U.S. Strategy in Iran
U.S. messaging to Iran, courtesy of President Trump, is quite simple: We slugged you (with our bombing attacks on three nuclear sites in your country), and if you don’t like it, we’ll slug you again, even harder, much, much harder.
Iran’s only real choice: “unconditional surrender,” according to the president.
Well, it’s a strategy, I suppose, the one of the abuser, the bully. Do what I want, else you’ll get slugged. Try to fight back, I’ll slug you much much harder. Oh, by the way, I believe in peace. And you can have peace by totally capitulating to me.
Another way of looking at or labeling this stategy: Bombing for Bibi. Yes, I know it’s not just Bibi Netanyahu behind it all. But he’s the chief flatterer, the skilled string-puller, the master manipulator of Trump. Not that it’s entirely hard to manipulate a narcissist who’s driven by money and consumed by his own ego.
So, we have to look to Iran to show a measure of restraint, since the U.S. and Israel won’t. If Iran chooses to fight, especially to hit back at U.S. targets in the region, all bets are off as our country stumbles into what could become World War III.
As Jimmy Dore put it today, No matter who you vote for, you get John McCain. A warmonger. Someone proud to joke about bombing Iran—and crazy enough to do it. Does it really matter if the warmonger is named Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden—or Donald Trump?
Congress, no surprise, is almost entirely behind Trump’s attack, despite some griping and sniping from the sidelines. Congress may complain, but it’s just posturing. That’s how you get reckless wars of choice that are unsupported by the American people.
Oh well. “We love you, God,” as Trump said last night as he announced the bombings. I never learned in CCD that God loves bombs and bombing; I must have been sleeping or absent for that one. Thou shalt kill, right?
Bracing Views 
“Thou shalt kill, right?”
Latest revised lyrics:
Onward, Christian Nationalist soldiers,Marching as to war,With the cross of JesusGoing on before!Trump and Bibi, the royal Masters,Lead against the foe;Forward into battle,See Their banner go!
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Gonna try that again, as WordPress has some pretty lousy text formatting/editing.
“Thou shalt kill, right?”
Latest revised lyrics:
Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before!
Christ, the royal Master,
Leads against the foe;
Forward into battle,
See His banner go!
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Maybe the third time is the charm…
“Thou shalt kill, right?”
Latest revised lyrics:
Onward, Christian Nationalist soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before!
Trump and Bibi, the royal Masters,
Lead against the foe;
Forward into battle,
See Their banner go!
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You might see their banner at the front, but you certainly won’t see them. Always posing tough far behind the battle lines.
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It’s axiomatic, don’t know how I missed it.
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Jesus Christ was about compassion, charity and non-wealth. His teachings and practices epitomize so much of the primary component of socialism — do not hoard gratuitous resources, especially in the midst of great poverty. Yet, this is not practiced by a significant number of ‘Christians’, likely including many who idolize callous politicians standing for very little or nothing Jesus taught and represents.
Prominent actually-Christlike Christian leaders/voices should often strongly-emphasize what Jesus fundamentally taught and demonstrated to his followers. However strange that sounds, institutional Christianity seems to need continuous reminding. They all should consider that the Biblical Jesus would not have rolled his eyes and sighed: ‘Oh, well. I’m against what the politician stands for, but what can you do when you dislike even more his political competition?’
It seems to me that America is well on its way to being damned; never mind it somehow being God-blessed: Seriously, some of the best humanitarians that I, as a big fan of Christ’s unmistakable miracles and fundamental message, have met or heard about were/are atheists or agnostics who, quite ironically, would make better examples of many of Christ’s teachings/practices than too many ‘Christians’. Conversely, some of the worst human(e) beings I’ve met or heard about are the most devout believers/preachers of fundamental Biblical theology.
I can understand corpocratically-inclined and extreme-wealth Americans supporting Trump’s soulless — hell, completely un-Christlike — and most ugly Big Beautiful Bill. But there are so many voters and elected Republicans who claim to be Christian yet defend, or at least are noticeably quiet about, the bill despite its ultimate cutting of access to health services and food aid/supports for the poorest Americans.
It’s bad enough for the Donald Trump government, that’s widely supported by the institutional Christian community in American, to cut whatever minimal government support there is for poor people, especially children, lacking food and/or those without access to privately insured health care. But to do so in large part to redirect those funds via tax cuts to the superfluously very wealthy — including those who have no need for more money, and likely never will — is plain immoral.
The money will mostly go towards an attempt to satiate the bottomless-pit greed of unlimited-growth capitalism and hoarded wealth. It’s morbidly shameful conduct by a supposedly Christian nation’s government, which is largely politically supported by institutional ‘Christianity’ in America.
Jesus must be spinning.
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I am too brain-clogged over recent inanities to give a more considered response, I have to let a few snippets from others speak for me:
1) I’m not sure if it was my first encounter with “Onward Christian Soldiers,” but what sticks in my mind now is that hilarious segment from the movie “M*A*S*H” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw1WhL9D09c
2) Chris Hedges has written “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” (2007) and tied it in with rising fascism more generally https://consortiumnews.com/2024/12/24/chris-hedges-report-how-fascism-came/. I doubt I’ll get to read it, fortunately there are a lot of good You Tube videos available.
3) Last but not least, and most succinct, is Martin Luther King, Jr., “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.” To fund the FY2026 Pentagon budget of $1+ trillion, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is working on securing cuts of more than $800 billion over the next 10 years that could leave more than 7 million Americans without Medicaid.
Amen.
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We still have a Congress? I thought it had retired in favor of a rubber stamp. And when did the United Nations vanish? Has the UN accomplished any actual peacekeeping in 30 years?
(((couldn’t seem to log in to leave a comment on the site)))
Kevin
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The UN was designed to be impotent in any matter that concerned the major powers. The ability to veto by a single member of the Security Council makes UN action on any major issue impossible. The US was able to act under the UN in the Korean War only because when the Security Council voted, the USSR was not present for the vote.
Not to say the UN doesn’t do good things such as UNESCO and UNRWA, but as we have seen in Gaza, UNRWA was easily ejected by Israel with no proof provided for the reason given.
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Israel and the IDF under Netanyahu — which, BTW, is not his real name; he was actually born Benzion Mileikowsky — bombs and destroys targets, including civilians, inside nations around it, not to mention assassinates foreign citizens who Israel deems a threat.
Not that long ago, Israel attacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus last April that killed, among others, senior Iranian generals; and then Israel brazenly warned Iran against retaliating, with U.S./Canadian/British news-media headlines referencing it as though Iran’s retaliation would be the first, war-instigating strike. They behaved like, to use a Trumpian slander, “crooked media”.
This all reveals a great yet misplaced sense of entitlement by the Israeli state, not to mention that of the U.S. via its own corrupt foreign policy. It’s as though it feels it can claim it was being proactive in its militarily unprovoked killings in another country of Iranians [or other foreign nationals] it deems a threat, and its suspicions should suffice as justification. But, morally and ethically at least, they really don’t.
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You’re right. I have yet another sign I just drew up to use on the street. It reads: GENOCIDE AND POINTLESS WAR / ZIONISM HAS DESTROYED AMERICA
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I’d like to suggest the following for your next confrontation with a rabid Zionist…
In addition to reiterating “liberty and justice FOR ALL,” you ask these aspirants to “Heroes of Israel” status, do you agree that such prominent intellectuals and academics as Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, and Ilan Pappe’ are self-hating Jews?
Then count how long the blank stares remain on their face.
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Sadly, assuming they’d recognize any of those names, their answer would probably be “yes.” Yes–they are self-hating Jews.
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Yup, you’re probably right. Presumptuous on my part, but I may have come up with a simple litmus test to see whether there’s a hint of human content to their existence, or they remain irremediably “human animals,” in the ironic, contemptuous, Zionist supremacist, sordid words of Israeli Defense Minister and accused war criminal Yoav Gallant.
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They are not present to converse but to denounce with a grim look on the face and an eagerness that cannot be denied. I have tried to start a conversation, but it is pointless. Since they are there to attack, I put up the Pledge as defense. Liberty and justice for all is short, sweet, to the point and irrefutable.
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“They are not present to converse but to denounce…”
Man, ain’t that the evuh-luvin’ the trooth… I’ll have to defer to your extensive front line experience in dealing with them, I speak from the relatively antiseptic distance of online confrontations. Nonetheless, I agree with you, it has been my experience as well that these “people” – I am being generous in describing them as such* – have few moving mental parts, thus cannot comprehend nuance, complexity, profundity; are intolerant of anything counter to their narrative; and will employ any ruthlessness – denial, deflection, disparagement, to name a few – to vanquish their foe, to “cleanse” the forum of the threatening utterance.
I have come to the conclusion that they must somehow be trained in this “search and destroy” practice, they are too quick, too inflexible, too uniform in their employment of it to express any individual thought or expression. I’ve also come to the conclusion that they are trained to consume their opponents’ time and patience in going down too many argumentative and otherwise pointless rabbit holes.
All of which is the long-winded way of saying that “they are not present to converse but to denounce.” Nonetheless, if you do find the occasion to try out my litmus test, please relay the results.
*I really can’t stand them. Putting aside their attempts at defending the indefensible, and their mania in attacking those who criticize their project, I despise them for their contempt toward intellectualism, toward inquiry, toward the truth, toward decency, toward justice. This presents an irony which they also cannot comprehend – they cannot see that they are directly opposed to all the things that Jews stand for, yet they are quick to identify themselves as Jews. They are thus reminiscent of that pathetic con artist and ex-Congressman George Santos, who infamously called himself “Jew-ish.”
Well, that’s what the Israelis/Zionists and their apologists, enablers, rationalizers are, Jew-ish.
Of course pushing the Jewish identity ruse means they benefit from the existence of antisemitism, no matter how fabricated. No better way to address criticism than to relabel it has hatred, no better way to play the forever victim card. Without it they’d be lost. This has allowed me to come up with a new way to describe them – self-aggrandizing particularism, i.e. taking care of and promoting their own interests, especially independent of and without regard to the interests of others. Another way in which they diverge from Jews, who contribute to the communities in which they live, rather than extract from them.
I don’t hate them for this. Unlike them, I won’t cripple myself with consuming hatred. That leaves me ample latitude to despise them for what they are.
Some day I’ll have to put down on paper what I really think and pass it along.
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“They are not present to converse but to denounce…”
Man, ain’t that the evuh-luvin’ the trooth… I’ll have to defer to your extensive front line experience in dealing with them, I speak from the relatively antiseptic distance of online confrontations. Nonetheless, I agree with you, it has been my experience as well that these “people” – I am being generous in describing them as such* – have few moving mental parts, thus cannot comprehend nuance, complexity, profundity; are intolerant of anything counter to their narrative; and will employ any ruthlessness – denial, deflection, disparagement, to name a few – to vanquish their foe, to “cleanse” the forum of the threatening utterance.
I have come to the conclusion that they must somehow be trained in this “search and destroy” practice, they are too quick, too inflexible, too uniform in their employment of it to express any individual thought or expression. I’ve also come to the conclusion that they are trained to consume their opponents’ time and patience in going down too many argumentative and otherwise pointless rabbit holes.
All of which is the long-winded way of saying that “they are not present to converse but to denounce.” Nonetheless, if you do find the occasion to try out my litmus test, please relay the results.
*I really can’t stand them. Putting aside their attempts at defending the indefensible, and their mania in attacking those who criticize their project, I despise them for their contempt toward intellectualism, toward inquiry, toward the truth, toward decency, toward justice. This presents an irony which they also cannot comprehend – they cannot see that they are directly opposed to all the things that Jews stand for, yet they are quick to identify themselves as Jews. They are thus reminiscent of that pathetic con artist and ex-Congressman George Santos, who infamously called himself “Jew-ish.”
Well, that’s what the Israelis/Zionists and their apologists, enablers, rationalizers are, Jew-ish.
Of course pushing the Jewish identity ruse means they benefit from the existence of antisemitism, no matter how fabricated. No better way to address criticism than to relabel it has hatred, no better way to play the forever victim card. Without it they’d be lost. This has allowed me to come up with a new way to describe them – self-aggrandizing particularism, i.e. taking care of and promoting their own interests, especially independent of and without regard to the interests of others. Another way in which they diverge from Jews, who contribute to the communities in which they live, rather than extract from them.
I don’t hate them for this. Unlike them, I won’t cripple myself with consuming hatred. That leaves me ample latitude to despise them for what they are.
Some day I’ll have to put down on paper what I really think and pass it along.
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A correction to my previous reply, make that “the uncomprehending blank stares on their face.”
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Apparently comments are closed under the previous “US Strikes Iranian Nuclear Sites” column, so I thought I’d sneak it in here, it relates:
Clif Brown – “I don’t hesitate to say that Zionism has been a curse on the middle east from the start.”
I wouldn’t restrict it to that, I’d say stain on humanity in the same category as Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany is unchallenged quantitatively in terms of numbers of lives taken, but qualitatively they’re equal.
“Never has hatred been so paired with a feeling of righteousness.”
It goes beyond arrogance, hubris, chutzpah, gall, and whatever else one can find in the thesaurus, it merits its own neologism.
“Never has such a tragedy, the holocaust, been leveraged for so much horror.”
I found that realization to be nauseating upon reading Norman Finkelstein’s ‘The Holocaust Industry” l long time ago, even more so now.
“I saw without hesitation that the holocaust doomed Israel even as it made its establishment possible.”
Here I kinda lose you. Israel, as rationalized to be in Palestine by Herzl’s Zionist Project, is miscast from the get-go, opposed, even vehemently at times, by Orthodox Jews and other sects, even to this day, for both secular and religious reasons (and anything else in-between). Indeed, if I remember things correctly, Herzl even approached the British about having “Israel” located in Ghana, where there was much open land.
If anything, the Zionists saw the murder of the European Jews as an opportunity, see the Haavara Agreement – a deal between the Zionists and Nazi Germany on transferring German Jews to Palestine – and the treachery of Rezső Kasztner, a Hungarian labor Zionist leader https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-zionism-helped-nazis-perpetrate-holocaust/37326 and https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-owen-jones-defending-nazi-collaborator/33916.
All that being said, the lower-case “h” holocaust was certainly used as rationale for the creation of the (illegitimate*) “state” of Israel, a belief that is held and exploited to this day.
*The lengths to which the Zionists went to shape the 1947 Partition Plan to Israel’s advantage and to secure – fix – the UN General Assembly vote in support are characteristic of other Zionist machinations, their modus operandi. Here it even got so blatant as Israel lobbyist Abraham Feinberg giving $2 million in an envelope to Truman to revitalize his sagging campaign for re-election in gratitude for Truman’s recognition of Israel just ten minutes after its proclamation on May 15, 1948, despite the unanimous disapproval of his government.
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“I saw without hesitation that the holocaust doomed Israel even as it made its establishment possible.”
I mean that the epic atrocity of the holocaust legitimized hate in return, that could always be excused by comparison. It was necessary to hate the native Palestinians in order to kill and evict them as Zionism did in the creation of the state, but the dream of a larger Israel did not die in 1948 and the amount of hate we have seen that has the IDF joyfully killing and destroying in Gaza is the legacy of the holocaust.
The IDF troops do not see what they are doing as anything to compare to the holocaust. Raised from birth in Israel to know themselves as victims by transfer of trauma, the troops feel that they are doing what they were born to do, avenge what happened in the holocaust transformed into a love of the state of Israel.
It is group insanity. It is said that morality cannot be taught, but hatred surely can. In the old 1950’s movie of the musical, South Pacific, there is a song about it, that “you have to be carefully taught” There was quite a fight behind the scenes to keep the number in the movie.
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Working backwards, yes, I do remember that song from “South Pacific,” it struck me as bold when I first heard it decades [upon decades] ago, and still is bold. I wasn’t aware though there was background drama to it [though how could there not be?].
Thanks for getting back with further explanation. While I think we share the same destination, that is what we can concisely call the “group insanity” of the Israelis/Zionists, I think our paths getting there, while intersecting at points along the way, are different.
The fundamental difference is, I think, that you ascribe more weight to the hatred generated in reaction to the holocaust to explain Israeli/Zionist barbarism toward the Palestinians than I do, whereas I maintain that such inhumanity well predated the holocaust, although was well-fed and given sustenance by it. My argument is based on:
· The supremacist writings and sentiments of Herzl and other founding Zionists toward the Palestinian Arabs.
· The campaign of the Zionists to exploit the British mandate to take land from the Palestinians.
· The condescending, racist attitude toward even Arab Jews such as those in Iraq to have their identities erased [see Avi Shlaim].
· The contemptuous, supremacist attitude toward the Arab population as expressed by such prominent Zionist political figures as Golda Meir, to wit:
· “We can forgive [the Arabs] for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with [the Arabs] when they love their children more than they hate us…”
· “ There will be peace in the Middle East only when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel.”
· “ There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.”
· “We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs; we have no place to go.”
· “ This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.”
· “How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.”
These are ugly, vicious, ruthless, supremacist people, seeing themselves as “the chosen ones” in a perverted sense of entitlement from, rather than obligation to, God. With such a mindset (is there such a notion as a “soul-set”?) it is not hard to conceive of a holocaust “industry” and all that derives from it.
To put things more concisely, they believe their own crap, and want to force us to believe it too.
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I have this addendum. The attitude of the Zionists toward the Arab Jews, and Islam more broadly – as if Golda Meir’s statements weren’t sickening enough – is related in a discussion Chris Hedges had with the historian Avi Shlaim on his book “Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab Jew.” It is fascinating to watch* not only for the fact that Jews and Arabs lived quite peacefully and prosperously together for centuries, millennia prior to the miscreation of Israel, but that the Zionists also undertook a subversive terrorist campaign to transfer the Jews in Iraq to Israel. Another really sick story. Shlaim details this with personal experience.
*Since MintPress evidently holds an entry up if not reject it out-of-hand for containing embedded links, I have provided a modified one here to the You Tube video https://www.youtube%5Bdot%5Dcom/watch?v=4mhCEXpm1hA, just remove “[com]” and replace with an actual dot, or just do a You Tube search with “Chris Hedges””Avi Shlaim””Three Worlds” as the search terms, and that should get it for you.
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“The UN was designed to be impotent in any matter that concerned the major powers.”
You are quite right, ‘cept I’d change “major powers” to the singular, that being the US. No other country emerged from WWII anywhere nearly so wealthy, and nowhere nearly so unscathed, as it did. Who in his realpolitik-mind would cede such status in an impulse to democracy, except for marketing purposes?
“Not to say the UN doesn’t do good things such as UNESCO and UNRWA…”
Yes, and I would add the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the UN Charter itself, which is to say that the UN can be inspirational, aspirational in its very raison d’être. If only allowed to fulfill it. The UN could achieve wondrous things, indeed leading us to a world very different from the current muck, given a couple of necessary reforms, 1) doing away with the permanent members of the Security Council, if not the entire Council itself; 2) having enforcement superseding national sovereignty to swoop in and apprehend such criminals – okay, such “accused” – as Netanyahu and Gallant and whisking them of to The Hague.
Now wouldn’t that be something…?
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“We still have a Congress?”
Yup, and to paraphrase Will Rogers, “Best one that shekels can buy.”
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I will be on the street tomorrow with a new sign:
ALL HAIL KING DONALD, VASSAL OF ISRAEL and CONSTITUTION DESTROYER. HE (he underlined) IS THE LAW.
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Fittingly enough, the “I am law” expression has Biblical origins, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them,” Matthew 5-17.
Of more recent vintage, some (unexpected) gems from Louis XIV:
Of course, the familiar “L’etat, c’est moi,” but also…
“It is legal because I wish it.”
“One king, one law, one faith.”
“In every treaty, insert a clause which can easily be violated, so that the entire agreement can be broken in case the interests of the State make it expedient to do so.”
“Has God forgotten everything I’ve done for him?”
“Ah, if I were not king, I should lose my temper.”
“I see no point in reading.”
“Laws are the sovereigns of sovereigns.”
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If Iran militarily surrenders, as U.S. President Donald Trump had demanded of the nation, it may soon also have to surrender access to its vast fossil fuel reserves to American corporate interests, and likely soon followed by British ‘energy’ companies. Those corporations, and Israel’s government, know there’s still much to be effectively appropriated.
The 1979 Iranian Revolution’s expulsion of major Western nations was in large part due to British and American companies exploiting Iran’s plentiful fossil fuel. The expulsion may have been a big-profit-losing lesson learned by the ‘energy’-corporation heads, one that they, via intense lobbyist influence over the relevant governments in Washington D.C. and London, would resist reoccurring anywhere.
The 2003-11 U.S./British invasion and prolonged occupation of Iraq may also have been partly motivated by such Western insatiable corporate greed. According to AI Overview, “some [U.S.] companies did secure lucrative contracts for oil services and exploration in Iraq following the war.” Also, “British oil companies, particularly BP, significantly benefited from the Iraq War by gaining access to and exploiting Iraq’s vast oil reserves.”
There has been a predictable American-UK proclivity for sanctioning Iran, its officials and even their allies since the Revolution, resulting in, among other negative impacts, reduced oil production revenue by the nation. It would be understandable if those corporate fossil-fuel interests would like Iran’s government to fall thus re-enabling their access to Iran’s resources.
It may be that, if the relevant oil-company heads were/are in fact against Iran’s post-Revolution government(s), then so were/are their related Western governments and, via general mainstream news-media support, national collective citizenry.
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All that you say is true. I would add is that I think the US itself has been given up to the oil companies and that “big beautiful bill” of Trump has provisions for even more extraction in US locations now off limits to it in addition to killing incentives for EV’s and the DOGE effort to stop research on global warming.
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WJA – Can you enable an “edit” function to comments, similar to what Substack offers, for authors/posters to correct/amend typos and such to their entries?
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I don’t think it’s possible on this site, XK. If you really want a comment edited, I can do it manually.
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Thanks, WJA, it’s mostly minor, brain-skip kinda stuff, I may take you up on the offer after I get through my – if I get through – catching up on all my daily updates on all the warnings for course corrections before the mighty ship of state hits the iceberg…
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In my post today at 8:06 AM, last line, please change “1348” to “1948.”
Also, WordPress is holding up acknowledging “likes” and posting replies I have made to others’s comments.
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Done.
Be careful including hyperlinks in your replies. WordPress may block them as spam.
I don’t know why your “likes” are being held up. Weird stuff.
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Okay, thanks, WJA. I often include links to support my statements, rather than (further) come across as someone who needs to be refitted for a tin foil hat. In the future I’ll use wording such as “see Ilan Pappe’… “rather than provide the direct link.
As to the “likes,” dunno what’s up with that, ordinarily clicking the tab results in an instantaneous update, hasn’t been happening, no increase in the number of likes to a comment. I think Mossad is monitoring the site, has me flagged.
Even larger tin foil hat needed I guess…
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