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Guest is Florian Schilling, Scientific director of a company near Munich, which produces natural manufactures. He is a naturopath and former project manager at the Bumrungrad International Hospital Bangkok: Research projects in the field of Transnational Science.

This session is about the immune escape in mRNA-injected individuals. Why the “vaccination” campaigns won’t work and the vaccinated will never achieve full immunity again – and herd immunity is thus permanently “history”.

• On the updated “vaccines” – what to think and expect from them.
• Outlook for the situation in the fall, what the politicians are planning and how one can prepare oneself in the best possible way.

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

“Back Door Oil Sales”, Washington Is Furious. It Can’t Stop a Prospective Russian-Iranian Oil Swap Deal

By Andrew Korybko, August 27, 2022

The Russian and Iranian economies will mutually benefit by selling discounted resources on the global market while countries like India will accelerate their rise as multipolar Great Powers through the purchase of these exports. Their trilateral axis will continue becoming a force to be reckoned with, especially if the first two coordinate their natural gas activities seeing as how they account for the largest such reserves in the world.

America Imported Over $6 Billion in Goods From Russia Since Ukraine Invasion

By Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter, August 29, 2022

In response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, US President Joe Biden vowed to isolate and “cripple” the Russian economy. However, Moscow has been able to maintain its economic strength, in part by exporting over $1 billion per month in wood, metals, food and other goods to the US.

Falling Military Recruitment Is Another Sign of Waning Faith in the Regime

By Ryan McMaken, August 29, 2022

The US Army reports it is having some serious problems when it comes to recruiting new soldiers. Last month, according to the AP: “Army officials … said the service will fall about 10,000 soldiers short of its planned end strength for this fiscal year, and prospects for next year are grimmer.”

Three Major Attacks in Syria in 24 Hours

By Steven Sahiounie, August 29, 2022

On August 24, the US military in Syria carried out a retaliatory airstrike on a militia that the US claims previously attacked the Al Tanf base on August 15. US F-15 and F-16 jets dropped guided bombs on nine ammunition and storage bunkers in Ayyash, near Deir al-Zour in the early hours of Wednesday; however, the militia may not have been responsible for the August 15 attack.

Ukraine Uses NATO Ammunition in Attacks on Nuclear Power Station. Dangers of Radioactive Leaks

By Ana Luisa Brown, August 28, 2022

Representatives of the civil-military administration of the Zaporozhie region denounced today that Ukrainian troops use artillery with NATO ammunition in attacks on the Energodar nuclear power plant.

Censorship, Big Tech, and Psychological Warfare

By Mark Taliano, August 27, 2022

Right now beneath the sunny blue skies and seeming normalcy, genocide is occurring globally. The experimental mRNA injections are bioweapons disguised as vaccines. They are neither safe nor effective. Some of the jabs may be placebos, some batches may be  worse than others and, fortunately, not all will be adversely affected to the same degree.

NATO’s Article 4 and Article 5 Jeopardize American Sovereignty at the Norfolk Naval Base

By Renee Parsons, August 27, 2022

As if the US contribution of  “roughly” 75% of NATO’s budget was not enough of a gift, the American public and much of Congress have remained oblivious to collaborators within the US government who have relinquished the Norfolk Naval Station to NATO forces.   With its military forces led by a NATO Supreme Allied Commander at Norfolk’s Joint Warfare Centre and hundreds of new nation member resident-families, NATO has its roots firmly ensconced at the Norfolk facility since at least 2020.  

Amnesty’s Report on Violations Committed by Ukraine Military Directed against Civilians. Storm of Media Criticism

By Marc Vandepitte, August 27, 2022

There has been a lot of buzz about Amnesty International’s recent report on the violations committed by the Ukrainian military in the war with Russia, although this was a balanced and cautious report indeed. The attacks against this human rights organization are far from innocent. Background and interpretation of this issue.

US Pressures Japan to Cancel Constitution’s Peace-Clause. China and Japan Must Thus Finally Agree Now, to Avoid a War.

By Eric Zuesse, August 26, 2022

America especially wants Japan to invade China when and if China invades (so as to retake control over) the “Republic of China”, which is China’s province of Taiwan, which province Japan had conquered from China in 1895, and which province the United States Government in 1945 forced Japan to return to China, as part of Japan’s WW II surrender, which today’s U.S. Government now wants to reverse, so that China can now become captured by America as Japan was captured in 1945.

US Pressures India to Imitate Europe’s “Self-sabotaging Energy Policy”

By Ahmed Adel, August 26, 2022

Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar confidently boasted recently that the world has accepted India’s energy policy and bilateral relations with Russia. Jaishankar’s statement prompted US State Department spokesperson Ned Price to say that it is going to be a long-term proposition for New Delhi to reorient foreign policy away from Moscow – but despite the QUAD alliance, India is unlikely to abandon its relations with Russia.

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In response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, US President Joe Biden vowed to isolate and “cripple” the Russian economy. However, Moscow has been able to maintain its economic strength, in part by exporting over $1 billion per month in wood, metals, food and other goods to the US. 

More than 3,600 ships from Russia have arrived at US ports since February 24, according to statistics cited by the Associated Press. While that is nearly half of the shipments over the same period compared to last year, it still amounts to over $6 billion in imports.

The number of Russian products entering US ports suggests Biden is falling short of his pledge to isolate Moscow’s economy. Due to so-called “wind down” periods that allow companies to complete previous deals, some of the goods continue to enter the country long after the White House announced sanctions on those products, including oil and gas. Paradoxically, other Russian imports, such as fertilizer, came at the request of the Biden administration, which has urged American companies to make up for shortages.

And while the White House has seized several luxury yachts owned by rich Russians with loose ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the AP found that American and European firms are importing millions of dollars in metal from a Russian company that makes parts for Moscow’s fighter jets, highlighting another odd discrepancy in Biden’s sanctions campaign.

Despite diplomatic pressure from Washington, other American allies are increasing their economic ties with Russia. Turkey – a NATO member – has doubled its imports of Russian oil this year.

During Biden’s presidency, he has taken several steps to strengthen ties with New Delhi, with American troops currently engaged in war games with India on the Chinese border. But like Ankara, the country has similarly significantly increased energy imports from Moscow. The Indian rupee has also become a major currency for the diamond trade, allowing buyers to bypass US sanctions.

Though the Western economic war was meant to negate Moscow’s military might and bring it to the negotiation table, it has so far seen little success. With Russian energy exports topping pre-war levels in recent months and the ruble rallying against the dollar, Russia’s economy appears to have fared far better than much of Europe since fighting erupted last winter.

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Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com and news editor of the Libertarian Institute.

Will Porter is the assistant news editor of the Libertarian Insitute and a staff writer at RT. Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter host Conflicts of Interest along with Connor Freeman.

Featured image is from The Libertarian Institute

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).

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***

The US Army reports it is having some serious problems when it comes to recruiting new soldiers. Last month, according to the AP: “Army officials … said the service will fall about 10,000 soldiers short of its planned end strength for this fiscal year, and prospects for next year are grimmer.”

The army is not alone in missing recruitment goals:

Senior Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps leaders have said they are hopeful they will meet or just slightly miss their recruiting goals for this year. But they said they will have to dip into their pool of delayed entry applicants, which will put them behind as they begin the next recruiting year.

In fact, recruitment prospects are so grim that 2022 is looking to be the worst recruiting year for the army since 1973, when the US military transitioned to an all-volunteer—i.e., nonconscripted—force. The days of the post-9/11 surge in enlistments are long gone, and noted for two lost wars in recent years, the US military now faces a new environment of declining public support. Moreover, with its recent drive to showcase its commitment to so-called woke policy goals, the military may be alienating conservatives—a group that has long been a reliable source of recruits and political support.

Ultimately, of course, the military can always get more troops by raising pay and lowering standards. The latter requires only a policy change. And, given the federal government’s ability to essentially print money, the former is unlikely to be an insurmountable problem for the Pentagon either.

The good news, however, is that the military’s recruiting woes are likely yet another signal of declining support for the federal government and its institutions. The federal government has benefited immensely from the fact that the military has long been one of the most popular institutions within the central government. Even as many Americans claim they distrust the government or oppose “the bureaucracy,” widespread support for the government military bureaucracy has long helped to prop up the legitimacy of federal institutions. If falling enlistments are an indication of declining faith in the military overall, that would be a positive development, indeed.

The Economics of Recruitment

As has often been the case in the past, the military is now struggling to find enough willing recruits in an environment of low unemployment. After all, many recruits are motivated at least in part by promises of steady income, veterans’ benefits, and tuition reimbursement. These benefits look relatively less attractive when private-sector jobs are easy to find.

As a result, the military has been “throwing cash” at the problem. All the services are now “leaning on record-level enlistment and retention bonuses” to attract recruits, with higher bonuses for riskier or more skill-intensive work.

Military recruiting efforts, however, have long sought to “subsidize” salaries by promising psychic profits in the form of positive emotions obtained by fulfilling one’s supposed patriotic duty. Another benefit suggested by recruiters has been an alleged opportunity for “adventure.” Historically, recruitment efforts have relied on promising a variety of nonmonetary forms of “payment.”

In their analysis of military recruitment efforts, Peter Padilla and Mary Riege Laner identified at least four different types of benefits promised to potential recruits. These include patriotism, adventure/challenge, job/career/education, social status, and money. Emphasis has differed based on social trends (such as the prevalence of antiwar sentiment) and, of course, on the personal preferences of individual recruits.

The military, in any case, has recognized the need to appeal to all these aspects to meet recruitment goals. Even when military pay is generous, it is still necessary to get potential recruits to accept a job in which one cannot legally quit. Moreover, if a large number of potential recruits view the military as pursuing values and goals contrary to their own, monetary rewards would have to be raised quite high to overcome nonmonetary concerns.

Another strategy that can increase recruitment is to lower (or change) standards for new recruits. This has been done in various ways. For example, as tattoos have become more fashionable among middle-class youth, the military has granted many more waivers. The Air Force is now considering allowing members to grow beards. These changes, however, are based largely on appearance. Broader changes that would qualify as truly lowering standards include efforts to lower physical fitness requirements for women, older members, and marijuana users. For more than a decade now, the army has also been accepting more and more recruits with lower scores on aptitude tests and with no high school diploma.

Of course, there is no “correct” number of employees for the armed forces, and there is no functioning marketplace in the provision of “defense.” The size of the US military is arbitrarily determined by Congress and the White House based on political interests and goals. The military is nonetheless partly constrained by market realities, and by the subjective values of potential workers.

Support for the Military Is Falling

All else being equal, however, falling enlistment is evidence that workers are less interested in serving in the military outside mere economic considerations. This is reflected in the survey data suggesting that the military’s reputation among members of the general public has declined significantly.

For example, as the Military Times reported last year, “About 56 percent of Americans surveyed said they have ‘a great deal of trust and confidence’ in the military, down from 70 percent in 2018.” Moreover, according to Gallup, the percentage of Americans who believe that military officers “have high ethics” dropped 10 percent from 2017 to 2021.

As has long been the case, the military remains among the more trusted institutions in the US, but, as even the relentless promilitary Heritage Foundation admits:

A more candid appraisal, however, would see this for what it is: a vote of declining confidence by America in its oldest and heretofore most trusted institution.

More worrisome still—from the Pentagon’s perspective—is that much of this decline is coming from a drop in conservative and Republican support. Gallup reports that in its survey, military officers’ “image among the GOP is now the lowest Gallup has recorded since the first reading, in 2002, a period spanning Republican and Democratic presidencies.”

Moreover, political rhetoric among many conservatives has decidedly turned against the Pentagon. This was noted last year in Foreign Policy:

The long Republican romance with the military appears to have finally come to an end. And as conservative politicians and pundits have put the U.S. military—and especially the top brass—in their cross hairs, their supporters and listeners have taken note. The consequences for the U.S. military could be dire.

Part of this is apparently due to the growing feeling among conservatives that military bureaucracy has committed itself to so-called woke politics. From Tucker Carlson to Ted Cruz to Sabastian Gorka, conservatives apparently are not nearly as enamored with the US military establishment as they once were. As Tucker Carlson complained back in May:

Most of the generals we see quoted in the press seem more committed to meeting some counterproductive diversity goal—hiring more pregnant Air Force pilots, assembling the world’s first transgender SEAL team—than on defending the United States.

The Effect on Enlistments

These trends among historical supporters of the military may be finally showing up in recruitment realities. It’s difficult to directly measure the ideological leanings of new recruits. After all, enlistment forms don’t ask for one’s political and ideological beliefs. But we can indirectly make some guesses about who is joining the military based on where most of the recruits are coming from. For example, as the New York Times reported in 2018, military recruiters rely heavily on new recruits from the nation’s most politically conservative region—the South—to meet recruiting goals:

In 2019, Fayetteville, N.C., which is home to Fort Bragg, provided more than twice as many military enlistment contracts as Manhattan, even though Manhattan has eight times as many people. Many of the new contracts in Fayetteville were soldiers signing up for second and third enlistments…. Military service was once spread fairly evenly—at least geographically—throughout the nation because of the draft. But after the draft ended in 1973, enlistments shifted steadily south of the Mason-Dixon line. The military’s decision to close many bases in Northern states where long winters limited training only hastened the trend.

The significance of geography for new recruits can also be seen in the fact that politically conservative regions also tend to grant military recruiters better access to local schools. As school districts in many left-leaning urban areas restricted recruiters’ access to high school students in recent years, this has further increased the reliance on recruits from promilitary suburbs, exurbs, and rural towns. These are areas that tend to be more politically conservative. Moreover, new recruits lopsidedly come from families with a history of military service. While the extent to which military personnel support Republicans has been overstated, the military does nonetheless lean conservative. All this would suggest that new recruits come both from households and regions that lean conservative themselves.

In other words, the military has becoming increasingly reliant on a dwindling number of communities and families. The military brass admits this model is not sustainable.

The larger issue here is not whether or not the military can meet recruitment goals without big changes to current standards and pay. After all, if the economy continues to weaken and unemployment rises, this could bail out recruiters in a big way. Rather, the enlistment situation helps to illustrate what may be a developing and hopeful trend in which many conservatives are finally abandoning their long love affair with the US regime through its military institutions.

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Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and Power and Market, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in public policy and international relations from the University of Colorado. He was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

Featured image is from Mises Wire

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***

On August 24, the US military in Syria carried out a retaliatory airstrike on a militia that the US claims previously attacked the Al Tanf base on August 15. 

US F-15 and F-16 jets dropped guided bombs on nine ammunition and storage bunkers in Ayyash, near Deir al-Zour in the early hours of Wednesday; however, the militia may not have been responsible for the August 15 attack.

The Al Tanf base is an illegal US military base in southeast Syria established in 2016, on the Damascus to Baghdad highway, near the borders of Iraq and Jordan. The US military invaded Syria in 2015 while fighting ISIS. Despite ISIS being defeated in 2019, the US occupation forces have never left Syria.

ISIS did invade Syria and caused a great deal of death and destruction; however, the US and their Kurdish allies were not responsible for the defeat of ISIS.  The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is the national army in Syria and is comprised of hundreds of thousands of Syrians, as it is a compulsory service for every Syrian male over the age of 18, who is not enrolled in a University.  On the ground as well as the Russian army and air force base in Syria.  A few thousand US troops and their Kurdish militia, the SDF, played a small part in the defeat of ISIS in Syria as compared with the Syrian and Russian armies.

On August 15, the Al Tanf base was attacked by drones, but according to US Central Command, caused no casualties and no damage. The US has stated the recovered drone parts lead them to believe it was an Iranian-backed militia in Syria who carried out the attack.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, issued a statement denying Iran had any link to the groups the US has blamed.

Major General John Brennan, the commander of the Combined Joint Task Force, associated with Operation Inherent Resolve, said, “Coalition personnel retains the right to self-defense, and we will take appropriate measures to protect our forces.”

Under international law, the people under military occupation by foreign invaders have the right to repel the invaders and force them out, and the right to self-defense.  Invaders have no such rights.

The eastern desert areas in Syria are inhabited by local tribes.  These are hard-living, sturdy people who are not afraid to stand their ground and are well-armed in most cases.  In history, these are peoples who have fought each other and invaders over the millennia.  The tribes have decided they want the US invaders out of the country, primarily as they see the US sanctions on Syria as the foremost obstacle to reconstruction and recovery from the devastation caused by armed conflict beginning in 2011.  The tribes have rejected the US-backed militias, such as the Kurdish SDF, and the terrorists who were following Radical Islam, such as those in occupation of Idlib.  The US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) was not supported by the tribes, and after the FSA morphed into Al Qaeda the tribes fought battles to drive the terrorists westward into their current enclave at Idlib.

Syria has a severe electricity shortage, with most households getting about one hour per day.  Syria does not have full electricity because the US military has occupied the oil fields and confiscated the oil, thus preventing its domestic use to generate electricity.  The tribes, and indeed all Syrian residents, desperately want the US military out so they can once again produce electricity, and gasoline for domestic use.  US sanctions prevent importing petroleum products, which led to the US high-jacking Iranian oil tankers coming to Syria previously.

Misyaf

On August 25, Israel targeted the city of Misyaf in the Hama province.  The attack came from Israeli warplanes over the Mediterranean Sea near Tartus, as they fired several missiles at Misyaf.  Syrian air defenses responded and most of the missiles were downed, but one missile caused a fire that threatened to spread into a wildfire but was eventually contained by residents and firefighters. Syrian Arab News Agency reported that two civilians were wounded in the attack.

Israel always coordinates with the US military on airstrikes it conducts in Syria.

Deir Ez Zor

The Euphrates river splits the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, with the US and their Kurdish SDF allies on the east side, and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and their allies west of the river.

The Al-Omar oilfield is the largest in Syria, and before 2011 Syria was energy self-sufficient.  Syria produced enough domestic oil and natural gas to meet the needs of the nation in electricity production, cooking gas, diesel fuel for heating and transportation, as well as gasoline for cars and transportation.  Before the US-NATO war for regime change, Syria even exported gas and oil.

Once the US military invaded, they set up a base at the Al-Omar oilfield and confiscated the oil produced.  In cooperation with their Kurdish allies, the US looted the oil and transported hundreds of tankers full to the Kurdish region in neighboring Iraq for resale on the black market.  This is the same oil that ISIS used to sell to Turkey for $17 per barrel.

On August 25, Syrian Arab tribes in the northern suburbs of Deir Ez Zor attacked the base housing US military at the Al-Omar and Conoco oil fields, leaving three US servicemen with minor wounds, after the residential area at the base was hit by missiles causing a massive fire.

The tribes temporarily wrested control of the oil field from the US military, their security contractors, and the SDF.  Battles soon ensued at Azbay, in the northern suburbs of Deir Ez Zor, between the Syrian Arab tribes against the US and their SDF allies.  The US called in helicopters and reinforcements to the oil field, and ambulances were seen responding.

The US has 28 military bases in Syria, located at strategic oil and gas wells in the east of Syria.

The US responded by air strikes on an SAA position in al-Mayadeen, a suburb of Deir Ez Zor. This is the fifth attack on the US military base at the Al-Omar oil field this month.

Syria says it will drive the US from Syria if they will not leave voluntarily. Local tribes and residents have been resisting the US occupation by blocking the path of US military vehicles, throwing stones at vehicles, and in some cases attacking bases.

Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, while speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2021, said, “Just as we managed to wipe out terrorists from most of Syria, we will work to end the occupation with the same resolve and determination, using all possible means under international law.”

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

Featured image is from MD

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).

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Summer is here, and some public outdoor spaces in the Dutch city of Utrecht are a riot of colors: wildflowers in myriad hues of orange, red, yellow and purple pop in the sun. More than mere beautification projects, these wildflower patches are among an array of Dutch initiatives to help insect pollinators — part of an ambitious national strategy to support honey bees, wild bees, hoverflies, beetles, butterflies and other species.

The Netherlands is one of only a handful of countries that has a comprehensive strategy aimed directly at stemming the decline in pollinators. Launched in 2018, the National Pollinator Strategy encompasses a range of ongoing efforts and carries clear and measurable benchmarks for success. Already, it is providing a roadmap for other countries looking to conserve their pollinators.

Prioritizing pollination

The Netherlands’ awareness of the importance of pollinators began growing over the past decade following dramatic declines in bee populations that began in the mid 1940s. As wilderness and countryside became farmland and towns, and pesticides grew in use, more than half of the country’s nearly 360 bee species have become endangered. “There are too many pressures on the Dutch landscape,” says Marten Schoonman of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden.

Acknowledging the critical role played by pollinators in agriculture, the Netherlands — the world’s second largest exporter of agricultural products — began conservation measures over a decade ago. In 2013, the government launched the Bee Health Action Program, an initiative focused on honey bees. In 2016, along with 13 other countries, the Netherlands became one of the founding members of Promote Pollinators, a coalition of countries (now numbering 30) sharing knowledge about protecting and conserving pollinators.

But it was the country’s National Pollinator Strategy that set it apart from its peers. Launched in 2018 with some 70 initiatives, from creating more nesting sites to improving pollinators’ access to food, the Strategy set out to make the Netherlands a haven for pollinating insects. “We have destroyed a lot [of biodiversity] in the past,” says Nicky Kruizinga, the Strategy’s project leader. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

The National Pollinator Strategy currently consists of 120 initiatives, underway both in urban centers and agricultural regions. These programs are created and executed at the stakeholder-level, be it a nonprofit, a collective, or a city or province.  They follow the general guidelines necessary to create food and nesting opportunities for insect pollinators.

“There’s a lot of energy going into the Strategy, which is a big change from 10 years ago,” says David Kleijn, a professor of plant ecology and nature conservation at Wageningen University who was involved in formulating the Strategy’s objectives. “It has drawn attention to pollinators, it has gotten people to think about their decline, and motivated them to do something about it. Today, there are over a hundred initiatives. In that sense, it’s a big success.”

The broad aim of the Strategy is “to arrive at a number of bee species showing a stable or positive population trend by 2023 and 2030.” This objective has been further broken down into measurable targets for those years. The 2023 goal is to reduce the number of species showing a downward trend by 30 percent and increase the number of species with an upward trend by 30 percent, as compared to a 2012 baseline. In 2030, the broad goal remains the same as 2023, but the target increases to 50 percent as compared to the 2012 baseline.

According to Kleijn, who was involved in formulating the objectives of the Strategy,

“One of the most frustrating things in policy evaluation is that you can’t find clear objectives of what the policy aims to achieve. In this case, the objectives are measurable, so scientists can evaluate if the goals are reached.”

The Strategy’s nearly 90 signatories include seven of the Netherlands’ 12 provinces, as well as municipalities that have adopted a variety of measures: wildflower patches, insect hotels and green roofs, along with bans on the use of pesticides in public green spaces.

Other signatories are very local, like De Fruitmotor, a cooperative that makes cider from “ugly” apples that won’t sell because of blemishes or deformities. The cooperative’s earnings are invested in planting pollen- and nectar-producing plants to create a pollinator-friendly area around the Betuwe River. “These plants flower at different times of the year, from early spring to late autumn, thus ensuring a steady supply of food for bees and other insects,” says De Fruitmotor co-founder Henri Holster.

The Strategy even includes efforts propelled by private individuals, such as theHoney Highway, an entrepreneurial venture by bee enthusiast Deborah Postma that partners with municipalities to plant wildflowers along highways, railways, and waterways, turning stretches devoid of biodiversity into pollinator-rich zones.

“All stakeholders are working towards the same goal: more food and shelter for insect pollinators,” says Kruizinga, who monitors the Strategy. In 2018 and 2019, the Pollinator Strategy team organized a large meeting where stakeholders could meet and learn from each other. “What is really working well is that our partners have started to cooperate at different levels and there is a lot of knowledge sharing.” (Due to the pandemic, their annual meeting was not held in 2020 and 2021.)

The Dutch Pollinator Strategy aims to enroll as many signatories and pollinator-friendly initiatives as possible. Naturalis, where Schoonman works, is a knowledge partner of the Strategy and is involved with its roll-out. “Making people aware of the diversity and richness of pollinator species plays a key role in their conservation. That’s why the bee count is so important,” Schoonman says, referring to the annual bee count organized by Naturalis with the help of the public.

This year was the fifth edition of the Netherlands’ annual bee count. Nearly 4,000 volunteers from across the country spent 30 minutes in their gardens counting bees on a designated weekend in April. The honey bee topped the count once again. The horned mason bee continued to be one of the most common wild bees in gardens, a species that was quite rare across the Netherlands a decade ago. While the bee count is not an exhaustive activity, it helps keep a track on pollinator population trends.

The National Pollinator Strategy has its limitations. For instance, managing issues like pesticide use and industrial pollution are beyond its scope. “How are we going to get farmers to reduce or eliminate the use of pesticides so that pollinators are not affected?” Kruizinga asks. Changing mindsets and behavior takes time, especially when commercial interests are involved. “Farmers are used to doing things in a certain way that makes sense economically or time management-wise,” says Kleijn, adding that providing subsidies can steer farmers towards difficult but essential measures. “But then a sizable budget needs to be arranged,” he says.

Meanwhile, the EU is moving forward in tackling pesticides. In 2013, it banned the use of three neonicotinoid pesticides — known to be extremely harmful to insect pollinators — on flowering crops. In 2018, this ban was extended to all crops. And in June, the European Commission adopted proposals to reduce pesticide use EU-wide by 50 percent before 2030. But there is still a lot of work to be done to reach those targets.

Another inherent limitation of the Strategy is that it relies mainly on the stakeholders to create pollinator friendly landscapes. “One could question whether that is enough to really make a difference,” says Kleijn.

Kruizinga, however, remains optimistic about the impact of the Pollinator Strategy. “There’s definitely a shift towards pollinator-friendly landscapes and nature-inclusive farming,” she says.

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Anne Pinto Rodrigues is a Netherlands-based freelance journalist, writing on a broad range of topics under social and environmental justice. Her work has been published in The Guardian, The Telegraph, CS Monitor, Yes!, Ensia, and several other international publications.

Featured image: An insect hotel in the Dutch countryside. Credit: Shutterstock

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).

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First published on August 24, 2022

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Representatives of the civil-military administration of the Zaporozhie region denounced today that Ukrainian troops use artillery with NATO ammunition in attacks on the Energodar nuclear power plant.

“The latest attacks on Saturday were carried out with 155-millimeter shells of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with American M739 fuses,” the Ukrainian oblast authorities reported on their Telegram account.

In this regard, the member of the main council of the Zaporozhie oblast administration Vladimir Rogogov confirmed that long-range weapons were used in the aggression from the opposite side of the Dnieper River.

The Russian Defense Ministry warned last Thursday that Kiev troops would stage a provocation to generate a radiation leak, as well as to break the integrity of the nuclear waste repository and put the reactor in an abnormal operating state.

The portfolio specified that the aim of such action would be to create an exclusion zone of up to 30 kilometers and to blame Russia for nuclear terrorism, in order to justify a further escalation of the conflict. Several Western politicians stated that a radiation leak at the Zaporozhie nuclear power plant as a result of the shelling could be a pretext for the Atlantic Alliance to start participating in the fighting in Ukraine.

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First published on August 23, 2022

***

We are experiencing a very hot and dry summer. Some people quite like it and for our governments there is nothing wrong yet. But actually, we should sound a big alarm. According to experts, if we do not change course soon, we risk ending up in the ‘climate end game’. In the meantime, the orchestra on the Titanic is continuing to play.

Worrying facts are piling up

France is in the grip of a third heatwave this summer. Temperatures exceed 40°C. The country is experiencing the worst drought in its history. In two-thirds of the departments, the water supply is in crisis.

This year, 48.000 hectares of land have been burnt, which is seven times more than the usual amount. The output of the nuclear power plants on the Rhône and the Garonne has been temporarily reduced because there is not enough river water to cool the plants.

In Canada, temperatures also rose above 40C. That and the sustained drought and wildfires have had a detrimental effect on food production. There are crop failures and 80-per-cent mortality rates at some commercial shellfish operations. In the province of British Columbia, 400,000 chickens have died as a result of the extreme heat.

Italy is experiencing its worst drought since 2003, when a massive heatwave killed 30,000 people and destroyed agricultural produce. A third of agricultural produce is said to be at risk this year. In Switzerland, the army is deployed to prevent cow herds from dying of thirst.

At the beginning of August, the Netherlands declared a national water shortage. In Germany, the Rhine threatens to become unnavigable. In Poland, the authorities have already imposed restrictions on river transports because of the very low water level.

Due to exceptionally dry weather, many reservoirs in Norway have reached historically low water levels. As a result, the government has decided to limit the export of electricity to other countries until the reservoirs are replenished.

California is facing a chronic “mega-drought” in which dry years are becoming more frequent and wet years are becoming scarcer. The current drought, which started around 2000, is the second worst in the past 1200 years. This year alone, more than 140 square mile have burnt in more than 5,000 fires in California’s wine region.

Within three decades a quarter of the US land area and over 107 million people will be subjected to perceived temperatures of above 52C.

The unbearable heat of being

The droughts we have experienced in recent years on the European continent were “unprecedented in the last 250 years”, according to scientists. As the climate continues to warm, heat waves and droughts will become more frequent, they will last longer and temperature peaks will also become higher. Moreover, heat waves and droughts are mutually reinforcing phenomena.[i]

This will be the new normal. It is possible that within a decade every summer in Western Europe will be as hot and dry as this one. In addition to those heat waves, we will also have to deal with rain bombs much more frequently, as in Germany and Belgium last year.[ii]

Since the 1980s, exposure to deadly urban heat has tripled. It now affects nearly a quarter of the world’s population. Already five million people die each year from extreme weather, increasingly from heat-related causes.

According to the French Ministry of the Environment, the average air temperature will rise by 1.4 to 3 degrees Celsius by 2070. Precipitation will decline by 16 to 23 percent and river flows in the south of the country will fall by 30 to 50 percent. Similar numbers may be expected in neighbouring countries.

If the current evolution continues, agricultural yields could fall by 30 percent worldwide by 2050. About 5 billion people could face water shortages for at least one month a year.

Extreme heat – defined as an annual average temperature of over 29°C – would affect two billion people by 2070. By 2060, about 1.4 billion people could be climate refugees and by 2100, a fifth of the world’s population may be displaced as a result of rising sea levels.

Endgame?

And these are only conservative predictions. In recent years, climate scientists have found that extreme weather events are occurring faster than models had predicted. Initially it was assumed that temperatures and extreme weather events would increase gradually and linearly. It is possible that we have now entered a period where extremes will occur suddenly, more frequently and also more powerfully.

In a recent study, a group of scientists does no longer completely rule out a global societal collapse or human extinction. They call such a catastrophe the ‘climate endgame’. The probability of such a catastrophe may be small, but such scenarios cannot be ruled out, given the uncertainties in future emissions and the climate system.

A possible acceleration of warming is related to so-called tipping points[iii] and feedbacks.[iv] Certain tipping points could cause even an additional 8 °C global warming.[v]

According to those scientists “facing a future of accelerating climate change while remaining blind to worst-case scenarios is naive risk management at best and fatally foolish at worst”.

It is worth remembering that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is currently approaching the level there was 15 million years ago. Back then, temperatures were 3 to 4 degrees Celsius higher and the sea level was 20 metres higher.

“There are warnings from history. Climate change (either regional or global) has played a role in the collapse or transformation of numerous previous societies and in each of the five mass extinction events in Phanerozoic[vi] Earth history” according to scientists.

Much will depend on global climate efforts. The current trajectory puts the world on track for a temperature rise between 2.1 °C and 3.9 °C by 2100. If the existing pledges by countries are fully implemented, this increase will be 1.9 to 3 degrees Celsius. Provided all long-term pledges and targets were met, the warming would be 1.7 to 2.6 degrees Celsius.

“Even these optimistic assumptions lead to dangerous Earth system trajectories. Temperatures of more than 2°C above preindustrial values have not been sustained on Earth’s surface since before the Pleistocene Epoch (or more than 2.6 million years ago).”

A warming of more than 2°C is particularly alarming. Human societies are adapted to specific climatic environments. Since the emergence of large-scale, urbanised agricultural societies around 12,000 years ago, civilisations have developed within a narrow climatic framework with an average annual temperature of around 13°C.

Even today, the most economically productive centres of human activity are concentrated in such areas. According to the scientists, “the cumulative impacts of warming may overwhelm societal adaptive capacity”.

We are faced with a choice

UN Secretary-General António Guterres presents us with a choice: “We are on a catastrophic path. “We can either save our world or condemn humanity to a hellish future.”

To save the world from climate degeneration, a complete energy transition is needed that is much bigger and faster than any previous one in world history. In the next 30 to 50 years, 90 per cent or more of the world’s energy that is currently produced from fossil fuels will have to be provided by renewable energy sources, nuclear power[vii] or fossil fuel plants that bury their waste rather than emitting it.

According to Energy Transitions Commission, a prestigious think tank on global warming, less than 1 per cent of the world’s GDP[viii] annually is needed to become carbon neutral by the middle of this century. This is an insignificant amount to save the world from catastrophic climate change. By comparison, it is estimated that by 2020 the entirety of the stimulus packages in the rich countries in the context of the covid crisis accounted for more than 30 per cent of GDP.[ix]

Avoiding a climate catastrophe is thus absolutely possible, but it will require a drastic change of course. To date, tackling global warming has largely been left to market forces: emissions trading, carbon taxes, market-based development of green technology, etc. Obviously, this is not a successful strategy.

Moreover, one hundred multinationals are responsible for 71 percent of greenhouse gas emissions between 1988 and 2015. Another reason why green and cheap energy must become a public service, just like the low-carbon infrastructure and technology needed to deliver that energy. In the past, governments created other public services such as those for defence, public health, education, scientific research, …

We do not have much time left. We have now used up 86% of the carbon budget[x] for a 50-50 chance of staying below 1.5°C, or 89% of the budget for a 2/3 chance. Or expressed in time, we still have 7 to 10 years to turn the tide. It is not without reason that Guterres warns of a ‘code red‘ for humanity.

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Translation by Dirk Nimmegeers

Marc Vandepitte is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Sources

Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Climate endgame: risk of human extinction ‘dangerously underexplored’, The Guardian

Imagining a “Half-Earth” Sustainable Economy, Counterpunch

Notes

[i] The energy of the sunlight is partly used to evaporate moisture from the soil and the leaves of the trees. When the Earth is bone dry there is nothing left to evaporate and all the sun’s energy goes into heating the atmosphere. This makes the Earth even drier and heats up the atmosphere even more. It is a vicious circle.

[ii] British climate experts predict that such rain storms will become 14 times more frequent by the end of the century if CO2 emissions remain high.

[iii] In climate science, a tipping point is a critical threshold at which a (relatively) small perturbation can dramatically change the state of major components of the Earth system. According to scientists, large-scale components of the Earth system may pass a tipping point in the near future, causing a change in the global climate. They have in mind, for example, the deterioration of the Amazon rainforest or the death of the boreal forests in Canada and Siberia, the melting of the polar caps or the Greenland icecap, the disruption of the monsoon on the Indian subcontinent, the degradation of coral reefs, the loss of permafrost and tundra.

[iv] A feedback means that the change in one variable has an effect on a second variable, which in turn has an effect on the first variable. This creates a chain effect.

A good example is the emission of methane from thawing permafrost in the frozen peat bogs of Siberia. Global warming melts the permafrost and releases methane. This is a very powerful greenhouse gas that accelerates warming, causing even more permafrost to melt and releasing even more methane.

[v] For example, the abrupt loss of stratocumulus cloud cover (clouds that are lower than 2.5 km in altitude).

[vi] The Phanerozoic geological era is a period of the Earth’s geological history lasting from about 540 million years to the present.

[vii] Nuclear power is not appropriate because it is too expensive, there is a risk of nuclear disasters and hazardous waste has to be stored for centuries.

[viii] GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product. That is what we all produce in terms of wealth every year.

[ix] It concerns both fiscal measures (direct state aid to companies, families, etc.) and monetary measures (central banks pumping money into the financial markets).

[x] The carbon budget is the amount of CO2 that may be added to the atmosphere in order to limit climate warming to 1.5°C.

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***

Before the Russian invasion, CIA reports linked him to an oligarch so dirty and so mired in “significant corruption” that the State Department banned him from entering the U.S.

But now CIA propaganda portrays Zelensky as nobler than Winston Churchill and saintlier than Mother Theresa.

Will the Real Volodymyr Zelensky Please Stand Up

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In 2019, the CIA-run Radio Free Europe reported on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s connection to Ihor Kholomoisky, a Ukrainian oligarch whom the State Department banned from entering the U.S. in March 2021 due to his “significant corruption.” See video report below.

(Click on image to link to video) [Source: realclearpolitics.com]

This report is ironic given that, since Ukraine’s war with Russia began over four months ago, Radio Free Europe along with the rest of the Western media has depicted Zelensky as something equivalent to a reincarnation of Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa, driving a campaign for his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize and inspiring a flamboyant musical tribute during the 2022 Grammy awards.

Zelensky gives a video address at the 2022 Grammy awards in April. [Source: jta.org]

Steering One of the Biggest Ponzi Schemes in World History

Meanwhile in January 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture complaint—the fourth against him—which alleges that Kholomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov, who owned PrivatBank, one of the largest banks in Ukraine, embezzled and defrauded the bank of $5.5 billion which went missing.

The two allegedly obtained fraudulent loans and lines of credit from 2008 through 2016 and laundered portions of their criminal proceeds using an array of shell companies’ bank accounts, primarily at PrivatBank’s Cyprus branch, before they transferred the funds to the U.S. where they continued to launder them illegally through an associate operating out of offices in Miami.

Source: johnhelmer.org

Some of the stolen money was from IMF loans granted to the Ukrainian government after the 2014 Maidan coup, which was paid out by the National Bank of Ukraine into Privatbank.^[1]

According to a profile in The American Spectator, Kholomoisky laundered millions in Cleveland, Ohio, and across the Midwest where, as “one of the [region’s] biggest real-estate landlords,” he “steered one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in world history.”

Making Even Other Oligarchs, No Strangers to Violent Crime, Blanch

Born in Soviet Ukraine in 1963, Kholomoisky was among those to benefit after the Soviet collapse in the early 1990s from the sale of formerly state-owned enterprises like steel plants and gas wells at fire-sale prices.

According to The American Spectator, Kholomoisky had two advantages over other nascent oligarchs. First, he had a background in metallurgy—in the science of making and molding metals and alloys in demand. Second, Kholomoisky “displayed a ruthlessness that made even other oligarchs, no strangers to violent crime, blanch.”

A writer for Forbes magazine reported that, in one instance, he saw “hundreds of hired rowdies armed with baseball bats, iron bars, gas and rubber-bullet pistols and chainsaws forcibly [take] over” a steel plant that Kholomoisky eyed.

For the full Bond-villain effect, Kholomoisky put a shark tank in his office. Allegedly, he was not averse to shoving the head of a visitor in it as a reminder never to cross him.

Funding Neo-Nazis

According to Oleg Noginsky, the president of the Suppliers Customs Union, after Ukraine’s February 2014 Euro-Maidan Revolution, Kholomoisky “hired the guys who carried out the Odessa massacre”—the killing of several dozen supporters of deposed Russian-allied President Viktor Yanukovych who were holed up in a trade union building.

As Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast from 2014 until 2016, Kholomoisky bankrolled anti-Russian units operating with the Ukrainian army in Donetsk and Luhansk—which voted to secede after the post-Maidan government tried to impose the Ukrainian language on them.

These units included the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion which terrorized the people of eastern Ukraine, along with the Dnipro and Aidar battalions, which were sometimes deployed as personal thug squads to protect Kholomoisky’s financial interests.

Burisma and the CIA

The New York Post reported that Kholomoisky had a “controlling interest” in Burisma Holdings—the Ukrainian energy company which employed Hunter Biden as a board member for $50,000 per month. Russian media, quoted in State Department emails, referred to Burisma as “part of Kholomoisky’s financial empire.”

Six months after Hunter Biden departed, Burisma appointed Cofer Black to its board—a position that he maintains. Black was a career CIA officer who served as director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center following the September 11 attacks.

This appointment raises questions as to whether Burisma served as a CIA-front operation that was designed to help finance the anti-Russia militias in eastern Ukraine.

Source: usatoday.com

Ihor and Volodymyr Sitting in a Tree…

Kholomoisky’s relationship with Zelensky goes back to around 2012, when Zelensky and his partners in a television production company, Kvartal 95, began making regular content for TV stations owned by Kholomoisky.

A comedian and actor who had been famous since the 2000s, Zelensky began his political rise a few years after taking on a starring role in the political satire “Servant of the People,” which began airing on Kholomoisky’s network in 2015.

The show starred Zelensky as a humble history teacher whose anti-corruption rant in class is filmed by a student, goes viral online, and wins him national office.

In a case of life imitating art, Zelensky ended up winning the real-world Ukrainian presidency just three-and-a-half years after the show’s launch, with more than 73% of the vote.

Zelensky capitalized on widespread public anger at corruption, but his 2019 campaign was dogged by doubts over his anti-graft bona fides given his connection to Kholomoisky.

In the heat of the campaign, an ally of incumbent Petro Poroshenko, Volodymyr Ariev, published a chart on Facebook purporting to show that Zelensky and his television production partners were beneficiaries of a web of offshore firms, which they had set up beginning in 2012, that allegedly received $41 million in funds from Kholomoisky’s Privatbank.

Ariev did not provide smoking-gun evidence, though the Pandora Papers—11.9 million leaked documents published by a consortium of investigative journalists in October 2021—show that at least some of the details in this alleged scheme correspond to reality.

In specific, the Pandora Papers reveal information on ten companies in the network that match structures detailed in Ariev’s chart, and show that Zelensky and his partners used companies based in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Belize and Cyprus.

Forbes magazine currently places Zelensky’s net worth at between $20 and $30 million—a total he could not have earned simply as a TV performer and comedian.

Zelensky allegedly owns lavish properties in central London, Italy and Miami Beach—to which he could retire if he is forced to flee Ukraine.

Two of Zelensky’s associates in the offshore network, who were also part of his TV production company, have held powerful positions in his government. Serhiy Shefir is Zelensky’s top presidential aide, while Ivan Bakanov headed until very recently the feared Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which is Europe’s largest security agency and nearly the same size as the FBI despite Ukraine being 16 times smaller than the U.S.

You Scratch My Back, I’ll Scratch Yours

Besides providing financial support during Ukraine’s 2019 election, Kholomoisky supplied Zelensky with a car and lent his personal lawyer to him to be campaign adviser and promoted his candidacy on various media outlets that he owned.

The close ties between the two were apparent in 2018 when Zelensky traveled to Geneva Switzerland, for Kholomoisky’s birthday, and then afterwards back to Geneva another ten times.

When Kholomoisky moved to Tel Aviv, Israel, Zelensky traveled there to visit with him three times, according to Radio Free Europe.

Zelensky claimed that his relationship with Kholomoisky was not political; rather he had gone to visit him because of TV work.

However, Zelensky made sure to reward him when he became president. He removed Kholomoisky’s opponents, the Prosecutor General, the Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, and his own prime minister, who tried to regulate Kholomoisky’s control of a state-owned electricity company.

Ukraine’s parliament also passed a measure that prevented Kholomoisky from having topay higher taxes on his mining operations.

No Lion of a Leader

Zelensky’s long-standing ties to Kholomoisky belie the pristine public image of a man hailed by U.S. politicians as a “lion of a leader” (August Pfluger R-TX) and person of “incredible bravery” (Adam Schiff, D-CA).

A neoliberal who advanced a sweeping privatization initiative, Zelensky has banned eleven opposition parties and carried out a reign of terror against political opponents.

The victims include the former leader of the Ukrainian left forces, Vasily Volga, and the Kononovich brothers, leaders of Ukraine’s Young Communist League who were accused of being pro-Russian.

The Kononovich brothers, leaders of the Young Communist League in Ukraine, who have been detained since March 6. [Source: towardfreedom.org]

Despite campaigning on a peace platform, Zelensky provoked war with Russia by a) enacting a major troop buildup in eastern Ukraine in February; b) increasing shelling of eastern Ukraine in violation of ceasefire agreements; and c) calling for the retaking from Russia of Crimea and city of Sevastopol, which houses the Russian Navy’s Black Sea fleet.

Map showing Ukrainian troop concentrations on eastern Ukraine’s border on eve of the Russian invasion of February 24, 2022. According to the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Ukraine had massed 122,000 troops on the border with Donbass. The Duma furthermore has claimed to have intelligence indicating that these troops were planning an offensive into Donbas, which the Russian invasion preempted. [Source: consortiumnews.com]

Since the fighting began, Zelensky has eschewed negotiations and instead begged the West for more and more weapons while inviting foreign mercenaries into Ukraine.

Swiss journalist Guy Mettan has written that Zelensky will ultimately be held responsible for Ukraine’s devastation in the war as he “preferred the ruin of his country to a timely compromise.”

This assessment is at odds with the current media hagiography of Zelensky, which also obscures his ties to Kholomoisky that the CIA itself has acknowledged.

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Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018). He can be reached at: [email protected].

Notes

1. Journalist John Helmer points out that Hillary Clinton, Victoria Nuland and Christine LaGarde, the former IMF directors, ignored the evidence of Kholomoisky’s corruption and the squandering of IMF loan money in a ponzi scheme; probably because of the political imperative underlying the IMF’s policy towards Ukraine after the Maidan coup. John Helmer, “The Kolomoisky Pyramid Started with Hillary Clinton and Victoria Nuland of the State Department Plus Christine Lagarde of the IMF,” http://johnhelmer.org/the-kolomoisky-pyramid-started-with-hillary-clinton-and-victoria-nuland-of-the-state-department-plus-christine-lagarde-of-the-imf/ 

Featured image:  Zelensky in 2019, photo by President.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0  via Wikimedia Commons

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First published on August 19, 2022

***

I have been subject to tremendous criticism from all sides over the last week for my recent comments concerning billionaires, and specifically concerning the man who put the “bill” in “billionaire,” none other than the “workingman’s hero” Bill Gates, the inventor of just about everything he can get his hands on.

Let me first say, unambiguously, that when I suggested that we should hunt down the billionaires on their private islands, in their space-age bunkers, that I was just joking, just making a few glib remarks for close friends.

You can’t possibly believe I was serious. I mean who would listen to a poor little guy with no assets, no cash, and no job? I mean, by billionaire’s standards, I don’t even exist, I am but a useless eater.

And we all know that the politicians, the bureaucrats, the military, the police, the employees of the corporations who run the world, they would never listen to a worthless figure like me.

Why all of them already know that they are to follow the orders passed down from billionaires, not scraps of paper like the constitution.

Video

And let me tell you that some of my best friends are billionaires. Why we are practically on a first-name basis.

I have the ultimate respect for billionaires who have, through their wisdom and their benevolence, through their commitment to the future of mankind–using charitable organizations like the World Economic Forum, have transformed our world into a dream.

It is those billionaires, those entrepreneurs and innovators, those visionaries, those philanthropists and “creative destroyers” who worry, day and night, about how the common man is doing. Why they have practically planned out everything for the common man, the common women, far into the future.

They are truly geniuses. How could they amass billions, even hundreds of billions, of dollars when I can barely pay my rent?

I need to learn from them. We must all become like the billionaires, especially my favorite, the avuncular Warren Buffett, a humble man who lives in a humble home, who advocates that the rich should pay more taxes, even as he himself pays less than other billionaires. What a genius! What an angel!

I guess I did not know how sensitive billionaires are. I really did not mean to hurt their little feelings.

As a holy man of the ancient world once remarked, “why so serious?” Or the Chinese philosopher Laozi once commented, “my turn” –or was it “ideas are bulletproof.”

My heart goes out to them, those billionaires. I can imagine what is must be like to be trapped in a Fantasy Island compound of your own design. Why a palace like that, surrounded by guards, AI directed drones, can start to feel a bit like a prison at times.

I extend to all billionaires a warm greeting and a sincere offer to meet in person so we can discuss how we can build a better world together.

After all, with all those excess people on the Earth, we had better start planning quickly. We would not want people to figure what is going on before the armed drones and robots are in place, the 5G towers are up, the low orbit military satellites are deployed, the farm land is controlled, and the digital currencies and basic incomes are accepted.

Maybe my kind words might soften their hearts, might inspire them to consider taking me along to the island where the next stage of this game is being planned.

I assure you, dear billionaires, I would not turn down the opportunity if it cost me my life, or yours.

As Socrates wrote so long ago,

“Life is short: Play dead!”

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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.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Socialist Network

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***

Since the proudly announced counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Army in the south has not happened, and more and more territories of the country are coming under the control of Russian forces, the Kiev regime which vitally needs to declare any victories has switched to a terrorist strategy of military operations.

Over the past week, the Russian ground forces have won several important victories on the front lines.

On August 19, the headquarters of the territorial defense of the DPR confirmed full control of the town of Zaitsevo and small village of Dacha located on the northern outskirts of Gorlovka. The Ukrainian units deployed in the area saved their own lives and surrendered. Fighting has been ongoing there since 2014. The Armed Forces of Ukraine held control in the north of the town, from where they constantly shelled civilians in the areas under DPR control.

In the Donetsk region, after the town of Peski came under control of the DPR, fighters of the 11th regiment of the DPR and famous Somalia battalion are moving towards Pervomaisky and Nevelsky.

Near Ugledar, the Ukrainian command was forced to transfer reserves in order to restrain the offensive of the allied forces. On August 21, Russian reconnaissance units reportedly entered the village of Pavlovka.

Instead of the counteroffensive in the south promised by Kiev, Russian forces claimed victories in the Nikolaev region.

Russian units advanced in the village of Blagodatnoye located 40 kilometers to the west of Nikolaev. According to preliminary reports, Russian servicemen managed to dislodge forces of the 63 separate mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and establish control over the village. This is the area from where Ukrainian troops have been trying to develop any offensive for the last two months.

Losing on the front lines, the Ukrainian military is busy carrying terrorist attacks against Russians in DPR, LPR as well as on the Russian territories. The Ukrainian military has already shelled civilians in Donetsk with PFM-1 mines. They continue attacks on the Zaporozhskaya Nuclear power plant and the Kakhovskaya power station, threatening the world with ecological catastrophes. Ukrainian saboteurs attempt to attack military and civilian facilities in Crimea and other Russian regions.

The Kiev regime does not stop and continues attacks on pro-Russian officials in the territories under Russian control.

On August 20, the mayor of Mariupol survived an assassination attempt. In early August, another assassination attempt targeted the deputy head of the Novokakhovskaya administration for Communal Services.

On August 20, a car explosion killed Darya Dugina. The young woman worked as a political comentator and she was included in the Western sanctions lists. She was the daughter of the famous Russian philosopher and political scientist Alexander Dugin. Being the founder of neo-Eurasianism he became one of the most influential thinkers in Russia.

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First published on July 27, 2022

***

“We’re now facing a situation where a huge number of very powerful organizations and elites at an international and at national levels are calling for policies that are basically a suicide pact.

Basically a death wish of some sort.”

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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***

This article was originally published by Al Jazeera on September 10, 2021.

In the early morning hours of August 31, 2021 the last American soldiers lifted off from Kabul airport, officially ending the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the longest in US history.

At its peak in 2011, the US had approximately 100,000 troops across at least 10 military bases from Bagram to Kandahar. In total, more than 800,000 US soldiers served in the war according to the Pentagon.

While no US troops remain on the ground today, US President Joe Biden said that his military will continue to conduct air raids against enemy targets from “over-the-horizon” – air missions from a vast network of US bases around the region.

Upwards of 750 US bases around the world

According to David Vine, ​​professor of political anthropology at the American University in Washington, DC, the US had around 750 bases in at least 80 countries as of July 2021.

The actual number may be even higher as not all data is published by the Pentagon.

With 120 active bases, Japan has the highest number of US bases in the world followed by Germany with 119 and South Korea with 73.

Copyright Al Jazeera

US military base sites fall under two main categories:

Large bases or “Bases”: Defined as military installations larger than 4 hectares (10 acres) or worth more than $10 million. These bases typically have in excess of 200 US military personnel. 439 or 60 percent of the US’s foreign bases fall under this category.

Small bases or “Lily Pads”: These bases are smaller than 4 hectares(10 acres) or have a value of less than $10 million. These include cooperative security locations and forward operating sites. The remaining 40 percent of US foreign bases fall under this category.

According to global US military deployment data published in the Conflict Management and Peace Science Journal, the US had around 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries as of 2020.

Like the US bases, the countries with the most number of US troops include Japan with 53,700, Germany with 33,900 and South Korea with 26,400.

US military presence in the Middle East

According to the Watson Institute at Brown University, between 1.9 and three million US service members have served in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, with over half of them deployed more than once.

The largest US military installation in the Middle East is the Al Udeid Air Base, located west of Doha, Qatar. Established in 1996, it hosts around 11,000 American and coalition service members. Covering an area of 24 hectares (60 acres), the base accommodates almost 100 aircraft as well as drones.

Copyright Al Jazeera

On October 7, 2001, the US under President George W Bush invaded Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks. The coalition he led accused the ruling Taliban regime of harbouring Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who claimed responsibility for the attacks.

An estimated 241,000 people have died as a direct result of the war since 2001, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. In addition, hundreds of thousands more, mostly civilians, have died due to hunger, disease and injury caused by the devastating war.

In 2003, the US invaded Iraq after it accused long-time Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of having weapons of mass destruction – none was found. At its peak in 2007, the US had an estimated 170,000 troops in the country. Today, there are around 2,500 US troops in the country as part of a security agreement with the Iraqi government.

US military presence in Japan and South Korea

The US has been in Japan since the end of World War II (1939-1945) and in South Korea since the Korean War (1950-1953).

Nearly half of all US military deployed abroad, some 80,100 American personnel, are stationed in Japan with 53,700 and South Korea with 26,400.

South Korea hosts Camp Humphreys, the largest overseas US military base, located approximately 65km (40 miles) south of the capital Seoul.

Copyright Al Jazeera

The 1,398 hectares (3,454 acres) base is one of 80 bases in the country and is less than 100km (60 miles) from the heavily fortified demilitarized zone that demarcates North Korea from South Korea.

US military presence in Europe

Europe is home to at least 60,000 US troops. At 33,900, Germany has the highest number of US troops in Europe – and the second highest in the world – followed by Italy at 12,300 and the UK at 9,300. However, the number of US troops stationed in Germany has more than halved between 2006 and 2020, dropping from 72,400 to 33,900.

Copyright Al Jazeera

The Ramstein Air Base in Germany is the largest hub for US troops and military supplies in Europe. Just outside the 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) base is the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest US military hospital outside the US. The facility was used extensively during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and treated thousands of wounded soldiers.

Like nearly all US bases, Ramstein is equipped with hospitals, schools, power stations, apartment complexes and a host of amenities often referred to as “Burger Kings and bowling alleys”.

US military presence in Latin America

Located on the eastern tip of Cuba, the Guantanamo Bay naval base is the US’s oldest overseas military base. The 116sq km (45 sq miles) facility has been under American control since the end of the 19th century.

The base is a hotly debated issue between the US and Cuba. For decades, Cuba has insisted that the US hand back the territory it took by force in 1898 and subsequently leased permanently in 1903.

Copyright Al Jazeera

US troop deployment since 1950

Over the past 70 years, the US military has been deployed to more than 200 countries and territories.

The infographic below shows a brief history of where the US has deployed its troops since the end of World War II, along with the wars it has fought in.

Copyright Al Jazeera

1950-1953

Following the surrender of the Japanese to the Allies that ended World War II, the US and the Soviet Union divided Korea, which had been under Japanese rule, along the 38th parallel, roughly bisecting the Korean peninsula.

On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces, backed by China and the Soviet Union, invaded the South triggering the start of the Korean War. Allied with the South, the US deployed some 1.78 million troops over the three-year-long war.

It is estimated that between 2 to 3 million civilians died during the war. According to the US Department of Defense, the US suffered 33,739 deaths in battle. No formal peace treaty was ever signed.

1955-1975

Tensions between the US and the Soviet Union continued to brew in Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 1960s. The main conflict pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its ally, the US.

Over 3.4 million US troops were deployed to Southeast Asia; in excess of three million people, including over 58,000 Americans, were killed in the war.

On March 29, 1973, the last US combat troops left Vietnam. Two years later on April 30, 1975, communist forces seized control of South Vietnam and ended the war.

1990-1991

On August 2, 1990, the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait, a small oil-rich nation to the country’s south. One week later, on August 9, the US began Operation Desert Shield, and deployed thousands of troops to Saudi Arabia.

During the brief war, around 694,550 American troops were deployed to the region. On February 28, 1991, US President George HW Bush declared a ceasefire, and on April 3 of that same year, the UN passed a resolution formally ending the conflict.

2001-2021

The period following the 9/11 attacks, and the declaration of war on both Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, saw a large spike in troops abroad. At least 800,000 Americans served in Afghanistan and more than 1.5 million in Iraq over the past 20 years.

The human cost of the wars is estimated to have killed more than 900,000 people – mostly civilians.

US military spending since 1950

In 2020, the US spent $778bn on its military – the largest military spender in the world and more than the next 10 countries combined – according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

China ranked second at $252bn, followed by India at $73bn, Russia at $62bn and the UK at $59bn.

Copyright Al Jazeera

Over the past 20 years alone, the US has spent $8 trillion on its so-called “global war on terror” according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. The war in Afghanistan accounts for $2.3 trillion which, according to Brown University researchers, equals more than $300 million a day for 20 years.

$2.1 trillion was spent on the wars in Iraq and Syria, and $355bn was attributed to other wars. The rest of the money includes in excess of $1bn in interest payments for the huge amounts of money borrowed to fund the wars as well as more than $2.2bn in obligations for veterans’ care over the next 30 years. This means that, even after the US has left Afghanistan, it will continue to pay for the wars for years to come.

Thanks to Al Jazeera for bringing this article to our attention.

Link to the original article. Copyright Al Jazeera

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First published on July 15, 2022

***

“Production of the B61-12 nuclear bomb begins,” Sandia National Laboratories announced from the United States. The B61-12, which replaces the previous B61 deployed by the U.S. at Aviano and Ghedi and other European bases, is a new type of weapon. It has a nuclear warhead with four power options, selectable depending on the target to be destroyed. It is not dropped vertically, but at a distance from the target on which it is directed guided by a satellite system. It can penetrate underground, exploding deep to destroy command center bunkers in a nuclear first strike.

The B61-12s, classified as “non-strategic nuclear weapons,” are deployed in Europe — in Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain and probably other countries — at distances far enough to strike Russia. They thus have offensive capabilities similar to those of strategic weapons.

Another nuclear weapon system, which the United States is preparing to install in Europe against Russia, is ground-based intermediate-range missiles. They can also be launched from “anti-missile shield” installations, deployed by the U.S. at bases in Deveselu in Romania and Redzikowo in Poland, and aboard five warships cruising in the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Baltic Sea close to Russia.

That such installations have offensive capabilities is confirmed by Lockheed Martin itself. Outlining the characteristics of the Mk 41 vertical launch system, used in both land and naval installations, it specifies that it is capable of launching “missiles for all missions, both defense and long-range attack, including Tomahawk cruise missiles.” These can be armed with nuclear warheads.

Europe is thus being turned by the U.S. into the front line of a nuclear confrontation with Russia, even more dangerous than that of the Cold War.

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This article was originally published on byoblu.

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

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The Russian and Iranian economies will mutually benefit by selling discounted resources on the global market while countries like India will accelerate their rise as multipolar Great Powers through the purchase of these exports. Their trilateral axis will continue becoming a force to be reckoned with, especially if the first two coordinate their natural gas activities seeing as how they account for the largest such reserves in the world.

The influential US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) outlet Politico expressed extreme frustration on Tuesday at America’s inability to stop a prospective Russian-Iranian oil swap arrangement pending the successful renegotiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) that recent reports indicate might be on the brink of finally being reached. In their piece titled “Russia eyes Iran as sanctions-busting backdoor for oil sales”, they lament how easily “Iran could import Russian crude to its northern Caspian coast and then sell equivalent amounts of crude on Russia’s behalf in Iranian tankers leaving from the Persian Gulf.” This pact would be mutually beneficial and further strengthen the rapidly intensifying strategic partnership between these multipolar Great Powers.

The global systemic transition to multipolarity that unprecedentedly accelerated in light of the latest US-provoked phase of the Ukrainian Conflict that began half a year ago is fundamentally transforming Eurasia. President Putin recently declared that Russia restored its status as a world power, which is an accurate reflection of its role in contemporary International Relations. To explain, the US-led West’s unprecedented sanctions counterproductively crippled the economic-financial basis of America’s declining unipolar hegemony, which coincided with Russia teaming up with India and Iran to forge a third pole of influence in the present bi-multipolar intermediary phase of the above-mentioned systemic transition to more complex multipolarity (“multiplexity”).

These two factors irreversibly altered the course of the New Cold War: the US’ unipolar hegemonic decline became inevitable while India helped Russia preemptively avert any potentially disproportionate dependence on China that some observers speculated could have led to the People’s Republic replacing America’s sole superpower status in the coming future and thus replicating the systemic inequalities connected with that scenario. To be absolutely clear, the author doesn’t extend credence to that dire prediction about China replacing the US’ prior role in International Relations but is simply pointing out how India’s black swan intervention just made that scenario impossible in any case.

Having explained the game-changing structural significance of the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership, readers can now better understand the complementary role that the Russian-Iranian one plays. While less directly influential in terms of immediately reshaping the trajectory of the global systemic transition, it’s no less significant with respect to its long-term implications due to the impact that it’s poised to have on the energy industry. These two multipolar powers are major players in that trade, especially the natural gas one. Their speculative plans for an oil swap deal that prompted such panic from Politico carry with them the potential to ensure reliable revenue generation for both while also helping their partners.

The Russian and Iranian economies will mutually benefit by selling discounted resources on the global market while countries like India will accelerate their rise as multipolar Great Powers through the purchase of these exports. Their trilateral axis will continue becoming a force to be reckoned with, especially if the first two coordinate their natural gas activities seeing as how they account for the largest such reserves in the world. It’s therefore not difficult to foresee that the global energy industry could eventually be revolutionized by the Russian-Iranian Strategic Partnership, which could in turn deal a deathblow to the so-called “petrodollar”, especially in the scenario of Saudi Arabia selling oil to China and others in yuan.

De-dollarizing the natural gas trade, whether in parallel with the aforesaid scenario of Saudi Arabia and China leading the de-dollarization of the oil one or instead of it in the event that this second scenario doesn’t transpire for whatever reason, will go down as a landmark event in the history of the global economy. Russia and Iran’s speculatively impending close cooperation in the oil trade will set the stage for what’s very likely to come, which will have outsized importance for everyone since natural gas consumption is expected to continue growing for the indefinite future. In practical terms, this means that those two will collectively exert disproportionate influence over the global economy in an indirect but nevertheless tangible way.

Nobody should doubt their intentions either since Iran has been a revolutionary state since 1979 while President Putin just unveiled his country’s global revolutionary manifesto late last month. Iran and Russia therefore see eye-to-eye on the need to do all that’s required in order to accelerate the systemic transition to multipolarity, which unquestionably includes jointly leveraging their roles in the energy trade so as to become superpowers in this industry. They’ll mutually benefit while also speeding up their shared Indian strategic partner’s rise as a Great Power, which will help break International Relations out of their present bi-multipolar intermediary phase and thus herald the emergence of complex multipolarity exactly as their leaderships envision, all to the detriment of the US’ declining hegemony.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

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

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is a screenshot from Politico via OneWorld

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***

As I read through the multitude of daily news articles about Russia, Ukraine, NATO and EU, it’s getting ever harder to escape the idea that there is a controlled demolition of the continent happening. And that neither its “leaders”, and certainly not its people, have any say in this. All we get from those “leaders” are NATO or World Economic Forum talking points. The only independent voice is Victor Orban. Who is either silenced in western media or painted as fully insane.

But Orban’s Hungarians won’t freeze this coming winter. He just signed a new gas deal with Russia. The main reason that is provided for all the others not doing that is of course Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine. Which is as insane as Orban is, and “totally unprovoked”, say the western media. Noam Chomsky summarized that best: “Of course it was provoked. Otherwise they wouldn’t refer to it all the time as an unprovoked invasion.”

And no, it wasn’t just Russia/Ukraine, way before that Europe had already screwed up its economies beyond recognition -if you cared to look under the hood. But why make it worse? I get a very strong feeling that those EU “leaders” have alienated themselves far too much from the people they purport to serve, and they’ll regret it. For now it’s obvious among farmers, for instance, but when people start freezing, they will want to know why. And if no answer is forthcoming that is both honest and satisfactory, many “leaders” will have it coming for them.

The entire energy and food crisis is being sold as “inevitable”, but it is nothing of the kind. They are the result of choices being made in Brussels, Berlin, Amsterdam etc., about which nobody has asked your opinion. Something I jotted down a few days ago:

Is the west using Ukraine as an excuse to commit mass economic suicide? And, you know, fulfill some WEF-related goals? Why else would they cut off all economic ties to Moscow, at a time when it’s obvious they have no alternative sources for much of what they import from Russia? Moreover, why does a country like Holland aim to close 10,000 of its farms when it’s crystal clear that that will exacerbate the coming global food crises?

If you don’t like Putin, that’s fine, but why should your own people suffer from what you like or not? And of course you can ask whether it’s a good idea that a country the size of a postage stamp is the world’s no. 2 food exporter. But it is. And if you try to change that by doing a 180º, also on a postage stamp, it is very obvious that is not going to go well. And all the so-called leaders know this. But they still do it.

Prices for heating, petrol, as well as food, are set to go much higher than they have already, mitigated only -perhaps- by the fact that ever fewer people will be able to afford the ever higher prices. But now it’s starting to look like this was all scripted. Because “we” could have kept communication channels with Russia open, “we” could have negotiated for peace for the past 6 months. Not doing that was a deliberate choice. A choice that you and me, another “we”- had no voice in whatsoever.

The Dutch could have negotiated with their farmers, and slowly addressed their perceived problems with nitrogen oxides, while keeping food production going. And we could have found a way to keep Russian and Ukrainian crops available on world markets too. But it doesn’t feel at all like “we” wanted that.

Someone made a list of what EU won’t get anymore with the Russia boycott.: “nat-gas, rare earths, inert gases, potash, sulfur, uranium, palladium, vanadium, cobalt, coke, titanium, nickel, lithium, plastics, glass, ceramics, pharmaceuticals, ships, inks, airplanes, polymers, medical and industrial gases, sealing rings & membranes, power transmission, transformer and lube oils, neon gas for microchip etching, etc., etc.”

And that’s not all. Fertilizer!! Why they do it, I don’t know. Do they WANT to kill their own economies? It makes no sense. And this will not be over soon.

Reuters of course seeks to blame Putin. But he’s not the one who introduced the sanctions. He’s offered to let the gas and oil exports continue.

Putin Bets Winter Gas Chokehold Will Yield Ukraine Peace – On His Terms

Cold winters helped Moscow defeat Napoleon and Hitler. President Vladimir Putin is now betting that sky-rocketing energy prices and possible shortages this winter will persuade Europe to strong arm Ukraine into a truce — on Russia’s terms. That, say two Russian sources familiar with Kremlin thinking, is the only path to peace that Moscow sees, given Kyiv says it will not negotiate until Russia leaves all of Ukraine

“We have time, we can wait,” said one source close to the Russian authorities, who declined to be named because they are not authorised to speak to the media. “It’s going to be a difficult winter for Europeans. We could see protests, unrest. Some European leaders might think twice about continuing to support Ukraine and think it’s time for a deal.”

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wants Europeans to be obedient little critters, and take the punishment for the policies he and his ilk have carved out. Because “we” are destined to win. Mr. Borrell is planing to do just fine this winter, mind you. With the best steak your money can buy, real fine wine, to be consumed in comfortably heated homes, restaurants and offices. A picture of Marie Antoinette pops up in my brain.

‘Weary’ Europeans Must ‘Bear Consequences’ Of Ukraine War As Putin Will Eventually Blink: EU’s Borrell

EU high representative and foreign policy chief Josep Borrell gave a surprisingly blunt assessment of the Ukraine war and Europe’s precarious position in an AFP interview published Tuesday, admitting that Russian President Vladimir Putin is betting on fracturing a united EU response amid the current crisis situation of soaring prices and energy extreme uncertainty headed into a long winter. Borrell’s words seemed to come close to admitting that Putin’s tactic is working on some level, or at least will indeed chip away at European resolve in the short and long run, given he chose words like EU populations having to “endure” the deep economic pain and severe energy crunch. He cited the “weariness” of Europeans while calling on leadership as well as the common people to “bear the consequences” with continued resolve.

Borrell explained to AFP that Putin sees “the weariness of the Europeans and the reluctance of their citizens to bear the consequences of support for Ukraine.” But Borrell suggested that Europe will not back down no matter the leverage Moscow might have, particularly when it comes to ‘weaponization of energy’ – and called on citizens to continue to shoulder the cost. Who will blink first? …appears to be the subtext here. He urged: “We will have to endure, spread the costs within the EU,” Borrell told AFP, warning that keeping the 27 member states together was a task to be carried out “day by day.”

And yet, as some like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán have consistently argued since near the start of the Feb.24 invasion, it is inevitable that some will be forced to bear the “costs” much more than others. Already this is being seen with initiatives out of Brussels like rationing gas consumption, which has further led to scenarios like German towns and even residences being mandated to switch off lights or resources for designated periods at night. “More cold showers” – many are also being told. As we round the corner of fall and enter the more frigid months, we are likely to only see more headlines like this: “German cities impose cold showers and turn off lights amid Russian gas crisis.”

Talking of Marie Antoinette. Emmanuel Macron is the little man of grand vision. He foresees the ‘End Of Abundance’, a veritable “tipping point” in history. And he’s just the man to lead you through it. I’ll give him this: he’s got good speech writers. But speech writers don’t keep the people warm and fed.

Macron Warns Of ‘End Of Abundance’

France is headed toward the “end of abundance” and “sacrifices” have to be made during what is a time of great upheaval, President Emmanuel Macron told his cabinet on Wednesday upon returning from summer break. The country has faced multiple challenges lately, ranging from the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine to the unprecedented drought that has battered the whole European continent this summer. Yet, Macron believes that the crisis is actually of a much bigger scale and that structural changes are imminent.“

Some could see our destiny as being to constantly manage crises or emergencies. I believe that we are living through a tipping point or great upheaval. Firstly, because we are living through… what could seem like the end of abundance,” he said. The country and its citizens must be ready to make “sacrifices” to meet and overcome the challenges they are facing, he continued. “Our system based on freedom in which we have become used to living, when we need to defend it sometimes that can entail making sacrifices,”Macron added.

“Faced with this, we have duties, the first of which is to speak frankly and very clearly without doom-mongering,” Macron stressed. The president called upon his cabinet to show unity, be “serious” and “credible” and urged ministers to avoid “demagogy.” “It’s easy to promise anything and everything, sometimes to say anything and everything. Do not give in to these temptations, it is demagoguery,” the president said, adding that such an approach “flourishes” today “in all democracies in a complex and frightening world.”

There is a pattern in the messages of today’s Marie Antoinettes. Borrell wants you to take it lying down, Macron wants you to do that for a long time (like the rest of your lives), and the Belgian PM makes it more concrete: you’ll be freezing for the next 10 years. After which, supposedly, renewables will have been built to keep your kids warm. Spoiler: they won’t be.

Belgian PM: “Next 5-10 Winters Will Be Difficult” As Energy Crisis Worsens

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo might have spilled the beans about the duration of Europe’s energy crisis. He told reporters Monday, “the next 5 to 10 winters will be difficult.” “The development of the situation is very difficult throughout Europe,” De Croo told Belgium broadcaster VRT. “In a number of sectors, it is really difficult to deal with those high energy prices. We are monitoring this closely, but we must be transparent: the coming months will be difficult, the coming winters will be difficult,” he said. The prime minister’s comments suggest replacing Russian natural gas imports could take years, exerting further economic doom on the region’s economy in the form of energy hyperinflation.

From Greece, even more concrete: energy subsidies. €1.9 billion in one month. To keep the hordes out of the streets. Wait, that Belgian guy said this will last 5-10 years. How is the country going to pay for that? One thing that comes to mind is Greeks will vote for anyone in the next election who vows to talk to Putin ASAP, restore the countries’ good relationships and sign a gas deal.

The Electricity Subsidy Shock

A significant rise in the price of electricity announced by state-controlled Public Power Corporation (PPC) for September forced the government to raise its electricity subsidy for September to 1.9 billion euros, from €1.1 billion in August. The subsidy level inevitably follows the PPC’s pricing policy, since it is the dominant player in the market, with 63% of consumers choosing it. While PPC had the lowest price of all electricity providers in August (€0.48 per kilowatt-hour) it raised its September price to €0.788 for those consuming up to 500kWh per month and €0.80 for heavier consumers. In order to stick to its commitment for an actual charge to consumers between €0.14-0.17 per kWh the government had to adjust its subsidy level accordingly, raising it by over 72%.

How long will this last, you said? Well, according to AP, “Washington expects Ukrainian forces “to fight for years to come.” “Included in the package are advanced weapons that are still in the development phase..”

‘Months Or Years’ Before US Arms Reach Ukraine – Media

Years could pass before some of the weapons in the upcoming “largest ever” package of US military assistance to Kiev actually reach Ukraine, according to Western media reports. On Tuesday, a number of mainstream media outlets cited anonymous US officials as describing the impending announcement of a $3 billion package of military aid to Ukraine. If confirmed, it would be the largest of its kind so far. Washington is by far the biggest supplier of military hardware to Ukraine as it fights against Russia. However, some of the promised equipment “will not be in the hands of Ukrainian fighters for months or years,” according to NBC News, one of the outlets that reported the upcoming package. Included in the package are advanced weapons that are still in the development phase, it explained.

The same caveat was cited by the Associated Press, which said that it may take “a year or two” for the arms to reach the battlefield, according to its sources. Washington expects Ukrainian forces “to fight for years to come,” US officials told the AP. The AeroVironment Switchblade 600 drone is an example of a weapon system that was promised to Ukraine months ago but has yet to be delivered. Defense News said this week that the Pentagon plans to sign the contract necessary for sending 10 of the so-called “kamikaze drones” within a month. Last month, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov called on foreign suppliers of arms to use his country as a testing ground for new weapons. He pledged to provide detailed reports about the experiences of Ukrainian soldiers with the prototypes provided to them.

This is not going to go well. Not for the European “leaders”, not for the EU, not for Ukraine, and not for Europeans. We could start a little bet as to how many leaders will still be in place by spring, and I bet you Zelensky won’t be one of them. Putin will. As for the rest, Rutte, Macron, we’ll see. But don’t underestimate the wrath of people with hungry and cold children. It feels like almost an alien image for 99% of Europeans, but it no longer will be.

And there is no logical reason for this, there is only the ideology of a few handfuls of little men with grand visions. Hate of everything Russia has kept the west going for 100 years or more. And these little men feed off of that. They can only do that by refusing to talk. Because that’s exactly what Russia does not refuse. Only, they want to talk as equals.

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Right now beneath the sunny blue skies and seeming normalcy, genocide is occurring globally. The experimental mRNA injections are bioweapons disguised as vaccines (2). They are neither safe nor effective. Some of the jabs may be placebos (3), some batches may be  worse than others and, fortunately, not all will be adversely affected to the same degree. Unfortunately, those receiving a placebo and/or those not apparently adversely impacted, will advertise the “safe and effective” lie, thus enabling the globalist totalitarianism masquerading as public health measures. (4)

The COVID Op is a military/intelligence operation, and the “Lion’s Den”, as per Reiner Fuelmich, is the U.S. deep state. (5)

Read Kennedy’s book, The Real Anthony Fauci,  and you will see the eerily predictive pre-COVID scenarios that are deeply embedded with intelligence agencies and military. DARPA is involved. An Italian judge noted that she could not get ingredients because it was a “military secret”. (6)

Canada is heading into a fall season of more unreasonable fear porn to push the dangerous, experimental jabs based on fabricated pretexts and fabricated pandemics. Early treatment protocols have always been available but largely denied (7) even as the COVID protocols and mandates are killing us and the economy, by design.

All COVID data has been manipulated for a disease that is similar to the flu. Nobody needed to die. PCR test results are invalid (8), and the data base is junk.

Our governments no longer represent us, a global coup is underway.

If enough of us say NO, we can end this. More and more are saying NO. That is the good news.

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This article was originally published on the author’s website, marktaliano.net.

Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017.

Notes

(1)  INJECTIONS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE/ Grand Jury Day 4 – Mark Taliano Accessed 25 August, 2022

(2) Video: Italian Regional Court Identifies the mRNA Injections as “Experimental Substances” which do not Break the Chains of Infection. Reiner Fuelmich Interviews Renate Video: Italian Regional Court Identifies the mRNA Injections as “Experimental Substances” which not Break the Chains of Infection. Reiner Fuelmich Interviews Renate Holzeisen – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization (Accessed 25 August, 2022)

(3) Peter Koenig, “The Planned Fall 2022 “Epidemics Tyranny.” Global Research, 18 August, 2022. The Planned Fall 2022 “Epidemics Tyranny” – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization (Accessed 25 August, 2022)

(4) German Corona Investigative Committee,1 August, 2022 From The Hague. International Trials Day One -Crimes Against Humanity (rumble.com) (Accessed 25 August, 2022)

(5) Deborah Conrad and Reiner Fuellmich, Video: Public Health System Rigged to Make the COVID Vaccines Look “Safe and Effective”. Global Research, 24 August, 2022 Video: Public Health System Rigged to Make the Covid Vaccines Look “Safe and Effective”. Deborah Conrad Interviewed by Reiner Fuellmich – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization (Accessed 25 August, 2022)

(6)  Renate Holzeisen and Reiner Fuellmich, Video: Italian Regional Court Identifies the MRNA Injections as “Experimental Substances” which not Break the Chains of Infection. Reiner Fuelmch interviews Renate Holzeisen. Corona Investigative Committee Session 113: Mycelium. Global Research, 19 July, 2022. (Video: Italian Regional Court Identifies the mRNA Injections as “Experimental Substances” which not Break the Chains of Infection. Reiner Fuelmich Interviews Renate Holzeisen – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 25 August, 2022.

(7) Megan Redshaw, ” Groundbreaking: Nebraska AG Says Doctors Can Legally Prescribe Ivermectin, HCQ for COVID, Calls Out FDA, CDC, Fauci, Media for ‘Fueling Confusion and Misinformation’. the Defender, Children’s Health Defense, 18 October, 2021. (Groundbreaking: Nebraska AG Says Doctors Can Legally Prescribe Ivermectin, HCQ for COVID, Calls Out FDA, CDC, Fauci, Media for ‘Fueling Confusion and Misinformation’ • Children’s Health Defense (childrenshealthdefense.org)) Accessed 25 August, 2022.

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***

As if the US contribution of  “roughly” 75% of NATO’s budget was not enough of a gift, the American public and much of Congress have remained oblivious to collaborators within the US government who have relinquished the Norfolk Naval Station to NATO forces.   With its military forces led by a NATO Supreme Allied Commander at Norfolk’s Joint Warfare Centre and hundreds of new nation member resident-families, NATO has its roots firmly ensconced at the Norfolk facility since at least 2020.  

How this stunning transgression occurred with no public knowledge, deliberation, debate or approval by the Executive Branch or Congress and with no national media inquiry remains a puzzlement.   

The NATO presence is a strong signal that Neocon forces within the US will continue its leadership in maintaining the unipolar world that has plagued the planet since NATO’s existence in 1949.  Established to be a deterrent to the threat of Soviet expansion in Europe after World War II, the United States saw NATO as a tool to prevent the resurgence of nationalist tendencies in Europe and to foster political integration on the continent. 

It is fair to suggest that the world’s largest and most sophisticated naval facility was stealthily and deceitfully conveyed to NATO by more than just a sleight of hand.  The deed had to have been committed with the leadership of treasonous, embedded members of the government’s Senior Executive Service (SES); those  who had  access to the necessary military documentation, records, files and dossiers to unobtrusively pull off a monster accomplishment of this magnitude. 

 The SES are part of the Federal government’s Administrative State which ranks as those most senior public servants, those at the highest management of the bureaucracy with indisputable credentials, unquestioned authority and are largely unaccountable. 

How did this massive reorganization of the nation’s most prodigious Naval facility slip past the House and Senate Armed Services Committees which have legislative oversight and responsibility for naval affairs?  It is the Armed Services Committees which have produced the massive and controversial National Defense Authorization Act annually since 1962.  It is possible that buried deep within the bowels of a long-forgotten NDAA may contain an obscure reference granting NATO permission, at some future time, to relocate to the Norfolk Naval Base. 

Given NATO’s presence as a foreign military agent, it is critically important to understand how NATO’s Article 4 and Article 5 could potentially affect the United States as a constitutional republic given the current national turmoil as the Biden Administration tightens its tyrannical grip on the very dominion of the United States of America.   

Most prominent within the NATO Treaty is Article 5 which guarantees a collective defenseby all NATO members in the event of an attack on one member nation.  The only example of invoking Article 5 came in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  NATO collectively responded as its member nation allies were deployed to Afghanistan under the Resolute Support Mission.  Bringing the wrath of God down on one country which was not a participant to the 911 attack destroys the concept that the ‘collective defense” strategy is a valid vehicle for a peaceful world.  

The oft-neglected Article 4 has been invoked several times during NATO’s history and with its loose verbiage that states “The parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened.”   In other words, any one NATO member nation can invoke Article 4 to trigger an organization-wide discussion if its “territorial integrity” is threatened as is currently occurring along the southern borders of the United States, or if its “political independence” defined as the freedom from external political influence which is open to interpretation or if the “security” of one NATO member is under threat.  At which point, activating Article 5 would be an easy slide. 

The question remains with NATO’s presence in Norfolk, what would it take to create a crisis for intervention and activate more of an Article 5 power grab on behalf of the international deep state order?  Will either Article provide the necessary incentive to respond to what may be perceived as an internal threat to US ‘territorial integrity” rather than an external attack or mass detention to quell a civil political disturbance or a domestic revolt if Donald Trump is arrested or trigger suspicious cyber threats? 

At what point might a Continuity of Government be implemented and by whom to restore civil order with NATO-Norfolk contributing its military to protect the Deep State structure.  While earlier such civil disturbances by Antifa and BLM in Portland, Seattle and elsewhere resulted in no significant penalty or punishment, a different standard as applied to those who may be arbitrarily labeled white supremacists.

And unbeknownst to most Americans, the US-NATO relationship established the US Army NATO Brigade by General Order #46 in December, 1950.   For the first time, NATO’s war in Ukraine has provided the cover for thousands of US Army troops to be deployed under the US Army NATO Brigade banner and to serve under NATO’s direct command.  As Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, head of the U.S. European Command and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe stated, “We are grateful to our allies Canada and the United States for their recent commitments to deploy an additional 7,460 troops, including an armored brigade combat team, artillery units, a naval frigate, and surveillance aircraft, to support this Alliance-wide effort.”   

Finally, is there any assurance that constitutional demands from Congress or the Executive Branch have more authority to supersede Articles 4 and 5 or will US laws and obligations be secondary to NATO’s Orders?  One way to eliminate NATO from Norfolk is for the United States to remove itself from NATO.

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This article was originally published on State of the Nation.

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 can be found at [email protected]. She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ernest R. Scott, licensed under the Public Domain

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***

The possibility of US lockdowns – never attempted on this scale in the history of pandemics – was already in the air in early March 2020. The theory of lockdown had been floating around for 15 years but now China was first to try it, and claim enormous success, however fraudulently. 

Incredibly, the US was set to try it out too but getting Trump on board was going to take some doing. The federal government had the quarantine power since 1944. That much we knew. But just how expansive could its exercise be? Would they dare quarantine the well with the sick? How far would this go?

Thanks to several journalistic accounts, we have a better idea of what went on in the White House before the dreadful March 16, 2020, press conference of Donald Trump, Anthony Fauci, and Deborah Birx in which the lockdowns were announced. Along with that came a flier with tiny print about which the ever-trusting Trump apparently knew nothing: “bars, restaurants, food courts, gyms, and other indoor and outdoor venues where groups of people congregate should be closed.”

Read those words again. Has anything like this ever been issued by any government in the history of the world, before China did it? I cannot think of a case. It shuts not only the places where people do “congregate” but also everywhere where they might congregate. Churches. AA meetings. Civic clubs. Libraries. Museums. Homes! And this happened under Trump’s watch right here in the US! There ought to be a word to describe something more extreme than totalitarian.

There were a number of people in Trump’s circle in those days who proved panicked and confused enough to embrace the idea. But who precisely wrote those words in the sheet handed out to reporters?

We cannot say for sure but Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner played an important role. He had enlisted two close friends from college to help: Nat Turner and Adam Boehler. Both were graduates from the Wharton School, like Trump. Jared somehow believed that they knew something about pandemics because they worked in health-care delivery. So he called them.

Boehler headed the $60 billion US International Development Finance Corporation and still does. It’s one of those many agencies that throws contracts and cash to big shots within industry. Before that job, he was head of Landmark Health delivery services, which means that he knew business and finance, not public health. He is among those high-finance execs who were drawn to healthcare not for the science but for the money.

As for Turner, he is a serial entrepreneur who got his start selling snakes from his parents’ garage. Truly. He founded an ad agency that he eventually sold to Google 10 years ago, Invite Media, for more than $70 million. His company Flatiron – oncology-related electronic record software – sold to Roche in 2018 for $1.9 billion. His page at the Wharton School describes him as “Young, Entrepreneurial and Google-Owned.” He is now a billionaire investor at an implausibly young age.

And Google-owned! 

The book Nightmare Scenario (2021) explains what happened next. On March 13, 2020:

Boehler and Turner burrowed into a room in the basement of the West Wing and started calling people who grasped both the scale of the crisis but also the politics. Over that weekend, they put together recommendations and then circulated them with Birx and Fauci. The guidelines were refined further before being presented to Trump in the Oval Office. They wanted to recommend shutting down in-person education at schools. Closing indoor dining at restaurants and bars. Canceling travel.

Birx and Fauci saw the guidelines as a crucial pause that would buy them some time to better understand the pandemic. Shutting down flights was not enough, they said; more would have to be done. …. Boehler, Kushner, Birx, Fauci, and other aides presented Trump with the recommendations several days later, anxious over what he might say. Kushner had been preparing Trump for the possibility that they were going to need to take more “draconian” actions.

This account was not speculative. Kushner himself in his new book tells a very similar story:

On my way to the White House early the next morning, March 12, my [billionaire investor] brother Josh called from New York City. He described the worrisome signs: the city had canceled its annual Saint Patrick’s Day parade, thousands of people were self-quarantining, and millions more were leaving the city. When I told him that I was asked to jump into the response, he made a suggestion: “You should call Adam.”…

Call Adam!

Why not call, oh, for example, a public health scientist? Someone with some expertise in viruses? A medical doctor? Universities are packed with them. Someone, anyone, with actual knowledge and experience? Nope. It was entirely a crony operation, privileged fools about to take over the private lives of hundreds of millions of people.

Boehler was the perfect person to help us with the federal government’s COVID response, especially because he had the skills to overcome the fierce rivalries among the administration’s health-care team….After the meeting, Boehler and I huddled in my office and began sketching out how we could help with testing and supplies. To get additional support, we called our mutual friend and successful health-care entrepreneur Nat Turner. …

As we dealt with the shortage of cotton swabs and other supplies, we faced another problem: the need to develop public health guidelines.

Let’s just stop right there and consider this realization. Oh, they needed guidelines for the rest of us to follow, for reasons of politics and public relations. After all, they are surely the masters of the craft. Continuing:

Given that people across the country were confused and concerned, Birx and Fauci had been discussing the need for a unified set of federal standards to help Americans understand what they should do to keep themselves safe and slow the spread of the virus. They insisted that these guidelines would help prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. Despite all the talk over the past week, no one had taken steps to produce a document. When Nat Turner flagged the issue,

Again, let’s stop the tape there. Nat Turner pointed out that no one had yet issued any orders? Good call, dude. Someone needs to get right on that. Just open up a Google doc and get to work on writing a central plan for the whole country. You have a two-hour deadline.

I asked him to coordinate with Derek Lyons to produce a draft and encouraged him to call Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the FDA and a renowned public health expert [and Pfizer board member]. I had been trying to persuade Gottlieb to come back into government for a short-term stint to help us better organize our response and support our effort to develop a vaccine.

When we called Gottlieb, he was grateful that we were preparing guidelines. “They should go a little bit further than you are comfortable with,” he said. “When you feel like you are doing more than you should, that is a sign that you are doing them right.”

Look, this whole scene truly just boggles the mind. Phone calls. Rushed documents. Friends of friends. Pharma executives. People in the know!

The result was a document that shut down the US and the world, all banged out by rank amateurs with ungodly privilege, with nary a thought of asking disinterested experts. Whatever they typed would affect the lives of 333 million people coast to coast. Did they think about that? Did they even care? Did the even once think about people not of their class and pedigree?

The result: Trump agreed to the “guidelines,” which led to the most momentous lockdown decision in the history of public health and even in the whole of human history. It locked down hospitals, nursing homes, and every commercial establishment in the country except those called essential. Homes too: the CDC said no more than ten can come to your house for dinner.

So let’s get this straight. This decision, which wrecked life in the US and all over the world, and eventually caused the loss of the presidency and the Congress, was made by a handful of well-connected tech entrepreneurs with ZERO experience in infectious disease, epidemiology, immunology, pandemic history, or anything other than management and business classes at the Wharton School. With close Google connections. And they did this in cooperation with one name board member of Big Pharma that ended up making billions in profits from mandated vaccines that were forced on the American people. Also, Google made a mint.

Apparently, the above is a true story, based on one first-hand account and one journalistic account. The world was wrecked by a literal snake salesman, the Google-funded inventor of DoorDash for medicine, a big pharma executive, some bureaucrat who lived off AIDS largess, an octogenarian media star who had been in government for 40 years, plus the son-in-law of an easily bamboozled name-brand purveyor who imagined from his years as a CEO that he could just shut down a country and turn it back on! They constitute a plethora of elites who scammed their way to the top and deployed their new-found power in grossly immoral ways that wrecked this country and many others.

Now, to be clear, there is surely much more to this story. For one thing, even as these birds were deliberating, the Department of Health and Human Services had already issued on March 13 a lockdown order marked as classified. So it was already in the cards. Maybe these bozos only believed they were in charge when the real power was higher up. I do not know. But I would like to. It’s like a kaleidoscope that never stops turning. What we know now is enough of a scandal.

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Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and ten books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown. He is also the editor of The Best of Mises. He writes a daily column on economics at The Epoch Times, and speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

Featured image: Kushner: On March 11, 2020, Vice President Mike Pence asked for my help with the COVID response. I called my friend Nat Turner (left) and Adam Boehler (far right), successful healthcare entrepreneurs who helped me procure lifesaving supplies and equipment from around the world. Avi Berkowitz (center) was a critical source of counsel throughout our government service. (Courtesy of the White House Photo Office)

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***

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***

Following on from the work of Dr. Hughes this essay, by reference to 1930’s Germany, will outline certain historical parallels between that time and the world we currently inhabit. It will also present speculation as to how the Deep State may now proceed in its determination to implement The Great Reset.

After the Armistice in 1918 the German people were devastated in every way imaginable. In addition to having four years of death, destruction and hunger they had experienced an increasingly dictatorial State brought about in order to conduct the War. The future they looked towards was full of humiliation and a seemingly never-ending era of hunger, helplessness, civil disorder and general uncertainty. See this.

The experience of people in Britain and the USA in the last two years mirrors, to a very limited extent, that of the Germans during World War 1.

It is, however, likely to get worse for millions of people. We have lost liberties, worn masks, socially distanced, followed rules. taken dangerous jabs we don’t need and, like prisoners, experienced Lockdowns. The power of the State reinforced by media speculation that there may be another Lockdown or that Christmas will be cancelled. There has been a hellish psychological strategy imposed on the people. See this. Rampaging inflation accompanied by mass unemployment, food and fuel shortages, increasingly invasive surveillance, limits to travel, strikes and outbreaks of civil unrest. The Russians and the conflict in Ukraine will be blamed.

The war on the people by the elite will not be mentioned by the mainstream media.

How did the Germans respond to their post-war privations? They desperately looked for a saviour. They therefore elected a proud nationalist who re-wrote history and promised easy solutions to their misery. See this.

Because of their collective despair they did not care to read the small print and therefore failed to realise the horrific nightmare which was to befall them and the rest of the world. Bear in mind that until the Second World War began the nation was largely grateful to Hitler. The newsreels suggest he was met by adoring crowds wherever he went. In the USA he was, in fact, “Time Magazine” “Man of the Year”.

The current President of the United States is, apparently, suffering severe cognitive decline and his Vice-President does not seem to have any competence or leadership qualities. It may be said that this does not matter as no President is really in charge of the nation. Be that as it may, millions of Americans still believe in the electoral process as a viable force for change and, as in post-WW1 Germany, will look for a hero to deliver them from their trauma. They will tolerate all manner of new rules and regulations if only the pain will stop. They have become a nation of waifs tossed in a sea of fear.

According to economists the inflation rate across the West will accelerate. The traditional response to this is to raise interest rates but if this happens then it may well lead to a total economic collapse. Given the gigantic debts accumulated by Governments across the world it is possible that they would be unable to service their debts. It is a cleft stick. If they do not raise interest rates then hyperinflation as per post World War 1 Germany may ensue. Either way, the ordinary man and woman will suffer.

Imagine, if you will, an American leader who promises to Make America Great Again. Can you think of a former Leader who was thwarted at every turn by the Deep State, the swamp? Was harassed by the FBI and suffered a stolen election? One who was hoodwinked by the scientists and the pharmaceutical industry? One who promises revenge?

Is this how America’s Hitler will be presented to the people? Does it seem likely that Trump would turn against “the science”? Perhaps. A move such as this could be seen as similar to Hitler’s war on the rational.

In Britain there is an election campaign ongoing for the Leadership of the Conservative Party and as a consequence Prime Minister. The Party membership are being forced to choose between Rishi Sunak, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary.

Both characters are flawed and lack charisma. Sunak presided over economic policies which were destined to bring about the difficulties Britain now experiences and Truss, amongst many other defects, has exposed the fact that she is a Foreign Secretary with a limited knowledge of geography. See this.

Truss is the frontrunner and in office as Prime Minister is likely to be as ineffectual as Theresa May.

Would this make the British people yearn for Boris Johnson to return? The media would point out that he got “Brexit Done”. He was removed “unjustly” and, like his hero Churchill, he will have had his wilderness years. Don’t bet against this scenario, the British always admire a lovable rogue. His “Hasta La Vista” statement in the House Of Commons perhaps indicates that he knows of a plan to bring him back. See this.

The ills that he returns to cure will have been caused, so he will say, by his successor’s incompetence, the Russians, the scientists and the computer modellers.

As we saw in 1930’s Germany the people will accept anything so long as their pain will stop.

Will Herr Trump and Herr Johnson say “I can make it stop. All your suffering will end. All you have to do is take this medicine.”

It might not be Trump. It might not be Johnson. Be sure, however, the Doctors are on their way. The medicine has been prepared.

You look at the Great Reset Medicine Bottle and written in bold letters are the ingredients: Digital ID, Central Bank Digital Currency, Social Credit System, Microchips, Mandatory Jabs, Travel Restrictions, Insect Food and Climate Change rules.

For all our sakes – don’t take it!

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Harry Hinson lives in England and has been a student of politics and history since 1964. He has a degree in Social & Political Studies from the University of Sheffield.

Featured image is from Dreamstime

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***

Ravi Agrawal, Foreign Policy editor in chief, has interviewed historian Stephen Wertheim,  a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In this interview, Wertheim argues that the US is overextending its power and therefore should restrain itself in Taiwan and Ukraine, among other places.

Washington has of course been providing essential support to Kiev in its current conflict with Moscow. Meanwhile, it is engaged in a new cold war with Beijing.

The American scholar notes that, even though US President Joe Biden came into office proclaiming that “America is back” (after years of former President Donal Trump’s relative “isolationism”, if you may call it that, though only relatively), the current American president in fact withdrew from Afghanistan and seemed to reject the idea of a “forever war” there. Moreover, he also initially pursued a “stable and predictable relationship” with Moscow.

One should say it did not last much, though. Not too long after removing its troops from Afghanistan, Biden escalated the American forever war in Somalia, for example. And, one year after that withdrawal, the US now finds itself entrenched in two arenas simultaneously, while it tries to encircle and contain two superpowers at once.

An interesting point Stephen Wertheim makes is that by pushing the narrative that the conflict in Ukraine is all about “a defense of democracy”, albeit Ukraine could hardly be described as a democratic country from a Western or anyone’s perspective, the US and its global North allies in fact alienate and exclude much of the global south. The US “human rights” and “democracy” narrative that informs much of its foreign policy, in any case, is simply a weaponization of these very concepts, as anyone can easily tell just by paying any attention to the covering up of Ukraine’s own record on this, for instance.

Wertheim also argues that the American “engagement” strategy was really about regime change, in an attempt to make China look like a liberal democracy Western country. This has been replaced today by a “containment” strategy, but the truth is that neither approach has worked. What he proposes is a “mutual coexistence”, based on the premise that Beijing has “its own system” (albeit one which the US does not approve of). In this scenario, for the sake of avoiding the serious risks of a “great-power war” Washington would not try to “change the Chinese regime” and would acknowledge that “not all aspects of Chinese power run counter to U.S. interests in the world” – plus “some things are also not worth antagonizing China over.”

Thus, Stephen Wertheim reasons that the White House should go back to its own One China Policy, as it had been practiced for decades, though still maintaining some degree of “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan, so as not to provoke and corner the Chinese into thinking they will need to act there. The academic goes beyond that and, in practice, argues that Washington “doesn’t have vital interests implicated in the Middle East” and therefore should “draw down” its security partnerships there. In the same way, it should pursue a “transition” in Europe so that Europeans themselves lead the defense of their own continent.

Wertheim’s defense of “restraint” (or so-called “offshore balancing”) echoes that of Stephen M. Walt, a Harvard University professor of international relations, who adopts a realist stance on foreign policy. Walt has been defending that there is not much need for the US to deploy significant forces neither in Europe nor in the Middle East, and that a more restrained foreign policy would free up resources for much needed long-term domestic investments in the nation’s future. Walt argues that realists were correct about the dangers of NATO enlargement, the Iraq war, about Afghanistan, and so on. Thus, they should be heard.

In a similar “pro-restraint” vein, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has been urging peace talks with Russia, necessarily involving some territorial compromise in Ukraine, so as to avoid a permanent break with Moscow. Realist scholar John J. Mearsheimer in turn has also warned that the US-led Western policy toward Ukraine would lead to trouble, as have many other realists.

These calls for restraint are not only feasible but are in fact quite urgent. Europe already seems to be slowly “abandoning” Ukraine, which, from the US perspective, overburdens Washington. The US is already overextending its power in its effort to contain two superpowers at once. If one stretches too far, one breaks, as the saying goes. It is about time Washington exercises some restraint – in Taiwan, Ukraine and beyond.

“Containment” has simply not worked and the unipolar moment has already passed – whether the American establishment likes it or not. Therefore, the United States needs to get out of the escalatory dynamic it has put itself into, for the sake of global peace; and it must surrender much of its military overcommitment.

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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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***

There has been a lot of buzz about Amnesty International’s recent report on the violations committed by the Ukrainian military in the war with Russia, although this was a balanced and cautious report indeed. The attacks against this human rights organization are far from innocent. Background and interpretation of this issue.

A remarkable report

On 4 August, Amnesty International released a report on how the Ukrainian army’s combat tactics are endangering civilians, as it involves building bases and using weapons systems in densely populated residential areas, schools and hospitals.

Amnesty has written dozens of reports on the violations committed by the Russian army in this war. This time it holds the Ukrainian accountable. A report by the UN and also Der Spiegel had previously resulted in similar findings as AI.

The report is cautious. Russia is also being blamed. “The Ukrainian military’s practice of locating military objectives within populated areas does not in any way justify indiscriminate Russian attacks.”

A butterfly mine. Source: Twitter

In this report, Amnesty only talks about the use of civilians as human shields. It does not mention the use of cluster bombs[1] or butterfly mines,[2] the shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant or the torture of captured Russian soldiers.

Anyway, the report was a remarkable first. It was the first time a major Western human rights organization denounced the behavior of the Ukrainian military. Until then, there had only been convictions of the crimes committed by the Russian army.

Storm of criticism

The report was met with a storm of criticism. Major media outlets such as The Washington Post, The Telegraph or Bloomberg accused Amnesty of “victim blaming ” and acting as “useful idiots” in Putin’s favor. They talked about Amnesty’s “moral bankruptcy” and “anti-Western obsession”.

The Ukrainian government reacted furiously. President Zelensky condemned the report in a speech to the nation, accusing Amnesty International of an “attempt to grant amnesty to the terrorist state and to shift the blame from the aggressor to the victim of aggression.”

Kuleba, the foreign minister, tweeted that the report “distorts reality, draws a false moral equivalence between the aggressor and the victim, and boosts Russia’s disinformation efforts. This is fake ‘neutrality’, not truthfulness.”

Apparently @amnesty SG calls me a ‘mob’ and a ‘troll’, but this won’t stop me from saying that its report distorts reality, draws false moral equivalence between the aggressor and the victim, and boosts Russia’s disinformation efforts. This is fake “neutrality”, not truthfulness. https://t.co/Kz2GBzSZr3

— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) August 5, 2022

The Ukrainian branch of Amnesty also strongly opposed the publication of the report. The section’s director, Oksana Pokalchuk, stated: “we did everything we could to prevent this report from going public”.

As a result of the intense pressure, a few days after releasing the report, the human rights organization felt compelled to apologize for the “pain caused”. “Amnesty International deeply regrets the distress and anger that our press release on the Ukrainian military’s fighting tactics has caused.”

The organization did, however, remain fully supportive of its findings. Earlier, CBS, one of the three largest commercial television networks in the US, had partially removed a documentary on arms deliveries to Ukraine after pressure from the government in Kiev. Amnesty did not succumb to the pressure exerted on the publication of its report.

Three generations of human rights

In order to discredit Amnesty, some go so far as to label it an organization of the extreme left. But that is absolutely not the case. To make this clear, we will first briefly discuss the different types of human rights.

There are three types or generations of human rights. The first generation are the so-called civil rights which relate to freedom and participation in political life. They were introduced after the French Revolution in 1789 and served to protect the emerging bourgeoisie from the omnipotence of king and nobility.

These rights include freedom of speech, equality before the law, freedom of religion, right to private property, right to a fair trial, right to privacy.

The rights of the second generation are social, economic and cultural. They are related to equality. They came about under the impetus of the emerging labor movement and socialist countries. With these rights, governments guarantee equal conditions and treatment to the civilian population.

These are rights to food, housing, education, health care, work, leisure, social security, fair pay, etc.

The third generation may be described as collective or peoples’ rights. They became popular in the countries of the South during decolonization. These rights are about a just world order and must ensure that each country can pursue its own autonomous course.

These include the right to sovereignty, economic and social development, natural resources, cultural heritage, healthy environment and sustainability (for future generations).

Eurocentrism

Each of the three generations is important, but the elites in the West have managed to narrow the scope of thinking mainly to the first generation. If you want to maintain the gap between the rich and the poor, it is advantageous to disregard social and economic rights. In order to maintain the domination of the North over the South, it is also useful not to talk about peoples’ rights.

So, the focus is always on civil and political rights. Moreover, these are then applied à la carte. In the case of “friendly countries” such as Saudi Arabia or Israel, there is a great deal of turning a blind eye when these rights are flouted. “Non-friendly countries” such as Iran, Venezuela or China, on the other hand, are placed under a magnifying glass when it comes to those rights.

Once that dominant view of the West on human rights has become commonplace, it can be politically and ideologically weaponized. Through a human rights policy, the US and the West then try to give certain countries a negative image and isolate them diplomatically.

Especially since the advent of President Reagan in the 1980s, ”the human rights campaign” has intensified considerably. In a New York Times op-ed entitled ”Why We Must Support Human Rights”, John McCain, a prominent Republican senator, wrote:

“We are the chief architect and defender of an international order governed by rules derived from our political and economic values. We have grown vastly wealthier and more powerful under those rules. More of humanity than ever before lives in freedom and out of poverty because of those rules.” You cannot make it any clearer than that.

Where to situate Amnesty International?

Like most other Western human rights organizations, Amnesty focuses primarily on first-generation human rights. In doing so, it adopts the dominant narrative and therefore often plays into the hands of Western interests.

In the US, there has long been a revolving door between the staffs of prominent human rights groups and the government. In Europe, this may be less the case, but it is an undeniable factor. In addition, the pressure from large donors, who favor the dominant narrative, should not be underestimated.

Traditionally, Amnesty has ignored the power structures that maintain Western domination over the rest of humanity. Actions by leftist governments trying to stop violent counter-revolutions are put on a par with those of ruthless imperialist states persecuting minorities.

In Bolivia, after a military coup in 2019, Jeanine Anez was appointed president by the military. Her government was guilty of brutal repression against popular resistance. The decision of the newly elected government to prosecute her for a large number of massacres was considered by Amnesty International to be a “pattern of bias in in the system of justice”.

The Morning Star notes that this is not evidence of bias but is the result of an “individualist approach that ignores the power relations that define exploitation, oppression, resistance and revolt”.

That is why Amnesty could not accept Nelson Mandela as a “prisoner of conscience”. In the eyes of AI, armed revolutionary struggle is the same as armed state repression.

It is also why Amnesty gives more weight to the arrest of a media tycoon in Hong Kong than to the eradication of absolute poverty among hundreds of millions of people in China.

Same story regarding Cuba. The 2021 Amnesty report focuses on some dissidents and the fact that some hospitals were overwhelmed by the influx of Covid patients at one point. It does not say a word about the murderous blockade that keeps the country in an economic stranglehold.

After a breakdown at a Cuban company that produces oxygen, there was an acute shortage of oxygen to ventilate critically ill Covid patients. The US blockade prevented the urgent purchase of oxygen. As a result, hundreds of Cuban patients died unnecessarily. The report does not mention this at all.

Amnesty also cannot avoid playing out human rights à la carte with regard to friendly and unfriendly nations. For example, it considers Russian dissident Navalny a prisoner of conscience, but not the whistleblowers Assange, Snowden or Chelsea Manning.[3]

Beyond self-censorship

So, there is a lot to be said about Amnesty’s approach. Their politics cannot possibly be called leftist, but that does not prevent us from defending the organization against attacks from the right. Indeed, with their attacks, right-wing forces seek to silence any dissenting voice.

They also try to promote a Hollywood version of the world, in which the West are the good guys who can do no wrong and the opponents are the bad guys who act wrongly by definition.

Of course, under the governments of ‘our’ adversaries, whether Putin, Assad, Gaddafi or the Taliban, war crimes have been committed. “But the focus on those crimes is all too often an excuse to avoid addressing western war crimes, thereby enabling agendas that advance the interests of the West’s war industries”, as journalist and author Jonathan Cook said.

The coverage of the war in Ukraine and the human rights situation is viewed almost entirely through the lenses of Western political priorities. Even the author of the Amnesty report, which we have discussed here, admits that “the level of self-censorship on this issue [Ukrainian war crimes] has been pretty extraordinary”.

This Amnesty report breaks with the one-sidedness. The reason why a highly respected Western non-governmental organization is breaching the wall of self-censorship may be twofold.

First of all, doubts are growing both among a part of the establishment and among the population about the West’s bellicose approach to this war. With the upcoming energy crisis in the winter, this kind of doubt will increase significantly. By extension, the view is slowly growing that in addition to the criminal behavior of the Russian army, the criminal behavior of the Ukrainian army can no longer be tolerated either.

These doubts are undoubtedly also felt within the organization of AI itself. Some of its supporters, and perhaps its staff, will not have found it okay for the organization to focus unilaterally on Russia’s crimes.

Amnesty mainly uses the first type of human rights and does not usually distances itself from the Western approach. But that need not be a fatality. On the Palestinian issue, there has been a lot of grassroots pressure within the organization, with results. AI released a landmark report naming Israel as an Apartheid State. That would be worth repeating.

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Marc Vandepitte is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Sources

Amnesty’s not on the left. So why the Ukraine backlash?

Consider Amnesty’s message, don’t shoot the messenger

Why is Amnesty apologising for telling the truth about Ukrainian war crimes?

Amnesty International report exposes Ukraine’s violations of international law, deliberate use of civilians as human shields

An unpleasant truth for Ukrainians is coming to light

Notes

[1] A cluster bomb is a bomb that contains a large number of smaller bombs, called submunitions. When a cluster bomb is used, the bomb opens in mid-air and then scatters dozens or even hundreds of submunitions over an area up to several soccer fields in size.

[2] A butterfly mine is a type of landmine dispersed from the air. The blast charge is small, intended to injure persons, not kill them. The name ‘butterfly’ refers to its wing-like shape. Its aerodynamic properties promote dispersal over a large area when butterfly bombs are dropped as cluster bombs. A butterfly mine mutilates the victim who comes into contact with it.

[3] Chelsea E. Manning was an American soldier in Iraq. On WikiLeaks, she leaked a video recording of a US helicopter attack in Baghdad. She was convicted but released early after being pardoned by Barack Obama. Yet from March 2019 to March 2020, she was detained again for refusing to testify in a case against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

This article was first published on August 28, 2020

***

Initiative of the No War No NATO Campaign:

We, the people of good will, of all walks of life, living on all continents and professing different creeds and religions, direct your attention to the threat of an all-out nuclear war that can erupt very easily either due to deliberate actions of any nuclear weapons state or because of unintentional, human, technical or other mistake.

We are witnessing that the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons in a limited or on large-scale attack recently has been dramatically lowered, bringing the entire world to the brink of a nuclear Armageddon.

F**k

The United States in fact has withdrawn from a number of rather well-known and useful nuclear arms control treaties and accords for dubious reasons and illogical explanations.

Nuclear arms delivery vehicles are becoming more sophisticated, faster and more precise. They have been combined into a dangerous combination of arms embracing strategic and tactical nuclear weapons with missile defense assets and conventional capabilities, and with a possibility to place strike weapons in space, including missile defense systems and anti-satellite weapons.

Many military exercises that earlier have been conducted with the use of conventional weapons, gradually are being transformed into drills using mock nuclear weapons.

Nuclear arms experts calculate that during an initial massive nuclear attack, at least 34 million people will immediately perish and 57 million people will receive multiple injuries and wounds that will cause horrible pain, suffering, radiation sickness and death. Additionally, various kinds of infrastructure, flora and fauna, nuclear power plants, water resources – including potable water and hydropower dams – will be heavily damaged or destroyed completely by huge firestorms, vast nuclear contamination, powerful explosions, and earthquakes.

But that is just the immediate impact. The nuclear winter that would be created by even a limited nuclear war would threaten all of humanity with starvation and other mortal threats.

We who have voluntarily signed this appeal urge you, as the leaders of all nine nuclear nations, to take the following actions in 2020:

First, as an initial step leading to comprehensive and irreversible nuclear disarmament on a global scale, you pledge not to use and denounce any kind of nuclear weapon use in a first strike against any nation at any time.

Second, sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons with the subsequent commitment specified in the next item.

Third, commit to irreversibly dismantling all nuclear weapons by August 6, 2045 or earlier that date – by all nine nuclear weapon states, in carefully calibrated stages and through well-developed and mutually acceptable mechanisms of inspections, provided that all nuclear weapon states will follow this pattern simultaneously and honestly.

Signed personally as an expression of my good will by me

Signature ………..

resident of the Republic (State) of ……………

on (date) ………………………. 2020.

***

Please paste this document, sign and email it to [email protected]

Our deepest thanks.

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Today, 2 May, marks the eighth anniversary of the diabolical Nazi atrocities at Odessa. For those unfamiliar with how this war began I updated a News Junkie Post article about its aetiology for The Indicter in 2015. At least 46 people were killed and many more unaccounted for when pro-Russian sympathisers were locked in the trade-union building by Right Sector fascists before it was set on fire.

The fascists were chanting “Slava Ukraini”, that is “Glory to Ukraine”, as people burnt to death. The perpetrators walked free. These are the same Nazis fighting for Kiev.

A compiled video of what happened on 2 May 2014

Earlier this year, at the start of the Russian special operation, and in praise of the eight-year NATO-backed slaughter, Boris Johnson added his own cry of Slava Ukraini on behalf of the British People when he told the Zelensky regime that the UK stands with Ukraine and its people. This is not Johnson’s first cry of Glory to Ukraine.

On 24 August 2019 he saluted Ukraine’s “independence” together with John Whittingdale, Chair of the All-Parliamentary group on Ukraine, Robert Brinkley, British Ambassador to Ukraine (2002-2006), Michael Fallon, Member of the House of Commons, Baroness Alison Suttie, Member of the House of Lords, John Grogan, Member of the House of Commons, Julian Edward George Asquith, the Earl of Oxford and Asquith, Jonathan Djanogly, member of the House of Commons, Orysia Lutsevych, manager of the Ukrainian Forum, Chatham House, Andrew Foxall, Director of Research for the Henry Jackson Society and Pauline Latham, member of the House of Commons.

Together they repeated the words, line by line, of what is claimed to be the Ukrainian National Anthem since the coup-d’etat which removed the legitimately-elected president Viktor Yanukovich to install the West’s puppet regime.

Details are starting to emerge that NATO was actually planning to take control of the Donbas region against the will of the people. Even more disturbing is the speculation that NATO has a unit hidden deep in the bowels of the Azovstal factory. That would certainly mean that Johnson knew the intent from the start.

If they knew what was happening today my parents would blow up a dust storm. Their generation spent five-years fighting off the evils of Nazism. Now my government is gung ho in support of it. It is almost unbelievable.

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a surprise visit to Ukraine on Wednesday, where he warned against negotiations with Russia.

“This is not the time to advance some flimsy plan for negotiation,” Johnson said at a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Johnson, who is due to step down as prime minister next month, has now visited Kyiv three times since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. He has been one of the most hawkish NATO leaders in his rhetoric against Russia, frequently discouraging the idea of peace talks.

During one visit to Kyiv in April, Johnson said he “urged” against negotiations with Russia.

According to a report from Ukrainska Pravda, Johnson told Zelensky in April that even if Ukraine was ready to sign a deal with Russia, Kyiv’s Western backers were not.

During Wednesday’s visit, Johnson pledged a new weapons package for Ukraine worth about $64 million. All of the details of the package aren’t clear, but it includes 850 Black Hornet micro-drones, which are about the size of a human thumb and can be targeted for target-spotting.

Britain has been one of NATO’s biggest supporters of Ukraine, although its total military aid is dwarfed by what the US has pledged. So far, London has announced about $2.7 billion in military and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine while the US has pledged about $13.6 billion in weapons packages alone.

Britain’s support for Ukraine is not expected to wane as the two leading candidates to replace Johnson — UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak — have pledged they will continue backing Kyiv in its war.

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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

Featured image: Creator: syllogi Admin / No10 Downing Str | Credit: syllogi Admin / No10 Downing Str

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In the video below, Judge Andrew Napolitano talks with former CIA official Philip Giraldi on the latest developments in the Ukraine-Russia war.

They also discuss the assassination of Darya Dugina,  journalist and daughter of philosopher Alexander Dugin and the involvement of CIA, MI6 and Mossad in the war.

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Liz Truss it not only ignorant with regard to nuclear weapons and their devastating impacts, she does not know the geography of the Russian Federation, claiming that Rostov on the Don as well as Voronezh belong to Ukraine; it’s like saying that Manchester belongs to Scotland:

Russia’s Kommersant newspaper quoted two diplomatic sources as saying that during their closed-door meeting on Thursday Lavrov had asked Truss if she recognised Russian sovereignty over Rostov and Voronezh – two regions in the south of the country where Russia has been building up its forces.

Kommersant said Truss replied that Britain would never recognise them as Russian, and had to be corrected by her ambassador. (Reuters report)

My message to the Conservative party, do not vote for an Ignoramus who could lead Britain and the World into the unthinkable, a nuclear war which threatens the future of humanity.

Michel Chossudovsky, August 26, 2022

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The United States Government is pressing Japan’s Government to revise its 1947 U.S.-created Constitution so as to eliminate its clause (Article 9) that prevents Japan from invading any country. The clause asserts that:

the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

The reason for this change is that Japan could play a decisive role assisting America’s unofficial war against America’s World War II ally China, which country America’s Government wants to turn into a vassal-nation like Japan long has been (ever since 1945).

America especially wants Japan to invade China when and if China invades (so as to retake control over) the “Republic of China”, which is China’s province of Taiwan, which province Japan had conquered from China in 1895, and which province the United States Government in 1945 forced Japan to return to China, as part of Japan’s WW II surrender, which today’s U.S. Government now wants to reverse, so that China can now become captured by America as Japan was captured in 1945.

Only if Taiwan becomes separated from China can America defeat China, which would greatly advance America toward its goal of being the world’s hegemon, the first-ever all-encompassing global empire.

So: America has now 100% reversed its position during WW II, of opposing Japan and supporting China, to instead opposing China and supporting Japan. Removal of the peaceful-nation clause in the U.S.-written Japanese Constitution will be necessary for this purpose.

If America succeeds in restoring Japan’s “right of belligerency,” then here is why Japan would provide crucial assistance to the U.S. regime’s effort to grab Taiwan for the U.S. empire and so to conquer China:

On 9 June 2022, Salman Rafi Sheikh was the first person to make note of the fact that the U.S. imperial regime has instructed both of its two former WW II enemies, Germany and Japan, to re-arm, but, this time for America’s empire, instead of for their own.

(In other words: the U.S. regime’s view is that imperialistic fascism is okay if the empire is America, but NOT if the empire is Germany, or Japan.) He headlined “How Washington is Turning the Pacific into a New Theatre of NATO’s Conflict”, and noted that,

“Japan’s drive to arm itself has an interesting parallel in Europe, where Germany, too, has decided to massively increase its total defence spending to 100 billion euros. With Washington actively supporting these critical changes to establish powerful militaries around its core rival states – Russia and China [respectively] in Europe and Asia – new forms of conflict are likely to emerge, with prospects of major counter alliances on the horizon too.”

He went on to say:

Japan’s increasing defence budget comes on top of the full possibility of “interoperability” between the US and Japanese units, allowing the latter to “practice its forward-deployed attack capabilities.” What is extremely important to note here is that the core purpose of the “interoperability” is not defensive; it is offensive, which means that Japan’s so-called “pacifism” is nothing more than a rhetoric that Tokyo uses – and will continue to use – to mask its rapidly growing military preparedness against Russia and China.

That this process is being actively supported by the US is evident from the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s announcement, on the sidelines of Biden’s Tokyo visit, to “drastically strengthen” its military capabilities.

According to a new economic policy draft released by the Kishida administration, the decision is a response to “attempts to unilaterally change the status quo by forces in East Asia, making regional security increasingly severe.” If this assessment sounds vague, it is by design to camouflage Japan’s rise as a new military power that can rival Russia and China as a US ally.

In fact, it is already acting as a US ally against Russia in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In April, Japanese officials announced that they will send defence equipment – drones and protective gear – to Ukraine to help the Ukrainian military fight the Russian forces. While Japan’s Self-Defence Forces rules prohibit the transfer of defence products to other countries, Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi justified this transfer as “commercial” and “disused items.” More self-serving justifications will be invented to mask Japan’s so-called “pacifist militarization.”

Further tensions with Russia are likely to follow. In April, around the same time Tokyo announced increasing its budget, the Japanese government also shifted its stance on the Kuril islands.

In its 2022 Diplomatic Bluebook, Japan said that “The Northern Territories are a group of islands Japan has sovereignty over and an integral part of Japan’s territory, but currently they are illegally occupied by Russia.”

This description is a major diplomatic shift insofar as it raises the level of tensions surrounding what was previously disputed territory. Calling Russia an “illegal” occupier shows Japan just subscribing to the western narrative about the Russian “occupation” of Crimea.

In practical terms, by raising the temperature against Russia (and China as well), Japan is transforming itself into a front-line military ally of the US and NATO in this part of the world.

Japan’s militarization under the shadow of US support is also tied to how the US/West is increasingly projecting NATO not as a regional alliance; in fact, recent developments have shown how NATO is arrogating to itself a “global” role. In April, the UK’s foreign minister Liz Truss called for a “global NATO.” She added that NATO must have a “global outlook” to be able “ to pre-empt threats in the Indo-Pacific, working with our allies like Japan and Australia to ensure the Pacific is protected. And we must ensure that democracies like Taiwan are able to defend themselves.”

Japan is, thus, by default a logical extension of NATO’s global i.e., anti-Russia and anti-China, geo-politics. Tokyo’s decision to re-arm itself to acquire offensive capability is, thus, not tied to its own needs but to the ways the US is manufacturing a global anti-Russia and anti-China coalition to defeat them and sustain its own global hegemony.

On Sunday, 21 August 2022, Japan Times bannered “Japan weighs deploying over 1,000 longer-range missiles amid China tensions”, and reported that,

With an eye toward narrowing a cavernous “missile gap” with China, Japan is considering stockpiling more than 1,000 long-range cruise missiles, a report said Sunday, as tensions over Taiwan grow.

The Defense Ministry is looking to deploy its ground-launched Type-12 standoff missiles — and extend their range from around 200 kilometers (124 miles) to more than 1,000 km — mainly to its far-flung southwestern islands and the Kyushu region, the Yomiuri daily reported, citing unidentified government sources.

The envisioned weapons, which would also be ship- and air-launch capable, would put the Chinese and North Korean coasts within striking distance, the report added.

In order to acquire the weapons at an early date, the Defense Ministry could include requests for them when it unveils its initial budget proposal for fiscal 2023, which is expected to be released at the end of this month.

On August 24th, Russia’s RT headlined “Drawing the sword: Is Japan getting ready to move against China? Relations with Beijing are crucial for regional trade, but is Tokyo ready to put it all on the line over Taiwan and Washington’s favor?”, and opined that,

“Japan now makes it publicly known that the continued autonomy of Taiwan is critical to its own survival. Why? Because a reunification of the island with mainland China would result in Beijing gaining maritime dominance around all of Japan’s southwest periphery.”

Furthermore:

“Taiwan, once under the colonial rule of Japan, which annexed it from China, has also increased its pro-Japan sentiment significantly. Taiwan, once under the colonial rule of Japan, which annexed it from China, has also increased its pro-Japan sentiment significantly.”

Wikipedia’s article “China-Japan relations” makes quite clear that the national economies of China and Japan are highly dependent upon each other. Furthermore, if a reader understands that historically the winners of wars have received reparations payments from the war’s losers (who usually were the victim not the aggressor) the article makes quite clear that Japan has consistently been the aggressor and imperialist against China, which suffered enormously from Japan’s aggressions against China, and ended up losing not only those wars but those reparations-payments to the victor, each time (namely, these were China’s payments to Japan):

Japan’s compensation [edit]

From late 19th century to early 20th century, one of the many factors contributing to the bankruptcy of the Qing government was Japan’s requirement for large amount of war reparations. China paid huge amounts of silver to Japan under various treaties, including the Sino-Japanese Friendship and Trade Treaty (1871), Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895), the Triple Intervention (1895) and the Boxer Protocol (1901). After the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894–95, the Qing government paid a total of 200,000,000 taels of silver to Japan for reparations.^[76]

The Second Sino-Japanese War 1936-1945 also caused huge economic losses to China. However, Chiang Kai-shek waived reparations claims for the war when the ROC concluded the Treaty of Taipei with Japan in 1952. Similarly, when Japan normalized its relations with the PRC in 1972, Mao Zedong waived the claim of war reparations from Japan.^[77]

So: because the post-FDR U.S. Government, which has dominated the world since 1945, opposed China and supported Japan, WW II’s victor in that War was the new Truman-created (FDR-rejecting) U.S. imperial regime, which didn’t want its Japanese possession to become subjected to having to pay war-debts for Japan’s barbarisms (such as the Rape of Nanking against Chinese), Japan, yet again, got away with murder — mass-murder, of course — when WW II ended. Japan lucked-out, to become now a vassal-nation in the world’s new imperialistic fascist empire, of America, the U.S. empire; so, China, yet again, ate all its losses, instead of being compensated for any of them. Under the new Truman policy, China was being treated as an enemy, no longer as an ally (as it had been under FDR). This has been the U.S. regime’s policy ever since, and especially recently as that regime now tries to complete its all-inclusive global empire, or “hegemony,” by taking both China and Russia.

However, even Japan will suffer if it joins in America’s war against China. Here is why:

Japan is faced now with choosing between being a possession of Americans, and the U.S. regime’s main enforcer against Asians, in that win-lose global-imperialistic game; or, else, becoming, for the first time, an ally, actually, in an authentic win-win game, along with all other Asian countries, including and led by the largest of them all, China, which already is Japan’s top trading-partner, doing 23.47% of its combined imports and exports, as compared with its #2 trading-partner, America, which is 11.27%, less than half as much as with China. With America, the game would be worse (even IF Japan would win, which is doubtful), and the economic damage to the Japanese people would be immense (especially if China wins in that win-lose game, which outcome would not be unlikely; and, this time, the Japanese people WOULD be paying reparations in addition to their war-losses; so, it would be the most damaging defeat ever for Japan, far worse than WW II).

CONSEQUENTLY, FOR THE WELFARE OF BOTH THE CHINESE AND THE JAPANESE PEOPLE: Negotiators from both countries, plus from each of the region’s OTHER countries, must meet together at a comprehensive East-Asian Conference, to draw up a regional strategy for the coming Asia-dominated Century, repudiating and renouncing ALL empires, and ALL needless win-lose international games.

If this fails to happen (and reasonably soon), then a WW III will likely occur, and it will destroy the entire planet. The U.S. regime is set upon a course of world-conquest, which will end either now peacefully, or else soon with WW III. Japan will make the key decision. (I am expecting it to be for war, because Japan has been an obedient vassal-nation ever since 1945.)

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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.

Featured image: Japan is moving to remilitarize despite its pacifist constitution. Image: Shutterstock via The Conversation

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On 24 August, Ukraine celebrated her Independence Day. It also marked the dubious anniversary of six months of war; a war that could have been drastically shortened, tens of thousands of lives saved and peace installed – hadn’t it been for the relentless western / NATO provocations, and billions worth of Western weapons deliveries to Ukraine. The West pretends these killer weapons are destined to create peace – and would you believe the media are able to make most of the western world population believe in this nonsense. 

It is literally George Orwell’s 1984: “Peace is War and War is Peace;” Orwell’s classical Doublespeak, a language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the truth.

On that very day, the NYT brazenly reports, without any evidence whatsoever, that on “Ukraine’s Independence Day, a Russian attack killed at least 22 people and wounded 50, at a train station in eastern Ukraine, near Dnipro.”

The NYT continues, “But despite the missile strike, one of the deadliest on Ukraine’s railways in recent months, Ukraine stood defiant as the country celebrated its separation from the Soviet Union.” In a slickly produced address earlier in the day, President Volodymyr Zelensky declared Ukraine “reborn” six months after Russia invaded.

Such are the flagrant lies dished out to not only the American people. The European media are equally corrupted. At times even more so.

It gradually emerges that public support for Western interference – Western support of Ukraine – is fading by the day.

According to a Reuters / Ipsos poll released on 23 August, still 53% of US adults agree that Washington should support Kiev, “until Russian forces are withdrawn from territory claimed by Ukraine”. Those with doubts to continue pumping weapons into Ukraine, amount to 37%, and 18% oppose such “aid” altogether. Some 28% are undecided.

Forty percent of Americans now agree with the statement that “the problems of Ukraine are none of our business, and we should not interfere,” comparing with 31% when the same question was asked in April 2022.

The awakening might indicate that fewer and ever fewer people believe the mainstream propaganda – and especially the Zelenskyy statements. The truth of who is killing whom, and the truth about the corrupt and shamefully criminal Ukraine President, is slowly but surely seeping through the veil of deception.

In the case of the attack on the railway station, there is no doubt that the assault was launched by Ukraine’s forces on her own people, killing 22 of them and injuring at least 50. The figures are not verified. They are the ones reported by the “distinguished” NYT (25 August 2022).

Similarly, The Guardian reports (29 July 2022) that according to the Russian Defense Ministry, 40 prisoners were killed and 75 wounded in the attack on the prison in the frontline town of Olenivka. The prison was struck by Ukrainian forces with US-made Himars rockets. Yet, Ukraine was blaming Russia with the attack on its own people and with US-made weapons.

It would be hard to make believe more ludicrous statements. Yet, by telling half-truth or full-lies relentlessly and repeatedly the Western media (still) gets away with murder among most of its listeners. But – the Times are a-changing.

Russia from the beginning has followed – and keeps following – a strict policy of avoiding civilian casualties as best as possible.

These attacks on Ukraine’s own people are certainly not carried out by Russian forces, but rather by Ukrainian military, and / or their associated Nazi Azov Battalions.

They also killed without scruples tens of thousands of pro-Russian Ukrainians in the Donbas and northeastern Ukraine areas, since the US / Western-instigated 2014 Maidan Coup.

No doubt, the attacks were sanctioned by Zelenskyy. He follows clear instructions from NATO and the – unelected – European Council. That the EC under Ursula von der Leyen is an unelected and tyrannical executing branch of the Deep State or the “Dark elitist Cult”, is no longer a secret. Madame von der Leyen is a member of the WEF’s (World Economic Forum) Managing Council. Similarly, the relentless attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine, the largest in Europe, is constantly blamed on Russia, or even on President Putin personally by the Western media.

Again, the contrary is true. In order to prevent another Chernobyl-type nuclear disaster (26 April 1986), or worse, Russian troops have been occupying the Zaporozhye Plant since March 2022. They were worried, and rightly so, about a nuclear annihilation of much of Western Europe and Russia. Finally, on 19 August, Russia has shut down the plant to limit the worst of a potential disaster.

Moscow has warned that the continuing attacks could ultimately render the power plant inoperable and might even result in a major disaster, similar to Chernobyl. Kiev and some Western officials, however, have accused Russia of shelling the plant, despite the fact that it is controlled by Russia’s own troops.

As unquestioned Western support is waning, Western media ever so often report the Zelenskyy government’s accusations of Russia, but finish with the paraphrased observation that “it is difficult to verify the facts” – an own skin-saving-statement.

The next Biden Administration promised shipment of war material is of the order of an estimated US$ 3 billion. Is it part of the roughly US$ 50 billion already approved US war support to Ukraine – or is it apart?

Nobody keeps track. In any case, even Western media report that about 70% of the war material sent to Ukraine ends up on the black market. Only about 30% reaches the frontline – and Ukrainian soldiers who are totally unprepared to handle the sophisticated Western weaponry.

It is high time that the truth comes out – and the majority of the people see beyond the propaganda, see the most flagrant war crimes committed by Zelenskyy’s Ukraine – and stop supporting this war.

The sooner the West stops sending weaponry and tanks and most sophisticated war materials to Ukraine, the sooner peace may return.

If only PEACE were part of the Great Reset Agenda – and part of the UN Agenda 2030 and part of Klaus Schwab’s “4^th Industrial Revolution” – meaning the digitization, robotization, and absolute control of everything and every surviving human being. But PEACE, as we are still thinking humans conceive of it, is not part of the Reset Agenda.

But we are many and they are few. We may replace the Reset with the Peace agenda.

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

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

Featured image is from Rise Up Times

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***

Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar confidently boasted recently that the world has accepted India’s energy policy and bilateral relations with Russia. Jaishankar’s statement prompted US State Department spokesperson Ned Price to say that it is going to be a long-term proposition for New Delhi to reorient foreign policy away from Moscow – but despite the QUAD alliance, India is unlikely to abandon its relations with Russia.

When asked about India increasing its imports of Russian oil and fertilisers and potentially buying the Russian S-400 air defence systems, Ned Price said on August 24:

“It is not for me to speak about another country’s foreign policy. But what I can do is point out what we have heard from India. We have seen countries around the world speak clearly, including with their votes in the UN General Assembly against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.”

“But we also recognise, as I was saying just a moment ago, that this is not flipping a light switch. This is something that, especially for countries that have historical relationships with Russia. Relationships that, as is the case with India, extend back decades, it is going to be a long-term proposition to re-orient foreign policy away from Russia,” he added.

Although the US and European Union have imposed heavy sanctions on Russia since the military operation in Ukraine began on February 24, India took the opportunity to instead raise oil imports from Russia, ignoring criticism from the West and refusing to go down the path of European self-sabotage.

Berlin recently approved a set of energy-saving measures for the winter which will limit the use of lighting and heating. Germany’s Economy Minister Robert Habeck told reporters that his country wanted to free itself “as quickly as possible from the grip of Russian energy imports.” Instead, Germany finds itself in a position of needing to lower energy use instead of behaving as the EU’s leading country.

Starting from September, public buildings, apart from hospitals and the like, will have heating at a maximum of 19C; public monuments and buildings will also not be lit up for aesthetic reasons; businesses could be banned from keeping their shops illuminated at night; private swimming pool heating could also be banned; and, coal and oil cargo will be given priority over passenger travel on railways.

“We have a shortage situation on the rails right now,” German Transport Minister Volker Wissing said. “That means that if additional fuel transports are temporarily necessary, we would have to prioritize them.”

This European self-sabotage, all for the sake of pretending to defend liberalism in the form of Kiev’s authoritarian regime and on instructions from Washington, is a situation that India wants to completely avoid as it continues to progress and develop into a major power.

In May, Russia overtook Saudi Arabia to become India’s second-biggest supplier of oil, behind Iraq, as refiners snapped up Russian crude available at major discounts. Indian refiners bought about 25 million barrels of Russian oil in May, ignoring all condemnation from the West and refusing to abandon its decades-old relationship with Moscow, especially as Indians do not forget the West’s endless support and backing of Pakistan.

Jaishankar stressed on August 23 that India had not been defensive about its purchases of Russian oil but made the US and others realize instead that the government had the “moral duty” to ensure that the people got the “best deal” – something that European governments do not concern themselves with.

Rather than capitulating to the endless pressures from the West, India has unapologetically steamed ahead with its bilateral relations with Russia. Cards based on Russia’s Mir payment system will soon be accepted at ATMs and Point-of-Sale terminals in India as discussions to construct a new financial system independent of the West, that can bypass sanctions on Russia, continue.

Russia also announced its intentions to build the next generation armoured vehicles and submarines in joint collaboration with India. This comes as the delivery of the second regiment of the S-400 missile defence system is already underway.

With India pushing ahead in strengthening relations with Russia in the energy, financial and military sector, the West is forced to exaggerate minor events as if it were a major shift in New Delhi’s foreign policy. Western media exaggerated the significance of India voting for the first time against Russia during a “procedural vote” at the United Nations Security Council on Ukraine. The 15-member UN body invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to address a meeting through a video tele-conference on August 24, something that was only opposed by Moscow and abstained by Beijing.

So far, New Delhi has abstained at the UNSC on Ukraine, with the recent vote being the only exception. This has annoyed the Western powers, led by the US, but this has not stopped them from making a big deal out of India voting to allow Zelensky to speak at the UNSC meeting. This of course does not reflect or signify any Indian foreign policy shift, but is rather a desperate attempt to portray non-existent cracks in New Delhi-Moscow ties. Instead, New Delhi will continue its decades-long cooperation with Moscow, one that has been long and fruitful.

It is recalled that Jaishankar said in June that “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.” Soon Europe will realize, especially Germany, that its energy and financial crisis, spurred on by an ill-thought out Russophobic policy, will certainly not be India’s problem, especially with winter just around the corner.

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

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***

In America these days, almost any information about North Korea, be it rumor, fake news, or just plain silly, becomes fodder for the mainstream media. From TMZ to The Guardian, reporters know there is an insatiable appetite for anything that puts Kim and his regime in a bad or crazy light.

But when it comes to South Korea, which hosts 28,500 American ground troops and the Pentagon’s largest military base outside of North America, U.S. media coverage is, shall we say, highly selective. That was made resoundingly clear on August 14, when Seoul was the scene for the largest public demonstration in decades against the U.S. military presence in South Korea.

Amazingly, not a word about the protest appeared in the U.S. media.

That Saturday, thousands of people chanting “this land is not a U.S. war base” demonstrated against Ulchi Freedom Shield, the first large-scale military exercises between U.S. and South Korean forces since 2017. The protests were organized by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), South Korea’s second-largest labor federation. They were joined by a range of progressive allies, including People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), an influential citizen’s group founded in 1994.

Anti-US military protest, Seoul, South Korea, August 13, 2022. Screen grab via Chinese state supported media outlet CGTN/YouTube.com

“At a time when military tensions on the Korean Peninsula are escalating and there is no clue for inter-Korean dialogue, we are concerned that an aggressive large-scale military exercise will exacerbate the situation,” PSPD declared. “We once again urge the US and ROK governments to suspend the ROK-US joint military exercise and make efforts to create conditions for dialogue.” At the demonstration, protesters took direct aim at the heart of U.S. policy in Korea, with signs that read “No war rehearsal, No U.S.” and “No Korea-U.S.-Japan military cooperation.”

Outside of the Korean press, the only outlets to cover this massive showing against militarism were Iran’s Press TV and China’s CGTN, which provided extensive video of the mobilization. The single print story on the march appeared in Xinhua, China’s daily wire service. Neither the New York Times or the Washington Post, which often set the pace for U.S. press coverage of Asia, deemed the demonstration newsworthy.

Hypocrisy? Yes. As I put it in a sardonic tweet, “Every rumor, fake news, intelligence leak or eyebrow twitch about Kim Jong Un and North Korea gets star treatment in the US media.” Yet, when “thousands of SOUTH KOREANS” march in Seoul against US-ROK war games, “NOT ONE PEEP.” The contrast seemed to hit a nerve: by the weekend, nearly 6,000 Twitter users had “liked” my post and over 2,000 had retweeted it.

The contradictions were evident on Twitter itself. As it often does with countries we’re not supposed to like, it slapped a label on one of my posts about the demonstration, urging users to “stay informed” because “this Tweet links to a Iran state-affiliated media website.” With that warning, Twitter was effectively delegitimizing my own coverage of the demonstration.

To be fair, political rallies on the left and right are a common occurrence in South Korea; obviously, editors and reporters must make choices about what to cover. But in a country where a majority of its citizens support the presence of U.S. forces and a U.S. general has operational control over their army in times of war, a rally of several thousand citizens openly calling for a U.S. troop withdrawal is certainly newsworthy.

At the same time, the drills have been a hot topic for years. In 2018, with much of Washington opposed, they were downgraded to computerized simulations as a way to build trust during the denuclearization talks between President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un. Those talks collapsed in 2019, primarily over Trump’s refusal to lift U.S. sanctions in return for a partial shut down of the North’s nuclear infrastructure.

This year, with North Korea regularly testing its long-range missiles, the new presidents in Washington and Seoul, Joe Biden and Yoon Suk Yeol, decided to resume the real-life exercises. The air, land, and sea drills, which in the past have mobilized around 50,000 South Korean and 17,500 U.S. soldiers, began on August 22 and wind up on September 1.

Sadly, the discrepancies in coverage reflect old patterns going back to the early days of the Cold War.

Editorial staffs of major U.S. newspapers and cable news shows (and now, Twitter’s upstart crew) are steeped in Cold War mythologies about the Korean War and largely reflect the viewpoint of Washington’s national security community. Currently, both parties see in the North a determined and dangerous long-term foe, and in the South a reluctant ally torn between loyalty to the United States and its expansive economic ties with China, America’s new nemesis. In this world, there is little room for coverage of South Korean trade unionists, leftists, and progressives who stand against the American consensus.

That mindset was recently on display at the Post when it praised South Koreans for electing Yoon, an inexperienced conservative hawk who said during his campaign that he might consider a pre-emptive strike on North Korea “to protect peace” on the peninsula. “South Korea makes a welcome turn toward the U.S. — just when it is really needed,” the headline crowed. The Post editorial also took a nasty swipe at former President Moon Jae-in, parroting right-wing talking points that he had “consciously” played down North Korea’s human rights record and “balked” at adding new batteries to the American THAAD missile deployment that has drawn Beijing’s ire.

For America’s papers of record, the failure to cover South Korea’s progressive left also reflects a failure of nerve. The KCTU and People’s Solidarity that organized this month’s antiwar demonstration have deep roots in the democratic movement of the late 1980s, when years of struggle culminated in the massive demonstrations of 1987 that forced the pro-U.S. generals who had ruled the South for 26 years to step aside. During that tumultuous era, both the Times and the Post offered extensive (and often outstanding) coverage of dissidents and government repression. But in recent years, they have been far more interested in covering North Korean defectors and warning the public (repeatedly) about a possible underground nuclear test than exploring the complex internal politics of South Korea.

Ironically, these papers are better prepared now to cover Korea than any time in the past 40 years. Since 2020, they have built large bureaus in South Korea and relocated their Asian news hubs from Hong Kong to Seoul, giving them an opportunity for first-class coverage of perhaps the most dynamic country in Asia. “Looking at a five, 10, 20 year horizon, [Seoul] just feels like it’s right in the middle of the action,” Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, the Times’sinternational president, recently told the Korea Joongang Daily.

But in this coverage, the opinions and views of all Koreans need to be heard. That is particularly true when dealing with an issue as critical as the U.S.-Korean alliance, which President Biden has called “a linchpin of peace, stability, and prosperity” but many Koreans now view as a barrier to their country’s future.

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***

If you want to prove that statement wrong, I think you’ll want to start by proving wrong one or more of these five points:

1. A single member of the House or Senate can compel a speedy vote on ending U.S. participation in the war on Yemen.
2. Not one single member has done so.
3. Ending U.S. participation would effectively end the war.
4. Despite the temporary truce, millions of lives depend on ending the war.
5. The passionate speeches in 2018 and 2019 by Senators and Representatives demanding an end to the war when they knew they could count on a veto from Trump have vanished during the Biden years chiefly because Party is more important than human lives.

Let’s fill these five points out a little:

1. A single member of the House or Senate can compel a speedy vote on ending U.S. participation in the war on Yemen.

Here’s an explanation from the Friends Committee on National Legislation:

“Any member of the House or Senate, regardless of committee assignment, can invoke section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution and get a full floor vote on whether to require the president to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities. Under the procedural rules written into the War Powers Act, these bills receive a special expedited status that requires Congress to make a full floor vote within 15 legislative days of their introduction. This provision is especially useful because it allows members of Congress to force important debates and votes on the president’s use of military force and Congressional war authority.”

Here’s a link to the actual wording of the law (as the resolution was passed in 1973), and another (as part of existing law in 2022). At the first one, see section 7. At the other one, see section 1546. Both say this: when a resolution is thus introduced, the foreign affairs committee of the relevant house gets no more than 15 days, then the full house gets no more than 3 days. In 18 days or less you get a debate and a vote.

Now, it is true that the Republican House passed a law violating and effectively blocking this law in December of 2018 preventing any forcing of votes on ending the war on Yemen for the remainder of 2018. The Hill reported:

“‘Speaker [Paul] Ryan [(R-Wis.)] is preventing Congress from conducting our constitutional duty and once again, breaking the rules of the House,’ [Rep. Ro Khanna] said in a statement. [Rep. Tom] Massie added on the House floor that the move ‘violates both the Constitution and the War Powers Act of 1973. Just when you thought Congress couldn’t get any swampier,’ he said, ‘we continue to exceed even the lowest expectation.’”

According to the Washington Examiner:

“‘It’s kind of a chicken move, but you know, sadly it’s kind of a characteristic move on the way out the door,’ Virginia Democrat [and Senator] Tim Kaine told reporters of the House rule on Wednesday. ‘[Ryan is] trying to play Saudi Arabia’s defense lawyer, and that’s stupid.’”

As far as I can tell, either no such trick has been played since the dawning of 2019, or every single member of the U.S. Congress, and every single media outlet, is either in favor of it or deems it unworthy of reporting or both. So, no law has undone the War Powers Resolution. So, it stands, and a single member of the House or Senate can compel a speedy vote on ending U.S. participation in the war on Yemen.

2. Not one single member has done so.

We’d have heard. Despite campaign promises, the Biden Administration and Congress keep the weapons flowing to Saudi Arabia, and keep the U.S. military participating in the war. Despite both houses of Congress voting to end U.S. participation in the war when Trump had promised a veto, neither house has held a debate or a vote in the year-and-a-half since Trump left town. A House resolution, HJRes87, has 113 cosponsors — more than were ever obtained by the resolution passed and vetoed by Trump — while SJRes56 in the Senate has 7 cosponsors. Yet no votes are held, because the Congressional “leadership” chooses not to, and because NOT ONE SINGLE MEMBER of the House or Senate can be found who’s willing to compel them to. So, we go on asking.

3. Ending U.S. participation would effectively end the war.

It’s never been a secret, that the Saudi-“led” war is so dependent on the U.S. military (not to mention U.S. weapons) that were the U.S. to either stop providing the weapons or compel its military to cease violating all of the laws against war, never mind the U.S. Constitution, or both, the war would end.

4. Despite the temporary truce, millions of lives depend on ending the war.

The Saudi-U.S. war on Yemen has killed many more people than the war in Ukraine thus far, and the death and suffering continue despite a temporary truce. If Yemen is no longer the very worst place in the world, that’s principally because of how bad Afghanistan — its funds stolen — has become.

Meanwhile the truce in Yemen has failed to open roads or ports; famine (potentially aggravated by the war in Ukraine) still threatens millions; and historic buildings are collapsing from rain and war damage.

CNN reports that, “While many in the international community celebrate [the truce], some families in Yemen are left watching their children slowly die. There are around 30,000 people with life-threatening diseases requiring treatment abroad, according to the Houthi-controlled government in the capital Sanaa. Some 5,000 of them are children.”

Experts discuss the situation in Yemen here and here.

If the war has been paused, yet the peace needs to be made more stable, why in the world would Congress not vote to permanently end U.S. participation immediately? The urgent moral need to do so that Congress members spoke about three years ago was and still is all too real. Why not act before more children die?

5. The passionate speeches by Senators and Representatives demanding an end to the war when they knew they could count on a veto from Trump have vanished during the Biden years chiefly because Party is more important than human lives.

I would like to refer Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) to the following text and video from 2019 by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).

Congressman Pocan commented: “As the Saudi-led coalition continues to use famine as a weapon of war, starving millions of innocent Yemenis to near death, the United States is actively participating in the regime’s military campaign, providing targeting and logistical assistance for Saudi airstrikes. For far too long, Congress has refused to carry out its constitutional responsibility to make decisions regarding military engagement—we can longer stay silent on matters of war and peace.”

Frankly, Congressman, they can smell the BS from beyond Yemen. You all can stay silent for years and years. Not a single one of you can pretend the votes aren’t there — they were there when Trump was in the White House. Yet not a single one of you has the decency to even demand a vote. If this is not because the royal rear-end on the throne in the White House had a “D” tattooed on it, give us another explanation.

There is no pro-peace Congress Member. The species is extinct.

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Quale sia la catena di comando che ha pianificato e attuato l’attentato contro Dughin e sua figlia Daria, lo rivela indirettamente il giornale statunitense Los Angeles Times: “Dal 2015 la CIA addestra gli agenti dei servizi segreti ucraini in una struttura segreta negli Stati Uniti”.  Già nel dicembre 2021, su Grandangolo, la giornalista Daria Platonova riferiva: “I servizi di sicurezza hanno comunicato di aver individuato 106 agenti ucraini che stavano preparando attentati e stragi in 37 regioni della Russia. Oltre alla costante tensione sul piano politico e mediatico, dobbiamo oggi confrontarci anche con azioni di gruppi terroristici nel nostro paese, fortunatamente neutralizzati per tempo.” Su questo sfondo resta senza risposta la domanda di come sia stato possibile che l’auto di Daria, su cui è stata installata la bomba telecomandata, sia rimasta fino alla sera in un parcheggio incustodito con le telecamere non funzionanti. 

Maya Nogradi (regista, editor di Grandangolo) ci parla, in una emozionante testimonianza, della sua amica Daria. Ne emerge la figura di una giovane giornalista e analista geopolitica che svolgeva un ruolo sempre più significativo sia in Russia che a livello internazionale. Da questi e altri elementi si deduce che Daria sia stata non semplicemente vittima di un attentato diretto contro suo padre, ma anch’essa bersaglio primario dell’attentato.  Su Grandangolo del giugno di quest’anno, in un resoconto sul Forum economico internazionale di San Pietroburgo, ne riassumeva così il significato: “Il processo di de-dollarizzazione coinvolge tutto il mondo. Gli Stati Uniti e i loro satelliti europei perderanno inevitabilmente la guerra ibrida globale da loro scatenata”. Per questo il mainstream italiano e internazionale la accusava di “odio per l’Occidente”. 

Daria era una delle principali voci di quel mondo multipolare che l’Occidente considera una minaccia al suo predomimio e che combatte con ogni mezzo. È questa la causa di fondo della disastrosa crisi che si sta abbattendo sull’Europa in seguito all’aumento senza precedenti del prezzo del gas dovuto ai meccanismi speculativi della grande finanza. 

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***

August 11, 2022, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed its COVID-19 guidelines, thereby vindicating every “misinformation spreader” out there

The CDC is now advocating for taking personal responsibility and for everyone to decide for themselves “which prevention behaviors to use and when (at all times or at specific times), based on their own risk for severe illness and that of members of their household, their risk tolerance, and setting-specific factors”

The CDC is also giving up on discrimination based on COVID jab status, stating, its “COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur.” They also admit natural immunity exists and works

Testing is now reserved for those who “are symptomatic, or have a known or suspected exposure to someone with COVID-19,” isolation is only for those who are symptomatic and have tested positive, and contact tracing is now restricted to health care settings and select “high-risk congregate settings”

The CDC’s about-face appears to be politically motivated, to give the Biden administration a “win” before the midterm elections. Post-election plans include “the biggest vaccination campaign in history,” so tyrannical overreaches may later resume, even as mounting data show the COVID shots are causing depopulation

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Without fanfare, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, August 11, 2022, reversed all its COVID-19 guidelines. In fact, many have noted it appears the CDC wanted to bring as little attention to it as possible.¹ This is understandable, considering the new guidelines more or less admit the original rules were in error, without actually stating as much.

The new guidance is listed in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) under the title, “Summary of Guidance for Minimizing the Impact of COVID-19 on Individual Persons, Communities, and Health Care Systems — United States, August 2022.”² As noted by Jeffrey Tucker, founder and president of the Brownstone Institute:³

“It would have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall in the brainstorming sessions that led to this little treatise. The wording was chosen very carefully, not to say anything false outright, much less admit any errors of the past, but to imply that it was only possible to say these things now.”

The CDC insists that while COVID-19 infection continues to be a reality around the world, “high levels of vaccine- and infection-induced immunity and the availability of effective treatments and prevention tools have substantially reduced the risk for medically significant COVID-19 illness … and associated hospitalization and death.”

Consequently, COVID countermeasures that create “barriers to social, educational, and economic activity” can be ditched and everything can go back to normal.

CDC Introduces Personal Responsibility

Considering how hard health officials have fought to segregate, bully, demonize and dehumanize people who didn’t agree with their tyrannical and irrational COVID measures over the past 19 months, the new guidelines are refreshing, but they’re still like a slap in the face. First and foremost, the CDC is now suddenly advocating for taking personal responsibility — for everything:⁴

Education and messaging to help individual persons understand their risk for medically significant illness complements recommendations for prevention strategies based on risk.”

Individual risk assessment and risk-based countermeasures are both something we “misinformation spreaders” have called for from the beginning. The risk is not identical for all; hence, risk reduction strategies should not be uniformly applied. Finally, 19 months late, the CDC agrees.

Under the subhead, “Protecting Persons Most at Risk for Severe Illness,” the CDC now takes a page straight out of The Great Barrington Declaration and recommends focused protection, meaning protecting those “at particularly high risk … because of older age, disability, moderate or severe immunocompromise, or other underlying medical conditions.”

Need anyone be reminded that doctors and scientists have been defamed and dragged through the mud for saying this? And Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and his former boss, Dr. Francis Collins, then-director of the National Institutes of Health, were the masterminds behind the effort to discredit and take down the authors of the Barrington declaration.⁵

CDC Reneges on Discrimination

The CDC is also giving up on discrimination based on COVID jab status:⁶ “CDC’s COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur …”

They even admit that “persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection,” and therefore are not to be treated any differently than someone who has received the COVID jab. As noted by Tucker:⁷

“Remember when 40% of the members of the black community in New York City who refused the jab were not allowed into restaurants, bars, libraries, museums, or theaters? Now, no one wants to talk about that.

Also, universities, colleges, the military, and so on — which still have mandates in place — do you hear this? Everything you have done to hate on people, dehumanize people, segregate people, humiliate others as unclean, fire people and destroy lives, now stands in disrepute.

Meanwhile, as of this writing, the blasted US government still will not allow unvaccinated travelers across its borders! Not one word of the CDC’s turgid treatise was untrue back in the Spring of 2020. There was always ‘infection-induced immunity,’ though Fauci and Co. constantly pretended otherwise.

It was always a terrible idea to introduce ‘barriers to social, educational, and economic activity.’ The vaccines never promised in their authorization to stop infection and spread, even though all official statements of the CDC claimed otherwise, repeatedly and often.”

Testing, Isolation and Contact Tracing Rules Reversed

And what about rules relating to testing, self-isolation during illness and the whole tracking and tracing business? Out the window!

• Testing is now reserved for those who “are symptomatic, or have a known or suspected exposure to someone with COVID-19.” Testing of asymptomatic individuals is only suggested in “congregate settings” where medical care is limited, such as homeless shelters and correctional facilities, and in such instances, testing “should include all persons, irrespective of vaccination status.”
• Isolation is only for those who are symptomatic and have tested positive. Infected individuals can end their isolation after as little as five days, if they’ve been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-lowering medication, but should continue wearing a mask or respirator when around others through day 10.
• Contact tracing is now restricted to health care settings and select “high-risk congregate settings.”

Is It a Political Ploy?

While I’m glad the CDC has reversed its tyrannical COVID measures to something sensible and more aligned with reality, the problem, as I see it, is threefold.

First, there’s the lateness of the hour. Any public health agency worthy of such a designation would have reached these conclusions two years ago. Instead, they spent more than two years engaged in an active search and destroy mission against those advocating for the same sensible guidelines the CDC is now suddenly adopting.

Secondly, the timing of these reversals smacks of political bias. Mid-term elections are fast approaching, and the most disliked White House administration in American history needs a “win.”

With the CDC backtracking on COVID measures, they now have certain bragging rights. “See, we brought life back to normal” — which brings us to problem No. 3, which is that this reversal may be nothing more than a malicious ploy to get us to let our guard down, only to be hit with another, even more draconian fear campaign after the elections.

Biggest Vaccination Drive in History Is Coming This Fall

While that might sound paranoid, it’s straight out of the handbooks of tyranny. The way you drive people crazy is not through consistent high-pressure tyranny, but through waves of it. The ups and downs, with each wave being more intensely repressive than the last, create confusion and foster fear and anxiety, which breeds an infantile kind of reliance on authority to just fix it.

Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies at New York University, appears to agree. In an August 13, 2022, Substack article, he writes:⁸

“Just as the CDC pretends to have backed off, the NHS [the British National Health Service] reveals (to just a few) what’s really coming at us in the fall: ‘The biggest vaccination drive in history.’ Those who think the worst is over better think again — because it really won’t be over til [sic] WE end it …

[The] NHS alone is obviously not equipped, and certainly does not intend, to undertake the biggest vaccination drive in history — a drive that must, and will, be global, just like the orchestration of the entire COVID crisis, of which this coming drive will be the culmination (or, to quote Bill Gates, the ‘final solution’).

Nor … is it likely that this biggest vaccination drive in history will be mounted on the now-exhausted pretext of protecting all humanity from COVID-19 (or the flu). What’s it going to be, then? Monkeypox? HIV? COVID-20? Cancer? All of the above?

Whatever new threat(s) may be used to justify this final drive could never be as lethal as the psychopaths who planned it, and those entities that will not stop promoting it (even as the CDC pretends to have backed off).”

Prepare for Another Round of Gaslighting

Thacker also wonders whether the CDC’s revised guidelines may be nothing more than a political backstop to prevent Democrats from sliding into the abyss:⁹

“… with a majority of Americans unhappy with the President’s pandemic policies, perhaps the CDC is relying on ‘midterm science’ to guide their new appreciation for natural immunity?”

One reason for suspecting the CDC’s sudden turn-about is political in nature is the fact that it makes an absolute mess out of the carefully scripted COVID narrative, which is supposed to be in lockstep with governments and media around the world. As a result of the CDC trying to give Biden’s White House a “win,” media and Big Tech now face a massive conundrum.

Everything the CDC is now recommending was blasphemy punishable by public shaming, deplatforming and delicensing, all the way up to the day the CDC posted the new guidelines. Every COVID article and fact check ever written is now completely off-script, as are countless public statements made by public health officials.

There’s no answer to this dilemma, so they’re going to pretend it never happened and hope no one remembers what they said all those days, weeks or months ago. If you remind them, be prepared to be gaslighted with denials. Thacker writes:¹⁰

“The media’s forgetfulness of what they reported just last year on vaccines and prior infection is part of the pandemic’s Great Misremembering, a collective amnesia where we march in step to government messaging, while failing to recall prior statements and moments of glaring contradiction.

For example, when the media reported that the NIH’s Anthony Fauci was fully vaccinated and still got COVID-19, and then they misremembered to report his prior statement, ‘When people are vaccinated, they can feel safe that they are not going to get infected’ … To help everyone join the Great Misremembering, here are some incidents you must fail to recall.

… Late in the pandemic’s first year, a group of researchers released a statement called the ‘John Snow Memorandum’¹¹ that helped to shape American policy … Among the signatories was Rochelle Walensky, then a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and now the Director of the CDC.

‘Any pandemic management strategy relying upon immunity from natural infections for COVID-19 is flawed,’ reads the statement signed by the current CDC Director.

Yes, the very same person who runs the CDC that now tells us to not differentiate between vaccine and natural infection warned us early in the pandemic that any pandemic policy that relies on natural infection is flawed. As you read the CDC’s new guidance, please remember to misremember the memorandum previously signed by the current CDC Director.”

Which Vaccines Will Be Pushed Next?

While we don’t yet know how they’re going to scare the population into getting more experimental shots — now that COVID jab uptake has tanked and more than 112 million doses have had to be discarded for lack of demand^12,13 — we at least have an idea of what those shots are going to be.

August 15, 2022, the U.K. became the first country to approve Moderna’s new bivalent COVID booster, which contains both the original concoction and mRNA to target an already out-of-date Omicron variant.¹⁴ The rest of the world will undoubtedly follow suit.

The British NHS will start rolling out the new bivalent COVID jab September 5, 2022, starting with care home residents and other housebound individuals.¹⁵ The wider rollout will begin September 12, just one day shy of the end of primary elections in the U.S.¹⁶

Of course, the monkeypox vaccine is also being pushed on certain groups,¹⁷ and there’s the seasonal flu vaccine, so there are options when it comes to “picking your poison.”

So, while the good news is that the CDC is now on the hook for having vindicated all us “misinformation spreaders,” the bad news is that there’s more insanity coming, and there’s no telling exactly what form that will take as of yet.

It looks like we’ll have a short reprieve during the U.S. election period, to put a positive spin on the Biden administration’s handling of the pandemic, and whatever the new agenda is, it’ll be rolled out afterward. We do know it’ll involve “the biggest vaccine campaign in history,” though, which could get interesting, seeing how people have woken up in droves to the fact that the COVID shots are maiming and killing without providing any benefit.

The More COVID Shots, the Higher the Reinfection Rate

Evidence that COVID reinfection rates go up in tandem with the number of COVID shots administered is also mounting, which is turning former believers into skeptics. As reported by Icelander Thorsteinn Siglaugsson in a Daily Sceptic article published in mid-August 2022:¹⁸

“Does anyone still recall the excitement in late 2020 when the vaccines against COVID-19 were finally in sight? The trial results were excellent, promising an end to the pandemic in 2021 … I believed in the narrative myself … I even took part in an attempt to have one of the manufacturers arrange a population-wide trial in Iceland, similar to what Pfizer did in Israel. Today I’m very glad we didn’t succeed.

Soon it will be two years since the trial results were out … Data on infection, hospitalization and mortality already show vaccination not only failing to prevent those, but in some cases being counterproductive. In short, the vaccines have failed to deliver what we were promised.

And even worse, the skyrocketing rate of side effects may mean that for most people vaccination makes no or little sense. Still, it is for the most part forbidden to discuss this fact … As an example, it is forbidden to say COVID-19 vaccines may cause death, even if a quick search on the internet shows confirmed cases where there is no doubt about the causality.

It is forbidden also to share evidence showing higher infection rates among the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. It will therefore be interesting to see how those platforms will react to those who share the results of a new research letter published on August 3rd in Jama Network Open.¹⁹

The letter describes the result of a study which monitored for reinfection all Icelanders previously infected, during the Omicron wave, between December 1st 2021 and February 22nd 2022. The study shows a probability of reinfection of up to 15.1% among 18-29 year-olds, declining with age …

But the most interesting part is the comparison by vaccination status. It shows that for most age groups, those who have received two doses or more are more likely to become reinfected than those who have received no vaccination or one dose.”

Once the broad masses begin to accept the reality that more shots equal higher risk of COVID infection, how easy do you think it will be for government to convince them to take a bivalent COVID jab? And if resistance ends up being as high as I suspect it might be, come this fall, what measures might they take to, again, try to force people into compliance? Your guess is as good as mine.

COVID Shots Are Causing Depopulation

Another major hurdle in the plan to launch the biggest vaccination campaign in history is the evidence showing the COVID shots are already causing mass depopulation. As reported by The Exposé, August 7, 2022:²⁰

“COVID-19 vaccination is causing mass depopulation. This is an extremely bold claim to make. But unfortunately, this bold claim is backed up by a mountain of evidence contained in the confidential Pfizer documents and official Government data from around the world.”

Indeed, excess deaths have skyrocketed since the release of the COVID jabs, and the timing is so exact, it can’t be explained away. In the U.K., they’re now massaging data to try to hide it. As explained by The Exposé,²¹ the five-year average that deaths are now compared to are made up of mortality data from 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021.

Excess deaths started climbing in 2021, after the rollout of the shots, and by including 2021 (rather than calculating a five-year average from 2015 to 2019, for accurate prepandemic figures), the excess mortality in 2022 appears closer to the five-year norm than it actually is. Excess deaths are also up in most of Europe, as illustrated in the graph²² below:

Eliminating confusion about the cause of these excess deaths are data comparing the mortality rates among those jabbed and the unjabbed. July 6, 2022, the British Office for National Statistics issued a report^23,24 showing the mortality rates per 100,000 are consistently lowest among the unvaccinated, in all age groups.

In the 18 to 39 age group, unvaccinated had a mortality rate of 14.1 per 100,000 during the month of May 2022, whereas those who got their first dose at least 21 days ago had a mortality rate of 42.6 per 100,000. The mortality rate for double-jabbed was 17.3 per 100,000 and triple-dosed had a mortality rate of 21.4 per 100,000.

As shown in the graph below, created by The Exposé,²⁵ the identical pattern repeats for every month, January through May 2022.

Infant Mortality Has Skyrocketed

The Exposé²⁶ also highlights data showing infant mortality is now far above the norm. In Scotland, official data show neonatal deaths were 119% higher in March 2022 than the annual norm. Live birth rates are also plummeting around the world.

In Germany, the birth rate for January through April 2022 was 11% lower than the seven-year prepandemic average. And the FDA, CDC and Pfizer can hardly be surprised, as Pfizer’s own documents show nearly all pregnant women who participated in its trial — for whom birth outcomes were available — lost their babies. Only one of 29 known birth outcomes were classified as “normal.” The remaining 28 miscarried.

The U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting (VAERS) database also listed 4,113 fetal deaths following COVID injection as of April 2022.²⁷ Compare that to the fetal death reports for all other vaccines reported to VAERS in the last 30 years. That number is 2,239.²⁸

Animal research²⁹ published in August 2021, in which female rats were given the Pfizer jab (BNT162b2), also found it increased certain birth defects (extra ribs) by 295% compared to controls, and doubled preimplantation loss (i.e., fertilized ova that fail to implant). In other words, it doubled the risk of infertility. As noted by The Exposé:³⁰

“With this being the case, how on earth have medicine regulators around the world managed to state in their official guidance that ‘Animal studies do not indicate direct or indirect harmful effects with respect to pregnancy’? And how have they managed to state’It is unknown whether the Pfizer vaccine has an impact on fertility’?

The truth of the matter is that they actively chose to cover it up. We know this thanks to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request³¹ made to the Australian Government Department of Health Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).”

You can read more about that in The Exposé’s July 19, 2022, article, “FOIA Reveals Pfizer & Medicine Regulators Hid Dangers of COVID Vaccination During Pregnancy After Study Found It Increases Risk of Birth Defects & Infertility.”³²

Final Thoughts

So, to wrap this up — yes, the CDC has vindicated truth tellers by reversing its COVID guidelines and basically adopting The Great Barrington declaration, but we’re nowhere near out of the woods yet. A major vaccination campaign is being planned for the fall, even as evidence mounts showing the shots are causing depopulation at a rate we’ve never seen before, outside of world war.

The shots are killing otherwise healthy working-age adults, they’re killing babies in the womb, and they’re causing infertility. They are, without a doubt, the most dangerous drugs ever made. So, enjoy this reprieve, but firm up your resolve to stand against another round of tyranny this fall.

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Notes

^1, 3, 7 Brownstone Institute August 14, 2022

^2, 4, 6 MMWR August 11, 2022; 71

⁵ STAT News December 23, 2021

⁸ Mark Crispin Miller Substack August 13, 2022

^9, 10 The Disinformation Chronicle August 16, 2022

¹¹ The John Snow Memorandum

¹² Washington Examiner May 26, 2022

¹³ NBC News June 6, 2022

¹⁴ Sky News August 15, 2022

¹⁵ Guernsey Press August 18, 2022

¹⁶ Election Calendar 2022

¹⁷ The Guardian July 24, 2022

¹⁸ Daily Sceptic August 15, 2022

¹⁹ JAMA Network Open 2022; 5(8): e2225320

^{20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30} The Expose August 7, 2022

²⁴ ONS.gov.uk Deaths By Vaccination Status, England July 6, 2022

²⁹ Reproductive Toxicology August 2021; 103: 28-35

^31, 32 The Expose July 19, 2022

Featured image is from OffGuardian

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

Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression

By Michel Chossudovsky

Year: 2022

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Pages: 164 (15 Chapters)

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The Washington Post reports that Xi Jinping personally asked President Biden to find a way to put off House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan. According to the Post’s account, Biden explained to Xi that the independent role of Congress made it impossible for him to stop her, even though US intelligence officials were (correctly) convinced that China would follow through on its warnings and make a forceful response.

China’s ambassador to the US said:

“We had warned that if Pelosi made the visit, there would be very serious consequences. China would firmly and forcefully respond. To our regret, the United States chose not to listen.”

Pelosi’s trip was not written in stone: She said she would not go if Biden explicitly asked her not to.

So Biden had an out, but:

“In the end, Biden never spoke to Pelosi about her trip despite Xi’s request . . . In an offhand comment, Biden told reporters shortly before Pelosi’s expected visit that military officials believed the trip was not a good idea.”

Now just imagine a different scenario:

Biden, concerned about China’s reaction to the visit, says to Xi:

“I will do my best to persuade her, out of respect for China’s sensitivity regarding Taiwan. But in return for her postponing her trip, I want your assurance that China’s military will stop air naval maneuvers that threaten Taiwan. And let’s plan on holding high-level military-to-military and diplomatic discussions to promote mutual security in the Taiwan Strait area.”

It was an engagement moment, prompted by the US national interest in competitive coexistence with China.

Would Biden “look weak” if he succeeded in stopping the trip? That’s the usual retort, but Biden could have responded to such a charge by pointing out that Taiwan’s security would not be undermined by the postponement, whereas Pelosi’s trip would force China to make a show of strength. Biden could readily point to the many ways his administration is supporting Taiwan: three recent military aid packages, Biden’s public comments upholding strong ties with Taiwan, and the array of security arrangements, such as the Quad (US-Japan-Australia-India), that are focused on any Chinese threat in the Asia Pacific.

A positive response to Xi was an opportunity to put US-PRC relations onto a more positive track at a time when those relations are rapidly deteriorating. At the least, Biden’s proposal would have tested Xi’s frequent assertions in support of improved relations.

One Chinese foreign policy expert recently wrote a lengthy defense of China’s Taiwan policy and a sharp critique of how the US is eroding the One China policy. Yet the expert ended not with a warning but with a suggestion that the two countries find common ground:

“On the Taiwan Strait issue, China and the United States need to further negotiate more practical and in-depth cooperation on confidence-building measures and crisis management at the strategic and technical levels, based on the two countries’ current crisis management mechanisms. The existing crisis management mechanisms of China and the United States mainly have three types of institutional arrangements: high-level interaction, dialogue and communication channels, and military rules of behavior.”

The article suggests that there are voices inside the policymaking apparatus in China that are open to dialogue even on Taiwan, the most important of Beijing’s core interests and ordinarily a subject closed to “external interference.”

Tensions in the Taiwan Strait will probably cool down in coming weeks. But the Pelosi trip has created new circumstances that do not bode well for moderating Taiwan’s role in US-China relations. More official US visits to Taiwan are in the offing, and in Congress the mood favors bipartisan efforts to upgrade Taiwan’s status.

Meantime, the Chinese military will continue testing Taiwan’s defenses, breaking with previous patterns that had avoided directly challenging Taiwan’s territorial waters and air space. As a Chinese military adviser said the other day, the strategy is to “close the door and beat the dog.”

Spiraling confrontations will end in open conflict unless Washington and Beijing seize diminishing opportunities for engagement.

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Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University and blogs at In the Human Interest.

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The Islamic Emirate’s spokesman said that the reported killing of the al-Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri is an allegation and that the investigation has yet to be finalized.

Speaking at a press conference in Kabul today, Zabiullah Mujahid criticized the US, saying that drones flying in Afghan airspace belong to the US and have been discussed with the American side.

He said the Islamic Emirate considers this an aggression and the US should share its concerns with the Islamic Emirate.

Speaking of the US strike on Kabul, Mujahid said:

“It is still at the level of allegation. The results have yet to be clarified. The body has not been found there because of the rockets that targeted the area—the area is destroyed and nothing is left of it,” he said.

Mujahid said that the investigation has yet to be finalized.

“The results might never be finalized. Whenever negotiations between countries take place, this issue might be forgotten,” said Torek Farhadi, an international relations analyst.

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India Today’s latest nation-wide public opinion survey has three messages for the Narendra Modi government, and for the opposition: economy, economy and economy. For the ruling party, it rings an alarm bell much louder than the orchestrated noise around amrit kaal. For the opposition, this is both an opportunity and a responsibility.

This is not how everyone would read this survey. We read opinion polls for election forecast. As an ex-pollster, this troubles me. Any seats projection made in-between two elections must not be taken literally. The real stuff of a survey like the present one is what it tells us about trends in public opinion.

For the record, therefore, I must report that the latest round of India Today’s Mood of the Nation Survey (MOTNS), one of the longest standing barometers of public mood in our country, projects that if Lok Sabha elections were held between 15 to 31 July of 2022, the BJP would secure 283 seats (a little short of the 303 seats it won in 2019) and the NDA would bag 307 (much lower than its tally of 353 last time).

A methodological disquiet

But there are many reasons not to spend too much time on these numbers. One, because we must not take any seats forecast 20 months before elections too seriously. Two, because the survey was held before the Bihar turmoil. Although the pollsters make a valiant attempt to take this factor into account with a quick snap poll in the state. (They estimate a loss of 8 seats to the BJP and of 21 seats to the NDA as a result of Nitish Kumar’s switch-over).

I must record another reason for my discomfort. Beginning January this year, MOTNS has stopped doing face-to-face interviews at peoples’ homes. For the last six decades, this has been the time-tested gold standard methodology of survey research, and is still followed by credible institutions like the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). Instead, C-Voter, the new agency that has taken over MOTNS, has shifted entirely to telephonic interviews. Now, it is well known that telephonic interviews are much cheaper and hence preferred all over the world. It is also true that mobile density is now quite high in India. Still, it is far from universal. And no matter how much you massage it with sophisticated statistical techniques, a telephonic survey is bound to leave out the citizens at the lowest rung and thus skew the responses.

It is particularly disappointing to note that India Today, a magazine that pioneered quality opinion polling in India, chose to be economic with transparency requirements and brush this methodological shift under the carpet in a coded language. (“This survey is based on CATI interviews of adult respondents across all segments”. Did you guess that CATI meant Computer Assisted Telephonic Interviews? Did you realise that researchers doing MOTNS had stopped visiting the homes of the respondents?). We get no information of the gender, caste or class profile of the sampled respondents who responded to telephone calls. Nor is there any break-up of key responses by different categories, even when you desperately need it (economic distress by economic class and gender or communal situation by religion, for example).

It’s economy, stupid

Notwithstanding these limitations, the survey offers a wealth of information, especially on broad trends of public opinion. The headline finding is unmistakable: “it’s economy, stupid”. The top three responses to the question, “What is the biggest problem India currently faces?” are: price rise (27 per cent), unemployment (25 per cent) and poverty (7 per cent). Economic problems are on top of everyone’s mind. And with good reasons, if you follow the official and unofficial data on the state of the economy. Price rise tops the chart, as it often does even if the recorded inflation is low, though the level is not unprecedented. Given the gloomy figures on employment, it should not come as a surprise that 56 per cent think the unemployment situation is “very serious” against just 9 per cent who say it is not.

Yet, I was surprised that people project their assessment of the present economic condition into the future as well. Survey research over decades has shown that Indians are optimists about future economic prospects, no matter how bad their current state of affairs. So, it came as a shock to me that as many as 34 per cent expect the country’s economy to get worse over the next six months, compared to 31 per cent who expect it to get better, a near reversal of the balance six months ago. I don’t recall any other recorded phase of economic pessimism in India, except just after the second phase of Covid.

As a survey researcher, I trust peoples’ responses on their household economic condition much more than their assessment of the country’s economy. You can be fooled into believing a rosy or dark picture about the nation’s economy, but not about your own or your family’s economic condition. India Today has been asking this direct question for the last six years: “how has your economic condition changed since Narendra Modi took charge as PM in 2014?” Note that the question names Modi and, given his continuing popularity, should load the answers in the positive direction. However, 36 per cent respondents report that their condition has deteriorated, compared to 28 per cent who report an improvement since 2014. The same is extended to the future: more respondents expect their own economic condition to worsen in the near future than those who expect betterment. These are terrible figures for any government, bad enough to get the government kicked out at the hustings.

From economy to politics

It all depends on whether people blame the government for their poor economic conditions or not. Here too, the news is not good for the Modi government. Positive rating of the government’s economic policies is now at 48 per cent, the lowest recorded in the last six years. Negative assessment is now at 29 per cent, the highest ever. When asked to name “biggest failure” of the NDA government, the top three mentions are economy related: price rise, unemployment, economic growth. To be sure, negative assessment of economic policy has not yet overtaken the positive evaluation. And the overall assessment of the government is still quite positive, thanks to public support for its handling of other issues like Kashmir, Ram Temple, corruption, and, surprisingly, Covid.  But with inflation and unemployment showing no signs of slowing down, the government has a lot to worry about.

Is this the beginning of the end of the Modi government? That would be a hasty and lazy conclusion. The PM’s personal popularity is still fairly high, even though the proportion of those who rate his work as poor or very poor has touched a new high. As yet no opposition leader comes anywhere close to him in the popularity rating. While there is a marked unease about the state of democracy – those who say democracy is in danger clearly outnumber those who don’t – there is no perceptible popular anger on the destruction of democratic institutions or curbs on freedom of speech. Indians get more worked up about hubris and vindictiveness of the government than about the niceties of liberal democracy.

As this column argued last week, there is little to support the idea that 2024 is a “done deal” for the ruling party. Such boasts and the media circus around it are nothing but mind-games that the BJP is adept at playing. Nor should we assume that the BJP is headed for a defeat. The changed electoral baseline after Bihar upheaval, and economic distress reported in this survey, clearly indicate that the electoral race is still open. The onus is now on the opposition to take up this historic responsibility.

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Yogendra Yadav is among the founders of Jai Kisan Andolan and Swaraj India. Views are personal.

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***

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has declared that she is ready and willing to kick off thermonuclear warfare should she take over as prime minister, stressing her hawkish bonafides as she seeks to replace Boris Johnson.

Appearing at a town hall event in Birmingham on Tuesday, Truss was asked how she would feel about ordering “global annihilation” in the event of a nuclear standoff with a foreign adversary.

“I won’t ask you if you would press the button, you’ll say yes, but faced with that task I would feel physically sick,” said host John Pienaar, who went on to ask: “How does that thought make you feel?”

“I think it’s an important duty of the prime minister and I’m ready to do that,” Truss replied, drawing applause from the audience. When Pienaar asked again how that decision would make her “feel,” she simply stated “I’m ready to do it.”

Liz Truss says she is 'ready' to make decisions about using nuclear warfare. #TimesRadio pic.twitter.com/ILnW7XQ1LY

— Times Radio (@TimesRadio) August 23, 2022

While no foreign state was mentioned by name during the exchange, Truss has been among the most bellicose British officials in her comments about the war in Ukraine, issuing a steady stream of hostile rhetoric toward Moscow while encouraging escalation at virtually every turn.

Despite serving as her country’s top diplomat, the foreign secretary has made little effort to seek out a diplomatic solution to the conflict, instead calling for Russia’s “defeat” on the battlefield regardless of the cost in Ukrainian blood.

With Prime Minister Boris Johnson preparing to leave office after announcing his resignation in July, Truss is now vying against former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak for the PM spot. While Johnson’s hawkish stance toward Russia may be hard to outdo – having visited Kiev multiple times in recent months to discourage a negotiated settlement to the war – his replacement appears set to continue London’s policies on the conflict regardless of who wins.

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Will Porter is assistant news editor at the Libertarian Institute and a staff writer at RT. Find more of his work at Antiwar.com and Consortium News.

Featured image: The ‘Baker’ nuclear weapon test is seen at Bikini Atoll, July 25, 1946; UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. (Credit: Pentagon; UK Prime Minister’s Office)

“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

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***

The West itself appears to be the party most harmed by the sanctions it has chosen to impose against Russia. As well known, the US, UK and EU are facing a wave of inflation with all-time highs. And in the same sense, the business world is collapsing in Western countries. The business losses with the end of participation of some Western companies in the Russian market are extremely significant and are causing serious problems for the economy of many countries, with losses accumulating exorbitant amounts.

It is estimated that American, European, British, and Japanese companies have already lost more than 70 billion dollars since February. The losses are a consequence of the packages of sanctions imposed by Western countries on Moscow in response to the start of the special military operation in Ukraine. Many corporations withdrew from Russia or had their activities frozen, losing insertion in the powerful market of consumption, work and raw materials offered by Russia.

As expected, the most affected sector is the energy one, whose losses are estimated at almost 55 billion dollars, generating a series of problems for Western societies. Relations between Russia and Western Europe in the energy sector have always been a central strategic point in the international economic balance and now seem more threatened than ever. However, other sectors are also in similar situations.

Agricultural commodity, food and tobacco markets achieve losses of almost 8 billion dollars. In the same sense, in the technology and IT sector, 5 billion dollars of losses have already been accumulated. And there is also the vital banking sector, whose side effects of anti-Russian financial coercive measures have already led to a loss of 3,7 billion dollars – most of this amount belonging to Société Générale, the only banking group to have left Russia completely so far.

With regard specifically to the energy sector, the European and British companies most affected were BP, Linde, Uniper and Total Energies, whose billions of dollars in assets were harmed as a result of the suspension of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and other Russian-European projects of cooperation. The process of disintegration of the Russian and European energy markets will not be so easily completed, as it is necessary to reverse a scenario of decades of cooperation, which will undoubtedly take time.

For example, BP, which announced its unconditional withdrawal from the Russian market in February, still remains one of Rosneft’s main partners, owning 19.75% of its shares. However, the process of disintegration has progressively advanced. BP itself revealed a loss of more than 25 billion dollars due to the freezing of its activities in Russia, pointing to a scenario that indicates a path towards the end of the cooperation in the near future.

American and Japanese energy companies are heading in the same direction. ExxonMobil, Mitsui & Co and Mitsubishi Corporation were some of the companies that had the most losses in recent months, mainly as a result of the effects that the coercive measures had on the Sakhalin-I and Sakhalin-II projects. Obviously, other energy companies were also affected by the packages of sanctions, albeit on a smaller scale, showing a scenario of generalized losses for this sector’s businesses.

For Russia, however, the deficits are much smaller and almost never imply real losses, but market restructurings. In energy, Russian oil and gas production remains strong and active, unaffected by the departure of some Western companies. The withdrawal of these companies makes room for other markets, such as the Chinese and Indian, which are the ones that have stood out in the search for Russian oil and gas in recent months. Meanwhile, Western companies lose important sources of supply that will not be easily resolved.

As for market sectors in which Russian consumption was of interest to Western companies, there are even fewer losses. The corporations that withdrew from Russia left their physical production structures there, which could be used by Moscow, generating employment for the Russian population, internal circulation of capital and economic progress.

For example, McDonald’s lost more than one billion dollars with its adherence to anti-Russian measures, but its withdrawal from the local market made room for the nationalization of the company’s production structures, and a Russian national company was created to sell fast food for Russian citizens. The same is currently happening with other Western companies that have left the Russian market. In short, the West lost a rich consumer market and handed over to Moscow all the necessary means for Russians themselves to supply their population with such goods and services.

In practice, all these facts simply mean damage to Western business. Entrepreneurs do not appear to have been consulted by heads of state on whether or not sanctions were in their best interest. The measures were simply imposed unilaterally to meet NATO’s geopolitical plans, without considering the opinion of companies that generate jobs for Western citizens. Currently, there are still plans to completely ban the entry of Russian citizens into Europe, which according to estimates will generate losses of more than 20 billion euros, harming the entire European market.

In fact, western sanctions, if not reversed, will lead the world into a global recession in which the most affected will be the western countries themselves. To avoid this, the business sector must mobilize to demand an end to sanctions.

*

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Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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***

Guest is Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder & ex-President of Greenpeace and author. He has a BSc Biology and a PhD Ecology. Also director of co2coalition.org, a coalition that seeks to engage in an informed and dispassionate discussion of climate change, humans’ role in the climate system, the limitations of climate models, and the consequences of mandated reductions in CO2 emissions.

He strongly opposes the idea that there are too many people on earth since humanity is way better off today, than in the past centuries, thanks to science and innovations. He voices serious doubts on the CO2-caused climate change narrative dominating academia, politics and news & criticizes K. Schwab’s “Own nothing and be happy” doctrine.

This session also talks about what happened when Greenpeace grew: became a business with shifted priorities (money over ideals). Greenpeace also started to describe humanity as “enemies of the earth”.

Dr. Moore argues for a balance between taking from nature (which feeds us) and taking care of nature.

*

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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***

During his fifty years as a painter, Canadian American artist Philip Guston created a body of work that stands out as among the most significant and daring of the twentieth century. His development as an artist involved several phases, and culminated with images notable for their dark, biting humor, distinct palette, unmistakable lexicon of objects, and concern with themes when taken together seem designed to heighten our uneasiness and have us question everything we thought we knew about painting. Perhaps the most important feature of these works, however, is their uncompromising interrogation of racism and white culpability, signaled by the persistent and discomfiting image of hooded Klansmen, or simply “hoods” as Guston referred to them. 

The Museum of Fine Art in Boston is presently hosting “Philip Guston Now,” a much-anticipated retrospective of Guston’s work. Comprised of seventy-three paintings and twenty-seven drawings, the exhibition reexamines an artist who began as a representational painter, but by the late 1950s was highly acclaimed as an abstract expressionist. Yet, notwithstanding the adoring critics, Guston ultimately declined to settle into his role as one of the country’s preeminent abstract artists.  His return to figuration was disparaged and ridiculed when the paintings first came before the public in his now infamous 1970 solo exhibition at New York City’s Marlborough Gallery. Despite fierce criticism, Guston insisted on confronting some of the most difficult and pressing questions our society continues to face. These paintings, preoccupied as they are with the nature of the self and its relationship to evil, violence, and bigotry are destabilizing, disruptive, and precisely for that reason they cannot afford to be overlooked.

Born in 1913, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants who fled extermination in the pogroms of 1905, Guston was no stranger to racial hatred which he would encounter firsthand growing up in Los Angeles. Ku Kluxers first appeared in Guston’s work of the early 1930s, including a 1932 mural based on accounts he had read of the trial of the Scottsboro boys, nine Black youths falsely accused of rape in Alabama in the spring of 1931. A terrifying and brutal depiction of a Klansman whipping a roped black man, Guston’s mural was desecrated, along with several others, by a group “led by the chief of the Red Squad [a unit of the Los Angeles Police Department that went after Communists and strikers].”

Neither was Guston a stranger to tragedy: despondent and reduced to rag picking, his father hanged himself from the porch, and was likely discovered by Philip who had his tenth birthday only three days earlier. Ropes and porches will emerge in paintings such as If This Be Not I (1945) and Porch II (1947), both included in the current exhibition. The figures in these paintings are compressed, and flattened against each other, accentuating the overall sense of claustrophobia. They are also evocative of the Holocaust: in the lower left of If This Be Not I, a figure wearing the striped pajamas of the concentration camp is laying on his back, his head turned so that he looks vacantly at us from over his right shoulder, while his right hand slumps lifelessly beside a discarded light bulb (one of his favorite motifs).  In the figure’s left hand, he clutches a tin horn against his chest, perhaps suggesting an angel. The dangling rope of Porch II may refer to his father’s suicide; while a man hanging upside down, exposing the soles of his shoes, is an image that Guston will use in alluding to the Holocaust.

If This Be Not I (1945)

The early work demonstrates Guston’s mastery of a style informed by the great Mexican muralists (‘Los Tres Grandes’), the stylized forms of Giorgio de Chirico and Pablo Picasso, as well as the Italian Renaissance frescoes of Piero della Francesca, who painted “like a visitor to the earth… as though opening his eyes for the first time… without manner.” Guston in fact displayed Piero’s Flagellation of Christ (c. 1456-60) for much of his life: “I want to look at [it] when I have eggs and coffee in the morning or my drinks at night.” Something of Piero’s depiction of the violent flogging of Jesus is recognizable in a painting such as Martial Memory (1941), a scene of children fighting in costume (a theme to which Guston returned more than once): in this case, the children have paused momentarily, holding their weapons in the air, echoing Christ’s tormentors in the Flagellation.

Figurative painting was unequivocally set aside with the lush hues of Red Painting (1950), generally regarded as Guston’s first foray into pure abstraction, to which he would be wholly devoted for the next sixteen years. Unlike colleagues including Jackson Pollok (with whom Guston attended high school in Los Angeles), Guston painted with short rapid brushstrokes, working extremely close to the canvas. The results were rich, and visually enticing tapestries of color with touches reminiscent of Turner and especially Monet.

“Decisions to settle anywhere are intolerable,” Guston would write, “[U]nless painting proves its right to exist by being critical and self-judging, it has no right to exist at all – or is not even possible.” Having achieved international recognition for his abstract paintings, Guston forsook critical acclaim by returning to figuration, but in an entirely new, almost cartoon-like style informed by the aesthetic sensibilities he developed as an abstract artist. Although derided when they first appeared, it is the work from this third phase – characterized by the extensive use of his signature pinks and recurring objects, such as light bulbs, nails, shoes, clocks, and paintbrushes – for which Guston would be chiefly remembered.

The Studio (1969), a meta-self-portrait (that is, a painting of the artist painting a self-portrait) unabashedly announced Guston’s move away from abstraction and his return to figuration and representationalism. The uneasiness that this painting generates arises from Guston’s decision to present himself in a Klansman’s hood, working at his easel, holding a cigar with his left hand and a paintbrush in his right, as he creates a self-portrait of his hooded persona. Guston would say of the many hooded figures to follow, “They are self-portraits. I perceive myself as being behind the hood. … I almost tried to imagine that I was living with the Klan. What would it be like to be evil?”

Guston’s Web (1975) is as disturbing as any of the Klan paintings – and, in fact, the over-sized eye of the bean-shaped head (standing in for the artist himself) is itself shaped like the hoods of his Klansmen. The red rim of the eye and three-day stubble is suggestive of sleeplessness, which can be understood here not only in terms of insomnia as a medical condition, but also as a crucial metaphor for modern subjectivity under conditions of late capitalism. Guston’s cyclops is vigilant without seeing anything – it is like the vigilance of one who is chained to being, contracted to exist and unable to escape the anonymous il y a (or ‘there is’) as the philosopher Emanuel Levinas would put it.

Web (1975)

At the top of the painting, two black spiders spin their webs which partially ensnare Guston’s head if not his brain-shaped companion, a stand in for his wife Musa McKim, characteristically represented as a kind of sun rising or setting on the horizon. The spiders are weavers of time and fate – like the two women who busily knit their black wool, spinning the thread of each man’s life, at the entrance to the Company’s offices in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899).

Painting, Smoking, Eating (1973) is among Guston’s most recognizable works – and it is replete with the objects that variously inhabit the paintings from this period: cigarettes, light bulbs, the soles of shoes; and once again the single massive and vigilant eye of the artist’s oval-shaped head. In this case, the painter is lying in bed, smoking a cigarette, covered up to his chin by a blanket, with a plate of french fries propped on his chest. Behind him is a disordered and motley collection of shoes, a can of brushes, and a disembodied hand with its index finger pointing to the wall on which it has drawn a vertical red line. This image touches on the inevitable question, who precisely is painting in this picture? Is the artist painting in his imagination as he lays in bed? The disembodied hand marking the wall in blood invariably recalls the mystic hand which appeared before Belshazzar as he feasted in his palace, as related in the Book of Daniel, and famously depicted by Rembrandt in Belshazzar’s Feast (1635).

Painting, Smoking, Eating (1973)

The prophet Daniel informs the Babylonian ruler that he was ‘weighed in the balance and found wanting’ – a stern judgement, and for Guston a kind of self-reproach with which he was not unfamiliar and that helps us to understand his departure from pure abstraction. As Guston would recall: “When the 1960s came along I was feeling split, schizophrenic. The war, what was happening in America, the brutality of the world. What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything-and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?”

A great deal of controversy preceded this exhibition, which will travel from Boston’s MFA to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, followed by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and finally Tate Modern in London. In response to the “the racial justice movement that started in the US,” following the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, all four institutions intended to postpone the exhibition until 2024, according to their joint statement – a testament to Guston’s ability to unsettle and even shock audiences over forty years after his death.

Thankfully, the museums reversed their decision when a fierce backlash ensued. Guston’s daughter, Musa Mayer, pointedly observed: “My father dared to unveil white culpability… our shared role in allowing the racist terror that he had witnessed since boyhood, when the Klan marched openly by the thousands in the streets of Los Angeles… He understood what hatred was. It was the subject of his earliest works.” Indeed, one can hardly conceive of a more appropriate time to present the work of an artist whose paintings are not only a condemnation of evil, its banality and proximity, but a critical reflection on our collective responsibility for bigotry, antisemitism, and violence.

*

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

Shocking: UK Government Admits COVID Vaccinated Children Are 4423% More Likely to Die of Any Cause & 13,633% More Likely to Die of COVID-19 Than Unvaccinated Children

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The Next Generation Says Good-Bye to Ursula von der Leyen’s Europe

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NATO-Russia Proxy War: Revealing Signs of a Fading America: Scott Ritter, Michael Hudson

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The Collapse of America: What History Teaches Us About the Rise and Fall of Empires. Prof. Alfred McCoy

Michael Welch, August 21, 2022

Whose Grain Is Being Shipped from Ukraine? America’s GMO Agribusiness Giants to Take Control of Ukraine Farmland

F. William Engdahl, August 19, 2022

Uncovering the Corona Narrative: Was Everything Carefully Planned? Analysis by Ernst Wolff

Ernst Wolff, August 20, 2022

The Crisis in Ukraine Is Not About Ukraine. It’s About Germany

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The Planned Fall 2022 “Epidemics Tyranny”

Peter Koenig, August 18, 2022

Something Is Looming Geopolitically, and We Better Start Taking It Seriously

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Trends in Mortality and Morbidity in the Most Vaccinated Countries : Twenty-one Proven Facts

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As the COVID Myths Explode, Delusions Are Shattering: Our Exit from Subservience Leads to Nuremberg 2.0

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They’re Killing our Children: Will There be Doctors and Public Health Officials Fleeing for the Exits?

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Amish Farm Under Threat From U.S. Federal Government for Refusal to Abandon Traditional Farming Practices

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An Engineered Food and Poverty Crisis to Secure Continued U.S. Dominance

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Erdogan Repairs Syria Ties with Eye on Eurasianism

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“Economic Warfare” Directed Against China? The Shanghai “COVID Zero Tolerance Mandate”

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The Legacy of Resistance to the Prison Industrial Complex. Nehanda Abiodun Enters the Struggle

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Since the early 1980s, the prison population in the United States has grown exponentially with African Americans, Latin Americans and other working class people making up the majority of those incarcerated in the dungeons of the world’s leading capitalist state. During the previous decade on September 9, 1971, several thousand inmates at the Attica Prison in New York State took control of the correctional facility to demand radical changes in the way people are treated while incarcerated.

Promising a ‘Full-Throated Investigation’ of Fauci, Senators Demand NIH, HHS Preserve All Related Documents, Communications

By Dr. Suzanne Burdick, August 25, 2022

Two U.S. senators on Tuesday — the day after Dr. Anthony Fauci announced plans to leave his government posts in December — formally requested the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services preserve all documents and communications related to Fauci.

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).

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.

***

Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev regarding the forthcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Samarkand on September 15-16. This must be the fourth or fifth time the two leaders confabulated over the upcoming event. One lost count! 

Putin and Mirziyoyev conceivably exchanged notes on a major event likely on the sidelines of the SCO summit — a meeting between Turkish President Recep Erdogan and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad signalling a breakthrough in the conflict in Syria. 

As I wrote recently — Russia-Turkey reset eases regional tensions— one major outcome of the meeting between Putin and Erdogan in Sochi on August 5 was that a reconciliation between Ankara and Damascus may be happening. On his return journey, Erdogan said he was going to contact Assad. Hardly anyone noticed, though, that Putin also invited Erdogan and Assad to participate in the upcoming SCO summit. 

Indeed, Mirziyoyev, who will be hosting the summit in Samarkand, has been in the know of it all through. Putin and Mirziyoyev have forged a close working relationship suffused with warmth and mutual respect that puts Tashkent back as the key capital in Russia’s Central Asian strategies, as has been the case historically dating back to the Tsarist era. 

Moscow has outclassed and outmanoeuvred the recent US attempts to stir up unrest in Central Asian region, whilst the Kremlin has one eye riveted on Ukraine. (The secretary of Russia’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, a longtime associate of Putin, lashed out last week at a meeting of SCO security tsars at US attempts to stage colour revolutions in Central Asia.) 

Coming back to Syria, western media missed the wood for the trees while assessing the Putin-Erdogan summit in Sochi. The leitmotif in Sochi was regional security in the Greater Middle East — the vast swathe stretching from Levant to the steppes of Central Asia and the Pamirs bordering Xinjiang. 

The Guardian came tantalisingly close to smelling the real story behind the 4-hour long “secretive meeting” at one-to-one level in Sochi, but lost the scent somehow after hearing that “Before the meeting began, Russian journalists noted that Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader who has sent forces under his command to both Syria and Ukraine, was in attendance.”

The Putin-Erdogan axis is riveted on a balancing of interests to ensure differences (which are aplenty) do not turn into disputes. Thus, Putin is unfailingly attuned to Erdogan’s concerns today which devolve upon the state of the Turkish economy and the upcoming presidential and parliamentary polls (the two are inter-related.)  

Erdogan has his finger on many pies — from the Balkans to North Africa and Persian Gulf to the Caucasus — but what concerns him most is the situation in Syria, which has serious implications as he prepares to seek a renewed mandate.  For Erdogan, Syria is like a Matryoshka doll — a set of problems of decreasing size placed one inside another. Who else but Putin could understand a Matryoshka doll better? 

For the Russian mind, the Matryoshka doll symbolises above all other values the search for truth and meaning. That is how Syria figures prominently in Putin’s cogitations with Erdogan. Packed inside the doll, one inside another, are: PKK and Kurdish separatism; US-Kurdish unholy alliance; Israeli footprints; Turkish-American discord (following the failed US-backed coup d’état in 2016) — all of which impact Turkey’s vital concerns. 

At Sochi, Putin could persuade Erdogan that the best way to address his concerns will be by engaging with Assad. Of course, Erdogan and Assad are no strangers to each other. The two families used to vacation together — until 2011 when Barack Obama and Joe Biden weaned Erdogan away. 

Fundamentally, there is a Turkish-Russian understanding that the strengthening of Syrian government’s sovereignty will strengthen regional security and that Ankara and Damascus have a common interest in fighting separatism and terrorism. Indeed, the natural corollary is that the longer the US occupation continues, the greater the danger of a “Kurdistan” consolidating in northern Syria. 

But the US is in no hurry to end its occupation, since the troops aren’t taking casualty; large scale smuggling of oil makes the occupation rather “self-financing” (like the ancient Roman legions); and the region also happens to be Syria’s most fertile river valleys. 

Erdogan’s security concerns in Syria are best addressed in cooperation with Damascus. As the first step in this direction, he publicly stated last week that destabilising the Assad government is not Turkish policy (anymore.)

Meanwhile, reports have appeared that a Turkish delegation of former ministers and diplomats led by the leader of the Patriotic Party (Vatan Partisi) Dogu Perincek plans to visit Damascus to hold talks with Assad for the restoration of Turkish-Syrian relations. Interestingly, Tehran has since called for the rebuilding of relations between Turkey and Syria.

Now, Perincek’s appearance makes this a demi-official Track 1.5 mission. Perincek is a seasoned politician with a Marxist pedigree, who was associated with both “Kemalists” and Kurdish PKK, had spent something like 15 years in jail during various periods until an intriguing prison release in 2014, and a makeover as fellow traveller of the Erdogan regime. 

However, one consistent trait in Perincek’s ideological make-up has been his advocacy of “Eurasianism”, namely, that Turkey should turn its back on  the Atlantic system, pursue an independent foreign policy and head toward Eurasia to work with the Russia-China axis. 

Without doubt, Perincek worked on receptive minds, as a belief was gaining ground within the Erdogan government that Western powers — the US, in particular — are trying to weaken and divide Turkey through their support of Kurdish separatism, whereas Russia and China scrupulously refrain from interference in Turkey’s internal affairs. 

Curiously, Perincek and Russian philosopher and ideologue Aleksandr Dugin have enjoyed a warm personal friendship over many years, cemented by their conviction that Russian nationalism and Turkish nationalism have a meeting point in the ideology of “Eurasianism”. They have met more than once. And, like Dugin, Perincek is also credited today with influence among the power circles surrounding Erdogan. 

A presentation of the “Eurasianist” perspective on the Syrian question is available in a most recent  interview by retired Lt. Gen. Ismail Hakki Pekin, former head of the Turkish Armed Forces’ Military Intelligence (2007-2011) who used to be the deputy chairman of Perincek’s party.  

It is possible to see Perincek’s influence in the Turkish foreign policy in the so-called Asia Anew initiative, which was unveiled at the annual Turkish Ambassadors’ Meeting in Ankara three years ago. 

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Last week’s Israeli army raids and closures of seven Palestinian civil society organisations based in the occupied West Bank cities of Ramallah and Al Bireh are the latest manifestation of a decades old Israeli campaign to remove influential Palestinian leaders, undermine Palestinian institutions and disrupt Palestinian unity.

Before dawn a week ago, Israeli forces broke into their offices, searched them, confiscated computers and files, and sealed their premises. Israel branded them “terrorist” and “unlawful”, alleging ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a leftist resistance group outlawed by Israel.

Israel’s latest victims cover a broad range of activities essential for the wellbeing of Palestinians struggling for existence under Israeli occupation. These are human rights defender Al Haq, prisoner support group Addameer, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Bisan Centre for Research and Development, Defence for Children International, Palestine branch and the Union of Health Workers Committees which operates hospitals and clinics across the West Bank. The first six were banned as unlawful “terrorist” organisation last October and the seventh in 2020.

Adding insult to injury, Israel’s domestic security agency Shinbet followed up by summoning for questioning Khaled Quzmar, director of Defence for Children, who endured two hours of interrogation at Ofer military base, and  Shawan Jabari of Al Haq who refused to present  himself. The Al Haq caller made “threats of imprisonment and other measures if Al Haq continues its work,” which it has, by reopening its office and recalling staff.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemned the raids as an “assault” on these organisations and warned that such closures are part of the Israeli army’s “systematic policy” of eliminating Palestinian civil society due to the role it plays in “supporting the Palestinian resistance under occupation”. The PCHR argues that Israel has [tightened] “the screws” on such organisations since the Durban Conference against Racism held in 2001 in South Africa and Israel has escalated its efforts since Palestine “acceded to the International Criminal Court in 2015”. The PCHR demanded the international community intervene to reopen these civil society bodies, which the Palestinian Authority regards as “state institutions”.

The UN, European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticised the move and nine European countries, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Ireland, Denmark and Sweden have expressed “deep concern” over the closures while even Israel’s best friend, the US, voiced “concern.” All said Israel had offered no evidence to justify its “terrorist” designation. None has proposed to exert pressure on Israel to reverse its bans and return the property of the raided organisations or punish Israel if it refuses. This means, once again, Israel will get away with a major assault on Palestinian civil society just as it escapes serious censure for its nightly arrest raids on West Bank Palestinian cities, towns and villages and military offensives against Gaza.

However, if Israel provides firm evidence to justify the closure of these organisations, action would be taken making it all too clear once again that double standards will apply on the case of the banned organisations while Israel will continue to enjoy impunity.

By raiding the organisations in Ramallah, the Israeli army also violated the terms of the 1995 Oslo II agreement, signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yizak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organisation Chairman Yasser Arafat. Ramallah is located in Area A, the 18 per cent of the West Bank under full Palestinian Authority control. Israeli citizens, colonists, and forces are banned from entering Area A. However, since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s full scale invasion of the West Bank in 2002, its forces have conducted routine raids into Ramallah and environs Bethlehem, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Jericho, Nablus, 80 per cent of Hebron, and the 40 per cent of Al Bireh which is classified as Area A. Five per cent of this town is Area B, and 55 per cent as Area C.

In Area B, 22 per cent of the West Bank, the authority administers Palestinian enclaves while Israel has full security control.  Israel is meant to exercise total control over Area C, 60 per cent of the West Bank but in violation of Oslo II, Israel has extended the reach of its military to Area A, in defiance of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel does not confine its military raids to civil society organisations but also targets cultural centres and research organisations.  In July 2020, Israeli forces raided the Yabous Cultural Centre and Edward Said National Conservatory  of Music in occupied East Jerusalem and confiscated thousands of documents, files, computers and surveillance cameras. The military also entered the Beit Hanina home of Rania Elias and Suhail Khouri, the directors of the centres, seized files and arrested the couple.

Israel conducts drone and air strikes against cultural facilities in Gaza. In May 2021, Israel flattened two of the strip’s main bookshops and in 2018 Israel bombed the Said Al Meshal Cultural Centre in the Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza where musicians and artists practised and performed.

The most destructive raid conducted by Israel took place at the Arab Studies Society located in occupied East Jerusalem’s 1897 Husseini mansion, a graceful stone building of great historic importance and a symbol of the Palestinian presence in the city. The raid took place shortly after the death of Faisal Husseini, East Jerusalem’s leading Palestinian figure, who founded the Society in 1980 and moved it into Orient House in 1983. The Israelis carried away the library’s 17,000 books in English and Arabic as well as its collection of documents on Palestinian land ownership during the Ottoman era and British mandate period.  Israel’s aim was to deprive the Palestinians of proofs of their existence and ownership of the land Israel claims and colonises.

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The Biden administration has urged the Palestinian Authority not to pursue a vote at the UN Security Council on gaining full UN membership, stressing it will likely veto any such move, U.S. and Palestinian sources said.

Driving the news: The Palestinian Authority announced several weeks ago it will renew its push to gain full UN membership during the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting in New York.

• Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants to use this move to try to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back at the center of the international community’s attention and to break the current deadlock in the peace process.
• The possible UN bid is also a way for the PA and Abbas to try to win points domestically and get deliverables from the U.S. and the EU.

Behind the scenes: Several weeks ago, Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour started quiet consultations in New York with Security Council members over a possible full membership bid, according to Palestinian, Israeli and U.S. sources.

• The Palestinians also discussed the issue with Biden administration officials, who raised strong reservations and said such a move won’t lead anywhere because of the veto, U.S. sources said.

Flashback: In November 2012, the Palestinians’ UN status was upgraded to non-member observer state, but this was done through a vote at the UN General Assembly where no country has veto power.

• Since then, Palestinian leaders tried several times to get a vote at the UN Security Council but never garnered enough support — nine of 15 members — to even hold a vote.

What they’re saying: PLO official and Palestinian Minister Hussein al-Sheikh confirmed there were talks with the Biden administration on the issue, but stressed that it is an ongoing discussion and the PA is still trying to convince countries to support it.

• A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. is committed to a two-state solution and is focused on trying to bring the Palestinians and Israelis closer together and create conditions for direct talks.
• “The only realistic path to a comprehensive and lasting peace is through direct negotiations between the parties. There are no shortcuts to Palestinian statehood outside direct negotiations with Israel,” the State Department spokesperson added.

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One prominent way that the U.S. regime and its allies (or vassal-nations) deceive the public is by false headlines that often don’t even represent the news-report fairly or at all. A good recent example of this was a 23 August 2022 Reuters report headlined “Analysis: As Ukraine war drags on, Europe’s economy succumbs to crisis”. The lie that the headline was designed to implant into readers’ minds was that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia didn’t merely contribute to “Europe’s economy succumbs to crisis,” but that when winter comes and Europeans will be experiencing an even worse economy, that will be largely if not mainly because the “Ukraine war drags on.”

Actually, Europe’s own sanctions against Russia have produced and are producing skyrocketing commodities-prices that Europeans are experiencing not just in fuels but in foods, and will increasingly experience during the winter when there will be an even bigger demand for the fuels that Russia more than any other supplier and had been selling to Europeans at lower prices than any other country — but, now, because of those sanctions that are imposed by Europe’s leaders, Russia’s fuels are banned from European markets. Europe’s leaders have imposed those sanctions, and Europe’s ’news’-media praised them; and, so, European citizens approved of those sanctions; but, now, Europeans are starting to feel the inevitable consequence of that policy: soaring commodities-prices, and declining economies.

On 9 May 2022, Russia’s RT News bannered “Europe’s biggest economy faces wave of bankruptcies — banking chief: Aggressive sanctions against Russia are sending financial shockwaves through Germany”. That was an honest headline and following news-report, which one won’t see in U.S.-and-allied ’news’-media. The opening was:

Germany will be battered with a wave of bankruptcies due to Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia, according to Commerzbank Chief Executive Officer Manfred Knof.

“The energy supply in Germany is at risk, supply chains are breaking down, we have high inflation,” Knof was quoted by the Handelsblatt daily as saying.

According to the executive, almost a third of Germany’s foreign trade has been impacted, forcing companies to navigate complex issues with customers, including surging commodity prices and supply-chain bottlenecks.

“We shouldn’t delude ourselves: the number of insolvencies in our markets will probably increase and the risk provisions of the banks with it,” Knof said.

Whereas the Reuters ’news’-report had a false headline, and their following news-report was incomprehensible about what is causing Europe’s economies to suffer — and the headline’s implication was that Vladimir Putin was to blame, and that Putin caused it when he made the decision on February 24th that (supposedly) caused Europe’s economic plunge — this news-report from Russia (unlike the Reuters one) had no need to lie. That’s the difference between propaganda versus news. Propaganda is fake ‘news’. Fake ‘news’ comes from the approved ‘news’-media.

Many people don’t even read beyond the headline. Far more people read the headline than actually read the news-report that is below it. And even people who don’t read beyond the headline get their mind imprinted by the impression that the headline suggests. So, headline-deception is a major technique of propaganda.

Anyone in The West who pays subscription-fees to receive ‘news’ from their Government-approved ‘news’-media is paying in order to be deceived by their Government. It might give people a ‘good feeling’ because it’s thought to be from ‘our Government’ even if in fact it is only from the ‘news’-media that are owned and controlled by the billionaires who fund the political campaigns of the winning political candidates, but those subscription-fees are actually buying poison — mind-poison.

Obviously, any news-medium that is publishing this article would never knowingly do such a thing. But all of the mainstream U.S.-and-allied news-media do it all the time, and they know what they are doing, and why.

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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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The Southern African Development Community (SADC), during its 42nd Ordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government held on 17 and 18 August at Palais du Peuple (Parliament Building), vehemently expressed their collective opposition to a proposed United States law on countering Russian influence and activities in Africa. The “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act” adopted by the US House of Representatives directs the US Secretary of State to submit a strategy on Russia.

According the statement posted to its website, the 16-member regional bloc complained that the United States has made the African continent “the target of unilateral and punitive measures” and its Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee pushed the bill designed to stop President Vladimir Putin using Africa to bypass US sanctions and fund his war in Ukraine, as well as to protect African people from human rights violations by Russian mercenaries.

The SADC leaders have, therefore, reaffirmed their collective position of non-alignment towards conflicts outside the continent. The summit was held under the theme “Promoting Industrialization through Agro-processing , mineral beneficiation  and regional value chains for inclusive and resilient economic growth.”

“Africa Is Not For Sale. Africa is open for business not for sale or looting. We must defend what is ours and make sure that no one takes from us what is ours,” declared Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera at the summit, pointing to the bold stance against the scramble for Africa’s resources by external powers. “If the world wants what we have they must buy in a fair trade so that we use proceeds to build ourselves new cities, new universities, new infrastructure, industries and new programmes that lifts people out of poverty and vulnerability.”

President Chakwera urged African leaders and their people to build Africa and future generations not for those bent on looting its resources . He further touched on the need for Africa to define its destiny and chart a new independent course. That the resources of Africa remain in the hands of Africans but not to be stolen by some people. Let us stand up with one voice and tell the World, Africa is open for business but not for sale.

“It takes only Africans to build the African continent. No foreigners will develop the continent. We must not always look upon them because what they give us does not build anything but simply causes tension in the continent like they did in the past.” In that scathing speech, he further lambasted Western and Eastern countries that they must not just be in Africa to  steal but to build. There is no one outside Africa who can build it, not any European, Asian or American.”

Labeled as the “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act” (H.R. 7311) was passed on April 27 by the House of Representatives in a bipartisan 419-9 majority and will probably be approved by the Senate which is evenly split between the Democrats and the Republicans. This legislative measure is broadly worded enabling the State Department to monitor the foreign policy of the Russian Federation in Africa including military affairs and any effort which Washington deems as “malign influence.”

Russian military operations in Ukraine are in response to Washington and Wall Street’s efforts to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) deeper into Eastern Europe as a direct threat to the interests of the Russian Federation and its allies. Two other bills have recently been passed to maintain and expand Pentagon military bases around the world along with providing an additional $40 billion to supply weapons to the Ukrainian government which is bolstered by neo-Nazi militias integrated into the armed forces.

During the early phase of the Russian special operations in Ukraine, many African states abstained from two United Nations General Assembly resolutions motivated by Washington to condemn the Russian government for its intervention in Ukraine while completely ignoring the level of fascist infiltration of Kiev military forces and the necessity of reaching a diplomatic solution to the burgeoning conflict.

African Heads-of-State, such as President Cyril Ramaphosa of the Republic of South Africa, have consistently argued that the African National Congress (ANC) led government in Pretoria will not support the Ukraine war along with the draconian sanctions instigated by the Biden administration. Ramaphosa has demanded that the U.S. State Department and White House support negotiations between Kiev and Moscow, which have been routinely undermined by Biden and his cabinet members.

Long before the February 24 invasion by the Russian armed forces, the U.S. has engaged in repeated threats against President Putin and the entire government based in Moscow demanding that it acquiesce to the expansion of NATO. Unprecedented sanctions with the stated aims of completely blocading Russia from the world economic system have largely failed to curtail the advances by Moscow in eastern Ukraine.

The “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act” adopted by the US House of Representatives is a well-designed legislative measure broadly worded enabling the State Department to monitor the foreign policy of the Russian Federation in Africa including military affairs and any effort which Washington deems as malign influence.

The United States Congressional bill was approved by a wide margin that would target and punish African states that maintain political and economic relations with the Russian Federation. Labeled as the “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act” (H.R. 7311) was passed on April 27 by the House of Representatives in a bipartisan 419-9 majority and approved by the Senate which is evenly split between the Democrats and the Republicans.

On 2nd March at the United Nations General Assembly, with all 193 UN Member States in attendance, a total of 141 countries voted in favour of the resolution, which reaffirmed Ukrainian sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. African representatives and their votes was considered very interesting. Some 17 African countries abstained from the vote at the UN General Assembly to deplore the Russian invasion of Ukraine while some other 28 countries in the continent voted in favour.

Among those abstaining from vote were South Africa, Algeria, Uganda, Burundi, Senegal, South Sudan, Mali and Mozambique. Others were Sudan, Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Central Africa Republic, Madagascar, Tanzania and Congo.

Eritrea was the only African country that voted against the resolution. Besides that however, Egypt, Tunisia, Nigeria, Kenya, Chad, Ghana, Gambia, Gabon, Rwanda, Cote d’Ivoire, Libya, Liberia, Djibouti, Mauritania, Somalia, Niger, Benim, Lesotho, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Mauritius, Comoros, Seychelles ,Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others, voted yes.

Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea Bissau, Ethiopia, Eswatini were not in the room. Uganda said it abstained from the vote to uphold “neutrality” as the incoming chair of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). NAM is a forum made up of 120 developing countries to assert their independence from the competing claims of the two superpowers.

In a tweet, Uganda’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Adonia Ayebare, said the country would continue to play a constructive role in the maintenance of peace and security both regionally and globally.

Shahid said the resolution reflected the international community’s grave concern about the situation in Ukraine. “I join member states in expressing concern about reports of attacks on civilian facilities such as residences, schools and hospitals, and of civilian casualties, including women, older persons, persons with disabilities, and children,” he said, citing the text. In practice, African countries hold similar views on the principles of sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity, even including those that voted and those that abstained.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated he was duty bound to stand by the resolution and be guided by its call.

“The message of the General Assembly is loud and clear: End hostilities in Ukraine now. Silence the guns now. Open the door to dialogue and diplomacy now,” Guterres said, adding: “Looking ahead, I will continue to do everything in my power to contribute to an immediate cessation of hostilities and urgent negotiations for peace. People in Ukraine desperately need peace. And people around the world demand it.”

The SADC collectively aims at, among others, promoting sustainable and equitable economic growth and social economic development that will ensure poverty alleviation, improve the living standards of the people in Southern Africa. This 16-member organization was established in 1980. The member states are Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a regular contributor to Global Research. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

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While the world has sympathy for the plight of Europeans facing a cold winter because of their energy crisis, Syrians have been suffering a lack of energy since 2011.  The European energy crisis is based partly on politics, but the Syrian energy crisis is caused exclusively by the US-NATO political attack on Syria for regime change.

Syria has a milder climate than Europe; however, Aleppo, Homs, and Damascus have snow on the ground during part of every winter. Syrian residents have almost no electricity, and a shortage of cooking gas, home heating fuel, and gasoline.  Why are Syrians being collectively punished?  The US-EU sanctions have caused suffering in Syria where the middle class has become the newly poor, and the poor have become destitute.

The attack and destruction of Syria have been supported and funded by European leaders who represent the European citizens democratically.  It is no wonder Em Ahmed said, “Let them get a taste of their own medicine.”

Europeans are facing a cold winter 

Europe is the epicenter of a global energy crisis according to the International Energy Agency.

Syria has oil wells and gas wells, but the illegal occupation US military has been stealing the oil from the largest oil field and since August 11 it has delivered 537 oil tankers of looted oil to the US military base in Iraq.

Causes of the European energy crisis

The European Commission implemented a full ban on Russian coal in August, and Gazprom has cut back on pipeline flows to Europe. EU nations are preparing for a hard winter, while cutting gas consumption, boosting Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) imports for storage, and in some cases restarting coal-powered plants.

The current energy crisis in Europe is caused by increased energy demands as the pandemic has allowed for an economic recovery phase, decreased wind power, limited gas sales by Russia on the spot market, limited gas supply from Norway, and past higher gas usage due to cold winter weather.

Europe has relied on Russian gas imports as they transitioned from coal to gas for electricity production. The US kept warning Europe that they should reduce its dependence on Russian gas, but it took the current conflict in Ukraine to make a change.

Experts have complained that Europe caused its energy crisis by failing to act quicker on a transition to renewables and form a coherent energy policy.  They feel fossil fuels have caused climate change, and renewable energy sources offer the best path to avoid future energy crises.

Europe had relied on Russian gas, but Russian gas cutoffs have affected European energy security. Russian gas amounted to about 40 percent of European imports, but Moscow has slashed the flow after Europe supported Ukraine.  Europe looked to Norway and North Africa to fill in the void, but the support didn’t materialize.

The Asian factor

Japan, South Korea, and China hold the key to Europe’s winter heating, as they are among the biggest importers of LNG, and their winter heating demands coincide with Europe’s. The three Asian countries have produced more energy from renewables: Japan and South Korea in solar power records, and China in hydropower. The post-pandemic economy recovery has seen Asian consumers competing with Europeans for gas, as there was a massive import of LNG to China.

“This is the most extreme energy crisis that has ever occurred in Europe,” said Alex Munton, an expert on global gas markets at Rapidan Energy Group, a consultancy. “Europe [is] looking at the very real prospect of not having sufficient gas when it’s most needed, which is during the coldest part of the year.”

Causes of the Syrian lack of energy

Syrians have about two to three hours of electricity every 24 hours.  This is caused by the destruction of power generating stations by terrorists, which cannot be repaired due to US-EU sanctions which prevent all infrastructure repairs, and the lack of fuel to be used to generate electricity, due to the US military occupation and looting of the main oil fields in the northeast.

Syrians are lacking gas for cooking, and gasoline and diesel for transportation, along with soaring food prices due to the currency devaluation amid hyperinflation.

In November 2021, Syria’s Internal Trade and Consumer Protection Minister Amr Salem blamed the US-EU sanctions for the suffering of the Syrian people, as the sanctions are hindering the import of petroleum products.  Before 2011, Syria was energy sufficient, producing enough of their gas for domestic use, and allowing for some export.  Now, with the US military stealing the oil since President Trump gave the order in 2019, Syria depends on imports, but the sanctions prevent even that.

In August 2021, the Syrian electricity ministry reported that the total direct and indirect losses of the electricity sector as a result of the war amounted to about 6.1 trillion Syrian pounds (24.4 billion U.S. dollars).

Before the conflict, Syria relied on 11 fossil-fuel power plants (oil and gas), while hydroelectric power came from three dams located on the Euphrates River. Attacks by terrorists destroyed four power stations, and dozens of pipelines, which has left the country with less than 15 percent of the electricity used in 2010.

In January 2012, the gas pipeline in Homs was attacked.  CNN reporter Arwa Damon and her crew were embedded with the Free Syrian Army, who was a Syrian armed militia following Radical Islam, and supported and weaponized by the US and the EU.  Damon was tipped off by the terrorists that they were going to blow up the pipeline, and she and her crew set up their camera ahead of time to capture the later explosion.  Damon was complicit in an act of terrorism that deprived innocent civilians of electricity.  This is the same CNN reporter who in 2014 bit a medic at the US Embassy in Baghdad while in a drunken attack on Charles Simon and Tracy Lamar, who later sued CNN for 1 million dollars in damages.

Coming cold

This winter in Europe may see rationing of energy, industrial shutdowns, and perhaps an economic meltdown.  Strikes already have erupted as spiraling prices and cost of living spikes cause households to struggle.

In Norway, the European Union’s biggest supplier of natural gas after Russia, mass strikes in the oil and gas industries recently forced companies to stop production, sending fear throughout Europe.

In Syria, the winter outlook is even bleaker, as the Syrian people are collectively punished for resisting the Radical Islamic overthrow of the Damascus government, and for fighting back against Al Qaeda and its allied militias who occupy Idlib today.  Syrians are still studying by candlelight.  Forgive them for not feeling too much sympathy for the Europeans who supported the terrorists who took their electricity away.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

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The United Kingdom is currently going through the sharpest economic contraction in the last 313 years. According to Reuters, this is the country’s worst recorded fall in output in more than three centuries. Since 2020, the UK broke this unflattering record multiple times, first after it faced the severe consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, then after the fallout of the suicidal anti-Russian sanctions started to kick in.

Curiously, this contraction is a far larger decline than is the case in any other major Western economy, updated official figures showed on Monday. GDP (gross domestic product) fell by 11.0% in 2020, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. This was a bigger drop than any of the ONS’s previous estimates and the largest fall since 1709, according to historical data hosted by the Bank of England.

The UK statistics experts regularly update GDP estimates as more data becomes available. The ONS’s initial estimates had already suggested that in 2020 the UK suffered its biggest fall in output since the “Great Frost” of 1709. But more recently the ONS had revised down the scale of the fall to 9.3%, the largest since just after World War One. According to Reuters, even before the latest revisions, the UK’s economic slump was the largest among the G7 countries, and the latest downward revision makes it worse than that of Spain, which recorded a 10.8% fall in economic output. However, the ONS advised against drawing direct comparisons with other Western economies, as most – with the likely exception of the United States – had “not yet undertaken the same type of in-depth revisions as the UK had.” The downward revision in GDP reflected lower contributions from healthcare and retailers than previously thought, the report says.

“The health service faced higher costs than we initially estimated, meaning its overall contribution to the economy was lower,” ONS statistician Craig McLaren said.

According to the report, the ONS had already factored in a fall in routine care provided by the UK’s troubled NHS (National Health Service) as it focused on treating COVID-19 patients and limiting the spread of the disease in hospitals. A closer look at the increased costs faced by individual retailers also led to a downward revision of the sector’s contribution, while factory output was revised up to take account of lower raw material costs. The UK economy bounced back sharply last year and recovered its pre-pandemic size in November 2021. But fast-rising inflation means the Bank of England expects the economy will slip back into recession later this year, the report concludes.

The UK is hardly the only Western power with severe economic output problems. The European Union, which the UK formally left on 31 January 2020, is also going through a tremendously difficult economic and financial crisis. This is also affecting many other countries around the globe, regardless of whether their economies are more or less integrated with those of other European countries or the EU itself. Sanctions aimed against Russia are already wreaking havoc in many, if not most Western economies.

Although the political West was initially confident the sanctions would work, in time, the belligerent power pole started losing this misplaced self-confidence. As the Kiev regime kept suffering defeats, and despite a massive media campaign to portray it as winning, people in the West became less enthusiastic. This worsened after sanctions started affecting the West more than Russia itself. Western leadership tried spinning the narrative, claiming sanctions supposedly had no boomerang effect, but that “Russia’s unprovoked, brutal invasion” was the reason behind everyone’s troubles. In June, an LA Times column, authored by Doyle McManus described his experience after visiting Europe. The columnist was in Italy to see how sanctions affected life in Europe:

“It wasn’t hard to find the effects. You’re unhappy about $5 a gallon for gas? Try $8. ‘It’s painful filling the tank,’ my friend Roberto Pesciani, a retired teacher, moaned. Utility bills? The cost of natural gas is four times higher in Italy than in the US. ‘Heating prices are up. Grocery prices are up. Everything’s going up,’ Pesciani said. The worries go beyond inflation. Italy’s foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, warned recently that Russia’s blockade on Ukraine’s grain exports could spark a global bread war, producing famine in Africa and a new wave of migrants heading for Europe. ‘The problem with sanctions on Russia is that they will only work if they hurt us too,’ Pesciani observed.”

If we ignore false narratives, such as the supposed “blockade” of Ukrainian ports by the Russian Navy, the problems mentioned in this short interview are currently plaguing tens or likely hundreds of millions of people in Europe. As a result, the so-called “Ukraine unity myth” is slowly but surely starting to crumble in most Western states, particularly EU members.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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***

Recently, some American pro-war activists wrote a letter entitled “U.S. must arm Ukraine now, before it’s too late”, in which they advocate an increase in aid to Kiev so that the situation of the conflict is reversed. The authors believe that the conflict is at a turning point and that aid must be provided now in order for Russia to be defeated. However, military experts disagree with this argument and say that there is no reason to try to prolong the fighting.

Despite all the difficulties the Western world has faced as a result of the conflict in Ukraine, many people still insist that aid to Kiev must continue – and increase – until Moscow is defeated. The main rhetoric of the pro-war militants is that Russia would not just win the conflict in Ukraine but would expand its operation to other countries in Europe, which is why it needs to be defeated now – which they consider possible by sending arms to Kiev.

“For the U.S. and NATO, that time is now — and the place is Ukraine, a large country whose population understands that its choice is either defeating Putin or losing their independence and even their existence as a distinct, Western-oriented nation. With the necessary weapons and economic aid, Ukraine can defeat Russia. If it succeeds, our soldiers are less likely to have to risk their lives protecting U.S. treaty allies whom Russia also threatens. What does defeat for Putin look like? The survival of Ukraine as a secure, independent, and economically viable country”, the authors of the open letter asking more weapons to Ukraine say.

In fact, this rhetoric is absolutely unfounded in all its points. First, there is no reason to believe in an expansion of the Russian special military operation to NATO countries. Moscow just started military incursions into Ukraine because Kiev left no other alternative with its continuous policy of killing Russian citizens, but there is currently no equivalent situation in other countries. However, more important than that is to note the lack of realism on the part of the pro-Western militants in believing in the possibility of “defeating” Russia, despite the current stage of the conflict.

Russia did not mobilize all of its military power to attack Ukraine, but the small portion of the Russian forces sent to the operation was efficient in annihilating Ukrainian main bases of resistance. At the current stage of the conflict, there is no possibility of reversing the military situation. Kiev is defeated and only postpones the inevitable decision to surrender because it continues to receive Western weapons, guaranteeing a kind of “survival”, prolonging the battles indefinitely, even without a chance of victory.

This is the assessment of any expert who analyzes the case honestly and without ideological emotions. For example, Douglas Macgregor, war veteran and former advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, believes that the sending of weapons will not bring any positive change to Kiev due to the human capital deficit, both quantitative (with the low number of active Ukrainian soldiers), and qualitative (considering the tactical and operational inability of these fighters to reverse the conflict and even their lack of instruction in using the weapons they receive from the West).

With that, the weapons would only serve to prolong, not to effectively change the current military situation. He also claims that even if Kiev were to achieve major victories, the absence of human capital would not allow it to rebuild its troops after the long battles, while Russia, whose current combat mobilization represents only a small fraction of its military potential, would have the ability to recover quickly and thus regain the positions eventually lost.

“The hard truth is the introduction of new weapon systems won’t change the strategic outcome in Ukraine. Even if NATO’s European members, together with Washington, D.C., provided Ukrainian troops with a new avalanche of weapons, and it arrived at the front instead of disappearing into the black hole of Ukrainian corruption, the training and tactical leadership required to conduct complex offensive operations does not exist inside Ukraine’s 700,000-man army. In addition, there is an acute failure to recognize that Moscow would react to such a development by escalating the conflict. Unlike Ukraine, Russia is not currently mobilized for a larger war, but it could do so quickly”, he says.

Macgregor claims that the letter written by the pro-war militants “reinforces the failure” of Ukraine. For him, the conflict is at a decisive moment, in which it must be ended, not prolonged. He still believes that the reasons that led to this conflict – NATO’s incursions on the Russian border – were disastrous and unnecessary and that Western countries should give up further provocations against Moscow. The best solution, he says, is to support the Austrian model of neutrality as a solution for Ukraine before the country is completely destroyed.

“Ukraine’s war with Russia is at a decisive point. It is time to end it. Instead, the authors of the letter seek to reinforce failure. They are demanding a deeply flawed strategy for Ukraine that will lead in the best case to Ukraine’s reduction to a shrunken, land-locked state between the Dnieper River and the Polish border (…) Expanding NATO to Russia’s borders was never necessary and has become disastrous for Europe. The longer the war with Russia lasts the more likely it becomes that the damage to Ukrainian society and its army will be irreparable. Neutrality on the Austrian model for Ukraine is still possible”, he adds.

In fact, this opposition of opinions reflects the old debate between realists and warmongers. Anyone who really understands war and military strategy knows that there is no other solution than the neutralization of Ukraine and the end of Western expansionism. Those who think through liberal idealism, however, advocate fighting “to the last Ukrainian”.

Prolonging the conflict is not good for either side: it increases the destruction in Ukraine, perpetuates the suffering of the people, raises the expenses of western countries and forces Russia to mobilize a greater part of its military forces.

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Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter.

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The Center for Biological Diversity, Department of the Interior and National Marine Fisheries Service reached an agreement today that requires the agencies to re-examine the risks and harms to whales and other endangered species from continued oil and gas drilling in federal waters off California.

Today’s agreement resolves a lawsuit filed by the Center earlier this year following a October 2021 oil spill from a subsea pipeline off Huntington Beach.

“We’re glad federal officials have agreed to reconsider offshore drilling’s harms to California’s amazing but vulnerable marine creatures,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center. “Decade after decade, oil spill after oil spill, the federal government has failed to properly examine how offshore drilling threatens endangered whales and other animals. A comprehensive, science-driven analysis should show that drilling off California is just too risky to wildlife and our climate and must be phased out.”

Under the agreement’s terms, the agencies must complete a new analysis that accounts for new information related to the recent oil spill. They must consider how offshore-drilling activity affects newly designated critical habitat for Pacific humpback whales and consider implementing certain mitigation measures, such as requiring oil and gas vessels to slow down to avoid striking and killing whales and other animals.

The Trump administration completed the existing Endangered Species Act analysis for oil and gas activity off California’s shores in 2017. It was the first consultation on drilling activities off California completed in more than 30 years.

That Trump-era analysis concluded that drilling off the state’s coast would not adversely affect threatened and endangered whales, sea turtles or other species. It based its conclusion on the assumption that an oil spill is unlikely and that if it did occur it would be limited to 8,400 gallons. The Center’s lawsuit highlighted how last year’s oil spill off California, which was several times larger than the Trump-era estimate, renders that whole analysis unlawful.

The Center’s lawsuit also asserted that the existing analysis is not based on the best available science. The analysis failed to consider new information on the threat to whales of being hit by ships engaged in oil and gas activity; it also didn’t consider how existing oil drilling worsens the climate crisis and affects newly designated critical habitat for humpback whales.

The agreement requires the agencies to complete the new analysis within one year.

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***

More than ever before in American history people are no longer able to trust their leaders in government, industry and the media. Rather than put our confidence in official positions of power and influence, there is a better way to concentrate our focus. That is, we should allow history, independent science and substantiated facts to be our arbiters.

For example, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, it was understandable that we lacked sufficient, objective information to make informed judgments and decisions. All of the data about the new coronavirus strain and its spread was derived and disseminated from official sources. Therefore, we had to rely upon the reputation of the professional institutions and the believability of so-called experts to guide us.

Without being political, partisan or biased, we can now review the official narrative and determine what was true, false and remains unproven. We were told there were enormous numbers of deaths among the elderly to justify emergency measures to rapidly develop novel drugs and new vaccines. However, the evidence shows the opposite. The vast majority of deaths in hospitals, critical care centers and nursing homes were people who died from pre-existing comorbidities that may have been complicated by SARS-2 infection. In addition, the earlier accepted course of treatment – quarantine and oxygen therapy – was shown to be largely ineffective and, in fact, further complicated rising mortality rates.

Moreover, if a patient in hospice care with terminal cancer or COPD became infected, the death would have been ruled Covid-19.  This manipulation of cause-of-death certificates presented an image that the virus was far more lethal than it actually was. Only about 7 percent of reported Covid deaths can actually be associated with the virus as the primary cause.

Many medical professionals have reported that the PCR diagnostic test used throughout the world was remarkably flawed with very high rates of false positives. it has been known for a couple decades that PCR is an unreliable diagnostic tool for infectious diseases. Had we not relied on PCR, the case rate would never have warranted such a hysteric reaction. In the absence of novel drugs targeting the SARS-2 virus specifically nor a vaccine, health officials held firm to the story that there was no effective treatment. Infected people should return home and quarantine themselves until their condition worsens. The reality is that there were multiple highly effective drugs and therapeutic protocols that could have been prescribed but weren’t. As a result, hundreds of thousands of lives were lost unnecessarily. Worst, this may have been the first time in American medicine when large numbers of orthodox physicians and medical experts, the large majority who are pro-vaccine, were attacked, ridiculed and cancelled for suggesting early treatment with FDA approved off-label drugs such as hydroxychoroquine and ivermectin. Any doctor who spoke out was fair game.

Locking down entire cities and quarantining large numbers of presumably infected people did nothing to stop the pandemic. Such brash measures miscalculated the long-term consequences. Throughout the pandemic depression and anxiety, suicides, alcohol consumption and drug overdoses reached record highs.

In addition, all of the propaganda about the Covid vaccines being safe and effective was indisputably erroneous. Clearly when the major institutions that create and execute national health policies are repeatedly wrong and misguided, the public quickly loses trust. These public health debacles, as well as other issues, cost taxpayers enormous sums. The latest is a $40 billion aid package to dump into the Ukrainian government’s losing war with Russia. It is unfathomable that supporting a nation militarily and economically, which has been ranked as the most corrupt in Europe, would take precedence over the severe crises in the domestic economy. Congress’ aid package becomes all the more ludicrous and egregious when we take into account the US’s increasing inflation, skyrocketing energy costs and widespread shortages in infant formula.

Americans will recognize money spent wisely and their own interests when it produces positive results. However, now we witness the majority of expenditures failing to resolve problems; rather bailouts more often than not further enrich billionaires and private corporate interests. Instead of resolving any of the country’s serious struggles, the media on behest of the government distracts us with warring debates of critical race theory and gender politics.

As a consequence of decades of consistent budgetary and domestic failures, one does not need to be an oracle to envision the future. All that is necessary is to examine our constraints and foibles. We are now facing a perfect storm of pain, suffering and destruction: financial inequality and poverty, global warming, environmental migration, and disease pandemics.  Yet when any reasonable person questions what can be done, we are told we are fine and the best and brightest are on hand to solve our problems. However, in no small measure, it was the best and brightest during the past 60 years who were the architects for the crises we face today.

We need to step back to have a purview of the larger picture in order to observe what we as individuals can do to prevent or mediate the catastrophes we will all face. This begins by reaching agreement that those in power are the structural problem and can never come up with satisfying solutions.

An optimist will say that our socio-political and ecological conditions will improve, as long as the right candidate is elected to sit in the Oval Office. Since the nation is so viciously divided between clashing ideologies, this is wishful thinking. The pessimist, on the other hand,  reflects back upon the previous administrations since Eisenhower and declares nothing fundamental will change. It will only worsen. The climate optimist says that they are lucky their home has not been swept away in a flood, burnt to the ground from a wildfire or leveled by a hurricane. For the moment their lives are safe so everything will be fine in the future. The pessimist focuses on the reality about what happens when we lack a national or worldwide Marshall Plan to curb our impending climate-induced crises.

Throughout the US, people are waking up to a once in a lifetime experience that our body-politics are built upon a fragile foundation held together with scotch tape and paper clips. Others are waking up to the reality that they may be evicted from their homes and apartments tomorrow. About 75 percent of restaurants and bars closed during the pandemic will never reopen again. Yet the sole message fed to us daily by the mainstream media is that the only important issue on hand is to remain fearful of a virus, get tested, and keep up with your Covid-19 vaccine boosters.

Governors, state legislators and mayors contribute to the collective hysteria and are determined to pass bills to impose strict penalties on those who resist. Google, Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia do their best to ensure that no medical experts, advocates or common citizens with data or facts on social platforms contradict the official health policies and narratives.

In the meantime, the nightly news, depending upon the political ideology of the network, airs politicized rhetoric and images of Washington’s spin for that day to keep the masses paralyzed in a state of fear and helplessness. If the average person asks what are the top ten or so issues that our nation should be focused upon, barely anything found in the mainstream media would be on that list.

Why?

It is not as complex or as unfathomable as it might appear on the surface. The basis of Ockham’s Razor is that to cut through the fat and get at the meat, the correct answers are usually the simplest.  We might begin by acknowledging that we are a nation divided but we have always been divided to some degree; however it has never been as purulent and hostile as today. The uniqueness of our society has been our diversity, languages, cultures and accents, and its ethnic and racial differences.  America’s dialectic has been one that inspires to become acquainted with these differences, such as southern hospitality, the Pacific Northwest’s relaxed and playful lifestyle, the quiet reserve and rural persona of the Midwest and the frenetic professional energy to succeed in the Northeast and California. Perhaps we appreciate each other in more ways than we consciously realize. Historically, when it was necessary to unite together, we did so as a nation – the world wars and the Great Depression are but two examples.

If we were to ask the average person in the 1930s what their priorities were, they would not be much different than today: a living wage, a home, food to feed the family and educational opportunities. Families wanted their children to be educated and succeed in ways the parents were unable.

There have always been conflicting attitudes towards social order or how the nation should be governed. But today what we are observing is not concerted efforts to advance improvements for how we govern ourselves, but rather we are retreating backwards into tribalism, identity politics and a new class warfare. No one can predict where this conflict and confusion will ultimately lead.

Identity politics, the effort for groups based upon race, social status, gender or religion to create exclusive political alliances founded on groupthink, has found its scriptures in both the Left and the Right. On the Left we find the insane rationale that if one is born Caucasian then racism is built into your genetic inheritance. There can be no escape from this curse, no redemption or purification by fire regardless of how much public service one performs for the greater good. On the Right we have the identity politics of white supremacism, anti-Semitism, and a fascist Christian evangelicalism built upon medieval superstitions.

Melanie Phillips gives us a clearer understanding for why we should not rely upon those pundits who believe that either conservative or liberal truths will save us from ourselves. Despite disagreeing with Phillips on many of her other socio-political positions, we believe she correctly identifies the fundamental flaws in contemporary liberalism being institutionalized across our campuses and within the Democrat party. First, it is unable to establish a hierarchy of values and morals. For example, if one refuses to say that any lifestyle or culture is better than another, then it cannot be said that liberalism is better than conservatism or any other ideology.  Consequently, faux liberalism cannot legitimately defend the very principles upon which it defines itself: freedom of speech and religion, tolerance, gender and class equality, etc.  It contradicts its own principles and removes the dignity of the individual, which is at the heart of liberalism and serves as its moral backbone. What we are witnessing therefore in modern liberalism, according to Phillips, is “the strong dominating the weak,” and this is a “libertarian ideology that suppresses the facts” that contradict it. It is therefore an ill-liberal ideology.

Sadly we find highly educated people supporting these irrational beliefs as well as elected officials in both parties. On the Left are the college educated young adults who are highly sensitive and were raised in protected bubbles with the beliefs they are exceptional and entitled. These are the ones demanding complete fealty to gender politics. On the Right are the disgruntled working class and disenfranchised dropouts of society who value a perverted Libertarian ideal built upon gun ownership.   And both have their allies in the mainstream media — MSNBC on the Left and Fox on the Right – to provide a bullhorn to the larger public.

Both true liberalism and true conservatism, which at one time could share a constructive dialogue together, have morphed into their polar opposites: an irrational faux enlightenment of liberalism versus a neo-fascist traditionalism that is petrified of the future and wants to turn back the clock.  The current speed being measured of the melting of the Arctic and Greenland, and the recent breaking up of the Antarctic ice sheets will sooner rather than later be experienced up and down the Atlantic coastal cities and the Gulf. Nobody in government is addressing this far greater threat than a virus that seems no more dangerous than a bad seasonal flu.

More than ever be

Amidst all of the noise of protest, identity classes and coronavirus panic a laundry list of more serious issues are either being ignored or completely drowned out by the cacophony of overtly emotional hyena cries. How much attention is being given to the 66 million Americans now food insecure or the 2 million who don’t have clean drinking water. Four in ten Americans, 132 million, are conservatively financially broke. Obesity is the health risk most associated with Covid deaths; 40 percent of American adults, 20 years and over, are clinically obese and another 72% are overweight. What is being done to free our federal health agencies from the grip of the junk food industry’s lobbying? Nothing. To make matters worse, 44 million Americans are uninsured and an additional 38 million have inadequate health insurance. Approximately a quarter of the population has health coverage well below the standards of any other developed nation. How much of this gross neglect has contributed to the US having the highest percent of world Covid deaths?

And should it not surprise us that the ideological clashes have become so vile and contemptible? But the underlying problem does not reside with the camps facing each other on opposite sides of the street. Rather our educational system is a disgrace. Forty-three million American adults (21%) are illiterate or functionally illiterate according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. How much of our neglected educational system, and legislations’ disdain for teachers, is contributing to the civil war many analysts fear is brewing?

We have a president who seems to have a stronger ambition to be the president of Ukraine to battle those nasty Russians rather than deal our domestic crises that are ripping the citizenry apart and leading the nation to third world status. The alternative was a buffoon in pathological denial about climate change and chased the wildest conspiracy series. Daily, new studies are being reported that indicate the climate crisis is far worse than earlier forecasts presumed. Instead of worrying about Central American climate migrants trying to enter the country, we should be preparing for the massive migrations that will be happening within our borders. Last year half a million Oregon residents, about a tenth of the state’s population, were given evacuation warnings due to the increasing pace of wildfires. This is just the beginning

If anyone believes that the US is economically capable of tackling these problems without a catastrophic blowback, they are delusional. The US’ total debt now stands at $91 trillion. Total personal debt is $23 trillion. Unfunded government liabilities at an astronomical $169 trillion.  This is a financial tsunami that can only be curbed by keeping the dollar printing machines rolling 24-7 until doomsday. The competency of our government’s economists must be questioned. The Biden administration was completely wrong in predicting the impact of sanctions against Putin. No one in Washington seems to have even considered that Russia’s economy might be much stronger and resilient than assumed. Nor did they seem to even consider that Putin would win Washington’s economic war of contrition, which it clearly is. After three months of sanctions, Russia has now emerged as the world’s strongest economy and the ruble has emerged as a hard global currency. With the majority of nations thumbing their nose at the US sanctions, America is rapidly losing its role as a world leader.

The big question is whether we have the capability, let alone the willingness, to relinquish our personal dogmas and then individually and collectively step outside of the malignant atmosphere of negativity, hatred and virtue-shaming and begin to address real future threats?  Urgently the future needs to be re-envisioned. It might be based upon the Great Reset being orchestrated by Davos and the global elite. However, the foundation and elitist values upon which a Reset is being built upon are the very failures of neoliberal capitalism that has brought the US and the international community to its current impasse of self-destruction. Nor can we look back at the past. It is history. Neither our modern conservatism nor liberalism as they are now ideologically identified would have a constructive role. Both are terribly outdated, decrepit and utterly corrupt.

Bertrand Russell remarked that “science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.” Yet science doesn’t, nor can it ever, provide the truth of an entire picture. It can only tell us about distinct parts. In that context, we must begin to investigate what we don’t know in order to arrive at a consensus of truth for saving the planet and ourselves.

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

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

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

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***

In the digital economy, cash is no longer a useful tool, and a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is the “only solution” to continue the existing monetary system, according to a new paper from the European Central Bank (ECB).

The eurozone’s central bank recently published a paper titled “The Economics of Central Bank Digital Currency,” in which the authors assessed the implications for the financial system and examined data privacy and digital payments.

A CBDC, such as a digital euro, would be the “only solution” to facilitate a “smooth continuation” of the present monetary system, the researchers concluded. Amid debate that CBDCs would limit the credit supply and be a disruptive force in financial markets, the paper rejects those concerns as unfounded.

Digital money is critical in a digital economy, the ECB noted. Since “cash is losing its appeal as efficient means of payment,” a CBDC is a necessary tool to install. While the research identifies drawbacks of instituting a uniform digital monetary system, such as the sluggish pace of settlements, market developments, and adoption, the paper notes that “a digital update of cash” is crucial to advancing “the two-layer system of public and private money.”

Ultimately, cash possesses “large economic costs without clear benefits,” so “it is by construction not ‘fit’ for the digital age.”

Digital money might generate privacy concerns, the authors warn. However, researchers point to a “privacy paradox”: consumers will emphasize the importance of privacy in surveys, but they will give away personal data for free or in exchange for small rewards.

“From a public policy perspective, these observations warrant further scepticism concerning the ability of market forces to reach efficient levels of privacy protection,” the report notes.

The paper also rejects cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, calling them a “threat to monetary sovereignty.” It welcomed President Joe Biden’s digital asset working group to put together a regulatory framework for the crypto sector, as well as the myriad of other regulations being considered worldwide.

“These proposals would bring new forms of digital money into the regulatory perimeter and help to address some of the major concerns related to monetary sovereignty and financial stability,” the paper states.

The Rise of CBDCs

Across the globe, many governments and central banks have been studying CBDCs as a potential successor or complement to physical money.

In January, for example, the Federal Reserve released a discussion paper titled “Money and Payments: The U.S. Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation.” It examined the pros and cons of a possible U.S. CBDC.

While delivering his semiannual monetary policy report to Congress in June, Fed Chair Jerome Powell recommended that a digital dollar is “something we need to explore as a country” that “should not be a partisan thing.”

“It’s a very important potential financial innovation that will affect all Americans,” he told the House Committee on Financial Services. “Our plan is to work on both the policy side and the technological side in coming years and come to Congress with a recommendation at some point.”

He added that if the United States were to create a digital dollar, it would need to be issued by the federal government and not by a private institution.

“One question around CBDCs is do we want a private stablecoin to wind up being the digital dollar? I think the answer is no,” Powell said. “If we’re going to have a digital dollar, it should be government-guaranteed money, not private money.”

Congress is requesting faster action on a digital dollar. A bipartisan group of members of Congress has urged the Fed to speed up work on a CBDC.

“With countries around the world competing to deploy digital versions of their own currencies, America can’t be left behind,” Waters said in a statement in May before a hearing on the advantages and risks of CBDCs.

Last month, ECB President Christine Lagarde championed a digital euro, stating that digitizing the official currency in 19 of the 27 member states of the European Union can “achieve” stability and public access.

A digital euro would complement cash rather than replace it, according to Lagarde. She also pointed out that a CBDC would only be successful if it addressed the needs of consumers and businesses and ensured that privacy safeguards were established from the beginning.

That, Lagarde co-wrote in a blog post, ensures that a digital euro “serves as an anchor for the whole payment system.”

US, Europe Take on Digital Yuan?

But while the United States and Europe might be attempting to take the lead on such a critical issue in the global monetary system, market analysts note that advanced economies might be responding to action by China.

After seven years of intensive study, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) unleashed the digital yuan in 2021. The e-yuan is a CBDC that is trying to replace a portion of the cash presently in circulation, as fewer Chinese consumers use physical money. It’s estimated that cash represented about one-quarter of point-of-sale transactions in 2020, down from nearly 75 percent in 2012.

Some aver that Beijing is seeking to dismantle the global currency system, but officials say otherwise.

While speaking at a Shanghai forum in December 2020, former PBoC head Zhou Xiaochuan noted that technology is the main goal, not currency supremacy. However, Richard Turrin, author of “Cashless: China’s Digital Currency Revolution,” told CNBC in March that a digital yuan could challenge the U.S. dollar in international trade settlements in the next decade.

“Remember, China is the largest trading country, and you’re going to see digital yuan slowly supplant the dollar when buying things from China,” he said. “If we go about five to 10 years out, yes, the digital yuan can play a significant role in reducing the dollar’s usage in international trade.”

The yuan has become one of the most popular currencies in cross-border transactions in 2021, representing 2.7 percent of global payments, the highest level in six years, according to January statistics from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT). The U.S. dollar accounted for more than 40 percent of international transactions.

Any attempt to dethrone the U.S. dollar as the chief international reserve currency would take time. According to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) data, dollars accounted for nearly 60 percent of reserves in the first quarter of 2022. The yuan represented less than 3 percent.

Do CBDCs Offer Risks?

But while many public policymakers are ebullient over the prospect of CBDCs, critics acknowledge that there are many drawbacks.

The primary risk for CBC is an erosion of privacy. Whether by the federal government or law enforcement agencies, every consumer’s financial transaction can be monitored by the state. As with China’s nationwide credit score system, experts warn that it isn’t hard to see the government imposing digital money to facilitate the institution of social monitoring programs.

“The end of cash and the insta-analysis of financial transactions enable surveillance, state control, and, eventually, social engineering on a scale never thought possible,” Human Rights Foundation chief strategy officer Alex Gladstein notes. “When the government can take financial privileges away for posting the wrong word on social media, saying the wrong thing in a call to parents, or sending the wrong photo to relatives, individuals self-censor and exercise extreme caution.

“In this way, control over money can create a social chilling effect.”

Another factor is the faster adoption of monetary policies, especially in times of crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic.

“The switch also simplifies the execution of monetary policy–the central bank can immediately change supply by issuing or canceling codes in its own accounts,” wrote Ajay Mookerjee at the Harvard Business Review. “And by paying interest on CBDC holdings, however, the central bank can directly transmit monetary policy to households, instead of influencing commercial deposit rates through the rates it offers banks on their reserve accounts with the central bank.”

Although proponents contend that it could support the financial system, the World Bank has warned that it actually threatens the “financial integrity” of today’s banking infrastructure.

“The introduction of CBDC could disrupt the existing financial-intermediation structure. In addition, depending on design and country context, CBDC could pose risks to financial stability, financial integrity, data protection and privacy, and cyber resilience,” the World Bank explained in its “South Asia Economic Focus” report in April.

In the end, CBDCs could turn out to be a costly investment that fails to achieve anything of substance, the Center for European Reform says.

“Without widespread adoption, a CBDC will be an expensive failure, and will do little to advance central banks’ goals,” senior research fellow Zach Meyers stated. “The EU shouldn’t be distracted by the prospect of a digital euro—which may sound impressive and exciting, but may give Europeans few benefits they can’t enjoy already.”

With more nations assessing CBDCs and other markets already implementing it into the fabric of their economies, a monetary experiment may be unfolding in real time.

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Andrew Moran covers business, economics, and finance. He has been a writer and reporter for more than a decade in Toronto, with bylines on Liberty Nation, Digital Journal, and Career Addict. He is also the author of “The War on Cash.”

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The execution of a search warrant on the home of former President Donald Trump has brought to mind a dark and dangerous side of law enforcement. The idea of government agents rummaging through the private possessions on the private property of anyone against that person’s will brings back the specter of British soldiers knocking down doors in colonial America.

Their most notorious invasion of private property was a subterfuge, perpetrated by the British Parliament, which sought to remind colonists that the king could enter their homes through his soldiers whenever he wished.

In 1765, Parliament enacted the Stamp Act, which required government stamps — they were actually inked images of government seals, more akin to what is seen when a rubber stamp is used — on all papers in the possession of the colonists. This included letters, financial and legal documents, newspapers, pamphlets, even posters intended to be nailed to trees. To facilitate the enforcement of the Stamp Act, Parliament enacted the Writs of Assistance Act.

Much like America’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Writs of Assistance Act permitted British agents to obtain search warrants for the homes of colonists based on governmental need and without identifying the name or address of the homeowner or even the object sought by the search.

These were general warrants. They were limitless in scope, as they authorized the bearer to search wherever he wished and seize whatever he found. Some students at the College of New Jersey — now called Princeton University — calculated that it cost more for the British government to enforce the Stamp Act than was generated in revenue from the sale of the stamps. We now know that power, not revenue, was the goal of this dreaded law.

The violent colonial reaction to the enforcement of the Stamp Act led to its repeal by Parliament after just one year. But the Writs of Assistance Act — allowing the execution of general warrants — stayed in force until the British left in 1781. And general warrants were not outlawed until the ratification of the Fourth Amendment in 1791.

The Fourth Amendment was written to protect that quintessentially American right to be left alone. The violation of the right to be left alone usually implicates two fundamental liberties — the right to privacy and the right to own property.

Privacy is a natural right because there are aspects of human existence and personal behavior that are not subject to the government. Natural rights come from our humanity. The natural right to own property has three aspects — the right to use the property, the right to alienate (lease, pledge or sell) it, and the right to exclude whomever and whatever the owner wishes — including the government.

As natural rights stem from our humanity, they may only be violated when we give them up or waive them by our violation of someone else’s natural rights. When James Madison wrote the Fourth Amendment, he rejected the waiver standard and instead chose the easier-for-the-government probable cause standard as the sole element justifying a government assault on property rights.

The government claims it can examine your emails, bank accounts, medical and legal records at will merely because it claims you have waived your interest in them by placing them in the custody of others. This is, of course, farcical. Those custodians have a legal duty to keep your records private. Yet, to get physically onto your property in defiance of your will, the government must meet Madison’s probable cause standard.

That standard requires a showing to a neutral judge that it is more likely than not that a crime has been committed and that it is more likely than not that evidence of that same crime can be found in the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized. These standards come directly from the language of the amendment itself.

Does the probable cause standard adequately protect property rights? It does not. That standard involves a weighing and balancing test pitting the nature of property ownership against the government’s claimed need for evidence. It weighs the harm to property rights caused by a government invasion as against the harm to the government by denying it the fruits of its planned invasion.

The very concept of weighing a natural right against a government need is totalitarian. The government needs whatever it wants, whereas our rights are inalienable unless we waive them. A natural human right always supersedes a government wish. Thus, the only standard that morally justifies government invasion of private property is waiver by the violation of another’s natural rights.

For example, if a bank robber runs into his house with the stolen loot, he has waived his property rights in the house until he has been arrested and the loot retrieved, as he has violated the natural rights of the depositors in the bank and the bank’s right to exclude him from its property. If the government cannot demonstrate waiver and a violation of a natural right, then the property owner — even if he is the sought-after bank robber — can morally exclude the government from his property.

Because privacy and property ownership are inalienable rights and the government is an artificial creation based on a monopoly of force, when the government wants to enter upon private property against the will of the owner, and it seeks a warrant from a judge, the owner’s natural rights and the government’s needs can never be in equipoise.

Even when the government seeks to demonstrate waiver, the government should be presumed to be wrong, and every inference and bias should be drawn against it because the essence of government is the negation of liberty.

If we take rights seriously — which the government never does — natural rights are inalienable. Governmental needs change with the political winds.

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