Steven E. Koonin

We are very far from the knowledge needed to make good climate policy

The idea that "Climate science is settled" runs through today's popular and policy discussions. Unfortunately, that claim is misguided. It has not only distorted our public and policy debates on issues related to energy, greenhouse-gas emissions and the environment. But it also has inhibited the scientific and policy discussions that we need to have about our climate future.

My training as a computational physicist—together with a 40-year career of scientific research, advising and management in academia, government and the private sector—has afforded me an extended, up-close perspective on climate science. Detailed technical discussions during the past year with leading climate scientists have given me an even better sense of what we know, and don't know, about climate. I have come to appreciate the daunting scientific challenge of answering the questions that policy makers and the public are asking.

The crucial scientific question for policy isn't whether the climate is changing. That is a settled matter: The climate has always changed and always will. Geological and historical records show the occurrence of major climate shifts, sometimes over only a few decades. We know, for instance, that during the 20th century the Earth's global average surface temperature rose 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

Nor is the crucial question whether humans are influencing the climate. That is no hoax: There is little doubt in the scientific community that continually growing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, due largely to carbon-dioxide emissions from the conventional use of fossil fuels, are influencing the climate. There is also little doubt that the carbon dioxide will persist in the atmosphere for several centuries. The impact today of human activity appears to be comparable to the intrinsic, natural variability of the climate system itself.

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Stephen Lendman

Syrians inspect the rubble of a home reportedly hit by a U.S.-led
coalition airstrike in Kafar Daryan. As many as two dozen civilian
deaths in airstrikes were reported by Syrians. (Photo: Sami Ali)

Obama murders civilian men, women and children he calls militants. Terrorists. Eyewitnesses explain otherwise. He lied claiming he'll degrade and destroy IS's fighting capability. He supports it instead.

They're US proxies. Shock troops. Foot soldiers. Boots on the ground. US special forces and CIA operatives train them in Jordan and Turkey. They're taught effective ways to kill. Dirty ways. Using chemical weapons. Committing atrocities. Including beheadings and other barbarian acts.

Syrian targets struck aren't Islamic State ones. They include vital infrastructure, oil facilities, grain silos with food, empty buildings, residential homes and noncombatant men, women and children. Exact numbers killed and injured aren't clear. Various estimates differ. The toll rises daily.

On September 23, the Los Angeles Times headlined "Syrians say civilians killed in US airstrikes," explaining video evidence from Northwestern Syria...

"...shows Idlib province residents going through motions that have become all too familiar in three years of civil war between anti-government rebels and the forces of President Bashar Assad…" They're "surveying the remnants of flattened homes and picking through the debris."

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Tom Carter

Holder’s real legacy includes providing pseudo-legal sanction for assassination of US citizens, military commissions, and incommunicado detention; shielding war criminals, corporate criminals, and Bush-era officials from prosecution; persecuting whistleblowers and journalists; targeting protesters and antiwar activists under antiterror laws; asserting unlimited executive powers; justifying government secrecy; deporting immigrants en masse; abetting the expansion of illegal domestic spying; slashing wages and benefits for workers; and infiltrating authoritarian and fascistic legal doctrines into American jurisprudence.

On Thursday, US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he would resign from his post in the Obama administration after six years in office. His departure was greeted with a chorus of praise in the establishment media, in which he was acclaimed as a “defender of civil rights.” Announcing Holder’s resignation, Obama said, “Through it all he’s shown a deep and abiding fidelity to one of our cherished ideals as a people, and that is equal justice under the law.” At a joint press conference to announce the resignation, Obama and Holder made repeated reference to the country’s founding documents, civil rights, equal justice and so forth.

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Finian Cunningham

Listening to American and British leaders this week one would think that Barack Obama and David Cameron are knights in shining armor on an epic crusade to defeat global evil.

Of course, that is exactly what Washington and London are trying to inculcate in popular perception – that the US and Britain are the saviors of the world leading a military campaign to destroy the extremist network known as so-called Islamic State (IS, or ISIL/ISIS).

This is a massive public relations scam to burnish the image of America and Britain – the two countries that, rightly, are most associated with illegal war making over the past decade, from Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011) to ongoing deadly drone warfare in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. Between them, Washington and London are responsible for the deaths of more than 1.5 million people over the past 13 years.

What better way to rehabilitate the war criminals than to present them now as leading a moral crusade to defeat a global evil? Unbelievably, too many states seem to be going along with this ridiculous charade, as can be gleaned from the way Obama and Cameron’s posturing was indulged this week at the United Nations General Assembly.

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Rodney Shakespeare

A dark and sinister madness has descended upon the American government. It is madness because it is divorced from reality. It is madness because it is divorced from a desire to serve the human race (which is the ultimate expression of sanity). And it is madness because its promotion of violence is certain to cause more violence rather than ending it. It is dark and sinister because its underlying intention hides in the shadows from which it springs out at crucial moments to forward its dastardly purpose.

At first the USA might be viewed as being only in a series of massive contradictions or, as it could be said, in a process of shooting itself in the foot. Thus, on the one hand, together with the Wahhabi ideologues of Saudi Arabia and the killers of Mossad, the USA trains, arms and facilitates the throat-slitters of ISIS while, on the other hand, it has announced that it is going to attack ISIS in Syria (which is an attack without any United Nations mandate).

At the same time, while proposing to attack ISIS in Syria, the USA is hell-bent on destroying the most effective force against ISIS, namely, the Syrian government of Bashar Assad. To which can be added that the American arms going to so-called Syrian ‘moderate’ fighters (allegedly to fight Assad) always end up going to ISIS as will most of the $500 million supposed to be for the training of ‘moderates’.

Furthermore, Wahhabi Saudi Arabia is being asked to organise the training of the so-called ‘moderates’ who will, of course, upon their graduation, immediately turn into the most vicious ISIS Takfiri the world has ever known (and, given the existing eating of human organs and the predilection for crucifixion, that is really saying something).

All of this makes a maelstrom of contradiction and chaos drawing in more and more fanatics who have no desire but to kill as many people as they can.

But surely, protests the rational mind, there must be some clear, major aim behind all of this, some noble end even if it will take a long time to get there. After all, the rational mind might claim, the End justifies the Means (no matter how, in the meantime, many millions of people are slaughtered or have to live in misery). Well, the End is clear, alright. It is written across the face of American government and imbues every aspect of American action. Moreover, it explains why Saudi Arabia is being helped to extend its penchant for head-chopping.

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Charles Hugh Smith

The incestuous embrace of privilege and power by entrenched, socially isolated Elites characterizes failed states and brittle, doomed regimes throughout history.

Every system is optimized to serve a specific purpose. As noted in my recent essay "What Metric Are We Optimizing For?", what the system optimizes is rarely explicitly stated.

Sometimes this results from not understanding the metric that the system is designed to optimize; but in other cases, explicitly describing what the system optimizes would trigger social instability.

The Status Quo around the world–from France to China to the U.S.–is optimized to protect its Elites and the sprawling Upper-Caste of academics, managers, think-tank toadies, technocrats, apparatchiks, functionaries, factotums, lackeys and apologists who serve the Elites, and are well-paid for enforcing the Status Quo on the disenfranchised castes below.

Demographer Joel Kotkin, author of the new book "The New Class Conflict", has coined the word 'clerisy' to describe what I have been calling the Upper Caste: America’s new class system. Oligarchs are assisted in their control by the 'clerisy class' — an amalgam of academics, media and government employees who play the role that medieval clergy once played in legitimizing the powerful, and in implementing their policies while quelling resistance from the masses. The clerisy isn’t as rich as the oligarchs, but it does pretty well for itself and is compensated in part by status, its positions allowing even its lower-paid members to feel superior to the hoi polloi.

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Robert Parry

The longer President Obama has been in office the less honest he has become, a problem growing more apparent in his second term as he reads speeches containing information that he knows to be false or at least highly misleading.

During President Barack Obama’s first term, he generally was careful in making comments about world affairs – not that he was always completely honest but he was circumspect about outright lying. Over the past two years, however, he appears to have lost any such inhibitions.

That’s the case even when he is engaged in something as serious as addressing the United Nations General Assembly on issues of war or peace as occurred both last year and this year. In September 2013, Obama made what he knew was a deceptive comment about the mysterious Sarin gas attack in Syria a month earlier. He did something similar on Wednesday in describing the Ukraine crisis.

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Stephen Lendman

He didn't surprise. His address lasted a mind-numbing 45 minutes. He made painful listening. All his speeches feature demagogic mumbo jumbo Big Lies. They drown out truth.

Two years ago, he lied about Libya. He claimed US-led NATO intervened to "cope with violent conflict, care for the wounded, and craft a vision for the future in which the rights of all Libyans would be respected." He "supported the birth of a new democracy…Libyans held elections…(They) built new institutions…(They) move(d) forward after decades of dictatorship."

Truth is polar opposite Obama's Big Lies. Libya was Africa's most developed country. Most Libyans supported Gaddafi. They did so for good reasons. Libya was a model social justice society. Gaddafi used its oil wealth responsibly. He provided free healthcare, education and other vital benefits.

His Libya no longer exists. Obama transformed it. He made it a charnel house catastrophe. A dystopian wasteland. Tens of thousands were ruthlessly slaughtered. Many more were injured and/or displaced. Libyans had benefits Americans can't imagine. Obama replaced them with dystopian harshness. Mostly civilians were harmed. US-led NATO willfully targeted them. Obama destroyed Libyan sovereignty. He replaced it with instability, insecurity, and daily violence. Last year, he ludicrously said...

"...we come together to reaffirm the founding vision of this institution. For most of recorded history, (the) idea that nations and peoples could come together in peace to solve their disputes and advance a common prosperity seemed unimaginable."

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Lawrence Davidson

A portion of the separation wall built by the Israeli government
jutting into the town of Bethlehem to enclose the tomb of Rachel
within the Israeli zone. Many portions of the wall contain graffiti
and artwork by the Palestinians and their visitors. (T. Lieverman)

Israel’s never-ending persecution of Palestinians is opening a chasm between the world’s public, which is growing disgusted by Israeli behavior, and Western elites who shy from criticism because of career fears and financial dependence.

Due to Israel’s brutal racism and repeated attacks on Palestinian civilians, it is losing popular support internationally. As this happens, the Zionists appear to be intensifying pressure on societal and political elites, particularly in the U.S. and other Western states, to maintain policies that support and protect Israel’s criminal behavior.

Their vehicle for achieving this goal has always been financial gifts and donations to elite individuals and institutions. These gifts and donations help grease the wheels, so to speak, of the systems of power through which the elites operate, and create a monetary dependency on, among others, Zionist donors. It also creates an obligation to respond to these donor’s needs. The result is a growing disconnect between evolving popular attitudes toward Israel and the static positions held and actions taken by the elites.

American Zionist leaders are aware of this gap and they take it seriously. But they have a problem in that open debate and presentation of evidence can no longer win the argument for their side because the Zionists no longer have a monopoly on the story of how Israel came to be and Palestine came not to be. And without that monopoly the imperialist origins and ongoing racist nature of Israel are can no longer be concealed.

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Barry Grey

Having launched yet another illegal war, President Barack Obama came before the United Nations Wednesday to justify American actions around the world and demand that all nations fall into line behind the US drive for world hegemony.

The speech was a collection of declamations, threats and ultimatums linked together by hollow slogans and clichés. It was delivered in a halting, ritualistic manner, one pronouncement following another, separated by long pauses and a pursing of the lips, without any attempt to make a coherent argument.

But what above all distinguished the speech was the complete disconnect between its assertions and political reality. Obama’s lies were so extreme and brazen, they took on a delusional character. When the world political situation has reached a point where those in power cannot acknowledge a single truth, this in itself is an expression of an extraordinary level of crisis of the entire political and economic order.

All the lies and hypocrisy were summed up in Obama’s denunciation of “a vision of the world in which might makes right—a world in which one nation’s borders can be redrawn by another… America stands for something different,” he claimed:

“We believe that right makes might—that bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones; that people should be able to choose their own future.”

This statement was made by the representative of the world’s most violent and menacing country, one that has, in direct violation of the UN charter, made preventive war the foundation of its foreign policy, proclaiming an unlimited right to intervene militarily wherever its economic, political or geostrategic interests are at stake.

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Arthur Aouizerat

Article taken from E&R Brest. Note by Gilad Atzmon: I didn’t write the following article. It is a translation from French. I share this article today because it raised some very troubling issues to do with the deceitful nature of Jewish Left. I guess that by now, it would be impossible to sweep that shame under the carpet.

Through his great historical work, the Israeli historian Israel Shahak(1)demonstrated the relationship between Talmudic Judaism and Zionism. If you happen to reside in France, to properly understand this relationship you need only observe number one sayan (Embedded Israeli agent) Bernard-Henri Levy, as he promotes his Talmudic ideology in support of Israel. The Talmudic-Judaism, as seen in both the Talmud and the Torah is simply law codified in the service of Jewish ideology.

But Bernard-Henri Levy is more than happy to say he acts ‘as a Jew’, but what does that mean? According to Gilad Atzmon’s classification (2), the problem lies not with those Jews who just happen to be born into Jewish families, nor with those religious Jews whose texts are interpreted through the ages. No, the problem is with those Jews who see the world ‘as Jews’ and who act in the world ‘as Jews’. It is this third category that carries and promotes Jewish ideology.

Culturally, this ideology can be understood as follows: ‘Jew’, transmitted through the blood of the mother, is a purely racial quality and cannot therefore be related to any acquired moral or universal qualities. So, when a Jew addresses a goy ‘as a Jew’ he/she simply highlights this racial quality and thus automatically defines the goy, without that, as inherently inferior. In this third category are found Talmudic Jewish-Zionist practitioners, non-practicing Talmudic-Zionist Jews (3), secular non-Zionist Jewish leftists and even anti-Zionists. So we can say that the theologico-racial supremacism as observed in Israel by Zionist Jews is entirely consistent with Jewish ideology.

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Robert Parry

President Barack Obama talks with Ambassador to the United
Nations Samantha Power, a leading “liberal interventionist,”
following a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White
House, Sept. 12, 2013. (Photo by Pete Souza/White House)

The U.S. government likes international law when it serves Washington’s purposes, but not when it constrains U.S. desires to use military force. Then, the rules are bent, ignored or subjected to novel lawyering, as President Obama is doing with airstrikes into Syria.

The Obama administration has devised an extraordinary legal justification for carrying out bombing attacks inside Syria: that the United States and its Persian Gulf allies have the right to defend Iraq against the Islamic State because the Syrian government is unable to stop the cross-border terror group.

“The Syrian regime has shown that it cannot and will not confront these safe havens effectively itself,” said the U.S. letter delivered by Ambassador Samantha Power to United Nations officials. “Accordingly, the United States has initiated necessary and proportionate military actions in Syria in order to eliminate the ongoing ISIL [Islamic State] threat to Iraq, including by protecting Iraqi citizens from further attacks and by enabling Iraqi forces to regain control of Iraq’s borders.”

Yet, beyond the danger to world order if such an expansive theory is embraced by the international community (does anyone remember how World War One got started?), there is the hypocrisy of the U.S. government and many of those same Gulf allies arming, training and funding Syrian rebels for the purpose of preventing the Syrian military from controlling its territory and then citing that lack of control as the rationale to ignore Syria’s sovereignty. — In other words, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and other enemies of Syria covertly backed the rebels inside Syria and watched as many of them – including thousands of the U.S.-preferred “moderates” – took their newly acquired military skills to al-Qaeda affiliates and other terrorist organizations. Then, the U.S. and its allies have the audacity to point to the existence of those terror groups inside Syria as a rationale for flying bombing raids into Syria.

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Peter Symonds

Following yesterday’s massive air attacks inside Syria, the Pentagon made clear that the operations were just the start of a protracted war. Lieutenant General William Mayville, director of operations for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the media the strikes were “the beginning of a credible and sustainable, persistent campaign” against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militias. Asked about the length of the campaign, he said: “I think it would be in terms of years.”

The scope and extent of the air strikes underline that fact that Syria, rather than Iraq, has been the primary target all along. A senior American military official told the New York Times that the US and its allies “dropped as many bombs in one night as the United States had during all its previous operations against Islamic State in Iraq.” The cruise missiles and bombs rained down on Syria were not directed simply against ISIS, but also against Al Qaeda affiliates—Jabhat al-Nusra, and the hitherto unpublicised “terrorist” organisation, Khorasan.

While Mayville disclaimed any knowledge of civilian casualties, the first reports from inside Syria indicate substantial death and destruction. The Los Angeles Times cited a video from the north-western province of Idlib showing residents picking through the rubble of bombed houses with a voice over of an anti-government activist, declaring “mass destruction of the civilian homes [as] a result of the strikes of the Western alliance.” The article explained that one of five US missiles in the area had hit a residential neighbourhood in the village of Kafar Daryan, killing up to two dozen civilians, including children.

Yesterday’s assault consisted of three waves of strikes. The first was a volley of cruise missiles directed against targets around Syria’s largest city, Aleppo. The second involved US fighter jets and drones, along with war planes from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Jordan, attacking ISIS compounds and vehicles in northern Syria. The third round, which also included Arab countries, targeted ISIS positions in eastern Syria.

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Stephen Lendman

No declaration of war exists. No legal authority. No national emergency. No existential or other threats. No enemies targeting America. No Security Council authorization. No congressional OK. No justifiable reason to wage war. No reason ever to do so except in self-defense if attacked. None occurred.

Obama's Iraq war III constitutes cold, calculated, premeditated naked aggression. It's lawless. It has no legal authority. The same holds for his three-and-a-half year proxy war on Syria. It was planned long before March 2011 hostilities began. It's now elevated to direct US intervention.

On Tuesday, US warplanes bombed multiple Syrian targets. Precise ones aren't clear. Multiple civilian deaths followed. At least three children died. Civilians suffer most in all wars. US and Israeli ones target them willfully. They're considered legitimate targets. They're murdered in cold blood. A local Raqqa resident said...

"...(t)here is an exodus out of (the city) as we speak. It started in the early hours of the day after the strikes. People are fleeing toward the countryside."

Around one-third of Syria's population already is internally or externally displaced. US bombing threatens thousands more. They're in the line of fire. They're in harm's way. As long as US bombing continues, not a square inch of Syria is safe. The entire country is vulnerable to attacks. Expect Washington to take full advantage. Expect Big Lies to conceal its objectives. They have nothing to do with degrading and destroying ISIS/ISIL/the Islamic state (IS). They have everything to do with advancing America's Imperium.

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As'ad AbuKhalil

The Syrian war is not only a proxy war. There is a strong internal dimension to the war in Syria but it has been obscured by various layers and dimensions of outside intervention and agendas. The Syrian regime wants to stay in power at any cost while there was certainly a civil popular opposition in Syria when the uprising first began. There are thousands of reasons for the Syrian people to protest against a family dictatorship that has controlled much of their lives since 1970 but the civil protest movement did not erupt by itself, the Western media narrative notwithstanding. Concurrent with the protest movement that erupted in 2011, Turkey and Gulf regimes had already set up armed rebel groups to help bring down a regime. The internal dimension of the war in Syria, however, is now probably marginal to the global and regional war raging in the country today. There are several proxy wars in Syria today and they can be summarized as follows:

1. The internal Wahhabi war: there is no war within Islam in Syria as Thomas Friedman and his ilk keep asserting. There has been a moderate and progressive strand of Islam in Syria and many of its elements have aligned themselves with the regime. And contrary to early claims made by the hired external opposition and its advocates in the West, there was never a moderate and progressive version of Islam among the rebel groups. How could that be the case when the sponsors of Syrian rebel Islam are Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia? Mufti Hassun (although he is an ally and perhaps a tool of the regime, and even the slain Sheikh al-Buti) is far more progressive than any of his adversaries on the other side, including Mu`adh al-Khatib who has railed in the past about the ills of social media, masturbation and Jews, and who praised al-Nusrah Front early on his tenure as leader of the Syrian National Council. The internal Wahhabi war is pitting the various Wahhabi parties in the region against each other. The Saudi regime, Qatari regime, al-Qa`idah (Nusrah Front) and ISIS: all four are Wahhabi and each is trying to dominate the field of the Wahhabi movement.

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Stephen Lendman

It's no surprise. Obama's intentions were clear for weeks. Naked aggression is longstanding US policy. In his September 10 address, he said Washington was prepared to "conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes (against Islamic State terrorists) wherever they are." "That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria as well as Iraq." Last week, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said US Central Command has a plan to take "targeted actions against ISIS safe havens in Syria." Obama added another high crime against peace to his rap sheet. It overflows.

Attacking a country posing no threat to America constitutes a grave breach of international, constitutional and US statute laws. US-led airstrikes began at around 8:30 PM local time. Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby confirmed them, saying:

"US military and partner nation forces…undert(ook) military action against (Islamic State) terrorists in Syria using a mix of fighter, bomber and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles. Given that these operations are ongoing, we are not in a position to provide additional details at this time," he added. "The decision to conduct theses strikes was made (Monday) by the US Central Command commander under authorization granted him by the commander in chief." "We will provide more details later as operationally appropriate," he said.

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Peter Symonds

The air strikes are an illegal act of war against a country that has never posed a threat to the U.S.

The US began a series of devastating and ongoing air strikes inside Syria early Tuesday, bombing the town of Raqqa and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) targets along the country’s border with Iraq. The attacks on ISIS are the pretext for stepping up the US-backed regime-change operation against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and mark the expansion of a reckless and illegal war that will have catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and beyond.

The new air war was announced in a brief statement by Pentagon press secretary, Rear Admiral John Kirby, who stated that “US military and partner nation forces are undertaking military action against ISIL [ISIS] terrorists in Syria using a mix of fighter, bomber and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles.” Indifferent to public opinion, President Obama issued no statement and made no comment.

Details provided by unnamed US officials make clear that the air campaign inside Syria goes far beyond the scope of the air strikes in Iraq over the past six weeks. At least 20 targets have been hit within the first hours, using cruise missiles launched from US navy ships and precision-guided bombs fired from warplanes and drones. The strikes reportedly targeted ISIS command centres, weapons supplies, depots, barracks and buildings.

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Peter Symonds

In the lead-up to this week’s UN General Assembly meetings, the Obama administration is engaged in an aggressive political campaign to justify and marshal support for the extension of its war in Iraq into Syria. Under the pretext of “degrading and destroying” Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militias, the US is engaged in an illegal war of aggression with the objective of ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Claims by American officials that Washington has the support of 40 countries cannot obscure the fact that this is another US war based on lies, and in flagrant breach of international law. US warplanes have carried out more than 160 air strikes inside Iraq after being invited to do so by its puppet regime in Baghdad, and its aircraft and drones have already carried out reconnaissance inside Syria. Washington has arrogated to itself the right to conduct air strikes inside Syria, despite the expressed opposition of the Syrian government.

Speaking on the ABC’s “This Week” program last night, US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, declared that the US had the “legal basis” for waging an air war on Syria and that there was “universal support” in the international community for attacking ISIS. In fact, Washington lacks even the fig-leaf of a UN resolution to legitimise its new war. When Obama chairs a special UN Security Council session on Wednesday, he is unlikely to seek a resolution supporting air strikes on Syria, as Russia would veto it.

Power made the absurd assertion that military aggression against Syria was justified because Iraq had requested it. “The Iraqis have appealed to the international community to come to their defence not only in Iraq, but also to go after safe havens in foreign countries. And what they mean of course is Syria. And they’re quite explicit about that,” she said. Such “requests” could be engineered to justify an aggressive war against any country in the world.

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Lynne Lopez-Salzedo

Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center (from its website)

This summer, I returned to the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center to relax in the Connecticut woods, canoe on the lake and take part in the workshops that participant/leaders were offering. When I arrived late afternoon, the lake was shimmering in the sunlight, framed by tall trees. Up the hill lay the organic farm; to the right was the kitchen where fresh goat cheese was made and lacto fermented vegetables were put up. I made my way up to my cabin, unpacked my yoga togs, then set out for a walk in the woods. But even the quiet tranquility of the woods could not totally distract me from the terrible images of Gaza’s destruction that filled my thoughts.

I’d come for the ‘Mikvah’ retreat, named after the purifying ritual immersion in water which is an integral part of Jewish practice. The Center described the retreat as a ‘transformative experience’, where we could delve deep into spiritual practice and emerge refreshed and purified. Isabella Freedman, part of the Jewish Renewal movement, also welcomes other spiritual traditions and practices. I was here to teach a yoga meditation workshop. I’d also volunteered to lead some discussions on Israel/Gaza. Awful as Israel’s previous assaults on Gaza had been, there was something qualitatively worse about this latest war. How could anyone remain complacent as the images of murdered children and gutted homes flooded the media? As Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz:

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Kevin Barrett
PressTV

A funny thing happened on the way to dystopia.

As Western mainstream media fall into the hands of lying billionaires, Zionists, and intelligence agencies (three categories with significant overlap) – and as neoconservatives script big media’s ignoble lies – a surging internet-based alternative media has arisen to challenge the elite’s false narratives. Thanks to alt-media, fewer and fewer people are buying the simplistic feel-good myths peddled by the mainstream.

While most old people still cling to the corporate media worldview, the young are skewing ever-harder toward alternative perspectives.

In Thursday’s Scottish independence referendum, for example, the London Daily Mirror reported that 71% of 16-17 year olds voted “yes” while those over 65 voted “no” by a 73%-27% margin.

Why does the vast majority of Scottish young people favor independence, while an equally crushing majority of old people opposes it? Short answer: Old people still believe BBC propaganda, while the young do not.

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