In recent weeks we have been inundated with an idiotic narrative that “struggling” women are being kept out of the labor force due to lack of childcare. This narrative, which has appeared in tabloids such as Business Insider (“The April jobs report shows women are still struggling“) has been sparked by similarly idiotic statement by some of the most clueless Fed members, such as Neel Kashkari, whose quote here may explain where the confusion comes from:
KASHKARI: CHILDCARE ISSUES STILL KEY TO RESTORING ECONOMY
All of this, of course, is just to perpetuate the lie that there are other major factors at work besides the generous unemployment benefits that are keeping most Americans out of the labor force (spoiler alert: there aren’t – as long as Americans can collect hundreds of dollars every month for doing nothing, they will do just that and will not work).
To be sure, there was one – just one – data point that gave some validity to this claim, and it had to do with the composition of the April jobs report, which saw all the (modest) job gains go to men while women actually lost jobs.
There is just one problem with every such narrative that uses only one data point as justification: the next data point could easily crush it.
And that’s precisely what happened today, because buried inside the jobs report was the breakdown in job gains between men and women and… well, instead of talking about it, here it is for May: it’s self explanatory.
As the chart above shows, while women did indeed lose 8K jobs in April, they more than made up for its in April when they gained 398K jobs. At the same time Men gained 336K jobs in April and just 45K in May: tough to get the “childcare crisis” narrative in here. In other words, in the past two months, women have gained 390K jobs, while men have gained 381K. Oops.
And just to complete the picture – something the Biden admin propaganda refuses to do – here are the job gains by men and women over the past 12 months.
Some more cumulative job gains by sex, first since the start of the year:
men: +581K
women: +1,207K
And here is the data since the start of the pandemic.
The numbers:
Women have lost 3.3 million jobs since February 2020
Men have lost 3.8 million jobs since February 2020
With that we can officially discard the “women can’t work due to XXX” narrative, while leaves us with just the right answer: massive welfare handouts from Uncle Biden which has broken the job market, putting countless small businesses at risk and sparking the next crisis which will take place roughly around the time emergency benefits stop in September. Because if socialism has taught us one thing, it is that when you cut people off from free money, the result is usually very unpleasant.
What’s left are the ‘fatal synergies’ of soaring debt and leverage, diminishing returns on stimulus, the substitution of credit for savings and the coming deflationary tsunami that pops all the speculative bubbles.
Imagine a once modest but sturdy home built near a cliff to maximize the vistas. Over the decades, the foundation slowly degraded and the house moved imperceptibly closer to the unstable edge of the cliff. Those who observed the slippage and the potential for eventual disaster were either derided as alarmists or ignored.
Given the enviable location and views, the home rose in value and a series of increasingly gaudy additions were added, completely obscuring the once-modest exterior with cheap imitations of long-lasting, time-tested materials (plastic trim and brittle fake-marble veneers). The foundations of these ostentatious additions were slapdash, shallow and poorly made, as the goal was not durability but appearance.
The low-quality additions accelerated the slide to the unstable cliff edge, and in 2019 the viewing deck broke away and crashed into the canyon below. The repairs were hasty and the residents were assured all was well–in fact, better than ever.
In 2020, the weak foundation of the gaudiest, lowest-quality addition crumbled. The response of the owners was to fill the widening crack in the decaying structure and spray on a new coat of paint. There–good as new, the residents were told.
But this was not true. The house is now teetering on the precariously unstable cliff edge. Ironically, the vast majority of the residents have moved to the game room, which is now cantilevered over thin air. The slightest movement will tip the entire decayed structure over the cliff.
That decayed, precariously unstable structure is the U.S. economy, and Covid was the catalyst that nudged the economy right to the edge. Gordon Long and I discuss the causes and consequences in our new video program, Covid Has Triggered The Next Great Financial Crisis (34:46).
Chief among the many causes is a very basic one that’s easy to understand: America has consumed more than it has produced for decades, and filled the gap with imports purchased with borrowed money and currency created out of thin air.
As Gordon and I explain, this is a very well-worn path to instability and collapse:governments (which now include nominally independent central banks) have always responded to declines in productivity and affordable energy/materials, the expansion of a parasitic elite and excessive spending with the same bag of financial tricks:
1. They borrow more money, eventually borrowing more to pay interest on existing debts, greasing the slide to default and insolvency.
2. They defraud the users of their currency by devaluing the currency. In the old days, this was accomplished by substituting base metals for silver or gold in the minting of coinage. Eventually the coins contained only a trace of silver. Users soon caught on and the result was the coinage lost purchasing power, a.k.a. inflation destroyed the value of the officially issued money.
In today’s fiat currency regime, central banks create trillions of new units of “money” with a few keystrokes, effectively diluting the value of all existing currency.
3. Desperate for revenues, governments raise taxes, which despite all claims to the contrary by political leaders, fall most heavily on the productive middle class. Since the parasitic elite will never accept any consequential reduction of their wealth or power, the higher taxes and economic stagnation that result from these three policies crush the middle class, which was the engine of productivity and demand that enabled the parasitic elite to live large.
These are key dynamics in what Gordon calls the killing of the golden goose, theproductive synergies that generate widespread prosperity and opportunity.
What’s left are the fatal synergies of soaring debt and leverage, diminishing returns on stimulus, the substitution of credit for savings and the coming deflationary tsunami (53 min) that pops all the speculative bubbles, setting up the destabilization and cliff-dive of the entire decayed, flimsy structure–The Next Great Financial Crisis that cannot be papered over with more central bank legerdemain.
Britain’s corporate media are suddenly awash with stories wondering whether, or to what extent, the UK’s prime minister is dishonest. Predictably in the midst of this, the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg is still doing her determined best to act as media bodyguard to Boris Johnson.
In a lengthy article on the BBC’s website over the weekend, she presents a series of soothing alternatives to avoid conceding the self-evident: that Johnson is a serial liar. According to Kuenssberg, or at least those she chooses to quote (those, let us remember, who give her unfettered “access” to the corridors of power), he is a well-intentioned, unpredictable, sometimes hapless, “untamed political animal”. A rough diamond.
In Kuenssberg’s telling, Johnson’s increasingly obvious flaws are actually his strengths:
“Yet what’s suggested time and again is that the prime minister’s attitude to the truth and facts is not based on what is real and what is not, but is driven by what he wants to achieve in that moment – what he desires, rather than what he believes. And there is no question, that approach, coupled with an intense force of personality can be enormously effective.
“In his political career, Boris Johnson has time and again overturned the odds, and that’s a huge part of the reason why.”
The way Kuenssberg tells it, Johnson sounds exactly like someone you would want in your corner in a time of crisis. Not the narcissist creator of those crises, but the Nietzschean “Superman” who can solve them for you through sheer force of will and personality.
Lies piling up
Slightly less enamoured with Johnson than the BBC has been the liberal Guardian, Britain’s supposedly chief “opposition” newspaper to the ruling Conservative government. But the Guardian has been surprisingly late to this party too. Typical of its newly aggressive approach to Johnson was a piece published on Saturday by its columnist Jonathan Freedland, titled “Scandal upon scandal: the charge sheet that should have felled Johnson years ago”.
As this article rightly documents, Johnson is an inveterate dissembler, and one whose lies have been visibly piling up since he entered 10 Downing Street. His propensity to lie is not new. It was well-know to anyone who worked with him in his earlier career in journalism or when he was an aspiring politician. It is not the “scandals” that are new, it’s the media’s interest in documenting them that is.
And when the liar-in-chef is also the prime minister, those lies invariably end up masking high-level corruption, the kind of corruption that has the capacity to destroy lives – many lives.
So why are Johnson’s well-known deceptions only becoming a “mainstream” issue now – and why, in particular, is a liberal outlet like the Guardian picking up the baton on this matter so late in the day? As Freedland rightly observes, these scandals have been around for many years, so why wasn’t the Guardian on Johnson’s case from the outset, setting the agenda?
Or put another way, why has the drive to expose Johnson been led not by liberal journalists like Freedland but chiefly by a disillusioned old-school conservative worried about the damage Johnson is doing to his political tradition? Freedland is riding on the coat-tails of former Telegraph journalist Peter Oborne, who wrote a recent book on Johnson’s fabrications, The Assault on Truth. Further, Johnson’s deceptions have gone viral not because of the efforts of the Guardian but because of a video compilation on social media of some of Johnson’s biggest whoppers by lawyer and independent journalist Peter Stefanovic.
This shocking compilation of Boris Johnson misleading Parliament is now on 6.2 million views yet UK media continues to turn a blind eye
Part of the answer, of course, is that until recently the Guardian, along with the rest of the corporate media, had a much more pressing task than holding Britain’s prime minister to account for lies – and the corruption they obscure – that have drained the Treasury of the nation’s wealth, redirecting it towards a bunch of Tory donors, and subsequently contributed to at least a proportion of Covid-19 deaths.
The Guardian was preoccupied with making sure that Johnson was not replaced by an opposition leader who spoke, for the first time in more than a generation, about the need for wealth redistribution and a fairer society.
On the political scales weighing what was most beneficial for the country, it was far more important to the Guardian to keep then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his democratic socialist agenda out of Downing Street than make sure Britain was run in accordance with the rule of law, let alone according to the principles of fairness and decency.
The Guardian's relentless attacks on Corbyn continue. We've compiled a list of over a 100 Guardian articles attacking Corbyn (a small sample). Take a look! (And if you haven't already, it really is time to #DumpTheGuardian.) https://t.co/zQDRqe1iyP
Now with Corbyn long gone, the political conditions to take on Johnson are more favourable. Covid-19 cases in the UK have plummeted, freeing up a little space on front pages for other matters. And Corbyn’s successor, Keir Starmer, has used the past year to prove over and over again to the media that he has been scrupulous about purging socialism from the Labour party.
We are back to the familiar and reassuring days of having two main parties that will not threaten the establishment. One, the Labour party, will leave the establishment’s power and wealth untouched, but do so in a way that makes Britain once again look like a properly run country, conferring greater legitimacy on UK Plc. The other, the Conservative party, will do even better by the establishment, further enriching it with an unapologetic crony capitalism, even if that risks over the longer term provoking a popular backlash that may prove harder to defuse than the Corbyn one did.Reopening Auschwitz – The Conspiracy to Stop Corbyn
For the time being at least, the elite prospers either way. The bottom line, for the establishment, is that the political system is once again rigged in its favour, whoever wins the next election. The establishment can risk making Johnson vulnerable only because the establishment interests he represents are no longer vulnerable.
Blame the voters
But for liberal media like the Guardian, the campaign to hold Johnson to account is potentially treacherous. Once the prime minister’s serial lying is exposed and the people informed of what is going on, according to traditional liberal thinking, his popularity should wane. Once the people understand he is a conman, they will want to be rid of him. That should be all the more inevitable, if, as the Guardian contends, Starmer is an obviously safer and more honest pair of hands.
But the problem for the Guardian is that Johnson’s polling figures are remarkably buoyant, despite the growing media criticism of him. He continues to outpoll Starmer. His Midas touch needs explaining. And the Guardian is growing ever more explicit about where the fault is to be found. With us.
Or as Freedland observes:
“Maybe the real scandal lies with us, the electorate, still seduced by a tousled-hair rebel shtick and faux bonhomie that should have palled years ago… For allowing this shameless man to keep riding high, some of the shame is on us.”
Freedland is far from alone in peddling this line. Kuenssberg, in her BBC piece, offers a variant:
“An insider told me: ‘He frequently leaves people with the belief that he has told them one thing, but he has given himself room for manoeuvre,’ believing that, ‘the fewer cast iron positions you hold the better, because you can always change political direction.’
“The verbal flourishes and rhetorical tricks are part of the reason why he has prospered. ‘A lot of his magic has been those off-the-cuff comments, that’s why a lot of the public like him,’ says an ally.”
In other words, we see what we want to see. Johnson is the vessel into which we pour our hopes and dreams, while he has the tough challenge of making our melange of hopes and dreams a tangible, workable reality.
Liberal journalists have been on this “blame the voters” path for a while. When it was Corbyn and his “dangerous” socialism being pitted against the Tories’ crony capitalism, the Guardian enthusiastically joined the smear campaign against Labour. That included evidence-free claims of an “institutional antisemitism” crisis under Corbyn’s leadership.
And yet despite the media’s best endeavours, Corbyn appalled journalists like Freedland at the 2017 general election by winning Labour’s biggest rise in vote share since 1945. Corbyn denied the Conservatives a majority and was a few thousand votes from winning outright – something Starmer can only dream of at the moment, despite Johnson’s exposure as an inveterate liar and conman. And Corbyn achieved this while the Labour party machine, and the entire corporate media, were vehemently against him.
Dangerous populism
It was in the wake of Corbyn’s unexpected success at the polls in 2017 that the Guardian unleashed its “New Populism” series, seeking to warn of a supposedly dangerous new political phenomenon that lumped the then-Labour leader in with rightwing populists such as Donald Trump, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Hungary’s Viktor Orban. They were all part of a new wave of authoritarian, cult-like leaders who barely concealed their sinister, racist agendas, gulled supporters with promises divorced from reality, and most likely had secret ties to Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
In short, the Guardian’s thesis was that “the people” kept voting for these leaders because they were stupid and easily duped by a smooth-tongued charlatan.
This narrative was aggressively promoted by the Guardian, even though Corbyn had nothing in common with the rightwing authoritarians with whom he was forced to share star billing. He had spent his long political career on the backbenches, cultivating a self-effacing politics of communal solidarity and “standing up for the little guy” rather than pursuing power. And far from being a nationalist or nativist, Corbyn had dedicated decades to internationalism and fighting racism – though admittedly, in challenging the anti-Palestinian racism of Israel and its Zionist supporters he had left himself prey to disingenuous claims of antisemitism.
But after several years of emotional and ideological investment in “the people are dumb” approach, the Guardian seems in no hurry to drop it – until, or unless, the people can be persuaded to vote for an eminently safe, status-quo candidate like Starmer. The paper’s target has simply switched from Corbyn to the more plausible figure of Boris Johnson.
The Guardian dares not contemplate any alternative explanation for why voters continue to prefer the narcissist, corrupt, lying Johnson over Labour’s “Clean Up Westminster” Keir Starmer. But its reluctance to consider other explanations does not mean they cannot be found.
The problem is not that most voters have failed to understand that Johnson is corrupt, though given the corrupt nature of the British corporate media – the Guardian very much included – they are hardly well positioned to appreciate the extent of Johnson’s corruption.
It is not even that they know that he is corrupt but do not care.
Rather, the real problem is that significant sections of the electorate have rightly come to the realisation that the wider political system within which Johnson operates is corrupt too. So corrupt, in fact, that it may be impossible to fix. Johnson is simply more open, and honest, about how he exploits the corrupt system.
Over the past two decades, there have been several way-stations exposing the extent of the corruption of the UK’s political system, whichever party was in power.
Labour under Tony Blair overrode popular dissent, expressed in the largest marches ever seen in the UK, and lied his way to a war on Iraq in 2003 that led to the killing and ethnic cleansing of millions of Iraqis. UK soldiers were dragged into a war that, it quickly became clear, was really about securing western control over the Middle East’s oil. And the invasion and occupation of Iraq spawned a new nihilistic Islamic cult that rampaged across the region and whose embers have yet to be snuffed out.
Five years later, Gordon Brown oversaw the near-implosion of the British economy after Labour had spent more than a decade intensifying the financial deregulation begun under Margaret Thatcher. That process had turned the financial sector into the true power behind No 10. Both Brown and his Tory successor, David Cameron, not only refused to hold to account any of the white-collar criminals responsible for the collapse of the financial system, but instead rewarded them with massive bailouts. Ordinary people, meanwhile, were forced to tighten their belts through years of austerity to pay off the debts.
And in the background throughout this period, a global and local environmental catastrophe has been gradually unfolding that the political system has shown no capacity to address because it has been captured by corporations who benefit most from continuing the environmental degradation. The system has instead dissembled on the threats we face to justify inaction.
No price to pay
The truly astonishing thing is that those who lied us into the Iraq war, destabilising the Middle East and provoking an exodus from the region that has fuelled a surge in xenophobic politics across Europe; those who broke the financial system through their greed and incompetence and lied their way out of the consequences, forcing the rest of us to foot the bill; and those who lied about the ecological catastrophes unfolding over the past half century so that they could go on lining their own pockets; none of them paid any price at all for their mendacity, for their deceptions, for their corruption. Not only that, but they have grown richer, more powerful, more respected because of the lies.
One only needs to look at the fate of that unapologetic pair of war criminals, Tony Blair and George W Bush. The former has amassed wealth like a black hole sucks in light, and preposterously is still regularly called on by the media to pontificate on ethical issues in British politics. And the latter has been rehabilitated as a once-wayward, now beloved, irreverent uncle to the nation, one whose humanity has supposedly been underscored simply by making sure he was filmed “sneaking” a sweet to his presidential successor’s wife.
Perhaps not so surprisingly, a remedy to Britain’s self-evidently flawed political system was thrown up – in the form of Corbyn. He was a throwback, the very antithesis of the modern politicians who had brought us to the brink of ruin on multiple fronts. He was not venal, nor a narcissist. His concern was improving the lives of ordinary people, not the bank balances of corporate donors. He was against colonial-style wars to grab other countries’ resources. The things that made him a laughing stock with the political elite – his cheap clothes, his simple life, his allotment – made him appealing to large sections of the electorate.
For many, Corbyn was the last gasp for a system they had given up on. He might prove their growing cynicism about politics wrong. His success might demonstrate that the system could be fixed, and that all was not lost.
Except that is not how it played out. The entire political and media class – even the military – turned on Corbyn. They played the man, not the ball – and when it came to the man, any and all character assassination was justified. He had been a Soviet agent. He was a threat to Britain’s security. His IQ was too low to be prime minister. He was a secret antisemite.
Lying, cheating and stealing
In the United States, then-Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer warned Donald Trump back in 2017 that the US intelligence services would “have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you” should the president try to go up against them. Maybe Trump hoped that his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, would offer some protection. Pompeo, a former head of the CIA, understood the dishonest ways of the intelligence services only too well. He explained his agency’s modus operandi to a group of students in Texas in an unusually frank manner in late 2019: “I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. That’s, it was like, we had entire training courses!”
With the campaign to destroy Corbyn, many saw how the British system was just as skilled and experienced as the US one in its capacity to lie, cheat and steal. Corbyn’s treatment offered an undeniable confirmation of what they already suspected.
Over the past two decades, in an era when social media has emerged as an alternative information universe challenging that of the traditional corporate media, all these episodes – Iraq, the financial crash, ecological catastrophe, Corbyn’s political assassination – have had deeply damaging political ramifications. Because once people sensed that the system was corrupt, they became cynical. And once they were cynical, once they believed the system was rigged whoever won, they began voting cynically too.
This should be the main context for understanding Johnson’s continuing success and his invulnerability to criticism. In a rigged system, voters prefer an honestly dishonest politician – one who revels in the cynicism of the system and is open about exploiting it – over one who pretends he is playing fair, one who feigns a belief in the system’s ultimate decency, one who lies by claiming he can pursue the common good.
If the system is rigged, who is really more mendacious: Johnson, who plays dirty in a dirty system, or Starmer, who pretends he can clean up the Westminster cesspit when all he will really do is push the ordure out of view.
Johnson is transparently looking out for his mates and donors. Starmer is looking out for a rotten system, one that he intends to makeover so its corruption is less visible, less open to scrutiny.
Liberals are mystified by this reading of politics. They, after all, are emotionally invested in a supposedly meritocratic system from which they personally benefited for so long. They would rather believe the lie that a good political system is being corrupted by rotten politicians and a stupid electorate than the reality that a corrupt political system is being exploited by those best placed to navigate its corrupt ways.
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Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.
When it overtook its social media rival, MySpace, even then few could have predicted that Facebook would grow into the big tech behemoth that it is today.
Moreover, who would have thought that a geeky billionaire named Mark Zuckerberg would become powerful enough to literally decide the outcome of presidential elections?
And yet, that’s what he did last fall.
Zuckerberg donated more than $400 million in “election grants” to counties mostly in key battleground states where D.C. establishment lawyers, PACs, lobbyists and operatives from both sides of the aisle stole Donald Trump’s shoo-in reelection.
Trump was sure to have some difficulties, we believed, because Democratic mayors and governors helped destroy his massively successful economy and blamed a Chinese-borne virus on him. But given the massive outpouring of support everywhere the former president went — and places he didn’t go that still saw massive Trump vehicle and boat parades — his reelection looked certain.
Biden, by comparison, along with his VP pick Kamala Harris, couldn’t draw flies to a BS contest. Virtually no one came out to see them at the limited rallies they did. Harris was so unimpressive to Democratic voters she was one of the first to drop out of the crowded Democratic presidential field. And Biden stayed in his basement for much of the campaign, limiting his exposure to gaffes, forgetful moments and times when he clearly couldn’t think straight or enunciate clearly.
So Zuckerberg stepped up and helped fund the effort to take away Trump’s sure-fire reelection victory by pouring hundreds of millions into the effort, and nowhere was his election interference more prevalent than in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Grant monies awarded to help fund the 2020 election in at least 21 different Pennsylvania counties were heavily skewed toward counties with high Democratic registration and recent voting turnout, an analysis from Broad + Liberty shows.
Pennsylvania Republicans are currently considering legislation that would change the rules for private grants such as these in future elections, requiring them to go directly to the Pa. Department of State to be distributed evenly. Similar bills have been passed in Georgia and Arizona and are being considered in other states.
The money was funneled through the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life, which was founded in 2015. The org drew a lot of attention in the lead-up to the 2020 election when Zuckerberg and his wife Pricilla Chan gave it $250 million. A month later, the power tech couple added another $100 million; about $22 million of that money found its way to 21 Pennsylvania counties.
Republicans in the state smelled a rat right off the bat. They saw what was happening: The Zuckerberg-funded nonprofit was purchasing election infrastructure that would be used to drive Democratic voter turnout in a state nearly all political observers agreed would be vital to put in the Electoral College “win” column.
State GOP Rep. Jim Struzzi, who is a sponsor of the new legislation, noted that the actions undertaken by the CTCL are likely a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protections clause because “all eligible voters must be given equal access to their right to vote.” He said giving some counties grants while denying it to others is inherently unfair.
Democrats and at least one state judge disagreed, pointing to a CTCL grant to some counties that went for Trump by a 2-to-1 margin. But that is window dressing to make the grants look ‘bipartisan’ when far more money went to Democrat-heavy jurisdictions.
“We must put a stop to private money election grants to cities and counties,” said state Republican Rep. Eric Nelson. “Big tech significantly outspent government in selective areas resulting in a dangerous precedent for all future elections. I fought this before the election and will continue to battle tactics that result in the unequal treatment of voters.”
How about adding this: Zuckerberg should be arrested for election meddling.
The U.K.’s customs and immigration agency said efforts to digitally link vaccination records and travel passportsare currently underway. The endeavor aims to avoid long lines at access points when the U.K. reopens its borders, claim government workers. Thus, legislators and travel industry bigwigs have called to expedite the integration of vaccine records into travel documents in anticipation of returning travelers.
A Daily Mail report said the U.K. Border Force is working to enable electronic passport gates to automatically verify travel documents. It added that the plan will now permit automatic gates to check if someone has been vaccinated against the Wuhan coronavirus before they are allowed entry. Border Force hopes to have the system in place by mid-summer – but members of parliament (MPs) and travel industry figures want the changes sooner. They warned that travelers could spend up to 10 hours lining up for manual document checks if the plan is delayed.
Another report by The Times said documents such as passenger locator forms and negative COVID-19 test results can be digitally linked to travel passports. Once a traveler passes through the e-gate, the passport is automatically scanned and its details logged into the system. The appropriate quarantine rules can then be enforced on the newly-arrived traveler.
Electronic gates for passports have been closed since February of this year after the British government implemented more stringent verification measures. However, the lockdown exit roadmap drafted by Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the earliest date that non-essential international travel can resume is on May 17. Given this date, reopening the electronic passport gates in airports will help avoid the anticipated long lines.
The U.K. is readying itself to embrace vaccine passports
Government ministers have expressed confidence that electronic gates could be reopened by August. However, there are calls from MPs and the travel industry to move the reopening before the May 17 date pegged by Johnson.
Oxford West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran said that ministers need to take “urgent action” to ensure airports do not become the country’s “Achilles’s heel.” She suggested implementing measures to reduce overcrowding, improve social distancing and isolate passengers coming from high-risk countries. (Related: CBS declares vaccine passports as must-haves for 2021 summer travelers.)
Travel consultancy firm The PC Agency CEO Paul Charles emphasized the need to reopen e-gates at the soonest. He told the Times: “We’re forecasting [that] 100,000 [travelers] per day will enter the U.K. initially for May 17, so e-gates will have to reopen to cope with their demand.” Charles warned that keeping the e-gates closed will lead to lines “much longer than six hours” – up to “10 hours” even.
British ministers have nevertheless embraced vaccine passports as part of the new normal – whether for traveling to other places or simply visiting nearby establishments. Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs Dominic Raab insinuated in February that U.K. residents may have to present a coronavirus vaccine passport before they can enter a pub or restaurant.
Speaking to radio station LBC, the state secretary remarked that vaccine passports “[haven’t] been ruled out” and are just one of many proposals “under consideration” by Downing Street. However, these passports have to be first made “workable.” Raab also touched on whether an electronic form of the vaccine passport would come to fruition. “When we’re in that different world, … then all kinds of apps and … possibilities [for vaccine passports] will be open to us.”
But vaccine passports have dangers of their own – especially when it comes to privacy
However, vaccine passports also come with significant privacy risks. During a parliament session, British lawmakers questioned Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham about the general public’s use of these passports. She replied that such an endeavor would face scrutiny over its necessity and its sharing of health data.
“We’re talking about personal health information, which is a special category of data that requires controls,” Denham told parliament members. However, she continued that she is of the opinion that some of the issues surrounding vaccine passports “are beyond data protection.”
The information commissioner for the U.K. warned that such passports would give rise to a “two-tier” system. People who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 may have more liberties than those who cannot get the vaccines under this system. Denham remarked: “They touch on human rights, … on whether or not we’re going to create a two-tier society based on whether you have a [COVID-19 vaccine] in the arm.” (Related: Florida governor bans vaccine passports, as they create TWO CLASSES of citizens.)
Former UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd once said about Boris Johnson: “he’s the life and soul of the party, but he’s not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening.”
Yet here we are, almost two years into his leadership, and the British media are still acting with shock and surprise over Boris’s antics. The British are a funny bunch. In all honesty, it seems people are more upset over his negative comments over the John Lewis furniture in No.10 Downing Street than they were when Johnson lied to the Queen in September 2019 to prorogue parliament. There certainly seems to have been more media coverage of it.
In fact, after criticising the decor he and his fiancee Carrie Symonds were left with after the departure of former Prime Minister Theresa May, a “John Lewis nightmare” as it’s been reported, Johnson took pains to dismiss reports that he had anything against the department store in question: “If there’s one thing I object in this whole farrago of nonsense … I love John Lewis!” he insisted. If only he had expressed similar regret over illegally proroguing parliament to try to stymie debate of the Brexit bill. But not Boris.
You do get the feeling though that the establishment have had enough of Boris. It’s as if they’ve decided his time has come. At one time he seemed like the only man who could ‘Get Brexit Done’ and indeed, he did successfully strike a deal with the EU and take Britain out of the trading bloc. But the media campaign against him of late has been overwhelming and packed full of sleaze and corruption scandals.
Firstly last month he was questioned by the media over whether he acted with ‘honesty and integrity’ during his relationship with US businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri, after she gave an interview to The Mirror with all the gory details of Johnson’s four year extra-marital affair.. Under his watch as Mayor of London, Arcuri was given £126,000 of public money in the form of grants for her company and event sponsorship. In addition she was given access to three foreign trade trips led by Mr Johnson. Seemingly Johnson had not committed any criminal wrongdoing, but should have declared a conflict of interest.
Then came Johnson’s controversial former advisor Dominic Cummings, clearly still bitter about his departure from Downing Street, who has spilled the beans on a number of the Prime Minister’s less tasteful comments. Cummings had clearly stored them up, waiting for the right opportunity to ‘pounce’. And this was it. The first claim is that Johnson said he would “rather see bodies piled high in their thousands” than order another Covid lockdown last autumn. This statement could be easily dismissed as fiction if it weren’t for the fact that two witnesses have come forward to say they would testify that the PM did indeed say that.
Aside from Johnson’s apparent lack of empathy, there are also leaked text messages which appear to demonstrate abuse of power as he promises billionaire businessman James Dyson he will personally ‘fix’ a tax issue so his employees could return to the UK. To be honest this will not come as a surprise to many, as cronyism appears to be rife in Johnson’s cabinet. (Earlier this year it was ruled that Health Secretary Matt Hancock had acted ‘unlawfully’ by not publishing the details of billion-pound PPE contracts, including one given to a friend and neighbour.) Labour and the SNP have called for a full independent public inquiry into why Tory donors and friends have been handed lucrative contracts, special access, tax breaks and peerages by Johnson’s government.
As author Paul Mason wrote in the New Statesman recently, the Conservative government is getting away with corruption ‘on an epic scale”. He said: “In short, we are adrift in a sea of corruption, past and present. If you’ve been anywhere near power, you know how this works. None of it is done in secret. It’s done with the connivance and the blind eye of everyone who sees it happen. Nobody asks awkward questions such as, why is this guy even in the room? Nobody who wants a promotion or an invite to the summer party, that is.”
Paul Mason also added the rather concerning, but valid observation that nobody seems to care. Indeed one does wonder what it would take in the UK for people to protest at such government impropriety. For all our boasting about democracy, it seems when it comes down to it, we’d rather accept the status quo than ruffle any feathers. In England people voted for Boris Johnson, after all, fully aware of his character. As Gina Miller wrote earlier this year in The Guardian: “It is not the British way to make a fuss, and no doubt there are those who think even now that the government taking it upon itself to break the law in “very specific and limited ways” isn’t something to be too concerned about.”
Therefore it is likely that Boris Johnson will survive this latest fiasco. After all, he has endured so many scandals throughout his colourful career to date, and come off relatively unscathed. Some would even say it makes him more human. And of course, the main thing is that he really does love John Lewis.
On Saturday the 24th April one million people descended onto London to protest against the mandated lockdown, which has seen countless deaths, job losses and self destructive behaviour sky rocket. That’s even before we get into deaths which are claimed to be because of Coronavirus.
How is it though… one million people can trot on down to London, and not burn a single thing down, shoot one person and literally just end up dancing and hugging each other all day?
What is it America? Or you one spanner short of a tool box? Have you not passed the next level yet? It’s okay to be pissed off, and hate the shit society implements on us mere subjects of existence, but at the end of the day, we are still very much all in this together. Anyway, here you go America, this is how you act when wanting to make a difference in the world… just a heads up like…
With the CIA branding itself as a woke Western intelligence agency, it was only a matter of time before the UK’s MI6 tried to one-up their US counterpart; potentially spying on the world’s biggest polluters. In something that sounds like it should belong on The Onion or Babylon Bee, the head of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) – commonly known as MI6 – suggested that they should engage in so-called “Green Spying” on nations which make climate change pledges in order to make sure they’re keeping them.
In comments to Times Radio, MI6 head Richard Moore – known as “C” – claimed that man-made climate change is “foremost international foreign policy item for this country and for the planet,” adding: “Our job is to shine a light in places where people might not want it shone and so clearly we are going to support what is the foremost international foreign policy agenda item for this country and for the planet, which is around the climate emergency, and of course we have a role in that space.”
No doubt actual terrorists and enemy operatives will feel relieved that countless valuable resources will be poured into this supposed top agenda of ensuring industrialized countries will “keep climate change promises”. We can imagine they’re having a good laugh in the halls of Beijing’s intelligence bureaus…
To some degree the Brits appear to be following the lead of the United States. The Biden administration was the first to elevate climate change to the level of a “national security” matter after he made John Kerry his ‘Climate Envoy’ – with a seat on the National Security Council. Last week, Biden announced at a climate summit that the United States would cut emissions in half by 2030 after having rejoined the Paris Climate agreement shortly after taking office.
Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before the CIA or NSA launches their own “green spying” operations – if they haven’t already.
After twenty years, the United States government – and the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) – will depart from Afghanistan. They said that they came to do two things: to destroy al-Qaeda, which had launched an attack on the United States on 11 September 2001, and to destroy the Taliban, which had given al-Qaeda a base. After great loss of life and the further destruction of Afghan society, the US departs – as it did from Vietnam in 1975 – in defeat: al-Qaeda [covertly supported by the US] has regrouped in different parts of the world, and the Taliban is set to return to the capital, Kabul.
The speaker of Afghanistan’s parliament, Mir Rahman Rahmani,warns that the country is poised to enter a new period of civil war, a repeat of the terrible civil war that ran from 1992 to 2001. The United Nations calculates that in the first quarter of 2021, civilian casualties rose by 29% compared to last year, while the number of women casualties increased by 37%. It is unclear if there will be further talks between the Taliban, the Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani, the Turks, the Qataris, the United States, and the United Nations. Afghanistan sits on the brink of further violence, whose impact can so aptly be described by the words of the poet Zarlasht Hafeez:
The sorrow and grief, these black evenings, Eyes full of tears and times full of sadness, These burnt hearts, the killing of youths, These unfulfilled expectations and unmet hopes of brides
‘Saving’ Afghan women, advancing the cause of human rights: these words have lost meaning after two decades. As Eduardo Galeano put it, ‘Every time the US “saves” a country, it converts it either into a madhouse or a cemetery’.
Alicia Leal (Cuba), Un soldado de América, 1997.
The US government calculates that this war, which would enter its twentieth year, is the longest US war in the modern period (the US engagement in Vietnam lasted for fourteen years, from 1961 to 1975).
But this war in Afghanistan is not the longest war prosecuted by the United States government. There are two US wars that continue: a war against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK (since August 1950) and against Cuba (since September 1959).
Neither of these conflicts have ended, with the US continuing to execute hybrid wars against both the DPRK and Cuba. A hybrid war does not necessarily require the full arsenal of a military to come into force; it is a war fought through the control of information and financial flows as well as the use of economic sanctions and illicit means such as sabotage. There is no question that the longest and unfinished US wars have been against Korea and Cuba.
Sixty years ago, on 17 April 1961, the CIA’s Brigade 2506 landed at Cuba’s Playa Girón (‘Bay of Pigs’). The Cuban people resisted this invasion as they would six decades of hybrid war against their sovereign revolutionary processes. Cuba has never threatened the United States; it never has violated the UN Charter of 1945. The United States, on the other hand, has routinely threatened the Cuban people. In October 1962, when the Soviets sent a missile cover to protect Cuba, General Maxwell Taylor, the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, planned for a full-scale invasion. In this now-declassified memorandum, Taylor pointed out that such a military venture might result in 18,500 casualties on the US side because of the determination of the Cubans to protect their land and their political project. The plot was to reinstate the old Cuban oligarchy that had sought refuge in Miami and turn Cuba back into a gangster’s paradise.
After the Cuban government sent troops to assist the national liberation project in Angola in November 1975, US Secretary of State Henry Kissingertold his team on 24 March 1976, ‘if we decide to use military power, it must succeed. There should be no halfway measures – we would get no award for using military power in moderation. If we decide on a blockade, it must be ruthless, rapid, and efficient’. The US planned to mine Havana’s harbour and bomb Cuba’s cities. ‘I think we are going to have to smash Castro’, Kissinger told US President Gerald Ford. Ford replied, ‘I agree’. Such is the attitude of the US government, from 1961 to the present.Human Rights Rhetoric at the UN Is Not Enough to Combat the US Blockade on Cuba
Carlos Garaicoa (Cuba), Puzzle la Malenka, 2009.
Before he left office in January 2021, US President Donald Trumpplaced Cuba on the US government’s ‘state sponsors of terrorism’ list. Seventy-five US lawmakers asked his successor, President Joe Biden, to reverse this decision. On 16 April, Biden’s press secretary Jen Psakitold the briefing room that ‘A Cuba policy shift or additional steps is currently not among the President’s top foreign policy priorities’. Biden, in other words, has decided to passively continue Trump’s policy, dictated to him by the likes of Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott from Florida and Senator Ted Cruz from Texas (as well as Democratic Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey). Biden has opted to persist in this cruel six-decade long policy to suffocate the Cuban people.
Just after the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the US government made it clear that it would not tolerate a sovereign Cuba only 145 kilometres from Florida’s coast. Cuba’s commitment to people over profit is a standing rebuke of the hypocrisies of the United States rulers. This has been clarified once more during this pandemic, during which the infection and death rates per million are strikingly higher in the US than in Cuba (recent figures indicate the US has recorded 1,724 deaths per million, whereas Cuba stands at 47 deaths per million). While the US locked itself into vaccine nationalism, Cuba’s Henry Reeve Brigade of doctors continued with their work amongst the world’s poorest people (for this, of course, they deserve the Nobel Prize for Peace).
Unable to successfully invade Cuba, the US has persisted with a tight blockade of the island. After the fall of the USSR, which had provided Cuba with ways to circumvent the blockade, the US attempted to tighten its grip on the island. US lawmakers then attacked Cuba’s economy through the Cuban Democracy Act (1992) and the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (1996) – both laws with names that demean the words in them. From 1992 onwards, the UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly for the United States to end this blockade. A group of UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteurs wrote a statement calling on the US to withdraw these measures, which have only made Cuba’s attempt to fight the pandemic harder.
The Cuban government reported that between April 2019 and March 2020, Cuba lost $5 billion in potential trade due to the blockade; over the past almost six decades, it has lost the equivalent of $144 billion. Now the US government has deepened the sanctions against shipping companies that bring oil to the island. The head of US Southern Command, Admiral Craig Faller, described Cuba’s medical internationalism as a ‘regional corrosive influence’. There is cruelty in Washington.
Far from the bitterness of the US government, the Cuban communists held their eighth Party Congress, where the discussion was on how to improve the state enterprises and how to innovate to meet the aspirations of the Cuban people. Deputy Prime Minister Inés María Chapman said that the party members must be active in their communities to build and defend socialism. Rafael Santiesteban Pozo, president of the National Association of Small Farmers, said that working people must produce more with what resources are available. Minister of Economy and Planning Alejandro Gil pointed to the need for greater efficiency in the state enterprise system, the expansion of self-employment, and the expansion of cooperatives.
These are serious people who recognise the problems but are not overwhelmed by them; they are part of a project that has fought to defend its sovereignty against enormous odds since 1959. Defeat is not in their vocabulary. Their agenda is hopeful, unlike the bilious agenda that comes from the US government and the Miami-based Cuban oligarchy.
At this Congress, Raúl Castro stepped down from his post. Castro, one of the original Cuban revolutionaries, had been imprisoned for his role in the Moncada uprising of 1953. Upon his release, he went to Mexico with his brother Fidel and then returned on the Granma to lead the rebellion against the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. After the victory of the Revolution, Castro served in the government and as a leader in the Communist Party, guiding it alongside Fidel and others through the difficult Special Period (1991-2000) and then continuing to lead it after Fidel’s death in 2016. His quiet role in defending and elaborating the Cuban Revolution has been immense.
José Rodríguez Fuster (Cuba), Granma, 2013.
After the Playa Girón attack by the CIA, the Spanish poet Jaime Gil de Biedma wrote a poem about Cuba called ‘During the Invasion’ (collected in Moralidades, 1966). The Venezuelan poet Diego Sequera translated this poem for us as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the defeat of the US on those beaches:
The morning newspaper is open on the tablecloth. The sun glows in the glasses. Lunch at the small restaurant, a working day.
Most of us remain silent. Someone speaks with an elusive voice; these are conversations with special sorrow about the things that always happen and that never end, or that end in disgrace.
I think that at this time of day, the sun rises in Ciénaga; nothing is yet decided, combat doesn’t stop, and I look in the news for some hope that doesn’t come from Miami.
Oh, Cuba in the distant dawn of the tropics, when the sun is simmering, and the air is clear: may your land sow tanks and your broken sky be grey from the wings of airplanes.
With you are the people of sugar cane, the man of the streetcar, those from the restaurants, the thousands of us that today search in the world for a bit of hope that doesn’t come from Miami.
On 13 April 2021, the government of the Federal Republic of Germany amended or tightened the Infection Protection Act (§ 28b IfSG). It is the draft of a Fourth Law for the Protection of the Population in the Event of an Epidemic Situation of National Significance.
In reality, this so-called “Federal Emergency Brake” slows down the legally guaranteed basic rights of citizens.
The renowned legal scholar Volker Boehme-Neßler adds: The planned coercive measures such as de curfews are “unconstitutional, dictatorial and against human nature” (2).
The German Bundestag will decide next week on this legislative path to open dictatorship.
Rudolf Hänsel, April 17, 2021
The German national anthem, as a state symbol, was protected from denigration in a special way. But for months it has been dragged deeper and deeper into the mud by a corrupt clique of politicians on behalf of a billionaire and power “elite” and is now only valid for them, no longer for the common people.
A minority of people, who exploit, enslave, sow discord, injustice and lack of freedom, has taken over the scepter worldwide. And whoever believes that he can speak and negotiate with this other side, these ruling beneficiaries, who have the whole thing in their hands, is mistaken.
No! They are so sick that no negotiation is possible with them. It was still like that in the story: When the working people went on strike for their right to freedom, justice, security, peace and a life worthy of a human being and took to the streets for their children, the governments first used the police and then the military – and finally let them shoot.
The text of the German national anthem is the third verse of the poem “Das Lied der Deutschen” and was written by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben in 1841 on Helgoland and set to music by Joseph Haydn:
“Unity and Justice and Freedom / for the German Fatherland!
Let us all strive for this / Brotherly with Heart and Hand!
Unity and Justice and Freedom / are the Promise of Happiness:
Flourish in this Blessing’s Glory, / Florish, German Fatherland!”
What has remained of all this in Germany?
The passing of the new so-called infection protection law last week is only one example of many for the omnipotence fantasies of politicians and the increasing compulsion, the permanent rule changes and threats, the sickening isolation detention of adults and their children, the restricted freedom of movement, the psychological programming and finally the systematic destruction of the human psyche (David Icke). The formerly “silent” dictatorship of democracy was secretly transformed into an open dictatorship.
Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian lawyer, moral teacher and pacifist, showed the world in the last century what strength a person with an unbending will can develop and what he can achieve through it. His motto was:
“Strength does not come from physical abilities. It comes from an unbending will.”
The Indian independence movement, of which he was the intellectual and political leader, took up his idea of non-violent action and “Civil Disobedience” and in August 1947 reached the end of British colonial rule over India. Why should we not develop this unbending will?
“When I think of Germany at night, / Then I am deprived of sleep,
I can no longer close my eyes, / And my hot tears flow.”
Hollywood film director Aaron Sorkin has smeared Trump supporters, tens of millions of Americans as racists and bigots.
Now he is attacking Americans who tolerate Trump supporters, saying that they are akin to apologists for racists.
Aaron Sorkin made the bizarre contrast during a podcast interview with Michael Moore. At one point in the episode, the conversation turned to Sorkin’s recent Broadway play To Kill a Mockingbird, adapted from Harper Lee’s classic novel. In the interview, Sorkin claimed Atticus Finch repeatedly makes excuses for his racist neighbors.
“Atticus is an apologist for racists,” he said. “His whole thing about you have to walk a mile in someone’s else’s shoes. You really have to get inside someone’s skin and crawl around before you can really understand them. That was a way of excusing Bob Ewell… he excuses his neighbor Mrs. Henry Dubose… He excuses the whole South.”
Sorkin then compared Atticus Finch to Americans who tolerate Trump supporters.
“All you had to do, Mike, was look around. We were all saying the same thing about the tens of millions of people supporting Donald Trump. I don’t get it. Yeah, we’ve always disagreed, all of us here in America. But we all have eyes and ears, right? We’re looking at the same person. What are you talking about?”
Michael Moore then repeated Sorkin’s point of view, saying Americans shouldn’t reach across the aisle to their political adversaries.
“No actually, I don’t need to understand why they’re racists. They’re racists.”
Aaron Sorkin was promoting his recent Netflix movie The Trial of the Chicago 7, which is nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture and original screenplay.
Back in 2016, Sorkin described Trump’s presidential victory as a win for the Ku Klux Klan, white nationalists, sexists, racists, and “buffoons.”
“Angry young white men who think rap music and Cinco de Mayo are a threat to their way of life (or are the reason for their way of life) have been given cause to celebrate,” he wrote in a letter to his daughter published in Vanity Fair.
Vaccine passports could be about to become a reality as trials get underway to allow mass events to take place again and as countries begin to lift coronavirus lockdowns, biometric identification is coming in to help verify those who have already had the infection, carried out a recent test or had a vaccine.
Any “Covid passport” scheme to prove people in England are safe to attend mass-audience events would be “time-limited”, the government has said, and the Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston said the trials would be a “learning experience” and that no decisions have yet been made about processes or vaccine certification. Meanwhile in Scotland, Sturgeon says vaccine passports could be trialled soon.
Biometric IDs can be ‘gamechanger’ in coronavirus antibody tests, vaccineAs countries begin to lift coronavirus lockdowns, biometric identification can help verify those who have already had the infection, and ensure that the vulnerable get the vaccine when it is launched, health and technology experts said.
It states that the “new biometric ID systems can keep a record of such people and those getting the vaccine”, said Larry Dohrs, Southeast Asia head at iRespond, a Seattle-based non-profit that launched its technology last year for this purpose. “We can biometrically identify the individual and tie them to the test results, as well as to a high security documents. The person then has ‘non-refutable’ proof that they have immunity due to antibodies in their system,” he said.
Governments around the world are now saying that Biometric IDs could be ‘gamechanger’ for tests, vaccines, and it’s the only way for us to come out of lockdowns. These digital identity systems have already been used in many countries before, linking biometric data such as fingerprints and iris scans to a unique digital codes, allowing for remote identification. See India Aaadhar and China.
It’s interesting because iRespond’s partners include the usual suspects, Microsoft, ID2020 and the John Hopkins University School for Public Health. iRespond worked with the ID2020 Alliance which is a public-private partnership committed to improving lives through digital identity. In September 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, which stressed its commitment to “provide legal identity for all, including birth registration” by 2030.
The mission of the ID2020 alliance is “Accelerating technology to ensure that everyone in need has access to a unique digital identity as part of their basic human right.” And they plan to provide a digital ID for everyone on an international scale.
According to their site, “A unique convergence of trends provides an unprecedented opportunity to make a coordinated, concerted push to provide digital ID to everyone,” During the 2019 summit, ID2020 announced its latest program “Recognizing the opportunity for immunization to serve as a platform for digital identity, this program leverages existing vaccination and birth registration operations to offer new-born’s a persistent and portable biometrically-linked digital identity.”
When you read further, these ‘trends’ include rising global connectivity, emerging technologies such as blockchain and biometrics and a global call for a “New model of ID.”
iRespond also worked with ID2020 on a decentralised digital identity project for refugees in Thailand and they also carried out a similar project for vaccinating against HPV in Sierra Leone again linking to digital ID’s. iRespond’s technology connected four major hospitals, enabling them to share anonymous vaccination data across a centralised digital health network.
Now, firms such as iRespond and Simprints, a UK-based non-profit that develops biometric IDs for health and humanitarian use are adapting their technology for the next steps. Many biometric systems are based on fingerprints, which can be a transmission risk for the coronavirus, so Simprints is developing a “touchless” technology that scans the face or the palm, said chief executive Toby Norman.
It noted specifically that “the pilot will offer blockchain-based digital identification, linked to individual users through iris recognition, for refugees accessing the IRC’s services in the Mae La Camp in Thailand.” Having a “digital identity” would allow refugees “to access improved, consistent healthcare within the camp” with plans for the same system to eventually “electronically document both educational attainment and professional skills to aid with employment opportunities.”
It was revealed to be just the first step in an effort that aims to equip the projects entire refugee population with secure and portable “digital wallets” that will hold not just their medical records but also their educational and vocational credentials, camp work histories and myriad other records,” ostensibly including financial activity.
This is particularly likely given that iRespond also partnered with Mastercard, another ID2020 partner that is closely allied with the company, Trust Stamp, a biometric identity platform that also doubles as a vaccine record and payment system. Everest who works with ID2020 and defines itself as a “decentralized platform incorporating a massively scalable payment solution, Everchain, with a multi-currency wallet, EverWallet, and a native biometric identity system, EverID. Everest delivers a complete solution for a ‘new economy.’”
Were these pilot project pre cursers to the digital identity systems now rolling out across the world, the same companies involved in the pilots are the same ones now being used to roll out Vaccine Passports.
Indeed, the plan could very well be to link our biometric data with face recognition cameras and Digital ID which will contain an abundance of data, right now our health and vaccine data, but that platform could be easily extended to include payments at any point depending on future events.
We already know the Covid-19 vaccine passport app could require people to give their location data to a central database meaning people could be tracked in real time.
"Someone on the door has to be sure the person in front of them owns the credential."
iProov founder and chief executive, Andrew Bud tells Sky News how a vaccine passport smartphone app may work.
Vaccine Passports could setup the backbone for an oppressive digital ID and tracking system which may lead to a health apartheid that would be incompatible with a free and democratic country. This may normalise identity checks, health inspections and increase state control snooping over citizens.
Vaccine Passports could also constitute one of the most fundamental alterations between the individual’s relationship with the state in our modern period. If followed to the natural conclusion, they would be far more radical and far-reaching than Tony Blair’s plans for ID cards. The scheme if not decentralised could potentially hand government and private companies our intimate medical information and threaten to make that intrusion a precondition of participation in civic life.
They are inducting us into a system, a Verifiable Credentials (VCs), non-standard decentralized identifiers (DIDs) and #Blockchain system.
This is to create for us a digital identity and to prepare us, not only for the next pandemic, but maybe for payments, the possibilities are endless and once we are in this system, it’ll be almost impossible to get out.
Observers are in a passionate debate over what’s really driving the latest Donbass destabilization, with the most prominent hypotheses being either domestic Ukrainian politics or the US’ regional geostrategic ambitions, but the argument can also compellingly be made that the concept of so-called “vaccine nationalism” is playing a largely under-discussed role in events.
The Two Main Hypotheses
Donbass is on the brink of major destabilization once again, yet observers are in disagreement over what’s really driving the latest events. Some believe that domestic Ukrainian politics are to blame and that Kiev’s ruling party aims to provoke a regional crisis in order to distract from its plummeting popularity. Evidence in support of this hypothesis includes the government’s recent witchhunt against opposition figures and its draconian banning of many Russian-language media outlets in the country. President Zelensky also promulgated a decree late last month which practically declares war on Russia and explicitly threatens Crimea. The other theory about the US’ regional geostrategic ambitions is backed up by the its ominous statement of support for Ukraine as well as Washington’s preexisting motives for destabilizing Moscow’s western periphery, which prompted Russia to promise its own ominously support for its passport holders in the country. Both theories have a lot of truth to them, but they’re missing a crucial component which could complete the strategic picture.
“Vaccine Diplomacy”
That’s the concept of so-called “vaccine nationalism”, which refers to countries’ efforts to promote their COVID-19 vaccines abroad while also sometimes simultaneously thwarting their competitors’ selfsame attempts. In the current context, Russia’s “vaccine diplomacy” of exporting Sputnik V across the world to save lives, restore the economy, and also for the supplementary purpose of expanding its multipolar influence is on the brink of a globally game-changing success after Politico reported over the weekend that “More EU Countries Eye Separate Deals With Russia For Sputnik Vaccine”. This was preceded just a few days prior by a related report about how “Macron And Merkel Discuss Vaccine Cooperation With Russia”. The unmistakable trend is that Europe is quickly learning that it needs Russia more than the reverse despite American pressure to convince them to the contrary, which explains why CNN is freaking out so much that it recently published a scaremongering piece about how “Europe Is Torn Over Whether To Take Putin’s Help On Vaccines”.
The Donbass Dilemma
It’s against this strategic context that the latest destabilization in Donbass is unfolding. Each side blames one another for provoking it, but an objective assessment of the situation very strongly suggests that neither Russia nor the Russian-friendly rebels of Eastern Ukraine are responsible. After all, they’ve been trying to peacefully implement the Minsk Accords for the past few years, but it’s US-backed Kiev which has obstinately refused to make any tangible progress in this direction, both for domestic nationalist reasons and those related to American regional geostrategic ambitions as was earlier argued. Ukraine is also being crushed by the COVID-19 pandemic but isn’t being provided any real help from its American “ally”, which is why some in the country have looked eastward to Russia for much-needed relief. This inspired me to write about how “Sputnik V Is The Antidote To, Not Russia’s Weapon Of, Hybrid War In Ukraine” at the beginning of the year even though it’s extremely unlikely nowadays that Kiev will agree to cooperate with Moscow in this respect.
The US’ Strategic Failures
Not only has the US failed in its grand strategic goal of “isolating” Russia over the past seven years as seen by Moscow’s successful “balancing” act all across Eurasia that was commenced in response, but it’s also proven itself unable to convince Berlin to sabotage Nord Stream II by incorporating it into the ongoing German Hybrid War on Russia. The Central European country, to its credit, continues to pragmatically engage with Russia on several issues of significance, including Nord Stream II and most recently exploring the possibility of purchasing Sputnik V, though its silence in the face of the latest Donbass destabilization worryingly risks being interpreted as a carthe blanche by Kiev. Nevertheless, the silver lining is that Germany hasn’t condemned Russia for the recent escalations there like others have, and this observation greatly concerns the US. Considering the speed with which Russia’s “vaccine diplomacy” is attracting new partners Europe, it can’t be ruled out that the US wants to provoke a crisis in Eastern Ukraine so as to make Russian-EU Sputnik V cooperation politically impossible.
Towards A Russian-EU Rapprochement?
This shouldn’t sound all that surprising to the reader if they take the time to reflect on the insight that was just shared. “Vaccine diplomacy” is the quickest way to enter into strategic partnerships with other states or comprehensively reinforce those that already exist. Russia’s European interests in this respect rest with its desire to gently influence those countries to reduce and then ultimately lift the US-led sanctions regime that was imposed after Crimea’s reunification in 2014. Moscow would also like the European countries to show more consideration for its legitimate security interests by not rolling out the red carpet for NATO’s US-led unprecedented expansion along Russia’s western periphery. These two US-led developments in recent years – sanctions and military expansion – caused a crisis in Russian-EU relations, one for which Brussels bears partial responsibility because it willingly went along with it in response to Washington’s pressure. It didn’t have to do that, and its obsequiousness to American strategic demands made everything much worse.
Russia’s Soft Power Plans
Perhaps the most immediate strategic importance of Russia’s “vaccine diplomacy” is that it could win countless hearts and minds in Europe and therefore create a favorable grassroots social environment for facilitating those governments’ eventual lifting of their anti-Russian sanctions and their gradual rolling back of NATO’s US-led military expansion in the region. After all, it might soon be the case that Sputnik V is responsible for saving an untold number of lives in the continent in parallel with facilitating the bloc’s economic reopening, both of which would greatly improve the lives of the EU’s hundreds of millions of citizens. It might be very difficult for those governments to justify their decision to continue “punishing” Russia through economic and military means after Moscow saved them from the worst of WorldWarC‘s ravages, which scares the US to no end since it rightly assumes that this might lead to the irreversible decline of its hegemonic influence there. It thus logically follows that the US has an urgent interest in provoking a crisis to make this scenario politically impossible.
Concluding Thoughts
Putting everything together, it can compellingly be argued that while domestic Ukrainian politics and the US’ regional geostrategic ambitions play very important roles in driving the recent destabilization in Donbass, any discussion of these developments is incomplete without incorporating the influence of “vaccine nationalism”. The US will do whatever it can to prevent Russian-EU Sputnik V cooperation since it fears that this would greatly reduce its hegemonic influence over the continent. Provoking a crisis in Ukraine, which was already boiling for a long time already even before last year’s COVID-19 outbreak, could help advance this agenda by making it politically impossible for the EU to purchase Russia’s vaccines. It would be very challenging for any country to go forward with such plans in the face of unprecedented American pressure to “reconsider” following what they’d be told was so-called “Russian aggression in Ukraine” even though Moscow wouldn’t be responsible for sparking any potential conflict. That could in turn prolong America’s fading hegemony over the EU.
“Our private sector must stop taking cues from the Outrage-Industrial Complex,” McConnell added. “Americans do not need or want big business to amplify disinformation or react to every manufactured controversy with frantic left-wing signaling.”
It turns out McConnell is right and in fact, a new AP-NORC poll released Friday shows an overwhelming amount of American support requiring identification to vote.
Voter identification requirements are supported by 72% of the public. That popularity is largely driven by support from Republicans, 91% of whom support a requirement that all voters provide photo identification in order to cast their ballot.
However, as the poll shows, 56% of Democrats also support requiring photo ID to vote.
One must provide a valid photo I.D. and be vetted by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) – and possibly be subject to a several-day waiting period – to purchase a firearm.
One must present a current, valid photo I.D. to cash a check, or buy a loaf of bread, a six-pack of beer, or pack of smokes at a grocery store.
“I really wish this country would come into the middle,” Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen remarked on Fox News last month. “It’s so polarized on the Left and on the Right.”
Van der Veen is not alone in this desire, expressed shortly after Trump’s second impeachment acquittal. Many commentators have noted that the country is “polarized” between left and right. This divide, it is further assumed or asserted, is not a good thing. It must be overcome by coming to “the middle.”
“Middle” has a comforting feeling to it, cognate with “reasonable” and “agreeable.” But is it possible? Surely if there’s a left and right, a middle must be possible.
But while these terms are used casually as if everyone knows what they mean, their origin suggests something that may map onto their current usage. As political terms, left and right are a recent vintage. During the early years of the French Revolution, those favoring retaining the King sat on the right side of the Assembly in Paris, while those favoring his elimination sat on the left. A reading of this split would lead one to believe that “right” must indicate support for governmental power, while “left” stands for freedom from the same. This is how many dictionaries summarize left and right: “liberal and compassionate” on the one side, and “authoritarian” or even “dictatorial” on the other.
As with many terms, a lack of context distorts the true meaning. The assemblymen who sat on the right did indeed favor retaining the king, but for a reason that constitutes the opposite of “governmental power.” King Louis XVI was known in France at that time as “The Restorer of Liberty.” After the tyrannical reign of Louis “I am the State” XIV and the wishy-washy rule of Louis XV, Louis XVI extended freedoms to French entrepreneurs to an extent never before known. His predecessor had asked French businessmen what the state could do for them, and they had famously answered, “Laissez-nous faire”—“let us make our own way”—and this, of course, is the origin of “Laissez-faire,” the byword of free-market economics. But it was Louis XVI, not Louis XV, who acted on it, withdrawing regulations and lowering taxes so as to encourage the flourishing of businesses. That is why those sitting on the right wanted the king to remain connected to his head, so that he might continue to ensure the liberties of the French middle class. Freedom from government control was the desire of the right-sitters.
What did the left-sitters want? Equality.
For leftists then as for leftists now, there is no true freedom when people are divided by class and condition. Freedom as independence from state control is for them superficial freedom, freedom in name only. Until people are made equal—as the Terror made them equal under the blade of the guillotine, destroying wealthy businessmen, ordinary shop owners, landlords, servants, and priests—there can be no freedom, because the critical point is that equality is fundamental to true freedom. Neither “liberality,” nor “compassion,” nor any other shortcut definition of the left will do, because this is the common denominator: For the left, there can be no real freedom without equality as a starting place, while for the right, freedom is the starting place, the fundamental social condition required for a just world. Equality enters into it, but only in the sense that in a truly just society, every individual is free in a degree equal to all others; if one person has the right to pursue happiness, all people do.
By now it should be clear that a “middle ground” between left and right can no more be found than can a middle shape between a square and a circle. How could there be compromise between a view that sees freedom as the one essential ingredient of a just society, and the view that freedom is meaningless without the prior elimination of all inequalities? There simply cannot be.
What people mean when they call for a middle ground is not really a halfway place between two incompatible modes of thought, but a peaceful reasoning between advocates of the two antagonistic positions. Those on the right can and must most urgently wish for such a thing. But if recent events are any indication, the left realized long ago that peaceful reasoning is unnecessary, since it can win political power without engaging the other side.
The Director of National Intelligence published a report on Tuesday claiming that the American Intelligence Community has “high confidence” in its provocative assessment that President Putin “was aware of and probably directed Russia’s influence operations” aimed at meddling in the US’ 2020 elections, including by relying on a proxy network of supposedly foreign intelligence-linked US contacts who “denigrat[ed] President Biden and the Democratic Party” in parallel with supporting former President Trump’s suspicions of mail-in ballots and social media censorship among other topics, which in essence amounts to US spies unprecedentedly attempting to intimidate dissident Americans.
The Dystopian American Hellhole
Biden’s America is descending into the dystopian hellhole that the author accurately predicted it would become last November, but at a much faster pace than even he thought was possible as evidenced by the conclusions reached in the Director of National Intelligence’s latest report about alleged Russian meddling in the US’ 2020 elections. The 15-page document provocatively assesses with “high confidence” that President Putin “was aware of and probably directed Russia’s influence operations” aimed at shaping the outcome of America’s democratic process, including by relying on a proxy network of supposedly foreign intelligence-linked US contacts who “denigrat[ed] President Biden and the Democratic Party” in parallel with supporting former President Trump’s suspicions of mail-in ballots and social media censorship among other topics. This shockingly amounts to US spies unprecedentedly attempting to intimidate dissident Americans.
In The Words Of America’s Own Spies
So as not to be accused of sharing so-called “fake news”, what follows are pertinent excerpts from the report:
“We have high confidence in our assessment; Russian state and proxy actors who all serve the Kremlin’s interests worked to affect US public perceptions in a consistent manner…We assess that President Putin and other senior Russian officials were aware of and probably directed Russia’s influence operations against the 2020 US Presidential election…The primary effort the IC uncovered revolved around a narrative-that Russian actors began spreading as early as 2014-alleging corrupt ties between President Biden, his family, and other US officials and Ukraine. Russian intelligence services relied on Ukraine-linked proxies and these proxies’ networks-including their US contacts-to spread this narrative to give Moscow plausible deniability of their involvement.
…
Throughout the election, Russia’s online influence actors sought to amplify mistrust in the electoral process by denigrating mail-in ballots, highlighting alleged irregularities, and accusing the Democratic Party of voter fraud…Russian state media, trolls, and online proxies, including those directed by Russian intelligence, published disparaging content about President Biden, his family, and the Democratic Party, and heavily amplified related content circulating in US media, including stories centered on his son. These influence actors frequently sought out US contributors to increase their reach into US audiences. In addition to election-related content, these online influence actors also promoted conspiratorial narratives about the COVID-19 pandemic, made allegations of social media censorship, and highlighted US divisions surrounding protests about racial justice.
Russian online influence actors generally promoted former President Trump and his commentary, including repeating his political messaging on the election results; the presidential campaign; debates; the impeachment inquiry; and, as the election neared, US domestic crises…Moscow’s range of influence actors uniformly worked to denigrate President Biden after his entrance into the race. Throughout the primaries and general election campaign, Russian influence agents repeatedly spread unsubstantiated or misleading claims about President Biden and his family’s alleged wrongdoing related to Ukraine…Even after the election, Russian online influence actors continued to promote narratives questioning the election results and disparaging President Biden and the Democratic Party.”
21st-Century McCarthyism
As can be clearly concluded from the above excerpts, America’s own spies openly accused dissident Americans of being Russian intelligence assets – if not outright agents – actively participating in a foreign influence operation aimed at meddling in their country’s elections. This determination was reached solely as a result of their public criticisms of Biden, the Democrat Party, mail-in ballots, the politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic (described by the author as WorldWarC), objectively existing social media censorship policies (including the undeniable example of former President Trump’s deplatforming), Antifa and “Black Lives Matter’s” HybridWarofTerroronAmerica, and the self-professed regime change “conspiracy” by a “well-connected cabal of powerful people” that Time Magazine proudly bragged about the Democrats successfully executing against Trump.
In other words, dissident Americans’ peaceful and responsible exercise of their constitutionally enshrined freedom of speech – including by repeating what their own president at the time was saying – is being held against them as supposed proof that they were secretly meddling in their elections on behalf of Russia. This can only be described as 21st-century McCarthyism since the spy faction of America’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) is once again actively denigrating the country’s dissidents and therefore quite literally meddling in their own country’s democratic process despite ironically accusing Moscow of doing the exact same thing. Not only is this meant to intimidate all those who dare to publicly voice their opposition to the ruling Democrat Party and its proxies (including the RINOs), but it’s also intended to revive the debunked conspiracy theory that Trump was actually a “Russian agent/asset”.
Concluding Thoughts
America is in for dark days ahead as Biden’s dystopian hellhole becomes a reality even quicker than some of the most critical voices such as the author himself could have predicted. The US’ spy agencies are sending the clearest signal yet that they’ll politically repress all those who dare to publicly oppose the ruling Democrat Party and its proxies. This could predictably take the form of first harassing them with their taxes and then perhaps calling them into local FBI field offices to be interrogated, after which they might even have false espionage or other related charges filed against them in order to send a chilling message to all others. This unprecedented attack against American dissidents is arguably much worse than anything that the country ever experienced during the era of traditional McCarthyism, and it won’t improve anytime soon since the Democrats are solidly in control of the “deep state” and eager to snuff out all dissent whenever and wherever it arises.
The reason for this is that the US refuses to learn from its mistakes contrary to its post-Trump rhetoric, which has resulted in scant progress being made in Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya.
The Biden Administration isn’t serious about bringing peace to the four countries in the so-called “Greater Middle East” whose suffering the US is responsible for. Whether it’s his over-hyped policy pivot in Yemen, the stalled peace processes in Afghanistan and Syria, or the seemingly forgotten war in Libya, the new American leader appears to be all talk and no real action, at least for the time being. The reason for this is that the US refuses to learn from its mistakes contrary to its post-Trump rhetoric, which has resulted in scant progress being made on any of those four fronts. What follows is a brief review of the current situation in each of those countries, after which some policy suggestions will be shared for jump-starting those peace processes.
Yemen
Biden’s decision to suspend all US military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen was a positive move, but his subsequent ceasefire proposal failed to live up to expectations. It doesn’t fully lift the blockade that’s responsible for what the United Nations previously described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. This suggests that his administration is playing a Machiavellian game with the Ansarullah (“Houthi”) rebels whereby the threat of famine is being weaponized as a means of politically pressuring them into unilateral concessions. Instead of being treated as an equally legitimate party to the peace process like the Biden Administration officially regards them as after lifting their prior terrorist designation, they’re treated as a junior one.
Afghanistan
US Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad appeared to follow in the diplomatic footsteps of his Russian counterpart, Zamir Kabulov, by recently suggesting the creation of an interim government that includes the Taliban. Despite being officially designated as a terrorist organization, world powers have pragmatically engaged with the group over the years in an effort to support the country’s fledgling peace process. No political solution is possible without the Taliban’s participation. The problem, however, is that the Biden Administration is under internal pressure not to complete former President Trump’s previously promised military withdrawal by this May, which risks undermining last year’s peace accord with the Taliban and thus prolonging the war.
Syria
Out of the four examined conflicts, the US is the least serious about bringing peace to Syria, which it no longer even tries to hide. It bombed the country last month on the pretext of targeting allegedly Iranian-affiliated militias that it blamed for attacking American forces in Iraq. The US also continues to tighten its brutal sanctions regime against Syria with the intent of forcing its democratically elected and legitimate leadership into submission. There are also credible reports from official Syrian, Russian, and Iranian sources that the US’ illegal occupation forces support terrorists. The US hasn’t learned anything despite the disastrous war that it’s waged there through hybrid means over the past decade. Its present policy is therefore doomed to fail.
Libya
Most of the world seems to have forgotten about this conflict, but a ceasefire was surprisingly agreed to late last year between its main warring sides: the UN-recognized government in Tripoli and the rebellious Tobruk-based administration in the east most prominently represented by General Khalifa Haftar of the Libyan National Army. This in turn led to the creation of an interim government that’ll preside over the country until elections this December. All of this sounds good on paper, but the problem is that Libya has already been down a similar path before but with no success. That’s because its internal divisions are exacerbated through the involvement of foreign forces, but such external actors aren’t negotiating between themselves to pursuit of peace.
Policy Suggestions
In the order that they were mentioned, here’s what the Biden Administration must do in order to jump-start the peace processes in Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya:
* Demand the full and immediate lifting of the Saudi-led blockade on Yemen without any preconditions in order to satisfy the Yemeni people’s humanitarian needs and influence the Ansarullah to agree to a ceasefire;
* Respect last year’s peace agreement by withdrawing all US forces from Afghanistan by this May in parallel with accelerating the creation of an interim government with the Taliban to facilitate a forthcoming ceasefire;
* Respect the outcome of this spring’s presidential elections that will likely lead to President Assad’s re-election and use that as the long-overdue pretext for entering into talks with Damascus without preconditions;
* and convene international talks between the US, France, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, and the UAE with the intent of coordinating each major external party’s post-war vision ahead of meaningful intra-Libyan peace talks.
The office of Republican Senator Tom Cotton published a comprehensive containment strategy against China last month that cunningly proposes a series of complementary coalitions aimed towards this end, including in the technological and institutional spheres, which essentially amounts to the creation of a modern-day Iron Curtain if successfully implemented.
Biden’s “Deep State” Balancing Act
President Biden’s strategy towards China increasingly appears to be predicated on expanding his predecessor’s containment policy, albeit in a more multilateral fashion than former President Trump’s mostly unilateral one. This is evidenced by his keynote speech at the State Department last month which led to my conclusion that “Alliances, Democracy, And Values Will Disguise American Aggression”. This was entirely foreseeable too since I earlier predicted that “An ‘Alliance Of Democracies’ Might Be America’s Next Grand Strategic Move”. The behind-the-scenes decision-making basis for this is that Biden must “balance” between competing “deep state” factions in his country’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies that are split between those who embrace Trump’s “America First” international outlook and the liberal-globalists who are more closely connected to former President Obama. I elaborated on the dynamic between them and their possible compromise with respect to more cleverly “containing” China in exchange for cautiously re-engaging with Iran in my related analysis late last year about “Deep State Wars: Trump vs. Biden on China & Iran”.
“Targeted Decoupling And The Long Economic War”
Republican Senator Tom Cotton, a notorious anti-China hawk, published a comprehensive containment strategy against China last month that was written by members of his office. It cunningly proposes a series of complementary coalitions aimed towards this end, including in the technological and institutional spheres, which essentially amounts to the creation of a modern-day Iron Curtain if successfully implemented. This might possibly happen considering that it largely aligns with the Biden Administration’s multilateral plans in this respect. The 84-page document is titled “Beat China: Targeted Decoupling And The Long Economic War”, and a summary of it can be read at Breitbart here. To be sure, it’s not all bad, since many of his proposals about diversifying the US’ economic partners and reshoring its businesses are sound in principle, as are his suggestions for stockpiling rare earth minerals, semiconductor chips, and other materials of national security importance. So too are his ideas about modernizing regulations and the tax code, investing more in research and development, and improving the federal government’s efficiency. They all make logical sense.
Cotton’s Anti-Chinese Containment Coalition
The problem, however, is that he also basically wants to wage a global HybridWar on China. His rationale is that this is the only possible recourse for America after its prior policy of attempting to influence domestic political changes there through decades of economic engagement failed to achieve any tangible dividends. In his own words, “this generational effort at engagement was an experiment to see whether greater economic integration would generate political change in China”, which he rightly argues has been unsuccessful. Instead of abandoning that consistently failed policy of meddling in China’s internal affairs, he wants to double down on it but in a craftier way through the establishment of semiconductor, 5G, and data-sharing blocs as crucial pillars of the larger “American-led, China-excluded trading order with trusted nations in the Indo-Pacific” that he proposes. In parallel with that, he advises that “The United States should launch a similar effort with respect to the United Kingdom and the European Union, America’s top export market.” The grand strategic outcome is therefore the creation of a massive anti-Chinese containment coalition along the Eurasian Rimland.
Color Revolution Catalysts
This isn’t just for prestige’s sake, but is predicated on his expectation that “Chinese citizens willing to accept an increasingly heavy-handed authoritarian state in exchange for a higher standard of living may think twice if growth slows or stagnates. As a result, the CCP fears that declines in exports, growth, and employment could pose political liabilities.” In other words, the interconnected semiconductor, 5G, and data-sharing blocs that he wants to create within his envisioned anti-Chinese Eurasian Rimland containment coalition are supposed to eventually harm China’s economic growth when paired with a more aggression sanctions and tariff policy, which he hopes will in turn create fertile ground for a series of Color Revolutionsthere that could ultimately make the infamous Tiananmen Square Color Revolution attempt look like child’s play in hindsight. The proposed containment coalition would also prospectively expand worldwide all across the Global South according to his vision of the US “leveraging development finance and foreign aid”. Ironically, this is exactly what the US accuses China of doing against its own interests, so it’s curious that Cotton is embracing this same strategy.
Economic Warfare
According to him, “Mobilizing these powerful institutions can support a U.S. strategy for targeted decoupling by incentivizing foreign countries to resist Chinese entreaties, such as participation in the Belt and Road Initiative, and supporting American companies in strategic sectors.” These efforts will be made all the more effective if US spy agencies follow his advice to expand operations against the People’s Republic. His report importantly suggests that “the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) should expand its collection efforts relating to China’s economy, including IP theft, the corporate and capital structures of Chinese firms, the shareholders of China’s strategic companies, and technological developments within Chinese companies.” Although he claims that this proposal is being made defensively in order to identify possible targets to sanction in response to alleged intellectual property theft, the insight obtained through these operations could very easily be abused for offensive purposes to undercut China’s economic competitiveness and meddle in its many Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) partnerships.
Institutional Intrigue
The aggressive activities of this global anti-Chinese containment coalition are intended to be upheld by the international institutions that Cotton says that the US should either reclaim or replace if the former isn’t possible. According to his proposal, “America must fight to reverse China’s gains in these institutions and build new, separate organizations of willing and like-minded partners when these organizations cannot be reclaimed. With these organizations out of Beijing’s hands, the United States can ensure that international rules and standards are written to support emerging technologies where America is naturally suited to prevail.” Once again, this is the exact same form of Hybrid Warfare that the US accuses China of waging, making one wonder whether it was ever really guilty as charged or if the US invented those accusations in order to justify itself doing the same thing later. Altogether, Cotton’s grand strategy is one where the US leads a Eurasian Rimland coalition that brings together several China-excluding technology blocs, expands through the strategic leveraging of development finance and foreign aid, and is “legitimized” through reclaimed or replaced international institutions.
Concluding Thoughts
Skeptics might immediately dismiss Cotton’s global anti-Chinese containment proposal as politically unrealistic to implement under Biden’s Democrat presidency, but such a stance ignores the fact that the incumbent president convincingly intends to build upon his predecessor’s policy in this respect, albeit in a much more multilateral manner. This insight very strongly suggests that Cotton’s proposal might actually be well received by the Biden Administration since its multilateral vision of a series of complementary coalitions closely aligns with the ruling party’s stated policy of relying more on international alliances to advance American interests abroad. For this reason, it would be a major mistake for observers to dismiss Cotton’s suggestions out of hand since there’s a real chance that at least some of them might be implemented by the US across the next four years. Everything is already moving in that direction without any credible evidence that this trajectory will seriously change in the future. With this in mind, China would do well to consider the most effective strategies for responding to this scenario, ideally in a multilateral manner after closely consulting with its partners.
Time magazine admitted in a report last week that a self-described “conspiracy” run by a “well-connected cabal of powerful people” “got states to change voting systems and laws” and “successfully pressured social media companies” among other achievements aimed at “democratically” toppling Trump, the revelation of which represents an attempt by the Democrats to flex their newfound post-election narrative power over their opponents as well as possibly provoke the most unstable at-risk ones among them to overreact in a violent way that could then be exploited for justifying the next phase of their “conspiracy”.
The Cat’s Out Of The Bag
The Democrats and their supporters previously defamed everyone speculating about secretly concerted efforts against former President Trump in the run-up to and after last year’s elections as “conspiracy theorists”, and such individuals even risked being deplatformed from social media for exercising their constitutionally enshrined freedom of speech depending on how they articulated their personal views in this respect. They were told that publicly expressing such an interpretation of events is equivalent to spreading “disinformation” and attempting to “delegitimize” the “democratic” outcome of the US’ electoral process. That makes it all the more surprising then that Time magazine admitted in a report last week that a self-described “conspiracy” run by a “well-connected cabal of powerful people” “got states to change voting systems and laws” and “successfully pressured social media companies” among other achievements aimed at “democratically” toppling Trump. In other words, “conspiracy theory” became “conspiracy fact”.
Politically Inconvenient Questions
This naturally begs the question of why that pro-Democrat media outlet would so proudly brag about “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election”, as its piece is titled. Time can’t be “discredited” by the Democrats otherwise they’d inflict the same such damage against the dozens of individuals named in their report who voluntarily cooperated with journalist Molly Ball in order to show, as one of them phrased it, that “the system didn’t work magically” and that “democracy isn’t self-executing”. Whether they intended to or not, they confirmed this hitherto so-called “conspiracy theory” as a “conspiracy fact”, thereby vindicating every Trump supporter who earlier expressed such sentiments. Not only that, but they also tacitly acknowledged that those who were deplatformed were victims of the same self-described “conspiracy” run by a “well-connected cabal of powerful people”. It’s seemingly inexplicable why they’d do this, but deeply reflecting on the deliberate decision to reveal all of this provides some plausible explanations.
The Democrats’ Post-Election Narrative Power Flex
The first is that, since “Every Democrat Is A Wannabe Dictator”, the party wanted to flex its newfound post-election narrative power to humiliate its opponents. The message being sent is simple enough, and it’s that they’re able to not only get away with literal “conspiracies” such as this one, but are powerful enough to weaponize the institutions under their control (Big Tech, government, mass media, etc.) in order to politically suppress those who dare to call them out on it. As predicted in the author’s analysis late last year about how “Biden’s America Would Be A Dystopian Hellhole”, the Democrats want to rapidly impose a de facto one-party dictatorship onto the rest of the country in collaboration with their “Republican In Name Only” (RINO) allies. They’re drunk enough on power after having successfully pulled off what RT’s Nebojsa Malic rightly described as a Color Revolution and thus winning what the author of the present piece earlier called the Hybrid War of Terror on America that they’re excited to move full speed ahead towards this goal without any hesitation.
Maximum Demoralization Motives
The Trump-inspired “Make America Great Again” movement is mired in a political war with the RINOs while simultaneously struggling to purge itself of subversive QAnon elements. This makes it weaker than it ever was at any moment since its inception and thus unable to adequately organize any meaningful political resistance to this scheme. There’s never been a better moment for the Democrats to strike in dealing what they hope will be the death blow to their most important opponents’ morale, especially since their revelation was disclosed at the time that swamp-captured Trump decided to ally with the GOP Establishment in the likely misplaced hope that the party can regain control of Congress during the 2022 midterm elections. The intense frustration that some of the Democrats’ opponents might understandably feel about all of these overwhelming developments happening at once might even incite some of the most unstable and at-risk ones such as the QAnon cultists to overreact in a violent way that could then be exploited for justifying the next phase of this “conspiracy”.
Dictatorship Through “Democratic” Motions
After all, there’s little doubt among the Democrats’ opponents that the party is now going all out in its attempt to impose a de facto one-party dictatorship onto the rest of the country, especially after Time proudly bragged about how they pulled off the first phase of their self-described “conspiracy” to “democratically” topple Trump due to the “secret” efforts of a “well-connected cabal of powerful people”. Even though they’ve made it clear that they’ll weaponize their control over institutions to politically suppress others through defamatory attacks, deplatforming, and perhaps worse on the basis of indisputable narrative double standards, they still want to complete their full seize of power by going through superficially “democratic” motions. It would therefore greatly advance their grand strategic goal if an unstable, at-risk, and uncontrollably distressed Trump supporter was triggered by this revelation to plot or even God forbid carry out a domestic terrorist attack. In fact, that doesn’t even have to happen in reality since the context is already set to invent that allegation if needed.
Confusion Reigns
One of the implied supplementary objectives of admitting to the “conspiracy” against Trump by a “well-connected cabal of powerful people” is to make it impossible for anyone to really know what to believe anymore. For this reason, any reports about domestic terrorist attacks or plans by Trump supporters in response to Time’s surprising disclosure can’t be taken at face value since there will always be the lingering but nevertheless plausible doubt that such allegations are also part of the larger “conspiracy” that was recently confirmed. As such, it wouldn’t be surprising if many people suspected that such an attack was a false flag or that those implicated in planning something of the sort were entrapped by the secret police (FBI), if the latter even happened at all that is. The intent in so directly addressing this isn’t to automatically extend credibility to those interpretations, but just to draw attention to how likely they are to emerge in the aftermath of Time’s scandalous report.
“American Solidarity” Is The Only Realistic Solution
The domestic political impact would nevertheless be the same whether they really happened as might be reported or not since those incidents would certainly be exploited to advance the Democrats’ grand strategic goal of imposing a de facto one-party state onto the rest of the country. Admittedly, there doesn’t seem to be anything that dissidents can do to stop this, except perhaps immediately organizing an “American Solidarity” movement modeled off of its historic Polish counterpart, even if it too might take years to have any noticeable effect, if any at all considering the drastically different domestic political conditions in which it would peacefully operate. Not only would any attempt to organize violent resistance be illegal and arguably immoral, but it would simply facilitate the Democrats’ plans by providing real evidence of what they’d describe as a domestic terrorist plot for justifying the accelerated implementation of the next phase of their “conspiracy”. For these reasons, “American Solidarity” is the only realistic (albeit possibly long-term) solution to this predicament.
Concluding Thoughts
The Democrats made a deliberate decision to have one of their most prominent mouthpieces so proudly brag about the self-described “conspiracy” that a “well-connected cabal of powerful people” pulled off against Trump. This was done to humiliate and demoralize their political opponents, as well as likely provoke the most unstable and at-risk ones such as the most radical QAnon cultists into overreacting by committing acts of violence that could then be exploited as the justification for next phase of their “conspiracy”. The messages being sent are several: the Democrats have successfully captured control of all institutions and are now weaponizing them to politically suppress their opponents on the basis of double standards; this revelation was widely known long ago by all sides but only publicly acknowledged by the culprits at this point due to its strategic timing; and nobody can ever take the Democrats’ and their proxies’ (including institutions’) statements at face value any more. In truth, while one Hybrid War on America just ended, another has only begun.
Twitter caused a stir by complying with the Indian government’s request to temporarily “withhold” access to dozens of accounts for users within the country in response to claims that they were “inciting violence” during the ongoing farmers’ protests, which prompts some very important ethical questions that have a few disturbing implications for the freedoms of speech and assembly in Western-style democracies across the world.
Everyone across the world is talking about social media censorship after former US President Trump was deplatformed last month by the world’s largest companies in this sphere following the storming of his country’s Capitol on 6 January, but another recent incident is similarly alarming but hasn’t received the amount of global attention that it deserves. Twitter caused a stir by complying with the Indian government’s request to temporarily “withhold” access to dozens of accounts for users within the country in response to claims that they were “inciting violence” during the ongoing farmers’ protests. To its credit, Reuters reported on this controversial decision when it happened, and the BBC just followed up to inform its readers that access has been restored to many of the affected accounts. Nevertheless, the ethical questions related to this course of events and the disturbing implications that they pose for the freedoms of speech and assembly in Western-style democracies haven’t been adequately addressed.
Strictly speaking, “India’s information technology laws empower the government to seek to block online content deemed as inciting disruption to public order”, according to Reuters. In this sense, Twitter was just abiding by the legal request of one of the many countries in which it operates. Be that as it may, there are concerns that the affected accounts weren’t objectively “inciting disruption to public order” simply for posting with the hashtag #modiplanningfarmersgenocide. The politics of genocide are very emotive and the issue is oftentimes exploited for ulterior motives. Even so, it’s questionable whether provocative claims such as that one amount to “Genocide incitement (which) is a public offence and a great threat to public order”, according to one of the unnamed Indian officials that spoke to Reuters. Rather, as some observers suspect, India might have exploited its pertinent legislation in order to suppress the largest and most sustained anti-government protests in recent memory.
It’s up to the reader themselves to investigate this issue more thoroughly in order to draw their own conclusions about that particular example, but the takeaway is that governments across the world could at least in theory take advantage of the law in order to censor their political opponents. At the same time, however, there are plenty of examples that one can think of where it would be necessary for governments to request the immediate “withholding” of access to certain accounts that are genuinely “inciting disruption to public order”, such as during the midst of an ongoing Color Revolution attempt. It’s unclear, though, whether Twitter would dutifully comply in those scenarios since the company is regarded as having a very strict liberal-globalist worldview which is thought to generally align with the goals of Color Revolution participants in Belarus, Venezuela, and elsewhere. One can easily imagine the company denying such requests for political reasons, unlike in India where it fears being shut out of its enormous market if it goes against the government.
These points raise two serioius questions. The first is whether Twitter will follow an apolitical approach of complying with all governments’ relevant requests without discrimination, even if there are grounds like in the Indian case to legitimately wonder whether the law is being exploited for domestic partisan purposes. The second question is whether exceptions will be made on a case-by-case basis due to ideological and/or economic considerations, the first of which is relevant to the Belarusian and Venezuelan scenarios as mentioned and the latter in regards to retaining access to India’s enormous market. The answers to these questions will directly affect the lives of countless people living in Western-style democracies, especially those in the US and Western Europe. As it stands, it’s unclear whether Twitter would temporarily withhold access to accounts within America and France for instance if Washington and Paris claim that some participants in certain rallies (e.g. anti-Biden and Yellow Vests, respectively) are “inciting disruption to public order”.
Of course, it would help those governments’ cases if they could at least point to some law or another that’s officially on the books in order to “justify” what could in reality just be their exploitation of the legal process for the purpose of censoring their political opponents, but even if they can’t, Twitter has both ideological and economic reasons to comply with their requests. It’s for this reason why lawmakers in those countries and others should raise this scenario within their legislatures in order to hold decision makers to account in the event that they attempt to exploit the law to that end. Every Western-style democracy must have a serious discussion about the ethical questions and implications posed by the Indian precedent. Failure to do so will actually put their citizens’ freedoms of speech and assembly at risk of being undermined through potential collusion between corrupt government officials and Big Tech. It also risks empowering Big Tech into thinking that it can carry out its own widespread censorship sprees for ideological reasons with impunity.
To be clear, Twitter itself is a complex entity. It can be used as a tool for good in the hands of responsible decision makers who understand the need to temporarily “withhold” access to accounts that are genuinely “inciting disruption to public order”. Peaceful members of the population also use its free services to organize protests in accordance with the law. On the other hand, Twitter can also be exploited as a weapon by corrupt bureaucrats to censor their political opponents on false “security” pretexts. The company can also “go rogue” and impose its own censorship scheme on targeted populations using the same pretext (albeit arguing that the affected accounts’ posts “violated its terms of service” instead of “the law”) in order to meddle in the domestic political affairs of sovereign states. With these risks in mind, countries should urgently initiate conversations between the state and civil society over the contentious issue of Big Tech’s growing role over nearly every facet of people’s lives, and credible steps should be undertaken to preemptively thwart these dark scenarios.
During a Democratic debate in 2020, the candidates were asked if their health care plans would cover “undocumented immigrants.” Each raised his or her hand, including front-runner Joe Biden. From that stage, the message went forth: If the Democrats win this election, then it is amnesty for all and open borders in America. The message was reinforced by repeated Democratic praise for sanctuary cities, by calls to “abolish ICE,” and end deportations, by pledges to stop work on Donald Trump’s wall, if not to tear it down.
Message sent to Mexico, Central America and the Third World: If the Democrats win and you make it across the border into the United States, under President Joe Biden, you will not be sent back. After only a brief hassle, the economic opportunities and social welfare benefits of the richest country on earth will be open to you and yours. Hence, when Biden won, a new and potentially historic surge to the Southern border began, and the number of illegal arrivals and crossings are in the growing thousands every day.
According to a White House domestic policy council document, the number of children who, without a parent or guardian, will arrive at the border in 2021 will be about 117,000—50 percent higher than the record number of children who arrived in the 2019 humanitarian crisis. In February, some 100,000 immigrants were apprehended by the Border Patrol for illegal border crossing. “I actually think that’s an undercount,” says Victor Manjarrez Jr., ex-Border Patrol agent who teaches at Texas University.
The pre-Trump policy of “catch-and-release” has been reinstated. Children and families who cross illegally from Mexico cannot now be held for more than 72 hours. They are being released into the U.S. to await a court date—potentially years off—to hear their claim to a right to be here. Most never show up.
“We are weeks, maybe even days, away from a crisis on the southern border,” says Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat whose Texas district abuts Mexico. “Our country is currently unprepared to handle a surge in migrants in the middle of the pandemic.”
Congressional Democrats, following Biden’s lead, have proposed a new citizenship act. “Dreamers,” brought here by their parents as children, would be put on a three-year fast-track to U.S. citizenship. The 11 million to 22 million illegal migrants already in the country—the exact number is unknown—would be put on an eight-year track to citizenship. The Democratic Party is signing on to the largest mass amnesty for illegal immigrants in history—which would produce millions of new voters for the party.
Among the recent border-crossers, who are transported by bus to detention centers, where they remain for 72 hours and then are released to travel where they wish, many are carrying the coronavirus. Thus, what’s shaping up on the border is not only a national security crisis but a national survival crisis. For it is impossible to see, given the Biden administration policies adopted, how the invasion of America can be halted. And if 2 million or 3 million migrants reach the U.S. border and cross over each year, and we do not send them back, what stops the invasion and remaking America?
What would blanket amnesty and a renewed invasion portend?
In a decade, Texas, the Southwest, and much of the South would take on the political aspect of California where the GOP has become a permanent minority party. As many illegal migrants do not read, write, or speak English, and do not bring a unique set of skills, their immense and growing presence can only deepen our national disunity. Almost all of these folks are poor or working-class people who would have to rely on government subsidies for their health care, food support, housing, and the schooling of their children. With the unemployment rate rising again in the black community, which has sustained the heaviest collective hit from the pandemic and economic collapse, the migrants would be competing with them for jobs. And as the illegal migrants are disproportionately young and male, they would add to the surging crime rates in America’s major cities.
America is headed, seemingly inexorably, to a future where a majority in this country traces its ancestry to Asia, Africa, and Latin America, a future where this already fractionated nation is even more multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural than today.
With racial conflict as sharp as it has been in decades, with our political parties at swords point, with the culture war raging unabated, as mobs tears down statues and monuments to America’s founders, exactly what national problem will be solved by an unstopping and unrelenting wave of migrants illegally crossing the border into our country year after year?
One of President Biden’s first executive actions was to declare January 27 “Climate Day.” This ad hoc holiday provided an opportunity for his administration to celebrate the latest rationale for economic central planning.
The day’s festivities began with three executive orders on climate change, science, and technology.
In his remarks, Biden bundled his environmental agenda with a jobs program, along with a broader policy to address social inequality and environmental injustice. Among the ambitious goals of Biden’s $2 trillion Green New Deal are 1 million new high-paying union jobs in the automobile industry, half a million electric car charging stations, and a 100 percent carbon pollution–free electric sector by 2035.
The goal of transitioning the electrical grid to zero carbon emissions in the next fifteen years stands out as a singularly misguided effort. Even granting the nonobvious assumption that we must immediately transition away from fossil fuels, overhauling the American energy infrastructure is a vast and complex calculation problem. To be truly sustainable, individuals and firms would need to act on local knowledge, assessing where and what kinds of renewables might meet their energy needs.
The concept of “net energy” illustrates why replacing fossil fuels with large-scale renewable energy is often counterproductive. In Carbon Shift, a 2009 book discussing peak oil and climate change, David Hughes summarizes it like this:
A two-megawatt windmill contains 260 tonnes of steel requiring 170 tonnes of coking coal and 300 tonnes of iron ore, all mined, transported and produced by hydrocarbons. The question is: how long must a windmill generate energy before it creates more energy than it took to build it? At a good wind site, the energy payback day could be in three years or less; in a poor location, energy payback may be never. That is, a windmill could spin until it falls apart and never generate as much energy as was invested in building it.
This life-cycle accounting of “energy return on energy invested” (EROEI) succinctly describes multiple stages of intermediate capital within a hydrocarbon-based structure of production. Hughes also hints at the basic questions facing all entrepreneurs—namely, where they should place their investments and how they should configure heterogeneous capital to recoup up-front costs plus some profit or “windfall.”
Wind turbines and solar panels do enjoy a wide market in off-grid applications, such as remote farm properties and on oceangoing sailboats, where the abundance of wind and scarcity of petroleum products makes the investment a no-brainer. In sunny parts of the country, solar has reached “grid parity.” States like Texas, however, have failed to heed considerations of both net energy and supply and demand in installing massive wind farms at great taxpayer expense where fossil fuels would be far cheaper and more reliable. Lacking price signals, the central planner is blind to the economic consequences of his grand designs.
The president revealed his ignorance of the technological and economic problem at hand when he stated matter of factly, “We know what to do, we’ve just got to do it.” On the contrary, we have no idea how to create a nonpolluting electrical grid without emitting much more carbon in the process than we otherwise would have.
If the government invests trillions of dollars in energy-intensive capital investments—whether wind farms, solar charging stations, or transformer stations—it will have two primary effects.
First, it will frontload carbon emissions into the construction phase. This may offer the illusion of reducing pollution when in fact it merely shuffles emissions to a prior stage of production. California’s high-speed rail, for example, will take an estimated seventy-one years to offset its own construction emissions through the cars it will hypothetically replace (assuming it is ever completed). Furthermore, electric charging stations are typically powered by coal or natural gas—not solar panels.
Second, and relatedly, a Green New Deal funded by debt will distort the capital structure, skewing investment toward long-term fixed capital assets at the expense of the intermediate capital maintenance of the overall structure of production. Theoretically we could burn more coal, petroleum, and natural gas today to build a zero-pollution electrical infrastructure for tomorrow. But when it comes time to service offshore wind turbines, will the helicopters and boats used for maintenance be powered by electricity as well? And what kind of energy will power the factories that manufacture the solar panels and wind turbines? Claiming that they will run on renewables is eerily similar to the circular reasoning and magical thinking used by proponents of modern monetary theory to promote the illusion of spending without taxation.
The Green New Deal is, if anything, a formula for a new dark age. Texas’s recent power outages show the difficulty of the task facing grid managers. There, an attempt to prematurely transition to unreliable wind energy exacerbated the strain on the grid when turbines froze at the crucial moment when they were most needed. The grid managers failed to keep a maintain a sufficient buffer, even without the additional mandate of ensuring the creation of new green jobs and mitigating the discriminatory effects of climate change. It is ironic that a state and nation so rich in natural energy resources would be leading the charge to cancel fossil fuels in favor of technology that has never been proven effective, or even environmentally friendly, at a large scale.
The stock of fossil fuels is large but not infinite. Geological surveys indicate that there is plentiful energy in the ground to advance civilization and develop new sources of abundant and nonpolluting energy. However, we must be careful not to squander our petroleum patrimony on unused charging stations, unreliable wind farms, and half-finished trains to nowhere.
The claim is often made that President George W. Bush’s war on terror, which produced legislation that was employed to attack Iraq in 2003, eventually morphed into the worst foreign policy mistake in U.S. history when that conflict destabilized the entire region and led to an American multifront military engagement that now appears permanent. Few of those in the policymaking business appreciated that by turning “terrorism” into an especially invidious form of evil allowing governments to arrest or even assassinate without due process and bomb civilians if they fit a profile, Pandora’s box was being opened to expand that authority to commit other heinous abuses of authority.
Jim Bovard has described how post 9/11 there were hundreds of arrests for no good reason, in some cases only because someone had a name or countenance that appeared to be “Arabic.” Congressman Ron Paul and a handful of others observed at the time that the legislation would inevitably be used against domestic enemies of the state as well as against foreign or foreign-linked groups, meaning that the real damage done by the Patriot Act, the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) and the Military Commissions Act would be felt somewhere down the road, possibly at a point where the original objective of the legislation would be more or less forgotten.
Now that we have an identified “domestic terror” problem one should expect at a minimum a massive increase in surveillance of innocent citizens couple with arbitrary arrests and incarcerations. Indeed, the process is already well underway with FBI Director Christopher Wrayannouncing that there are several thousand terror “cases” under development. There will also be increasing calls to take away guns and to control what is allowed to appear on the internet. Soon Americans will have nothing to measure their remaining liberties by and will be less free to exercise rights including free speech, possibly dramatically so.
So now we have reached a point where we have a government that is committed to further reducing one’s rights in order to “keep us safe” from a domestic threat and congress critters are openly speaking of bringing in “war on terror” type expedients to make sure that they have the tools available to do just that. The Joe Biden White House has made clear that it has embraced fighting domestic terrorists as a top priority. Last week, the Administration sought authorization from the Pentagon to keep thousands of national guard troops in the District of Columbia for 60 days more, presumably to protect the government buildings and staff. The pretext for the continued presence was a vaguely described plot constituting a “potential threat” to overrun the Capitol building on March 4th, a day when it was apparently anticipated that Donald Trump would miraculously be returned to office. The House of Representatives even canceled a session over concerns that they were about to be invaded by a hostile “militia.” Just how “real” the threat was has not been made clear beyond suggestions of “chatter” over the internet, nor has there been any explanation of why the 2,200 strong Capitol Police force is unable to deal with the problem.
Be that as it may, the Biden Administration thinks it knows exactly who the enemy is. The government already has a working definition of a domestic terrorist, i.e. “If you advocate violence as a tool to further political ends, and take concrete steps to do that, you’re a terrorist.” But if you thought that included groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter (BLM) you would be wrong. For the Biden Administration it is the stereotyped right-wing extremist, who, among other attributes, is represented by the media and government as coming from the class that Hillary Clinton once described as “deplorables.”
The accepted definition of the enemy defies logic as the rioting, arson, and killing that has taken place over the past year has generally been inspired by Antifa and BLM, resulting in major damage and destruction in various cities and states. But the mobs who wrecked and looted have been mostly set free by the courts in the Democratic Party dominated cities. In Portland Oregon 90% of the rioters were not prosecuted, presumably because the local judicial system believed that their “cause was just.” Against that is the trauma of the January 6th incident at the Capitol, much smaller in scope and damages but obviously terrifying to the media and Congress. Also what did occur bore a more comfortable theme for the Democrats which they have been beating to death ever since – “insurrection caused by right wing extremists who were overwhelmingly white and support Donald Trump.” That’s apparently all one needs to initiate a campaign to get rid of such dissidents.
For some suggestions about the direction the Biden Administration will be going in to eliminate domestic terrorism, one only has to review the comments of Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland at his Senate confirmation hearing on February 22nd, where he declared that going after domestic terrorists would be a top administration priority. When asked if he regards the numerous attempts by Antifa and BLM rioters to destroy federal courthouses in Portland and Seattle as acts of domestic extremism or terrorism, he hedged on the issue and replied:
“So an attack on a courthouse while in operation, trying to prevent judges from actually deciding cases, that plainly is, uhm, domestic extremism, uhm, domestic terrorism. An attack simply on a government property at night…or any other kind of circumstances, is a clear crime and a serious one and should be punished. I don’t mean…I don’t know enough about the facts of the example you’re talking about, but that’s where I draw the line. One is…both are criminal, but one is a core attack on our democratic institutions.”
According to the man who almost became a Supreme Court Justice and now appears to be on his way to becoming Attorney General if you attack and seek to destroy a government building when there is no one in it is a different level of criminality than seeking to disrupt what is going on inside during business hours. It clearly is a fine line, or at least Garland sees it that way, but in either case you are making the building non-functional in terms of its intended use. Indeed, groups like BLM have regularly condemned the criminal justice system and if you burn the building down it will be unusable for a long, long time. So clearly what makes something “terrorism” as opposed to only “criminality” is the expectation based on the events of 1/6 that it will be right-wing whites who will be doing the disruption. They are the terrorists.
So, it seems pretty clear that the Biden Administration is now preparing to go after the people that it objects to and will create new laws as necessary to do so. Garland will certainly have a hand in that development. And if anyone is thinking of leaving all of this behind by fleeing to another country where there is an actual rule of law, it would be best to consider the matter again. On February 22nd, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterreswarned that white supremacy right-wing nationalist movements have become a “transnational threat” that has exploited the fear of the coronavirus pandemic to gain support. He said that “White supremacy and neo-Nazi movements are more than domestic terror threats. They are becoming a transnational threat. Today, these extremist movements represent the number one internal security threat in several countries. Far too often, these hate groups are cheered on by people in positions of responsibility in ways that were considered unimaginable not long ago. We need global coordinated action to defeat this grave and growing danger.”
It means you can run but you can’t hide. It looks like there will be a worldwide coalition to extirpate the evils that come automatically with whiteness and, as BLM is now de facto a major constituency of the U.S. Democratic Party, you know that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi will be leading the charge.
Washington’s new Middle East policies looks like sandcastle. Targeting MBS means putting region at peril. The new media frenzy about a possible full-out confrontation between the US Biden Administration and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a sign that Western political leaders are out of touch with reality.
Last week’s revelations published in a declassified report by U.S. security services on the role of MBS in the Khashoggi murder show not only the lack of proof available, but could also lead to a full divorce between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. A growing amount of Western media publications argue that the Saudi Crown Prince should not only be sanctioned, but that Washington also should reconsider its former in-depth cooperation with the Kingdom.
Several U.S. experts have been quoted in international media calling for a clear change in US strategy towards the Kingdom, including a possible removal of MBS as Crown Prince via support of former Saudi Crown Prince Bin Nayef or other Saudi royals. In a clear break with US power politics we’ve seen during the last decades, where the removal of third party power brokers was blocked, a new era seems to be looming on the horizon.
At the same time, Biden finds himself on a slippery slope regarding the ongoing confrontation with Iran, by putting additional sanctions on Iran but at the same time removing one of the region’s main Iranian backed armed groups, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, from the U.S. terrorism list. The results this policy change have already become very clear. A new aggressive drone and ballistic missile campaign has been started by the Houthis to hit Saudi strategic airports and oil infrastructure targets on the Red Sea and East Coast. The high-profile attack on Aramco oil infrastructure this week shows that the Kingdom is still under threat. Some even state that the attacks on the Eastern Province, Saudi’s main oil and gas production region, could not have been done without the full military and logistical support of Iran.
Still, the military capabilities of Houthi rebels and Iran are at present the least of the kingdom’s concerns. The direct diplomatic fall-out of the publication of an intelligence report by the Biden Administration in which the Saudi Crown Prince, who is expected to become Saudi King in the next few years, is being implicated as potential instigator and backer of the Khashoggi murder, is unprecedented. To have U.S. citizens and politicians call for new inquiries about the role of MBS and his security apparatus in the murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul is one thing, but having official documents, declassified by the Biden Administration, directly accusing MBS is calling for potential rifts that could have a fall-out for the whole region.
The attack on Ras Tanura, which is Saudi Arabia’s main crude oil and petchem products export facility had an impact on the market. Crude oil prices spiked, but the effect was only marginal. Even that the current attack has not received the same attention as the Abqaiq attack in 2019, which had a much larger impact on Saudi oil production, the significance seems to be underestimated. A potential destruction of critical facilities in Ras Tanura would have been a shock to the market, even in the light of still high storage volumes worldwide. No oil flows however seem to have been constrained, so futures relaxed again. Still, the market should keep a wary eye on the area, as possible new attacks or even combined attacks on Abqaiq-Ras Tanura by the Houthis and/or Iran could be an option currently being discussed by Tehran hard-liners.
Until now, the impact has been only superficial, but taking into account the growing capabilities of Houthi drone and missile arsenals, or the vast, almost Russian style, capabilities on the other side of the Gulf, other options are clearly on the table.
What should markets get worried is the fact that in the eyes of Iran, Biden and Europeans have almost given green light to hardliners in Tehran to show their muscles. The ongoing Houthi operations are a clear sign that Biden’s current soft-power or even appeasement approach is already backfiring.
Washington’s diffuse approach to Iranian sanctions and the JCPOA is another bone of contention. In the first months of his Presidency, Biden has not shown any clear strategy, leaving too much room for interpretation. Whatever people think about former US president Trump’s policies, his Iran policies were clear. It seems that Iran has almost fallen off the Resolute Desk in the White House, no open and clear way-forward is being introduced. The only clear path currently painted is that Riyadh and Washington are on a collision course. The Biden Administration seems to hold the view that the US is still the sole power broker in the region, so soft power or pressure put on Arab regimes will reap the rewards sought for. This is a clear misconception, partly based on still existing Obama Era assessments, which are no longer valid.
Maybe to the surprise of Washington-based analysts, MBS is not sitting still. The Saudi Crown Prince, is making a lot of headlines with his aggressive economic diversification plans and dreams, and has shown that his international position has not yet diminished. The last days, a flurry of diplomatic and high-level meetings have been held in Riyadh, where Russian Minister Lavrov, Jordan’s King Abdallah, Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and others have been holding meetings to discuss economic and geopolitical issues. Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat Prince Faisal also has been hosted by Qatar’s ruler Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani on Monday in Doha, showing renewed interest in expanding cooperation.
At the same time, Saudi ministers have been flying to Saudi major clients, such as China. Russia is currently using the cooling Saudi-US relations as a possible wedge. Moscow and Riyadh already are cooperating fully in energy and logistics, as statements today reaffirmed. Both stated that the OPEC+ cooperation is still very strong and will continue. Moscow is very pleased with the Biden Administration’s lack of strategy for the Arab region.
Putin and his emissary Lavrov hope to be able to capitalize on Biden’s ongoing mistakes, not only in Riyadh, but also Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Egypt. A critical outcome of US pressure on MBS would also be growing fears in Cairo, Abu Dhabi and other places. A possible realignment of these leading Arab countries, leaving the Atlantic sphere of influence while joining the growing Moscow-Beijing axis is not the outcome that Washington or Brussels would like to see.
Pragmatism is needed and neo-realism also. As Machiavelli and Von Clausewitz clearly stated “to rule or influence a region, one should regard possible strong relationships with the Prince”. If removing the Prince results in a new Prince, instability is the outcome. Stability is needed, Biden’s Gulf strategies are counterproductive, to say the least. By indicating or affronting a “King-to-Be”, enemies are being made. Washington’s culture of backstabbing and rumor carousels are maybe effective in the West, in the Arab world “a man’s word is forever, friendship also”….but this is the same for making enemies.
Months before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, Biden introduced another bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of “terrorism” that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detention of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review.* The Center for National Security Studies said the bill would erode “constitutional and statutory due process protections” and would “authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.”
Biden himself draws parallels between his 1995 bill and its 2001 cousin. “I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill,” he said when the Patriot Act was being debated, according to the New Republic, which described him as “the Democratic Party’s de facto spokesman on the war against terrorism.”
Biden’s proposal probably helped to lay the groundwork for the Bush administration’s Patriot Act.
The Center for National Securities reported in 1995:
On February 10, 1995, a counterterrorism bill drafted by the Clinton Administration was introduced in the Senate as S. 390 and in the House of Representatives as H.R. 896.
The Clinton bill is a mixture of: provisions eroding constitutional and statutory due process protections, selective federalization — on political grounds — of state crimes (minus state due process rules), discredited ideas from the Reagan and Bush Administrations, and the extension of some of the worst elements of crime bills of the recent past.
The legislation would:
1. authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations;
2. repeal the ancient provision barring the U.S. military from civilian law enforcement;
3. expand a pre-trial detention scheme that puts the burden of proof on the accused;
4. loosen the carefully-crafted rules governing federal wiretaps, in violation of the Fourth Amendment;
5. establish special courts that would use secret evidence to order the deportation of persons convicted of no crimes, in violation of basic principles of due process;
6. permit permanent detention by the Attorney General of aliens convicted of no crimes, with no judicial review;
7. give the President unreviewable power to criminalize fund-raising for lawful activities associated with unpopular causes;
8. renege on the Administration’s approval in the last Congress of a provision to insure that the FBI would not investigate based on First Amendment activities; and
9. resurrect the discredited ideological visa denial provisions of the McCarran Walter Act to bar foreign speakers.
* Note: The CNET article contains a typographical error, using the word “detection” instead of “detention” in the sentence: “allowing permanent detection of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review”. Not only does this make no sense, but a review of the bill confirms that it provided for permanent detention.
The promulgation of the US’ so-called “Khashoggi ban” in response to its intelligence agencies determining that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was behind that dissident journalist’s brutal killing shows that the Biden Administration is playing hard ball with the Kingdom’s future ruler, though there’s only so far that it’ll go in this respect since it’s still important for America to still retain some degree of regional strategic “balance” despite its newfound willingness to renegotiate the Iranian nuclear deal.
US-Saudi relations are drastically changing under the Biden Administration as evidenced by its promulgation of the so-called “Khashoggi ban” in response to American intelligence agencies determining that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was behind that dissident journalist’s brutal killing. This shows that the Biden Administration is playing hardball with the Kingdom’s future ruler, though there’s only so far that it’ll go in this respect. As it stands, the pro-Democrat members of the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) that pull the President’s strings intend to diversify their country’s hitherto regional strategic dependence on Saudi Arabia in line with former President Obama’s vision by improving relations with Iran. Nevertheless, there’s only so far that they’ll go in this respect since it’s still important for them to retain some degree of “balance” so as not to push the Kingdom further into Russia and China’s arms.
On the one hand, the US wants to make it clear that the days of Saudi Arabia calling the shots are over. Washington will no longer allow its regional strategy to be led by Riyadh. This also explains Biden’s pragmatic recalibration of his country’s policy towards Yemen, which was also influenced by the desire to send a goodwill signal to Iran about Washington’s willingness to re-enter into negotiations on the nuclear deal. That arguably went against Saudi regional strategic interests, yet the Kingdom was powerless to stop its patron from implementing this policy reversal, at least for the time being. In parallel with this, American intelligence decided to punish some Saudis for Khashoggi’s murder, which was also intended to further erode the Kingdom’s already damaged reputation, and MBS’ personally. The tangential objective is to put pressure on MBS to comply with the US’ new regional policy instead of opposing it lest he risk the ever-present threat of a palace coup.
On the other hand, however, American strategists are aware that these moves will only encourage the Kingdom to intensify its growing relations with Russia and China. It already cooperates real closely with Moscow on energy issues (OPEC+) and Beijing on military (drones) and investment (Vision 2030) matters. Saudi Arabia also agreed to an arms deal with Russia a few years back during King Salman’s historic visit to Moscow which eventually saw the Eurasian Great Power delivering state-of-the-art rocket launchers to the Kingdom that presumably saw action during the ongoing War on Yemen. The US fears these two Great Power’s multipolar coordination in courting the Kingdom to their side in the New Cold War, especially as it relates to the possibility of Riyadh supporting Beijing’s plans for the “petroyuan”, so it knows that it’ll either have to hold back on playing hardball with MBS or move forward with replacinghim in the worst-case scenario.
This “deep state”/geostrategic dynamic explains why American intelligence agencies publicly blamed MBS for Khashoggi’s killing yet Biden backed off from personally punishing him for this. It’s a “good cop/bad cop” type of play, but one which is being made in order to put Saudi Arabia back in place after it ran the former Trump Administration’s regional policy in partnership with its unofficial “Israeli” ally. Those two players stand in the way of the Biden (Obama 2.0) Administration’s risky gambit to restore “balance” to their country’s regional strategy by reaching out to Iran through “nuclear diplomacy” and other means, though all the while retaining pressure on the Islamic Republic as well as can be seen by Biden’s Syria strike last week. If clumsily executed, however, then the US might ultimately end up provoking a so-called “polar reorientation” whereby Saudi Arabia and “Israel” “jump ship” by siding with Russia and China in response to any meaningful US-Iranian rapprochement.
Any doubts as to whether Joe Biden will continue Donald Trump’s opposition to Nord Stream 2 should now be laid to rest. With 18 companies quitting the gas pipeline project this week following threats of US sanctions, there has never been so much pressure on Angela Merkel to ditch the scheme, which would see Russian gas transported to Germany direct.
Merkel has done well to stand her ground to date. For even her European partners aren’t backing her. The Director General of the European Commission’s energy department, Ditte Juul Jorgensensaidon Tuesday that ‘For the European Union as a whole, Nord Stream does not contribute to security of supply’, emphasising that it was a decision for the German state, not the EU as to whether the project should be completed. Given the fact that European demand for Russian gas has increased, not decreased of late, however, one might think that it is in the EU’s interest to support Nord Stream 2.
Not if the US has anything to do with it. Citing concern at Russia’s increased influence over Europe if the pipeline goes ahead, Joe Biden has proclaimed Nord Stream 2 a ‘bad deal’ for Europe, which America will continue to oppose. The US claims that Russia would have more leverage over the EU politically as a result. What it really means, though, is that the US would have less leverage over Europe, and a reduced demand for its fracked gas. EU countries imported as much as 36% of American natural gas in 2019 – an increase of around 5 billion cubic metres from the previous year – a considerable amount given Russia is just on its doorstep, and also bearing in mind the EU’s environmental pledges (fracking produces heavy amounts of methane gas, responsible for global warming).
Source: InfoBrics
Nevertheless, the US is careful to package this as an energy security issue and persuade us that its real concern is the ‘Russian threat’ that comes with the gas pipeline. At the moment the US has some influence over Russian exports to Europe through Ukraine, which as Ukrainian politician Victor Medvedchuk recently emphasised, is merely a ‘colony’ now of the US. If Ukraine, the middleman, was cut out of the process, America simply wouldn’t have the same leverage over European energy supplies.
Moreover, it is clearly part of the US’ geopolitical strategy to prevent Nord Stream 2 construction. In fact, it has been stated so explicitly in a document published by the US government-affiliated think-tank RAND in 2019, entitled ‘Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground’. This is a revealing paper, as it demonstrates the extent to which the US is stuck in a 19th century-style ‘great power game’ with Russia. In the 354-page policy document, Russia’s natural gas resources are mentioned in the very first paragraph. Confronting Russia in the energy sector is seen as a priority ‘in a campaign designed to unbalance the adversary’ as it puts it:
‘…the United States can adopt policies that expand world supply and thus depress global prices, thereby limiting Russian revenue. Imposing tougher sanctions is also likely to degrade the Russian economy, and could do so to a greater extent and more quickly than maintaining low oil prices, provided the sanctions are comprehensive and multilateral.’
Hardly surprising, therefore, that ‘stopping Nord Stream 2’ is listed as the first of ‘A variety of options exist for diversifying European gas supplies and extending Russia economically’. Interestingly, in the report, Nord Stream 2 features heavily in terms of, not so much aiding Ukraine as we keep hearing about in the western media, but instead in relation to undermining Russia. Furthermore, the question of Ukraine losing out on money from transit fees, paid by Russia, which amount to around $3 billion a year, is repeatedly mentioned in the document, which emphasises the extent to which this is an economic issue for the US:
“In terms of extending Russia economically, the main benefit of creating supply alternatives to Russian gas is that it would lower Russian export revenues. The federal Russian budget is already stressed, leading to planned cuts in defense spending, and lowering gas revenues would stress the budget further.”
The RAND report looks at other ways of undermining Russia in the energy sector, describing the possibility of engineering its own pipeline project involving southern European countries and of course, mentions the development of US fracking schemes across Europe.
Aside from US policy in general towards Russia, Joe Biden has his own personal ties to Ukraine which will influence his attitude towards Nord Stream 2. One of the largest companies involved in gas exploration and production across Ukraine is Burisma, a company closely tied to Biden, as his son used to be on the board of directors. Indeed it was widely reported that when the company was involved in a corruption scandal back in 2016, Biden, then US Vice President, incredibly threatened to withhold $1 billion of US aid from Ukraine if it didn’t fire the prosecutor investigating the case.
Joe Biden’s son may no longer be involved in Burisma, but the US President still has considerable influence in Ukraine. Indeed, when Biden’s position as Vice President came to an end, it was speculated that Ukraine wouldn’t manage without him: ‘Ukraine’s government has relied heavily on its direct channel to the U.S. vice president, and Biden’s departure will leave a gaping hole’ said Foreign Policy, adding that ‘No one in the U.S. government has wielded more influence over Ukraine than Vice President Joe Biden’.
Taking both US policy on the whole towards Russia, and Joe Biden’s commitments to Ukraine, it’s therefore likely that we will see this Biden administration only ramp up pressure in the final stages of the Nord Stream 2 project. However unlikely it may seem that the US could stop the pipeline at such a late stage in the game, stranger things have happened. As usual, the US will continue to use both economic pressure in the form of sanctions, and diplomatic pressure to push Germany into a corner. So far, Merkel has been tenacious, but only time will tell if her personal determination is enough to stand up to the might of Uncle Sam.
Former Vice President Joe Biden this week [early January 2020] continued to maintain the fiction that he stood against the war in Iraq “the very moment” it began in 2003. The claim has been easilytakenapart by fact checkers — Biden publicly supported the war before, during, and after the invasion — but a 1998 Senate hearing sheds additional light on his determination to confront Iraq over weapons of mass destruction.
In 1998, U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter resigned in protest and accused the international community of not giving him and his colleagues the support they needed to carry out their job in Iraq, which had agreed in 1991 to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile. He was called to testify before the Senate in September 1998, where Biden, who was then the highest-ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations committee, grilled him. In the course of the questions, Biden made revealing remarks about where he stood on regime change in Iraq.
Biden thanked Ritter for forcing senators to “come to our milk,” by which he meant forcing them to make a decision on what to do about Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his alleged weapons of mass destruction program.
Biden told Ritter that no matter how thorough the inspections, the only way to eliminate the threat was to remove Saddam Hussein.
“The primary policy is to keep sanctions in place to deny Saddam the billions of dollars that would allow him to really crank up his program, which neither you nor I believe he’s ever going to abandon as long as he’s in place,” Biden said, characterizing former President Bill Clinton’s administration’s policy. “You and I believe, and many of us believe here, as long as Saddam is at the helm, there is no reasonable prospect you or any other inspector is ever going to be able to guarantee that we have rooted out, root and branch, the entirety of Saddam’s program relative to weapons of mass destruction. You and I both know, and all of us here really know, and it’s a thing we have to face, that the only way, the only way we’re going to get rid of Saddam Hussein is we’re going to end up having to start it alone — start it alone — and it’s going to require guys like you in uniform to be back on foot in the desert taking this son of a — taking Saddam down,” Biden said. “You know it and I know it.”
Hussein, it turned out, did not have an active WMD program.
During questioning, Biden mocked Ritter as “ol’ Scotty boy” and suggested that his demands — that the international community compel Iraq to cooperate with inspectors — if met, would give Ritter the unilateral authority to start a war in Iraq. Biden argued that such decisions belonged to higher-level officials. “I respectfully suggest they have a responsibility slightly above your pay grade, to decide whether or not to take the nation to war,” Biden said. “That’s a real tough decision. That’s why they get paid the big bucks. That’s why they get the limos and you don’t. I mean this sincerely, I’m not trying to be flip.”
He ended by redeploying his unusual idiom in thanking Ritter.
“The reason why I’m glad you did what you did: We should come to our milk. We should make a decision,” Biden said.
Biden’s earlier suggestion that “taking Saddam down” was the only way to guarantee an end to the WMD program left little doubt where Biden would later come down on the issue.
Biden’s grilling of Ritter is important because it gives context to claims Biden later made: First, that when he voted in favor of the invasion of Iraq as a senator, he did not mean to vote for war, but hoped the resolution would empower inspectors to get back into Iraq and monitor the program. And second, that he never believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
On the first claim, Biden told NPR last year that former President George W. Bush “looked me in the eye in the Oval Office. He said he needed the vote to be able to get inspectors into Iraq to determine whether or not Saddam Hussein was engaged in dealing with a nuclear program. … He got them in and before you know it, we had ‘shock and awe.’”
But according to Biden’s own statements in 1998, he believed that Hussein could never be trusted to eliminate his program, no matter how many inspectors were admitted.
In October 2004, by which time it had become clear there were no WMDs, Biden told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations, “I never believed they had weapons of mass destruction.”
In fact, as Biden had said in 1998, he believed not only that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but no amount of inspections or diplomacy could guarantee their removal. That, he told Ritter, could only be done by “guys like you in uniform to be back on foot in the desert taking this son of a — taking Saddam down.”
Biden’s thought process puts critical hearings he held in 2002 as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee in sharper context. That summer, as the world was focused on the war in Afghanistan, from where the attacks of September 11, 2001, had been launched, Biden sought to begin “a national dialogue” on Iraq. During a series of high-profile hearings, he feigned neutrality, but his earlier questioning of Ritter leaves no doubt where he stood: Iraq had WMDs, and the only way to disarm Iraq with confidence was to depose Saddam Hussein. Biden, given his chairmanship, was a leading voice on foreign policy within the party. He had voted against the first Gulf War, waged by Bush’s father, and wasn’t considered a knee-jerk hawk. His support for the 2003 war made Democratic opposition ultimately untenable — even as Ritter, in the run up to it, loudly made the case against war, arguing that the WMD claims were overhyped.
Biden had reason to disbelieve the WMD claims. In a classified hearing on September 24, 2002, at the urging of a staff member, Biden asked then-CIA Director George Tenet what evidence of WMDs the U.S. had “technically collected.”
“None, Senator,” Tenet said, according to an account in the book “Hubris,” by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. Biden, wondering if there was some highly classified evidence, asked Tenet, “George, do you want me to clear the staff out of the room?” Tenet told him no. “There’s no reason to, Senator.”
“‘None, Senator’ — that answer will ring in my ears as long as I live,” the staffer later told the authors. Later in that same hearing, Biden heard from two government witnesses who rejected the “aluminum tubes” claim that had been circulating, and would later become a centerpiece of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations.
Biden, to be sure, was not a full-throated advocate for the war on Bush’s terms, and throughout the fall, worked with Republican Sens. Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel to try to build support for a narrower authorization, that would only allow Bush to attack Iraq for the purpose of dismantling a WMD program. But the effort was undercut by House Democratic leaders, and particularly Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., who pushed ahead with Bush’s broader resolution. “I was angry,” Biden later said, according to “Hubris.” “I was frustrated. But I never second-guess another man’s political judgment.”
Biden was also aware of the difficulty of invading and occupying Iraq, unlike some of his Republican colleagues. In February 1998, the News Journal of Wilmington reported that Biden saw invasion as unlikely.
Though some Republicans have urged the military to remove Saddam from power entirely, Biden said there was little will for that in Congress. Such a move would require a bloody ground war, the use of 300,000 to 500,000 ground troops, and some kind of continuing presence in Iraq while a new government is installed, he said.
Yet during the summer 2002 hearings, Biden claimed that “one thing is clear, these weapons must be dislodged from Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged from power.” Given that he was already on record believing that the weapons could never effectively be dislodged from Saddam Hussein, that left only one option: war. Biden voted for the Iraq war resolution on October 11, 2002, three weeks after hearing from Tenet in the classified session.
There are ongoing US-NATO military threats against a large number of countries including, Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea. Is a US-NATO sponsored war contemplated for the Ides of March 2021?
A year ago in March 2020 under the Trump presidency, US-NATO deployed 37,000 troops to the Russian border in the context of their war games entitled “Defender Europe 2020”.
Since his inauguration, President Joe Biden has committed himself to extending the militarization of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Black Sea Basin, the broader Middle East as well as the South and East China Sea.
Let’s not forget that Joe Biden was a firm supporter of the Invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein “had weapons of mass destruction”. “The American People were deceived into this war”, said Senator Dick Durbin. Do not let yourself be deceived again by Joe Biden.
In the Middle East, Joe Biden is committed to extending US hegemony with the direct participation of Israel in US Central Command (USCENTCOM).
Currently the US military is involved in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen. The illegal war of aggression against Syria is ongoing marked by direct US-Israeli bombing raids.
The next US military target is Iran.
Biden’s “Confront China Agenda”
Biden’s China Agenda has gone far beyond that of his predecessor:
“We’ll confront China’s economic abuses; counter its aggressive, coercive action; to push back on China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance”
America is back. America is back. Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy.
As I said in my inaugural address, we will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again, not to meet yesterday’s challenges, but today’s and tomorrow’s. American leadership must meet this new moment of advancing authoritarianism, including the growing ambitions of China to rival the United States and the determination of Russia to damage and disrupt our democracy. (Emphasis added)
Building up US military presence in the East and South China seas (ECS and SCS) will be extended to new heights.
The Corona “Blame Game” against China
Yet there is another strategic element which is building up and which might be used as “hybrid weapon” by the Biden-Harris administration against the Chinese leadership.
Who was behind the Economic and Social Crisis spearheaded by the March 11, 2020 lockdown which precipitated the destabilization of the global economy?
Is the Biden administration intent upon launching a Corona blame Game against China seeking billions of dollars of “compensation” from China for the alleged destructive impacts of “V the Virus”.
Already in March 2020, following the lockdown, the US foreign policy establishment was calling for “Yes, Blame China for the Virus”.
If China had a different government, the world could have been spared this terrible pandemic… [W]e have to hold accountable the politicians responsible for making it worse, chief among them Chinese President Xi Jinping. He did not create the novel coronavirus, but his government’s missteps are directly responsible for its global transmission and uncontrolled spread.” (Foreign Policy, March report)
What will Happen in the Course of the 2021 Ides of March?
Is Biden committed to waging so-called “forever wars” under a humanitarian label?
As we recall The Project for the New American Century (formulated by the Neocons in the late 1990s, adopted by the GWB administration) had defined “America’s long war”
We will “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars”.
During the so-called Post World war II Era: US led wars have largely been “consecutive”: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen … (all of which were launched during the month of March).
Preemptive nuclear war was first put forward by the Bush administration as a “first strike” means of self defense. And then under Obama, a one 1.2 trillion dollar nuclear weapons program was launched with a means to defending the homeland…
We are at a dangerous crossroads.
The truth is a powerful and peaceful weapon.
No laughing matter. What can we expect during the 2021 “Ides of March”?
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, February 2021
***
Is it a mere coincidence?
In recent history, from the Vietnam war to the present, the month of March has been chosen by the Pentagon and NATO military planners as the “best month” to go to war.
With the exception of the War on Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO and allied led military operations over a period of more than half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by US ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated in the month of March.
The Ides of March (Idus Martiae) is a day in the Roman calendar which broadly corresponds to March 15. The Ides of March is also known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC.
Lest we forget, the month of March (in the Roman Calendar) is dedicated to Mars (Martius), the Roman God of War.
For the Romans, the month of March (Martius) marked “the time to start new military campaigns.”
As in the heyday of the Roman Empire, the US Department of Defense has a mandate to plan and implement a precise “timeline” of military operations.
Does the month of March –identified by the Romans as a “good time” to initiate new military undertakings–, have a bearing on contemporary military doctrine?
Throughout history, seasons including the transition from Winter to Spring have played a strategic role in the timing of military operations.
Do Pentagon military planners favor the month of March?
Do they also –in some mysterious fashion– “idolize” Mars, the Roman God of War?
March 23 (which coincides with the beginning of Spring) was the day “Romans celebrated the start of the military campaign and war fighting season.”
“Homage was paid to Mars the god of war with festivals and feasting. … For the Romans March 23 was a huge celebration known as Tubilustrium”.
Under these festivities which celebrated the Roman god of war, a large part of the month of March “was dedicated to military celebration and preparedness.”
Timeline of March US Military Interventions (1965- 2020)
Recent history confirms that with the exception of Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO led military operations over a period of more than half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by US ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated in the month of March.
The Vietnam War
The US Congress adopted the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized President Lyndon Johnson to dispatch ground forces to Vietnam on March 8, 1965.
On 8 March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam marking the beginning of “America’s ground war”.
NATO’s War on Yugoslavia
NATO’s war on Yugoslavia was launched on March 24, 1999.
The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia code-named by the US Operation “Noble Anvil”. started on March 24, 1999 and lasted until June 10, 1999.
The Iraq War
The War on Iraq was launched on March 20, 2003. (Baghdad time)
The US-NATO led invasion of Iraq started on 20 March 2003 on the pretext that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
(The 1991 Gulf War on Iraq began on 17th January. However, after the 28th February ceasefire was agreed and signed – following the Basra Road massacre of withdrawing soldiers and fleeing civilians on 26th/27th February – the US 24th Mechanised Infantry Division slaughtered thousands on 2nd March.”)
The Covert War on Syria
The US-NATO Covert War on Syria was initiated on March 15, 2011 with the incursion of Al Qaeda affiliated mercenaries and death squads in the southern city of Daraa on the border with Jordan.
The terrorists were involved in acts of arson as well as the killings of civilians. This incursion of terrorists was from the very outset supported covertly by the US, NATO and its Persian Gulf allies: Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
NATO’s “Humanitarian” R2P War on Libya
NATO commenced its bombing of Libya on March 19, 2011. The United Nations Security Council passed an initial resolution on 26 February 2011 (UNSC Resolution 1970), (adopted unanimously).
A subsequent United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 was adopted on 17 March 2011. It authorized the establishment of “a no-fly zone” over Libya, and the use “all necessary measures” “to protect the lives of civilians”.
Libya was bombed relentlessly by NATO warplanes starting on March 19, 2011 for a period of approximately seven months.
Yemen
On 25 March 2015, an international coalition led by Saudi Arabia and supported by the US launched air strikes against the Huthi armed group in Yemen.
Coincidence;
The Ides of March, March 15 44 BC, was also the day Emperor Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by the Roman Senate.
Time and again, both right wings of the US war party unjustifiably justify endless preemptive wars by manufacturing nonexistent threats to US national security.
The Biden regime’s so-called Interim National Security Strategic Guidance (INSSG) maintains the myth of barbarians at the gates.
It falsely claims that US and other democracies — in name only — are threatened, referring to the increasingly totalitarian West and apartheid Israel.
Remarks ghost-written for Biden drip with references to democratic values, fundamental freedoms, prosperity for all, peace and dignity — notions abhorred by US-led Western countries and Israel.
“(B)uild back better” is all about handing the nation’s wealth to privileged interests at the expense of exploiting most others.
It’s about spending unlimited trillions of dollars for militarism and warmaking.
It’s about handing trillions more to Wall Street and other corporate favorites.
It’s about going all-out to prevent peace and stability from ending forever wars.
It’s about subjugating world community nation-states and ordinary people at home and abroad.
It’s about enforcing new world order harshness by police state control.
It’s polar opposite virtually everything just societies hold dear.
There’s nothing remotely benign about hardline US domestic and geopolitical policies.
Media supported mass deception pretends otherwise.
INSSG pretends that the Biden regime like its predecessors aims “to keep Americans safe, prosperous, and free (sic).”
Totalitarian rule — enforced with police state harshness — pursues polar opposite aims.
“Anti-democratic forces” are headquartered in Washington with branch offices in Western European capitals and Tel Aviv.
Enemies mentioned are invented, not real, notably China and Russia, nations prioritizing peace, stability, cooperative relations with other nations, and adherence to international law — notions long ago abandoned by the US-dominated West.
Iran and North Korea are longstanding invented US enemies, nations at war with no others, threatening no one.
Nations reinvented as barbarians at the US gates wage peace, not war, cooperation with other states, not confrontation — in sharp contrast to how the US and its imperial partners operate, an unprecedented threat to humanity’s survival.
Names and faces change in Washington over time. Farcical elections assure continuity.
Imperial rage for dominance through the barrel of a gun remains hard-wired policy.
So does police state harshness to prevent governance of, by, and for everyone equitably from ever breaking out.
Before taking office, Biden assured US privileged interests that nothing will change on his watch.
Governance serving them exclusively at the expense of most others will continue like always before.
Endless wars and occupations will continue.
Public wealth will shift entirely to powerful interests, ordinary Americans impoverished, resistance crushed when surfacing.
The state of the nation and other Western societies will become more unsafe and unfit to live in than already.
The type world US ruling authorities have in mind for ordinary people everywhere is too unacceptable to tolerate.
Invented threats — including barbarians at the gates — aim to cow ordinary people into submission.
They’re manipulated to believe everything is all right so they’ll learn to love their Big Brother oppressor.
Mass resistance is essential to challenge the worst of all possible worlds US dark forces want imposed on humanity.
Even as President Joe Biden challenges Americans to a “100 day masking challenge” and other mask-related restrictions on federal land, some of the biggest states in the US (including ultra-liberal California and swing-state Michigan, among others) are going their own way, resisting calls from the Biden administration to go heavy with masks and lockdowns, which have – as we’ve noted, seemingly made no difference and lack scientific basis.
Perhaps it has something to do with the WHO’s admission that PCR overamplification may have led to the “Case-Demic” that “conspiracy theorists have long warned about.
But whatever the case may be, recently, liberal governors like New York’s Andrew Cuomo appeared to recognize that the economy needs to reopen, and quickly. Even Cuomo acknowledges that the holiday spike is fading.
Notably, the spike in cases from the pre-holiday period is already beginning to subside. This, coupled with all of those warnings about a post-holiday case surge, had led to suspicions that the American public has been gaslighted – or at least intentionally misled, by federal authorities intent on doing whatever they can to tarnish President Trump’s legacy.
Meanwhile, and possibly related, vaccination rates worldwide aren’t off to a great start – while reports of healthcare professionals and others who refuse to take it have been rolling in.
Yet, despite liberal leaders’ sudden post-inauguration interest in reopening, they seem to be ignoring the new boogeyman – the new “mutated” strains from the UK and South Africa, which have caused a good deal of panic among public health officials (whether warranted or not).
And since the US has administered fewer than 25MM vaccines, more of these COVID “variants” are setting off alarms – causing vaccine maker Moderna announcing the development of a ‘booster’ shot to protect against both mutants.
Teachers’ unions, meanwhile, are increasingly opposed to lawmakers pushing to return to in-person instruction within 100 days.
According to Northwestern University epidemiologist Sadiya Khan, who spoke with Bloomberg, “We’re just asking to go backwards by easing restrictions without focusing on achieving herd immunity with vaccination.” The doctor is an epidemiologist at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.”It’s very fragile,” she said referring to the COVID economy.
Perhaps things would be less ‘fragile’ if Democratic leaders’ sudden push to reopen didn’t have the most suspicious timing in the known universe, and California (and other states) were more transparent about whose ‘science’ they’re following.
Video has surfaced of former Vice President Joe Biden jokingly calling US military members “stupid bastards” and a “dull bunch” apparently in indignation for not receiving applause during a 2016 trip to the United Arab Emirates. Biden said we don’t need to trust anonymous sources in the Atlantic to believe these labels to believe them.
“Notwithstanding what you may hear about me, I have incredibly good judgment,” Biden said. “One, I married Jill and two, I appointed Johnson to the academy.”
When nobody reacts, Biden added “I just want you to know that, so clap for that you stupid bastards.” Biden then proceeded by saying, “Man, you all are a dull bunch. It must be slow here, man.”
Biden, who was in his final year in office, traveled to the Middle East in March 2016 as part of an effort to shore up the Obama administration’s position in the region. During the trip Biden delivered an address to members of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing stationed at the Al-Dhafra Air Base near Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
As part of the visit, Biden was introduced by 1st Lt. Karen Johnson of the 380th’s Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. Given that Lt. Johnson was a native of Delaware and had secured her appointment to the U.S. Air Force Academy through Biden’s former Senate office, the vice president tried to use that history as a means to break the ice with the more than 1,000 service members present.
While it might be anticipated that President Trump will level Biden in the debates, he might not get the opportunity if Biden takes himself out first.
Wow. Democrat Presidential candidate Joe Biden called our troops "stupid bastards" in 2016. How did this video stay hidden for so long? There’s only one stupid bastard in this clip and it’s definitely not any of our troops… pic.twitter.com/YZ99utMx30
We have entered a new era of demonology. The hunt is on for heretics and witches who might be held responsible for our current predicament, for the plague of Covid. As in pre-modern times, sinful speakers and thinkers, those who dare to bristle against the political or scientific consensus, are being demonised and publicly shamed as assistants of the plague, as Covid’s willing helpers. They have ‘blood on their hands’, the lockdown fanatics cry, blissfully unaware of how similar they sound to those who in earlier times of disease would drag eccentrics to the stocks in the warped belief that those eccentrics either brought the plague or at least aided its spread.
It is hard to think of any other political constituency in recent times who have been as thoroughly demonised as lockdown sceptics. Climate-change sceptics are up there, of course. Deniers of the cult of genderfluidity have had a severe hammering, too. But that all pales, if not into insignificance then at least into the background, in comparison with the war of barbs and defamation against anyone who questions whether lockdown is the right response to Covid-19.
These people are branded ‘Covid deniers’. They are ‘dangerous’. Their words kill. They have blood on their hands. They have a ‘hell of a lot to answer for’, says chief demonologist Neil O’Brien, Tory MP for Harborough, inflaming the idea that these people and their sinful speech benefit the plague and directly help to cause injury and death.
So successful has been the campaign of demonisation against lockdown sceptics that even that title – lockdown sceptic – has been sullied beyond recognition. It is now taken to include not only thoughtful people who question the policy of complete shutdowns, but also those who doubt the existence of Covid-19 and anti-vaxxers who think the Covid jab will come with a microchip so that Bill Gates can monitor our every move for the rest of time.
This lumping together of everyone from Oxford scientists Sunetra Gupta and Carl Heneghan to the anonymous bloke on Twitter who swears blind he knows five people who have been made gravely ill by the vaccine confirms that the aim here is to vilify scepticism across the board. Raise so much as a peep of criticism of the current Covid strategy and you’re as bad as the morons who say Covid isn’t real.
The demonisation of lockdown sceptics intensifies daily. They are branded ‘agents of disinformation’ (the Observer) who are ‘dangerous’ (the New Statesman). They are killing people, we are told. The reason Covid-19 is spreading again, and killing large numbers, is ‘because this metropolitan clique of elites put forth falsehoods and misinterpretations’, says one columnist (my italics).
This is, to be frank, unhinged. It is unreasonable in the extreme to blame the spread of Covid on sceptics who have very little influence in public discussion. Virtually the entire political establishment, the vast bulk of the media and every online ‘influencer’ favours lockdown. The message we receive constantly – on TV, online, in the press – is to stay home, be good, don’t kill people. It is a fantasy to believe that the voices of isolated and demonised sceptics are cutting through this conformist fog and inspiring people to recklessly spread the plague.
But then, that’s the point – we are now in the realm of fantasy, or at least of pre-modern fear and panic, not the realm of reason. The shaming of lockdown sceptics as friends of the plague eerily echoes past outbursts of hysteria during times of transmissible illness. Witchcraft panics exploded during times of plague. As one historical study of witch-hunts in the 1500s and 1600s says, it was often ‘the profound dislocation and mortality produced by the plague’ which created the social conditions for witch-hunting. Plague provided ‘the essential background for the growth [of witch-hunts]’ (1).
The terror and confusions unleashed by plagues led to a climate of finger-pointing, a demented search for those whose warped beliefs and actions might be held responsible for the plague’s spread. Where today’s sinful speakers are judged to be ‘agents of disinformation’, witches and demonic individuals in earlier eras of plague were denounced as ‘agents of the kingdom of evil’. As one historian says: ‘The sheer, massive terror induced by the plague grounded the notion that absolutely anyone… could be an agent of the kingdom of evil.
Indeed, witch-hunts often ran side by side with ‘plague-spreader panics’. These panics, especially prevalent in urban areas, were fuelled by a conviction that certain people, usually those possessed of incorrect, non-Christian beliefs, were assisting the plague. Either through the use of plague-diseased ointments or treatments that didn’t work (disinformation?), these evil forces were said to be the footsoldiers of sickness: ‘Their prosecution resembled that of witches, for a visitation of the plague could trigger a plague-spreader panic, in which a large number of engraisseurs [plague-spreaders] were accused and tried.’ (3)
Heresy itself came to be viewed as a kind of plague. The 1645 pamphlet Heresiography branded heresy an ‘infectious and contagious malady’. Heresy was seen as a worse problem than disease itself. ‘The plague of Heresie is greater’, Heresiographydeclared, ‘and you are now in more danger than when you buried five thousand a week’. This chillingly prefigured Britain in early 2021: over 5,000 died from Covid last week and yet the most intense focus among the media and political elites has been on lockdown sceptics and their ‘dangerous’ words. The plague of heresy is greater….
The impulse back then was to try to offset the terror of the plague with ritualistic denunciations and in some cases executions of plague-assisters. A similar impulse has gripped the UK today. The seemingly out-of-control nature of Covid-19, the patent failure of three lockdowns to ‘flatten the curve’, has generated instability and even flashes of hysteria in the mainstream. They need someone or something to blame. They need demons. They need engraisseurs. The witch-hunt, once again, becomes a displacing function of the fearful, morally disarrayed governors of society.
One commentator – Paul Mason at the New Statesman – has taken the heresy hysteria to its logical conclusion. He has fantasised about which circles of hell lockdown sceptics will be placed in. ‘[T]he final circle has to be reserved for prominent lockdown sceptics… celebrity right-wing opinion-formers with no scientific credentials… It is thanks to them, and their media backers, that the Tory handling of the pandemic has lurched from incompetence and hubris to catastrophic mismanagement.’ In short, their heresy kills, and they must be silenced. Pure medievalism. Stalinism meets Dante.
This demonisation of sceptics must stop. The majority of us who question the policy of lockdown accept that Covid is real and dangerous. spiked has described the Covid pandemic as a very significant health challenge from the very beginning. We also accept that restrictions on everyday life will be necessary. What we question is the policy of blanket lockdowns, the use of the politics of terror to scare the population into complying, and the war on dissent. It is perfectly legitimate – essential, in fact – to question these things.
You want to talk about sin? Okay. It is a far greater sin to crush dissenting opinion than it is to say things about Covid-19 that later prove to be wrong. The destruction of free discussion harms society far more than incorrect opinion or predictions do, because it limits the space for critical interrogation of public policy and for entertaining the possibility that what we are doing is wrong. That is what spiked wants: the entertainment of possibilities, the cherishing of open and rigorous inquiry, and the flourishing of heresy. Time will tell if lockdown was wrong, but we know right now that the campaign of demonology is wrong.
Brendan O’Neill is editor of spiked and host of the spikedpodcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy
President Trump was crucified by the mainstream media a few weeks back after hosting an improvised press conference and saying there was “blame on both sides” for the violence in Charlottesville that resulted in the death of a counterprotester. The comments resulted in most of Trump’s advisory councils being disbanded, as CEO’s around the country pounced on the opportunity to distance themselves from the administration, and heightened calls from CNN for impeachment proceedings.
The problem is that while Trump’s delivery probably could have been a bit more artful, the underlying message seems to be proving more accurate with each passing day and each new outbreak of Antifa violence.
As Politico points out today, previously unreported FBI and Department of Homeland Security studies found that “anarchist extremist” group like Antifa have been the “primary instigators of violence at public rallies” going back to at least April 2016 when the reports were first published.
Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as “antifa” had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as “domestic terrorist violence,” according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by POLITICO.
Since well before the Aug. 12 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned deadly, DHS has been issuing warnings about the growing likelihood of lethal violence between the left-wing anarchists and right-wing white supremacist and nationalist groups.
Previously unreported documents disclose that by April 2016, authorities believed that “anarchist extremists” were the primary instigators of violence at public rallies against a range of targets. They were blamed by authorities for attacks on the police, government and political institutions, along with symbols of “the capitalist system,” racism, social injustice and fascism, according to a confidential 2016 joint intelligence assessment by DHS and the FBI.
Not surprisingly, law enforcement officials noted that the rise in Antifa violence overlapped perfectly with Trump’s campaign as they made appearances at rally after rally to incite chaos…all the while making it seem as if violent, racist Trump supporters were to blame.
“It was in that period [as the Trump campaign emerged] that we really became aware of them,” said one senior law enforcement official tracking domestic extremists in a state that has become a front line in clashes between the groups. “These antifa guys were showing up with weapons, shields and bike helmets and just beating the shit out of people. … They’re using Molotov cocktails, they’re starting fires, they’re throwing bombs and smashing windows.”
Almost immediately, the right-wing targets of the antifa attacks began fighting back, bringing more and larger weapons and launching unprovoked attacks of their own, the documents and interviews show. And the extremists on both sides have been using the confrontations, especially since Charlottesville, to recruit unprecedented numbers of new members, raise money and threaten more confrontations, they say.
“Everybody is wondering, ‘What are we gonna do? How are we gonna deal with this?’” said the senior state law enforcement official. “Every time they have one of these protests where both sides are bringing guns, there are sphincters tightening in my world. Emotions get high, and fingers get twitchy on the trigger.”
As you’ll likely recall, one such event came in June 2016 when Antifa showed up at a rally in Sacramento and began violently attacking protestors with canes and knives. Of course, with the whole thing caught on video, it’s pretty clear who the instigators of violence were (see our post here).
Some of the DHS and FBI intelligence reports began flagging the antifa protesters before the election. In one from last September, portions of which were read to POLITICO, DHS studied “recent violent clashes … at lawfully organized white supremacist” events including a June 2016 rally at the California Capitol in Sacramento organized by the Traditionalist Workers Party and its affiliate, the Golden State Skinheads.
According to police, counter-protesters linked to antifa and affiliated groups like By Any Means Necessary attacked, causing a riot after which at least 10 people were hospitalized, some with stab wounds.
At the Sacramento rally, antifa protesters came looking for violence, and “engaged in several activities indicating proficiency in pre-operational planning, to include organizing carpools to travel from different locations, raising bail money in preparation for arrests, counter-surveilling law enforcement using three-man scout teams, using handheld radios for communication, and coordinating the event via social media,”the DHS report said.
Insane video. Crowd sees any signs of "Nazis" and they run&attack. A lot of people bleeding/getting maced. @ABC10pic.twitter.com/PoFhILfZ95
— Frances Wang (#FrannyInMiami) (@FrancesWangTV) June 26, 2016
— Frances Wang (#FrannyInMiami) (@FrancesWangTV) June 26, 2016
Of course, it’s not just California. As the FBI and DHS note, the Antifa group operates much like terrorist cells with disconnected groups all over the country.Even before Charlottesville, dozens and, in some cases, hundreds of people on both sides showed up at events in Texas, California, Oregon and elsewhere, carrying weapons and looking for a fight. In the Texas capital of Austin, armed antifa protesters attacked Trump supporters and white groups at several recent rallies, and then swarmed police in a successful effort to stop them from making arrests.
California has become another battleground, with violent confrontations in Berkeley, Sacramento and Orange County leading to numerous injuries. And antifa counter-protesters initiated attacks in two previous clashes in Charlottesville, according to the law enforcement reports and interviews.
More recently, the antifa groups, which some describe as the Anti-Fascist Action Network, have evolved out of the leftist anti-government groups like “Black bloc,” protesters clad in black and wearing masks that caused violence at events like the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization protests. They claim to have no leader and no hierarchy, but authorities following them believe they are organized via decentralized networks of cells that coordinate with each other. Often, they spend weeks planning for violence at upcoming events, according to the April 2016 DHS and FBI report entitled “Baseline Comparison of US and Foreign Anarchist Extremist Movements.”
Dozens of armed anti-fascist groups have emerged, including Redneck Revolt and the Red Guards, according to the reports and interviews. One report from New Jersey authorities said self-described antifa groups have been established in cities including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco.
Meanwhile, even by the spring of 2016, the FBI had already grown concerned enough about Antifa that they began investigating overseas trips by activists out of concerns that they were coordinating with European anarchists to stage large bombings in the U.S.
By the spring of 2016, the anarchist groups had become so aggressive, including making armed attacks on individuals and small groups of perceived enemies, that federal officials launched a global investigation with the help of the U.S. intelligence community, according to the DHS and FBI assessment.
The purpose of the investigation, according to the April 2016 assessment: To determine whether the U.S.-based anarchists might start committing terrorist bombings like their counterparts in “foreign anarchist extremist movements” in Greece, Italy and Mexico, possibly at the Republican and Democratic conventions that summer.
Some of the antifa activists have gone overseas to train and fight with fellow anarchist organizations, including two Turkey-based groups fighting the Islamic State, according to interviews and internet postings.
Alas, we suspect you’ll hear precisely nothing about any of this on CNN.
Dutch-Jewish historian Jacques Presser remarked as early as 1947: “Fascism, should it ever return, will undoubtedly present itself in the guise of anti-fascism.” Having watched the surreal inauguration, the Green Zone in Baghdad popped up. The occupation in Washington was called Red Zone.
Almost 30.000 troops occupied the city, protecting the ruling class from their own people. The “most popular President,” who can’t simulate mental acuity, was inaugurated behind a huge electric fence without any real people present, except some hundred handpicked members of the political class.
This flagged event has been reinterpreted by one of the propagandists from CNN, Don Lemon; he twisted the truth like CNN always does, saying,
“The reason President-elect Biden has to do this is that he’s just so incredibly popular. He has so many rabid fans that they might try to rush the stage as they’re overcome with enthusiasm and love for Biden, who is by far the most beloved candidate who has ever run for President.”
Kim Jong-un would love having such a guy in his propaganda crew.
Much lesser troops are still occupying Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria! The “crowd” was “represented” by 200.000 mini US flags along the Mall. Biden phraseology sounded like Obama’s only amateurishly and less eloquently. Obama finally got his third term.
Most of the so-called new people served under Obama. Susan Rice, who controls Biden’s domestic policy, will execute Obama’s divisive and identity policy, which contributed partly to the US’s dire situation.
Source: Ludwig Watzal
The Harris/Biden administration will wage a domestic war against 75 million “political-incorrect people” (Trump voters), together with the CIA, FBI, the big tech, the billionaire class, Wall Street, and the propaganda mainstream media as moral enforcers.
Biden used divisive language disguised in “unity” rhetoric such as “White Supremacists,” “Terrorists,” “Nationalists,” et cetera, who violated our “values.” Did he mean the “values” of the 1 percent and their political puppets?
The new regime uses the outburst of People Power on Capitol Hill, where many bozos broke some windows, as a pretext for a purge and a crackdown of 75 million Trump voters. Inciters from Black Lives Matter, such as John Early Sullivan and other agents provocateurs, whooped the protesters. It didn’t look like a “coup,” which the Obama administration organized in Ukraine or other places worldwide.
According to Democrats and their media instigators, Trump incited an “insurrection,” calling on people to make the protest “peacefully” and “patriotically” heard! Not a single word in his common rhetoric was inflammatory.
The Democratic Party political establishment in Washington even wants to “impeach” Trump, though he is now a private citizen. That quite a few Republicans rise to the bait demonstrates their needlessness.
Democrats and Republicans are afraid of Trump that they will bend the law to make “impeachment” happen. The new inquisition plans big. All Trump voters have to undergo reeducation training to be deprogrammed and brainwashed with their political-correct ideology.
The Obama 3.0 administration will topsy-turvy the US with their racist and discriminatory identity policy. Now women have to compete with male freaks who pretend they feel female! This insanity is a spit into the face of all women.
Besides this lunacy, Tribalism will return to America. In the future, everything will depend on who you look (black, brown, yellow, or colored, what sexual orientation one prefers, whether one feels discriminated, which bathroom one wants to use, and the rest of the ridiculous traits that are on display by the Harris/Biden people. The US looks like a nuthouse filled with ideological fanatics for an outsider.
The protest of people power on 6 January will serve as a pretext to establish a fascist system, which has been long in the pipeline. It started in summer 2020, when media oligarchs, a bunch of billionaires, and political operatives from the Democratic Party simulated war games against Trump’s “misbehavior.” Mainstream media was complicit and pushed these ideas.
The Harris/Biden administration, together with Pelosi’s and Schumer’s control
Congress will ram a new “Patriot Act” down the lawmakers’ throat. This “law” will allow the US government to fight “domestic terrorism,” whatever that means. Harris/Biden can now switch between the so-called “Global War on Terror” and “domestic terrorism.” The left big tech and opinion oligopolies replaced class struggle and replaced “anti-fascist” technocratic terrorism. “Antifascism” justifies everything after all!
In fact, the people Biden/Harris hired are the old Obama administration with some new faces, such as the black Secretary of Defense.
They are obsessed with Russia, but not so much with China.
Isn’t the Biden family deeply involved in financial favors from Chinese intelligence? Instead of impeaching the private citizen Donald Trump, Congress should think about impeaching Joe Biden.
There won’t be any “normal,” neither for the American people nor for the peoples around the world. Plans for a “Great Reset” and total control by Big Tech, which plays the role of a “Global Pravda,” are in the pipeline.
Perhaps this American-style Fascism will be more palatable than older versions. But Fascism will remain Fascism, even when it appears as the shining city on the Hill.
US President Joseph Biden, a relic from Washington’s old political establishment will continue the same imperialist policies in Latin America as did his predecessors including that of Donald Trump. There is a clear indication that Washington’s hostilities towards Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro will continue under a Biden administration.
The day before Biden’s inauguration, Reuters’ had published a report on what we can expect from the new administration when it comes to Venezuela, ‘Biden will recognize Guaido as Venezuela’s leader, top diplomat says.’ which means that Washington will continue to support the opposition leader, Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s “legitimate” president. According to the report, Anthony Blinken said “U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s administration will continue to recognize Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the South American country’s president.” Not only Washington would recognize a political figure who was selected by Washington, it would continue to use targeted sanctions on the Latin American country coinciding with humanitarian aid:
Blinken told members of the U.S. Senate that Biden would seek to “more effectively target” sanctions on the country, which aim to oust President Nicolas Maduro – who retains control of the country. Blinken said the new administration would look at more humanitarian assistance to the country
US hostilities towards Venezuela did not start with Trump, there were tensions between Washington and Caracas with the Obama and Bush regimes. An article from the Associated Press (AP) in 2015 ‘Venezuela’s President Accuses Vice President Biden of Plotting to Overthrow Him’ said that Washington had imposed “new visa restrictions on Venezuelan officials and their families.”
The former White House Communications Director under Obama, Jen Psaki who is now on Biden’s team as the White House Press Secretary said that “the U.S. was showing clearly that human rights violators and their families “are not welcome in the United States.”
Washington’s actions earned condemnation from Maduro who said that “he would write a letter to Obama over what he called an attempt to violate Venezuela’s national sovereignty” and that Washington’s long-time policies which are basically strong-arm tactics used on Venezuela and its close allies in the region will lead to failure “U.S. policy toward Venezuela has been kidnapped by “irresponsible, imperial forces that are putting the United States on a dead-end.” Maduro’s response towards Washington’s sanctions at the time was on a televised national address which he criticized Obama’s Vice-President, Joe Biden:
In a televised address over the weekend, Maduro claimed that Biden sought to foment the overthrow of his socialist government during a Caribbean energy summit Biden hosted last month in Washington. According to Maduro, Biden told Caribbean heads of state that the Venezuelan government’s days were numbered and it was time they abandon their support. “What Vice President Joseph Biden did is unspeakable,” Maduro said
And of course, Washington dismissed Maduro’s claims as “ludicrous.” With Joe Biden in charge, expect more of the same bi-partisanship actions including more sanctions, regime change operations and even the possibility of an assassination attempt on Maduro’s life. With a number of war hawks appointed under this new administration including humanitarian interventionist, Samantha Power who will lead the United States Agency for InternationalDevelopment (USAID) tweeted “What’s happening in Venezuela is flying under the radar in the US, but it is incredibly serious” shows what direction Washington will move towards. “In the past week, the opposition banned from competing in April presidential elections, UNICEF warns of child malnutrition crisis, IMF predicts 13,000% inflation in 2018” meaning that Power will push for a humanitarian intervention in some form or another.Power has supported military interventions in Syria and was a cheerleader for the war in Afghanistan and Libya. There will be bi-partisan support from both the democrats and republicans for regime change in Venezuela. But a war against Venezuela under Biden is also quite possible since they have the world’s largest oil reserves on the planet. Tensions between Washington and Caracas will only escalate in the upcoming months.
Nicaragua will be also on Washington’s radar as they are scheduled to have Presidential elections in November. Expect some sort of election interference to oust long-time enemy of Washington, Nicaraguan President, Daniel Ortega. In a September 5th tweet, Biden said
“Nicaraguan asylum seekers fleeing oppression deserve to have their cases heard. Instead, they’re being deported back into the tyrannical grip of Daniel Ortega without a chance to pursue their claims. President Trump’s cruelty truly knows no bounds.”
Venezuela and Nicaragua will experience hostilities from the Biden team, a continuation of policies from previous US regimes is assured.
Obama’s 2009 Coup in Honduras is a Warning to Anti-Imperialists in Latin America
Joe Biden’s history with Latin America as vice-President to Obama should be considered a warning sign of things to come. As soon as Obama was selected for office, they went to work on their backyard with a shovel in hand and set their sights on the small nation of Honduras. Before, the US approved the coup against its Democratic leader, Manuel Zelaya because he wanted to rewrite the constitution. Zelaya administered an opinion poll for a referendum so that a constitutional assembly can legally reform the constitution that would allow Honduran citizens to have a legitimate voice in the political process. Honduran officials, members of the Supreme Court and even members of his own party who are under Washington’s control declared Zelaya’s plans as unconstitutional. Officials from the Obama regime including Hillary Clinton who was the Secretary of State at the time, all agreed Zelaya had to be removed from power.
Zelaya was also too friendly with Washington’s enemies in the region including Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Zelaya had also helped people in need as he raised the hourly minimum-wage, funded scholarships for students, authorized the distribution of milk and basic food necessities for children and even helped distribute energy-saving light bulbs among others for the Honduran people. Washington also considered Zelaya a threat to its interests concerning the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and its US troops stationed at the Palmerola military base if Zelaya decided to cancel the CAFTA deal or stop US troops from entering Honduras. For decades, Washington has trained soldiers and officers in the Honduran military through the former U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) which is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).
On June 28th, 2009, with permission from the Supreme Court of Honduras issued an order for the military to arrest and detain President Zelaya who was taken to the Hernan Acosta Mejia Air Base located in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and was exiled to Costa Rica. The aftermath of the coup resulted in Honduras becoming one of the most dangerous countries on the planet with one of the highest murder-rates in Central America. Roberto Micheletti became the interim-president following the coup. Under his leadership, the Honduras government became a repressive force that lead to an increase of Hondurans deciding to immigrate to the US. Human rights groups and activists lives were threatened. In 2016, one of the death threats became a reality for a well-known Indigenous rights and environmental activist by the name of Bertha Caceres who was assassinated in her home.
Caceres was known for preventing one of the world’s largest corporations that builds dams from completing the Agua Zarca Dam at the Río Gualcarque. Life in Honduras became worst after Washington’s intervention to oust a democratically elected leader who wanted to make things a little better for his people which constitutes a criminal act under Washington’s political establishment.
What Does An Imperialist Power Under Joseph Biden Mean for Latin America?
The gloves will come off. Joe Biden wants to get the job done for the Military-Industrial Complex. The Biden regime will be more aggressive and dangerous to left-wing Latin American leaders who have disobeyed Washington’s political establishment. That’s why they are all on the hit-list to be removed from power so that Washington’s preferred candidates can regain control to benefit their corporate and military interests that has plunged Latin America into a cycle of civil wars, debt and poverty since the end of the Spanish-American war. Biden and the Democrats will try to prove to the Republicans who can be more “tough” on Latin American leaders and others around the world who defy Washington’s policies. Biden’s presidency might prove that his administration will be more hawkish than the Republicans on Venezuela and the rest of Latin America’s anti-imperialist governments.
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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Despite Trump agreeing to leave the White House next Wednesday after losing the election under contentious circumstances, the Democrats and their “Republican In Name Only” (RINO) allies pushed Trump’s historic second impeachment through the House on allegations that he “incited insurrection” in order to delegitimize his legacy, intimidate his supporters, and establish the “legal” precedent for de facto criminalizing the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement that he inspired as a “domestic terrorist” organization in order to pave the way for one-party rule.
Impeachment 2.0
A lot of folks are confused about why there was such a rush to impeach Trump for the historic second time despite him agreeing to leave the White House next Wednesday after losing the election under contentious circumstances. The motivation clearly isn’t to remove him from office but to advance a more devious agenda being pushed by the Democrats and their “Republican In Name Only” (RINO) allies. These anti-Trump forces will stop at nothing in order to delegitimize his legacy and intimidate his supporters, as well as de facto criminalize the Trump-inspired “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement as a “domestic terrorist” organization in order to pave the way for one-party rule. These are the only explanations that make any sense for explaining their obsession with impeaching him before he leaves.
“The Great (Political) Reset”
Regarding the first motivation, the American Establishment wants to return to as much of the pre-Trump domestic political status quo as is realistically possible, to which end they plan to reverse practically all of his legacy after the Democrats seized control of both chambers of Congress and the Presidency. The RINOs will go along with this since their vested interests were always threatened by the self-professed “outsider” who they voted to impeach as revenge for his failed crusade to “drain the swamp”. The swiftness with which these policy reversals take place might surprise some Americans, but will be “justified” on the basis that everything that the supposed “Insurrectionist-in-Chief” has done is a “danger to the country” in hindsight. Trump’s supporters will understandably be enraged, but they won’t be able to do much of anything to stop this process.
State-Sponsored Intimidation
That’s because many of them are intimidated after they saw how quickly their leader was accused of “insurrection” despite arguably never having done anything of the sort if one actually takes the time to read the speech that he gave at his Save America Rally and subsequent now-deleted tweets which are misleadingly being used as “evidence” to support this ridiculous claim. They, too, fear that they’ll be caught up in the “anti-insurrectionist” witch hunt if they dare to exercise their constitutionally enshrined freedoms of speech and peaceful assembly to protest the dark path that their country is nowadays treading. After all, if the House can impeach the President for purely political reasons on such a false pretext after he was already completely censored from social media, then there’s nothing stopping them from being victimized too.
De Facto “Domestic Terrorists”
Therein lies the crux of the issue since the worst-case scenario is that this development is exploited by the Democrats and their RINO allies as the “legal” precedent for de facto criminalizing MAGA as a “domestic terrorist” organization. President-Elect Biden himself declared that those who stormed the US Capitol were “domestic terrorists”, and Senator Richard Durbin and Representative Brad Schneider plan to reintroduce their 2019 “Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act” in the wake of what recently happened. Although that proposed piece of legislation doesn’t explicitly ban MAGA, the US’ official definition of “domestic terrorism” is broad enough that it could be abused to encompass all of the movement’s supporters after the events of 6 January and Trump’s subsequent impeachment for “inciting insurrection” if the Democrats and RINOS choose to do so.
“American Solidarity” Is The Answer
There’s no credible reason to dismiss that scenario either since America is hurtling towards de facto one-party rule in the aftermath of that attack, which arguably wasn’t anywhere near as violent or destructive as the last half-year of nationwide riots provoked by Antifa and “Black Lives Matter”(BLM) even though this recent incident was far more symbolic by virtue of the fact that it took place in the US Capitol. The author predicted the impending Democrat-RINO dictatorship and other disturbing outcomes in his piece from last year about how “Biden’s America Would Be A Dystopian Hellhole”, which should be read as a glimpse of what’s likely to come. Under these difficult conditions, he recently proposed the establishment of an “American Solidarity” movement modeled off of its Polish predecessor as the most peaceful, legal, and effective form of resistance.
Concluding Thoughts
The real reasons behind Trump’s second impeachment can be summed up by the meme that he retweeted over a year ago in December 2019 ahead of his first impeachment and which was selected as the cover photo of this article. The image conveyed the powerful message that “In reality they’re not after me. They’re after you. I’m just in the way”, which is exactly what’s happening nowadays even much more than before. Unlike back then, this time Trump’s supporters are directly threatened by this witch hunt since it’ll likely turn against them soon after their political hero leaves off in less than a week’s time. The Democrats and their RINO allies — who function as the public proxies of the anti-Trump faction of America’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) — will now punish MAGA to ensure that a “second Trump” never rises.
*
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This article was originally published on OneWorld.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
It did not take long for the Lie Machine, aka American media, to create the false news and fake narrative of the “storming of the US Capitol” on January 6 by a “white supremacist insurrection.”
Here is an example from Bloomberg Weekend Reading on January 23, 2021:
“The scenes from the first day of Joe Biden’s presidency unfolded against the backdrop of a devastated U.S. economy, continuing fallout from a white supremacist insurrection, and a coronavirus death toll surpassing 400,000.”[1]
The fake narrative is accepted everywhere. It is endemic in the world press. Even news sources such as RT and Sputnik which endeavor to give us real news instead of presstitute lies have repeated the insurrection story.
President Trump was impeached by the House on the sole basis of this fake news story, and now stands to be tried in the Senate on the same fake news charges.
On the basis of the same fake news story, two Florida banks in which Trump had multi-million dollar deposits closed Trump’s accounts.
Signature Bank in New York also closed Trump’s account.
As did Germany’s Deutsche Bank.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio, who permitted Antifa and BLM to loot and burn Manhattan, has terminated the city’s contracts with Trump businesses that run ice skating rinks and a carousel in Central Park and a golf course in the Bronx.
The PGA of America voted to take the PGA Championship away from Trump’s New Jersey Golf course.
Other sources report that conventions are avoiding his hotels and that creditors will not renew loans.
That fake news can have such real world consequences should scare every American to death.
Notice also how the fake news story worsens with each repeat. On January 6, the alleged insurrection was by “Trump supporters.” By January 23 Trump supporters had been morphed into “White supremacist insurrectionists.”
The entire world now believes in something that does not exist.
This is an example of what it means to live in The Matrix. Everyone lives in a false world created by lies repeated endlessly by pressitutes.
The ruling lies are lies that enable Establishment agendas by getting rid of non-establishment explanations and shutting down non-establishment leaders. Trump had to go because he was in the way of Establishment agendas. An example is being made of Trump as a lesson to others who value service to the people higher than service to the Establishment.
There is no doubt whatsoever that Trump won reelection. The accumulated evidence of electoral fraud is overwhelming. Yet the Lie Machine was able to prevent the evidence being presented and examined. All the presstitutes ever said was that “there is no evidence of fraud,” followed by “all who support examining the evidence are enemies of democracy.”
In other words, democracy is a stolen election. If you protest the theft, you are an enemy of democracy.
On December 29, 2020, almost two months after the November presidential election and after almost two months of demonization of Trump for saying the election was stolen, the Gallup Poll reported that its survey found that Donald Trump had displaced Obama as the man most admired by Americans. See this. Yet the most admired man lost the election.
The fact that a presidential election could be stolen in plain view, attested to by numerous experts and a thousand signed affidavits, could go unexamined by the media, state and federal attorneys general, courts, and Congress, shows the power of the Establishment and the impotence of the media which, far from free, is in total service to the Establishment. The public never heard about the evidence from TV, newspapers, or NPR.
Clearly, in America there is no such thing as democracy. An election was stolen and nothing was done about it. The Establishment was able to eliminate a president who did not serve its purposes and nothing was done about it.
The people learned that their vote means nothing and, therefore, there is no democracy. A government controlled by the Establishment is unaccountable to the people.
Perhaps there is a silver lining. It has been a long time since government policy served the public. The public accepted the situation, because most people believed it was in some way a democratic outcome. Now they know that “American democracy” was nothing but a mask for Establishment self-interests. Perhaps the stolen election will serve as a wake-up call to bring the population out of its insouciance. There are signs that the Establishment is concerned that it will, thus the new domestic terrorism bill which will be used to criminalize dissent as terrorism.
For those who are indoctrinated by media repetition that “there is no evidence of electoral fraud,” let’s assume this lie is correct. The fact remains that the system has failed the people. Whether the election was stolen or not, 74 million Americans according to the official vote count and 94 million Americans according to expert estimates of Trump’s true vote count believe that the election was stolen. Yet, the concerns of these millions of Americans were dismissed out of hand as fraudulent claims. The presstitutes claimed repeatedly that the only fraud was the claim of fraud.
The Democrats, the media, and the institutions put in place to ensure a free society failed totally in their responsibility to address the sincere concerns of half or more of the voting population. This in itself is a failure of democracy, a failure of the Establishment.
Those who expressed their concerns were not only dismissed but also demonized, threatened and punished as “enemies of democracy.”
The lesson cannot be more clear: An enemy of democracy is all who challenge the controlled explanation.
The US enters the year 2021 as a country that has moved from the list of democracies to the list of authoritarian governments and is rapidly becoming a totalitarian country in which freedom of speech, freedom of association, and due process are dead letter Constitutional protections. The Gestapo knock at the door, the NKVD knock at the door have come to America.
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Brian Wilson presents a video compilation of Joe Biden’s speeches where he discusses the New World Order and analyzes his 1992 opinion editorial in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “How I Learned to Love the New World Order.”
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“We put together, the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics” Creepy Joe Biden
There Will Be 72,556 Extra Suicides This Year In The United States Because Of The Massive Unemployment As of May 3, 2020, the cold hard facts are there will be 72,556 extra suicides this year because of the massive unemployment caused by the unprecedented crisis. by Mark R. Elsis https://EarthNewspaper.com/ThereWillBe72556ExtraSuicidesThisYear
Joe Biden‘s inauguration as US president was unprecedented in modern times. The US capital resembled a war zone as 25,000 National Guardsmen plus thousands of police enforced severe restrictions over civilian movement on the streets. Roadblocks policed by soldiers and armoured cars were everywhere as the city was divided into red and green zones.
Such scenes are very familiar to Western viewers from cities such as war torn Baghdad. However, they are a shocking sight in the capital of the US Empire which is supposed to be a bastion of peace and stability, exemplifying American exceptionalism.
The corporate media in America is heralding the Biden presidency with a great deal of sycophantic fanfare. The 46th President of the United States will allegedly bring peace, stability and lay the ground for a return of prosperity; so that all can once again share in the American Dream.
Does this perspective for the Biden presidency have any prospect of being realised?
Domestic problems will take precedence
To assess the prospects for the Biden presidency we need to examine the domestic and geo-political challenges facing the new administration measured against the programme of the 46th President and the composition of his cabinet.
At the outset, it is fairly safe to say that the focus of the Biden presidency during its first year will be the compelling domestic issues that pose a threat to the stability of the American Empire in its heartland.
The influential journal Foreign Policy has commented that the US first has to deal with pressing problems at home before it can take ‘on challengers like China’.
It has also observed that America’s moral claims and exhortations against China and Russia will be undermined unless it deals with civil rights issues and abuses of human rights at home. The summer of 2020 witnessed mass civil rights protests against police brutality and institutional racism that involved millions of people on a scale not seen since the early 1960s.
In its recent analysis Foreign Policy noted that:
“The United States cannot point to foreign adversaries at the expense of recognizing the systemic failures and problems at home. America’s own house must be set in order first, through policies that centre upon promoting the resilience of its system and society.’’
On the foreign policy front Biden will want to rebuild multilateral alliances aimed at isolating Russia and China and maintaining the squeeze on ‘pariah’ nations such as Venezuela and Iran. These alliances were undermined to some degree by Trump’s belligerent isolationist approach.
Having said this, it is unlikely that Biden will make any significant changes in US foreign policy until he has stabilized the domestic situation. Then again the global economic/health crisis has created a situation where volatility will be ever present in international relations and the US may get embroiled in conflicts not of its making.
The Domestic Situation
After being sworn in as President Joe Biden faces an unenviable situation. American capitalism faces an unprecedented socio-economic, political and health crises which will require a huge amount of resources and considerable time to rectify.
It could be argued that the severity of the various crises afflicting American capitalism are such that Biden’s administration will struggle to do little more than apply a large sticking plaster to temporarily patch up its many problems.
Close scrutiny of Biden’s policies suggest that they will do little to address the many structural problems facing American capitalism.
These range from a highly fragmented for-profit health system that has presided over one of the highest Covid-19 death rates in the world to a decaying infrastructure that requires trillions of investment. Meanwhile, millions of workers jobs have disappeared as corporations offshore the work to factories in China which is linked to the massive trade deficits of the US that illustrate the continuing decline of American manufacturing.
Another problem for Biden is managing domestic expectations of his administration. His election has raised hopes amongst sections of the population that the simultaneous economic, political and health crises will be resolved over the next few years.
Wealth Transfer
The Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has exposed the complete bankruptcy of corporate politicians and the medical/ scientific/ industrial establishment who have presided over massive suffering, death and economic devastation.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic we have witnessed yet another massive wealth transfer to the billionaire oligarchs who preside over American capitalism.
Billions of public money have poured into the coffers of private companies to provided PPE gear and vaccine/drug development.
Meanwhile, massive money printing by the US Federal Reserve, (its balance sheet has doubled during 2020 from $3.4 trillion to over $7.3 trillion) has fuelled a speculative frenzy in financial markets where the S&P 500, Dow Jones and others have reached all time highs when the real economy is in dire straits.
This has led to a gigantic wealth transfer. This is illustrated by the massive growth in the wealth of America’s 664 billionaires. Their collective wealth has grown by over $1 trillion during 2020.
Debt Mountain
Biden’s programme promises to massively swell the federal government’s astronomical budget deficit. By the end of fiscal year 2021 it will amount to $21.9 trillion which is equivalent to 104.4% of GDP. After all the Empire’s gigantic war machine has to be paid for. The Pentagon’s $750 billion dollar budget will not face any reduction quite the opposite.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that the federal government’s budget deficit will balloon to an astounding $33.5 trillion by 2030. Biden, oblivious to the US government’s fiscal bankruptcy, has no proposals to deal with this issue.
Meanwhile, there is nothing in Biden’s programme that will address the massive increase in wealth inequality which has been a persistent trend since the late 1970s. Workers, whose wages have been stagnating for the last 4 decades, have been forced to take on ever larger amounts of debt to maintain their living standards.
In Q2 of 2020 consumer debt stood at a higher level than at the peak of the 2008-9 financial crisis at$14.27 trillion. This figure has undoubtedly increased as the severity of the economic crisis has intensified since then.
This eye watering debt pile which will never be paid back breaks down as follows:
Auto loan debt stood at $1.34 trillion – Q2 of 2020,
Mortgage debt stood at $9.78 trillion – Q2 of 2020
Student loan debt stood at $1.54 trillion – Q2 of 2020
Credit card debt stood at $820 billion – Q2 of 2020
There is nothing in Biden’s programme that even hints at a debt jubilee to deal with this crushing debt burden on the working/middle classes.
Meanwhile, successive administrations of both Democrat and Republican have presided over an ever harsher environment for unions in which to operate leading to lower wages and worse conditions of service for millions.
$15 Minimum Wage
Biden’s promise of a $15 minimum wage is welcome to millions of workers. It follows pressure from a nationwide campaign on this issue. Since Seattle became the first major city in 2015 to approve the $15 minimum wage, thanks to a massive campaign led by unions and socialist councilwoman Kshama Sawant, seven other large states have approved this measure.
Biden is aware of how universally popular the $15 minimum wage is with both Republican and Democrat voters. In the November election Trump won the state of Florida yet at the same time voters approved the $15 minimum wage for the state.
The under paid and underemployed workers of America can take comfort from Biden’s appointment of Marty Walsh as Labour Secretary. Walsh is notorious for covering up police corruption and the systematic harassment of black Bostonians during his term of office when mayor of Boston.
Eat the rich: wealth inequality
Biden may well reverse some of the Trump tax cuts but will do nothing to prevent US corporations holding profits in offshore accounts. This money could of course be used to improve cash starved public services.
In 2015 an academic study estimated that US based multi-national corporations held over $2.1 trillion offshore to avoid taxes.
The FinCEN files revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in 2020 illustrate how New York banks have facilitated hundreds of billions of dollars worth of money laundering over many years.
Much lauded new anti-money laundering legislation leaves open a multitude of loopholes for Wall Street to continue with this criminal activity. Never mind the fact that financial regulators have failed to carry out any criminal prosecutions against any Wall Street bank since 2008. Instead they get fines, which are part of the cost of doing business, and deferred prosecution agreements.
Wall Street and the rest of corporate America can sleep safe in their beds at night knowing that the Biden administration will do nothing to seriously address complex financial crime.
Nor will it take any measures that fundamentally address the ever widening social-economic equality that threatens the stability of the Empire in its heartland.
Biden’s Backers
Back in June 2020 Biden told a gathering of rich donors that the super rich were not to blame for wealth inequality. Ignoring the incredible damaging crime spree that Wall Street has engaged upon since the 2008 financial crisis. This is well documented in the work of former financial regulator and criminologist William Black, as well as corporate crime journalist Matt Taibi.
Biden reassured his rich donors in comforting tones:
“I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money. The truth of the matter is, you all, you all know, you all know in your gut what has to be done. We can disagree in the margins but the truth of the matter is it’s all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change. …I hope if I win this nomination, I won’t let you down. I promise you. … I need you very badly.”
His appointment of Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary, a former Chair of the Federal Reserve, signals to the billionaire oligarchs that it is business as usual. Yellen is committed to maintaining the record low interest rates and monetary methadone (i.e. money printing/trillion dollar federal deficits) demanded by Wall Street.
Her record as Chair of the Federal Reserve shows that preserving the wealth of the 1% will be her top priority.
We shouldn’t forget that Yellen in June 2017 famously said that there will never another economic crisis in her lifetime. Yet here we are in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.
As Fed Chair Janet Yellen also dismissed claims that financial markets were overvalued and in bubble territory. In the autumn of 2018 a 20% collapse of overvalued financial markets led to the Fed retreating hastily from reducing its $3.4 trillion balance sheet while it started cutting rates as demanded by Wall Street.
In the 2 years after leaving the Fed in 2018 Janet Yellen amassed $7 million in speaking fees from banks such as Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Barclays, who committed criminal acts while she was at the Fed. Will this wild eyed radical take on the speculators of Wall Street or take action to reverse the massive and growing income inequality in America?
Action to address unemployment and hunger
Biden says dealing with unemployment will be a top priority yet his proposed measures fall far short of the alphabet agencies that Roosevelt created to give work to millions in the 1930s. They don’t seem to appreciate the magnitude of the problem facing American capitalism.
In the week that Biden took office new unemployment claims totalled 900,000 far higher than any week during the peak of the 2008-9 financial crisis.
During 2020 over 38 million Americans claimed some kind of unemployment benefit. As of 19 December over 17 million Americans were claiming either state or federal unemployment relief. That figure is expected to rise during the first quarter of 2021. Over 100,000 small businesses have permanently closed while big corporations ranging from Amazon to Apple have made record profits.
Will he force US based multinational corporations to bring the millions of outsourced jobs back home? That seems unlikely. Let’s face it Apple and other companies are making too much money out of the workers paid low wages at their Chinese factories.
Meanwhile, over 50 million Americans are food insecure, including 17 million children. They are reliant on food banks and the government’s food stamp programme.
The new stimulus bill expected to be passed soon by the Democrat controlled Congress includes a $13 billion provision for expanded food stamp benefits but is still seen by many as insufficient for dealing with a level of hunger not seen the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Healthcare under Biden
This situation described above is compounded by the fact that during a global pandemic over 29% of Americans lost their health care cover so far. This has created the situation where 50 million Americans don’t have any health insurance. Between 50 to 100 million are under insured.
This situation is accentuating the devastating health crisis in the United States which has the highest number of deaths from Covid-19 in the world.
Biden’s programme will not introduce Medicare-for-all as apparently that it is ‘too expensive’ in the richest country on the planet. Yet the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that Medicare For All could actually save the US up to $650 billionannually.
Nor will he eliminate the rapacious private health insurance industry. Instead, Biden is giving the private health insurance companies, who contributed handsomely to his election campaign, the opportunity to make even greater profits. The Daily Poster carried an article recently that notes that Biden’s health care plan will not expand government sponsored health coverage:
“Instead, it adopts proposals from health insurance lobbying groups’ recent letter to lawmakers demanding lucrative new subsidies for insurance companies, at a moment when those corporations have recorded record profits as millions lose coverage and many face claims denials.
Biden’s plan would shovel billions of dollars to private health insurers by providing subsidiesfor Americans to buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces, which are far more expensive than government health care programs and have at times been plagued by high rates of claim denials.’’
Biden’s healthcare plans won’t give comprehensive protection to Americans in the middle of a deadly pandemic. The Daily Poster has pointed out that:
“Biden is now proposing some of the most costly and inefficient ways to expand health insurance coverage. The moves could still leave people exposed to substantial out-of-pocket costs — from deductibles, copays, and coinsurance — that act as barriers to care.’’
Many people cannot even afford to get medical treatment due to the outrageous medical bills generated by the private health industry.
According to Fair Health, “The total average charge per COVID-19 patient requiring an inpatient stay is estimated at $73,300 and the total average estimated in-network amount per commercially insured patient at $38,221.’’
Biden’s health measures are unlikely to deal with the massive problem of medical debts. A 2019 study‘Medical Bankruptcy: Still Common Despite the Affordable Care Act’ produced by the American Public Health Journal, noted that, ‘that despite the Affordable Care Act, middle-class Americans have been targeted with increasing co payments and deductibles’. This leads to half a million Americans each year declaringbankruptcy due to medical debts.
Back in 2019 the author of the above study, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, who is a Lecturer in Medicine at Harvard stated;
“The ACA was a step forward, but 29 million remain uncovered, and the epidemic of under-insurance is out of control. We need to move ahead from the ACA to a single-payer, Medicare for All system that assures first-dollar coverage for everyone.’’
Biden’s pick for Health Secretary is former attorney general of California, Xavier Becerra. His tenure as Attorney General of the Golden State doesn’t inspire optimism that he will take on the private health industry and protect the millions without health cover or facing huge medical debts.
This individual faced numerous lawsuits during 2020 for gerrymandering the ballot. According to the LA Times back in August 2020: “Becerra is facing a slew of lawsuits this election season from groups that accuse his office of writing titles and 100-word summaries for ballot measures that aim to tip the scales in favor of his political allies’’ in the Democratic Party.
In 2019 Becerra threatened legal action against journalists who had obtained records of the criminal offences committed by thousands of police officers many of whom were still serving in California.
David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition rejected Becerra’s demand that the journalist involved destroy the records, “It’s disheartening and ominous that the highest law enforcement officer in the state is threatening legal action over something the First Amendment makes clear can’t give rise to criminal action against a reporter”.
Prospects for the future
We should be under no illusions who really won the November presidential election. Corporate America won the November election hands down. The billionaire oligarch class that dominates American society has nothing to fear from a Biden administration. Wealth inequality and all of its attendant evils will continue to rise despite any tinkering reforms that are introduced.
However, the more far sighted oligarchs such as billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio are quite rightly concerned by the destabilising effect of this wealth inequality on American capitalism. Will Biden heed Dalio’s call to reform capitalism to save it from revolution from below? It seems unlikely.
Then again Biden may be forced to take more radical measures than he originally planned if the economic situation doesn’t improve this year and/or he faces pressure from an angry populace.
Over 2,000 years ago the Greek philosopher and historian Plutarch warned prophetically, ‘An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics’.
Time will tell how this imbalance in American society plays out over the next few years. Biden and his fellow managers of the Empire ignore this at their peril.
–Disclaimer– These are the opinions and ramblings of a lunatic. They are for entertainment purposes only and are probably wrong. You listen at your own risk.
“How the Vatican created Islam”. Notice Satan’s play on words: Islam or is lamb. Why is this significant?
Jesus is the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world. John 1:29: The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
The Vatican wrote the Qur’an in such a way as to seem to line up with Bible prophecy, to cause people to point to Islam and Muslims, instead of the Roman Catholics.
Jesus and Daniel prophesied that Rome (1st beast of Revelation 13) will rule the Satan’s soon-coming one world government. And Jesus foretold that the United States (2nd beast of Revelation 13) is “the image unto the beast” of Imperial Rome, and that the apostate (once) Protestant churches are “the image unto the beast” of Papal Rome. Daniel 2:7–9; 11–12; Matthew 24; Revelation 1–3; 6; 13; 16–19.
How the Vatican created Islam. The astonishing story from an ex-Jesuit priest, Alberto Rivera, which was told to him by Cardinal Bea while he was at the Vatican.
The great counterfeit religion is Roman Catholicism, called ‘Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth’- Revelation 17:5. She was raised up to block the True gospel, slaughter the believers in Christ, establish religions, create wars and make the nations drunk with the wine of her fornication.
Four major FALSE religions have one thing in common – each has a holy place where they look for guidance. Roman Catholicism looks to the Vatican as the Holy City. The Jews look to the wailing wall in Jerusalem, Mormons look to Salt Lake City, and the Muslims look to Mecca as their Holy City. Each group believes that they receive certain types of blessings for the rest of their lives for visiting their holy place.
It is written in Psalm 119:130: The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.
No where in the Word of God (King James bible) does it say that a person has to go to the Vatican, the Wailing Wall, Salt Lake City or Mecca to be saved. If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will receive the gift of Salvation in Jesus Christ.
To believe on Jesus Christ as Saviour means to have faith that He died for you, paid the price for your sin, and is the only way to heaven.
“Dear Jesus, I know I am a sinner and that I deserve hell. I believe you paid the penalty for my sin, died on the cross, and rose from the dead three days later. I am placing my faith in you alone to forgive my sin and save me. Thank you for giving me eternal life in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Just as you were born physically to your parents, so you were born spiritually into the Family of God when you received Jesus! Please understand that we are not saved because we pray a prayer; but because we believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. It is certainly appropriate to ask the Lord in prayer to forgive and save us; but it is our faith which prompts us to pray. You could just as easily believe in your heart upon the Lord to be saved, and not pray at all. Salvation is of the heart, as we read in Romans 10:10, “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness…”
Romans 4:5: “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him (Jesus) that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” What a wonderful truth! Our faith is COUNTED for righteousness! There is NO self-righteousness involved in salvation. It is the gift of God. You see, we have no righteousness of our own to offer God. No amount of good can undo the bad we’ve done. Jesus paid a debt that He did not owe, because we owed a debt that we could not pay. Salvation is receiving, not giving. We are sinners and Jesus is the Savior.
Trusting Jesus is meaningless without the cross. You must believe that Jesus died, was buried and rose again. 1st Corinthians 15:1-4 teaches that the gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God’s simple plan of salvation is: You are a sinner. Therefore, unless you believe on Jesus Who died in your place, you will spend eternity in Hell. If you believe on Him as your crucified, buried, and risen Savior, you receive forgiveness for all of your sins and His gift of eternal salvation by faith.
Study the King James Bible, pray, ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit, present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Take the yoke of Jesus upon you. (Matthew 11:29-30)
Pick up a King James bible, begin to read Mathew, Mark, Luke & John and come to know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.
If you need a Bible you can download one (free of charge) at the site links below:
The assassination of Tehran’s top nuclear scientist is a ploy by Israel to compel the likely US president-elect to reject diplomacy and choose military action to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambition. Which option will he choose?
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was the shadowy father of Iran’s nuclear program; his existence, let alone his work, was barely acknowledged by Iran. A brigadier general with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Command, Fakhrizadeh was involved in the academic aspects of Iranian national security, eventually heading up the Physics Research Center, where he masterminded the design and material acquisition in support of Iran’s uranium enrichment effort.
In April 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu named Fakhrizadeh as the head of a covert military dimension to Iran’s nuclear program, something Iran has vociferously denied. On Friday, November 28, 2020, the 62-year-old scientist was assassinated just outside the Iranian capital of Tehran. While no one has taken credit for his murder, Iran has placed the blame for his death squarely on Israel.
At the time of his death, Fakhrizadeh was the head of the Research and Innovation Organization (RIO), part of the Iranian Defense Ministry. A June 2020 report on nonproliferation published by the US Department of State alleged that Fakhrizadeh used the RIO “to keep former weapons program scientists employed … on [nuclear] weaponization-relevant dual-use technical activities … to aid in any future nuclear weapons development work in the event that a decision were made to resume such work.”
This belief, when combined with Iran’s decision to cease abiding by the provisions of the landmark 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, better known as the Iran nuclear agreement) regarding the stockpiling of low-enriched uranium and the use of advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium, had the de facto effect of signing Fakhrizadeh’s death warrant.
The JCPOA-imposed restrictions were designed with a one-year ‘breakout’ scenario in mind – in short, the time it would take Iran to produce enough highly enriched uranium to create a single nuclear device once the decision was made to cease adhering to restrictions on the numbers and types of centrifuges it could operate, the level of enrichment permitted, and the amount of low-enriched uranium allowed to be stockpiled.
In May 2019 – one year after President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA – Iran began pulling back from its commitments under the agreement, citing its right to do so under Articles 26 and 36 of the deal, which allow a party to the agreement to cease its obligations if another party is found to be in noncompliance; Iran maintains that the failure of Europe to live up to its economic commitments under the JCPOA constituted demonstrable noncompliance. The end result is that today the ‘breakout’ period has shrunk to a few weeks.
For the Trump administration, Iran’s noncompliance with the JCPOA had placed it in a quandary; the policy of sanctions-based ‘maximum pressure’ which had been instituted since 2018 was clearly not working when it came to the goal of compelling Iran to return to the negotiation table and hammer out a new, more restrictive nuclear deal.
Having gone on record regarding its belief that Iran continued to maintain covert nuclear weapons ambitions, the Trump administration was confronted with the reality that it had, according to its own beliefs, empowered Iran to produce a nuclear weapon in a time frame that posed a direct threat to the US and its regional allies, in particular Israel and Saudi Arabia. This concern was behind recent press reports that President Trump was considering military options against Iran’s nuclear program.
For Israel, the issues are even more acute; whereas Iran’s potential acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability would pose a policy conundrum for the US, for Israel an Iranian nuclear weapon would represent an existential threat. For this reason, Israel has historically pulled few punches when it comes to confronting even the possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapons capability.
While much of the intelligence underpinning the US and Israeli assessments regarding the existence of a nuclear weapons program are derived from sources of questionable provenance and are not conclusive, Israel has taken an absolutist posture; it’s given credence to sources that otherwise might be consigned to the bottom drawer.
In its effort to win support for this position, Israel has exaggerated – even fabricated – intelligence on Iran, undermining its credibility to such an extent that, when Israel reported that its intelligence stole a nuclear archive from Iran in early 2018, the veracity of this claim was called into question after documents previously held to have been forged were claimed to be part of the document trove.
Israel’s actions against Iran’s nuclear program have been anything but passive; in 2009-2010, Israel worked with US intelligence to launch a cyberattack using the Stuxnet virus to infect Iranian centrifuge operations at Natanz. This was followed by a program of targeted assassinations which killed four Iranian nuclear scientists between 2010-2012 (a fifth attack narrowly missed killing the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization).
Israeli intelligence is also said to be behind a series of mysterious explosions at Iranian nuclear-related facilities earlier this year which caused significant damage and disruption to Iran’s centrifuge program. While Israel has not taken responsibility for the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, his murder can logically be viewed as a continuation of Israel’s efforts to degrade Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Joe Biden is no stranger to the active measures taken by Israel in this regard. As vice president, he sat in on critical meetings regarding the deployment of the Stuxnet virus. He was fully cognizant of the pressure being placed on President Obama regarding military action against Iran, and understood the role played by the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists in ratcheting this pressure up.
Jake Sullivan, who served as Biden’s national security advisor while he was vice president, played a critical role in the early negotiations with Iran that made the JCPOA possible. Biden knew full well that the JCPOA was a diplomatic off-ramp for a policy path that otherwise would have led to war. Biden is intimately familiar with the calculations behind the ‘breakout’ timelines, and the decision that was made to de-emphasize the concern over Iran’s alleged military interest in nuclear weapons.
The assassination of Fakhrizadeh is a calculated act on the part of Israel. His death has no real impact on Iran’s nuclear activities – a new generation of Iranian scientists has long since been educated, trained and employed in a program that is far more advanced and mature than the one Fakhrizadeh started more than 20 years ago. Psychologically, however, his murder – carried out in broad daylight in the heart of Iran – has dealt a psychological blow to Tehran’s leadership, once again proving that the long arm of Israeli intelligence can get to just about anyone.
But its most critical impact is the effect it will have on the national security team surrounding presumed President-elect Joe Biden. Biden and his team have been paying lip service to the notion of rejoining the JCPOA. However, the preconditions they have attached to such an action – Iran would have to return to full compliance first, and commit to immediate follow-on negotiations on a deal that would be more restrictive – were widely seen as a deal breaker. The fact is, many of Biden’s closest advisers – including Secretary of State-designee Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor-designee Jake Sullivan – have indicated that Biden may have no choice but to continue the Trump policy of sanctions-based ‘maximum pressure’.
For Israel, such a policy – while an improvement over rejoining the JCPOA – is not acceptable. From its perspective, ‘maximum pressure’ has not only failed to compel Iran to the negotiation table, but has also positioned Iran to be on the cusp of developing a nuclear weapons capability.
The assassination of Fakhrizadeh serves two main purposes. First, it hardens the resolve of Iran when it comes to any potential flexibility it might have been prepared to have with Biden regarding a resolution to the nuclear standoff, with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei directing Iranian scientists “[t]o follow up Martyr Fakhrizadeh’s scientific and technical activities in all fields in which he was active.” The idea that Iran would seek to compromise with the US in the aftermath of Fakhrizadeh’s murder is, to put it bluntly, absurd.
But the most important purpose behind the killing of Fakhrizadeh is to create a fait accompli when it comes to policy options being considered by a future Biden administration. Rejoining the JCPOA is likely a non-starter – Iran will never agree to the many preconditions sought by Biden and his advisers.
Likewise, continuing Trump’s program of ‘maximum pressure’ is not a politically viable option, given the advanced state of the Iranian nuclear program and the impact this has on the all-important ‘breakout window’ that underpinned, from the US perspective, the legitimacy of the JCPOA. The same contingencies being confronted by the Trump administration regarding the possibility of US forces attacking Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will be confronted by President Biden on his first day in office. By killing Fakhrizadeh, Israel is doing its best to ensure that, for Biden, that military action is the only viable option available.
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter.
New York Times admits schemes could lead to “a dystopic system that would limit the rights of people who have been careful to avoid infection and are unable or unwilling to be vaccinated”
Several more countries have indicated that they are to adopt vaccination passports, meaning anyone crossing their borders will need to be able to prove they have been inoculated against coronavirus.
It is being reported that the South African government is working on implementing an entire Covid-19 vaccine ‘ID system’, which will not only encompass the so called ‘passports’, but will also include “management and surveillance of the Covid-19 vaccine,” as well as “an integrated track-and-trace system,” and “a dashboard system… to capture the reasons given for vaccine refusal.”
The country’s COVID battle has come under scrutiny in recent weeks with a purported super ‘mutation’ of the virus being discovered there.
The South African Department of Health has announced that all citizens who are vaccinated will be placed on a national register and provided with a vaccination card.
Meanwhile, in Europe, another country has indicated it will adopt the vaccination passport scheme with Ukrainian health officials announcing that all vaccinated people will be entered into an electronic health care database.
“When mandatory vaccination passports are introduced at the international level, Ukrainian doctors will be able to promptly issue a certificate of vaccinations,” said chief sanitary doctor of Ukraine Viktor Liashko.
Another country said to be mulling the introduction of COVID passports is Russia. The New York Times reported that
“The Russian government is considering issuing coronavirus health certificates that could ease travel and commerce for people who have been vaccinated.”
The Times quoted the head of the Russian Parliament’s committee on public health, Dmitri Morozov, who said that a Covid passport was “very important and needed.”
“This is great, this is the new world,” Morozov reportedly stated.
The Times also noted that
“A regional governor in Russia, Radi Khabirov, proposed on Monday that Covid passport holders receive discounts at stores, as an incentive for people to obtain the certificate.”
The report also noted that
“President Vladimir V. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov,said on Tuesday that the government is considering issuing Covid passports.”
After the Times report was published, Russian state media denied that a COVID passport scheme to limit travel had been discussed by Peskov or the Kremlin.
“We are far from a unified point of view on this subject right now, there are no consistent approaches or a consensus on this subject,” Peskov said, but added that “this subject is circulating, it’s being worked out.”
Interestingly, while the likes of the New York Times has reported on other countries adopting the COVID passports, in its coverage of Russia potentially doing the same, it paints a much darker picture, stating that
“Opponents fear a dystopic system that would limit the rights of people who have been careful to avoid infection and are unable or unwilling to be vaccinated.”
“Russia has a grim history rooted in the Soviet era of controlling citizens’ movements, through a residency permit system that was never fully abolished,” the Times report continues.
So when Russia do it, it’s bad, but when other countries do it, it’s part of restoring ‘open society’. Hmmmm.
While scores of countries are now slowly moving toward the implementation of vaccination passports, airlines appear to have fully embraced the idea and essentially already have them in place.
Emirates airlines has announced that it will be trialling the IATA Travel Pass ‘digital passport’ which shows passengers’ proof of Covid-19 tests and other entry requirements when flying.
Adel Al Redha, Emirates’ Chief Operating Officer said that
“While international travel remains as safe as ever, there are new protocols and travel requirements with the current global pandemic.”
“We have worked with IATA on this innovative solution to simplify and digitally transmit the information that is required by countries and governments into our airline systems, in a secure and efficient manner,”Al Redha continued, adding “We are proud to be one of the first airlines in the world to pilot this initiative, which will provide an enhanced customer experience and conveniently facilitate our customers’ travel needs.”
As we reported last November, the IATA, the world’s largest air transport lobby group, expects its COVID travel pass app to be fully rolled out in the first months of 2021.
Other airlines, including United Airlines and Cathay Pacific have already trialled the IATA’s scheme.
“We support the implementation of a global program to require COVID-19 testing for travelers to the United States, and we want to do everything we can to make travel a seamless experience for customers,” Julie Rath, the vice president of customer experience at American Airlines, said in a statement.
Virgin Atlantic owner Richard Branson has also thrown his weight behind the vaccination passport idea, telling CNBC he hopes that soon
“there will be a proof-of-vaccination piece of paper that people can use to be able to get on a plane without having to be tested or without having to quarantine.”
“Vaccination is everything. Once vulnerable people, in particular, have been vaccinated, I think all kinds of businesses can start opening up again: restaurants, travel companies, cruise companies,” Branson declared.
“Being vaccinated should not exempt international travellers from complying with other travel risk reduction measures,” the WHO committee stressed during its meeting held on January 14.
Others have warned that the adoption of vaccination passports will inevitably lead to a two-tier society, and must be prevented.
“The immunity passport could become a ‘passport for privilege,’ accentuating the divide between those who already have a comfortable position in society and those on the margins,” warns Dr Israel Butler, Head of Advocacy, at the Civil Liberties Union for Europe, Liberties.
The Facts: It doesn’t seem likely that a COVID vaccine will be mandatory under the Trump administration, but Joe Biden recently shared that he believes it should be.
Reflect On: If the vaccine did become mandatory, would you take it? Will there be too much of a backlash if the vaccine is made mandatory, or mandatory to travel for example?
What Happened: US President Donald Trumptold Stuart Varney on Fox Business Network’s ‘Varney &Co’ that he doesn’t plan to make the coronavirus vaccine mandatory for American citizens, because “there are some people who feel strongly about the whole situation,’ alluding to the idea that people should still have freedom of choice when it comes to what they choose to do with their own body.
On the other hand, presidential candidate Joe Biden saidhe would urge all state representatives, governors, mayors and council members to make the vaccine mandatory, just like some have done with masks. He acknowledged that such a mandate would be difficult to enforce, but stated that “we should be thinking about making it mandatory.”
Trump has long been promoting alternative therapies for COVID, many have come under scrutiny by mainstream media. The scientific and medical community have both promoted these therapies as well as criticized them, the only difference seems to be that those who support them don’t seem to receive much media attention, while simultaneously become subjected to a censorship campaign by media and social media outlets.
Scientists who share opinions that contradict the World Health Organization (WHO) have also been heavily censored. Michael Levitt, a Biophysicist and a professor of structural biology at Stanford University is one of many who have criticized the WHO as well as Facebook for censoring different information and informed perspectives regarding the Coronavirus.
The Great Barrington Declaration is experiencing the same thing for questioning lockdown measures, it’s now been signed by nearly 40,000 doctors and scientists.
A paper recently published in Global Advances in Health and Medicine titled Ascorbate as Prophylaxis and Therapy for COVID-19—Update From Shanghai and U.S. Medical Institutions points out:
A recent consensus statement from a group of renowned infectious disease clinicians observed that vaccine programs have proven ill-suited to the fast-changing viruses underlying these illnesses, with efficacy ranging from 19% to 54% in the past few years.
The paper also promotes the use of alternate therapies like intravenous vitamin C and provides evidence showing its success in COVID patients. It’s one of multiple studies to do so, but vitamin C has been heavily ridiculed and censored by mainstream media and social media for being able to provide any help when it comes to healing from COVID, or to help prevent it.
We are being made to believe that a vaccine is the only answer. No other suggestions seem to be acceptable. Why?
Why This Is Important
Why is there an authoritarian ‘fact-checker’ patrolling the internet and censoring information? Sure, a lot of stories may be completely false and irresponsibly written, especially ones that don’t provide any sources for their claims, but a lot of legitimate information is also being censored. Should people not have the right to examine information and opinions that go against the grain and decide for themselves what is, and what isn’t? Are we not capable of this? Can the mainstream media make the minority feel like the majority and the majority feel like the minority?
I’ve emphasized in many of my articles how vaccine hesitancy continues to grow. That’s no big secret. This is occurring not only with much of the general population, but doctors and scientists as well.
Professor Heidi Larson, a Professor of Anthropology and the Risk and Decision Scientist Director at the Vaccine Confidence Project stated at a World Health Organization (WHO) conference that:
The other thing that’s a trend, and an issue, is not just confidence in providers but confidence of health care providers, we have a very wobbly health professional frontline that is starting to question vaccines and the safety of vaccines. That’s a huge problem, because to this day any study I’ve seen… still, the most trusted person on any study I’ve seen globally is the health care provider…
Many people are asking why doesn’t mainstream media or Bill Gates actually addresses the concerns that are being raised by scientists and doctors? Why is ridicule and terms like “conspiracy theory” always used instead?
What are the concerns? Vaccine injury is one of them. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act has paid more than $4 billion to families of vaccine injured children. A 2010 HHS pilot study by the Federal Agency for Health Care Research (AHCR) found that 1 in every 39 vaccines causes injury, a shocking comparison to the claims from the CDC of 1 in every million.
There are several concers.
If you’d like to access more of articles that are properly sourced regarding vaccine concerns, there is a link to a few at the bottom of this article I recently published.
Big Politics: Every single year big politics, in my opinion, continues to be exposed as a system that’s no longer capable of dealing with and appropriately handling big issues our planet faces today. I often ask myself, does voting simply uphold a system that’s no longer capable of creating any meaningful change? Big politics is filled with an enormous amount of corruption, and many would say that corporations now dictate policy, not government.
When it comes to health policy, there are many conflicts of interests to be concerned about, scientists from within federal health regulatory agencies have been bringing awareness to this fact for many years. For example, few years ago more than a dozen scientists from within the CDC put out public statement detailing the influence corporations have within the CDC, how corrupt things are, how it happens in all departments how many high ranking people within the CDC condone this behaviour. They were referred to as the Spider Papers.
Award winning medical investigator Jeanne Lenzer also made this quite clear in a 2015 paperpublished in the British Medical Journal.
The CDC’s image as an independent watchdog over the public health has given it enormous prestige, and its recommendations are occasionally enforced by law. Despite the agency’s disclaimer, the CDC does receive millions of dollars in industry gifts and funding, both directly and indirectly, and several recent CDC actions and recommendations have raised questions about the science it cites, the clinical guidelines it promotes, and the money it is taking.
This is a huge problem, and it’s one that seems to plague all industries, not just the medical industry.
The Takeaway
We are pitted against each other like never before these days, and it doesn’t seem that politics helps us find common ground. It’s about belittling and ridiculing every move an opponent makes, and does not in any way shape or for represent a system of people who are willing to pool their resources and work together for meaningful change. So why do we continue to be captured by it? Why do we even pay attention? How can we change things and take matters into our own hands? Why do we live the way we do?
Power has corrupted our political process, and decisions today are made for politicians, corporations and those who seem to control these entities in order to gain more power from and profit off of.
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today – Theodore Roosevelt
Honesty, morality, empathy, and an overall unawareness regarding the interconnectedness of life is severely lacking, and I do believe human beings are capable of creating a human experience where all life can thrive. We have the solutions, but many of them never see the light of day or receive any attention, so ask yourself, if we have the solutions, what’s preventing them from being implemented?
That mob that split off from the Donald Trump rally of Jan. 6 to invade the Capitol has proven a godsend to the left. The death of a Capitol cop has enabled the left—which spent the summer after George Floyd’s death trashing “racist cops” and shouting, “Defund the Police!”—to posture as fighting allies of the men in blue. Liberals who implored us to understand the grievances of the rioters, looters, and arsonists last summer have become sudden converts to the church of law and order. Elites who had condoned the smashing of statues and monuments to Columbus, Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson as a needed cleansing of our hateful history have declared themselves sickened that Trumpists would desecrate the temple of democracy.
Had it been antifa or BLM that carried out the invasion, not one statue would have been left standing in Statuary Hall, and we would have been instructed that it was slaves who had, after all, built the Capitol building. The media is airing endless footage of the mob marauding inside the Capitol. Purpose: to plant indelibly in the public mind the fiction that this was the deliberate work of Donald Trump and his people, and our elites are the real adversaries of violent protest. Indeed, to protect the nation from rightist uprisings in state capitals, this weekend saw the widespread deployment of the National Guard.
Sunday was to be the day the murderous violence of the right would manifest itself. What happened? As The Washington Post reported Monday:
Authorities in cities from coast to coast mobilized a military-style defense of state capitol complexes on Sunday, rolling out Humvees, concertina wire and thousands of National Guard troops clad in battlefield helmets to defend against a possible onslaught of rioters whipped up by the baseless claims of the American president.
The assault never came. Despite warnings from the FBI and boasts from armed, far-right extremist groups, security forces in every instance outnumbered scattered groups of demonstrators, and there were no reports of violence.
In anticipation of Wednesday’s inauguration, 25,000 National Guard have been deployed in and around D.C. to defend against right-wing mobs or would-be assassins. Three or four times as many troops are here in D.C. as there are U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria combined. Now, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And better too much security than not enough. But even given the Jan. 6 outrage, to arm our capital city as though Stonewall Jackson’s Confederates were going to march up Manassas Road and capture Abe Lincoln after the Union defeat at Bull Run seems a bit excessive.
Yet, Wednesday is a historic day. Trump will be gone from the White House and national power and responsibility will pass to the Democratic Party. Democrats take over the House, Senate, and White House. Virtually all major media will be in their camp. They will be welcomed in a city that has never elected a Republican mayor and has no Republicans on the city council, a city that voted for Joe Biden 18-1 over Trump. The 30,000 registered Republicans in D.C. are outnumbered 12-1 by Democrats.
The government bureaucracies here are as deeply Democratic as the “deep state” that bedeviled Trump for four years. Biden’s Cabinet is the most racially and ethnically diverse ever; the majority of its members are women and people of color. Obama administration holdovers dominate the national security team.
Most of America’s major cities—New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, D.C., Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis—are run by liberal Democrats, and, coincidentally, all experienced surges in shootings and killings in 2020. While the figures on the criminal perpetrators are rarely reported, it appears that not a great many of the violent and lethal crimes were the work of rogue cops or white supremacists in MAGA hats.
Other problems Trump failed to solve—the pandemic now killing 3,000 to 4,000 Americans a day, the failure to get vaccines into the arms of millions of more Americans—are now Joe’s problems. Calling Trump names will no longer cut it.
Now, Democrats must decide whether to proceed with the impeachment trial of Trump for inciting a riot that began on the Capitol steps as he was speaking a mile away, a riot planned long before the rally on the Mall. Now, Democrats can choose whether they will forego extracting their pound of flesh as the first order of business in the Senate and let Nancy Pelosi sit a while on her impeachment resolution. Now, Democrats have it all. If they wish, they can abolish the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, make D.C. and Puerto Rico states, forgive all student debt, and vote for slavery reparations.
One reads that a caravan of thousands is forming up in Honduras to pass through Guatemala in the hope of reaching and crossing the U.S. border when Biden becomes president. That, too, is Joe’s party’s problem now.
The Facts: Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani has been outspoken about inappropriate pictures and messages of children that have supposedly been found on Hunter Biden’s laptop. These allegations are being deemed a “conspiracy theory” by mainstream media.
Reflect On: Why is there so much censorship of information without appropriate investigation? Should people not have the right to view information openly, freely and transparently?
What Happened: A few days ago, a top Republican senator mentioned the possibility that the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated whether there was child pornography on a laptop and hard drive that supposedly belonged to Hunter Biden. He did so when Journalist Maria Bartiromo asked Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee about a Business Insider report that described faint handwriting on a subpoena served last year to a Delaware business that was given a water-damaged MacBook Pro to repair but was never retrieved along with a hard drive. The hardware purportedly contained data about foreign business dealings and other matters related to the son of former Vice President Joe Biden. You can watch a clip of that interview here.
On October 16th, American attorney, cybersecurity advisor and politician Rudy Giuliani, who also served as Mayer of New York City from 1994 to 2001 claimed on his Youtube Channel that he has come across evidence that this laptop and hard drive do belong to Hunter Biden, and that there’s a signature to prove it which he has in his possession. He also thoroughly explains the story about Hunter’s supposed laptop and how it came into the possession of the Delaware business. Furthermore, he claimed that there were photos of activity on the laptop that anyone “would have a hard time describing, and really should be left to more private discussion.”
Giuliani has since mentioned that Hunter Biden had numerous pictures of girls, who were just children, on the laptop as well as inappropriate messages, and that he has turned this evidence over the the Delaware State Police. He has expressed that the Chinese government may have access to this kind of thing in order to blackmail the Biden family into doing whatever they want.
Andrii Derkach, a politician the US Treasury believes to be a “Russian agent,” claimed on Friday that another device belonging to Hunter was given to Ukrainian police.
We saw this perspective with Jeffrey Epstein, where multiple sources, including a high ranking intelligence official, claimed that part of his job was to blackmail high level politicians and businessman by having compromising videos and pictures of them with children. Christopher Mason, a TV host and journalist/reporter who has known Ghislaine Maxwell for decades has gone on record and said he was told that Epstein rigged his multiple homes with cameras and kept tapes of everyone/everything. He says Maxwell has access to this footage. You can read more about that here.
Approximately one month ago Hunter Biden, the son of presidential candidate Joe Biden, apparently sent thousands of dollars to individuals allegedly involved in sex trafficking, according to a report recently released by Senate Republicans. According the report, Biden “has sent funds to non-resident alien women in the United States who are citizens of Russia and Ukraine and who have subsequently wired funds they have received from Hunter Biden to individuals located in Russia and Ukraine…The records also note that some of these transactions are linked to what “appears to be an Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring.”
Facebook Fact-Checker Politifact Weighs In: According to Politifact, a Facebook Fact Checker, “There is no evidence that a laptop previously belonging to Hunter Biden contains child pornography. The allegation originated on an anonymous internet forum that’s a known source of online disinformation.”
They mention that a rumour quickly emerged that “Hunter Biden has 25,000 pics of him torturing and raping children under age 10 in China on his laptop.”
These allegations seems to have stemmed from multiple tweets by radio host Wayne Root claimed ,without evidence, stating that he has that Hunter Biden’s laptop contains videos of him sexually abusing and torturing Chinese children.
CBS News interviewed the owner of the computer store, John Paul MacIsaac, and they state that he was “unable and unwilling to answer key questions about how the laptop supposedly arrived in his store, and eventually, how the data was shared with Giuliani. CBS News interviewed MacIsaac for almost two hours on Wednesday and throughout the interview he contradicted himself about his motivations, raising questions about the truthfulness of one of the central figures in the story.”
The New York Post also interviewed him, you can listen to that entire interview here.
Giuliani claimed “dangerous people” are involved in the Hunter Biden laptop scandal – leaving the Mackbook repairman who leaked it fearing for his life.
More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
The letter, signed on Monday, centers around a batch of documents released by the New York Post last week that purport to tie the Democratic nominee to his son Hunter’s business dealings. Under the banner headline “Biden Secret E-mails,” the Post reported it was given a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive by President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who said he got it from a Mac shop owner in Delaware who also alerted the FBI.
Biden has of course denied all allegations.
Regardless of What You Believe About This Story, Child Trafficking and Sexual Abuse in places of power exists, and persists.
There are a number of examples of child sexual abuse in places of power. The Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell cases are a great example of that, both involved and implicated in trafficking children for sexual purposes, and possible blackmail purposes as well.
Not long ago, As The Hill reports, “The Pentagon’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service subsequently identified hundreds of DOD-affiliated individuals as suspects involved in accessing child pornography, several of whom used government devices to use and share the images.” You can read more about that here.
There are many credible examples from Royal Families, the Vatican, big finance, big politics, Hollywood and more. If you’d like to go a bit more in depth and see some of this evidence, you can refer to this article I published last year.
Our Interview With A Survivor of Child Sex Trafficking:
Anneke Lucas is an author, speaker, advocate for child sex trafficking victims, founder of the non-profit organization Liberation Prison Yoga, and creator of the Unconditional Model.
Her work is based off her 30-year journey to restore her mental and physical wellbeing after surviving some of the worst atrocities known to humankind before the age of 12. Sold as a young child into a murderous pedophile network by her family, she was rescued after nearly six years of abuse and torture.
We recently conducted an interview with her. Below is a clip from the four part series, as it was a very long and detailed interview. You can access the full interview and start your free trial HERE on CETV, a platform we created to help combat internet censorship and allow us to continue to do our work and get the word out about various issues and topics.
The Takeaway
Right now the citizenry is completely separated in their beliefs with regard to what’s happening, especially in big politics. Stories today are instantly jumped on and deemed false by ‘fact-checkers’ even when there is legitimate evidence behind the claims. Should people not have the right to examine information, opinions and evidence and decide for themselves what is and what isn’t? The amount of information censorship happening today is truly unprecedented.
This type of states is simply a reflection of an evolving human consciousness. We are becoming more aware, and we are questioning actions taken by governments that do not resonate. We are living in times where truth tellers, like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, are exiled and thrown in jail for simply exposing unethical and immoral actions by powerful governments and corporations. What does it say about our world if we’ve come to the point where activists exposing harmful actions are completely silenced and ridiculed? What’s going on here? How did we get to this point and how do we change it? Why do we continue to rely and ask governments to make meaningful changes on our planet? Does voting simply hold up and perpetuate a system that’s no longer capable of helping the human race and our planet move forward in the direction it needs to take?
The Facts: Recent events such as the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein seem to be causing more victims of sex trafficking who had stayed silent for so long to come out and speak.
Reflect On: Can we create a safe and open space for alleged victims of sex trafficking to speak out with confidence, and trust that our growing discernment will ensure that the truth rises to the top?
Members of the Awakening Community often wonder, aside from our personal work being done to look inside and heal, forgive, and raise our vibration, if there is a need for external actions in the world that will help move us forward in our collective journey and foster a better and more harmonious world.
Might I suggest that at this precise moment in our history, it is incumbent upon us to come together as a community to provide a safe and sacred space to those who have been victimized by the massive, coordinated global pedophilia and trafficking rings whose full scope and influence on our world we are just starting to fathom. And that means listening to what they have to say, and aspiring to use their testimony to gain a better understanding of our world and what has been happening under the cover of darkness and privilege, difficult as this may be for many of us to accept.
Women and men who have for decades lived silently in fear of being further harmed or even killed if they spoke out, now see a ray of hope in the recent convictions of members of the NXIVM cult and the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein. There is now a sense that the fundamental complicity or at least the willful ignorance about these rings at the highest levels of global law enforcement is changing, and that many of the good people in these organizations are now being empowered to investigate and prosecute such crimes. It has previously been said to me that officers wishing to pursue leads into human trafficking crimes were often dissuaded from further action and told, ‘That’s not what the taxpayers are paying you to do.’
I know of victims who are not ready to come out in public, either because they are not far enough along in their healing journey, or they still cannot fully believe that government, law enforcement, and the judiciary are now on their side. When we consider how much we have uncovered about the far-reaching complicity of powerful institutions to silence victims and protect high-level perpetrators, there is justification for these feelings.
Discernment
For those who are coming out of hiding and providing testimony, heightening our powers of discernment is critical to the process. We will not be creating a safe space if we simply believe anything we hear from anybody, for there are sure to be attempts at disinformation and manipulation for ulterior motives. At the same time, we must withhold snap judgments, and temper the application of our pet conspiracy theories so that we can focus on allowing each person to feel and be heard.
Our discernment will require us to take each testimony word by word, case by case, and ask ourselves about the motivation behind it, if the facts line up and there is consistency, and whether or not there seems to be a hidden agenda. The testimony of Christine Blasey-Ford and her allegations of attempted rape against Brett Kavanaugh in his Supreme Court nomination hearings serve as an example in which red flags were lifting up at every turn, especially in the way mainstream media unequivocally pronounced her to be credible and honest every step of the way. Her testimony could clearly be seen as having a political agenda behind it.
The Testimony Of Jessica Collins
By and large, most cases will be more subtle. One person who has recently come out with a video claiming to be a victim of Jeffrey Epstein and [Prince] Andrew Windsor certainly seems worthy of our attention. Although she does not claim to be a victim of child trafficking (she was first abducted as a student at the Catholic University of America, after she went for what she thought was a legitimate job interview), the testimony of Jessica Collins is compelling. She put a link to the video below multiple times on Twitter on September 3rd:
A look into some earlier tweets and other information reveals that Jessica’s 18-year old daughter died of Opioids in 2017, which Jessica does not believe was a suicide. In a tweet on September 3rd, she discloses that only because she believes her daughter was murdered is she speaking out. And she herself does not believe that the Department of Justice and Law Enforcement are truly attempting to prosecute these crimes at this time:
I was raped by Washington DC politicians. They murdered my daughter. That is why I am speaking out. Joe Biden, John McCain and many others are involved. They allow me to speak for bc they know Americans will not believe me. https://t.co/zkklOkf41u
There is a lot to sift through in the testimony of Jessica Collins. I won’t go over it here but would refer you to this Before It’s News article to examine some of the more salacious claims. My purpose here is to pass on this video to our readers to share and evaluate for themselves, based on the following request made by Jessica in the video itself:
My name is Jessica Collins. I live in Virginia. Today is September 3rd, 2019. If anything happens to me it’s because this information is true and I have a lot more information about who I was trafficked to and the government people who are in the White House today.
If you could redistribute this video please save it and redistribute it. If anything happens to me at least I have this out. I have been threatened. My car was disabled by a government employee when the Jeffrey Epstein news broke.
I have been without a vehicle for 40 days. I don’t know what else to say.
Please save this video. Please redistribute. Please try and spread it. There is no way that this is going to get out there in the media. Must we the American people do the work?
The government is involved and I was trafficked for nearly 17 years. Please try to help by redistributing this, tweeting it, talking about it. I do everything that I can. Thank you for listening. Together we can get to the bottom of this and hold the criminals accountable.
Jessica Collins’ last tweet was on September 6th. There don’t seem to be any communications from her since then. Let us pray that she is safe and finds a way to tell her whole story.
The Takeaway
We have to allow everyone who comes forward as a victim of sex trafficking the chance to speak until they have been fully heard. We must have confidence that the truth will ultimately rise to the top and shine so brightly that attempts at dark deception and manipulation, clever as they may be, will no longer prevail.
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 19 SEPTEMBER, 2019
With the pandemic, the “digital transformation” that so many analysts have been referring to for years, without being exactly sure what it meant, has found its catalyst. One major effect of confinement will be the expansion and progression of the digital world in a decisive and often permanent manner. – Klaus Schwab,COVID-19: The Great Reset (p. 153)
No matter the origin or true lethality of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus pandemic has been utilized to implement broader agendas that have been planned well in advance. One of the motivations for declaring a global pandemic was to make possible the widespread usage of new technology such as facial recognition, digital IDs and payment systems, mRNA vaccines and vaccine certificates. This is openly stated in books such as COVID-19:The Great Resetand The Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The engineers of the “plandemic” recognized that new technology is often resisted by the masses, but could be adopted quickly due to a public health crisis. What better way to coerce people into using technology that has long been planned to enslave humanity than by holding them hostage to a “deadly” virus causing people to fear for their lives? From the outset of the COVID-19 crisis, humanity was told the world could not return to normal without global vaccination against the coronavirus. We were even told that some things would never return to normal.
In fact, the people and organizations behind exercises such as Crimson Contagion and Event 201 secretly planned to reshape the world in their technocratic image using the guise of the pandemic to implement their schemes.
For decades Hollywood, a major partner in advancing globalist agendas, has been conditioning people to accept all-pervasive surveillance through films such as Enemy of the State,Eagle Eye, and Minority Report. The societies depicted in those dystopian films is now a reality. Welcome to Dystopia Now!
Vaccine Certificates Will Change the Future of Work and Travel
On January 14 the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI), a broad coalition of health and technology corporations, was announced. The VCI combines the efforts of companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, and Mayo Clinic for the purpose of standardizing digital access to vaccination records. The VCI also garners support from the World Economic Forum (i.e., Klaus Schwab and his Great Reset) through The Commons Project Foundation and its Common Pass project.
Common Pass is a “globally-interoperable platform for people to document their COVID-19 status (health declarations/PCR tests/vaccinations) to satisfy country entry requirements, while protecting their health data privacy.” In other words, it’s a digital tracking system designed to keep people from traveling unless current with vaccines and other future health requirements. Common Pass requires a smartphone and works on Apple (through the Apple Health app) and Android (through the CommonHealth app) devices. Authorities will be able to scan a QR code embedded in the app that will verify whether an individual is cleared for travel. It is expected to launch in the first half of 2022.
In the new world being erected right before our eyes, the Global Syndicate does not want the average citizen to have the right to travel freely without being closely monitored for compliance with new societal rules. They claim reducing travel will help the environment and solve the problem of climate change, but this is just a ruse to destroy individual freedom and rights. In reality, they want humanity locked into a surveillance grid that can track every movement and eventually, every thought!
As I warned in part four of the Beware the Vaccine series, employers will eventually make it difficult to work without proof of vaccination. Additionally, stores, concert and sports venues, restaurants, museums, and parks may also soon require a tool like Common Pass to shop for necessities and access entertainment and leisure. But it doesn’t stop here.
Facial Recognition, Thermal Cameras, and Biometric Wearables
Surveillance including the use of facial recognition technology was increasingly used by governments worldwide under the guise of fighting the spread of COVID-19. As early as last April, Amazon began using thermal cameras to scan workers for fever and other symptoms of coronavirus. Companies such as Thermal Guardian and Flir have been supplying thermal cameras to airports, healthcare centers, businesses, casinos and even grocery stores throughout the plandemic.
Contact tracing plans largely failed because people were uncooperative, and the technology was not well developed. Companies such as TraceSafe and Estimote have created the next wave of contact tracing tools in the form of biometric wearable devices. Wearables from Flywallet and Digital DNA will hold your vaccine certificates. For now, these new surveillance devices are meant to be worn outside the body, but the ultimate goal is for widespread adoption of bodily implants as documented in my Internet of Bodies article.
Though there have been some rumblings about the privacy violations these technologies could create, it hasn’t stopped their development or implementation by governments and companies worldwide. This does not bode well for the future as the digital transformation of society races on.
Digital IDs Will Place All Humans on the Surveillance Grid
Globalists have a funny way of posing as saviors while secretly planning humanity’s total subjugation. A global technocracy cannot be imposed without robust surveillance systems, widespread deployment of artificial intelligence, and the digitization of everything.
The push for digital identification is increasing at a pace faster than Usain Bolt’s 100-meter dash. As I wrote in part 5 of the Beware the Vaccine series:
“…the plan is to roll out a full-fledged digital ID (ID2020) which would contain driver’s licenses, passports, work badges, building access cards, debit and credit cards, transit passes, and more.”
Under the guise of aiding the marginalized and protecting their civil liberties, despotic technocrats will be able to use digital IDs to control access to government, finance, health, travel, and any service where an ID would be required for access or benefits. The road to the ID2020 initiative leads to the Bill & Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundations. You may recall that both were co-sponsors of Event 201, the pandemic planning exercise that became reality just a few months later. Is it a mere coincidence that these two foundations are the driving forces behind global pandemic planning, vaccination, and the creation and enforcement of digital IDs?
Digital Payment Systems, Global Digital Currencies, and the Cashless Society
The next domino to fall, coinciding with a planned and coordinated global economic reset, will be universal adoption of digital payments and the outlawing of cash.
The plandemic has served to rapidly change the way people think about money, especially cash. Last March, the World Health Organization vilified cash as a coronavirus spreader, and its use was restricted around the world. Coin shortages also soon followed, resulting in a dramatic shift toward digital payments. Talks and moves to implement digital currencies ramped up, all according to schedule.
Prior to the plandemic, cash usage was still prominent in the U.S., but was already on the decline in China and many Asian countries. The COVID-19 crisis provided the perfect cover to accelerate adoption of digital payments throughout Western nations.
Many are excited about digital money and the blockchain technology behind it, believing it will be the key to decentralization and less oversight by central banks. However, history has proven that elites tend to establish greater control of economies as societies move away from physical currency.
This push for digitalization is placing the world at a crossroads. I believe the transition to a global digital economy will happen similar to the way Napster revolutionized digital file sharing (mainly music) in the late 90s. As millions of songs were uploaded, downloaded, and shared across Napster’s networks, consumers relished the ability to obtain “free” music. However, the music industry and many of its artists were not happy and launched an all-out assault against Napster and the many services it spawned, such as Limewire and BitTorrent. After years of legal proceedings, the music industry was able to smash Napster and other file-sharing platforms to pieces. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) even sued individual citizens for illegal downloading and file-sharing. Through the creation of platforms like iTunes, Spotify and Apple Music, the music industry regained iron-clad control of its copyrighted material. Sadly, artist revenue never rebounded to pre digital piracy heights.
I see a similar situation with blockchain and digital currency. Though blockchain technology and cryptocurrency may initially provide financial freedom and anonymity through products like BitCoin, eventually the banking elites and their technocratic partners will find a way to regain control. The Federal Reserve has already proposed a new FedCoin that threatens to centralize digital currency with the ability to track and/or prohibit transactions. Attacks on cryptocurrency are on the rise as governments, credit card companies, and mega-corporations have banned their use. Big tech giants like Facebook and Google joined together to ban cryptocurrency ads. However, Facebook (which owns data from billions of people) has announced it will launch its new rebranded cryptocurrency called Diem later this year.
To top it off, several countries and banks have issued Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) which threaten to destroy the independent and anonymous financial system brokered through blockchain technology. Once these efforts by governments, central banks, and mega-corporations gain steam, it won’t be long before BitCoin and other cryptocurrencies will be targeted for extinction. Those who possess them may be sued, criminalized, and excluded from financial systems much like those who pirated music in the earlier part of the century.
The War on Terror Set the Stage for Global Surveillance
A significant outcome of the war on terror was the emergence of the surveillance state. Initially sold as a way to track terrorists, governments soon turned these tactics on their citizens, as revealed by whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Julian Assange and through legislation like the Patriot Act (which President-Elect Joe Biden bragged about writing) and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It even spawned the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), an entirely new government agency conceived to monitor known and “potential” terrorists and prevent future terror attacks. With time and the advancement of technology, the fledgling surveillance state of the early 2000s has grown exponentially into the monstrous biosecurity police state now emerging.
What began as eagle eye tools for militaries to track and monitor “terrorists” abroad have now been adapted for use in everyday consumer products like nanny cams, smartphones, smart watches, and vehicles. Use of traffic and surveillance cameras have exploded in the years since 9/11 to the point where the U.S. and China combined possess one surveillance camera for every four people. It is expected that 2021 will see the global deployment of over one billion cameras.
DHS expects to have biometric data including DNA and face, fingerprint, and iris scans of at least 259 million people by 2022. DHS is using cloud-based software called Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART), hosted by Amazon Web Services to “make it possible to confirm the identity of travelers at any point in their travel,” according to former secretary Kevin McAleenan. The possibilities of using this software to curb individual rights and freedom are staggering. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
“The records DHS plans to include in HART will chill and deter people from exercising their First Amendment protected rights to speak, assemble, and associate. Data like face recognition makes it possible to identify and track people in real time, including at lawful political protests and other gatherings. Other data DHS is planning to collect—including information about people’s “relationship patterns” and from officer “encounters” with the public—can be used to identify political affiliations, religious activities, and familial and friendly relationships. These data points are also frequently colored by conjecture and bias.”
Northrop Grumman, a preeminent U.S. defense contractor, received a $95 million contract to develop the first two phases of the HART system under DHS’s Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM). But this is just one of many ongoing government surveillance projectsdesigned to spy on and incorporate all of humanity in biometric databases.
Technology Isn’t the Problem, It’s the People Behind It
For the record, I am not advocating against the use of new technology. Technology is simply a tool used to achieve a task or goal. It’s mostly neither good nor bad. How it’s used, who’s using it, and for what purpose typically determines benefit or harm. However, it has been proven time and again that digital systems are fragile, ripe for hacking, and contain back doors that can be used to spy on users. Though the technologies discussed in this article promise privacy and individual control, trusting those overseeing their development or deployment is foolish. Most involved in the creation, implementation, distribution, and use of these technologies have ties to governments, global entities, spy agencies, and billion-dollar tech companies.
All these new inventions are being used to create a global panopticon, making it easy for technocrats to control humanity through technological innovation. So pardon me if I don’t get all excited about artificial intelligence, augmented reality, body implants, and other rapidly developing technologies. In fact, these unprecedented modern times make me nostalgic for corded telephones and fax machines.
The little kids walking through the airport or the state fair wearing leashes disguised as monkey backpacks signal every parent’s worst nightmare: losing their child.
That nightmare increases ten-fold when the loss is inflicted upon parents via so-called authority figures such as Child Protective Services or other agencies with allegedly good intentions. Unfortunately, such an event may soon be par for the course in many American homes if the opinions of PBS attorney Michael Beller become mainstream.
In an interview with the undercover journalists at Project Veritas, Beller loosened up and advanced the need for “re-education camps”—or the more friendly-sounding “enlightenment camps”—for the children of Donald Trump supporters, arguing that they will “be raising a generation of intolerant, horrible people—horrible kids.”
Clearly recorded before the election, Beller lays out his plan: “Even if Biden wins, we go for all the Republican voters, and Homeland Security will take their children away. What do you think about that? … And we’ll put them [Trump supporters’ children] into re-education camps.”
If chills just ran down your back reading that, then take heart, for Beller doesn’t intend to mistreat these relocated children. Instead, they will have the best of care, watching PBS and learning in classrooms filled with Sesame Street characters. What could be better?
Shortly after this video surfaced, PBS released an official response, saying that Beller “no longer works for PBS,” and that his comments were not in line with those of the organization. Yet while it seems unfathomable that Beller or anyone else—liberal, conservative, or otherwise—could even entertain the idea of forcibly extracting millions of children from their homes just because the political ideologies of their parents are different, such an idea has been advanced before by a very prominent historical figure: Karl Marx.
Writing in The Communist Manifesto, Marx noted that the destruction of the family, particularly the separation of children and parents, was a main goal of communism.
“Abolition of the family!” Marx prescribed, noting that “Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.” Yet this was the goal, for Marx believed the traditional family was built “On capital, on private gain” and would “vanish with the vanishing of capital.”
The father of Communism takes direct aim at the parent-child relationship in his next words: “Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.”
Marx embraces the idea of “destroy[ing] the most hallowed of relations,” replacing the education of children in the home with a social form of the same, noting how Communists seek to co-opt schools as a means of intervention and indoctrination toward their way of thinking.
Is such a plan resurfacing under those who advance a new totalitarian government? Sure, Beller no longer works for PBS, but seeing as he flippantly passes off his opinions, it’s hard to imagine that he thinks his views are not socially acceptable in his circles. Thus, those who will not submit willingly to the new “woke” totalitarian way of thinking must be made to conform to the mold, and if not themselves, then most certainly their children.
So what do we do? Do we sit back and wait for the inevitable? Do we fight to the death to keep our children and train them in our values and beliefs?
Most of us would surely do the latter. But what if even that fails? How do we prepare our children for the time when—God forbid—they may be forcibly separated from us and indoctrinated with ideologies that we can’t and won’t accept?
Two answers to that question are offered in the concluding paragraphs of W. Cleon Skousen’s 1958 book, The Naked Communist:
If the challenge to our youth today is a war of ideologies, then it is time for us to take the offensive. We should not sit back and wait for our boys and girls to be indoctrinated with materialistic dogma and thereby make themselves vulnerable to a Communist conversion when they are approached by the agents of force and fear who come from across the sea. For two generations an important phase of American life has been disintegrating. As parents and teachers we need to recognize that if this pillar of our culture collapses, our own children will be the casualties. This disintegration must stop. …
Of course, we must do more than merely teach correct principles—certainly we must practice them. I therefore close with the words of Francis Bacon who said: ‘It is not what you eat, but what you digest that makes you strong. It is not what you earn, but what yousave that makes you rich. It is not what you preach, but what you practice that makes you a Christian!’
Teach and do. Simple words, but incredibly challenging to put into practice. The challenge is worth it, however.
So teach your children history. Train them to value things like truth, family, and morality. Take them to church and instill Scriptural principles in their hearts. But don’t just impress such things upon them. Personally adopting these practices and modeling them for your children will go much further in helping them stand strong in the possible event that one day, they may be brought under the influence of those whose values are in direct opposition to yours.
Jennifer Rubin’s Washington Post op-ed calling for Americans to put an end to our new post-truth society might have been laudable. Unfortunately for her, she fails to realize that her piece is a fine example of politically-biased, mainstream media spin-doctoring.
Furthermore, Rubin’s piece demonstrates that when either side pretends that one party or one ideology has a monopoly on political spin or propaganda, such statements only work to disprove that theory entirely.
While concern over last week’s events at the Capitol are not unfounded, Rubin’s analysis of the problems of American political culture are not confined to the validity of the 2020 presidential election results and President Donald Trump’s rhetoric thereon. Instead, she engages in a series of invectives decrying conservative talking points, completely neglecting to mention the post-truth wordsmithing of Democratic politicians, progressive academics, or publications such as The New York Times or her own Washington Post. Post-truth America is supposedly an entirely conservative construct:
In this world, masks don’t work and Ukraine has the DNC server. White evangelicals tell their flocks there is a war on Christians. Radio talk-show hosts tell us there are terrorists among refugees fleeing violence in Central America. There is a whole industry — extending to issue-oriented advocacy groups and think tanks — designed to con the mob and infuriate them.
An interesting selection of issues and talking points. However, there are an additional set of claims that ought to be included as a complement to Rubin’s list.
The post-truth American society is also one in which gender is a spectrum of feeling rather than a biological fact. Journalists claim that America was founded in 1619 for the purpose of creating the slave trade. Professors tell us that “all white people are complicit with racism,” and that statement is somehow accepted rather than decried as being racist itself. There is a whole industry—extending to identitarian movements, progressive think tanks, and apologetic and coddling mass media programs—designed to enable and excuse the mob no matter how many cities they burn or how ill-founded their reasons for doing so are.
Post-truth America is one in which protestors chanting “Not my president” in 2016 were legitimately airing grievances, but in 2021 Rubin argues that lawyers engaged in litigation regarding potential election fraud in 2020 should be punished by bar associations. In addition, lawmakers who objected to the certification of the election “need to be identified as such for as long as they participate in public life.”
I would posit that if we need to introduce “House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy who objected to the certification of the 2020 presidential election results,” then we should also introduce “Senator Maize Hirono who attempted to impose a religious test on federal judiciary appointees.”
Neither side of any issue is devoid of ill-intentioned propagandists. The left still needs to learn that people are not as easily categorized as Rubin attempts. There will be people who engage in disreputable rhetoric in any institution or group. The idea that the Democratic party is somehow immune from this is laughable.
Rubin’s latest article may just be another example of a writer engaging in what Tim Groseclose described in his book Left Turn:
Many liberal journalists and scholars are opposed to the very idea of objective studies of media bias. That is, not only do they not want to conduct such studies themselves, they do not want anyone to conduct them.
Such people, I believe, do not want the media bias debate to be settled by data and objective measures. Instead, they want it to remain one that is settled by who has the smoothest rhetoric and who can shout the loudest.
It does not matter who engages in post-truth statements, nor how often they do so, nor how egregious the post-truth statements themselves actually are. With the liberal bias of newsrooms, the rhetoric will continue to be that media bias is non-existent and that post-truth doublespeak is solely the domain of far-right ideologues who ought to be ostracized from polite society.
That is not the truth, but it is the post-truth spin that Rubin, The Washington Post, and other liberal politicos and media personalities want everyone to believe.
To restore America to a truth-valuing society we must eliminate all post-truth statements, not just the ones that we are predisposed to find repulsive based on our own political preferences.
To favor one side over the other in this regard will only drag the country further into a post-truth society where Newspeak quickly becomes America’s first official language.
Brave new world dystopia is unfolding in plain sight, freedoms as once known fast eroding.
Are they heading for elimination altogether in the West and elsewhere?
Is totalitarian rule enforced by police state harshness becoming the new abnormal?
Is the US land of opportunity/land of the free and home of the brave a distant memory?
Eroding for years, life as once known in the US and West are on a fast track for elimination if not challenged to halt what’s underway.
Seasonal flu/influenza that occurs annually with no mass hysteria fear-mongering, house arrest by lockdowns and quarantines, face masks that harm health instead of protecting it, social distancing and all the rest have done infinitely more harm to most people than any number of illnesses combined.
Renamed (made-in-the-USA) covid, it’s a vehicle for transforming free societies into totalitarian ones — complementing what’s gone on up to now following the US state-sponsored 9/11 mother of all false flags.
What’s happening and hardening is what no one yearning to breathe free should accept.
But it’s going on and advancing, supported by Big Media.
It includes a diabolical scheme to silence dissent by eliminating truth-telling divergence from the falsified official narrative.
America’s Bill of Rights are fast disappearing.
October 2001 Patriot Act legislation trampled on them by greatly eroding the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, 8th and 14th Bill of Rights amendments to the US Constitution.
Calling for Patriot Act 2.0, Biden/Harris want the draconian 2001 law hardened for greater police state control to further weaken/then eliminate a free and open society.
Their stimulus plan calls for nationwide mass-vaxxing with high-risk, experimental, DNA-altering, hazardous to health mRNA vaccines that provide no protection and likely harm to countless numbers of people if taken as directed.
Will they be required ahead for air travel and free movement, along with access to employment, education, and other public places?
Will daily lives and routines no longer be possible without proof of covid immunity — not gotten from vaxxing?
Will what was inconceivable not long ago become reality ahead by what Biden/Harris and likeminded US hardliners have in mind?
Is the scheme a diabolical depopulation plot to eliminate maximum numbers of what Henry Kissinger once called “useless eaters” — in the US and worldwide?
A so-called US Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI) was established.
Its sponsors include Microsoft, Oracle, the Mayo Clinic, the Commons Project, Change Healthcare, the Rockefeller Foundation, other corporate interests, likely mass-vaxxing advocate Bill Gates and US dark forces.
VCI calls itself “a coalition of public and private partners committed to empowering individuals with digital access to their vaccination records (sic).”
It’s part of a diabolical, deep state, Great Reset plot for draconian control over our lives — for ill, not good, to further erode and eliminate fundamental freedoms.
It’s unrelated to “protect(ing) and improv(ing) (our) health…safety, and privacy.”
Its aims are polar opposite the above mass deception.
It calls for digital access to health, vaxxing, and related information — for greater government intrusion into and control over our lives.
“Participating technology and other collaborating partners agree to support Vaccination Data Sources in issuing SMART Health Cards” — to aid diabolical aims sought by US dark forces at home and worldwide.
In response to what’s planned, UK-based Big Brother Watch (BBW) director Silkie Carlo said the following:
“Vaccine passports would create the backbone of an oppressive digital ID system and could easily lead to a health apartheid that’s incompatible with a free and democratic country,” adding:
“Digital IDs would lead to sensitive records spanning medical, work, travel, and biometric data about each and every one of us being held at the fingertips of authorities and state bureaucrats.”
“This dangerous plan would normalize identity checks, increase state control over law-abiding citizens, and create a honeypot for cybercriminals.”
BBW’s website warned about “(a) wave of emergency powers and extreme measures in response to (seasonal flu renamed covid that) brought about the greatest loss of liberty in (UK) history,” the US and other Western societies.
Vaccine passports are part of a diabolical plot to transform free societies into dystopian ones on the phony pretext of protecting our health and well-being that’s greatly harmed by what’s going on and planned.
The feeling from Rory Medcalf of the Australian National University was one of breathless wonder. “The US government,” he wrote in The Strategist, “has just classified one of its most secretive national security documents – its 2018 strategic framework for the Indo-Pacific, which was formally classified SECRET and not for release to foreign nationals.”
Washington’s errand boys and girls in Canberra tend to get excited by this sort of thing. Rather than seeing it as a blueprint for imminent conflict with China, a more benign reading is given: how to handle “strategic rivalry with China.” Looming in the text of the National Security Council’s US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific(SFIP) is a generous doffing of the cap to Australia’s reckless, self-harming approach towards China. As an unnamed senior US official (of course) toldAxios, the Australians “were pioneers and we have to give a lot of credit to Australia.” Australian senior intelligence advisor John Garnaut is given high praise for his guiding hand. When war breaks out between Beijing and Washington, we know a few people to thank.
The SFIP, declassified on January 5, is very much a case of business as usual and unlikely to shift views in the forthcoming Biden presidency. The timing of the release suggests that the Trump administration would like to box its predecessor on certain matters, notably on China.
In a statement from National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien, the SFIP “provided overarching strategic guidance for implementing the 2017 National Security Strategy within the world’s most populous and economically dynamic region”. The National Security Strategy, in turn, recognised “that the most consequential challenge to the interests of the United States, and those of our allies and partners, is the growing rivalry between free and repressive visions of the future.” Beijing is cast in the role of repressive force in “pressuring Indo-Pacific nations to subordinate their freedom and sovereignty to a ‘common destiny’ envisioned by the Chinese Communist Party.”
The imperium’s interests, according to the SFIP, must be guarded (“strategic primacy in the Indo-Pacific region”); a “liberal economic order” must be promoted while China is to be prevented “from establishing new, illiberal spheres of influence”. North Korea is deemed of high importance in terms of whether it threatens the US and its allies, “accounting for both the acute present danger and the potential for future changes in the level and type of threat posed” by Pyongyang. The US is also to retain “global economic leadership while promoting fair and reciprocal trade.”
One of the “top interests” of the US in the Indo-Pacific is identified in pure power terms: retaining “economic, diplomatic, and military access to the most populous region in the world and more than one-third of the global economy”. Washington is keen to preserve “primacy in the region while protecting American core values and liberties at home.” But there is the spoiling presence of China, aspirational superpower, and keen for its bit of geopolitical pie. “Strategic competition between the United States and China will persist, owing to the divergent nature and goals of our political and economic systems.”
China is ever the cheeky opportunist, seeking to “circumvent international rules norms to gain an advantage.” Beijing “aims to dissolve US alliances and partnerships in the region” exploiting “vacuums and opportunities created by these diminished bonds.” With this in mind, US defence strategy should be “capable of, but not limited to: (1) denying China sustained air and sea dominance inside the ‘first island chain’ in conflict; (2) defending the first-island-chain nations, including Taiwan; and (3) dominating all domains outside the first island-chain.”
The document also acknowledges an untidy region of shifting power balances and increased defence spending, which will “continue to drive security competition across the Indo-Pacific”. Japan and India are singled out for special mention in that regard. A measure of angst is registered: “Loss of US pre-eminence in the Indo-Pacific would weaken our ability to achieve US interests globally.”
The authors of the SFIP are unashamed about the fistful of principles that will maintain US power, the sort that masquerades in popular language as the “liberal rules-based order”. Desirable objectives include the US being the “preferred partner” of “most nations” in the region; and that these powers “uphold the principles that have enabled US and regional prosperity and stability, including sovereignty, freedom of navigation and overflight, standards of trade and investment, respect for individual rights and rule of law, and transparency in military activities.” No wobbling will be permitted; allies will have to get in line.
India, “in cooperation with like-minded countries,” figures as a shining hope. Its rise is deemed essential, serving as “a net provider of security and Major Defense Partner”. What is envisaged is a strategic partnership “underpinned by a strong Indian military able to effectively collaborate with the United States and our partners in the region to address shared interests.”
For its spiky anti-China message, the nature of the economic relationship with Beijing is hard to ignore, provided it is conducted on US terms. The strategy is, to that end, most Trumpian in character, emphasising the need to “prevent China’s industrial policies and unfair trading practices from distorting global markets and harming US competitiveness.”
In what has become a tradition of the Trump administration, the Framework document does not tally with messages from other equivalent national security assessments. The officials of empire are not speaking with a coherent voice. The 2019 Indo-Pacific Strategy Report by the Department of Defense, for instance, makes good mention of Russia as a “revitalized malign actor”. (Pentagon pundits can never seem to give the bear, or their paranoia, a rest.) Despite tardy economic growth occasioned by Western sanctions and a fall in oil prices, Moscow “continues to modernize its military and prioritize strategic capabilities – including its nuclear forces, A2/AD systems, and expanded training for long-range aviation – in an attempt to re-establish its presence in the Indo-Pacific region.”
The authors of the Framework document are, in sharp contrast, barely troubled by Moscow and, surprisingly, sober on the issue. “Russia will remain a marginal player in the Indo-Pacific region relative to the United States, China and India.” Abhijnan Rej of The Diplomat could not help but find this inconsistency odd. “So Russia is a threat in a public document but not one in a classified one?”
As for India, the 2019 IPSR does much to avoid exaggeration and elevation. “Within South Asia, we are working to operationalize our Major Defense Partnership with India, while pursuing emerging partnerships with Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bangladesh and Nepal.” The Pentagon notes an increase in the “scope, complexity and frequency of our military exercises” with India. But for all that, New Delhi hardly remains a jewel of defence strategy relative to such traditional allies as South Korea and Japan.
The SFIP, in contrast, makes a bold stab at linking the goals of maintaining US regional supremacy with New Delhi’s own objectives. This is bound to cause discomfort in the planning rooms, given Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rhetoric on regional multipolarity. An article of faith in Indian policy on the matter is ensuring that no single power dominates the region. Another potential concernis the prospect that India is being thrown into the US-China scrap.
Medcalf concludes his assessment of the framework document with his own call for what promises to be future conflict. “America,” he insists, “cannot effectively compete with China if it allows Beijing hegemony over this vast region, the economic and strategic centre of gravity in a connected world.” The conflict mongers will be eagerly rubbing their hands.
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In its waning days in power, Trump regime hardliners are going all-out to more greatly deteriorate US relations with China than already — Pompeo leading the assault.
Mindful of what’s going on with more coming, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the following last Tuesday:
“Pompeo certainly went to great lengths to spread political viruses.”
“He’s truly in a league of his own when it comes to weaving lies and distorting facts.”
The US “is the biggest destabilizing factor threatening global peace and security and undermining multilateral cooperation.”
“In rampant pursuit of unilateralism, it blatantly withdraws from treaties and organizations and arbitrarily resorts to the threat of sanctions.”
“To date, it has exited a dozen international conventions and organizations.”
It “unilaterally announced the restoration of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, and abused the venue of the UN to flagrantly smear other countries, drawing wide opposition from the international community.”
These actions…“gravely undermine international cooperation…world peace, stability and security.”
“Pompeo’s lying diplomacy has once again exposed the infamous ‘American double standard.’ ”
It undermines cooperation among world community nations, leaving America’s “international image and reputation” in tatters.
On Thursday, the Trump regime added nine more Chinese firms to its so-called “entity list.”
They include the China National Offshore Oil Corporation and mobile phone producer Xiaomi — on the phony pretext of ties to the country’s military.
The move blocks US exports to and imports from targeted firms without Commerce Department approval.
A statement by Secretary Wilbur Ross said the following:
“China’s reckless and belligerent actions in the South China Sea and its aggressive push to acquire sensitive intellectual property and technology for its militarization efforts are a threat to US national security and the security of the international community (sic).”
The above claim applies to the US and its imperial partners, not China.
Its leadership prioritizes cooperative relations with other nations, confrontation with none.
Separately, an anti-China propaganda report by a so-called Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) falsely accused its government of “crimes against humanity – and possibly genocide” against its Uyghur population.
Similar US charges were made before that falsely claim mass-internment of up to a million Uyghurs and other Muslims.
When accusations like these surface against sovereign independent countries free from US control, no credible evidence supports them because none exists.
In response to the above US charge, China’s Washington embassy slammed the CECC for being “obsessed with making up all sorts of lies to vilify China,” adding:
“The so-called ‘genocide’ is a rumor deliberately started by some anti-China forces and a farce to discredit China.”
House passed Uygur legislation called for sanctions against Beijing for human rights abuses.
The world’s leading human rights abuser domestically and worldwide USA time and again blames other nations for its own high crimes.
Reportedly, the Trump regime is set to release so-called “bombshell” information about made-in-the-USA covid it claims was released from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology before reported outbreaks last year.
As point man for Trump’s war on China by other means, Pompeo will release so-called evidence.
According to London’s Daily Mail, “America is set to present dramatic new evidence that the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab – in the final act of the Trump” regime, adding:
“Senior officials in Washington say that…Pompeo is set to make a ‘bombshell intervention.’ ”
“They say he will reveal evidence that SARS-CoV-2 did not leap naturally from bats, pangolins or other species to humans.”
“Instead he will claim it was cultured by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology…”
“British Foreign Office and security sources confirmed they were expecting the claims from Washington but dismissed them in advance, saying ‘all the credible scientific evidence does not point to a leak from the laboratory.’ ”
“The established view of the US intelligence community suggests the pandemic was natural in origin.”
Pompeo is also expected to accuse the WHO of aiding an alleged Beijing cover-up with no credible evidence supporting the charge.
He’ll claim ties between the lab and China’s military to conduct experiments.
On Monday, a White House statement said the following:
“The world cannot continue to pay heavy prices for its naivete and complicity in Beijing’s irresponsible and harmful practices (sic) – whether it is ending the rule of law in Hong Kong (sic) or not cooperating with health officials on the pandemic (sic).”
The Trump regime “is examining further options to respond.”
As earlier explained, covid is renamed seasonal flu/influenza that occurs annually — with none of what’s going on now, no mass-hysteria fear-mongering propaganda.
What began since early last year is a diabolical brave new world US-led social control plot.
Its aim is transforming world community nations into ruler/serf societies.
It created the Greatest Main Street Depression in US history.
It’s facilitating the greatest ever wealth transfer from most people to the privileged few.
Lockdowns and quarantines (aka house arrest), social distancing, mask-wearing, and all the rest caused infinitely more harm to countless millions of households than any number of serious diseases combined.
What’s happening perhaps established a permanent new abnormal, the worst likely to come.
A diabolical social engineering plot with no end of it in prospect may eliminate freedoms as once existed — dystopian harshness replacing them.
Ongoing actions have nothing to do with protecting and preserving health and well-being, everything to do with harming them by police state social control.
Covid is the vehicle, a hoax perpetuated by Big Government/ Big Media mass deception — a state-sponsored coup d’etat against virtually everything just societies hold dear.
If successful, it’ll create what Orwell called “a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”
Everyone vaxxed with hazardous covid vaccines is playing fast and loose with their health, safety and well-being.
We can either resist to preserve and protect what’s too precious to lose or risk near-or-longer-term contraction of serious illnesses under draconian conditions.
The choice is self-evident.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
Today’s brave new world may be heading in directions beyond what Orwell and Huxley imagined.
It’s facilitated by made-in-the USA covid and economic collapse.
For ordinary Americans, it created worse hard times than during the Great Depression.
It’s facilitating the greatest ever wealth transfer from most people to the privileged few.
It’s part of a grand scheme for transforming the US and other Western states into ruler-serf societies.
Covid is another form of seasonal flu/influenza, an annual epidemic in the US and elsewhere that affects millions of people.
It comes and goes like clockwork without mass hysteria fear-mongering, partial or full shutdowns causing mass unemployment, mask-wearing that does more harm than good, and social distancing.
All of the above with likely more on the way seems more like a Hollywood horror film than reality.
Interventionist hawks comprising the Biden/Harris regime’s national security team likely means escalated militarism and endless wars over the next four years while vital homeland needs go begging — along with all of the above.
The World Economic Forum-promoted Great Reset may be on the way — a scheme promoted executive chairman Klaus Schwab.
Paul Craig Roberts called him an “insane tyrant,” his scheme intended to “end…human autonomy, (facilitated by) implantable microchips (to control) our bodies and brains.”
It aims to control and exploit ordinary people so privileged ones can benefit more than already.
It’s a dystopian nightmare — wrapped in deceptive equitable socioeconomic rhetoric.
Neoliberal harshness expanded a large-scale underclass in the US and West.
Great Reset planners intend expanding it further toward their goal — ruler/serf societies in the West and worldwide.
Digital health passports may be part of their scheme to facilitate hazardous mass vaxxing.
Will they be required for employment, attending school, air travel, other public transportation, hotel reservations, restaurant dining, in-store shopping, attending a sporting event, and other social interactions?
Will daily lives and routines no longer be possible without proof of covid immunity?
Will what was inconceivable not long ago become reality ahead?
Will something similar to what Britain’s Boris Johnson has in mind be on the way?
Despite unreliable PCR tests that produce false positives and negatives time and again — rendering them useless — Johnson aims to start mass-testing.
He wants to “identify people who are (covid) negative…who are not infectious so we can allow them to behave in a more normal way, in the knowledge they cannot infect anyone else.”
Will he require a health passport for Brits to resume daily life — which includes mass-vaxxing?
Rushed development of hazardous to human health covid vaccines are close to being rolled out.
Is something similar to what’s planned in Britain coming to the US and other Western societies — a brave new world more unfit to live in than already?
On Friday, Children Health Defense chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said the following about Pfizer and Moderna covid vaccines:
Will “a significant percentage of people who are going to get the vaccine…get sicker than they would from covid…?”
Moderna vaccine development showed “100% of the people had some side effects, many of them mild.”
But “20% of the high-dose test subjects had serious side effects.”
“(W)e have to ask ourselves (if it’s) better to get covid, at least for most age groups, then it is to get the vaccine?”
On his Children’s Health Defense website, Kennedy discussed a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) mass-vaxxing strategy.
It recommends voluntary use initially. If “unsuccessful,” mandate it, adding:
“(P)rinciples of public health ethics support trying less burdensome policies before moving to more burdensome ones.”
Voluntary vaxxing “should be limited to a matter of weeks” — followed by federal and state legislation that mandates it.
Noncompliance should incur “substantial penalties…(like) employment suspension or stay-at-home orders.”
According to Kennedy, authors of the NEJM article are connected to the (Bill) Gates Foundation, a leading promoter of mass-vaxxing.
The NEJM’s “article is a revealing — and horrifying — blueprint for Pharma’s imposition of mandates that could require hundreds of millions of reluctant Americans to submit to a risky medical procedure with poorly-tested, ineffective, zero-liability vaccines,” Kennedy explained, adding:
“The NEJM has once again confirmed its former editor Marcia Angell’s warning that this once renowned journal has devolved into a propaganda vessel for Pharma.”
Other than diabolical brave new world plotters, who could have imagined earlier what’s unfolding in real time now.
Air travel may be affected early in the new year.
According to the International Air Transport Association’s Nick Careen:
IATA is “in the final development phase (of a) digital passport” to show if international travelers were vaccinated against covid.
IATA will urge all international carriers to adopt what the association is promoting.
Will domestic carriers in the US, West and elsewhere go the same way?
Will federal and local governments, businesses, and operators of whatever involves public interactions follow suit?
If voluntary compliance with covid vaxxing doesn’t work, will mandating it be implemented?
Is a draconian new way of life on the way under hardened police state rules?
Mass nonviolent resistance is the only alternative, pushing back against what no just societies would tolerate.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
The left’s attempts to march toward a totalitarian Utopia free of hate and discrimination are plain to see. This is what drives mandatory anti-bias training, coerced diversity and inclusion, self-flagellation for alleged racism or sexism, speech codes, censorship, and all else defining today’s pox of political correctness.
A comparable push exists among conservatives to enact coercive measures that, ironically, are intended to accomplish similar ends as those sought by the left, albeit by different means. Alas, we live in a world where nearly every problem requires “fixing,” and it is this relentless effort “to do good” that pushes totalitarian solutions to the fore.
Unfortunately, in today’s “can do” atmosphere of fixing every imaginable defect, failure rarely counsels surrender. The opposite is far more likely. Failure only energizes, upping the call for even further government intervention and yet more wasteful spending.
Geneticists disagree over the nature/nurture balance, but such disagreement does not banish Mother Nature. Social engineers do not work with a blank slate—just ask any frustrated parent. Consider what can happen if we try to overcome Mother Nature via transforming families to achieve some laudable end.
For the left this “fix families” aim is to create a gender-neutral fantasy of Dad cleaning the toilets while Mom pilots Boeing 787s. Meanwhile, both help son Dick to be a beautician and daughter Jane to be an astrophysicist, with each also holding a non-binary sexual identity.
On the right, the model is the 1950s all-American TV family fantasy where Ozzie brings home the bacon while wife Harriet runs the household. Both strive to instill the “bourgeois” values of hard work, patriotism, delayed gratification, and Calvinist morality in their offspring to guarantee prosperous, law-abiding Ozzies and Harriets for the next generation.
What if Mother Nature refuses to cooperate in these idealizations? What if the left sees Dad playing family tyrant, but in reality the stay-at-home Mom just loves cooking and cleaning? Or what happens when conservatives discover that little David and Ricky (Ozzie and Harriet’s children) long to be drag-Queens? For social engineers of all ideological stripes, these deviant views are failures, and as “failures” inevitably mount, the march to a coercive New World Order is on. The egalitarians force Dad to undergo sensitivity training to unlearn his toxic masculinity; Goodthink conservatives push traditional schools to stamp out sissy behavior among boys.
Mother Nature is stubborn, however, and coercion just moves society closer to the therapeutic-infused dystopian world of A Clockwork Orange. Egalitarians now publicly humiliate parents for “reactionary” backsliding; traditionalists scold progressive teachers for coddling Ricky and David and neglecting their manliness. Americans may reject gulags, but rest assured, millions who refuse to “get with the program” will be socially ostracized and made unemployable.
A free society requires knowing where Mother Nature stops and free choice begins. This is hardly easy of course, but it is absolutely necessary. Honor Mother Nature—resist trying to turn toy poodles into Rottweilers. Such restraint is hard politically, however, since merely alluding to genetic variations other than allegedly “superficial” ones is taboo. It is career-ending to aver that different people may be more apt for certain jobs or roles than others on the basis of biological differences. Current social theology pronounces that everyone can be cured of any deficiency and that we can all be made exactly alike.
Differences, although likely small and with substantial overlaps, are real. Coercing people to all be the same as one another wages war on Mother Nature. In principle this realism about what can be altered in an individual’s behavior is no different from acknowledging how people of dissimilar ancestries differ in susceptibility to diseases or in their physical appearances. After all, biological diversity permitted humanity to survive in wildly different environments.
Friends of liberty must recognize that ignoring the limits of people’s ability to change invites the government to engage in totalitarian measures. Utopian visions resting on human transformation invariably come to bad ends, and this sorrowful conclusion hardly requires recourse to genetics. Before any social engineer begins fixing a problem, he should obtain Mother Nature’s certification that the tribulation is, indeed, remediable short of violating her biological dictates. If Mother Nature declines, as will often happen, the fixing enterprise should be stopped, and civil society must endure a live-and-let-live tolerance. Relentless pursuit of the unreachable fantasy is not a sign of virtue; it is a call for ever more liberty-killing coercion.
Increasingly, it looks like the political fight isn’t between Republicans and Democrats, but rather the American people against the Deep State. More and more often we are seeing bureaucrats, lobbyists, and elected officials of both parties circle the wagons so to say in an effort to prevent any true reforms of our government.
While we the American people may believe the government isn’t working, for an elite group embedded throughout our government and media, the government is working quite well — for them!
So, how did this come to be in a nation that’s founding document begins with “We the People”? For a take on the development of the Deep State and what it represents, we turn to Joost Meerloo in his seminal book The Rape of the Mind.
Presciently, in his discussion of the Deep State or the “administrative machine” published in 1956, Meerloo states,
“The burning psychological question is whether man will eventually master his institutions so that these will serve him and not rule him.”
Here’s how he describes the rise of the Deep State:
“… The development of a kind of bureaucratic absolutism is not limited, however, to totalitarian countries. A mild form of professional absolutism is evident in every country in the mediating class of civil servants who bridge the gap between man and his rulers. Such a bureaucracy may be used to help or to harm the citizens it should serve.
It is important to realize that a peculiar, silent form of battle goes on in all of the countries of the world — under every form of government — a battle between the common man and the government apparatus he himself has created. In many places we can see that this governing tool, which was originally meant to serve and assist man, has gradually obtained more power than it was intended to have.
… Governmental techniques are no different from any other psychological strategy; the deadening hold of regimentation can take mental possession of those dedicated to it, if they are not alert. And this is the intrinsic danger of the various agencies that mediate between the common man and his government. It is a tragic aspect of life that man has to place another fallible man between himself and the attainment of his highest ideals.”
But you might say that only seems to describe the expansion of “red tape” that entrepreneurs and individuals complain about, not a group of individuals who seem united to keep government operating as it is currently, and under their control. Isn’t there a difference between red-tape bureaucracy and the Deep State that we’re seeing today? Arguably, yes. But it is the regimentation and red tape that seems to foster the environment in which the Deep State comes into being and then thrives.
Meerloo expands on that point in detail:
“Which human failings will manifest themselves most readily in the administrative machine? Lust for power, automatism, and mental rigidity — all these breed suspicion and intrigue. Being a high civil servant subjects man to a dangerous temptation, simply because he is a part of the ruling apparatus. He finds himself caught in the strategy complex. The magic of becoming an executive and a strategist provokes long-repressed feelings of omnipotence. A strategist feels like a chess player. He wants to manipulate the world by remote control. Now he can keep others waiting, as he was forced to wait himself in his salad days, and thus he can feel himself superior. He can entrench himself behind his official regulations and responsibilities.
At the same time he must continually convince others of his indispensability because he is loath to vacate his seat. As a defense against his relative unimportance, he has to expand his staff, increasing his bureaucratic apparatus. In order to become a V.I.P. one needs a big office. Each new staff member requests new secretaries and new typewriters. Everything begins to get out of hand, but everything must be controlled; new and better files must be installed, new conferences called, and committees set up. The staff-interaction committee talks for days on end. New supervisors are created to supervise the old supervisors and to keep the whole group in a state of infantile servility. And what was formerly done by one man is now done by an entire staff…”
Now we see how the Deep State became so deeply entrenched in our government and why its members will fight against any threat to it. The members of the Deep State are fighting for not only their jobs and their power, but their very sense of being. What meaning do they have in life if they were shown that they are in fact dispensable, that they can be replaced or their positions or departments can be eliminated? In the end, their egos depend upon the maintenance and growth of personal power and prestige.
Understanding that the fight is not just about power and money, but self-identity and ego, goes a long way to seeing how ugly the battle between the American people and the Deep State over the government will become — and how the battle has actually been raging for years.
“Compulsive order, red tape, and regulation become more important than freedom and justice, and in the meantime suspicion between management, employees, and subjects increases.
Written and printed documents and reports have become dangerous objects in the world. After a conversation, even when there are harsh words, inanities are soon forgotten. But on paper these words are perpetuated and can become part of a system of growing suspicion.”
That sounds quite a bit like some of the latest intrigues in D.C., does it not? And how about this insight about the politicians who perpetuate and strengthen the Deep State, rather than dismantle it?
“Sooner or later nearly all politicians become infected with the bug. Under the burden of their responsibilities, they give in to the desire to play the game of diplomacy. They start to compromise in their thinking, to bend backwards and to be circumspect, lest their remarks be criticized by the higher echelons. Or they fall back into infantile feelings of magic omnipotence. They want to have their fingers in every pie — to the left and to the right.
All these are dangerous mental streaks of every human being which can develop more easily in politicians and administrators because of the growing impact of modern governmental techniques and their threat to free expression. When a man gets entangled in strategical and political talk, something changes in his attitude. He is no longer straightforward; he doesn’t express and communicate what he thinks, but he worries about what others are thinking about him behind their facades. He becomes too prudent and starts to build all kinds of mental defenses and justifications around himself. In short, he learns to assume the strategic attitude. Forget spontaneity, deny enthusiasm; don’t demand inner honesty of yourself or others, never reveal yourself, never expose yourself, play the strategist. Be careful and use more buts and howevers. Never commit yourself.”
We, the American people, have quite a task ahead of us if we are to wrest control of our government from the Deep State. Over many decades, it has put in place compulsive orders, red tape, and regulations while growing layer upon layer to enforce what it creates. All the while, its roots drive deeper and deeper into our government. Even the politicians who we send to D.C. to represent us are ensnared in the game. They begin to play by the rules set forth by the Deep State; indeed, our elected officials even become dependent upon the Deep State.
And so it is that we face an interlocking defense apparatus that is employed full time by us, using its time to further entrench itself. Further, the politicians who promised to take on the Deep State on behalf of their constituents, though not in so many words, have actually joined forces with those who they were supposed to uproot.
Without a doubt, the Deep State must be confronted and defeated for the health of our nation. But how?
On Aug. 30, 1954, Bernice E. Eddy, a veteran scientist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., was checking a batch of a new polio vaccine for safety.
Created by Jonas Salk, the vaccine was hailed as the miracle drug that would conquer the dreaded illness that killed and paralyzed children. Eddy’s job was to examine samples submitted by the companies planning to make it.
As she checked a sample from Cutter Laboratories in Berkeley, Calif., she noticed that the vaccine designed to protect against the disease had instead given polio to a test monkey. Rather than containing killed virus to create immunity, the sample from Cutter contained live, infectious virus.
Something was wrong. “There’s going to be a disaster,” she told a friend.
As scientists and politicians desperately search for medicines to slow the deadly coronavirus, and as President Trump touts a malaria drug as a remedy, a look back to the 1955 polio vaccine tragedy shows how hazardous such a search can be, especially under intense public pressure.
Despite Eddy’s warnings, an estimated 120,000 children that year were injected with the Cutter vaccine, according to Paul A. Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
It was “one of the worst biological disasters in American history: a man-made polio epidemic,” Offit wrote.
In those days, polio, or infantile paralysis, was a terror.
“A national poll … found that polio was second only to the atomic bomb as the thing that Americans feared most,” Offit wrote.
Placed in an iron lung, 2-month-old Martha Ann Murray is watched by nurse Martha Sumner at St. Mary’s Hospital in Tucson in 1952.
“People weren’t sure how you got it,” he said in an interview last week. “Therefore, they were scared of everything. They didn’t want to buy a piece of fruit at the grocery store. It’s the same now. … Everybody’s walking around with gloves on, with masks on, scared to shake anybody’s hand.”
“I remember my mother … wouldn’t let us go to a public swimming pool,” said Offit, 69. We “all had to go into one of those little plastic pools in the back so that we wouldn’t be in a public place.”
The worst polio outbreak in U.S. history struck in 1952, the year after Offit was born. It infected 57,000 people, paralyzed 21,000 and killed 3,145. The next year there were 35,000 infections, and 38,000 the year after that.
Many survivors had to wear painful metal braces on their paralyzed legs or had to be placed in so-called iron lungs, which helped them breathe. There was no vaccine and few treatments. (One bogus approach was to spray acid into the noses of children to block the virus. All it did was ruin the sense of smell.)
Often polio victims were children, but the most famous affected American was President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who got polio and was paralyzed from the waist down in 1921 when he was 39.
In 1951, Jonas Salk of the University of Pittsburgh’s medical school received a grant from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to find a vaccine. During intense months of research, he took live polio virus and killed it with formaldehyde until it was not infectious but still provided virus-fighting antibodies.
When tests showed that the vaccine was safe, Salk told his wife, “I’ve got it,” Offit wrote.
Word of his success soon leaked out. Public pressure grew for the vaccine and for a large-scale trial.
In 1953, Salk tested it on himself, his wife and three children.
On April 26, 1954, Randy Kerr, a 6-year-old second-grader from Falls Church, Va., stood in the cafeteria of the Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean and became the first to be vaccinated in a massive field study.
Salk’s vaccine was given to 420,000 children. A placebo was given to 200,000. And 1.2 million were given nothing.
The study found that children who did not get the vaccine were three times more likely to be paralyzed with polio than those who received the vaccine.
A year later, on April 12, 1955, when officials announced the results at a news conference at the University of Michigan, there was jubilation. Reporters hollered: “It works! It works!” Offit wrote.
The news made front-page headlines across the country. “People wept,” Offit said. “There were parades in Jonas Salk’s honor. … That’s what contributed to the tragedy of Cutter more than anything else … the irony.”
Jonas E. Salk in his laboratory in 1954 as assistant Ethel J. Bailey works on a step in the polio vaccine’s production. (AP)
That same day, licenses were hurriedly granted to several drug companies, including Cutter Laboratories, to make the vaccine.
But the officials granting the licenses were never told of Eddy’s findings, Offit wrote.
The year before, Eddy’s scrutiny of the Cutter vaccine had continued through the summer and fall.
It must have been a difficult time. She was 52. Her husband, Jerald Guy Wooley, 64, a fellow National Institutes of Health scientist, had died suddenly the previous April, leaving her with three daughters, two of them still at home in Bethesda, according to his obituary. Her mother moved in to help out.
Eddy was born in 1903 in Glen Dale, W.Va., a small town on the Ohio River, south of Wheeling, according to a 1985 biographical sketch by Elizabeth Moot O’Hern. Her father was a doctor.
She had started at NIH in 1937, had headed testing of vaccines for influenza, and in 1954 was asked to help test the Salk polio vaccine. The pressure was intense. “For weeks she and her staff worked around-the-clock, seven days a week,” O’Hern wrote.
“This was a product that had never been made before, and they were going to use it right away,” Eddy had said.
She began testing Cutter’s samples in August 1954 and continued through November, according to a later report in the Congressional Record. She found that three of the six samples paralyzed test monkeys.
“What do you think is wrong with these monkeys?” she asked a colleague, Offit recounted.
“They were given polio,” the colleague replied.
“No,” Eddy said. “They were given the … vaccine.”
Eddy’s discovery suggested that Cutter’s manufacturing process was flawed. Its vaccine should have contained only killed virus.
She reported her findings to William Workman, head of the NIH Laboratory of Biologics Control.
But amid the scientific and bureaucratic chaos, Workman never told the licensing committee, Offit wrote.
Starting on the evening of April 12, 1955, batches of the Salk vaccine made by five drug firms were shipped out in boxes marked “POLIO VACCINE: RUSH.”
About 165,000 doses of Cutter’s went out.
Within weeks, reports of mysterious polio infections started coming in.
On April 27, 7-year-old Susan Pierce, of Pocatello, Idaho, died of polio days after getting the Cutter vaccine. She had been placed in an iron lung just before she died. Her brother Kenneth had been vaccinated at the same time, but he was okay.
Other cases followed.
Alton Ochsner, a professor of surgery at Tulane Medical School and founder of the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans, gave the vaccine to his grandson Eugene Davis, Offit wrote. The child died May 4.
Not only did some people injected with the tainted vaccine get sick, but some who got the vaccine went on to infect family members and neighbors.
On June 5, 1955, 33-year-old Annabelle Nelson of Montpelier, Idaho, died of polio after her two children had been given the vaccine in April, according to news reports at the time.
The government ordered the Cutter vaccine withdrawn on April 27. But damage had been done.
“By April 30, within forty-eight hours of the recall,” Offit wrote. “Cutter’s vaccine had paralyzed or killed twenty-five children: fourteen in California, seven in Idaho, two in Washington, one in Illinois, and one in Colorado.”
On May 6, all polio vaccinations were postponed. They were resumed on May 15 after the government had rechecked the vaccines for safety. But people were still frightened.
Offit recalled his mother asking their doctor: “What’s the story? Should we be getting this vaccine or not?”
Eventually, he was vaccinated when he was about 6 years old.
Years later, in a suit brought against Cutter, the firm was found not negligent in making its vaccine because it had done its best making a new drug that was complicated to produce.
But it was found financially liable for the calamity it had caused during that spring of 1955.
The jury foreman said: “Cutter Laboratories [brought] to market a … vaccine which when given to plaintiffs caused them to come down with polio.”
ROME — In a forthcoming television interview, Pope Francis says he will soon receive a coronavirus vaccination, perhaps as early as next week, while calling the inoculation a duty for everyone.
“I believe that ethically everyone needs to receive the vaccine,” Francis said in an interview with Italy’s TG5 that will air Sunday.
Francis did not specify the exact timing of his inoculation, but the pontiff said the Vatican’s vaccine rollout will begin next week and that he had already booked an appointment.
Francis’s plan sends a significant pro-vaccine signal to the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics. But it also marks a crucial step in safeguarding an 84-year-old who is missing part of a lung, doesn’t like to wear a mask and relishes face-to-face interaction.
Vatican watchers had widely expected that Francis would be administered the jab, and he has spoken favorably for months about the international vaccine effort, calling it a light of hope “in this time of darkness.” Until now, though, the Vatican had remained vague on its vaccine plans for the pope. The Holy See said only that its campaign would first target the elderly, medical personnel and those most in contact with the public.
The Vatican’s health director said the city-state will be using the vaccine produced by Pfizer-BioNTech.
In the upcoming interview, Francis suggested his own perspective on vaccines had been shaped by childhood memories of polio, when “so many kids ended up paralyzed because of this and there was a desperation to receive the vaccine.”
“I don’t know why some will say, ‘No, the vaccine is dangerous.’ ” Francis said. “But if doctors offer it to you as something that can work, that poses no special risk, why not take it? There is a suicidal denialism that I wouldn’t know how to explain, but today you need to take the vaccine.”
The journalist who conducted the Friday interview of the pope, Fabio Marchese Ragona, shared a passage of the transcript with The Washington Post.
Almost since the beginning of the pandemic, Francis has seemed to have the vaccine on his radar. In May he said the search for vaccines should be “transparent and selfless.” And he has said several times that leaders must ensure that vaccines are provided to the poor, the sick and the vulnerable.
Once fully vaccinated with the two doses, Francis — and the church — will still have to behave cautiously. Medical experts say even those vaccinated should wear a mask. But the pontiff can more easily resume some of the activities that have been on hold for nearly a year, such as international travel. Francis is planning a trip in early March to Iraq, what will be his first venture outside of Italy since the start of the pandemic.
Francis, who complained of feeling “caged” during Italy’s initial spring lockdown, has made it clear that he does not want to be a Zoom-only pope. As that initial clampdown loosened, he tried to reclaim the parts of his papacy he seemed to miss the most, mixing to a greater degree with crowds and meeting with pilgrims. Even amid Europe’s second wave, Francis has continued to host groups and hold in-person meetings.
The pontiffs resistance to mask-wearing has perplexed some inside the church, and by forgoing masks in meetings, he is bucking the Vatican’s own safety protocols. Neither he nor the Vatican has offered an explanation for his decision to generally go mask-free.
The pope’s inoculation will hardly mark the first instance of church vaccine endorsement. Last month, the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog said it was “morally acceptable” for Catholics to receive the vaccines that have used cell lines derived from aborted fetuses. Before that guidance, several U.S. bishops had suggested such vaccines were immoral.
“From the ethical point of view,” the Vatican said, “the morality of vaccination depends not only on the duty to protect one’s own health, but also on the duty to pursue the common good.”
Could any dictator desire more? Almost the entire population of the Empire is now thinking the same way!
The populace is “educated” at schools and the universities staffed with submissive, and cowardly teachers and professors.
The populace is “informed” by hundreds of thousands of servile journalists and “analysts”. There is almost no deviation from the official narrative.
Congratulations, Western Empire! You have succeeded where others tried but failed. You have achieved almost absolute obedience and discipline, a total servility.
And more than that most of the people actually think that they are free, that they are in control. They believe that they can choose, that they can decide. They are confident that theirs is the greatest civilization ever built on Earth!
Tens of millions are lining up, voluntarily, asking to get “educated”, and eventually to get one of those official Imperial degrees. They want to be accepted, certified and praised by the rulers.
People are offering their own bowed heads to a complex and protracted act of lobotomy. In exchange for stamped pieces of papers called diplomas, men and women lose, forever, their ability to think independently, to analyze and to see the world with their own individual set of eyes. As a reward for their submissiveness, their chances to get prestigious positions in the regime’s elite corporate, academic, and other battalions, dramatically increase.
The extreme degree of compliance of the majority of men and women living in our societies makes old books like “Fahrenheit 451” and “1984” only moderately disturbing. Our reality of “2015” is much more psychedelic, bizarre and appalling… as well as shameful!
Most of the citizens are now even willing to pay for those “educational” and propaganda brain surgeries from their own (or from their family’s) pocket; they are keen to get into deep debts in order to get thoroughly programmed and indoctrinated. Several years later, when it’s all over and nothing is left of their individuality, their chests swell with pride, and they frequently cry when they receive that stamped piece of paper, which in fact means only one thing: “Passed, accepted and certified – ready to serve and to be used by the Empire and its fascist regime”.
Millions of foreigners are lining up for this lobotomy too. Those coming from the colonized and destroyed countries are often the most eager. Children of the elites are excited to receive the stamp of approval from the Empire, to be molded, to blend with the masses in Europe or North America. After “graduating” and after returning “home”, they hang their diplomas on the walls, add titles all over their name cards, increase their fees, and demand respect for their Western ways and their intellectual collaboration with the Empire. Then many of them get busy robbing and further indoctrinating their fellow-citizens on behalf of the West.
In many countries there is no reason to even leave home. Western brainwashing is readily available through countless private Christian and “international” schools, through churches, “cultural institutions”, and of course, through the “entertainment”.
Even such countries like China that can count on much greater and older cultures than that of the West, are now being dreadfully influenced by its own sons and daughters who have been programmed to believe in the greatness of the Western civilization. They were either indoctrinated at the Western “educational” facilities abroad, or by the armies of Western “educators”, “scholars” and preachers who are increasingly busy travelling and spreading their toxic gospel all over the World.
Instead of being given multifaceted and multicultural knowledge, pupils and students have been receiving precisely calculated indoctrination doses, well tested during the centuries of imperialism and colonialism. By now, the Empire knows extremely well how to manipulate human minds. Those who are raped are forced into believing that they are being made love to. Those indiscriminately robbed are taught to praise the colonial powers for building their administrative buildings and railroads and people “at home” are instructed to feel no shame for their past and present.
Instead of being encouraged to think independently, instead of being asked to revolutionize their thinking itself, the people are being tied, restrained by austere intellectual straightjackets.
Courage and independent-mindedness are systematically vilified and belittled. Rebellious souls are marked as “unemployable”, almost as antisocial.
Cowardice, submissiveness and mediocrity are promoted and marketed by the extremely complex and multi-faceted system of propaganda, advertising, “cultural and entertainment events” and media.
In a fully uniform world where even “culture” and media are serving the Empire and its neoliberal business interests, the New Men and the New Women are being shaped from intellectual clay, then put on massive pedestals: all of them tall and slim, all articulately and loudly regurgitating clichés, carefully avoiding real issues, intensively communicating with each other about nothing, while remaining shockingly ignorant about the world.
The New Humans – they are all smiling, all very cool looking. They drive the latest cars and hold modern gadgets in their hands. They are self-confident and endlessly selfish. Their buttocks are increasingly and stereotypically “perfect”.
Many of them are on sedatives, on anti-depressants or on drugs, most of them are miserable, unsure of themselves, unhappy with their jobs, miserable with their families, unable to find or keep their second halves. All this, of course, does not show! On the surface, countless Western men and women look ravishing!
The Italian and German fascists tried, desperately to create this sort of confident looking but obedient breed of super-humans.
They failed.
But this Empire is succeeding! For the first time in human history there is a chance that the Robots will actually replace human beings. Not Robots manufactured from plastic and metals, but humans re-conditioned, recycled into Robots.
Italian Fascism, German Nazism, the corporatism of the United States, imperialism, racism, colonialism, exceptionalism, propaganda, advertising, “education” – they have all been expertly intertwined.
Congratulations, Empire! You are the first one who managed to standardize human beings and their thinking!
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It is not easy to fight such an Empire, intellectually.
It is not just logic or philosophy that have to be confronted, to be challenged.
There are also thousands of perceptions, dogmas, codes, all of them serving the same purpose – to keep people away from reality, and from independent thinking and analyses.
Most citizens of the Western Empire are actually much more indoctrinated than the members of such groups as the Taliban or ISIL because the Empire works very hard and employs millions of professionals who create extremely effective concepts designed to control human minds: from ideologues to psychologists, propagandists, educators, artists, journalists and other highly specialized beings.
From social media to soap operas, Hollywood films, pop music and television networks, almost everything leads to the same direction – dragging people away from the basic principles of humanism. Forcing them not to think as a group of rational, caring, compassionate beings.
Reality is either trivialized, or brought to some phantasmagorical levels from where no logic can be effectively applied.
The most important course of human thought – the thinking of, the dreaming of and the designing of new, and much better and more gentle forms of human society – is totally missing from the narrative with which the men, women and children of the Empire and its colonies, are confronted on a daily basis.
The citizens of the Empire are being prevented from thinking and acting in a natural way. As a result, they are frustrated, depressed, and confused. But instead of rebelling (most of them are not capable of it, anymore), they become increasingly aggressive. While the victims of the Empire, all over the world, are being murdered, exploited and humiliated, the arrangement of the world brings actually very little joy (although many material benefits) to the citizens of the Empire – the Europeans and North Americans.
At the other “extreme”: billions of people in former colonies and in neo-colonies are also bombarded, constantly, by the same twisted, recycled and modified messages. They face a perpetual avalanche of propaganda (slightly modified for each particular region), streaming day and night from the Empire’s indoctrination outlets: be the soap operas, the lowest grade of movies and video games (the same thing, really), pop music with repetitive brain-dead lyrics, toothless decorative “art”, or the “news” broadcasts and reports carried by the mainstream press agencies. These messages are disseminated via local mass media outlets that are in turn mainly controlled by the business interests, which are determinedly collaborative with the global, Western regime.
The Empire and its arrangement of the world are outrageously racist and brutal, but most of its citizens, even its subjects in looted lands, are forced to believe that it is actually the most “tolerant” and “progressive” system on Earth.
Is there any hope that humanity will survive this mass-produced idiocy?
Yes, of course there is!
The fight is on.
It is not only Russian, Chinese and Iranian NAVY maneuvers that are now challenging Western imperialism.
It is not only the Latin Americans and South Africans who have made determined efforts to rewrite history and to arm people with knowledge, instead of diplomas.
Perhaps the greatest living European filmmaker, Emir Kusturica, recently wrote, sarcastically, that: “World War III will start with Pentagon bombing of RT”, referring to the powerful television network “Russia Today”. RT commented:
“RT is a real threat to US state propaganda as it reaches Americans “in their own homes, in perfect English, better than they use on CNN.” And that is why, according to the director, Washington could get fed up and seek to silence RT by force – much like NATO did to Serbian state TV in April 1999.
In turn, Kusturica predicts, Moscow would destroy CNN, which he considers the flag-bearer of pro-American propaganda: “CNN in direct transmissions assures that since the 1990s America has been leading humanitarian actions, and not wars, and that its military planes rain angels, not bombs!””
Although some of the greatest thinkers confronting the Empire – Saramago, Galeano and Pinter – have recently passed away, there are still many of those who are managing to escape indoctrination. Some are regrouping around new non-Western television networks like TeleSUR, RT and PressTV.
It is like Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”, all over again. Some people, stubbornly, refuse to burn their books.
Even in the West, some powerful media outlets – CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, ICH, VNN, Global Research, and others – are holding the line. They are not yet winning, far from it, but they are not dying, either!
As long as the independent thought is alive, not everything is lost.
“I rebel; therefore we exist”, wrote French philosopher Albert Camus. He also added: “The feeling of rebellion is born in oppression”.
The Empire denies that it oppresses the world. It indoctrinates both oppressors and the oppressed, re-defining, in fact “re-branding” oppression as freedom.
Those of us, who are managing to escape its indoctrination, are now rebelling. Therefore – humanity still exists.
The battlefield is becoming very well defined: it is now mainly about information, and about knowledge.
The deeds, the tricks, performed by the Empire are dirty, horrendous, but very transparent. They can be accepted or tolerated by billions only because of the constant repetition of the lies, and because of the twisted concepts hammered into the people’s brains through the “mainstream education”.
The war for survival of humanity is already being fought. It is “The Great Humanistic War” – the war over people’s brains and hearts, not over the territory. It can be also called the “information war”, a “detox” war, or a war to bring human beings back to life from their intellectual intoxication, from their slumber and servility, a war for much better world, a war that would put knowledge above diplomas and stamps, human warmth and kindness above violence and aggression, and human beings above profits and money.
The victory can only arrive accompanied with knowledge, with independent thought, with rational humanism, with compassion and solidarity, and human warmth.
Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his websiteor his Twitter.
With regard to the coverage of the Wednesday Capitol Event, Global Research will be publishing opposing and contradictory points of view by several of our authors.
We are dealing with a complex and far-reaching political process. We are at the crossroads of a major political, economic and social crisis which has bearing on the future of the United States. This crisis must be the object of debate and analysis rather than confrontation of opposing political narratives.
America’s road to hell is paved with diabolical intentions.
9/11 changed everything — followed last year by unleashing The Great Reset war on humanity (sponsored by the World Economic Forum) and Wednesday, January orchestrated Capitol Hill violence that climactically ended Trump’s challenge to stolen US Election 2020.
The above comprise America’s holy trinity of actions on a path toward full-blown tyranny.
Last year may have been a test to see how far US “dark forces” could push Americans to sacrifice fundamental freedoms voluntarily.
A year ago, whoever could have imagined what was about to unfold — based on Big Lies and mass deception.
Who would have thought we’d sacrifice our fundamental right of free movement and assembly, the right to work unobstructed, to travel, enjoy eating out, attend sporting events, the theater, movie theaters, and be involved in other public activities?
Imagine how much worse things may get in the new year.
Will its climax be voluntary acceptance of full-blown tyranny — masquerading as protecting and preserving health, well-being and safety to be lost if dark forces achieve their aims.
We’re lied to with headlines like the following on January 7:
“US counts record of almost 4,000 COVID-19 deaths in a day as virus continues to wreak havoc (sic).”
These deaths, if accurate in number, were from seasonal flu/influenza, perhaps pneumonia, and/or related illnesses — not covid.
Individuals succumbing are largely elderly, infirm, likely with other health issues, and weakened immune systems.
Headlines like the about are part of a diabolical, state-sponsored fear-mongering campaign.
They’re all about wanting us to voluntarily sacrifice vital freedoms to a higher power — hostile to our health and well-being at the same time.
Wednesday night Capitol Hill violence was likely orchestrated to elevate Biden/Harris to power by ending the Trump-led GOP challenge.
It had earmarks of a well-planned false flag by US dark forces.
It appears that hostile-to-Trump elements infiltrated largely nonviolent Trump protesters.
They got access to Capitol Hill after police and federal law enforcers opened barricades surrounding it, letting them storm the building to commit violence.
Wrongfully blaming Trump for what happened got him to pledge a smooth transition to Biden/Harris on January 20 — ending his hope for a second term.
It also intimidated most Republicans to go along with what came off with military precision by a superior force against an easily overwhelmed weak one.
Inside Capitol Hill, guards led hostile-to-Trump elements to designated areas.
Instead of preventing violence, Capitol Hill security facilitated it in what appears to have been the climax to a homeland color revolution to end Trump’s election challenge by violently quashing it.
It worked as planned when Congress began debating the GOP electoral fraud challenge, ending it violently.
There’s a made-in-the USA war ongoing that aims for transformational change to a ruler-serf society, what’s untenable if achieved.
It’s what the diabolical Great Reset is all about.
We can swim with the tide and lose all rights or resist all-out nonviolently to save them.
At stake is retaining governance as it once was, warts and all, or replacing it with what’s intolerable for anyone to accept.
I’m old school in my 9th decade to pass from the scene when my end time comes ahead, my future largely in the past.
Younger generations have most to lose, a land of opportunity I enjoyed growing up — eliminating in plain sight what’s fast slipping away.
The nation I grew up in no longer exists.
The one diabolical dark forces plan is a lower level of hell that Dante forgot.
Resist or lose everything, including hope.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
There was a fascinating online panel discussion on Wednesday night on the Julian Assange case that I recommend everyone watch. The video is at the bottom of the page.
But from all the outstanding contributions, I want to highlight a very important point made by Yanis Varoufakis that has significance for understanding current events well beyond the Assange case.
Varoufakis is an academic who was savaged by the western political and media establishments when he served as Greece’s finance minister. Back in 2015 a popular leftwing Greek government was trying to oppose the imposition of severe loan conditions on Greece by European and international financial institutions that risked tipping the Greek economy into deeper bankruptcy and seemed chiefly intended to upend its socialist programme. The government Varoufakis served was effectively crushed into obedience through a campaign of economic intimidation by these institutions.
Varoufakis describes here the way that leftwing dissidents who challenge or disrupt western establishment narratives – whether it be himself, Assange or Jeremy Corbyn – end up not only being subjected to character assassination, as was always the case, but nowadays find themselves being manipulated into colluding in their own character assassination.
Here is a short transcript of Varoufakis’ much fuller comments – about 48 minutes in – highlighting his point about co-option:
“The establishment, the Deep State, call it whatever you want, the oligarchy, they’ve become much, much better at it [character assassination] than they used to be. Because back in the 1960s and 1970s, you know, they would accuse you of being a Communist. They would accuse me of being a Marxist. Well, I am a Marxist. I’m really not going to suffer that much if you accuse me of being a left-winger. I am a left-winger!
“Now what they do is something far worse. They accuse you of something that really hurts you. Calling somebody like us a racist, a bigot, an antisemite, a rapist. This is what really hurts because if anybody calls me a rapist today, right, even if it’s complete baloney, I feel as a feminist I have the need to give the woman, implied or involved somehow in this accusation, the opportunity to speak against me. Because that is what we left-wingers do.”
Varoufakis’ point is that when Assange was accused of being a rapist, as he was before the US made clear the real case against him – by trying to extradite him from the UK for exposing its war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan – he could not defend himself without alienating a significant constituency of his natural supporters, those on the left who identify as feminists. Which is exactly what happened.
Similarly, as Varoufakis notes from earlier conversations he had with Assange, the Wikileaks founder was in no position to properly defend himself against accusations that he colluded with Russia and Donald Trump to help Trump win the 2016 US presidential election against Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.
At the time, Assange’s supporters were able to point out that the leaked emails were true and that they were in the public interest because they showed deep corruption in the Democratic party establishment. But those arguments were drowned out by a narrative confected by the US media and security establishments that Wikileaks’ publication of the emails was political interference because the emails had supposedly been hacked by Russia to sway the election result.
Because Assange was absolutely committed to the principle of non-disclosure of sources, he refused to defend himself in public by confirming that the emails had been leaked to him by a Democratic party insider, not the “Russians”. His silence allowed his vilification to go largely unchallenged. Having already been stripped of support from much of the feminist left, particularly in Europe, Assange now lost the support of a sizeable chunk of the left in the US too.
In these cases, the one who stands accused has to defend themselves with one hand tied behind their back. They cannot hit back without further antagonising a substantial section of their supporters, deepening divisions within the left’s ranks. The victim of this kind of character assassination is caught in the equivalent of reputational quicksand. The more they fight, the deeper they sink.
Which is, of course, exactly what happened to the UK’s former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn when he was accused of being a racist. If he or his supporters tried to challenge the claim that the party had become antisemitic overnight under his leadership – even if only by citing statistics that showed the party hadn’t – they were immediately denounced for supposed “antisemitism denial”, posited as the modern equivalent of Holocaust denial.
Notice Ken Loach, who was also on the panel, nodding in agreement as Varoufakis speaks. Because Loach, the noted leftwing, anti-racist film-maker who came to Corbyn’s defence against the confected media campaign smearing him as an antisemite, soon found himself similarly accused.
Jonathan Freedland, a senior columnist at the liberal Guardian, was among those using precisely the tactic described by Varoufakis. He tried to discredit Loach by accusing him of denying Jews the right to define their own experience of antisemitism.
Freedland sought to manipulate Loach’s anti-racist credentials against him. Either agree with us that Corbyn is an antisemite, and that most of his supporters are too, or you are a hypocrite, disowning your own anti-racist principles – and solely in the case of antisemitism. And that, QED, would prove you too are motivated by antisemitism.
Loach found himself with a terrible binary choice: either he must collude with Freedland and the corporate media in smearing Corbyn, a long-standing political ally, or else he would be forced to collude in his own smearing as an antisemite.
It’s a deeply ugly, deeply illiberal, deeply manipulative, deeply dishonest tactic. But it is also brilliantly effective. Which is why nowadays rightists and centrists use it at every opportunity. The left, given its principles, rarely resorts to this kind of deceit. Which means it can only bring a peashooter to a gun fight.
This is the left’s dilemma. It’s why we struggle to win the argument in a corporate media environment that not only denies us a hearing but also promotes the voices of those like Freedland trying to destroy us from the centre and those supposedly on the left like George Monbiot and Owen Jones who are too often destroying us from within.
As Varoufakis also says, the left needs urgently to go on the offensive.
We need to find ways to turn the tables on the war criminals who have been gaslighting us in demanding that Assange, who exposed their crimes, is the one who needs to be locked up.
We need to make clear that it is those who are so ready to smear anti-racists as antisemites – as Corbyn’s successor, Sir Keir Starmer, has done to swaths of Labour party members – who are the real racists.
And we need to unmask as war hawks those who accuse the anti-war left of serving as apologists for dictators when we try to stop western states conducting more illegal, resource-grab wars with such devastating results for local populations.
We must get much more sophisticated in our thinking and our strategies. There is no time to lose.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research
We are at war. Yes. And I don’t mean the West against the East, against Russia and China, nor the entire world against an invisible corona virus.
No. We, the common people, are at war against an ever more authoritarian and tyrannical elitist Globalist system, reigned by a small group of multi-billionaires, that planned already decades ago to take power over the people, to control them, reduce them to what a minute elite believes is an “adequate number” to inhabit Mother Earth – and to digitize and robotize the rest of the survivors, as a sort of serfs. It’s a combination of George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”.
Welcome to the age of the transhumans. If we allow it.
Vaccination
That’s why vaccination is needed in warp speed, to inject us with transgenic substances that may change our DNA, lest we may wake up, or at least a critical mass may become conscious – and change the dynamics. Because dynamics are not predictable, especially not in the long-term.
The war is real and the sooner we all realize it, the sooner those in masks and those in social distancing take cognizance of the worldwide “anti-human” dystopian situations we have allowed our governments to bestow on us, the better our chance to retake our sovereign selves.
Today we are confronted with totally illegal and oppressive rules, all imposed under the pretext of “health protection”.
Non-obedience is punishable by huge fines; military and police enforced rules: Mask wearing, social distancing, keeping within the allowed radius of our “homes”, quarantining, staying away from our friends and families.
Actually, the sooner, We, the People, will take up an old forgotten characteristic of human kind – “solidarity” – and fight this war with our solidarity, with our love for each other, for mankind, with our love for LIFE and our Love for Mother Earth, the sooner we become again independent, self-assured beings, an attribute we have lost gradually over the last decades, at the latest since the beginning of the neoliberal onslaught of the 1980s.
Slice by tiny slice of human rights and civil rights have been cut off under false pretexts and propaganda – “security” – to the point where we, drowned in propagated dangers of all kinds, begged for more security and gladly gave away more of our freedoms and rights. How sad.
Now, the salami has been sliced away.
We suddenly realize, there is nothing left. Its irrecoverable.
We have allowed it to happen before our eyes, for promised comfort and propaganda lies by these small groups of elitists – by the Globalists, in their thirst for endless power and endless greed – and endless enlargements of their riches, of their billions. – Are billions of any monetary union “riches”? – Doubtfully. They have no love. No soul, no heart just a mechanical blood-pump that keeps them alive, if you can call that a “life”.
These people, the Globalists, they have sunk so deep in their moral dysfunction, totally devoid of ethics, that their time has come – either to be judged against international human rights standards, war crimes and crimes against humanity – similar as was done by the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, or to disappear, blinded away by a new epoch of Light.
As the number of awakening people is increasing, the western Powers that Be (PTB) are becoming increasingly nervous and spare no efforts coercing all kinds of people, para-government, administrative staff, medical personnel, even independent medical doctors into defending and promoting the official narrative.
It is so obvious, when you have known these people in “normal” times, their progressive opinions suddenly turning, by 180 degrees, to the official narrative, defending the government lies, the lies of the bought “scientific Task Forces” that “advise” the governments, and thereby provide governments with alibis to “tighten the screws” a bit more (Ms. Merkel’s remarks) around the people, the very people the governments should defend and work for; the lies and deceptive messages coming from “scientists” who may have been promised “eternal, endless ladders of careers”, or of lives in a hidden paradise?
What more may they get in turn for trying to subvert their friends’, peers’, patients’ opinions about the horror disease “covid-19”? – Possibly something that is as good as life itself – and is basically cost free for the avaricious rich. For example, a vax-certificate without having been vaxxed by the toxic injections, maybe by a placebo – opening the world of travel and pleasurable activities to them as “before”.
By the way, has anybody noticed that in this 2020 / 2021 winter flu-season, the flu has all but disappeared? – Why? – It has conveniently been folded into covid, to fatten and exaggerate the covid statistics. It’s a must, dictated by the Globalists, the “invisible” top echelon, whose names may not be pronounced. Governments have to comply with “covid quotas”, in order to survive the hammer of the Globalists.
Other special benefits for those selected and complacent defender of the official narrative, the placebo-vaxxed, may include dispensation from social distancing, mask wearing, quarantining – and who knows, a hefty monetary award. Nothing would be surprising, when you see how this tiny evil cell is growing like a cancer to take over full power of the world – including and especially Russia and China, where the bulk of the world’s natural resources are buried, and where technological and economic advances far outrank the greed-economy of the west. They will not succeed.
What if the peons don’t behave? – Job loss, withdrawal of medical licenses, physical threats to families and loved ones, and more.
Screen Shot: NTD, December 16, 2020
The Globalists evil actions and influence-peddling is hitting a wall in the East, where they are confronted with educated and awakened people.
We are at war. Indeed. The 99.999% against the 0.001%.
Their tactics are dividing to conquer, accompanied by this latest brilliant idea – launching an invisible enemy, a virus, a plandemic, and a fear campaign to oppress and tyrannize the entire world, all 193 UN member countries.
The infamous words, spoken already more than half a century ago by Rockefeller protégé, Henry Kissinger, comes to mind:
“Who controls food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”
“People everywhere are eager to bid farewell to 2020, a year in which our lives were turned upside down by power-mad elites who seized the Covid-19 pandemic as a chance to go full police state.
But be careful what you wish for…. merely putting up a new calendar does nothing to address [the mounting repression and tyranny], which seem certain to reach a breaking point.
Humanity has been pushed to the limit with arbitrary rules, enforced poverty, and mandated isolation — it will only take a spark or two for things to explode.”
And it continues –
”As vaccines are rolled out to the general public, the divide between those obeying the rules and the dissidents will only grow. Those who decline to get the jab will be treated as pariahs, banned from some public spaces and told it’s their fault life hasn’t gone back to normal, just as so-called “anti-maskers” have been.”
And more glorious prospects
“Anyone who isn’t thrilled by the idea of ingesting an experimental compound whose makers have been indemnified from any lawsuits, will be deemed an enemy of the state, even separated from their children or removed from their home as a health risk. Neighbors will gleefully rat each other out for the equivalent of an extra chocolate ration, meaning even the most slavishly obedient individuals could end up in “quarncentration camps” for upsetting the wrong person.”
Yes, we are in the midst of war.
A war that has already ravaged our society, divided it all the way down to families and friends.
If we are not careful, we may not look our children and grandchildren in the eyes, because we knew, we ought to have known what was and is going on, what is being done, by a small dark power elite – the Globalists. We must step out of our comfort zone, and confront the enemy with an awakened mind of consciousness and a heart filled with love – but also with fierce resistance.
If we fail to step up and stand up for our rights, this war goes on to prepare future generations – to abstain from congregating with other people.
They are already indoctrinating our kids into keeping away from friends, school colleagues, peers, and from playing in groups with each other – as the New Normal.
The self-declared cupula – the crème of the crop of civilization – the Globalist evil masters, already compromised and continue to do so, the education systems throughout the globe to instill into kids and young adults that wearing masks is essential for survival, and “social distancing” is the only way forward.
Breaking the Social Fabric. Towards Totalitarian Rule
They, the Globalists, know damned well that once a civilization has lost its natural cohesion – the social fabric is broken, the very fabric that keeps a civilization together and dynamically advancing, they have won the battle. Maybe not the war, since the war will last as long as there is resistance. The “dynamic advancing” – or simply dynamics itself – is their nightmare, because dynamics is what makes life tick – life, people, societies, entire nations and continents. Without dynamics life on the planet would stand still.
And that’s what they want – a Globalist dictator, controlling a small population of serfs, or robotized slaves, that move only when told, own nothing and are given a digital blockchain controlled universal income, that, depending on their behavior and obedience, they may use to buy food, pleasure and comfort. Once the slaves are dispensable or incorrigible, their electronically controlled brains are simply turned off – RIP.
This may turn out to be the most devastating war mankind has ever fought.
May We, the People, see through this horrendous sham which is already now playing out, in Year One of the UN Agenda 21 /30;
And may We, the People, the commons, win this war against a power-thirsty elite and its bought administrators and “scientists” throughout the world – and restore a sovereign, unmasked, socially coherent society – in solidarity.
See the following Global Research articles by Peter Koenig on the “The Great Reset”
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes:From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
This text was originally published on October 28, 2020 shortly before the US November elections.
This message is for anyone who has concerns about the upcoming U.S. elections, the potential for chaos and civil unrest, or those who fear what a “second wave” of Covid-19 could mean for the future of humanity.
We are in the last few months of a tumultuous year and it appears there might be more unprecedented events on the way. As we near election 2020, it’s important to step back and analyze the potential plans of the “Predator Class”.
Specifically, it’s important to understand a number of recent government simulations and exercises.
First, let’s look at the exercise known as Event 201.
Event 201
One year ago, on October 18, 2019, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation partnered with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the World Economic Forum on a high-level pandemic exercise known as Event 201. Event 201 simulated how the world would respond to a fictional coronavirus pandemic known as CAPS which swept around the planet. The simulation imagined 65 million people dying, mass lock downs, quarantines, censorship of alternative viewpoints under the guise of fighting “disinformation,” and even floated the idea of arresting people who question the pandemic narrative.
Coincidentally, one of the players involved with Event 201 was Dr. Michael Ryan, the head of the World Health Organization’s team responsible for the international containment and treatment of COVID-19. Ryan has called for looking into families to find potentially sick individuals and isolate them from their families.
Due to the vast web of connections between Bill Gates and nearly every organization connected to the COVID-19 fight, a growing number of researchers are questioning the motivations of Gates and the other officials involved in the Event 201 exercise.
Simulations and Scenarios:
Crimson Contagion (August 2019),
Another exercise known as Crimson Contagion simulated an outbreak of a respiratory virus originating from China. From August 13 to August 16, 2019, Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), headed by Alex Azar, partnered with numerous national, state, and local organization for the exercise. According to the results of the October 2019 draft report, the spread of the novel avian influenza (H7N9) resulted in 110 million infected Americans, 7.7 million hospitalizations, and 586,000 deaths.
Clade X (May 2018)
Another simulation known as Clade X took place on May 2018. This event examined the response to a pandemic resulting from the release of a fictional virus known as Clade X. In the simulation, the virus was released by a terror group called A Brighter Dawn. As the outbreak spread through the United States, the participants asked what would be needed if the President issued a federal quarantine, noting that authorities would need to “Determine (the) level of force authorized to maintain quarantine.” The Clade X exercise also resulted in the federal government nationalizing the healthcare system.
The leaders of these controversial pandemic simulations that took place before the Coronavirus crisis have longstanding connections to the U.S. Intelligence and the U.S. Department of Defense. Even more troubling is that key players in the exercises – specifically, Event 201 and Clade X – share a common history in another biowarfare simulation known as Dark Winter.
Darkest Winter Exercise (June 2001)
The Dark Winter exercise took place in June 2001, only months before the 9/11 attacks. This exercise took place at Andrews Air Force Base in Camp Springs, Maryland, and involved several Congressmen, a former CIA director, a former FBI director, government insiders and privileged members of the press. The exercise simulated the use of smallpox as a biological weapon against the American public.
During the Dark Winter exercise authorities attempt to stop the spread of “dangerous misinformation” and “unverified” cures, just like with the Event 201 simulation.
Dark Winter further discusses the suppression and removal of civil liberties, such as the possibility of the President to invoke “The Insurrection Act”, which would allow the military to act as law enforcement upon request by a State governor, as well as the possibility of “martial rule.” The script says martial rule may “include, but are not limited to, prohibition of free assembly, national travel ban, quarantine of certain areas, suspension of the writ of habeas corpus [i.e. arrest without due process], and/or military trials in the event that the court system becomes dysfunctional.”
What is important to know is Dark Winter was largely written and designed by Tara O’Toole and Thomas Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center along with Randy Larsen and Mark DeMier of the Analytic Services (ANSER) Institute for Homeland Security.
O’Toole, Inglesby, and Larsen were directly involved in the response to the alleged anthrax attacks which took place in the days after September 11, 2001. These scientists personally briefedVice President Cheney on Dark Winter.
Simulation Event 201
Coincidentally, Event 201 was co-hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, which is currently led by Dark Winter co-author Thomas Inglesby. Tara O’Toole was also a key player in the Clade X simulation.
The name for the exercise comes from a statement made by Robert Kadlec, a veteran of the George W. Bush administration and a former lobbyist for military intelligence/intelligence contractors. In the script, Kadlec states that the lack of smallpox vaccines for the U.S. populace means that “it could be a very dark winter for America.” Kadlec is now leading HHS’ Covid-19 response and was also involved in the Trump administration’s 2019 “Crimson Contagion” exercises.
Eerily, Kadlec’s statements in 201 exercise were recently repeated nearly word for word by Richard Bright, former director of Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Bright was recently celebrated as a whistleblower who attempted to hold the Trump administration accountable during the COVID-19 battle. However, while speaking in front of Congress, Bright stated, “without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be darkest winter in modern history.” Now, maybe Bright is simply a concerned scientist warning about the potential for more sick people, but his use of the phrase “darkest winter” is hard to ignore.
When hearing the statements from Kadlec and Bright we ought to consider the corporate media’s promotion of a potential “second wave” of COVID-19. Bill Gates and other influential pundits and health authorities have consistently warned about a second wave which was slated to arrive in the fall of 2020. As of mid-October 2020, reports are beginning to come in that “cases are on the rise”. This is what makes the statement from Richard Bright all the more concerning.
Election 2020 Chaos Incoming?
This leads us to a number of recent simulations of the 2020 U.S. election which have resulted in chaos and potential civil war. It would be easy to dismiss these exercises as politically driven fantasy if the people involved had not already publicly advised their candidate not to concede the election under any circumstances.
Most recently, media reports indicated the Transition Integrity Project (TIP) held a number of exercises simulating what might happen in the event Donald Trump loses the 2020 election, but refuses to leave office. The TIP itself is a secretive group made up of “Never Trump” neocon Republicans and Democrats associated with the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton.
The Boston Globe reported that the TIP met in June to simulate the 11-week period between Election Day on November 3rd and Inauguration Day on January 20, 2021. The exercises state that “Trump and his Republican allies used every apparatus of government — the Postal Service, state lawmakers, the Justice Department, federal agents, and the military — to hold onto power, and Democrats took to the courts and the streets to try to stop it.”
The TIP envisioned one scenario where Trump wins and Biden refuses to concede and instead asks for a recount and makes several demands, including to give statehood to Washington, DC and Puerto Rico, and divide California into 5 states. In the exercises Joe Biden is played by John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager and chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton. The simulations essentially end in a constitutional crisis where there is no clear President and the Supreme Court or possibly the military play a deciding role.
This unprecedented event could be disastrous for American life as it is likely activists from both sides of the vote would take to the streets to protest what they believe is a theft by their opponents. If you think protests and fights between “extreme leftists” and “extreme right” wingers are contentious, just wait until they both feel shafted during the presidential election.
Those opposed to Trump will claim Biden won and Trump is attempting to steal the election and create a fascist dictatorship. The Trump supporters will say the Radical Leftist Democrats are attempting a coup to establish a “Communist Police State”. The result will be neighbor turning against neighbor, family members disowning one another, and some political activists may escalate their tactics from protests to violence.
Other groups were similarly engaged in “war games” that predicted complete chaos in the U.S. on election day as well as the imposition of martial law. This includes the “Operation Blackout” simulations conducted by the U.S.-Israeli company, Cybereason. That company has considerable ties to the U.S. and Israeli intelligence.
Operation Blackout involved hackers taking control of city buses around the U.S., crashing into voters waiting in line at polling stations, hacked traffic lights causing accidents, and the release of “deepfakes” to manipulate the public. The simulation resulted in the cancellation of the 2020 election and the imposition of martial law.
While Donald Trump continues to stoke the flames of division and uncertainty surrounding election 2020, the Establishment is also preparing for the possibility of martial law in response to this chaos. Meanwhile, the public is being prepped for a second wave of COVID-19 infections which could lead to the foreshadowed Darkest Winter. While we don’t care to instill fear we do encourage everyone to heed these warnings and be prepared for potential unrest in the days and weeks following the election.
Are You Prepared?
In conclusion, I believe we may have a narrow window of time to inform our friends and family, and motivate them to prepare for what may be on the horizon.
We can spend our time attempting to convince them of the lies of COVID-19.
We can also try to educate them about the numerous exercises predicting chaos and civil unrest across the United States.
As important as education is in the Information War; now might be the time to focus our energy on helping our families be prepared for what may come. Rather than attempting to convince them to see what you see or believe what you believe, perhaps we can simply help keep them safe until they can clearly see the writing on the wall.
Again, if you are hearing of these exercises and topics for the first time, please listen with an open mind.
I want to emphasize that I do not write these words in hopes of inspiring fear or stress. In fact, I hope that this analysis can paint a clear enough picture of the grim reality we are facing so we may act! It is only by honestly facing our circumstances that we can hope to influence and change the path of humanity.
This is a historic time to be alive and we have the opportunity to play a powerful role. It’s time to shake off the shackles and expose those who seek to hold us back for their own sick purposes.Sources/Further Reading:
If official numbers are to be believed, the United States is one of the worst hit countries in terms of COVID-19 infections and deaths. According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at the time of writing, there are supposedly 19 million COVID-19 caseswith an alleged 300,000+ deaths suggesting between a 1-2% chance of dying from COVID-19 if infected by it.
However, these numbers are problematic – even before questioning the validity of the statistics themselves leading to them.
For example – asymptomatic cases will likely go both untested and unreported, meaning many more people are actually being infected by COVID-19, exhibiting no symptoms, receiving no treatment, and most certainly not making it into the CDC’s “cases” statistics.
This means that your chances of being infected by COVID-19 and dying are actually much, much less than the often touted claim of 1-2%. Only those who exhibit severe enough symptoms to be tested and/or treated will make it into the statistics of “cases.”
In terms of framing any pandemic, an exaggeration of the lethality of the virus becomes a fundamental issue. If this information by itself is carelessly or dishonestly presented to the public without mention of the many more people likely being infected and exhibiting no symptoms at all, panic can, and clearly has been spread across society and the world, enabling extreme policies to glide through approval, beginning the process of disfigurement society now suffers today.
This was a fact highlighted by the work of Dr. John Ioannidis who, even at the onset of COVID-19, attempted to raise the alarm about needlessly stoking public hysteria, the folly of driving public health policy without proper data, and the catastrophic impact it would have – and is now clearly having – on society if this trend isn’t reversed.
A video interview conducted by Journeyman Pictures from April 2020 noted Dr. Ioannidis’ breakdown of data and the results of his own studies conducted to illustrate exactly this. His study included widespread serological (antibody) testing in Santa Clara County, California to see how many individuals may have been infected by COVID-19 but simply never exhibited symptoms, or symptoms serious enough to seek medical attention and be tested for COVID-19.
Dr. Ioannidis would note:
“If you compare the numbers that we estimate to have been infected, which vary from 48,000-81,000, versus the number of documented cases that would correspond to the same time horizon around April 1st, when we had 956 cases documented in Santa Clara County, we realize that the number of infected people is somewhere between 50 and 85 times more compared to what we thought, compared to what had been documented. Immediately, that means that the infection fatality rate, the chance of dying, the probability of dying, if you are infected, diminishes by 50-85 fold, because the denominator in the calculation becomes 50-85 fold bigger. If you take these numbers into account, they suggest that the infection fatality rate for this new coronavirus is likely to be in the same ballpark as seasonal influenza.”
Dr. Ioannidis also noted that there was a large gradient regarding death rates based on age and underlying medical conditions, with the risk of death for people under 65 with no underlying medical conditions being virtually negligible.
The need for wider testing to fully establish mature datasets – as Dr. Ioannidis and his team at Stanford illustrated – and efforts to communicate to the public the difference between the infection fatality ratio (IFR) and the case fatality ratio (CFR), have been neglected by Western governments and even more so by the Western corporate media. In some cases, efforts appear to be being made to deliberately obfuscate or confuse this crucial information in order to continue stoking panic and hysteria.
But in addition to this, there is the fact that governments – particularly in the West – have been caught using dubious or disorganized methods to tally COVID-19 deaths – meaning that both IFR and CFR numbers could be easily skewed.
For example, British state-funded media outlet, the BBC in an August 2020 article titled, “Coronavirus: England death count review reduces UK toll by 5,000,” would admit:
A review of how deaths from coronavirus are counted in England has reduced the UK death toll by more than 5,000, to 41,329, the government has announced.
The article also noted that:
The new methodology for counting deaths means the total number of people in the UK who have died from Covid-19 comes down from 46,706 to 41,329 – a reduction of 12%.
The article revealed that Public Health England had “included everyone who had tested positive [for COVID-19], even if they died months afterwards and their death may have had another cause.”
Similar statistical gymnastics are being performed in the US. Even the New York Times raised the issue fairly early on in article, “Is the Coronavirus Death Tally Inflated? Here’s Why Experts Say No,” clearly inferring that there may be a problem with the official methodology, and went on to explain throughout the article how it is impossible to ever know since accurate counts – or even accurate systems to use in counting – may not presently exist in the US.
In other words: the current systems are less than perfect and vulnerable to systemic distortions in the presentation of data. Again, this is a fundamental issue when public health policy is based on the perceived severity of the epidemic.
The Real Impact of COVID-19
Based on what were clearly misused and incomplete statistics, the US, the UK, and much of Western Europe have led the world in stoking unprecedented hysteria, enforcing travel restrictions and lockdowns, including the closing of businesses and schools, and grinding the economies of the world to a halt either directly or indirectly – in a manner similar to but with an impact much greater than the US-led global “War on Terror” starting in 2001.
Pressure from “international organizations” like the World Health Organization (WHO) using its UN-affiliated platform to declare a “global pandemic,” along with Western governments and the corporations that dominate foreign and domestic policy, has created a global crisis – not in terms of human health, but in terms of socioeconomics.
Businesses are closed – not because those who regularly run or patronize them are in hospital beds or dead – but by order of governments, and with official policy backing from organizations like the WHO.
The mainstream media has played a key role in this – not only repeating narratives provided by governments and healthcare institutions uncritically, but refusing to fulfill their role as watchdogs and investigators searching out impropriety.
It is a state of hysteria that is crippling small and medium-sized businesses (SME), but a boon to big-business.
Headlines from papers like the Wall Street Journal admit, “Big Tech Companies Reap Gains as Covid-19 Fuels Shift in Demand,” or as the Guardian reported, “Amazon third-quarter earnings soar as pandemic sales triple profits,” make it clear that some big-businesses are profiting from the hysteria.
Moreover, the Guardian report, “The mystery of which US businesses are profiting from the coronavirus bailout,” reveals how struggling big-businesses are being bailed out by government money – while the SME sector, the real pulse of any vibrant economy and society – is being left behind.
But there is one industry who stands out above all others to benefit, an industry notorious for its deeply rooted corruption, and an industry that has already been caught using its ties with international organizations like the WHO to declare pandemics, stoke hysteria, and profit handsomely from the resulting chaos.
It’s the West’s pharmaceutical industry.
At no time in human history has it been more powerful and influential than it is now. And at no other time in human history has it been so dangerous.
Big-Pharma: The Least Trustworthy Pandemic Partner
Western Big-Pharma’s profiteering and corruption under ordinary circumstances is already shocking. The current climate of public confusion, panic, and growing socioeconomic desperation only invites the industry’s impropriety to new levels.
Pharmaceutical corporations like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Moderna – having received billions of dollars directly or indirectly from taxpayers to develop COVID-19 vaccines – have long, documented histories of corruption, including bribing regulators, doctors, and governments.
They have also been caught falsifying safety and efficacy data. They have promoted the use of their products for patients in cases not approved of by regulators, including on children.
They have even been caught knowingly selling products they knew were dangerous or even deadly – withholding critical information from both regulators and the public.
Pfizer alone – as its COVID-19 vaccine began rolling out publicly – was under investigation this year, according to its own Security Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, for its Greenstone generics business over antitrust concerns, for manufacturing issues regarding Quillivant XR, regarding quality issues over the manufacturing of auto-injectors, over corruption inquiries regarding its Russian and Chinese operations, and in regards to lawsuits in Mexico over the manufacturing of Zantac and a cancer-causing chemical called N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) found in the product.
The investigation regarding Zantac finally prompted the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – who had originally approved the drug – to request it be pulled from the market after finding it is indeed linked to an increased likelihood of causing cancer.
The Wall Street Journal in a 2020 article titled, “Pfizer Receives Inquiry From SEC Bribery Unit,” would note of Pfizer’s past scandals that:
Pfizer has had past run-ins with U.S. authorities over allegations of bribery among its operations abroad. The company in 2012 agreed to pay $60.2 million to settle investigations by the SEC and the Justice Department into alleged violations of the FCPA in several countries in Europe and Asia, including China and Russia.
The US Department of Justice in its own statement regarding part of the 2012 payout by Pfizer would note:
According to court documents, Pfizer H.C.P. made a broad range of improper payments to numerous government officials in Bulgaria, Croatia, Kazakhstan and Russia – including hospital administrators, members of regulatory and purchasing committees and other health care professionals – and sought to improperly influence government decisions in these countries regarding the approval and registration of Pfizer Inc. products, the award of pharmaceutical tenders and the level of sales of Pfizer Inc. products. According to court documents, Pfizer H.C.P. used numerous mechanisms to improperly influence government officials, including sham consulting contracts, an exclusive distributorship and improper travel and cash payments.
Such bribery might help explain why Pfizer and other pharmaceutical corporations are able to sell dangerous products like cancer-causing Zantac or – in the case of fellow COVID-19 vaccine producer Johnson and Johnson – cancer-causing baby powder – for years before mounting lawsuits and public outrage spur regulators to finally do their job properly.
In Johnson & Johnson’s case, a Reuters investigation would note (emphasis added):
Facing thousands of lawsuits alleging that its talc caused cancer, J&J insists on the safety and purity of its iconic product. But internal documents examined by Reuters show that the company’s powder was sometimes tainted with carcinogenic asbestos and that J&J kept that information from regulators and the public.
What this illustrates is a consistent pattern of corruption stretching across Pfizer’s (and Johnson & Johnson’s) manufacturing process to their business practices and spanning years. It is an entire industry that repeatedly engages in dangerous impropriety, is repeatedly investigated and fined, but allowed to not only continue conducting business – but is still entrusted with matters critical to public healthcare.
The implications it has for the process of developing, approving, producing, and distributing vaccines for COVID-19 should be obvious.
The 2009 H1N1 “Heist”
Despite the immense amount of publicly-known corruption engaged in by the Western pharmaceutical industry and the obviously troubling implications it has for the current COVID-19 vaccine rollout – it is only one dimension of a much wider problem.
There is also the Western pharmaceutical industry’s known history of creating public scares to attract massive government contracts and wield power and influence over public discourse regarding human healthcare issues.
The same large corporate media outlets today helping fuel public hysteria regarding COVID-19 and promoting big-pharma’s vaccine rollout had previously reported on past instances of big-pharma crying “pandemic,” using its influence over international organizations like the WHO, and securing massive government contracts worth billions of dollars for unnecessary and ineffective medication and vaccines.
Think back to 2009 and the H1N1 “Swine Flu” scare. Following the WHO’s dramatic declaration of a “global pandemic,” the headlines and articles from the mainstream Western media read almost identical to those being circulated today regarding COVID-19.
Seven months into the flu pandemic of 2009, North America leads the world in cases, the WHO says.
Unlike elsewhere, the new H1N1 never exited stage left after its debut appearance in late April. In fact, it’s making more noise than ever. Mexico has experienced more cases of pandemic flu since September than it did over the first four months of the pandemic this spring.
The ratcheting up of hysteria continued both from the WHO and across the Western media, accompanied by drives to fund vaccine development and stockpile medication like Roche’s Tamiflu.
The UK Daily Mail in a 2009 article titled, “Tamiflu: What you MUST know as swine flu threatens to strike,” would claim:
The Government has announced that stocks of drugs – known as antivirals – to fight the imminent threat of a swine flu pandemic are being built up to cover more than 50million people – or 80 per cent of the country’s population.
But as hysteria faded, the truth emerged. Articles began to appear like this one from Reuters in 2014 titled, “Stockpiles of Roche Tamiflu drug are waste of money, review finds,” which noted:
Researchers who have fought for years to get full data on Roche’s flu medicine Tamiflu said on Thursday that governments who stockpile it are wasting billions of dollars on a drug whose effectiveness is in doubt.
The article also pointed out:
Tamiflu sales hit almost $3 billion in 2009 – mostly due to its use in the H1N1 flu pandemic – but they have since declined.
There were also Roche’s financial ties to WHO experts who designated the appearance of H1N1 as a “pandemic,” helping pave the way for the public hysteria required to fuel Roche’s profits from selling what was essentially a useless drug to government stockpiles.
The BBC in their 2010 article, “WHO swine flu experts ‘linked’ with drug companies,” would report:
Key scientists behind World Health Organization advice on stockpiling of pandemic flu drugs had financial ties with companies which stood to profit, an investigation has found.
Roche was mentioned by name by the BBC (emphasis added):
The advice prompted many countries around the world into buying up large stocks of Tamiflu, made by Roche, and Relenza manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.
Despite these revelations post-H1N1 after 2009, the very same actors have taken the stage for a repeat performance in 2020 – with little to no alarm from the same media organizations who ignored the H1N1 “heist” in 2009 and reluctantly reported on it only long after the damage was done.
Big-Pharma’s Pandemic Industrial Complex
Over the past ten years – big pharma’s control over the WHO and its influence over both the media and Western governments has only grown.
Powerful organizations like the Wellcome Trust – which claims to be an “independent foundation” funded through an investment portfolio – counts several large pharmaceutical corporations – Novartis, Roche, Johnson & Johnson, and Abbott Labs – on their list of “significant directly held public equity holdings.”
Its governance includes representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, various Western governments, academia, the media, and of course the WHO itself.
It is an institutionalization of the conflicting interests that have tolerated, accommodated, even helped expand the unwarranted power, wealth, influence, and corruption of big pharma.
And while Wellcome Trust claims to be “independent” of corporate and government ties, alongside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – it has helped create another front organization called The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) – through which it accepts and disperses huge amounts of Western taxpayers’ money.
The work of CEPI directly impacts the business prospects of many of the corporations Wellcome Trust owns stocks in – with its investments paying off above average amid this most recent round of public hysteria and government spending on this latest declared pandemic.
International Publishers Limited in an article titled, “Wellcome Trust ‘prospers’ under COVID-19 fallout with 12.3% return,” would report:
Wellcome Trust’s portfolio has not just survived, but prospered, in the highly volatile environment following the COVID-19 outbreak, according to Eliza Manningham-Buller, the charity’s chair, introducing its annual report which unveiled a 12.3% return for the year to 30 September 2020, up on the 6.9% of the previous year.
The trust, which supports medical research worldwide, is the UK’s largest charity, with a £29.1bn (€31.9bn) portfolio at end-September 2020. Wellcome’s investments have returned an average 12.1% a year over the past decade.
It’s worth noting that back in March, both Wellcome and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided$125 million in “seed funding” to accelerate certain pharmaceutical products claiming to treat COVID-19, including Gilead Science’s antiviral Remdesivir. Despite failing repeatedly in clinical trials, and after the National Institute of Health (NIH) was exposed attempting to rewrite the rules in their attempt to salvage the drug’s reputation as a viable therapeutic for COVID-19 – Remdedivir was continually hyped in the media by Bill Gates and NIH Director Anthony Fauci, and is still defended by the WHO to this day.
It’s also important to note that as of 2020, the number one funder of the World Health Organization is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who supplied the WHO with approximately $531 millionin its 2018-19 biennial budget, roughly 12% of WHO’s total budget.
Unlike the H1N1 scare and multiple scandals that emerged out from behind the smokescreen of public hysteria deliberately created around it, the COVID-19 crisis has been sustained for now nearly a year with enduring regiments being put in place to condition and control the public – and to control the flow of information through traditional channels as well as online and particularly across US-based social media platforms, and direct public funding into the coffers of the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry.
At the same time, other major industries are either being spared the same regulations and restrictions strangling smaller businesses out of existence, or being bailed out by public funding.
It has gone from the “H1N1 Heist” of 2009 to what appears to be a “Pandemic Industrial Complex” taking shape today.
How far this goes in shaping – or more accurately – disfiguring society, is up to those people who can clearly see public and private sectors conspiring together and consisting of the least reliable partners for actually taking on a real pandemic and protecting the public from it – if that is truly what we are facing.
On one hand, even if we believe the statistics and claims being made on a daily basis by the mainstream media and government representatives, we can see for ourselves the corporations elected by the government to create the solutions claimed are needed to end the crisis, are guilty of serial abuses including the production and distribution of entirely unsafe products – products developed and “approved” of by government regulators under normal conditions that would go on to making people ill or even killing them.
But the COVID-19 vaccines being rolled out now aren’t even going through that process. They have instead been rushed through approval and unpredictable results and adverse effects are already emerging.
It harkens back to another chapter involving a novel virus – 1976’s Swine Flu – where vaccines were rushed into production and resulted in mounting adverse effects, particularly paralyzing Guillain-Barré syndrome in over 400 individuals. And these were only the cases that were reported, as the true total of those who suffered varying degrees of complications will never be fully known.
In 1976, the vaccination program was abandoned and the government’s response deemed a failure of historic proportions. But apparently the lessons learned then, or in 2009, have been lost entirely today – and in some cases – deliberately buried by a complicit media.
If COVID-19 is the crisis we are told it is – why isn’t there a greater demand for more trustworthy and transparent partners to work with to face it? These would be partners capable of acknowledging past mistakes and explaining how their plan today differs from those in the past.
But unfortunately, history has already taught us that pandemics can be declared – not because they actually exist and/or pose as grave a threat as government, media and corporate stakeholders claim – but because profits are to be made by big pharma, in connection with those in organizations like the WHO who have the unique power to declare pandemics, and perpetuate them regardless of the truth.
We watched for two decades as the West orchestrated an entirely false “War on Terror” around the globe, justifying actions as extreme as invasions, wars, and illegal occupations of other countries and the expenditure of trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ money.
Is it really that hard to imagine as possible, this formula being reworked atop the 2009 H1N1 scandals and pushed forward aggressively?
*** Author Brian Berletic, formerly known under his pen name Tony Cartalucci, is Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher, writer and special contributor to 21st Century Wire. See more of his work at Tony’s archive. Over the last decade, his work has been published on a number of popular news and analysis websites, and also on the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. Also, you can follow him on VK here.
Can it be that we are merely witnessing a gigantic and historically unprecedented medical-political abuse of power? That a virus is being used as a scapegoat for something else?
“Protecting children from all dangers is my damned father’s duty,” sang Reinhard Mey. Our offspring currently need protection from the rigid corona regime in schools.
Serious damage is done to our sons and daughters through masking and social distance rules, through constant ventilation in freezing cold and the suppression of their vital needs for contact and impartiality – both physically and mentally.
In addition, their self-confidence is broken by the constant suggestion that they are a changing risk of infection. In addition, they are trained into conformism and submission to constraints.
Which generation is growing up there? Do we think our children are not systemically relevant and are we therefore only too willing to sacrifice them on the altar of the prevailing corona narrative? We must finally defend ourselves against the organized lovelessness to which our children are exposed.
As a historian, I have been deeply appalled for months at how a whole society, whole nations, can be led collectively into division and, above all, irrationality solely on the basis of mass PCR tests.
For weeks I have been wondering: Where is the so-called academic elite of Europe in the areas of history, political science, sociology and psychology which stands up and says: Enough! With a total “war against the virus”, according to Emmanuel Macron, – as in any war – thousands or millions of “civilians” – in this case healthy people – lose their livelihoods, make sick, and ultimately killed (1).
Where are the many celebrities in Europe from science, the arts, literature, music and film who come together in public and shout: Enough! We demand an end to Covid-19 totalitarianism, not just in the media!
Three years ago the renowned German historian Philipp Blom, who lives in Vienna, wrote the admonishing book: “What is at stake!” Meanwhile everything is at stake: human rights, social peace, freedom, democracy, prosperity, work, tolerance, public health – not because of the virus, but the highly disproportionate nature of measures such as “lockdown” – and simply human dignity.
For all these humane achievements people fought for centuries and many lost their lives. These achievements are not a law of nature, not divisible, not negotiable, not interpretable and also not measurable.
It was not without reason that the greatest peacemaker of all time, Mahatma Gandhi, gave us a warning: Whoever accepts injustice in silence is complicit!
As a reminder: the legacy of totalitarianism and fascism: Between 1914 and 1970, around 100 million people lost their lives in all world wars and civil wars, in all totalitarian societies in Europe, both right-wing and left-wing ideologies.
All of Europe’s totalitarian systems – National Socialism, Stalinism, Italian fascism, Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, etc. – they were all made possible not by those in power, not by the leaders and commanders, but without exception and again and again by the tolerant or silent majority. By the informers, but also by those who were discouraged and fearful. By those concerned about their belongings. In the end, almost everyone lost everything: their belongings, honor and human dignity.
I am writing here not only as a historian and researcher on the rights of children, but primarily as a father of three.
Most of the public play facilities for children were closed on World Playday for Children on May 29th and World Children’s Day on June 1st, while beer gardens and hardware stores had been open for weeks.
A society that implicitly says that children and young people are not “systemically relevant” does not want a future!
Since the end of March at the latest and until today, all international studies on SARS-CoV-2 have shown the following:
Children and adolescents play no role in the infection process, they rarely become infected and, if at all, they usually do not get sick at all (2).
A positive PCR test result does not automatically mean: infected! By now every journalist – also in Germany and Austria – should be familiar, understandable and comprehensible. And infected with SARS-CoV-2 does not automatically mean that you get Covid-19.
It is not without reason that every PCR test manufacturer points out: The test is not suitable for diagnostic purposes.
Therefore, mask compulsory and quarantine for children and adolescents, based solely on a positive PCR test, are child abuse and simply a crime of humanity.
Because to this day there is not a single evidence-based medical and therefore no legal justification for this!
The “Parents Stand Up” initiative carried out a nationwide survey among schoolchildren about the requirement to mask in schools. A first interim report of 2,300 questionnaires shows the following devastating picture:
For example, 44.1 percent of the students surveyed suffer from breathing difficulties. 73 percent of headaches, 86.4 percent of fatigue, 65.7 percent of concentration disorders, 38 percent of dizziness and around 36 percent of anxiety states.
As a reminder, for centuries the schools of Europe were primarily a place of religious, political or ideological indoctrination and also a place of violence. For months I have been oppressed by the feeling that, since March, Europe has literally released all the negative spirits of the last centuries from the bottle in one fell swoop.
Now a small excerpt from the interim evaluation of 2,300 questionnaires at mainly German kindergartens and schools in 2020:
In some crèches and kindergartens, parents have to leave their children at the door, even during the so-called acclimatization phase, because adults are not allowed to accompany them!
School classes with masks and wet jackets sit all day in classrooms with the windows open!
Again and again, students collapse because of wearing masks and are also punished with denunciation and exclusion!
Again and again it is suggested to young people that if you don’t wear a mask you are a murderer! In the meantime, however, dozens of studies have shown that wearing everyday masks to curb the spread of the virus does absolutely nothing.
Schoolchildren are only allowed to drink and go to the toilet according to the schedule, not when needed!
In some schools it is no longer allowed to shower and blow-dry your hair after swimming lessons!
Again and again children are terrified, with the argument: If you don’t wear a mask, it’s your fault when grandpa and grandma die!
This list is madness, it is pathology. Here healthy people are made sick.
A human rights disaster.
With what right – in the double sense of the word – do we simply steal everything from an entire generation of children and young people? Relationship and friendship, education and training, sport and health, freedom and self-efficacy, the acquisition of vital skills, simply and completely the future!
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, recently spoke of a “human rights disaster” at the 41st session of the Human Rights Council. “But if the rule of law is not respected, the health emergency threatens to turn into a human rights catastrophe, the negative effects of which will long surpass those of the pandemic itself,” warned the UN High Commissioner.
To all the highest and constitutional judges in Germany and Austria: Immediately end all Covid-19 measures for young people, for children and adolescents, end the mask requirement and school closings, end the exaggerated hygiene and distance rules, come to your senses and look to Sweden!
The young Astrid Lindgren, author of Pipi Longstocking, wrote in her diary in the 1940s: “Mankind has lost its mind.”
Sweden in 2020. To date, this country has not carried out a lockdown, nor has it introduced a general mask requirement. No school closings and, above all, no masking requirements for children and young people. In Sweden, the hundred thousand people prophesied by Angela Merkel, Sebastian Kurz, Christian Drosten and Co have not died to this day. Sweden does not make the healthy sick and does not abuse its children and adolescents with mask force.
Could it be that Covid-19 has mutated into a political virus in many parts of Europe? A small but possibly clarifying detail: Sweden is still neither in the euro zone nor a member of NATO. While Germany and Austria, for example, are in the second “lockdown”, schools, restaurants, fitness studios, cinemas, etc. are open in neighboring Switzerland.
First judgment on the general obligation to quarantine
A Portuguese court of appeal (Tribunal da Relação de Lisboa) is the first court in Europe to lift the general quarantine requirement for those who have tested positive with a judgment of November 11, 2020. His reasoning: The principle “in dubio pro reo” applies to courts. The PCR tests are unreliable and tested positive means neither necessarily contagious nor infected. According to the court, a medical diagnosis can only be made by a doctor (3).
Can it be that we are merely witnessing a gigantic and historically unprecedented medical-political abuse of power?
That a virus is being used as a scapegoat for something else?
Children and adolescents are not a virus risk for society, not even for the old, the sick and the elderly. Children are and will remain our only future!
Anyone who cannot stand a child’s laughter, who cannot bear the mental health of a child, who forces children to use masks and distance rules, is sick themselves. Not suffering from Covid-19, but from lovelessness, ignorance, hatred and dehumanization.
The history of mankind shows one thing impressively: no epidemic, no single virus can cause as much hardship, suffering, illness, misery and even death as a mentally ill society, human presumption and, above all, overconfidence.
We should protect our children from that!
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Notes
(1) On March 16, 2020, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke of war seven times in his State of the Union address (1st lockdown) regarding the corona crisis: “We are at war, a health war, for sure. We are not fighting against an army or any other nation, but the enemy is there, insecure, fleeting and on the advance. (…) We are at war. “
(2) There are now numerous international online platforms that publish uncommented international research reports, studies, evaluations, court rulings, etc. on Covid-19. For example the Swiss platform Swiss Policy Research.
(3) The original court ruling is available at: infosperber.ch
A selection of international research results on SARS-CoV-2 and children and adolescents:
The Icelandic tracing pioneer Kari Stephanson, CEO of deCODEgenetics, did not find a single case in which a child under ten had infected their parents.
The director of the US CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), Robert Redfield, said that the number of additional suicides and drug deaths among adolescents in recent months has been far greater than the number of Covid-19 deaths.
According to the US state health authority CDC, three times more children up to 14 years of age have died of influenza than of Covid-19 (101 versus 31) since the beginning of 2020. To put that in perspective: The USA has around 328 million inhabitants and the general mental and physical health of children and adolescents in the USA has been consistently poor for over 20 years than in any other western country. Even before Covid-19 and for years, around 2.5 million children in the United States have been homeless.
A joint report from Sweden (without closing primary schools) and Finland (with closing primary schools) found that there was no difference in infection rates among children in the two countries. This joint state report was published by Sweden and Finland via the international press agency Reuters, which reported on it on July 15, 2020. So weeks before the state corona terror was introduced in schools in some German federal states such as North Rhine-Westphalia or Bavaria.
A British study found that up to 60 percent of children and adolescents and around 6 percent of adults already have cross-reactive antibodies against the new coronavirus that have arisen through contact with previous coronaviruses.
After the first lockdown, Saxony was the first federal state to start regular school operations, which were scientifically supported by Dresden University. Study leader Reinhard Berner explained to the Frankfurter Allgemeine on July 13th that in terms of Covid-19, in summary, children act more as a brake on the infection than as a carrier. See also “Corona consequences for children”
For most Americans, 2020 was disastrous for their safety, well-being and future.
Unprecedented numbers of people lost jobs — a greater percent of working-age Americans than in the 1930s Great Depression.
Millions more became way underemployed earning poverty wages with few or no benefits — struggling daily to survive.
Well over 100,000 small businesses went bankrupt or otherwise shut down permanently because of draconian lockdowns, quarantines and related policies.
According to Gallup survey data, “Americans’ mental health ratings s(ank) to a new low” in 2020— with no end to mass-misery in prospect.
Chicago’s Water Tower Place is the city’s preeminent downtown shopping mall along its Magnificent Mile.
Its survival is threatened by lack of enough retail traffic.
A city news report said there’s “real anxiety that Chicago’s main shopping districts — the Magnificent Mile and Gold Coast — are (at risk) of falling apart” for lack of enough revenue to keep operating.
The Illinois Retail Merchants Association said “economic fallout” from what’s going on “made it difficult for businesses to keep up with high downtown rents.”
What’s true about Chicago’s retail environment applies to the US nationwide — with no end of it in prospect looking ahead.
According to the National Restaurant Association, up to half of the nation’s restaurants may close permanently if the current environment continues or worsens — millions of jobs to be lost with them.
Looking ahead in the new year, is unprecedented food insecurity, hunger, malnutrition, untreated illnesses, and homelessness coming in the weeks and months ahead?
While Congress and the Wall Street owned and controlled Fed throw trillions of dollars of free money at the nation’s privileged class, most US households never endured harder than ever hard times than now.
They’re worsening, not improving, because of indifference in high places toward the nation’s most disadvantaged that are exploding in numbers of affected millions of people — the US middle class disappearing in plain sight.
Everything going on — the Greatest Main Street Depression in US history — was planned by US dark forces in cahoots with monied interests.
It’s all about benefitting them exclusively by exploiting most others.
It includes creating an unprecedented in size permanent underclass.
Longer-term, the diabolical scheme aims to create a ruler-serf society, harming the vast majority of Americans.
Seasonal flu/influenza — disguised as covid — has been and continues to be the phony pretext for getting Americans to go along with what no one should tolerate.
Their fundamental freedoms may be permanently lost so privileged interests can more greatly benefit from their misery.
Providing $600 stimulus checks to qualified households pales in comparison to open-checkbook handouts to Wall Street, other corporate favorites, and the already super-rich.
The paltry amount mocks growing poverty and deprivation that’s highly likely to worsen in the new year.
The US is not only unsafe and unfit to live in, it’s permanently thirdworldized.
It’s a totalitarian/plutocratic banana republic in the Northern Hemisphere — the world’s largest and most threatening to everyone everywhere.
On New Year’s Day, establishment media maintained their mass deception drumbeat.
According to NYT fake news, “in 2021 things will start getting better (sic).”
“And there’s good reason to believe that once the good news starts, the improvement in our condition will be much faster and continue much longer than many people expect (sic).”
The Washington Post pretended that “the big story of 2021 could be a very hopeful one (sic).”
Like other establishment media, it’s pushing the myth of mass-vaxxing to the rescue — ignoring how experimental covid vaccines may cause irreparable harm to human health overall, along with risking the illness they’re supposed to protect against but won’t.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “(t)he great comeback of 2021 is surely coming (sic).”
“(I)t will begin to explode in late spring, with vaccines more available and a spreading sense that things are easing off, and be fully anarchic by summer (sic).”
The above disinformation ignores the reality of unprecedented/made-in-the USA misery that’s highly likely to worsen ahead and become permanent for most Americans.
I see nothing to be optimistic about in the new year and what follows.
The only solution is popular revolution. Nothing else can prevent state-sponsored dystopia that’s well underway.
It’ll worsen without mass outrage and rebellion against the diabolical system.
It’s our lives, our well-being, our future, and our choice to accept the unacceptable or rise up against it.
Why this title? – Because Greece doesn’t have to continue playing the card of the victim, nor being masochist. Greece seems to suffer under the Stockholm Syndrome – she is in love with her hangman. Greece could change this. Exit the prison, exit the EU and exit the euro. Greece could return to her sovereign national currency, her own sovereign central bank, make her own monetary policy and implement it with a sovereign public banking system that works solely for the Greek economy. Within less than 10 years Greece would have recovered and would even be able to pay back some of her illegally begotten debt.
Although, here it must be added, according to international law, most of Greece’s debt was imposed by the troika under illegal circumstances. It’s also called “odious debt”, the description of which reads “In international law, odious debt, also known as illegitimate debt, is a legal doctrine that holds that the national debt incurred by a regime for purposes that do not serve the best interest of the nation, should not be enforceable. Such debts are, thus, considered by this doctrine to be personal debts of the regime that incurred them and not debts of the state.” This doctrine is complemented by a similar one inscribed in the charter of the IMF that says that the IMF shall not make any loans to a country in distress, that will unlikely be able to reimbursed the debt and pay the debt service.
There is not a day that goes by without Greece making the headlines as being abused by the troika (IMF, European Central Bank – ECB and the unelected European Commission – EC) and by the Germans. Here are three of the latest examples, but there are many more – “Destroying Greek, Plundering Greece. The Latest Update” (by Leonidas Vatikiotis); “Austerity: Public Hospital Halts Chemotherapy, turns away Cancer Patients, because ‘Budget Exceeded’”; and “Greece Crisis: Cancer Patients Suffer as Health System Fails” (Giorgos Christides).
Already years ago, The Lancet reported an increase in Greek suicide rates and child mortality. The misery is indeed real and mounting every day. The western imposed atrocities also abound on a daily basis. Salary cuts – and at least five pensions reductions since 2010, an almost completely dismantled social safety net. Those who depend on it are generally poor. More than 4 million people out of a population of 11 million live at or under the poverty line; 15% live in absolute and abject poverty. About 28% of children live in absolute poverty, meaning malnutrition and diseases, stunting growth and brain development. At least a generation of Greek may be in part intellectually challenged, possibly implying health hazards and restricting economic development over the next 20-some years. Unemployment is hovering around 25% – 30%, with close to 50% for youth (18-35 years). The outlook is grim and promises to become even grimmer.
Public hospitals and schools are either privatized or closed because of lack of budget. Medication is scarce, as part of imposed import restrictions, imposed by Greece’s lovely European neighbors and allies or overseas masters. Specialized and expensive medication, for example cancer medicine, are especially scarce. People die from flu, from colds, from pneumonia – even intestinal diseases that could normally be healed as a matter of routine, but there are not enough antibiotics available. Austerity – budget cuts. Thanks to the brothers from Europe – and again their masters form overseas.
Greece has absolutely no control over her budget anymore. She had to sign this responsibility over to Brussels for what? – another ‘rescue package’ – what else. In September 2016, the Greek Parliament had to approve hurriedly, in less than a week’s time, a 2000-page text of legislation, drafted by Brussels in English, unreadable in this short time for most of the Greek Parliamentarians, with which the Greek Parliament signed away not only all of the publicly owned enterprises and infrastructure to the “European Stability Mechanism” (ESM) for 99 years, during which period all of it may be offered to fire sale prices for privatization, or outright demolition; but, as if this was not enough, the Parliament also signed away its sovereign authority over the Greek budget to Brussels.
Can you imagine? This in the 21st Century. It has not happened since in 1933 the Bundestag, the German Parliament, signed over all decision-making power to the “Führer” – Mr. Adolf Hitler. This is outright EU imposed fascism. The world watches silently – and in full complicity – the literal dismantling of a sovereign country, with the esclavisation and impoverishment of the population that goes with it.
This, though, is not news. It’s rather well-known. It has been written about umpteen times, by umpteen journalists and writers, to greater or lesser extent criticizing the troika, the Greek government, the EC / IMF / BCE imposed austerity, as all three know very well that austerity does not work, nowhere. Never did.
So, why repeat it here, in yet another article? – Because it must be said again and again, and repeated ever so often, until the Greek governing body listens. Greece could stop this bloodletting and misery for the majority of her people almost instantly – by quitting the euro, and by quitting the European Union. She would not be left alone. Acts of Solidarity would come from Asia, Latin America and even Africa. Such offers were already made in 2014 and 2015. But they were not heeded, since the Greek elite wants to part of the EU elite, rubbing elbows, being part of this nefarious club. Many pictures, too many, have been circulating of Mr. Tsipras and his buddies laughing and cajoling with the Lagarde’s and the Junker’s of this world.
Greece could have exited the EU and Eurozone from day one – with the first rescue package in 2010. But she didn’t, for whatever reason. Maybe personal threats to the Tsipras family and Government and / or the “left-wing” Syriza party? – We don’t know, but all is possible in a western civilization where opponents of the Master hegemon in Washington and his dark handlers, are simply assassinated. John Perkins, explains clearly how this works in his bestseller “Confessions of an Economic Hitman”.
But what about integrity of the leaders, of the party, their obligation to the Greek people? Integrity and support foremost to the average Greek, not the Greek elite which way before the troika-Germany onslaught, transferred billions of their euro holdings to Switzerland and other western safe havens. The Tsipras Government’s duty to the vast majority of Greek, who have to survive from their daily work and miserable pensions, has been betrayed. For these people integrity would have called for quitting the Eurozone and the EU.
Why holding on to a European Union that only despises Greece by its non-action, by watching passively over the destruction of their brother? There are no trustworthy allies in the EU. They are all beholden to Brussels and to Washington. There are only greedy enemies. Greece has been singled out as an example for worse to come. Other mostly southern EU countries that were given the insulting name, PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain), would be treated equally, i.e. sucked into oblivion – if they would dare to resist the systematic milking by the western financial system.
This EU – euro system cannot be reformed. And since abolishment or the simple collapse which is clearly written on the wall, is being extended at all cost, including the blood and lives of the Greek population, there is only ONE WAY for Greece to safe itself – LEAVE THE EURO – LEAVE THE EU.
Greece’s debt today (January 2018) is € 320.2 billion, or 190.4% of GDP (€ 168.2 billion) – and steadily mounting – with an annual interest of € 17.6 billion, increasing at the rate of € 557 per second (€ 48.1 million per day) – See the Greek Debt Clock. So, there is no relief in sight, no matter what western pundits and the IMF are saying. All lies, as is usual in the western world. Greece will never get out of her mountain of debt, while being a member of the euro-zone and the EU.
Greece – wake up, you have the opportunity to walk out of the EU and save the lives of more than half of your population, who are at risk of famine and deadly diseases – Mr. Tsipras and Co. no matter what lengthy theories and economic projections the elite economists who want to save their billions of euros hidden in safe havens, will present to you – it is your duty, your civil obligation as an elected official, elected by the people, to honor the people’s lively interests and to exit this horrendous repressive and abusive club, called European Union.
Greece – you must regain your sovereignty.
Leaving the EU and the euro does not mean you are leaving Europe. Greece, as every pupil knows, is geographically anchored in Europe. Greece is one of the most dramatically beautiful southern European countries and will continue to be visited by millions of tourists from around the world, and naturally from Europe. Other nations will want to trade and deal with Greece and her charming, friendly and smiling people. Friendliness and beauty is one of the key trademarks of Greece. Greece will gain even more respect for standing up for herself.
It’s late – but never too late. Take back your local autonomous currency, take control of your economy through local public banking with low or no interests to stimulate yours – the Greek economy – not the German, not the European economy, but the Greek national economy. Within less than 10 years Greece would have recovered from the current depression. Others have done it, like Argentina, or even Germany, especially after WWII. You will not be left alone. Support, if needed, will be there, particularly from the East, from where the future is. Think of China’s One Belt Initiative (OBI) – which already is linked up with Greece through the Greek port of Piraeus. OBI is a multi-trillion-euro economic development program that will encompass China, Russia, Eurasia, eventually all the way to the western rim of Europe, securing jobs, scientific and cultural development, transcontinental land-and sea transport, trading and more – over the next few hundred years. The west is gone; passé. It’s greed and war-driven economy is slowly but surely committing suicide.
If Greece is not seizing this last-ditch opportunity to exit the euro and to exit the EU, to literally safe her people’s skin, one might legitimately ask, has Greece become a convenient victim, subservient to its own elite and the Brussels-Washington masters, or is she simply masochistically enjoying her misery, borne, incidentally, by 80% of her population?
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 21st Century (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.
Nero played his fiddle, Obama shot baskets and Trump twittered while their empires burned.
What makes empire decay and what makes empires expand has everything to do with their relations between rulers and the ruled. Several factors are decisive. These include: (1) rent, land and housing, (2) the direction of living standards, (3) the rise or fall of mortality rate, (4) decline or rise of families.
Throughout history rising empires incorporate their population to the task of empire by distributing a portion of their plunder to their masses, by providing them with land, low rents and housing. Large scale landlords facing returning young war veterans reduced excessive land concentration to avoid domestic unrest.
Rising empires raised living standards, as salaried employees, workers and artisans, merchants and scribes found employment as the oligarchies expanding conspicuous consumption and expanded the state bureaucracy running the empire.
A prosperous empire is cause and consequence of increases in families, and the growth of healthy and educated plebeians who serviced and served the rulers.
In contrast, declining empires plunder the domestic economy; concentrated wealth as the expense of the labor force, heedless of the diminution of its health and life expectancy. As a result deteriorating empires experience an increasing rate of mortality; homeownership and land is concentrated in an elite of renters living off of unearned wealth via inheritance, speculation, rents which degrades productive work based on skill and knowledge.
Declining empires are cause and consequence of deteriorating families composed of opioid addicted workers suffering from rising inequalities between rulers and ruled.
The US imperial experience over the past century embodies the trajectory of the rise and fall of empires. The past quarter century describes the relations between rulers and ruled at a time of declining empire.
Living standards of Americans have decline precipitously. Employers have ceased paying for pensions; reduced or eliminated health coverage; reduced corporate taxes thus lowering the quality for public education.
Over the past two decades, wages and salaries for the majority of households have stagnated or declined; education and health expenses bankrupting many and reducing university graduates to long-term debt peonage.
Accessibility to home ownership for Americans under 45 years has fallen dramatically from 24% in 2006 to 14% in 2017. At the same time, rents have skyrocketed especially in large cities across the country, in most cases absorbing between a third and half of monthly income.
Business elites and their housing experts divert attention to “intergenerational” inequalities between pensioners and younger wage and salaried employees instead of recognizing rising inequalities between CEO and both workers and pensioners which have risen from 100 to 400 to one over the past three decades.
Mortality rates between the business elite and workers have widened as the wealthy live longer and healthier lives while workers have experienced declining life expectancy, the first time in American history! As the business elites income from profits, dividends, interest increase they can afford high cost private medical care, prolonging life, while millions of workers are prescribed death inducing opioids, to ‘reduce pain’ and precipitate premature death.Australia’s Naval Base in Papua New Guinea: Power Play in the South Pacific against China
Births are declining as a result of the high cost of medical care, the absence of day care and paid maternal or paternal leave. The most recent studies revealed that 2017 experienced the fewest babies in 30 years. The so-called “economic recovery” following the financial collapse of 2008/9 was class based: the real estate and financial elites received over two trillion dollars in bailouts while over 3 million working class households were evicted by financial mortgage holders. The result was a rapid rise in homeless people especially in cities with the highest rate of recovery from the crises.
Homelessness and crowded overpriced rentals and minimum wages are likely causes of declining birthrates and increasing mortality rates.
Imperialism Expands, Living Standards Decline
Unlike the earlier, post WWII decades in which overseas expansion was accompanied by low cost higher education, accessible low cost mortgages and increasing home ownership, and employer paid pensions and health coverage, over the past two decades imperial expansion is based on forced reductions of living standards.
The empire grew and living standards declined because the capitalist class evaded trillions of taxable income via overseas tax havens, transfer pricing and tax exemptions. Moreover, capitalists received massive state subsidies for infrastructure, and cost-free transfers of public funded technological innovations.
Imperial expansion now is based on the relocation of multi-national manufacturing corporations overseas to lower labor costs, increasing the percentage of low wage service workers in the US .
The decline of living standards for the majority is a result of the restructuring of the empire, the advent of the regressive tax system, the redistribution of State welfare transfers from public social spending to private finance and real estate subsidies and bailouts.
Conclusion
In the beginning imperialism involved an explicit social contract with labor: overseas expansion shared profits, taxes and income with labor in exchange for workers political support for imperial overseas economic exploitation, resource plundering as well as serving in the imperial armed forces .
The social contract was conditioned by a relative balance of power: unionized workers represented the majority of manufacturing, public sector and skilled workers. But this balance of power in class relations was based on the capacity of labor to engage in class struggle and influence the state. In other words the entire imperialism and welfare configuration was based on a particular set of conditional relations intrinsic to the social pact.
Over time imperial expansion faced overseas constraints from rising national and socialist opposition which forced or encouraged corporations it to relocate capital abroad. Imperial rivals in Europe and Asia competed for overseas markets forcing the US to increase productivity, lower labor costs, relocate abroad or reduce profits. The US chose to reduce domestic living standards and relocating abroad.
Labor unions divorced from the broader community movements and lacking an independent political movement, corrupted from within and committed to a disappearing social compact, declined in number and capacity to formulate a new combatative post social pact strategy. The capital class gained total control over class relations and, therefore, unilaterally set the terms of taxation, employment, living standards and, most important, state expenditure.
Imperial military and economic expenditures grew in direct proportions to the decline of social welfare payments. Rival power groups fought over the share of capitalist budgets and political-military priorities. Economic imperialists competed with or converged with military imperialists; free market neo-liberals competed for overseas markets with national militarists pursuing territorial occupations, conquests, closed markets and submissive clients. Rival political power configuration competed over imperial priorities – powerful Zionists configurations sought regional wars for Israel while multi-nationals looked to advance their political-economic expansion in Asia – China, India and Southeast Asian markets.
Competing elite factions monopolized budgets, taxes and expenditures driving labor living standards downward. Imperialist classes formed pacts – but only among themselves – but the quality and quantity of workers decreased – through impoverished health care and, educational systems. In contrast Elite offspring attended the best schools and secured the highest posts in government and economy.
Privilege and power did not produce imperial triumphs. China harnessed educational programs and skilled workers to productive work.In contrast privileged US university graduates sought employment in parasitical lucrative financial positions not in science, engineering and social welfare. Military academy graduates joined networks of ‘commanders’ who condoned sexual abusers, trained and promoted officers who sent missiles which targeted military bases and bombed population centers and trained naval captains specializing in own- ship collisions.
Ivy League graduates secured high government positions leading the US into endless Middle East wars, multiplying adversaries, antagonizing allies and spending trillions on wars for Israel, not social welfare and higher wages for American workers . Oh yes the ‘economy’ is recovering…. only the people are doing worse.
Prof. James Petras is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
“To ignore evil is to become an accomplice” (Martin Luther King)
Humans are of the Earth, physically adapted to its range of climates, gravity, radiation, electro-magnetic field and composition of the atmosphere. Had there ever been a single critical issue science has conveyed, it is that altering the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere can only bear fatal consequences for nature and humanity.
This scientific projection is holding true: it is estimated that, to date, some 150,000 to 400,000 people world-wide have perished each year due to direct and indirect effects of global warming1. This includes, for example, 1833 people in New Orleans, possibly up to 5000 in Puerto Rico, 6329 by typhoon Haiyan in the Philippine―the list goes on. Although these events have been documented in detail, the silence in most of the mainstream media regarding the connection between global warming on the one hand and the rising spate of hurricanes, storms and fires on the other, is deafening.
Figure 1. Average CO2 and Methane: 1800 – 2017. NASA.2
Figure 2. Mean global temperature: 1880-2017. NASA.3
Atmospheric CO2 levels is rising at a rate of 2 to 3 parts per million per year (Figure 1) while mean global temperature has accelerated between 1998 and 2016, rising by about 0.4 degrees Celsius (Figure 2). The projected trend, inducing large-scale melting of the Greenland, west and east Antarctic ice sheets, many meters-scale sea level rise and a rising spate of hurricanes, storms, heat waves, fires and droughts, commenced in the 20th century, threatens to render large parts of the planet uninhabitable.
Which is what climate science has been projecting over the last 40 years or so4. The message, refused by vested interests and ignored or only paid lip service to by the political and economic powers, has also been overlooked by millions of people due to part cover-up by much of the media. Business as usual and a bread and circuses culture continue unabated. Many understand the climate message but feel powerless, voting for parties that, under false promises, end up taking little or no effective measures at reduction of carbon emissions.
In so far as there is hope a majority of people will understand global warming is transcending the very life support systems of the planet, it is when they face the rise in extreme weather events. That this to date is not the case is the responsibility of the mainstream media, since, although climate science clearly indicates the rise in carbon emissions is responsible for the rise in extreme weather events5, rarely does the media include the terms “climate change” or “global warming” in reporting these events only. By contrast, expressions such as “one in 100 or 1000 year event” are common6.
Climate science and scientists are rarely represented on media panels, by contrast to science infotainment programs where attractive celebrities promote space travel to the planets and beyond. The promotion by the media of outer space travel and the conquest of planets constitute one of the biggest distractions from the global climate emergency7.
Through the media vested interests and their political and journalistic mouthpieces have been proliferating untruths regarding the causes and consequences of global warming. With few exceptions the mainstream media continues to propagate half-truths, or remain silent, or deal mainly with related economic issues, as if anything like the present economy could survive under +4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial conditions. Whenever the term “future” is expressed in the media and in Parliaments, it is rare that a caveat is made regarding the effects of global warming, given the currently 2 to 3-fold rise in extreme weather events8.
With exceptions, little or no information is given in the mainstream media regarding what the future holds under +2 or +4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, projected by the IPCC to take place within this century, which would render large parts of the planet uninhabitable. Likewise, with exceptions, rarely does most of the mainstream media report the global consequences of a nuclear exchange. In the lack of detailed information and warning by the Forth Estate, the world is being led blindly toward collapse9.
*
Dr Andrew Glikson, Earth and Paleo-climate scientist, ANU School of Anthropology and Archaeology, ANU Climate Change Institute, ANU Planetary Science Institute, Honorary Associate Professor, Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence, University of Queensland. Dr. Andrew Glikson is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
