Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1159
August 3, 2017
Trump Says U.S.‘Losing’ Afghan War in Tense Meeting With Generals
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NBC News August 3, 2017 via DarkPolitricks
President Donald Trump has become increasingly frustrated with his advisers tasked with crafting a new U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and recently suggested firing the war’s top military commander during a tense meeting at the White House, according to senior administration officials.
Source: Trump Says U.S.‘Losing’ Afghan War in Tense Meeting With Generals
Hempcrete Could Change The Way We Build Everything
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Hempcrete is a building material that incorporates hemp and lime. It can be used for wall insulation, flooring, walls, and roofing, and fireproof, waterproof, and rot-proof. Insurance companies charge less to insure hempcrete homes. A Japanese home made of hemp is over 300 years old.
By Joe Martino, Collective Evolution
First off, what is Hempcrete? As the name suggests, hempcrete is a building material that incorporates hemp into its mixture. Versatile and hardy, it can be used for wall insulation, flooring, walls, roofing, and more, and is fireproof, waterproof, and rot-proof, provided it’s used aboveground.
Derived from the shiv or inside stem of the hemp plant, it’s then mixed with a lime base binder to create the final, negative carbon footprint product. Hempcrete is much more versatile and pliable than concrete, making it an easier material to work with. In fact, earthquakes cannot crack these structures, as they are three times more resistant to damage than regular concrete.
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August 2, 2017
Berlin Calls for Retaliation Against Illegal US Sanctions on Russia
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New penalties against Moscow proposed by US lawmakers violate international law and officials in Brussels should consider countermeasures, the German economy minister said on Monday.
“We consider this as being against international law, plain and simple,” Brigitte Zypries told the Funke Mediengruppe newspaper chain.
“Of course we don’t want a trade war. But it is important the European Commission now looks into countermeasures,” she added.
According to the minister, “the Americans can not punish German companies because they operate economically in another country.”
Last week, both chambers of the US Congress decided to impose new sanctions against Russia over its Crimea reunification and alleged meddling in US elections. The bill has still to be signed by US President Donald Trump. This is the first time Washington has made a move against Moscow without European consent.
The bill appears to target Russia’s Nord Stream-2 pipeline that will deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany. The proposed expansion would double the existing pipeline’s capacity and make Germany EU’s main energy hub.
The legislation seeks to introduce individual sanctions for contributing in Russian energy projects and targets major sectors of Russia’s economy, including defense, railway, and banking industries.
The new sanctions on Russia have been criticized by several senior politicians in Europe, including the Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern and German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel. Critics of the US government’s move argue the sanctions could affect European energy security and serve Washington’s economic interests – in line with the “America First” policy of president Donald Trump.
“We deem it absolutely unacceptable when a bill demands that Europeans give up on Russian gas so that they could sell American instead, at a much higher price,” Gabriel said.
Russian energy giant Gazprom currently supplies a third of European gas demands, having delivered a record 179 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas to Europe in 2016. Construction of additional delivery infrastructure would diversify the supply of Russian gas and make the delivery of fuel much cheaper than the costly US alternative of liquefied natural gas (LNG). . .
Source: RT Business
India and Pakistan Join Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
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The Shangai Cooperation Organization now encompasses an extensive region comprising roughly half of the world’s population. When you look at the map below, you understand why Trump is threatening to nuke so many SCO members.
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, August 01, 2017
On June 9, both India and Pakistan became simultaneously members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Eurasian economic, political and mutual security organization largely dominated China and Russia.
While the SCO with headquarters in Beijing is not officially a “military alliance”, it nonetheless serves as a geopolitical and strategic “counterweight” to US-NATO and its allies. It also plays a significant role in the development of Eurasian trade, e.g. in support of China’s Belt and Road initiative, oil and gas pipeline corridors linking SCO member states, etc.
In the course of the last few years, the SCO has extended its cooperation in military affairs and intelligence. War games were held under the auspices of the SCO.
The members of the SCO include China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Pakistan and India are now full members since June 9, 2017. Iran is…
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Assumption of US Dominance Has ended; Imperial Decline is Looming
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The assumption of US dominance in regions like the Western Pacific and South China Sea has ended. In Europe, Russia has not been shy about challenging the seemingly endless eastward expansion of NATO. In the Middle East, too, Russia has come to be seen as an equal to the US in terms of clout, influence and the ability to arbitrate in regional conflicts. Despite its archipelago of more than 800 bases across the world, the US can no longer dictate to the world in the way it once could.
For spending too much on the military industrial complex, and in deliberately sowing conflicts worldwide by directly training and funding terrorist groups, in order to sustain the industry that only feeds on wars, the US economy has suffered immensely and has never recovered, since the 1960s.
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US Military Burnpits: The New Agent Orange?
In their August 1 episode of The Stream, Al Jazeera English explores the plight of US veterans and Iraqi and American civilians exposed to toxic burn pits in Iraq, Afghanistan and the US. Although Obama outlawed the use of war zone burn pits, they continue to operate on 200 military bases across the US.*
Historically burn pits have been used to dispose of munitions, metals, plastics, chemicals and corpses, releasing a host of toxic chemicals to the atmosphere.
The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) listed 110,989 veterans and service members in its latest burn pits registry. However, as with Agent Orange exposure, the VA has been slow to investigate burn pit related illnesses and routinely denies medical benefits to veterans who become chronically ill from burn pit exposure. They most commonly suffer from acute and debilitating respiratory illnesses and throat, lung and brain cancers and leukemia.
In addition to highlighting a recent study of the birth defects and medical problems of Iraqi women and children exposed to burn pit fumes, the program questions why the Pentagon continues to operate nearly 200 open burn pits around the United States. According to a recent ProPublica investigation, these sites are getting rid of extremely toxic materials with little or no oversight and regulation, and often violate existing environment regulations.
At the Colfax plant in Louisiana, millions of pounds of munitions are burned just a few hundred yards from a small, mostly black community. High levels of toxic vapors like acrolein and benzene have been found in the air, which according to the World Health Organization have “no safe level of exposure.”
The program host interviews the widow of a US vet killed by burn pit exposure, as well as Iraqi and American scientists.
*Although President Obama outlawed the use of war-zone burned pits by executive order, a 2016 article in Stars and Stripes suggests US military bases continue to use them in Iraq.
August 1, 2017
Venezuela Crisis: Washington Wants ‘Its’ Country Back
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Washington wants “its” country back, which is why it is providing both overt and covert support to an opposition determined to return the country to its previous status as a wholly owned subsidiary of Washington.
(H/T @ByrdArdoin ) by John Wright, Sputnik
The word for what has been taking place in Venezuela is an attempt at counterrevolution. Washington wants “its” country back, which is why it is providing both overt and covert support to an opposition determined to return the country to its previous status as a wholly owned subsidiary of Washington.
What needs to be emphasized is that in establishing a Constituent Assembly, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is acting in full accordance with the Bolivarian Constitution. To wit:
“Article 348: The initiative for calling a National Constituent Assembly may emanate from the President of the Republic sitting with the Cabinet of Ministers; from the National Assembly, by a two thirds vote of its members; from the Municipal Councils in open session, by a two-thirds vote of their members; and from 15% of the voters registered with the Civil and Electoral Registry.”
As to the opposition’s attempts to derail the establishment of the Constituent Assembly with street protests, rioting and a call for a nationwide boycott of the…
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Descendants Of Freed Slaves Fight Amazon Land Grab
Written By Asha French, Contributor
Amazon wants to cover a Northern Virginia community in asphalt, pave over gravesites, homes, and a Civil War battleground to make way for a power plant.
Willetta “Dolly” Grayson, 91, just wants to keep her North Virginia family together, she tells, The Washington Post. “Hopefully, we’ll continue to stick together,” she tells the newspaper.
But Amazon wants to build a data center on Carver Road, the land her ancestors purchased right after the Civil War. The company plans to pave over the small community’s homes, including the gravesites where their ancestors rest after years of labor, sparking protests throughout the community, the World Socialist Web Site reports.
Amazon subsidiary VAData and Dominion Virginia Power are constructing high voltage power lines that will run through the close-knit community. The partnership is supported by the state of Virginia and Prince William County. According the news outlet, “The Prince William County Board of Supervisors rejected an alternative route which would have gone through a wealthy area.”
“The state of Virginia has awarded Amazon millions in tax breaks and grants to construct its warehouses and data centers throughout the state, even as it throws families out of homes to make way for these properties and subjects its employees to illegal forms of exploitation,” the Socialist Web Site writes. “As the case of Carver Road reveals, its abuse of the workforce goes well beyond the four walls of its facilities.”
The community has not been silent about its impending destruction. Descendants of formerly enslaved landowners have organized the Alliance to Save Carver Road. An alliance representative spoke with the International Amazon Workers Voice, an insider publication that publishes Amazon warehouse workers anonymously, including one who says, “The homeowners have been there for generations. Many of the properties were purchased by freed slaves. After emancipation, the slaves that worked that area were allowed to purchase property. A number of the property owners are descendants of those freed slaves.”
SOURCE: Word Socialist Web Site , The Washington Post
Via: Descendants Of Freed Slaves Fight Amazon Land Grab
Food Banks Run Out as Kids Have No Access to Free School Meals
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Food banks across the country [UK] are coming under pressure as children lose access to free school meals during the summer holidays.
David McAuley, chief executive of anti-poverty charity The Trussell Trust, has warned that some hubs within the 420-strong network are running dangerously low on supplies.
“Rising demand in the summer holidays as families struggle to get by without free school meals” is at the root of the problem, he said.
The Trussell Trust handed out 4,412 more three-day emergency food parcels for children during July and August last year than in the previous two months.
Around one million children currently receive free school meals during term time.
One independent food bank in Wales ran out of basic supplies such as dried pasta and toiletries for the first time at the end of the first week of the summer holidays.
Vía BlackListed News
photo credit: BC Gov Photos $24 million for supports to benefit families living in low income via photopin (license)
July 31, 2017
How Prison Labor is the New American Slavery and Most of Us Unknowingly Support it
If you buy products or services from any of the 50 companies listed below (and you likely do), you are supporting modern American slavery
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Return to Now | June 13, 2016
American slavery was technically abolished in 1865, but a loophole in the 13th Amendment has allowed it to continue “as a punishment for crimes” well into the 21st century. Not surprisingly, corporations have lobbied for a broader and broader definition of “crime” in the last 150 years. As a result, there are more (mostly dark-skinned) people performing mandatory, essentially unpaid, hard labor in America today than there were in 1830.
With 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prison population, the United States has the largest incarcerated population in the world. No other society in history has imprisoned more of its own citizens. There are half a million more prisoners in the U.S. than in China, which has five times our population. Approximately 1 in 100 adults in America were incarcerated in 2014. Out of an adult population of 245 million that year, there were 2.4 million people in prison, jail or some form of detention center.
The vast majority – 86 percent – of prisoners have been locked up for non-violent, victimless crimes, many of them drug-related.
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While prison labor helps produce goods and services for almost every big business in America, here are a few examples from an that highlights the epidemic:
Whole Foods – You ever wonder how Whole Foods can afford to keep their prices so low (sarcasm)? Whole Foods’ coffee, chocolate and bananas might be “fair trade,” but the corporation has been offsetting the “high wages” paid to third-world producers with not-so-fair-wages here in America.
The corporation, famous for it’s animal welfare rating system, apparently was not as concerned about the welfare of the human “animals” working for them in Colorado prisons until April of this year.
You know that $12-a-pound tilapia you thought you were buying from “sustainable, American family farms?” It was raised by prisoners in Colorado, who were paid as little as 74 cents a day. And that fancy goat cheese? The goats were raised and milked by prisoners too.
McDonald’s – The world’s most successful fast food franchise purchases a plethora of goods manufactured in prisons, including plastic cutlery, containers, and uniforms. The inmates who sew McDonald’s uniforms make even less money by the hour than the people who wear them.
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Wal-Mart – Although their company policy clearly states that “forced or prison labor will not be tolerated by Wal-Mart,” basically every item in their store has been supplied by third-party prison labor factories. Wal-Mart purchases its produce from prison farms, where laborers are often subjected to long hours in the blazing heat without adequate food or water.
Victoria’s Secret – Female inmates in South Carolina sew undergarments and casual-wear for the pricey lingerie company. In the late 1990’s, two prisoners were placed in solitary confinement for telling journalists that they were hired to replace “Made in Honduras” garment tags with “Made in USA” tags.
AT&T – In 1993, the massive phone company laid off thousands of telephone operators—all union members—in order to increase their profits. Even though AT&T’s company policy regarding prison labor reads eerily like Wal-Mart’s, they have consistently used inmates to work in their call centers since ’93, barely paying them $2 a day.
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BP (British Petroleum) – When BP spilled 4.2 million barrels of oil into the Gulf coast, the company sent a workforce of almost exclusively African-American inmates to clean up the toxic spill while community members, many of whom were out-of-work fisherman, struggled to make ends meet. BP’s decision to use prisoners instead of hiring displaced workers outraged the Gulf community, but the oil company did nothing to reconcile the situation.
The full list of companies implicated in exploiting prison labor includes:
Bank of America
Bayer
Cargill
Caterpillar
Chevron
Chrysler
Costco
John Deere
Eli Lilly and Company
Exxon Mobil
GlaxoSmithKline
Johnson and Johnson
K-Mart
Koch Industries
McDonald’s
Merck
Microsoft
Motorola
Nintendo
Pfizer
Procter & Gamble
Pepsi
ConAgra Foods
Shell
Starbucks
UPS
Verizon
WalMart
Wendy’s
While not all prisoners are “forced” to work, most “opt” to because life would be even more miserable if they didn’t, as they have to purchase pretty much everything above the barest necessities (and sometimes those too) with their hard-earned pennies. Some of them have legal fines to pay off and families to support on the outside. Often they come out more indebted than when they went in. . .
Source: How Prison Labor is the New American Slavery and Most of Us Unknowingly Support it
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