2019 in Retrospect

Rising from a deep sleep into the first morning of 2020, I was greeted with the news that the Iraqis in Baghdad was in the midst of storming the US embassy. This included infantile and sword rattling rhetoric from president Trump, (Twitter) blaming Iran for this “act of war” against the US. If you have been following my BLOG for any amount of time, know my views on war in general, and particularly, the US Empire's “incursions” into South America and the Middle East over the last 50 years. All these wars has been justified by jingoistic blathering, and American exceptionalism, pushing war in the name of saving “democracy” or freeing the people of said countries, from left-wing dictatorships. The real reasons for these incursions can be distilled into a few words: power, money, economic hegemony, minerals and oil – ensuring the Petrol Dollar remains the dominate currency in world affairs. Humanitarian pursuits or threats to US national security, as the neocon warmonger political class claim, are simply all lies. Anything the military industrial complex tells you about a foreign nation, by way of the MSM, and the need for war, is false.

A case in point for these lies, is The Washington Post publication of the Afghanistan Papers, including the Wikileaks release of the OPCW emails. See my blog: https://sychronicity1.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-msm-are-silent-afghanistan-papers.html which goes into detail about the machinations of government and its “watchdog agencies” in its pursuit of war and the continued lies to ensure a popular-citizen consent. Despite this news, many people are silent, and are in a propaganda bubble created by the MSM,thus any truth outside that closed sphere is either ignored or argued with more unsustainable propaganda. The phenomenon of apathetic or propagandised people on the topic of war, smacked me hard in 2019. I feel either these people simply do not care anymore, are sucked into the war propaganda bubble or do not have time to even think about it, as merely surviving on a day to day bases is priority. Nevertheless, the military industrial complex appears now to be unstoppable, pushing war and regime change around the globe.

A few months ago, Bolivia experienced a coup t' taut, a socialist government whose economy that had been successful, brutally taken over by a US/CIA backed right wing regime. See my blog: https://sychronicity1.blogspot.com/2019/11/bolivia-coup-and-msm-lie-again.html for details. The reasons for this coup are obvious, as Bolivia refuse to cooperate with US corporations in regards to their natural resources, in Bolivia;s case, it's Lithium. Earlier in the year, another US backed coup t' taut was attempted in Argentina. This move against the socialist based Mudoro government failed, as the government military refused to be bought. See my blog: https://sychronicity1.blogspot.com/2019/01/comment-us-pushes-for-regime-change-in.html

for a more specific analysis on the topic.

In fairness, I commented mostly on geopolitical wars and regime change attempts by the US around the planet. Rather than bore you again on these topics, the rise of neoliberal governments and fascism is another phenomenon that has continued to gain steam around the planet. This is no more surprising, than the huge lose of the Labour government to the right wing Tories in Great Britain.

Most people on the left wing believed that the Corbyn government would be a shoe-in, however, as said, this was a brutal loss for labour. Many of us scratched our heads in disbelief. How could this happen? When following British politics, one cannot read an article without reading about BREXIT. Because of the neoliberal policies of the European Union, the working classes of England lost many jobs in the manufacturing industry. The vote for BREXIT meant a opportunity for the working class to re-claim their jobs, or so it was proposed. According to many media pundits, it was Corbyn's waffling on the subject, hinting at another referendum. This pushed the right of the Labour party to vote Tory. This was indeed a contributing factor, though it was the right wing unrelenting smears of the Labour leader that caused his demise. These smears included antisemitic accusations and connections to the Russian government. This is on all levels quite absurd. Following the US conservatives and the neoliberals, accusations of Russian connections and antisemitism is common and also ridiculous. Jeremy Corbyn, in my opinion, did not face these shameless smears head-on, and as a result paid the price.

Closer to home, in Australia, the conservatives party also won the general election by a landslide. This was due also to relentless smears that Labour was going to take away all Australia's manufacturing jobs. This, of course, was not true in the slightest. In fact, the conservative party spent over 30 million in advertising, paid for by Australia's biggest coal baron, (A huge amount by Australian standards) pushed that Labour would close down all the coal mines, resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs – also untrue. That said, the public bought the lie, and Labour lost. Now we are stuck with a coal-loving, Christian cultist, a man that does not have a clue about leading a country: A PM more skilful at backroom deals than understanding the needs of the Australian people. Australia is now in the middle of a National Emergency due to devastating bush fires across the eastern states, and his response has been lacking in empathy and monetarily – Scott Morrison is also a climate change denier, and so it goes.

On a personal level, earlier in the year had a near death experience, not the spiritual kind, but almost choking to death and spending time in the hospital. Otherwise, my life has been very quiet, reading, writing, music and films. My good mother turned 88 years of age this year, and she continues to amaze me for her stamina, her awareness of world affairs, and reading 4 novels a week.

My central concerns continue to be war, the climate crises, the heightened separation between the rich and poor; the rise of racism and hatred, and the mass shootings based on religion and hate. These obvious issues have been around a long time, but for me, appear to be rising. People ask me, why be concerned about issues you really can't do anything about? The honest answer is, I have no idea, but the care and passion remains, and I'll continue to write about them.

Here's to a peaceful 2020.