Song, kanta
“My Name is Gaza“
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1809903714389385382
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US President Harry Truman (1945-1953) stands next to a map showing the State of Palestine. Israel is not real.
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Ghazal was pulled from the rubble of her home that Israel bombed. Her shirt poetically says
“home is where i’m with you“.
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1810993207519727862
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“I SWEAR TO BE LOYAL TO THE GOVERNMENT OF PALESTINE” SIGNED BY ISRAELIS WHEN EMIGRATING FROM EUROPE IN THE 1930s
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Hasiera:
Gogoratu ondoko hau: Pascal Lottaz eta ICJ delakoa
Segida:
He Had Two Babies
He had two babies. Twins. Aysal and Aser, a boy and a girl.
Mohammad Abu Al Qumsan had two babies and a loving wife.
Now he has nobody.
An Israeli airstrike killed both his babies, and their mother, and their grandmother, while he was out collecting their birth certificates.
They had just been born.
There’s a video of him screaming, screaming the way any of us would scream. The screams of a man who suddenly lost everything a man could possibly lose. Screaming Gaza’s screams.
Sometimes it feels weird that we’re not all screaming like that man all the time, as long as we share a planet with this nightmare. Sometimes I kind of want to.
After Aaron Bushnell self-immolated in protest of this genocide I remember reading someone say something like “I understand the man who set himself on fire better than I understand the people in my own community going around like nothing’s happening.” Al Qumsan’s screams remind me of those words today.
It often feels like an obnoxious sacrilege that our civilization hasn’t stopped dead in its tracks while this happens day after day, month after month, with the full-throated support of our own western governments. How we’re still going to movies and dinners and laughing and joking while those bloodcurdling screams are erupting from Gaza. It feels like waltzing outside the extermination camp and trying to ignore the smell of the black smoke coming from the chimneys.
We look like lunatics. We are acting as crazy as someone whistling and dancing in the middle of a roaring house fire. Surely it would be a hell of a lot saner to be screaming all the time than to be going along our merry little way like this horror isn’t happening.
But that would be socially inappropriate. It would make people uncomfortable. Here, in this dystopian civilization, it’s considered rude to even bring it up.
Here in Australia the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has canceled the performance of acclaimed pianist Jayson Gillham after he dedicated a piece to the historically unprecedented number of journalists who have been killed in Gaza since October. The MSO called this dedication “an intrusion of personal political views on what should have been a morning focused on a program of works for solo piano,” adding that “The MSO understands that his remarks have caused offence and distress and offers a sincere apology.”
“Offence and distress.” At a dedication to murdered journalists. At a concert hall.
Forget about Mohammad Abu Al Qumsan’s “offence and distress”. After all, he only lost his babies, his wife and his mother-in-law to an Israeli airstrike. He wasn’t made to feel emotionally uncomfortable by someone talking about the bad things Israel is doing at a fancy classical music venue.
Forget about Al Qumsan, and forget about the two million people like him who’ve been screaming the same screams and living the same nightmare. What matters is our emotional comfort, and our ability to psychologically compartmentalize our mainstream political beliefs away from the realities of their consequences.
Nobody should set themselves on fire. But I can understand why one did.
Here in this fake, fraudulent civilization, we ignore the screaming.
We ignore the screaming and we go to concert halls in our best dress and our finest jewelry and demand an apology if anyone around us should make us feel uncomfortable with our support for a murderous apartheid state that is currently conducting a genocide.
We ignore the screaming while slowly dying inside, cut off from truth and authenticity and a sincere connection with our fellow human beings.
We ignore the screaming while yearning for sincerity like a Palestinian trapped under a flattened building yearns for open air and a bottle of water.
We ignore the screaming outside of ourselves. And we ignore the screaming within us.
Mohammad Abu Al Qumsan, I am with you tonight.
Aaron Bushnell, I am with you tonight.
I scream until my voice is gone. Tonight
I have nothing more to offer than this.
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Googles *Project Nimbus* is a $1.2B deal to Israel using artificial intelligence to target homes… the reconnaissance technology was used to target an apartment with a grandmother, mother and newborn twins..
Bideia: https://x.com/i/status/1823846326842613985
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PLEASE EXPOSE THIS
Upon further research, I’m 1000% convinced they targeted this family. The mother was a Doctor EXPOSING the aimless ki۱۱ing in G۸Z۸
This was NOT Random – This video I edited EXPLAINS IT ALL
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1823937350629499176
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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. DESTROYS European Union on Fox News “They’re silencing him [Trump]. That is election interference.”
“Yesterday, the European Union told Elon Musk that they were going to sanction him if he aired an interview with Donald Trump. This is something that is absolutely offensive to our democracy, absolutely offensive to the central value of western democracy, which is freedom of speech.”
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1823857989423452560
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So the official version of the Nord Stream bombing (as per yesterday’s WaPo article) now is that Zelenskyy himself ordered Valerii Zaluzhnyi, former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, to carry out the bombing — and that the CIA tried to stop them but the Ukrainians went ahead and did it anyway.
Even if one wants to believe the last part (highly unlikely), it’s still worth reflecting on the fact that the official story is now that Germany, for the past two and a half years, has been sending tens of billions of euros and huge amounts of military machinery to the country that committed the worst act of industrial terrorism against Germany in history, resulting in a massive economic fallout, in order to fight the country that built the pipeline in the first place.
What a time to be alive…
Washington Post article: https://archive.is/8LKeL#selection-2571.76-2571.124
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Anyone that believes the client media peddled fantasy that 3 drunk Ukrainians, in a small sail boat, with no engineering or deep sea capabilities blew up a Deepsea pipeline, in one of the most surveilled areas of water in the world,
Is mentally ill
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China says the United States has become an empire of lies.
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“The genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestine are old ideas. But could only be executed on such a horrific scale once the Israeli lobby took control, like it does now, of America”
@DougAMacgregor speaks the truth
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824074668589842671
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Absolutely crazy narrative shift from the European neocon camp: from “Russia definitely committed this terrible act of terrorism/war” to “We have no idea who did it but it definitely wasn’t Ukraine or NATO” to “Ukraine did a GREAT THING by destroying Nord Stream”. Just wow.
Aipamena
Luis Garicano 
@lugaricano
17 h
Ukraine’s destruction of Nordstream 2 is entirely justified. The country is fighting for its existence!!!! Europe should grow some guts and some understanding of what is at stake. And Germany needs to lay off this ridiculous criminal procedure. It is outrageous.
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Warning from Oliver Stone for Americans and Europeans about the misguided desire of the US to rule the world when multipolarity is rising and the fight for US supremacy is already lost. He suggests it’s better to drop a few ranks than to destroy the world.
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824066883609296904
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Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis@DrLoupis
How is this America First?
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Hundreds of Israeli settlers armed with assault rifles are burning down homes in the village of Jit in the occupied West Bank…
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824197797341696178
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Really wild that 6 weeks ago, after Macron lost the elections, I wrote 4 scenarios of what could come next but I didn’t think of a 5th one: nothing happens, Macron and his government stay in power as if no election took place. Which is exactly what’s happened so far.
Crazier yet that France doesn’t seem to have fully registered the enormity of the situation yet: it voted a government out and… it’s still there.
There are rumors that Macron might finally name a new Prime Minister before the end of August but the names that circulate – like Xavier Bertrand (no relationship with me that I know of, despite us sharing the same family name) or Bernard Cazeneuve – are from center-right or center-left parties, which are exactly the parties the French clearly indicated they didn’t want anymore…
Xavier Bertrand for instance comes from Les Républicains which gathers only 47 MPs out of 577 (8%) and Bernard Cazeneuve from the Socialist party (which confusingly isn’t socialist anymore but social-democrat) which has 66 MPs (11%). Plus in the case of the latter he’s already been Prime Minister under François Hollande, probably the most unpopular president in France’s history (his approval rating dropped as low as 4%).
Insane to think that the French would want these types of centrist figures to lead a government after they massively voted for non-centrist parties: in terms of percentage of votes, Le Pen’s Rassemblement National on the far right (33.34%) and the New Popular Front (27.99%) on the left together cumulated more than 60% of the votes during the legislative elections… The New Popular Front, which ended up arriving first in the elections in terms of number of MPs after some very French electoral maneuvering, proposed a Prime Minister – Lucie Castets – but Macron simply dismissed it…
Anyhow, democracy à la Française. We’re either going to end up with Macron’s current government staying on, or him nominating a government which is essentially no change compared to the previous one… As has been the case for decades.
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FBI Raid on @RealScottRitter‘s home should concern every American:
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824139486391046618
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The frustration of many, Palestinians first and foremost, for the failure of the international system to prevent and address international crimes is palpable. It is never too late to do better. May the UN finally listen to The People, who are standing up worldwide, united against #Genocide.
Aipamena
“Palestinians have no illusion whatsoever that justice will shine on us from Hague or the UN head office in Geneva or New York,” Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the
@BDSmovement, said. Here is an excerpt from his speech at the Divest for Palestine conference in London.
Watch:
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1822890913112236255
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There has never been a war in history where 80% of the country has been destroyed, 100% of the population displaced, and 50% of the deaths children. Call it what it is: GENOCIDE.
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Venezuela President Maduro: “Biden gives an opinion and half an hour later he’s contradicted by State Department spokespersons. Who’s in charge of the US? Who conducts US foreign policy?”
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This is getting wilder every minute…
The attack on Nord Stream was possible thanks to an agreement between Duda and Zelensky, believes former head of German intelligence August Hanning.
He also called on the German government to demand compensation from the Ukrainian and Polish authorities for damages due to the attack on the gas pipelines.
– FRWL reports
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Ben Thomson, committed to humanitarian causes:
Tells of his patient who is a doctor forced by the Israeli army to stand naked for days, urinate & defecate where he stood, refused insulin, made to treat patients naked at gunpoint.
Where is The Hague?
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824047107709214739
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She’s been a beacon of moral clarity and courage this last year.
She’s been viciously attacked for standing against Israel’s genocide.
But history will vindicate
@FranceskAlbs – and damn those who have smeared her.
New interview 
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OLIVER STONE:
“When you talk to American media, they don’t have a sense of history.
They don’t recognize that we made a deal—America made a lot of deals.
We made deals with Russia on NATO, on intermediate missiles, and on ballistic missiles back in the 1970s.
And we broke both those agreements—those nuclear agreements, the INF and the ABM.
We broke both of those deals.
Russia is out in the cold, and we said, ‘Fuck you! That’s it, we’re ripping it up.’
By the way, Russia has a huge nuclear arsenal. It may not be as sophisticated or precise as ours, but it certainly is heavy.
What bothers me deeply is that the United States doesn’t seem to understand what war is.
A war could happen very easily now.
What the United States has done for the last four years under the Biden administration is provoke Russia.
Poke the bear. Why? Because, apparently, we want to weaken Russia.
This is the strategy.
What strategy is that? It’s basically a state of war—saying we want to weaken you. That’s like trying to destroy you.
We want to get rid of Putin and replace your administration with our guy, like Yeltsin used to be.
I’ve even heard talk about dividing Russia up into three or four zones.
It’s crazy talk. It makes no sense because we can’t do anything about it.
And on top of it, we would be blown to pieces if we tried to do it.
If America thinks it can get away with poking Russia and not get hurt, they’re dreaming.
Where does this come from? It comes from the neoconservative movement that started up here in America, which has always been anti-Soviet, anti-Russian.
You know the people involved—they were the ones who got us into wars in Iraq and Libya.
They’re the expansionists who want a strong America that’s always challenging the Russians and the Chinese.
This is what they want.
But you can’t challenge someone who’s got the goods—they have the goods, and we don’t.
We don’t even have a military that is ready to go to war, but we’re certainly ready to use the Ukrainian military as cannon fodder.
It’s sad what’s going on because the idea of a Ukrainian nation as the beacon of democracy in Europe is something we’ve created in our heads.
It is not, and never has been.
It’s a corrupt state.”
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People need to realize that AIPAC is literally just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Israeli interference in US elections.
Miriam Adelson, who speaks with an Israeli accent because she was literally born in Tel Aviv, donated $100 million to Trump’s campaign in order to influence him to make favorable decisions regarding Israel.
AIPAC is just ONE lobbying group that funds US politicians to ensure they make favorable policy decisions for Israel.
However, there is a plethora of other Jewish billionaires and pro-Israel groups that also fund political campaigns to guarantee that support for Israel remains bipartisan.
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824230909215724014
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BREAKING:
Complete chaos in West Bank’s City Jit as dozens of masked Israelis stormed the area with batons, rocks, and Molotov cocktails.
They burned a 22-year-old Palestinian alive in his car.
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Trump is at a stop antisemitism rally with Adelson
Adlelosn is a dual citizen of Israel who just gave Trump $100 million
Jonathan Pollard was the worst spy in US history
When Pollard was released from prison Alderson picked him up in his private jet and flew him to Israel where he received a hero welcome
This isn’t someone with dual loyalty this is someone who has full loyalty to Israel and none to America
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824243237021946322
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BREAKING:
Israeli contractors EXPOSED boasting about rigging more than 30 elections and running numerous BOT FARMS online!
We were told it was Russia…
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1823726246238273558
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US government is so vindictive. They are trying to extradite Kim Dotcom from New Zealand because 12 years ago, he had a website that “violated” copyright laws.
But these psychopaths have no problem murdering 200,000 Palestinian civilians.
Evil clowns.
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Un 15 de agosto de 1939, 3 semanas antes del estallido de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la URSS propuso una alianza anti-nazi a EEUU, Francia, Polonia y Reino Unido, ofreciendo 1 millón de tropas del Ejercito Rojo listas para intervenir en Alemania.
La oferta soviética, realizada por el ministro de guerra Marshall Klementi Voroshilov y el jefe del estado mayor general del Ejército Rojo, Boris Shaposhnikov, ofreció hasta 120 divisiones de infantería (cada una con unos 19.000 soldados), 16 divisiones de caballería, 5.000 piezas de artillería pesada, 9.500 tanques y más de 5.500 aviones de combate y bombarderos en las fronteras de Alemania.
“Si los británicos, franceses y polacos, ademas de EEUU, hubieran tomado en serio esta oferta, juntos podríamos haber puesto unas 300 o más divisiones en el campo en dos frentes contra Alemania, el doble del número que tenía Hitler en ese momento. Esta era una oportunidad para salvar el mundo o al menos detener al lobo en su camino”. “, dijo el general sovietico Sotskov.
No solo EEUU, Francia, Polonia y Reino Unido lo rechazaron, se dedicaron a ocultarlo en toda la prensa occidental de la época, como afirma el historiador y profesor británico Donald Cameron Watt, “esta proposición no se mencionó en ninguno de los diarios contemporáneos, en ninguno de los dos grandes diarios británicos y en el principal francés”.
Poco antes tambien de esta proposición, los britanicos y los franceses firmaron el Acuerdo de Munich de 1938, en el que Neville Chamberlain y Édouard Daladier, primer ministro británico y francés respectivamente, entregaron los Sudetes de Checoslovaquia al regimen nazi, colaborando de facto con Hitler en su invasión a Europa.
Esta fue la TERCERA VEZ que la URSS proponia una alianza antifascista a los paises occidentales y la tercera vez que era RECHAZADA, la primera en 1937 y la segunda en 1938, lo cual obligó a la URSS a firmar un pacto de no agresión (es decir, de no matarse mutuamente) con Alemania al encontrarse sola contra el fascismo, un contexto CLAVE que jamas te cuentan.
Los documentos de la proposición anti-nazi se mantuvieron en secreto durante casi 70 años y todavia siguen ocultandose en Occidente todo lo que se puede.
“Estaba claro que la Unión Soviética estaba sola y tenía que recurrir a Alemania y firmar un pacto de no agresión para ganar algo de tiempo, para prepararnos para el conflicto a gran escala que claramente se avecinaba contra nuestro pais”, afirmó el general soviético Sotskov.
Tras la negativa de Reino Unido, Francia, Polonia y Estados Unidos a parar a Hitler, tres semanas después los nazis comenzarian una Segunda Guerra Mundial, ocupando algunos de esos paises que se negaron a colaborar con la URSS y terminaria con la muerte de mas de 50 millones de personas, la mayoria sovieticos y chinos.
Esta es la verdadera historia de los “aliados” y no la que cuentan sus “documentales” de propaganda en Occidente.
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824012509856026931
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“On average, about 130 people have been killed every day in Gaza over the past 10 months. The scale of the Israeli military’s destruction of homes, hospitals, schools and places of worship is deeply shocking.” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, on Thursday condemned the ongoing Israeli violence in Gaza as death toll surpasses 40,000.
Turk said that the situation is “overwhelmingly due” to the Israeli military’s failure to “comply with the rules of war.”
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824216751573209238
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NATO wants you believe Ukraine is a Democracy
The EU wants you to believe Ukraine isn’t Corrupt
The US wants you to believe Russia wasn’t provoked
And now Germany wants you to believe that these three people blew up the biggest piece of Energy infrastructure in Europe
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After 10 catastrophic months, the leaders of three western States – all permanent members of the #UNSC -, write a 21 lines statement on the Middle East and not a single word about the MILLIONS scarred by the ongoing atrocities and forcibly displaced over and over. Not a single word about the need to ensure justice and respect for int’l law to build sustainable peace.
Hard to think of a more infelicituous choice of words, written and omitted.
abu. 12
A joint statement from the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom on the Middle East.
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JUST IN: 
Belarus President Lukashenko says he is prepared to use nuclear weapons if foreign troops enter the country.
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Exclusive image of the drunken Ukrainian diver placing the bomb on the Nord Stream pipeline.
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Korea unification? South Korean President Yoon outlines “unification vision” & economic cooperation.
Simplest way is to get rid of the colonial American troops in South Korea.
This is 21st century & the US has no business occupying another nation.
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When even the British Media starts covering rape in Israeli Prisons, you know Israel has lost the war of public opinion
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1823796044091572613
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BREAKING: Remember it took 20 years, trillions of dollars and 4 US Presidents to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
During a ceremony held at the former US Bagram airbase to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the Taliban’s victory over the United States and its allies, the Interior Minister of Afghanistan said:
“I assure my Palestinian brothers that just as the Afghans achieved their freedom after a long and arduous struggle, your day will also come, and you will undoubtedly celebrate this day of victory.”
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824237532546027685
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“A dark day for American foreign policy.”
Josh Paul, a former State Department official who quit over Gaza, criticizes the latest U.S. arms deal for Israel worth $20 billion.
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824061487851131292
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OLIVER STONE:
“We’re fighting over nothing.
We’re fighting over pride and fear of Russian and Chinese ’empires’—BRICS taking over the economic world.
Well, that’s happening, and it will happen, and nobody’s going to stop it unless you go to war.
Unfortunately, America should not go to war for trade, ever.
Economically, we may end up as number two, we may end up as number three, we may end up dropping back, but we’re alive and we’re part of the world.
I don’t see what’s wrong with that.
We don’t have to be the bully.
We don’t have to be the dominant factor.
We talk about a hegemonic world where the United States is in control—that’s not realistic anymore.
The world is multipolar, and unfortunately, we haven’t been able to accept that.
I don’t understand why we can’t accept it unless you’re some kind of frozen conservative in this country who sees any foreigner as a danger.
I think the problem is the United States has got to educate itself.”
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This article was published by Consortium News on the day that I met with Russian diplomats—the meeting that has the FBI in a twist. It provides a good idea what my motivation behind this meeting was. Apparently trying to prevent nuclear war is a crime.
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SCOTT RITTER: Arms Control or Ukraine?
(https://consortiumnews.com/2023/02/22/scott-ritter-arms-control-or-ukraine/)
February 22, 2023
As Russia suspends New START, the sooner the Ukraine war ends, the sooner the U.S. and Russia can work to preserve arms control to avert the ultimate disaster.
Russia experts and national security specialists will be poring over the text of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address on Tuesday for some time to come, trying to divine hidden meaning.
The fact is, however, Putin’s speech was something rarely heard in Western political circles —unvarnished statements of fact, set forth in a straightforward, surprisingly easy-to-understand manner.
In a world where Western politicians regularly dissemble to shape perception, even if the underlying “facts” are not true (one need only refer to President Joe Biden’s infamous phone call with former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in July 2021, for an example), Putin’s speech was a breath of fresh air — no hidden agendas, no false pretense — no lies.
And on the issue of arms control, the truth hurts.
“I have to say today,” Putin announced near the end of his address, “that Russia is suspending its participation in New START. I repeat, not withdrawing from the treaty, no, but merely suspending its participation.”
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), signed in 2010 as the outcome of negotiations between U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, ostensibly caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that each country can deploy at 1,550; limits the number of deployed land-and submarine-based missiles and bombers used to deliver these warheads to 700; and caps at 800 the deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.
In February 2021, Biden and Putin agreed to extend the treaty for an additional five years. New START will expire in 2026.
Background to the Decision
The backstory to New START is important, especially in the context of Putin’s declaration regarding Russia’s suspension. The core of that backstory is missile defense.
In December 2001, then-President George W. Bush announced that the United States was withdrawing from the landmark 1972 anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty, which banned (with limited exception) the development and deployment of missile defense systems designed to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
The ABM treaty set in stone the Cold War concept of mutually assured destruction, or MAD, the idea that no side possessing nuclear weapons would use them against another nuclear power for the simple reason that to do so would bring about their own demise through guaranteed nuclear retaliation.
“The backstory to New START is important, especially in the context of Putin’s declaration regarding Russia’s suspension. The core of that backstory is missile defense.”
The insanity of MAD helped pave the way for all arms control agreements that followed, from the Strategic Arms Reductions Talks (SALT), to the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and on to the various iterations of Strategic Arms Reduction treaties (START).
Putin condemned the U.S. decision to withdraw from the ABM treaty as “a mistake.” At the time, U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals were subject to the limitations imposed by the 1991 START treaty. Efforts to further reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons were undertaken as part of the START II treaty.
But post-Cold War politics, combined with the U.S. decision to abandon the ABM treaty, left the treaty signed but unratified, effectively killing it.
Similar issues helped conspire to kill the START III treaty in the negotiation stage. The narrowly focused Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, or SORT, which was signed in 2002, committed both the U.S. and Russia to additional reductions beyond those mandated by START I, but contained no verification or compliance mechanisms.
The START I treaty expired in 2009, and SORT in 2012. New START was intended to replace both agreements.
The Medvedev Presidency
One of the sticking points has been the issue of missile defense. Under President Putin, Russia refused to enter any new substantive arms control treaty (SORT was more informal agreement than treaty in structure and substance) that did not meaningfully address missile defense.
But in May 2008, Dmitry Medvedev took over as Russian president. The Russian constitution prohibited a president from serving more than two consecutive terms in office, and so, with Putin’s support, Medvedev ran for Russia’s highest office, and won. Putin was subsequently appointed prime minister.
While the Bush administration sought to negotiate a follow-on treaty to the soon-to-be expired START I, Medvedev proved to be every bit as reluctant to entering any agreement with the U.S. that did not include limitations on missile defense, something President Bush would not accept.
In the end, the problem of negotiating a new treaty would be left to the administration of Barack Obama, who assumed office in January 2009.
In their first meeting, in London in late March 2009, the two leaders issued a statement in which they agreed “to pursue new and verifiable reductions in our strategic offensive arsenals in a step-by-step process, beginning by replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with a new, legally-binding treaty.”
As for missile defense, Obama and Medvedev agreed to treat it as a separate issue. “While acknowledging that differences remain over the purposes of deployment of missile defense assets in Europe,” the statement read, “we discussed new possibilities for mutual international cooperation in the field of missile defense, taking into account joint assessments of missile challenges and threats, aimed at enhancing the security of our countries, and that of our allies and partners.”
Let there be no doubt — the New START treaty that was negotiated between Russia and the United States, while singularly focused on reducing strategic offensive nuclear arsenals, contained a clear understanding that this treaty would be followed by a good-faith effort by the U.S. to address Russia’s longstanding concerns over missile defense.
This was reflected in the exchange of non-binding unilateral statements attached to the New START treaty. The “Statement of the Russian Federation Concerning Missile Defense” set out the position that New START “may be effective and viable only in conditions where there is no qualitative or quantitative build-up in [U.S. missile defense system capabilities].”
Moreover, the statement said any build-up in U.S. missile defense capabilities which gave “rise to a threat to [Russia’s strategic nuclear force potential]” would be considered one of the “extraordinary events” mentioned in Article XIV of the treaty and could prompt Russia to exercise its right of withdrawal.
For its part, the United States issued its own statement declaring that U.S. missile defenses “are not intended to affect the strategic balance with Russia” while declaring that it intended “to continue improving and deploying its missile defense systems in order to defend itself against limited attack.”
“… the statement said any build-up in U.S. missile defense capabilities which gave ‘rise to a threat’ … could prompt Russia to exercise its right of withdrawal.”
The agreements reached between Obama and Medvedev, however, was not necessarily acceptable to Putin. According to Rose Gottemoeller, the U.S. negotiator for New START, Putin, as prime minister, nearly scuttled the talks when, in December 2009, he once again raised the issue of missile defense.
“They [the Russians] were going to have a critical National Security Council meeting,” Gottemoeller later recounted in an October 2021 talk with the Carnegie Council, “and the story I have heard told is that Putin, for the first time showing some interest in these negotiations, walks into the National Security Council meeting and simply draws lines through all the issues on this decision sheet and said, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’”
Gottemoeller went on to describe how Putin then travelled to Vladivostok and delivered a speech where he denounced the treaty as “totally inadequate,” criticizing both the U.S. and Russian negotiating teams as being “only focused on limiting strategic offensive forces,” noting that “they are not limiting missile defense. This treaty is a waste of time,” Gottemoeller quoted Putin. “We should get out of the negotiations.”
According to Gottemoeller, Medvedev stood up to Putin, telling his prime minister, “No, we are going to continue these negotiations and get them done.”
Broken Promise
Anatoly Antonov was the Russian negotiator for New START. He dutifully complied with his instructions from the Kremlin to craft a treaty focused on the reduction of strategic offensive weapons, working under the assumption that the U.S. would be as good as its word when it came to engaging in meaningful negotiations on missile defense.
And yet, less than a year after New START entered into force, Antonov found that the U.S. had no intention on following through on its promises.
In an interview with Kommersant newspaper, Antonov said that talks with NATO on a planned Western European missile-defense system had reached “a dead end,” adding that NATO proposals were “vague” and that the promised participation of Russia in the proposed system “is not even up for discussion.”
Antonov indicated that the lack of good faith shown by the U.S. regarding missile defense could lead to Russia withdrawing from the New START treaty altogether.
While the U.S. did offer to let Russia observe specific aspects of a specific test of a U.S. missile interceptor, the offer never amounted to anything, with the U.S. downplaying the abilities of the SM-3 missile when it came to intercepting Russian missiles, noting that the missile lacked the range to be effective against Russian missiles.
The late Ellen Tauscher, who at the time was the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, had offered Antonov written assurances that the Mk. 41 Aegis Ashore system, which would employ the SM-3 missile interceptor, was not directed against Russia.
However, Tauscher said, “We cannot provide legally binding commitments, nor can we agree to limitations on missile defense, which must necessarily keep pace with the evolution of the threat.”
Tauscher’s words were prophetic. In 2015, the U.S. began testing the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor against ICBM targets. The SM-3 did, in fact, have the range to shoot down Russian intermediate- and intercontinental-range missiles.
And now those missiles were to be stationed on bases constructed in Poland and Romania, two former Warsaw Pact nations that were closer to the border with Russia than NATO forces had ever been.
The Americans had negotiated in bad faith. Putin, it turned out, had been right to question a strategic arms control treaty that did not consider Russia’s concerns over missile defense.
And yet this did not weaken Putin’s commitment to fulfilling New START. According to Gottemoeller,
“Putin, since this treaty has been signed, has taken a very positive stance about it. Since the treaty has entered into force, he has called it repeatedly publicly the ‘gold standard’ of nuclear treaties and has supported it…I know that he has been committed to the treaty and really committed to the efforts underway now in this strategic stability dialogue to get some new negotiations going.”
But Putin’s assiduous adherence to New START did not mean that the Russian leader had stopped worrying about the threat posed by U.S. missile defense. On March 1, 2018, Putin delivered a major address to the Russian Federal Assembly — the same forum he spoke to on Tuesday. His tone was defiant:
“I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, and introduced unlawful sanctions aimed at containing our country’s development — everything that you wanted to impede with your policies has already happened. You have failed to contain Russia.”
Putin then unveiled several new Russian strategic weapons, including the Sarmat heavy ICBM and the Avangard hypersonic vehicle, which he said were developed in direct response to the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty.
Putin said Russia had warned the U.S. that it would take such measures back in 2004. “No one listened to us then,” Putin declared. “So listen to us now.”
One of the people listening was Rose Gottemoeller. “[P]eople are worried about … the new so-called exotic weapons systems that President Putin rolled out in March of 2018,” the former arms control negotiator, by then retired, said in 2021. “[T]wo of them are already under the limits New START, the so-called Sarmat heavy [ICBM] and also the Avangard, which is their first strategic-range hypersonic glide vehicle that they are getting ready to deploy. They have already said that they will bring it under the New START Treaty.”
Gottemoeller noted that any future arms control agreement would be seeking constraints on these systems.
Treaty Extension in 2021
The New START Treaty was extended for a five-year term in February 2021, even though the Russians believed that the “conversion or elimination” procedures used by the U.S. to determine whether B-52H bombers and Ohio-class submarines converted from nuclear- to non-nuclear use, or eliminated altogether, were insufficient.
The Russians hoped that these issues could be worked out using the treaty-mandated Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC) process, which meets twice a year to resolve issues such as these.
One of the problems facing both the U.S. and Russian inspectors and negotiators, however, was the Covid-19 pandemic. In early 2020, both sides agreed to suspend on-site inspections and BCC meetings due to the pandemic. By mid-2021, U.S. and Russian negotiators began discussing the creation of joint Covid protocols that could get both inspections and BCC consultations up and running.
But then came Ukraine.
On March 9, 2022, the U.S., U.K. and European Union all passed sanctions which banned Russian aircraft from overflying their respective territories and placed visa restrictions on Russians transiting EU or the U.K. en route to the United States. According to the Russians, these restrictions effectively prohibit the dispatch of weapons-inspection teams to the U.S. using New START short-notice inspection protocols, which have strict treaty-mandated timelines attached to their implementation.
“By mid-2021, U.S. and Russian negotiators began discussing the creation of joint Covid protocols that could get both inspections and BCC consultations up and running. But then came Ukraine.”
In June 2022, the U.S. unilaterally declared that the moratorium on inspections imposed because of the Covid-19 pandemic was no longer in effect. On Aug. 8, 2022, the U.S. attempted to dispatch a short-notice inspection team to Russia to carry out treaty-mandated inspection tasks.
Russia denied entry to the team, and accused the U.S. of trying to gain a unilateral advantage by conducting on-site inspections while Russia could not. Citing the restrictions imposed by sanctions, the Russia Foreign Ministry said “there are no similar obstacles to the arrival of American inspectors in Russia.”
To resolve the impasse over inspections as well as other outstanding treaty-implementation issues, Russian and U.S. diplomats began consultations on convening a meeting of the BCC, and eventually were able to settle on a Nov. 29, 2022, date in Cairo, Egypt. Four days before the BCC was supposed to begin, however, Russia announced that the meeting was off.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, in statements made to Kommersant, said that the war in Ukraine was at the heart of the decision. “There is, of course, the effect of what is happening in Ukraine and around it,” Ryabkov said. “I will not deny it. Arms control and dialogue in this area cannot be immune to what is around it.”
Arms Control Could Be Dead
The State Department issued an official report to Congress on Russian compliance with New Start in early 2023 which accused Russia of violating the New START treaty by refusing U.S. inspectors access to sites inside Russia.
Russia, a State Department spokesperson stated, was “not complying with its obligation under the New START Treaty to facilitate inspection activities on its territory,” noting that “Russia’s refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control.”
The insensitivity of the U.S. side to the impact of its actions targeting Russia — sometimes literally — as part of the overall U.S. response to Putin’s initiation of the Special Military Operation in February 2022 is, however, telling.
In his address on Tuesday, Putin highlighted the role played by the U.S. and NATO in facilitating the Ukrainian use of Soviet-era drones to carry out an attack on a base near Engels, Russia, that housed Russia’s strategic aviation assets, including nuclear-capable bombers. He also pointed out that he had just signed orders for the Sarmat and Avangard systems to become operational and, as such, inspectable under the terms of New START.
“The United States and NATO are directly saying that their goal is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” Putin said. “Are they going to inspect our defense facilities, including the newest ones, as if nothing had happened? Do they really think we’re easily going to let them in there just like that?”
Rose Gottemoeller observed that the U.S. is “not going to change our policy on Ukraine because he’s [Putin] in a hissy fit over the New START treaty. That’s just not going to happen.”
But Putin’s stance is far more principled than a simple “hissy fit.” Born of the original sin perpetrated by the U.S. in withdrawing from the ABM treaty, Putin’s angst is directly tied to the deceit displayed by U.S. officials — including Gottemoeller — when it came to assurances given Dmitry Medvedev about missile defense during the New START negotiations.
This deceit led to Russia deploying new categories of strategic nuclear weapons — the Sarmat and Avangard — to defeat U.S. missile defense systems, including those that had been forward deployed into Europe.
And now, with the war in Ukraine being linked to a U.S. strategy of achieving the strategic defeat of Russia, the U.S. is seeking to use New START to gain access to these very systems, all the while denying Russia its reciprocal rights of inspection under the treaty. As Putin aptly noted, such an arrangement “really sounds absurd.”
The inability and/or unwillingness of either party to compromise on New START means that the treaty will remain in limbo for the indefinite future which, given that the treaty expires in February 2026, means there is a distinct possibility arms control between the U.S. and Russia is dead.
Risk of New Arms Race
While the U.S. and Russia had previously committed to a follow-on treaty to replace New START, the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine poses a nearly insurmountable obstacle for anyone seeking to have such a treaty document ready for signature and ratification by the time New START expires.
There is a good chance the U.S. and Russia, in two years’ time, will find themselves without any verifiable mechanism to assuage the fears and uncertainty about the two parties’ respective nuclear arsenals, leading to the real possibility — if not probability — that they will both embark on an unconstrained arms race fueled by ignorance-based angst that could very well result in the kind of misunderstandings, mistakes, or miscalculations that could trigger a nuclear war and, in doing so, end all humanity.
“The truth is behind us,” Putin said, closing out his address to the Russian Federal Assembly.
So, too, may be humanity’s last chance to prevent nuclear calamity, if a way can’t somehow be found to get arms control back on the agenda.
Here, Gottemoeller’s assertion that the U.S. would not alter its Ukraine policy to save New START underscores the self-defeating reality of the Biden administration’s efforts to arm Ukraine.
The sooner the war in Ukraine is over, the sooner the U.S. and Russia can get down to the business of preserving arms control as a viable part of the relationship between the two nations.
By seeking to extend the Ukraine conflict, however, the U.S. is in effect engaging in an act of self-immolation that threatens to engulf the world in a nuclear holocaust.
During the Vietnam War, the noted correspondent Peter Arnett quoted an unnamed U.S. Army officer as saying, “We had to destroy the village to save it.” With regard to the linkage that has been created between Ukraine and arms control, the same sick logic now applies — to save one, the other must be destroyed.
To save Ukraine, arms control must be destroyed.
To save arms control, Ukraine must be destroyed.
One sacrifices a nation, the other a planet.
This is the Hobson’s Choice U.S. policy makers have created, except it is not.
Save the planet. That is the only choice.
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Saul Staniforth@SaulStaniforth
“There is an obligation to prevent genocide… and still the intl community doesn’t intervene”
@FranceskAlbs on the failure of the international system and the hypocrisy with which international law is applied.
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824331321415503878
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Zelensky’s adviser Podolyak admitted that Kyiv discussed an attack on the Kursk region with Western partners, despite the fact that many of them officially said the opposite.
According to Podolyak, “there were discussions between partners, just not at the public level.” Washington, London and Berlin previously denied this fact.
– warhistoryalconafter
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New Nation Seeks to Join BRICS, Adopt De-Dollarization Plan
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BREAKING Hezbollah has unveiled for the first time a large underground missile city, equipped with precision missiles ready to be launched
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824360841719730414
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SUBBED: Two Ukranians in SS helmets talk in fake German (roleplaying SS) to a Russian elderly man and likely shoot him after.
The 74-year-old man is not totally healthy and got lost 5 days before meeting these Ukranian gentlemen. He hasn’t been seen for 10 days (including today) in total.
The person who posted the video online writes:
“Don’t worry, the Russian Schweine (pig) didn’t get to his vodka”, adding that the pensioner was shot after the recording was finished.
His granddaughter doesn’t believe it and hopes to find him again.
The video was filmed on August 11 in the village of Zaoleshenka. The pensioner is a local resident, Oleksandr Gusarov.
He was likely looking for Russian soldiers or just help, but got lost and met two Ukrainian soldiers dressed in Nazi uniforms.
One of them is 38-year-old resident of the city of Horodenka in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Vasyl Danylyuk. He is the one shouting off-camera: “Hey, Russian Ivan! How are you, Russian Ivan? Go drink some vodka!”
Gusarov’s relatives have been looking for him for nine days, but there are no traces.
Since the invasion of the Ukrainian army, the grandfather has been on the street.
The last time relatives called him was on the 6th, through neighbors.
-> Noteworthy is that such nationalists are the stiffening core of the AFU, who rarely fight on the front. They sit behind the lines, arrest deserters, go to clean up operations and terrorize the civilian population once the front moves. They’re brave fighters against civilians.
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824107723241234751
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“All of the speculation that some Ukrainian activists blew up the Nord stream pipeline is a nonsense. An explosion of such power at such depth can only be carried out by the specialists, and supported by the full power of the state, which has certain technologies” – President Putin.
Subscribe my TG
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824147022896619981
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Belarus President Lukashenko: “There was a time we were unwanted by Russia… I said there will come a time when we will stand back to back and shoot back together. Oh, how all the channels criticized us then… It turned out here we are, standing back to back”
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824095497205793013
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“Mass murder is not legitimate self-defense. Collective punishment is a war crime. Bombing hospitals and schools are war crimes. The international criminal court must arrest Netanyahu and Gallant.” Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of the New Popular Front in France 
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824249104232313234
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America and the UK, are you listening? If you are not prepared to act in accordance with the ICJ, resign your UN membership and leave. Israel should be thrown out immediately.
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824218959530344739
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Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt@FranceskAlbs
Important reading to understand why the violence Palestinians experience as a people is without borders. #AntiPalestinianRacism #apr
Aipamena
Arab Canadian Lawyers Assoc.@CanArabLaw
eka. 28
It’s time for institutions to name it: “Perhaps it is not surprising then, that a society that frowns upon the usage of the word Palestine resists the term that describes the experiences of Palestinians worldwide: anti-Palestinian racism” @SheeParadkar
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Russian Ambassador to the UN Polyanskiy:
he version suggesting that Kiev was behind sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines may be a diversion. This was stated by Dmitry Polyansky, First Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN.
“Frankly, I don’t know what kind of person one would have to be to believe that a bunch of drunken Ukrainian divers could have blown up the Nord Stream pipelines. It is a rather complex system, located at great depth in an area that is under close surveillance and is a hub of NATO activity,” Polyansky said in response to questions from users on the social network X. “It’s very hard to believe. It looks very much like an attempt to divert attention away from the real perpetrators of this crime.”
More than 100 journalists and news outlets pressure Antony Blinken to Immediately Cease arms transfers to Israel
A letter sent to the American Secretary of State urges him to stop the continued policy of endlessly backing Israel’s military assault on Gaza without conditions. “By providing the weapons being used to deliberately kill journalists, you are complicit in one of the gravest affronts to press freedom today,” coalition of reporters, news outlets, and press freedom groups wrote.
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PALESTINE ONLINE @OnlinePalEng
“Israel bombs, USA pays, how many kids did you kill today?!”
From the massive protest outside Kamala Harris’s campaign event on Broadway street in New York City.
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824054188101316730
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NEW: 
Trump about the Israeli women Miriam Adelson, who gave him $100 million:
“When we gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom… It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor— it’s actually much better because everyone who gets the Congressional Medal, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead. She gets it and she’s a healthy beautiful woman
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824371633630429187
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erabiltzaileari erantzuten
Donald Trump is rapidly becoming the poster boy for national ignorance.
The only reason why people support him is because Kamala Harris is worse.
America, do better.
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erabiltzaileari erantzuten
All of your elected officials serve the same master
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erabiltzaileari erantzuten
Trump says publicly that a medal someone bought with a $100 Million donation to his campaign was worth as much, if not more, than one awarded to soldiers who were injured or killed in service to their country. And people will still vote for him and call themselves patriots. 
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China : $10 million to build a school in Nepal
USA : $10 BILLION to destroy schools in Gaza
Which model of foreign policy, diplomacy and morality do you support?
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BBC News reporting that Israeli forces killed new born twins & their mother and grandmother. “We asked the Israeli army why the twins family home was bombed and are waiting for a response“
Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1824218988211212524
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MMT: Modern Monetary Theory
MMT: Modern Monetary Theory
Understanding how money works so that we can address climate change easily and prosperously plus address AI’s impact on humanity.
Members: https://x.com/i/communities/1672597800385921024/members
(…)
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