Global Research

What Biden proposed Thursday may or may not be what Congress passes and gets enacted into law.

Whatever becomes law, special interests may largely benefit when funds are dispensed.

Much of what was in last year’s $2.2 trillion CARES Act went to business and other special interests over Main Street needs.

According to Wall Street on Parade (WSOP), around 75% of $454 billion allegedly earmarked for emergency lending to save businesses and jobs was unaccounted for by Treasury Secretary Mnuchin.

At a time when nearly 100,000 largely small businesses permanently closed for lack of enough customers and revenue, $340 billion of CARES Act relief “went missing.”

WSOP later learned that the missing funds were in a Mnuchin “slush fund” to be used at his discretion for what he favored, not for their intended purpose, adding:

He “ha(d) no problem (using) emergency lending programs (to aid) Wall Street” while largely indifferent toward Main Street.

Will something similar play out after Biden/Harris replace Trump next week?

His proposed plan heavily pushes mass-vaxxing with hazardous to health/experiment Pfizer and Modern covid vaccines — essential to avoid or risk serious illness or death.

Direct relief is as follows if the so-called American Rescue Plan (ARP) becomes law.

It includes $1,400 to eligible households —  not $2,000 Biden pledged earlier.

The amount at most might cover essentials to life for around a month.

The plan also includes $400 in weekly unemployment insurance (UI) benefits through September, along with rental assistance; emergency paid leave, and funding for schools.

It calls for a $15 per hour federal minimum wage.

Evictions and foreclosure moratoriums are extended until end of September.

Around $350 billion in aid to states and communities pushes harmful mass-vaxxing, meaningless PCR tests that don’t work, and funding for public health workers that’s all-about wanting all Americans vaxxed.

Another $170 billion is earmarked for K-12 schools and higher education institutions that includes mass-vaxxing students.

Nearly always when PCR tests for covid are positive, the diagnosis is false.

Former Pfizer chief science advisor Dr. Mike Yeadon called their use “junk science.”

According to 22 eminent scientists, around 97% of PCR tests for covid produce false positive results.

Yet the ARP includes $50 billion for testing, another $20 billion for promoting mass-vaxxing nationwide in cahoots with state and local governments.

The plan makes the Child Tax Credit fully refundable for 2021, increasing the credit to $3,000 per child, $3,600 for children under age-6.

What’s needed are weekly stimulus checks of at least $600 as approved last year that ended on July 31.

The proposed plan also extends a 15% increase in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and $3 billion for the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program through September.

Proposed $225 billion in aid for small businesses includes $15 billion in grants, $175 billion in loans, and another $35 may likely go at least largely to corporate favorites.

Dem leadership supports the plan. Most Republicans likely to want less than proposed.

If conservative Dems support them, one alone in the equally divided Senate perhaps enough, the plan could be pared back.

Nothing is included for debt bondage from America’s student loan racket as Biden earlier pledged.

He could do it by executive order post-inauguration.

Reportedly, a follow-up stimulus package will be introduced in February that allegedly will call for jobs creation, infrastructure related programs and others.

Whatever helps Main Street is positive.

Yet time and again, Republicans and Dems are generous to corporate America and other special interests.

Notably since the neoliberal 90s they’ve been stingy to Main Street.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. 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.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from CODEPINK

 First published on January 19, 2016

“The United States government is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.”- Martin Luther King

On December 8, 1999, a jury in Memphis, Tennessee, reached the verdict that Martin Luther King Jr. was killed as a result of a conspiracy involving the FBI, CIA, U.S. Army, Memphis police and the Mafia.

After a five week trial which presented 70 witnesses, the jury (made up of six blacks and six whites) rejected the official position that the civil rights titan was shot by a lone assassin, James Earl Ray, who was jailed for 99 years for the crime and died in 1998. The verdict concluded a wrongful death civil lawsuit brought by the King family against Loyd Jowers, owner of Jim‚s Grill, a Memphis cafe located next to the scene of the shooting when it took place on April 4, 1968.

The jury found Jowers guilty as one part of a large conspiracy created by government agencies. Jowers admitted his role but insisted that he did not know the identity of the target.

Coretta Scott King, Martin’s widow, hailed the verdict as “a great victory for justice and truth.” She added: “there is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband and the civil court’s unanimous verdict has validated our belief.” Dexter King, one of Martin’s four children, said that his father was killed “because he challenged the establishment.” He called the official investigation into Martin’s murder, “the most incredible cover-up of the century.”

The case for conspiracy and the inadequacy of the lone assassin theory seem obvious. The state had no significant evidence implicating Ray. According to the official version, Ray shot King from the bathroom window of a rooming house located next to the Lorraine Motel where the civil rights leader was staying. King was on the motel’s second floor balcony at 6:01 pm on April 4, 1968, when a bullet struck his chin, knocking him to the ground. He died in hospital an hour later.

The authorities never matched the bullet that killed King to the rifle they claim Ray used. Charles Stephens, the state’s only eye witness who claimed to have seen Ray leave the rooming house soon after the shot, was too drunk to even stand up at the time. There was a tree branch between the bathroom window and the balcony that made a clear shot impossible. Ray was not a trained marksman and the scope on the rifle was not sighted which means that it could not have hit any target. Six witnesses claimed that the shot came from bushes behind the rooming house. Jim’s Grill was located under the rooming house and its back door opened on to the bushes. Ray was jailed not due to evidence but because he pleaded guilty. He recanted 3 days later and spent the rest of his life trying to get a trial. Under Tennessee law Ray had the right to a trial but this was consistently denied. Ray claimed that his guilty plea was coerced by Percy Foreman, his lawyer at the time, who threatened him with the death penalty.

Ray was a petty criminal who had bungled almost every robbery he committed. In the King murder, he claimed to have been set up by a man named Raul (of Portuguese origin) who, he said, directed his movements after Ray escaped from prison in April 1967. Ray first met Raul in Montreal in August and agreed to work for him after he was promised travel papers. Raul was a gunrunner with links to Carlos Marcello, the Mafia boss of New Orleans. Raul had Ray smuggling contraband across the U.S.-Canadian border and going to different U.S. cities to make deliveries. On April 3, 1968, Raul met Ray in Memphis. Raul had already asked Ray to buy a Remington 30.06 rifle with a telescopic sight. Ray was then told to get accomodation at the rooming house next to the Lorraine Motel and leave the rifle there. On the afternoon of April 4, Raul asked Ray to “go to the movies” for three hours. After 6:01 pm, Ray heard on his car radio that King had been shot and the police were looking for a white man in a white Mustang (the make of his car). Ray escaped to Toronto and then flew to London (England) where he was caught. Sidney Carthew, a seaman, testified that he met Ray and Raul together in Montreal’s Neptune Bar in the summer of 1967.

Jowers also identified Raul. According to him, King’s assassination was planned by three Memphis Police Department (MPD) officers in Jim’s Grill over 2 days. The officers were Earl Clark, Johnny Barger and Marrell McCollough. Jowers was asked to help in the plot by Frank Liberto, a produce dealer with Mafia connections to whom he owed money. Liberto told Jowers to hold $100,000 for him. Minutes after the bullet hit King on April 4, Jowers was handed a smoking rifle at the back door of Jim’s Grill by Earl Clark, the MPD’s best marksman. Jowers believes Clark killed King. Raul picked up the rifle and the money the next day, according to Jowers.

William Pepper, the King family’s lawyer, actually found Raul living in Yonkers, New York. He was asked to appear in court but refused. Barbara Reis, journalist for “Publico”, the main newspaper in Portugal, testified that a source connected to Raul’s family told her that agents of the U.S. government had visited them three times. The source added that the government was “protecting” the family and monitoring their phone.

One of the main indicators of conspiracy was the removal of all security for King in Memphis during April 3- 4. A detail made up of black police officers assigned to King on previous visits to Memphis was not deployed this time. Similarly, two black firemen were removed from the fire station overlooking the Lorraine Motel on April 3, as was black detective Ed Redditt who was surveilling King from there. Police emergency tactical units were also pulled back from around the motel giving the assassin lots of room to escape. All police personnel disappeared from the motel an hour before the murder. After the shooting, no All Points Bulletin describing the suspect was issued nor was a “Signal Y” which would block off exits from the city. Both of these are standard police procedures. A door-to-door investigation in the Lorraine Motel area was never carried out by authorities and many witnesses were not questioned. By order of the police the bush area from where, according to six witnesses, the shot came, was cut down the next day. This destroyed the crime scene.

The state also claimed that Ray was driven by racism to kill King but there is no record of Ray displaying racist or violent behaviour. He had no motive to kill King. There is lots of evidence, however, to indicate that U.S. federal government agencies were out to get King. He was extensively surveilled by the FBI, CIA and Army Intelligence, as a dangerous radical who threatened national security. All three agencies believed that King had communist ties. J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director, hated King intensely and wanted him “neutralized” by almost any means. When King won the Nobel Peace Prize, Hoover publicly called him, “the most notorious liar in the country.” A Senate report stated in 1976 that the FBI tried “to destroy Dr. Martin Luther King.”

William Sullivan, FBI assistant director, considered King “the most dangerous and effective negro leader in the country.” King’s phones were tapped, his movements watched, his rooms bugged and his entourage infiltrated. The FBI threatened him, blackmailed him, launched a media disinformation campaign to discredit him, and sent him a letter suggesting that he commit suicide. A main goal of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) which was aimed at eliminating black nationalist groups, was to prevent the rise of a black “messiah.” FBI memoes also discussed finding a black leader to replace King. The final obscenity of U.S. “justice” was that the FBI which clearly wanted King dead was given the task of investigating his murder. Hence the official devotion to the baseless lone assassin theory for the last thirty two years. Judge Joe Brown who presided over one of Ray’s appeals, called the FBI’s investigation into King’s killing, “inept and incapable if not downright incompetent.”

In its surveillance of King, the FBI collaborated with Army Intelligence which had been spying on the King family for three generations, since 1917. There were seven U.S. Army Military Intelligence Groups (MIGs) spread out over the U.S., and six of them surveilled King as he toured the country. The Army maintained a massive domestic spy system which included 304 intelligence offices in the U.S. and national security dossiers on 7 million Americans. In a series of articles in the “Memphis Commercial Appeal” in March 1993, reporter Steve Tompkins detailed the “increasing hysteria”of Army intelligence chiefs over the national security threat they thought King posed. Tompkins stated that army intelligence was “…desperately searching for a way to stop him…” Particularly alarming was King’s opposition to the Vietnam War which he denounced as On April 4, 1967, as an “imperialist assault on Third World peasants.”

He equated the use of new weapons against the Vietnamese to the testing of “new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe” by the Nazis. King’s condemnation of the Vietnam War made him the leader who could merge the anti-war and civil rights movements. He announced his intention to lead a Poor Peoples’ March (of all races) to Washington D.C. in the spring of 1968 and shut down the government if it did not stop the war in Vietnam and take steps to end poverty in the U.S. The Army received reports stating that “King will create massive civil disobedience in [Washington] and in ten to fifteen major cities in the U.S. in the spring of 1968.” The Army was not prepared for such upheaval. According to Major General William Yarborough, assistant chief of staff for army intelligence, there were “too few reliable troops to fight in Vietnam and hold the line at home.”

Army surveillance of King continued until his assassination. Carthel Weeden, a former captain with the Memphis Fire Department, testified at the Jowers trial that on the afternoon of April 4, 1968, two men approached him at the fire station across from the Lorraine Motel, and showed the identification of U.S. Army officers. The men carried photographic equipment and positioned themselves on the rooftop of the fire station which gave them a clear view of King and the assassin. Any photographs could be in Pentagon archives. According to former National Security Council operative, Jack Terrell, the army went beyond surveillance. Terrell testified that his close friend J.D. Hill who was part of the 20th Special Forces Group confessed to him that he had been a member of an Army sniper team in Memphis ordered to shoot an “unknown” target on April 4. The snipers were being transported to Memphis when their mission was suddenly cancelled. Hill stated that upon learning of King’s murder the next day, he realized that the team must have been part of a backup operation to kill King if another sniper failed.

The U.S. government’s murder of arguably “the greatest American who ever lived” signified that in violently propping up vicious right-wing dictatorships all over the Third World (as in Vietnam), the U.S. itself had become one of the biggest banana republics with no possibility for peaceful social change. Martin Luther King was a leader of international stature who spoke for the poor of the world and militantly confronted a system based on their slaughter. This pitted him against the most genocidal establishment on Earth. The state murder of such a great man only increased the power of his example.

Asad Ismi is a writer on international politics who specializes in detailing the destructive impact of U.S. and Canadian imperialism on the Global South and the resistance of the Southern people to this. He is a regular contributor to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor, Canada’s biggest left-wing magazine by circulation.  Asad is winner of a Project Censored Award for his article The Ravaging of Africa which was released in 2007 as a radio documentary. He holds a Ph.D. in War Studies from the University of London (England) and taught for two years in Vietnam. He is a regular guest on community radio stations across Canada and the U.S. He is a frequent  contributor to Global Research. 

The first two weeks of 2021 have, so far, been marked by an incredible increase in Israeli activity in the skies over Syria.

The most intense strike took place on January 13 morning hitting multiple Syrian and Iranian-affiliated targets in the province of Deir Ezzor, including the underground base of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Corps near al-Bukamal.

The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Israeli strikes have killed 57 and wounded another 37. Pro-government sources confirmed only 5 casualties.

The airstrikes were so numerous that even Abu Yatem al-Katrani – the commander of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) 4th Brigade was killed in an airstrike.

The Israeli operations were carried out with the assistance of the United States – it provided intelligence and Israeli struck on them. Former CIA Director, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was reportedly discussing the airstrikes with Yossi Cohen, chief of Israel’s spy agency Mossad.

The US support of Tel Aviv’s aerial raids is a clear message to Iran, and is a very open support to Israel’s undeclared war against Iran, which it has been waging in Syria since hostilities began.

All of the airstrikes in the first two weeks of 2021 are the most significant by Israel, and over all, since the beginning of the war in Syria. They were so significant, that Damascus even accused Tel Aviv of carrying out the strikes in very open support of ISIS militants which the Syrian Arab Army is hunting.

Meanwhile, there appears to be a sense of urgency, or a sense of danger in the air, as the United States reinforced its troop positions in the Omar oil fields with artillery pieces and other equipment.

The US troops, together with their local proxies also hold frequent drills in the area, to keep ready, for some future unknown escalation.

Prior to New Year’s Eve, Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated, in what Tehran claimed to be an elaborate Israeli operation.

Additionally, since around the same time, a farewell strike on Iran has been expected from US President Donald Trump, and the general chaos in the US ahead of Joe Biden stepping into office has been used by Israel as a chance to inflict as much damage as possible on Tehran and its allies.

Russia, at the same time, appears to also be preparing for an escalation of some sort, by building up its forces and is lying in wait.

Israel appears dead set on continuing its crusade against Iran and its allies in Syria. An urgency is felt, since Biden is unlikely to support Tel Aviv as much as Trump did, and every possible chance should be used. This is all in spite of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu removed the photo of Donald Trump from his Twitter, but all is fair in love and war.

Finally, both the American and Russian forces appear to be biding their time, waiting for an escalation that, with tensions at the breaking point appears closer than ever.

The year began with terrorist attacks in Syria, increased Israeli strikes, Iran threatening against any aggression against it, and the two most significant players in the face of Moscow and Washington are expecting an escalation, and no amount of preparation would be enough for the incoming storm.

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The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

For the vast majority of Americans, the past year has been the most challenging in their lives – certainly for young adults.  However, not everyone has been suffering equally. The nation’s health or illness is not uniform. Much of our suffering is dependent upon the institutionalization and negligence of previous injustices, the loss of social equanimity, economic heedlessness, and our leaders’ unmitigated greed and pursuit of power.  Nor is everyone adversely affected by the shifts underway in the imaginations of the political and ideological universes. The transnational class of corporate and banking elites, for example, has little motivation to respect or contribute to national boundaries and interests. They perceive themselves as global actors.  For the generals and captains of neoliberal globalization, the puppet masters of financial markets, the Covid-19 pandemic only caused annoying disruptions in the quality of their lives. For the remainder, it has been cataclysmic.

There is something on the horizon that does not bode well for most Americans.  It is a simple principle to understand; yet so subtle it will likely go unnoticed until everyone is individually and collectively affected. It is the utter lack of balance within the nation’s body politick, and across the media that spoon feeds us virtual images of a faux theatrical play, the illusory icons on our minds’ monitor screens, that shape our perspectives of reality.  This is how control is exerted over our thoughts, speech and actions. In fact, it is only after people exercise their thoughts independently, with the certain belief that they have actual self-control over their lives, that they arrive at the realization that their perceptions may be largely distorted.

Throughout America’s history there has been a system of three federal branches to assure there is a platform for checks and balances as well as a structure to contain the tensions between them.  That system now is being rapidly challenged and even eroded away. Next week the middle of the road Democrats will officially control the White House and both legislative bodies. We will see what awaits us.

There is also what is commonly referred to as the “fourth estate,” the powers of the press and news media that control the framing of the political narrative and partisan issues. In the past, the media was expected to hold the government accountable by exposing its conflicts of interest that endanger the public, its misdemeanors, and systemic corruption.  This too is in decay as the media has been fully captured by corporate interests and now aligns itself politically and ideologically with the new political elite determined to reshape democracy and launch a new reset that will dramatically infringe on individual rights and liberties.

Finally, there is the growing influence of a fourth branch of government, the corporate state and its private interests.  We might also include the US intelligence community that now increasingly operates independently from executive and legislative oversight.

Together we can witness this cabal of seemingly independent entities, working simultaneously in consortium and in opposition to each other, propelling us towards a future tsunami of greater polarization and immense social disruption.

Earlier generations were not threatened by the telecommunication and technological giants of industry, such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. Clinton’s Communications Decency Act of 1996, despite its realistic intentions to protect free speech, was otherwise destructively naïve. At that time it was sensible; however, that was before that advent of the social media that now dominates our lives and shapes our political narratives. Now we are witnessing Silicon Valley as a force far more powerful than the lobbyists on K Street to ensure that corporate Democrats are raised to a position of absolute power.  Yet the problem would be equally threatening if it were the corporate and radicalized GOP in power.

The centrist Democratic left, lulled in a passivity that “it can’t happen here,” is every bit as dangerous and delusional as the Republican far-right’s paranoia over conspiracies squatting behind every nook and cranny.  A moderate centrist right no longer exists as it has now exited reality like a herd of lemmings to follow Trump over a phantasmagoric cliff.

The more important question to contemplate is how this will impact yourself and average citizens.  What happens elsewhere around the world must no longer be viewed in isolation.  Globalization is perhaps the most holistic phenomena within the matrix of financial capital movements and post-modern social restructuring. China now has the means to socially control most of its population, especially in urban areas.

On the other hand, China would be unable to succeed in this endeavor without the direct assistance, trade and technological development of Silicon Valley and the private innovators of intelligence and surveillance applied science.  China has already launched social scoring, a nefarious means to reward and penalize public activity. If a person protests the lack of personal freedom, democratic values or free speech, his or her social score decreases. And through digital networks, authorities can monitor and identify every Chinese citizen’s movements. All of this technology is ready for launch in the US and other developed nations. However rather than social scoring, it is called bit chain, which has already been employed for almost a decade.

After the recent attack on the capitol by hundreds of Trump’s most radical supporters, a Patriot Act 2.0 was ready to be launched. This follows a similar playbook to the weeks following 911, and Biden was one of its principal legislators. Does this mean that the capitol was a false flag as many conspiratorial sites, right and left, are now suggesting?  Not necessarily.  We believe this apparent convergence of events may have more in common with what the quantum physicist and Nobel laureate Wolfgang Pauli and his colleague Carl Jung, and later Arthur Koestler, theorized as synchronicity, or “meaningful coincidences” that unfold despite there being no apparent causal relationship.  Perhaps this is a wrong interpretation, but it is nevertheless something worth considering as we try to better understand how a dystopian future is evolving before our eyes through what might appear as a convergence of disparate events, laws and policies.

At this moment the federal government and individual states are over-reacting to Covid’s health threats, the climate and environment, and the collapse of social cohesion.  These threats are eliciting government mandates, such as vaccination. Anthony Fauci has suggested that Covid-19 vaccine mandates are on the table at the federal level, which would overrule state laws.  The fact that this is being publicly stated should quell any conspiratorial theories. It is already part of the long-term agenda for expanding the government’s social control under the pretense and propaganda of keeping Americans safe under the banner of national security.

New laws are under construction that would redefine hate speech, such as conflating criticism towards Israeli policies against Palestinians with anti-Semiticism. Censorship of free speech for criticizing official narratives and policies to tackle the pandemic are being enforced. Any criticism towards the complete failure of the PCR tests as a reliable diagnostic tool is being redefined as threats to public health.  People raising such critiques may eventually find their names on domestic terrorist lists.  And this scenario is not beyond the imagination.  Wikileaks revealed that environmental, animal protection, and human rights groups have been labeled as terrorist organizations.  Guilt by association laws, for example buried in Obama’s National Defense Authorization Act, are in place. Expanding a law’s scope is far easier than erasing it from the books. Consequently, it is not unlikely that these laws may eventually widen to include charges of subversion based solely on the emails you read, the videos you watch or the broadcasts you listen to.  This would inevitably lead to the death toll for any residue of integrity in journalism.  This is underway as we witness Silicon Valley’s collusion with the government to cancel the voices of some of our best investigative journalists such as Chris Hedges, Sharyl Attkinsson, Glenn Greenwald, Max Blumenthal and Julian Assange in particular.  These are only a few of many examples. The new unstated law is that original investigation must support the official narrative, otherwise it will be prohibited from accessible public view.

We may recall that under the second Bush administration, the Justice Department created “free speech zones,” fenced off or confined areas where demonstrators were only permitted to exercise their Constitutional rights of free speech.  Today we are only several small amendments away before the right to assemble beingbanned altogether.

Now faced with growing condemnation by many nations, the US’ hegemony on the world geopolitical arena has waned considerably. Biden’s administration and its return to neocon foreign and neoliberal market policies will likely make every effort to regain the dominance it lost during the past four years.  How successful a Biden White House will be to recover lost ground and international respect remains to be seen. On the other hand, what has vanished in the US’ former full spectrum dominance over the geopolitical landscape is now being inverted to strengthen federal hegemonic reign over the American population.

Finally, we need to awaken to modern technologies’ remarkable sophistication and its certain threats to the health of our societies, and even to our definition of being human. Sadly, this is an industry each one of us has been complicit in advancing. Coining a term by one of the planet’s most important and forgotten 20^th century prophetic voices, the Trappist monk Fr. Thomas Merton, we are facing a great Unspeakable, a spiritual crisis contributing to the existential vacuity of modern American culture.  Few are aware that in his 1964 collection of meditations, Seeds of Destruction, Merton predicted that the civil rights movement would confront a catastrophic impasse and may find itself without leadership.  Four years later, Martin Luther King, who Merton had a deep correspondence with, was assassinated.  Merton would die suddenly later that year under very mysterious circumstances on his return to the US from Thailand.

Another way to describe the Unspeakable is criminal Sovereignty, with a capital S, to convey its numinous qualities. If alive today, Merton would look upon the Proud Boys on the right, and Antifa on the left, as mere expressions of the meaninglessness of American life manifesting as a turbulent ocean of afflictive emotions and thoughts. Instead of technology serving the needs of humanity, Americans are being increasingly conditioned to willingly bow as slaves to technology.  The Unspeakable’s unspoken mantra is:  technology must progress regardless of how many people fall destitute, jobless, debt ridden and physically ill with only suicide as a recourse to escape.  “American democracy today,” Merton observed over 55 years ago, “is just cheap pressed wood fiber, cardboard and spray paint.” Consequently, the elite sitting in the global control tower view the emerging technological regime as preferable to democracy’s kabuki theater.  Advanced surveillance, artificial intelligence, intelligent robotics, transhumanism, a 5G internet of everything, genetic engineering, and weather modification should be our guiding avatars. The solutions, he would argue, can no longer be found in civil discourse or the rights of human beings gathering in assembly. For the ruling elite, the masses are dumb sheep in need of a shepherd. This is what author Ronald Wright called the “progress trap” – progress’ unending efforts to feed technology’s hunger to devour natural and human capital, interest free. And the mainstream press and news media, in its’ malady of cognitive dissonance, serve as its unreflective cheerleader for our march towards civilizational collapse.

Merton was keenly aware of technology’s dangers to social stability. In a 1967 letter he took aim at the “universal myth that technology infallibly makes everything in every way better for everybody. It does not.” However, he was by no means a Luddite. “Technology could indeed make a better world for millions of human beings,” he wrote. Yet there remained the nightmare of technology transforming the world into a “more collectivist, cybernated mass culture.” Decades before the first desktop, Merton foresaw a complete fragmentation of the nation’s moral and spiritual fabric when people will begin basing all of their political and ethical decisions on computers.  Prophetically he wrote to a friend, “just wait until they start philosophizing with computers!” That was 1967.  He even foresaw technology becoming a means to elevate the slaves of technology’s false self, to satisfy narcissistic appetites for admiration and status. In other words, the social media of wokeness.

“The greatest need of our time,” Merton wrote in his Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, “is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds and makes all political and social life a mass illness. Without this housecleaning we cannot begin to see. Unless we see we cannot think. The purification must begin with the mass media.”

For this reason we urgently need to penetrate the illusions of propaganda and popular falsehoods, across the entire political spectrum as well the self-appointed pontificating Pharisees, that we have entered a new social era. Despite its newness, it has also been clearly predictable.  No doubt, if Orwell were penning his great book today, the emergence of this new era we are witnessing would not be fiction.

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Featured image is from rainershea.com

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”(1)

Propaganda is the distortion of information to manipulate people’s thoughts and actions. Many philosophers over the years have noted “The easiness with which the many are governed by the few.”(2) The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, realised that persuasive speakers can lead their audience into making unwise choices, and therefore believed that the ‘art of influencing opinion’ should be widely taught. Unfortunately in Britain and the US, there is no formal teaching of how powerful people manipulate our opinions.

Propaganda-managed democracy 

A democracy works best if decision-making is out in the open and policies can be thoroughly scrutinised, but present-day politicians and corporate leaders operate in secret, and spend a lot of money manipulating our opinions. Most people associate propaganda with dictators, or with historical events such as World War 1 and World War 2. However, propaganda is actually one of the most powerful forces within 21^st Century Britain and the US, despite being rarely mentioned by the mainstream press. The overall aim is to control people whilst they think they have freedom of action – this is sometimes called ‘engineering’ or ‘manufacturing’ consent.(3) The more specific goals are to limit the terms of any debate, and to direct our attention away from thinking critically about our military, corporate, economic and political systems.

Propaganda specialists now play an almost continuous behind-the-scenes role. Much of the time, people are not even aware that their views are being manipulated. There is repeated, subliminal reinforcement. What we have ended up with has been labelled a propaganda-managed democracy.(4) People who do this work have stopped using the word propaganda, because of its negative association with war. It is now known as Public Relations (PR). When governments distort information this is colloquially known as spin.

The most powerful source of propaganda is mainstream media – newspapers and TV news and current affairs programs. This was discussed in detail in the two previous posts. However, there are other sources of propaganda. Some of these are discussed below. Others, such as advertising, will be discussed in later posts.

Layer Upon Layer of Propaganda  

Where discussions of propaganda do take place, commentators usually talk about individual pictures, newspaper articles, or political speeches, but propaganda is much broader and more complex than that.(5) Many parts of our society contain elements of propaganda, and they can influence our thoughts and our ideas for many years. What starts out as a deliberate attempt to mislead people, gradually becomes the received wisdom if it remains unchallenged. It surrounds us and works in a subconscious way to influence our thoughts about almost every aspect of our societies – how they are structured, which aspects of society get talked about critically, and who benefits. The framework for every important discussion contains unstated assumptions that go unquestioned. This sets the limits for which opinions are considered reasonable, and which are not.

When magazine editors decide who to interview, or a TV producer decides who to have as a guest, they are making decisions, sometimes subconsciously, about which opinions to take seriously, and whom they perceive as knowledgeable. When editors decide whose obituaries will appear in their newspaper, they tend to celebrate establishment figures, reinforcing a message that we should treat them and their views as important. When this happens repeatedly, day after day, year after year, readers and viewers will tend to be influenced by these ideas, and come to share similar views.

For example, if we talk about wealth, there is an unstated assumption that it is ok for some people or organisations to have unlimited wealth. In fact we are bombarded with propaganda, in magazines like Forbes, which is intended to encourage us to celebrate extreme wealth,(6) and even to define success by how wealthy we are. The evidence showing that concentrations of wealth, and extreme inequality, create huge problems for societies is mostly ignored.(7) We are indoctrinated to believe that the rich have ‘earned’ their wealth, or that success is based on merit. Some people who have accumulated great wealth by committing serious crimes, such as Andrew Carnegie or John Rockefeller, set up foundations and give money to good causes as a way of whitewashing their reputations.(8) They make donations to universities or have buildings named after them. As one commentator noted:

“Corporate fraudsters almost all use philanthropy as a cover. Because of all their goodness, people never look any further”(9)

This is all intended to make us less critical of those with great wealth, and therefore less critical of how our society works.

History, as taught in the US and Britain, is Propaganda 

Censorship-by-omission, where important issues are not discussed (explained in the previous post) is important with historical propaganda. Our history books have a western perspective, distorting events, exaggerating positives and minimising or ignoring negatives.(10) A great deal of our history is propaganda to whitewash reputations and to celebrate the role of the wealthy and the powerful, and to erase their crimes and exploitation. People such as Winston Churchill are portrayed positively, with no discussion of his extreme, racist approach to killing people in Britain’s colonies. Commentators talk unquestioningly about British and US ‘values’, like ‘freedom’ or ‘democracy’, without mentioning that the values that influence policymaking the most include power, money, war and exploitation.

I cannot stress this point enough. The positive portrayal of rich and powerful people, both historical and in the present day, and the censorship-by-omission of all their crimes and unethical activities, and the huge amount of damage that their actions have caused to people at home and abroad, is incredibly powerful propaganda.

During recent protests about racism, statues were pulled down in Britain and the US.(11) These statues have played a propaganda role. They are intended to show how important the individuals were, and make us less questioning of our history and of earlier decision-makers. Similarly, many British country houses were built with money that came either directly from the slave trade, or from industries that used slaves, or from compensation given to slave owners when slavery was abolished.(12) The houses were status symbols when they were built, and they now stand as historical monuments to the people who built them. Some churches contain monuments to wealthy donors who helped to pay for the building of the church, with no indication that their wealth came from slavery, or the drug trade, or colonial exploitation. Streets are named after famous people, some of whom committed serious crimes, but their true history is rarely mentioned. This propaganda is remarkably effective and creates what is known as ‘collective amnesia’. Whole societies deny their history, and British and American citizens have become remarkably uncritical of their military, corporate, economic and political systems.

Museums do Propaganda 

Museums and other exhibitions are an important part of this historical propaganda. The displays at the Imperial War Museum are notoriously distorted, celebrating Britain’s history of violence, and misrepresenting what actually happened and why.(13) Medals are celebrated, even if they were awarded for participation in colonial plunder and associated massacres, and the soldiers are presented as heroes. Powerful people involved in aggression and violence clean up their stories. There is an unstated assumption that US and British politicians had good intentions in their foreign policies. But this needs to be stated clearly, questioned and challenged, because the evidence shows that US and British leaders have not had good intentions in their foreign policies. Even a display about propaganda by the British Library in 2013 did not have any discussion about censorship-by-omission.(14)

Think Tanks and Universities do Propaganda 

Think tanks claim to be independent research establishments, but they are usually funded by wealthy donors such as billionaires or big corporations, so their output reflects the interests of those donors.(15) Mainstream publishers rarely publish genuinely critical books. Before the financial crisis in 2008, they declined many books that explained the problems with the financial system.(16) Most critical writing is in books published by small publishers, and those books are rarely reviewed in the mainstream press. Universities teach Economics, Finance, Politics, International Relations and War Studies in heavily distorted ways. The majority of academics in these subjects present only a narrow range of mainstream opinions and ignore the most critical views. Critical academics have complained that most academic journals reinforce mainstream thinking by not accepting work that is too critical. This has been particularly notable in economics, where students at many universities have been protesting, since the 2008 financial crisis, that what they are taught is irrelevant to the real world.(17)

People are rewarded for not challenging the system 

The honours system in Britain, where awards such as peerages and knighthoods are given out, is notorious for rewarding party fundraisers and political allies,(18) and more generally for rewarding people who have been successful within the establishment system.

The Nobel Peace Prize is given to sociopathic war criminals such as Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama. The prize for economics is awarded to people who have promoted some of the most extreme economic ideas such as Milton Friedman. The economics prize was set up by the Swedish central bank to promote neoliberal (an extreme form of capitalism) ideas,(19) and to make economics seem more scientific than it really is. These awards are mostly given to people who are not strongly critical of how our societies work.

Not everyone is conscious that they spread propaganda

The successful spread of propaganda involves people repeating and passing on distorted information that they were exposed to in the past. Most people are unaware they are doing it. When economics lecturers teach economic theories that end up benefitting the rich, some of them are unaware they are doing so. Some journalists believe the propaganda that they have been exposed to by governments and corporations, so they repeat it. Any time someone repeats something that they have read in a mainstream newspaper, or seen on television news or current affairs programs, there is a high probability that they are repeating propaganda.

The Overton Window – Alternative Views Are Not Discussed 

The repetition of some points-of-view is so widespread that these perspectives become the accepted norm, so individuals engage in self-censorship, where they become reluctant to express dissenting views, afraid that they will be considered ridiculous by their friends and colleagues. This becomes reinforcing, so that the acceptable range of views becomes very narrow. This is known as the ‘Overton window’.(20) Alternative views are essentially shut down. This desire to conform with others around us is a very powerful psychological trait that will be discussed in a later post.

Resisting propaganda is possible – Seek out alternative views 

People with strongly critical opinions rarely appear on discussion programs or in magazines. In 2014, the singer P.J.Harvey was a guest editor on BBC Radio 4’s Today program. All of her guests were critical thinkers. This was unique in 21^st century BBC broadcasting. Voices and opinions that are rarely heard finally had an opportunity to explain what is really going on.(21)

Most people do not like to admit that they are susceptible to propaganda, therefore they claim it is not there. We are all regularly manipulated. There is no shame in admitting it. We can never change things if we do not admit that people are trying to manipulate us. Understanding the extent of propaganda in Britain and the US is the key to understanding how political and corporate criminals have been able to get away with their activities for so long.

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This article was first posted at medium.com/elephantsintheroom

Rod Driver is a part-time academic who is particularly interested in de-bunking modern-day US and British propaganda. This is the thirteenth in a series entitled Elephants In The Room, which attempts to provide a beginners guide to understanding what’s really going on in relation to war, terrorism, economics and poverty, without the nonsense in the mainstream media.

Notes 

1)  Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928

2) David Hume, 1711-1776, cited in Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy, 2006

3) A similar expression, ‘Manufacturing Consent’, is the title of a book by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky about the media. This book is discussed more in the posts about the failings of the media.

4) Alex Carey, Taking The Risk Out Of Democracy, 1996, p.19

5) Robert Jackall (ed.) Propaganda (Main trends of the Modern World), 1994

6) Forbes, ‘World’s Billionaires List: The Richest in 2020’, at https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/

7) Karen Rowlingson, ‘Does income inequality cause health and social problems’, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Sep 2011, at https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/migrated/files/inequality-income-social-problems-full.pdf 

8) Michelle Celarier, ‘The 10 most toxic Philanthropists’, 24 Sep 2019, at https://www.worth.com/the-10-most-toxic-philanthropists/

9) Marianne Jennings, The seven signs of ethical collapse: How to spot moral meltdowns in companies…before it’s too late, 2006

10) James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, 1996

Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, 2015

The Crimes of Winston Churchill, at https://medium.com/@write_12958/the-crimes-of-winston-churchill-c5e3ecb229b3

11) BBC, ‘George Floyd protests: The statues being defaced’, 10 June 2020, at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-52963352

12) Sanchez Manning, ‘The stately homes built on the back of slaves’, Independent, 3 March 2013, at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-stately-homes-built-on-the-back-of-slaves-8518002.html 

13) Louis Allday, The Imperial War Museum in London: A Lesson in State Propaganda?’, Monthly Review online, 7 Sep 2016, at https://mronline.org/2016/09/07/allday070916-html/#lightbox/11/ 

14) Personal Observation by the author on visiting the British Library exhibition entitled ‘Propaganda, Power and Persuasion’, 2013

15) Tamasin Cave and Andy Rowelll, A Quiet Word: Lobbying, Crony Capitalism and Broken Politics in Britain, 2014

16) Michael Hudson, J is for Junk Economics, 2017

17) Joe Earle, Cahal Moran and Zach Ward-Perkins, The Econocracy: The perils of leaving economics to the experts, 2016

18) Andrew Grice, ‘David Cameron Honours list would embarrass a medieval; court’, Independent, 4 Aug 2016, at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/honours-list-read-full-david-cameron-peers-knighthoods-mbes-nominations-a7172406.html 

Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash-for-Honours_scandal

19) Avner Offer and Gabriel Soderberg, The Nobel Factor: The prize in economics, social democracy and the market turn, 2016

20) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

21) ‘Joyce Macmillan: Why politics deserves a new voice’, The Scotsman, 3 Jan 2014, at https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/joyce-mcmillan-why-politics-deserves-new-voice-1548993

Abstract

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) worldwide pandemic in 2020. In response, most countries in the world implemented lockdowns, restricting their population’s movements, work, education, gatherings, and general activities in attempt to ‘flatten the curve’ of COVID-19 cases. The public health goal of lockdowns was to save the population from COVID-19 cases and deaths, and to prevent overwhelming health care systems with COVID-19 patients. In this narrative review I explain why I changed my mind about supporting lockdowns. First, I explain how the initial modeling predictions induced fear and crowd-effects [i.e., groupthink]. Second, I summarize important information that has emerged relevant to the modeling, including about infection fatality rate, high-risk groups, herd immunity thresholds, and exit strategies. Third, I describe how reality started sinking in, with information on significant collateral damage due to the response to the pandemic, and information placing the number of deaths in context and perspective. Fourth, I present a cost-benefit analysis of the response to COVID-19 that finds lockdowns are far more harmful to public health than COVID-19 can be. Controversies and objections about the main points made are considered and addressed. I close with some suggestions for moving forward.

Read full article here.

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Featured image is by Spiro Skouras

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.

Below in an excerpt of an important interview published by the Toronto Sun

To Read the complete Toronto Sun Interview clicl here 

Dr. Ari Joffe is a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton and a Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at University of Alberta. He has written a paper titled COVID-19: Rethinking the Lockdown Groupthink that finds the harms of lockdowns are 10 times greater than their benefits.

The below Q&A is an exchange between Joffe and Anthony Furey.

***

Anthony Furey: You were a strong proponent of lockdowns initially but have since changed your mind. Why is that?

Dr. Ari Joffe: 

Emerging data has shown a staggering amount of so-called ‘collateral damage’ due to the lockdowns. This can be predicted to adversely affect many millions of people globally with food insecurity [82-132 million more people], severe poverty [70 million more people], maternal and under age-5 mortality from interrupted healthcare [1.7 million more people], infectious diseases deaths from interrupted services [millions of people with Tuberculosis, Malaria, and HIV], school closures for children [affecting children’s future earning potential and lifespan], interrupted vaccination campaigns for millions of children, and intimate partner violence for millions of women. In high-income countries adverse effects also occur from delayed and interrupted healthcare, unemployment, loneliness, deteriorating mental health, increased opioid crisis deaths, and more.

….

 

I believe that we need to take an “effortful pause” and reconsider the information available to us. We need to calibrate our response to the true risk, make rational cost-benefit analyses of the trade-offs, and end the lockdown groupthink.

We need to better educate ourselves on the risks and trade-offs involved, and alleviate unreasonable fear with accurate information. We need to focus on cost-benefit analysis – repeated or prolonged lockdowns cannot be based on COVID-19 numbers alone.

To Read the complete Toronto Sun Interview click here

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Vida Americana is an exhilarating, expansive and immensely satisfying exhibition at New York’s Whitney Museum. Like a great and varied feast, this is a show that one must take one’s time to fully appreciate and digest; an exhibition that includes photography, film, sculpture, charcoal sketches, colored pencil and graphite, watercolors, lithographs and oil paintings, from the easel to the epic in scale. Not only are the greatest Mexican artists of the twentieth century represented here – including Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros (‘Los Tres Grandes’) – but also many of the notable American artists who they had a profound influence on, such as Jackson Pollock, Jacob Lawrence, Marion Greenwood and Charles White, among others.

The show occupies the entire fifth floor of the Whitney, and upon entering we are immediately greeted by a large, and colorfully exuberant canvas by Rivera featuring men and women commencing to “Dance in Tehuantepec” (1928). It is a fitting beginning to an exhibit which is at once a celebration of indigenous Mexico – its colors, and textures, its sorrows and its joys – as well as a close look at the new visual language that emerged during the cultural renaissance that began following the decade-long Mexican Revolution.

The horror and brutality of war looms large in this exhibition, especially in the work of Orozco. In his depiction of “Pancho Villa” (1931), we find the revolutionary leader, pistol in hand, standing barrel-chested over emaciated men and women who crouch at his feet in abject terror. In the top left corner a building is engulfed in flames, while in the bottom right a pregnant women kneels, completely naked and exposed, her arm covering her face, in a gesture that heightens our sense of her grief and shame. Orozco’s images are among the most provocative, violent and daring in the entirety of the exhibition, which notably includes a reproduction of his mural Prometheus (1930), “the greatest painting done in modern times,” Pollock would declare. The central figure stands with his anguished face and hands upturned to the heavens, as if he is both in the act of stealing fire from the gods to give to the throngs of suffering, desperate humanity flanking him; and at the very same time being condemned to eternal suffering for doing so. The penalty is implicit within the deed itself.

David Alfaro Siqueiros, Our Present Image, 1947 (Source: whitney.org)

One of the most arresting paintings to confront the devastation and despair wrought by modern warfare is Siqueiros’ “Echo of a Scream” (1937). The scene is one of utter desolation, drained of almost all color, save for the striking red garment that barely covers the solitary infant whose cries echo across the ruined landscape. The destruction we see is the result of fascist forces in Europe – forces that Siqueiros was so determined to see defeated that, not longer after this painting was completed, he joined the Republicans fighting against General Franco’s army in the Spanish Civil War.

When Siqueiros’ Experimental Workshop opened near New York’s Union Square in 1936, Jackson Pollock was among the initial group of artists to join. Siqueiros would emphasize the importance of discovering novel techniques and materials, and Pollock would wholly embrace the use of unorthodox paint applications, including spraying paint through stencils, as well as pouring, dripping, bespattering, and flinging paint at the canvas; in a word, “the exploitation of accidental effects.” Vida Americana includes a generous selection of Pollock’s work from the 1930’s, including “Landscape with Steer” (1936-37), a haunting work which he created by airbrushing lacquer onto the surface of the paper. The Guggenheim is presently exhibiting Pollock’s Mural (1943), his first great masterpiece, and a reminder of just how important the great Mexican muralists were for his development.

Another welcome highlight of the show are ten panels from Jacob Lawrence’s 60-panel Migration Series (1940-41) about the largest exodus in American history, where beginning in the 1920s some 6 million African-Americans would eventually leave the south in search of a better life in the great metropolises of the northern states.  Lawrence clearly drew inspiration from the Mexican muralist’s commitment to produce art that confronted the history of the marginalized and oppressed, the subjugated races and classes, including the experience of women and people of color. Panel 3 depicts a sizeable group of black men, women and children walking north, carrying large bags and boxes, presumably all that they own. As they move, they form a triangle, a “V” shape, which is of course how birds – like those hovering above the dense crowd – fly in formation. Lawrence would in fact observe that, “we are very much like other kinds of animals in that we move for different reasons.” The Mexican muralists sought to create socio-politically transformative public art; and Lawrence was effective in realizing that objective in works with the thematic breadth and scope, the poetry and potency of the muralists, but on a much smaller scale.

Gray Terrain by Edward Millman, 1954 (Source: whitney.org)

The painters of Mexico’s renaissance saw the potential of art to serve as a political force against social injustice, nor was this lost on their counterparts to the north. A subject to which these artists frequently turned was police brutality against unionized workers. Philip Evergood’s “American Tragedy” (1937) depicted the Memorial Day Massacre which occurred when hundreds of steelworkers, demanding the right to unionize, marched toward the Republic Steel plant on the South Side of Chicago. When police officers failed to disperse the crowd with tear gas, they charged in firing their guns. This is the awful the scene that Evergood depicts, where police officers use their batons to beat protesters bloody, and their guns to shoot men and women in the back as they flee. Evergood manages to capture the mayhem, the blood-soaked ground, the cracked heads and broken bodies with frightful clarity – but also the bold defiance of the workers. In the central foreground, a worker stands tall and resilient, his right arm supporting a young woman who firmly holds a long stick, while his left hand grasps the lapel of the officer who, standing before them, seems ready to fire his gun on the courageous couple.

The exhibition includes a large-scale reproduction of Rivera’s most famous and controversial commission, Man, Controller of the Universe (1934), a fresco in the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. It is a truly extraordinary achievement, not only for its immense thematic scale and scope, but because it grasps the world in all its irreducible complexity and at the same time insists on organizing it, making some kind of sense of the world, and taking a stand on what it all means. The world it depicts is filled with conflict and strife – from the soldiers in gas masks marching across the top left, while just below them mounted policeman brutalize workers. Opposite an image of capitalism’s jaded and decadent elite, drinking and playing cards, is an image of Lenin, in whose hands are the hands of men and women of all different races. At the heart of the fresco is man, in all his mastery of nature, at the very center of a chiasm formed by two elongated ellipses – one containing the cosmic world of stars galaxies, and the other the world as seen through the microscope. Modernity may be defined by struggle, conflict and contradiction, but at the same time we have the power to create an egalitarian society where workers are treated fairly and decently, or a society where the people are literally trampled over for the sake of a callous and cynical few.

Vida Americana is an astounding exhibition which almost manages to do justice to the breathtakingly immense contribution of the artists that it revisits. It is the kind of exhibition that places great demands on the viewer and rewards the viewer with great riches in return. For the Mexican muralists, and many of their notable students to the north, art is ultimately about human liberation, it is about ushering in the new, delivering humanity from the forces that subjugate us, and creating the conditions in which personal and collective renewal are possible. Genuine art is inherently transgressive, subverting the structures that perpetuate an unfree world.  By creating an art which is at once “for and about the people,” the Mexican muralists also created an art with the inherent potential for social and spiritual transformation.

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Sam Ben-Meir is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York City. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

“What Happened at the Capitol Could Not Happen Unless Police Allowed It to Happen”

By Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Janine Jackson, January 14 2021

Under the Keynesian takeover of Bretton Woods Trans-Atlantic nations became increasingly dominated by bloated bureaucratic systems while plans for genuine development were undermined, Matthew Ehret writes.

***

It is as if the battle lines of civil war have been drawn up between masses of Americans who have been led to believe in either a false “bottom up” approach to economics, as defined by the Austrian School represented by Friedrich von Hayek, or in the “top-down” approach of John Maynard Keynes. The former sacrifices the general welfare of the whole nation for the sake of the parts (i.e. individual liberties), while the latter sacrifices the individual liberties of each citizen for the sake of the general welfare (or at least some oligarch’s definition of what that should be).

In my last article, I introduced, in broad strokes, a history of the American System of political economy as advanced by Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Henry Clay, Henry Carey, Lincoln, and McKinley. We reviewed how it was derailed by McKinley’s 1901 murder and was only revived 30 years later with Franklin Roosevelt’s 1932 presidential victory which put a stop to the 1933 Bankers Dictatorship.

Finally, we briefly explored how and why both John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek whose ideas so deeply influence the polarization of the USA today, not only despised FDR but hated everything the republic stood for.

In this second installment of a three-part series, we will shed light on the anti-human ideas and the political operations that shaped the mind, the life and the politics of Lord John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946).

Keynes the Fabian Eugenicist

Although Keynes is heralded as the guiding light of the New Deal (and, as such defended by modern “Green New Dealers” and Great Reset technocrats wishing to impose a top-down system of governance onto the world), the fact is that Keynes not only detested Franklin Roosevelt, but also humanity more in general.

This will be seen clearly in 1) his devotion to the theories of Thomas Malthus, 2) his promotion of eugenics as a science of racial purification and population control, and 3) his general devotion to World Government as a leading member of the Fabian Society.

From his earliest days at Cambridge where he rose quickly to become one of the select Cambridge Apostles and shared, among other things, a lifelong friendship with Lord Bertrand Russell, Keynes devoted himself to the service of empire, becoming Knight of the Order of Bath and Order of Leopold by 1919.

His early 1911 book on Indian Currency and Finance (conducted during his five-year foray in the Empire’s Indian Office) ignored all actual political reasons for the famines plaguing India and argued coldly for a greater integration of the Indian banking system into the City of London controls which would somehow solve India’s problems. The provable reality was that Indian famines were coordinated tools of population control by the Malthusian elite of the British establishment who considered “war, famine and disease” as the gifts nature gave the strong to manage the weak.

While his later 1919 Consequences of the Peace appeared to be a reasonably sympathetic warning that the draconian Versailles reparations would do incredible damage and lead to a new world war, in reality, Keynes was displaying a cold sleight of hand. Serving as British Treasury representative to the Versailles Conference, Keynes never opposed fascism: he merely argued that a more liberal pathway to global fascism could be established under the direction of the Bank of England. His opposition, though, to the more violent approach preferred by conservative imperialists among the British Intelligentsia, was one of form more than substance.

Keynes and his fellow Fabians H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell and G.B Shaw preferred the “slow and steady” “long game”, reminiscent of the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus who famously fought his enemies by slow attrition rather than in full-scale confrontation. Due to the public’s general ignorance of this strategy, we celebrate these Fabian Society luminaries for their pacifism, though in reality they were just as racist, fascist and eugenics-loving as their more short-sighted, hard-stomached counterparts sir Oswald Mosley, Lord Alfred Milner and even Winston Churchill.

Where the real solution to the hyperinflationary money printing and economic industrial shutdown of Germany during the post WWI years was to be found in the German-Russian Rapallo Agreement (destroyed with the assassination of American System Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau), Keynes and his ilk merely called for economic integration of the German banking and military system under Bank of England/League of Nations control.

Malthus, Eugenics and Keynes

Two theories advanced by the British Empire in response to the growth of the American System, first in the USA, and later internationally, were those of Thomas Malthus, and of Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin who coined the term “eugenics” in 1883. These sister concepts served as nothing less than religious precepts for the ruling elite as it desperately reorganized itself in the late 19^th century.

It must be kept firmly in mind that at this period the British Empire was weak, and incapable of stopping the electric spread of win-win cooperation as the American System was sped around the world bringing progress and full-spectrum economics in its wake. One of the leading voices of the American System in 1890 was Colorado’s first Governor William Gilpin whose The Cosmopolitan Railway laid out a practical vision for a world united by rail, development, and national banking [see map].

Nevertheless, the Empire was determined to put an end to the spread of the American System.

A new breed of think tanks was created to shape the Empire’s grand strategy in the face of this growth of independent sovereign nations: these were T.H. Huxley’s X Club (c.1865), the Fabian Society (c.1884), and the Roundtable Group (c.1902). Where Huxley’s X Club coordinated with Cambridge, and the Roundtable Group/Rhodes Trust interfaced with Oxford, the Fabian Society created a new school called the London School of Economics. All three worked together as one unit.

Defining his misanthropic belief in overpopulation, Thomas Malthus (a British East India Company economist) stated in his famous 1799 Essay on Population:

“The power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.”

How could this crisis be avoided? Malthus answers it like only a devout imperialist could:

“We should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague.”

Darwin himself admitted in his autobiography that his theory of evolution arose only after his 1838 reading of Malthus’ Essay on Population in which he “at last got a theory by which to work”.

So, Darwinism is really an extension of Malthus’s Hobbesian social theories onto all of living nature: a mere struggle for survival in a universe of entropy and diminishing returns. After a Malthusian version of biology was created, Darwin’s theories were in turn re-applied to human society as imperial tools for population control under the form of Galton’s Eugenics thus giving the same old evil practices of empire, war and slavery a “scientific validation”.

Although some apologists considered Keynes an anti-Malthusian- due to his theory that overpopulation might be overcome by encouraging spending rather than savings, which would, in turn, somehow create markets and thence new factories and more growth, the reality was the opposite. Keynes not only spoke gushingly of Malthus throughout his life as one of the greatest minds of all time, but even plagiarized many of Malthus’ own theories, for instance that of “demand deficiency causing unemployment and recession” outlined in his 1930 Treatise on Money. In his 1933 Essay on Malthus, Keynes wrote:

“Let us think of Malthus today as the first of the Cambridge economists—as, above all, a great pioneer of the application of a frame of formal thinking to the complex confusion of the world of daily events. Malthus approached the central problems of economic theory by the best of all routes.”

In his May 2, 1914 lecture Population, Keynes argued that government should “mould law and custom deliberately to bring about that density of population which there ought to be” and that“there would be more happiness in the world if the population of it were to be diminished.”

Saying that “India, Egypt and China are gravely overpopulated”, Keynes advocated using violence to defend the “superior white races” in this struggle of survival with the pacifist saying: “Almost any measures seem to me to be justified in order to protect our standard of life from injury at the hands of more prolific races. Some definite parceling out of the world may well become necessary; and I suppose that this may not improbably provoke racial wars. At any rate such wars will be about a substantial issue.”

As Acting chair of the Neo-Malthusian League, Keynes stated in 1927: “We of this society are neo-Malthusians… I believe that for the future the problem of population will emerge in the much greater problem of Hereditary and Eugenics. Quality must become the preoccupation.”

By 1946, Keynes, still a member of the British Eugenics Society (after serving as Vice President from 1936-1944) wrote in The Eugenics Review: “Galton’s eccentric, sceptical, observing, flashing, cavalry-leader type of mind led him eventually to become the founder of the most important, significant and, I would add, genuine branch of sociology which exists, namely eugenics.”

This was not ivory tower theorizing, but concepts with very real-world significance.

By 1937, Keynes’ General Theory of Employment was published in Nazi Germany. If anyone wishes to defend the idea that the economist was somehow an anti-fascist defender of “liberal values”, let them read his own words in the preface and then either redefine “liberal values” or their naïve idea of Keynes:

“I may perhaps expect to find less resistance among German readers than among English ones, when I put before them a theory of employment and production as a whole… The theory of production as a whole which is the object of this book, can be much better adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than the theory of production and distribution of wealth under circumstances of free competition.”

Hitler himself was not only a devout eugenicist (whose racial purification policies emerged through the funding of the Rockefeller, Carnegie Foundations as well as British establishment), but was also a devout Malthusian saying:

“The day will certainly come when the whole of mankind will be forced to check the augmentation of the human species, because there will be no further possibility of adjusting the productivity of the soil to the perpetual increase in the population.”

Keynes was by this time extremely frustrated that the intention-driven system of political economy defining the New Deal under the helm of FDR’s leadership was not absorbing his trojan horse theories on employment, demand, and inflation. However, by the end of the war, many Council on Foreign Relation (CFR)-affiliated operatives pushing Keynesianism were making successful inroads into all branches of U.S. bureaucracy and penetrated the highest levels of the state department and treasury. At one point in 1943, Franklin Roosevelt commented on his understanding of this British Deep State operation when he told his son Elliot:

“You know, any number of times the men in the State Department have tried to conceal messages to me, delay them, hold them up somehow, just because some of those career diplomats over there aren’t in accord with what they know I think. They should be working for Winston. As a matter of fact, a lot of the time, they are [working for Churchill]. Stop to think of ’em: any number of ’em are convinced that the way for America to conduct its foreign policy is to find out what the British are doing and then copy that!” I was told… six years ago, to clean out that State Department. It’s like the British Foreign Office….”

The Battle for Bretton Woods

During the Bretton Woods conference (July 1-20, 1944), the two opposing paradigms, on the one hand the American System of anti-colonialism, and on the other hand the. British System of zero sum Malthusianism, went to war.

This war took the form of the battles waged by FDR’s trusted collaborator Henry Dexter White against John Maynard Keynes at Bretton Woods, where 730 delegates representing 44 nations gathered to settle the terms of the post-war order.

Although this conference is famously associated with the creation of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), it is falsely assumed to be a Keynesian creation. Keynes’ role as representative of the British Empire, much like his earlier role at Versailles in 1919, was defined by the intention at all costs to shape the conditions of a post-nation state world order on behalf of the City of London. Like Bertrand Russell and other Cambridge Apostles before and since, Keynes was trained in the sophistical deployment of statistics and mathematical logic to cover for the imperial rape of target nations.

Where Dexter White and Franklin Roosevelt demanded a U.S. dollar-backed post-war system of fixed exchange rates (to block speculation on commodities as a tool of economic war), theirs was not an idea premised on imperialism which FDR’s recorded battles with Churchill attest. Unlike the hard vs soft imperialism of Churchill and Keynes, FDR and his allies rather looked to a post-war system defined by U.S.-China-Russia friendship, and the internationalization of the New Deal applying a win-win approach to foreign policy.

At Bretton Woods, Dexter White and Henry Morganthau reached agreements to provide vast technology transfers to help South America industrialize. At the same time, large-scale programs modelled on the New Deal were presented by delegations from India, Eastern Europe, and China. It is noteworthy that the Chinese delegation introduced infrastructure plans first laid out by Sun Yat-sen in his 1920 International Development of China which both Mao, and Zhou Enlai endorsed alongside the Kuomintang’s Chiang Kai-Shek! Had these plans not been sabotaged, it is amazing to consider what sort of progress might have opened up for the Chinese 70 years before anyone heard of the “Belt and Road Initiative”.

At this early stage, Russia was still happy to be a founding member of the IMF and World Bank which were designed to act as cheap lending mechanisms for long-term, low-interest, high-tech global development.

Commenting on support for FDR’s post-war system of mutual interest, Stalin stated: “Can we count on the activities of this international organization being sufficiently effective? They will be effective if the Great Powers who have borne the brunt of the burden of the war against Hitler’s Germany continue to act in a spirit of unanimity and harmony. They will not be effective if this essential condition is violated”.

In opposition to this anti-imperial win-win system defended by Dexter White, and FDR, Keynes demanded a bankers’ dictatorship with a new supranational currency controlled by the Bank of England called the Bancor, as well as an international clearing house. The Bancor was later revived in a modified form when Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) were established, bringing the world closer to the sort of green synthetic hegemonic currency now promoted by the likes of Mark Carney, Klaus Schwab and George Soros under the veil of a Great Reset and Central Bankers Climate Compact.

Similarly to the League of Nations’ earlier design for World Government, Keynes’ arguments entailed the virtual castration of nation states, preventing their involvement in their own economic planning. These arguments also demanded that the USA fully recognize the legitimacy of the British Empire in the post war age (something which Dexter White and Morgenthau refused to do). In Keynes’ view, nation states should relinquish their sovereign financial controls to Malthusian technocrats managing the levers of production and consumption through a system of globally interconnected central banks.

Keynes’ model of governance would ensure that the sorts of INTENTION-driven large-scale projects that could finally end colonialism would not see the light of day.

The Keynesian World That Emerged in the Wake of FDR

Under the Keynesian takeover of Bretton Woods that emerged during the Anglo-American special relationship created by Truman and Churchill, Trans Atlantic nations became increasingly dominated by bloated bureaucratic systems while plans for genuine development were undermined. With Roosevelt dead by 1945, Harry Hopkins dead by 1946, Dexter White dead by 1948, and Henry Wallace’s presidential efforts sabotaged by 1948, the last serious resistance to Britain’s reconquest of the USA had been put down.

After the war, eugenics-promoting organizations and think tanks changed their names while continuing their work, morphing into new forms by the 1960s such as the environmental movement, transhumanist movement, while not even the pharmaceutical/healthcare sector was left untouched.

In the next chapter we will close up this short series by reviewing the figure of Friedrich von Hayek and the Austrian School of Economics which emerged with the collapse of the Keynesian Bretton Woods in 1971 and the rise of the “Conservative Revolution”.

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Matthew J.L. Ehret is a journalist, lecturer and founder of the Canadian Patriot Review. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from SCF

Der Mensch vermag es nur dann, sich zu seiner vollen Größe aufzurichten, wenn er sich den Anordnungen der Macht nicht beugt, sondern kraft seiner inneren Befreiung dagegen aufbegehrt. Zahlreiche Psychologen dieser Tage — aber auch schon vor der Corona-Krise — verhalfen den Menschen eben nicht zu einer solchen Befreiung, sondern lehrten sie in der „Kunst“, sich den Umständen so zu fügen, ohne dabei allzu großen — inneren — Schaden zu erleiden. Dies ist nicht der Weg der Befreiung. Die innere wie äußere Befreiung gelingt, indem der Mensch sich seiner selbst, seines Wertes bewusst wird und sich mit gesunder Empörung zur Wehr setzt.

Selected excerpts from the Live Science Article published in May 2019.

To read the complete article on Science Magazine, click here

DARPA, the Department of Defense’s research arm, is paying scientists to invent ways to instantly read soldiers’ minds using tools like genetic engineering of the human brain, nanotechnology and infrared beams. The end goal? Thought-controlled weapons, like swarms of drones that someone sends to the skies with a single thought or the ability to beam images from one brain to another.

This week, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) announced that six teams will receive funding under the Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) program. Participants are tasked with developing technology that will provide a two-way channel for rapid and seamless communication between the human brain and machines without requiring surgery. “Imagine someone who’s operating a drone or someone who might be analyzing a lot of data,” said Jacob Robinson, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Rice University, who is leading one of the teams. [DARPA’s 10 Coolest Projects: From Humanoid Robots to Flying Cars]

…

 

Genetically tweaking human brains

…Robinson’s team plans to use viruses modified to deliver genetic material into cells — called viral vectors — to insert DNA into specific neurons that will make them produce two kinds of proteins. [Flying Saucers to Mind Control: 22 Declassified Military & CIA Secrets]

To read the complete article on Science Magazine, click here

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With its large population and fragile health systems, Africa has recorded more than three million Covid-19 cases, still less deadly as compared to other regions in the world, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). According to Africa CDC, Africa’s coronavirus tally was 3,021,769 as of January 10. The death toll was 72,121 and the number of recoveries was 2,450,492. The biggest number of coronavirus cases were reported from South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, and Ethiopia.

South Africa, with more than 1.2 million reported cases, including 32,824 deaths, accounts for more than 30% of the total for the continent of 54 countries and 1.3 billion people. The high proportion of cases identified in South Africa, were attributed to more tests carried out than many other African countries.

African countries are expecting to get medical equipment, most especially vaccine, to help them out of the pandemic. These they expect from external sources. During January 4-9, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid official visits to Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Botswana and Seychelles. Wang Yi emphasized that China is willing to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation in diverse spheres with Africa. For example, China’s efforts to create a new image in Africa through China-European Union Cooperation in vaccine.

Both China and the EU vow to work as a global collaboration under the World Health Organization in terms of accelerating the development and manufacture of Covid-19 vaccines, and assuring fair and equitable access for every country in the world. It’s about making the vaccine a global public good.

It is also important to remind here in this article that the Extraordinary China-Africa Summit on Solidarity Against Covid-19 was held in June 2020, making China the only major country that convened a summit with countries across Africa in 2020. China has provided rounds of high-demand supplies to all African countries and the African Union to help them combat Covid-19, and African countries have also been firm in their support to China’s efforts on fighting against the pandemic.

Last December, during his annual media conference, President Vladimir Putin made it known that Russia’s readiness to help foreign countries including Africa. With regard to cooperation with other countries, it would boost the technological capabilities, enterprises to produce the vaccine, foreign countries would invest their own money into expanding their production capacities and purchasing the corresponding equipment, he explained.

Foreign countries would be investing in these projects: the enlargement of production facilities and the purchase of equipment.

“As for cooperation with foreign countries: nothing is stopping us from manufacturing vaccine components at facilities in other countries precisely because we need time to enhance technological capacities of our vaccine manufacturing enterprises. This does not hinder vaccination in the Russian Federation in any way,” Putin said.

According to January report from the Tass News Agency, the Russian Direct Investment Fund has only registered the first Russian vaccine Sputnik V in Africa.

“Russian Direct Investment Fund announces the first registration of Sputnik V in Africa. Ministry of Pharmaceutical Industry of Algeria registered Sputnik V on January 10th,” as follows from a post on their official Twitter account.

According to the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the registration was done under the accelerated Emergency Use Authorization procedure. This procedure was also used to register this vaccine in Argentina, Bolivia, and Serbia. The Fund said that supplies to Algeria would be possible thanks to its international partners in India, China, South Korea and other countries.

Writing under the headline “Africa’s Road to Recovery in 2021 Is a Fresh Start” published by Chatham House, Dr Alex Vines, the Director for the Africa Programme at Chatham House, said many African countries would be much more seriously affected by the socioeconomic consequences of the global economic slowdown triggered by the pandemic. Even before Covid-19 hit, an increasing number of African countries were indebted and financially stressed.

He wrote that African debt would become a greater global concern in 2021 as many African states remain the world’s poorest and most fragile and have been hard hit by the economic and financial costs imposed by the pandemic.

In his analysis, Dr Vines further pointed out that 2021 will also see increased geopolitical rivalry for influence in Africa.

This will include competition over generosity, ranging from positioning over debt cancellation to providing Covid-19 vaccines. China has its Sinopharm vaccine and has already signed up to Covax, the international initiative aimed at ensuring equitable global access. The Russians have their Sputnik V vaccine, the UK has its AstraZeneca and University of Oxford vaccine, and the US the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech (with Germany) vaccines.

Reports from Quartz also said Africa appears not part of the supply priorities of the Pharmaceutical companies producing the foremost Covid-19 vaccines. While Pfizer-BioNTech has offered to supply just 50 million Covid-19 vaccines to Africa starting from March to the end of this year, Moderna and AstraZeneca have not yet allocated supplies for Africa. AstraZeneca directed the African Union (AU) to negotiate with the Serum Institute of India for its vaccine to see if they can get a deal. Serum Institute of India has earlier obtained the license to produce the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The Quartz report said most African countries mainly relied on the COVAX co-financing public-private facility backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to enable rapid and equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines for lower income countries. The facility promised access to vaccines for up to 20% of participating countries’ population with an initial supply beginning in the first quarter of the year to immunize 3% of their population. However, COVAX is underfunded, and these countries must look for other avenues to access more doses to vaccinate the 50% of their population in order to reach immunity.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, several countries around the world have been making efforts to facilitate local vaccine development, clinical trials, and some had made upfront payments for vaccines to encourage early production. Outside of South Africa, most African economies have played too little or no role at all in the development of Covid-19 vaccines and had likewise made little or effort to secure vaccines while other economies around the world were doing so.

For instance, a globally respected genomic and infectious disease laboratory in Nigeria announced the development of a Covid-19 vaccine in September that is 90% effective against the virus in the preclinical trial but it has not been able to carry out clinical trials due to lack of support and funding.

While Kenya recently announced that through the COVAX facility, it ordered 24 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, with supply expected to start arriving in the second week of next month, several African countries are opting for vaccines from India, Russia, and China. This is despite skepticism about the vaccines from Russia and China in particular. Both countries rolled out their vaccines without phase 3 clinical trial results that confirm the vaccine effectiveness.

South Africa said it made a deal with Serum Institute India and will be getting 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine for its health workers starting this month. The country, which is going is also in talks with Russia and China to procure vaccines. Currently, Guinea is testing the Russian vaccine, Sputnik V and has ordered 2 million doses.

Morocco has ordered 65 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from China, and AstraZeneca vaccine from Serum Institute India. Egypt plans to buy 40 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, has already received 50,000 doses of the vaccine in December, and expecting another 50,000 in the second or third week of this month when vaccination will commence. Nigeria says vaccine access was in its discussions this week with the Chinese foreign minister during his visit to the county, according to the report from Quartz.

Besides the fact that Africa has registered its three million cases, Africa still behind the United States and European countries, and Asian countries such as China and India when it comes to the Covid-19 outbreak. For many African countries, it is still the time to reflect on African countries’ responses to Covid-19. Although it has abundant resources, Africa remains the world’s poorest and least developed continent, and worse with poor development policies. It is time to prioritize and focus on sustainable development.

Significantly, the global pandemic has exposed the weaknesses in Africa’s health system, adversely affected its economic sectors, it is therefore necessary for African leaders, the African Union (AU), regional organizations and African partners be reminded of issues relating to sustainable development and integration. It sets as a reminder to highlight and prioritize the significant tasks set out by the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, a former regional bureau correspondent for Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a frequent and passionate contributor to Global Research.

U.S. President Donald Trump and his entourage have evidently lost the “war at home”. The internal struggle is all but entirely concluded, and the victors are Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party.

However, Trump and Co., in their last days in office are still dead set on proving they are in charge of the Middle East, and on guaranteeing that their “maximum pressure campaign” on Iran continues. And both sides are flexing muscles showing that they are ready for military confrontation at any moment.

Tehran revealed its new helicopter carrier – the Makran, as well as a brand-new missile launching warship – the Zereh. Iran continues amassing forces along its sea border in the Persian Gulf and is tightening its grip on the Strait of Hormuz.

US Satellite imagery has revealed an increase in activity by IRGC vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

In just the first days of the year, Iran carried out a large-scale drone drill, showcasing loitering munitions and more, closely followed by a naval exercise.

The elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps revealed their own underground missile base near the Persian Gulf, promising to realize their threat of turning the US aircraft carriers into “sinking submarines.”

On its part, the United States sent their nuclear submarine, the USS Georgia, loaded to the brink with Tomahawk missiles, accompanied by two guided missile destroyers, to the Persian Gulf.

They joined the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier, which was initially set to depart, but which has instead remained.

To top it all off, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that the new “home base” of Al-Qaeda is Iran and went pretty close to claiming that Iran was even behind the organization of 9/11.

That took place just days after Pompeo vowed to designate Yemen’s Houthis, longstanding Iranian allies, as a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is also on high alert. Its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah vowed to support Iran and thanked it again for its support.

Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei warned the US against “extraterritorial adventurism” and its actions do appear to be evidence of that.

At the same time, Donald Trump is desperate for a “win” or at least to show himself as a decision-maker, after being banned from all social media. It could also be his aim to damage the relations between Tehran and Washington beyond repair.

Incoming President Joe Biden is expected to attempt to rejoin the Iran Nuclear Deal in one way or another, which could lead to improving relations between the two sides and bring a semblance of calm to the Middle East.

There is no certainty that this would happen and, depending on which actions would be undertaken by both Iran and the USA, this could also contribute to a deepening rift between the two.

In regard to the conflict between Iran and Israel, the parliament in Tehran voted on a resolution to end the state of Israel by 2041. While Biden is expected to be less supportive of Tel Aviv than Trump, the United States will remain Israel’s key ally. Therefore, an end to the conflict between the sides is as unlikely as ever, but Israel may, for the first time in a while, be on retreat.

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A figure like Benito Mussolini could only have taken power in a nation plagued by severe illness. Italy, a resource poor state, had been virtually bankrupted by expenditure in World War One, with the Liberal-led Italian governments dispensing with more money on the conflict than during the previous half a century combined.

Italy suffered more than 1.5 million casualties in the war. Those Italian soldiers who returned home found a country where divisions ran deep, unemployment was high, opportunities were few, and inflation was soaring. It was a breeding ground for extremists to emerge, as would occur further north in Germany, one of the most harmful side effects of the war.

Despite being on the “winning side”, much of the Italian public felt their nation was then robbed at Versailles, in June 1919, by America, Britain and France – who shared almost all of the spoils of war among themselves with the Treaty of Versailles ratified.

As the war was concluding, Mussolini had looked coldly at the fractured society that lay before his eyes in Italy. He surmised that a determined, ruthless man like himself could forge a pathway to power. Mussolini was a cynical opportunist and shrewd operator who possessed notable journalistic skills. The future Duce (“leader”) also had a psychopathic streak, as revealed by his bulging, coal black eyes and sometimes timid disposition. A good psychiatric nurse would have recognised the warning signals by observing him.

Unlike with Hitler, Mussolini had no real loyalty to a particular ideology. It was inevitable that he would abandon his pre-1914 Marxist tendencies, and shift far off to the right. Mussolini was concerned more than anything with himself, and wanted power for its own sake. He intended to do so by the illegal route, a coup d’etat. By the late summer of 1922, his Blackshirts had eradicated all active resistance on the streets through militant means.

With the left in Italy beaten by force, Mussolini’s three other adversaries could not be dealt with in such a manner: the Roman Catholic Church, the Monarchy and the liberals. Mussolini won over the Church and the Monarchy by renouncing his anti-Catholicism and anti-Monarchism, while offering them concessions, allowing those power-hungry and vain institutions to retain some influence in Italy.

The historian and anthropologist David Kertzer, who has analysed relations between Italian fascism and Roman Catholicism, said that “The key ingredient to Mussolini really becoming a dictator was the Church” and without its collaboration his autocracy “wouldn’t have happened. Or it could have been stopped”. To hide the truth, various myths have since been pushed by Roman Catholic apologists, claiming that religious leaders were against fascism from the outset. In actual fact the opposite was the case as, “The Church was incorporated into the state under Mussolini”, Kertzer continued, while the Duce and Pope Pius XI “came to depend on one another, in a sense”. (1)

With the Church and Monarchy on board, Mussolini had the appearance of respectability with those who counted, leaving the liberals checkmated. He provided the final blow through his March on Rome during 28 October 1922. Once Mussolini entered office, he would enjoying increasing support from the leading Western powers.

Mussolini’s coup was described by the onlooking US ambassador to Italy, Richard Washburn Child, as “a fine young revolution here. No danger, plenty of enthusiasm and colour. We all enjoy it” (2). The New York Times, reflecting standard US media coverage, commented that the Blackshirts had achieved a “revolution of the peculiar and relatively harmless Italian type”, which, over the past three and a half years, had resulted in widespread violence and several thousand deaths.

The fascists’ arrival ended Washington’s fears of another Bolshevik-style takeover, such as had occurred in Russia five years before in October 1917. A top level inquiry, conducted by US president Woodrow Wilson‘s administration in December 1917, warned of Italy that it poses “the obvious danger of social revolution and disorganisation”, as labour power intensified. A US State Department official observed privately, “If we are not careful we will have a second Russia on our hands”, adding that “The Italians are like children” and should be “assisted more than almost any other nation”.

Mussolini’s street brawlers quickly solved the problem. The US Embassy in Rome reported that the fascists are “perhaps the most potent factor in the suppression of Bolshevism in Italy”, expressing mild concern regarding the “enthusiastic and violent young men” comprising the Blackshirts. The US Embassy elaborated further on the appeal of fascism to “all patriotic Italians”, simple people who “hunger for strong leadership”. (3)

US corporations flocked to invest in Mussolini’s Italy. The American historian and analyst Noam Chomsky wrote,

“As fascist darkness settled over Italy, financial support from the US government and business climbed rapidly. Italy was offered by far the best postwar debt settlement of any country, and US investment there grew far faster than in any other country, as the fascist regime established itself, eliminating labor unrest and other democratic disorders”. (4)

The irresistible attraction of big business towards fascist rule, like moths to a flame, tells its own story. With Mussolini one year in power, the US Embassy eulogised in late 1923, “The results have been excellent, and during the last 12 months there has not been a single strike in the whole of Italy” (5). The Embassy believed that Mussolini was becoming a success because of his destruction of labour power, and therefore the erosion of a key democratic process.

The new US Ambassador to Italy from 1924, Henry Fletcher, outlined a central factor of American foreign policy which resurfaced for decades to come. Ambassador Fletcher informed the US Secretary of State, Frank Kellogg, that the choice in Italy is “between Mussolini and fascism and Giolitti and socialism”; Giovanni Giolitti being Italy’s former left-leaning prime minister. Ambassador Fletcher, and Secretary of State Kellogg, preferred the dictatorial Mussolini over the liberal-minded Giolitti.

Fletcher thought that the Italian population desired “peace and prosperity” under Mussolini in comparison to “free speech, loose administration” and “the danger and disorganisation of Bolshevism”. Kellogg, who served as US Secretary of State from 1925 to 1929, agreed with Fletcher, designating all opposition groups to Mussolini as consisting of “communists, socialists and anarchists” who must be prevented from attaining power (6). The real fear of elites, such as Fletcher and Kellogg, was the threat “to the very survival of the capitalist order” that Bolshevism supposedly presented.

With the Great Depression biting deep across Europe from early 1930, Mussolini’s regime received even greater praise from establishment circles. American diplomat Alexander Kirk wrote in 1932, “On all sides it is agreed that the future welfare of Italy is safe as it could humanly possibly be in the hands of Mussolini, but if anything should happen to him, what then? (7)”. Perish the thought.

In 1933 the New York Times Magazine noted approvingly, “there is no limiting condition imposed on any fascist project” in Italy and “whatever Mussolini commands is executed without being hampered by problems, practical or financial”. The New York-based Fortune Magazine, a major US business journal, devoted a full special issue to fascist Italy in 1934. It declared that, “The Wops are unwopping themselves”. A “wop” is a derogatory term for an Italian, and the headline suggested that under Mussolini the Italian people are no longer backward and dismal.

Between 1925 and 1938, Mussolini’s economic strategy had actually lowered the real wages of Italian workers by 11%. Before the Great Depression had even struck, the numbers of Italian unemployed under Mussolini were rising fast – more than doubling in the space of two years, from 181,000 out of work in 1926, to 439,000 in 1928. By 1932, over 1.1 million Italians would be unemployed (8), so much then for the immunity of fascist Italy to the Depression.

Mussolini’s policies had also driven up the cost of production, while his stabilisation of the currency at 90 lire to the pound “placed tremendous strain on the Italian economy”, as recognised by academic and scholar David F. Schmitz, who has closely studied US foreign policy with Mussolini. The Duce was able to keep the currency stable only because he took drastic actions, like incurring severe inflations followed by deflations.

All of this had somehow escaped the attention of the Western business press; in spite of telling public comments from exiled Italian historians, like Gaetano Salvemini. In 1932 Salvemini informed the US think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, that “business in Italy has been hit by the depression as elsewhere” and “is just as bad as here in the United States”.

National debt in Mussolini’s Italy was growing year-on-year, while he placed the Italian economy increasingly on a war footing; “this military dilettante”, as Hitler’s close adviser Wilhelm Keitel contemptuously described Mussolini, was seeking to create a 20th century Roman Empire by force of arms. Schmitz discerned that, “American officials, impressed by the political stability of Italy, ignored such warnings of trouble”. (9)

As early as 1923 Mussolini “made a very favourable impression” on US delegates, according to Morgan Bank representative Nelson Dean Jay, after the Duce delivered the opening address at the International Chamber of Commerce in Rome. Why had Mussolini so impressed? During his speech, he said it was time for European governments to privatise enterprises that had been nationalised during World War One. The German military leader, Erich Ludendorff, whose reign expanded across most of Europe in the war, had nationalised an array of industries in central and eastern Europe (10), including newspaper and cigarette companies. This process, of placing industry under state control, was later reversed after Ludendorff was forced to resign at war’s end. For Western elites, privatisation ruled.

From left to right: Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano, as they prepare to sign the Munich Agreement (CC BY-SA 3.0 de)

The prominent US judge, Elbert Henry Gary, a co-founder of the US Steel Corporation, said of Mussolini while on a trip to Rome in 1923, “A master hand has, indeed, strongly grasped the helm of the Italian state”. Judge Gary felt “like turning to my American friends and asking them whether they don’t think we, too, need a man like Mussolini” (11). The judge was obviously impressed by Mussolini’s ability to crush labour strikes.

Henry Stimson, the US Secretary of State and future Secretary of War, outlined in 1933, “American relations with Italy were of the most cordial character”. After World War Two, Stimson recalled that he and US president Herbert Hoover believed Mussolini to be “a sound and useful leader”. When US General Smedley Butler made unflattering remarks about Mussolini in 1931, Stimson went so far as to bring court-martial proceedings against him.

Hoover’s successor Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democratic president, labelled Mussolini an “admirable Italian gentleman” in 1933, as Washington’s support for the dictator continued. Roosevelt’s Ambassador to Italy, Breckinridge Long, was enthusiastic about the “new experiment in government” that fascism presented which “works most successfully in Italy”.

The US State Department considered Mussolini’s murderous 1935 invasion of Ethiopia a “magnificent” achievement, and that the Blackshirts “brought order out of chaos, discipline out of licence, and solvency out of bankruptcy”. In 1937, the State Department regarded both Italian and German fascism as political movements which “must succeed or the masses, this time reinforced by the disillusioned middle classes, will again turn to the Left”. (12)

In 1939 as a second war loomed, president Roosevelt said that Italian fascism was “of great importance to the world” but was “still in the experimental stage” (13). Powerful multi-millionaire American bankers, like Thomas Lamont for example, was a fervent Mussolini admirer. Lamont, a partner of US banking institution J.P. Morgan, called Mussolini “a very upstanding chap” who had “done a great job for Italy” with his “sound ideas”. Otto Kahn, another influential US banker, praised Italy under “the clear sighted and masterful guidance of that remarkable man, Benito Mussolini”.

Backing for Mussolini likewise extended across the British establishment. Mussolini’s ties to London in fact date to 1917, when he was hired in the autumn of that year as a British agent by MI5, the intelligence service (14). The then 34-year-old Mussolini, as editor of the Il Popolo d’Italia newspaper in Milan, was paid £100 a week by MI5 for at least a year, equivalent to £7,000 weekly today. These payments were dispensed to ensure that Mussolini would continue publishing warmongering articles, urging Italy to remain on the Allied side against Germany.

British funds to Mussolini were authorised by the Conservative politician Samuel Hoare, MI5’s man in Rome. Mussolini told Hoare, an MP, that he would send Italian Army veterans to beat up peace protesters, news that apparently did not discourage his British paymasters.

Italy’s dictator received glowing plaudits from high-ranking British statesmen, such as Conservative Party MP Winston Churchill. In 1927 the 52-year-old Churchill, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, embarked on a visit to Rome where he met the Duce. Churchill subsequently informed the press,

“I could not help being charmed, like so many other people have been, by Signor Mussolini’s gentle and simple bearing and by his calm and detached pose, in spite of so many dangers and burdens… If I had been an Italian, I am sure that I should have been wholeheartedly with you from start to finish, in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism”. (15)

Churchill’s obsequious comments are perhaps not surprising, considering that he hated trade unionists, socialists and communists as much as Mussolini did. The English educator John Simkin wrote, “The historical record shows that Churchill was a great admirer of fascism”, as revealed in addition by “his speeches and articles he produced in the 1920s and 1930s”, including letters to his wife (16). Much of this has been disappeared from history, however.

“Signor Mussolini” would only become a problem for Churchill and colleagues in the latter stages of his fascist rule, when British interests were threatened by the despot’s colonial ambitions.

Chomsky reflected that,

“Mussolini was portrayed as a ‘moderate’ with enormous popular appeal, who had brought efficient administration and prosperity, slaying the beast and opening the doors to profitable investment and trade”. (17)

Conservative Party MP Austen Chamberlain, the British Foreign Secretary from 1924 to 1929, was a personal friend of Mussolini’s. Chamberlain, a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925, had twice served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was the half-brother of future prime minister Neville Chamberlain.

As Foreign Secretary, Austen Chamberlain said of Mussolini, “I am confident that he is a patriot and a sincere man; I trust his word when given, and I think that we might easily go far before finding an Italian with whom it would be as easy for the British government to work” (18). Ronald Graham, the British Ambassador to Italy from 1921 to 1933, also viewed the fascist dictatorship with approval. The Eton-educated Graham dispatched to London a number of supportive accounts of Mussolini’s rule, which were read eagerly by British Foreign Office and Cabinet officials.

With Mussolini having consolidated his power, the London-based newspaper the Times, one of England’s leading dailies, outlined its view in June 1928 that Mussolini was “indefatigable and successful” in securing Italy’s place as a major state. The London Times, bought in 1922 by wealthy US-born Conservative politician John Jacob Astor, was clearly pro-Mussolini. The Times applauded the dictator’s “wonderful judgment”, observing that he even had “a sense of humour”; while the newspaper was worried that Mussolini’s regime could fall some day, calling it “too horrible to contemplate”; the Times praised him again in February 1929 for his “great daring and great statesmanship”. (19)

In December 1928 the Daily Telegraph professed Mussolini to be an “uncompromising realist” who had an “honourable record” of peaceful intent. Conveniently forgotten was Mussolini’s invasion and bombardment of the Greek island of Corfu, in autumn 1923, which resulted in over a dozen civilian deaths.

The Telegraph, moreover, approved of Mussolini’s labour laws, which it considered a “daring innovation” rooted in “pure patriotism”. The anti-fascist historian Salvemini remarked in 1936 that the Telegraph “always backed Mussolini”. Italian fascism was firmly supported by other British newspapers, like the extreme anti-Bolshevik Daily Mail and Morning Post, the latter taken over in 1937 by the Telegraph. Australian author Richard Bosworth, who focuses on fascist Italy, revealed that the only mainstream British journal which condemned Mussolini outright was, “The Spectator, whose early enthusiasm for Mussolini had waned”. (20)

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Notes

1 Alex Floyd, “A Communion of Dictators Binds Fascism and the Catholic Church”, Vineyard Gazette, 30 July 2015

2 David F. Schmitz, “A Fine Young Revolution”: The United States and the Fascist Revolution in Italy, 1919-1925, Radical History Review, 1 May 1985

3 Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy (Vintage, New edition, 3 Jan. 2006) p. 38

4 Ibid.

5 Edwin P. Hoyt, Mussolini’s Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Fascist Vision (Wiley; 1st edition, 2 Mar. 1994) p. 87

6 Chomsky, Deterring Democracy, p. 39

7 David F. Schmitz, The United States and Fascist Italy, 1922-1940 (University of North Carolina Press, 30 Jan. 1988) Chapter 5, Italy and the Great Depression

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Donald J. Goodspeed, Ludendorff: Soldier: Dictator: Revolutionary (Hart-Davis; 1st edition, 1 Jan. 1966) p. 138

11 Schmitz, The United States and Fascist Italy, Chapter 3, the United States

12 Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance (Penguin, 1 Jan. 2004) p. 68

13 Ibid.

14 Tom Kington, “Recruited by MI5: The name’s Mussolini. Benito Mussolini”, The Guardian, 13 October 2009

15 Tom Behan, The Camorra: Political Criminality in Italy (Routledge; 1st edition, 18 Aug. 2005) p. 34

16 John Simkin, “Was Winston Churchill a supporter or opponent of Fascism?” Spartacus Educational, September 1997 (updated January 2020)

17 Chomsky, Deterring Democracy, p. 39

18 Lawrence R. Pratt, East of Malta, West of Suez: Britain’s Mediterranean Crisis, 1936-1939 (Cambridge University Press; 1st edition, 13 Oct. 2008) p. 16

19 R. J. B. Bosworth, The British press, the Conservatives and Mussolini, 1920-1934, Jstor, pp. 172 & 174

20 Ibid., p. 173

Janine Jackson interviewed the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund’s Mara Verheyden-Hilliard on police responsibility for the January 6 insurrection for the January 8, 2021, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

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Janine Jackson: We spoke with our next guest in January of 2017, in the wake of the mass arrest of protesters and journalists at Donald Trump’s inauguration, and the decision to bring felony riot charges against them. What accounts for how differently DC law enforcement behaved yesterday?

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard is an activist and attorney. She’s co-founder and executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. She joins us now by phone from Washington, DC. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard.

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard: Glad to be with you.

JJ: So I just have one big question, really, which is, “What the hell?” And why is the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, along with the Center for Protest Law and Litigation, calling for public investigations here?

MVH: I think what we witnessed yesterday, in addition to being an extraordinary event in US history and our lifetimes, is fully defining of what has been told to us over and over again is the neutral application of law enforcement, and law and order. Any of us who have ever demonstrated in Washington, DC, or been in Washington, DC, know full well the capacity of the police agencies here to shut down and repress completely peaceful protest. Our clients and we have been subject to kettling, to mass arrest, to projectile weapons, to being soaked in chemical weapons, to tear gas, and there’s been no hesitation to use this. The police have all the materiel, the riot gear, the personnel, the weapons, the tactics at their disposal.

So that can lead us only to the most obvious conclusion, which is, what happened yesterday at the nation’s capital could not happen unless the police allowed it to happen. And they did in fact allow it to happen.

So we are demanding an investigation, because there has to be exposure and accountability for every single officer, for every single command official, for everyone who was involved in allowing, facilitating, this white supremacist mob violence.

Our point here is not calling for police repression; our goal is not to increase police repression. What we need to do and must do here is expose the nature of police repression, and that is so evident here today. We know perfectly well that if there had been a peaceful demonstration that had come en masse to the Capitol and had tried to enter through the front doors, we would have seen a massacre, I mean, a massacre.

And here is a white supremacist group that had been publicly bragging that they were coming to Washington, DC, that they were trying to smuggle illegal weapons in here. And the idea that the Capitol Police were caught off guard, or were somehow outmaneuvered, is completely false. Over 20 years of litigation in the District of Columbia, in constitutional rights cases, we have seen, over and over again, the very sophisticated operation that exists here in planning for major events in the District, and for demonstrations and for rallies and for everything. And they have very effective and significant coordinated interagency communications, operation manuals, tabletop exercises, planning, mutual aid agreements.

It’s simply not possible, particularly in the post–9/11 world at the Capitol, that they lacked preparedness, or that they lacked knowledge for what was going to happen.

Janine Jackson: We’ve been speaking with Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. You can follow their work online at JusticeOnline.org. We will be following this investigation. Thank you so much, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, for joining us today on CounterSpin.

MVH: I’m glad to be with you.

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Janine Jackson is FAIR’s program director and producer/host of FAIR’s syndicated weekly radio show CounterSpin.  Her articles have appeared in various publications, including In These Times and the UAW’s Solidarity, and in books including Civil Rights Since 1787 (New York University Press) and Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism (New World Library). Jackson is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and has an M.A. in sociology from the New School for Social Research.

Featured image is from WTTG

One of the most significant chapters in China’s newly released white paper concerns its support of developing countries’ endogenous growth, which crucially contradicts the US’ information warfare narrative that Beijing is laying so-called “debt traps” for its partners.

The U.S. may morph into two nations with the increasingly impoverished helot “deplorables” under the heel of the empowered social justice warriors.

In a recent article Catholic University professor Claes G. Ryn wrote

“Few people are really open to persuasion in any case—not just on political subjects but on any subject about which they care and on which they have adopted certain views. Diehard partisans for a certain outlook will refuse to have their beliefs questioned, and so will many others. They will be no less dismissive of a document challenging their opinions if it is full of footnotes and appendixes. Such a document will, indeed, make them resist it even more. As for the relatively few people who are truly open-minded, they will not find another person’s observations dispositive. They will, as they should, want to consider the evidence on a contested matter for themselves.”

The observation immediately calls to mind the red-blue political division that has hardened in the United States over the past several years, with the two sides persistently talking past each other. Part of the problem is that once someone has staked out an essentially ideological position, he or she will regard new developments in such a way as to fit with that preconception. Once one is locked into a viewpoint in that fashion it becomes practically speaking impossible to “consider the evidence on a contested manner” for oneself.

That tendency to want to believe that something is indisputably true means that most people find it difficult to entertain two somewhat contradictory ideas at the same time. In the current context it should be possible to believe that Donald Trump has been a very bad president based on some aspects of his performance while also conceding that many of his failings have been spawned by the unrelenting criticism he has received from the media as well as the clandestine efforts within the government establishment to undermine and destroy him. Most who emphasize the conspiracy against the president also feel compelled to defend his record. Those who don’t believe there was a conspiracy against him, including Russiagate, support his being impeached and also condemn his achievements.

Or there is the election itself, with one side believing it was stolen and the other maintaining that there was no fraud. In reality, an objective review of the actual evidence and examination of the registration and voting systems that are in place suggests that there certainly was fraud, though the issue of whether it amounted to a change in the outcome is likely a question that will never be answered as the Democrats are now in charge. Voting by mail, much promoted by the Democrats, either was a way of expanding the voters’ rolls or a mechanism that would permit widespread fraud. It is not unreasonable to regard it as doing both.

COVID-19 is another good example of linear thinking. Critics of the pandemic tend to go all the way, minimizing the impact of the disease while also contending that it is a hoax contrived by the government to take away the rights of citizens. Against that, one should be able to recognize that the disease is both highly contagious and deadly for certain demographics while also accepting that the government has mishandled the response to it and is seeking to aggrandize its power over ordinary citizens. So both viewpoints can more-or-less be true.

So, we come to the incident at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington on January 6^th. Various unofficial estimates put the number of “Stop the Steal” protesters objecting to what was seen as a fraudulent election at between 20,000 and 200,000. The language being used to describe what occurred that afternoon is suggestive and would likely delight George Orwell. The liberal media (nearly all of it) as well as some Democratic congressmen have officially declared it “incitement of insurrection.” Other expressions that are popping up include “domestic terrorism,” “sedition,” “right wing mobs,” a “coup” or a “storming” of the building, all reportedly driven by incendiary language used by President Trump. Others preferred describing a “breaching” of security or even a “riot” or possibly “treason.”

A local newspaper in Virginia wrote a headline saying that the Capitol building was “ransacked” while Politico sounded the alarm about the “mob who breached the Capitol.” The New York Times thundered that the “mob” included “infamous white supremacists and conspiracy theorists.” What is not in dispute is that five died during the incursion into the building, including a woman Air Force veteran who was unnecessarily shot and a Capitol Police Force officer who was murdered by being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher. That the death toll was not higher is inevitably being attributed by some to restraint by the police due to “white privilege” as most of the demonstrators were Caucasian.

Trump allies reject the language and all it implies, insisting that the president did not ever unambiguously encourage actual violence on the part of participants in the “March to Save America” and that most of the demonstration was peaceful, consisting of ordinary Americans who are shocked by the dying spasms of the country that they grew up in. A Newsweek poll determined that nearly half of Republican voters supported the demonstrations at the Capitol, while no less than 68% opined that they were no threat to the American political system, demonstrating just how divided the country is. There have also been claims that infiltrators from Antifa and BLM might have exploited the opportunity to initiate the successful assault by the demonstrators that broke the police line and forced the entry into the Capitol building. Some Democrats are also suggesting that the entry was itself aided by some of the police, a not completely unreasonable suggestion given the inexplicably poor performance by the Capitol Police Force and some photographic evidence showing demonstrators being assisted by security personnel.

One might have noted that the only thing missing from the event had been the allegations that it included “interference” by the Russians or possibly even the Chinese, but it now appears that some Democrats are actually pointing their fingers at Vladimir Putin. And surely the Iranians and even the North Koreans must have had something to do with it. We will have to wait until the Biden Administration is installed, if it is, to find out which foreigners exactly will have to be implicated and punished. One eagerly awaits the inevitable Washington Post cartoon showing Putin in his office laughing while watching on TV events in Washington.

One thing that is for sure and that is being ignored by many of those who have taken up contrary positions is that there will be consequences from what took place last week. Given the polarization in the discussion itself, “truth” will be the first entity sacrificed as the Republicans will make haste to walk away from Trump while the Democrats will not be eager to permit anyone to dig any deeper into the mechanics of the election. No matter what the GOP chooses to do, it will be the long-term loser even if Trump himself is successfully made the designated fall guy and it will have to learn how to retain the support of the Trumpsters without Donald Trump.

In spite of all the media and talking head fulminations, it nevertheless remains unlikely that Trump will actually be impeached and convicted by both houses of Congress or removed under Article 25 as that would permit his lawyers to mount a defense, which would embarrass everyone. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has nevertheless raised tension by contacting the Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and inquiring whether the president can be denied the nuclear weapons’ codes as he appears to be “unhinged.” There is also speculation that an attack on Iran in coordination with Israel might be under consideration to change the narrative.

Perhaps more interestingly, some Democrats are calling for investigation and punishment for some fellow politicians, government employees and ordinary citizens who might be found guilty of supporting the Trump “coup.” Several identified demonstrators have already lost their jobswhile the Washington Post has demanded that “seditious Republicans must be held accountable.” There is even some discussion of setting up a “truth commission” to investigate and punish those individuals who aided in Trump’s other alleged crimes. Such people might have their liberty to travel on commercial flights, to associate in groups and/or to hold certain jobs restricted, expanding on existing anti-terror legislation that would now include a focus on “rightwing terrorism” while also increasing the number of “hate crimes.” Surveillance of individuals who have committed no crimes would likely increase dramatically. Any or all of those moves by Biden would, however, set a very bad precedent, sure to beget more violence.

And also there are calls for greater restrictions on what appears on social media. One ex-Obama adviser has even claimed that social media caused the Capitol building riot by “enabling the spread of the lies, hate speech, and conspiracy theories [by rightwing extremists] that led to” the attack. Since the Democrats now command a majority in both houses of Congress as well as the White House that will mean that those labeled “white supremacists” and their message will be expunged while politically correct social justice content will be promoted. Several social media platforms have begun banning what they call right wing material and Biden as well as several senators have, in fact, already promised to bring in stronger “domestic terrorism prevention” legislation based on the Patriot Act. And even those who believe themselves “safe” as holding reliably progressive views will eventually discover that any deviance from Establishment acceptable positions will be forbidden. Free speech in America will become as dead at the Dodo and the United States would become effectively two nations with the increasingly impoverished helot “deplorables” under the heel of the empowered social justice warriors. It won’t be pretty, and it won’t be stable.

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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.orgaddress is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Donald Trump on the campaign trail in March 2016. Credit:Windover Way Photography

There’s no ambiguity about Trump’s legion of supporters.

On average, polls show that nearly half of voting-age Americans oppose impeaching Trump and removing him from office.

Yet Wednesday on the House floor, lynch mob “justice” triumphed over the rule of law.

Trump became the first US president impeached twice.

Both times were for politicized reasons with no legitimacy — Wednesday’s process largely along party lines.

Ten Republicans joined with 222 Dems.

One article of impeachment falsely accused Trump of “willfully inciting violence against the government of the United States.”

His public remarks and tweets did nothing of the sort. He urged nonviolence on January 6, not the other way around.

Once again on Wednesday from the White House, Trump denounced week ago Capitol Hill violence, urging calm.

The die was cast. Dems out for blood and their establishment media, press agents have been going all-out to deny Trump a second term — along with wanting him defrocked, humiliated, and prevented from holding public office ahead for the wrong reasons, not legitimate ones.

Image below: Hoyer with President Donald Trump in 2019 (CC BY 2.0)

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that the article of impeachment will be sent to the Senate straightaway.

Separately, he turned reality on its head by the following Big Lie on national television, saying:

“The timing was thrust upon us by the actions of the president of the United States (sic).”

“The fact that he is leaving should not divert us from holding accountable behavior which many of us believe is treasonous behavior and criminal behavior (sic).”

At earliest, Senate trial won’t begin until January 19 as things now stand — two days before Trump’s tenure ends.

A two-thirds super-majority is needed for conviction, a high bar to cross, what never happened before in US history.

Will Trump be the US president to be removed from office following impeachment?

If not, will he be convicted by a Senate super-majority post-tenure?

What’s unthinkable based on the fabricated charge of inciting insurrection is unlikely but possible.

That’s the depth to which the state of the nation sank, greater depths likely ahead.

The rule of law died long ago in Washington.

9/11 added an exclamation point.

Made-in-the-USA covid (that’s renamed seasonal flu) and orchestrated Main Street economic collapse last year, continuing with no end of it in prospect, added two more.

Orchestrated by anti-Trump dark forces, last week’s Capitol Hill coup attempt added another.

In response to Trump’s politicized impeachment 2.0, Law Professor Jonathan Turley said the following:

Wednesday’s “snap” impeachment of Trump “dispense(d) with the traditional hearing or inquiry of impeachment.”

“There was no opportunity to debate the language or the implications of the language Trump.”

“(T)he rush to judgment could become a parade of constitutional horribles.”

It’s “ripe for challenge on the Senate floor and even later in the federal courts.”

Impeachment “language…is sweeping and raises serious concerns of this standard for future presidents.”

Trump’s remarks did not rise to the level of “criminal incitement…”

“(T)he Senate should reject the impeachment if on the basis that an impeachment of a former president is unwarranted and likely unconstitutional.”

It’s based on invented reasons, not legitimate ones.

Turley is a sharp Trump critic as am I — for justifiable reasons, not phony ones to satisfy vengeful Dems.

Impeaching Trump twice for politicized reasons — along with seeking lynch mob “justice” against him throughout his tenure — proves conclusively that Dems are self-serving and unfit to lead the nation.

Their involvement in staging a Capitol Hill coup attempt against a sitting president left the state of the nation and rule of law in tatters.

Post-inauguration of unelected Biden/Harris next week, will they declare martial law?

Will tyranny follow on their watch?

A pox on both right wings of the one-party state.

On her website, Sharyl Attkisson posted results of what she called “a recent unscientific poll of more than 640 people,” adding:

“When asked if they generally trust (US) election integrity, 70% said ‘Absolutely no’ and 19% said ‘More no than yes’ for a total of 89% expressing skepticism.”

“Another 6% said they tend to trust election integrity: 2% said ‘Absolutely yes’ and 4% said ‘More yes than no.’ ”

Along with earlier stolen US federal elections since the early 19th century, media-supported Election 2020 theft may have been most brazen of all.

Events post-election, leading up to last week’s orchestrated Capitol Hill coup attempt, Wednesday’s impeachment, and what may follow are proof positive of a nation dismissive of the rule of law.

It’s on a fast track to full-blown tyranny if not challenged by nonviolent mass action in the streets before it’s too late.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. 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.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Whether civil war is coming will depend on the degree of stoicism prevalent among the Deplorable multitudes.

I hear the sons of the city and dispossessed
Get down, get undressed
Get pretty but you and me
We got the kingdom, we got the key
We got the empire, now as then
We don’t doubt, we don’t take direction
Lucretia, my reflection, dance the ghost with me

Sisters of Mercy, Lucretia my Reflection

9/11 was the prelude. 1/6 is the Holy Grail.

9/11 opened the gates to the Global War on Terror (GWOT), later softened by Team Obama to the status of Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) even as it was suavely expanded to the bombing, overt or covert, of seven nations.

9/11 opened the gates to the Patriot Act, whose core had already been written way back in 1994 by one Joe Biden.

1/6 opens the gate to the War on Domestic Terror and the Patriot Act from Hell, 2.0, on steroids (here is the 2019 draft ), the full 20,000 pages casually springing up from the sea like Venus, the day after, immediately ready to roll.

And as the inevitable companion to Patriot Act 2.0, there will be war overseas, with the return in full force, unencumbered, of what former CIA analyst Ray McGovern memorably christened the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think Tank) complex.

And when MICIMATT starts the next war, every single protest will be branded as domestic terrorism.

Whatever really happened on 1/6 in the militarized Valhalla of a superpower that spent untold trillions of dollars on security since the start of the millennium, the elaborate psy op/photo-op circus – complete with a strategically photogenic MAGA Viking actor – could never had happened if it was not allowed to happen.

Debate will rage till Kingdom Come on whether the break in was organic – an initiative by a few hundred among at least 10,000 peaceful protestors surrounding the Capitol – or rather a playbook color revolution false flag instigated by an infiltrated, professional Fifth Column of agent provocateurs.

What matters is the end result: the manufactured product – “Trump insurrection” – for all practical purposes buried the presentation, already in progress, of evidence of electoral fraud to the Capitol, and reduced the massive preceding rally of half a million people to “domestic terrorism”.

That was certainly not a “coup”. Top military strategist Edward Luttwak, now advising the Pentagon on cyber-war, tweeted, “nobody pulls a coup during the day”. That was just “a show, people expressing emotions”, an actually faux coup that did not involve arson or widespread looting, and relatively little violence (compare it to Maidan 2014): talk about “insurrectionists” walking inside the Capitol respecting the velvet ropes.

A week before 1/6, a dissident but still very connected Deep State intel op offered this cold, dispassionate view of the Big Picture:

“Tel Aviv betrayed Trump with a new deal with Biden and so they threw him to the dogs. Sheldon Adelson and the Mafia have no trouble switching sides for the winner by hook or crook. Pence and McConnell also betrayed Trump. It was as though Trump walked as Julius Caesar into the Roman Senate to be stabbed to death. Any deal Trump makes with the system or Deep State will not be kept and they are secretly talking about ending him forever. Trump has the trump card. Martial law. Military tribunals. The Insurrection Act. The question is whether he will play it. Civil war is coming irrespective of what happens to him, sooner or later.”

Whether civil war is coming will depend on the degree of stoicism prevalent among the Deplorable multitudes.

Alastair Crooke has brilliantly outlined the Top Three main issues that shape Red America’s “Epiphany”: stolen elections; lockdown as a premeditated strategy for the destruction of small and mid-size businesses; and the dire prospect of ‘cancellation’ by an incoming woke ‘soft totalitarianism’ orchestrated by Big Tech.

Cue to a Corpse Reading a Teleprompter, also known as The President-Elect, and his own ominous words after 1/6: “Don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists.” Some things never change. George W. Bush, immediately after 9/11: “Either you’re with us, or with the terrorists”.

That’s the hegemonic, set in stone, narrative now being implemented with an iron fist by Big Tech. First they come for POTUS. Then they come for you. Anyone, anywhere, not following Big Tech’s Techno-Feudalist diktat WILL be cancelled.

Bye bye Miss American Pie

And that’s why the drama is way, way, bigger than a mere discombobulated POTUS.

Every single institution controlled by the ruling class – from schools to mass media to the way workplaces are regulated – will go after the Deplorables with no mercy.

Professional CIA killer and liar John Breenan, key conceptualizer of totally debunked Russiagate, tweeted about the necessity of, in practice, setting up re-education camps. Media honchos called for “cleansing the movement”.

Politically, the Deplorables only have Trumpism. And that’s why Trumpism, with a possible avenue to become an established third party, must be smashed. As much as the 0.0001% is more terrified by the possibility of secession or armed revolt, they need urgent pre-emptive action against what is, for now, a nationalist mass movement, however inchoate its political proposals.

The “unknown unknown”, to evoke notorious neo-con Donald Rumsfeld, is whether the exasperated plebs will eventually reach for the pitchforks – and make the 0.0001% feudal hacienda ungovernable. And then there’s a literally smokin’ element – those half a billion guns out there.

The 0.0001% knows for sure that Trump, after all, was never a radical revolutionary change agent. Inchoately, he channeled Red America’s hopes and fears. But instead of the promised glitzy palace adorned with gold, what he delivered was a shack in the desert.

Meanwhile, Red America, intuitively, understood that Trump at least was a useful conduit. He lay bare how the corrupt swamp actually moves. How these “institutions” are mere corporate puppets – and completely ignore the common man. How the Judiciary is utterly corrupt – when even POTUS cannot get a hearing. How Pharma and Tech actually expanded the MICIMATT (MICIMAPTT?) And most of all, how the two party paradigm is a monstrous lie.

So where will 75 million disenfranchised voters – or 88 million Twitter followers – go?

As it stands, we’re deep into Hardcore Class War. The Top of the Scam Gang are in full control. The remains of “Democracy” have gelled into Mediacracy. Ahead, there’s nothing but ruthless purge, protracted crackdown, censorship, blanket surveillance, smashing of civil liberties, a single narrative, overarching cancel (in)culture. It gets worse: next week, this paranoid apparatus merges with the awesome machinery of the United States Government (USG).

So welcome to Full Spectrum Domestic Dominance. Germany 1933 on steroids. 1984 redux: no wonder the hashtag #1984 was banned by Twitter.

Cui bono? Techno-Feudalism, of course – and the interlocking tentacles of the trans-humanist Great Reset. Defy it, and you will be cancelled.

Bye bye Miss American Pie. That’s the legacy of 1/6.

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Animal protection campaigners have called for the urgent closure of gaping loopholes in EU wildlife trade regulations that fail to prevent the trafficking of protected wild species.

At Stolen Wildlife, an online conference, Humane Society International/Europe and Pro Wildlife launched a report underlining the urgent need to criminalise the import and sale of illegally sourced wildlife. Additionally, John E. Scalon, former CITES[1] Secretary General and chair of the Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime, advocated for a new protocol on the illicit trafficking of wildlife under the UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC). This would make the illicit trafficking in protected species a serious crime and create obligations for UN Members, including the EU, to take action.

In its recently adopted EU Biodiversity Strategy, the European Commission committed to revising the EU Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking in 2021. However, loopholes mean that legal EU trade in wild species effectively rubberstamps wildlife trafficking.

Dr Sandra Altherr, founder of Pro Wildlife, noted:

“Our Stolen Wildlife report reveals that there is a substantial and systematic wildlife trafficking in species that are protected by national law, though not yet internationally protected by CITES. EU citizens are heavily involved in such smuggling activities. Once those animals have been successfully smuggled out of their country of origin, traffickers and their clients do not face any legal consequences, while their profits are often very high. The exotic pet trade in Europe is driving biodiversity loss and threatening the survival of species in other parts of the globe. The EU must act to close the legal loophole that permits this.”

Dr Joanna Swabe, senior director of public affairs for Humane Society International/Europe, added:

“Make no mistake, we are in the midst of a wildlife smuggling crisis. From fascinating glass frogs from Costa Rica or highly threatened lizards from Sri Lanka, a myriad of species are being illegally shipped to Europe to supply the exotic pet trade. The presently legal EU trade in species taken in violation of the laws of other nations is tantamount to rubberstamping wildlife trafficking. Indeed, it speaks volumes that the former Secretary General of CITES believes that the current legal framework for combating wildlife crime and regulating the international wildlife trade is inadequate. In its programme, the current Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU cited combating the trafficking of protected species as one of its priorities. We therefore urge both the Council and the European Parliament to exert pressure on the Commission to take decisive legislative action to end all wildlife trafficking.”

Martin Hojsík MEP, Slovakian Member of the European Parliament for the Renew Group, member of organisation MEPs for Wildlife, and host of the event, noted:

“The EU Biodiversity Strategy—and the revision of the EU Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking—should be seized as a golden opportunity to close the loopholes in the existing EU wildlife trade regulations. Reptiles and amphibians, which are the main victims of the exotic pet trade, are not necessarily the most charismatic of animals, like elephants, tigers and rhinos. However, they play a vital role in local ecosystems and deserve our protection. This is a chance to halt biodiversity decline in other parts of the globe, even when species are not protected from trade by CITES. It is also our chance to show that we have learnt our lesson from Coronavirus outbreak by eliminating the possibility of emergence and spread of zoonotic diseases and preventing new pandemics. If the Commission is truly serious about taking action on biodiversity and illegal wildlife trade, it should put its money where its mouth is and deliver a proposal to close this insidious legal loophole.”

Facts:

• In May 2020, the European Commission adopted its EU Biodiversity Strategy as part of the broader European Green Deal. This Strategy included a commitment to revise the EU Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking in 2021.
• The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) does not cover all illegal wildlife trade. Many threatened species are protected from exploitation in their home countries but are not protected from being traded, either through domestic legislation or by CITES, and such domestic protections are often poorly enforced. In addition, many demand-focused countries have no protections for non-native species. As a result, wildlife traffickers are able to easily smuggle these animals into legal (or illegal) international trade flows, and once out of their countries of origin, little can be done to stop the trade in these species.
• HSI/Europe and Pro Wildlife call for the EU to adopt supplementary legislation prohibiting the importation, transhipment, purchase and sale of wildlife taken illegally in the country of origin. In the United States, the law providing law enforcement with the authority to prosecute cases of illegally taken wildlife, which sets a precedent for these kind of legislative measures is known as the Lacey Act, 16 U.S.C. §§ 3371-3378.

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Note

[1] CITES = Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

This article was originally published by Workers World on June 11, 2011.

It is not only federal prisons that contract out prison labor to top corporations. State prisons that used forced prison labor in plantations, laundries and highway chain gangs increasingly seek to sell prison labor to corporations trolling the globe in search of the cheapest possible labor.

One agency asks: “Are you experiencing high employee turnover? Worried about the costs of employee benefits? Unhappy with out-of-state or offshore suppliers? Getting hit by overseas competition? Having trouble motivating your workforce? Thinking about expansion space? Then Washington State Department of Corrections Private Sector Partnerships is for you.” (educate-yourself.org, July 25, 2005)

Major corporations profiting from the slave labor of prisoners include Motorola, Compaq, Honeywell, Microsoft, Boeing, Revlon, Chevron, TWA, Victoria’s Secret and Eddie Bauer.

IBM, Texas Instruments and Dell get circuit boards made by Texas prisoners. Tennessee inmates sew jeans for Kmart and JCPenney. Tens of thousands of youth flipping hamburgers for minimum wages at McDonald’s wear uniforms sewn by prison workers, who are forced to work for much less.

In California, as in many states, prisoners who refuse to work are moved to disciplinary housing and lose canteen privileges, as well as “good time” credit, which slices hard time off their sentences.

Systematic abuse, beatings, prolonged isolation, sensory deprivation and lack of medical care make U.S. prison conditions among the worst in the world. Ironically, working under grueling conditions for pennies an hour is treated as a “perk” for good behavior.

In December [2010], Georgia inmates went on strike and refused to leave their cells at six prisons for more than a week. In one of the largest prison protests in U.S. history, prisoners spoke of being forced to work seven days a week for no pay. Prisoners were beaten if they refused to work.

Private prisons for profit

In the ruthless search to maximize profits and grab hold of every possible source of income, almost every public agency and social service is being outsourced to private for-profit contractors.

In the U.S. military, this means there are now more private contractors and mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan than there are U.S. or NATO soldiers.

In cities and states across the U.S., hospitals, medical care facilities, schools, cafeterias, road maintenance, water supply services, sewage departments, sanitation, airports and tens of thousands of social programs that receive public funding are being contracted out to for-profit corporations. Anything publicly owned and paid for by generations of past workers’ taxes — from libraries to concert halls and parks — is being sold or leased at fire sale prices.

All this is motivated and lobbied for by right-wing think tanks like that set up by Koch Industries and their owners, Charles and David Koch, as a way to cut costs, lower wages and pensions, and undercut public service unions.

The most gruesome privatizations are the hundreds of for-profit prisons being established.

The inmate population in private for-profit prisons tripled between 1987 and 2007. By 2007, there were 264 such prison facilities, housing almost 99,000 adult prisoners. (house.leg.state.mn.us, Feb. 24, 2009) Companies operating such facilities include the Corrections Corporation of America, the GEO Group Inc. and Community Education Centers.

Prison bonds provide a lucrative return for capitalist investors such as Merrill Lynch, Shearson Lehman, American Express and Allstate. Prisoners are traded from one state to another — based on the most profitable arrangements.

Militarism and prisons

Hand-in-hand with the military-industrial complex, U.S. imperialism has created a massive prison-industrial complex that generates billions of dollars annually for businesses and industries profiting from mass incarceration.

For decades, workers in the U.S. have been assured that they benefit from imperialist looting by the giant multinational corporations. But today more than half the federal budget is absorbed by the costs of maintaining the military machine and the corporations, which are guaranteed profits for equipping the Pentagon. That is the only budget category in federal spending that is guaranteed to increase by at least 5% per year — at a time when every social program is being cut to the bone.

The sheer economic weight of militarism seeps into the fabric of society at every level. It fuels racism and reaction. The political influence of the Pentagon and the giant military and oil corporations — with their thousands of high-paid lobbyists, media pundits and network of links into every police force in the country — fuels growing repression and an expanding prison population.

The military, oil and banking conglomerates, interlinked with the police and prisons, have a stranglehold on the U.S. capitalist economy and reins of political power, regardless of who is president or what political party is in office. The very survival of these global corporations is based on immediate maximization of profits. They are driven to seize every resource and source of potential profits.

Thoroughly rational solutions are proposed, whenever the human and economic cost of militarism and repression is discussed. The billions spent for war and fantastically destructive weapons systems could provide five to seven times more jobs if spent on desperately needed social services, education and rebuilding essential infrastructure. Or it could provide free university education, considering the fact that it costs far more to imprison people than to educate them.

Why aren’t such reasonable solutions ever chosen? Military contracts generate far larger guaranteed profits to the military and the oil industries, which have a decisive influence on the U.S. economy.

The prison-industrial complex — including the prison system, prison labor, private prisons, police and repressive apparatus and their continuing expansion — are a greater source of profit and are reinforced by the climate of racism and reaction. Most rational and socially useful solutions are not considered viable options.

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At the beginning of December China’s Xi Jinping officially declared that China had eliminated poverty entirely, part of his priority program. Western financial pundits have praised the remarkable economic recovery of China following the severe lockdowns a year go to combat the coronavirus. Predictions that China would once again, as it did in 2008, lead the rest of the world, especially the EU and North America, out of deep recession are common. Yet behind the official Beijing statements there are indications that China’s decades of economic boom are coming into deep problems, far deeper than officially acknowledged. If true, the consequences for the rest of the world as well as for China could be severe.

Eliminating by Definition?

On December 1, 2020 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping announced that China had achieved the goal of “eradicating absolute poverty” and becoming a “moderately prosperous society” before the end of 2020. At the November G20 summit in Riyadh, Xi boasted that this was ten years ahead of the deadline set by the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Yet as even Chinese analysts point out, there are major questions to this achievement.

A binding target to eliminate absolute poverty by the end of 2020 was incorporated into China’s 13th Five Year Plan (2016-2020) in November 23, 2016. Now impressively, the goal is declared won, and just on time.

However on closer scrutiny, it is not as impressive. Most of China’s poverty population are rural migrant populations living in subsistence farming or by other means in the central and western parts of China far from the prosperous coastal provinces. A China National Bureau of Statistics 2016 report stated that in 2015 the poverty rate was 1.8 percent in China’s highly developed and largely urbanized eastern provinces; 6.2 percent in central China, and 10 percent in Western China.

Yet China does not use the standard of the World Bank defining poverty in an upper-middle-income country, namely for daily income of $5.50 per capita. It uses approximately $1.90 a day, the value for the world’s poorest countries. Second it talks about only rural poverty, ignoring a significant urban poor quotient. Were China to use the World Bank poverty definition, instead of 1.7% poverty, China would have 17% poverty, a significant number. With the economic impact in 2020 from coronavirus lockdowns globally, today the poverty number is presumably higher, but unstated.

Indeed in May, the Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, gave a sobering statistic at a press conference. He announced that roughly 600 million Chinese, or almost half the population, were eking out a living with a monthly income of 1,000 yuan (US$150) or less in 2019. Yet in the past two years inflation of everything from basic food to household appliances has often exceeded double digits. This all makes the next CCP economic priority a mirage.

Stimulating Domestic Consumption

The true state of poverty and real household income is crucial now, as the CCP has declared it will focus on domestic consumption to overcome loss of export revenues in the COVID era, a shift called “dual circulation” economy— expand exports and expand domestic consumption as well. How will China stimulate citizens with less than $150 monthly to lift the China economy? At the same press conference last May, broadcast on State TV, Li Keqiang stated, “One cannot even pay his rent with the money if he lives in a big city, let alone spend to improve his life or buy these export products to help manufacturers.”

The further problem is that the large, young new middle class in the recently built mega-cities such as Kunming, Xi’an, Chengdu, Shanghai or countless others with modern skyscraper apartments, are already loaded down with debt from buying new cars for the first time, and then buying an apartment amid rising real estate prices. Now the first signs of consumer debt default are appearing. Not only Americans are maxed out in debt.

Debt Crisis Growing

When the global financial crisis erupted in September, 2008, triggered by the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy, China’s Wen Jaibao implemented a staggering $4 trillion stimulus to keep its economy somewhat stable as world trade briefly collapsed. Around half of the $4 trillion was left to local governments to raise the capital, usually via special purpose infrastructure bonds or loans with local State Enterprises. That was the beginning of the debt buildup that today is leading to local government crises and collapse of numerous smaller banks in the past two years, well before the corona crisis and the US trade sanctions.

To keep their local economic targets after 2008, provincial party officials engaged in what is called shadow banking, undeclared, unguaranteed and unregulated by Beijing. It was a short term way to keep the economy going, done at the cost of a huge accumulation of municipal or provincial debt, much of it reportedly undeclared to Beijing. This hidden local debt has been growing in unknown dimensions. These so-called Local Government Finance Vehicles (LGFVs) debts began falling due in significant amounts by 2020 but many local governments lacked the funds to repay or rollover the bonds. There is $25.8 trillion officially estimated in central government guaranteed debt. Of that, debt of State Owned Enterprises such as ChemChina or Sinopec is $15 trillion or 95 trillion Renminbi. Then there is debt of the local divisions of the Communist party of China, another $6.3 trillion of declared debt. All this staggering amount of debt is known and de facto state guaranteed.

The problem comes with the local “undeclared” debts. Here no one knows the truth, as local officials chose to hide them to keep their regions growing and possibly to advance their career within the CCP by showing economic success. According to Liu Shijin, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, “From the places investigated, it is at least no less than ‘declared debt’, and some of them are three times higher.” That would mean an added hidden local debt burden between $6.3 trillion to $18.9 trillion.

That is a huge debt time-bomb. It explains why the Chinese central bank and Beijing State Council have been trying to deleverage the local debt bomb since 2014. In an effort to bring the local hidden debt issuance under control, the Beijing Finance Ministry on December 9, 2020 published “Measures for the Administration of the Issuance of Local Government Bonds.” It tries to solve the issuance of local debt by handing liability and debt issuance to the local government as of 1 January. The issuance and redemption of local government bonds shall be handled by the public finance departments of local governments. According to the official Xinhua.net, “The local public finance department shall effectively perform the debt repayment liability, timely pay the principal and interest of bonds, and maintain the government reputation.” That is, it’s now your local problem.

This is a huge change. Previously, local government bonds were issued by the Beijing Ministry of Finance for the local government, and the money was lent back to the local government. If a local government was at risk of default the central government would step in. This new rule is a clear attempt after six years of recognizing the seriousness of the local hidden debt problem, for the central authorities around Xi Jinping to bring the hidden debt issuance to a halt. The problem is that, as no one knows the extent and how much of construction has been sustained so far using the hidden debt, the move could easily trigger large-scale municipal defaults that could in turn trigger a systemic debt crisis.

In this context, how will Beijing fill its central goal of stimulating consumption by especially the poorer regions and provinces?

Unemployment Large

The true number of unemployed is an added problem. Unemployed cannot take loans to buy apartments or new cars. The central government reports an official unemployment rate of single digits, between 6% to 7%, enviable in comparison with many OECD countries. However, in a curious anomaly, China statistics office defines “unemployed” as strictly urban unemployed. Beijing’s data does not include people in rural communities or a large number of the 290 million migrant workers who work in construction, manufacturing and other low paying jobs. According to a 2020 study by Zhang Bin, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank, if those migrants are included, as many as 80 million people could have been out of work at the end of March, 2020, some 10% to 13% of the workforce, with some private economists estimating it could be as high as 20%.

With already seriously high unemployment and a credit system imposing de facto deflation, it is difficult to see how China in 2021 can implement Xi’s Dual Circulation of stimulating domestic consumption and export growth via the Silk Road. This is against a backdrop of the world’s most rapidly ageing population, which in 2018 saw a decline in total population for the first time since Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” in the 1960’s.

The global consequences of a Chinese economy entering into a prolonged downturn and a simultaneous debt default crisis will have severe consequences for the global economy. As well, the pandemic lockdowns across the EU and USA will hit China’s huge export economy. Already there are indications that China’s ability to open new export markets via its Belt and Road Initiative, the New Economic Silk Road, is being seriously impaired. The December 8 Financial Times of London reported a study by Boston University researchers which concluded that the Communist Party of China has significantly reduced overseas loans of the two largest state banks well before the corona crisis. They note that in 2019, the total overseas loans of the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China were $4 billion, far lower than the record $75 billion in 2016. The two banks lent $462-billion between 2008 and 2019, much for Silk Road projects abroad.

With tens of billions of past loans to financially weak states such as Pakistan, Ethiopia, Venezuela now in near default, or in renegotiation, it’s a serious question whether the new markets Beijing hoped to win by the Silk Road will instead become a debt albatross for the state at a time it faces a serious internal debt crisis. A Chinese economic collapse or even serious recession is what the world does not need at this juncture.

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is from NEO

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Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2

Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

 

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

History of the Russian Revolution: Separating Truth from Myth

By Max Parry, January 13 2021

On January 11, in his final days before leaving office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added one parting blow to the series of bludgeons his administration has inflicted on Cuba for four years: putting the island on the list of “state sponsors of terror” that includes only Iran, North Korea and Syria. The designation drew swift condemnation from policymakers and humanitarian groups as a decision widely characterized as “politically motivated.” It comes six years after the Obama administration had removed Cuba from the same list as part of his policy of rapprochement.

In the six years since, Trump’s State Department could not point to a single act of terror sponsored by Cuba. Instead, Secretary Pompeo based his decision on Cuba’s alleged support for the ELN (National Liberation Army – Colombia’s second-largest guerilla group) and the harboring of a handful of U.S. fugitives wanted for crimes committed in the 1970s, including renowned Black revolutionary Assata Shakur. Lacking more specific accusations, the State Department criticized Cuba for its supposed “malign interference in Venezuela and the rest of the Western Hemisphere.”

These claims don’t stand up to scrutiny. Regarding the ELN, the gist of the story is that the Trump administration is punishing Cuba for its role in attempting to bring peace to the long-simmering conflict in Colombia. ELN negotiators arrived in Cuba in 2018 for peace talks with the Colombian government. As part of the protocols for these meetings, ELN negotiators were allowed entry into Cuba and promised safe passage back into Colombia after their conclusion. Guarantor countries, including Cuba and Norway, assumed responsibility for their safe return. The talks collapsed in January 2019 following an ELN car bombing in Bogotá that killed 22 people. Colombia requested the extradition of the negotiators, but Cuba refused because the Colombia government will not honor the previous government’s commitment to guaranteeing the negotiators’ freedom upon returning home.

Regarding Secretary Pompeo’s other arguments, Cuba’s main influence in the Western Hemisphere has been the opposite of “malign”: it has deployed its doctors throughout the region and the world, saving thousands of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic. And when it comes to harboring terrorists, it’s worth noting that for decades the United States harbored Luis Posada Carriles, mastermind of a 1973 bombing that killed 73 people on a Cuban commercial airliner.

Cuba’s placement on the state sponsors of terror list is meant to be a thorn in any plan by the Biden administration for rapprochement. Taking Cuba off the list will require a review process that could take months, delaying any new initiatives to roll back Trump-era policies. It will also cause further pain to Cuba’s economy, already battered by tightened sanctions and the pandemic that has devastated the island’s tourism industry. The new terrorism label will likely scare off many businesses that import to Cuba, banks that finance transactions with Cuba and foreign investors.

A week before the designation, nine U.S. Senators wrote to Secretary Pompeo and warned that such a step “will politicize our national security.” It has drawn strong condemnation from Senator Patrick Leahy, who said it made a “mockery of what had been a credible, objective measure,” and House Foreign Affairs Chairman, Representative Gregory Meeks who said the hypocrisy from President Trump less than a week after he incited a domestic terror attack was “stunning but not surprising.”

Faith group Pastors For Peace was one of many organizations to condemn the designation: “We know that this latest act, in the waning days of the Trump administration, is not only an aggressive act against Cuba, but aggression against the incoming administration who have pledged to return to a policy leading to peace and civilized relations with our island neighbor.”

Policy group ACERE (which CODEPINK is a part of) drew a connection between the designation and recent events at home: “Perpetuating the myth that Cuba is a threat to the American people – while minimizing the threat posed by far-right extremists at home – is an embarrassment to our country on the world stage.”

The real motive behind this move is to offer a parting gift to the Cuban exile community and its allies that have been loyal supporters of the Trump administration and helped oust several Democratic members of Congress in the last election. This is par for the course for an administration that has repeatedly used sanctions for political gain with no regard for the Cuban people who, for four years, have borne the brunt of sanctions affecting everything from energy, tourism, medicines, remittances and flights. Just like millions of U.S. citizens, Cubans are counting the days until the Trump administration becomes history and hoping the next administration will offer some relief.

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Medea Benjamin is an author, activist and cofounder of the peace group CODEPINK.

Leonardo Flores is a Latin American policy expert and a campaign coordinator with CODEPINK.

The first month of 2021 was marked by a new round of violence in Syria. The situation was especially complicated in Greater Idlib, northern Aleppo and in the central desert.

On January 8, ISIS terrorists launched a large attack on government forces in the eastern countryside of Hama. After a series of clashes with the Syrian Army and pro-government militias, terrorists captured a number of positions near the towns of Rahjan and al-Shakusiyah. As of January 12, ISIS cells retreated from these positions under pressure from the army. Nonetheless, at least 19 government troops and 12 ISIS members were killed in the clashes.

Meanwhile in the eastern countryside of Homs, ISIS cells destroyed a pickup of the al-Quds Brigade, a Palestinian pro-government group, with an improvised explosive device. According to pro-opposition sources, at least 44 pro-government fighters have been killed in the clashes in the desert area since the start of the year. The number of the eliminated terrorists is reportedly over 35.

Sources affiliated with Russia-linked private military contractors claim that the deterioration of the security situation in western Deir Ezzor is a result of the withdrawal of a majority of Russian specialists from the area.

At the same time, Iranian-backed forces continue their work to expand the Imam Ali Base near al-Bukamal. The base, operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is allegedly designed store precision-guided missiles in a network of underground tunnels in the area. The base was repeatedly targeted by Israeli and even US strikes in 2019 and 2020. Despite this, the strikes did not cause any major impact as the base’s military infrastructure has been steadily expanding.

January 9 also became the first day of 2021 when the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out strikes on terrorist targets in Greater Idlib. Strikes hit several hills in outskirts of the town of Kabani, which is known for being stronghold of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the Turkistan Islamic Party. A day earlier, forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham shelled Syrian Army positions in northern Lattakia injuring several soldiers.

These developments coincided with some strikes by some ‘mysterious aircraft’ that once again bombed Turkish-linked oil smugglers in northern Aleppo. This time the infrastructure of the smugglers was destroyed near the village of Tarhin.

The situation in neighboring Iraq is also not stable. Just on January 9, 3 supply convoys of the US-led coalition became targets of IED attacks in the central and southern regions of the country. These attacks are a logical continuation of the ongoing standoff between the US-Israeli bloc and the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance. Iranian-backed forces in Iraq conduct these attacks as a part of their campaign to force the US to withdraw its forces from the country.

While some expect that a Biden administration would be less interested in an increase of confrontation with Iran, there are no indications that the sides can fully settle their contradictions in any way in the nearest future. Therefore, the entire region will remain a battleground for the warring blocs.

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Biden’s Foreign Policy

GR Editor’s Note

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.

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Welcome to the latest stage in the process of reaction that’s occurring within the U.S. ruling class amid Washington’s imperial decline. This is the stage where after Trump’s personality cult has escalated a petty political dispute into violence, the liberal technocrats who will soon have control over the White House are escalating their war against dissent.

As Biden’s team plans their waves of online censorship, surveillance under the “Great Reset” brand, and cold war escalations against Russia and China, they’re justifying this to the masses by pointing to the alarming events which Trump has stirred up.

They’re portraying a fortification of the liberal order as the only cure for the rise of white supremacist terrorism, deteriorations of “liberal” democratic integrity, public health crises, and economic shockwaves that the country has been experiencing. It’s an extension of the propaganda strategy that these liberal technocrats used during the era of “Russiagate” hysteria, which Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report described in 2018 as follows:

The ruling circles of the imperial superpower set out to destabilize and call into disrepute the sitting government of the home country. They have inflicted great trauma and anxiety among the public in the process, but thanks to the corporate media component of the cabal, most of the blame has accrued to the targets of the campaign: Trump, “the Russians” and those defamed as “dupes” and “co-conspirators” with the fictitious Putin-Trump axis. It is quite evident that this campaign of self-inflicted chaos is a project of the global corporate class, manifesting elsewhere in the “West” in remarkably similar fashion, but with local characteristics. Russia is, thus, charged with attempting to subvert governments around the world through minions like the St. Petersburg outfit.

Russiagate was the ideological predecessor to the Great Reset. Both propaganda campaigns are designed to take advantage of the symptoms of late-stage capitalism to prop up militaristic, McCarthyist, and American chauvinist mentalities. They’ve both pointed to the horrors that the country has been undergoing during the Trump era, and presented an embrace of the U.S. intelligence agencies, corporate and state-run media outlets, and war machine as the solution. They’ve both played on the widespread desire for our society to go “back to normal,” with an emphasis being put on the instruments for state violence that “normal” in the United States has always represented.

Russiagate provided the ideological base for the dystopian measures that Trump’s Democratic successor would impose. As Glenn Greenwald wrote two years ago in response to a poll which showed that more Democrats than Republicans supported continuing the wars in Syria:

“A new generation of Democrats, politically engaged for the first time as a result of fears over Trump, [are] being inculcated with values of militarism and imperialism, trained to view once-discredited, war-loving neocons such as Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and David Frum, and former CIA and FBI leaders as noble experts and trusted voices of conscience.” Now the intelligence actors, opportunistic politicians, and dishonest pundits who helped create this ideological base will enact their steps to “fix America.”

Biden will carry out a Patriot Act 2.0. Biden, who’s boasted about being the author of the 2001 Patriot Act, plans to enact new anti-terrorism measures, with his goal reportedly being to create a new White House post overseeing the prevention of ideological “extremists” from carrying out insurrectionary activity. Any honest assessment of the nature of the U.S. national security state, which jails black liberation fighters under the label of “black identity extremists,” tells us that this post will be used primarily for persecuting those fighting against capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism.

Biden plans to use the precedent that the recent Assange ruling has set to further erode press freedom. The U.K. blocked Assange’s extradition because of concerns over prison safety instead of because of any concerns over press freedom, legitimizing all the fraudulent charges the U.S. empire has made against Assange.

Throughout all of the core imperialist countries, there’s now an opening to prosecute journalists under the Espionage Act, as the U.S. has been trying to do to Assange (and will remain determined to do). Biden’s team will see great use in this precedent, because it was established through the persecution of a man for his journalistic work to reveal U.S. war crimes in Iraq.

And Biden, along with his war-hungry future secretary of state Antony Blinken, aim to keep the war crimes that they plan to commit on the lowdown.

They hope they’ll manage to create the narrative that they’re “ending the endless wars,” even though they’ll simply be leaning more onto proxies, mercenaries, and secret troops while continuing the drone strikes. To do this, they’ll have to prevent leaks about the horrifying realities of what Washington will be carrying out abroad in these next several years. This entails getting Big Tech to crack down far more on anti-imperialist journalists. This entails expanding the Obama/Trump war on whistleblowers to a new dimension, one based in the unprecedented disregard for the rights of journalists that’s been established during Assange’s persecution.

It will also entail a paradigm of propaganda which makes all of this war and repression legitimate in the eyes of the public. The key to this will be to paint any source which reports on the Biden administration’s atrocities as a foreign agent, a “useful idiot” for Putin, or an “extremist” who wants to bring back the chaos which just unfolded at the national capitol. It’s the McCarthyist approach which was established during the Russiagate era. During the Great Reset era, it will be used to stoke suspicion about anyone who dares challenge the government’s noble efforts towards bringing our society back from the brink.

These are the kinds of narratives that will be put out by the governing clique of Richard Stengel, who’s branded himself as the Biden administration’s “chief propagandist” while directing the transition team for the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Stengel has advocated for the U.S. government to use propaganda on its “own population,” for the country to “rethink” the First Amendment, and warned that “The bad actors use journalistic objectivity against us. And the Russians in particular are smart about this.”

Stengel’s self-described obsession in these last few years with fighting “Russian disinformation” shows the mindset that the ruling class has right now. Their fixation is on policing the minds of the masses so that during this moment of rising economic disruption, imperial decline, and class conflict, people won’t gain the anti-imperialist political consciousness to be able to coherently defy the system.

We’re still a ways away from the ultimate phase of censorship which U.S. military experts anticipate, wherein domestic warfare will break out and the government will shut down the internet in the zones the military occupies. But it’s alarming how much the language from today’s oligarchic censors and liberal technocrats mirrors the language from the military reports which predict these dystopian future scenarios; a U.S. Army War College report from 2016 concluded that during a situation of military intervention within the U.S. itself, the military will need to “identify online opinion-makers who could have a major impact in any controversy over US military intervention.”

At that point, the country’s descent into wartime censorship will have transitioned from Russiagate to the Great Reset to something even more extreme. Right now, the ruling class is trying to placate the suffering masses with war propaganda, and with promises of a post-pandemic techno-utopia. When the endless wars further destabilize society, and the utopia fails to materialize, capital will resort to waging open war against the population while using dictatorial censorship to try to cover up Washington’s future war crimes. Russiagate was a preparation for this endgame, as Ford indicated in another part of his article:

Capital is using Russiagate to inflict extreme shocks to the very political system they claim to be defending. The trauma is necessary, they believe, because capital has nothing to offer to the masses of people, and must therefore dramatically weaken or destroy the political mechanisms through which the people make demands on the rulers. They are preparing the landscape for a regime of permanent austerity and war, and plan to suppress all opposition on the Left.

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GR Editor’s Note

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.

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The opening salvo against red state America is the article of impeachment against President Trump introduced on January 11 by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrat Representatives David Cicilline, Ted Lieu, and Jamie Raskin.  So much for Biden’s promise to “unify the country.”  

What is the intent of this article of impeachment?  It cannot possibly be to remove Trump from office.  Trump will have left office before the Senate could vote on impeachment. There is no such thing as impeaching a person who is not in office. Clearly impeachment has nothing to do with getting Trump out of office.

How does it unify the country to follow up an election believed by half of the US voting population to have been stolen with impeaching the president who is regarded as the victim of a stolen election?

Adding insult to injury will only further enrage 75 million or more Trump voters,  and many honest Democrats, who regard the election as stolen. 

If the Establishment and its Democrat, Republican, and media allies truly believe the election not to have been stolen, why wasn’t the evidence permitted to be examined so that the controversy could be settled instead of ignored?  Ignoring the evidence deepens the suspicion as does labeling those who challenged the election “enemies of democracy.”  Democrats are now trying to censure Republican members of the House and Senate who supported having the evidence presented to Congress.  Why censure someone who wants evidence to be examined?

What many Americans and people abroad do not comprehend is that in the 2020 election Trump  officially got 74,222,958 votes.  This is the official number, which is understated by the 10 million vote suppression used against him.  In “losing,”  Trump’s 74,222,958 official votes are more votes than any elected president has ever received with the exception of Biden whose vote count was raised by 10 million fraudulent ballots. How is the country unified by demonizing half of it?  Are the Democrats’ threats and reprisals against Trump and his supporters unifying?  

I watched the presentations by independent experts to three state legislatures of the detailed evidence showing evidence that the election was stolen in the swing states. Some of the experts explaining the election’s theft were people of color as were many of those who signed affidavits under penalty of perjury of the electoral fraud that they witnessed.  This information has never been presened by the media to the public, nor has any media, election officials, Department of Justice, or Congress examined the evidence.  It is overwhelming evidence ignored.

Whether of not you believe that Biden—the most uninspiring presidential candidate in American history—got 81 million votes (the largest in American history), why do Pelosi and the Democrats want to make themselves even more hated and distrusted by half of the country by impeaching the president whose reelection they stole?  

This is rubbing salt in the wound.  Half of the country already regards Biden as an illegitimate president and regards the Democrats as power-mad totalitarians hostile to democracy.  What does Pelosi achieve by furthering this image of Democrats? She is damning her party and herself. Why?

The answer is to generate fear in Republicans and Trump supporters.  

The Democrats are using open unabashed retribution to scare Republicans and Trump supporters into compliance. Everywhere you look Republican members of Congress both House and Senate, Trump’s present and former cabinet members, and present and former members of the White House staff are denouncing Trump and putting distance between Trump and themselves. The latest is Fiona Hill, formerly of Trump’s National Security Council. She denounces Trump for having “put us on the brink of civil war.” Note that for Republican Fiona Hill, it is not a stolen election that puts “us on the brink of civil war,” but the protest against the election theft. This is the position of the Republican Party.  In other words, the Republicans have surrendered.  They are useless to the people.

As a large number of videos made available online by people who attended the rally show, the Capitol police allowed protestors into the Capitol.  The Trump supporters were not smart enough not to take the bait. Once inside, the Democrats had their “insurrection” and “storming of the Capitol.”  

It achieved its purpose. It stopped presentation of the evidence showing Congress a stolen election. Scared by the presstitutes one voice proclamation of an attempted coup, the Republicans wilted and ran for their political lives knowing that they would be blamed for “aiding and abetting Trump’s insurrection.” 

The Democrats intend to keep them running, and that is what the impeachment is about.

Trump supporters are in for it as well.  The FBI, which has been hand-in-hand with Democrats throughout the Russiagate and impeachment hoaxes, is now hunting down those who attended the Trump rally.  Those for whom the FBI cannot invent grounds for arrest have their names turned over to the presstitutes who agitate for their firing from their jobs. Already policemen, corporate employees and executives, including a chief financial officer, have been fired for attending the Trump rally, and recording artists dropped because they attended the rally. Dumbshit indoctrinated school children have impoverished their own families by ratting out their parents for attending the rally and causing them to be fired.

Children squealing on their parents to the media is the worst part of the Democrats’ assault on America, because it shows that the liberal propaganda that passes for education in the schools has destroyed solidarity and loyalty in the family.  Without the family, there is no society.  Essentially, without family there is no country.

In so many ways Americans are now people without a country. 

As the blatantly public theft of a presidential election shows, democracy is a dead value among elites and institutions in the United States.  The word will continue to be used as cover for oligarchic rule in the interest of the few. All who find the courage to challenge rule by the few will be demonized as “enemies of democracy.”  We are already seeing it.  President Trump and his “deplorables” are already declared “enemies of democracy.”

Whether or not Americans believe Trump and his supporters are enemies of democracy, many will be caused by fear to go along with it.  Otherwise, they will be the next to be outed, fired, and prosecuted.

I am not optimistic.  One reason for my lack of optimism is the age of disinformation in which we live. Disinformation is used by the Establishment to conform the public to its agendas. Disinformation is used to reconstruct white society. Disinformation is even used by Trump supporters in efforts to keep alive hope that the stolen election will be overturned or that Trump will win reelection in four years.

Another reason I am not optimistic is that I read comment sections of websites that host courageous and insightful commentators in hope of encountering intelligence and a rising awareness that could result in effective resistance.  But what do I find?  Inability to comprehend what they have read. Narcissists  hiding behind fake names. Nit-picking in place of weighing a well-stated presentation. And the ever-present trolls demeaning the authors with ad hominum accusations that are spread into social media.  

I am also not optimistic when I see that Trump, who has experienced the evil power of the Establishment, has not come to the realization that the last blow he can strike against the Establishment is the pardon of Assange and Snowden, two who are persecuted for telling the truth. Perhaps the reason is that many of Trump’s patriotic supporters have fallen for the Establishment’s line that Assange and Snowden are Russian agents who acted against America.

In the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, and all of Western Europe, telling the truth is being criminalized.  The result will be the destruction of the truth-teller. This is true as well within the universities.  Identity politics and Establishment agendas rule.  If you cross them, you are out.

Objective truth has been redefined as a “white construct” that serves “systemic racism” and misogynists. White people, especially heterosexual white males, have been assigned the role that Karl Marx gave capitalists. They are hateful, exploitative creatures that must be destroyed by demonization and indoctrination. The process has been going on for some time in the schools and in work place “sensitivity training” sessions.

This is the ideology of the Democrat Party. Imposed ideologies wear down facts. 

As the Native American tells the elderly woman in the Clint Eastwood film, The Outlaw Josey Wales, “Hell is coming to breakfast.” White people can expect hell.  To see this, all you have to do is to look at Biden’s Department of Justice appointments.

Americans are only now beginning to realize that the expensive educations they have paid for their children have resulted in their children being stolen from them. A friend told me recently that his son and son’s girlfriend had left their brutally lockdowned Democrat state to come to him in a Republican state where life still went on not too far from normal.  Having heard their conversations with him and among themselves, he has concluded that they regret that they were born white.  

To his dismay, he understands that their regret at having white skin is not because of employment and promotion quotas that limit their success as white people, or the demeaning racial training sessions they have to endue as “systemic white racists.” Their regret is due to their successful indoctrination that, as white racists, they are responsible for the lack of success of black Americans.  Perplexed, he asked me, “how can we resist the tyranny that is being imposed on us when the younger generation believes we are quilty and cannot be trusted with our freedoms.

Yes, good question.  How?

Note that the outpouring of support for Trump in the Washington Rally, which Democrats easily turned into a liability for Trump, consists largely of older adults.  Where were the young people?  They stayed home and ratted out their parents.

America’s young were not born into a free society. They have never experienced a free society. They are not socialized into a free society. They have no idea what one is beyond access to the Internet. 

It was two decades ago that the Bush regime orchestrated  the PATRIOT Act.  It was two decades ago that the Republican President of the United States threw habeas corpus out the window and claimed executive authority to detain American citizens indefinitely without presenting evidence before a court.  No bar association, no university law faculty, no court, no Congress, and certainly no presstitute media demanded Bush’s impeachment for unilaterally exercising unconstitutional executive authority.

During the subsequent Obama regime, America’s First Black President, who got less votes than Trump did in 2020, executed American citizens without due process of law.  No one demanded Obama’s impeachment for his unconstitutional and illegal murder of American citizens.

If cancelling the Bill of Rights isn’t insurrection, what is?

In contrast, President Trump who challenged the media monopoly for its censorship, who challenged the military/security complex for its orchestration of Russia as an enemy, who challenged various “trade agreements” for sending Americans’ middle class jobs abroad—in other words, a rare president who represented the American people—this President was destroyed by the Establishment and its media and intellectual whores.

The  corrupt and evil Establishment, acting through the Democrat Party with the backing of the monopoly over all communications and the monetary and power interests of the military/security complex and Wall Street, and strengthened by the Identity Politics hatreds, which extend into the universities, public schools, bar associations, corporations, and judiciary, and the indoctrination seminars that white males are forced to undergo, has achieved more power than Stalin and Hitler could imagine.  

Today the United States is not only a threat to its citizens but also a threat to the world.  The American Establishment’s belief in its hegemony makes the United States  the greatest threat that the world has ever experienced.  

The forces in control of the United States deny the existence of objective truth. As the Establishment defines truth, truth is what serves the agendas of the ruling elite.  

There is no other truth.  

Among other terrors, this means that an accused person can mount no defense.  As the trial of the surviving brother of the alleged Boston Marathon Bombing demonstrated, the proof of his innocence according to the FBI’s own evidence was not allowed to be introduced into the trial, only the fabricated “evidence” of his guilt.  When this happened, it was clear that the United States government regarded the rule of law as dispensable whenever it interferred with its agenda.

As journalist Ekaterina Blinova instantly recognized, the effect of the stolen election is to create one-party rule in the United States. Of course, the Democrats won’t rule. Rule will be by the interest groups for whom the Democrats will front. As the Republcans abandoned the American people and joined in the denunciation of the “insurrectionist Trump,” there are few voters left who will vote Republican. By its cowardice, the Republican Party has destroyed itself.

What can be done.  I am open to answers.  If you think about it, you wonder if Americans have the intelligence and awareness to survive.  Consider Parler, a social media alternative that does not censor.  Why did Parler think it could be independent when it was dependent on Apple, Amazon, and Google?  It must be a new high water mark of American insouciance that Parler executives thought the ruling Establishment would allow them free speech. See this.

America is in collapse on all fronts—morally, economically, socially, politically, and militarily.  Every American institution is corrupted. America’s collapse will be a large collapse, and it will affect the entire world.

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Dr. Patrick Phillips, a family physician and front liner in health care in Ontario, talks with Dr. Naomi Wolf of Daily Clout on the devastating impacts of COVID-19 lockdown. 

He firmly believes that the consequences outweigh the benefits and that they are consistently getting worst. 

Watch the video below for the full interview.

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We would like to thank Mark Taliano for bringing this to our attention.

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The initial charges against those few who entered the Capitol during the Trump rally were “entering a restricted building without permission and engaging in disorderly conduct while inside.”  This charge does not carry sufficient punishment for the kind of example the Establishment intends to make of Trump supporters. 

Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sees a chance for his 15 minutes of fame.  He announced in a press conference that he has built a team of national security attorneys to create sedition and conspiracy charges against Trump “rioters who stormed the Capitol.”  

Note that excessive language accompanies excessive charges. Whether those who got into the Capitol were let in or broke in, there was no “storming,” and certainly no conspiracy to commit sedition.  Sherwin says that he is “treating this just like a significant international counterterrorism or counterintelligence operation.”  

Even the videos shown on anti-Trump news sites, such as The Hill, show the “insurrectionists” in the Capitol walking peacefully and keeping within the roped lane.  How is this violent insurrection?  There are videos making the rounds that show Trump supporters restraining a man who is trying to break a window in the Capitol.  It is clear that the Trump supporters regard the person as an Antifa member. 

In any demonstration there will be nutcases and provocateurs.  To define a peaceful demonstration by the acts of a few is dishonest.  Remember, the presstitutes repeatedly called the Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots that looted and burned business areas of Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Atlanta and other cities “peaceful protests.”  When the presstitutes had to acknowledge that there was violence, they blamed it on Trump supporters or white supremacists who had allegedly infiltrated the peaceful protests.

Infiltration does seem to have happened to Trump supporters at the Capitol. According to a report by a person present at the Capitol to film the event that was sent to Professor Mark Crispin Miller at New York University, agitators suddenly appeared with bull horns and provoked Trump supporters to rush up the steps at the back of the Capitol.

The relatively few who entered the Capitol apparently entered from the front.  Some reports say they were allowed in. Here is the account of the cameraman that I reported on January 7:

“I was in Washington, D.C. today filming the Trump rally and related events.  I also ran across your post concerning the Capitol demonstration tonight.  Perhaps this short account will help you assess what others are saying in a small way.

“I was also at the Capitol before the crowd appeared setting-up my camera on a stone wall around the perimeter of the back of the capitol (the rear facing Constitution Avenue).  Then I waited for President Trump’s speech to end and for supporters to walk-up Constitution Avenue to the Capitol.  I was located at the precise location where supporters first rushed up the slope towards the back of the Capitol after casting aside a section of the first Capitol perimeter barrier.  Supporters gathered roughly at the center of the back of the capitol, but a circle began to grow around the perimeter as the crowd grew larger.  I had no sense that the growing crowd intended to rush the Capitol.

“After a large crowd emerged at the perimeter a man in perhaps his late 30’s or early 40’s showed-up, pacing quickly to his left then to his right before the crowd, and essentially began hurling insults at the crowd challenging their political wisdom.  He excoriated the crowd for thinking that their attendance would be taken seriously by members of congress.  (Hard to say that he was wrong about that, whoever he was).  I cannot recall his precise words, but for a very short period he engaged in a shouting exchange with supporters, and suddenly supporters pushed aside the first barrier and rushed towards the back of the Capitol.  Others on the northern edge of the perimeter followed suit.  But the first rush was right at the center of the back of the Capitol.  I followed the rush to the bottom of the Capitol back steps, and began filming again from atop an inner perimeter stone wall.

“The police, so it appeared, were a little surprised by the rush, and this gave supporters an opportunity to race up the steps.  One or two men even made it as far as the steps leading up to the scaffolds on the south side of the Capitol before police arrested them.  By this time, five or ten men had climbed to the top of the tall steel tower structure facing the Capitol.  Then the police erected and lined-up behind a new barrier perimeter at the foot of the Capitol steps.  Police at the top of the Capitol steps aimed rifles down on the crowd (perhaps rubber bullet rifles, I could not tell).  The crowd began arguing with police and pressing hard against the new barrier.  The police sprayed men pressing directly against the barrier with tear gas from time to time causing them to retreat.  “Meanwhile, the men at the top of the tower began rallying the crowd to challenge the new barrier (over bull horns) by filling any gaps between the barrier and the stone wall that I was using as a filming vantage point.  Another man worked the crowd with a bull horn immediately in front of me and also encouraged supporters to climb over the inner perimeter stone wall (my filming vantage point) and create a wall of pressure on the new barrier at the bottom of the Capitol back steps.

“After about 30 minutes to an hour I dropped to the bottom of the stone wall to reload my camera when suddenly the barrier gave way and police attempted to fortify it by blasting tear gas into the area between the stone wall and the barrier.   I was hit by the gas myself and struggled back over the stone wall in order to breathe.  The gas threw many crowd members into a panic. And I was nearly trampled as I struggled to lift my camera and heavy gear bag over the wall after two women began pulling desperately on the back of my coat to pull themselves up and over the moderately high wall in retreat.

“After the second perimeter barrier gave way, the men with the bull horns began working the crowd very hard to fill-up with Trump supporters the steps of the Capitol and the scaffolding on both sides of it.  At this point one of the calls, which the men with bull horns repeated from time to time in order to encourage people to climb the Capitol steps was “this is not a rally; it’s the real thing.”  Another frequent call was “its now or never.” After about a two hour effort peppered with bull horn calls of this nature the entire back of the Capitol was filled with Trump supporters and the entire face of the Capitol was covered with brilliant small and very large Trump banners, American flags, and various other types of flags and banners.

“Sometime after the rush on the back of the Capitol, people were apparently able to enter the Capitol itself through the front. But I was not witness to anything at the front or inside the Capitol.

“One clearly bona fide Trump supporter who had apparently entered the Capitol himself was telling others emotionally and angrily (including press representatives of some sort, even a foreign newsman) that he witnessed someone inside the Capitol encouraging violence whom he strongly suspected was not a legitimate Trump supporter (apparently on the basis that the man showed no signs at all of Trump support on his apparel).  I did not pay that close attention to his claims (for example the precise claim of the violence encouraged) because, naturally, I had not yet read your post and it had not occurred to me that professional outsiders might play a role in instigating particular violent acts in order to discredit the event.

“I overheard one Trump supporter (who followed the rush on the Capitol himself) say aloud, “I brought many others to this rally, but we did not sign on for this” as he watched matters escalate.

“Still, from my seat, I would say that large numbers of very legitimate Trump supporters felt that it was their patriotic duty to occupy the Capitol in light of their unshakable beliefs that (1) the 2020 election was a fraud, (2) that the vast majority of the members of congress are corrupt and compromised, and (3) that the country is in the throes of what they consider a “communist” takeover (although many use the expression “communism” as a synonym for “totalitarianism”).   They are also convinced that the virus narrative is a fraud and an essential part of an effort to undermine the Constitution –in particular the Bill of Rights.  They have a very real fear that the country and the very conception of any culture of liberty is on the verge of an irreparable collapse.  For most (if not a very large majority) rushing the Capitol was a desperate eleventh hour act of partiotism –even of the order of the revolution that created our nation.  Some Trump supporters sang the Star Spangled Banner and other patriotic songs as others climbed the Capitol steps.  They also demonstrated a measure of respect for the Capitol itself.  I saw no attempt by anyone to deface the Capitol simply for the sake of defacing it.

“The incontrovertibly compromised press has called this event a riot.  But from what I saw and heard this would indeed be a gross and intentionally misleading oversimplification at best.  At least from the standpoint of supporters, if their Capitol event was a riot, then so was the Boston Tea Party.  It also seems to me that some professional help (very aware of deep sentiments) might have come from somewhere to make sure that the party happened.”

It was “a riot and violent and an insurrection”, because that is what the Establishment wants it to be.  Overstating what happened turns it into a weapon that can be used against Trump and his supporters as Acting US Attorney Michael Sherwin intends to do.

If Sherwin were to conduct a real investigation, he would probably find that the organized plan he is looking for was an Antifa plan or a plan of some Establishment group to use provocateurs to stampede rally attendees into some action that would discredit Trump and the rally. Of course, this is nothing that Sherwin wants to find.

The violent looters who rampaged through American cities have not been held accountable.  Yet the US Justice Department is intent on framing people protesting what they believe was a stolen election as “insurrectionists” with a conspiracy of sedition.  If Sherwin and the Establishment he serves had any judgment, they would not throw gasoline on a fire unless they want a bigger fire. It seems that a bigger fire is what they do want.  

A bigger fire would help the new domestic terrorism bill that criminalizes dissent.  Under this bill, those who challenge Establishment explanations could find themselves charged with terrorism. Law is what prosecutors establish it to be.  What is terrorism becomes a subjective judgment and is whatever a prosecutor says it is.

There was no insurrection on January 6, which is puzzling in a way. 

If tens of millions of Americans believe that their democracy is threatened by a stolen election and nothing was being done about it, who would be surprised if there was an insurrection? It seems to me that everyone but the Establishment and its minons would support such an insurrection.  

To charge Trump supporters for something that did not happen, while not charging Antifa for what did happen, is the best way to split the population.  Why does Michael Sherwin want to splint the American population?

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Featured image is from Ted Eytan / Creative Commons

Only three US presidents were impeached — Andrew Johnson for sacking his war secretary Edwin Stanton, Bill Clinton for lying about sex, and Trump twice.

The first time was for winning an election he was supposed to lose and unorthodox actions in office.

The second coming Wednesday is largely to prevent him from serving in public office again, along with wanting him and supporters vilified for wrong reasons, ignoring justifiable ones.

Legitimate reasons existed to impeach, convict and remove most former US presidents from office — notably for crimes of war and against humanity on invented enemies.

This step was never taken because most elected and appointed US officials would share guilt in the above offenses and others.

Impeachment of US presidents is a politicized affair, for invented offenses, not real ones.

Charges against Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Trump twice were meritless, the same true for Richard Nixon’s forced resignation.

The Constitution’s Article II, Section 4 is supposed to be used as a check against abuses of power.

It empowers Congress to impeach, convict, and remove an unfit to hold office president or other elected or appointed officials.

It’s supposed to be for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The latter phrase is undefined and thus abused.

House members are empowered to impeach by a simple majority.

A Senate two-thirds majority is required to convict.

While unlikely, Trump may become the first sitting or former US president to be convicted by Senate members.

If before his term expires on January 20, he’d be forced from office.

If after his tenure ends, he could be barred from holding public office again by a separate vote.

He could be denied benefits afforded former US presidents under the 1958 Former Presidents Act.

He could lose them by removal pursuant to Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, according to the law — including his pension and Secret Service protection.

The law states that presidents “whose service in such office shall have terminated other than by” removal from office office are entitled to benefits.

According to Law Professor Josh Blackman, if convicted by a Senate super-majority after leaving office, benefits afforded former US presidents would not be affected, adding:

Under this scenario, he’d be “former president (who) cannot be removed from a position he no longer holds.”

Other legal experts believe it’s unlikely that Trump would lose  Secret Service protection even if convicted and removed from office before January. 20.

In 2013, enacted US legislation authorized lifetime Secret Service protection for “former president(s)” without further elaboration.

Political Science Professor Cary Coglianese said if Trump is removed from office before January 20, “he would almost certainly not automatically lose the Secret Service protection which he would otherwise expect to receive…”

According to the NYT, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “told associates that he believes…Trump committed impeachable offenses and that he is pleased that (Dems) are moving to impeach him, believing that it will make it easier to purge him from the party, according to people familiar with his thinking.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy reportedly spoke to other GOP House members about whether they should call on Trump to resign before January 20.

At the same time, he expressed opposition to impeachment, but he, McConnell, and other GOP congressional leaders will not formally call on congressional Republicans to vote against impeachment, according to at least three unnamed party members.

According to The Hill:

“McConnell has made it clear to his allies that he’s done defending Trump and that the Senate GOP leader hasn’t spoken to the president since December,” adding:

He “had given a speech sharply breaking with Trump over the election — which the GOP leader tellingly said had not been that close — moments before the Capitol was overtaken by a mob.”

“He’s genuinely furious about what happened last week and what led up to it.”

“Senate Republican sources told The Hill that McConnell hasn’t revealed whether he would vote to convict Trump on an article of impeachment.”

“A majority of House Republicans are expected to oppose impeachment, and it’s also likely a majority of Senate Republicans would vote to acquit Trump in a trial.”

While it’s unlikely that McConnell, other congressional GOP leaders, and a required Senate super-majority would vote to convict Trump, what never happened before in US history is possible this time.

The Times, The Hill, and other US media reported that House impeachment vote will come Wednesday after Pence rejected using 25th Amendment authority to remove Trump from office pre-January 20.

Last week, he was quoted saying:

“I will not now yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games at a time so serious in the life of our nation.”

The Washington Post reported similar information to the above, saying:

“The push for an unprecedented second impeachment of President Trump took a dramatic bipartisan turn Tuesday, as several senior House Republicans joined the (Dem) effort to remove Trump…”

Fox News, Reuters, and other media reported much the same information.

During December 2019 impeachment proceedings as well as pre-Capitol Hill violence, McConnell publicly opposed the process.

According to an unnamed GOP official, “(h)e’s not doing that this time,” adding:

“I don’t know if he ultimately supports it or he doesn’t support it.”

“Part of it probably depends on what case and what articles House Democrats ultimately place on their desk in the Senate.”

“He doesn’t see this as a political exercise. It may very well warrant that kind of action.”

Last week, I called what happened on Capitol Hill America’s Reichstag  fire — what Trump had nothing to do with.

None of public remarks and tweets incited a violent insurrection “against the government of the United States.”

His post-Election 2020 rhetoric, including last week, has been constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment.

Claims otherwise by Dems, some

Republicans and establishment media were fabricated.

They seek lynch mob action against Trump, unjustifiably justified by invented charges, not legitimate ones.

If Trump is removed from office for using protected speech in addressing supporters, all Americans are potentially threatened with recrimination for truth-telling on major issues that diverges from the official narrative.

If constitutionally guaranteed free expression dies, all other major rights may go with it along with abolition of the rule of law.

That’s what the scourge of tyranny is all about.

That’s where things are heading in the US if the present trend continues uncontested by nonviolent resistance to preserve and protect what’s too precious to lose.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. 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.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

According to the London Telegraph, UK vaccine passports “could be rolled out across the UK” if Boris Johnson’s “trial” run goes as planned.

Biometrics firm iProov and cybersecurity firm Mvine developed a digital passport for the trial in two so far unnamed designated areas.

While Britain’s science and research funding agency OK’d £75,000 for the project, Johnson’s health department said there was “no plan” to take this step.

Getting underway this month, it’ll continue for about two months.

Saying one thing, then doing another, happens time and again in the West and elsewhere.

Minister Michael Gove earlier said vaccine passports are “not the plan” going forward. He lied.

Johnson’s mass-vaxxing chief Nadhim Zahawi said we’re ‘looking at the technology.’ ”

In December, he said the following:

“I think mandating vaccinations is discriminatory and completely wrong…and I would urge businesses listening to this debate today not to even think about this,” adding:

“We have absolutely no plans for vaccine passporting.” Like Gove, he lied.

An anti-vaccine passport petition now circulating in Britain got hundreds of thousands of signatures, stating the following:

“I want the government to prevent any restrictions being placed on those who refuse to have any potential covid-19 vaccine.”

“This includes restrictions on travel, social events, such as concerts or sports. No restrictions whatsoever.”

Ignored by Zahawi, days earlier he about-faced, saying that he expects bars, cinemas, restaurants and sports stadiums to demand proof of vaxxing against covid (aka renamed seasonal flu) for access to these, perhaps other public areas and travel.

Are mandated vaccine passports coming to Britain ahead?

Will health apartheid come to the US and other Western countries?

Denmark announced development of “immunity passports” to include “tracking and (Big Brother) surveillance.”

Ontario, Canada authorities are exploring their use to include restrictions on travel and access to public venues if unvaxxed.

Israel’s Netanyahu regime said vaxxed individuals will get “green passports,” affording them access to public places.

Other Western ruling authorities indicated that vaccine passports are coming for ‘life to get back to normal (sic).”

All vaccines are hazardous to health, experimental covid ones most hazardous of all.

Preserving and protecting health demands shunning them.

Mandating immunity passports for access to public places will harden totalitarian rule in nations taking this unacceptable step.

Is that’s what’s coming later this year, a diabolical brave new world?

Will free movement no longer be allowed without digital proof of vaxxing with what risks serious harm to human health?

According to a Johnson regime health department statement:

It’s “everyone’s responsibility to do the right thing for their own health (sic), and for the benefit of the wider community (sic),” adding:

Johnson hardliners “will carefully consider all options to improve vaccination rates, should that be necessary.”

Reportedly, UK airlines and hotels support vaccine passports for use of their services.

According to a statement by unnamed UK officials:

“Those who refuse to get the (covid) jab would likely be refused entry to venues.”

Is the same coming for UK workplaces and schools?

Will a mandatory digital ID system come next for Big Brother mass-surveillance in Western and other societies?

All of the above may be part of what diabolical Great Reset planners intend in pursuing establishment of ruler-serf societies worldwide.

Will daily lives and routines no longer be possible without vaccine passports?

Will what was inconceivable not long ago become reality ahead?

Will what’s unfolding go beyond what Orwell and Huxley imagined?

Will dystopian harshness in the West and elsewhere be the new abnormal in the coming months?

If mass resistance doesn’t challenge what may be coming, fundamental freedoms no longer will exist.

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Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. 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.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Viacheslav Lopatin | Credit: scaliger – stock.adobe.com

2021 began with a historic decision in the Middle East as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt decided to end their diplomatic and economic embargo against Qatar. The decision to end the embargo, that has been in place since 2017, was formalized during an extraordinary meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a group that brings together Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.

Despite having only 1.9 million inhabitants, Qatar stands out internationally for its hydrocarbon production and unorthodox diplomacy. Qatar is an absolute monarchy commanded by the House of Thani and has the world’s third largest natural gas reserves, but its foreign diplomacy antagonizes countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Although it is only a small country of less than two million people, it is not an isolated country that can be ignored, mostly thanks to its immense wealth, in addition to hosting major events such as the upcoming World Cup, and dominating the Arab media landscape through services like Al-Jazeera and other print, digital and broadcast media.

Saudi Arabia and its allies highlighted that Qatar uses Al-Jazeera as an instrument for international propaganda. Qatar’s communication policy through Al-Jazeera consists of a form of public diplomacy, which is a strategic factor in shaping opinion in the Arab world.

However, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt decided to break diplomatic relations with Qatar and closed their borders to the country. Their justification was Qatar maintained close relations with Iran and supports terrorist and extremist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, among other things.

In fact, Qatar maintains diverse contacts with rival organizations and countries, which is not always viewed favorably by its neighbors. It is for this reason that Qatar is the seat for Afghan peace negotiations, but also a source of funding for groups that defend the Palestinian cause. In addition, Qatar pays the ransom price set by terrorist organizations that kidnap foreigners and locals alike in Syria.

The proposal to lift the embargo against Qatar came from the monocratic decision of two key people: the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, and the de facto ruler of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zayed.

After three and a half years of embargo, Qatar has not changed its posture – it maintains relations with Iran, Al-Jazeera is still being broadcasted globally, and it did not suffer any significant economic damage. Qatar was able to transport products by air via countries like Iran and Turkey, which eventually cancelled the effects of the air blockade. The land embargo was not able to generate a supply crisis either despite Qatar’s only land border being with Saudi Arabia.

The tools used by decisionmakers in the Qatari capital of Doha to circumvent the embargo proved to be efficient. Lifting the embargo effectively means that these countries failed to achieve their goals and are trying to get out of a situation that they themselves created. But why then did Saudi Arabia and its allies decide to normalize relations with Doha if neither party was badly affected?

Rapprochement with Qatar could be a way of attracting the country to form an alliance of Arab states in the Persian Gulf to contain Iranian influence. In his speech to allies at the GCC, the Saudi monarch blamed Iran for instability in the region.

“There is an urgent need to join our efforts to promote our region and confront the challenges that surround us, especially that represented by Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” said bin Salman during the meeting.

One of the main frustrations that Arab states have against Qatar is its uncompromising cooperation with Iran. Therefore, the lifting of the embargo may be an attempt to include Qatar in the group of Arab countries that have normalized relations with Israel. The measure aims to attract Qatar and, indirectly, Kuwait, to normalize relations with Israel.

Last year, Bahrain and the UAE established diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv, abandoning the historic position of refusing to recognize the Jewish state in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. However, Qatar is already beginning to improve its relationship with Israel as a way to increase its influence in U.S. political circles.

The eventual establishment of diplomatic relations between Doha and Tel Aviv would be harmful for militant and political groups in Palestine since Qatar is the richest Arab country to maintain support for them. On the other hand, the privileged relationship that Qatar has with Palestinian groups like Hamas may actually be of interest to Israel. Qatar can cooperate simultaneously with Israel and Palestine, placing itself as an intermediary between the Hamas terrorist organization and Tel Aviv, just as it does between the Taliban and Afghan government. Currently, the only channel Israel has with Hamas is through Egypt, and it may serve Israeli interests to establish another line of contact with the group through Qatar.

The expectation, therefore, is that Qatar will maintain diverse diplomatic contacts, serving as a relevant regional mediator. Although few terms of the GCC-Qatar treaty have been made public, there is no evidence that Doha has made any or major concessions to countries that imposed the embargo.

Qatar puts itself in the place of the winner by affably receiving Saudi Arabia’s invitation to rejoin the GCC. The lesson that Qatar leaves is that diversified foreign policy is one that does not surrender or make concessions under pressure, while maintaining relations without preconditions or going against third parties.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Contingent on World Bank aid to be given to poorer countries in the wake of coronavirus lockdowns, agrifood conglomerates will aim to further expand their influence. These firms have been integral to the consolidation of a global food regime that has emerged in recent decades based on chemical- and proprietary-input-dependent agriculture which incurs massive externalised social, environmental and health costs.

Reliance on commodity monocropping for global markets, long supply chains and dependency on external inputs for cultivation make the food system vulnerable to shocks, whether resulting from public health scares, oil price spikes (the global food system is fossil-fuel dependent) or conflict and war. An increasing number of countries are recognising the need to respond by becoming more food self-sufficient, preferably by securing control over their own food and reducing supply chain lengths.

The various coronavirus lockdowns have disrupted many transport and production activities, exposing the weaknesses of the food system. If the current situation tells us anything, it is that structural solutions are needed to transform food production, not further strengthen the status quo.

Agroecology

In 2014, UN special rapporteur Olivier De Schutter’s report concluded that by applying agroecological principles to democratically controlled agricultural systems we can help to put an end to food crises and poverty challenges. He argued that agroecological approaches could tackle food needs in critical regions and could double food production in 10 years.

The 2009 IAASTD peer-reviewed report, produced by 400 scientists and supported by 60 countries, recommended agroecology to maintain and increase the productivity of global agriculture. And the recent UN FAO High Level Panel of Experts concluded that agroecology provides greatly improved food security and nutritional, gender, environmental and yield benefits compared to industrial agriculture.

Agroecology is based on traditional knowledge and modern agricultural research, utilising elements of contemporary ecology, soil biology and the biological control of pests. This system employs sound ecological management by using on-farm solutions to manage pests and disease without the use of agrochemicals and corporate seeds. It outperforms the prevailing industrial food system in terms of diversity of food output, nutrition per acre, soil health, water table stability and climate resilience.

Academic Raj Patel outlines some of the basic practices of agroecology by saying that nitrogen-fixing beans are grown instead of using inorganic fertilizer, flowers are used to attract beneficial insects to manage pests and weeds are crowded out with more intensive planting. The result is a sophisticated polyculture: many crops are produced simultaneously, instead of just one.

Much has been written about agroecology, its successes and the challenges it faces, not least in the 2017 book Fertile Ground: Scaling agroecology from the ground up, published by Food First. Agroecology can offer concrete, practical solutions to many of the world’s problems. It challenges – and offers alternatives to – the prevailing moribund doctrinaire economics of a neoliberalism that drives a failing system of industrial agriculture.

By creating securely paid labour-intensive agricultural work in both richer and poorer countries, it can address the interrelated links between labour offshoring by rich countries and the removal of rural populations elsewhere who end up in sweat shops to carry out offshored jobs: the two-pronged process of neoliberal, globalised capitalism that has hollowed out the economies of the US and UK and which is displacing existing indigenous food production systems and undermining the rural infrastructure in places like India.

Agroecology is based on the principle of food sovereignty, which encompasses the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food and the right of people to define their own food and agriculture systems. ‘Culturally appropriate’ is a nod to the foods people have traditionally produced and eaten as well as the associated socially embedded practices which underpin community and a sense of communality. But it goes beyond that.

Modern food system

People have a deep microbiological connection to soils, food processing practices and fermentation processes which affect the gut microbiome – up to six pounds of bacteria, viruses and microbes akin to human soil. And as with actual soil, the microbiome can become degraded according to what we ingest (or fail to ingest). Many nerve endings from major organs are located in the gut and the microbiome effectively nourishes them. There is ongoing research taking place into how the microbiome is disrupted by the modern globalised food production/processing system and the chemical bombardment it is subjected to.

Capitalism colonises (and degrades) all aspects of life but is colonising the very essence of our being – even on a physiological level. With their agrochemicals and food additives, powerful companies are attacking this ‘soil’ and with it the human body. As soon as agri-food corporations undermined the capacity for eating locally grown, traditionally processed food, cultivated in healthy soils and began imposing long-line supply chains and food subjected to chemical-laden cultivation and processing activities, we not only lost our cultural connections to food production and the seasons, but we also lost our deep-rooted microbiological connection with our localities. Corporate chemicals and seeds and global food chains dominated by the likes of Monsanto (now Bayer), Nestle and Cargill took over.

Aside from affecting the functioning of major organs, neurotransmitters in the gut affect our moods and thinking. Alterations in the composition of the gut microbiome have been implicated in a wide range of neurological and psychiatric conditions, including autism, chronic pain, depression and Parkinson’s Disease. In addition, increasing levels of obesity are associated with low bacterial richness in the gut. Indeed, it has been noted that tribes not exposed to the modern food system have richer microbiomes.

To ensure genuine food security and good health, humanity must transition to a notion of food sovereignty based on optimal self-sufficiency, agroecological principles and local ownership and stewardship of common resources – land, water, soil, seeds, etc.

However, what we are seeing is a trend towards genetically engineered and biosynthetic lab-based food controlled by corporations. The billionaire class who are pushing this agenda think they can own nature and all humans and can control both. As part of an economic, cultural and social ‘great reset’, they seek to impose their cold dystopian vision that wants to eradicate thousands of years of culture, tradition and farming practices virtually overnight.

Consider that many of the ancient rituals and celebrations of our forebears were built around stories and myths that helped them come to terms with some of the most basic issues of existence, from death to rebirth and fertility. These culturally embedded beliefs and practices served to sanctify their practical relationship with nature and its role in sustaining human life.

As agriculture became key to human survival, the planting and harvesting of crops and other seasonal activities associated with food production were central to these customs. Freyfaxi marks the beginning of the harvest in Norse paganism, for example, while Lammas or Lughnasadh is the celebration of the first harvest/grain harvest in Paganism.

Humans celebrated nature and the life it gave birth to. Ancient beliefs and rituals were imbued with hope and renewal and people had a necessary and immediate relationship with the sun, seeds, animals, wind, fire, soil and rain and the changing seasons that nourished and brought life. In addition to our physiological connection, our cultural and social relationships with agrarian production and associated deities had a sound practical base.

We need look no further than India to appreciate the important relationship between culture, agriculture and ecology, not least the vital importance of the monsoon and seasonal planting and harvesting. Rural-based beliefs and rituals steeped in nature persist, even among urban Indians. These are bound to traditional knowledge systems where livelihoods, the seasons, food, cooking, processing, seed exchange, healthcare and the passing on of knowledge are all inter-related and form the essence of cultural diversity within India itself.

Although the industrial age resulted in a diminution of the connection between food and the natural environment as people moved to cities, traditional ‘food cultures’ – the practices, attitudes and beliefs surrounding the production, distribution and consumption of food – still thrive and highlight our ongoing connection to agriculture and nature.

If we go back to the 1950s, it is interesting to note Union Carbide’s corporate narrative based on a series of images that depicted the company as a ‘hand of god’ coming out of the sky to ‘solve’ some of the issues facing humanity. One of the most famous images is of the hand pouring the firm’s agrochemicals on Indian soils as if traditional farming practices were somehow ‘backward’.

Despite well-publicised claims to the contrary, this chemical-driven approach did not lead to higher food production according to the paper New Histories of the Green Revolution written by Prof Glenn Stone. However, it has had long-term devastating ecological, social and economic consequences as we saw in Vandana Shiva’s book ‘The Violence of the Green Revolution’ and Bhaskar Save’s now famous and highly insightful open letter to Indian officials.

In the book Food and Cultural Studies’ (Bob Ashley et al), we see how, some years ago, a Coca Cola TV ad campaign sold its product to an audience which associated modernity with a sugary drink and depicted ancient Aboriginal beliefs as harmful, ignorant and outdated. Coke and not rain became the giver of life to the parched. This type of ideology forms part of a wider strategy to discredit traditional cultures and portray them as being deficient and in need of assistance from ‘god-like’ corporations.

Post-COVID plunder

What we are seeing in 2020, is an acceleration of such processes. In terms of food and agriculture, traditional farming in places like India will be under increasing pressure from the big-tech giants and agribusiness to open up to lab-grown food, GMOs, genetically engineered soil microbes, data harvesting tools and drones and other ‘disruptive’ technologies.

This vision includes farmerless farms being manned by driverless machines, monitored by drones and doused with chemicals to produce commodity crops from patented GM seeds for industrial ‘biomatter’ to be processed and constituted into something resembling food. What will happen to the farmers?

Post-COVID, the World Bank talks about helping countries get back on track in return for structural reforms. Are tens of millions of smallholder farmers to be enticed from their land in return for individual debt relief and universal basic income? The displacement of these farmers and the subsequent destruction of rural communities and their cultures was something the Gates Foundation once called for and cynically termed “land mobility”.

Cut through the euphemisms and it is clear that Bill Gates – and the other incredibly rich individuals behind the great reset with their ‘white saviour’ mindset – is an old-fashioned colonialist who supports the time-honoured dispossessive strategies of imperialism, whether this involves mining, appropriating and commodifying farmer knowledge, accelerating the transfer of research and seeds to corporations or facilitating intellectual property piracy and seed monopolies created through IP laws and seed regulations.

In India – still an agrarian-based society – will the land of these already (prior to COVID) heavily indebted farmers then be handed over to the tech giants, the financial institutions and global agribusiness to churn out their high-tech industrial sludge?

With the link completely severed between food production, nature and culturally embedded beliefs that give meaning and expression to life, we will be left with the individual human who exists on lab-based food, who is reliant on income from the state and who is stripped of satisfying productive endeavour and genuine self-fulfilment.

Technocratic meddling has already destroyed or undermined cultural diversity, meaningful social connections and agrarian ecosystems that draw on centuries of traditional knowledge and are increasingly recognised as valid approaches to secure food security, as outlined for example in the 2017 article Food Security and Traditional Knowledge in India in the Journal of South Asian Studies.

Such a pity that prominent commentators like George Monbiot, who writes for the UK’s Guardian newspaper, seems fully on board with this ‘great reset’. In his 2020 article ‘Lab-grown food will soon destroy farming – and save the planet’, he sees farmerless farms and ‘fake’ food produced in giant industrial factories from microbes as a good thing.

But Vandana Shiva says:

“The notion that high-tech ‘farm free’ lab food will save the planet is simply a continuation of the same mechanistic mindset which has brought us to where we are today – the idea that we are separate from and outside of nature… it is the basis of industrial agriculture which has destroyed the planet, farmers livelihoods and our health.”

She adds:

“Turning ‘water into food’ is an echo from the times of the second world war, when it was claimed that fossil-fuel-based chemical fertilisers would produce ‘Bread from Air’. Instead we have dead zones in the ocean, greenhouse gases – including nitrous oxide which is 300 times more damaging to the environment than CO2 – and desertified soils and land. We are part of nature, not separate from and outside of nature. Food is what connects us to the earth, its diverse beings, including the forests around us — through the trillions of microorganisms that are in our gut microbiome and which keep our bodies healthy, both inside and out.”

As an environmentalist, Monbiot supports lab-based food because he only sees a distorted method of industrial farming; he is blind to agroecological methods which do not have the disastrous environmental consequences of chemical-dependent industrial agriculture. Monbiot’s ‘solution’ is to replace one model of corporate controlled farming with another, thereby robbing us of our connection to the land, to each other and making us wholly dependent on profiteering, unscrupulous interests that have no time for concepts like food democracy or food sovereignty.

Moreover, certain lab-engineered ‘food’ will require biomatter in the form of commodity crops. This in itself raises issues related to the colonisation of land in faraway countries and the implications for food security there. We may look no further to see the adverse health, social and environmental impacts of pesticide-dependent GMO seed monocropping in Argentina as it produces soy for the global market, not least for animal feed in Europe.

Instead of pandering to the needs of corporations, prominent commentators would do better by getting behind initiatives like the anti-imperialist Declaration of the International Forum for Agroecology, produced by Nyeleni in 2015. It argues for building grass-root local food systems that create new rural-urban links, based on genuine agroecological food production. It adds that agroecology requires local producers and communities to challenge and transform structures of power in society, not least by putting the control of seeds, biodiversity, land and territories, waters, knowledge, culture and the commons in the hands of those who feed the world.

It would mean that what ends up in our food and how it is grown is determined by the public good and not powerful private interests driven by patents, control and commercial gain and the compulsion to subjugate farmers, consumers and entire regions to their global supply chains and questionable products (whether unhealthy food or proprietary pesticides and seeds). For consumers, the public good includes more diverse diets leading to better nutrition and enhanced immunity when faced with any future pandemic.

Across the world, decentralised, regional and local community-owned food systems based on short(er) food supply chains that can cope with future shocks are now needed more than ever. But there are major obstacles given the power of agrifood concerns whose business models are based on industrial farming and global chains with all the devastating consequences this entails.

Following the devastation caused by coronavirus-related lockdowns, World Bank Group President David Malpass has stated that poorer countries will be ‘helped’ to get back on their feet – on the condition that further neoliberal reforms and the undermining of public services are implemented and become further embedded.

He says that countries will need to implement structural reforms to help shorten the time to recovery and create confidence that the recovery can be strong:

“For those countries that have excessive regulations, subsidies, licensing regimes, trade protection or litigiousness as obstacles, we will work with them to foster markets, choice and faster growth prospects during the recovery.”

For agriculture, this means the further opening of markets to benefit the richer nations. What journalists like George Monbiot fail to acknowledge is that emerging technology in agriculture (AI drones, gene-edited crops, synthetic food, etc) is first and foremost an instrument of corporate power. Indeed, agriculture has for a long time been central to US foreign policy to boost the bottom line of its agribusiness interests and their control over the global food chain.

In the words of economics professor Michael Hudson:

“It is by agriculture and control of the food supply that American diplomacy has been able to control most of the Third World. The World Bank’s geopolitical lending strategy has been to turn countries into food deficit areas by convincing them to grow cash crops – plantation export crops – not to feed themselves with their own food crops.”

It is naïve to suggest that in the brave new world of farmerless farms and lab-based food, things would be different. In the face of economic crisis and stagnation at home, exacerbated by COVID lockdowns and restrictions, whether through new technologies or older Green Revolution methods, Western agricapital will seek to further entrench its position across the globe.

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Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.

Nitrous oxide from agriculture and other sources is accumulating in the atmosphere so quickly it puts Earth on track for a dangerous 3℃ warming this century, our new research has found.

Each year, more than 100 million tonnes of nitrogen are spread on crops in the form of synthetic fertiliser. The same amount again is put onto pastures and crops in manure from livestock.

This colossal amount of nitrogen makes crops and pastures grow more abundantly. But it also releases nitrous oxide (N₂O), a greenhouse gas.

Agriculture is the main cause of the increasing concentrations, and is likely to remain so this century. N₂O emissions from agriculture and industry can be reduced, and we must take urgent action if we hope to stabilise Earth’s climate.

2000 years of atmospheric nitrous oxide concentrations. Observations taken from ice cores and atmosphere. Source: BoM/CSIRO/AAD.

Where does nitrous oxide come from?

We found that N₂O emissions from natural sources, such as soils and oceans, have not changed much in recent decades. But emissions from human sources have increased rapidly.

Atmospheric concentrations of N₂O reached 331 parts per billion in 2018, 22% above levels around the year 1750, before the industrial era began.

Agriculture caused almost 70% of global N₂O emissions in the decade to 2016. The emissions are created through microbial processes in soils. The use of nitrogen in synthetic fertilisers and manure is a key driver of this process.

Other human sources of N₂O include the chemical industry, waste water and the burning of fossil fuels.

N₂O is destroyed in the upper atmosphere, primarily by solar radiation. But humans are emitting N₂O faster than it’s being destroyed, so it’s accumulating in the atmosphere.

N₂O both depletes the ozone layer and contributes to global warming.

As a greenhouse gas, N₂O has 300 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and stays in the atmosphere for an average 116 years. It’s the third most important greenhouse gas after CO₂ (which lasts up to thousands of years in the atmosphere) and methane.

N₂O depletes the ozone layer when it interacts with ozone gas in the stratosphere. Other ozone-depleting substances, such as chemicals containing chlorine and bromine, have been banned under the United Nations Montreal Protocol. N₂O is not banned under the protocol, although the Paris Agreement seeks to reduce its concentrations.

Reducing fertiliser use on farms is critical to reducing N₂O emissions. Shutterstock

What we found

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has developed scenarios for the future, outlining the different pathways the world could take on emission reduction by 2100. Our research found N₂O concentrations have begun to exceed the levels predicted across all scenarios.

The current concentrations are in line with a global average temperature increase of well above 3℃ this century.

We found that global human-caused N₂O emissions have grown by 30% over the past three decades. Emissions from agriculture mostly came from synthetic nitrogen fertiliser used in East Asia, Europe, South Asia and North America. Emissions from Africa and South America are dominated by emissions from livestock manure.

In terms of emissions growth, the highest contributions come from emerging economies – particularly Brazil, China, and India – where crop production and livestock numbers have increased rapidly in recent decades.

N₂O emissions from Australia have been stable over the past decade. Increase in emissions from agriculture and waste have been offset by a decline in emissions from industry and fossil fuels.

Regional changes in N₂O emissions from human activities, from 1980 to 2016, in million tons of nitrogen per year. Data from: Tian et al. 2020, Nature. Source: Global Carbon Project & International Nitrogen Initiative.

What to do?

N₂O must be part of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and there is already work being done. Since the late 1990s, for example, efforts to reduce emissions from the chemicals industry have been successful, particularly in the production of nylon, in the United States, Europe and Japan.

Reducing emissions from agriculture is more difficult – food production must be maintained and there is no simple alternative to nitrogen fertilisers. But some options do exist.

In Europe over the past two decades, N₂O emissions have fallen as agricultural productivity increased. This was largely achieved through government policies to reduce pollution in waterways and drinking water, which encouraged more efficient fertiliser use.

Other ways to reduce N₂O emissions from agriculture include:

• better management of animal manure
• applying fertiliser in a way that better matches the needs of growing plants
• alternating crops to include those that produce their own nitrogen, such as legumes, to reduce the need for fertiliser
• enhanced efficiency fertilisers that lower N₂O production.

Global nitrous oxide budget 2007-16. Adopted from Tian et al. 2020. Nature. Source: Global Carbon Project & International Nitrogen Initiative.

Getting to net-zero emissions

Stopping the overuse of nitrogen fertilisers is not just good for the climate. It can also reduce water pollution and increase farm profitability.

Even with the right agricultural policies and actions, synthetic and manure fertilisers will be needed. To bring the sector to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, as needed to stabilise the climate, new technologies will be required.

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Authors:

Pep Canadell, Chief research scientist, Climate Science Centre, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere; and Executive Director, Global Carbon Project, CSIRO

Eric Davidson, Director, Appalachian Laboratory and Professor, University of Maryland, Baltimore

Glen Peters, Research Director, Center for International Climate and Environment Research – Oslo

Hanqin Tian, Director, International Center for Climate and Global Change Research, Auburn University

Michael Prather, Distinguished Professor of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine

Paul Krummel, Research Group Leader, CSIRO

Rob Jackson, Professor, Department of Earth System Science, and Chair of the Global Carbon Project, Stanford University

Rona Thompson, Senior scientist, Norwegian Institute for Air Research

Wilfried Winiwarter, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

Featured image is from Shutterstock

Calendar year 2020 was an extreme and abnormal year, in so many ways. The global coronavirus pandemic altered people’s lives around the world, as did extreme weather and climate events. Let’s review the year’s top 10 such events.

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1. Hottest year on record?

The official rankings will not be released until January 14, but according to NASA, Earth’s average surface temperature in 2020 is likely to tie with 2016 for the hottest year on record, making the last seven years the seven hottest on record.

Remarkably, the record warmth of 2020 occurred during a minimum in the solar cycle and in a year in which a moderate La Niña event formed. Surface cooling of the tropical Pacific during La Niña events typically causes a slight global cool-down, as does the minimum of the solar cycle, making it difficult to set all-time heat records. The record heat of 2020 in these circumstances is a demonstration of how powerful human causes of global warming have become.

Figure 1. The eye of category 5 Hurricane Iota on November 16, the strongest hurricane of the 2020 season, as seen by the Sentinel-2 satellite. (Image credit: Pierre Markuse)

2. The wild 2020 Atlantic hurricane season

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season produced an extraordinary 30 named storms (highest on record), 13 hurricanes (second-highest on record), and six major hurricanes (tied for second-highest on record): more than double the activity of an average season (12 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes).

The 2020 season was notable not only for its record number of named storms (after breaking into the Greek alphabet by the ridiculously early date of September 18), but also for its record number of rapidly intensifying storms (10), record number of landfalling U.S. named storms (12), and record number of landfalling U.S. hurricanes (six). Every single mile of the mainland U.S. coast from Texas to Maine was under a watch or warning related to tropical cyclones at some point in 2020. U.S. hurricane damage exceeded $37 billion, according to insurance broker Aon, the eighth-highest annual total on record.

Two catastrophic category 4 hurricanes hit Central America in November: Hurricane Iota, the latest category 5 storm ever recorded in the Atlantic, and Hurricane Eta, the deadliest tropical cyclone worldwide in 2020, with at least 274 people listed as dead or missing. At least seven hurricanes from 2020 will be worthy of having their names retired: Iota, Eta, Zeta, Delta, Sally, Laura, and Isaias – although there is still no official mechanism for retiring storm names from the Greek alphabet. The record for most names retired in one Atlantic season was set in 2005, when five hurricanes had their names retired.

Figure 2. Global energy-related emissions (top) and annual change (bottom) in gigatons of carbon dioxide, with projected 2020 levels highlighted in red. Other major events are indicated to a give a sense of scale. (Image credit: Carbon Brief, using data from the Global Energy Review)

3. Record-high atmospheric carbon dioxide levels despite record emissions drop

As a result of restrictions taken to curb the coronavirus pandemic, carbon emissions to the atmosphere in 2020 declined by 9 to 10% in the U.S. and 6 to 7% globally, although some of those reductions were offset by carbon released by wildfires. Those are the largest annual carbon emissions declines since World War II and far more than the 1% global and 6% U.S. emissions drops brought about by the 2008 Great Recession.

Nevertheless, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose by 2.6 parts per million from 2019 to 414 ppm in 2020. The amount of carbon in the atmosphere will not decline until human emissions reach net zero. Moreover, as coronavirus restrictions were lifted during 2020, global carbon pollution nearly rebounded to pre-COVID levels.

Figure 3. A wildfire in the Sakha Republic, Arctic Circle, Siberia, Russia creates smoke and pyrocumulus clouds on July 9, 2020. A record heat wave in Siberia during June led to the Arctic’s first-ever 38.0°C (100.4°F) temperature and helped drive the Arctic’s worst wildfire season on record. (Image credit: Copernicus Sentinel data via Pierre Markuse)

4. An apocalyptic wildfire season

The year 2020 brought record levels of fire activity to the U.S. and Arctic, but unusually low levels in Canada and tropical Africa, resulting in a below-average year for global fire activity, according to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. According to Insurance broker Aon, the global direct cost of wildfires in 2020 was $17 billion, ranking as the fifth-costliest wildfire year, behind 2017, 2018, 2015 (major Indonesian fires), and 2010 (major Russian fires).

The Australian bushfire season ending in early 2020 (due to seasons in the Southern hemisphere being the reverse of those in the Northern hemisphere) was also a record-breaker, having burned more than 46 million acres and destroyed more than 3,500 homes.

The National Interagency Fire Center reported that U.S. wildfires burned 10.25 million acres as of December 18, 2020, the highest yearly total since accurate records began in 1983. The previous record was 10.13 million acres in 2015. The hottest August through October period in Western U.S. history, combined with severe drought and a once-in-a-generation offshore wind event, conspired to bring about an apocalyptic western U.S. wildfire season. Total U.S. wildfire damages in 2020 were $16.5 billion, said Aon, ranking as its third-costliest year on record, behind 2017 ($24 billion) and 2018 ($22 billion). Wildfires caused at least 43 direct U.S. deaths. But the indirect death toll among people 65 and older in California alone during the period August 1-September 10 – due to wildfire smoke inhalation – was likely between 1,200 and 3,000, researchers at Stanford University reported in a September 11 study. The 4.2 million acres burned in California in 2020 was more than double the previous record set in 2018.

5. Super Typhoon Goni: Strongest landfalling tropical cyclone on record

Super Typhoon Goni made landfall near Bato, Catanduanes Island, Philippines, on November 1 with sustained winds of 195 mph and a central pressure of 884 mb, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, or JTWC. Goni was the strongest landfalling tropical cyclone in world recorded history, using one-minute average wind speeds from the National Hurricane Center for the Atlantic/Northeast Pacific and one-minute average winds from JTWC for the rest of the planet’s ocean basins.

Goni killed 31 people, damaged or destroyed 250,000 homes, and caused over $1 billion in damage, tying it with Typhoon Bopha in 2012 and Typhoon Vamco in 2020 as the Philippines’ second-most expensive typhoon on record, adjusted for inflation. Only Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 ($11.1 billion) was more damaging.

Ominously, seven of the 10 strongest landfalls in recorded history have occurred since 2006.

Figure 4. The temperature measurement enclosure at the Furnace Creek Visitor’s Center in Death Valley, California, on August 17, 2020, when the site recorded a maximum temperature of 127 degrees Fahrenheit (52.8°C). The previous day, the site reported a preliminary world record for hottest reliably measured temperature on record: 129.9 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4°C). (Image credit: Climatologist William Reid, who is holding up the hand-held temperature sensor)

6. Hottest reliably measured temperature: 130°F in Death Valley

Death Valley, California, hit an astonishing 129.9 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4°C) at 3:41 p.m. PDT, August 16, 2020, at the Furnace Creek Visitor’s Center. This reading was rounded to 130 degrees Fahrenheit in the daily summary from NOAA. According to weather records experts Christopher Burt, who wrote the comprehensive weather records book “Extreme Weather,” and Maximiliano Herrera, who tweets under the Twitter handle, Extreme Temperatures Around the World, the observation may be the hottest reliably recorded temperature in world history, breaking the 129.2 degrees Fahrenheit readings at Death Valley in 2013 and in Kuwait in 2016.

The World Meteorological Organization is conducting a review of the site’s observing equipment. “If the observation passes an investigation (instrument calibration, etc.) then, yes, this is a new reliably measured global extreme heat record,” Burt wrote by email. However, the official world record will remain a 134 degrees Fahrenheit measurement taken at Death Valley on July 10, 1913, a record widely viewed as bogus.

7. Most expensive 2020 disaster: Flooding in China causes $32 billion in damage

Seasonal monsoon flooding in China in June through September killed 278 people, damaged or destroyed 1.4 million homes and businesses, and did $32 billion in damage, according to insurance broker Aon. EM-DAT, the international disaster database, ranks that total as the third-most expensive non-U.S. weather disaster since accurate records began in 1990 (adjusted for inflation), behind 1998 flooding in China ($48 billion) and 2011 flooding in Thailand ($47 billion).

In a September 2020 study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, “Each 0.5°C of Warming Increases Annual Flood Losses in China by More than US$60 Billion,” researchers found that annual average flood losses in China during the period 1984-2018 were $19.2 billion (2015 dollars), which was 0.5% of China’s GDP. Annual flood losses increased to $25.3 billion annually during the period 2006-2018. The study authors predicted that each additional 0.5 degrees Celsius of global warming will increase China flood losses by $60 billion per year.

Figure 5. Arctic sea ice age near the time of the annual minimum in 1985 (left) and in 2020 (right). There is very little old, thick ice left in the Arctic, increasing the chances of a late-summer ice-free Arctic by the 2030s. (Image credit: Zack Labe)

8. Near-record low Arctic sea ice

Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum on September 15, 2020, bottoming out at its second-lowest extent and volume ever recorded, behind 2012. A new study suggests that the 2012 record hasn’t been broken despite ever-rising temperatures because the rapidly-warming Arctic has altered the jet stream, leading to cloudy summer Arctic conditions that have acted to temporarily preserve some of the sea ice. However, long-term global warming will inevitably win out, and scientists expect the Arctic to be ice-free in the summer beginning sometime between 2030 and 2050. Overall, three-quarters of the volume of summer sea ice in the Arctic has melted over the past 40 years.

The Northern Sea Route along the northern coast of Russia finally froze shut on November 3, after being open a record 112 days, and 2020 was the busiest shipping season ever for natural gas tankers in the Arctic, according to Bloomberg.

9. U.S. withdrawal from Paris Climate Accord and election of Joe Biden

The U.S. officially withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement the day after the November 3, 2020 election. But Joe Biden, who won that presidential election, has announced his intent to immediately rejoin the Paris agreement on the day of his inauguration: January 20, 2021.

President-elect Biden considers tackling climate change a top priority and has proposed a plan to invest $2 trillion over four years in deploying climate solutions. He has assembled a team tasked with carrying out that plan, including several climate-focused cabinet member-nominees and the first national adviser on climate change.

It’s a dramatic change from the previous administration’s record of climate and environmental protection rollbacks.

10. A near-record number of global billion-dollar weather disasters

Through the end of November, 44 billion-dollar weather disasters had occurred globally in 2020, according to the November 2020 Catastrophe Report from insurance broker Aon. The record in the Aon database is 47, set in 2010, and 2020 could challenge that record when the final tallies are announced on January 25, 2021.

The United States suffered 25 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2020, surpassing Aon’s previous U.S. record of 20 in 2017. The record number of U.S. disasters led to the American Red Cross’s providing record levels of disaster sheltering in 2020, according to a December 2 article by E&E News.

An October 13 report by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction found a “staggering” rise in climate-related disasters, including extreme weather events: those nearly doubled, from 3,656 in 1980-1999 to 6,681 in 2000-2019. The number of major floods more than doubled, from 1,389 to 3,254, and the incidence of destructive storms increased from 1,457 to 2,034.

The report blamed human-caused climate change as a significant factor in the increased disasters. It warned: “It is baffling that we willingly and knowingly continue to sow the seeds of our own destruction, despite the science and evidence that we are turning our only home into an uninhabitable hell for millions of people.” The U.N. report authors called attention to “industrial nations that are failing miserably on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to levels commensurate with the desired goal of keeping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius as set out in the Paris Agreement.”

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Featured image is from CIRA/RAM

This article was originally published in June 2020 by Mongabay.

Primary forests in the tropics are declining at an accelerating rate according to analysis of satellite data released last week by the University of Maryland (UMD) and World Resources Institute (WRI). Since 2002, the tropics lost more than 60 million hectares of primary forests, an area larger than the combined land mass of the states of California and Missouri or the island nation of Madagascar.

The new data confirms that primary forest loss in the 2010s was nearly 30 percent higher than the 2000s despite global efforts to curb deforestation by creating mechanisms for producing tropical commodities more sustainably, helping indigenous peoples secure land rights, expanding protected areas, and improving forest monitoring. Average annual primary forest loss in the last five years (4.3 million ha from 2015-2019) of the study period was nearly 50 percent higher than the first five years (2.9 million ha 2010-2014). That rise however may not fully reflect the extent of the damage at the end of the decade: forest loss from fires that burned in the Amazon and Indonesia during the latter part of 2019 may not show up in the data until the following year due to cloud cover.

This post’s primary function is to provide some charts highlighting some of the key primary forest trends in the new data set. For additional context on tropical deforestation, trends in rainforests over the past 20 years, and the new UMD/WRI data presented on Global Forest Watch, please see:

• Tropical forests’ lost decade: the 2010s
• 2019: The year rainforests burned
• New data show world lost a Switzerland-size area of primary rainforest in 2019

Deforestation in Indonesian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.

Global tree cover loss

Global tree cover loss, which encompasses primary forest loss as well as clearing of secondary forests and cyclical harvesting of tree plantations, rose: from an average of 17.1 million hectares a year in the 2000s to 23.1 million in the 2010s. This increase reflects both deforestation in natural forests and activity within an expanding area of plantations, the bulk of which are in Asia, Europe, and North America.

Annual tree cover loss between 2001-19. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.

Total tree cover loss between 2001 and 2019. Note: tree cover loss does not represent deforestation since it also includes cyclical harvesting of existing forestry plantations. It also excludes forest cover gain through natural recovery, afforestation, and replanting plantations. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.Annual tree cover loss between 2001-19. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.

Trends in primary forests at the country level

Primary tropical forests are among the world’s most carbon-dense and wildlife-rich terrestrial ecosystems. Scientists therefore see their destruction as disproportionately damaging in terms of biodiversity loss and carbon emissions. In some years, emissions from destruction and degradation of tropical forests and peatlands may exceed the combined emissions of the entire transportation sector.

Tropical primary forest loss was greatest in the three countries with the largest extent of tropical forests: Brazil (24.5 million hectares), Indonesia (9.5 million ha), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (4.8 million hectares). Paraguay and Cambodia lost more than 28% of their primary forests since 2002.

Highest extent of primary forest cover between 2001 and 2019. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.

Highest percentage of primary forest cover loss between 2001 and 2019. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.

Trends in tropical forests at regional levels

Deforestation is trending upward in the world’s two largest rainforests, the Amazonand the Congo. More details on deforestation in specific Amazon countries can be found here.

Annual tree cover loss and primary forest loss in the Amazon rainforest between 2002-19. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.

Tree cover and primary forest cover in the Amazon rainforest by country. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.

The state of tropical forest cover in 2020. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.

Trends in primary forests at sub-national levels

Ten sub-national jurisdictions accounted for nearly half of tropical primary forest loss between 2002 and 2019. The top four slots were states in Brazil: Pará, Mato Grosso, Rondônia, and Amazonas, while provinces in Indonesia occupied four of the other places among the top ten.

On a percentage basis, among states, provinces, and departments with more than 35,000 hectares of tree cover in 2010, no jurisdiction lost more primary forest than Riau, Indonesia where large swathes of rainforest and peat forest have been converted to acacia and oil palm plantations over the past twenty years. Five provinces in Cambodia lost more than 10% of their primary forests.

Largest share of primary forest loss between 2002-19 in provinces and states with more than 5,000 hectares of such loss during the period. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.

Largest extent of primary forest loss between 2002-19 in provinces and states. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.

Share of primary forest loss in the tropics between 2002-19 by subnational jurisdiction. Analysis by Mongabay using Hansen / WRI 2020.

Further context

Mongabay’s decade in review — published in December 2019 — summarizes the 2010s for tropical forests:

The 2010s opened as a moment of optimism for tropical forests. Widely available satellite imagery via platforms like Google Earth brought new levels of accountability which, for the first time, meant the world couldn’t use ignorance as an excuse for not addressing the destruction of tropical forests. Deforestation in Earth’s largest rainforest — the Brazilian Amazon — was in the midst of a historic plunge, while governments around the world were pledging billions of dollars in new money toward a mechanism to compensate tropical countries for protecting their forests. Several countries closed out the decade with important new conservation initiatives, while activists, empowered with a new set of tools, pushed the private sector to begin adopting a new type of sustainability commitment: the zero deforestation policy for commodity production and sourcing. Some of the largest consumer-facing companies adopted these forest-friendly policies with near-term implementation targets. The world looked like it was on track to significantly reduce tropical deforestation by 2020.By the end of the 2019, however, it was clear that progress on protecting tropical forests stalled in the 2010s. On the climate front, a decade of science has mostly confirmed what we already knew 10 years ago: Tropical forests are deeply threatened by the current pace of climate change. Combined with ongoing deforestation, degradation, and fragmentation, the outlook for some of the planet’s largest forests, from the Amazon to Indonesia, is increasingly bleak.The 2010s were also marked by mixed progress for tropical forest conservation. Advances in remote sensing were undercut by backsliding on corporate and government commitments to protect forests. Gains in new protected areas were partially offset by a trend toward protected area downgrading, downsizing and degazettement (PADDD) in countries from Brazil to Indonesia. Efforts to recognize the value of healthy and productive natural forests were confronted with the challenging realities of implementation, public indifference and the punishing economics of rising demand for food, fiber and fuel in the context of unaccounted costs of environmental externalities. Political leaders in several important tropical forest countries turned a blind eye to — or in some cases even actively encouraged — threats against environmental defenders and the free press, contributing to hundreds of murders and assassinations of activists, indigenous leaders and journalists.The 2010s closed with rising deforestation and increased incidence of fire in tropical forests. According to the U.N., in 2015, global forest cover fell below four billion hectares (10 billion acres) for the first time in modern human history.

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Featured image: IBAMA operation against illegal loggers in the Brazilian Amazon, courtesy of IBAMA.

Australia’s Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, said little in the statement from her department, which was a good thing, as it might have been dangerously useful.  The finding of a UK court on whether Julian Assange would be extradited to the United States was made “on the grounds of his mental health and consequent suicide risk.”  She does not care to mention the actual details of the case, the fact that the decision by District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, while blocking the extradition, was nastily focused against journalism.

Payne insists on objective distance from the proceedings.  “Australia is not a party to the case and will continue to respect the ongoing legal process, including the UK justice system’s consideration of applications for release, or any appeals.”  Superficial regard for due process is thereby preserved and acknowledged.

What follows from the statement is a cover excusing the feeble efforts by Australian governments over the years of all stripes to assist Assange in his monumental battle against the US imperium and the proxy torments inflicted by Britain and Sweden.  “We have made 19 offers of consular assistance to Mr Assange since 2019 that have gone unanswered.  We will continue to offer consular support.”

Such a statement sticks to the steady line that Australian officials have always been there, always ready and eager to assist a citizen beleaguered, persecuted and haunted by the agencies and instruments of an ally.  But the position is sacredly supine: do not rock the alliance with either the US or the UK; do not disturb the good offices of Washington or raise hackles in Downing Street.

In the past, Australia, with a few dubious exceptions, has shown scant regard to shielding citizens in a monumental pickle, especially those accused of grave crimes of a political nature.  The Howard government’s lamentable response to David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, both accused of terrorism offences by the US in the misnamed global war on terror, has been documented.  Hicks found himself facing that most dubious of legal experiments with cheery Australian approval: US military commissions established by the administration of George W. Bush.

When the US Supreme Court struck down the legality of the commissions in Hamdan v Rumsfeld (2006) for violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949, then Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer remained unmoved.  “Prior to that the military commission process had been upheld by other courts including the US court of appeals, so it had been, until it went to the Supreme Court, a process that was upheld by American civil courts.”

Hardly the sharpest legal analysis ever offered, and one leaving Australian officials flatfooted in their treatment of an Australian citizen.  “Our advice has been, as had the American Government’s advice had been, that it was lawful,” explained a less than contrite Prime Minister John Howard.  “Now, the court has said no, well, we accept that – you get advice and you act on it.”

The case with Assange is no less dire.  When President Barack Obama’s Vice President and soon to be US President Joe Biden was asked about the release of US State Department cables by WikiLeaks in 2010, the response was unequivocal: Assange was a species of “hi-tech terrorist”.  Republican Rep. Peter King of New York insisted that he be charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 (corks must have popped at the release of the Department of Justice indictment doing just that) and WikiLeaks designated a terrorist organisation. Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton merrily floated the idea of using a drone against Assange that same year, though claimed not to recall doing so in 2016.  “It would have been a joke, if it had been said, but I don’t recall that.”

Rather than defend an Australian national against the positively homicidal and kidnapping disposition of US politicians and agencies, Canberra has been generally reticent, hiding behind the fiction of due process.  In some cases, Australian officials have gone so far as to level their own accusations against the Australian national, hinting that Assange might deserve trial and incarceration.  Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard stumbled into a trap of her own making in asserting in 2012 that it was an “illegal act” to leak documents to WikiLeaks.  “It would not happen, information would not be on WikiLeaks, if there had not been an illegal act undertaken.”

Unfortunately for Gillard, she had not reckoned with the corrective assessment of opposition legal affairs spokesman George Brandis.  Gillard, he said reproachfully, had been “clumsy” in her use of language.  “As far as I can see he (Mr Assange) hasn’t broken any Australian law.”  Shadow Foreign Minister Julie Bishop similarly pointed out that Gillard was unable to identify “any Australian law that Mr Assange has broken.  Nor has she apologised for pre-judging him in that way and making that prejudicial statement.”

In 2012, when he was Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr also waffled in accusation, casting a spear at Assange for releasing “secrets… for the sake of being released without inherent justification.”  In doing so, he threw in his lot with those who considered the release by WikiLeaks to be nothing like the Pentagon Papers, that jewel of exposure released by US Defence Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg.  The WikiLeaks exposures were “not like Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers which revealed huge American deception, huge deception by the American government of the American public.”

This was horrendously off the mark, not least given the assessment by Ellsberg himself since 2010 and at Assange’s extradition trial.  In December 2010, Ellsberg released a co-signed statement remarking that, “Every attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.”  In giving his testimony as a defence witness for Assange in September 2020, he further argued that his “own actions in relation to the Pentagon Papers and the consequences of their publication have been acknowledged to have performed such a radical change of understanding.  I view the WikiLeaks publications of 2010 and 2011 to be of comparable importance.”

Carr was also irritated by those nuisance accusations that Assange had not received sufficient consular assistance.  In his diary entry of June 2, 2012, he notes being, “Fed up with complaints from [Assange’s] family suggesting he hasn’t been supported by Australia and the opposition spokesperson saying the same thing”.  Disingenuous to a fault, Carr made the adventurous suggestionat a press conference that the WikiLeaks publisher “has had more consular support in a comparable time than any other Australian.  Strictly speaking, I don’t know whether this is the case.”

Carr has since undergone the sort of transformation that the Czech dissident playwright Václav Havel found inherent in politics.  The very nature of the practice – one can hardly call it a discipline – produces a divorce between truth and the human being.  When it is convenient, these might meet, human might and solidarity marshalled behind verity.  Carr, for a time, found it inconvenient to consider the truth of Assange’s situation. Now, he has become Assange’s late-to-the party standard-bearer and defender.  His extradition to the US, argues the converted Carr, “would set an ugly precedent.”

In the aftermath of the court decision, Carr suggested on Twitter that Australia was “entitled to tell Trump in his last days that Assange is one of us and his extradition is wrong.  He exposed US war crimes exactly like our own in Afghanistan which we are prosecuting.”  He also had words for Payne: raise the matter of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in forceful and proud fashion to defend an Australian case. “Or does your view of the [US-Australian] alliance mean you never do that?”  Havel would have rolled his eyes.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from 21st Century Wire

“In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. [Y]ou can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization…filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort … to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love… What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.”—Robert F. Kennedy on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

This is what we have been reduced to: A violent mob. A nation on the brink of martial law. A populace under house arrest. A techno-corporate state wielding its power to immobilize huge swaths of the country. And a Constitution in tatters.

We are imploding on multiple fronts, all at once.

This is what happens when ego, greed and power are allowed to take precedence over liberty, equality and justice.

Just to be clear, however: this is not a revolution.

This is a ticking time bomb.

There is absolutely no excuse for the violence that took place at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Yet no matter which way you look at it, the fallout from this attempted coup could make this worrisome state of affairs even worse.

First, you’ve got the president, who has been accused of inciting a riot and now faces a second impeachment and a scandal that could permanently mar his legacy. While the impeachment process itself is a political beast, the question of whether President Trump incited his followers to riot is one that has even the best legal experts debating. Yet as First Amendment scholar David Hudson Jr. explains, for Trump’s rhetoric to be stripped of its free speech protections, “The speaker must intend to and actually use words that rally people to take illegal action. The danger must be imminent—not in the indefinite future. And the words must be uttered in a situation in which violence is likely to happen.”

At a minimum, Trump’s actions and words—unstatesmanlike and reckless, by any standards—over the course of his presidency and on Jan. 6 helped cause a simmering pot to boil over.

Second, there were the so-called “patriots” who took to the streets because the jailer of their choice didn’t get chosen to knock heads for another four years. Those “Stop the Steal” protesters may have deluded themselves (or been deluded) into believing they were standing for freedom when they stormed the Capitol. However, all they really did was give the Deep State and its corporate partners a chance to pull back the curtain and reveal how little freedom we really have. There is nothing that can be said to justify the actions of those who, armed with metal pipes, chemical irritants, stun guns, and other types of weapons, assaulted and stampeded those in their path.

There are limits to what can be done in the so-called name of liberty, and this level of violence—no matter who wields it or what brand of politics or zealotry motivate them—crossed the line.

Third, you’ve got the tech giants, who meted out their own version of social justice by way of digital tyranny and corporate censorship. Yet there can be no freedom of speech if social media giants can muzzle whomever they want, whenever they want, on whatever pretext they want in the absence of any real due process, review or appeal. As Edward Snowden warned, whether it was warranted or not, the social media ban on President Trump signaled a turning point in the battle for control over digital speech. And that is exactly what is playing out as users, including those who have no ties to the Capitol riots, begin to experience lock outs, suspensions and even deletions of their social media accounts.

Remember, the First Amendment is a steam valve. It allows people to peacefully air viewpoints, vent frustrations, debate and disagree, and generally work through the problems of self-governance. Without that safety mechanism in place, self-censorship increases, discontent festers, foment brews, and violence becomes the default response for resolving disputes, whether with the government or each other. At a minimum, we need more robust protections in place to protect digital expression and a formalized process for challenging digital censorship.

Unfortunately, digital censorship is just the beginning. Once you start using social media scores coupled with surveillance capitalism to determine who is worthy enough to be part of society, anything goes. In China, which has been traveling this road for years now, millions of individuals and businesses, blacklisted as “unworthy” based on social media credit scores that grade them based on whether they are “good” citizens, have been banned from accessing financial markets, buying real estate or travelling by air or train.

Fourth, you’ve got the police, who normally exceed the constitutional limits restraining them from brutality, surveillance and other excesses. Only this time, despite intelligence indicating that some of the rioters were planning for mayhem, police were outnumbered and ill prepared to deal with the incursion. Investigations underway suggest that some police may even have colluded with the rioters.

Certainly, the lack of protocols adopted by the Capitol Police bear an unnerving resemblance to the lack of protocols in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, when police who were supposed to uphold the law and prevent violence failed to do either. In fact, as the Washington Post reports, police “seemed to watch as groups beat each other with sticks and bludgeoned one another with shields… At one point, police appeared to retreat and then watch the beatings before eventually moving in to end the free-for-all, make arrests and tend to the injured.” Incredibly, when the first signs of open violence broke out, it was reported that the police chief allegedly instructed his staff to “let them fight, it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.”

There’s a pattern emerging if you pay close enough attention: Instead of restoring order, local police stand down. Without fail, what should be an exercise in how to peacefully disagree turns ugly the moment looting, vandalism, violence, intimidation tactics and rioting are introduced into the equation. Tensions rise, violence escalates, and federal armies move in.

All that was missing on Jan. 6 was a declaration of martial law.

Which brings us to the fifth point, martial law. Given that the nation has been dancing around the fringes of martial law with each national crisis, it won’t take much more to push the country over the edge to a declaration and military lockdown. The rumblings of armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington, D.C., will only serve to heighten tensions, double down on the government’s military response, and light a match to a powder keg state of affairs. With tens of thousands of National Guard troops and federal law enforcement personnel mobilized to lock down Washington, DC, in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots and in advance of the Jan. 20 inauguration, this could be the largest military show-of-force in recent years.

So where do we go from here?

That all of these events are coming to a head around Martin Luther King Jr. Day is telling.

More than 50 years after King was assassinated, America has become a ticking time bomb of racial unrest and injustice, police militarization, surveillance, government corruption and ineptitude, the blowback from a battlefield mindset and endless wars abroad, and a growing economic inequality between the haves and have nots

Making matters worse, modern America has compounded the evils of racism, materialism and militarism with ignorance, intolerance and fear.

Callousness, cruelty, meanness, immorality, ignorance, hatred, intolerance and injustice have become hallmarks of our modern age, magnified by an echo chamber of nasty tweets and government-sanctioned brutality.

“Despite efforts to curb hate speech, eradicate bullying and extend tolerance, a culture of nastiness has metastasized in which meanness is routinely rewarded, and common decency and civility are brushed aside,” observed Teddy Wayne in a New York Times piece on “The Culture of Nastiness.”

Every time I read a news headline or flip on the television or open up an email or glance at social media, I run headlong into people consumed with back-biting, partisan politics, sniping, toxic hate, meanness and materialism. Donald Trump is, in many ways, the embodiment of this culture of meanness. Yet as Wayne points out, “Trump is less enabler in chief than a symptom of a free-for-all environment that prizes cutting smears… Social media has normalized casual cruelty.”

Whether it’s unfriending or blocking someone on Facebook, tweeting taunts and barbs on Twitter, or merely using cyberspace to bully someone or peddle in gossip, we have become masters in the art of meanness.

This culture of meanness has come to characterize many aspects of the nation’s governmental and social policies. “Meanness today is a state of mind,” writes professor Nicolaus Mills in his book The Triumph of Meanness, “the product of a culture of spite and cruelty that has had an enormous impact on us.”

This casual cruelty is made possible by a growing polarization within the populace that emphasizes what divides us—race, religion, economic status, sexuality, ancestry, politics, etc.—rather than what unites us: we are all human.

This is what writer Anna Quindlen refers to as “the politics of exclusion, what might be thought of as the cult of otherness… It divides the country as surely as the Mason-Dixon line once did. And it makes for mean-spirited and punitive politics and social policy.”

This is more than meanness, however.

This is the psychopathic mindset adopted by the architects of the Deep State, and it applies equally whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans.

Beware, because this kind of psychopathology can spread like a virus among the populace.

As an academic study into pathocracy concluded, “[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.”

People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil. To this end, “we the people” have become “we the police state.”

By failing to actively take a stand for good, we become agents of evil. It’s not the person in charge who is solely to blame for the carnage. It’s the populace that looks away from the injustice, that empowers the totalitarian regime, that welcomes the building blocks of tyranny.

This realization hit me full-force a few years ago. I had stopped into a bookstore and was struck by all of the books on Hitler, everywhere I turned. Yet had there been no Hitler, there still would have been a Nazi regime. There still would have been gas chambers and concentration camps and a Holocaust.

Hitler wasn’t the architect of the Holocaust. He was merely the figurehead. Same goes for the American police state: had there been no Trump or Obama or Bush, there still would have been a police state. There still would have been police shootings and private prisons and endless wars and government pathocracy.

Why? Because “we the people” have paved the way for this tyranny to prevail.

By turning Hitler into a super-villain who singlehandedly terrorized the world—not so different from how Trump is often depicted—historians have given Hitler’s accomplices (the German government, the citizens that opted for security and order over liberty, the religious institutions that failed to speak out against evil, the individuals who followed orders even when it meant a death sentence for their fellow citizens) a free pass.

This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.

None of us who remain silent and impassive in the face of evil, racism, extreme materialism, meanness, intolerance, cruelty, injustice and ignorance get a free pass.

Those among us who follow figureheads without question, who turn a blind eye to injustice and turn their backs on need, who march in lockstep with tyrants and bigots, who allow politics to trump principle, who give in to meanness and greed, and who fail to be outraged by the many wrongs being perpetrated in our midst, it is these individuals who must shoulder the blame when the darkness wins.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that,” Martin Luther King Jr. sermonized.

The darkness is winning

It’s not just on the world stage we must worry about the darkness winning

The darkness is winning in our communities. It’s winning in our homes, our neighborhoods, our churches and synagogues, and our government bodies. It’s winning in the hearts of men and women the world over who are embracing hatred over love. It’s winning in every new generation that is being raised to care only for themselves, without any sense of moral or civic duty to stand for freedom.

John F. Kennedy, killed by an assassin’s bullet five years before King would be similarly executed, spoke of a torch that had been “passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Once again, a torch is being passed to a new generation, but this torch is setting the world on fire, burning down the foundations put in place by our ancestors, and igniting all of the ugliest sentiments in our hearts.

This fire is not liberating; it is destroying.

We are teaching our children all the wrong things: we are teaching them to hate, teaching them to worship false idols (materialism, celebrity, technology, politics), teaching them to prize vain pursuits and superficial ideals over kindness, goodness and depth.

We are on the wrong side of the revolution.

“If we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution,” advised King, “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.“

Freedom demands responsibility.

Freedom demands that we stop thinking as Democrats and Republicans and start thinking like human beings, or at the very least, Americans.

Martin Luther King Jr. dared to dream of a world in which all Americans “would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

He didn’t live to see that dream become a reality. It’s still not a reality. We haven’t dared to dream that dream in such a long time.

But imagine…

Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to stand up—united—for freedom…

Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to speak out—with one voice—against injustice…

Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to push back—with the full force of our collective numbers—against the evils of government despotism.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, tyranny wouldn’t stand a chance.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Vox

As of mid-December 2020 the US economy has begun showing increasing signs of an exceptionally weak 4th quarter, October-December, growth. After having collapsed -10.5% in the March-June 2020 period, followed by a partial ‘rebound’ (not sustained recovery) in the 3rd quarter, July-September 2020, the economy is now slowing rapidly once again.

Dismal reports of consumer and especially retail sales in October-November appear driving the slowing growth—in turn driven by rising unemployment claims, a growing number of permanent layoffs by large businesses as the economy structurally changes long term, and, shorter term, by a sharp rise in Covid deaths, infections, and consequent partial shutdown of the services sector of the US economy throughout the US.

This scenario and trends has pushed more economists, mainstream included, to predict an even sharper 1st quarter 2021, contraction in the economy. Even a normally conservative forecast source like JPM Chase Bank’s research has raised the likelihood of a bona fide 2nd contraction of the US economy early next year—i.e. a ‘double dip’ recession, that this writer has been predicting since last March 2020.

The failure of both parties in Congress to pass a fiscal stimulus bill as late as mid-December 2020 has exacerbated the slowing economy and likelihood of a further contraction.

Ranks of Unemployed Rising; Benefits Falling

Latest initial unemployment benefit claims have risen, from the steady 1 million per week through the fall, to 1.28 million in early December, a weekly rise of 28%. As claims rise, a steady million per week have been exhausting their benefits for months. This is about to accelerate greatly, as a large block of 12 million are scheduled to end benefits by the last week of December.

Despite the US Labor Department’s monthly ‘low ball’ estimates of a jobless total of only 10.5 million and 6.7% unemployment rate, more than 20 million without jobs are still collecting unemployment benefits—twice the number the Labor Department and media consistently repeat as total jobless today!

Simultaneously, the ranks of the jobless without benefits, or having exhausted benefits, continues to rise as well. Four million workers have dropped out of the labor force altogether. Another 1-2 million have had to quit, in order to manage their K-6 grade children’s remote education. Millions are ‘furloughed’ at home with hope of at some point returning to work but not yet—a status the Labor Department erroneously calls working, and not unemployed, even though they aren’t being paid by their employers. (An error the Labor Dept. has made since last April, acknowledged it was an error, but has refused to correct nonetheless).

Easily at minimum 25 million American workers today as of December 2020 are jobless, either with or without benefits, not 10.5 million. And the unemployment rate is thus closer to 18%-19%–i.e. not even remotely close to the official, cherry-picked low ball number of 6.7% reported monthly by the Labor Department, which even most mainstream economists now ignore.

The Trump administration allowed the expiration of the supplemental $600/week unemployment benefits for millions of jobless last August. That reduced GDP spending by $65 billion a month (not counting multiplier effects on GDP of roughly 2X that amount). Some of that was restored for 5 weeks with $300 supplement unemployment benefits by Trump Executive Order in August. But the money was funded by reducing other government spending elsewhere, so there was no effective positive impact on total spending. That $65 billion (times 2X) negative spending effect on the US economy continued through December, and has no doubt played a part in the 4th quarter US consumer-retail spending slowdown.

The negative impact of reduced unemployment benefits is about to get much worse, however. The 12 million more that will lose benefits on December 26, 2020 is estimated to reduce household spending by another $150 billion per month (plus multiplier). Should current proposals restore half of that $600/wk., the negative household spending impact will still be $75 billion more in addition to the previous $65 billion reduction since August.

Renters’ Crisis Deepening

The real economy’s actual deteriorating condition is further illustrated by the renter crisis gaining momentum weekly. Of the 43 million total rental units in the US, 11.4 million are behind in their rents, averaging around $5,800 per household, for a total of $70 billion, according to the business research company, Moodys Analytics. As evictions moratorium ends in January 2021 many renters (mostly still unemployed) will not only have to start paying rents once again, but will have to make up the $70B in lost rent payments or still face evictions. Even after having been evicted, landlords will still legally pursue back payments.

The renewal of rent payments by renters, while still jobless, combined with back payments, will have a devastating impact on household spending and consumption in 2021, the latter of which accounts for 68% of all US economic spending and GDP.

Contrary to the media reporting, millions are already undergoing evictions and facing legal orders to repay back rents. The initial rent moratorium passed last March as part of the Cares Act (‘mitigation bill 1.0’) did not cover all renters, as the mainstream media consistently suggests, but covered mostly those whose housing was associated with government aid by the HUD and FHA agencies. States and cities in some cases had initiated local moratoria . But most of those local moratoria expired months ago. Trump’s Executive Order last August 2020 extended rent moratorium on federally supported rent units, but only until end of December 2020.

Issued by the Trump administration’s CDC in September, Trump’s EO for rent moratorium expiration will result in 2.4 to 5 million of renters evicted in January 2021 alone, with millions more per month thereafter, according the Wall St. Journal. Moreover, the Trump EO did not prevent landlords from initiating legal action to evict. Hundreds of thousands of evictions are already in progress and legally proceeding in cities across the US, per the Princeton University Evictions Lab. Most heavily impacted are minority households. A recent survey by the US Census Bureau indicates 32% of black renters and 18% of Hispanic renters were behind on rent payments, and about 12% of white renting households.

Homeowners Mortgages Crisis Brewing

While the picture is not as dire for homeowners as for renters, it too is deteriorating and will be intensifying in 2021.

There are 82 million single homes in the US. 49 million (62%) have mortgages. At present 3.6 million are in forbearance, meaning mortgage payments have been temporarily suspended. Suspended payments will have to resume in 2021, however, much like rent back payments suspended require payment. Like renters, homeowners may have to double up on mortgage payments, in whole or part, commencing 2021. It is estimated that 6.8% of homeowners have missed payments in 2020. That’s 5.5 million of homeowners—i.e. the 3.6 million in forbearance but another 1.9 million not and who have been missing monthly mortgage payments.

The percentages and totals for mortgage payments in arrears may seem less a problem than the renters’ missed payments. But the totals are actually far greater in terms of back money owed: all the deferred and missed mortgage payments amount to $752 billion in back payments that have to be made up. That make up will reduce household spending by another hundreds of billions of dollars in 2021, with further negative impact on US GDP in 2021.

Student Loan Forbearance Ending

Like renters and homeowners, the March 2020 Cares Act permitted suspension and deferral of student loan payments until year end 2020. Also like rent and mortgages, however, that deferral is scheduled to end in 2021. Students will have to make up payments and in effect ‘double down’ on payments in most cases.
The negative impact on ‘doubling down’ and making up lost payments is massive. There are 44.7 million student loans in the US, averaging $36,500. Hundreds of thousands own much more. Many more than $100,000. 35 million of the 44.7 million student loans were in forbearance in 2020 and the deferred principal will have to be repaid. The total principal alone, temporarily deferred, amounts to $777 billion in arrears.

Payroll Tax Deferrals

When Trump and his negotiators abruptly broke off negotiations on the fiscal stimulus bill in August 2020, they issued 4 Executive Orders with 24 hours (thus indicating they had planned to do so from the beginning, after having lured Pelosi-Shumer and the Democrats to reduce their May 2020 $3.2 trillion original stimulus proposal called the Heroes Act by $1 trillion).
Among the Trump four EOs was one that deferred payroll taxes of 6.2% for workers for the rest of 2020. (The other three EOs were the temporary substitution of $300/wk. supplemental unemployment benefits for five weeks; extending student loan forbearance to end of December; and the CDC’s partial extension of rent moratorium for 5 million renters). The EO affecting payroll taxes was clearly unconstitutional. Only Congress could change tax laws. But Trump went ahead anyway with the 6.2% payroll tax deferral. Not all businesses followed suit, however.

Since employers by law are responsible for collective payroll taxes, they knew they were on the hook to repay the deferred 6.2% in 2021. They would have to add 6.2% to their employer share of 6.2% nonetheless in 2020 and then repay that in 2021. That meant doubling up on paying their share and their workers’ share of 6.2% (deferred September to December 2020) starting January 2021.

It could mean paying payroll taxes of twice that 12.4% in 2021, however. Employers were allowed to temporary suspend their 6.2% payroll taxes since March 2020, and starting repaying that deferred amount plus new payroll taxes by end of 2021. Not many wanted to face the prospect of paying double payroll taxes for both themselves, the company, and collecting and paying double for their workers as well—or 24.8% in payroll taxes. So most opted out of the Trump EO and didn’t stop their workers from paying the 6.2% in 2020.

Most large corporations opted out, including GM, UPS, Fedex, Costco, grocery chains, health companies, big Pharma, utilities, and many states as well. Trump forced federal government employees to suspend their payroll tax payments, September-December 2020. Other states and local governments did so as well. Starting January 2021 now many will have to start paying double payroll taxes. That will in turn reduce millions of public employees’ available disposable income for consumption in 2021. And that too will reduce US GDP in 2021.

Small Business Collapsing

Even greater magnitude of potential negative impact on the US economy is the current accelerating closing of many small businesses. There are an estimated 30 million small businesses in the US economy, which include millions of small ‘independent contractors’. Estimates by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the trade organization for small business, are 3.3 million have permanently closed as of November 1, 2020. More than 110,000 restaurants, or every one of six. Hundreds of thousands more restaurants, bars, entertainment, travel, and related service small businesses are likely to close over the coming winter months. The impact on consumption, as well as business spending and unemployment, promises to be significant—and in addition to all the preceding negative effects on the US economy.

What is especially concerning about this scenario is that ever since August 2020 the Trump administration has sat on $135 billion in unspent funds allocated by the March 2020 Cares Act for loans and grants for small businesses assistance. $670 billion total was approved by the Cares Act for the PPP program, as it was called, to provide assistance to small business. Much of that was siphoned off and redirected to larger businesses. Millions of very small businesses received nothing. Despite the need in August, the program was ended in August with $135 billion unspent.

From Stimulus to Mitigation 2.0 Negotiations

What started out as a true economic stimulus bill in the form of the Heroes Act, passed by the US House last May 2020, has by mid-December collapsed into a partial economic ‘mitigation’ bill. Mitigation means just buying time until a true fiscal stimulus can be introduced. Mitigations simply slow down the economic collapse and crisis temporarily, to buy time. True stimulus proposals do just that: generate economic growth that is sustained for months and years to come.

The May 2020 Heroes Act was a true stimulus, proposing $3.2 trillion in new spending across a broad set of programs. It was immediately rejected by McConnell and the Trump administration, both of whom then played ‘hard cop/soft cop’ in negotiations with Democrats over the next six months. In August 2020 Democrat negotiators, Pelosi and Shumer, were lured into reducing their package of Heroes Act spending by $1 Trillion, down to $2.2T, in expectation—signaled by the Trump administration it would similarly respond with a major counteroffer to the Democrats $1 trillion proposal reduction. But they didn’t. Trump’s negotiators, Mnuchin and Meadows, simply walked out of negotiations after Pelosi-Shumer had come down $1 trillion. Meanwhile, McConnell sat back watching the show, holding firm on his no more than $500 billion spending proposal he offered in June.

As the 2020 election grew closer, Trump-Mnuchin offered several new proposals—without any details—to ensure it appeared they were interested in a deal. The latest in October was reportedly as high as $1.8 trillion. It appeared a deal was possible, with the Democrats at $2.2 trillion since August. However, McConnell scuttled the negotiations by making it clear he would not approve more than his $500 billion. Having been burned the previous August, Pelosi and Shumer did not ‘bite’ at the Trump shadow offer, correctly assuming it was pre-election posturing. Had they done so, Trump would have taken credit; no deal would have been reached; and McConnell would have stalled discussions—as he has ever since to the present.

Following the election in November 3, the next development was Mnuchin recalling $455 billion in unused funds from the Federal Reserve given to the central bank the preceding April as part of the Cares Act. That was to be used to help bail out businesses. The Fed did not use much of the Cares Act given it by the US Treasury and Congress, including $135 billion unspent on the small business aid program called the Payroll Protection Program, PPP. That program ended in August, but the Fed held onto the $135 billion, as well as other funds for medium sized and larger businesses and various financial markets. The total unspent came to $455 billion, which Mnuchin then told the Fed to return to the Treasury, which it did. Both Mnuchin and McConnell would use the $455 billion to pay for McConnell’s $500 billion long-standing offer in stimulus negotiations in December.

To attempt to break the bargaining logjam, in December a bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives offered a compromise package of $908 billion. There were no $1200 income checks, only half of unemployment benefits for only 90 days, no aid to state and local governments, and numerous other provisions missing from the Democrats’ $2.2 trillion package on the bargaining table. Nevertheless, McConnell still rejected the $908B compromise. He then cleverly offered to drop his ‘stalking horse’ proposal for business blanket liability if the Democrats dropped their $160 billion in aid to state and local governments.

In the latest iteration of the negotiation charade, the bipartisan group on December 14, 2020 revised their $908B proposal, reducing it to $748 billion by taking out the $160B for state and local government. It split its prior single $908B offer into two parts: one with the state-local government aid and the business liability; the other with all the remaining proposals it had originally offered.

As of mid-December, the proposal on the table by the bipartisan group, accepted in principle by the Democrats but not McConnell, is as follows:

• Unemployment half benefits at $300/wk through March 2021
• PPP small business funding of $300B, now with no need to use to pay workers’ wages
• $45B for airlines & transport businesses (despite airlines with $billions of cash on hand)
• No $1200 checks
• Student loan forbearance continued for 3 more months
• Renter evictions moratorium continued for one month
• $82 billion for education
• $13 billion for emergency food assistance
• $35 billion for health care providers
• $13 billion more for farmers & agribusiness (after receiving $70B since 2019)
• $25 billion rent assistance (payable to landlords)

The important point of the total $748B, however, is that it too is a temporary ‘mitigation’ proposal—not a true stimulus bill.

Like the March 2020 Cares Act, also a mitigation bill, it will only buy a little more time for an economy clearly in a deep slowdown in the 4th quarter and on the brink of another double dip recession in 2021, if one were to agree with Chase bank!

The Cares Act of March was only $1.1 to $1.5 trillion in actual spending—not the $3 trillion mainstream media often noted. $650 billion of $3 trillion was business tax cuts that were mostly hoarded. And more than $1.1 trillion for medium and big business bailouts that didn’t happen by the Fed loans, the funds of which were returned to the Treasury in December. Big businesses were bailed out, but via Fed other $3 trillion plus money injections into the banks and markets—not by the Cares Act.

So the Cares Act was a temporary mitigation bill that ran out of spending by late summer. And the bipartisan group proposal of $748 billion is an even smaller mitigation bill that will run out of funds well before next spring.

There is, and there has been, no fiscal stimulus since the crisis began. Nor is a stimulus on the horizon. More importantly, what this means for the economy is that the lack of a true fiscal stimulus for 2021 means the double dip recession looms ever larger on the horizon now! Unemployed workers, renters and homeowners, student debt, double taxed workers, and small businesses will get another temporary partial assistance. And should the Democrats not win both seats in the Georgia Senate runoff elections on January 5, 2021, McConnell will retain control of the Senate and it will be four more years of ‘No, No, No’ in help to those truly in need. The implications of that for the US economy, and for Democrats in 2022 mid-term elections, is obvious. But that’s the likely intention and game plan of McConnell and the Trumpublicans no doubt.

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Can a Former US President be Impeached and Convicted?

By Stephen Lendman, January 12 2021

Masked Agenda is a dystopian sci-fi short film set after the masks were introduced into society to prevent the spread of the virus.

The vaccine has been found, but is only successful on a few…

Kain is a survivor after escaping being locked down in his cell, but the droids are tracking him and he is on the move to get out of city…

Is this the end of the world ?

Or the start to a new one?

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“We don’t understand how your government gets the media to repeat propaganda without question. In our country we have to tear finger nails out to get this level of co-operation.”(1) (Russian journalists visiting America during the cold war)

Censorship By Omission – The Things That Are Not Discussed Are The Most Important 

“Great is truth, but even greater from a practical point of view is silence about truth” (Aldous Huxley(2))

We can see the outcome of the filtering system discussed in the previous post by looking at coverage of politics overseas. Tyrants in other countries commit serious atrocities, but provided they continue to implement economic policies that the US and Britain like, they receive little criticism. Our politicians regularly criticise governments they want to replace, and the media repeat these criticisms with little challenge. A recent example of this is when the media says that ‘life is terrible in Venezuela, we must do something’, meaning that the US and British governments want to overthrow the government of Venezuela.(3) The mainstream coverage is dumbed-down and superficial. It is based upon unstated assumptions which, if examined, turn out to be untrue. What is missing is context, history, and critical thinking, such as(4)

a) The historical role of wealthy elites, backed by the US, plundering Venezuela’s resources and maintaining inequality and poverty

b) The positive achievements of recent left-wing governments in Venezuela improving living standards for the poor

c) The serious problems caused by US sanctions on Venezuela

d) The track record of murder and torture by right-wing dictators put in place by the US throughout South and Central America

e) A wider discussion of US and British imperialism, their records of violence in the pursuit of control and profits, and the evidence that they have never carried out humanitarian intervention.

More generally, there is no exploration of complex issues, no critical analysis of the true role of our military, no serious critique of the corporate system, and no questioning of the incorrect assumption that our governments and corporations are benign or benevolent. What should be the most important issues in society today are virtually unmentionable in the mainstream press.

This failure to discuss most of the important issues, and the discussion of other topics in a narrow way, is known as censorship-by-omission. It is the main method for keeping us poorly informed. It applies most obviously to coverage of war, which is so sanitised that US and British viewers rarely get to see the true results of our wars.(5) What they see is government propaganda videos of laser-guided bombs hitting their targets. When a single American or British soldier dies, this is worthy of a news report, usually saying how brave they were. There is no mention of the fact that they are trained killers who are dead because they have illegally invaded and occupied someone else’s country, and helped to slaughter huge numbers of innocent people.

The true scale of death and injury, of Iraqis and Afghans, killed by our troops in our wars is not discussed by the mainstream media. If everyone saw the mutilated corpses and horrific injuries of civilians every day, populations would be less likely to believe the lies that create a false justification for war. By not examining the consequences of war in much greater detail, most of the media end up creating the illusion that war is like a video game where our ‘good’ guys fight against someone else’s ‘bad’ guys, and that we should celebrate every time ‘bad’ guys get killed. As critics of the mainstream media have noted, journalists who reinforce the belief that the “world is made up of humanitarian interventionists (us) and monster states (them) are vital cogs in the machinery of state killing”.(6)

The Illusion of Critical Media 

The aim of the mainstream media is to

“limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”(7)

Endless stories about political manoeuvres; who is saying what about whom; and the character of politicians, are not real news. They are peripheral issues and distractions that create the illusion of having in-depth debates in order to avoid talking about the most important issues.

As well as ignoring or limiting the discussions of some topics, the media will exaggerate the importance of other issues. A clear example is the allegation that Russia manipulated the 2016 US election, which was repeated endlessly in the US media.(8) The evidence for this manipulation was extremely weak, and if there was any Russian manipulation, the effect was negligible. On the other hand, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other US organisations, have interfered in 81 foreign elections since 1950.(9) They manipulate elections abroad more than everyone else put together. This is well documented, but the mainstream US and British media never discuss this.

Sometimes the media do mention specific instances of wrongdoing, but in general this will be presented as individuals operating outside the system. There will be little criticism of the system itself. For example, when corporations appear in the news having committed serious fraud, the focus is usually on a single corporation, with little attempt to explain that they have been carrying out activities similar to many other big corporations, and that much of the corporate system now involves criminal, fraudulent, or unethical activity. Similarly, when torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was discussed, the focus was on the low-ranking individuals who were involved.(10) There was little effort to blame the top-level planners who created the policies, and to insist that they should have been prosecuted.

The Mysterious Case of Right and Left-Wing Bias 

These posts describe the media as having pro-establishment, pro-war, pro-corporate or right-wing bias. However, the media is often accused (particularly by the government) of having anti-government or left-wing bias. This is partly explained by governments trying to deflect attention from their crimes, but there are other explanations for this apparent contradiction. Many journalists claim that if they are receiving equal numbers of accusations of left-wing and right-wing bias, they must actually be somewhere in the middle, and the accusations actually reflect the bias of the accuser. This is not true. The terms right-wing and left-wing are being used to mean different things. Most journalists are middle-class white people who tend to favour freedom for individuals on personal matters. The media therefore have a left-wing bias on cultural issues, such as gay marriage. However, those who accuse the media of right-wing bias are talking about foreign and economic policy. The media is uncritical of Britain and the US invading other countries, and uncritical of corporate power, so they have a right-wing bias on these issues.

The Mainstream Media Are Not Unbiased or Impartial 

There are many sources of bias. Most information that supports the US or British governments gets presented without question – it is assumed to be unbiased. This was the case with government propaganda stating that the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, had Weapons of Mass Destruction before the Iraq war, which was not true. On the other hand, if someone criticises the government, they are assumed to be biased, so a government spokesperson is invited to appear on TV to oppose that point of view.

Broadcasters claim that they are providing unbiased coverage if they present the viewpoints of both Republicans and Democrats in the US, or if they present both Conservative and Labour viewpoints in Britain. But prior to Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour Party in 2015, there was often little difference between the two parties in either country on the most important issues, particularly war or corporate power. To genuinely present a balanced discussion, broadcasters would have to invite people saying ‘destroying a nation is a crime, we should not go to war’ onto their shows regularly. If our media were honest, the mainstream government view, which is that the US and Britain have the right to invade or destroy other nations when they pose no threat to us, would be considered insane.

Media coverage in both Britain and the US has been analysed in detail after various wars. The vast majority is pro-war. Only a few voices are critical, and even then only in narrow ways, such as “we did not plan the war carefully enough” or “we did not send enough troops”.(11) There is almost no questioning of the government’s actual motivation – it is always assumed to be good. In one academic study of war reporting, it was found that the BBC was actually more biased in favor of war than any of the other TV stations analysed, including one from the US. Only 2% of the BBC’s coverage was strongly anti-war.(12)

A similar study in the US found that only 3% of US guests on news programs were anti-war.(13) In Britain and the US, the mainstream media promote US-led wars almost unquestioningly. In relation to the invasion of Iraq, most newspapers and TV channels portrayed US President Bush and British Prime Minister Blair as wonderful leaders trying to help other nations achieve democracy, when the evidence overwhelmingly contradicted this.(14) If Russia had destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, the media would (correctly) be saying how outrageous these crimes are, and demanding that the leaders responsible be prosecuted.

The Death of Critical Journalism 

Quite a few British and US journalists realised in 2003 after the invasion of Iraq that they had been used by their governments to transmit propaganda. Mainstream US news channels did eventually concede that they should have been more questioning about the invasion. Some are now on the record as saying that they have been unable to report the truth during military actions due to the system of government-controlled propaganda and embedded journalists (these are journalists who can be controlled because they travel with the soldiers). A leading war reporter, Christiane Amanpour, stated that her network, CNN, was muzzled (censored) by the US government, and that it also “self-muzzled”.(15)

Some journalists claimed that they would be more critical and questioning after Iraq, but in fact they have become even less critical.(16) Journalists in Australia stated that since 2001 there has been more and more censorship,(17) and that the general public has no idea what is really going on. By the time of the US and British bombing and destruction of Libya in 2011, there was almost no criticism from the mainstream media.

We discussed in the previous post how senior BBC staff were fired after receiving flak from the government over the 2003 Iraq war. This led to a decrease (from already low levels) in media criticism. In 2013, computers at the Guardian newspaper were destroyed by the security services(18) because the Guardian had participated in the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden, which showed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on everyone through their phones and computers. The destruction of the computers was just for show, as all the data was backed up on computers elsewhere. However, since then, the mainstream media in Britain and the US have been extremely compliant. The Australian government has also cracked down on accurate reporting of its war-crimes and spying activities, by raiding the homes of journalists and the headquarters of the broadcaster ABC.(19)

One of the few TV stations to portray the darker side of US power has been Al-Jazeera, based in Qatar. Its war reporting has consistently tried much harder to show the horrors of war and to show US war crimes for what they are. For this reason, the Al-Jazeera studios in Kabul were bombed by US forces.(20)

Since 2006, the most important source of accurate news has been the website, Wikileaks, set up by Julian Assange. It publishes evidence from whistleblowers, and makes all the evidence available for everyone to examine, without journalists or politicians applying their heavily-distorted interpretation. The documents that have been sent to Wikileaks include 91,000 US military reports for the War in Afghanistan, and 490,000 reports for the war in Iraq. These have been described as the “most finely detailed history of war that has ever been disclosed. Precise times, locations, kill counts.”(21) Wikileaks analysed these documents and showed that the total number of violent deaths in Afghanistan due to US action was hundreds of thousands of people.(22) This information has been extremely embarrassing for the US and British governments, who prefer to be able to commit their war crimes in secret. For this reason they (together with the Swedish government) have been persecuting Julian since 2010. The United Nations expert on torture, Nils Melzer, has described Julian’s treatment as torture.(23) The purpose of persecuting him is to send a message to all other journalists and whistleblowers that if they expose the crimes of the US government, it doesn’t matter where they live or work, it doesn’t matter where they are from, the US government will persecute them too.(24)  

The Mainstream Media is the Real Fake News 

A recent development is ‘Fake News’. This is an attempt by the mainstream to pretend that what they write is honest journalism, and that the critical voices on the internet are themselves just propaganda outlets. The internet carries every perspective imaginable, some of it bizarre, some of it no better than the mainstream, and much of it replicates the mainstream. However, if you can work out where to look and who to read, most of the best reporting on serious issues is now on critical, non-mainstream, websites.

Look at the Evidence 

When the ideas in these posts are discussed with mainstream journalists, their first response tends to be ‘that’s just your opinion’. But the world is not just made up of opinions. There is such a thing as evidence, which can be used to assess the accuracy and truthfulness of an opinion. Many mainstream media statements are evidence-free. They are copies of what politicians and corporate leaders have said. Evidence which contradicts those statements is mostly ignored. Despite the huge amount of detail about US and British crimes and atrocities in declassified government documents, and in Wikileaks’ documents, the mainstream media in Britain and the US still fail to seriously challenge US-led wars.

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Rod Driver is a part-time academic who is particularly interested in de-bunking modern-day US and British propaganda. This is the twelfth in a series entitled Elephants In The Room, which attempts to provide a beginners guide to understanding what’s really going on in relation to war, terrorism, economics and poverty, without the nonsense in the mainstream media.

Notes 

1) John Pilger, ‘The Hidden Power of the Media’, 1.40, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv7a-B15R28

Transcript at http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr200/pilger.htm

2) Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Foreward, 1946 edition

3) Irish Times, ‘Maduro faces new wave of criticism as term begins in Venezuela’, 10 Jan 2019, at https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/maduro-faces-new-wave-of-criticism-as-term-begins-in-venezuela-1.3754029 

4) Kara Bryan, ‘Oil and ideology: the truth behind US interest in Venezuela’, Counterfire, 23 Feb 2019, at https://www.counterfire.org/articles/analysis/20171-oil-and-ideology-the-truth-behind-us-interest-in-venezuela 

5) Pat Arnow, ‘From Self-censorship to Official Censorship: Ban on images of wounded GIs raises no media objections’, 1 April 2007, at https://fair.org/extra/from-self-censorship-to-official-censorship/

6) David Cromwell and David Edwards, ‘A Warning From Auschwitz: How Do You Shoot Babies?’,16 Mar 2005, at https://www.medialens.org/2005/a-warning-from-auschwitz/

Exact quote is “journalists who reflexively reinforce an authorised, manichean view of the world – a world made up of humanitarian interventionists (us) and monster states (them) – are vital cogs in the machinery of state killing.” 

7) Noam Chomsky, The Common Good, Odonian Press, 1998

8) Craig Murray, ‘In the world of truth and fact, Russiagate is dead. In the world of the political establishment, it is still the new 42’, 4 Aug 2019, at https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/08/in-the-world-of-truth-and-fact-russiagate-is-dead-in-the-world-of-the-political-establishment-it-is-still-the-new-42/

9) Julian Assange, ‘Full Interview: Julian Assange on Trump, DNC Emails, Russia, The CIA, Vault 7 & More’, Democracy Now!, 12 April 2017, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpXbgx4hnlc

10) Eric Schmitt, ‘Abu Ghraib Officer to Face Charges’, New York Times, 25 Apr 2006, at https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/us/abu-ghraib-officer-to-face-charges.html 

11) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Iraq_War

12) David Miller, ‘Taking Sides’, 22 Apr 2003, The Guardian, at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/apr/22/iraqandthemedia.politicsandthemedia 

13) ‘Amplifying Officials, Squelching Dissent’, May/June2003, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, at https://fair.org/extra/amplifying-officials-squelching-dissent/ 

14) Cardiff University study, discussed in ‘BBC was most pro-war of British Networks’, July 10, 2003, at www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jul2003/bbc-j10.shtml 

George Monbiot, ‘Greasing Up To Power’, July 13, 2004, at  www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/07/13/greasing-up-to-power

Edwards and Cromwell, Guardians of Power, 2006, p.96

15) ‘Amanpour: CNN Practiced Self-Censorship’, Sept 14, 2003, at www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/mediamix/2003-09-14-media-mix_x.htm

16) Justin Lewis et al, ‘The Quality and Independence of British Journalism: Tracking the changes over 20 years’, Cardiff University, 2008, at https://orca.cf.ac.uk/18439/1/Quality%20%26%20Independence%20of%20British%20Journalism.pdf

17) Scott Ludlam and David Paris, ‘Breaking: A report on the erosion of press freedom in Australia’, Digital Rights Watch, Sep 2019, at https://digitalrightswatch.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2701-PressFreedom_Report_digital.pdf

18) Julian Borger, ‘NSA files: why the Guardian in London destroyed hard drives of leaked files’, 20 Aug 2013, The Guardian, at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-snowden-files-drives-destroyed-london 

19) David Millikin, ‘Australian police drop probe of reporter, whistleblower’, Agence France-Presse, 27 May 2020, at https://www.barrons.com/news/australian-police-drop-probe-of-reporter-whistleblower-01590559804 

20) ‘Bombing Al-Jazeera Was Not A Joke’, Nov 29,2005, at https://newswatch.write2kill.in/news/2005/11/29/bombing-al-jazeera-was-not-a-joke

21) ‘Julian Assange in Conversation with John Pilger’, 32:20 – 33:47, at  http://johnpilger.com/videos/julian-assange-in-conversation-with-john-pilger

22) ‘Julian Assange in Conversation with John Pilger’, 33:47, at  http://johnpilger.com/videos/julian-assange-in-conversation-with-john-pilger

23) Nils Melzer, ‘A murderous system is being created before our eyes’, interview by Daniel Ryser, Republik, 31 Jan 2020, at https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange 

24) Rod Driver, ‘The incredible stitch-up of Julian Assange’, Znet, 3 July 2020, at https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-incredible-stitch-up-of-julian-assange/

GR Editor’s Note

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.

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Since the assault on the US Capitol on January 6 by right-wing Trump supporters, the fallout has been rapid. The Democrats, both elected officials and voters, were quick to jump on the impeachment train. Some elected officials are calling for Members of Congress who supported the events to resign and to refuse to seat them in the new Congress. Employers are firing employees who participated or supported the events. And, people on the Left are cheering on social media censorship and calling for stronger laws to go after domestic terrorists.

It is important in times of crisis like this to pause, take a deep breath and think about the ramifications of our responses given the present makeup of the US political structure. It is also necessary to look past the events of January 6 to the conditions that created the environment in which this type of action could occur and what it will take to change them.

The inauguration of President Joe Biden on January 20 is not the end of the era referred to as Trumpism. Violent right-wing forces have been activated and they are not going away unless major actions are taken to divide them and remove the material conditions that gave rise to them. That is our task going forward.

What happened in Washington, DC on the 6th of January was not a surprise. Trump supporters had rallied in DC twice after the election, and each time they were violent, particularly against Black people and others opposed to police violence. Businesses in downtown DC were boarded up and closed in anticipation of the demonstrations on the 5th and 6th. Police advised DC residents to avoid the downtown area, and that is what Black Lives Matter DC decided to do, staying in their communities to keep everyone safe.

The DCist describes the events of January 5 when Trump supporters rallied in Freedom Plaza for eight hours. Claims of electoral fraud were widespread. Tuesday night, Trump supporters fought with police. Ten of them were arrested, some on gun charges.

Popular Resistance field reporter, John Zangas, covered the events at the Capitol on January 6. He described police on the West side trying to hold the Trump supporters back from entering the building using tear gas and flash bangs. As police blocked the entrance, Trump supporters broke windows and entered the building anyway. Elsewhere, Capitol police were filmed letting the Trump supporters through the bicycle rack blockades, beckoning them inside and standing by as they entered the building. There are photos of police taking selfies with Trump supporters and reports of them providing directions to people who entered the Capitol. Some of the Trump supporters were police officers who showed their badges and some were members of the military.

It is clear that the Capitol police failed to prepare for the violence that occurred that day despite advance warnings. They have had stronger responses to non-violent protests in the past that completely blocked access to the Capitol. The events at the Capitol clearly demonstrated what was obvious throughout the protests this past summer, that police identify with and ally with white supremacists, including their militias. The Brennan Center report, “Hidden In Plain Sight: Racism, White Supremacy, And Far-Right Militancy In Law Enforcement,” issued last August details that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are well aware of these connections. They write:

“The harms that armed law enforcement officers affiliated with violent white supremacist and anti-government militia groups can inflict on American society could hardly be overstated. Yet despite the FBI’s acknowledgement of the links between law enforcement and these suspected terrorist groups, the Justice Department has no national strategy designed to identify white supremacist police officers or to protect the safety and civil rights of the communities they patrol.”

The Brennan Center report called for swift action to remove white supremacists from law enforcement and other policy changes. Yet, despite months of President Trump and others claiming electoral fraud and riling up the base plus violent assaults on state capital buildings, the federal government failed to take action to prevent harm. The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund is calling for a full investigation into the police’s actions that day and holding those who “condoned or colluded with the violent mob that attacked the Capitol” accountable.

It is critical that those who are responsible for violence against people and threats of harming or killing elected officials are held accountable, but it is just as important that what happened is not used to further strengthen the repressive apparatus of the state. Evan Greer warns that Biden, the architect of the 1994 Violent Crime Bill and Law Enforcement Act that led to mass incarceration, is already calling for a domestic terrorism bill even though domestic terrorism is currently illegal. Greer writes:

“More money, weapons, and technology in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security—an agency complicit in human rights abuses long before Trump took office—won’t stop the rising threat of right-wing violence. Instead it will be used to suppress legitimate dissent, and disproportionately target Black and brown activists, Muslims, immigrant communities, and social movements that effectively challenge systemic injustice and corporate power.”

This is the situation in which we live. Most often, laws that increase surveillance or policing are used against vulnerable communities and don’t keep them safe. The same goes for censorship. Many cheered when President Trump was banned from Twitter and Facebook, but do we really want private corporations silencing online speech? Both Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald warn us against starting down this slippery slope.

And similarly, there have been social media posts cheering that people who attended the pro-Trump rally were fired from their jobs for being there. At present, employers across the country are seeking out and firing employeeswho attended or showed support for the assault on the Capitol. It is one thing if an employee broke the law such as illegally entering the Capitol. It is another to be present at a march, which is protected by the First Amendment. Again, we must be aware that in the current environment, precedents set by the response to this action at the Capitol will be used against other people in the future.

Economist Jack Rasmus predicted the events on January 6 would be designed to create chaos as part of a long term strategy by Trump supporters. Trump was certainly aware that he could not actually conduct a coup, and legislative bodies are not typically the target of coup attempts anyway. Rasmus argues that Trump will work to split the Republican party, driving the moderates out and further cementing his base. He may even behave similarly to the strategy used by the United States to try to conduct regime change in Venezuela – claim an election is fraudulent, refuse to accept the results and run a parallel government.

The era of Trumpism does not end with the inauguration of Joe Biden. Joe Lauria of Consortium News calls January 6 a “dress rehearsal for what may well turn into a full-blown insurrection.” He urges that steps be taken to prevent this, but he doesn’t offer suggestions as to what they should be.

This weekend, I spoke with Brian Becker of the ANSWER Coalition on Clearing the FOG (available on Monday) about what steps would be effective. In addition to holding those who broke the law and law enforcement who assisted them accountable, it is important to hold President Trump accountable. Rather than impeachment, which is what the Democrats are doing and what they and their voters have championed since President Trump was elected, the President needs to be investigated by an independent body in the Department of Justice and prosecuted for his crimes.

Impeachment when Trump is on his way out the door will only deepen the political divide and embolden him with his base. He can continue to rail against the Democrats for unfairly targeting him. On the other hand, a prosecution and possible conviction will remove him as a leader figure for the white supremacists and weaken them.

In addition to that, it is fundamental that we change the material conditions in which people live. The blame for the situation today lies squarely with both the Democrats and Republicans. They are responsible for decades of policies that have created great economic insecurity, which has been exploited by the right to drive racism, xenophobia and fear. The United States government has failed its people in every way through neoliberalism and the funneling of wealth to the top 1%. This is especially egregious during a recession and pandemic when tens of millions of people have lost their jobs and health insurance and are at risk of losing their homes and nearly 400,000 people have died.

Instead of moving with urgency to impeach Trump, Congress should show the same urgency to pass national improved Medicare for All, a guaranteed basic income that brings everyone above the poverty line, erasure of debt and investment in an eco-socialist Green New Deal that creates millions of high quality jobs while repairing our failing infrastructure, building a green economy and addressing the climate crisis. This can be funded by significant cuts to the military budget and through a wealth tax, as well as reclaiming the government’s ability to print money. These are actions that will begin to bring prosperity to the people and heal the divisions.

There is more that needs to be done to end structural racism as well, by ending mass incarceration, removing racial bias from law enforcement and the judicial system, employing transformative justice, and changing school curriculum to be less euro-centric and more multicultural, to name a few. In the end, our goal needs to be the development of structures that empower People(s)-Centered Human Rights.

Finally, we must recognize that our struggle is global. What the United States government has done to its people by denying them what they need to live a life of dignity is what the United States has imposed upon people around the world through economic sanctions and military domination. The tactics used by President Trump to try to hold onto power through lies and violent right wing actors are the same as the US uses around the world to overthrow governments. This needs to stop. And, as Vijay Prashad and Noam Chomsky write, the world is facing existential crises that demand international cooperation to protect our future.

All of these are winnable, but none of them are going to come without a struggle. President Biden has already signaled that he will rule to the right of center and his cabinet picks signal business as usual. Democrats in Congress are already watering down their bold rhetoric used during Trump’s term. They are calling for lowering the age of Medicare instead of Medicare for All and $2,000 checks for people who are unemployed instead of recognizing that many workers are still living in poverty.

Our future depends on organizing in our communities to demand what we require and not letting the Democrats tell us we are asking for too much or that we can’t have it because “this is a time for unity” as they usually do. The crises we face are severe and the right wing violent backlash is real. We have to stop them with bold solutions that work. The period of plutocracy must end.

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Margaret Flowers is the director of Popular Resistance where this article was originally published. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: KSLA-12.

Two Januarys ago, an obscure politician from a minor political party named Juan Guaido assumed a one-month chairmanship of the Venezuelan National Assembly. Then he promptly declared himself the interim president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The bizarre declaration had no legal standing. But that did not stop the Trump administration and later, the European Union, from recognizing this fictional presidency.

For most in the world, this was yet another in a series of illegal U.S. efforts to control the politics of countries in the global South. Supporting dictators, overthrowing governments with violence and destroying nations have been at the center of each of the U.S. global policies since the United States became the leader of the colonial/capitalist Western alliance in 1945.

But as Malcolm X once said, “The chickens have come home to roost.”

How ever one might characterize the events of January 6 or the several weeks since the election, one thing is certain: Millions of people in the United States have lost respect for U.S. institutions. Across the political spectrum, people are adopting a common cry that the U.S. government doesn’t represent their interests.

Decades of neoliberal austerity, low wages, de-industrialization, privatization of public services like healthcare facilities, the looting of public resources to transfer to the military-industrial complex and the inability of the state to protect the fundamental human rights of the people have created the crisis of legitimacy that has made it difficult for the U.S. ruling class to govern in the same old way.

And so, as BAP predicted when we launched in April 2017, the elites default to repression. The events of January 6 have given the rulers an opportunity to move even more rapidly to narrow the range of acceptable political thought and participation. Calls have come from some quarters of the public for retribution against the individuals that “breached” the Capitol. Now, state authorities—including Big Tech companies that have emerged as unrecognized agents of the state—have moved remarkably close to branding Trump supporters as criminal elements who deserve to be relegated to the social death that de-platforming renders today.

These dangerous times require sober, unemotional analysis and clear politics for those of us who have always been on the receiving end of U.S. political repression.

The ongoing crisis of the colonial-capitalist system is creating new expressions of what might be referred to as fascism. One framework defines fascism as the “open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” When the whole ruling class—led by finance capital—line up with Joe Biden and Democrats, we must be careful in our analysis and positions.

The Democratic Party agenda for restoring “legitimacy” to the system will come at a cost. As oppressed peoples and workers in the United States who are in alignment with the laboring classes and oppressed nations of the world, we must not allow fascists in any guise to rebuild legitimacy at our expense.

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This was Twitter Safety’s January 8 post, full of noble concern: “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them – specifically how they are being received and interpreted off Twitter – we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

Is it ever wise for a social media platform to suspend the accounts of political representatives, especially if they are of such character as Donald J. Trump?  The question is a big tangle, though anything to do with the exiting US president encourages hotted up simple binaries, most of it emotive rather than cerebral.  As with any forms of expression, the inner censor starts taking hold against content that is disliked, considered offensive or, as in the recent round of Trump tweets, delusionary and inciting in character.

The reaction of Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) to Twitter’s suspension of Trump’s account was but one example of the censor writ large.  Bowman had taken to the platform to demand that Twitter suspend the president’s account, and asked why he was “still out there tweeting after inciting a fascist mob”.  This streakily hyperbolic statement was nothing compared to the joyous, ghoulish note he posted on learning of the suspension: banning the president from Twitter had been as significant as the capturing Saddam Hussein.  Wonderful of Bowman to remind voters of a catastrophic, illegal invasion of a country supposedly armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction, and eager to deploy them against the US and its allies.

The reasons for Twitter’s suspension of the account were themselves political acts initiated by a market actor.  Barring the most powerful office holder in the United States from having an avenue to his supporters is an open admission to political interference.  It is a position on restricting and suppressing forms of communication to constituents and voters, notably ones deemed unsavoury in accordance to piecemeal rules made by market considerations.

The company actually identifies the culprit tweets as well. One was the announcement that Trump would not be attending President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20.  (Is it even their business to be worried about ceremonial protocol?)  The second involved praise for “75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me,” and were not to be “disrespected or treated unfairly”.  The timing was important here, given the march on and into the US Capitol a few days prior.

Twitter duly editorialises, disapproves and dispenses.

“Due to the ongoing tensions in the United States, and an uptick in the global conversation in regards to the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behaviour from his account in recent weeks.”

The virtue of having Trump vent his spleen all over Twitter should be palpably obvious: to open a door to his indignant, at times adolescent world, one unvarnished and uncontaminated by any advisory circle.

Conventions could be trashed; the acceptable could be sullied and soiled.  This did wonders for instability and bedevilled the Washington establishment, but it was an inspiring weapon for his supporters and a shock to the business-as-usual cadres who think democracy is good as long as it is conveniently correct.  The president was no longer kept within the cage of sober expertise and cautious control.  He was, quite literally, in global circulation.

Trump supporters are naturally indignant about the move, and have, erroneously, drawn the wrong conclusion about whether his free speech has been affected or not.

The First Amendment was intended to protect citizens from government action vis-à-vis that speech, not the inconsistent, bumbling decisions of well-moneyed social media behemoths.  Jeremy Mishkin of Montgomery McCracken in Philadelphia, an advocate versed in First Amendment jurisprudence, suggests that the protection does not apply if Twitter “decides it is not going to participate in disseminating someone else’s message.”  A newspaper, he analogises, is not obligated to publish the news release of a politician.

The more salient, and concerning conclusion to draw from the ban is the control of political content as it is shared on such private corporate platforms.  That remains the troubling preserve of Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and company.  Fashion, whim and being in the good books of the moment are their guiding lights.  “It’s about the free market,” Jake Millar tells us in GQ, “not free speech.”

As it happens, that fashion and whim favours the Democrats, who are ecstatic that social media companies have finally discovered their censoring mettle.  Jennifer Palmieri, former White House Communications director and director for communications for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign made no secret of the alignment of interests.

“It has not escaped my attention that the day social media companies decided there actually IS more they could do to police Trump’s destruction behavior was the same day they learned Democrats would chair all the congressional committees that oversee them.”  Cosy times lie ahead.

Trenchant criticism of the ban has been marginalised as apologias for domestic terrorism and the rants of pro-Trump fanatics.  More measured analysis has been, as always with assessing Trump, absent. The ACLU did state, if tepidly, that such moves were dangerous to expression.  “It should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions.”

The reaction in other countries was also one of concern.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as she so often does, had a punt both ways.  Her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, accepted that social media platforms “bear great responsibility for political communication not being poisoned by hatred, lies and by incitement to violence.”  But freedom of opinion was “fundamental” and should only be tampered with in accordance “to the law and within the framework defined by legislators – not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms.”  To that end, Merkel, he explained to reporters, found the decision to block the accounts of the US president “problematic”.

In Australia, government ministers have taken issue with Twitter’s erratic approach to hosting content.  Why kick Trump off the platform, yet host offensive, doctored material by Chinese outlets featuring a bloodthirsty Australian soldier, knife pressed at the throat of an Afghan child?  That image, fumed Michael McCormack in a one week spell as acting prime minister, “has not been taken down, and that is wrong.”

Australian government backbencher Dave Sharma, while agreeing in principle that banning Trump from the platform might have been appropriate given the facts, feared “the precedent of big tech making decisions about whose speech, and which remarks, are censored and suppressed.”

In the guise of Twitter, the US has found a political agent of interference of its own.  It has become a gatekeeper curating material that is released to the public.  Other big tech giants are doing the same, cleansing platforms of the unfashionably scurrilous.  Move over, you foreign rascals; Silicon Valley is here to shape and determine the content of US politics and, if necessary, the politics of other countries.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Jobs Reset Summit report (October 2020) starts out with some flowery wording. You have to give it to them.

They have a way with meaningless niceties, hardly anybody beats them.

Here we go for the beginning:

“After years of growing income inequality, concerns about technology driven displacement of jobs, and rising societal discord globally, the combined health and economic shocks of 2020 have put economies into free fall, disrupted labor markets have fully revealed the inadequacies of our social contracts.”

“As we emerge from the crisis, we can proactively shape more inclusive, fair and sustainable economies, organizations, societies and workplaces. To do so, we must mobilize the best of human capabilities, technologies, innovative policies and market forces, in service of this new vision.”

“The World Economic Forum’s Job Reset Summit will serve as key milestone in supporting such a mobilization, working closely with partners around the world. The virtual meeting will bring together leaders from business, government, civil society, media and the broader public to shape the new agenda for growth, jobs, skills and equity.”

In my view, the Great Reset, which advances at warp speed, if we don’t stop it, will reduce the world to “modern” feudalism, one ruler and a herd of serfs that are provided with the necessary means to survive — and their brains have been converted (by the injections that go under the absurd name of vaccines), with electromagnetic gels, into “transhumans”. So, they / we can be manipulated electronically – which is one of the key purposes of 5G and soon to come 6G.

The latest of WEF’s dark and diabolical conundrums describes “Resetting the Jobs”. It emerged from a virtual conference from 20 to 23 October 2020, called “The Jobs Reset Summit”. This 3-minute video describes in a few brush strokes, what the world may look like after the Great Reset – jobwise. (Click Screen Below to View Video)

Nothing will stay the same. This may be the key and catch-phrase for the “Resetting of Jobs”; in fact for the entire Great Reset.

The video starts with Allen Blue, co-founder and Vice-President of Linkedin, dramatically declaring some truisms,

“Right now we are facing a crisis of international proportions. It’s a health care crisis, but it’s also an economic crisis. It’s going to have a long-term impact for us. And we are going to see that the biggest impact is actually going to be acceleration of inequality.”

Wow! We have been seeing inequality growing in the west at least for the past two centuries. Happy continuation!

Ms. Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO and President of GLAAD adds

“The systemic way that we have built is not holding up. The foundation is cracking.”

GLAAD was created in 1985, as an American non-governmental media monitoring organization, in protest against defamatory coverage of LGBT people. Its agenda has since extended to the entertainment industry and its portrayal of these groups.

Mr. Angel Gurría, Secretary General, OECD, elaborates:

“Our duties remain the same: The fact is that we should not leave anybody behind, again.”

The cream of the intellectual nobility has spoken. Wonderful, but so meaningless words, as the intro to the video so clearly shows; to impress and deviate the quick reader’s mind from what really is behind The Great Reset — and all the jobs that are going to be let down the drain for the benefit of the “4^th Industrial Generation”, high-tech – digitization, robotization – all means to control humanity, or what we may have become by then “transhumans”, to the last breath.

Is that the future world we want? No – most certainly not. Not 99.999% of the world population. So, let’s not let it happen!

New technologies will require new jobs; Artificial Intelligence (AI), robots will take over many of the existing jobs, the economy will move faster and become “greener”. Green capitalism in the coming. The so-called New Green Deal. Its good old neoliberal capitalism painted green. Humans have to adapt.

The Job Reset doesn’t really explain how, except at one point honesty escaped them. For example, Henrietta Fore, Executive Director, UNICEF, says

“8 of 10 of the young people who live in low-income countries will have to become entrepreneurs. They are going to have to make jobs for themselves.”

And this is coming from UNICEF, the World UN agency created to protect children and young adults. What if the 8 out of 10 cannot create their own jobs, and / or do not become entrepreneurs – are they going to be “left behind” again, despite the good wishes of Mr. OECD?

Anybody who seriously reads the transcript, or listens to this warp-speed prepared video for something so important as the future jobs for the next generations to come, must think the WEF is nuts – not serious, another fear-instilling NGO. Yes, that’s what the WEF still is today, an NGO established in a lush suburb of Geneva, Switzerland. They call themselves an international organization, uniting the world’s business, culture and civil society. Unfortunately, that’s the power they – the WEF adherents – have been given by World Inc., the world’s Big Corporate Finance Structure.

The WEF calls the shots on the UN and all its sub-organizations, notably WHO (World Health Organization). Of course, the WEF also follows “higher orders”, like the leaders (sic) of the once-upon-a-time sovereign 193 UN member countries.

Create Your Own Jobs

Back to the UNICEF statement, “create your own job”, so to speak – there seems to be no other choice, isn’t there, than leaving most of the young behind, because most will not be able to create their own job. This bold, almost rude statement from UNICEF’s ED, is expanded by Andrea Zafirakou, a “Global Teacher Prize Winner” (sic – term used by WEF, certainly to aggrandize the importance of her statement). She says, new generations of children have to have “transferable skills…. resilience, mastery, collaboration, asking questions, why, how, when. This is what they need in order to thrive in any profession they choose.” – Do they have a choice to choose, when they are being marginalized by AI and robots?

To this, Eddie Ndopu, a UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) advocate, adds…

”The moment you incorporate marginalized segments of society, it changes product offering, it changes the way that we think about supply chains. When you cater to the margins, the positive externalities in economic terms, are pretty enormous.”

Does he know what he is talking about? – What does he mean by “externalities”? – Externalities is a love-term for neoliberal economists. When they do not want to account for negative values in their profit-driven projects and enterprises, they shove them off to the public sector, in other words to the tax-payers. Hélas, the WEF consists mostly of non-tax payers, of tax-excemptees. So, they have no clue who pays for an externality.

The Great Reset Explained

Bringing back some reality into the Great Reset, you must see the Great Reset explained, by Roy McCoy-Ward, who does an impressive job in presenting a rather objective analysis of what the WEF is and plans, as well as what the Great Reset is all about. The Great Reset (WEF) – explained (youtube below 27 min – 12 September 2020). Once we understand this diabolical plot, we are better prepared to face it off.

And face it off we will.

The Big Picture

Once we realize that covid and the WEF’s Great Reset go hand in hand, we are closer to the Big Picture, a picture that demonstrates that we are gradually and ever faster succumbing to a system that will bring us back to a modern, electronic, digitalized feudalism, where, We, the People – those of us that are left – may be just serfs of the masters, a small elite of super-rich globalists, otherwise called, the Deep State – let’s call them the Globalists. This term explains exactly what is the underlying reason of covid, and the Great Reset by the founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Klaus Schwab and his Masters. It’s a rapid move towards ”A One World Order” (OWO) – with a One-World government and a super administration – over a drastically reduced population.

A massively reduced world population has been, and still is, an objective of Bill Gates and the Rockefeller clan– for at least the last 70 years. It folds nicely into the Great Reset plan. The idea has been promulgated for a long time – covertly and openly – by the Bilderberg Society, patronized by the Rockefellers, since it came into existence in 1954.

This sets the stage for  the Agenda ID2020 vaccine project which is the most inhuman planned approach to a future for humanity.

“[ID2020 is] an electronic ID program that uses generalized vaccination as a platform for digital identity. The program harnesses existing birth registration and vaccination operations to provide newborns with a portable and persistent biometrically-linked digital identity. (Peter Koenig, March 2020)

It is the threshold for “transhumanity” on which the Great Reset bases its theory of a 4^th Industrial Revolution: A totally digitized and robotized world in which transhumanity, i. e. transhumans would become a work force, a work commodity. Welcome to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

How do we become “transhumans”? – God forbid – but that’s the plan. The Covid vaccine is an instrument. According to:

“Microbiologist Dr Sucharit Bhakdi and leading lung specialist Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, …the composition of the Covid vaccine is  “largely new and highly risky genetic engineering interventions in complex biological communication processes of our immune systems.” 

The vaccines composition, they point out, includes fragments of different genetic information to be introduced into human cells as RNA or DNA. “Recombinant RNA, which is introduced into human cells, also alters the genetic processes and can very well be classified as genetic modification of the cells or the [human] organism.” (Julian Rose, December 15, 2020

The Implementation of the Great Reset

The WEF’s Great Reset feeds on the “Great Pretext” of Covid-19, which also by higher orders, was declared by WHO as a pandemic on March 11, 2019.

Worldwide cases on that day were 5095 and deaths 293 (WHO), hardly a case for a pandemic. Its rather a Plandemic – a purposefully planned pandemic that subsequently justified global lockdowns and the devastating destruction of the world economy, with disastrous human and social consequences – uncountable bankruptcies, hundreds of millions of unemployed – no income, famine, despair, suicide.

Based on these horrendous premises Klaus Schwab published the Great Reset in May 2020 – probably prepared long before – as the plandemic was planned by a “long hand”.

He described – and still does – this scenario of wanton economic destruction as “A Window of Opportunity” to rebuild the world, as a more equal, more just and more peaceful place. In October 2020, the WEF published a White Paper entitled “Resetting the Future of Work Agenda: Disruption and Renewal in a Post-Covid World” which is basically an implementation manual for the Great Reset.

The full Reset implementation agenda coincides with the UN agenda 21-30, meaning by the end of 2030, the Great Reset must be completed. Going by their plan, the Great Reset will have launched the Forth Industrial Generation – digitization of everything. When you go by their planned accomplishments, the most striking one is that the average transhuman serf will own nothing but is happy.

You may want to see a number of articles related to the Great Reset and the subsequently published White Paper; here:

The World Economic Forum (WEF) Knows Best – The Post-Covid “Great Global Reset”,

The Post Covid World, The WEF’s Diabolical Project: “Resetting the Future of Work Agenda” – After “The Great Reset”. A Horrifying Future

Die Post-Covid-Welt, das teuflische Projekt des WEF: „Resetting the Future of Work Agenda“ – Nach dem „Großen Reset“. Eine erschreckende Zukunft

COVID and Its Man-Made Gigantic Collateral Damage: The Great Reset – A Call for Civil Disobedience

Covid-19: The Great Reset – Revisited. Scary Threats, Rewards for Obedience….

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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). He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

“Something is happening here,
But you don’t know what it is,
Do you, Mr. Jones?”

— Bob Dylan

It’s hard.

Life today seems like a dream, doesn’t it?  Surreal to the point where everything seems haunted and betwixt and between, or this against that, or that and this against us.

Something.

Or a Luis Buñuel film.  The logic of the irrational. Surrealistic.  A film made to draw us into an ongoing nightmare.  Hitchcock with no resolution. Total weirdness, as Hunter Thompson said was coming before he blew his brains out.  A life movie made to hypnotize in this darkening world where reality is created on screens, as Buñuel said of watching movies:

This kind of cinematographic hypnosis is no doubt due to the darkness of the theatre and to the rapidly changing scenes, lights, and camera movements, which weaken the spectator’s critical intelligence and exercise over him a kind of fascination.

Here we are in Weirdsville, USA where most people, whether of the left, right, or center, are hypnotized by the flickering screens.

That’s what movies do.

That’s what long planned psychological operations do.

That’s what digital technology allows corrupt rulers and the national security state with its Silicon Valley partners in crime to do.

We now live in a screen world where written words and logic are beside the point. Facts don’t matter. Personal physical experience doesn’t matter.  Clear thinking doesn’t matter. Hysterical reactions are what matter.  Manipulated emotions are what matter.  Saying “Fuck You” is now de rigueur, as if that were the answer to an argument.

It’s all a movie now with the latest theatrical performance having been the January 6, 2021 stage show filmed at the U.S. Capital.  A performance so obvious that it isn’t obvious for those hypnotized by propaganda, even when the movie clearly shows that the producers arranged for the “domestic terrorists” to be ushered into the Capital.  They let the “Nazis” in on Dr. Goebbels orders.  Thank God Almighty they were beaten back before they seized power in their Halloween costumes.

Now who could have given that order to the Capital and D.C. police, Secret Service, National Guard, and the vast array of militarized Homeland Security forces that knew well in advance of the January 6 demonstration?

Who gave the stand-down orders on September 11, 2001, events that were clearly anticipated and afterwards were described by so many as if they were a movie?  Surreal. Dreamlike.

As with the events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent anthrax attacks, the recently staged show at the Capital that the mainstream media laughingly call an attempted coup d’état will result in a new “Patriot Act” aimed at the new terrorists – domestic ones – i.e. anyone who dissents from the authoritarian crackdown long planned and underway; anyone who questions the vast new censorship and the assault on the First Amendment; anyone who questions the official narrative of Covid-19 and the lockdowns; anyone who suggests that there are linkages between these events, etc.

Who, after all, introduced the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act in 1995 that became the template for the Patriot Act in 2001 that was passed into law after September 11, 2001?  None other than former Senator Joseph Biden. Remember Joe?  He has a new plan.

Of course, the massive Patriot Act had been written well before that fateful September day and was ready to be implemented by a Senate vote of 98-1, the sole holdout being Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.  In the House of Representatives the vote was 357-66.

For those familiar (or unfamiliar)  with history and fabricated false flags, they might want also to meditate on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964 that gave Lyndon Johnson his seal of approval to escalate the war against Vietnam that killed so many millions. The vote for that fake crisis was 416-0 in the House and 88-2 in the Senate.

In the words of Mark Twain:

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

Harry Houdini, the magical performer who was able to escape from any trap, any nightmarish enclosure, any lockdown, once said, “It’s still an open question, however, as to what extent exposure really hurts a performer.”

The question has been answered.  It doesn’t hurt at all, for phony events still mesmerize millions who are eager to suspend their disbelief for the sake of a sad strand of hope that their chosen leaders – whether Biden or Trump – are levelling with them and are not playing them for fools. To accept that Trump and Biden are scripted actors in a highly sophisticated reality TV movie is a bit of “reality” too hard to bear.  Exposing them and their minions doesn’t hurt at all.  There’s no business but show business.

Houdini knew well the tricks used to deceive a gullible audience hypnotized by theatrics. “A magician is only an actor,” he said, “an actor pretending to be a magician.”  This a perfect description of the charlatans who serve as presidents of the United States.

Life today seems like a dream, doesn’t it?

“Will wonders ever cease,” said Houdini, as he closed his shows.

When I was a child I had a repetitive dream that I was trapped in a maze.  Trying to escape, all I could hear as I tried desperately to find an exit was a droning sound.  Droning without end.  The only way I could escape the maze was to wake up – literally.  But this dream would repeat for many years to the point where I realized my dreams were connected to my actual family and life in the U.S.A.

Then, when I was later in the Marines and felt imprisoned and was attempting to get out as a conscientious objector, the dream changed to being trapped in the Marines, or the prison I was expecting if they didn’t let me go. Even when I got out of the Marines and was not in prison, the dreams that I was continued.

It took me years to learn how to escape.

I mention such dreams since they seem to encapsulate the feelings so many people have today. A sense of being trapped in a senseless social nightmare. Prisoners. Lost in a horror movie like Kafka’s novel The Castle in which the protagonist K futilely seeks to gain access to the rulers who control the world from their castle but can never reach his goal.

But these are dreams and The Castle is fiction.

On a conscious level, however, many people continue to rationalize their grasp of what is going on in the United States as if what they take to be reality is not fiction. Trump supporters –despite what are seen by them as his betrayals when he said on January 7 that “The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy….My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power. This moment calls for healing and reconciliation.” – still cling to the belief that he is the man they believe in and was going to “clean the swamp” but was sabotaged by the “deep state.”

Biden supporters, driven by their obsessive hatred for Trump and the ongoing delusions that the Democratic Party, like the Republican, is not thoroughly corrupt, look forward to the Biden presidency and the new normal when he can “build back better.”  For both groups true faith never dies. It’s very touching.

As I have written before, if the Democrats and the Republicans are at war as is often claimed, it is only over who gets the larger share of the spoils. Trump and Biden work for the same bosses, those I call the Umbrella People (those who own and run the country through their intelligence/military/media operatives), who produce and direct the movie that keeps so many Americans on the edge of their seats in the hope that their chosen good guy wins in the end.

It might seem as if I am wrong and that because the Democrats and their accomplices have spent years attempting to oust Trump through Russia-gate, impeachment, etc. that what seems true is true and Trump is simply a crazy aberration who somehow slipped through the net of establishment control to rule for four years.  A Neo-Nazi billionaire who emerged from a TV screen and a golden tower high above the streets of New York.

This seems self-evident to the Democrats and the supporters of Joseph Biden, and even to many Republicans.

For Trump’s supporters, he seems to be a true Godsend, a real patriot who emerged out of political nowhere to restore America to its former greatness and deliver economic justice to the forgotten middle-Americans whose livelihoods have been devastated by neo-liberal economic policies and the outsourcing of jobs.

Two diametrically opposed perspectives.

But if that is so, why, despite Trump and Biden’s superficial differences – and Obama’s, Hillary Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s for that matter – have the super-rich gotten richer and richer over the decades and the war on terror continued as the military budget has increased each year and the armament industries and the Wall Street crooks continued to rake in the money at the expense of everyone else?  These are a few facts that can’t be disputed. There are many more. So what’s changed under Trump?  We are talking about nuances, small changes.  A clown with a big mouth versus traditional, “dignified” con men.

Trump’s followers were betrayed the day he was sworn in, as Biden’s will be shortly unless they support a crackdown on civil rights, the squelching of the First Amendment, and laws against dissent under the aegis of a war against domestic terrorism.

I’m afraid that is so.  Censorship of dissent that is happening now will increase dramatically under the Biden administration.

Now we have the “insurrection,” also known as an attempted “coup d’état,” with barbarians breaching the gates of the sacred abode of the politicians of both parties who have supported bloody U.S. coups throughout the world for the past seventy plus years. Here is another example of history beginning as tragedy and ending as farce.

But who is laughing?

If you were writing this script as part of long-term planning, and average people were getting disgusted from decades of being screwed and were sick of politicians and their lying ways, wouldn’t you stop the reruns and create a new show?

Come on, this is Hollywood where creative showmen can dazzle our minds with plots so twisted that when you leave the theater you keep wondering what it was all about and arguing with your friends about the ending. So create a throwback film where the good guy versus the bad guy was seemingly very clear, and while the system ground on, people would be at each other’s throats over the obvious differences, even while they were fabricated or were minor. This being the simple and successful age-old strategy of divide and conquer

I realize that it is very hard for many to entertain the thought that Trump and Biden are not arch-enemies but are players in a spectacle created to confound at the deepest psychological levels.  I am not arguing that the Democrats didn’t want Hillary Clinton to win in 2016.  I am saying they knew Trump was a better opponent, not only because they could probably defeat him and garner more of the spoils, but because if he possibly won he was easily controlled because he was compromised.  By whom?  Not the Democrats, but the “Deep State” forces that control Hillary Clinton and all the presidents.  A compromised and corrupt lot.

The Democrats and Republicans were not in charge in 2016 or in 2020.  Their bosses were.  The Umbrella people.  Biden will carry out their orders, and while everyone will conveniently forget what actually happened during Trump’s tenure, as I previously mentioned, they will only remember how the Democrats “tried” to oust this man in the black hat, while Biden will carry on Trump’s legacy with minor changes and a lot of PR. He will seem like a breath of fresh air as he continues and expands the toxic policies of all presidents.  So it goes.

Throughout these recent days that the corporate mainstream media have devoted to this Trump/Biden saga, Julian Assange, a truth teller if ever there were one, remains tortured and locked up in an English high-security prison cell.  His plight has been a minor note at best for the corporate media that is focused on the American “coup d’état.” The spectacle rolls on as an innocent journalist who exposed the vast murderous crimes of the American government is left to slowly die in a horrible prison cell. A man who, if free, could report the truth of this current charade and expose the bloody underside of this magic show.

Long ago in Russia, another dissident, Fyodor Dostoevsky, was also sentenced on trumped up charges to prison and exile in Siberia for being “freethinking” and a socialist enemy of the state. When he was finally released, he wrote a novel that was published in 1866.  It was Crime and Punishment, a masterpiece about a man named Rodian Romanovich Raskolnikov who, like Dostoevsky, is sentenced to exile and imprisonment in Siberia.  In Raskolnikov’s case, it was for killing an old woman pawnbroker to see if he was “above the common ruck.” The story explores Raskolnikov’s dual consciousness and the right to murder; prideful intellect versus compassion; rationalism versus spiritual values; freedom versus determinism; the individual versus the state.

Like Nietzsche twenty years later, Dostoevsky sent out a warning long ago about the terrifying consequences that would follow in the wake of certain forms of thinking that would result in nihilism. To be “above the common ruck” and murder at will, to play with people as though they were what Raskolnikov calls the woman he murders – “louses,” to create divided minds in a game of social schizophrenia through antitheses that conceal the magician’s devious truths.

At the end of Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov, while still in Siberian prison exile, feels that he, like Lazarus, has been raised from the dead.  He realizes that there is a solution to his split mind and that he has found it as he transitions “from one world into another…his initiation into a new, unknown life.”

But such a resolution that I will not divulge is preceded by a very strange dream, one that rings a bell today when life seems like a dream with something happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?

When he [Raskolnikov] was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish and delirious.  He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible strange new plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia.  Everyone was to be destroyed except a few chosen ones.  Some sort of new microbe was attacking people’s bodies, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will.  Men attacked by them became instantly furious and mad.  But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible.  Whole villages, whole towns and peoples were driven mad by the infection.  Everyone was excited and did not understand one another.  Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands.  They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know who to blame, who to justify….The alarm bells kept ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew….The plague spread and moved further and further.  Only a few men could be saved in the whole world.  They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.

Have you?

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Behind the Curtain.

Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He is the author of the new book: https://www.claritypress.com/product/seeking-truth-in-a-country-of-lies/

In 1624, English poet John Donne penned his famous poem ‘No Man Is an Island’, sublimely evoking the reality of human unity: ‘Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.’ Therefore, he concluded his poem, ‘never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.’

This report does two things.

First, in the hope of generating greater consideration of the human condition and the state of the planet, I have presented in straightforward language and point form, a reasonable summary of the nature and extent of our predicament as well as citing the relevant scientific and/or other evidence that explains each problem in more detail.

And second, the article outlines a powerful series of actions and strategies that individuals as well as community groups, neighborhoods and action groups can take as part of a global effort to restore agency to human individuals as well as to fight to avert human extinction.

Introduction

Tragically, in 2020, the bell tolled for all of humanity, in more ways than one, as we suffered the greatest political, economic, social and environmental upheaval in human history when the global elite initiated its long-planned coup – presented by the World Economic Forum as ‘The Great Reset’ – to take complete control of the entire human population in order to reduce it to techno-slavery in service of elite ends.

See

‘Planned Surveillance and Control by Global Technocrats: A Big-Picture Look at the Current Pandemic Beneficiaries’,

‘Big Brother in Disguise: The Rise of a New, Technological World Order’,

‘Beware the Transhumanists: How “Being Human” is being Re-engineered by the Elite’s Covid-19 Coup’

and watch the interview of Catherine Austin Fitts for the film ‘Planet Lockdown’.

This was done under cover of the threat supposedly posed by a virus – labeled SARS-CoV-2 – which has not been scientifically demonstrated to exist, as a lengthening list of scholars were pointing out throughout the year.

See  ‘ZERO Evidence that COVID Fulfills Koch’s 4 Germ Theory Postulates – Dr. Andrew Kaufman & Sayer Ji’

and, for the latest explanation,  ‘COVID-19: The virus does not exist – it is confirmed!’

Unfortunately but as planned, the elite-directed response to the so-called ‘pandemic’ subsequently declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020, caused virtually all national governments to immediately shut down their national economies, imprison their populations in their homes (variously under ‘lockdown’, quarantine and curfew policies) and implement other politically, socially, economically and environmentally destructive practices which are killing millions of people, inflicting enormous suffering on billions more, and accelerating the four primary paths to human extinction: nuclear war, biodiversity collapse, the deployment of 5G and the climate catastrophe.

See  ‘The Elite’s COVID-19 Coup to Destroy Humanity that is also Fast-Tracking Four Paths to Human Extinction’.

Of course, there are other possible paths to human extinction in the near term, particularly when considered in conjunction with the four threats just mentioned. These include the cascading impacts triggered by destruction of the Amazon rainforest (which is now imminent) particularly given its critical role in the global hydrological cycle, the rapidly spreading radioactive contamination of Earth, and geoengineering for military purposes (which has been occurring for decades and continues).

Far worse, however, is the path to extinction that looms before us when we consider the impact of all seven of these paths in combination with the vast range of other threats noted below.

These interrelated threats have generated a shocking series of ‘points of no return’ (‘tipping points’) that we have already crossed, the mutually reinforcing set of negative feedback loops that we have already triggered (and which we will continue to trigger) which cannot be reversed in the short-term, as well as the ongoing synergistic impact of the various ‘extinction drivers’ (such as ongoing extinctions because dependent species have lost their resource species) we have set in motion and which cannot be halted irrespective of any remedial action we might take. Hence, taking into account all of the above factors, the prospects of averting human extinction are now remote, at best.

One acknowledgment of the depth of our crisis, which takes into account just two variables and preceded declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic precipitating the elite coup putting us on the path to technotyranny, was the fact that the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was moved to 100 seconds to midnight in January 2020, the closest it has ever been to ‘doomsday’ (and more severe than both the previous year and in 1953 when the Soviet Union first exploded a thermonuclear weapon matching the US capacity and raising the spectre of nuclear war).

See ‘It is Now 100 Seconds to Midnight’.

Of course, as implied above, information about the deeper strands of what is taking place and strategies to address these, only have utility in one context. They depend, fundamentally, on how one perceives what is happening and this is shaped by one’s perception of how the world in which we live actually works. If, on the one hand, someone is inclined to perceive the world as it has been traditionally presented via elite agents, then the ‘virus’ is a serious threat to individual lives for the reasons presented by governments and the corporate media and we must respond as directed.

If, on the other hand, someone has a critique of the global elite and the way in which current events are just the latest manoeuver in a centuries-long series of events designed to consolidate elite control at the expense of the rest of us, then it is the deeper agenda behind what is happening that is the focus of attention.

Given that the evidence in support of the latter position is overwhelming, and that the forces arrayed against us are very powerful, humanity faces the greatest challenge to its existence since Homo sapiens first walked the Earth.

So let me identify some of the more crucial backward steps humanity took during 2020 and what we can do about them.

Some Key Lowlights of 2020

1. As briefly reported above, the global elite implemented its long-planned coup to take complete control of human life in order to eliminate or marginalize a substantial proportion of the population while perverting the identity and will of the rest of us to serve elite ends. While there is significant resistance to this coup, strategic resistance to it in any meaningful form is yet to emerge.

Given that most people have fallen victim to the elite propaganda – see

‘The Psychology of the COVID-19 Coup: The Elite, their Victims and those who Resist’ and

‘Why Do Most People Believe Propaganda and False Flag Attacks?’ – as well as being distracted by sideshows (such as the ‘fight’ over the outcome of the US presidential election: see

‘What to Expect in 2021: Madness, Mayhem, Manipulation and More Tyranny’)

and are also not considering the massive ‘collateral damage’ that is taking place under cover of Covid-19, the resistance that is occurring (dismissed, one way or another, by those supporting the elite coup) remains insufficient if humanity is to successfully defend human identity, freedom, dignity and volition and, even more vitally, to avert our own extinction.

As James Corbett noted in a recent video:

‘If you are advocating for lockdowns, you are complicit in tearing families apart. You are complicit in inflicting untold suffering on millions of people around the world. You are complicit in casting the poorest and most vulnerable in our societies into even further grinding poverty. You are complicit in murder.’

Watch ‘What NO ONE is Saying About The Lockdowns’.

To highlight just a few of the severe economic impacts, official responses supposedly to Covid-19 have vastly exacerbated poverty and starvation (leading to millions of deaths), destroyed millions of small businesses, dramatically increased unemployment, enabled a monumental wealth transfer from poor to rich (with the wealth of US billionaires increasing by nearly a trillion dollars during the year, and the world’s 2,189 billionaires – obviously excluding the immensely wealthier Rothschilds and Rockefellers – amassing fortunes totaling around $US10.2 trillion) and is leading to the greatest and most rapid rise in homelessness in world history.

See, for example,

‘WFP chief warns of “hunger pandemic” as Global Food Crises Report launched’,

‘Why Lockdowns Don’t Work and Hurt the Most Vulnerable. Bankruptcies, Poverty, Despair’,

‘US Unemployed Rising, Evictions, Mortgages Crisis Brewing, Small Business Collapsing: Economic Consequences of a 2nd “Mitigation” Bill’,

‘Planned Surveillance and Control by Global Technocrats: A Big-Picture Look at the Current Pandemic Beneficiaries’, ‘

Net Worth of US Billionaires Has Soared by $1 Trillion to Total of $4 Trillion Since Pandemic Began’, ‘

Riding the storm: Market turbulence accelerates diverging fortunes’ and

‘Windfall profits and deadly risks: How the biggest retail companies are compensating essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic’.

Key threats posed by the elite coup include the fact that, if it comes to pass, the ‘compulsory’ vaccination along with the digital certificate that will go with it will leave us as nothing more than robotized organisms monitored and controlled by the elite’s agents.

For example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr has explained in ‘Gates’ Globalist Vaccine Agenda: A Win-Win for Pharma and Mandatory Vaccination’:

Vaccines, for Bill Gates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including Microsoft’s ambition to control a global vaccination ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control of global health policy.

Gates’ obsession with vaccines seems to be fueled by a conviction to save the world with technology.

But even more importantly, Professor Vandana Shiva has evocatively explained why the world patent granted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to Microsoft on 26 March 2020 titled ‘1. WO2020060606 – Cryptocurrency System Using Body Activity Data’, has given Microsoft (that is, Bill Gates) extraordinary power over our lives and is ‘robbing us of our deep humanity’. In essence:

‘The patent is dramatically changing the meaning of being human…. It is redefining us as ‘mines’ for data – robbing us of our autonomy, our sovereignty, and control over our bodies and minds…. It is erasing our humanity – as sovereign, living beings, spiritual, conscious, intelligent beings, making our decisions and choices with wisdom and ethical values about the impacts of our actions on the natural and social world of which we are a part; and to which we are inextricably related. We are being reduced to being ‘users’ of tasks assigned to us by the extractive digital mega machine. A ‘user’ is a consumer without choice in the digital empire. Human creativity and consciousness disappear in the world imagined in #patent060606.’ See ‘My Earth Journey in defence of Biodiversity, Life and Freedom over 5 decades’.

Separately from this, the adverse physical and psychological health impacts of official responses to Covid-19 have been heavily documented as well, including by the United Nations and World Health Organization, despite their complicity in the coup. For example, there has been a dramatic increase in the violence inflicted within the family home, especially by men and women against children – see ‘Why Violence?’ – and by the more usually acknowledged men against women.

See ‘UN chief calls for domestic violence “ceasefire” amid “horrifying global surge”’.

In addition, there has been official acknowledgment of the elevated levels and rates of fear (usually labeled ‘stress’ or ‘anxiety’) and the increased levels of loneliness, depression, harmful alcohol and drug use, and self-harm along with suicides – see ‘Mental health and COVID-19’ – although they have been officially underestimated to conceal the true extent of the harm being done which was, of course, planned as part of the strategy to preoccupy the population and weaken resistance to the coup.

In some cases below, I have made reference to how the elite-generated responses to the non-existent virus and fake pandemic have exacerbated existing adverse circumstances and, for example, led to the ‘sitting duck’ murder of indigenous activists trapped in their homes by lockdown restrictions.

2. The global elite, using key elite fora such as the Group of 30, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group and the World Economic Forum, and despite much rhetoric to the contrary, continued to plan, generate and exacerbate the many ongoing wars, deepening exploitation within the global economy, climate and environmental destruction, and the killing and exploitation of fellow human beings in a multitude of contexts, in pursuit of greater elite profit, power and privilege. See, for example, ‘Who Is Really in Control of US Foreign Policy?’, Giants: The Global Power Elite and ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.
3. International organizations (such as the United Nations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) and national governments and corporations used military forces, legal systems, police forces and prison systems – see ‘The Rule of Law: Unjust and Violent’ – around the world to serve the global elite by defending its interests against the bulk of the human population, including those individuals and organizations courageous enough to challenge elite profit, power and privilege who are being killed in record numbers. (See more in point 39 below).
4. $US1.92 trillion was officially spent worldwide on military weapons to kill fellow human beings and other lifeforms, and to destroy the biosphere. This is the highest official (because the figures are taken from ‘open sources’) annual military expenditure ever recorded and the third consecutive year in which an increase occurred. Spending $732 billion, the United States accounted for more than one-third of global military expenditure. See ‘SIPRI Yearbook 2020: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security; Summary’.

In addition to direct military spending, national governments spent billions more on such items as interest on national debt accrued through military expenditure, and medical, hospital, housing and other costs associated with rehabilitation of injured, and support of incapacitated, veterans.

Apart from military spending, weapons transfers worldwide remained high, key weapons control agreements such as that to limit strategic nuclear weapons (‘New START’) were rapidly approaching expiry with attempts to renew them stalled by the US, and there were many other regional and national military conflicts including new ones such as those in Nagorno-Karabakh and Ethiopia.

See ‘Fate Of Armenian-Azerbaijani War Is Being Decided In Battle Of Shusha’ and

‘Alarm as Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict becomes internationalised’.

In relation to the military spending of the United States, as noted previously, so out-of-control is this spending that the US government has now spent at least $US21trillion on its military in the past 20 years for which it cannot even account! That’s right, $US1trillion each year above the official US national budget for killing is ‘lost’.

See Army General Fund Adjustments Not Adequately Documented or Supported, ‘Has Our Government Spent $21 Trillion Of Our Money Without Telling Us?’ and

‘The Pentagon Can’t Account for $21 Trillion (That’s Not a Typo)’.

There has been no progress reported in accounting for this ‘lost’ expenditure during the past year.

5. Under the direction of the global elite (as explained above), the United States government and its NATO allies continued their perpetual war across the planet wreaking devastation on many countries and regions, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, at staggering cost in terms of civilian and military lives lost, refugees displaced, national heritage destroyed, financial expenditure and environmental damage. See, for example,
6. The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, From Columbus to the Islamic State, Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War, Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, Costs of War and ‘Understanding NATO, Ending War’.

As a result, whether in the US-sponsored and supplied Saudi Arabian war against Yemen where the UNHCR reports ‘Yemen is facing a humanitarian catastrophe…. Civilians bear the brunt of the crisis, with 22.2 million Yemenis now in need of humanitarian assistance’ –

see ‘The world cannot afford to let Yemen slip into the abyss’

– the result of the US use of depleted uranium on top of its other extraordinary military destruction of Iraq over the past 30 years – see ‘Depleted Uranium and Radioactive Contamination in Iraq: An Overview’

– the complete dismemberment of Libya as a result of NATO’s bombing of that country and the subsequent assassination of its leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 – see ‘Endless War and Chaos in Libya’

– the systematic killing of children by CIA-trained death squads in Afghanistan as just one feature of the US war on that country – see ‘The CIA’s Afghan Death Squads: A U.S.-Backed Militia That Kills Children May Be America’s Exit Strategy From Its Longest War’

– or the ongoing US occupation of Syrian territory and control of its resources

– see ‘Endless US Rape, Occupation and Plunder of Syria’ – the United States and its NATO allies have continued their efforts to destroy entire countries at staggering cost to their populations and environments, not because these countries posed a threat to security outside their borders but in order to maintain geopolitical control and to facilitate the theft of their resources (including oil) at great profit to the global elite.

See, for example, ‘Hillary Emails Reveal NATO Killed Gaddafi to Stop Libyan Creation of Gold-Backed Currency’.

Moreover, of course, the perpetually-profitable perpetual war, by definition, has no end. But the elite has no problem frightening most people into supporting its perpetual wars using manufactured excuses that are dutifully promulgated by its corporate media. And, with a gullibly terrified human population disinclined to question authority, this isn’t a problem.

See ‘The Disintegrated Mind: The Greatest Threat to Human Survival on Earth’.

The same unconvincing formula invariably works each time. For a fuller and insightful explanation of this point, see Edward Curtin’s article ‘The war hoax redux’.

Additional costs associated with war and military spending include the simple fact that by deliberately exaggerating the risk posed by the threat of war, additional expenditure is endlessly ‘justified’ to an unsuspecting and gullible public – see

‘Scary “R” Us: The Exaggerated Threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Part 7 of “Elephants in the room” series’

– they impose a staggering cost on the global environment –

see ‘The Ecological Impact of Militarism’ – and they destroy human rights and freedoms including, obviously, the right to life of those individuals killed.

Additional dangers associated with perpetual war by the US include the risk of accidental nuclear war, nuclear war triggered by a cyber attack –

see ‘Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught’ –

and ‘simply’ that endless confrontation with, and provocation of, other major powers Russia and China will, one day, explode into a high-tech ‘world’ war.

See ‘Trump’s Pernicious Military Legacy: From the Forever Wars to the Cataclysmic Wars’.

6. Not content with the devastating impact of the military violence it is inflicting already, during 2020 the global elite continued to plan and develop ways to cause more destruction in future. This included ongoing work by US military agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), accelerated by initiatives in relation to the elite coup, to advance mind-controlled weapons – see ‘The Government Is Serious About Creating Mind-Controlled Weapons’ – autonomous systems and artificial intelligence technologies that will undermine nuclear deterrence and increase the likelihood of nuclear escalation – see ‘A Stable Nuclear Future? The Impact of Autonomous Systems and Artificial Intelligence’ – and further development by the United States to create its Space Force, a sixth branch of the US military forces, just three manifestations of this. See ‘The Big Push for Nukes in Space’. In addition, DARPA continues to sponsor research on ‘extinction gene drive’ technology for use against an ‘enemy’ race as explained in item 35 below.

In its turn, Russian military advances include development and deployment of a hypersonic weapon that travels at Mach 27 and which makes the US missile defense installations in Europe ‘obsolete’.

See ‘Avangard changes everything: What Russia’s hypersonic warhead deployment means for the global arms race’.

And, according to US sources, China now has the largest navy in the world while expanding its arsenal of ground-based conventional ballistic and cruise missiles and planning to double its nuclear arsenal.

See ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020’ and

‘Pentagon Releases Annual China Military Power Report’.

But other initiatives receiving renewed attention – ‘hypervelocity guns, particle beams and laser weapons onboard orbiting battle platforms with onboard nuclear reactors or “super” plutonium systems providing the power for the weapons’ – also enhance the threat that ‘Modern society would go dark’ in the words of Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell. Why? Because ‘any war in space would be the one and only. By destroying satellites in space massive amounts of space debris would be created that would cause a cascading effect and even the billion-dollar International Space Station would likely be broken into tiny bits. So much space junk would be created… that we’d never be able to get a rocket off the planet again because of the minefield of debris orbiting the Earth at 15,000 mph’.

See ‘Trump Signs Measure Enabling Establishment of a U.S. Space Force’.

Of course, technological ‘advances’ in weaponry reflect retrograde steps in policy with the US Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) – which includes 20 B-2 stealth bombers, 76 B-52 bombers and 450 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles together capable of delivering thousands of nuclear warheads – along with the U.S. Navy’s submarine-launched Trident ballistic missiles, now ‘capable of extinguishing essentially all life on Earth within a matter of hours.’

See ‘The Air Force’s Global Strike Command Is Preparing For A Delivery Of New Nuclear Weapons’.

7. Following the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002 and after withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the ‘Iran nuclear deal’) and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (which limited the deployment of intermediate range nuclear weapons) in 2018, the US government further and unilaterally signaled its intention to dismantle the little that remained of attempts during the Cold War and since that time to contain the threat of nuclear war by further acting in violation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 – see ‘Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies’ and ‘US Weaponizing Space in Bid to Launch Arms Race’ – and demonstrating its disinterest in extending New START: the sole remaining restraint on U.S.-Russian nuclear arsenals that caps deployed offensive strategic nuclear weapons to no more than 1,550 each. See ‘US, Russia Trade Blame for Failed New START Negotiations’. There is some prospect that the incoming US president will seek to renew the treaty which expires on 5 February 2021.

If you are in any doubt regarding the devastating consequences of nuclear war, you will find Professor Steven Starr’s thoughts – see ‘Nuclear Darkness, Global Climate Change and Nuclear Famine: The Deadly Consequences of Nuclear War’ – illuminating. In addition, the description by Lynn Eden in ‘City on Fire’ (based on her book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation) is compelling.

8. Another substantial proportion of global private financial wealth – conservatively estimated by the Tax Justice Network in 2010 to already total between $US21 and $US32 trillion – has been invested virtually tax-free through the world’s still-expanding black hole of more than 80 ‘offshore’ tax havens (such as the City of London Corporation, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Nauru, St. Kitts, Antigua, Tortola, Switzerland, the Channel Islands, Monaco, Cyprus, Gibraltar and Liechtenstein).

Tax havens, or ‘secrecy jurisdictions’, are locations around the world where wealthy individuals, criminals and terrorists, as well as governments and government agencies (such as the CIA), banks, corporations, hedge funds, international organizations (such as the Vatican) and crime syndicates (such as the Mafia), can stash their money so that they can avoid laws, regulation and oversight and, very often, evade tax.

See ‘Elite Banking at Your Expense: How Secretive Tax Havens are Used to Steal Your Money’.

‘Countries are losing over $427 billion in tax each year to international corporate tax abuse and private tax evasion.’ $245 billion is lost through corporate tax abuse and $182 billion is lost as wealthy individuals evade tax. While wealthier countries lost more tax it was only equal to 8% of their annual health budgets; for lower income countries the losses were equal to more than half their health budgets.

See ‘$427bn lost to tax havens every year: landmark study reveals countries’ losses and worst offenders’.

As the latest report of the Tax Justice Network ‘The State of Tax Justice 2020’ concluded: ‘A global tax system that loses over $427 billion a year isn’t a broken system, it’s a system programmed to fail.’

Controlled by the global elite, Wall Street and other major banks manage this monstrous diversion of wealth under Government protection. (This means that any effort to contain this diversion by introducing robustly-enforced tax laws, including wealth and excess taxes, are thwarted.) ‘Their business is fraud and grand theft.’ But tax havens offer more than tax avoidance. ‘Almost anything goes on.’ It includes ‘bribery, illegal gambling, money laundering, human and sex trafficking, arms dealing, toxic waste dumping, conflict diamonds and endangered species trafficking, bootlegged software, and endless other lawless practices.’

See ‘Trillions Stashed in Offshore Tax Havens’.

Moreover, the losses noted above are just financial wealth. Additionally, a large share of the real estate, yachts, racehorses, gold bricks and many other assets that count as non-financial wealth are also owned via offshore structures that make it impossible to identify their owners.

See Tax Justice Network.

9. The world’s major corporations continued to inflict enormous ongoing violence (in a myriad of ways) in their pursuit of endless profit at the expense of living beings (human and otherwise) and Earth’s biosphere by producing and marketing a wide range of life-destroying products ranging from nuclear weapons and nuclear power to fossil fuels, junk food, pharmaceutical drugs (including health-destroying and sometimes life-destroying vaccinations: see, for example,‘Vaxxed-Unvaxxed – The Science’), synthetic poisons and genetically mutilated organisms (GMOs).

These corporations include the following: weapons manufacturers, major banks and their ‘industry groups’ like the International Monetary Conference, asset management firms, investment companies, financial services companies, fossil fuel (coal, oil and gas) corporations, technology corporations, media corporations, major marketing and public relations corporations, agrochemical (pesticides, seeds, fertilizers) giants, pharmaceutical corporations (with their handmaidens in the medical and psychiatric industries:

see ‘Defeating the Violence in Our Food and Medicine’ and

‘Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry’), biotechnology (genetic mutilation) corporations, mining corporations, nuclear power corporations, food multinationals and water corporations.

You can see a list of the major corporations in this article: ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

10. More than two billion people continued to live under military occupation (such as the people of Kashmir, Kurdistan, Palestine, Tibet, West Papua and Western Sahara), dictatorship (such as the people of Cambodia, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, North Korea and Saudi Arabia) or threat of genocidal assault (such as the Rohingya of Myanmar) invariably with the global elite sponsoring the oppressive local elite that exercises power. For details of just one of a great many examples, see ‘500 Years is Long Enough! Human Depravity in the Congo’.
11. 36,000,000 human beings (mainly in Africa, Asia and Central/South America) were starved to death in 2020. That is, more than one person each second died because they did not have enough eat. See ‘How Many People Die from Hunger Each Year’.

Are we serious about ending these totally unnecessary deaths? Not even remotely, as thoughtfully explained by Professor George Kent in his report as deputy editor of World Nutrition. See ‘Are We Serious About Ending Hunger?’

As Professor Kent notes: currently, around the world, ‘around 800 million people suffer from hunger’ and that ‘global efforts to end hunger have not been serious’: There has been ‘no substantial commitment of resources, no management group to control the process, no realistic timeline, and no means for mid-course corrections on the way to the goal. There [have been] no contracts with agencies that would work toward achievement of the goal…. hoping for the end of hunger won’t work. Hope is not a strategy.’ Moreover, ‘The UN system offers little more than vague aspirations.’

‘Over the decades, the stated global goal of ending hunger was not achieved, repeatedly. Instead of strengthening the effort, the response has been to reduce the aspirations. That is a clear indicator of the lack of seriousness.’

By one estimate: ‘World hunger can be eliminated with an additional $265 billion per year.’ See ‘How Many People Die from Hunger Each Year’. That is, redirecting 13.8% of official current military spending would end world hunger and starvation on Earth.

But complicated by official responses to Covid-19 (that is, the elite coup), earlier in the year World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley warned of one outcome:

If we don’t prepare and act now to secure access, to avoid funding shortfalls and disruptions to trade, we could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions within a short few months… our analysis shows that 300,000 people could starve to death every single day over a three-month period. See ‘WFP chief warns of “hunger pandemic” as Global Food Crises Report launched’.

Beyond this, food availability for many vulnerable people was exacerbated by locust infestations in parts of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia as yet another manifestation of ongoing climate and environmental degradation.

See ‘360 Billion Locusts And Growing – A Plague Of “Biblical Proportions” Is Destroying Crops Across The Middle East And Africa’.

While this crisis was partly averted, it was done at great cost to the environment: at least 834,000 litres of pesticide and 12,675kg of bio-pesticide were procured and administered through the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) alone.

See ‘Desert locust crisis’.

Of course, spraying pesticides on ‘more than 1.3 million hectares of locust infestations… across ten countries this year’ didn’t solve the problem with the threat to ‘agricultural livelihoods and the food security of millions of people’ simply re-emerging late in the year.

See ‘Desert Locust “re-invasion” threatens millions across Horn of Africa’.

This was inevitable as humans endlessly try to ‘patch up’ symptoms of damage to the environment and climate that has been inflicted over decades and now requires integrated solutions that violate the endless demand for corporate profit.

12. 18,250,000 children were killed by adults in wars, by starving them to death, by denying them clean drinking water, as a result of gun deaths, and in a large variety of other ways.
13. 8,000,000 children were trafficked into sexual slavery; executed in sacrificial killings after being kidnapped; bred to be sold as a ‘cash crop’ for sexual violation, to produce child pornography (‘kiddie porn’) and ‘snuff’ movies (in which children are killed during the filming); ritually tortured and murdered as well as raped by dogs trained for the purpose. See ‘Humanity’s “Dirty Little Secret”: Starving, Enslaving, Raping, Torturing and Killing our Children’.
14. Hundreds of thousands of individuals were kidnapped or tricked into slavery, which now denies 46,000,000 human beings (more than at any time in human history) the right to live the life of their choice, condemning many individuals – especially women and children – to lives of sexual slavery (perhaps in a forced ‘marriage’), forced labor or as child soldiers. Needless to say, the global elite continues to expand this highly profitable business while its compliant governments do no more than mouth an occasional objection to the practice while doing nothing effective to actually end it, as is patently evident following disclosures about the involvement of high-profile public figures and major industries in the slave trade.

See ‘The Global Slavery Index’. For one recent account of the life of a modern slave, see ‘My Family’s Slave’. For an account of the involvement of public figures in sex slavery, see ‘Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein: what you need to know’ and the other articles listed at the end of this one. And for an account of the fashion industry’s complicity in the slave trade (which ranks second after computers and mobile phones for industry involvement), see ‘Fashion identified as one of five key industries implicated in modern slavery’.

15. Well over 100,000 people (particularly Falun Gong practitioners) in China, where an extensive state-controlled program is conducted, were subjected to forced organ removal for the trade in human organs. Watch ‘Hard to Believe’and ‘Fighting China’s Forced Organ Harvesting’ and see Bloody Harvest and The Slaughter.
16. 8,700,000 people were displaced by war, persecution or famine. There are now 79,500,000 people – 1% of the world population – who have been forcibly displaced worldwide and remain precariously unsettled, usually in adverse circumstances. 40% of those who are displaced are children, and more than 4,000,000 displaced people are stateless. 17 people in the world are forcibly displaced every minute. Notably, official responses to the supposed ‘pandemic’ in 2020 seriously exacerbated the adverse circumstances of displaced people further reducing their capacity to meet basic needs. See ‘Figures at a Glance’ and ‘UNHCR releases supplementary COVID-19 appeal to meet exceptional refugee needs in 2021’.
17. Millions of people were made homeless in their own country as a result of war, persecution, ‘natural’ disasters (many of which, including hurricanes/cyclones and wildfires, were actually generated by dysfunctional human behavior rather than nature), internal conflict, poverty or as a result of elite-driven national economic policies. The last time a global survey was attempted – by the United Nations back in 2005 – an estimated 100 million people were homeless worldwide. In addition, as many as 1.6 billion people lack adequate housing (living in slums, for example). See ‘Global Homelessness Statistics’.
18. Highlighting the unheralded biodiversity crisis on Earth, as a result of habitat destruction and degradation as well as a multitude of other threats, 73,000 species of life (plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects, reptiles and microbes) on Earth were driven to extinction with the worldwide loss of many of these species now at catastrophic levels. Tragically, many additional species are now trapped in a feedback loop which will inevitably precipitate their extinction as well because of the way in which ‘co-extinctions’, ‘localized extinctions’ and ‘extinction cascades’ work once initiated and as has already occurred in almost all ecosystem contexts. See the (so far) six-part series ‘Our Vanishing World’. Have you seen a flock of birds of any size recently? A butterfly?
19. Separately from species extinctions, Earth continued to experience ‘a huge episode of population declines and extirpations, which will have negative cascading consequences on ecosystem functioning and services vital to sustaining civilization. We describe this as a “biological annihilation” to highlight the current magnitude of Earth’s ongoing sixth major extinction event.’ Moreover, local population extinctions ‘are orders of magnitude more frequent than species extinctions. Population extinctions, however, are a prelude to species extinctions, so Earth’s sixth mass extinction episode has proceeded further than most assume.’ See ‘Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines’ and ‘Our Vanishing World: Wildlife’.
20. Wildlife trafficking, worth up to $20 billion in 2020, is pushing many endangered species to the brink of extinction. Illegal wildlife products include jewelry, traditional medicine, clothing, furniture, and souvenirs, as well as some exotic pets, most of which are sold to unaware/unconcerned consumers in the West although China is heavily implicated too. For just one example: every 15 minutes an elephant is killed for its tusks. See Stop Wildlife Trafficking.
21. 6.5 million hectares of pristine forest were cut or burnt down for purposes such as the following: acquiring timbers used in construction, clearing land to establish cattle farms so that many people can eat cheap hamburgers, clearing land to establish palm oil plantations so that many people can eat processed (including junk) foods based on this oil, clearing land to establish palm oil and soybean plantations so that some people can delude themselves that they are using a ‘green biofuel’ in their car (when, in fact, these fuels generate a far greater carbon footprint than fossil fuels), mining (much of it illegal) for a variety of minerals (such as gold, silver, copper, coltan, cassiterite and diamonds), logging to produce woodchips so that some people can buy cheap paper (including cheap toilet paper), oil drilling, dam construction, tourism and clothing. Separately from this, the climate catastrophe is destroying forests, as are fires.

See ‘Our Vanishing World: Rainforests’, ‘Estimating the global conservation status of more than 15,000 Amazonian tree species’,

‘Tropical forests’ lost decade: the 2010s’,

‘How much rainforest is being destroyed?’, Global Forest Watch and

‘New data show world lost a Switzerland-size area of primary rainforest in 2019’.

One outcome of this destruction is that 40,000 tropical tree species are now threatened with extinction. In addition, rainforest destruction is also the key driver of species extinctions globally with one million species of life on Earth threatened with extinction, as reported in the recent

‘Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’.

Another outcome is that ‘the precious Amazon is teetering on the edge of functional destruction and, with it, so are we’. How long do we have? ‘The tipping point is here, it is now.’ Professor Thomas E. Lovejoy and his fellow researcher Carlos Nobre elaborate this point: ‘Bluntly put, the Amazon not only cannot withstand further deforestation but also now requires rebuilding as the underpinning base of the hydrological cycle if the Amazon is to continue to serve as a flywheel of continental climate for the planet and an essential part of the global carbon cycle.’

See ‘Amazon Tipping Point: Last Chance for Action’.

22. Vast quantities of soil were washed away as we destroyed the rainforests, and enormous quantities of both inorganic constituents (such as heavy metals like cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel and zinc) and organic pollutants (particularly synthetic chemicals in the form of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides) were dumped into the soil as well, thus reducing its nutrients and killing the microbes and earthworms within it. We also contaminated enormous quantities of soil with radioactive waste. See Soil-net, ‘Glyphosate effects on soil rhizosphere-associated bacterial communities’ and ‘Disposing of Nuclear Waste is a Challenge for Humanity’.

To briefly elaborate the evidence in relation to earthworms: Given ‘recent reports of critical declines of microbes, plants, insects and other invertebrates, birds and other vertebrates, the situation pertaining to neglected earthworms’ was evaluated in an extensive investigation recently undertaken by Robert J. Blakemore. His research demonstrated an 83.3 percent decline in earthworms in agrichemical farms – that is, those that use pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers – compared with farms utilizing organic methods. Why? Because ‘it is impossible to replace or artificially engineer the myriad beneficial processes and services freely provided by earthworms’ which includes extensive burrows in pastures enriched with soil organic matter that allow ingress of air & water and provide living space for other soil organisms. Moreover, given that ecological services overall have been given a median value of US$135 trillion per year, which is almost double the global economic GDP of around $75 trillion –

see ‘Changes in the global value of ecosystem services’ and

‘Valuing nature and the hidden costs of biodiversity loss’ – Blakemore reaches an obvious conclusion: ‘Persistence with failing chemical agriculture makes neither ecological nor economic sense.’

See ‘Critical Decline of Earthworms from Organic Origins under Intensive, Humic SOM-Depleting Agriculture’.

Given that this multifaceted destruction of the soil fundamentally threatens the global grain supply, when the ability to grow, store and distribute grains at scale is a defining element of civilization, as Professor Guy McPherson eloquently explains it: ‘A significant decline in grain harvest will surely drive this version of civilization to the abyss and beyond.’

See ‘Seven Distinct Paths to Loss of Habitat for Humans’.

23. When nuclear power plants were first being constructed, they were envisaged to have a maximum lifespan of 40 years because the radioactive emissions made the metal parts of the plant brittle causing safety problems. However, Professor Karl Grossman explains, with the passage of time the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ‘has extended the operating licenses of nuclear power plants from 40 years to 60 years and then 80 years, and is now considering 100 years’. Crazy? As Robert Alvarez notes: It is ‘an act of desperation in response to the collapse of the nuclear program in this country and the rest of the world’. See ‘Inviting Nuclear Disaster’.

Despite the lower cost, far greater safety and lack of radioactive waste products from renewable energy, nuclear power corporations continue their efforts to resist closure of their industry, in various ways. These range from developing ‘floating mini-nukes’, towed to and anchored off coastlines ‘for up to 24 years’ to power developing nations – see ‘Floating “mini-nukes” could power countries by 2025, says startup’ – using nuclear power as the energy source to support ‘a sustained lunar presence and allow Mars to be more easily explored’ but, of course, with resource mining planned and production of nuclear weapons a possibility – see ‘U.S. Plans to Build a Nuclear Plant on the Moon Is a Major Challenge to Other Great Powers’ – and using nuclear power to travel to Mars quickly (partly to minimize astronaut exposure to extraordinary cosmic radiation) and then using it for various purposes once there but, essentially, to ‘allow humans to live for long periods in harsh space environments’. See ‘The Thermal Nuclear Engine That Could Get Us to Mars in Just 3 Months’ and ‘US Eyes Building Nuclear Power Plants for Moon and Mars’.

Of course, the hazards (and insanity) of doing this are monumental, as Professor Grossman has documented. See ‘The Big Push for Nukes in Space’ and The Case Against Nuclear Power: The U.S. Space Force and the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear war in space. And there is more information on this and related subjects on the website of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

Moreover, apart from their obvious problems as mentioned above and illustrated in the next item below as well, nuclear power plants are vulnerable to cyber attack too.

See ‘6 Things to Know about the 2020 Cyberattack and Nuclear Power Plants’.

24. Despite an extensive and ongoing coverup by the Japanese government and nuclear corporations, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), vast amounts of radioactive waste were dumped into the biosphere from the TEPCO nuclear power plant at Fukushima in Japan including by discharge into the Pacific Ocean. This is killing an incalculable number of fish and other marine organisms and indefinitely contaminating expanding areas of that ocean. See ‘Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation’, ‘2019 Annual Report – Fukushima 8th Anniversary’, ‘Eight years after triple nuclear meltdown, Fukushima No. 1’s water woes show no signs of ebbing’ and ‘Fukushima’s Three Nuclear Meltdowns Are “Under Control” – That’s a Lie’.

But the challenges to be overcome in safely handling and, ultimately, safely storing the radiation hazards (such as the three melted nuclear reactors and the spent fuel rods) and the radioactive waste from the Fukushima disaster are monumental, as touched on in this article outlining the 40-year plan that the Japanese government hopes will delude us into believing will deal with the many components of this perpetual radioactive nightmare.

See ‘Japan revises Fukushima cleanup plan, delays key steps’.

In addition, one critical legacy of the US military’s 67 secretive and lethal nuclear weapons tests on the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 is the ‘eternally’ radioactive garbage left behind and now leaking into the Pacific Ocean.

See ‘The Pentagon’s Disastrous Radioactive Waste Dump in the Drowning Marshall Islands is Leaking into the Pacific Ocean’.

Is other nuclear waste safely stored? Of course not! See, for example, ‘NRC admits San Onofre Holtec nuclear waste canisters are all damaged’, ‘USA’s Hanford nuclear site could suffer the same fate as Russia’s Mayak – or worse’ and, for a more comprehensive report, ‘The World Nuclear Waste Report 2019: Focus Europe’.

Of course, the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in 1986 continues to inflict extensive damage on the biosphere which you can learn more about from the research by Professor Kate Brown, author of Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future – see ‘Chernobyl Radiation Cover-Ups & Deadly Truth’, ‘UN and Western countries covered up the facts on the huge health toll of Chernobyl radiation’ and ‘Unreported Deaths, Child Cancer & Radioactive Meat: The Untold Story of Chernobyl’ – as well as the investigatory work of Alison Katz of Independent WHO: ‘Chernobyl Health Cover-Up, Lies by UN/WHO Exposed’.

In addition, there are up to 70 ‘still functional’ nuclear weapons as well as nine nuclear reactors lying on the ocean floor as a result of accidents involving nuclear warships and submarines. These are leaking an unknown amount of radiation into the oceans. See ‘Naval Nuclear Accidents: The Secret Story’, ‘A Nuclear Needle in a Haystack: The Cold War’s Missing Atom Bombs’ and, for one specific example (the former Soviet submarine Komsomolets), see ‘Soviet nuclear submarine emitting radiation “100,000 times normal level” into sea, scientists find’.

But not content with the existing radioactive threats to life, in 2020 the US approved the use of radioactive materials in roadbuilding! See ‘Phosphogypsum Use in Roadbuilding Previously Prohibited Due to Risks of Cancer, Genetic Damage’.

25. Despite largely successful efforts by the elite-controlled IPCC to delude people into believing that the global mean temperature has increased by only 1°C, in fact, since the pre-industrial era (prior to 1750) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have already caused the global temperature to rise by more than 2°C above this baseline (in February 2020). This occurred despite the Paris climate agreement in 2015 when politicians pledged to hold the global temperature rise to well below 2°C above the pre-industrial level and pledged to try to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C above this level. See ‘2°C crossed’.

Among a lengthy list of adverse outcomes, this has caused the melting of Arctic permafrost and undersea methane ice clathrates resulting in an incalculable quantity of methane (CH₄) being uncontrollably released into the atmosphere, including during 2020, with the quantity being released getting ever closer to ‘exploding’. According to one study, ‘Global warming triggered by the massive release of carbon dioxide may be catastrophic, but the release of methane from hydrate may be apocalyptic.’

See ‘Methane Hydrate: Killer cause of Earth’s greatest mass extinction’ and also

‘Anomalies of methane in the atmosphere over the East Siberian shelf: Is there any sign of methane leakage from shallow shelf hydrates?’, ‘7,000 underground gas bubbles poised to “explode” in Arctic’, ‘Release of Arctic Methane “May Be Apocalyptic,” Study Warns’ and ‘Understanding the Permafrost-Hydrate System and Associated Methane Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf’.

Highlighting some other manifestations in 2020 of this accelerating climate catastrophe, Dr Jeff Masters and Dana Nuccitelli noted that it was the wildest Atlantic hurricane season on record (doubling the average), an ‘apocalyptic wildfire season’ (that ran all year), that the most expensive disaster was a $US32billion flood in China, and that 2020 is likely to be the hottest year in human history.

See ‘The top 10 weather and climate events of a record-setting year’.

Complicating efforts to tackle this catastrophe are factors not normally considered impacting the climate, such as the jetwash from aircraft. According to Wesley Schouw and Professor Gunter Pauli, the climate catastrophe ‘is also driven by shifts in the patterns of global atmospheric circulation which are influenced by persistent, large-scale vortices caused by the wake turbulence left by commercial air traffic. Because this traffic is highly concentrated along the most frequently traveled routes, the vortices aircraft create have transformed into semi-permanent atmospheric circulation which have widespread effects on how the atmosphere traps and releases heat. It is also possible that these changes alter the loss of water from the atmosphere. This would endanger all life on earth, not just the human population.’

See ‘Jetwash-induced vortices and climate change’.

Anyway, the combined impact of all drivers of the climate catastrophe have led to a situation in which humans in particular locations are already being increasingly forced to contend with heat and humidity beyond human tolerance. This is precipitating increasing levels of heat-induced stress, organ failure and therefore deaths, contrary to models indicating that such impacts lie decades in the future.

See ‘The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance’.

Tragically, however, as noted by Dr Andrew Glikson, with climate projections now ‘disturbingly consistent’ in indicating a ‘shift in state of the climate toward +4 degrees and even +6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels’, climate scientists are caught in a quandary: ‘In private conversations, many scientists express far greater concern at the trend of global warming than they do in public. However, faced with social and psychological barriers, as well as threats of losing positions and jobs, in business, public service and academia, a majority keeps silent.’ This is especially tragic, given that ‘The pace of current global warming exceeds those of the last 2.6 million years by an order of magnitude, with calamitous consequences for biological systems.’

See ‘An Orwellian climate while Rome burns’.

And noting that ‘We currently occupy the warmest Earth with Homo sapiens present beyond the much-vaunted 2°C “guardrail” above the 1750 baseline’, Professor Guy McPherson reports that ‘There is no known way to stabilize or reduce the global-average temperature of Earth.’ He goes on to describe ‘a few means by which Earth could lose all habitat for Homo sapiens, a process that is already under way’. And concludes that ‘Human extinction likely was triggered when Earth exceeded 2°C above the 1750 baseline.’

For the details, see ‘Near-Term Loss of Habitat for Homo sapiens’.

Moreover, given ill-informed elite responses to the fake pandemic, the extinction of all life on Earth (not just human life) may have already been precipitated: ‘The rapidity of change associated with loss of aerosol masking [due to the industrial shutdown] precludes retention of habitat for human animals anywhere on Earth. In addition, the catastrophic meltdown of the world’s nuclear power facilities poses an additional threat to all life on Earth.’

See ‘The Means by Which COVID-19 Could Cause Extinction of All Life on Earth’.

Of course, as Professor McPherson concedes, he may be wrong. It’s just that the evidence offered by an increasing number of scientists on different aspects of the crisis now indicates that it will be many scientists who will need to be wrong for near-term extinction not to occur.

Watch ‘Edge of Extinction: Maybe I’m Wrong’.

26. Human use of fossil fuels to power aircraft, shipping and vehicles as well as for industrial production and to generate electricity (among other purposes) released 34 billion metric tons (34 gigatons) of carbon dioxide into Earth’s biosphere, a 7% decrease on 2019 due to the elite shutdown of the global economy. The biggest reductions occurred in the USA and Europe with China’s monstrous CO₂ emissions only marginally less than 2019. See ‘Global Carbon Project’.

Of course carbon dioxide was also released in response to certain ‘land-use changes’, such as rainforest destruction which led to 16 billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions, and human-caused tragedies such as extensive wildfires during the year. Taking into account CO₂ removals, primarily from vegetation regrowth due to abandonment of agricultural lands, total CO₂ emissions from human activities (from fossil CO₂ and land-use change) were about 40 billion tonnes in 2020, compared to 43 billion tonnes in 2019. Hence, the expected growth rate in atmospheric CO₂ concentration in 2020 (2.5 ppm) is near the 2019 growth rate, despite slightly lower anthropogenic emissions due to elite-driven policies slowing the global economy.

According to the observatory at Mauna Loa, the monthly average atmospheric CO₂ concentration had reached 413ppm by year’s end.

See ‘Monthly Average Mauna Loa CO₂’.

So while the land and ocean sinks absorbed 54% of CO₂ emissions from the atmosphere in 2020, exacerbating ocean acidification among other problems, atmospheric CO₂ concentrations in 2020 are now 50% above the pre-industrial (1750) level of 275ppm.

As one measure of their contempt for the utterly inadequate goals of the Paris climate agreement in 2015, and with government approval, ‘437 of the 935 companies featured in the [Global Coal Exit List] are planning either new coal plants, new coal mines or new coal transport infrastructure’. Since 2015, ‘the world’s installed coal-fired capacity has increased by 137 GW, an amount equal to the operating coal plant fleets of Germany, Russia and Japan combined. And over 500 GW of new coal-fired capacity is still in the pipeline’ with more than half of that in China.

See ‘NGOs Release the 2020 Global Coal Exit List: 935 Companies that Banks, Investors and Insurers Need to avoid’.

27. 72 billion land animals (mainly chickens, ducks, pigs, rabbits, geese, turkeys, sheep, goats and beef cattle) were killed for food. In addition, between 37 and 120 billion fish were killed on commercial farms with another 2.7 trillion fish caught and killed in the wild. See ‘How Many Animals Are Killed for Food Every Day?’

In addition, according to Humane Society International, about 100 million animals (particularly mink, foxes, raccoon dogs and rabbits) were bred and slaughtered in fur farms geared to supplying the fashion industry. In addition to farming, millions of wild animals were trapped and killed for fur, as were hundreds of thousands of seals.

See ‘How Many Animals Do Humans Kill Each Year?’

Apart from that, more than 100 million animals were killed for laboratory purposes in the United States alone and there were other animal deaths in shelters, zoos and in blood sports.

See ‘How Many Animals Are Killed Each Year?’

Obviously, the primary ‘blood sport’ is hunting. In the United States, over 100 million animals are reported killed by hunters each year. See ‘Facts – Wildlife’. ‘This figure does not include millions of animals killed illegally by poachers, animals who are injured, escape, and die later, or orphaned animals who die after their mothers are killed.’

See ‘How Many Animals Do Humans Kill Each Year?’

But, worldwide, killing of animals and birds hunted for the purpose exacts a staggering toll on wildlife. For another example,

see ‘Our Vanishing World: Birds’.

But there are many other ‘blood sports’, such as cockfighting and bullfighting, often involving gambling, each of which exacts a shocking death and injury toll on the unfortunate birds and animals forced to ‘fight’.

While practiced in many countries, in the Philippines the practice is 6,000 years old and legal, with cockfighting having the status of a national sport, generating billions of dollars annually and killing 30 million roosters each year.

See ‘Cockfighting in the Philippines: The billion dollar industry and national obsession’.

In relation to another ancient practice – bullfighting – ‘thousands of bulls are barbarically slaughtered in bullrings around the world’ each year. As one would expect, centuries of the practice have enabled ‘bullfighters’ to learn countless ways to rig the fight in their favor and this is done shamelessly. See ‘Bullfighting’. Particularly popular in Spain and Mexico, bullfighting is still practiced in many countries despite activist efforts inducing a declining popularity in some places.

28. Farming of animals for human consumption released 7.1 gigatons of CO₂-equivalent into Earth’s atmosphere; this represented 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. About 44% of livestock emissions were in the form of methane (which was 44% of anthropogenic CH₄ emissions), 29% as Nitrous Oxide (which was 53% of anthropogenic N₂O emissions) and 27% as Carbon Dioxide (which was 5% of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions). See ‘GHG Emissions by Livestock’.
29. Human use of fossil fuels and farming of crops and animals released more than 3.2 million metric tons of (CO₂ equivalent) nitrous oxide (N₂O) into Earth’s atmosphere. See ‘Nitrous oxide emissions’. Each year, more than 100 million tonnes of nitrogen is spread on crops in the form of synthetic fertilizer. See ‘Fertilizers by Nutrient’. Along with an equivalent amount of livestock manure, this releases a colossal amount of N₂O into the atmosphere, accounting for almost 70% of N₂O emissions. See ‘A comprehensive quantification of global nitrous oxide sources and sinks’.

While N₂O is ‘only’ the third most important greenhouse gas after CO₂ (which lasts up to thousands of years in the atmosphere) and CH₄, N₂O has 300 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and stays in the atmosphere for an average 116 years. Atmospheric concentrations of N₂O have now exceeded 331 parts per billion, 22% above the level in 1750, before the industrial era began.

See ‘United in Science 2020: A multi-organization high-level compilation of the latest climate science information’ and ‘New research: nitrous oxide emissions 300 times more powerful than CO₂ are jeopardising Earth’s future’.

30. Glaciers and mountain ice fields – whether located in Greenland or other regions of the far north, the Himalaya, at the Equator, in southern latitudes or Antarctica – are all melting at unprecedented and accelerating rates, losing billions of tonnes of ice in 2020. For a discussion of the details and the implications of this, see ‘Our Vanishing World: Glaciers’.
31. The ongoing destruction of Earth’s oceans continued unabated and accelerated in key areas.

In summary, the oceans are warming, acidifying and deoxygenating; being contaminated with nuclear radiation, by offshore oil and gas drilling as well as oil spills; being damaged by deep sea mining; being polluted by industrial (including chemical) and farming wastes which are generating ocean ‘dead zones’; being polluted by nitrogen and discharges from warships, commercial shipping and cruise ships as well as monumental amounts of plastic; being overfished and illegally fished; being subjected to destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling, blast fishing, cyanide fishing, ghost fishing and aquaculture; being damaged by sand mining, port and harbor dredging, the increasing spread of invasive species, the live trade in fish and coral for the aquarium industry, the increasing level of noise pollution, and even by wildfires.

In essence then: the oceans are under siege on a vast range of fronts and are effectively ‘dying’. They are being stripped of everything of value to humans (ranging from its many creatures, such as fish and whales, to products such as sand, oil and minerals) while having a monumental range and quantity of garbage and pollutants (ranging from household to radioactive waste) dumped into them. All these shifts taken together, however, result in a rapid and serious decline in ocean health and this, in turn, adversely impacts all species dependent on the ocean including fish, mammals and seabirds as well as ocean plant and microscopic life.

For a comprehensive 18-point summary and extensive documentation, see ‘Our Vanishing World: Oceans’.

32. Earth’s fresh water and ground water was further depleted and contaminated. And whether in streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands or aquifers, water is being ongoingly polluted as contaminants find their way into fresh water sources wherever they occur. Moreover, once contaminated, a water source may be unusable for thousands of years. See ‘Water Pollution: Everything You Need to Know’.

The depletion of fresh water is a primary outcome of the ongoing deforestation of the planet and is manifesting in several ways including as localized droughts, which are becoming increasingly common as a number of cities and regions around the world can attest. According to the World Resources Institute, half of the surface water in some countries – mainly in Central Asia and the Middle East – was depleted between 1984 and 2015, with agriculture using an average of 70% of the water. 36 countries are ‘extremely water-stressed’ and water is now a major factor in conflict in at least 45 countries.

See ‘7 Graphics Explain the State of the World’s Water’.

Separately from depletion, fresh water was contaminated by bacteria, viruses and household chemicals from faulty septic systems; hazardous wastes from abandoned and uncontrolled hazardous waste sites (of which there are over 20,000 in the USA alone); leaks from landfill items such as car battery acid, paint and household cleaners; the pesticides, herbicides and other poisons used on farms and home gardens; radioactive waste from nuclear tests (some of it stored in glaciers that are now melting); and the chemical contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in search of shale gas, for which about 750 chemicals and components, some extremely toxic and carcinogenic like lead and benzene, have been used.

See ‘Groundwater contamination’, ‘Groundwater drunk by BILLIONS of people may be contaminated by radioactive material spread across the world by nuclear testing in the 1950s’ and ‘Fracking chemicals’.

In relation to thermal and hydroelectric power generation, all versions of which are highly dependent on huge quantities of fresh water to function, 47 percent of the world’s thermal power plant capacity – mostly coal, natural gas and nuclear – and 11 percent of hydroelectric capacity are located in highly water-stressed areas. See ‘Water Stress Threatens Nearly Half the World’s Thermal Power Plant Capacity’.

The good news is that renewable energy is less water-expensive, by orders of magnitude, and constitutes another compelling reason for switching to renewables.

See ‘Renewable Energy Saves Water and Creates Jobs’.

Given that less than 1% of fresh water is readily available for human consumption and must be shared with the natural environment (because most fresh water is stored in glaciers, for example), and that official estimates indicate that a person needs at least 50 to 100 liters of water per day for consumption and basic hygiene and that between 2,000 and 5,000 liters of water are needed to produce a person’s daily food – see ‘7 Graphics Explain the State of the World’s Water’ – the ongoing depletion and contamination of fresh water in the context of an expanding human population constitutes a serious threat to human well-being as well as the ecological health of Earth’s biosphere.

This is particularly the case given that the production of our consumer goods – and particularly electronic items such as computers, mobile phones, cars… – uses staggering amounts of fresh water to produce each item and so curtailing individual and global demand for electronic items particularly is a crucial part of any strategy to conserve water. For example, it takes 147,971 liters to make a car and up to 30 liters of water to make a single chip for a laptop or smartphone.

See ‘Thirsty business: How the tech industry is bracing for a water-scarce future’ and ‘How Many Gallons of Water Does It Take to Make…’.

And in the latest disaster and defeat for humanity and the biosphere in relation to water, on 7 December 2020 ‘blue gold’ was traded for the first time as a commodity on the Chicago Stock Exchange. See ‘Water, “The Ultimate Commodity”, (*) Has Entered the Stock Market. Poor water!’

33. The longstanding covert military use of geoengineering – spraying tens of millions of tons of highly toxic metals (including aluminium, barium and strontium) and toxic coal fly ash nanoparticulates (containing arsenic, chromium, thallium, chlorine, bromine, fluorine, iodine, mercury and radioactive elements) into the atmosphere from jet aircraft to weaponize the atmosphere and weather – in order to enhance elite control of human populations, continued unchecked. Geoengineering is systematically destroying Earth’s ozone layer – which blocks the deadly portion of solar radiation, UV-C and most UV-B, from reaching Earth’s surface – as well as adversely altering Earth’s weather patterns and polluting its air, water and soil at incredible cost to the health and well-being of living organisms and the biosphere. See ‘Geoengineering Watch’, including ‘Engineered Climate Cataclysm: Hurricane Harvey’.

For a discussion of the military implications of geoengineering, see ‘The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction: “Owning the Weather” for Military Use’.

And for discussions of the research, and implications of it, by Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt and Dr. Stephenie Seneff (Senior Research Scientist at MIT), which considers damage to the biosphere and human health caused by the geoengineering release of a synthesized compound of nanonized aluminium and the poison glyphosate that creates a ‘supertoxin’ that is generating ‘a crisis of neurological diseases’, see ‘World-Renowned Doctor Addresses Climate Engineering Dangers’, Dr Stephenie Seneff, ‘Autism Explained: Synergistic Poisoning from Aluminum and Glyphosate’ and ‘Extinction is Stalking Humanity: The Threats to Human Survival Accumulate’.

34. The incredibly destructive 5G technology, which a vast number of scientists – currently totaling more than 314,000 individuals and organizations from 214 nations and territories: see ‘International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space’ https://www.5gspaceappeal.org/the-appeal – are warning will have catastrophic consequences for life on Earth, is now being rapidly introduced without informed public consultation and despite ongoing protests around the world. For a straightforward account of the enormity of what is at stake, see the recently revised and updated edition of The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life or read a review of the book: ‘Deadly Rainbow: Will 5G Precipitate the Extinction of All Life on Earth?’

The following articles and videos will also give you a solid understanding of key issues from the viewpoint of human and planetary well-being.

See ‘5G Satellites: A Threat to all Life’, ‘5G Danger: 13 Reasons 5G Wireless Technology Will Be a Catastrophe for Humanity’,

‘5G Technology is Coming – Linked to Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and Death’,

‘20,000 Satellites for 5G to be Launched Sending Focused Beams of Intense Microwave Radiation Over Entire Earth’,

‘Will 5G Cell Phone Technology Lead To Dramatic Population Reduction As Large Numbers Of Men Become Sterile?’,

‘The 5G Revolution: Millions of “Human Guinea Pigs” in Big Telecom’s Global Experiment’ and

‘5G Apocalypse – The Extinction Event’.

35. Genetic engineering continued in 2020, with genetically mutilated organisms (GMOs) being ongoingly released into the natural environment despite extensively documented adverse impacts, such as contamination of non-GM crops by GM crops. See, for example, ‘The GM Contamination Register: a review of recorded contamination incidents associated with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), 1997–2013’.

But the social and economic costs of GM crops have been catastrophic for many, as explained years ago by Professor Vandana Shiva in relation to the ‘epidemic of farmers’ suicides in India’ resulting from the 95% control by Monsanto (since merged with Bayer) over cotton seed supply. This meant that instead of putting aside some seed from each year’s harvest for planting the following season (as had been practiced for millennia), farmers were compelled to buy a new supply of (pesticide-dependent) GM seed – the ‘intellectual property’ of Monsanto – to plant each new crop.

Of course, among the many other problems with GMO seeds, they can only be planted as monocultures rather than as part of a mixed farming regime (particularly important for small family farmers who traditionally grow their own food) and ‘GMOs are failing to control pests and weeds, and have instead led to the emergence of superpests and superweeds.’ Since the introduction of expensive GMO seeds into India, suicides by Indian farmers have become an annual ‘epidemic’ with thousands occurring each year due to accumulated debts that are impossible to repay. As Shiva evocatively puts it: ‘No GMO seeds, no debt, no suicides.’

In essence, genetic engineering is a highly profitable means ‘to control seed and the food system through patents and intellectual property rights’. See ‘The Seeds Of Suicide: How Monsanto Destroys Farming’.

But it goes well beyond that with control of nature the ultimate goal.

Notwithstanding the massive problems generated by GMOs just explained, the monstrous control exercised by the major agrochemical and biotech corporations has ensured that governments are ongoingly approving one disastrous move after another. For example, approval has recently been given to release 750 million GMO mosquitoes – created to ‘eradicate mosquito populations’ – into the wild to destroy the mosquito population in the Florida Keys in the USA. Apart from its obvious adverse impact on the food supply of insect-eating birds and amphibians, this will generate a host of other problems.

See ‘More than 750 million GMO mosquitoes to be released over Florida Keys – what could go wrong?’

Of course, government approval is not difficult to obtain. In fact: ‘The GMO agritech industry’s strategy has been to first spread seeds illegally or contaminate supplies and then obtain regulatory approval.’

See ‘GM Food Crops Illegally Growing in India: The Criminal Plan to Change the Genetic Core of the Nation’s Food System’.

And if you thought that the mosquito experiment just mentioned is extreme, consider the implications of ‘gene drives’. So what are gene drives? ‘Imagine that by releasing a single fly into the wild you could genetically alter all the flies on the planet – causing them all to turn yellow, carry a toxin, or go extinct. This is the terrifyingly powerful premise behind gene drives: a new and controversial genetic engineering technology that can permanently alter an entire species by releasing one bioengineered individual.’

How effective are they? ‘Gene drives can entirely re-engineer ecosystems, create fast spreading extinctions, and intervene in living systems at a scale far beyond anything ever imagined.’ For example, if gene drives are engineered into a fast-reproducing species ‘they could alter their populations within short timeframes, from months to a few years, and rapidly cause extinction.’ This radical new technology, also called a ‘mutagenic chain reaction’, combines the extreme genetic engineering of synthetic biology and new gene editing techniques with the idea ‘that humans can and should use such powerful unlimited tools to control nature. Gene drives will change the fundamental relationship between humanity and the natural world forever.’

The implications for the environment, food security, peace, and even social stability are breathtaking, particularly given that existing ‘government regulations for the use of genetic engineering in agriculture have allowed widespread genetic contamination of the food supply and the environment.’

See ‘Reckless Driving: Gene drives and the end of nature’.

Consistent with their track records of sponsoring, promoting and using hi-tech atrocities against life, the ‘Gene Drive Files’ reveal that the US military (that is, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) – which ‘appears to be the largest single funder of gene drive research on the planet’ – and individuals such as Bill Gates have been heavily involved in financing research, development and promotion of this grotesque technology.

See ‘Military Revealed as Top Funder of Gene Drives; Gates Foundation paid $1.6 million to influence UN on gene drives’ and the ‘Gene Drive Files’.

‘Why would the US military be interested?’ you might ask. Well, imagine what could be done to an ‘enemy’ race with an extinction gene drive.

36. Incalculable amounts of waste of every conceivable kind – including antibiotic waste, military waste, nuclear waste, nanowaste and genetically engineered organisms, including ‘gene drives’ (or ‘mutagenic chain reactions’) – were released into Earth’s biosphere, with an endless series of adverse consequences for life. See ‘Junk Planet: Is Earth the Largest Garbage Dump in the Universe?’

Not content to dump our junk on Earth, an incalculable amount of junk was also dumped in Space which already contains 100 trillion items of orbiting junk.

See ‘Junk Planet: Is Earth the Largest Garbage Dump in the Universe?’ and ‘Space Junk: Tracking & Removing Orbital Debris’.

37. As one outcome of our dysfunctional parenting model and political systems, fascism continued to rise around the world. See ‘The Psychology of Fascism’.
38. Despite the belief that we have ‘the right to privacy’, privacy (in any sense of the word) was ongoingly eroded in 2020 and, as reported last year, is now effectively non-existent, particularly thanks to Alphabet (owner of Google). Taken together, ‘Uber, Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Tinder, Apple, Lyft, Foursquare, Airbnb, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter, Angry Birds… have turned our computers and phones into bugs that are plugged in to a vast corporate-owned surveillance network. Where we go, what we do, what we talk about, who we talk to, and who we see – everything is recorded and, at some point, leveraged for value.’

Moreover, given Google’s integrated relationship with the US government, the US military, the CIA, and major US weapons manufacturers, there isn’t really anything you can do that isn’t known by those who want to know it. In essence, Google is ‘a powerful global corporation with its own political agenda and a mission to maximise profits for shareholders’ and it partly achieves this by expanding the surveillance programs of the national security state at the direction of the global elite. But Google isn’t alone and it isn’t just happening in the USA.

See ‘Everybody’s Watching You: The Intercept’s 2019 Technology Coverage’, ‘Google’s Earth: How the Tech Giant Is Helping the State Spy on Us’, the articles by John W. Whitehead on ‘Surveillance’ and the documentary ‘The Modern Surveillance State’.

39. The right to free speech, accurate information and conscience-based nonviolent activism was dramatically eroded in 2020 as agents of the global elite (such as national governments, the medical industry and major corporations such as those in the pharmaceutical, tech and media industries), under ‘cover’ of the non-existent Covid-19 pandemic, routinely censored efforts to publish the truth, dramatically expanded official output of propaganda (particularly in relation to the non-existent SARS-CoV-2) and clamped down on political action.

Moreover, both in direct response to and separately from the elite coup, ‘governments around the world have been taking a wave of measures to close down the space for peaceful protest’: censorship, restrictions on access or violent acts directed against those whose views or actions were seen as dangerous or wrong in many contexts continued. Global Witness, Human Rights Watch and other organizations documented an endless series of setbacks for free speech and political activity in a wide variety of countries around the world with individuals suffering smear campaigns or being subjected to spurious criminal charges to silence them, activists and journalists being imprisoned for telling the truth, nonviolent activists being assaulted and killed, critics being silenced by defamation laws or ‘disappearance’, and the closure of newspapers, television stations and the internet to prevent rapid promulgation of information, among other infringements. See, for example, ‘Free Speech’, ‘The supply chain of violence’ and ‘Defending Tomorrow’.

In addition, according to Global Witness, a record number of people (40% of whom were indigenous) were killed last year, averaging four each week, for defending their land and environment particularly against extractive industries. Predictably: ‘The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown have intensified the problems land and environmental defenders face. Governments around the world – from the US to Brazil and Colombia to the Philippines – have used the crisis to strengthen draconian measures to control citizens and roll back hard-fought environmental regulations.’

See ‘Defending Tomorrow’. There is also ‘growing evidence of opportunistic killings during the Covid-19 lockdown in which activists were left as “sitting ducks” in their own homes’.

See ‘Record Land and Environmental Activists Killed Last Year’.

Of course, the most public evisceration of human rights in 2020 was that inflicted on Julian Assange whose only ‘crime’ was to expose the truth about elite atrocities and war crimes inflicted by US military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, among other truths.

See Wikileaks, ‘Assange wins. The cost: Press freedom is crushed, and dissent labelled mental illness’ and ‘The US and UK may not will Assange’s death, but everything they are doing makes it more likely’.

40. Ongoing ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence against children – see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’ – ensured that more people will grow up accepting (and quite powerless to challenge) our dysfunctional and violent world, as described above.
41. The global elite’s corporate media, schooling and film/television industries continued to distract vast numbers of people from reality with an endless barrage of propaganda respectively labeled, depending on the context, ‘news’, ‘education’ and ‘entertainment’ ensuring that most people remain oblivious to our predicament, devoid of the capacities to investigate, comprehend and analyze this predicament as well as their own role in it, and to respond to this predicament powerfully. See, for example, ‘Media’s Deafening Silence on Latest from WikiLeaks about the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Fake Douma Report Blaming Syria’, ‘Do We Want School or Education?’ and ‘Why Do Most People Believe Propaganda and False Flag Attacks?’
42. Finally, as a direct outcome of these last two points but most tragically of all, virtually all of the individuals who self-identify as ‘activists’ continued to waste their time begging the global elite (or their government agents) to fix one or other of our crises, despite the overwhelming evidence that the global elite will not take action to ‘fix’ any of these crises. See ‘Why Activists Fail’. And, for more detail in two key contexts, see ‘The Global Climate Movement is Failing: Why?’ and ‘The War to End War 100 Years On: An Evaluation and Reorientation of our Resistance to War’.

Moreover, even if it was inclined, the elite is now powerless to avert extinction given that, if we are to have any chance given the advanced nature of the crisis and the incredibly short timeframe, we must plan intelligently to mobilize a substantial proportion of the human population in a strategically-focused effort. Nothing else can work.

Highlights of 2020

But so that the picture is clear and ‘balanced’: were there any gains made against the onslaught outlined above, particularly given we were driven inexorably closer to extinction?

Of course, there was considerable effort made to improve the state of the world. See, for example, ‘What went right in 2020: the top 20 good news stories of the year’, ‘World: Positive news in the difficult year of the pandemic’ and ‘We Won’.

Separately from this, there have been some minor activist gains: for example, some western banks and insurance companies are no longer financially supporting the expansion of the western weapons industry and the western coal industry, some superannuation (pension) funds have divested from weapons and fossil fuels, some rainforest groups have managed to save portions of Earth’s rainforest heritage, and activist groups continue to work on a variety of issues sometimes making modest gains.

Moreover, there are many ongoing struggles, notably including efforts to resist the elite coup – see, for example, the ‘World Freedom Alliance’ – and local campaigns such as that by India’s farmers and their allies to secure justice against the draconian measures being implemented by the Modi national government. See ‘The year that was… India’s people fight back a hostile government’.

However, none of these (limited) gains or ongoing campaigns have directly addressed elite power. That is, none of these initiatives seriously considered how the global elite has spent centuries consolidating its power and is now very close to acquiring the worldwide control it has long worked to achieve. Therefore, of course, none of these groups has developed strategies to functionally undermine elite power; a serious shortcoming given that the global elite’s technotyranny is now imminent.

Responding Powerfully

If we are to defeat the elite coup, effectively tackle other manifestations of violence and avert the primary paths to human extinction, we must do many things.

Importantly, if you would like to be part of the campaign to undermine elite power, defeat the elite coup and prevent implementation of the transhumanist agenda, see the list of strategic goals necessary to achieve these outcomes here: Coup Strategic Aims. Other pages of this website outline how to develop and implement a comprehensive nonviolent strategy to achieve these outcomes (which can be readily adapted for local campaigns).

If you wish to nurture children to become powerful individuals capable of acting strategically to prevent and respond to violence while able to critique society and elite propaganda,

see ‘My Promise to Children’.

If you wish to focus on strategically resisting one of the primary threats to human existence – nuclear war, the deployment of 5G, the collapse of biodiversity and/or the climate catastrophe – you can read about nonviolent strategy, including strategic goals to focus your campaigns, from here: Campaign Strategic Aims.

Importantly, as well, you can both resist the above ‘extinction threats’ while also reducing your vulnerability to elite control by joining those who recognize the critical importance of reduced consumption and greater self-reliance by participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’. In addition, you are welcome to consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

Finally, if you want a better fundamental understanding of how we reached this point, see ‘Why Violence?’, ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’ and ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

Conclusion

To summarize the evidence presented above: as a result of the elite coup being conducted against humanity, human beings stand on the verge of becoming ‘techno-slaves’ devoid of their unique identity, stripped of the human rights to privacy as well as freedom of speech, assembly and movement (among others), and minus the free will to act out their own volition and conscience.

Moreover, cumulative actions by the global elite over past centuries combined with the submissive complicity of most of the human population, have enabled a vast list of violent atrocities in many forms (but touched on above) to destroy or impair the lives of most human beings and largely destroy Earth’s biosphere.

In addition, key actions taken by the global elite in 2020 have accelerated the four primary paths to human extinction.

Hence, very soon now, the overwhelming evidence is that Homo sapiens will join other species that only exist as part of the fossil record.

Our chance of escaping this fate is now remote, essentially for two reasons. Most people have been terrorized into not seeking out the evidence for themselves (and into simply believing what elite agents, such as governments and the corporate media, tell them) and most of those struggling to resist our fate (in one context or another) do not act to strategically undermine elite power (both now and in the future).

Therefore, the global elite continues to exercise enormous power to determine our fate and only a strategic response, encompassing the various components noted above, has any genuine prospect of defeating the elite coup to defend our identity, freedom and volition, while averting each of the primary paths to human extinction.

‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls.’

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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Or, if the options above seem too complicated, consider committing to:

The Earth Pledge

Out of love for the Earth and all of its creatures, and my respect for their needs, from this day onwards I pledge that:

1. I will listen deeply to children. See ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.
2. I will not travel by plane
3. I will not travel by car
4. I will not eat meat and fish
5. I will only eat organically/biodynamically grown food
6. I will minimize the amount of fresh water I use, including by minimizing my ownership and use of electronic devices
7. I will not own or use a mobile (cell) phone
8. I will not buy rainforest timber
9. I will not buy or use single-use plastic, such as bags, bottles, containers, cups and straws
10. I will not use banks, superannuation (pension) funds or insurance companies that provide any service to corporations involved in fossil fuels, nuclear power and/or weapons
11. I will not accept employment from, or invest in, any organization that supports or participates in the exploitation of fellow human beings or profits from killing and/or destruction of the biosphere
12. I will not get news from the corporate media (mainstream newspapers, television, radio, Google, Facebook, Twitter…)
13. I will make the effort to learn a skill, such as food gardening or sewing, that makes me more self-reliant
14. I will gently encourage my family and friends to consider signing this pledge.

 

What occurred at the United States Capitol last week was surely reprehensible, but to my mind the real enduring damage that was done to our form of government took place in a basement in Wilmington Delaware where president-designate Joe Biden was putting together some of the final pieces of his foreign policy and national security team.

Hopes that the Democrats would accommodate their progressive wing to some extent by backing off of the aggressive “American first” policies pursued by Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo were extinguished with the elevation of Wendy Sherman and Victoria Nuland to the number two and three senior positions at the State Department, to back up Secretary of State designate Tony Blinken.

Nuland is perhaps the surprise appointment as she famously was the Obama Administration’s regime change monster when she served as Assistant Secretary of State. She was the prime mover of the blatantly interventionist policy in Ukraine, featuring herself and Senator John McCain sauntering around Kiev’s Maidan Square handing out cookies to rioters. Thousands died when political turmoil over a contested election turned into an out-and-out coup complete with mystery riflemen shooting into the mobs to energize them.

The regime change was funded by $5 billion courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer and it also riled Russia, which shares an extensive border and economic links with Ukraine. The coup was, by the way, intended to replaced a Russia-friendly head of state with someone who was not so inclined. Astonishingly, the Kremlin was able to figure that out and responded by resuming possession of the Crimea, which was largely populated by Russians.

Nuland became best known after the fact when she was foolish enough to speak on an unencrypted cell phone in a discussion relating to whom the United States would install to run post-coup Ukraine. When her interlocutor objected that the European Union might want to have some say, perhaps as a mediator, in how Ukrainian politics might play out, she responded “Fuck the E.U.,” which might be regarded as Diplomacy 101 neocon style.

Victoria Nuland has been active in the government to private sector revolving door since Obama departed the White House, giving interviews and writing op-eds critical of the Trump State Department and of the policies being promoted. She has been CEO of the neocon Center for a New American Security, held a revolving door sinecure at the Boston Consulting Group and another at the Albright Stonebridge Group. Apparently her record of being seriously wrong in foreign policy has only served to improve her resume in Washington’s hawkish foreign policy establishment. Her return to power might also be due to the profile of her husband Robert, who was one of the first neocons to get on the NeverTrump band wagon back in 2016 when he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and spoke at a Washington fundraiser for her, complaining about the “isolationist” tendency in the Republican Party exemplified by Trump.

Image on the right: Under Secretary Sherman meets with Yossi Cohen, National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Israel, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on February 18, 2015. (Public Domain)

Wendy Sherman is less well known. She has been nominated to become the Deputy Secretary of State. She is currently a Senior Counselor also at the Albright Stonebridge Group and a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She is regarded as a protégé of the Clintons and in particular of ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, she of 500,000 dead Iraqi children was “worth it” boast. Sherman knows Biden from having previously served in the Obama Administration as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the fourth-ranking official in State, from September 2011 to October 2015. During the Clinton Administration, she served as Counselor of the United States Department of State and Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State and North Korea Policy Coordinator. Under Obama she was the chief negotiator on the Iranian nuclear program. She was regarded as a hardliner, saying “We know that deception is part of the DNA” of Iranians and she was characteristically careful to brief the Israelis on everything that she was doing. The White House was intent on coming to an agreement nevertheless, which was signed in 2015 as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a pact which has since been rejected by Donald Trump and which Biden may or may not seek to resuscitate.

And then there is Tony Blinken, who apparently will be the boss of both Sherman and Nuland. Blinken is in some respects Israel’s lead man in Washington. He was a strong supporter of invading Iraq and even recommended partitioning the defeated nation into three parts. He was a supporter of destroying Libya and an architect of the anti-Syria policy pursued by Obama. In an interview in the Times of Israel Blinken confirmed Biden’s position on possibly reducing aid to Israel if the Jewish state were to do things that damaged U.S. interests. Blinken “…reiterated Biden’s position that he would not condition aid to Israel. He [Biden] is resolutely opposed to it. He would not tie military assistance to Israel to any political decisions it makes, full stop.” Dennis Ross, often described as Israel’s lawyer, praises him for having “…an instinctive emotional attachment to Israel,” referring to Blinken’s frequently cited Jewish and refugee roots. It was an interesting unambiguous admission from Blinken that both he and Joe Biden put Israeli interests ahead of those of the United States.

Blinken’s personal view of unfettered support for Israel allegedly derives from his stepfather having claimed to be a survivor of the so-called holocaust, a tale that he invoked several times during his acceptance speech on November 24^th. The Timesinterview concluded with Blinken asserting that “One of the things that’s really shaped the vice president’s… career-long support for Israel and its security is the lesson of the Holocaust. He believes strongly that a secure Jewish homeland in Israel is the single best guarantee to ensure that never again will the Jewish people be threatened with destruction.”

The indefatigable Israel-firster Tony Blinken has also served as a “conduit” to those in government for Israel advocacy groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). And now that we have Tony Blinken as Secretary of State Designate the door will soon be even more wide open to the Israel Lobby than it was under Trump. And Nuland and Sherman, both of whom are also Jewish and ardent Zionists, will be along for the ride.

And outside of State, we have Avril Haines as Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Haines is a former CIA and National Security Council (NSC) officer who was directly engaged in suppressing much of the classified report on the torture program run by the Agency out of secret prisons. She was instrumental in making sure that no CIA officers were punished for their war crimes and worked with Obama’s intelligence adviser John Brennan to enable the infamous drone program. When Haines was the NSC’s top lawyer, Brennan was the keeper of the so-called “kill list” of American citizens overseas that he and Obama would review every Tuesday morning. It was Haines who provided the legal authorizations to launch missile attacks from drones and she has never been held accountable for any of her decisions. There is little doubt that she will persist in her hardline views as DNI. Like Blinken, Nuland and Sherman she is also Jewish and it should be presumed her pro-Israel credentials are rock solid.

And then there is the boss himself, Joe Biden. He is a self-described Zionist who also is well on board the hate Russia express. In an interview published in the New Yorkerin July 2014 he is quoted as describing a 2011 meeting in Moscow with then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Biden claimed that “I had an interpreter, and when he was showing me his office I said, ‘It’s amazing what capitalism will do, won’t it? A magnificent office!’ And he laughed. As I turned, I was this close to him, I said, ‘Mr. Prime Minister, I’m looking into your eyes, and I don’t think you have a soul’.” Pressed on whether the tale was true, Biden confirmed it, “absolutely, positively . . . And he looked back at me, and he smiled, and he said ‘We understand one another’.”

The story is, like so many others in the Biden Song Book an apparent fabrication, according to others who were on the same trip. The meeting never took place. Does Biden really believe it to be true? More important, does he frequently engage foreign leaders by first insulting them before looking into their eyes and discerning whether they have a soul or not?

The Trump Administration’s view of both Russia and China is unreservedly antagonistic, a stance that is likely to continue and even get worse with the Democrats in power. The two nations are currently regarded by policymakers in Washington as actual “enemies” and U.S. national defense strategy includes the government’s belligerent intention “To restore America’s competitive edge by blocking global rivals Russia and China from challenging the U.S. and our allies.” And on 25 October 2020, Biden made the point publicly, declaring that “the biggest threat to America right now in terms of breaking up security and our alliances is Russia.”

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation

The Constitution is unclear on this issue.

Professor of Politics Keith Whittington argued as follows:

“Impeachments are to protect the republic from dangerous officeholders…” 

“(T)he ability to disqualify a former officer who has been demonstrated to have committed grave abuses of office in the past might be valuable.”

Not according to Law Professor Ross Garber arguing that constitutional language limits impeachment to current office holders, saying:

“Impeachment could only happen while Trump is in office, not after he leaves.”

Nothing in the Constitution permits impeachment of a former president. Yet nothing rules it out.

According to Findlaw.com:

If a former US president or other office holder was impeached and convicted by a Senate two-thirds super-majority, “it’s a near certainty that (his) person would take the case to the courts.”

“It’s also likely that the case would make its way to the Supreme Court, where justices would probably all be thinking about calling in sick for the next six months.”

The ostensible purpose of impeaching and convicting a former US president would be to prevent that person from holding office again — along with imposing maximum humiliation as a convicted felon, rightfully or wrongfully.

In 1876, House members impeached William Belknap, President Ulysses Grant’s war secretary — after he resigned from office.

A Senate trial months later failed to reach a required super-majority, Belknap thus acquitted.

Given an equally divided US Senate today with 50 Republicans and 50 Dems, if Trump is impeached as president or private citizen, conviction by Senate super-majority would seem highly unlikely.

Acquitting Trump would defeat the Pelosi/Schumer-led Dems from wanting him prevented from running again for president.

Humiliating him more than already would also be defeated, along with seeking to label him a convicted felon.

According to former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter, Trump could be impeached based on the Belknap precedent.

Under the Constitution’s Article II, Section 4:

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Law Professor Jonathan Turley argued that by “seeking (Trump’s) removal for incitement, (Dems) would gut not only the impeachment standard but also free speech, all in a mad rush to remove Trump just days before his term ends,” adding:

Dems want Trump removed for “his remarks to supporters” they falsely claim led to last Wednesday’s Capitol Hill violence.

“(His) address d(id) not meet the definition for incitement under the criminal code.”

“It would (or should) be viewed as protected speech by the Supreme Court.”

“Trump never…called for violence or riots” in his speech or tweets.

“(H)e urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to raise their opposition to the certification of electoral votes and to back the recent challenges made by a few members of Congress.”

He told the crowd of supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices be heard.”

His public remarks were willfully distorted by Dems and their media press agent.

Smelling blood in the water, they want Trump impeached as president or after his term expires.

Turley: “There was no call for lawless action by Trump.”

He “call(ed) for a legitimate protest at the Capitol.”

“(V)iolence was not imminent…”

“(T)he vast majority of (Capitol Hill) protesters were not violent before the march, and most did not riot inside the Capitol.”

“Like many violent protests in the last four years, criminal conduct was carried out by a smaller group of instigators.”

Undemocratic Dems want Trump impeached and removed from office “for remarks (permitted) by the First Amendment.”

“It would create precedent for the impeachment of any president (who rightfully or wrongfully is) blamed for violent acts of others…”

In 1918, Eugene Debs publicly opposed the WW I draft — his First Amendment right.

Yet he was wrongfully arrested, charged with sedition, convicted, sentenced and imprisoned.

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutional breach, what Turley called one of its most “infamous” rulings, adding:

Dems today “are now arguing something even more extreme as the basis for impeachment.”

“Under their theory, any president could be removed for rhetoric that is seen to have the (undefined) ‘natural tendency’ to encourage others to act in a riotous fashion.”

“Such a standard would allow for a type of vicarious impeachment that attributes conduct of third parties to any president for the purposes of removal.”

At the same time, Dems urged anti-Trump elements to publicly protest.

“(T)here needs to be unrest in the streets,” said Biden’s VP Kamala Harris, adding:

“(T)here needs to be unrest in the streets.”

“(P)rotesters should not let up” even when some marches turn violent.

The obvious double standard needs no elaboration.

According to Pelosi/Schumer-led Dems, Trump’s “guilt is not doubted and innocence is not deliberated,” said Turley.

“This would do to the Constitution what the violent rioters did to the Capitol and leave it in tatters.”

On Sunday, Pelosi said the following:

“If we do not receive unanimous consent” for invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump, legislation (to do it will) be brought up (in the House on) the following day.”

“We are calling on (Mike Pence) to respond within 24 hours.”

“Next, we will proceed with bringing impeachment legislation to the floor” of the House.

With less than 10 days remaining in office, Pelosi defied reality, calling Trump “an imminent threat.”

Pence reportedly opposes invoking of the 25th Amendment.

Calls to his office by Pelosi and Schumer weren’t answered by staff, nor did Pence return them.

Removing Trump by invoking the 25th Amendment requires consent by the vice president and a majority of cabinet members.

According to Dem House Majority Whip James Clyburn:

“Let’s give…Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running, and maybe we’ll send the articles (of impeachment to the Senate) sometime after that.”

While in office or after his term expires, House impeachment and/or Senate conviction of Trump for constitutionally allowed speech would risk crossing a rubicon from what remains of the rule of law to tyranny.

Future presidents, other government elected and appointed officials — along with virtually Americans — could face a similar fate ahead by the unconstitutional standard called for by Pelosi and Schumer.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. 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.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Trent’anni fa, nelle prime ore del 17 gennaio 1991, iniziava nel Golfo Persico l’operazione «Tempesta del deserto», la guerra contro l’Iraq che apriva la sequenza delle guerre del dopo guerra fredda. Essa viene lanciata dagli Usa e dai loro alleati nel momento in cui, dopo il crollo del Muro di Berlino, stanno per dissolversi il Patto di Varsavia e la stessa Unione Sovietica. Ciò crea una situazione geopolitica interamente nuova, e gli Usa tracciano una nuova strategia per trarne il massimo vantaggio. Negli anni Ottanta gli Usa hanno sostenuto l’Iraq di Saddam Hussein nella guerra contro l’Iran di Khomeini. Ma quando nel 1988 termina questa guerra, gli Usa temono che l’Iraq acquisti un ruolo preminente nella regione. Attuano quindi di nuovo la politica del «divide et impera».

Spingono il Kuwait a esigere l’immediato rimborso del credito concesso all’Iraq e a danneggiarlo sfruttando oltremisura il giacimento petrolifero che si estende sotto ambedue i territori. Washington fa credere a Baghdad di voler restare neutrale nel conflitto tra i due paesi ma, quando nel luglio 1990 truppe irachene invadono il Kuwait, forma una coalizione internazionale contro l’Iraq. Viene inviata nel Golfo una forza di 750 mila uomini, di cui il 70 per cento statunitensi, agli ordini del generale Usa Schwarzkopf. Per 43 giorni, dal 17 gennaio 1991, l’aviazione Usa e alleata effettua, con 2800 aerei, oltre 110 mila sortite, sganciando 250 mila bombe, comprese quelle a grappolo che rilasciano oltre 10 milioni di submunizioni. Partecipano ai bombardamenti, insieme a quelle statunitensi, forze aeree e navali britanniche, francesi, italiane, greche, spagnole, portoghesi, belghe, olandesi, danesi, norvegesi e canadesi. Il 23 febbraio le truppe della coalizione, comprendenti oltre mezzo milione di soldati, lanciano l’offensiva terrestre.

Essa termina il 28 febbraio con un «cessate-il-fuoco temporaneo» proclamato dal presidente Bush. Subito dopo la guerra del Golfo, Washington lancia ad avversari e alleati un inequivocabile messaggio: «Gli Stati uniti rimangono il solo Stato con una forza, una portata e un’influenza in ogni dimensione – politica, economica e militare – realmente globali. Non esiste alcun sostituto alla leadership americana» (Strategia della sicurezza nazionale degli Stati Uniti, agosto 1991). La guerra del Golfo è la prima guerra a cui partecipa sotto comando Usa la Repubblica italiana, violando l’articolo 11 della Costituzione. La Nato, pur non partecipandovi ufficialmente in quanto tale, mette a disposizione sue forze e basi. Pochi mesi dopo, nel novembre 1991, il Consiglio Atlantico vara, sulla scia della nuova strategia Usa, il «nuovo concetto strategico dell’Alleanza».

Nello stesso anno in Italia viene varato il «nuovo modello di difesa» che, stravolgendo la Costituzione, indica quale missione delle forze armate «la tutela degli interessi nazionali ovunque sia necessario». Nasce così con la guerra del Golfo la strategia che guida le successive guerre sotto comando Usa – Jugoslavia 1999, Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003, Libia 2011, Siria 2011, e altre – presentate come «operazioni umanitarie per l’esportazione della democrazia». Quanto ciò corrisponda a verità lo testimoniano i milioni di morti, invalidi, orfani, rifugiati provocati dalla guerra del Golfo, quella che nell’agosto 1991 il presidente Bush definisce «il crogiolo del nuovo ordine mondiale». A questi si aggiungono un milione e mezzo di morti, tra cui mezzo milione di bambini, provocati in Iraq dai successivi 12 anni di embargo, più molti altri dovuti agli effetti a lungo termine dei proiettili a uranio impoverito usati massicciamente nella guerra. Dopo quella dell’embargo, la nuova strage provocata dalla seconda guerra all’Iraq lanciata nel 2003.

Nello stesso «crogiolo» vengono bruciati migliaia di miliardi di dollari spesi per la guerra: solo per la seconda all’Iraq, l’Ufficio congressuale del bilancio stima la spesa statunitense a lungo termine in circa 2000 miliardi di dollari. Tutto questo va tenuto presente quando, tra poco, qualcuno ci ricorderà sui grandi media il trentesimo anniversario della Guerra del Golfo, «il crogiolo del nuovo ordine mondiale».

Manlio Dinucci