Afternoon Tea 5.24.21 - Air Privateering

A secret “signature reduction” force wielded by the Pentagon, 70 years of the CIA fucking up countries, India continues to tell social media platforms what to do, a hedgehog born with the small woodland creature equivalent of Alopecia, and a state sponsored case of Air Privateering from Belarus to capture a journalist. It's Monday, May 24th 2021, and this is your Tea.

Belarus Throws Down the Gauntlet to the West (Bloomberg Opinion) & Belarus condemned for 'hijacking' Ryanair plane to detain journalist (CNN) A bomb threat, now somewhat hilariously attributed to Hamas, was called in on famed luxury airline Ryanair, forcing the flight to land in Minsk, where a half dozen people were arrested. The target was Raman Pratasevich, a journalist on a Belarusian terrorist watch list accused of “mass riots and group actions that grossly violate public order.” Who had the first case of alleged air privateering (when a gov’t covertly uses piracy to achieve its ends) at the hands of Alexander Lukashenko (embattled president of Belarus) on their 2021 bingo card? We have an e-bicycle door prize for you up at the front.

Exclusive: Inside the Military's Secret Undercover Army (Newsweek) There’s a 60,000+ strong force, deployed worldwide, with essentially no oversight, potentially including thousands of spies, named “signature reduction.” And I’d never heard about this until reading this Newsweek exposé.

Manufacturing Consent for War: 70 Years of CIA Coups, Assassinations, False Flag Operations and Mass Murder (Covert Action Magazine) A new book by Vijay Prashad, titled “Washington Bullets” is a history of the government fuckery destabilization we’ve engaged in. And it’s so modern it has a forward from Evo Morales Ayma. You know, the guy that who the Trump admin helped force out of power in 2019?

India asks social media firms to remove reference to ‘Indian variant’ of coronavirus (Reuters) I do think that this is equivalent to “Chinese/Wuhan” virus, this government hasn’t exactly been hands off on social media before, so they should probably stop.

The Cuomo/Trump Playbook for Surviving a Scandal (Politico Opinion) If you recoil at the idea that one or the other used the same playbook to avoid being held responsible for some corroborated & truly vile behavior because of the party you’re in, take a moment, sit down, and have yourself a think.

Stages of Grief (Harper’s) & Eurovision winners under investigation for partying suspiciously hard (AV Club) This long-form from Harper’s Mag is the most critical and depressingly comprehensive read about how the pandemic has utterly ravaged the arts. The global shut in society relied on music, tv, and the arts to get through the pandemic, so we need to dig in and rebuild them. Semi-related, the annual ritual that Eurovision has become, seems to have new rules? We’re drug testing aspiring rock stars now?

How Apple screwed Facebook (Wired) The best civilian/non-marketing jargon filled explanation of how Facebook got its lunch taken by Apple, and probably will for the foreseeable future.

Calling Marshall (No Mercy, No Malice) In which a 9-time company founder and ultra-capitalist Scott Galloway calls for the greatest outlay of American spending to other countries since the Marshall Plan. And he’s 100% right. If we want to repair the damage we wrought over the war on terror and Trump’s insanity, a global vaccine Marshall Plan would be a great start. Plus, we could vacation to more places faster.

Canadian soldier charged with feeding cannabis cupcakes to artillery unit during live-fire exercise (CTV News) Pro-Tip for people who want cannabis to become mainstream: Don’t combine them with artillery fire.

Andrew Yang Leading NYC Mayoral Race After Flipping Off Residents And Telling Them To Suck His Dick (The Onion) The Onion remains undefeated. This is infuriatingly on point.

Song of the Tea: The French House starlet who did that wonderful Daft Punk’y track I posted a few weeks back, outdid themselves as they look to the east. This partnership with Wen Yu Lee, a classical & cinematic composer trained at NYU, is a lovely fusion of classical Chinese elements and modern house ingredients. Let it carry you to the end of Monday.

The more you open yourself to integration of disparate forces, the more you can use them in ways previously unimaginable.

Yours,