THE BLOOD-MOON BAMBOOZLER

by Daniel Spaulding

In what can only be deemed a miracle, the peoples of earth have managed to pass through a fourth blood moon this year without the apocalyptic events predicted by the all-you-can-eat buffet fiend and supposed Christian evangelist John Hagee.

The nuclear accord between the United States (and the rest of the world) and Iran has not ended in some sort of global conflict, nor has Iran used the opportunity to “wipe Israel off the map,” as the neocons and their Christian Zionist sycophants have continuously been predicting. Gog and Magog must have spent the entire duration of the blood moon saga playing Angry Birds on their iPhones and drinking their Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes, thereby missing their cue to invade plucky Israel and initiate the Battle of Armageddon.

FULL-SPECTRUM CYNICISM

by Daniel Spaulding

Encapsulating his view of the essence of politics, Vladimir Lenin famously asked “who, whom,” that is to say, what matters in power relationships is who does what to whom. Under the elaborate trappings of abstract, supposedly universal morals, this brutal and obscene maxim has long been the West’s primary operating principle in international affairs.

This week’s Washington-backed Saudi attack on the country of Yemen is a reminder of this cynical practice. Saudi warplanes, supplied with US intelligence data, began bombing Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, in an effort to dislodge the Shiite Houthi militias from their positions. A few weeks earlier these tribal mountain fighters had ousted Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, Yemen’s puppet president, and seized control not only of the capital, but also of large swathes of the country.