Dying For What ???

Here is commentary by Major Danny Sjursen:

Numbness or apathy. These seem to be Americans’ go-to responses when each new overseas tragedy unfolds. Recently, it was a bus full of Yemeni children – 40 in fact – killed by a Saudi airstrike that represented one tiny speck of catastrophe in an ongoing U.S.-backed coalition campaign. Sure, the dead kids briefly hit the screens of CNN, Fox, and MSNBC; but let’s be real: no one really cared. We were all too enthralled in the latest White House drama or too sick of politics to even click on the news. Of course, these were foreign, brown, Muslim children – and the dirty secret is they just don’t garner the attention of equally cute American, Caucasian, Christian kids who fall victim to the latest school shooting or terror attack. Let us then call it like it is – the U.S. refuels warplanes, sells bombs, provides intelligence and otherwise enables a Saudi terror campaign that’s killed tens of thousands of civilians, unleashed the world’s worst cholera epidemic in recorded history, and threatens to starve millions of Yemenis.

So that’s Yemen. More than a thousand miles to the east, in distant Afghanistan, (remember that country, you know, where we’ve waged the longest war in our history?) just this week, a US Army Special Forces Sergeant was killed by an IED strike. By one semi-official count, that makes him the 2,414th American to die in the conflict. That not tragic enough for you? How about this: next year, young men and women born after the 9/11 attacks will undoubtedly start patrolling the Hindu Kush and other Afghan locales. And how’s the forever war going? This same week, an increasing invigorated Taliban killed a couple dozen Afghan soldiers and seized a government base. Back in 2011, when I had the inauspicious task of patrolling the Arghandab Valley, the US had some 100,000 troops in the country. We still couldn’t decisively defeat the Taliban. Now, we’ve got about 15,000 soldiers there – think we’re poised for victory now? Does it even matter? Americans will simply yawn.

So that’s Afghanistan. I could go on, of course. We could talk Niger, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, or Pakistan; really any of the disconnected locales where the US military currently fights, kills, or dies. There’s no end in sight folks. It’s not that no one cares to be fair. Brave and idealistic men and women continue to join the service and dedicate years and sometimes careers to achieving some measure of stability in the Mideast. It’s just that no matter how hard the generals try, no matter how late the staff officers work, and no matter how much the enlisted men sweat, there is no indication (the last 17 years being any measure) that Americans are any safer, that the Greater Middle East is any more secure, or that there’s any plausible prospect of victory.

You can read the rest @
https://original.antiwar.com/Danny_Sjursen/2018/08/20/dying-for-what-a-tour-of-fruitless-american-killing-and-sacrifice/

It's as if this is all a giant video game - one that lets us enjoy the thrill of killing without the fear of anyone shooting back, and which we can turn off and ignore whenever another thrill-seeking diversion catches our eye.

If THAT is "the American way of life", it's not worth protecting. And we're sure not helping any of the people we're starving, bombing, and shooting.

So, as Danny asks - dying for what?

Keeping Track Of 1.4 Billion People

In China, subway passengers are registered using biometric face and palm recognition.

You can read the rest @
https://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2018/08/20/china-u-bahn-fahrgaeste-werden-per-gesichtserkennung-registriert/ [translation required]

Unless "subway crime" is a big thing in China, this probably is being done for other purposes - such as keeping track of everyone all the time.

And it's interesting that both Apple and Google (perhaps others) are going to help the Chinese build and/or control their cyber prison. You can read about it here:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-pulls-25-000-apps-from-china-app-store-following-state-media-criticism-1534731049

 ... and here:

https://www.vox.com/2018/8/17/17704526/google-dragonfly-censored-search-engine-china

By the way, although the techies are whining about attempts to censor the Chinese, I didn't read that any of them complained when US social media companies conspired to silence the alt-right. What a bunch of hypocritical a-holes !!!

Another Way Amazon Screws Us

Amazon is making us pay for their electric power needs. You can read about it here:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-20/power-hungry-amazon-sticking-rural-americans-tab-data-center-expansions

People defeated nuclear power in the US by refusing to pay the cost for construction of new power plants. The same people, or their children, should now rise up in opposition to Amazon.

Robots Can Brainwash Our Children

A new study has shown that robots can brainwash children, essentially programming their minds into “mindless conformity.” Children can be significantly influenced by machines, even when the robots were obviously wrong.

Writing in Science Robotics, the University of Plymouth researchers behind the study said the findings raise concerns about the potential for robots to have a negative influence on vulnerable children.  Children were shown to trust the answer a robot provides over their own assessment, even though it was easily wrong, making “robot pressure,” the new peer pressure, reported RT.

You can read the rest @
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/new-study-robots-can-brainwash-children-into-mindless-conformity_08202018

This reminds me of what happened following 9/11. The vast majority of people believe the lies told to us by the US government and the MSM about what happened that day, even though most of such claims are obviously wrong.

I think we're in big trouble. To paraphrase René Descartes:

"I am told what to think, therefore I am allowed to be."

Mass Extinctions Restore Balance

Here is yet another report about the "sixth mass extinction" which appears to be underway:

https://truthout.org/articles/sixth-mass-extinction-ushers-in-record-breaking-wildfires-and-heat/

Extinctions serve an important purpose, in that they allow the restoration of balance in the biosphere.

The above-linked report makes a good point - the Earth is currently out of balance because of capitalism. Since no one has been successful in defeating (or even modifying) capitalism, natural negative feedback mechanisms are taking over ... and they will restore balance by killing all the capitalists. The fact that the rest of us also will die merely proves we are not fit to survive.

Life will go on; it just won't be human life. We've been selected for extinction.

Doctors Dropping Out ???

According to this report, a growing number of MDs are leaving the profession:

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/doctor-out-why-physicians-are-leaving-their-practices-pursue-other-n900921

I think anyone who takes up a spot at medical school has an obligation to stick it out for an entire career. If you cannot handle the job, go somewhere else and let the REAL doctors have that precious opportunity. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

[Spoken by one who tried to get into med school but could not.]

Uri Avnery - RIP

Veteran left-wing journalist, lawmaker and peace activist Uri Avnery died Monday at age 94 in Tel Aviv. A founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement, Avnery was also one of the first Israelis to actively advocate for the establishment of a Palestinian state, more than 70 years ago.

As a youth he fought with the Irgun pre-state underground militia and later in life moved to the left of the political spectrum. He was also editor-in-chief of the iconic liberal weekly, Haolam Hazeh, for 40 years.

The eternal peace activist never shirked controversy and was involved in fateful events in the country’s history, some of which he documented and others he actively took part in shaping. But while Avnery’s supporters saw his ideas as groundbreaking, detractors denounced him as an enemy of the people.

You can read the rest @
https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2018/08/20/israeli-peace-activist-uri-avnery-dead-at-94/

I enjoyed reading whatever Uri wrote. I am not an Israeli, so I cannot understand why he could be called "an enemy of the people". I always thought he was a man of peace and harmony.

RIP, buddy. Now that you are gone, who will be the foil to Netanyahu?