Ralph welcomes Professor Theodore Postol, Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at MIT. We discuss the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel/ Palestine and breakdown what the weaponry being used in both conflicts tells us about the intentions and capabilities of all parties involved. Plus, Ralph answers listener questions!
We are a small, rather insignificant planet in the middle of frigid space, vulnerable to meteors and climate chaos, and all we seem to be doing lately is try to kill each other. What a waste, not to say, stupidity.
The Biden administration has reportedly canned its plans to issue sanctions on an extremist IDF unit for human rights violations in the occupied West Bank, following backlash from Israel and its high-powered supporters within the US government. The Biden Administration are puppets to Israel.
I think what was missed in the conversation about the wars is that Biden, Clinton and the rest, their cadre of experts, do know exactly what they are doing. They make war on purpose. They provoked Russia knowing fully well Russia would invade, had to invade. They do this intentionally. What you all miss is that this is consistent with their political philosophy. They are all neo-conservatives (aka Straussians) now. They believe in war as the best way to control society (as Leo Strauss taught). Plus this approach has the added “benefit “ of being military Keneysianism. They can juice the economy and keep the population off balance in a war footing with the same policy.
They are wrong, immoral, and greedy but that is their philosophy. It is the fullest expression of the logic of capitalism. The exploited masses cannot be allowed to think that life could be better, they must be distracted with war.
‘Military Keynesianism’ is correct. Increased militarization does create jobs and US presidents advertise military misadventures as being jobs programs. Progressives should be countering this by saying that the same economic model which allows for unlimited spending on militarization will also allow unlimited spending on social programs (single-provider universal healthcare, universal education, a job guarantee to ensure full full employment, etc.) and, just as importantly, the same economic model will allow the US to nationalize the military industry and convert it into a peace-oriented industry while maintaining, if not expanding, the same employment that exists under the current neoliberal military-industrial system.
Instead, economically inept progressives who purposely put a bag over their heads anytime macroeconomics are discussed think austerity is some great solution to this problem. Chants of ‘cut the military budget!’ by themselves means the loss of thousands of well-paying jobs all over the country. This should never be the message, the message should be about nationalizing the military-industrial industry and converting it into a peace-industrial system that produces necessary defense items and infrastructure which promotes cleaner energy, medical technology, and so forth. Any sort of message which leads to large-scale job losses will never be adopted by Congress and it should be obvious why that is the case. It is not just because of corporate lobbying, it is also because certain progressives are completely off on their messaging. Furthermore, the improper austerity language only puts us further away from the aforementioned social programs.
Theodore Postol argues that Joe Biden act rationally and not as a militarist (my word) and speak to Putin to deescalate the Ukraine war. The latter won’t happen. Biden is in the pockets of the militarists and weapons manufacturers. The mass media supports Biden. Biden is also under the control of the deep pockets of Israeli propaganda outlets.
Even though appearances are not most important, the two front runners in this year’s presidential election are quite a spectacle. The duopoly serves up pablum, although some of that is quite dangerous on the domestic and world stage, while third parties can’t get much of any traction among the voters and mass media. The power elite from many sources call the shots.
Some good material here, however somewhat tepid on the Gaza conflict considering....
Report: US working to block potential ICC arrest warrant of Netanyahu this week
The Israeli army has killed 42,510 Palestinians over the course of its 200-day attack, 38,621 of whom were civilians, including 10,091 women and 15,780 children.
The bodies of several thousand are still stuck under the rubble, while thousands remain missing and are presumed dead.
These statistics include the killing of 137 journalists, 356 medical personnel, and 42 civil defense personnel.
Based on these data, the daily death toll for Palestinians has reached 212, including 50 women and 79 children. These are horrifying statistics and unprecedented in the context of contemporary warfare.
I disagree with Ralph’s comment that Putin is a dictator and is brutal. Is the United States not brutal and evil?! The power setup in the United States can be argued is a convenient dictatorship that cannot be breeched by a 3rd party or coalition. So best not to bandy words around in a holier-than-thou manner.
Do I understand you correctly, then, that because the imperialist US is the most egregious terrorist state to ever exist, then Putin is not a brutal dictator? One does not negate the other.
So, one may not negate the other but the United States is way ahead of Russia in its meanness. Russia is still trying to find its feet while being under heavy sanctions from the US & allies who wants to break it up and grab its resources. Putin has to protect his country from the direct and overt threat from the US via the CIA and NATO.
As has I’ve found necessary wth prior Nader talk show, listened to this twice. What came to mind “Sheb Wooley” his Wilhem scream. And Sheb’s 1958 Ed Sullivan show “The Purple People Eater” Seems rather frightening we’ve the red political spokespersons & the blue podiums *purple people eaters. Horror story “until every last Ukrainian”, the slaughter in Palestine, the provocations Somalia civil war, catastrophic situation in Haiti - oh my goodness our globe is under the control of monsters! RIP Sheb.
I enjoyed listening to Professor Postol's assessment of the Russia-Ukraine war. However, I found it puzzling that he should, on the one hand, seem to advocate allowing Russia to take the 40% of current Ukraine east of the Dnieper river, but on the other hand, predict that Putin would reduce the 60% left to Ukraine to a nonentity by blocking its access to Black Sea ports to ship its grain. Postol must realize such alleged designs on Putin's part indicate malicious intent and not something the powers that be, if they are aware of this, would be willing to allow Putin to carry out.
The Ukraine war is a U.S. crime on the same level as the Gaza massacre. It was provoked by blood-thirsty idiot-zealots in the U.S. who wanted to cripple and crush Russia, so it seems. Biden is at the top of the list. Ralph interveiwed both Col. Wilkerson and Jeffrey Sachs, both very harsh critics of the U.S. role in Ukraine who lay the blame for the war on the U.S. But neither were questioned about Ukraine, just about Israel-Palestine. Benjamin Abelow wrote a short booklet, "How the West Brought War to Ukraine", it's precise and well argued. He would make a good guest. The war in Ukraine is officially 26 months old, but unofficially it's been raging over 10 years. On YouTube I have watched, for 18 months or so, several channels probing into the status on the battelfield and the causes and likely outcomes. Judge Napolitano and Alex Mercouris receive my attention. Ukraine this week is cresting into panic and crisis; but it has surprisingly avoided collapse for a very long time. Postol's claim of 5 or 6 or 7 Ukrainian deaths and injured to Russia's 1 is what I've heard also. I hope the entire U.S. public learns about this crime and waste of humanity -- and throws Biden out of office. It could have been easily prevented in 2014; but the West refused to acknowledge the referendums held in eastern Ukraine in response to the Maidan revolution of 2014, and soon the bombing began and up to 14,000 lives were lost (both sides). The two Minsk agreements were violated, and were revealed by Angela Merkel to be stalling agreements allowing the U.S. to arm Ukraine. The Istanbul agreement of April 2022 was also squelched by the West. It all points to a perverse attempt to "crush Putin" (in the words of Israeli prime Minister N. Bennett speaking about the Istanbul rejection; he was a witness to all the proceedings). Crush Russia, and why? What a waste, and what a cover up!
israeltube will not allow this to be posted. Forgive me for asking for help here.
Please donate to the families of two of my friends who are trying to escape the genocide of Gaza, in order to save their children. Spread the links to people who might also donate.
Next week's program on food available at the supermarket that can extend your longevity will be interesting and will probably also cover food available that will accelerate your demise.
Hopefully an episode on the food we feed democracy will soon follow.
We have been feeding democracy politicians poisoned with big money for far too long which has been accelerating it's demise. It is time we fed democracy food to extend it's longevity and help it thrive by feeding it small donor politicians.
Unfortunately this food is not currently available in the supermarket where we choose politicians, the voting booth.
What we as citizens must do is fill out the form in the supermarket saying we want a product that is not currently available by casting a write in vote to register a vote against the big money politicians currently being offered and to create and demonstrate demand for small donor candidates in the next election.
As long as we keep buying the poisoned politicians being offered we will never get the healthy small donor politicians that democracy needs to survive and thrive.
Ralph has said that politicians want our votes more than big money which is a basic principle of how democracy is supposed to work.
Please Ralph, explain why using this basic principle of democracy to demand small donor candidates and enforce that demand with our votes will not work or help organize citizens to participate in this effort in 2024.
I agree with you. A good start to achieve your goals is to donate to...
Jill Stein For President 2024! Green Party for all other elected positions 2024!
It's the only decent choice to make. Otherwise you support fascism and the genocide of an entire population of innocent, indigenous, unarmed Palestinians.
Of course you could donate to the families of two of my friends who are trying to escape that genocide, in order to save their children. Spread the links to people who might also donate.
Thank you. I will donate to Stein when she commits to run a small donor campaign (no more than 200 dollars in total contributions from any one donor).
I have contacted Stein and the Green Party in previous campaigns suggesting the commitment to a small donor campaign and got no response. The only campaign to respond was Bernie's 2020 campaign that sent me a post card consisting of a generic response with what appeared to be a hand written note from an unidentified person in the campaign saying the idea was food for thought. (What a nice coincidence to my original comment.)
Unfortunately Bernie thought about it and decided not to do it.
On a recent Washington Journal Stein said she had raised about 600,000 dollars for her current campaign and was getting things done with volunteers. While this is honorable, noble and admirable it will not work on the scale needed to succeed in being anything more than they have achieved in the past twenty plus years.
The only way that could succeed on a large enough scale is for a majority of citizens to put in the kind of time and effort that the current volunteers make and most citizens are not going to make that kind of effort and stick to it for decades.
If Stein committed to run a small donor campaign and got just 1% of the 150 million 2020 voters to invest 100 dollars in contributions it would total 150 million dollars and would make the efforts of the current volunteers much more effective as they would have more resources available to accomplish their goals.
Many citizens would be willing to make a small contribution and when citizens see Stein has raised 150 million dollars with only small contributions and no big money they may be willing to cast a vote for Stein in 2024 in all the states that are not swing states as it will not effect the electoral votes in non-swing states.
This could be very effective in getting voters in non-swing states that would vote for a third party or independent candidate in 2024 to choose Stein due to her small donor campaign over the big money independent Kennedy.
It would be much more beneficial to The 2028 Green Party candidate if Stein got 5-10% or more of the vote in 2024 than a repeat of the approach that has consistently yielded only 1-2% of the vote in previous elections.
We are a small, rather insignificant planet in the middle of frigid space, vulnerable to meteors and climate chaos, and all we seem to be doing lately is try to kill each other. What a waste, not to say, stupidity.
The Biden administration has reportedly canned its plans to issue sanctions on an extremist IDF unit for human rights violations in the occupied West Bank, following backlash from Israel and its high-powered supporters within the US government. The Biden Administration are puppets to Israel.
GJ Biden proudly proclaimed that he was a zionist (does not deserve uppercase).
I think what was missed in the conversation about the wars is that Biden, Clinton and the rest, their cadre of experts, do know exactly what they are doing. They make war on purpose. They provoked Russia knowing fully well Russia would invade, had to invade. They do this intentionally. What you all miss is that this is consistent with their political philosophy. They are all neo-conservatives (aka Straussians) now. They believe in war as the best way to control society (as Leo Strauss taught). Plus this approach has the added “benefit “ of being military Keneysianism. They can juice the economy and keep the population off balance in a war footing with the same policy.
They are wrong, immoral, and greedy but that is their philosophy. It is the fullest expression of the logic of capitalism. The exploited masses cannot be allowed to think that life could be better, they must be distracted with war.
‘Military Keynesianism’ is correct. Increased militarization does create jobs and US presidents advertise military misadventures as being jobs programs. Progressives should be countering this by saying that the same economic model which allows for unlimited spending on militarization will also allow unlimited spending on social programs (single-provider universal healthcare, universal education, a job guarantee to ensure full full employment, etc.) and, just as importantly, the same economic model will allow the US to nationalize the military industry and convert it into a peace-oriented industry while maintaining, if not expanding, the same employment that exists under the current neoliberal military-industrial system.
Instead, economically inept progressives who purposely put a bag over their heads anytime macroeconomics are discussed think austerity is some great solution to this problem. Chants of ‘cut the military budget!’ by themselves means the loss of thousands of well-paying jobs all over the country. This should never be the message, the message should be about nationalizing the military-industrial industry and converting it into a peace-industrial system that produces necessary defense items and infrastructure which promotes cleaner energy, medical technology, and so forth. Any sort of message which leads to large-scale job losses will never be adopted by Congress and it should be obvious why that is the case. It is not just because of corporate lobbying, it is also because certain progressives are completely off on their messaging. Furthermore, the improper austerity language only puts us further away from the aforementioned social programs.
Theodore Postol argues that Joe Biden act rationally and not as a militarist (my word) and speak to Putin to deescalate the Ukraine war. The latter won’t happen. Biden is in the pockets of the militarists and weapons manufacturers. The mass media supports Biden. Biden is also under the control of the deep pockets of Israeli propaganda outlets.
And...all it takes to make the senile, insane monster happy, is an ice cream cone when he does good. With Reagan it was jelly beans.
Jill Stein 2024. Green Party for all other elected offices 2024!
Even though appearances are not most important, the two front runners in this year’s presidential election are quite a spectacle. The duopoly serves up pablum, although some of that is quite dangerous on the domestic and world stage, while third parties can’t get much of any traction among the voters and mass media. The power elite from many sources call the shots.
Some good material here, however somewhat tepid on the Gaza conflict considering....
Report: US working to block potential ICC arrest warrant of Netanyahu this week
The Israeli army has killed 42,510 Palestinians over the course of its 200-day attack, 38,621 of whom were civilians, including 10,091 women and 15,780 children.
The bodies of several thousand are still stuck under the rubble, while thousands remain missing and are presumed dead.
These statistics include the killing of 137 journalists, 356 medical personnel, and 42 civil defense personnel.
Based on these data, the daily death toll for Palestinians has reached 212, including 50 women and 79 children. These are horrifying statistics and unprecedented in the context of contemporary warfare.
https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6282/200-days-of-military-attack-on-Gaza:-A-horrific-death-toll-amid-intl.-failure-to-stop-Israel%E2%80%99s-genocide-of-Palestinians
I disagree with Ralph’s comment that Putin is a dictator and is brutal. Is the United States not brutal and evil?! The power setup in the United States can be argued is a convenient dictatorship that cannot be breeched by a 3rd party or coalition. So best not to bandy words around in a holier-than-thou manner.
Do I understand you correctly, then, that because the imperialist US is the most egregious terrorist state to ever exist, then Putin is not a brutal dictator? One does not negate the other.
So, one may not negate the other but the United States is way ahead of Russia in its meanness. Russia is still trying to find its feet while being under heavy sanctions from the US & allies who wants to break it up and grab its resources. Putin has to protect his country from the direct and overt threat from the US via the CIA and NATO.
Gee whiz Ralph you educated this American Idiot once again. Someday I'll earn that PhD....Thanks AND
boycott.thewitness.news A-Z "business as usual" financial institution's, companies, corporations who support the Israel Defense Forces.
As has I’ve found necessary wth prior Nader talk show, listened to this twice. What came to mind “Sheb Wooley” his Wilhem scream. And Sheb’s 1958 Ed Sullivan show “The Purple People Eater” Seems rather frightening we’ve the red political spokespersons & the blue podiums *purple people eaters. Horror story “until every last Ukrainian”, the slaughter in Palestine, the provocations Somalia civil war, catastrophic situation in Haiti - oh my goodness our globe is under the control of monsters! RIP Sheb.
I enjoyed listening to Professor Postol's assessment of the Russia-Ukraine war. However, I found it puzzling that he should, on the one hand, seem to advocate allowing Russia to take the 40% of current Ukraine east of the Dnieper river, but on the other hand, predict that Putin would reduce the 60% left to Ukraine to a nonentity by blocking its access to Black Sea ports to ship its grain. Postol must realize such alleged designs on Putin's part indicate malicious intent and not something the powers that be, if they are aware of this, would be willing to allow Putin to carry out.
Scott Ritter and George Galloway discuss the impending Israeli attack on Rafah: https://rumble.com/v4spk95-interview-israel-will-invade-rafah-because-no-one-will-stop-them-scott-ritt.html
We need to be following up with our politicians against the criminal Israelis. Jeffrey Sachs and Judge Napolitano's program is covering this and the Ukraine war daily: https://rumble.com/v4soo4n-judge-napolitano-judging-freedom-prof.-jeffrey-sachs-gaza-and-free-speech.html
Always thought the 2016 Russian meddling David asks about was stupid, but this paper by Thomas Ferguson convinced me it was beyond farce: https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/Ferg-Jorg-Chen-INET-Working-Paper-Industrial-Structure-and-Party-Competition-in-an-Age-of-Hunger-Games-8-Jan-2018.pdf. Some interesting takeaways: Russian ad buyers, consisting of random citizens motivated by money over ideology, attempted to flip West Virginia for Trump, while the Russian state-owned media itself was preparing for a Clinton victory on election eve.
The Ukraine war is a U.S. crime on the same level as the Gaza massacre. It was provoked by blood-thirsty idiot-zealots in the U.S. who wanted to cripple and crush Russia, so it seems. Biden is at the top of the list. Ralph interveiwed both Col. Wilkerson and Jeffrey Sachs, both very harsh critics of the U.S. role in Ukraine who lay the blame for the war on the U.S. But neither were questioned about Ukraine, just about Israel-Palestine. Benjamin Abelow wrote a short booklet, "How the West Brought War to Ukraine", it's precise and well argued. He would make a good guest. The war in Ukraine is officially 26 months old, but unofficially it's been raging over 10 years. On YouTube I have watched, for 18 months or so, several channels probing into the status on the battelfield and the causes and likely outcomes. Judge Napolitano and Alex Mercouris receive my attention. Ukraine this week is cresting into panic and crisis; but it has surprisingly avoided collapse for a very long time. Postol's claim of 5 or 6 or 7 Ukrainian deaths and injured to Russia's 1 is what I've heard also. I hope the entire U.S. public learns about this crime and waste of humanity -- and throws Biden out of office. It could have been easily prevented in 2014; but the West refused to acknowledge the referendums held in eastern Ukraine in response to the Maidan revolution of 2014, and soon the bombing began and up to 14,000 lives were lost (both sides). The two Minsk agreements were violated, and were revealed by Angela Merkel to be stalling agreements allowing the U.S. to arm Ukraine. The Istanbul agreement of April 2022 was also squelched by the West. It all points to a perverse attempt to "crush Putin" (in the words of Israeli prime Minister N. Bennett speaking about the Istanbul rejection; he was a witness to all the proceedings). Crush Russia, and why? What a waste, and what a cover up!
israeltube will not allow this to be posted. Forgive me for asking for help here.
Please donate to the families of two of my friends who are trying to escape the genocide of Gaza, in order to save their children. Spread the links to people who might also donate.
https://gofund.me/65026f7d
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-me-evacuate-my-kids-from-gaza-war
For coverage way ahead of this, follow The Duran!!
Next week's program on food available at the supermarket that can extend your longevity will be interesting and will probably also cover food available that will accelerate your demise.
Hopefully an episode on the food we feed democracy will soon follow.
We have been feeding democracy politicians poisoned with big money for far too long which has been accelerating it's demise. It is time we fed democracy food to extend it's longevity and help it thrive by feeding it small donor politicians.
Unfortunately this food is not currently available in the supermarket where we choose politicians, the voting booth.
What we as citizens must do is fill out the form in the supermarket saying we want a product that is not currently available by casting a write in vote to register a vote against the big money politicians currently being offered and to create and demonstrate demand for small donor candidates in the next election.
As long as we keep buying the poisoned politicians being offered we will never get the healthy small donor politicians that democracy needs to survive and thrive.
Ralph has said that politicians want our votes more than big money which is a basic principle of how democracy is supposed to work.
Please Ralph, explain why using this basic principle of democracy to demand small donor candidates and enforce that demand with our votes will not work or help organize citizens to participate in this effort in 2024.
I agree with you. A good start to achieve your goals is to donate to...
Jill Stein For President 2024! Green Party for all other elected positions 2024!
It's the only decent choice to make. Otherwise you support fascism and the genocide of an entire population of innocent, indigenous, unarmed Palestinians.
Of course you could donate to the families of two of my friends who are trying to escape that genocide, in order to save their children. Spread the links to people who might also donate.
https://gofund.me/65026f7d
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-me-evacuate-my-kids-from-gaza-war
Thank you. I will donate to Stein when she commits to run a small donor campaign (no more than 200 dollars in total contributions from any one donor).
I have contacted Stein and the Green Party in previous campaigns suggesting the commitment to a small donor campaign and got no response. The only campaign to respond was Bernie's 2020 campaign that sent me a post card consisting of a generic response with what appeared to be a hand written note from an unidentified person in the campaign saying the idea was food for thought. (What a nice coincidence to my original comment.)
Unfortunately Bernie thought about it and decided not to do it.
On a recent Washington Journal Stein said she had raised about 600,000 dollars for her current campaign and was getting things done with volunteers. While this is honorable, noble and admirable it will not work on the scale needed to succeed in being anything more than they have achieved in the past twenty plus years.
The only way that could succeed on a large enough scale is for a majority of citizens to put in the kind of time and effort that the current volunteers make and most citizens are not going to make that kind of effort and stick to it for decades.
If Stein committed to run a small donor campaign and got just 1% of the 150 million 2020 voters to invest 100 dollars in contributions it would total 150 million dollars and would make the efforts of the current volunteers much more effective as they would have more resources available to accomplish their goals.
Many citizens would be willing to make a small contribution and when citizens see Stein has raised 150 million dollars with only small contributions and no big money they may be willing to cast a vote for Stein in 2024 in all the states that are not swing states as it will not effect the electoral votes in non-swing states.
This could be very effective in getting voters in non-swing states that would vote for a third party or independent candidate in 2024 to choose Stein due to her small donor campaign over the big money independent Kennedy.
It would be much more beneficial to The 2028 Green Party candidate if Stein got 5-10% or more of the vote in 2024 than a repeat of the approach that has consistently yielded only 1-2% of the vote in previous elections.