Tesla EV Shipments In Jeopardy Across Nordics As Union Woes Spread
Tesla’s Scandinavian labor disputes may intensify, as Denmark’s most prominent union announced its workers will stop offloading and transporting Tesla vehicles to Sweden. This comes amid Tesla’s ongoing labor disputes in Sweden. Elon Musk has labeled the industrial actions threatening to disrupt operations in Europe as “insane.”
According to Bloomberg, the Danish union 3F plans to direct dockworkers and truck drivers to stop offloading and transporting Tesla cars to Sweden in about two weeks. This action will prevent Tesla from bypassing a blockade by Swedish dockworkers who’ve already blocked sea shipments.
Tesla has been in a labor dispute with Swedish unions for over a month. It has refused to sign a collective bargaining agreement with the union IF Metall.
Swedish cleaners, dockworkers, and postal workers have stood behind striking Tesla mechanics. The dispute revolves around 130 mechanics at body shops across the country.
Musk, a staunch critic of unionization, told the crowd at a New York Times event last week:
“I disagree with the idea of unions.
“I just don’t like anything which creates a lords and peasants kind of thing.”
Elon Musk disagrees with the idea of unions because they “create a lords and peasants sort of thing” and definitely has nothing to do with the fact he’s acquired obscene wealth by exploiting the labor of his workers.
A city in Belgium has cancelled a scheduled Christmas event in which a black female ‘Santa Claus’ was set to reeducate attendees about “colonial ideology” and how “generations of Flemish people are racists.”
The Telegraph reports that people in Ghent have pressured the mayor to call off the appearance of one Queen Nikkolah, a character created by artist Laura Nsengiyumva, who would have ‘reworked’ Christmas fables about Santa for children at the event.
The report claims that the character was set to be dressed in the colours of the Palestinian flag (for some reason) while handing out gifts to children.
Ahead of the event which was scheduled for Wednesday, Queen Nikkolah announced “I dream of a Belgium liberated from colonial ideology and a society without discrimination.”
Conservatives in Belgium labelled the event “woker than woke,” with Nadia Sminate, a vice-chairman of the Flemish parliament, warning that “Queen Nikkolah’s initiative is actually saying that entire generations of Flemish people are racists.”
“There is nothing wrong with Sinterklaas, as we know him,” said Mathias de Clercq member of the Flemish liberal party, adding “We shouldn’t try to turn him into something else.”
The report also notes that anti-racism protesters in both Belgium and Holland are campaigning to put an end to traditional celebrations of St Nicholas Day on Dec 6 that usually feature ‘Sinterklaas’ accompanied by Zwarte Piet – or Black Pete – a black-faced boy with curled-hair and large, painted on red lips.”
Geert Wilders, the Dutch populist who recently won the general election and is close to forming a coalition government in Holland, promised to bring back the tradition in his manifesto.
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These Are The Safest (And Deadliest) Energy Sources
Recent conversations about climate change, emissions, and health have put a spotlight on the world’s energy sources.
As of 2021, nearly 90% of global CO₂ emissions came from fossil fuels. But energy production doesn’t just lead to carbon emissions, it can also cause accidents and air pollution that has a significant toll on human life.
All energy sources today produce greenhouse gases either directly or indirectly. However, the top three GHG-emitting energy sources are all fossil fuels.
Coal produces 820 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (CO₂e) per gigawatt-hour. Not far behind is oil, which produces 720 tonnes CO₂e per gigawatt-hour. Meanwhile, natural gas produces 490 tonnes of CO₂e per gigawatt-hour.
These three sources contribute to over 60% of the world’s energy production.
Deadly Effects
Generating energy at a massive scale can have other side effects, like air pollution or accidents that take human lives.
According to Our World in Data, air pollution and accidents from mining and burning coal fuels account for around 25 deaths per terawatt-hour of electricity—roughly the amount consumed by about 150,000 EU citizens in one year. The same measurement sees oil responsible for 18 annual deaths, and natural gas causing three annual deaths.
Meanwhile, hydropower, which is the most widely used renewable energy source, causes one annual death per 150,000 people. The safest energy sources by far are wind, solar, and nuclear energy at fewer than 0.1 annual deaths per terawatt-hour.
Nuclear energy, because of the sheer volume of electricity generated and low amount of associated deaths, is one of the world’s safest energy sources, despite common perceptions.
Germany’s Welt newspaper, perhaps the most popular publication in the country, is well known for its pro-Ukraine stance and ran numerous articles in the past about the likely success of Ukraine’s military offensive against Russia.
However, in a column published yesterday by the paper’s chief correspondent, Sascha Lehnartz, the assessment of Ukraine’s chances in the war is decidedly bleak.
Entitled “Has Kyiv already lost?” the article describes Ukraine’s military growing increasingly despondent to the point that the country’s commander-in-chief admits there is a “stalemate” at the front.
“Winter is just around the corner. The counteroffensive seems to have failed. The allies are weary. And since the beginning of November at the latest, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has a new opponent who was not necessarily to be expected: his own commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny,” writes Die Welt.
Welt is referring to a recent interview in the Economist, in which Ukraine’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny, stated that “(a)s in the First World War, we have reached a technical level that puts us in a stalemate situation” and that in order for Ukraine to win, it would take miracle weapons to defeat the Russians, “like Chinese gunpowder.”
The paper details how the admission from Zaluzhny is a clear embarrassment for Zelensky.
“Everyone is tired and there are different opinions, regardless of their status,” said Zelensky in response to the comments at a press conference with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, adding:
“But it’s not a stalemate.” His deputy bureau chief, Ihor Zhovkva said that talks of a stalemate “makes the aggressor’s job easier” and causes “panic” among Ukraine’s allies.
Soldiers of Ukraine’s National Guard 1st brigade Bureviy (Hurricane) practice during combat training at a military training ground in the north of Ukraine, Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
In response, Welt wrote that the growing divisions between Ukraine’s armed forces and the government over the status of the war could mark a major turning point.
“The dispute between the president and the top military officer shows that the unified home front in Ukraine is crumbling. And every doubt expressed in Kyiv about Ukraine’s prospects of success is being reinforced in the corridors of European and American government headquarters,” writes Lehnartz.
Welt also points out that political victories of various populist leaders within Europe will likely create severe difficulties in terms of ongoing material and financial support to Ukraine. A deepening budget crisis in Germany also could mean further cuts to Ukraine’s budget, placing the country’s war effort at risk.
“The recent election victories of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Robert Fico in Slovakia — both of whom reject further arms sales to Ukraine — are also symptoms of growing war weariness in the West,” writes Welt.
“Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni admitted this in September when she was tricked on the phone by a Moscow comedian duo: she saw ‘a lot of fatigue on all sides.’ Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has already declared the Ukrainian strategy ‘failed.’ Everyone knows that, but no one (except Orbán) dares to say it out loud,” the paper continues.
Orbán has long been criticized for his peace efforts in Ukraine, warning that Russia cannot be defeated because it is a nuclear power and that thousands of Ukrainians and Russians are losing their fathers and brothers due to a war of attrition.
Welt then lists the major obstacles facing Ukraine on the battlefield, noting that Ukraine has retaken less than 0.25 percent of the territory it wishes to recapture from Russia during the counteroffensive. As a result, ‘the number of those who believe that Ukraine can still ‘win’ this war, i.e., achieve the liberation of all its territories occupied by Russia, is dwindling day by day. Russia’s Plan A, to take Kyiv in a few days and rule more or less directly, has ‘failed miserably,’ says James Nixey, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the British think tank Chatham House. ‘But Plan B appears to be working: waiting for Ukraine’s allies to give up and go home.’”
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Tatiana Burchik, center, mother of Ukrainian soldier Vadym “Gagarin” Belov, says her last goodbyes to her son near his coffin at a cemetery in Polonne, Khmelnytskyi region, Ukraine, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023. Vadyn was killed during an assault mission on Sept. 7 near Bakhmut, serving as an infantry serviceman of the 3rd Assault Brigade. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)
However, the paper notes that this stalemate appears to be by design — at least to some extent. Western governments, for example, are struggling to provide simple military tech, such as artillery shells, in the promised number. These governments are still leery about providing more advanced military weapons, such as the Taurus guided missiles, which in theory could destroy the Kerch Bridge, a vital supply route for Russia. However, Western governments are still extremely wary of providing such weapons to Ukraine out of fear that the war could escalate. In effect, they want to provide only enough weapons to make sure Ukraine cannot lose, but also cannot win:
This is symptomatic of the German attitude, but ultimately also of the U.S. government. The American foreign policy expert Walter Russell Mead recently complained in the Wall Street Journal that the stalemate was ultimately the goal of the Biden government: exhausted Ukrainians would have to offer peace to Russia at some point, “and the White House then sells this as a glorious victory for democracy and the rule of law.”
However, the Welt article ends on a controversial note.
Despite spending much of the piece outlining how the war has reached a stalemate, resulting in incredible losses for both Russia and Ukraine, the article implies that the only way forward is doubling down on military support for Ukraine instead of working towards a peaceful solution.
…
“The West will have to decide whether it still believes in itself. And soon,” Welt concludes.
Before writing about Israel, an analysis of facts about 9/11 – a web of lies changed the world, enabled by abuse of emotions…
Introduction
Israel dominates the global media to an almost unseen extent. Only almost, because one event 22 years ago surpassed everything else in terms of media hype: 9/11. What both events have in common is that politicians and the media ruthlessly exploit people’s shock to achieve their goals or to generate clicks and thus rake in money. Most articles have one thing in common: they are based on emotions. We write about geopolitics. Geopolitical analyses must be based on facts. If the basis is emotionally charged, the analysis is worthless, regularly leads to false results and gives culprits and masterminds tools to work with, which they should not have under any circumstances.
In this second part of our series, we discuss this and more based on the most publicized terrorist attack of the 21st century.
In Part 1, we established that President Truman lied through the teeth not only to his own people but to the entire world by dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki not as claimed to save hundreds of thousands of American soldiers’ lives, but to show the world and Stalin who would be the master of the house after World War 2.
For this marketing stunt, Truman cold-bloodedly sacrificed 200,000 Japanese, most of them civilians. His own people were emotionally well prepared for this atrocity. Since the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the American government and the media poisoned the soul of the Americans with the most vicious racist propaganda. This hate speech against everything Japanese allowed the American state, among other things, to put hundreds of thousands of American citizens with Japanese roots into concentration camps: American citizens, mind you.
Everyone should therefore be aware, even today, that the so-called “fundamental constitutional rights”, which seem beyond reproach, rights that a constitution grants to its citizens, have no more value than a membership in a tennis club: they can be taken away at any time. This happened and still happens after 1945.
In 1945, the majority of us were not yet born. However, our generation was swept away by an event in September 2001 that changed the world forever.
We will highlight four aspects in this article: First, what life was like before 9/11, using my own personal memories and perceptions as an example. Second, we highlight social changes that 9/11 brought us. Third, we discuss the geopolitical consequences.
Finally, in the third part, which will be published shortly, we will highlight a few facts that make you doubt that the attack happened as claimed.
Life before 9/11
I was born in Zurich in 1964 and was in kindergarten when the moon landing happened. The Americans were the absolute heroes in my youth. They won the Second World War, every technical innovation came from America, the coolest TV series were American, the big movies like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, E.T. came from the USA and we hillbillies had to wait for months until we could enjoy these adventures in Europe. The bad guys were the Russians, the weak lived in Africa. China and India had many inhabitants, who all lived in the dirt and could hardly feed themselves. If the Americans waged war somewhere, the opponents of the war were some left-wing nutcases: “ Moscow, no return!”. – If they didn’t like it, they should simply emigrate to Russia. When I did my military service after school, the enemy always came from the East and wore the color red. A simple, comfortable view of the world in which you knew exactly whose side you were on.
After my law studies in Zurich, it was almost obligatory to complete a master’s degree in the USA if you wanted to work for a top law firm. I did so and studied American law in Washington, D.C. and then worked in New York before returning to Zurich.
I visited my dream destination more than 50 times between 1982 and 2006, on vacation and business. I worked so much that I limited myself to reading a few “excellent” newspapers, such as the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) and the Financial Times (FT). I felt informed and trusted the media, as many did. Were there people who were questioning a lot of things? – Yes, but I was not one of them at that time.
The day of the event
There are few events in the life of an adult that were as formative: Everyone still today – after more than 22 years – can remember exactly where he was when this news reached him. I remember it clearly. Only the assassination of President Kennedy is said to have evoked similar emotions; however, that event took place a little less than a year before I was born.
How 9/11 changed society
The culprit is found the same day
How the world changed after 9/11 was breathtaking. The consequences of 9/11 were more than dramatic. Nothing else mattered anymore. The entire world looked to New York and thirsted for explanations and thus also for the names of the culprits. These were presented within hours. People breathed a sigh of relief that the culprits could be identified so quickly. A human, purely emotional reaction that was not questioned. If you know the culprits, you know what to do. Solutions to the problem were presented in such a short period of time that one should have asked oneself how this was possible. This was not done.
Within days the USA becomes a surveillance state
A glaring example of how “solutions” were quickly found is the so-called Patriot Act. The USA Patriot Act of 2001 allowed unprecedented surveillance of American citizens and individuals around the world without having to respect traditional guarantees of civil liberties. This massive 342-page piece of legislation was submitted to the U.S. Congress within a week of the attack. Cynically, the title of the Patriot Act reads “Preserving Life & Liberty“; exactly the opposite was the case. Again, basic rights were taken away within days for a “higher purpose” with the stroke of a pen.
Anyone who has even an inkling of law-making is aware that this law lay fully drafted in a drawer even before the attack. A clear indication that there were people who were a little too well “prepared”.
Hate propaganda against all things “Arabic”
Anyone who wore a dark beard, looked “Arab” or had a Muslim first name was declared a suspect, not only in the U.S. but throughout the West – including Switzerland. A good friend of mine with Moroccan roots – beardless – told me that he had been treated like a criminal for years, especially when traveling, and also had the greatest problems finding housing and work in Zurich. He is Swiss and speaks Swiss German like me.
People in the West could not escape this racist propaganda. In every TV series or movie the bad guys looked the same and were extremists. The “Arabic” or the “Muslim” was demonized. For a few years now, this tendency has subsided: Nowadays, Russians are the bad guys. Beards can be worn again.
Geopolitical consequences – warmongering
Epic speech by President Bush
On September 20, 2001, President Bush gave an incendiary speech in preparation for the coming wars. This speech was not addressed to the American people, but to the whole world.
Bush demanded that every country support the fight against terrorists and that every suspect be handed over to the USA, that all means be used to destroy terrorists – worldwide. He was referring not only to the suspected Al Qaeda, which, by the way, never claimed responsibility for the attack, but to all terrorist organizations in the world in every country.
I recommend everyone to watch this speech again.
At minute 18:44 Bush makes the following statement:
«Either you’re with us – or you are with the terrorists.»
PRESIDENT BUSH – SEPTEMBER 20, 2001
With this, he said nothing else than that every country, which would not support the total war of the USA against everyone, whom the USA considered as terrorists, would become terrorists themselves and thus a target of the USA.
With this speech the Bush administration got the “carte blanche” to cover the world with wars. Congress applauded frenetically. Bush’s speech was constantly interrupted by standing ovations. One has to browse back to Adolf Hitler’s speeches to observe such an undignified spectacle. Undignified because, on the one hand, thousands of people had perished two weeks earlier and, on the other, nothing less than a bloodbath was announced around the world.
Terror as a pretext for expansion
Crumbling power of the USA as early as 2001
In a world where most people are in a state of shock, few question the rationale if they are presented with a solution that promises to relieve the state of shock and show a route back to normalcy.
In 2001, the West considered the US to be all-powerful and strong. The truth was different. The hegemon’s power base was already crumbling badly and crying out for a liberation blow.
The Pillars of American Power
The most important pillar for the status as hegemon of the USA is the Petrodollar. We have already discussed its functioning and importance in detail several times, most recently in our article “BRICS will change the world – slowly“.
The Middle East is the cradle of the Petrodollar. Without power in the Middle East, the Petrodollar does not work, and without the Petrodollar, the U.S. cannot maintain its status as a Hegemon.
President Bush was given carte blanche by most of the Western population to do as he saw fit because he succeeded in fooling the world’s population into believing that the war on terror was vital to the world’s survival. The facts paint a different picture.
Roadmap for the reconstruction of power was created in 2000
The Roadmap to a Global Bloodbath – Rebuilding America’s Defense: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century
The document is eye-opening and worth reading. In one sentence, however, the authors make a peculiar statement when it comes to the search for the originators of the attacks.
“[…] even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”
This Pearl Harbor moment came in the form of 9/11 like a godsend to the authors of the study. The authors, by the way, operated many levers of power at the moment of the attack. Dick Cheney was merely vice president of the United States. Yet he completely dominated, controlled and manipulated George Bush, the President. Paul Wolfowitz was Deputy to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Lewis Libby was Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. All were at the center of power, ready to put the roadmap into action.
The real plan of the USA was revealed in 2006
General Wesley Clark is a highly decorated U.S. general, Vietnam veteran with personal frontline experience, and former Supreme Allied Commander Europe. In 2006, after his retirement from the Army, he gave an interview that revealed the entire, real intentions and plans of the US after 9/11.
The entire interview in English can be found here.
I don’t know why General Clark made statements that so clearly and transparently show the intentions of the USA after 9/11. He is probably – besides Edward Snowden and Daniel Ellsberg – the most important whistleblower who showed the USA from its most unsavory side. He was not prosecuted and most people do not know this interview.
I could not find any circumstantial evidence that would make Clark’s statements unreliable. His source comes from the top of the Pentagon and the fact that these statements did not lead to any discussions in the West makes them all the more credible. Finally, he described exactly what Dick Cheney and his colleagues wrote down already in 2000.
Reality, plans and failure in pictures
Introduction
The following maps show the United States’ (red) power influence in the Middle East and parts of Africa at various points in time. Influence defined as direct or indirect control. The intent is to provide only a graphic impression, and the degree of influence may vary.
1979
Until the overthrow of the Shah of Persia in 1979, the United States dominated the Middle East directly or indirectly through various means. In 1953, for example, the CIA overthrew the democratically elected President Mossadegh together with the British MI6 (Operation AJAX) in order to place the Shah on the throne. We wrote about this in our article “War without Peace“. Furthermore, the USA supported and courted Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states in order to consolidate its influence.
US influence in the Middle East until the overthrow of the Shah of Persia – Source: VoicefromRussia.com
2001
Between 1979 and 2001, the U.S. lost much influence over the Middle East. With the aim of overthrowing the government of Iran, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein with weapons and money to induce Iraq to attack Iran. This succeeded. The Iran-Iraq War (First Gulf War), which lasted between 1980 and 1988, cost the lives of close to one million people. Iran remained victorious. The Americans did not give up, but changed their target: Iraq went from being an ally to an enemy.
The invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein, of which the USA knew, was apparently approved by the USA eight days before the invasion by the American ambassador April Glaspie, in order to then attack Iraq in 1991 as a liberator (Second Gulf War). Today, the U.S. vehemently denies having known about Saddam Hussein’s plan and having condoned it. However, the invasion was called off when the U.S. had conquered about half of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of victims had to be mourned.
This map shows the influence of the USA on September 11, 2001 (red) as well as the planned and partly realized war plans of the USA (yellow). Had this plan been successfully implemented, the U.S. would today exercise unprecedented influence over the Middle East. However, things turned out differently.
The media reports exclusively about the disgraceful withdrawal of the Americans from Afghanistan, but the entire plan from 2001 failed miserably.
All war campaigns led to disaster for the USA. Nevertheless, the Americans either completely or significantly destroyed the following countries: Afghanistan (U.S. withdrawal), Iraq (U.S. withdrawal), Libya (no [official] ground forces), Syria (lost, but still some ground forces in the oil-rich part to this day), Sudan (no control), Somalia (no control).
Millions of people lost their lives in the last 22 years for armed conflicts that led nowhere. The financial resources that the USA spent in these military failures are about 8’000 billion US dollars.
Influence of the United States in September 2001: (red) – the plan: (yellow) – Source: VoicefromRussia.com
Situation today
It did not stay with the military defeats. The influence of the U.S. in the Middle East has shrunk to a level even smaller than it was in 2001. Thus, the campaigns have not only failed to increase influence, but have effectively forced the U.S. out of the Middle East.
Two major diplomatic events this year are responsible for this.
The first major event was the peace agreements between Saudi Arabia and Iran on the one hand and Saudi Arabia and Syria on the other, as well as Syria’s readmission to the Arab League, all of which happened this year. We reported in detail about the Arab Spring without blood in the article “Peace breaks out – Arab Spring without blood” in May this year.
The second major event was the BRICS summit in South Africa in August. Of the countries colored green on the map below, the following three Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, will join the BRICS organization on Jan. 1, 2024. Egypt and Ethiopia will join from Africa.
On the map section we have shown alone, the following additional countries have formally or informally applied to join BRICS: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Gabon, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Turkey. For detailed facts and figures on BRICS and other organizations of the Global South, please refer to our article “BRICS – Series – Part 1“.
This summer we devoted a series of four articles to the development of BRICS: Part 1 (Facts and Figures), Part 2 (Today’s Financial System and Reasons that Led to BRICS), Part 3 (Our Predictions for the August BRICS Summit), and as Part 4, a comprehensive summary with outlook. Part 4 of the article series was also published on the paywalled Gloom Boom & Doom Report by financial expert Dr. Marc Faber, in Weltwoche and on ZeroHedge.
Although we described these major events as tectonic shifts in geopolitics, they passed completely unnoticed by most of the Western media or were only mentioned in passing and discussed dismissively.
Conclusion
First, we described how the majority in the West – myself included – perceived America before 9/11 and how the events of 9/11 led to a collective shock in the West. We then showed how this shock was first abused by the U.S. against its own people. It began by once again stripping American citizens of fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, without voices being raised to be heard.
Then we showed that already one year before the attack war plans were worked out by a group of neoconservative hawks and in the study in question it was written that an early implementation of these plans would only be possible if a “Pearl Harbor Moment” would occur. That moment occurred just one year after the study was published in the form of 9/11 – a godsend for the hawks.
Further, based on the very credible statements of General Clark, we proved that the U.S., under the guise of the ” War on Terror,” was attempting to conquer seven other countries in the Middle East and parts of Africa, in addition to Afghanistan, in order to regain and secure its supremacy in the Middle East.
Further, we showed with some maps and facts how the USA once again chose a bloody strategy to achieve its goals and how these campaigns ended in an unprecedented geopolitical disaster for USA. All military operations and wars failed, millions of people lost their lives and thousands of billions were wasted. All for nothing.
Finally, we showed that the U.S. has virtually no influence left in the Middle East. The Middle East is now dominated by the Middle Eastern countries themselves, joining a multipolar organization called BRICS. This result was achieved with diplomacy and peace deals – without bloodshed.
This blog has warned several times that the U.S. will not simply accept emancipation from the U.S. dollar and exclusion from the Middle East:
In July, we wrote:
“This will seal the downfall of the American empire. One would be naive to think that the Americans are not willing to set the world on fire to prevent their own demise..”
If we look at the mendacity that the USA has displayed since 2001 by exploiting people’s paralysis and the brutality with which it has killed millions of people over more than two decades in order to achieve its geopolitical goals, we think it is justified to question everything.
Thus, the authorship of the September 11, 2001 attacks is also up for debate. We will discuss a few facts about this in the third and final part of this series.
After reading this article, we would like to advise our readers regarding the recent ” Powder Keg Middle East” already now not to believe any statements of politicians and media. Follow our motto: “Question everything!”
Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus, is positioning Anduril Industries, his Southern California startup defense firm, to challenge military-industrial complex giants such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and General Dynamics.
Luckey revealed on X that Anduril Industries has developed an affordable vertical takeoff and landing drone that can be reused on surveillance or kamikaze missions.
Introducing:
Roadrunner, a compact VTOL drone powered by twin thrust-vectored turbojet engines with extraordinary speed, range, and payload capacity.
&
Roadrunner-M, a radical new low-cost weapon that allows for unprecedented tactics against powerful threats. pic.twitter.com/2C7Ga0h1Hf
Anduril told Forbes that the US Special Operations Command signed a $12.5 million contract last year for the autonomous jet-powered drone called “Roadrunner. “
Roadrunner is a modular aircraft with payloads that can execute a wide variety of missions. Firefighting, search and rescue, organ delivery, anything where you need a drone that launches in seconds and moves an order of magnitude faster than the next best option. pic.twitter.com/m7lOOQs371
“Roadrunner-M is a variant model equipped with a high explosive warhead and Anduril seeker capable of intercepting, surveilling, and destroying fast-moving threats. It is effective against a wide range of threats, including full-size aircraft that cost 100x more,” Palmer wrote on X.
Roadrunner-M is a variant model equipped with a high explosive warhead and Anduril seeker capable of intercepting, surveilling, and destroying fast-moving threats. It is effective against a wide range of threats, including full-size aircraft that cost 100x more. pic.twitter.com/ojg6pbtpsA
The company said Roadrunner can travel at speeds upwards of 700 mph. It’s launched from a climate-controlled box called a “Nest.”
Nest is a companion product to Roadrunner, Roadrunner-M, and other Roadrunner variants in development. An automated hangar+technician that ensures Roadrunner is always ready to launch by autonomously monitoring, testing, and maintaining the aircraft inside. pic.twitter.com/N1PYZVVnJf
Luckey is leveraging his Silicon Valley background to disrupt the defense sector. By establishing new facilities, factories, and manufacturing lines, his company aims to gain a competitive advantage over traditional defense contractors, which are often burdened with older factories and cost overruns.
Left-wing intellectuals have transformed the complex history of “colonialism” into an all-encompassing slander against the West. A practice dating back to the ancient world, colonialism involves a nation’s transferring a portion of its population into a foreign land and assuming responsibility for administering it. In the United Kingdom and the United States, professors of literature, history, political theory, and international relations routinely teach that the subjugation of non-Western peoples belongs to the essence of the West – they primarily mean the British Empire, America, and Israel. The anti-colonialists further contend that the perpetration of heinous crimes – including genocide, the systematic effort to wipe out a people – belongs to the essence of the West’s colonialism.
So successful have the professors been in promulgating the belief that the West has engaged in centuries of relentlessly brutal conquest and malevolent domination that the colonialism slander has found its way into the U.S. State Department bureaucracy. In a Nov. 3 scoop, Axios reporters Hans Nichols and Barak Ravid revealed that “A junior State Department employee who is organizing a dissent cable on the White House’s policy on Israel has used social media to publicly accuse President Biden of being ‘complicit in genocide’ toward the people of Gaza.” The dissent cable, which involves classified communications to the secretary of state, has been leaked.
An organizer of the dissent cable and author of the accusation that the president whom she serves is complicit in genocide, Sylvia Yacoub is “a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Middle East Affairs for more than two years.” The obscene abuse of the term “genocide” to characterize Israel’s exercise of its right of self-defense is a tell-tale sign that Yacoub subscribes to the colonialism slander. Had she described the jubilantly executed atrocities and proudly proclaimed goal of the Hamas jihadists as genocide, she would have employed the term correctly.
The colonialism slander blinds its adherents to basic facts and crucial distinctions. On Oct. 7, in grotesque violation of the laws of war, the terrorists massacred some 1,200, mostly civilians, and abducted 240, mostly civilians, in furtherance of their oft-repeated aim to destroy the Jewish state. In contrast, and in compliance with the laws of war, Israel has targeted Hamas combatants and their military infrastructure. Before attacking Hamas strongholds, which the terrorists illegally built inside and under Gaza’s cities, Israel has warned Palestinian civilians to leave and has directed them to safe areas. The tragic loss of civilian life in Gaza has resulted from Hamas’ callous conversion of civilian areas into war zones.
It turns out, according to Eitan Fischberger, that Yacoub, a 2023 graduate of Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS), “wrote her thesis paper about colonialism and its role in international relations.” In “The Georgetown Effect,” Fischberger explained that Yacoub’s thesis reflected her school’s priorities: “SFS’s curriculum, faculty viewpoints, and campus activities” revolve around colonialism and “decolonization.” Josh Paul, the only State Department official to resign in opposition to the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war against Hamas, graduated from SFS in 2002.
In the 2023 British Sunday Times bestseller “Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning,” Nigel Biggar provides a meticulous accounting of colonialism and the West. A professor emeritus of moral and pastoral theology at the University of Oxford, Biggar writes that in late 2017, he was “plunged into the ‘culture war’ over colonialism.” Shortly after publishing an exploration in The Times of London of colonialism’s contributions as well as its costs, “all hell broke loose.” Critics targeted for termination his scholarly project “Ethics and Empire,” his distinguished partner resigned from the enterprise, and nearly 200 scholars from around the world denounced him in one online statement, as did 58 Oxford colleagues in another. Biggar responded in exemplary fashion by producing an incisive scholarly study – some 300 pages of closely argued text and 130 pages of learned endnotes – examining “the complicated, morally ambiguous truth” about the British Empire’s colonialism.
Biggar emphasizes that the “unscrupulous indifference to truth” displayed by the anti-colonialists – for whom the late Edward Said, a Columbia University professor of literature, is a quasi-prophet and his “Orientalism” a quasi-bible – reveals that their slanders serve a political function: the diminution of the West. “One important way of corroding faith in the West is to denigrate its record, a major part of which is the history of European empires,” observes Biggar. “And of all those empires, the primary target is the British one, which was by far the largest and gave birth to the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.”
Biggar’s “moral assessment” of the British Empire’s colonialism – which stretches from before 1600 and the creation of the East India Company to the empire’s post-World War II dissolution – is informed by a species of Christian realism. He believes that basic moral principles are real and knowable; human beings are equal in dignity because they are “accountable for the spending of their lives to a God who looks with compassion upon their limitations and burdens”; cultures may be unequal in many respects; government, which is indispensable, rightly pursues the national interest despite its inevitable unjust acts; war can be necessary and just; and, “History contains an ocean of injustice, most of it unremedied and now lying beyond correction in this world.”
In one long sentence, Biggar summarizes the evils – these encompass “not only culpable wrongdoing or injustice, but also unintended harms,” but do not include genocide – perpetrated by British colonialism. The debit side of the ledger comprises “brutal slavery; the epidemic spread of devastating disease; economic and social disruption; the unjust displacement of natives by settlers; failures of colonial government to prevent settler abuse and famine; elements of racial alienation and racist contempt; policies of needlessly wholesale cultural suppression; miscarriages of justice; instances of unjustifiable military aggression and the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force; and the failure to admit native talent to the higher echelons of colonial government on terms of equality quickly enough to forestall the build-up of nationalist resentment.”
In two sentences – one comparatively short and one extraordinarily long – Biggar distills the steps Britain undertook to mitigate colonialism’s shameful dimensions and the contributions of which it can be proud. “If the empire initially presided over the slave trade and slavery, it renounced both in the name of basic human equality and then led endeavors to suppress them worldwide for 150 years,” he maintains on the ledger’s positive side.
The empire also: moderated the disruptive impact of Western modernity upon very unmodern societies; promoted a worldwide free market that gave native producers and entrepreneurs new economic opportunities; created regional peace by imposing an overarching imperial authority on multiple, warring peoples; perforce involved representatives of native peoples in the lower levels of government; sought to relieve the plight of the rural poor and protect them against rapacious landlords; provided a civil service and judiciary that was generally and extraordinarily incorrupt; developed public infrastructure, albeit usually through private investment; made foreign investment attractive by reducing the risks through establishing political stability and the rule of law; disseminated modern agricultural methods and medicine; stood against German aggression – first militarist, then Nazi – and for international law and order in the two world wars, helping to save both the Western and the non-Western world for liberal democracy; brought up three of the most prosperous and liberal states now on earth – Canada, Australia and New Zealand; gave birth to two more – the United States and Israel; evolved into a loose, consensual, multi-racial, international organization, the (British) Commonwealth of Nations, which some states that never belonged to the British Empire have opted to join – Mozambique (1995) and Rwanda (2009); inspired by the ideal of the Commonwealth, helped to plan and realize first the League of Nations and then the United Nations; through the Commonwealth applied moral pressure to South Africa to abandon its policy of apartheid; through the wartime anti-fascist alliance of 1939–45, evolved into an important part of the post-war Western alliance against Soviet and Chinese communism; and still has a significant afterlife in the Western military alliance of NATO, the intelligence alliance of the “Five Eyes,” and influential economic development agencies such as the UK’s British International Investment and Department for International Development.
An admirable scholarly achievement, Biggar’s rigorous assessment invites critical engagement. However, the very idea of carefully considering colonialism’s contributions as well as its costs is anathema to the anti-colonialists. Their postmodern progressivism leaves little room for dissent from the dogma that colonialism was implacably racist and rapacious. For the anti-colonialists, the appeal to historical evidence and reasoned argument amounts to one more noxious feature of the colonial mindset. As Biggar observes in his epilogue, anti-colonialists embrace “the ideas that ‘truth’ is whatever the anti-colonialist revolution requires and that revolutionary vitality should be preferred to bourgeois reason.”
The widespread colonialism slander undercuts U.S. diplomacy and enfeebles democracy in America. A crucial part of the remedy consists in cultivating professors who will engage in reasoned scholarship rather than partisan posturing and will reorient classrooms around education in, rather than indoctrination against, the West.
Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on Twitter @BerkowitzPeter.
The US economy is complex, and comprised of many different industries that power the world’s largest GDP.
Breaking it down is Visual Capitalist‘s Govind Bhutada, who used data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis to visualize a breakdown of US GDP by industry in 2023. He showed this by measuring dollar value added by industry, which reflects the difference between gross output and the cost of intermediate inputs.
The Top 10 U.S. Industries by GDP
As of Q1 2023, the annualized GDP of the U.S. sits at $26.5 trillion.
Of this, 88% or $23.5 trillion comes from private industries. The remaining $3 trillion is government spending at the federal, state, and local levels.
Here’s a look at the largest private industries by economic contribution in the United States:
Like most other developed nations, the U.S. economy is largely based on services.
Service-based industries, including professional and business services, real estate, finance, and health care, make up the bulk (70%) of U.S. GDP. In comparison, goods-producing industries like agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and construction play a smaller role.
Professional and business services is the largest industry with $3.5 trillion in value added. It comprises establishments providing legal, consulting, design, administration, and other services. This is followed by real estate at $3.3 trillion, which has consistently been an integral part of the economy.
Due to outsourcing and other factors, the manufacturing industry’s share of GDP has been declining for decades, but it still remains a significant part of the economy. Manufacturing of durable goods (metals, machines, computers) accounts for $1.6 trillion in value added, alongside nondurable goods (food, petroleum, chemicals) at $1.3 trillion.
The Government’s Contribution to GDP
Just like private industries, the government’s value added to GDP consists of compensation of employees, taxes collected (less subsidies), and gross operating surplus.
State and local government spending, largely focused on the education and public welfare sectors, accounts for the bulk of value added. The Federal contribution to GDP amounts to roughly $948 billion, with 52% of it attributed to national defense.
The Fastest Growing Industries (2022–2032P)
In the next 10 years, services-producing industries are projected to see the fastest growth in output.
The table below shows the five fastest-growing industries in the U.S. from 2022–2032 in terms of total output, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Three of the fastest-growing industries are in the information sector, underscoring the growing role of technology and digital infrastructure. Meanwhile, the projected growth of the oil and gas extraction industry highlights the enduring demand for traditional energy sources, despite the energy transition.
Overall, the development of these industries suggests that the U.S. will continue its shift toward a services-oriented economy. But today, it’s also worth noticing how services- and goods-producing industries are increasingly tied together. For example, it’s now common for tech companies to produce devices, and for manufacturers to use software in their operations.
Therefore, the oncoming tide of growth in service-based industries could potentially lift other interconnected sectors of the diverse U.S. economy.
Some US officials are criticizing the Biden administration for deliberately downplaying the threat from Yemen’s Houthis on US naval forces, Politicoreported Tuesday. The criticism follows an attack on Sunday on several commercial vessels in the Red Sea, which forced a US Navy warship to scramble to respond.
The Yemeni resistance movement launched missiles and drones against three separate commercial vessels. The USS Carney fired back, taking down three unmanned aerial drones. It is unclear whether the US Navy ship was also a target of the attack or was simply coming to the aid of the commercial vessels.
Defense Department and Biden administration officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, have said the US “cannot assess” whether the USS Carney was the target of the attacks.
After previous Houthi drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping vessels, the Pentagon said officials did not believe the group was targeting the warships.
But four other officials with knowledge of the discussions said in interviews with Politico that Biden administration officials are playing down the threat to avoid an escalation amid Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
The Houthis have made clear it is targeting commercial ships with ties to Israel, and has launched missiles toward the Israeli port city of Eilat in support of the Palestinians.
“If our ships see something is coming near them or toward them, they are going to assess it as a threat and shoot it down,” said one Pentagon official. “You’d be hard-pressed to find another time” US ships have been this challenged in the region.
A separate US official argued that not only Israeli, but also US ships are indeed threatened. “People are thinking this is an Israel thing, and because they are heavy-handed in Gaza no one is saying anything,” the official said. “The world should be condemning this.”
A second US official acknowledged that the US has deliberately avoided acknowledging its warships are a target because they are “trying to avoid unnecessary escalation.” But the official also pointed out that the administration has not said definitively that its warship was not targeted. “We are not hesitating to take action against forces or militia groups that could be a threat to our forces,” the official said.
Some Pentagon officials argue that attacks on commercial shipping already constitute an escalation. Admiral Christopher Grady, vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated the attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea are “a big deal,” while blaming them on Iran, which supports the Houthis.
“There’s undoubtedly an Iranian hand in this. So this looks a little bit like horizontal escalation,” he claimed.
Hizbullah’s Al-Manar TV Reports from Onboard the Hijacked Galaxy Leader – A Commercial Ship Seized by Yemeni-Houthis: Any Israeli Ship Sailing in the Red Sea Will Be Hauled to the Yemeni Shore #Hizbullah#Houthis#Israelpic.twitter.com/6TywoMemX1
National Security Advisor Sullivan also blamed Iran, stating “We have every reason to believe these attacks, while they were launched by [Ansarallah] in Yemen, are fully enabled by Iran.”
Some current US officials did not rule out the possibility that the administration will respond to the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, while some former US officials are calling specifically for it. “If we make the assessment or feel the need to respond, we will always make that decision at a time or place of our choosing. That is a decision that the [defense secretary] will also make in conjunction with the president,” said a second Pentagon official.
“Near to immediate term, where are the strikes on [Houthi] targets?” wrote Marc Polymeropoulos, former CIA official, on X. “Need to see this ASAP.” Retired Vice Adm. John Miller, the former commander of US 5th Fleet, said that “We are not taking this seriously.” Miller said, “We’re not deterring anybody right now.”
Miss Universe Alleged To Be At Center Of Plot To Overthrow Nicaraguan Government
How many of you had “beauty pageant contestant at center of allegations to overthrow an authoritarian government” on your 2024 bingo card? We sure didn’t.
But if you did, looks like you can mark your square thanks to Nicaraguan Miss Universe Sheynnis Palacios. Palacios was the first from her country to win the competition last month, but focus quickly turned to her life outside of the pageant world.
According to the Telegraph, she was quickly scrutinized for photos of her at “mass anti-government protests in 2018”. And now, the director of the country’s national beauty pageant has been charged with putting together a “foreign-backed plot” due to Palacios’ pro-democracy stance.
Pageant director Karen Celebertti now finds herself wanted by police on conspiracy charges, the report says. She’s facing charges of allegedly rigging the competition to ensure that anti-government contestants won.
Five years ago, over 300 individuals lost their lives when state forces suppressed demonstrations that lasted three months, targeting President Ortega’s regime. Public demonstrations were then prohibited by the authorities, but, following Ms. Palacios’s victory in November, numerous people chose to disregard the ban and openly celebrate in the streets.
“In these days of a new victory, we are seeing the evil, terrorist commentators making a clumsy and insulting attempt to turn what should be a beautiful and well-deserved moment of pride into destructive coup-mongering,” Ortega’s wife commented.
Celebertti hasn’t been let back into the country and is said to be in Mexico. Her husband and son have been detained on conspiracy charges that date back 5 years, The Telegraph writes.
Police accused her of using “spaces supposedly dedicated to promoting ‘innocent’ beauty pageants, in a conspiracy orchestrated to convert the contests into traps and political ambushes financed by foreign agents”.
Celebertti, her husband, and son have not publicly addressed the accusations. Palacios was not mentioned in the police report.
Meanwhile, if you’re in New York, keep your eyes peeled: Palacios has moved to the state to tend to her “Miss Universe duties” (whatever that means) and has stayed quiet about the issue.
