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On February 25th, Elon Musk tweeted “That election was arguably dodgy, but no question that there was indeed a coup.” By “That election,” he was referring to Viktor Yanukovych’s having won the Presidency of Ukraine in an election about which even the British Guardian newspaper had headlined on 8 February 2010, “Yanukovych set to become president as observers say Ukraine election was fair”, and it made clear that even Western international observers there were testifying to the authenticity of that electoral win by Yanukovych, such as by its reporting that, “Observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said there were no indications of serious fraud and described the vote as an ‘impressive display’ of democracy.” However, Elon Musk, without citing any evidence, was now saying otherwise: that Yanukovych’s win had been “arguably dodgy” — and (despite that tweet) he provided no argument at all to back up that ‘arguably’ allegation.
Only fools cite tweets that have no links to any evidence, as being evidence for anything other than that the tweeter had made that given assertion. As a general rule, tweets are the least-reliable source of information. Certainly Musk’s tweet was. However, he also said there that there was “no question that there was indeed a coup.”
The fools who follow Musk’s opinions should know that he himself thinks that coups are just fine: when Elon Musk received on 24 July 2020 a tweet from an “Armani” saying, “You know what wasnt in the best interest of people? the U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there [for Tesla cars’ batteries].” Later that day, Musk replied:
He likes coups that profit himself personally, but apparently there are some coups that he disfavors — and he doesn’t ever explain (or at least not honestly) why. Maybe, for twitter-followers, “why” just isn’t an interesting question? (Maybe that’s why they use social media — instead of articles like this, that link to their primary sources — to ‘know’ what’s ‘going on’ in ‘the news’?)
Musk’s stupid tweet about Ukraine was likewise in response to something that one of his followers had tweeted: He was responding to one of his twitter followers, “KanekoaTheGreat” having tweeted quoting Professor John Mearsheimer’s having said in the September/October 2014 issue of America’s most prestigious — and strongly pro-U.S.-empire or “neoconservative” or pro-Military-Industrial-Complex — Foreign Affairs magazine, “For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected and pro-Russian president—which he rightly labeled a “coup”—was the final straw.” Ultimately, that’s what Musk was responding to — not the evidence, but instead the opinion there, in that prestigious, overwhelmingly pro-U.S.-coups and empire, magazine, from (as it turns out) a professor who was arguing that the coup had been merely (and only) a mistake:
On February 17th, under the headline “John Mearsheimer’s Misrepresentations In Order To Be Allowed Space On U.S. Propaganda-Media (i.e., U.S. ‘News’-Media)”, I had pointed out numerous distortions of the historical record regarding that coup — such as his alleging it to have been due to a “flawed view” (not a vicious, or even just a “false” view, but merely “flawed” — and he doesn’t so much as hint at in what way “flawed”) including “such liberal principles as the rule of law, economic interdependence, and democracy,” which “went awry in Ukraine [and, again, he doesn’t hint at in what way ‘awry’],” and on and on — as-if it weren’t what it actuallhy WAS: which was the U.S. Government’s bipartisan neoconservative obsession to trap Russia’s Government, to checkmate it, into its being forced to yield, finally and inexorably, to the control by the U.S. Government. That’s imperialism — and there wasn’t a word about it — except one passing reference, which was 180 degrees in the false direction: against actually the victim-country, NOT against the aggressor:
In September 2013, Gershman wrote in The Washington Post, “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents.” He added: “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”
This is the hidden reality: and neither Musk nor Mearsheimer, nor any other mouthpiece of the U.S. Establishment or the “Deep State” lets its audience in on it — and on the EVIDENCE that this IS the reality.
The U.S. coup against and that grabbed Ukraine was a very intentional, and very evil — not at all unintentional or ‘by mistake’ — U.S. coup, and Putin is being villainized in U.S.-and-allied media for finally responding to it in Russia’s case. Not ONLY was it “a coup” but it was a U.S. coup, and it was by careful and evil design, no mere (nor Mearsheimer) ‘error’.
This is — on steroids — the 1962 Cuban-Missile-Crisis in reverse: Ukraine is only a 300-mile or five-minute missile-flying-time distance away from The Kremlin and decapitation of Russia’s ability to fire-off its retaliatory weapons (within less than five minutes) against a U.S. blitz-attack. Russia needs to prevent that.
“The West” — including all of NATO — are 100% the aggressors in this matter. And that fact is unmentionable in U.S.-and-allied media.
The main thing should be the main thing: focus on China. China wants the Ukraine war to last as long as possible to deplete Western military capacity before invading Taiwan. It’s working: we think we *look* stronger by helping Ukraine, but we actually *become* weaker vs. China.
Perhaps in foreign affairs, while the Democrats (liberal fascists) will be campaigning for war against Russia to precede war against China, the Republicans (conservative fascists) will be campaigning for war against China to precede war against Russia. It’ll be a contest about which ‘enemy’ to hate first. Either way, the owners of mega-corporations such as Lockheed Martin and ExxonMobil will be beaming. They’re the realconstituency in this ‘democracy’.
It’s like: Will the flavor be chocolate, or will it be vanilla? Either way, it’ll be loaded with sugar, artificial flavoring, and artificial coloring, and will fatten you, and rot your teeth, just the same, no matter how different the taste is. And those are the only two ‘choices’. That’s all the billionaires are offering, in the political market. Truth isn’t anywhere on the menu, from either Party.
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This article was originally published on The Duran.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
Wade Lovett’s been having trouble breathing since the Feb. 3 Norfolk South train derailment and toxic explosion here. In fact, his voice sounds as if he’s been inhaling helium.
“Doctors say I definitely have the chemicals in me but there’s no one in town who can run the toxicological tests to find out which ones they are,” Lovett, 40, an auto detailer, said in an extremely high-pitched voice. “My voice sounds like Mickey Mouse. My normal voice is low. It’s hard to breathe, especially at night. My chest hurts so much at night I feel like I’m drowning. I cough up phlegm a lot. I lost my job because the doctor won’t release me to go to work.”
Despite his health woes, Lovett and his fiancée, Tawnya Irwin, 45, spent last Thursday delivering bottled water to locals. They picked up new cases outside a home on East Clark Street which has become the heart of East Palestine’s homegrown campaign to fight back against the forces that upended the lives of roughly 4,700 residents and their animals.
Locals are frustrated and furious over what they say has been a lack of real information and help from both local officials and the Biden Administration. Last week, East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway ripped President Biden for heading to Ukraine for a surprise visit instead of the scene of the toxic train derailment, calling it “the biggest slap in the face.”
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Featured image: @blckndgldfn/Twitter (left); @StrictlyChristo/Twitter (right)
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***
The global pandemic was not completely catastrophic in its effects. It led to the cancellation, and postponement, of wasteful projects and events. It spared public money. But as the pandemic slides into the shadow of policymaking, bad habits have returned. The profligates are here to stay.
One such habit is the Avalon air show, a celebration of aeronautical militarism in the southern hemisphere best done without. In 2021, the organisers announced with regret that the event would be cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions and uncertainty. Last October, however, organisers promised a return to form in 2023. Those with tickets “can look forward to a whole new program with jaw-dropping aerial displays, a refreshed food and beverage offering, and live entertainment.”
Also known as the Australian International Airshow and Aerospace and Defence Exposition, Avalon2023 promises to “showcase” much in the “dynamic world of aviation, aerospace and space, new materials, fuels and ways of flying”.
The program features both a specialist dimension and complimentary conferences “open to any accredited Trade Visitor”. The specialist aspect will feature presentations from, among others, the Royal Australian Air Force, Australian International Aerospace Congress, Australian Association for Unscrewed Systems (AAUS), Australian Industry Defence Network (AIDN), and the Australian Airports Association.
With this military bonanza unfolding on February 28, the Australian Defence Minister, Richard “Call me Deputy Prime Minister” Marles, has tooted his justifications for more hardware, more military merchandise and more engagement with the defence industry. His address to the Avalon 2023 Defence and Industry Dinner revealed a boyish credulity typical in so many who lead that portfolio. The boys-with-toys credo becomes all seducing. Air forces, he noted, “are the coolest part of any military.” Trying to amuse, he called Top Gun Maverick “an important and insightful documentary”.
With that treacly tribute out of the way, Marles could get down to the business of frightening Australians and delighting the military industrial mandarins. Australia faced “the most challenging and complex set of strategic circumstances we’ve seen since the Second World War.” The “global rules-based order” had been placed “under immense pressure”, largely due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “The post-Cold War era – a period of democratic expansion and unprecedented integration of global trade and investment – is now over.”
The scriptwriter had evidently gone to sleep in drafting such words. The post-Cold War era was streaked by brutal invasions and interventions (Iraq and Libya, to name but two instances), supposedly by the rules-abiding types in Washington, London and Canberra. The Russian invasion did feature the imposition of will by a larger state on a smaller neighbour using “power and might”, but the US-led invasion that kicked the hornet’s nest of sectarian violence in 2003 came from the same stable of thought.
The speech then follows a familiar pattern. First, call out the Russians. Then highlight the Oriental Armed Scourge to the North. “In the Indo-Pacific, China is driving the largest conventional military build-up we’ve seen anywhere in the world since the Second World War. And much of this build-up is opaque.”
Australia’s security, assured by its remote location and geography, could no longer be taken seriously. “Today we face a range of threats – including longer-range missiles and hypersonics and cyber-attacks – which render our geographic advantages far less relevant.”
The enemy could do damage from afar, causing harm “without ever having to enter our territorial waters or our air space.” It was therefore important to place Australian defence upon the footing of “being able to hold any potential adversaries at risk much further from our shores.”
This was a rather devious way of laying the ground for more cash and larger budgets, ignoring the clear point that Australia has no truly mortal enemies, but wishes to make them as Washington’s obedient deputy.
One particular product is meant to take centre stage. The Australian Defence Force is lagging in the department of murderous drone technology. One promises to be unveiled at Avalon. As reported by the national broadcaster, “The unscrewed air system has been developed by BAE Systems Australia and is designed to be stored in shipping containers.” The device is allegedly capable of carrying a lethal payload in excess of 100 kilograms.
Australia’s Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal Robert Chipman, has made no secret of his desire for low-cost killer drones. “We’ve seen a proliferation of low-cost drones and loitering munitions delivering both ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] and fires to great effect,” he told a Melbourne audience filled with foreign air force chiefs and senior officials, “they don’t replace the roles of contemporary combat aircraft, but they might serve as a useful complement.”
With that in mind, the RAAF was “considering the potential of low-cost drones that bring mass to our air combat system, and we’re considering what new measures are necessary to defend against them.” Such views thrilled the war mongering offices at The Australian, which expressed satisfaction that Australian military policy was finally “moving in the right direction.”
Chapman has been particularly busy in the leadup to the Avalon airshow, walking the tightrope of defence propaganda. Self-praise and capability must be balanced against a fear of achievement on the part of an adversary.
In an interview with the Australian Financial Review last week, the Air Marshal revealed that the RAAF had also joined the hysteria about targeting high altitude surveillance balloons. He also defended the merits of the F-35 fighter jet, praising their pilots as having “retained an edge over drones or other unscrewed platforms despite advances in technology.”
China, however, was causing jitters in the area of hypersonic missiles, capable of delivering a warhead at five times the speed of sound with extreme manoeuvrability. “I think China is in front when it comes to hypersonics […] and that is something we are actively working to address.” Thank goodness, then, for the Avalon Air Show, even if the organisers were not sagacious enough to invite both Chinese and Russian manufacturers.
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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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On February 19th, the National Mall in Washington, DC saw its largest antiwar rally in 20 years. The speakers list included four former US presidential candidates and a broad and diverse collection of antiwar activists from beyond the left and right.
The aptly-named “Rage Against War Machine” rally drew thousands of attendees, however many pro-war advocates eagerly pointed out that it did not match in size some of the larger rallies against the Iraq war 20 years ago.
To that I say, “who cares”? The US mainstream media engages in war propaganda non-stop, with the only exception being Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. So I think it’s a miracle anyone had the courage to travel to the heart of the war machine in Washington, DC to make their voices heard! We don’t need a majority to fight back – an educated and dedicated minority will do quite nicely. And we certainly had that at the rally!
As I sat in the green room waiting to speak, I had the opportunity to visit with former Democrat presidential candidates Tulsi Gabbard and Dennis Kucinich and former Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Political commentators Jimmy Dore and Chris Hedges were there, along with many leading and well—spoken libertarians. Everyone backstage carried the same message: we must put aside our differences to build a new, broad coalition against this war!
I believe the antiwar movement is starting to catch fire both at home and overseas. The DC rally was followed by much larger antiwar rallies in Paris, Berlin, London, and elsewhere.
Several recent polls, including by Pew and AP, show that American support for Ukraine is evaporating. Even in the EU, new polls show a public turning sharply against their governments’ support for the war. According to a recent Ipsos poll, less than half of Germans support continuing to send weapons to Ukraine. Change is in the air.
The DC rally took place in the backdrop of Seymour Hersh’s explosive investigative report demonstrating how the US government blew up the Nord Stream pipelines and the mainstream media’s desperate attempt to cover it up. The truth is coming out, and it’s even uglier than we imagined.
The US mainstream media is clearly getting nervous that its control over the narrative is also evaporating. How do we know they’re nervous? They have turned up their lies and slanders of antiwar rallies and voices.
Rachel Maddow, who fed America a steady stream of “Russiagate” lies for the past six or so years, let loose with a slanderous blue streak about the Rage Against the War Machine rally. Literally everything Maddow said in her post-rally rant was objectively false and her mischaracterization of rally participants as “weird” was devious. She falsely claimed that the rally was full of “white supremacists,” “Proud Boys,” and “anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists.”
No one who was at the rally would have had any idea what she was talking about. But her job was not to describe the rally, it was to defame it. What does Maddow’s hysterics about the rally show? They are nervous. It shows that the mainstream media, despite having near-total power, is afraid. They are afraid they are losing the narrative. Good. It’s about time. Let’s hope that more Americans begin to rage! Rage against the war machine!
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URGENT: Today we join Eric Coppolino in calling for the immediate, total evacuation of East Palestine, Ohio due to the dioxin fallout now taking place there. The full interview with Eric Coppolino is now available at the bottom of this article. The interview also appears at the HR Report channel page on Brighteon.com.
The toxic cloud event that’s dropping extremely toxic dioxins across a large area of residential housing and farmland was deliberately generated by the open burning of vinyl chloride, creating combustion byproducts of dioxins which are many orders of magnitude more toxic and dangerous than the original substance.
Understand that the combustion of chlorinated compounds always results in the formation of dioxins. This simple fact is known by all competent chemists and is openly admitted by the EPA itself on its dioxins warning page, which states:
Studies have shown that only small amounts of chlorinated materials in waste are required to support dioxin formation when burning waste… Much of the dioxins created and released into the air through backyard burning settle on plants. These plants are, in turn, eaten by meat and dairy animals, which store the dioxins in their fatty tissue. People are exposed to dioxins primarily by eating meat, fish, and dairy products, especially those high in fat. Backyard burning occurs most commonly in rural farming areas where dioxin emissions can more easily be deposited on animal feed crops and grazing lands. These dioxins then accumulate in the fats of dairy cows, beef, poultry, and swine, making human consumption of these harmful chemicals difficult to avoid.
Near-PERMANENT ecological destruction on a scale never before witnessed
The EPA even states that dioxins are PBTs, which means 1) Persistent. 2) Bioaccumulative. 3) Toxic. This means they don’t go away, they accumulate up the food chain to achieve higher and higher concentrations, and 3) They are toxic. As the EPA explains:
Dioxins are classified as persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic pollutants (PBTs). PBTs are highly toxic, long-lasting substances that can build up in the food chain to levels that are harmful to human and ecosystem health. Persistent means they remain in the environment for extended periods of time. Bioaccumulative means their concentration levels increase as they move up the food chain. As a consequence, animals at the top of the food chain (such as humans) tend to have the highest dioxin concentrations in their bodies.
What sort of health problems are caused by dioxin exposure?
1) Immune suppression.
2) Infertility, spontaneous abortions.
3) Extreme hormone disruption.
4) Developmental disorders in babies and children.
5) DNA mutations.
6) Cancer.
Via the EPA:
Dioxins are potent toxicants with the potential to produce a broad spectrum of adverse effects in humans. Dioxins can alter the fundamental growth and development of cells in ways that have the potential to lead to many kinds of impacts. These include adverse effects upon reproduction and development, suppression of the immune system, disruption of hormonal systems, and cancer.
The “controlled burn” actually transformed a relatively harmless chemical into an extremely toxic, deadly chemical that will persist across Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York State for CENTURIES
The media and government are both repeatedly using the phrase, “controlled burn” to describe the setting fire to the liquid vinyl chloride monomer that was being carried by the Norfolk Southern railroad.
Vinyl chloride is made solely of three elements: Carbon, hydrogen and chlorine. In its simplest form, it looks like this (the monomer, liquid form is on the left, and the solid poly form is on the right):
Although vinyl chloride is somewhat toxic, it’s nowhere near as toxic as the dioxins created by burning vinyl chloride without fully incinerating it. Low-temperature combustion actually produces far more toxic compounds than what you started with, in other words.
Put another way, if you incinerate it as a hazardous waste at > 2000 degrees (F), you will destroy the molecule’s morphology and end up with just the individual elements such as carbon and hydrogen, each of which is relatively harmless by itself.
But if you ignite vinyl chloride in an open ditch, you create a dioxin factory that produces extremely toxic molecules from the combination of heat and oxygen. The hydrogen, carbon and chlorine are combined with oxygen from the open air (hence the fact that the burn was actually uncontrolled, not controlled), and you produce molecules like this: (2,3,7,8 TCDD)
Image source: Restoration and Remediation Magazine Online, RandRmagonline.com
After this relatively low-temperature combustion (an open fire in a ditch), you have now converted relatively harmless vinyl chloride into extremely toxic, persistent toxins known as dioxins.
Burning the vinyl chloride was an act of ecological terrorism and a crime against nature and human civilization
In effect, you’ve just increased the toxicity of this substance by perhaps 10 orders of magnitude or more, given that dioxins can be toxic at exposures well below billionths of a gram. A femtogram is one millionth of one billionth of a gram, and dioxins can produce toxic effects at femtograms of exposure.
In fact, competent scientists have concluded that there is no safe level of exposure to dioxins. Not even one femtogram. That’s because at any level, dioxins begin to produce toxic effects on biology, no matter how small the exposure.
Put another way, by setting fire to the vinyl chloride, the railroad turned their relatively non-toxic product into an insanely toxic chemical bomb and released it into the open air.
To call this a “controlled burn” is a crime. The media is gaslighting the entire nation by refusing to report on dioxins.
Whoever set fire to this vinyl chloride in an open ditch just carried out the worst act of ecological terrorism ever recorded in North America.
Post-structure fire and wildfire settings, especially those where plastics, synthetic materials, electronics, or PVC have burned, extremely hazardous and carcinogenic chemicals are created that are typically overlooked altogether. One chemical in particular, dioxin, some consider to be one of the most toxic chemicals known to man.
Not only is this substance extremely toxic to all life, and far more lethal than asbestos or lead, it is also known to the World Health Organization as a member of the so-called “Dirty Dozen” – a group of dangerous chemicals also referred to as persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
POPs are chemicals of global concern due to their potential for long-range transport, persistence in the environment and atmosphere, ability to bioaccumulate in ecosystems, as well as their significant negative effects on human health and the environment. Bioaccumulation is the accumulation of chemicals in organisms from the surrounding environment through skin absorption, ingestion, and inhalation.
As this article explains — a fact that can be confirmed by any competent chemist, dioxins are created when chlorinated compounds are ignited or combusted:
Dioxins are formed when products containing carbon and chlorine burn, especially plastic, paper, pesticides, herbicides or other products where chlorine is used in the manufacturing process. Dioxins do not typically exist in materials before they are burned and are especially prevalent in structure fires and wildfires.
When set on fire, dioxins are formed and then chemically bond to smoke particles
From the R and R magazine, link above:
Depending on the temperature in a fire, dioxins can be adsorbed or chemically bound to smoke particles or remain in a vapor phase. Adsorption is when particles bond with one another, similar to how a magnet bonds with iron, rather than being absorbed like a sponge absorbs liquids.
This means that when you are observing the giant smoke column rising from East Palestine and spreading over the entire area like a giant toxic doom cloud, you are seeing dioxins spreading through the air with the smoke. The following photo is essentially showing a dioxin cloud spreading in an uncontrolled manner, into the atmosphere:
All the people who have been breathing in the fallout areas in the aftermath of East Palestine are breathing in highly toxic dioxins:
TCDD can enter your body if you inhale contaminated particulate, have skin or eye contact with contaminated soot, ash, or other materials, or eat contaminated food. Due to the fact that ultra-fine smoke particulate matter generated in fires is often less than 3 microns in size (half the size of a red blood cell), inhalation of dioxin-laden particulate can easily bypass the lungs and enter the bloodstream.
Here’s another list of some of the effects of dioxin exposure, via the same source linked above:
Other adverse health effects may include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, porphyria, endometriosis, early menopause, reduced testosterone and thyroid hormones, altered immunologic response, skin, tooth, and nail abnormalities, altered growth factor signaling, and altered metabolism.
Diseases which have been linked to dioxin seem endless. Ingesting dioxin can also result in congenital malformations, spontaneous miscarriages, and a fatal, slow wasting syndrome similar to AIDS. Dioxin is strongly suspected of contributing to pathology of the urinary and hematological systems, growths in the colon, gallbladder complications, multiple myeloma, and lung, larynx and prostate cancer.
According to researcher Joe Thornton, “Dioxin’s health effects include endocrine disruption, reproductive impairment, infertility, birth defects, impaired neurological development, damage to the kidneys, and metabolic dysfunction. There is no evidence that there is a safe level of dioxin exposure below which none of these effects will occur.”
Long-term DNA mutations / DNA damage, even affecting pregnancies TWENTY YEARS after exposure
From the same source linked above:
TCDD is genotoxic and a known mutagen. A mutagen is a physical or chemical agent that causes a mutation, which is a change in the DNA of a cell. DNA changes caused by mutagens may harm cells and cause certain diseases, such as cancer. TCDD alters the genetic structure of living cells. The effect TCDD has on cell structures and genes can be passed down to future generations. In 2012, a scientific study found that dioxin affects not only the health of an exposed rat, but also unexposed descendants through a mechanism of epigenetic transgenerational inheritance. Michael Skinner, Ph.D., a professor in the Center for Reproductive Biology at Washington State University, discovered that “exposure to dioxin caused changes in the DNA methylation patterns of sperm that were transmitted across generations to affect the health of multiple generations of descendants. The grandchildren of exposed rats showed dioxin-induced effects ranging from polycystic ovarian disease to kidney disease. Due to its extremely long half-life, dioxin may still affect pregnancies occurring even 20 years after exposure.”
This means the toxic dioxin gas bomb just released over Ohio is also a genetic mutation bomb that will destroy the lives of millions of people for generations to come.
This is, in fact, far worse then Chernobyl, a Soviet nuclear accident that killed dozens and poisoned hundreds of thousands over time. What just happened in Ohio will poison millions of Americans and likely kill tens of thousands, if not many more.
This event dwarfs Chernobyl, yet the entire U.S. corporate media is complicit in this criminal cover-up that also involves the EPA, CDC, White House, Governor of Ohio, the railroad company and more.
We are going to start seeing babies born with deformed faces and limbs over the next several years. We are going to witness mass human suffering, animal die-offs and “dead zone” areas where no animals can survive.
There’s much more coming on this. Watch for my full interview with Eric Coppolino to be posted here, and also watch for NaturalNews.com’s upcoming report on natural phytochemicals that can help block and detox dioxins from the body, according to published medical and scientific research.
Finally, note that we are adding dioxin testing to our food science lab using one of our mass spec instruments (a tandem ms/ms combined with a GC interface) and we hope to have dioxin testing up and running within 90 days. More updates coming…
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Comments Off on Call for the Total Evacuation of East Palestine Due to Extremely Toxic “Dioxin Fallout” that Will Poison the Land and Crops for Generations
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A London hospital has taken down a display of artwork designed by Palestinian schoolchildren from Gaza after complaints by a British pro-Israel charity.
According to a statement by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), the hospital was compelled to remove the artwork following a complaint by the NGO on behalf of a number of Jewish patients, “who said that they felt vulnerable and victimised by this display”.
The artwork contained a display of decorated plates, along with illustrations of their significance. Entitled “Crossing Borders – a festival of Plates”, the display was shown by the entrance to the children’s outpatients’ department at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
It was designed by children at two schools run by UNRWA in Gaza and transferred onto the plates by children at the Chelsea Community Hospital school. The caption for one of the display plates was: “The olive branch is the symbol of peace and is used to express the wish for an independent Palestinian state.”
The group said: “The drawings from Gaza all appear to be professional artwork, in the same style, and carried out by the same person,” although it was said to have been designed by children at the Beit Lahia Girls’ School and the Jabalia Prep Boys’ A School in Gaza.
UKLFI said in the complaint that some of the artwork displayed Palestine as covering the entire area of Israel.
If you feel "vulnerable" and "victimised" having to look at a display of artwork by children from Gaza, imagine how those children feel when an Israeli soldier is pointing a gun at them. And get over yourself.https://t.co/A29Ql1Lh3X
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush 🟨🟥🥀🇵🇸🇾🇪 (@WarmongerHodges) February 24, 2023
Another description of a plate says: “The olive branch is the symbol of peace and is used to express the wish for an independent Palestinian state.”
“However, the picture on the plate accompanying the text shows the Dome of the Rock with a large Palestinian flag, implying that Jerusalem and in particular the site of what had been the Jewish Temple, would be part of a Palestinian state,” UKLFI said. The Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque are located in East Jerusalem, an area designated as Israeli-occupied territory in international law since 1967.
Israel has imposed a land, air and sea blockade on Gaza since Hamas won legislative elections in 2006. The siege and several Israeli military operations against Gaza have killed thousands of Palestinian civilians, including children, and left many suffering post-traumatic stress disorders.
Update – the apartheid apologists at UK lawyers for Israel edited the text in their ludicrous article, removing “delighted” and “designed by children from Gaza”, so they can appear less unhinged.
UKLFI claimed that the young students at the two Gaza schools had been taught with Hamas ideology embedded within their curriculum.
“The fact that adults could find a piece of artwork done by children intimidating, that an outfit such as the UKLFI could move to issue a complaint, and finally for the hospital to actually remove the artwork, is utterly bizarre,” said Anas Altikriti, CEO of The Cordoba Foundation, a UK-based research group.
Middle East Eye has reached out to the Chelsea and Westminster hospital for comment.
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I was actually talking to Cory Morningstar, who put me on track to investigate the White Helmets. So I think she wrote about them originally in 2014- one year after they were established by British Military Intelligence operative, James Le Mesurier, employed by Analysis Research and knowledge (ARK) group that’s headed up by very probably an MI6 operative Alistair Harris, who’s operating in a number of countries around the world on behalf of the British government.
And we were both talking about the fact that we’re suddenly post-earthquake seeing wall-to-wall propaganda resurrecting the White Helmet brand, that of course had been extensively damaged by Syrian civilian accusations including theft, murder, torture, detention, being embedded with armed groups dominated by Al-Qaeda, organ trafficking, child abduction for presenting their chemical weapon staged events, and of course they were proven to be staged after the Douma 2018 chemical attack when the OPCW dissident inspectors, who were on the ground, pointed out that the events at the Medical Center in Douma were staged as I had already confirmed visiting the Medical Center days after the alleged attack.
So the brand itself had been we thought irreparably damaged. They tried to revive it in Ukraine. The White Helmets go to Ukraine…That didn’t really work. In fact, it really worked against them because people then started to affiliate them with the Nazi elements in Ukraine, particularly with the mercenaries going from the northeast of Syria into Ukraine to fight alongside the Azov and Aidar battalions, and also of course more recently the influx of ISIS from Syria into Ukraine to fight alongside the Ukrainian forces such as they are now. But suddenly after the earthquakes, or the two earthquakes, major earthquakes that hit Syria on the 6th of February, we’ve seen it’s like Groundhog Day. We’ve gone back to the 2013 promotional material wall-to-wall across all media outlets, who are the White Helmets, the same kind of copy-paste Syria Campaign narratives that were produced back then, who are they volunteers- three thousand volunteers saving 115 lives in Syria etc….But what I want to focus on today is the fact that here in Syria we see that the West collectively and their allies in Israel and the Gulf States, namely Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are capitalizing on the humanitarian tragedy on the earthquake to effectively revive the military war against the Syrian government.
I mentioned attacks carried out by ISIS…The Western media is portraying attacks by Assad personally… Of course that’s what they’ve always done against terrorist positions in the Northwest….And reality those so-called attacks have been defensive campaigns to prevent the advance of the armed groups dominated by Al-Qaeda, known to be a U.S admitted to be a U.S. asset inside Syria.. And so the White Helmet Resurrection in my view is part of this drive to re-arm, re-equip and refinance the armed groups in the Northwest to lead a military campaign alongside ISIS in the Northeast, Central Syria and the southeast, and bolstered by the latest Israeli aggression on the 19th of February around 1:00 am when they attacked various sites in Syria, including a number of sites in Damascus, killing five Syrian civilians, injuring dozens, more damaging the Damascus Citadel’s archaeological institutes destroying historical documents by UNESCO heritage site in Sweida- to the south of Damascus- 300 kilometers away from the U.S military base in al Tanf.
So, what I’m trying to say today to people that are not aware of who the White Helmets are and who may be getting pulled into funding the various donation sites that are associated with the White Helmets… I want to try and point out how this uptake in funding has come as a result of the earthquake.. So in other words the earthquake is being exploited by the West, while of course they’re maintaining to a large degree the majority of the sanctions against the bulk of the Syrian population- 80% living under the Syrian government protection.
So first of all, let’s have a look. I’ll run through quite quickly, and I’ve only really taken a small percentage of the funding campaigns that are out there linked to the White Helmets. So first of all we see secretary Antony Blinken: “Today, I’m announcing plans for additional 100 million dollars to provide life-saving aid in Turkey and Syria”.
And I have to say also when they mentioned Syria, they’re talking about Northwest Syria. They’re talking about the pocket of Syria that is controlled by Al-Qaeda or Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and Abu Muhammad al-Julani (the head of HTS) who by the way refused the Convoy of 14 trucks of humanitarian aid that came from Damascus through southern Idlib, and after a week of negotiation between Syrian Arab Crescent the UAE and the armed groups dominated by al-Julani, Al-Julani put out a statement saying that he wouldn’t legitimize the internationally recognized Syrian government and he wouldn’t accept the aid.
Activists on the ground told me he was asking for ten thousand dollars per truck for it to enter Idlib to bring aid to the Syrian people under their occupation. So Blinken basically goes on this is all part of this kind of rebranding or cleaning up of the White Helmet brand. So here he states that he’s honored to meet representatives of the Syria Civil Defense, of course we know there are not the Syria Civil Defense. The real Syria Civil Defense was established in 1953 in Syria and it’s the only recognized, Syria Civil Defense by the International Organization for Civil Defense in Geneva. Added to the U.S. So Blinken’s talks about 100 million which will be distributed part of it through USAID, we have Germany offering 30 million euros for NGOs. We assume among those will be the White Helmets in the Northwest again controlled by Al-Qaeda. Samantha Power, who heads up USAID under the Biden Administration is talking look at the second part of her tweet 85 million in funding, and of course she had a conversation with Raed Al Salah (the head of the White Helmets).
And so we know that much of this funding will in effect go to the White Helmets. The White Helmets putting out their thank you tweet to Samantha Power, the USAID Bureau for humanitarian assistance, lead photographed alongside a White Helmets management. And I have to say all of this money to our knowledge is coming into bank accounts in Istanbul, that are managed by the three directors of the White Helmets: Raed Saleh, Farouq Habib and Munir Mustafa, and of course we would like to have some transparency on how this money is going to be distributed into the Northwest which as I keep saying is under the control of al-Qaeda, again from Samantha Powers. So she very kindly adds on an additional 5 million to assist with rescue equipment fuel for life-saving operations and crucial support for ambulance networks. We’ll come on to that later.
Interesting here, I just want to point out look at the uniform and the branding of the White Helmets. We’re going very much towards kind of EU-UK fire Brigade insignia, and notice of course that everything is in English despite the fact that they work in an Arabic speaking environment. Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield, the United States Representative for the US, is talking about the decision to open two additional border crossings. So again, this is related in my view to the uptick in military support for the armed groups, and the Revival of the military campaign to topple the Syrian government while Syria itself is at its most vulnerable. Qatar which of course originally put in around 3 billion into supporting regime change in Syria from 2011 onwards, and whose media was responsible for much of the propaganda that demonized the Syrian government.
Now interesting that they do actually state that they’re going to support the operations of the White Helmet, but they’re a little bit coy about mentioning the amount. They say that basically they are fundraising 10 million dollars and they set aside one million. But we can assume that an awful lot more will be coming in from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The Canadian government will provide an initial 10 million in aid to Turkey and Syria. And Denmark alongside the UK krona 20 million to the Syria civil defense. So again going directly to the White Helmets. And I think that’s around 2 million. I think sterling and a little bit more than that in dollars. The UK government not to be outdone commit to additional funding to the White Helmets to support search and rescue in Syria.
The White Helmets thanked the British delegation, which was headed up by the right honorable Andrew Mitchell who’s the Minister of State for development and Africa. Of course he was honored to meet the white Helmets Heroes involved in search and rescue operations in Northwest Syria. They’ve released an additional 4.3 million pounds. The UK foreign office funds the White Helmets year on year 2.2 million minimum, and I believe that 4.3 million has just been increased to 5 million. I’ll do a summary of all the funding so far at the end,, but then let’s get on to what I call the kind of billionaire complex, influencer cartels “Choose Love” which was previously help refugees has had a target of 4.164 million to raise for the White Helmet. I recommend everybody goes to the UK column article: “White Helmets, Halal Systems and the Grotesque Militarization of Humanitarianism in Syria” where you will find a lot of information about Choose Love or help refugees as it was previously.
This rebranding of these NGOs, or the members of the NGO complex is very common when their reputation is tarnished. The rebranding happens just as of course it did with al-Qaeda in Syria multiple times, then we have a AVAAZ, instrumental in funding the war campaign against the Syrian government from 2011 onwards. I mentioned Danny Abdul day, and before if people remember back in, I think it was 2012 of ours had the smuggle hope for Syria Campaign, which raised over 2 million to equip the so-called citizen journalists, who produced much of the early propaganda before the White Helmets took over. So the latest of our campaigns.
I also want to draw your attention to the language that’s being used by the major and by these funding campaigns. It’s doomsday in Turkey and Syria. I’ve seen this across multiple media outlets again pushing the very familiar tagline on the White Helmets, one brave group of Syrian volunteers who’s already responding literally digging people out of trouble with bare hands. Pay attention to that sentence “The white helmets are the best hope for people in parts of Syria”. Will they admit they omit the fact that “it’s the part of Syria that contains the majority of al-Qaeda and affiliated armed terrorist groups including the Uyghurs from China, Chechens, Saudi Arabians, Afghanistanis, Turkistanis, etc….”And then they are crying out for rescue supplies: fuel and an emergency shelter, and our movement could provide it in hours. That’s interesting. Avaaz could provide materials for the White Helmets in the Northwest now.
You’ll also be seeing- and that’s where I really want to draw people’s attention to this. You’re going to be seeing a lot of images like this: White Helmets holding children aloft, a lot of cheering and shouting and a lot of cameras, a lot of mobile phones and very clean children and children that don’t look remotely traumatized by six -now ten- days under the rubble. You’re going to see a lot of that.. Don’t please be fooled by it.
The real theory of civil defense, the Syrian Arab Crescent and the various emergency relief teams inside proper Syria are too busy actually doing their work to pose for photo opportunities. But note here the White Helmets thank of ours then you have what’s this one the Voices Project USA, which is effectively Syria Campaign. Syria campaign established by Ayman Asfari, a UK based Syrian oil baron investigated by the serious fraud organization that looked into his funding of the conservative party under Theresa May. And this is the American version of the Syria Campaign. But the Syria campaign have their own funding campaign going again showing very emotive pictures of the White Helmets: “GoFundMe” that shut down multiple fundraisers for people inside Syria under the government protection, but however managed to raise a hundred thousand to support the White Helmets riots ahead of the White Helmets was actually allowed to start a funding campaign with Gulf. On me it wasn’t shut down. The mayor of London said it can’t. In Trafalgar Square, City Hall is assisting the Syrian community and creating Syria house a space where they can pay their respects, and we even have the royal family involved in Trafalgar Square. The king looks very sorry. Syrian Community tent where members of the Syrian Community can come together to support those who need it most and guess who’s on the left of King Charles ( in the photo) that’s Ayman Asfari, who I just mentioned, who has pretentions to the throne of Syria. The king himself has committed to making a donation to the DEC appeal that has raised over 60 million for Northwest Syria.
Now this is where it gets kind of interesting. So here we’ve got an interview on Le devoir. So in this interview I’ll translate from French. We’ve heard the cries of people under the rubble but they said we don’t have equipment to save them that’s the White Helmets, and here you have one of the primary members of the White Helmets talking about the White Helmets’ needs: fuel, search and rescue equipment, heavy vehicles, spare parts for vehicles, tires for vehicles.
Now remember how many millions are being pledged to this organization of less than 3 000 volunteers. Now in amongst the media campaign I found these photographs of the lack of heavy machinery, while the White Helmets are allegedly digging people out from under the rubble and then let’s have a look back at this. This is the White Helmets YouTube channel in Idlib. 15.2k subscribers. It’s been running since 2013, and if you can play the video Mike, I just want to show from one year ago amount of Machinery that the White Helmets had available to them. And at one point that I want to make during this video is the White Helmets operate with an annual budget from their various sponsors in the west and in the Gulf States and Israel, 35 million per year.
The real serious civil defense, 10 000 volunteers across 80 percent of the population of Syria, have an annual budget of 50 000. While the White Helmets have all of this equipment. And while the White Helmets had in fact stolen equipment from the rails of Syria civil defense -when they occupied areas where the real Syria civil defense operated. In Aleppo- for example, I spoke to one of the captains of the Syria civil defense the real one and he told me that for 44 collapsed buildings they only had seven machines to actually help them dig people out from under the rubble.
So this gives you an indication and a comparison between the two organizations: One funded by the West in order to destabilize their country and criminalize the Syrian government. The other, the genuine Syria civil defense that is working for the Syrian people. So I want to look at this very quickly. This is the Syria Regional program for USAID final report 2020 and note in the small print at the bottom that “USAID and now the British government siphoned their funding not directly to the White Helmets but through Chemonics International.
And let’s have a look. So this was since 2013 to 2020. I’ve circled in Red. So 46% of the funding, 25.2 million went to the supply of heavy equipment for the White Helmets. So their claims that they don’t have heavy equipment available are false, and so therefore one has to ask: Where are the millions going??? and let’s just do a quick recap of what I’ve talked about. So, Blinken talked about 100 million [part of it via USAID], and we also have to remember USAID’s connections to the CIA. Germany 30 million Euros. So, 31.7 million dollars USAID, 85 million plus an extra 5 million for the White Helmets, Denmark in collaboration with the UK 1.9 million, the UK FCDO about 6 million. Choose Love $4.8 million. DEC that I mentioned that the King Charles is going to be donating to 72 million dollars, Qatar at least 10 million. So the total is 316 million so far.
And as I said I’ve only scratched the surface. I’ve not looked into the EU, the UN pledges, etc…, and the White Helmets 20 million minimum. So their annual budget is 35 million. They’re getting that anyway one assumes, and here we have 20 million on top for 3 000 volunteers that already have all the equipment they need to dig people out. So why is this money needed. And just a quick reminder from John Pilger award-winning journalist/ film maker as he said: “I think in 2016 or 2017, the White Helmets are complete propaganda construct”, and he also mentioned they’re working alongside Nusra Front, which is Al-Qaeda in Syria.
NOTE: Avaaz is U.S.-based nonprofit organization launched in January 2007 that promotes global activism on issues such as climate change, human rights, animal rights, corruption, poverty, and conflict. In 2012, The Guardian referred to Avaaz as “the globe’s largest and most powerful online activist network
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An interesting story was reported on Feb.26, 2023 by News 8 WTNH, New Haven, CT. They took the story down about 24 hours later but it is still available on EIN Presswire (click here).
“Nearly 500 people from Washington, Oregon and Idaho gathered at the Wenatchee Convention Center in Washington State on Saturday, January 28 to hear and share stories of…injuries and deaths from COVID shots and hospital protocols; careers upended and families torn apart by mandates; and numerous harms from closures of schools, businesses and churches.”
“Heart screening was available and conducted using multifunction cardiogram technology, or MCG, provided by HeartCARE Corp”
“we had the opportunity to perform Multifunction Cardiogram™ screens on a variety of participants…over half of those tested (16 of 30 people) (53%) had positive markers for myocarditis. Two of these were active duty US Military pilots.“
Studies on rates of post COVID-19 vaccine myocarditis
The rates of post COVID-19 vaccine myocarditis are much, much higher than what Public Health Authorities have admitted to (most will admit to about 1:5000).
There are two key studies on what the real rates of post COVID-19 vaccine heart damage may actually be:
Prospective Thailand study of 202 boys showed 1:30 (7/202) boys ages 13-17 developed myocarditis or pericarditis within a week after 2nd dose of Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA (click here).
Professor Christian Mueller, University Hospital Basel Switzerland conducted testing on 777 healthcare workers within a week after COVID-19 booster shot, and found increased troponinemia in 22/777 (1:35) that had no other cause other than the COVID-19 booster shot (click here)
“The actual incidence of post-vaccination myocardial lesions is 2.8% vs 0.0035% of myocarditis in retrospective studies (unvaccinated)”
“The incidence of myocardial lesions is 2.8% (1:35), or 800 times higher than the usual incidence of myocarditis (in unvaccinated)” the researchers add.
My Take…
I believe myocarditis (heart inflammation) is responsible for vast majority of post COVID-19 sudden deaths that we are seeing now, and health authorities have intentionally downplayed the risk of myocarditis post COVID-19 vaccination.
They don’t want to conduct autopsies on sudden deaths now, because they don’t want us to know that the risk of post-vaccine myocarditis and sudden cardiac death was always much higher than what they admitted to publicly.
Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health admitted to a myocarditis risk of 1 in 5000 and he was lambasted by pharma-captured Ontario doctors who didn’t want any truth to be known (click here)
But both the Thailand study and Swiss study suggest a myocarditis risk of 1:30 or 1:35per vaccine dose. That means 3% of all COVID-19 vaccinated people could be walking around with heart inflammation (myocarditis) they don’t know they have, which puts them at increased risk for sudden cardiac death, during exercise or in the early morning hours (the trigger for sudden cardiac death is a surge of stress hormones).
The Washington event cardiac testing was not scientific and 53% of people walking around with myocarditis seems very unlikely. But it raises a crucial question.
WHAT IF the risk of post COVID vaccine myocarditis actually increases with time?
As reported by Dr.Peter McCullough, we know that spike protein circulates at least 28 days after injection, and gets delivered to the heart during that time (click here).
The Thailand and Swiss studies tested people only within the 1st week after COVID-19 vaccination and 3% had heart inflammation or heart damage.
What if this gets worse as time goes by? What if the risk of myocarditis actually increases from 3% because the spike protein which inflames the heart continues to circulate for 28 days after injection and probably even longer?
That is what this Washington public cardiac testing is suggesting.
I am also concerned about those 2 pilots with inflamed hearts.
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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.”
Comments Off on Cardiac Testing at Washington Public Event Found 53% Myocarditis Rate, Including Two Active Duty US Military Pilots. What Does It Mean?
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“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military.”—Simone Weil, French philosopher
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It’s hard to say whether we’re dealing with a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves), a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens), or if we’ve gone straight to an idiocracy.
A Massachusetts law prohibits drivers from letting their cars idle for more than five minutes on penalty of a $100 fine ($500 for repeat offenders), even in the winter. You can also be fined $20 or a month in jail for scaring pigeons.
This overbearing Nanny State despotism is what happens when government representatives (those elected and appointed to work for us) adopt the authoritarian notion that the government knows best and therefore must control, regulate and dictate almost everything about the citizenry’s public, private and professional lives.
The government’s bureaucratic attempts at muscle-flexing by way of overregulation and overcriminalization have reached such outrageous limits that federal and state governments now require on penalty of a fine that individuals apply for permission before they can grow exotic orchids, host elaborate dinner parties, gather friends in one’s home for Bible studies, give coffee to the homeless, let their kids manage a lemonade stand, keep chickens as pets, or braid someone’s hair, as ludicrous as that may seem.
This is what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.
Overregulation is just the other side of the coin to overcriminalization, that phenomenon in which everything is rendered illegal and everyone becomes a lawbreaker.
As policy analyst Michael Van Beek warns, the problem with overcriminalization is that there are so many laws at the federal, state and local levels—that we can’t possibly know them all.
“It’s also impossible to enforce all these laws. Instead, law enforcement officials must choose which ones are important and which are not. The result is that they pick the laws Americans really must follow, because they’re the ones deciding which laws really matter,” concludes Van Beek.
“Federal, state and local regulations — rules created by unelected government bureaucrats — carry the same force of law and can turn you into a criminal if you violate any one of them… if we violate these rules, we could be prosecuted as criminals. No matter how antiquated or ridiculous, they still carry the full force of the law. By letting so many of these sit around, just waiting to be used against us, we increase the power of law enforcement, which has lots of options to charge people with legal and regulatory violations.”
This is the police state’s superpower: it has been vested with the authority to make our lives a bureaucratic hell.
However, the consequences are all too serious for those whose lives become grist for the police state’s mill. A few years back, police raided barber shops in minority communities, resulting in barbers being handcuffed in front of customers, and their shops searched without warrants. All of this was purportedly done in an effort to make sure that the barbers’ licensing paperwork was up to snuff.
In this way, America has gone from being a beacon of freedom to a locked down nation. And “we the people,” sold on the idea that safety, security and material comforts are preferable to freedom, have allowed the government to pave over the Constitution in order to erect a concentration camp.
We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, carried out in the so-called name of the national good by an elite class of governmental and corporate officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.
We increasingly find ourselves badgered, bullied and browbeaten into bearing the brunt of their arrogance, paying the price for their greed, suffering the backlash for their militarism, agonizing as a result of their inaction, feigning ignorance about their backroom dealings, overlooking their incompetence, turning a blind eye to their misdeeds, cowering from their heavy-handed tactics, and blindly hoping for change that never comes.
The overt signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government (and its corporate partners in crime) are all around us: censorship, criminalizing, shadow banning and de-platforming of individuals who express ideas that are politically incorrect or unpopular; warrantless surveillance of Americans’ movements and communications; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; community-wide lockdowns and health mandates that strip Americans of their freedom of movement and bodily integrity; armed drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that spy on, collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.
Yet as egregious as these incursions on our rights may be, it’s the endless, petty tyrannies—the heavy-handed, punitive-laden dictates inflicted by a self-righteous, Big-Brother-Knows-Best bureaucracy on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace—that illustrate so clearly the degree to which “we the people” are viewed as incapable of common sense, moral judgment, fairness, and intelligence, not to mention lacking a basic understanding of how to stay alive, raise a family, or be part of a functioning community.
In exchange for the promise of an end to global pandemics, lower taxes, lower crime rates, safe streets, safe schools, blight-free neighborhoods, and readily accessible technology, health care, water, food and power, we’ve opened the door to lockdowns, militarized police, government surveillance, asset forfeiture, school zero tolerance policies, license plate readers, red light cameras, SWAT team raids, health care mandates, overcriminalization, overregulation and government corruption.
In the end, such bargains always turn sour.
We relied on the government to help us safely navigate national emergencies (terrorism, natural disasters, global pandemics, etc.) only to find ourselves forced to relinquish our freedoms on the altar of national security, yet we’re no safer (or healthier) than before.
We wanted criminals taken off the streets, and we didn’t want to have to pay for their incarceration.What we’ve gotten is a nation that boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 2.3 million people locked up, many of them doing time for relatively minor, nonviolent crimes, and a private prison industry fueling the drive for more inmates, who are forced to provide corporations with cheap labor.
A special report by CNBC breaks down the national numbers:
One out of 100 American adults is behind bars — while a stunning one out of 32 is on probation, parole or in prison. This reliance on mass incarceration has created a thriving prison economy. The states and the federal government spend about $74 billion a year on corrections, and nearly 800,000 people work in the industry.
According to the Washington Post, these funds have been used to buy guns, armored cars, electronic surveillance gear, “luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.” Police seminars advise officers to use their “department wish list when deciding which assets to seize” and, in particular, go after flat screen TVs, cash and nice cars.
In Florida, where police are no strangers to asset forfeiture, Florida police have been carrying out “reverse” sting operations, where they pose as drug dealers to lure buyers with promises of cheap cocaine, then bust them, and seize their cash and cars. Over the course of a year, police in one small Florida town seized close to $6 million using these entrapment schemes.
We fell for the government’s promise of safer roads, only to find ourselves caught in a tangle of profit-driven red light cameras, which ticket unsuspecting drivers in the so-called name of road safety while ostensibly fattening the coffers of local and state governments. Despite widespread public opposition, corruption and systemic malfunctions, these cameras—used in 24 states and Washington, DC—are particularly popular with municipalities, which look to them as an easy means of extra cash.
One small Florida town, population 8,000, generates a million dollars a year in fines from these cameras. Building on the profit-incentive schemes, the cameras’ manufacturers are also pushing speed cameras and school bus cameras, both of which result in heft fines for violators who speed or try to go around school buses.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is what happens when the American people get duped, deceived, double-crossed, cheated, lied to, swindled and conned into believing that the government and its army of bureaucrats—the people we appointed to safeguard our freedoms—actually have our best interests at heart.
The problem with these devil’s bargains is that there is always a catch, always a price to pay for whatever it is we valued so highly as to barter away our most precious possessions.
We’ve bartered away our right to self-governance, self-defense, privacy, autonomy and that most important right of all: the right to tell the government to “leave me the hell alone.”
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***
On the first anniversary of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, China presented a peace plan, aimed at re-establishing diplomacy and bilateral negotiations. Consisting of twelve points, the proposal reflects the stance of neutrality of the Chinese government, which has refused to support anti-Russian resolutions at the UN, maintaining a strong direct dialogue with Moscow which allows it to develop more realistic proposals, unlike the Western unilateral demands of Russia’s retreat. However, the West does not seem interested in peace, having immediately rejected Beijing’s project.
Beijing calls for an end to hostilities and for the two parties to return to peace talks immediately. Defense of civilians and prisoners of war (POWs) is also a central topic of the project, as well as the safety and stability of the nuclear power plants. In addition, Beijing also advocates the banning of all unilateral sanctions, thus enabling the resumption of economic cooperation and the possibility of a rapid reconstruction of the zones affected by the conflict.
The points of the proposal are: 1. Respecting the sovereignty of all countries; 2. Abandon the Cold War mentality; 3. Ceasing hostilities; 4. Resuming peace talks; 5. Resolving the humanitarian crisis; 6. Protecting civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); 7. Keeping nuclear power plants safe; 8. Reducing strategic risks; 9. Facilitating grain exports; 10. Stopping unilateral sanctions; 11. Keeping industrial and supply chains stable; 12. Promoting post-conflict reconstruction.
As we can see, China proposes a broad diplomatic platform, indicating essential topics for achieving any peaceful solution to the conflict. It is not possible to point out any biased aspect to either side during the analysis of the proposal. These are points that, despite the proximity between Russia and China, reveal a true position of neutrality, seeking to meet, as much as possible, the interests of both sides.
However, as expected, the plan did not please Western governments, which rejected the measure without even establishing forums for prior discussion. According to several Western politicians and experts, the Chinese objective was simply to propose a “pro-Russian peace”, ignoring Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.
For example, according to Clayton Allen and Anna Ashton, analysts linked to the Eurasia Group, a consulting agency and think tank that advises several Western governments, the Chinese twelve points are biased in favor of Moscow and echo the “Russian justifications for the invasion”.
“Although several of the 12 points revealed Chinese concerns over actions primarily associated with Russia, it continued to echo Russia’s justifications for invasion and can largely be framed by Russia as supporting Moscow’s positions (…) China’s approach suggests that they are walking a diplomatic tightrope of strengthening ties to Russia – a key geostrategic ally and counterbalance to the West – while avoiding a position that is seen as openly hostile to Western aims”, they said.
This assessment seems extremely exaggerated. Proposing peace means seeking the best solution for both sides, but obviously also involves meeting the interests of the winning side, which, in this case, is the Russian one. The fact that Moscow seems to “benefit” from this plan is due to the evident reality that Russian troops have an advantage on the battlefield and it would be absolutely unrealistic to think of “peace” seeking to fulfill the Ukrainian objective of withdrawing Russian forces from the liberated regions. What Ukraine and the West understand by “peace” is the recapture of Russian territories, including Crimea, which obviously will not be accepted.
However, worse than that, NATO members and allies not only refused to consider the proposals but began to spread rumors about a possible Chinese intention to send weapons to Russia. According to the Western narrative, the Chinese peace project was a mere excuse to advance cooperation with Moscow and boost bilateral military relations, with plans to supply Russia with weapons in case of rejection of the proposal.
Beijing has denied the allegations, calling them “disinformation”, but at the same time Chinese officials seem aware of the danger caused by Western bellicoseness. In a recent statement, Mao Ning, the spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, informed that the Chinese attitude towards Ukraine is completely peaceful, but recalled that while supplying the Kiev regime with weapons, Washington also acts in a destabilizing way in Taiwan, thus posing a security risk to both Russia and China.
“On the Ukraine issue, China has been actively promoting peace talks and the political settlement of the crisis (…) [However] In addition to pouring lethal weapons into the battlefield in Ukraine, the US has been selling sophisticated weapons to the Taiwan region in violation of the three China-US joint communiqués”, Mao said.
What seems to be happening is yet another “self-fulfilling prophecy” on the part of the West. Believing in its own baseless narrative that China wants to send weapons to Russia, the US takes unnecessary preventive measures whose side effects can be precisely the increase of Russian-Chinese military cooperation. If before there was no plan on the part of Beijing to send arms to the Russian side, it is possible that this will happen now, since the peace proposals have been exhausted and the Chinese are aware that these same forces that push Ukraine towards a proxy war against Russia may soon act against Beijing in Taiwan.
In their anti-Russian and anti-Chinese paranoia, the US and the EU make the wrong decisions and put global peace at risk. Beijing is trying to resolve the situation diplomatically, but Western forces also need to prioritize peace.
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Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
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Diplomacy has always been one of the cornerstones of the so-called “soft” power projection. Countries have used it throughout human history to negotiate issues that otherwise would have been resolved on the battlefield. The United States of America, the world’s most aggressive imperialist (and neocolonialist) power, is rather unique in this regard, as it is essentially using its “diplomacy” as a form of arm-twisting instead of actual dialogue and negotiations. For the warmongering elites in Washington DC, utterly barbaric behavior seems to be a given, while mutual respect and taking the other side’s legitimate interests into account is clearly considered a “foolish weakness”.
This has resulted in numerous wars around the world, further leading to hundreds of millions of dead, wounded and expelled people, or in simpler words, countless lives destroyed due to unparalleled US aggression against the world. And while such a belligerent foreign policy approach is expected from Washington DC when it comes to smaller countries that cannot match US power, they certainly do not attempt to behave similarly toward global powers and superpowers. But America is doing exactly that, with the US State Department issuing open threats to China, accusing it of alleged (planned) arms shipments to Russia. Top American officials also added that Beijing will suffer “very real consequences” if it goes ahead with the supposed deal.
Obviously, the Asian giant wasn’t even given the chance to deny the accusations as the US resorted to directly threatening Beijing. However, China is anything but intimidated. Increasingly confident due to its meteoric rise to superpower status, Beijing was quick to fire back at the blatant threats. During a press briefing on February 27, Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry of China, stated that the Asian giant is fully prepared to retaliate if illegal US sanctions against Chinese companies operating in Russia are not removed. Mao also dismissed allegations that Beijing is planning to send weapons to Russia, rejecting the questionable (at best) US mainstream propaganda reports as disinformation.
Mao also reiterated Beijing’s official position on the Ukraine crisis as one of peace, seeking a solution through negotiations rather than the force of arms. She stressed that “China has been actively promoting peace talks and the political settlement of the crisis,” adding that Beijing has been much more constructive than Washington DC. Mao once again indicated that the US is fully responsible for the incessant escalation in its relations with China. This is certainly true, particularly in recent times, as Washington DC has used even the most trivial matters to denigrate and antagonize Beijing, while also illegally arming the Chinese breakaway island province of Taiwan, exacerbating US-China tensions to a boiling point.
“In addition to pouring lethal weapons into the battlefield in Ukraine, the US has been selling sophisticated weapons to the Taiwan region in violation of the three China-US joint communiqués. What exactly is the US up to? The world deserves to know the answer,” Mao concluded.
Mao also remarked that America is spreading disinformation about China’s alleged supply of weapons to Russia in order to use it as a pretext to sanction Chinese companies, thus eliminating competition by using such underhanded tactics. One of the affected Chinese companies, Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute, has already been sanctioned based on unsubstantiated claims that it is supposedly supplying the Wagner Group PMC (private military company) with satellite imagery of Ukraine. US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland stated last week that sanctions were targeting Chinese companies that “have been observed sneaking up to the edge and trying to provide weapons to Russia”.
The unprecedented US hypocrisy is also seen in the attempts to portray Russian President Vladimir Putin as a supposed “war criminal”, with US President Joe Biden already accusing him of being one and even saying “evidence needs to be gathered for a war crime trial“. This is despite Biden’s central role in starting numerous wars under several US administrations and despite virtually the entire establishment in Washington DC being involved in warmongering and war crimes, regardless of political affiliation. Perhaps an even better example would be the May 2022 speech made by former US president George W. Bush, whose Freudian slip about the “wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq, I mean Ukraine” clearly showed the entire world the sheer scale of US hypocrisy and double standards.
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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
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At last week’s Rage Against the War Machine peace rally in Washington there was no shortage of speakers who denounced the Biden Administration’s hypocritical foreign policy, which essentially judges any violent action undertaken by the United States and its friends as good by definition while anything done by rivals or competitors, sometimes conveniently referred to as “enemies,” as “evil.” In the current context of Ukraine versus Russia, where the US is engaged in proxy warfare, speakers were able to cite and compare the formidable list of America’s armed interventions worldwide since World War Two ended.
Neither Russia nor any other nation comes anywhere near the United States in terms of constant bellicosity, conflicts which hardly ever reflect any real vital national interest or imminent foreign threat. Throw into the hopper the 800-plus US military bases scattered around the world and a growing defense budget larger than those of the next nine nations combined, including China and Russia, and the reader will obtain some idea of the real problem: the United States has become a nation that is best described as a warfare state. That is where the tax money goes to disproportionately and the corruption it feeds produces a willingness to engage in “one more war” on the part of the coddled, protected and richly remunerated political class which in turn supports the carnage by overwhelming majorities.
Several speakers last week also cited as the real problem the media, which once upon a time sought to expose lies and subterfuges by government but now has become a partner with the White House in shaping and promoting a preferred narrative. It should also be pointed out that that media is overwhelmingly Democratic in terms of its ownership and sympathies, so much so that it collaborated in efforts to label Donald Trump and his staff as “Russian agents.”
Sometimes this promotion of a particular point of view is best accomplished using silence, i.e. by not sharing or following up on a story. There was virtually no coverage of last week’s peace rally even though speakers included a number of well-known public figures, three of whom were former congressmen. Likewise, apart from a brief mention in The Washington Post, there has been virtually no follow-up in the mainstream media on Seymour Hersh’s carefully researched and documented investigation of the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines by the United States hidden behind the plausible deniability of a covert operation carried out last September.
Much of the press ignored the clear investigative line on day one when the pipeline exploded that the White House had previously been warning that it would “do something” to stop Nord Stream and that it had both the means and motive to follow through on its threat. Likewise, after the Hersh story broke and Russia sought and obtained a hearing featuring Professor Jeffrey Sachs and former CIA Officer Ray McGovern testifying before the United Nations Security Council to initiate investigation of the matter, the US media ignored the story on the evening news and did not follow-up on it on the next day or subsequently.
A major story involving what were war crimes committed both against adversary Russia and NATO ally Germany and which had nuclear conflict potential was thus made to disappear, but the US and its propaganda machine were not finished yet. The White House predictably denied any role in the pipe line destruction and Vice President Kamala Harris sought to turn the tables by declaring at the Munich Security Conference that it is Russia that is guilty of “crimes against humanity.” She claimed that
“First, from the starting days of this unprovoked war, we have witnessed Russian forces engage in horrendous atrocities and war crimes. [They] have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a civilian population – gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape, and deportation. Execution-style killings, beating and electrocution. Russian authorities have forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of people from Ukraine to Russia, including children. They have cruelly separated children from their families.”
Harris concluded that “we” must continue to “strongly support Ukraine…for as long as it takes!” One might observe that Harris has been unable to secure the actual US borders over the course of more than two years, so “as long as it takes” by her reckoning might well run into the 2050s. And she is hardly known for her ability to discern what is and isn’t true. She might well have added spice to her tale by joking how it must keep Vladimir Putin and his cabinet up until late at night coming up with new atrocities to carry out.
Joe Biden doubled down on the Harris remarks in a speech in Warsaw a few days later, delivered on his return from the Kiev photo op with the man he loves more than any other, Volodymyr Zelensky, where he gave the diminutive comedian another half billion dollars of US taxpayer money and promised that the US will never give up until Russia is defeated. He commented somewhat hyperbolically to Zelensky that after a year of fighting “…Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you and the world stands with you.”
Biden told the Poles just before the February 24 anniversary of the conflict in Ukraine that it was a just war pitting “democracy” against “totalitarianism.” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “craven lust for land and power” had only served to unite democracies around the world.
“It wasn’t just Ukraine being tested. The whole world faced a test for the ages …. And the questions we face are as simple as they are profound: Would we respond, or would we look the other way? One year later, we know the answer. We did respond. We would be strong, we would be united, and the world would not look the other way.”
Demonstrating that delusion is bipartisan, the Biden visit to Kiev was followed by a group of Republican congressmen repeating the feat and traveling to Ukraine to fawn over Zelensky at his presidential palace on the following day. One wonders if there is anyone still “at home” trying to alleviate the huge toxic spill that appears about to consume Ohio? One might well ask where the US federal government gets these idiots from? Dancing around to the tune of a conflict that could have been negotiated away and winding up at the brink of a nuclear war which would in all likelihood destroy the planet is “a test for the ages?” And who pays for these useless congressional trips? More’s the pity, this is not just going on in Eastern Europe. The US is currently cooperating with France in what looks like what will become another military intervention in a perennially unstable Haiti and, of course, China is also in the cross hairs.
And then there is always the Middle East, where Israel benefits from “ironclad” commitments and “unbreakable bonds” rhetoric from Washington. When Israel commands “Jump!” the Biden regime only asks “How high?” Since the media avoids any provocative reporting about the Jewish state, how many Americans know that self-declared Zionist Joe Biden’s Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides has just given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the green light for attacking Iran with US support for any action taken? Nides told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem last Sunday that “Israel can and should do whatever they need to deal with [in regards to Iran] and we’ve got their back.”
There is already a precedent as Israel has in fact been attacking neighboring Syria repeatedly without any comment from Washington, which actually has troops based in that country stealing Syrian oil. Nor has Washington objected when the Israeli army raided two Palestinian camps during the past month, killing respectively 10 and 11 civilians and wounding more than 100 others. To set the stage for what comes next vis-à-vis the wag the dog relationship, after Israel struck a defense compound in Iran on January 29th, the Biden administration suggested to reporters that the Israeli attack was part of a new “joint effort” by Washington and Jerusalem to contain Tehran’s nuclear and military ambitions. Secretary of State Tony Blinken elaborated on the shift on the next day while offering no criticism or concern for the destabilizing potential of the strikes, let alone a condemnation. Instead, he defended the Israeli attack, saying
“[It is] very important that we continue to deal with and work against as necessary the various actions that Iran has engaged in throughout the region and beyond that threaten peace and security.”
Nides’ comment reveals that he is ignorant regarding who is causing trouble in the Middle East. It also confirms that even if there is a military action initiated by Israel that does grave damage to US interests, the White House will support the Israelis. That should surprise no one as the top three officials at the State Department are Jews, as are the top two on the National Security Staff, the Head of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, the Deputy Director at CIA, and the president’s Chief of Staff. The policy shift, for that is what it is, also gives Israel the green light to attack Iranian targets with impunity. Nides also stated that the United States is pledged to deny nuclear weapons to Iran, implying that if it believes such a development is imminent it would destroy the facilities used to create or store the weapons. He also mentioned that the US will not engage in any possible negotiations with Iran as long as it is selling weapons to Russia. Though Nides has no problem with freely killing Palestinian children, he is rather more inflexible when Persians are somehow involved, saying that
“The Iranians are providing drones to Russia and those drones are killing innocent Ukrainians. There is no chance today of us going back to the negotiating table.”
So what do we have? Does anyone remember the famous quote attributed to British statesman Lord Palmerston, that “Nations have no permanent friends or allies. They only have permanent interests.” The United States, uniquely, does not even appear to have interests, apart from pandering to the various constituencies and groups that have bought or stealthily acquired control over the political system and media. So the American public, less safe and prosperous now than at any time since the Second World War, is kept in the dark about what is important and is lied to about almost everything. That is why we are on the brink of destruction in Ukraine and are slaves to the power brokers who hate Russia and favor Israel above all nations. Raging against the war machine will do little good if we are incapable of first figuring out who is screwing us and then developing the courage to put a stop to it. Starting with cutting the current tie that binds with Ukraine and Israel would be a good beginning followed by bringing the troops home from nearly everywhere. Trying the Biden Administration officials who initiated an illegal war by destroying Nord Stream and putting them all in jail would be even better. Yes, every one of them in jail with no parole, starting with mumbling Joe himself.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will fly to the US to meet President Joe Biden on March 3. According to the White House’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the visit is an opportunity to “reaffirm the deep bonds of friendship” between the two NATO allies. One could, however, describe such a friendship as quite a peculiar one. In fact, more often than not, it looks much more like a veiled enmity.
For one thing, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s 8 February piece has denounced the Nord Stream pipelines’ explosion as a sabotage act clandestinely carried out by Washington. In fact, on February 7, Biden himself, during a press briefing, promised: “If Russia invades (…) there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” When asked just how, his reply, with a smile, was: “I promise we will be able to do it.” Scholz was right next to him. This astonishing statement echoed Undersecretary of State for Policy Victoria Nuland’s own remarks just two days earlier – it is no wonder that many suspected American involvement in the still unexplained explosion.
In the aforementioned piece, respected journalist Hersh quotes unnamed intelligent sources who claim the US did fulfill its promise/threat by planting the explosives while using the June 2022 Baltic Operations (BALTOPS 22) exercise as a cover. So far, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Relations Peter Szijjarto has been a lone voice in calling the episode a terrorist attack and calling for an investigation.
Nord Stream 1, as two of the pipelines were collectively known, had been providing cheap gas to Germany for over a decade, something which Washington always opposed; Nord Stream 2 pipelines in turn could double the amount of such cheap gas provided. The explosion harmed all of Europe and the UK, bringing back the ghost of a new depression – but mainly Germany. I have written on how the European energy crisis has served US interests well and hurt European industry as well as on how economic nationalism is once again on the rise, especially today when Europe and, particularly Germany, is facing de-industrialization. I have also written on how American aggressive subsidy war against Europe, in the form of the Inflation Reduction Act, only adds fuel to the fire and risks dividing the political West. In post-Nord Stream Europe, gas prices are to remain high, condemning the continent to inflation, while American interests profit from making the conflict in Ukraine perpetual.
When it comes to Russia, Ukraine and Europe, Washington’s geopolitical and geoeconomic interests are intertwined. The tragedy of the European continent lies in the paradox that it is still heavily dependent on Washington for security, while it would benefit from energy cooperation with neighboring giant Russia. Washington has been consistently betraying European interests to its own benefit, and Germany is the clearest instance of that contradiction.
Berlin could be an industrial power, but Washington’s long campaign against Nord Stream, among other things, has hampered its potential and now its auto industry is particularly vulnerable to the US IRA legislation, which has created new barriers for European electric vehicles. On top of that, Washington has been pressuring Germany to further spend on Ukraine, while German Armed Forces face shortages.
Despite Berlin’s silence regarding the attack on its strategic infrastructure, in the wake of the explosion, both far-left and far-right lawmakers from the Die Linke and the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) political parties, respectively, were calling for the setting up of investigative committees. AfD’s Co-Chairman Tino Chrupalla has demanded the government coalition clarify the matter. In his speech he rhetorically asked whether the NATO alliance “guarantees security in Europe or rather endangers it”. In an interesting development, the leftist Die Linke expressed its solidarity with the rightist AfD on this matter.
European “populists” and the far-right have been capitalizing the growing popular discontent with NATO and the EU itself. In April 2022, defeated French Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen promised to pull France out of NATO, following Charles de Gaulle steps. Regarding the disastrous anti-Russian sanctions (which have backfired against Europe), Viktor Orban’s Hungary has been a kind of lone voice. One should however expect to see a multiplication of such voices, be it from the far-left or from the far-right.
Although often described as an “extreme” and marginal party, the AfD has been growing in popularity in Germany, reaching 17% in a poll for the first time in years, according to a YouGov February poll. It is about time for Europe to assert its sovereignty, and Berlin and France could lead the way in this regard. Calls for investigation regarding the Nord Stream’s sabotage in fact might be gaining traction among wider portions of German society.
In his 2020 book, Udo Ulfkotte, a former editor for German mass daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), denounced how the German Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) has cooperated with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to recruit German journalists and shape public opinion. This could partly explain the overall silence amongst German media on the Nord Stream issue.
As long as the traditional media keeps covering up the topic, one should expect trust in the press to decrease and support for far-right and far-left parties to grow, with potential electoral results in the near future. Such a political wave can increase skepticism about NATO, but before it could advance any rethinking of the European relationship with the Atlantic Alliance (as proposed by Le Pen), it may first cause instability and turmoil in a continent already isolated and deindustrialized. In Germany, right now only Die Linke has supported AfD calls for an investigation, but more voices within the German broader political spectrum are expected to join them.
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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
Isn’t it a shame that none of the world’s governments make the vaccination-death records publicly available? My claim is that if they did that, it would end the debate instantly and prove to the world that the vaccines are unsafe. So that’s why they keep it locked up.
Since this is African American History Month in the United States, I will utilize this fact to illustrate the necessity of building unity against imperialism.
I have shown in my political statement in the Romanian Senate the continuity link between the mass murder campaign through alleged pandemics and the imminent need for injection of untested vaccines that kill people, in fact crimes against humanity, and the outbreak of wars that would establish terror and terrible fear among people, destroying their psyche and resistance, with the aim of reducing the population of the world, restoring power poles and changing borders, plus economic changes worldwide.
In the August 2022 James Gill paper titled “Autopsy Histopathologic Cardiac Findings in 2 adolescents following the second COVID-19 vaccine dose” (click here), two teenage boys died in their sleep within the first week after receiving the 2nd Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine dose. Both boys were pronounced dead at home.
The real purpose of ninety nine percent of the available media out there is designed to help us ignore the truth. Not just mainstream media – all media.
East Palestine is the lesson du jour. So long as it remains in the corporate media’s “news cycle,” coverage will downplay the federal government’s decision to ignore the poisoning of thousands of people, not only in East Palestine but across Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The perpetrators of the universal lockdowns, the imposition of useless masks, the destruction of businesses and livelihoods by these measures and then by the mandates to be inoculated with an unnecessary and dangerous medical intervention – these perpetrators are the people I call evil; and I call evil also those who, knowing better – doctors, for example – went and continue to go along with the horrific charade.
Why Norway? In my account of the Biden Administration’s decision to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines, why did much of the secret planning and training for the operation take place in Norway? And why were highly skilled seamen and technicians from the Norwegian Navy involved?
Idlib, Syria was devastated by a 7.8 earthquake on February 6. The leaks coming out of Idlib are from those working with the international aid groups in Idlib. Whistleblowers are exposing Mohammed Al-Julani and his terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Financial podcasts have been featuring ominous headlines lately along the lines of “Your Bank Can Legally Seize Your Money” and “Banks Can STEAL Your Money?! Here’s How!” The reference is to “bail-ins:” the provision under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act allowing Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs, basically the biggest banks) to bail in or expropriate their creditors’ money in the event of insolvency.
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Author’s note: These remarks were prepared for and delivered in part at a panel discussion sponsored by the Michigan Peace Council. The event was held at the Swords into Plowshares Art Gallery located in downtown Detroit. In addition to Abayomi Azikiwe, other presenters were Steve Boyce of the U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association in Ann Arbor; Dr. Catherine Wilkerson, an activist from Ann Arbor; and Mixx H., a member of Anakbayan USA Detroit chapter, a Filipino mass youth organization. The event was moderated by Bill Meyer, Chair of the MPC and Linda Rayburn, Vice-Chair.
Since this is African American History Month in the United States, I will utilize this fact to illustrate the necessity of building unity against imperialism.
Many African Americans historians such as Dr. Carter G. Woodson, who founded this commemorative month as Negro History Week in 1926; Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois and Shirley Graham Du Bois, pioneers in African and world scholarship and culture; Ms. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, the woman journalist, sociologist and organizer against lynching and for women’s suffrage; among many others, based their philosophical approaches on the critical importance of deconstructing the ideological falsehoods under which the U.S. has projected itself domestically and internationally.
Since the Civil War between 1861-65, the U.S. has been consistently exposed around the world for its failure to create a genuinely democratic society. Even with the decisive defeat of the Confederacy along with the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, the concepts of full equality and self-determination have remained unfulfilled. During the period of Reconstruction and its abandonment on a federal level in the decades after 1876 to the 20th Century, African Americans were subjected to racial terror through legal and extralegal means while at the same time being compelled to serve in wars which only benefited the capitalist class.
Prior to the Civil War, people of African descent and indigenous people were not citizens of the country. The majority of Africans prior to 1860 lived in the Southern slave-owning states of the South. In many ways over the last 160 years, the actual status of African Americans has not fundamentally changed in a manner beneficial to the majority of the Black population.
If we look back on the so-called Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Libya, Syria and now Ukraine, none of these conflagrations have enhanced the social status of the African American people. In fact, the situation is quite to the contrary, when in the post-war periods within U.S. history there has been a wave of repression aimed further solidifying the yoke of oppression by the ruling interests.
After the conclusion of the Spanish-American War where African Americans participated, there was an upsurge in lynching and other forms of racial persecution. Although African Americans were drafted in great numbers into World War I, they were forced to undergo humiliating forms of segregation while stationed in France on behalf of Washington and its allies, while at the same time Black soldiers were attacked at Camp Logan, near Houston, Texas in 1917, and later executed in great numbers by the military. Two years later the advent of racial terror in post-war events of 1919, popularly known as the Red Summer, resulted in further deaths of African Americans. During the summer of 1919, African Americans were attacked by white mobs, law-enforcement and military personnel in many municipalities including Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Knoxville, Tennessee.
Many African Americans died as a direct result of racial terror from 1919 until the Great Depression of 1929-1941, when the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt directly entered the Second World War in the Asia-Pacific and later North Africa and Europe. Over one million African Americans served in segregated military units during World War II where they were denied the same rights as their white counterparts.
After WWII, when the African American people demanded their rights as human beings living within a state which is purportedly based upon merit and equal opportunity, again on an institutional level, were met with a sharp rise in lynchings, police killings and a further intransigence on the part of municipalities, state and federal governments. We only need to point to the work of William Patterson, Paul Robeson, the Du Bois’, etc. when they presented a petition to the United Nations entitled “We Charge Genocide” in 1951.
Paul Robeson presents We Charge Genocide document to UN in 1951 (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)
The U.S. invasion of the Korean Peninsula in June 1950 coincided with the Cold War which targeted many African Americans for their commitment to peace, civil rights and the abolition of Jim Crow domestically along with colonialism in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The struggle for fair treatment, equal access and universal suffrage became synonymous with communism by the federal government.
By the early and mid-1960s, the U.S. government under two successive Democratic presidents, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, often hailed for their contributions to Civil Rights legislation, deployed hundreds of thousands of troops to Southeast Asia. After the assassination of Kennedy nearly 60 years ago, in the spring of 1965, a massive intervention in Vietnam had horrendous social consequences for African Americans. Black soldiers were disproportionately sent to the frontlines in Vietnam to die on the battlefield all the while their people were being denied the right to enter private businesses, public schools, neighborhoods and job categories in the U.S.
After the defeat of U.S. imperialism in Southeast Asia in 1975, the urban areas where African Americans had migrated during the course of the 20th century from the Rural South, were well into a spiral of structural and economic decline. The areas of the South where African Americans had toiled and struggled since the conclusion of the Civil War forced millions off the land they had worked for generations extending back into the antebellum era of enslavement.
Since 1975, there have been several genocidal wars in which the U.S. has participated as instigators and underwriters directly and indirectly. The Angolan war of liberation was opposed by the U.S. between 1961-1975. The post-independence war in Angola from 1975-89, was largely fueled by Washington and Wall Street in order to preserve their interests in Southern Africa. It was the Republic of Cuba, Soviet Union and other socialist states which supported the revolutionary movements against colonialism, settler-colonialism and apartheid at a time where the U.S. sided with the forces of reaction.
For these reasons alone, we must today oppose the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine. As the people of the U.S. and Western Europe continue to live under conditions of impoverishment and uncertainty caused by the ongoing class exploitation and national oppression, the administration of President Joe Biden has pledged over $100 billion to continue the war. The corporate and government-controlled media has played its traditional role of providing propaganda and psychological warfare aimed at confusing the U.S. population in regard to the real reasons behind the war.
Our Position in Opposition to the Ukraine War
Since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in neighboring Ukraine on February 24, 2022, there has been an array of talking points enunciated by the Biden administration and the Pentagon as to why it is necessary to send massive amounts of arms, material aid along with continuing diplomatic cover provided to the Zelensky regime. The first point is to portray the Russian Federation as the aggressors in the war which attacked Ukraine without provocation.
It is important to note that this conflict did not begin on February 24, 2022. The war has been developing since February 2014 when the U.S. engineered the overthrow of the Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych forcing him to flee the country. After a brief interim period there was the election of Petro Poroshenko. However, the character of the so-called “Revolution of Dignity” was in fact a counter-revolution aimed at the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) including Ukraine and other states into this imperialist alliance established in 1949 during the Cold War.
The government of Yanukovych was overthrown utilizing billions of dollars from taxpayers in the U.S. while at the same time gravely misinforming the public about the situation in Ukraine, the Russian Federation and the entire region of Eastern Europe. Amazingly enough, many people in the U.S. who wanted to argue against Russia and in favor of U.S. and NATO assistance to continue the war, are not even aware of the events of 2014 and the role of the then administration of former President Barack Obama. Victoria Nuland, a State Department functionary, made it explicit that the U.S. would determine the future political trajectory of Ukraine even without the European Union and other NATO members.
The coup of February 20, 2014 could not have been carried out without the direct leadership of neo-fascist elements in Ukraine. These extreme rightist parties and militias claim their political heritage to those same forces that fought alongside the German Nazis during World War II.
When the special military operation began in February of last year, there was the open and obvious presence of neo-fascist militias which made it clear that they were the first line in the defense of NATO and its imperialist backers. African students studying in Ukraine were attacked by racist mobs, denied admission into public transportation in efforts to flee the country and excluded from any form of humanitarian assistance being delivered by the West.
As early as 2014, monuments to the Red Army which fought and defeated Nazi Germany during WWII, were vandalized and removed by the Ukrainian fascists. Russian speaking Ukrainians, who constitute at least one-third of the population were immediately disenfranchised. The Russian language was banned on an official level while the Ukrainian military bombardments of the Donbass region proceeded leaving thousands dead and displaced.
These facts are necessary to recount when decisions are being made over which approach to take in relations to the Ukraine situation. What has happened in Ukraine represents the ongoing efforts by Washington and Wall Street to expand NATO while encircling the Russian Federation.
Therefore, our position is quite similar to that of the African Union (AU), the 55 member-states organization based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia which represents the 1.3 billion people on the continent. We want to see an immediate cessation of hostilities and the negotiation of a peaceful resolution to the war. This position has been bitterly opposed by the Biden administration which has no Ukraine policy beyond the sending of weapons, the propagation of a rationalization for the expansion of NATO, while creating the conditions for a wider war with Russia and the People’s Republic of China.
Moreover, we say what the AU cannot mention at this time for diplomatic reasons. However, the masses of African people on the continent and within the nations of the Asia-Pacific and Latin America are articulating and expressing solidarity with Russia and China. In countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso in West Africa there have been demonstrations in solidarity with Russia in the war. Recently, the Republic of South Africa held joint naval exercises with their counterparts from Moscow and Beijing in defiance of the Biden administration and other imperialist states.
Billions around the world represented by the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) Summit, which represents far more people than exist in the U.S. and the NATO states combined, have not condemned the Russian Federation and its government. This holds true for other multilateral organizations such as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which as Fidel Castro once said over four decades ago that “we represent the immense majority of humanity.”
Any genuine anti-imperialist, antiwar, peace and social justice organization can in no way welcome the expansion of NATO based upon the historical legacy of imperialism over the last century-and-a-half. We must move from a world of unipolarity to multipolarity, where the majority of the world’s population can take center stage in determining the future of our planet and its people.
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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: W.E.B. Du Bois and Shirley Graham Du Bois (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)
Comments Off on Building Unity Against Imperialism in the 21st Century—Lessons from African American History and the Necessity of Ending Permanent Wars of Aggression and Conquest
February 27th, 2023 by Sen. Diana Iovanovici Sosoaca
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Večernje Novosti (VN): You are the first politician in Europe who, as early as February 8, in the Romanian Parliament stated the strange events surrounding the earthquake in Turkey. Please repeat those observations for the readers of Večernje Novosti.
Senator Diana Iovanovici-Șoșoacă (SDIS): I have shown in my political statement in the Romanian Senate the continuity link between the mass murder campaign through alleged pandemics and the imminent need for injection of untested vaccines that kill people, in fact crimes against humanity, and the outbreak of wars that would establish terror and terrible fear among people, destroying their psyche and resistance, with the aim of reducing the population of the world, restoring power poles and changing borders, plus economic changes worldwide.
But everything became even worse when we witnessed the production of custom made or controlled earthquakes, in fact an attack on Turkey by the world’s top leaders who disliked the fact that they were being confronted by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the President of Turkey.
Moreover, his position as neutrality and mediator in the Ukrainian-Russian war has deeply disturbed, especially as Turkey is the second largest military power within NATO. His position to block Sweden’s NATO membership, but also his speech in Davos, in particular, as well as his gesture to leave in the middle of the press conference, defying Schwab, did not remain without echo in the harsh and cold world of global leaders. But no one thought that it would be necessary for so many people to die, killed in such a despicable way, only for the world’s mighty to demonstrate their power. And it was just a warning, because it was not the most populated area of Turkey.
There were 150 replicas of a devastating earthquake, the second largest than the first, without an outbreak, the area being artificially stimulated. We know that geological weapons have existed for a very long time, but they were used so far without causing too many casualties, probably for experiments.
If we look carefully at the map of the pipelines in Turkey, we will see that this country it is run by gas and oil pipelines, which are in fact one of the goals: their destruction.
It is worth noting that the maps presented on all television channels showed that there was not an epicentre, but an epiliny with thousands of earthquakes. And I am the only politician in the world who had the courage to show that President Erdogan was punished for his courage, dignity and honour and for his closeness to the Russian Federation, in fact a position of neutrality and mediation for peace.
In addition, the earthquake purpose was meant to remove people’s attention from the war in Ukraine, where already representatives of many countries have begun to vociferate against the despotism and orders given by President Zelensky, as if he is leading the world and someone had the obligation to send weapons and participate in his war where he sacrificed his own people and destroyed his entire country.
VN: Where does your information come from and is it really true that gas and oil pipelines were closed immediately after the impact?
Image is from ALEXANDRU DOBRE / MEDIAFAX FOTO
SDIS: In the S.O.S. Romania party I have established a Wise Men’s Council composed of the best specialists from different sectors, including science and military. The analysis was done with the help of, among others, a general specializing in technological weapons, the only one who was at the HAARP Center in Alaska: General Emil Streinu. I wish to inform your readers, the Serbian people, whom I feel very close to, and whom I esteem greatly for their courage and verticality, that HAARP is not even the last geophysical weapon system! Meanwhile, even more advanced weapons of this kind have appeared about which, however, I cannot speak, these being strictly secret and not yet revealed to the public.
The gas and oil pipelines were closed BEFORE the earthquake, the Turks probably learned they were going to be given a blow and wanted to avoid an even bigger disaster or maybe the earthquake-detecting equipment warned them.
There are such systems and we have in Romania the ones who announce the deep-sea earthquakes 50 seconds ahead. In fact, not a few voices in Turkey have admitted that it was an atypical earthquake. After my declaration reached all the meridians of the world, being very popular in Turkey, a lot of people have given me the right: this was an provoked earthquake! Moreover, Turkish intelligence agencies are investigating a foreign state involvement in causing earthquakes, and there is also an official statement to that effect.
VN: What are the intentions of those who used geophysical weapons?
SDIS:The use of geophysical weapons is the way of the global parallel state to stop the leaders who oppose their supremacy, such as the case of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, but also the populations that are independent and show no dependence on the West.
You have known in Serbia the wrath of the West and the attacks of the evil NATO, to bomb you on Easter night, with the inscription of “Happy Easter” on the bombs! This is something you must never forgive and forget and a lesson must be given to these killers (me, for one, will not forget and will not forgive this moment)! Yet, you continue to have an independent and courageous policy, which is why you deserve all the admiration. I have always admired you for the verticality and the pride in defending your values and principles and, above all, the sovereignty and independence of Serbia, and I have praised you as an example many times to the Romanian people. But if in previous years, global power used conventional weapons to punish free countries, it has now shifted to a whole new level, and these attacks can no longer be countered. They can, at most, be avenged, with the same kind of weapons that the states have developed, but the citizens have not been informed.
Moreover, it is difficult and dangerous even to reveal about these weapons and to bring them to public attention, as I did through my declaration in the Romanian Senate on February 8. Whoever throws light on these dark machinations takes a big risk, a major risk (I assumed the same as Mr. General Streinu who had to go through three assassination attempts only last year)… Additionally, it is shocking for simple people who are not informed correctly when they have to face an irrefutable truth. But the Truth will set us free!
VN: How do you view the war in Ukraine and why will the Western elites not even hear the word truce or negotiations?
SDIS: It depends on what you see in the West. The European West is being misled because it is run by incompetent and incompetent defendants, slaves of the U.S.A. and NATO, in fact with a slave mentality, without any principles, globalists who have not known normality in their life, the illustrious nothing-makers paid from the work and sweat of Europeans, while they live in the high and have no idea what is down.
But it is not only the European West, we are talking about the American Empire, which for most of the last 200 years has done nothing but destroy and rush upon independent and sovereign countries and annulate them altogether: Ursula Von Der “Lier” was not crying for children in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, the Gulf, etc. (There are only a few small exceptions of the presidents of the United States who did not have wars and crimes during their office: for instance, Donald Trump, if he was now the president of the United States, we would not have such horrors in the world.)
In fact, no one jumped for those people. These Westerners, who believe they are empires, do not wish for peace, but they want to conquer new territories and resources. In fact, it is not the West, it is the globalist World Empire that wants to redivide countries and draw borders as it pleases him without taking into account history and peoples, as it is also trying to do in Kosovo or in our Translivania. When did the West seek peace? Didn’t the West stir up the first and second World War, and now it wants to throw us into the third?
The globalist World Empire wants full submission and colonization, as it did in Africa, Asia and in the Americas, few hundreds years ago. The one who opposes must be punished, and if he does not calm down, even destroyed. And the West has never been able to hold on to Russia and the Slavic world. This is not the first time when they try to defeat Russia into an European colony. Napoleon tried, Hitler tried, and it meant their end.
This war is provoked by the West by encircling and gathering Russia in a snare, with NATO getting closer to Russia’s borders and arming and transforming Ukraine into an anti-Russian state. The West breaks pieces of your country, blocks your trade, puts you on all sorts of blacklists, surrounds you with military bases, and then reacts “innocently”: but why did you get angry? But you, in Serbia, unfortunately, know these Western policies very well. I have said many times in Romania, in my public statements, that I cannot forget how NATO, who claims to be a defensive organization, bombed Serbia on Orthodox Easter in 1999, killing innocent citizens with bombs that read in English: Happy Easter!, meaning Happy Easter! Are these the people we should expect peace from?
There is a war against Orthodoxy in this respect, and it is not by chance that the Orthodox peoples are seen as enemies by the West, because they want to destroy the last living Church, which has maintained its traditions and spirituality unaffected by modern atheism!
This is not only a war against Russia, but also against Orthodoxy, the traditional family and ancient human values. It is a war that goes on all levels. Look at the pressure that is being put on you through Kosovo, just to force you to join the anti-Russian sanctions.
And from Vienna we are now receiving messages that Romania will be admitted to Schengen only if it recognizes Kosovo’s independence!
And Serbia is under attack now, as are all the countries that oppose Western hegemony, just as Turkey has been attacked! I promise you that I will oppose in Romania the recognition of Kosovo independence, because I know too well: Kosovo is Serbia! But to see what kind of blackmail the West practices against us, the Orthodox peoples! In fact, it is inciting the brothers to hate one another. We should be here an oasis of brotherhood and peace and Orthodox love. That bothers them. In fact, the Balkan Pole must be urgently restored, at all costs, in order to defend our countries, peoples, Orthodoxy, history, values, our memory and millennial principles.
The Balkans were always a force and always a powder keg. To escape from this force, the West destroyed the unity of the Balkans and instigated the citizens into interethnic wars. Divide et impera. Recognizing Kosovo would mean serious problems for Romania, but also for Spain and other states that have problems with areas that will become independent. All leaders of these small ethnic regions should understand that UNION MAKES POWER. Divided we are lost. Together we have a future!
How could the West seek peace since they have provoked this conflict and they are maintaining it by all means, political, diplomatic, economic and military? How can they get their hands on the agricultural land and huge resources of Ukraine if not by driving the inhabitants out of it and throwing the country into bankruptcy? How will Ukraine pay for the loans and support of the West? With all that it has and with all that it is! And, unfortunately, we also pay as collateral damage.
VN: Who needs a terrible war?
SDIS: I have said before: The globalist World Empire. First of all, the big international companies and investment funds, which are already master over everything Ukraine has, including over its country debts. Secondly, the global parallel state that can thus push its agenda further, subjecting populations, impoverishing them, and forbidding them the most basic rights in the name of war. Look at the censorship and abuses that exist in Europe in the name of war.
Look at the inflation, the impoverishment of the population. All that for the “noble” cause of war. Just as it was in plandemic (and I intentionally call the pandemic “plandemic” because it was a similar plan devised for the brutalization and subjection of citizens), the war serves the global parallel state on all levels: it grabs the resources, it rob the economies of the population through inflation, and it nullifies citizens’ rights. Let only one try to speak of peace! He is immediately blacklisted and turned into an “enemy of the people.” On the contrary, those who incite war, destruction, loss of human lives are “heroes.”
And it uses them to do something else: to produce weapons. They get rid of all the old weaponry they give to Zelensky, and they are producing large-scale new, state-of-the-art weaponry, just look in the USA how much money is given to the defense budget and how the Americans took to the streets to protest. I mean, there are so many poor, finished, homeless, starving people there, and you, the American state, are throwing money on weapons?
In addition, it uses the USA to destroys its competitors: The EU. THE UNITED STATES does not need the EU. But because at EU level we have only incapacitated and incompetent leaders, they do not realize that they have committed suicide, not only politically, but economically and socially, because the EU is self-dissolving, as it will happen with NATO. We live in a world upside down, where the obligatory official doctrine claims that peace is evil, while war is good! I do not submit to these directives and I took the risk of telling the truth!
VN: How do citizens and politicians in Romania view warfare. Are Romanians thinking of waging war in Ukraine against the Russians?
SDIS: The citizens and politicians of Romania are on opposite sides, as many times in history. The Romanians do not wish the war, but only witness amazed at the way in which Ukraine persecutes our Romanian minority, closes our churches, persecutes our priests, and more recently destroys our Danube Delta. Romania welcomed the Ukrainian refugees with open arms and spent huge sums to accommodate them and give them services free of charge everywhere, although many of these refugees are richer than ordinary Romanians and defy public opinion in their luxurious cars, treating Romanians with contempt.
Instead of serving their people, Romanians politicians are the puppets of the globalist World Empire. Everything Brussels, NATO and the United States say is accomplished by our politicians without comment. If they are asked to involve Romania into the war, they execute immediatly, because they will not go to the front and their children will not be sent to die!
The Romanians do not wish the war, that is clear, and this is the message I receive from the hundreds of thousands of Romanians who write to me and talk to me on the street on my visits across the country.
Romanians do not want to hear about war or about their traitorous politicians, conducted from outside the country by masters who are willing to throw them into the war. I have reacted harshly every time the false rulers of Romania were on the verge of pushing Romania down this path, and so far I have managed to avoid this disastrous path, because the Romanians were on my side and supported me in my endeavors.
In fact, 4 days after the start of the war, we initiated the only global approach: Neutrality for Romania, the Peace of Bucharest, asking all the embassies of neighboring states and of belligerents, NATO member countries and Brussels to try to conclude peace in the People’s House from Bucharest, the Palace of Parliament.
Amazingly, the only country that received us, me and three other deputies who joined my approach (to understand: 4 out of 466 MPs), was the Russian Federation. Obviously, we were made ”people of Putin”, we were insulted, I was asked to be filed for high treason, I was and I still am banned on all main-stream TV channels in Romania. On March 8, 2022, we took Romanians to the streets and stopped the traitors from Romania’s leadership to send weapons to Ukraine. This has continued and continues to this day, and my replica is that if I am ”putinist”, because I want peace, then, because they want war, they are Hitlerist.
But we don’t know what the future will bring upon us, because the pressures on Romania are increasing, and with its current coward leaders, the fate of the country is at stake. I will fight to the end, at the cost of my life if necessary, to stop Romania from being drawn into this war! To see how much pressure there are, the last two TV stations that still have the courage to invite me to speak have just been fined because of my presence in their studio, so they are trying to shut me down from all sides because I am the only Romanian politician who fights against the war and wants to keep his country away from the conflict.
VN: You were also against forced vaccination. How do you view the consequences of the pandemic today?
SDIS:Forced or coercive vaccination was part of the plan of subjection and control of the population, but also of nullifying public debate and the critic and civic spirit of the people. Congratulations to all those who have resisted pressure and who have been a model of freedom for the whole world, as is the case with your great tennis player Novak Djokovic, who is a world hero for his courage and a symbol of Serbia that has resisted Western pressure. There was a joke in Romania that Djokovic and I would be cousins!
Now it is shown that vaccination kills and there are more and more cases of so-called “sudden deaths”, plus other negative consequences that time will confirm. I fought against vaccination in Romania and kept many Romanians from this scourge, and now those who were skeptical about the information I had and about my public warnings have started to give me justice. Unfortunately, as soon as the critical mass of citizens was formed to reject criminal policies in the plandemia, the global parallel state pushed things to war so that they could have another way of subduing people and making them forget about the pandemic.
For my actions against restrictions, abuses and forced vaccination in the pandemic, I have suffered unimaginable repercussions, from physical violence in Parliament, in the street from the police force, with the guards in hospitals (because I saved people from forced intubation and because of my intervention they are still alive), to parliamentary sanction. I am the only MP in the democratic world (if you can call this a democracy!) sanctioned for political statements and opinions, with the lifting of the right to represent the Senate in official actions for 3 months – which I annulled in court. I am also the most fined Romanian citizen: 30.000 euro the value of the fines. They tried to take my house, they threatened my children, they tried to build a criminal case against my son.
Also, they sent an Italian journalist expert in NATO troops, Goracci, to frame me into a criminal file, I was attacked in my own cabinet, my husband defended me from the so-called journalists employed by RAI 1 television and now he is being in a trial and they try to convict him. I have myself over 13 criminal cases for thwarting the fight against diseases and stopping vaccination.
My son was kicked out of the football team and was not allowed to play in the Romanian Cup, despite the fact he is a professional footballer and the list is long, my 10-year-old girl was forced to move to a private school, because she was no longer accepted to the public state schools, etc.
I don’t regret anything! The consequences of the plandemic in Romania are not like in the West, because we were few voices that woke people up and did not let them go into the hospitals and convince them to not get vaccinated, and all those who took care of themselves at home survived.
In Romania, the true vaccination percentage is 12.5%, those who are declared vaccinated are only on paper. Even the doctors are not able to see the consequences. We do not know what the vaccine contains, but only that the great Nobel Prize-winning physician Luc Montagner was right: the vaccinated will die in great numbers. I wish that at least the vaccinated children were vaccinated with water, not with this experimental vaccine.
After those years of horror, which reminded of the Nazi period, we have some terrible memories: black plastic bags in which people were thrown and then put directly into the grave without a religious service, without a family nearby, which was considered contact and had to stay in isolation, children who died suffocated from the muzzle, because that object was not a mask, who developed allergies and lung diseases from it, people killed with days in hospitals, intubated in vain, I discovered myself how they are killed and fill in hundreds of criminal complaints.
Elderly people fined for going to buy a bread, children destroyed because of the online school, children who committed suicide because of the state of emergency when people were forced to stay in the house, elderly people killed in elderly homes, children forcibly vaccinated in the placement centers because no one could defend them. All that Nazi experiment remained in our memory, repeating some terrible times from the past, obviously in another form, with other unconventional weapons.
VN: You have Serbian roots, who do you have in Serbia and do you visit our country?
SDIS: My name is IOVANOVICI, and my father is from Macedonia, from Skopje. My paternal grandparents were refugees, and they fought against the system, they have hidden their origins so that they could not be found, I did not know much about them, and I do not know the language. My parents divorced when I was one year old. I have never visited either Macedonia or Serbia, although I would like it very much. I can only say that I admire you from my heart for not letting yourself to be trampled, for reacting and defending Orthodoxy. I would like the Church in Romania to have the same attitude as your Church when there were the parades of promiscuity in Belgrad. I hope to be able to visit both Serbia and Macedonia this year.
Until then, I admire your tenacity and your love of land and people! A proud people like all the peoples of the Balkans should be! And honestly, I will pick you up a ball on the net: Let’s rebuild the Balkan Pole! Unite we will win!
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Polls show that public trust in the scientific establishment has suffered immensely in the wake of Covid. That’s prompted many to ask questions about conflicts of interest. Today, with the help of a watchdog group, we look at the issue of government scientists collecting royalty payments from pharmaceutical companies for discoveries made while working on your dime.
Transcript
Adam Andrzejewski: So our data shows at OpenTheBooks.com that every single year, NIH doles out $32 billion in federal grant-making to 56,000 entities. And that basically buys you the entire American health care space.
Adam Andrzejewski of the watchdog group Open The Books says the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, accumulates great influence with the power to decide which scientists and projects get all those taxpayer billions.
Adam Andrzejewski: Buys you a lot of friends, buys you a lot of allies, and there’s great incentive to stay on the establishment narratives that NIH disseminates on public health policy.
And he says there’s reason to question who or what is influencing those policies.
Under a 1984 law known as Bayh-Dole, government scientists have a unique arrangement. They can collect royalties from pharmaceutical companies for discoveries they make while working for us.
Andrzejewski: So here’s how the third-party royalty complex works. You have a government scientist funded by taxpayers, and they work in a government lab that’s also funded by taxpayers. And when they have an invention, they have a special situation. The NIH, National Institutes of Health, then licenses that invention —
Sharyl: An invention meaning a drug or a device?
Andrzejewski: — yes, or therapeutic, to the private sector. And the private sector then pays royalties back to NIH. NIH then distributes those royalties on a split, a royalty split schedule, back to the scientist.
Details of those royalty payments to government scientists are kept as strictly held secrets.
Republican Senator Rand Paul tried to pry some of them loose when questioning Dr. Anthony Fauci, then head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Sen. Rand Paul: Can you tell me that you have not received a royalty from any entity that you ever oversaw the distribution of money and research grants?
Anthony Fauci: Um, well first of all, let’s talk about royalties
Paul: That’s the question. No, that’s the question (Crosstalk) Have you ever received a royalty payment from a company that you later oversaw money going to that company?
Fauci: You know, I don’t know as a fact, but I doubt it.
Paul: It’s not just about you. Everyone on the vaccine committee — have any of them ever received money from the people who make vaccines? Can you tell me that? Can you tell me if anybody on the vaccine approval committees ever received any money from (Crosstalk)… people who make the vaccines?
Fauci: Sound bite number one, are you gonna let me answer a question? Ok. So let me give you some information. First of all, according to the regulations, people who receive royalties are not required to divulge them even on their financial statement, according to the Bayh-Dole Act.
Sharyl: And he literally told Congress more or less, “It’s none of your business. I don’t have to tell you these things,” which is pretty surprising because it would seem to be important.
Andrzejewski: So during the pandemic, I think the American people started to ask the question, “Just how close is big government to big pharma?”
Open The Books sued to try to get some of the hidden answers. That lawsuit unearthed 3,000 pages of royalty payments to NIH scientists from 2010 to 2021. During that time, 2,407 government scientists received $325 million in secretive royalty payments, averaging out to more than $135,000 each.
But much is left unknown. NIH redacted or blacked out key details.
Andrzejewski: We don’t know who paid it. We don’t know how much each individual scientist received. We can only see their names and count the number of times that each scientist received a payment. And they also redacted the invention, the license number or the patent number.
Sharyl: How does this stand, do you think, to impact the work the government does on behalf of public health? What conflicts arise?
Andrzejewski: So every single one of those individual, third-party royalty payments has the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Take the example of Covid vaccines. Andrzejewski says the first Covid vaccine to get government approval was Pfizer’s, which happens to be part of an NIH royalty-sharing agreement.
Sharyl: Does that mean NIH helped invent the vaccine and then licensed some of the technology to Pfizer?
Andrzejewski: Yes.
Sharyl: What does that imply?
Andrzejewski: Right, exactly. The NIH invented certain aspects of the vaccine that was licensed to Pfizer. When they developed it, they have to pay that royalty. And so, and so NIH was receiving tens of millions of dollars from Pfizer on those royalty payments.
Sharyl: What are the outstanding questions to be answered in sort of the big picture, not about the individual scientists, but from a public standpoint?
Andrzejewski: We need to be able to follow the money. Unelected bureaucrats are running the entire American health care complex without any scrutiny. They’re basically telling the American people, “Sit down, shut up, pay up. We’ll run things.” And that’s not how the federal government is supposed to operate.
Sharyl (on-camera): By the way, Fauci has refused to quantify all of his personal royalty payments, but has implied they are very small.
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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense
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.”
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Censorship is never innocent, made worse for its strained good intentions. For those responsible for setting and policing such policies, the inner judge comes out, stomping on assumed meanings, interpreting and removing things to ensure the masses are not corrupted. Children’s stories and tales have not been exempted from this train of revision, expurgation and adjustment.
In modifying the language of children’s texts, a number of agents come into play: concerned parents, worried authorities, and the considerations that reflect the temper and mores of the time. Publishers, keen to ensure a wider readership, feel pressure to alter the original text to stay modern and trendy.
In 1853, Charles Dickens took the illustrator and former friend George Cruickshank to task in an essay “Frauds on the Fairies” for meddling with fairy tales through incorporating a temperance message. “We have lately observed with pain the intrusion of a Whole Hog of unwieldy dimensions into the fairy flower-garden.” It was vital, Dickens warned, to respect fairy tales, most notably in the utilitarian age Britain found itself in.
The latest victim of this lack of respect, albeit one posthumously affected, is Roald Dahl, whose books for children have drawn unwanted attention from a wretched consultancy in conjunction with veteran publisher Puffin Books. Evidently not feeling anyone capable within their ranks, Puffin Books decided to retain Inclusive Minds, which claims to “offer a range of services to help people engaged in all aspects of children’s literature build a new, more inclusive world.”
This all took place in step with the announcement in September last year that the streaming company Netflix had bought the Roald Dahl Story Company for the princely sum of £500 million. The contract is reportedly the biggest content deal of its kind, a fact no doubt helped by the company’s observation that Dahl’s books have sold more than 300 million globally and been translated into 63 languages. “Netflix and The Roald Dahl Story Company,” the company announced, “share a deep love of storytelling and a growing global fan base. Together, we have an extraordinary opportunity to write multiple new chapters of these beloved stories, delighting children and adults around the world for generations to come.’
With the mantra of inclusivity heavy at Puffin Books, in addition to the “growing global fan base”, the publishing outfit faced a fundamental problem. Any position on being inclusive reaches a tipping point where it must exclude. And at Inclusive Minds, there are “Inclusion Ambassadors” who constitute a network of advisors with a nose for sensitivity and a mind for removing the uncomfortable. “The network,” Inclusive Minds goes on to say, “offers book creators a chance to connect with ‘experts by experiences’ at the very earliest stage in the book creation process.”
With the razors ready to modernise (read purge) any of Dahl’s texts, a number of words came in for the chop. A focus was placed upon gender, race, mental health and weight. “Enormously fat” was adjusted to being merely “enormous”, in reference to the gluttonous character of Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Oompa-Loompas were transformed into “small people”, with words such as “titchy” and “tiny” excised.
In “Witches”, an “old hag” became the less offensive “old crow”. Other patently silly changes included removing “black” in “Fantastic Mr. Fox” in favour of “murderous, brutal-looking” tractors. The three sons, for some reason, become three daughters, while the Cloud-Men in “James and the Giant Peach” become Cloud People.
Many of these changes are not cosmetic, constituting a direct alternation of the author’s meanings and intentions. Matilda’s reading of Rudyard Kipling, for instance, is considered inappropriate to the sensitivity police. Far better to make her read Jane Austen instead of that bard of British imperialism.
These changes prompted novelist Salman Rushdie, himself all too familiar with the mortal dangers of censorship, to suggest that Puffin Books and the Dahl estate reel in shame. It was sporting of him to do so, given Dahl’s own lack of sympathy for Rushdie’s treatment at the hands of murderous Islamic fanatics for the publication of The Satanic Verses.
Brendan O’Neill, writing in The Spectator, was adamant that Dahl had been culturally vandalised, being “well and truly Ministry of Truthed.” The fun in the texts had been redacted, confined to “the memory hole.”
PEN America chief executive Suzanne Nossel was also “alarmed at news of ‘hundreds of changes’ to venerated works by [Dahl] in a purported effort to scrub the books of that which might offend someone.” Those wishing to “cheer specific edits to Dahl’s work should consider how the power to rewrite books might be used in the hands of those who do not share their values and sensibilities.”
During his life, Dahl was also the subject of attention from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for language used in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The 1964 text originally described the Oompa-Loompas as African “pygmies”. In sympathy with the NAACP, Dahl rewrote the text for the second US edition, turning the Oompa-Loompas into white dwarves with origins in fictional Loompaland.
Ironically enough, Dahl’s agent convinced the author to change Charlie’s identity, who was originally intended to be a black boy. The reason was crude but simple: making Charlie white would be more appealing to readers.
Amidst the protests against the latest rewrites and cuts, Penguin Random House, which owns Puffin Books, announced that it would publish the “classic” versions alongside the new editions, enabling readers “to choose which version of Dahl’s stories they prefer.” That’s just what the children need.
Puffin Books should have already heeded the lessons of previous failed efforts to run rewritten texts for contemporary audiences. Efforts in 2010 to subject the Famous Five series of Enid Blyton to “sensitive text revisions” failed. These included alterations of “awful swotter” to “bookworm”, and “tinker” with “traveller”. The publisher Hachette had to concede in 2016 that the project had not worked.
This latest affair prompted a suggestion from Philip Pullman on Radio 4 on February 20. Let the passage of time judge the works, rather than the officials of the age. Eventually, they may go out of print, leaving room for other authors and their stories to enchant a new readership. In Dahl’s case, that time is a considerable way off. A salient lesson, then, to avoid overly paid and ill-informed consultancies and respect children’s stories.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
Featured image: Dahl in April 1954 (Licensed under the Public Domain)
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***
Nota Bene
This may well be the most important article I’ll write in 2023.
In this article, I publicly reveal record-level vax-death data from the “gold standard” Medicare database that proves that:
The vaccines are making it more likely that the elderly will die prematurely, not less likely
The risk of death remains elevated for an unknown period of time after you get the shot (we didn’t see it return to normal)
The CDC lied to the American people about the safety of these vaccines. They had access to this data the entire time and kept it hidden and said nothing.
If there is one article for you to share with your social network, this is the one.
Executive summary
Isn’t it a shame that none of the world’s governments make the vaccination-death records publicly available? My claim is that if they did that, it would end the debate instantly and prove to the world that the vaccines are unsafe. So that’s why they keep it locked up.
But apparently there is one whistleblower who is interested in data transparency.
I was able to authenticate the data by matching it with records I already had. And the analysis that I did on the data I received matches up with other analyses I have received previously.
The nice thing about this Medicare data is that nobody can claim that it is “unreliable.” Medicare is the unassailable “gold-standard” database. It’s the database that the CDC never wants us to see for some reason. They never even mention it. They pretend it doesn’t exist. So you know it is important.
Do you want to know what it shows?
It shows that these shots increase your risk of dying and once you get shot, your risk of dying remains elevated for an unknown amount of time. And that’s in the very population it is supposed to help the most!
Now you know why the CDC, which has always had access to the Medicare records, has never made them publicly available for anyone to analyze to prove that the vaccines are safe. Because the records show the opposite. That’s why they keep the data hidden from view and it’s why they NEVER talk about it.
Today, in this article, you will finally get to see what nobody outside the HHS has ever seen before: the “gold standard” Medicare records, i.e., the truth. You can analyze it yourself.
You’ll soon see for yourself why the CDC will never release this data and why the mainstream press is NEVER EVER going to ask to see the data: because it would reveal they lied to people and killed over 500,000 Americans by recommending they take an unsafe “vaccine.”
The bottom line is this:
When there is no data transparency, there is a high chance that the government is lying to you.
After all, if the data supported their narrative, they’d be tripping all over themselves to release the data. When it doesn’t support the narrative, they simply never talk about it and pretend it doesn’t exist and tell the press never to ask about it.
So you already know how this is going to end. Very badly. For Biden, the CDC, the FDA, the mainstream medical community, the mainstream press, and Congress. They all will have egg on their face because they never asked to see the data.
The “misinformation spreaders” will have been proven right with the government’s own “gold standard” database. It’s payback time.
Acknowledgements
I had Clare Craig of the HART Group look this over for any flaws. She liked it.
Professor Norman Fenton had a look as well and he didn’t find anything amiss either.
This doesn’t mean there aren’t any flaws, but it just means that there aren’t any obvious flaws. If you find a mistake, let me know in the comments.
Why this article is so important
If nobody can explain how the “slope goes the wrong way,” then this should be GAME OVER for the vaccination program because we are using their own “gold standard” database to prove that the vaccines are not safe and that they lied to us.
Unless I made a serious error, there is no rock big enough for them to hide under on this one. No excuses. No attacks. It’s basically bulletproof. The results simply cannot be explained if the vaccines are safe. And the numbers are huge. You don’t need a peer reviewed study on this one.
The Medicare data that I received
It’s in Excel, there are over 114,000 records, and you can download it here.
While I would have liked to receive the merge of all death records and vaccination records of everyone in the US, the data I did receive, when properly analyzed, is sufficient to prove the point that the vaccines are increasing your risk of death.
Limitations
Be sure to read the About tab for caveats about the data. It will help if you read and understand this article before you look at the records.
Medicare Data Nota Bene
Note that the scatter plots below were produced from a much larger set of Medicare records than the ones you can download. The plots from the records I received are included in the Excel spreadsheet and are consistent with the plots in this article which are the higher quality plots (and which contain dose 2 and 3 plots).
This is a new way to look at the data so let me give you the bird’s eye overview first.
The main thing is that in Jan 2021 we have a double whammy of death: from COVID and seasonality (older people die more in winter).
Figure 0. Days to death from Dec 15, 2020 for everyone in Medicare in Connecticut (vaxxed and unvaxxed). Each bar is a 5 day period. The point of this graph is to show that the COVID outbreak exacerbated the slope since you are seeing effects of seasonality PLUS the waning part of a COVID outbreak. This is why there is a 40% drop from peak values.
So if the vaccine does absolutely nothing, we’ll see the slope of the histogram of the deaths per day curve go dramatically down in the first quarter as COVID and seasonality effects diminish. Then it will flatline for a time until seasonality picks up again in winter or there is another big COVID outbreak. The drop could be as much as 40% from the peak value (e.g., from 536 to 324) in Figure 0.
If the vaccine is PERFECT, we’ll see the same slope go down, but not as much because we’ll just see seasonality effects going down (since nobody is dying from COVID). It will then remain perfectly flat until it picks up again in winter. See Figure 1 below for what the “deaths per week” curve should look like for a perfect vaccine.
The main point is this: if the vaccine isn’t causing harm, the slope will go down and remain flat.
What I will be doing below is calculating the days until death from shot #1 if and only if shot #1 was given in Q1 of 2021. So that histogram should look very similar to Figure 1. It’s going to be smoothed somewhat since the shot was given over a quarter (rather than on a single day), but since most of the vaccine in Q1 was delivered in the first half of January, the curve will be pretty similar to Figure 1, but it will start to flatline a couple of weeks sooner.
Once you understand these concepts, you are ready for the details.
For people in Medicare, there is a strong seasonality effect on the death rate
For the elderly, there is a strong seasonality of deaths. They are high in the winter and low in the summer. The difference between peaks and troughs is around 20%. This data is from the CDC for ages 65-84:
Figure 1. This is the weekly death counts from 2015-2019 summed over all US states for ages 65-84. This was created using a visualization on the CDC website using this dataset. Epidemiologists are very familiar with this effect. There are no surprises here. The peak is 256K, the trough is 213, so there is a 17% seasonality drop in deaths from the peak.
What this means is if you got the shot in Q1 of 2021, and you look at the days until death, if the vaccines are safe, you should find that it will go lower in time and then turn upwards.
But what we find is the opposite.
The control group for 2021
Figure 2 shows the deaths by week in 2021 for all states ages 65-84. Note that the rates drop for the first 11 weeks and stabilize.
In 2021, there is a steeper drop than normal because of COVID adding to the drop:
Figure 2. This is the weekly death counts summed over all US states for 2021. This is essentially the control graph. This was created using a visualization on the CDC website using this dataset. Epidemiologists are very familiar with this effect. There are no surprises here. The deaths drop for the first 11 weeks of the year then stabilize. The peak is 81K, the trough is 50K so there is a 39% combined drop from peak to trough.
The vaccine program was initiated on Dec 14, 2020, and peaked in the third week of Jan 2021 for people in this age group:
Figure 3. Connecticut vax rollout schedule for <80 Medicare participants peaked in weeks 3 and 4 of 2021. Each bar is a week
This means that if we limit our “days from shot #1 to death” analysis to people who got their first vaccine in Q1 of 2021, if the shot is harmless, we should see the rate of deaths dropping for at least 9 weeks after the shot, and then remaining flat for the next 15 weeks before turning upward. This is because about half the shots got delivered before week #3 (11-2=9)
The charts show the slope goes up instead of down
As we noted in the previous section, if the first shot is given in Q1, the number of days after the shot until you die should go down for at least 9 weeks and then stabilize for the next 15 weeks per the seasonality described in the previous section. So a safe vaccine would look like Figure 2
But it doesn’t. It goes up! That’s the problem.
Figure 4. This shows days until death from Shot #1 where shot #1 was given in Q1 2021 to Medicare recipients under 80. Every single day is a dot on this graph. What is supposed to happen is the line is supposed to slope DOWNWARD due to seasonality. If nothing “bad” is going on, this should look like a weighted moving average of Figure 2 (using the weights in Figure 3). As you can see, the slope goes the wrong way. Note that the increase in risk is still present after 2 years from the initial value at day 50, but at least it’s not getting any worse over time. NB: The graph drops off starting at 660 days out because we run out of months to die (since the shot is given in Q1 and the person must die before Feb 1, 2023).
Similarly, if we restrict our analysis to the first shot given in Q2 (most of which would have been given in April), we see the same problem. The slope should be flat for around the first 15 weeks after the shot is given (we are starting in a flat period (week 13) and we have about 15 weeks of flat deaths after that. Yet the slope is going up when it is supposed to be flat.
Figure 5. Same as Fig. 4 except we restrict shot #1 to be given in Q2. Not that the peak shifts since seasonality does not move. The drop off is now starting at 570 since we are now giving the shot a quarter later.
The same wrong slope happens with shot #2
The same problem happens with the second shot. About 75% of the people in Medicare were injected with shot #2 prior to April 15, 2021.
Here’s what the shot #2 injection schedule looked like in Connecticut:
Figure 6. Shots 1 and 2 were quickly rolled out to the Medicare community with most everyone getting fully vaccinated in Q1 of 2021. This is from Medicare data from Connecticut.
Therefore, we should have seen a downward slope in the beginning and we are seeing the opposite again.
Figure 7. This chart is days till death from Shot #2 given that shot #2 was delivered in 2021. Since most of the shot #2 were delivered in Q1 2021, you should see a strong downward slope here as well. You don’t. The slope goes the wrong way for shot #2 too. That’s inexplicable.
The same wrong slope happens with shot #3 too
Most people in Medicare got shot #3 in October, 2021. So we should see an upward trend for about 60 days (due to seasonality and another COVID wave), and then it should fall dramatically.
It doesn’t. It remains flat. That’s problematic. It suggests that if you lived until shot #3, it will still increase your risk of dying, just not as much as the earlier shots.
This chart would have been more useful had the Dose 3 vax window been narrowly restricted. Stay tuned…
Figure 8. Shot #3 delivered in 2021. Most people in Medicare got their booster in October 2021, so we’d expect the slope to go down after 60 days. That doesn’t happen. The slop remains flat which is problematic.
This is the most damaging chart I’ve seen
Figure 9. Number of days died after dose #2 if you just got dose #2. So there is a rapid fall off at Day 200 which is people opting for Dose #3 and beyond. But I realized later that fewer than 50% opted for >2 shots. So we can raise the baseline by 2X and get a conservative estimate of steady state. This allows us to clearly see that the shots elevated your risk of death by around 50% for at least the first 200 days after the shot. This is a DISASTER and it’s also going to be impossible for the CDC to explain away.
This is a chart of people who just got two shots and no more. At first, I dismissed it because if you got 3 or more shots, you’d leave the group so the flat part starting at day 400 isn’t a valid steady state number because the size of the cohort changes due to the “no other shots” criteria.
But then I did a calculation using the Connecticut data and found that when there were 23,259 deaths from Dose #2, there were only 10,557 deaths from Doses #3 onwards. So this suggests to me that fewer than half the people in Medicare opted for the jabs.
So if we simply take our 200 deaths per day flatline number from the chart above and adjust it for the people who left the cohort (i.e., double it to 400 steady state deaths per day), we can see that the first 200 days, we had a 50% increase in the rate of death (600 per day) vs. the 400 per day rate after 1 year (which itself might be elevated from normal).
This is a complete disaster no matter how you look at it.
The good news here is that it shows if you stop the shots, it appears your risk lowers after a year.
As you can see from this chart, if you keep on with the shots, as half the people did, your risk of death remains elevated!
Figure 10. This is the same as Figure 9, but here we do NOT have the restriction that you didn’t get any more shots. The number of deaths remains elevated due to the fact that half the people opted for subsequent shots. If nobody opted for any more shots after shot #2, we would have expected the curve to flatline at around 400 deaths / day.
Shot #4 elevates your risk as well, for the few that took it
People in Medicare got up to 7 total shots. That’s really stunning.
For example, in Connecticut, the numbers are: 31170, 23259, 8902, 1428, 217, 9, 1. So only 1 person got a 7th shot.
Here’s the graph for people who got Shot #4:
Figure 11. The fourth shot increases your risk of death too. People get the fourth shot late in 2022 so it drops off after day 100.
So people got shot #4 in 2022 which is why the graph falls quickly after day 200 (you simply run out of time to die). But you can see the same elevation in risk happening after this shot as well.
Death curve for the unvaccinated
James Surowiecki said was confused by this article because I didn’t include the unvaccinated.
I purposely didn’t include that chart because it would be confusing.
But if James was confused because I didn’t include it, I’ll include it with a big caveat.
The problem with the Medicare data is that the unvaccinated are a mix of people with vaccination and no vaccination so it is not pure. This is because Medicare patients went to a pharmacy to get their free vax and it wasn’t recorded in the Medicare records. This is why half the Medicare records don’t have any vax info at all. For Connecticut for example, there were 57,297 records of people in Medicare who died since Dec 14, 2020 and 26,092 had no vaccine records.
Also, people migrate from the unvaccinated group to the vaccinated group at an unknown rate (even Medicare doesn’t know the rate) which makes it problematic to use. That’s why I didn’t include it.
But since James was confused about this, I’ve now added the unvaccinated Medicare records from CT to the excel file (since those are the only unvaxxed records I have right now).
The plot is below. As you can see, the slope is downwards, just like you’d expect. No surprises.
Hopefully, James is less confused now.
Figure 13. The death curve for the unvaxxed in CT. This was added to the dataset you can download. This shows the deaths per day since Dec 15, 2020 for people in CT with no vax records who are in Medicare and < 80. Compare this with Figure 0 above (Figure 0 is ALL deaths whereas this is just the unvaxxed deaths).
Medicare reference data on the shots
This table may be helpful to some people.
For example, James Surowiecki posted this on Twitter:
I’m not sure which way it is “ludicrous.” Is he surprised that so many got the shot or so few? And what is his reference?
From the Medicare numbers above, 37.3M got Shot #1 and 24.4M got shot #2. So in Medicare, there was a 35% drop from first jab to second jab, likely due to significant side effects experienced after the first shot. So 26% dropped off in Connecticut which is lower than expected. There will always be deviation from the mean.
Even more Medicare data: cardiac events following vaccination
Below is a graph of people with an ICD10 code of I2xxx to I5xxx, showing the number of days from the date of the COVID vax to the time of the cardiac event.
This is NOT normal. This should be a flat line. There is no way they can explain this way.
Here are the percentages of the total number of events over 365 days that occurred on day 0 through day 7 after the shot: 4.5% 2.8% 2.4% 2.2% 2.2% 2.2% 2.3% 2.1%.
More importantly, why isn’t the CDC releasing this data? It’s in Medicare and they can easily pull it. What is wrong with them? It seems as if they are protecting the vaccine instead of the American people, doesn’t it?
Figure 12. Cardiovascular events (ICD10 codes I2xxx-I5xxx) should occur evenly over time if the vaccines are safe. The fact that this graph is not flat is a HUGE problem. NOBODY can explain that. This graph is standalone self-explanatory. No control group needed on that one. The y value at x=365 is .037%. So all events over 365 days were normalized to a percentage for this plot. Sp 4.5% of the total number of cardiac events in the ICD10 categories above within 365 days of a jab occurred on the day of the injection.
Basically, even the flawed UK data still has a huge signal they couldn’t hide: there is a bigger killer than COVID and NOBODY can figure out what it is! Isn’t that odd?
Joel Smalley’s analysis of the UK data is superb as well. Even with the flaws relative to the unvaccinated, by focusing on the vaccinated, he can show they are dying at a disproportionately high rate.
The US data is looking really bad. For example, this tweet shows the more a state vaccinates, the greater the number of COVID deaths. Whoops!!! I thought it was supposed to reduce the number of COVID deaths!
Ed Dowd’s data, beautifully presented in his book “Cause Unknown,” is also hard for anyone to refute. How are working people 18-64 suddenly dying at a higher rate than non-working people in America right after the vaccine mandates hit? Nobody can explain that one.
Ed’s conclusions are the same as mine. So now you have two very powerful, but completely different datasets that are easy to explain if the vaccines are dangerous and impossible to explain using any other hypothesis.
And of course my favorite example is the VAERS excess deaths. How can there possibly be over 16,000 reported in VAERS if nothing is going on? The only vaccine with excess deaths is the COVID vaccine. All the other vaccines show the same number of excess deaths as in prior years. The argument that the COVID vaccines were rolled out to 100X more people than a normal vaccine is ridiculous. For example, the flu vaccine was given to at least 33% of the Medicare recipients so maybe you can argue a factor of 3X at most. So there is no way to explain the excess deaths which are effectively over 640,000 for a 41 underreporting factor.
The 640,000 number for the first two years of the vax rollout was validated in Mark Skidmore’s paper (which was published in a peer-reviewed journal) along with personal communications with Mark. Mark used polling and found a large number of deaths in 2021. Note that people are trying to get Mark’s paper retracted because they said it is unethical to ask people about vaccine deaths. Apparently, it’s OK to ask about COVID deaths, but it’s unethical to ask the exact same question about vaccine deaths. Also, they objected to the statement about who funded the study and wanted a complete bio of the funder. Mark has written over 70 papers published in the scientific literature and he’s never seen anything like these objections. The paper could easily note these, but they seem more interested in having the paper retracted because they don’t like the result. This is how science works. You can watch my interview with Mark Skidmore here so you can see first hand how science is manipulated with ridiculous objections when they don’t like what you find. I just learned that his university is now also investigating him. His crime? He reported survey results that go against the narrative.
Could there be an error in the queries?
No. I replicated the shot #1 charts myself and you can see them yourself in the Excel charts (which are drawn from the record-level data).
Is there any other way to explain away these results?
Not that I’m aware of.
I’d like to see someone try though. It would be fun to see the attempts.
Of course, you could interpret the upward slope as “See, the vaccine is saving COVID lives in the short term, that’s why the slope goes up over time as it wears off” but that is simply preposterous.
Nobody has ever claimed the vaccine reduces all cause mortality below baseline. There is no clinical trial showing that and there is no known mechanism of action whereby introducing a pathogen into your body will reduce all-cause mortality.
The only claim they make now is that the vaccine reduces COVID deaths. Fine. Let’s say that the vax is perfect and reduces every single COVID death, then the slope must still be downwards due to seasonality as we said before. But it’s not.
That is why all these pro-vaccine people are upset about this data: because they can’t explain it. So they will have to ignore it and hope that nobody reads my article.
So if you share this article, you won’t let them get away with it.
UPenn Professor Jeffrey Morris tries to attack my piece: Epic fail
Jeffrey Morris wrote “temporal HVE” on Twitter:
But this is simply a hand-waving dismissal of all this work with no evidentiary support whatsoever. HVE refers to the “healthy vaccinee effect.” His “theory” is that the healthiest people get the vaccine first and since those people aren’t likely to die soon, it causes the slope to go upwards. The second part of the effect is that if you are dying from terminal cancer and will be dead in 3 days, you’re unlikely to want to get a COVID shot to protect you from dying from COVID. So people “self-select” out of the vax program if they know they are going to die.
But in our case, there was a mass vaccination effort for all Medicare patients and they were all vaccinated ASAP come December.
What Professor Morris can’t explain is why the slope is even more distinct for people who got their shots in March 2021. Those would be the “stragglers” and thus less healthy, yet the upward slope is even more pronounced than in January. So his “explanation” just doesn’t fit the data. Nice try, no cigar.
Furthermore, here are the days to death numbers for the flu and pneumococcal shots in Medicare patients. Nobody has ever seen these charts before either.
See how the lines are all FLAT for the same study on these vaccines??
If you look closely, you can see that there is a slight rise in the slope for a few days after the shot only. That’s the HVE effect. It’s small and very short lived. It is NOTHING like what we see for the COVID vaccines.
Also note that anyone taking these shots isn’t planning on dying the day of the shot (why take the shot if you are going to die?).
Yet they do die on the same day of the shot, in massive numbers. Why is that? Because these “safe vaccines” kill people; that’s why there is a huge spike on Day 0.
This is another reason why the CDC never shows you the Medicare data: it would reveal that other vaccines are deadly as well (and kill more than 1 person per million which is the threshold for safety).
On February 26, I sent Professor Morris an email. He needs either to believe the Medicare data or discredit it. If he wants to discredit it, it would imply that all US government data on COVID is bogus. If he believes it, then he has to accept what it says, which is that the vaccines are increasing your risk of death.
I said he can’t have it both ways. Which path will he take?
I’ll update this article if I hear back.
If the CDC wants to prove I’m wrong, it’s easy: simply make the Medicare death-vaccination record-level data publicly accessible.
Will they do that? No way. Never. They will come up with excuse after excuse why they can’t do this.
And that tells you EVERYTHING you need to know.
Summary
The record-level vax-death Medicare data I received is now publicly available. Now, for the very first time, you can analyze it yourself.
It shows the vaccines increase the risk of death for the elderly and that these risks appear to remain persistently elevated. It’s anyone’s guess for how long.
So now you know why the CDC never showed us the Medicare data. And now you know why the medical community and mainstream media never asked to see it and never will. They had it the whole time and kept it from public view so they wouldn’t create “vaccine hesitancy.”
If you think public health officials don’t hide the data, you should read this tweet from Chris Martenson where the Australian health authorities admit that they covered up vaccine deaths because they “didn’t want to undermine public confidence” in the vaccine. Get it?
Basically, the health authorities in the US run the other way when you try to confront them with data showing they are wrong. The proof is on that video. I tried to show the top CDC outside official world-class data collected by top scientists hand-picked by the Israeli health authorities. And her response to my offer to see the data was to call the cops.
Finally, if your doctor still tells you to take the shot, ask her to first explain to you why the slope in the Medicare data goes the wrong way before you get the shot. Have her explain to you why all these charts in this article are “normal.” And let us all know what she says in the comments.
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Featured image is from NaturalNews.com
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.”
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)
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***
In the August 2022 James Gill paper titled “Autopsy Histopathologic Cardiac Findings in 2 adolescents following the second COVID-19 vaccine dose” (click here), two teenage boys died in their sleep within the first week after receiving the 2nd Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine dose. Both boys were pronounced dead at home.
Sudden deaths of Canadian children have skyrocketed in recent months. I have tracked these deaths since November 2022, when healthy Canadian children began to die from influenza, strep, myocarditis, blood clots, strokes, sudden deaths while playing sports and sudden deaths in their sleep (!)
I have been overwhelmed with the sheer number of these sudden deaths recently and this will be my last report of this kind.
The COVID-19 mRNA vaccine status in many of these tragic cases is unknown. Some of these children were mandated to have COVID-19 mRNA vaccines to play sports or attend University or College. While it is unknown in how many of these cases mRNA toxicity played a major factor, even ONE child death due to mRNA vaccine damage and injury, is one death too many.
Due to the aggressive, unscientific and unethical rollout of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in Canadian children in 2021 and 2022, parents must be on guard for COVID-19 mRNA vaccine toxicity, which has been implicated in severe damage to the immune system, heart, brain, kidneys, liver, endocrine system, reproductive organs, as well as autoimmune diseases and cancers.
Analysis…
My Take…
There is no question that sudden and unexpected Canadian pediatric deaths are accelerating. During Canada’s flu season in November & December 2022, many kids struggled with the usual childhood infections such as influenza, strep, meningitis and a number of healthy kids died from infections that they should never have died from.
I believe that COVID-19 mRNA vaccine injury to the immune system played a major role in at least some of these deaths. 13 kids died from influenza, 4 from strep and 2 from meningitis (that we know of). Many provincial governments (including Ontario) refused to release any information on the deaths of children due to influenza in late 2022. The governments knew something was very wrong and they stayed quiet.
What is even more alarming, however, are 56 sudden deaths in children ages 12-19. This is the age group that is dangerously over-vaccinated with COVID-19 mRNA, with 84% Canadian children having 1 dose and 80% having two doses.
I believe COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are playing a major role in many of these sudden deaths of Canadian children ages 12-19, and this is a public health emergency that can no longer be ignored, and must be investigated immediately.
Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland halted COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in children under 18 a long time ago. They clearly know something Canadian politicians and Canadian doctors don’t.
COVID-19 mRNA vaccines should never have been rolled out in Canadian children of any age. They must be halted immediately.
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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense
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.”
Comments Off on Covid Vaccine: Over 96 Canadian Children Ages 2-19 Have Died Unexpectedly in the Past Three Months. A Warning Call for Canadian Parents.
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***
The real purpose of ninety nine percent of the available media out there is designed to help us ignore the truth. Not just mainstream media – all media.
That this Covid pandemic and the responses to it – and a whole host of hot button issues – were designed to manufacture our consent is the case. This is what this essay will address in the best shorter unlimited hangout I can manage. More complete descriptions of all the unlimited hangouts will require longer forms.
Because the real problem here for humanity is that we are now under the dictates of the Fourth Reich – promoted as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As all totalitarianism does, it has crept in oh so gradually, unannounced and hidden in plain sight. We humans like the proverbial frogs in boiling water are blissfully unaware until it is too late.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution Is the Fourth Reich
There is only one way out of the traps set by this Fourth Reich – disguised as the Fourth Industrial Revolution – and that is to fully become aware of the master plan. Once we see the smirking and ugly deceptions used to manufacture our consent – displays fashioned by master manipulators – and what they actually represent – we are highly unlikely to offer our consent.
You will find that those entities which have come out and described the Fourth Industrial Revolution as The Fourth Reich have been removed from the internet. It is in where our would be masters of the universe act to remove our content where we know we have touched a nerve. Where we have touched a nerve we have learned something important.
The Master Manipulators and the Limited Hangout
Because the intent of these serially abusive master manipulators is to obtain your consent by either affirmation or by capitalizing on our human sympathies. Human sympathies predispose us to listen to what we think are reasoned arguments presented by those sympathetic to our cause.
The problem here is that through the work of these master manipulators most of those we regard as sympathetic to our cause are not. Many of those who appear as sympathetic to our cause are being used by the more powerful and are in fact gaining personally from their roles as the real master charlatans here.
Essentially, either knowingly or not, these sympathetic figures become the decoys for the master manipulators. Framed as rebels with a cause they serve to muddy the dialog and further manufacture our consent. In other words, by thinking we are participating in actual dissent, we are in actuality taking part in what is called a limited hangout.
A limited hangout is designed to entrap us in a rather sophisticated framework known to be used as part of the psychological operations used by intelligence operatives. In these limited hangouts we are furnished with part of the truth but almost never allowed a real glimpse at the actual truth of the matter.
In other words we may be offered some veiled references to the world economic forum, to the pandemic & vaccines, to the war in Ukraine, to the criminal enterprise represented by Hunter Biden, to the real facts of Volodymyr Zelensky – but be carefully kept from realizing the real threat represented by the title of this essay.
How Politics Is Used to Deceive
In addition our political frameworks are used to manipulate us. We may believe we have a political force to rely on which is seriously standing in opposition to these totalitarian manipulators. What we are likely to discover is that there is not an existing political solution – that in effect the political solution is being held as yet another side show to manufacture our consent.
In the United States we have two political parties. On one side – the conservative side – we have the Democrats – framed as the bad guys – and the Republicans – framed as the good guys. We also have the opposite. On the liberal side – those who hold that the Democrats are the good guys and the Republicans are the bad guys. You will find reasoned, heart felt arguments on either side.
A large majority of the population will fall for this ploy – thinking their side represents a way out. Unfortunately however this serves to further entrap us in the matrix. By being immersed in what we believe is reasoned political discourse we are effectively prevented from engaging with the larger issues.
Using Political Hot Button Issues to Deceive and Entrap Us
Similarly issues are concocted all around to entrap us in limited hangouts of different kinds. In this case unrestricted harmful immigration policies entrap us in useless dissent. In the case of the United States we have the influx of drugs and lawlessness to distract us from the truth. What we maybe don’t see is that this kind of immigration has been used all across the planet to distract people – quite effectively – from seeing the master plan.
Another very effective strategy is to promote such highly personally disturbing practices as the transgender philosophy foisted on children. Through the promotion of such sickening practices – which disturb us at fundamental levels of our human sympathies – we are quite effectively entrapped.
A full discussion of transgender ideology and how it is used as a political hot button issue is found in the article here.
They come for the children we cry. And we engage in questioning why they would do this and in how to stop those who are behind this. Lost in the hue and cry of speaking for these children and against their tormentors we are once again entrapped in a limited hangout. This limited hangout is highly effective as it gains our sympathies so well. Without answering our question as to why powerful forces would do this we remain lost.
The essential question – as elsewhere – is to ask why this is being done. The tactic of going after the children is very effective as a political tool to entrap our engagement. Much like the effects of using a pandemic and arguments over vaccines and medical treatment it fully engages our sympathetic energy as a hot button side show.
Promoting the sexualization of our children and the transgender medical mutilation involved horrifies us – and well it should. Similarly to how the deathly practices were used connected to the pandemic and vaccines there is a similar issue here. These are used as hot button issues designed to further deceive.
Both attack the each individual’s psychological integrity and that of the social institutions they rely on – the family and ultimately the entire community – destroying all. That is the strategy in a nutshell.
Our tormentors use methods of attack which work to destabilize the individual and the social forces which sustain that individual. Attack, divide and destroy the family. The breakdown of the family works to destroy the community and eventually the nation state and the planet.
The 500 Ton Gorilla – The Fourth Reich
This is what we have here. An international force of which we are effectively kept unaware and distracted from acknowledging through the use of highly effective psychological operations.This would take many books to accurately parse and describe. Essentially though for the purposes of this essay I will define this in very simple terms.
Framed as the Fourth Industrial Revolution by a body known as the World Economic Forum. I believe most readers are at least aware by now of this body – sufficiently so that they can look into it themselves by going to the WEF website.
What may not be immediately apparent without some digging however is how entrenched and threatening this organization and partners really are. Like a huge and almost unimaginable spiders web it exists as a real collusion designed to manufacture our consent and then to insure it before we truly understand what has hit us.
I am not going into further detail here as all is readily understandable with a bit of applied attention to the facts. I have written of it fairly extensively in other essays and intend to collate those writings to be more accessible.
The overwhelming goal here is to point out the necessity of moving beyond any limited hangouts to recognize exactly what we are dealing with. We need to be wrestling with the 500 Ton Gorilla here rather than being distracted by properly identifying the various parts.
As long as we settle for limited hangouts we will lose. There is only one effective way of removing the wind from the sails of our tormentors. This must be a planetary understanding of the real threat here. We must recognize the degree to which they have already manufactured our consent and then stand against it. That it must move well beyond these limited hangouts is a given. Those who are working on these hot button issues are very important – as are the issues involved. But we have no hope of confronting the 500 Ton Gorilla without acting as one unified force against tyranny.
The Power of Understanding the Unalienable Rights of the Individual
Although for Americans there are such guides as the US Constitution, Bill of Rights and the rest this unified force must go well beyond the aims of our now much defiled nation state. For the government of these United States has done irreparable damage to our name and to our intended purposes. These forces has damaged each of us as well by committing their dastardly deeds in our names.
But we are not alone here because all other governments across the world are also deeply involved in the nefarious aims of this Fourth Industrial Revolution. Any cause against the Fourth Reich must exist well above and beyond these nation states. Purely national forces have now declared themselves to be additional limited hangouts designed to further muddy the waters and to entrap our sympathies.
For the first time in human history the human cause is the only important issue. The ability of we as the human species to stand against totalitarianism will either stand or fall here. If these dreams of American founding fathers are recognized here it may be because their ultimate intent was a human cause and never intended to entrap us in these limited hangouts.
As Thomas Paine wrote:
Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means of calling the right of it in question (and in Matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry) and as the King of England hath undertaken in his OWN RIGHT, to support the Parliament in what he calls THEIRS, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either. In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise, and the worthy, need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of themselves unless too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion. The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the AUTHOR…
It will not be easy. It will require nerves of steel and courage beyond imagining. It will require the deliberate laying down of our prejudices for the good of everyone. It will require that we arrive at the understanding once and for all that it is indeed we the people who are the powerful forces here. It will require that we reach an understanding of how such forces as this Fourth Reich arise to gain such power.
It will require that we define and fashion together a world council of free peoples who – free of manipulation by centralized governments and corporate entities – maintain a locally managed and decentralized nested series of councils. Only by decentralized bodies inclusive of all and devoted to free speech and the unalienable rights granted each individual by their creator may this be accomplished.
It will be by the planetary recognition of the real fundamental power of each of us – protected by a real understanding of the majesty of these unalienable rights – that this will be possible.
Instead of those tin foil hats we may only need instead our real thinking caps. The real barriers will exist in rooting out the residual traumas we each have absorbed from this manipulation which has kept us divided. To do this means educating each other to an understanding of true interdependence. Interdependence is the fundamental unit of real health and wealth. We can only be as healthy as a species – and as individuals and families – within a larger healthy ecosystem of which we are a part.
It will take everything we have and more. But the alternative – that these forces of the Fourth Reich should win – is unthinkable.
We are under direct attack by the ascendancy of this Forth Reich – known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. While protecting our own psychological & physical integrity and that of our families as best we can we cannot afford to ignore the presence of that 500 Ton Gorilla – the World Economic Forum & partners and the unique brand of modern totalitarianism they represent.
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Featured image is from the author
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.”
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
“This was a premeditated terrorist attack on European critical infrastructure (Nord Stream),” says @wallacemick, member of the European Parliament (MEP).
“I find it, frankly, jaw-dropping that the EU is not asking questions as to who is responsible,” says MEP Clare Daly.
Watch the video below.
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***
The lesson learned, and largely ignored, is that the government Americans vote for every two and four years does not “represent” them.
East Palestine is the lesson du jour. So long as it remains in the corporate media’s “news cycle,” coverage will downplay the federal government’s decision to ignore the poisoning of thousands of people, not only in East Palestine but across Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Joe Biden does not believe this disaster warrants a reaction. He has not traveled to East Palestine. Biden’s transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, waited more than two weeks to travel there, and only to shore up the government’s image as responsive and caring, which it is not.
The fact of the matter is, the government does not care about your welfare or protecting you from psychopathic profit-centric corporations. It has nothing but contempt for those, not of the billionaire class, the bankers, CEOs of transnational corporations, and attached lobbyists passing out fiat dollars to keep the crony capitalist game moving along—until it falls off a cliff, as it will soon enough.
The residents of East Palestine are outraged that Biden refused to send FEMA in response to a corporate-caused crime against humanity. As a comparison, consider FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
“The storm flooded New Orleans, killed more than 1,800 people, and caused $100 billion in property damage,” writes Chris Edwards. “The storm’s damage was greatly exacerbated by the failures of Congress, the Bush administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Army Corps of Engineers.”
Many Americans have arrived at the conclusion the government is incompetent, corrupt, and unable to respond effectively to natural and manmade disasters. In fact, the problem is far worse than mere incompetence and bureaucratic red tape.
FEMA actively blocked the emergency response to the disaster. FEMA turned away doctors volunteering their services at emergency facilities. FEMA blocked rescue flights headed to New Orleans. FEMA denied the Red Cross acess. FEMA turned away trucks from Walmart loaded with water. FEMA and the Bush administration seriously aggravated the human catastrophe in New Orleans.
It is absurd to think all these “failures” were the result of mismanagement and stupidity. The fact of the matter is, the federal government simply did not consider Katrina and the lives of mostly poor in the Ninth Ward worthy of a humanitarian response. George Carlin was correct: the government doesn’t give a f*#@ about you. It has other priorities. At the time of Katrina, the top priority was killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Wow!
Treasury Secretary announces $10 billion in economic aid to desperate Americans in East Palestine, Ohio
Now the priority is kickstarting WWIII. Forget about Joe and Pete, they are mouthpieces and apologists for crimes of the state. East Palestine—or Flint, where polluted drinking water has gone unresolved for almost a decade—is not worthy of a response. Ohio is a “red state,” and partisan politics define the uniparty.
Ukraine is not about people. It’s about saving the USG-dominated Empire.
Russia and China are capable challengers, never mind their own problems with corruption and authoritarianism. Russia has said on numerous occasions it will respond with nuclear weapons if confronted by an existential threat.
Lloyd Austin, boss of Murder Incorporated, has specifically stated the objective is to balkanize Russia. It is eager to confront China in its own backyard. For the ruling elite, this competition is the only issue of concern. The people are only needed during elections and, as sacrificial lambs, during manufactured wars.
The lesson of East Palestine and Ukraine is that your welfare is irrelevant to the state. However, through its miseducation system and corporate media, the crony capitalist state has managed to indoctrinate and brainwash millions of people into believing government exists to help them. The excuse is that the government is a bureaucratic dinosaur unable to respond. It’s true, the state is a dinosaur. However, as should be obvious to all, there is scant evidence bureaucrats and statist apparatchiks actually care about you and your family.
They serve a predatory crony capitalist state and its “stakeholders” (large corporations, banks). This is fascism, or corporatism, as Benito Mussolini called it. Fascism is antithetical to individualism. It considers people to be little more than pawns to be used and discarded in pursuit of global hegemony, the process of swindling humanity out of its birthright, and turning the planet into a control freak slave gulag “where you will own nothing” and will be at the mercy of psychopathic killers.
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Comments Off on Biden Administration’s Decision to Ignore the Poisoning of Thousands of People, Not Only in East Palestine but Across Ohio and Pennsylvania
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***
I have probably used the word ‘evil’ more, in these last three years of “Corona Fascism”, than I had hitherto ever employed the term. It has been my way of attempting – not so successfully, as I will show – to explain how so many people can have been so blithely subjected to the genocide we are experiencing now, with its attendant consequences – consequences that include the subversion of long-standing ethical and medical principles, the inversion of the meaning of formerly well-understood concepts such as vaccination, and the facile depredation of human rights by State powers.
The perpetrators of the universal lockdowns, the imposition of useless masks, the destruction of businesses and livelihoods by these measures and then by the mandates to be inoculated with an unnecessary and dangerous medical intervention – these perpetrators are the people I call evil; and I call evil also those who, knowing better – doctors, for example – went and continue to go along with the horrific charade.
In a recent essay, Naomi Wolf writes that ‘the madness we saw unveiled since 2020 could not have been brought about by normal history, or by ill-intentioned individuals, using human agency’.
There is no need to invoke the powers and principalities of another world to explain what occurred, nor is there any reason to dismiss the overwhelming evidence that the globe followed a narrow and consistent set of harmful and demonstrably unscientific policies precisely because it was highly organized and coordinated by a relatively small group of overlords.
With every day more and more data confirm that the covid inoculations are ineffective and highly dangerous and should never have passed muster during clinical trials. This did not happen by accident, fate, chance, organic development or supernatural visitation: it happened because people in power made the call to kill.
Unless and until we accept the fact that the institutions that have purported to have our well-being at heart have betrayed us, and that political leaders and national governments – like that in New Zealand –have actively colluded to harm their citizenry, we will be all the more subject to enslavement, control and, stripped of autonomy, consigned to a living if not actual death.
A particularly apposite example of evil comes to mind, one that I have cited before, which involves a local healthcare practitioner who, after having received his first covid inoculation, developed severe cardiac symptoms. Unable to traverse his living room without extreme discomfort and shortness of breath, he consulted a cardiologist who supported his application for an exemption from further jabs. The then-Director General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield, ostensibly a physician, dismissed the cardiologist’s recommendation and without ever examining the person in question refused to grant an exemption. Bloomfield, who has since been awarded with a knighthood, ironically enough, insisted that unless this person received further injections he would not be able to practice in his healthcare role.
What good doctor would have taken such a course? What doctor would have purposefully mandated a further dose of a substance that had already been shown to have caused significant harm? How else to explain this as anything but an act of evil? How else to explain a government’s active suppression of any early and actual treatment of covid except as an act of evil? How to explain why the Medical Council of New Zealand continues to persecute doctors for having prescribed Ivermectin, for having expressed caution about the covid injections, for insisting on individualized treatment approaches to their patients, for warning about the potential hazards of an mRNA jab, for questioning lockdowns and masks and daring to extol natural immunity?
But there is something lacking when evil is invoked as an explanatory concept, because evil itself has as many guises as there are individuals: its manifestations are wildly and unpredictably accomplished, and its tools are seemingly limitless. G. K. Chesterton informs us that the very Devil himself can quote Scripture for his purpose, and, furthermore, Shakespeare writes, through his character Banquo:
‘The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s
In deepest consequence’ (Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3).
Humankind is often celebrated for characteristics that distinguish it from the animal kingdom: language, art, and science. Its great accomplishments are held as shining exemplars of a special status. There is, however, another distinguishing feature, which is scarcely mentioned: the human capacity for gratuitous cruelty.
Animals murder when they are hungry and revert to peaceable ways when they are sated. We humans behave otherwise. For me, it is this capacity for – if not an outright addiction to – gratuitous destruction that constitutes the very kernel of evil.
We see it in small ways when out of the blue an acquaintance may hurl an unnecessary barb another’s way, and in large ways when people in positions of great power have wielded that power to slaughter millions. The well-known genocides perpetrated by Hitler, Stalin and Mao, the wholly unnecessary use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to incinerate hapless civilians and, now, the manipulation of the secrets of the human genome to unleash a murderous so-called vaccination that has resulted in phenomenal ‘excess mortality’ – these all spring from the same root.
Within the breasts and hearts and minds and souls of every human being resides the neverending struggle between the forces of good and the forces of gratuitous destruction. When the Power Elites conspire to manipulate, they depend upon recruiting our darker drives. Like many I was shocked by the vehemence of self-styled progressives and liberals – like Professor Noam Chomsky – who called for punishing the unjabbed – healthy people who posed no danger except to arbitrary State authority.
The impulse to do harm purely for the fun, the delight, the wonder of it … this execrable inborn trait, seems rooted in the human need for action. Heavens, no matter how wonderfully described, are boring. Real nirvana is achieved only in those grandiose moments when sadistic and sexual pleasures are merged into one unending fantasy of omnipotently destructive bliss. It is this kind of infantile and quintessentially human condition to which the Technocratic Singularity, offered by those who have co-opted the ever more condensed and ever more potent tools of digital power, aspires.
As Shakespeare’s Mark Antony declaims over the body of the assassinated Julius Caesar:
‘The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones’ (Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2)
Perhaps here is revealed a significant truth that helps us to understand the apparently relentless and unquenchable thirst to kill: in the profoundest depths of the unconscious mind, only evil grants man immortality.
We humans nonetheless have the capacity to love, to show compassion, and to engage in cooperative enterprises of great beauty, every bit as exciting, to my mind, than the theatrical banality of murder, annihilation and control.
We ourselves have the choice to submit to the blandishments of gratuitous harm, as Cain did when he murdered his undeserving brother Abel, or to cultivate our better selves.
Over these past three years I have met many good people who have chosen wisely. We shall prevail.
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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/
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.”
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
In his state of the union address on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the suspension of the New START Treaty, which limits the number of deployed nuclear warheads. “The Defense Ministry and Rosatom must make everything ready for Russia to conduct nuclear tests. We will not be the first to proceed with these tests, but if the United States goes ahead with them, we will as well.” The suspension is not a termination, and the choice to suspend rather than withdraw opens up the possibility for future reinstatement.
What is most significant is this marks the end of the last remaining arms control treaty between Russia and the United States.
As it stands, there are no existing written agreements between the two largest nuclear powers to limit their arms build up, launch time, and magnitude of destruction.
Below is a brief overview of the advent and demise of arms control.
Before The Treaties
Ever since the first atom bombs were dropped on Japan there were discussions of arms control in the new age of atomic weapons. The Baruch Plan of 1946 was an attempt to get an international coalition to regulate atomic energy and its failure resulted in the first arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The Soviets obtaining the bomb in 1949 solidified the danger of the new rivalry.
We’ve come a long way from the “duck and cover drills” that were popular in the 50’s, where the fear was instilled in every child’s head as they all shot under their school desks at a moment’s notice in preparation for an atom bomb attack. That fear was not entirely unwarranted—the real threat of a nuclear war with Russia wasn’t just possible, it defined the cold war.
Mutually assured destruction was coined by Donald Brennan with the acronym M.A.D. to ironically describe the reality of complete annihilation by the attacker and defender in a nuclear war. But it wasn’t a joke—with the advent of ballistic missile submarines, it became a doctrine of our national security policy.1
As the Cuban Missile Crisis taught us, we could not sustain a world like this. It was only a matter of time, through malfeasance or ineptitude, that a geopolitical dispute would lead us to MAD. Before any treaties limiting the scope and scale of nuclear arms were implemented, it was the good faith of world leaders that had kept this possibility at bay.
The FirstTreaties
The first of these treaty negotiations began in the late 1960’s with what became the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) under Nixon, which was put in place to limit the arms race build up by limiting air-defense systems. A build of of ABMs were seen to instigate an arms race to deter the effectiveness of the defenders missile interception systems by overwhelming them. Two ABM systems were allowed with 100 anti-ballistic missiles on each site.
In the 80’s, Reagan and Gorbachev both wanted to move beyond the policy of MAD. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which has been in negotiations for over a decade, was finally signed by the two leaders in 1987, banned all ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and missile launchers with ranges of 500–1,000 kilometers (310–620 mi) (short medium-range) and 1,000–5,500 km (620–3,420 mi) (intermediate-range). This effectively eliminated the threat of nuclear attacks in Europe. Among the proposals for the INF Treaty was the phasing out of all nuclear weapons, which Gorbachev was ready to do. However, the negations outlined in the treaty as it existed were as far as Reagan was willing to go.2
President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev signing the INF Treaty in the East Room of the White House.
The Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) signed in 1990 limited the amount of military equipment an alliance could build up on the continent. 20,000 tanks and 20,000 artillery pieces were allotted to each side, including how much military buildup was allowed on the “flanks” of nations. This treaty greatly weakened Russia with the breakup of the Warsaw Pact. A Soviet Era treaty, it underwent several modifications in the post-USSR period, including the former Soviet Republics and the “flank” rules.
Then, in a rare moment of clarity in post USSR relations, came the START Treaty in 1991 under the George H. Bush administration, which limited the number of ICBM’s to 1,600 and nuclear warheads to 6,000. Massive amounts of warheads and other weapons were destroyed, as well as years of mutual inspections between Russia and The United States.
Soon after START II, a treaty that banned the use of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) on ICBMs was later negotiated, and even went as far as to be ratified by Russia. The treaty was conditional on the U.S. staying in the ABM treaty, and when Washington pulled out of that treaty on ABM, all START II negotiations were suspended.
In 1955 at the Geneva Conference, Dwight D. Eisenhower first suggested a treaty of non-combatant planes to fly over enemy territory to ensure trust through aerial surveillance flights. In 1992, George Bush Sr. successfully negotiated the Open Skies Treaty of which 34 countries signed. Finally, planes could fly over distant countries to ensure they were not building up arms and following international protocols.
USSR Breakup
The dissolution of the USSR saw the largest nuclear stockpile in the world fall into the hands of numerous republics overnight. 35,000 nuclear warheads were redistributed into countries like Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other former Soviet Republics. “Perhaps the most astonishing fact about the past twenty years is something that did not happen” wrote Harvard professor Graham Allison. One by one, they were sent back to Russia, dismantled and decommissioned.
Ukraine, embroiled in war today, would have been the 3rd largest nuclear power if it were not for disarmament in the 1990s. The Clinton administration had convinced the leaders of Ukraine that nuclear weapons would not deter Russian aggression, but rather incentivize it. The prompt and complete denuclearization of Ukraine was completed in exchange for security promises.
Missile silo in the Central Ukraine for a SS-24 missile
But this time was not without it’s moments. January 25, 1995 saw a high altitude Norwegian missile exercise that was detected by the Russian Air defense system. The trajectory was on course for Moscow. Russian President Boris Yeltsin was handed a brief case with the nuclear codes in them and in a matter of minutes had to make a decision. If this test had been done with missiles from the INF treaty, the amount of time that Yeltsin would’ve had to make his decision would go from 30 minutes to about 5 minutes. In all likelihood, the INF treaty had saved the world from mutually assured destruction. Without arms control, it would be a world gone MAD.
The 2000s: Withdrawal and Suspension
The late 90’s had seen the deterioration of U.S.-Soviet relations over conflicts in Chechnya, Bosnia and Kosovo, with a brief reprieve after the cooperation in military operations following the 9/11 attacks. But Bush’s war on terror and the fear of another attack caused him to suspend the ABM treaty in 2001, deeming it unnecessary in the post-USSR age and defending that anti-ballistic missile systems were necessary “to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks.”3
Anti-ballistic missile defense was never fully functional, intercepting 11 out of 19 missiles in a recent test.4
They cost hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain and suffer from program management issues.5,6
As writer James M Acton states: “No U.S. test has ever involved a target missile traveling at the speed necessary to reach the lower 48 states from North Korea. No test ever has involved a salvo of two or more incoming ICBMs or has appeared to have included realistic countermeasures, such as decoys shaped like real warheads.”7
In recent years, Russia and China have introduced a range of new ICBMs that are designed to counter U.S. missile defense systems. Putin has stated that these items are a response to the U.S. pulling out of the ABM treaty.
The Conventional Forces In Europe Treaty went through several reformations in the 90’s to accommodate for the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe and the balance of alliances. In 2007, the U.S. established military bases in Romania and Bulgaria which Moscow claimed was a breach of the treaty. NATO disputed this claim by stating the U.S. bases were not permanent. However, the Washington Times confirmed from a senior U.S. official the agreement allowed for permanent bases.8
The U.S. still has military bases there to this day. Russia formally withdrew from the treaty in 2014.
The “Russian Reset” that the Obama Administration employed with Russia was a geostrategic policy intended to ease tensions between Russia and the international community following the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. During this time, they negotiated the New START treaty, which calls for halving the amount of nuclear missile launchers. The Russian Reset was short lived, and tensions soon reignited with the Maidan Coup and the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014.
Post-Maidan Uprising
During Trump’s first few years in office, his administration was attacked with constant Kremlin collusion allegations. The administration responded with a heavier hand to look tough towards Russia, often hastily and irrational. Arms control treaties were collateral damage of that campaign.
In 2018, the U.S. State Department released a report that Russia was violating the INF treaty with their SSC-8 missile. Russia responded by re-asserting that the missile was within compliance standards of the New START. They went on to strike back at the U.S., claiming that the European missile defense launch system could be used to fire cruise missiles in violation of the treaty.9
Trump responded by abruptly withdrawing from the treaty, much to the surprise of other NATO countries.
Test launch of the Russian SCC-8 Missile, accused of violating the INF Treaty
The Open Skies Treaty, while negotiated in 1992, did not go into effect until 2002. In August of that year, the first Russian planes would fly over the U.S. in accordance with the treaty. U.S. planes flew over Russia later that year. But the international community would soon place a double standard on Russia. In 2006, Latvia suspended flights over it’s territory for one month for NATO ministers visiting the country. In April of 2008, several religious holidays lined up to create a shortage of hotels for visiting groups and Russia asked for a one-week delay in overhead flights. The U.S. accused Russia of violating the terms of the treaty, while Latvia received no such condemnation.
In 2017, a Russian plane flew over Washington DC, and this was too much for the legislators in Washington to swallow. The Defense Appropriation Law of 2018 banned the use of public funds for the Open Skies Program unless the president certified that Russia has complied with all American wishes regarding the treaty. Congress had given Trump a choice: concede with letting the treaty expire or look more like he’s cozying up to Russia. In May of 2020 Trump gave the required 6 months notice to withdraw. Putin soon followed suit. Russia formally withdrew from the treaty in December of 2021.
The End of the Arms Control Era:
The final nail in the coffin for the arms control era took place this week with NATO demanding that Russia return to the implementation of the New START Treaty with inspections of their nuclear defense facilities. Inspections have been paused since 2020 from COVID-19, but with the request to return Putin responded “It is a kind of theatre of the absurd…we know that the West is directly involved in the Kiev regime’s attempts to strike at our strategic aviation bases….and now they want to inspect our defense facilities? In the current conditions of confrontation, it simply sounds insane.”
Putin suspending the New START with no end to the proxy war in Ukraine in sight marks the end of the arms control era, or at least, this era. Not only are there no limiting treaties, there are no talks happening between Russia and the United States. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has had only one documented meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov since the start of the Russian invasion last February, and that meeting was over a prisoner exchange.
John Kennedy phoning with Nikita Khrushchev during those fateful days in 1962 saved us. Ronald Reagan’s relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev negotiated the end of the Soviet Union and the historic nuclear arms control treaties that led us into the post-USSR era. Bill Clinton’s relationship with Boris Yeltsin allowed for the dismemberment of the thousands of nuclear weapons that were left in the former Soviet Republics after it’s collapse.
But today, there are no consistent lines of communication between Russia and the United States, and no arms control treaties.
Thus ends the arms control era.
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In an interview with CNBC News in September 2020, Dr. Albert Bourla, the veterinarian Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer — the second largest pharmaceutical company in the world by revenue — said that anyone refusing to take the BioNTech vaccine will become “the weak link that will allow the virus to replicate”, and assured the public that “we will develop our product, develop our vaccine using the highest ethical standards”.
Pfizer has a long history of paying out vast sums in out-of-court settlements to avoid not only claims in civil cases but also prosecution on criminal charges resulting from the fraudulent promotion, unapproved prescription and injury, including death, from use of its products. It has also offered millions in payments to doctors and scientists to prescribe, test, approve and recommend them to the public. So let’s have a look at what Dr. Albert Bourla means by Pfizer’s ‘ethical standards’.
In 1992, Pfizer agreed to pay between $165 million and $215 million to settle lawsuits arising from the fracturing of the Bjork-Shiley Convexo-Concave heart valve, which by 2012 has resulted in 663 deaths.
In 1996, Pfizer conducted an unapproved clinical trial on 200 Nigerian children with its experimental anti-meningitis drug, Trovafloxacin, without the consent of their parents and which led to the death of 11 children from kidney failure and left dozens more disabled. In 2011, Pfizer paid just $700,000 to four families who had lost a child and set up a $35 million fund for the disabled. This cover-up was the basis of the John Le Carré book and film The Constant Gardener.
In 2004, Pfizer’s subsidiary Warner-Lambert was fined $430 million to resolve criminal charges and civil liabilities for the fraudulent promotion of its epilepsy drug, Neurontin, paying doctors to prescribe it for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
In 2009, Pfizer spent $25.8 million lobbying Congressional lawmakers and federal agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services. Its expenditure on federal lobbying between 2006 and 2014 came to $89.89 million. In 2019 it spent $11 million lobbying the federal Government.
In 2009, Pfizer set a record for the largest health care fraud settlement and the largest criminal fine of any kind, paying $2.3 billion to avoid criminal and civil liability for fraudulently marketing its anti-inflammatory drug, Bextra, which had been refused approval by the FDA due to safety concerns.
In 2009, Pfizer paid $750 million to settle 35,000 claims that its diabetes drug, Rezulin, was responsible for 63 deaths and dozens of liver failures. In 1999, a senior epidemiologist at the Food and Drug Administration warned that Rezulin was “one of the most dangerous drugs on the market”.
In 2010, Pfizer was ordered to pay $142.1 million in damages for violating a federal anti-racketeering law by its fraudulent sale and marketing of Neurontin for uses not approved by the FDA, including for migraines and bi-polar disorder.
In 2010, Pfizer admitted that, in the last six months of 2009 alone, it had paid $20 million to 4,500 doctors in the U.S. for consulting and speaking on its behalf, and $15.3 million to 250 academic medical centres for clinical trials.
In 2012, Pfizer paid $45 million to settle charges of bribing doctors and other health-care professionals employed by foreign Governments in order to win business. The Chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission Enforcement Division’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Unit said: “Pfizer subsidiaries in several countries had bribery so entwined in their sales culture that they offered points and bonus programs to improperly reward foreign officials who proved to be their best customers.”
By 2012, Pfizer had paid $1.226 billion to settle claims by nearly 10,000 women that its hormone replacement therapy drug, Prempro, caused breast cancer.
In 2013, Pfizer agreed to pay $55 million to settle criminal charges of failing to warn patients and doctors about the risks of kidney disease, kidney injury, kidney failure and acute interstitial nephritis caused by its proton pump inhibitor, Protonix.
In 2013, Pfizer set aside $288 million to settle claims by 2,700 people that its smoking cessation drug, Chantix, caused suicidal thoughts and severe psychological disorders. The Food and Drug Administration subsequently determined that Chantix is probably associated with a higher risk of heart attack.
In 2013, Pfizer absolved itself of claims that its antidepressant, Effexor, caused congenital heart defects in the children of pregnant woman by arguing that the prescribing obstetrician was responsible for advising the patient about the medication’s use.
In 2014, Pfizer paid a further $325 million to settle a lawsuit brought by health-care benefit providers who claimed the company marketed its epilepsy drug, Neurontin, for purposes unapproved by the FDA.
In 2014, Pfizer paid $35 million to settle a law suit accusing its subsidiary of promoting the kidney transplant drug, Rapamune, for unapproved uses, including bribing doctors to prescribe it to patients.
In 2016, Pfizer was fined a record £84.2 million for overcharging the NHS for its rebranded and deregulated anti-epilepsy drug Phenytoin by 2,600% (from £2.83 to £67.50 a capsule), increasing the cost to U.K. taxpayers from £2 million in 2012 to about £50 million in 2013.
In May 2018, Pfizer still had 6,000 lawsuits pending against claims that its testosterone replacement therapy products cause strokes, heart attacks, pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis, and were fraudulently marketed at healthy men for uses not approved by the FDA.
In June-August 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice said they were looking at Pfizer’s activities in China and Russia under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids U.S. firms from bribing foreign officials.
In November 2021, the British Medical Journal revealed that the Ventavia Research Group had falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events reported in the phase 3 trial for Pfizer’s ‘vaccine’.
Since 2000, Pfizer has incurred $10.268 billion in penalties, including $5.637 billion for safety-related offences; $3.373 billion for unapproved promotion of medical products; $1.148 billion for government contract-related offences; $60 million under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; and $34.7 million for ‘kickbacks and bribery’.
Given this record of ongoing corruption and malpractice from, which only its enormous profits have saved it from criminal prosecution by means of out-of-court settlements, it seems extraordinary that Pfizer Inc. is still permitted to manufacture and sell any health-care products. Yet this is the pharmaceutical company we were asked by the U.K. Government, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, the U.K. Health Security Agency and the National Health Service to trust with the mass vaccination of 68 million people with a product that was rushed through clinical trials in seven months, employing experimental mRNA biotechnology whose clinical trials are not due to be completed until March 2023, for a disease with the infection fatality rate not much above seasonal influenza, which statistically is no threat to those under 50 years old, and for which there is no evidence that it prevents infection by the virus.
That was three years ago, during which the British people have paid with their freedoms, their health and their lives for believing the lies of their Government, their National Health Service and international pharmaceutical companies. Subsequent retractions by Pfizer, however, are an opportunity to revisit its claims in more detail.
On December 10th 2020, the U.S. Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee met to evaluate the trial data on the efficacy and safety of Pfizer/BioNTech’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine contained in the briefing document produced by Pfizer itself titled ‘Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (BNT162, PF-07302048) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee Briefing Document‘. It was on the basis of this evaluation that, on December 11th, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Emergency Use Authorisation to its mRNA gene therapy product. And given the subsequent debate about what Pfizer claimed its ‘vaccine’ would do, it might be useful to review the contents of this document.
The FDA’s Emergency Use Authorisation, which requires less data than standard approvals and is based on a lower standard of proof, was issued for a vaccine “intended to prevent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2”. It was issue for prevention, therefore, not for reduction of the severity of symptoms, as was claimed when it became clear the gene therapy product did not prevent infection. Pfizer’s claim was that its product had a ‘vaccine efficacy’ of 95% protection against COVID-19 occurring after second days from injection with the second dose. In its clinical trials, a ‘case’ of COVID-19 was defined as a positive RT-PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 and the presence of at least one of the following symptoms: fever, cough, shortness of breath, chills, muscle pain, loss of taste or smell, sore throat, diarrhoea or vomiting. Nothing was said about asymptomatic ‘cases’ of COVID-19, or claimed about the ability of the gene therapy product to stop ‘asymptomatic transmission’ of the virus.
Pfizer’s benefit assessment was that its mRNA vaccine may be able to induce “herd immunity”, induces strong “immune responses”, and “confers strong protection against COVID-19”. This clearly indicates protection against both infection with the virus and the disease. Since transmission of a virus from person to person requires prior infection, Pfizer’s claim that its vaccine protects against infection, and the suggestion that sufficient injections will induce ‘herd immunity’, is also, by extension, a claim that it stops transmission from the injected.
The subsequent claim by Janine Small, Pfizer’s President of International Developed Markets, during her testimony before the European Union Parliament in October 2022, that Pfizer never tested whether its ‘vaccine’ stopped transmission appears, therefore, to rest on the myth of ‘asymptomatic transmission’. The implication of her statement was that Pfizer’s product only stops infection with SARS-CoV-2 and symptoms of COVID-19. However, the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorisation for Pfizer’s vaccine was based on prevention of both infection and disease. Pfizer’s claim is not evidence, as many afterwards claimed, for the lack of justification for making injection a condition of lifting lockdown or imposing vaccine passports, but rather an attempt to deny responsibility for the failure of its product (from which it has made $69 billion) to meet either of its claims.
An indication of just how unscientific was the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorisation of Pfizer’s vaccine is that it was granted on the basis of protection from infection and disease, while conceding there is no evidence that the vaccine “prevents transmission from person to person“. This is the way the ‘Science’ we mustn’t question or deny but blindly follow is conducted in what I call the global biosecurity state. Indeed, three years after it announced the pandemic in March 2020, the World Health Organisation can still only offer the following justifications for the four vaccines authorised for use in the U.K.
Pfizer/BioNTech: “There is modest vaccine impact on transmission.”
AstraZeneca/Oxford: “No substantive data are available related to impact of the vaccine on transmission or viral shedding.”
Moderna: “There is only modest impact on preventing mild infections and transmission.”
Novavax: “There is not currently sufficient evidence to date to evaluate the impact of the vaccine on transmission.” (See World Health Organisation, ‘COVID-19 advice for the public: Getting vaccinated’.)
Failure to offer protection against infection or transmission, however, are the least of the failings of Pfizer’s ‘vaccine’. As the evidence of the harms and deaths caused by this experimental gene therapy product injected into the U.K. public becomes too overwhelming for all but the Covid-faithful, the British press, the U.K. Parliament and our Government to ignore, there have been no end of doctors, nurses and medical professionals protesting they thought Pfizer’s biotechnology was ‘safe and effective’. But aren’t they trained to spot when something is going medically very wrong?
As of January 25th 2023, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, responsible for authorising the injection of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine into U.K. citizens, has received 180,005 reports of 517,779 adverse reactions to the injections, over 70% of which reports (127,405) have been classified as ‘serious’, including 884 deaths following injection. Including AstraZeneca’s viral-vector gene therapy product and Moderna’s mRNA gene therapy, the MHRA has received a total of 477,553 reports of 1,555,433 adverse reactions to the COVID-19 gene therapies, 74 per cent of which (355,052 reports) are categorised as ‘serious’, including 2,436 deaths following injection.
By the MHRA’s own estimation, only 10% of serious adverse reactions and 2-4% of non-serious reactions are reported, so the actual tally of injuries, autoimmune disease, reproductive and breast disorders, miscarriages and premature births, facial paralysis, blood clotting, amputations, myocarditis, pericarditis, heart attacks and deaths — all of which were recorded in Pfizer’s own analysis of post-authorisation adverse events as early as February 2021 — is far higher, undoubtedly many times higher. Indeed, this — and not the risible excuses with which the U.K. public has been fobbed off by the U.K. media — is likely a major cause of the huge increase in mortality in the U.K. since the ‘vaccine’ programme was implemented, contributing to the more than 60,000 excess deaths in 2022.
Given which, it is my contention that any medical professional that authorised or administered the injection of U.K. citizens with the Pfizer/BioNTech gene therapy product is at risk of being found guilty in a court of law for failure to give sufficient warning of adverse effects and obtain informed consent.
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Simon Elmer is the author of two new volumes of articles on the U.K. biosecurity state, Virtue and Terror and The New Normal, which are available in hardback, paperback and as an ebook. This article is an extract from an article in Volume 2, ‘Bowling for Pfizer’. Please click on these links for the contents page and purchase options. On March 11th, to mark the third anniversary since the declaration of the pandemic by the World Health Organisation, he will be holding a book launch at the Star & Garter, 62 Poland Street, W1F 7NX, upstairs in the William Blake room from 6-8pm. Entry is free, with book signings, a reading and open-mic discussion.
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.”
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)
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The antinuclear antibody is a well-established laboratory test to detect forms of autoimmune diseases including systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis. Chen et al have described a 23 year old woman who developed pericarditis 10 days after the Pfizer vaccine. Symptoms did not resolve with colchicine and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents. The ANA blood test was found to be positive at a high titer. She responded well to the addition of corticosteroids.
The important point of this case is that a positive ANA can accompany COVID-19 vaccine induced myopericarditis. When it is present it may be a signal of steroid-responsiveness.
Chen YS, Wu YW, Chiang CH, Lin HH. Acute Pericarditis with High Anti-Nuclear Antibody Titers Following BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination. Acta Cardiol Sin. 2022 Nov;38(6):784-787. doi: 10.6515/ACS.202211_38(6).20220522A. PMID: 36440237; PMCID: PMC9692212.
Noureldine et al have reported on 101 subjects with no history of autoimmune disease but with 18% having a family history of autoimmunity. The overall rates of positive ANA tests at low titers was the same before and after serial mRNA injections. However, in the cases where new positive tests were observed after vaccination, the specific test that turned positive was the antiphospholipid antibody which is related to blood clotting disorders.
In conclusion, there is a growing literature that mRNA and WIV Spike protein production in some recipients of genetic COVID-19 vaccines results in positive laboratory tests indicating autoimmunity. The long-term implications for emerging rheumatologic problems (pericarditis, arthritis, hepatitis) after repeated COVID-19 vaccinations are unknown. There should be a strong push to study autoimmune illnesses that emerge as a result of COVID-19 vaccination.
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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.”
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
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Idlib, Syria was devastated by a 7.8 earthquake on February 6. The leaks coming out of Idlib are from those working with the international aid groups in Idlib. Whistleblowers are exposing Mohammed Al-Julani and his terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
The UN aid trucks were full and arrived at the al-Bab border crossing from Turkey into Syria with supplies for the survivors of the massive earthquake which is being called the disaster of the century. HTS refused entry to the trucks because they wanted a $1,000 bounty for each truck.
The UN reported their team is in Idlib assessing the needs of the people. The UN is well aware of the whistleblowers in Idlib who work for the aid agencies, and are reporting the fraud and misdistribution of humanitarian aid by Al-Julani, HTS, and his Salvation Government.
Aid agencies inside Idlib are CARE International, Danish Refugee Council, Global Communities – Syria, HI – Humanity & Inclusion, The Mentor Initiative, Sham Humanitarian, People in Need, Norwegian Refugee Council, HIHFAD, Dozana, Solidarités International, World Vision, Welt Hunger Life, Christian Aid, Syrian Relief & Development, Tamdeen Youth Foundation, Asylum Access, Rahma Worldwide, ATAA, SAMS, BINAA, International Rescue Committee, SEMA, Action for Humanity, Takaful Al Sham, CAFOD, Abs Development Organization for Woman & Child, Search for Common Ground, Save the Children, Action Aid, Relief International, Oxfam, War Child, Act Alliance, Mercy Corps.
In June 2022, Al-Monitor reported that HTS, and the Salvation Government in Idlib, were in full control of the humanitarian aid being provided to displaced persons in Idlib and parts of the northern countryside of Aleppo.
The international aid agencies were being restricted in their work by HTS which demands the aid be dispersed according to HTS discretion. HTS stormed into the aid offices and warehouses and arrested some employees to intimidate the aid agencies into subservience to HTS command.
Human rights activists have long complained that HTS steals aid, prevents the distribution of aid fairly, and extorts money from the agencies to continue their work in Idlib and the areas HTS controls. The extortion is the basis for hard currency for HTS and their prime source of income.
First-hand testimony came from a former HTS policeman who had been held in prison by HTS for smoking cigarettes. He has since left Idlib and talked with Al-Monitor anonymously.
He said, “HTS uses several methods to control the NGOs’ work and get a share of the projects they [NGOs] implement for the displaced. First, it forces NGOs to pay a sum of money in hard currency on a monthly basis in return for them to pursue their relief work in HTS-held areas. The movement also deducts up to 10% of the relief aid offered by these NGOs.”
He explained that HTS distributes the aid first to its fighters, their families, and employees of HTS.
“When NGOs provide educational or health projects, they are forced to include some civilians or people who are ideologically loyal to HTS with the aim to improve its [HTS’] image before the community and present it as the authority that has the best interest of the residents at heart, seeking to provide job opportunities for them,” the man explained.
He was paid $100 a month and provided with food and ration supplies for himself and his family.
Over the years, several aid organizations stopped their work in Idlib because of the HTS extortion and control. The Karam Foundation located in Reyhanli, Turkey had stopped their work in Idlib due to HTS interference and charity fraud.
“HTS requested us to pay $20,000 to continue with our relief work in Idlib. It also imposed the names of people affiliated with it to be part of the organization’s educational and health projects, by sending their resumes, which we considered a violation of our privacy,” reported a former employee at the aid agency Subul al-Salam told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
He said, “In mid-2019, our organization decided to stop abiding by these conditions, which prompted HTS to break into our warehouses in the towns of Ahsem, Ariha, and Jabal al-Zawiya in Idlib, seizing all contents and arresting several employees before releasing them later. This prompted the organization to halt its activities altogether.”
In June 2022, HTS arrested several workers of the Al-Qalb al-Kabir (Big Heart) organization in Idlib on charges of corruption, forcing them to pay $60,000 as a settlement before releasing the detained employees.
Al-Julani and his HTS have a particular hatred of any projects aimed at females. Any NGO or aid group, including the UN, must first submit a proposal for any project including females to be allowed.
Mohammed al-Yunis, originally from Idlib and currently based in France, is a former employee of Subul al-Salam. He told Al-Monitor that HTS stopped several projects that aimed at supporting women, especially camp residents.
He noted that HTS has recently banned all projects concerned with supporting, empowering, and educating women, prosecuted several feminist activists in its area of control, and closed down centers providing training, psychological support, and counseling for women, notably in the city of al-Atareb in the western countryside of Aleppo.
Yet, the US State Department and the UN are complicit in keeping HTS in power and keeping the 3 million civilians held hostage to an armed Radical Islamic terrorist group.
In November 2017, the Salivation Government, headed by Al-Julani, formed the so-called Organizations Affairs Management Office, to control the humanitarian aid and development projects funded by foreign organizations in northern Syria, in addition to extorting levies on all relief projects and materials introduced by NGOs into the area.
On February 1, 2023, Julani opened the Al Hamra shopping mall in Idlib, the equivalent of any mall located in a mid-sized city in the US. The mall was financed from the extorted funds the aid agencies have paid to HTS. Customers can ride the escalators even though most of Syria has just 30 minutes of electricity three times per day. The powerful gasoline generators are running day and night with fuel supplied from Turkey which buys the Syrian oil stolen by the US military who occupy the main Syrian oil wells in the northeast. This mall has all types of its merchandise on sale, among which is humanitarian aid which is overstocked and sold by Julani to civilians who are not on the list of those loyal to his terrorist group.
The UN and Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez are part of the aid fraud. For over a decade, the UN has been trucking in aid to the HTS terrorists and the unarmed civilians they hold as human shields. The group has always been in sole charge of what aid enters and who will be allowed to use it.
While the western media was showing videos of utter devastation and suffering following the recent earthquake, Al-Julani was controlling every movement of aid into Idlib, among the 3 million civilians qualifies for aid, and who are deprived.
The American journalist, Bilal Abdul Kareem, was held in prison in Idlib for more than six months by Al-Julani for criticizing HTS. Kareem has worked for CNN and BBC reporting from Idlib. He reported that he had been tortured by HTS and that Tauqir Sharif, a British aid worker had been restrained in a tire and beaten while in HTS custody.
The US government is firmly in support of the rights of the LGBTQ community worldwide, but not in Idlib.
The US State Department under Secretary Antony Blinken has planned for Julani to be installed in Damascus as leader of the proposed Islamic State of Syria. Barbara Leaf, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs traveled in September 2022 to the Middle East, but never visited Damascus. She and the US government she represents do not recognize Damascus as the government, but they do recognize Al-Julani and the Salvation Government, who they promote as the legitimate representatives of Syrians, even though the area they exist in is a mere 1% of the territory of Syria.
The UN charter states that every member must fight Al Qaeda everywhere on earth. Idlib is under the control of Al-Julani, who began his terrorist career in Iraq under Al Qaeda, then aligned himself with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, who directed Al-Julani to go to Syria and establish a branch there.
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The United States will quadruple the number of US forces stationed on Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, in an effort to provoke a war with Beijing along the lines of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The United States is actively turning Taiwan into a military base just dozens of miles off the coast of mainland China, with the aim of goading China into invading the island, and painting the ensuing war as the result of “Chinese aggression.”
The announcement gives context to the Biden administration’s unprecedented decision to attack a Chinese research balloon that had been blown over the United States earlier this month, the first time that any aircraft had been shot down over US territory or its coastal waters.
The attack, and the media frenzy that preceded it, was used in an attempt to whip up public hysteria and fear of China, justifying a massive US military buildup on the other side of the world.
In January, Gen. Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command, sent a letter to his subordinates stating, “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” and urging them to get their “personal affairs” in order in preparation for a conflict with China.
In both May and September of last year, US President Joe Biden categorically asserted the US would be willing to go to war with China if it invaded Taiwan.
The announcement of the troop surge follows the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act at the end of last year. It effectively rendered the US’s decades-old “One China policy,” under which Washington de facto recognized the Beijing regime as the sole government of all China, including Taiwan, a dead letter by sending direct military aide to Taipei.
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Scores of Israeli settlers rampaged for several hours in the West Bank town of Huwara late on 26 February, leaving one Palestinian dead, at least 390 injured, and setting fire to at least 75 Palestinian homes and 100 cars.
Flocks of settlers attack and burn Palestinian homes in Nablus under the protection of the Israeli army.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said 37-year-old Sameh Aqtash was shot and killed by Israeli fire. The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said two other people were shot and wounded, a third person was stabbed, and a fourth was beaten with an iron bar.
The settlers descended on the Palestinian village brandishing firearms, knives, sticks, and stones under the protection of the Israeli army.
Unreal! #Israeli settlers are jubilantly dancing & celebrating their deadly pogrom on Huwara, where they killed a Palestinian, wounded over 100, burned down 15 homes, dozens of cars, shops & farms under the full protection of the IDF!
Images posted on social media show settlers killing an entire herd of sheep and uprooting olive trees and other crops from Palestinian farmers.
According to WAFA news agency, early on Monday, an Israeli settler tried to run over a group of journalists covering the raid in Huwara.
The attack on the Palestinian village came in response to the killing of two Israeli settlers on highway 60 near Huwara by a Palestinian gunman. Israeli Channel 12 reported that the man intercepted the settlers’ vehicle by ramming into it, got out and shot both of them, then escaped by foot.
Sunday’s violence occurred just as senior officials from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, and the US met in the Red Sea resort of Aqaba, where they announced that Tel Aviv and the Palestinian Authority (PA) reached an agreement to “de-escalate tensions” for a period of three to six months.
“They reaffirmed the necessity of committing to de-escalation on the ground and to prevent further violence,” the Jordanian Foreign Ministry announced in a statement.
The statement also claimed Israel agreed to “stop discussion of any new settlement units for four months and to stop authorization of any outposts for six months.”
However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swiftly denied this claim, tweeting that “the building and authorization in [the West Bank] will continue according to the original planning and building schedule, with no change.”
Tel Aviv has also tightened its siege on the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, imposing a closure on the checkpoints of Huwara, Awarta, Al-Murabaa, Zatara, and entrances to Beita.
Over the past year, the occupied West Bank has witnessed a severe uptick in violence, both from settler assaults and Palestinian retaliatory attacks, in addition to the intense, often violent raids the Israeli army carries out on a near-daily basis.
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The general expectation that the first anniversary of Russia’s special military operations in Ukraine would mark the commencement of a big military offensive has been belied, going by the speeches by President Vladimir Putin and the US President Joe Biden,separated by a few hours on February 21, in Moscow and Warsaw.
Neither said anything very original. Putin cut himself loose towards the end of his speech by dropping a bombshell that Russia is suspending its participation in the New START treaty, which is its last nuclear weapons pact with the US. But the foreign ministry in Moscow has since clarified that Russia will continue to observe the terms of the treaty till 2026.
For Biden, with his rating dropping within Democratic Party, the steady decline of support in the public opinion for the war in Eurasia underscores that his narrative about democracy vs. autocracy is not taken seriously even in American opinion outside the neocon circle. Certainly, Biden wouldn’t want the burial of the New START treaty as his presidential legacy.
For Putin too, although his stunning popular rating touching 80 percent makes his re-election in March next year a certainty, should he decide to seek another term, there are domestic pressures. The Russian public is politically erudite and questions will rise as time passes, given the slow pace of the Ukraine operations. Although Russian economy has done well to withstand the western assault, it remains an amalgamate of a siege economy and a war economy. Putin himself is acutely conscious of the need to assuage public concerns.
The Russian strategy all through has been to “grind” the Ukrainian military and force Kiev to negotiate but the US is only now realising that this was in reality a war of attrition. Biden has announced a new package of military assistance for Ukraine to the tune of $460 million, which will include ammunition for the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system as well as 155-millimeter and 120-millimeter shells for artillery. But, significantly, he did not make any promises regarding long-range missiles or fighter jets — although he predicted that the coming days will be difficult for Ukraine and pledged that the US will do everything necessary so that “Russia pays a high price.”
To quote Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary-general, what is unfolding is “a war of attrition… a battle of logistics; as in how do you get enough stuff – materiel, spare parts, ammunition, fuel – to the front lines.” But it can also mutate since the Western bloc is unable to define its end goal in Ukraine.
Putin warned that western weapon supplies to Kiev will trigger consequences. “The longer the range of the Western systems being brought to Ukraine, the farther away from our borders we will be forced to push the threat,” he said. Plainly put, Russian forces may create a buffer zone in the region west of Dnieper River. Putin called out the Western elite to realise that “it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield.”
This is the nearest he came to speaking about the future trajectory of the special operations. To be sure, Russia is closely watching that the support for the war in the US is steadily on the wane and this can impact Biden’s political calculus as a divisive election campaign takes over. Of course, the Biden Administration has secured substantial authorised appropriation enabling it to continue the high levels of support to Ukraine through the remaining 8 months of the financial year ending in October, and there is no question that the Western allies will also supplement.
That said, Biden had to settle for a modest roadshow with the Bucharest Nine in Warsaw on Tuesday, whereas, a grand spectacle of Old Europeans of Western Europe descending on Kiev/ Warsaw along with him would have been befitting the occasion. Arguably, it carries a certain message on “western unity.”
Indeed, Putin’s decision to play the New START card is timely. This is a display of “smart power” — war by other means. On the outside, this is an aggressive bid to engage Washington diplomatically, and at the very minimum intends to compel the US to exercise self-restraint while fuelling the war. Russia’s permanent representative to international organisations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov clarified on Wednesday that “The situation can be ‘reversed’ if the United States shows political will and makes honest efforts for the sake of general de-escalation and creation of conditions for the comprehensive operation of New START.”
The hawkish US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland reacted in an interview with Tass on Thursday that Washington is ready to start talks with Russia on the New START treaty “tomorrow” if Moscow is prepared for it. “The US and Moscow have responsibilities to the world to keep our nuclear arsenal safe and secure, and we should do our jobs,” she pointed out.
Nuland is usually not comfortable with such conciliatory idiom on matters regarding Russia — even bracketing her country with a power she regards disdainfully as a lower form of life in the global power dynamic. It only underscores Biden’s desperate keenness to salvage the New START treaty in the fulness of time.
Indeed, there is the European dimension. The implications for European security are profound, as Putin is demanding that future nuclear arms control talks should also include the UK and France. Putin’s announcement dramatically brings the nuclear threat to Europe’s doorsteps.
Will the UK and France agree to bring their nuclear weapon stockpiles under international treaties? The US abandoned the INF (1987) without regard for European concerns. And, now, New Start Treaty is becoming a casualty of US’ confrontation with Russia. Already, there is simmering discontent in Europe that the US has been the sole beneficiary of the Ukraine war. These undercurrents cannot be ignored.
How does all this add up? The expert opinion is that by March, the training will be completed for the new Russian recruits following the partial mobilisation of military reservists in September. Thus, aside the accent on the “demilitarisation” of Kiev’s forces in Donbass, the Kharkov, Zaporozhya and Kherson oblasts are also in Russian sights. Biden’s dangerous incitement of Moldavia on Tuesday putsMoscow on guard as regards Ukraine’s border with Transnistria — and a reminder that control of Odessa is absolutely vital.
In sum, Biden Administration is in a quandary since the facts on the ground show no tangible gains for its decision to wage a proxy war with Russia. Ukraine lost more territories following its abandonment (under US pressure) of the draft agreement negotiated in Istanbul in March. Four Ukrainian oblasts have become part of Russian Federation and Moscow is unlikely to part with them.
Biden knows only too well that Ukraine will overnight collapse without US military and financial backing. The rationale behind such a costly enterprise is debatable.The stigma of defeat will sink the current regime in Kiev, too.
The western plan, therefore, is to support another Ukrainian “counteroffensive” to make some, any territorial gains. But the chances of Kiev reclaiming the territories under Russian control are virtually nil. Meanwhile, war has created dynamics in the Sino-Russian strategic partnership.
Putin confirmed that Moscow is expecting a visit by the Chinese President Xi Jinping after the sessions of the highest deliberative and legislative bodies of China — the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress — which will begin in Beijing on March 4 and 5. Conceivably, the launch of any large scale Russian offensive will remain in suspended animation until then.
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The years of Covid chaos have really taken a toll on the world. We’ve suffered through the dramatic presentation of a world health crisis, and the resulting stress of oppressive societal dictates. This article discusses the history of social engineering and how it is currently impacting our personal and societal wellness.
There has been much talk about the importance of the humanities in this age of rapid technological transformation and we see funding for “digital humanities” programs that provide cutting-edge communications technology that is claimed will revolutionize teaching and will provide online videos that effectively present complex information for any number of viewers around the world.
According to Kant, one reason for not being able to think for oneself is laziness and cowardice. Being immature is comfortable and thinking for oneself is “a vexatious business”. This makes it easy for others, Kant believes, to become the “guardians” of these immature people.
It would seem ironic that the annual Munich Security Conference is traditionally set in Munich, Germany, the site of Adolf Hitler’s return in 1920 after his discharge from WW I service in the German army. Home to the Munich Putsch of 1923, it became the location from which the Workers Socialist Nazi party grew into a mass movement and political force throughout Germany; thus threatening the world.
The world’s focus is on the war. On February 24, it is one year since Russia launched its so-called special military operation. Much more important is to focus on the underlying conflicts – because there exists no war or other violence without root causes.
How far we have come—or, rather, fallen. Once upon a time in America, corporations were required to sign a charter before doing business in a state or community. “After the nation’s founding, corporations were granted charters by the state as they are today,” writes Stephen D. Foster Jr.
February 24th marks the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It also marks the twentieth anniversary of a month of record turnouts against the expected war in Iraq by the United States, the United Kingdom, and their so-called “coalition of the willing.”
There is reason to be alarmed by the recent China balloon. However, that reason is not the alleged China aggression but the very calculated aggression towards China by the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. This hate and the manufactured reasons for it have been layering on for years. We’ve seen this playbook. It’s the same game plan that led us to the war on Iraq.
The Russian president has hailed cooperation between his country and China, describing it as an important step in stabilizing the international situation. The cooperation in the international arena between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, as we have repeatedly underlined, plays an important role in stabilizing the international situation.
This confirms the work of Sasha Latypova and Katherine Watt, who showed how the Pentagon’s Operation Warp Speed was able to completely circumvent Federal Health Regulations by using what’s called in bureaucratic-speak, an “Other Transaction Authority”, which they used to contract with the bioweapons manufacturers to literally produce the bioweapon.
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Human beings could be used as part of an electromagnetic radiation (EMR) antenna system by wearing a special copper-coiled bracelet, according to a team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.
The researchers said they developed a low-cost way to “harvest” the radiofrequency (RF) radiation that gets “leaked” during visible light communication (VLC) — a technology they said is likely to be used in the “coming 6G networks.”
But some critics allege that using human beings as RF antennas for 6G is disrespectful to the human body and may have unknown health implications.
“I am diametrically opposed to this type of work, especially given the paucity of medical research on using the human body as an RF antenna,” said Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E., Children’s Health Defense (CHD) chief scientific officer and professor of biology at Simpson University.
“This type of technology makes the human body an RF collector and ignores the health implications of EMR altogether,” Hooker told The Defender.
‘LiFi’ can ‘enable new pervasive wireless systems’ for Internet of Things
The researchers — including Jie Xiong, Ph.D., an associate professor of information and computer sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Qing Wang, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Embedded Systems Group in the Department of Software Technology at TU Delft, The Netherlands — are proponents of VLC, or “LiFi” as it is sometimes called, which uses light to transmit data.
Like WiFi, VLC is wireless — but instead of using a router and RF waves to transmit data, VLC uses LED bulbs and light signals to send and receive information.
According to OpenVLC, a research platform co-founded by Wang, VCL can “enable new pervasive wireless systems in the context of the Internet of Things.”
During VLC, RF radiation is “leaked” into the ambient environment, allowing it to be “harvested” and used to power small devices, the researchers said.
The team designed an electrical system called “Bracelet+” whereby a human wearing a bracelet containing a copper coil could “collect” the RF radiation generated during VLC.
The researchers said they were able to harvest microwatts of power using their copper-coiled bracelet system in tested scenarios.
“Such a micro-watt level of harvested energy has the potential to power up ultra-low-power sensors such as temperature sensors and glucose sensors,” they said.
The team did not specify in their design how the harvested radiation would be relayed to devices.
Two bracelets harvest more RF than one
The team said they were able to harvest more RF radiation when an individual wore two bracelets, one on each arm.
Increasing the number of bracelets would not increase the wearer’s exposure to RF, according to Minhao Cui — a Ph.D. student of information and computer sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who worked with Xiong on the project.
“The Bracelet only ‘extracts’ [RF] energy from the human body, which is already captured by the human body,” he said, “so no matter how many bracelets we wear, [it] will not influence people’s exposure to RF.”
The team said wearing the bracelet “does not cause any health issues” because the maximum amount of RF radiation from VLC is “around 0.01 microwatts per squared centimeter (mW/cm2)” — which is “far below” the RF limits specified by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
FCC guidelines set the limit for human exposure to RF at 0.2 mW/cm2 and FDA specifies an upper limit of 10 mW/cm2, they said.
‘One of the worst ideas ever’
However, Bill Bathgate, an electrical engineer and certified building biology environmental consultant, said it wasn’t feasible to think that wearing the bracelets would not increase people’s exposure to RF. “That’s not possible,” he said.
Commenting on the study, Bathgate said, “This is one of the worst ideas ever.” It uses the human body as a “telecommunications point in some kind of network grid” and could result in “health effects we can’t predict,” he said.
Bathgate criticized the researchers for using FCC and FDA regulations as a measure of health impacts. “These are the two of the most corrupt organizations I’ve ever met in this field of electrical engineering,” he said.
“The FCC is not a health agency,” Bathgate said, “The FDA is — but it doesn’t know anything about RF.”
Bathgate pointed out that in 2021, CHD sued the FCC successfully for being unable to explain why its current guidelines adequately protect against the harmful effects of exposure to RF radiation.
The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the FCC failed to consider the non-cancer evidence regarding adverse health effects of wireless technology in its decision to not update its 1996 guidelines.
Bathgate said he would have liked to see the study authors provide evidence to support their claim that the leaked RF radiation from VLC does not cause health issues. “What measurements have been done to validate that statement?” he asked.
“You have to be careful … people throw this stuff out there without even thinking about the potential ramifications of it,” he said, adding that prior research has indicated clear interactions between EMR exposure — including RF — and health problems.
Thousands of peer-reviewed studies have shown non-thermal biological effects — meaning effects from low-level radiation that does not cause heat — at the cellular level including oxidative stress, DNA damage, sperm damage, neurological effects, cognitive impairment and electrosensitivity.
Nonetheless, Cui said he didn’t think VLC has an impact on people’s health. “The energy of leaked RF signals from the VLC is largely below that of Wi-Fi signals already in the environment,” he added.
‘Making the human body the ground plane for 6G communications’
Bathgate broke down the science behind why the study authors would want to use the human body to collect the RF generated by VLC.
In VLC, when LED bulbs oscillate at a very high frequency it allows signals to be sent at very low power. These signals get transferred to the human body, Bathgate said, making the body an “amplifying antenna” for the signals.
“Basically, what we’re talking about here is making the human body the ground plane for 6G communications,” he added.
“If you drive by a TV tower or radio tower, you see this big thing going up in the air. Underneath that tower — which you can’t see — is a very large copper sheet the size of a parking lot.”
That’s the ground plane for the antenna, he said. “The antenna on its own will not radiate unless it has a counterpoise — or a ground plane — to reflect the information from.”
Bathgate said that human beings are very effective as being a ground plane because they are “saltwater beings.”
For example, he said, if he wanted to get a really strong signal using a ham radio, he would go to a saltwater beach and “literally stick” the antenna in the sand where the saltwater is.
The saltwater would amplify the signals “very quickly and very effectively,” he said, by making the ocean — “half the earth” — the ground plane. “It will make my antenna a lot more effective than if I were to be a hundred yards inland,” he said.
Indeed, the study authors tested various objects to ascertain which ones functioned most effectively to amplify the RF radiation produced during VLC and found that the human body was the best “object” for collecting the RF radiation.
They first put a copper coil on objects — made of plastic, cardboard, wood and steel — but found metal to be the most effective. Then, they tested objects “ubiquitous” in daily life including walls, electronic devices (such as a smartphone and laptop) and the human body.
They concluded that the human body — with its many watery tissues — was more effective at amplifying the harvestable RF radiation than electronic devices or walls.
The study authors did not discuss what amount of RF radiation might be expected to occur in individuals exposed to VLC who wear copper jewelry similar to their copper-coiled bracelet or in women who use a copper intrauterine device as a form of long-term birth control.
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Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (2021), and a master’s degree in communication and leadership from Gonzaga University (2015). Her scholarship has been published in Health Communication. She has taught at various academic institutions in the United States and is fluent in Spanish.
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Soon after softening its public stance on banning gas stoves in response to backlash, the Biden administration is already planning to impose new costs on the appliances with stricter efficiency standards that have drawn a stinging rebuke form the natural gas industry.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy this week proposed new efficiency standards for consumer cooking appliances, claiming they would save a “significant amount” of energy.
U.S. Oil and Gas Association President Tim Stewart is discounting the regulators’ claim — and accusing them of concealing an ulterior motive.
“The potential environmental benefits will be very small because the potential energy efficiency improvements are very small,” Stewart said in a statement to Just the News.
The latest move against gast stoves “isn’t about efficiency,” he asserted, “it is about ending the use of fossil fuel.”
Last month, the Biden administration was forced to backpedal after an official hinted at a possible nationwide ban on gas stoves, claiming the appliances are linked to climate change, pollution and health problems such as cancer.
The White House clarified that it is not in favor of banning gas stoves, after Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg the appliances are a “hidden hazard” and that “any option is on the table” with regard to regulating them.
In a bid to allay public concerns, the Energy Department is emphasizing the time lag before the proposed new efficiency standards would take effect.
“As required by Congress, the Department of Energy is proposing efficiency standards for gas and electric cooktops,” a department spokesperson told Fox Business. “We are not proposing bans on either.
“The proposed standards would not go into effect until 2027 and cumulatively save the nation up to $1.7 billion. Every major manufacturer has products that meet or exceed the requirements proposed today.”
The department claims the new standards would strongly benefit both the climate and consumers. The standards “would save a significant amount of energy and a lifetime energy savings for consumer conventional cooking products purchased,” according to the proposed rule.
Fox Business reported that regulators estimated the new standards would raise upfront costs of gas stove products by $32.5 million per year while saving $100.8 million annually with lower operating costs factored in.
For Stewart, the claims of net savings are deja vu all over again.
“New government standards almost always increase the up-front cost for the manufacturer and just as often will reduce the actual utility of the new appliance,” he said. “These costs are passed on to the consumer.
“On the other hand, if manufacturers determine there is a market for more fuel-efficient natural gas stoves, they will more than likely compete to produce those stoves without new regulations.”
Any potential efficiency increases promised by the regulators are far outweighed by steep new compliance costs, according to Stewart’s calculations.
“The Department of Energy has looked at the energy efficiency before and decided that the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze,” he said. “In other words, it’s difficult to cost-effectively increase the energy efficiency of stoves. It is estimated that they at best will achieve a 3% increase in efficiency for an astronomical cost.”
At the end of the day, Stewart argued, the stricter standards are a ploy to price gas appliances into obsolescence as part of the administration’s larger war on traditional, cheap energy sources.
“The Biden Administration is doing everything it can to make natural gas and natural gas appliances more expensive to force consumers to fuel-switch,” said the industry advocate. “Across the administration they are working against the use of natural gas, even though right now natural gas is incredibly inexpensive.”
Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed back against any government regulation of gas stoves by proposing a permanent tax holiday on them.
DeSantis’ 2023 state budget (“Framework for Freedom Budget”) proposed four permanent sales tax holidays covering baby necessities, cribs and strollers, over-the-counter pet medications and gas stoves.
“They want your gas stove, and we’re not going to let that happen,” he said at the state Capitol.
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What happened in East Palestine is just the latest in an upsurge in train derailments in recent years. Norfolk Southern alone is responsible for over half the damages caused by hazardous materials incidents involving railways in 2022. In May of last year, a Norfolk Southern train derailed in western Pennsylvania, releasing 1,423 gallons of combustible petroleum distillate. Then, in October of 2022, another Norfolk Southern train derailed in Sandusky, Ohio releasing 20,000 gallons of liquid paraffin wax. And then another derailed just a few weeks later in Illinois, releasing over 20,000 gallons of flammable chemicals.
The East Palestine disaster is an expression of capitalism’s single-minded drive for greater and greater profit: Norfolk Southern has for decades now eliminated services and operating costs to dangerously low levels—all to deliver more and more wealth to its shareholders each year.
What causes train derailments?
The uptick in train derailments can be attributed to a confluence of three factors that epitomize capital’s profit motive incentive at all costs. The first factor is the introduction of Precision Scheduled Railroading starting in 1993—the implementation of which was largely pushed by Wall Street to cut operating expenses and increase stock buybacks and dividends. PSR means rail companies spend less money on labor in order to create higher profit margins, resulting in trains transporting heavier and heavier loads with a diminishing number of workers. In fact, while 80-90 cars were once supported by five rail workers before the introduction of PSR, after PSR was set into place two workers can now oversee as many as 150 rail cars or more. According to More Perfect Union, “In 2002, Norfolk Southern employed 29,000 people. By the end of 2022, the company had slashed its headcount by 33%. Meanwhile, management more than doubled profit margins.”
The second factor contributing to this increase in derailments is that rail companies are making their trains longer and forcing them to carry heavier and heavier freight. Very long trains can also disrupt radio communications between rail crew, making accidents more likely. In fact, the same train that derailed in East Palestine broke down at least once a few days prior, due to excessive length and weight. When it derailed, the train was 9,300 feet long, consisted of 151 cars, and carried 18,000 tons. Again, this is to generate higher profit margins for its investors, which include the likes of Vanguard, Blackrock, JP Morgan, and Wells Fargo, among others. In its 2021 annual report, Norfolk Southern assured shareholders it would increase “efficiency” by increasing average train weight by 21% and train length by 20%.
The third factor is that most railroad trains—including the Norfolk Southern one which derailed in East Palestine—rely on outdated braking technology. That is, trains are still using 19th century braking systems which stop each car individually rather than the entire train at once. Also, in an emergency situation, the longer, heavier trains which have become commonplace are much more difficult to halt.
While the rate of accidents for Norfolk Southern has increased, the rail company reaped over $8 billion of gross profit in 2022. And railways, as a whole, are the most profitable industry in the United States, with an over 50% profit margin.
The rail lobby is a powerful force both on the federal and state levels. In Washington, Norfolk Southern consistently opposes any legislation which could potentially cut into its profits. In 2018 alone, the rail company lobbied against over 20 different bills which sought to regulate weight uniformity or limits on trains. In fact, Bill Johnson, the U.S. Congressman who represents East Palestine, received $18,000 from a Norfolk Southern PAC—though he later donated this money to a firefighter’s association after public scrutiny of the rail carrier emerged following the derailment.
In 2016, former Norfolk Southern employee Robert Mallory was diagnosed with colon cancer after years of exposure to asbestos and other hazardous materials working for the rail company. In 2017, Mallory filed a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern for the company’s failure to provide the necessary protective equipment. As reported by Lever News, “Pennsylvania has what’s known as a ‘consent-by-registration’ statute … which stipulates that when corporations register to do business in the state, they are also consenting to be governed by that state’s courts. Norfolk Southern asserts that being forced to defend the case in Pennsylvania would pose an undue burden, thereby violating its constitutional right to due process.” Mallory appealed, and the case has been brought to the Supreme Court.
This is a landmark case, especially in light of the East Palestine derailment catastrophe: if the right-wing dominated Court rules in favor of Norfolk Southern, the rail company could block lawsuits brought by victims exposed to toxic chemicals from the spill in neighboring Pennsylvania. Only those living in states where Norfolk Southern is headquartered could bring lawsuits against the company. The case could also severely limit individuals’ ability to sue corporations overall.
Nationalize the railways
Under these current conditions, train derailments are set to continue increasing—major rail carriers like Norfolk Southern are first and foremost beholden to their investors and driven by the profit motive. Armed with millions of dollars and an influential political lobby, it is clear that Norfolk Southern and other rail companies have the power and financial backing to oppose any law that could potentially threaten shareholder profits, even going so far as weaponizing the Supreme Court. We have seen them slashing their workforces, increasing freight to dangerous limits, relying on outdated brake technology, and even subjecting working class people to dangerous chemical spills and exposure to protect their own financial interests.
The solution is to remove the profit motive altogether and nationalize Norfolk Southern and the rest of the rail industry, as organizations like Railroad Workers United have called to do. With nationalization, rail workers could be placed in direct leadership positions where they could have greater oversight in day-to-day decisions and implement improved working conditions. Revenue could then be directed toward improving safety and infrastructure, rather than into the pockets of billionaire shareholders.
Defenders of Wall Street denounce this idea as “too extreme” and an infringement on the sacred right of corporations to profit. But a look at Norfolk Southern’s record makes it clear: the alternative is a constantly escalating safety crisis causing injury, sickness and suffering across the country.
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Featured image: A Norfolk Southern train. Photo: James St. John (Wikimedia Commons)
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From early 2004 until late 2010, former Los Alamos National Laboratory director Siegfried Hecker had unparalleled access to North Korean nuclear facilities and scientists and officials connected to them. During his many visits, taken with other scientists and scholars as a private citizen but with the knowledge of the US government, Hecker had a few nearly shocking experiences; at one point, he was shown a half-pound piece of plutonium in North Korea’s Radiochemical Laboratory, apparently to document, for the world, the North’s nuclear accomplishments. He also gained a nuanced appreciation for North Korea’s negotiating strategy vis-a-vis the United States. That dual-track strategy—within which North Korean leaders simultaneously pursued a nuclear weapons capability and some form of rapprochement with the United States—serves as a through-line in Hecker’s new book, Hinge Points: An Inside Look at North Korea’s Nuclear Program.
Via his visits to the North and subsequent research outside the country, Hecker came to believe that the standard US narrative about its various failed attempts to negotiate an end to the North Korean nuclear program was seriously askew. That US narrative portrays North Korea as unreliable, a serial violator of diplomatic agreements, a country that uses provocations to extort rewards from the West. Instead, Hecker found that the story of the growth of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal in the 21st century can more accurately be told as a series of missed opportunities—what he calls “hinge points”—when diplomatic openings that could have led to controls on the North’s nuclear program were undermined, sometimes by Pyongyang but at least as often (and perhaps more consequentially) by Washington.
I spoke with Hecker (who is also chair of the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors) at some length about his book and how three successive US presidential administrations failed to take advantage of an apparent willingness by the North Koreans to accept a fundamentally new relationship with the United States—along with significant controls on their nuclear program. Those failures, Hecker said, center on the US government’s unwillingness to make what he calls “technically informed risk-management decisions.”
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. An excerpt from Hinge Points can be read here.
John Mecklin: Your book, which I enjoyed a great deal, goes through a whole series of missed opportunities with North Korea that you call hinge points. I know you can’t go through all of them, because there were a lot, through history. But why don’t you go through one or two to give our readers a flavor of what you were talking about, in terms of what a hinge point is?
Siegfried Hecker: It’s a turning point where key decisions have serious consequences. These typically followed advances in North Korea’s nuclear enterprise—what Washington called provocations. Examples are missile or satellite launches, or the discovery of a covert uranium enrichment program. In the book, I describe that, at such key hinge points, the US government unfortunately did not make technically informed risk-management decisions.
The first big hinge point was at the beginning of the [George W.] Bush administration—at a meeting in October of 2002. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly made the first Bush administration visit to Pyongyang. During the summer, the administration was made aware that North Korea was pursuing, clandestinely, a uranium enrichment centrifuge program, the second path to the bomb [the first path involved plutonium].
This was during the Agreed Framework, a Clinton-era deal that was consummated in 1994, in which North Korea agreed to freeze its plutonium production complex. In return, the US would provide two light-water nuclear reactors for the production of electricity. These would be paid for primarily by South Korea and Japan. The North Koreans did shut down their small plutonium-production reactor and the entire Yongbyon nuclear complex in 1994 in return for the promise of two light-water reactors.
When the Bush administration got word of North Korea’s clandestine efforts to develop uranium centrifuges, it confronted the North Koreans at the October 2002 meeting. In the book, I describe how the Americans walked away from the deal. John Bolton later said the uranium enrichment revelations were the hammer he needed to shatter the Agreed Framework. It was a hinge point because it had disastrous consequences. North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, restarted the Yongbyon nuclear complex, built the bomb, and a few years later tested one.
Mecklin: Let me play just a little bit of devil’s advocate. Throughout the book, you say better integration of technical analysis would allow a rational, cost-benefit kind of assessment of dealing with North Korea. But they really did lie about uranium enrichment. Would better analysis of any kind affect the kind of hawkish people like [former State Department official and later national security adviser] John Bolton, who can pop in and ruin negotiations like this?
Hecker: You are right. Bolton was determined to kill the Clinton-era Agreed Framework because they believed it to be fatally flawed. North Korea, they asserted, should never be allowed to have a civilian nuclear program. There was no need for a risk-benefit analysis because there were no benefits in dealing with them. They believed the country shouldn’t even exist.
Mecklin: But you state in the book that they should have looked at the tradeoffs before they walked away.
Hecker: Absolutely, because without assessing the technical risks of walking away, their decision put North Korea on a fast track to build the bomb. When Bush came into office, North Korea had no nuclear weapons. The plutonium path to the bomb was frozen, because the Yongbyon nuclear complex had been shut down since 1994. They were, indeed, covertly pursuing a nascent uranium enrichment program.
John Bolton’s view was, they cheated, and we hammered them. In the book, I explain what they got in return. North Korea expelled the international inspectors and American technical teams and restarted the nuclear reactor to make more plutonium. They removed the used reactor fuel rods that had been stored in a spent fuel pool for eight years and extracted some 25 to 30 kilograms of weapon-grade plutonium, enough for five or six bombs. They built the bomb and tested a nuclear device in October 2006. As for the uranium centrifuge program, they had greater freedom to scale it up.
The bottom line was that the Bush administration, which was determined to get tough on North Korea to keep it from the bomb, left office with North Korea likely possessing five bombs or so.
Mecklin: There were a couple of attempts during the last two years of the Bush administration to restart negotiations, but they didn’t really work. You state in the book that North Korea had a dual-track strategy. Was North Korea ever really serious about diplomacy?
Hecker: Yes, as the North’s political support collapsed at the end of the Cold War, Kim Il-sung decided it was better to seek strategic accommodation with the United States. The Russians had deserted them after the breakup of the Soviet Union. China, which the North always felt wielded a heavy hand in its support, decided to recognize South Korea as well. North Korea’s economy was collapsing, and Kim sought normalization with Washington to improve its external security environment and focus on the country’s dire economic situation.
The dual-track strategy that Kim, and later his son and grandson, pursued was to engage in diplomacy plus nuclear development—variously emphasizing one or the other but never completely abandoning either. Which one was prioritized depended on the external environment, the domestic situation, and their technical advances. Even during times of diplomacy, they hedged with continued nuclear developments because they were never certain that the US would follow through on its commitments. These, in turn, often led to the hinge points I describe.
The Bush administration did attempt diplomacy a couple of times during its second term, but it remained largely mired in indecision, repeatedly short-circuiting itself. That happened in September 2005 when the United States signed the Six-Party agreement but immediately issued a unilateral statement that walked back key provisions. North Korea responded with the nuclear test in 2006. Following the test, the administration again returned to diplomacy in 2007 and 2008 with Ambassador Chris Hill. I witnessed some of the disablement actions the North Koreans took in the Yongbyon nuclear complex in those years, but in the end, time ran out.
Mecklin: When Obama came in, one would think that the difference in political point of view would have made a difference, that there could have been some sort of meeting of minds during the Obama years. But there wasn’t. Why is that? What happened?
Hecker: I don’t know, but perhaps someday when North Korea opens up its archives, we’ll get the real answer. I expected President Obama to pursue greater diplomatic outreach to North Korea in the spirit of his early pronouncement to countries like Iran and North Korea, “I will reach out my hand if you unclench your fist.” Instead, the North Koreans greeted Obama with a rocket launch on April 4, the day before his famous Prague disarmament speech.
Near the end of Bush’s term, in August 2008, the game had changed because Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke. With Kim’s life in danger, the North’s decision making was driven by putting succession planning on strong footing. That likely included having to demonstrate a credible deterrent with a second nuclear test, since the first one didn’t work so well. Obama considered that part of Pyongyang’s play book—a cycle of provocation, extortion, and reward—which he was determined to end.
He responded by orchestrating a UN Security Council condemnation of the launch. That was just what Pyongyang expected, which it used as a pretext to move its nuclear program forward. It expelled the international inspectors and Americans who had been allowed back in the nuclear complex during the last two years of Bush administration diplomacy. It restored the disabled Yongbyon facilities to their original state. And, six weeks later, Pyongyang detonated its second nuclear device, this one successfully. It was another hinge point.
Mecklin: You also wrote about a Leap Day hinge point. Can you explain?
Hecker: On February 29, 2012, the Obama administration struck its first deal with the North. It would have frozen the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which by then also housed a uranium centrifuge facility that the North Koreans showed me and Stanford University colleagues in late 2010. It also called for a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests. The deal was negotiated during Kim Jong-il’s reign and signed by Kim Jong-un after his father’s death in December 2011.
But the two sides had different understandings of what constituted a missile test. Two weeks after the Leap Day signing, Pyongyang attempted to launch an Earth observation satellite, which they claimed was permitted. The Obama administration viewed that as a disguised missile test and walked away. To them it proved that Pyongyang was not a reliable negotiating partner—which lasted to the end of the administration. By walking away, the Americans remained locked out of Yongbyon, and the North Koreans stepped up their nuclear program to have enough bomb fuel for 25 nuclear weapons by the time Obama left office. It was another hinge point.
Mecklin: Not to rush too quickly through the Obama years, but the overview of all of this is a whole series of presidents failed to really make progress. But when Donald Trump came into office, everybody thought, “Oh, this is terrible. This is just going to get terrible with North Korea.” And for a while it did, but actually he did some things that I think you assessed fairly positively in the book. And I was just wondering: Can you take us through the hinge points in the Trump era?
Hecker: As you said, President Trump’s first year—2017—was probably the most dangerous year with North Korea. When Trump threatened Kim Jong-un with “fire and fury,” they likely had an arsenal of more than 25 nuclear weapons and a much more potent missile force with the means to destroy a good part of South Korea and/or Japan. However, the point I make in the book is that each of the Kims had a serious interest in diplomacy to seek diplomatic accommodation with the United States. I demonstrate that, in the latter half of 2017, going into 2018, Kim Jong-un also turned in that direction. Trump reciprocated after the fire-and-fury comment, and after calling Kim Jong-un the “little rocket man.”
By this time, Kim Jong-un had tested what was likely a hydrogen bomb, more than 200 kilotons of yield, their sixth nuclear test. He fired an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States, although it was done in a lofted trajectory. At the time of this enormously dangerous situation, both decided to try diplomacy. They did so in Singapore at their first summit in June of 2018. In the book, I give Trump credit for reaching out and doing just that—setting the stage.
When Trump and Kim Jong-un sat down in Singapore, they laid out the right framework, although without details, to achieve both normalization of relations between the United States and North Korea—which is what North Korea had been wanting for the better part of 30 years—and denuclearization. It was to be a path for North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons toward a nuclear weapon-free Korean peninsula. They instructed their people to develop the steps to move in that direction.
Trump was widely criticized for giving Kim Jong-un the visibility on the international stage to meet with the US president. I thought it was precisely the right thing to do. Before the Singapore summit, we knew so little about Kim Jong-un. Here was a guy who had his finger on the nuclear button, and we knew almost nothing about him. We knew even less about his military.
We learned a lot more about Kim Jong-un at the summit. In the book, I show in detail how both sides failed between Singapore and the February 2019 Hanoi Summit. They should have been able to agree on steps the United States would take toward normalization and steps North Korea needed to take to denuclearize. Both Trump and Kim Jong-un erred by not doing so.
Trump, in my opinion, let himself be influenced by John Bolton not to make a deal. This isn’t just my opinion; John Bolton explains in his book that he was quite proud of it, actually. He convinced Trump that it was better for him to walk away. Kim Jong-un made the mistake that he did not allow his diplomats to work with US special envoy to North Korea Steve Biegun, a very accomplished diplomat working under Trump, to negotiate these details before the summit so that positive steps could be taking taken at Hanoi.
So, they both made these mistakes. But the bottom line, the hinge point, is Trump walked away. He said he hoped to keep good relationships with Kim Jong-un. But for Kim, it was an enormous embarrassment. When Trump returned home, he was congratulated by both sides of the political spectrum for walking away. It was said that no deal was better than a bad deal. It was generally believed that Kim did not offer enough to get the kind of sanctions relief he was apparently requesting. Yet I believe that Kim was willing to take big steps to scale back the nuclear weapons program, although he told Trump it couldn’t be done all at once and had to be done in parallel with US steps toward normalization. These steps included shutting down the Yongbyon nuclear complex again. In one of Kim’s letters to Trump, he also offered to shut down the Nuclear Weapons Institute.
Mecklin: That was my question. Did they really not understand what was offered?
Hecker: In most likelihood, Bolton understood, but as he stated in his book, he did not want any deal with North Korea. The Yongbyon complex was called old and used up by critics of a deal, but it wasn’t. The Nuclear Weapons Institute, as I’ve tried to explain in the book, is their Los Alamos, their Lawrence Livermore laboratory, the brain center of their nuclear weapons program. If you take away Los Alamos and Livermore in the US program, you don’t have nuclear weapons for the future.
All these things were in play at Hanoi, but Trump didn’t pursue them. Instead he walked away. Would these have led to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula? The answer is, we don’t know. It would have taken a lot of work to get there. But what I’ve tried to explain is that, at each hinge point, we were in a position to take the risk to see how far we can get. Whether it would have been possible required a technically informed risk/benefit analysis. Instead, the decisions were made strictly on a political basis—in Trump’s case, because it looked better for him. As I show in the book, in each case the North Koreans took advantage of the Americans walking away to beef up their nuclear and missile programs. These were a disaster for our country.
Mecklin: That disaster has had implications up to the current day. I can’t perceive that there’s much if any actual focus in the Biden administration on North Korea right now. But I’m going to appoint you as President Biden’s lead advisor right now. What would you tell them about what we ought to be doing regarding North Korea now, given this history that you’ve lived through?
Hecker: Let me start with the ramifications of Hanoi for today. Kim Jong-un walked away greatly embarrassed. I wrote a piece right after the Hanoi Summit to counter those people who said Trump was right to walk away, and I said, “Was he really?” I described the concerns I had.
Since then, Pyongyang has again put its nuclear program at the top of its priorities. Diplomacy was not only put on the back burner, but it appears Kim has disengaged from Washington. Trump tried again after Hanoi. He met Kim Jong-un at the DMZ; but it was too late. And then the pandemic hit, which also made it more difficult to get back together.
I have worked with every administration since I first went to North Korea in 2004. It didn’t matter whether they were Republican or Democrat; I was trying to help them, to provide technical input and share what I had learned. Shortly after the elections, I gave my input to the Biden administration. It was talk to Kim quickly to see if they could change the game.
One of the game-changers that I suggested was to drop Washington’s refusal to allow North Korea to have civilian nuclear and space programs. The technical risks of such programs were manageable. The political benefits would flow from the fact that it would demonstrate to North Korea that we are taking their concerns seriously. I suggested that we engage the North Koreans in what I called cooperative conversion—that is, together work with them to convert their military nuclear and missile programs to civilian programs. By doing it together, step by step, we could do it in a verifiable manner.
But like every administration, they took many months to do a North Korea policy review while the opportunity for re-engagement slipped away. At the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which Hanoi Summit critics called “used up,” North Korea continued to produce more highly enriched uranium and restarted the 5-megawatt electric nuclear reactor to produce more plutonium and tritium, required for much more destructive hydrogen bombs. They increased the pace of missile development and last year conducted a record number of missile launches. Pyongyang matched the technical advances with more aggressive nuclear weapons postures.
My greatest concern is that following the February 4, 2022, Xi–Putin summit in China, North Korea moved away from the United States and closer to both Russia and China. Every indication since, including Pyongyang’s open support of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, is that Kim Jong-un has given up on North Korea’s 30-year quest of serious diplomacy with Washington to seek normalization with the United States.
So today we’re in a situation where the North Koreans aren’t interested. I don’t think there’s much we can do right now. It is a pity that the Biden administration has paid so little attention to North Korea in its first two years. At least, it has underscored the strength of its alliance with the South. That’s where we are.
One ray of hope is that the North Koreans tend to be pragmatic and quick on their feet to adapt to changing circumstances. Should Russia continue to fare poorly in Ukraine, and should North Korea’s economy continue to suffer—be it because like the Soviet Union, it spent too much on defense or because of the lingering effects of the COVID pandemic—will Washington be ready if Kim Jong-un turns back to diplomacy? Kim Jong-un knows that to revive the North’s economy he needs a change for the better in the external security environment—for that he must push for a less hostile relationship with the United States.
I think the administration needs to be prepared with something different than what the previous three administrations did. It needs to learn from the mistakes of the past. The book provides many lessons learned from those mistakes. Over the years, North Korea’s position has strengthened, not weakened. For Washington, even the first steps toward denuclearization have become longer and more difficult. We’ve had the opportunities before when it was easier. Now, it’s going to be really difficult.
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John Mecklin is the editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Featured image: Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un shake hands at the Hanoi Summit in Vietnam, February 27, 2019. Photo credit: White House
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If you read the mainstream media, it would seem the answer to the Russia-Ukraine War, now about to enter its second year of mass death and widespread destruction, is weapons of various sorts. Western tanks like the German Leopard and American Abrams. Fighter jets like the F-16 produced by Lockheed Martin. If only Ukraine had more tanks, more jets, and the like, they would be able decisively to defeat the Russian military, ejecting it from Ukrainian territory, even from the Crimea, so the argument goes.
As a historian of technology and warfare, I’ve studied this belief in magical weapons. History teaches us that weapons alone usually do not determine winners and losers in war. Weapons themselves are rarely decisive, especially when the sides engaged fight symmetrically. In such cases, new weaponry often increases the carnage.
Consider the events of World War I. Various weapons were tried in an attempt to win the war decisively through military action. These weapons included poison gas (of various types), tanks, flamethrowers, and submarines, among others. None of these weapons broke the stalemate on the Western Front. Countermeasures were found. And World War I dragged on for more than four long years, producing hecatombs of dead.
What did work? In a word, exhaustion. In the spring of 1918, Germany launched massive, last-ditch, offensives to win the war before U.S. troops arrived in Europe in large numbers. (The U.S. had entered the war in 1917 but was still mobilizing in 1918.) The Germans came close to winning, but when their offensives grounded to a halt, they had little left in the tank to endure Allied counterattacks. Yes, the Allies had more tanks than the Germans, and were learning to use them effectively with airpower in combined arms assaults. But what truly mattered was exhaustion within the German ranks, exacerbated by the Spanish flu, hunger, and demoralization.
No magical weapon won World War I. And no magical weapon is going to provide Ukraine a decisive edge in its struggle with Russia. Certainly not a hundred or so Western tanks or a few dozen fighter jets.
Indeed, looking at some of the media coverage of the Russia-Ukraine War in the West, you might be excused from mistaking it for advertising videos at a weapons trade show. Over the last year, we’ve learned a lot about Javelin and Stinger missiles, HIMARS rocket launchers, and of course various tanks, fighter jets, and the like. But we’ve seen very little coverage of the mass carnage on both sides. It’s been said the real costs of war will never get in the history books, for who wishes to confront fully the brutality and madness of industrialized warfare?
I’m in the middle of watching the new German version of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” a film deservedly nominated for an Oscar for best picture (available on Netflix). It’s one of the better war films I’ve seen in its depiction of the horrific and dehumanizing aspects of modern industrial warfare. Something like this movie is happening currently in Ukraine, but our leaders, supported by the media, think the answer to the carnage is to send even more destructive weaponry so that more troops (and civilians) can die.
Magical weapons are not the answer. For of course there’s nothing magical about weapons of mass destruction.
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Featured image: Ukrainian military intelligence operatives are seen with a US-made Black Hawk military helicopter following a combat operation, in an undisclosed location in Ukraine, February 21, 2023. (Credit: Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine)
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The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) tested a range of drones to deliver to Ukraine under a clandestine program.
Under the program, five firms demonstrated their unmanned aerial systems (UAS), including “C2 [command and control] and sensor payload[s] as well as VTOL [vertical takeoff and landing] UAS and a unique 3D-printed delta-wing ‘suicide’ drone,” The War Zone revealed, quoting one of the participants at QinetiQ.
According to the outlet, the UK-based defense technology firm was to demonstrate a series of drones and technologies at the MoD’s Boscombe Down testing site.
UK repeatedly supplied "drones" to Ukraine. We do not, and we might not know for a while, just what is included. Qinetiq, which helped make the crash program of tests at Boscombe Down possible, mentions even a "unique 3D printed delta wing ‘suicide’ drone" https://t.co/WMOxNMheUg
The platforms and technologies tested included experimental drones and electronic warfare systems.
The trials also included ground experiments and using an anechoic test facility, which can test a specimen’s response to radio-frequency energy and check how electronic systems and emissions interact with each other.
Part of a Wider Project
The drone program aims to “provide recommendations for uncrewed aircraft systems that could be deployed readily by the Ukrainian military,” and is part of the ministry’s wider KINDRED effort to assess weapons and equipment sent to Ukraine within four months, the outlet explained.
QinetiQ didn’t reveal the other participants’ identities in its statement, which has been removed from the company’s website since news outlets began reporting on it.
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Ukraine receives the most military aid from the United States: Since the beginning of the war and as of Jan. 15, 2023, $46.6 billion in financial aid for military purposes has flowed to the country now at war with Russia.
When calculating the average annual costs (in 2022 prices) of previous wars in which the United States has been involved in, the true magnitude of the country’s Ukraine aid expenditure can be seen.
As Statista’s Martin Armstrong shows in the infographic below, the payments to Ukraine have already exceeded the annual military expenditure of the U.S. in the war in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2010. The U.S. military costs in the Vietnam War, the Iraq War and the Korean War were significantly higher – according to calculations by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy as part of its Ukraine Support Tracker.
In the Vietnam and Korean wars, the high usage rate of ammunition and other supplies cost a particularly large amount of money, in addition to the wear and tear of equipment and numerous other assets such as the care of the wounded. Further complicating matters in each case was the great distance to the theater of operations. Although the U.S. maintained a number of bases in Southeast Asia, the large weapons systems and the required replacement components all had to be shipped or flown across the Pacific. In addition, a large fleet of aircraft carriers was always deployed off the coast of Vietnam. The numerous missions of the air force also caused significant costs.
In the U.S., criticism of the scale of military aid to Ukraine is already coming from within the Republican ranks.
Some of the U.S. Republicans in Congress have announced that they intend to block aid to Ukraine.
Nevertheless, the day after his visit to Kyiv, U.S. President Biden underscored his country’s commitment to continued support of the Ukrainian war effort. Speaking in Warsaw, Poland, he said:
“This is not just about freedom in Ukraine. It’s about freedom of democracy in general”.
In addition to the military aid detailed in this infographic, the U.S. has also supplied weapons and equipment worth over $5 billion.
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A week ago this Sunday thousands of people gathered together at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to collectively “rage against the war machine.” History will judge if this event measured up to what its organizers had envisioned, and if the words spoken there will continue to resonate going forward.
From my own personal perspective, it doesn’t matter if the rally is seen as a success, or the speeches delivered there deemed memorable. And while I applaud the organizers (yes, even the Libertarian Party) for making this event possible, as far as I am concerned their role is done. They got us to the starting line and helped fire the starter pistol.
But now it is up to those running the race to finish the race. And, based upon conversations I had with many of the participants afterwards, there is collective agreement that not only is this a race that should be run, but more importantly, must be won.
The interesting thing about the “Rage Against the War Machine” rally isn’t so much that the organizers managed to bring together such a politically diverse group of speakers, but rather that the speakers spoke a common language that cut across political lines. For those who participated, this process was cathartic. For those who opted out, you are weaker for it.
Jimmy Dore addressing the crowd at the “Rage Against the War Machine” rally, February 19, 2023 (Courtesy Kim Iversen)
A race, like a journey, is run one step at a time. The “Rage Against the War Machine” rally was the first step of this race. To some, this start may have appeared like a stumble. To others, a tentative stride forward. But for most, the race represented the reality that the participants weren’t running a sprint, but rather a marathon, and the important thing wasn’t how that first step was characterized, but the fact that it took place at all.
Now that the race has started, however, we must decide who and what it is we are racing against. The “war machine” is a massive, nebulous entity that can be defined in many ways by many people, and I for one support all definitions so long as, in the end, they lead to a fair, just and equitable world where the interests of humanity trump the greed of the warmongers.
I have opted to define my race in stark terms—literally, a race against time. In February 2026, the last remaining arms control treaty limiting the strategic nuclear forces of both the United States and Russia, the New START treaty, expires. And on February 21 of this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended Russia’s participation in the New START treaty. The reasons for this suspension are not important at this juncture—Russia has its position, the US has theirs. What is important is that arms control is no longer an active part of the diplomatic dialogue, or what passes as such today, between the US and Russia. And, unless a way is found to resuscitate arms control as a major policy objective, the risk of an unconstrained nuclear arms race post-February 2026 becomes real, and the potential—even probable—outcome manifests as a nightmare for all humanity.
The race to get arms control back on the US policy objective has a finish line—the November 2024 elections. If Americans can elect enough like-minded people—representatives, senators, and the president—to office who share this same vision, and agree on its absolute priority, then there remains hope that a new arms control treaty can be negotiated and ratified to forestall a potentially humanity-ending nuclear apocalypse.
But my race is more than just a 21-month marathon. It is an obstacle course, with numerous challenges that must be overcome in addition to the daunting task of staying the course. One of the greatest challenges I will face on this race is that of Russophobia. In what I’ve termed “the best speech I never gave” (my abortive presentation penned for the occasion of the “Rage Against the War Machine” rally), I spoke of the “disease of Russophobia,” warned about the “hate-filled rhetoric of Russophobia,” and cautioned against “systemic Russophobia” as the greatest impediment to our collective ability to “open our minds and our hearts to accept the Russian people as fellow human beings deserving of the same compassion and consideration as our fellow Americans — as all humankind…allow the love we have for ourselves to manifest itself into love and respect for our fellow man…work with our fellow human beings in Russia to create communities of compassion that, when united, make a world filled with nuclear weapons undesirable, and policies built on the principles of mutually beneficial arms control second nature.”
Scott Ritter will discuss this article and answer audienc questions on Episode 49 of Ask the Inspector.
While these goals and objectives may appear to reflect common sense, the fact is, not a single possible course of action is possible today because of Russophobia. It is, indeed, a disease, and fighting the infection is very much an uphill battle.
The key to solving the many problems facing the United States and Russia in the field of arms control is old fashioned diplomacy, where American representatives sit down with their Russian counterparts and engage in constructive—difficult, yes, but always constructive—dialogue that helps find points of commonality, identify points of disagreement, and helps chart a path that leads to mutually beneficial compromise.
Today, however, no such diplomacy is taking place. In the Russian Embassy to the United States sits two men who, under ideal circumstances, would take the lead in helping craft any future arms control agreement with the United States, Ambassador Anatoly Antonov and Major General Evgeny Bobkin. Ambassador Antonov was the chief Russian negotiator for the New START treaty, and is seeped in the very issues that would have to be addressed going forward. General Bobkin is an officer of the Strategic Rocket Forces, with experience in both silo-based and road mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles. His first-hand knowledge of Russian systems and nuclear posture would be invaluable in helping both the US and Russia define the parameters of any new treaty, especially one that sought to incorporate new Russian systems that have been deployed since New START entered force back in 2010.
On February 23, 2023, Russia celebrated Defender of the Fatherland Day, an annual celebration of the Russian armed forces. It is a big deal, and the Russian Embassy held a reception worthy of the occasion. I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation, and I jumped at the opportunity to attend.
I’m glad I did.
Earlier today, I tweeted out a short video clip of me toasting the occasion of Defender of the Fatherland Day with a pair of Russian colonels.
I couldn’t think of a better way to spend February 23…the video speaks for itself. pic.twitter.com/6mpMOpN4bu
Most people commenting about the tweet liked it; some did not. Adrian Karatnycky, a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and co-Director of the “Ukrainian Jewish Encounter,” responded, “Scott Ritter raises a toast to Russia’s war against Ukraine in the company of the Army that is perpetrating this genocide.”
“Where were you, Mr. Atlantic Council?” I replied. “For someone whose ostensible raison d’être is the furtherance of fact-based analysis, one would think you’d be at the tip of the spear when it comes to garnering important insights into complex issues. And yet…absent, on all counts.”
And that, of course, is the whole point. Back when I served as an inspector with the On-Site Inspection Agency, implementing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, there were numerous occasions where I would have the occasion to meet socially with Soviet diplomats and military personnel. On every occasion, these meetings would result in my writing up an account of the meeting, highlighting points I thought could be of interest from both a political and military standpoint. The Soviets I met would undoubtedly be doing the same. This was, and is, the “nuts and bolts” of the so-called “cocktail circuit,” a process of interaction designed to break down barriers and provide the respective parties the opportunity to get to know one another, and the nations they represented, a little bit better.
In short, Diplomacy 101.
There were no representatives of the United States in attendance that evening (I was there as a private citizen.) And as a result, they missed the opportunity to evaluate the tenor and tone of Ambassador Antonov’s address. Yes, one can read the words from the Russian Embassy press release the next day. But to hear the Ambassador in person changes everything.
“On April 25, 1945, there was a famous meeting of Soviet and American troops on the Elbe River,” Antonov said, solemnly. “We remember that time when our countries stood shoulder to shoulder to save humanity from Nazism. Russian and American veterans cherish the memory of their comradeship in arms. It is our hope that the spirit of the Elbe will not just remain a symbol in relations, but will actually help us improve the situation in the world.”
And unless you were there, you could not see how his words resonated on the faces and in the eyes of the Russian officers present, men who wished nothing more for there to be better relations with the United States, but who were resigned to accomplishing their mission if there were not.
The meeting of Soviet and American soldiers on the Elbe River, the World War Two Memorial, Washington, DC.
By absenting themselves from the event, American diplomats and military officers likewise missed out on the opportunity to discuss arms control with Major General Evgeny Bobkin, who in 1986 helped bring into service the SS-25 road mobile ICBM—the very missile I would, two years later, be inspecting as part of the INF treaty.
“The suspension of New START,” General Bobkin said, “is a pause. We can either return to implementation,” he noted, “or,” he added with a wave of his hand, “do away with it altogether. The choice is with the Americans.”
The finality of his words was bone-chilling.
The evening was full of such observable—and as such, learnable—moments, all missed because of elitist posturing which held that by isolating Russia, America and the collective west is weakening Russia.
Anyone in attendance at the Russian Embassy that night could tell you that while Russia was saddened by the snub, they were neither isolated nor weakened.
They were determined.
But the best part of the evening for me was the human-to-human contact, among people who treated me as a friend, a feeling I gladly reciprocated.
No propaganda.
No Russophobia.
Just people being people—humans being human.
And it gave an old Marine the chance to meet fellow professional soldiers in the best venue possible—a social gathering, where we could discuss issues calmly, without recrimination or rancor.
Because the alternative is to meet them on the field of battle.
Given that option, I’ll drink to peace anytime. And I’d be honored to do it in the company of men and women like those whom I had the privilege of meeting that evening.
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Thema der dreiteiligen Artikel-Serie ist die Wissenschaft der humanistischen Psychologie.
In Teil I wurde die These aufgestellt, dass der Mensch nicht krank, sondern nicht richtig aufgeklärt sei. Der nächste Teil (II) behandelte die Frage von Krieg und Frieden. Die psychologische Erkenntnis lautete, dass der Mensch keinen angeborenen Aggressionstrieb hat, sondern dass seine Natur friedlich ist. Zu kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen käme es allein wegen der Machtgier derer, die innerhalb der Völker als Obrigkeit fungieren würden. Aus diesem Grund sei die Menschheit fähig, ohne Waffen und Kriege zusammenzuleben.
So eine Welt würde jedoch nicht von selbst entstehen, sondern einzig und allein durch den menschlichen Entschluss, durch ein Denken und Handeln, das sich am Ideal des Friedens und der Gerechtigkeit orientiert. Diesen „unbeugsamen Willen“ (Gandhi) sollte die Menschheit schon heute aufbringen.
Im vorerst letzten Teil (III) bezieht sich der Autor auf die Erkenntnisse und Bücher des Philosophen der französischen Aufklärung, Baron Paul-Henry Thiry d’Holbach (1723-1789). Auch wird er aus seinem eigenen Buch zitieren: „Keinem die Macht übergeben! Ein psychologisches Manifest des gesunden Menschenverstands“ (1).
Da diese religionskritischen Bücher die Auswirkungen der Religion auf die Entwicklung des Kindes und die Psyche des Menschen untersuchen, soll vorab klargestellt werden, dass es selbstverständlich das unveräußerliche Recht des religiösen Menschen bleibt, aus den Bibelworten Offenbarungen der höchsten religiösen Wahrheiten zu schöpfen. Aber ebenso ist es die unbedingte Pflicht des Forschers, historische Wahrheiten nur aus ganz einwandfreien Zeugnissen zu folgern (2).
System der Natur
D’Holbachs Buch „System der Natur“ oder „Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physikque et du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral“ (System der Natur oder von den Gesetzen der Physischen und Moralischen Welt) erschien im Jahr 1770 unter fingierter Autorenschaft und erregte skandalöses Aufsehen, weil es nach Auffassung des französischen Klerus‘ „gottlos, gotteslästerlich und aufrührerisch“ sei (3).
Auszüge aus dem Vorwort des Verfassers lassen dies erahnen:
„Der Mensch ist nur darum unglücklich, weil er die Natur verkennt. Sein Geist ist durch die Vorurteile derart verseucht, dass man glauben könnte, er sei für immer zum Irrtum verdammt: er ist mit dem Schleier der Anschauungen, die man von Kindheit an über ihn breitet, so fest verwachsen, dass er nur mit der größten Mühe daraus gelöst werden kann. Ein gefährlicher Gärstoff ist all seinen Kenntnissen beigemischt und macht sie notwendig schwankend, unklar und falsch: er wollte zu seinem Unglück die Grenzen seiner Sphäre überschreiten und versuchte, sich über die sichtbare Welt zu erheben. (…).
Es gibt nur eine Wahrheit, sie ist für die Menschen notwendig, sie kann ihm niemals schaden, ihre unbesiegbare Macht wird sich früher oder später offenbaren. Darum muss sie dem menschlichen Geschlecht enthüllt werden. (…).
Versuchen wir also, die Nebel zu verscheuchen, die den Menschen daran hindern, mit sicherem Schritt auf seinem Lebensweg voranzuschreiten, flößen wir ihm Mut und Achtung vor seiner Vernunft ein, er lerne sein Wesen und seine legitimen Rechte erkennen, er frage die Erfahrung um Rat und verzichte auf die Vorurteile seiner Kindheit; er gründe seine Moral auf seine Natur, seine Bedürfnisse, seine wirklichen Vorteile, welche die Gesellschaft ihm gewährt; er wage es, sich selbst zu lieben, er arbeite für sein eigenes Glück, indem er dasjenige der anderen fördert, mit einem Wort: er sei vernünftig und tugendhaft, um hier auf dieser Erde glücklich zu sein, und beschäftige sich nicht mit gefährlichen und unnützen Träumereien. (…).
Wenn er Hirngespinste braucht, so erlaube er wenigstens den anderen, dass sie sich eigene zusammenspinnen, die sich von den seinigen unterscheiden; er überzeuge sich schließlich davon, dass es für die Bewohner dieser Erde sehr wichtig ist, gerecht, wohltätig und friedliebend zu sein, und dass nichts belangloser ist, als über Dinge nachzudenken, die der Vernunft unzugänglich sind.“ (4)
Der deutsche Philosoph Immanuel Kant definierte „Aufklärung“ im Jahr 1784 folgendermaßen:
„Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne die Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen.“ (5) Sein Wahlspruch lautete „Sapere aude!“ (Wage zu wissen) oder „Habe den Mut, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen!“
Ein Grund für die Unmündigkeit selbst zu denken, ist nach Kant Faulheit und Feigheit. Unmündig zu sein, sei bequem und eigenständiges Denken „ein verdrießliches Geschäft“. So werde es für andere leicht, meint Kant, sich zu „Vormündern“ dieser unmündigen Menschen aufzuschwingen. Für einen verwöhnten und denkfaulen Menschen ist es bequemer, sich der Anleitung einer Autorität zu bedienen und sich im Einklang mit den vermeintlich Mächtigen und ihren Massenmedien zu befinden, weil man sich dann stets auf der „richtigen“ Seite befindet und sich auf die vermeintlich „unfehlbare“ Macht berufen kann (6).
„Kadavergehorsam“ und gesunder Menschenverstand
Ignatius von Loyola, der Gründer des Jesuitenordens, verfasste Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts einen Text, auf den das deutsche Wort „Kadavergehorsam“ zurückzuführen ist. In der vom Spanischen ins Lateinische übertragenen und von der Ordenskongregation 1558 veröffentlichen Fassung heißt es (übersetzt):
„Wir sollten uns dessen bewusst sein, dass ein jeder von denen, die im Gehorsam leben, sich von der göttlichen Vorsehung mittels des Oberen führen und leiten lassen muss, als sei er ein toter Körper, der sich wohin auch immer bringen und auf welche Weise auch immer behandeln lässt, oder wie ein Stab eines alten Mannes, der dient, wo und wozu auch immer ihn der benutzen will.“ (7)
Doch zurück zum Aufklärer und Enzyklopädisten Baron Paul-Henry Thiry d‘Holbach:
1772, gerade einmal zwei Jahre nach Veröffentlichung von “System der Natur“, erschien unter dem Titel „LE BONS SENS DU CURE MESLIER“ sein Buch „Der gesunde Menschenverstand“. Um sich der Verfolgung durch die „heilige Inquisition“ zu entziehen, veröffentlichte Holbach seine Gedanken auch dieses Mal unter dem Namen eines Verstorbenen: des freidenkenden Pfarrers Jean Meslier. Dieser durfte es in seiner Amtszeit nicht wagen, der Kirchengemeinde seine kritischen Gedanken zu vermitteln.
Die 1878 erschienene deutsche Übersetzung lautet: „Der gesunde Menschenverstand oder das religiöse Testament des Pfarrers Meslier. Eine religiöse-philosophische Abhandlung über den Begriff „Religion“ und über die Existenz eines göttlichen schöpferischen Wesens – Dem geistig fortgeschrittenen Volke gewidmet.“ (8)
Bereits in der Einleitung schreibt Holbach:
„Es ist vergebene Mühe, die Menschen von ihren Lastern heilen zu wollen, wenn man nicht mit der Heilung ihrer Vorurtheile beginnt. Man muss ihnen die Wahrheit zeigen, damit sie ihre theuersten Interessen kennen lernen, und die wahren Motive, welche sie der Tugend und ihrem wahren Glück zuführen. (…).
Sagen wir den Menschen, dass sie gerecht sein sollen, wohltätig, mäßig und gesellig, nicht weil es ihre Götter verlangen, sondern weil man seinen Nebenmenschen zu gefallen suchen muss; sagen wir ihnen, dass sie sich der Sünde und des Lasters enthalten sollen, nicht weil man in einer andern Welt gestraft wird, sondern weil sich das Böse schon in diesem Leben bestraft. (…).“ (9)
Zur Frage des Mutes, sich kritisch über die Religion zu äußern, schreibt Holbach am Ende seines Buches:
„Es war nicht erlaubt, irgendeine Entdeckung zu machen. (…). Nur mit Zittern konnten die grössten Männer die Wahrheit fühlen; nur selten hatten sie den Muth, sie auszusprechen. Jene, die es gewagt haben, wurden gewöhnlich für ihre Kühnheit bestraft. Die Religion ist nie so gnädig gewesen, das laute Denken zu erlauben, oder die Vorurtheile zu bekämpfen, denen der Mensch überall als Opfer und als Narr gedient hat.“ (10)
Der Einfluss der Gesellschaft auf die religiöse Einstellung der Menschen
Der Mensch wird weder religiös noch gottesgläubig geboren. Das geistig gesunde und unverkrüppelte Kind gerät jedoch in eine Gesellschaft, in der wahnhafte Ideen und Illusionen vorherrschen.
Nach Karl Marx ist das metaphysische Bedürfnis des Menschen nur ein Protest gegen das Elend dieser Welt, weil er wirtschaftlichen Nöten ebenso macht- und ratlos gegenübersteht wie den Kräften der Natur oder Krisen und Kriegen.
Marx durchschaute das Getriebe der Gesellschaft und kam zu der Erkenntnis, dass der Mensch sich nicht ändern könne, bevor sich nicht die Struktur der Gesellschaft geändert hat. Solange im Diesseits nicht jeder menschenwürdig und ohne Furcht leben könne, werde es den Glauben an ein besseres Jenseits, an eine ausgleichende Gerechtigkeit geben:
„Die Religion ist das Streben nach illusorischem Glück des Volkes, das einem Zustand der Gesellschaft entspringt, welcher der Illusion bedarf.“ (11)
Wirtschaftliche Faktoren verstärken oder hemmen die religiöse Einstellung eines Menschen. Schon Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1875) – deutscher Philosoph, Anthropologe und Religionskritiker, dessen Erkenntnisstandpunkt für die modernen Humanwissenschaften wie Psychologie und Ethnologie grundlegend geworden sind – fordert, dass der Mensch endlich damit aufhören müsse, ein Spielball der menschenfeindlichen Mächte zu sein, die sich der Religion zur Unterdrückung bedienen (12).
Auch für SigmundFreud (1856-1939) war die Religion eine Illusion, entstanden aus sehr alten, heftigen Wünschen der Menschen: dem Verlangen nach einer gerechten Weltordnung, nach Freiheit von Not sowie dem Wunsch nach Ewigkeit der persönlichen Existenz, gedacht als zukünftiges Leben in einem Himmel (13).
Die Einschüchterung von Verstand und Vernunft beginnt in der Kindheit
Paul-Henri Thiry d‘Holbach schreibt hierzu in „Der gesunde Menschenverstand“:
„Die Grundsätze aller Religionen gründen sich auf die Gottesidee; aber es ist unmöglich, dass die Menschen von einem Wesen wahre Begriffe haben können, das auf keinen ihrer Sinne wirkt. Alle unsere Begriffe werden von Gegenständen hergeleitet, die wir wahrnehmen. Was kann uns aber den Begriff eines Gottes darstellen, der unbedingt nur eine Idee ohne Object ist?“ (14)
Dem Kind werden jedoch Dinge beigebracht, die ihm wesensfremd sind und seine Vernunft nicht erfordern. Kaum zeigen sich die ersten seelischen Regungen und es lernt zu sprechen, wird es von der Gesellschaft, den Eltern und der Kirche „in Obhut genommen“. Es wird ihm klar gemacht, dass sich sein Wesen bezüglich des Naturgefühls und der Weltanschauung nicht frei entwickeln darf. Will es verhindern, mit höllischen Peinigungen bestraft zu werden, muss es sein Wesen in eine bestimmte kirchliche Form pressen.
Bildet sich dann im dritten Lebensjahr das Bewusstsein des „Ichs“, so schalten sich bereits Gott und Teufel der betreffenden Religion ein und lehren das Kind, nicht auf sich selbst zu vertrauen, sondern sich von übernatürlichen Mächten führen und beherrschen zu lassen. So lernt das Kind die Dämonenfurcht kennen. Auch die „Tugenden“ der Unterwürfigkeit, des Gehorsams und der Demut prägen sich ein. Das Kind darf sich nicht natürlich und ungezwungen entwickeln. Psychiater diagnostizieren als Folge bisweilen Angstneurosen und seelische Störungen.
Mit diesem Vorgehen wird ein starker und lähmender Druck auf die Kinderseelen ausgeübt. Keine noch so diktatorische und totalitäre politische Organisation ist imstande, einen solch lähmenden Druck auf Kinderseelen auszuüben. Diese seelische Vergewaltigung ist schlimmer und nachhaltiger als jede körperliche (15).
Als Erwachsener weist der Mensch dann im weltanschaulichen Denken die „Deformationen“ auf, die ihm in der Kindheit zugefügt worden sind. So ist er in der Ich-Entfaltung gehemmt, den Priestern gegenüber aber hörig. In weltanschaulichen Gesprächen müssen die Reste des gesunden Menschenverstandes oft niedergekämpft werden und sich selbst gegenüber muss man unehrlich sein.
Dem Andersdenkenden gegenüber ist der religiöse Mensch nicht selten hochmütig und kommt sich erhaben vor. So betrachtet er den Nichtgläubigen oft als einen dummen oder geistig nicht normalen und kranken Menschen. Im täglichen Leben dieses religiösen Erwachsenen hingegen beobachtet man manchmal ein starkes menschliches Hingabebedürfnis und einen blinden Gehorsam gegenüber Autoritäten und religiösen Führern.
Schulen und Universitäten sind öffentliche Einrichtungen
Die Religion und jede andere Art von Okkultismus sind Privatsache der Eltern und ihrer Kinder und deshalb als Sonderfach der Schule abzulehnen. Die Schule muss konfessionsfrei sein. Sie hat in erster Linie die Überzeugung zu vermitteln, dass erfahrungsgemäßes Wissen, Verstand und Vernunft immer und überall Vorrang haben.
An Universitäten sollte nur eine religionswissenschaftliche Fakultät zugelassen werden; die Theologie hat nicht den Rang einer Wissenschaft. Die Theologie sollte auf Priesterseminare beschränkt sein.
Der Jugend müssen in der Erziehung von Anfang an Werte vermittelt werden, die dem Heute entsprechen und die auch im Erwachsenenalter noch Gültigkeit haben. Dem Schüler muss gezeigt werden, dass es eine hochstehende Ethik auch ohne Glaubensvorstellungen gibt. Dem jungen Menschen sollte dazu verhelfen werden, sein eigenes Wesen ohne Einschnürung durch eine Konfession auszuprägen. Dieser Mensch wird im Allgemeinen auch moralisch sein.
Die Schule hat die eigene Kraft und das Selbstbewusstsein der Jugendlichen zu stärken, vom eigenen geliebten Seelenheil abzulenken auf das Heil der Allgemeinheit, auf die Notwendigkeit der Hilfsbereitschaft, auf ein Ideal, das die höchste sittliche Kraft nicht mehr in der religiösen, sondern in der sozialen Idee sieht, in der Schaffung eines „Paradieses“ der Humanität auf Erden. (16)
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler (Dr. paed.) und Psychologe (Dipl.-Psych.). Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer (Professor) in der Erwachsenenbildung: unter anderem Leiter eines freien Schul-Modell-Versuchs und Fortbildner bayerischer Beratungslehrkräfte und Schulpsychologen. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. Bei einer Öffentlichen Anhörung zur Jugendkriminalität im Europa-Parlament war er Berichterstatter für Deutschland. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Für seine Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.
Er schreibt regelmäßig für Global Research.
Noten
(1) Hänsel, Rudolf (2020). Keinem die Macht übergeben! Ein psychologisches Manifest des gesunden Menschenverstands. Gornji Milanovac. Siehe auch Kurzfassung des Buches in: „Neue Rheinische Zeitung“ und „Global Research“.
(2) A. a. O., S. 57
(3) D’Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry (1978). System der Natur oder von den Gesetzen der physischen und moralischen Welt, Frankfurt a. M., S. 2
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I was still trying to fit into the establishment discourse on technology back in 2018, still striving to get the word out in an acceptable format through an establishment newspaper like the Korea Times for a self-contented audience that was uninterested in revolutionary shifts in politics, let alone in consciousness, when I wrote this article on the humanities. Although the use of technology to dumb down and sedate the population was already visible then, it had not reached the extremes of the current moment.
Information warfare was not in full bloom yet.
Nevertheless, I believe that the essential arguments about the importance of the humanities, or perhaps better put, the human, put forth in this article remains critical for us today as well as we struggle to find some sort of light at the end of the tunnel that will keep us marching forward in this race against time to keep the doors from shutting closed permanently, leaving us to fend off as isolated and discouraged individuals the drones and robots, hostile AI and malicious internet, that will be sent to destroy us utterly.
There has been much talk about the importance of the humanities in this age of rapid technological transformation and we see funding for “digital humanities” programs that provide cutting-edge communications technology that is claimed will revolutionize teaching and will provide online videos that effectively present complex information for any number of viewers around the world.
We have scholars in history and in the social sciences who have obtained funding that allows them to bring to bear advanced supercomputing technology on historical or social conundrums.
Massive amounts of textual and statistical information are analyzed by them using supercomputers, and their unexpected discoveries are presented to us via fascinating graphs and charts. Big data reveals to us new truths previously obscured ― although we cannot help but wonder if the amount of time spent reading and pondering is being drastically reduced.
Although there is significant research going on that makes creative use of new technology, the sad truth is that for all the articles trumpeting a new revival of the humanities, everywhere around us the number of teachers for the humanities, and the number of students enrolled in humanities classes, are being drastically reduced.
It is not that students are not interested, but rather that the social and economic pressure are unambiguous that the students must give up the quest for truth and focus on conforming to narrow norms to get a job. As a result, fewer and fewer citizens read books at all, or are capable of complex analysis of just about anything.
It is, in a word, a profound crisis.
We most desperately need a true revival of the humanities today, but tragically the humanities are presented in the debate on technology as valuable content to be employed on the digital displays, or social networks, powered by the new generation of computer chips. The argument may be that the content is ultimately more important, but the reality is that the investment by our society is in the technology, and not in the investigation of human experience.
We will not find the humanities we desperately need in such projects. Rather, we need to disconnect from technology and to take time to assess the complex impact of technological change on our society as a whole, and its implications for how we experience the world.
The humanities have much to offer us in that respect, but the wise voices of the past hidden in those dusty books will only start to speak to us when we recognize one simple fact: the rapid transformation of human society by technology is so profoundly destabilizing and confusing for us that we risk catastrophe in the near future.
Only when we recognize that the deeper truths offered by philosophy, literature, history, and aesthetics are far more critical for our future than pushing the envelope for semiconductors or super computers, will we start to address the crisis. I have not seen much evidence for that shift, even though the dusk is deepening.
Just contrast the tiny funding available for the humanities (and the tinier funding available for the careful analysis of the impact of technology on society) with the extraordinary amount of funding available to develop technologies with commercial applications (regardless of whether or not those technologies have a positive impact on society). Serious consideration will lead us to the painful conclusion that we have not even started to take the humanities seriously or to recognize the level of the crisis.
Just look around and you will see how new technologies aimed at stimulating the base instincts of humans have encouraged addiction to images (including games and pornography) everywhere. We encourage citizens to satisfy their curiosity and their desires without any intellectual challenge, or ethical imperative.
To watch people eat food, or engage in sexually suggestive acts, is considered the norm. We use technology to appeal to the lowest functions of the human brain and thereby encourage a thoughtless consumer culture. No one, literally, is thinking about what our country will look like in 100 years.
We must set aside space in our society, and make that space significant, wherein we unplug from technology and we use our eyes to read books, employ our hands to make works of art, or build furniture, and use our feet to wander the Earth and understand how we are connected to it.
In that process of action, and of awareness of our own bodies, we learn about causality, that we have a chance to step back and make analogies between the phenomenon that we observe and our society as a whole. That process of reading, writing, painting, and observing allows us to reconnect with who we are and to recognize what this Earth needs.
Without such a break we are easily caught up in the suicidal tendency to think that throwing away plastic every day has no impact on our environment, that employing electronics has no connection to the dirty air we breathe, to deceive ourselves into believing there is no link between allowing young children to spend their days playing silly video games and the limits to their ability to conceive of the world.
The fourth industrial revolution poses a tremendous challenge: the confusion of the real with the fictional. As the technologies of mechanical reproduction speed up, people see images on TV of green trees and think we have a healthy environment, or see dramas showing close friendships and a healthy community and think that we actually have such a society ourselves.
That virtual world is fictional, and our media is itself increasingly contaminated by such fictions. Newspapers have become a place to sell images of what the funders want people to believe is the truth, rather than to engage in a rigorous investigation of the reality of society.
This problem is most severe in the case of climate change, an existential crisis that is getting rapidly worse even as it is blocked out of our media and out of our education as a serious topic for discussion.
Technology cannot tell us anything about the impact of technology on society, or about how we should reduce our increasing dependence on technology (which demands energy and thereby damages our climate). Nor can technology help us to understand how our perceptions of ourselves and our world are distorted by technological change.
Only a careful consideration of the essential principles of ethical behavior (moral philosophy), of the nature of being (metaphysics) and of the nature of knowledge and understanding (epistemology) can help us.
Because philosophy has completely receded from our intellectual world at precisely the moment that rapid technological change is transforming how we perceive the world, we are especially vulnerable. We lack the concepts to describe the process by which our lives are reduced to empty rituals by the domination of computer codes in our society. We cannot conceive of how using search engines alters how we engage with the world around us, with our friends and family.
The decline in the humanities as part of our experience of the world, combined with a growing anti-intellectual culture born of the passivity practiced by so many who see themselves as consumers, not active members of society, has encouraged another dangerous trend: the failure to distinguish clearly between science and technology.
We see this trend especially in advertising, which has displaced analysis as the primary content of our media ecosystem. Advertising stresses the magical qualities of new technologies that startle and delight. In most cases, technology is presented as a means for amusing oneself, or solving an inconvenience, but is in no way related to the quest for truth. Understanding is discouraged and amazement encouraged.
We certainly live in an age dominated by technology, and new technologies (or new combinations of old technologies) are increasing. But we do not live in an age of science. This distinction is blurred by the common practice of lumping together the two fields in the phrase “science and technology,” thereby encouraging sloppy thinking.
Science is the critical investigation of the world around us in accord with the scientific method. Although there are experts who practice science in our society, fewer and fewer people within institutions, let alone the population as a whole, have much of a concept of what exactly science means. The profound ignorance about the impact of disposable plastics on the environment is just one example of the diminishing role of scientific thinking in our society.
“Whether or not it draws on new scientific research, technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not of science.”
Technology is ultimately about how we create a better world and should be governed by the principles of moral philosophy, including the possible decision not to develop, or not to employ, technologies that are destructive. Technology should never be confused with the search for truth through a combination of speculation and of constant systematic verification.
Ultimately, the humanities are essential to that cornerstone of true scientific investigation, the scientific method. The scientific method demands above all else a powerful imagination capable of coming up with multiple explanations to explain the phenomenon that we perceive, which then can be subject to rigorous analysis.
The rigorous analysis is required to produce good science, but it is imagination, the ability to postulate varied explanations, some far-fetched, which is the essential part of the process.
Albert Einstein was able to make a breakthrough in the field of theoretical physics because he spent hours imagining how the universe might work, how things look to a photon, what wacky explanations can be used to describe ordinary phenomena. His work was akin to storytelling and novels, and it was such thinking that allowed him to see what was invisible to others caught up in accepted practice.
Our addiction to technology, and to a commercialized and consumption-focused culture, has grown so deep that it will be extremely difficult to break free of the process that has so narrowed our horizons. But the increasing fragmentation of our society and the negative impact of technology on the environment will force us to do so.
We will not find solutions to this crisis in the familiar toolbox of semiconductors and smartphones. Rather we will again have to open up that dust-covered box labeled “The Humanities.”
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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.
The subject of this three-part series of articles is the science of humanistic psychology.
In Part I, the thesis was put forward that man is not ill, but not properly enlightened. The next part (II) dealt with the question of war and peace. The psychological insight was that man has no innate aggression instinct, but that his nature is peaceful. War would only occur because of the greed for power of those who would act as authorities within the nations. For this reason, humanity would be able to live together without weapons and wars.
Such a world, however, would not come into being of its own accord, but solely through human resolve, through thought and action oriented towards the ideal of peace and justice. Humanity should muster this “indomitable will” (Gandhi) already today.
In the last part (III) for the time being, the author refers to the insights and books of the philosopher of the French Enlightenment, Baron Paul-Henry Thiry d’Holbach (1723-1789). He will also quote from his own book: “Handing over power to no one! A Psychological Manifesto of Common Sense” (1).
Since these books critical of religion examine the effects of religion on the development of the child and the psyche of the human being, it should be made clear at the outset that it remains, of course, the inalienable right of the religious person to draw revelations of the highest religious truths from the words of the Bible. But it is likewise the unconditional duty of the researcher to infer historical truths only from completely impeccable testimonies (2).
System of Nature
D’Holbach’s book System of Nature or Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physikque et du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral (System of Nature or of the Laws of the Physical and Moral World) was published in 1770 under fictitious authorship and caused a scandalous stir because, in the opinion of the French clergy, it was “godless, blasphemous and seditious” (3).
Excerpts from the author’s preface suggest this:
“Man is unhappy only because he misjudges nature. His mind is so contaminated by prejudice that one could believe he is condemned to error forever: he is so tightly bound up with the veil of views that has been spread over him from childhood that he can only be released from it with the greatest difficulty. A dangerous ferment is mixed with all his knowledge and makes it necessarily wavering, unclear and false: to his misfortune he wanted to transcend the limits of his sphere and tried to raise himself above the visible world. (…).
There is only one truth, it is necessary for man, it can never harm him, its invincible power will reveal itself sooner or later. That is why it must be revealed to the human race. (…).
Let us try, then, to dispel the mists which prevent man from advancing with a sure step on his path through life, let us instil in him courage and respect for his reason, let him learn to recognise his nature and his legitimate rights, let him ask the advice of experience and renounce the prejudices of his childhood; let him base his morality on his nature, his needs, his real advantages which society affords him; let him dare to love himself, let him work for his own happiness by promoting that of others, in a word: he is sensible and virtuous in order to be happy here on this earth, and does not occupy himself with dangerous and useless reveries. (…).
If he needs fantasies, let him at least allow others to spin up some of their own that are different from his own; finally, let him convince himself that it is very important for the inhabitants of this earth to be just, charitable, and peace-loving, and that nothing is more trivial than thinking about things that are inaccessible to reason.” (4)
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant defined “Enlightenment” in 1784 as follows:
“Enlightenment is the exit of man from his self-inflicted immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s intellect without the guidance of another.” (5) His motto was “Sapere aude!” (Dare to know) or “Have the courage to use your own understanding!”
According to Kant, one reason for not being able to think for oneself is laziness and cowardice. Being immature is comfortable and thinking for oneself is “a vexatious business”. This makes it easy for others, Kant believes, to become the “guardians” of these immature people. For a spoiled and thoughtless person, it is more comfortable to use the guidance of an authority and to be in harmony with the supposedly powerful and their mass media, because then one is always on the “right” side and can refer to the supposedly “infallible” power (6).
“Kadavergehorsam” and common sense
Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order, wrote a text in the mid-16th century to which the German word “Kadavergehorsam” can be traced. The version translated from Spanish into Latin and published by the Congregation of the Order in 1558 states (translated):
“We should be aware that each one of those who live in obedience must allow himself to be led and guided by divine Providence by means of the superior, as if he were a dead body to be taken wherever and treated in whatever way, or like a staff of an old man to serve wherever and for whatever the wants to use him.” (7)
But back to the Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopaedist Baron Paul-Henry Thiry d’Holbach:
In 1772, just two years after the publication of “System of Nature”, his book “Common Sense” appeared under the title “LE BONS SENS DU CURE MESLIER”. In order to avoid persecution by the “Holy Inquisition”, Holbach again published his thoughts under the name of a deceased person: the free-thinking priest Jean Meslier. During his time in office, the latter was not allowed to dare communicate his critical thoughts to the church congregation.
The German translation published in 1878 reads: “Der gesunde Menschenverstand oder das religiöse Testament des Pfarrers Meslier. A religious-philosophical treatise on the concept of “religion” and on the existence of a divine creative being – Dedicated to the spiritually advanced people.” (8)
Already in the introduction Holbach writes:
“It is a vain effort to try to cure people of their vices if one does not begin by curing their prejudices. One must show them the truth, so that they get to know their most precious interests and the true motives that lead them to virtue and their true happiness. (…).
Let us tell men to be just, charitable, temperate and sociable, not because their gods demand it, but because one must seek to please one’s fellow men; let us tell them to abstain from sin and vice, not because one will be punished in another world, but because evil punishes itself already in this life. (…).” (9)
On the question of courage to be critical of religion, Holbach writes at the end of his book:
“It was not permitted to make any discovery. (…). Only with trembling could the greatest men feel the truth; only rarely did they have the courage to speak it. Those who dared were usually punished for their audacity. Religion has never been so gracious as to permit thinking aloud, or to combat the prejudices to which man has everywhere served as a victim and a fool.” (10)
The influence of society on people’s religious attitudes
Man is born neither religious nor believing in God. The mentally healthy and uncrippled child, however, comes into a society in which delusional ideas and illusions prevail.
According to Karl Marx, man’s metaphysical need is only a protest against the misery of this world, because he is just as powerless and helpless in the face of economic hardships as he is in the face of the forces of nature or crises and wars.
Marx saw through the gears of society and came to the conclusion that man cannot change until the structure of society has changed. As long as everyone could not live humanely and without fear in this world, there would be a belief in a better hereafter, in a balancing justice:
“Religion is the striving for illusory happiness of the people, which springs from a state of society which needs illusion.” (11)
Economic factors strengthen or inhibit a person’s religious attitude. Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1875) – German philosopher, anthropologist and critic of religion, whose epistemological standpoint has become fundamental for modern human sciences such as psychology and ethnology – already demands that man must finally stop being a plaything of the anti-human powers that use religion for oppression (12).
For Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), too, religion was an illusion, born of very old, fierce human desires: the desire for a just world order, for freedom from want, as well as the desire for eternity of personal existence, conceived as a future life in a heaven (13).
The intimidation of intellect and reason begins in childhood
Paul-Henri Thiry d’Holbach writes on this subject in “Common Sense”:
“The principles of all religions are founded on the idea of God; but it is impossible for men to have true concepts of a Being who does not act on any of their senses. All our concepts are derived from objects which we perceive. But what can represent to us the concept of a God who is necessarily only an idea without an object?” (14)
However, the child is taught things that are foreign to its nature and do not require its reason. No sooner do the first mental impulses appear and the child learns to speak than it is “taken into care” by society, parents and the church. It is made clear to it that its nature is not allowed to develop freely with regard to the feeling for nature and the world view. If it wants to avoid being punished with hellish chastisements, it must press its nature into a certain ecclesiastical form.
If the consciousness of the “I” then forms in the third year of life, the god and devil of the religion in question already intervene and teach the child not to trust in itself, but to let itself be guided and controlled by supernatural powers. Thus the child learns about the fear of demons. The “virtues” of submissiveness, obedience and humility are also imprinted. The child is not allowed to develop naturally and freely. Psychiatrists sometimes diagnose anxiety neuroses and mental disorders as a result.
With this approach, a strong and paralysing pressure is exerted on the child’s soul. No political organisation, no matter how dictatorial and totalitarian, is capable of exerting such paralysing pressure on children’s souls. This mental rape is worse and more lasting than any physical rape (15).
As an adult, the person then shows in worldly thinking the “deformations” that were inflicted on him in childhood. Thus he is inhibited in the development of the ego, but is in bondage to the priests. In ideological discussions, the remnants of common sense often have to be fought down and one has to be dishonest with oneself.
Religious people are often haughty towards those who think differently, and they feel exalted. Thus he often regards the non-believer as a stupid or mentally abnormal and sick person. In the daily life of this religious adult, on the other hand, one sometimes observes a strong human need for devotion and a blind obedience to authority and religious leaders.
Schools and universities are public institutions
Religion and any other kind of occultism are private matters for parents and their children and must therefore be rejected as a special subject in schools. The school must be non-denominational. It must first and foremost convey the conviction that experiential knowledge, understanding and reason always and everywhere have priority.
Only a faculty of religious studies should be admitted to universities; theology does not have the rank of a science. Theology should be confined to seminaries.
In education, the youth must be taught values from the beginning that correspond to today and are still valid in adulthood. The pupil must be shown that there is a high ethic even without beliefs. The young person should be helped to develop his or her own nature without being constricted by a denomination. This person will generally also be moral.
The school has to strengthen the young people’s own strength and self-confidence, to divert attention from their own beloved salvation to the salvation of the general public, to the necessity of helpfulness, to an ideal which no longer sees the highest moral force in the religious but in the social idea, in the creation of a “paradise” of humanity on earth. (16)
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school rector, educationalist (Dr. paed.) and psychologist (Dipl.-Psych.). After his university studies, he became an academic teacher (professor) in adult education: among other things, he was head of an independent school model trial and in-service trainer of Bavarian counselling teachers and school psychologists. As a retiree, he worked as a psychotherapist in private practice. He was rapporteur for Germany at a public hearing on juvenile delinquency in the European Parliament. In his books and articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral education and an education for public spirit and peace. For his services to Serbia, he was awarded the Republic Prize “Captain Misa Anastasijevic” by the Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad in 2021. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Notes
(1) Hänsel, Rudolf (2020). Handing over power to no one! A psychological manifesto of common sense. Gornji Milanovac. See also abridged version of the book in: “Neue Rheinische Zeitung” and “Global Research”.
(2) op. cit., p. 57
(3) D’Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry (1978). System der Natur oder von den Gesetzen der physischen und moralischen Welt, Frankfurt a. M., p. 2.
(4) op. cit., p. 11ff.
(5) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant
(6) Hänsel, Rudolf (2020). Handing over power to no one! S. 32
(7) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadavergehorsam
(8) D’Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry (1976). The common sense of the priest Meslier. Zurich
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The Kremlin’s demonstrated inability to take proactive and decisive action has convinced Washington there is nothing to fear from Putin and that Russia can be defeated in Ukraine. Indeed, the UK media takes for granted that Ukraine will defeat Russia. Here is the latest headline: “The West Needs a Plan for when Ukraine wins.” See this.
Biden’s recent trip was to shore up the Eastern flank of NATO in anticipation of renewed action against Russia. If the Biden regime favored a peaceful settlement, Biden would not have bothered to meet in Warsaw with the leaders of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Bulgaria. There would be no need for Biden to go to Kiev to show American support for Zelensky.
I am often interviewed by Russian journalists–never by American ones whose task it is to protect the official narratives.The Russian journalists are ever hopeful for signs that the US favors a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.I was just interviewed about Biden’s trip.Did he go to Kiev to work out a peace plan with Zelensky?
How can anyone possibly think Washington favors a peace plan other than Russia’s withdrawal from Donbass and Crimea and payment of reparations to Ukraine?Washington would favor this plan because it would be likely to bring down Putin, which is Washington’s intent.
Such a withdrawal is one of the Kremlin’s two choices. As such a withdrawal would likely mean the fall of the Putin government, the Kremlin only has one choice:to use the force necessary to quickly bring the conflict to an end before it spirals out of control.
It is astounding that after a year of experience the Kremlin has not figured out that by letting the war drag on and on the Kremlin has given Washington and NATO every opportunity to widen it further with provocation after provocation:sanctions, financial aid, military aid, intelligence, training, targeting information, attack on Crimea bridge, blown up Nord Stream pipelines, tanks, long-range missiles, sooner or later jet fighters.
Now Putin is faced with a possible Ukrainian attack on Transnistria where a few thousand Russian troops, with no reinforcements in sight, are standing guard over a stockpile of Soviet-era weapons and ammunition suitable for Ukrainian use.Will the Russian forces be caught between Ukrainians on their east and Moldavians and Romanians on their West and suffer a defeat that further emboldens the West? See this.
If the Kremlin can’t find the intelligence to get this conflict over with quickly, the Kremlin will be backed into a corner where nuclear weapons are the only option.Not only do some neoconservatives believe Washington can win a nuclear war, but also the West is getting bogus information that Russia’s nuclear weapons don’t work and that there is no danger in attacking Russia. See this.
Even if Russia’s nukes do work, Russia won’t use them the Dutch prime minister says.
This kind of disinformation becomes believable because Putin’s unwillingness to use sufficient force to quickly achieve his aims has created the impression that the Russian military is incapable and after one year has failed to prevail over a third world army. What appears to some as Russian military incompetence and to others as Putin’s lack of resolution encourages more provocative actions by the West.In the West the belief is that Russia’s defeat is only matter of providing the weapons to Ukraine.
It is an unreal feeling to experience Russian journalists looking for a peaceful settlement when Biden’s Undersecretary of State and many military officers are saying that Crimea is a legitimate target for Ukrainian missile attacks.Several days ago Secretary of State Blinken said a Ukrainian attempt to retake Crimea would be a “red line” for Putin and could result in more forceful Russian action, but that the decision is up to Kiev.Of course the decision is not up to Kiev.Zelensky would not dare make such a decision unless Washington gave the go-ahead.Blinken’s statement indicates that Washington has given the go ahead, which suggests that longer range missiles are on the way to Ukraine.
To put it frankly, Putin, the Kremlin, and the Russian military are being discredited by Putin’s failure to commit sufficient resources to quickly win the conflict.Indeed, in the eyes of the West the Russian military is being humiliated by Putin’s policy, and this must have bad effects on Russian military morale.
Today, February 24, 2023, is the anniversary of Russia’s entry into Donbass, which was intended only to free Donbass of Ukraine military and neo-Nazi militias.It was not an invasion of Ukraine.But by under-committing military resources and imposing crippling rules of war, Putin guaranteed that Washington would use the generous time Putin provided to greatly widen the war.Now Putin is faced with the likelihood of missile attacks on the Russian naval base in Crimea. Why is this unimaginable when Washington had no hesitancy in blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines?What will be the next target for attack?Moscow?
When the expected Russian winter offensive did not materialize, those who reported a large buildup of Russian troops and weapons on Ukraine’s border said that Russians were a symbolic people and were delaying the attack for the anniversary date.The date has arrived.
If the attack does not occur, the neoconservatives will become even more confident.Provocations will worsen as they accelerate.Putin will find Russia backed into a corner where nuclear weapons are his only option.
Putin doesn’t realize it, but his inability to act decisively in Ukraine is dooming the world to nuclear war.
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It would seem ironic that the annual Munich Security Conference is traditionally set in Munich, Germany, the site of Adolf Hitler’s return in 1920 after his discharge from WW I service in the German army. Home to the Munich Putsch of 1923, it became the location from which the Workers Socialist Nazi party grew into a mass movement and political force throughout Germany; thus threatening the world.
This is no small coincidence or perhaps no coincidence at all. Formed in 1963 which is long ago enough to be currently inconsequential, the MSC aspires to provide a platform for the ruling class on international diplomacy regarding security and foreign policy challenges. Its Munich Security Report 2023 “explores intensifying authoritarian revisionism and the growing contest between different visions for the international order. It also stimulates the debate on how the coalition defending the vision of a liberal, rules-based order can be enlarged and strengthened.”
The key phrase here is ‘intensifying authoritarian revisionism” rather than eliminating ‘authoritarian revisionism’ while defending its ‘vision’ of a US invented “rules-based order.” It is that ‘vision’ upon which the extraneous United Nations functions and upon which the Biden Administration base their foreign policy rather than an internationally recognized rule of law system supported by a foundation of legal principles. Not exactly the stage of ‘peace saboteurs’
Not exactly a stage for ‘peace saboteurs,’ the MSC gathered on February 17th with its usual like minded New World Order neo-con globalists who believe in their own flawless superiority and impeccable infallibility – for which no prevailing evidence exists.
As representatives of a government living in the past, the recent meeting provided an opportunity for the most Members of Congress to ever attend an MSC meeting in its sixty year history. Hobnobbing with the upper crust of European political elites who are equally living in the past, MSC attendance indicates a tentative belief that the US can be a winner in a nuclear exchange while the Russians, perhaps more aware of their own devastating nuclear capability, understand there will be no champions. As those Members of Congress continue to blindly accept the US hoop-la, their attendance confirms their pro Ukraine war bona fides while pledging billions of precious US taxpayer dollars (during a debt ceiling crisis) and a generous flow of weapons to continue the conflict.
What most of those Members failed to consider was the general anxiety amongst those European elites as well as a private recognition that the Ukraine war is not going as anticipated despite the effort to destroy Russia that dates back to December, 2013 when Sen. John McCain stood on the stage in Kiev and promised US support.
As a majority of members of relevant Committees with jurisdiction over war, the military, intel or American financial resources, their attendance confirms an unfamiliarity with the US role in the 2014 coup following McCain’s appearance from which the conflict developed. In other words, while Congressional dilletantes collect generous benefits gratis of the American taxpayer without reciprocation, they could take their work more seriously and become better informed Congressional scholars before making fools of themself.
While the MSC Agenda included an extensive array of thorny geopolitical topics devoted to expanding its hegemonic presence, American participants included Senators Lindsay Graham (SC), Christopher Coons (Del.), Robert Menendez (NJ), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), NJ Gov. Phil Murphy, Reps. Veronica Escobar (Texas), Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Mike McCaul (Texas), Homeland Dept. Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, SOS Antony Blinken and VP Kamala Harris.
Despite a predominant blackout on media, MSC attendance included the most Congressional Members ever with twenty eight Senators predominantly representing the Senate’s Foreign Relations, Armed Services and Intelligence Committees (eighteen Democrats, one Independent and ten Republicans): Senators Blumenthal (Conn), Britt (Ala.), Budd (NC), Cantwell (Wash), Coons (Del.) Cornyn (Texas) Cortes-Masto (Az), Durbin (Ill), Ernst (Iowa), Graham (SC), Heinrich (NM), Kelly (Az.), King (Me.), Klobuchar (Minn.), McConnell (Ky.), Menendez (NJ.), Peters (Mich.), Reed (RI), Ricketts (Neb.), Risch (Idaho), Schumer (NY), Shaheen (NH), Tillis (NC), Tuberville (Ala.) Van Hallen (Md.), Warner (Va.), Whitehouse (RI), and Wyden (Ore.). Only Senator Ricketts is looking at a 2024 re election. Accompanying Sen. McConnell were trainee Republican Senators Budd and Britt who were introduced as Republican Party support for NATO and Europe.
On the House side, twenty one Members were in attendance (eleven Democrats and ten Republicans) also predominantly representing the Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees: Reps. Boyle (Pa), Connolly (Mass), Ciccilline (RI), Crow (Co), Ellzey (Texas), Escobar (Texas), Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Himes (Conn.), Issa (Calif), Jackson (Texas), Mace (SC), McCaul (Texas), McCormick (Ga.), Meeks (NY), Miller (Texas), Pelosi (Calif), Self (Texas) , Sherill (NJ), Smith (Adam) (Wash.), Swalwell (Calif) and Turner (Ohio).
Without the nuisance of a required Congressional war powers vote, Texas won the prize for the most attendees; six Representatives and one Senator while all US Senators from the states of North Carolina, Rhode Island and Arizona Senators were in attendance. Upon his return from Germany, Sen. Tuberville expressed a prevalent although unspoken sense of not knowing how to “get out of Ukraine.” The truth is no more difficult than cutting off the money and stopping the flow of weapons….even a US Senator does not have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out…all it takes is a willingness to accept reality that Ukraine will not ‘win’ the war.
On the trip into Germany, Rep. McCaul, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs, known as a rabid militarist, could not resist a stop in Kyiv to shake the hand and meet with the drugster Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky who has been closing churches and drafting fifteen year olds. McCaul expressed an interest to see Ukraine ‘first hand’ and be ‘on the ground’ in the war zone as he was joined by Reps. Issa, Miller, Self, Ellzey and Sen. Risch in a press conference. The Congressional delegation called for more ‘lethal aid’ including F16s and more ATACMS (long range missiles). Upon their return from MSC, McCaul and Rep. Mike Turner, Chair of House Intel Committee reiterated their support for increased military aid to Ukraine. In pursuit of the full experience, Rep. McCaul might consider camping out at the Ukraine border to greet the Russian Sixth Army (or comparable) as they come across the border.
Even the potential of a nuclear exchange did not inhibit Senators Graham, Blumenthal and Whitehouse from support sending US long range missiles and F16 aircraft to Ukraine. As the truly deplorable VP Harris added her voice that the “US has formally determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity” without any details of that formal determination or providing any evidence.
Just prior to a visit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, it may be understandable if the presence of China’s top foreign policy diplomat Wang Yi was a bit unsettling for much of MSC crowd. While refusing to oppose Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, China’s bilateral energy and trade exchanges reached almost $200 Billion, bailing out on the dollar in place of the yuan; but it was the prospect of military assistance to Russia that gave the already anxious MSC insiders pause for deeper reflection.
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Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Introduction: 1 year of violence on top of 30 years of conflict: Too much wrong thinking
The world’s focus is on the war. On February 24, it is one year since Russia launched its so-called special military operation. Much more important is to focus on the underlying conflicts – because there exists no war or other violence without root causes.
The focus on war, by definition, won’t lead to a solution or wider, sustainable peace – like feeling the pain in a patient without diagnosing where it comes from can never lead to healing.
Unless you ask: What is the problem, the conflict, that stands between the conflicting parties – NATO and Russia – it will end with escalation until one of the sides feel that the nuclear button is the only way out.
International politics is still so immature that the simple distinction between the violence and the conflict seem too intellectually demanding for the decision-makers, the media and most researchers.
However, understanding it would help save humanity’s future.
The conflict is about 30 years old, and the war is one year.
Whatever the reader may think about Putin, Russia, the invasion, Ukraine etc., the infantile blaming, demonisation and the projection of all guilt on one side in such a complex, multi-party and history-based conflict should stop. It’s emotionalist and stands in the way of rational and prudent policy-making.
Moreover, it is dangerous in its consequences. Therefore, it’s time for the West – US/NATO and the EU – to do some soul-searching and stop living in denial about its complicity in the conflict and this terrible war.
The overarching fallacy is to think and believe that because Russia did something wrong, everything NATO/EU did and do is right.
Contrary to good academic practice and my other writings, this article merely states points and conclusions, while my arguments can be found in the 200-300 pages of analyses I have written since 2014. Much of it can be found here and here.
I focus here on NATO/EU policies and why they are wrong and won’t succeed; that does not mean that I find Russia’s policies right and successful. But before you accuse others, take a look at yourself. The day after the invasion, I distanced myself from it and also made six – correct, as it turned out – predictions.
The basic psycho-political elements of the West’s policy vis-a-vis Russia
The building blocks of the West’s – NATO/EU – policies vis-a-vis Russia can be characterised by the following psycho-political concepts:
Immaturity and banalisation – in blaming everything on Russia in general and Putin in particular (it can be said that Putin also blames everything on the West, but that won’t help the EU and NATO – just make ‘us’ as stupid as ‘we’ think he is).
Psycho-political projections – what Russia does, NATO/EU countries have done themselves and in some respects much worse; and Putin is hysteric when he feels threatened by us, whereas we are justified – always were – that Russia is a huge threat and that Ukraine is only the first of a series of future aggressions. In other words, comparative studies and media mention of NATO countries’ aggression and violations of international law are prohibited.
Just one example: President Joe Biden, the leader of today’s only global empire with over 600 bases in more than 130 countries and the most war-fighting and mass-killing country since 1945, stated on February 24, 2022, that “This was … always about naked aggression, about Putin’s desire for empire by any means necessary.”
Untruthful innocence – NATO, by constitution, never did and doesn’t do anything wrong; it is innocent. NATO’s S-G Stoltenberg has repeatedly stated that ‘NATO is not a party to the conflict’ (but also, inconsequently, that Putin must not win because, then, ‘we’ shall have lost). The homepages of NATO and the EU state untruthfully that the extremely well-documented promises made to Gorbachev about not expanding NATO ‘one inch’ were never given.
The same untruthful innocence produces the lie that it all began with Russia’s annexation of Crimea or the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and that it was ‘unprovoked.’ The word reveals with abundant clarity that NATO knows it behaved in a provocative way. The only relevant history is the history of the conflict – which began at the end of the First Cold War in 1989-90. The rest is make-believe, opportunistic ignorance and pure propaganda.
Groupthink – which implies that a group of elite decision-makers constantly and over time confirm each other in being fundamentally right and cannot be on the wrong track; they meet (latest in Munich) and confirm each other; their ministries, presumed analytical institutions and think tanks as well as the mainstream media hardly ever raise questions or criticise; every interpretation and information not identical with this groupthink is repelled, the world is interpreted selectively to fit the group’s worldview – and eventually, it is totally convinced that it cannot be wrong and that it’s decisions are smart and productive and will lead to the goal.
In this case, the US/NATO stated goal is to weaken Russia militarily and damage its economy to such an extent that it can never do such a thing again – a punishment for what it has done. Groupthink is dangerous because it defies reality checks, leads to hubris, to fatally wrong decisions, and invariably ends up as lemmings running to doom.
Hubris – or arrogance: In reality, ‘we’ are omnipotent. As former NATO S-G, Anders Fogh-Rasmussen has stated: Putin knows that “NATO spends ten times more on the military than he does and that we can beat the crap out of him.” Yet, paradoxically, no Western leader seems to be even thinking of aligning the idea that NATO shall win this war with NATO’s consistent propaganda to its citizens that Russia was a formidable threat which NATO had to defend itself against.
That was done by NATO having actually 12 times higher military expenditures before the war the war anyhow happened, and its ‘deterrence’ failed. And NATO has moved into the largest-ever re-armament to ‘defend’ with goals like 2-4% of the GNP spent/wasted on ‘warfare planning, ‘security’ and ‘defence.’ (As if that was a serious way to determine thow to meet perceived threats).
Militarism – every’ solution’ mentioned is about military actions. We shall win on the battlefield. Nobody in NATO/EU circles knows how to pronounce words such as peace, conflict-resolution, mediation, peacemaking, peace-keeping, reconciliation, dialogue, talks…
Of course, it is implicitly understood that President Putin is at such a low intellectual and moral level that the only thing he understands is that we – the bigger boys in the schoolyard – beat that crap out of him.
Sadly, the only thing that today keeps the Western world together is militarism, winning over Russia together. No other or more positive cause has had the same solidifying function. Militarism has become a religion, NATO its church – and only infidels question that faith and God’s existence. And they know that God is always on’ our’ side.
With warfare, people come together and, in enigmatic ways, their lives may acquire a new meaning that replaces a sense of meaninglessness, and fills an existential void.
Omnipotence – the EU/NATO world has no sense of limitations. It can fight economic crises, recover after the Corona years, handle refugees, solve climate change, alleviate poverty – you name it – and it can re-arm for billions upon billions of dollars. It – the US in particular – can wage a Cold War on everything China – an industry of non-documented accusations – and it can print any amount of greenbacks and repay debts, fix all the infrastructure and other problems of the US society, compete and win in the fields of advanced technology.
The EU – which hasn’t gotten its acts together and built a modern transport infrastructure based on an all-Europe high-speed train network – believes it can always do that later.
All these countries can install sanctions ad libitum – the disease I call ‘sanctionitis’ – believing that they will not be hurt themselves by them. And we shall, of course, re-build Ukraine after we have contributed to destroying it, now it has fought so nobly for ‘our’ values.
We are second to none, and we can do everything simultaneously. No need to prioritise. Significantly, all decisions are made knee-jerk: Sanctions, cancelling of Russia in all other fields, Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO member decisions without analyses of the short, mid-and long-term consequences.
All major decision-makers will be retired or dead, leaving it our children and grandchildren to pay the price by living in a Cold War-impoverished, de-developed and unhappy Europe and US – the more so, the longer the war lasts.
Lacking world awareness – 80-85% of humanity lives in countries whose governments do not side with the NATO/EU world. If the NATO/EU world thought about global attitudes before they made their decisions in response to Russia’s invasion, they made a Himalayan miscalculation – or thought they could later bully everybody into lining up behind them.
This is interesting also because NATO does not only have 30 members, it has 42 partners – some on all continents – and it tries very clearly to move towards becoming a global rather than transatlantic organisation.
This dimension is brilliantly summarised by the High Rep of the EU Foreign and Security Policy (and Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party member), Josef Borell’s racist statement from late 2022: “Europe is a garden. We have built a garden. Everything works. It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion that the humankind has been able to build – the three things together. The rest of the world,” he went on, “is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden.” (Stated when opening the European Diplomatic (!) Academy in Bruges).
This leads to:
Intellectual poverty – EU/NATO policies now operate on simplifying Twitter-like statements, assertions, non-documented accusations, self-legitimising marketing language, slogans, empty promises and symbolic blue-yellow emblems, ties, dresses – instead of on analyses, arguments and complex understanding.
Following these things every day is utterly boring, predictable and – filled with repetition. Mr Stoltenberg could easily enter Guiness World Records in Banality Repetition. The awareness or focus of politics, media and research is on weapons, war reporting, media war, more weapons fast into Ukraine – and ‘we shall win’ and ‘Russia must not win.’
The obvious questions never asked are: And then what? At what cost to whom? And what will Europe and the world look like afterwards – if it exists? These groupthinkers don’t seem to bother. The idea of asking: If war, what are the underlying conflicts? What are the real, tangible problems – a conflict is an unsolved problem – that stand between NATO and Russia and seriously contributed to the latter blowing up – is prohibited.
The intellectual poverty also comes through in believing, as it seems, that the word ‘Putin’ explains everything. So, this enormously complex conflict accumulating and deepening since the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact dissolved, is reduced to Mr Putin – The (D)Evil – his personality, childhood, or his being physically or mentally ill, a man you shall not listen to who runs a country whose people we punish collectively (against international law, but who cares?).
Furthermore, it comes through in cancelling all critical voices and calling people who ar capable of seeing two sides in a conflict ‘Putinists’ or ‘Putin Versteher’ – the poor trick of framing, of attacking the messenger instead of saying something intellectually qualified.
So, nine psycho-political building blocks in synergy.
Reality checks are very unlikely – at least until the crisis is on the verge of complete breakdown. These building blocks alone guarantee, in my view, that this is not going to go well, and that the NATO/EU leaders are likely to make ever larger miscalculations and live on delusions. Wars tend to narrow down people’s minds. There is no space or time for reflection, for stopping to think.
What does it mean to win?
The usual, again intellectually deficient, argument is that’ we’ must and will, therefore, win, ‘they’ shall lose. And, implicitly, we win because they lose, we win over them. That could turn out to be wrong because ‘they’ might win and ‘we’ might lose.
But it is actually a fourfold table; apart from these two outcomes, both could somehow win, and both could lose.
But even this is a fallacy – because there are not two but many parties: Russia (government and people), Ukraine (government and people), NATO with 30 member states (governments and people) and the US as the leader (government and people). And there is the rest of the world and how the conflict and war impact the global system as time passes.
But let’s stick to the winning idea. What does it mean? Winning militarily, of course – but also winning politically, morally, economically and culturally? Who will be stronger in which respects when the war ends?
The most likely scenario I see on this first anniversary of the war, is a long struggle rather than a quick end to it. The longer it lasts, the more difficult it will be to solve the underlying conflicts – because of the immense accumulated hatred, traumas, devastations, death and wounded, the destroyed economies, etc.
Although the human and material destruction in Ukraine is, so far, rather limited in comparison with, say, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen etc. – it is already as huge as it is heartbreaking. Therefore, the slogan “This war must stop now!” – is the most powerful and truthful – but it is unlikely that the parties will listen anytime soon. They are all in a blind chicken game.
Apart from arms-producing companies and major energy corporations, I see none among the many conflict parties mentioned above who will be better off after this war than before 2014 (the US-instigated and financed regime change in Kyiv and the Russian annexation afterwards of Crimea) or before February 24, 2022.
Instead, everyone – you and me, too – will pay various types of prices. This applies to the immediate after, but also to decades ahead. Healing this conflict and the wounds of this war, building trust as well as a new security system, will take several decades.
In summary, this war cannot be won in any reasonable sense of the word. The ad nauseam repeated NATO/EU slogan “We shall win, stand with Ukraine as long as it takes,” is ill-considered, intellectually poor and delusional.
And it is dangerously irresponsible also because it means killing even more Ukrainian citizens who – in any thinkable scenario – will be the main losers.
Regrettably, this does not prevent those who say it from believing their own words. It’s just that they have never thought through what they mean – because of the 9 psycho-political points above.
All basic NATO/EU assumptions are either plain wrong, unrealistic or unsustainable.
Putin wanted to split NATO, but we stand united.
The first is plain wrong. If NATO is not a party to the conflict, why is Russia’s invasion of a non-NATO country an attempt to split the alliance? Ten former Warsaw Pact countries have become members of NATO despite the well-documented promises all important Western leaders gave Gorbachev over 30 years ago that, if they got united Germany into NATO, the alliance would not expand “one inch” to the East? Why did Russia not split that expanded NATO earlier – and why did it intervene in the case of Ukraine?
It is true, however, true that the only thing the West stands united around is hatred, demonisation and re-armament – winning the war on Ukraine’s territory. Western cohesion has much to thank Putin for – for as long as it lasts.
Putin is out to conquer one country after the other.
Well, so far, it’s not gone that well in Ukraine, and why did he not do that over the last 20 years during which he has been president? Does Russia – with 8% of NATO’s military expenditures and falling – really have the capacity to invade one country after the other, occupy and administer a series of NATO members? Some people say, look at the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008. Well again, that was not what it really was – but the repeated propaganda works.
Russia/Putin threatens Finland and Sweden and may even make an isolated attack on the Swedish island of Gotland – therefore, Sweden must join NATO.
Well, what about a shred of evidence of such an intention? Any assessment of the ‘correlation of forces’? Goodhearted people seem to believe that Sweden would have to fight it alone but – no – the US would come to its rescue even if Sweden wasn’t a member of NATO. That was already agreed upon and planned.
Sweden will instead now be drawn early into warfare and have to accept US and perhaps other bases/weapons prepositioning on its territory and thereby ensure that Russian missiles will target Sweden. It has said goodbye to 200 years of beneficial non-alignment, an independent foreign policy, options of being a mediator and an advocate of common security and the UN goal of general and complete disarmament.
The Swedish PM Kristersson has – without any mandate – promised full loyalty even with NATO’s nuclear doctrine. The Swedes will now live much more dangerously – with sharp, confrontational borderlines instead of neutral buffers. And with much less diversity and freely stated opinions in a more militarist security debate.
Russia will fall apart economically.
Yes, of course, there are economic problems and they may likely increase year by year – but Russia is far from falling apart – for at least four reasons. Furthermore, the Russians know how to suffer – 27 million dead in WW2 – whereas Westerners don’t know much about suffering for their principles and stated ideals.
Ukraine is an existential issue for Russia and many Russians, but absolutely not for the US/NATO – except for the fact that NATO’s only raison d’etre is expansion for the sake of expansion and to keep the conflict with Russia as a-symmetrical as possible and weaken Russia.
Moreover, Russia has the world’s by far largest territory and deposits of natural resources – it is certainly able to slowly but surely turn its back on the EU and NATO countries and cooperate, instead, much more closely with China, India, Iran, the Middle East and the rest of the world, also in the China-driven Belt And Road Initiative, BRI.
Out there, they may not love Russia, but they unite with it because they are sick and tired of the West in general and the US Empire’s operations in particular. And because the Global South has been hard hit by both global economic crisis, the fallout from the Corona and now the West’s response to the invasion.
No ceasefire, no talks, no mediation, no UN or OSCE, no China, no peacekeepers, no demilitarisation, no brainstorming on possible solutions – in short, no-brainer and therefore no peace
We can win this war by letting the Ukrainians fight it for us.
We’ve all heard it repeatedly: Ukraine’s cause is our cause. Ukraine is fighting for our liberal values, for us, for Europe. Ukraine struggles impressively for freedom, democracy, human rights – and therefore, we have a duty to support it with weapons and humanitarian aid.
This idealised, or glossy, Western media image of ‘our’ Ukraine has a political purpose and should be discussed. Understandably, a country fighting for its survival may have to compromise on some of those fine values; the relevant question is what Ukraine might look like – given parts of its history and the de-moralising effects of multi-year warfighting.
Additionally, do the Ukrainians have the military, political, economic and psychological strength to carry the West’s burden on its shoulders, fight for years against NATO’s allegedly formidable nuclear enemy? For a time, yes, but hardly for much longer.
We should not be surprised if more and more Ukrainians begin to wonder: How much of our country and our future must be destroyed to – perhaps – become a NATO member? Is our president doing what is best for Ukraine or is he actually more loyal to the US/NATO than to his citizens? What about internal conflicts, power struggles, coup d’etat attempts and war fatique if this war drags on and, for years, doesn’t lead to anything that can be called victory?
And will Europe take more millions of Ukrainian refugees who have to run away or see no future there?
What we see is the tyranny of the small steps – incremental NATO de facto involvement “for as long as it takes.” It means both fighter aircraft, long-range missiles, and substantial depletion of NATO’s military arsenals. It won’t be for Ukraine’s sake – the country could well be pulverised – but because ‘we’ need to win this war.
The ethics is abominable.
Is Ukraine really important enough for the US and NATO to risk major war, perhaps nuclear war? Do NATO countries have real ideals, and do they want to show that deeds are more important than words? Does NATO really want to win and pay victory’s price?
Today’s leaders would say ‘Yes.’ Then the moral dilemma can be formulated in this way: Why not put in 300 000 – 400 000 NATO troops and conduct the war you have developed plans for since decades back – make it your war, not a proxy war in which the Ukrainian people shall pay the price for the – predictable – consequences of NATO’s expansion (Remember that before the invasion, there was only a minority of all Ukrainians who were in favour of NATO membership and 2/3 of the people who wanted the question decided by a referendum – they never got. NATO and President Poroshenko made the decision).
So, how much are the Ukrainians willing to sacrifice for ‘our’ goals? And for how long?
Peace will emerge from the victory on the battlefields of Ukraine.
It won’t. It never has. Militarism and being drunk on weapons exclude every thought of peacemaking – the words mentioned above under militarism. When you allocate all your resources to the arsenals of war, you deplete the arsenals of peace.
The NATO/EU countries have, in contrast to Putin in 2014, never proposed that the UN come in as a mediator, disarmer and dialogue facilitator. The Minsk process was nothing but a way to buy time for Ukraine to be armed as much as possible before the great battle for ‘our values’ and the killing of 14 000 Russian-leaning Ukrainian citizens. Ukraine is not a country without internal conflicts – that may blow up when the present war ends.
The incredible conflict and peace illiterate assumption seems to be that the NATO/EU countries can be both a fighting party and, later, a mediator. Or that there will be no need for any mediation and reconciliation with Russia: A new Iron Curtain, just tighter, in the making.
The people of Europe will put up with all this because we tell them it is an existential fight.
I do not think they will. There are already doubts and demonstrations against the US/NATO/EU media narrative. It will dawn among the EU’s 420 million citizens that the skyrocketing prices are not “Putin’s prices” but of their own politicians’ making.
It may dawn upon them that Nord Stream’s destruction was an act of economic terrorism against friends and allies, a deep humiliation of Germany and Chancellor Scholz personall – a hitherto unseen US arrogance that will not be forgotten even with the media avoiding it as much as they can – a 9/26 as a European 9/11?
According to this survey published by Euronews, people’s attention is shifting from Ukraine’s battlefield to the wider-felt impacts, including supply-chain disruption, energy price spikes and rising inflation. Time will exert its influence on what can be done by whom and for how long.
We can make Ukraine a NATO member and ignore Russia’s concerns, protests and anger.
Well, not exactly prudent but, rather, a result of the above 9 psycho-political mechanisms. That’s is why NATO’s expansion cannot be discussed and the narrative has it that Putin acted out of the blue.
Generally, people who feel ignored will, as time passes and their frustration builds, force others to listen to them.
“In 2008, William Burns, who is now Biden’s director of the CIA but was then ambassador to Russia, warned that “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin).” He warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that “I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” Short even of expansion into Ukraine, Burns called NATO expansion into Eastern Europe “premature at best, and needlessly provocative at worst.” If it came to Ukraine, Burns warned, “There could be no doubt that Putin would fight back hard.”
This is one of numerous facts that you are prevented systematically by our politicians and media to know and discuss.
The list of intellectuals – Realpolitik as well as peace experts – who have warned that Ukraine was a No Go place for full NATO membership is long and most mentioned in my book. NATO, the hubris alliance, did not believe it had to listen or take serious what they – and every Russian president – have stated the last 30 years and CIA’s Burns expressed so well in the same year as NATO decided that Ukraine should become a NATO member (without ever asking the Ukrainian people).
The West will come out stronger and keep its role as a world leader.
It won’t, it will be weakened. If it wants to outcompete China, the Belt and Road Initiative as well as other big powers, it would be wiser to sleep out the militarist hangover and get up early in the morning. If anything, this extremely resource-consuming war for a non-important, non-NATO country will weaken the West more than it will weaken Russia, which will join the emerging new multi-polar world order.
We are where we are now for a series of reasons. We did not have to be here. This could all have been avoided.
The – superior – NATO/EU world is in denial, and its policies have no chance of succeeding because they are intellectually and morally deficient.
This is true irrespective of what you feel about Putin and Russia. If you or the West think he is stupid or evil, don’t believe that anything you do is wise and good. It hasn’t been. And don’t ever reciprocate in kind – tit-for-tat – because that makes you a mirror image of Putin. (Read your Gandhi).
Each and every person who says that ‘we’ shall win this war and ‘they’ shall lose should get out of the sandbox and recognise that s/he becomes co-responsible for the limitless suffering of the innocent Ukrainian citizens, perhaps in the millions.
This war must stop and stop now. We must begin to think and get out of the emotionalist, self-glorifying autopilot straitjacket.
Or we shall all lose.
Knowledge-based and intelligent civil conflict resolution is the only road to peace, cooperation and coexistence in the future.
Peace is still possible.
And peacemaking is the only chance for the US and Europe to play a positive role in tomorrow’s new and very different world.
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Russia experts and national security specialists will be pouring over the text of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address on Tuesday for some time to come, trying to divine hidden meaning.
The fact is, however, Putin’s speech was something rarely heard in Western political circles —unvarnished statements of fact, set forth in a straightforward, surprisingly easy-to-understand manner.
In a world where Western politicians regularly dissemble to shape perception, even if the underlying “facts” are not true (one need only refer to President Joe Biden’s infamous phone call with former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in July 2021, for an example), Putin’s speech was a breath of fresh air — no hidden agendas, no false pretense — no lies.
And on the issue of arms control, the truth hurts.
“I have to say today,” Putin announced near the end of his address, “that Russia is suspending its participation in New START. I repeat, not withdrawing from the treaty, no, but merely suspending its participation.”
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), signed in 2010 as the outcome of negotiations between U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, ostensibly caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that each country can deploy at 1,550; limits the number of deployed land-and submarine-based missiles and bombers used to deliver these warheads to 700; and caps at 800 the deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.
In February 2021, Biden and Putin agreed to extend the treaty for an additional five years. New START will expire in 2026.
Background to the Decision
The backstory to New START is important, especially in the context of Putin’s declaration regarding Russia’s suspension. The core of that backstory is missile defense.
In December 2001, then-President George W. Bush announced that the United States was withdrawing from the landmark 1972 anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty, which banned (with limited exception) the development and deployment of missile defense systems designed to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
The ABM treaty set in stone the Cold War concept of mutually assured destruction, or MAD, the idea that no side possessing nuclear weapons would use them against another nuclear power for the simple reason that to do so would bring about their own demise through guaranteed nuclear retaliation.
The insanity of MAD helped pave the way for all arms control agreements that followed, from the Strategic Arms Reductions Talks (SALT), to the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and on to the various iterations of Strategic Arms Reduction treaties (START).
Putin condemned the U.S. decision to withdraw from the ABM treaty as “a mistake.” At the time, U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals were subject to the limitations imposed by the 1991 START treaty. Efforts to further reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons were undertaken as part of the START II treaty.
But post-Cold War politics, combined with the U.S. decision to abandon the ABM treaty, left the treaty signed but unratified, effectively killing it.
Similar issues helped conspire to kill the START III treaty in the negotiation stage. The narrowly focused Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, or SORT, which was signed in 2002, committed both the U.S. and Russia to additional reductions beyond those mandated by START I, but contained no verification or compliance mechanisms.
The START I treaty expired in 2009, and SORT in 2012. New START was intended to replace both agreements.
The Medvedev Presidency
One of the sticking points has been the issue of missile defense. Under President Putin, Russia refused to enter any new substantive arms control treaty (SORT was more informal agreement than treaty in structure and substance) that did not meaningfully address missile defense.
But in May 2008, Dmitry Medvedev took over as Russian president. The Russian constitution prohibited a president from serving more than two consecutive terms in office, and so, with Putin’s support, Medvedev ran for Russia’s highest office, and won. Putin was subsequently appointed prime minister.
Dmitry Medvedev’s presidential election campaign took advantage of Vladimir Putin’s endorsement and high popularity. (Leonid Dzhepko, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
While the Bush administration sought to negotiate a follow-on treaty to the soon-to-be expired START I, Medvedev proved to be every bit as reluctant to entering any agreement with the U.S. that did not include limitations on missile defense, something President Bush would not accept.
In the end, the problem of negotiating a new treaty would be left to the administration of Barack Obama, who assumed office in January 2009.
In their first meeting, in London in late March 2009, the two leaders issued a statement in which they agreed “to pursue new and verifiable reductions in our strategic offensive arsenals in a step-by-step process, beginning by replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with a new, legally-binding treaty.”
As for missile defense, Obama and Medvedev agreed to treat it as a separate issue. “While acknowledging that differences remain over the purposes of deployment of missile defense assets in Europe,” the statement read, “we discussed new possibilities for mutual international cooperation in the field of missile defense, taking into account joint assessments of missile challenges and threats, aimed at enhancing the security of our countries, and that of our allies and partners.”
Let there be no doubt — the New START treaty that was negotiated between Russia and the United States, while singularly focused on reducing strategic offensive nuclear arsenals, contained a clear understanding that this treaty would be followed by a good-faith effort by the U.S. to address Russia’s longstanding concerns over missile defense.
This was reflected in the exchange of non-binding unilateral statements attached to the New START treaty. The “Statement of the Russian Federation Concerning Missile Defense” set out the position that New START “may be effective and viable only in conditions where there is no qualitative or quantitative build-up in [U.S. missile defense system capabilities].”
Moreover, the statement said any build-up in U.S. missile defense capabilities which gave “rise to a threat to [Russia’s strategic nuclear force potential]” would be considered one of the “extraordinary events” mentioned in Article XIV of the treaty and could prompt Russia to exercise its right of withdrawal.
For its part, the United States issued its own statement declaring that U.S. missile defenses “are not intended to affect the strategic balance with Russia” while declaring that it intended “to continue improving and deploying its missile defense systems in order to defend itself against limited attack.”
The agreements reached between Obama and Medvedev, however, was not necessarily acceptable to Putin. According to Rose Gottemoeller, the U.S. negotiator for New START, Putin, as prime minister, nearly scuttled the talks when, in December 2009, he once again raised the issue of missile defense.
“They [the Russians] were going to have a critical National Security Council meeting,” Gottemoeller later recounted in an October 2021 talk with the Carnegie Council, “and the story I have heard told is that Putin, for the first time showing some interest in these negotiations, walks into the National Security Council meeting and simply draws lines through all the issues on this decision sheet and said, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’”
Gottemoeller went on to describe how Putin then travelled to Vladivostok and delivered a speech where he denounced the treaty as “totally inadequate,” criticizing both the U.S. and Russian negotiating teams as being “only focused on limiting strategic offensive forces,” noting that “they are not limiting missile defense. This treaty is a waste of time,” Gottemoeller quoted Putin. “We should get out of the negotiations.”
According to Gottemoeller, Medvedev stood up to Putin, telling his prime minister, “No, we are going to continue these negotiations and get them done.”
Broken Promise
Anatoly Antonov was the Russian negotiator for New START. He dutifully complied with his instructions from the Kremlin to craft a treaty focused on the reduction of strategic offensive weapons, working under the assumption that the U.S. would be as good as its word when it came to engaging in meaningful negotiations on missile defense.
And yet, less than a year after New START entered into force, Antonov found that the U.S. had no intention on following through on its promises.
In an interview with Kommersant newspaper, Antonov said that talks with NATO on a planned Western European missile-defense system had reached “a dead end,” adding that NATO proposals were “vague” and that the promised participation of Russia in the proposed system “is not even up for discussion.”
Antonov indicated that the lack of good faith shown by the U.S. regarding missile defense could lead to Russia withdrawing from the New START treaty altogether.
While the U.S. did offer to let Russia observe specific aspects of a specific test of a U.S. missile interceptor, the offer never amounted to anything, with the U.S. downplaying the abilities of the SM-3 missile when it came to intercepting Russian missiles, noting that the missile lacked the range to be effective against Russian missiles.
The late Ellen Tauscher, who at the time was the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, had offered Antonov written assurances that the Mk. 41 Aegis Ashore system, which would employ the SM-3 missile interceptor, was not directed against Russia.
U.S. Under Secretary Ellen Tauscher, right, in 2009. (U.S. Mission Geneva, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
However, Tauscher said,
“We cannot provide legally binding commitments, nor can we agree to limitations on missile defense, which must necessarily keep pace with the evolution of the threat.”
Tauscher’s words were prophetic. In 2015, the U.S. began testing the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor against ICBM targets. The SM-3 did, in fact, have the range to shoot down Russian intermediate- and intercontinental-range missiles.
And now those missiles were to be stationed on bases constructed in Poland and Romania, two former Warsaw Pact nations that were closer to the border with Russia than NATO forces had ever been.
The Americans had negotiated in bad faith. Putin, it turned out, had been right to question a strategic arms control treaty that did not consider Russia’s concerns over missile defense.
And yet this did not weaken Putin’s commitment to fulfilling New START. According to Gottemoeller,
“Putin, since this treaty has been signed, has taken a very positive stance about it. Since the treaty has entered into force, he has called it repeatedly publicly the ‘gold standard’ of nuclear treaties and has supported it…I know that he has been committed to the treaty and really committed to the efforts underway now in this strategic stability dialogue to get some new negotiations going.”
But Putin’s assiduous adherence to New START did not mean that the Russian leader had stopped worrying about the threat posed by U.S. missile defense. On March 1, 2018, Putin delivered a major address to the Russian Federal Assembly — the same forum he spoke to on Tuesday. His tone was defiant:
“I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, and introduced unlawful sanctions aimed at containing our country’s development — everything that you wanted to impede with your policies has already happened. You have failed to contain Russia.”
Putin then unveiled several new Russian strategic weapons, including the Sarmat heavy ICBM and the Avangard hypersonic vehicle, which he said were developed in direct response to the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty.
Putin said Russia had warned the U.S. that it would take such measures back in 2004. “No one listened to us then,” Putin declared. “So listen to us now.”
One of the people listening was Rose Gottemoeller. “[P]eople are worried about … the new so-called exotic weapons systems that President Putin rolled out in March of 2018,” the former arms control negotiator, by then retired, said in 2021. “[T]wo of them are already under the limits New START, the so-called Sarmat heavy [ICBM] and also the Avangard, which is their first strategic-range hypersonic glide vehicle that they are getting ready to deploy. They have already said that they will bring it under the New START Treaty.”
Gottemoeller noted that any future arms control agreement would be seeking constraints on these systems.
Treaty Extension in 2021
The New START Treaty was extended for a five-year term in February 2021, even though the Russians believed that the “conversion or elimination” procedures used by the U.S. to determine whether B-52H bombers and Ohio-class submarines converted from nuclear- to non-nuclear use, or eliminated altogether, were insufficient.
The Russians hoped that these issues could be worked out using the treaty-mandated Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC) process, which meets twice a year to resolve issues such as these.
March 28, 2011: U.S.-Russian delegations at the Bilateral Consultative Commission on the New START Treaty. (U.S. State Department, Wikimedia Commons)
One of the problems facing both the U.S. and Russian inspectors and negotiators, however, was the Covid-19 pandemic. In early 2020, both sides agreed to suspend on-site inspections and BCC meetings due to the pandemic. By mid-2021, U.S. and Russian negotiators began discussing the creation of joint Covid protocols that could get both inspections and BCC consultations up and running.
But then came Ukraine.
On March 9, 2022, the U.S., U.K. and European Union all passed sanctions which banned Russian aircraft from overflying their respective territories and placed visa restrictions on Russians transiting EU or the U.K. en route to the United States. According to the Russians, these restrictions effectively prohibit the dispatch of weapons-inspection teams to the U.S. using New START short-notice inspection protocols, which have strict treaty-mandated timelines attached to their implementation.
In June 2022, the U.S. unilaterally declared that the moratorium on inspections imposed because of the Covid-19 pandemic was no longer in effect. On Aug. 8, 2022, the U.S. attempted to dispatch a short-notice inspection team to Russia to carry out treaty-mandated inspection tasks.
Russia denied entry to the team, and accused the U.S. of trying to gain a unilateral advantage by conducting on-site inspections while Russia could not. Citing the restrictions imposed by sanctions, the Russia Foreign Ministry said “there are no similar obstacles to the arrival of American inspectors in Russia.”
To resolve the impasse over inspections as well as other outstanding treaty-implementation issues, Russian and U.S. diplomats began consultations on convening a meeting of the BCC, and eventually were able to settle on a Nov. 29, 2022, date in Cairo, Egypt. Four days before the BCC was supposed to begin, however, Russia announced that the meeting was off.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, in statements made to Kommersant, said that the war in Ukraine was at the heart of the decision. “There is, of course, the effect of what is happening in Ukraine and around it,” Ryabkov said. “I will not deny it. Arms control and dialogue in this area cannot be immune to what is around it.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, center, at an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting, August 2020. (Dean Calma/IAEA, Flickr)
Arms Control Could Be Dead
The State Department issued an official report to Congress on Russian compliance with New Start in early 2023 which accused Russia of violating the New START treaty by refusing U.S. inspectors access to sites inside Russia.
Russia, a State Department spokesperson stated, was “not complying with its obligation under the New START Treaty to facilitate inspection activities on its territory,” noting that “Russia’s refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control.”
The insensitivity of the U.S. side to the impact of its actions targeting Russia — sometimes literally — as part of the overall U.S. response to Putin’s initiation of the Special Military Operation in February 2022 is, however, telling.
In his address on Tuesday, Putin highlighted the role played by the U.S. and NATO in facilitating the Ukrainian use of Soviet-era drones to carry out an attack on a base near Engels, Russia, that housed Russia’s strategic aviation assets, including nuclear-capable bombers. He also pointed out that he had just signed orders for the Sarmat and Avangard systems to become operational and, as such, inspectable under the terms of New START.
“The United States and NATO are directly saying that their goal is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” Putin said. “Are they going to inspect our defense facilities, including the newest ones, as if nothing had happened? Do they really think we’re easily going to let them in there just like that?”
Rose Gottemoeller observed that the U.S. is “not going to change our policy on Ukraine because he’s [Putin] in a hissy fit over the New START treaty. That’s just not going to happen.”
But Putin’s stance is far more principled than a simple “hissy fit.” Born of the original sin perpetrated by the U.S. in withdrawing from the ABM treaty, Putin’s angst is directly tied to the deceit displayed by U.S. officials — including Gottemoeller — when it came to assurances given Dmitry Medvedev about missile defense during the New START negotiations.
This deceit led to Russia deploying new categories of strategic nuclear weapons — the Sarmat and Avangard — to defeat U.S. missile defense systems, including those that had been forward deployed into Europe.
And now, with the war in Ukraine being linked to a U.S. strategy of achieving the strategic defeat of Russia, the U.S. is seeking to use New START to gain access to these very systems, all the while denying Russia its reciprocal rights of inspection under the treaty. As Putin aptly noted, such an arrangement “really sounds absurd.”
The inability and/or unwillingness of either party to compromise on New START means that the treaty will remain in limbo for the indefinite future which, given that the treaty expires in February 2026, means there is a distinct possibility arms control between the U.S. and Russia is dead.
K-114 Tula nuclear submarine at a pier of the Russian Northern Fleet’s naval base during drills for nuclear submarine crews in the Murmansk Region of Russia. (RIA Novosti archive/ Mikhail Fomichev / CC-BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Risk of New Arms Race
While the U.S. and Russia had previously committed to a follow-on treaty to replace New START, the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine poses a nearly insurmountable obstacle for anyone seeking to have such a treaty document ready for signature and ratification by the time New START expires.
There is a good chance the U.S. and Russia, in two years’ time, will find themselves without any verifiable mechanism to assuage the fears and uncertainty about the two parties’ respective nuclear arsenals, leading to the real possibility — if not probability — that they will both embark on an unconstrained arms race fueled by ignorance-based angst that could very well result in the kind of misunderstandings, mistakes, or miscalculations that could trigger a nuclear war and, in doing so, end all humanity.
“The truth is behind us,” Putin said, closing out his address to the Russian Federal Assembly.
So, too, may be humanity’s last chance to prevent nuclear calamity, if a way can’t somehow be found to get arms control back on the agenda.
Here, Gottemoeller’s assertion that the U.S. would not alter its Ukraine policy to save New START underscores the self-defeating reality of the Biden administration’s efforts to arm Ukraine.
The sooner the war in Ukraine is over, the sooner the U.S. and Russia can get down to the business of preserving arms control as a viable part of the relationship between the two nations.
By seeking to extend the Ukraine conflict, however, the U.S. is in effect engaging in an act of self-immolation that threatens to engulf the world in a nuclear holocaust.
During the Vietnam War, the noted correspondent Peter Arnett quoted an unnamed U.S. Army officer as saying, “We had to destroy the village to save it.” With regard to the linkage that has been created between Ukraine and arms control, the same sick logic now applies — to save one, the other must be destroyed.
To save Ukraine, arms control must be destroyed.
To save arms control, Ukraine must be destroyed.
One sacrifices a nation, the other a planet.
This is the Hobson’s Choice U.S. policy makers have created, except it is not.
Save the planet. That is the only choice.
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Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.
Featured image: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Feb. 21 address to Federal Assembly. (Kremlin)
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Another tragic death of a 14 year old hockey player from British Columbia (click here).
“The community is mourning the sudden passing away on February 13, of 14-year-old Robin Singh Janjua who played on Delta Hockey Academy’s U15 Green team”.
The Surrey Eagles posted the following on their Facebook: “The Surrey Eagles are grieving the loss of one of the brightest stars of our local community, in the passing of Robin Janjua.
“He was a beloved son, brother and friend to many. He absolutely loved the game of hockey, he was exceptionally talented and had a strong commitment and positive attitude whenever he played. Robin embodied the essence of what it meant to be a great teammate, and his loss will continue to be felt deeply across the hockey community. On behalf of the Surrey Eagles, our players and parents, we are sending our thoughts and prayers to the Janjua family at this very difficult time.”
“The sudden death of a 14-year-old player has saddened the hockey community in Surrey, Delta and beyond.
Robin Janjua played with Semiahmoo Minor Hockey in South Surrey/White Rock before he left for Delta Hockey Academy at the start of the current season, to play on the academy’s U15 Green team.
He died on Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14), according to posts on DHA’s social media accounts Tuesday (Feb. 21).
Robin is described has a “kind-hearted young man” who was “an exceptional student, athlete and teammate.”
The cause of death has not been reported.
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All images in this article are from the author
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.”
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How far we have come—or, rather, fallen. Once upon a time in America, corporations were required to sign a charter before doing business in a state or community. “After the nation’s founding, corporations were granted charters by the state as they are today,” writes Stephen D. Foster Jr.
Unlike today, however, corporations were only permitted to exist 20 or 30 years and could only deal in one commodity, could not hold stock in other companies, and their property holdings were limited to what they needed to accomplish their business goals. And perhaps the most important facet of all this is that most states in the early days of the nation had laws on the books that made any political contribution by corporations a criminal offense.
The founders despised the East India Trading Company, the Massachusetts Bay Company, and above all, centralized banks.
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in an 1802 letter to Secretary of State Albert Gallatin.
That was then, this is now. Now we have self-appointed globalist sociopaths telling us we will own nothing and be happy (only possible with the right amount of soma).
East Palestine, again. It is too symptomatic to be ignored.
Norfolk Southern—the railroad giant whose train derailed and caused a toxic chemical fire in a small Ohio town earlier this month—has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a 2017 lawsuit filed by a cancer-afflicted former rail worker—and the Biden administration is siding with the corporation, reporting from The Lever revealed last week. (Emphasis added.)
However, if you read Bizarro World Daily (the corporate media)—where facts are conspiracy theories and the state will classify you as a domestic terrorist if you prefer reality over fairy tales—Biden is portrayed as an advocate of the right of workers to organize. It was the Bad Orange Man who attacked labor rights.
Even the Vermont career politician, Bernie Sanders, is reluctant to place blame for the poisoning and future cancer epidemic in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and beyond on a corporation that has donated so much “campaign” money to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and various establishment PACs. The Bern shall not bite the hand that feeds.
The fact this career politician works closely with the democrat establishment completely destroys the claim he is an advocate of the people (or people who believe socialism is some kind of palliative against the predatory and psychopathic behavior of large corporations and banks).
Sanders blamed the driver of the train for the accident. “Sanders’ statement not only absolved Buttigieg and the Biden administration, but his own responsibility for the disaster,” opines Shannon Jones, writing for the World Socialist Web Site (in Neocon Bizarro World, we often depend on socialists, to tell the truth, as the “objective” corporate media only deal in omission, lies, and deception).
If the Supreme Court (handpicked political appointees in black robes) decides in favor of Norfolk Southern, the following will become difficult, if not impossible for the average person.
It should be obvious by now Biden, Congress, and the real owners of the DC dinosaur, corporations, and banks, are steadily working together to reduce you, your children, and your grandchildren, to the status of penurious hand-to-mouth wage slaves with zero ability to confront the state and its corporatist (fascist) “partners” as they mow over and shred your natural rights.
Please, don’t vote for Bernie Sanders, Biden, DeSantis, Trump (who threatens to run again, if the Democrats don’t throw him in prison), and any other mealy-mouth careerist of the uniparty political class.
The first assumption should be: they don’t give a whit about you (except for your money), they are not interested in protecting you (with the exception of fictional enemies), and they are well-paid to carry water for banks and corporations that, as Jefferson knew so long ago, will destroy lives and the environment in immoral and criminal pursuit of money and the narcissistic desire to rule and control other people.
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Die Aufklärung über die Wissenschaft der Psychologie ist eine länderübergreifende Forschungsaufgabe, die nur zu bewältigen ist, wenn freie und vernunftbegabte Mitbürger gemeinsam mit ehrlichen Wissenschaftlern forschen und sich einig sind. „Global Research“ ist hierfür zusammen mit anderen unabhängigen Medien ein geeignetes Diskussionsforum.
Da die Wissenschaft dem Leben entsprungen ist, ist sie dazu berufen, dem Leben der Menschen zu dienen. Oder wie es Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) im Theaterstück „Leben des Galilei“ ausdrückt:
„Ich halte dafür, dass das einzige Ziel der Wissenschaft darin besteht, die Mühseligkeit der menschlichen Existenz zu erleichtern.“
Das Konzept der Natur des Menschen beinhaltet aus naturwissenschaftlicher Sicht die völlige Abwesenheit genetisch vorherbestimmter aggressiver Triebe. Dadurch ergibt sich die Fähigkeit des Menschen, ohne Gewalt und Kriege in einer friedlichen Welt zu leben und sich in ihr zu organisieren.
So eine Welt entsteht jedoch nicht von selbst, sondern – wie die nachfolgenden Ausführungen über den menschlichen Geist der Verblendung und den Mythos eines Aggressionstriebs zeigen werden – einzig und allein durch menschliche Entschlüsse, durch ein Denken und Handeln, das sich am Ideal des Friedens und der Gerechtigkeit orientiert.
Solange wir in einer Welt leben, in der Gewalt und Kriege an der Tagesordnung sind, können wir uns der Verantwortung nicht entziehen. Da die Welt ist so, wie wir sie eingerichtet – oder in Bezug auf bereits bestehende Verhältnisse – geduldet haben, sind wir mitschuldig, selbst dann, wenn wir Opfer sind.
Sollten Wissenschaftler zu den aufgeworfenen Fragen nichts beizutragen haben, rührt die Not der Menschen nicht an ihr Herz. Ihre Weisheit und ihre Wissenschaft ist dann nur ein selbstgefälliges Spiel des Verstandes, das keine Verbindlichkeit kennt.
Wie in Teil I bereits dargelegt, stützt sich der Autor bei seinen psychologischen Überlegungen auf die Gedanken und Erkenntnisse seines geschätzten Lehrers, auf persönliche Gespräche mit ihm und auf Gesprächsprotokolle.
Die Natur des Menschen ist friedlich
Seit Menschen existieren und wir Erkenntnisse über sie haben, wissen wir, dass sie stets nach einer besseren Lebens-Situation streben, in erster Linie nach einem Leben in Frieden ohne Gewalt und Kriege. Jedoch in der heutigen kapitalistischen Welt herrschen Gewalt, Blut, Tod und Verderben.
Die Erziehung in unserer Kultur erzeugt bei den Kindern Angst vor dem anderen Menschen, eine Gefühlsreaktion, die sich gegen den anderen wendet. Wenn sie dann heranwachsen, sind sie nicht imstande, mit den Mitmenschen zusammenzuwirken und zusammenzuleben. Auch das eigene Leben können sie sich nicht gut einrichten.
Dabei ist die Natur des Menschen friedlich. Und deshalb ist die Menschheit fähig, ohne Waffen und Kriege zusammenzuleben. Die meisten Menschen lieben es, ihrer täglichen Arbeit nachzugehen oder den Acker zu bestellen und mit dem Nachbarn in Frieden und Freundschaft zu leben.
Es ist allein die Machtgier derer, die innerhalb der Völker als Obrigkeit fungieren und die durch ihre gesellschaftliche Stellung vom Geist der Gewalt durchdrungen sind, weshalb es immer wieder zu kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen kommt, in denen die Menschen für ihrer Herren und Ausbeuter verbluten. Deshalb sollte man nicht die „Völker“ für die Kriege verantwortlich machen. Es sind die herrschenden Schichten, die sich bekriegen und gegenseitig zu unterjochen versuchen. Ihre „Untertanen“ leben, arbeiten und sterben für sie.
Die psychologische Forschung sollte an der Frage ansetzen, wie die Unterdrückung des Menschen durch den Menschen überhaupt möglich ist. Die Macht als Ursache allein reicht nicht aus, da die Macht des Volkes größer ist als diejenige seiner Herrscher. Es muss ideologische Erklärungen dafür geben, dass die Herrschenden es schaffen, die Hörigkeit ihrer Völker sicherzustellen.
Es ist die ideologische Verblendung des Menschengeistes, die dazu führt, dass die Menschen ihre Liebe zur Freiheit und zum Frieden vergessen und damit beginnen, ihre Ketten zu verherrlichen?
Kriegsgründe und der Geist der Verblendung
In früheren Zeiten wurde der Ursprung des Krieges auf den Sündenfall der ersten Menschen zurückgeführt. Doch diese mythologische Erklärung ist nicht ernst zu nehmen. Auch der Konkurrenzkampf zwischen den Religionen, von denen jede sich im Besitz der absoluten Wahrheit wähnte, gab Anlass zu kriegerischen Verwicklungen.
Ebenso falsch ist die Auffassung vom Menschen als einem Raubtier in seinem „Kampf uns Dasein“: „homo homini lupus“ (Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf).
In der Neuzeit ist dann der Typus des Wirtschaftskrieges geschaffen worden, in dem die Herren des Handels und der Industrie die Völker zu einem Ringen um Rohstoffquellen und Absatzmärkte antreten ließen.
Ein weiteres wichtiges Moment der Verblendung ist die nationale und rassische Ideologie, deren epidemischer Charakter uns sowohl in der Vergangenheit veranschaulicht worden ist, uns aber auch in der Gegenwart vor Augen geführt wird.
Der Mythos der Nation und der Rasse schafft eine künstliche Einheit zwischen Herrschenden und Beherrschten, indem den Untertanen vorgaukelt wird, sie gehörten mitsamt ihren Herren einer geheimnisvollen und ruhmreichen Körperschaft an, an deren Glanz und Größe auch der geringste Knecht seinen Anteil hat. Diese Verklärung der Knechts-Mentalität schuf die Voraussetzungen für absolutistische Herrschaftsformen, in denen die Menschen ein willenloses Werkzeug ihrer Obrigkeit geworden sind und ihr in Krieg und Frieden vorbehaltlose Gefolgschaft leisteten.
In Wirklichkeit sind Nationalismus und Rassenlehre Geisteshaltungen des Stolzes und der Überheblichkeit, in denen immer auch Aggressivität gegenüber Nachbarvölker oder benachbarte Rassen mitschwingt. Zu allen Zeiten waren sie für die Herrschenden ein Mittel zur Verführung der breiten Volksmassen.
Ein weiterer Unsinn und Schwindel ist der bereits in früheren Artikeln dargelegte und von Arno Plackausführlich beschriebene Mythos vom Aggressionstrieb (1). Laut dieser vorpsychologischen Auffassung würden die Menschen wegen eines angeborenen Aggressionstriebs gerne in den Krieg ziehen, um andere Menschen, die sie in der Regel nicht kennen und die ihnen nichts angetan haben, umzubringen und sich selbst umbringen zu lassen. Doch kein Mensch verlässt seine Liebe, kein Mann Frau und Kinder, um in den Krieg zu ziehen.
Wieso sollten Menschen, die ruhig und in Frieden in ihrem Haus, Hof und Garten leben, auf einmal einen Aggressionstrieb haben und gegen das andere Volk in den Krieg ziehen wollen? Die wohlbekannten Theoretiker des Aggressionstriebes wie Siegmund Freud und Konrad Lorenz, deren Namen jeder Zeitungsleser und Fernsehzuschauer kennt, verstanden die Menschen nicht.
Haben wir den Mut und die Geduld, unsere diesbezügliche Meinung zu revidieren. In Tat und Wahrheit ist es die gewalttätige Erziehung, die bereits beim Kind Aggressionen auslöst. Der Mensch ist nicht imstande, seinen Mitmenschen umzubringen; das entspricht nicht seiner Natur.
Abschließend soll auf die tragische Schwäche der Menschen eingegangen werden, dass sie nicht NEIN sagen können. Haben sich die Herrschenden für einen Krieg entschieden, dann muss gefolgt werden. Die Menschen können nicht sagen: „Nein, ich gehe nicht in den Krieg!“
Männer jeden Alters können leider nicht anders reagieren. Die Erziehung hat so auf ihr Gefühlsleben eingewirkt, dass sie in den Krieg ziehen „müssen“. In ähnlicher Weise, wie sie in der Kinderstube Vater und Mutter und in der Schule den Lehrern folgen mussten, folgen sie als Erwachsene politischen und anderen Autoritäten. Dieses Gefühl des absoluten Gehorsams aus der Kindheit tragen sie bis ins hohe Alter mit. Das Verhalten des Auschwitz-Kommandanten Rudolf Höss, der eine Erziehung nach streng religiösen und militärischen Grundsätzen genoss, ist hierfür ein beredtes Beispiel (2).
Da den folgsamen Männern dieser psychologische Zusammenhang aber nicht bewusst ist, können und dürfen wir sie nicht verurteilen. Die Eltern und Erzieher haben nicht gewusst, dass eine Erziehung zum absoluten Gehorsam ein schwerwiegender Fehler mit ungeahnten Konsequenzen ist. Sie meinten und meinen es in der Regel gut, bringen ihre Kinder aber in ihrer Unwissenheit und aufgrund eigener Kindheitserlebnisse in Not.
Die Annahme eines dynamischen Unbewussten als wesentlicher und hochwirksamer Teil des psychischen Lebens des Menschen ist in der Tiefenpsychologeine eine grundlegende Erkenntnis.
Die gute Nachricht ist, dass wir jederzeit damit beginnen können, die Erziehung unseres Nachwuchses kinderfreundlicher zu gestalten und dass sich Erwachsene mit Hilfe eines psychotherapeutischen Fachmanns ihrer unbewussten Gefühlsanteile bewusst werden und damit ihr Verhalten ändern können.
Eine Welt ohne Waffen und Kriege entsteht allein durch menschliche Entschlüsse
Ein Blick auf die gegenwärtige geschichtliche Situation der Menschheit und die Tragikomödie, die ihr seit Jahren von den Regierungsmedien vorgespielt wird, gibt wenig Anlass zu Optimismus. Ganz im Gegenteil!
Die Geschichte strebt durch ihre Eigengesetzlichkeit nicht selbst zum Frieden – quasi über unsere Köpfe hinweg. Eine Welt ohne Gewalt, ohne Waffen und Kriege kann einzig und allein durch den Entschluss der Menschen realisiert werden, durch ein Denken und Handeln, das sich am Ideal des Friedens und der Gerechtigkeit orientiert. Und diese Reduzierung der Gewalt muss hier und heute erfolgen.
Die Kultur muss eben immer wieder neu errungen werden, was die Größe der vor uns liegenden Aufgabe mehr als verdeutlicht.
Dabei ist es von entscheidender Bedeutung, dass bereits das Kind von den Eltern, Lehrern und Erziehern erfährt, dass man vor dem anderen Menschen keine Angst haben muss, sondern dass der andere gerne mit ihm spielt und mit ihm zusammenlebt. Auftretende Konflikte würden sich immer in Freundschaft und ohne jegliche verbale oder körperliche Gewalt lösen lassen. Erwachsenen sollten für diese Kinder gewaltfreie Modelle sein.
Wenn wir zudem davon ausgehen, dass das menschliche Gefühlsleben nicht nur als Resultat der Eltern-Kind-Beziehung zu verstehen ist, sondern dass das soziokulturelle Milieu und die damit korrespondierenden Gefühle ebenso entscheidend sind, weil Eltern, Lehrer und Erzieher die Werte einer Kultur tagtäglich in Wort und Tat an das Kind herantragen, dann ist es auch wichtig, dass die in der Kultur vorherrschenden Werte ebenso einer friedlichen und gewaltfreien Gesellschaft entsprechen.
In diesem Zusammenhang ist positiv anzumerken, dass die Menschheit in den letzten Jahrtausenden mehr und mehr die Stimme des Menschheitsgewissens in sich vernommen hat und sich dessen bewusst ist, dass es darum geht, in Freiheit und Brüderlichkeit zusammenzuleben und durch den gemeinsamen Kampf gegen die Naturgewalten das Leben auf dieser Erde zu sichern.
Auch wenn sie bisher nicht imstande war, das uralte Übel „Krieg“ aus der Welt zu bannen, weil machtpolitische, wirtschaftliche und soziale Gründe dem Geist der Gewalt ständig neue Nahrung verschafften, die zu kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen führten, so erhob sich doch von Zeit zu Zeit der Mahnruf hochgesinnter Menschen, die das Ideal einer friedlichen Welt proklamierten.
Die Idee eines „ewigen Friedens“ ist sicher so alt wie die Menschheit selbst.
Erziehung zu Gemeinschaftsgefühl und mitmenschlicher Verbundenheit
Die Erziehungsmethoden der Vergangenheit drosselten bereits in den Kindheitsjahren die Gemeinschaftsgefühle der Menschen und statteten sie mit jener Aggressionsbereitschaft aus, durch die eine gewalttätige Welt im Zustand der Gewalttätigkeit verharren konnte.
Durch psychologische Erziehungsmethoden könnten jedoch Menschen herangebildet werden, die gegen die Verstrickungen des Machtwahns gefeit sind. Indem die Pädagogik in Elternhaus und Schule auf unangemessenes Autoritätsgebaren und körperliche sowie verbale Gewaltanwendung verzichtet und sich mit wahrem Verständnis dem kindlichen Seelenleben anpasst, wird sie Menschen heranziehen, die keine Untertanen-Mentalität mehr besitzen und damit für die Machthaber in unserer Welt kein gefügiges „Werkzeug“ mehr sein werden.
Kinder des Bürgertums und der Arbeiterschaft können in der Regel nicht verwechselt werden. Diejenigen Kinder, die in gesellschaftlich begünstigter Position aufwachsen, haben das Gefühl der Selbstsicherheit und Überlegenheit („Mir gehört die Welt!“). Gibt es Dienstboten im Elternhaus, bekommen sie früh den Eindruck, dass sich die Menschen in „Herren“ und „Diener“ unterscheiden und dass die Diener dazu da sind, für die Herrschaft zu leben und zu arbeiten. Kein Wunder also, dass in ihrer Seele der Drang entsteht, auch einmal „Herr“ zu sein.
Auch die verzärtelnde Erziehung schafft einen Menschtypus, der mit einem Auserwähltheitsanspruch der Welt gegenübersteht und nicht geneigt ist, anderen Menschen gleiche Ansprüche zuzubilligen.
Das Arbeiterkind sieht sich frühzeitig in eine Welt hineingestellt, in der es Bevorrechtete und Benachteiligte gibt. Damit erfasst ein sozial bedingtes Minderwertigkeitsgefühl seine Seele.
Aber das Kind aus der gesellschaftlich benachteiligten Volksschicht krankt ebenso sehr an der Machtgier wie das Kind aus der gesellschaftlich begünstigten Position. Die Unterwürfigkeit, zu der ihn seine Position drängt, wirkt als ständiger Stachel, der ebenso zur Aggressionsbereitschaft führen kann. Es wäre eine Täuschung, hier eine „Schwarz-Weiß-Malerei“ zu betreiben.
Letztlich geht es darum, durch die zukünftige Erziehung einen Menschentypus hervorzubringen, der – wie Alfred Adler es sich vorstellte – Gemeinschaftsgefühl und mitmenschliche Verbundenheit ebenso selbstverständlich äußern wird wie das Atmen (3).
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler (Dr. paed.) und Psychologe (Dipl.-Psych.). Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer (Professor) in der Erwachsenenbildung: unter anderem Leiter eines freien Schul-Modell-Versuchs und Fortbildner bayerischer Beratungslehrkräfte und Schulpsychologen. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. Bei einer Öffentlichen Anhörung zur Jugendkriminalität im Europa-Parlament war er Berichterstatter für Deutschland. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Für seine Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.
Er schreibt regelmäßig für Global Research.
Noten
(1) Plack, Arno (Hrsg.). (1973). Der Mythos vom Aggressionstrieb. München
(2) Broszat, Martin (Hrsg.). (1963). Kommandant in Auschwitz. Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen des Rudolf Höß. München
(3) Adler, Alfred (1978). Kindererziehung. Frankfurt am Main
The enlightenment of the science of psychology is a transnational research task that can only be accomplished if free and rational citizens research together with honest scientists and are in agreement. “Global Research”, together with other independent media, is a suitable discussion forum for this.
Since science springs from life, it is called to serve the lives of people. Or as Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) puts it in the play “Life of Galileo”:
“I hold that the only aim of science is to ease the hardships of human existence.”
From a scientific point of view, the concept of the nature of man involves the complete absence of genetically predetermined aggressive drives. This results in man’s ability to live and organise himself in a peaceful world without violence and wars.
However, such a world does not come into being by itself, but – as the following explanations about the human spirit of delusion and the myth of an aggressive instinct will show – solely through human resolutions, through thinking and acting oriented towards the ideal of peace and justice.
As long as we live in a world where violence and wars are the order of the day, we cannot escape responsibility. Since the world is the way we have set it up – or tolerated it in relation to pre-existing conditions – we are complicit, even if we are victims.
If scientists have nothing to contribute to the questions raised, the plight of human beings does not touch their hearts. Their wisdom and their science is then only a complacent game of the mind that knows no binding force.
As already explained in Part I, the author bases his psychological reflections on the thoughts and insights of his esteemed teacher, on personal conversations with him and on transcripts of conversations.
The nature of human beings is peaceful
Ever since human beings have existed and we have had knowledge about them, we have known that they always strive for a better life situation, first and foremost for a life in peace without violence and wars. However, in today’s capitalist world, violence, blood, death and destruction prevail.
Education in our culture creates fear of the other person in children, an emotional reaction that turns against the other. When they then grow up, they are unable to interact and live together with their fellow human beings. They are also unable to arrange their own lives well.
Yet the nature of man is peaceful. And that is why humanity is capable of living together without weapons and wars. Most people love to go about their daily work or cultivate the field and live in peace and friendship with their neighbour.
It is only the greed for power of those who act as authorities within the peoples and who, through their social position, are imbued with the spirit of violence, which is why there are always warlike conflicts in which people bleed to death for their masters and exploiters. Therefore, one should not blame the “peoples” for the wars. It is the ruling classes that are at war and try to subjugate each other. Their “subjects” live, work and die for them.
Psychological research should start with the question of how the oppression of man by man is possible in the first place. Power alone as a cause is not enough, since the power of the people is greater than that of their rulers. There must be ideological explanations for the fact that the rulers manage to ensure the bondage of their peoples.
It is the ideological delusion of the human spirit that causes people to forget their love of freedom and peace and begin to glorify their chains?
Reasons for war and the spirit of delusion
In earlier times, the origin of war was traced back to the Fall of the first humans. But this mythological explanation is not to be taken seriously. The competition between the religions, each of which believed itself to be in possession of the absolute truth, also gave rise to warlike entanglements.
Equally wrong is the view of man as a predator in his “struggle for existence”: “homo homini lupus” (man is a wolf to man).
In modern times, the type of economic warfare was created, in which the masters of trade and industry engaged peoples in a struggle for sources of raw materials and markets.
Another important moment of delusion is the national and racial ideology, whose epidemic character has been illustrated to us both in the past, but is also brought before us in the present.
The myth of nation and race creates an artificial unity between the rulers and the ruled by making the subjects believe that they and their masters belong to a mysterious and glorious body in whose splendour and greatness even the lowest servant has a share. This glorification of the servant mentality created the conditions for absolutist forms of rule in which people became a will-less tool of their authorities and gave them unreserved allegiance in war and peace.
In reality, nationalism and racial doctrine are attitudes of pride and arrogance, which always include aggression towards neighbouring peoples or races. At all times they have been a means for the rulers to seduce the broad masses of the people.
Another nonsense and hoax is the myth of the aggression instinct, already presented in earlier articles and described in detail by Arno Plack (1). According to this pre-psychological view, people would gladly go to war because of an innate aggression instinct, to kill other people whom they usually do not know and who have done nothing to them, and to have themselves killed. But no man leaves his love, no man leaves his wife and children to go to war.
Why should people who live quietly and in peace in their house, yard and garden suddenly have an aggression instinct and want to go to war against the other people? The well-known theorists of the aggression instinct like Siegmund Freud and Konrad Lorenz, whose names every newspaper reader and television viewer knows, did not understand the people.
Let us have the courage and patience to revise our opinion in this regard. In fact, it is violent upbringing that triggers aggression in children. Man is not capable of killing his fellow man; that is not his nature.
Finally, the tragic weakness of human beings is that they cannot say NO. If the rulers have decided to go to war, then it must be followed. People cannot say, “No, I will not go to war!”
Men of all ages, unfortunately, cannot react in any other way. Education has so affected their emotional life that they “must” go to war. In much the same way that they had to follow father and mother in childhood and teachers in school, they follow political and other authorities as adults. They carry this feeling of absolute obedience from childhood with them into old age. The behaviour of the Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss, who enjoyed an upbringing according to strict religious and military principles, is an eloquent example of this (2).
But since the obedient men are not aware of this psychological connection, we cannot and must not condemn them. The parents and educators did not know that an education to absolute obedience is a serious mistake with unforeseen consequences. They meant and usually mean well, but in their ignorance and because of their own childhood experiences they put their children in distress.
The assumption of a dynamic unconscious as an essential and highly effective part of the human psychological life is a fundamental insight in depth psychology.
The good news is that we can always start to make the upbringing of our offspring more child-friendly and that adults, with the help of a psychotherapeutic professional, can become aware of their unconscious emotional parts and thus change their behaviour.
A world without weapons and wars is created by human decisions alone
A look at the current historical situation of humanity and the tragicomedy that has been played out for it for years by the government media gives little cause for optimism. Quite the contrary!
History, by its own laws, does not strive for peace itself – over our heads, as it were. A world without violence, without weapons and wars can only be realised by the decision of human beings, by thinking and acting in accordance with the ideal of peace and justice. And this reduction of violence must take place here and now.
Culture must be won over again and again, which more than illustrates the magnitude of the task ahead of us.
In this context, it is of crucial importance that already the child learns from parents, teachers and educators that one does not have to be afraid of the other person, but that the other person likes to play with him and live together with him. Any conflicts that arise would always be solved in friendship and without any verbal or physical violence. Adults should be non-violent models for these children.
If we also assume that human emotional life is not only to be understood as the result of the parent-child relationship, but that the socio-cultural milieu and the feelings corresponding to it are just as decisive, because parents, teachers and educators transmit the values of a culture to the child every day in word and deed, then it is also important that the values prevailing in the culture also correspond to a peaceful and non-violent society.
In this context, it is positive to note that in recent millennia humanity has increasingly heard the voice of humanity’s conscience within itself and is aware that it is a matter of living together in freedom and brotherhood and securing life on this earth through the common struggle against the forces of nature.
Even if it has so far been unable to banish the age-old evil of “war” from the world, because power-political, economic and social reasons constantly provided new nourishment for the spirit of violence that led to warlike conflicts, the exhortation of high-minded people who proclaimed the ideal of a peaceful world arose from time to time.
The idea of “eternal peace” is certainly as old as humanity itself.
Education for a sense of community and human solidarity
The educational methods of the past already throttled people’s sense of community in their childhood years and equipped them with the readiness for aggression through which a violent world could remain in a state of violence.
However, through psychological education methods, people could be formed who are immune to the entanglements of the delusion of power. By renouncing inappropriate authority and the use of physical and verbal violence in the parental home and school and by adapting to the child’s soul life with true understanding, pedagogy will produce people who no longer possess a subjugated mentality and will thus no longer be a docile “tool” for those in power in our world.
Children of the bourgeoisie and the working class cannot, as a rule, be confused. Those children who grow up in socially favoured positions have a sense of self-assurance and superiority (“The world is mine!”). If there are servants in the parental home, they get the impression early on that people are differentiated into “masters” and “servants” and that the servants are there to live and work for the master. No wonder, then, that the urge arises in their souls to be “masters” for once, too.
The pampering upbringing also creates a type of person who faces the world with a claim to chosenness and is not inclined to grant other people equal claims.
The working-class child sees himself early on in a world in which there are privileged and disadvantaged people. Thus, a socially conditioned feeling of inferiority takes hold of his soul.
But the child from the socially disadvantaged class suffers just as much from the lust for power as the child from the socially advantaged position. The submissiveness to which his position urges him acts as a constant sting which can equally lead to a readiness to be aggressive. It would be a fallacy to paint a “black and white” picture here.
Ultimately, it is a matter of bringing forth through future education a type of human being who – as Alfred Adler envisioned – will express a sense of community and fellow human bond as naturally as breathing (3).
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school rector, educationalist (Dr. paed.) and psychologist (Dipl.-Psych.). After his university studies, he became an academic teacher (professor) in adult education: among other things, he was head of an independent school model trial and in-service trainer of Bavarian guidance counsellors and school psychologists. As a retiree, he worked as a psychotherapist in private practice. He was rapporteur for Germany at a public hearing on juvenile delinquency in the European Parliament. In his books and articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral education and an education for public spirit and peace. For his services to Serbia, he was awarded the Republic Prize “Captain Misa Anastasijevic” by the Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad in 2021.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Notes
(1) Plack, Arno (ed.). (1973). The myth of the aggression instinct. Munich
(2) Broszat, Martin (ed.). (1963). Commandant at Auschwitz. Autobiographical notes of Rudolf Höß. Munich
(3) Adler, Alfred (1978). Child rearing. Frankfurt am Main
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***
If one tries to use rational thought processes to produce a reasoned explanation for that which is neither rational nor reasoned, one will end-up building a false picture of the world around one.
This is what has happened to those who have tried to ‘make sense’ of a global agenda whose first principle is to create chaos and confusion. Trying to piece together strands that ‘by intent’ have no connection is quite obviously a road to nowhere.
The shadowy architects of The Great Reset/New World Order/One World Government pulled-off a clever trick in designing a totalitarian programme for top-down change whose individual parts each contradict one another.
So, when put together by the ‘rational’ public mind, it makes people feel that they must be suffering a diminished personal level of intelligence, because they can’t make the agenda make any logical sense.
So what do most people do? They form a comforting yet implausible theory, that satisfies a need to believe events are following some sort of logical pattern which only those ‘in charge’ can properly understand.
This achieves the cabal’s desired affect of defeating any resistance to the programme being enforced. If those on the receiving end can’t, or won’t, believe that the perpetrators see and experience life from a completely different perspective from their own, they can’t grasp why an anti-human agenda could possibly be the reality of the day.
But it is the nature of psychotic/demonic beings to sow the seeds of confusion and then stand back and watch, gaining satisfaction from observing the results play themselves out. So sure are they of the enduring psychological weaknesses displayed by a majority of human beings that they publicly announce each new turning of the screw, via the compliant and controlled world of the mass media.
If enough big names, global institutions and media operations say black is white and two plus two makes five, most will prefer to go along with this perversion than face their own inability to recognise that things have indeed been deliberately 100% distorted.
This distortion is now fully operational in every area of life controlled by the chain of command which – starting from the 0.5% ‘elite’ cabal – runs on to corporate fiefdoms, banking dictatorships, supra national conglomerates (i.e The European Union), trans planetary institutions like the World Economic Forum, World Health Organisation and United Nations, the military industrial complex, and finally national and local governments and the general public.
Built into a very actual programme of centralised global control and the relentless thieving of basic individual and collective freedoms, are a whole series of fake sign posts which seem to indicate that all the worlds’ problems result from extreme outside events associated with human error or mental blindness.
Global warming, pandemics, economic turmoil, war, mass movements of refugees are all part of a world ‘on the brink of disaster’, we are continuously informed by the very architects of the disruptions themselves.
Each of these ‘disasters’ has been designed, planned and executed with ice cool malicious intent by the dark cabal, confident of its ability to successfully play on the fears of all who fail to confront the rules of the Matrix. The financial cabal announces in advance – each further phase of the planned break-down of justice, freedom and law and order.
So if anyone should later exclaim “They forced us, without any warning, to comply with their evil agenda”, a ready prepared answer states “We told you and you ignored it.” It is a feature of the slippery nature of these dark tricksters that they cover their tracks in all situations.
The sheer audacity of some pronouncements is breathtaking.
Bill Gates coolly argues the need to depopulate the planet.
Klaus Schwab informs us that “we will be happy” having had all our properties stolen from us.
Yuval Noah Harari advises that chipped and digitalised people will be a big advancement of the human race, “Better than God” could achieve.
Tedros Ghebreyesus , head of the World Health Organisation, states that only he and his board member cronies can decide when to declare health emergencies affecting all independent nation states of the world.
Almost all leaders of nation states are happy to persuade their constituents to go along with these dictatorial pronouncements. For example, they are told to take the weaponised mRNA genetically engineered Covid jab “If you want to be recognised as responsible citizens, retain your freedom of movement and not get put on the red list of subverters of the status quo.”
It is not as though any of these pronouncements are done in secrecy. They are done in plain sight in the public domain. But still the great majority of the public can’t or wont respond with the normal/ natural organic reaction of anyone put under this kind of direct threat “Hey! Who do you think you are? Don’t threaten me with your pompous megalomania – you should be locked-up immediately!”
There is something going on which causes normal human biological reactions to be stymied and rendered seemingly sterile.
In my opinion, it is a well developed form of hypnosis.
Inducing one’s audience to experience a variety of versions of fear, is stage one. Coming across as a highly placed authority figure is stage two. Having recourse to dark powers to ‘bewitch’, is stage three.
When all three of these are packaged within a sophisticated mind control/social engineering programme, the deliverer holds a number of ace cards. Not least the fact that if and when exposed ‘it sounds too unbelievable to be true’ to all but the keenly aware.
So, we who are aware have the crucial task of reverse engineering the sequence of events that bewitch the general public, thereby exposing the preconceived and calculated use of chaos and confusion which render the cult’s poisoned agenda such a brutal deception.
Can this be done?
Yes it can. But it involves deepening our understanding of the ways of the psychopathic and psychotic mind. We need to grasp how ‘spellbinding techniques’ play a much more central role in mass human mind control programmes than are currently recognised.
This exploration calls for courage and the realisation of our deeper spiritual powers. Such a task cannot be achieved without raising the energetic levels of our latent higher potentialities; a concentrated focus on that which has the power to dispel darkness so as to break the hold of the demonic elements over the human mind.
Humanity is confronted by this test – here and now. If faced directly and bravely, the instigators of the present darkness will be defeated. Defeated by the manifestation of a rising level of truth which the tricksters cannot endure, as their ‘success’ is based on maintaining the blanket existence of a very low vibrational energy, which they consistently try to convey as the only energetic state available to mankind. Nothing less than the three dimensional prison of the Matrix.
Once this huge deception is uncovered on a sufficient scale, the dark mask will fall and the first phases of our true liberation will unfold in front of us like the rising sun; heralding an unprecedented universal expansion of the higher powers of mankind and all planetary and inter planetary energies.
*
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Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher. He is Co-founder of the Hardwick Alliance for Real Ecology HARE https://hardwickalliance.org/. Julian’s latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is strongly recommended reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info
We are not on the first but on the ninth anniversary of the war in Ukraine, which was unleashed in February 2014 with the coup d’état under US-NATO direction. Speaking from Warsaw, President Biden promised to “stand by President Zelensky no matter what.” He is echoed by President Meloni who, reversing the position assumed in 2014, assured Zelensky that “Italy will be with you until the end”. These are disturbing statements, given the real possibility that the conflict could lead to a nuclear war, which would be the end not only of Europe but of the world. Ukraine is capable of producing nuclear weapons and, certainly, in Kyiv, there are those who pursue such a plan.
The New York Times confirms it: “Ukraine gave up a gigantic nuclear arsenal 30years ago. Today there are regrets”. With the breakup of the USSR in 1991, Ukraine found itself in possession of the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world: some 5,000 strategic and tactical weapons. They were removed in the 1990s under agreements between the United States, Russia and Ukraine. However, the technological capability acquired by Ukraine in the military nuclear field during the US-Soviet confrontation has not been removed.
Ukraine – warns President Putin – intends to create its own nuclear weapons, and this is not a mere boast. The acquisition of nuclear weapons will be much easier for Ukraine than for other states conducting such research, especially if Kyiv receives foreign technological support. We cannot rule this out. If Ukraine acquires weapons of mass destruction, the situation in the world and in Europe will change dramatically”
In which hands would the Ukrainian nuclear weapons be confirmed by the fact that Zelenskyy has just conferred on the 10th Ukrainian Assault Brigade “the Edelweiss title of honour “: the same name and symbol of one of the most ferocious Nazi Divisions, the 1st Edelweiss Division, which in 1943 massacred over 5,000 Italian soldiers who had surrendered in Greek Kefalonia.
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Clip #1 – Right Now with Medical Researcher Stuart Wilkie (click here)
Clip #2 – Radical by Maajid Nawaz with Dr. Mike Yeadon (click here)
VIDEO
COVID-19 deaths in Long-Term Care homes in 2020
The official narrative is that the elderly in Long Term Care homes were at high risk for COVID-19 infection and death.
In 2020, most COVID-19 deaths occurred in Long Term Care homes.
New evidence strongly suggests that these were not unavoidable COVID-19 deaths, but that something much more sinister and dark happened in these homes. There were at least two types of intentional harm that the elderly faced:
Vulnerable elderly were given a high dose “euthanasia drug cocktail” of Midazolam and Morphine which lead to their death, which was then labeled a “COVID-19 death”
Elderly who developed pneumonia were intentionally denied antibiotics, leading to their death, which was then labeled a “COVID-19 death”.
Midazolam
Midazolam is a benzodiazepine medication used for anesthesia, procedural sedation and to treat severe agitation.
“Midazolam injection may cause serious or life-threatening breathing problems such as shallow, slowed, or temporarily stopped breathing that may lead to permanent brain injury or death.”(click here)
In the US, high doses of Midazolam were used in executions of death row inmates by lethal injection (click here).
UK Long Term Care Home Deaths
On Feb.7, 2023, whistleblower “jikkyleaks” posted on Twitter one of the more shocking graphics I have seen in the past 2 years (click here):
The excess deaths in the United Kingdom (during COVID-19 pandemic waves in early 2020 and early 2021) correlate almost perfectly with spikes in Midazolam 10mg/2ml use.
As jikkyleaks explains:
“This is the data for midazolam prescribing from the UKs official prescriber database”
“the spike in midazolam prescription (on this *GP* database) was driven almost entirely by injectable 10mg/2ml doses. This was not the anxiolytic oral form. It’s a euthanasia injection.”
The key here is that this spike in Midazolam use was outside the Hospital setting (in Long Term Care homes).
And yes, the excess deaths in April 2020 were in the elderly:
How many died?
Dr.John Campbell describes the dangers and potential lethality of the high dose Midazolam and Morphine drug cocktail, in his detailed video (click here).
British MP Andrew Bridgen recently wrote: “I have been supplied with lots of evidence from people who believe their relatives died due to the medical interventions brought in as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic” (click here).
Former Pfizer scientist Dr.Mike Yeadon PhD believes over 100,000 people were killed by government protocols of Midazolam and Morphine (click here).
Other drugs
Other “end of life” protocol drugs were used extensively during this time as reported by the British Medical Journal (click here).
This includes antipsychotic drugs Levomepromazine and Haloperidol.
Conveniently, on April 3, 2020, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published a “COVID-19 rapid guideline: managing symptoms in the community”, which included the “opioid and benzodiazepine combination” (click here):
It seems that starting in April 2020, 10,000s of elderly were designated as “at the end of life” and euthanized with an opioid (Morphine) and benzodiazepine (Midazolam) combination.
Withdrawal of Antibiotics
Another disturbing component of the abuse of the elderly that would have lead to their deaths, is evidence that the elderly were denied life-saving antibiotics when they did develop complications of viral respiratory illness, namely pneumonia.
In the UK, antibiotic prescriptions dropped 50% during 2020 (source):
“For those that still haven’t heard about this – #3tablets relates to the fact that COVID deaths occurred because vulnerable people were not given macrolide antibiotics for post-viral pneumonia because of a prior propaganda campaign.”
“3 tablets. That’s what they withheld from the elderly that were diagnosed with “COVID pneumonia” because they were told not to treat. It was bacterial pneumonia. They died.”
Canada’s Long Term Care (LTC) home COVID-19 Deaths
In January 2021, the Lancet published: “COVID-19 highlights Canada’s care home crisis” (click here):
“COVID-19 deaths in long-term care have been called a national disgrace, and experts are calling for the army to intervene.
When Canada’s national health data agency reported in June, 2020, that Canada had the worst record among wealthy nations for COVID-19-related deaths in long-term care facilities for older people, many observers referred to it as a “national disgrace”. At that time, as the first wave of COVID-19 in Canada began to subside, its 2039 homes for older people accounted for about 80% of all COVID-19-related deaths.
6 months later, as the second wave of COVID-19 sweeps the country, little has changed, and Canada’s long-term facilities remain dangerously prone to the disease.”
A stunning admission from Canadian Institute for Health Information (click here):
“Compared with other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, Canada had a relatively low overall COVID-19 mortality rate but the highest proportion of LTC deaths. Residents of LTC homes in Canada represented 81% of all reported COVID-19 deaths compared with an average of 38% in other countries.”
Canada’s COVID-19 mortality rate in LTC homes was higher than UK’s, where 10,000s of vulnerable elderly were being given high dose Midazolam & Morphine euthanasia drug cocktails to drive up the COVID-19 death toll from April 2020 onwards.
I have not been able to find Canada’s Midazolam prescription data, however, according to the Canadian Medical Association, Midazolam is used in 91% of MAID – Medical Assistance in Dying cases (click here).
Concluding Remarks
The evidence of United Kingdom’s “Midazolam murders” in Long Term Care homes is damning. Overall, it paints a very dark picture: in the UK, it appears the elderly in Long Term Care homes were euthanized by the 10,000s in order to drive up the COVID-19 death toll in 2020.
Canada’s LTC homes did even worse than UK’s and that raises very disturbing questions. What happened in Canada’s LTC homes when family members were not allowed to visit their loved ones? What kind of euthanasia protocols were used in Canada, that resulted in even higher death tolls than in the UK?
We need whistleblowers to tell us.
One thing is clear. With over 80% of all COVID-19 deaths in 2020 taking place in Long Term Care homes, without these deaths there would have been no “pandemic” in Canada, no fear or panic, and perhaps no COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
“You see, the United States doesn’t want Iraq disarmed. The United States wants Saddam Hussein gone!” – Scott Ritter (Feb. 4, 2003) [1]
“These are right-wing neo-Nazi extremists, many of whom have swastikas and other Nazi symbols tattooed on their bodies. This is where they tormented the Russian-speaking population for the past eight years. They are now in the process of being killed or captured by the Russians. This is what “de-Nazification” looks like.” – Scott Ritter (March 23, 2022) [2]
February 24th marks the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [3]
It also marks the twentieth anniversary of a month of record turnouts against the expected war in Iraq by the United States, the United Kingdom, and their so-called “coalition of the willing.” [4]
And it also marks the last day of Fundrive 2023, put on by station CKUW which hosts the Global Research News Hour! [5]
Mobilizing against war is one of the major themes of the decade old radio program, and the Global Research website that spawned it. Our main approach is finding the path toward the latest military offensive as being motivated by purposes other than “self-defence” or freeing a foreign people from oppression. [6]
In the case of Iraq twenty years ago, while politicians and the major media were concluding the reason was essentially the nefarious weapons of mass destructionSaddam Hussein was secretly building and stockpiling, Global Research and community radio stations like CKUW in Winnipeg relayed factual statements from individuals like Scott Ritter to the effect that these arguments had no merit. If it wasn’t for these alternative outlets and the thorough and informed information they presented, the general population would have been surprised about the absence of WMDs once the Iraqi president was captured and ousted from power.
What are the same entities saying about the Ukraine War twenty years later? Vladimir Putin out of frustration at Ukraine turning attention away from their long-standing relationship with Russia toward the European Union, decided to take control of the country directly with an invasion and kill any and every soldier that stood in his way. Global Research and the Global Research News Hour corrected this “analysis” by mentioning the war as actually a “proxy-war” between the U.S./NATO and Russia. That Russia was not emboldened to re-build the former Soviet Union as some of the major media had been postulating as a possibility. Russia was defending itself against the expansion of NATO right to Russia’s next-door neighbour, very much against a promise made to Soviet leader Gorbachev three decades ago.
On this special edition of the Global Research News Hour, we will not only point to the similarities and differences between these major military offensives past and present, but we will also highlight the personal recollections of host and producer Michael Welch, and his commitment then and now to put an end to war through the magic of radio informed antiwar activism. This marks a special fund-raising episode for the show and the radio station broadcasting it.
This program features a clip from a show in the past year. There will be a live interview with Ken Stone of the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War who is supporting this weekend’s special actions in Canada to bring the War in Ukraine to an end, as well as a panel discussion connecting the dots between the Ukraine War and other U.S./NATO imperialist agendas all over West Asia. It will also broadcast an interview with one of four Indigenous chiefs in Ontario signing a Mutual Cooperation Agreement to defend their territory from mining exploration without their consent.
To review a list of donor Donate NOW to CKUW Fundrive at fundrive.ckuw.ca
As an alternative, direct your funds to the Global Research donation site, highlighting funding for the Global Research News Hour.
Chief Donny Morris represents Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation, one of four signing the Mutual Cooperation Agreement on January 31, 2023.
Ken Stone is a long time antiwar, anti-racism, environmental and labour activist, resident in Hamilton. He is Treasurer of the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.
WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.
Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.
CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am.
Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.
JOHN LEICESTER, HANNA ARHIROVA and SAMYA KULLAB (Feb. 24, 2023), ‘As Ukraine Marks Year of War, Leader Vows to Secure Victory’, AP News; https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-anniversary-day-e0adf7f14f165b708cd948509e4e8f20?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01
More than 70 years ago NATO was born. In April 1949, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established what was designated as the doctrine of “Collective Security” under Art. 5 of the Washington Treaty.
NATO has a sordid history of aggression and war crimes. The US not only continues to “occupy” World War II “axis countries” (Italy, Germany), it has used the NATO emblem to install US military bases throughout Western Europe, as well as in Eastern Europe in the wake of the Cold War, extending into the Balkans in the wake of NATO’s war on Yugoslavia.
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***
[This morning on January 24, 2023, the science and security board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved their famous Doomsday Clock to read 90 seconds to midnight, 10 seconds closer than it’s ever been before. This essay examines some of the forces making this clock tick.]
Situational Awareness at Our Future’s Edge
“Madness is the exception in individuals, but the rule in groups.”– Friedrich Nietzsche
“You have to understand, the nuclear industry and the people that run it – and I say this advisedly – they have a religious belief in nuclear power. So facts don’t interfere. You know, religion is belief. They believe in nuclear power….” – S. David Freeman – 2011 – Former Director of the Tennessee Valley Authority
“A striking characteristic of leading figures throughout America’s Atomic Brotherhood is an almost religious devotion to atomic energy and all for which it stands. These men share a deep faith in the essential goodness and above all the historical inevitability of atomic energy.” – Mark Hertzgaard, Nuclear Inc., 1983
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together…. We must also be alert to the…danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell address. 1961
“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” – James Madison
The Age of Cognitive Dissonance
Worldwide data indicate that the commercial nuclear power industry has been in decline since at least the turn of the century. Construction schedule and budget overruns, combined with cheaper and faster deployment of wind and solar energy sources make the nuclear energy future look increasingly dim.
According to the World Nuclear Association, there are 425 active reactors worldwide, providing approximately 10% of the world’s electricity supply, about the same as three decades ago.
Once upon a time, amid breathless predictions of a “nuclear renaissance,” 34 new reactor projects were announced. Of those, only two in Georgia are expected to eventually come on-line, years behind schedule and at costs more than double the initial estimate.
“Nuclear plant operators should start decommissioning activities of shutdown reactors as early as possible as the deferral of decontamination and dismantling (D&D) exposes operators to delay-related costs, investment risks and loss of crucial expertise as workers leave the industry, Geoffrey Rothwell, Principal Economist at the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency, told Nuclear Energy Insider.”
The highest number of nuclear reactor closures happened in 2021, and, according to Reuters, a ‘Green Surge’ of renewable power sources is going on, far out-competing nuclear developent on spead and costs.
In a 2019 Forbes article American physicist Amory Lovins wrote,
“Most U.S. nuclear power plants cost more to run than they earn. Globally, the WorldNuclear Industry Status Report 2019 documents the nuclear enterprise’s slow-motion commercial collapse—dying of an incurable attack of market forces. Yet in America, strong views are held across the political spectrum on whether nuclear power is essential, or merely helpful, in protecting the Earth’s climate—and both those views are wrong.
In fact, building new reactors, or operating most existing ones, makes climate change worse compared with spending the same money on more-climate-effective ways to deliver the same energy services. Those who state as fact that rejecting (more precisely, declining to bail out) nuclear energy would make carbon reduction much harder are in good company, but are mistaken.”
“Today’s hot question,“ Lovins presciently noted, “is not about new US reactors, which investors shun, but about the 96 existing reactors, already averaging about a decade beyond their nominal original design life. Most now cost more to run—including major repairs that trend upward with age—than their output can earn.
“They also cost more just to run than providing the same services by building and operating new renewables, or by using electricity more efficiently.”
Nevertheless, a recent, breathless Newsweek opinion piece optimistically effused, “The Nuclear Energy Renaissance Has Arrived!”
Quill Robinson, the article’s ‘conservationist’ author cited reports that California’s legislators – faced with the ‘threat of looming blackouts in the face of climate change’ – voted to extend the operation of Diablo Canyon’s reactors. He also reported that twice nuclear-devastated Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida recently announced that – because of the ‘threat of looming blackouts in the face of climate change’ – nuclear energy is “essential to proceed with a green transformation.”
The euphoric Newsweek opiner went on to confidently assert – in denial of all accumulating evidence to the contrary – that “high-profile accidents are the exception to the rule; nuclear is incredibly safe and getting safer.”
The uniformity of ‘talking points’ he cited – a currently standard script – is a clue that there is a concerted psychological operation, or psyop, going on here. Why tout a moribund industry suffering from what energy expert Amory Lovins long ago diagnosed as “an incurable attack of market forces?”
What powerful institution with global reach has the most highly developed and sophisticated state-of-the-art psyop strategies and information warfare technologies at its disposal?
Known as the Fifth Gradient of War, or 5GW, “Moral and cultural warfare is fought through manipulating perceptions and altering the context by which the world is perceived…. The ability to shape the perception—and therefore the opinions—of a target audience is far more important than the ability to deliver kinetic energy, and will determine the ultimate victor in tomorrow’s wars.”
Why would these well-honed, state-of-the-art, ‘cognitive warfare’ tools be unleashed on the U.S. population in support of a faltering civilian nuclear energy industry?
WTF is going on here?
Welcome to the Nuclear Armed Madhouse
The United States is the most militarized – and nuclearized – nation, society and culture in the history of the world.
Just pause, take a few deep breaths, and let that fact – plus the sobering, omni-directional implications of it – sink in for a moment.
According to ExecutiveGov, the country’s projected Department of Defense budget – not counting the so-called ‘Dark Budget’ (see below) – reached $778 billion in 2022, up 14% from 2017. This compares to the second ranking military budget of China, which has a military budget of $229 billion.
“If carried out, the plans for nuclear forces delineated in the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) fiscal year 2021 budget requests, submitted in February 2020, would cost a total of $634 billion over the 2021–2030 period, for an average of just over $60 billion a year, CBO estimates.
“Almost two-thirds of those costs would be incurred by DoD; its largest costs would be for ballistic missile submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles. DOE’s costs would be primarily for nuclear weapons laboratories and supporting activities.”
You don’t have to be a Ph.D.-certified, think tank situational analyst to get the picture.
For a country that, as of Oct. 8, 2022, had a total national debt of $31.1 trillion, U.S. expenditures on means of mass destruction are clearly illogical, immoral, unethical and suicidal.
Here’s a brief, enlightening snapshot.
According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Nuclear Notebook: United States nuclear weapons, 2023 by Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda, as of this year the US Department of Defense maintains an estimated ‘stockpile’ of approximately 3,708 nuclear warheads for delivery by land- and submarine-launched ballistic missiles and aircraft. The authors state that US nuclear weapons are stored at an estimated 24 geographical locations in 11 US states and five European countries, and that the US has deployed 659 strategic launchers with 1,420 warheads in various locations.
The American arsenal of nuclear weapons and delivery systems are in a perpetual process of renewal and modernization which is set to continue to 2039 and beyond, with a budget of $1.2 trillion over the next three decades. A so-called ‘Family of Strike Plans’ is maintained and constantly revised, with their main current targets being China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
The US Navy runs a fleet of 14 Ohio-class nuclear powered submarines which constantly prowl the world’s oceans, each capable of carrying up to 20 Trident sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Each SLBM can carry up to eight individually targetable nuclear warheads. A new generation of even larger US Columbia-class nuclear submarines is under development with a project budget of $112 billion.
Meanwhile – not to be outdone – the US Air Force operates a network of 400 silo-based Minuteman III ICBMs with a total force of 800 always available – with a constant upgrade program going on – as well as a fleet of over 40 nuclear capable strategic bombers carrying nuclear bombs and air-launched cruise missiles in constant motion from bases around the world. The bomber fleet’s command and control system interfaces with the constellation of MILSTAR satellites operated by the US Space Force.
This globe-spanning mobile ‘Doomsday Machine’ – as Pentagon Papers whistleblower Dan Ellesberg calls it – interfaces with NATO partner militaries in a system which is also constantly in a process of ’modernization’ and ‘harmonization’ of ‘interoperable’ nuclear and conventional weapons systems of mass destruction, dominated by the United States and its complex of ‘defense’ industries, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.
As we will see in what follows, this system is seamlessly integrated and co-dependent with America’s civilian commercial nuclear power industry and its infrastructure, trained labor pool, and radioactive waste (mis-) management industry.
Hegemonic Military Nuclearism
Like fish, oblivious of their surrounding liquid environment, we Americans are enveloped in a ubiquitous militarist/nuclearist complex that is all-pervasive, yet virtually invisible to the average citizen, outside the collective domain of public awareness, and therefore immune to informed democratic oversight and control.
The core of its dominion is its development, monopoly control and deployment of advanced biological, directed energy and thermonuclear weapons. Worth noting is that it also exercised chief administrative control of the ‘warp speed’ roll-out of the Covid-19 genetic therapy inoculations – purportedly, of course, all in the interest of efficiency, public health and national defense.
The July 30 Operation Warp Speed organizational chart obtained by STAT details about 90 of the officials involved in the initiative. Roughly 60 work for the Department of Defense.
Virtually all elements of social and economic activity as well as of the environment – from education to philanthropy to health care to weather modification – can be weaponized under the rubric of ‘defense,’ and therefore, increasingly have been.
The World as Battlespace
The 1974 book, ThePermanentWarEconomy by Seymour Melman had as its sub-title: American Capitalism in Decline. In it Melman demonstrated how the so-called ‘defense industry’ had became the core of what amounted to a state capitalism dominating the entire economic system by means of government control over both capital and technological research and development.
He explained, “The fact that the war economy of World War II was useful for ending the Great Depression became the basis for a theory that there was no other way to get a full-employment economy.”
Melman went on to show that, “By 1971 the government-based managers of the U.S. military system had superseded the private firms of the American economy in control over capital.” He argued that the squandering of funds and resources on weapons development – which in fact decreased national security – was leading to a hollowing out of the country’s once vibrant and productive economy.
Embedded inextricably within that Military Matrix – and equally penetrative in its power and influence – is the Nuclear-Energy-Weapons-Radioactive-Waste Complex. The components of this nuclear triad are as intricately entangled as the strands of the proverbial Gordian Knot.
In the 1979 book The new tyranny: How nuclear power enslaves us, Austrian writer Robert Jungk identified that triad as quintessentially totalitarian because its is based from its inception on secrecy, deceit and technocratic control. He warned that by following the path of nuclear energy nations would be forced to surrender their liberties one step at a time and become regimented societies.
Jungk’s warning, like Melman’s and Eisenhower’s was prescient, but went unheeded.
In fact, Eisenhower himself had unwittingly laid the foundation for what he came to fear the most in his 1959 Fireside Chat announcing the Atoms for Peace program. This cover-story/psyop at the beginning of the Atomic Age succeeded in putting a happy face on “Our Friend the Atom” and “Reddy Kilowatt.” It also – as Alfred Meyer explains in his recent Progressive article It’s All About the Bomb – “placed nuclear materials and reactors in more than forty countries, including Iran. This generated ongoing business for many American nuclear enterprise companies while supporting and expanding the U.S. military’s nuclear infrastructure and capacity in the United States.”
Atoms for Peace became the origin myth for the First Church of Nukes Forever; a cult, a culture, and an industry based – as we will discuss below – on a Big Lie.
Like the proverbial blind men and the elephant, Ike, Melman and Jungk each had a grasp on one appendage of a larger beast the total extent of which remained beyond their ken.
An Updated Situational Awareness
As investigative reporter Whitney Webb has shown in her two volume revelatory opus One Nation Under Blackmail, by Ike’s era, starting early in the 20th century, there had developed a seamless integration of the military-industrial-intelligence complex with the international network of organized crime and the transnational banking cartel that enabled it.
It was, and is, a command and control matrix far superseding the reach of democratic institutions of government. Those who buck this system pay a price.
James Douglass’s 2008 book, JFK and the Unspeakable – Why he died and why it matters, finally unpacked the complicated story of how John Kennedy’s immersion in and opposition to that dominating matrix led inexorably to his 1963 assassination in Dallas. It was a coup from which the country has yet to recover – or, indeed even recognize.
Throughout the last century, the ‘military-industrial complex’ that Eisenhower famously glimpsed, named and warned about in his 1961 presidential farewell broadcast has metastasized throughout all the organs and neural pathways of the American body politic and penetrated all its institutions… and beyond.
It might now more accurately be termed the “Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Big Tech-Economic-Academic-Media-Communications-Medical-Pharmaceutical-Organized-Crime-Surveillance-Population-Control Complex.”
The subsets of this meta-matrix, the permanent war economy and the plutonium-based nuclear energy, weapons and waste economy symbiotically merged. Together they have become the medium in which we now swim.
Dark Budgets Mask Dark Doings
In their recent study of pandemic criminality in government, co-authors David A. Hughes, Valerie Kyrie and Daniel Broudy point out that,
“Lawlessness has been germinating in the United States ever since the birth of the national security state in 1947, with its founding myth of “national security” enabling the intelligence agencies to operate outside of any meaningful democratic oversight. …The history of US foreign policy since the birth of the CIA has been a tale of near continuous violations of international law and war crimes (Hughes 2022a), operating under cover of propaganda and psychological warfare in the name of “national security” and a range of exceptionalist myths (Blum 2006; Chomsky 2007; Hughes 2015).
“Eye watering amounts of money have been funneled from US federal budgets into black budgets that the public is not allowed to know about. For example, an estimated US$21 trillion cannot be accounted for in the financial records of the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development between 1998 and 2016 (Skidmore & Fitts, 2019). The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB), which sets the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for the US federal government, introduced Standard 56 on 4 October 2018, allowing national security concerns to override the need for public financial transparency. FASAB-56, according to Fitts and Betts (2021), “permits the federal government by administrative action—without formal legislative, regulatory, judicial, or executive approval—to keep secret books as determined by a secret group of people pursuant to a secret process.” In other words, it provides for the clandestine pillaging of public wealth. The US government, in Fitts and Betts’ (2021) opinion, is “operating sufficiently outside the Constitution and financial management and other laws to be called a ‘criminal enterprise.’”
In his report for Solari.org, The Going Direct Reset, analyst John Titus notes that it became clear by 5 years after the 2007/8 financial crisis that, “it was a matter of record that crimes on Wall Street weren’t even being investigated, much less prosecuted.” What Titus sees as the“criminal immunity enjoyed by banks,” leads him to question if the U.S. can any longer be considered a constitutional republic under the rule of law.
Sociologist William Robinson, in his recent book Global Civil War – Capitalism Post-Pandemic, postulates that the world’s people now live under a dictatorship of transnational ‘gangster capitalists.’
This article will explore the hypotheses that gangster capitalists have actually amalgamated with gangster spooks and militarists, and gangster nuclearists in an attempted grab for global governance.
We begin with the observation that the business of America is war, and that the U.S. has all the earmarks of a company town.
Mapping the Metastasis
The scope of this syndrome is made visible by the sheer physical extent of U.S. military and nuclear facilities and the huge economic impacts of the generous budgets they command.
The Department of Defense (DOD) reports that, taken as a whole, the combined branches of the U.S. military maintain 4,775 bases worldwide, with 4,150 in the U.S. alone – 5 of them the largest military installations in the world. The DOD’s global reach is extended into other countries also through the NATO alliance, which it dominates.
Military bases in the continental U.S. – https://motivasi.my.id/
Many bases are the size of small cities, and like cities, serve as hubs for the businesses, industries and civic organizations and institutions in their surrounding regions, giving them huge impact and influence on the resident populations. In addition military training and bombing ranges occupy vast areas of domestic territory.
World military spending totaled more than $1.6 trillion in 2015. The U.S. accounted for 37 percent of that total. – Graphic: nationalpriorities.org
According to political scientist Joan Roelofs, this reach and funding level accounts for there being so little anti-war protest in the United States. It is the silence of the well-fed lambs…or is it sheeple? Professor Roelofs’s book The Trillion Dollar Silencer charts the extent to which military funding and propaganda infest and influence virtually every state and public sector.
Roelofs’s revelatory little book itemizes all the many vectors along which this pervasive influence is exercised.
A key channel through which the military penetrates into virtually every aspect of civilian life is the system of DoD contracts with private corporations, and, through them, their subsidiaries, sub-contractors, employee organizations, ‘philanthropies’ and foundations, into local, regional, state, national and international institutions and organizations. Roelofs lists the top 10 DOD contractors in 2020 as:
Lockheed Martin
Raytheon Technologies
General Dynamics
Boeing
Northrup Grumman
Huntington Ingalis
Humana (a private health insurance company)
BAE Systems
L3Harris Technologies
General Electric
Roelofs reports, “The DoD itself and related government departments engage in philanthropy. Certain schools and the following national organizations are eligible to receive donations of DoD surplus property:
American National Red Cross
Armed Services YMCA of the USA
Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America
Boys and Girls Clubs of America
Boy Scouts of America
Camp Fire, Inc.
Center for Excellence in Education
Girl Scouts of the USA
Little League Baseball, Inc.
Marine Cadets of America
National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education
National Civilian Community Corps
National Sky Patrol System, Inc.
Navel Sea Cadet Corps
United Service Organizations, Inc.
U.S. Olympic Committee
Young Marines of the Marine Corps, and
League/Marine Corps League….”
Roelofs writes that both the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts engage in ‘partnerships’ with Lockheed Martin and other corporations.
International Largess as ‘Unconventional Warfare’
She notes, “Despite its connotations, humanitarian aid is part of ‘unconventional warfare’ according to the U.S. Special Operation Command, reminiscent of the ‘winning the hearts and mind doctrine.’” She observes that, “The Joint Chiefs of Staff publishes a guide to foreign humanitarian assistance and organizations with which to coordinate military operations….”
According to Roelofs, other channels of military influence include the revolving doors between military leadership positions and non-profit organizations such as civil liberties, human rights and minority advocacy organization like the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, Asians Against Domestic Abuse, the Vietnamese American Community, the NAACP and the Urban League.
Then there are the think tanks, universities, foundations and professional associations peopled by former military personnel and funded by grants from both military agencies and defense contractors.
The extent and reach of the military networks and connections Roelofs documents are revelatory and mind-boggling in their complexity.
Interpenetrating this matrix and further complicating the picture is the system of the nuclear energy, weapons and radioactive waste management industries and their related research facilities.
Nuclearized Nation
Three maps paint the picture – we live both geographically, economically and culturally in a nuclear surround:
Source: Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Licensed under Creative Commons
Source: strangesounds.net
Throughout the ‘Atomic Age,’ basically spanning my 82-year (so far) lifetime, many books have been published making clear nuclear technology’s history and impact. Yet, for most of the population (except for the dwindling number of white hairs like me) and especially for the current cohort of millennials – that easily available body of existentially vital information remains outside their situational awareness.
A few deserve special mention in the current context.
The 1981 The Nuclear Barons – The Inside Story of How They Created Our Nuclear Nightmare, b y Peter Pringle and James Spigelman, led the way. A publishers’ blurb sums it up well:
The nuclear barons: an international elite of scientists, technocrats, and businessmen who have, for more than four decades, controlled the world’s destiny. Their decisions–usually kept secret, often shortsighted, sometimes veiled by lies and obfuscations–have led inexorably to the present nuclear mess. Radiation hazards, prohibitively costly energy, waste-disposal problems, plant safety, weapons proliferation: the nuclear nightmares we live with are the direct result of choices that were never thought through to their logical conclusions, never opened to public debate.
Seasoned reporter Mark Hertzgaard has been labeled by at least one critic as a ‘nuclear crank’ for authoring his 1983 book, Nuclear Inc: The Men and Money Behind Nuclear Energy, but it stands as an impeccably-sourced investigative classic.
Hertzgaard spent three years in the halls of the industry itself. He gained access to private corporate libraries and once-secret documents. He interviewed many Washington insiders and corporate executives who had never before spoken on the record. The result is a look at what he termed ‘America’s Atomic Brotherhood’ from the inside.
Undeterred by commercial unviability and dependence on government subsidies, repeated accidents and recurring evidence of chronic mismanagement, or the clear inevitability of nuclear weapons proliferation stemming from possession of nuclear energy technology, this Brothehood persists to this day in its quest for control of both global market share and dominance of local and national politics.
Hertzgaard laid bare the playbook of strategies employed by utility executives to dominate local institutions like banks, news papers and civic organizations and influence educational curricula at every level.
He concluded that, “The twenty-four giant transnational corporations that dominate the nuclear power industry constitute what may be the single largest and most powerful business enterprise in history. They sold a staggering $400 billion worth of products in 1981, and all but five of them rank among the one hundred fifty biggest companies in America. Their enormous influence over the U.S. economy is amplified still further by close association with eight of the nation’s nine biggest banks, and many of its top investment and law firms. Along with their allies in the electric utility industry, they have invested countless billions in the nuclear business. Understandably, they are committed to recovering profit on their investment. But it is a cynical and condescending analysis that ascribes the industry’s calls for a nuclear revival to simple corporate greed. In fact, most nuclear executives deeply believe that theirs is a moral and just cause. They regard nuclear power as the very embodiment of progress and feel privileged to help bring it into being. In their minds, what is at stake in the struggle over nuclear power is not just their own corporations’ profitability, but the future of American capitalism, technological society, and indeed Western civilization.”
Democracy or Doom
Elaine Scarry is the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. Her 2014 book, Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing Between Democracy and Doom picks up on Robert Jungk’s point, mentioned above, that nuclear technology is quintessentially totalitarian. The appropriately named professor Scarry makes clear the absolutely dictatorial power that control of nuclear weaponry confers on the gormless politicians, true believer executives and ethically clueless technicians with their hands on the controls – a power far exceeding that of any autocratic potentate in the past.
She quotes Richard Nixon’s boast, “I can go into my office and pick up the telephone and in twenty-five minutes seventy million people will be dead,” noting that Nixon was accurately describing not only his own power but also the power of every American president in the nuclear age.
Professor Scarry records that Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon each contemplated using nuclear weapons—Eisenhower twice, Kennedy three times, Johnson once, Nixon four times. It remains classified whether or not subsequent presidents, from Ford to Obama, considered using them.
Her point is that no individual, group or institution should possess the unilateral power to obliterate all life on earth. Yet that is our current, actual existential situation.
President ‘Slow Joe’ Biden has the access codes.
The Varieties of Nuclear Culture – Societal and Institutional
The ubiquitous penetration of militarism and nuclearism into local, state, regional, national and transnational institutional systems, briefly mapped above, was starkly portrayed in microcosm in Paul Loeb’s 1982 study of life in Washington state’s aptly named Hanford Nuclear Reservation, where the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were developed.
Half the size of Rhode Island, on the banks of the now radioactively polluted Columbia River, Hanford is the largest atomic energy complex in the world. In his recent book Atomic Days Counterpunch editor Joshua Frank describes it as “a sprawling wasteland of radioactive and chemical sewage, a landmass three times larger than Lake Tahoe. It’s also the costliest environmental remediation project the world has ever seen and, argueably, the most contaminated place on the entire planet.”
Frank goes on,
“Not only is the site laced with huge amounts of radioactive gunk, but all that waste is also a ticking timebomb that could erupt at any given moment, creating a nuclear Chernobyl-like explosion, resulting in a singular trajedy unlike anything the United States has ever experienced. It’s a real and frightning possibility….”
Out of sight and out of mind for most Americans, the Hanford complex is emblematic of the virtually eternally toxic legacy of the Atomic Age.
With its ongoing stream of government contracts, Hanford is also a key hub of economic activity in the region. It is served by a cluster of what are effectively ‘company cities’ in the region, the bulk of whose residents are multi-generational employees of The Reservation, or of the plethora of local businesses, civic organizations and instructions supporting it.
Local culture and ubiquitous mushroom cloud iconography, with the town tavern the Atomic Ale Brewpub serving Plutonium Porter, and its local high school sports teams called “The Bombers,” makes Hanford also an emblematic microcosm of the degree to which nuclear culture can be internalized and normalized by an enveloped population.
Loeb’s book, Nuclear Culture – Living and Working in the World’s Largest Atomic Complex, records his extensive interviews with workers, scientists, managers and housewives making up the region’s essentially captive population.
Tellingly, the names have been changed to protect the interviewees.
National Ignition Facility, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA. – present5.com
The University of California-run Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California is a key node in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.
Together with Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, its scientists and technicians are credited with having designed every nuclear weapon in the United States arsenal, as well as making significant contributions to the development of supercomputers, AI, and other leading edge technologies.
The Lab’s website once humbly billed it as “The Smartest Place on Earth.” In 2019 it was honored with a Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award, recognizing the Lab as one of the Best Places to Work, as rated by its own happy employees.
As the home of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), Livermore Lab is a locus of the USA’s Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Stewardship Program, whose mission is to maintain the ‘readiness’ of America’s nuclear weapons arsenal, albeit without atmospheric or underground testing. The NIF approach is to do small-scale, ‘bench-top’ simulation tests using high-powered lasers.
Fusion Confusion
Recently mainstream and social media alike have been breathlessly reporting on a reported ‘breakthrough’ in the development of nuclear fusion technology at Livermore, touting it as a potential commercial nuclear energy innovation that will be our last minute rescue from climate change.
Less enthusiastic commentators observe [Here, Here & Here] that the touted ‘milestone’ development has more relevance to detonating a new generation of thermonuclear bombs than to saving the world from climate change. Despite the fact that there is no likelihood that fusion energy production to be scaled up in time to be deployed in the face of looming climate change, the media euphoria persists.
Like its counterpart in biological weapons research, NIF’s nuclear fusion research is characterized by the term ‘dual use,’ meaning its discoveries can be applied both defensively and offensively. It also means that ‘breakthroughs’ in one area of application is also a ‘breakthrough’ in the other. Hence the convenient ‘energy breakthrough’ cover-story, a psyop designed to make research on thermonuclear weapons of mass destruction look like a quest to save the world.
The High Church of Nukes Forever
Livermore Lab has long been widely regarded as a primary citadel of America’s Atomic Priesthood, adding to its quasi-religious mystique. In 1996, professed former anti-nuclear activist-turned anthropologist Hugh Gusterson published a book titled Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War. His ethnographic immersion in the Lab’s culture had given him a transformative ‘Come-to-Jesus’ conversion experience. His findings might be most succinctly expressed by the phrase, “self-described ‘nukies’ are really nice people, too.” See this.
Gustafson analyzed the ethics and politics of laboratory personnel, reverently describing their in-house customs and regimented behaviors and protocols as “rituals of initiation and transcendence.” His personal descriptions portrayed Livermore scientists coming to identify in an almost erotic or religious way with the power of the mass destruction devices they design and create – and which, he reported in a respectful tone, they do not fear.
Can you say the word “denial”?
According to Gustafson, many Lab employees are devout Christians motivated by high ideals who are personally disturbed by some fellow church members’ condemnation and opposition to their work. Apparently they daily ask themselves, ‘What kind of thermonuclear weapons of mass destruction would Jesus build?’
With the ‘value-free,’ cultural relativist attitude of the well-indoctrinated anthropologist, Gustafson found there to be many commonalities of idealistic motivation shared by the Lab’s ardent nukies and the protestors persistently demonstrating outside the facilities well-guarded gates.
In his research anthropologist Hugh Gusterson asked a senior Livermore Lab official about the purpose of the NIF’s laser program, the official responded, ‘It depends who I’m talking to… One moment it’s an energy program, the next it’s a weapons program. It just depends on the audience’.
That’s the ominous meaning of the term ‘dual use.’
Persistent Resistance at Livermore to a ‘New Nuclear Arms Race’
Livermore’s importance as a key hub in the U.S. thermonuclear weapons production complex has made it ground zero for yearly protests and teach-in rallies for decades, organized by Tri-Valley Cares, the Western States Legal Foundation, and others.
EON has documented many such events at Livermore on our YouTube Channel. A 2019 address by Danial Ellsberg, ‘Designing Armageddon,’ remains relevant today.
Triplets Joined at the Hip – The Commercial/Military/Radwaste Connection
As reported in previous articles (here & here), ever since the heady days of Atoms for Peace and the dream of ‘energy too cheap to meter,’ nuclear proponents have been at pains to pooh-pooh any necessary connection between commercial nuclear power and nuclear weapons production. However, nuclear power advocates like former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz have now reversed course and are currently arguing that a commercial nuclear power infrastructure and trained labor force are vital to the maintenance of America’s nuclear navy and its proudly published military doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance (FSD).
Moniz is the President and CEO of the Energy Futures Initiative. The EFI issued a 2017 report titled, The U.S. Nuclear Energy Enterprise: A Key National Security Enabler, making clear the joined-at-the-hip symbiosis of the nuclear power and weapons industries.
Moniz and the EFI are currently celebrating the nuclear-industry-friendly Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into law last month by President Biden.
All this is in the context of the looming threat of nuclear war resulting from the escalating NATO-Russia confrontation in Ukraine.
As the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) reports, “The IRA has an estimated $100 billion or more in provisions that fund and incentivize nuclear power. These provisions steal resources from real climate and environmental justice solutions and perpetuate the polluting, corrupt status quo. The entire nuclear fuel chain still relies on fossil fuels, contaminates communities across the country and around the world, and generates forever-deadly waste.” The NIRS analysis of the IRA is here.
A Self-Driving Nukes Race Has Begun
“Autonomous nuclear weapons introduce new risks of error and opportunities for bad actors to manipulate systems. Current AI is not only brittle; it’s easy to fool. A single pixel change is enough to convince an AI a stealth bomber is a dog.” – Zachary Kallenborn – Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Chatbots, Warbucks and Warbots
ChatGPT is being hyped as a cutting-edge new ‘helper bot’ by the Elon Musk-backed tech firm OpenAI. Sott.net reports that “Microsoft on Monday announced a new multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.”
According to the New York Post, “This superhuman tech can do a variety of complicated tasks on the fly, from composing complex dissertations on Thomas Locketo drafting interior design schemes and even allowing people to converse with their younger selves.”
Wow! Do you suppose this wondrous technology could maybe get weaponized with malicious intent?
You bet it can…And it is.
In 2021 Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Daniel Huttenlocher co-authored a book titled The Age of AI And Our Human Future. As you might expect, these guys are arch AI boosters. Critics pointed out that,
“Its title alone—The Age of AI: And Our Human Future—declares an epoch and aspires to speak on behalf of everyone. It presents AI as an entity, as superhuman, and as inevitable—while erasing a history of scholarship and critique of AI technologies that demonstrates their limits and inherent risks, the irreducible labor required to sustain them, and the financial incentives of tech companies that produce and profit from them.”
The reviewers objected that adoption of AI by the military is presented by the three authors as an inevitability, instead of as an active policy choice that involves ethical complexities and moral trade-offs.
Now, just months later, the war in Ukraine has brought those complexities and trade-offs to the front and center.
The Expose’ reports that, “On 30 June 2022, NATO announced it is creating a $1 billion innovation fund that will invest in early-stage start-ups and venture capital funds developing “priority” technologies such as artificial intelligence, big-data processing, and automation.”
The story by Rhoda Wilson also notes that “The US Department of Defense requested $874 million for artificial intelligence for 2022.” Of course European countries, China – and no doubt Russia – are rushing to keep up. Nuclear-armed countries in a warbot race puts the nuclear arms race on steroids. Multiple contending NukeBot forces – that can mistake a dog for a stealth bomber – making nano-second decisions based on a pixel. Armageddon Man has sprouted another head.
This new autonomous nukes race is a potential windfall for Big Tech giants like Peter Thiel’s Palantir, but also for aspiring newcomers to Silicon Valley.
She points out that, “Ultimately, the new era of military AI raises a slew of difficult ethical questions that we don’t have answers to yet.”
She interviews Kenneth Payne, who leads defense studies research at King’s College London and is the author of the book I, Warbot: The Dawn of Artificially Intelligent Conflict. He says that a key concept in designing AI weapons systems is that humans must always retain control. But Payne believes that will be impossible as the technology evolves.
“The whole point of an autonomous [system] is to allow it to make a decision faster and more accurately than a human could do and at a scale that a human can’t do,” he says. “You’re effectively hamstringing yourself if you say ‘No, we’re going to lawyer each and every decision.’”
If It’s AI, It’s Hackable – Self-Driving Nukes?
Award-winning reporter Eric Schlosser’s 2014 book Command and Control and the eponymous Oscar-shortlisted documentary based on it, directed by Robert Kenner, showed how the history of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is studded with examples of how both serious human error and courageous interventions by individual human intelligence have repeatedly risked and saved the world from thermonuclear destruction. That was then and this is now, when displacing humans with AI algorithms is under serious (and insane) consideration.
Mikko Hypponen is a Finnish global cyber security expert whose thirty-year career has coincided with the growth of the criminalization of the internet. In his recent book, If It’s Smart, It’s Vulnerable, he gives a flyover of the developmental stages of cybercrime from viruses, to worms, to malware, to ransomware, to Stuxnet and beyond.
“Question: How many of the Fortune 500 are hacked right now?
“Answer: 500”
That’s the way Hypponen sets up his basic contention from a lifetime of cyber security sleuthing: “If a company network is large enough, it will always have vulnerabilities, and there will always be something odd going on…” making it possible for the system’s security measures to be “…breached by attackers.”
With that as background, the prospect of giving AI warbots the codes to the world’s nuclear weapons arsenals is clearly just one more suicidal societal concession to Armageddon Man.
Up, Up and Away – Nukes in Space
Another key aspect of the U.S. military’s Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine is the growing belief in some circles that “space nuclear is going to be the future.”
That statement comes from Alex Gilbert, Director of Space & Planetary Regulation at the Washington, D.C.- based Zeno Power. Karl Grossman reports that, in an August 4th webinar of the American Nuclear Society, Gilbert announced, “we are at a unique moment. I call it a space opportunity.” He went on, ““we could actually see exponential growth. Right now the space economy is around $400 billion globally. By the middle of the century it could be $4 trillion.”
His view was echoed by Kate Kelly, director for Space and Emerging programs at the Lynchburg, Virginia-based company BWXT Advanced Technologies. Kelly said that the use of nuclear power in space has arrived at an “inflection point.” She explained, ““Over the last several years there’s been this re-emerging interest and investment by the government in fission systems for in-space power and propulsion.”
He wrote, “The entire US military empire is tied together using space technology. With military satellites in space the US can see virtually everything on the Earth, can intercept all communications on the planet, and can target virtually any place at any time. Russia and China understand that the US military goal is to achieve “full spectrum dominance” on behalf of corporate capital.
“Using new space technologies to coordinate and direct modern warfare also enables the military industrial complex to reap massive profits as it constructs the architecture for what the aerospace industry claims will be the “largest industrial project” in Earth history.”
A recent Space.com story says that NASA will join DARPA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO, pictured in the artist’s conception image above. NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said,
“NASA has a long history of collaborating with DARPA on projects that enable our respective missions, such as in-space servicing. Expanding our partnership to nuclear propulsion will help drive forward NASA’s goal to send humans to Mars…. DRACO will be a critical part of evaluating the technologies that will take us deeper into the solar system…. Our intent is to lead and develop a blueprint for human exploration and sustained presence throughout the solar system. That is a very important goal. And we think that these advanced technologies will be a critical part of it.”
So, it becomes clear that the over-arching context for the current nuclear revivalism craze is that commercial and military nuclearism are mutually co-dependent and, in fact, joined at the hip with radioactive waste production.
Nukes Forever Dreams that Will Not Die – the Hydra Heads of Armageddon Man
In addition to the persistently recurring, consistently unfulfilled fever dream – mentioned above – of sustainable and commercially scalable nuclear fusion, three other hopes spring forever in the hearts and minds of dedicated revivalists:
Useless Breeders
According to a 2019 Stanford University report on The Rise and Fall of Plutonium Breeder Reactors, the notion of a so-called “breeder reactor”- a plutonium‑fueled nuclear reactor that could produce more fuel than it consumed – is at least as old as the Manhattan Project.
Frank von Hippel, one of the report’s eight distinguished co-authors, explains that it “looks at the experience and status of breeder reactor programs inFrance, India, Japan, the Soviet Union/Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.” He notes that. “The problems described in the country case studies in the following chapters make it hard to dispute Admiral Hyman Rickover’s summation in 1956, based on his experience with a sodium-cooled reactor developed to power an early U.S. nuclear submarine, that such reactors are “expensive to build, complex to operate, susceptible to prolonged shutdown as a result of even minor malfunctions, and difficult and time-consuming to repair.”
The 2019 Stanford Report concludes:
“The breeder reactor dream is not dead but it has receded far into the future. In the 1970s, breeder advocates were predicting that the world would have thousands of breeder reactors operating by now. Today, they are predicting commercialization by approximately 2050. In the meantime, the world has to deal with the legacy of the dream; approximately 250 tons of separated weapon-usable plutonium and ongoing — although, in some cases struggling — reprocessing programs in France, India, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom….
“Although there are safety issues generic to liquid metal fast reactors, it does not appear that they were the predominant reasons for the demise of the breeder program in the United States. More important were proliferation concerns and a growing conviction that breeder reactors would not be needed or economically competitive with light-water reactors for decades, if ever. Under GNEP [Global Nuclear Energy Partnership], the DOE expressed renewed interest in fast reactors, initially as burner reactors to fission the actinides in the spent fuel of the light-water reactors. So far, the new designs are mostly paper studies, and the prospect of a strong effort to develop the burner reactors is at best uncertain. The Obama Administration has terminated the GNEP Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and efforts by DOE to move to near-term commercialization of fast reactors and the closed fuel cycle for transmutation of waste. As this report went to press, it was debating whether to even continue R&D on fast-neutron reactors. The economic and nonproliferation arguments against such reactors remain strong.”
Reprocessing
Another enduring Dumb Idea with contra-indications supplied by years of bitter experience is that of ‘reprocessing,’ an option the Union of Concerned Scientists dismisses as “Dangerous, Dirty and Expensive.”
They explain,
“Reprocessing is a series of chemical operations that separates plutonium and uranium from other nuclear waste contained in the used (or “spent”) fuel from nuclear power reactors. The separated plutonium can be used to fuel reactors, but also to make nuclear weapons. In the late 1970’s, the United States decided on nuclear non-proliferation grounds not to reprocess spent fuel from U.S. power reactors, but instead to directly dispose of it in a deep underground geologic repository where it would remain isolated from the environment for at least tens of thousands of years.
“While some supporters of a U.S. reprocessing program believe it would help solve the nuclear waste problem, reprocessing would not reduce the need for storage and disposal of radioactive waste. Worse, reprocessing would make it easier for terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons materials, and for nations to develop nuclear weapons programs.”
Proponents say that reprocessing used reactor fuel is vital to the growth of nuclear power because it would reduce waste that needs to be stored deep underground.
Sen. John McCain, a prominent supporter of nuclear reprocessing, pointed to France, where he said that reprocessing has been going on “for many, many years without any accidents or difficulties or problems.”
Yet behind the rhetoric are stark facts:
• A reprocessing facility would become a dump for the largest, most lethal source of high-heat radioactivity in the United States and possibly the world.
• Reprocessing does not significantly reduce the amount of radioactive waste that has to be buried.
• The cost of nuclear recycling rivals the recent bailout of Wall Street investment banks.
The first major problem with reprocessing is that it doesn’t come close to solving the challenge of nuclear waste. In fact, as a reprocessing facility chops and dissolves used fuel rods, it releases thousands of times more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear reactors and generates several dangerous waste streams. Denmark, Norway, and Ireland have sought the closure of reprocessing plants in France and Great Britain because of radioactive waste washing up on their shores. Just a few grams of waste would deliver lethal radiation doses in a matter of seconds in a crowded area.
The global small modular reactor market was valued at USD 9.54 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.6% during the forecast period. The low cost of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) on account of the modularization and factory construction, along with the growing interest in small and mid-sized reactors due to their ability to meet the need for power generation, is positively influencing the market.
According to Forbes, ‘smart’ investors from Bill Gates to Kris Singh to the governments of Canada and Alberta are in a mass murmuration swooping toward SMRs.
A May, 2022 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Lindsay Krall, Rodney Ewing and former NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane, titled Nuclear Waste from Small Modular Reactors agrees:
“Small modular reactors (SMRs), proposed as the future of nuclear energy, have purported cost and safety advantages over existing gigawatt-scale light water reactors (LWRs). However, few studies have assessed the implications of SMRs for the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The low-, intermediate-, and high-level waste stream characterization presented here reveals that SMRs will produce more voluminous and chemically/physically reactive waste than LWRs, which will impact options for the management and disposal of this waste. Although the analysis focuses on only three of dozens of proposed SMR designs, the intrinsically higher neutron leakage associated with SMRs suggests that most designs are inferior to LWRs with respect to the generation, management, and final disposal of key radionuclides in nuclear waste.”
Flockinng investors beware.
The Iron Law of Regulatory Capture
Commercial nuclear power’s role as ‘enabler’ of the nuclear weapons complex and America’s Nuclear Navy no doubt contributes to the friendly, even lax attitude toward its regulatory agencies over the years.
The take-over of state and federal regulatory agencies by the very industries they are mandated to manage is a well-documented phenomenon with its own extensive literature rife with explanatory models and theories about incentives, revolving-door officials and the seemingly endemic tendency to un-reformable corruption.
In 2006 Werner Troesken published a paper in a National Bureau of Economic Research publication ‘Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America’s Economic History’ entitled Regime Change and Corruption. A History of Public Utility Regulation. In it Troesken looked at the history of public utilities commissions and wondered why, despite both public and private attempts at reform, utility regulation seems always to lapse into corruption. Here’s how he describes his inquiry and its findings in what might be called Troesken’s Iron Law of PUC Corruption:
“First, corruption is endemic to public utility industries; corruption exists, in some form, across all regulatory and ownership regimes. Second, regime change in utility industries does not eliminate corruption; it only alters the type of corruption observed. Third, for any type of governance regime (e.g., state regulation or municipal ownership) corruption grows increasingly severe over time and, at some point, becomes politically untenable….” pg. 260
“Based on the historical evidence presented above it appears that corruption, and the necessity to eliminate corruption when it gets too costly, accounts for the efficacy of regime change. In this context, the direction of regime change—from public to private, or private to public—is of second-order importance. What matters is some radical reshuffling of the institutional matrix to disrupt the underlying corrupt relationships. Unfortunately, this disruption is only temporary, and gradually new forms of corruption emerge and must again be broken down by institutional change.” Pg. 278
The main attention of this field of scholarship is focused on so-called ‘natural monopolies’ like the giant investor owned utility corporations known by the ironically appropriate acronym IOUs.
The symbiotic relationship between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the nuclear IOUs it putatively ‘regulates’ is embodies in the way the agency is funded. A federal law passed in 1990 requires about 90 percent of the NRC’s budget to come from fees charged to those regulated by the agency. The NRC has a defined system of ‘fees’ that it charges IOUs for its ‘services,’ like on-site inspectors, or reviewing applications for license extensions or exemptions. The IOUs don’t pay those fees out of their profits, they pass them on to their ratepayers as an operating expense. So, in effect, the ‘regulatory agency,’ is dependent for its funding, not on Federal tax-payers for whose interests it is supposedly protecting, but to the private corporations whose actions it is supposedly rigorously regulating.
It is this symbiotic, co-dependent, shell-game system that makes the NRC’s relationships to the IOUs so murky and vulnerable to apparent compromise and corruption.
Personal examples come from years of reporting are the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the NRC.
In a nutshell, the pattern is – if a putative ‘regulatee’ finds it too expensive or inconvenient to comply with an existing regulation or law, then the regulator will change it or grant an exemption.
One person with a life-long career of witnessing this process is the late engineer, attorney, and author, S. David Freeman. In his long, contentious, and accomplished career Freeman headed a number of energy organizations, including the Tennessee Valley Authority, New York Power Authority, Sacramento Municipal Utility District and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). He holds the record for shutting down more power reactors than any other utility administrator.
One of his last accomplishments before his death in 2020 was to help negotiate a model agreement for the orderly shutdown of PG&E’s Diablo Canyon two reactor plant, an agreement now in the process of being abrogated by nuclear revivalists and a compliant NRC.
In a 2012 interview for our forthcoming documentary The San Onofre Syndrome, Mr. Freeman had this to say about the NRC: “I don’t think that it’s possible for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ever change its habits of being mainly a puppy dog rather than a watchdog. Because of the influence of the industry – as a matter of fact – you don’t get confirmed nowadays to be on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission unless you “believe” in nuclear power.”
Plus the nuclear industry provides 70% of the NRC’s budget.
The Elements of Cultism
As we have seen, the striking similarities of the quasi-religious nuclear culture mystique to various forms of true believer cultism have been obvious from the beginnings of what Hertzgaard dubbed the American Nuclear Brotherhood. Karl Grossman interviewed a number of nuclear safety advocates on the topic in a 2012 article titled The Nuclear Cult.
Some commonly cited sociological characteristics of cults include:
1. Authoritarian, doctrinaire leadership
2. Unquestioning compliance and obedience on the part of in-group members
3. Shared belief in a rigid orthodoxy or ideology
4. Claims of superior, expert knowledge – conviction of sharing knowledge of the ‘Real Scientific Facts’
5. Redoubling assertions of certainty in the face of undeniably contradictory events
6. Opposition to informed dissent and Independent thinking on the part of group members
7. Orchestrated peer and institutional pressures for enforcement of conformity
8. Expulsion, defamation and persecution of dissidents.
All of these behaviors can be observed in the nuclear revivalist community.
Revivalism’s Two Camps – Legacy & Neo-Nuclearists
The senior generation of post-Cold War nuclear proponents motivated by an ideology focused on national security and global competitiveness has now been joined by a younger generation, who are innocent of the energy-weapons connection. They’re motivated instead by the belief that – despite massive evidence to the contrary – nuclear energy is necessary to save the world from climate change. The same commitment to cultish orthodoxy still seems to obtain with this cohort, many of whom have grown up being constantly exposed to text books and curricular programs designed and supplied by the nuclear industry to portray nuclear energy as ‘clean, green, non-polluting and carbon-free,’ an egregiously false narrative that will be discussed below.
A 2021 New Yorker article titled The Activists Who Embrace Nuclear Power By Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow profiled three members of this new breed of revivalists. Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute is described as “a controversial figure, known for his pugilistic defense of nuclear power and his acerbic criticism of mainstream environmentalists,” i.e., those advocating for renewables.
After seeing Shellenberger featured in the pro-nuclear film ‘Pandora’s Promise,” and hearing him speak, two young women, Heather Hoff and Kristin Zaitz joined the fight to ‘Save Diablo Canyon’ and co-founded a small non-profit called Mothers for Nuclear, “which argues that nuclear power is an indispensable tool in the quest for a decarbonized society.”
The group’s cheery website features images of happy moms and their little kids and proclaims its aim of having “a dialogue with others who want to protect nature for future generations.”
Nuclear revivalism is no longer a cult exclusively for gray hairs.
Swept Under the Cognitive Carpet – The Unsolvable Becomes the UnSpeakable Becomes the Invisble
Left out of the new nukes and revivalist happytalk – except for standard Pollyanna reassurances – are the basically unsolvable problems of 1) Proliferation, 2) Pollution, 3) Permanent Waste Sequestration, and 4) Poisoning the DNA Pool of all the planet’s life forms. Call them the Four Poisonous P’s of the Plutonium (Pu) Economy.
1. Proliferation
The symbiotic co-dependence between nuclear energy and weapons production – long denied since Atoms for Peace days, but now, as discussed above, being employed as a rationale for nuclear revivalism – has never really been a secret. Ipso facto a nation with nuclear energy production capability is a potential nuclear weapons state. Add to this the fact, illustrated by recent events at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia complex, that every nuclear reactor and radioactive waste storage site are nuclear bombs-in-place waiting to be targeted by any adversary with access to conventional explosives or projectiles.
But add to this the currently notion being bandied about of ‘Usable or Low Yield Nuclear Weapons’. It was a concept introduced under the Trump Admistration in 2019, and remains in the Biden Administration’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and Beyond Nuclear report that,
In October, the Biden administration published its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), much later than expected. The delay was reportedly due to differences over significant aspects of US nuclear policy.
Biden’s stated position during his election campaign indicated that former President Trump’s new nuclear weapons would be abandoned, that reliance on nuclear weapons within US military strategy would be reduced, and that arms control would be revived.
He also indicated he would move towards a ‘no-first-use’ and ‘sole purpose’ policy for nuclear weapons; ‘sole purpose’ means that ‘deterring’ and responding to a nuclear attack would be the sole purpose of the US nuclear arsenal rather than the current nuclear posture which envisages its potential use against a range of threats, including an overwhelming cyber-attack.
The document falls far short of the hoped for changes. Trump’s submarine-launched cruise missile system is being cancelled, and the B83-1 gravity bomb is being retired, but Trump’s ‘usable’ nuke, the W76-2, is being retained, in spite of it being described as ‘unnecessary, wasteful and indefensible’ in the Democratic Party manifesto.
No-first-use and sole purpose have not been adopted, and full-scope ‘Triad’ replacement and other nuclear modernisation programmes are taking place.
Despite its Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations, the US seems once again to be leading the way to the normalization of … nuclear weapons proliferation.
2. Pollution
Out-of-sight and out-of-mind are the routine radioactive and toxic chemical emissions into surrounding air and aquatic environments involved in the normal day-to-day operation of all nuclear power plants. Giving the lie to claims of ‘clean, green, non-polluting and carbon-free’ is the fact that the entire nuclear cycle from mining and milling to supply chain transport to waste management are heavily carbon intensive.
With the exception of Arizona’s Palo Verde Generating Station – which uses treated sewer water from surrounding communities for cooling – nuclear power plants are uniformly located on rivers, lakes and oceans. Thousands of gallons of water from these sources are circulated daily through these plants for cooling and released back into the marine environments at much higher temperatures than when they went in. The harmful impact of these releases on aquatic life is extensively documented. Add to this the hundreds of radioactive contaminants – including radioactive Carbon-14 – being routinely spewed in gaseous forms into the atmosphere.
And then there’s the fog of tritium that surrounds each operating nuclear power plant. Dr. Ian Fairlie, a specialist on radiation in the environment, explains, “Nuclear facilities emit very large amounts of tritium, 3H, the radioactive isotope of hydrogen. Much evidence from cell/animal studies and radiation biology theory indicates that tritium is more hazardous than gamma rays and most X-rays.… Tritium’s exceptionally high molecular exchange rate with hydrogen atoms on adjacent molecules makes it extremely mobile in the environment. This plus the fact that the most common form of tritium is water, i.e., radioactive water, means that, when tritium is emitted from nuclear facilities, it rapidly contaminates all biota in adjacent areas. Tritium binds with organic matter to form organically bound tritium (OBT) with long residence times in tissues and organs making it more radiotoxic than tritiated water (HTO). Epidemiology studies indicate increases in cancers and congenital malformations near nuclear facilities. It is recommended that nuclear operators and scientists should be properly informed about tritium’s hazards; that tritium’s safety factors should be strengthened; and that a hazard scheme for common radionuclides be established.”
Indian Point and Pilgrim as a Case-in-Point – Decom and Radwaste Management as a ‘New Asset Class’ and Profit Sector…for Radwaste Vulture Capitalists
As aging reactors are shutdown at the end of their design lives and operating license agreements, they become the focus of what might be called “The Radioactive Demolition Derby.” All the components of the worn-out plant – both above ground and sub-surface infrastructures, most of them radioactive – must be carefully disassembled into manageable chunks of rubble in order to be carted away to ‘Somewhere Else.’
This effectively doubles the contaminated area, since it is impossible to ever completely remove all radioactive particles at the original site, despite industry assurances. Plus transporting the contaminated substances inevitably involves leakage and small particle disbursal along the way. By ‘diluting’ the percentage of intensely radioactive materials with less contaminated rubble, much the radioactive garbage is allowed to be dumped into regular municipal garbage dumps. This can create radioactive leachate into nearby streams and groundwater.
Radwaste Vulture Capitalists
Such a large-scale, long-term enterprise needs an industry of ambitious, risk-taking entrepreneurs. Create the need, and they will come. And indeed they have. Call them Radwaste Vulture Capitalists.
The leading emblematic poster child for this new breed is Kris Singh, CEO of his family-owned globe-spanning conglomerate operating under the broad corporate umbrella of Holtec International, a privately held company exempt from public financial disclosure.
The Holtec conglomerate consists of over 20 divisions, subsidiaries and trusts under Mr. Singh’s personal control, spanning across at least 8 countries from the U.S. to Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and Ukraine.
Two of Holtec’s many projects around the U.S. and the world is the decommissioning of the recently shuttered Indian Point and.Pilgrim nuclear plants – one on the Hudson, one on Cape Cod Bay.
The Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition (IPSEC) has assembled revealing company profiles for Holtec and its Canadian counterpart SLC-Lavalin. Holtec’s rap sheet includes convictions for bribery, tax fraud in at least two states, and a record of dubious manufacturing quality control, faulty reporting to the NRC, and multiple instances of labor abuse.
Singh’s vision seems not only to command a horizontal dominance of decommissioning and radwaste storage, from the manufacture of containers to the installation and operation of Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) at shutdown plants, to the construction and operation of Consolidated Interim Storage (CIS) facilities. It also aims to capture the market for manufacture of a proposed new generation of so-called Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).
The two key circumstances underlying Holtec’s decommissioning. business model are these:
Access to Huge Decommissioning Trust Funds
Each utility’s nuclear generating station has a Decommissioning Trust Fund (DTF) built up from required rate-payer contributions over the years of the plant’s operation.
These range from many millions of dollars to many billions for each nuclear power site.
The original intention behind the DTF was that, once the plant is shut down, the accumulated funds would be used to cover the costs demolishing the plant, disposing of the rubble (most of it radioactive), theoretically returning the site to ‘greenfield status’ safe for recreation, residential development and other uses. Any DTF monies left over at the end of this process would go back to the rate-payers.
Access to Federal Reimbursement for ‘Spent’ Nuclear Fuel Storage Fees
The other key background context element is that, according to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, electric utility companies that operate US nuclear reactors have contracts with the Department of Energy (DoE) for used reactor fuel management removal. DOE was to begin moving used reactor fuel from nuclear energy facilities beginning in 1998 to deep geological storage.
The one such site that was ever developed, Yucca Mountain in Nevada, was chosen for political reasons and terminated for scientific reasons after billions had been spent.
Since no geological repository exists, utilities must maintain the ‘stranded’ waste on-site, and have begun successfully suing the Federal government to recover the expenses involved. This is another taxpayer funded pot of money.
Enter the Holtec business model:
Secure the contract to to supply the components of the ISFSI – design, construction and management;
Secure the contract to decommission the plant;
Buy the plant;
Seek and receive various regulation exemptions from the NRC;
Pocket the left-over DTF monies, instead of returning them to the rate-payers;
If there are no DTF monies left over, have tax-payers pick up the tab;
Sue the DoD for storing the stranded SNF;
Establish and operate a Consolidated Interim Storage (CIS) facility;
Secure the contract to transport the stranded SNF to the Holtec CIS, using Holtec transport casks.
Possible intention to reprocess the ‘spent’ nuclear fuel
Just see how the money rolls in.
But, getting back to the Pollution issue, in the case of Indian Point and Pilgrim, there’s another problem: what do you do with the hundreds of gallons of toxic, hugely radioactive and tritiated water now contained in the plants’ fuel handling pools.
Holtec’s answer is – disregarding Ian Fairlie’s dire warning cited above – ‘dump it in the Hudson and Cape Cod Bay,’ never mind the impact to the drinking water supplies of seven near-by Hudson River communities, or to the sea life in Cape Cod’s marine sanctuary.
3. Seeking Sequestration – Deep Geological Depositories, Deep Boreholes & Deep Doo-Doo
The termination of Yucca Mountain – as noted, for scientific, not political reasons – has not dampened the enthusiasm of revivalists pushing to revive Yucca Mountain or some new counterpart. But it does point to wider and deeper problems with the very concept of long-term radiological containment by means of deep burial of any kind.
In addition to deep burial caverns containing many hundreds or thousands of waste containers simultaneously, the idea of sequestering waste containers in what are termed deep boreholes has recently gained popularity in some revivalist circles. These would be dispersed both on land and under sea in rock or ocean bottom mud.
Involved with all these concepts are many of what former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once famously termed ‘Unknown Unknowns’. Here is a short list of a few of what Rumsfeld might have called the ‘Known Unknowns’:
Short and long term seismic events and their outcomes are unknown
The rate and effects of heat build-up from multiple containers of thermally hot waste over time are unknown
The rate and effects of the build-up over time of hydrogen and other explosive gasses are unknown
The rate and extent of container corrosion and degradation over time are unknown
Long-lived robotic sensors for a wide range of potentially emitted elements do not exist and the possibility or rate of their development is unknown
Any means of preventing future generation from accidentally or intentionally accessing the deadly subterranean materials are unknown
Systems analyst Donna Gilmore, who operates SanOnofreSafety.org, cites multiple government reports to support her conclusion that, “any geological repository is not feasible in the short or long term.” She notes that, “The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board December 2017 report to Congress” states spent nuclear fuel waste needs to be monitored and maintained in dry storage in a manner to prevent hydrogen gas explosions for both short-term and long-term storage. This is not currently being done and cannot be done with the thin-wall welded canisters. It can only be done with thick-wall bolted lid casks, like those used in most of the world and at some US facilities. See here.
“This overview of the status of research and scientific evidence regarding the long-term underground disposal of highly radioactive wastes, shows there is no known safe permanent solution. [emphasis added] This review identifies a number of phenomena that could compromise the containment barriers, potentially leading to significant releases of radioactivity:
▪ Copper or steel canisters and overpacks containing spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive wastes could corrode more quickly than expected.
▪ The effects of intense heat generated by radioactive decay, and of chemical and physical disturbance due to corrosion, gas generation and biomineralisation, could impair the ability of backfill material to trap some radionuclides.
▪ Build-up of gas pressure in the repository, as a result of the corrosion of metals and/or the degradation of organic material, could damage the barriers and force fast routes for radionuclide escape through crystalline rock fractures or clay rock pores.
▪ Poorly understood chemical effects, such as the formation of colloids, could speed up the transport of some of the more radiotoxic elements such as plutonium.
▪ Unidentified fractures and faults, or poor understanding of how water and gas will flow through fractures and faults, could lead to the release of radionuclides in groundwater much faster than expected.
▪ Excavation of the repository will damage adjacent zones of rock and could there by create fast routes for radionuclide escape.
▪ Future generations, seeking underground resources or storage facilities, might accidentally dig a shaft into the rock around the repository or a well into contaminated groundwater above it.
▪ Future glaciations could cause faulting of the rock, rupture of containers and penetration of surface waters or permafrost to the repository depth, leading to failure of the barriers and faster dissolution of the waste.
▪ Earthquakes could damage containers, backfill and the rock.”
It looks like the Yellow Brick Road to deep disposal / abandonment is littered with deep sinkholes – not to mention the transportation issues involved in thousands of shipments of deadly radioactive materials traveling over ill-maintained roads, rails and bridges. Barges subject to storms, running aground and capsizing are also proposed for moving these lethal loads.
Ergo: Store it where it is at reactor sites in the safest, most robust, state-of-the-art containment systems now available.
4. DNA and Environmental Damage
Massive contamination from uranium mining and nuclear energy and weapons production has already irreversibly affected the planetary environment, and the gene pools of humans and all other species. Before the Comprehensive Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, in Moscow August 5, 1963, nuclear nations had already contaminated the terrestrial and near-space environment with 528 atmospheric atomic test explosions, at least one in the Van Allen Radiation Belt surrounding the earth. 1,528 subsequent underground nuclear blasts have also vented radioactive material into the atmosphere and left radioactive contamination in the soil. According to the Arms Control Association, a total of 2,056 test of all sorts have been conducted. Most directly impacted have been indigenous populations around the world, but the entire global population continues to be affected.
Graphic: Arms Control Association
No Permanent ‘Disposal’ Solution Exists
Permanent disposal of waste that remains lethal to all living things for longer than civilization has yet existed, is a challenge still unmet despite over half a century of failed attempts and empty promises. Given unpredictable earth movement, the mobility of water and the inevitable heat build-up from densely concentrated containers of highly radioactive, the thousands of tons of thermally and radioactively hot ‘spent fuel’ from just a few decades of reactor operation cannot be safely or permanently ‘disposed’ of with current technology.
The dream of deep permanent geological burial and abandonment has so far proven unworkable, and is likely to continue proving so. In the U.S., although the Department of Energy has promised to take title and possession of this waste, no central Federal storage site yet exists, nor is any on the horizon.
Thousands of tons of deadly radioactive waste from nuclear power plants are ‘stranded’ and unsafely stored in thin, corrosion cracking-prone steel canisters at least 85 U.S. reactor sites around the country. 92 operating U.S. reactors generate 2,000 tons more waste each year.
The Best Available Approach
The best available approach seems to be components of what the Swiss and Germans are doing. They use highly expensive construction designed to last over a hundred years: reinforced buildings with controlled-environments in which waste is stored in thick walled, robust monitorable, moveable and repairable casks.
Also required at each site is a so-called dry or hot cell, a hermetically sealed facility in which damaged casks can be repaired or the waste repackaged remotely and robotically. These ‘hot cells’ are necessay because nuclear power ‘spent’ fuel assemblies are lethal to humans and exposure to oxygen must be prevented to avoid combustion and explosion.
‘Dry’ or ‘Hot’ Cell facilities make possible the remote handling of highly radioactive materials in a sealed environment, making repackaging of waste possible. – Archive photo.
The hope for transgenerational, on-going maintenance of these types of facilities – requiring the necessary commitment, know-how and resources – is termed by advocates Rolling Stewardship. This method passes on to future generations the existentially necessary burden of dealing with the lethal legacy of just a few decades of nuclear energy production.
“Nuclear waste remains harmful for unimaginably long periods of time. Until the waste can be eliminated, it must be managed on a multigenerational basis. This implies continual monitoring and periodic retrieval and repackaging (e.g. 50 – 100 years). Rolling Stewardship implies persistence of memory : the accurate transmission of information and the transfer of responsibility from one generation to the next. For example, there could be a ceremonial “changing of the guard” every 20 years, accompanied by a thorough refamiliarization with & recharacterization of the waste.
“Rolling Stewardship will ensure that leakages can be rapidly detected and corrected. It will also provide a constant incentive to improve containment and find a solution to the waste problem. But it requires meticulous planning and commitment to succeed.
“The concepts of abandonment and disposal are intimately related. According to the IAEA “disposal” means that there is no intention to retrieve the waste in the future – although such retrieval may, with difficulty, be possible; the waste is abandoned.”
Such an ethic of long-term responsibility is absent from the mutually convolved ideologies of the two enmeshed cults and cultures we have been discussing.
Two Cults are More Powerful Than One
The same cultish behaviors itemized above in reference to nuclear revival true believers can also be observed in the behavior of members of the First Church of Permanent War for Perpetual Profit.
These two symbiotic, co-dependent, mutually intertwined cults and cultures – War Heads and Reactor Heads – are making the most of their historical moments of dominance.
Call this two-headed monster the Military-Nuclear Matrix – call them together, Armageddon Man.
The hope of this essay is that once made visible, this pernicious entity cannot go back to being unseen, and therefor unopposed, by what Eisenhower once hopefully called “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry.”
This monstrous governance model is, in fact, being challenged by at least two contesting paradigms: the transhumanist, technocratic, Great Reset corporate-centric model being promulgated by the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the decentralized, We the People-centric, deep democracy, high diversity, planetarian paradigm beginning to rise from the grass roots.
But that’s a subject for future posts.
A Parting Message from a Man Who Knew Whereof He Spoke
In the interview referenced above, the late David Freeman referred to his experiences as head of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and, later in his long career, of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). It seems appropriate to close with his wise words.
“My first exposure to nuclear power as an executive was back then [at the TVA], and I found that in order to make even the NRC’s safety standards, they just cost too much, and we were better off with conservation, and we had a huge energy efficiency program that was cheaper and quicker and far cleaner than nuclear power.
“Then I [later] moved on to manage the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMID), and the people voted to shut down the nuclear reactor there. I had the job of burying the plant. It supplied fifty percent of SMUD’s power supply, and we were able to replace it without rate increases, and Sacramento was now one of the better utilities in the country -reasonable rates, and life was a whole lot better after nuclear power.
“But the thing that really changed my mind was when I visited Chernobyl five years after the accident in 1991, and I saw a monument with the name of villagers on it that were dead.
“I went out there and talked to a few people that were still hanging around, and when I talked to them about the possibility of solar power, they actually cried with joy that there was an alternative. And I met the mothers of the poor kids that were marching around on May Day, five days after the accident and were exposed because the Soviets didn’t tell them about it, and I realized that this was a monster.
“And so today I feel that we got the final wake-up call at Fukushima and that we need to phase out and shut down the 104 [now 92] reactors in America.
“I will put it very bluntly: We need to kill them before they kill us.”
The Denuclearization Three-Step – A Vision
1. Phase out and shutdown all nuclear reactors, including those powering all of the the world’s Nuclear Navies.
2. Outlaw production and possession of thermonuclear weapons and propulsion technologies on earth, under sea, and in space.
3. Require by enforceable international treaty agreement the containment of existing radioactive waste with the best available state-of-the-art-methods, and prohibit the production of any more.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish….” – Proverbs 29:18-27
“The longest journey begins with a single step” – Laozi, DaoDeJing, Chapter 64
An action you can take to stop Armageddon Man:
The Doomsday Clock has ticked 10 seconds closer to midnight. Send an email NOW…
Thank you for your January 23, 2023 MEMORANDUM. I am submitting a limited appearance statement in order to make the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board aware of my concerns at issue in the subject proceeding.
Then write your comments, sign off with /s/ before your name, and send ASAP.
Thank you for your solidarity & for getting in the way of the bomb ~~ ECAN & APEC (Appalachian Peace Education Center’s Peaceful Planet Committee)
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First published by Global Research on February 17, 2023
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There is reason to be alarmed by the recent China balloon. However, that reason is not the alleged China aggression but the very calculated aggression towards China by the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. This hate and the manufactured reasons for it have been layering on for years. We’ve seen this playbook. It’s the same game plan that led us to the war on Iraq.
The U.S. is trying to contain and control China’s growth as a world power by using its military and economic powers. Just as it wanted to control the oil in the middle east.
There are 4 main reasons why the U.S. is doing this:
First, it wants to prevent China from becoming an economic superpower that could rival America;
Second, it wants the Asian market for itself at any cost;
Third, it wants to exacerbate tensions between other countries that have disputes with China over resources in order to isolate Beijing on all sides;
Fourth, it believes that such actions will increase American influence over Southeast Asia as well as its political leverage against Russia and Iran.
In other words, the U.S. wants to dominate the whole world even if that means burning it down to its core.
So how do you go to war with a country that is not an eminent threat to our nation’s safety and security? Enter the Chinese “spy” balloon. Before the words “chinese spy balloon” ever became a known phrase in every American household, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had plans to travel to China to meet with his counterpart, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang. The meeting would have been a diplomatic approach to resolving issues between the two countries and could have been the beginning of working towards cooperation. It also would have been in line with Biden’s promise to Xi in November that we would “keep the lines of communication open.” That was until a high altitude balloon from China drifted into U.S airspace last week.
Suddenly a relatively harmless balloon from China became the latest small cache of weapons becoming earth-dooming weapons of mass destruction. Regardless of the fact that balloons have accidentally entered US airspace before or that it happened three times during the Trump administration, the Pentagon created mass hype and hysteria in this newest attempt to manufacture consent. In fact, just last year during the Biden administration, a balloon crashed near Hawaii without making a splash. This balloon turned into a spectacle because the U.S. is relentless in its aim to ramp up aggression towards China. Those drums don’t beat themselves.
This is evidenced by Blicken’s immediate response by canceling his diplomatic trip to Beijing; essentially closing the lines for diplomacy. Meanwhile during the State of the Union Address on Tuesday, President Biden made reference to the balloon by vowing to protect the US “sovereignty.” He called out Xi by name, “Name me one world leader who’d change places with Xi Jinping. Name me one!” yelling out a threat against a world leader on national television amidst the roaring drums.
Biden and Congress are using the idea of competition with China as a thinly painted veil for what they really want – war. A war they have been setting up for years.
Over the past decade, the United States has increased its military presence in the Pacific at an alarming rate.
The U.S. military has acquired access to four new bases in the Philippines, and increased its presence in Southeast Asia by half-a-million troops since 2002. However, the increased military presence doesn’t just stop and end with the Philippines. On January 1, 2020, U.S. Marine Corps opened a new base in Guam to monitor and conduct military operations in the South China Sea. This new base came to much of the dismay of the locals.
Having a base there means that the United States has more power to control China’s maritime rights under international law. In addition, there are also rumors that this new military base will be used as a “military outpost” against China by the U.S., so that they can more easily attack Chinese territory.
Then on November 29, 2022, the USS Chancellorsville sailed into the South China Sea without permission of the Chinese government. The move was seen as a provocation by many experts, who believe that it may bring about a military conflict between China and the United States. Notably its last participation in a war was when the United States illegally invaded Iraq after lying and misleading the public. Today, it is one of the most advanced warships in America’s arsenal. Sailing the USS Chancellorsville into the South China Sea was a clear threat to China and an act of provocation by the United States.
If that alone is not enough to convince you of major U.S. aggression towards China, then just listen to the words of General Mike Miniha, general in the United States Air Force, who wrote in a leaked memo “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.” That memo that was leaked to NBC News. There is no indication whatsoever that China wants a war with the United States or any other country. Likewise, Admiral John Aquilino, recently warned the Senate Armed Services Committee that China invading Taiwan is “much closer to us than most think.” All of these are eerily similar to the bloodlust U.S. military leaders expressed prior to their war of deceit in Iraq.
It is clear that U.S. aggression towards China is calculated and deliberate. The United States has been trying to contain China since the end of World War II, but its efforts have intensified over the past few years as China has become more powerful on the global stage. Our government’s reckless rhetoric towards Beijing shows that Washington will not hesitate to use military force against China if they can manufacture enough consent to make it seem necessary–even though such an action would cause catastrophic consequences for both nations’ economies as well as international stability in the Asia Pacific region. We’ve heard this same drum beat before. We cannot allow murder of millions of people to happen again under the name of American imperialism.
We cannot go to war over greed. We must push for cooperation over competition. It is up to us to stop this escalation now, for the safety and security of all people and the planet.
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Melissa Garriga is the communications and media analysis manager for CODEPINK. She writes about the intersection of militarism and the human cost of war.
Siamo non al primo ma al nono anniversario della guerra in Ucraina, scatenata nel febbraio 2014 con il colpo di stato sotto regia USA-NATO. Parlando da Varsavia, il presidente Biden promette di “essere a fianco del presidente Zelensky qualunque cosa accada”. Gli fa eco la presidente Meloni che, capovolgendo la posizione assunta nel 2014, assicura a Zelensky che “l’Italia sarà con voi sino alla fine”. Dichiarazioni inquietanti, data la reale possibilità che il conflitto sfoci in una guerra nucleare, che costituirebbe la fine non solo dell’Europa ma del mondo. L’Ucraina è in grado di produrre armi nucleari e sicuramente, a Kiev, c’è chi persegue tale piano.
Lo conferma il New York Times: “L’Ucraina ha rinunciato a un gigantesco arsenale nucleare 30 anni fa. Oggi ci sono rimpianti”. Con la disgregazione dell’URSS nel 1991, l’Ucraina si è trovata in possesso del terzo arsenale nucleare più grande del mondo: circa 5.000 armi strategiche e tattiche. Sono state rimosse negli anni Novanta in base ad accordi tra Stati Uniti, Russia e Ucraina. Non è stata però rimossa la capacità tecnologica acquisita dall’Ucraina nel campo nucleare militare durante il confronto USA-URSS.
“L’Ucraina – avverte il presidente Putin – intende creare proprie armi nucleari, e non si tratta di un semplice vanto. L’acquisizione di armi nucleari sarà molto più facile per l’Ucraina rispetto ad altri Stati, che stanno conducendo tali ricerche, soprattutto se Kiev riceverà un supporto tecnologico straniero. Non possiamo escludere questo. Se l’Ucraina acquisisce armi di distruzione di massa, la situazione nel mondo e in Europa cambierà drasticamente”
In quali mani sarebbero le armi nucleari ucraine, lo conferma il fatto che Zelenskyy ha appena conferito alla 10ª Brigata d’assalto ucraina “il titolo d’onore Edelweiss”: lo stesso nome e simbolo di una delle più feroci Divisioni naziste. la 1ª Divisione Edelweiss, che nel 1943 massacrò a Cefalonia oltre 5 mila soldati italiani che si erano arresi.
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Protests are unfolding against inflation, rising energy prices and the collapse of social services.
French farmers continued their protest by dumping manure on police vans in Nîmes.
Their message is simple: “LET US WORK”
Meanwhile, protests against pension reform took place all over the country.
And there are queues for food at food banks in France, Italy and Spain.
Video
It’s a Worldwide Process of Engineered Impoverishment
Debt is the driving force which is leading the entire planet into mass poverty.
Families Worldwide are unable to “make ends meet”, to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage, to pay their monthly gas and electricity bills.
In the words of Klaus Schwab: “Own nothing, be happy”.
What is required is real “regime change” (by the people) supported by a broad-based grassroots network which confronts both the governments as well as the architects of this economic and social crisis, which from the outset in early 2020 have been involved in fraud, fake science and corruption.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
