https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9aD1ViB0BE

Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek Finance Minister, and Gillian Tett, Financial Times columnist, assess the current state of international relations and global politics, and the impact of the policies of President Donald Trump. The pair also look at the direction of travel of politics in Europe and the challenges facing the UK economy. Hosted by Victoria Derbyshire.

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

OKAY.... GILLIAN TETT MAKES THE POINT THAT ECONOMICS AND POLITICS USED TO BE SOMEWHAT SEPARATE BUT NOW THEY HAVE COMBINED INTO GEOECONOMICS.... FOR ONE GUS WHO BEGAN CARTOONING ABOUT POLITICS IN 1951, THIS IS QUITE ERRONEOUS... ECONOMICS AND POLITICS HAVE SLEPT IN THE SAME BED SINCE WAY BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION... OR THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION — WHICH WAS VERY BLOODY — FOR THIS MATTER... WHAT HAS CHANGED A TAD IS THE SPEED OF ANALYSIS, OF CHANGE, OF COMMUNICATION AND OF INFORMATION IN WHICH "DECEIT FOR PROFIT" WHICH USED TO BE THE DOMAIN OF KINGS AND EMPERORS, HAS NOW ENTERED "THE MARKET" — THE GAMBLING HOUSE... WARS, WEAPONISED ONES AND ECONOMIC ONES — LIKE TRUMP STRAGULATING VENEZUELA UNDER FALSE PRETENCES — ARE STILL THE CHOICE OF BANDITS, THEMSELVES INFLUENCING THE PRICE OF FISH (OIL).

MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND THE USELESS NATIONS (THE U.N.) ARE POWERLESS AGAINST A GANGSTER LIKE TRUMP, IMPOTENT AGAINST A FLIPFLOPPER LYING BASTARD LIKE STARMER, AGAINST A DESPOT IN "CULOTTES COURTES" (SHORTS FOR YOUNG KIDS) LIKE MACRON, OR AGAINST A NAZI REVIVALIST LIKE METZ IN GERMANY.

WITH THE TWO IDIOTES LIKE VON DE LEYEN AND KAJA KALLAS, THE PICTURE OF DECAY IS COMPLETE AND SMELLING LIKE A DYING FISH MARKET... MELONI IS SWIMMING WITH THE DEAD FISHES AS WELL...

IT SEEMS THAT YANIS IS ON SONG WITH GUS ON THE "GEOPOLITICAL/ECONOMICS" CONCEPT...

LET'S NOT FORGET THAT ENGLAND PLAYED THE GAME OF GEOPOLITICS/ECONOMICS AGAINST RUSSIA BEFORE NAPOLEON, THAT FRANCE TRIED TO PLAY THIS GAME AS WELL WITH NAPOLEON AND THREE WARS AGAINST GERMANY, THAT THE USA ENTERED THE GEOPOLITICS/ECONOMICS GAME AGAINST RUSSIA IN 1917 AND THAT GERMANY DID THE SAME IN 1914 AND 1941... COMMON DENOMINATOR: RUSSOPHOBIA NOW AUGMENTED WITH SINOPHOBIA...

TAKE YOUR PICK ON WHO IS GOING TO SNEEZE FIRST: NOT RUSSIA. NOT CHINA EITHER...

WE NEED TO QUICKLY REVALUE OUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH MORE COOPERATION... BUT WITH DONALD AGGRESSING VENEZUELA AND IRAN, THIS WON'T HAPPEN SOON...

AND LET'S NOT FORGET "GLOBAL WARMING"... BY 2032, THE SHIT WILL HIT THE FAN...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans to award the Israel Prize, the country’s highest civilian honor, to US President Donald Trump – the first time the accolade will be bestowed upon a non-Israeli or a sitting foreign head of state.

Speaking after a meeting at Trumpэs Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday, Netanyahu said the decision reflects “overwhelming sentiment” in Israel regarding the US president’s support for the nation. The announcement breaks a 72-year tradition of honoring Israeli citizens for excellence and follows Trump’s exclusion from the Nobel Peace Prize shortlist in October.

“President Trump has broken so many conventions,” Netanyahu remarked, adding that Israel had therefore decided to “break a convention, too.” [GUS: CHEATING IS THE WORD...]

Trump, a close ally of Netanyahu and staunch supporter of Israel, called the award “surprising and very much appreciated.” While the Israel Prize typically requires recipients to be citizens or residents of Israel for at least three years before nomination, there is an exception for those who have made a “special contribution towards the Jewish people,” according to Jerusalem Post.

In October, Netanyahu lauded Trump as Israel’s “greatest friend ever” following Hamas’ release of the last 20 surviving hostages taken during the October 7, 2023 attacks, as part of a Gaza peace deal facilitated by the US leader and his team.

Ahead of his meeting with Netanyahu on Monday, Trump claimed that “almost every hostage released was due to my efforts… none were released during the Biden administration.” However, 107 hostages were freed in 2023 while Joe Biden was president, with another 33 returned in early 2025 under a deal negotiated before the end of Biden’s term.

In various speeches and interviews, Trump has asserted that he has “stopped eight wars,” positioning himself as uniquely capable of imposing order on global conflicts through his personality and negotiating skills.

https://www.rt.com/news/630236-netanyahu-trump-state-prize/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

Trump and Netanyahu pledge Middle East bloodbath will continue in 2026

BY Andre Damon

US President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, delivering a tirade of threats to escalate war throughout the Middle East.

Speaking after the meeting, Trump declared that the US would “wipe out” any resistance in Gaza. “If Iran is trying to build up again,” he added, semi-coherently, “we’ll knock the hell out of them.” 

The Washington Post reported Monday that strikes against Iran were a major topic of discussion at the meeting, with Netanyahu seeking US approval for renewed attacks on Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Trump’s threats come seven months after the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities. On June 22, 2025, seven US B-2 stealth bombers dropped 14 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-buster bombs—30,000-pound weapons, the most powerful non-nuclear munitions ever used in combat—on Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. For 12 days prior, Israel had carried out an assault on Iran that killed over 400 people and wounded more than 3,000.

The meeting in Mar-a-Lago was a gathering of war criminals. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including “starvation as a method of warfare” and “murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.” Domestically, Netanyahu is on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three separate corruption cases.

In his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump reiterated his calls for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, telling reporters that if Palestinians “were given the opportunity to live in a better climate, they would move,” adding, “They’re there because they sort of have to be.”

He warned that “there will be hell to pay” unless Hamas ceases any resistance to the US and Israel, threatening to “go in and wipe them out.”

In January, Trump told reporters that the United States would “clean out” Gaza’s 1.5 million people. In February, standing beside Netanyahu in Washington, he declared the United States would “take over” and “own” the territory, leveling it to build the “Riviera of the Middle East.” The Israeli government has since established a “Voluntary Emigration Bureau” to administer the ethnic cleansing plan.

Since the start of the Gaza genocide in October 2023, over 71,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 20,000 children. On August 22, famine was officially declared by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification—the first famine ever confirmed in the Middle East—which called the hunger crisis “entirely man-made.” The healthcare system has collapsed. Every university has been leveled. The population has been bombed, starved, denied medicine and driven from their homes repeatedly for over two years.

Under these conditions, Trump speaks of Palestinians “wanting” to leave—as though a population being systematically exterminated were freely choosing to abandon their homeland rather than being expelled through murder and starvation.

The “ceasefire” announced in October has given the capitalist powers’ stamp of legitimacy to the permanent Israeli occupation and annexation of a large portion of Gaza, coupled with daily mass killing and the deliberate starvation of the population. 

Trump declared on Monday that “Israel has lived up to the plan, 100%.” In fact, according to a statement issued Sunday by Gaza’s Government Media Office, the Israeli military has committed 969 ceasefire violations over the 80 days since the agreement took effect, killing 418 Palestinians and wounding 1,141. The violations include 289 incidents of direct gunfire against civilians, 455 shelling attacks on unarmed civilians and their homes, 54 military incursions into residential areas, and 162 cases of demolishing homes and civilian facilities.

Israel has failed to comply with the minimum agreed quantities of humanitarian aid. Only 19,764 aid trucks have entered Gaza over 80 days, averaging 253 per day instead of the agreed 600—a compliance rate of roughly 40 percent. Only 425 fuel trucks have entered, averaging five per day instead of the agreed 50. The office reported acute shortages of food, medicine, water and fuel.

The “ceasefire” has served as the framework for Israel’s continued expansion in the occupied territories. Defense Minister Israel Katz has pledged that Israel will “never leave” Gaza and will resettle its northern areas. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has proposed annexing 82 percent of the West Bank to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. In October, the Knesset voted to advance an annexation bill. Under these conditions, the capitalist media has declared that there is “peace” in the Middle East.

Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu takes place amid a growing global military escalation by the Trump administration. On December 9, Trump told Politicothat Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s “days are numbered” and refused to rule out sending US troops. Since September, US forces have murdered at least 104 people in 28 strikes on civilian boats.

Around Venezuela, the Trump administration has assembled the largest US military mobilization in the Caribbean since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Trump declared a “total and complete” blockade of Venezuelan oil tankers on December 16 and claimed to have struck a “big facility” inside the country. The administration has made clear its intention to overthrow the Maduro government and seize control of Venezuela’s oil reserves as part of Washington’s drive to establish “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.”

The Democratic Party has systematically enabled Trump’s global onslaught. In December, 115 House Democrats—including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark, and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar—voted for a $901 billion defense authorization, $8 billion more than Trump requested. Twenty-seven Senate Democrats supported it. In April, Senate Democrats overwhelmingly rejected resolutions to restrict arms sales to Israel. Both parties represent the interests of the same ruling class, and no faction of the political establishment opposes the global expansion of American militarism. 

In the year 2025, capitalism has normalized genocide. The capitalist media has proclaimed “peace” under conditions in which an entire population is being relentlessly starved, bombed and displaced.

Throughout the past two years, millions of people have taken to the streets in mass protests against the Gaza genocide. Demonstrations on every continent demanded an end to the slaughter. Yet despite this unprecedented outpouring of opposition, the capitalist parties have only normalized genocide. The protests have been ignored, suppressed and criminalized. All efforts to pressure the political establishment—through elections, through lobbying, through appeals to international law—have led nowhere. Biden armed the genocide; Trump has embraced it openly.

The lesson of 2025 is that the fight against war and genocide cannot be waged through the institutions of capitalist rule. What is necessary is the independent political mobilization of the international working class against the capitalist system itself. 

The same ruling class that is exterminating the Palestinians is attacking workers’ living standards, dismantling democratic rights and preparing for wider wars. Opposition to the genocide in Gaza is inseparable from the struggle against exploitation and inequality in every country. Only the working class, organized independently of both capitalist parties and united across national borders, has the social power to halt the drive toward barbarism.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/12/30/rpun-d30.html

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHZaYOLj4mE

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.