The World This Week looks at Trump’s new threats against Iran, his tendency to chicken out, and a tribute to the great Michael Parenti, with Joe Lauria and Patrick Lawrence.
Producer: Cathy Vogan
American Empire, Analysis, Books, CN Live!, Commentary, Donald Trump, History, Immigration, Iran, Israel, Media, Middle East, Militarism, Police Brutality, Politics, Posse Comitatus, Protests, Trump Administration, United States, Zionism
www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=ynp4_Y7JetU
What better tribute to Michael Parenti than Max Blumenthal’s recent conversation with Christian Parenti!
Interesting exchange of thoughts on Iran and whether or not the US and Israel will bomb them again as the world watches. ON the BRICS becoming any kind of a military force to counter or I should say to stand up against the West and mainly the Imperial States of America, I think you are both right. It would be up to Russia and China, the only two nations with the ability to defend themselves against the US to intervene and defend Iran, but unfortunately I don’t see it happening. they, along with the rest of the world, looks the other way while the Palestinian Holocaust happened.
On the great, late Michael Parenti, Joe is very fortunate to visit Michael so many times during his trips to the SF Bay Area, as Parenti was a wealth of information on an array of subjects. I had the honor of speaking to him at three of Parenti’s lectures over the past 15 or 16 years ago and read many of his articles and five of his 14 books and heard him speak on kpfa.or in Berkeley, Ca. in years past, and always impressed by his insight on the issues he discussed.
Thanks again, Joe and Patrick for your tireless effort in telling the truth of the matter in your journalistic excellence!
83 years ago today, the mighty German 6th Army, consisting of 250,000 men and many tanks and armored vehicles, surrendered at Stalingrad. Up till then, the mighty German Nazis had seemed unbeatable, rolling through France with little opposition, asking submissive Scandinavians to submit, and bombing the English into their subway tunnels. But now the Soviets were going to hold a parade in Moscow of their captives.
German propaganda, produced by Herr Goebbels, claimed that the Reich was mighty and unstoppable and the future of the world for the next thousand years. Yet, by this time, many mistakes had already been made in arrogance of supposed superiority, the biggest of the mistakes being the attack on the Soviet Union. Now, in Feb 1943, this had costs the Germans a massive army and from that day forward the lines on the map would begin to move back in a slow steady constriction around Berlin until it reached the point where the Great Fuhrer and Herr Goebbels and others were forced to kill themselves to avoid the justice that was coming for all that they had done.
Fascists always tell the world that they are unstoppable, that there is no alternative. And yet, they always fall. Usually from their arrogance and the fact that usually they are not the brightest bulbs in the pack. Their economies always sputter due to all the corrupt deals that make the decisions, and their warfare is always aggressive and arrogant, up until the point where 250,000 of their soldiers are freezing and starving surrounded in a pocket because some Great Leader pointed to a city on the map which bore the name of this hated opponent so he decided that conquering that city was the most important thing ever.
83 years ago, the sun started to come out, the the fascist tides could be seen to be retreating to low ebb. Until of course later the clouds would gather again and the high tides would threaten to destroy the walls that protect civilization from the power of an angry sea.
Thanks for that very important reminder. Potsdam in Germany
Netanyahu and his conservative allies in government could be trying to convince the USA that Iran has to be “neutralised” in order to secure their plans for Gaza and the West Bank.
Trump’s fear of getting hurt made the illegal “taking out” of the president of Venuzuala the way it was done very attractive and for some social media contributors made “regime change” look “sexy”. But it’s not like taking out a tooth. It’s messy and bloody. Look at what happened when “regimes” were changed in Libya, Syria, and Iraq.
Both Republicans and Democrats negotiated with the Iranian government when it held the hostages in 1979. The Republicans wanted them kept until after the 1980 presidential election, the Democrats wanted them released before the election. Why is this not talked about? And why is the resentment that holding the hostages caused among the US governing classes not spoken about as a possible reason for sanctions, bad treatment of Iran?
PS why has the former TV host Hesgeth been absent for weeks?
… and a few years later, when American capitalism wanted to fund a guerrilla war in Central America that would kill many ordinary people, the Reagan people knew exactly who to contact in Tehran, and which back-channels to use, so they could sell American plane parts and missiles to the Ayatollah in order to fund the murderous Contra War.
Yep, Reagan, Bush, and the traitor Ollie North had the names and numbers of who to call in Tehran to make (another) deal, and this of course comes directly from their experience with the deal that they had made that won a narrow election and put America on the path that led from Reagan to Bush to Clinton to Cheney to Obama to Trump to Biden to Trump, instead of towards a destination that someone like Jimmy Carter might have wanted America to go to get out of its malaise.
The passing of Michael Parenti leaves us with some huge shoes to fill.i doubt their is anyone who qualifies.His tireless work explained things to me like why Noam chomsky pretended to be on the left while criticizing Lenin,Stalin and Communism.They overthrew a tyrannical, racist Czarist regime with the emancipation of the Jewish people,while in 1923 implementing the world’s first Affirmative Action Program that helped more people than any Affirmative Action That followed in history.Oppression under the Czars was so great that a great percentage of the Russian people qualified for some benefit.Michael Parenti enlightened me on why Chomsky chose to go down this road.God bless Michael Parenti and may he rest in peace.
Iran needs to allow the US to carry out regime change. The US needs to be tricked into putting in power a leader who is undercover for the Iranian people. This IS possible, especially at this historical moment and the current US adinistration. Iran needs strong and solid intelligence apparatuses and a few loyal and brilliant men to carry out this mission.
CN’s new “The World This Week” is a breath of fresh air. Correction: A blizzard of fresh air. Or to mix metaphors, keepers of the flame in a very dark and darkening world. I for one am sick to death of the endless lies, lies, lies, and spins, spins, spins, in myriad ways, of corporate media, including NPR. Notice that neither Joe Lauria or Patrick Lawrence are spring chickens. When one gets older everything takes much much more effort. We owe them both a great deal of appreciation. How do we show appreciation and keep the show going? $$ to CN and PL. And I’m a tightwad. If we help them to keep the flame burning, maybe things will get better.
Patrick Lawrence, you are so right about the murder of General Soleimani. Mike Pompeo carried out the murder of Soleimani without the knowledge of Trump. It was a terrible crime in our name.
Without the knowledge of Trump? That’s a surprise to me.
A smell blindness encouraged by ruling economic interests in warfare as maximum profit motive. Even Watergate was an operation to defuse the anti-warfare and other cultural revolutions.