Monday, March 28, 2022
Sunday, March 27, 2022
DOUBLE-DOWN DOUBLE-SPEAK: U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Sourcing-and-Supplying Lethal Arms & Weapons
US, UK, Canada sanctions target Myanmar air force, ‘arms dealers’
New sanctions imposed as generals who seized power in February 2021 coup continue assault on civilians.
![<div class=__reading__mode__extracted__imagecaption>Myanmar's military has stepped up aerial and ground attacks on civilians [File: Free Burma Rangers via AP Photo]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/AP22074081954874.jpg?resize=770%2C513)
"The United States, the United Kingdom and Canada have imposed coordinated new sanctions on Myanmar, focusing on senior military officials, including the newly-appointed chief of the air force and those linked to the arms trade in response to the military’s brutal crackdown on opponents to its rule.
The US sanctions target three alleged Myanmar arms dealers as well as the companies linked to them, and two businesses controlled by sanctioned arms dealer Tay Zaw. . .
The UK took action against arms dealers and companies with a focus on those sourcing and supplying weapons to the air force, which has engaged in the bombing of civilian villages, forcing tens of thousands from their homes.
Those pinpointed include air force chief General Htun Aung who is also a director of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd (MEHL), a significant military conglomerate. . .
Earlier this month, in its first detailed assessment of the situation, the United Nations accused the military of committing war crimes, including torture and indiscriminate killings of civilians in its attempts to put down opposition to its rule.
A report on Thursday from Fortify Rights and the Schell Center said the army and police were under instructions to deliberately fire at civilians. It recommended 61 senior military officials be investigated for ‘crimes against humanity’ . . ."
Reference: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/26/us-uk-canada-target-myanmar-airforce-arms-dealers
BIDEN BRINGS BACK THAT OLD COLD WAR RHETORIC
Intro: Playing allusions to old glory in a speeches ... New battle lines are being drawn in the 21st Century
Biden summons history in sweeping call for renewed alliance of democracies
"President seeks to re-establish US as a leader in global affairs after years of Trump-led disengagement
In a speech in Poland on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Joe Biden indicated his intent to re-position the US as a leader in global affairs after four years of disengagement during the Trump administration.
It is not a task many thought Biden would so firmly take on when he took office in 2021. Initially, Biden focused on healing domestic wounds following four chaotic years of the Trump administration and the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic.
But Biden’s speech in Poland appeared designed to signal a shift in US policy and a generational call to arms for democratic countries to unite against autocracy in a years-long foreign policy project, with the US at its head.
“In this battle, we need to be clear eyed,” said Biden. “This battle will not be won in days or months, either. We need to steel ourselves for the long fight ahead.”
That unity, Biden signaled, would need to include democracies that have at times been at odds with one another.
The sweeping speech ended with a call for “a different future, a brighter future rooted in democracy and principle, hope and light”.
The president used the speech to draw historical parallels between the war in Ukraine, which began a month ago when Russian forces invaded, to the second world war; moments symbolic of freedom including the fall of the Berlin Wall; and the words of Pope John Paul II, who was Polish and who told the world: “Be not afraid.”
In its sweep and scope, the speech had echoes of other major foreign policy addresses given by US presidents on European soil, such as Ronald Reagan’s “tear down this wall” speech in Berlin in 1987 and John F Kennedy’s Ich bin ein Berliner call in 1963.
“All of us, including here in Poland, must do the hard work of democracy each and every day – in my country as well. That’s why I came to Europe again this week,” said Biden. “For all freedom-loving nations, we must commit now to be in this fight for the long haul.” . .
“This is the task of our time. The task of this generation,” the president said about the fight against autocracy. . .
Biden called Vladimir Putin a “tyrant” and appealed directly to the Russian people. He invoked the struggles of the second world war, including the siege of Leningrad, which would be “fresh in the memory of many grandparents”. . .
Joe Biden delivers a speech in the courtyard of the Royal Castle in Warsaw on Saturday. Photograph: Piotr Molęcki/East News/REX/Shutterstock
Reference: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/26/joe-biden-poland-speech-russia-ukraine-nato
ZOOMER ZELENSKIY: Performer + Politician
A key reason Putin’s bloody invasion is faltering? He’s no match for Zelenskiy’s iPhone
The leader’s messages to his people – and the west - have been central to the heroic fightback. But now more than ever, we must stay engaged
". . .Note the present tense. There is nothing former about Zelenskiy and his colleagues’ vocation: they’re still producers now. Indeed, there is scarcely a gap between Zelenskiy’s two incarnations as politician and performer. His most famous hit show was called Servant of the People; his political party is called Servant of the People. . .
In David Hare’s new play Straight Line Crazy, the urban planner Robert Moses is hailed in the 1920s as “a new kind of man … the man who believes that the way you’re written about is as important as what you do”. But Zelenskiy has taken it to a new level, not least because he has adapted everything he learned from conventional TV to the idiom of social media.
He understands that in the new era, the war leader does not stand besuited at a podium, declaiming a speech packed with rhetorical flourish. Instead, Zelenskiy’s message is that he is a servant of the people because he is one of the people, no different from any of them. In his trademark short videos, he wears military olive-green, but it’s not a formal uniform, still less the ceremonial getup of a head of state. He wears exactly what a civilian volunteer would wear.
The locations are chosen just as deliberately. If he’s not at a simple desk in a plain office, he’s just outside the presidential palace, with landmarks Ukrainians would recognise visibly in shot. As David Patrikarakos, whose book, War in 140 Characters, was among the first to identify the changing face of battle in the age of Twitter, tells me: “In those videos, Zelenskiy is literally the man in the street.” Together with a knack for demotic, unflowery soundbites – “I need ammunition, not a ride” – he has become a master of what Patrikarakos calls “digital statesmanship”. He’s Churchill with an iPhone. . .
And yet, there are limits to Kyiv’s success in the messaging wars. For one thing, while it has made the Ukrainian president a hero in the west, it is not penetrating elsewhere. It was notable that the 35 countries that abstained on this month’s UN resolution condemning Moscow’s invasion account for half the world’s population. Zelenskiy is a hit in Paris and Berlin; in Beijing and Delhi, not so much. . .
Social media in particular crave novelty. Once the initial shock of footage of bombed-out buildings or distraught victims wears off, Ukraine could recede from the public mind.
Perhaps mindful of that danger, Zelenskiy has been careful to offer variety. In his rolling series of video link addresses to the world’s parliaments – itself an innovation – he’s careful to tailor his message to his audience. Speaking to Westminster, he channelled Churchill. To Capitol Hill, it was America “the leader of the free world”. To Budapest on Thursday, he invoked the memory of the fascist massacre on the banks of the Danube. He is intensifying his language too, shaming western allies for not doing enough. “Why can’t we get weapons from you?” he asked Israeli lawmakers on Sunday, reminding them they would “have to live with” their decision. Visually, he’s mixing things up: this week saw a montage, complete with voiceover in English. It looked and sounded like a trailer for a Hollywood blockbuster.
But canny messaging and sharp production values take you only so far. Pomerantsev says: “Sympathy is not enough. He has to take people on a journey towards something.”
. . .In truth, this should not all be on Zelenskiy and his extraordinary team of TV maestros. Putin’s threat is not just to Ukraine, but to a wider world that has not fully absorbed the menace it now confronts: a dictator ready to obliterate cities in the heart of Europe, his head filled with fantasies of conquest and domination, happy to ward off any challenge by threatening to unleash nuclear havoc. Turning back that danger cannot be left to a small group of creatives in a bunker in Kyiv, no matter how gifted. This is a task for the world."
SELF-ABSORBED NARCISSIST TEXAS SENATOR TED CRUZ: Roasted on Twitter for Conduct During Confirmation Hearing
OOPS! Reporters Spot What Sen. Ted Cruz Was Looking At On His Phone During Hearings
The Texas senator was roasted on Twitter for this one.
"Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had yet another awkward moment with technology on Wednesday when reporters spotted what he was checking on his phone during confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.
It was his own social media mentions.
Cruz went beyond his allotted time with his attacks on Jackson, drawing a gavel from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), which led to a testy exchange between the two.
Once Cruz was done grandstanding for the cameras, he whipped out his cellphone. Los Angeles Times reporter Nolan D. McCaskill caught what he was doing:
Ted Cruz looks like he’s checking his mentions after his back and forths with KBJ and Durbin. He’s had his head down during all of Coons’ testimony, even as Sasse and Tillis are clearly listening to their Democratic colleague and the nominee before them pic.twitter.com/Rrlud9FHov
— Nolan D. McCaskill (@NolanDMcCaskill) March 23, 2022
Can confirm this. He was searching twitter for his name, this was right after his exchange with Chairman Durbin. https://t.co/pd7W6SHVPV pic.twitter.com/AKXoe4CYKK
— Kent Nishimura (西村賢一) (@kentnish) March 23, 2022
I knew it. I knew Ted Cruz was a self searcher https://t.co/0TUEBSntcr
— Brooke Binkowski (@brooklynmarie) March 24, 2022
We have designed systems of power in which many of the people who rule over us don’t care at all about improving lives or solving problems, but only care about fame, power, social media stardom, and performative narcissism. It’s an utterly broken system. https://t.co/ZkGdufcNl5
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) March 23, 2022
Proof that all of this is for the cameras & to cut campaign ads. They want to be seen denigrating an eminently qualified Black woman Supreme Court Justice nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackon, not based on her career or qualifications, but to get retweets & likes. It's disgusting. https://t.co/0luO1mRQgh
— KD (@Fly_Sistah) March 24, 2022
I pray to the Twitter algorithm gods that @tedcruz saw my tweet calling him a miserable, shameless, pandering demagogue locked in an endless, emasculating pursuit of a presidency he will never have 🙏 https://t.co/lYKBck9sGp
— Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) March 23, 2022
the thirstiest boy that ever thirsted https://t.co/5wRR22t0tl
— kilgore trout, death to putiner (@KT_So_It_Goes) March 23, 2022
Do you think when Cruz was searching Twitter for his name he came across tweets about him searching Twitter for his name? https://t.co/rU2hsngeUT
— Schooley (@Rschooley) March 24, 2022
Ted Cruz's descent into the pool of patheticness continues. Looking for your name on Twitter is what school shooters and serial killers do Ted, seriously. https://t.co/gkcVuqiUms
— Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) March 23, 2022
This single tweet does a better job of explaining why Cruz is the way he is than all the long articles about him ever written https://t.co/alWGvx21uc
— Will Stancil (@whstancil) March 23, 2022
The child porn smears and fake outrage are all for this: getting a viral moment on social media which might get picked up by Fox https://t.co/9hUQJiP8wj
— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) March 23, 2022
If you needed proof the Cruz line of questioning was all political grandstanding, here you go. https://t.co/UyPbtpaZZm
— Rachel Barkow (@RachelBarkow) March 23, 2022
More evidence that everything Ted Cruz does is for Ted Cruz. After engaging in a disingenuous argument with Chairman Durbin, Ted Cruz searched for his own name on Twitter, instead of listening to the nominee.
— Blue Grass Roots (@BGR_US) March 24, 2022
What a pathetic excuse for a Senator. https://t.co/BNyJQi544I
This is the whole game, y'all. Ted Cruz name searching himself on Twitter *during a Senate hearing* after he got done his disingenuous attacks.
— Isaac Saul (readtangle.com) (@Ike_Saul) March 23, 2022
That is literally it.
All you need to know about him and this process. https://t.co/tCWAnIhxwJ
While you're name searching yourself, @tedcruz, here's one making sure everyone knows what a performative, self-obsessed narcissist you are. https://t.co/rdpnumQn4j
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) March 23, 2022
Ted Cruz name searching himself on Twitter is peak Ted Cruz https://t.co/pbF72JQyZq
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) March 23, 2022
.@tedcruz was caught searching Twitter for his name during the hearings today after he humiliated himself.
— MeidasTouch.com (@MeidasTouch) March 23, 2022
Since we know he likes to read his mentions, why don't you tag him and let him know how you feel? https://t.co/0SYqiCEIzI
GREGORY BOVINO: Nazi Cosplay Time in Mineeapolis...Trump's ICE Enforcer
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