Keep #War, #EnvironmentalDegradation and #Profit Out of #Space

Trump Budget Gives Top Priority to New Generation of Nuclear Weapons

By Patrick Martin, February 11, 2020

The most ominous feature of the new budget document issued Monday by the Trump administration is the prominent place given to the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons, including so-called low-yield weapons, smaller than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which are widely regarded as more likely to actually be used in combat. The document calls for nearly $50 billion to be devoted to nuclear modernization, including $29 billion from the Pentagon budget, and $19.8 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a unit of the Department of Energy which operates the actual production of nuclear warheads, as well as some of the primary research.

 

Democrats Ignore Trump’s Real Violations

By Rep. Ron Paul, February 11, 2020

Why do the Democrats keep swinging and missing at Trump? They can’t make a good

case for abuse of power because they don’t really oppose Trump’s most egregious abuses of power. Congress, with a few exceptions, strongly supports the President flouting the Constitution when it comes to overseas aggression and shoveling more money into the military-industrial complex.

 

Keep War, Environmental Degradation and Profit Out of Space

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, February 11, 2020

The 21st Century nuclear arms and developing outer space arms races, which began under Obama and are increasing under Trump, are going to be something the world has never seen before. They are a bonanza for weapons makers, the Pentagon budget and capitalists in space. They will create a less secure world, a greater wealth divide, a tattered safety net and new, more dangerous forms of war.

 

The Siren Call of a ‘System Leader’

By Pepe Escobar, February 11, 2020

A considerable spectrum of the liberal West takes the American interpretation of what civilization consists of to be something like an immutable law of nature. But what if this interpretation is on the verge of an irreparable breakdown? Michael Vlahos has argued that the US is not a mere nation-state but a “system leader” – “a civilizational power like Rome, Byzantium, and the Ottoman Empire.” And, we should add, China – which he did not mention. The system leader is “a universalistic identity framework tied to a state. This vantage is helpful because the United States clearly owns this identity framework today.”

 

Recession Engineered by the Creditors: Seven Years of Demanding the Impossible in Greece

By Yiannis Mouzakis, February 11, 2020

In a recent presentation of his book, Laid Low, which examines the International Monetary Fund’s role in the eurozone crisis, author and journalist Paul Blustein disclosed a memo dated May 4, 2010, from the IMF’s then head of research Olivier Blanchard, to Poul Thomsen, who headed the Greek mission at the time. In his missive, Blanchard warned that the cumulative fiscal adjustment of 16 percentage points being demanded of Greece in such a short period of time and with such a high level of frontloading had never been achieved before.

 

Coronavirus Is Becoming a Western Excuse for Sinophobia and “China-Bashing”

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, February 10, 2020

Coronavirus is, undoubtedly, one of the greatest epidemic tragedies of our times. Hundreds of dead people and thousands of ill ones are the proof of it. For any person with good faith and interested in the well-being of people, it is a reason of preoccupation and compassion towards the victims. However, this good intention with people does not seem to be observed in some western countries. The misinformation transmitted by western media is causing in common people a big confusion, making them think that every Chinese is infected by the mortal virus, which is creating a great wave of hate against everyone and everything that belongs to China. Clearly, this epidemic is being used by western potencies as a mean of hybrid war.