Imagine how we could rebuild our nation if we brought even half that amount home. Let‘s take care of those left behind. Let‘s fix our infrastructure. Let‘s clean up our environment. Let‘s make our nation strong and prosperous again! #Kennedy24
Daily Archives: 1. Mai 2023
Democrat RFK Jr. details how he differs ‚profoundly‘ with Biden ahead of 2024 election
Kennedy is challenging Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary. While he has known Biden for many years, the challenger said they have differing stances on issues like corporate influence in government, censorship, civil liberties, poverty, corruption and war policy.
„I look forward to engaging him in debates and town hall meetings, in a primary election that is honest, civil, and transparent,“ Kennedy said in a statement. „I invite him into a new era of respectful dialog in these times of division.“
Bob Dylan – Masters of War (Audio)
Come you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin‘
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it‘s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you sit back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
While the young people‘s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
You‘ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain‘t worth the blood
That runs in your veins
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I‘m young
You might say I‘m unlearned
But there‘s one thing I know
Though I‘m younger than you
That even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
I‘ll follow your casket
By the pale afternoon
And I‘ll watch while you‘re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I‘ll stand over your grave
‚Til I‘m sure that you‘re dead
Oil, Guns and Gold: The Violent Politics of Sudan’s Resource Booms
Sudan lost three-quarters of its oil resources after South Sudan’s separation in 2011. This paper explores the consequences of Sudan’s experience with traumatic decarbonization and how this informs thinking on the durability of systems of monetized political governance: political marketplaces. First, the lasting power of Sudan’s leftover oil shows that even in exceptional cases, where the loss of oil is so abrupt and deep, ruling regimes can cling onto power and maintain their position in the political marketplace. By exploiting the remaining oil resources and tapping into alternative resources, regimes can – at least temporarily – plug gaps in political budgets to maintain the patronage networks that ensure their political survival. Second, new resources, gold in Sudan’s case, do not necessarily change existing <strong>political marketplaces. Sudan demonstrates that even with new political figures at the top, political marketplaces often hold the same attributes as former ones. What new resources do influence, however, is who rises and who falls within a political marketplace. Finally, the paper shows how the fluidity and diversity of regional and international relations and commerce also allow domestic actors to maintain political marketplaces.
UN renews Sudan arms embargo as Russia and China abstain
(March 9, 2023)
The U.N. Security Council approved a resolution Wednesday renewing an arms embargo and other sanctions imposed over violence in Sudan’s western Darfur region that began in 2004.
Thirteen of the 15 council members voted for the resolution. Russia and China abstained, arguing that the Darfur conflict is largely over.
The resolution also extends the mandate of the U.N. panel of experts monitoring the arms embargo and travel ban and asset freeze on certain individuals. It now runs until March 12, 2024.
UN says Sudan collapsing as fighting enters third week
„There is no right to go on fighting for power when the country is falling apart,“ UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television.
The latest three-day ceasefire — due to expire at midnight (2200 GMT) Sunday — was agreed Thursday after mediation led by the United States, Saudi Arabia, the African Union and the United Nations.
„We woke up once again to the sound of fighter jets and anti-aircraft weapons blasting all over our neighbourhood,“ a witness in southern Khartoum told AFP.
The Lords of Chaos
(Mar 19, 2023)
A national reckoning with the military fiascos in the Middle East would expose the self-delusion of the ruling class. But this reckoning is not taking place. We are trying to wish the nightmares we perpetuated in the Middle East away, burying them in a collective amnesia. “World War III Begins With Forgetting,” warns Stephen Wertheim.
The celebration of our national “virtue” by pumping weapons into Ukraine, by sustaining at least 750 military bases in more than 70 countries and by expanding our naval presence in the South China Sea, is meant to fuel this dream of global dominance.
Der kommende Ostafrika-Krieg
(12. Januar 2007)
Sudan, Somalia, Somalialand, Äthiopien, Djibouti, Uganda, Tschad, Kenia sind der Schauplatz eines sich entwickelnden Krieges um Rohstoffe und Territorialmacht zwischen dem angreifenden Westblock und ihren örtlichen Verbündeten einerseits und China andererseits.
Offener Krieg, psychologische Kriegsführung, die Zerschlagung von Staaten, die Einsetzung von Schattenregierungen, die Finanzierung von Terrorgruppen, das Schaffen von Guerilla-Phantomen und die fortwährende Berieselung der erblindeten, systematisch verdummten und hypnotisierten Bevölkerung des Westens mit nichtssagender Vernebelung sind Mittel eines seit dem 11.September geführten Weltkrieges, dessen neuer Schauplatz das Schlachtfeld Afrika, und dessen Triebkraft die alles korrumpierende Wirtschaftsordnung Kapitalismus ist.
Das Fachwort für diesen Zustand: Imperialismus.
A war for our age: how the battle for Sudan is being fuelled by forces far beyond its borders
In this conflict frontiers have no significance, control of resources is the primary prize, with forces arising in borderlands seeking their revenge on once contemptuous metropolitan elites. Trafficking networks across swathes of desert are extensions of the “battlespace”, and almost innumerable actors with an axe to grind or an agenda to pursue vastly outnumber those who seek to stop the fighting.
All of this happens in a shadowy penumbra defined by backroom deals, obscure alignments of interests, brutal realpolitik and disinformation. The poor and the weak and the unarmed suffer most, as ever.