Jeff Sachs Is Suitably Alarmed About Trump

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/21/jeff_sachs_warns_nuclear_war_is

AMY GOODMAN: So, you were there at the time that President Trump gave his first U.N. address before the General Assembly. Start with North Korea and take it from there.

JEFFREY SACHS: Horrifying. Of course, there was a shudder in the room. No president of the United States has declared from the podium of the United Nations General Assembly that the U.S. is ready to totally destroy a country. It was absolutely shocking. And the whole speech was grotesque, in my view.

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

JEFFREY SACHS: Because it was militaristic. It was filled with grievance, with bias, with ignorance. Trump is a very dangerous man. There’s no question about it. He individually is a very dangerous man, and the United States right now is a very dangerous country.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what was the response amongst other member states and other people present in the General Assembly when he spoke?

JEFFREY SACHS: Well, you could hear shuffling, chuckles, amazement, gasps, a few applause. There was Netanyahu enthusiastically applauding. It was a very odd scene. I am still a bit shaken by it.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And Secretary of State Tillerson was there, as was Ambassador Nikki Haley. Did you have the sense that there was some—that they were in agreement with what he was saying?

JEFFREY SACHS: Well, I suppose that they are, or they should get out of the administration. This is policy. And it is grotesque. And it is extraordinarily dangerous.

AMY GOODMAN: When Trump called the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un "Rocket Man" and said the U.S. is prepared to destroy this entire nation of 25 million people, North Korea’s foreign minister issued the country’s first response to Trump’s remarks on Thursday.

RI YONG-HO: [translated] If Trump was thinking about surprising us with the sound of a dog barking, then he is clearly dreaming.

AMY GOODMAN: That was the North Korean representative.

JEFFREY SACHS: I’ve been reminded often in these days of a statement by President John F. Kennedy, when he said in 1963 that in the nuclear age, to put an adversary at the choice of a nuclear war or a humiliating retreat, it would show the bankruptcy of our policy or a collective death wish for the world. President Kennedy was a great man. We have right now an administration which is endangering America and the world.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk, one by one, about the states that President Trump called out. North Korea, what do you think has to be done? I mean, in all these cases, it involves more than one country on that country. This involves more than the U.S. and North Korea, as does Iran, of course. What has to happen with North Korea?

JEFFREY SACHS: First, we have to avoid a nuclear war. And a nuclear war is a real threat. It’s not some idle imagination right now. You have two leaders—both seem unstable—yelling at each other. Both have nuclear arms. Seoul, South Korea, is a few minutes—moments away from the North Korean arms. We’re—

AMY GOODMAN: Well, President Trump has been attacking the North Korean president, the South Korean president, as well.

JEFFREY SACHS: I’ve heard people say, "Well, South Korea, that would be collateral damage." It’s unbelievable the way people are talking right now and how close we are to disaster and how complacent we are, because it’s unimaginable. Now, I’m not saying it’s inevitable, but I am saying it is absolutely being pushed right now recklessly. And, of course, what first needs to happen is to tamp down this kind of absolutely dangerous, provocative rhetoric.

The North Koreans made a statement a few days ago that was not well covered, which said, "We are looking for a military equilibrium to avoid a military option," meaning "We don’t want to be overthrown by the United States." The U.S., of course, is a serial regime changer. In fact, our foreign policy is based on covert and overt wars of overthrow of other countries: Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad—a disaster that has created absolute chaos, indeed all three of them. North Korea basically said a few days ago, "We don’t want to be overthrown." Well, that is absolutely correct. We should have diplomacy politics, not a nuclear exchange.

AMY GOODMAN: And China’s role in this, what they can do?

JEFFREY SACHS: Well, China also doesn’t want chaos. China is calling every day for a diplomatic response. And we know that a diplomatic response is possible. Indeed, when the challenge was Iran, you had all five members—permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany, making a historic agreement with Iran, precisely the one that Trump is attacking right now vis-à-vis Iran. So, we’re just pushing for war. It’s incredible.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you concerned that the whole investigation of Trump around Russian issues is—as the prosecutor is breathing down his neck, that he will do something rash internationally to distract attention?

JEFFREY SACHS: I don’t know if it’s to distract attention or whether he is just psychologically profoundly unstable—and he is—or just ignorant, which he is, or vicious and biased and stereotyping and without historical knowledge, which he is all of those things. So I don’t know what it will be. But I do know that the United States has a war tendency, and it is restrained only at the top, actually. And here you have a president who is egging on, provoking, himself unstable, without attention span. It’s extraordinarily dangerous.

And where is the Congress? Not one word by our Congress. It’s a disgrace, because under our Constitution, Congress has the only authority to declare war, and our Congress is useless, as we know, in this, because they’ve just ceded the authority to an imperial presidency. And now we have a president completely unfit and absolutely provocative every day.

Jewish Neocons and US Wars

This piece came out recently, which reiterates a point that's been made for a long time, particularly in the 9/11 field:

America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars

Shouldn't they recuse themselves when dealing with the Middle East?

Philip Giraldi • September 19, 2017 • 1,500 Words

Of course it hits a very sensitive nerve in US political culture, because of the terrible aggression against Jews by Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Anything seen to be "counting Jews" does conjure bad memories and condemnation, even if the point maybe reasonable:

There are a couple of simple fixes for the dominant involvement of American Jews in foreign policy issues where they have a personal interest due to their ethnicity or family ties. First of all, don’t put them into national security positions involving the Middle East, where they will potentially be conflicted. Let them worry instead about North Korea, which does not have a Jewish minority and which was not involved in the holocaust. This type of solution was, in fact, somewhat of a policy regarding the U.S. Ambassador position in Israel. No Jew was appointed to avoid any conflict of interest prior to 1995, an understanding that was violated by Bill Clinton (wouldn’t you know it!) who named Martin Indyk to the post. Indyk was not even an American citizen at the time and had to be naturalized quickly prior to being approved by congress.

Those American Jews who are strongly attached to Israel and somehow find themselves in senior policy making positions involving the Middle East and who actually possess any integrity on the issue should recuse themselves, just as any judge would do if he were presiding over a case in which he had a personal interest. Any American should be free to exercise first amendment rights to debate possible options regarding policy, up to and including embracing positions that damage the United States and benefit a foreign nation. But if he or she is in a position to actually create those policies, he or she should butt out and leave the policy generation to those who have no personal baggage.

The big question though--are Jewish Neocons really forcing us into wars that the government wouldn't do otherwise? The "neocons" may be useful for selling US wars, but since they tend not to be in positions of major power in the government, they don't usually control the initiation of wars.

More likely the "neocons" are useful tools for the true masters of war-- the military brass and deep evil PTB.

This point is similar to the old argument about the role of Isrealis and Jews in 9/11. Sure, they do seem to be intimately involved in 9/11, but did they really run on us 9/11 over the opposition of those who were in control of the Bush administration security apparatus (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, the Joints Chiefs of Staff, etc)?

Again, to the extent that "neocons" were involved in 9/11 or Americas' wars, they were only part of the whole operation, and certainly didn't have supreme control.

Trump's Bizarre Persecution Complex and Dangerous Nationalism

Great piece from Josh Marshall:

... It is when the powerful feel threatened and vulnerable that things get dangerous, often very dangerous. 

... Hyper-nationalism is often innocuous or even salutary for states which know mostly oppression and degradation. In powerful states, it’s a source of immense danger.

All of this plays out in an almost comic, though possibly tragic, form in President Trump’s view of America’s role in the world. Trump imagines a US which is a revisionist power amidst its own global imperium. The US is the dominant military power in every corner of the globe. The global economy revolves around the dollar, providing huge benefits to the US economy. One can debate the benignity or rapaciousness of US power. But no one can deny that the current world order and its foundational institutions are built to make the United States at least the first among equals of all the nation’s of the world.

And yet to President Trump we are laughed at and tricked by all the nation’s of the world, taken advantage of at every turn. We’ve been humiliated for too long and we’ve had enough. The consistency with which Trump has talked for decades about the US being ‘laughed at’ and humiliated by other countries is remarkable. This represents a deep, though minority strain of American politics on the right. But for Trump it clearly grows mostly out of personal experience and character. The mix of intense insecurity couple with a need for dominance and aggression is too central to his own personality not to be the driver of this vision of the world and America’s role in it.

Nor is it a coincidence that Trump is the doyen of white Americans who feel they are discriminated against in America, despite the fact that whites remain the dominant group in almost all sectors of American life. Both internationally and domestically these are pre-existing and intermingled strains of American political culture. But Trump embodies both because through some unhinged alchemy his own life trajectory and damaged psyche made that possible...

And of course:

At the UN yesterday, Trump threatened to exterminate 25 million people in North Korea, also wants to cut peacekeeping funds.

Most ridiculously Trump said-- “In America, we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather, to let it shine as an example for everyone to watch.” Says the president of the country that has repeatedly attacked, bombed, invaded countries around the world since WWII. And Trump didn't act as though he would stop exerting US force, as he threatened to attack North Korea, Iran and Venezuela in his speech.

September 11, 2001 ... 16 Years Later

The horror of the terror attacks of 9/11/2001 are starting to fade, as is the sanctity which we hold that day as a country, in part because people forget and millions of Americans were too young in 2001 or were not born yet. But also Americans just have bad collective memories, in part due to a notoriously short attention span.

As awful as that day was, there's no doubt the aftermath was far worse-- most particularly the start of 16 years of the "war on terror" which at its peak led to the destruction of the country of Iraq and the deaths of over a million people. The wars also squandered several TRILLION US dollars.

Also, it's important to remember that from 9/11 until the Iraq war, the George W. Bush administration blatantly lied about 9/11 being connected to Iraq and lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, in the most cynical, dishonest way possible.


From 2004-2010, I was obsessed with 9/11, particularly by the idea the attacks were an "inside job" by our government. This obsession was due in part because of the sheer mystery and intrigue into that strange day, and in part by the apparent wrong-doing by the Republican Bush administration that I loathed. Also, I had some thought that uncovering the truth about 9/11 would expose the deep evil forces in our government and bring an end to the terrible wars that were raging. Of course, I was naive on this, though I learned over time that exposing any truth to the public was not going to happen, for various complex reasons. I also learned of a deeper network of conspiracies that complicated and darkened our world. I also fell into the rabbit hole of online conspiracy theorizing, where there were many people, who seemed credible initially, put out ideas and stories that over time became exposed as completely unreliable and who may have been agents or under some sort of control (e.g. John Lear, Judy Wood, Alex Jones, Simon Shack). Then there were a whole bunch of more legitimate-seeming people who were in more of a gray zone, where there were doubts but it was just hard to hard to know if what they were saying was honest, and what their motives were, and if they were some sort of agents (e.g. Steven Jones, Morgan Reynolds, Nico Haupt, Ace Baker). Also, there were a whole bunch of people who may have been basically honest, but just very biased in their thinking-- a whole bunch of people who thought 9/11 was an inside job, but didn't believe in "no planes" or the nuking of the WTC. They were just stuck in thinking a certain way. There is another group of people who may have been basically honest, but were just sloppy and/or unrealistic in their ideas, and/or just made mistakes. The 9/11 conspiracy field also got populated with what could be called "crackpots" who apparently had some psychological issues (e.g. Judy Wood, Webfairy, Anonymous Physicist). What kept me going was the fascinating subject matter and still a good number of fairly honest people interested in the truth. What's always amazed me is how so many people can consider 9/11 to be clearly an inside job, but then have such different ideas about what exactly happened!

In the past 6 years or so, and after being removed from the influence of Anonymous Physicist, I have naturally gained more and more perspective on life and politics and on 9/11.

So honestly, it's harder to believe now in "no planes" and the nuking of the WTC than when I was actively researching 9/11. This is in part because they are such radical ideas and there is a natural tendency to disbelieve in apparently crazy things. Also, I have learned some new things that argue against such a deep conspiracy. But at the same time, I still do not discount those theories. I still think they are possible and may best explain the evidence we have. At the same time, I can't quite rule out the official story of the flights and the destruction of the towers as I used to.

I still think that based on the actual documentation, photos and videos publicly available, the "no planes" and the nuking of the WTC theory (NPNWT) fits the data best.

The problem is, and has always been for the wild mind-fuck of the NPNWT, that 1) we only have limited data available and thus there may be real evidence out there that disproves the theory, 2) it assumes a deep deep conspiracy of many layers that is able to completely control their official narrative to an extreme degree. 

These are problematic, however, if we break the NPNWT into the two components, no planes and WTC nukes, there are different issues and levels of confidence with each one.

The "no planes theory" (NPT) can explain how the attack was orchestrated and explains the physical evidence very well. But it has three major problems:
1) over 40 different 2nd hit videos had to have been faked
2) witnesses to the second hit seeing a plane
3) the issue of what happened to the official planes and passengers

Now of course one can hand-wave away all these problems, as I have done in the past. But still, this hand-waving assumes a vast and powerful conspiracy that can: 1) confiscate all "real" 2nd hit videos, 2) manufacture 40 fake videos with personas behind many of them, 3) create false witnesses to say they saw the 2nd plane, 4) create fake plane passengers and whole stories around them or divert huge planes and dispose of the passengers and crew without any knowing. Problems 2 and 3 are eased by a hypothesis of some hologram that mimicked a plane, but then we have to assume that this technology exists.  The mindfuck to the NPT is that clearly some of the 2nd hit videos are fake or manipulated. Still-- it's really hard to believe in the overall massive conspiracy that would have done this, even though operationally running a no-planes operation makes the whole false-flag attack so much easier in terms of the actual attack (though harder in the cover-up). So in summary, I'd put the NPT as 50-50 being likely.

The WTC nuke theory (WNT) can explain how the towers were destroyed and explains the physical evidence extremely well. The only real problem with the WNT is the nature of the bombs themselves-- did the PTB have very small nukes to demolish the WTC towers that could be used practically? I think given the state of technology and history of nukes in the US, this is a fairly easy hurdle to clear, and so overall, the WNT theory is still quite strong. I'd say it's extremely likely to be true. Now, the thing is, if the WNT *is* true, this actually helps the larger conspiracy and thus the NPT case. So overall, this is why I still hold onto the NPNWT.

The problem is, no one cares anymore, and there's really no way to pursue this case.

We've big enough problems with current politics right now.

George Soros-- the Ultimate Power That Be?

This an anti-semitic meme that Benjamin Netanyahu's son posted on Facebook.

Yair Netanyahu, the son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted an image on his Facebook page Saturday that seems to suggest a conspiracy is behind his family’s growing legal problems. The meme is laden with anti-Semitic imagery. The meme, captioned "the food chain," features a photo of George Soros dangling the world in front of a reptilian creature, who dangles an alchemy symbol in front of a caricature of a figure reminiscent of the anti-Semitic “happy merchant” image. The other figures in the chain are former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, anti-Netanyahu protest leader Eldad Yaniv and Meni Naftali, a former chief caretaker at the Netanyahus’ official residence who implicated Sara Netanyahu in the case she is being indicted in.

It's truly weird on multiple levels. First of course that Netanyahu is passing along an anti-Semitic image and then that David Duke defends him.

But also it's incredibly crazy to think Soros is controlling the reptilians, who most people consider to be aliens and supreme powers that be in our world.

Now, it could be construed as Soros controls these downstream conspiracy as fictional entities to distract from his own machinations. However, isn't that giving this one guy WAY too much power? It's completely absurd, really.

Military Attacking Hurricanes?

I'm still not sure what this Simpsons bit from 2007 was all about-- key bit starts at 1:45 in:

 

Maybe it's just a goofy joke, but the Simpsons has long been tapped into certain trends in the intel/military/conspiracy world.

I originally thought this bit indicated military control of the weather, but it could also indicate the military being mobilized to combat climate change and dangerous weather-- which is why I'm thinking of this now.

I have no idea what the Jason figure symbolizes, if anything. Could be a joke or some new super-human enemy we don't know yet.

Trump Is the Bush Years, Accelerated

Hypothesis: the Trump presidency is an abbreviated version of the George W. Bush presidency.

With Trump his election was the 911 attacks-- a foreign invader upending the political system.

We're already going to war in Afghanistan and continuing the war on terror.

We've now had a great American city get destroyed by floods.

We just need the massive economic crash to complete the cycle.