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How NATO States Sponsored ICC Prosecutor’s Putin Arrest Warrant

April 17th, 2023 by Max Blumenthal

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ICC prosecutor general Karim Khan raised millions from NATO states by crafting an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin while freezing investigations into well-documented US and Israeli war crimes. Along the way, he won powerful friends in Washington, London, Kiev — and Hollywood.

Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, stood before a podium on March 3, 2023, and issued an unusual qualifier:

“Of course the prosecutor of the ICC does not, whatever affection and regard I may have for my dear friends in Ukraine – has no special affinity to any particular country. We’re not a party to any hostilities.”

“We have an affinity to legality,” Khan insisted in British-accented English. “We have an affinity and commitment to the rule of law.”

Khan made his declaration of legal independence while headlining the “United for Justice” conference, an event personally organized in Lviv, Ukraine, by President Volodymyr Zelensky. There, he pressed the flesh with Ukraine’s president and conferred with US Attorney General Merrick Garland, who had stopped in to advance the Biden administration’s effort to haul Russian President Vladimir Putin before an international war crimes tribunal.

It was Khan’s fourth visit to Ukraine since the Russian military invaded the country in February 2022.

On March 17, 2023, Khan introduced a formal ICC warrant for Putin’s arrest, accusing the Russian president of the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children to a “network of camps” throughout Russia. The warrant arrived days before the 20th anniversary of the NATO invasion of Iraq, a crime directed by US and UK officials whom the ICC has refused to prosecute to this day.

As The Grayzone has reported, the ICC’s warrant was inspired by a State Department-funded report that contained no field reporting, no concrete evidence of war crimes, and no proof that Russia was actually targeting Ukrainian youth with a massive deportation campaign.

In fact, the investigators acknowledged finding “no documentation of child mistreatment, including sexual or physical violence, among the camps referenced in this report.” What’s more, the inquiry’s lead author told The Grayzone’s Jeremy Loffredo that “a large amount” of the Russian youth camps his team researched were “primarily cultural education – like, I would say, teddy bear.”

Though Khan pledged his absolute independence in his hunt for Putin, he is closely aligned with the same Western governments that are currently engaged in a proxy battle with Russia on the Ukrainian battlefield. Meanwhile, he has stalled the ICC’s case against Israel, frustrating human rights lawyers who represent the victims of grisly violence in the besieged Gaza Strip. Additionally, Khan formally dropped the international court’s case against the US military for its actions in Afghanistan.

Through his focus on Ukraine, Khan has presided over a massive surge in Western financial support for his office, with much of the money earmarked for his investigation into Russian officials. The ICC’s issuance of Putin’s arrest warrant happened to coincide with a major donor’s conference for the court in London, England.

The ICC prosecutor’s political entanglements do not stop there. Celebrity lawyer Amal Clooney has worked as a special advisor to Khan’s office while simultaneously counseling the Ukrainian government on its initiative to target Russian officials with prosecution, either by the ICC or another international body. Clooney has also served as a special liaison to the British Foreign Secretary.

It is perhaps no surprise, then, that after two decades of unremitting hostile relations with the ICC, official Washington is suddenly warming up to the court, and is endeared by its top prosecutor.

Karim Khan (left) with US Attorney General Merrick Garland in Lviv, Ukraine on February 28, 2023

ICC’s Khan inspires “sighs of relief in Jerusalem,” support from the US

US President Joe Biden helped set the tone in Washington with a full-throated endorsement of the ICC prosecutor Khan’s warrant against Putin, declaring it “justified.” On the Republican side of the aisle, the US Senate’s most enthusiastic cheerleader of the Ukraine proxy war, Lindsey Graham, was even more fulsome in his support for the court’s campaign, celebrating the ICC’s prosecutor as a modern-day Nazi hunter.

Washington’s sudden embrace of the ICC represented a sudden and clearly opportunistic break from two decades of antagonism.

Almost as soon as US President George W. Bush entered the White House in 2001, his administration introduced the Servicemembers Protection Act, a measure that authorized a future US military invasion of the Hague in the event the ICC indicted any US personnel for war crimes. When the bill passed the Senate the following year, not one member of the Republican Party opposed it.

The US intensified its campaign against the ICC in 2019, after then-Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced an investigation into war crimes committed by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. While Secretary of State Mike Pompeo personally denounced Bensouda, the Senate introduced a bipartisan resolution calling on him to escalate its attacks on the “politicized” ICC. Graham was among the signatories to the resolution. (The Biden administration also opposes the ICC investigation into Israeli war crimes).

When Bensouda declared her intention to investigate both the US and Taliban for crimes against humanity in Afghanistan the following year, Washington placed the prosecutor under sanctions and revoked her US visa.

Since replacing Bensouda in 2021, Khan has worked to soothe the nerves of the US and its most violence-prone allies. The Jerusalem Post reported in June 2022 that “there have been some sighs of relief in Jerusalem,” as Khan had “not issued a single public statement nor taken any single public action regarding Israel-Palestine” in his first year as prosecutor.

“There has been no significant progress or measures taken, the investigation [into Israeli atrocities] is not a priority for the office of the prosecutor, and no cases have been brought yet,” a member of the legal team representing victims of Israeli violence in the occupied Gaza Strip told The Grayzone. “Every time the issue is raised before Khan, he never takes a position, and there’s never been a statement.”

The lawyer noted the irony of Khan’s obsession with the transfer of civilians from Ukraine to Russia, considering he has ignored the forced deportation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the territory now known as “Israel” to occupied territories and refugee camps across the Middle East. “In Palestine civilians have been transferred for decades, it’s the most over documented situation of war crimes in history,” they said. “Palestine should be the final benchmark for the credibility of the court.”

Khan also narrowed the scope of the ICC’s Afghanistan investigation, protecting US forces from prosecution by focusing solely crimes committed by the Taliban. “This decision reinforces the perception that these institutions set up in the West and by the West are just instruments for the West’s political agenda,” Shaharzad Akbar, the former chair of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission, complained to The Intercept

“This was clearly a political decision – there’s really no other way it can be interpreted,” Jennifer Gibson, a US lawyer who heads an investigation into US abuses in Afghanistan, said of Khan’s action. “It gave the US and their allies a get out of jail free card.”

With its two most contentious investigations out of the way, a clearly pliant figure in the prosecutor’s office, and Russian troops inside Ukraine, the previously battered ICC suddenly experienced a deluge of Western financial support.

“In the weeks after 24 February [2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine], the [International Criminal] court has been flooded with cash and secondments,” reported JusticeInfo.net.

Much of the money flowed directly to Khan’s office, with special earmarks for efforts targeting Russian officials. As Maria Elena Vignoli of Human Rights Watch told JusticeInfo.net, “In the messaging around the various pledges that were made, states were not always that careful, and they often made the link between their contribution and Ukraine, thus creating this perception of politicization or selectivity in the court’s work.”

Washington, London pave the path for the ICC’s Khan

It was February 28, 2022 when Khan announced his intention to “proceed with opening an investigation into the Situation in Ukraine, as rapidly as possible.” Russia’s military operation inside Ukraine was only four days old at that point.

Days later, on March 2, 2022, the British Embassy in the Hague delivered Khan a referral co-signed by over 40 US and UK diplomats that urged him to investigate Russia for violations of the Rome Statute of the ICC.

That same day, Sen. Graham introduced a resolution in the US Senate calling for “Vladimir Putin and members of the Russian regime to be held accountable for the numerous acts of war, aggression, and human rights abuses that have been conducted under his watch.” Even as hawks like John Bolton warned that support for the ICC’s warrant could validate future legal actions against the US citizens, the resolution passed unanimously.

Just hours after issuing his resolution condemning alleged violations of international law, Graham took to Twitter to call for Putin’s assassination. “Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?” the senator pleaded on March 3, 2022. “The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.”

Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?

The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.

You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) March 4, 2022

On April 3, 2022, Biden injected further momentum into the ICC’s campaign against Russia, branding Putin a “war criminal” and demanding he be hauled before “a war crimes trial.”

To further Biden’s objective, and by extension, that of the ICC, the US Department of State announced in May 2022 the establishment of a Conflict Observatory to gather open source evidence of alleged Russian war crimes and disseminate the findings “so that prosecutors can potentially even build criminal cases based on the material that is published.”

With American political winds at his back, Khan embarked on his first officially-curated tour of Ukraine.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan on a government-guided tour of Kharkiv, Ukraine

Four government-guided junkets to Ukraine

Khan made his inaugural visit to Ukraine on March 16, 2022, arriving first in Poland, where he met with Ukrainian migrants at a refugee reception center. He then crossed the Ukrainian border to confer in Lviv with Irina Venediktova, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General, before holding a virtual meeting with Zelensky.

“We conduct our work with independence, impartiality and integrity. I have underlined that I wish to engage with all parties to the conflict,” Khan insisted.

📢 During today's visit to #Ukraine, Prosecutor #KarimAAKhanQC met virtually w/ President @ZelenskyyUa:“I was pleased to hold important exchanges w/ the President while in country; we agreed all efforts are needed to ensure #IHL is respected & to protect the civilian population.” pic.twitter.com/SqAJsdF5oI

— Int'l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) March 16, 2022

His second visit came just weeks later, in April, when Venediktova shepherded him to the town of Bucha, which Russian troops had occupied for weeks before retreating at the start of that month. Ukrainian officials simultaneously led packs of Western journalists to local gravesites, presenting the burial grounds as evidence that Russia had carried out mass-scale executions in the town.

Images of corpses strewn across Bucha prompted Zelensky to accuse the Russian government of “genocide”, while US President Biden demanded that Putin appear before a war crimes tribunal. Biden’s request came despite his own Defense Department concession that it could not “independently and singlehandedly confirm accounts” of execution-style massacres committed by Russian forces in the town.

When Khan made his third visit to Ukraine in July 2022, he went to Kharkiv. Accompanied once again by Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Venediktova, he announced that the ICC planned to establish a field office in Kiev.

By that point, Zelensky’s government had outlawed 13 opposition parties, jailed his main presidential rival, shut down all critical media, banned the Russian patriarchate of the Orthodox Church and was on its way to arresting its top priest. Kiev was also disappearing and torturing political opponents and human rights advocates as part of an assassination campaign targeting Ukrainian officials accused of collaborating with Russia. Neo-Nazi militants had even videotaped themselves executing suspected Russian sympathizers.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military was escalating its attacks on civilian targets throughout the independent Republicans of Donetsk and Lugansk, bombing markets and in one instance, massacring a bus load of commuters with a Tochka-U missile. Ukrainian soldiers were also recorded executing unarmed Russian prisoners or war and shooting them in the knees.

But as Khan was junketed around Ukraine, he remained studiously disinterested in the documented abuses his official hosts were carrying out right under his nose. He had his eyes firmly fixed on Putin – and on the generous Western donations that propelled his mission.

Karim Khan meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during his fourth trip to Ukraine this March

Bring Back Our Girls 2.0

This March, Khan made his fourth trip to Ukraine to, in his words, “deepen our engagement with national authorities.” In Lviv, he headlined a conference called “United for Justice.” Personally hosted by Zelensky, the stated purpose of the event was to “hold Russia’s top leadership accountable for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.”

In promotional material, the United For Justice conference focused on a seemingly new and emotionally potent issue: the supposed deportation of Ukrainian children by Russia, and the urgent need to bring them home.

The theme contained clear echoes of the Kony 2012 campaign launched against Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, who “kidnapped over 30,000 children to strengthen his army,” according to the now-disgraced online hucksters that initiated it. It also recalled the humanitarian interventionist “Bring Back Our Girls” hashtag campaign launched by former First Lady Michelle Obama and other celebrities to highlight the abduction of several hundred schoolgirls by the Islamist militia Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.

At United for Justice, it seemed NATO officials had landed on a theme guaranteed to pique the outrage of suggestible Western liberals.

Throughout the United for Justice conference, participants repeatedly leveled the allegation of mass youth deportations against Russia. “Small children are being kidnapped, brainwashed, and forced to become Russian citizens,” Dutch Foreign Minister Woepke Hoekstra claimed from the podium, denouncing “the systemic abduction of Ukrainian children.”

Merrick Garland, the US Attorney General, said after his visit to Lviv that he was “trying to find the people” to identify and “build evidence against” in Russia’s alleged “effort to forcibly deport children.”

During his own address, Khan linked a visit he made to an orphanage inside Ukraine to “allegations that we received that children have been deported outside Ukraine, into the territory of the Russian Federation.” He did not indicate that any children were taken from the orphanage he toured, however.

The ICC website currently features a photograph of Khan posing beside empty cribs in the Ukrainian orphanage he referenced in his speech – an apparent public relations ploy designed to suggest that Putin’s minions had snatched the young children from their beds. Though this orphanage was far from the front line, Khan sported a kevlar protective helmet for added effect.

Yet just months before Khan posed as the fatherly protector of Ukrainian children from the Kremlin’s predatory clutches, a child abuse scandal hit close to his own home.

In May 2022, Khan’s brother, Imran Ahmad Khan, resigned from his seat in the British House of Commons after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy. Ahmad Khan served 18 months in prison after a judge found him guilty of climbing into the boy’s bunk bed and groping his groin while attempting to ply him with gin and pornography. Following the conviction, a second man accused Ahmad Khan of abusing him as a minor.

While there is no indication Karim Khan provided any legal assistance to his convict brother, The Guardian noted that Ahmad Khan remains “close to his family, particularly his brothers Karim and Khaled, both lawyers, the former a prosecutor at the international criminal court in The Hague.”

Khan relies on State Department-sponsored research for “home run pitch”

During public speeches about Ukraine, Karim Khan often emphasizes his trips to battlegrounds like Bucha and Kharkiv, where the Kiev government accused Russia of committing grisly war crimes. However, when he introduced the ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin, his indictment did not mention any alleged Russian atrocities in either location. Instead, it focused entirely on the supposed deportation of Ukrainian children.

The ICC prosecutor’s warrant was clearly inspired by a Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) report that was funded and supported by the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations – an entity the Biden administration established in May 2022 to advance the prosecution of Russian officials.

The ICC accuses Russia's leadership of running a network of "re-education camps" for captive Ukrainian youth.@loffredojeremy did what the ICC refused to do and visited one such camp outside Moscow.

Is this a war crime? Watch Jeremy's exclusive video and judge for yourself. pic.twitter.com/lVTYjxpkJZ

— The Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) April 2, 2023

That State Department-sponsored paper, as The Grayzone revealed, contained long passages contradicting the ICC’s prosecutor’s claims, as well as those its author made in media appearances. In a conversation with journalist Jeremy Loffredo, Yale HRL director Nathaniel Raymond stated that “a large amount” of the Russian youth camps his team researched were “primarily cultural education – like, I would say, teddy bear.”

When asked why his research team did not attempt to visit any programs inside Russia, Raymond said, “We’re persona non grata. We’re considered extensions of US intelligence by the Russians.”

At the same time, the Yale HRL director acknowledged his report was driven by State Department objectives, conducted under “a lot of pressure” from the US National Intelligence Council. He also conceded his team relied on the Pentagon’s US Indo-Pacific Command to “expand our satellite access in the Pacific Command to get the Siberian and eastern camps.”

When asked why Khan did not seek arrest warrants over allegations of Russian war crimes in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, which dominated Western media coverage for days, Raymond recalled a phone conversation he held with several foreign correspondents from the New York Times in March 2023:

“I was on the phone with the New York Times on Friday – the folks who did the big Bucha investigation, and they were like, basically, ‘Hey, we want to win a Pulitzer Prize on Bucha. We think it’s weird that Khan charged [the transfer of youth] and didn’t charge Bucha.’ And I said, ‘It would have been the worst thing imaginable.’”

Raymond explained the prosecutor’s logic: “If Khan had charged Bucha, it would have been catastrophic, because he would have been telegraphing weakness to the Russians. Because Bucha is a massacre. But it doesn’t mean that it is Rome Statute-level in terms of intentional systematic and command-and-control orders. To do that, you need the forensics… ballistics, you need the communications. And there’s no evidence the ICC has that.”

So, according to the Yale HRL director, Khan “started with a home run pitch, and basically said, we’re charging Putin on his own statements in a prima facie evidence-proof [case] on a conservative set of indictments. The transfer and deportation was lowball, he didn’t charge first degree murder.”

“For the New York Times,” Raymond continued, “they’re not going to be happy until Bucha gets charged with all the glitz of an ICC indictment. But [Khan would] be basically saying to Putin: ‘go throw a lieutenant colonel from the paratroopers out the window and you’re cool.’”

Besides providing Khan with the easiest route to an arrest warrant for Putin, the indictment also happened to pack the biggest propaganda punch, enabling the prosecutor to cast himself as the savior of Ukraine’s children.

To that end, he has received critical PR assistance from Amal Clooney, the international lawyer who gained fame as the wife of a Hollywood humanitarian interventionist who is one of the US Democratic Party’s most prolific fundraisers.

The ICC’s Karim Khan confers with Amal Clooney in April 2022 after appearing at the UN to drum up support for prosecuting Russian officials

The Clooney connection: Khan collaborates with Hollywood humanitarian interventionists

In September 2021, weeks after assuming the role of ICC prosecutor, Khan appointed Amal Clooney as a special advisor to his investigation into atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan. When Russian forces entered Ukraine five months later, Clooney immediately shifted her focus, accepting a Ukrainian government invitation to join their “legal task force on accountability.”

Her collaborative relationship with Khan, which spanned at least a decade, has raised further questions about the ICC cheif’s pledge of “independence, impartiality and integrity.”

The Lebanese-born Amal Clooney first emerged as a global celebrity through her marriage to Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney, himself a prominent humanitarian interventionist who led the campaign to target Sudan’s government and its former president, Omar Bashir, with economic sanctions and genocide charges over its actions in Darfur. The US Israel lobby and then-US president George W. Bush heavily supported the crusade against Khartoum, with the latter threatening to send US troops to the oil-rich region to confront Bashir. For his part, Clooney invoked the memory of Auschwitz to advocate for UN military intervention in the region. Though the subsequent ICC warrant for Bashir’s arrest ultimately proved futile, Clooney’s campaign established his bonafides within the international human rights industry.

In 2016, George Clooney turned his focus to domestic politics, raising what he described as “an obscene amount of money” for the presidential campaign of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Entry costs ran up to $353,400 per couple at the pro-Hillary fundraisers hosted by George and Amal Clooney.

George and Amal Clooney (right) at a 2016 fundraiser they hosted for Hillary Clinton

That same year, George and Amal leveraged their fame to establish the Clooney Foundation for Justice. Like the foundations established by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama after their presidencies, the Clooneys’ initiative relied on funding from liberal billionaires including Bill Gates and George Soros and forged partnerships with Microsoft and the UN. The Clooney Foundation for Justice also lists the US and UK government-sponsored intelligence proxy Bellingcat as an official partner.

The agenda of the Clooneys’ human rights outfit tracks closely with Washington’s foreign policy objectives. The group pushes human rights campaigns in countries where the US seeks regime change, while overlooking well-documented atrocities committed by the US and its allies, including Israel. In Venezuela, for example, which the US has targeted with sanctions and violent military coups in pursuit of regime change, the Clooney Foundation says it is assisting an ICC investigation into President Nicholas Maduro.

While overseeing her foundation, Amal Clooney won several British government appointments, including a two years stint as UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s Special Envoy for Media Freedom, and a role as a formal international legal advisor to the UK Attorney General.

Though Clooney once served on the legal team of jailed Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange, she said nothing when Hunt denounced her former client, defended his arrest, and endorsed the journalist’s extradition to the US.

Amal Clooney (left) and UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who appointed her as his Special Envoy on Media Freedom in 2019

In April 2022, the Clooney Foundation announced it would dispatch a team to Kiev to assist the Ukrainian government’s ICC investigation. That month, Amal Clooney appeared on a UN Human Rights Council panel alongside Khan, where she introduced the public to the allegations that Russia’s government was engaged in the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children for the first time.

“Could it be that thousands of children are being forcibly deported to Russia? Could it be that teenage girls are being raped in the street in front of their family and their neighbors? …Unfortunately, the answer is yes,” Clooney proclaimed, providing no evidence to back her claim.

"Ukraine is, today, a slaughterhouse."

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney urged countries at the UN to focus on international justice for war crimes in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/Wthabo06W7

— DW News (@dwnews) April 28, 2022

Two months later, Khan and Amal Clooney reunited for a meeting with Ukraine’s General Prosecutor, Irina Venediktova, at the European Union’s Eurojust side-event on prosecuting Russian officials.

Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova met with ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan and Amal Clooney, a British lawyer who is part of the Legal Task Force. This working group supports #Ukraine in providing justice for victims of international crimes committed by Russia.⤵ pic.twitter.com/T7pJMPWTFy

— Now in Ukraine (@Now_in_Ukraine) June 2, 2022

Next, in September, Khan participated in another Eurojust “cooperation for accountability in Ukraine” side-event co-sponsored by the governments of Ukraine, Germany, Denmark and Netherlands. The ICC prosecutor moderated the panel alongside Amal Clooney and the Ukraine’s new prosecutor, Dmitri Kostrin. (President Zelensky dismissed Venediktova in July over “concerns of treason”).

Khan’s relationship with Amal Clooney began long before either gained international notoriety. Back in 2010, when she was still Amal Alamuddin, the lawyer contributed to a volume of essays which Khan co-edited. Khan has also blurbed a 2022 book Clooney co-authored with British lawyer Philippa Webb, calling it a “a tour de force.” (Like Clooney, Webb is a member of the Kiev-supported “legal task force on accountability for crimes committed in Ukraine”).

The website of the Clooney Foundation for Justice features Khan showering even more praise on Clooney, hailing her as a “a giant [who has] been willing to speak up even though many would rather [she] quietened down…[her] refusal to be muzzled must inspire us not to be muzzled [and her] refusal to lose hope must inspire us to march forward.”

The ICC prosecutor’s adoration for Clooney apparently inspired his decision to keep her as a special advisor to his office, even as she worked for the British and Ukrainian governments – both belligerents in a war with Russia.

The Grayzone queried the ICC prosecutor’s press officer about Khan’s close collaboration with Clooney, inquiring whether her work on behalf of the Ukrainian and British governments compromised Khan’s stated pledge to “independence, impartiality and integrity.” It received no reply.

ICC undercuts negotiations with indictment timed for London donor conference

This March 20, exactly one week after issuing an arrest warrant for Putin, Khan appeared in London at an event sponsored by the British and Dutch governments to appeal to the Western states sponsoring the Ukraine proxy war for more money. There, he was seen yukking it up with British Justice Minister Dominic Raab and his counterparts from several NATO states and Ukraine.

The Guardian linked the timing of the Putin arrest warrant to the donor conference, noting, “Khan made his dramatic move against the Russian president last week ahead of a conference in London co-hosted by the UK and the Dutch government aimed at raising cash to fund the ICC’s war crimes investigatory work inside Ukraine.”

With justice ministers 40 UK and UK allies on hand, the confab raised $5 million for the ICC’s mission to prosecute Russian officials.

The donor conference just happened to take place three days after the 20th anniversary of the US and UK-led invasion of Iraq, an event that is estimated to have left over 1 million Iraqis dead. In 2020, the ICC dropped its investigation into British atrocities in Iraq.

Meanwhile, it has been over three months since Khan pledged to visit the Occupied Palestinian Territories to further the ICC’s dormant investigation into Israeli abuses. “Nobody knows if Khan has any plans to go to Palestine,” a lawyer representing Palestinian victims of Israeli violence lamented to The Grayzone. “It’s clear that it won’t be a priority.”

It is also clear that the ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin has planted another obstacle in the way of a negotiated end to the conflict in Ukraine. As a top Zelensky aide, Mykhailo Podalyak, stated on Twitter immediately after the court’s indictment of Putin, “There can be no negotiations with the current Russian elite.”

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The editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.

Featured image: ICC prosecutor Karim Khan meets with Ukrainian President Zelensky, March 2023 (Source: The Grayzone)

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The 21-year Old Leaker — Something Is Not Right

April 17th, 2023 by Larry Johnson

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The media obsession in vilifying Jack Texeira for “leaking” TOP SECRET and SECRET documents and judging him guilty without any benefit of doubt, is just another symptom of the authoritarian fever that grips many inhabitants of the United States. Forget the first amendment. Stay in the dark and trust the Government to tell you what you need to know. Before you join the mob eager to lynch the poor kid, let me share what some of my friends who are veterans of the CIA and the Air Force have said about this affair in the past few days.

Both men say that the story and alleged facts smell to high heaven. One longtime buddy, a veteran of the CIA, still provides consulting services to the U.S. Government and holds the same high clearances that he had prior to his retirement. He is an experienced operations officer. He has recruited foreigners to spy on behalf of the United States, managed highly classified programs and planned and executed many covert actions. In other words, he is no desk jockey.

We started working together 18 years ago in providing training support to a variety of military commands by writing and executing military exercises. All of our work was conducted in a SCIF and we had the clearances that gave us access to TOP SECRET, COMPARTMENTED INTELLIGENCE. I stopped doing that work five years ago but he has continued on.

During our 18 years of working on these highly classified exercises we have never seen a E3 (i.e., an Airman First Class) anywhere in the SCIF. The enlisted personnel who worked on these TOP SECRET exercises were at least a Staff Sergeant (E5). So what is a lowly E3 doing in a SCIF with TOP SECRET material and no supervision? That is the first red flag.

Another red flag, as I noted in my previous piece, is the partial copy of the CIA Operations Center Intelligence Report. Both of us have had access to CIA systems available on the military servers and we have never seen the CIA Ops Center report on any of those systems. Never! How did this 21 year old kid get his hands on that?

I was chatting today with another friend. He’s of more recent vintage. I discovered he is a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and that his last job with the Air Force was the inspection, certification and monitoring of Air Force SCIFs. Wow! Talk about serendipity. I asked him what he thought of the story the media is hard selling about the 21 year old with a trove of TS leaked documents? He told me, “It does not make sense.”.

He made the same points as my CIA buddy — how does a 21 year old E3 have this kind of access? My retired Colonel never saw it during his career. He told me, “At most, kids this age, might have a SECRET clearance.”

He also made the same observation that I raised in my previous piece on this incident — where the hell was this airman’s chain of command? A lowly E3 is not going to have unfettered access to a SCIF and will always have at least one senior commander (NCO or Officer) present to tell him what to do and to monitor his work.

Something is askew with the media story being presented to the World about the boy who posted the leak on the gamer chat board. The documents are not randomly selected. If the intent was to post classified information in order to impress a bunch of teenage gamers then why is the bulk of the material only about the war in Ukraine?

Finally, we are told, according to the Washington Post, that there are 300 documents. Really? Where are they? I have only been able to find roughly 18 documents. Have any of your seen the 100 pages that the media insists were posted to the web? That discrepancy alone raises another big red flag for me. Why was the Washington Post allowed to read/see 300 highly classified documents? The Post reporters do not hold security clearances. But it is okay for them to review those documents.

One of the major revelations from this leaking incident is that most of the press in the United States have rejected the fundamental mission of the media — expose truths the Government wants to hide from the public. What a volte face!! Fifty years ago the New York Times and the Washington Post led the way in defying the Nixon Adminstration’s effort to quash the publication of the highly classified Pentagon Papers. Those documents revealed that the U.S. Government, under both Republican and Democrat Presidents, lied to the American public about the war in Vietnam. And today? Those two media outlets enthusiastically helping the U.S. Government identify the leaker and smear him in the process. So much for the viability of the First Amendment.

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Featured image: Jack Teixeira, alleged orchestrator of the 2023 Pentagon document leaks. (Licensed under the Public Domain)

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Corona Wars Have Exposed Institutional Corruption: The Fulcrum of Autonomy in a Brave New World of Healthcare

April 17th, 2023 by Dr. Emanuel Garcia

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I suppose I have been contemplating the contours of an ideal form of “Medicine” forever, certainly ever since beginning my formal institutional studies that led to my M.D.

Three years of the Corona Wars have exposed institutional corruption at virtually every level: governments, their ministries, the medical councils that purport to protect their citizens by regulating those who practice medicine, the global entities inextricably entwined, for example, the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

We’ve seen over these past three years how vaccines have come to be redefined, how informed consent has been minimized, how the Hippocratic Oath has lost its charm for the globalist agenda seeking to instill fear into the population of the world and to inject this population with a gene-altering thrombogenic concoction using the arts of seduction and force.

So, the dust having been settled, from within this rubble of institutional malfeasance, we have an opportunity to start afresh – we people who have recognized the perverse role of the pharmaceutical industrial complex with its the so-called New World Order aspirations.

Let’s start with doctors and the authority with which they have been imbued, and the power with which scientific research facilities and hospitals have been cloaked by those who, suffering, are at their mercy.

Every encounter between a patient and a doctor is itself permeated by aspects of this force: even kings of an earthly realm have been humbled, when weak and stricken, by their physicians.

It is time to level the playing field, and to support a form of patient-guided self-healing in which the individual becomes the master of his or her own treatment. After all, the typical first step for any afflicted individual is a self-healing one; only when this fails does he or she reach out to a professional authority, an authority whose regulation is monopolized by the State.

This authority may now take on a new shape and may be redefined.

Let us leave aside for the moment Big Medicine, by which I mean the medicine of highly technical procedures and expensive equipment and operating rooms and surgeries, the Medicine of acute trauma care and complex imaging, which by my estimation accounts for a small percentage of health.

Let us focus instead on areas of nutrition, prevention, early detection of ailments, and natural treatments for conditions that comprise the bulk of GP consultations. Diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular health – it seems to me that these can be addressed readily and successfully by integrative and ‘alternative’ medical approaches that rely far less on proprietary pharmaceuticals and far more on homeopathic approaches. But whatever the type of intervention, at the core of what I am proposing is a clear and purposeful demystification of the doctor or healer – a demystification that does not detract from an acknowledgment of expertise, but that establishes the patient on a level playing field, as it were.

In psychoanalysis the discovery by Freud of what we call ‘transference’ led to an immense research into the meaning and uses of the emotional constellations projected or transferred onto the analyst. It involved a recognition of the creation of authoritative power – a power created by the patient himself which, at the end of a successful analysis, would be dissipated or analyzed away sufficiently until the patient could proceed independently. In summary, the goal of analysis is self-analysis: autonomy.

By these lights a new system would be one of egalitarian cooperation. A patient would be free to educate himself and to choose interventions, approaches, medicines, and treatments in accordance with his or her needs.

How this may be practically implemented I will have to leave to others whose powers of creative organization are far greater than mine. I can imagine flourishing wellness centers, widespread communicative consultation enabled by the internet, programs emphasizing health rather than focused on and organized principally around disease … In fact, I am aware of initiatives here in New Zealand and around the world that have begun to implement such ideas.

But it is the fulcrum of autonomy that is essential, whatever lever may be used, and the end of the millennial tradition in Western medicine that deified physicians. It will mean also the end of the reign of the monstrous public and private entities and corporations that have so thoroughly betrayed us these past three years.

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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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History: The Origins of the Polish-Ukrainian Conflict: West Ukraine and Greater Poland

April 17th, 2023 by Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović

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***

At the very beginning, it must be noticed that before the outbreak of WWI in the summer of 1914 it was not both either Poland or Ukraine as the state on the political map of Europe. Poland was considered a historical region while Ukraine was a geographical one.

Poland was divided at the end of the 18^th century between three powerful neighbors – the Kingdom of Prussia, the Habsburg Empire, and the Russian Empire while the present-day territory of Ukraine between the Habsburg Monarchy (Austria, Austria-Hungary) which took its western part including Lvov (Lemberg/Lwów) and the Russian Empire possessing its eastern and central portions including Kiev. However, the biggest portions of historical Poland and geographic Ukraine were governed by Russia from 1795 up to 1917.

For the reason to change a such geopolitical situation, it was created before WWI an idea of political cooperation between the Poles and the Ukrainians for the sake to fight for independence. Nevertheless, behind this idea was the project of reborn Great Poland within its historical boundaries (before the three partitions of Poland-Lithuania in 1772, 1793, and 1795). The Polish state was re-established on November 11^th, 1918 but at that time the Poles and the Ukrainians were already fighting with each other over the land and the borders. On the same day, Józef Piłsudski (born near Vilnius in Lithuania/Litwa in 1867) became appointed by the Governing Council of Poland (in fact, the government) to the position of the head of state with dictatorial authority (“Naczelnik”).[i] His first duty was to create the government of the just re-established independent state of Poland. He was the leader of Poland till 1922 and from 1926 to 1935 when he died. During his governing of Poland, the Polish foreign policy, especially toward Soviet Russia/USSR, Lithuania, and Ukraine depended on his designs and political decisions.

He wanted to realize the idea of re-born independent Poland during WWI as saw wartime as a great opportunity to re-establish the borders of historical Poland (those borders were established on the east at the very expense of Eastern Slavs, primarily Russians, and Russia). However, to do that, the precondition was the dismissal of the three empires: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. Only on the ruins of all three of them, the borders of historical Poland could be re-created. Nevertheless, at the very end of the war, it became obvious that Lithuanians and Ukrainians would not support this idea and his designs concerning historical Poland as in this case both of them had to be included in Poland but not be independent. The greatest part of this idea could be realized by the collapse of Russia during the war (as the biggest portion of historical Poland was included in Russia) and, therefore, J. Piłsudski supported the Russian defeat by Germany and Austria-Hungary. For that reason, since 1908 he was forming Polish legions which had to fight on the side of the Central Powers against the Russian Empire on the Eastern Front.

The Bolshevik anti-Russian revolution in October/November 1917 followed by the 1917−1922 Russian Civil War offered new political possibilities to several nations to get either formal independence or autonomy within post-revolutionary Russia (in fact, the USSR). That was exactly an idea that was promulgated by Józef Piłsudski for the last two decades.

Nevertheless, from the very beginning of WWI, the Polish question was put within the geopolitical designs of the German Second Reich (1871−1918) which meant in the practice that the Polish patriots and nationalists have been only observers without a real political and military power to change the political map of Central and East Europe to their national favor. Up to the very end of WWI, in other words, they could just silently observe the changes that occurred in this part of Europe including the Bolshevik red revolution, the Russian civil war between the Reds and the Whites, and finally, the military occupation of present-day West Ukraine by the Central Powers.

Józef Piłsudski himself became arrested by the Germans in the summer of 1917 (being in the German prison in Magdeburg till November 1918) for the very reason he did not want to put his military detachments (legions) under the German supreme command. He became free when the Russian Empire already collapsed due to the pro-German Bolshevik revolution. In the meantime, on November 11^th, 1918 Poland proclaimed its national-political independence but without clear and internationally agreed state borderlands especially in the east (conflict with the Bolshevik Russia, Lithuania, and Ukraine). From the time of the beginning of the Russian civil war in November 1917 up to the end of WWI, there were a number of nations who proclaimed their national-political independence including Poland as well (From Finland to Azerbaijan).

The Polish head of state, saw East Ukraine with Kiev to be the key subject to the question of the Russian future and, therefore, to Poland too. He took into consideration several important facts regarding Ukraine as its geopolitical position, economic potential including the production of grain, coal, salt, iron ore, or steel, and finally its huge population number which was at that time around 30 million people. All of these factors have been taken into consideration as Ukraine was a natural ally of Poland against the Russian Empire or any form of Russia including a Bolshevik one as a successor of the Russian Empire.

That was a time (November 1918) when self-proclaimed the so-called Ukrainian People’s Republic (the UPR), in fact, present-day East Ukraine, was fighting to survive against the Bolshevik Red Army as V. I. Lenin did not want to recognize any kind of Ukrainian independence but rather autonomy within Bolshevik Russia (later the USSR). The same policy intentions he had regarding all other ex-Russian territories that had proclaimed independence from the Russian Empire in 1917 and 1918, including Poland as well. For that purpose, Lenin’s Bolsheviks organized a political attempt in November 1918 to take power in Poland which ultimately collapsed. Nevertheless, it was a clear signal for the new Polish authorities in Warsaw that Lenin’s Bolsheviks are the enemies of Polish independence and Polish geopolitical projections in East Europe including parts of present-day Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania (or in other words, former historic Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania according to the 1569 Union of Lublin). Nevertheless, a new Bolshevik government in St. Petersburg started to militarily occupy land claimed by Warsaw and to bolshevizied it which became the casus belli for the 1918−1920 Polish-Bolshevik War.

To have a better position in the fight against the Bolsheviks, J. Piłsudski sent to Kiev at the end of November 1918 a special diplomatic mission which had the prime task to discuss with the new Ukrainian authorities all possibilities concerning Polish-Ukrainian military cooperation.

For the same purpose, in January 1919 it was sent to Warsaw the Ukrainian delegation from Kiev in order to discuss all practical problems regarding the making of the Polish-Ukrainian anti-Bolshevik military coalition. But in the practice, at that time, at least for the Polish side, such military alliance became, in fact, not so relevant as Poland did not have armed forces which could substantially help the UPR against the Red Army.

For instance, when WWI was over, the Polish army numbered only some 6.000 soldiers, although their number was growing progressively. For example, in two months, the Polish army had around 110.000 volunteer soldiers and officers but they have not been able to successfully participate in any serious military action at least until the spring of 1919. Nonetheless, it became the truth that the Polish army had to be engaged in the first serious military campaigns exactly against Ukrainian forces over the territory of East Galicia, and, therefore, Polish negotiations with the Ukrainian side became broken off already in January 1919.

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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.

Note

[i] Joseph Klemens Piłsudski was born on December 5^th in 1867 and died on May 12the in 1935. He was born near Vilnius (Litwa) at that time part of the Russian Empire (the so-called “Russian Poland”). He was studying at the Kharkov University and became one of the chief agitators for the Polish Socialist Party (the PSP) since 1893. However, his focal political orientation and aim was to gain an independence for Poland primarily from Russia, but if possible, within the historical borders of Poland as they existed before 1795 (the Third Partition of Poland-Lithuania). For his anti-Russian activities, J. Piłsudski was in 1887 exiled to Siberia. In 1892 he returned to Poland and founded underground propaganda newspaper to agitate for the independence of Poland. In 1914 after the start of WWI he organized Polish volunteer detachments to join the army of Austria-Hungary on the Eastern Front to fight Russia. After the Russian February Revolution in 1917, he required from Germany to guarantee the ultimate independence of Poland but when the German authority rejected the requirement J. Piłsudski stopped to support Berlin. As a consequence, he was interned in 1917−1918. In newly independent Poland he became head of state in 1918−1922 and Chief of Staff of the Polish Army in 1918−1923. During the Polish-Russian War after WWI, J. Piłsudski succeeded to expend the eastern borders of Poland at the expense of Bolshevik Russia. In 1926, he organized and lead an army putsch and dissolved Parliament. Until his death he was Minister of War and general inspector of the armed forces but failed to modernize both the army and economy.

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Selected Articles: Beware the Agents of Chaos

April 17th, 2023 by Global Research News

Beware the Agents of Chaos

By Richard Gale and Dr. Gary Null, April 15, 2023

Black Radical News in 2023: Mumia’s Fate, African Colonialism, and the Zone of Peace in the Americas.

By Michael Welch, Abayomi Azikiwe, and Johanna Fernandez, April 14, 2023

Throughout history, many of the exciting developments in exploration, discovery and the joy of establishing a new colony is accompanied, like a counterpoint with the tremendous misery of the people on the ground who made it work or who had to be eliminated in order for the project at hand to proceed.

Gateway to Nowhere. The One World Order Privatization of Amazonia. Greed for Power and Money

By Peter Koenig, April 15, 2023

We may call the whole vast enormous area of Amazonia PARADISE. It is the fountain of life, with endless biodiversity, forests, intermeshed jungle, wilderness, an uncountable richness of fauna, flora, medicinal plants – and not to forget, an almost limitless abundance of water, together with oxygen, also generated by Amazonia, thanks to the natural carbon – CO2 – the world emits, mostly the Oceans — the essence of life.

“Humanity Must Adopt the Results of Psychological Research in Order to Create a Life Worthy of Human Beings.”

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, April 15, 2023

The citizens in our countries are not satisfied with the present world situation: The West’s never-ending war against Russia, which could develop into a nuclear war between the two superpowers on European soil, and the many other wars: murder and manslaughter again and again. Add to this the increasing impoverishment of low-income groups and concerns about the future. See Paul C. Roberts, “Does America Have a Future?

Canadian Hero, Former Ontario MPP and Whistleblower Randy Hillier

By Dr. Mark Trozzi, April 17, 2023

The Pentagon Leaks Charade

By Pepe Escobar, April 17, 2023

Tweaked or not, the “secret” Pentagon comparative war dead ratio between Russians and Ukrainians still does not make sense. The numbers appear to reflect Bakhmut/Artemovsk casualties, where Russian casualty ratios were highest. Yet reliable on the ground Russian military correspondents assure the ratio is really 10 to 1, with the Russians employing the snail technique combined with a formidable artillery mincing machine.

Substack: Dead Man Walking

By Kurt Nimmo, April 17, 2023

Substack’s days are numbered. The email newsletter platform is increasingly under attack, most recently by the ADL. The organization wrote on April 3 that Substack “continues to attract extremists and conspiracy theorists who routinely use the site to profit from spreading antisemitism, misinformation, disinformation and hate speech.”

The Israeli Attack on South Lebanon and Al Aqsa Crisis

By Steven Sahiounie, April 17, 2023

The Palestinian resistance group Hamas attacked Israel with rockets coming from South Lebanon on April 6. The resistance was responding to the repeated attacks on Palestinians praying inside the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem during the holy month of Ramadan.

From Europe to the Indo-Pacific, Italy at Arms. Manlio Dinucci

By Manlio Dinucci, April 17, 2023

The IMF Has Just Unveiled a New Global Currency Known as the “Universal Monetary Unit” That Is Supposed to Revolutionize the World Economy

By Michael Snyder, April 17, 2023

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Canadian Hero, Former Ontario MPP and Whistleblower Randy Hillier

April 17th, 2023 by Dr. Mark Trozzi

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***

Like rare honest scientist, nurses, and doctors; Randy Hillier is a rare and special leader among us. He was serving as a member of our provincial parliament in Ontario when covid was launched. While many meat puppets in governments lined their pockets with fiat currency, and served global predators and their covid agenda against the people; Randy asked important questions, spoke truth to power, and stood with us and our truckers in Ottawa. He’s been unjustifiably arrested, removed from parliament, and faces more than one million dollars in fines for standing up for human rights in Canada. Here in conversation with Glen Jung of Bright Light News, Randy is frank and clear in exposing the nature of corruption that permeates all political parties in Canada. He explains the disingenuous practices that win elections, and line pockets, as our country spirals down the toilet.

“Political parties should be seen as legalized crime families”

Glen Jung of Bright Light News wrote:

“Now retired from a colourful political career, former Ontario MPP Randy Hillier comes firing explosive insider allegations that would only fuel the cynicism of a public already weary of political scandals, “There is no political party that has a tinker’s damn interest in the public interest.”

In this no-holds barred interview, Hillier asserts that political parties are essentially “crime families” engaged in “a lawful, legalized and authorized protection racket” in which “political parties exist for their betterment, their enrichment.”

Join us as Hillier, a longstanding champion of freedom and activist-turned-politician, takes us through the ins and outs of the corrupt political game where billions of dollars are at stake and the seemingly intentional abject failure of the Ontario govt’s response to Covid-19 in which Hillier was the first elected official in the world to speak out against.”

One Bright Light News reader Strelawney wrote:

“It doesn’t matter who is in power. They are all enacting UN Agenda 21. It was Conservative PM Brian Mulroney who signed Canada up to this atrocity in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit. Then, in 2015, Conservative PM Stephen Harper signed Canada up to UN Agenda 2030, the 10 year phase as part of the overall plan for depopulation and totalitarian control aka UN Agenda 21. When Poilievre, as the new leader of the Conservative Party, stated he didn’t know what UN Agenda 2030 was, when it’s plastered all over the government’s websites, revealed himself as an enemy of the people. Also, when I did not give him money to join his party, he removed me from his mailing list after I told him I had lost my job and been disallowed to attend a family gathering even though I had proof I did not have COVID-19.

Trust is gone. All of the agencies and corporations have broken the social contract with the citizens of the world.”

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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

~~Price: $11.50~~ Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page.

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The Pentagon Leaks Charade

April 17th, 2023 by Pepe Escobar

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***

The script reads like a spoof straight out of legendary Mad magazine 1960’s cartoon “Spy vs. Spy”: Secret Pentagon Documents Fall in the Hands of Malign Russia. Well, actually in the hands of millions accessing Twitter and Telegram.

So here, at face value, we have a major leak essentially detailing Pentagon planning for the next stage of the NATO vs. Russia proxy war in Ukraine: the interminably debated Spring “counter-offensive” that may, or may not, start in mid-April, as well as war plans shared with FVEY – the Five Eyes.

The leaked intel might – and the operative word is “might” – be advantageous to Russia were this not to be misdirection: and the possibility is quite real.

The inestimable Ray McGovern, who knows one or two things about the CIA, noted whether the Pentagon is “falsifying kill-ratio to gild Easter lilies in Kyiv? Recent leak of an apparently official NATO document shows 71,500 Ukrainians KIA and only 16,000 to 17,500 Russians, a far cry from earlier Pentagon ‘estimates’. All sounds so Vietnam-déjà vu!”

So this may be Vietnam all over again – never count on the Pentagon learning from their mistakes – but could be something way more alarming, according to a top Beltway intel source, retired: “Our interpretation of this breach is that intel sources in the United States have released critical intel data in order to avoid a nuclear war with Russia.”

As it stands, the only certainty is that the spin war has gone berserk. So the leaker may have been a – disgruntled – U.S. insider. No, wait: the whole thing may be fake, as the Pentagon insists. In spin speak, that would be an attempt to “spread false information that could harm the U.S.”.

“Stupefying” incompetence

The undisputable conclusion out of the – real or fake – Pentagon leaks is that the U.S. is in a state of war against Russia. And that is serious enough.

Washington has been feeding information non-stop on command posts, ammunition depots and key nodes in the Russian military lines. It’s such real-time intel that has allowed Kiev to target Russian forces, kill senior generals and force ammunition depots to be moved farther from the Russian front lines.

Anything Pentagon/NATO stenographers say about Kiev playing the proverbial “decisive role” in planning and executing these strikes is a lie. The U.S. exercizes total, absolute control of the Ukraine war on a central command basis. Including from that “secret” underground bunker near Lviv which recently received a business card from Mr. Khinzal and has gone to meet its maker – along with over 200 NATO high-level operatives.

Fake or not fake, we also have confirmation that the Pentagon has direct access to communications of the Russian Ministry of Defense. And that the Americans listen to everyone and his neighbor: the sweaty T-shirt actor in Kiev, all the Five Eyes allies, and the Mossad.

As for the notion that Kiev has changed its counter-offensive “military plans” because of the Pentagon leaks, everyone should feel free to control the pitch of their roaring laughter.

The Russian non-response response to all this hoopla could be seen as a classic of misdirection. Responding to the U.S. de facto engaged in an undeclared war against Russia, much hotter than Hybrid, President Putin said that Russia is interested in “peaceful coexistence with the U.S. and establishing a balance of interests” given their status as the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.

Well, no one can possibly imagine Stalin saying that Russia was interested in peaceful coexistence with Nazi Germany in July, 1941 as the Wehrmacht was rushing towards Moscow, Leningrad and the Caucusus oil.

From the point of view of valuable military information, the indispensable Andrei Martyanov summed it all up: these “documents” contain none, apart from confirming that the Pentagon is absolutely clueless on the SMO: why is it happening, what is the modus operandi and what it plans to achieve.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov did cut to the chase: “We don’t have the slightest doubt about direct or indirect involvement of the U.S. and NATO (…) it cannot influence the final outcome of the special operation.”

As Martyanov stresses, Russia maneuvers an extremely advanced ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) complex, including human intel on the ground, electronic warfare and satellite constellations: “In terms of war correlates and combat statistics – I wouldn’t touch anything coming from Pentagon with a long stick.”

There are indeed several serious issues with the Pentagon “top secret” intel. It oozes the impression it was redacted based on open data, and not actual intel. And all that packaged by some quite shoddy work.

For instance, the insistence to “re-equip” Ukrainian air defense with missiles is not supported by data on where such missiles will be coming from. The name of the NASAMS – the middle range, ground based air defense system co-developed by Raytheon – is misspelled.

In official NATO documents, weapons from the USSR and from Russia are indicated in NATO codification. There is no style uniformity: it’s a messy mix of official code designations and transliterations from Russian into English.

So no wonder the impression is solidified that the U.S. Army Command in Europe (EUCOM) got their “intel” from open sources, and is absolutely clueless on how many weapons, how much equipment and how many people the Ukrainians actually have.

And that explains what’s going on in Artemovsk – with the Russians taking all the time in the world to calibrate their strategic defense, and after the orderly abandon of Kherson, lure the Ukrainians into a non-stop slaughterhouse. Martyanov qualifies U.S./NATO incompetence to see it coming as “stupefying.”

A do-or-die war to control Eurasia

Once again: the most important consequence of the Pentagon leaks is to establish that the U.S., de facto and de jure, is at war against Russia – whatever may be the spin by that Norwegian piece of dead wood in Brussels. Russia will establish a war crimes tribunal for Ukraine, so sooner rather than later, selected collective West luminaries better take refuge in their New Zealand bunkers.

It’s also crucial to always keep in mind Ukraine is a mere pawn in their game for not losing world power, against China, Russia and potentially Germany.

The initial psycho Straussian neocon goal was to cut off Germany from Russia using “Liver Sausage” Chancellor Scholz, who was briefed in advance on the terror attack on the Nord Streams.

Scholz was also involved in the CIA misdirection scam, channeling the blame for the terror attack on some obscure Ukrainian “dissident” and a bumbling yacht – as brilliantly covered by Seymour Hersh.

The next step is to cut off Ukraine from Russia – “reconquering” Crimea, the focus of the current P.R. blitzkrieg, and Donbass, thus originating a cataclysmic psychological upheaval in Russia leading to a Putin regime change.

Then the Straussians would finally command Russia’s massive natural resources – and block them from China by land and by sea via the U.S. Fleet.

That’s not exactly clever – but Straussian neocons do revel in their own intellectually shallow pond. Cue to that insufferable idiot Admiral John Kirby saying there can be no negotiations with Russia until they leave Ukraine, abandoning Donbass and Crimea.

So the (show) war in Ukraine must go on, to the last Ukrainian, or all these elaborate plans will irretrievably bite the dust. This is a do-or-die war against Russia-China for the control of Eurasia. Will that imply more Pentagon leaks? Bring them on.

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Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Video: Dangerous Ukrainian Grain Flooding Europe

April 17th, 2023 by South Front

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***

It seems that European countries are going to pay for their attempts to profit on cheap Ukrainian grain, which, instead of feeding the starving African countries, is being transferred to quite well-fed Europe. Ukrainian grain has already brought farmers in Eastern Europe to the brink of bankruptcy, it also turned out that it is dangerous for its consumers.

On April 13, the Slovak authorities banned the processing and sale of Ukrainian grain and flour made from it on the territory of the country. The Ministry of Agriculture and Regional Development of Slovakia stated that it found multiple excess of the maximum permissible concentration of pesticides.

In a 1.5 thousand tons batch of wheat from Ukraine, which was sent for threshing, “the presence of a pesticide that is not allowed in the EU and has a negative impact on human health was confirmed.” The Minister of Agriculture of Slovakia explained that three independent accredited laboratories confirmed the increased content of pesticide residues.

In the near future, the authorities intend to collect samples of all Ukrainian grain and flour stored in Slovakia.

The study in Slovakia confirmed the statements of the Polish Minister of Agriculture, who has already warned that Ukraine supplies grain of dubious quality to Europe.

On April 7, according to the head of the Ministry of Agriculture of Poland, Kiev agreed to stop importing grain into the country and now only its transit to other countries continues.

However, it did not help to avoid another scandal in the country.

The largest Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita reported that the largest Polish flour mills received, under the guise of high-quality Polish grain, what was technical Ukrainian grain that had not passed food control and was intended for burning as fuel. Only grain that cannot be used for any other purposes is sent for burning. It is either infected with a fungus, or has become a poison due to improper storage. As a result of the dangerous deals, Polish flour mills lost more than 1.5 million zlotys.

In March, Romanian Agriculture Minister, citing an assessment by the European Commission, said that farmers from Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia had lost a total of €417 million due to the influx of cheap Ukrainian grain to the markets of those countries.

Poland and Romania reportedly asked the EU to create a mechanism to control cheap grain from Ukraine. In early April, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia called on the European Commission to buy the accumulated Ukrainian food from them for “humanitarian reasons.” They complained that the prices of their own products is falling, and the prices of fertilizers and energy are rising.

The local authorities have agreed to “protect their farmers”. It is possible that the ongoing scandals may be a part of their struggle but the threat posed by the contaminated Ukrainian grain should not be belittled.

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Substack: Dead Man Walking

April 17th, 2023 by Kurt Nimmo

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***

The latest salvo by ADL against the First Amendment dovetails with a congressional push to further erode liberty with its draconian RESTRICT Act. There are a number of tweets that encapsulate the latest threat to liberty, but Substack no longer allows tweet embeds, thanks to an absurd ego-colliding tiff between Substack CEO Chris Best and Twitter boss, Elon Musk.

The RESTRICT Act is dressed up as a response to Tik Tok and China. Contrary to this propaganda, it will be used primarily to sanitize the internet and squash (and criminalize) all speech diverting from USG narratives.

“The Restrict Act Completes the Overthrow of the US Constitution,” writes Paul Craig Roberts. “The purpose is to silence all dissent from official explanations. Truth is criminalized. Propaganda and lies will reign supreme and unchallenged. The Matrix will be complete.”

Connor O’Keeffe writes for the Mises Institute,

With its vague language, the bill gives the government much leeway in defining what qualifies as illegal information. We’ve already seen government officials and their friends in media conflate antiestablishment arguments with foreign disinformation. They’ve even falsely labelled accurate news stories as foreign disinformation. It’s not hard to see these same people using the powers granted to them by the RESTRICT Act to criminalize certain dissenting views under the guise of counterintelligence.

The crowning propaganda achievement of the next phase of authoritarian control over free speech is the theatrical SWAT takedown of 21-year-old patsy Jack Teixeira, a low-level National Guard airman that, according to The Washington Post, somehow managed to get his hands on highly classified CIA and DOD documents. This is highly improbable, but then a blindsided American public is routinely fed improbable lies, exaggerations, and omissions by the USG and its corporate propaganda media.

CNN describes the event as a “carefully choreographed arrest,” and I’d agree with that assessment, although not as a result of the “Biden administration’s scramble” to contain sensitive leaks. The theatrical takedown of Mr. Teixeira is a propaganda event designed to bolster further eradication of dissent and grease the skids for the passage of RESTRICT.

The Washington Post has a documented history of working with the CIA to disseminate propaganda, so when we learn that the newspaper “wrote about the presence of problematic content on Substack, noting its use by spreaders of false information,” according to the ADL, we know for certain Substack will be brought to heel. (For more on the CIA’s takeover of the media, see The CIA and the Press: When the Washington Post Ran the CIA’s Propaganda Network, by Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn).

Add to this the Digital Services Act. It is “the EU’s latest incoming tech rulebook requiring them to stamp out illegal content on their platforms… including social media giants like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. These include quickly taking down flagged illegal content, including hate speech,” Politico reported last October. The corporate propaganda conduit conflated “hate speech” (that is, speech contrary to the narratives of the state) with “child pornography and terrorist videos.”

According to Slate, the Digital Services Act (DSA),

while written to protect EU residents, will almost certainly lead social media firms to change their moderation policies worldwide. Thus, with the DSA, the EU will effectively be doing what the First Amendment ostensibly prohibits our own government from doing: regulating the editorial judgments made by social media platforms on which Americans communicate with each other.

The jaws of the authoritarian vice are tightening. In the near future, the ability to express your opinion will be terminated if it runs counter to official government narratives. All avenues of expression are to be tightly monitored, moderated and censored at the behest of the state.

“The Biden administration is looking at expanding how it monitors social media sites and chatrooms after U.S. intelligence agencies failed to spot classified Pentagon documents circulating online for weeks,” NBC News reported on April 12. “The administration is now looking at expanding the universe of online sites that intelligence agencies and law enforcement authorities track.”

Undoubtedly, this will include Substack, one of the last remaining platforms where free speech is permissible without the heavy-handed interference of the state, and the narrowly focused and highly politicized censorship agenda of the ADL and other anti-First Amendment organizations.

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The Israeli Attack on South Lebanon and Al Aqsa Crisis

April 17th, 2023 by Steven Sahiounie

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***

Extremist Jewish settlers had insisted on going to the Mosque, against long standing traditions, which provoked tensions and the Israeli police used brutal tactics on the Palestinians praying, including beating women and arresting 400.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s extremist government opposes the creation of a Palestinian state and supports the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, which emboldened the fanatical settlers who went to the Mosque.

On April 7, Israeli air strikes hit southern Lebanon in retaliation, marking the biggest escalation between Israel and Lebanon in almost 20 years. There were no casualties reported from either side after the tit-for-tat strikes. Hamas is supported by Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance group.

The US State Department condemned the attack on Israel, and said Israel had the right to defend itself against all attacks. No mention of the right for Palestinians to pray inside their own Mosque during a religious period. The US supports only the rights of Jews, and the Christian and Muslim Palestinians are left defenseless.

Samir Geagea, whose Christian Lebanese Forces (LF) often battled Palestinian fighters in the civil war, denounced the attack and Fouad Abu Nader, another former LF commander, called for the arrest of the Hamas leader.

Israel and the US have used Lebanon as a stage to fight proxy wars in. The creation of Israel in 1948 caused a huge influx of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and after so many years without any Palestinian rights being restored; those old problems persist for the entire Middle East, which is held hostage by the Apartheid state of Israel.

Past Israeli attacks and occupation of Lebanon

On April 10, 1973, two years before the civil war erupted, an Israeli commando team led Ehud Barack, invaded Beirut and killed three top officials from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in their homes. Several Lebanese policemen and guards were also killed in the crime.

The raid enflamed divisions between the Lebanese supporters, and the opponents of the PLO, which had been in Lebanon since 1970.

The Lebanese army clashed with Palestinian freedom fighters less than a month later, which developed into the 1975-1990 civil war, during which the Israeli army invaded the south of Lebanon, and the brutal military occupation lasted until 2000.

It was the rise of Hezbollah that was responsible for the Israeli withdrawal. In the summer of 2006, US President Bush and Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice, supported the Israeli attack on Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah. Much of the most vital civilian infrastructure in Lebanon was destroyed by the air raids, and more than 1,000 Lebanese were killed, while hundreds of thousands were made homeless. In the end, Israel was unable to enter Lebanon, and Hezbollah was proven to be the only force able to protect the Lebanese border from invasion and occupation.

Saudi-Iran full diplomatic relationship restored

The surprise agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia signed on March 10 may hold the key political reconciliation in Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia has traditionally supported the Lebanese Sunni politicians, such as the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and his son PM Saad Hariri. However, Saad Hariri resigned himself from political life.

With Saudi Arabia supporting Sunni politicians and Iran backing the Shiite group Hezbollah, the long-standing rivalry between the two has shaped the political scene in Lebanon. The newly found reconciliation between Riyadh and Tehran may set the stage in Lebanon for compromise.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has a Vision 2030, which depends on peace and prosperity in Saudi Arabia and the region.

Prior to the March 10 agreement, Hezbollah supported Maronite Christian Suleiman Frangieh for president.

Riyadh has not come out publically in support of any one name in the contest, and has taken the position that Lebanon should decide alone.

The office of president in Lebanon has been left vacant since October 2022, and the process of the election depends on a candidate garnering the required votes from parliament members, which on repeated rounds of voting never concluded with a majority.

Saudi Arabia was once a major investor in the country mainly in the luxury tourism industry, but fundamental issues must be resolved before large-scale investments return.

The US is opposed to the Saudi-Iran détente. The chaos and conflict between the two regional powerhouses served the US interests and was in line with the Israeli foreign policy for its neighbors: namely to keep them at war with each other.

Presidential office is vacant

Politicians are deadlocked over the election of a new president, in a multiparty republic with a parliament. The Prime Minister must be Sunni, the President must be Maronite, and the Speaker of the Parliament must be Shiite.

The current population is almost 5.5 million, with 31.9 % Sunni, 31% Shiite, and 32.4 % Christian.

Lebanon was founded in 1920 from a small portion of Syria, under French administration, and finally independence in 1943.

Central Bank Chief accused of Money Laundering

Marwan Kheireddine, CEO of Lebanese bank Al Mawarid, was indicted in France last month as part of the French investigation into embezzlement of more than $330 million by Lebanon’s central bank governor, Riad Salameh, and his brother Raja.

“I confirm that Marwan Kheireddine has been indicted for aggravated money laundering charges and participation in a criminal conspiracy, and placed under judicial supervision as part of the judicial investigation opened in France, targeting notably embezzlement at the Central Bank of Lebanon,” prosecutor Antoine Jocteur-Monrozier said.

Riad Salameh has been accused by many countries in Europe of money laundering involving his girlfriend Anna Kosakova as well as his brother Raja.

In January, Kheireddine was questioned by European investigators in relation to some accounts, which reportedly began with an initial investment of $15 million, and grew to $150 million.

Lebanese judge Jean Tannous wrote, “Riad Salameh entrusted his brother Raja Salameh in 1993 with an amount of $15 million” in violation of the Code of Money and Credit, “which prohibits the governor from retaining any stake in a private company”.

Financial crisis and starvation

The economic crisis in Lebanon has been described by the World Bank as one of the worst in history and was caused by years of mismanagement by political leaders and their corruption. The local currency has lost over 99 % of its value against the US dollar with banks still locking people out of their deposits.

Four in 10 Lebanese and Syrian refugee children currently face high acute food insecurity, with Lebanon the sixth worst food crisis globally.

Families are forced to skip meals or reduce the number of nutritious meals for their children.

IMF mission Chief Ernesto Rigo said in Beirut that the authorities should accelerate the implementation of conditions set for a $3 billion bailout.

Lebanon inflation hit 190% in February as IMF calls for urgent reforms, which has seen three-quarters of the population into poverty and almost no electricity.

Rigo said, “This inaction disproportionately harms the low-to-middle-income population and undermines Lebanon’s long-term economic potential. The government, parliament, and the Central Bank must act together, rapidly and decisively to tackle long-standing institutional and structural weaknesses to stabilize the economy and pave the way for a strong and sustainable recovery.”

Lebanon signed an agreement with the IMF nearly one year ago, but has not taken the necessary steps to secure the funding for recovery.

Salameh is still the central bank manager, and many of the same warlords and political elites who caused the financial collapse of the country through their corruption are charged with fixing a system they destroyed.

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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.

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From Europe to the Indo-Pacific, Italy at Arms. Manlio Dinucci

April 17th, 2023 by Manlio Dinucci

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The multinational military exercise Defender 23, directed by the US Army Europe, begins on April 22nd. The exercise will take place for two months in 10 European countries. 9,000 US soldiers and 17,000 others from 26 US allied countries, with Italy in the foreground, will participate. They will use 7,000 pieces of equipment (armaments and military equipment) shipped from the United States to Europe, plus another 13,000 pieces of military equipment from US Army depots in Europe. Finally, in June, a major air warfare exercise will take place in Europe with US and allied fighter-bombers with dual conventional and nuclear capabilities. While Europe is being transformed by the USA into a training ground for the war against Russia, the Russian strategic missile forces are enhancing their combat capability with the test launch of a new intercontinental ballistic missile that can be armed with multiple nuclear warheads.

At the same time, the USA is increasing its military forces deployed in the Indo-Pacific, the region which, in the geography of the Pentagon, extends from the west coast of the United States to the coast of India. The central objective of this escalation is China, which Washington increasingly fears for its political and economic initiatives, especially today in the Middle East. The headline of the Washington Post is emblematic: “China’s new world order is taking shape”. Despite the US attempt to isolate China, French and German entrepreneurs are closing big contracts in China.

Italy, on the other hand, is preparing to send the Cavour carrier with US F-35B fighters on board to the Indo-Pacific, de facto under US command in an anti-Chinese function. Italy also enters the Indo-Pacific with an important agreement concluded with Japan and the United Kingdom: Global Combat Air Programme, the Global Combat Air Programme, for the construction of a sixth-generation fighter. Since it will be a nuclear attack aircraft, the Program will allow Japan to become a de facto nuclear country, as is Italy equipped with nuclear weapons by the USA. The Global Combat Air Programme will cost tens of billions of dollars before the new fighter enters service.

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

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U.S. Approves First Three COVID Vaccine Injury Claims — And Pays Out a Total of $4,634.89

April 17th, 2023 by Dr. Brenda Baletti

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***

The U.S. government approved its first three payments to people injured by COVID-19 vaccines — amounting to a total of $4,634.89.

The Health and Resources Service Administration (HRSA) vaccine injury claims report, updated monthly, shows one $2,019.55 payment for anaphylaxis and two payments — $1,582.65 and $1,032.69 — for myocarditis.

The payments were made through HRSA’s Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

The CICP was established under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, which protects pharmaceutical companies from liability for injuries sustained from “countermeasures,” such as vaccines and medications, administered during a public health emergency.

Since 2010, when it approved its first claim, the program has compensated a total of 33 claims for vaccine injuries — but these are the first awards for COVID-19 vaccines.

“These long-awaited awards were overdue, highly anticipated and speculated upon,” said Kim Mack Rosenberg, acting general counsel for Children’s Health Defense (CHD). “What is remarkable is that less than $5,000 was paid — total. This is a tragedy that highlights the severe limitations of the program.”

CHD Acting President Laura Bono called the payouts for myocarditis “insulting,” given that mortality rates increase to 50% within five years of diagnosis.

Bono said:

“The CICP is a pathetic, government-run program that gives complete liability protection to the very industries profiting from the COVID vaccine or product. While victims linger with their injuries, paying out-of-pocket for expenses, or at worst die, the industries run to the bank.”

Since the start of the pandemic, people claiming injuries related to COVID-19 vaccines and other countermeasures submitted 11,425 requests for compensation.

Of those, only 19 have been declared eligible for compensation and are undergoing a “medical benefits review” to determine payment.

The anaphylaxis case had been pending medical benefits review since the fall of 2021, and the two myocarditis cases had been pending review since January.

During the medical benefits review, HRSA determines any costs remaining after insurance, workers’ comp, disability or other reimbursements or payments.

Wayne Rohde, an expert in vaccine injury compensation, wrote on his Substack that given the “18+ months to review previous medical benefits that may have been awarded to the injured party [the anaphylaxis case], this process tells me it was a major injury that resulted in very large medical bills.”

Myocarditis is a serious condition that also requires a lot of medical attention, Rohde said.

To date, there have been 1,541,275 reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

How does vaccine injury compensation work? the VICP and CICP

HRSA, which operates under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), administers two vaccine injury compensation programs: the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) and the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

The VICP is a special, no-fault tribunal housed within the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that handles injury claims for 16 common vaccines on the childhood vaccination schedule. To date, it has awarded more than $4 billion for medical bills, lost wages, lawyer fees, and pain and suffering to thousands of people for vaccine injuries.

The program does not currently cover COVID-19 vaccine injuries. Should COVID-19 vaccines be moved into the program, any injuries would be handled by the already overwhelmed VICP.

The CICP, the only program that covers COVID-19 vaccine injuries at this time, is even less equipped to deal with them, Rohde told The Defender.

“For COVID-19 vaccine-injured people, the CICP is the worst place, it’s the worst option,” Rohde said, “because it is not really a compensation program, it’s a reimbursement program for medical costs.”

The CICP allows individuals to claim compensation only for unreimbursed medical expenses — meaning those not fully reimbursed by insurance or government programs, such as Medicaid — for death and for lost wages up to $50,000.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under the CICP:

“Eligible individuals may be compensated for certain reasonable and necessary medical expenses and for lost employment income at the time of the injury. Death benefits may be paid to certain survivors of covered countermeasures recipients who have died as a direct result of the covered countermeasure injury.

“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is the payer of last resort. Therefore, payments are reduced by those of other third-party payers.”

“There’s no pain and suffering here, there’s nothing,” Rohde said.

Because the CICP reviews and resolves claims through an administrative rather than a judicial process, no details other than the amount of the payments have to be shared with the public.

“It’s designed to be very convoluted, very non-transparent,” Rohde said.

The CICP was known for its cumbersome claims process and low likelihood of success for claimants even before the pandemic. Since then, it has seen unsustainable growth.

According to HRSA’s numbers, of the 11,941 claims filed with the CICP since 2010, nearly 11,000 of them are still under review.

The HRSA budget for COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation will increase in fiscal year 2023 — from approximately $1 million to $5 million — and its budget for staffing and contractors will jump from $5 million to $9.5 million.

How would COVID vaccine injury compensation change under the VICP?

For vaccine injury claims to be covered under the VICP rather than the CICP, three requirements must be met:

The vaccine needs to be recommended for routine administration for children and/or pregnant women.
It needs to have an excise tax imposed upon it through the legislature.
There needs to be a notice of coverage published in the federal record.

The COVID-19 vaccine was added to the childhood immunization schedule earlier this year — but the next two steps in the process have yet to be completed and public health officials have not indicated when this might happen.

The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine met for three days last month — behind closed doors, except for a two-hour public comment period — to review the epidemiological, clinical and biological evidence on adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines.

The committee will generate a report that will be used to add injuries to the federal Vaccine Injury Table, which lists known adverse events associated with existing vaccines.

This list helps the VICP and the CICP decide whether to compensate vaccine injury claims.

At the National Academies meeting, Professor Renee Gentry, director of the Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic at The George Washington University Law School, told the committee the stakeholders that created the VICP — vaccine manufacturers, lawyers and parents — set it up to be petitioner-friendly, informal, generous and non-adversarial.

But instead, she said, HHS has been “unrelenting” in its opposition to recognizing vaccine injuries.

“I believe the VICP as it exists today would be unrecognizable to those original stakeholders,” she said.

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Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.

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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

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Conservative Risk Benefit Analyses Decide Against COVID-19 Vaccination

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Sudan’s “Deep State” War Could Have Far-Reaching Geostrategic Consequences If It Continues

April 17th, 2023 by Andrew Korybko

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***

Seeing as how Egypt, Ethiopia, Russia, the UAE, and the US all have important interests in Sudan, it’s clear that this latest African conflict could indeed have far-reaching consequences if it continues and especially if its “deep state” war descends into a civil war. In that event, this geostrategic country could suddenly become an object of intense competition in the New Cold War, which could catalyze uncontrollable processes that culminate in destabilizing all of Africa. All responsible stakeholders must therefore do their utmost to prevent that from happening.

Fierce fighting broke out all across Sudan this weekend between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with each blaming the other for starting this. Seeing as how this conflict remains limited for the time being to two military factions, it can therefore be described as a “deep state” war and not a civil one like the conflict that ultimately resulted in South Sudan’s independence. This doesn’t mean that it won’t turn into a civil war, but just that it hadn’t yet by Sunday evening.

Sudan’s “deep state” war was inevitable though since these factions have been competing with each other over who’ll remain the country’s most powerful force amidst its continually delayed transition to democracy that began after 2019’s military coup. The SAF is led by Chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan while the RSF is run by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who’s also known as Hemedti. Both men are part of the Transitional Sovereign Council, the first as president and the second as deputy chairman.

A new prime minister and institutions of the transitional authority were supposed to have been announced by last Tuesday, but that obviously didn’t happen. “Deep state” tensions started becoming uncontrollable around that time, perhaps due to one or both parties calculating that they can make their long-planned power play against the other on the pretext of presenting it as a “defense of democracy” against their allegedly “anti-democratic” opponent.

It’s difficult to discern exactly what’s happening right now and who controls what due to the “fog of war” so the present piece will avoid touching upon unconfirmed information in analyzing Sudan’s “deep state” war, instead focusing on the consequences of this entirely predictable development. For starters, this conflict reflects very poorly on the military since it shows how deeply divided it’s become over the years that two clearly distinct competing centers of power were able to emerge within it.

Depending on how long they war with each other, this institution might become depleted enough to the point where separatist forces reemerge along its periphery as a potent threat to Sudan’s territorial integrity, which could turn it into the next Yugoslavia. Former President Omar Al-Bashir even warned his Russian counterpart about this during their meeting in 2017 when he requested assistance in averting what he said was “the US desire to divide Sudan into five states”.

That scenario hasn’t yet unfolded due to the military remaining a formidable force despite its growing divisions since then, which culminated in Sudan’s inevitable “deep state” war this weekend, but everything could quickly change if their conflict continues raging on. The longer that these factions fight, the more likely it is that some level of foreign intervention could occur as well, particularly the possibility of Egypt supporting Burhan and the UAE backing Hemedti, who they’re each considered close with.

Even though Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) just met his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Cairo last week, those two could quickly turn to propping up their respective partners if the conflict continues dragging on in order to give them an edge over the other. Regarding Egypt’s role, the RSF captured some of its troops in the country, which Cairo claims were there to conduct joint training. They’ll be returned, but few even knew they were there in the first place until this happened.

Neighboring Ethiopia, with whom Egypt and Sudan are embroiled in a bitter dispute over a dam on the Nile that runs through each of their territories, will certainly take note of this as well as footage on social media claiming to show Egyptian fighter jets in Sudan too. There have been concerns for a couple years already that Egypt is plotting a so-called “preemptive strike” against Ethiopia in order to stop Addis from filling that aforesaid dam, the speculation of which was now extended credence by this revelation.

Ethiopia and Sudan are also in a dispute over a region known as Alfashaga, which led to clashes last summer, so it’s possible that Addis could make a military move there in support of its claims should it sense that Khartoum is too divided and weak to retain control over it. To be absolutely clear, there aren’t any signs that this is being considered, but it’s still worth mentioning in the larger context of the consequences that could unfold if Sudan’s “deep state” war continues.

This latest conflict is also of interest to Ethiopia because its optics very closely resemble the recent dispute between the federal government and some elements in the Amhara Region over the country’s military reorganization. Chief of General Staff Birhanu Jula announced on Saturday that “Starting from today, the regional special forces structure is no longer there. Our work has been finished”, so federal supporters might claim that this successful operation prevented a Sudanese-like “deep state” war.

It’s not just the US, Egypt, the UAE, and Ethiopia whose interests are affected by this conflict, but Russia too, who’s grown extremely close to both warring military factions after building upon the ties that former President Bashir established during his previously mentioned trip to Moscow in 2017. It plans to open a naval base in Port Sudan sometime soon, the two sides reportedly cooperate on mining and security, and Sudan facilitates Russian access to the neighboring Central African Republic (CAR).

The Kremlin doesn’t care which side wins as long as the victor retains their strategic ties, the last dimension of which is immensely important since any potential impediment to Russia’s trans-Sudanese access to the CAR could have disastrous consequences for that country’s security. Moscow helped Bangui restore its sovereign writ over large swathes of the country with Wagner’s help, but the capital could once again be threatened by rebels if the Kremlin can’t adequately resupply those two’s forces.

The possible collapse of Russia’s “Democratic Security” project there would have massive implications for its newfound appeal to African countries, which is due to the combination of it effectively bolstering its partners’ sovereignty via the means pioneered in the CAR and its attractive multipolar worldview. The possible reversal of its first “Democratic Security” success on the continent as a result of the Sudanese “deep state” war would represent a significant symbolic setback that the West would certainly exploit.

With these five states’ interests in mind, it’s clear that this latest African conflict could indeed have far-reaching consequences if it continues and especially if Sudan’s “deep state” war descends into a civil war. In that event, this geostrategic country could suddenly become an object of intense competition in the New Cold War, which could catalyze uncontrollable processes that culminate in destabilizing all of Africa. All responsible stakeholders must therefore do their utmost to prevent that from happening.

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This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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The Leaking Republic: The Pentagon’s Take on Information Security

April 17th, 2023 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

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For years, US intelligence officials could hold their allies, notably the British, in contempt for leaking like sinking vessels and harbouring such espionage luminaries as the Cambridge Five. The whirligig of time has returned the favour with the latest leak from the US Department of Defense. They pose a question pregnant with relevance: Do Washington’s allies have any reason to trust their own secure channels of sharing defence information? The answer: probably not.

The spray of Pentagon documents began appearing on such platforms as Twitter, 4chan, Telegram and a Discord server that hosts video games. (How odd, go the folks at Bellingcat.) The very nature of this distribution has tickled pundits into assuming a sense of play at work here. A few have even asserted that the alleged perpetrator, Jack Texeira of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was making a playful effort to make friends.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was informed of the leak during his April 6 morning briefing after five images surfaced on the platforms. The following day, Austin commenced daily crisis meetings to discuss the matter.

These briefings seem to have come some weeks late. Certain documents began circulating on the Discord messaging platform in March, featuring photographs of folded up printouts, only to then be smoothed out again.

The lion’s share of the documents came in the form of slides developed by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, largely acting as briefing notes for senior leaders regarding Ukraine. A pessimistic picture emerges about the prospects of success for any Ukrainian spring counteroffensive. Shortages in ammunition were also becoming critical, and the capacity of Western states to replenish them had yet to be developed. The delivery of existing equipment to the frontline had also been slow, as was training Ukrainian forces. Soviet-era munitions and artillery continued to be the mainstay of Kyiv’s military effort.

But then the picture became more cluttered – and clotted. Messily, there were suggestions that the United States had observed that old adage that friends need to be spied upon to be good. South Korea proved a case in point.

One leaked document revealed the state of mind of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s senior advisors on whether to yield to US pressure to send ammunition to Ukraine, or resist arming the state altogether. In 2022, Seoul had agreed to replenish US artillery stocks on the proviso that they keep the shells for themselves. But Foreign Affairs Secretary Yi Mun-hui, on March 1, told then National Security Advisor Kim Sung-han that the government was “mired in concerns that the US would not be the end user” of the ammunition. A mooted option was sending shells to Poland instead.

The revelation immediately drew a stout defence, notably in the Financial Times. “Washington needs to know if Seoul is considering a move that could spark a nuclear arms race in north-east Asia, or fatally undermine international pressure on Pyongyang, or – in the most extreme circumstances – drag the US into a nuclear conflict.”

There was also disgruntlement in Washington regarding the UN Secretary General’s supposedly favourable stance towards Russia. This was revealed in several documents describing private conversations between António Guterres and a number of African figures.

The Black Sea grain deal between Ukraine and Russia, which the secretary aided, along with Turkey, to broker last July, received a special, scathing mention. “Guterres emphasised his efforts to improve Russia’s ability to export even if that involves sanctioned Russian entities or individuals,” states one document. His conduct in February, according to the assessment, had undermined “broader efforts to hold Moscow accountable for its actions in Ukraine”.

These documents have raised a few questions. Was such leaked information inaccurate, thereby revealing the state of confusion within the Pentagon itself? We already know how an entire swathe of US agencies and departments recently cocked-up their assessments of Afghanistan and the capabilities of the Taliban. Or had the information itself been tampered with on its release, thereby skewing the material favouring, to use the defence vernacular, the interests of a hostile adversary? Ultimately, all intelligence assessments must be subject to the withering eyes of History’s muse, Clio, who may well, in time, reveal something quite different.

The overarching issue remains: Is it possible that a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard could have access to such information? Again, in this information saturated age, where reports on security and defence stack shelves and surf as attachments on emails, smooth and ready access is easy to envisage.

Inevitable comparisons with Edward Snowden’s disclosures from 2013 have been made. His disclosures threw the lid off the vast surveillance imperium created in freedom’s name in the wake of the September 10, 2001 attacks, and executed in the service of paranoia and callousness. But in the land of intel-chat, these latest leaks are deemed more serious given their immediate relevance. The US-Ukraine show must be seen to be going according to plan, the aid from Washington noble, the fighting from Kyiv even nobler.

The old problems Snowden exposed, however, have not gone away. In redux format, officials are now demanding a review of systems of access within the Pentagon. “We need to rethink how we store and hold classified information and who has access to that information,” insists Mick Mulroy, retired CIA officer and former Pentagon official. A tad late for that, isn’t it?

The picture emerging from this, edited or otherwise, is ugly for the bureaucrats. For one, it shows that the conflict in Ukraine is very much a NATO affair, a brutal stoush with the Russian bear packed with old grievances and concerns. A bloody, lengthy conflict is on the cards.

As the DoD attempts to root out the sources and patch up the leaky vessel, Washington’s allies will be pensive. The Empire, as was demonstrated in the Snowden spill, is prone to misbehaviour.

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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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Not Smart Enough! US Smart Bombs ‘Punctured’ by Russian EW Attacks; Intel Report Says JDAMs Fizzling Out

April 17th, 2023 by Tanmay Kadam

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***

The top-secret Pentagon documents leaked last week highlight concerns about the failure of US-made bomb kits being used by the Ukrainian forces to carry out precision strikes against high-value Russian military targets.

The failure of these bomb kits is partly attributed to GPS signal issues, potentially caused by Russian jamming efforts.

The United States has provided Ukrainian Air Force with its Joint Direct Attack Munition Extended Range (JDAM-ER) bombs which could be used to hit large-sized Russian targets, such as bridges and hardened fortifications, from long distances.

Reports of the Ukrainian military using these US-supplied JDAM-ER bombs began emerging in early March. According to Russian media reports, the Ukrainian military seems to have started using the JDAM-ER bombs on Russian-held positions in the Bakhmut region.

Standard JDAMs rely on a combination of the inertial navigation system (INS) and GPS guidance, coupled with an autopilot, to direct the bomb’s course via steerable tail fins.

The complete JDAM kit comprises a new tail containing a GPS-assisted inertial navigation system (INS) guidance system and strakes fitted elsewhere along the body of the bomb, which offers a limited ability to glide toward its intended target.

Depending on the altitude at which it is released, a JDAM can hit targets at a range of up to 24 kilometers, and the JDAM-ER’s wing kit extends this range up to around 72 kilometers.

A single JDAM kit costs over US$24,000 and is used for converting unguided bombs weighing between 220 and 907 kilograms, as per the fact sheet of the US Navy.

When it came to light that the US had provided Ukrainian JDAM-ER bombs, Western military experts suggested that these bombs would pose unprecedented challenges for Russian forces.

The JDAM bombs can provide Ukraine with precision-guided fire-and-forget capability, which should allow the Ukrainian fighter pilots to turn away immediately after firing it, thereby putting a distance between themselves and hostile air defense systems.

However, a cache of classified US intelligence documents that were leaked recently tell a very different story, according to which the JDAM bomb kits being used by the Ukrainian Air Force may have been rendered useless by Russian electronic warfare.

Russian Jamming Of GPS Signals Causing JDAM-ER Failure?

A document marked ‘secret’ and titled “Why are JDAM-ERs Failing? BDA From Recent Strike?” examines why JDAM-ER bombs have failed on the Ukraine battlefield. Two factors potentially explain why there have been “duds and/or misses.”

One of the factors is that the bomb fuses are not being armed correctly, which the Ukrainian Air Force is said to have fixed, and the second factor is the GPS signal issues, potentially caused by Russian jamming efforts, which have caused some misses.

The document also notes that similar GPS signal issues have hindered the operations of Ukraine’s guided multiple-launch rocket systems (GMLRS).

“However, the Director of the Joint Navigation Warfare Center (JNWC) stated that based on their analysis, GPS jamming should not have affected the JDAM-ER strikes based on target location compared to active Russian jammers, but other factors may have prevented the JDAM-ER from acquiring GPS signal,” the intelligence document reportedly said.

The document is said to have been published sometime between late February and early March. As stated earlier, reports of the Ukrainian military using JDAM bombs against Russian positions began emerging in early March.

Huge Explosion!!!

Video of Ukraine allegedly using U.S. donated JDAM High-precision Smart Bombs. #UkraineRussiaWar #Ukraine #Russia #US pic.twitter.com/07VvxxzB59

— EurAsian Times (@THEEURASIATIMES) March 11, 2023

As per reports, by the time the document was published, the Ukrainian Air Force had dropped at least nine JDAM-ER bombs on Russian targets. However, four of them seem to have been missed due to Russian jamming efforts.

The confidence in this intelligence assessment was reportedly ‘medium to high,’ and the document recommends neutralizing the Russian jammers before using the JDAM-ERs to realize the best results in precision strikes.

Image: JDAM Smart Bomb (Source: The Eurasian Times)

JDAM Smart Bomb Kits

It is also important to note here that the JDAM kit relies on a GPS-assisted inertial navigation system (INS), which means the INS portion of the bomb must ensure that accuracy is retained up to a significant extent, even if the GPS signal is jammed or otherwise lost.

Russia has some of the most advanced electronic warfare equipment in the world and some very experienced personnel to operate such equipment. As per media reports, the Russian forces have been regularly jamming signals from the US Global Positioning System (GPS) as part of their military campaign in Ukraine.

In June, a Ukrainian Intelligence official revealed that the Russian jamming of GPS receivers on drones that the Ukrainian forces use to locate the enemy and direct artillery fire is particularly intense in the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.

There have also been reported instances of Russian troops having managed to jam the radar communications of Ukrainian drones, keeping them from successfully identifying Russian artillery batteries.

Western experts have touted Russian ability to jam GPS signals noting that there have been instances where Russia has precisely jammed the GPS signals in northern Norway from locations far across the border without affecting the nearby frequency band from Russia’s GLONASS satellite navigation system.

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Featured image: The graphic depicts various JDAM variants and an example of one of the bolt-on tail kit guidance units. (Source: The Eurasian Times)

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Experts Fear Future AI Could Cause ‘Nuclear-Level Catastrophe’

April 17th, 2023 by Kenny Stancil

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While nearly three-quarters of researchers believe artificial intelligence “could soon lead to revolutionary social change,” 36% worry that AI decisions “could cause nuclear-level catastrophe.”

Those survey findings are included in the 2023 AI Index Report, an annual assessment of the fast-growing industry assembled by the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and published earlier this month.

“These systems demonstrate capabilities in question answering, and the generation of text, image, and code unimagined a decade ago, and they outperform the state of the art on many benchmarks, old and new,” says the report. “However, they are prone to hallucination, routinely biased, and can be tricked into serving nefarious aims, highlighting the complicated ethical challenges associated with their deployment.”

As Al Jazeera reported Friday, the analysis “comes amid growing calls for regulation of AI following controversies ranging from a chatbot-linked suicide to deepfake videos of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appearing to surrender to invading Russian forces.”

Notably, the survey measured the opinions of 327 experts in natural language processing—a branch of computer science essential to the development of chatbots—last May and June, months before the November release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT “took the tech world by storm,” the news outlet reported.

Just three weeks ago, Geoffrey Hinton, considered the “godfather of artificial intelligence,” told CBS News‘ Brook Silva-Braga that the rapidly advancing technology’s potential impacts are comparable to “the Industrial Revolution, or electricity, or maybe the wheel.”

Asked about the chances of the technology “wiping out humanity,” Hinton warned that “it’s not inconceivable.”

That alarming potential doesn’t necessarily lie with currently existing AI tools such as ChatGPT, but rather with what is called “artificial general intelligence” (AGI), which would encompass computers developing and acting on their own ideas.

“Until quite recently, I thought it was going to be like 20 to 50 years before we have general-purpose AI,” Hinton told CBS News. “Now I think it may be 20 years or less.”

Pressed by Silva-Braga if it could happen sooner, Hinton conceded that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of AGI arriving within five years, a significant change from a few years ago when he “would have said, ‘No way.'”

“We have to think hard about how to control that,” said Hinton. Asked if that’s possible, Hinton said, “We don’t know, we haven’t been there yet, but we can try.”

The AI pioneer is far from alone. According to the survey of computer scientists conducted last year, 57% said that “recent progress is moving us toward AGI,” and 58% agreed that “AGI is an important concern.”

In February, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a company blog post: “The risks could be extraordinary. A misaligned superintelligent AGI could cause grievous harm to the world.”

More than 25,000 people have signed an open letter published two weeks ago that calls for a six-month moratorium on training AI systems beyond the level of OpenAI’s latest chatbot, GPT-4, although Altman is not among them.

“Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” says the letter.

The Financial Times reported Friday that Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who signed the letter calling for a pause, is “developing plans to launch a new artificial intelligence start-up to compete with” OpenAI.

Regarding AGI, Hinton said: “It’s very reasonable for people to be worrying about those issues now, even though it’s not going to happen in the next year or two. People should be thinking about those issues.”

While AGI may still be a few years away, fears are already mounting that existing AI tools—including chatbots spouting lies, face-swapping apps generating fake videos, and cloned voices committing fraud—are poised to turbocharge the spread of misinformation.

According to a 2022 IPSOS poll of the general public included in the new Stanford report, people in the U.S. are particularly wary of AI, with just 35% agreeing that “products and services using AI had more benefits than drawbacks,” compared with 78% of people in China, 76% in Saudi Arabia, and 71% in India.

Amid “growing regulatory interest” in an AI “accountability mechanism,” the Biden administration announced this week that it is seeking public input on measures that could be implemented to ensure that “AI systems are legal, effective, ethical, safe, and otherwise trustworthy.”

Axiosr eported Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is “taking early steps toward legislation to regulate artificial intelligence technology.”

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Kenny Stancil is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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The IMF Has Just Unveiled a New Global Currency Known as the “Universal Monetary Unit” That Is Supposed to Revolutionize the World Economy

April 17th, 2023 by Michael Snyder

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A new global currency just launched, but 99 percent of the global population has no idea what just happened. The “Universal Monetary Unit”, also known as “Unicoin”, is an “international central bank digital currency” that has been designed to work in conjunction with all existing national currencies. This should set off alarm bells for all of us, because the widespread adoption of a new “global currency” would be a giant step forward for the globalist agenda. The IMF did not create this new currency, but it was unveiled at a major IMF gathering earlier this week…

Today, at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings 2023, the Digital Currency Monetary Authority (DCMA) announced their official launch of an international central bank digital currency (CBDC) that strengthens the monetary sovereignty of participating central banks and complies with the recent crypto assets policy recommendations proposed by the IMF.

Universal Monetary Unit (UMU), symbolized as ANSI Character, Ü, is legally a money commodity, can transact in any legal tender settlement currency, and functions like a CBDC to enforce banking regulations and to protect the financial integrity of the international banking system.

As the press release quoted above indicates, this new “Universal Monetary Unit” was created by the Digital Currency Monetary Authority.

So who in the world is the Digital Currency Monetary Authority?

Honestly, I had no idea until I started doing research for this article.

The press release says that the organization consists of “sovereign states, central banks, commercial and retail banks, and other financial institutions”…

The DCMA is a world leader in the advocacy of digital currency and monetary policy innovations for governments and central banks. Membership within the DCMA consists of sovereign states, central banks, commercial and retail banks, and other financial institutions.

Basically, it sounds like a secretive cabal of international banks and national governments is conspiring to push this new currency down our throats.

We are being told that the “Universal Monetary Unit” is “‘Crypto 2.0”, and those that created it are hoping that it will be widely adopted by “all constituencies in a global economy”…

The DCMA introduces Universal Monetary Unit as Crypto 2.0 because it innovates a new wave of cryptographic technologies for realizing a digital currency public monetary system with a widespread adoption framework encompassing use cases for all constituencies in a global economy.

I don’t know about you, but this sounds super shady to me.

Of course the Digital Currency Monetary Authority is not the only one that has been working on a new digital currency.

The UK has also been working on one.

The same is true for the European Union.

And would it surprise anyone that the Biden administration is touting the potential benefits of a “digital form of the U.S. dollar”? The following comes from the official White House website…

A United States central bank digital currency (CBDC) would be a digital form of the U.S. dollar. While the U.S. has not yet decided whether it will pursue a CBDC, the U.S. has been closely examining the implications of, and options for, issuing a CBDC. If the U.S. pursued a CBDC, there could be many possible benefits, such as facilitating efficient and low-cost transactions, fostering greater access to the financial system, boosting economic growth, and supporting the continued centrality of the U.S. within the international financial system.

I don’t think that it is a coincidence that governments all over the western world are simultaneously developing CBDCs.

And the IMF has actually already put together an extensive handbook “to assist central banks and governments throughout the world in their CBDC rollouts”…

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is putting together a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) handbook to assist central banks and governments throughout the world in their CBDC rollouts.

Published publicly on April 10, the “IMF Approach to Central Bank Digital Currency Capacity Development” report outlines the IMF’s multi-year strategy for aiding CBDC rollouts, including the development of a living “CBDC Handbook” for monetary authorities to follow.

A lot of people out there will cheer when these digital currencies are introduced.

But it is imperative to understand that once everyone is using them, your financial privacy will be almost totally gone.

Authorities will be able to track virtually everything that you buy and sell, and I am sure that they won’t hesitate to use that information against you.

Needless to say, the potential for tyranny in such a system is off the charts.

Can you imagine a world in which you are restricted from buying meat for a while because you have already used your “carbon credits” for the month?

Your “financial privileges” could potentially be restricted at any time at the whim of a government bureaucrat, and if you are a big enough troublemaker you could be “deplatformed” from the system permanently.

Of course in order for such a system to have real teeth, cash and other forms of payment will need to be phased out, and that is precisely what is happening right now in Europe. The following comes from the official website of the European Parliament…

To restrict transactions in cash and crypto assets, MEPs want to cap payments that can be accepted by persons providing goods or services. They set limits up to €7000 for cash payments and €1000 for crypto-asset transfers, where the customer cannot be identified.

Ultimately, they will just keep lowering the limits until the use of cash is almost completely eliminated.

Everyone will be slowly but surely forced on to the new digital system, and it will be a system that they control with an iron fist.

And most people will willingly go along with it. These days, most people are just scraping by from month to month and one recent survey found that 70 percent of all Americans are “financially stressed” at this point…

Inflation, economic instability and a lack of savings have an increasing number of Americans feeling financially stressed.

Some 70% of Americans admit to being stressed about their personal finances these days and a majority — 52% — of U.S. adults said their financial stress has increased since before the Covid-19 pandemic began in March 2020, according to a new CNBC Your Money Financial Confidence Survey conducted in partnership with Momentive.

Most Americans simply do not care that these new digital currencies could open a door for great tyranny.

They just want to be able to pay the bills and take care of their families, and if our politicians tell them that this new system is good for the economy they will be all for it.

But those of us that are awake know that more globalism doesn’t lead anywhere good.

Concentrating even more power in the hands of the international elite is always a bad idea, and hopefully we can start to get more people to understand this.

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Michael Snyder has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News which are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.

It is finally here! Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

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OPEC: Saudis Aren’t Afraid of the US Anymore

April 17th, 2023 by M. K. Bhadrakumar

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***

The shock oil production cuts from May outlined by the OPEC+ on Sunday essentially means that eight key OPEC countries decided to join hands with Russia to reduce oil production, messaging that OPEC and OPEC+ are now back in control of the oil market.

No single oil producing country is acting as the Pied Piper here. The great beauty about it is that Saudi Arabia and seven other major OPEC countries have unexpectedly decided to support Russia’s efforts and unilaterally reduce production.

While the 8 OPEC countries are talking about a reduction of one million b/d from May to the end of the year, Russia will extend for the same period its voluntary adjustment that already started in March, by 500,000 barrels.

Now, add to this the production adjustments already decided by the OPEC+ previously, and the total additional voluntary production adjustments touch a whopping 1.6 million b/d.

What has led to this? Fundamentally, as many analysts had forewarned, the Western sanctions against Russian oil created distortions and anomalies in the oil market and upset the delicate ecosystem of supply and demand, which were compounded by the incredibly risky decision by the G7, at the behest of the US Treasury, to impose a price cap on Russia’s oil sales abroad.

On top of it, the Biden administration’s provocative moves to release oil regularly from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve in attempts to micromanage the oil prices and keep them abnormally low in the interests of the American consumer as well as to keep the inflationary pressures under check turned out to be an affront to the oil-producing countries whose economies critically depend on income from oil exports.

The OPEC+ calls the production cuts “a precautionary measure aimed at supporting the stability of the oil market.” In the downstream of the OPEC+ decision, analysts expect the oil prices to rise in the short term and pressure on Western central banks to increase due to the possible spike in inflation.

What stands out in the OPEC+ decision is that Russia’s decision to reduce oil production by the end of the year has been unanimously supported by the main Arab producers. Independent but time-coordinated statements were made by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria, Oman and Kazakhstan, while Russia confirmed its intention to extend until the end of the year its own production reduction by 500,000 barrels per day, which began in March.

Significantly, these statements have been made precisely by those largest oil producers in OPEC, who have a record of fully utilising their existing quota. Put differently, the reduction in production is going to be real, not just on paper.

Partly at least, the banking crisis in the US and Europe prompted the OPEC+ to intervene. Although Washington will downplay it, in March, Brent oil prices fell to $70 per barrel for the first time since 2021 amid the bankruptcy of several banks in the US and the near-death experience of Credit Suisse, one of the largest banks in Switzerland. The events sparked concern about the stability of the Western banking system and fear of a recession that would affect oil demand.

There is every likelihood that tensions may increase between the US and Saudi Arabia as higher oil prices will push inflation and make it even more difficult for the US Federal Reserve to find a balance between raising the key rate and maintaining financial and economic stability. Equally, the Biden administration must be furious that practical cooperation is still continuing between Russia and the OPEC countries, especially Saudi Arabia, notwithstanding the West’s price cap on Russian oil and Moscow’s decision to unilaterally cut production in March.

However, the Biden administration has only a limited range of options to respond to the OPEC+’s surprise move: one, go for another release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; two, pressure US producers to increase domestic oil output; three, back legislation that would allow the US to take the dramatic step of suing OPEC nations; or, four, curb the US’ export of gasoline and diesel.

To be sure, the OPEC+ production cut goes against the Western demand to increase oil output even as sanctions were imposed against Russian oil and gas exports. On the other hand, the disruption in oil supplies from Russia contributed to the rising inflation in the EU countries.

The US wanted the Gulf Arab states to step in and step up oil production. But the latter did not oblige because they felt that there wasn’t enough economic activity in the West and there were clear signs of recession contrary to expectation.

Thus, as a result of the sanctions against Russia, Europe is facing the complex situation of inflation and near-recession known as stagflation. In reality, the adaptive and agile OPEC + read the situation correctly and has shown that it is willing to act ahead of the curve. At a time when the world economy is struggling to grow at a healthy rate, the demand for oil would be relatively less, and it makes sense to cut oil production to maintain the price balance.

All that the Western leaders can complain about is that the OPEC+ cut in oil output has come at an inappropriate time. But the woes of Western economies cannot be laid at the door of OPEC+ as there are inherent problems which are now coming to the surface. For instance, the large scale protests in France against pension reform or the widespread strikes in Britain for higher wages show that there are deep structural problems in these economies, and the governments seem helpless in tackling them.

In geopolitical terms, the OPEC+ move came after a meeting between Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman in Riyadh on March 16 that focused on oil market cooperation. Therefore, it is widely seen as the tightening of the bond between Russia and Saudi Arabia. In fact, in May, as the largest members of OPEC join Russia in its unilateral reduction, the balance of quotas and the ratio of market shares between and amongst the participants in the OPEC + deal will return to the level set when it was concluded in April 2020.

The big question is, how Moscow might profit from the OPEC+ decision. The rise in crude oil prices particularly benefits Russia. Simply put, the production cuts will tighten up the oil market and thus help Russia to secure better prices for the crude oil it sells. Second, the new cuts also confirm that Russia is still an integral and important part of the group of oil producing countries, despite the western attempts to isolate it.

Third, the consequences of Sunday’s decision are all the greater because, unlike the previous cuts by the OPEC+ group at the height of the pandemic or last October, today, the momentum for global oil demand is up, not down — what with a strong recovery by China expected.

That is to say, the surprise OPEC+ reduction further consolidates the Saudi-Russian energy alliance, by aligning their production levels, thus placing them on equal footing. It is a slap in the face for Washington.

Make no mistake, this is another signal regarding a new era where the Saudis are not afraid of the US anymore, as the OPEC “leverage” is on Riyadh’s side. The Saudis are only doing what they need to do, and the White House has no say in the matter. Clearly, a recasting of the regional and global dynamics that has been set in motion lately is gathering momentum. The future of petrodollar seems increasingly uncertain.

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Brazil’s Abstention from 2014’s UNGA Vote on Ukraine Proves That Lula Changed the PT’s Policy

April 17th, 2023 by Andrew Korybko

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The precedent established by former President Rousseff upon her ordering Brazilian diplomats to abstain from voting in support of an anti-Russian UNGA Resolution in March 2014 was indisputably changed by Lula. Precisely because his recalibrated multipolar vision makes him amenable to the US’ grand strategic interests, he decided to do away with Rousseff’s pragmatic stance towards the Ukrainian Conflict in favor of showing the world that he now supports the US’ position.

Brazilian President Lula’s condemnation of Russia in his joint statement with Biden and his country’s vote in support of an anti-Russian UNGA Resolution shortly thereafter, both of which were analyzed in the context of his grand strategy here, prompted some of his supporters to make excuses for this policy. Instead of acknowledging the reality that he’s politically aligned with the US against Russia in the most geostrategically significant conflict since World War II, they prefer to mislead others about this fact.

To that end, one of the most common narratives that they invented is that Lula is supposedly bound by Article 4 of the Brazilian Constitution to condemn anything that Russia does in those territories that Kiev claims as its own. Foreign Minister Vieira also justified his boss’ political hostility towards Russia on that exact same pretext in an interview with leading Brazilian media late last month, which can be read in full here.

Google Translate shows that he made the following point: “Brazil condemned the invasion of Russia and it could not be otherwise. This is even one of the constitutional precepts that guide foreign policy. This is in the initial articles of the Constitution which establishes, among other things, international law, human rights, territorial integrity and the peaceful settlement of disputes. Brazil could not fail to condemn the invasion of Ukrainian territory.”

This is a blatant lie that’s debunked by the policy that the Workers’ Party (PT) previously practiced towards this issue during Rousseff’s government, which succeeded Lula’s second term and was fully endorsed by him. Back then, Brazil pragmatically abstained from an anti-Russian UNGA Resolution condemning Crimea’s democratic reunification with its historic homeland, which post-“Maidan” Kiev and its Western patrons described as a “Russian invasion” just like they describe its special operation.

The official UN Digital Library website shared proof of Brazil’s previous position here by placing an “A” next to its name to indicate that it abstained, unlike those countries that have a “Y” and “N” to correspondingly show that they voted yes or no. Brazil’s former Permanent Representative at the United Nations explained his country’s stance on the Meetings Coverage and Press Release part of the official UN website here, which is being shared below for the reader’s convenience:

“ANTONIO DE AGUIAR PATRIOTA ( Brazil) said the international community must reaffirm its strong resolve to urgently find a peaceful solution, emphasizing that his country’s concerns reflected its close bilateral ties and strategic partnership with Ukraine.

Noting that Brazil hosted one of the largest Ukrainian-descendant communities outside Europe, he expressed deep regret over the deaths in Kyiv.

The United Nations Charter must be respected under all circumstances, as should international law, he stressed, urging all parties to engage in constructive talks, while commending the Secretary-General’s initiatives to de-escalate tensions, restore calm and promote dialogue.”

These are the same points as those that Lula himself, other Brazilian diplomats like Vieira, and their supporters on social media have all made, with the exception being that Brazil abstained from March 2014’s anti-Russian UNGA Resolution under Rousseff but voted in support of February 2023’s under Lula. Neither he nor the opposition at the time demanded that she be prosecuted on the pretext of supposedly violating Article 4’s provisions related to the formulation of her country’s foreign policy.

Brazil’s previous policy and the factual observation that nobody accused it of being anti-constitutional at the time combine to debunk the lie that Vieira recently relied upon for justifying his country’s decision to vote in support of late February’s anti-Russian UNGA Resolution. Lula could have ordered his country’s diplomats to abstain just like his then-successor Rousseff pragmatically did but instead deliberately decided to have them politically align Brazil with the US against Russia on the Ukrainian Conflict.

This proves that the PT did indeed change its position towards Russia since the last time that it led Brazil, which also naturally prompts the question of why Vieira lied about this instead of doing his job as his country’s top diplomat by articulating the ruling party’s new stance on this issue. As was explained at length in this analysis from early March here, the falsehood that he spewed to justify Lula breaking with his BRICS partners by refusing to abstain from that vote is part of the Hybrid War on Brazil.

The latest manifestation thereof is actually being waged by the PT’s elite and their supporters in order to mislead the party’s multipolar base about the “politically inconvenient” reality of Lula politically aligning with the US against Russia in the most geostrategically significant conflict since World War II. The precedent established by former President Rousseff, who remains such a key figure in the PT that she was recently appointed as the head of the BRICS Bank, was indisputably changed by Lula.

Precisely because his recalibrated multipolar vision makes him amenable to the US’ grand strategic interests as was explained in late January here, he decided to do away with Rousseff’s pragmatic stance towards the Ukrainian Conflict in favor of showing the world that he now supports the US’ position. Further insight into his thinking can be obtained by reviewing the analysis that was cited in the introduction, but the point is that nobody can deny that Lula changed Rousseff’s policy on this issue.

Instead of resorting to toxic ad hominem attacks against those who draw attention to this undeniable fact and even sometimes concocting the kookiest conspiracy theories about their intentions out of desperation to distract from this issue, Lula’s supporters should directly address it. Continuing to wage their Hybrid War by denying this “politically inconvenient” reality is dishonest and makes observers wonder why they’re so obsessed with misleading everyone about this policy.

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This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

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What the American People Must Know About the Sensationalist Arraignment of Former President Donald Trump

April 16th, 2023 by Emanuel Pastreich

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First published on April 7, 2023

***

The brutal war of the parasite class against the American people has entered a new and deadly phase. At the moment that we should be organizing to stop the spread of poisoned food, the release of dangerous chemicals in the atmosphere as part of classified geoengineering projects, and the destruction of money and of the local economy through the radical empowerment of Wall Street and multinational investment banks, at this critical moment we are being fed the sensationalist arraignment of former president Donald Trump on the charges of paying off a porn star to keep secret about their relationship.

This myopic focus on a lascivious affair at the moment that war has been declared on the American people is no accident.

The corporate media screams out about a profound ideological struggle between the left and the right, one that could lead to a civil war between conservative militias in rural areas and so-called “progressive forces”, backed by the Biden administration, on the coasts, and in the cities.

Although such a scenario is most certainly possible, perhaps already well under way, it is but the tip of the iceberg.

Deep beneath the screaming headlines, behind the frantic bloggers of various ideological shapes and colors, and below the insipid news reports that are only invigorated by references to sexual relations between Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels, is the steel fist hidden in the velvet glove.

This made-for-television confrontation is between puppets whose strings are pulled by the strategy teams of billionaires and the consultants for private equity firms, investment banks and other financial players around the world.

The parasite class has decided that the United States is worth more to them as scrap, as fragments to be sold off at a secret auction, than as a functioning republic.

The are most certainly those who have strong feelings about Donald Trump, in that he has been set up as a symbol of what is wrong, or what is right, about America through a multi-billion, multi-year, propaganda campaign.

The point of this operation run by private intelligence firms, consulting groups, and public relations agencies (whose activities are now illegally rendered as classified), is to confuse and divide the population so that it will not be capable of responding to the current attack until it is too late.

The obvious next step for the citizens of the United States, is NOT to gawk at Trump, but to come together, to take strong action against the globalists who have seized control of the entire executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, and to stop the use of vaccines, and now GMO food, to poison and kill, to stop the creation of fake money to destroy the economy of the people, and to end the use of private intelligence and police forces to take destroy our infrastructure, poison our farmland and water, groups that will transform the entire country into a horrific Disneyland, a playground in which everybody hunkers down in secret fear as they knowingly (or unknowingly) participate in a grotesque “genocide with a smile.”

Do not waste a second trying to understand the Manhattan prosecutor’s office allegations of 34 felony counts aimed at Donald Trump and his former attorney Michael Cohen.

Brace for the worst. Come together with your neighbors, your comrades across the country, and across the world, to create a republic for the people, of the people, and by the people, one based on the Constitution and the scientific method.

Do not be afraid, or shy, to denounce this travesty. Refuse to buy into this false “progressive” “conservative” dialectic that has been set up for you by the billionaires and their consultants.

Allow me to introduce to you here article “The slow-motion civil war: America’s three-way fight” from 2018. I describe in this article the complex political battle taking place between three factions, a “three-way fight,” that is presented, in an intentionally misleading manner, as a binary struggle between left and right.

“The slow-motion civil war: America’s three-way fight”

We are so accustomed to a functional political system in the United States that sets standards for the world that in this transitional period it is quite difficult for many to conceive that massive institutional decay is taking place in Washington, D.C., that will only accelerate and, if not handled well, risks both global war and domestic conflict far beyond what we have seen so far.

That means we had better get serious about an accurate interpretation of current events in the U.S. or risk having events overwhelm us.

First we must move beyond the simplistic opposition between conservatives and liberals in American politics. We have to stop trying to shoehorn the contradictory information that we observe into this meaningless dichotomy. The Trump administration is a radical, not a conservative, political movement and its opposition, in that it exists in Washington, is not liberal.

We are witnessing a “three-way fight” in the U.S. that defies assumptions about politics over the past 70 years. A complex battle has reached a peak and it is what has allowed Trump to become president, and to remain in power thus far.

The term “three-way fight” in contemporary politics finds its origin in a fascinating article by Matthew Lyons titled “Defending My Enemy’s Enemy” that was published on the blog “Three Way Fight” on August 3, 2006. Although Lyons’ analysis has a certain leftist bias, his analysis is pretty much on target.

Here is what Lyons says,

“Instead of an essentially binary struggle between right and left, between the forces of oppression and the forces of liberation, three-way fight politics posits a more complex struggle centered on the global capitalist ruling class, the revolutionary left, and the revolutionary right. The latter encompasses various kinds of fascists and other far rightists who want to replace the dominance of global capital with a different kind of oppressive social order.”

I use the term “globalists” to refer to the “global capitalist ruling class,” “anti-globalization left” to refer to “the revolutionary left,” and “anti-globalization right” to refer to “the revolutionary right.” I feel that both “capitalist” and “revolutionary” are ambiguous and ideologically loaded terms that mislead as much as they inform.

You might say that we witnessing a “civil war in slow motion” right now in the United States, but there is a serious risk that the domestic conflict will speed up and that it may bring with it more substantial military conflicts, even if the Trump administration did not have such intentions originally.

Americans are struggling to make sense of the conflicting narratives they have been fed by the mainstream media. Most have no other sources of information even while they know it is flawed. This problem is made worse by the contempt shown toward working-class people by educated upper-middle-class liberals. Working-class people, especially whites, are dismissed as “ignorant” or “racist” by liberals, without any effort to communicate with them or to understand the world they live in.

As a result, working-class whites often feel that the anti-globalization right cares about them more than the globalists who may be African American, but who have no connection with working-poor people.

The Globalists

The globalists are ideologically neither progressive (in that they do not embrace restrictions on capital or regulations aimed at supporting local control) nor are they conservative (in that they have little interest in Christian values and may very well be extremely open-minded in terms of who they invite to their mansions in terms of race, ethnicity or sexuality).

The globalists are most concerned with global finance and the stock exchange. For individuals, whether banker or politician, liberal or conservative perspectives on institutions are a result of family upbringing, or audience, and are not central to their concerns. As long as you embrace a global perspective and you do not want to interfere with certain key features of global finance (such as the free rein of commercial banks and the measurement of success in terms of interest rates, inflation and GDP) you too can be a globalist.

Hillary Clinton was clearly the candidate of the globalists. Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz were also globalists, but they used the iconography of the right wing. The globalists do have certain fracture lines, and there are rivalries between factions — occasionally enough to encourage flirting with political enemies. But for the most part, the globalists want the subject of trade and finance to be off the table, and to focus on identity issues.

The “conservative” flavor of globalists basically speak the same way when they meet behind closed doors with Goldman Sachs or Lockheed Martin, as do the left wing globalists (like Clinton, or for that matter Sanders). But their appeal to ordinary citizens is different. The conservatives stress Christian values, patriotism, a strong defense and law and order. The liberals like Clinton speak to their audience more in terms of “diversity,” “opportunity” and “innovation.”

Conservative culture demands that the Republican candidate appear to be strong and confident. Such iconography is offensive to most Democrats. Democrats have to look like they are participatory, and ethnically diverse, and not just leaders barking orders like a lieutenant, or lecturing like a preacher. Such images do not mean a fundamental difference in organization.

The fundamental interests supporting both sides are basically the same. Neither side would suggest that retirement funds should not be tied to the stock market (although many progressives and conservatives would make that argument). The difference is rather that the Democrats take more money from Hollywood and from the mainstream media, from hospitals and high-tech ventures, and from specialized investment banks. By contrast, the Republicans take more from fossil fuel companies, defense contractors and retailers like Walmart.

The anti-globalization left

The anti-globalization left has a vision of creating a more equitable society and it works under the assumption that the state, if run by the right people, is capable of bringing about such changes. There are several layers to the anti-globalization left and there are bitter rivalries that make cooperation difficult. Moreover, many leftists fighting globalization are new to the field, having only entered politics recently. Although their numbers and their networks are growing rapidly, many espouse socialist ideals that have been outside of mainstream politics since the 1940s. Building networks and support groups is slow, but it is accelerating.

The astonishing number of people willing to support Bernie Sanders in his campaign, and come out for his events, suggests that there is broad support for such a leftist movement, and we will see the next generation after Occupy Wall Street and Sanders soon.

There are many anti-globalization leftists who look at the mild statements of Sanders with distain. Because Sanders cannot even articulate a critique of American imperialism and foreign wars, they suggest, he is nothing more than a stooge.

Although the critique may seem a bit harsh, the truth of the matter is that the more strident news outlets of the anti-globalization left, like WSWS (World Socialist Web Site) and Truthdig have, for all their ideological bias, completely surpassed the New York Times in terms of the quality of their reporting. Many CIA analysts secretly read these publications for real analysis of current issues (and they probably contribute to them as well).

The anti-globalization left is growing stronger, but that shift is nearly invisible because they have been entirely blocked out of the mainstream media. Their critique against the establishment is powerful and their total rejection of the entire system has a broad, if covert, appeal. Their essential doctrine is revolutionary, not progressive. They describe a political culture that is so corrupt that literally nothing can be accomplished. Such radical demands for change are much more common than was the case even five years ago.

There is a substantial part of the left that thinks that Sanders has betrayed them and they are not coming back to the Democratic Party. They watched how the last progressive movement to address real economic and social issues, Occupy Wall Street, was brutally suppressed by illegal police action and they have had enough. They saw how the 2016 prison strike, the largest in U.S. history, was entirely ignored by the so-called progressive media and they are disgusted.

These anti-globalization revolutionary leftists are not well organized precisely because of their anti-institutional bias, but they may well come together again soon in an effective manner.

Sanders picked up many of these people during his campaign, so much that Democrats were deeply worried he might rock the boat. Sanders was most effective in speeches that drew on direct reference to class and concentration of capital, words that recalled politics of the 1930s. His campaign represents a major development in the U.S. and we have not seen the end of that movement. Yet his decision to fold without a fight before the Democratic Convention drove his revolutionary followers out of the Democratic Party. The betrayal was deep.

The anti-globalization right

Donald Trump has become the idol of the anti-globalization right wing and they are increasingly the most motivated ethnic group in the U.S. The dispossessed whites, with their strong ties to law enforcement and to the military, have been able to dominate the discussion on class issues (which Democrats are afraid to touch), on political conspiracies (ditto) and on the question of massive institutional corruption. Whereas liberal politicians speak about corruption as the result of few bad apples, of selfish and thoughtless people, the anti-globalization right assumes from the start that the system is broken beyond repair. They are closer to a universal critique to the far left than they are to the mainstream Democrat or Republican.

Anti-globalization right websites like Prison Planet and others have grown a loyal following beyond the far right because they disclose classified information and they discuss larger corporate conspiracies in detail. The fact that many of those discussions are diluted with fictions that keep the listeners from fully comprehending what exactly is happening does not detract from the broad impact of these broadcasts.

In the 1930s, blaming the Jews was an extremely effective way to diffuse explosive critiques of the contradictions of capitalism. The complete ignorance of most citizens of how they themselves were part of a cannibalistic economic system could be preserved by finding a scapegoat. But because the far right spoke out about real issues the media ignored, it had an appeal to the common man and they felt revolutionary. So also the calls of Trump followers to throw out the blacks and Muslims (a call that will extend eventually to Jews and Asians) feel like real action, as opposed to hot air for many poor whites. They are not repulsed by Trump’s aggressive behavior, but rather inspired. When Trump calls other nations “shitholes,” his popularity only increases.

The anti-globalization right prefers a simple narrative that is easy to follow and it appeals to working-class people who are alienated from elite institutions like Harvard that are uncritically embraced by the left. Trump is able to attack the entire system and still survive politically because of the depth of alienation. Many of these anti-globalizations play major roles in local politics in rural America and must be taken seriously because the structure of elections discriminates against urban dwellers.

Trump’s campaign also attacked free-trade ideology in a manner that no progressive Democrat was capable of doing. Party loyalty forbids any Democrat from suggesting that free trade is by its nature destructive. But Trump had not such limits on his rhetoric. He gained much support among working-class whites who have suffered terribly from free trade when he suggested that automobile imports should be stopped by tariffs.

If you look at Trump’s background, he is clearly more of a globalist, but his main skill is not policy, but rather the ability to respond quickly to the needs of his audience. His policies evolved as a reaction of those who followed him.

Trump learned to appeal to these anti-globalization rightists, and white nationalists, but he is not originally one of them. Trump has very close ties to Israel (which both the anti-globalization left and anti-globalization right dislike). Many of his right-wing supporters are extremely hostile to Israel. Even as Trump moves to embrace Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, attacks on Jews from the far right are increasing.

How do the factions ally with each other?

We find a constantly shifting set of temporary alliances on a case-by-case basis in a three-way fight: the globalists will pair up with the anti-globalization left on occasion, but with the anti-globalization right at other times.

The anti-globalization right also can team up with the anti-globalization left, a phenomenon that has little precedent in our memory, but which is becoming quite prevalent.

The globalists team up with the anti-globalization left

Many important figures at global financial institutions like Goldman Sachs come from cultured families and they, and their families, have bought into a tolerant, multi-cultural world view. They are happy to have anti-globalization leftists giving talks at their events, and will even make donations to outfits like Democracy Now or Green Peace, as long as those players do not present a systematic strategy for taking on Wall Street’s absolute domination of the American economy.

To put it bluntly, globalists support humanitarian projects and welfare policies, as long as they are “progressive” and not “revolutionary.” That is to say, incremental changes are introduced, not fundamental shifts in how the economy and the well-being of the nation are assessed.

Moreover, globalists and the anti-globalization left have an agreement on climate change. Globalists are seriously concerned about climate change (as long as the response does not affect their bottom line). And there is much cooperation in this respect — even to a flaw as the anti-globalizations have bought into the globalist’s carbon trading scheme. Finally, the anti-globalization left is urban and small in number (large in the number who sympathize, but small in the number of heavy hitters). It does not have the churches and other institutional networks of the anti-globalization right and stumbles when it tries to get its message to the larger audience.

Many leftist intellectuals find themselves at a greater distance from working-class people than from millionaires. They would find it easier to collect money from the super-rich than from factory workers. That disconnect is significant and it results in profound distortions. The liberals, and the so-called progressives, are often caught in a bubble and that is why the right wing so easily attacks them as elitists even when they try to do good.

Globalists team up with the anti-globalization right

When the globalists reach out to the anti-globalization right to support their battles, they pose their arguments in terms of “rights” or of “freedom.” They find that the right wing is more flexible, more open to contradictory or even hypocritical deals and willing to speak in terms of money.

The old agreement, until Trump, was that the anti-globalization right would get support from the Republican globalists on their pet issues like federal money for Christian organizations, prohibitions on abortion and draconian crime legislation, in return for the right supporting the globalist Republican Party in its relentless pursuit of free trade and financial deregulation (both issues that the anti-globalization right dislikes). So also the anti-globalization right was willing to put up with the Republican embrace of Israel, even though at the local level it is far more hostile to Israel, and to Jews as a whole, than any part of the left.

The anti-globalization right also has a strong interest in the military and the police. Their members have close ties to the military and they model their organizations on military culture. They may not like the many foreign wars, but they admire the military’s strength and discipline. Moreover, jobs in the police, in the military and in prisons are extremely valued by rural white communities. The privatization of the prison system has resulted in a direct money exchange as a result of the harsh enforcement of laws in urban regions with large minority populations. A young black man may not be able to find a job or make a significant contribution to the local economy because of the decimation of factories. But if he is picked up on a doubtful charge and sent to prison (which are almost always in rural white communities), he can be forced to work producing products for next to nothing and the prison will supply high-paying jobs to many in the community. The prisons have in many cases become the biggest employer in the region.

Unspoken alliance of the anti-globalization left and the anti-globalization right

The most interesting part of this equation is the teaming up of the anti-globalization right and the anti-globalization left, which is increasing as the U.S. government shows signs of advanced decay. The far right and far left often have much in common with regards to international trade and finance, both of which they want to limit dramatically. They are both at war with the deep state, even if they define it in slightly different ways. Both sides suggest that the current government of the United States lacks the legitimacy to govern — both sides are, in essence, revolutionary, and not progressive or conservative.

Trump would never have been able to get elected if there had not been a large number of people on the left who supported the manner in which he weakens the state, which they want to bring down. Trump made appeals to the far left repeatedly. In fact, during the election, many far-left organizations posted material on their websites attacking Hillary Clinton that were originally produced by right-wing groups. Many continued to post them even after complaints were registered, because they felt the content was true. Trump even hinted at support for Wikileaks during the campaign — a position he was forced to back away from once president.

Steve Bannon, who continues to be a force in the Trump administration, even if the militarists have blocked some of his access to the White House, made a declaration that is particularly helpful to us in understanding what is going on here in this anti-globalization hidden coalition of left and right.

He remarked: “We don’t believe there is a functional conservative party in this country and we certainly don’t think the Republican Party is that. It’s going to be an insurgent, center-right populist movement that is virulently anti-establishment, and it’s going to continue to hammer this city, both the progressive left and the institutional Republican Party.”

Bannon was suggesting a “third-way” strategy based on the fascists of the 1930s that has a broad appeal beyond the “conservative/progressive” discourse in that it is anti-elite and revolutionary.

Moreover, Bannon’s news agency, Breitbart News, has borrowed heavily from Lenin’s war chest, employing attacks on “global elites” and even suggesting that Barack Obama was a “parasite.”

This strategy was best expressed by Trump on the campaign trail in this manner: “The Washington establishment and the financial and media corporations that fund it exist for only one reason, to protect and enrich itself. The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election. For those who control the levers of power in Washington and for the global special interests, they partner with these people who don’t have your good in mind.”

This statement, never followed up on in his actions, appealed to many voters. It went far beyond anything that even Sanders was capable of expressing. Trump was backed by the dark money of billionaires, and not dependent on the Republican Party, so he could say just about anything. That was the strategy.

A space emerged for Trump (and his inventors Bannon and Robert Mercer) to address the needs of workers in a manner that Democrats could not because of their dependency on corporations. Trump could give a talk in Detroit saying that he would stop the import of foreign cars as part of his “American first” economic nationalism. The appeal to workers was immense, but no Democrat would be allowed to say something like that because of the party commitment to “free trade.” Democrats talk about ethnic diversity, but they do not touch on class issues and they have no connections with ordinary workers, black or white, preferring to work with the leaders of major workers’ unions.

The anti-globalization left thought that having Trump installed as president (with the help of the anti-globalization right) would mean that the false face covering up American imperialism would be torn off. Leftists thought that at least Trump would not start new wars, or expand wars in the Middle East. They were wrong.

Of course Trump made statements, probably sincere, that he wanted to eat a hamburger with Kim Jong-un and that U.S. policy in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 1992 was all mistaken. But Trump was a political amateur and had no network at all in the military-industrial complex. It did not take long for him to be completely captured, reading off a script written up by the war hawks.

How did the left respond to the challenge of Trump? Look at the words of Jill Stein, the presidential candidate of the Green Party, who is certainly quite moderate among anti-globalization leftists,

“Donald Trump, I think, will have a lot of trouble moving things through Congress,” Stein says. “Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, won’t … Hillary has the potential to do a whole lot more damage, get us into more wars, faster to pass her fracking disastrous climate program, much more easily than Donald Trump could do his.”

Stein’s greater distrust of Clinton suggests a fundamental breakdown in American political culture.

Beyond the progressive vs. conservative Grand Guignol, institutional decay continues unabated

The three-way fight described goes far back in American politics and if I were writing a history textbook, I would add a few more chapters. The scale of its impact on American politics today, however, is unprecedented and suggests that there is a more profound decay of institutions, whether it be political parties, or the federal government, or corporations. All these organizations have been carved up for the use of small factions and interest groups and have ceased to serve a public good. Moreover, our privatized media has spent most of its time papering over, and rendering invisible, such institutional transformation, thus leaving citizens open to easy manipulation. We are led to believe that Trump is the source of evil, as opposed to the privatization of government, or the deregulation (legalization of corruption) of industry.

It is no surprise that citizens view political parties, and government itself, as hostile and threatening. Because our media, and our very approach to political analysis (not only on television, but in the classroom as well) hinges on a simplistic, one-size-fits-all progressive/conservative historical narrative, we have trouble comprehending the interference pattern created by the masked tug of war between three distinct groups who in alternation pair up or confront one another.

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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.

Featured image is from Elijah J Magnier

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Review of EO Film: Three Hooves Up in High Heaven. Films Featuring Animals as Protagonists

April 16th, 2023 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

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***

Films featuring animals as screen filled protagonists, often in an imperfect, callous human world, have been made before. There was Robert Bresson’s 1966 Au Hasard Balthazar, which introduced audiences to a saintly donkey subject to the terrible things human beings are so often prone to inflict.

In recent times, the documentary black-and-white film Gunda, directed by Viktor Kossakovsky (executive producer Joaquin Phoenix), stripped of human dialogue, featured the farm life of an impressively large sow and her piglets. To their lives were added cows and a chicken with one leg. In such a film, livestock are seen as breathing, living creatures; they are not mere units of stock, destined for the packet and table. It is a film stunningly free of didactic hectoring or moral scolding.

EO, a film by Jerzy Skolimowski, that seasoned though less known member of the Polish New Wave, which included such busting, big hitters as Andrzej Wajda and Roman Polanski, pays tribute to Bresson’s work. At the very least, the same animal of biblical lore features. It certainly has gone down well with some of the critics, winning a nomination for Best International Feature Film and netting the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022.

Interestingly enough, this particular animal is very much in cinematic vogue: Jenny, the miniature donkey in The Banshees of Inisherin, has made something of a splash. Jenny was even featured alongside the Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel at this year’s events. “Not only is she an actor,” the humourless Kimmel strained, “she’s a certified emotional support donkey – or at least that’s what we told the airline to get her on the plane from Ireland.”

Skolimowski’s inspiration for selecting the donkey arose from an encounter in Sicily, where he and his wife and collaborator Ewa Piaskowska, spend their winters. At a village Nativity, he noted “an incredible cacophony – chickens, geese, pigs, goats … In the very far corner, I saw those famous ears”.

The donkey, despite moving its startlingly parallel ears, remained silent. It was, according to the director, “like a witness on the side. I came very close and I looked at his eyes – next time you see a donkey, please notice the enormous eyes. They had this very specific melancholic look – not being involved, but looking with a distance and maybe some philosophical reflection.”

In The Economist, Skolimowski is reported regarding donkeys as “extremely intelligent animals and very sensitive”. He condemns industrial farming as “torture”, rightly deserving a ban. Perhaps inevitably, vegetarianism gains appeal through EO, capturing hearts and moving conscience. Half of the crew involved in the filming swore off meat by its end. Both Skolimowski and Piaskowska reduced their own meat consumption.

Where Bresson’s ass is village-bound and passed around its various residents, Skolimowski’s donkey is involuntarily restless, beginning his adventures from a doomed circus in Poland which must let its animals go for reasons of legislation and protest. There, he is much loved by Magda (Sandra Drzymalska), who performs under the circus name Kasandra, his shield against savagery.

EO becomes a witness, something like a fauna-directed camera, finding himself in the company of animals awaiting industrial slaughter, but also journeying through forests and environs populated by free creatures. There are even Jewish graves in a reminder of the Holocaust, that most conspicuous example of centralised and orchestrated killing.

The film is stark, pared back, though enriched by splashes of colour sequences that suggest imminent danger. The mesmerising, head throbbing soundtrack enhances the sense that harm lurks. EO, like Bresson’s Balthazar, finds himself in manifold situations of neglect, betrayal and brutality. He is beaten up by football hooligans who believe their team lost a match because of his braying. A black-market flesh trader attempts to sell him for salami. A dissolute aristocrat prone to gambling befriends him while speaking of his love of meat, including that of donkey.

While eschewing sentimentality, Skolimowski does not shy away from moments of tenderness. After leaving the circus, EO finds himself in an animal sanctuary, where he delights children. At one point, at a mayoral opening, he is garlanded with carrots.

At the hands of humans, animals suffer cruelty; but EO also shows us that humans, in tried-and-true sadistic fashion, are masters of inflicting harm upon themselves. The flesh-trader offers food to a migrant refugee in clumsy fashion, only to have his life savagely concluded. All the time this sequence unfolds, the protagonist waits with his equine companions fated for the knackery.

Skolimowski leaves us tantalised about the perspective of EO. This brings to mind the dilemma put forth by the philosopher, Thomas Nagel, who wondered, famously, what it was like to be a bat. The film, at points, suggests that EO is not immune to reminiscing, notably about the touch of Magda who loved him so, her voice echoing as emotive balm, encouragement and assurance. But we are not necessarily any the wiser for it. One thing we do know: the director misses him.

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Featured image: This is a poster for EO. The poster art copyright is believed to belong to Skopia Film. (Licensed under Fair Use)

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Artificial Intelligence (A.I.): A Threat to Civilization and Humanity?

April 16th, 2023 by Ben Bartee

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***

How worried should we be as a civilization about artificial intelligence, assuming we aspire to continue to exist?

I recently sat for a podcast with Nicolas Creed and The Daily Bell editor Joe Jarvis to discuss the existential threat, or lack thereof, posed by unchecked AI.

Joe, playing devil’s advocate, was bullish on AI as a net positive for humanity. Nicolas and I were less optimistic. We all agreed that the defining factor will be the manner in which it is developed — by whom, for what purposes, and with what precautions, if any.

We on Team Skeptic are now joined by a bevy of experienced AI professionals. One such figure, for instance, recently literally called for the bombing of AI data centers that provide the inputs for AI “cognition.”

Via Futurism:

“One of the world’s loudest artificial intelligence critics has issued a stark call to not only put a pause on AI but to militantly put an end to it — before it ends us instead…

Machine learning researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky, who has for more than two decades been warning about the dystopian future that will come when we achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), is once again ringing the alarm bells.”

(For reference, “artificial general intelligence,” or AGI, is popularly defined as “the representation of generalized human cognitive abilities in software so that, faced with an unfamiliar task, the AGI system could find a solution. The intention of an AGI system is to perform any task that a human being is capable of.”)

Continuing:

“Yudkowsky said that while he lauds the signatories of the Future of Life Institute’s recent open letter — which include SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and onetime presidential candidate Andrew Yang — calling for a six-month pause on AI advancement to take stock, he himself didn’t sign it because it doesn’t go far enough.”

The warning letter signed by Elon Musk and other notable public figures that Yudkowksy alludes to reads, in part:

“Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders. Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.“

Other AI heavyweights have echoed similar sentiments, including the “godfather of artificial intelligence,” Geoffrey Hinton, who cited a “minor risk” AI would be humanity’s undoing.

Returning to Yudkowsky’s call to literal arms to stop AI’s ascendance, he raises the essential problem, which I have raised elsewhere, of creating an intelligence that outstrips humanity’s cognitive limits. Without effective guardrails in place to prevent it from becoming either negligent of human welfare or outright hostile to human life, we are at a serious disadvantage:

“It’s not that you can’t, in principle, survive creating something much smarter than you,” he mused, “it’s that it would require precision and preparation and new scientific insights, and probably not having AI systems composed of giant inscrutable arrays of fractional numbers.”

Much like biomedical researchers using gain-of-function research to soup up viruses, the AI engineers currently at work creating ever more intelligent AI know not what they do. They are meddling, recklessly and needlessly, with forces they do not understand when the prudent course of action would require prior study.

As recently reported on elsewhere, AI very recently developed what philosophers and biologists call “theory of mind.” This means that it has the newfound lifelike capacity to frame itself in the state of mind of another person or thing and then to act strategically accordingly.

It may not be prudent to cosign calls for kinetic bombing of information warehouses, but these developments certainly should serve as a cause for pause, to grapple with the wide-ranging implications of this technology.

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This article was originally published on The Daily Bell.

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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Bill Gates Granted Authority to Buy 2100 More Acres of North Dakota Farmland

April 15th, 2023 by Steve Watson

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First published on July, 2022

Bill Gates, who already owns close to 270,000 acres of land in the U.S., has been granted the legal authority to buy another 2100 acres in North Dakota despite protests by local residents.

Gates, already the largest farmland owner in the country, has secured the go ahead to buy the land for $13.5 million under his ‘Red River Trust’ company.

Bill Gates' exposed ND land buy has locals livid pic.twitter.com/HTuwqSPRDB

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2023) June 24, 2022

Gates is circumventing a 1932 anti-corporate farm ownership law by pledging to lease the land back to farmers after the purchase is complete.

The Daily Mail reports:

North Dakota’s Agriculture Commissioner, Republican Doug Goehring, previously said that many people feel they are being exploited by the ultra-rich who buy land but do not necessarily share the state’s values.

‘I’ve gotten a big earful on this from clear across the state, it’s not even from that neighborhood,’ Goehring told KFYR-TV. ‘Those people are upset, but there are others that are just livid about this.’

Bill Gates acquired six parcels of land in Pembina County. Tuesday, the office of the Attorney General sent out a letter asking the Red River Trust to confirm how the company plans to use the land and if it meets any of the exceptions to the North Dakota Corporate Farming Laws. pic.twitter.com/MGGFKV16mm

— DOCTOR FROM LONG ISLAND NEW YORK (@Doctorfromliny) June 22, 2022

Gates now owns 268,984 of multi-use land in 19 states:

As we have previously noted, Bill Gates and other billionaires have been buying up huge amounts of farmland while Americans are being told by neo-feudalist ‘Great Reset’ technocrats that the future is one without private property.

Gates is also intent on pushing 100% synthetic meat products while he buys up record amounts of farmland and monopolizes global food production.

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L’Italia alle Armi dall’Europa all’Indo-Pacifico | Grandangolo – Pangea

April 15th, 2023 by Manlio Dinucci

Inizia il 22 aprile l’esercitazione multinazionale Defender 23, diretta dallo US Army Europe, l’Esercito USA in Europa. L’esercitazione si svolgerà per due mesi in 10 Paesi europei. Vi parteciperanno 9.000 soldati USA e 17.000 di 26 Paesi alleati degli USA, con in primo piano l’Italia. Useranno 7.000 pezzi di equipaggiamento (armamenti e attrezzature militari) spediti dagli Stati Uniti in Europa, più altri 13.000 pezzi di equipaggiamento militare provenienti dai depositi dello US Army in Europa. Al termine, in giugno, si svolgerà in Europa una grande esercitazione di guerra aerea con cacciabombardieri USA e alleati a duplice capacità convenzionale e nucleare. Mentre l’Europa viene trasformata dagli USA in campo di addestramento alla guerra contro la Russia, le forze missilistiche strategiche russe potenziano la propria capacità di combattimento col test di lancio di un nuovo missile balistico intercontinentale armabile di più testate nucleari.

Contemporaneamente gli USA accrescono il dispiegamento di forze militari nell’Indo-Pacifico, la regione che, nella geografia del Pentagono, si estende dalla costa occidentale degli Stati Uniti a quella dell’India. Obiettivo centrale di questa escalation è la Cina, sempre più temuta da Washington per le sue iniziative politiche ed economiche, oggi soprattutto in Medioriente. Emblematico il titolo del Washington Post: “Il nuovo ordine mondiale della Cina sta prendendo forma”. Nonostante il tentativo USA di isolare la Cina, imprenditori francesi e tedeschi stanno concludendo grossi contratti in Cina.

L’Italia, invece, si prepara a inviare nell’Indo-Pacifico, di fatto sotto comando USA in funzione anti-cinese, la portaerei Cavour con a bordo i caccia USA F-35B. Nell’Indo-Pacifico l’Italia entra anche con un importante accordo concluso con il Giappone e il Regno Unito: il Global Combat Air Programma, il Programma Aereo di Combattimento Globale, per la costruzione di un caccia di sesta generazione. Poiché sarà un aereo da attacco nucleare, il Programma permetterà al Giappone di divenire di fatto un paese militarmente nucleare, come è l’Italia dotata dagli USA di armi nucleari. Il Global Combat Air Programme costerà decine di miliardi di dollari prima che il nuovo caccia entri in servizio.

Manlio Dinucci

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‘Horrific’ Explosion and Fire Kill 18,000 Cattle in Texas

April 15th, 2023 by AFP

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The cause of this disaster is under investigation

***

A “horrific” explosion and fire at a dairy farm in the southern US state of Texas killed about 18,000 head of cattle and injured one agricultural worker, authorities said on Thursday.

“This was the deadliest barn fire for cattle in Texas history and the investigation and cleanup may take some time,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said in a statement.

The explosion and fire ripped through the Southfork Dairy Farms near the town of Dimmitt in the Texas Panhandle on Monday night.

Firefighters and police rushed to the scene and “determined that one person was trapped inside,” the Castro County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook. The person was rescued and flown to a hospital in Lubbock, it said.

The cause of the explosion and fire were not immediately clear, said Miller, who described it as a “horrific event.”

“Once we know the cause and the facts surrounding this tragedy, we will make sure the public is fully informed — so tragedies like this can be avoided in the future,” he said.

Castro County Sheriff Sal Rivera told the CBS affiliate in Amarillo that a system to remove manure from the barns may have gotten “overheated.”

He said methane may have “ignited and then spread out with the explosion and the fire,” adding that a probe would have to determine the precise cause.

“Farms must do more to protect animals by adopting commonsense fire safety measures,” tweeted the Animal Welfare Institute, one of the oldest animal welfare charities in the United States, referring to the Texas tragedy.

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Davos WEF is Promoting Impossible Zero Carbon Green Agenda

April 15th, 2023 by F. William Engdahl

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First published on April 10, 2023

***

Why are major governments, corporations, think tanks and the Davos WEF all promoting a Zero Carbon global agenda to eliminate use of oil, gas, coal? They know that the turn to solar and wind-based electricity is impossible. It is impossible because of the demand for raw materials from copper to cobalt to lithium to concrete and steel exceeding global supply. It is impossible because of the staggering trillions in cost of battery backup for a “reliable” 100% renewable electric grid. It is also impossible without causing the collapse of our present standard of living and a breakdown of our food supply that will mean mass death from starvation and disease. All this for a scientific fraud called man-made global warming?

Even paling the brazen corruption surrounding the recent vaccine push by Big Pharma and major government officials globally is the mindless push by especially EU and USA governments to advance a Green Agenda whose costs vs benefits have rarely been openly examined. There is a good reason for this. It has to do with a sinister agenda to destroy industrial economies and reduce the global population by billions of human beings.

We can examine the stated goal of Zero Carbon globally by 2050, the UN Agenda 2030, allegedly to prevent what Al Gore and others claim will be a tipping into irreversible sea level rise, “boiling oceans,” iceberg meltdowns, global catastrophe and worse. In one of his first acts in office, in 2021 Joe Biden issued a proclamation that the USA economy shall become Zero Net Carbon by 2050 in transportation, electricity and manufacturing. The European Union, under the notoriously corrupt Ursula von der Leyen, has announced similar targets in its Fit for 55 and countless other Green Agenda programs.

Farming and all aspects of modern agriculture are being targeted with fake allegations of greenhouse gas damage to the climate. Oil, natural gas, coal and even CO2-free nuclear energy are being phased out. We are being pushed for the first time in modern history from a more energy-efficient economy into a dramatically less energy-efficient one. No one in Washington or Berlin or Brussels talks about the true required natural resources for this fraud, let alone the cost.

Clean Green Energy?

One of the most remarkable aspects of the fraudulent global hype for so-called “clean, renewable” Green Energy—solar and wind—is how non-renewable and environmentally dirty it actually is. Almost no attention goes to the staggering environmental costs that go into making the mammoth wind towers or solar panels or EV lithium-ion batteries. That grave omission is deliberate.

Solar panels and giant wind power arrays require huge amounts of raw materials. A standard engineering evaluation between “renewable” solar and wind versus present nuclear, gas or coal electricity production would begin by comparing bulk materials used such as concrete, steel, aluminum, copper consumed per production of TeraWatt hour (TWh) of electricity. Wind consumes 5,931 tons of bulk material per TWh, and solar 2,441 tons, both many times higher than coal, gas or nuclear. Building a single wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of non-recyclable plastic. Solar power farms require even more cement, steel and glass—not to mention other metals. [1] Keep in mind the energy efficiency of wind and solar is dramatically lower than for conventional electricity.

A recent study by the Institute for Sustainable Futures details the impossible demands of mining for not only EV vehicles, but, in addition, for 100% renewable electric power, mainly solar and wind farms. The report notes that the raw materials to make solar PV panels or windmills are concentrated in a small number of countries—China, Australia, DR Congo, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina.

They point out that, “China is the largest producer of metals used in solar PV and wind technologies, with the largest share of production for aluminum, cadmium, gallium, indium, rare earths, selenium and tellurium. In addition, China also has a large influence over the market for cobalt and lithium for batteries.” It continues, “While Australia is the largest producer of lithium …the largest lithium mine, Greenbushes in Western Australia, is majority owned by a Chinese company.” [2] Not so good when the West is escalating confrontation with China.

They note that regarding the huge concentration of cobalt, that the DR Congo mines more than half of the world’s cobalt. The mining there has led to “heavy metal contamination of air, water and soil… to severe health impacts for miners and surrounding communities in DR Congo, and the cobalt mining area is one of the top ten most polluted places in the world. Around 20% of cobalt from DR Congo is from artisanal and small-scale miners who work in dangerous conditions in hand-dug mines and there is extensive child labor. ‘’ [3]

Rare earth metals mining and refining is essential for the Zero Carbon transition in batteries, windmills and solar panels. According to one report by energy specialist Paul Driessen, “Most of the world’s rare earth ores are extracted near Baotou, Inner Mongolia by pumping acid into the ground, then processed using more acids and chemicals. Producing one ton of rare earth metals releases up to 420,000 cubic feet of toxic gases, 2,600 cubic feet of acidic waste-water, and a ton of radioactive waste. The resulting black sludge is piped into a foul, lifeless lake. Numerous local people suffer from severe skin and respiratory diseases, children are born with soft bones, and cancer rates have soared.” [4] The USA also sends most all its rare earth ores to China for processing since it shut down domestic processing during the Clinton presidency.

Because they are vastly less energy efficient per area, the land used to produce the mandated Zero Carbon global electric output is staggering. Wind and solar require up to 300 times the land required to produce the same electricity as a typical nuclear plant. In China 25 square kilometers of a solar farm are required to generate 850 MW of electric power, the size of a typical nuclear plant. [5]

Ground Up Total Cost

Almost no studies by the Green Lobby look at the total production chain from mining to smelting to production for solar panels and wind assemblies. Instead they make fraudulent assertions of the alleged lower cost per KWh of produced solar or wind at the highly subsidized costs. In 2021 Professor Simon P. Michaux of the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) published an unusual study of the materials costs in terms of raw materials to produce a global Zero Carbon economy. The costs are staggering.

Michaux points first to the present reality of the Net Zero Carbon challenge. The global energy system in 2018 was 85% dependent on carbon fuels—coal, gas, oil. Another 10% came from nuclear for a total of 95% energy from conventional energy. Only 4% came from renewables, mainly solar and wind. So our politicians are talking of replacing 95% of our current global energy production by latest 2050, and a major part of this by 2030. [6]

In terms of electric vehicles—cars or trucks or buses—of the total of the global fleet of vehicles of some 1.4 billion vehicles, less than 1% is now electric. He estimates that, “the total additional non-fossil fuel electrical power annual capacity to be added to the global grid will need to be around 37 670.6 TWh. If the same non-fossil fuel energy mix as that reported in 2018 is assumed, then this translates into an extra 221 594 new power plants that will be needed to be constructed… To put this in context, the total power plant fleet in 2018 (all types including fossil fuel plants) was only 46 423 stations. This large number reflects the lower Energy Returned on Energy Invested (ERoEI) ratio of renewable power compared to current fossil fuels.” [7]

Michaux estimates further if we were to go total EV, “To make just one battery for each vehicle in the global transport fleet (excluding Class 8 HCV trucks), it would require 48.2% of 2018 global nickel reserves, and 43.8% of global lithium reserves. There is also not enough cobalt in current reserves to meet this demand… Each of the 1.39 billion lithium ion batteries could only have a useful working life of 8 to 10 years. So, 8-10 years after manufacture, new replacement batteries will be required, from either a mined mineral source, or a recycled metal source. This is unlikely to be practical…” [8] He is stating the problem very mildly.

Michaux also points to the staggering demand for copper, noting that, “for copper alone 4.5 billion tons (1,000 kilograms per ton) of copper are needed. That’s about six times the total amount that humans have so far extracted from the Earth. The rock-to-metal ratio for copper is more than 500, so it would be necessary to dig up and refine more than 2.25 trillion tons of ore.” And the mining equipment would have to be diesel-powered to work. [9]

Michaux concludes that simply, “To phase out petroleum products and substitute the use of oil in the transport sector with a completely Electric Vehicle fleet, an extra capacity of 1.09 x 1013 kWh (10 895.7 TWh) of electricity generation is required from the global power grid to charge the batteries of the 1.416 billion vehicles in the global fleet. As total global electricity generation in 2018 was 2.66 x 1013 kWh (Appendix B), this means that to make viable the EV revolution, an extra capacity of 66.7% the existing entire global capacity to generate electricity is required to be added…The task of making the EV battery revolution is much larger in scope than previously thought.” [10]

That is only to replace vehicle internal combustion engines globally.

Wind and Solar?

Then if we look to the proposed substitution of solar arrays and onshore and offshore wind power for current 95% conventional electric power sources to get to the absurd and arbitrary Zero Carbon goal in the next few years, all to avert Al Gore’s fake “tipping point” of 1.5 C rise in average global temperature (which itself is an absurd notion), the calculus gets even more absurd.

The main problem with wind and solar farms is the fact that they are not reliable, something essential for our modern economy, even in developing countries. Unpredictable power blackouts that affect the grid stability were almost nonexistent in the US or Europe until introduction of major solar and wind. If we insist as do the Zero Carbon ideologues, that no backup oil, gas or coal plants be allowed to stabilize the grid in low solar times such as night or cloudy days or winter, or times when wind does not blow at the optimal velocity, the only serious answer being discussed is to build EV battery storage, lots of it.

The cost estimates of such E-battery storage backup vary. Van Snyder, a retired mathematician and systems engineer calculates the cost for such huge battery backup to the USA power grid to ensure reliable steady electricity at today’s level: “So, how much would batteries cost? Using the most optimistic 400 watt hours requirement — something a real engineer would never do — and assuming installation is free — another thing a real engineer would never do — one might look in Tesla’s catalogue and discover the price is $0.543 per watt hour — before installation — and the warranty period, roughly equal to the lifetime, is ten years. Activists insist that an all-electric American energy economy would have average demand of 1,700 gigawatts. If one evaluates the formula 1,700,000,000,000 * 400 * 0.543 / 10, the answer is $37 trillion, or about twice total USA 2020 GDP, every year, for batteries alone.” [11]

Another estimate by Ken Gregory, also an engineer, is similarly impossibly high. He calculates, “If fossil fuel fired electrical power is not available to back up the highly variable S+W energy and only batteries can be used as back up, the battery backup becomes extremely expensive…The total cost to electrify the USA is US$258 trillion with the 2019 profile and US$290 trillion with the 2020 profile.” [12]

The Hidden Agenda

Clearly, the powers behind this mad Zero Carbon agenda know such reality. They don’t care, as their goal has nothing to do with the environment. It is about the eugenics and culling of the human herd as the late Prince Philip famously remarked.

Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Program, in his opening speech to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, declared, “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” At the Rio summit Strong oversaw drafting of the UN “Sustainable Environment” goals, the Agenda 21 for Sustainable Development that forms the basis of Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset, as well as creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the UN. [13]

Strong, a protégé of David Rockefeller was far the most influential figure behind what is today the UN Agenda 2030. He was co-chairman of Klaus Schwab’s Davos World Economic Forum. In 2015 on Strong’s death, Davos founder Klaus Schwab wrote, “He was my mentor since the creation of the Forum: a great friend; an indispensable advisor; and, for many years, a member of our Foundation Board.”

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Notes

[1] Bill Stinson, The Dark Side of Renewable Energy, 20 January 2021,

https://www.flickerpower.com/images/Environment-Destruction-The-Dark-Side-of-Renewable-Energy-1.pdf

[2] Institute for Sustainable Futures, Responsible Materials Sourcing for Renewable Energy Report, April 2019, https://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/2019-04/ISFEarthworks_Responsible%20minerals%20sourcing%20for%20renewable%20energy_Report.pdf

[3] Ibid.

[4] Bill Stinson, Op Cit.

[5] David Turver, Renewables are not Sustainable, https://davidturver.substack.com/p/wind-solar-renewables-not-sustainable-not-green

[6] Simon P. Michaux, Assessment of the Extra Capacity Required of Alternative Energy Electrical Power Systems to Completely Replace Fossil Fuels, Geological Survey of Finland, 20 August, 2021, https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Van Snyder, The Great Green Energy Transition Is Impossible, January 9, 2023, https://vsnyder.substack.com/p/report-about-energy-that-i-requested

[12] Ken Gregory, P. Eng., The Cost of Net Zero Electrification of the USA, Version 21 August 23, 2022, https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Cost-of-Net-Zero-Electrification-of-the-USAv2.pdf

[13] Maurice Strong Interview (BBC, 1972), June 29, 2009, http://www.infowars.com/maurice-strong-in-1972-isnt-it-our-responsibility-to-collapse-industrial-societies/

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I met the Florida governor years ago. My 14 Years Detention at Guantanamo

April 15th, 2023 by Mansoor Adayfi

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***

So many military staffers and guards passed through Guantanamo during my 14-year detention that I remember only the kindest, and the cruellest – the ones who seemed to take joy in our misery.

In 2021, just as my memoir – Don’t Forget Us Here, Lost and Found at Guantanamo – was about to be published, I was on Twitter and saw a photo of a handsome man in a white navy uniform. It was Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida. I do not remember what the post was about – probably something about him clashing with President Joe Biden over COVID policies. But I remembered his face. It was a face I could never forget. I had seen that face for the first time in Guantanamo, in 2006 – one of the camp’s darkest years when the authorities started violently breaking hunger strikes and three of my brothers were found dead in their cages.

After finding a Miami Herald article in which DeSantis bragged about his service at Guantanamo and confirming that my memory is correct, I sent his photo to a group chat of former detainees. Several replied that they too remembered his face from Guantanamo. Some said seeing his face again triggered painful memories of the trauma they suffered during their imprisonment. I understood. Even after spending the previous few years working on my memoir, which meant reliving everything I had been through at Guantanamo, seeing his face again triggered a lot of pain in me too.

When I first saw DeSantis, I was on a hunger strike.

In 2005, almost all prisoners in the camp started participating in a hunger strike to protest against torture, inhumane treatment, and being held indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. By 2006, news about our hunger strike was finally getting out. We were feeling hopeful.

One day, as we continued our strike with the hope that change is just around the corner, a naval judge advocate general (JAG), whom I later learned to be DeSantis, walked the blocks with other new arrivals. He stopped and talked to us, explaining that his job was to ensure that the camp was abiding by the Geneva Conventions and that we were being treated humanely.

I remember him asking why we were still on hunger strike. We told him to look around. Camp Delta was constructed from metal shipping containers, divided into cages with wire mesh. In the summer, the cages were like ovens. In the winter, they were cold and wet. They were loud with huge fans and the echoes of all the men’s voices. Then there was the persistent harassment by guards, desecration of Qurans, non-existent medical care, systematic torture, and being completely cut off from the outside world.

We told DeSantis we were on hunger strike because we wanted to know why we were being imprisoned. Because we wanted a fair judicial process to prove our innocence. He took notes. He promised to register our complaints.

A few days later, guards retrieved me from the cage I was in and took me to the recreation yard of the November Block. There, we were greeted by a group of nurses and corpsmen standing next to a metal restraint chair and several cases of liquid nutrient “Ensure”. A group of JAG officers and other observers, including Zak, the camp’s cultural adviser, were watching the scene through the yard’s chain link fence.

I was informed that the US government was determined to break the hunger strike. The doctor in charge, a colonel, told me he did not care if I said I was innocent or protesting mistreatment. He was there for one thing: to make me eat. I refused and was immediately and violently strapped into the chair so tightly that I could not move. A nurse forced a thick tube into my nose and down my throat. My nose bled and the pain was so great that I thought my head would explode. The nurse would not stop. Instead, he began pouring Ensure into a feeder bag attached to the tube.

“Eat!” the nurse yelled. “Eat!”

They poured can after can in the feeder bag until my stomach and throat were so full that Ensure poured back out of my mouth and nose. I thought I was going to drown.

“If you throw up,” a corpsman said, “we’ll start from the beginning with a new case and fill you up again.”

As I tried to break free, I noticed DeSantis’s handsome face among the crowd at the other side of the chain link. He was watching me struggle. He was smiling and laughing with other officers as I screamed in pain.

I threw up in their direction. They jumped back, disgusted. I did not care. I was the only one there who had the right to be disgusted.

That force-feeding was inhumane. It was meant to break me and teach me a lesson. It was meant to show me that I was just an animal with no human rights. There is no other way to call it, it was torture.

Because I had thrown up, they fed me another case. This time, they mixed laxatives into the bag. The mixture of Ensure and laxatives completely wrecked my intestines after having no solid foods for more than nine months. They left me restrained in that chair all night, soiled with my own waste and vomit.

The next day they started again. The message was clear: they were not going to stop force-feeding me like that, torturing me, until I ended my hunger strike.

So, I ended my hunger strike. All but a few of us did. A brother who saw me brought back to my cage said I was as swollen as a dead body found in the water.

Still, we kept protesting, especially against guards desecrating the Quran. We started planning for another hunger strike. In June, three men on my block, Yassir, Mana’a, and Ali, were found hanging in their cages, their hands and feet tied, pieces of cloth shoved down their throats. The camp administration called the deaths “suicides” and “asymmetrical warfare”. No one believed it.

I was eventually sent to solitary confinement, permitted to wear only shorts or a suicide smock – a heavy, disgusting-smelling tube of cloth too thick to roll into a noose. Along with the others in the solitary block, I was regularly pepper-sprayed, beaten during cell searches, and subjected to cavity searches worse than rape.

I wrote about all this in my memoir. I did not mention DeSantis was there, witnessing the torture, because I did not know who he was when I was writing.

As far as I know, DeSantis did not order my hunger strike to be violently broken or wrote the policies that allowed it to happen. He was just a guy who claimed he was there to help us and then just watched while we were being tortured. He did not torture me, but he sure seemed to take joy from it.

Today, the violence my brothers and I endured in 2006, and its connection to DeSantis, are in the news again, not because the Florida governor belatedly decided to do the right thing and talk against it, but because he might run for president in 2024.

In fact, DeSantis still calls Guantanamo a “terrorist detention facility”, even though back in 2006, the year he was there, an analysis of official documents found that the great majority of the Guantanamo prisoners were innocent men, imprisoned only because of mistaken identity or because they had been sold to the US for bounty money. Regardless of these facts, DeSantis advocated keeping Guantanamo open in his 2016 testimony before the Subcommittee on National Security, in which he claimed that all detainees were “hardened and unrepentant terrorist[s]”, whose release “risks harming America’s national security”.

At the time of DeSantis’s speech, 80 prisoners remained at Guantanamo. I was one of them. Of the 779 men held at Guantanamo since it opened in 2002, only 12 have been charged with crimes. Only two have been convicted. I wonder who DeSantis was talking about. He was there. He saw who we were.

I was born in Yemen. In my culture, a man is only as good as his word. DeSantis is clearly bending the truth to fit his preferred narrative. Maybe he is not a man worthy of leading Florida, let alone the United States.

My advice to Americans: watch out. Do you want as president someone who tries to consolidate his power by creating an environment of fear? Someone who profits from the misery and pain of others? Someone who does not hesitate to bend to truth to further his political goals?

Americans beware of DeSantis, and what belies his handsome smile.

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How the BBC Lost Its Way on COVID

April 15th, 2023 by Charlie Walsham

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***

I have been a BBC journalist for many years, and in that time I have been committed to impartiality and the corporation’s Reithian values to inform and educate. My despair about the BBC’s one-sided coverage of the pandemic though has been steadily growing for some time. And in early December, as I listened to a BBC radio broadcast, I felt the corporation reach a new low.

During a morning phone-in show on 5Live the topic of discussion was Covid jabs and whether they should be mandated, or if punitive action should be taken against those who refuse them, such as imposing lockdowns on the unvaccinated. Setting aside the fact that these authoritarian measures are now considered a matter for breezy debate, I at least expected a balanced discussion.

This was wishful thinking on my part, as ‘Michael from Birmingham’ – a caller – was about to find out. Michael told the host he hadn’t been vaccinated because he didn’t trust ‘the data’ and cited historic incidents of documented corporate malfeasance by pharmaceutical giants to explain why he was concerned. Now you may disagree with Michael, or think him completely deluded, but he was still a person who had genuine fears about the vaccine and its safety. Yet instead of holding a reasoned debate with his concerned caller, the host immediately lost his temper, talked over Michael, implied he was a flat-earther and then muted him entirely.

It was an interaction that goes to the very heart of the dismal failure of BBC News. I have been working at BBC News throughout the Covid era and have witnessed how the insatiable demands of the 24-hour news cycle have exacerbated a serious and protracted crisis. I have also seen how any attempt at balance has been abandoned in favour of supporting and promoting Covid restrictions.

It didn’t have to be this way. Initially, the BBC covered the pandemic in a considered and measured manner, pointing out in news summaries in early 2020 that the majority of those who succumbed to the illness had ‘underlying health problems’ and the vast majority of people who were infected would live to tell the tale. There was a time when even the joyless Chris Whitty used to emphasise this fact at news conferences.

But that context was quickly jettisoned as complacency turned to panic within government and newsrooms everywhere were swept up in a major story. The BBC’s public service brief meant reporting on Covid had an extra dimension: we had to do this ‘right’; lives depended on it; we must be responsible and ‘follow the science’; and we must debunk misinformation. These well-meaning intentions were to have unintended consequences.

The government pursued its lockdown strategy with a campaign specifically designed to frighten the public. BBC employees were not immune to this approach; neither were their managers, who were soon bombarding staff with email missives about Covid. Far-reaching measures were promised to keep BBC employees ‘safe’ from the invisible killer in our midst. Thousands of staff members were allowed to work from home. Those of us in ‘broadcast critical’ roles remained at our desks, at least two metres apart from our departmental colleagues, tapping nervously away at our sanitised keyboards in near-deserted buildings.

The atmosphere in these BBC offices in the early days of the pandemic became comically oppressive. Absurd in-house ‘safety measures’ were introduced, including baffling one-way arrow stickers on floors which routinely pointed the wrong way, making navigating staircases the stuff of an Oscar Reutersvärd fever dream. Ludicrous lift capacity limits were also imposed: only one person at a time would be allowed to travel in an elevator capable of holding a small crowd – but only up, not down. Then, in a move that could have come straight from the sitcom W1A, ‘proximity monitoring devices’ were issued to staff to enforce social distancing. These re-purposed pagers issued a quacking noise whenever one colleague came ‘dangerously’ close to another.

It was perhaps inevitable that this risk-averse, anxiety-inducing environment would have an effect on the editorial stance of the BBC. Before long, colleagues I respected, and who held sway over running orders, succumbed to the belief that lockdowns, social distancing and face coverings – the whole gamut of coronavirus measures – were the only viable route out of the crisis. Alternative strategies, even those backed by eminent scientists and medics, were dismissed as dangerous or the work of cranks without any effort being made to properly examine their ideas.

In a further deterioration of journalistic standards, the impact of Covid-19 and measures imposed to ‘stop the spread’ started to be routinely conflated in news bulletins. All the horrors of lockdown – the enforced isolation of older people; funerals without mourners; the dying being denied a relative’s hand to hold in their final hours – were blamed directly on the coronavirus, rather than the rules, and characterised as tragic but unavoidable consequences of an essential national sacrifice.

Then there were the daily death figures, reported as ‘within 28 days of a positive test’ but with little additional context. When daily deaths began to fall, positive test results would be reported instead.

Licence fee payers might have expected the BBC’s well-remunerated senior correspondents to step up to the plate and interrogate the long-term impacts of the lockdown strategy. Covid restrictions may have saved the lives of mainly older people in the short term but what of their impact on the lives and livelihoods of younger generations in the longer run? Anyone who held such hopes was to be seriously disappointed. Political correspondents instead lined up to pile pressure on ministers to take ever more draconian steps to tackle the coronavirus. ‘Why haven’t you closed down schools, Minister? Why haven’t you imposed a mask mandate? Will you order another lockdown? When? Why not sooner?’

And then there was the Health Cluster, a BBC News department which was notorious before the pandemic as being the place where stories go to die. It found itself at the centre of a maelstrom: a medical and moral morass it made no attempt whatsoever to untangle. Health reporters did not scrutinise No. 10’s medical advisers but instead amplified them, becoming, in effect, the government’s Covid propaganda wing.

The Health Cluster’s shortcomings didn’t end there. Blinded by liberal sensibilities and hamstrung by an unhealthy departmental culture, its reporters went out their way to characterise the suggestion that Covid-19 might have leaked from a Chinese lab as a conspiracy theory promoted by Donald Trump. On a BBC News webpage (which remains online), one BBC health hack said the World Health Organisation had ‘closed the lid’ on the lab leak theory after visiting Wuhan in February.

As ‘Freedom Day’ beckoned in July this year, I began to feel less downbeat about the BBC. Sure, BBC News outlets continued to invite an army of Covid zealots onto the airwaves, all of whom seemed to call for restrictions to continue indefinitely. But I thought the end of the pandemic might be in sight. Most of my BBC colleagues are good, well-meaning people. Perhaps senior managers and editors were guilty only of a form of noble cause corruption, trying their best during an unprecedented health crisis to help keep the public safe. Maybe the BBC had done nothing fundamentally wrong and I was the one who was overreacting.

But this winter has seen a rise in infections again, and inevitably there have been renewed calls for the country to lock down to protect our health service. No one knows how bad the Omicron wave will be and it might just be that only a lockdown can prevent the NHS being overwhelmed this winter. But the national broadcaster should surely feature both sides of the debate and not just relentlessly make the case for further restrictions while ignoring the toll they have on our society.

The BBC insists that it has ‘covered the pandemic with great care and in detail’ but there are signs that the corporation is once again failing in this critical function. The BBC News website now almost constantly features the ‘Live’ number of coronavirus cases. ‘Two vaccine doses don’t stop you catching Omicron’ read a headline last week, as if this was somehow remarkable – totally ignoring the fact that double-jabbed BBC staff had been succumbing to the coronavirus for months, long before Omicron reared its head.

I have come to the depressing conclusion that this pattern will keep on repeating every year and every time we face a new Covid variant.

There is a strong case to be made now that the vaccines have done their job and should (as long as the Omicron variant does not significantly evade them) protect the vast majority of people from serious illness, meaning we should no longer be forced to endure any new restrictions.

Most people in the country have obediently had the jabs when offered, including me. Personally speaking, I would rather face Covid than face compulsory restrictions every year – or live in a two-tier society where those who get jabbed enjoy freedoms denied to the unvaccinated. We’re not there yet but we seem to be getting closer by the day.

As the public service broadcaster in a democratic country the BBC should understand and feature this debate – and not act as a government campaigner. Instead, with its reporting of the pandemic, it has made a truly awful ‘new normal’ much more likely.

I have come to the depressing conclusion that this pattern will repeat every time we face a new Covid variant.

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„Die Menschheit muss sich die Ergebnisse der psychologischen Forschung zu eigen machen, um ein menschenwürdiges Leben zu schaffen.“

April 15th, 2023 by Dr. Rudolf Hänsel

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***

Einführung in Thematik

Die Bürger in unseren Ländern sind mit der gegenwärtigen Weltsituation nicht zufrieden: Der nicht endende Krieg des Westens gegen Russland, der sich zu einem Atomkrieg der beiden Supermächte auf europäischem Boden entwickeln könnte, und die vielen anderen Kriege: immer wieder Mord und Totschlag. Hinzu kommt die zunehmende Verarmung einkommensschwacher Bevölkerungsgruppen und die Sorge um die Zukunft. Siehe Paul C. Roberts: „Does America Have a Future? (1).

Was tun? „Auf die Barrikaden gehen“ oder den Wahnsinn stillschweigend hinnehmen? Doch dazu sagte Friedens-Nobelpreisträger Martin Luther King in seiner historischen Rede vom 4. April 1967: „Es kommt eine Zeit, in der Schweigen Verrat ist“ (2).

Laut Dr. Gerda Fellay, Schweizer Psychotherapeutin, sollen Max Horkheimer und Theodor Adorno, zwei berühmte Philosophen der „Frankfurter Schule“ nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg wegen des Einknickens von Goethes und Schillers Vaterland vor dem Führer resigniert haben. Daraufhin ließ Friedrich Liebling (1893-1982), der Begründer der Psychologischen Lehr- und Beratungsstelle Zürich („Züricher Schule“), den beiden Intellektuellen gemäß den Aufzeichnungen Fellay‘s folgende psychologische Antwort zukommen: „Die Menschheit muss sich die Ergebnisse der psychologischen Forschung zu eigen machen, um ein menschenwürdiges Leben zu schaffen.“ (3).

Gegenstand der psychologischen Forschung ist das geistig-seelische Leben des Menschen, seine Natur, seine seelische Verfassung und sein Verhalten. Wenn der Mensch sich und seine Mitmenschen erkennt, ändert er seine Sichtweise auf die staatlichen Gegebenheiten und die gesamte Gesellschaftsordnung. Die Ergebnisse der psychologischen Forschung weisen den Weg.

Deshalb werde ich als Psychologe weiterhin über die Wissenschaft der Psychologie in Wort und Schrift aufklären und dazu einladen, den Weg gemeinsam zu beschreiten. Als Schüler des Schweizer Psychotherapeuten Friedrich Liebling konnte ich persönlich erleben, was es heißt, sich die Ergebnisse der psychologischen Forschung zu eigen zu machen. Als Pionier auf dem Gebiet der wissenschaftlichen Psychologie war es Lieblings Hauptanliegen, den Menschen Hoffnung auf ein in jeder Hinsicht menschenwürdiges Leben zu machen.

Eine Änderung der Welt erfordert eine Änderung des Menschen

Da die Geschichte ein Werk der Menschen ist, muss die Veränderung der Welt aus ihnen selbst kommen. Die Menschen müssen ihre eigene Natur, ihre seelische Verfassung, ihre bewussten oder halbbewussten Vorurteile sowie die eigenen Reaktionsweisen und auch die ihrer Mitmenschen kennenlernen.

So sollten sie einschätzen können, wie sie selbst und wie ihre Mitmenschen auf konfliktträchtige Krisen und kommende Kriege reagieren werden. Was tun die „wehrfähigen“ Männer voraussichtlich, wenn der Einberufungsbefehl ins Haus flattert? Werden sie sofort losmarschieren oder gibt es Persönlichkeiten, die in der Lage sind, sich einem Befehl „von oben“ zu widersetzen und NEIN zu sagen, sodass man sich an ihnen orientieren kann?

In der Regel sind wir uns alle einig: das Kriegsministerium, die Politiker, die Kirche, die Theologen – und auch wir Bürgerinnen und Bürger.

So folgen die Mütter ihrem Gehorsamsreflex und lassen ihre bereitstehenden Söhne ohne Murren auf das „Feld der Ehre“ ziehen. Trifft dann die Todes-Nachricht ein, trägt die Mutter in „stolzer Trauer“ die schwarze Armbinde. Mutter und Sohn fehlt der Mut, nicht in den Krieg zu ziehen. Bereits der Vater oder ein anderes Mitglied der Familie ist in irgendeinem Krieg auf dem sogenannten „Feld der Ehre“ geblieben.

Und der Pfarrer segnet die Waffen des Krieges, die die Anderen jenseits der Grenze, die auch Christen sind, erschlagen. Er folgt damit stillschweigend der Weisung seiner Kirche und ist mit dieser Handlung der Jugend ein miserables Vorbild. Auch die Arbeitslosen melden sich fleißig zum Kriegsdienst, weil sie meinen, sie hätten keinen anderen Ausweg.

Dabei ist jeder Krieg, in dem andere Völker bezwungen und beherrscht werden, ein gutes Geschäft. Die Waffenindustrie verdient sich eine „goldene Nase“, während die Bürger zusehends verarmen. Aber es wird weiter gerüstet; das wird gepflegt und nicht verneint.

Alles ist Profit, wo auch immer wir hinsehen. Es gibt nichts, wo das nicht spielt in unserer Gesellschaftsordnung. Wieso haben unsere Kinder zum Beispiel mit Drogen zu tun? Wie kommen sie dazu? Wenn das kein gutes Geschäft wäre, hätten wir keine Drogen und keine Sorgen; der Markt wäre leer. Aber darauf wird keine Rücksicht genommen. Viele Jugendliche gehen an den Drogen zugrunde, sie gehen buchstäblich in den Tod.

Wenn wir uns umsehen in der Welt, stellen wir fest, dass die Menschen ohne Ausnahme durch die traditionelle Erziehung nicht gesund, sondern psychisch irritiert sind. Sie sind nicht krank, sie sind nur nicht richtig aufgeklärt. Man muss sie nicht heilen, sondern ihnen helfen, sich zu erkennen.

Gelingt es uns, das Problem Mensch in seiner ganzen Tiefe zu erfassen, werden wir lernen, richtig zu sehen, was mit uns Menschen los ist: Ob zum Beispiel nur die Herrscher der Welt und ihre Politiker Kriege anzetteln und führen – oder ob auch wir Bürgerinnen und Bürger für den Krieg sind.

Um das zu erforschen, ist viel Zeit und Geduld nötig. Alle Fragen müssen „bis zum Ende“ durchdacht werden. Dies ist jedoch für das Leben und die seelische Gesundheit von jedem von uns von ungeheurer Bedeutung. Wir haben dann einen Kompass.

Ergebnisse der psychologischen Forschung weisen den Weg

Die Medizin ist erst vorangekommen, als sie die Funktion der einzelnen Organe des Körpers untersuchen und kennenlernen durfte. Die Kirche war zunächst dagegen, dass man den Menschen erforscht. Erst als die Notwendigkeit erkannt worden ist, dass man den Menschen nur dann helfen kann, wenn man die Funktionen der verschiedenen Organe kennt, haben Mediziner Leichen gestohlen, um dies zu erfahren.

Während die Wissenschaft der Medizin den menschlichen Körper erforscht, erforscht die Wissenschaft der Psychologie das geistig-seelisches Leben des Menschen.

Die Wissenschaft der Psychologie ist eine Wissenschaft über den Menschen, über die menschliche Natur: wie er wird, wie er heranwächst und wie er sich dann im Leben zurechtfindet. Seine Erfahrungen werden ihm vor allem von den Eltern und den Lehrern vermittelt. Der Mensch ist dann das Produkt seiner Erlebnisse und Eindrücke in der Kindheit.

Bereits in den ersten Lebensjahren – mit fünf bis sechs Jahren –, wenn das Kind in den Kindergarten kommt, hat es einen Kompass. Es weiß dann, wie es sich zu verhalten hat. Auch über das andere Kind, den Vater, die Mutter und die Geschwister hat es eine Meinung. Es hat bereits seine Charaktereigenschaften und kennt seine Stellung in der Welt.

Wird dem Menschen aber vermittelt, wie er seine Probleme lösen soll und kann, wird er eine andere, eine realistischere Sichtweise bekommen. Die wichtigsten Probleme sind sein Lebensgefühl, seine Meinung über sich selbst, seinen Partner, seine Haltung gegenüber den Kindern, seine Meinung über den Nachbarn, die Gemeinde und den Staat. Das wäre Bildung im psychologischen Sinne.

Hat man die Gefühle und Reaktionsweisen des Menschen einmal erkannt und verstanden, wie er heranwächst, dann versteht man auch sich selbst, den anderen, die Gesellschaft und die ganze Welt. Und wenn wir den Menschen verstehen lernen, dann verstehen wir auch das Problem des Krieges, weil wir unsere eigenen Handlungsweisen und die der Mitmenschen einschätzen können und verstehen, was in uns und in ihnen vorgeht. Wir finden dann eine Antwort auf die Frage: Sind es Menschen wie wir, die für den Krieg sind oder sind es ganz andere Menschen? Wir haben dann eine andere Art des Denkens und Fühlens.

Da die Menschen von allen Institutionen – angefangen von der Erziehung zuhause und in der Schule bis hinauf zur Rekrutenschule und das „Feld der Ehre“ – in deren Vorstellung programmiert werden, hat man es schwer, sie auf unrealistische oder „irrige“ Ansichten aufmerksam zu machen und ihnen zu helfen.

Sie werden so programmiert, dass sie dann alles machen, was die Machthaber von ihnen verlangen. So hat das deutsche Volk von ungefähr 100 Millionen Menschen – das Volk der Dichter und Denker – Adolf Hitler voll zugestimmt und zugejubelt. Alle sind mit ihm mitgegangen – angefangen vom Papst, von der katholischen Kirche und den anderen Kirchen bis hin zu den Gelehrten, den Philosophen und Psychologen, den Arbeitern und Sozialisten. Sie wurden so „gut“ programmiert, dass sie sich in den Tod führen ließen.

Deshalb sollte allen Menschen das psychologische Wissen über sich selbst und die Mitmenschen vermittelt werden. Aber noch leben wir in einer Welt, in der sich der Mensch nicht erkannt hat. Alles hat er erforscht, aber sich selbst, seine Natur, seine seelische Verfassung und seine Reaktionsweisen hat er nicht erkannt.

Aufklärung und Erziehung als Prophylaxe (Vorbeugung)

Da ein menschenwürdiges Leben in den Köpfen und Herzen der Menschen vorbereitet wird, handeln die Menschen morgen so, wie sie heute denken. Deshalb ist Aufklärung von großer Bedeutung. Sinn der aufklärerischen Bemühungen ist die Reinigung des menschlichen Bewusstseins von individuellen und kollektiven Vorurteilen, dem ideologischen Hintergrund vieler Menschheitskatastrophen.

Die Zukunft unserer Kultur wird wesentlich davon abhängen, ob es genügend „Aufklärer“ gibt, die imstande sind, der Bevölkerung die entsprechenden Vorurteile zu nehmen. Intellektuelle haben dabei eine große Verantwortung. In einer Zeit, in der die Bedrohung durch die Atombombe die Selbstvernichtung der Menschheit als möglich erscheinen lässt, bedürfen wir mehr denn je der „freien Geister“, die uns lehren, was Wahrheit und was Lüge ist.

Wichtiger noch als Aufklärung ist das Problem der Erziehung. Die tiefenpsychologische Forschung hat die ungeheure Tragweite der Erziehung deutlich gemacht. Wir wissen heute, dass der Mensch in einem derartigen Maße das Produkt seiner Erziehung ist, dass man hoffen darf, durch psychologische Erziehungsmethoden, die auf das autoritäre Prinzip verzichten, Menschen heranbilden zu können, die gegen die Verstrickungen des Machtwahns gefeit sein werden.

Indem die Erziehung in Elternhaus und Schule auf Angst auslösendes Autoritätsgebaren, Gewaltanwendung sowie unangebrachte Verzärtelung verzichtet und sich mit wahrem Verständnis dem kindlichen Seelenleben zuwendet, wird sie einen Menschentypus hervorbringen, der keine „Untertanen-Mentalität“ mehr besitzt und darum für die Machthaber in unserer Welt kein gefügiges Werkzeug mehr sein wird.

Die Achtung des Erziehers vor der kindlichen Persönlichkeit und seine freundschaftliche Zuwendung zum Erziehenden wird einen wertvollen Beitrag zum Aufbau einer humanen Gesellschaftsordnung und zur Schaffung eines menschwürdigen Lebens leisten.

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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 Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.

Noten

1 https://freeassange.rtde.me/international/167034-denkt-nicht-an-die-zukunft-es/

2 https://www.globalresearch.ca/this-madness.must-cease/4460

3 Fellay, Gerda (1997 / 2010). Friedrich Liebling. Leben und Werk – eine Einführung. (Dissertation). New York, Paris, Bern und Sitten (Schweiz), S. 16

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“Humanity Must Adopt the Results of Psychological Research in Order to Create a Life Worthy of Human Beings.”

April 15th, 2023 by Dr. Rudolf Hänsel

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***

Introduction to the topic

What to do? “Go to the barricades” or quietly accept the madness? But on this, Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King said in his historic speech of 4 April 1967: “There comes a time when silence is betrayal”(2).

According to Dr. Gerda Fellay, Swiss psychotherapist, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, two famous philosophers of the “Frankfurt School” are said to have resigned after the Second World War because of the caving in of Goethe’s and Schiller’s fatherland to the Führer. In response, Friedrich Liebling (1893-1982), the founder of the Psychological Teaching and Counselling Centre in Zurich (“Züricher Schule”), sent the two intellectuals the following psychological reply, according to Fellay’s notes: “Mankind must adopt the results of psychological research in order to create a life worthy of human beings.” (3).

The object of psychological research is the spiritual-emotional life of man, his nature, his mental condition and his behaviour. When man recognises himself and his fellow men, he changes his view of the state conditions and the entire social order. The results of psychological research point the way.

Therefore, as a psychologist, I will continue to enlighten people about the science of psychology in speech and writing and invite them to tread the path together. As a student of the Swiss psychotherapist Friedrich Liebling, I was able to personally experience what it means to embrace the results of psychological research. As a pioneer in the field of scientific psychology, Liebling’s main concern was to give people hope for a life worthy of human beings in every respect.

A change of the world requires a change of man

Since history is a work of human beings, the change of the world must come from within themselves. People must get to know their own nature, their mental make-up, their conscious or semi-conscious prejudices, as well as their own ways of reacting and also those of their fellow human beings.

In this way, they should be able to assess how they themselves and how their fellow human beings will react to conflict-prone crises and coming wars. What are the “fit for military service” men likely to do when the draft notice flutters through the door? Will they march off immediately or are there personalities who are able to resist an order “from above” and say NO so that they can be followed?

As a rule, we all agree: the war ministry, the politicians, the church, the theologians – and also we citizens.

So the mothers follow their reflex of obedience and let their ready sons go to the “field of honour” without grumbling. When the news of death arrives, the mother wears the black armband in “proud mourning”. Mother and son lack the courage not to go to war. Already the father or another member of the family has remained in some war on the so-called “field of honour”.

And the priest blesses the weapons of war that slay the others across the border who are also Christians. In doing so, he is tacitly following the instruction of his church, and with this act he is setting a miserable example to the youth. The unemployed also diligently sign up for military service because they think they have no other way out.

Yet every war in which other peoples are conquered and dominated is good business. The arms industry earns a “golden nose” while the citizens become visibly poorer. But armaments continue to be made; this is cultivated and not denied.

Everything is profit, wherever we look. There is nothing where this does not play in our social order. Why are our children involved with drugs, for example? How do they get into it? If it wasn’t good business, we wouldn’t have drugs and we wouldn’t have worries; the market would be empty. But no consideration is given to that. Many young people perish from drugs, they literally go to their death.

If we look around the world, we see that people, without exception, are not healthy but psychologically irritated by traditional education. They are not sick, they are just not properly enlightened. We don’t have to cure them, but help them to recognise themselves.

If we succeed in grasping the human problem in all its depth, we will learn to see correctly what is wrong with us human beings: whether, for example, only the rulers of the world and their politicians instigate and wage wars – or whether we citizens are also in favour of war.

A lot of time and patience is needed to explore this. All questions must be thought through “to the end”. However, this is of tremendous importance for the life and mental health of each of us. We then have a compass.

Results of psychological research point the way

Medicine only progressed when it was allowed to examine and learn about the function of the individual organs of the body. The Church was initially against researching the human being. It was only when the need was recognised that people could only be helped if the functions of the various organs were known that doctors stole corpses to find out.

While the science of medicine studies the human body, the science of psychology studies the spiritual and mental life of man.

The science of psychology is a science about man, about human nature: how he becomes, how he grows up and how he then finds his way in life. His experiences are imparted to him above all by his parents and teachers. The human being is then the product of his experiences and impressions in childhood.

Already in the first years of life – at the age of five to six – when the child enters kindergarten, it has a compass. It then knows how to behave. It also has an opinion about the other child, the father, the mother and the siblings. It already has its character traits and knows its position in the world.

But if the person is taught how he should and can solve his problems, he will get a different, a more realistic view. The most important problems are his attitude towards life, his opinion about himself, his partner, his attitude towards the children, his opinion about the neighbour, the community and the state. That would be education in the psychological sense.

Once you have recognised the feelings and ways of reacting of the human being and understood how he grows up, then you also understand yourself, the other person, society and the whole world. And when we learn to understand the human being, then we also understand the problem of war, because we can assess our own ways of acting and those of our fellow human beings and understand what is going on in us and in them. We then find an answer to the question: Is it people like us who are in favour of war or is it completely different people? We then have a different way of thinking and feeling.

Since people are programmed by all institutions – starting with education at home and school and going all the way up to recruit school and the “field of honour” – in their mind, it is difficult to point out unrealistic or “erroneous” views to them and help them.

They are programmed in such a way that they then do whatever those in power ask of them. Thus the German people of about 100 million – the people of poets and thinkers – fully agreed with and cheered Adolf Hitler. Everyone went along with him – from the Pope, the Catholic Church and the other churches to the scholars, the philosophers and psychologists, the workers and socialists. They were programmed so “well” that they allowed themselves to be led to their deaths.

Therefore, all people should be taught the psychological knowledge about themselves and their fellow human beings. But we still live in a world in which man has not recognised himself. He has explored everything, but he has not recognised himself, his nature, his mental condition and his modes of reaction.

Enlightenment and education as prophylaxis (prevention)

Since a humane life is prepared in people’s minds and hearts, people will act tomorrow in the way they think today. Therefore, enlightenment is of great importance. The purpose of enlightenment efforts is to purify human consciousness of individual and collective prejudices, the ideological background of many human disasters.

The future of our culture will largely depend on whether there are enough “enlighteners” who are capable of removing the relevant prejudices from the population. Intellectuals have a great responsibility in this. At a time when the threat of the atomic bomb makes the self-destruction of humanity seem possible, we need “free spirits” more than ever to teach us what is truth and what is a lie.

Even more important than enlightenment is the problem of education. Depth-psychological research has made clear the immense scope of education. Today we know that man is to such an extent the product of his upbringing that we can hope, through psychological methods of education that dispense with the authoritarian principle, to be able to educate people who will be immune to the entanglements of power madness.

By renouncing fear-inducing authority, the use of violence and inappropriate pampering in the home and school, and by turning to the child’s soul with true understanding, education will produce a type of person who no longer has a “subject mentality” and who will therefore no longer be a docile tool for those in power in our world.

The educator’s respect for the child’s personality and his friendly devotion to the educator will make a valuable contribution to the building of a humane social order and the creation of a life worthy of human dignity.

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school rector, educational scientist and graduate 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. In 2021, he was awarded the Republic Prize “Captain Misa Anastasijevic” by the Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad for services to Serbia.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

(1) https://freeassange.rtde.me/international/167034-denkt-nicht-an-die-zukunft-es/

(2) https://www.globalresearch.ca/this-madness.must-cease/4460

(3) Fellay, Gerda (1997 / 2010). Friedrich Liebling. Life and work – an introduction. (Dissertation). New York, Paris, Bern and Sitten (Switzerland), p. 16.

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Beware the Agents of Chaos

April 15th, 2023 by Richard Gale

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***

“It is possible to live only as long as life intoxicates us; once we are sober we cannot help seeing that it is all a delusion, a stupid delusion.” Leo Tolstoy

Not a day passes without Americans witnessing another debacle in the nation’s domestic and foreign policies that further grind down the last remaining threads of a sustainable, coherent and functioning nation. Instead of actual progress, we hear competing incantations of nonsense to “make America great again” and to “build back better.” Both mantras represent opposite sides of the aisle’s affirmation that the nation is in serious disarray and degenerating rapidly. For Democrats it means throwing more money at the problems that too much money already spent has created. “Seize the opportunity,” declares Biden, “meet this moment in history and build the future we need.” Or, “we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” according to Elizabeth Warren, “to build back better and create a more equitable, inclusive and prosperous future for all Americans.” And then there are the other voices in the echo chamber to make America great again. There are Mitch McConnell’s sobs to “rebuild our military” and Ted Cruz’s “promoting American exceptionalism” around the globe. This is all lunacy because there are no longer any adults or wise elders in the room to turn this political voodoo into a functioning reality.

The German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt saw totalitarian leaders as agents of chaos who intentionally undermine the stability of society to destroy the foundations of democracy by creating fear and uncertainty. What is notably disturbing is the current administration’s obsession with deceiving themselves as a benevolent force for progress. Yet any sane person can glance at the decline in authentic, sustainable progress made in American culture for at least the past three decades and realize the nation has one foot in hospice.

So, the question is: how has all this rubbing of the Build Back Better and Make America Great Again genie lamps worked for you? Are you feeling these mantras’ magic? Has the descent of optimism and hope alighting upon the crown of your head yet? Or maybe you have that high of genuine happiness and authentic well being oozing forth from your pores?

How does your bank account look like? Have your savings built back better so it is great again?

Are you feeling Nancy Pelosi’s fuzzy warm assurance that “as Democrats… every American has the opportunity to succeed, that every voice is heard and that our country remains a beacon of hope and progress for generations to come”?

Or, was that a misquote from Republican neocon Nikki Haley to assure us that “America remains a shining beacon of freedom and democracy.” Platitudes, blue and red, all sound the same because such clichés have been repeated incessantly for decades. And putting aside the so-called progress made in easier access to anti-anxiety and depression medications, and better suicide hotlines, how is the mental health of American youth fairing? Therefore, where has any genuine progress been achieved to improve the quality of human life?

Surely paying heed to Tolstoy’s above words are long overdue. We need to wake up and realize that to continue this imbecilic ritual of rubbing counterfeit lamps of feel-good propaganda is only making the public more delusional and stupid. It is high time we realize there are no longer any adults in the Oval Office and boardrooms of Washington, Wall Street and Silicon Valley. The agents of chaos govern us. Our culture of absolutism breeds the very conditions for violence and conflict that air nightly on the news. The detractors of absolutism’s tyrannies are perceived as enemies.

The firm belief in absolutes is a condition leading people to justify egregious actions in the name of a greater good without considering the consequences. Does this not accurately describe today’s cancel culture and the most militant wings of the LBGTQ community, critical theory racists, institutionalized atheist Skepticism and medical determinism?

Whether it is blind faith in the absolutism of Fauci’s “science”, Marjorie Taylor Green’s messianic return of Trump, Biden’s proclamation that “Transgender Americans shape our Nation’s soul,” Janice Yellin’s incoherent gibberish before a Congressional committee to account for the country’s economic malaise, or the neocons’ hysterical obsession in the State Department and Pentagon to throw away hundreds of billions of dollars and weapons into the ever-devouring black hole of Zelensky’s Ukraine, there are no signs of a return to stability. And this list of misadventures, inept decision-making and reckless blundering can be multiplied a hundred-fold. Together, all roads now lead towards a dire picture of America’s inevitable collapse. The US continues to sink in the murky, toxic waters in the middle of the Rubicon. Sadly, America has forgotten how to swim and is no longer capable of swimming back to shore.

The hard, cold facts are that American exceptionalism only exists in the dream-like hallucinations of our politicians.

The US’s global hegemonic military strength wanes daily.

Reaching diversity quotas trumps talent and professional expertise. Colleges and universities have degenerated to Napoleonic era lunatic asylums that reward self-centered, hedonic individualism and manic rebellion. Remarkably, the mobs in the street are little more than bland reflections, a Jungian shadow, of the instability and disorder created by the agents of chaos who sit in the seats of power. “Just as the individual has a shadow,” wrote Jung, “so does society at large. And just as the individual must come to terms with his shadow so too must society if it is to be healthy and whole.”

The rising confusion among our youth over their self-identity, gender, moral alienation and a lack of existential purpose in this technological driven materialistic society has reduced our youth to sentient robots screaming for self-expression. This is one cause for today’s groupthink of social and political unrest and its destructive outcomes. Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell warned that “collective passions” have a penchant to inflame “hatred and rivalry directed towards other groups.” He was also acutely aware that “science is no substitute for virtue; the heart is as necessary for the good life as the head.”

Most Americans have now become so desensitized, so disconnected from perceiving reality, that they are incapable of realizing how the government adversely impacts every nick and cranny in their lives. Instead of running away from crises, we do everything to the contrary to magnify the problems. So if the environmental and social crises continue to spiral out of control, understand it is because America is only exceptionally pathetic. The nation has quenched its illusions and stupor far too long on Aldous Huxley’s soma. Now its intoxicating effects are giving rise to an explosion of hatred, rage and self-serving narcissism in the streets, classrooms, corporate boardrooms, and the sitcoms staged in Congressional chambers.

Unfortunately, unless we identify the defining characteristics of American culture at this historical moment and its causes, the pathway to widespread social collapse will accelerate.

Since the time of the Italian philosopher and jurist Giambattista Vico in the early 18^th century, anthropologists, historians and philosophers have made efforts to discover patterns whereby nations and cultures undergo cycles of growth, decay and rebirth. Vico called these cyclic patterns in human history “ricorso” or stages of “recurrence” that are observed in histories of individual cultures and civilizations. Other important individuals who have attempted to map these historical and generational cycles and to identify their characteristics and causes include the Swiss anthropologist Johan Bachofen (d. 1887), Oswald Spenger (d. 1936), the historian Arnold Toynbee (d. 1975), Carroll Quigley (d. 1977), Strauss and Howe, Peter Turchin among others. However, perhaps most notable and long forgotten are the cyclic patterns leading to a cultural collapse articulated by Pitirim Sorokin.

Sorokin was a Russian-American intellectual and social visionary who co-founded Harvard University’s Sociology Department in 1931. Born and educated in Russia, Sorokin was arrested by the Soviet authorities for holding critical views of the Communist regime, but was released and fled to the US. Years later in 1929, he was kidnapped by Soviet agents in Paris. He was sentenced to a gulag labor camp but was again released and forced into permanent exile. Sorokin’s 1937 magnum opus Social and Cultural Dynamics was the culmination of twenty years research to identify the cycles nations and cultures undergo that eventually lead to critical crises and their ultimate collapse.

By today’s college standards, Sorokin would never land a professorship at an American college or university. His theories have been almost categorically ignored by academia and criticized for being pessimistic. He upheld values that many today would call conservative and traditional, especially on his emphasizing higher moral and spiritual values. Consequently, Sorokin is out of step with today’s neoliberal intelligentsia and Critical Theory’s wokeism. Oddly his modern admirers happen to be the left-leaning transpersonal psychologist Richard Tarnas, ecologist Wendell Berry and political philosopher Charles Taylor. What they all share in common is a deep appreciation for the pivotal importance of higher moral and spiritual values in order to sustain a functioning and life-affirming culture wherein citizens can thrive.

If we take a panoramic view of America in 2023, Sorokin’s warnings of Western societies’ inevitable collapse are in plain sight. “The current crisis,” Sorokin wrote in his The Crisis of Our Age, “has been created by a false concept of progress, which identifies material growth with true progress and overlooks the fact that there is no real progress without spiritual and moral development.” While we may pride ourselves in our culture’s technological ingenuity in artificial intelligence, virtual reality, robotics and pending transhumanism, for Sorokin, a society that only develops technologically is a “half-society” because humans are then simply reduced to “cogs in a vast machine, whose only purpose is to produce and consume goods.” For those throwing curses back and forth across the ideological political divide, both sides blindly serve more powerful interests who are eager to exploit them as a means to an end. Those who get caught up in this American charade reduce themselves to halfwits unwillingly creating a technocratic society based upon conformity and uniformity. True diversity and authentic individuality, which are motivated by higher principles, are technocratic tyranny’s obstacles that must be overcome and destroyed.

According to Sorokin, who died in 1968, the US had reached its “sensate” stage of its social cycle. Clearly we have now reached the hyper-sensate level immediately before a rapid dissolution. In The Crisis of Our Age, all the signs in the nation for what he termed the “cataclysm of the sensate culture” were rapidly being assembled to culminate in the not too distant future: rampant consumerism and materialism, domination of individualism, self-gratification and indulgence, hedonism, moral weakness, the decay of traditional social bonds, and a collective social emptiness. The sensate stage’s climax is chaos, the breakdown of social order and national institutions. Sorokin’s chaotic stage is characterized by disorder, confusion, mental disorientation, a rise in crime and social unrest, and political instability. Redeeming moral values reach rock bottom. Only after this chaotic phase reaches its nadir does a new cultural synthesis emerge as people seek new ways to reestablish order and meaning in both their personal lives and collectively within the society.

But Sorokin had another poignant insight. A predominant sensate culture is vulnerable to external threats, especially economic crises, conflicts and wars and even natural disasters.

This so well describes today’s America now that its global economic and military hegemony is a growl with no bite. American foreign diplomacy is deplorable as we watch nation after nation turning their backs on the US-led West for more amicable and neighborly partners such as China, Russia and India. The reason for America’s fragility is that the nation has appallingly betrayed its moral and spiritual resources and therefore is unable to cope with adversity—internal and external—to meet and overcome its challenges. Neither is America internally resilient nor therefore it is unfit to adapt to the necessary changes underway to preserve its survival. When all the causes and conditions for a final collapse are assembled, a nation’s fate is no longer negotiable. Only the time gap can be slowed or accelerated.

Despite the original values of American liberalism, which were brought forth during the Age of Reason and the Renaissance’s flame of non-dogmatic rational inquiry, today’s liberals have perverted its own legacy and become unthinking adolescents that are every bit as intolerant and wrong-headed as the most zealous religious fundamentalist on the Right. Across woke culture – old and young – there is a plague of childish behavior to censor and ban any speech or thought that is contrary to their false illusions about themselves and their fragile self-identity.

This “exclusivist humanism,” as the prominent cultural philosopher Charles Taylor has termed it, is a faux universalism. With myopic obeisance relies on the secular power structure in government that in turn acts on their behalf to marginalize and at times demonize alternative belief systems that do not embrace a secular universalism. Hence the new radical left, and even federal agencies, no longer tolerate diversity of traditional beliefs and worldviews.

The FBI’s illegal surveillance activities on Twitter and the agency’s harassment of peaceful anti-abortion Catholics are just minor examples. More alarming is the murder of three children and three school staff in Nashville by mentally disturbed person with gender dysphoria who is being eulogized without a woke tear wept for the victims. Rather than read the works of history’s intellectual and literary giants, it is better to wipe away or rewrite the past altogether in order to please the neuroses of the most vocal and belligerent masses. However, Taylor offers an alternative — “open humanism” – a more inclusive, pluralistic, values-driven dialogue and mutual respect towards the wide scope of human experiences. The debate is whether or not American society has already passed the tipping point of a fateful demise. As events worsen America’s delirium escalates, we fear it has.

And still the majority of the American citizenry willingly participates in and contributes to this Mummers’ charade in the halls of power. Our defining culture has succumbed to irrational hostility, collective emotional hysteria, or what Sorokin called “cultural schizophrenia,” which is when individuals in a grossly materialistic society cling desperately to a false sense of individuality that is completely divorced from any deeper purpose in life. The result is social fragmentation, conflict and widespread confusion. At this moment, we witness both sides of the left-right political divide screaming about their victimhood while actively participating in society’s destruction. And yet there are no massive mobilized protests against the most destructive elements in our culture as if they are unimportant. Renewable energy, access to healthy foods, banning toxic chemicals in everyday household products that are otherwise forbidden in other countries, government-sanctioned censorship, an illegal surveillance state, a justice system that indentures the poor, fifty million Americans living in poverty and a thoroughly corrupt medical system — none of these seem important enough to warrant millions to march on Washington. Even humanity’s survival is inconsequential.

Today, American media is incapable of reporting on the true state of the country’s domestic culture. The media can no longer create a believable story that reflects the actual economic and social conditions of average Americans because it has been unable to move beyond the harsh social divisions fuelled by animosity and distrust. Very earlier, Sorokin observed the media’s adverse trajectory. As early as 1941, he was warning about the consequences of the media’s sensationalism and entertainment, its focus on negative news that would breed social anxiety and fear. Sorokin also shared his deep concern about the media’s emphasis on materialism and consumerism and its impact on the social and mental development of young people. It is difficult to disagree with him now that both conservative and liberal media have neutered the intellects of their most loyal viewers. The right suffers from pre-rational superstition and anti-intellectualism. The left suffers from a highbrow intellect and moral impoverishment. Neither is capable of serving as a revolutionary force to relieve suffering and fight on behalf of individual freedoms, peace and human rights outside of cultic groupthink. Moreover, our corporate media has succeeded in turning the US into a laughing stock among the vast majority of other countries. Rather a functional media would be honestly responsible for a balanced and meaningful view of the world, one that focuses on the positive as well as the negative and at the same time emphasizes constructive moral values.

Unfortunately, American media is now beyond redemption. For those who have retained a thread of philosophical and spiritual inquiry and values, there can be no support for the psychobabble of those who would drown out the voices of reason and human decency. It is left to those of us who have been cancelled and excluded from the national dialogue about our country’s deterioration to continue to probe more deeply into our own lives and build community with like-minded people.

Finally we might take to heart the words of one of Tolstoy’s great admirers.

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous,” wrote Martin Luther King, “than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

It is our deep ignorance about not knowing ourselves and appreciating our intrinsic interconnection with each other and the environment that perpetuates the suffering around us. Our true enemies are irrational, dogmatic beliefs and faux liberal values, which equally keep us enslaved to a system that only serves its own interests and dehumanizes us to collateral damage to the system’s failings. All imperial civilizations ultimately collapse. Despite the US’s rapid decline, it remains within each person’s means to not be a helpless victim when it sinks completely. After the inferno completes its course, cools and simmers, we will then be most needed to rise from its ashes to return sanity, decency and the values of equanimity and selfless compassion to the severely emotionally wounded who participated or contributed to the conflagration.

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Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries.

Dr. Gary Null is host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on alternative and nutritional health and a multi-award-winning documentary film director, including his recent Last Call to Tomorrow

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

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African American Tennessee Lawmakers Reinstated to State House by Local Authorities

April 15th, 2023 by Abayomi Azikiwe

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***

Two African American state representatives to the Tennessee House of Representatives have been returned to the Capitol in Nashville by the local councils in Nashville and Memphis.

The expulsions by the supermajority Republican-dominated state legislative body highlighted the problems of democratic governance and institutional racism in the United States.

Justin Pearson and Justin Jones were involved in a demonstration on March 30 which demanded the passage of gun control legislation in the state of Tennessee. Protesters entered the Capitol building while the two reinstated elected officials spoke through bullhorns in support of the manifestation.

A third Democratic state representative, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, who is white, was spared expulsion by only one vote. Johnson stood in solidarity with Pearson and Jones even after they were voted out by the Republican-dominated House on April 6.

The demonstration in Nashville was prompted by a massacre at the Covenant School located in the same municipality. The deaths of six people including three children follows a pattern of violence which stems from the deeply troubled character of U.S. society in the current period.

Guns are manufactured by an armaments industry which wields tremendous influence domestically and internationally. This factor combined with the failure to reinvest the enormous profits from capitalist corporations into healthcare, education, housing, environmental quality and other essentials of modern life, has contributed to the widespread sense of insecurity and societal instability.

Jones was ordered back to Nashville just days after his expulsion for participation in the demonstration and defying the general right-wing consensus in Tennessee and nationally which acquiescence to the profit motives of the armament industry. The proliferation of weapons inside the U.S. is paralleled by the large-scale arms exports to other geopolitical regions around the world.

Conservative politicians are routinely opposed to any safeguards on the distribution of even assault weapons. The response by the Tennessee Assembly was to draft legislation aimed at placing more armed guards in schools. Jones and Pearson objected to this approach saying such legislation would further the militarization of educational institutions.

Just one day after the expulsion of the two state representatives, the Nashville Metropolitan Council voted to reinstate Jones. He returned to his office at the Capitol the following day.

Pearson, who represents areas in Memphis, was reinstated on April 12 by the Shelby County Board of Commissioners in a 7-0 vote with only Democratic Party members present in the session. He returned to Nashville on April 13 where he was sworn back into his position outside the building.

After the swearing-in ceremony, Pearson told the crowd and the press that:

“There will be a new building of this building, with a foundation built on love. With pillars of justice rising up. With rafters of courage covering us. With doors that are open to everybody in the state of Tennessee. Not just rich somebodies, but everybody. Not just straight somebodies, but everybody. Not just Republican somebodies, but everybody.” (See this)

The Movement Continues for African American Democratic Rights

The return of the two African Americans to their elected seats in Nashville represented a tremendous victory for the people of the state concerned about more than just the issue of gun control. There are other important questions which tend to accompany advocacy of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Bill of Rights to the Constitution were first enacted during the era of antebellum enslavement of African people. Consequently, the repeated reference to this inherent right harkens back to the total suppression of African people by law.

There are bills being deliberated in the State Assembly during this session which are designed to slash the Nashville City Council by 50%. In addition, legislation is being proposed to undermine the efforts aimed at police reforms to curb brutality in urban areas such as Memphis, Knoxville and Nashville.

Overall, there is a movement among conservatives to erase the legacy of struggle waged by African Americans, women and other oppressed peoples out of the historical memory. The developments in Tennessee over the last few weeks illustrate clearly that the quest for civil rights, full equality and self-determination is far from concluded.

Rep. Jones was quoted after the 36-0 vote by the Metropolitan Council of Nashville emphasizing:

“Today we are sending a resounding message that democracy will not be killed in the comfort of silence. Today we send a clear message to Speaker Cameron Sexton that the people will not allow his crimes against democracy to happen without challenge.” (See this)

Even with these actions by the local councils in Memphis and Nashville, the reappointments of Pearson and Jones are temporary until a special election is held. The state representatives only took office at the beginning of the year. Judging from the support they received from their local elected officials, there should not be any difficulty in them winning reelection.

Nonetheless, the Republican supermajority remains recalcitrant in their political actions which negatively impact African Americans in Tennessee. In any article published by the Vox.com news website it points out:

“GOP members have said they would recognize Jones and Pearson as members if they are reelected. In Tennessee, lawmakers also can’t be expelled for the same offense for a second time. ‘If after looking at [Jones’s] conduct, they vote he come back, we will recognize him as a representative,’ Rep. Gino Bulso, one of the Republicans who introduced the expulsion resolutions, told the Tennessean.”

In other words, until a special election is held, and the African American legislators are returned, will the Republicans make a decision as to whether to acknowledge their presence in the state house. Such an attitude is reflective of the pattern of institutional racism and undemocratic practice within the state of Tennessee.

The same above-mentioned Vox.com report on the return to their offices by Jones and Pearson emphasizes:

“As Vox’s Zack Beauchamp noted, data suggests Tennessee was already the least democratic state in the U.S. ahead of the expulsions. That same data found that GOP control of a state led to an increased embrace of anti-democratic tendencies. And those trends have some pro-democracy advocates — including the three Democratic lawmakers — concerned the Tennessee GOP’s actions may inspire other Republican-dominant legislatures to use their power to penalize or remove those who they don’t agree with. The removals were also only the latest action by the Republican-dominated Tennessee legislature that restricted Black political power in the state.”

Only Mass Struggle Can Effectively Challenge the Racist System

These antidemocratic tendencies have enormous implications for the status, health and well-being of African Americans and other Tennesseans as a whole. As the growth in the populations of Black, Brown, Asian, Indigenous and other People of Color communities in the urban areas of the U.S. continues, there will be even more draconian attacks on the fundamental notions of universal suffrage and representative government on the local, state and national levels.

Pearson began his activism as a student when he protested the inadequacy of textbooks in high school. After being reappointed by the Shelby County Commission, he addressed a group of students assembled to attend the important hearing.

The state rep. was interviewed by Chalkbeat, an educational news website, saying that he believed the youth of today would address the recurrent problems of injustice in U.S. society. He told Chalkbeat:

“Students and young people lead all movements. This movement is no different, and the movement to end gun violence and the justice that we will have will be because of young people and students and college students who say that the status quo must change.”

Whether these issues can and will be discussed in Tennessee classrooms is still in question as legislation has been passed to restrict the teaching of the actual history of the state and the country in general. Nashville and Memphis have been centers of popular and labor struggles going back to the 19th and 20th centuries which have shaped the current political situation today. Undoubtedly, the Southern states will continue to be a terrain in the struggle over the future of the U.S.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

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Mass Murder: Our Wounded Humanity

April 15th, 2023 by Robert C. Koehler

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***

Once again . . . once again . . . once again . . .

I’m sure you know what I’m referring to. Yeah, another — the latest (?) — mass shooting in the United States, this one at Old National Bank in Louisville, Kentucky, on April 10, two days ago as I write. Five killed, eight injured. The shooter, an employee of the bank, was killed in a shootout with police. Three officers were injured, including a rookie officer (ten days on the job), who was shot in the head and is struggling to survive. The gunman’s weapon was a nice, reliable AR-15-style rifle, legally purchased at a local gun shop a week earlier.

That’s the basic data.

Loved ones cry in stunned grief. People demand saner gun laws. The mayor of Louisville, “noting the enormous amount of blood needed to treat gunshot wounds . . . urged residents of Louisville to donate blood.”

What will happen next, of course —in the larger context known as the United States of America —is nothing. Politics will harden, of course: voices will rise, protests will erupt, Republican legislators will stand tough against demands for gun control. And eventually another mass killing somewhere will grab the headlines.

And while yes, yes, yes, I believe that assault weapons should be banned and legislation should be enacted requiring background checks, I don’t think legislative —superficial —efforts will begin to address the country’s mass-shooting epidemic. The Louisville shooting was apparently number 146 in the country this year (“mass shooting” defined as at least four people killed), with each one seen and reported as an isolated action by a violent loner. Nothing can begin to change until we dig into the national soul and find the connecting context.

As I wrote two weeks ago, in the wake of the Nashville shooting: “This is not simply a loner’s psychological flaw: the denial of full, or any, humanity —any spiritual value —to chosen others. It’s a phenomenon embedded in the social norm. We have enemies. We need them. We kill them.

“We go to war!”

And going to war means one thing above all else: dehumanization. While a loner’s mass shooting spree means dehumanizing the victims at a personal level, war means dehumanization at the national level. Every American citizen is expected to acknowledge the need to kill the enemy du jour: via bombs, via tanks, via torture, via radioactivity and whatever poison our weaponry leaves behind. Strategy is what matters. Dead bystanders —dead children —are collateral damage.

As Peter Turchin wrote a decade ago, in the wake of the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School: “The reason we should be worried about rampages is because they are surface indicators of highly troubling negative trends working their way through deep levels of our society.”

He called the victims “canaries in a coal mine.” Their toll is rising. And not just at American schools and banks and churches and shopping malls, etc., etc., etc. The toll is rising around the planet. Humanity has organized itself politically in the context of us vs. them, and this context is expanding. As the world grows technologically more connected —oh, the irony —its need to “defend itself” from the other has grown more ferocious. As soon as it’s labeled “war,” the concept of defense has virtually nothing to do with understanding.

And the United States, the most militarized country on Planet Earth, is at the heart of it all, fighting its forever war against terror: continuing to bomb, torture and poison evil itself out of existence. The 2023 U.S. military budget is $816.7 billion, with the 2024 budget likely to expand well beyond that. Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University, puts it this way: “In fact, it now seems as if this country is moving at breakneck speed out of the era of Forever War and into what might be thought of as the era of Eternal War.”

And let there be no mistake. The era of Eternal War includes America’s mass shootings. What the lost souls who commit them have access to, before they can go around the corner and buy an assault rifle, is the concept of dehumanization. Mass murder would not be possible without it.

Yeah, I know, when we go to war, it’s all done bureaucratically. It’s all classified. The enemy is determined, dehumanized and killed at the highest level of national government, blah blah blah. American citizens get to read about it in the newspaper, watch it on television, cheer (allegedly) and even protest, but the decision to kill is impersonal and “democratic.”

Well, too bad. War creates war, not peace —especially when the “tools of war” are so readily available. One reason we are apparently entering an era of Eternal War is that it’s accessible not just to the commander in chief but to every lost soul in the country. Everyone wants to feel empowered. And the seduction of war is that it seems like such a simple obvious solution: Choose the enemy, dehumanize it and kill it. Problem solved.

I blame the media: for mostly going along with the sham at the governmental level and for failing to notice, let alone report on or analyze, the broken social context revealed by every individual mass shooting.

To paraphrase the mayor of Louisville, an enormous amount of understanding is needed to address, and ultimately prevent, gunshot wounds. We all need to donate what we can.

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Featured image: A Louisville Metro Police technician photographs bullet holes in the front glass of the Old National Bank building in Louisville, Ky., Monday, April 10, 2023. A shooting at the bank killed and wounded several people police said. The suspected shooter was also dead. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

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Gateway to Nowhere. The One World Order Privatization of Amazonia. Greed for Power and Money

April 15th, 2023 by Peter Koenig

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***

Iquitos, capital of the Loreto Department in Peru, has a population of 500,000. It is the largest city in the world accessible only by air or river. It sits in the heart of Amazonia.

Some ‘experts’ claim that the annual flow of the Amazon River could supply the entire world population (growing at 1% / year) for the next 100 to 200 years with 200 liters / capita / day. Is it true? Hard to say. There are no referenced documents available. Though, my educated guess would agree with this statement.

Iquitos is thriving. Tourism, Amazon expeditions, even oil explorations with one of the world’s largest National Reserves, Pacaya-Samiria, a vast area of Amazonian jungle and floodable forest of 20,800 km2 (half the size of Switzerland) in northeastern Peru. It is bordered by the Marañón and Ucayali rivers which, when united at the southern tip of the reserve, they become the Amazon River.

Of course, there is crime. Manmade crime, corruption, extorsion, illegal lumbering, drug trafficking and maybe more. Not all that shines is gold. But, with willpower and conscience, they can be overcome. And the gifts of Paradise are the gifts of Mother Earth. They are divine.

Sounds attractive. Iquitos a town, smack in the center of Amazonia. Natura at its best. Food is not lacking. The local economy is good, much of it thanks to international tourism. The unemployment rate is about 2.5% (2018 – see this), as compared to the average in Peru of 7.3%.

Amazonia is Paradise. It provides food, water and oxygen – the essence of life. Whoever offers an Apple as an incentive for people to leave this paradise may be a Demon.

And whoever bites the apple is a fool.

However, “Paradise is nice, but we want more; we also want land access to the rest of our country, the rest of the world”. They do or do not know, how rotten the rest of the world is.

Sounds like the Garden of Eden. Seduction by the fake glimmering west? Are the Amazonian Iquitoees about to bite the apple?

Is this the ominous apple? They built a suspension bridge to escape isolation, the Nanay Bridge. It crosses the Nanay River, a tributary to the Amazon River; one of about 1,100 tributaries.

Nanay River (black) meeting Amazon (light brown), a continuous phenomenon that occurs very close to the northern shores of Punchana, Iquitos. (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

The Nanay Bridge, just north of Iquitos, is 2.2 km long and connects the district of Bellavista on the right bank of the Nanay River with the district of Santo Tomas on the left bank.

To build the bridge it took about three years. It opened in June in 2021. It is attractive and brand new, so to speak. Iquitos’s moto-taxis take hordes of tourists to see and cross the bridge. What most tourists don’t know and don’t expect, is where and how the bridge ends.

Amazingly, when the bridge hits the Santo Tomas district on the left bank, it ends in a tiny dirt road that disappears in the jungle. It’s a bridge to nowhere.

Source: mageba

According to official figures, the cost of the bridge was about US$ 170 million equivalent. But in truth, you have to add at least 50% to 100% to get to the final, or real price.

Say, the Gateway to Nowhere cost some US$ 250 to US$ 300 million. That’s a steep price, you may say – considering — you end up on a dirt road that leads – exactly – to nowhere.

Who built it, financed it? Most people have no idea. Some say the US, others say the Chinese. Some even say, it is part of a foreign ploy to seduce us, Iquitoees Amazonians to escape Paradise, so they can take it over. No joke. Amazonians are clever people. With “they” is meant all those foreigners who are living in a war-like “underworld”, outside of Paradise.

Sounds a bit extreme. But who knows. After all, Lula, one of the first controversial statements he made as the new / old President of Brazil, was that he thinks the Amazon Region, most of which is in Brazil, should be “public property” and therefore administered by the United Nations.

Can you imagine, the UN, of all places, one of the most corrupt international institutions, doing their vassalic bidding to the North American hegemon, to the globalists, to the financial supremacists, the Death Cult Elite behind the World Economic Forum (WEF)?

Lula was most likely ordered to make that declaration. It may have been his ticket to a razor-thin ”win” to the Presidency. During one of Lula’s earlier terms, he answered a similar question with an absolute “No Way”.

Greed for Power and Greed for Money – that’s what is driving the West, the Global North, if you will. So, the protagonists of these shady attributes believe Amazonians, inhabitants of Paradise, may be seduced by an architecturally brilliant and good-looking bridge, first to nowhere, and ultimately – maybe – just maybe – out of Paradise into the glorious fake heaven made to hell.

The inferno you may not see from the inside of the wilderness and the richness of life.

All powerful nature, vast and rich and diverse Amazonia works at a different cadence than our western, what we call, civilization. Amazonia has different dimensions, a different time horizon. The power of this colossal richness of water and biodiversity cannot easily be overcome – NOT just with horrendous sums of money, as we are used to in the Global West or North.

Imagine, this tremendous money and military power, called the West, driven by greed and appetite to dominate, to possess all, to subdue everything, nature, flora, fauna, humans, natural resources – literally a Cult of Demons – ready to take over Paradise?

It will not happen.

Imagine further, this Cult of Demons has been preparing the world-takeover moment for at least the last 100 years, with two devastating World Wars, with uncountable conflicts and instigated civil unrest around the world, causing hundreds of millions of deaths.

And now, this Cult of Evil is at the brink of taking over the remaining all-powerful nature, called Amazonia. For that purpose, they may have infiltrated the heart of Amazonia, settled in Iquitos, under the guise of wanting to liberate the isolated city and built the glamorous Nanay River bridge, promising access to the rest of the world.

If this Bridge to Nowhere would become a bridge to the west, thanks to the temptation of the shiny apple — as soon as you bite it, you will feel and taste that it is rotten to the core. But by then there is no return. The Gates to Paradise may be closed; the territory occupied by the very demons that offered you the shiny but rotten apple.

Where does the apparent Gateway to Heaven – away from Paradise – lead you?

You will find a greed and power-driven bunch of oligarchs, who call themselves “Globalists”. They want to do away with nation states and set up a One World Government.

They will also do away with laws, international, as well as national laws, and replace them with a “Rule-Based Order” – meaning that those who run the global show, will make up their rules as they go forward and as it suits them.

Much of these “rule-based orders” are already in place today. International courts are no longer functioning as independent judicial systems. Their magistrates and attorneys are kept on strings: blackmailed, threatened, dismissed, and even “disappeared”, if they dare going against those in command of the “rule-based orders”.

And how do they intend to do so? Well, they have been at it for about the last century, by creating two World Wars, and more conflicts and wars and chaos around the globe. Lately the have also been fearmongering you with “deadly diseases” which pop up from nowhere and suddenly in one day embrace the entire globe.

Corruption is one of the “rule-based orders”. Hence, heftily bought media propaganda is part of the rule-based game. They keep spreading fear – so that people become sensitive to fear.

To heighten the attention and fear-level again, when it risks to ebb off – a deadly shooting in a mall or school, or in the street is instigated and orchestrated. The shooter is immediately killed by the police, so there is no witness, no trial.

Fearful people lose their self-interest, their self-assurance – they become vulnerable for all sorts of propaganda. They can’t distinguish anymore between truth and lies.

A level of fear has to be maintained to keep people walking on their toes, always attentive to the next catastrophe, to the next life-threatening disease… and for that you got to have a well-greased media – bought journalists, richly bonused anchor-people.

Mind you, for those who produce the dollars, it’s no issue. It’s just debt – debt that will never be paid back. But for the bought journalists and media – it’s very good money.

On the other side, where ‘the money is endlessly produced, it is constructing a pyramid that one day, maybe soon, will collapse, leaving those who have been relying on the pyramid, or “hot air” money, in misery, begging for help.

Is this the tempting beauty to abandon Paradise for?

Help is already being prepared by those who pull the strings on the collapse – it’s called programmable Central Bank Digital Currency – or CBDC.

After the collapse if we let it happen, most of you – or us – will own nothing. CBDC will be our all-controlling guidepost. As an incentive for your good behavior, following the “rules-based orders”, you may be given some money in your central bank account. It may be the only account you will ever have.

The money will be controlled, according to your obedience, or made to expire in full or partially – or you may be allowed to use it only for selected purchases, or a combination of all. In any case, control is the name of the game.

That’s the future, dear people, if you don’t stand up NOW – and scream STOP to CBDC and request good old cash back.

And those who resist seduction – the shiny apple in the form of the shiny and beautiful brand-new Nanay Suspension Bridge to Nowhere – may continue to be blessed by Paradise.

Amazonians, Iquitoees – do you really want to cross your bridge to nowhere? Or, perhaps after all, stay in Paradise, timeless paradise, where biodiversity, water and oxygen flows – and keeps you in harmonious health?

If you decide after all, to cross the bridge to nowhere – making it a bridge to somewhere, you may also want to know what else this One World Order – the good old/new OWO – has in store for you.

The Demons, oligarch elite cum Death Cultists – have two major objectives which they will never tell you straight into our face. They may hint at them, a rule to make the Cult’s plans come through, but you are on your own or in solidarity with others you have to discover what their real plans are to sub-do you:

First, they want to drastically, but drastically – reduce the world population. Some say by as much as 80% to 90%. Mother Earth’s limited unrenewable resources will last longer for the few elitists with their serfs. That’s their dream – which, with our collective resistance will not be achieved.

Means to achieve this eugenist agenda are high-propaganda launches of fake diseases, followed by toxic and deadly “vaxxes”, with impacts on health and life either immediately or over the next few years. T,,he variety of killer ingredients in the vaxxes is rich. But you would never know. After a few years it will be difficult to trace cancers, heart-attacks / myocarditis, blindness, dementia and much more – back to the vaxxes.

But, they have more in store to kill or maim you for life, either by fear or by real:

First, propagandize fake climate change, fake-induced energy shortages, destruction of the current economy – creating joblessness, poverty, misery, famine, food shortages – also famine, diseases, death; multitudes of diseases, weakening already weakened immune systems;

Second, they want to have absolute control over the surviving population. Main tools are the QR-code and full and complete digitization so you will be evermore tied to data-machines, robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to control every move you do – followed by cyber-attacks to wipe out your digital memories, while theirs will, of course, remain intact.

They will also control your diggital central bank money (CBDC). It could be wiped out by a an unspecified cyber-attack. You may be told it’s an accident – and even while you suspect it is not an accident – you may never know, who, what controlling powers are behind the attack. They are keeping tens of thousands of data info-points about you in central places – including your consumption patterns.

What if They decide that your consumption habits are bad for the environment – actually, the more fashionable term now used is “climate change” – what if They decide you are infringing on the rules protecting the world from climate change? – You may be deprived of food, perhaps starving to death – as they can simply block your CBDC account.

Knowing all of this, Amazonians, Iquitoees, inhabitants of Paradise – are you still tempted to leave your heavenly abode by this beautifully colorful-designed suspension bridge to Nowhere? – Or rather into Demon’s Land?

You should know, there is also a war waging out there, beyond the Gateway to Nowhere, beyond the beautiful bridge that ends in a dirt road.

It is a war the west has been mounting and is now fighting by its NATO forces, through a menial, miserable intermediary, called Ukraine. A war against Russia, the world’s largest and by far the richest country in terms of natural resources. Russia holds 16,376,870 Km², equivalent to 11% of the total world’s landmass of 148,940,000 Km².

For the last at least hundred years the west, especially the US hegemon, wanted to dominate Russia ad for that purpose invented and launched two World Wars, both led by their “intermediary” Germany, devastating Europe, and their wars were lost.

Russia prevailed, and Russia will prevail now too. No doubt.

But the war brings misery, death, poverty disease — and is the source of immense corruption.

The west in unison, but under heavy pressure from the US – still, pretending to be the world’s empire, is arming Ukraine, and funding the wretched, corrupt and criminal country with hundreds of billions of dollars.

To no avail. Of course. Nobody in his right mind believes that Ukraine with all their military aid and NATO advice will win the war against Russia.

But it is slowly and surely becoming a war of attrition – it could easily become an “endless” type war, similar to Vietnam and to Afghanistan. Here, like there, it will be the loser takes it all – the loser being the west – the US, NATO and Europe and ALL will be before an impending collapse of the west.

To get a picture what Ukraine really is – the corruption, the criminality with child and women trafficking, with money laundering, drug dealing and much more – see this.

And if you still need more convincing about the corruption of the leadership, this is a report by Seymour Hersh demonstrating how Zelenskyy and his team stole at least US$ 400 million of US aid – US tax-payers money, see this by RT and this by globalvillagespace.com.

This Ukraine is what the crooked west – Washington / NATO, plus the European Commission (EC), led by the unelected shady Ms. Ursula van der Leyen – scholar of Klaus Schwab’s (WEF) academy of Young Global Leaders (YGL) are supporting to fight and destabilize Russia.

These People of Darkness have no idea what the sunlight can do where ethics and justice reigns.

Now, people from Iquitos, from Amazonia, what do you think about the Bridge to nowhere? Is it the Gateway to Heaven or Hell? You choose.

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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: NASA satellite image showing the Amazon River Basin where Iquitos Metropolitan Area is located. The Amazon River appears on the lower side of the photograph. (Licensed under the Public Domain)

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Por qué los medios no quieren saber la verdad sobre las explosiones de Nord Stream

April 15th, 2023 by Jonathan Cook

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EE.UU. vs. México: los republicanos se unen detrás de la guerra más estúpida posible

April 15th, 2023 by Daniel Larison

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US Ignorance: The Geopolitics of India-China Relations and Delhi’s “Balancing Act” in the New Cold War

April 14th, 2023 by Andrew Korybko

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

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***

It’s categorically false and offensive of Rep. Jake Auchincloss to imply that India is China’s junior partner by dint of supposedly being “plugged into the CCP’s operating system”, especially when those two are presently in a very dangerous standoff all across the Himalayas.

***

Moreover, it isn’t truly the case that India is “an aggravating third party factor” when it comes to the US’ interests since those two share concerns about China’s rise and are actively working together in many dimensions to manage it.

Jake Auchincloss, a member of the bipartisan “US House of Representatives Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the US and the Chinese Communist Party”, expressed an embarrassing level of ignorance when it comes to India’s balancing act in the New Cold War. He demanded that that this historically neutral country be “plugged into the US operating system, not the CCP’s operating system”, and condemned it for supposedly being “an aggravating third party factor.”

His neo-colonial demand and counterfactual assessment of its relations with the US confirm that this declining unipolar hegemon continues operating under the influence of false notions when it comes to their bilateral ties. Instead of appreciating its rapid rise as the informal leader of the Global South amidst the impending trifurcation of International Relations, America continues its doomed campaign to pressure Indiainto unilaterally sacrificing its objective interests in order to serve its own.

It’s categorically false and quite frankly offensive of him to imply that India is China’s junior partner by dint of supposedly being “plugged into the CCP’s operating system”, especially when those two are presently in a very dangerous standoff all across the Himalayas. Moreover, it isn’t truly the case that India is “an aggravating third party factor” when it comes to the US’ interests since those two share concerns about China’s rise and are actively working together in many dimensions to manage it.

What appears to have triggered Auchincloss’ rant is India’s proud refusal to voluntarily submit itself to becoming his country’s largest-ever vassal state, which angers America’s neo-colonial policymakers to no end. This likely explains why he lost control and started spewing a bunch of easily debunked falsehoods. By doing so, however, he exposed just how delusional his country’s understanding of India’s balancing act is. This extends credence to rising concerns that the US cannot be considered a reliable partner.

To the contrary, for as much as those two cooperate in managing China’s rise, the US will seemingly never stop pressuring India to become its junior partner. This is an extremely disrespectful stance that stands in stark contrast to Russia’s sincere respect of its decades-long strategic partner’s multi-alignment policy. Not once has the Kremlin ever put forth the demands that the US just did through Auchincloss, which proves that the latter’s so-called “rules-based order” concept is chock-full of contradictions.

Instead of upholding international law and treating all countries as equals like they deserve, this notion is exploited as the basis upon which to arbitrarily impose double standards designed to advance America’s interests. In this particular case, the US regularly warns that the Sino-Russo Entente supposedly wants to coerce other countries into vassalhood status, while that’s precisely what Auchincloss just candidly demanded of India upon declaring that it be “plugged into the US’ operating system”.

In reality, the only “operating system” that India is “plugged into” is its own, exactly as it should be. No country should ever subserviate themselves to any other, nor should any country ever demand that they do. Auchincloss’ rant shows just how embarrassingly ignorant the US remains of India’s balancing act in the New Cold War, which doesn’t bode well for the future of bilateral relations since it very strongly suggests that America will continue pressuring that country into surrendering its strategic autonomy.

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This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

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Video: The Merger of the E.U. and NATO: An Economic Dagger Aimed at the Heart of Russia?

April 14th, 2023 by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

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***

This interview was first published in 2016.

In order to understand Brexit in its full historical context, we must know about the origins and motivations for the formation of the European Union and the forces that have shaped the EU bureaucracy into an arm of the IMF/World Bank-led Wall Street hegemon.

Today Professor Michel Chossudovsky joins us to expose the EU as the imperial project that it always was, and the growing movement against EU domination as an anti-imperial movement of world historical importance.

Transcript

James Corbett: Welcome friends. This is James Corbett of Corbettreport.com

Even people living under the European Union don’t necessarily know what it is, and very few of them know about the deep history going back not just to the Cold War era, but even preceding it that set the groundwork for this organisation and what it has become, so joining us today to help us sort through this and understand better what is really happening in Europe, we are joined once again by the Director for the Centre For Research on Globalization at globalresearch.ca, Michel Chossudovsky. Michel, thank you very much for your time today.

Michel Chossudovsky: Delighted to be on the programme.

JC: Perhaps you can begin by telling us about the real origins of the European Union, not just the origins that everyone knows about – The Treaty of Rome and the Maastricht Treaty, and things of that nature – but maybe the pre-history of the European Union that situates that in the proper context for us to understand what the objective of this union is.

MC: We first have to recall that in the immediate wake of WW2 we had what was called yes the Marshall Plan. It was a reconstruction programme, largely initiated by the United States, and it was also a means for the United States to establish a corporate hub within Western Europe.

While the Marshall Plan was ongoing, we also had the onset of the Cold War, which consisted essentially in isolating the Soviet Union.

The ‘Iron Curtain’ was not strictly a political curtain, it was also an economic curtain, and its main objective was to prevent any kind of trade and investment relations taking place between Western Europe and the Soviet Bloc countries, and ultimately when the European Community was created under the Rome Treaty in 1957, this was essentially a Cold War structure. It was also a US initiative, indirectly, as part of a broader hegemonic project. I think this is coming to light through recent events, though wasn’t clear at the time. What happened is that the European space in the 1950s was essentially divided into three areas. One, you had the first six members of the European Community – The Europe of the Six – and then it started to expand, then you had the European Free Trade Agreement, which re-grouped a number of what we might call neutral countries, and these neutral countries weren’t associated with NATO: they were Scandinavia, Switzerland, Austria, and that formed a separate trade agreement, and I should mention that the European Community as it evolved essentially started to coincide with NATO (the North Atlantic Treat Organisation), which was the main instrument of Cold War geopolitics which was consistently threatening Russia.

Now it’s interesting to note that in recent developments this week, the notion of the EU and NATO more or less merging so to speak, a melding together, is a talking point of analysis and opinion. So that is the background. The Cold War created a situation that isolated Russia and the Soviet Union, and what happened subsequently is that the Soviet Union started to establish trade with other countries, including the Non-aligned Movement, the countries of the 3rd world which had become independent, and also in a sense encroaching on traditional colonial trading relations, because these were former colonies of the West, and then eventually what happened in the wake of the Cold War is that all these structures started to tumble. I should mention that the Soviet Bloc countries had their own trading system which was called COMICON; it was the Council of Mutual Economic Cooperation, which they developed with the countries of Eastern Europe as well as other countries like Vietnam, Cuba, and so on, and then there was also a period of trade with China.

Now, there’s another important element in all this and that is going back to the early 1920s when there was a conference in Genoa, the Genoa Conference, in which nations of Western Europe and the Soviet Union met. The Soviet Union at the time announced its principal of “peaceful co-existence between competing economic systems, and the notion of Socialism in one country.”

They expressed the desire to have trade with the West. Now that was never an option for Western Europe largely as a result of US influence, and I should mention that in the 20s Russia had traded with Germany during the Weimar Republic, but it didn’t have trade with the western powers, which were, of course, supporting the insurrection in Southern Russia. So, that is the background.

Now we’ve reached a point of evolution. First of all, after the Cold War, we saw a large number of new countries entering, and these countries were former members of the Soviet Bloc so to speak – Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and so on – and then there were other countries, which were more on the periphery of the European economy, such as Portugal, Spain, Greece, the Republic of Ireland, which joined the EU and the evolution that took place from the late 50s/early 60s to the 90s was the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Now, why is the Maastricht Treaty so important? Essentially, the Maastricht Treaty embeds a neoliberal economic policy perspective within its Articles of Agreement, but specifically it refers to monetary policy, and it creates conditions whereby the individual member states are not allowed to use monetary instruments to mobilise internal resources and deal with internal debt operations. In other words, you can’t finance your internal development without borrowing money from outside, and now eventually what happened was that the Maastricht Treaty then evolved toward the Eurozone.

Of course not all members of the European Union are members of the Euro Zone, but the Euro Zone essentially means you have a European Central Bank which then controls monetary policy in each of the member states and ultimately creates debt, and that’s the plight let’s say of Greece, it’s the plight of several countries whereby the centralised power of the European Central Bank ultimately creates conditions of economic collapse and mass indebtedness precisely because it disallows countries to use their Central Banks to mobilise resources, and also putting forth this notion of Central Bank, namely that the Central Bank operates separately from the Government, so that is a little bit the background. Today, I would say that the European Central Bank is controlled by Wall Street, and that the same thing is true for the Bank of England: both of them are led by former employees/officials of Goldman Sachs.

JC: So does this mean in this reading that the European Union is still an economic dagger aimed at the heart of Russia, essentially, that this is a form of economic warfare that drives the wedge between Europe and Russia?

MC: I would say yes, I think it does drive a wedge because the European bureaucracy, which really takes its origin with the Lisbon Treaty of 2007 – of course it existed previously – but it provides it with a legal framework, and it prevents individual countries from really having bilateral trade agreements let’s say with other countries without going through the Brussels bureaucracy, and the dynamics today, particularly with the geopolitics, the threats directed against the Russian Federation, NATO’s expansion, what it is essentially is to restore the iron curtain, to restore the economic iron curtain, and at the same time, it is there also to preclude the ability of the Russian Federation to enter into agreements with other countries which are outside the European space such as Brazil, many countries in Africa, and so forth, which they had during the Cold War era in the 1950s.

So essentially it is a policy to isolate Russia from an economic standpoint, and it more or less merges with NATO because NATO is the military arm of the Western Alliance, of the Atlantic Alliance, but it encompasses most of the member states of the European Union, and as a consequence now the confrontation between the West and the Russian Federation is also in the realm of trade, then there’s the issue of sanctions when in fact what is now happening is that the European Union is impoverishing the member states, and I should say there’s another element when I said the neo-liberal agenda is embedded in the European Union, well in effect it really embeds, so to speak, the IMF/World Bank perspective.

The “Washington Consensus” is embedded in the European Union’s bureaucracy and the European Commission, so that when they act in relation to individual countries, they are in effect replicating the actions of the International Monetary Fund in relation, let’s say, to 3rd World countries, except these are not 3rd World countries, and so ultimately what is happening is that the Washington Consensus of the Bretton Woods Institutions, the US Treasury, the Think Tanks – I would add of course also Wall Street – is behind all that, and ultimately what we see unfolding is the US colonisation of the European Union where ultimately this entity is indirectly part of a hegemonic project, and of course the end game is the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership).

It’s the Trade and Investment Atlantic Partnership which is really contiguous to the Atlantic Alliance and military affairs and it would then merge the EU, including the former members of COMICON, into a giant trading agreement encompassing the United States – of course Canada would also be included, but there’s a separate agreement which is called SETA – and the European Union, and essentially that is an imperial project. Now, we have to see how this is going to evolve because the European countries have their own people, their own agendas and their own movements, and there’s increasing awareness of the nature of this project. So, we’ve gone from WWI Genoa Conference to the TTIP. That is the trajectory.

JC: It’s an interesting trajectory and it raises the question the BREXIT vote and the various movements in various European countries that are agitating for leaving the European Union at this moment represents in this view a type of anti-imperialist movement, an attempt to strike a blow against the imperial project, and yet it is portrayed as mindless right wing, neo-Nazi nationalists who just hate immigrants. That’s the way it’s being portrayed. Is there a discrepancy between the consciousness of the people who are involved in this anti European movement and the actual end goal of the anti-European movement?

MC: Well, there are various political cleavages that are operating simultaneously with different agendas, different ideological perspectives, so it’s very difficult to give a straightforward answer to that question.

I would say on the one hand there are people within individual countries that realise that the European Union has destroyed their society and their national project. I think Greece is the most notorious example, but you might add Spain as well and Portugal possibly.

People are starting to realise that the European Union is in fact a form of IMF in disguise and it’s derogating their social programs and their identity as nation states.

Now, there’s another perspective, and I think it’s also a very valid perspective, and that’s that people in Western and Eastern Europe realise their historical links and they still believe in a European project, but that European project is not going to be controlled by the Washington Consensus or the Brussels bureaucrats.

It’s a union of values and people, all of which in effect have common origins. I mean Britain is really created by Scandinavian tribes that invaded the Angles and then the Saxons and then the Normans, and so on, and France is really a construct as a result of the Germanic invasions – the Franks were Germanic.

So the European people have this identity, and I think it’s important that both the nationalism, which is required to maintain economic and social sovereignty by the member states, which would be an exit, let’s say, from the prevailing European Union, that of course is an important undertaking, and the two things are not incompatible, but at the same time is the notion that we should ultimately democratise the European Union, get rid of the bureaucrats, get rid of the Washington Consensus, and build a Western Europe which has links with other countries, with the Russian Federation, with China. and so on and so forth, and then it raises the issue of what kind of society do we really want. Do we want global capitalism, do we want to restore some of the democracies, social democracies, which existed historically, and so on and so forth, but I think that’s the way I would see it evolving at this moment, and of course the main thing is for the European people, whatever their perspective, to oppose the TTIP, because the TTIP is ultimately an instrument of conquest which will essentially transform the European member states into territories of the US imperial project.

JC: It’s a very astute analysis and one that I think cuts a lot deeper and closer to the bone than a lot of the analyses that we see certainly in the mainstream media, even in a lot of the progressive press and other places that are simply reacting in a knee jerk fashion to what’s going on here, rather than looking at that more holistic picture, so I thank you for bringing that perspective to the table. Michel Chossudovsky of Globalresearh.ca, thank you for your time.

MC: Thank you very much and delighted to be on the program again.

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Glasgow Against NATO

April 14th, 2023 by Konrad Rękas

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***

“We have been asked here if we have any permission to demonstrate on the Glasgow Green. I have replied: we, the representatives of the working-class parties, the true heirs of the Red Clyde, we have the historic and permanent right to express our views right here, with no additional legalisation!” — This is how George Galloway, the leader of No2NATO and the Workers Party of Britain, opened the rally launching the No2NATO Scotland.

As previously with the London conference, organisers have been refused of any venue they had tried to book for a meeting. Threats and intimidation have been mixed with surrealistic demands of ‘anti-terrorist requirements’ or impossible amounts of insurance.

“This is yet another attack on our freedom of speech, on the freedom of those who want to discuss the danger facing our country from an expansion of the terrible consequences of a war with Russia.” – Colin Buchanan from the Glasgow Against NATO Action Committee has commented.

In these circumstances, instead of a conference, an over two-hour rally was held, combined with the Free Speech zone, following the Glasgow Green tradition, as exactly there, John Maclean organised his first anti-war protest in 1914 and in 1917 the workers of Glasgow marched to the Glasgow Green to express their opposition to the imperialist, capitalist war and to show support for the revolution in Russia.

“Our meeting here confirms one obvious fact: NATO has no friends in Glasgow!” George Galloway emphasised. “Of course, there is a group of people misled by the false ‘nobility of the Ukrainian cause’. Others are driven by a blind hatred of Russia, the same as once held against the Soviet Union. Most, however, are simply misled, deceived about the true course of events in Ukraine, the history of the current conflict, and especially its most drastic, concealed moments, such as the fact that in 2014 there was a coup d’état in Kiev; that the legally elected , democratic president was overthrown; that parliament was terrorised by armed neo-Nazi groups to introduce the law denying 40 percent of Ukraine’s population the right to use their own native Russian language. Hardly anyone knows that any peace attempts, like the Minsk Agreements, constituting a compromise, guaranteeing the rights of ethnic minorities, were from the beginning treated as an extortion of time needed for armaments and preparation of further war, in which openly Nazi battalions such as the infamous AZOV are fighting on the side of Kiev. Their activity is part of the long tradition of Nazism in Ukraine, known from the mass genocide committed during World War II by the Ukrainian Nazis against the Polish and Jewish minorities, and against Ukrainian anti-fascists. These are all historical facts that you won’t get from the BBC or from politicians of any of the major parties!” George Galloway pointed.

Capital Against Commodities

No2NATO and WPB leader has focused on the systemic and global context of the current conflict. – We can observe the great war of capital against the commodities.

The wars that capital is losing, hallelujah! – Galloway has pointed. In his opinion, the real motives of NATO’s aggressive actions are related to Washington’s strategic interests. –

The United States cannot stand the thought of China-Russian cooperation, which is joined by others: India, Iran, even Saudi Arabia. The departure from the dollar in international transactions, a completely natural mechanism within which any country has the right to sell its own products for its own currency, is a deadly threat to liberal, global capitalism! This is how, thanks to the adoption of de-dollarisation by subsequent states, the time when Americans could harm, impose sanctions and invade anyone, anywhere in the world, ends. Let’s also look at it from our British perspective, understanding that America has really given us nothing. The US only helps in the economic suicide of the UK, and preferably of the whole Europe.

That is why there are protests everywhere.

In the BBC, someone may have mumbled that there are demonstrations in France because of the increase of the retirement age. Really? Does the generation of twenty-year-olds go out to fight on the streets for doubts about when exactly they will receive a benefit that in fact may be never paid by the liberal capitalism anymore?

No, these young people protest together with the elders against a complete lack of perspective, against the trap into which we are all being drawn into by the collapsing system of globalist capitalism, which uses an invariably aggressive imperialism to defend itself. Similar protests are also taking place in Germany and Slovakia, everywhere where the bankruptcy and impending failure of this system is perceived. Therefore, we are also organising ourselves, we are also protesting, but not as one of the next pacifist movements, God bless them, but we are fighting movement. Fighting against NATO before this Pact drags us into World War III – Galloway has concluded.

They don’t tell us the truth.

Participants of the rally actively expressed their opposition to the NATO policy and the Tory UK Government, holding banners “Glasgow against NATO. No to War, Build the Peace”, “Stop the War. Drive Britain out of NATO”, “No to War Powers. Resist the Surveillance State”, “Seek Peace – Non-Alignment – Neutrality – Gey out of the War-bloc!”, “No Money for WAR, End the Sanctions Now”, “Negotiations, Not More Weapons”.

“There is no other way to the peace than demilitarisation of Ukraine, she should never be a part of NATO and there should be no missiles bases pointed Moscow. How would Americans react if Mexico or Cuba have such missiles? We know exactly how, because we remember the 1962 Crisis, when Washington directly warned that such a closure of the threat to American borders leads to the World War 3. So, it absolutely ridiculous to support and fund the war which is obvious threat to the Russian people. And what is this war really about? It’s a war for a regime change in Moscow, which America wants. American want to dominate the world as they have done since 1990, invading country after county: Yugoslavia, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. They seem to think that they have a right to do that and no one takes them to court. They puts charged against Putin, because he rescued children from Donbas, taking them to the peaceful area, but there are no criminal charges against Bush, Obama and others who launched wars of aggression repeatedly. In fact Americans are not prepared to see any other country standing against them. China is now powerful country with powerful economy, and Americans cannot accept that. So, this is not just a war against the Russians, but the last analyses attack the Chinese as well. Americans want only unipolar world they could dominated. There has been never a threat to the independence and existence and Ukraine, Russians just had to intervene when Azov and other Nazi-battalions have been prepared to attack Donbas and kill the Russian speaking people. They do not tell us that in media, they try to scare us with Russians just to hide that Americans want to keep the world for they own. And the UK is also responsible, not only following American line, but in fact being even more aggressive, That was Boris Johnson who has especially came to Kiev to tell Zelensky not to accept the peace deal which was near to signed. British are supplying tanks, jets, missiles, founding them all. Plus there are no talks of sending the European peacekeeper force to Ukraine. Instead we are to see the invasion of EU forces supported by America, what leads us directly to the nuclear war. That is why it is so important to start the peoples movement to do not let it happen, to stop this war, and to introduce peace deal which is democratic and recognises all the people rights to own language and culture.” Sandy McBurney said.

United Self-defence Front

Being a Pole living in Scotland I have been asked for a few words about noticed involvement of Polish Government in imperialist politics, I have emphasised the existential threat to our nation coming from being just a second line of the Western aggression against Russia. I recalled the historical and contemporary experience of Ukrainian Nazism, as well as the enormous economic burden resulting the decision to co-finance further fights in Ukraine, as well as from the mass displacement of millions Ukrainian to our country. “Only the cooperation and joint action of European nations, organising mass protest movements against NATO and war policy, such as in Scotland, England, Ireland and Germany, will allow us to effectively resist the catastrophe that is upon us all!” I have pointed.

As it had been planned, the rally has inaugurated the activities of No2NATO Scotland and similar actions are organised all over the Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland.

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The Unmasking of the “Pentagon Leak” that Won’t Go Away

April 14th, 2023 by Joachim Hagopian

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***

On April 6^th and 7^th, The New York Times published articles addressing back-to-back leaks of more than 100 top secret Pentagon intelligence documents and photos suddenly appearing on Twitter, Telegram and other social media sites, including Russian. Right away I am suspicious of anything coming out of The New York Times, along with the Washington Post the biggest, overrated CIA-controlled propaganda newspaper that hires and pays money to robotic non-journalists to lie for the evil Deep State cabal. So, with The Times the source revealing this alleged plot breaching US national security, it’s already suspect.

These supposed highly sensitive classified documents revealed current alleged US plans and strategies to bolster Ukraine’s war effort against Russia as well as US interests in the Middle East, Africa and growing conflict in Pacific Asia with China. US intelligence officials admit that the leaked information is damaging to the five I-nations – US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The report maintains that some of the disclosed material is so sensitive that it cannot be shared with foreign allies. One analyst expressed concern that this back-to-back major breach is “the tip of the iceberg,” with more to come.

According to The Times, one of the intel slides revealed “an alarming assessment of Ukraine’s faltering air defense capabilities.” The reveal could even alter current plans regarding Kiev’s long-hyped plan of a spring counteroffensive, or whether there will even be one.

On Monday April 10^th, The Washington Post, the NYT’s sister propaganda whore, chimed in to cast serious doubt that the US even believes Ukraine has enough army and ammo capable of pulling off a spring counteroffensive. In addition to troop sizes, the classified materials also disclose arms-delivery schedules, logistical war data and each side’s death tolls with supposedly inflated Ukraine fatality totals and deflated numbers regarding Russian losses. Essentially, it shows that the US/NATO has been running Kiev’s entire military operation in its proxy war against Putin way before his Special Military Operation in February 2022 right up to this moment.

Though documents showed up on Russian social media, the leaker(s) behind the alleged security breach are speculated to be potential allied saboteurs coming from within the Kiev military. It’s only a matter of time before UFA insiders turn against the Zelensky regime that’s simply following orders to use them as West’s cannon fodder, providing more than enough motivation to expedite the inevitable Russian victory that would humanely spare further carnage reaching the last Ukrainian soldier still standing.

As a relevant, related aside, according to Seymour Hersh, America’s foremost investigative journalist who recently exposed the US terrorist act of war blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline recently wrote on Substack on April 12^th that

“Zelensky and his entourage embezzled at least $400 million from US funds meant for diesel procurement last year,” per RT. The over $100 billion US taxpaid dollars committed to this bottomless pit of Ukraine is being criminally misspent and wasted with full intent on plunging humanity into a nuclear world war. You can’t get any more diabolical and eviler than that.

Both Ukraine and Russia have accused one other of releasing the documents as a disinformation campaign leading up to their highly anticipated spring offensives. Meanwhile, the CIA and Pentagon scramble to find out who’s responsible. An emerging consensus in DC is that it originated as an American source photographing top secret material prior to releasing them online. So, in this latest “who done it” melodrama, everybody’s still busily playing guessing games to point the finger. The secret documents also apparently embarrass the US caught spying on allies like Israel, with claims the Mossad is behind the unrest against the Netanyahu regime, while South Korea’s reluctant to replenish US artillery shells’ nearly depleted stockpile because Seoul doesn’t want them ending up in Ukraine. Another document shows growing collaboration and US concern over United Arab Emirates’ ties with Moscow, including Russia’s intelligence agency FSB.

The US government is currently “in crisis mode” as allies’ inquiries press the Biden regime for answers, while the DC idiots are bumbling trying to figure out how classified Pentagon documents got leaked over a month ago initially to gaming website chatrooms. Both the Defense Department and Justice Department are investigating. Meanwhile, a number of allied nations have since come forth – Israel, UK, South Korea, Bulgaria as well as Ukraine, are all now pushing back, claiming that the documents are false, providing plausible deniability.

Speaking of denial, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III is on the hotseat attempting to explain how his leaked top-secret DoD documents as far back as January this year began appearing on the internet and why it took so long till April to finally realize the leak. Austin said he never knew they were online until April 6^th, which if he’s honest, a rare moment I might add, means that for at least two months they were afloat without the big boss even aware.

What kind of national security defense is that? It took this fool over two months before standing before the media stammering away feebly trying to explain why, what, where, whom and how to explain to a waiting world. We should all know by now of Lloyd Austin’s incompetence, but his long track record shows a pervasive pattern of premeditated acts of evil with his mandated death jab against his own armed forces that he’s directly in charge of, and that his job performance thus far in charge of US national defense has also been atrocious with the still wide open unsecured southern border, and his doubling and tripling down on defending Ukraine as a lost cause from the get-go never posing any threat to US national security but only Russia’s because of his actions.

As his assistant squad leader his freshman year at West Point, I can see how the little robot grew into the big robot rewarded by his boss Obama by allowing ISIS terrorists to spread on the loose throughout the Middle East and how the four-star general rode the diversity over meritocracy wave right to the top of the predatory food chain. After all, Lloyd Austin is willing to say or do whatever his masters order him to do. A month ago I exposed his treasonous record and shoddy character in a jameshfetzer.org article. Pathetic Austin response to the big question:

Well, they were somewhere in the web, and where exactly and who had access at that point we don’t know. We simply don’t know at this point. I will tell you that we take this very seriously and we will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it.

How ‘bout doing us all a big favor Mr. Secretary and crawl under the nearest rock where you belong. A question he isn’t yet having to answer but will is why Lloyd Austin has been secretly deploying NATO troops to kill Russian soldiers in Ukraine for over a year.

Evidence of US/UK/Polish/NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine have repeatedly surfaced over this last year which I covered, so it should not come as such a big surprise to learn that the Pentagon leak includes one classified document showing further proof that near 100 NATO forces were captured in a photograph taken in Ukraine on March 1^st, 2022, of which half were British per multiple media reports out as of Tuesday April 11^th. So, this should end the false notion that all along Ukraine has merely been a US/NATO “proxy” war because it factually has not. Clearly, it’s always been the West fighting against Russia war.

Why? Because the Deep State’s cabal criminality has been exposed and is going down. The planetary bloodline controllers know their power and control are shrinking in Ukraine and they’ve grown mighty desperate as of late. That’s precisely why they’ve gone frantic, crazily trying to establish their one world enslavement fantasy sooner than later. But with critical mass being reached worldwide, they will fail but first it appears they’ll put us through hell on earth.

Yet another bone of contention over the now infamous leaked Pentagon documents resulted on Wednesday April 12^th after Rothschild owned Reuters posted an article “exclusive” insisting that Serbia is committed to sending lethal aid to Ukraine or has already done so. As the only European nation refusing to apply sanctions against Moscow over Russia’s Special Military Operation, Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic called it is a lie, adding:

We have already denied these lies more than ten times, and will do it again. Serbia has not sold, nor will it sell weapons to either the Ukrainian or Russian side, or to countries surrounding this conflict.

Apparently, the small European nation of Serbia, determined to retain cordial relations with Russia while maintaining a strict policy of neutrality during the Ukraine conflict is not easy with so much browbeating pressures coming from the West to join the “hate Russia” club. More words from the defense minister:

It is obvious that someone’s goal is to destabilize our country and drag it into a conflict we are not participating in. We are consistently following our established policy [of non-involvement].

This US secret document scandal invites US adversary China to weigh in on the matter through China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin:

We noted that many media outlets have pointed out that these leaked US military documents clearly show the deep involvement of the US in the Ukraine crisis. They also show once again that the US has long used its tech edge to conduct indiscriminate secret theft, surveillance and eavesdropping on countries in the world, including its allies.

The US government is reeling from this latest public relations disaster. This top secret document trove blatantly exposing the US Deep State’s ultra-reckless strategies is the most damaging US leak in recent US history, at least since WikiLeaks in 2010 released 400,000 documents and videos exposing America’s Iraq and Afghanistan War crimes, compliments of then Army Private Bradley Manning, released from detention in March 2020 as trans Chelsea Manning, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is still languishing in the British Belmarsh dungeon. The West always hypocritically boasts its false sell of so-called “democratic freedom” while America’s Free Press ain’t so free anymore, because it expired years ago. Prior to the 2010 leak, the biggest one before that was 1971’s Pentagon Papers after military analyst Daniel Ellsberg released the truth about the Vietnam War lies, effectively marking a key turning point in the mounting public opposition against that unjustified bloody war.

Just as the Deep State let The New York Times break the embarrassing leak story, the Deep State turns to The Washington Post to get the scoop revealing through an anonymous teenage witness informant’s description of who this leaker likely is. On Wednesday evening April 12^th, WaPo reports that the leaker is a man in his 20s who works on “a US military post” and shared top secret documents on the chat app Discord.The alleged leaker who on the web goes by the moniker “OG” shared his novel findings with his fellow young gamer friends. One of his teenage online friends with parental consent apparently contacted the Washington Post to divulge information he knew about the alleged leaker. But right away the anomaly of timing shows up at the article outset:

A young, charismatic gun enthusiast who shared highly classified documents with a group of far-flung acquaintances searching for companionship amid the isolation of the pandemic.

Though all earlier media has reported the documents shared on the internet cover events from January to March this year, incongruency arises in sharing documents with “acquaintances searching for companionship amid the isolation of the pandemic.” The pandemic’s been over for more than a year. Then the article goes on to state:

United by their mutual love of guns, military gear and God, the group of roughly two dozen — mostly men and boys — formed an invitation-only clubhouse in 2020 on Discord.

The teenager reveals that his idol is in his early to mid-20s. Fawning over OG’s exploits, the informant describes OG as:

He’s fit. He’s strong. He’s armed. He’s trained. Just about everything you can expect out of some sort of crazy movie… He yells a series of racial and antisemitic slurs into the camera, then fires several rounds at a target.

With mass shooting false flags occurring every few days now in America, and the Deep State agenda calling for stricter gun control/confiscation, leave it to the WaPo rag to depict the guilty culprit leaker as a Bible thumping, gun loving white supremacist extremist, busily grooming his young extremist gun cult, fitting to the T the exact psychological profile that the Biden regime claims is America’s most serious, dangerous threat – domestic terrorist extremists just like OG. How timely and convenient this political propaganda piece becomes when the FBI Director Christopher Wray just got caught colluding with church parishes to spy on the “extremist” threat that Christians pose at the same time that a Christian school in Nashville gets shot up. We the People know all too well that every US citizen’s most dangerous criminal threat right now in America is our own treasonous fascist totalitarian government, proven guilty of committing democide against its fellow American citizens with mandated COVID kill shots. Biden’s highly unpopular illegit regime has been flagrant in its politically weaponizing criminalization of dissent as America’s #1 threat, epitomized by the pending passage of the draconian RESTRICT ACT and the arming of 87,000 newly recruited IRS agents targeting middle class dissenters who are determined to restore our constitutional rights. This is the real takeaway story from this Mockingbird CIA controlled Washington Post hit piece.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from all the recently exposed public domain secret documents is that they all reflect the fact that the US soberly knows Ukraine’s defeat is inevitable.

US neocons can no longer pretend a Kiev triumph is in the cards, especially coming from the two biggest liars in print – WaPo and The Times, previously always projecting how weak Russia and Putin are and how stalwartly robust the little underdog-that-could Ukraine is.

Reality is finally sinking in, with even the world’s two biggest fake newspaper giants now admitting it. It’s time for the DC neocons, before they push humanity off Armageddon cliff, to face reality that the American Empire and its sole superpower hegemonic status both militarily and economically, are now finally history, kaput, end of story. Resisting it only makes for heavier karmic debt, turning the world bully into the world pariah, shunned and humiliated by an increasing majority of nations on this planet that have long awaited the out-of-control warring nation to fall.

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Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate, former Army officer and author of “Don’t Let the Bastards Getcha Down,” exposing a faulty US military leadership system based on ticket punching up the seniority ladder, invariably weeding out the best and brightest, leaving mediocrity and order followers rising to the top as politician-bureaucrat generals designated to lose every modern US war by elite design. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In Los Angeles he found himself battling the largest county child protective services in the nation within America’s thoroughly broken and corrupt child welfare system.

The experience in both the military and child welfare system prepared him well as a researcher and independent journalist, exposing the evils of Big Pharma and how the Rockefeller controlled medical and psychiatric system inflict more harm than good, case in point the current diabolical pandemic hoax and genocide. As an independent journalist for the last decade, Joachim has written hundreds of articles for many news sites, like Global Research, lewrockwell.com and currently https://jameshfetzer.org. As a published bestselling author on Amazon of a 5-book volume series entitled Pedophilia & Empire: Satan, Sodomy & the Deep State, his A-Z sourcebook series exposes the global pedophilia scourge is available free at https://pedoempire.org/contents/. Joachim also hosts the Revolution Radio weekly broadcast “Cabal Empire Exposed,” every Friday morning at 6AM EST (ID: revradio, password: rocks!).

Featured image is from Struggle-La Lucha

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Pentagon “Leak” Theatrics Continue as US Finds Scapegoat. FBI Arrests “Alleged Perpetrator”

April 14th, 2023 by Drago Bosnic

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***

The pseudo-WikiLeaks 2.0 has just been stepped up a notch as the FBI arrested the perpetrator who shared the “secret docs” through a Discord server. The 21-year-old Airman First Class Jack Douglas Teixeira of the Massachusetts Air National Guard was apprehended on April 13 for his involvement with the “top-secret leak”. The controversial “Pentagon docs” contain what the US mainstream propaganda machine claims is “an array of national security secrets, including the breadth of surveillance the United States is able to conduct on Russia”.

Apparently, Teixeira posted the “classified documents” in an invitation-only Discord (mainly gaming-focused platform) chat group called “Thug Shaker Central”. According to the Washington Post, which reportedly talked to other members of the group, “classified Pentagon documents containing intelligence collected by the US and several other countries were posted by a man claiming to be a ‘military base’ worker”. The chat room apparently had no more than 20 members, mostly young men, who discussed video games, memes, movies and politics. It also included users from both Russia and Ukraine.

At some point during 2022, a user known as OG posted “a message laden with strange acronyms and jargon” and claimed to “know secrets that the government withheld from ordinary people”. One of the unnamed members of the chat group told the Washington Post that “at the time, few people read the note” and added that “OG claimed he spent at least some of his day inside a secure facility of a ‘military base’ that prohibited cell phones and other electronic devices and copied the classified documents”, but insisted OG wasn’t hostile to the US or working for any foreign government.

The Washington Post report also presented OG as somewhat of an anarchist, since he supposedly “thought US law enforcement and intelligence were a sinister force that sought to suppress citizens and keep them in the dark” and complained about “government overreach”. The claim could very well be an attempt to portray OG as “a disgruntled serviceman who simply wanted to share dirty state secrets with the American people”. This would reinforce the idea that OG was supposedly acting on his own, further covering up the role of US intelligence in the so-called “leak”.

The Washington Post report never mentioned OG’s real name, but other media later revealed that he was indeed Jack Teixeira. Despite their own claims that he wasn’t involved with foreign intelligence, the US propaganda machine, never the ones to let a perfect opportunity for Russophobia to slip by, were quick to blame Russia for the “leak”. Reuters insists that three “anonymous” US officials “confirmed that Russia or pro-Russian groups could be behind the leak”. Expectedly, no evidence whatsoever was presented to back up such claims. But then again, why worry? Who could possibly even contemplate the idea that any US official would ever lie about anything?

The New York Times also reported extensively on Teixeira’s case. According to NYT, Airman Teixeira was trained as a cyber transport systems specialist, a job that could also entail keeping his unit’s communication networks running. He was assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base. NYT report admits that “military officials refused to disclose information on what in Airman Teixeira’s duties would necessitate him having access to daily slides about Ukraine, much less the daily deluge of intelligence reports from the CIA, NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence”.

Some US officials told NYT that Teixeira could also have gained access to “secret docs” through daily emails on a classified computer network, where those emails might’ve been automatically forwarded to other people. On the other hand, members of the Discord group chat told NYT that the aforementioned documents were “purely informative”, but started to get wider attention only when one of the teenage members of “Thug Shaker Central” took them and posted a few dozen “secret documents” to a public online forum where they were picked up by several Russian-language Telegram channels.

In short, the US propaganda machine wants us to believe that a 21-year-old intelligence technician who just graduated and held the rank of airman (equivalent of private in the US Army) was privy to top-secret intelligence on the Kiev regime’s offensive plans, Russia, South Korea, China and other global hotspots. NYT itself also reluctantly admitted that “the arrest raised questions about why such a junior enlisted airman had access to such an array of potentially damaging secrets, why adequate safeguards had not been put in place after earlier leaks and why a young man would risk his freedom to share intelligence about the war in Ukraine with a group of friends he knew from a video game social media site”.

US media claim that the Pentagon was completely unaware of the “leak” and learned of it only after the documents began surfacing on Telegram and Twitter. Apparently, the Pentagon even tried to hack and delete some of the posts about the documents, “but was ultimately unsuccessful”. Again, it’s quite bemusing that an institution wasting well over $850 billion every year is incapable of removing such “crucial information” from several Telegram channels almost exclusively run by civilian enthusiasts with no budget. The sheer amount of logical disparities indicates that this particular case is highly controversial (at best), while there’s an extremely strong possibility it’s all an elaborate counterintelligence operation.

Apart from the more obvious geopolitical benefits such as pressuring countries like Egypt to distance themselves from Russia or further disrupting Moscow’s relations with the traditionally pro-Russian Serbia(once again accused of weapons shipments to Kiev), there is a very strong domestic incentive to push the “leak” narrative. For instance, the infamous CNN argues that “the leak spotlights major ongoing US intelligence vulnerabilities“, which can hardly be interpreted as anything else but an attempt to strengthen government control in the US. The “leak” could also be used to accelerate the adoption of the truly totalitarian RESTRICT Act that the disillusioned former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard described as PATRIOT Act 2.0, only worse.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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Trading with the Enemy. Seymour Hersh

April 14th, 2023 by Seymour M. Hersh

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The Ukraine government, headed by Volodymyr Zelensky, has been using American taxpayers’ funds to pay dearly for the vitally needed diesel fuel that is keeping the Ukrainian army on the move in its war with Russia. It is unknown how much the Zelensky government is paying per gallon for the fuel, but the Pentagon was paying as much as $400 per gallon to transport gasoline from a port in Pakistan, via truck or parachute, into Afghanistan during the decades-long American war there.

What also is unknown is that Zelensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments. One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, “although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from the Ukraine.”

“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. “And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it.

Many government ministries in Kiev have been literally “competing,” I was told, to set up front companies for export contracts for weapons and ammunition with private arms dealers around the world, all of which provide kickbacks. Many of those companies are in Poland and Czechia, but others are thought to exist in the Persian Gulf and Israel. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are others in places like the Cayman Islands and Panama, and there are lots of Americans involved,” an American expert on international trade told me.

The issue of corruption was directly raised with Zelensky in a meeting last January in Kiev with CIA Director William Burns. His message to the Ukrainian president, I was told by an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting, was out of a 1950s mob movie. The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky’s greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because “he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals.”

Burns also presented Zelensky with a list of thirty-five generals and senior officials whose corruption was known to the CIA and others in the American government. Zelensky responded to the American pressure ten days later by publicly dismissing ten of the most ostentatious officials on the list and doing little else. “The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official told me.

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The Privatization of War: U.S. Defense Contractors Plan Trip to Taiwan

April 14th, 2023 by Ryo Nakamura

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***

Our thanks to Nikkei News, Excerpts from Nikkei Report:

Around 25 U.S. defense contractors plan to send representatives to Taiwan in early May to discuss joint production of drones and ammunition, US Taiwan Business Council President Rupert Hammond-Chambers told Nikkei, as Washington explores various options to help bolster the island’s defenses.

The delegation will be led by Steven Rudder, the retired commander of the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific. This would be the first large group of envoys focused specifically on the defense industry to visit Taiwan from the U.S. since 2019.

In addition to talks with representatives from the Taiwanese defense industry, it is looking to meet with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.

Hammond-Chambers said that Tsai is focused on bolstering Taiwan’s defense industry and that the trip is meant “to promote defense industry cooperation with Taiwan.”

The U.S. delegation will look for opportunities to provide advanced technology and jointly develop drones with Taiwanese companies. Several American defense contractors with drone expertise will take part in the upcoming trip.

Drones can be used for both surveillance and armed attacks and are considered a critical tool in deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. They are also relatively cheap and can easily be deployed at a large scale.

U.S. companies typically require government authorization to jointly produce weapons with overseas partners.

…

Washington is open to the idea largely because American defense contractors are already struggling to keep up with obligations at home and abroad. The U.S. still needs to deliver around $19 billion in promised arms to Taiwan. Companies began boosting domestic production capacity following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but it will take time before these additions come online.

… “In a major regional conflict — such as a war with China in the Taiwan Strait — the U.S. use of munitions would likely exceed the current stockpiles of the U.S. Department of Defense,” Jones wrote. He proposed co-production with overseas partners as a potential solution.

In parallel with the defense industry efforts, the Biden administration is urging some European countries to help arm Taiwan. Almost all of the weaponry that Taiwan has procured from overseas in recent years has come from the U.S.

“It is a widespread opinion of the Biden administration that Taiwan should be able to procure from a variety of different sources,” the Biden administration official said

“We understand areas where it might make sense for some of our allies and partners who manufacture certain capabilities, for those capabilities to be made available to Taiwan,” the official said. “In those cases, we definitely are reaching out to those partners.”

Three sources involved in the defense partnership between the U.S. and Taiwan said Washington has been reaching out mostly to European countries.

Sweden could be one. The Excalibur guided artillery shell, developed jointly by U.S. Raytheon Missiles & Defense and Swedish BAE Systems Bofor, can be used in precision strikes and is seen bolstering Taiwan’s defensive capabilities.

To Read complete Nikkei News article click here

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Kiev Reconsidering Idea of “Reconquesting” Crimea

April 14th, 2023 by Uriel Araujo

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According to a Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft’s director, Anatol Lieven, Kiev is now divided regarding the idea of “reconquesting” Crimea. Andriy Sybiha, for instance, Ukraine’s presidential staff’s deputy head, has stated that “we are ready to open a diplomatic page to discuss this issue [with Moscow].” The hard truth is that worn out Ukraine has no capacity to reclaim the peninsula. This is a divisive matter, however. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself so far has ruled out any (much needed) peace talks until Kiev reclaims Crimea and Donbass.

Admitting that much of Crimea’s population has historically identified with Russia, Lieven quotes a recent interview given by Ukrainian nationalist Mykhailo Podolyak, who is an advisor to Zelensky. In that interview, he says that “we have to eradicate everything Russian” and that “we should not have a dialogue about whether a person has the right to use the Russian language or not.” He adds that “pro-Russian” Crimeans “should be expelled, and some should be imprisoned”. Somewhat similar views were voiced by Zelensky in 2021.

Describing Podolyak’s vision as potentially “tantamount to ethnic cleansing”, Lieven notes that such views are not shared by most Ukrainians with whom he spoke during his recent trip. According to a July 2022 poll, 58 percent of the Ukrainians interviewed said Crimea should return to Ukraine: this is a majority, but “not a huge one”, Lieven notes.

On March 16, 2014, the Crimean status referendum asked voters whether they wanted to rejoin Russia. With an 83 percent voter turnout, the official result was a 96.7 percent vote in favor of it. That result, according to the Washington Post, at the time, was widely expected because “the region has deep historical ties to Russia.” According to the same 2014 news report, “in Crimea, residents began celebrating (…). In Sevastopol, drivers with Russian flags flying from their car windows sped through the city honking horns.”

After the Crimea referendum, the region was incorporated into the Russian Federation. Whatever one thinks of it, the fact remains that the UN International Court of Justice’s decision on Kosovo’s 2008 unilateral declaration of independence set a precedent. That court ruled that the territory of a given state, in exercising its self-determination right, is not obliged to apply to that state’s central authorities for permission to declare its own sovereignty. The Western double standard is thus undeniable: in yet another instance of it, European powers, of course, have neither recognized Catalonia’s independence nor sanctioned Madrid.

Self-determination of “peoples” in practice is not as simple as it may appear to be: the matter is complicated by ethnopolitical and legal issues and by the very ethnological definition of what a “people” is. Post-Soviet borders and frontiers are a complicated business, and there are a number of disputed zones today in Eastern Europe and in the Caucasus. Soviet Union collapse was not just the end of socialism, but also the disintegration of a multi-ethnic and multinational territorial governance system. The region has a tradition of multinational federalism.

Ukrainian, however, is the only state language in Ukraine since the 1996 Constitution and any bilingual system is forbidden. In his 2014 monograph, the late Mikhail Guboglo, a Russian Academy of Sciences ethnologist, wrote that Kiev’s russophobic policy of rejecting bilingualism and the Ukrainian political elite aversion to federalism were making Ukraine an “ethnocratic” state, thereby alienating most Crimeans.

The crisis the country has faced since 2014 did not start with the Crimean referendum of course – nor with the Donbass civil war. According to Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, it started with the 2014 US backed coup that overthrew pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. The roots of it in turn lie in a post-independence Ukraine’s political elite attempt at “nation-building”, which increasingly took the form of rejecting all things Russian, culminating in the 2014 Maidan, a ultranationalist revolution also backed by Washington.

However, besides all that, the 2014 crisis can also be traced to the 1990 Western “broken promise” and NATO expansion. After the West supported an aggressively russophobic government in Kiev, NATO’s intended expansion into Ukraine could only be seen as the final straw. Even Pope Francis famously claimed in May 2022 that NATO “barking” at Russia’s door had provoked Moscow into acting. Washington would never tolerate Chinese or Russian bases in Mexico, for one thing. All the above is part of the larger context that one should always keep in mind.

Describing Kiev’s policy on Crimea as one that has been both uncompromising and “increasingly indefensible”, Lieven argues that it has trapped the Ukrainian government and that now many within it no longer see the “reconquest” of Crimea as a “nonnegotiable goal”. Lieven claims that, even though such voices for negotiation and reconciliation are growing louder, in any case, Zelensky would face great “difficulties” domestically should he support any cease-fire that would leave Crimea “in Russian hands.”

This is an understatement: one needs only to recall the fact that, on May 27, 2019, Dmytro Yarosh, then adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhny, bluntly stated that President Zelensky would “lose his life” and “hang on a tree on Khreshchatyk” if he ever “betrayed” Ukrainian nationalists by negotiating an end to the civil war in Donbass. One can assume the same reasoning applies to Crimea. Yarosh is a former commander of the far-right Ukrainian Volunteer Army. Considering Ukraine’s persistent problem with extremist right-wing violence and the well known neo-Nazism of the key US-backed Azov battalion, one can safely conclude that any Kiev concession aiming at a cease-fire would face domestic challenges and could escalate internal tensions.

Such is the “Frankenstein monster”, as Lieven calls it, faced by Eastern Slavic populations today amid a proxy regional conflict that haunts the world with the specter of nuclear escalation.

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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

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America’s Children Are Facing Unprecedented Epidemics! 54% of US Youth Are Chronically Ill.

April 14th, 2023 by Children’s Health Defense

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***

Chronic Health Conditions Among Children

Overview: A national study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2010, zeroed in on the deterioration in children’s health over time. From 1988 to 2006, there was a doubling of the prevalence of four types of chronic conditions (obesity, asthma, behavior/learning problems and “other” physical conditions), which rose from 12.8% to 26.6% of American children and youth.

A 2011 Academic Pediatrics study “estimated 43% of U.S. children (32 million) currently have at least 1 of 20 chronic health conditions assessed, increasing to 54.1% when overweight, obesity or being at risk for developmental delays are included.” Pediatric autoimmune conditions are also on the rise. Autism, ADHD, asthma and allergies have doubled since that time, with autism now one in 30 children in some regions in the U.S.

“In 2020–21, the number of students ages 3–21 who received special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was 7.2 million, or 15 percent of all public school students. Among students receiving special education services, the most common category of disability was specific learning disabilities (33 percent).”

Mounting evidence indicates environmental toxins such as heavy metals, pesticides and herbicides as the principal culprits, while studies link vaccines and toxic vaccine ingredients to a wide range of adverse health outcomes, including seizures, neurodevelopmental disorders and infant death. As the medical, public health, and government circles remain silent on the social and economic fallout from these toxic exposures, American children have never been so sick.

4 in 10 Teens suffering from depression

Children experiencing depression often feel persistently sad, hopeless or irritable, and can feel worthless, useless or guilty. They can display self-injury and self-destructive behavior, and may even think about suicide or plan for suicide.

1 in 5 Children suffering from obesity

Children with obesity are more likely to develop other serious health problems, including heart disease, breathing problems and type 2 diabetes. They are also more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression and low self-esteem.

1 in 5 Teens has seriously considered suicide

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for teens and young adults, ages 10-34. Suicide and suicide attempts cause serious emotional, physical, and economic impacts. People who attempt suicide and survive may experience serious injuries that can have long-term effects on their health. They may also experience depression and other mental health concerns. When people die by suicide, their surviving family and friends may experience shock, anger, guilt, symptoms of depression or anxiety, and may even experience thoughts of suicide themselves.

1 in 6 Children ages 2-8 suffering from a developmental disorder

Individuals with a developmental disorder may experience dysfunction in memory, perception, attention, language, problem-solving, or social interaction. Developmental disorder may interfere with learning. They usually begin during early childhood, may impact day-to-day functioning, and can last a person’s lifetime.

1 in 10 Children suffering from anxiety

Anxiety can impact both physical and mental health. It can affect the immune, cardiovascular, urinary, digestive and respiratory systems, and it can increase the risk of infection. Anxiety disorders can cause people to feel ashamed that they cannot live their lives as everyone else does. In turn, this may lead to increased social isolation and further withdrawal.

1 in 10 Children suffering from ADHD

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a chronic condition that affects millions of children and often continues into adulthood. ADHD includes a combination of persistent problems, such as difficulty sustaining attention, hyperactivity and impulsive behavior. Children with ADHD may also struggle with low self-esteem, troubled relationships and poor performance in school.

1 in 12 Children has asthma

Asthma is a serious disease causing wheezing, difficulty breathing, and coughing. Over a lifetime, it can cause permanent lung damage. Every year, 1 in 6 children with asthma visits the emergency department, with about 1 in 20 children with asthma hospitalized for asthma.

1 in 13 Children has a food allergy

More than 40% of children with food allergies in the United States have been treated in the emergency department. When a person has a food allergy, the body’s immune response can be severe, as in the case of anaphylaxis, a sudden and severe allergic reaction that may cause death.

1 in 44 Children has autism

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability. People with ASD may behave, communicate, interact, and learn in ways that are different from most other people. ASD begins before the age of 3 years and can last throughout a person’s life.

1 in 285 Children is diagnosed with cancer by age 20

Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease for children in America. One out of 6 children with cancer in America do not survive five years. When a child is diagnosed with cancer, the impact is far spreading. Often a parent has to quit their job to provide care to the child, providing transportation to and from treatments, dealing with the many missed school days, caring for siblings and handling insurance and financial matters.

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Russia’s Gasoline Exports Jump as African Buyers Replace Europe

April 14th, 2023 by Tsvetana Paraskova

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Russian gasoline exports surged in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2022, as Moscow placed growing volumes of fuels with African customers after the EU embargo on seaborne imports of Russia’s fuels.

Russian gasoline exports were estimated at 1.9 million tons in the first quarter of 2023, up compared to 1.3 million tons exported in the same period of 2022, per Refinitiv data cited by Reuters. Analysts at Kpler have estimated that Russia’s exports of gasoline surged to 2.2 million tons in Q1 2023, from around 1.5 million tons for the same period a year ago.

The EU banned—effective February 5—seaborne imports of Russian refined oil products and around 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian diesel, naphtha, and other fuels had to find a home elsewhere if Moscow wanted to continue getting money for those products. The flow of Russian fuels to third countries is also regulated by price caps, similar to the cap on Russian crude if the trade is carried out through Western insurers. The cap on Russian diesel is $100 per barrel, while the cap on lower-cost petroleum products is set at $45 a barrel.

Ahead of the EU ban on Russian petroleum products, Russia began to divert its oil product cargoes to North Africa and Asia.

North Africa has become a key export outlet of Russia’s diesel and other petroleum products, while Russia is also boosting exports of its diesel to Latin America.

So far, tanker tracking suggests that Russia has been relatively successful in placing most of its fuels in markets other than Europe, even though Moscow has been forced to divert cargoes to distant markets to maintain export volumes, Gibson Shipbrokers said in a market report a month after the EU embargo on Russian fuels came into effect.

“However, much depends on Russia’s export strategy and ability to maintain refining runs and Western Governments’ willingness to allow Russian products to be rebranded and re-exported overseas,” Gibson noted.

“In any case, the refined products price cap has created additional inefficiencies in refined products trade, which are unlikely to be reversed anytime soon, if ever.”

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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews.

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Young Pilot Phil Thomas Died Suddenly. At Least Three Pilot Deaths, Seven Pilot Incapacitations in Past Month.

April 14th, 2023 by Dr. William Makis

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April 10, 2023 – A young pilot, Phil Thomas, who was a graduate of Flight Training Pilot academy in Cadiz, Spain (FTEJerez), has died suddenly. A close friend described his death as a “tragic and unanticipated loss (click here)

Third pilot death in a month:

I have previously reported on the following pilot deaths:

Pilot death – March 17, 2023 – 39 year old Westjet Pilot Benjamin Paul Vige died suddenly in Calgary

Pilot death – March 11, 2023 – British Airways pilot died of heart attack in crew hotel in Cairo before a Cairo to London flight (name & age not released)

7 recent pilot incapacitations in-flight:

March 25, 2023 – TAROM Flight RO-7673 TSR-HRG diverted to Bucharest as 30 yo pilot had chest pain, then collapsed (click here)

March 22, 2023 – Southwest Flight WN6013 LAS-CMH diverted as pilot collapsed shortly after take-off, replaced by non-Southwest pilot (click here)

March 18, 2023 – Air Transat Flight TS739 FDF-YUL first officer was incapacitated about 200NM south of Montreal (click here)

March 13, 2023 – Emirates Flight EK205 MXP-JFK diverted due to pilot illness hour and a half after take-off (click here)

March 11, 2023 – United Airlines Flight UA2007 GUA-ORD diverted due to “incapacitated pilot” who had chest pains (click here)

March 11, 2023? – British Airways (CAI-LHR) pilot collapsed in Cairo hotel and died, was scheduled to fly Airbus A321 from Cairo to London (click here)

March, 3, 2023 – Virgin Australia Flight VA-717 ADL-PER Adelaide to Perth flight was forced to make an emergency landing after First Officer suffered heart attack 30 min after departure. (click here)

Epoch Times article on pilot incapacitations

I helped Epoch Times prepare an excellent article on these pilot incidents in-flight, which was published on March 30, 2023 (click here)

Recent Flight Attendant incapacitations

April 8, 2023 – American Airlines AAL2170 (inbound to CLT) pilot reported a medical issue after a flight attendant had passed out

April 6, 2023 – Delta Flight 537 (LAX-ATL) made an emergency landing in Oklahoma city after nine passengers at 4 flight attendants got sick mid flight. Three flight attendants were taken to the hospital, and the head stewardess was “having trouble breathing at some point.” (click here)

Recent Passenger Medical Emergencies in-flight

Apr. 11, 2023 – Air China CI012 (TPE-JFK) – a passenger in business class died inflight (click here)

Apr. 7, 2023 – LATAM Flight JJ8130 (GRU-SCL) – a male passenger died on a flight from Sao Paulo to Santiago. The crew and a doctor performed CPR but without success (click here)

Apr. 6, 2023 – Royal Air Maroc Flight AT208/RAM208M (CMN-YUL) made an emergency landing in Moncton Airport, after passenger suffered a serious medicalissue (click here)

Apr. 3, 2023 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight PK-783 (KHI-YYZ) made an emergency landing in Oslo due to passenger becoming unconscious (click here)

Apr. 2, 2023 – Jet2 Flight LS756 (TFS-MAN) was forced to make an emergency landing in Newquay after a female passenger fell ill, required urgent assistance from medical professionals, and subsequently died (click here)

Mar. 15, 2023 – Jet2 Flight LS633 (EMA-TFS) was forced to make an emergency landing because a male passenger had a heart attack on board during flight (click here)

Mar. 13, 2023 – IndiGo Flight 6E-1736 (DEL-DOH) was forced to make an emergency landing in Karachi, Pakistan – after a passenger died (click here)

Mar. 5, 2023 – United Airlines Flight UA2609 (LAX-BOS) – a 33 year old passenger was arrested after trying to open an emergency exit and attempting to stab a flight attendant with a broken metal spoon. He threatened to “kill every man on this plane” (click here)(click here)

Mar. 3, 2023 – Bombardier Challenger 300 – lawyer Dana Hyde, a prominent White House official in the Clinton and Obama administrations, died in-flight due to “severe turbulence”. (click here)

Feb. 26, 2023 – Delta Flight 2290 (FLL-BOS) – a female passenger had a medical emergency and lost consciousness (click here)

Feb. 26, 2023 – Jetstar JQ30 (BKK-MEL) – plane was diverted to a remote airport due to passenger medical emergency (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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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

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Republicans Rally Behind the Stupidest Possible War

April 14th, 2023 by Daniel Larison

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The “peace president” is at it again:

Now a candidate, Trump is reviving his hawkish instincts toward the drug lords. He has already vowed to deploy U.S. special forces to take on drug cartels, “just as we took down ISIS and the ISIS caliphate.”

In one policy video released by his campaign, Trump said that if reelected, he would “order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare, and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure and operations.”

As I have said before, attacking the cartels would achieve nothing. Anyone that calls for military action as a “solution” in this case automatically discredits himself. It is telling that Trump and many other Republican hawks have latched on to one of the stupidest policy ideas available. Some of the cheerleaders for a cartel war are the usual reflexive hawks, and some cosplay as antiwar politicians, but they are united behind the absurd belief that the drug war needs even more militarism. Even if you knew nothing else about their foreign policy views, this would be enough to confirm that their judgment is abysmal.

Trump likens a cartel war to fighting terrorists, but this ignores how terrorist groups have often flourished and spread during the “war on terror.” Look at the Sahel to see how militarized “solutions” have contributed to making the region much less stable and much more violent. Military action can weaken and even destroy a certain group, but it does nothing to address the conditions that cause people to join radical armed groups. It would be even less effective in stopping the supply of illegal narcotics, since it can’t do anything about the demand that drives the drug trade. The drug war is already an endless failure, and the introduction of U.S. forces into Mexico would just make it more destructive.

When otherwise hawkish politicians feign skepticism about U.S. involvement in a war somewhere, it seems as if they have to compensate for this by jumping on the bandwagon for even more reckless and indefensible interventionism. We saw a lot of this in the ‘90s when Republicans that were generally a lot more hawkish than Clinton used the Balkan interventions as occasions to complain that he was ignoring the “real” threats, by which they usually meant Iraq or Iran. We see some of it again today when quasi-skeptics of U.S. policy in Ukraine are quick to remind us that they want the U.S. to gear up for a much bigger direct conflict with China. They are deeply concerned about being in the frying pan because it will prevent the U.S. from jumping straight into the fire.

The problem here isn’t just that there are hardly any consistent opponents of senseless and unnecessary military interventions in the Republican Party, but that these politicians follow through only on their threats of escalation. You can’t trust that Trump will ever get the U.S. out of any war, but can believe him when he says he wants to “bomb the hell” out of this or that target. When it comes right down to it, the antiwar talk from these people is just empty talk, but their threats of escalation are in earnest. If Trump and others are agitating for launching attacks inside Mexico, we should assume that they intend to act on this if they get the chance.

The article reminds us that this isn’t just a Trump problem. One might think Trump’s talk of attacking targets in Mexico would create an opening for someone in the potential field of Republican presidential candidates to criticize Trump for his deranged militarism, but instead the only ones talking about this basically agree with Trump:

Ramaswamy also said he backs an authorization for the use of military force for “specific” groups: “If those cartels meet the test for qualifying as a domestic terrorist organization for the purpose of freezing their assets, I think that qualifies them for the U.S. president to view them as an eligible target for the use of authorized military force.”

Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor and among the more moderate foreign policy voices in his party, openly supports the foreign terrorist organization label for the cartels. “They meet the definition,” he said weeks before announcing his entrance into the 2024 field this month.

The supporters of attacking the cartels have unsurprisingly not thought through the predictable negative consequences that their war would have. Among other things, it would cause huge numbers of people to flee the areas where the U.S. launches attacks, and many of them would probably try to seek refuge in the United States. If they think the migrant crisis is bad now, this would be practically guaranteed to make it much worse. The intensified violence and displacement would further destabilize Mexico, and it would likely make U.S. cities along the border much less safe. The U.S. is usually insulated from most of the worst spillover effects of its unnecessary wars because it has fought almost all of them on the other side of the world, but that won’t be possible when the war is on our doorstep. Even if many Americans don’t care that intervening in Mexico would be flagrantly illegal and wrong, they will care when it blows up in our faces.

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Featured image: Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador from MILENIO broadcast of press conference on July 4, 2022

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Disgrace of the “Democratic Left”: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Does not Want to “Offend the Neocons”

April 14th, 2023 by Karsten Riise

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***

An interesting interview with AOC gives us important insights into the US Left. See this.

It shows that AOC is hollow – she wants to do career in the Democrat party – not offend the Neocons and the élite in the party (which she is not) and still sound progressive while being nothing.

AOC and the Left don’t have a program how to move USA forward – no social model, if you like. The US Left hasn’t got the faintest idea about how to make the US work for everybody. How should the economy work? How should the state (which they admire) make life better for people? Only with hand-outs? Or in some other way as well? And how is that supposed to work economically and practically? AOC has not idea. And not to embarrass her, her sympathetic interviewer also doesn’t talk about it either.

AOC and the Left also don’t have a stance on US military spending and US military engagements either – a trillion dollars for military and Ukraine and Taiwan all doesn’t exist in AOCs world.

Trillions for military and billions on Ukraine are no issue, this money isn’t taken from social purposes, because just print some more. War used to be a top-theme for the Left. Not anymore. A war with Russia and the edging war with China and the resulting devastation is no issue for AOC to even hint at in a side-remark. For G*d’s sake, don’t offend the Neocon élite running her party – that might detract from her career prospects. She saw how she and the Left were bashed by the real party-leaders with a hammer the first and last time they even tried to hint at talks about Ukraine.

All AOC can muster is a little hiccup about medicine and some whisper that the climate-agenda should have been more vigorous but that its still more than nothing.

This is symptomatic – instead of engaging in real politics and issues, which she cannot, AOC diverts the attention and anger of her base to something purely symbolic like a judge who happens to be conservative.

AOC is becoming a disgrace.

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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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Why the Media Don’t Want to Know the Truth About the Nord Stream Blasts

April 14th, 2023 by Jonathan Cook

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***

No one but the terminally naïve should be surprised that security services lie – and that they are all but certain to cover their tracks when they carry out operations that either violate domestic or international law or that would be near-universally rejected by their own populations.

Which is reason enough why anyone following the fallout from explosions last September that ripped holes in three of the four Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea supplying Russian gas to Europe should be wary of accepting anything Western agencies have to say on the matter.

In fact, the only thing that Western publics should trust is the consensus among “investigators” that the three simultaneous blasts deep underwater on the pipelines – a fourth charge apparently failed to detonate – were sabotage, not some freak coincidental accident.

Someone blew up the Nord Stream pipelines, creating an untold environmental catastrophe as the pipes leaked huge quantities of methane, a supremely active global-warming gas. It was an act of unrivaled industrial and environmental terrorism.

If Washington had been able to pin the explosions on Russia, as it initially hoped, it would have done so with full vigor. There is nothing Western states would like more than to intensify world fury against Moscow, especially in the context of NATO’s express efforts to “weaken” Russia through a proxy war waged in Ukraine.

But, after the claim made the rounds of front pages for a week or two, the story of Russia destroying its own pipelines was quietly shelved. That was partly because it seemed too difficult to maintain a narrative in which Moscow chose to destroy a critical part of its own energy infrastructure.

Not only did the explosions cause Russia great financial harm – the country’s gas and oil revenues regularly financed nearly half of its annual budget – but the blasts removed Moscow’s chief influence over Germany, which had been until then heavily dependent on Russian gas. The initial media story required the Western public to believe that President Vladimir Putin willingly shot himself in the foot, losing his only leverage over European resolve to impose economic sanctions on his country.

But even more than the complete lack of a Russian motive, Western states knew they would be unable to build a plausible forensic case against Moscow for the Nord Stream blasts.

Instead, with no chance to milk the explosions for propaganda value, official Western interest in explaining what had happened to the Nord Stream pipelines wilted, despite the enormity of the event. That was reflected for months in an almost complete absence of media coverage.

When the matter was raised, it was to argue that separate investigations by Sweden, Germany and Denmark were all drawing a blank. Sweden even refused to share any of its findings with Germany and Denmark, arguing that to do so would harm its “national security.”

No one, again including the Western media, raised an eyebrow or showed a flicker of interest in what might be really going on behind the scenes. Western states and their compliant corporate media seemed quite ready to settle for the conclusion that this was a mystery cocooned in an enigma.

Isolated and Friendless

It might have stayed that way forever, except that in February, a journalist – one of the most acclaimed investigative reporters of the past half-century – produced an account that finally demystified the explosions. Drawing on at least one anonymous, highly placed informant, Seymour Hersh pointed the finger for the explosions directly at the US administration and President Joe Biden himself.

Hersh’s detailed retelling of the planning and execution of the Nord Stream blasts had the advantage – at least for those interested in getting to the truth of what took place – that his account fitted the known circumstantial evidence.

At a Senate hearing, top US diplomat Victoria Nuland celebrated the Nord Stream 2 pipeline bombing:

"Senator Cruz, like you, I am, and I think the administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea." pic.twitter.com/KS5OM4N165

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) January 27, 2023

Key Washington figures, from President Biden to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his senior neoconservative official Victoria Nuland – a stalwart of the murky U.S., anti-Russia meddling in Ukraine over the past decade – had either called for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines or celebrated the blasts shortly after they took place.

If anyone had a motive for blowing up the Russian pipelines – and a self-declared one at that – it was the Biden administration. They opposed the Nord Stream 1 and 2 projects from the outset – and for exactly the same reason that Moscow so richly prized them.

My latest: If, as seems likely, the US was behind the pipeline blasts, it shows it's ready to turn the whole of Europe into a battlefield – and bully, betray and potentially sacrifice the continent’s population as cruelly as it has treated the Global South https://t.co/cIN1INfiOQ

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) October 6, 2022

In particular, the second pair of pipelines, Nord Stream 2, which was completed in September 2021, would double the amount of cheap Russian gas available to Germany and Western Europe. The only obstacle in its path was the hesitancy of German regulators. They delayed approval in November 2021.

Nord Stream meant major European countries, most especially Germany, would be completely dependent for the bulk of their energy supplies on Russia. That deeply conflicted with U.S. interests. For two decades, Washington had been expanding NATO as an anti-Moscow military alliance embracing ever more of Europe, to the point of butting up aggressively against Russia’s borders.

The Ukrainian government’s covert efforts to become a NATO member – thereby destroying a long-standing mutual and fragile nuclear deterrence between Washington and Moscow – were among the stated reasons why Russia invaded its neighbor in February last year.

Nearly a year into the Ukraine war, the western narrative of an 'unprovoked attack' by Moscow has become impossible to sustain https://t.co/xTaHEibKax

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) January 10, 2023

Washington wanted Moscow isolated and friendless in Europe. The goal was to turn Russia into Enemy No. 2 – after China – not leave Europeans looking to Moscow for energy salvation.

The Nord Stream explosions achieved precisely that outcome. They severed the main reason European states had for cozying up to Moscow. Instead, the U.S. started shipping its expensive liquified natural gas across the Atlantic to Europe, both forcing Europeans to become more energy dependent on Washington and, at the same time, fleecing them for the privilege.

But even if Hersh’s story fitted the circumstantial evidence, could his account stand up to further scrutiny?

Peculiarly Incurious

This is where the real story begins. Because one might have assumed that Western states would be queuing up to investigate the facts Hersh laid bare, if only to see if they stacked up or to find a more plausible alternative account of what happened.

Dennis Kucinich, a former chair of a U.S. Congressional investigative subcommittee on government oversight, has noted that it is simply astonishing no one in Congress has been pushing to use its powers to subpoena senior American officials, such as the secretary of the Navy, to test Hersh’s version of events. As Kucinich observes, such subpoenas could be issued under Congress’s Article One, Section 8, Clause 18, providing “constitutional powers to gather information, including to inquire on the administrative conduct of office.”

Similarly, and even more extraordinarily, when a vote was called by Russia at the United Nations Security Council late last month to set up an independent international commission to investigate the blasts, the proposal was roundly rejected.

If adopted, the UN Secretary-General himself would have appointed expert investigators and aided their work with a large secretariat.

Three Security Council members, Russia, China and Brazil, voted in favor of the commission. The other 12 – the U.S. and its allies or small states it could easily pressure – abstained, the safest way to quietly foil the creation of such an investigative commission.

Excuses for rejecting an independent commission failed to pass the sniff test. The claim was that it would interfere with the existing investigations of Denmark, Sweden and Germany. And yet all three have demonstrated that they are in no hurry to reach a conclusion, arguing that they may need years to carry out their work. As previously noted, they have indicated great reluctance to cooperate. And last week, Sweden once again stated that it may never get to the bottom of the events in the Baltic Sea.

As one European diplomat reportedly observed of meetings between NATO policymakers, the motto is: “Don’t talk about Nord Stream.” The diplomat added: “It’s like a corpse at a family gathering. It’s better not to know.”

It may not be so surprising that Western states are devoted to ignorance about who carried out a major act of international terrorism in blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, considering that the most likely culprit is the world’s only superpower and the one state that can make their lives a misery.

But what should be more peculiar is that Western media have shown precisely no interest in getting to the truth of the matter either. They have remained completely incurious to an event of enormous international significance and consequence.

It is not only that Hersh’s account has been ignored by the Western press as if it did not even exist. It is that none of the media appear to have made any effort to follow up with their own investigations to test his account for plausibility.

“Act of War”

Hersh’s investigation is filled with details that could be checked – and verified or rebutted – if anyone wished to do so.

He set out a lengthy planning stage that began in the second half of 2021. He names the unit responsible for the attack on the pipeline: the U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center, based in Panama City, Florida. And he explains why it was chosen for the task over the U.S. Special Operations Command: because any covert operation by the former would not need to be reported to Congress.

In December 2021, according to his highly placed informant, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan convened a task force of senior administration and Pentagon officials at the request of Biden himself. They agreed that the explosions must not be traceable back to Washington; otherwise, as the source noted: “It’s an act of war.”

The CIA brought in the Norwegians, stalwarts of NATO and strongly hostile to Russia, to carry out the logistics of where and how to attack the pipelines. Oslo had its own additional commercial interests in play, as the blasts would make Germany more dependent on Norwegian gas, as well as American supplies, to make up the shortfall from Nord Stream.

By March last year, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the precise site for the attack had been selected: in the Baltic’s shallow waters off Denmark’s Bornholm Island, where the sea floor was only 260ft below the surface, the four pipelines were close together and there were no strong tidal currents.

A small number of Swedish and Danish officials were given a general briefing about unusual diving activities to avoid the danger that their navies might raise the alarm.

The Norwegians also helped develop a way to disguise the U..S explosive charges so that, after they were laid, they would not be detected by Russian surveillance in the area.

The story no one wanted told. Seymour Hersh reveals how the US blew up the Nordstream gas pipelines, one of the great environmental disasters of our time. I'm guessing Hersh published on Substack because no establishment media outlet dared touch his expose https://t.co/B2IxQj5kuh

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) February 9, 2023

Next, the U.S. found the ideal cover. For more than two decades, Washington has sponsored an annual NATO naval exercise in the Baltic every June. The U.S. arranged that the 2022 event, Baltops 22, would take place close to Bornholm Island, allowing the divers to plant the charges unnoticed.

The explosives would be detonated through the use of a sonar buoy dropped by plane at the time of President Biden’s choosing. Complex arrangements had to be taken to make sure the explosives would not be accidentally triggered by passing ships, underwater drilling, seismic events or sea creatures.

Three months later, on September 26, the sonar buoy was dropped by a Norwegian plane, and a few hours later three of the four pipelines were put out of commission.

Disinformation Campaign

The Western media’s response to Hersh’s account has perhaps been the most revealing aspect of the entire saga.

It is not just that the establishment media have been so uniformly and remarkably reticent to dig deeper into making sense of this momentous crime – beyond making predictable, unevidenced accusations against Russia. It is that they have so obviously sought to dismiss Hersh’s account before making even cursory efforts to confirm or deny its specifics.

The knee-jerk pretext has been that Hersh has only one anonymous source for his claims. Hersh himself has noted that, as with other of his famous investigations, he cannot always refer to additional sources he uses to confirm details because those sources impose a condition of invisibility for agreeing to speak to him.

That should hardly be surprising when informants are drawn from a small, select group of Washington insiders and are at great risk of being identified – at great personal cost to themselves, given the U.S. administration’s proven track record of persecuting whistleblowers.

But the fact that this was indeed just a pretext from the establishment media becomes much clearer when we consider that those same journalists dismissive of Hersh’s account happily gave prominence to an alternative, highly implausible, semi-official version of events.

In what looked suspiciously like a coordinated publication in early March, The New York Times and Germany’s Die Zeit newspapers printed separate accounts promising to solve “one of the central mysteries of the war in Ukraine.” The Times headline asked a question it implied it was about to answer: “Who Blew Up the Nord Stream Pipelines?”

Instead, both papers offered an account of the Nord Stream attack that lacked detail, and any detail that was supplied was completely implausible. This new version of events was vaguely attributed to anonymous American and German intelligence sources – the very actors, in Hersh’s account, responsible both for carrying out and covering up the Nord Stream blasts.

In fact, the story had all the hallmarks of a disinformation campaign to distract from Hersh’s investigation. It threw the establishment media a bone: the chief purpose was to lift any pressure from journalists to pursue Hersh’s leads. Now they could scurry around, looking like they were doing their job as a “free press” by chasing a complete red herring supplied by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Which is why the story was widely reported, notably far more widely than Hersh’s much more credible account.

So what did the New York Times’ account claim? That a mysterious group of six people had hired a 50ft yacht and sailed off to Bornholm Island, where they had carried out a James Bond-style mission to blow up the pipelines. Those involved, it was suggested, were a group of “pro-Ukrainian saboteurs”– with no apparent ties to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy – who were keen to seek revenge on Russia for its invasion. They had used fake passports.

The Times further muddied the waters, reporting sources that claimed some 45 “ghost ships” had passed close to the site of the explosion when their transponders were not working.

The crucial point was that the story shifted attention away from the sole plausible possibility, the one underscored by Hersh’s source: that only a state actor could have carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. The highly sophisticated, extremely difficult operation needed to be concealed from other states, including Russia that were closely surveilling the area.

Now the establishment media was heading off on a completely different tangent. They were looking not at states – and most especially not the one with the biggest motive, the greatest capability and the proven opportunity.

Instead, they had an excuse to play at being reporters, visiting Danish yachting communities to ask if anyone remembered the implicated yacht, the Andromeda, or suspicious characters aboard it, and trying to track down the Polish company that hired the sailing boat. The media had the story they preferred: one that Hollywood would have created, of a crack team of Jason Bournes giving Moscow a good slapping and then disappearing into the night.

Welcome Mystery

A month on, the media discussion is still exclusively about the mysterious yacht crew, though – after reaching a series of dead-ends in a story that was only ever meant to have dead-ends – establishment journalists are asking a few tentative questions. Though, let us note, most determinedly not questions about any possible U.S. involvement in the Nord Stream sabotage.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper ran a story last week in which a German “security expert” wondered whether a group of six sailors was really capable of carrying out a highly complex operation to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines. That is something that might have occurred to a less credulous newspaper a month earlier when the Guardian simply regurgitated the Times’ disinformation story.

But despite the security expert’s skepticism, the Guardian is still not eager to get to the bottom of the story. It conveniently concludes that the “investigation” conducted by the Swedish public prosecutor, Mats Ljungqvist, will be unlikely ever to “yield a conclusive answer”.

Or as Ljungqvist observes: “Our hope is to be able to confirm who has committed this crime, but it should be noted that it likely will be difficult given the circumstances.”

Hersh’s account continues to be ignored by the Guardian – beyond a dismissive reference to several “theories” and “speculation” other than the laughable yacht story. The Guardian does not name Hersh in its report or the fact that his highly placed source fingered the U.S. for the Nord Stream sabotage. Instead, it notes simply that one theory – Hersh’s – has been “zeroing on a Nato Baltops 22 wargame two months before” the attack.

It’s all still a mystery for the Guardian – and a very welcome one by the tenor of its reports.

The Washington Post has been performing a similar service for the Biden administration on the other side of the Atlantic. A month on, it is using the yacht story simply to widen the enigma rather than narrow it down.

The paper reports that unnamed “law enforcement officials” now believe the Andromeda yacht was not the only vessel involved, adding: “The boat may have been a decoy, put to sea to distract from the true perpetrators, who remain at large, according to officials with knowledge of an investigation led by Germany’s attorney general.”

The Washington Post’s uncritical reporting surely proves a boon to Western “investigators”. It continues to build an ever more elaborate mystery, or “international whodunnit,” as the paper gleefully describes it. Its report argues that unnamed officials “wonder if the explosive traces – collected months after the rented boat was returned to its owners – were meant to falsely lead investigators to the Andromeda as the vessel used in the attack.”

The paper then quotes someone with “knowledge of the investigation”: “The question is whether the story with the sailboat is something to distract or only part of the picture.”

How does the paper respond? By ignoring that very warning and dutifully distracting itself across much of its own report by puzzling whether Poland might have been involved too in the blasts. Remember, a mysterious Polish company hired that red-herring yacht.

Poland, notes the paper, had a motive because it had long warned that the Nord Stream pipelines would make Europe more energy dependent on Russia. Exactly the same motive, we might note – though, of course, the Washington Post refuses to do so – that the Biden administration demonstrably had.

The paper does inadvertently offer one clue as to where the mystery yacht story most likely originated. The Washington Post quotes a German security official saying that Berlin “first became interested in the [Andromeda] vessel after the country’s domestic intelligence agency received a ‘very concrete tip’ from a Western intelligence service that the boat may have been involved in the sabotage”.

The German official “declined to name the country that shared the information” – information that helpfully draws attention away from any US involvement in the pipeline blasts and redirects it to a group of untraceable, rogue Ukraine sympathizers.

The Washington Post concludes that Western leaders “would rather not have to deal with the possibility that Ukraine or allies were involved”. And, it seems the Western media – our supposed watchdogs on power – feel exactly the same way.

“Parody” Intelligence

In a follow-up story last week, Hersh revealed that Holger Stark, the journalist behind Die Zeit’s piece on the mystery yacht and someone Hersh knew when they worked together in Washington, had imparted to him an interesting additional piece of information divulged by his country’s intelligence services.

Hersh reports: “Officials in Germany, Sweden, and Denmark had decided shortly after the pipeline bombings to send teams to the site to recover the one mine that has not gone off. [Holger] said they were too late; an American ship had sped to the site within a day or two and recovered the mine and other materials.”

Holger, Hersh says, was entirely uninterested in Washington’s haste and determination to have exclusive access to this critical piece of evidence: “He answered, with a wave of his hand, ‘You know what Americans are like. Always wanting to be first.’” Hersh points out: “There was another very obvious explanation.”

Hersh also spoke with an intelligence expert about the plausibility of the mystery yacht story being advanced by the New York Times andDie Zeit. He described it as a “parody” of intelligence that only fooled the media because it was exactly the kind of story they wanted to hear. He noted some of the most glaring flaws in the account:

Any serious student of the event would know that you cannot anchor a sailboat in waters that are 260 feet deep’ – the depth at which the four pipelines were destroyed – ‘but the story was not aimed at him but at the press who would not know a parody when presented with one.’”

Further:

You cannot just walk off the street with a fake passport and lease a boat. You either need to accept a captain who was supplied by the leasing agent or owner of the yacht, or have a captain who comes with a certificate of competency as mandated by maritime law. Anyone who’s ever chartered a yacht would know that.’ Similar proof of expertise and competence for deep sea diving involving the use of a specialized mix of gases would be required by the divers and the doctor.”

And:

How does a 49-foot sailboat find the pipelines in the Baltic Sea? The pipelines are not that big and they are not on the charts that come with the lease. Maybe the thought was to put the two divers into the water’– not very easy to do so from a small yacht – ‘and let the divers look for it. How long can a diver stay down in their suits? Maybe fifteen minutes. Which means it would take the diver four years to search one square mile.’”

The truth is that the Western press has zero interest in determining who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines because, just like Western diplomats and politicians, media corporations don’t want to know the truth if it cannot be weaponized against an official enemy state.

The Western media are not there to help the public monitor the centers of power, keep our governments honest and transparent, or bring to book those who commit state crimes. They are there to keep us ignorant and willing accomplices when such crimes are seen as advancing on the global stage the interests of Western elites – including the very transnational corporations that run our media.

Which is precisely why the Nord Stream blasts took place. The Biden administration knew not only that its allies would be too fearful to expose its unprecedented act of industrial and environmental terrorism but that the media would dutifully line up behind their national governments in turning a blind eye.

The very ease with which Washington has been able to carry out an atrocity – one that has caused a surge in the cost of living for Europeans, leaving them cold and out of pocket during the winter, and added considerably to existing pressures that have been gradually deindustrializing Europe’s economies – will embolden the U.S. to act in equally rogue ways in the future.

In the context of a Ukraine war in which there is the constant threat of a resort to nuclear weapons, where that could ultimately lead should be only too obvious.

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Jonathan Cook is a MintPress contributor. Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.

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What Are the Russians Saying About the Intelligence Leak in the USA?

April 14th, 2023 by Dr. Gilbert Doctorow

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The Russians took an immediate interest in the intelligence leak scandal in the USA because so many of the documents deal with the readiness of their own and Ukrainian military forces for the long awaited “counterattack” by Kiev which may be decisive in the outcome of the war. They were instantly asking whether there was not some intrigue here, an attempt to loll them into overconfidence given that the situation of the Ukrainian side was portrayed in these documents as unpromising to dire, especially as regards air defense and supply of munitions. However, on close examination, the intelligence experts who have appeared on Russian state television now are saying they have no doubt the documents are genuine and there was no reason to believe they were issued as disinformation for Moscow. Now they have redirected their attention to other aspects of the leak.

The first among these questions being asked in Moscow is: what was the intent of the leakers who are assumed by consensus to be Americans from within the 1,000 or so persons who had access to these top secret documents online, on specially programmed computers. In this matter, I was particularly impressed by one explanation that was set out at length by a panelist on yesterday’s Evening with Vladimir Solovyov show. The leak is viewed as an attempt to discredit Joe Biden. To discredit the biological Joe Biden and also what the Russians are calling the “collective Joe Biden,” meaning the team of assistants who do the thinking for Joe and feed him his lines to read.

The documents leaked show that the Biden Administration, through Lloyd Austin, through Antony Blinken is lying day after day about the real situation of the Ukrainian military. Even yesterday Austin spoke on camera after talking to his Ukrainian counterpart Reznikov and insisted that everything is just fine in Ukraine, that they have received the assistance they need and are ready to proceed with the counter-offensive.

The next level of analysis of the documents that I hear from the Russian intelligence experts and also from their counterpart in Israel Yakov Kedmi, who appears regularly on the Solovyov show, is that the documents demonstrate the vast flow of information coming in to the CIA every day from their illegal espionage, wiretapping and the like. They also demonstrate the low level of analytical competence of the CIA and other US intelligence analysts who are poring over this information flow. This comes out from the uncritical acceptance by the American intelligence reports of casualty figures and other highly relevant statistics they are receiving solely from one source, Kiev, and are passing on to the top leadership at face value.

The normal, historical and universal problem with intelligence is that the sources and summaries are good but they are wasted on incompetent political leaders who pay no attention or do not comprehend what they are being told by their subordinates responsible for intelligence. The American situation seems still more damaging: not only are the political bosses who are receiving the intelligence dimwits but the information being handed to them is of poor quality.

The Russians are not at all pleased with this situation. It strengthens the argument on their side by those who say that insanity rules in the USA, that you have to be prepared for every eventuality in escalation of the war.

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Gilbert Doctorow is an independent political analyst based in Brussels. He chose this third career of ‘public intellectual’ after finishing up a 25 year career as corporate executive and outside consultant to multinational corporations doing business in Russia and Eastern Europe which culminated in the position of Managing Director, Russia during the years 1995-2000. He has publishied his memoirs of his 25 years of doing business in and around the Soviet Union/Russia, 1975 – 2000.

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Tags: CIA, intelligence, Pentagon leaks, Russia, United States

Video: Ukraine War. Russian Forces Deployed to Conquer Bakhmut. Fighting is Ongoing

April 14th, 2023 by South Front

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***

Wagner fighters continue the operation to encircle and destroy the Ukrainian grouping in Bakhmut.

The head of Wagner PMC confirmed that 80% of the city is under Russian control, including all administrative buildings, factories and plants. In their turn, Ukrainian units, including various Special Forces, nationalist battalions reinforced by numerous foreign mercenaries, continue to hold their positions in the residential areas in the west of the city.

Units of the Russian Ministry of Defense, including the Airborne Forces, covered the flanks in the Bakhmut region, allowing Wagner fighters to concentrate on the street battles and in Khromovo.

On the northern outskirts of Bakhmut, fighting continues near Bogdanovka and Orekhovo-Vasilyevka. The Ukrainian military notes that Wagner fighters intensified pressure in Khromovo. In case of their breakthrough, the threat of encirclement of the entire Ukrainian grouping in Bakhmut will grow.

Despite Russian fire control of the last road, the Ukrainian command continues to send military reserves from Chasov Yar to the city. As a result, Russian artillery destroys Ukrainian columns before the equipment is deployed on the positions.

On the southern outskirts of Bakhmut, fighting is ongoing near Krasny, where units of the Russian Ministry of Defense have taken up the military positions. Russian units are yet to advance in this area to cut the road to Konstantinovka. At the same time, Ukrainian attempts to counterattacks also do not bring any result.

Fierce fighting continues on the streets of Bakhmut. According to Ukrainian military analysts, the Russians have recently taken control of a railway station, an elevator, an agricultural lyceum and the Avangard stadium. Russian military correspondents say that the fighting for the railway station in the center of Bakhmut continues. Wagner sources are yet to confirm their control of the facility.

On April 13, Wagner fighters raised their flag on the building of the district administration on Sibirtsev Street. They also advanced in areas south of the AZOM industrial zone in the north and in residential areas east of the , in the south.

The Ukrainian military is losing military positions and dozens of fighters on a daily basis. Bakhmut grinder is also destroying professional foreign military. Just in recent days, the deaths of several foreign mercenaries in the city were confirmed. A young neo-Nazi fighter from the United States, Edward Walter Wilton, died from shrapnel in his head. He was an ideological anti-Semite and an admirer of Hitler, who called for the destruction of “the entire Jewish race”.

Georgian mercenary Arsen Ketsbeya from Zugdidi followed the example of his Nazi comrade from the US.

A German militant of the International Legion of Ukraine died of his wounds in hospital in Kramatorsk. According to unconfirmed statements, his name was Peter Hermann.

Heavy losses and supply problems undermine the ability of Ukrainian militants to continue long-term defense, but they are still showing fierce resistance in the remaining positions.

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The Cobalt-Lithium Gold Rush and the East Palestine Disaster. Hazardous Materials, A Litany of Anomalies

April 14th, 2023 by Ellen Brown

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***

Holidays in my childhood were spent at my grandparents’ farm in Plain Grove, Pennsylvania, 35 miles from East Palestine, Ohio. My grandfather’s grandfather fought at Gettysburg and homesteaded the 160-acre farm after the Civil War. My grandmother sold it in the 1960s for $13,000, lacking a male heir to do the work; but my relatives still live in the area.

I have therefore taken a keen interest in the toxic chemical disaster that resulted when a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine on Feb. 3, although it is not my usual line of research. The official narrative doesn’t seem to add up. Something else must have been going on, but what?

A Litany of Anomalies

The 150-car train was 1.76 miles long, and 10 of the 38 derailed cars contained hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride. The decision was made to create a hole in each of the suspect cars and allow the contents to flow into a pit, which was then lit on fire. As reported in Newsweek:

The toxic mixture of chemicals and carcinogens released … could spread many miles out from the crash site, experts say.

The chemicals—including vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate and ethylene glycol monobutyl, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)— were being carried aboard the train when it derailed. …

The fire sent up a large plume of black smoke. When burned, vinyl chloride reacts to form phosgene gas, which was used as a chemical weapon in World War I.

How far could the phosgene cloud spread? According to a researcher cited in the Newsweek article, “It depends very much on the weather conditions … but potentially well over 100 miles radius.”

Vinyl chloride becomes phosgene gas, a chemical weapon, only when burned. Why was the decision made to dump and burn the chemicals? Independent journalist Eric Coppolino writes that the “decision to breach, dump and burn was totally irrational and nobody understands it. The more experience people have, the less they understand it. EPA was involved; it cannot merely be a bystander.” Observing that there are gaping holes in the official narrative, he writes [brackets mine]:

There has never been a dump and burn in railroad history, even in the decade prior to its being banned by 1980 regulations. There is always dump and remove, or decant (into tankers) and remove. Spills happen every two weeks — the burn part is unprecedented and there is rarely a need to dump. The typical approach is to take the contaminated dirt to a hazardous waste landfill.
A 2022 EPA guidance, which says how to interpret laws and regs, repeats the ban on dump and burn except only after careful consideration when there is absolutely no other alternative (which has never happened in civilian society; it happens in the military). [For more on the EPA guidance, see here.]
Fully enclosed hazmat tanker truck driver recovery operation (entirely routine procedure when there are damaged tanker cars) was initiated the night of Friday Feb. 3 — and then called off within 24 hours (on Friday night or Saturday). Who called it off and why?
Fire lines pulled from keeping tankers cool.
No samples of soot or wipe samples from inside the tanker cars — missing crucial data that would reveal the true nature of the incident.
Point source soot samples are also missing. These would also be tell-all. …
No state or federal emergencies were declared, depriving governments of emergency powers and agencies of certain kinds of authority …
Analysis of samples from PTRMS lab (a high-end mobile chemistry analysis lab) are bogged [logged? bogged down?] at Carnegie Mellon, in custody of [research professor] Albert Presto, who is not releasing them.
Pressure release valves (PRVs) were working fine, per NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board] report; the tanker cars were not in jeopardy. Other reports say the VCM [vinyl chloride monomer] was not in jeopardy of exploding and besides, they can easily decanter it into tanker trucks as is done regularly.
Five dead CTEH guys [environmental scientists] in airplane crash (eyewitnesses to point source sampling), who were at the East Palestine scene taking samples on behalf of the railroad and took samples … they died en route to the next mission. [CTEH was the company hired by Norfolk Southern to test the air in East Palestine, though the plane crash was en route to a later Ohio mission.]
People are still sick in Palestine in a way they should not be based on every other incident my source has worked on for 30 years. …
Chemicals that are currently banned from production by federal law are DDT, PCBs, PBDEs, some CFCs, all chemical warfare agents and chemicals banned from production by voluntary agreement with chemical industry are PFOS and PFOA.
OK, what really happened? —Eric Coppolino, reposted on The Truth Barrier.

Cobalt, Lithium and Appalachian Coal Mines

Another astute researcher, who has a podcast at SquirrelTribe.com, has been asking similar questions. She traces possible links to the cobalt gold rush, having found a research paper from Pennsylvania State University targeting western Pennsylvania and the adjacent Ohio border area for cobalt extraction. It seems that old abandoned coal mines are potential sources of cobalt and lithium. (My uncle was a coal miner in western Pennsylvania.)

As observed in the New York Times,

“The quest for cobalt, which is essential for electric-car batteries, has fueled a cycle of exploitation, greed and gamesmanship.” And as noted on Energy.gov in April 2021, “Cobalt is considered the highest material supply chain risk for electric vehicles (EVs) in the short and medium-term.”

According to Energy.gov on April 4, 2023,

“Across the country, there are billions of tons of coal waste and ash, mine tailings, acid mine drainage, and discharged water. These waste streams from mining, energy production, and related activities contain a wide variety of valuable rare earth elements and other critical minerals that can be produced and used to build clean energy technologies ….”

The SquirrelTribe podcaster points to an April 4, 2023, Associated Press article which states:

President Joe Biden’s administration is making $450 million available for solar farms and other clean energy projects at the site of current or former coal mines, part of his efforts to combat climate change.

As many as five projects nationwide will be funded through the 2021 infrastructure law …

The White House also said it will allow developers of clean energy projects to take advantage of billions of dollars in new bonuses being offered in addition to investment and production tax credits available through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. …

Mining areas in Appalachia and other parts of the country have long had the infrastructure, workforce, expertise and “can-do attitude” to produce energy, [Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm] told reporters on Monday. …Rare earth elements and other minerals are key parts of batteries for electric vehicles, cellphones and other technology. Biden has made boosting domestic mining a priority as the U.S. seeks to decrease its reliance on China, which has long dominated the battery supply chain.

In November 2021, Scientific American published an article titled “Chip Shortage Threatens Biden’s Electric Vehicle Plans,” quoting Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who said, “The average electric vehicle has about 2000 chips, roughly double the average number of chips in a non-electric car.” She told reporters that Biden’s plans for half of new vehicles to be electric by 2030 depends on the U.S. investing in semiconductor production – the “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act.”

On Jan. 21, 2022, a White House Fact Sheet said that computer chips were critical to a range of products from cars to smart phones; that the Administration had been working around the clock to expand U.S. chip manufacturing capacity; and that “Today, Intel will announce a new $20 billion factory outside Columbus, Ohio.”

The Intel chip factory has been called the largest private sector investment in Ohio history, expected to become the “largest silicon manufacturing location on the planet.” But finding the needed minerals could be a problem. As detailed by Andrew Hawkins in an August 2022 article on The Verge:

EVs need batteries, and batteries need minerals like nickel, cobalt, and lithium. The US has some of these minerals underground, and it wants to dig them up, expeditiously, so that it doesn’t have to rely as much on other countries, including China.

But this is where it gets tricky. Mining operators say they can speed up the digging process, but a bunch of regulatory roadblocks stand in their way. And environmentalists and tribal groups remain extremely skeptical that all this mining can be done in a way that doesn’t ruin the land and spoil the water. …

The Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats’ new tax and climate bill, devotes nearly $400 billion to clean energy initiatives over the next decade, including EV tax credits and financing for companies that manufacture clean cars in the U.S. And California said it would ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles starting in 2035, a move that over a dozen other states are expected to follow.

But the only EVs that will be eligible for the $7,500 credit are ones that are made in North America using batteries with minerals dug out of the ground in the U.S. or from its trading partners….

It may just not be possible. A US Geological Survey estimated that to fully electrify its vehicle fleet, the U.S. will need 1.27 million and 160,000 metric tons of battery-grade nickel and cobalt per year, respectively — both of which exceed total global production in 2021.

Sitting on a Rare Earth Goldmine – Blessing or Curse?

As observed on NPR.org,

“Smartphones, computers and electric vehicles may be emblems of the modern world, but … their rechargeable batteries are frequently powered by cobalt mined by workers laboring in slave-like conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

Those are not conditions under which American miners would want to work, and the Congolese shouldn’t have to either. But it could be good news for the people of the East Palestine region: They may be sitting on something that is more valuable to the electric vehicle industry even than gold — cobalt and lithium.

However, suspicions also run the other way: that their lands have been rendered uninhabitable in order to devalue the property, allowing it to be acquired cheaply for cobalt recovery, either in voluntary sale or by eminent domain.

Eminent domain is an extraordinary power by which the government can take property without the owner’s consent. Generally, the only prerequisites are that the property be put to a public use and that fair compensation be paid. But the power is controversial and subject to abuse. In Iowa, it is being used over landowners’ objections to force access for carbon capture pipelines, intended to lower ethanol’s carbon emissions by transporting liquefied carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to be stored underground. Summit Carbon Solutions plans a $4.5 billion 2000-mile pipeline transporting carbon dioxide through five states.

Intentionally rendering properties uninhabitable sounds pretty far-fetched, but it is not without precedent. In a podcast titled “Blackstone STEALING Homes From Working Class Americans,” Krystal Ball states:

Danish lawmakers passed a law that would prevent landlords from jacking up prices until five years after the completion of any new renovations. This was in response to allegations from residents that Blackstone would intentionally embark upon loud and intrusive renovations with the direct goal of trying to force longtime residents out so that they could then dramatically up their rents. In Copenhagen this approach came to be known as “shake the building.” As one journalist wrote, “Imagine an apple tree shaking at the trunk to get the apples loose from the branches. In the real estate world the occupants are the apples, the apartments are the branches, and when a landlord ‘shakes the building,’ it is to get the tenants out.”

Two of the three largest institutional investors in Blackstone are Vanguard and BlackRock, which largely own each other. Vanguard and BlackRock are also the two largest shareholders of Intel Corp. And the SquirrelTribe podcaster notes that they are two of the three largest investors not only in Southern Norfork but in Netflix, which released a movie called “White Noise” in November 2022. The movie tracks the incidents in East Palestine so closely that some bloggers suggest it was “predictive programming” for that disaster. The plot includes a tanker truck carrying toxic materials that crashes into a train in a small Ohio town, creating an airborne toxic event. The film was shot almost entirely in Northeast Ohio, where several East Palestine residents worked as extras in it. One of them told CNN that the film “hits too close to home.” He said, “The first half of the movie is all almost exactly what’s going on here. Everybody’s been talking about that.”

Another suspicious development is an East Palestine ordinance passed in January that requires the owners of vacant buildings to pay a substantial fee, file a vacant building plan, and obtain an inspection for vacant buildings. Exemptions apply if they plan to sell the property.

Abandon the Ban?

Whether or not the push for U.S. cobalt and lithium mining had anything to do with the East Palestine disaster, maybe it is time to rethink the drive to force 100% of new car sales to be electric vehicles. Europe is now “all but abandoning” its engine ban. According to the Wall Street Journal on March 27:

The implausibility of a net-zero carbon energy future is becoming so obvious that even Europeans are starting to notice. Witness the weekend decision to step back from the ban on internal-combustion automobile engines that the European Union had intended to implement by 2035.

… Battery technologies don’t exist to replace fossil fuels in driving distance or ease of refueling, and no one can say if or when such batteries will materialize. …

Electric vehicles also require rare-earth minerals often sourced from dirty mines in China. They’re only as green and affordable as the electricity used to charge them. In Europe that means coal-fired power for which consumers pay a huge price owing to the costs of forcing intermittent renewables such as wind and solar into the grid.

For these reasons plus a strong dose of old-fashioned commercial self-interest, Germany’s auto industry objected to the ban on internal-combustion engines, and it’s good someone did. Resistance from Berlin and several other European governments has forced Brussels into all but abandoning its engine ban.

As the chairman of one Indigenous tribe wrote in a comment to the U.S. Department of the Interior, “The green energy revolution cannot be built on a dirty mining industry, outdated regulations, and environmental injustice.”

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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.

Featured image: Contractors removing the burnt wagons, East Palestine, Ohio. (Facebook via Free West Media)

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Video: The Controversial Leaked Documents, What’s the Truth? Judge Napolitano with Former CIA Officer Larry Johnson

April 14th, 2023 by Larry Johnson

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***

Outstanding and important analysis

***

Judge Napolitano talks with Larry Johnson, former CIA Intelligence Officer, on the controversial leaked documents.

The “controlled” leak is a coordinated media strategy. The purpose of the leak is to prepare the American public for the crash landing that’s going to take place with respect to US foreign policy.

Watch the interview below.

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Exposing the Climate Racket: The Latest IPCC Report

April 14th, 2023 by John Klar

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First published on April 17, 2023

***

The entire world appears enthralled with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its periodic edicts. The pretension is that this is a “scientific” organization employing scientific methodology to forecast risks of global warming. It isn’t.

Reviewing the latest IPCC Report, one is struck by how far-ranging this global Panel now ventures—into “social sciences,” economics, politics, and (of course) social justice. Notable is the wide range of supposed disciplines brought to bear on the single issue of greenhouse gasses, while other contributing causes of environmental harm—especially chemical pollution—are comprehensively sidestepped.

Most open minds are receptive to the possibility that human activity could warm the globe: the question is how much, and what harm (if any) that will cause. This is where science could be very useful. Scientific inquiry should then focus on two very complex issues:

1) causation (establishing that CO2 and other gasses cause climate change), and

2) prediction (how much such change, if established, will impact the environment over time). Those who cannot accurately predict the weather for next week, now feign prophetic clarity for 2100 A.D.

There does not appear to be an Intergovernmental Panel on Chemical Pollution. Why is that? Species are disappearing due to chemical contaminants. Human sperm counts are plummeting, cancers rising, and endocrine disruptors may be impacting gender biologically. Rachel Carson exposed these problems in 1962, in her ground-breaking book Silent Spring. Six decades later, the entire world is mesmerized by the IPCC like some newfound Papal order. As for the chemicals …crickets.

The IPCC has strayed so far from science that it is properly defined as a political and not a scientific entity. The latest IPCC Report reveals this single-lens bias in favor of the climate-change cult through the prism of expanding disciplines while narrowing focus: more and more bunk studies are being used to label all things horrible as caused by greenhouse gasses.

Seas are being emptied of fish, species are dying, and the culprit is ever carbon.

Do scientists not consider the consequences of chemical pollution any more, or predict where the world will be if no brakes are applied to the generation of yet more man-made pollutants?

The question becomes downright eerie when the IPCC instead advocates for more chemical applications to the ecosystem as a solution to greenhouse gas warming: a climate-sensitive diet is now to be “balanced” by plants, to save the world from cows.

Globalists have found that they can weaponize poor people to help them get richer, cry globalist crocodile tears for crocodiles, weep for bees, and rescue humanity from cows—by culling them. Greenhouse gasses are not the sole threat to food and fauna. Everything about the latest IPCC document reeks of fraud.

Where is the concern for BPA, phthalates, PFOAs, or neonicotinoids in the IPCC pronouncements?

How can “science” ignore these profound threats to the ecosystem and humans while using carbon dioxide to hone in on wealth disparity, social justice, and human fears of climate change?

More, the proposed solutions of a plant-based diet depend on the industrial chemical polluters who happily count themselves members of the World Economic Forum and peddle their chemical wares as salvific of all climate-change ills.

The IPCC scientific “standards”

Scientifically speaking, the IPCC Report does not obscure that it is speculative in its predictions:

“Building on multiple analytical frameworks, including those from the physical and social sciences, this report identifies opportunities for transformative action which are effective, feasible, just and equitable using concepts of systems transitions and resilient development pathways. ….Based on scientific understanding, key findings can be formulated as statements of fact or associated with an assessed level of confidence using the IPCC calibrated language.”

The “calibrated language” describes the “level of confidence” the various scientific possibilities are ascribed:

“The likely range of total human-caused global surface temperature increase from 1850–1900 to 2010–20199 is 0.8°C to 1.3°C, with a best estimate of 1.07°C. It is likely that well-mixed GHGs contributed a warming of 1.0°C–2.0°C…. It is very likely that GHG emissions were the main driver of tropospheric warming and extremely likely that human-caused stratospheric ozone depletion was the main driver of stratospheric cooling between 1979 and the mid-1990s. It is virtually certain that the global upper ocean (0-700m) has warmed since the 1970s and extremely likely that human influence is the main driver.” [emphasis of variabilities added].

The Report by its terms speaks in likelihoods and “best estimates,” but climate alarmists then harden these cautious scientific boundaries into calibrated end-of-the-world alarms of purported certitude. This is hardly scientific. It is extremely likely that globalists and their large corporate allies are lying to garner power, wealth, and control.

What about chemical pollution?

Encompassing all aspects of the world under the sun (except chemical pollution), the Report posits “medium confidence” about agricultural impacts:

“Although overall agricultural productivity has increased, climate change has slowed this growth in agricultural productivity over the past 50 years globally (medium confidence), with related negative crop yield impacts mainly recorded in mid- and low latitude regions, and some positive impacts in some high latitude regions (high confidence). Ocean warming in the 20th century and beyond has contributed to an overall decrease in maximum catch potential (medium confidence).”

Is it possible that agricultural productivity has stalled due to soils saturated with chemicals required in GMO-cropping, or massive erosion from the techno-industrial methods of modern agriculture? The Report apparently does not consider that. Do unscrupulous factory ships, chemical saturations, and plastic refuse in the oceans have something to do with decreases in fish catches? We can say with medium confidence that they do, but only the vilified “greenhouse” offenders are highlighted in the Report.

How does the IPCC differentiate between mental health harms caused by climate change, and those caused by climate change alarmism? This passage smacks of bootstrapping:

“Climate change has adversely affected human physical health globally and mental health in assessed regions (very high confidence), and is contributing to humanitarian crises where climate hazards interact with high vulnerability (high confidence).”

This circular reasoning guarantees that when alarmists employ Orwellian exaggerations to terrify humanity about the future, the IPCC can point to human terror as “caused” by climate change—rather than by anthropogenic climate alarmism (high confidence: see Greta Thunberg et al).

It is difficult to discern whether sea levels are rising as quickly as the globalist seachange. And of course it is the poorest of the world’s populations who are suffering the most from renewable energy technologies, and climate change policies that escalate fuel prices. Is that the plan, or just an unintended consequence, like killing all the cows to force-feed humanity with chemical-saturated plants?

The Report cautions that “Limiting human-caused global warming requires net zero anthropogenic CO2 emissions.” As UN, WEF, and WHO globalists leverage climate alarmism into a New Age AI art, what is required is net zero intergovernmental fear mongering.

Let us not hold our collective breaths for the study of that existential emergency (extremely low confidence).

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John Klar hosts the Small Farm Republic substack and podcast from his Vermont farm. His new book is Small Farm Republic: Why Conservatives Must Embrace Local Agriculture, Reject Climate Alarmism, and Lead an Environmental Revival. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Adoption of the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C in 2018 (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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This Week’s Most Popular Articles

April 14th, 2023 by Global Research News

We Are Being Smashed Politically, Economically, Medically and Technologically by the Elite’s ‘Great Reset’: Why? How Do We Fight Back Effectively?

Robert J. Burrowes, April 9, 2023

What the American People Must Know About the Sensationalist Arraignment of Former President Donald Trump

Emanuel Pastreich, April 7, 2023

Possession Is Nine Tenths of Your Soul

Emanuel Pastreich, April 6, 2023

Crimes against Humanity: Serbia’s Law Suit against NATO. More than 15 Tons of Uranium Bombs Dropped on Yugoslavia in 1999

Natali Milenkovic, April 7, 2023

Europe Abandons All-Electric Car Mandate. Stupidity of the CO2 Transition

Igor Chudov, April 9, 2023

Eat Your Vaccines: mRNA Gene Therapy Is Coming to the Food Supply This Month

The Vigilant Fox, April 7, 2023

No Hope for Ukraine: Losing Artillery = Losing the War

Karsten Riise, April 10, 2023

GMO’s Are Now Called Bioengineered in the USA: Why This Matters

Maysie Dee, April 6, 2023

How Long Have You Been Consuming Gene Therapied Pork?

Dr. Joseph Mercola, April 11, 2023

Video: Affecting Everyone: UN Official Reveals Dark Secrets

Medien-Klagemauer.TV, April 9, 2023

Spike Protein Accumulates in the Brain and Causes Infarcts, Bleeds, Inflammation – Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Cause Severe Neurological Injuries

Dr. William Makis, April 11, 2023

The Nord Stream Ghost Ship

Seymour M. Hersh, April 8, 2023

The Covid Plandemic: Fear Is the Name of the Game – The Legal Approach

Reiner Fuellmich, April 11, 2023

The Covid “Killer Vaccine”. People Are Dying All Over the World. It’s A Criminal Undertaking

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 10, 2023

Over 100 More Classified Docs Appear Online: US Secrets ‘From Ukraine to Middle East to China’

Zero Hedge, April 11, 2023

America’s Descent from Democracy to Oligarchy

Chaitanya Davé, April 10, 2023

Many People Fully Vaccinated for COVID Are Now Going Blind

Ethan Huff, April 9, 2023

The Russia -Ukraine War: Russia Unleashes Its TOS-1A Rocket System

William Walter Kay, April 11, 2023

Davos WEF is Promoting Impossible Zero Carbon Green Agenda

F. William Engdahl, April 10, 2023

Hello “Project Icebreaker”, Goodbye Financial Freedom. The Dangers of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)

Brandon Smith, April 11, 2023

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Selected Articles: How Finland “Fell in Love” with NATO. Helsinki Sold Its Independence for Money

April 14th, 2023 by Global Research News

How Finland “Fell in Love” with NATO. Helsinki Sold Its Independence for Money

By Mauno Saari and Dragan Vujicic, April 14, 2023

Finland was not “suddenly” interested in NATO. Finland spent decades building its military to be compatible with NATO troops. It is about a process that already started in the nineties.

Conflicts of Interest Allowed Opioid Crisis to Grow: FDA Makes Narcan Available Over the Counter

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, April 13, 2023

No pharmaceutical executive has ever been sent to prison for their role in the drug epidemic they intentionally created and promoted. Meanwhile, entire communities have been devastated and destroyed by addiction.

The Yemeni “Peace Process” Is a Sham Though You Wouldn’t Know That from Watching U.S. News or Reading Foreign Affairs

By Andi Olluri, April 13, 2023

In April 2022, a temporary truce was signed between the warring parties in Yemen, which ended in October, though fragments of it are still operational. The truce in no way addressed the crystal clear causes of mass death, starvation and aggression in Yemen—namely, Western-Arab aggression and brute force.

Biden to Spend $5 Billion on New Coronavirus Vaccine Initiative Supported by Gates, Fauci and Republican Lawmakers

By Michael Nevradakis, April 13, 2023

Dubbed “Project NextGen,” the new initiative will serve as the successor to the Trump administration’s “Operation Warp Speed,” launched in March 2020 to expedite the development of COVID-19 vaccines.

Berlin Unable to Attend NATO’s Demands

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, April 13, 2023

Despite its bellicose and anti-Russian mentality, the German government seems unable to continue contributing to NATO’s war plans. According to a report published recently in a major media outlet, Germany would be incapable to meet the military requirements imposed by the Atlantic alliance.

Leaked Pentagon Documents Reveal US Violations of Korean Sovereignty

By Peoples Dispatch, April 13, 2023

On Friday April 7, leaked Pentagon documents began circulating widely on social media. These documents contained highly classified information, leading to revelations about the state of the war in Ukraine and the extent of US intelligence on Russia.

35 MPs and Lords Demand US Attorney General Drops Charges Against Assange on Fourth Anniversary of His Imprisonment

By Morning Star, April 13, 2023

The MPs and lords from six parties stress that Mr Assange faces up to 175 years in a US jail “for his publishing work which was carried out in the United Kingdom and in partnership with globally leading news outlets.”

Israeli Spyware Firm QuaDream Linked to Hacks on Journalists and Politicians

By Middle East Eye, April 13, 2023

An Israeli-made spyware resembling the controversial Pegasus programme has been used to target journalists and opposition politicians in at least ten countries around the world, researchers have found.

US Kicks Off Nuclear War Games

By Kyle Anzalone, April 13, 2023

The Pentagon will begin simulating a nuclear war, according to a Department of Defense press release. The war games come as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warns a civilization-ending war is closer than at any time in history.

Another Ramadan, Another Brutal Israeli Raids Into Al Aqsa

By Michael Jansen, April 13, 2023

For Palestinians who cannot envisage an end to Israel’s occupation, repression and imposition of apartheid, resistance by any and all means seems to be their only way to respond. They face death by desperation.

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How Finland “Fell in Love” with NATO. Helsinki Sold Its Independence for Money

April 14th, 2023 by Mauno Saari

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***

Finland was not “suddenly” interested in NATO. Finland spent decades building its military to be compatible with NATO troops. It is about a process that already started in the nineties.

Let me remind you, in 2014, Finland signed a memorandum of understanding with NATO.

It gives the military alliance broad rights to act on Finnish soil, including “attack”.

In Finland, they are jokingly asking where we are going to attack. Is it Sweden? This is how Mauno Saari, one of the most renowned Finnish journalists today, answers the question of the weekly “Pečat” –

The presence of this author causes attention in the Scandinavian public.

Saari started his career as a reporter at Helsingin Sanomat and then continued his ten-year career in journalism as the editor-in-chief of the magazines Iltaset, Suomen Kuvalehti, Iltalehti and Uude Finland, literally in the most respected daily newspapers and weeklies published in Helsinki. In recent years, he has been writing TV scripts and film templates. He returned to journalism recently and for a reason.

At the beginning of 2022, I founded the Naapuriseur association and its online publication Naapuriseur Sanomat, because as an old journalist I thought the situation in the country was scandalous and intolerable. The last straw was the statement of our Prime Minister Sana Marin, or rather her request that “all ties with Russia must be severed”. Our association, “Good Neighbors” opposes that policy. The club is independent and impartial. She wants Finland to have good relationswith all our neighbors. Of course, we pay special attention to what is happening in Russia because it is highlighted when they really want to cut off all connections, including mail and rail traffic…

Dragan Vujicic (DV): Let’s go back to Finland’s Memorandum of Understanding with NATO from 2014?

Mauno Saari (MS): The decision to sign that agreement was made when the Parliament was on vacation. The agreement was not presented to the parliament and has many strange features. In my opinion, membership in NATO was the long-term goal and dream of President Niiniste. He will go down in history for implementing it. In other words, he will go down in history as the president who ended the nearly 80-year peaceful and even friendly era between Finland and the Soviet Union/Russia. At the same time, Niiniste destroyed the work of two previous presidents, Juho Kusti Pasikivi and Urho Kekonen, and their life’s work, the doctrine of how a small country can live in peace and prosperity as a neighbor of a great power. It was a very successful “policy of active neutrality”.

DV: Prime Minister Marin points to threats from Russia?

MS: The question of the Russian threat is fundamental. There was nothing like it, not even the slightest. The media has been developing an image of the threat for years, but without any facts. In reality, President Niinista conjured up that threat on February 24, 2022, like a magician, he pulled the threat like a rabbit out of a hat to get a reason to report NATO.

DV: Doesn’t Finland learn from history?

MS: My friend, the academic Paavo Haavikko, who passed away a few years ago, wrote: “Finland cannot learn from its history because it has never made a mistake. A fitting irony. Finland has lost every conflict it has been involved in for nearly 300 years. The history of the Second World War has been forgotten, or the current generation of politicians has never studied it. Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s phrase on TV news became famous in Finland: “Finland went to war with Russia and won.”

DV: Apart from youth, did your prime minister have any other good qualities?

MS: The only thing he has is youth. No comment.

DV: It seems to us that the whole of Scandinavia is in some kind of militaristic frenzy?

MS: Nordic militarism is America’s dream. The creation of this type of militarism was also influenced by the USA through its many years of activity. Sweden has long been a “little America”, with very close relations with the US, also in the field of espionage. Finnish politicians and ordinary people have a completely wrong picture of the United States. We admire America, we don’t want to know that it is a monster that has 750 military bases around the world and lives by devouring the countries it goes to “help”. We don’t want to see the results when the USA “helped” Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Libya and many other places. We lie to ourselves that the USA will rush to help us if Russia threatens us. America is in no hurry! She’s not even walking. Its way of waging wars is to use the armies and territories of other countries. If there is ever a conflict between NATO/USA and Russia, Finland will be destroyed. In that case, we are a scorched battlefield.

DV: What else has NATO gained since your country joined the alliance?

MS: NATO got a strong army. So we are paying the big costs of the NATO military. In addition, we are also paying for the new F35 fighters that we bought for NATO. Finland is everything poorer, but has unlimited money for weapons. Good job! We sold our independence and paid the price ourselves. On the other hand, Finland came under the nuclear umbrella. Our politicians do not understand that there are two umbrellas. Neither will protect us if an atomic war breaks out.

DV: All this happens when your region is led by the female leaders of Sweden (Magdalena Anderson), Estonia (Kaya Kalas), Lithuania (Ingrid Šimonite), Ursula Von der Leyen who is going to be the head of NATO?

MS: You are asking for a female leader! Well, for decades it has been said that peace would return to the world if women came to power. What does it look like? These bosses, starting with Ursula acting The female is much more aggressive than the male. If a rooster wandered into this chicken coop, it would be immediately liquidated. I feel that women have had a longing and lust for power for a long time. That could explain the situation. Fortunately, there is a woman in my house (Pirrko Turpienen) who is passionately on the side of peace. We do what we can for that, but we don’t see Finland as “the happiest country in the world”. The atmosphere of censorship and the threat of war is oppressive.

DV: Is nuclear war threatening?

MS: There is an old saying: “They can kill the whole world six times with their bombs, but only the first time is bad”. Our “Association of Good Neighbors” and its web newspaper “Naapuriseuran Sanomat” were created to fight against this hateful and suicidal atmosphere. Your readers can find the publication by clicking on naapuriseura.fi and selecting their language.

DV: Mainstream media don’t see the situation like ordinary normal people?

MS: A complete turnaround took place in the Finnish media in 2014. Until then, newspapers and TV followed normal journalistic principles. After that, the entire media field turned into a producer of Western propaganda. It is not wrong to say that he became an effective brainwashing machine that scared people with the threat of Russia and pushed for NATO membership. The electoral victory of the right and the extreme right is also due to this.

DV: What exactly happened?

MS: The state established “Mediapool” in the country for crisis situations. Although there was no crisis, in the media sense, Finland moved into a state similar to wartime censorship. This “pool” announced on its own website that one of its purposes is the fight against anti-NATO communication. “The fourth level of power in the state” (media) became number one. The media, which have always been the “watchdogs” of the home, have become the master of the house. Freedom of speech has become a prison of words.

DV: Your association in Finland is accused of being “pro-Russian”?

MS: We publish essays, opinions and news stories that are not currently in the mainstream media. We have a great correspondent in Moscow. Our publication is not the megaphone of the Kremlin, but it is good that people have more diverse information than what is offered by the censored media.

Finland is involved in the isolation of Russia. It has successfully isolated itself both spiritually and materially.

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Dragan Vujicic is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Tags: Finland, NATO, Russia, Ukraine war

Conflicts of Interest Allowed Opioid Crisis to Grow: FDA Makes Narcan Available Over the Counter

April 13th, 2023 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, there were 81,692 fatal opioid-related overdoses in the 12-month period ending in April 2022

March 29, 2023, the FDA announced it will soon make naloxone (brand name Narcan) — a drug that reverses the fatal effects of an opioid overdose — available over the counter without a prescription

Instructions on how to use Narcan are provided

While OTC Narcan may reduce the number of lethal overdoses, it does nothing to address the underlying problem, which is the ease with which people can access opioids

Opioids were initially approved for breakthrough cancer pain only, and there’s a solid argument to be made for banning opioids for all other uses, especially considering they provide no better pain relief than over-the-counter nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)

In the video above, Joe Rogan interviews journalist Mariana van Zeller, who in 2009 shone a bright light on the drug abuse epidemic with her online documentary series “The OxyContin Express.”^1,²

Largely thanks to her reporting, Florida ended up implementing an opioid database so that people can no longer visit multiple doctors and then receive and fill multiple prescriptions. While it has not completely solved the problem, this database has at least reduced the amount of abuse taking place.

Zeller’s husband was also the cinematographer for the 2022 documentary “American Pain,” which details the rise and fall of Chris and Jeff George, identical twins caught trafficking more than 500 million dollars’ worth of opioid pills through a tiny “pill mill” in a Florida strip mall.

No Justice for Victims

While the two brothers ended up serving prison terms, no pharmaceutical executive has ever been sent to prison for their role in the drug epidemic they intentionally created and promoted. Meanwhile, as Zeller notes — and has witnessed first-hand — entire communities have been devastated and destroyed by addiction.

PR companies that aided and abetted drug companies in their deception also have yet to pay a price. The Publicis Groupe, for example, is accused of placing illegal advertisements for OxyContin in the electronic medical records of patients and creating training materials for Purdue Pharma sales reps on how to combat doctors’ objections to the drugs.

Publicis also developed strategies to counter opioid guidelines issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and created “patient stories” to “humanize” the OxyContin brand and counter negative press about addiction risks.

As detailed in “Dr. Mercola’s Attackers Sued for Role in ‘Crime of the Century’,” Massachusetts attorney general sued Publicis Health in May 2021 for its role in fueling the opioid crisis. The case is still ongoing.

Criminals Let Off the Hook

Purdue Pharma was also sued for their role in creating the opioid epidemic. The company pleaded guilty to criminal charges in October 2020 and reached a settlement with the federal government totaling $8.3 billion.

But the owners and operators of Purdue, the Sackler family, all got off scot-free, even though they were personally in charge of the company’s deadly decisions. In previous articles, I’ve detailed how Purdue’s false advertising spawned the opioid crisis.³

To recap, a single paragraph in a 1980 letter to the editor^4,⁵ — NOT a study — in The New England Journal of Medicine, which stated that narcotic addiction in patients with no history of addiction was very rare, became the basis of a fraudulent drug marketing campaign that has since led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people.

Purdue Pharma used this letter to the editor as the basis for its claim that opioid addiction affects less than 1% of patients treated with the drugs. In reality, opioids have a very high rate of addiction and have not been proven effective for long-term use.⁶

Purdue isn’t the only opioid maker whose executives have been spared accountability. In July 2021, Johnson & Johnson and three drug distributors — AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson — agreed to pay a combined settlement of $26 billion for their roles in the opioid epidemic. They too got a sweetheart of a deal, as the $26 billion settlement amounts to just 4% of the four companies’ annual revenue, and none of the decisionmakers went to jail.

Conflicts of Interest Allowed the Opioid Crisis to Grow

Even the American Medical Association (AMA), one of the largest medical lobbying groups in the U.S., has contributed to the opioid crisis by fostering cozy relationships with Big Pharma.

Richard Sackler, who served as the president of Purdue Pharma, was a member of the AMA Foundation’s board of directors from 1998 to 2004, and the AMA’s pain management training program was developed by a team with close ties to the industry.

Dr. Roneet Lev, chief medical officer to the Office of National Drug Control Policy from 2018 to 2020, who looked through the AMA’s training modules, called it “‘How to Create an Addict’ education.” I discussed these and many other details in “The AMA’s Contribution to the Opioid Epidemic.”

In 2019, the BMJ^7,⁸ also highlighted how conflicts of interest within the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) — which advises the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on opioid policies — may have played a role in the opioid crisis. Seven of the 15 academics serving on the NASEM panel that advised the FDA on opioid prescribing guidelines had ties to industry. On top of that, NASEM itself accepted $14 million from the Sackler family.

FDA Makes Narcan Available Over the Counter

March 29, 2023, the FDA announced it will soon make naloxone (brand name Narcan) — a drug that reverses the fatal effects of an opioid overdose — available over the counter without a prescription. As reported by NPR:⁹

“Today’s action paves the way for the life-saving medication to reverse an opioid overdose to be sold directly to consumers in places like drug stores, convenience stores, grocery stores and gas stations, as well as online,’ the FDA said in a statement.¹⁰

Emergent BioSolutions, the drug company that produces Narcan, said on Wednesday that it hoped to make the nasal spray available on store shelves and at online retailers by late summer …

The FDA approval comes as the U.S. continues to see a staggering number of opioid-related deaths, driven in large part by the spread of synthetic opioids such as illicit fentanyl.”

If anything, this is a testament to just how bad the U.S. drug problem has become. In 2021 alone, 16.95 million doses of Narcan were distributed in the U.S.,¹¹ although it’s not known how many of those doses were administered. But whatever that number, it wasn’t enough.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data,¹² there were 81,692 fatal opioid-related overdoses in the 12-month period ending in April 2022, up from 76,383 the year before. Other statistics show opioids are a factor in 7 out of every 10 overdose deaths.¹³ As noted by The New York Times:¹⁴

“According to reports by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2021, bystanders were present at 46% of fatal opioid overdoses. If they had been carrying naloxone and knew how to use it, lives could have been saved.”

How to Use Narcan

Making Narcan more widely available may indeed help save the lives of some of those who have been unlucky enough to get sucked into addiction. In a March 29, 2023, article, The New York Times detailed how to use the drug¹⁵ in case of an opioid (including oxycodone, heroin and fentanyl) overdose. First, you’ll need to determine whether the person has overdosed on opioids. Symptoms of an opioid overdose include:

Slowed breathing, gurgling or no breathing
Pupils narrowed to a pinpoint
Blue or purple lips and/or fingernails
Clammy skin
Cannot be roused by shaking and shouting

The drug works by displacing opioid molecules from the opioid receptors in the brain, so it won’t work if the person has overdosed on a non-opiate drug. It won’t make matters worse, however, so when in doubt, use it.

The OTC Narcan box contains two nasal sprays with plungers, each containing 4 mg of naloxone. Do not prime the plunger as this will release the contents. Wait until you’re ready to administer the dose.

Get the Narcan ready, then tilt the person’s head backward and insert the spray tip into one nostril until both of your fingers are touching the nose. Push the plunger down to administer the dose.
Call emergency services (911 in the U.S.) after you’ve given the first dose, as every second counts.
Next, roll the person onto their side. Place one of their hands under their head and bend the leg that is on top at the knee to prevent them from rolling over. Narcan can trigger acute withdrawal symptoms, including vomiting, so make sure the airways are kept clear to avoid choking.
If the person has not regained consciousness after two to three minutes, repeat the process and administer the second dose into the other nostril.
Stay with them until emergency services arrive.

OTC Narcan Does Nothing to Address the Problem

While OTC Narcan may indeed reduce the number of lethal overdoses, it does nothing to address the underlying problem, which is the ease with which people can access opioids. Opioids were initially approved for breakthrough cancer pain only, and there’s a solid argument to be made for banning opioids for all other uses, especially considering they provide no better pain relief than over-the-counter nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).¹⁶

According to Cochrane Reviews,¹⁷ a combination of 200 mg of ibuprofen and 500 mg of acetaminophen is one of the strongest pain reliever combos available and is more effective than opioids.

Research¹⁸ published in 2018 also found that opioids (including morphine, Vicodin, oxycodone and fentanyl) fail to control moderate to severe pain any better than over-the-counter drugs such as acetaminophen, ibuprofen and naproxen.

Insurance companies should also stop favoring opioids when it comes to reimbursement. As noted in the American College of Physicians’ guideline for acute, subacute and chronic low back pain,¹⁹heat, massage, acupuncture or chiropractic adjustments should be used as first-line treatments. When drugs are desired, NSAIDs or muscle relaxants should be used.

Alas, while clinical practice guidelines call for nonpharmacological intervention for back pain, most insurance plans don’t pay for such treatments. They do pay for opioids, though. Other situations in which opioids are inappropriately prescribed, and massively so, are for tonsillectomies and wisdom teeth extractions. This too needs to stop.

Dentists wrote a staggering 18.1 million prescriptions for opioids in 2017 alone,²⁰ and research has shown that 6.9% of those who received an opioid prescription from their dentist were still using opioids between three and 12 months later.^21,²² In comparison, among those who did not get an initial opioid prescription, only 0.1% sought an opioid prescription in the 12 months that followed.

Drug Industry Is Again the Primary Beneficiary

It’s telling that rather than banning opioids, the FDA instead opts for a route that will benefit the very industry that created the problem. First, they deceived us about opioids’ addictiveness and created a market that didn’t exist by bribing doctors into prescribing it for all sorts of pain. Then, they created a drug “solution” for the drug problem they intentionally created, and the FDA is A-OK with that. It’s an absolute racket.

By making Narcan available over the counter, the FDA is primarily setting drug companies up for even greater profits. Eventually, other naloxone products may become OTC as well.

But even if they don’t, what’s clear is that the drug industry made billions of dollars creating this drug addiction problem and is also raking in profits from anti-overdose treatments. And they want to be hailed as saviors for doing so to boot. If there were any justice, the companies that sell opioids would be forced to hand out anti-overdose meds for free.

Drug Industry Uses Fear to Extract Greater Profits

Instead, drug companies see anti-overdose medications as another cash cow. Naloxone has been off patent since 1985, so companies are coming up with all sorts of “new and improved” and/or higher-dose versions that can be patented and sold for a premium.

The problem is, few if any of these updated drugs are any better than the original generic one. Many don’t realize this, however, which means many schools, police departments and local public health agencies end up wasting their resources on higher-priced drugs.

The drug industry is even cashing in on the fact that government refuses to lift a finger to address the influx of fentanyl over our wide-open border. As reported by STAT News, they’re using the fear of fentanyl, which is far stronger than other opioids, to sell higher-priced high-dose versions of naloxone:²³

“At first glance, the race to create stronger, more advanced overdose-reversal tools seems like a win-win: a case study in American pharmaceutical companies saving countless lives and turning a profit along the way.

A new STAT examination, however, captures a far different reality: One in which pharmaceutical companies have used the opioid crisis, and the nation’s fear of fentanyl, to aggressively market high-cost naloxone products that divert resources away from cheaper forms of the lifesaving medication.

These expensive new products, according to researchers, harm-reduction groups, doctors, and pharmaceutical industry experts, don’t fill a legitimate public health need. Instead, they serve largely as an excuse to charge exorbitant prices for a medication that has been off patent for nearly 40 years …

[C]ompanies … have brought to market a glut of high-dose, mechanically complex naloxone products — all of which sell for far higher prices than their generic counterparts. Advocates say there’s a simple reason why: No company has held patent exclusivity over naloxone since 1985, and there’s little money to be made selling low-cost generic versions …

The contrast, experts say, highlights a fundamental mismatch between public health needs and profit motives. And it demonstrates, too, how the fear of fentanyl, the ultra-potent synthetic opioid, has allowed companies to push the narrative that standard doses are no longer enough …

Drug companies’ behavior in the naloxone market mirrors a longstanding pharmaceutical industry practice: protecting profit margins by continually offering medications in new — and therefore, patentable — formulations and delivery mechanisms …

Amid the climate of fentanyl-driven fear, drug companies have worked to advance the narrative that only super-sized naloxone doses can reverse a fentanyl overdose.”

No Need for High-Dose Versions in Most Cases

Many drug abuse experts and researchers agree that the standard 4 mg naloxone dose is sufficient for most cases, and using high-dose versions in all instances is a waste of resources. Several studies have also confirmed this.

For example, a 2019 study²⁴ that looked at the amount of naloxone required to reverse opioid overdoses outside of medical practice found no increase in the dosages used between 2013 and 2016, even though the prevalence of fentanyl overdoses increased in that time. A 2020 review²⁵ that analyzed ER admission records from 2017 and 2018 came to the same conclusion, stating:

“Our findings refute the notion that high potency synthetic opioids like illicitly manufactured fentanyl require increased doses of naloxone to successfully treat an overdose. There were no significant differences in the dose of naloxone required to treat opioid overdose patients with UDS [urine drug screen] evidence of exposure to fentanyl, opiates, or both.”

Giving a larger-than-typical dose also has drawbacks worth considering. Since it displaces the opioid from the opioid receptors in your brain, it will cause very acute withdrawal symptoms, and an excessive dose could make those symptoms far more debilitating than necessary.

As noted by STAT News,²⁶ “withdrawal symptoms can be so agonizing that they are driven to again use illicit substances, like fentanyl, sometimes leading to a repeat overdose.”

OTC Narcan May Result in Higher Prices

STAT News also points out that OTC Narcan may end up costing you more than before, even though affordability is a major part of the availability equation:²⁷

“The FDA’s approval this week of Narcan as an over-the-counter drug is a milestone. But it is not as large a victory as it may seem. For one, naloxone products are already available to most Americans via a loophole known as a ‘standing order’ — in essence, a blanket prescription written by a state or local health official.

Thanks to coupons and discounts, naloxone is often entirely free to individuals who seek it out, especially if they have health insurance. Strangely, the FDA granting over-the-counter status for Narcan may make cost more of a barrier for individual buyers …

Most insurance plans typically only cover prescription medications — meaning that individuals looking to buy naloxone at a pharmacy may soon be forced to pay dramatically more.”

Struggling With Opioid Addiction? Please Seek Help

Regardless of the brand of opioid, it’s important to realize they are extremely addictive drugs and not meant for long-term use for nonfatal conditions. Chemically, opioids are similar to heroin, so if you wouldn’t consider shooting up heroin for a toothache or backache, seriously reconsider taking an opioid to relieve this type of pain.

If you’ve been on an opioid for more than two months, or if you find yourself taking a higher dosage or taking the drug more often than you initially did, you may be addicted. Resources where you can find help include:

Your workplace Employee Assistance Program
The Substance Abuse Mental Health Service Administration²⁸ can be contacted 24 hours a day at 1-800-622-HELP

Also review “The Remarkable Benefits of Low-Dose Naltrexone,” in which I discuss how micro-doses of LDN, an opioid antagonist, can successfully treat opioid addiction.

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Notes

¹ The Oxycontin Express

² NPR March 2, 2011

³ The Atlantic June 2, 2017

⁴ NEJM 1980; 302(2): 123 (PDF)

⁵ STAT News May 31, 2017

⁶ Medscape September 28, 2015

⁷ BMJ 2019;366:l5321

⁸ BMJ 2019;366:l5273

⁹ NPR March 29, 2023

¹⁰ FDA March 29, 2023

¹¹ Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA, Naloxone Economic View March 2023