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The View From France: No to NATO, Yes to Peace
By Alain ROUY, Le Mouvement de la Paix (France)
I’d like to give you a French voice on NATO: in France, NATO has never been very popular, because the USA, which dominates this military alliance, respects neither the diplomatic nor the military autonomy of its member states. That’s why, in 1966, the President of the French Republic, General de Gaulle, decided to withdraw France from the integrated military structures and to close the US military bases in France. De Gaulle did not dispute the existence of the Atlantic Alliance, and had always been a loyal ally of the United States in times of East-West crisis. But he contested the determining weight of the USA in the integrated military command, at the service of the American policy of hegemony. De Gaulle was opposed to bloc politics, refusing to alienate member states to the will and interests of the United States. Other French presidents have also opposed NATO’s orientations: President François Mitterrand contested the American conception of global security assured by NATO, and questioned NATO’s role after the end of the USSR; President Jacques Chirac criticized NATO’s evolution towards a broader alliance engaged in military interventions, a NATO that presents itself in Kosovo or Afghanistan as a kind of “armed arm of the UN”, which France rejects. Logically, in 2003, Chirac announced that he would veto any UN resolution authorizing war against Iraq.
Videos from No NATO – Yes Peace Counter Summit
By David Swanson
No NATO – Yes Peace Counter Summit
Four Parts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=1Gk-_JGVTL8
https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=3NcrlO0PsIQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=5QyJgvRjVXo
NATO’s Wars Versus Human Survival
By David Swanson
The NATO of the popular imagination is an assembly of representatives of democratic nations who commit to making the world more peaceful, including by militarily defending each other if one of them is attacked. There could hardly exist a more grave collection of lies. NATO is in fact an institution devoted primarily to the increased sale of weaponry to governments of every type — neither its members nor its often openly dictatorial partners acting at the bidding of any populace — and devoted secondarily to doing the will of one government, that based here in Washington, D.C., which is represented by over 900 military bases outside its borders. NATO’s wars have never involved defending one of its members from a foreign invasion. Only once ever has NATO even claimed to be calling its members to collective defense, and that was for the idiotic, mass-murderous, environmentally catastrophic, counter-productive on its own terms, 20-year war on the distant, impoverished nation of Afghanistan, waged principally for U.S. political reasons following terrorist attacks — even though terrorist attacks have not been used as a justification for NATO wars when they have happened in any other NATO member country — and waged by NATO only following the individual U.S. attack on Afghanistan that overthrew a government made up of people who, with a few tweaks, would have fit in well a couple of blocks from here on the U.S. Supreme Court. Every other NATO war has lacked even the ridiculous pretense of defensiveness, and often even any agreement among NATO members, so that one could debate what has or has not been a NATO war, were one to ignore the fact that the staff and infrastructure of NATO have been used to launch, continue, or escalate the wars on Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, and Gaza. Not a single one of these has been legal — neither before nor during NATO involvement. NATO has no power to legalize anything. Even the NATO of popular imagination would be a criminal enterprise even during a war of popular imagination involving an angelically innocent nation invaded out of the blue by subhuman monsters. There is nothing in the UN Charter about good Samaritan mass-murder machines joining in an authorized war. There is much in actual human history to suggest the value of negotiation, diplomacy, demilitarization, unarmed civilian defense, and an actual law-based order, and to suggest that these alternatives are damaged by heavy investment in institutions dedicated to the structures and the cultures that drive weapons sales.
Donald Trump will not be president of the United States
Editor thepeoplesvoice.org
The Yellowstone eruption will be immediately followed by the meltdown of numerous nuclear power plants.
More people in America are waking up and realizing that Biden and the democrats are destroying their country. Sadly, the democrats still have the support of some 30% of Americans who believe the lies told by CNN, MSNBC, and Google. Millions of Americans want the corrupt and treasonous democrats to lead them. They like paying twice as much for food, gasoline, and rent. They want their children to be indoctrinated into transvestitism, homosexuality, and Marxism by leftist public school teachers. They want tens of millions of illegals pouring into their country. Biden or some other corrupt democrat will be installed as president in yet another rigged election, with the globalist media talking heads singing their phony praises all the way.
America was overthrown in 1913 by the global elite banking families and has been ruled by them and the criminal corporate elite since that date. A small group of trillionaires, generational criminals, see the American people as ignorant slaves to be culled, exploited, and euthanized. The wealthy feel only contempt and loathing toward humanity, exterminating them with environmental toxins, poison food, cancer-causing fluoridated water, and poison vaccines. American farmland is constantly sprayed and poisoned with millions of tons of aluminum, barium, toxic heavy metals, polymers, and graphene. American cities are chem trailed periodically with manufactured viruses to kill off the weak. The global elite use every method at their disposal to eliminate the American people. Their tools of repression are the propaganda media, big tech, and corrupt politicians.
The global elite have used endless wars for over a hundred years to depopulate the earth, generate trillions in profits, and enslave the American people. The elite loan their puppet governments trillions of dollars printed by their bank, the Federal Reserve, at interest, to purchase the weapons of war manufactured by their military industrial complex, to prosecute their wars. American cities have fallen into disrepair while millions of Americans are homeless, hungry, and out of work. Instead of helping the American people with a couple of billion dollars, puppet politicians send hundreds of billions of dollars borrowed from the Federal Reserve Bank to Ukraine for yet another regime change war. Democrats and Rhino Republicans serve their global elite masters, hastening the economic collapse of America while keeping the American people in debt bondage.
Believing in Nuclear Deterrence and Angels
By David Swanson
“Despite the fact that deterrence remains an article of faith among the ‘realists’ who have orchestrated U.S. strategic policy and who continue to do so, despite its incoherence and instability, much of this faith is lip service only, analogous to deeply religious individuals who profess belief in heaven, yet rarely rejoice when a loved one dies. Thus, if the U.S. government really believed in nuclear deterrence — or in the billions of dollars spent on Ballistic Missile Defense — there wouldn’t be such hyperventilating about the threat posed by a nuclear armed North Korea or possibly by Iran in the future.” —David Barash
There’s a webinar coming up on July 9 about nuclear deterrence. I imagine it will be excellent. I’ve also just been reading a fantastic book on the topic called Threats: Intimidation and Its Discontents by David P. Barash. There’s an online book club with the author and free copy of the book coming up for that. Barash’s central thesis is that the idea of nuclear deterrence makes no sense. It’s kind of hard to see why anyone would argue with him.
Thank You to the SXSW Festival for Dumping the U.S. Army
By David Swanson
South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It has been growing in size since 1987. The festivals just dumped weapons makers and the U.S. Army out the door: “After careful consideration, we are revising our sponsorship model. As a result, the US Army, and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing, will not be sponsors of SXSW 2025.”
Here were the major sponsors in 2024:
This wonderful development is not just something going right (such an unusual sight, in the words of Paul Simon), and not just somebody doing something right in Texas (I’m certain that it happens all the time, in the words of Lennon/McCartney). This is a mainstreaming of opposition to militarism in general — not just a particular weapon or a particular side of a particular war. This is kicking out on their gold-plated ears the profiters from organized mass murder.
The System of Elections in the USA and Political Parties
Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović
Types of elections
In the USA, elections are organized on a regular basis for the President, both houses of Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate), and state and local government offices. In practice, candidates in the majority of cases run for office as members of the party (one of two main political parties – the Democrats or the Republicans) in order to get the party’s support for their candidacy. However, in principle, whoever wants to run as an independent candidate can organize a petition. In that case, if it is collected enough signatures, the person can run. According to the electoral law, any American citizen over the age of 18 may vote in an election under conditions that the person is registered and meets the requirements for residency in a state (one out of 50).
Killing of Laken Riley
Laken Riley, 22-year-old American nursing student,
murdered while jogging at the University of Georgia,
On February 22, 2024, Laken Riley, a 22-year-old American nursing student at Augusta University, was murdered while she was jogging at the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, Georgia. Her body was found in Oconee Forest Park near Lake Herrick; her death was caused by blunt force trauma and asphyxiation.
The suspect, José Antonio Ibarra, is a 26-year-old Venezuelan who had entered the United States illegally. He was arrested by UGA police and has been charged with 10 charges, including felony murder, malice murder, false imprisonment aggravated assault with intent to rape and kidnapping. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. A trial is to be held in the fall, but a date has not been set.
Riley's death made international news, generating extensive media attention. It sparked a debate over immigration in the United States after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed Ibarra is not a U.S. citizen and was caught crossing the border but was released into the United States. On March 7, 2024, the House of Representatives passed an immigration bill named the Laken Riley Act, requiring federal detention of migrants who commit burglary or theft.
Family of woman killed by illegal immigrant files $100 million lawsuit against Biden administration
Kayla Hamilton brutally murdered by MS-13 gang
member caught and released by Biden administration
The family of a 20-year-old woman slain in 2022 will file a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit arguing the Biden administration caught and released an undocumented immigrant who then brutally raped and strangled her with a phone charging cord.
Authorities would later figure out the suspect had MS-13 ties at the time he snuck into the U.S., but he was still caught and released under new relaxed policies the Biden administration implemented to deal with immigrant children without documentation.
“We bring this landmark lawsuit in honor of Kayla to get answers on how this catastrophic failure occurred and help prevent another senseless murder,” said Brian Claypool, the lawyer for Tammy Nobles, Kayla Hamilton’s mother.
Ms. Nobles is slated to testify Thursday to the House Homeland Security as part of impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
In social media posts, Mr. Claypool said the lawsuit will name both Homeland Security, which initially apprehended the juvenile, and Health and Human Services, which released him into the community.
We Prevented an Israeli Weapons Exhibition
Our legal actions and activist mobilizations prevented
Israeli arms companies from exhibiting at Eurosatory 2024
By Stop Fuelling War
A coalition of human rights, anti-armament, arms-control, and Palestine advocacy groups sustained legal and campaign pressure to stop the Israeli pavilion at the world’s biggest arms fair, Eurosatory. Despite the legal complexities and manoeuvring encountered, and the inaccurate media coverage that continues, the central fact is that this coalition ensured that Israeli companies were stopped from exhibiting at the arms fair. It is easy to see that commercial relationships forged at shows like these by Israeli companies and delegations generate billions of euros worth of contracts, strengthening the economic power of the arms companies and, through them, Israel’s war machine. For a few days we managed to have Eurosatory prohibit any employee or agent of these companies, regardless of their nationality, from being present in the hall. At one point, up to 850 participants linked to Israeli arms and security companies had their badges disabled.
Our coalition of associations and collectives across France, Palestine, and beyond have registered a precious victory against the arms industry of a regime engaged in genocidal behaviour in Palestine. Our actions denied it the opportunity to market its ‘combat proven’ products used to sustain war crimes, crimes against humanity, and plausible genocide.
