Amos's River of Justice

Our Season of Creation

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    It appears to be true that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. According to Anton Shekhovtsov, Russia is also responsible for the rise of far-right fringe politicians and ideologues in Europe. In his book, Russia and the Western Far Right: Tango Noir, Shekhovtsov explains how this came to be and how the coalition of Russian politicians with fringe far-right characters, has given each of them influence that they could never have achieved alone.

    Before I go on, I should mention a problem I have with this book. This problem can be summed up by the fact that Shekhovtsov supports Ukraine’s entry into NATO. In other words, he tends to interpret the phenomenon from a neocon’s perspective. However he provides copious citations for each chapter and, if that is not enough for progressive readers, please consider the election of Donald Trump and his far-right echo chamber in Europe and South America.

    Progressives were correct to reject the expansion of NATO in Ukraine—it was the favorite project of trigger-happy warmongers at the helm of the US government. However, in my view this book demonstrates the futility of a military response. It also makes the case that the return of the arms race has as much to do with far-right ideology as it does with neocon hubris. Neo-fascists have dreamed of a third world war since the 1940s. And now they have a man in the White House.

    The most important thing I got from this book, and the best reason for voting today in the midterm election, is that the ultimate goal of this coalition is the destruction of Western liberal democracy. Given his obvious bias in this matter it’s not surprising that Shekhovtsov ignores the part neoliberalism has played in the destruction of liberal democracy, but his approach has had a positive effect on me. It helped me realize that both of our major political parties have lost the true meaning of ‘liberalism’.

    It can be argued that in the 2016 election Bernie Sanders was the sole representative of the liberal tradition. This would explain why both the corporate Democrats and the right-wing Republicans were so desperate to keep him down. In fact, they appeared to conspire with each other in this goal. Liberal democracy truly is under attack, but it is no longer embodied by the US government. For example, look at the conservative pundits who actually think the word ‘liberal’ is a bad word. In reality, liberalism is the cornerstone of our republic.

    A frightening conclusion that can be drawn from this book is that Donald Trump never intended to make America great, whatever that means. His affinity with the global far right can be seen in his infatuation with nuclear rearmament, his encouragement of white nationalism, his stance toward China, his tariffs, his desire to abolish NATO, and many other policies. It therefore follows that he shares the far right’s central precept, which is hatred of liberal democracy.

    Please see Encyclopedia Britannica’s article on liberalism.. It reveals that our government once had the ability to respond to economic conditions, whereas the current global regime has no intention of responding to conditions of any kind. This may be explained—at least in part—by the influence of non-American and/or un-American actors in our electoral system and in our media.

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    Problem:

    Solution:

    https://youtu.be/kOlbYyJWiGE

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    I would not say the same things about Orin Hatch that I have said about Jeff Flake, but only because I firmly believe he would fly over here and zap me, and he wouldn’t need a plane to do it. As I write, I’m listening to him talk about poor, pitiful Brett Kavanaugh and like everything else that has happened since Bernie’s beautiful campaign it makes my heart hurt.

    As I said in the last post, I know that what I am going to say will make no difference in the behavior of our Congress, nor will it undo what has been done to the Supreme Court. Nor will it head off the inevitable terrors that await the human race as a result. Only Divine Providence can do that. I’m writing this because unless someone challenges the reality suggested by this hearing, and by the gloating of the committee members who controlled its course and outcome, it has the potential to destroy the sanity of the American people and the world.

    When I began this conversation I assumed the Great Recession and the chaos in the Middle East would inspire contrition. I assumed policymakers would be willing to change course. Clearly I was wrong, but I didn’t fully realize just how wrong until the 2016 election. This election and its aftermath have demonstrated that what we see around us today is preferable in their minds to order and cooperation. Chaos is a choice.

    We have been told that the important thing in the Kavanaugh process was civility. We have heard at least one Senator lament that it was tearing us apart. But what we actually see is that rudeness and adolescent hilarity is preferable to civility, as long as it leads them to so-called victory.

    We don’t have to re-litigate the Kavanaugh hearing to test this premise. There is plenty of evidence in our elections, in both the political processes and the policies of each successive administration. But of course, the most abundant evidence is in the Supreme Court itself. Corruption in the judiciary of a great republic is the height of incivility.

    Civility is not a veneer. It has deep roots, as does incivility. But the grandfatherly men who defended the honor of Brett Kavanaugh today seemed completely unaware that their actions caused this upraor.

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    Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing is the cherry atop Congress’s infernal sundae. We the people don’t dare ask what’s inside those lumpy scoops of ice cream and that oily chocolate sauce, but there is no doubt that the cherry is the most loathsome part of it.

    Unfortunately, no one in Congress will bat an eye at my analysis. Anything I might say will roll off their backs just as long as they’re getting what they want. And if they are somehow forced to respond they’ll just look demurely at the floor like Jeff Flake, who recently pulled out all the stops with his long-suffering, hang-dog look. Hey, it’s the best he could do at short notice. He thought he could escape into the elevator but when the door failed to block his constituents he was forced to listen to their outrage. Still, that is a small price to pay for the freedom to ignore voters’ demands while living on a government salary. Now he claims to be in favor of an FBI investigation but I’m not holding my breath. The Republicans probably hope an investigation will improve their chances in the midterm election, but the Kavanaugh appointment will go through just the same.

    Flake reminds me of my black Lab. She has a trick of acting like she wants to go outside, and then half-way to the door she gets a sly look on her face and goes back to her kennel. She does this because I taught her to expect a biscuit when she goes to her kennel. To state the obvious, Flake’s pre-vote soul-searching is the fake-out and his vote is the kennel.

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    The world’s bankers are already united, and now Steve Bannon is busy building a neofascist international. In this conversation, Yanis Varoufakis invites Jeremy Corbyn to join Bernie Sanders in creating a Progressive International and sending a hopeful message to people all over the world.

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    The following information is from a new documentary, The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire. We are under siege. It’s the siege of the tax havens.

    As the British Empire’s 300-year reign was coming to an end, the British elites saw their wealth evaporating as countries began to declare their independence. Bankers, lawyers and accountants responded by setting up a financial spider’s web to capture the world’s capital. This led to a restoration of revenue for the elite. This is Britain’s second empire.

    Beginning in the 1960s there was an unintended consequence of this spider’s web. Great Britain and its partner in crime, the United States were de-industrialized (financialized). However, the developing countries suffer from this system more than wealthy countries. Today, Africa is wrongly said to be a net debtor. Africa’s foreign debt is $177 billion, but the wealth that has been moved offshore is $944 billion. Africa is actually a net creditor. Britain’s second empire starves developing nations of their wealth and tax revenues.

    With each new revelation about offshore tax havens, politicians announce a crackdown on corruption, but they have no intention of following through. Today the offshore market is the world’s dominant financial market and it has penetrated the state’s apparatus to the point where politicians are its spokespersons. They are either lobbying congress or parliament to protect their racket, or they’re thinking of new ways to deny social programs to the public.

    This video recommends five steps for addressing this problem:

    1. Stop public councils from issuing pubic contracts to companies operating out of tax havens.
    2. Create public registers of beneficial owners of companies, trusts, and foundations.
    3. Introduce full transparency of deals and secret agreements between companies and governments.
    4. Introduce public country-by-country reporting by multinational companies.
    5. Introduce automatic information exchange between al countries.
  • Reading Time: < 1 minute Fox News has reported that a United Nations commission has accused the Assad regime and affiliated militias of war crimes.  A mountain of evidence is claimed as the basis for these accusations, but sources are not provided.
    “The 24-page document by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic focuses on happenings inside Syria between January and July of this year. It is based on hundreds of interviews, satellite images, videos, medical records and government communications during that time period, among other sources.”
    All of the incidents are said to have happened between January and July of this year, including an alleged chlorine payload delivered by helicopter on April 7.  Strangely, the report also cites the presence of Syrian government forces on the edge of Idlib and acknowledges it is in preparation for an offensive on the last major terrorist stronghold in Syria. It doesn’t mention that  the Syrians and Russians informed the United States of their  plans and warned its personnel to get out of the area.  The U.S. responded by sending in 500 additional troops. The article ends with the standard warning to the Syrians about using chemical weapons.
    The White House warned Assad last week that if he chooses to use chemical weapons in the offensive against Idlib, the U.S. and its allies “will respond swiftly and appropriately.”
    It is common knowledge that the Syrian government has no chemical weapons.  If the United States and its allies attack the Syrians, they will be committing a criminal act.

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    When Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò decided to publish his letter, he went to the conservative Catholic network, with sites such as LifeSiteNews.com and National Catholic Register (owned by EWTN). In Italy he went to conservative bloggers like Aldo Maria Valli and Marco Tosatti. It was Valli and Viganò who timed the letter’s release during Francis’s trip to Ireland.

    Timothy Busch, a ‘Koch Brothers-like’ conservative Catholic sits on the board of EWTN. Viganò also discussed his plan with Busch. Busch claims the Register personally assured him that Pope Benedict had confirmed Viganò’s account. (This has been denied by Benedict’s secretary.) Busch is not only on the board of EWTN and many other Catholic organizations, he’s the namesake for the business school at Catholic University, a graduate school known for working to reconcile free markets and capitalism with Catholic teaching. This brings us to the Koch brothers, who have been making large contributions to this business school.

    The Koch’s have made good use of the pro-life movement, even though they are pro-choice and pro-gay marriage. The Tea-Party, the Chamber of Commerce, and the pro-life movement have been important tools for the destruction of democracy in Kansas.

    And then of course we have liberal corporate Democrat Josh Shapiro and his Pennsylvania grand jury. Shapiro would seem to be disconnected from the conservative Catholic media, but what they all have in common is support for free market capitalism, which would probably explain the efforts to implicate Francis in the scandal.

    By the way, it can be argued that it’s not the investigation itself that’s a problem. It’s the United States’ use of grand juries, and Pennsylvania’s grand jury in particular.

  • Reading Time: 3 minutesIt’s happening again. The United States and its allies have encircled Syria amidst warnings of a chemical attack by Assad, and the Russians and Syrians are frantically trying to ward off a possible false flag. The video at the end of this article in which the Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic carefully and thoroughly explains that Syria has no chemical weapons, should dispense with this excuse. Obviously, the actual presence or absence of chemical weapons is not the fundamental issue. The fundamental problem is the determination to follow a well-known agenda for the Middle East. That’s why this threat keeps coming back. Therefore, it might be helpful to look again at numerology to see if we can find an auspicious day for military action. From what I can tell, there are at least two such days in the coming week, August 31 and September 4. If we assume that the number seven is a crucial number for an American war, September 4 would be more likely. If we include the numbers 9 and 11, it could also be August 31.

    The numerological value of September is 10 or 1 (1+0=1). Add 1+4+2018 (1+4+2+0+1+8) and you get 16, which reduces to 7 (1+6=7).

    The numerological value of August is 12 or 3 (1+2=3). Add 3+3+1+2018 (3+3+1+2+0+1+8) and you get 18, which reduces to 9.

    The nine is more meaningful because in Syria’s case there is an additional correspondence. Eleven is the numerical value for ‘Syria’, and eleven is also the numerical value for ‘war’. Robert Eisler mentions this type of correspondence in his book, Orpheus the Fisher, where he uses this system to identify the bishop at Hieropolis, Aberkios, as a ‘fish’ or baptized Christian.

    “Indeed, first of all, the name Aberkios itself is an isopsêphon or numerical equivalent for ‘fish.’ ΙΧΘΥΣ=9+22+8+20+18=77=1+2+5+17+10+9+15+18=ΑΒΕΡΚΙΟΣ (In other words, the letters may be different but they add up to the same value), implying that—according to the expression of Tertullian…Aberkios himself is a ‘fish’ or baptized Christian after the image of the ‘great Fish’ Jesus.”

    I don’t know if it would be necessary to carry the Syrian calculation further, but if we add eleven (the value of Syria) to the value of August 31, 2018 (9), we get eleven. Furthermore, August 31 is the 243rd day of the year (2+4+3=9).

    If we add eleven to the value of September 4 (7), we get 18, which reduces to 9. September 4 is the 247th day of the year (2+4+7=13).

    Of course these are not just the dates of national disasters. Numerology has a biblical basis. Theologians have recognized numerological meanings in the Bible—positive and negative. Augustine thought the number 11 represented transgression of the law because it exceeded the number of the decalogue. The Hebrews thought 11 was a bad number as well. There are no Hebrew names with eleven letters.

    The fulfillment of the number 11 is 66, the number of evil (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11=66). On the other hand, Joseph was the eleventh son of Jacob and Rachel and although he was betrayed by his brothers he was the rescuer of his tribe.

    The number 9 is also said to derive its meaning from the Bible, but through a diabolical reversal which associates it with destruction. Jesus ‘gave up the ghost’ at the ninth hour.

    Keep in mind, this article is not proof of anything. It is a pitiful attempt at mind reading for the purpose of heading off war. However, the numerological aspect makes it clear that this is not just a battle for worldly supremacy.

    “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12)

    https://youtu.be/8bfmayadkhI

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