In the history of human societies, the concentration of power in the hands of a privileged minority is a recurring phenomenon that raises fundamental questions about the nature of power, social justice and the foundations of democracy. Oligarchies, these systems where a restricted elite exercises a disproportionate influence on the political and economic life of a country, embody this tendency towards the crystallization of power.

Since 1917, America has vowed to destroy Russia by whatever means… It is one of the main steps towards conquering the entire world. Conquering the world is the aim of the American Empire. One of the next step for the American Empire is the destruction of China… We know.

The present war in Ukraine was NOT unprovoked, but followed the long-held American plan of achieving the destruction of Russia. Russia is fighting back.

This modern momentum against Russia mostly started during WW2, by secretly encouraging Hitler to invade Russia, despite the agreement of non-aggression between Russia (Stalin) and Germany (Hitler).

Ukraine is preparing a “comprehensive plan” for ending the conflict with Russia that should be ready by the end of the year, Vladimir Zelensky has said.

Zelensky made the comments at a press conference in Kiev, after meeting Slovenian President Natasa Pirc Musar on Friday.

“We will also work out all other points of the Peace Formula and prepare a comprehensive plan that will be on the table before our partners,” Zelensky said. “It is very important for us to show a plan to end the war that will be supported by the majority of the world. This is the diplomatic path we are working on.”

While Peter Dutton gets headlines for his nuclear fairytale and the Labor Government presses on with its AUKUS submarines, the fallout from nuclear bomb testing in the Pilbara in 1956 finally reaches court. Sue Roff reports from London.

In 1956, on the remote Montebello Islands off Western Australia, an atomic bomb was tested. It was supposed to be no more than 50 kilotons, but in fact measured 98 kilotons, or more than six times the strength of the bomb dropped over Hiroshima in 1945.

     by Sue Rabbitt Roff

The USA has shot itself in the head with its own wonder weapon. The most powerful weapon in the US arsenal is not F-16 jets, Himar missiles, or any of the other conventional war toys. Real US power resides in the US dollar.

By increasingly weaponizing the dollar and access to the dollar-denominated global trading system, America has taken to the greenback with a blowtorch that will trigger a reckoning for the ages. It is a classic case of imperial overreach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Nqbo2oUgI&t=1534s

2024 is going to be an inflection point for humanity. But it is also going to be a major test not just of liberal democracy as a political system, but for human civilisation as a whole.

Over 80 countries – more than half the world's population – are holding elections this year that could be pivotal for the future of democracy.

Paris | Marine Le Pen says French President Emmanuel Macron’s accusations that the agendas of the far-right National Rally and leftist alliance could lead to “civil war” indicate that he knows he is going to lose the upcoming legislative vote that begins on Sunday.

“He always campaigned saying ‘it’s me or chaos’,” Ms Le Pen said on RTL radio on Tuesday. “It’s a very weak argument that shows that he thinks he’s lost this election.”

Mr Macron on Monday said that the way the far-right and far-left blocs pit people against each other could lead to a dangerous domestic situation.

We live in a world of make-believe politics, a world where strings pulled in the interests of the super-rich are ever more visible. 

And yet we are expected to pretend we cannot see those strings. More astonishing still, many people really do seem blind to the puppet show.

By Jonathan Cook
Jonathan-Cook.net

The dark machinery of empire, whose mendacity and savagery Julian Assange exposed to the world, spent 14 years trying to destroy him. They cut him off from his funding, canceling his bank accounts and credit cards. They invented bogus allegations of sexual assault to get him extradited to Sweden, where he would then be shipped to the U.S. 

“The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position.” – Shanghai Communique, United States government, 1972

In his essay, Sleepwalking Towards War, eminent Yale scholar Odd Arne Westad provides a compelling insight into today’s tensions between the United States and China. Locating the geopolitical landscape of the rising power of China with the declining power of the United States, Westad traces the structural roots of the conflict and makes an analogy with the events and attitudes that led Britain and Germany to disastrous war in 1914.

Russia has never refused dialogue with France and is ready to engage in negotiations “to the extent that our counterparts are ready,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly signaled his willingness to engage in meaningful negotiations with foreign powers, Peskov told reporters when asked for comment on the latest remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron.  

“The president has repeatedly stated his openness to negotiations, especially constructive negotiations, meant to achieve certain results,” the spokesman explained.

“We are ready for dialogue to the extent that our counterparts are ready for it. There are absolutely no conditions for this,” he added.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Russia’s defense minister — the first such conversation in 15 months.

Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder announced the call in a briefing Tuesday, saying Austin initiated the discussion.

“The secretary emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine,” Ryder said.

The public perception of the American empire, at least to those within the United States who have never seen the empire dominate and exploit the “wretched of the earth,” is radically different from reality. 

These manufactured illusions, ones Joseph Conrad wrote so presciently about, posit that the empire is a force for good. The empire, we are told, fosters democracy and liberty. It spreads the benefits of ‘western civilization’. 

These are deceptions repeated ad nauseam by a compliant media and mouthed by politicians, academics and the powerful. But they are lies, as all of us who have spent years reporting overseas understand.

The world’s ideological conflict ever since the Soviet Union in 1991 ended its communism, has been anti-imperialism versus the U.S. empire. There is only one empire left standing, and it aims to take control over the entire world: any country that resists being taken over by America’s Government is therefore its target and becomes targeted by all of its colonies, too (since any that would oppose it is therefore itself added to its target-list). (The U.S. Government decides what dissent is acceptable, and what is not.)