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Einleitung 

Die Anforderungen an die schulische Erziehung und Bildung sowie an die Lehrer sind seit jeher immens. Trotzdem ist der Beruf des Lehrers der „schönste“ Beruf, den der Mensch haben kann. Am Lehrer können sich die Schüler reiben und ihr Mütchen kühlen – aber auch wachsen. Gemeinsam können Lehrer wie Schüler den Weg zu einem friedlichen Miteinander finden in einer Welt endloser Kriege, in der auch vor einem „präventiven Atomkrieg“ nicht zurückgeschreckt wird (Prof. Chossudovsky).

Als ehemaliger Lehrer und Doktor der Pädagogik werde ich das näher erläutern und damit für den nicht mehr sehr attraktiven Beruf des Lehrers angesichts eines sich abzeichnenden großen Bildungs-Desasters eine „Lanze brechen“. 

„Für eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung“ 

Bereits vor 21 Jahren, am 20. Mai 2002 verfasste ich als Leiter der „Staatlichen Schulberatungsstelle für die bayerische Landeshauptstadt München“ einen Diskussionsbeitrag zum 17fachen Mord oder Amoklauf in der Stadt Erfurt und meinte abschließend, dass „nur ein gesellschaftlicher Konsens über Werte, Ziele und Vorbilder in der Erziehung der heranwachsenden Generation Orientierung und Halt geben kann“ (1). 

Weiter habe ich geschrieben:

 „Destruktive gesellschaftliche Einflüsse wie eine Unterhaltungsindustrie, die über Film, Fernsehen, Video, Computerspiel und Musik im Wesentlichen eine Mischung aus Gewalt, Perversion und Nihilismus vermittelt sowie die Unsicherheit der Erzieher führten bei der Jugend zu Desorientierung und Haltlosigkeit. (…). 

Die Uneinigkeit in der Gesellschaft über diese Fragen hat der heranwachsenden Generation in den letzten Jahrzehnten nicht zum Vorteil gereicht. Eine Zunahme der Gewaltbereitschaft, des Drogenmissbrauchs, des Nihilismus waren die Folge. Eine breite gesellschaftliche Diskussion tut Not, an deren Ende ein Konsens stehen muss (…). Diese Diskussion muss geführt werden ohne Tabuisierung und Abstempelung anderer Meinungen und muss sich unter anderem an den vielen wertvollen Forschungsergebnissen der Entwicklungspsychologie, besonders der Bindungs- und Erziehungsstilforschung sowie den Forschungen zu den Bedingungen prosozialen Verhaltens und an der Medienwirkungsforschung orientieren.“ (2) 

Dieser Diskussionsbeitrag ist auch nahezu ein viertel Jahrhundert später noch zeitgemäß. 

Situation der schulischen Erziehung und Bildung heute 

„Bildung! Bildung! Bildung! Über kaum ein Thema wird häufiger und härter gestritten. Bildung soll die Persönlichkeit entwickeln und ein erfülltes Leben ermöglichen. Bildung soll gut ausgebildete Fachkräfte für den Arbeitsmarkt bereitstellen und unsere Wirtschaft wettbewerbsfähig halten. Bildung soll Frieden und Demokratie sichern und unser kulturelles Wissen über die Generationen weitergeben.“ (3) 

Dieser Definition von „Bildung“ können sich westlichen Gesellschaften sicher anschließen. Es stellt sich jedoch die Frage, ob sie diesem Anspruch auch gerecht werden und die Bildungschancen ihrer Kinder fördern. Und das vor allem nach dem verhängnisvollen „Krisenjahr“ 2022 mit Corona-bedingten Schulschließungen, einem erschreckenden Lehrermangel und einem hohen Migrationshintergrund der Schüler. Ganz zu schweigen von der Bildungssituation in den sogenannten Entwicklungsländern. 

Dabei gibt es kein menschliches Problem, das nicht von Lehrern thematisiert werden könnte und sollte, angefangen vom schulischen Lernen, der Unterhaltungsgewalt auf den Handys von Kindern bis hin zum Drogenkonsum, zur Desinformation der „kriegstreibenden Presse“ (Karl Kraus), zur Geschichte des Faschismus‘ (Vera Sharav) und bewährten Wegen zu einem friedlichen Zusammenleben. 

Bildung im psychologischen Sinne hieße auch noch, den Menschen zu vermitteln, wie sie ihre Probleme lösen sollen und können. Hierzu zählen ihr Lebensgefühl sowie ihre Meinung über sich selbst, die Mitmenschen und die Gemeinde.

„In unseren Schulen herrscht Krieg!“  

Im Jahr 1975 schätzte der Individualpsychologe Prof. Dr. Rudolf Dreikurs die Situation an Schulen nicht ganz unrealistisch ein, als er geschrieben hat: 

„Ob der Lehrer es möchte oder nicht, ob er sich dessen bewusst wird oder nicht, gewöhnlich wird er in einen Machtkampf hineingezogen, aus dem er sich nicht befreien kann.“ (4)

Doch gleichzeitig hat er angemerkt: 

„Jedes Kind wird gelegentlich aus Gründen, die ihm selbst verborgen bleiben, Widerstand leisten. Zu wiederholen, was es tun sollte, verbessert nicht die Situation, ruft im Gegenteil einen Konflikt im Kind hervor und verstärkt seinen offenen Widerstand gegenüber dem Lehrer. Nur jemand, der die psychologischen Mechanismen, die das richtige Funktionieren des Kindes blockieren, versteht, kann ihm helfen, sich einzufügen und Fortschritte zu machen.“ (5) 

Es kommt also darauf an, dass sich der Lehrer mit oder ohne Hilfe eines pädagogisch-psychologischen Fachmanns dieses Machtkampfs bewusst wird und Frieden schließt mit seinen Schülern. Im Artikel „Wir Bürger sollten den Humanismus erproben…“ habe ich den positiven Fall eines Lehrer-Kollegen geschildert, dem es gelang, sich mit einem ehemals störenden Schüler zu versöhnen und den Kriegszustand in der Klasse zu beenden (6). 

Die heiligste Pflicht eines Erziehers  

Bereits zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts hat Alfred Adler, der Begründer der Individualpsychologie, jedem Lehrer und Erzieher ins Stammbuch geschrieben: 

„Die wichtigste Aufgabe eines Erziehers – man kann fast sagen: seine heiligste Pflicht – besteht darin, Sorge zu tragen, dass kein Kind in der Schule entmutigt wird und dass ein Kind, das bereits entmutigt in die Schule eintritt, durch seine Schule und durch seinen Lehrer Vertrauen in sich selbst gewinnt.“ (7) 

„Lehrer, das ist der schönste Beruf, den der Mensch haben kann.“ 

Mein Psychologie-Lehrer Friedrich Liebling drückte es einmal so aus: 

“Lehrer, das ist der schönste Beruf, den der Mensch haben kann. Es gibt keinen schöneren.

Das gemeinsame Wachsen aneinander durch die tägliche Beziehung, die intensive Auseinandersetzung, die den ganzen Menschen fordert mit all seinen Schwächen und Stärken, das Gespräch, das tägliche Ringen um die Lufthoheit im Klassenzimmer. Damit der Störer, der sich im Grunde nur das Lernen nicht zutraut, nicht die Oberhand gewinnt und dadurch andere ansteckt und ablenkt, die Stimmung in der Klasse verdirbt. 

Der Lehrer musss die Oberhand behalten, Vorbild sein, Anführer beziehungsweise Rudelführer der ganzen Bande bleiben, an dem sich die Schüler reiben können, an dem sie ihr Mütchen kühlen können, an dem sie aber auch wachsen können. Lehrer, das ist der schönste Beruf…!“ (8)

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler und Diplom-Psychologe. Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer in der Erwachsenenbildung. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Für seine Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.

Er schreibt regelmäßig für Global Research.

Noten

(1) Dr. Hänsel Rudolf (2002). Für eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Wertevermittlung. Ein Diskussionsbeitrag zu Erfurt. Staatliche Schulberatungsstelle für München. Zentrale pädagogisch-psychologische Beratungsstelle für die Schulen in der Landeshauptstadt und im Landkreis München.

(2) A. a. O., S. 1f.

(3) https://www.bpb.de/themen/bildung/dossier-bildung/282582/was-ist-bildung-eine-einfuehrung/

(4) Dreikurs Rudolf (1975). Psychologie im Klassenzimmer. Stuttgart, S. 19

(5) A. a. O., S. 40

(6) https://www.globalresearch.ca/we-citizens-should-prove-humanism-…ood-capable-living-together-without-weapons-wars/5817065?/

(7) Hänsel Rudolf (2020). Wie geht es Ingo? Oder: Wie wird man Mitmensch? Ein Dank an meinen Lehrer. Gornji Milanovac, S. 15

(8) A. a. O., S. 34

Vorgestellte Bildquelle: ClipartMax

 

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America’s military is the only branch of the federal Government that the American people respect, and “The military” is also the most respected of all institutions in America. The military is also the most corrupt part of the federal Government, and the only part of the federal government that’s so corrupt that it has never been audited. Although the U.S. Congress recently required it to pass an audit — i.e., to become approved by an independent team of auditors as to the completeness and honesty of its financial records — the five audit-attempts that were then made all failed and had to be aborted, and no audit has yet been successfully completed on the most corrupt and publicly respected branch of the U.S. federal Government.

Instead of the military getting less money in the federal budgets as a consequence of that, it still keeps getting not only increasing budgets but an increasing proportion of the Government’s money. It gets rewarded as-if it weren’t what it is. And what it is, isn’t merely corrupt, but a stunning failure at what any military is supposed to achieve, which is to win wars.

It has failed not only in Afghanistan, and not only in Syria, and not only in Libya, and not only in Iraq, and not only in Vietnam, but in many other countries. But what’s especially shocking is that it’s getting rewarded, instead of punished, for flouting the (now obviously insincere) “demand” by Congress to be audited.

Is this too much to expect from a nation’s military? It is, in America.

This unaudited “it,” which routinely fails at its basic task, constantly produces mayhem and mass-murder instead of democracy, or even any type of improvement, in other countries, the ones it invades, and the ones — including America’s ‘allies’ or vassal-nations — which it militarily occupies, such as by its 231 military bases in Germany. And it (plus America’s sanctions and coups) produced the majority of the world’s refugees.

Yet it’s the only federal branch that Americans respect. The reality about it is effectively hidden from the public. And the politicians serve it, even if they serve nothing else. While the Representatives and Senators want the public to think these public officials to be disturbed by ‘waste, fraud or abuse in the military’, they even more want the campaign donations by the billionaires’ various agents, and their other fronts to praise them and to advertise them during political campaigns and thus to deceive the public so as to keep these corrupt persons in office. Because the only thing that is actually bipartisan — and even essentially unanimous — in the U.S. federal Government, is support for the military weapons-makers and weapons-users and for the invasions that provide excuses for those weapons to be purchased by the federal Government and used by its military, in America’s 900 foreign military bases (in addition to America’s 749 domestic U.S. military bases). The biggest winners of America’s recent wars have actually been America’s billionaires (look at this graph, which shows that ever since the 1991 termination of the Cold War on Russia’s side, America’s armaments-makers’ profits soared, instead of plunged). America’s military consumes annually about half — this year it’s 53% — of all of the federal Government’s spending that Congress and the President authorize, throughout the year. Only 47% goes to all other purposes.

The reason for this rotten military and its admiring public is that this is a country that at its topmost level — its Executive branch, and its Legislative branch, and its Judicial branch, especially at the very top of each one of those branches, all of them doing what the megadonors want instead of what the public needs or even wants — is profoundly and virtually 100% corrupt. The owners of the megacorporations, and especially of the ones (such as Lockheed Martin) that sell to the Government and to its allies (such as in NATO) instead of to the public, will and do pour into political-campaign donations and lobbying expenses, and funding ‘non-profit’ think tanks, whatever money is necessary in order for them to be able to control the federal Government, which is their main (if not exclusive) market. That is what they do and how they get it done, through their hired employees and sub-contractors and their other paid agents both inside and outside of the Government and their ‘non-profits’ and their ‘news’-media — whatever must be done in order to ‘earn’ their extraordinarily rates of return on their investments (both profit and ’non-profit’) that make and keep them as billionaires. And it works, for them, but against the public everywhere. And that’s the way it works.

Right now, it has gotten so bad, so that there are at least two pieces of proposed new legislation in the U.S. Congress in order to facilitate, if not to produce, a U.S. declaration of war against Russia (to keep those armaments-sales going): one which would commit the U.S. Government to Ukrainian “victory” against Russia (which would mean WW III), and the other which would introduce martial law over all U.S. media in order to make the public accept going to WW III in order to defeat Russia. How far will America’s rulers go in order to sell weapons and to expand yet farther the U.S. empire? We’ll see.

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This article was originally published on The Duran.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Twenty years ago, President George W. Bush landed in a twin-engine Navy jet on an aircraft carrier, strode across the deck in a bulky flight suit and proceeded to give a televised victory speech under a huge red-white-and-blue banner announcing “Mission Accomplished.” For Bush, the optics on May 1, 2003 could hardly have been more triumphant. From the USS Abraham Lincoln, he delivered a stirring coda, proclaiming that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended” just six weeks after the United States led the invasion of that country.

But Bush’s jubilant claim unraveled as combat escalated between Iraqi insurgents and occupying forces. During the next nine years, the official death toll among U.S. troops went from under 200 to more than 4,400, while the deaths of Iraqi people surged into the hundreds of thousands. The physical wounds were even more numerous, the emotional injuries incalculable.

The “Mission Accomplished” banner and Bush’s speech going with it have become notorious. But focusing only on his faulty claim that the war was over ignores other key untruths in the oratory.

“We have fought for the cause of liberty,” Bush declared. He did not mention the cause of oil.

By dodging inconvenient truths about the impacts of U.S. warfare on “the innocent,” Bush was reasserting the usual pretenses of presidents who elide the actual human toll of their wars while predicting successful outcomes.

A few months before the invasion, a soft-spoken Iraqi man who was my driver in Baghdad waited until we were alone at a picnic table in a park before saying that he wished Iraq had no oil—because then there would be no reason to fear an invasion. Years later, some U.S. authorities were candid about Iraq’s massive oil reserves as an incentive for the war.

“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan wrote in his 2007 memoir. That same year, a former head of the U.S. Central Command in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid, had this to say: “Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that.” And Sen. Chuck Hagel, who later became Defense Secretary, commented: “People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are.”

While touting the war effort as entirely noble, Bush’s “mission accomplished” speech credited the Pentagon’s “new tactics and precision weapons” for avoiding “violence against civilians.” The president added that “it is a great moral advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the innocent.”

Such soothing words masked brutal realities. Civilian deaths accounted for 40 percent of “people killed directly in the violence of the U.S. post-9/11 wars,” according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. In fact, a large majority of the casualties of those wars have been civilians. “Several times as many more have been killed as a reverberating effect of the wars—because, for example, of water loss, sewage and other infrastructural issues, and war-related disease.”

By dodging inconvenient truths about the impacts of U.S. warfare on “the innocent,” Bush was reasserting the usual pretenses of presidents who elide the actual human toll of their wars while predicting successful outcomes.

On May 1, 2012, exactly nine years after Bush’s speech on the aircraft carrier, President Barack Obama spoke to the American people from Bagram Air Base north of Kabul. With U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan near a peak of 100,000, Obama expressed confidence that “we will complete our mission and end the war in Afghanistan.”

Both Bush and Obama would later be widely faulted for voicing undue optimism about fulfilling a war’s “mission.” But the critiques have rarely devoted much attention to scrutinizing the assumptions that propelled support for the missions.

The U.S. government’s inherent prerogative to intervene militarily in other countries has seldom been directly challenged in America’s mainstream media and official discourse. Instead, debates have routinely revolved around whether, where, when, and how intervention is prudent and likely to prevail.

But we might want to ask ourselves: What if Bush had been correct in May 2003—and U.S. forces really were at the end of major combat operations in Iraq? What if Obama had been correct in May 2012—and U.S. forces were able to “complete our mission” in Afghanistan? In each case, conventional wisdom would have gauged success in terms of military victory rather than such matters as adherence to international law or regard for human life.

Today, it’s a wonder to behold the fully justified denunciations of Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine from some of the same U.S. government leaders who avidly supported the horrific invasion of Iraq. The concept that might makes right doesn’t sound good, but in practice it has repeatedly been the basis of U.S. policy. Wayne Morse, the senator from Oregon who opposed the Vietnam War from the outset, was cogent when he said: “I don’t know why we think, just because we’re mighty, that we have the right to try to substitute might for right.”

George W. Bush’s performance with the “Mission Accomplished” banner—a rhetorical victory lap that came before protracted bloodshed—deserves all of its notoriety 20 years later. His claims of success for the Iraq war mission are now easy grounds for derision. But the more difficult truths to plow through have to do with why the mission should never have been attempted in the first place.

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His next book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, will be published in June 2023 by The New Press.

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No single work has influenced the American alt-Covid discussion as much as Robert F. Kennedy’s The Real Anthony Fauci, an extended attack on the medical-industrial complex and its purported kingpin, recently-retired National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci. Across 450 pages of narrow margins and densely-set type, Kennedy argues that the entire Covid pandemic unfolded as a second act to the AIDS scare from the 1980s and 1990s. In Kennedy’s view, Fauci played a key role managing both pandemics, to steer massive profits into the coffers of corrupt pharmaceutical companies by pushing harmful proprietary drugs over vastly less profitable but more effective remedies, leading in both cases to untold unnecessary mortality.

Kennedy’s discussion of Covid is split between the opening and the concluding sections of his long book. Chapter 1 on “Mismanaging a Pandemic” – at 100 pages, a small monograph unto itself – argues that most if not all of American Covid mortality arises from Fauci’s cynical suppression of early treatments like Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine. The final two chapters expand the narrow focus of this opening barrage, by tracing the history of “phony epidemics” like the 2009 Swine Flu that have occurred under Fauci’s watch (Chapter 11), as well as the strange tradition of pandemic wargaming, from Dark Winter to Event 201 (Chapter 12).

The middle chapters are wholly different. They draw on long-standing progressive critiques of Fauci’s role in the AIDS pandemic, particularly his promotion of expensive and dangerous antiviral drugs like AZT over much cheaper and more readily available treatments (Chapters 2-4); his alleged role in cementing the scientific orthodoxy of HIV as the cause of AIDS over the views of “heretics” like Peter Duesberg (Chapters 5–6); ethical scandals surrounding AIDS drug trials (Chapter 7); and the campaign to reduce the maternal transmission of AIDS in Africa with Nevirapine, which culminated in the firing of key AIDS Division policy director Jonathan M. Fishbein (Chapter 8). Thereafter the focus shifts to the “Philanthrocapitalism” of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Africa (Chapter 9) and the questionable success of and controversies plaguing Gates-supported vaccination initiatives there (Chapter 10).

There’s a reason this review has been much announced and much delayed: While Kennedy’s book is highly readable, it covers a great deal of ground, and presents a complex series of arguments that it’s taken me two readings to understand fully. This has been worthwhile, insofar as it’s improved my perspective on the broader Covid debate in America, and the leading dissident voices there. A recurring thesis of the plague chronicle, is that Europe – and specifically Italy – is ground zero for Corona in the West. The American response happened somewhat later and from its earliest moments was much more deeply politicised, and this has inevitably left its mark on TRAF, in ways that are sometimes salutary, but sometimes also limiting.

Because much of what follows will be devoted to exploring my disagreements with Kennedy’s thesis, I will open with words of praise:

Image is from Ghion Journal

Above all, the focus that Kennedy brings to bureaucratic actors like Fauci is absolutely correct and vitally important. All of our countries spent years subject to the tyranny of an arbitrary gaggle of Corona tsars, unelected and very often unofficial advisors who became the public face of pandemic policies and the incarnation of The Science for hysterical journalists and terrified television-bound Covidians sheltering at home. This phenomenon arises from the fact that the pandemic represented in almost all of our countries a kind of bureaucratic coup, as the institutional apparatus seized the initiative from the political arm of the state. While this isn’t exactly the argument that Kennedy makes, his focus is in exactly the right place, and TRAF includes excellent discussions of the dynamics at work, alongside good, detailed and heavily-cited accounts of how bureaucratic actors like Fauci amassed their power in the first place.

Second, Kennedy is absolutely right to point out that pandemic policies involved an enormous amount of dishonesty, scientific fraud, and misrepresentation, none of it redounding to the health or well-being of anybody. While I differ on the details and the purpose of this massive exercise in deception and medical malpractice, one of the most vital things to understand about the pandemic (and pandemicism in general) is that it’s not about human health. It’s a bunch of antisocial, fundamentally unhealthy, illogical and insane policies that never had any hope of suppressing a virus. These policies were defended and implemented via the authority of avatars for The Science like Fauci, who “encouraged his own canonization and the disturbing inquisition against his blasphemous critics,” and at one point even famously declared that “‘Attacks on me … quite frankly, are attacks on the science’” (xvii).

Third and finally, TRAF is best seen as an attempt to revive an older, increasingly forgotten progressive tradition of regime-critical activism and thought. It is one massive reminder, page after page, that many of the very same left-leaning Americans currently worshipping at the altar of St. Fauci were, not that long ago, openly opposed to the machinations of public health bureaucrats and deeply sceptical of heavily promoted proprietary pharmaceuticals. They were some of the first to complain about things like regulatory capture and exorbitant pharma profits. The entire Western world has undergone a massive political transformation since 2020, one which has conveniently aligned compromised regulators, powerful corporations, and their erstwhile leftist critics, and Kennedy is one of very few left-leaning progressives to have taken notice.

But this is also where my praise must end, because I think there are important limitations to Kennedy’s perspective here, and that this is a strength that also entails some substantial weaknesses.

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TRAF was not the book I expected. On first reading, I was surprised to find that key pandemic policies such as lockdowns and mask mandates play such a small part in his account, as do the misuse of propagandised disease statistics to terrorise the populace, gain-of-function research and the origins of SARS-2, the failed predictions of virus modellers, the overuse of ventilators and many other themes in this vein. To be sure, Kennedy acknowledges and condemns all of this, but the bulk of his analysis is focused elsewhere. I was also surprised to find that such a well-known vaccine sceptic should have so little to say about the Covid vaccines, confined mostly to a brief discussion of pathogenic priming in Chapter 1.

In many ways, those chapters that Kennedy devotes to Corona are his least impressive and original. His argument here is heavily indebted to American critics of pandemic policy like Pierre Kory, Ryan Cole and especially Peter McCullough, who are quoted in extenso to make the case for early treatment and the dire consequences of its suppression. Kennedy is at his strongest in the middle sections of TRAF, on Fauci’s role in the AIDS crisis. Here citations to contemporary reporting abound, and while he covers controversial ground – like Duesberg’s thesis that HIV is not the cause of AIDS – his approach is entertaining and also in many ways careful and sensitive to a broad range of possibilities.

Kennedy shares the view of many gay activists that much early AIDS mortality is to be laid at the feet of public health managers like Fauci, who were more interested in promoting expensive proprietary antivirals than saving lives, leaving the gay community to fend for itself (149f.):

[B]ustling networks of community-based AIDS doctors mushrooming in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Dallas [became] specialists in treating the symptoms of AIDS. As Dr. Fauci swung for the fences – the miraculous new antiviral ‘cure’ for AIDS – these community doctors were achieving promising results with off-label therapeutic drugs that seemed effective against the constellation of symptoms that actually killed and tormented people with AIDS. These included off-the-shelf remedies like ribavirin, alpha interferon, DHPG, Peptide D, and Foscarnet for retinal herpes; and Bactrim, Septra and aerosol pentamidine for AIDS-related pneumonias.

The toxic Fauci-promoted antiviral azidothymidine, or AZT – which HIV sceptics like Duesberg invoke to explain early AIDS mortality – becomes in Kennedy’s telling a direct precedent for the failed and toxic antiviral Remdesivir, which Fauci and others promoted as a Covid treatment according to the very same “worn rabbit-eared playbook” (67) from the AIDS era. In this analysis, ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are cast accordingly as the 21st-century counterparts to the off-the-shelf drugs procured for informal AIDS treatment by the buyers’ clubs of activist legend.

This brings me to the most serious disagreement I have with my many American readers. Just as I’m very sceptical that the Covid vaccines were any kind of success, I am also unconvinced that early treatments could have significantly ameliorated or stopped the pandemic. This doesn’t mean I’m happy with their suppression; doctors should be given wide latitude to treat diseases as they see fit. But, I don’t believe that this is the central knot in the pandemic tapestry, and I cannot bring myself to believe, like many of Kennedy’s informants, that any of these proposed treatments are likely to be “miraculous.”[1]

Kennedy is surely right in suspecting that attacks on ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were related in part to the heedless promotion of Remdesivir, but I also can’t buy the associated thesis of regulatory wrangling to pave the way for vaccine emergency use authorisations. The pandemicists violated all kinds of laws and rules in their eccentric three-year crusade, and fudging an EUA would rank among their lesser offences. I’d also suggest that respiratory viruses like SARS-2 and influenza are an old, pervasive phenomenon, which afflict livestock as well as humans and against which a century of obsessive research has uncovered no very effective remedies. I know there are studies that show the opposite, but there are also studies that show the vaccines are safe and effective. Because Covid isn’t actually that dangerous and wasn’t even that transmissible before Omicron, a lot of interventions, from masks to lockdowns, will at times seem to work, and I have no trouble believing that doctors who eschewed first-wave over-ventilation of patients saw substantially better results for that reason alone.

But the empirical question, of what we can reasonably hope that any specific drug will achieve, is for me almost a side issue. Far graver is the framing that the entire discourse on early treatments assumes. The advocates whom Kennedy quotes and people like Fauci appear to be in agreement not only that Covid presented a serious danger, but that it was a problem to solve. They differ merely on the solutions, with public health technocrats on the side of lockdowns, masks, vaccines and remdesivir; and early treatment advocates on the side of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. This has uncomfortable consequences, as when Kennedy uncritically cites Covid mortality statistics to demonstrate Fauci’s failure in pandemic management, or when he attributes falling mortality to things like the authorisation of hydroxychloroquine. This is exactly how pandemic managers themselves argued, and I submit this entire ideological system around viruses as a thing to prevent and manage – whether via ivermectin or masks or anything else – is the root of all evil. This is a natural blindspot for progressive critics of pandemic policy like Kennedy, who generally support the mission of modern bureaucratised liberal democracies; it’s why he laments the “global war on … public health” in his subtitle. After the hell of the past three years, I think there are few things we ought to welcome more enthusiastically than a war on public health, which is no longer by or for the public and no longer about health.

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As I said above, TRAF includes some excellent discussions of the malign public health bureaucracy that rules us. The managers who dominate our institutions are manifestly not selected for their vision, their compassion or their scientific knowledge, but rather for their abilities to ascend byzantine bureaucratic hierarchies and defend their positions in them. Thus we read (132) that

[Fauci’s] gifts were his aptitude for bureaucratic infighting; a fiery temper; an inclination for flattering and soft-soaping powerful superiors; a vindictive and domineering nature towards subordinates and rivals who dissented; his ravenous appetite for the spotlight; and finally, his silver tongue and skilled tailor.

Kennedy also provides a wealth of apposite remarks on what he calls the “medical cartel,” namely the complex and intertwined system of “pharmaceutical companies, hospital systems, HMOs and insurers, the medical journals, and public health regulators” (135), along with a detailed and well-cited analyses of how this system works (120):

Dr. Fauci’s drug development enterprise is rife with …corrupting conflicts. Most Americans would be surprised to learn, for example, that pharmaceutical companies routinely pay extravagant royalties to Dr. Fauci and his employees and to NIAID itself. Here’s how the royalty system works: Instead of researching the causes of the mushrooming epidemics of allergic and autoimmune diseases … Dr. Fauci funnels the bulk of his $6 billion budget to the research and development of new drugs. He often begins the process of funding initial mechanistic studies of promising molecules in NIAID’s own laboratories before farming the clinical trials out to an old boys’ network of some 1,300 academic “principle investigators” … who conduct human trials at university affiliated research centers and training hospitals, as well as foreign research sites. After these NIAID-funded researchers develop a potential new drug, NIAID transfers some or all of its share of the intellectual property to private pharmaceutical companies, through HHS’s Office of Technology Transfer. The University and its PIs can also claim their share of patent and royalty rights, cementing the loyalty of academic medicine to Dr. Fauci.

He also rehearses standard and useful left-leaning critiques of major philanthropists like Bill Gates, with an equal awareness of the broader system in which they participate and the dividends their apparently charitable activity pays them (291):

Gates strategically targets [the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s] charitable gifts to give him control of the international health and agricultural agencies and the media, allowing him to dictate global health and food policies so as to increase profitability of the large multinationals in which he and his foundation hold large investment positions. Following such tactics, the Gates Foundation has given away some $54.8 billion since 1994, but instead of depleting his wealth, those strategic gifts have magnified it. Strategic philanthropizing increased the Gates Foundation’s capital corpus to $49.8 billion by 2019. Moreover, Gates’s personal net worth grew from $63 billion in 2000 to 133.6 billion today. Gates’s wealth expanded by $23 billion just during the 2020 lockdowns that he and Dr. Fauci played key roles in orchestrating. …

In 2017, the Huffington Post observed that the Gates Foundation blurs “the boundaries between philanthropy, business and nonprofits” and cautions that calling Gates’s investment strategy “philanthropy” was causing “the rapid deconstruction of the accepted term.

These are, again, attacks from a forthrightly progressive perspective, which is fine and in view of Kennedy’s audience maybe even a strength, but I see these matters in broader terms.

What we have before us are not so much hierarchies, with managers like Fauci at the top commanding an army of loyal principal investigators in the trenches, as they are complex densely interconnected networks of personal and institutional relationships and loyalties, which extend beyond the institutional confines of government agencies to embrace broad swathes of academia, NGOs, pharmaceuticals, and philanthropists. When money flows in one direction across a given node, power very often flows in the other direction. NIAID grants are a way of extending the institutional influence of the public health institutions to academia, while academics and pharmaceuticals are in turn increasingly important in often informal and difficult-to-assess roles in formulating policy. This is one instance of a pervasive phenomenon I have returned to many times, namely the diffusion of political power downwards, out of the bureaucratic institutions and into an ever wider range of corporate, university and media actors.

It is a complicated system, not a fiefdom managed by any single person, and while I accept that there may be rhetorical advantages in focusing critique on a single emblematic personality like Fauci, there is also a cost in the concomitant tendency to overstate the importance of specific individuals. The “quarantine of the healthy” which “would kill far more people than COVID” can’t be laid entirely or even primarily at Fauci’s feet; nor was he alone responsible for “obliterat[ing] the economy, plung[ing] millions into poverty …. and grievously wound[ing] constitutional democracy globally” (xviii). Fauci is one face of a widely distributed bureaucratic consensus, and his personal significance, while surely substantial, is also often obscure.

To take one of many possible examples, it wasn’t Fauci who “dispatched the handpicked elite of virology’s officer corps to draft and sign the consequential editorials published in Nature and The Lancet … assuring the world that the lab leak hypothesis was a ‘crackpot’ conspiracy” (297). As later emails leaks (not available to Kennedy at the time of writing) seem to suggest, he was merely one participant in a broader discussion involving Jeremy Farrar and key virologists, and far from the most active contributor. From the partial view that we have, it seems that Christian Drosten, not Fauci, was the most strident voice in favour of natural origins early on. Relatedly and in another connection, I find the oft-repeated thesis – hardly original to Kennedy – that “Gates controls the WHO” (300) or that he exercises “dictatorial authority” (302) over the global vaccinator cabal known as GAVI far too limited. Gates’s agenda with respect to third-world medical interventions and vaccines is not even all that original. This is an agenda he supports to transform some of his wealth into social and cultural regard. Gates is a follower even more than he is a leader.

One cost of this focus, is the fact it sidelines a lot of key actors whose motivations to this day await adequate explanation. This is especially the case with Neil Ferguson at Imperial College, who is cast in his all-too-brief cameo here as a mere agent of Farrar and Bill Gates (361f.). Ferguson’s role in promoting virus panic over decades is a crucial one, and it’s probably not a good idea to discount him as the mere agent of other, bigger men.

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Summing up, I would say there’s a narrowness in the approach that TRAF takes to the pandemic, which is easy to miss because Kennedy’s scope is so broad in other respects. The final chapters on “Hyping Phony Epidemics” and “Germ Games” read like efforts to include topics otherwise excluded by the internal logic of Kennedy’s argument. It’s absolutely right and necessary to draw attention to the failed panic mongering of the pandemic establishment, and there’s a particularly valuable account here of the overhyped 1976 Swine Flu, which all too many (including myself) have neglected. Far more important for understanding Corona, however, are very real outbreaks like SARS-1 in Asia from 2003/4 and Ebola in West Africa from 2014. These events drew vast funding and attention to the pandemicist programme and made their virus apocalypse scenarios much more credible in the eyes of the public. The most proper precedents and parallels to the 2020 Covid response lie here, rather than with the AIDS crisis that first brought Fauci to prominence.

In Kennedy’s final chapter, meanwhile, Fauci all but disappears in favour of new personalities like Peter Daszak and Robert Kadlec. Here, the civilian bureaucrat responsible for organising the catastrophic pandemic response is displaced by much different theses about the biosecurity aspects of pandemic wargaming and Covid as “a military project” (from 433). I find that the book is at its weakest in these pages. Particularly the discussion of pandemic wargaming is too superficial; as I’ve said many times, what’s significant about these exercises is not that they planned mass containment policies in advance, but precisely that overtly coercive virus suppression is missing from them. They often toy with the prospect of authoritarian measures, it is true, but a sensitive reading shows that they do so largely to provoke handwringing histrionic discussions about the importance of civil liberties. Mass containment was not Fauci’s invention, but an insanely repressive and largely theatrical exercise in virus suppression that originated in China, to which Fauci was a relatively late convert.

Because these matters are fairly far from Kennedy’s most central concerns, I don’t want to press too hard here; and to those readers who are irritated, I’ll extend at the end of this review the concession that has been implicit throughout: Kennedy is a long-time political activist, and it’s probably true that his approach has important tactical advantages. My concerns are much more empirical. I want to understand the pandemic response, how it arose and how it persisted for so long. It’s up to other people to find the most effect ways to discredit pandemic policies before the voting public.

There is one point that I won’t concede, though, and that the plague chronicle will insist upon so long as there are still bits flowing through the internet. This is that the overgrown overcomplicated self-serving bureaucracies of Western states must be kept, in future, as far as possible from preventing or mitigating virus outbreaks. The problem is not that they alighted upon the wrong solution in this case; it is that they assumed the project of solving pervasive seasonal respiratory viruses in the first place. Even if ivermectin worked as well as its advocates argue, the technocratic leviathan would hardly be satisfied with that, and the reason is not merely pharmaceutical profits. It’s the predilection of our institutions for intractable problems and highly complicated solutions via which they justify their own existence and ensure their propagation and the expansion of their jurisdiction. Once they get ahold of something like a virus, which spreads via social contact, you will seeing nothing but the proliferation and brutal enforcement of anti-social anti-human policies again and again.

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Note

[1] The assertion occurs repeatedly in the first chapter, where I wish the argument were much more moderate. See p. 8, where Pierre Kory claims that “The efficacy of some of these drugs as prophylaxis is almost miraculous”; p. 17, where we hear that “McCullough used his own money … to teach doctors the miraculous benefits of early treatment with HCQ and other remedies”; p. 18, for Ryan Cole on the “miraculously effective medicines to treat this virus”; p. 24 for “miraculous results following early treatment with HCQ”; p. 39 on the “miraculous efficacy” of ivermectin; p. 46 about Andrew Hill’s research supporting “IVM as a miraculous cure for COVID”; p. 52, where Tess Lawrie is found “endorsing the miraculous efficacy of IVM”; p. 56, where a “dying woman miraculously began to recover” following the administration of ivermectin; p. 62, for McCullough once more on ivermectin as “a molecule that is miraculously effective against parasites and viral infections along multiple pathways and mechanisms of action.”

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California-based First Republic Bank was seized by US financial authorities on May 1 and sold to JPMorgan Chase in a desperate effort to alleviate the two-month banking crisis that has gripped the US. First Republic became the second-largest bank by assets to collapse in US history after it announced a loss of more than $100 billion in deposits in the first quarter and failed to produce a satisfactory rescue plan. The federal government believes a total of $13 billion will have to be forked out to cover the bank’s losses.

When First Republic stock prices nosedived, US authorities solicited bids from potential buyers and then took possession. As part of the deal, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), an agency in charge of guaranteeing bank deposits, was appointed as the receiver of First Republic. The FDIC then immediately sold First Republic to the largest bank in the US, JPMorgan Chase, which will recover all the deposits and “almost” all the assets of the failed bank.

“Our government invited us and others to step up, and we did,” Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s CEO, said in a statement after the deal was announced.

“[The transaction] modestly benefits our company overall,” JPMorgan said in a news release.

It is no surprise that JPMorgan shares went up 4.3% in pre-market trading following its takeover. 

“Hopefully this will help stabilise everything,” Dimon said on a conference call with reporters before the US stock market opened.

It is recalled that the agency’s takeover and sale of First Republic comes only two months after the liquidation of Silvergate Bank — a cryptocurrency-focused bank — and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). This was then followed by Signature Bank, which closed only a few days after SVB.

The collapses not only affected the banking sector in the US because it was also felt across the Atlantic. Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse became a victim of the US banking crisis and was forced by regulators to merge with its rival, UBS.

It is recalled that US financial authorities in March reached a deal with 11 major banks to give a $30 billion handout to First Republic. This was obviously not enough to reassure investors as First Republic plummeted in value to only $654 million from more than $20 billion at the start of 2023, and $40 billion at its peak in November 2021.

Although First Republic seemingly appeared to be strong because of its wealthy clientele who deposited large sums, the banking defaults across the US scared customers. Because most First Republic loans were fixed-rate mortgages, a financial meltdown was guaranteed when the fixed-rate mortgages lost value due to soaring interest rates

First Republic is the second-largest bank in US history to collapse when not including investment banks, such as Lehman Brothers. With assets standing at $233 billion just days before the takeover, First Republic still only comes in second place due to Washington Mutual’s collapse during the 2008 financial crisis. Just like First Republic, Washington Mutual was ultimately acquired by JPMorgan.

Before the JPMorgan takeover, Nicolas Veron, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said: “First Republic was identified as a problem bank as early as mid-March and the announcement of its closure is not a new reason to worry. If another bank proved to be fragile, that would be another problem.”

In trying to alleviate concerns despite the evident banking crisis, the US Treasury said: “The banking system remains sound and resilient, and Americans should feel confident in the safety of their deposits and the ability of the banking system to fulfil its essential function of providing credit to businesses and families.”

The crisis also comes as the Federal Reserve struggles to counter inflation through massive interest rate hikes, which they will expectedly do once again in May. 

The latest bank collapse was followed by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warning that the US may not be able to meet its debt obligations “as early as June 1” if Congress does not raise the debt limit.

“After reviewing recent federal tax receipts, our best estimate is that we will be unable to continue to satisfy all of the government’s obligations by early June, and potentially as early as June 1, if Congress does not raise or suspend the debt limit before that time,” Yellen wrote in a letter to Congress on May 1.

The letter also highlighted that “federal receipts and outlays are inherently variable, and the actual date that Treasury exhausts extraordinary measures could be a number of weeks as more information becomes available.”

“Given the current projections, it is imperative that Congress act as soon as possible to increase or suspend the debt limit in a way that provides longer-term certainty that the government will continue to make its payment,” Yellen urged.

This once again demonstrates that for all the brave talk by the Treasury, there is immense stress on the US financial and banking system, something that is only worsening as Washington continues to pump billions of dollars to the Kiev regime, an action that is proving increasingly unpopular in the country as well as Europe.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

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Before he was assassinated, Robert F. Kennedy declared that “hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be heard.” That does not appear to be the view of ABC News, which censored his son who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination. ABC objected to Kennedy’s views on COVID-19 vaccines, so it simply announced that it was preventing viewers from hearing those views to protect them from dangerous ideas.

ABC’s Linsey Davis began the interview by introducing Kennedy as “one of the biggest voices pushing anti-vaccine rhetoric, regularly distributing misinformation and disinformation about vaccines, which scientific and medical experts overwhelmingly say are safe and effective based on rigorous scientific studies.”

That apparently was not enough. After telling viewers that this is one of his most famous stances (and its own disagreement), it then censored those views.

After airing the interview, Davis announced “[w]e should note that during our conversation, Kennedy made false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines. We’ve used our editorial judgment in not including extended portions of that exchange in our interview.”

Kennedy tweeted that “47 USC 315 makes it illegal for TV networks to censor Presidential candidates but Thursday, ABC showed its contempt for the law, democracy, and its audience by cutting most of the content of my interview with host Linsey Davis leaving only cherry-picked snippets and a defamatory disclaimer.”

47 USC 315 makes it illegal for TV networks to censor Presidential candidates but Thursday, ABC showed its contempt for the law, democracy, and its audience by cutting most of the content of my interview with host Linsey Davis leaving only cherry-picked snippets and a defamatory…

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) April 28, 2023

The provision is designed to guarantee equal time for presidential candidates and does add “such licensee shall have no power of censorship over the material broadcast.” However, that does not mean that a candidate is given carte blanche and cannot be edited. In this case, however, ABC is affirmatively stating that it censored his remarks because it disagreed with them.

Putting aside the federal law, this is wrong. ABC can challenge such views, but it is actively seeking to prevent voters from hearing a presidential candidate on an issue of great public interest and debate.

It is particularly troubling after prior media censorship has been shown to have been wrong in silencing dissenting scientific views.

We have seen various journalistic and scientific figures banned for expressing skepticism over pandemic claims from the origins of the virus to the efficacy of certain treatments. For example, when many people raised the possibility that the virus may have been released from the nearby Chinese virology lab (rather than the “wet market” theory), they were denounced as virtually a lunatic fringe. Even objections to the bias of authors of a report dismissing the lab theory were ridiculed. The New York Times reporter covering the area called it “racist” and implausible.  Now, even W.H.O. admits that the lab theory is possible and Biden officials are admitting that it is indeed plausible.

The same is true with the debate over the efficacy of masks. For over a year, some argued that the commonly used masks are ineffective to protect against the virus. Now, the CDC is warning that the masks do not appear to block these variants and even CNN’s experts are calling the cloth masks “little more than facial decorations.”

Yet, the W.H.O. head is now embracing censorship as a means of combating the “infodemic.” There are also calls, including from the White House, for Spotify to ban or curtail Joe Rogan’s show for allowing dissenting views to be aired on Covid or its treatment.

If there had not been such extensive censorship of dissenting viewpoints, there might have been more discussion on the costs and science behind the lockdowns. Instead, there was a chilling effect on such dissenting voices and those expressing doubts were labeled extremists or conspiracy theorists. Recently, for example, scientists have come forward to admit that they also suspected the Wuhan lab was the origin of virus but were silenced by the backlash at the CDC and universities.

It is also not clear where ABC draws the line. Joe Biden has made so many false statements that the Washington Post gave him a “bottomless Pinocchio.” Likewise, many view contested claims over climate change and transgender issues to be dangerous. Will ABC now be censoring these other candidates or positions?

As noted by ABC, the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion still disagrees with Kennedy. That is fair to note. However, ABC is now claiming the right to censor presidential candidates to protect the public from harmful thoughts or disinformation, including major issues behind a campaign. It is wrong for both the country and for journalism.

We do not have to be protected from dangerous thoughts by the media. A far greater danger lurks in the indoctrination and orthodoxy that comes from censorship.

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The US Army Cyber Command told defense contractors it planned to surveil global social media use to defend the “NATO brand,” according to a 2022 webinar recording reviewed by The Intercept.

The disclosure, made a month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, follows years of international debate over online free expression and the influence of governmental security agencies over the web. The Army’s Cyber Command is tasked with both defending the country’s military networks as well as offensive operations, including propaganda campaigns.

The remarks came during a closed-door conference call hosted by the Cyber Fusion Innovation Center, a Pentagon-sponsored nonprofit that helps with military tech procurement, and provided an informal question-and-answer session for private-sector contractors interested in selling data to Army Cyber Command, commonly referred to as ARCYBER.

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Last week the House passed legislation increasing the debt ceiling. The bill was supported by all but four Republicans. For some Republicans, this was the first time they had ever voted for a debt ceiling increase. Perhaps the reason they did so this time was because the legislation also promised to reduce federal spending by $4.5 trillion over the next decade. Most of those spending reductions are achieved by rolling back Fiscal Year spending to 2022 levels and then limiting increases in spending to one percent for the next ten years. The bill also returns unspent COVID relief money to the US Treasury and eliminates President Biden’s student loan forgiveness programs.

Perhaps the most significant part of the bill is the REINS Act. This legislation requires congressional approval of any new federal regulation that will have an impact of more than $100 million, will have significant harmful impact on the economy, or will increase consumer prices. Even though the bill increases spending and debt, there are reasons a supporter of limited government might vote for it.

However even in the unlikely event that this bill is passed in the Senate and signed into law by President Biden, it is unlikely that the one percent spending cap would remain in force for the full ten years. Historically, spending caps imposed as part of a balanced budget or debt ceiling deal do not last for more than one or two Congressional terms. This is because every spending program is “protected” by members of Congress whose constituents and/or donors benefit from the program. This process already occurred with this bill before it was even voted on, as Speaker McCarthy had to remove provisions limiting ethanol subsidies to appease several farm state Republicans.

Surely lobbyists for the military industrial complex are already plotting to use hysteria over China, Putin, Iran, or one of the US’s many other designed enemies to justify greater than one percent increase in military spending.

The only reason the US government is able to run up such huge deficits without experiencing a complete economic meltdown is the dollar’s world reserve currency status. But the growing de-dollarization movement-fueled by the US government’s fiscal recklessness and hyper-interventionist foreign policy should be a wake-up call to Congress.

Sadly, few in DC seem to be paying attention.

The government’s fiscal situation will soon worsen, as both the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will likely be bankrupt within the next decade, forcing Congress to find an additional $116 trillion to fully fund them.

The looming economic crisis is a symptom of our moral and philosophic crisis. Too many Americans have bought into the lie that government can and should provide them with economic and physical safety while promoting “global democracy” abroad. Therefore, the most important step in the liberty movement now is convincing more people to apply the same moral code to theft and murder committed by government as they apply to those same crimes by private citizens. The government, at the very least, should be held to the same moral codes as the people it governs.

Ensuring that government follows the same nonaggression principle as law-abiding citizens is the key to a society of freedom, peace, and prosperity.

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Introduction 

The demands on school education, Bildung and teachers have always been immense. Nevertheless, the profession of a teacher is the “most beautiful” profession a person can have. Students can rub up against teachers and cool their chins – but they can also grow.

Together, teachers and students can find the way to peaceful coexistence in a world of endless wars, in which even a “preventive nuclear war” is not shied away from (Prof. Chossudovsky).

As a former teacher and doctor of education, I will explain this in more detail and thus “break a lance” for the no longer very attractive profession of teaching in the face of a looming major educational disaster.

“For a conscious ethical-moral values education”.

As early as 21 years ago, on 20 May 2002, as head of the “State School Advisory Office for the Bavarian capital Munich”, I wrote a contribution to the discussion on the 17-fold murder or killing spree in the city of Erfurt and concluded that “only a social consensus on values, goals and role models in education can give orientation and support to the growing generation” (1).

I went on to write:

“Destructive social influences such as an entertainment industry that essentially conveys a mixture of violence, perversion and nihilism via film, television, video, computer games and music, as well as the insecurity of educators, led to disorientation and a lack of support among the youth. (…).

The disagreement in society over these issues has not been to the advantage of the growing generation in recent decades. An increase in violence, drug abuse and nihilism were the result. A broad social discussion is needed, at the end of which there must be a consensus (…). This discussion must be conducted without tabooing and labelling other opinions and must be oriented, among other things, to the many valuable research results of developmental psychology, especially attachment and parenting style research, as well as research on the conditions of prosocial behaviour and media effects research.” (2)

This contribution to the discussion is still timely almost a quarter of a century later.

Situation of school education and Bildung today

“Bildung! Bildung! Bildung! Hardly any other topic is argued about more often and more heatedly. Bildung should develop the personality and enable a fulfilled life. Bildung should provide well-trained skilled workers for the labour market and keep our economy competitive. Bildung should secure peace and democracy and pass on our cultural knowledge across the generations.” (3)

Western societies can certainly subscribe to this definition of “Bildung”. However, the question arises whether they also live up to this claim and promote the opportunities of their children. And especially after the disastrous “crisis year” of 2022 with Corona-related school closures, a frightening teacher shortage and a high migrant background of pupils. Not to mention the situation in the so-called developing countries.

There is no human problem that cannot and should not be addressed by teachers, from learning at school, entertainment violence on children’s mobile phones to drug use, disinformation from the “war-mongering press” (Karl Kraus), the history of fascism (Vera Sharav) and proven ways to live together peacefully.

Bildung in the psychological sense would also mean teaching people how they should and can solve their problems. This includes their attitude towards life as well as their opinion about themselves, fellow human beings and the community.

“There is a war going on in our schools!”

In 1975, the individual psychologist Prof. Dr. Rudolf Dreikurs was not entirely unrealistic in his assessment of the situation in schools when he wrote:

“Whether the teacher likes it or not, whether he realises it or not, he is usually drawn into a power struggle from which he cannot extricate himself.” (4)

But at the same time he noted:

“Every child will occasionally resist for reasons that are hidden from himself. Repeating what he should do does not improve the situation; on the contrary, it evokes a conflict in the child and increases his open resistance to the teacher. Only someone who understands the psychological mechanisms that block the child’s proper functioning can help him to fit in and make progress.” (5)

What matters, then, is that the teacher, with or without the help of a pedagogical-psychological expert, becomes aware of this power struggle and makes peace with his students. In the article “We citizens should try out humanism…” I described the positive case of a teacher colleague who succeeded in reconciling with a formerly disruptive pupil and ending the state of war in the class (6).

The most sacred duty of an educator

As early as the beginning of the 19th century, Alfred Adler, the founder of individual psychology, wrote in every teacher’s and educator’s book:

“The most important task of an educator – one can almost say his most sacred duty – is to see to it that no child is discouraged at school and that a child who enters school already discouraged gains confidence in himself through his school and through his teacher.” (7)

“Teacher, that is the most beautiful profession man can have.”

My psychology teacher Friedrich Liebling once put it this way:

“Teacher, that is the most beautiful profession man can have. There is none more beautiful.

Growing together through the daily relationship, the intensive discussion that demands the whole person with all his weaknesses and strengths, the conversation, the daily struggle for air supremacy in the classroom. So that the troublemaker, who basically just doesn’t trust himself to learn, doesn’t gain the upper hand and thereby infect and distract others, spoiling the mood in the class. 

The teacher has to keep the upper hand, be a role model, remain the leader or pack leader of the whole gang, against whom the pupils can rub themselves, against whom they can cool their chins, but also from whom they can grow. Teacher, that is the most beautiful profession…!” (8)

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school rector, educational scientist and qualified psychologist. After his university studies he became an academic teacher in adult education. As a retiree he worked as a psychotherapist in his own practice. In his books and professional articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral education in values as well as an education for public spirit and peace. For his services to Serbia, he was awarded the Republic Prize “Captain Misa Anastasijevic” by the Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad in 2021.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes 

(1) Dr. Hänsel Rudolf (2002). For a conscious ethical-moral teaching of values. A contribution to the discussion in Erfurt. State School Counselling Centre for Munich. Central educational-psychological counselling centre for schools in the state capital and in the district of Munich.

(2) op. cit., p. 1f.

(3) https://www.bpb.de/themen/bildung/dossier-bildung/282582/was-ist-bildung-eine-einfuehrung/

(4) Dreikurs Rudolf (1975). Psychology in the Classroom. Stuttgart, p. 19

(5) op. cit., p. 40

(6) https://www.globalresearch.ca/we-citizens-should-prove-humanism-…ood-capable-living-together-without-weapons-wars/5817065?/

(7) Hänsel Rudolf (2020). How is Ingo? Or: How does one become a fellow human being? A thank you to my teacher. Gornji Milanovac, p. 15

(8) op. cit., p. 34

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America is a stratocracy, a form of government dominated by the military. It is axiomatic among the two ruling parties that there must be a constant preparation for war. The war machine’s massive budgets are sacrosanct. Its billions of dollars in waste and fraud are ignored. Its military fiascos in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East have disappeared into the vast cavern of historical amnesia. This amnesia, which means there is never accountability, licenses the war machine to economically disembowel the country and drive the Empire into one self-defeating conflict after another. The militarists win every election. They cannot lose. It is impossible to vote against them. The war state is a Götterdämmerung, as Dwight Macdonald writes, “without the gods.”

Since the end of the Second World War, the federal government has spent more than half its tax dollars on past, current and future military operations. It is the largest single sustaining activity of the government. Military systems are sold before they are produced with guarantees that huge cost overruns will be covered. Foreign aid is contingent on buying U.S. weapons. Egypt, which receives some $1.3 billion in foreign military financing, is required to devote it to buying and maintaining U.S. weapons systems. Israel has received $158 billion in bilateral assistance from the U.S. since 1949, almost all of it since 1971 in the form of military aid, with most of it going towards arms purchases from U.S. weapons manufacturers. The American public funds the research, development and building of weapons systems and then buys these same weapons systems on behalf of foreign governments. It is a circular system of corporate welfare. 

Between October 2021 and September 2022, the U.S. spent $877 billion on the military, that’s more than the next 10 countries, including China, Russia, Germany, France and the United Kingdom combined. These huge military expenditures, along with the rising costs of a for-profit healthcare system, have driven the U.S. national debt to over $31 trillion, nearly $5 trillion more than the U.S.’s entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This imbalance is not sustainable, especially once the dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency. As of January 2023, the U.S. spent a record $213 billion servicing the interest on its national debt. 

The public, bombarded with war propaganda, cheers on their self-immolation. It revels in the despicable beauty of our military prowess. It speaks in the thought-terminating clichés spewed out by mass culture and mass media. It imbibes the illusion of omnipotence and wallows in self-adulation.

The intoxication of war is a plague. It imparts an emotional high that is impervious to logic, reason or fact. No nation is immune. The gravest mistake made by European socialists on the eve of the First World War was the belief that the working classes of France, Germany, Italy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia and Great Britain would not be divided into antagonistic tribes because of disputes between imperialist governments. They would not, the socialists assured themselves, sign on for the suicidal slaughter of millions of working men in the trenches. Instead, nearly every socialist leader walked away from their anti-war platform to back their nation’s entry into the war. The handful who did not, such as Rosa Luxemburg, were sent to prison.

A society dominated by militarists distorts its social, cultural, economic and political institutions to serve the interests of the war industry. The essence of the military is masked with subterfuges — using the military to carry out humanitarian relief missions, evacuating civilians in danger, as we see in the Sudan, defining military aggression as “humanitarian intervention” or a way to protect democracy and liberty, or lauding the military as carrying out a vital civic function by teaching leadership, responsibility, ethics and skills to young recruits. The true face of the military — industrial slaughter — is hidden.

The mantra of the militarized state is national security. If every discussion begins with a question of national security, every answer includes force or the threat of force. The preoccupation with internal and external threats divides the world into friend and foe, good and evil. Militarized societies are fertile ground for demagogues. Militarists, like demagogues, see other nations and cultures in their own image – threatening and aggressive. They seek only domination. 

It was not in our national interest to wage war for two decades across the Middle East. It is not in our national interest to go to war with Russia or China. But militarists need war the way a vampire needs blood.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev and later Vladimir Putin lobbied to be integrated into western economic and military alliances. An alliance that included Russia would have nullified the calls to expand NATO — which the U.S. had promised it  would not do beyond the borders of a unified Germany — and have made it impossible to convince countries in eastern and central Europe to spend billions on U.S. military hardware. Moscow’s requests were rebuffed. Russia was made the enemy, whether it wanted to be or not. None of this made us more secure. Washington’s decision to interfere in Ukraine’s domestic affairs by backing a coup in 2014 triggered a civil war and Russia’s subsequent invasion. 

But for those who profit from war, antagonizing Russia, like antagonizing China, is a good business model. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin saw their stock prices increase by 40 percent and 37 percent respectively as a result of the Ukraine conflict. 

A war with China, now an industrial giant, would disrupt the global supply chain with devastating effects on the U.S. and global economy. Apple produces 90 percent of its products in China. U.S. trade with China was $690.6 billion last year. In 2004, U.S. manufacturing output was more than twice China’s. China’s output is now nearly double that of the United States. China produces the largest number of ships, steel and smartphones in the world. It dominates the global production of chemicals, metals, heavy industrial equipment and electronics. It is the world’s largest rare earth mineral exporter, its greatest reserve holder and is responsible for 80 percent of its refining worldwide. Rare earth minerals are essential to the manufacture of computer chips, smartphones, television screens, medical equipment, fluorescent light bulbs, cars, wind turbines, smart bombs, fighter jets and satellite communications. 

War with China would result in massive shortages of a variety of goods and resources, some vital to the war industry, paralyzing U.S. businesses. Inflation and unemployment would rocket upwards. Rationing would be implemented. The global stock exchanges, at least in the short term, would be shut down. It would trigger a global depression. If the U.S. Navy was able to block oil shipments to China and disrupt its sea lanes, the conflict could potentially become nuclear.

In “NATO 2030: Unified for a New Era,” the military alliance sees the future as a battle for hegemony with rival states, especially China. It calls for the preparation of prolonged global conflict. In October 2022, Air Force General Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command, presented his “Mobility Manifesto” to a packed military conference. During this unhinged fearmongering diatribe, Minihan argued that if the U.S. does not dramatically escalate its preparations for a war with China, America’s children will find themselves “subservient to a rules based order that benefits only one country [China].”

According to the New York Times, the Marine Corps is training units for beach assaults, where the Pentagon believes the first battles with China may occur, across “the first island chain” that includes, “Okinawa and Taiwan down to Malaysia as well as the South China Sea and disputed islands in the Spratlys and the Paracels.”.

Militarists drain funds from social and infrastructure programs. They pour money into research and development of weapons systems and neglect renewable energy technologies. Bridges, roads, electrical grids and levees collapse. Schools decay. Domestic manufacturing declines. The public is impoverished. The harsh forms of control the militarists test and perfect abroad migrate back to the homeland. Militarized Police. Militarized drones. Surveillance. Vast prison complexes. Suspension of basic civil liberties. Censorship.

Those such as Julian Assange, who challenge the stratocracy, who expose its crimes and suicidal folly, are ruthlessly persecuted. But the war state harbors within it the seeds of its own destruction. It will cannibalize the nation until it collapses. Before then, it will lash out, like a blinded cyclops, seeking to restore its diminishing power through indiscriminate violence. The tragedy is not that the U.S. war state will self-destruct. The tragedy is that we will take down so many innocents with us.

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Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.

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*** 

The corruption engaged in by the Democratic Party leadership appears to be never-ending and no one is ever held accountable. A recent report described how Michael Morell, the former acting Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, colluded with Antony Blinken, who was then a senior official in the 2020 Joe Biden presidential campaign, to prepare and find signatories to a letter to discredit those seeking to exploit the emerging Hunter Biden laptop scandal, which was threatening to do real damage to the Biden electoral prospects.

Following in the footsteps of the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign, which sought to use fabricated information from the Steele dossier to smear Donald Trump and some of his advisors, Blinken suggested that Morell promote the argument that the laptop story involved Russia and should be dismissed as little more than a disinformation operation ordered by President Vladimir Putin. At the time, there was no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Russia had had anything to do with spreading fabricated information regarding Hunter Biden or his laptop, but that was regarded as immaterial.

The conspiracy to use a false narrative to corruptly influence the outcome of the election, for that is what it was, was recently revealed in testimony by Morell to the House Judiciary Committee, led by Republican Representative Jim Jordan. Morell described how he had been instrumental in convincing 50 other former colleagues in the intelligence and national security community to sign on to the letter that he had drafted. Morell told the committee that Blinken acting for the Biden campaign helped to strategize about the timing and distribution for the public release of the letter and he described how his two objectives in drafting and releasing the statement was “to help then-Vice President Biden in the upcoming presidential debate and assist him in winning the election.”

Presumably Morell, known for his ambition and ruthlessness, may have expected Biden to appoint him head of the CIA when it came time to hand out rewards after the election was over. Concerning his own political ambitions and inclinations, one recalls how in 2016 Morell wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that was picked up nationally which headlined “I ran the CIA: now I’m endorsing Hillary Clinton.”

By virtue of exploiting his own top level connections inside the Agency, five of Morell’s letter’s signatories were former Directors of the CIA. The letter included the assertion by the signatories that they were “deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case…If we are right this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this.” It concluded that the laptop allegations exhibited “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

After the letter was prepared, Blinken advised Morell on its most advantageous timing, selecting a date close to the election so it would have maximum impact. The laptop story itself had appeared in the New York Post on October 14^th, revealing emails demonstrating how the Vice President Joe Biden appeared to have pressured Ukrainian officials into firing a prosecutor who was investigating corruption in the energy company Burisma. Joe met with a top company official, which led to the granting of a sinecure position on the Burisma board to his influence peddling son Hunter, which paid him $50,000 per month. Material also included on the laptop revealed Hunter’s moral turpitude and drug use.

The Morell rebuttal appeared in Politico five days later, two weeks before the election, on October 19^th, and was picked up by the mainstream media all over the United States. Joe Biden also used the material in his debate with Trump on October 22^nd, accusing Moscow of targeting his son in an elaborate propaganda operation, claiming that the laptop story was “garbage” and part of a “Russian plan.” Biden referred to the many signatures on the intelligence community letter to declare that “nobody believes” that the laptop is real. And the denial did have a genuine impact on the campaign. After the Morell letter appeared, nearly all major social and news media platforms that had allowed linking to or discussion of the Hunter laptop story either censored the material completely or limited access to it while also posting warnings that the tale had been debunked by knowledgeable experts. Also to be considered is how the Blinken-Morell letter fueled the false perception that Russia and Putin were supporting Trump through clandestine and underhanded means.

Investigative journalist Jim Bovard, writing in the New York Post, reports ironically how Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the closing speech at last month’s Summit for Democracy “piously proclaimed” that “As President Biden has said, democracy doesn’t happen by accident. ‘It requires constant effort.’” And shortly after he became Secretary of State, Blinken had had the nerve to claim that the US government doesn’t sweep problems “under the rug… We deal with them in the daylight, with full transparency.” Indeed, Blinken may have been rewarded by Biden with his cabinet position after his successful plausibly illegal intervention. Also apparently rewarded was a signatory on the Morell letter – Avril Haines who is now Director of National Intelligence.

To be sure, the “honorable” Secretary of State Antony Blinken should now be instead offering his resignation over the exposure of his blatant and possibly successful attempt to change the outcome of an election by conspiring to corrupt the electoral process with false information to sway voters. Bovard opines how the Morell letter defused what had become “the biggest threat to the Biden presidential campaign … Polls show that Biden would have lost the election if the media had accurately reported the contents of that laptop.”

And there’s more to the Hunter Biden story and the corrupt hand of government. An IRS employee has recently turned whistleblower and stated that his Agency has been moving sluggishly on an investigation of Hunter regarding tax evasion relating to foreign income derived largely from Ukraine and China. And he claims that another senior Biden appointed official is involved in the politically motivated foot dragging. No less than Attorney General Merrick Garland has been identified as the unnamed senior official whose sworn testimony to a congressional committee is being challenged in a letter from the whistleblower’s attorney alleging a cover-up of the Hunter Biden criminal investigation. Attorney Mark Lytle wrote that the longtime IRS employee would like to provide information to congressional leaders to “contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee” — now identified as Garland — and also to provide details of claimed “preferential treatment” in the criminal probe of Hunter.

One more tale just might illustrate where this country is going under Joe Biden and company, where party and personal interests are all that matter to a leadership which regards “integrity” as a dirty word. In fact, the government has become increasingly intolerant of speech or writing that in any way challenges its power, exposes its corruption, reveals its lies, and encourages the citizenry to resist government overreach. The Biden Administration has recently indicted four Americans and charged them with conspiracy to spread Russian propaganda and acting as unregistered Russian agents under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938. The four are members of the African People’s Socialist Party, which has criticized and opposed US foreign policy since 1971 and currently is against Washington’s promotion of the war against Russia in Ukraine. They potentially face 15 years in prison. This exploitation of quite plausibly unconstitutional “lawfare” is nothing new, as in my own experience the Justice (sic) Department has been moving to silence Americans who write for Russian news sites by threatening them with huge fines or even imprisonment. It is a tendency that is unfortunately not unique to any particular presidential administration which has been building since 9/11, though it has become far worse under Joe Biden and Merrick Garland. In no cases that I know of have any of those pressured or accused actually been receiving direction or secret benefits from the Russian government.

That all means that the definition of illegal speech or writing has been considerably broadened of late. The Biden Administration has been actively waging a campaign to eradicate what it chooses to call “disinformation,” to include those who allegedly share “false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information” with terrorists. It is, in fact, the United States government that is the world’s largest purveyor of disinformation, to include adopting the Israeli practice of defining anyone who resists US hegemony as a terrorist. For example, that is how the Justice Department labels white so-called supremacists as “domestic terrorists.”

And, of course, the government is being assisted and protected due to the fact that nearly all the negative stories about Biden and his crew have predictably been suppressed by the mainstream media, which has become a de facto a partner of the White House disinformation program. Consider, for example, the Seymour Hersh revelations about the hideous “act of war” Nord Stream pipeline destruction and the corruption in Ukraine, or the revelation of disinformation regarding the war in Ukraine itself exposed by leaker Jack Teixeira, or the biolabs in Ukraine, or the incessant lies denigrating Russia and its leadership. And where does one go to for any legitimate criticism of the reckless White House driven direct engagement in Ukraine that could go nuclear even though it is in support of no real national interest? Or the thoughtless threatening of China over Taiwan? And how about the State Department using overseas Embassies to promote “woke-ism” rather than protecting American travelers and interests? All these stories are targeted and diminished deliberately, gone or going, never to be seen again.

So it should surprise no one that the White House and media are right now trying to kill the exposure of how Blinken and Morell turned around the story of the Hunter laptop because that would confirm suspicions that Joe Biden may have actually stolen the 2020 election. And the back story is that the fabricated material planted by the Clinton and Biden campaigns in 2016 and 2020 only succeeded because of the media’s surrender of its traditional role as an exposer of government crimes and evasions. The phony Morell intelligence letter and its possible consequences is a scandal of huge proportions that would once upon a time have ended in resignations, impeachment, and plenty of jail time for all of those involved but Michael Morell and Antony Blinken have not even been touched or even interviewed by the FBI. Nor have the other fifty national security puppets who signed off onto claims made in a document that they must have known to be fabricated for political reasons experienced any discomfort. They have no shame and are all disgraces to the oath of loyalty to the Constitution that they once swore. And the real danger is that if the clueless government and media continue to be able to bury stories they do not approve of, the United States will cease to be a functioning democracy and every election will be little more than a farce.

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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 councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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*** 

Record-breaking 18 year old powerlifter Laura Delava died within 24hr of developing myocarditis on April 24, 2023 – “it happened so fast” (click here)(click here)

Chicago – 63 year old Scott Minerd, a committed weightlifter known to bench press more than 400 pounds died suddenly in the afternoon from a heart attack during his regular workout, on Dec. 21, 2022 (click here)

America’s Strongest Woman Rebecca Lorch, age 32, died suddenly Dec. 18, 2022. Her death was unexpected. (click here)

Competitive powerlifter and professional wrestler Sara Lee (Sara Weston), age 30, died suddenly July 10, 2022, no cause of death given (click here)

Savannah, GA – 2-time Olympian 41 year old Oscar Chaplin III died suddenly on Feb. 4, 2022, cause of death not made public (click here)

Powerlifter Bud Jeffries, age 48, died suddenly on Jan. 21, 2022 while doing a light training session outside his house during which he collapsed (click here)

Australian Powerlifter James Kondilios, age 23, double COVID-19 vaccinated, died suddenly “with” COVID on Jan. 5, 2022 (click here)

Lagos, Nigeria – Paralympic powerlifting gold medalist Paul Kehinde, age 33, died suddenly on Nov. 18, 2021 “after a brief illness” (click here).

Reno, NV – Powerlifter Tyler Rippee, age 41, died suddenly of “COVID-19” on Sep. 22, 2021, he was training for 2021 UPA Legions Sports Fest (click here)

Powerlifter Glenda Presutti, age 64, nurse, died unexpectedly on June 13, 2021 (click here)

My Take…

This was not intended to be a series but there were so many sudden and unexplained deaths, they had to be split up into categories as they wouldn’t fit in one article.

Interestingly, Singapore’s first COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation was to a 16 year old boy who had an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest six days after receiving his first dose of Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine on June 27, 2021.

He had developed myocarditis and had a heart attack after doing weightlifting. He survived and received $225,000 from the Singapore government (click here).

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

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However described, the shabby treatment of Julian Assange never ceases to startle. While he continues to suffer in Belmarsh prison awaiting the torments of an interminable legal process, more material is coming out showing the way he was spied upon while staying at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Of late, the Spanish daily El País has been keeping up its exemplary coverage on the subject, notably on the conduct of the Spanish-based security firm, UC Global SL.

There is a twist in the latest smidgens of information on the alleged bad conduct by that particular company. As luck would have it, UC Global was commissioned by Rommy Vallejo, the chief of Ecuador’s now defunct national intelligence secretariat, SENAIN, to give the London embassy premises a security and technological touch-up.

Vallejo may have sought their services, but seemed blissfully ignorant that he had granted the fox access to the chicken coop.  This access involved the installation of hidden microphones throughout the embassy by UC Global at the direction of its owner, David Morales. Morales, it seems, was updating the US Central Intelligence Agency with information about Assange’s meetings with his legal team throughout.

Much of this was revealed in the trial against Assange conducted at the Central Criminal Court in 2020, though the presiding Judge Vanessa Baraitser seemed oddly unmoved by the revelations, as she was by chatter among US intelligence operatives to engineer an abduction or assassination of the WikiLeaks founder.

The link between UC Global and the CIA was the fruit of work between Morales and one of his most notable clients, the casino company, Las Vegas Sands. Morales was responsible for supplying the owner of the company, the late billionaire magnate and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, with personal security. In the merry-go-round of this field, one of those on Adelson’s personal security detail was a former CIA officer.

On December 20, 2017, Michelle Wallemacq, the head of operations at UC Global, penned a note to two technicians responsible for monitoring security at the embassy. “Be on the lookout tomorrow to see what you can get… and make it work.” The request was related to a scheduled meeting between Assange and Vallejo. The theme of the discussion: to get the Australian publisher out of the embassy, grant him Ecuadorian citizenship and furnish him with a diplomatic passport. This had a heroic, even quixotic quality to it: the grant of a diplomatic passport would not have necessarily passed muster; and the chances of Assange being arrested could hardly be discounted.

Eleven months prior to Morales passing on the tip that scuttled Assange’s escape plans, Morales was already chasing up his staff from one of Adelson’s properties, The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas. One technician received the following: “Do you have status reports on the embassy’s computer systems, and networks? I need an inventory of systems and equipment, the guest’s [Assange] phones, and the number of networks.” He also warned his technicians to be wary “that we may be monitored, so everything confidential should be encrypted…  Everything is related to the UK subject… The people in control are our friends in the USA.”

On June 12, 2017, Morales, enroute to Washington, DC, requested his contact to activate a File Transfer Protocol server and web portal from their Spanish headquarters. The portal in question: the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Material began being collected on Assange’s guests, eclectic and of all stripes: journalists, doctors, lawyers, diplomats. Mobile phone data was also hoovered up. After his Washington stop, Morales popped into Las Vegas Sands, where he met his eager “American friends” to reveal the information so far gathered about Assange.

Over this time, it becomes clear, in Morales’s own words, that “he had gone over to the dark side” and that “they were working in the Champions League”. Emails sent on September 8 speak of offering “our information collection and analysis capability to the American client”. Discussions with a UC Global technician focus on gathering information from the microphones in the embassy. “The guest [Assange] has three rooms and uses two quite frequently… We would have all the audio from there except in one room.”

On September 21, it was clear to Morales that they had gotten sufficiently mired in the business of spying on Assange to be wary of any potential surveillance from SENAIN. “I would like my whereabouts to be kept confidential, especially my trips to the USA.” Instructions are distributed to gather data on the embassy’s Wi-Fi network, photos of the interior and furnishings of the embassy, and any data on Assange’s primary visitors, notably any members of his legal team.

The recording of one meeting would prove critical to upending plans to get Assange out of the embassy. Present Assange, his lawyer, now wife Stella Morris, Ecuadorian consul Fidel Narváez and Vallejo. The date for the getaway was slated for December 25, with the plan that Assange leave via one of the ambassador’s cars which would make its way through the Eurotunnel to Switzerland or some designated destination on the continent. “It’s very late,” wrote one of the technicians a few hours after the meeting’s conclusion to Morales. “Because it’s so big, I put the file in a shared Dropbox folder. Someone with experience in audio can make it more intelligible.” While Vallejo could be heard fairly clearly, the voices of Assange and Morris were “very muffled”.

Within a matter of hours, Morales had relayed the material to those “American friends” of his, greasing the wheels for proceedings that would culminate in Assange’s expulsion in 2019 and the indictment listing 18 charges, 17 of which are drawn from the Espionage Act of 1917. The plan to leave the embassy was never executed.

There are two significant events that also transpired before Vallejo’s visit to Assange. The first involved an advisor to the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister who is said to have had information about the plan regarding Assange’s escape. He was assaulted by a number of hooded men at Quito Airport on his return from the United States.

On December 17, 2017 it was time for hooded assailants to turn their attention to the Madrid law offices of Baltasar Garzón and Aitor Martínez. Their target: a computer server. The timing was ominous; both lawyers had just returned from meeting Assange in the London embassy. The intruders proved untraceable by the Spanish police, despite leaving prints.

In hindsight, it does seem remarkable that Vallejo and SENAIN remained ignorant of the rotten apples in UC Global. As things stand, Morales is facing a formal complaint filed by Assange in the Spanish National Court. He is also facing an investigation for alleged breaches of privacy, the violation of attorney-client confidentiality, misappropriation, bribery and money laundering. The presiding magistrate on the case, Santiago Pedraz, has requested the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to press the CIA in supplying information about the embassy spying.

Even better will be the abandoning of the entire proceeding, the reversal of the extradition order made in June 2022 by then Home Secretary Priti Patel, and a finding by the UK authorities that the case against Assange is monstrously political, compromised from the start and emptied of legal principle.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University.  He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image: Julian Assange was secretly recorded while living at the Ecuadorean embassy in London. (Source: EPV)

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Michel Chossudovsky’s interview with Dragan Vujicic, Serbia’s National News. (Excerpts and Edits by Chossudovsky, Part I)

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The Nord Stream sabotage was announced at a press conference in Washington on February 7, 2022, by President Biden. and Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz. This announcement was tantamount to an Act of War by the United States against its  European Allies. 

Interview with Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, economist, professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa and editor of the renowned anti-globalist Global Research website.

According to Michel Chossudovsky:

“The Nord Stream gas pipelines that were the subject of the attack are located in the (maritime) territorial jurisdiction of four member states of the European Union.

In international law, the intentional destruction of the aforementioned “property” within the country’s territorial waters by or on behalf of a foreign state actor constitutes an act of war,” 

“It’s NATO against NATO”. This raises a precedent: A NATO member state is at war against a collective of European NATO member states, “allies” of America”  

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Dragan Vujicic (DV): You say that there was nothing secret about that Nord Stream operation?

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky (PMC): We should remember the press conference at the White House on February 7, 2022 at which the US president and Germany’s chancellor publicly expressed their intention to blow up the Nord Stream. Chancellor Scholz who was on an official visit to the United States, fully endorsed President Biden’s stated intent to blow up the Nordstream gas pipeline, “if Russian tanks enter Ukraine”.

Olaf Scholz was fully aware that this act of sabotage of the Nord Stream had been planned well in advance by the US Administration, to the detriment of more than 400 million Europeans.

DV: Do you have unequivocal evidence that Chancellor Scholz was involved?

PMC: I will read the transcript of that Press Conference on 7 February 2022. The questions were addressed to both President Biden and Chancellor Scholz: 

Andrea (Reuters) Q    Thank you, Mr.  President.  And thank you, Chancellor Scholz.  Mr.  President, I have wanted to ask you about this Nord Stream project that you’ve long opposed.  You didn’t mention it just now by name, nor did Chancellor Scholz.  Did you receive assurances from Chancellor Scholz today that Germany will, in fact, pull the plug on this project if Russia invades Ukraine?  And did you discuss what the definition of “invasion” could be?

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  The first question first.  If Germany — if Russia invades — that means tanks or troops crossing the — the border of Ukraine again — then there will no be no longer a Nord Stream 2.  We will bring an end to it. 

Q    But how will you — how will you do that exactly, since the project and control of the project is within Germany’s control?

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  We will — I promise you, we’ll be able to do it. 

Andreas (Reuters) Q  [to Chancellor Scholz]  And will you commit today — will you commit today to turning off and pulling the plug on Nord Stream 2?  You didn’t mention it, and you haven’t mentioned it.

CHANCELLOR SCHOLZ:  As I’ve already said, we are acting together, we are absolutely united, and we will not be taking different steps.  We will do the same steps, and they will be very, very hard to Russia, and they should understand.   (White House Press Conference emphasis added)

Video Below: Reuters Journalist: 10’15”

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PMC: Scholz’s answer is unequivocal. He endorsed Biden’s decision to bomb Nord Stream, while avoiding to address the substance of the Reuter’s journalist question: i.e “within the control of Germany” of which he is the head of government.

DV: So from these words of the German chancellor you conclude that Germany knew? 

PMC: Of course he knew, which does not mean that people in Germany and the EU knew.

His statement is unequivocal. He supported Biden’s decision to bomb Nord Stream. Scholz’s statement at the press conference confirms that this was a joint decision. In fact it was an “Act of Treason”, by the German Chancellor, which had also been endorsed by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. 

DV: Do you think that this kind of evidence would be sufficient reason for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to deal with this matter.

PMC: International law is explicit in this regard. The Nord Stream pipelines which were the object of the attack are located within the (maritime) territorial jurisdiction of four member states of the European Union. In international law, “Territorial Integrity” extends to “properties” located within the territorial waters of the Nation State. The deliberate destruction of said “properties” within a country’s territorial waters by or on behalf of a foreign state actor constitutes an act of war. 

Based on International Law, the International Criminal Court (ICC) –not to mention the European Court of Justice (ECJ)– should have been able to confirm that it was an act of war.   But the ICC is corrupt. In Washington, Biden made it public when he said: “We will do it and we have a plan to do it”. And there was nothing secret about Biden’s public declaration.

I recall the act of aggression against the Former Republic of  Yugoslavia (FRY), in 1999. Your country was the object of a NATO act of war, and it was an illegal and criminal act based on fabricated evidence, allegedly with a view to coming to the rescue of Kosovo’s Albanian population. From a legal standpoint, extensive crimes were committed by NATO acting collectively against a sovereign country.  

Here we have a different situation. An Act of War against the E.U., which points to crimes against humanity. It also triggers a deep-seated crisis within the Atlantic Alliance, which I might describe as follows: A NATO country, namely the United States of America — through an illegal act of sabotage has (from a legal standpoint) attacked its European allies most of which are NATO member states. 

It is ironic, that following the attack on Nord Stream in September 2022, none of the EU-NATO member states raised the issue that this was an attack by a NATO Member State against all EU-NATO member states.

We might recall the issue of Article 5 of the Atlantic Alliance’ Washington Treaty, which was used in October 2001 as a pretext to justify the invasion of Afghanistan, namely an attack by a foreign power against one or more NATO member states is an attack against all member states of the Atlantic Alliance under the doctrine of collective security.

The whole thing was a big lie. There was no evidence that Afghanistan had attacked America on September 11, 2001. 

In regards to the U.S bombing of Nord Stream, Article 5 obviously does not apply because the “foreign power”, namely  the U.S. is a NATO member state. What we are dealing with is a U.S. sponsored Act of War against the EU, bearing in mind that most EU countries are member states of NATO.

“It’s NATO against NATO”. This raises a precedent: A NATO member state is at war against a collective of European NATO member states. 

The question that should be raised is whether NATO still exists as an “alliance” when the U.S  exerting its sovereign rule over the European Union, declares an act of war against the EU-NATO member states which are “allies of America”.

DV: How do you view the European economy today? 

PMC. We are also dealing with an act of economic warfare against the EU.

The EU economy which has relied on cheap energy from Russia is in a shambles, marked by disruptions in the entire fabric of industrial production (manufacturing), transportation and commodity trade. 

A string of corporate bankruptcies resulting in lay-offs and unemployment is unfolding across the European Union. Small and medium sized enterprises are slated to be wiped off the economic landscape.

DV: American natural gas in Europe is now seven times more expensive and suppliers from the USA are asking the Europeans for 20 annual contracts to guarantee regularity of supply in return? 

PMC: In the long run, it won’t work. In a global economy, if you want to buy gas, you will look for the best price. You can purchase Russian gas via a third country. e.g. India. 

I should mention that the Euro is a dollarized  currency. The member states are financially dependent on the European Central Bank (ECB), presided by Christine Lagarde, a former head of the IMF.

The ECB is controlled by powerful banking institutions including Wall Street and the U.S. Federal Reserve. 

This social and economic devastation of both Europe and Worldwide has been ongoing since the outset of the corona crisis in early 2020, which targeted more than 190 countries.  The March 11 2020 Lockdown consisted in confining the labour force and freezing the workplace, resulting in bankruptcies and poverty. Supply chains of the real economy were broken.

 

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*** 

 

 

 

I always knew he was one of us, closeted though he was by Fox News HR, like a world-class racing horse kept in the stable, like Picasso with his fingers taped together.

Tucker is getting too close to the truth! pic.twitter.com/H97SuNBnGK

— Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange) April 30, 2023

“If you say, like, ‘What actually happened with building 7? Like that is weird, right? It doesn’t—like, what is that?’… If you were to say something like that on television, they’d flip out. They would flip out. So you’d, like, lose your job over that.

It’s an attack on my country. Can I ask? I don’t really understand. Do buildings actually collapse? No, they—maybe they do. I don’t know. But, like, why can’t I ask questions about that?”

Click here to view the video.

What this proves is not that Carlson is particularly insightful – it doesn’t take an engineering genius to figure out that buildings don’t typically collapse at freefall speed neatly into their own footprints – but it does show that he’s brave, and now he doesn’t give a flying f**k about respectability politics.

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This article was originally published on Armageddon Prose.

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Tucker Carlson speaking with attendees at the 2022 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

 

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April 26th, 2023 murder of senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Abbas-Ali Soleimani, shot dead as he attended a bank meeting in the northern city of Babolsar, comes amidst a time of dramatic geopolitical upheaval in the Islamic Republic.

In September, less than 24 hours after Iran had joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation – a Beijing-led body intended to foster political, economic and military development in Eurasia – riots would sweep the west Asian country; ostensibly in response to the death of 22-year old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini following an interaction with a police officer in Tehran, though later confirmed as a Western-orchestrated regime-change attempt by the involvement of US agent Masih Alinejad, and the admission by former US National Security Advisor and notorious Iran hawk, John Bolton, that weapons had been provided to the ‘Iranian opposition’. A tactic previously applied by the United States in previous regime-change operations in Libya and Syria, with disastrous consequences.

In early March, in a seismic geopolitical shift, it was also announced that Iran and its long-term regional rival Saudi Arabia, had resumed diplomatic ties for the first time in seven years in a deal brokered by China.

With both Tehran and Riyadh finding themselves supporting opposing sides on conflicts in Syria and Yemen over the past decade, the rapprochement between the Persian Gulf’s two main powerhouses should be a decisive factor in the restoration of stability to a region beset by conflict over the past two decades, with the war in Yemen now likely coming to an end as a result.

It also rubberstamps the growing influence of China in a region where the US once maintained total hegemony.

As a result, this indicates that the killing of Ayatollah Soleimani, though initially reported as a case of mistaken identity related to a personal dispute, may be part of a far more sinister agenda.

A member of the Assembly of Experts, 88 high-ranking Shia clerics responsible for the selection and supervision of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Soleimani would serve as Ayatollah Khameini’s personal representative to Sistan and Baluchestan Province from 2002 to 2019, an eastern Sunni-majority region in Iran, with a history of US and Israeli-sponsored terrorism, carried out with the intention of fostering sectarian division in the Islamic Republic.

Thus, with Saudi Arabia being seen as the dominant Sunni power in the Islamic world – adhering to the ultraconservative Wahhabi interpretation in particular – and Iran being regarded as the Shia equivalent, the most likely way for either the US or Israel to undermine the new agreement, would be to sow discord along sectarian lines between both countries. The intended result for Washington being the countering of Beijing’s growing influence in the region, and for Israel, the containment of Iran – a long-time opponent of the Zionist state since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Indeed, such a divide and conquer strategy has a not too distant usage by the US in the region.

In March 2011, protests in Syria calling for government reform would rapidly escalate into extreme violence. Like what is currently playing out in Iran, it quickly emerged that the ‘Syrian Revolution’ was a regime-change operation orchestrated by the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and Israel, the catalyst being Bashar al-Assad’s 2009 refusal to allow US-ally Qatar to build a pipeline through his country.

In 2016, leaked emails between Israeli intelligence and then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed that Tel Aviv saw sectarian strife erupting in the Arab Republic as a positive, and would serve to undermine Iran’s influence in the region.

Indeed, fostering sectarian division within the Arab Republic as a means to undermine Damascus was outlined in a 2006 cable, five years before the regime-change operation began, and now with détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia possibly being seen as a threat to US and Israeli interests, it appears that this is a tactic that may soon rear its ugly head again in the Persian Gulf.

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Gavin O’Reilly is an activist from Dublin, Ireland, with a strong interest in the effects of British and US Imperialism. Secretary of the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee, a campaign group set up to raise awareness of Irish Republican political prisoners in British and 26 County jails. His work has previously appeared on American Herald Tribune, The Duran, Al-Masdar and MintPress News. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. Support him on Patreon.

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The participants of the Annual Assembly of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, held on April 22, 2023, in Belgrade, voiced their profound concern over the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and an increased risk of its uncontrolled spreading, and made a public call for an immediate ceasefire and urgent peace negotiations. All unanimously acclaimed that dialogue and negotiations are the only path to end loss of human lives and destruction, and direct all resources toward stabilization, reconstruction, and development. To achieve this war propaganda, all sorts of provocations and oiling the fire must be stopped. Reason and courage is necessary to recognize and address the root causes of the conflict, without abusing it for expansion of geostrategic interests.

Peace in Ukraine is a presumption for Europe and the world to normalize development, supply chains and cooperation, to commit themselves to building a new world order on the bases of sovereign equality of all peoples and countries, for peaceful coexistence and democratic governance of the world relations.

The participants welcomed the Peace initiative of the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping and his continuous constructive efforts to initiate and facilitate the dialogue between the sides.

Neither Europe nor the rest of the world need any newly forged divisions, isolation, walls or blocks under any given pretext, but rather – resorting to reason, realism, and development in equality.

Peace is a prerequisite for the enormous funds, exceeding 2.2 trillion dollars spent on the arms race get redirected to development and creating better living conditions for all people, to nudge Europe and the world to turn instead to development and application of new technologies, to restoring the broken supply chains, and to begin to address the energy, food, migrant, and overall global economic and social crises.

The participants emphasized that peace and security are inseparable values to which are entitled all countries and peoples irrespective of their size, economic or military strength and that any reinforcing of security of certain countries at the expense of the security of other countries is unacceptable.

While underlining that the global relations are undergoing the most intense transformations since the end of WWII, the participants of the Assembly called upon all relevant stakeholders to accommodate to the realities of the multipolar world order, which inherently excludes hegemony, unilateralism, and privileges, and requires respect of sovereign equality, and the strengthening of multilateralism and the role of international law under the auspices of the United Nations.

They emphasized that, against the backdrop of new trends emerging in Europe and the world, we were witnessing an increasing importance of Serbia’s policy of military neutrality and her strategy of balanced relations with all countries that accept Serbia as an equal partner, and in particular with those which support her sovereignty and territorial integrity anticipating the solution of the status of the Province of Kosovo and Metohija as an autonomy within Serbia, in compliance with UN Security Council resolution 1244.

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Živadin Jovanović is President of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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There are many definitions and/or understandings of war. However, from the very academic point of view, war can be understood as an armed conflict between at least two sides usually but not necessarily states fought usually for some (geo)political goals. The focal conceptual idea of war is the use of force between large-scale political subjects like states, empires, or coalitions. Historically, wars have been fought mainly for the control of certain land for different reasons ranging from a purely political one to a purely economic one or a combination of several of them.

Many types of war and warfare can be seen from the numerous adjectives that can be given before the word “war” like civil war, guerrilla war, total war, limited war, gang war, tribal war, regional war, local war, world war, religious war, race war, cold war, trade war, independence war, propaganda war, cyber war, class war, etc. Some of these names, however, are, in fact, metaphors that are exploiting the image of violent conflict over some political or other goal taken from IR, and transferred to some actors who are not the states.

Nevertheless, from a very legal viewpoint, states can be at war without, in fact, using force against each other (for instance, Montenegro’s declaration of war to Japan in 1904) or vice versa, states can use force against each other on quite a large scale but formally not to be in declared warfare against each other (for instance, the German invasion of Poland in 1939). Nonetheless, the identification of warfare with some political background concerning the reasons and goals, in theory, means that it can be applied to the system of international relations (IR) and domestic civil wars. On both levels – interstate and domestic – wars are in practice very often caused by some disputes over sovereignty and land.

The beginning of the modern form of warfare as presumably, an organized and more or less clear goal-directed violent activity comes from the development of the European state system in the early modern time, i.e. from around 1500 onward. Any war has either formal or quasi-legal character from the point of international law.

The declaration of a state of war does not mean necessarily to be followed by an outbreak of hostilities (for instance, Austria-Hungary started hostilities against Serbia in 1914 one month after the war declaration). After the Cold War, it is more and more used the term “new” wars which are characterized as being linked to intra-state ethnic conflict (for instance, the destruction of ex-Yugoslavia in the 1990s), the usage of advanced military technology, or the involvement of non-state actors of different nature like terrorist groups or guerrilla movements. Hegemonic and guerrilla wars are on diametrically opposite ends of the scale of different wars. The first one is a war for the creation of dominance of huge portions of the world or the entire world order by deeply restructuring the global balance of power. The guerrilla war (in Spanish “little” war) is, in fact, an insurgency or “people’s” war which is fought by irregular troops which are using tactics that are suited to the terrain and emphasize mobility and surprise rather than superior firepower.

It can be said that each war is to a certain extent unique and unrepeatable as each of them are the product of a specific set of historical circumstances followed by particular social, economic, and political backgrounds. Nevertheless, there is a historical very fact that war as a phenomenon appears constantly and, therefore, many theoreticians argue that it should exist deeper explanations of war from the point of view that certainly there are some common elements in all of them that apply to all historical times and political-economic societies.

In the theory of IR, there are many approaches to the reasons for military conflicts, but certainly, there is no single or unified view about the causes of war and warfare.

According to the majority of theoreticians, war is nothing else but only a large-scale expression of the selfish, violent, and power-seeking nature of humans. In other words, war is a product of instincts and appetites that are natural elements of human individuals.

Consequently, war is endless for the reason that human desires and appetites are infinite, while the resources to satisfy them are always finite. As a result, the struggle and competition that gives rise to the will inevitably express itself in violence, bloodshed, and war crimes. Some zoologists claim that social aggression is simply biologically programmed and especially in mails resulting from territorial and sexual instincts that are found in all species including humans. Technically, war can be fought in order to protect the (home)land, acquire wealth and resources, achieve national glory, advance religious, ideological, or political principles, or establish racial or ethnonational hegemony, etc. For instance, one of the causes of war can be autarky (“self-rule”) – the principle of economic self-sufficiency which can result either in colonial expansion or a withdrawal from international trade. Nevertheless, in all of these cases, war provides a necessary and inevitable framework for aggressive behavior that is hard-wired in human nature.

Others, like neo-realists, are claiming that the regular happening of war in history is a result of the anarchic structure of the system of IR. For them, war is an enduring feature of IR and world affairs. The possibility of war stems from the inescapable dynamics of power politics. As states pursue their own national interest they will inevitably come into conflict with one another. Nevertheless, neo-realists claim that violent power politics is something real and natural. Moreover, the state’s egoism and rivalry between and among political actors are inherent tendencies within human nature toward self-seeking, competition, and aggression. From a neo-realistic point of view, the international system is, in fact, anarchic, and, therefore, (nation)states are simply forced to rely on self-help for the sake to achieve national survival and security. The common viewpoint by the neo-realists is that the states can be stable and secured only by the acquisition of military power which means a strong likelihood of war. The crucial factor distinguishing between war and peace is the balance of power. In principle, states will avoid war if they calculate that their chances of victory are slim. Furthermore, decisions about peace and war are made through the more profound analysis of a cost-benefit in which national self-interest may dictate either the use of war or its avoidance. Nevertheless, neo-realists claim that states that wish to preserve peace must, therefore, be prepared for warfare as in this way they hope to deter potential aggressors and prevent any other state or coalition of states from achieving a position of regional predominance or global hegemony (for instance, the British traditional policy toward continental Europe).

The third group argues that war is resulting from the political construction of states and the ideologies which they are expressing in the international arena. For instance, the liberals thought that in the 19^th century, aristocratic states have been aggressive contrary to those states with the republican (democratic) political system due to the martial inclinations of their ruling class. For the neo-liberals, peace is natural, but by no means an inevitable, condition for IR. War arises from three sets of circumstances and each of which is avoidable:

1. State egoism in the context of anarchy may lead to conflict and a possibility of war. The anarchy in IR can and should be replaced by an international rule of law, achieved through the construction of supranational bodies (for instance, the OUN).
2. War is often linked to economic nationalism and autarky – the quest for economic self-sufficiency (as a result, it is expected to conflict with one another). Peace can be in this case achieved through free trade and other forms of economic interdependence which may make war very economically costly that it becomes unthinkable.
3. The deposition of a state towards war or peace is crucially determined by its constitutional character. Nondemocratic authoritarian states tend to be militaristic and expansionist, accustomed to the use of force in order to achieve both domestic and foreign goals. Contrary, as they claim, democratic states are more peaceful, at least in their relations with other democratic states. However, the neo-liberals forget the historical link between inner political democracy and external military imperialism (for instance, the case of the UK which was around 1900 the greatest imperialistic state in the world and probably history).

In the 1930s, it was almost a common opinion that Nazi-fascist states of extremely authoritarian political regimes have been aggressive. The Marxist political philosophy is explaining war primarily in economic terms and argues that states with capitalistic social-economic order are driven to aggression (imperialism) for the real reason of their uncompromised economic competition for control over the markets, while, contrary, socialist states have been relating to each other peacefully. For Marxists, WWI was an imperialistic war fought in pursuit of colonial gains in Africa and elsewhere. The origins of modern warfare can be traced back to the capitalistic economic system. War is the pursuit of economic advantage by other means.

By Marxists, socialist movements are presented as anti-war or even of pacifist orientation being shaped by a commitment to internationalism that means cooperation and peace but not confrontation and war. The world’s most powerful capitalistic states use war, directly or indirectly, for the sake to defend or expand their global economies and political interests. Therefore, war is closely associated in modern (capitalistic) times with imperialism and hegemony. As a suggestion, long-time peace can be built only by a radical redistribution of global power. The Marxist conclusion during the Cold War was that global socialism was bringing global peace, prosperity, and cooperation between different nations, groups, states, etc. Furthermore, for them, justice in domestic social relations was bringing peace in the international arena. Finally, for the Marxists, economic class exploitation followed by imperialistic cross-sea colonialism was bringing global conflicts and wars.

However, liberals believe that the constitutional and governmental political structure of the states inclines some of them toward aggression while others toward peaceful cohabitation. They shared an idea that the states with democratic political arrangements do not go to war against one another, as is implied by the so-called Democratic Peace Thesis. By contrast, the liberals argue that authoritarian states are inclined towards militarism and warfare for the reason that such political regimes are heavily dependent on the armed forces to keep inner political and social order in the absence of the democratic process of elected representatives of the people and through the need to subdue subordinate national and ethnic groups. For instance, communist states are aggressive for the reason of their undemocratic totalitarian political and economic organization followed by their universalist ideology.

Contrary, liberal democracies exist peacefully as a result of their economic interdependence with each other, and the constraints of democracy on the use of force by the state’s authorities. From the empirical standpoint, the liberals so far have the better of this argument as there are few cases of democracies that have been going to war with each other. However, historically, the greatest and most violent imperialists and exploiters of colonies were exactly the liberal democracies which as well as produced numerous examples of war crimes, exterminations of ethnic groups, or direct support of dictatorial regimes abroad. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of militarism, either in quasi-democratic (the USA) or authoritarian (North Korea) political systems, is usually leading to a glorification of armed forces, belief in heroism and self-sacrifice, and the recognition of war as not only a legitimate instrument of foreign policy to protect national interest but as well as an expression of national patriotism.

The branch of political science theoreticians – social constructivists, place special emphasis on cultural and ideological factors which are most influential on the process of making war. A view on war, politics, and peace by the feminist movement is very unique and new. Feminists adopted, actually, a gender perspective on war, politics, and peace as they claim that wars historically, in fact, are fought between males. However, they forgot to take into consideration several important cases of female warmongering like the former US Secretaries of State Madeline Albright and Hillary Clinton, mystical Amazon female warriors, or the British PM Margaret Thatcher. Nevertheless, the feminists claim that the origins of the war are the warlike nature of males and the institution of patriarchy they created. Contrarily, there are allegedly close associations between women and peace based on the natural peacefulness of women and on the “fact” that women’s experience of the world encourages stress on human connectedness and cooperation. In other words, the image of international politics as conflict-ridden and prone to violence reflects masculinist assumptions about self-interest, competition, and the quest for domination.

Critical theorists like Noam Chomsky have been showing a particular interest in the concept and features of hegemonic war. They argue that the global Great Powers use war either directly or indirectly for two practical reasons: 1) to defend, or 2) to expand their worldwide political or/and economic interests. Consequently, according to them, great wars are associated with the state’s hegemony projects, while global peace is going to be built up only by the restructuring of IR and the international system of Great Powers. A UK academic and IR theorist Mary Kaldor in her book New Wars and Old Wars (2006) claims that there is a direct link between new types of war after 1990 to the crisis in state authority due to the impact of privatization and globalization. There are violent fights for the sake to obtain either access to or control of the state, state authorities, and institutions which are leading to huge violations of human rights in many cases carried out in the name of identity and mainly have been pointed against civilians and their rights. Another feature of the post-Cold War armed conflicts across the world is asymmetrical warfare which is a war fought between two opposite sides but with clearly unequal levels of military, economic, and technological power and potential. In principle, but not necessary, in such kinds of wars, warfare strategies tend to be adapted to the needs of the weak. Many contemporary wars are caused by insurgency – an armed uprising which is involving irregular soldiers with the final political goal to overthrow the established and usually legitimate regime. Furthermore, contemporary so-cold “new” wars have several common features:

1) They tend to be civil wars rather than wars between the states.

2) The issue of identity is generally very prominent and it can be even the chief cause of the conflict.

3) “New” wars are asymmetrical as they are often fought between unequal sides.

4) The distinction between military and civilians is disappearing.

5) “New” wars in many cases are more barbaric compared to “old” wars as clearly was shown in the 1990s with the case of the violent destruction of ex-Yugoslavia especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina and South Serbian Autonomous Province of Kosovo-Metochia where in 1996−1999 the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army sponsored by the US Clinton-Albright Administration took up an armed uprising against Serbia’s authorities and institutions for the sake to separate the province from the rest of Serbia and proclaim independence that happened in February 2008.

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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

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*** 

Warren, MI – School bus driver collapsed while driving (VIDEO ABOVE), 13 year old boy Dillon Reeves from Lois E. Carter Middle School, jumped in and brought the bus to a halt on April 26, 2023 (click here)

The bus driver experienced “some dizziness” while driving and followed protocol by alerting ‘“home base” that she wasn’t feeling well and was going to pull over.

But the driver didn’t make it to where she planned to park, eventually passed out and couldn’t stop the bus, which started to veer into oncoming traffic.

13 year old boy Dillon Reeves, who was seated about five rows back, “jumped up from his seat, threw his backpack down, ran to the front of the bus, grabbed the steering wheel and brought the bus to a stop in the middle of the road”.

The bus driver, a 40-year-old woman, is “stable but with precautions” and was transported to a hospital for examination. She had no physical injuries and suffered a medical emergency owing to a loss of consciousness.

Chula Vista, CA – A school bus crashed around 5pm after the bus driver had a medical emergency, on April 25, 2023 (click here) 

Brazil, Pontal – student took over after school bus driver collapsed and died (March 30, 2023) 

Brazil, Sertaozinho – 17 year old saved his classmates after school bus driver had a heart attack (March. 30, 2023)

A 17-year-old teenager saved his classmates who were on a school bus after the driver suffered a heart attack in the town of Sertaozinho. (click here)

Italy – bus driver collapsed on steering wheel, teachers took control of bus and saved 52 children, on March 6, 2023 (click here) 

France, Sezanne – 52 year old school bus driver had heart attack in front of school and died (March 6, 2023) (click here)

Corps, France – Bus carrying 40 schoolchildren plunges down creek in French Alps, after driver has a medical incident, on March 4, 2023 (click here)

The mayor said the “most probable scenario” is that the driver had some kind of medical problem while behind the wheel.

According to local media, the children in the vehicle were returning from a summer camp in the Hautes-Alpes.

Italy, Citadel – School bus driver had medical emergency while driving, died and crashed into a bus (Jan. 25, 2023)

Source: (click here)(click here)

USA, NC school bus driver had heart attack (Dec. 9, 2022)

72 year old school bus driver Rita Sturdivant had a heart attack on Dec. 9, 2022 while driving students. (click here)

My Take… 

This is another serious problem no one is talking about.

Just like the recent increase in pilot incapacitation incidents with a serious risk of a large commercial plane crashing (so far all large planes have landed safely), these incidents of school bus drivers collapsing at the wheel bring about a risk to the safety of the children on board.

These bus drivers were almost certainly COVID-19 vaccinated and faced a vaccine mandate at some point. Now they are collapsing from COVID-19 vaccine injuries to the heart.

The health authorities and politicians are ignoring pilots collapsing and having heart attacks in-flight, so they will almost certainly ignore school bus drivers collapsing and crashing buses full of children.

But this is where parents can step in and demand accountability. If enough parents can wake up in time.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

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The Corona Agenda’s “Abiding Ironies”: Freedom, Slavery and Singularity

By Dr. Emanuel Garcia, May 01, 2023

I was astonished recently to hear, from a highly respected writer, an astute analyst of the Corona agenda, at a gathering of real doctors here in New Zealand who stood up for informed consent and individualized treatment and the like, that we should get used to less liberty.

Australia: Outsourced to the US Military Establishment

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, May 01, 2023

In Australia, the entire military and security establishment is outsourced to Washington’s former mandarins, many of them earning a pile in consultancy fees. This, perhaps, is what Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles means when he talks about the Australian Defence Force moving “beyond interoperability to interchangeability.”

U.S. Interventionism in Sudan: Clashes Between Two Military Forces

By Steven Sahiounie, May 01, 2023

Clashes have been going on in Sudan for more than ten days between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support forces and corpses fill the streets. All attempts at a truce have so far failed. The clashes involved all types of light, medium and heavy weapons until military aviation was used.

‘One Health’ — The Global Takeover of Everything. The Pandemic Treaty

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, May 01, 2023

The WHO’s pandemic treaty and the IHR amendments are two of the strategies that are driving us “toward transformation of society that threaten democracy and our existing ways of life.” Both are aimed at achieving the same thing, namely centralizing power over nations with the WHO.

The West’s “Sanctioning” and Isolating Russia Has Failed. Massive Worldwide Majority for Multipolarity

By Peter Koenig, May 01, 2023

Western efforts at “sanctioning” Russia have failed miserably. So have efforts to isolate Russia from the rest of the world, by bribing countries – especially of the Global South. They have had exactly the contrary effect.

War Weapon Ukraine: The Erasure of History. Manlio Dinucci

By Manlio Dinucci, May 01, 2023

Wars flare up from Sudan to Ukraine. As a result, the global military spending is growing. Europe spent 13% more in 2022 than in 2021 on weapons and military operations, recording the sharpest increase in 30 years. Italy’s annual military spending has risen to more than €30 billion, or an average of more than €80 million a day.

Crying Out Against the Drive for World War. Emanuel Pastreich

By Emanuel Pastreich, May 01, 2023

I want to speak to you today about the grave situation we face, a crisis of the soul and of the nation that politicians fear to even mention as they bury us in talk about domestic programs.

Israel: An Occupying Power Cannot be a Beacon of Democracy

By Prof. Alon Ben-Meir, May 01, 2023

Had even some of the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who stood tall to fight for the preservation of their democracy experienced for one day what the Palestinians endure every day under occupation, they would realize how broken Israel’s democracy is and how shameful it is to demand that they are entitled to live in a free society while the Palestinians live in servitude.

Blood Clots, Pulmonary Emboli in Young Women: A Not-so-rare and Often Fatal Complication of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccination

By Dr. William Makis, May 01, 2023

Pulmonary embolism (blood clots in the lungs) as an adverse event following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination has been well known since the vaccines were rolled out. Here is a case report of a 59 year old woman with pulmonary embolism 7 days after 1st Pfizer dose, published in June 2021. They always knew.

Rockefeller Foundation’s New Focus on Climate Change Signals the Next Phase of the Great Reset

By Derrick Broze, May 01, 2023

Should the public ignore the history of the Rockefeller Foundation as they shift resources towards promoting Agenda 2030 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals?

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*** 

It’s a very funny thing. In the US, the provision of services in such industries as security and intelligence is outsourced in a sprawling complex of contractors and subcontractors. In Australia, the entire military and security establishment is outsourced to Washington’s former mandarins, many of them earning a pile in consultancy fees. This, perhaps, is what Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles means when he talks about the Australian Defence Force moving “beyond interoperability to interchangeability.”

The list of recipients is depressingly long, and suggests that Australia has ceased to have any pretensions of sovereignty in defence matters. Take, for instance, the appointment of US Vice Admiral William Hilarides to the post of reviewing the future of the Royal Australian Navy’s surface fleet, for which he is pocketing US$4,000 a day. Since 2016, he has received US$1.3 million in contracts from the Australian government.

Hilarides featured in a story by the Washington Post last year, which revealed that two retired US admirals and three former US Navy civilian leaders were “playing critical but secretive roles as paid advisers to the government of Australia during its negotiations to acquire top-secret nuclear submarine technology from the United States and Britain.”

It gets worse. Six retired US admirals are identified as having offered their services to the Commonwealth since 2015. Hilarides was particularly keen, having retired a mere two months before seeking permission to advise the Australians on how best to extend the life of its Collins Class submarine fleet.

US Navy officials had few problems with the application, approving it within five days and forwarding it to the US State Department, which treated it as a mere formality. Hilarides, in his application, stated that he would be receiving money from a contract between the Australian Commonwealth and the consulting firm Burdenshaw Associates, based in Fairfax City, Virginia.  The same firm has received US$6.8 million from the Australian taxpayer since 2015.

In a statement provided to the paper, the Australian Department of Defence revealed that Hilarides, another admiral Thomas Eccles, and a number of those on the Commonwealth’s Naval Shipbuilding Expert Advisory Panel, were furnishing Canberra with “expert advice on the performance of the naval shipbuilding exercise. This includes the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines and other issues relevant to naval acquisition and sustainment.”

What is also unsettling is that Stephen Johnson, one of the US admiral advisory set, unbeknownst to the Australian public, also served as a deputy secretary of defence for Canberra for two years. With such a level of involvement, it is only a matter of time before the entire complement of the ADF is signed over to Washington, if it already hasn’t been done so over a game of golf.

In documents supplied to Congress by the Pentagon in March, the outsourcing picture comes increasingly clotted. Retired Admiral John Richardson makes an appearance, having received US$5,000 a day as a contracted part-time consultant with the Australian Defence Department.

Another figure who has made an appearance in this busy outsourcing circuit is former US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. (What is Australia becoming: a retirement village for servants of the US defence-security-intelligence complex?)  The Australian National University has made a habit of hosting Clapper at the ANU National Security College to discuss, among other things, “key global and national security issues including the future of Australia’s alliance with the United States.”

Clapper’s academic waltz through the corridors of power has involved discussions “with policy makers and security practitioners, as well as academics, students and private sector partners in the College’s work on issues such as cyber security and analysing future strategic challenges.”

The Pentagon documents also reveal that Clapper received, in 2018, an undisclosed sum for services performed for the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) in Canberra. Only the previous year, the decision by the Turnbull government to create the ONI as “a single point of intelligence coordination” was praised by Clapper as bringing Australia more into line with the other Five Eyes partners.

We can only hope that Clapper has not imparted too much knowledge upon the unwary. His record as DNI was filled with a number of injudicious howlers. In March 2013, he falsely testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the government does “not wittingly” collect the telephone records of millions of Americans. “There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect – but not wittingly,” he stated in response to a question posed by Senator Ron Wyden.

Within a matter of months, it became clear that such a statement was false, notably in light of the revelations from former defence contractor Edward Snowden. The New York Times was emphatic: Clapper had “lied to Congress”. In his withering critique of Clapper, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul suggested that the intelligence community had engaged in “great abuses”. Perhaps, he proposed, both Snowden and Clapper might serve time “in a prison cell together” to further enlighten the country “over what we should and shouldn’t do.”

In 2019, Clapper did his Pontius Pilate act on CNN, claiming that he did not lie so much as make “a big mistake”. He “just simply didn’t understand” what he was being asked. “I thought of another surveillance program, section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, when I was asked about Section 215 of the Patriot Act at the time”.

His credibility suitably shot, Clapper is still given to making rich offerings of tainted advice. He is manic about Moscow’s electoral interference, going so far as to tell NBC’s Chuck Todd in May 2017 that the Russians were “typically … almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favour, whatever”. With such xenophobic opinions, he must be a fabulous guest in Australia’s isolated capital.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

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*** 

Clashes have been going on in Sudan for more than ten days between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support forces and corpses fill the streets. All attempts at a truce have so far failed. The clashes involved all types of light, medium and heavy weapons until military aviation was used. The major regional and international countries are working to find a way out of this crisis, but all have failed. But Sudan, like all countries, suffers from crises of external interference in general, and American intervention has a big role in crises, especially since Sudan is rich in natural resources such as oil, gold, and others, so we see a major international conflict over Sudan.

The interest of the United States of America

The United States seeks to prevent the strengthening of Russia in Africa, disrupt the Russian logistics base project in the Red Sea and, if possible, weaken the sovereignty of Egypt and Ethiopia, in this context, they are quite satisfied with the Civil War, and the United States will do everything possible for its continuation and spread to the entire region in the future. According to information, representatives of the United States are already negotiating with paramilitary groups in the Amhara region of Ethiopia to participate in the conflict along with Hamidti for 140 million dollars.

UN: 60% of health facilities in Khartoum are closed

For his part, Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said that 60% of health facilities in Khartoum are closed due to the ongoing battles between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support forces.

The UN spokesman added that the closure of hospitals has disrupted the treatment of almost 50 thousand children suffering from acute malnutrition.

At the same time, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan said that the fighting does not allow them to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the new humanitarian needs, adding: “Unfortunately, the fighting continues despite the multiple declarations on the ceasefire.

A few days ago, the UN coordinator said that many humanitarian supplies have been looted in Sudan, noting that access to health services in Sudan is almost impossible due to the fighting.

Saudi-German talks on Sudan.

Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan discussed on Thursday with his German counterpart “Annalena Bearbock” the “accelerated developments of events in Sudan”.

According to the Saudi Press Agency, “was”, the two ministers stressed the importance of stopping the military escalation, providing the necessary protection for Sudanese civilians and residents on its territory, and providing safe humanitarian corridors for those wishing to leave Sudanese territory. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has also sent barges to transport its nationals and nationals of many Arab and foreign countries.

China-Sudan relations decline

China-Sudan relations were very developed, as Sudan was the sixth largest exporter of oil to China, and the volume of trade exchange between the two countries reached 11 billion dollars, but after the secession of South Sudan in 2011, which contains 75% of oil production in Sudan, Sudan’s oil importance declined for Beijing, but trade and economic cooperation remained between the two countries, and there are 130 Chinese companies in Sudan.

After the fall of the regime of President Bashir in 2019, who was described as a friend of the Chinese people, relations deteriorated further, and the new Sudanese leaders could not build trust and cooperation with Beijing, and the issue of Chinese debt to Sudan and the latter’s default was another obstacle to relations between the two countries. The issue of Chinese debt scheduling was the focus of the Chinese President’s meeting with his Sudanese counterpart on the sidelines of the Arab-Chinese Summit held in Riyadh last year.

China’s interest in Sudan comes as part of its interest in the African continent, as the volume of trade exchange between China and the African continent reached 280 billion dollars in 2022, while the trade exchange between the continent and America did not exceed 80 billion dollars during the same year.

The Chinese presence in Sudan is very weak compared to the American and French-Israeli presence, the number of Americans in Sudan is more than sixteen thousand, and in Djibouti two thousand soldiers, and the Russians have fifteen in Africa, these are the reasons why Beijing has a weak presence and worries to interfere in the Sudanese affairs.

The Red Cross in Sudan

The clashes between the two military forces broke out on April 15 in the capital Khartoum and the Merwe military air base in the northern state, before expanding to other areas, reaping as of yesterday evening 512 dead and 4,000 injured.

Thousands of Khartoum residents have been displaced to other states, especially as most hospitals have been disrupted, and many civilians have been cut off from accessing communications or getting electricity, even drinking water and food.

What is happening in Sudan will not end soon, the conflict will be prolonged, as each party receives unlimited support from regional powers who want to plunder Sudan’s wealth, stripping it of everything. The crisis there is not new; it began when the world forced the Sudanese to divide, through the coup against Omar al-Bashir, to the way things are now, so it does not seem that the situation in Sudan will end soon, and the biggest loser is the Sudanese people.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD

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*** 

I was astonished recently to hear, from a highly respected writer, an astute analyst of the Corona agenda, at a gathering of real doctors here in New Zealand who stood up for informed consent and individualized treatment and the like, that we should get used to less liberty. I remember that moment vividly when the wise, kindly, avuncular figure spoke to us via a projected video, because as I looked around me, startled, nobody else had batted an eye.

What exactly did he mean by this? I’m not sure – but I have a creeping feeling that, three years after the Corona avalanche, people have been ‘gently’ persuaded to accept a new abnormal loss of freedom, even from those ostensibly in our freedom movements.

Is it because we have all been beaten into pulp by relentless warnings of ever-emerging infectious threats, warnings about the inevitably cataclysmic consequences of Climate Change, warnings about the inescapable dangers of overpopulation?

The message is that we – by which I mean rather ordinary people, people who work for a living and struggle to make ends meet – must sacrifice our personal dreams of autonomy for a common good that has been defined by a class of shadowy and not-so-shadowy billionaire Elitists, represented by their servile institutions such as the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the World Economic Forum, the Federation of State Medical Boards, and the like.

They, however, can do whatever they want, I guess. I am certain that they eat well, that they enjoy the finest accommodation, that they travel whenever and wherever they wish, that they can indulge virtually any sensual pleasure as they see fit – and I am equally certain that what they have, what they possess, and what they already enjoy is never quite enough.

The nature of Power, as I have written many times before, is to enhance itself. Having great Power renders one lusting for more, and the very most that can be wished for becomes an imagined exercise of omnipotent control, a kind of orgy of gratification that reaches an apotheosis when Power is infused by sexual thrill, and the world is made in the image of …

Of what?

I ask myself daily, to what to these Power-wielders aspire? The atomic nucleus has been breached, human DNA and RNA are being manipulated, and the once-clear definitions of gender are being turned into a macabre impressionistic blur.

I remember that as a kid I made a contrivance that would allow me to turn the light switch off in my room without leaving my bed, and I still recall the great satisfaction I felt by this deft economy of action. This innocent pleasure nonetheless contains the kernel of what the Masters of the Digital Universe must feel when with the magic of keystrokes or swipes they can drop in on our conversations, censor our expressive output – audio, visual or literary – and employ the sciences of miniaturization and condensation for their dream of control.

Except their dream leads inexorably to a Singularity that extinguishes all that is good about being human: it is nothing more or less than an aspiration of infantile grandiosity, where a mere thought or fantasy is the equivalent of action, and the thinker-fantasist is ecstatically Immortal.

I observe how callous and cavalier the Elites are with ordinary human lives, in keeping with the attitude of warlords and leaders throughout history, but with this very significant exception: their reach is now global, as the Corona exercise has demonstrated, and far more encompassing than that of the greatest of Emperors.

As they winnow the population with their bio-weapons and push a track-and-trace agenda on our movements and even our thoughts, they encourage calls for freedom to ring only in areas that pose no risk to their program. ‘My body, my choice’ did not necessarily mean ‘Noli me tangere’ when it came to the jabs.

These days so many young people question virtually nothing their authorities in government or the moribund MSM dish out, at a time in their lives when the critical energies of curiosity and independence should be burning high. Instead, they funnel their spirited quest for Liberty into the side-channels of Identity, demanding that they be known not by their fruits but by their pronouns – as if ‘who I say I am’ assumes transcendent precedence over ‘what I do’.

It’s a neat and devilish trick of the Overlords, convincing slaves that they are free, and it’s reminiscent of the message from the New Zealand government during the desolate and devastating lockdowns that we were all ‘coming together’, ironically enough, by staying apart.

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Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand. Visit his substack at https://newzealanddoc.substack.com/

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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*** 

According to an article in American Banker titled “SEC’s Gensler Directly Links Crypto and Bank Failures,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler has asked for more financial resources to police the crypto market. Gensler testified at an April 18 House Financial Services Committee hearing: 

[Crypto companies] have chosen to be noncompliant and not provide investors with confidence and protections, and it undermines the $100 trillion capital markets …

Silvergate and Signature [banks] were engaged in the crypto business — I mean some would say that they were crypto-​backed … 

Silicon Valley Bank, actually when it failed, saw the country’s — the world’s — second-leading stable coin had $3 billion involved there, depegged, so it’s interesting just how this was all part of this crypto narrative as well.

Cryptocurrency experts Caitlin Long and Nic Carter take the opposite view. They acknowledge the link between crypto and the recent wave of bank failures and the runs and threatened runs they triggered, but Carter and Long make a compelling case that it was the FDIC, the SEC and the Federal Reserve that brought the banks down, by a coordinated, extrajudicial “war on crypto” that blocked that otherwise-legal industry from acquiring the banking services it needs. 

The public banking movement has run up against similar roadblocks. Both cryptocurrencies and publicly-owned banks compete with the Wall Street-dominated private banking cartel, but more on that after a look at the suspicious events behind the recent bank runs.

The War on Crypto

In a February 2023 article on Pirate Wires titled “Operation Choke Point 2.0,” Carter laid out the case that the federal government was quietly attempting to ban crypto. In a 7,000-word March 23 follow-up titled “Did the Government Start a Financial Crisis in an Attempt to Destroy Crypto?”, he writes:

The two most crypto-​focused banks, Silvergate and Signature, were forced into liquidation and receivership, respectively. The established narrative is that they made “bad bets” and lost, or that they couldn’t handle flighty depositors in the form of tech and crypto startups.

But there’s an alternative version of events being pieced together that is far more sinister … 

The preponderance of public evidence suggests that Silvergate and Signature didn’t commit suicide — they were executed.

In January 2023, … [s]ome in the crypto space noticed highly coordinated activity between the White House, financial regulators, and the Fed, aimed at dissuading banks from dealing with crypto clients, making it far more difficult for the industry to operate. This is problematic because it represented an attempted seizure of power far beyond what is normally reserved for the executive branch.

He observes that banking crypto firms wasn’t prohibited. It was just made very expensive and reputationally risky, by burying the bank in paperwork and unpleasant interrogations from regulators. The Fed also made it clear that new crypto-focused bank charters would be denied. Silvergate, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), and Signature were put out of business:

Now, depositors are fleeing to the largest banking institutions, money market funds, or simply holding Treasuries directly. Whether intentional or not, these policies will cause smaller banks to die off, making credit more scarce, reducing competitiveness in the bank sector, and making it easier to set policy by marshaling a few large banks for political ends.

Carter observes that the distress in the banking sector was caused by the Fed’s attempt to reverse the inflationary effects of excess government spending, particularly for COVID-19 relief, by rapidly raising interest rates. As a result, government bond portfolios, “the foundational collateral asset of the financial system,” radically depreciated, causing $620 billion in unrealized losses collectively to U.S. banks. “But,” he writes, “there’s also a political subtext here. Most banks are now sitting on mark-​to-​market losses in their bond portfolios, but they’re not facing runs from their clients. … Silvergate met its end because — well after the crypto credit crisis of ‘22 had concluded — its remaining depositors were cajoled and bullied into withdrawing their funds.”

The most visible smoking gun, says Carter, was the decision to seize Signature Bank:

On Sunday the 12th of March, Signature (SBNY) was abruptly sent into FDIC receivership by the NYDFS [New York State Department of Financial Services]. This was not a two-bit crypto bank. They had $110B in deposits as of YE 2022, of which around 20 percent came from crypto-focused companies. … 

Almost immediately, we knew something was wrong. Signature was not a “crypto bank” like Silvergate, where the majority of deposits were derived from crypto firms. It was a pretty venerable NY bank that primarily serviced real estate. It was not in as bleak a financial position as Silvergate or SVB, or other beleaguered regional banks. They weren’t closed on a Friday afternoon after market close, as is typical in receivership situations, but snuck in on a Sunday night, practically a footnote to the SVB shutdown. The FDIC was reportedly surprised on Sunday when SBNY was delivered into their hands. The NYDFS has maintained a well known long-running animus against crypto. The bank crisis was the perfect cover to take down the last remaining bank, which was unapologetic about servicing crypto firms (and ran important fiat settlement infrastructure).

The only problem: based on what we know, it appears that Signature wasn’t actually insolvent when they were nationalized and $4.3B of shareholder value was vaporized.

Carter writes that the crypto industry found an unlikely ally in Barney Frank, former chair of the House Financial Services Committee, the Frank in Dodd-​Frank, and a Signature board member. He alleged that the bank could have opened on Monday, and that leadership was shocked when they were put into receivership. In an interview with New York Magazine, Frank left “absolutely no doubt that the closure was a political hit job, primarily motivated by a desire to send a message to the crypto industry.” Carter observes:

As more data emerged, even the taciturn WSJ became convinced that Signature was a political execution.

In particular, the disparate treatment given to Signature versus their peers PacWest or First Republic is extremely telling. Both banks were in similar or worse financial positions, yet both were given time to save themselves, whereas Signature was seized on a Sunday night, right after SVB’s collapse. …

Most worryingly, the takedowns of Silvergate and Signature represent a rank lawlessness associated with authoritarian regimes. In a lawful society, solvent banks are not seized by the government simply because their clientele is politically disfavored. Shareholders in Signature had $4.3B in equity ($22B at peak) wiped out with no recourse. … Shareholders who saw their equity wrongly vaporized should sue under New York law.

He says that the upshot will be to drive crypto innovators abroad. In fact that move is happening already. 

Killing Custodia: A States’ Rights Issue

A second smoking gun was the denial of FDIC insurance to Custodia Bank, which had a 100%-reserve business model that would have cost the FDIC nothing and posed no risk to the public. Custodia’s goal was just to provide a secure onramp from dollars to cryptocurrencies and an offramp back again. In fact, Custodia didn’t need to ensure its deposits, because it would not have been making loans from them. It would have kept them in reserve for the depositors. The bank needed FDIC insurance only because without it, the Fed refused to give Custodia a master account, necessary to participate in the national payment system. 

Caitlin Long, the Wall Street veteran who founded Custodia, argues that this newly-imposed rule constitutes an unconstitutional violation of the long-standing right of states to charter their own banks. In an April 17 article titled “Why Defending the Right of States to Charter Banks Without Federal Permission Is Critical,” she writes: 

Until a decade ago, it was unheard of that a bank would stop serving entire groups of customers or the people in lawful — if controversial — industries. It was also unheard of that banks would be blocked from accessing either of the two federal utilities in the banking industry: (i) deposit insurance and (ii) the U.S. dollar payment system (which the FDIC and Fed operate, respectively). Indeed, legislative history shows that Congress took great pains to keep the operation of these two utilities standalone and fully separated from the power to charter banks. As a check and balance, Congress wanted all chartering work done exclusively by the states or the lone federal agency that can charter banks, the OCC. Access to the two utilities was automatic for eligible banks, albeit with bank-​specific insurance premiums and overdraft restrictions.

The dual banking system – federal and state – goes back to the days of Abraham Lincoln, when the National Bank Act was passed. Before that, state-chartered banks were issuing their own currencies as paper promissory notes with their own names on them, an unstable system. The National Bank Act unified the country under a single paper currency, the U.S. dollar, by imposing a 10% tax on other bank-issued promissory notes. With the founding of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the U.S. dollar became the Federal Reserve Note. The national currency was federally issued but states retained the right to charter banks. As Long observes:

Historically, states have acted as a check against federal overreach in banking. There is a key reason why: the mission statements of state banking agencies usually require them to support both safety and soundness AND economic development, while federal bank regulators do not have economic development within their wheelhouse. This creates a healthy tension and explains why innovation in banking often originates within the states. The Fed and FDIC have no veto power over state chartering decisions. 

… Congress again respected the delicate balance in 1980 when it further clarified the utility nature of the Fed’s role as payment system operator by requiring the Fed to provide services to all eligible banks on a non-​discriminatory basis. … In denying payment system access to Custodia, the Fed cited Custodia’s lack of FDIC insurance and lack of a federal regulator among its reasons for denial and, in doing so, the Fed improperly created for itself the unilateral power to require all state banks to be both insured and federally regulated.

Custodia sued the Fed, and the Attorney General of Wyoming, the state chartering the bank, joined the lawsuit. The Attorney General noted in the filing that the Fed had created a “Kafkaesque situation” where a Wyoming-​chartered bank is denied access to the U.S. dollar payment system “because it is not federally regulated, even while it is also denied federal regulation.”

Five states have enacted bank charters that don’t require deposit insurance or federal regulation –  Connecticut, Maine, Nebraska, Vermont and Wyoming. Such uninsured banks are prohibited from lending; they must hold 100% cash to back customer deposits, plus up to 8% of deposits as an additional capital requirement. Long concludes:

Congress tasked the Fed and FDIC with running utilities; it did not give the Fed and FDIC veto power over U.S. states – and, in turn, power to block the responsible innovations that state banking authorities create as they fulfill their economic development mandates.

Public Banks and the FDIC Conundrum

The public banking movement is particularly geared toward local economic development. The stellar and only model in the U.S. is the Bank of North Dakota, formed in 1919 when local farmers were losing their farms to foreclosure by big out-of-state banks. With assets in 2021 of $10.3 billion and a return on investment of 15%, the BND is owned by the state, which self-insures it. There is no fear of bank runs, because the state’s revenues compose the vast majority of its deposits, and they must be deposited in the BND by law. 

The state’s local banks are also protected by the BND, which is forbidden to compete with them. Instead, it partners with them, helping with liquidity and capitalization. The BND has been called a “mini-Fed” for the state and its banks. That helps explain why North Dakota has more local banks per capita than any other state, at a time when other states have been losing banks to big bank mergers, causing the number of U.S. banks to shrink radically. 

UK Prof. Richard Werner recently published a briefing memo supporting the case for a public bank. It was prepared for the state of Tennessee, which is considering a sovereign state bank on the North Dakota model, but the arguments apply to all states. Benefits discussed include dividends, higher state-level tax revenues, greater job creation, greater local autonomy and resilience to shocks, more options for funding public sector borrowing and state pension funds, and protection of financial transaction freedom and privacy. 

The FDIC has not formally rejected insurance coverage for state-chartered publicly-owned banks, but regulators have intimated that it is not interested in covering them; and as noted by Julie Andersen Hill in an Iowa Law Review article, the Fed is “especially hesitant” to process payments without that coverage. Federal usurpation of state banking regulation not only drives cryptocurrency innovation abroad but kills innovation in local economic funding of the sort pioneered in North Dakota. Andersen Hill writes, “The language and structure of the Federal Reserve Act require that the Federal Reserve provide payment services to all eligible banks.… If the Fed wants to exclude banks, it should ask Congress to change the law.”

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This article was first posted on ScheerPost.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, chair of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books including Web of Debt, The Public Bank Solution, and Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 400+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.  

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Western efforts at “sanctioning” Russia have failed miserably. So have efforts to isolate Russia from the rest of the world, by bribing countries – especially of the Global South. They have had exactly the contrary effect.

The Global South – possibly as a result of this permanent lie-based assaults for years of the west on Russia and China – is seeking associations with eastern oriented blocks, like the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), as well as with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a creation initiated by China and Russia.

It is ironic, if not absurd, that the colonialist west, still largely known as racist west, intends to influence their former colonies – and in a modern sense still being colonized by the west – to sanction and separate from those countries that have in the past helped them against western exploitation.

If anything, this shows the degree of arrogance and socio-egocentricity of the west. Total detachment from reality. Most westerners don’t even perceive this horrendous aberration.

As a vivid and current example, citizens of African and Middle-Eastern countries that have been exploited, colonized and destroyed by the west, are now fleeing economic misery and political oppression from their countries which were left with the western heritage: western-bought dictatorial “local” regimes. The worst political and economic victims of these oppressions are attempting to escape to Europe, hoping for a better life; ironically, to the very colonial and racist Europe.

They risk their lives crossing the Med-Sea in rickety boats – often not making it, tens of thousands have already drowned at sea. The few that make it to Southern Italy and Greece are often turned back, where the poor-to-the-bones refugees frequently end up in Libya. There, they are enslaved by the mafias that emerged after the western brutal assassination of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi.

For those who forgot, the destruction of Libya was planned and initiated by then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, during the Obama Administration, and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The coup was executed by NATO in October 2011.

The main reason – of course hidden and disguised by lies, as is so appropriate for the west – was that Gaddafi planned to liberate Africa form the continued colonial economic fangs of the west, by introducing an African-wide gold-backed currency, the Gold Dinar, fully detached from the French franc, alias Euro, and the US-dollar.

The people of the Global South have memories.

Adding to this, Europe’s unrestricted, unquestioned, uncriticized support for Israel, after basically 75 years of Israelis discrimination, atrocities and outright war crimes and crimes on humanity on Palestine and her people, does not bode well for Europe. The Global South is in full support of Palestine.

See this 2-min video – Madame Ursula von der Leyen, unelected President of European Commission, unconditionally lauding Israel for their 75 years of “achievements” – “making the desert green”.

Europe’s absolute and unrestricted support for Israel, reminds the countries of the Global South of 500 years of European colonial atrocities which only stopped on paper, but continues in full swing through financial and monetary exploitation by the west of basically all of Africa and most of Latin America.

Case in point for monetary exploitation to the worst, is France’s keeping her former West-and Central African colonies as of this day in monetary slavery.

This does not bode well for trust in the west.

Therefore, it doesn’t come as a surprise that 85% of the world’s population are refusing to take part in anti-Russia policies — to the contrary. They prefer maintaining good relations with Moscow, as Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister said during a World Online Conference on Multipolarity on Saturday, 29 April 2023. See this.

Even the Washington Post reports that numerous emerging economies, also caled the Global South, including India, Brazil, South Africa AND Pakistan, have rebuffed American attempts to enlist them in the fight against Russia amid the conflict in Ukraine. The WaPo refers to leaked Pentagon files.

During the online Multipolarity conference, Lavrov said that “Washington’s and its satellites’ efforts to reverse history, to force the international community to live by the invented ‘rules-based order’” are proving to be a fiasco, citing the “total failure” of the West “to isolate Russia.”

Lavrov added, the fact that delegates from several dozen nations “from nearly every continent” attended the online forum, shows just how much traction the idea of multipolarity has gained.

It is also a clear indication that Russia is far from isolated – to the contrary. Countries from the Global South, the globe’s vast majority in territorial as well as population size, are flocking to the east, Russia and China.

Another reflection of the “changing colors” is the holding of reserve currencies.

In 1990, the US-dollar’s share of reserve currencies in the coffers of the world exceeded 90%. It dropped to 73% by 2001, to 51% in 2021, and in 2022 it slid below the crucial 50% line to 47%. In the next 10 years, the dollar may account for a mere 30%, or less, of all reserve currencies.

The Chinese Yuan is taking up much of the space left by the faltering dollar. See also this assessment by Pepe Escobar.

This is a main reason for the accelerated effort by western economies to introduce fully programmable Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Not only would it allow controlling every individual, but it would also present an opportunity to wipe out the CBDC-countries’ debt.

Digital is virtual. Physical money disappears. You would be unable to convert CBDC into old-style banknotes. God forbid that CBDC will prevail. We the people must resist it with all organized peaceful power that we can muster, even if it means starting parallel societies and economies.

During the past couple of decades developing countries, alias the Global South – have been gradually but steadily increasing their share in world economics, while that of the G7 has been declining.

New centers of geopolitical influence are emerging throughout the world, in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America – none of which wants to be dictated by the west, by the ever-warrying, destructive and currently dying western Washington-based empire and its European satellites.

The overall trend is clearly visible that the independent west wants to join international associations pulling to the east, such as the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Russia and Chia are leading these groups.

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Back to Russia’s non-isolation. Despite western sanctions, Russia has achieved a trade surplus of over US$ 330 billion in 2022, with exports surging by almost 20% in the same year. Russia’s overall trade increase in 2022 over 2021 was 8.1%. Does this show an isolation of Russia from the rest of the world “due to western sanctions”?

Quite to the contrary – Russia’s economy is flourishing thanks to the sanctions which are very concretely destroying the West, foremost Europe. See also this.

While addressing the online Multipolarity Conference, Lavrov explained, a multipolar world order would be based on returning to respect for the UN charter, and for a “balance of interests” as opposed to a western imposed “balance of fear.”

President Putin was clear that Moscow will not abide by the “so-called rules” invented and forced by the west.

The western invented “rules-based order” resembles ever more the new “One World Order”, initiated by the dictates of an elite-led tyranny that 100% of the rest of the world rejects. Multipolarity is growing and will gradually replace the dying, warrying-no-end western empire.

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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 worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

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*** 

The Fox Network’s firing of Tucker Carlson last week at first seems surprising. He was the station’s biggest attraction. He was close to President Trump and was able to interview him on his program. Getting ridding of him is a surefire way to lose ratings and money, and television networks don’t like to do that. In addition, his fans are angry, which will make even more trouble for Fox. Why then was he removed? The answer is simple.

He raised issues you aren’t allowed to mention. He went after the CIA, saying he had information from an inside source the agency was involved in the Kennedy assassination.

He was a vaccine skeptic and spoke about the interests of Big Pharma in killing us.

The deep state couldn’t allow this. Therefore he had to go, and, we predict, he will be lucky if he isn’t arrested on some fraudulent charge.

Here is one of the things that Tucker Carlson said on April 19 that the toxic left would like to throw down the Orwellian memory hole:

“The channels took hundreds of millions of dollars from Big Pharma companies and then they shelled for their sketchy products on the air and as they did that, they maligned anyone who was skeptical of those products. At the very least, this was a moral crime. It was disgusting, but it was universal. It happened across the American news media. They all did it.

So, at this point, the question isn’t who in public life is corrupt? Too many to count. The question is who is telling the truth? There are not many of those. One of them is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Robert Kennedy knew early that the COVID vaccines were both ineffective and potentially dangerous and he said so in public to the extent he was allowed. Science has since proven Robert f. Kennedy Jr. right. Unequivocally right.

But Kennedy was not rewarded for this. He was vilified. He was censored because he dared to criticize their advertisers, the news media called Bobby Kennedy a Nazi, and then they attacked his family, but he kept doing it. He was not intimidated and we were glad he wasn’t. This is one of those moments when it’s nice to have a truth teller around. It’s helpful because suddenly the stakes are very high.” See this.

The heroic Michael Rectenwald exposes the corrupt Big Pharma interests behind Tucker’s ouster:

“Tucker’s show was no doubt a leading money-maker for the network, or a major means for paying the damages. Why would Fox get rid of an income generator like Tucker Carlson just as the bill came due? The answer is that Fox is not as concerned about making money as it is about being a faithful servant of the regime.

Tucker crossed significant establishment redlines and has finally suffered the consequences. He consistently argued that that the ruling elite hates the majority and consistently attacks it, that national sovereignty is being eroded, and that the electorate is being replaced. The redlines included his criticism of Volodymyr Zelensky and the U.S. involvement in the Ukrainian war, his criticism of the covid responses that destroyed the economy, his questioning of the vaccines, and his targeting by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for various ‘offenses.’

In February, BlackRock Inc. increased its position in Fox Corporation (FOXA). BlackRock now owns 15.1 percent of the company. BlackRock’s enhanced position in Fox Corporation explains, in part, the Tucker dismissal, and it was a dismissal, not Tucker’s choice.

Why would BlackRock, headed by CEO Larry Fink, pressure Fox News to axe Tucker?

For one, Tucker was known for his scathing criticism of Ukraine’s corruption, which put him at odds with the investment giant. In January, Carlson reacted derisively to a video of Ukrainian President Zelensky thanking BlackRock, J.P. Morgan, and Goldman Sachs for ‘rebuilding’ the country. Tucker referred to Zelensky, not as a hero, as the establishment would have it, but as a dictator. Carlson has also been critical of BlackRock’s push for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, claiming, rightly, that ESG is a means of circumventing legislation and thus subverting democratic processes. ESG thwarts the will of the people and installs a ‘climate change’ dictatorship in its place.

BlackRock also has enormous holdings in pharmaceuticals companies, as one of the three largest shareholders of Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck. And Tucker recently interviewed Robert Kennedy, Jr. A presidential candidate, Kennedy has lambasted the Covid-19 vaccines as ‘deadly and worthless.’

Perhaps most significant was the ADL’s calls for Tucker’s removal. Tucker consistently claimed that the Democratic Party is attempting to replace the American electorate with illegal immigrants and the ADL called for Tucker to be de-platformed for holding to ‘the Great Replacement Theory,’ as well as other views that the ADL forbids. The ADL had consistently pushed for Tucker’s dismissal. On The Megyn Kelly Show, after Kelly noted that the ADL was once again pushing for Tucker’s firing, Tucker said, ‘f—- them.’ And Tucker struck back at the ADL on his own show.

Following Tucker’s dismissal, the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt celebrated Tucker’s firing on Twitter, where he also accused Tucker of spewing ‘antisemitic, racist, xenophobic and anti-LGBTQ hate to millions.’ He also acknowledged that the ADL had ‘long called for his firing’:

It's about time. For far too long, Tucker Carlson has used his primetime show to spew antisemitic, racist, xenophobic and anti-LGBTQ hate to millions. @ADL has long called for his firing for this and many other offenses, including spreading the Great Replacement Theory. https://t.co/06LjNYYnpY

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) April 24, 2023

‘It’s about time. For far too long, Tucker Carlson has used his primetime show to spew antisemitic, racist, xenophobic and anti-LGBTQ hate to millions. @ADL has long called for his firing for this and many other offenses, including spreading the Great Replacement Theory’.

The Dominion defamation suit was not the impetus for the removal of Tucker Carlson from the Fox News line-up. Nor did Tucker walk out of Fox on his own accord. Tucker was axed by the regime’s henchmen, who work together to silence dissent, pummel the population with endless propaganda, and gaslight their victims with lies that represent the precise inverse of the truth. As a propaganda apparatus of the ruling class, Fox News is not primarily interested in profit. Its raison d’être is to serve as controlled opposition. And Tucker was out of the establishment’s control.

‘The media,’ Tucker recently said, ‘are part of the control apparatus…not only are they part of the problem, but I spent most of my life being part of the problem, defending the Iraq War, like I actually did that.’ That is, Tucker came to recognize that the media are ideological state apparatuses whose functions are to indoctrinate, mislead, and support the reigning regime and their narratives, whether past, present, or future. Tucker attempted to subvert those media functions and became a danger to the regime. It is no wonder that he no longer works for Fox News. The question is how he lasted so long.

As Rectenwald points out, Tucker has challenged the plot of brain-dead Biden and his gang on neocon controllers to start a nuclear war with Russia over the Ukraine: He said last October: “The question of who blew up Russia’s energy pipelines to Europe, which is not just a question in the news, it’s a historical question, we’ve addressed it a couple of times already, is not really much of a question anymore. So, on television, they’re assuring you that obviously the Russians did it. Vladimir Putin sabotaged his own pipelines.

With his nation at war, Putin intentionally destroyed Russia’s most vital national asset. Now why, you ask yourself, would Putin do that? Well, because…actually no one’s explained why Putin would do something like that. Bad people do bad things. That seems to be the idea.

The Biden administration is responsible, either directly or through proxies, for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines and the environmental catastrophe and the economic collapse that will certainly follow. That is true. It’s done.

So the question is, where does that leave us? And that’s the problem. This act leaves us, the United States, with no option but total war with Russia. There is no off-ramp now. There is no way out. We are all in, no matter what that means, no matter where it goes.

Are you shocked by this? Was there a vote on this? Did someone ask your opinion? No, but it’s been happening for months in slow motion. It’s been hidden from public view by the near-total blackout imposed by America media outlets so you probably didn’t know any of the details. For example, in March, the Turkish government tried to broker a peace in Ukraine and they came very, very close. Wasn’t reported widely.

Ukraine was prepared to guarantee neutrality, meaning it would not join NATO. That’s what the Russians wanted above all and in return for that, the Russian government would withdraw its forces from Ukraine and that might have been a neat solution, certainly for the rest of us. The global economy wouldn’t need to be destroyed. Nobody would die in a nuclear war. Negotiations to that point advanced to the stage that Vladimir Putin pledged to meet with Zelenskyy to sign a peace treaty and Zelenskyy was ready for it, too and we’re quoting, “I’m ready for a dialog,” he announced, but sadly, Zelenskyy could not act alone. Despite what you may hear on NBC News, Zelenskyy is not the independent leader of a democratic nation. No, not even close. That is a fiction.

Zelenskyy is a client of the Biden administration, which runs his country, and ideologues within the Biden administration did not want a negotiated peace in Ukraine. They wanted all along and it’s very clear now a regime change war against Russia. Period.

Tucker Carlson also told the truth about the CIA and the Kennedy assassination: In a remarkable television broadcast on December 15, 2022, Tucker Carlson made an explosive charge. He pointed out that, contrary to law, the White House was refusing to release thousands of pages of documents about the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Carlson said that these documents proved CIA involvement in the assassination and that someone within the government who had looked at these documents made a direct statement to this effect.

1992, Congress passed the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act. That act mandated full disclosure of all documents by 2017, 54 years after JFK was killed. The last administration promised to comply fully with that law. But under intense pressure from CIA Director Mike Pompeo, withheld, in the end, thousands of pages of CIA documents.

Today, this afternoon, the Biden administration did exactly the same thing. That would be thousands of pages of documents after nearly 60 years, after the death of every single person involved. But we still can’t see them. Clearly, it’s not to protect any person. They’re all dead. It’s to protect an institution. But why?

Well, today we decided to find out. We spoke to someone who had access to these still hidden CIA documents, a person who was deeply familiar with what they contained. We asked this person directly, ‘Did the CIA have a hand in the murder of John F. Kennedy, an American President?’ And here’s the reply we received verbatim. Quote, ‘The answer is yes. I believe they were involved. It’s a whole different country from what we thought it was. It’s all fake.’

It’s hard to imagine a more jarring response than that. Again, this is not a ‘conspiracy theorist’ that we spoke to. Not even close. This is someone with direct knowledge of the information that once again is being withheld from the American public. And the answer we received was unequivocal. Yes, the CIA was involved in the assassination of the president. Now, some people will not be surprised to hear that they suspected it all along. But no matter how you feel about it or what you thought about the Kennedy assassination, pause to consider what this means.

It means that within the US government, there are forces wholly beyond democratic control. These forces are more powerful than the elected officials that supposedly oversee them. These forces can affect election outcomes. They can even hide their complicity in the murder of an American president. In other words, they can do pretty much anything they want. They constitute a government within a government mocking, by their very existence, the idea of democracy. As cynical as we have become after 30 years of watching government officials ignore the voters who employ them, we were shocked to learn this. It’s not acceptable.”

After this broadcast, Robert Kennedy, Jr, JFK’s nephew, tweeted: “The most courageous newscast in 60 years. The CIA’s murder of my uncle was a successful coup d’état from which our democracy has never recovered.”

The most courageous newscast in 60 years. The CIA’s murder of my uncle was a successful coup d'état from which our democracy has never recovered. @TuckerCarlson https://t.co/qJ1sUdhe4t

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) December 17, 2022

Carlson made another powerful enemy who helped get him fired: George Soros. According to Helena Glass: “Carlson isn’t the only one fired, producer Justin Wells was given the boot based on a lawsuit filed by Abby Grossberg against the two claiming a hostile environment and anti-Semitism. Grossberg’s attorney has stated that the fact that Fox fired the two is tantamount to a testament of ‘guilt’.

Media Matters, the Soros led organization, has joined the bandwagon to declare that Tucker, Bartiromo, and Wells (Tucker’s producer) repeatedly used sexist slurs to refer to women and anti-Semitic discrimination.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, also a sidekick of Soros, has called out Carlson as a ‘fascist’.   Soros and Carlson have had a hate filled relationship that has spiked some most recently.  Could Grossberg have been approached by a Soros Handler to help initiate her Lawsuit and subsequent reiterations of her claim?   The boot may have been ultimately orchestrated by Soros.  Tucker was Targeted!”

Getting rid of Tucker Carlson should be a wake-up call for us. Let’s do everything we can to get rid of Big Pharma, the CIA, and brain-dead Biden and his gang of neocon controllers.

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Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail], former editorial assistant to Ludwig von Mises and congressional chief of staff to Ron Paul, is founder and chairman of the Mises Institute, executor for the estate of Murray N. Rothbard, and editor of LewRockwell.com. He is the author of Against the State and Against the Left. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

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Wars flare up from Sudan to Ukraine. As a result, the global military spending is growing. Europe spent 13% more in 2022 than in 2021 on weapons and military operations, recording the sharpest increase in 30 years. Italy’s annual military spending has risen to more than €30 billion, or an average of more than €80 million a day.

At the same time, the real causes of wars continue to be hidden and mystified. President Biden declared that “the tragic violence in Sudan is inconceivable and must stop“.

He thereby erased a fact, when he was Vice President of the Obama Administration, he was a major architect of the US strategy that fuelled the war in Sudan to split the country in two. Thus, the artificial state of South Sudan, possessing 75% of Sudanese oil reserves, was born in 2011. This fact resulted in the further extension of internal conflicts and external interference for the control of the Sudanese region, which is important because it is rich in oil, natural gas, gold, and other raw materials, and because it has a key geostrategic position on the African continent.

In Ukraine, the United States, NATO, and the European Union continue to fuel the war against Russia, supplying the Kyiv regime with increasing quantities of weapons and all kinds of military assistance. At the same time, they make the Kyiv regime erase anything Russian from Ukraine and its history.

After Kyiv decreed to burn 100 million Russian books based on literary classics – a practice analogous to that of Hitler’s Nazism – Zelensky signed a law banning Russian place names and other symbols of the fundamental Russian component of Ukrainian history. Their use is considered by law a “criminal act” and entails serious penalties.

Zelensky also signed a law according to which, in order to obtain Ukrainian citizenship, an exam is required not only on the language but also on the “history of Ukraine“. This is rewritten by “historians” who exalt characters such as Stepan Bandera, a collaborator of Hitler’s Nazism.

[It is worth noting that Zelensky is of Russian-Jewish descent. His mother tongue is Russian. Until recently he was not fluent in Ukrainian]

In the same framework, the Ukrainian Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that the symbols of the SS Galicia Division – made up of Ukrainian Nazis who committed heinous crimes – are not Nazi and can therefore be used as political symbols even in demonstrations. The Italian government undertakes to “rebuild” this Ukraine by investing billions of euros stolen from Italian citizens.

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This article was originally published on byoblu in Italian.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image: Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo arrives in Khartoum, Sudan, on August 25, 2020. [U.S. Embassy Khartoum photo by Alsanosi Ali/ Public Domain]

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After a 5G base station was installed within 60 meters of her second-floor apartment, a middle-aged, otherwise healthy, Swedish woman developed debilitating symptoms corresponding with radiofrequency (RF)/microwave syndrome, researchers at the Environment and Cancer Research Foundation (ECRF) in Sweden reported this month. This was the third such case the researchers had documented.

According to their case study, published in Annals of Clinical and Medical Case Reports, fifth generation (5G) wireless technology is being rolled out worldwide “despite no previous research on possible negative effects on human health and the environment.”

As a result, exposure to pulse-modulated microwave radiation has “increased dramatically on a world-wide basis.” Microwave radiation are frequencies in the range of 300 MHz to 300 GHz within the radiofrequency (RF) spectrum. In city environments, frequencies used for 5G are currently in the 3.5 GHz band.

Studies on possible health effects from exposure to 5G frequencies were all but non-existent until recently. In a study published in October 2022, animals were exposed to the 5G frequency of 3.5 GHz for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week for one month. The exposure caused oxidative stress and an increase of degenerated neurons in the hippocampus region of the brain, in addition to decreased irisin levels, a hormone positively correlated with weight loss and healthy cognitive function.

In the case study, the woman quickly developed a large array of debilitating symptoms after the installation. These symptoms included headache, dizziness and balance problems, cognitive dysfunction—including memory, confusion and loss of focus—as well as extreme fatigue, anxiety, cough, nose bleeding, and disorders of urinary function and the skin, including spontaneous bruising and skin eruptions.

The 5G antenna was installed on the roof of a three-floor adjacent building and projected towards her apartment on the second floor. There was previously a 4G base station antenna at the same spot, but it was only after it was replaced by the 5G antenna that the woman quickly developed severe symptoms of microwave syndrome. The 4G antenna was removed shortly after the 5G deployment.

The woman reported that when she relocated to another apartment not near a 5G base station, all her symptoms quickly resolved, only to return within 24 hours of her return to her own apartment.

The woman’s dog also showed signs of ill health after the 5G installation. Reportedly, the dog contracted diarrhea soon after the 5G was installed. This disappeared during the retreat to the other apartment with no 5G but returned when they moved back to her own apartment.

Also, the dog was reluctant to re-enter the apartment after being taken out for a walk.

The researchers point out that “5G emits high repetitive pulses of microwave radiation” with radiation spikes that are exponentially greater than those of previous generations, including 4G.

The researchers measured microwatts per square meter within one foot of the woman’s living room window over the course of one minute, and found significant spikes.

High radiation was also found in the bathroom, highest in the bathtub closest to the window. Considerably lower RF radiation was measured in the bedroom which was not directly in the line of transmission from the base station.

Despite maxing out the commercial meter (Safe and Sound, Pro II) used by the researchers, the level of exposure was non-thermal and well below the guidelines recommended by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation (ICNIRP).

A History of Exposure Disorders

RF sickness or illness resulting from microwave exposure, was first reported in the 1960s and 1970s in East European countries. People most commonly suffered symptoms relating to neural, cardiovascular, and endocrine systems disruption.

International investigations of exposed workers, including American military personnel, showed that microwave exposure at non-thermal levels caused symptoms such as fatigue, dizziness, headache, sleep disorders, anxiety, and problems with attention and memory.

A review of multiple human and animal studies also concluded that “a surprisingly wide variety of neurological and physiological reactions are to be expected” because of exposure to non-thermal levels of RF/microwave radiation.

The condition has been variously termed radiofrequency sickness syndrome or microwave syndrome. The non-thermal effects—effects unrelated to a build-up of heat—depend primarily on the modulation and/or pulsation of the signal as well as on the peak and average intensity.

The Problem with Current RF Safety Standards

There are significant problems with how health effects from RF radiation are weighed, according to James Lin, a professor emeritus in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago.

In an article published in Environmental Research in April, 2023, Lin details how safety limits for exposure to RF radiation applied by most countries around the world are still based on acute heat or thermal effects that appear within a short time from exposure, thus failing to assess other effects of long-term exposure.

The guidelines for reference values based on heating are set by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), a self-appointed private organization based in Germany. ICNIRP has positioned itself with industry support to be the dominant international authority in the evaluation of scientific evidence of negative health effects from RF radiation.

“Their guidelines are based on evaluations that have rejected all scientific evidence on non-thermal effects, despite growing evidence of a range of harmful effects well below the ICNIRP levels. That unscientific evaluation is in the interest of industry thereby facilitating the deployment of 5G and the wireless society,” the researchers at ECRF wrote.

In his recent Environmental Research article, Lin, a former long-time member of ICNIRP concluded, “There are substantial abnormalities in these putative health safety protection guidelines and standards. Some of the safety limits are irrelevant, debatable, and absent of scientific justification from the standpoint of safety and public health protection.”

In 2019, 258 EMF scientists from 58 countries appealed to the United Nations to impose a moratorium on the roll-out of 5G until health effects could be properly assessed.

In the appeal, the scientists said:

“Wireless communication technologies are rapidly becoming an integral part of every economic sector. But there is a rapidly growing body of scientific evidence of harm to people, plants, animals, and microbes caused by exposure to these technologies.

It is our opinion that adverse health consequences of chronic and involuntary exposure of people to non-ionizing electromagnetic field sources are being ignored by national and international health organizations despite our repeated inquiries as well as inquiries made by many other concerned scientists, medical doctors and advocates.

This constitutes a clear violation of human rights, as defined by the United Nations.”

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David Charbonneau, Ph.D., is a freelance journalist who has also taught literature and writing at the college level for 25 years. In addition to The Epoch Times, his work has appeared in The Defender, Medium, and other online and print platforms. A staunch advocate for medical freedom, he lives and works in Pasadena, California.

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*** 

I want to speak to you today about the grave situation we face, a crisis of the soul and of the nation that politicians fear to even mention as they bury us in talk about domestic programs.

When NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg traveled to Kiev, Ukraine, and declared to the world that “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO” and then he announced the next day that “all NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member of NATO” he was essentially stating that the institutional groundwork for a world war has been all laid down for us and that a dictatorial institution, shrouded in secrecy, called NATO, will seize control of the entire operation and enforce “full interoperability” within the militaries of the countries that have had the misfortune to become members of NATO.

“Full interoperability” means, for those unfamiliar with such technical military terms, that decisions within the military will be made in secret by a cabal of select military officers reporting directly to the billionaires.  

Under the rule of Stoltenberg, an unelected general, the way forward to world war can no longer be impeded by mere citizens who arrogantly pretend they have ideas that they are entitled to express, that they have a right to hold opinions other than those fed to them by the New York Times or Fox News.

This push to destroy the chain of command in the militaries and in the governments of NATO members, the nations of Europe, Turkey, and the United States, has been extended to Asia as well. The bureaucrats and politicians of Japan, of the Republic of Korea, and of Australia and New Zealand have been told, in unambiguous terms, that they also must turn over the chain of command for their countries to NATO, using the newly invented AP4 (Asia-Pacific Partners) system, and that their nations will be lassoed into a drive for war with China–against the will, and the interests, of their citizens, against the interests of every child on earth.

This silent coup d’état has been advanced through the promotion of intelligence sharing, interoperability, and military exercises.

Each of these words has a special meaning that you are entitled to understand.

“Intelligence sharing” means that the information required for a nation to make decisions on critical security issues is being farmed out to multinational corporations like Google, Facebook, Amazon and others, and that the nation state no longer controls its military, no longer can decide its response in a crisis.

“Interoperability” means that only certain weapon systems can be used, those built by Lockheed Martin or General Dynamics, and that those weapons cannot be serviced, or modified, by third parties.

“Military exercises” (which are increasing in frequency) means that the militaries of each country in NATO (and allies in Asia) must work within an opaque and oppressive chain of command wherein officers practice being told how to wage war by forces that are invisible to them.

That means that neither the politicians, nor even the high-ranking generals, will have any say in this planned rush towards death.  

And what has been the response of my colleagues who would run for president, or for congressman, to this push for world war? What words of protest have we heard from our elected officials in Washington DC as they are rushed around in limousines to and from all-too-important meetings?

Well, although there have been a few controversial comments about vaccine safety, about the destruction of the middle class, a morbid silence hangs over Washington DC like a shroud; the silence of the lambs.

I remember when  Senator Robert Byrd from West Virginia spoke out against the plans for a disastrous and unprovoked invasion of Iraq—which was nothing in comparison with a war between NATO and Russia, or between NATO and Russia and China.

Senator Byrd said then, and I say now,

“Today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination.” 

I ask you politicians running for office why you have not condemned this rush to world war?

You have no legitimacy, and no right, to bamboozle the American people with your trinkets and your dribble.

But it is not enough to denounce our leaders as cowards and clowns, as prostitutes and lackeys. We must first recognize the truth, and at this moment, facing a world war that may well kill us all, we cannot wait for truth.

The truth will set us free, or as James Baldwin wrote,

“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

Or, as Frederick Douglass put it,

“Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get.”

Let us stop accepting half-truths. Let us stop assuming that we must accept certain lies in order to be allowed to speak about some truths.  

Let me, for a change, speak the truth to you, honored citizens.

The reason why no politician can stand up against the rush for war being promoted by multinational investment banks, private equity, and a host of parasitic entities is NOT simply that the politicians are corrupt and cowardly, selfish and narcissistic—although they are all of those things too. No, the truth is that the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other parts of the federal government that have been largely privatized and rendered up as cat’s paws for the rich and powerful to use have issued classified directives that prohibit the discussion of critical issues like the drive for world war, the 9.11 incident, COVID19 and other operations—with serious consequences for anyone who violates those directives.

Such classified directives are accompanied by secret laws (whose existence is not secret). The Congress passes secret laws that prohibit certain actions by public figures.

Secret law is as binding as federal law—but disclosing its use is illegal and punishable by heavy fines.

The use of these unconstitutional secret directives and laws renders impossible the discussion of the most serious issues facing our country, even as our politicians boast of our democracy. All politicians recognize, and accept, this criminal and deadly deal with the devil, an arrangement resulting from years of corporate and bureaucratic power playing footsie.

It is not the first time in history that the control of government and of the military has been taken over by a hidden elite that are ready to kill millions in order to protect their wealth and power.

In the intolerable days of early summer, 1914, citizens across Europe watched in horror as the institutions of government embraced a suicidal march towards war without any space for discussion or for diplomacy. The leaders of France, Germany, England, Russia and Austro-Hungary appeared to be possessed by evil spirits forcing them to take steps that would leave millions of people dead, killing an entire generation of young men—young boys—for sport.

Later, however, it was revealed that these nations had signed numerous secret treaties between them that forced the hands of politicians and bureaucrats—and made it impossible for government to reflect the will of the people. The narrow interests of a handful of the rich, the Rothchilds, the Morgans, the Warburgs, and the Rockerfellers, were promoted at the expense of the rest of the world through such secret governance.

Such an unholy politics of secret governance is precisely what we face today. If any of us survive, no doubt those classified directives, and secret treaties between nations that are used to enforce the COVID19 operation, or to force the drive for war with Russia and China, will be released decades in the future.

What kind of a president do I want to be?

What kind of a president do I want to be? I want to be a president who serves the role of president, making decisions in accord with the law, and following the constitution in a manner that reflects the interests of the American people. I want to do so in a transparent and scientific manner, and I want to treat the people as rational thinking citizens, not consumers, who are entirely capable of understanding my speeches and of coming to their own conclusions without being manipulated by advertising and nefarious public relations campaigns.  

I do not want to make money from secret bribes, or to give the veneer of legitimacy to criminal operations meant to destroy our world.

When the so-called progressive politician Bernie Sanders endorsed Joe Biden’s bankrupt campaign for president immediately, we knew that the system was broken beyond repair. Joe Biden at 80, and Donald Trump at 76 make the confused and aged leaders who oversaw the fall of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev at 75 and Yuri Andropov at 68, seem young by comparison.

I ask that you pull pack for a moment from the steam of lies and manipulative images, that the powerful are drowning us in, and that you think seriously about how we can take back control of our minds, of our families, of our economy, and of our government, and that you do so before the rich and powerful have dragged us into wars that we cannot escape from.

Their goal, without any doubt, is to create a crisis wherein we will have no choice but to enter the dark prison cell that they have lovingly prepared for us in advance.

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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.

Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.

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*** 

Should the public ignore the history of the Rockefeller Foundation as they shift resources towards promoting Agenda 2030 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals?

In late July 2022, Rockefeller Foundation (RF) president, Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, released a public letter detailing the organization’s plan to increase their resources and attention to addressing climate change. Shah noted that the RF had a hand in shaping “the American and global responses to the pandemic’s crises“ as they funded projects like the CommonPass, helping promote the concept of vaccine passports.

Established in 1913, the foundation used the Rockefeller family wealth to ostensibly promote “public health” by funding mass vaccination campaigns and the founding of public health authorities around the world. To continue their mission today, Shah says the RF must “directly confront climate change“.

“Climate change poses a singular threat to humanity,” Shah wrote. “We have decided The Rockefeller Foundation will take specific actions to transform how humanity farms and eats, powers its communities and homes, prevents and protects against disease, and lives and works. That is how we will make opportunity universal and sustainable.”

Shah says the foundation has taken steps in this direction already, including helping women get “green jobs”, investing in “regenerative agriculture”, and committing to divest its $6 billion endowment from fossil fuels. Shah said the foundation has “divested most of our endowment from the sector”.

The foundation also partnered with the Ikea Foundation and the Bezos Earth Fund to accelerate the transition to so-called “renewable energy”. The groups claim to have raised more than $10 billion in additional funds.

The announcement of a reallocation of resources did not include much in the way of details or solid plans. However, Shah did write that the foundation’s goal is to “develop an integrated vision and plan for the years 2025 to 2030” that will be shared with RF Trustees within a year. No updates have been shared since the letter was published.

In the letter Shah acknowledged that John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil and the Rockefeller Foundation, acquired his wealth through the oil industry, which the RF now claims to oppose.

“There is some irony here. Our namesake, John D. Rockefeller, founded Standard Oil and made his fortune by fueling a growing United States with carbon,” Shah wrote. However, he says the RF is focused on what he calls “scientific philanthropy”, or, using the latest science and technology to “improve the well-being of each and every person, opening up opportunity for all”.

“Obviously, an institution like the Rockefeller Foundation has an even higher level of responsibility because we’re an even bigger beneficiary of that process,” he told the Associated Press at the time. The Rockefeller Foundation funds part of The Associated Press’ coverage of climate change.

Before we dive further into that history of the Rockefeller Foundation, and why we should remain skeptical of their claims of saving humanity through philanthropy, let’s take a closer look at the Rockefeller Foundation President, Dr. Rajiv Shah.

An Agent of Globalization

Rajiv J. “Raj” Shah is a former American government official, physician, and health economist who has served in a number of U.S. government positions, as well as working within the philanthropic sector. Shah served as the 16th Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2010–2015. He was appointed USAID Administrator by President Obama, unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and sworn into office by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on January 7, 2010.

USAID is ostensibly an “independent agency of the United States federal government” that handles “civilian foreign aid”. USAID is one of the largest official aid agencies in the world and accounts for more than half of all U.S. foreign assistance. However, USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) have been accused of being a tool for conducting activities favorable to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under the guise of providing foreign aid. The NED was created as a non-profit corporation via funding from the USAID. Both organizations have been involved in funding “activist” movements in countries which do not align with U.S. policy.

Critics have long compared USAID and NED funding Nicaraguan groups in the 1980s and 90s to the efforts of the CIA to overthrow governments throughout Latin America in the 1950s and 60s.

Shah also served at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he is credited with creating the International Financing Facility for Immunization which helped reshape the global vaccine industry and raised more than $5 billion for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).

I have reported extensively on the role the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and GAVI play in managing international health measures, particularly in advancing the ever-growing list of required vaccinations for developing nations.

Shah is also a member of the Trilateral Commission, sits on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, and is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.

The CFR is a long-time player in geopolitics whose members include former U.S. Presidents and federal officials. Researcher G. Edward Griffin has been one of the few working the last few decades to expose the influence of the CFR on U.S. foreign policy. During one of his many presentations Griffin outlines the true role of the CFR beyond the surface level explanation that they are merely a think tank:

For the last 100 years, the CFR membership roster has featured a rotating cast of members of the Rockefeller family, including John “Jay” Rockefeller IV, Nicholas Rockefeller, Steven C. Rockefeller, Susan Cohn Rockefeller, Valerie Rockefeller, David Rockefeller Jr., and David Rockefeller Sr., who co-founded the Trilateral Commission.

The Trilateral Commission is likely less known to today’s readers who are more familiar with groups like the World Economic Forum and the Bilderberg group, but they are equally important in understanding the players on the chessboard.

Patrick Wood, longtime researcher of Technocracy and founder of Technocracy.news, recently reported that the Trilateral Commission’s 50th anniversary marked the culmination of its self-proclaimed “New International Economic Order”. On March 12, the Trilateral Commission held its plenary meeting in New Delhi, India to discuss issues relating to globalization. Wood reported that one of the Commission members stated,

“This year, 2023, is Year One of this new global order.”

As Wood notes, the Trilateral Commission was co-founded by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor and ally to many presidents in his lifetime. Brzezinski was also the author of Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, which sought to revive the Technocratic movement of the 1930’s.

Finally, Shah’s membership with The Atlantic Council should also raise alarm bells. The Atlantic Council has become more familiar to Americans in light of recent revelations from the Twitter Files. However, The Atlantic Council has been making moves behind the scenes in recent years. In May 2018, the organization partnered with Facebook to fight “fake news”. Only 6 months later the infamous Purge of 2018 removed more than 500 accounts of independent media and researchers from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Dr. Shah also spoke at the World Economic Forum’s 2022 gathering in Davos, Switzerland and is listed as an “Agenda Contributor” to the WEF. During an interview with CNBC in Davos he was asked what he makes of the fact that nations around the world are “sitting on” vaccines because “there are no takers”. Shah responded by saying:

“A big part of why the vaccines are not being demanded right now is there’s tremendous misinformation about the vaccines, their effectiveness, their safety, and so a lot of people who need them don’t want them because they’ve been told something that’s false, and we need to invest in that problem in order to turn it around and change the course of the pandemic.”

Shah said the Rockefeller Foundation is investing in vaccine access in countries around the world with the goal of reaching 90% of the “high risk groups” within a country. Shah also said he believes “there needs to be some sort of international agreement about how the world responds to pandemics” which must include “a much better real-time surveillance system”.

Shah’s presence at the Davos gathering should not come as a surprise since the Rockefeller Foundation is partnered with the WEF in pushing the Great Reset agenda. During the COVID-19 panic the Rockefeller Foundation funded the CommonPass as a method for verifying ones vaccination status. The so-called “vaccine passports” were always a gateway to the digital identity future that is promoted by the WEF and the Technocrats.

The Rockefeller Foundation’s Faux Environmental Movement

Whether the Rockefeller Foundation uses its resources to shift us towards a Technocratic State under the guise of a pandemic or climate change, it matters not. The end result is the same – loss of individual liberties and choice in a constantly surveilled world complete with social credit scores which track your carbon use and dole out rewards or punishments based on your behaviors. All for the good of the planet, we are told.

This is why it’s important to question the fundamental claims being made by the Rockefeller Foundation and their current president. In fact, the Rockefeller Foundation has a history of using environmental issues as a smokescreen for spreading poison and harming the population.

The current mainstream food paradigm – with its toxic, violent, and monopolized business model – was born out of “The Green Revolution” of the 1950’s and 60’s. As part of this apparent revolution, Mexican President Manuel Ávila Camacho invited the Rockefeller Foundation into the country to help study and modernize Mexico’s farming. In 1943, Norman Borlaug, a plant geneticist, and his team of researchers traveled to Mexico and jumpstarted the so-called Green Revolution. Borlaug was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation, with both organizations having an interest in establishing international farming standards which benefitted their bank accounts.

While the Green Revolution is often touted as a success due to increases in crop yields and an apparent drop in infant mortality, there is also a growing body of evidence indicating that the abundant use of pesticides has caused a rise in adverse health effects, including cancer. Most infamously, the world’s most widely used herbicide, glyphosate – a product of Agri-giant Monsanto, now owned by Bayer – has been linked to a number of cases of cancer and resulted in multiple billion dollar settlements against the company. 

The same corporations and financiers behind Big Oil and Big Pharma were the same driving forces behind the Green Revolution. The Rockefeller Standard Oil network and their partners in the fertilizer industry, specifically DuPont, Dow Chemical, and Hercules Powder, benefitted handsomely from the apparent revolution in farming. However, when a struggling “third world” nation could not afford the new technologies needed to participate in the programs, the Rockefeller controlled Chase Manhattan Bank partnered with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to offer loans, which in turn granted the banks ownership over resources and financial assets should the nations fail to settle the debt.

Another outcome of the Green Revolution is the so-called Gene Revolution, which popularized the use of genetically modified organisms, GMOs, or genetically engineered foods. Once again, the cast of characters involved in the Gene Revolution are identical to the Green Revolution – the Big Pharma cartel and Big Oil. The Rockefeller and Nazi connected IG Farben have subsidiaries Bayer CropScience and BASF PlantScience working with Dow AgroScience, DuPont Biotechnology, and the infamous Monsanto. All of these corporations benefit from the funding of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and similar organizations.

This is the legacy of the Rockefeller Foundation – dangerous pesticides, GMO food, mono cropping, and disrupting of small farms.

The Rockefeller Foundation also claimed the COVID-19 panic presented the moment to “transform the U.S. food system.” The Rockefeller document, titled Reset the Table: Meeting the Moment to Transform the U.S. Food System, outlines how the Rockefeller Foundation can once again use its money and influence to shape the direction of a major industry, this time, the food supply itself.

Ironically, the Reset the Table document also notes that the Rockefeller Foundation “played a role in seeding and scaling” The Green Revolution, while also noting that the Rockefeller Green Revolution left a legacy of “overemphasis of staple grains at the expense of more nutrient-rich foods”, and a “reliance on chemical fertilizers that deplete the soil, and overuse of water.​​​​​​​” With no hint of shame, the Rockefeller’s and their ilk are presenting themselves as the solution to problems they previously contributed to or outright created.​​​​​​​

Using the same flowery language and trendy buzzwords which allowed them to infiltrate and capture the education system, the Oil industry, and the medical field, they have managed to gain control over the large institutions which farm the world’s animals and crops in violent, destructive, and costly ways. This dangerous monopolistic cartel has captured many national and international regulatory bodies designed to protect the public and the food supply.

Are we really supposed to trust that the Rockefeller Foundation is now a force for good?

Does the Fight Against Climate Change Mask a Eugenics Agenda?

One final thought relates to the fact that the Rockefeller Foundation also has an extensive history of funding the Eugenics movement. There is ample evidence and documentation of the Rockefeller family promoting “population control” under the guise of abortion, sterilization, and other methods.

Due to this history of funding these movements there remains a great deal of skepticism regarding the true motivations of the foundation.

In September 2021, the Rockefeller Foundation released a statement stating they were “currently reckoning with our own history in relation to eugenics”. The foundation said this would involve “uncovering the facts” and dealing with “uncomfortable truths”. Dr. Shah claimed an “investigation is underway” to learn the full extent of the foundations support of eugenics.

“The Foundation is confronting the hateful legacies of the past—in laws, structures, and systems—that have suppressed opportunity for so many and are helping our grantees and the people they serve to overcome them,” Shah wrote.

In an upcoming investigation I will uncover connections between the Eugenics philosophy which previously guided the Rockefeller Foundation and other philanthropists, and the movement to fight climate change.

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Derrick Broze, a staff writer for The Last American Vagabond, is a journalist, author, public speaker, and activist. He is the co-host of Free Thinker Radio on 90.1 Houston, as well as the founder of The Conscious Resistance Network & The Houston Free Thinkers.

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*** 

The ambitions of the US foreign policy élite to beat both Russia and China is already creating an internal war among the US Neocons.

The Ukraine war is sucking the US dry of weapons, and the US is getting little to nowhere in its frail attempts to restock supplies sent to Ukraine. See this.

This already pushes some Neocons to panic for a ceasefire to close down the Ukraine engagement – just in order to save remaining arms supplies for conflict with China?

Meanwhile, the Pentagon and the defense industry are looking at the next major national security challenge: deterring, and if necessary, fighting, China in the Indo-Pacific region. See this.

That panic in parts of the Neocon community is already surfacing in the Council of Foreign Relations of the USA. On 13 April 2023, none less than Richard Haass, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations together with Charles Kupchan were overtly anxious to argue for a Ukrainian ceasefire. Suddenly comparing what they want with what they can, this faction among the Neocons is suddenly scared and looks for the exit. See this. 

On 24 April 2023, other Neocons pushed back against Haass’ and Kupchan’s heretic idea of a ceasefire with Russia. A hard-core faction of the Neocons obviously keeps ignoring facts and insists on nothing less than a complete defeat of Russia – even as the West is running out of weapons to fight with. See this.

The futility of trying to dominate the globe is creating an infight – wrecking the nerves of the Neocons.

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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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*** 

The message sent by the Chinese Defence Minister’s three-day visit to Russia is clear. His reception – a high-profile event – was intentionally invested with high visibility. And at its symbolic centre was a meeting with President Putin on (Orthodox) Easter Day which was consequential, both for being far beyond the norms of protocol, and for occurring on Easter Day, when Putin would not customarily work.

Its key message may be surmised from remarks earlier framed by Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of China’s Global Times:

“The U.S. repeatedly claims that China is preparing to provide “lethal military aid” to Russia in the ongoing Ukraine conflict”. But that war has “has been going on for more than a year: And according to the West’s previous calculation, Russia should have already collapsed by now … And, whilst NATO is supposed to be much stronger than Russia, the situation on the ground doesn’t appear as such – which is why it causes [such] anxiety in the West …”.

Hu Xijin continues:

“If Russia alone is already so difficult to deal with, what if China really starts to provide military aid to Russia, using its massive industrial capabilities for the Russian military? [If] Russia alone … is more than a match for the Collective West. If they [the West] really forces China and Russia to join hands militarily – the question that haunts them is that the West will no longer be able to do as it pleases. Russia and China together, would have the power to check the U.S.”.

This essentially was what the Defence Minister’s visit was all about: Events have moved on since Hu wrote that piece in the Global Times a few weeks ago and, if anything, recent developments have lent added dimension to his clarion warning that a Sino-Russian joining of hands – militarily – would mark a paradigm change.

The recent event of the U.S. Intelligence leaks (as well as earlier reports from Seymour Hersh) seem to point to deep internal schism in the U.S. ‘Permanent State’:

One element is convinced that the Ukrainian Spring Offensive is a disaster in the making – with major consequences for U.S. prestige. The Neo-con contingent, on the other hand, bitterly refutes this analysis, and instead demands escalation via immediate preparation (arming Taiwan) against a U.S. war to be waged against both China and Russia soon. The neo-cons claim a Russian panic and collapse could happen within 24 hours of an Ukrainian attack.

To put it plainly, the sudden ignition of neo-con war fever against China has just done what Hu earlier foresaw: It has forced Russia and China to join hands militarily, not necessarily in Ukraine, but rather to plan and prepare for war with the West.

In the wake of the Intelligence leaks, the focus on Ukraine in the U.S. has waned, and been replaced in the U.S. with a rising fever for war with China.

The Chinese Defence Minister’s extended Moscow visit was the tangible evidence that now, China and Russia are convinced that the prospect of war is real, and they are preparing for it. Putin underlined the ‘jointery’ by, inter alia, prioritising the strengthening of the Russian Pacific fleet, and upgrading generally Russian Naval capacities.

This is just crazy: Hu was ‘spot on’. If NATO does not have the military industrial capacity to defeat Russia on its own, how can the U.S. and Europe expect to prevail against China and Russia combined? The notion seems delusional.

Historian Paul Veyne, a towering figure in the history of the ancient Roman world, once posed the question: Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? All societies, he wrote, contrive to some notional distinction between ‘truth’ and ‘falsity’, but in the end, according to him, this too, is just another ‘fishbowl’, the one we happen to inhabit, and it is in no way superior, as a matter of epistemology, to the fishbowl in which ancient Greeks lived and made sense of their world, in no small part through myths and stories about the gods.

In respect to the myth of the Roman Empire which nourishes U.S. foreign policy, Veyne’s position is profoundly contrarian. For his basic claim is that Roman imperialism had little to do with statecraft, nor economic predation or the assertion of control and the demand of obedience, but rather that was motivated by a collective wish to create a world in which Romans might be left alone, not simply secure, but undisturbed. That is all.

Paradoxically, this account would place the American traditionalist ‘Right’ – which leans to a Burkean-Buchanan perspective –closer to that of Veyne’s Roman ‘reality’ that to that of the neo-cons: i.e. what most Americans wish is for America to be left alone, and to be secure.

Yes, the gods and myths were tangible to the Ancients. They lived through them. The point here is Veyne’s warning against our ‘lazy treating’ of ancient Romans as versions of ourselves, caught up in different contexts, to be sure, but essentially interchangeable with us.

Did the Greeks believe in their Myths? Veyne’s short answer is ‘no’. The public spectacle of authority was an end in itself. It was artifice without an audience – as an expression of authority beyond question. There was no ‘public sphere’, indeed no ‘public’ as such. The state was instrumentalist. Its role was to mediate and keep the Empire aligned and attuned with these invisible and powerful forces.

The gods and myths were understood by the Ancients in a way that is almost wholly alien to us today: They were energetic invisible forces that carried distinct qualities that both shaped the world and carried meaning. Today, we have lost the ability to read the world symbolically – symbols have become rigid ‘things’.

The implication of Veyne’s analysis is that Rome is false as a comparison to support the ‘myth’ of the inevitability of U.S. primacy: The ‘mythical’ neo-con approach of course is instrumentalised to convince us all that U.S. primacy is ordained (by the gods?), and that Russia is low hanging fruit – a fragile rotten structure that easily can be toppled.

Do then the neo-cons believe their own myths? Well, ‘yes’ and ‘no’. ‘Yes’, in that the neo-cons are a group of people who come to share a common view (i.e. Russia as fragile and fissiparous), often proposed by a few ideologues deemed to be credentiallised. It is a view however, not based in reality. These adherents may be convinced intellectually that their view is right, but their belief cannot be tested in a way which could confirm it beyond doubt. It is simply based on a picture of the world as they imagine it to be, or more to the point, as they would like it to be.

Yes, the neo-cons believe their myths because they seem to work. Just look around. As the means of communication have become decentralized, digitized and algorithmic, contemporary culture has forced individuals into herds. There is no standing apart from this discourse; there is no thinking outside of the Tik-Toc feed; it gives rise to the formation of a pseudo-reality, severed from the World, and generated for wider ideological ends.

Put plainly, there never was a ‘public sphere’ in Rome in the modern sense, and in today’s sense, no alive western ‘Public Sphere’ either. It has been anaesthetised via the social media platforms. The public spectacle of neo-con credentiallised ideological authority (say, a Lindsay Graham advocating for war on China) becomes an end in itself. An expression of authority beyond question.

The neo-con myth of Russia on the cusp of implosion makes no sense. But it is a picture of the world as the neo-cons imagine it to be, or more to the point, would like it to be. The shortcomings of the Ukrainian forces as detailed in (their own American) Intel leaks: They pretend not to notice – convinced, as Foreign Policy explains, that once the expected Ukrainian offensive launches, if “the Russian soldiers panic, causing paralysis among the Russian leadership … then the counter-offensive will be successful”.

The more such delusional analysis is pursued, the more functional psychopathy will be exhibited, and the less normal it becomes. In short, it descends into collective delusion – if it hasn’t already.

The U.S. may have entered a fever for war (for now! (Let us see how it lasts as events in Ukraine play out)), but what of Europe? Why would Europe seek war with China?

Thomas Fazi writes that:

“Emmanuel Macron’s call for Europe to reduce its dependency on the United States and develop its own “strategic autonomy” caused a transatlantic tantrum. The Atlanticist establishment, in the U.S. as much as in Europe, responded in a typically unrestrained fashion — and, in doing so, missed something crucial:

“Macron’s words revealed less about the state of Euro-American relations than they did about intra-European relations.

“Very simply, the “Europe” Macron speaks of no longer exists, if it ever did. On paper, almost the entire continent is united under one supranational flag — that of the European Union. But that is more fractured than ever. On top of the economic and cultural divides that have always plagued the bloc, the war in Ukraine has caused a massive fault line to re-emerge along the borders of the Iron Curtain. The East-West divide is back with a vengeance”.

“The end of the Cold War and, then, the CEE countries’ accession to the EU just over a decade later were both heralded as the post-Communist countries’ much-awaited “return to Europe”. It was widely believed that the EU’s universalist project would smooth out any major social and cultural differences between Western and Central-Eastern Europe …Such a hubristic (and arguably imperialistic) project was bound to fail; indeed, tensions and contradictions quickly became apparent between the two Europes”.

Belief in an integral European culture has been more a mark of a central European sensibility than of the western edge of Europe. It was not only Russia that was at issue for the East. They resented being cut off from a world of which they had been an essential part. Yet when communism receded, the European culture – as imagined by the dissidents – vanished in a Europe beset by division and a culture war imposed from the centre that purposefully has attempted to strangle any attempt to revive national cultures. For Milan Kundera and other writers like him, there is no living culture in Europe, and its posterity inhabits a void created by the disappearance of any supreme values.

Paradoxically, the war in Ukraine has strengthened Russian national culture, but has exposed the façade in the EU. There seems to be more cultural energy present in the U.S. today, than there is in Europe, which has long since severed from living myth.

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This article was originally published by Strategic Culture Foundation.

Alastair Crooke is former British diplomat, founder and director of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum.

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I couldn’t applaud and admire enough the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who protested for 17 consecutive weeks against the Netanyahu government’s scheme to subvert Israel’s judiciary under the pretense of necessary ‘reforms.’ In reality, Netanyahu and his Justice Minister Levin were bent on subordinating Israel’s Supreme Court to the whims of a simple majority in the Knesset, and the appointment of judges to a committee with an increased number of representatives handpicked by his government. Should such legislations come to pass, it will be tantamount to giving the government unlimited power without any checks and balances, destroying the very foundation of democracy on which the country was founded and in which Israelis take special pride.

The irony here though is that whereas the majority of Israelis believe that their country is a democracy and fervently poured into the streets to preserve it, and often refer to it as the only democracy in the Middle East, what escapes them is that no country can claim to be a democracy and be an occupying power at the same time. Indeed, applying two different sets of laws and rules, one that governs Israeli citizens (including Israeli settlers in the West Bank) that accords them protection and social, economic, and political freedoms, versus the military rules that govern the Palestinians under occupation, depriving them of their basic human rights, is totally inconsistent with democracy by any definition.

The question is, why have the Israelis grown so comfortably numb to the ruthless occupation and have not once protested against its continuation, as if it were a normal state of being that has no effect or repercussions on either the occupier or the occupied?

Public acrimony: To begin with, successive Israeli governments, especially since the second Intifada in 2000, during which conservative governments were largely in power, have systematically engaged in acrimonious public narratives against the Palestinians, portraying them as being an irredeemable foe. Depicting the Palestinians as such was deliberate, albeit every Israeli government knew only too well that the Palestinians will never be in a position to pose a credible existential threat against their country.

Nevertheless, they continue to promote their denunciation of the Palestinians for public consumption, knowing that they have been nurturing hatred and cultivating hostility against the Palestinians, which now defines the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. Acrimonious public narratives that set one people against another obviously fosters conflict rather than cooperation, which is essential to a functioning democracy.

Lack of awareness: Most Israelis have very little firsthand knowledge about the ruthlessness of the occupation and the pain and suffering the Palestinians are enduring day-in and day-out. If the Israelis could witness the night raids that terrify young and old, arbitrary incarcerations, demolition of houses, forced evictions, confiscation of private land, uprooting of trees, humiliating checkpoints, vandalism by settlers, and trigger-happy soldiers who shoot to kill, they would certainly have a better grasp as to why the occupation is not and cannot be sustainable, but is contrary to every human value they hold so high.

Had even some of the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who stood tall to fight for the preservation of their democracy experienced for one day what the Palestinians endure every day under occupation, they would realize how broken Israel’s democracy is and how shameful it is to demand that they are entitled to live in a free society while the Palestinians live in servitude.

Living with the status quo: After 56 years of occupation, a mounting number of Israelis have given up on finding a solution to the conflict with the Palestinians and have come to accept the status quo as a permanent state of affairs with which they comfortably live. Successive right-wing governments led by Netanyahu openly state that there will be no Palestinian state under their watch, preferring to maintain the status quo regardless of the frequent flareups of violence, which Israel learned how to control at an acceptable cost.

The notion that the status quo can be sustained indefinitely is completely misguided, as there is absolutely no sign and no reason to believe that the Palestinians will ever give up their right to establish a state of their own. In recent years the oppressive occupation has become increasingly unbearable, resentment against and hatred of the Israelis is piercing, violence targeting Israelis is escalating, and hopelessness and despair is all-consuming, leaving the Palestinians with little left to lose. The Israelis helped to create this explosive environment. Now it is only a matter of time when the next explosion will happen. This is not how democracy works and the Israelis must sooner than later face this bitter reality.

The Palestinians’ ambition to destroy Israel: Successive Israeli governments have been brainwashing the public by promoting the notion that even if the Palestinians establish their own state, it will only be the first stage in their ultimate objective to eliminate Israel altogether. But then, not a single Israeli leader who opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state has ever provided any evidence to make their case, other than using the empty rhetoric of some Palestinian militants who state that this is in fact their national goal. One might ask though by what means, military or otherwise, will the Palestinians ever be in a position to realize such an illusion against the formidable Israeli military machine that can crush any violent provocation deemed threatening to Israel’s existence?

By promoting such an absurd narrative, however, the Israeli government can ‘justify’ not only the occupation but its drive to annex more territories, expand existing and legalize illegal settlements, uproot Palestinians, and clear huge areas of its Palestinian inhabitants for military training. These activities are done systematically all in the name of national security, and unfortunately a growing number of Israelis are buying into this sinister scheme.

Normalizing the occupation: To understand the gravity of how the occupation became for most Israelis a normal state of affairs, one single statistic tells the story: 80 percent of all Israelis were born after the occupation began in 1967. For every single Israeli citizen under the age of 56, be that a soldier, a student, a scholar, a military commander, a medical doctor, a builder, a carpenter, a curator, a businessman, an engineer, or a government official, the occupation is normal. Those who want to end it have largely grown to be numb; many are even afraid to talk about it publicly, let alone openly advocate for the absolute necessity of creating an independent Palestinian state to end the conflict.

The killing of Palestinians almost daily has become routine and many Israelis only temporarily awaken when a militant Palestinian kills an Israeli Jew. Calls for revenge and retribution echo, especially by extremist right-wing Israelis, security forces immediately line up for the search of the perpetrators, often a gun battle ensues, Palestinian militants are frequently killed, and sadly innocent Palestinian civilians are often caught in the crossfire and end up paying with their lives. And of course, leave it to the settlers to do their own cruel deeds by taking revenge against any Palestinian—guilty or innocent is of no concern to them. The settlers’ pogrom against the Palestinian village of Huwara offers a chilling example of their brutality. A day or two later everything is forgotten by Israeli Jews, but the vicious cycle continues. This is Israeli-style democracy.

It is critically important to emphasize that “the normalization of occupation has made the young Israelis increasingly numb to the Palestinians’ plight, and as a result of their schooling and training they have become impervious to the people who live in servitude with little or no hope for a better and promising future. But when this indifference to the pain and suffering of the Palestinians becomes a normal state of mind for Israeli youth, it robs them of their own humanity and dignity. They do not realize how they were psychologically inculcated to become so callous and apathetic towards their young Palestinian counterparts who live in fear and uncertainty while hatred, revenge, and retribution become their only way to maintain their resistance.”

None of the above suggests that the Palestinians are innocent by any standard. They have made many mistakes. They have frequently resorted to violence and have missed many opportunities in the past to make peace as they went for all and ended up with nothing. That said, it is now up to Israel, as the dominant power, to change the dynamic of the conflict by declaring its willingness to seek peace based on a two-state solution and demonstrate to the whole world its intent while putting the Palestinians to the test. Otherwise, Israel’s social fabric will continue to disintegrate, its regional violent conflicts will intensify, and its international standing will wane. Israel will end up being nothing but a pariah state, shattering the Jewish dream of having an independent, free, strong, and just state with which every Jew takes pride, admired by its friends and envied by its enemies.

The beacon of Israel’s democracy began to fade with the start of the occupation. It is time for the hundreds of thousands of Israeli demonstrators, who have poured into the streets to protect their democracy, to face the truth: the occupation is depriving three million Palestinians in the West Bank of everything the protesters want for themselves.

Even if the protesters prevail over Netanyahu’s menacing judicial scheme, they will not save Israel’s democracy unless they relentlessly pour back into the streets and this time demand an end to the occupation and make Israel once again a beacon of democracy in the Middle East and beyond.

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Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies for over 20 years. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Screenshot of video showing protesters and security forces wrestling a Palestinian flag out of another protester’s hands during an nti-Netanyahu protest in Israel. (Image: Twitter/@fadiamun)

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*** 

The mRNA vaccines were released globally in early 2021 with the slogan ‘safe and effective.’ Unusually for a new class of medicine, they were soon recommended by public health authorities for pregnant women. 

By late 2021, working-age women, including those who were pregnant, were being thrown out of employment for not agreeing to be injected. Those who took the mRNA vaccines did so based on trust in the health authorities – the assumption being that they would not have been approved if the evidence was not absolutely clear. The role of regulatory agencies was to protect the public and, therefore, if they were approved, the “vaccines” were safe.

Recently, a lengthy vaccine evaluation report sponsored by Pfizer and submitted to the Australian regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) dated January 2021 was released under a Freedom of Information request. 

The report contains significant new information that had been suppressed by the TGA and by Pfizer itself. Much of this relates directly to the issue of safety in pregnancy, and impacts on the fertility of women of child-bearing age. The whole report is important, but four key data points stand out;

• The rapid decline in antibody and T cells in monkeys following second dose, 
• Biodistribution studies (previously released in 2021 through an FOI request in Japan)
• Data on the impact of fertility outcomes for rats.
• Data on fetal abnormalities in rats.

We focus on the last three items as, for the first point, it is enough to quote the report itself “Antibodies and T cells in monkeys declined quickly over 5 weeks after the second dose of BNT162b2 (V9), raising concerns over long term immunity…”.

This point indicates that the regulators should have anticipated the rapid decline in efficacy and must have known at the outset that the initial two-dose “course” was unlikely to confer lasting immunity and would, therefore, require multiple repeat doses. This expectation of failure was recently highlighted by Dr Anthony Fauci, former director at the US NIH. 

The three remaining items should be a major cause for alarm with the pharmaceutical regulatory system. The first, as revealed in 2021, involved biodistribution studies of the lipid nanoparticle carrier in rats, using a luciferase enzyme to substitute for the mRNA vaccine. 

The study demonstrated that the vaccine will travel throughout the body after injection, and is found not only at the injection site, but in all organs tested, with high concentration in the ovaries, liver, adrenal glands, and spleen. Authorities who assured vaccinated people in early 2021 that the vaccine stays in the arm were, as we have known for two years, lying.

Lipid concentration per gram, recalculated as percentage of injection site.

In terms of the impact on fertility and fetal abnormalities, the report includes a study of 44 rats and describes two main metrics, the pre-implantation loss rate and the number of abnormalities per fetus (also expressed per litter). In both cases the metrics were significantly higher for vaccinated rats than for unvaccinated rats.

Roughly speaking, the pre-implantation loss ratio compares the estimated number of fertilised ova and the ova implanted in the uterus. The table below is taken from the report itself and clearly shows the loss rate for vaccinated (BNT162b2) is more than double the unvaccinated control group.

In a case control study, a doubling of pregnancy loss in the intervention group would represent a serious safety signal. Rather than take this seriously, the authors of the report then compared the outcomes to historical data on other rat populations; 27 studies of 568 rats, and ignored the outcome because other populations had recorded higher overall losses; this range is shown in the right hand column as 2.6 percent to 13.8 percent. This analysis is alarming as remaining below the highest previously recorded pregnancy loss levels in populations elsewhere is not a safe outcome when the intervention is also associated with double the harm of the control group.

A similar pattern is observed for fetal malformations with higher abnormality rate in each of the 12 categories studied. Of the 11 categories where Pfizer confirmed the data is correct, there are only 2 total abnormalities in the control group, versus 28 with the mRNA vaccine (BNT162b2). In the category which Pfizer labeled as unreliable (supernumerary lumbar ribs), there were 3 abnormalities in the control group and 12 in the vaccinated group.

As with the increased pregnancy losses, Pfizer simply ignored the trend and compared the results with historical data from other rat populations. This is very significant as it is seen across every malformation category. The case control nature of the study design is again ignored, in order to apparently hide the negative outcomes demonstrated.

These data indicate that there is NO basis for saying the vaccine is safe in pregnancy. Concentration of LNPs in ovaries, a doubled pregnancy loss rate, and raised fetal abnormality rate across all measured categories indicates that designating a safe-in-pregnancy label (B1 category in Australia) was contrary to available evidence. The data implies that not only was the Government’s “safe and effective” sloganeering not accurate, it was totally misleading with respect to the safety data available.

Known unknowns and missing data: 

Despite the negative nature of these outcomes, the classification of this medicine as a vaccine appears to have precluded further animal trials. Historically, new medicines, especially in classes never used in humans before, would require a very rigorous assessment. Vaccines, however, have a lower burden of proof requirement than ordinary medicines. By classifying mRNA injections as “vaccines,” this ensured regulatory approval with significantly less stringent safety requirements, as the TGA itself notes. 

In fact, mRNA gene therapies function more like medicines than vaccines in that they modify the internal functioning of cells, rather than stimulating an immune response to presence of an antigen. Labelling these gene therapy products as vaccines means that, as far as we are aware, even today no genotoxicity or carcinogenicity studies have been carried out.

This report, which was only released after a FOI request, is extremely disturbing as it shows that authorities knew of major risks with mRNA Covid-19 vaccination while simultaneously assuring populations that it was safe. The fact that mainstream media has (as far as we are aware) completely ignored the newly released data should reinforce the need for caution when listening to the advice of public health messaging regarding Covid-19 vaccination.

Firstly, it is clear that regulators, drug companies and the government would have known that vaccine-induced immunity tails off very rapidly with this being observed in real world data with efficacy against infection falling to zero. Accordingly, the single point in time figures of 95 percent and 62 percent efficacy against cases quoted for Pfizer and ChAdOx1 (AstraZeneca) respectively meant almost nothing since a rapid decline was to be expected. 

Similarly, the concept of a two-dose “course” was inaccurate as endless boosters would likely have been required given the rapid decline in antibodies and T-cells observed in the monkeys.

Most importantly, the data does not in any way support the “safe” conclusion with respect to pregnancy; a conclusion of dangerous would be more accurate. The assurances of safety were, therefore, completely misleading given the data disclosures in the recent freedom of information release. 

Regulatory authorities knew that animal studies showed major red flags regarding both pregnancy loss and fetal abnormalities, consistent with the systemic distribution of the mRNA they had been hiding from the public. 

Even in March 2023, it is impossible to give these assurances, given the fact that important studies have not, to the best of our knowledge, been done. 

Pfizer elected not to follow up the vast majority of pregnancies in the original human trials, despite high miscarriage rates in the minority they did follow. Given all of the problems with efficacy and safety, the administration of these products to women of childbearing age, and administration to healthy pregnant women is high-risk and not justified. 

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Assisting in co-authorship for this essay is Alex Kriel, a physicist and was one of the first people to highlight the flawed nature of the Imperial COVID model, and he is a founder of the Thinking Coalition which comprises a group of citizens who are concerned about Government overreach.

David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.

Featured image is from LifeSiteNews

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First published on April 30, 2018

To the memory of  the late Kevin Zeese. His legacy will live.

Seventy years of attacks on the right to unionize have left the union movement representing only 10 percent of workers. The investor class has concentrated its power and uses its power in an abusive way, not only against unions but also to create economic insecurity for workers.

At the same time, workers, both union and nonunion, are mobilizing more aggressively and protesting a wide range of economic, racial and environmental issues.

On this May Day, we reflect on the history of worker power and present lessons from our past to build power for the future.

May Day Workers of the World Unite, Melbourne, Australia, in 2012. By Johan Fantenberg, Flickr.

History 

In most of the world, May Day is a day for workers to unite, but May Day is not recognized in the United States even though it originated here. On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the US walked off their jobs for the first May Day in history. It began in 1884, when the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions proclaimed at their convention that workers themselves would institute the 8-hour day on May 1, 1886. In 1885 they called for protests and strikes to create the 8-hour work day. May Day was part of a revolt against abusive working conditions that caused deaths of workers, poverty wages, poor working conditions and long hours.

May Day gained permanence because of the Haymarket rally which followed. On May 3,  Chicago police and workers clashed at the McCormick Reaper Works during a strike where locked-out steelworkers were beaten as they picketed and two unarmed workers were killed. The next day a rally was held at Haymarket Square to protest the killing and wounding of workers by police. The rally was peaceful, attended by families with children and the mayor himself. As the crowd dispersed, police attacked. A bomb was thrown—no one to this day knows who threw it—and police fired indiscriminately into the crowd, killing several civilians and wounding forty. One officer was killed by the bomb and several more died from their own gunfire. A corrupt trial followed in August concluding with a biased jury convicting eight men, though only three of them were present at Haymarket and those three were in full view of all when the bombing occurred. Seven received a death sentence, the eighth was sentenced to 15 years, and in the end, four were hanged, one committed suicide and the remaining three were pardoned six years later. The trial shocked workers of the world and led to annual protests on May Day.

The unity of workers on May Day was feared by big business and government. That unity is shown by one of the founders of May Day, Lucy Parsons, who was of Mexican American, African American, and Native American Descent. Parsons, who was born into slavery, never ceased her work for racial, gender, and labor justice. Her partner was Albert Parsons, one of those convicted for Haymarket and hanged.

Solidarity across races and issues frightens the power structure. In 1894 President Grover Cleveland severed May Day from its roots by establishing Labor Day on the first Monday in September, after pressure to create a holiday for workers following the Pullman strike. Labor Day was recognized by unions before May Day. The US tried to further wipe May Day from the public’s memory by President Dwight Eisenhower proclaiming “Law and Order Day” on May 1, 1958.

Long Shoreman march in San Francisco on May Day 2008 in the first-ever strike action by U.S. workers against U.S. imperialist war. Source: The Internationalist

Escalation of Worker Protests Continues to Grow

Today, workers are in revolt, unions are under attack and the connections between workers’ rights and other issues are evident once again. Nicole Colson reports that activists on a range of issues, including racial and economic justice, immigrant rights, women’s rights, a new economy of worker-owners, transitioning to a clean energy economy with environmental and climate justice, and a world without war, are linking their struggles on May Day.

There has been a rising tide of worker militancy for years. The ongoing Fight for $15 protests, helped raise the wages of 20 million workers and promoted their fight for a union. There are 64 million people working for less than $15 an hour. Last year there was also a massive 36-state strike involving 21,000 mobility workers.

Worker strikes continued into 2018 with teacher strikes over salaries, healthcare, pensions and school funding. Teachers rejected a union order to return to work. Even though it included a 5 percent raise, it was not until the cost of healthcare was dealt with that the teachers declared success. Teachers showed they could fight and win and taught others some lessons on striking against a hostile government. The West Virginia strike inspired others, and is followed by strikes in Oklahoma, Kentucky, Colorado, and Arizona. These strikes may expand to other states, evidence of unrest has been seen in statesincluding New Jersey and Pennsylvania as well as Puerto Rico because courage is contagious.

Graduate students have gone on strike, as have transit and UPS workers and low-wage workers. The causes include stagnant wages, spiraling healthcare costs, and inadequate pensions. They are engaged in a fight for basic necessities. In 2016, there wasn’t a single county or state in which someone earning the federal minimum wage could afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment at market rate.

Workers are also highlighting that women’s rights are worker’s rights. Even before the #MeToo movement took off, workers protested sexual harassment in the workplace. Worker’s in thirty states walked off the job at McDonald’s to protest, holding signs that said “McDonald’s Hands off my Buns” and “Put Some Respect in My Check.”

Last year on May Day, a mass mobilization of more than 100,000 immigrant workers walked off their jobs. This followed a February mobilization, a Day Without Immigrants. The Cosecha Movement has a long-term plan to build toward larger strikes and boycotts. There will be many worker revolts leading up to that day.

The Poor People’s Campaign has taken on the issues of the movement for economic, racial, environmental justice and peace. Among their demands are federal and state living wage laws, a guaranteed annual income for all people, full employment, and the right to unionize. It will launch 40 days of actions beginning on Mother’s Day. Workers announced a massive wave of civil disobedience actions this spring on the 50th anniversary of the sanitation strike in Memphis, at a protest where they teamed up with the Poor People’s Campaign and the Movement for Black Lives.  Thousands of workers walk off their jobs in cities across the country.

Unrealized Worker Power Potential Can Be Achieved

The contradictions in the US economy have become severe. The wealth divide is extreme, three people have the wealth of half the population and one in five people have zero wealth or are in debt. The U.S. is ranked 35^th out of 37 developed nations in poverty and inequality.  According to a UN report, 19 million people live in deep poverty including one-quarter of all youth. Thirty years of economic growth have been stagnant for most people in the US. A racial prism shows the last 50 years have made racial inequality even wider, with current policies worsening the situation.

May 5 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of economic philosopher, Karl Marx, the failure of US capitalism has become evident. Over the last fifty years, in order for the few to exploit the many, labor laws have been put in place the weaken workers’ rights and unions. Andrew Stewart summarizes some of the key points:

“First, the National Labor Relations Act, signed by FDR, that legalized unionization. Or more precisely, it domesticated unions. When combined with the Taft-Hartley Act, the Railway Labor Act, and Norris-La Guardia Act, the union movements of America were forced into a set of confines that reduced its arsenal of tactics so significantly that they became a shell of their pre-NLRA days. And this, of course, leaves to the side the impact of the McCarthy witch hunts on the ranks of good organizers.”

In addition, 28 states have passed so-called “right to work” laws that undermine the ability of workers to organize. And, the Supreme Court in the Janus case, which is likely to be ruled on this June, is likely to undermine public unions. On top of domestic laws, capitalist globalization led by US transnational corporations has undermined workers, caused de-industrialization and destroyed the environment. Trade must be remade to serve the people and planet, not profits of the few.

While this attack is happening, so is an increase in mobilizations, protests, and strikes. The total number of union members grew by 262,000 in 2017 and three-fourths of those were among workers aged 35 and under and 23% of new jobs for workers under 35 are unionized. With only 10 percent of workers in a union, there is massive room for growth at this time of economic insecurity.

Chris Hedges describes the new gig economy as the new serfdom. Uber drivers make $13.77 an hour, and in Detroit that drops to $8.77. He reports on drivers committing suicide. One man, who drove a cab over 100 hours a week to compete in the new gig driving economy, wrote,

“I will not be a slave working for chump change. I would rather be dead.”

Drivers compete for tiny hourly wages while the former CEO of Uber, one of the founders, Travis Kalanick, has a net worth of $4.8 billion. The US has returned to pre-20th Century non-union working conditions. Hedges writes that workers now must “regain the militancy and rebuild the popular organizations that seized power from the capitalists.”

Solidarity across racial and economic divides is growing as all workers suffer from abuses of the all-powerful capitalist class. As those in power abuse their privilege, people are becoming more militant. We are seeing the blueprint for a new worker movement in the teacher strikes and Fight for $15. A movement of movements including labor, environmentalist, anti-corporate advocates, food reformers, healthcare advocates and more stopped the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This shows the potential of unified power.

In recent strikes, workers have rejected proposals urged by their union and have pushed for more. Told to go back to work, they continued to strike. The future is not unions who serve to calm labor disputes, but unions who escalate a conflict.

The future is more than re-legalizing unions and raising wages and benefits, it is building wealth in the population and creating structural changes to the economy. This requires a new economy where workers are owners, in worker cooperatives, so their labor builds power and wealth. Economic justice also requires a rewoven safety net that ensures the essentials of healthcare and housing, as well as non-corporatized public education, free college education, a federal job guarantee and a basic income for all.

The escalation of militancy should not demand the solutions of the past but demand the new economy of the future. By building community wealth through democratized institutions, we will reduce the wealth divide and the influence of economic inequality over our lives.

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Correction: In describing Chris Hedges column on the gig economy we mis-identified a suicide victim as an Uber driver when he was a cab driver competing with Uber drivers.

Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese are co-directors of Popular Resistance where this article was originally published.

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US$2.24 trillion is a mighty amount. It’s also a sickening figure when considering the object of this exercise. The flickering tease of war, the promise of bloodshed and an increasingly large butcher’s bill, are inevitable suggestions from such a figure. The scenes are also clear: well-paid suits dazed by theories of the next war; policy wonks jabbering over mock war games. A huge amount of money is being pushed into the venture, and the sceptics are being held at bay.

Much of this news comes from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s latest findings that countries are spending 2.2% of the world’s gross domestic product on armaments. Of that amount, the United States, China and Russia accounted for 56% of the total. Global military spending, the SIPRI report also notes, grew by 19% over 2013-2022, rising every year since 2015.

The amount is slightly more than the previous year, when SIPRI announced that total military expenditure had risen by 0.7% in real terms in 2021 “to reach $2113 billion.” The largest contributors to the binge on that occasion were the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom and Russia. In sum, the five countries accounted for 62% of expenditure.

This reads differently from the more optimistic International Monetary Institute’s assessment from 2021: “Worldwide military spending, when estimated on the basis of unweighted country averages, has declined by nearly half, from 3.6 percent GDP during the Cold War period (1970-90) to 1.9 percent of GDP in the years following the global financial crisis.” When it comes to variations on the figures in this field, best stick with SIPRA.

2022 proved to be a boon for militarists the world over, though there were particular regions that saw more growth than others. In Europe, levels of spending had reached levels unseen since the Cold War, up from 13% from the previous twelve months. The reason commonly given: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In East Asia, the justification is the increasingly hostile US-Chinese rivalry, though those in Washington’s corner are ever pointing the finger to the Yellow Horde’s ambitions in Beijing.

The picture in Europe is an ugly one, with concerns being expressed in certain strategic circles that not enough is being done to move away from dependency on the US imperium. The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) has even posited that Europe is the victim of US “vassalisation”, notably in light of the Ukraine War. Visions of strategic autonomy are more distant than ever.

Such sentiments, however, do little to discourage the militarists: whether Europe chooses to throw in its lot with Washington or not, the arms dealers and manufacturers will do a merry jig. To prove that point, the ECFR advocates the deployment of “western European forces to the east in greater numbers, offering to replace US forces in some cases.” The only difference here is the burden shared, rather than the amount spent.

In terms of individual countries, Finland’s military expenditure rose by 36% in 2022 to reach $4.8 billion, the largest in the country’s year-on-year increase since 1962. Polish military expenditure grew by 11%, reaching $16.6 billion over the course in 2022. The passage of the Homeland Defence Act, designed to reorganise the military and raise defence spending, promises to eventually push the levels to 4% of GDP. Warsaw has made no secret of the fact that it wishes to have the continent’s largest army, a daft and distinctly draining exercise.

The figures are also significant given the increasingly proxy nature of the Ukraine War’s balance sheet. Ukraine, for its part, rose from its position at 36 on the league of arms spenders to 11 in 2022, with a figure of $44 billion. But SIPRI has a modest confession to make: it is unable to furnish us “an accurate assessment of the total amount of financial military aid to Ukraine”. This is largely because the donor countries have, for the most part, not released disaggregated data. A rough estimate of $30 billion is provided, which “includes financial contributions, training and operational costs, replacement costs of the military equipment stocks donated to Ukraine and payments to procure additional military equipment for the Ukrainian armed forces.”

Some of this must be factored into the increased budgets of the UK (top European spender at 3.1%), with Germany and France coming in at 2.5% and 2.4% respectively. Of the three, the UK has given the most military aid to Ukraine, and is second only behind the United States, which allocated $19.9 billion.

As for the US itself, the Biden administration has already mooted the idea that it will increase the number of troops deployed to Europe by 20,000 personnel to 100,000. The measure is part of the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI), an effort to, according to the US Department of Defense, “enhance the US deterrence posture, increase the readiness and responsiveness of US forces in Europe, support the collective defense and security of NATO allies, and bolster the security and capacity of US allies and partners.”

While China, with a bill of $292 billion, is leant upon as an excuse for increased military expenditure by other powers, the United States remains the undisputed premier spender, making up a staggering 39% of the global total at $877 billion. Hardly the sort of figure to be sported by a peacemaker.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University.  He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

West Sends Depleted Uranium Weapons to Ukraine: MEP to Warmongers – “You Make Me Sick!”

By Colin Todhunter, April 29, 2023

Those who have been following events in Ukraine will know of the bloodshed and destruction taking place in that country, especially if they go beyond mainstream media reports.

Blood Clots, Pulmonary Emboli in Young Women: A Not-so-rare and Often Fatal Complication of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccination

By Dr. William Makis, May 01, 2023

Pulmonary embolism (blood clots in the lungs) as an adverse event following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination has been well known since the vaccines were rolled out. Here is a case report of a 59 year old woman with pulmonary embolism 7 days after 1st Pfizer dose, published in June 2021. They always knew.

Who Gains from a Forever War in Ukraine?

By M. K. Bhadrakumar, May 01, 2023

The newly elected president of the Czech Republic Petr Pavel is an unusual European politician. He is the second president in his country with a military background but the first without political experience. 

UK Steams Towards Trade War with Turkey Over Ironing Boards

By Simon Hooper, May 01, 2023

In a report published this week, the UK’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) said Turkish manufacturers had benefited from state subsidies, and UK ironing board prices had been kept unfairly low because of a surge in imports from Turkey.

Not a Green Bone in Their White Bodies

By Stan Cox, April 29, 2023

It’s not often that conservative lobbyists beat the drum for increased environmental oversight and regulation. But that’s what happened this month when the far-right Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), through its legal arm, filed a brief in federal court demanding that the Department of Homeland Security conduct an extensive environmental impact study examining, of all things, immigration policy.

Bodybuilders Collapsing and Dying Suddenly. More Suspicious High Level Athlete Deaths

By Dr. William Makis, April 29, 2023

Some people might be tempted to dismiss deaths of bodybuilders. Not me. There are many deaths here that are highly suspicious, cardiac arrests, deaths in their sleep, and what I found particularly interesting, deaths with seemingly no explanation.

Bush Family’s Links to Nazi Germany: “A Famous American Family” Made Their Fortune from the Nazis

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 29, 2023

The Bush family’s links to Nazi Germany’s war economy were first brought to light at the Nuremberg trials in the testimony of Nazi Germany’s steel magnate Fritz Thyssen. Thyssen was a partner of George W. Bush’s grandfather Prescott Bush.

Russia-Africa Relations Under “The Crisis of the Existing World Order”

By Kester Kenn Klomegah, April 28, 2023

Several reports have criticised aspects of Russia’s policy, further identified pitfalls, and highlighted challenges and approach toward Africa, even after its first symbolic summit held in October 2019.

Groups Pushing Vaccine Passports, Mandates Were Quietly Funded by Pfizer

By The Free Thought Project, April 28, 2023

Pfizer, the manufacturer of one of the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines in the country, silently funded groups advocating for vaccine mandates and passports, according to a report by Lee Fang (paywalled).

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*** 

Graeme MacQueen was a powerful voice and a lifelong friend. Outstanding scholar and professor. He was a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), His Legacy will Live. Michel Chossudovsky

To read Graeme’s extensive writings and analysis published by Global Research, consult the Graeme MacQueen’s Archive (2011-2023)

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“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” ― Edmund Burke

Graeme MacQueen worked hard and effectively for Peace by demolishing the “B Movie” narrative of the 911 false flag. In so-doing, he also destroyed the fake narrative of the War on Terror.

Those of us who profess to support Peace while working or thinking within the framework of imperial war lies are not supporting Peace at all. In so doing, we are cogs in a war machine that has slaughtered millions since the end of WW2, and continues to do so.

MacQueen was instrumental in destroying the foundational myth of the fraudulent “Global War on Terror”, cover for  global war of imperial conquest, and the on-going slaughter,  death, impoverishment, and displacement of multitudes.

Our governments support al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria and beyond. Our governments are bringing us to the precipice of nuclear annihilation. Our governments need to be held to account, and it won’t happen if we continue to embrace criminal war lies.

Graeme MacQueen is an example of what we need to do. He embraced Truth for Peace. He was a “warrior” for Peace.

MacQueen was not silent.  His legacy will live on.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. He writes on his website where this article was originally published.

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*** 

Boise, ID – 42 year old photojournalist Theresa Marie Palmgren died suddenly on April 5, 2023 while at work from pulmonary embolism (click here)

St. Louis, MO – 27 year old artist and Twitch streamer Katlyn “Katie” Mae Cuneo died suddenly (from pulmonary embolism) on March 17, 2023

Guatemala – Pennsylvania mother of two boys, 27 year old Rocio “Rose” Michelle Roberts died suddenly on March 15, 2023, 4 days after giving birth, from a pulmonary embolism.

Eugene, OR – 46 year old Bethany Jessica Scott Price, age 46, died of a pulmonary embolism on March 6, 2023, according to those familiar with her death (click here)

UK – 31 year old beauty therapist Gemma Harries collapsed and died Jan. 16, 2023. She was found to have blood clots in her lungs and legs (click here)

UK – 41 year old Clare Duffy went to take a nap after waking up with a sore shoulder and died suddenly of pulmonary embolism on Jan. 8, 2023 (click here)

UK – 40 year old healthcare worker Kelly Gleeson died of a pulmonary embolism on Dec. 29, 2022 (click here)

Little Rock, AR – 18 year old cheerleader Victoria Moody died suddenly of pulmonary embolism on Oct. 23, 2022, after her dad took her to the hospital because she wasn’t feeling well on Sunday evening (click here)

Fareham, UK – 27 year old NHS nurse (who worked for Child and Adolescent Mental Health) Anna Harriman died suddenly in July 2022 of pulmonary embolism (click here)

Monterey, CA – 51 year old Human Trafficking Outreach Manager Deborah Pembrook died suddenly on April 27, 2022 from a massive pulmonary embolus (click here)

Gering, NE – 36 year old Cylie Noel Wyatt died suddenly from a saddle pulmonary embolism on May 19, 2022 (click here)

Houston, TX – Rice University director of student media, 46 year old Kelly Lash died suddenly on Feb. 21, 2022 died of pulmonary embolism (click here)

Washington, DC – 28 year old law student at Howard University, Saron Berhe, died suddenly of pulmonary embolism on Jan. 17, 2022 (click here)

UK – 23 year old Georgina Furniss died suddenly of large saddle pulmonary embolism on June 21, 2021 (click here)

My Take…

Pulmonary embolism (blood clots in the lungs) as an adverse event following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination has been well known since the vaccines were rolled out. Here is a case report of a 59 year old woman with pulmonary embolism 7 days after 1st Pfizer dose, published in June 2021. They always knew. (click here)

Shockingly, World Health Organization’s VigiAccess database records 29,046 pulmonary embolism adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination!

When a condition is as fatal as pulmonary embolism, 29,000 people reporting this to the WHO is an absolutely staggering number.

Anecdotally, women seem to be more affected by this adverse event, although it does happen to men as well.

Although a product like The Wellness Company’s Spike Support formula (CLICK HERE) contains Nattokinase, an enzyme that breaks down blood clots including those in the lungs, most people don’t know that they’re suffering from post COVID-19 vaccine blood clots until it’s too late.

That’s why it is so crucial to wake as many people up as possible.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Featured image:  A hand holding an mRNA vaccine vial. (Spencer Davis / Unsplash)

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*** 

The UK is steaming towards a possible trade war with Turkey in defence of the country’s only manufacturer of ironing boards.

In a report published this week, the UK’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) said Turkish manufacturers had benefited from state subsidies, and UK ironing board prices had been kept unfairly low because of a surge in imports from Turkey.

It said it intended to recommend the imposition of a 4.44 percent tariff, to be paid by companies importing ironing boards from Turkey to the UK, in order to protect the British manufacturer.

Oliver Griffiths, chief executive of the TRA, said:

“Our provisional finding is that subsidies have kept prices of the imported goods unfairly low, causing injury to the British producer, and so we’re intending to recommend a new tariff on ironing boards from Turkey.”

The TRA is a public body set up in 2021, following the UK’s exit from the European Union, “to defend the UK against unfair international trade practices”.

It investigates complaints raised by British industries and advises the Department for Business and Trade on measures to redress unfair trade practices.

The investigation into Turkish ironing boards is the TRA’s first into foreign state subsidies affecting British industry since it was established. If a tariff is imposed, it would be the first new anti-subsidy measure to be applied since the UK left the EU.

A tariff on ironing board imports would be compatible with the free trade agreement signed by the UK and Turkey in 2020 because both sides agreed to adhere to World Trade Organization rules which allow action against subsidies which cause harm to a domestic industry.

The investigation was launched by the TRA following a complaint filed by the UK ironing board manufacturer in April 2022.

It found that Turkish ironing board manufacturers based in free zones, special areas set up within Turkey since the 1980s to promote export businesses, had benefited from corporation and income tax exemptions which amounted to government subsidies.

Manufacturers also benefited from loans provided by the state-owned Turk Eximbank, the Turkish government’s export credit agency, which investigators determined also amounted to subsidies.

In a response to questions from investigators, Turkey’s Ministry of Trade said there was “no government involvement in policy, economic regulation and decision-making activities related to the production of ironing boards”.

As part of the investigation, TRA inspectors visited the factory of one manufacturer, Milenyum Metal, based in a free zone in the central Anatolian city of Kayseri.

Milenyum Metal was the only Turkish company to submit evidence to the inquiry. Two other Turkish companies registered an interest in the case but did not respond to questions from the TRA.

A spokesperson for Milenyum Metal declined to comment because the TRA investigation is still ongoing.

Inspectors compared the physical and functional characteristics of ironing boards manufactured in the UK and Turkey as well as similarities in production methods.

They concluded that the items were “directly comparable and interchangeable”.

The report said:

“We found that the basic product type consists of steel legs, steel top, iron rest and textile cover. The primary use of all product types is the ironing of clothes.”

A page of a TRA investigation document comparing Turkish and British ironing boards (TRA)

The investigation found that imports of Turkish ironing boards to the UK increased sharply in 2019. But sales of ironing boards fell in 2020 because of “changes in consumer habits” linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The ironing board market had displayed “signs of recovery” in 2021 with approximately 1.4m sold in the UK, the report said.

The report said the British producer held a market share of between 30 and 40 percent, but Turkish manufacturers retained an increased share of the import market and accounted for between 15 and 25 percent of the total market.

This had resulted, it concluded, in “significant price undercutting”, driving down the price of British-made ironing boards and preventing the UK manufacturer from raising prices in line with increased production costs.

The report noted that consumers were especially sensitive to price changes because of the “durable nature of ironing boards” and the existence of substitutes such as “table ironing mats, hand-held garment steamers, non-steel ironing boards, dry cleaning, or even wrinkle-free clothing”.

“UK ironing boards compete directly with ironing boards produced abroad, as they share physical and technical characteristics. Consumers are therefore driven by prices and would be willing to switch between brands to avoid higher prices,” it said.

The report said the British manufacturer, which is not named in the report, told investigators that it could be forced to cease production of ironing boards if a duty was not imposed on Turkish imports.

It is identified as having production sites in Rochdale and Manchester, with about 110 employees – just over a third of its total workforce – involved in making ironing boards. The company had a turnover of £42m ($53m) and a net profit of £1.8m ($2.2m) in 2021, according to data it submitted to the investigation.

Rochdale is the home of Minky Homecare, which describes itself as “the UK’s number one brand in the laundry market, with Minky ironing boards and covers found in over 70 percent of UK homes”.

Ironing boards advertised on Minky’s website are described as “designed and manufactured in the UK”.

Minky had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.

Wednesday’s report was a preliminary summary of the findings and likely recommendations of the investigation. Parties to the case, who also include UK importers of ironing boards, now have until 29 May to make further submissions prior to the publication of the TRA’s “final determination”.

The UK’s tax office on Wednesday announced that a provisional tariff on Turkish ironing board imports set at 4.42 percent would be imposed from 26 May. 

The final decision on imposing a tariff rests with Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch.

A spokesperson for the UK’s Department for Business and Trade declined to comment. Turkey’s Ministry of Trade did not respond to a request for comment.

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Featured image: Ironing boards made by Turkey’s Milenyum Metal at a Hong Kong trade fair in 2018 (Facebook)

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The newly elected president of the Czech Republic Petr Pavel is an unusual European politician. He is the second president in his country with a military background but the first without political experience. 

He never saw combat duty and is an arm chair military strategist but lionised as a “senior NATO leader” — whatever that may mean. The high noon of Pavel’s professional career in the military was reached in 1993 when while serving in the UN Protection Force in Bosnia, he led a team of 29 soldiers to evacuate a French military outpost under siege by Serbian soldiers, which he executed after overcoming obstacles that slowed down the operation such as fallen trees which his soldiers had to remove from the road. France decorated Pavel. 

At any rate, the 61-year old soldier-politician has hit the road running when barely 7 weeks into his new job as head of state, Pavel threw a curve ball claiming China cannot be a reliable mediator between Russia and Ukraine due to Beijing’s secret craving for “more war.”  

Pavel assessed that China gets cheap oil, gas, and other resources from Moscow in exchange for promises of “partnership” and its interest lies in prolonging the status quo “because it can push Russia to a number of concessions.” 

These remarks could have been dismissed as those of a greenhorn but for his fame as a “senior NATO leader” and the Czech Republic’s reputation as a chattel and cats-paw of Washington. Hence the big question: What is Biden administration up to? 

The obvious thing will be that Pavel’s remark on “cheap” oil and gas from Russia to China is a gross simplification of a complicated story. Europe was receiving Russian gas and oil for decades at low prices on the basis of long-term contracts until the EU, under American pressure, took the idiotic decision to sanction Russia.

Whereupon, Russia turned to other markets, principally Asian, China being one of them. The rest is history. What’s the point of sitting upon the ground and telling sad stories?

Europeans should feel worried that even after the war ends, once Russia diversifies its export markets, they may never again get “cheap” Russian gas. (By the way, China is not the only beneficiary, as Europeans who continue to buy Russian oil and petroleum products from Indian companies at much higher prices would know!) 

Pavel spoke in the context of the expected announcement by Joe Biden seeking the presidency once again in 2024. One hugely consequential part of Biden’s announcement on Tuesday is that the prospect of the Ukraine war ending between now and 2024 November elections in the US can now be deemed as practically nil. 

The only way it can happen otherwise is if the US outright wins the war and candidate Biden claims victory. But the reaction from Moscow shows that what is in the cards is an escalation in Ukraine that is fraught with great risk of a direct conflict between Russia and the US.

Top Kremlin officials came out on Tuesday with a spate of statements on an impending showdown with the Biden administration. The Russian media disclosed that Russia’s new state-of-the-art Armata T-14 main battle tank has been deployed on the Ukrainian front lines. 

Moscow anticipates large scale US interference in Russia’s internal politics to create conditions that would undermine the country’s stability, as part of a grand design to trigger a break-up of the Russian Federation, as had happened to the former Soviet Union. (here)

Moscow estimates that the Biden administration will try hard to bring about a regime change in the Kremlin. Above all, Moscow no longer rules out that the US escalation in Ukraine may aim to create conditions posing grave threat to the Russian state. ( here) 

The former president Dmitry Medvedev vividly spoke of such a scenario warning explicitly that Russia may be compelled to resort to first use of nuclear arms if its existence is threatened, underscoring that paragraph 19 of the country’s nuclear doctrine states that nuclear weapons “can be used when aggression is carried out against Russia with the use of other types of weapons that endanger the very existence of the state. It is essentially the use of nuclear weapons in response to such actions. Our potential adversaries should not underestimate this.” 

Specifically, with reference to Biden’s mental health and failing faculties, Medvedev also tweeted:

“Biden has made the decision, after all. A daring geezer. In place of the American military, I would immediately make a fake trunk with false nuclear codes in case he wins, so as to avoid fatal consequences.” 

On the other hand, the spectre that haunts the Biden administration is that Europe cannot easily extricate itself from its relationship with China and it is the interests of Old Europe’s economic heartlands that will ultimately determine EU policy.

Make no mistake, just 3 countries of Old Europe — France, Italy and Germany —  account for more than a half of EU’s GDP and they also happen to be China’s largest trading partners in the EU. Amidst the brouhaha over French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent endorsement of a close industrial relationship with China, what has gone unnoticed is that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is on the same page as Macron. Equally so with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The European industry is also loathe to lose China as a privileged trading partner, after having lost Britain and Russia. 

New Europeans like Pavel may have different priorities, being the strongest trans-atlanticists in the EU, but East Europe makes up just 10% of the EU’s GDP and does not speak for the EU, despite the media hype its leaders have lately enjoyed as “frontline states”, due to the Anglo-American patronage.         

Suffice to say, there is trepidation in the American mind as to whether the EU will follow the US into a confrontational position with China in the coming months, or would strive to become more independent of the US, with all the consequences that would ensue. Equally, from the viewpoint of Old Europe, the gnawing doubt is whether a future US administration would want to align with Europe even if Europe were to align with the US. 

On balance, it is difficult to visualise the EU fully aligning with the US in an all-out conflict with China over Taiwan, agree to freeze Chinese official reserves as it did last year with Russia, and stop investing in China.

The EU economy is simply not built for cold-war style relations, as it has become too dependent on global supply chains. All things taken into account, therefore, the strong likelihood is that the pro-China lobby in Germany will win this debate. In fact, in the process, the Franco-German alliance may be rekindled, too.  

Pavel’s demonisation of China as an evil spirit stalking Europe can be put in perspective. His is a surrogate voice mouthing Biden’s angst that as the Ukrainian military is comprehensively ground down in the battlefields by the Russian forces in the months ahead, Europe may join hands with China to bring the war to an end. 

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Featured image: Russia’s T-14 Armata Next Gen. Tank Deployed to Ukrainian Frontlines (Source: IP)

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*** 

The US will work alongside South Korea to develop a strategic nuclear policy and frequently station nuclear weapon-armed submarines on the peninsula, according to an agreement announced by the White House marking the first visit of the new South Korean president to the US.

Released on Wednesday, before the East Room was festooned with guests watching President Yoon Suk-yeol sing The Day the Music Died karaoke style, it marks the first time that US nuclear warheads will be present on the Korean Peninsula since they were removed in 1991, and the first outright departure from commitments to reduce the reliance on deterrence with nuclear weapons.

It also came, unlikely by chance, on the 5-year anniversary of the signing of the Panmunjom Declaration between former President Moon Jae-in and Chairman Kim Jung-un.

That was the closest the Korean Peninsula had come to peace since the Korean War was concluded with a ceasefire in 1953, and the closest to a denuclearized Korea since the North first got the bomb sometime between when it left the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2003, and its first detonation in 2006.

“US officials said the nuclear-armed submarines will only ‘visit’ South Korea and that the US won’t permanently deploy nukes to the country,” reports Antiwar news editor Dave DeCamp. “But under the deal, the temporary deployment of US strategic assets to the peninsula will become much more frequent”.

The deal stipulates that South Korea will not seek to individually obtain nuclear weapons, something which President Yoon mused about earlier in his presidency, but which the Blue House walked back.

Atoms for survival

The North Korean state is often referred to as “rogue” vis-à-vis the international community. But they aren’t madmen or fools. They knew the only way their regime could survive Washington’s unipolar moment following the collapse of their Soviet benefactors was to harness the power of the atom bomb.

The easiest comparison to make to understand their thinking is looking at the current North Korean dictatorship, which got nukes and is still around, and compare it to the Libyan dictatorship, which had chemical weapons, got rid of them around the same time that North Korea left the NPT to pursue nukes, and was overthrown by America under Obama.

South Korea on the other hand has for some time polled strongly in favor of establishing independent nuclear capabilities, and the New York Times suggests that Yoon is looking to assuage those in favor with this cooperative strategy with the US – amounting to what is essentially a carbon-copy of the NATO nuclear weapons sharing agreement.

South Korea is part of the NPT, so in principle there’s no reason to think public pressure could change the status quo there. North Korea is the only country that‘s ever left the NPT having first ratified it.

The bigger concern should be, with nuclear weapons coming in and out of harbor in the South, to what degree does this agreement escalate tensions, reduce the future chances for better North-South cooperation, and increase the risk of a nuclear accident?

There’s always a risk when nuclear weapons are present in a geopolitical conflict zone, but with the existing conventional forces aimed at the North, the deterrence against a disarming nuclear first strike by Kim Jung-UN remains high.

Countering Trump

What is always the biggest risk, and what Daniel Ellsberg details so well in his 2021 book The Doomsday Machine, is the risk in these situations for a nuclear accident, or an unauthorized launch, particularly in the midst of other crises and communications disruptions.

On this front, the greater presence of nuclear weapons on the peninsula will do nothing to make the peninsula safer for the North and the South.

Much was made at the White House about the date being the 70th anniversary of the first alliance between the South Koreans and the US.

What the deal more likely represents is an attempt to rubber-stamp the military-industrial complex’s rejection of former President Trump’s notion, a notion that was realized five years ago today, that the way in which the peninsula could be made safer is through reduced sanctions, reduced military drills and buildup, and more cross-Korean dialogue.

With Donald Trump and Joe Biden having already announced their candidacies for the 2024 Presidential Election, making the American people’s latest memory of the stalemate in Korea be Yoon singing karaoke after agreeing to allow more US military involvement in the peninsula, is how the Biden team believes they can erase any memories of what was certainly one of the most significant events in the Trump presidency – that like Alexander the Great, he was almost able to cut the Gordian Knot of the Korean War.

The pictures of Trump, President Moon, and Chairman Kim shaking hands and crossing the turquoise border on the DMZ, and the later images of Kim clasping hands with Moon in the Blue House, having just signed an agreement to formally end the Korean War and begin talks on a stepwise disarmament effort, were exceptionally powerful images that sat on the front pages of every major news outlet on the planet for a week.

It’s a legacy that Biden hoped no doubt to erase with this recent agreement. More his part, Biden made a point in a statement on the meeting that he remains committed to negotiation with the North, and invites them back to the table. But that’s a lie, or at least foolish to say, because he’s “committed” absolutely nothing to the effort; not as president, nor as a senator.

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Andrew Corbley is founder and editor of World at Large, an independent news outlet. He is a loyal listener of Antiwar radio and of the Scott Horton Show. Reprinted with permission from World at Large.

Featured image: Trump and Kim meet Sunday before Trump became first US president to step on North Korean territory. (White House photo)

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*** 

Roger Helbig, a man with an unhealthy obsession: he believes that depleted uranium (DU) waste from the nuclear fuel cycle, which is used in munitions and bullets – is safe.

I received an unsolicited email from him, entitled ‘The Real Doug Rokke’ in response to an article I had written for The Brussels Tribunal. It read:

‘I see that you have been taken in by Doug Rokke, who really does not know much about anything, let alone depleted uranium. It is sad that a Phd has so little real knowledge. I also see you claim to be a journalist. What newspapers, radio stations or TV stations have you actually worked for, or are you like Bob Nichols, a self-described journalist with no actual journalistic experience?’

His tirade continued:

‘Rokke’s military records and part of his PhD thesis are attached. You will note he has no real expertise in depleted uranium and his claims about the Middle East are pure fantasy, yet you inflame the Arab street with them. You ought to learn more about what is before telling the world all about it.’

I had written in the article:

‘Depleted uranium from shells fired by British and American forces during the Balkan wars has found its way into the food chain and has been detected amongst the civilian populations of Kosovo and Bosnia. A study of the local population in three locations in the two Balkan regions has found samples of the highly radioactive particles in the urine of all those tested.’

Helbig had highlighted the excerpt, commenting:

‘This is pure bullshit and you know it. Where are the actual test results? I presume you don’t choose to read the United Nations Environmental Programme report – it is only about 300 pages, well documented instead of scientific myth!’

Lieutenant Colonel Roger Helbig, USAF, Rtd (it appears) is one of a small Pentagon-inspired group devoted to denigrating and undermining the efforts of those drawing attention to the dangers of DU, which three UN Sub-Committees have designated a weapon of mass destruction. Rokke is just the latest in a long line of Helbig targets. Journalist Bob Nichols, Project Censored award winner for his DU coverage, writes, ‘Individuals on web sites throughout the United States have complained about the abusive and aggressive actions of an Air Force Lieut. Colonel named Roger Helbig’.

David Lindorff, another award winner and the (UK) Observer’s David Rose, have also suffered a barage of abuse for stories exposing the dangers of DU, which poisons the environment, thus entire food chain regionally where used, for four-and-a-half billion years.

Nichols cites Helbig ‘attacking hundreds of sites and harrassing web moderators.’ Informative DU sites (such as [email protected] and www.notinkansas.us – the latter’s meticulously researched alerts included the chilling warning of US military in Iraq reagrding bathing in shower water taken from Tigris river: ‘GI’s Beware Radioactive Showers’) are also victims. Researcher, John Ervin, posted on www.apfn.net: ‘They’ve already sent Lt. Colonel Roger Helbig after me.’

Leuren Moret, President of Scientists for Indigenous Peoples and City of Berkeley (Ca) Environmental Commissioner states: ‘Helbig has been harassing me nonstop for two to three years.’ Moret travels the world warning on the dangers of DU, working with a group of independent scientists (www.radiation.org) and submitted a paper on DU to a UN Sub-Committee, one of the ones which led to DUs designation as a weapon of mass destruction.

The picture Helbig paints of his latest target Rokke is unrecognisable from the truth. Major (Dr) Doug Rokke, Former Director of the US Army Depleted Uranium Project (www.traprockpeace.org), principal author of the Pentagon regulations and procedural guidelines (US Army Regulation 700-48 And US Army PAM 700-48) on the dangers and handling of DU affected areas: tanks, structures, terrain, equipment and personnel, civilian and military.

Rokke, whose team led the (impossible) clean up in Kuwait in 1991 after the first Gulf War, was so horrified by what he found, he finally spoke out – at cost. Sick from DU poisoning himself, he has suffered ongoing ‘physical, psychological and economic threats’ from Helbig and other US government representatives since.

Rokke has crucial, credible, hands-on knowledge, thus, writes David Lindorff, the effort to discredit him, label him ‘a fraud’, demote him to ‘Lt.’ by Helbig, has been vicious and tenacious.

This is the same Doug Rokke whose Army evaluation report, dated July 30th 1994, cites the then Captain Rokke as being Project Director and primary technical expert and specialist adviser to US Army major commands, the US Army Chemical School and contractors during training, development and test implementation. In 1995 he was cited for a ‘meritorious service’ medal, for work on DU. He left the army when none of his health warning reached the troops.

Rokke and another former Pentagon advisor, Dr Asav Durakovic, whose CV and list of peer reviewed papers runs to 52 pages, Canadian expert Professor Hari Sharma (who wrote to NATO and world leaders of the dangers of DU), Dr Garth Nicholson and others have demanded appropriate testing and treatment of all affected – soldiers and civilians – and rigorous DU clean up, where used or tested ‘as already required by the US Department of Defence regulations…’, states Rokke. The polluter pays. But the cost would be stratospheric; so Helbig’s group stalk the internet to insult and intimidate.

‘The use of uranium munitions is an act of terror,’ Rokke says. In context, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority ‘selfinitiated’ a report for the British government on DU shortly after the 1991 war. If 50 tonnes of the residual DU dust remained, they estimated that there wiuld be in excess of half a million cancer deaths in the region by the year 2000. The Pentagon admits to 325 tonnes remaining and other estimates are as high as 900 tonnes. In 2003 a further two thousand tonne DU burden has been admitted to.

Iraq and the region’s cancers have become a tragedy equalling Chernobyl. Oddly, when the US/UK military allowed the looting of every Iraqi State building, all medical records of this unique war crime was destroyed.

Helbig is excercised by a memo from Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico, from a Lt. Colonel Larson to a Major Ziehman. It is dated the day after the 1991 onslaught on Iraq ended (1st March 1991.) Headed ‘The Effectiveness of Depleted Uranium Penetrators’, it reads: ‘There is a relatively small amount of lethality data for uranium penetrators… The recent war has likely multiplied the DU rounds fired at targets by orders of magnitude…

‘There has been and continues to be a concern regarding the impact of DU on the environment. Therefore, if no one makes a case for the effectiveness of DU on the battlefield, DU rounds may become politically unacceptable and thus, be deleted from the arsenal.’ Thus, ‘we should assure their future existence’ otherwise may stand to lose them. He continues, ‘I believe we should keep this sensitive issue in mind, when, after action, reports are written.’

US tanks damaged by DU rounds in 1991 were taken to a nuclear decontamination plant at Barnwell, North Carolina, reportedly constructed the previous year solely for this purpose. Those beyond decontamination were buried in specially licensed landfill sites.

In June 1995 the US Army Environmental Policy Institute wrote of DU: ‘DU is a radioactive waste and therefore should be deposited in a licensed repository’. The poisoned chalice of breaking the news that Kuwait had been turned in to an unlicensed one, fell to the luckless British Ambassador.

Helbig’s email cites the United Nations Environment Agency Report. There were two UNEP Reports on Balkans contamination. The first was cut – under alleged US/UK pressure – from 72 pages, to two. An impeccable source on the second, to which Helbig refers, stated that in spite of considerable obstacles placed in their way, a list of the most contaminated sites to sample was compiled. On arrival, the multinational forces excluded visits to those sites. As Professor Malcolm Hooper, Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at Sunderland University (UK) writes in his article ‘Most Toxic War in Western Military History’, regarding Iraq in 1991: ‘at every level, investigation into illness, birth defects, contamination has been blocked and bedevilled by … a pervasive myopia which sees lack of evidence as proof.’

Last September, Lieutenant Colonel Helbig, of Richardson, California, was in Court. Complex, inter-connected cases, heard also in June and July, due to resume in December, involve Helbig’s neighbour, Jamahl Feres, of Syrian origin and his Swiss wife Katherine. They allege suffering three years of harrasment including the last year, in which Helbig covered all windows in his house which faced theirs, with Israeli flags. Leuren Moret and Bob Nichol will be witnesses for the Feres’s.

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Veteran War Correspondent Felicity Arbuthnot is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization and Associate Editor of Global Research.

Le guerre divampano dal Sudan all’Ucraina. Cresce di conseguenza la spesa militare mondiale. L’Europa ha speso nel 2022 in armi e operazioni militari  il 13% in più rispetto al 2021, registrando il più forte aumento da 30 anni a questa parte. La spesa militare annua dell’Italia è salita a oltre 30 miliardi di euro, ossia a una media di oltre 80 milioni di euro al giorno.

Si continua allo stesso tempo a nascondere e mistificare le vere cause delle guerre. Il presidente Biden dichiara che “la tragica violenza in Sudan è inconcepibile e deve finire”. Cancella in tal modo il fatto che, quando era vicepresidente dell’Amministrazione Obama, è stato uno dei principali artefici della strategia statunitense che ha alimentato la guerra in Sudan per spaccare il paese in due parti. Nasceva così nel 2011 lo Stato artificiale del Sud Sudan, in possesso del 75% delle riserve petrolifere sudanesi. Ciò ha provocato l’ulteriore estensione dei conflitti interni e delle ingerenze esterne per il controllo della regione sudanese, importante sia perché è ricca di petrolio, gas naturale, oro e altre materie prime, sia perché  ha una posizione geostrategica  chiave nel continente africano.

In Ucraina Stati Uniti, NATO e Unione Europea continuano ad alimentare la guerra contro la Russia, fornendo al regime di Kiev crescenti quantità di armi e assistenza militare di ogni tipo. Allo stesso tempo fanno sì che il regime di Kiev cancelli tutto ciò che è russo dall’Ucraina e dalla sua storia. Dopo che Kiev ha decretato di mandare al rogo 100 milioni di libri russi a partire dai classici della letteratura – una pratica analoga a quella del nazismo hitleriano – Zelenski ha firmato una legge che vieta i nomi russi dei luoghi e altri simboli della fondamentale componente russa della storia ucraina. Il loro uso è considerato per legge un “atto criminale” e comporta gravi pene. Zelenski ha inoltre firmato una legge in base alla quale, per ottenere la cittadinanza ucraina, è necessario un esame non solo sulla lingua ma anche sulla “storia dell’Ucraina”. Questa è riscritta da “storici” che esaltano personaggi come Stepan Bandera, collaborazionista del nazismo hitleriano. Nello stesso quadro, la Corte Suprema Ucraina ha decretato nel 2022 che i simboli della Divisione SS Galizia – composta da nazisti ucraini che commisero crimini orrendi – non sono nazisti e possono quindi essere usati quali simboli politici anche nelle manifestazioni. Questa Ucraina il Governo italiano si impegna a “ricostruire” investendovi miliardi di euro sottratti ai cittadini italiani.

Manlio Dinucci

 

VIDEO :

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First published on April 18, 2023

*** 

Electronic warfare (EW) is one of the most important aspects of modern military capabilities and is often the litmus test of how advanced the state and its armed forces are. It’s part of the “invisible” and yet extremely intense battle that we usually cannot see directly.

However, its impact is wholly undeniable. Russia is among the world leaders in EW and its warfighting capabilities in this regard are a source of pride for the Eurasian giant, but also fear for its adversaries.

Russian dominance in EW on the frontlines of Ukraine is so comprehensive and massive that it’s one of the few things the mainstream propaganda machine never dared to question or ridicule. Even Russian strategic thermonuclear capabilities were subjected to propaganda attacks at times, but its EW capabilities – never. And for good reason.

And yet, as with everything concerning the mainstream propaganda machine, we must tread carefully. This is especially true when it comes to the media citing the Pentagon “leaks” as their primary source of information. Needless to say, an actual leak would require an inadvertent release of classified information and most intelligence experts agree it’s extremely unlikely there was anything inadvertent about it. However, this is not to say that all information connected to the “leak” is false. On the contrary, its relatively elaborate nature implies that much of it is indeed true, but it can be difficult to discern what exactly. One of the few “leaked” facts we can surely believe concerns precisely Russian EW capabilities. Still, this begs the question – why?

To answer that, we should first dissect and specify the claims of the mainstream propaganda machine. The “leaks” include a massive amount of information, including the claim that US-made JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) bombs are failing in Ukraine due to successful Russian EW measures. The “leak” documents not only review the use of Russian countermeasures to make JDAMs ineffective, but also indicate that in some cases this results in failure to even detonate. It seems this includes the JDAM-ER (Extended Range) bombs that the troubled Biden administration sent to the Kiev regime in order to provide certain battlefield advantages to its forces. A futile effort, it would seem now, although the documents suggest that at least a thousand JDAM kits have been sent so far.

Politico claims that “Russia is using GPS jamming to interfere with the weapons’ targeting process, according to the slide and a separate person familiar with the issue who’s not in the US government”. The report further states that “American officials believe Russian jamming is causing the JDAMs, and at times other American weapons such as guided rockets, to miss their mark”. Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official and retired CIA officer claims: “I do think there may be concern that the Russians may be jamming the signal used to direct the JDAMs, which would answer why these munitions are not performing in the manner expected and how they perform in other war zones.”

This was quite an unpleasant surprise for the Kiev regime as it expected the JDAMs to be a “game changer” providing key tactical advantages that Russia supposedly “couldn’t match”. However, it’s not just that this completely false sense of security fell apart as a result, but it turns out that the performance of other much-touted NATO-sourced weapons is little more than PR optics. The “leak” suggests that even the M270 and HIMARS rockets are being successfully countered by Russian GPS jamming tactics. Many documents consistently show that the Kiev regime forces are generally beset by chronic munitions and advanced weapons shortages, and having Russian EW capabilities preventing precision targeting is exacerbating this exponentially, despite countless billions in weapons provided by the political West.

This is where we come to the “solution” the American Military Industrial Complex (MIC) may come up with.

How does the world’s largest cartel of arms producers solve the issues with the precision of their weapons? Well, more weapons!

With the Kiev regime potentially acquiring thousands of additional JDAMs, obviously by using funds provided by the political West, since the Neo-Nazi junta itself is “financially dead”, as Hungarian President Viktor Orban accurately assessed, US MIC contractors get even more billions of American taxpayers’ dollars. The contract to alter and/or upgrade thousands of JDAMs and other munitions would provide long-term contracts to the likes of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, BAE Systems, etc. This could be one of the few logical answers to the question of why the mainstream propaganda machine suddenly felt the urge to tell the truth for once.

However, we shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking this has anything to do with altruistic motives or even the desire to make the Kiev regime a more effective fighting force. The main goal primarily revolves around causing as much death and destruction as possible, particularly to civilian infrastructure in the Donbass and other areas of former Ukraine. This has twofold advantages for the US. First, Russia is left with destroyed buildings and infrastructure that need to be renovated and second, the mainstream propaganda machine can portray the destruction as caused by Russia. This also explains why the Neo-Nazi junta continues using Western weapons that keep missing and hitting civilian areas. 

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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First published on March 22, 2023

***

Those who have been following events in Ukraine will know of the bloodshed and destruction taking place in that country, especially if they go beyond mainstream media reports. This is not to excuse Russia’s brutal military actions, but it was a wholly avoidable conflict that was largely engineered in Washington by a clique of neoconservatives who have been responsible for igniting situations that have led to hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths this century, from Libya, Syria and Iraq to Afghanistan and beyond, aside from the displacement of many more.  

The NATO countries continue to ship arms and equipment to Ukraine, swelling the coffers of arms manufacturers like Raytheon. The UK has now decided to send weapons containing depleted uranium, provoking a firm response from Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Russian Television and Radio (VGTRK) that the UK’s depleted uranium supply violates international law.

Labrov said:

“They [the UK] have already lost their bearings in terms of their actions and how these actions undermine strategic stability around the world.”

He added that this will “end badly” for London.

On her Telegram account, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova explained:

“These shells not only kill but infect the environment and cause cancer in people living on these lands.”

It is clear that – and it has been clear for a very long time – that those who create policy care nothing for ordinary people who are regarded as expendable in the lust for power, profit and geopolitical gain.

Relatively few politicians have stood up to challenge the official narrative on Ukraine, let alone call out those responsible for adding fuel to a fire in danger of escalating out of control. MEP Clare Daly has been one politician (along with fellow MEP Mick Wallace) who has been fearless in her response to events, not only regarding Ukraine but also concerning US wars of aggression across the globe in that country’s ultimately doomed attempt to maintain global hegemony.

Her recent brief but powerful speech (with transcript) given to the European parliament on 15 March is worth listening to and is presented below.

“Listening to the cheerleading in here, safe and secure thousands of miles away from the frontlines, I think it would be a useful exercise for us to remind ourselves about what ordinary Ukrainians are experiencing.

“The Economist reports of forced recruitment across the country. Draftees with no experience or training are being sent to the front in what a UK minister calls First World War levels of attrition. Casualty figures are secret, but we know there are estimates of about 120,000 (dead). Battalion commanders tell the Washington Post of recruits fleeing positions on mass. Politico reports a crackdown on deserters.

“These are human beings and there is a shameful lack of empathy for ordinary people in the war rhetoric in here. The debate is about keeping the weapons flowing to keep the war going. Ukraine is burning through a generation of men. Sons, husbands, brothers who can never be replaced. This cannot go on indefinitely.

“And it’s sickening to watch generals who sit in here and will these men to their deaths. You make me sick!!

“We need peace. We need dialogue, however unpleasant that may be.”

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Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) in Montreal.

Featured image is from Kurt Nimmo

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Read Colin Todhunter’s e-Book entitled

Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order

We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is also involved (documented in ‘Gates to a Global Empire‘ by Navdanya International), whether through buying up huge tracts of farmland, promoting a much-heralded (but failed) ‘green revolution’ for Africa, pushing biosynthetic food and genetic engineering technologies or more generally facilitating the aims of the mega agri-food corporations.

Click here to read.

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*** 

Joe Biden with a dismal approval rating of 37% has announced that he is running for a second term. How can he possibly win? By again stealing the election.

Democrats control the large cities in swing states. In the past two elections, they have proven that they can easily steal the election. It is now impermissible to even report evidence of election theft. Experts who provided evidence were threatened with prosecution, and Fox News management rushed to pay more than three-quarters of a billion dollars of shareholders’ money in order to create the precedent that reporting evidence of stolen elections constitutes defamation. As Democrats control election procedures and vote counting in large cities, they, and not the voters, determine election outcomes. The last two American national elections prove the truth of Stalin’s dictum:  It matters not how people vote; it matters who counts the votes. 

The All-America Economic Survey found that 70% of Americans disfavor a Biden second term.This indicates that a large percentage of Democrats themselves do not want Biden. In America today, elections are nothing more than a veil behind which the elite rule.

The Democrats have a good candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  But RFK opposes Big Pharma’s control of US medicine and the agencies–FDA, NIH, CDC–that serve as Big Pharma’s protectors and marketing agents, and he opposes other aspects of the oligarchic system protected by official narratives upheld by the media. RFK will not be permitted to be president.  

Republican Trump has by far the largest number of voters, but the Democrats have weaponized law in an effort to stop him from running. Other possible and strong Republican candidates – Ron DeSantis and Tucker Carlson – are unacceptable to the ruling elite and to the Republican establishment. If DeSantis makes himself acceptable to the establishment, he will lose his luster with voters.

The long-term ongoing collapse of US education has produced a population many of whom are comfortable with censoring and suppressing information that they are programmed to regard as “offensive” or “misinformation.” These two categories of unwelcome information refer to truths that are inconvenient for the elite and their official narratives. The regard of truth as hurtful has gained a foothold and exercises peer pressure on parts of the population, which makes it difficult for the people to act in their own interest.

Essentially, democracy has ceased to exist in the US. Increasingly, “elected” representatives are appointees of the ruling elite, who control the selection of candidates by their allocations of campaign funds. Trump was the last elected  President (twice). It is unlikely the ruling elite will allow Trump to again enter the White House.

When agendas prevail over truth, tyranny is the consequence. When facts can’t matter, there is no science. Remember how easy it was for a crank to destroy Soviet genetics. Already in the US we have reached the point where mathematics is said to be a tool of white supremacy. Americans might think this is laughable, but the Soviet geneticists who were executed and imprisoned didn’t find it laughable.

In America today there is no remaining foundation for democracy. The media has been captured and turned into a propaganda ministry for the ruling elites. Truth is discredited as hurtful, offensive, and a danger to national security–remember Julian Assange has been in effect incarcerated for a decade without due process of law simply because he reported leaked facts inconvenient for the US government. Tucker Carlson has just been fired from Fox News for telling truths inconvenient for the ruling elite.

Formerly, the Democrats represented the working class, and Republicans represented the business class. Today both parties represent the ruling oligarchy. No party represents the people.  

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

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It’s not often that conservative lobbyists beat the drum for increased environmental oversight and regulation. But that’s what happened this month when the far-right Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), through its legal arm, filed a brief in federal court demanding that the Department of Homeland Security conduct an extensive environmental impact study examining, of all things, immigration policy.

In a press release, the group laid out its reasoning:

“Clearly, DHS desperately wants to avoid the impossible task of explaining, in detail, why adding millions of illegal aliens to our population does not harm the environment, or why the harm it does cause is somehow ‘worth it.’”

Ostensibly green rationales for ever harsher immigration policies are hardly a new phenomenon. U.S. and European anti-immigrant movements have long used the real need for environmental protection as an excuse for demanding ever harsher treatment of immigrants. Now, with drought, flooding, storms, and other manifestations of climate disruption swelling the ranks of people seeking refuge outside their home countries, far-rightists are dialing up their evocations of nature to push ever greater cruelty toward immigrants.

The pervasive theme in such circles is that, in an already overpopulated America, more millions of dark-skinned immigrants, having supposedly wreaked ecological destruction in their own countries in the Global South, are now crossing our borders in ever larger numbers. They will, so the thinking goes, despoil this country’s environment, too — and the only way to stop them is by using ever more violent means. The extremists peddling such propaganda are coming to be known these days as “ecofascists.” Above all else, they insist, the United States must maintain white control over “our” country — you know, the lands that our ancestors stole from Native peoples who actually knew how to live in harmony with nature.

In the process, such white supremacists are, without the slightest sense of irony, increasingly adopting the language of environmentalism to push both grotesque anti-immigrant bigotry and a broader, genuinely unnerving far-right agenda.

A Crueler Shade of Green

In the past few years, ecofascism has broken into the mainstream news cycle several times, most notably in connection with a grim set of mass shootings.

Nineteen-year-old Payton Gendron, who pled guilty to murdering 10 Blacks in a Buffalo grocery store last year, explicitly called himself an ecofascist. In the manifesto he left behind, he wrote,

“For too long we have allowed the left to co-opt the environmentalist movement to serve their own needs. The left has controlled all discussion regarding environmental preservation whilst simultaneously presiding over the continued destruction of the natural environment itself through mass immigration and uncontrolled urbanization.”

Urbanization, you see, because you know what kind of people live in cities. (Wink, wink.)

Patrick Crusius, who killed 23 people in an El Paso Walmart in 2019, left behind a manifesto raising false alarms about a “Hispanic invasion.” He wrote:

“The environment is getting worse by the year. Most of y’all are just too stubborn to change your lifestyle. So the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.”

Both men drew inspiration from Brenton Tarrant, the white supremacist who, earlier in 2019, had murdered 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Tarrant wrote a manifesto in which he declared,

“The invaders are the ones over-populating the world… Kill the invaders, kill the overpopulation and by doing so save the environment.”

Florid rhetoric notwithstanding, those mass killers did not actually have ecological sustainability at the top of their minds. They just put a green veneer on their hatred of immigrants, an increasingly familiar tactic of the racist right. Philip Santoro, in a rant for the white nationalist publication American Renaissance in 2017, slathered on an early and especially rancid coat of green:

“The Left’s ‘green politics,’ combined with support for mass immigration and opposition to nuclear power, would mean a future of overcrowding, poverty, and the displacement of whites. When the Left tackles climate change, it wants to ‘save the planet’ — but apparently for someone else’s babies. The population explosion in the global south combined with climate change and liberal attitudes towards migration are the single greatest external threat to Western civilization.”

At the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, Frederike Wegener reported that, on social media, violent extremists increasingly “disguise racist and nativist ideas behind environmental concerns to lure in young people and environmental activists,” utilizing slogans like “Love Nature, Kill Non-Whites” and “Save Bees, Plant Trees, Shoot Refugees.” Creating an overwhelming sense of imminent ecological catastrophe, he wrote, can induce nonviolent, climate-conscious citizens to make common cause with violent nativists.

Deploying bees and trees as a cover for such right-wing policies has a long history in America. The growth of the anti-immigration movement over the past half-century in particular is widely credited to a Michigan ophthalmologist named John Tanton, who, as Paloma Quiroga wrote for Wellesley College’s Environmental Synthesis and Communications blog in 2021, “viewed overpopulation and immigration as a threat to the environment and to the future of white America — views that are explicitly ecofascist. In his efforts to thwart immigration, he ended up creating a vast loose-knit network of anti-immigration groups and lobbyists, now dubbed the Tanton network.” Since the 1980s, that network has managed to sabotage all attempts to develop humane federal immigration policies.

Today, the most powerful group in the network is the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the outfit pressuring the Department of Homeland Security on the supposed environmental impact of immigrants. On its website, FAIR dwells on the evils of population growth — and by that it means only the growth of “certain” populations:

“Currently, there are 326 million people residing in the U.S., so immigration alone will be responsible for an additional 78 million people over the course of just 40 years… Growth of the population at those levels are certain to impact both the quality of life for average Americans and the sustainability of the environment. The threat of overpopulation is not to our economic health, but also to the present and future quality of life and environmental sustainability… The progress the nation has made toward increased conservation and fuel and energy efficiency will continue to be eroded…”

Connecting anti-immigrant and racist ideas via population growth to environmental degradation is nothing new. The racism of the conservation movement’s founding fathers, including John Muir and John James Audubon, have been widely discussed in recent years. In the late 1990s, Tanton, at the time still a member of the Sierra Club, pushed for that venerable environmental organization to adopt an explicitly nativist position. That proposal was voted down, but only by a very narrow margin. In 2004, anti-immigrant members again tried to seize control of the organization — and once again they failed. In recent years, in fact, the Sierra Club has forcefully renounced its former toleration of nativist sentiment within its membership and has come to actively support immigrant rights.

Ecofascist arguments serve not only as an excuse for abusing immigrants, but are also being deployed by a broader, more violent range of far-right groups and movements on both sides of the Atlantic. Environmental and anti-industrial calls to action have been a staple of the leading U.S. neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer, along with several far-right groups, including The Base, the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division (rebooted as the National Socialist Order), and the Pine Tree Gang. Far-right political parties in France, Austria, and Germany have similarly espoused the merging of “ecological civilization” and “ecocentric nativism.”

Equal-Opportunity Collapse?

The ecofascists’ use of green rhetoric is, of course, wholly disingenuous. But frightening as well is the way similar impulses have crept into the edges of the actual environmental movement, most of which is still identified not just with the leftward reaches of American politics, but with nonviolence. Still, in a country filled to the brim with weaponry and displaying a growing urge for violence (of which ecofascism is such a painful example), even those genuinely encouraging the greening of the planet have, sadly enough, not proven completely immune to the urge to deploy such tactics.

Last October, I experienced this personally. I gave an online talk about the role that rationing could play in curbing ecological destruction. The audience, including members of several West Coast environmental groups, seemed quite receptive. So, I was shocked when, as the hour ended, the moderator wrapped by veering into distinctly weird territory. Resolving the ecological crisis, he suddenly suggested, might require us to consider the “value” of “authoritarianism,” or more specifically, of “green fascism, or maybe green ‘equitable’ fascism.” As the session had already spilled into overtime, there was no opportunity for me to consider, much less discuss, how such ideas might have infiltrated a green movement that had long been peaceable indeed.

Radical movements to achieve a green, equitable society have been around at least since the rise of groups like Earth First! in the 1980s. In more recent times, however, movements like the Earth Liberation Front advocated damaging or destroying industrial infrastructure as an essential step toward a more ecologically sound society. For the past decade, the Deep Green Resistance movement has gone even further, insisting that the goal of such sabotage should be the complete collapse of industrial society. Only a return to pre-industrial civilization, it maintains, will give the planet room to heal, while creating opportunities for us to develop autonomous, egalitarian societies that exploit neither our fellow humans, nor nature.

In the 2011 book Deep Green Resistance, movement authors Lierre Keith, Aric McBay, and Derrick Jensen similarly argued that civilization’s industrial foundation needed to be completely pulverized, sooner rather than later. Convinced that “the vast majority of the population will do nothing unless they are led, cajoled, or forced,” they urged that “those of us who care about the future of the planet have to dismantle the industrial energy infrastructure as rapidly as possible.”  Precipitous de-industrialization is necessary, they wrote, because so little time remains to prevent an ecological collapse complete enough to render the world unlivable for humanity. Therefore, “rapid collapse is ultimately good for humans — even if there is a die-off — because at least some people survive.” This is jarring stuff, to say the least, and it has rightly been subjected to withering criticism,

So far, the deep green resistance people have stuck to proselytizing and organizing, rather than any kind of real-world sabotage. On the political right, however, incidents of eco-infrastructure sabotage are indeed on the increase. Over the past year, for instance, there have been a rash of attacks on power grids nationwide by right-wing extremists, not environmentalists. A man and a woman arrested in February for planning to take down four power substations in the Baltimore area proved, not surprisingly, to espouse neo-Nazi views. And successful attacks on two North Carolina substations last December were also linked to neo-Nazism and white supremacy. In late 2022, the Department of Homeland Security warned that there had been a significant rise in online discussions among far-right elements focused on assaulting the power grid to trigger cascading blackouts across the country. That, they believed, could lead to a governmental collapse and so create openings for a fascist takeover. (In a country already featuring the Trumpublican Party, this should be unnerving, even if not exactly surprising.)

Hunter Walker, a reporter for Talking Points Memo, recently obtained a copy of an online magazine that advocated attacks on power substations and provided coaching to would-be saboteurs, while announcing, as if they were greens, “It is our belief that the techno-industrial system presents an absolute and urgent existential threat to all life on earth.”   

Walker managed to track down one of the authors who told him that their aim was indeed to motivate not the far right but “militant groups of educated anarchists.” As the author acknowledged, however, the far right is “far better armed” and better prepared for shooting out transformers “than the Left or post-Left.” That being the case, the manual’s author added, if the question was whether “I would accept assistance or ‘alliance’ with any far-right group, I would hesitate to say no. I would much rather turn the lights out and then fight them in the quiet dark afterwards.”

This raises a question: Might radical individuals or even groups at opposite ends of the political spectrum ever converge on the same violent direct-action tactics?

Brian Tokar is on the faculty and board of the Institute for Social Ecology in Plainfield, Vermont, which offers courses on ecofascism. I asked him how much overlap he and his colleagues had noticed between violent, racist, ecofascist movements and nonviolent, anti-racist, radical environmental movements. Tokar responded, “I don’t think there’s a lot of overlap, but there’s certainly enough that it’s deeply disturbing.”

“This goes back,” he said, “to the… eighties when Dave Foreman and Edward Abbey [of the Earth First! movement] were saying a lot of disturbing things, including a lot of anti-immigrant stuff — especially Abbey, who was all about protecting the borders against people who, he said, would spread pollution. It was just blatantly racist… but there were also a lot of people who vocally challenged it from the beginning.”

“Fast forward to more recent times,” Tokar continued, “and my colleagues have documented stories of people who started out in leftist ecological circles and drifted over into an overtly ecological neo-fascist or neo-Nazi anti-immigrant kind of politics.” In fact, the ecofascists’ strategy, he added, “seems to be that if they can skim off a few people, especially people who have a following, they can shift the discussion in their direction.”

A Future in Danger

I feel confident in predicting that the ecofascists won’t manage to seize power by taking down the national electric grid. Still, by fueling human-rights abuses, racial hatred, and deadly violence, their toxic propaganda has made the United States a more perilous place to live if you weren’t born white and within its borders. By hijacking the message of ecological renewal and using it to persecute the powerless, they could, at a minimum, make it far more difficult for this country to act boldly in the future when it comes to the climate crisis and environmental justice. That’s why the message of such ecofascists has to be verbally shredded wherever and whenever they try to spread it.

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Stan Cox, a TomDispatch regular, is the author of The Path to a Livable Future: A New Politics to Fight Climate Change, Racism, and the Next Pandemic, The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can, and the current In Real Time climate series at City Lights Books. Find him on Twitter at @CoxStan.

Featured image: BorderEncuentro2017_Day3_IMG_1409-1 by Peg Hunter is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 / Flickr

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Italy — 38 year old bodybuilder Simone Venturini died suddenly in his home on April 24, 2023. An autopsy has been ordered (click here). 

Uruacu, Brazil — 24-year old personal trainer and bodybuilder Jhonatan Saraiva had a sudden medical emergency while swimming in a lake on March 25, 2023 and died (click here)

Turkish-Canadian bodybuilder Murat Gonul age 46, died suddenly on Jan. 10, 2023, cause of death not revealed (click here)

German Bodybuilder Andreas Frey, age 43 died in his sleep on Oct. 20, 2022 (click here)

Los Angeles, CA — COVID-19 Vaccinated Professional bodybuilder Doug Brignole, age 63, died on October 13, 2022. LA County Medical Examiner claims he died from “COVID-19”. Doubtful.

Argentine bodybuilder Johana Colla, age 30, was found dead in the hotel where she was staying after winning 2nd place in the South American Bodybuilding Championship in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on October 8, 2022 (click here)

Professional Polish bodybuilder Paul Poloczek, age 37, died suddenly hours after competing in tournament, May 28, 2022, cause of death unknown (click here)

Bodybuilding champion Cedric McMillan, age 44, died by having a heart attack while on a treadmill, on April 12, 2022 (click here)

Bodybuilder Bostin lloyd, age 29 died suddenly on Feb. 25, 2022 from an aortic dissection (click here)

Feb. 2022 – 34-year old Indian bodybuilder Jagdish Lad, and 40-year old Brazilian bodybuilder Roberto Gervasio both allegedly died of “COVID-19”. These may have been COVID-19 vaccine deaths instead. 

Mr. Olympia Shawn Rhoden, age 46, died of heart attack Nov. 6, 2021 (click here)

Professional bodybuilder Jennifer Hernandez died in Oct. 24, 2021 of unknown causes (click here)

Mr. Olympia contestant, fully vaccinated George Peterson, age 37, was found dead in his hotel room, possible brain aneurysm bleed?, died Oct. 6, 2021 (click here)

Hilton, NY — Bodybuilder 28 year old Jake Kazmarek died four days after getting seconnd Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccine on Oct. 2, 2021 (click here)

My Take…

Some people might be tempted to dismiss deaths of bodybuilders. Not me.

There are many deaths here that are highly suspicious, cardiac arrests, deaths in their sleep, and what I found particularly interesting, deaths with seemingly no explanation.

So many deaths that I had to remove the powerlifters and weightlifters and put them in a separate substack article.

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Image: George W. Bush’s Grandfather, Senator Prescott Bush

Of relevance to an understanding of America’s insidious role in supporting Nazi Germany.

This article was first published on GR in March 2016.

 

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“A  famous American family” made its fortune from the Nazis, according to John Loftus’ documented historical analysis.    

The Bush family links to Nazi Germany’s war economy were first brought to light at the Nuremberg trials in the testimony of Nazi Germany’s steel magnate Fritz Thyssen. Thyssen was a partner of George W. Bush’s grandfather Prescott Bush: 

From 1945 until 1949 in Nuremberg, one of the lengthiest and, it now appears, most futile interrogations of a Nazi war crimes suspect began in the American Zone of Occupied Germany.

Multibillionaire steel magnate Fritz Thyssen-the man whose steel combine was the cold heart of the Nazi war machine-talked and talked and talked to a joint US-UK interrogation team.

… What the Allied investigators never understood was that they were not asking Thyssen the right question. Thyssen did not need any foreign bank accounts because his family secretly owned an entire chain of banks.

He did not have to transfer his Nazi assets at the end of World War II, all he had to do was transfer the ownership documents – stocks, bonds, deeds and trusts–from his bank in Berlin through his bank in Holland to his American friends in New York City: Prescott Bush and Herbert Walker [father in law of Prescott Bush]. Thyssen’s partners in crime were the father and [grandfather] of a future President of the United States [George Herbert Walker Bush]. (John Loftus, How the Bush family made its fortune from the Nazis: The Dutch Connection, Global Research, February 2002, edit by GR)

The American public is not aware of the links of the Bush family to Nazi Germany because the historical record has been carefully withheld by the mainstream media.

In September 2004, however, The Guardian revealed that:

George Bush’s grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company’s assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator’s action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. ( Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell, How the Bush’s Grandfather Helped Hitlers Rise to Power,   Guardian, September 25, 2004)

 

The more fundamental question is not whether Prescott Bush helped Adolph Hitler. From a historical perspective, what is important is how the rise to power of Adolph Hitler was supportive of  US business interests in Germany.

US  Presidential Elections

The Guardian article was published on September 25, 2004 at the height of the US election campaign which led to the reelection of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on Tuesday November 2nd 2004.

Deafening silence. The US media provided no coverage of GWB’s family history. Had the American people known that the Bush family had links to Nazi Germany, John Kerry would have won the presidency in 2004 in a landslide.

Similarly, Michael Dukakis would have won the presidency in 1989 against George Herbert Walker Bush. In fact, had this been revealed to the American people in the wake of the Nuremberg trials (1945-1949), Bush Senior would never have entered politics and his father Prescott Bush would never have become Senator.

Is there a pattern?  Do you have to be a wealthy war criminal to accede to high office?

Prescott Bush had links to Nazi Germany, Bush Senior and George W. Bush had links to the Bin Laden Family…

What must be ensured  to “protect American democracy” is that none of these “awkward truths” which reveal the crimes committed by prominent politicians be the object of media coverage. Needless to say, propaganda is essential to uphold the legitimacy of presidential candidates in the eyes of public opinion.

War Crimes. Crimes against Humanity

Nazi war crimes with the complicity of Wall Street and the Bush family?

US war crimes committed by Bush Junior in Iraq (2003), Bush Senior (the Gulf War, 1991), Is there a relationship?

What was the role of the late senator Prescott Bush in his dealings with Nazi Germany:

Evidence of the Bush family’s  links to Nazism was available well before George Herbert Walker Bush (Senior)  and George W. Bush entered politics. According to John Buchanan (New Hampshire Gazette, 10 October 2003):

After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his “enemy national” partners.

The documents also show that Bush and his colleagues, according to reports from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, tried to conceal their financial alliance with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a steel and coal baron who, beginning in the mid-1920s, personally funded Adolf Hitler’s rise to power by the subversion of democratic principle and German law. Furthermore, the declassified records demonstrate that Bush and his associates, who included E. Roland Harriman, younger brother of American icon W. Averell Harriman, and George Herbert Walker, President Bush’s maternal great-grandfather, continued their dealings with the German industrial tycoon for nearly a year after the U.S. entered the war.

While Prescott Bush’s “company’s assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, George W. Bush’s grandfather was never prosecuted for his business dealings with  Nazi Germany.

“In 1952, Prescott Bush was elected to the U.S. Senate, with no press accounts about his well-concealed Nazi past. There is no record of any U.S. press coverage of the Bush-Nazi connection during any political campaigns conducted by George Herbert Walker Bush, Jeb Bush, or George W. Bush, with the exception of a brief mention in an unrelated story in the Sarasota Herald Tribune in November 2000 and a brief but inaccurate account in The Boston Globe in 2001.” (John Buchanan, op. cit)

Up until Pearl Harbor (December 1941), Wall Street was trading with the enemy. In the wake of Pearl Harbor, Standard Oil continued to sell oil to Nazi Germany through the intermediation of so-called “neutral countries” including Venezuela and Argentina.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research March 6, 2016

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*** 

From the ashes of a world war that killed 80 million people and reduced great cities to smoking rubble, America rose like a Titan of Greek legend, unharmed and armed with extraordinary military and economic power, to govern the globe. During four years of combat against the Axis leaders in Berlin and Tokyo that raged across the planet, America’s wartime commanders — George Marshall in Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower in Europe, and Chester Nimitz in the Pacific — knew that their main strategic objective was to gain control over the vast Eurasian landmass.

Whether you’re talking about desert warfare in North Africa, the D-Day landing at Normandy, bloody battles on the Burma-India border, or the island-hopping campaign across the Pacific, the Allied strategy in World War II involved constricting the reach of the Axis powers globally and then wresting that very continent from their grasp.

That past, though seemingly distant, is still shaping the world we live in. Those legendary generals and admirals are, of course, long gone, but the geopolitics they practiced at such a cost still has profound implications. For just as Washington encircled Eurasia to win a great war and global hegemony, so Beijing is now involved in a far less militarized reprise of that reach for global power.

And to be blunt, these days, China’s gain is America’s loss. Every step Beijing takes to consolidate its control over Eurasia simultaneously weakens Washington’s presence on that strategic continent and so erodes its once formidable global power.

A Cold War Strategy

After four embattled years imbibing lessons about geopolitics with their morning coffee and bourbon nightcaps, America’s wartime generation of generals and admirals understood, intuitively, how to respond to the future alliance of the two great communist powers in Moscow and Beijing.

In 1948, following his move from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, Secretary of State George Marshall launched the $13 billion Marshall Plan to rebuild a war-torn Western Europe, laying the economic foundations for the formation of the NATO alliance just a year later. After a similar move from the wartime Allied headquarters in London to the White House in 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower helped complete a chain of military bastions along Eurasia’s Pacific littoral by signing a series of mutual-security pacts — with South Korea in 1953, Taiwan in 1954, and Japan in 1960. For the next 70 years, that island chain would serve as the strategic hinge on Washington’s global power, critical for both the defense of North America and dominance over Eurasia.

After fighting to conquer much of that vast continent during World War II, America’s postwar leaders certainly knew how to defend their gains. For more than 40 years, their unrelenting efforts to dominate Eurasia assured Washington of an upper hand and, in the end, victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. To constrain the communist powers inside that continent, the U.S. ringed its 6,000 miles with 800 military bases, thousands of jet fighters, and three massive naval armadas — the 6th Fleet in the Atlantic, the 7th Fleet in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, and, somewhat later, the 5th Fleet in the Persian Gulf.

Thanks to diplomat George Kennan, that strategy gained the name “containment” and, with it, Washington could, in effect, sit back and wait while the Sino-Soviet bloc imploded through diplomatic blunder and military misadventure.

After the Beijing-Moscow split of 1962 and China’s subsequent collapse into the chaos of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, the Soviet Union tried repeatedly, if unsuccessfully, to break out of its geopolitical isolation — in the Congo, Cuba, Laos, Egypt, Ethiopia, Angola, and Afghanistan. In the last and most disastrous of those interventions, which Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev came to term “the bleeding wound,” the Red Army deployed 110,000 soldiers for nine years of brutal Afghan combat, hemorrhaging money and manpower in ways that would contribute to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In that heady moment of seeming victory as the sole superpower left on planet Earth, a younger generation of Washington foreign-policy leaders, trained not on battlefields but in think tanks, took little more than a decade to let that unprecedented global power start to slip away. Toward the close of the Cold War era in 1989, Francis Fukuyama, an academic working in the State Department’s policy planning unit, won instant fame among Washington insiders with his seductive phrase “the end of history.” He argued that America’s liberal world order would soon sweep up all of humanity on an endless tide of capitalist democracy. As he put it in a much-cited essay: “The triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident… in the total exhaustion of viable systemic alternatives to Western liberalism… seen also in the ineluctable spread of consumerist Western culture.”

The Invisible Power of Geopolitics

Amid such triumphalist rhetoric, Zbigniew Brzezinski, another academic sobered by more worldly experience, reflected on what he had learned about geopolitics during the Cold War as an adviser to two presidents, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. In his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski offered the first serious American study of geopolitics in more than half a century. In the process, he warned that the depth of U.S. global hegemony, even at this peak of unipolar power, was inherently “shallow.”

For the United States and, he added, every major power of the past 500 years, Eurasia, home to 75% of the world’s population and productivity, was always “the chief geopolitical prize.” To perpetuate its “preponderance on the Eurasian continent” and so preserve its global power, Washington would, he warned, have to counter three threats: “the expulsion of America from its offshore bases” along the Pacific littoral; ejection from its “perch on the western periphery” of the continent provided by NATO; and finally, the formation of “an assertive single entity” in the sprawling center of Eurasia.

Arguing for Eurasia’s continued post-Cold War centrality, Brzezinski drew heavily on the work of a long-forgotten British academic, Sir Halford Mackinder. In a 1904 essay that sparked the modern study of geopolitics, Mackinder observed that, for the past 500 years, European imperial powers had dominated Eurasia from the sea, but the construction of trans-continental railroads was shifting the locus of control to its vast interior “heartland.” In 1919, in the wake of World War I, he also argued that Eurasia, along with Africa, formed a massive “world island” and offered this bold geopolitical formula: “Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World.” Clearly, Mackinder was about 100 years premature in his predictions.

But today, by combining Mackinder’s geopolitical theory with Brzezinski’s gloss on global politics, it’s possible to discern, in the confusion of this moment, some potential long-term trends. Imagine Mackinder-style geopolitics as a deep substrate that shapes more ephemeral political events, much the way the slow grinding of the planet’s tectonic plates becomes visible when volcanic eruptions break through the earth’s surface. Now, let’s try to imagine what all this means in terms of international geopolitics today.

China’s Geopolitical Gambit

In the decades since the Cold War’s close, China’s increasing control over Eurasia clearly represents a fundamental change in that continent’s geopolitics. Convinced that Beijing would play the global game by U.S. rules, Washington’s foreign policy establishment made a major strategic miscalculation in 2001 by admitting it to the World Trade Organization (WTO). “Across the ideological spectrum, we in the U.S. foreign policy community,” confessed two former members of the Obama administration, “shared the underlying belief that U.S. power and hegemony could readily mold China to the United States’ liking… All sides of the policy debate erred.” In little more than a decade after it joined the WTO, Beijing’s annual exports to the U.S. grew nearly five-fold and its foreign currency reserves soared from just $200 billion to an unprecedented $4 trillion by 2013.

In 2013, drawing on those vast cash reserves, China’s new president, Xi Jinping, launched a trillion-dollar infrastructure initiative to transform Eurasia into a unified market. As a steel grid of rails and petroleum pipelines began crisscrossing the continent, China ringed the tri-continental world island with a chain of 40 commercial ports — from Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean, around Africa’s coast, to Europe from Piraeus, Greece, to Hamburg, Germany. In launching what soon became history’s largest development project, 10 times the size of the Marshall Plan, Xi is consolidating Beijing’s geopolitical dominance over Eurasia, while fulfilling Brzezinski’s fear of the rise of “an assertive single entity” in Central Asia.

Unlike the U.S., China hasn’t spent significant effort establishing military bases. While Washington still maintains some 750 of them in 80 nations, Beijing has just one military base in Djibouti on the east African coast, a signals intercept post on Myanmar’s Coco Islands in the Bay of Bengal, a compact installation in eastern Tajikistan, and half a dozen small outposts in the South China Sea.

Moreover, while Beijing was focused on building Eurasian infrastructure, Washington was fighting two disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in a strategically inept bid to dominate the Middle East and its oil reserves (just as the world was beginning to transition away from petroleum to renewable energy). In contrast, Beijing has concentrated on the slow, stealthy accretion of investments and influence across Eurasia from the South China Sea to the North Sea. By changing the continent’s underlying geopolitics through this commercial integration, it’s winning a level of control not seen in the last thousand years, while unleashing powerful forces for political change.

Tectonic Shifts Shake U.S. Power

After a decade of Beijing’s relentless economic expansion across Eurasia, the tectonic shifts in that continent’s geopolitical substrate have begun to manifest themselves in a series of diplomatic eruptions, each erasing another aspect of U.S. influence. Four of the more recent ones might seem, at first glance, unrelated but are all driven by the relentless force of geopolitical change.

Image: Afghans stand in the sewage ditch outside Abbey Gate as they attempt to show documents to Marines processing evacuees on Aug. 25. Credit: Mirzahussain Sadid for Alive in Afghanistan

First came the sudden, unexpected collapse of the U.S. position in Afghanistan, forcing Washington to end its 20-year occupation in August 2021 with a humiliating withdrawal. In a slow, stealthy geopolitical squeeze play, Beijing had signed massive development deals with all the surrounding Central Asian nations, leaving American troops isolated there. To provide critical air support for its infantry, U.S. jet fighters were often forced to fly 2,000 miles from their nearest base in the Persian Gulf — an unsustainable long-term situation and unsafe for troops on the ground. As the U.S.-trained Afghan Army collapsed and Taliban guerrillas drove into Kabul atop captured Humvees, the chaotic U.S. retreat in defeat became unavoidable.

Just six months later in February 2022, President Vladimir Putin massed an armada of armored vehicles loaded with 200,000 troops on Ukraine’s border. If Putin is to be believed, his “special military operation” was to be a bid to undermine NATO’s influence and weaken the Western alliance — one of Brzezinski’s conditions for the U.S. eviction from Eurasia.

But first Putin visited Beijing to court President Xi’s support, a seemingly tall order given China’s decades of lucrative trade with the United States, worth a mind-boggling $500 billion in 2021. Yet Putin scored a joint declaration that the two nations’ relations were “superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era” and a denunciation of “the further expansion of NATO.”

As it happened, Putin did so at a perilous price. Instead of attacking Ukraine in frozen February when his tanks could have maneuvered off-road on their way to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, he had to wait out Beijing’s Winter Olympics. So, Russian troops invaded instead in muddy March, leaving his armored vehicles stuck in a 40-mile traffic jam on a single highway where the Ukrainians readily destroyed more than 1,000 tanks. Facing diplomatic isolation and European trade embargos as his defeated invasion degenerated into a set of vengeful massacres, Moscow shifted much of its exports to China. That quickly raised bilateral trade by 30% to an all-time high, while reducing Russia to but another piece on Beijing’s geopolitical chessboard.

Then, just last month, Washington found itself diplomatically marginalized by an utterly unexpected resolution of the sectarian divide that had long defined the politics of the Middle East. After signing a $400-billion infrastructure deal with Iran and making Saudi Arabia its top oil supplier, Beijing was well positioned to broker a major diplomatic rapprochement between those bitter regional rivals, Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia. Within weeks, the foreign ministers of the two nations sealed the deal with a deeply symbolic voyage to Beijing — a bittersweet reminder of the days not long ago when Arab diplomats paid court in Washington.

Finally, the Biden administration was stunned this month when Europe’s preeminent leader, Emmanuel Macron of France, visited Beijing for a series of intimate tête-à-tête chats with China’s President Xi. At the close of that extraordinary journey, which won French companies billions in lucrative contracts, Macron announced “a global strategic partnership with China” and promised he would not “take our cue from the U.S. agenda” over Taiwan. A spokesman for the Élysée Palace quickly released a pro forma clarification that “the United States is our ally, with shared values.” Even so, Macron’s Beijing declaration reflected both his own long-term vision of the European Union as an independent strategic player and that bloc’s ever-closer economic ties to China

The Future of Geopolitical Power

Projecting such political trends a decade into the future, Taiwan’s fate would seem, at best, uncertain. Instead of the “shock and awe” of aerial bombardments, Washington’s default mode of diplomatic discourse in this century, Beijing prefers stealthy, sedulous geopolitical pressure. In building its island bases in the South China Sea, for example, it inched forward incrementally — first dredging, then building structures, next runways, and finally emplacing anti-aircraft missiles — in the process avoiding any confrontation over its functional capture of an entire sea.

Lest we forget, Beijing has built its formidable economic-political-military power in little more than a decade. If its strength continues to increase inside Eurasia’s geopolitical substrate at even a fraction of that head-spinning pace for another decade, it may be able to execute a deft geopolitical squeeze-play on Taiwan like the one that drove the U.S. out of Afghanistan. Whether from a customs embargo, incessant naval patrols, or some other form of pressure, Taiwan might just fall quietly into Beijing’s grasp.

Should such a geopolitical gambit prevail, the U.S. strategic frontier along the Pacific littoral would be broken, possibly pushing its Navy back to a “second island chain” from Japan to Guam — the last of Brzezinski’s criteria for the true waning of U.S. global power. In that event, Washington’s leaders could once again find themselves sitting on the proverbial diplomatic and economic sidelines, wondering how it all happened.

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Alfred W. McCoy, a TomDispatch regular, is the Harrington professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power. His newest book is To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change (Dispatch Books).

Featured image: Chinese Military, Forbidden City – Beijing, China by Patrick Rodwell is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 / Flickr

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Several reports have criticised aspects of Russia’s policy, further identified pitfalls, and highlighted challenges and approach toward Africa, even after its first symbolic summit held in October 2019. The latest report titled ‘Ways to Increase the Efficiency of Russia’s African Strategy under the Crisis of the Existing World Order’ (ISSN 1019-3316, Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2022), co-authored by Professors Irina O. Abramova and Leonid L. Fituni, both from the Institute for African Studies (IAS), Russian Academy of Sciences.

Access it here.

According to authoritative sources, aspects of this report were presented at the RAS Presidium on February 9, 2022. The report is dedicated to a new configuration of the world order and the place of Russia and Africa in the changing world.

The authors argued that it is time for Russia, which over the past 30 years has unsuccessfully sought to become part of the West, to abandon illusions and reconsider its foreign economic and foreign policy strategy, reorienting itself to states that are turning from outsiders into significant players in the international political and economic space and are willing to interact with our country on a mutually beneficial and equal basis. 

Certainly African countries are among such states. The strategies of old and new players on the African continent are analyzed, and the current areas of Russian-African cooperation in the short, medium, and long term are identified. The main mechanisms and tools necessary to intensify our interaction are revealed, including informational and financial-economic levers.

According to Professors Abramova and Fituni, the key area of Russia’s relations that could become attractive for African countries and contribute to the successful economic development of Russia may be the development of bilateral opportunities for technological partnerships. The modern world order is going through a stage of a very deep political, economic and humanitarian, and not yet global but already very dangerous local military crisis. The Russian special military operation in Ukraine has sharply accelerated the disintegration of the unipolar world led by the United States. Although the outlines of the emerging new world order are already visible, they are not quite definite to date. Multi-polarity, as a possible model of the new maturing world order, urgently needs a system of bilateral and multilateral geo-strategic checks and balances that could exclude or minimize the danger of a global armed conflict. 

At the same time, it seems to be the most acceptable option for rebuilding the world for most countries and people since it opens opportunities for establishing a more just world order that will account for the interests of the widest possible range of members of the world community. Against this background, the relative importance and role of the regions of the world as zones of conflicts of interest of the participants in the renewed rivalry are being reassessed. 

As is known, the global center of economic power is gradually shifting from the West to the East or, depending on the coordinate system, from the socalled North to the South. In the context of long-term global trends, the conditional West, perhaps for the first time in the last 500 (and certainly 300) years, is facing the prospect of a gradual transformation into a relative periphery. This means that even within the current market model, in the not-so-distant future the bulk of global production and the bulk of global consumption will shift from the northern Euro-Atlantic to the south and east-to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. 

In the market model, this means that the manufacturer will adapt not to the tastes and needs of the conditional European (including Americans, Canadians, and Australians) but to those of Asians and Africans, who are included because at present most representatives of the middle class, which supply the main demand for goods and services, live in the Asian region, but from around 2040, according to UN calculations, the growth of the middle class will occur not at the expense of Asia but at the expense of Africa, while the impoverishment of the middle class of Europe and the United States has already begun.

Of course, we do not mean a one-shot or instantaneous (in the historical sense) change. Yet these are real deep transformations that are already taking place in what, applying Marxist terminology to the modern globalized world, could be called the global base. These transformations will inevitably entail changes in the global superstructure, that is, in the Western-centric world order that dominates now. These are changes in politics, in culture, in the worldview, and in the system of values, which is manifested in the rejection of the unipolar world and the methods of colonial domination and subjugation that it imposes.

In real life, this is a slow and complex process, which proceeds with different speeds at different stages, often in zigzags. Today no one doubts that the modern East and South (and this is not only China or India but also many other countries, including African and Latin American ones) are the producers of the main part of resources and goods, especially basic ones, that is, those without which large-scale real production in any part of the world, including in developed countries, is impossible. Moreover, the real (not virtual) process of expanded reproduction is also extremely difficult without these resources and goods.

Yet the economic role of the West, especially in advanced areas, is far from exhausted. However, today it is not this role that determines the model of its behavior: the meaning of its efforts, including economic ones, is to prevent the loss of its influence and control over the flows of world wealth. The West is trying to preserve its positions and habitual lifestyle using superstructural elements, namely, those levers of influence that it still has military, financial, administrative, informational, cultural, and value based.

For the Euro-Atlantic bloc, Africa appears primarily from the point of view of the forecast prospects for global economic development and resource and military-geopolitical components. All three aspects are viewed through the prism of rivalry with the main competitors-China and Russia. At the same time, the West is closely monitoring the growing activity and influence in this region of second-tier rivals – India, Brazil, Turkey, Iran, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, South Korea, and others, some of which it is trying to control by turning them, at least, into situational allies but strategically retained as an exploited periphery.

Under these conditions, the main task of the policy of the collective West in Africa is to maintain and strengthen its economic, political, and military influence using both traditional and new, post-neocolonialist, methods, as well as to avoid the challenges and threats associated with the African continent. Note that the strategy of the Western powers in Africa has certain specific traits. The US strategy on the African continent, announced in 2018 by the Trump administration and practically unchanged under J. Biden, has been based on opposition to China and Russia and their removal (in the case of China) or non-admittance (in the case of Russia) to the African region. 

In the context of Brexit and the implementation of the concept of Global Britain, the United Kingdom has seriously attended to the development of strategies for assimilating markets other than the EU ones and compensating for the falling part of state budget and private business revenues by activating the African vector of its policy. The shaken authority of France in African states, primarily in ensuring their security and combating terrorism, has prompted the French authorities to adapt to the new conditions, striving for maximum savings in the exploitation of African resources and actively using such instruments of influence as, albeit significantly weakened but still systemically significant, dominance in both zones of the African franc and cultural and linguistic influence on education, science and youth education within the framework of the Francophonie project.

In Germany’s Africa strategy, the main role is assigned to the private sector, especially medium-sized businesses, which generate consistently high profits for themselves on the continent and will have to provide the bulk of investment and create jobs for the local population (unlike China, which actively imported its labor to Africa). Note that the German state seeks to contribute to the creation of a favorable working environment for its entrepreneurs through investments in African education, health care, and infrastructure. Italy’s current foreign policy on the African continent is focused primarily on North Africa. The Italian government has been paying attention to sub-Saharan Africa only since 2013. The role of Italy in Africa has decreased compared to the 1980s in areas such as foreign trade, development assistance, and participation in peacekeeping activities. 

In recent years, however, Africa has somewhat grown in importance as a market for Italian weapons, as has the presence of Italian nongovernmental humanitarian aid organizations on the continent. In a number of countries, including those in Tropical Africa, Italian firms retain strong positions in the field of exploration and development of the continent’s hydrocarbon resources. As for new non-Western players, they build their cooperation on other principles, far from the domination-submission model.

India is developing cooperation with Africa along the South-South line, that is, strengthening economic and other ties with African states on mutually beneficial terms, which is fundamentally different from the North−South format that developed in the colonial era. In general, noteworthy is the high degree of geographical (mainly the east coast and southern Africa) and historical and cultural (English-speaking countries, former British possessions) concentration of Indian business activity.

Turkey politically focuses on joint defense of the national identity of both Turks and Africans, which is under threat due to the ideas of globalization promoted by the West and the imposition of values alien to the East and Africa. In the economic sphere, Turkey is actively expanding its exports to Africa, implementing many projects for small and medium-sized businesses, and rapidly developing air links with the continent. Turkey has become the main hub for the movement of passengers from Africa to Europe and the United States. Turkey is also intensifying military and technical cooperation with the countries of the continent, primarily the Mediterranean ones, and the countries of the large region of the Horn of Africa.

In addition, in recent years, there has been an active, albeit still pinpoint, search for opportunities to use the religious factor in the Muslim countries of Africa, in which Turkey did not previously show interest. Brazil, like India, is establishing South-South cooperation with Africa within the BRICS and IBSA formats (forum of India, Brazil, and South Africa). This largest Latin American country is currently moving from a policy of predominant interaction with the Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa to cooperation with all African states, primarily in the mining industry, agriculture, and the development of transport infrastructure.

In determining its strategy in the African direction, it is the experience of China that is especially interesting for Russia: after the collapse of the Soviet Union, China took and strengthened the positions that the Soviet Union had held in Africa and even significantly expanded them. Having intensified economic cooperation with Africa, turning African countries into a guaranteed market for its products with more than a billion consumers, China in the 1990-2000s raised its industry and mass production precisely at the expense of what the “foremen of perestroika” and the ideologists of the 1990 reforms declared as the main burden for the Soviet Union. In the 2010s, China became the main trade and economic partner of African states. That required a deliberate and consistent effort, retraining or removal of those who hindered the achievement of real success for bureaucratic, parochial, or corrupt reasons or simply could not work in the African direction.

At present, Beijing is consistently building global value chains, which offer African producers a significant role. Such a policy is built into the strategic plans for the socioeconomic development of China itself and the implementation of its global projects, which fundamentally distinguishes it from the strategies of other countries. The ultimate goal of the ongoing efforts should be the creation of a Chinese-African “community of common destiny” in the new era.

At the latest ministerial conference, held in December 2021 in Senegal’s capital Dakar, Chinese President Xi Jinping made four proposals to African participants: to show solidarity against the pandemic, to deepen pragmatic cooperation, to promote “green development,” and to uphold honesty and justice in the international arena. The Chinese leader recalled that, prior to this meeting, a joint document, The 2035 Vision for China-Africa Cooperation, had been adopted and had announced Beijing’s plans for the first three years. China plans to implement nine programs in the following areas: health care (in particular, China will provide one billion doses of vaccines, implement ten medical projects, and send 1500 medical specialists to Africa); poverty alleviation and agricultural development (ten projects); trade (China plans to increase the imports from Africa to $300 billion, open a green corridor for African agricultural exports to China, and allocate $10 billion to support African exports to China); investment (it is planned to increase direct investment in Africa by $10 billion over three years, create a China-Africa platform for encouraging private investment, allocate $10 billion to support African financial institutions, create a China-Africa center for cross-border operations in yuan, write off part of the debt of the poorest African countries, and transfer to African countries an additional amount of special drawing rights (SDR) of the IMF in an amount of $10 billion); digital innovation (ten projects); green development (ten projects: support for the Great Green Wall of Africa project, etc.); human potential (funding projects in the field of education and training, the creation by Chinese companies of at least 800 000 jobs for the local population); cultural and humanitarian contacts (including the creation of new centers for culture and the study of the Chinese language); and peace and security (ten projects: providing military assistance to the African Union, training military specialists, etc.)

Even a brief listing of all these programs indicates the seriousness and depth of China’s strategic vision of its cooperation with the African continent in the coming years. A general analysis of the above-mentioned strategies in the African direction leads to the conclusion that it will not be easy for Russia to compete in the geo-strategic battle for Africa with other players, both old and new. Many may even wonder if we have any chance at all in this fight. In the report authors’ opinion, to answer this question, it is necessary to analyze Russian-African relations in recent years, identify the main problems and the mistakes that have been made while interacting with African partners, and determine those areas of cooperation that are of mutual interest and in which Russia has clear competitive advantage. 

In addition, it is necessary to ask ourselves: Do we, in the current conditions, have the right not to take advantage of the opportunities that Africa opens for our economy and security and ignore them only because obtaining these advantages requires responsibility and expenditure of effort and resources, as well as initiative?

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had viewed interaction with the African continent as a major component of its foreign policy, Russia, despite the colossal efforts and funds invested in the development of Africa, practically curtailed relations with African states. This was done clearly purposefully by the people who headed our foreign policy and foreign economic departments at that time and were mainly oriented towards the West. Under the slogan “Stop feeding Africa!” they, in fact, did not allow our country not only to take advantage of real dividends on Russian investments (about 300 industrial enterprises; more than 1000 infrastructure facilities; hundreds of educational, scientific, and cultural centers built in Africa by the Soviet Union; the friendly Russian-speaking African political and economic elite trained in Soviet universities; etc.) but also agreed, under pressure from the Americans and their satellites, the former colonial metropoles, to write off more than $20 billion of African debt to our country on extremely unfavorable terms for Russia.

In addition, informal cultural centers and coteries of the Russian language used to appear at almost all significant objects of Soviet−African cooperation) and bureaus of the Russian media. The number of African students studying at Russian universities also drastically decreased. Thus, according to the Ministry of Education and Science, in the 2018–2019 academic year, only 2066 candidates from 52 African countries were enrolled. The new African elite is being trained today in Western European, American, and Chinese universities and is becoming a conductor of interests that are by no means Russian. 

In other words, in the 1990s, not only were the economic foundations destroyed but so was the entire infrastructure of our cooperation with Africa, including the humanitarian sphere – science, education, culture, and the system of values. It is no secret that, in the modern world, information has begun to play an increasingly important role. Virtual reality, in fact, practically forms a living reality; in any case, it has a colossal impact on the latter.

Under these conditions, the role of the media in building our relations with Africa is of paramount importance. We have already said that Russia practically curtailed its information network in Africa. Fragmentally, our news agencies are present there, for example, TASS and Sputnik (TASS has only five representative offices in Africa – in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Kenya, and South Africa, while Sputnik and Russia Today have none), but, as a rule, they are both understaffed and underequipped; they cannot withstand competition from the Western and Chinese media and do not broadcast in African languages. In addition, we do not work at all on African social networks, which are very popular among young Africans. Hence, Africans draw information about Russia, often distorted or even false, from Western sources. Africa is practically absent in the Russian information space, and news about the continent is predominantly negative, sensational, or ironic, in most cases demonstrating a low level of general education and erudition of Russian authors, not to mention their understanding of African realities.

We analyzed news stories on the African agenda for one week (January 18−24, 2022) and obtained the following disappointing results. Today the Russian media demonstrate an extremely low level of coverage of key events taking place in Africa. This indicator reached 0.7% of the total feed of the leading Russian media (Interfax, RIA Novosti, TASS) in the period under study. For comparison, news related to the United States, on average, occupied 14.6% of the entire news feed and news related to China, 1.4%. At the same time, during the week-long period of the study, events took place in the countries of the African continent that are of particular importance for both Russia and the whole world, including a military coup in Burkina Faso; contacts of the current leadership of Mali with private military companies created by Russian citizens, as mentioned by Foreign Minister S.V. Lavrov, and the conflict between the Malian authorities and partners in military cooperation from the EU countries; disagreements between the Church of Alexandria and the Russian Orthodox Church due to the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church to form the Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa; hosting the African Cup of Nations football et cetera.

For example, the Russian media discussed the political events in 43 news articles in various editions and another nine publications presented the position of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on this issue. For comparison, the story about the evacuation of British diplomats from Ukraine was men2 For the calculations, statistical data of the Yandex.News service was used, where 7685 information partners send their materials (including all the main federal and regional domestic media).

It is especially noteworthy that, in the Russian media, on average, more than 75% of the news about Africa is negative. The countries of the continent often appear in the news in the context of military and religious conflicts, serious economic problems, poverty, the spread of dangerous diseases, etc. Therefore, the African agenda is on the periphery of the domestic information space. Even though the key news of the continent fragmentarily falls into the feeds of the Russian media, as a rule, they do not constitute news stories or rubrics (consisting of several articles) that could help to form a comprehensive, dynamic public opinion about the situation in that macro-region. Information about Africa is often not only insufficient and pointwise but also has a onesided negative connotation. That is why even events of significance for the Russian Federation that take place in Africa quickly fall out of the domestic information space. As a result, the Russian public and even the professional community, which includes the political, economic, and scientific elites, are forming an utterly wrong idea about modern Africa, which is associated with concepts such as poverty, under-development, hunger, illiteracy, coups d’état, dictators in power, terrorism, armed conflicts and wars, piracy and hostage-taking, illegal migration and refugees, corruption, etc.

In addition, the Russian elite demonstrates a somewhat arrogant attitude towards Africa. We have often heard the phrase “We (that is, Russia) are not Africa” from high-ranking officials. Meanwhile, for the purpose of so-called deterrence, colonial methods are being very successfully applied to Russia today, which were once applied to African states. We mean such tools as dependence on Western goods and technologies; sanctions; bribery and corruption of political, economic, and intellectual elites; attempts to change objectionable authorities through mechanisms of internal social protests, primarily relying on young people and even children; encouragement of brain drain; the imposition of the Western value system and the erosion of national identity, including the narrowing of the use of the national language; the formation of a colonial type of thinking; and so on and so forth. 

In this sense, the study of the African experience can significantly help us in overcoming our own mistakes and solving the problems of accelerated development of the economy and the social sphere. Despite the thoughtless imposition of the idea of Africa as the most backward and problematic region of the world in Russian public opinion, qualified Africanists, including Western experts, call Africa the continent of the 21st century, attributing this to the stable growth rates of the African economy over the past 20 years and the colossal resource and human potential of the African region. It makes no sense to argue that African countries and their inhabitants are on average (but by no means all!) poorer than many countries in the world. However, in terms of profitability, prospects, and security for Russian business since March 2022, they are preferable compared to Western countries. 

The Africa’s average annual GDP growth rate over the past 20 years has been higher than that of the world as a whole, which has allowed the continent to increase its share in world GDP, although it remains quite low. Recently, however, experts have begun to form the opinion that the very methodology for calculating GDP is based on indicators that do not reflect the actual situation in the world economy in terms of owning real wealth and producing real values. Based on these indicators, the role of Africa in the world economy is growing significantly. Thus, among other regions of the world, Africa ranks first in the reserves of manganese, chromites, bauxites, gold, platinoids, cobalt, vanadium, coltan, diamonds, phosphorites, and fluorite; second in reserves of copper, asbestos, uranium, antimony, beryllium, and graphite; and third in the reserves of oil, gas, mercury, and iron ore. There are also significant reserves of titanium, nickel, bismuth, lithium, tantalum, niobium, tin, tungsten, and precious stones. 

Most of the minerals listed are necessary to produce modern high-tech goods for a wide range of purposes, which makes the strategic dependence of many participants in the world economy on their regular supplies very significant. For example, dependence on chromium supplies from Africa reaches 97% in the United States, 62% in the EU countries, and 84% in China. For cobalt, these figures are 71, 82, and 100%, respectively. The share of the African continent in manganese imports is 79% for the United States, 68% for the EU countries, and 67% for China. China also receives 86% of its copper needs from Africa. The EU countries import from Africa 63% of their aluminum raw materials and 58% of titanium, while China imports 49% and 50%, respectively. The share of African uranium supplies is 27% for the United States, 35% for the European Union, and 36% for China. More than half of all EU imports of metals such as niobium, tantalum, vanadium, and zirconium come from Africa. In the United States and China, the corresponding indicators are 43 and 49%. Thus, a significant number of Western and Chinese industrial enterprises producing modern hightech goods, including those related to military production, simply cannot function without the supply of African raw materials. 

As for Russia, according to RAS Academician N.S. Bortnikov, a prominent Russian mineralogist, it is experiencing an acute shortage in metals such as uranium, manganese, chromium, aluminum, zirconium, beryllium, lithium, rhenium, and rare earth metals of the yttrium group. In ten years, it will be short of lead, antimony, gold, silver, diamonds, and zinc as well. Most of these minerals are present in Africa, the cost of their extraction being rather low, which will allow us to consider the development of African resources (if it is economically viable compared to the development of our own deposits, if available) as one of the important ways to overcome the shortage of critical strategic raw materials. 

Modern Africa is gradually becoming both a significant consumer market and a supplier of labor for the global economy. Africa’s population already exceeds 1.2 billion and is growing at the fastest rate in the world. According to UN forecasts, in 2050 more than a quarter of the world’s population will live in Africa. Today, 60% of this population are young people under the age of 25, and it is young people who provide the demand for modern goods and services. According to the United Nations, from 2040, two-thirds of the growth in global labor will come from the African continent. The consumer market in Africa doubles every five years, and the growth rate of the middle class, which forms the basis of demand for modern goods and services, already exceeds the corresponding indicators of Asian states.  

In addition, over the past 30 years, Africa has managed to halve illiteracy to 34%, while some developed countries (for example, the United States) demonstrate the opposite trend. Thus, according to some data, 43 million Americans cannot read and write. Of great importance for the successful development of the African economy is the development and deepening of integration processes, which can unite the material and human resources of African states that were once separated by borders artificially drawn by the colonial authorities. A landmark event in the development of the African continent, comparable only to the creation of the WTO, was the signing of an agreement on the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) on March 21, 2018 (at the emergency summit of the AU heads of government in Kigali, Rwanda). If successfully implemented, this project will lead to the emergence of the largest free trade zone in the world in terms of the number of participants, with a market uniting the population of 55 member countries of the African Union. 

Africa has the highest digitalization rates in the world. Few people know that the world’s first online payment was made in Kenya. Today, online payments predominate in most African countries. Rwanda has announced the rejection of the use of cash. In Nigeria, the largest African country in terms of population, payments are already being made in electronic naira. Cryptocurrencies are rapidly spreading on the continent. A recent report from the blockchain data platform Chainalysis showed that between July 2020 and June 2021, Africans received $105.6 billion worth of cryptocurrency payments, which was 1200% more than in the previous year.  

It is noteworthy that, according to the Chainalysis rating, Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria are in the top ten countries for the use of cryptocurrency. DeFi (decentralized finance) technologies are becoming more and more popular in Africa. At the African Technology Forum in Nairobi, which took place in February 2022, the issue of decentralized finance was one of the three main topics for discussion, along with African startups and mobile networks. Africa sets an example for the world in increasing the role of women in all spheres of public life. Women have twice held the presidential positions – in Liberia and Mauritius, and today Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, an ethnical Nigerian, heads the WTO. African women are actively involved in legislative activities, including as chairs of the lower and upper houses of parliaments, and in Rwanda, for example, 63% of all parliamentarians are women. Women also lead in the number of start-ups launched in Africa. The number of women who are politicians, entrepreneurs, and scientists is also growing. 

All this once again confirms the fact that our ideas about Africa as a territory of backwardness, including in the social sphere, to put it mildly, do not correspond to reality. Today, in the context of a sharp aggravation of relations with the United States and the European Union, Russia can and should use the African vector of foreign policy to solve the problems of its own development and strengthen its positions in the international arena, forming, in the national interests and, where necessary, in opposition to aggressive geopolitical rivals, its own strategic alliances and associations. 

As was shown by the first Russia-Africa Summit, held in October 2019 in Sochi, the authority of the Russian Federation in most African states is extremely high. Africans view our country as the legal successor of the Soviet Union, which is actively defending its political and economic sovereignty and can provide security guarantees to other states. The countries of the continent also see Russia as a reliable economic partner interacting with African public and private businesses on a mutually beneficial basis. Note, however, that the hopes of Africans to intensify cooperation with the Russian Federation should be supported by real steps in the economic and political spheres and not be limited to verbal declarations about the “return of Russia to Africa,” especially because almost three years after Sochi, it was very modest. Recall that in the conditions of the reorganization of the world order and increased competition for African resources, the time allotted for such a return with maximum benefit for our country is very limited.

Today we find ourselves in the same boat with Africans, and not only in terms of Western pressure on our political and economic agency and the desire to free ourselves from old and new forms of colonialism. Today we have common goals and objectives. We are mutually interested in the formation of a just multipolar world, where every country and people can find a worthy place. Both we and the Africans have unique natural resources that have a powerful impact on the development of the world economy, and we need to act not as competitors in this area, as is happening today in the oil and gas sector, but as partners.  

Both Russia and Africa are at the crossroads of the most important trade routes connecting countries and continents. Most importantly, Russia’s economic development strategies are focused on the development of its domestic markets and on the transfer of our countries from raw materials to industrial and high-tech areas, largely relying on our own resources and capabilities. It is noteworthy that Africans were the first to understand the need to intensify Russian−African cooperation in the new conditions. Despite colossal pressure from the collective West, most African states, even those that voted for the anti-Russian resolution at the UN General Assembly (there were 28 of 54 such countries), did not support economic sanctions against Russia.  

Moreover, many African countries are ready to increase the supply of their goods to Russia, including products of agriculture and light industry, pharmaceuticals, and necessary types of raw materials. They are also ready to build new logistics chains with our country, providing the Russian side with the opportunity to use their transport infrastructure facilities. In turn, they expect that Russia in 2022 will supply to Africa grain and fertilizers – the goods most in demand today; they also hope for the development of technological partnerships with our country in areas where the Russian Federation has significant competitive advantages. 

Accounting for the growing competition of old and new players on the African continent, Russia, when formulating its strategy, should consider the interests of African states formulated in the strategic document of the African Union – Agenda 2063, according to which Africa should turn into a prosperous continent with advanced infrastructure and industry and qualitatively new human potential. At the same time, it is necessary to understand clearly how interaction with Africa will contribute to the solution of Russia’s own development tasks, its economic and technological breakthrough, and ensuring national security against the backdrop of aggravated confrontation with the West.  

In the context of the most severe sanctions and attempts to exclude Russia from the global political and economic space, the search for new partners capable of both supporting Russia on various international platforms and opening new opportunities for economic cooperation takes on a special role. The growing tension in relations with Europe and the United States, the growth of China’s economic and political power and influence in the Asian direction, and the swaying situation in the Middle East determine the importance of the African vector of Russia’s foreign policy. 

In political terms, the support of African countries, which make up more than a quarter of all UN voters, is extremely important for us. Now, when the expulsion of Russian diplomats from most Western states is becoming increasingly practiced, there is a real opportunity to strengthen diplomatic work in the African direction without additional financial costs, open previously closed Russian embassies and trade missions, and expand the size of qualified diplomatic personnel in African states. Economically, Africa is not only a supplier of raw materials for Russia but also the most important market to sell Russian industrial products and use Russian technologies, including the localization of Russian production facilities on the continent, training of personnel, and transfer of knowledge and skills.  

Therefore, the second Russia-Africa summit should become a qualitatively new step in the development of Russian-African relations. It is necessary to move from formulating the goals and objectives of Russian policy in the African direction to the implementation of specific projects and the development of a mechanism and tools for mutually beneficial cooperation. In political terms, the expectations of African countries from Russia in the context of the formation of a multipolar world are related to supporting their political sovereignty and countering color revolutions organized by the United States and the European Union, as well as solving security problems, including military, antiterrorist, and informational components. 

Africans are waiting for Russia to increase mutual trade, primarily through an increase in the supply of African products to the Russian Federation. At the summit in Sochi, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir V. Putin set the goal of at least doubling the volume of trade in the coming years. For the 2019 pre-Covid year, data on Russian-African trade were very modest compared to other partners, although over the past ten years they have tended to grow. The share of Russia in Africa’s foreign trade turnover increased over this period from 0.8 to 1.6%, which was not only incomparable with the EU and China (28 and 16%, respectively) but also significantly behind individual European and Asian countries. 

To increase the volume of Russian-African trade under the economic war unleashed against Russia, it will be necessary, first of all, to solve logistics issues related to the transportation of goods in both directions, building new logistics chains and organizing logistics centers (seaports, airports, warehouses, etc.) to deliver Russian products to African markets. Of great importance are the creation of new mechanisms of paying for goods to reduce the role of settlements in dollars and euros, including countertrade (barter); the development of a mechanism of accounting for concessions for natural resources in export transactions; the use of national, including electronic, currencies et cetera. Using foreign experience, it is also necessary to consider the possibility of granting special powers to one of the Russian state-owned banks to carry out targeted financing of export transactions and investment projects on the African continent.

However, in our opinion, it is not trade that should become the link through which we can raise the entire system of Russian-African relations to a new level. The key direction in the near future, which will become attractive for African countries and will contribute to the successful economic development of the Russian Federation, may be Russian investments in those areas of the African economy that are of interest to both the Russian Federation and African states. We primarily mean the development of bilateral opportunities for technological partnership. 

In the conditions of the post-Covid world, the demand for Russian technologies in Africa could grow significantly since Russia has high competencies in the areas that are most in demand today on the African continent. The most pressing problem facing Africans today is energy. About half of Africans do not have access to electricity. A promising solution to the problem of providing energy could be the construction of nuclear and hydroelectric power plants, for which the main contractor would be the Russian Federation, which has a great wealth of experience in this area. Russia is already implementing a project to build a powerful nuclear power plant in Egypt and is preparing similar projects in a number of other African states. We can also manufacture equipment for the oil and gas industry, ferrous metallurgy, mining, small aviation, and agriculture. Africans are interested in building factories to produce copper cable, fiber optics, and fertilizers from local raw materials and mini-factories for processing agricultural products, as well as in programs for the digitalization of the economy, including digital transformation programs – from a “smart city” and taxation control to creating a cybersecurity system. 

There are also great prospects for cooperation in the space sector, including the creation of joint satellites for remote sensing of the earth (optical, radar, and spectroscopic), ground equipment for receiving and processing data from satellites, as well as in the construction industry, including in the construction of roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, river harbors, and seaports. It is necessary to develop cooperation in the field of medicine, including both the joint fight against dangerous infectious diseases and the pharmaceutical industry. Water purification technologies play a special role since the problem of clean drinking water is very topical for a number of African states.  

In all the above areas, Russia has high competences and capabilities, including the training of respective staff and local personnel. Cooperation in the scientific sphere should become an important area. The priorities of scientific cooperation with Africa should be specific and different from the tasks of cooperation with the United States or EU countries. Most important is not to learn something or adopt scientific experience but to use the special conditions and opportunities inherent in the African continent to increase the scientific and technical potential of our country and science.  

In the first place, we mean cooperation in biosafety, medicine, biodiversity, geology, processing of minerals, ecology, climate, the “blue economy,” agriculture, space, information technology and the humanities. The first concrete step in this direction could be the creation a joint Russian-Ethiopian biological center in Africa on the basis of the only Joint Soviet-Ethiopian (later Russian-Ethiopian) biological expedition, which has been working since 1987. The transfer of Russian technologies, as well as cooperation in the scientific field, is beneficial to Russia not just in terms of its international image as a country that contributes to the advanced development of Africa and the strengthening of its economic sovereignty. Such a transfer makes it possible to form an army of supporters in the countries of the continent by solving the problem of overcoming technological backwardness and training qualified personnel who will master and promote Russian technological solutions. 

In addition, Russia gets the opportunity, on the one hand, to develop and improve its technologies, which are in demand by the rapidly growing young African population, and, on the other hand, a huge market for Russian high-tech goods and services, which is so necessary for many domestic manufacturers. In Professors Abramova and Fituni opinion, it is the topic of the transfer of Russian technologies to Africa, along with political and information issues, that should become the most important for discussion at the second Russia−Africa summit. This is in the interests of both Russia and all African states.

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The current crisis in Georgia has been news on media outlets around the world. However, few analysts have paid attention to the real reason why so much instability is being fomented in the country. Indeed, Tbilisi seems to be the new focus for western warmongers. NATO plans to bring Georgia into a conflict with Russia. This will allow the West to open a new flank and distract Moscow by forcing it to send troops to yet another battlefield.

While the wave of violent protests has decreased its strength the crisis in Georgia appears far from over. Destabilizing forces are boosting the social and institutional chaos in order for the government to make decisions in favor of foreign interests. This is becoming increasingly clear as domestic players are formally calling on Western countries to impose sanctions on Georgia to advance pro-NATO and anti-Russian agendas.

In April, former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili formally requested that the Collective West sanction his own country. According to Saakashvili, currently imprisoned on serious charges of abuse of power and other crimes, with Western coercive measures, Georgia would be forced to release him and thus increase civil and political freedoms. On the occasion, he emphasized that the US and Europe would be the global defenders of democracy, decency and justice, and should therefore react to the supposedly “pro-Russian” tendencies of the current Georgian government – which he accuses of complying with “orders” from Moscow.

The case is particularly curious as it echoes the current Georgian domestic political situation. The opposition to the government uses as its main rhetoric a supposed connection of the Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili with Russia. No evidence of his alleged connection with Moscow is presented, other than his resistance to being actively involved in the Ukrainian conflict – in addition to his wise attitude to avoid fomenting new security crises in the separatist regions on the border with Russia.

When anti-government protests began in March, the signs of foreign interference to promote anti-Russian policies were already obvious. In the streets of Tbilisi, protesters held Ukrainian flags and sang the Ukrainian national anthem, as well as war songs of the neo-Nazi regime. President Vladimir Zelensky himself went public to thank the protesters for their support and said that “there is no Ukrainian who would not want the success of our friendly Georgia”, in addition to calling the demonstrations a “democratic success. European success”.

It is important to remember that at the height of the protests, these pro-instability actions were supported by the country’s own president, the native Frenchwoman Salome Zurabishvili, who expressed strong opposition to the government and parliament for the approval of a law against foreign espionage. Being a foreign agent on Georgian soil herself, Zurabishvili echoed Western rhetoric that demanding special registration for NGOs funded by international groups would be a kind of abusive or dictatorial attitude.

In fact, these attitudes on the part of the opposition to the current Prime Minister are not by chance – these moves indicate a coordinated action to pressure Georgia to act incisively in favor of Western interests. Zurabishvili, before becoming the country’s president, had served as foreign minister, standing out for her extremely pro-NATO work. In the same vein, former President Saakashvili, who is now demanding Western sanctions to pressure the government to release him, was recognizably a US-backed head of state, largely responsible for provocations against pro-Russian border regions during the 2008 conflict. He also gained asylum in post-Maidan Ukraine, even being governor of Odessa during the Poroshenko era.

The fact that politicians like Zurabishvili and Saakashvili are acting incisively to foment polarization and protests within Georgia, in addition to sanctions and external pressure at the international level, shows that there is indeed a Western plan for Tbilisi to take an openly anti-Russian position in the current NATO’s proxy war with Moscow. This scenario reflects the current strategy of the Atlantic alliance, which seems focused on the multiplication of battlefields. The more conflict zones, the better for the Western powers, which want to harm Russia as much as possible, causing it to lose troops and weapons.

Many analysts believe that the West is currently about to “admit” its failure in Ukraine, which is why, in order to safeguard its global hegemony, NATO’s new focus would be to fight against China, which is seen by the US as a weaker adversary and against which there are more chances of victory in direct military confrontation. But for a war against China to be viable, it would be necessary to prevent Moscow from helping Beijing on the battlefield, which would explain the attempt to distract the Russians with multiple conflicts in the Eurasian space.

In this military context, forcing Georgia to assume a fully pro-NATO and anti-Russian foreign policy would be a great victory for the West. As long as the Georgian government continues to avoid involvement in the conflict, international pressure and the foment of internal color revolution will remain. Certainly, chaos in the country will continue to be stimulated by foreign agents until the government agrees to send troops to provoke the Russians in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, opening a new front in NATO’s war of aggression.

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Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

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With each passing day, the Ukrainian Army is being carved up and decimated in Bakhmut. To use a cinematic metaphor, this is a preview of the coming attraction, with Ukraine facing intense pressure to launch a counter-offensive that will push the Russians out of Ukraine. Ain’t going to happen.

Take a look at the following video. Yes, it is but one isolated anecdotal account of the slaughter in Bakhmut, but it rings true and provides a chilling picture of the desperate state of Ukrainian forces in that battle.

Even If Ukraine is able to scrounge up troops and vehicles that surpass anything the Russians have in place on the front-lines in the Donbass (a dubious assumption), it still lacks the artillery, air support, logistics and ammunition to sustain such an attack.

How do I know? Very simple. Just look at how Ukraine currently is performing in Bakhmut, Ugledar, and Avdevka. In every case, Ukrainian forces are retreating, albeit slowly, rather than blunting the Russian offensive. The following image (taken from liveuamap.com, a pro-Ukrainian site) shows the harrowing situation the Ukrainian troops confront.

Ukraine, which in theory should have an advantage by fighting from defensive positions, has failed to stop the slow but steady advance of Russian troops all along the line of contact. Instead of attacking and destroying Russian lines of communications that supply the Russian forces, Ukraine is launching artillery and HIMARS missile strikes on civilian targets. Those attacks do nothing to weaken Russia’s tactical and strategic situation.

The seven blue circles visible on the map signify locations where air raid warnings are sounding on April 25. This means the Russians hitting these sites with fixed wing aircraft to deliver 500 kg glide bombs and explosive laden drones. The effect is devastating for the Ukrainians on the receiving end.

These strikes also confirm the assessment contained in one of the leaked pieces of U.S. intelligence that Ukraine’s air defense system (ADS) has been destroyed and Ukraine lacks a layered ADS to fend off Russian attacks. Russian military sources claim they are inflicting an average of 500 fatalities on the Ukrainian troops. In other words, in the last 60 days the Ukrainians have suffered at least 30,000 KIA across the 950 km front. Ukraine does not have a limitless supply of manpower. 

No amount of happy talk in Washington or the capitals of other NATO countries alters the dire tactical situation confronting Ukraine. If you look at the changes on the liveuamap during the last six months, it is Russia, not Ukraine, that is relentlessly attacking all along the line of contact. Russia is conducting a brutal war of attrition and Ukraine is willingly sending irreplaceable forces into the maw of destruction. How is Ukraine going to mount a credible counter offensive without adequate air support, an exhausted air defense system, a weakened tank force, shortages of artillery and missiles that cannot be readily replaced and a chaotic logistics system that is failing to keep front-line troops fully supplied with ammunition, fuel and food?

Ukraine’s prospects are made more grim by the realization that Russia, during the last six months, has built layered defense systems along likely avenues of attack, stepped up its use of fixed wing aerial attacks on Ukrainian mobilization positions and kept massive trained reserves off the front lines. Russia is not behaving like an overly confident number 1 seed in the NCAA Basketball tournament. The Russian General Staff realize they are in an existential fight with NATO and are not engaging in premature victory celebrations. Russia is prepared for the long haul. However, Ukraine is not.

The leaders in Kiev are behaving like depraved junkies, totally dependent on the willingness of the West to keep sending money and weapons. But there is a problem. The United States and NATO have exhausted their stocks of weapons and ammunition and do not have the industrial base in place to quickly produce replacements. Ukrainian confidence in victory is no substitute for a fully supplied and trained army. Lack of supplies and raw recruits with minimal basic training is a recipe for catastrophe.

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In a shocking development, the government has announced it will be sending depleted uranium (DU) rounds to Ukraine along with Challenger 2 tanks.

As we know from several wars in the past few decades, the health consequences for Ukrainian civilians will be high. DU is a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal and it’s a by-product of the enrichment process used to make reactor-grade uranium.

Its chemical and physical properties have made it popular for a range of military and commercial uses: its density and its ability to self-sharpen attracted the attention of the US Department of Defence (DoD) in the late 1950s. The military was looking to increase the armour-piercing capacity of munitions and to strengthen the armour of tanks.

DU seemed to fit the bill. But its use has had a devastating impact on the populations caught up in numerous conflicts, with the terrible type of health consequences that we associate with radiation impacts.

DU is used for armour-piercing tank rounds and bullets as it is so heavy, meaning it can easily penetrate steel. Because of its heaviness, DU has also been used as ballast in aeroplanes, notably in hundreds of Boeing 747s — the early jumbo jets — that were built before 1981.

The practice became particularly controversial after an El Al cargo jet crashed into an apartment block in Amsterdam in 1992. Forty-three people were killed and the cargo, which included 10 tons of chemicals, as well as flammable liquids, gases, and caustic substances, burst into flames, along with hundreds of kilos of DU carried as weighting.

Although residents were assured that no health risk was posed, it was apparent that much of the DU had been released as dust particles into the atmosphere.

The risk is not that DU munitions will cause a nuclear explosion. It’s that the impact of their use causes toxic or radioactive dust to be released and if this is subsequently inhaled or ingested in other ways, it has very significant negative health consequences.

After the first Gulf war, the DoD Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf war Illnesses (OSAGWI) identified several DU exposure scenarios including through wounds caused by DU fragments, inhalation of airborne DU particles, ingestion of DU residues, or wound contamination by DU residues.

DU munitions were used on a large scale by the US and Britain in the Gulf war in 1991 and in Iraq in 2003. Their use has caused a sharp increase in the incidence rates of some cancers, such as breast cancer and lymphoma, in the areas where it has been used.

It has also been implicated in a rise in birth defects from areas adjacent to the main Gulf war battlefields. Other health problems associated with DU include kidney failure, nervous system disorders, lung disease and reproductive problems.

A report funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2013 showed that more than 400 tonnes of DU ammunition were estimated to have been used in 1991 and 2003, the vast majority by US forces.

The report showed that the Iraqi government’s Radiation Protection Centre had identified between 300 and 365 contaminated sites by 2006, mostly in the Basra region in southern Iraq.

As well as warning of contamination being spread by poorly regulated scrap metal dealers, including children, it also shared evidence that DU munitions were fired at light vehicles, buildings and other civilian infrastructure including the Iraqi Ministry of Planning in Baghdad — despite official assurances of military-only armoured targets.

Its use in the former Yugoslavia by Nato forces in 1995 and 1999 led to the same type of consequences. It was also used by the US in Syria in 2015. The impacts have not been confined to local populations — they have also affected the troops involved in or close to their use, and also military clean-up teams sent to deal with the impact of the DU.

The severe health consequences have led to the terms “Gulf war syndrome” and “Balkan syndrome” entering our vocabulary. The Ministry of Defence disputes the risks of DU, yet it recommends “ongoing surveillance” for veterans with embedded DU fragments.

No treaty explicitly banning the use of DU is yet in force, but it is clear that its use runs counter to the basic rules and principles of international humanitarian law. In 2006, the European Parliament strengthened its previous calls for a moratorium by calling for an introduction of a total ban, classifying the use of DU, along with white phosphorus, as inhumane.

Since 2007, repeated UN general assembly resolutions have highlighted serious concerns over the use of DU weapons. Britain, together with the US, France and Israel, are the only states that have consistently voted against the resolutions.

The British government must put an immediate end to its use of DU — inflicting it on the people of Ukraine is the last thing they need.

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Kate Hudson is general secretary of CND (cnduk.org).

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Pfizer, the manufacturer of one of the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines in the country, silently funded groups advocating for vaccine mandates and passports, according to a report by Lee Fang (paywalled).

In August 2021, the president of the Chicago Urban League, Karen Freeman-Wilson, in an interview on TV, argued that vaccine mandates would not disproportionately harm the black community.

“The health and safety factor here far outweighs the concern about shutting people out or creating a barrier,” Freeman-Wilson said at the time.

Earlier that year, the Chicago Urban League had received $100,000 from Pfizer for a project on promoting “vaccine safety and effectiveness.” The organization did not list Pfizer as a donor or partner on its website and Freeman-Wilson did not mention the funding during the interview.

The Chicago Urban League grant is one of many Pfizer-awarded groups to promote and encourage vaccine mandates. The pharmaceutical giant awarded grants to public health organizations, civil rights groups, as well as consumer, medical, and doctors’ groups. Most of these groups did not disclose the funding from Pfizer.

Corporate watchdog group the National Consumers League announced support for “government and employer mandates” requiring Covid vaccination in August 2021. The announcement came at around the same time the organization received a $75,000 grant from Pfizer for “vaccine policy efforts.”

Houston-based public health organization the Immunization Partnership publicly lobbied against bills introduced in Texas aimed at banning vaccine passports and vaccine mandates. The organization did not disclose that Pfizer gave it $35,000 earlier that year for “legislative advocacy.”

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