A woman who said she was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking told a U.S. appeals court that Ghislaine Maxwell’s desire for privacy failed to justify the continued sealing of a deposition that the British socialite has fought to keep out of the public eye.Lawyers for Virginia Giuffre made the argument in a Wednesday filing with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ahead of Sept. 22 oral arguments over the release of materials from her now-settled defamation lawsuit against Maxwell.
Many documents from that case were unsealed in July, and Maxwell is appealing U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska’s order to release other materials, including her April 2016 deposition and a deposition by a second Epstein accuser.
"Maxwell’s vague argument about privacy interests cannot justify total closure of the deposition materials," and overcome "the public’s presumption of access," Giuffre’s lawyers Sigrid McCawley and David Boies told the Manhattan-based appeals court.
Lawyers for Maxwell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Maxwell, 58, has pleaded not guilty to helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse three girls from 1994 to 1997 and to committing perjury by denying her involvement with the late financier under oath.
Her trial is scheduled for next July. Epstein killed himself at age 66 in August 2019 at a federal jail in Manhattan while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Maxwell has said her deposition contained "intimate, sensitive, and personal information," and whose release would cause irreversible, negative publicity.
She said this would undermine her constitutional rights to remain silent and obtain a fair trial by an impartial jury, outweighing any presumption of public access.
But lawyers for Giuffre, who has said Epstein kept her as a "sex slave" with Maxwell’s assistance, said Maxwell did not meet the high legal hurdle of showing Preska abused her discretion.
The lawyers said an unsealing would not compel Maxwell to make self-incriminating statements, saying that she "was deposed twice in 2016, and twice at that time failed to invoke her right to remain silent."
They also said there was no basis to credit Maxwell’s "speculative" fear of unfair pretrial publicity and a tainted jury pool, especially in large metropolitan areas such as New York.
"The size and heterogeneity of such communities make it unlikely that even the most sensational case will become ’a cause celebre’ where the whole community becomes interested in all the morbid details," Giuffre’s lawyers said, quoting a decision from another federal appeals court.
The Miami Herald also wants Maxwell’s deposition unsealed.
#2
At the bottom of this, possibly a dozen or more years from now, a bilateral intelligence operation will amazingly be discovered and written about. Pedophilia was the honey trap and many within the Deep State sampled the bait.
#5
LOL by then pedophilia will have been normalized like gay marriage was. Nobody will care because any society that discriminates against pedophiles is a society against social justice.
[Garden & Gun] During the peak of the summer redbreast bite, an entire subculture springs up on the shoulders of a small yet pugnacious—and stunningly beautiful—fish
You’ll find them haunting creek banks and dark river coves where blossoms of shadbush and wild blueberry swirl through old cypress trees. That’s where the fish flash like iridescent lightning. Redbreast sunfish live in places that call to childhood memory and sandbar naps. Until you hook one on a cricket or a curly-tailed grub. Then you don’t think so much about how things used to be because you can feel the fight all the way down the rod and into the palms of your hands, and what you think about most is putting such a bellicose fish in the boat.
These fish sport a blue-green back and rays of turquoise around each eye. During the spring and summer spawn, the males take on a red hue so brilliant it gives them the nicknames "redbelly" or "robin" or "rooster red." Most prevalent in lower Piedmont and Coastal Plain rivers and creeks from Virginia to Mississippi, redbreast sunfish live in waters where the South’s natural fabric is largely intact. They are the brook trout of the South’s overlooked blackwater rivers and Piedmont creeks, the redfish of our cypress sloughs and bottomland forests.
[Blog]
On September 2, the New York Post featured a news story headlined “FBI warns Chicago gangs have ‘shoot on sight’ pact against cops.” The FBI warned that, “Dozens of Chicago street gangs have made a pact to ‘shoot on-sight any cop that has a weapon drawn on any subject in public.’ ” These street gangs include “the Vice Lords, Black P Stones and Latin Kings,” that have a combined membership of several tens of thousands.
Even before this “pact” among criminal gangs was agreed upon, lethal attacks on Chicago policemen were up significantly this year. The Post cites Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown that it was clear “people are seeking to do harm to cops.”
He continued:
“I think it’s bigger than a suggestion. I think 51 officers being shot at or shot in one year. I think that quadruples any previous year in Chicago’s history. So I think it’s more than a suggestion that people are seeking to do harm to cops."
While this story would certainly seem disconcerting, some might be inclined to think it was only important to those who actually live in Chicago.
On the contrary, it should sound huge alarms to every American about what is likely to happen later this election year, not just in Chicago but in virtually every large metropolitan area.
Chicago is still the third largest city in the US and the home base of past President Barack Obama. Votes counted in Chicago have played decisive roles in past Presidential elections as well. “Chicago Rules” are a byword for determining political outcomes through fraud, bribery, and violence.
Chicago has actually reverted to gang rule in the last twenty years. Although murders in Chicago seemed to level off in the 2005-2010 period, the percentage of murders attributable to gangs actually went up significantly. Nearly two thirds of murders in Chicago are committed by gang members.
This has happened because of the close working relationship between gang leaders and many Chicago aldermen and City Hall functionaries. Major gangs have enjoyed substantial if not complete official protection from the Chicago police and prosecutors for at least twenty years.
The single best account of how this works was provided in Chicago magazine in a cover story entitled Gangs and Politicians in Chicago: An Unholy Alliance. Replete with detailed neighborhood maps of gang territories and specific criminals in working relationships with specific aldermen (an alderman is a Chicago city councilman), the article is a goldmine of information. Unsurprisingly, gang territories correlate strongly with the number of murders committed in those territories.
Chicago has many gangs but most members belong to one of just half a dozen or so large gangs. Even people outside of Chicago are sometimes familiar with names such as the Gangster Disciples, Black Disciples, Black P Stones, Vice Lords, and Latin Kings. Collectively, these gangs have between 70,000 and 125,000 members, or 6 to 10 times the size of the 12,000 member Chicago Police Department.
Although Chicago magazine enjoyed many complimentary letters-to-the-editor from readers for having addressed this matter, progressive Chicago expressed dismay that the magazine had the bad taste to write a story on such a subject. And, the story has been studiously ignored by the “mainstream media” almost everywhere else in the United States.
Although Chicago magazine enjoyed many complimentary letters-to-the-editor from readers for having addressed this matter, progressive Chicago expressed dismay that the magazine had the bad taste to write a story on such a subject. And, the story has been studiously ignored by the “mainstream media” almost everywhere else in the United States.
A major source for the story was Hal Baskin, a well-known Chicago figure, sometime aldermanic candidate, friend of black rabble rouser Jesse Jackson, Congressman (and former Black panther) Bobby Rush, and Gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover (now serving six life sentences in the Florence “Supermax” facility).
Baskin explained that many aldermanic candidates sought out the support of gangs in a humble fashion. Referring to a series of well-organized meetings between candidates and gang bosses leading up to the February 2011 municipal elections, Baskin said:
At some of the meetings, the politicians arrived with campaign materials and occasionally with aides. The sessions were organized much like corporate-style job fairs. The gang representatives conducted hourlong interviews, one after the other, talking to as many as five candidates in a single evening. Like supplicants, the politicians came into the room alone and sat before the gang representatives, who sat behind a long table. “One candidate said, ‘I feel like I’m in the hot seat,’” recalls Baskin. “And they were.”
The former chieftains, several of them ex-convicts, represented some of the most notorious gangs on the South and West Sides, including the Vice Lords, Gangster Disciples, Black Disciples, Cobras, Black P Stones, and Black Gangsters. Before the election, the gangs agreed to set aside decades-old rivalries and bloody vendettas to operate as a unified political force, which they called Black United Voters of Chicago. “They realized that if they came together, they could get the politicians to come to them,” explains Baskin.
The gang representatives were interested in electing aldermen sympathetic to their interests and those of their impoverished wards (not that the two groups have precisely the same interests, of course). As for the politicians, says Baskin, their interests essentially boiled down to getting elected or reelected. “All of [the political hopefuls] were aware of who they were meeting with,” he says. “They didn’t care. All they wanted to do was get the support.”
Furthermore,
During the meetings, the politicians were allotted a few minutes to make their pitches. The former gang chiefs then peppered them with questions: What would they do about jobs? School safety? Police harassment? Help for ex-cons? But in the end, as with most things political in Chicago, it all came down to one question, says Davis, the community activist who helped Baskin with some of the meetings.
He recalls that the gang representatives asked,
“What can you give me?”
The politicians, most eager to please, replied,
“What do you want?”
Bernstein and Isackson summarized their findings:
• “While they typically deny it, many public officials—mostly, but not limited to, aldermen, state legislators, and elected judges—routinely seek political support from influential street gangs. Meetings like the ones Baskin organized, for instance, are hardly an anomaly. Gangs can provide a decisive advantage at election time by performing the kinds of chores patronage armies once did.”
• “In some cases, the partnerships extend beyond the elections in troubling—and possibly criminal—ways, greased by the steady and largely secret flow of money from gang leaders to certain politicians and vice versa. The gangs funnel their largess through opaque businesses, or front companies, and through under-the-table payments. In turn, grateful politicians use their payrolls or campaign funds to hire gang members, pull strings for them to get jobs or contracts, or offer other favors (see “Gangs and Politicians: Prisoner Shuffle”).”
• “Most alarming, both law enforcement and gang sources say, is that some politicians ignore the gangs’ criminal activities. Some go so far as to protect gangs from the police, tipping them off to impending raids or to surveillance activities—in effect, creating safe havens in their political districts. And often they chafe at backing tough measures to stem gang activities, advocating instead for superficial solutions that may garner good press but have little impact.”
Chicago street gangs “get out the vote” in a way the now moribund Chicago Machine cannot. As Chicago alderman often have de facto veto power over which policemen are promoted to precinct captain (and remain there) in their wards, they can protect gangsters from arrest and prosecution.
Former White House staffer Michael Anton presented a frightening scenario three days ago in The American Mind. Determined to oust the President, even if they lose the election, Democrats have “war gamed” plans to pull off a coup d’etat. Anton explains:
“Remember that phrase from the Dem war game: “street fight.” In other words, a repeat of this summer, only much, much bigger. Crank the propaganda to ear-drum shattering decibels and fill the streets of every major city with “protesters.” Shut down the country and allow only one message to be heard: “Trump must go.”
Criminal street gangs may prove to be a highly valuable force multiplier for the Left Army around this coming election. And they will be active in more cities than Chicago. Count on it.
#3
The term Guerilla War (small war) was a term coined during Napoleon's occupation of Spain. The French were able to defeat, though taking significant casualties, any standing Spanish army, but could not occupy the countryside and concentrate its forces to face any large formations. The phrase 'bleeding ulcer' was used to describe the French predicament. Only one of his Marshals was able to pacify his region in Spain. One of his main strategies was to go hard after the bandits and smugglers in the region which often constitute the nucleus of which the resistance formed around elsewhere in Spain. He also played up regional sense of identity and autonomy from Madrid (though the national government had displaced to Cadiz). The locals approved.
#5
These gangs are kittens when it comes to real violence. They're great at hurting unarmed civilians but when the shit hits the fan, they're garbage. They couldn't even ethnically cleanse the Korean population of LA back in 1992, and that was with no police at all.
#7
Mexico being a test run for constant violent turmoil for the USA
Don't forget Obama was a Chicago politician so if this article is correct ... the gangs approved of him.
#8
..in Mexico the citizen does not have a right to bear arms. So, the deep Donk enclaves will get that fun experience as they have trashed the 2d Amendment. The rest will sort themselves out.
[ZERO] If the rising taxes and complete loss of law and order in the midst of a global pandemic wasn't enough to drive you out of New York City, perhaps complete apocalypse on the city's iconic Broadway will do it.
A stunning new report shows that more than 300 storefronts are now vacant along Broadway. It marks a 78% increase from three years ago. More than 33% of those vacancies were located between 14th and 59th streets, in the heart of Manhattan.
The tally was calculated by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and her staff in late August while visiting 13 miles and 244 blocks, according to the Wall Street Journal. Her staff was able to count 39 empty storefronts between 96th and 125th street, 66 empty spots between 59th and 96th street and 43 vacancies below 14th street.
VDH at TownHall
Almost daily, Greek and Turkish aircraft and ships fight mock battles over disputed oil and gas rights in the eastern Mediterranean.
Since the loss of much of the Christian Balkans to the Ottomans in the 15th century, Greece and what would later become modern Turkey have been rivals, outright enemies and often at war.
Mutual NATO membership and shared Cold War fears of Soviet Russia did not stop the two from almost going to war after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.
Still, the current escalation seems weird. Most territorial claims and disputes over borders were settled almost a century ago, and the two countries have had mass population exchanges.
Why, then, does the divide still run so deep?
Turkey is a Muslim country and was once the Ottoman Empire that ruled much of the Islamic world. Greece is still surrounded by Muslim countries.
Turks are quick to remind everyone that from the late 15th century to the early 19th century, most of Greece and the Aegean Islands belonged to the Ottoman Empire.
Greeks note that Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, was the capital of Christendom for 1,000 years and the center of the vast Byzantine Empire, where Greek was widely spoken.
In modern times, after the bitterness over the Cyprus crisis of 1974 and years of socialist governments, Greece was vehemently anti-American despite shared Western traditions.
In contrast, Turkey once prided itself on its secular customs institutionalized by its first modern, pro-Western president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. His successors until recently were pro-American autocrats.
Now, geostrategic relations have flipped. Both nations remain NATO members, but Greece, not Turkey, is also a member of the European Union. Turkish northern Cyprus is largely considered a rogue territory, while democratic Greek Cyprus is an EU member.
Moreover, Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become an increasingly Islamic state, often hostile to the U.S. It likes to leverage its NATO membership to advance its new Middle East agendas.
It is Turkey, not Greece, that has been acting provocatively on the world stage. It recently refashioned the iconic Hagia Sophia cathedral, built by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in the sixth century -- long one of the most iconic churches of the Christian world -- from a museum into a mosque.
...Today, the ancient rivalry might seem an uneven match.
Greece is a tiny country of less than 11 million people. Turkey is a country of some 82 million people and has far more jet fighters than Greece and a much larger army.
Yet by many accounts, Greek pilots are among the best in the world. Greece's smaller navy is far more effective than Turkey's.
And while U.S. President Donald Trump has reached out to Erdogan, his administration has also been among the most pro-Greek in years, forging a number of military and weapons pacts. For all the talk of American withdrawal, the Sixth Fleet remains the most powerful in the Mediterranean.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru ||
09/10/2020 03:31 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[PJ] In a stunning and brave demonstration that he is just like everybody else in the establishment media, and a reliable company man in the nation’s foremost anti-Trump propaganda machine, CNN National Security Reporter Ryan Browne tweeted Monday: "In an unprecedented public attack by a sitting US president on the leadership of the US military, President Trump has accused US military leaders of seeking to start wars to boost the profits of defense contractors."
Coming on the heels of the media outrage over the false claim that Trump termed American troops "losers," this is just another manifestation of a quadrennial spectacle: Leftists who loathe the military claiming to love and respect it. But Browne’s central claim was wrong: Trump’s remarks were not unprecedented, and indeed were following one of the most enduringly important statements by a president in modern times.
Trump said at a press conference Monday: "I’m not saying the military’s in love with me, but the soldiers are. The top people in the Pentagon probably aren’t, because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy. But we’re getting out of the endless wars, you know how we’re doing."
In response to Ryan Browne’s tweet, many commenters pointed out that Trump’s words were hardly "unprecedented," as he was merely echoing an important warning from one of his predecessors, a man who was a general before he was a president: Dwight D. Eisenhower. As Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster discusses, in his farewell address on January 17, 1961, Eisenhower warned against the "military-industrial complex" — a warning that has too often been ignored.
Stung by this criticism, CNN’s Browne huffily responded: "Some folks really ought to read what President Eisenhower actually said in his farewell address. While they are both critical of the military industrial complex, nowhere does Eisenhower actually accuse military leaders of engaging in shooting wars to boost profits for firms."
#1
Don't forget what lines immediately followed in Eisenhower's address -
"Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite."
#3
Well yeah. How else do they plan on getting jobs with defense contractors after they retire from the military?
Without the constant wars, our defense contractors would experience poverty and ruin. They need wars to create demand for their products. Imagine a BBQ grill manufacturer that had the power to make it summer all year long, how good that would be for sales. Same thing, basically.
[RedState] As my colleague Brad Slager reported two weeks ago, MSM reporters were champing at the bit over the possibility they might get to declare the annual Sturgis rally in South Dakota a coronavirus "superspreader" event because mask-shaming and guilting people for allegedly being irresponsible during the pandemic has become the MSM’s gig (with left-wing protests, riots, and haircuts for high-profile Democrats being the exceptions to the rule, of course).
At the time of Brad’s report, 103 cases had been confirmed, which is a tiny percentage of the 366,000 people who were said to be in attendance.
Fast forward to now, and the mainstream media are eagerly reporting on a study they believe confirms their suspicions and which alleges the rally may have caused a widespread outbreak. Here are some of the headlines:
#2
Now they're just fucking lying - fabricating nonsense out of nothing.
This can't continue. How does this end?
Posted by: Andy Spuper9579 ||
09/10/2020 7:48 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Report from Sturgis - 650 people ended up being tested; all were asymptomatic at the time of testing...26 were positive for COVID-19. Mass Testing in Sturgis
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/10/2020 7:57 Comments ||
Top||
COLUMBUS, Ga. (Reuters) - In Columbus, Georgia, a city of just under 200,000 people near the U.S. Army’s sprawling Fort Benning, many residents remain reluctant to criticize President Donald Trump after media reports that he called American war dead "losers" and "suckers."
"We don’t talk about that around here," said Donnell Brown, 66, who expressed pride in his daughter, a U.S. Army officer. "He says so many things, we let it go. He’s doing a great job."
Columbus draws its social and economic lifeblood from the 120,000 active-duty soldiers, reservists and civilian workers at the base, with many of the city’s residents strongly supporting the Republican president. Interviews with some locals indicated that Trump’s reported remarks would not dissuade them from voting for him as he seeks re-election on Nov. 3.
"Does it sound like something he’d say? Yes," said Zachary Edwards, 30, owner of Edwards Military Supply who served two years in the Army. "Does it matter? No. We’re a military town and we support our commander, no matter what. I will be voting for Trump and so will everyone."
Military veterans and current service members represent a key voting bloc for Trump.
Kurt at TownHall
The media is filled with stories about how the Democrats are planning to refuse to accept Donald Trump’s impending victory, with speculation about cheating, lawsuits, and the odd military coup. Leaving aside the bizarre notion that our troops are eager to risk their lives to kill their friends and family for the benefit of the liberal establishment and the military-industrial complex — which the Democrats have suddenly embraced as something awesome — in order to impose that creepy old weirdo from the basement upon America, the challenges are real but they are also overblown.
Don’t panic. Prepare. Work to get out the patriotic American vote. If we’re ready maybe this won’t descend into the chaos I describe in my novel/unintended documentary People's Republic.
Now, they will cheat. That’s baked in, and they are fully committed to it. That’s why they hate hate hate voter ID — it’s harder to cheat when you have to prove who you are. Voting-by-mail gets around that and offers all sorts of opportunities for mischief. They fully intend to try to leverage voting by mail to 1) get China virus paranoids and their usual lay-about voters to vote instead of just sitting home watching "Judge Judy," and 2) manufacture the necessary votes to swing the election. The turnout issue is important to them because all the numbskulls driving their cars alone with masks on are all liberal. The Dems could have gone with explaining that going to vote for Biden confers immunity, just like rioting, but whatever. Now, the cheating aspect is another issue, but how great an impact cheating might have is open to question.
It is an issue in battleground states, like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and possibly Wisconsin, if the Democrats manage to remember that it exists this time around. The simple idea is to make up any deficit in the in-person voting tallies by coming up with ballots out of the blue cities to overturn the heavy red rural vote. But remember, there are time limits and procedures and we Republicans do have poll and count watchers (consider volunteering!). Yes, they will try to find some Hawaiian judge to rule that a guy in Ann Arbor who is not allowed to vote on November 25th is being cruelly deprived of his human rights, but we have lawyers too. In Iowa, we just disqualified thousands of shady ballots. We need to be aware of the points of vulnerability in the process, and we need to watch those kill zones like the soaring hawks of justice we are.
[The Federalist] The most interesting thing about Byron York’s exhaustively reported and richly detailed new impeachment book, "Obsession: Inside the Washington Establishment’s Never-Ending War on Trump," is that the whistleblower who filed the official complaint that got impeachment rolling isn’t ever identified.
It turns out that the heated discussion over the whistleblower, who was previously identified by Real Clear Investigations as the CIA’s Eric Ciaramella, was a diversion from allowing the American people to understand who was the actual instigator of the failed effort to oust President Donald Trump from office.
Rather than being a witness who independently supported the claims of the whistleblower, the National Security Council’s Lt. Col Alex Vindman was the driving force behind the entire operation, according to the book’s interviews with key figures in the impeachment probe and other evidence. The whistleblower’s information came directly from Vindman, investigators determined.
"Vindman was the person on the call who went to the whistleblower after the call, to give the whistleblower the information he needed to file his complaint," said Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y.
"For all intents and purposes, Vindman is the whistleblower here, but he was able to get somebody else to do his dirty work for him," explained one senior congressional aide.
Vindman was the only person at the National Security Council (NSC) listening in on the infamous call between President Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to be concerned by it. Vindman immediately began talking to his identical twin brother Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, who also worked at the NSC. The twins both complained to NSC Counsel John Eisenberg. Alex Vindman talked about it with his direct supervisor Tim Morrison, who was also on the call. He talked about it with another NSC lawyer, Michael Ellis.
FORMER CIA OFFICER: Anti-Trump CIA “Whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella Was Hand-Picked by John Brennan for White House Job (VIDEO)
As the sham impeachment inquiry continues on Capitol Hill today, new details emerged on One America News on the whistleblower Eric Ciaramella who started the entire process.
One America’s Jack Posobiec sat down with a former CIA officer Brad Johnson the president of IntelReform.org.
Johnson offered a compelling argument on how Eric Ciaramella was handpicked by former CIA Director John Brennan for his job spying on the Trump Administration in the White House.x\
[EN.ANNAHAR] For long, Lebanese universities (estimated at more than 35 universities) had an undeniable reputation and were the backbone for Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... , oftentimes praised and recognized internationally. With the decadence of the educational sector - among other sectors and industries - the youth are realizing that the degrees they hold have lost their original value. This class owns directly certain universities and controls others; they used these institutions as a platform to disseminate their ideas and for twisted forms of manipulation and brainwashing. Over time, this same political class who designed and implemented policies that nurtured needs among the youth, is now fulfilling those needs by taking advantage and creating dependencies through financial aids and employment often leading to distorted voting. At the present time, the youth can hardly pursue their studies abroad with de facto and discretionary capital controls disabling money transfers for education purposes and clipping students’ wings for a brighter future and international exposure. Students outside Lebanon were the only hope and catalyst for change away from nurturing the inbreeding system.By the same token, this wrecked country lost its competitive advantage and its Middle Eastern positioning in banking, hospitality, and healthcare. From a macro-economic standpoint, the gross domestic product could shrink by as much as 45 percent in 2020. As for unemployment, encompassing underemployment and discouraged workers, it is expected to surge beyond 60 percent.
The brand of Lebanon, its people, its youth, and forthcoming generations may not be restored. There is an imminent need to rebrand Lebanon. The youth — who are the present before the future - are left with a substantial weight: an identity that might be closer to a burden rather than an asset, a reputational issue hindering socio-professional advancement, and a collateral psychological damage for years and generations to come.
The youth and the Diaspora (estimated at more than three times the size of the population as per Rethinking Lebanon3) are witnessing diminishing bargaining power in various aspects of life: salary negotiations, access to rent, professional promotions, and more.
The world used to be fond of the Lebanese for their aura and its connotations to hard work, resilience, prosperity, creativity, refined taste, arts, and cultural wealth. Today, the world meets a young Lebanese person only to realize that this smashed nation still has significant value to offer.
The youth have been deprived for very long from accessing leadership and decision-making positions meritocratically because of wastacracy4. Despite every young man and woman’s hard work, wasta seems to secure the way up the social and professional ladder. Additionally, The Lebanese independent and qualified youth have been silenced by some incompetent gerontocrats who took the reins of the economy and politics towards utter breakdown.
The role of the Lebanese youth is of utmost importance. Despite being oppressed and taken hostage by their own decision makers, they strived to fulfill their duties and responsibilities.
The international community would be collaborating to the crime of the ruling class if supported by any means. This class isolated Lebanon from the world and can neither be nurtured nor be offered another opportunity to recreate itself out of the misery it has generated. Any individual or organization whether in Lebanon or abroad who gives power or defends the corrupt regime is either taking advantage of it or has already done so.
The prevalent political class requires a surgical oncologist who would not only remove the tumor but removes nearby tissues as well. The youth must lobby internationally leveraging the Diaspora, fellows from global university alumni, and other driving forces to take charge of politics and the economy. The lobbying must generate a completely new, decent, competent, and sovereign group to rethink Lebanon, rebrand it, and position it again competitively on the global and regional map.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2020 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
[Twitter unraveled] I emailed old Dr. Z (he's still using JihadLover1951@aol.com for those curious) and told him, the guys razzing him over his name likely weren't millennials, but rather...Gen Z.
Ok, I'll see myself out. Apologies.
Overheard on SIGINT: Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri complaining to other senior members that younger al-Qaeda recruits lack respect.
"They call me Ayman, as if we're on a first-name basis. Not Dr. Zawahiri, Dr. Z, or any of my go-to nicknames like Z-Unit. Damn millennials."
Z-Unit?!? LOL!!! I'm laughing so hard I can barely tweet this
I know, right? Kids these days
LoL. My stomach hurts reading this.
Thank God the Rastafaria are not AL qaida. Or z-unit would be called "Ya mon"
I’m just waiting on Z Unit’s much anticipated album: get rich or martyr yourself trying.
Sheikh Ayman, of course
If they call him Dr Zed (vice Dr Zee) you know they are Canadian Colin! Or British I suppose...
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Garden & Gun] During the peak of the summer redbreast bite, an entire subculture springs up on the shoulders of a small yet pugnacious—and stunningly beautiful—fish
[RedState] As my colleague Brad Slager reported two weeks ago, MSM reporters were champing at the bit over the possibility they might get to declare the annual Sturgis rally in South Dakota a coronavirus "superspreader" event because mask-shaming and guilting people for allegedly being irresponsible during the pandemic has become the MSM’s gig (with left-wing protests, riots, and haircuts for high-profile Democrats being the exceptions to the rule, of course).
[The Federalist] The most interesting thing about Byron York’s exhaustively reported and richly detailed new impeachment book, "Obsession: Inside the Washington Establishment’s Never-Ending War on Trump," is that the whistleblower who filed the official complaint that got impeachment rolling isn’t ever identified.
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
I emailed old Dr. Z (he's still using JihadLover1951@aol.com for those curious) and told him, the guys razzing him over his name likely weren't millennials, but rather...Gen Z. 
