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The Dismal Cartography of the Pre-Fascist State January 25, 2017 Points of Departure Listening to Donald Trump’s inaugural speech on January 20th led me to muse about what it might mean to live in a pre-fascist state. After reflecting on key passages and conversations with friends, I came to the view that all the elements were in place, although set before us with the imprecision of a demagogue. Yet I do not doubt that there are many ideologues waiting in the wings, perhaps now comfortably situated in the West Wing, ready to cover the conceptual rough spots, and supply an ideological overlay, and add the semblance of coherence. Considering the daily outrages emanating from the White House since the inaugural jolt, the coming years will be rough riding for all of us, with many cruelties being readied for those most vulnerable. Of course, the Woman’s March on January 21st was...

By Jan Oberg 
A brilliant blow to US/NATO
 policies and mainstream media 

 
 

Lund, Sweden – January 26, 2017 
 Tulsi Gabbard* and former peace presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich (D) have just visited Aleppo and Damascus in Syria and met citizens, religious leaders and President Assad. 
 Watch here how CNN tries to frame her as siding with Assad: 
 Starting out with Twitter girl Bana with President Erdogan (one more time – how stupid does CNN think we are?) and then showing no interest in what she reports because it doesn’t fit the deceptive Western narrative. 

 Much more important, however, listen to what Gabbard says in just 6 minutes about:

By Jan Oberg and David Swanson Commenting on Iran’s international PressTV on the inauguration of Donald Trump and the legacy of Barrack Obama

TFF director Jan Oberg comments on the important, positive commitment of the EU foreign policy chief on the JPCOA with Iran.

By Johan Galtung To understand something we often compare it with something else. A recent Harvard study found 26.7% of world car production in China and 13.3% in USA; US economy bigger but China leading in export with 8 of the 12 biggest harbors; USA end 2016 fighting 7 wars with bases all over and China with no wars or bases, investing, building the New Silk Road-Lane, the Economic Belt. How successfully, it is to be seen. But these are global power relations. That the West is going down, the Rest is coming up, the USA is a major part of the West and China of the Rest, are decades-old truths. And the EU is also part of the West. What does domestic China remind us of, historically, structurally? Not USA, a state since 1776, 1812. Let us compare China with present border and context to Europe from the Atlantic...

By Jonathan Power December 20th 2016 An abiding fear for Donald Trump is that the Middle East dictators’ successors in power will be militant Islamists who once elected will stop at nothing. At one time in the presidential campaign he threatened to “nuke” them. Even though the secular-minded President Bashar al-Assad appears to be winning the civil war in Syria the Islamists will sit on his tail. Violent-inclined Islamists point to the Koran and the Hadith to justify their violence. Indeed, there are sentences in both that are close to their interpretation. Even though they may hype up these passages and ignore other more peaceful ones the truth is that Islam does have a tradition of the hard school. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of Muslims today don’t subscribe to it. The Harvard professor, Steven Pinker, writes in his monumental study of violence, “The Better Angels Of Our Nature”, “The laws...

By Jonathan Power December 13th 2016. President-elect Donald Trump has decided to poke China in the eye. He has phoned the president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, assuring her of America’s support. Yes, the US has always supported Taiwan but usually behind the scenes, apart from its arms supplies. It does not recognize it diplomatically. China was angry. After Sunday’s news that Trump was reconsidering the US’s long-held “One China” policy Beijing is furious. When, last November, President Xi Jinping met Ma Ying-jeou, then Taiwan’s president and leader of the Kuomintang Party, I observed that if China continues to play its hand quietly it can, if it is shrewd, in the end win re-unification. But perhaps it will be over Trump’s dead body. The leaders of the two parties, the communists and the Kuomintang, the Republican claimants for power in China, hadn’t met since 1945 during aborted peace negotiations. A while...

By Jan Oberg This is one of several stories I just have to tell. You can see the original in large format here. The destruction of Eastern Aleppo, Syria by Jan Oberg on Exposure Subscribe to this Exposure page. Then you’ll automatically receive a mail when new photo (and text) stories are posted. Grateful too if you share with others or on social media. We need help to spread a broader truth about the conflict in and around Syria. Here a little more as background to the coming series: TFF Photo Story 

Lund, Sweden, December 27, 2016 
 Of course you have seen media images of the destruction in Syria. But not these taken in mid-December when Eastern Aleppo was liberated. 
 We live in a time when images – real and fake – influence perceptions more than ever. 
 My photos are real. Documentary. They reflect my role as...

By Hans Graf Sponeck Freiburg, 1 October 2016 1. The global sky is full of dark clouds. There is reason, there must be reason, for concern. Humanity has to take time out to reflect. To-day is a good occasion to do so, especially since we have among us Haifa al Mansour and Solmaz Panahi who, together with her mother, has joined us on behalf of Jafar Panahi, her father. The Kant Foundation is honouring two artists from the Middle East, one from Saudi Arabia, the other from Iran. They have taken Immanuel Kant’s demand of yesteryear seriously and have shown the courage to use their minds with all the consequences that this has entailed. They have been swimming against the currents, they have built bridges and they have climbed mountains that try to separate people. 2. The community of nations has created an impressive body of law which is as...

By Jonathan Power October 4th 2016. The many world leaders who gathered in Jerusalem last week for the funeral of Shimon Peres, the former president of Israel, are safely ensconced back home. They will not bother much to think about Israel again until the next Palestinian uprising. But the Israelis will continue to only think about themselves. The Israelis are obsessed with themselves, with their history, with the present time and with their destiny. Every nation has some of this but Israeli navel gazing is something else. At this level of intensity it makes compromise difficult and condemns Israel to political paranoia and limitless inflexibility. The Israeli notion that they can have this land and no one else can is so anachronistic by any contemporary standards that it is amazing that outside powers, whether they be the US, the EU or Russia, have given its arguments the time of day....

By Johan Galtung Journalists, physicians and mediators have one thing in common: they are expected to ask questions. Having worked as a journalist for some time for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, having a medical family background, and having worked nearly 60 years as a mediator, my obvious conclusion has been for journalists to ask the kind of questions mediators ask, like: • What does the Middle East look like where you would like to live? • What is the situation right now? • Was there a good time, what went wrong, what could have been done? • What is the worst that happened, and the worst that could happen? Journalists should not mediate – they are not trained for that. But they could make the world more ready for mediation, also by readers-listeners-viewers. People will answer, and give interesting answers. Of decision-makers journalists could also ask questions like:… Continue reading...

By Johan Galtung The US mountain, so rich in human talent, labored and produced the two dwarfs for the huge job. A radical Republican strongman[i] and a conventional Democrat, disliked by 62% and 67%–bad for electing the president of a country that still puts some stamp on the world. Trump challenged, successfully, the Republican machine. The Democratic machine got a Hillary who challenged absolutely nothing. In both parties, in the name of unity, a veil was drawn over these basic US conflicts today, not between the parties, but within. Cruz did not give in, Sanders did–maybe bribed by some verbal rephrasing. Take the issue-complex “foreign policy-war”. An isolationist Trump could save American lives” (and many more non-American lives). But doing so to save money is not good enough; take the issues head on. “Clinton and Trump jostle for a position over North Korea” is more to the point: Trump is...