Céad Fáilte
A thousand Welcomes to The Village Oak Tree for May 15th, 2024
I have another commentary for everyone in my ongoing series about the failing empire of the United States. I go into some details about why, after reading Michael Campi’s satirical article that mocks the attitude of the U.S. government these days regarding imperialism.
Allies ‘R’ Us
The United States is open for business (Under new management)
Next, I lead off with a reading of the first amendment to the U.S. constitution to emphasize what Americans have now lost to the corporations and their paid for politicians.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
By 2021, Americans have lost nearly all of the rights stipulated in the first ten amendments of the Bill of Rights. Loss of freedom of speech if you protest against the obvious genocide taking place in Gaza or say anything in public against the Israelis right now. There is no freedom of the press anymore for mainstream U.S. news. There hasn’t been for a very long time. If you want to know what is really going on, you have to search it out on YouTube, Substack or other independent news outlets. Which is what I do everyday.
I subscribed to the new independent media company called Zeteo, with Mehdi Hasan. He is the news anchor and primary journalist with lots of journalists from around the world as contributors. I also subscribe to several overseas news shows in YouTube now, such as Owen Jones from the U.K., TRT News out of Turkey, Al Jazeera from Qatar, Lena Petrova for her economic news and many others.
They report a very different picture of the United States as seen from other countries. This really is nothing new for me as I grew up watching CBC Canada as a kid when the U.S. TV channel (we only had one where I grew up) was down due to storms. That happened pretty frequently during the winter months.
As an adult, I used to tune into radio and TV stations quite frequently while traveling outside of the United States on deployments. My biggest awakening was when I watched the satellite feeds in Afghanistan in 2002, of Al Jazeera news straight out of Qatar. We didn’t get to watch them very often but when I could get a good signal, the news they reported was very different from what the U.S mainstream news was feeding the American public back home.
That was how I learned the real truth behind the run up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I have learned a lot more in the last twenty some years since. I haven’t trusted anything I learned from the U.S. news media since. When I lived in Caribou, Maine from 2005 to 2015, I always tuned into CBC News Canada, who would also broadcast BBC News U.K., in order to find out what was going on around the world. Not that they weren’t biased also, but a lot less so than the Americans.
When I moved to Texas in 2015, I was back in the dark and fell behind in the news of the world for a time. Then in 2017, I shut off my cable TV service for good and went back to searching for news across the internet again. I have continued ever since.
None of this is in today’s podcast but then, this is supposed to be my newsletter, right? I get to write whatever I want, within reason. If you want to know all I have said about the failing empire of the United States, watch the video here. I don’t pull any punches in my podcast, which may run afoul of U.S. government censors someday soon.
Hit play above to watch the podcast to hear all of the bad things I have to say about the crumbling Empire of the United States.
If you are a news hound like I am (yeah Mitch, I am talking at you), you will be doing as I am, scrounging through Apple News feeds and YouTube news videos during your day or whatever internet media you choose to get your news from. I filter out the stupid stuff and dig deep into the news segments I have learned to trust.
Right now, I can safely tell everyone reading this, the United States is in a race to the bottom of the hill now. They are killing themselves with greed and power grabbing. The rest of the world is watching closely as some countries, such as the EU and the UK, are too closely tied to the U.S. and if the U.S. goes down, so will they and they know it. Which is why the scramble is on in Europe to find another benefactor to lean on.
Enter China and the BRICS alliance. As one podcast guest on one of my favorite shows said today, the BRICS alliance has a bigger GDP than the whole of the G7 alliance now and growing. This includes the U.S.
Countries in central Africa are giving the U.S. military and the proxy government officials the boot. Showing them the back door as they welcome the Russians and Chinese in the front door. It is expected that this will start to happen more and more as other countries, emboldened by the Russians and Chinese, will also show the Americans the door out.
As I asked in the podcast, what will the U.S. do if all of the countries that have military outposts and bases in them decide that they don’t want the Americans there anymore, like Iraq right now? There are quite a few countries that don’t like the Americans there and only let them in out of fear. Maybe they aren’t so afraid of the big bad American wolf anymore.
The larger countries like Russia, China and India are working hard at selling off their American dollars and treasury bills now. They want to use their own currencies to trade with. What will the U.S. do if the dollar is no longer the worlds reserve trade currency? What will the U.S. economy do when the value of the dollar falls like a rock someday soon? If the BRICS alliance has their way, it will be sooner rather than later.
I would advise anyone who can do so, to invest in gold as that commodity is rapidly going back to being the world’s reserve trade currency now. Central banks all over the world are buying it up like crazy as they de-dollarize.
I also have a lot to say about the war in Gaza and Biden’s complicity in the obvious genocide and ethnic cleansing and how American soldiers may end up being in harms way again soon. Biden’s new meme moniker has changed from Dark Brandon to Genocide Joe now and he will go down in the history books alongside his peers such as Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin, Slobodan Milosevic and Netanyahu and so may others throughout history.
I will close out this newsletter with this anti-war poem I discovered from a Substack writer, Ramona McCloskey, from County Antrim, in the North of Ireland. Sláinte
I hope everyone will return next week for another episode of The Village Oak Tree podcast.
As a Seanchaí, I hope you will continue to let me come to your village to bring you some news from the world outside that might make you think a wee bit.
Please share this podcast with your friends and relations. The more you share, the more we can convince enough people to make the world a better place to live in.
As I say good bye this week, I wish to leave you with this Irish blessing as you go about your day. “May your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow and may trouble avoid you wherever you go.” Slán go fóill.
T. Ó Domhnaill-Gaelic Seanchaí
References:
Missouri man says he killed wife because of her costly medical treatment
Ronnie Wiggs strangled his wife as she was in a hospital for a procedure related to her ongoing kidney dialysis treatment
From The Guardian.com/US-news
Medical residents are starting to avoid states with abortion bans, data shows
FROM KFF Health News
By Julie Rovner, Rachana Pradhan in NPR
US report punts on possible Israeli violations of international law in Gaza
Report says that incomplete information from Israel made it difficult to assess specific cases of possible violations.
From Al Jazeera
Republican candidate loses US House primary in victory for pro-Israel lobbyists
John Hostettler of Indiana, whom pro-Israel groups deemed ‘antisemitic’, loses to Mark Messmer, who led opponents with 40% of vote
From The Guardian/US News
Trinity College Dublin agrees to divest from Israeli firms after student protest
Five-day encampment in university grounds that caused the college major loss of income ended in victory for campaigners
From The Guardian/World
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