DOOM! Human Beings will have to leave the Earth in 100 years

Professor Stephen Hawking

By Erin Elizabeth 

According to renowned astrophysicist Professor Stephen Hawking, mankind must leave planet Earth in the next 100 years in order to survive.

In a new BBC series, Prof. Hawking claims that mankind’s time on Earth is running out and that we need to leave our planet if our species wants to survive.

Professor Hawking believes that humans must colonize other worlds within the next 100 years in order to survive several threats that our species faces; climate change, asteroid strikes and even overpopulation and perhaps the most worrisome of all, nuclear strikes.

BBC’s new documentary titled Expedition New Earth—which is part of the BBC’s new science season Tomorrow’s World—Professor Hawking and his former student Christophe Galfard travel around our planet trying to find out how our civilization could survive the near future.

According to the Telegraph, BBC’s series also aims to discover Britain’s greatest inventor and has asked the public to VOTE on the innovation which has been the most influential in their lives.

Professor Hawking has actively spoken out in the last couple of years about the threats that mankind faces.

From the dangers of Artificial Intelligence, biological warfare, to the threats from outer space, Professor Hawking said that only a “world government” may prevent impending doom.

Mr. Hawking previously commented that humans may lack the skills as a species to stay alive. “I don’t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping our fragile planet,” he had said, adding: “I therefore want to encourage public interest in space, and I have been getting my training in early.”

According to the World’s smartest man, our planet is headed towards disaster.

“Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years,” he said. “However, we will not establish self-sustaining colonies in space for at least the next hundred years, so we have to be very careful in this period.”

Last year Professor Hawking made quite a few predictions and said that chances of an apocalyptic even on Earth are a near certainty.

“Although the chance of disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next 1,000 or 10,000 years,” Hawking told the Oxford University Union in November.

“By that time, we should have spread out into space and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race.”

However, if we are to leave Earth as Professor Hawking suggests, where should we go? Who do you save? Who gets to go to a brand new planet? Who will take us there and who will pay for it all?

Too many questions that can be solved in a period of 100 years, don’t you think?

Efforts to create human colonies on other planets or moon’s in our solar system has already begun, with mastermind Elon Musk already hoping to establish functional settlements on another world in the next few decades through his company SpaceX.

Musk said in 2016: “I don’t have a doomsday prophecy, but history suggests some doomsday event will happen

*Article originally appeared on Earth. We are one.

Editorial

WARNING!

The warning by Professor Stephen Hawking a renowned astrophysicist that the earth could very easily become uninhabitable in the next 100 years ought to be taken seriously.

The rate of deforestation, the pollution of water bodies, global warning and the threat of nuclear annihilation must be enough pointers to possibility of the earth becoming uninhabitable in 100 years.

Professor Hawking’s suggestion is that we should escape from our own destructive tendencies and perhaps colonise another planet for our survival.

We disagree with him.

In our view what we need to do is to struggle to end all the dangers the earth faces so we can comfortably live on it.

It is within our power as human beings to stop a nuclear war and we can end environmental degradation.

 Let’s get to work now!

Local News:

PUWU DAMNS MINISTER 

By Abubakar Ibrahim

Staff of energy distribution company, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) have refuted government's claim that its debt keeps worsening on a daily basis. 

The Public Utilities Workers Union of TUC Ghana has expressed shock and regret at what they described as "unfortunate" the statement by Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko.

In a statement signed by Michael Adumatta Nyantakyi, the PUWU said "the Minister's assertion that ECG’s debt stock appears to be worsening by the day due to its faulty metering system and avoidable employee recklessness is not supported by the facts."

Mr Agyarko had told a group of journalists and officials of Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) after the inauguration of a 7-member ECG PSP Stakeholders’ Committee in Accra that the growing debt stock at the ECG was worsening by the day.

“What happens to the balance? You look at their inventory and they have 20 years’ supply of spares. You have locked up that money in spares that would be obsolete,” he said.

He further observed that “ECG’s debt accumulation on a monthly basis is GHS66 million...every month, they add GHS66 million to their cost. And if this happens in the next five years, what prevents the EOCO from laying you off?”

But PUWU said "ECG’s currently average weekly collection is GH¢103,918,594.11, as against a target of GH¢130,000,000. This excludes indebtedness by MMDAs and Ghana Water Company Limited, which are state entities."

"We want to state that as the Sector Minister, we expect him to provide strategic direction and policy guidelines for the Company, and not to descend into these minor operational areas which the Management of the Company can easily deal with.

"There are bigger issue to make the Company operate efficiently, and we thought that these are the issues which should occupy the mind and attention of the Minister," PUWU said. 

Boakye Agyarko, Minister of Energy

Below is the statement

The Public Utilities Workers Union of TUC Ghana, has read with shock the publication in the Daily Guide Newspaper of May, 15 2017, with respect to a statement purported to have been made by the Minister of Energy, Honourable Boakye Agyarko, under the caption “Energy Minister Uncovers ECG’s Rot.”

The statements attributed to the Minister are very much regrettable, and as workers of the Company, we find it very unfortunate that at such a critical stage in the life of ECG, the sector Minister will make such sweeping statements.

The assertion that ECG’s debt stock appears to be worsening by the day due to its faulty metering system and avoidable employee recklessness is not supported by the facts. On the contrary, ECG’s currently average weekly collection is GH¢103,918,594.11, as against a target of GH¢130,000,000. This excludes indebtedness by MMDAs and Ghana Water Company Limited, which are state entities.

If there is any accumulation of debt, then it is just coming from the angle of the MMDAs, and this has come about because of political directives not to disconnect the MMDAs because government has promised to pay the bills of the MMDAs. However, as at the end of 2016, the MMDAs debt stood at GH¢1,390,966,034.74. For the first three months of 2017, the MMDA debts totalled GH¢226,967,736.08, and of this debt for 2017, government has paid GH¢18,133,575.17.

As at the end of March 2017, total debt including that of GWCL was GH¢1,599,800,195.66, so it is strange for the Minister to attribute this accumulation of debt to the reckless acts or behaviour of ECG employees. If there is any debt accumulation, then it is the direct action of government for non-payment of MMDA bills, and not any inaction on the part of ECG employees.

There have been several instances where efforts to collect amounts owing from MMDAs have been frustrated and sometimes interfered by political pressures, such that even organisations that were disconnected were asked to be reconnected by political authorities.

Concerning the assertion that the US Embassy demands bills and ECG has not been able to provide the Embassy with bills is also very strange because as far we know to date, the US Embassy does not owe ECG in terms of bills. So if they were not getting bills, would they have paid all their indebtedness till date?

So this is a statement we find very unfortunate, and ask the Minister to provide further details. Similar details are also required about the issue of spare parts. Currently ECG is having shortage of materials which is affecting the one day service that was introduced by the Company.

With respect to MTN owing ECG about GH¢35,000,000 as asserted by the Minister, this is basically an issue of billing arrangement and some challenges with the initial CMS as it was deployed, which has been identified, and efforts made towards correcting this situation. MTN has over 1000 sites, and some MTN sites are already being billed through the Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) system, so bills are read automatically from remote areas.

It is the few areas which are not on the AMR that arrangements are being made to sort out the actual amounts that MTN has to pay, which some of the residential sites are being made to pay. However, the billing anomaly has been identified and the corrections are being made, so it is not accurate to say that MTN owes that much and nothing is being done to collect monies from MTN.

It is also strange for the Minister to assert that ECG’s networking capital is negative. It is a fact undisputable that Africa, south of the Sahara, with the exception of South Africa, ECG has the widest coverage in terms of electricity distribution, about 80%, despite the challenges with supply upsetting at a point in time, ECG has been distributing power to significant numbers of its customers, so it is strange that a Company which has a negative networking capital of GH¢2,000,000 will be able to continue servicing its customers on such regular basis.

And anybody who has taken time to go around the Country can attest to the fact that ECG, with the support of some external financing agencies, is constantly improving its distribution network, and building a lot of sub-stations as well as warehouses to improve its operational activities. We will therefore urge and challenge the Minister to come up with specifics with regards to such statements about this negative GH¢2,000,000 GHC networking capital of ECG.

In conclusion, we want to state that as the Sector Minister, we expect him to provide strategic direction and policy guidelines for the Company, and not to descend into these minor operational areas which the Management of the Company can easily deal with. There are bigger issue to make the Company operate efficiently, and we thought that these are the issues which should occupy the mind and attention of the Minister.

Four months into the new government, a Company like ECG has no Board, and with an Acting Managing Director. How do you expect key decisions to be taken to ensure improvement in the Company’s operation? Is it the question of giving the dog a bad name, so to hang it?

And we also want to draw the attention of government that such kind of pronouncements will not inure to the benefits of the Company or Ghana, because at the end of the day, even if you are going ahead with this PSP, you are projecting a very weak Company that will weaken the negotiations with any prospective bidder, and we think that the Minister ought to look at the bigger picture and see how to position ECG to be a Company that can provide value for Ghana and for Ghanaians.

Signed.

Lawyer Michael Adumatta Nyantakyi

“Together Let’s Get Ghana Working”

Ambassador Haruna Atta

By H.E. Abdul-Rahman Harruna Attah, MOV

How many Ghanaians remember “The Decade that Stopped the Decay”? This was the message that sprung up on billboards in Accra – and possibly around the country, during the tenth anniversary of the coup of December 31 1981.

Governments would often come up with such things to convince themselves that they are either doing well or enjoy the goodwill of the governed and are “carrying the people along”.

How many Ghanaians remember “The Decade that Stopped the Decay”? This was the message that sprung up on billboards in Accra – and possibly around the country, during the tenth anniversary of the coup of December 31 1981.

Governments would often come up with such things to convince themselves that they are either doing well or enjoy the goodwill of the governed and are “carrying the people along”.

Some are also meant to build a personality cult around a “leader” and so images of whoever at that time is in charge pop up all over the place accompanied by quotes from his or her sayings.

At one time in the not too distant past, the state-owned media started referring to the PNDC Chairman as the “Leader of the Revolution”, It did not catch on and fizzled out after a while. The same state-owned media, specifically in this case, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, had much earlier toyed about, during the Acheampong NRC days with “Voice of the Revolution”! Military regimes are rather fond of these things…

During civilian administrations, electioneering campaign periods, offer opportunities for political narcissism, now accepted as a legitimate part of the game and citizens are bombarded with images and sound-bytes that are intended to wiggle out the votes from us. Whether they succeed in that or not, basketfuls of money are expended from campaign war chests to get the messages following us all over the place.

Election 2016 has come and gone. A change from one administration to the other has been by and large smooth and seamless. Stunned into silence, the departing administration has vacated the agitation-propaganda space, now dominated by the victors’ part sneering, part triumphalist messages. The “Ayeeko” immediately after the change-over were fawning gloats from party people and can be excused as post-election celebratory exuberance, but official sounding ones have also made an appearance. Two that caught my attention in the weeks after the change-over were the one commanding us to get together and get “Ghana working” and another one with a “Pledge” as its theme…

As public exhortations go, who can quarrel or indeed why take issue with a national rallying call to get together and get the country working?!

It is just that something about them doesn’t sound convincing and genuine – perhaps rather contradictory and hypocritical to the reality.

First of all our multi-party dispensation does not make the exhortations possible and secondly the people behind such exhortations lack the kind of sincerity and magnanimity that will get all of us getting together to get our country working.

Our (mis)interpretations, over the years of elections, is that the winning party has all the wisdom, expertise, knowledge, experience and human resource to run our affairs single-handedly. A tradition therefore of discarding vital human resources after elections, that do not belong, has been established. Very good people have been put out to pasture simply on the grounds that they do not belong. They have been discarded not on the grounds of inability, incompetence or crime against the state but simply because of elections…It is a long inglorious story of nugatory vindictiveness and pettiness, spanning these past 60 years of our nationhood. Our immediate post-election periods often mirror military take-overs.

In the 4th Republic, there have been three real change-overs: 2000, 2008 and 2016 when one political party has handed over to another and true to form they have all been fraught with the military take-over mindset…

There is nowhere more victimized than the public services where CEOs fall prey to witch-hunts and purges. A couple of examples will suffice: When the NPP came to power after the 2000 elections Dr. Akoto at TOR was a victim. When the NDC came to power after the 2008 elections, Dr. Sarpong at TOR was also shown the exit… These are two MDs I worked with whose abilities I can vouch for and who deserved better than their politically motivated booting out of office. There are many, many, of such humiliating exits…

But one recent one that has chilled my blood is the booting of Alfred Ogbamey from his communication job at the gas company. The office he was occupying before Election 2016 was not even at the CEO level. Rumour has it that his “case” came up at a cabinet meeting and like in a Roman arena where blood-thirsty spectators bay for the blood of the vanquished, the thumbs down for his blood were overwhelming and he had to be axed. Other rumours claim that the letter for his decapitation emanated from the highest office of the land!

So with this kind of purge mentality, how can we together get Ghana working? The exhortation, that “Together Let’s Get Ghana Working”, is not only patently insincere and hollow, but rather insulting, in the face of these witch-hunts.

A nation, said Abraham Lincoln, cannot survive half free, half slave; true, a developing nation like Ghana, I also declare, cannot make progress with half in vilification and half in self-righteous Machiavellian axe-wielding! This electoral cycle of tit for tat cannot be the catalyst to encourage, grow and nurture the spirit of “Together Let’s Get Ghana Working”.

Foreign News:

Destabilization Plots against Syria and Venezuela

By Hugo Turner

The empire is on the rampage across the planet. World War 4 is intensifying with disastrous results for the world. The US has expanded its aggression against so many countries at once that is hard to keep up.

North Korea is under threat of an unprovoked attack. However North Korea is prepared to defend itself and Trump will probably be forced to back down. In fact he already has made a fool of himself with his ghost armada.

In Afghanistan he dropped a MOAB bomb on Torah Bora suffocating and incinerating untold numbers of Afghanis. In fact he plans another pointless surge in Afghanistan when everyone knows the war is lost.

Yemen which has already known untold suffering in the 2-year long war will now suffer even more as the US expands its role in the conflict attempting to rescue the genocidal Saudi royals from a humiliating defeat at the hands of Yemen’s people.

The US is expanding its decades long war on Somalia.

In Ecuador the US is trying to undermine the election of Lenin Moreno. NATO is cementing its ties to the fanatical bloodthirsty royals of the GCC countries (the Saudis, Qataris, and other tyrants) through the NATO-Istanbul cooperation Initiative which means NATO and Al Qaeda are basically officially allied as if it wasn’t already obvious after the horrifying wars on Libya and Syria.

In other words Trump is massively expanding every dirty war and destabilization campaign the Empire is involved in and doubtless in future months we will learn of countries now peaceful being thrown into chaos as a result of CIA/NED operations now being launched of which we have no idea. We can only hope that Russia and China are working on some plans of their own.

For now, however,  I must focus on the two countries which are among the most important fronts in World War 4:  Syria and Venezuela. Thankfully the initial attack on Syria was far from the all out war I feared. Brave soldiers and civilians were killed but the Syrians were able to get the air base back online the next day. However it sets a dangerous precedent for the US to attack Syria whenever the NATO death squads are loosing some battle.

In Venezuela there is yet another attempt to overthrow the government and install US puppets. The Neoliberal opposition in Venezuela have been rioting revealing their true character with the evil and stupidity of their antics. However the people of Venezuela have taken to the streets to oppose the latest plots against their country.

We’ll probably never know what actually happened behind the scenes but instead of launching an all out regime change assault on Syria, Trump merely did openly what the US has been doing “accidentally” since it began bombing Syria. He targeted the SAA and doubtless their Russian and Iranian allies at Shayrat airbase which the Syrian Arab Air force was using to support the SAA’s victorious counter-offensive in the battle of Hama and in its attacks on ISIS controlled areas. It was also of course the same base from which allegedly Syria shot down an Israeli jet which was openly serving as ISIS air force. The rumor is that using electronic warfare Russia was able to disable more then half the Tomahawks. Only 23 of 59 hit their targets. It is unclear how many were killed as Syria attempted to portray the effects as minimal in order to avoid boosting enemy morale. Regardless of the damage the strikes have had little effect on the course of the war. The SAA is advancing victoriously across the country although NATO’s terrorist death squads are also launching fierce counter-offensives they made only temporary gains that were quickly reversed. Once again Syria has proved itself the most heroic country on the planet. In the face of Trump’s treachery, the endless lies of the mainstream media and genocidal “Human Rights” groups, the threats of the US and NATO, and attacks by the US and Israel they refuse to lose heart or to stop even for a single day their war to liberate their country from the terrorist death squads.

These monsters whom the west calls moderates sunk to a new level of infamy last week with their murder of over 200 people of whom 116 were children. We will never forget the horrible massacre at Rashideen. The people killed were refugees from the towns of Foua and Karfaya who have suffered one of the most tragic sieges of the war.

I learned of them at the same time as I learned of the work of the courageous Eva Bartlett back in 2015. Her articles were both horrifying and heartbreaking. Often lacking food, electricity, clean water, or medicine, they were being continually bombarded by death squads who fired rockets, artillery and “Hell Cannons” Fuel canisters turned into fire bombs.

Families watched as their loved ones died because of lack of medicine. Children starved to death or were killed by terrorists. Yet their plight was of course completely ignored by the propagandists in the mainstream media. Since then their ordeal has continued shelling hunger and being forced to repel constant attacks. Finally a deal was struck to evacuate them to safety in the same way as the Syrian government has allowed the terrorists to flee unharmed with their lives and families.

But the terrorists of course cannot be trusted to show similar mercy to their victims. Instead they decided to murder the children of the refugees. First they held the refugees captive on the buses for two days. Then a car drove up offering to give away food to the starving passengers. As the children gathered around to collect bags of potato chips the NATO death squads detonated a bomb killing over 200 people 115 of them children. The poor refugees of Foua and Karfaya were not even allowed to keep the corpses of their murdered children but were forced to watch as the terrorists and some turkish ambulances collected and then drove off with their children’s corpses. It is hard even to find words to describe the monstrous depravity of this crime which is on the hands not just of the terrorists but their US-NATO-GCC-Israel backers and above all on the western media who the terrorists knew could be counted on to completely ignore their many crimes.

Thankfully heroic independent journalist Vanessa Beeley was there to further investigate and expose this terrible tragedy which was caught on film. We must never forget the horrifying massacre of Rashideen.

Although Trump’s missile strikes have failed to shift the balance of the war far more menacing are his plans to invade and occupy Syria which are ever expanding. The Pentagon is now talking about sending 50,000 troops to invade an occupy Syria. In addition to the massive territory the US is occupying in northern Syria using the kurds as a front, the US now plans to do the same for the Wahhabi death squads in the south and the East. The US, the Jordanian army, and their terrorist allies have launched an invasion from the south. The US also sent helicopters to land an Invading US army to the east of Deir Ezzor the Heroic Syrian city that has been surrounded by ISIS for years and has refused to surrender.

Clearly the US plans to seize as much Syrian territory as possible so it will have a base to endlessly wage war on Syria. The US plans to create a terrorist proxy state in Eastern Syria. In reality it will be a US approved version of ISIS that will be given a huge swath of territory under US protection. As a reward for the many horrific crimes they have committed, murder, looting, rape, slavery, destruction of Syria’s heritage, destruction of hospitals, schools, food storage, electric facilities, poisoning water, Suicide bombings, hell cannons, Mutilation torture and genocide the NATO backed rebels will be given their own state guarded by american troops.

People who blow up busloads of children will be rewarded for their crimes with their own american puppet state. This possibility is too sickening to contemplate but the Trump administration is moving with lightning speed to insure that this plan is carried out creating yet another terrorist proxy army the “Eastern Shield” whose ranks are sure to swell with “former” ISIS members and other terrorists fighting alongside US Marines. It’s another planned disaster for the empire of chaos. Death, destruction, Chaos will be the inevitable results of this insane policy. With typical 21st century insanity this scheme is called “Safe Zones.”

In Venezuela, yet another coup scheme is under way. Syria appears to be the blueprint for what they have planned for Venezuela. Simply label terrorism as peaceful protests and use the chaos as an excuse to intervene. Instead of Al Qaeda however the foot soldiers are the fascist fifth column the US has spent nearly 20 years funding and training. They hope to create as much death and destruction as possible in the hopes it can be blamed on the Venezuelan Government and be used to trigger an intervention.

In fact the “opposition” has been flying to Washington DC plotting their coup quite openly. They hope to install a puppet regime with the aid of US troops composed of Venezuela’s old corrupt politicians. These would impose the same unpopular neo-liberal austerity measures carried out in Brazil and Argentina after their soft coups against the wishes of the public who are brutally repressed. Thankfully the CIA created opposition who were foolishly elected to the national assembly a year and a half ago have since discredited themselves. At the same time since those elections the failure of the government to cope with the economic war inspired the grass roots Bolivarian movement the people not the politicians to come up with their own solutions.

Visitors to Venezuela now claim that the worst is over and that things are once again improving. It is the ultimate revenge of Hugo Chavez even from the grave he was able to inspire the Venezuelan people to put his ideas into practice.

This is precisely what has inspired the rage in the fascist opposition and their CIA backers. Of course racist billionaire emperor Trump hates the Bolivarian Socialist Republic of Venezuela as do his drug dealing cuban terrorist friends in brigade 2506. Doubtless he okayed this new coup scheme. Thus like the bombing of the buses in the Massacre at Rashideen by terrorists emboldened by Trump’s cruise missile strikes the crimes of the fascist opposition are also the result of his criminal policies.

Thankfully for the people of Venezuela the rich fascists are amateurs compared to the “moderate rebels” but their intent is no less monstrous. A woman is on her way from work suddenly a frozen bottle of water tossed out of a window high up in an apartment complex by a Venezuelan fascist comes crashing down onto her head. As I write she is still in the hospital in critical condition. The incident demonstrates the total contempt for ordinary Venezuelans that the fascist opposition shows. It was the result of calls by opposition politicians for attacks on Chavista protestors calling for turning flower pots into weapons  although the woman was merely heading to work.

In another incident 4 fascists attacked a Venezuelan police officer who had fallen off his motorcycle they ripped out 4 of his teeth as a macabre form of torture. They have engaged in a campaign of looting arson and terror.

The most memorable incident proving their total depravity was an attack on a maternity hospital full of newborns and their mothers. They were forced to evacuate the hospital when a mob of fascists began throwing rocks and glass then set a huge trash fire to try and smoke them out. Long ago near the beginning of World War 4 the Kuwaiti ambassadors daughter coached by the Hill and Knowlton PR firm pretended to be a nurse who had witnessed savage Iraqi soldiers stealing incubators from helpless babies. This completely fabricated story was used as an excuse to launch a war followed by sanctions that killed half a million Iraqi children.

Now the US is funding an Opposition group that is doing almost exactly the same thing as the Iraqi’s were accused of. Many of the children needed help breathing but were forced to flee. Even the Iraqis were not accused of setting fires aimed at killing the newborns the way Venezuela’s fascist opposition have done. Of course the US state department will instead condemn the Maduro government demanding they give free reign to the fascists in the hopes of a Maidan style coup. Venezuela has already been warned not to interfere with their rights to attack women and children or to perform amateur dental torture on unwilling victims. The attack on the Maternity Hospital is the latest example of the fascist opposition which hates the ordinary people of Venezuela so much that it attempts to destroy every program aimed to improve their lives whether hospitals aiming to heal or subsidized stores intending to provide affordable food. If allowed to continue they would happily wreak the same misery on Venezuela as the NATO death death squads have inflicted on Syria.

Thankfully neither the Maduro Government nor the Venezuelan people will allow these fascist scum to seize control of their country. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans held Anti-Imperialist marches demanding an end to outside interference in their country. To discourage an Invasion Maduro plans to massively expand the armed civilian militia from 100,000 to 500,000. Thus if the US and it’s allies should ever invade the Venezuelan people are prepared to fight for however long it takes to liberate their country and perhaps the entire continent. At the same time the Government is prepared to defend Venezuela. They have instituted Plan Zamora a massive drill aimed at readying their defenses. They have already arrested a Colombian Death squad planning to carry out an assassination campaign under cover of the fascist riots. They also foiled a military coup attempt and arrested a ringleader. Thus we have reason to hope that this latest coup attempt will fail like all the others. However the empire of chaos will never stop trying to destroy Venezuela. A dozen people have already died during this latest coup attempt.

The Struggle continues. World War 4 is heating up. The future seems bleak. Yet we can draw inspiration from the heroic spirit of the peoples of Syria and Venezuela. No matter what they have suffered they simply refuse to give up. This determination to struggle on no matter the odds or how long it takes is the only thing that has ever been able to defeat the empire as the peoples of Vietnam and Korea have shown in the past. The whole world is in deadly danger and every single one of us must rise to the occasion if there is to be any hope for a future. The bright dream of Venezuela that we can build a better world and the grim determination of Syria never to surrender are an inspiration to the world.

Sources

Vanessa Beeley on one of the greatest war crimes in recent memory the massacre at Rashideen
https://syria360.wordpress.com/2017/04/21/rashideen-massacre-children-lured-to-their-slaughter-by-nato-state-terrorists/

Pepe Escobar on Mad Emperor Trump’s War on the world
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-14/pepe-escobar-trumps-new-normal-piece-cake-foreign-policy

Tony Cartalucci on the US Plan B for Syria Stealing Massive amounts of Syrian Land to Create a “Safe Zone” for Al Qaeda and the US Kurdish Mercenaries
https://syria360.wordpress.com/2017/04/18/us-didnt-change-priorities-in-syria-it-lost/

The Latest news from Syrian Perspective

https://syrianperspective.com/2017/04/teebat-al-imaam-liberated-syrian-army-on-a-roll-in-derah-last-citizens-leave-besieged-towns-of-kafrayyaa-and-al-fawah.html

Fascist Attack on a Maternity Ward in Venezuela
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2017/04/21/venezuela-attac

A 1959 Letter

Richard Nixon

By Bob Brigham

The history of United States’ relationship with the Russians has been marked by a delicate balancing act between internal political ramifications and external international relations goals.

In the last hundred years, the US and the Russians fought two world wars as allies and waged a long Cold War as adversaries. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, there was a Red Scare domestically and a second Red Scare following the end of World War II.

A newly surfaced letter from Richard Nixon was written against such a backdrop. The 1959 letter was written on official Office of the Vice President stationary and was addressed to Mrs. M. S. Richardson in La Grange, North Carolina on the subject of school integration.

In the letter, Nixon made the case that domestic American racism could help the Russians win the Cold War.

“I am deeply concerned with the impact of racial division in terms of world power,” Nixon wrote. “Most of the people of the world belong to the colored races. They deeply resent any slurs based on race.”

 “If we of the United States are considered racists, then we may lose to the Communist camp hundreds of millions of potential friends and allies,” Nixon explained. “That would leave us disastrously isolated in a hostile world.”

The letter will be auctioned off on Tuesday, May 9 by Alexander Historical Auctions. The auction house estimates a sale of $4,000 between $5,000.

At the time, Nixon also focused on his moral opposition to racism.

“Praise or blame, acceptance or rejection, should be personal matters based on individual achievement and not the accident of color or birth,” he wrote. “I could not accept Hitler’s idea of a master race. I cannot accept the equally false principle of an inferior race.”

Between his unsuccessful 1960 presidential campaign and his successful 1968 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon famously embraced the “Southern Strategy” of exploiting racial divisions for reasons of political expediency.

Last year, the New Republic published a piece explaining how decades of Republicans embracing a Southern Strategy led to Donald Trump’s domination of GOP primaries.

“Goldwater’s Southern Strategy, inspired by National Review, set a pattern for the next half-century—and more. The party had changed so much in 1964 that even Nixon, who had been liberal on civil rights before the Goldwater takeover, adopted the Southern Strategy in 1968 and 1972, “the New Republic contextualized. “Dixie would be the new heartland for the Republican Party, which would stoke white resentment over African-American advances.”

Since Nixon’s 1968 campaign, Sourthern racism has been integral to conservative political ideology.

Notorious Republican campaign consultant Lee Atwater famously explained the dog whistle politics that defined the 1968 campaign.

” You start out in 1954 by saying, “N*gger, n*gger, n*gger.” By 1968 you can’t say “n*gger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract,” Atwater told Alexander Lamis, a political scientist at Case Western Reserve University. “Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N*gger, n*gger.”

Nixon’s shift on racism, from moral opposition to political expediency, foretold the trend we have witnessed in the last year as Republican moral opposition to the Russians has shifted to a position of political opportunism.

Nixon’s 1959 letter is a powerful data point in the story of how the Republican Party has reacted to both racism and the Russians.