Please tell your friends about federated social media site that speaks several fediverse protocols thus serving as a hub uniting them, hubzilla.eskimo.com, also check out friendica.eskimo.com, federated
macroblogging social media site, mastodon.eskimo.com a federated microblogging site, and yacy.eskimo.com an uncensored federated search engine. All Free!
Empire is losing the narrative and its grip on the masses.
Empire always pairs physical war with media propaganda campaigns.
And right now, the propaganda is propaganda-ing.
The toxic and manipulative abuser (i.e. United States Empire) will go to any lengths to try to maintain control and possession. Fortunately, more people in the imperial core are recognizing this.
Some of our most powerful resistance right now is to not believe Empire or its propaganda arms. Instead, get to the truth. Discernment. Truly, that is resistance work right now.
Donald Trump has dragged the United States into another unnecessary war because his “America First” agenda is failing at home. He is using big bombs like a little man.
This weekend we celebrated the Summer Solstice. Starting last Fall, we got a set of wool felt ball garlands to hang in our living room, each one in a colorway we felt aligned nicely with Fall, Wint…
TONIGHT ON RESPECT, FAKE NEWS!FAKE NEWS!, and we’re not just talking FAKENEWS7NY!This week I have the honor and pleasure of sitting down and talking FAKE NEWS, with the one and only DEREK JOHNSON!Join
O mundo explodindo e eu triste porque a roupa de cama nova com lençol de elástico depois de ser lavada e colocada em uso nunca mais será dobrada tão corretamente quanto chegou.
TEHRAN, Jun. 22 (MNA) – The Iranian Health Ministry gave an assurance that no radiation leaks threaten the health of people following the military attacks by the US and Israel on the country’s nuclear facilities.
A major problem with letting billionaires decide how your country is run is that they will back whichever psycho promises the lowest taxes and least regulation, no matter how completely batshit and unfit that person is:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Read the original post in English here. In de bus naar Gameship in Leeuwarden haalde Pac-Man bedenker Toru Iwatani (in Nederland als spreker op het Festival of Games) even een mapje tevoorschijn... ...
#15yrsago Gate guarded McMansion suburb in Walt Disney Worldhttps://insidethemagic.net/2010/06/disney-unveils-golden-oak-luxury-homes-offering-a-chance-to-live-in-the-walt-disney-world-resort/
GCHQ needed to reverse engineer software to hack into computer networks — so it decided to secretly reinterpret British law. Then it abused its newfound powers, ignoring internal guidelines.
My last nationally bestselling novel was "The Bezzle," an ice-cold revenge story of high-tech finance crime starring the forensic accountant Martin Hench.
A USA TODAY BESTSELLERWinner of the 2024 Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity"An essential read for anyone that wants to understand how we lost control of our digital spaces and infrastructure to Silicon Valley’s …
My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."
The Booksmith is so excited to be welcoming Cory Doctorow back to San Francisco for the release of Enshittification at Public Works. More to come, but grab a ticket and join us!About the bookEnshittification: its not just youthe internet sucks now.
Novelist, activist, and journalist Cory Doctorow joins Rachel and David in the cafe to talk about the enshittification of the internet and how we ended up in our current enshittogenic environment.
If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is ad-/tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "💳". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!
--
You can also get a fulltext RSS feed, licensed CC BY 4.0:
"One frequent objection to high taxes is that it encourages capital flight"
No. When I was young, there were all kinds of laws against capital flight. You could only take a small amount of money on a holiday abroad, for example.
These laws were abandoned by the same parties that now use capital flight as an excuse. But that is a lie: if you want to stop capital flight, just reinstate the old laws.
I always thought that a wealth tax made more sense than income tax. Some people will be needing all their income just to live. Others may be doing really great things with their extra income. Excess wealth just sits there.
But I am wondering, what thresholds and what rates might be appropriate? Are we talking billionaires or mere millionaires. Bearing in mind that the average house is now over 1 million in many places.
Im thinking a total combined net worth of say 10 million?? Make it progressive so that it taxes billionaires more than the Tenmillionaires.
@citizenAlex @Phosphenes @molenaar I saw a post the other day that billionnaires push frantically the button « get 1 million but someone you don’t know dies ».
why does anyone ever take that British idiot seriously? I wrote him off when he came to the US (fleeing prosecution in Britain, I think) and tried to lecture us all on how guns are evil.
Special stream about Donald Trump ordering a strike on Iran's Nuclear Facilities and the potential for the conflict to escalate.Buy courses here: https://www...
Reform UK believes the plans for a Britannia card will make the UK ‘incredibly attractive’ to the wealthy, but tax expert Dan Neidle has warned it will leave a massive black hole
One thing entertaining about MAGA is watching them reverse directions every time Trump changes his mind. You can practically hear them stripping their gears:
Honestly, I don't see the purpose of even getting into public office if yours is not the voice you use, their ideas are the ones you put forward, and their projects are the ones you vote on.
Nothing you would is your own. Why even bother then?
The British government has carefully refused to publicly reveal whether it supported the US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday, and even whether it deems the attack to be lawful.
Israelis, rallying around an otherwise very unpopular government in the face of an external threat: "I don't understand these Iranians, why are they rallying around their very unpopular government just because of an external threat?!"
Recently Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta was building an AI data center so large its size would be equivalent to a significant part of Manhattan. What Zuckerberg did not mention was the constructions of 3 new Meta-subsidized, gas power plants 404media.co/a-black-hole-of-en…
Journalist puts German foreign ministry official on the spot and UK PM parrots Israeli talking points A German foreign ministry official has said that international law banning attacks on nuclear f…
This decision is part of a campaign by the British state to quell direct action movements ~ James Horton ~ Palestine Action, it was announced on Friday, is set to become a proscribed group.
A major problem with letting billionaires decide how your country is run is that they will back whichever psycho promises the lowest taxes and least regulation, no matter how completely batshit and unfit that person is:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Billionaires have farcical, almost unimaginable resources. These let them take over whole political parties, even "left" parties, with the result that all real electoral options disappear. Voting for the other party gets you a different set of aesthetics, but the same existential threats to the human race and the planet:
After generations of increasingly oligarch-friendly policies and billionaire entryism into the Democratic Party, America may well be cooked, a total write-off for generations to come. The path to saving the world and our species arguably lies through strengthening other countries to resist American psychos and protect the planet from the consequences of their brainwormed leadership.
Writing for *Jacobin*, Alex Hemingway sets out a plan for imposing a wealth-tax on Canada's oligarchs, one that incorporates lessons from previous attempts at such a tax:
Even on the left, the idea of a wealth-tax is controversial - not because leftists are sympathetic to billionaires, but because they are skeptical that a wealth tax can be carried out. It's a practical, not an ideological objection:
A proposed wealth tax on Canada’s richest 0.6% could raise hundreds of billions of dollars — enough to tackle housing, transit, and care. The sheer scale of what a tiny slice of billionaire wealth could fund is staggering.
After all, under capitalism, wealth always grows faster than the economy at large, meaning that over time, the rich will get steadily richer, and inequality will widen and widen:
Ideally, we would counter the trend of wealth piling up into dynastic fortunes with continuous redistribution and predistribution: taxing capital gains at the same rate (or a higher rate) than income, so that income from labor isn't treated worse than income from ownership; steeply graded progressive taxes, with top rates in of 70-99%, high inheritance taxes, and so on.
We had a system like that, from the end of WWII (when the rich were poorer than they'd been in centuries, with their influence in tatters) until the Reagan era (when the rich had rebuilt their fortunes and were able to seize the reins of power). In the 45 years since the rise of the new oligarchy, we've lived through accelerating wealth accumulation, and as the rich got richer, they used their wealth to dismantle any barrier to creating new aristocratic dynasties. 7/
So here we are, trapped in the new oligarchy. It's too late to rely on income taxes, not if we're going to euthanize enough rentiers to free out politics from their toxic influence and save the human race any of several foreseeable mass-extinction events. Making the ultra-rich poor again is going to require new tactics.
In Canada, the 1% owns 29% of the country's wealth. The 87 richest families in Canada control as much wealth as the bottom 12 million Canadians combined. This is better than the US (where the 1% own 35% of the country), but not by much:
Can we make a wealth tax work? Here's Hemingway's program for making it work in Canada:
* Make it apply to all wealth equally. No carve-outs for real-estate, which makes it very easy to shift wealth among asset-classes to duck the tax;
* Aim it at the super-rich alone. Avoid even the upper middle-class, who lack the liquid assets to pay the tax and could get wrecked if they have to liquidate their holdings at the same time as everyone else, which will depress asset prices;
* Use third-party assessments of asset values. Don't take billionaires' word for how much their assets are worth! Canada's got an advantage here, thanks to the Canada Revenue Agency's requirement for financial institutions to report their account holders' income, including capital gains. Canada's also recently created "beneficial owner" registries that record the true owners of assets;
* Use lifestyle audits: anyone caught engaging in tax-evasion will face severe penalties, as will the enablers at financial services firms that help them
One frequent objection to high taxes is that it encourages capital flight - rich people hopping to another territory to avoid taxation. That's a reasonable fear, given how pants-wettingly terrified the rich are of paying tax.
Hemingway points out that a wealth tax is different from an income tax - income taxes are levied on the outcome of productive activities, while wealth taxes target accumulated wealth. High income taxes can starve a country of the capital it needs for a productive economy, but that's not the case with wealth taxes.
Hemingway points to the OECD's Common Reporting Standard, through which more than 100 countries have agreed to share financial information, which will help Canada catch billionaires as they funnel their wealth offshore. Meanwhile, if the rich try to move *with* their money, we can hit them with an exit tax, like the 40% that Elizabeth Warren has proposed.
It's an article of faith that the rich will move offshore at the first hint of a wealth tax, but the research shows that rich people often have reasons to stay that trump their taxophobia. The economic effect of rich people Going Galt is pretty darned small:
The modern prophet of oligarchy and its origins is the French economist Thomas Piketty. In a recent *Le Monde* column, Piketty examines the failure of a French wealth tax proposal that would have shaved a modest 2% off the fortunes of the 1,800 French people with more than €100 million:
By opposing the 2% minimum wealth tax on the 1,800 French people whose net worth exceeds €100 million, after the measure was adopted by France's Assemblée nationale (lower house of Parliament), the upper house, the Sénat, has shown just how disconnec…
The proposal passed the National Assembly, only to die in the Senate, an institution with a long history of pro-oligarchic activism (the Senate killed *every* French income tax passed by the Assembly from 1896-1914). The Assembly's wealth tax addressed the problem of tax exiles, levying the wealth tax for 5 years after an oligarch relocated.
For Piketty, this didn't go far enough: he wants a pro-rated tax based on the years an oligarch spent in France in their lifetime: if you were educated and cared for at French expense from birth and went on to become a billionaire, then a modest share of your wealth would forever be owed to the country that made it possible. Piketty says that a wealth tax could be paid in shares instead of cash, with the stock going into a trust for workers, who would get board seats as well.
He points out that decarbonization is going to require large sacrifices from all of us, but that these will be impossible to demand with a straight face so long as the super-rich are paying taxes that are trivial relative to their assets and income.
I bet something as small as tying health care benefits to taxation (you don't file taxes? You don't get free health care) would keep the wealthy Canadians at home.
Instead of trying to funnel air escaping from a tire back into the tire, maybe we should just plug the hole. If for-profit corporations were converted into worker/consumer cooperatives, the money (and power) would go back into the communities from whence it came, instead of to rent-seeking third-party shareholders. Capitalism is a layer on top of the free market economy designed to enable the aristocracy to transform itself and live on as the oligarchy. Everything a capitalist economy can do, a cooperative-based economy can do, only without the posh folks vampirically feeding off the commerce of everyday people.
A cooperative, with a single share per shareholder, is democratic by nature and actively works against wealth and income inequality -- the exact opposite of a for-profit corporation.
Cooperatives naturally align incentives, instead of pitting workers versus consumers as each gets screwed over by the tax levied on every transaction by shareholders.
Cooperatives even work to prevent externalization of costs into the environment. What community would intentionally damage the environment they live within in order to gain a larger share, when it's money that already belongs to them? That's something that third-party shareholders *outside* the community do to that community while harvesting them for profits, because they are removed from the situation.
@hosford42 Sure. I like co-ops. I've been serving on co-op boards since I was 17, and I'm keynoting the UK co-op conference in Manchester in July (I also keynoted the international year of the co-op UN launch in Delhi last year).
But also: capitalism exists. Doing nothing about improving the conduct of firms until they go co-op requires that we accept untold - perhaps existential - harms to billions and possible the end of humanity.
I'd like to see laws change to incentivize the birth of co-ops over for-profit corporations, or for "exit to community" to become the preferred option. I think that's a real change we can make to move the needle.
"Some of y'all forget the reason we have food safety regulations is because companies used to do things like adding chalk to spoiled milk so it looked normal. Regulations don't exist because governments enjoy them. They exist because pure unadulterated capitalism would kill us."
cr: @EpiEllie
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.
@amiserabilist Here's a short story by Lord Dunsany, written in 1915, about the food of the day. It's pertinent.
THE FOOD OF DEATH
Death was sick. But they brought him bread that the modern bakers make, whitened with alum, and the tinned meats of Chicago, with a pinch of our modern substitute for salt. They carried him into the dining-room of a great hotel (in that close atmosphere Death breathed more freely), and there they gave him their cheap Indian tea. They brought him a bottle of wine that they called champagne. Death drank it up. They brought a newspaper and looked up the patent medicines; they gave him the foods that it recommended for invalids, and a little medicine as prescribed in the paper. They gave him some milk and borax, such as children drink in England.
Death arose ravening, strong, and strode again through the cities.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell I have been waiting for a Trump era espionage novel. Just read A Spy Alone by former MI6, Charles Beaumont. Nice ripping yarn but also the best yet analysis of the current coup of globalized oligarchs and propagandists against "the masses" and citizens of every nation. It ain't east vs west; it's 1% against 99%.
But decision to attack Iran was only Trump’s to make – arrogance of ‘poodle’ UK government ought to be shocking UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said he told his Iranian…
Through the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, NASA nurtures visionary yet credible concepts that could one day “change the possible” in aerospace, while engaging America’s innovators and entrepreneurs as partners in the journey. These concepts span various disciplines and aim to advance capabilities such as finding resources on distant planets, making space travel safer […]
Chinese President Xi Jinping held a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss the crisis engendered by the Israeli aggression against Iran on the afternoon of June 19,2025.
Israeli bombing of the #Evin #prison in #Tehran was much heavier than the media reported earlier.
The #hospital and the administrative office of the prison were also bombed
#IDF says they dropped over 100 bombs on Tehran this morning.
In einem Handbuch geben Wissenschaftler*innen aus den USA und Europa Ratschläge, wie sich Menschen im akademischen Betrieb gegen aufkeimenden Autoritarismus stemmen können – abgestuft nach Risiko-Level. Das ist nicht nur für Forschende lesenswert. Anti-Autokratie-Handbuch: 26 Werkzeuge zur Verteidigung der Demokratie
In the midst of destruction, we must bring forth creation in whatever form we are able: paint, dance, sing, write, take photographs, cultivate a garden, bake, connect with someone, be fully present to beauty & offer it back to a world that desperately needs it to survive.
"Hirohito @-RealHirohito We have completed our very successful attack on Hawaii. All planes are now outside of America air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Pearl Harbor. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great Japanese Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter
12:00 Ρ. Μ. 07 Dec 41 Twitter for Android 1M Retweets 2M Likes #Iran
@MountainJay 🤣 911 v1. Like Naval intel didn't see 1/3 of the japanese fleet coming at them 🤣 We'd been sinking their merchant ships and oil tankers in the S Pacific trying to cripple their industrial growth you know? That was the sole reason "PT Boats", like the one jfk skippered, existed.
@Jagahati Yes - at this point I no longer feel the need to do "damage control" - I just keep my head down and cover my six with paper trails all over the place (and make connections with other folks churning in the lower ranks with me so we can cover each other's backs).
I can't stop the stupid. This tidal wave is too big to push back.
On June 8-13 a Chinese delegation headed by member of the Politburo of the CCP and Vice Premier He Lifeng visited the United Kingdom. The unprecedented
The set is now complete. Order your copies today! https://dutchsheets.mybigcommerce.com/Learn more about Give Him Fifteen here:Website: https://www.givehim15...
Proposed gas plants in Wisconsin pose health risks, report finds
Pollution from the plants could contribute to heart attacks, ER visits, and long-term health harms over decades
https://yaleclimateconnections.
The internet blackout in #Iran is ongoing and I am trying to find information about how its actually enacted. Hearing that local services are working. Would like to understand how exactly the blackout is enacted. Are they filtering IP blocks? Are all .ir domains still accessible? The media keeps talking about it like it's a big on off switch but that's obviously not the case en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_I…
TIL: Axel Health (axelhealth.com/) is still using Debian 8 - From 2015 💀
I don't know if they are actually using it only for the displays (that show patient numbers etc) or for the central configuration server, but in either case that's diabolical.
Axel Healthin ratkaisut helpottavat potilaiden asiointia, tukevat ammattilaisten päivittäistä työtä sekä auttavat organisaatioita tehostamaan toimintaansa.
I actively refuse to look at the security of the healthcare systems which keep me alive because literally EVERY time I have checked it scares me deeply
once saw a dentist chair running outdated windows 7 (yes, after EOL) with an anti-virus security alert popup which was ignored, and a horribly outdated Java version installed that was begging for updates
this person was doing minor surgery with that machine daily, I had no choice but to let them use a probably malware'd device on my face, or leave and pray the next guy isn't as stupid
@froge you have tons of unmaintainable stuff that's still in service because it's all $250,000+ machines that the manufacturer turned around and washed their hands of two days before it shipped from the warehouse and the budget or other resources to manufacture and obtain a replacement somehow don't exist
@froge on one side of this, the good news is that a lot of the devices have no reason to be online for normal functionality and can be air gapped to hell
on the other side though, even if a network is air gapped, lateral movement of scum like ransomware can still disable the devices and if nobody took a disk image of it while it was still working, it's toast
I don't really consider hospitals to ever be correctly air-gapped because in reality there are like 6,000 endpoints literally a single hop away from the "air gapped" devices with full internet access, and hacking the firmware of something like an insulin or drug pump is laughably easy because they simply ignored computer security for 30 years, you can still buffer overflow to RCE on those things without any issues
Palestinian Telecommunications Company announced on Saturday a new outage of fixed internet and landline services in the Gaza Strip and northern Gaza Strip governorates.The company explained in a statement that the outage was the result of targeting
Netflix, Uber, Facebook, Amazon : les plateformes ont envahi notre quotidien et révolutionné nos modes de consommation. Cet eldorado nous vend l’opulence pour les consommateurs et liberté pour les travailleurs. Ces promesses cachent-elles une plus terrible réalité ? Celle d’un monde entièrement ubérisé. Voir pire : en voie de “merdification” ? C'est ce que Le fils de Pub et Bolchegeek, nous expliquent dans ce nouvel épisode de Coporate !
Remerciements à Gérard Hernandez, pour le re doublage de la pub Chocapic.
Auteurs et réalisateurs : Benjamin Patinaud et le Fils de Pub Illustrations : Tienstiens Chargée de production et cadre : Kathleen Brun Montage : Le Coin du Bis Fond 3D : Charly Hopp Son : Baptiste Veilhan Graphisme : Morgane Sabouret, Margaux Simon Production : Hicham Tragha Directeur du développement des collaborations extérieures : Mathias Enthoven Co-directrice de la rédaction : Soumaya Benaïssa Directeur de la publication : Denis Robert
3.43K Posts, 25 Following, 37.2K Followers · Blast, nouvelle Web TV indépendante, nouveau site d’infos. Éditos, enquêtes, culture, tribunes et reportages. Lancé par Denis Robert.
https://www.blast-info.fr
Rejoignez-nous, devenez sociétaire : blast-info.fr/devenir-societai… Netflix, Uber, Facebook, Amazon : les plateformes ont envahi notre quotidien et révolutionné nos modes de consommat...
DARK JOURNALIST DANIEL LISZT SPECIAL X REPORT:EDGAR CAYCE NOSTRADAMUS RUDOLF STEINER WORLD AFFAIRS MYSTERY SCHOOL PROPHECY REVEALED!**SPECIAL LIVESTREAM FRID...
GLADIO SHIRTS HERE---> https://thecolonelscornershop.myshopify.com/products/pre-order Welcome to Final Front in the Battle for Truth! Learn how to protect your life savings from inflation and an irres
The fun thing about electric heat pumps is you get to freak out over them in summer heat waves the same way you get to freak out over them in the winter blizzards.
@IceCubeSoup @Haleakalacrater @RandomDeamon It's no more or less efficient than any other central a/c. My second floor unit is severely under powered and gets overwhelmed this time of year. I curse the people that built my house.
@IceCubeSoup @RandomDeamon put a garden hose on mist and spray your condenser outside coils, the evaporative effect will increase efficiency during a heat wave. Works better in less humid environments.
@PalePimp @jay Any hint about B though? I mean we just have to look around at "professional" projects like COSMIC from System76 whose first release was barely functional, wayland that's been breaking every typical Xorg workflows for years... what are the good examples out there right now? Even the Linux kernel has CVEs and Linus needs to bitch on a regular basis so that poor quality code does not make it into the kernel.
'The #EU has corroborated UN allegations that #Israel was guilty of "indiscriminate attacks ... starvation ... torture ... [and] #apartheid" against #Palestinians in a leaked "review".'
Full text: The EU has corroborated UN allegations that Israel was guilty of "indiscriminate attacks ... starvation ... torture ... [and] apartheid" against Palestinians in a leaked "review".
so i went on kiwifarms because i heard there was drama about ethan klien and reading that thread i can see react content is going to take a hit in a bad way because a jew is weaponizing the legal system (to no one's surprise)
By now there probably enough precedent that the way H3H3 are going to sue won't effect the legitimate reaction videos that don't just play the whole thing without any real reactions. There's the whole Sargon vs that fat niggress and H3H3's older lawsuits where they were the defendants.
La nostra protesta a Venezia contro Jeff Bezos. Un gigantesco striscione è apparso in Piazza San Marco per contestare il business inquinante del CEO di Amazon.
TL;DR: Venice exists in its current form (canal city on an ever sinking atoll) not because of climate change, and not because of some fishing village put their backs into it for hundreds of years, but because of money. LOTS, and lots of money from a shipping/trade boom a very long time ago.
The fact that Bezos built his obscene wealth on shipping and international commerce, just makes this even more appropriate in a gross kind of way. Like he's deliberately connecting himself to Venice's history, and everything that implies.
Talk about a gross oversimplification. Venice grew out of mosquito infested lagoon due to necessity. The Venetian people were driven into the lagoon multiple times over centuries as a means of protection from Germanic invasions in the 7th century. They capitalized on shipping and trade just like any other population would do and used those riches to make their citizens lives better. What would you have expected them to do? Turn away from the money spice trading and Mediterranean shipping traffic brought them because it would make them too rich? Because again, they were a people used to fleeing into a mosquito infested lagoon when their farming population was invaded by multiple armies.
For that reason, comparing an entire cultural population like Venice to a singular person is a false equivalency. Bezos hasn't used his shipping fortune to enrich anyone but himself, but at least Venetian royalty built buildings and public spaces for their population.
The trick of declaring war against the armed resistance and then attacking the resisters’ unarmed kin as well as the surrounding population with the most gruesome products of Death-Science — this trick is not new. American Pioneers were pioneers in this too; they made it standard practice to declare war on indigenous warriors and then to murder and burn villages with only women and children in them. This is already modern war, what we know as war against civilian populations; it has also been called, more candidly, mass murder or genocide.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that the perpetrators of a Pogrom portray themselves as the victims, in the present case as victims of the Holocaust.
...If I went on I would probably come to results already found by W. Reich in his study of the mass psychology of Fascism. It galls me that a new Fascism should choose to use the experience of the victims of the earlier Fascism among its justifications.
"The trick of declaring war against the armed resistance and then attacking the resisters’ unarmed kin as well as the surrounding population..."
...is called COIN strategy. US Police developed it and the pentagon militarized it, then it came back to the street, militarized auntieimperial.tumblr.com/post…
Interface: a journal for and about social movements
Volume 3 (1): 81 - 117 (May 2011)
The Other Side Of The Coin:
Counterinsurgency And Community Policing
Kristian Williams
(This paper grew out...
Tehran’s Next Move after the US Strike: Calculated Deterrence or Escalation?
The US strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan—announced with characteristic bravado by President Donald Trump—was framed as a “highly successful” operation. But beneath the surface of military theater, the strike carries deeper messages and calculated signals. Timing, tone, and restraint reveal more than the explosions themselves.
Trump, ever the showman, punctuated the announcement with an odd yet telling declaration: “Now is the time for peace.” That statement wasn’t just rhetorical flourish—it was strategic punctuation. It framed the strike not as a prelude to war, but as its endpoint. In other words: message sent, escalation contained—for now.
But the aftermath is anything but resolved.
A Message in the Timing
Sunday was no coincidence. With US markets closed, the strike landed softly on the domestic front—shielding Wall Street from immediate tremors. It was a game of optics and damage control: shake the chessboard abroad, but keep the boardroom calm at home.
This is classic Trump-era strategic theater: assert dominance, project unpredictability, then leave the world guessing. But even behind the curtain of calculation, this act carries very real implications for the region—and for Iran in particular.
Iran Holds the Next Move
The strike forces Tehran into a tense, high-stakes decision. Does it absorb the blow, treat it as a closing note in a failed negotiation symphony, and preserve its nuclear advances? Or does it strike back—risking a spiral that could pull the United States further into a conflict it likely cannot sustain?
Iranian strategy has never been rooted in impulsive retaliation. Its playbook is built on ambiguity, asymmetry, and patience. A direct attack on a US base might rally domestic pride, but it also opens the gates to broader confrontation. Conversely, a calculated strike against Zionist assets could signal strength without triggering American wrath—a balancing act Iran has perfected over decades.
Then there’s the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has long kept this vital oil artery in its back pocket as a pressure valve. Total closure would invite international retaliation, but a slow-burn campaign of maritime harassment and ambiguity? That’s well within Tehran’s wheelhouse. Expect maneuvers, signals, and shadow games before any talk of outright closure, or else if it’s national security was at stake expect the unexpected.
Following the United States’ airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, senior Iranian lawmakers have raised the possibility of withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz in retaliation.
Esmail Kowsari, a prominent member of Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in Parliament, affirmed that the country had already implemented protective measures to safeguard its nuclear infrastructure. He dismissed allegations of severe damage to Iran’s nuclear program, calling them “baseless claims,” and insisted that “Tehran has accurate intelligence disproving such assertions.”
Kowsari revealed that authorities are actively weighing a possible exit from the NPT. “We are reviewing the option of withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” he said, noting that the parliamentary committee would soon hold an emergency session to assess the American attack and formulate Iran’s official response.
Reiterating Iran’s commitment to Resistance, Kowsari warned that “our armed forces will certainly continue striking the Zionist entity,” adding, “US military bases across the region will not remain secure. Hitting them will be far easier than targeting the Israeli regime.”
He further cautioned that Iran is prepared to escalate militarily if necessary, stating, “The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is on the table. We will definitely implement it if the situation requires.”
The Familiar Script of US–Zionist Policy
For Washington and Tel Aviv, this isn’t new terrain. The strategy toward Iran has always been one of coercion without commitment—crippling sanctions, covert operations, cyber sabotage, and the occasional kinetic jab. The idea isn’t to win a war, but to prevent Iran from ever dictating peace on its own terms.
The Zionist regime plays provocateur. The United States plays referee. The rhythm is familiar.
What’s changed is Iran’s ability to rewrite the tempo.
Just days before the strike, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh suggested a limited US operation was imminent—a “strike without engagement,” designed to recalibrate deterrence without crossing into quagmire territory. He was right. The move was surgical, symbolic, and strategically ambiguous.
And yet, Iran was ready. A senior official confirmed that much of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow had already been moved before the strike. The lesson: Tehran was anticipating.
The Netanyahu Mirror
One can’t help but recall the conundrum Benjamin Netanyahu faced in Gaza: repeated escalations with no strategic exit, a cycle of provocation and retaliation that left little but rubble and rhetoric. Has Trump now walked into the same strategic cul-de-sac?
Without a credible exit strategy or diplomatic off-ramp, Washington risks setting itself up for a familiar frustration: applying overwhelming pressure without achieving decisive outcomes.
Iran Bombards the Occupation Continously
A new wave of Iranian ballistic missile strikes targeted central and northern parts of occupied Palestine on Sunday, marking the first such attack since US airstrikes hit Iran’s nuclear facilities on Sunday at dawn. Sirens were activated across multiple areas, with Zionist authorities urging settlers to remain in shelters.
According to the occupation’s military, around 30 missiles were launched from Iran in two salvos toward Gush Dan and the north. On its part, Iranian state television reported strikes on at least 10 separate sites. Sirens were reportedly not activated in several areas, mainly Haifa, prior to impact, raising concerns over the entity’s early warning system.
Confirmed missile impacts were recorded in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Ness Ziona, Beer Yaakov, Ramla, and the settlement of Bat Yam, where a fire broke out in a residential building. In Haifa, one missile struck without any prior alert, prompting internal outrage over the failure of the alarm system.
Meanwhile, Iranian media reported that over 20 missiles landed in various locations across the occupied territories.
86 Settlers Injured
Zionist media reported that medical teams are assessing the affected areas for damage and casualties. In a related development, Israeli media reported, citing Magen David Adom (MDA), that emergency responders are attending to at least 86 settlers injured in the Iranian ballistic missile strikes on central and northern occupied Palestine, including some in critical condition. 30 injuries were reported in Tel Aviv alone.
MDA added that its teams are continuing to survey the reported impact sites, Zionist media reported.
Zionist authorities instructed settlers in impacted areas to remain in shelters until further notice, particularly in Haifa and al-Jalil, where sirens were also triggered.
This missile campaign marks Iran’s first attack since the United States, in coordination with the occupation, launched airstrikes on the Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites, an action Tehran has condemned as illegal and escalatory.
In the aftermath of the attack, the Zionist military’s spokesperson called on the public and media to refrain from sharing footage or images of the impact zones. Despite this, footage continued to come in from the impacted areas, showcasing the massive destruction. Emergency teams and military units remain on high alert as the situation continues to unfold, as per Zionist media.
Trump privately approved plans for an assault on Iran US President Donald Trump informed senior officials late on Tuesday that he had approved plans for an attack on Iran
— and when looking for the war machine art, I found these ones I also made in Jan 2020, which now have me wondering what other ops might be in store for 2025… 🤔
![Spam message that says "I stumbled upon your profile, and your positivity is infectious! Would love to connect. Your passion for [topic] is inspiring. Would you be open to discussing more about it?" And then a phone number.](https://friendica.eskimo.com/photo/preview/640/7660070 "Spam message that says \"I stumbled upon your profile, and your positivity is infectious! Would love to connect. Your passion for [topic] is inspiring. Would you be open to discussing more about it?\" And then a phone number.")
YK Hong
in reply to YK Hong • • •