Headlines

A new poll by Winthrop University [South Carolina] finds sharp divides in how black and white Southerners see Democrats and Republicans, Confederate monuments and the Black Lives Matter movement. Poll results from eleven Southern states show both groups feel anxious after a series of high-profile and occasionally violent protests. Forty-six percent of whites polled said they “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that white people are under attack in the United States today, while three-fourths of blacks said racial minorities are under attack … Overwhelmingly, respondents across the South said all races should be treated equally, and that America should protect and preserve its multicultural heritage.

To all intents and purposes, Saudi Arabia and Israel are de facto allies in the struggle against Iran’s rising influence in the region. It’s a developing but highly sensitive relationship, but every so often there is a hint of what may be going on beneath the surface … Such signals are not sent by accident. They are carefully co-ordinated and intended to warn Iran of the developing relationship as well as to prepare Saudi society given the likelihood that such ties may become ever more apparent … We know little about its practical realities or its strategic content. But it is real and it is developing … However welcome many of the [American] president’s words may be in Israel and Saudi Arabia, both governments know that US policy seems adrift in the region.

… Over the past week or so the New York Times and Israeli media have reported that a Trump peace plan is indeed taking shape. Sources have been vague about the exact contents of the plan though one common feature to every report is that the US will recognise a Palestinian state as part of the overall deal. Last week, the Israeli news show Hadashot laid out the provisions of the peace plan that had been leaked to it. Beyond the recognition of a state, the deal would offer Palestinians almost nothing further. Jerusalem would not be accepted as Palestine’s national capital. No settler would have to evacuate a single settlement, let alone an entire settlement. Israel would hit a payday in terms of getting almost all of what it’s demanded and failed to get from previous US administrations.

President Trump and his advisers have begun developing their own concrete blueprint to end the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, a plan intended to go beyond previous frameworks offered by the American government in pursuit of what the president calls “the ultimate deal.” … Mr. Trump and his team make no bones about being pro-Israel. The president has boasted of being Israel’s “biggest friend,” and Mr. Kushner, Mr. Greenblatt and Mr. Friedman are all Orthodox Jews with ties to Israel … Still, some analysts think Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas are simply playing along with the goal of ensuring the other is blamed when the process collapses.

… In fact, nearly half the states in the country — regardless of political majority — support anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) legislation, belying the popular narrative that Israel has become a polarizing issue … That there are now 24 states in the nation to have anti-BDS laws is a testament to that bipartisanship. With Executive Order no. 261 Wisconsin became the most recent state nationwide to pass a law prohibiting discriminatory boycotts of Israel in state contracting … Some laws require states to divest public pension funds from companies that boycott Israel. Some prevent states from contracting with companies. Some do both … The Texas law prohibits any state pension fund from investing in any country that boycotts Israel and no government entity can purchase any goods or services from a company that boycotts Israel.

The UK was “misled” over Saddam Hussein’s access to weapons of mass destruction, and the Iraq War was unjustified, Gordon Brown has said. The former prime minister, who was chancellor when the decision to go to war in 2003 was made, said the US failed to share crucial intelligence that cast serious doubt over the dictator’s destructive capabilities. He believes the course of history could have been different had the information been shared. “When I consider the rush to war in March, 2003 – especially in light of what we now know about the absence of weapons of mass destruction – I ask myself over and over whether I could have made more of a difference before that fateful decision was taken,” he writes in his latest book My Life, Our Times.

A bombshell White House memo has revealed for the first time details of the ‘deal in blood’ forged by Tony Blair and George Bush over the Iraq War. The sensational leak shows that Blair had given an unqualified pledge to sign up to the conflict a year before the invasion started. It flies in the face of the Prime Minister’s public claims at the time that he was seeking a diplomatic solution to the crisis. He told voters: ‘We’re not proposing military action’ – in direct contrast to what the secret email now reveals. The classified document also discloses that Blair agreed to act as a glorified spin doctor for the President by presenting ‘public affairs lines’ to convince a sceptical public that Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction – when none existed.

A highly classified British memo, leaked [in May 2005] …, indicates that President Bush decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by summer 2002 and was determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy. The document, which summarizes a July 23, 2002, meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers, reports on a visit to Washington by the head of Britain’s MI-6 intelligence service. The visit took place while the Bush administration was still declaring to the American public that no decision had been made to go to war … “Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD,” weapons of mass destruction. The memo said “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

… Can a country so preoccupied and polarized on such pursuits be taken seriously as a claimant to be the “exceptional nation,” a model to which the world should look and aspire? Contrast the social, cultural and moral morass in which America is steeped with the disciplined proceedings and clarity of purpose, direction and goals of our 21st-century rival: Xi Jinping’s China. Our elites assure us that America today is a far better place than we have ever known, surely better than the old America that existed before the liberating cultural revolution of the 1960s … We seemed a more serious and united nation and people then than we are today … Are we really a better country today than we were then, when all the world looked to America as the land of the future?

… Today, disparaging the past is a mark of intellectual respectability. Anyone who believes that history involves loss as well as gain is reactionary … The end result of a systematic devaluation of the past, however, is a condition of confusion not unlike that experienced by those who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease … Rather than enabling human beings to fashion new identities, a willed collective amnesia leaves them with no identity at all … Any reminder of past achievements can only be an obstacle to a society that defines itself by an image of the future … Now the liberal West is in the midst of its own cultural revolution. In acrimonious debates about immigration and attacks on cultural appropriation in universities, Western history is being repudiated as a zone of crime and barbarism.

Francis O’Gorman’s new book centres on his belief that people in the 21st century are detaching themselves from the past to their detriment. He examines the ways we forget: the erasure of memory that comes with age, and the modern impulse to untether ourselves from the places we came from, orienting ourselves instead towards the future, with scant regard for history and its lessons … He explores the role of cultural memory in classical society and the west’s shifting relationship with history across the centuries. He looks at the emergence of a culture of forgetting, a desire to overwrite and wipe clean. Cultural memory, he argues, shapes our sense of time and connectedness to one another on a local and global level. By “winding down the portcullis” on the past, we risk closing our minds.

… The US imperium exerts its power by controlling tame, compliant regimes around the world and their economies. They are called ‘allies’ but, in fact, should be more accurately termed satrapies or vassal states. Many states are happy to be prosperous US vassals, others less so. The US power system has successfully dominated much of the world, except of course for great powers China, Russia and India. Germany and much of Western Europe remains in thrall to post WWII US power … No one in Washington seems to know how many US troops operate in Africa, but it’s at least 12,000 not counting mercenary contractors and CIA units … So off the US military charges into Africa, with little understanding of the region and even less strategic planning. It’s Vietnam-style ‘mission creep’ all over again.

It’s remarkable that whenever you read an article about Yemen in the mainstream media, the central role of Saudi Arabia and the United States in the tragedy is glossed over or completely ignored. A recent Washington Post article purporting to tell us “how things got so bad” explains to us that, “it’s a complicated story” involving “warring regional superpowers, terrorism, oil, and an impending climate catastrophe.” No, Washington Post, it’s simpler than that. The tragedy in Yemen is the result of foreign military intervention in the internal affairs of that country … US involvement in Saudi Arabia’s crimes against Yemen is a national disgrace. That the mainstream media fails to accurately cover this genocide is shameful.

A young John F. Kennedy filled dozens of pages in what historians believe to be his only diary. In one of the most interesting entries, Kennedy compares Adolf Hitler to a “legend.” After the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, JFK visited Hitler’s bombed Bavarian Berghof residence and Eagle’s Nest mountain retreat … A 28-year-old Kennedy wrote about his fascination with the dictator … “He had boundless ambition for his country which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world, but he had a mystery about him in the way he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him,” he wrote. “He had in him the stuff of which legends are made.” Kennedy predicted in his diary that Hitler would “emerge from the hatred that surrounds him now as one of the most significant figures who ever lived.”

Was Joseph P. Kennedy, the father of President John F. Kennedy, really an anti-Semite? David Nasaw, Kennedy’s recent biographer … admitted that Kennedy believed in a Jewish conspiracy to push the United States into an unnecessary war with Germany. And as ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1940, he was in a position — even if he wasn’t a believer in “scientific” anti-Semitism — to do far more damage to European Jews than his stateside contemporaries … Kennedy blamed the Jews for the German problem, and he is reported to have said that the lives of Jews in Central Europe were not really worth all the agitation.

… Kennedy always remained convinced of what he believed to be the Jews’ corrupt, malignant, and profound influence in American culture and politics. “The Democratic [party] policy of the United States is a Jewish production,” Kennedy told a British reporter near the end of 1939 …

U.S. President Donald Trump’s hardened stance towards Iran evoked a mixture of indifference and national pride among Iranians on Saturday but many were concerned about economic hardship should a multinational nuclear deal unravel … “Who the hell is Trump to threaten Iran and Iranians? Of course we don’t want economic hardship, but it does not mean we will be their puppet and do whatever they say,” said housewife Minou Khosravani, 37, a mother of two in the central city of Yazd … Tired of economic adversity during years of tough sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme, many Iranians still fervently back the decision by Iran’s clerical rulers to resist U.S. pressure. “I am not a regime supporter. But I side with Iran’s rulers against Trump and his illogical pressure on Iran,” said hairdresser Ziba Ghanbari, 42 …

After the 19th national congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October, one may discern Premier Xi Jinping’s vision of the emerging New World Order. By 2049, the centennial of the triumph of Communist Revolution, China shall have become the first power on earth … Democracy has been rejected by China in favor of one-party rule of all political, economic, cultural and social life … Indeed, has not China shown the world that authoritarianism can be compatible with national growth that outstrips a democratic West? Over the last quarter century, China, thanks to economic nationalism and $4 trillion in trade surpluses with the United States, has exhibited growth unseen since 19th-century America … What is America’s vision?

… It was said that only by following the Western political system can China actually become a developed country. But it turned out that hardly any country which undertook reforms urged by Western elites could develop well. Instead, such countries suffered setbacks or even came to the brink of collapse. Even the West has realized that its system is not only unable to save China but is itself under scrutiny. The West is reluctant to see an increasingly confident China unwaveringly pursue its own path … Instead of drawing wisdom from its reform and development program, the Western elite have a confrontational mind-set and try to hinder China’s development. It may be a temporary setback for China’s development, but cannot affect the general direction of the development.

At its “Never Is Now” anti-Semitism summit this week, the Anti-Defamation League gave its ADL Americanism Award to Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria, superintendent of the Air Force Academy, for his famed speech last September denouncing white racists for scrawling anti-black slurs on the dorm door of a black student … The only problem with the ADL’s ceremony honoring Lt. Gen. Silveria’s “commitment, dedication, and leadership in the fight against hate” was that six days earlier the Air Force Academy had admitted that the graffiti had been a hoax perpetrated by an unnamed black student. In other words, the Air Force Academy incident had indeed been a racist hate crime, but, contra General Silveria, one perpetrated to spread fear and loathing against its white victims. The ADL, however, is not in the business of letting reality get in the way of business.

Previous research has found that there is a statistically significant, positive link between country-level IQ and various measures of aggregate production, such as GDP. This study extends that analysis by estimating the relationship between IQ and a new measure of economic welfare … Using this new economic welfare index for a large sample of countries (74), we find that IQ is a statistically significant and economically important predictor of welfare growth. A one-point increase in IQ is associated with a four percent increase in welfare growth for the average country. Our results support the view that national IQ is an important determinant of cross-country differences in economic activity and welfare.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan used an address to party officials Friday in Ankara as an opportunity to launch a blistering attack on the U.S. policy in Syria. Erdogan openly asked why the U.S. is involving itself in a country 12,000 kilometers away. He then accused Washington of breaking commitments and promises, claiming the country was trying to trick him … In a sign of the level of mistrust generated over the dispute, Erdogan accused the U.S. of sending large amounts of cash to Islamic State … Ankara’s relations with both Tehran and Moscow have markedly improved in the last year, much to the concern of Turkey’s NATO allies.

When it comes to the Holocaust, Austria has made a lot of progress assuming responsibility … Teaching about the Holocaust has become mandatory, with visits to former death camps and teacher training in Israel. The government has paid nearly $1 billion since 2005 in compensation to Holocaust victims, and since 2012, Holocaust memorial projects have popped up at an unprecedented rate … Yet in spite of this increased sensitivity, nationalism still has a firm grip on Austrian society … The Jewish Community in Vienna considers the Freedom Party a racist entity, according to Oskar Deutsch, the community leader, who has called on Chancellor-elect Sebastian Kurz to prevent the Freedom Party from reaching power.

The Palestinians threatened on Saturday to suspend all communication with the United States if the Trump administration follows through with plans to close their diplomatic office in Washington … Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the U.S. decision was “very unfortunate and unacceptable,” and accused Washington of bowing to pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “at a time when we are trying to cooperate to achieve the ultimate deal.” … The administration announced late Friday that the Palestinians had run afoul of a legal provision that says the Palestine Liberation Organization cannot operate a Washington office if the Palestinians try to get the International Criminal Court to prosecute Israelis for crimes against Palestinians.

Instead of holding Israel liable for its persistent violations of international law and conventions, the U.S. administration and Congress are threatening to punish the Palestinian people because of statements made by President Mahmoud Abbas at the United Nations and other leaders pertaining to ICC [International Criminal Court] accountability for Israel and for its war crimes in Palestine. It is ironic that the U.S. is taking steps to punish the victim (the occupied) and not the perpetrator of the crime (the occupier) … The Palestinian leadership has been negotiating with Israel for decades and has consistently abided by international law and signed agreements while Israel persisted in violating them without accountability or constraints.

Last week [Oct. 26] there was a significant development in the international response to the Israeli occupation when the UN rapporteur for human rights in the occupied territories came out with a harsh report saying the world was too passive about the occupation. The “duration of this occupation is without precedent or parallel in today’s world,” the report said … There is a “darkening stain” on the world’s legal framework because other countries have treated the occupation as normal, and done nothing to resist Israel’s “colonial ambition par excellence,” … At a press conference about his report, S. Michael Lynk, a Canadian professor of law and human rights expert, said it is time the international community reach into its “toolbox” of enforcement mechanisms …

The United States has been at war continuously since the attacks of 9/11 and now has just over 240,000 active-duty and reserve troops in at least 172 countries and territories … So far, Americans seem to accept that these missions and the deployments they require will continue indefinitely. Still, it’s a very real question whether, in addition to endorsing these commitments, which have cost trillions of dollars and many lives over 16 years, they will embrace new entanglements of the sort President Trump has seemed to portend with his rash threats and questionable decisions on North Korea and Iran … It’s time to take stock of how broadly American forces are already committed to far-flung regions and to begin thinking hard about how much of that investment is necessary …

Does anyone in the Trump Administration have a clue about our Syria policy? … The obvious question is why is it any of our business who runs Syria, but perhaps that’s too obvious. Washington’s interventionists have long believed that they have the unilateral right to determine who is allowed to head up foreign countries … The real story behind Washington’s ongoing determination to overthrow the Syrian government is even more disturbing. In a bombshell interview last week, a former Qatari Prime Minister confessed that his country, along with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States, began shipping weapons to jihadists from the very moment Syrian unrest began in 2011 … As they did in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the CIA supported radical Islamic terrorism in Syria.

Finland has officially used the ancient symbol of the swastika on monuments, awards and decorations for nearly a century. Today, it is still prominently displayed on military flags and insignia / … The Finnish military does indeed give a quick and strident answer when asked if the swastika really projects the right image. “First of all, it had nothing to do with the Nazis, because we got it 1918, much before the Nazis ever existed. It has always been a symbol of independence and freedom in Finland,” says Lt Col Kai Mecklin (Ret.) who is the Director of the Finnish Air Force Museum. The swastika is a symbol that has been used for thousands of years across a wide spectrum of cultures all over the world … The swastikas were retained and painted on all Finnish Air Force planes up until 1945.

After a visit to the Eastern front in occupied Soviet territory, Hitler flies to Finland for a historic meeting on June 4, 1942, with Finland’s great commander, Marshal Mannerheim, on his 75th birthday, and with Finnish president Ryti. Portion of the German weekly wartime newsreel, “Deutsche Wochenschau,” of June 11, 1942. With English subtitles. Runtime: 5:26 mins.

… What few people realize — and what startled me when I began researching my latest spy novel — is that MI6 [the foreign arm of the British intelligence services] itself came about as a result of an elaborate campaign of misinformation. In fact, it is fair to say that fake news created both arms of the British secret service, foreign and domestic … Eventually, in 1909, the British government felt compelled to investigate. Officials set up an inquiry into German spies on British soil. But it found nothing. There was no evidence to suggest a network of spies … The British secret service thus had its origins in a concerted, crude but nevertheless effective campaign of fake news, where the line between fact and fiction was deliberately blurred for political reasons.

MI6 [UK foreign intelligence service] spent the present-day equivalent of more than $200 million bribing senior Spanish military officers, ship owners and other agents to keep Spain out of the second world war, files released today disclose. More and more money was delivered, mainly via a Swiss bank account in New York, as Sir Samuel Hoare, Britain’s ambassador in Madrid, warned London that unless it was paid, there was a real and immediate danger of Spain abandoning its neutrality and of Franco joining forces with Nazi Germany … Spaniards were not the only beneficiaries of MI6 money approved by FO ministers. “We recently put forward to our ambassador in Baghdad a suggestion for the adoption of large-scale bribery of politicians and other leading personalities in Iraq,” says a file dated January 1941.

During World War Two, thousands of Japanese pilots volunteered to be kamikaze, suicidally crashing their planes in the name of their emperor. More than 70 years on, the BBC’s Mariko Oi asks what these once revered men mean to Japan’s youth. Irrational, heroic and stupid: this was what three young people in Tokyo said when I asked them about their views on the kamikaze … Decades after the war, opinions on the kamikaze pilots remain divided, partly because their legacy has been used repeatedly as a political tool … Only eleven percent of Japanese nationals would be willing to fight for the country at all, according to a global survey by WIN/Gallup International … The result is hardly surprising given that Japan’s post-war generation was brought up under a pacifist constitution which banned the nation from having a military.

Despite impressive gains by Syria and its allies in the fight against terrorism and the Islamic State group, Israel signaled Sunday that it plans to continue launching aggressive strikes on alleged Iranian-allied forces, even as the United States and Russia try to build up a ceasefire in the area … Israel has launched several unprovoked acts of aggression against Syrian targets throughout the six-year civil war, including assassinations and assaults on targets such as alleged “arms caches” belonging to Hezbollah. The Lebanese resistance group has fought alongside Syrian forces at the state’s invitation for the past few years.

… What, then, is US policy in the Middle East — under Trump, Obama, Bush and Clinton (and even earlier)? When all the rhetoric has been stripped away, we can identity quite clear, precise, and fairly consistent major strategic policy positions. First, Washington accedes to almost anything that Israel wants. This is an untouchable posture, a third rail, beyond any debate or discussion lest we anger the powerful Zionist lobby of AIPAC and end up being labelled “anti-Semitic.” … The most prominent US policy failures are familiar and proceed from the goals. If unquestioning support to Israel is the top priority, Washington has not failed here. But Israel remains about as truculent as ever in maintaining its own priority of extending territorial control and creeping takeover of all Palestinian lands and people.

… When presented with a list of expenditure categories, and polled about which should be the single top priority for budgetary cuts by Congress, “US military actions in the Middle East” was far and away their top choice [with 42 percent]. But most Americans probably have little idea how enormous those costs truly are. (Question: Which expenditure category should Congress cut to make government more responsive to the American people and reduce the budget deficit?) The IRmep poll was fielded by Google surveys from November 13 to November 15 …

The stars came out in Hollywood on November 2, or at least some of them did. The gala event celebrated the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and raised funds to support its mission in Israel itself and on the occupied West Bank. The organization being fêted was the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) … The 1,200 attendees at the Beverly Hilton Hotel donated a record $53.8 million … Jewish power in the United States makes it happen. But more particularly, it is Jewish money that does the trick since cash on the table provides access both to the media and to the people that matter in Washington. A tight circle of billionaire oligarchs, including Saban, Ellison and Adelson, as well as Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus directly support organizations like FIDF as well as major pro-Israel groups like it.

Israel asked the Obama administration to bomb Iran, former US secretary of state John Kerry said during a conversation he held in London at the Chatham House think tank this week about Tehran’s nuclear threat. “Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu was urging President [Barack] Obama to bomb Iran,” Kerry said. He did not clarify when that request was made. “Every leader I met with in the region … [including Egyptian president Hosni] Mubarak, personally, to my face, said, ‘You have to bomb Iran, that is the only thing they understand and that is the only way you will stop them having a nuclear weapon,’” Kerry recalled. “Bombing Iran does not necessarily stop them from having a nuclear weapon. It is the same dilemma that we face with North Korea. We do not know where everything is,” Kerry said.

When it comes to Iran, do basic facts matter? Evidently not, since dozens and dozens of journalists keep casually reporting that Iran has a “nuclear weapons program” when it does not — a problem FAIR has reported on over the years … If you are skeptical, just refer to a 2007 assessment by all 16 US intelligences agencies … Or look at the same National Intelligence Estimate in 2012, which concluded again that there “is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb.” Or we can listen to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, which concurred with the US intelligence assessment … Another major reason for this recurring falsehood … is that one can say pretty much anything about Iran without any professional or public backlash. Because Iran is an Official US Enemy, and its motives are therefore always deemed sinister.

It was 100 years ago, between Nov. 6 and Nov. 9, 1917, that a small group of Red Guards under Vladimir Lenin seized the Winter Palace in Russia and established a communist regime, marking the beginning of a century in which more than 100 million people would be killed by the ideology of communism, rooted in atheism and struggle. The White House commemorated the victims of communism on Nov. 7, proclaiming it National Day for the Victims of Communism. “Over the past century, communist totalitarian regimes around the world have killed more than 100 million people and subjected countless more to exploitation, violence, and untold devastation,” said the office of the White House press secretary, in a statement.

In 1919, following the first World War, the victorious Allied Powers met in Paris to remake the world … Under their leadership, the lands of the defeated Central Powers were picked apart … In the end, Lord Balfour had his way. Instead of independence, boundaries were drawn, dismembering the Arab East and creating British and French spheres of influence over the newly created states of Lebanon and Syria (France) and trans-Jordan and Iraq (Britain) as well as Palestine (also to the British, with the understanding that it would become the “Jewish Homeland”). These deplorable actions by the imperial powers set the stage for the multiple conflicts that have plagued the region ever since.

So now it’s time for us all to follow Theresa May’s bone-headed suggestion that we feel “proud” of the iniquitous Balfour Declaration on its hundredth anniversary this week. The Israelis will be celebrating – and why not, for it set Britain’s seal on the future Israeli state in Palestine. Perhaps Israel would not have been created without it. But the fearful suffering and tragedy of the Palestinian refugees which was to follow in the coming years suggest that the Balfour letter – through its very wording – was certain to create a terrible wrongdoing … Feel plenty of “pride” like Theresa. And if you don’t, consider yourself a Nazi.

Decades ago, Warner Bros. studio mesmerized moviegoers with films such as “The Jazz Singer” and “Casablanca” — some of the most popular hits of cinema’s golden age. Now, the four Jewish-American brothers who founded that studio — Jack, Harry, Sam and Albert — are the marquee attractions of a new book: “Warner Bros: The Making of An American Movie Studio,” by film critic and historian David Thomson … Jack Warner — a walking paradigm of Hollywood success and scandal. Warner is “maybe the biggest scumbag ever to get into a Jewish Lives series,” writes Thomson … He said, “certain corporations that were absolutely vital in the history of movies were largely or almost entirely Jewish.” … “In 1942, American studios made 60 to 70 films with anti-Nazi themes.”

… After reading Hollywood Goes to War, one cannot help but come away with the impression that the movie industry and various government agencies were very much in the propaganda business before and during World War II … In 1939 Warner Brothers premiered Confessions of a Nazi Spy, which claimed in melodramatic fashion that Germany sought to conquer the entire globe … In 1943 Warner Brothers premiered Mission to Moscow, based on the book of the same name by Joseph E. Davies, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1936 to 1938. The authors of Hollywood Goes to War characterize this picture as the “most notorious example of propaganda in the guise of entertainment ever produced by Hollywood.”

Decades of deceitful motion pictures have done much to produce a misinformed and compliant American public. A notable example of such film deceit is “Mission to Moscow,” a major Hollywood production made with White House backing, that portrays Soviet dictator Stalin and the Soviet Russian regime as benevlolent, peace-loving and trustworthy. Another good example is the “Why We Fight” series of documentary-style films produced by the US War Department, which have been viewed by millions. Made during World War II, these seven films use staged scenes and fake quotations to present a grossly distorted view of history and the world.

… A new report released Friday [Oct. 13] by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that almost 40 percent of American adults and nearly 20 percent of adolescents are obese – and those are the highest rates ever recorded. “It’s difficult to be optimistic at this point,” said Dr. Frank Hu, chair of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. “The trend of obesity has been steadily increasing in both children and adults despite many public health efforts to improve nutrition and physical activity.” The continued weight increase in the youngest Americans is especially worrisome for long-term health … Overall, 70.7 percent of Americans are either overweight or obese, meaning that an unhealthy weight has become the norm, with normal weight Americans — a BMI of less than 25 — now in the minority.

If the crown prince of Saudi Arabia has in mind a war with Iran, President Trump should disabuse his royal highness of any notion that America would be doing his fighting for him. Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, the 32-year-old son of the aging and ailing King Salman, is making too many enemies for his own good, or for ours. Pledging to Westernize Saudi Arabia, he has antagonized the clerical establishment … The U.S. interest here is clear: no new war in the Middle East, and a negotiated end to the wars in Yemen and Syria. Hence, the United States needs to rein in the royal prince. Yet, on his Asia trip, Trump said of the Saudi-generated crisis, “I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing.” Do they?

… Rather than ethnic or sectarian motivations, Saudi Arabia’s ultimate aim is to drag the United States back into the Middle East in order for Washington to reestablish its military dominance and reimpose on the region an equilibrium that favors Tel Aviv and Riyadh. This, however, does not require just a war in Lebanon, but a permanent state of conflict between the United States and Iran. Israel and Saudi Arabia see this as justified return to the order that existed prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq … What the American public needs to fully understand, though, is that Riyadh is not seeking a one-off in Lebanon but rather a perpetual U.S. confrontation with Iran, a never ending war on behalf of Saudi Arabia.

… This idea that the Reformation made Protestant Europe more “modern” and progressive, and less in thrall to authority and superstition, goes way back … The idea that the Reformation directly sparked the scientific revolution was fuelled in a 1938 book by US historian Robert Merton … The notion that Catholic dogma was inherently a brake on science is something of a myth, says historian of science and religion Sachiko Kusukawa at the University of Cambridge … In this view, it was not the Reformation but the Renaissance, a movement that began in 14th-century Italy and rediscovered and built anew upon classical literature, philosophy and art, that gave scholars the confidence to look for God’s laws of creation …

Tens of thousands of far-right nationalists chanted calls for a “Jew-free” Poland as they marched through the streets of Warsaw on Saturday to mark 99 years since the country was re-established as an independent nation. During the march — the largest Polish Independence Day event in years — far-right demonstrators were heard chanting “Pure Poland, Jew-free Poland,” and “Jews out of Poland,” while carrying banners with slogans such as “White Europe of brotherly nations.” The annual nationalist march was met with smaller counter-protests. Israel’s Foreign Ministry urged the Polish government to “take action against the organizers” of the march.

The sight of far-right activists waving racist banners and shouting anti-Semitic slogans during a nationalist march in the capital of Poland over the weekend shocked many around the world. It was an understandable reaction to witnessing tens of thousands in Warsaw marching near what used to be the largest Jewish ghetto during the Holocaust amid shouts of “Jews out” and “Remove Jewry from power.” … Despite its size, the Warsaw gathering was neither unusual nor even particularly toxic compared to similar gatherings in other countries in Central and Eastern Europe … Despite their growing visibility, ultranationalist Poles have neither the prominence nor acceptance they seem to enjoy in Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary and Ukraine.

Thousands of anti-EU protesters voiced their fury at Brussels yesterday [Nov. 12] in one of the largest ever demonstrations against the European bloc to take place in Italy. The scale of the protest shocked police officers, and even prompted the local US embassy to issue a security alert, warning of up to “10,000 people on the streets”. Among the urgent demands of the young protesters was an immediate Italian exit of the European Union as well as a departure from the eurozone. This follows polls yesterday that will alarm officials in Brussels, as eurosceptism remains on the rise in the country and anti-EU parties resurgent. The large-scale protest, organised by more than 40 social and political groups, voiced opposition to Brussels as well as the current national government.

Internet trolls provoked outrage over Halloween by hanging “It’s OK to be white” posters on several American and Canadian college campuses. The signs were reported at Harvard, Princeton, Auburn, the University of California Berkeley, the University of Kansas, Tulane, and Western Washington, as well as the University of Alberta and the University of Toronto. Campus officials typically removed the signs once they were discovered. The posters were condemned as “divisive” and “racist” by students and administrators alike. In several cases, the police were called. The stunt was organized on 4chan’s “Politically Incorrect” board to show that “lefties & journalists hate white people.”

While wages for low- and middle-income workers have begun to recover, wealth inequality has still climbed to new heights, according to a new survey from the Federal Reserve which conducts a checkup of the nation’s finances every three years … The top one percent now holds 38.6 percent of the nation’s wealth, up from 33.7 percent in 2007. The bottom 90 percent now holds only 22.8 percent of the nation’s total wealth, down from 28.5 percent in 2007. There are also differences within those income brackets. Low-income white people have seen their wealth nearly cut in half since the recession, while the net worth of black and Hispanic families who make a similar amount of money remained basically stable … The median white family is worth nearly ten times as much as the median black family …

For almost a half a century now, social scientists have observed what they call a “retreat from marriage,” although the reasons for the retreat continue to be debated. The figure below shows this retreat among American men and women ages 25 to 34 … In his just-published book, Cheap Sex, sociologist Mark Regnerus argues that an important factor in the declining share of Americans who are married is that sex is easily available and no longer depends on marriage … I will also provide evidence for another factor behind the retreat from marriage — the fact that men without a college degree have increasing difficulty finding and holding jobs, especially decent-paying ones … The crux of Regnerus’ argument about marriage is that men have less incentive to marry or stay married today because they can get sex without doing so.

A letter penned by Prince Charles in 1986 blamed the “influx of foreign Jews” for tension in the Middle East, and asked the U.S. president to stand up to the “Jewish lobby,” reported the Daily Mail. Prince Charles has come under fire for the letter, with some calling the usage of the phrase “Jewish lobby” anti-Semitic … The letter’s text reads, “I now appreciate that Arabs and Jews were all a Semitic people originally and it is the influx of foreign, European Jews (especially from Poland, they say) which has helped to cause great problems. I know there are so many complex issues, but how can there ever be an end to terrorism unless the causes are eliminated? Surely some U.S. president has to have the courage to stand up and take on the Jewish lobby in U.S.? I must be naive, I suppose!”

Former US secretary of state John Kerry blamed the Israeli government’s resistance to the establishment of a Palestinian state for harming the prospects of a peace deal, while warning Israel could face a future violent Palestinian uprising if there was no progress in peace talks. In recordings published Tuesday by Channel 10, America’s former top diplomat can be heard praising the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to nonviolence following a wave of terror attacks beginning in the fall of 2015, which he said has been ignored by Israelis due to right-wing configuration of the current government. “The Palestinians have done an extraordinary job of remaining committed to nonviolence …”

Tens of thousands of people marched in Warsaw Saturday at a Polish Independence Day celebration led by three radical-nationalist groups, with banners calling for “White Europe” and “Clean Blood.” Police estimated the crowd at 60,000 … Many people in the crowd told local and international media they were not part of the radical-nationalist groups, but were attending in celebration of Independence Day … The event has grown to attract right-wing nationalists from across Europe, and on Saturday it overshadowed other festivities … Among those slogans were: “White Europe of Brotherly Nations,” “Europe will be white or uninhabited,” “Clear blood, sober mind,” and “No to Islam.”

What’s going on in Saudi Arabia? Over 200 bigwigs detained and billions of ‘illegal profits’ of some $800 billion confiscated. The kingdom is in an uproar. The Saudi regime of King Salman and his ambitious 32-year old son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, claim it was all part of an ‘anti-corruption’ drive that has Washington’s full backing. Utter nonsense. I’ve done business in Saudi Arabia since 1976 and can attest that the entire kingdom, with its thousands of pampered princes and princesses, is one vast swamp of corruption … Behind all this lies the stalemated Saudi war against wretched Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest, most backwards nation. Saudi Arabia has been heavily bombing Yemen for over a year, using US-supplied warplanes, munitions, including cluster bombs and white phosphorus, and US Air Force management.

When Saad Hariri’s jet touched down at Riyadh on the evening of 3 November, the first thing he saw was a group of Saudi policemen surrounding the plane. When they came aboard, they confiscated his mobile phone and those of his bodyguards. Thus was Lebanon’s prime minister silenced. It was a dramatic moment in tune with the soap-box drama played out across Saudi Arabia this past week … In other words, the Saudis had ordered the prime minister of Lebanon to resign and to read his own departure out loud from Riyadh … Of course, the real story is just what is going on in Saudi Arabia itself, for the crown prince has broken forever the great compromise that exists in the kingdom: between the royal family and the clergy, and between the tribes. This was always the bedrock upon which the country stood or fell.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has sent a letter to the UN Security Council over an Israeli airstrike on a copper factory in Hassia area in Syria’s Homs province, according to the ministry’s documents published on Thursday [Nov. 2]. “Yet another aggression of Israel … shows that Israeli authorities are not satisfied with the state terrorism against the Arab population in occupied Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. They want to play the role of the official agent of terrorism,” the ministry’s document read, as quoted by the SANA news agency. Damascus’ statement comes a day after a Lebanese security service source told Sputnik that Israeli aircraft had carried out an attack on targets in Syria from Lebanon’s airspace.

Favorable views of the Democratic Party have dropped to their lowest mark in more than a quarter century of polling, according to new numbers from a CNN poll conducted by SSRS. Only 37 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Democrats, down from 44 percent in March of this year. A majority, 54 percent, have an unfavorable view, matching their highest mark in polls from CNN and SSRS, CNN/ ORC and CNN/ USA Today/ Gallup stretching back to 1992. The rating includes low favorable ratings from some core Democratic groups, including nonwhites (48 percent) and people under 35 years old (33 percent) … But the Republican Party isn’t doing any better, with just 30 percent of Americans holding a favorable view … This means both parties sit at or near rock bottom …

The California chapter of the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] has a solution for the NFL take-a-knee flap: Get rid of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The organization is urging Congress to jettison the national anthem after passing a resolution at its Oct. 26-29 state conference describing the tune as “one of the most racist, pro-slavery, anti-black songs in the American lexicon.” … The NFL kneeling began as a protest against the deaths of black men at the hands of police, not the lyrics of the national anthem, and has since grown to encompass social-justice issues in general. Those who argue the song is racist point to a rarely sung and little-known line in the third verse that says, “No refuge could save the hireling and slave/ From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.”

Once Donald Trump spoke of China “raping” the US – now he gives it “credit” for “taking advantage”. So how has the US president’s attitude changed since he took office? Runtime: 1:44 mins.

Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) raised a record $53.8 million at its annual Western Region Gala on Thursday night [Nov. 2] held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The figure represents the most money raised at any single FIDF event in the organization’s history. The sold-out gala, which has become one of Los Angeles’ premier charitable events, united some 1,200 supporters from across the country to support the brave men and women of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). For the 11th year, FIDF National Board Member and major supporter Haim Saban and his wife, Cheryl, chaired the star-studded event where guests included Gerard Butler, David Foster Melissa Rivers, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Most Americans have no idea of just how powerful Israeli and Jewish interests are … Anyone who thinks that the government in the United States at all levels does not consistently and almost obsessively defer to Israeli and Jewish interests has been asleep … Protecting Israel and going on a worldwide search for anti-Semitism or Holocaust deniers are not the responsibility of the American government, and they are not what state legislators and congressmen are supposed to be doing to serve the public interest. Israel is sometimes referred to as the “51st State,” but that is hardly true as it contributes nothing to the United States, collects billions of dollars a year from the U.S. Treasury and is totally unaccountable in terms of the actual damage it does to American interests.

The former leader of a nationalist political party in Britain with close ties to President Donald Trump said that American Jews have a disproportionate influence over politics. Nigel Farage, the ex-head of the Independence Party [UKIP] and now a talk show host on the LBC radio station, made the remarks Monday … “There are about six million Jewish people living in America, so as a percentage it’s quite small, but in terms of influence it’s quite big.” He added: “Well, in terms of money and influence, yep, they are a very powerful lobby,” and “there are other very powerful foreign lobbies in the United States of America, and the Jewish lobby, with its links with the Israeli government, is one of those strong voices.”

… Jews wield immense power and influence in the United States. The “Jewish lobby” is a decisive factor in US support for Israel. Jewish-Zionist interests are not identical to American interests. In fact, they often conflict. As long as the “very powerful” Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish distortion of current affairs and history, the Jewish-Zionist domination of the U.S. political system, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace.

… Stalin was the biggest murderer of modern history – and maybe in of all mankind’s past. His number of victims was only rivaled by Genghis Khan and, in our era, Mao Zedong … While the world remembers the Jewish Holocaust, it has almost totally forgotten the other Holocausts … No one knows the exact figure of deaths in the Soviet Union. But it far exceeded in numbers and scope Hitler’s killings. Yet these epic Soviet crimes have all but vanished from our collective memories. No should have a monopoly on suffering. Almost equally disturbing, the US, Canada and Britain have never squarely faced the ugly fact that their close wartime ally, Stalin, was a far worse mass murderer than enemy Adolf Hitler … Ever since, Hitler has been relentlessly demonized while Stalin has faded from our understanding.

… Some will say, “Why quibble over the numbers?” Well, here’s why. On one side of the debate, we have boobs who claim that there was no program of mass murder, that only a few hundred thousand Jews died, and only from disease and overwork; and on the other side, you have Jewish organizations that seek to censor or imprison anyone who dares to put the number of Jewish dead below the sacred 6 million mark (for the record, I put the total at somewhere between 3 and 3.5 million). With irrational extremists demanding “all or nothing,” of course it’s important to seek the truth, to combat the history falsifiers on both ends.

… A homeless crisis of unprecedented proportions is rocking the West Coast, and its victims are being left behind by the very things that mark the region’s success … The rising numbers of homeless people have pushed abject poverty into the open like never before, and have overwhelmed cities and nonprofits. The surge in people living on the streets has put public health at risk, led several cities to declare states of emergency, and forced cities and counties to spend millions – in some cases billions – in a search for solutions … Official counts taken earlier this year in California, Oregon and Washington show 168,000 homeless people in the three states … The number of unsheltered people in the three states – defined as someone sleeping outside, in a bus or train station, abandoned building or vehicle – has climbed 18 percent to 105,000.

… So let’s say Tehran and Washington do exchange blows at some future date. What would that look like? Take it from me: a war with Iran is not going to be anything like recent conflicts in Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq again, Libya, Syria, and so on. Oh no. Iran, you see, has a formidable military that could impose some serious losses on U.S. forces. Back in 2013, a group of my colleagues did a series of wargames on what would happen if Iran and America ended up in a conflict. Held at a secret location in think-tank land here in D.C., we sketched out the various possible pathways to conflict, what each side’s war aims and strategy would be, and how such a conflict could end … It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to dream up a situation where Washington and Tehran come close to the brink of war quite quickly.

With his Iran speech [Oct. 13] U.S. President Trump has taken a huge step into uncharted territories. One that implies a 60-75 percent risk of leading to a US attack on Iran … Seldom has a Presidential speech been so filled with psycho-political projections of one’s own dark sides on the adversary as this … No one in Iran would be able to find anything of value in this speech – condescending, blaming, vilifying in the extreme, unfair, distorting of history and the relationship … What President Trump has now done is not to signal leadership, universally accepted norms or intellectual and moral strength. Instead – and very sadly – it signals that the US is now a desperate, unpredictable and dangerous Empire rapidly on its way down.

It is now 100 years since the revolution that brought down the Russian Tsar Nicholas II. For Jews, the fall of Tsarist Russia meant a new relative freedom: the end to the Pale of Settlement, which had prevented Jews from living in big cities, and the abolition of all other anti-Semitic laws … Soviet Russia also became the first country in the world to declare anti-Semitism a criminal offense … To commemorate the centennial of the revolution, academic conferences around the world are discussing the role Jews played in the uprising and its aftermath — and how they were affected by it … In America during the Cold War, there were so many Jewish members in the Communist Party that it was difficult to find someone to serve as party leader who wasn’t Jewish, says Brent.

… Thus the Soviet Jews obtained a weighty share of state, industrial, and economic power at all levels of government in the USSR … It can’t be denied that History elevated many Soviet Jews into the ranks of the arbiters of the fate of all Russians … From the astonishing disclosure in 1990 we learned that the famous mobile gas chambers were invented, as it turns out, not by Hitler during the World War II, but in the Soviet NKVD in 1937 by Isai Davidovich Berg, the head of the administrative and maintenance section of the NKVD of Moscow Oblast (sure, he was not alone in that enterprise, but he organized the whole business).

In the fall of 2016, Harvey Weinstein set out to suppress allegations that he had sexually harassed or assaulted numerous women. He began to hire private security agencies to collect information on the women and the journalists trying to expose the allegations. According to dozens of pages of documents, and seven people directly involved in the effort, the firms that Weinstein hired included Kroll, which is one of the world’s largest corporate-intelligence companies, and Black Cube, an enterprise run largely by former officers of Mossad and other Israeli intelligence agencies … The explicit goal of the investigations, laid out in one contract with Black Cube, signed in July, was to stop the publication of the abuse allegations against Weinstein that eventually emerged in the New York Times and The New Yorker.

British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday [Nov. 2] said she would “absolutely not” apologize for the 1917 Balfour Declaration which paved the way for the establishment of the “most extraordinary” State of Israel … “There can never be any excuses for [anti-Israel] boycotts, divestment or sanctions: they are unacceptable and this government will have no truck with those who subscribe to them,” the British prime minister continued. “Neither can there ever be any excuse for anti-Semitism in any form … And yes, this means recognizing that there is today a new and pernicious form of anti-Semitism which uses criticism of the actions of the Israeli government as a despicable justification for questioning the very right of Israel to exist,” she said. “This is abhorrent and we will not stand for it.”

More than 5,000 people attended a protest on Saturday [Nov. 4] in London against the Balfour Declaration. The rally was organised by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, the Stop The War Coalition, the Friends of Al Aqsa, and the Muslim Association Of Britain. It also received trade union backing. The National Union of Teachers, Unison, the GMB, Aslef and Unite The Union were among a near unanimous show of support from the union movement for the Justice Now: Make It Right For Palestine demonstration. Speakers included director Ken Loach, MP Andy Slaughter, and Baroness Jenny Tonge. Jeremy Corbyn addressed the crowd via a video link as did MP Diane Abbott.

… The Balfour Declaration reflected in some part the sincere Christian Zionism of Prime Minister David Lloyd George and of Balfour himself. Far more important, however, was the considerable political influence of British Zionists under the able leadership of Chaim Weizmann, and of American Zionists led by Louis Brandeis, a close advisor to President Woodrow Wilson … Neither Britain nor Zionists had the right to dictate the fate of Palestine. Even at the time, many Britons denounced the double dealing and contempt for indigenous people that underlay the Balfour Declaration … Today there can be no excuse for celebrating this sordid chapter in settler-colonialist injustice, especially in light of the ongoing nakba: the catastrophe that Palestine’s “non-Jewish communities” continue to suffer in consequence.

… The Balfour Declaration was a letter sent by a British lord, on behalf of the U.K., to a British banker and politician [Lord Walter Rothschild] representing the Zionist movement in 1917. It promised the establishment in Palestine, a land that did not belong to them, of a national home for the Jewish people … When the Balfour Declaration was issued, the area known as historic Palestine was inhabited by over 700,000 people, the overwhelming majority indigenous Arabs … Palestinian rejection of the Balfour Declaration was not rooted in anti-Semitism or anti-Jewish sentiments, rather in defense and pursuit of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people for self-determination in their homeland.

… The Balfour Declaration provides solid evidence that the dominance of Jewish political lobbies in world affairs is not really a ‘new development.’ … In his invaluable book, The Pity of it All, Israeli historian Amos Elon suggests that the 1917 Balfour Declaration was at least partially motivated by the British government’s desire to win the support of pro-German American Jews so that they would help to pull the USA into the war … Elon’s conclusion is clear. “The 1917 Balfour Declaration, calling for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, was at least partly motivated by the British government’s desire to win support among pro-German American Jews.”

The pledge by the British government in November 1917 to support a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine still generates strong emotions. This report looks at the origins of the Balfour Declaration, and why it remains so highly contentious. Runtime: 3:14 mins.

Majorities in many ethnic, identity and racial groups in America believe that discrimination exists against their own group, across many areas of people’s daily lives, according to a poll from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health … White Americans are among those who feel their group is discriminated against, with 55 percent saying discrimination exists against whites in the U.S. today … The African-American results, in 802 adults, provide insight into the historically high levels of discrimination blacks have faced since arriving in America. These experiences happen across a broad range of situations: interacting with police; applying for jobs or seeking promotions; trying to rent an apartment or buy a home; or going to a doctor or health clinic.

A secret FBI dossier on civil rights leader Martin Luther King alleges that he had a string of affairs and other “sexual aberrations”, as well as links to the Communist Party. It is dated just three weeks before Dr King’s assassination in April 1968. The file was released in a tranche of documents relating to the assassination of John F Kennedy released on Friday … Among its other accusations are that: Dr King was surrounded by advisers with strong links to the Communist Party USA; His statements were always subject to approval by the alleged communist sympathisers; … Dr King took part in “drunken sex orgies” and coerced young women to participate; … The list of alleged indiscretions would likely have been deeply problematic for the civil rights leaders if he had been made public in 1968.

“And what, exactly, is there to be celebrating?,” snapped Vladimir Putin’s press secretary on October 25th, a little more than a week before the 100th anniversary of what, in Soviet times, was lauded as the country’s greatest victory. On November 7th, 1917, Vladimir Lenin seized power in St. Petersburg. Soviet authorities glorified that day as the dawn of the world’s first successful communist revolution — and the creation of the first country to promise racial, gender, and even economic equality … Russia, 100 years later, now has to grapple with the fact that it’s a capitalist country, a place where, according to Credit Suisse, 111 people control almost 20 percent of the country’s wealth … That is the message the Kremlin sends today. The mistakes, abuses, and countless individual tragedies of history should not drag the country down.

Of all the many loaded issues tied to the bloody history of Jews in the former Soviet Union, none is as sensitive today in that part of the world as their role in the 1917 revolution that brought the communists to power. The outsized prevalence of Jews in the ranks of the revolution that broke out a century ago on Nov. 7 has remained a mainstay of anti-Semitic vitriol in the area … The facts also reaffirm in essence assertions like the ones made by Mark Weber … He wrote, “Although officially Jews have never made up more than five percent of the country’s total population, they played a highly disproportionate and probably decisive role in the infant Bolshevik regime,” adding this was a “taboo” that many historians for decades preferred to ignore.

Jews played a highly disproportionate and probably decisive role in the infant Bolshevik regime, effectively dominating the Soviet government during its early years … With the notable exception of Lenin, most of the leading Communists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews … The US ambassador in Russia warned in a dispatch to Washington: “The Bolshevik leaders here, most of whom are Jews and 90 percent of whom are returned exiles, care little for Russia or any other country but are internationalists and they are trying to start a worldwide social revolution.”

… The leader of the Revolution and the founder of the USSR, was many parts Jewish, through his mother. The facts came to light only after the Soviet Union collapsed and the Communist Party archives recently opened … The grandfather of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov — he began to take the pseudonym Lenin when he was around 30 — was born Sril Moiseyevich (Israel Moses) Blank in Odessa in the early 1800s. Like so many ambitious young men in the Tsarist empire, while studying medicine in his early twenties he converted to Russian Orthodoxy and changed his first name and patronymic to Alexander Dimitreyevich. He travelled widely in Europe after qualifying as a doctor and he married the daughter of a wealthy German merchant …

… These simultaneous trends mean that the West is smashing its geopolitical might on the anvil of its own foolishness. The authoritarian regimes in China and Russia are gleefully picking up the pieces. Here in Bangkok, it’s striking how everyone I talk to — from generals in the country’s ruling military junta to even the most liberal-minded political party leaders — says the same thing off the record: China is the new power. Trump’s America is waning. And we can extract what we need from him using flattery without giving up anything meaningful … Xi is seasoned, capable, calculating. Trump is inexperienced, incompetent, impulsive. Xi thinks ten years into the future; Trump thinks about ten seconds ahead.

… If you were surprised to learn the U.S. has nearly a thousand troops in Niger, you’re not alone. Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who serves on the Armed Forces Committee, told NBC he “had no ideal.” Neither did Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat. Well, the surprises may keep coming. The New York Times notes that the U.S. now has “over 240,000 active-duty and reserve troops in at least 172 countries and territories.” Count it again: 172 countries, out of 193 UN member states … We’ve deployed troops to literally most of the planet, and our leading lawmakers — tasked by the Constitution with the exclusive right to declare war — don’t even know about it.

The vast majority of Americans probably had no idea that the US even had military troops participating in combat missions in Africa before the incident in Niger in the beginning of October that left four American soldiers dead … It apparently doesn’t matter to the Trump administration that there’s no congressional authorization to do so. They are following in the Obama administration’s footsteps by taking the radical view that the Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed in 2001 for the war in Afghanistan, can be used to fight all sorts of wars throughout the world more than 16 years later … Congress, of course, has shamefully abdicated its constitutional role as legislative body in charge of declaring war since it passed the AUMF shortly after 9/11.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans (63 percent) say the future of the nation is a very or somewhat significant source of stress, slightly more than perennial stressors like money (62 percent) and work (61 percent), according to the American Psychological Association’s report, “Stress in America: The State of Our Nation”. More than half of Americans (59 percent) said they consider this the lowest point in U.S. history that they can remember — a figure spanning every generation, including those who lived through World War II and Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. When asked to think about the nation this year, nearly six in ten adults (59 percent) report that the current social divisiveness causes them stress.

… Even Europe seems to be rejecting what America has on offer … Europe is rejecting, resisting, recoiling from “diversity,” the multiracial, multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual future that, say U.S. elites, is America’s preordained mission to bring about for all mankind. Indeed, increasingly, the indigenous peoples of Europe seem to view as the death of their nations and continent, what U.S. liberal elites see as the Brave New World to come. To traditionalist Europeans, our heaven looks like their hell … So, why is liberalism dying? Because it is proving to be what James Burnham called it in his 1964 “Suicide of the West” — the ideology of Western suicide.

Weber reviews the profound social-demographic changes in America over the past 60 years, and looks at the factors behind the nation’s drastic transformation. America today is a society in denial, he says in this 21-minute talk, and is therefore unable to come to grips with its deep-rooted ills. As a result, this country’s entrenched problems will remain, the harmful trends will continue, and further social disintegration and national decline are inevitable.

The extremist anarchist-communist group Antifa has been in the headlines because of recent violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia … The organization was initially part of the Soviet Union’s front operations to bring about communist dictatorship in Germany, and it worked to label all rival parties as “fascist.” … The Soviets believed that following Russia’s revolution in 1917, communism would next spread to Germany, since Germany had the second-largest communist party, the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) … The KPD was at the front of this call, launching a movement under the banner of United Front Action and branding its armed “anti-fascist” wing under the name Antifaschistische Aktion (“Antifascist Action”), which Antifa still carries in Germany, and from which the Antifa organizations in other countries are rooted.

The United Nations (UN) has included some of the biggest Israeli and international firms operating in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights in a blacklist for those violating “international law and UN resolutions.” According to Israeli Ynet News which has gained access to part of the list, 130 Israeli companies and 60 international corporations received warning letters from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid bin Ra’ad al-Hussein about their impending inclusion on the blacklist. The list, which reportedly will be published in late December includes Israel Aerospace Industries, telecom giants, international tech firms, banks, and even cafes … Israeli Channel 2 News has reported that among the American firms that received letters were Coca-Cola, TripAdvisor, Airbnb, and Caterpillar.

… The evicted Palestinian Arabs have been forcibly deprived of their country, their homes, and their property without having been allowed to have a voice in the determination of their own destiny. Though the facts are public, there is a widespread ignorance of them in the Western World and, above all, in the United States, the Western country which has had, and is still having, the greatest say in deciding Palestine’s fate. The United States has the greatest say, but the United Kingdom bears the heaviest load of responsibility … The tragedy in Palestine is not just a local one; it is a tragedy for the World, because it is an injustice that is a menace to the World’s peace.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has announced that Britain will celebrate the 100 the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration later this year. The Conservative Party leader addressed her party’s “Friends of Israel” faction and declared that the Balfour Declaration was “one of the most important letters in history” while pledging that her government would celebrate it “with pride.” Her determination to do so is a clear indication that those who control national politics also control official interpretations of history. In the case of the Balfour Declaration’s centenary, it is the ongoing alliance of Zionist special interests and British political power that is about to turn what has been a disaster for Britons, Jews and Palestinians alike, into a source of national pride.

The Cato 2017 Free Speech and Tolerance Survey, a new national poll of 2,300 U.S. adults, finds that 71 percent of Americans believe that political correctness has silenced important discussions our society needs to have. The consequences are personal — 58 percent of Americans believe the political climate prevents them from sharing their own political beliefs … The survey also found Americans willing to censor, regulate, or punish a wide variety of speech and expression they personally find offensive: 51 percent of staunch liberals say it’s “morally acceptable” to punch Nazis; 53 percent of Republicans favor stripping U.S. citizenship from people who burn the American flag; … Americans also can’t agree what speech is hateful, offensive, or simply a political opinion.

The U.N. General Assembly has voted 191 to 2 for the lifting of the U.S. blockade on Cuba as the United States and Israel were the only countries to vote against the resolution. Delegate after delegate called for the end of the blockade, highlighting the progressive and positive role Cuba plays in the international community … The annual resolution has been all but universally supported by the 193-member body of the general assembly. Only two countries have consistently voted against the resolution in recent years — the U.S. and Israel.

… [Chinese leader] Xi [Jinping] now appears poised to become as all-powerful as Chairman Mao, though he does not yet command the Great Helmsman’s near-divine status or adulation … In Xi’s view, the west has little to offer China besides decadent behavior, racial mixing, loud music, and social rot. The United States, Japan and India are seen as dangerous, determined enemies bent on destroying united China … While the US bleeds itself through small but expensive wars in Asia and Africa, China is using its huge trade surplus to buy key assets and influence around the globe. China is doing all this at a time when its ruler, Xi Jinping, commands absolute authority and has a clear strategic vision, backed by a mighty economy and some of the world’s most intelligent people. The same cannot be said for Washington, which is floundering.

… In his three-and-a-half hour speech … [Chinese President Xi Jinping ] set out a vision not just for the five years ahead but for 30, and talked of a socialist model which provides, “a new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence” … He dreams of an innovative powerhouse driven by well educated citizens with unshakeable faith in the superiority of their system … Mr Xi talks about guiding the international community “towards a more just and rational new world order”. The latest Pew opinion survey across 37 countries suggests more people now trust the Chinese leader to do the right thing than the American one. On its current trajectory, the Chinese economy will overtake the US some time in the next decade to become the world’s largest.

…To burnish the 1917 document which promised Britain’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine but which would ultimately create that very refugee population – refugees being the target of her own anti-immigration policies – is little short of iniquitous. The Balfour Declaration’s intrinsic lie – that while Britain supported a Jewish homeland, nothing would be done “which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” – is matched today by the equally dishonest response of Balfour’s lamentable successor at the Foreign Office … Balfour’s 1917 declaration, of course, was an attempt to avoid disaster in the First World War by encouraging the Jews of Russia and America to support the Allies against Germany.

… The Irgun was not the only Jewish terrorist group but it was the most active in causing indiscriminate terror in pre-Israel Palestine. Up to the time of the Jaffa attack, its most spectacular feat had been the July 22, 1946, blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, with the killing of 91 people – 41 Arabs, 28 Britons and 17 Jews. The other major Jewish terrorist group operating in Palestine in the 1940s was the Lohamei Herut Israel – “Fighters for the Freedom of Israel,” Lehi in the Hebrew acronym – also known as the Stern Gang after its fanatical founder Avraham Stern.

A New Jersey town discriminated against Orthodox Jews when it barred them from a specific religious practice as part of an “archaic, fear-driven and discriminatory mind-set,” a lawsuit charges. The state of New Jersey is suing the township of Mahwah, which passed an ordinance this summer forbidding Jews from using markers to show the boundaries of a zone, known as an eruv, in which they can perform tasks otherwise prohibited on the Jewish Sabbath … Porrino’s suit, however, will be disappointing to some Mahwah residents, who claim that the ordinances are needed to stop Orthodox Jews from moving into the area in droves. “This is a soft invasion,” one resident wrote in an online petition.

Emotions were still running high in Italy, days after Lazio fans posted anti-Semitic photos of Anne Frank in a Roma jersey as new incidents during Wednesday’s Serie A action overshadowed planned tributes. As Lazio’s ultras ‘Irriducibili’ fans announced they would not travel to Bologna for the team’s game, isolated supporters who had made the journey sang the fascist song “Me ne frego” (“I Don’t Care”) in the stands of the Dall’Ara Stadium. Lazio players, as planned, warmed up prior to the game, which they won 2-1, wearing a jersey with an image of Frank alongside the words “No to anti-Semitism.” … Extracts were read from “The Diary of Anne Frank” before a minute of reflection on the Holocaust …

UK Prime Minister Theresa May is hosting her Israeli counterpart to mark the centenary of a British pledge that paved the way for Israel’s creation. Mrs May and Benjamin Netanyahu will attend a dinner honouring the Balfour Declaration of British support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. Israel and Jewish communities view the pledge as momentous, while Palestinians regard it as a historical injustice. The UK has rejected calls to apologise and has said it is proud of its role … Mrs May will warn against using criticism of Israel as a cover for anti-Semitism … “There is today a new and pernicious form of anti-Semitism which uses criticism of the actions of the Israeli government as a despicable justification for questioning the very right of Israel to exist,” she will say. “This is abhorrent, and we will not stand for it.”

It was the moment of conception of what would become the State of Israel — or it was the original sin in which Israel was conceived. The Balfour Declaration, the pivotal, 67-word assurance by the British foreign secretary that promised support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” turned 100 on Thursday, meeting with tributes in Jerusalem and London, and tear gas in Bethlehem. Demonstrators marched in nearly every major West Bank city … The fundamental problems the Balfour Declaration raised — as “one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third,” in the author Arthur Koestler’s memorable formulation — have not been resolved in the intervening years, but rather compounded and complicated.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May said Wednesday that her country would celebrate “with pride” its role in the creation of the State of Israel and upcoming 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which pledged London’s support for a Jewish homeland. Her comments came amid Palestinian demands that Britain retract and apologize for the declaration, and one week before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due in London to celebrate the document’s centennial. “We are proud of the role that we played in the creation of the State of Israel, and we will certainly mark the centenary with pride,” May told the House of Commons during Prime Minister’s Questions.

… Diverse documentary evidence shows that Zionists pushed for the U.S. to enter the war on Britain’s side as part of a deal to gain British support for their colonization of Palestine … In 1917 British Foreign Minister Lord Balfour issued a letter to Zionist leader Lord Rothschild. Known as the Balfour Declaration, this letter promised that Britain would “view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” and “use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.” … The influence of Brandeis and other Zionists in the U.S. had enabled Zionists to form an alliance with Britain, one of the world’s great powers, a remarkable achievement for a non-state group and a measure of Zionists’ by-then immense power.

… The Balfour Declaration … is one of the iconic documents in, and represents one of the great moments of, Zionist history … Alas, the genesis of the declaration had little to do with Zionism and everything to do with World War I, British interests in the war, power politics — and anti-Semitism. Indeed, the declaration derived from classic European anti-Judaism and from the gentile English version of anti-Semitism … To the British, this translated into Jewish support for their war effort, which could be bought by the promise of support of the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This notion — a natural to FitzMaurice and his obsession with “Jewish power” — persuaded the Foreign Office to pledge British support to the Zionist enterprise.

In his extraordinary book The Balfour Declaration, Jonathan Schneer provides an in-depth look at the process by which the document that birthed the State of Israel came about and situates it in the whole of British Middle East policy during World War I … The Arabs never knew about Britain’s conspiracy with France or about the Balfour … So overwhelming is the sense after reading this book of British duplicity, deceit, double-dealing, obfuscation, ambiguity and back-stabbing in its relations with all the parties involved that one feels it necessary to highlight it … Britain herself wanted Palestine. London believed that, by controlling Palestine, it could better secure the Suez Canal and maintain the puppet monarchy it had installed in Cairo.

Mark Weber speaks about US foreign policy, World War Two, the Israel-Palestine conflict, conspiracy, and more, in this interview with Henrik Palmgren, host and founder of Sweden-based “Red Ice Radio.” The American historian also talks about the origins of World War I and the fateful betrayal of promises by the US and the other victorious powers in the war’s aftermath. He discusses Britain’s deceitful “Balfour Declaration” of 1917, which promised a “Jewish homeland” in Palestine. Leaders in modern “democratic” societies can mobilize public support for war policies, Weber says, only with intense propaganda that appeals to base emotions and which exaggerates alleged dangers. Runtime: 54:27 mins.

The time has come to call the duck a duck. It’s time to agree with a long list of Israeli political leaders, academics and public figures on both the political left and right … that the Jewish state is becoming, or already is, an apartheid state … The peace process — always half-hearted — has utterly collapsed. Expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank continued, and since the election of Donald Trump, colonization has surged with an invigorated enthusiasm … [Jewish] settlers suspected of crimes are entitled to full rights in Israeli courts; Palestinians endure military tribunals, indefinite imprisonment without charge (“administrative detention”) and collective punishment. Settlers are entitled to carry arms and use them in self-defence; Palestinians are not. Settlers have property rights. Palestinians have property claims. Et cetera.

… The first true videophone system, with two-way video and two-way audio, came about in Nazi Germany … By March 1, 1936 the first videophone was in production between the Berlin and Leipzig post offices. By the time the system was abandoned in 1940, there were additional booths in the post offices of Nuremberg and Munich as well … The technical specifications were impressive with an estimated resolution of 232 x 172 at 25 frames per second and toll-quality audio. From the images, it appears as though the display was approximately 12 diagonal inches. Interestingly, this is not too far off the default quality of VSee on a laptop. Similar to the usual VSee setup, the old German system placed the caller close to the video camera and display so that the image quality was adequate to convey facial expression and some body language.

A growing body of research suggests general cognitive ability may be the best predictor of job performance; Social skills, drive, and personality traits such as conscientiousness matter, too; Companies currently place a much greater emphasis on personality traits than on IQ … / “The key for us, number one, has always been hiring very smart people,” Bill Gates once said in an interview. “There is no way of getting around that in terms of IQ, you’ve got to be very elitist in picking the people who deserve to write software.” … That “elitist” strategy – prioritizing raw intelligence in the hiring process — turns out to be one with surprisingly broad applications. Years of research points to the same squirmy conclusion: Smart people make better workers.

… Data released last week suggest Americans’ health is declining and millions of middle-age workers face the prospect of shorter, and less active, retirements than their parents enjoyed. Here are the stats: The U.S. age-adjusted mortality rate — a measure of the number of deaths per year — rose 1.2 percent from 2014 to 2015, according to the Society of Actuaries … At the current retirement age of 66, a quarter of Americans age 58 to 60 rated themselves in “poor” or “fair” health. That’s up 2.6 points from the group who could retire with full benefits at 65, the Michigan researchers found. Cognitive skills have also declined over time … Choi and Schoeni’s study is part of a raft of other research showing the health of Americans deteriorating.

George Washington was one of the founding members of Christ church in Alexandria, Virginia, buying pew No. 5 when the church opened in 1773 and attending for more than two decades whenever he rode north from Mount Vernon to do business in town. This weekend, the church announced it was pulling down a memorial plaque to its onetime vestryman and the country’s first president, saying he and another famous parishioner, Robert E. Lee, have become so controversial that they are chasing away would-be parishioners. While acknowledging “friction” over the decision, the church’s leadership said both plaques, which are attached to the front wall on either side of the altar, are relics of another era and have no business in a church that proclaims its motto as “All are welcome — no exceptions.”

Savitri Devi, a mystical admirer of Hitler and a cat-loving devotee of the Aryan myth, seemed destined to fade into obscurity after her death 25 years ago. But thanks to the rise of the extreme right, her name and her image now crop up online more and more / … Who was Savitri Devi, and why are her ideas being resurrected now? Despite the sari and the name she was a European, born Maximiani Portas to an English mother and Greek-Italian father in Lyon in 1905. From an early age, she despised all forms of egalitarianism … She learned Indian languages, married a Brahmin (whom she believed to be an Aryan like herself), and forged an elaborate synthesis of Nazism and Hindu myth, in which Hitler was a “man against time” destined to bring about the end of the Kali Yuga and usher in a new golden age of Aryan supremacy.

Savitri Devi was a philosopher, a religious thinker, and a tireless activist on behalf of National Socialism, Indo-European paganism, vegetarianism, animal welfare, and deep ecology. She also dabbled in fiction-writing and espionage. In 1958, with the publication of her magnum opus, The Lightning and the Sun, she emerged as one of the most original and influential National Socialist thinkers of the post World War II era.

Wisconsin has become the latest US state to join the crackdown against a Palestinian-led campaign boycotting Israel. Governor Scott Walker signed an executive order prohibiting state agencies from engaging in business with entities that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. “We stand firmly against discrimination in any form and we wholly support our friends in Israel,” Walker said in a statement on Friday. “I look forward to leading a trade delegation to Israel to foster new trade partnerships between Wisconsin and Israeli businesses.” … Wisconsin is the 24th US state to take measures forbidding the state from doing business with companies targeting Israel as part of the BDS movement.

Catalonia’s parliament declared independence from Spain on Friday [Oct. 27] in defiance of the Madrid government, which at the same time was preparing to impose direct rule over the region. Although the declaration was largely symbolic, since it will not be accepted by Spain or the international community, the move, coupled with the impending vote in Madrid, took the country’s worst political crisis in four decades to a new level. Thousands of people who had gathered outside parliament in Barcelona cheered and danced after it passed the motion declaring an independent Catalan Republic … Minutes after the restive region declared its independence, the upper house of Spain’s Parliament authorized Rajoy’s government to rule Catalonia directly from Madrid.

Italian football club Lazio will take 200 of its fans to Auschwitz to teach them about anti-Semitism, the club head Claudio Lotito said. The club also announced a plan to read excerpts of Anne Frank’s diary at games. Lazio president Claudio Lotito visited the Rome synagogue on Tuesday to lay a wreath of flowers as a symbolic apology for anti-Semitic incidents linked with the club. His gesture comes two days after a group of Lazio fans posted anti-Semitic stickers on the Olimpico stadium, including slogans denouncing their bitter rivals from Roma as “Jewish.” … The club later announced it plans to read excerpts from Frank’s diary ahead of upcoming matches. Forced into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam in 1942, Anne Frank later perished in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Israeli lawmakers have finally passed a law they say will ban Israel’s notorious binary options industry, which has brought in $10 billion a year. The money was made by scamming millions of people around the world … The industry was officially banned in the U.S. but Israeli operators still managed to scam many Americans … News stories through the years have described misery and suicides among victims. Finally, a year ago the Israeli government banned sales of binary options to Israelis, but continued to permit them to the rest of the world. The current bill that now also outlaws sales abroad was passed when Israeli legislators became concerned that the industry was hurting Israel’s image.

… Does the Hebrew [-language] press [of Israel] not care because, since spring 2016, it was “only” foreigners who were being defrauded by our home-based crooks? … Unless or until that happens, the sorry truth is that the crooks will find new ways to steal, the dark side of the startup nation will thrive, the gray and black portion of the Israeli economy will continue to grow, and the power and influence of criminal forces in this country — already profound — will deepen still further. That is why Monday night’s passage of the law banning binary options was but a small winning battle in what, to this extremely worried Israeli, looks for now like a losing war, a war Israel is barely bothering to fight, against a toxic cocktail of corruption.

Ingrid Rimland Zundel, an accomplished and successful professional author and the loyal wife of the late World War II revisionist publisher and activist Ernst Zundel, has died. .. Ingrid was born into the historic community of German Mennonites resident in Russia since the time of Catherine the Great … After the war, many German Mennonite refugees were sent to South America, where Ingrid’s family took up residence under harsh conditions. She eventually left her faith community to pursue a higher education and the career of a writer. She met Ernst in the 1990s. She survived her husband by less than three months. She leaves behind an extensive headquarters complex in Tennessee, complete with lodging facilities, a library and archives …