anybody to vote for Donald Trump. Trump has been a disaster in every sense of the word and in both foreign and domestic policy. But Biden is no panacea. He’s a center-right placeholder. [..]

If you think things will change in foreign policy under a President Biden, think again. It’ll be the same old expansionist, militarist policy that we had under George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.

Biden is more right than center. Even his campaign slogan is shared with the British conservatives.

A Joe Biden administration would extend the hostile policies towards Russia and China and continue to push for regime change in Venezuela, Syria, Iran, and Belarus.  Even the organ of U.S. foreign policy orthodoxy, Foreign Affairs, states U.S. induced regime changes never achieve their aims:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s repeated assertion around the time of the Iraq war that Washington’s pursuit of “stability at the expense of democracy” in the Middle East had produced neither was broadly true. But it turned out to have a corollary—that pursuing democracy at the expense of stability might also produce neither, but at even higher cost.

Continue reading “Why U.S. Presidential Elections Don’t normally Change Policy.. but Trump may Trash the Planet!”

In the United States, cannabis is legal for recreational use in 11 states while 33 other states allow some form of medical use. One would think that with this widespread legalization, which seems to be speeding up, that police officers would start concentrating their efforts elsewhere and arrest actual criminals who hurt people — not kidnap and cage innocent people for using a plant. Sadly, however, the incentives for arresting cannabis users are too addictive and the police state marches on, laying waste to all the lives it touches along the way..,

Illustrating this utter insanity, and showing why the United States has the largest prison population in the world, is the fact that in 2019 more people were arrested for cannabis than all violent crimes—combined.

According to the recently released Uniform Crime Report police arrested 545,602 people for cannabis related crimes in 2019. That arrest rate is 9% higher than the 495,871 people arrested for violent crimes the same year.

I Smoked Weed to Help My Postpartum Depression

As Forbes points out, cops aren’t arresting cannabis kingpins with thousands of pounds of pot, they like to prey on the little people, known to cops as the low hanging fruit.

Continue reading “In 2019, US Cops Arrested More People for having a Plant Than All Violent Crime COMBINED”

The occupied house Buenos Aires of Vallvidrera resists and forces the suspension of the second attempt of eviction

After checking the situation in the building, the Mossos riot police withdrew and the police device was removed from Mont d’Orsa street. The 250 people who resist in the house have returned to occupy the street along with dozens of supporters who have come to support. Finally, at half past nine in the morning, the confirmation of the police suspension of the eviction has arrived.

From the squatting group, which received the open notification of the courts last Monday, September 28, it is noted the willingness to “continue speculating” of the religious congregation that owns the property and criticize the “inoperability” of the City Council in its negotiation with the property

At three-thirty on Thursday morning it looked like the eviction from the Buenos Aires House was more real than ever. About twenty vans of the Mobile Brigade (BRIMO) of the Mossos d’Esquadra have been deployed in Mont d’Orsa Street, accompanied by an intendant, two inspectors and commanders of the police station of the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district.

After approaching the entrance of the building, where there were about fifty people who joined the two hundred that were scattered throughout the house, the superiors of the Catalan police have not seen clearly and they have ordered the momentary withdrawal while in parallel people were also beginning to gather in Plaça de Vallvidrera.

Subsequently, in the face of this situation, the agents withdrew and completely removed the Vallvidrera police device. Activists have removed the barricades around the house and an assembly has been held pending official information on the status of the eviction attempt.

Continue reading “The house ‘Buenos Aires’ of Vallvidrera resists and forces the suspension of the second attempt of eviction”

October 14, 2020

Britain Takes a Beating…From Itself by Kenneth Surin

Photograph Source: Bradley Howard – CC BY 2.0

The week’s political headlines around the world were dominated by a member of the species Muscina stabulans *the Fly) descending on the immaculately tended white top– smooth enough to merit comparison to an Astroturf pitch– of the Trump henchman debating Kamala Harris. Nothing as visually spectacular as this occurred in the UK, where the news has been unvaryingly depressing.

+ UK Covid-19 positive tests surged 56% in a week.

+ At the same time, contact-tracing descended to a new low– 5,722 fewer people were tested. Only two-thirds of those who tested positive had their details entered into the tracing system, and a mere 68.6% of the immediate contacts of positive cases were reached. In addition, waiting times have risen again for those awaiting test results.

Continue reading “Britain Takes a Beating…From Itself: Brexit, Covid, Tories, and Horrible Weather”