Iran

Iran is a large country, and one of the oldest in the world.  (Other contenders for oldest country are Egypt and Vietnam.). Iranians developed the first monotheism, and freed Jews from Babylonian captivity.

Tehran is a very large city of 10 million people, and the metropolitan area of Tehran includes 16 million people.  By comparison, New York City has 8.3 million people.  By all accounts, Tehran is a beautiful city:

Iran never "kicked out" Jews, and Tehran has a pampered Jewish community with more historic temples than non-Shia muslim faiths.  Jews have lived in Tehran since the founding of the Second Temple.  Not surprisingly, most Jews in Iran are anti-Zionist.  Judaism is a protected religion in Iran.  

(Bahai is not protected, Iranians are suspicious of Bahai because many spies have been Bahai.  Bahai leaders are often aligned with Israel and many Bahai live there.  But it looks like Iranians take this too far and it has become religious persecution.)

Many reports (and a few of my own personal experiences) suggest Iranians are the most hospitable people on earth.  For example, an American traveler posted this story:

I lived and traveled in Iran for months. In Tehran I lived with the family of a retired bank worker who saw me looking for housing. I roomed with his son for months, ate all my meals with them, and they never accepted any money. Once I was sick and throwing up and they all came into the bathroom and the dad stroked my head while I barfed and told me “Aybi nadare” (no shame, it’s ok). I traveled around most of the country by plane, train, bus, shared taxi, etc. Eventually I stopped booking hotels because I’d always meet people on the train, bus etc who’d insist I stay with them. The family of Iran/Iraq war vets from Yazd who took me to Taft for bbq in the mountains. The taxi driver from Rasht who made a bed for me on the floor of his tiny apartment because all the hotels were full. The only time a police officer talked to me was once to make sure I was ok. I never felt in any danger day or night. The land of Iran is as incredibly diverse as its people. There are mountainous rain forests and desert salt flats. I met among the most liberal and most conservative people there, and everything in between. Everyone was so kind it makes me cry with shame.

Yesterday western media reported that Iran struck a hospital in Beersheba.  The hospital is well known for treating IDF fighting in nearby Gaza.*  Left generally unreported (and actually hard to find online) is that Israel previously hit a hospital in Iran.

(*Iran also makes claims, more credible than similar Israeli ones which have

been proven false on endless occasions before, the the Beersheba hospital

was above some military base.  It seems interesting to me that Beersheba is only 42km from Dimona.)

The war between Israel and Iran was started by Israel, which had no legal reason to launch attacks against Iran.  Iran is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has continued to follow a Fatah against making nuclear weapons, but meanwhile enriching uranium as high as NPT allows.  No one has ever proven that Iran has a nuclear weapons program (what they have is a nuclear enrichment program).  

Israel is NOT a signatory to NPT, has illegally helped other countries acquire nuclear materials, and has a significant number of nuclear weapons made possible by thefts of material from USA (most famously from NUMEC to which LBJ turned a blind eye, and which in general JFK had been trying to prevent).

For no good reason, Trump abrogated the JCA during his first term.  JCA gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for not developing nuclear weapons.  The US intelligence community still believes that Iran has not developed nuclear weapons.  But Trump broke the agreement in his first term and put sanctions back on Iran.  In negotiations for a new agreement, US has been pressing Iran to give up all missile development.  It seems that it's not really about nukes, US wants Iran and its proxies to be completely defenseless.  Most people I know think Iran has more rights to nukes than Israel, and wish they'd hurry up and build them.  I've generally believed Iran was following the wisest course.

Iran has fought back against Israeli aggression very conservatively, tit-for-tat, avoiding escalation, hoping to minimize US involvement.  It is easy to determine the side that is ethically better.  Israel has recently bombed many middle east countries and has been conducting a genocide in Gaza and pogroms in the West Bank against Palestinians.  That proxies of Iran have been resisting Israel is to their ethical credit and our ethical debt.

The Economy

 During the unusual Biden to Harris vs Trump election year, there were many conflicting claims about the economy.

Some said we faced terrible problems during the Covid years, including very high inflation and unemployment, but astute management by the Biden administration and the Fed brought both indicators better than seen in quite awhile.

Others complained about high inflation and underemployment with low paying jobs replacing earlier high paying jobs.

Both have some truth (though I believe MAGA Red made a lot of hay from the false belief that the inflation rate was still high.  By all standard measurements, it was not: although we previously had experienced very high inflation (along with vastly reduced income, especially for some) and that was now permanently baked in, the actual rate had come down, which at least demonstrated some kind of competent skill* from the Biden Administration and the Fed, the kind of skill that would probably be lost with a hard right doctrinaire team of unqualified morons that would be hired by Trump.

On the other hand, there are fundamental problems, a wise Biden Administration could have done far better, and lots of problems are simply baked in because of spending about 1/3 of our resources on our endless war of global domination against the rest of the world.  Two big wars started under the Biden Administration.  I believe they could have been prevented (and even be stopped now immediately) by the US by simply stopping the weapons and support being sent to them.

*****

Imagine we're in the proverbial spiral down to hell (in the center of the earth).  It's not a fixed constant spirl, but our path while sliding down the inside of a cone.

As we proceed downwards, at any one time, we may be headed north.  So some may call out, "The problem is we are headed north!"  So there's a great push to the side to knock us off that course.  But meanwhile all we have done is gone further down, though possibly more steeply in some quadrants than others.

Changing from down to up requires fundamental change like turning the world upside down.

The fundamental change we need has to start with putting people first.

(* I hesitate to say expertise any more in describing people like Treasury Sec Powell, who is it least much more competent and skillful than anyone that could be imagined being appointed by Trump.  But like all others before, he continues down the path of employing mainstream neoclassical economics, which has certain deleterious side effects, among them creating instability by stability,  facilitating destructive growth more than useful development, and endlessly ratcheting up inequality.  The anti-economics economist I like most, Steve Keen, has a marvelous essay on the current disasterous state of QE, which probably never should have been done...people's needs should have been funded directly...and then stopped asap.  Paying interest on the reserves essentially created by QE is even worse.)

Who Started the Terrorism?

Who Started Terrorism in the Arab-Israeli Conflict? Bombs in Cafes: first used by Zionists in Palestine on March 17th, 1937 in Jaffa. Bombs on Buses: first used by Zionists in Palestine Aug. 20th-Sep. 26, 1937. Bombs in Market Places: first used by Zionists on July 6th, 1938 in Haifa. Bombing of Hotels: first used by Zionists on July 22nd, 1946 in Jerusalem. Bombing of Foreign Embassies: first used by Zionists on October 1st, 1946 in Rome (against the British). Mining of Ambulances: First used by Zionists on October 31st, 1946 in Petah Tikvah. Letter Bombs: first used by Zionists in June 1947 against British targets in UK. (for documentation, consult The Arab Women's Information Committee and The Institute for Palestine Studies, Who Are the Terrorists? Aspects of Zionist and Israeli Terrorism, (Beirut: Insitute for Palestine Studies, 1972).

Slightly Modified Establishment Journalism

Yasha Levine show how much a lie it is that Substack represents anything other than the establishment itself.  Truly independent journalists like him are the clickbait Substack uses while their algorithms try to steer you to preferred establishment types, like Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi, whose aura he deftly punches.

It's much like the real alternatives are merely the sizzle to sell the steak.

SMEJ, slightly modified establishment journalism.

China Belt and Road Initiative

China's BRI is consistently disparaged in mainstream US media including books.

Kyle on X has collected a trove of reports from official western sources that show BRI is positive for the world.  (This link is to a thread unroller not X.  I try to avoid sending you to X, though for certain strands of anti-Imperialism, there is more to be found on X than elsewhere, Kyle being one example.)

BTW, Kyle is an author, software engineer, and tenant organizer who lives in Portland, Oregon.  His book is Why The World Needs China.

The Communist Party in USA (CPUSA) has a very similar take.  In some earlier decades, CPUSA was very critical of the Communist Party of China (CPC).  Not anymore!  CPUSA Texas recently shared this book on China for discussion.  Published by Praxis Press, an independent Marxist publisher.

Here's another fairly upbeat take on China, from, of all places, UK's Conservative Telegraph.

The Human Economy is an Inversion of the Planet's Economy

 George T hits it out of the park again with another insightful essay.

Lab Leak Evidence Organized

I think this is the best article I've read on the Lab Leak, as it puts all the evidence and its context in a timeline.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/covid-19-lab-leak-origin-most-likely-matt-ridley/