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.

***

Ein Blick auf die Situation der Welt und die Menschheit gibt wenig Anlass zu Optimismus. Der historische Lockdown vom 11. März 2020 löste weltweit „wirtschaftliches und soziales Chaos“ aus und war ein „Akt der Wirtschaftskriegsführung, ein Krieg gegen die Menschheit“ (1). Inzwischen werden wir von der siebten Covid-19-Welle „heimgesucht“, was deutlich macht, dass „unsere Politiker betrügerisch, mitschuldig und inkompetent“ sind (2).

Zudem führt der US-Westen in der Ukraine seit Monaten einen verheerenden Stellvertreter-Krieg beziehungsweise einen Welt-Krieg gegen Russland (3) mit der „Aussicht“ auf ein „Jüngstes Gericht“ (Armageddon). Doch es ist nicht recht, die „Völker“ für ihre Kriege verantwortlich zu machen; es waren und sind immer nur die herrschenden Schichten, die sich befehden und wechselseitig zu unterjochen versuchen. Deshalb kann der Krieg nicht auf die menschliche Natur zurückgeführt werden: Die Natur des Menschen ist friedlich. Nur die Machtgier derer, die innerhalb der Völker als Obrigkeit fungieren und durch ihre soziale Stellung vom Geist der Gewalt durchdrungen sind, führt immer wieder zu kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen, in denen die Völker zugunsten ihrer Herren und Ausbeuter verbluten. Die psychologische Fragestellung muss an diesem Punkt einsetzen und Klarheit darüber verschaffen, wieso der Mensch unserer Zeit immer noch bereit ist, seinen Mitmenschen jenseits der Landesgrenzen in barbarischer Weise umzubringen und wie es einer herrschenden Minderheit möglich wird, die Mehrheit des Volkes für ihre Ziele und Zwecke leben, arbeiten und sterben zu lassen. Oder präziser formuliert: Wie ist die Unterdrückung des Menschen durch den Menschen möglich?

Aufklärer betonten Freiheit und Gleichheit aller Menschen

Der Mensch im Mittelalter, der in einer ständisch gegliederten Welt lebte, nahm die Ungerechtigkeiten der Welt noch fatalistisch hin und ordnete sich den weltlichen und geistlichen Obrigkeiten ohne Widerspruch unter. Erst durch die Philosophie der Renaissance und noch mehr durch diejenige der Aufklärung wurde der Glaube an die „angeborenen Unterschiede“ zwischen den Menschen erschüttert: Herrschaft und Knechtschaft erschienen nun als geschichtlich gewordene Tatsachen, die sich lediglich durch die nackte Gewalt der Machthaber aller Zeiten aufrechterhalten konnten.

a

Die Freiheit und Gleichheit aller Menschen wurden von den Aufklärern immer wieder ins Gedächtnis gerufen. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, einer der größten unter ihnen, zeigte den Gegensatz zwischen Naturzustand und gesellschaftlicher Entartung, indem er seinen „Contract social“ (Gesellschaftsvertrag) mit den berühmten Worten einleitete: „Der Mensch wird frei geboren, und überall liegt er in Ketten.“

Diese Lehre gab dem Geiste der Auflehnung sein theoretisches Fundament. Die staatsphilosophischen Erörterungen mündeten schließlich in die glorreiche Französischen Revolution ein, die die „Rechte des Menschen und Bürgers“ erklärte und damit den Grundstein zur modernen Demokratie legte.

Obwohl der demokratische Gedanke in der Vergangenheit auch positive Entwicklungsschritte verzeichnete, ist die Idee der Freiheit im Bewusstsein der Welt nur wenig verankert. Zahlreiche Länder werden diktatorisch regiert und unterstehen einer offenen oder heimlichen Tyrannei, von der Wirtschaft her wird der Gleichheit und Brüderlichkeit aller Menschen Hohn gesprochen und bis zum heutigen Tage ist es dem Menschen nicht gelungen, eine gerechte Gemeinschaftsordnung zu verwirklichen und den Krieg – dieses uralte Menschheitsübel – aus der Welt zu bannen.

Wie ist die Unterdrückung des Menschen durch den Menschen möglich?

Wie bereits erwähnt, muss uns die psychologische Fragestellung Klarheit darüber verschaffen, wie es einer herrschenden Minderheit gelingt, die Mehrheit des Volkes für ihre Ziele und Zwecke leben, arbeiten und sterben zu lassen. Oder schärfer formuliert: Wie ist die Unterdrückung des Menschen durch den Menschen möglich?

„Macht“ allein scheint nicht auszureichen, um die Völker in Botmäßigkeit zu halten, da die Macht des Volkes immer größer wäre als diejenige seiner Herrscher, sofern sich die Bürger dazu entschließen würden, diese Macht in die Waagschale zu werfen. Es sind ideologische Hilfsmittel, die die Hörigkeit der Völker sicherstellen und es den Machthabern aller Zeiten ermöglichen, ein Regime der Privilegien und Ungerechtigkeit aufzurichten: Zum einen ist es die ideologische Verblendung des Menschengeistes im Sinne einer Verwirrung der Sinne oder einer Blindheit des Geistes, die dazu führt, den Menschen seine Liebe zur Freiheit vergessen zu machen. Sie bringt es sogar fertig, ihn die Ketten verherrlichen zu lassen, unter deren Last er zusammenbricht.

Doch über die massenpsychologische Ebene hinaus benötigt die Erörterung der Kriegsursachen und der Herrschaft des Menschen über den Menschen eine individualpsychologische Ergänzung: Welche Mentalität unterscheidet „Herr“ und „Knecht“? Wie muss die Seele eines Mitgliedes der herrschenden Schichten strukturiert sein, damit es bereit sein wird, über den Mitmenschen zu herrschen? Welche Gefühlsregungen müssen in den Angehörigen unterdrückter oder ausgebeuteter Volksklassen vorhanden sein, damit sie die Unterdrückung über sich ergehen lassen? Damit sich ein geschlossenes Bild ergibt, muss der massenpsychologische Befund durch denjenigen der Individual-Psychologie abgerundet werden.

Die ideologische Verblendung des Menschengeistes macht es möglich, den Menschen seine Liebe zur Freiheit vergessen zu machen

Eine der wichtigsten Stützen der ungerechten Sozialordnungen in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart ist der Glaube des Menschen, dass das Diesseits eine nur bedeutungslose Etappe ihres Daseins wäre und sie ihre wahre Existenz und ihr wahres Glück im Jenseits finden würden. Für diese Gleichgültigkeit gegen das irdische Schicksal erwarteten die Gläubigen reichen Lohn und unterließen es, sich gegen die Tyrannei aufzulehnen. Fügsam ergab sich ihr Fatalismus jeder Unterdrückung und der durch die Ausrichtung auf das Jenseits eingeschränkte Lebenswille brachte weder Mut noch Kraft zur Revolte auf.

Die Kirche, die stets auf der Seite der Mächtigen steht, bestätigte König und Adel als „von Gottes Gnaden“ inthronisiert. Sich gegen die Zustände in Staat und Gesellschaft zu erheben, wäre darum ein Verstoß gegen die göttliche Weisheit und Vorsehung gewesen. Diese Verklärung der Knechts-Mentalität schuf die Voraussetzungen für absolutistische Herrschaftsformen, in denen die Menschen ein willenloses Werkzeug ihrer Obrigkeit wurden und ihnen in Krieg und Frieden vorbehaltlos Gefolgschaft leisteten.

Ein weiteres Moment ist die nationale oder rassistische Ideologie, deren epidemischer Charakter uns in der Vergangenheit drastisch veranschaulicht worden ist – und in jüngster Zeit eine Renaissance erlebt.

Der Mythos der Nation und der Rasse schafft eine vorgegaukelte Einheit zwischen Herrschenden und Beherrschten. Die Beherrschten sollten glauben, sie gehörten zusammen mit ihren Herren einer geheimnisvollen und ruhmreichen Körperschaft an, an deren Glanz und Größe auch der geringste Knecht seinen Anteil hat. Der Knecht wird durch diese Täuschung veranlasst, über seine Knechtschaft hinwegzusehen: sind die anderen, die nicht zu seiner Rasse oder Nation gezählt werden, doch noch weniger als er. Dadurch wir es ihm erträglich, dass er selber wenig oder gar nichts gilt. Für Ruhm und Ehre der Nation war der Knecht bereit, sein Leben zu opfern.

Nationalismus und Rassenlehrer sind Geisteshaltungen des Stolzes und der Überheblichkeit, in denen immer auch ein Stück Aggressivität gegen Nachbarvölker oder benachbarte Rassen mitschwingt. Die gesellschaftlichen Missstände, durch die Ungerechtigkeit der Herrschenden entstanden, wurden und werden somit immer auf die Gegen-Nation oder Gegen-Rasse abgewälzt.

Als Sklave kam der Knecht nicht auf die Idee, sich mit den Sklaven jenseits der Landesgrenzen zu solidarisieren, um sich gegen die gemeinsamen Bedrücker zu wenden. Der Groll, der gegen seinen eigenen Tyrannen in ihm hätte entstehen sollen, wurde abgeleitet auf jene, die, wie er selber, unter dem Joch der Tyrannei seufzten. In diesem teuflischen Mechanismus liegt der Schlüssel zu den Minderheitenproblemen wie etwa dem der Neger in den USA oder der Juden in Europa. Die Herrschenden von einst und jetzt beweisen damit, dass sie die „Psychologie des Sündenbocks“ zur Sicherung ihrer Herrschaft vortrefflich auszunützen wissen.

Mentalitäten von Herrschenden und Beherrschten unterscheiden sich

Die Erörterung der Kriegsursachen und der Herrschaft des Menschen über den Menschen, die bisher auf massenpsychologischer Ebene durchgeführt wurde, bedarf der individualpsychologischen Ergänzung. In einer Gesellschaftsordnung, die Herrschende und Beherrschte kennt – bis heute gibt es keine andere! –, entstehen zweierlei Mentalitäten, zweierlei Ideologien, die im Wesentlichen gleich ausfallen: Überall, wo es Ober- und Unterschicht gibt, entwickeln sich Mentalitäten von Herren und Knechten.

Die hervorstechendsten Merkmale des Menschentypus, der in gesellschaftlich begünstigter Position aufwächst, sind die Gefühle der Selbstsicherheit und der Überlegenheit. In dieser Beziehung können Kinder des Bürgertums und der Arbeiterschaft nicht verwechselt werden. Ein Kind, das in Wohlstand oder Überfluss erzogen wird, das eine angemessene Pflege erhält und dem eine Großzahl von Wünschen erfüllt werden kann, nimmt eine andere seelische Haltung an als Kinder der Armut, der Not oder eingeschränkter wirtschaftlicher Verhältnisse.

Das Kind der herrschenden Volksschichten tritt mit der Grundstimmung an das Leben heran: „Mir gehört die Welt!“. Im Umgang mit Dienstboten im Elternhaus bekommt es früh den Eindruck, dass sich die Menschen in „Herren“ und „Diener“ unterscheiden, wobei letztere dazu da sind, für die Herrschaft zu leben und zu arbeiten. Die Beobachtung des Verhältnisses von Vater und Mutter in unserer patriarchalischen Welt führt dazu, dass das Kind mit der „Männlichkeit“ zugleich auch angeborene Auserwähltheit und Herrschaftsanspruch zu verbinden lernt.

Kein Wunder, dass in seiner Seele der Drang entsteht, auch einmal oben zu sein wie die Autorität und an dem von ihr geübten Regiment teilzuhaben. Unter dem Einfluss dieses Machtstrebens werden die Gemeinschaftsgefühle nur kümmerlich ausgebildet. Hinzu kommt, dass die verzärtelnde Erziehung Menschen hervorbringt, die der Welt mit einem Auserwähltheitsanspruch gegenüberstehen und nicht geneigt sind, anderen Menschen gleiche Ansprüche zuzubilligen.

Diese Mentalität des Ehrgeizes, des Stolzes und der reduzierten Mitmenschlichkeit ermöglicht es, „Chefs“ zu werden, in Wirtschaft, Militär oder Politik die leitenden Positionen einzunehmen, in denen die Herrschaft des Menschen über den Menschen vorgesehen ist. Auf dieser Grundlage werden Vorgesetzten geprägt, die als Politiker im Einverständnis mit Vertretern der Großindustrie und des Militarismus imstande sind, im Interesse der herrschenden Schichten einen völkermordenden Krieg zu beginnen. Das gesellschaftliche Gefüge, das auf dem Geiste der Gewalt aufbaut, bringt einen Menschenschlag hervor, für den die Aggression „prima et ultima ratio“ bedeutet.

Doch auch der Knecht bedarf einer Ideologie, um in der Knechtschaft zu verharren. Denn der Mensch erträgt die Gewalt schlecht; etwas in ihm lehnt sich gegen sie auf. Die Gewaltanwendung erweckt das Verlangen nach Abwehr, sie will durch Gewalt beantwortet werden. Somit liegt es im Interesse der Herrschenden, dem Knecht Ideologien zu vermitteln, die ihn dazu bewegen, sich mit seinem Schicksal abzufinden. So muss er unter anderem glauben, dass Gott oder die Natur in ihrer Allmacht sein Knechtsdasein vorgesehen haben.

Der Knecht krankt ebenso sehr an der Machtgier wie der Herr. Die Unterwürfigkeit wirkt wie ein ständiger Stachel, der die Bereitschaft zur Aggression hervorbringt. Der kleinste Dienstbote sucht noch jemanden, auf den er herabschauen und an dem er seinen Groll ausleben kann. Das betrifft auch das Verhältnis des Arbeiters zu seiner Frau und seinen Kindern, seinen „Herrschaftsbereich“.

Das Arbeiterkind fühlt sich frühzeitig in eine Welt hineinversetzt, in der es Bevorrechtete und Benachteiligte gibt. Sobald es Kleidung, finanzielle Mittel und gesellschaftliche Stellung zu vergleichen lernt, entwickelt es ein sozial bedingtes Minderwertigkeitsgefühl. Hieraus erwächst dann das Streben, mehr zu sein als die anderen. Dies kann nur dann gemildert werden, wenn die Erzieher den Gemeinschaftsgedanken pflegen, sodass das Kind seinen eigenen Freiheitsdrang mit dem anderen Menschen zu verbinden lernt.

Wo dies nicht der Fall ist und eine autoritäre und individualistische Erziehung dem Kind die ersten Lebenseindrücke vermittelt, wird es aus seiner sozialen Benachteiligung den Schluss ziehen, dass es einzig und allein sich selbst „in die Höhe“ bringen muss. Seine vom Bazillus der Machtgier infizierte Seele wird dann für rassische und religiösen Vorurteile anfällig sein, mit deren Hilfe in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart die Gesellschaftsordnung der Ungerechtigkeit aufrechterhalten wird. Der Traum des Knechts ist nicht, „Herren“ und „Knechte“ aus der Welt zu schaffen, sondern er wünscht, selber Herr zu werden. Die Gewalt hat ihn vergiftet und er besitzt nicht mehr die Kraft, den Traum der allgemeinen Freiheit zu träumen.

Es besteht kein Zweifel, dass die Fehlschläge der sozialen Bewegung auf diesen psychologischen Zusammenhang zurückzuführen sind. Die Wortführer des sozialen Fortschritts kranken am selben Geist der Gewalt, den sie zu bekämpfen vorgeben. Angesichts großer Entscheidungen verrieten sie die Idee der Freiheit immer wieder an die Autorität, der sie trotz kühner Parolen und Schlagworte hörig blieben.

Aufklärung und Erziehung

Der Sinn der aufklärerischen Bemühungen ist die Reinigung des menschlichen Bewusstseins von den oben beschriebenen individuellen und kollektiven Vorurteilen. Der „aufgeklärte Verstand“ ist fähig, gesunde Lebensziele ins Auge zu fassen. Die Zukunft unserer Kultur wird wesentlich davon abhängen, ob es genügend „Aufklärer“ geben wird, die imstande sind, den breiten Volksmassen jene Vorurteile zu nehmen, die der ideologische Hintergrund der Menschheitskatastrophen sind.

In einer Zeit, in der durch die Atombombe die Selbstvernichtung der Menschheit möglich erscheint, brauchen wir mehr denn je freie Geister, die uns lehren, was Wahrheit und was Lüge ist. Intellektuellen hätten die Pflicht, für die anderen Menschen zu denken (Romain Rolland) und mit der Freiheit des Denkens die Freiheit überhaupt zu verkünden.

Wichtiger noch als die Aufklärung aber ist die Erziehung, die nach Jean Paul der eigentliche Hebelarm der Kultur ist. Die tiefenpsychologische Einsicht hat die Erziehung in ihrer ungeheuren Tragweite deutlich gemacht. Das autoritäre Prinzip, jahrhundertelang als fraglos-gültige Grundlage des erzieherischen Verhaltens angesehen, drosselte bereits in den Kindheitsjahren das Gemeinschaftsgefühl der Menschen.

Heute wissen wir, dass wir durch psychologische Erziehungsmethoden Menschen heranbilden können, die gegen die Verstrickungen des Machtwahns gefeit sein werden. Indem die Pädagogik in Elternhaus und Schule auf unangemessenes Autoritätsgebaren und Gewaltanwendung verzichtet und sich mit wahrem Verständnis dem kindlichen Seelenleben zuwendet, wird sie Menschen hervorbringen, die keine „Untertanen-Mentalität“ besitzen und darum für die Machthaber in unserer Welt kein gefügiges Werkzeug mehr sein werden. Die Achtung vor der kindlichen Persönlichkeit und freundschaftliche Zuwendung des Erziehers zu seinem Zögling werden einen der wertvollsten Beiträge zum Aufbau einer humanen Gesellschaftsordnung zu leisten.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Lehrer (Rektor a. D.), Doktor der Pädagogik (Dr. paed.) und Diplom-Psychologe (Schwerpunkte: Klinische-, Pädagogische-, Medien- sowie Individual-Psychologie). Als Pensionär arbeitete er in Lindau am Bodensee viele Jahre als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. In seinen Büchern und pädagogisch-psychologischen Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung und eine Erziehung zum Gemeinsinn und Frieden.

Noten 

1. https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-covid-19-engineered-destruction-of-civil-society-prof-michel-chossudovsky/5774749

2. https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-covid-19-crisis-and-the-seventh-wave-our-politicians-are-fraudulent-complicit-and-incompetent/5787031

3. https://de.rt.com/international/143552-vucic-es-tobt-weltkrieg-und/

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.

***

A look at the state of the world and humanity gives little cause for optimism. The historic lockdown of 11 March 2020 triggered “economic and social chaos” worldwide and was an “act of economic warfare, a war against humanity” (1). Meanwhile, we are being “afflicted” by the seventh Covid-19 wave, making it clear that “our politicians are fraudulent, complicit and incompetent” (2).

Moreover, the US West has been waging a devastating proxy war or world war against Russia (3) in Ukraine for months with the “prospect” of a “Last Judgement” (Armageddon). But it is not right to hold the “peoples” responsible for their wars; it was and is always only the ruling classes that feud and try to subjugate each other. Therefore, war cannot be attributed to human nature: Human nature is peaceful. Only the lust for power of those who function as authorities within the peoples and are imbued with the spirit of violence through their social position repeatedly leads to warlike conflicts in which the peoples bleed to death in favour of their masters and exploiters.

The psychological questioning must begin at this point and provide clarity as to why man of our time is still prepared to kill his fellow man beyond the national borders in a barbaric manner and how it becomes possible for a ruling minority to let the majority of the people live, work and die for their aims and purposes. Or to put it more precisely: How is the oppression of man by man possible?

Enlightenment thinkers emphasised freedom and equality of all people

People in the Middle Ages, who lived in a world divided into estates, still fatalistically accepted the injustices of the world and subordinated themselves to the secular and spiritual authorities without protest. It was not until the philosophy of the Renaissance and even more so that of the Enlightenment that the belief in the “innate differences” between people was shaken: domination and servitude now appeared as facts that had become historical, which could only be maintained by the naked violence of the rulers of all times.

The freedom and equality of all people were recalled again and again by the Enlightenment thinkers. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the greatest among them, showed the contrast between the state of nature and social degeneracy by introducing his “Contract social” (Social Contract) with the famous words: “Man is born free, and everywhere he lies in chains.”

This doctrine gave the spirit of revolt its theoretical foundation. The discussions on the philosophy of the state eventually led to the glorious French Revolution, which declared the “rights of man and citizen” and thus laid the foundation for modern democracy.

Although the democratic idea also recorded positive developmental steps in the past, the idea of freedom is only little anchored in the consciousness of the world. Numerous countries are ruled by dictators and are subject to open or secret tyranny, the economy makes a mockery of the equality and brotherhood of all people, and to this day man has not succeeded in realising a just community order and banishing war – this age-old evil of mankind – from the world.

How is the oppression of man by man possible?

As already mentioned, the psychological question must provide us with clarity about how a ruling minority succeeds in making the majority of the people live, work and die for its aims and purposes. Or to put it more sharply: How is the oppression of man by man possible?

“Power” alone does not seem to be sufficient to keep peoples in bondage, since the power of the people would always be greater than that of their rulers, provided the citizens decided to bring that power to bear. It is ideological tools that ensure the bondage of peoples and enable rulers of all times to establish a regime of privilege and injustice: On the one hand, it is the ideological delusion of the human spirit in the sense of a confusion of the senses or a blindness of the mind that leads to making man forget his love of freedom. It even manages to make him glorify the chains under whose weight he collapses.

But beyond the mass-psychological level, the discussion of the causes of war and the domination of man over man needs an individual-psychological supplement: What mentality distinguishes “master” and “servant”? How must the soul of a member of the ruling classes be structured so that he will be willing to rule over his fellow man? What emotions must be present in the members of oppressed or exploited classes of people so that they will allow oppression to prevail over them? In order for a coherent picture to emerge, the findings of mass psychology must be rounded off by those of individual psychology.

The ideological blindness of the human spirit makes it possible, to make people forget their love of freedom

One of the most important pillars of the unjust social orders of the past and present is man’s belief that this world is only a meaningless stage of their existence and that they will find their true existence and happiness in the hereafter. For this indifference to earthly fate, the believers expected rich rewards and refrained from rebelling against tyranny. Docilely, their fatalism surrendered to every oppression and the will to live, limited by the orientation towards the hereafter, did not muster the courage or strength to revolt.

The Church, always on the side of the powerful, confirmed king and nobility as enthroned “by the grace of God”. To rise up against the conditions in state and society would therefore have been a violation of divine wisdom and providence. This transfiguration of the servant mentality created the conditions for absolutist forms of rule, in which people became a will-less tool of their authorities and gave them unreserved allegiance in war and peace.

Another moment is the national or racist ideology, whose epidemic character has been drastically illustrated to us in the past – and has recently experienced a renaissance.

The myth of the nation and the race creates an illusory unity between rulers and ruled. The ruled are supposed to believe that they belong, together with their masters, to a mysterious and glorious body in whose splendour and greatness even the least servant has his share. The servant is induced by this deception to overlook his servitude: are the others, who are not counted among his race or nation, still less than he? This makes it bearable for him that he himself counts for little or nothing. For the glory and honour of the nation, the servant was prepared to sacrifice his life.

Nationalism and race teachers are attitudes of pride and arrogance, which always include a touch of aggression against neighbouring peoples or races. Social grievances, caused by the injustice of the rulers, were and are thus always passed on to the counter-nation or counter-race.

As a slave, it did not occur to the servant to show solidarity with the slaves beyond the country’s borders in order to turn against the common oppressors. The resentment that should have arisen in him against his own tyrant was diverted to those who, like himself, groaned under the yoke of tyranny. In this diabolical mechanism lies the key to minority problems such as that of the Negroes in the USA or the Jews in Europe. The rulers of the past and present prove that they know how to exploit the “psychology of the scapegoat” to secure their rule.

Mentalities of rulers and ruled differ

The discussion of the causes of war and the domination of man over man, which has so far been conducted on the level of mass psychology, needs to be supplemented by individual psychology. In a social order that knows rulers and ruled – until today there is no other! –, two kinds of mentalities, two kinds of ideologies emerge that are essentially the same: Wherever there are upper and lower classes, mentalities of masters and servants develop.

The most salient characteristics of the type of person who grows up in a socially favoured position are the feelings of self-assurance and superiority. In this respect, children of the middle class and the working class cannot be confused. A child who is brought up in prosperity or affluence, who receives proper care and who can have a large number of desires fulfilled, assumes a different mental attitude from children of poverty, hardship or restricted economic conditions.

The child of the ruling classes approaches life with the basic mood: “The world belongs to me!”. In their dealings with servants in the parental home, they get the impression early on that people are differentiated into “masters” and “servants”, the latter being there to live and work for the rulers. Observing the relationship between father and mother in our patriarchal world leads to the child learning to associate “masculinity” at the same time with innate chosenness and a claim to dominance.

No wonder that the urge arises in his soul to be on top like the authority for once and to participate in the rule exercised by it. Under the influence of this striving for power, feelings of community are only poorly developed. In addition, a pampered upbringing produces people who face the world with a claim to chosenness and are not inclined to grant other people the same claims.

This mentality of ambition, pride and reduced fellow humanity makes it possible to become “bosses”, to take the leading positions in business, the military or politics, where the domination of man over man is envisaged. On this basis, superiors are shaped who, as politicians in agreement with representatives of big industry and militarism, are able to start a genocidal war in the interest of the ruling classes. The social structure, which is built on the spirit of violence, produces a breed of people for whom aggression means “prima et ultima ratio”.

But the servant also needs an ideology to remain in servitude. For man bears violence badly; something in him rebels against it. The use of violence arouses the desire to defend oneself, it wants to be answered by violence. Thus it is in the interest of the rulers to impart ideologies to the servant that make him resign himself to his fate. Among other things, he must believe that God or nature in their omnipotence have provided for his servitude.

The servant suffers as much from the lust for power as the master. Submissiveness acts as a constant sting that breeds a readiness for aggression. The smallest servant is still looking for someone to look down on and to vent his resentment on. This also affects the worker’s relationship with his wife and children, his “domain”.

At an early age, the working-class child feels placed in a world where there are privileged and disadvantaged people. As soon as he learns to compare clothes, financial means and social position, he develops a socially conditioned feeling of inferiority. This then gives rise to the striving to be more than the others. This can only be alleviated if the educators cultivate the idea of community so that the child learns to combine its own desire for freedom with that of other people.

Where this is not the case and an authoritarian and individualistic upbringing gives the child its first impressions of life, it will draw the conclusion from its social disadvantage that it must “raise itself up” alone. His soul, infected by the bacillus of the lust for power, will then be susceptible to racial and religious prejudices, with the help of which the social order of injustice is maintained in the past and present. The servant’s dream is not to eliminate “masters” and “servants” from the world, but he desires to become master himself. Violence has poisoned him and he no longer has the strength to dream the dream of universal freedom.

There is no doubt that the failures of the social movement are due to this psychological connection. The spokesmen of social progress suffer from the same spirit of violence that they claim to fight against. In the face of great decisions, they betrayed the idea of freedom again and again to the authority to which they remained in bondage despite bold slogans and catchwords.

Enlightenment and education

The purpose of enlightenment efforts is to purify human consciousness from the individual and collective prejudices described above. The “enlightened mind” is capable of envisaging healthy life goals. The future of our culture will largely depend on whether there will be enough “enlightened minds” capable of removing from the broad masses of people those prejudices which are the ideological background of the catastrophes of humanity.

At a time when the atomic bomb seems to make the self-destruction of humanity possible, we need free spirits more than ever to teach us what is truth and what is a lie. Intellectuals have the duty to think for other people (Romain Rolland) and to proclaim freedom in general with the freedom of thought.

More important than the Enlightenment, however, is education, which, according to Jean Paul, is the real lever of culture. Depth-psychological insight has made education clear in its immense scope. The authoritarian principle, for centuries regarded as the unquestionably valid basis of educational behaviour, already throttled people’s sense of community in their childhood years.

Today we know that through psychological educational methods we can train people who will be immune to the entanglements of power madness. By renouncing inappropriate authority and the use of violence in the parental home and school and turning to the child’s soul with true understanding, pedagogy will produce people who do not have a “subject mentality” and who will therefore no longer be docile tools for those in power in our world. Respect for the child’s personality and the friendly attitude of the educator towards his pupil will be one of the most valuable contributions to the building of a humane social order.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a teacher (retired headmaster), doctor of education (Dr. paed.) and graduate psychologist (specialisations: Clinical, educational, media and individual psychology). As a retiree, he worked for many years as a psychotherapist in his own practice in Lindau on Lake Constance. In his books and educational-psychological articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral education in values and an education for public spirit and peace.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

(1) https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-covid-19-engineered-destruction-of-civil-society-prof-michel-chossudovsky/5774749

(2) https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-covid-19-crisis-and-the-seventh-wave-our-politicians-are-fraudulent-complicit-and-incompetent/5787031

(3) https://de.rt.com/international/143552-vucic-es-tobt-weltkrieg-und/

Featured image is from Pixabay

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.

***

The older generation takes a strange pleasure in reiterating comments about the absence of responsibility, the lack of focus and the indulgence of young people, using these arguments as a means of excusing the bleak future that their children and grandchildren face. Those arguments are rarely original, but rather they are force-fed to baby boomers by the media as a means of relieving them of all responsibility and of distracting them from the true causes of the tragic shifts that they observe obliquely.

It is assumed that for reasons unknown, somehow, young people are less capable, less attentive, less motivated and less concerned with planning for their careers and their futures. This argument makes the previous generation feel somehow more worthy and superior and that is precisely the hook that is lodged in the sweet treat.

Nowhere in the discussion about the challenges youth face is any mention made of how corporations have targeted them and exploited them, from cradle on, or of how the fundamental structure of government has shifted since the end of the Cold War so that it no longer plays the role of defending or of protecting the citizen, the child, against the vultures and jackals of the corporate world, but rather serves as a marionette with a smiling face through which arguments to justify the dictatorship of finance are promulgated and made to seem scientific, authoritative, and even ethical to the public.

To be sure, the breakdown of a sense of community, of the concepts of personal responsibility and of ethical commitment among youth is a sad reality. It is accompanied by isolation, loneliness, and uncertainty about the future that undermines all aspects of life.

But the problems that our children face are not brought on by themselves, but rather the result of a brutal assault on their childhood by corporations that seek to dominate their values and their thinking from the cradle on so that they are unable to think for themselves, unable to create their own communities, or their own lives, and dependent on content, and on relations, supplied by those corporations, and the investment banks that lurk behind them.

When our children should be playing outside, catching frogs in the woods, building forts out of tree branches, or helping their parents to plant lettuce and carrots—and thereby understand the relationship between humans, water, soil and nature, they are encouraged, compelled, to get all information from the television or internet which is dominated by these multinational corporations, organizations that see our children not as future citizens, or as the building blocks for a constitutional democracy, but as consumers to be mined and manipulated so as to increase profits.

When our children should gain wisdom and insight from their own experiences, from their interactions with friends and teachers, and should learn first from their parents and grandparents, uncles, aunts and neighbors, they are forced to watch television, to surf the internet and to play various video games from an increasingly young age. Their parents are told that exposure to technology will make their children competitive and modern—it is a sickening lie.

The purpose of getting children connected with images presented by television, movies and the internet from an early age is addict them to a consumption economy, to reduce their ability to think for themselves, and to encourage superficial thinking dominated by excitement and quick action that destroys their capacity to understand complex issues, and their ability to concentrate.

The bombarding of our children with commercial images that suggest how they should behave, and what is of value, is a direct assault on the Constitution because it intentionally undermines the capacity of the individual to be a citizen. That is to say that the advertising and public relations employed in the commercial media and entertainment is illegal.

Also, the assault on our children through the commercial media cannot be detached from pornography. Even in the most innocent cartoons, corporations insidiously insert messages suggesting that we should evaluate others in terms of how they please us, that humans are commodities and that we must market ourselves, and our sexuality, in order to be successful.

This subtle attack on the core values in children feeds into real pornography, starting with boys. Corporations plant sick images of violence and humiliation of women in the minds of young boys in an attempt to addict them to a false, violent and perverse sexuality which can only be purchased, and that is incompatible with love for women.

If boys have their sexuality torn away from love, and attached to competition and narcissism, girls will be the clear victims. Whether they end up with boys who can no longer express affection, or are compelled to behave like the women in pornographic movies so that they can get attention, girls are sacrificed to profit in this debased culture.

This whole process of degrading and destroying our children must stop now.

We must understand that the commercial advertising with which our children are bombarded is not primarily aimed at selling products. The primary agenda of what had degenerated into brainwashing and propaganda is to inculcate in them a passive, dependent, reactive and flippant attitude that will render them incapable of thinking for themselves, of searching for solutions on their own. They are indoctrinated to turn to the media, controlled by corporations, for solutions to every aspect of their personal lives.

It is a scientific fact that the use of social media and internet surfing remaps the connections between brain cells, training the individual to favor short-term stimulation, constant changes, and exciting and stimulating scenes.

As a result of such behavior modification, the capacity of the individual to read and comprehend long and complex texts, to understand multidimensional problems in the economy and society, and to engage others in meaningful dialog is destroyed. A few years soaking in the narcissistic consumer culture forced on youth produces people incapable of anything other than working to feed themselves and releasing accumulated stress by indulging in self-centered video games, pornography, food consumption, or action films.

For those marinated in this consumption culture, what does not appear on TV, or on the internet, seems unreal, insubstantial. By contrast, the falsehoods propagated through commercial media are assumed to be real, more substantial than the reality that surrounds them.

When this political crisis, this social disaster, is brought up in polite conversation, the knee-jerk response is that we must make our messages brief and dumb them down so that youth will listen. No one in the room suggests that we need to create a culture so as to protect our youth from this war, to allow them to focus, to concentrate, to read and digest books, to enjoy art and music, and to create it themselves.

Children assaulted by the commercial media from infancy have no chance to preserve their own liberty. They are not permitted to develop their own metaphysical compass. No moral or scientific forces exist for them other than what can be seen, and especially can be seen in the commercial media.

Many are left incapable of evaluating the impact of forces that are not explicitly visible. They do not even realize that the smartphone that they hold in their hand does not belong to them at all, but is constantly updated and changed so as to manipulate them by multinational corporations pursuing agendas about which they understand little.

The commercial media, advertisers and entertainment moguls have intentionally created a culture of forgetfulness. We are trained by the media to forget what happened yesterday, to lack any historical perspective on politics, culture, society and technology. But if we cannot remember our past, other than the slick images fed to us by the media, then we cannot establish our own interpretations, and democracy becomes impossible.

So also, we forget what happens to the plastic that we dispose of. We forget what the implications for the world of foreign wars are. We forget what will happen to future generations if we continue to destroy the ecosystem in the pursuit of a narcissistic consumption culture.

The commercial media also wants to crush our imaginations, our creativity.

Of course commercials suggest that somehow using your Iphone will make you more creative, more innovative. A closer look reveals that what is called “innovative” and “imaginative” is the manipulation of images and symbols supplied by the multinational corporation. There is no freedom and no autonomy to be found anywhere in that world.

Imagination means also the ability to imagine things that are not visible. That is a skill that the corporations wish to crush. They do not want us to be able to imagine the hidden powers that shape our world for profit. They do not want children to have the imagination to see how the cynical players on Wall Street and Madison Avenue set out to destroy their minds, how the brutal road ahead is decided for them by invisible powers.

The Constitution defends freedom of speech for the citizen. It does not grant corporations the right to brainwash and destroy the minds of citizens from childhood, rendering them incapable of making their own decisions.

As long as this criminal operation is tolerated, we will have no democracy and no government. This criminal operation must end now and the kings of advertising and public relations must face jail terms for their criminal actions against our youth, their use of technology and marketing to enable the “rape of the mind.”

Corporations, banks and the advertising and public relations firms that they fund are destroying our minds, and our ability to perceive reality. Because they attack stealthily the means by which we perceive, we are unaware of the tremendous damage that they do. Just as the brain does not feel pain, so also our schemata for perception of the world are blind to how they are undermined by false narratives and stimulation aimed at behavior modification.

Nothing less than a revolution can end this war on our children, this extermination campaign against our future.

The War of Corporations against our Children from Emanuel Pastreich on Vimeo.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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 Children’s Health Defense

(Originally published November 19, 2022)

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).

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.ca

a

***

“The changes needed are not going to come from the inside, from politicians trying to change things from the inside where everyone else has failed to do so earlier. I believe that right now the changes that we need are so big that we need massive pressure from the outside, and that is done by organizing on grossest levels. So that’s what we are doing!” 

–Greta Thunberg (November 2, 2022) [1]

“I have come to the conclusion to start with the fact that there are various “C“-crises at the same time – Climate, CO2, Corona, Capital – and more – that force us to “connect the dots” of the “bigger picture.” What is the common cause of all these crises? In the background there is the great transformation of modern civilization that is needed in order to save it – from the point of view of its inventors who want to prevent it from failing.”

– Dr Claudia von Werlhof  

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

“Ain’t no power like the power of the people and the power of the people won’t stop!”

On Wednesday Nov 16, dozens of environmental activists staged demonstrations from inside the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) venue held this year in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. [2]

One of these protests involved medical workers from countries around the globe staging a “die-in,” trying to give CPR to a rubber globe of the planet and having the words “1.5” and “to survive” written in red on the palms of opposing hands. They were trying to communicate the health impacts of not meeting the environmental targets stated in the previous agreement signed in Paris. [3]

This coincides with other notable and innovative strategies, including groups staging actions of eco-vandalism against paintings in museums to get people to prioritize the fate of the planet above our love of the arts. And the group Extinction Rebellion has peacefully staged sit-ins at public locations threatening the ability to get to work or anywhere until the concerns of future generations are addressed. [4][5]

As the conference is now delayed for one more day, one could get the impression that the Davids of the world are forcing the hands of the big Goliaths in the developed Global North not considering the mighty slingshots the people united can wield. [6]

“Ain’t no power like the power of the people and the power of the people won’t stop!”

The unfortunate reality behind these protests is that the very demands they are making are nicely aligned with the interests of elites! This principle is profiled on the website Wrongkindofgreen.org on which it states:

“The articles in this section have been collected to show the hollowed-out reality of groups like 350.org, WWF and Greenpeace who are run from the top down and have one overriding policy: to keep the industrial system running at any cost, even if it means salvaging the reputations of corrupt politicians (all of them), inviting corporations to come and play (and making sure the water’s nice and warm), lying to the public about how much power they have (none under this system), and ignoring the simple fact that industrial civilization is terminally unsustainable and has to end (the truth).” [7]

With that in mind, one could ask what the specific intentions of these gatherings of world leaders are achieving in the name of “saving the planet” from catastrophic climate change. This will be the subject of this episode of the Global Research News Hour.

In our first half hour, we are joined by the investigative journalist, environmental activist and author Cory Morningstar who will discuss some of the goals of this year’s UN Climate summit and the realities of the economic transition that are being made supposedly for the betterment of the globe. This interview is followed by Dr Claudia Von Werlhof who goes beyond in mentioning that the robust science detailing climate change being instituted by increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a hoax and that military engineering in the form of ionospheric heating and solar radiation management is ultimately the culprit.

Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation and Counterpunch.

Dr. Claudia von Werlhof is Prof. Emerita of Political Science and Women’s Studies at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. She is the author of many books and has worked hard to make Rosalie Bertell’s important book Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War on Geoengineering available in German, Spanish, Italian, French and English again. Claudia was the founder of the Planetary Movement for Mother Earth (PMME) in 2010. She recently edited and contributed to the book Global War-ning: Geoengineering Is Wrecking Our Planet and Humanity.

She is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

(Global Research News Hour episode 369)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

Transcript of Dr Claudia von Werlhof, November 14, 2022

Global Research: Claudia Von Werlhof is Professor Emerita of Political Science and Women’s Studies at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. Claudia was the founder of the Planetary Movement for Mother Earth in 2010 and she is a research associate of the Centre for Research on Globalisation. Before we get into the details, you could provide us with the broad outline of your thesis because clearly this is more than a matter of mistaken science. I mean, there’s a conscious effort to mislead the public. What purpose does this conscious and very sophisticated distraction serve?

Claudia von Werlhof: Well, from my point of view, this civilization, has arrived at a crossroads, because you know what, capitalism is transforming nature into capital. And so, nature has gone, afterwards. This problem cannot be solved in the long run, because nature is gone, and you cannot transform anything anymore. So, this is the case we are living in now, and this society has to find a solution. The solution is not supposed to be a human and nature-friendly solution. But they are looking for how to continue with their system without having to give it up. This is the main problem we have today. And I think all these crises we are in now, from Corona crisis and the climate crisis and the crisis of capital have the same – or are provoking a response from above. So, we even have studied the problem in earlier years, coming to the conclusion that only an alternative economy and society could solve the problem of capitalism. And as you mentioned it already – patriarchy – which is the background of it all. But instead of liberating people from this horrible system, they are now going to transform it. It is what they call “The Great Transformation,” and what is called “The New World Order,” which is a system that is going to be implemented from above, or like “The Great Reset.” This is the formula by the World Economic Forum. The system has to be reset, which means it has to start again but maintaining its main characteristics. This means what is needed now – I mean, you cannot just go on with it.

So, the first thing – what I see is, the system is going to be quantitatively reduced. This means – and this is what is one of the main propaganda issues of the whole world climate question – is to reduce consumption, to reduce production, and to reduce population. So, this will be the quantitative changes we are expecting. And on the other hand, you will have a qualitative change, and this is the technological one. So, there are a lot of new technologies developed since a hundred years or within the 20^th Century, and they are going to be applied now, called The Fourth Industrial Revolution. This is a very interesting point, because in the climate question, for instance, this will be – play a major role because people are supposed to identify and to be integrated into the machinery, the system of the mega machine, as it is called. And this will be the second step they are approaching, and they are preparing. This is the most interesting step besides the reduction of the system, as such.

So, I think the climate change question is approaching all the subjects and issues in saying that people are responsible for the climate problem, because they consume too much, and they breathe too much, so to say. And they have chosen this ideal formula of the CO2 question, the so-called “climate killer,” because it is applicable to all these questions at once.

So, you can say that all those who produce CO2 have to be abolished, so to say. I mean, the industry, normal civil industry, based on the second industrial revolution using all these fossil fuels, et cetera, which have to be avoided because they have to be spared. I think the reduction of consumption is also related to the reduction of energy, the normal energies we had since the second industrial revolution is coal and gas and oil, and later nuclear power which will be maintained as a so-called renewable energy form, which is not true. Not even for the other new renewable energies, but this we can discuss later.

Well, this is based on the idea that CO2 is important for the climate. And this is one of the lies that are propagated in order to have this program realized, because the climate especially, the climate is nothing you can change because it depends on the sun and on the solar system. The only thing you can change is the weather, as the regional and local conditions you find on Earth. But they call it climate change because maybe otherwise they would have to relate to the many experiments and technologies that exist already in relation to weather control and weather modification and other technologies that are, for example, explained by the UN in the ENMOD Convention which is the Environmental Modification Convention of 1977 in which all these problems are explained already. So, very strange that the UN in her own conference does not relate to its own knowledge.

GR: The vast majority of climate scientists, well into the thousands, are saying that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the leading culprit in weather changes we’ve witnessed over decades. Approximately 97.5 percent, according to an estimate I saw recently. You wrote letters to Greta Thunberg  [SIC] I think her – explaining how —

CVW: Greta Thunberg, yes.

GR: Yeah, how she was mistaken about what’s ailing the planet. And she never responded, but I imagine if she could, she would say that the scientists are telling us that we need to reduce fossil fuel emissions. It always comes down to what scientists are saying. So, how can you say so confidently that all these scientists —

CVW: No, but —

GR: — are wrong?

CVW: But it’s not true. This is what the IPCC is saying, the International Panel on Climate Change. This is a political institution, it’s not a scientific one, and it excludes every member who would not agree with the findings of the IPCC which are really the ones you are quoting. But the rest of the scientific community, and there is even an agenda of about 30,000 scientists who claim that CO2 can never be any important question in the climate. Even in the climate, not even in the weather, because CO2 has only 0.04 percent importance in the atmosphere. And 80 percent of this is simply vapour. So, the human contribution to CO2 is something so tiny that you cannot even see it. I mean, it is really ridiculous to use CO2 as the climate killer. It’s not even a weather killer, not to speak of the climate. The scientific community, the really scientific community, is against this idea of CO2. It’s only the political institutions and the —

GR: Well, —

CVW: — UN-driven IPCC that claim for – I mean, I —

GR: Well, —

CVW: — know that —

GR:— I really —

CVW: — in the meantime, everybody – excuse me?

GR: Yeah, I was just saying that, like, in a previous interview, a guest —

CVW: Yes.

GR: — was talking a lot about the IPCC and how it is actually more, you know, conservative of a political body, and so on. But what is known, is through the peer-reviewed literature and how are these efforts to legitimate science including —

CVW: But —

GR: — peer-reviewed studies being manipulated to the point of delivering what —

CVW: Well, —

GR: — you’d think is a false message of the truth.

CVW: Well, you know, the peer-reviewed studies, it’s long ago that they have any value. For example, Marvin Herndon, this is one of the scientists from San Diego. He has written a large essay on that, of the corruption of the sciences. And I must say, I’m – as a political scientist and a social scientist, I have my own experiences. I mean, please don’t tell me that science is science. I mean, it would be nice if it were, but it isn’t.

So, the corruption has grown always more. And the IPCC is an institution that has nothing to do with the truth. Nothing. It is a political institution, and it serves these interests who try to transform the world into a new world order which is totally different from what we know now. These are all agents of a revolution from above that is going to be dismantled now.

 I mean, if it is going to be realized or dismantled is the question we have to solve. It really is a ridiculous – I mean, there are a lot of even Nobel Prize winners who laugh about this idea of CO2. It is really strange how it is possible. And it’s only explicable by corruption, by a world-wide corruption that this thesis could spread so widely.

So, I think we can really leave that with history. Because, I mean, this is what I learned from Rosalie Bertell. We do not have to just run around not knowing anything, because geo-engineering, the military geo-engineering, not the civil one, or – this is all a part of it. These have developed technologies since a hundred years that are changing the weather – not the climate, this cannot be changed – but the weather in many parts of the world. And what we see now, all these catastrophes of flooding, of heat, et cetera, they are all – can all be produced. There are technologies for that. And even the ENMOD Convention of the UN, you can read of what they can produce. They can produce earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and they can even change ocean currents; you can change the jet stream. You can have all these catastrophes we have now on Earth nearly, every –

GR: Yeah.

CVW: — day.

GR: What you’re referring to —

CVW: You don’t need any CO2 to explain this. Yes?

GR: You’re talking about geo-engineering, I believe, and its use.

CVW: Exactly.

GR: I mean, it’s seen by the general public as a conspiracy theory. So, maybe you could help us understand what forms of —

CVW: Well, it’s —

GR: — geo-engineering —

CVW: Okay.

GR:— do you know for a fact have been —

CVW: I mean – yes.

GR: — manipulated or experimented —

CVW: Yeah.

GR: — with historically from the ‘50s to the present.

CVW: I mean, the UN would be a conspiracy institution because the UN in the ENMOD Convention, which was finalized after the Vietnam War, because in the Vietnam War, many of these environmental modification technologies as they were called then were applied, like Agent Orange, et cetera. So, after the Vietnam War, the UN made this convention and wanted to prohibit any hostile use of these technologies. It declared them existing – as existing technologies, so in this – in 1977. And we are speaking today of a conspiracy theory – excuse me.

When you look at the many documents, for example, it starts a hundred years ago with rainmaking and cloud seeding, et cetera. These were the first attempts. And then you had, especially during Second World War, the whole Manhattan Project and the development of the Atomic Bomb. This was used after the Second World War until the end of the ‘90s, the atomic industry and atomic bombs, even hydrogen bombs were used to explore the atmosphere until – up to the Van Allen Belt which is part of the magnetic field of the Earth, which was partly destroyed then and did not recover from that attack.

You have to imagine that more than 2,000 atomic bombs were released in the atmosphere and underwater and on the ground during 50 years after the Second World War. And this was the first phase after the Second World War of real geo-engineering, military geo-engineering. So, you cannot say this didn’t happen or this is a conspiracy theory. This was the basic – a basic experiment to know what the atmosphere is about. I mean, the stratosphere, the troposphere, and the ionosphere. And now, you have these technologies that directly attack the ionosphere.

 We saw the ionosphere heaters, I mean like HAARP et cetera, there are about two or three dozens in the world today. Which are the most important instruments for climate change or weather change, so to say, in the world. And they can produce all these effects which are already explained in the ENMOD Convention. And the next book was about – from the – was for the Air Force, the US Air Force. It’s title was “Owning the Weather in 2025,” and using “Weather as a Force Multiplier.” And this is now, so in two years, we will have the – the Army will own the weather world-wide. I mean, it is not a conspiracy theory, it is real. Only that people don’t look at that, they don’t look at it.

They think it does not exist if you can’t – even when you go to the social engineers or people who speak of a civil geo-engineering which is about ten years that exists now, they say they have no relationship to the military side and history and background of this technology. They simply deny it, you see. This is not scientific. Scientifically, you have first to look at the origins of your science. And this is what they deny. They even tell us that geo-engineering, what they call the civil – geo-engineering – will save the planet, whereas it is, instead, destroying. I mean, this is really the funny thing, it’s all —

GR: Yeah.

CVW: — been corrupted. The whole debate is inverted.

GR: What you’re saying – there’s a huge blotting out of a huge section of their data and their analysis. And that’s the military which is doing geo-engineering and that’s not on their radar screens —

CVW: Yes.

GR: — at all, right?

CVW: As Rosalie Bertell has really explained everything. They shoot – really it’s billions of watts – they shoot their electro-magnetic waves into the ionosphere where they turn them back to the Earth. And where they arrive at Earth, there you have earthquakes, you have volcanic eruptions, et cetera. This is a destructive forces of a magnitude. A normal scientist would never expect – and all this due to the research of Nikola Tesla, who is never – who was not even taught at the university. Nikola Tesla invented the use of electro-magnetism on Earth and he invented all these possibilities, and they are patented. You have I don’t know how many hundreds of patents, US patents in which the use of these electro-magnetic waves and the ionospheric heat, et cetera, is explained. So, —

GR: Mm-hmm.

CVW: — it is nothing you – I mean, you – and this is changing the conditions, of the weather conditions and weather modifications on Earth. So, if you are on the climate front, you have to look at that, you cannot say it’s not existing. This is ridiculous. I mean —

GR: You know, in —

CVW: — this is what is happening.

GR: — your book – in your book, The Global Warning – WAR-NING —

CVW: Yes, —

GR:— you mention —

CVW: — uh-huh.

GR: — some local forest fires that the media used as examples of climate change in recent years, however indications, suggestions were considerably different from what one would expect from more CO2 in the atmosphere and that some hidden hand was maybe —

CVW: Yeah.

GR: — testing out or using some form of geo-engineering to cause the damage. Take us through the anomalous discoveries you mentioned in the book.

CVW: We have this phenomenon, you have that in California, you have it in Portugal, in Greece, in Australia. Everywhere you have these so-called forest fires where the forest around do not burn out, burn down, but the houses. I mean, this is totally different technology is used to provoke these fires. And the reasons for doing it, this is a really criminal story around, but the possibility to produce fires is nothing new. I mean, this is one of the geo-engineered methods since long.

So, you have to research on why these fires are breaking out and not saying, “Well, this is CO2, this is ridiculous.” CO2 is a plant gas, and it is related to every living process, rotting, living materials, rotting produce CO2. So, this is coming out of breathing, of – you know, animal production, of every material that is dying and the plants need it to produce oxygen.

So, what is so difficult and criminal and killing about this gas? It is just the other way around. This gas doesn’t do anything to anybody. It is needed to have a green without any plants?– biologists and there are all these people should say something to it. I think they are. I don’t know in the moment, but I mean – all these things cannot be explained by a 0.04 part of the atmosphere that cannot change anything. It is very funny that people believe in that. It shows that they don’t know anything about the Earth, about what life is.

They even had an experiment, by the way, in the middle west [SIC], it’s about a year ago, where they tried to suck all CO2 out of the air. And the result was that everything was dying. We need that for life, and the attack on life is the attack on CO2 is an attack on life as the whole thing. Like geo-engineering as well, and as Corona as well, these are all attacks on life. This is just totally perverted and inverted the whole debate. But because people – and it is so difficult, because people are not used to seeing geo-engineering as a technology they didn’t see, for example, the vaccine, which is not a vaccine, but an injection of genetic modification which is a new technology nobody knew about. You see that the whole thing is different than what people think about it or are supposed to think about it.

GR: I know that a person you mentioned, Rosalie Bertell is her name.

CVW: Yes.

GR: I know of her work on depleted uranium. But she was the first person to mention the broad outline of what’s happening to the planet due to —

CVW: Yes.

GR: — inaction. Though not CO2 emissions. Talk about the importance of her work and how it informs you on this subject.

CVW: I knew her name always because she’s an eco-feminist, I am too. And I always knew that there is a book called “Planet Earth,” but nobody had read it because – as I knew, afterwards – the publisher went bankrupt after it published this book. It was in the year 2000. And then we had this problem with Haiti and the big earthquake in Haiti. And I found out that there were people who said that this earthquake was not a normal one, but a produced and manufactured one like in China and in Venezuela and in the Douma, they discussed this.

I mentioned that, in an interview with the press here, with the newspaper, and then the whole world broke down around me, because ‘She’s a conspiracy theorist, and she blames –’ I don’t know what. So, they were active against me. And so, I found Rosalie in the internet. And she said, ‘Oh, this is okay.’ This was with Haiti. Possibly it was really an artificial earthquake. I didn’t know at that time that this could exist even. So, she said, ‘Yes, it can be,’ because there was this stripe, plasma stripe in the air which can be seen when the ionospheric heaters are active and – in a region. This cannot be proved, et cetera, but she said, ‘Yes, this can be,’ and she sent me her book.

So, I could read it. And this book explained the whole history of geo-engineering in all it’s aspects, including this solar – what they call solar radiation management today. All the histories, the military history, and the civil history. And so, I learned it from her, I had no idea because I’m not a natural scientist, and I had to fight with this book terribly because it made me sick. I went to Hell, I was ill and it was horrible, because this – to read how they are attacking the whole planet and not only certain regions, or – you know – certain animals, plants, but the whole planet, to transform it into a mega-weapon of war.

I mean, to have control over the whole planet. This was her perspective, and she explained it especially why are the ionospheric heating technologies. And so, I learned about it, you know. And we became friends, et cetera, and I made the – and I organized our planetary movement so that we could distribute her knowledge, and translate her work, et cetera.

GR: Okay.

CVW: So, this is how we came together. And her motive was she loves the planet Earth, so she’s in love with this cosmic being, you know. It hurts her, and she was offended to know that they were destroying it or part of it. This was our common eco-feminist, so to say, motivation to work together. But then, she died. It’s already ten years now that she died.

GR: Okay.

CVW: So, —

GR: Well, —

CVW: — I’m something like her heir.

GR: Okay. Is there anything more you’d like to say or emphasize on the subject before we close the interview?

CVW: Let me see. I mean, the method, how they introduce all these catastrophes we are experiencing now, it’s always from above and it’s all new technologies that people don’t know. So, people are confused, they don’t know how to judge it. And it goes along always with a lot of corruption and a lot of forcing people to agree. You know, a lot of money is flowing, et cetera. So, the whole science, the academic world, has come to its knees, really.

 I mean, I’m an academic myself, so I see this around me, also. And this is so tragic, I mean how to teach people to look at what is happening and not to believe in the propaganda and in the ideology of the new world order.

It’s so important, because even when we look at what I call patriarchy there’s what Rosalie also was interested in is that the patriarchal part of the society is that which wants to transform life into this life as born by mothers or by mother nature, into something that is invented by men and invented as a new creation. And this ends in the technology of the machine. The machine is supposed to be the new life and the better life instead of real life or natural life. And we have that now with trans-humanism, the new technology that includes or tries to include the human as such into the machinery which is also the program of the WEF, the World Economic Forum.

So, people should know that this machinery is going to be always more like a weapon. It’s the weaponization – but also Rosalie was saying – the weaponization of the world, not only of the technology but of everything that happens. Even the vaccine is weaponized now with these strange injections in the Corona cases. And the same is true for the climate question with geo-engineering. This is a weapon, a weapon of mass destruction in any sense. People don’t see that, because they love the machine and they think it’s progress and development, and it’s better than – so, we live with the machine, and without it – or to be even, to be integrated into the machine via the new technologies of trans-humanism. So, —

GR: Okay.

CVW: — yeah, I mean, there is so much to explain to the public they have no idea about, so…

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

Other stations airing the show:

CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.

WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.

CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am. 

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 9am pacific time.

Notes:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufERA6HzP6E
2. https://www.africanews.com/2022/11/16/cop27-protestors-push-for-capping-global-heating-to-15-celsius/
3. ibid
4.  https://abcnews.go.com/International/climate-activists-throw-paint-gustav-klimts-tod-und/story?id=93335435
5. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48607989
6. https://www.africanews.com/2022/11/18/cop27-climate-talks-extended-to-saturday/
7. https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/symbolic-action-you-came-to-the-wrong-place/

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.

***

This year marks exactly 50 years since the establishment of ties between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. US President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972 and initiated an unprecedented thaw in relations, the first ever between a Communist power and a leading capitalist one. It was a very unusual occurrence, especially as the (First) Cold War was reaching its zenith precisely at that time. Although Mao Zedong himself and Nixon paved the way for the establishment of this relationship, it was only after Deng Xiaoping took power that the modern Sino-American relationship grew and in many ways shaped the economic and geopolitical realities of our time.

At the time, China was still recovering from the last 200 years of decline which pushed probably the most powerful country in human history to the verge of collapse. This was followed by what can only be described as a semi-colonial status, culminating in the 1930s and 1940s, when Japan used China’s weakness to occupy large swathes of Chinese land, often taking areas of utmost economic importance.

It was only with the establishment of the PRC in 1949 that this chaos ended, with extensive and crucial help coming from the USSR. By the 1980s, China became stable enough, but was still nowhere near its full potential. Deng Xiaoping focused almost entirely on the economy, realizing it was essential for China’s full recovery and return to great power status.

China, the world’s most populous country, offered the largest labor force on the planet, which (by American standards) was also cheap, making it the perfect choice for outsourcing entire sectors of the US economy, especially its industrial production. Although the Sino-American relationship went through a serious crisis in the 1990s, economic cooperation was booming and continued unabated into the 2000s. However, in recent years, this relationship has become burdened with geopolitical rivalry, particularly coming from the US, which has started meddling more aggressively in China’s internal affairs, especially the issue of Taiwan.

Realizing the huge risks of any sort of cooperation with the belligerent thalassocracy in decline, particularly in light of sanctions against Russia, including the illegal freezing of Russia’s forex reserves, Beijing is actively looking for alternatives. This is especially true in regards to China’s holdings of US debt, which have been hovering around $1 trillion for over a decade. In order to avoid problems Russia faced after it was forced to intervene in Ukraine, China reduced the US Treasuries holdings from $1.003 trillion in April to $980.8 billion in May, the lowest it has been since 2010. With the US having to deal with high inflation, as well as strained bilateral ties with China over trade, technology and Russia, Beijing has decided to start dumping its share of US debt.

“It’s essentially a matter of China-US relations,” said Tan Yaling, head of the Beijing-based China Forex Investment Research Institute, further adding: “The large holdings in the past were due to the good bilateral ties, but now China needs to avoid the risk of a possible conflict with the United States.”

The reduction for the sixth straight month came at a time when Chinese academics and policy circles have held heated discussions over de-dollarisation amid the US strategic rivalry, including technological containment and the threat of decoupling, South China Morning Post reported.

Former central bank adviser Yu Yongding told a forum in Beijing in May that China should adjust its overseas asset portfolio, explicitly calling for cuts in holdings of US Treasuries, citing low returns and increasing worries over their safety, particularly in the context of illegal freezing of Russia’s assets.

According to data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, China has been working on diversifying its foreign exchange assets for decades, with the USD share dropping from around 70% in 1995 to 58% in 2015. China’s current US Treasuries holdings have been reduced by approximately 25% from the $1.32 trillion peak (November 2013) and 10.4% since Joe Biden took over office. US Treasuries now stand at 31.4% of China’s $3.07 trillion forex reserves, the lowest share in the last nearly 15 years.

According to Tan, China is very likely to focus on buying gold, further implementing projects under its Belt and Road Initiative and resolving domestic issues amid the rising risks of a global recession. Between October 2018 and November 2019, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) increased its gold holdings by 105.75 metric tonnes, pushing the total to 1,948.

Short-term issues, including sharp rate increases and planned balance sheet downsizing by the US Federal Reserve, also weighed on the decision to cut holdings of US Treasuries, the analyst said. Japan, which took China’s place as the largest holder of US debt also trimmed its holdings by nearly $6 billion at the end of May. It now stands at approximately $1.2 trillion, the lowest since January 2020. The UK, Switzerland and Belgium all reported net purchases in May, with London being the third-largest holder of US Treasuries at $634 billion at the end of June after adding US$21.3 billion.

As the world’s largest production economy, China will continue to adjust monetary policies to domestic needs while taking into account external factors, as policymakers in Beijing are closely monitoring the US Federal Reserve’s actions. Speaking at the G20 meeting over the weekend, Chinese central bank governor Yi Gang said the PBOC would provide more powerful support for the national economy.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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.

***

The U.S. Government’s “Nuclear Primacy” meta-strategy says that there are “acceptable” levels of destruction of America in a nuclear war against Russia and/or China, so long as America “comes out on top” globally, at the end.

Brian Berletic walks us through the Rand Corporation’s plan for the Pentagon to attack China during the narrow window until 2025 and perhaps 2030 (3 to 8 years from today) when the US is assumed to still have superiority capable of winning a war that is “unlikely” (undefined and little more than a wishful assumption) to go nuclear. 

In other words, the assumption on which Washington’s planned  military attack on China rests is that China will accept defeat rather than use nuclear weapons.  

Would a sane government start a war on such a risky assumption?

There are two other highly risky assumptions in the Pentagon’s war plans.  One is that the US can dominate the seas from which via airplanes or missiles the US can cause destruction to Chinese industry and social infrastructure.  Apparently no attention has been paid to long-range Chinese missiles that make US carrier fleets obsolete.

The other risky assumption is that Russia stays out of it.  Considering the confusion in the Kremlin, the inability of the Russian government to give up hope of peaceful cooperation with the West, and the inability of the Kremlin to regard the neoconservative doctrine of US hegemony over the world as anything but a fantasy, and most certainly not an operative doctrine, it is possible that the Kremlin would strand aside and watch a US/China war.

The Kremlin misses many opportunities, but it is difficult to believe that Putin would be so stupid as to not gang up with China on the US.  In which case the US is history.

You can read Berletic’s analysis here.

As for the Pentagon’s concern for Americans in the event that the assumption that Washington can conquer China without nuclear weapons being used is mistaken, if such weapons are employed,

“the U.S. Government’s ‘Nuclear Primacy’ meta-strategy says that there are ‘acceptable’ levels of destruction of America in a nuclear war against Russia and/or China, so long as America ‘comes out on top’ globally.”

The Pentagon’s doctrine doesn’t say how many American cities and how many millions of Americans are among the “acceptable levels of destruction.”  But it is enough to show that Americans are regarded as canon fodder by their rulers.

You see, the only importance in the ruling neoconservative doctrine is US hegemony, not your life.  For the neocons, as long as America rules over a wasteland devoid of life, we have won.  Neocons are truly insane people, and they are in control of US foreign and military policy.  

That should scare you and wake you up.  But it won’t. The young can’t stop scrolling their cell phones long enough to have any idea of the reality around them.  They already live in a virtual world, disconnected from all reality.  Older Americans say they have heard fears of nuclear war all their lives and it is never going to happen because there can be no winners.  This is a very unsophisticated understanding, especially in the face of a US war doctrine that says Washington can win a nuclear war as long as it doesn’t wait beyond 2025 or 2030.

Eric Zuesse, stimulated by Berletic, writes that Washington intends to conquer both China and Russia. See this. The opening battlefield of WW III is the war Washington arranged in Ukraine. 

There is no doubt in my mind that the Russian military is very formidable and is capable of sweeping through NATO in an instant.  The problem for Russia is in the Kremlin where hesitancy and confusion rule.  The Kremlin is unable to get its mind around the fact that Washington is insane.  Putin actually thought that Washington would accept Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine as it was limited to the  protection of the Donbass Russians.  Putin and his foreign minister are so insouciant that they believed Washington would allow them to conduct a limited operation confined to cleansing Donbass of Ukrainian Nazis.  

How does the world’s most predominant military power make such a mistake?  The only answer I can come up with is that America’s  brainwashing of the Russian intellectual class during the Yeltsin years has made Russian leadership, deaf, dumb, and blind. One is tempted to add stupid.  Russia’s leaders–Putin, Lavrov–correctly describe the situation, but they cannot bring themselves to do anything about it.  Talk is plentiful but action is rare. Apparently the Kremlin is going to continue to sell the energy to NATO countries so that NATO can continue the war on Russia.  To paraphrase Alain de Lille in the 11th century, not sovereignty now, but money is all. This appears to hold for Russia.

Zuesse who is as as honest as a leftlwinger can be, is not always reliable. The left have their own myths about Reagan, and here is Zuesse’s statement of one of them:

“I have documented that the plan by America’s Government was instead to fool Russia’s Government [Gorbachev] to believe that America ended the Cold War on our side at the same time when Russia ended its side of the Cold War in 1991, but that the U.S. Government was actually planning instead to surround Russia by increasing NATO, right up to Russia’s borders.”

I suppose the truth of Zuesse’s statement depends on who is the US government.  Is it the President or the neoconservatives and the military/security complex?

If the government is the President as the representative of the people, I know for a fact that President Reagan’s intent was to end, not win, the cold war.

He told us this over and over. He formed a top secret presidential committee  with authority over the CIA in order to have independent opinion of the CIA’s assertion that the US would  lose an arms race if used to bring Russia with her broken economy to the negotiating table. Reagan’s plan was that once his supply-side policy had eliminated America’s stagflation, America’s restored economy would bury Russia’s broken and unrepairable economy in an arms race.  The point of the threatened arms race was to bring Gorbachev to the negotiation table to end the Cold War, not to win an arms race.

We investigated the CIA’s documents and reported to President Reagan that it was a case of the CIA protecting its budget and its power.  If Reagan dismantled the Cold War, without an enemy the CIA’a budget along with that of the Military Security Complex’s budget would be defenseless at their high levels.

Ronald Reagan was an outsider to the Republican Establishment, represented at that time by George H. W. Bush, vice president and former director of the CIA. Reagan was seen as a challenge to the Republican Establishment’s control of the Republican Party.  Eight years of Reagan followed by eight years of Jack Kemp meant the end of the Republican Establishment that serves organized interests.  Political parties are concerned with power and control, not with the national interest. Here was Reagan, and his few supporters in his administration, challenging the power and profit of the vested interests for the sake of world peace.

The American media, whores to the CIA, started on us.  But it didn’t fit. The narrative wasn’t yet constructed. James Baker, the principal operative of George H. W. Bush, admitted that he promised Gorbachev no movement east of NATO.  But there is no written signed document, so the story was changed by later Washington administrations. 

Zuesse misses the true story, because he succumbs to ideology and is unable to understand that Reagan, like Trump, was an outsider who brought hope that the political system could be restored to the people’s control.

The American media and the American leftwing made sure that this did not happen.

Consequently, we now face nuclear Armageddon.  It is only a tick away unless Putin decides to surrender.

The Republicans are helpless.  Their goal is to make America great again, which plays into the neoconservatives’ agenda of US hegemony.

To deal with the challenges America faces requires awareness of the facts, but facts are no longer politically correct. They don’t fit the narratives and, therefore, are untrue and dismissed as misinformation.

In my lifetime I have watched my country descend into degeneracy, ignorance, and evil.  The nation into which I was born does not exist except as a geographical location.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

Featured image is from Stop the War Coalition

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.

***

Sri Lanka, an island-nation of 22 million people, has been the center of political and economic turmoil since the United National Party government defaulted on $51 billion in foreign debt during May.

For months the country has experienced severe shortages of fuel, food and other commodities amid an inflationary spiral.

Motorists have lined up for blocks to get fuel and cooking oil. A failed agricultural fertilizer policy has been cited as the cause behind the decline in agricultural production.

The shortages of fuel have hampered the production and marketing of agricultural products such as tea which is exported from Sri Lanka. Due to the lack of fuel, trucks which transport these agricultural commodities for internal marketing and export have been drastically reduced.

Workers and small business operators have lined up sometimes for two days in order to purchase limited amounts of fuel. On June 28, the now ousted government of President Rajapaksa placed a ban on the distribution and purchase of fuel for reasons considered non-essential. However, people in the urban areas continued to queue for extended periods of time. Some were eventually given a token promising to fulfill their needs for gasoline and cooking oil at some future date.

The shortages of food have caused many Sri Lankans to reduce their diets to consuming only one meal per day. Schools have been shut down due to transportation issues. As a result of the high rate of inflation, the value of the national currency, the rupee, has continued to slide downwards. This set of circumstances has drained the country’s foreign reserves to just over $US1 billion.

Earlier in July, thousands of angry protesters stormed the residences of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, taking over control of the palace while helping themselves to food, luxurious furniture and a swimming pool. Rajapaksa, a member of a powerful political family in Sri Lanka, fled to Singapore where he later resigned the presidency with an e-mail to the parliament.

Rajapaksa appointed Ranil Wickremesinghe, the prime minister, as temporary president. Wickremesinghe’s home was also entered and subjected to arson attacks which did extensive damage.

On July 20, through a parliamentary secret ballot, Wickremesinghe was elected as the new president pledging to work with other political forces to improve the economic plight of the people. Wickremesinghe had served on five other occasions in the position of prime minister of Sri Lanka.

Several hundred demonstrators soon gathered in the commercial center of Colombo to express their dismay towards the actions of the parliament. Some of the protesters demanded the immediate resignation of Wickremesinghe who has for many years maintained political ties with the Rajapaksa family.

In a report on the installation of Wickremesinghe published by the Associated Press, one activist was quoted as saying:

“’We are very sad, very disappointed with the 225 parliament members who we elected to speak for us, which they have not done,’ said Visaka Jayawware, a performance artist in the crowd. ‘We will keep fighting for the people of Sri Lanka. We have to ask for a general election.’… ‘The struggle will continue until our demands are met. Wickremesinghe ‘doesn’t have a mandate to rule the country,’ said Nemel Jayaweera, a human resources professional. ‘We will oppose him.’” ()

The current social and economic conditions in Sri Lanka provide a strong indication of the extent of the world capitalist crisis. As a developing post-colonial state having gained its independence from British colonialism in 1948 after 133 (1815-1948) years of imperialist domination, Sri Lanka has struggled to overcome the divisions based upon ethnicity and the class structures inherited from Britain.

Several states throughout Africa and Asia are facing similar challenges in their attempts to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequent economic distresses. Even the leading industrialized countries of Western Europe and North America are undergoing sharp rises in inflation and the threat of yet another recession.

In the capitalist states of Britain and the U.S., the administrations of President Joe Biden and outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson have failed to win a favorable opinion rating by the majority of the electorate in these countries. Divisions within the legislative and judicial branches of government in the U.S. have rendered the Democratic Party program of limited social reforms null-and-void.

Consequently, it should not be surprising to witness the unraveling of administrations in developing countries. These economic factors combined with the threat of a protracted war between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation on one side against Washington and its NATO allies on the other, has resulted in the escalation of international uncertainty and insecurity.

Sri Lanka has experienced tumultuous conflicts throughout its history. Formerly called Ceylon, the British colonialists deliberately created divisions between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamil population which largely resides in the north and east of the island. Tamils, who are mainly Hindu, were more exposed in the colonial era to Christianity and missionary education. These colonial policies shaped the social class structure of Sri Lanka after independence in 1948.

By July 1983, these simmering tensions exploded leading to a civil war which continued until 2009 when the Sri Lankan army crushed the bases of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant organization seeking the creation of Tamil state in the northeastern region of the island. As a result of the civil war, hundreds of thousands of Tamils fled Sri Lanka taking up residence in other regional and faraway countries.

The Role of the International Monetary Fund

Wickremesinghe in his inaugural address in the Sri Lankan parliament spoke of his desires to negotiate with the IMF over a “bailout” package which could ease the severe economic problems in the country. However, the history of the IMF in such circumstances where developing states are undergoing a major economic recession or depression, has brought about the implementation of austerity measures which adversely impact the workers, poor, women and youth disproportionately.

Many post-colonial states at the time of independence quite often continued the cash crop economic production and trade models developed under imperialist rule. Therefore, the major consuming states in the West which purchase their commodities in hard currencies, can wield tremendous sway over the domestic policies of a given country.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in a June 28 article emphasized:

“Last week, an International Monetary Fund team arrived in Sri Lanka for talks over a $3bn (£2.4bn) bailout deal. The government is also seeking assistance from India and China to import essential items. New Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (now president) said earlier this month the country needed at least $5bn over the next six months to pay for essential goods such as food, fuel and fertilizer. In recent weeks, ministers also called on farmers to grow more rice and gave government officials an extra day off a week to grow food, amid fears of shortages.”

Sri Lanka’s major exports include manufactured garments, tea and other agricultural commodities. The country also relies heavily on tourism which has been down since the pandemic beginning during the early months of 2020.

One source which monitors the Sri Lankan economy says:

“The latest available country-specific data shows that about two-thirds (66.3%) of products exported from Sri Lanka were bought by importers in: United States of America (24.8% of the global total), United Kingdom (8.9%), India (6.1%), Germany (5.7%), Italy (4.5%), Belgium (2.93%), Netherlands (2.87%), China (2.4%), Canada (2.11%), Turkey (2.1%), United Arab Emirates (2%) and Japan (1.9%)…. Another key indicator of a country’s economic performance is its unemployment rate. Sri Lanka’s unemployment rate averaged 5.3% for 2021 down from an average 5.5% in 2020, according to metrics from the International Monetary Fund. Sri Lanka’s administrative capital city is Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, while the island country’s commercial capital is Colombo.”

Whatever structural adjustment plans that are imposed on Sri Lanka by the IMF will not satisfy the needs of the majority of working people, youth and national minorities. The inevitable failure of this approach to the escalating world crisis within the capitalist states will be replicated in other geopolitical regions of the world.

The opposition parties in Sri Lanka are divided over which course to take in the crisis. Several left-oriented parties have in the recent period worked in alliances which have won a small number of seats in parliament. Although the country during the 1950s and 1960s played a significant role in the non-aligned and socialist-oriented movements, in recent years Sri Lanka has been dominated by neo-liberal political interests as represented by the Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe UNP administrations, who have maintained close ties with the military.

Facing a similar crisis, within the Southern African state of Zambia, a major producer of copper, the government defaulted in late 2020 on its international obligations to the global financial interests. The recent change of government inside the country has not impacted the need to seek relief from the IMF. See this.

People throughout the world should pay special attention to the situation in Sri Lanka since its outcome will portend much for both industrialized and developing countries. The deepening contradictions within the capitalist system are resulting in horrendous conditions for working and oppressed peoples globally. Consequently, an international movement is required to respond based upon the interests of the majority of people throughout the world.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: People taking selfies in Gotagogama. (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

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.

***

No longer just an ‘alternative route’ on a drawing board, the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) is paying dividends in a time of global crisis. And Moscow, Tehran and New Delhi are now leading players in the Eurasian competition for transportation routes.

Tectonic shifts continue to rage through the world system with nation-states quickly recognizing that the “great game” as it has been played since the establishment of the Bretton Woods monetary system in the wake of the second World War, is over.

But empires never disappear without a fight, and the Anglo-American one is no exception, overplaying its hand, threatening and bluffing its way, right to the end.

End of an order

It seems no matter how many sanctions the west imposes on Russia, the victims most affected are western civilians. Indeed, the severity of this political blunder is such that the nations of the trans-Atlantic are heading towards the greatest self-induced food and energy crisis in history.

While the representatives of the “liberal rules-based international order” continue on their trajectory to crush all nations that refuse to play by those rules, a much saner paradigm has come to light in recent months that promises to transform the global order entirely.

The multipolar solution

Here we see the alternative security-financial order which has arisen in the form of the Greater Eurasian Partnership. As recently as 30 June at the 10th St Petersburg International Legal Forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin described this emerging new multipolar order as:

“A multipolar system of international relations is now being formed. It is an irreversible process; it is happening before our eyes and is objective in nature. The position of Russia and many other countries is that this democratic, more just world order should be built on the basis of mutual respect and trust, and, of course, on the generally accepted principles of international law and the UN Charter.”

Since the inevitable cancellation of western trade with Russia after the Ukraine conflict erupted in February, Putin has increasingly made clear that the strategic re-orientation of Moscow’s economic ties from east to west had to make a dramatically new emphasis on north to south and north to east relations not only for Russia’s survival, but for the survival of all Eurasia.

Among the top strategic focuses of this re-orientation is the long overdue International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).

On this game-changing mega-project, Putin said last month during the plenary session of the 25th St Petersburg International Economic Forum:

“To help companies from other countries develop logistical and cooperation ties, we are working to improve transport corridors, increase the capacity of railways, trans-shipment capacity at ports in the Arctic, and in the eastern, southern and other parts of the country, including in the Azov-Black Sea and Caspian basins – they will become the most important section of the North-South Corridor, which will provide stable connectivity with the Middle East and Southern Asia. We expect freight traffic along this route to begin growing steadily in the near future.”

The INSTC’s Phoenix Moment

Until recently, the primary trade route for goods passing from India to Europe has been the maritime shipping corridor passing through the Bab El-Mandeb Strait linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea, via the highly bottlenecked Suez Canal, through the Mediterranean and onward to Europe via ports and rail/road corridors.

Following this western-dominated route, average transit times take about 40 days to reach ports of Northern Europe or Russia. Geopolitical realities of the western technocratic obsession with global governance have made this NATO-controlled route more than a little unreliable.

The International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC)

Despite being far from complete, goods moving across the INSTC from India to Russia have already finished their journey 14 days sooner than their Suez-bound counterparts while also seeing a whopping 30 percent reduction in total shipping costs.

These figures are expected to fall further as the project progresses. Most importantly, the INSTC would also provide a new basis for international win-win cooperation much more in harmony with the spirit of geo-economics unveiled by China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013.

Cooperation not competition

Originally agreed upon by Russia, Iran and India in September 2000, the INSTC only began moving in earnest in 2002 – albeit much more slowly than its architects had hoped.

This 7,200 km multimodal megaproject involves integrating several Eurasian nations directly or indirectly with rail, roads and shipping corridors into a united and tight-knit web of interdependency. Along each artery, opportunities to build energy projects, mining, and high tech special economic zones (SEZs) will abound giving each participating nation the economic power to lift their people out of poverty, increase their stability and their national power to chart their own destinies.

Beyond the founding three nations, the other 10 states who have signed onto this project over the years include Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Syria and even Ukraine (although this last member may not remain on board for long). In recent months, India has officially invited Afghanistan and Uzbekistan to join too.

While western think tanks and geopolitical analysts attempt to frame the INSTC as an opponent to China’s BRI, the reality is that both systems are extremely synergistic on multiple levels.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

Unlike the west’s speculation-driven bubble economy, both the BRI and INSTC define economic value and self-interest around improving the productivity and living standards of the real economy. While short term thinking predominates in the myopic London-Wall Street paradigm, the BRI and INSTC investment strategies are driven by long-term thinking and mutual self-interest.

It is no small irony that such policies once animated the best traditions of the west before the rot of unipolar thinking took over and the west lost its moral compass.

An integrated alternative

The INSTC’s two major bookends are the productive zone of Mumbai in India’s Southeast region of Gujarat and the northern-most Arctic port of Lavna in Russia’s Kola Peninsula of Murmansk.

This is not only the first port constructed by Russia in decades, but when completed, will be one of the world’s largest commercial ports with an expected capacity to process 80 million tons of goods by 2030.

The Lavna Port is an integral part of Russia’s Arctic and Far East Development vision and is a central piece to Russia’s current Comprehensive Plan for Modernization and Expansion of Main Infrastructure and its Northern Sea Route which is expected to see a five-fold increase of Arctic freight traffic over the coming years. These projects are integrally linked to China’s Polar Silk Road.

Between these bookends, the INSTC moves freight from India into Iran’s Port of Bandar Abbas where it is loaded onto double-tracked rail to the Iranian city of Bafq and then to Tehran before coming to the Anzali Port on the southern Caspian Sea.

‘Be like water’

Because the INSTC is based on a flexible design concept capable of adapting to a changing geopolitical environment (very much like the BRI), there are a multitude of connecting lines that branch off the main North-South artery before goods make it to the Caspian Sea.

These include an eastern and western corridor branching off from the city of Bafq towards Turkey and thence Europe via the Bosporus and also eastward from Tehran to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and thereafter into Urumqi in China.

Railway is still relevant

From the Anzali Port in the north of Iran, goods may travel by the Caspian Sea towards Russia’s Astrakhan Port where it is then loaded onto trains and trucks for transport to Moscow, St Petersburg and Murmansk. Inversely goods may also travel over land to Azerbaijan where the 35 km Iran Rasht-Caspian railway is currently under construction with 11 km completed as of this writing.

Once completed, the line will connect the Port of Anzali with Azerbaijan’s Baku, offering goods a chance to either continue onwards to Russia or westward toward Europe. A Tehran-Baku rail route already exists.

Additionally, Azerbaijan and Iran are currently collaborating on a vast $2 billion rail line connecting the 175 km Qazvin-Rasht railway which began operations in 2019 with a strategic rail line connecting Iran’s Rasht port on the Caspian to the Bandar Abbas Complex in the south (to be completed in 2025). Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Rostam Ghasemi described this project in January 2022 saying:

“Iran’s goal is to connect to the Caucasus, Russia, and European countries. For this purpose, the construction of the Rasht-Astara railway is in the spotlight. During the Iranian president’s visit to Russia, discussions were conducted in this regard, and construction of the railway line is expected to begin soon with the allocation of needed funds.”

In recent months, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has lobbied to incorporate the joint Iran-India built Chabahar Port into the INSTC which will likely occur since another 628 km rail line from the port to the Iranian city of Zahedan is currently under construction.

Once completed, goods will easily move onward to the city of Bafq. While some critics have suggested that the Chabahar Port is antagonistic to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, Iranian officials have constantly referred to it as Chabahar’s twin sister.

Since 2014, a vast rail and transportation complex has grown around the co-signers of the Ashkabat Agreement (launched in 2011 and upgraded several times over the past decade). These rail networks include the 917.5 km Iran-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan route launched in 2014, and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan rail/energy project launched in 2016 which is currently seeing extensions that could easily go into Pakistan.

In December 2021, the 6540 km Islamabad to Istanbul rail line (via Iran) recommenced operationsafter a decade of inaction. This route cuts the conventional sea transit route time of 21 days by half. Discussions are already underway to extend the line from Pakistan into China’s Xinjiang Province linking the INSTC ever more closely into the BRI on yet another front.

Islamabad to Istanbul rail line (via Iran)

Finally, June 2022 saw the long-awaited unveiling of the 6108 km Kazakhstan-Iran-Turkey rail linewhich provides an alternative route to the under-developed Middle Corridor. Celebrating the inaugural 12 day voyage of cargo, Kazakhstan’s President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev stated: “Today, we welcomed the container train, which left Kazakhstan a week ago. Then it will go to Turkey. This is a significant event, given the difficult geopolitical conditions.”

Despite the fact that the INSTC is over 20 years old, global geopolitical dynamics, regime change wars, and ongoing economic warfare against Iran, Syria and other US target states did much to harm the sort of stable geopolitical climate needed to emit large scale credit requisite for long term projects like this to succeed.

Caspian Summit Security breakthroughs

As proof that necessity truly is the mother of invention, the systemic meltdown of the entire post-WW2 edifice has forced reality to take precedence over the smaller-minded concerns that kept the diverse nations of Sir Halford John Mackinder’s “World Island” from cooperating. Among these points of endless conflict and stagnation which has upset great economic potential over the course of three decades, the Caspian zone stands out.

It is in this oil and natural gas rich hub that the five Caspian littoral states (Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) have found a power to break through on multi-level security, economic and diplomatic agreements throughout the June 29-30, 2022 Sixth Caspian Summit in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

This summit placed a high priority on the INSTC with the region becoming both a north-south and east-west transportation hub. Most importantly, the leaders of the five littoral states made their final communique center around the region’s security since it is obvious that divide-to-conquer tactics will be deployed using every tool in the asymmetrical warfare tool basket going forward.

Chief among the agreed-upon principles were indivisible security, mutual cooperation, military cooperation, respect for national sovereignty, and non-interference. Most importantly, the banning of foreign military from the land and waters of the Caspian states was firmly established.

While no final agreement was reached over the disputed ownership of resources within the base of the Caspian, the stage was set for harmonization of partner states’ security doctrines, a healthy environment was established for the second Caspian Economic Summit which will take place in Autumn of this year and which will hopefully resolve many of the disputes pertaining to Caspian resource ownership.

Although geopolitical storms continue to intensify, it is increasingly clear that only the multipolar ship of state has demonstrated the competence to navigate the hostile seas, while the sinking unipolar ship of fools has a ruptured hull held together by little more than chewing gum and heavy doses of delusion.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published The Cradle.

Matthew Ehret the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , and Senior Fellow at the American University in Moscow. He is author of the ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series and Clash of the Two Americas trilogy. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Cradle

The Clash of the Two Americas

Vol. 1 & 2

by Matthew Ehret

In his new two volume series The Clash of the Two Americas, Matthew Ehret introduces a new analysis of American history from the vantage point that the globally-extended supranational shadow government that managed the British Empire was never fully defeated and has acted within the USA itself since 1776 as a continuous multi-generational fifth column managing every significant event and assassination of American presidents for the next 250 years.

Click here to order.

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.

***

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.

***

Philip Giraldi recently wrote a piece on Joe Biden’s secret war in Ukraine which can be read here.

He quoted US President Joe Biden, talking to US troops belonging to the 82^nd Airborne division in Poland, saying “You’re going to see when you’re there, and some of you have been there, you’re gonna see —” and argued that it was

“an admission that US forces are already in place inside Ukraine even though the White House quickly did damage control, asserting that the president continues to be opposed to American soldiers being directly engaged in the fighting.”

Watch his interview below.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This video was originally published on Judge Napolitano – Judging Freedom.

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

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

Big Pharma Wants to Put an End to Vitamins and Supplements

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, July 20, 2022

One of the latest attempts to thwart your ability to access nutritional supplements comes in the form of draft legislation that would require premarket approval for dietary supplements. In short, it would require supplements — which are food — to undergo the same approval process as drugs.

The Joe Biden MBS Crown Prince Confrontation: Biden’s Failed Attempt to Turn Saudi Arabia Against Russia

By Ahmed Adel, July 20, 2022

During his visit to Jeddah on July 15, American President Joe Biden tried to convince his Saudi partners to increase oil production and delivery in order to inflict economic damage on Russia and turn the Arab country towards an anti-Moscow policy. Instead, Biden’s visit to the Red Sea city was a complete disaster, just as his administration’s foreign policy has been.

Rescuing Authentic and Peace-Loving Islam from the Hijacking of Violent Religious Extremism

By Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu, July 20, 2022

Factually speaking, the current global terrorism that is presently sponsored by so-called “Islamist” extremists and violent “jihadists” are targeted towards both the non-Muslims and the Muslims alike. Muslims who do not adhere to the extremists’ violent ideology are considered enemies of this so-called “Islamist” extremists.

A Strategy for “Them” by Tony Blair

By Keith Lamb, July 20, 2022

Blair then moved to the recommendation of propping up a transatlantic strategy, with the US at the head, against China which he believes threatens Western systems and is competing against the West aggressively. First, why should any proud European submit to the US? Second, it’s not China sending a flotilla of warships through the English Channel. Where then is this China threat?

Damascus and the Kurds Align Militarily to Face the Turkish Threat

By Steven Sahiounie, July 20, 2022

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northeastern region of Syria have raised up the Syrian flag which represents the government in Damascus for the first time in years.  The SDF have been partnered with the US military in the fight against ISIS, but are now facing an even bigger and existential threat from Turkey.

The Assange Persecution: British Courts and Media… Guilty! Free Julian Assange!

By Brett Redmayne-Titley, July 20, 2022

The months-long extradition hearings of Julian Assange, a trial that will forever define modern journalism, have been shamelessly whitewashed by British media.  Too few news agencies reported on the utter abrogation of judicial Due Process and The Rule of Law exhibited in a British courtroom against an innocent fellow journalist.

The Future of Food? Genetic Engineering, Value Capture and Dependency

By Colin Todhunter, July 20, 2022

GM crops are required to feed the world is a well-worn industry slogan trotted out at every available opportunity. Just like the claim of GM crops being a tremendous success, this too is based on a myth.

Famine in Africa: Millions on the Verge of Starvation? What Are the Causes?

By Abayomi Azikiwe, July 20, 2022

There has been a deteriorating situation within various African states related to the impact of drought and the consequent lack of food for hundreds of millions of people. These events on the continent cannot be analyzed separately from the broader international economic and security crises which has impacted the ability of the existing global markets to provide adequate food to the peoples of the world.

An Overview of the Asia-Pacific War 80 Years Ago, Japan Headed for Total Defeat

By Shane Quinn, July 20, 2022

Eight decades ago, the Asia-Pacific War officially began on the morning of Sunday 7 December 1941, with Japan’s military attack on the American-controlled Pearl Harbor naval base at Oahu, Hawaii. This region is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 2,400 miles away from the nearest point of the United States mainland coast, at San Francisco, California.

History: ‘A Possible Coup’ Against the Labour Government?

By Richard Norton-Taylor, July 20, 2022

Allegations that MI5 officers and sections of the media sought to bring down Britain’s Labour government in the 1960s and 70s have resurfaced, raising fresh questions about plots that remain hidden behind a wall of official secrecy.

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.

***

Assistant Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade tells Sky News that his crews are battling fires across the Capital.

It comes after the UK recorded a temperature above 40C for the first time ever.

What are the underlying causes? 

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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.

***

During his visit to Jeddah on July 15, American President Joe Biden tried to convince his Saudi partners to increase oil production and delivery in order to inflict economic damage on Russia and turn the Arab country towards an anti-Moscow policy. Instead, Biden’s visit to the Red Sea city was a complete disaster, just as his administration’s foreign policy has been.

Following the US president’s three-day tour of Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which began on July 13 with an emphasis on restoring relations with the important Middle Eastern power and world’s largest oil exporter, commentators and experts noted Biden’s failure.

Washington attempted to get Middle Eastern countries to oppose Moscow over its military operation against Ukraine, but this was to no avail. The US’s traditional partners did not support its policy towards Kiev; not only did Saudi Arabia refuse Biden’s recent demands, but it is recalled that the UAE abstained and did not vote for the anti-Russian resolution proposed by the US in the UN Security Council.

Biden wanted the Middle East, especially the Saudis and the Emiratis, to increase oil supplies at low prices. The US president​ and G7 countries hoped that a lack of Russian oil would be compensated by oil from these countries.

In addition, Biden hoped that his Middle East tour would signal his promise that the US would remain active in the region so as not to allow Russia, China and even Iran to take its place. Following the Donald Trump administration, the US felt that its presence in the Middle East was weakened and that Russia, China and Iran have advanced.

Along with the American military bases dotted all across the Middle East, Washington provides significant financial support to a number of key countries, primarily Israel, but also Egypt. As Egypt is a crossroads between Africa and Asia, Egypt has continued to receive significant US support. The US also promised support to Jordan in the shape of weapons and training of military personnel. But this has not translated into anti-Moscow policies by these states.

What was evident though is that Biden did not prepare correctly for his Middle East tour. The American president went to a country that he promised would be ostracised on the international stage, and then accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (MBS) of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

MBS, who will inevitably become the king of Saudi Arabia in the near future, denied responsibility for Khashoggi’s 2018 killing at the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul despite Biden claiming that US intelligence contradicted his claims. The Crown prince countered Biden with the sexual and physical abuse of prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison by US military personnel and the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank by Israeli forces.

In even greater damage to Biden’s failed visit to Saudi Arabia, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi foreign minister, said:

“The Crown Prince responded to President Biden’s remarks on … Khashoggi after quite clearly — that this crime, while very unfortunate and abhorrent, is something that the kingdom took very seriously (and) acted upon in a way commiserate with its position as a responsible country. These are issues, mistakes that happen in any country, including the US. The Crown Prince pointed out that the US has made its own mistakes and has taken the necessary action to hold those responsible accountable and address these mistakes just as the kingdom has.”

What Biden’s failed visit to Saudi Arabia showed to many in the Middle East is that the current US administration is incapable of conducting foreign policy.

Biden’s failures are obviously mirrored in the US, where Biden’s popularity is crashing. According to the latest CNN poll conducted by SSRS, Biden has reached the lowest ratings in his political career. His current approval rating, according to CNN, is 38%, with disapproval standing at 62%.

Given Biden’s own unpopularity in the US, partly because he insults the intelligence of American citizens by falsely claiming that Russia is to blame for soaring inflation and living costs, it is unsurprising that non-Americans are also finding the American president intolerable.

It is recalled that Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir stated that an agreement on oil had not been reached and that the OPEC countries will make a decision in their early August meeting based on the market, “not on speculations, not on hysteria, not on geopolitics.” Effectively OPEC announced that it will not be turned into anti-Russia vehicle for the US to use.

Biden was advised not to go to the Middle East, but his administration is desperate to restore relations with Saudi Arabia. This Middle East trip should be the biggest wake up call to Biden that the extremely short-lived unipolar world order is over and that states are not only capable of acting independently now, but are more boldly willing to do so.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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.

***

A measurable unit of true geopolitical power is assessed through economy, finances, military, technologies and other parameters. Being able to exert more power than others has always been the driving force behind all changes in human history. Resources are essential for a (super)power to be able to portray its system as superior (and impose it elsewhere). Whoever gets the largest amount of resources nearly always comes on top. Depending on how these resources are then redistributed, leading powers can be seen as beneficial or malignant for the world. Naturally, there are many gray areas in-between.

Our planet has been through many global and regional stages, which modern-day historians classify using the prefix “Pax” to describe times when certain powers dominate(d) regions or even the world. Thus, in historiography, we regularly use terminology such as “Pax Romana” (Ancient Roman dominance), “Pax Mongolica” (Mongol), “Pax Hispanica” (Spanish), “Pax Britannica” (British), etc. The term itself in this context can be rather confusing at times, as it literally means “peace” in Latin. This usually doesn’t include actual peace, as most of the aforementioned empires engaged in policies which often led to the death, destruction and genocide of indigenous societies they targeted for conquest. Additionally, the power of imperial entities usually didn’t extend beyond their immediate region, making it possible for them to coexist, with little to no interaction (i.e. the Roman Empire and Ancient China).

However, with the rapid technological advances of the last two centuries, empires have become more powerful, seeking dominance beyond regional borders, paving the way for the rise of true global (super)powers. The British Empire is often considered the first global empire, as it was able to control much of the world through its naval power. Although the “Pax Britannica” effectively collapsed after WWII, many think it survived in the form of “Pax Americana”, the US global dominance. Although the belligerent thalassocracy in Washington DC rejects the term, seeking to distance itself from the negative connotations of the extremely damaging Western colonialism, it’s nearly impossible to escape this analogy, no matter how many layers of apparent “independence” America gives to its numerous satellites.

The “benefits” of “Pax Americana” are felt all across the globe on a daily basis, as the US has invaded and dismantled dozens of sovereign countries, leaving death, destruction and chaos in its wake. To defend themselves, many countries resorted to building strong militaries, often at the expense of socio-economic development. Others renounced their sovereignty, completely or partially, to get a better standing within “Pax Americana” or even get “their piece of cake”.

This is how “Pax Americana” differs from other stages of imperial dominance. Entities under occupation usually aren’t part of the US legally speaking, but it’s quite clear who’s in charge. This also explains why these formally “independent” countries often employ internal and foreign policies which not only aren’t in their interest, but actively go against it, causing long-term damage. The imperial metropole doesn’t care what happens to its vassals, as long as it profits.

With this predatory system behind most world problems, a need for a fairer and more stable global system emerged. Instead of having “one master to rule them all”, this new system allows the existence of multiple power poles which get to keep their respective value systems and vision of future development. This certainly doesn’t exclude cooperation on the highest level, but it does protect the true diversity of our planet – the diversity of civilizations, ideas and peoples coexisting peacefully.

As we all know, it’s called multipolarism, practically embodied in the form of BRICS+. Encompassing the vast majority of the world population, along with actual, measurable economic power, BRICS isn’t simply a rival to the political West. Most alarmingly for the imperialist power pole, it offers clear alternatives (economic, financial, technological, security, etc.), as well as a level of strategic independence the political West would never accept.

In this regard, Russia’s military might or China’s economic power aren’t the only perceived existential threats to the political West. The true threat is precisely the alternative they can offer, shielded by their power, ensuring sovereignty and independence, two of the greatest geopolitical challenges for the so-called “rules-based world order”. Middle Eastern trips by Putin and Biden clearly show which system is preferable to the world. As Biden failed to accomplish anything in Saudi Arabia, Putin signed a massive $40-billion gas deal with Iran, in addition to other agreements, including complete dedollarization of Russia-Iran trade.

For its part, the US is openly threatening Iran with yet another war in the Middle East. The excuse is Iran’s nuclear program, but the real reason is precisely the BRICS+ alternative which would nullify sanctions. To make matters worse for the imperialist thalassocracies, this alternative is spreading like wildfire to countries whose socio-economic development has been hampered by the political West. Once this happens, the multipolar world will negate any possibility of aggression against these countries, depriving the political West of its plunder-based system.

While countries like Russia, Brazil, Iran, etc. offer essential commodities and natural resources, China and India offer manufactured goods which make our world work. In stark contrast to this stands the political West, with its incessant wars, coups and instability on the global level, all done to sustain what Russian President Vladimir Putin defined as “the economy of imaginary entities”. This is certainly true, as the political West produces very little in terms of actual value for the world. Quite the opposite, it keeps printing its fiat currencies and using this effectively worthless paper to obtain actual commodities which others need to extract and/or build. And any attempt to break the chains may cost entire countries their sovereignty or even existence. Precisely BRICS+ is neutralizing this system as we speak.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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.

***

Factually speaking, the current global terrorism that is presently sponsored by so-called “Islamist” extremists and violent “jihadists” are targeted towards both the non-Muslims and the Muslims alike. Muslims who do not adhere to the extremists’ violent ideology are considered enemies of this so-called “Islamist” extremists. Religious extremists have killed thousands and thousands of innocent lives, both Muslims and non-Muslims without conscience and without humane compassion. These extremists are hijacking the basic tenets of the peaceful and universal religion of Islam and seek to destroy its 1,443 glorious years of cosmopolitan, multicultural, pluralistic and tolerant Islamicate civilization.

We need to move away from Samuel Huntington’s skewed and erroneous scenario of “clash of civilizations” between non-Muslims and Muslims since these different terrorist groups of so-called “Islamist extremists” and violent jihadists do not represent the peace-loving religion of Islam as presented in the Qur’an and in the exemplary conduct of the founder of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad. Terrorists are simply terrorists and they do not represent the religion they self-identify with; no matter how these terrorists vehemently declare themselves as protectors of these religions. Religious extremism of all types is an enemy to all peace-loving human beings. Truthfully speaking, so-called “religious” terrorists have no religion since their murderous actions strongly belie their own self-identification to belong to a particular religion.

Religious extremism, specifically the so-called “Islamist” type has a naïve, simplistic and violent-prone bifurcated worldview. Religious extremists partition the world into “Dar-ul-Islam” (Realm of Islam) and “Dar-ul-Harb” (Realm of War) in which there is unending conflict between these two realms. However, in their terroristic acts, even the so-called Realm of Islam is likewise the domain of the extremists’ commission of murder, violence and wanton destruction. Innocent civilian Muslims living in Islamic countries are not immune from attacks by violent extremism. Observing news depicting terroristic attacks worldwide, one can notice that most of the victims of terroristic attacks done by extremists who call themselves mujahidins (jihadists) were innocent Muslim civilians in predominantly Muslim countries.

Many violent religious extremist and jihadist groups justify their attacks on Muslims in predominantly Islamic countries by saying that these Muslims have become kafirs (unbelievers) and the government as well as leaders of these countries are purveyors of kufr (apostasy) since these regimes in these Muslim countries do not adhere to the violent-prone ideology of these religious extremists. This is why religious terrorists target progressive, secular and socialist leaders of Islamic countries who adhere to a view of Islam that is peace-loving, cosmopolitan, pluralistic, inclusive and tolerant: the genuine Islam of the Qur’an and the practice of the Prophet Muhammad.

It is really very sad to note that religious extremists and jihadists have threatened to destroy the wholesome fabric of Islamic civilization and the cosmopolitanism characterizing the tolerant and diversified Islamicate heritage of worldwide Muslims. These violent religious extremists are destroying the enlightened classical Sunni Islamic civilization famous in world history for its culture of synthesis, universal education, progressive pioneering of development in the sciences, literature, mathematics, philosophy and arts, as well as its advocacy of pluralism and tolerance. These extremist groups have totally thrown-out the regulative Qur’anic principles governing just and defensive warfare, the peace-loving Islamic ethics and the Islamic civilization’s history of tolerance and toleration. These violent extremist groups who claim to be Muslims victimize the vast majority of peace-loving Muslims by committing terroristic acts against innocent Muslim civilians in many Muslim countries who do not subscribe to religious violence and terrorism.

The true goal of any authentic faith-tradition is ultimately geared towards universality, tolerance, amity and harmony. Authentic religion awakens in its adherents the feelings of well-wishing and goodwill towards other human beings. Its exponents strive peacefully to pass on the truth that they have discovered for the benefit of their fellow humans. Such religion, far from causing harm to society, becomes a driving force towards ethical and social development of all humanity if utilized for beneficial ends (Cf. Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, The Age of Peace. New Delhi: Good Word Books, 2015; pp.1-26.). 

However, when a particular faith-tradition is hijacked into becoming a violent movement based on pure animosity and hatred, the adherents of this violent movement would consider those who are not like-minded to be enemies. They have an overpowering desire to exterminate the religious “other”. They hold that the “others” are the obstacles to their avowed goal of global hegemony and they seek to destroy religious “otherness” so that they can put their own belief-system as replacement. As a result of this negative thinking, they divide humanity into two camps: one consisting of their enemies, and the other of their allies. The moment they have made this distinction between “us-and-them”, right thereafter, they permit their avowed hatred for the “other” to conflagrate into virulent and bloody violence against the religious “other” (See Marc H. Ellis. Unholy Alliance: Religion and Atrocity in our Time. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997; pp. xi-xvii.). 

To make matters worse, the hatred felt by religious militancy or violent extremism has become inseparable from its theology and ideology. They hate others who think differently from themselves because they hold them to be ideologically in error and theologically heretical. Experience shows that of all kinds of hatred that is based on an ideology, more particularly those that are based on religious dogmatism or fanaticism are the most destructive—and its target is the total annihilation of enemies. Not until this very end is achieved will violence ever die down. This is the reason why ideological hatred always assumes the shape of violence and destruction. When it is found that peaceful means of persuasion are showing no results, arms are then resorted to, so that all enemies may be removed from its path. (Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, What Is Islamic Fundamentalism?. Op.cit., pp.19-20.). 

According to the contemporary renowned Islamic pacifist of India, the late Maulana Wahiduddin Khan Sahib (1925-2021), any religious extremism is a threat to peace since due to religious fanaticism, its proponents do not stop short of resorting to destructive activity both to others and to themselves such as suicide attacks and indiscriminate bombings of civilian areas. While it is a fact that in these violent activities only a small group is involved, however this small group has indirect or “quasi support” of the majority, who remained silent and did not raise any outcry against such inhumanities in the name of Islam (Cf. Maulana Wahiduddin Khan. Islam and Peace. New Delhi: Good Word Books, pp.164-168.).

Peace-loving Muslims must therefore disown these violent people who simply utilize and hijack Islam to further hatred and political-religious extremism. If the majority of peace-loving Muslims will disown these violent extremists, withdraw their indirect support and outrightly condemn religious extremism and jihadism, these fringe groups will lose their mass base of indirect or “quasi-support”. Consequently, this will be the starting point when religious extremists who are directly involved in violent activities will hopefully begin to abandon the path of violence altogether and embrace the path of peace and amity (Cf. Maulana Wahiduddin Khan. Islam and Peace, Ibid.p.170.).

It is therefore a very urgent task for the Islamic World and for global Muslims to undertake proper information and educational campaign as to the genuine and pristine teachings of Islam by making use of the independent media on a full scale in order to make people aware of the fact that this violent interpretation of Islam—as capitalized by both extremist groups and by Western mainstream media in describing the terroristic activities of so-called Islamic extremists—is absolutely devoid of basis either in the Qur’an or in the examples (As-Sunnah) set by the Prophet Muhammad. As opposed to this misinterpretation, the true values of authentic and peaceful Islam, based on global amity, universal fraternity, goodwill and sincere well-wishing for one-and-all should be presented to the general public by the international independent media, the academe, religious scholars, clergies and international peace advocates. 

If this authentic interpretation of a peace-loving Islam can be brought to the attention of the general masses through responsible international independent media news outfits in cooperation with peaceful Muslims and authentic Islamic groups (jamaat) all over the world, then there is great hope that those who have been espousing violent extremist ideology in the name of Islam will eventually abandon the path of hatred and violence and come back to the genuine Islam of peace and harmony—“to the home of peace” (See Qur-an 6:127 and 10:25) as described in the Qur-an and in the exemplary practice of the Prophet Muhammad. May it be so!

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu is Associate Professor-7 of Philosophy and Asian Studies at the University of the Philippines (UP), Cebu City, Philippines. He was Academic Coordinator of the Political Science Program at UP Cebu from 2011-2014,  and Coordinator of Gender and Development (GAD) Office at UP Cebu from 2015-2016 and from 2018-2019.

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.

***

Recently, Sir Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, gave a speech at the transatlantic banking-funded “Ditchley Foundation”. In this speech, he focused on how a Western strategy should deal with Russia and China in light of the Ukraine conflict.

However, his criticisms and prescriptions are muddied not only by the fact that his conscience should be stained with the worst human rights atrocities of the twenty-first century but also by the fact that his transatlantic elitist outlook is detached from the democratic pulse.

Blair’s actions previously led the world to ruin. He sent Britain’s soldiers to their deaths in the illegal invasion of Iraq which led to the fatality of even more Iraqis. Tragically, as this disaster still plays out, Blair nevertheless finds it conscionable to offer another dose of his “statesmanship”.

Since leaving office, for Blair’s services to “hyper-imperialism” he has been showered with millions. Cocooned by “advisory” jobs with multinational banks and raking in “speaking fees” of over £300,000 per speech it’s easy to see why his worldview is so removed from the masses., Indeed, polls showed only a paltry 14 percent of the British public support his knighthood.

These days at times Blair looks fraught. Perhaps it is the face of a man consumed with repressed guilt. Though, considering the content of Blair’s speech, if there is any guilt, it hasn’t surfaced. Blair’s “clanger” of calling Russia a “member of the UN security council” out over the conflict in Ukraine a “democratic European state” was a prime example of this.

Aside from the bigoted overtones, where he contrasted a European war with ones that occur far away, in presumably more barbaric lands, there was no contemplation on the destruction of Ukraine’s democracy by the US since 2014. There was no mention that NATO was actively sponsoring neo-Nazis, and there was no reflection on Iraq where the very UN members that carried out this atrocity were through NATO edging their way towards Moscow.

Blair then moved to the recommendation of propping up a transatlantic strategy, with the US at the head, against China which he believes threatens Western systems and is competing against the West aggressively. First, why should any proud European submit to the US? Second, it’s not China sending a flotilla of warships through the English Channel. Where then is this China threat?

For Western transatlantic elites, China’s threat is through structures like the Belt and Road Initiative which will develop the world and so decrease the effectiveness of Western military hegemony. For Western citizens, without real democracy, their living standards will continue to decrease. In the short term, Western capitalism competing with rising powers like China may resort to war as a source of distraction, profits, plunder, and geopolitical domination. However, this will spark more trouble at home especially as competing ideologies from rising civilizations show that win-win cooperation through infrastructure development offers a better future for mankind.

Blair wants a united Western front against China to protect democracies. However, this has nothing to do with protecting democracy. The aforementioned united strategy against the Middle East, which Blair advocated in his speech for maintaining control of – “not for the oil” he said – was distinctly undemocratic then as it is now. Likewise, the strategy against China will continue to be in the service of a small transatlantic ruling elite who Blair serves.

In service of this united front, Blair advocates for more military spending where the US maintains its technological military supremacy. Thus, evidently, aside from working for the “banksters”, Blair also has a “side-hustle” shilling for foreign weapons manufacturers who profit from past, present, and future wars.

Despite advocating for an aggressive stance against China, Blair, mentioning a bi-polar world order, did at least say that “China’s place as a superpower is natural and justified.” However, despite this concession, we must consider two things. First, the bi-polar nature of Blair which was evident throughout his barefaced speech. What does the rise of the rest of the world and China mean for Blair when he continues down the line of asserting Western superiority through the barrel of a gun?

Second, China doesn’t want to be a unipolar or bipolar superpower in the conventional Western sense. Indeed, China doesn’t regard this as bringing about the optimum world order which is why China seeks a future of multipolarity where other regions rise too.

Stuck in the elitist Western echo chamber, this basic conceptual difference is lost on Blair. For example, over the last decade, China has been heavily engaged in building infrastructure in the Global South. It is this quest for global development that also leads to multipolarity. In contrast, besides invasion, the West has maintained exploitative unequal economic relations. Despite this, Blair believes the Global South “admire the Western system more than we realize.”

Being a European I am proud to say there are many good things about Western culture, its people, and institutions. For example, through workers’ movements, the West has been at the vanguard of developing welfare systems and its early development led to many inventions.

However, Blair is not representative of “us” he cashed out to “them” long ago. Furthermore, he has used Western technological superiority for immense harm. As such, when he calls for a “Western strategy” he does so not in the name of “us” the Western democratic whole but for “them” a small transatlantic elite.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Keith Lamb is a graduate from the University of Glasgow, Staffordshire University and the University of Oxford. His primary research interests are the international relations of China, neoliberalism and China’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” 

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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.

***

Despite the sanctions that have been illegally imposed on Russia, the West is gradually beginning to realize that to ensure international food security it will be necessary to review the measures implemented so far. Apparently, the European Union is already starting to announce some steps in this direction. According to reports, the European bloc plans to unfreeze some sanctioned Russian funds to allow food and fertilizer transactions to be carried out.

In a recent report, mentioning documents and internal sources, Reuters’s journalists said that Brussels plans to unfreeze some funds from Russian banks to enable trade of food and fertilizers. There is also information about a possible project to promote the facilitation of food exports from Russian ports that have had services to the West suspended due to the packages of sanctions. With this, Europe hopes to secure its part in the trade of the 37 million tons of grain that Moscow plans to export in 2022.

So far, the European bloc has implemented six packages of sanctions against Moscow in response to the recognition of the Donbass’ republics and the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine. Among the coercive measures are financial and banking restrictions that include freezing Russian banks’ funds. European authorities estimate that more than 300 billion dollars in Russian Central Bank’s assets have already been “immobilized” as a result of the sanctions. In addition, Didier Reynders, EU justice commissioner, claims that another 13.8 billion euros belonging to Russian individuals and entities have also been blocked.

These measures obviously harmed the interests of the Europeans. The trade flow between the EU and Moscow is large, intense and dynamic, in addition to including extremely strategic sectors such as energy and agriculture. However, the European bloc, as part of NATO’s military umbrella which is led by the US, has great difficulties in acting sovereignly when its interests collide with those of Washington. In fact, Europe only adhered to the radical anti-Russian economic sanctions because it was not efficient in handling the pressure exerted by its American allies. And it is in this same sense that the situation can now be reversed.

The Europeans are considering reviewing the sanctions just because they have been given a sort of “carte blanche” to do so, as the US recently also authorized a partial review. In early July, the US government eased some anti-Russian coercive measures, authorizing transactions related to fertilizers, seeds and other agricultural items. Deputy Treasury Secretary Ramin Toloui expressed concern about what he called “overcompliance” with the sanctions, which could impact food supplies. Without this precedent, the EU would certainly not have “freedom” to also ease sanctions, despite the fact that the bloc’s leaders have already expressed this desire several times – having their plans frustrated by the geopolitical submission of the Union to the US.

With regard to the US itself, however, it is curious to think about the reasons that led the government to ease the measures. Obviously, there is no such thing as an “overcompliance”. Measures are imposed to be complied with. If the effects of compliance are negative, then it means that the measures themselves are negative and should be banned. The US government always knew that these would be the effects, but in its fanatical anti-Russian campaign it chose to accept the side effects and go ahead with plans to boycott Moscow. The problem is that international society would not be able to afford it at all.

The words of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres at the General Assembly well illustrate the global dissatisfaction with the sanctions: “We face a real risk of multiple famines this year (…) But we can avoid this catastrophe if we act now”. In fact, the food supply crisis is a problem that cannot be fully stopped. To some degree, grain supplies will be reduced, both because Ukraine has had its export system collapsed and because sanctions against Russia have already stopped trade for five months. The situation, however, can be managed and the effects remedied if there is immediate action in order to stop sanctions and precisely because of this the issue has become a common global agenda, forcing Washington – and then Europe – to cancel some of its measures.

But it is an illusion to think that the mere act of unfreezing some bank assets can solve the problem. Europe is acting as if this is some kind of “diplomatic gentleness”, in the sense of easing the measures to reestablish trade in return. In fact, this approach is absolutely wrong. Unilateral sanctions against Russia are illegal and need to be banned. There is no type of Western “charity” in this relationship, as Moscow is the only party that can refuse to sell its grain and fertilizers, if it deems it inappropriate to maintain trade with nations that illegally sanction it.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

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.

***

One of the latest attempts to thwart your ability to access nutritional supplements comes in the form of draft legislation that would require premarket approval for dietary supplements. In short, it would require supplements — which are food — to undergo the same approval process as drugs

In the past, the drug industry and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has tried to ban certain supplements, including vitamin B6 and N-acetylcysteine (NAC), by reclassifying them as new drugs

Another strategy the drug industry has been using to gain a monopoly over the supplement industry is to buy up supplement brands. Just 14 mega corporations — many of them drug companies — now own more than 100 of the most popular supplement brands on the market

This monopoly over the supplement industry gives drug companies enormous regulatory influence, and that’s a way by which they could eliminate independent supplement makers who can’t afford to put their products through the drug approval process. Indeed, it seems that’s what the Durbin-Braun premarket approval proposal is trying to accomplish

Take action to protect widespread access to dietary supplements. Contact your Senators and urge them to oppose the Dietary Supplement Listing Act of 2022, and its inclusion in the FDA Safety Landmark Advancements Act

*

In the video above Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director for the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), interviews Gretchen DuBeau, the executive and legal director for the Alliance for Natural Health, who in addition to being a lawyer also has a master’s degree in applied healing arts, talk about Big Pharma’s efforts to eliminate one of its greatest competitors, namely nutritional supplements.

One of the latest attempts to thwart your ability to access nutritional supplements comes in the form of draft legislation that would require premarket approval for dietary supplements. In short, it would require supplements to undergo the same approval process as drugs.

The Durbin-Braun Premarket Approval Proposal

A discussion draft of the legislation was released by the United States Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) in mid-May 2022. As reported by Vitamin Retailer:¹

“On May 17 [2022], the United States Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) released a discussion draft of its legislation to reauthorize FDA user fees for drugs, biologics and medical devices package, which includes the controversial and divisive Durbin-Braun premarket approval concept and more that would be damaging to the industry, according to the Natural Products Association (NPA).²

‘The NPA is significantly concerned with Chair Murray and Republican Leader Burr who failed to reject the radical and dangerous legislation from Senators Durbin and Braun that would require premarket approval for dietary supplements and weaken key privacy protections of the Bioterrorism Act, which protects the dietary supplement supply chain,’ said Daniel Fabricant, Ph.D. president and CEO of the NPA.

Groups who [sic] have supported this legislation, have stated there are protections for technical disagreements with the FDA like those with hemp, CBD, NAC, and several other products. However, if this legislation were to pass, it is abundantly clear these products would be eliminated from the market.'”

For years, the drug industry, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s support, has tried to get nutritional supplements off the market. One of the most often used tactics has been to try to reclassify them as drugs.

Usually, they would target specific nutrients that stood in their way of profits, but legislation such as the Durbin-Braun premarket proposal would allow the drug industry to monopolize the market in one fell swoop.

Big Pharma Tried to Ban Vitamin B6

The fight over vitamin B6 (pyroxidine) is one example of how Big Pharma tried to eliminate a natural substance that stood in the way of a drug patent. In 2007, Medicure Pharma submitted a citizen’s petition to the FDA in which it argued that any dietary supplement containing pyridoxal 5′-phosphate — vitamin B6 — were “adulterated” under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, article 402(f).³

In essence, Medicure wanted all vitamin B6 products banned, because they undermined the company’s incentive to continue development of it’s drug version of B6.

Medicure had gotten wise to vitamin B6’s effectiveness against ischemia (inadequate blood flow), and decided to make a drug out of it by simply renaming the vitamin “MC-1.” They entered it into the drug bank and then argued that B6 supplements contained “their” MC-1. The drug bank even admits the renamed vitamin B6, i.e., MC-1, is:⁴

“… a biologically active natural product which can be regarded as a chemical entity that has been evolutionarily selected and validated for binding to particular protein domains.”

The main reason why drug companies engage in this kind of sleight of hand is because once a substance is classified as a drug, you can jack up the price by 1,000% over the supplement’s typical retail.⁵

FDA Cracking Down on NAC

Perhaps the most recent example of the FDA trying to shut down easy access to nutritional supplements was its 2020 attack on N-acetylcysteine (NAC). NAC has been a widely-used dietary supplement for six decades, yet the FDA suddenly decided to crack down on it in late July 2020 — right after it was discovered how useful it was for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.⁶

According to the FDA, NAC was excluded from the definition of a dietary supplement because it had been approved as a new drug in 1963.⁷ But if that was the case, why did they wait until 2020 to take action?

As reported by NPI at the time,⁸ there were more than 1,170 NAC-containing products in the National Institutes of Health’s Dietary Supplement Label Database when the FDA started sending out warning letters⁹ to companies that marketed NAC as a remedy for hangovers.

Members of the Council for Responsible Nutrition also worried the FDA might start to target NAC more widely. So far, that hasn’t happened, but Amazon immediately stopped selling all NAC products after those warning letters went out, whether the sellers marketed it as a hangover remedy or not.

Also, the selection of “hangover” for those warning letters seemed arbitrary at best. The fact is that several scientists had called attention to NAC’s benefits against COVID, and shortly afterward, the FDA came up with this ridiculous excuse to limit the availability of it. It just smacked of conflict of interest.

Another Way Big Pharma Is Seeking to Take Over

Another strategy the drug industry has been using to gain a monopoly over the supplement industry is by simply buying up supplement brands. Nestlé Health Science, for example, has acquired Garden of Life, Vital Proteins, Nuun, Pure Encapsulations, Wobenzym, Douglas Laboratories, Persona Nutrition, Genestra, Orthica, Minami, AOV, Klean Athlete and Bountiful.¹⁰

Bountiful, in turn, owns brands like Solgar, Osteo Bi-Flex, Puritan’s Pride, Ester-C and Sundown, all of which are now under Nestlé’s control. The Bountiful brands alone generated net sales of $1.87 billion in the 12 months ending March 31, 2021, so the $5.75 billion agreement to acquire a majority stake, signed in August 2021, didn’t necessarily burn a big hole in Nestlé’s pocket. According to J.P. Morgan analyst Celine Pannuti, quoted by Natural Products Insider:¹¹

“Through the acquisition of The Bountiful Co., Nestlé can build a ‘leading position’ in the ‘fragmented category’ for vitamins, minerals and supplements, which ‘has delivered the highest and most consistent growth in consumer health care over the past 10 years.'”

The ‘Free Market Competition’ Lie

In all, a mere 14 mega corporations — many of them drug companies — now own more than 100 of the most popular supplement brands on the market. The graphic below is from Neal Smoller, PharmD, the holistic pharmacist’s website.¹²

It doesn’t show the ownership of all available brands, but it gives you an idea of just how small the ownership circle has become. As noted by Smoller, many competing brands are even owned by the same corporation, rendering the notion of free market competition null and void.

Importantly, owning the lion’s share of supplement companies puts the drug industry in a unique position to get rid of them whenever they so desire. They could intentionally make the company tank simply by cutting advertising, for example. Cutting quality could have a similar effect, while simultaneously cheating customers who rely on dietary supplements for optimal nutrition and health.

Most important of all, however, this monopoly over the supplement industry gives drug companies enormous regulatory influence, and that’s a way by which they could eliminate independent supplement makers who can’t compete financially. Indeed, that seems to be what the Durbin-Braun proposal is all about.

Supplements Have Phenomenal Safety Profiles

This new proposed legislation would technically ban most supplements, as few supplement makers have the financial resources required to meet drug approval requirements. The only ones with pockets deep enough to do that would be the mega-corporations.

Putting vitamins and nutrients through the drug evaluation and approval process would automatically eliminate many supplements from the market and result in higher retail prices for whatever remains. It would also allow drug companies to rename basic nutrients, label them drugs, and jack up the price even further.

We cannot let this happen. Dietary supplements are FOOD, plain and simple. They should not be treated as drugs, which must undergo rigorous testing to evaluate effects and safety. Supplements have a long history of near-spotless safety and don’t need drug-style testing.

Supplements Are the Safest Foodstuffs Available

Deaths associated with use of dietary supplements are extremely rare compared to the death toll from prescription drugs, yet supplements are routinely singled out as being potentially dangerous,^13,14 either due to lack of testing, lack of regulation or both. The thing is, supplements don’t need safety testing, as they are food, and they are, in fact, fully regulated.

In 2015, CBC News published a Marketplace report¹⁵ in which they claimed a number of supplement makers had ripped off customers by failing to live up to the claims on their labels. Two months later, they had to retract the report,¹⁶ when it was proven their tests were inaccurate. That’s just one example of how the pharma-owned media tries to give supplements a bad rap.

Meanwhile, in the real world, not a single death has ever been reported as a direct result of taking a supplement. On the contrary, data provided in a 2012 report by the UK-based Alliance for Natural Health International (ANHI), showed nutritional supplements are the safest foodstuffs available.

Your risk of dying from an herbal product or dietary supplement is less than 1 in 10 million, comparable to your risk of being killed by lighting. ANHI also calculated that adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs are 62,000 times more likely to kill you than nutritional supplements.¹⁷

So, the one thing that can be conclusively said about supplements is that they may be the safest category of any consumable product. On the whole, junk food and drugs are FAR more likely to harm or kill you.

What’s more, lack of human trials does not mean supplements are unregulated. They’re regulated by both the FDA¹⁸ and the Federal Trade Commission¹⁹ (FTC). The FDA regulates the finished product and individual ingredients, while the FTC regulates the advertising of supplements. So, while not regulated as drugs, but rather as a food, they are fully regulated.

Take Action NOW to Protect Your Supplements From Disappearing

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.

***

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northeastern region of Syria have raised up the Syrian flag which represents the government in Damascus for the first time in years.  The SDF have been partnered with the US military in the fight against ISIS, but are now facing an even bigger and existential threat from Turkey.

On Jul 18, in the northern countryside of Aleppo, two terrorist mercenaries working for Turkey, were wounded which resulted in clashes between militias working for Turkey against the united forces of SDF and Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

Ilham Ehmed, chair of the Syrian Democratic Council, stated recently in Raqqa that the SDF had “become a force to be reckoned with”. This speech showed the SDF was weighing a political solution that would integrate the SDF and the SAA given the new Turkish threat of further invasion and occupation of the Kurdish northeast.

The SAA and the SDF are coordinating together on permits to pass through checkpoints held between the two groups.

The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANE) is called Rojava by the Kurds. To prevent the total collapse of the institutions there, the only option remaining is to repair its relationship with the Syrian government in Damascus, which could protect the AANE from a threatened increased Turkish incursion. The leaders of the AANE know that the US sees Turkey as its ally, and are not going to drop Turkey as an ally in favor of the SDF.

On Saturday, the SAA sent military reinforcements to Manbij through al-Tayha crossing, and an eyewitness from Abu Kahf village, 30 km north of Manbij, said that eight vehicles loaded with two field artillery, rocket launchers, ammunition and personnel entered from al-Tayha crossing and headed towards the front lines in Manbij.

The reinforcements come within the coordination between the SDF and the SAA, with Russian backups, to deploy government forces along the front lines extending from al-Hoshariya village, northeast of Manbij, to al-Arima district, west of Manbij.

Hours later, the SAA brought in reinforcements to the border strip with Turkey in the countryside of Derbasiyah north of Hasakah.

In 2019, Turkey invaded Syria, but later signed two ceasefire agreements, one with Russia and the other with the US stipulating ceasing all hostilities and the withdrawal of the SDF 32 km away from the Turkish border. The SDF did withdraw from the border areas according to the agreement, but Turkey continued targeting the area.

Turkey sent more forces to both the northern and eastern countryside of Aleppo, in preparation for their threatened new invasion. On July 8 a Turkish military convoy passed through al-Rai crossing in the northern countryside of Aleppo, heading towards the city of al-Bab east of Aleppo.

On July 15, the SDF Commander in Chief, Mazloum Abdi, said “We accepted that the SAA fortifies its posts in Kobani, Manbij and border areas in order to carry out its task to protect Syrian border, and we will do what is needed to avoid war against our areas.”

“We are eagerly awaiting the tripartite meeting that will bring together Turkey, Russia, and Iran on July 19, and we believe that other parties will not allow Turkish forces to launch their attacks against our areas,” he said.

Experts agree that Biden will not accept a new Turkish incursion into Syria, because at this time he stresses the importance of coherence in NATO.

Turkish forces with support of Radical Islamic militias have launched four major military operations in northern Syria since the Syrian war started in 2011, taking control of areas along the border in what it says is a bid to “protect its national security” and its frontier.

Hours after the statement of General Abdi, the SAA were stationed near al-Arima, on the al-Sajour line in the Manbij countryside, east of Aleppo. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported heavy weapons took up positions, and 3 tanks and 3 rocket launchers were deployed to protect SDF areas from Turkish assault.

General Abdi said on Friday,

“We have given the forces of the Damascus government to deploy in our areas, and they have quality and heavy weapons, and it is their duty to defend the Syrian territories.”

Turkey has launched two offensives against Kurdish fighters in Syria since 2018. It alleges that Syria’s main Kurdish militia – the People’s Protection Units, or YPG – are allied with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group fighting for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey and viewed as a terrorist organization by Ankara. The YPG, a backbone of the SDF, has led the fight against Islamic State (ISIS) militants in partnership with the US.

The Iran-Turkey-Russian summit today in Tehran

A trilateral summit has brought the presidents of Russia, Iran and Turkey together in the Iranian capital Tehran, and will focus on the Syrian issue and the Turkish planned military operation against Syria’s Kurds.

Mazloum’s statement about SAA

In June, the SDF said they were ready to coordinate with the SAA forces to protect Syrian territories against Turkish attacks.  The meeting was chaired by General Abdi of the SDF. “The meeting… confirmed the SDF’s readiness to coordinate with the forces of the Damascus government to thwart any potential Turkish attack and protect Syrian territories,”

James Jeffrey statement on US policy

In late 2018, US Special Representative for Syria James Jeffrey said they goal of the SDF should be “to become part of the fabric of a changed Syrian society.”  He urged them to repair their relationship with Damascus, because “we do not have permanent relationships with sub-state entities.”

In 2019, Jeffrey told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, “We don’t have a political future that we offer for [Kurds].”

“The political future we offer for them is the political future we offer for everybody in Syria” – a stake in “a democratic, peaceful government” based in Damascus, Jeffrey added.

The Turkish threat of expansion of their previous invasion

President Erdogan claimed that Turkish forces would ethnically cleanse Manbij and Tel Rifaat in the eastern countryside of Aleppo of Kurds, and create a 30-kilometer-deep security zone. Turkey uses Radical Islamic terrorists as mercenaries in Syria.  Residents faced with this threat have asked the Damascus government to protect them from Turkish attack.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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.

All images in this article are 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).

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.

***

The months-long extradition hearings of Julian Assange, a trial that will forever define modern journalism, have been shamelessly whitewashed by British media.  Too few news agencies reported on the utter abrogation of judicial Due Process and The Rule of Law exhibited in a British courtroom against an innocent fellow journalist.

This sham trial exposed a fundamental British truth: That the UK courts and its press are really America’s concubines, willing to fellate any US interest on command.

With the number of courtroom seats set at only sixteen, the few in attendance at Westminster Magistrate’s Court provided the only reporting from the trial to the world. Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murry reported daily the courtroom torture of Julian Assange. However,  world media quashed the story!

Wrote Murry in outrage,

 “… I simply cannot believe the blatant abuse of process that is unfolding before my eyes in this courtroom…. A complicit mainstream media has ensured those of us who know what is happening are very few…”                               

Extradition effectively began after Assange was dragged from the Ecuadorian Embassy on April 11, 2019, and sentenced on May 1 to fifty weeks in jail for jumping bail for the safety offered by then-president Rafael Correa. The bell tolled when incoming president Lenin Moreno rescinded his asylum due to US pressure.

The judge for the extradition was Vanessa Baraitser, who was selected by Chief Magistrate Lady Arbuthnot whose husband James has substantial interests with UK and US defence and security contractors and has condemned Assange publicly.

This travesty of justice began at Baraitser’s opening gavel when she first denied bail and ordered Assange to be placed each day in a plexiglass box with one bailiff on each side of him at the back of the courtroom where he could not communicate with his attorneys.

Baraitser’s order brought defence councils QC Edward Fitzgerald and QC Mark Summers together with prosecutor QC James Lewis in stipulating to allow Assange to sit, as normal, with his council. Baraitser denied the request.

Assange was punished before and during the hearings. Always handcuffed, he was moved between five isolation cells on his way to his plastic box. In Belmarsh Prison he has not been allowed proper medical attention, denied his books, writing supplies and access to his court documents, while being kept in solitary confinement.

When Trump became US president his Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that it was suddenly “a priority for the Justice Department” to arrest Julian Assange.

Later William Barr as AG, in May 2019 issued a new superseding indictment — sealed and ignored since 2013 — that added seventeen counts related to the 1917 Espionage Act. This had been an abandoned attempt by Obama AG, Eric Holder who refused to indict Assange using the Espionage Act. Yet the allegations were the same in 2018 as they had been in 2013.

Assange’s fate may have been sealed, however, when in the last weeks of the Trump/Clinton presidential election campaign, Wikileaks provided to the American voter documentary emails that plainly showed that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) led by Donna Brazile, John Podesta, and Amy Wasserman Schultz were not promoting democracy at all, but instead a two-year conspiracy to elect only Hillary Clinton regardless of rising national support for Bernie Sanders. Days later…Hillary lost.

Abuse of Process by the prosecution gave many reasons for an impartial judge to summarily dismiss the extradition request. Bariatser’s court ignored the wiretap of Assange’s embassy office and of his privileged conversations with his attorneys, the US discussion of having him assassinated using poison and that much of the evidence produced by the prosecution was false and that QC Lewis knew it.

Baraitser on many days brought a laptop from which she read an obviously prepared ruling at the end of the day’s proceedings.

QC David Lewis spoke for the American interests while a team of four unknown Americans sat behind him each day passing him notes.

The prosecution’s case hung on four main points: Assange was not a journalist nor protected by Free Speech or Political Prisoner statutes; Assange had committed crimes when he allegedly helped Chelsea Manning obtain a password for her leaked classified material; that Wikileaks put lives at risk by failing to redact important names when publishing the 2010 leak; and that Assange would certainly receive fair treatment in a US Gulag after being found guilty.

For testimony, the prosecution relied substantially on the written affidavit of US Assistant Attorney Gordon Kromberg who was the man who crafted the 2018 US superseding indictment against Assange. Kromberg provided many assurances of Assange’s guilty.

For the defence, QC Edward Fitzgerald and QC Mark Summers countered every allegation using expert witnesses with impeccable credentials. Baraitser again knee-capped the defence by not allowing more than thirty minutes to introduce each expert and their statements to the court. Rather, she allowed QC Lewis four and one-half hours for each of his cross-examinations.

The very legality of the US extradition request was first in question because the 2004 US/UK extradition treaty provided a specific exemption for Political Prisoners. A separate UK treaty, not specific to the US/UK treaty however, did not contain this prohibition. Baraitser ultimately favoured the prosecution, ignoring the exemption for political dissidents.

The defence produced experts with knowledge with working conditions of Alexandria City Jail, and the Florence, CO SuperMax- Assange’s fate. Twenty-three hours a day in isolation with one hour of exercise per day while shackled, two phone calls and one family visit a month and restricted access to his attorneys.  Gordon Kromberg by affidavit, “assured” the court that Assange would not likely suffer these conditions.

With the hearing already underway, on June 20, 2020, the prosecution suddenly announced that it was introducing a brand new subsequent indictment. Evidence showed that the US prosecution had planned this move for months despite the de fence’s preparations. No matter. Bariatser gave the defence a mere six weeks to prepare to challenge the new allegations that the US had kept secret from the court and the defence for months.

Regarding the allegations of Assange helping Manning gain a password for access to classified information the defence and its witnesses showed that no password was required to gain access; that a journalist aiding a source is constitutionally protected and that Assange had gone to great lengths to redact sensitive information with Wikileaks working directly with US officials to do so.

As to the Manning leak becoming public, the defence showed that it was two journalists from The Guardian newspaper, Luke Harding and David Leigh, who published the security code in their tell-all book, “Wikileaks.” The code created by Wikileaks was to keep the Manning tranche safe while redacting.  When Assange got word of Harding and Leigh’s treachery he alerted US officials. Yet, quietly the Guardian failed to comment. Publicly they let Assange swing instead of Harding or Leigh.

On June 26, 2021, the man the FBI used as its main informant in Iceland regarding Assange helping Manning break the non-existent password, Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson recanted his testimony saying it was coerced. His claim is bolstered by Iceland’s expulsion of the FBI because it was fostering Thordarson to frame Assange.

After the many weeks in court, as expected Baraitser ignored virtually the entire defence and ruled that the US/UK treaty prohibition did not apply, Assange was not a journalist, nor a political refugee, he did help Manning access a code that did not exist, and he had not redacted national security information.

Unfathomably, Baraitser next ruled that Assange could not be extradited since incarceration American-style would likely force his eventual suicide.

Any celebration was momentary. Baraitser remanded Assange back into custody pending a US appeal. In Appeals, the UK High Court on Dec 10, 2021, ruled that renewed American “assurances” regarding Assange’s treatment in US prison could legally negate Baraitser’s inconvenient decision otherwise.

Assange next appealed to the UK Supreme Court but they refused him standing leaving Home Secretary Pritti Patel to twist the knife and approve Assange’s extradition on June 16.

The extradition, a Kangaroo court twelve years in the making will now return before the High Court in a last desperate appeal of Abuse of Process. But first, the Union Jack will be dutifully lowered from sight in the courtroom, to again being replaced…in favour of the Stars and Stripes.

Call the UK High Court now.  +44 (0) 20 7947 6010.  “Free Julian Assange!”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Brett Redmayne-Titley has spent the last decade travelling and documenting the “Sorrows of Empire.” An archive of his many articles can be found at watchingromeburn.uk. He can be contacted at live-on-scene ((@))gmx.com. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Medium

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.

***

The purpose of vaccination is behavioural control of the population and eugenic control.

There is no mRNA in vaccines, only nanotechnology and reduced graphene oxide.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from NaturalNews.com

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.

***

Allegations that MI5 officers and sections of the media sought to bring down Britain’s Labour government in the 1960s and 70s have resurfaced, raising fresh questions about plots that remain hidden behind a wall of official secrecy.

A file released on Tuesday by the National Archives, titled “Allegations concerning a possible coup in 1968”, reveals how rattled MI5 and the Home Office were many years later about conspiracies that have never been properly investigated.

The declassified file refers to discussions about how to topple the then Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson. Wilson was smeared by right-wing groups aided by sections of the media suggesting that he was a security risk because some of his acquaintances had  links with former KGB officers.

The document contains a “background note” written by a Home Office official in 1981 referring to “recent revelations” that “a possible ‘coup’ was discussed between Lord Mountbatten, Mr Cecil King and Lord Zuckerman in May 1968”.

Mountbatten was a former chief of the defence staff and the Queen’s cousin, Cecil King was chair of the International Publishing Corporation (IPC), which owned the Daily Mirror newspaper, and Solly Zuckerman was the government’s former chief scientific adviser.

In an attempt to brush off their significance, the revelations were “not new”, the official noted.

The file also contains a carefully-drafted response to a letter Ted Leadbetter, a Labour MP, had written to the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, in April 1981 following newspaper reports referring to plots to get rid of Wilson.

The response to Leadbetter, approved by the head of MI5, Sir John Jones, and Sir Brian Cubbon, the top official at the Home Office, stated: “There is nothing to suggest anything that came even remotely near to being a serious conspiracy to undermine or overthrow Parliamentary democracy”.

However, the file has been heavily redacted by Whitehall “weeders” and withheld, either in whole or in part, by the notorious section 3(4) of the Public Records Act that allows government departments and agencies to keep official papers secret without having to give any reason.

State of the country

Tuesday’s file contains a Times newspaper report, dated 3 April 1981, revealing an unpublished entry in Cecil King’s private diary, under the headline, “Mountbatten and the coup that wasn’t quite”.

King had recorded in the entry for 8 May 1968 that he saw Lord Mountbatten “at his request’. King was accompanied by Hugh (later Lord) Cudlipp, the editorial director of the Mirror Group.

Mountbatten had asked Lord Zuckerman, described by Mountbatten as “a man of invincible integrity”, to be present at the meeting. In what Zuckerman later described as “rank treachery”, Cecil King said the Queen was said to be worried about the state of the country, the low morale of the armed forces, and the prospect of “bloodshed on the streets”.

In his private diary, Mountbatten dismissed King’s ramblings as “dangerous nonsense”.

A few days later, King signed an article across the Mirror’s front page in a devastating attack on Wilson under the banner headline: “Enough is Enough”.

“Cecil King said the Queen was said to be worried about the state of the country.”

The newly-released file includes a handwritten letter King wrote in October 1981 to the cabinet secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong. In it he refers to newspaper accusations that he had planned a coup, “military perhaps”, to overthrow the government.

King insisted they had “no foundation in fact”, despite the concerns expressed by Zuckerman and Mountbatten and, later, by Wilson himself.

In his letter to Armstrong, King referred to his sudden sacking from the IPC board following his front page article attacking Wilson. “It now occurs to me”, King wrote, “that Wilson was so disturbed that the Daily Mirror “had cooled towards him” that he “decided to remove me.”

King continued that perhaps Wilson had told his colleagues he had evidence that King was planning a coup. King told Armstrong: “My coolness was due to the fact that Wilson was no prime minister, that he would lose the 1970 election”.

A recent book claimed the Queen had to talk Mountbatten out of leading the plot to overthrow Wilson.

Secrecy

In the preface to his official history of MI5 published in 2009 the historian Christopher Andrew referred to redactions he was asked to make. “The most difficult part of the clearance process has concerned the requirements of other government departments”, he wrote.

He added: “One significant excision as a result of these requirements in Chapter E4 is, I believe, hard to justify. This and other issues relating to the level of secrecy about past intelligence operations…would, in my view, merit consideration by the Intelligence and Security Committee”.

Chapter E4 is titled “The ‘Wilson Plot’. The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) is a Parliamentary body that has legal powers to scrutinise MI5.

I asked Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former defence and foreign secretary and then chair of the ISC, whether he would take up Andrew’s invitation. He declined.

I made a Freedom of Information Act request to the Cabinet Office asking them to tell me what Andrew was referring to. It refused, saying “Intelligence” material was exempted under the Act.

MI5 ’will have to consider our position’

The episode was not the only plot to subvert the Labour leader. Prompted by claims that Wilson’s network included individuals with past links to the KGB, MI5 had been building up a file on Wilson, under the pseudonym “Henry Worthington”, that was kept in a safe in the office of the agency’s director general.

In the 1970s, after Wilson was elected prime minister for a second term, George Kennedy Young, a former vice chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, set up what he called a “Unison Committee for Action” with, among others, the retired general, Sir Walter Walker.

Although this was initially directed at Heath, the Tory leader they regarded as far too soft on trade union leaders, Wilson was its main target.

MI5 had been building up a file on Wilson, under the pseudonym “Henry Worthington”.

A steady stream of media reports, combined with talk in Westminster and Whitehall talk about MI5 and other plots to destabilise him led Wilson in 1975 to summon the head of MI6, Maurice Oldfield, and ask whether he knew about them. Oldfield said he did.

“There was a section of MI5 that was unreliable”, journalist David Leigh wrote in his book, The Wilson Plot.

Leigh says that following Wilson’s decision to resign in 1976 for a mixture of personal and medical reasons – his formidable memory was going in what seemed to be the onset of alzheimer’s – Michael Hanley, then head of MI5, was asked what the implication would be if the left winger, Michael Foot took over as Labour leader.

Hanley replied: “I and every other officer in the service will have to consider our position”

Stopping Corbyn

Many years later, another elected Labour leader came under attack by a senior member of the Intelligence establishment, this time in the open. Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6 at the time of the invasion of Iraq, intervened at the height of the 2019 general election campaign to deliver a blistering attack on Jeremy Corbyn.

“For what conceivable reason should voters now risk giving Corbyn actual control of our national security policy by electing him to prime ministerial office?”, he told readers of the Mail on Sunday.

Corbyn has told Declassified about attacks on him by elements in the British establishment. He gave as an example the Sunday Times quoting a “senior serving general” who warned that the armed forces would take “direct action” to stop a Corbyn government.

The anonymous general added: “There would be mass resignations at all levels and you would face the very real prospect of an event which would effectively be a mutiny.”

When Declassified asked the Ministry of Defence if it had looked into the general’s threat, the department said it held no records of any investigation.

In his official history, Andrew points to Wilson’s successor, James Callaghan’s reference to Wilson’s “paranoia”. If this is what he suffered from, it was understandable. As Joseph Heller observed in Catch 22, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you”.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Richard is a British editor, journalist and playwright, and the doyen of British national security reporting. He wrote for the Guardian on defence and security matters and was the newspaper’s security editor for three decades.

Featured image: Harold Wilson (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

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.

***

Dr Peter Breggin MD is a lifelong reformer known as “The Conscience of Psychiatry” for his criticism of biological psychiatry and his promotion of more effective, empathic, and ethical forms of psychological, educational, and social approaches to people with emotional suffering and disability. He graduated from Harvard College with Honors and his psychiatric training included a Teaching Fellowship at Harvard Medical School.

Following his training, he became a Full Time Consultant in the U.S. Public Health Service at NIH, assigned to the National Institute of Mental Health. Since then, he has taught at several universities, including Johns Hopkins, George Mason, and the University of Maryland, as well as at the Washington School of Psychiatry.

Dr. Breggin gives his no-holds-barred view of why America’s children are so depressed, suicidal and homicidal.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This interview was originally published on TNT Radio.

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.

***

The following is an abridged version of the second chapter of the author’s short (free-to-read) e-book Food, Dispossession and Dependency (2022) 

GM crops are required to feed the world is a well-worn industry slogan trotted out at every available opportunity. Just like the claim of GM crops being a tremendous success, this too is based on a myth.

There is no global shortage of food. Even under any plausible future population scenario, there will be no shortage as evidenced by scientist Dr Jonathan Latham in his paper “The Myth of a Food Crisis” (2020).

However, new gene drive and gene editing techniques have now been developed and the industry is seeking the unregulated commercial release of products that are based on these methods.

These new techniques can cause a range of unwanted genetic modifications that can result in the production of novel toxins or allergens or in the transfer of antibiotic resistance genes. Even intended modifications can result in traits which could raise food safety, environmental or animal welfare concerns.

The European Court of Justice ruled in 2018 that organisms obtained with new genetic modification techniques must be regulated under the EU’s existing GMO laws. However, there has been intense lobbying from the agriculture biotech industry to weaken the legislation, aided financially by the Gates Foundation.

Various scientific publications show that new GM techniques allow developers to make significant genetic changes, which can be very different from those that happen in nature. These new GMOs pose similar or greater risks than older-style GMOs.

In addition to these concerns, a paper from Chinese scientists, ‘Herbicide Resistance: Another Hot Agronomic Trait for Plant Genome Editing’, says that, in spite of claims from GMO promoters that gene editing will be climate-friendly and reduce pesticide use, what we can expect is just more of the same – GM herbicide-tolerant crops and increased herbicide use.

By dodging regulation as well as avoiding economic, social, environmental and health impact assessments, it is clear that the industry is first and foremost motivated by value capture and profit and contempt for democratic accountability.

Bt cotton in India 

This is patently clear if we look at the rollout of Bt cotton in India (the only officially approved GM crop in that country) which served the bottom line of Monsanto but brought dependency, distress and no durable agronomic benefits for many of India’s small and marginal farmers. Prof A P Gutierrez argues that Bt cotton has effectively placed these farmers in a corporate noose.

Cotton harvest in India (Source: Flickr)

Monsanto sucked hundreds of millions of dollars in profit from these cotton farmers, while industry-funded scientists are always keen to push the mantra that rolling out Bt cotton in India uplifted their conditions.

On 24 August 2020, a webinar on Bt cotton in India took place involving Andrew Paul Gutierrez, senior emeritus professor in the College of Natural Resources at the University of California at Berkeley, Keshav Kranthi, former director of Central Institute for Cotton Research in India, Peter Kenmore, former FAO representative in India, and Hans Herren, World Food Prize Laureate.

Herren said that “the failure of Bt cotton” is a classic representation of what an unsound science of plant protection and faulty direction of agricultural development can lead to.

He argued that a transformation of agriculture and the food system is required; one that entails a shift to agroecology, which includes regenerative, organic, biodynamic, permaculture and natural farming practices.

Kenmore said that Bt cotton is an aging pest control technology:

“It follows the same path worn down by generations of insecticide molecules from arsenic to DDT to BHC to endosulfan to monocrotophos to carbaryl to imidacloprid. In-house research aims for each molecule to be packaged biochemically, legally and commercially before it is released and promoted. Corporate and public policy actors then claim yield increases but deliver no more than temporary pest suppression, secondary pest release and pest resistance.”

Recurrent cycles of crises have sparked public action and ecological field research which creates locally adapted agroecological strategies.

He added that this agroecology:

“…now gathers global support from citizens’ groups, governments and UN FAO. Their robust local solutions in Indian cotton do not require any new molecules, including endo-toxins like in Bt cotton”.

Gutierrez presented the ecological reasons as to why hybrid Bt cotton failed in India: long season Bt cotton introduced in India was incorporated into hybrids that trapped farmers into biotech and insecticide treadmills that benefited GMO seed manufacturers.

He noted:

“The cultivation of long-season hybrid Bt cotton in rainfed areas is unique to India. It is a value capture mechanism that does not contribute to yield, is a major contributor to low yield stagnation and contributes to increasing production costs.”

Gutierrez asserted that increases in cotton farmer suicides are related to the resulting economic distress.

Presenting data on yields, insecticide usage, irrigation, fertiliser usage and pest incidence and resistance, Kranthi said an analysis of official statistics (eands.dacnet.nic.in and cotcorp.gov.in) shows that Bt hybrid technology has not been providing any tangible benefits in India either in yield or insecticide usage.

Cotton yields are the lowest in the world in Maharashtra, despite being saturated with Bt hybrids and the highest use of fertilisers. Yields in Maharashtra are less than in rainfed Africa where there is hardly any usage of technologies such as Bt hybrids, fertilisers, pesticides or irrigation.

It is revealing that Indian cotton yields rank 36th in the world and have been stagnant in the past 15 years and insecticide usage has been constantly increasing after 2005, despite an increase in area under Bt cotton.

Kranthi argued that research also shows that the Bt hybrid technology has failed the test of sustainability with resistance in pink bollworm to Bt cotton, increasing sucking pest infestation, increasing trends in insecticide and fertiliser usage, increasing costs and negative net returns in 2014 and 2015.

Herren said that GMOs exemplify the case of a technology searching for an application:

“It is essentially about treating symptoms, rather than taking a systems approach to create resilient, productive and bio-diverse food systems in the widest sense and to provide sustainable and affordable solutions in it’s social, environmental and economic dimensions.”

He went on to say:

“We need to push aside the vested interests blocking the transformation with the baseless arguments of ‘the world needs more food’ and design and implement policies that are forward-looking… We have all the needed scientific and practical evidence that the agroecological approaches to food and nutrition security work successfully.”

Those who continue to spin Bt cotton in India as a resounding success remain wilfully ignorant of the challenges (documented in the 2019 book by Andrew Flachs – Cultivating Knowledge: Biotechnology, Sustainability and the Human Cost of Cotton Capitalism in India) farmers face in terms of financial distress, increasing pest resistance, dependency on unregulated seed markets, the eradication of environmental learning,  the loss of control over their productive means and the biotech-chemical treadmill they are trapped on (this last point is precisely what the industry intended).

In general, across the world the performance of GM crops to date has been questionable, but the pro-GMO lobby has wasted no time in wrenching the issues of hunger and poverty from their political contexts to use notions of ‘helping farmers’ and ‘feeding the world’ as lynchpins of its promotional strategy. There exists a haughty imperialism within the pro-GMO scientific lobby that aggressively pushes for a GMO ‘solution’ which is a distraction from the root causes of poverty, hunger and malnutrition and genuine solutions based on food justice and food sovereignty.

The performance of GM crops has been a hotly contested issue and, as highlighted in a 2018 piece by PC Kesavan and MS Swaminathan in the journal Current Science, there is already sufficient evidence to question their efficacy, especially that of herbicide-tolerant crops (which by 2007 already accounted for approximately 80% of biotech-derived crops grown globally) and the devastating impacts on the environment, human health and food security, not least in places like Latin America.

In their paper, Kesavan and Swaminathan argue that GM technology is supplementary and must be need based. In more than 99% of cases, they say that time-honoured conventional breeding is sufficient. In this respect, conventional options and innovations that outperform GM must not be overlooked or side-lined in a rush by powerful interests like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to facilitate the introduction of GM crops into global agriculture; crops which are highly financially lucrative for the corporations behind them.

In Europe, robust regulatory mechanisms are in place for GMOs because it is recognised that GM food/crops are not substantially equivalent to their non-GM counterparts. Numerous studies have highlighted the flawed premise of ‘substantial equivalence’.

Both the Cartagena Protocol and Codex share a precautionary approach to GM crops and foods, in that they agree that GM differs from conventional breeding and that safety assessments should be required before GMOs are used in food or released into the environment. There is sufficient reason to hold back on commercialising GM crops and to subject each GMO to independent, transparent environmental, social, economic and health impact evaluations.

Regardless, global food insecurity and malnutrition are not the result of a lack of productivity. As long as food injustice remains an inbuilt feature of the global food regime, the rhetoric of GM being necessary for feeding the world will be seen for what it is: bombast.

Take India, for instance. Although it fares poorly in world hunger assessments, the country has achieved self-sufficiency in food grains and has ensured there is enough food (in terms of calories) available to feed its entire population. It is the world’s largest producer of milk, pulses and millets and the second-largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnuts, vegetables, fruit and cotton.

According to FAO, food security is achieved when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

Large sections of India’s population do not have enough food available to remain healthy nor do they have sufficiently diverse diets that provide adequate levels of micronutrients.

People are not hungry in India because its farmers do not produce enough food. Hunger and malnutrition result from various factors, including inadequate food distribution, (gender) inequality and poverty; in fact, the country continues to export food while millions remain hungry. It’s a case of ‘scarcity’ amid abundance.

Where farmers’ livelihoods are concerned, the pro-GMO lobby says GM will boost productivity and help secure cultivators a better income. Again, this is misleading: it ignores crucial political and economic contexts. Even with bumper harvests, Indian farmers still find themselves in financial distress.

India’s farmers are not experiencing hardship due to low productivity. They are reeling from the effects of neoliberal policies, years of neglect and a deliberate strategy to displace smallholder agriculture at the behest of the World Bank and predatory global agri-food corporations. Little wonder then that the calorie and essential nutrient intake of the rural poor has drastically fallen. No number of GMOs will put any of this right.

Nevertheless, the pro-GMO lobby, both outside of India and within, has twisted the situation for its own ends to mount intensive PR campaigns to sway public opinion and policy makers.

Golden Rice 

The industry has for many years been promoting Golden Rice. It has long argued that genetically engineered Golden Rice is a practical way to provide poor farmers in remote areas with a subsistence crop capable of adding much-needed vitamin A to local diets. Vitamin A deficiency is a problem in many poor countries in the Global South and leaves millions at high risk for infection, diseases and other maladies, such as blindness.

Some scientists believe that Golden Rice, which has been developed with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, could help save the lives of around 670,000 children who die each year from Vitamin A deficiency and another 350,000 who go blind.

Image on the right: Source is Flickr

Meanwhile, critics say there are serious issues with Golden Rice and that alternative approaches to tackling vitamin A deficiency should be implemented. Greenpeace and other environmental groups say the claims being made by the pro-Golden Rice lobby are misleading and are oversimplifying the actual problems in combating vitamin A deficiency.

Many critics regard Golden Rice as an over-hyped Trojan horse that biotechnology corporations and their allies hope will pave the way for the global approval of other more profitable GM crops. The Rockefeller Foundation might be regarded as a ‘philanthropic’ entity but its track record indicates it has been very much part of an agenda which facilitates commercial and geopolitical interests to the detriment of indigenous agriculture and local and national economies.

As Britain’s Environment Secretary in 2013, the now disgraced Owen Paterson claimed that opponents of GM were “casting a dark shadow over attempts to feed the world”. He called for the rapid roll-out of vitamin A-enhanced rice to help prevent the cause of up to a third of the world’s child deaths. He claimed:

“It’s just disgusting that little children are allowed to go blind and die because of a hang-up by a small number of people about this technology. I feel really strongly about it. I think what they do is absolutely wicked.”

Robin McKie, science writer for The Observer, wrote a piece on Golden Rice that uncritically presented all the usual industry talking points. On Twitter, The Observer’s Nick Cohen chimed in with his support by tweeting:

“There is no greater example of ignorant Western privilege causing needless misery than the campaign against genetically modified golden rice.”

Despite the smears and emotional blackmail employed by supporters of Golden Rice, in a 2016 article in the journal Agriculture & Human Values Glenn Stone and Dominic Glover found little evidence that anti-GM activists are to blame for Golden Rice’s unfulfilled promises. Golden rice was still years away from field introduction and even when ready may fall far short of lofty health benefits claimed by its supporters.

Stone stated that:

“Golden Rice is still not ready for the market, but we find little support for the common claim that environmental activists are responsible for stalling its introduction. GMO opponents have not been the problem.”

The rice simply has not been successful in test plots of the rice breeding institutes in the Philippines, where the leading research is being done. While activists did destroy one Golden Rice test plot in a 2013 protest, Stone says it is unlikely that this action had any significant impact on the approval of Golden Rice.

Stone said:

“Destroying test plots is a dubious way to express opposition, but this was only one small plot out of many plots in multiple locations over many years. Moreover, they have been calling Golden Rice critics ‘murderers’ for over a decade.”

Believing that Golden Rice was originally a promising idea backed by good intentions, Stone argued:

“But if we are actually interested in the welfare of poor children – instead of just fighting over GMOs – then we have to make unbiased assessments of possible solutions. The simple fact is that after 24 years of research and breeding, Golden Rice is still years away from being ready for release.”

Researchers still had problems developing beta carotene-enriched strains that yield as well as non-GM strains already being grown by farmers. Stone and Glover point out that it is still unknown if the beta carotene in Golden Rice can even be converted to vitamin A in the bodies of badly undernourished children. There also has been little research on how well the beta carotene in Golden Rice will hold up when stored for long periods between harvest seasons or when cooked using traditional methods common in remote rural locations.

Claire Robinson, an editor at GMWatch, has argued that the rapid degradation of beta-carotene in the rice during storage and cooking means it is not a solution to vitamin A deficiency in the developing world. There are also various other problems, including absorption in the gut and the low and varying levels of beta-carotene that may be delivered by Golden Rice in the first place.

In the meantime, as the development of Golden Rice creeps along, the Philippines has managed to slash the incidence of Vitamin A deficiency by non-GM methods.

The evidence presented here might lead us to question why supporters of Golden Rice continue to smear critics and engage in abuse and emotional blackmail when activists are not to blame for the failure of Golden Rice to reach the commercial market. Whose interests are they really serving in pushing so hard for this technology?

In 2011, Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, a senior scientist with a background in insect ecology and pest management asked a similar question:

“Who oversees this ambitious project, which its advocates claim will end the suffering of millions?”

She answered her question by stating:

“An elite, so-called Humanitarian Board where Syngenta sits – along with the inventors of Golden Rice, Rockefeller Foundation, USAID and public relations and marketing experts, among a handful of others. Not a single farmer, indigenous person or even an ecologist or sociologist to assess the huge political, social and ecological implications of this massive experiment. And the leader of IRRI’s Golden Rice project is none other than Gerald Barry, previously Director of Research at Monsanto.”

Sarojeni V. Rengam, executive director of Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific, called on the donors and scientists involved to wake up and do the right thing:

“Golden Rice is really a ‘Trojan horse’; a public relations stunt pulled by the agribusiness corporations to garner acceptance of GE crops and food. The whole idea of GE seeds is to make money… we want to send out a strong message to all those supporting the promotion of Golden Rice, especially donor organisations, that their money and efforts would be better spent on restoring natural and agricultural biodiversity rather than destroying it by promoting monoculture plantations and genetically engineered (GE) food crops.”

And she makes a valid point. To tackle disease, malnutrition and poverty, you have to first understand the underlying causes – or indeed want to understand them.

A complex of policies that pushed the Philippines into an economic quagmire over the past 30 years is due to ‘structural adjustment’, involving prioritising debt repayment, conservative macroeconomic management, huge cutbacks in government spending, trade and financial liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation, the restructuring of agriculture and export-oriented production.

And that restructuring of the agrarian economy is something touched on by Claire Robinson who notes that leafy green vegetables used to be grown in backyards as well as in rice (paddy) fields on the banks between the flooded ditches in which the rice grew.

Ditches also contained fish, which ate pests. People thus had access to rice, green leafy veg and fish – a balanced diet that gave them a healthy mix of nutrients, including plenty of beta-carotene.

But indigenous crops and farming systems have been replaced by monocultures dependent on chemical inputs. Green leafy veg were killed off with pesticides, artificial fertilisers were introduced and the fish could not live in the resulting chemically contaminated water. Moreover, decreased access to land meant that many people no longer had backyards containing leafy green veg. People only had access to an impoverished diet of rice alone, laying the foundation for the supposed Golden Rice ‘solution’.

The effects of IMF/World Bank ‘structural adjustments’ have devastated agrarian economies and made them dependent on Western agribusiness, manipulated markets and unfair trade rules. And GM is now offered as the ‘solution’ for tackling poverty-related diseases. The very corporations which gained from restructuring agrarian economies now want to profit from the havoc caused.

In 2013, the Soil Association argued that the poor are suffering from broader malnourishment than just vitamin A deficiency; the best solution is to use supplementation and fortification as emergency sticking-plasters and then for implementing measures which tackle the broader issues of poverty and malnutrition.

Tackling the wider issues includes providing farmers with a range of seeds, tools and skills necessary for growing more diverse crops to target broader issues of malnutrition. Part of this entails breeding crops high in nutrients; for instance, the creation of sweet potatoes that grow in tropical conditions, cross-bred with vitamin A rich orange sweet potatoes, which grow in the USA. There are successful campaigns providing these potatoes, a staggering five times higher in vitamin A than Golden Rice, to farmers in Uganda and Mozambique.

Blindness in developing countries could have been eradicated years ago if only the money, research and publicity put into Golden Rice over the last 20 years had gone into proven ways of addressing Vitamin A deficiency.

Value capture 

Traditional production systems rely on the knowledge and expertise of farmers in contrast to imported ‘solutions’. Yet, if we take cotton cultivation in India as an example, farmers continue to be nudged away from traditional methods of farming and are being pushed towards (illegal) GM herbicide-tolerant cotton seeds.

Researchers Glenn Stone and Andrew Flachs note the results of this shift from traditional practices to date does not appear to have benefited farmers. This is not about giving farmers ‘choice’ where GM seeds and associated chemicals are concerned (another much-promoted industry talking point). It is more about GM seed companies and weedicide manufactures seeking to leverage a highly lucrative market.

The potential for herbicide market growth in India is enormous. The objective involves opening India to GM seeds with herbicide tolerance traits, the biotechnology industry’s biggest money maker by far (86% of the world’s GM crop acres in 2015 contained plants resistant to glyphosate or glufosinate and there is a new generation of crops resistant to 2,4-D coming through).

The aim is to break farmers’ traditional pathways and move them onto corporate biotech/chemical treadmills for the benefit of industry.

Calls for agroecology and highlighting the benefits of traditional, small-scale agriculture are not based on a romantic yearning for the past or ‘the peasantry’. Available evidence suggests that smallholder farming using low-input methods is more productive in overall output than large-scale industrial farms and can be more profitable and resilient to climate change. It is for good reason that numerous high-level reports call for investment in this type of agriculture.

Despite the pressures, including the fact that globally industrial agriculture grabs 80% of subsidies and 90% of research funds, smallholder agriculture plays a major role in feeding the world.

At the same time, agri-food oligopolies externalise the massive health, social and environmental costs of their operations.

But policy makers tend to accept that profit-driven transnational corporations have a legitimate claim to be owners and custodians of natural assets (the ‘commons’). These corporations, their lobbyists and their political representatives have succeeded in cementing a ‘thick legitimacy’ among policy makers for their vision of agriculture.

Common ownership and management of these assets embodies the notion of people working together for the public good. However, these resources have been appropriated by national states or private entities.

Those who capture essential common resources seek to commodify them – whether trees for timber, land for real estate or agricultural seeds – create artificial scarcity and force everyone else to pay for access. The process involves eradicating self-sufficiency.

International bodies have enshrined the interests of corporations that seek to monopolise seeds, land, water, biodiversity and other natural assets that belong to us all.

Technocratic meddling has already destroyed or undermined agrarian ecosystems that draw on centuries of traditional knowledge and are increasingly recognised as valid approaches to secure food security.

Under the guise of ‘climate emergency’, we are currently seeing a push for the Global South to embrace the Gates’ vision for a one-world agriculture (’Ag One’) dominated by global agribusiness and the tech giants. But it is the so-called developed nations and the rich elites that have plundered the environment and degraded the natural world.

To say that one model of agriculture must now be accepted by all countries is a continuation of a colonialist mindset.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) in Montreal.

The author receives no payment from any media outlet or organization for his work. If you appreciated this article, consider sending a few coins his way: [email protected] 

Featured image is from NaturalNews.com

Read Colin Todhunter’s e-Book entitled

Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order

We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is also involved (documented in ‘Gates to a Global Empire‘ by Navdanya International), whether through buying up huge tracts of farmland, promoting a much-heralded (but failed) ‘green revolution’ for Africa, pushing biosynthetic food and genetic engineering technologies or more generally facilitating the aims of the mega agri-food corporations.

Click here to read.

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.

***

Guest: Bobbie Anne Flower Cox, Attorney at Law in New York with focus on representing New Yorkers on matters pertaining to over-reaching government agencies or departments.

This session is about a report on her recently won lawsuit.

Background:

During this year, she has been in a lawsuit against Governor Kathy Hochul and the NY Dept of Health over their illegal “isolation and quarantine camp” regulation.

This regulation allowed the government to take someone out of their home, quarantine them just because they assumed they have been exposed to a disease, and they didn’t even have to prove that the person really has a. disease.

They could have even removed just one person from a family unit!

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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.

***

Eight decades ago, the Asia-Pacific War officially began on the morning of Sunday 7 December 1941, with Japan’s military attack on the American-controlled Pearl Harbor naval base at Oahu, Hawaii. This region is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 2,400 miles away from the nearest point of the United States mainland coast, at San Francisco, California. 

In Western historical annals, Japan’s raid on the Pearl Harbor base is often regarded as an attack on American soil itself, neglecting to mention that the US, for no just cause, had occupied and annexed Hawaii in the late 19th century. Russia has a much greater claim to the Crimea, which is historically Russian, than America ever had to Hawaii or Cuba, etc.

In a matter of minutes the Japanese aerial bombing of Pearl Harbor had wiped out the US Pacific Fleet stationed there. This gave Japan naval dominance in the Pacific Ocean, for the time being. Japan’s warplanes had failed to destroy the huge oil tanks in the dockyard, while Pearl Harbor’s installations like its submarine pens and signals intelligence units were undamaged; most importantly, the three US aircraft carriers (Lexington, Enterprise and Saratoga) were by chance out to sea at the time of the Japanese assault. By far the closest of the three was the Enterprise, which at dawn on 7 December 1941 was positioned around 215 miles west of Pearl Harbor.

Japan’s military leaders were, on the whole, contented indeed with the damage inflicted on the US Armed Forces at Pearl Harbor, which was greater than Tokyo had expected. In south-east Asia, a few hours before the bombing of Pearl Harbor even started, the Japanese 25th Army, led by Japan’s formidable commander Tomoyuki Yamashita, landed in northern British Malaya in the early hours of 7 December 1941. Mark E. Stille, a retired US Navy commander, wrote that “Of all the armies fielded by Japan during the war, the 25th Army was the best led and equipped”. By evening of the first day of the Japanese amphibious landings, the whole of northern British Malaya had been lost by the British, almost without a fight.

In the latter part of December 1941, the Japanese 25th Army successfully pushed down the Malayan peninsula coastlines, and the British withdrew before them. Having advanced over 200 miles southward, on 11 January 1942 General Yamashita’s divisions captured the Malayan capital city, Kuala Lumpur. By late January 1942 the British had retreated into Singapore island slightly further south, meaning that in 7 weeks the Japanese had cleared the entire Malayan mainland of enemy soldiers.

On 8 February 1942, an amphibious assault established the Japanese 25th Army on Singapore, considered a jewel in the British Empire’s crown. Despite General Yamashita’s troops being outnumbered, his men captured Singapore a week later on 15 February. More than 80,000 troops fell into Japanese hands, which on paper ranks as the largest capitulation in the history of British arms. Japan’s capture of Singapore signalled the end for the British Empire in the Eastern hemisphere.

British forces surrender Singapore to the Japanese, February 1942 (Licensed under the public domain)

Four hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor finished, the Japanese 14th Army (commanded by Lieutenant-General Masaharu Homma) assailed the Philippines in south-east Asia, a US colony since the late 19th century. On 10 December 1941 Japanese soldiers landed at Luzon, the Philippines’ biggest and most populous island in the north of the country. On that same day, 10 December, the Japanese 55th Infantry Division (Major-General Tomitaro Horii) captured from the Americans the Pacific island of Guam, located almost 1,500 miles to the east of the Philippines. Another 1,500 miles further east again in the Pacific a US territorial possession, Wake Island, was captured by Japanese marines on 23 December 1941.

The decorated American general, Douglas MacArthur, was commander of US Army Forces in the Far East. He was foiled in his plan to defeat the Japanese on the beaches of the Philippines. General MacArthur decided to abandon Manila, the Philippines’ capital city, and to retire not far west to another part of the country called the Bataan peninsula. Manila, now an open city, was taken by the Japanese on 2 January 1942.

Japan’s assault on Bataan had already started on 29 December 1941, but was repulsed by MacArthur’s troops with heavy losses for the attackers. Over the next 5 weeks, the Japanese could make no progress against the American and Filipino soldiers; their offensive was postponed in early February 1942. However, towards the end of February president Franklin Roosevelt in Washington ordered MacArthur to leave the Philippines, so that the general could assume command of fresh American forces being prepared in Australia.

On 11 March 1942, MacArthur reluctantly left the Philippines by motor torpedo boat and he had vowed, “I shall return”. MacArthur was much criticised at home, and by the American troops he had left behind in the Philippines, for having abandoned them; but to be fair to MacArthur on this occasion, there was little point in his remaining in the Philippines, and he could hardly disobey for long a direct order from president Roosevelt.

By now, Roosevelt had decided there was no possibility of relieving Bataan, and Japan’s hierarchy reinforced the Bataan area with 2 more Japanese divisions. On 3 April 1942, a new Japanese offensive in Bataan succeeded. Six days later on 9 April 1942, the US Major-General, Edward P. King Jr., chose to surrender along with 12,000 American troops and more than 60,000 Filipino troops.

While Filipino soldiers bore the brunt of the calamity in the northern Philippines, and subsequently the brutal Bataan Death March, the Battle of Bataan ranks as the largest overseas surrender of forces in American history; and the biggest surrender of US troops since September 1862 in the American Civil War, when 12,419 Union soldiers gave themselves up to the Confederates during the Battle of Harpers Ferry. After Bataan, complete defeat for US-led divisions was a matter of time in the Philippines, and on 8 May 1942 the country came under Japan’s total control.

Surrender of US forces at Corregidor, Philippines, May 1942 (Licensed under the public domain)

On 16 December 1941 Borneo, Asia’s largest island and positioned fewer than 1,000 miles south of the Philippines, was attacked by Japanese units consisting primarily of the 35th Infantry Brigade (Major-General Kiyotake Kawaguchi). The British-led forces managed to hold out in Borneo’s jungle-covered mountains until 1 April 1942, when they surrendered on that date.

Further north, Hong Kong, in south-eastern China, a British possession from the days of London’s narcotrafficking wars, was assailed by Japan on the morning of 8 December 1941, led by the Japanese 23rd Army (Lieutenant-General Takashi Sakai). During the Battle of Hong Kong, the Japanese advanced rapidly and captured at least 10,000 Allied troops. On Christmas Day 1941 Mark Aitchison Young, the British Governor of Hong Kong, surrendered in person to Lieutenant-General Sakai.

Concurrently with Japan’s campaign in British Malaya, about 1,000 miles to the north the Japanese began a large-scale assault to capture Burma (Myanmar), a south-east Asian state bigger than France which since 1824 had been under British rule. On 16 January 1942 the Japanese 15th Army, under the command of Lieutenant-General Shojiro Iida, cut into Lower Burma from neighbouring Thailand; the latter country, which until then was never colonised, had capitulated to the Japanese on 8 December 1941, and 2 weeks later Thailand signed a formal alliance with Japan.

On 31 January 1942, the Japanese captured the southern Burmese city of Moulmein from the British. Japan’s forces were enjoying significant help from Burma’s inhabitants, who strongly desired independence for their country. Much of the Burmese population were amazed to see Asian troops (the Japanese) outperforming white soldiers, and because of this the locals received a lot of encouragement. A myth had persisted in colonised nations that the white man was invincible.

The British withdrew from Lower Burma in February 1942. On 8 March 1942 the Japanese captured Rangoon, the capital city of Burma. Two days later on 10 March, the Japanese 55th Infantry Division started pursuing the departing British from Rangoon. These setbacks for the Allies in Burma caused a serious rupture in British-Australian relations. The Australian government had resisted great pressure from British prime minister Winston Churchill, who wanted the Australians to divert to Rangoon one of its two divisions that was returning from the Middle East, for the defence of Australia itself.

The Japanese had also gained a foothold in the petroleum-rich Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), which for decades was among the world’s biggest oil producing countries. The Dutch East Indies was designated by Tokyo as a vital target. Japan’s conquest of the Dutch East Indies was swift, as they advanced through its islands of Sumatra, Java and Celebes in late January, February and early March 1942. The Dutch East Indies’ capital city, Batavia (Jakarta), was taken by the Japanese on 5 March 1942. The Netherlands sued for peace 4 days later.

By the end of March 1942, Japan’s military had achieved each of its pre-war goals as outlined shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor. After less than 4 months of fighting against the Western Allies, the Japanese had captured Hong Kong, British Malaya and Singapore, Thailand, Borneo, the Dutch East Indies, Guam and Wake Island, along with Rabaul on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea.

All of this was accomplished with just 11 Japanese divisions, quite clearly a remarkable feat of arms, equal to that of the 1940 German defeat of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark and Norway. Unlike with Germany, Japan has seldom been given credit in the West for its military triumphs, and the Japanese have generally been treated with contempt; which one can only assume, at this stage, is due at least in part to a lingering racism.

By March 1942 Japan’s forces, as highlighted earlier, had also firmly established themselves in the Philippines and in Burma. The above Japanese victories had come on top of their other recent conquests, such as taking an enormous swathe of eastern China by 1939, which altogether brought about 170 million Chinese under Japan’s rule; along with Tokyo’s capture by mid-1941 of all of French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia).

Britain’s colonial authorities believed that “all Japanese soldiers were very short-sighted and inherently inferior to western troops”, military author Antony Beevor wrote. Ordinary British soldiers on the frontline were better acquainted with the reality, and less likely to hold racist views. Almost 30 years after the war Gilbert Collins, a gunner in the British 14th Army, said that “The Japanese was a good soldier. He was a good soldier. When he was told to do a job, he would stop there until he died”. Captain Neville G. Hogan of the British 14th Army described the Japanese as “great fighting soldiers. Their battle drill was fantastic, you couldn’t help but admire them”.

Crucially, Japan’s troops had adapted very well to jungle warfare. Teruo Okada, an officer in the Japanese 15th Army recalled, “I liked the jungle, and it did not have the fear it seems to have had for some of the Allied soldiers. It was a friendly place, dark, where you could cover yourself and camouflage yourself. In the jungle, fortunately, the Burmese jungle, there are many bamboo groves, you see, and in Japan we all eat bamboo shoots, so that there is a lot of natural food in the form of bamboo shoots all over the place. Apart from that, we all know that what a monkey can eat, we can eat too. So if you watch the monkeys and avoid what the monkeys also avoid, you are fairly safe. There are such creatures as bandicoots, snakes, jungle lizards and tokays, small lizards, you cut off the head and chop them up and make it into curry. Mixed with pepper it can make a good curry”.

Freddie Tomkins, a sergeant in the British 14th Army, remembered how “I’d never seen a jungle, I’d seen a forest, but I hadn’t seen a jungle. We went in there, it was dark, dirty, damp, rain, all sorts of animal noises we never heard before. In actual fact it was really scary. We have our meats and our Yorkshire puddings and so forth. They [Japanese troops] lived on rice. Now you can’t get meat and Yorkshire pudding and greens and potatoes out there. So we had to reorganise ourselves and lived on the things that the army could produce for us. Like corned beef, and it’s the only place [Burmese jungle] that I know where you can open up a tin of corned beef and pour it out like a liquid”.

The Japanese, in early April 1942, captured from the Australians the Papua New Guinean islands of Buka and Bougainville, located not too far north of Queensland. Japan was attempting here to cut off Australia from American aid. That same month, in April, the Royal Navy had to abandon the Indian Ocean. Everything seemed to be going Japan’s way.

The Bombing of Darwin, Australia, 19 February 1942 (Licensed under the public domain)

By April 1942 the Japanese leadership had a decision to make. To rest on its gains, or to ambitiously extend the area of Japan’s supremacy through more military conquests. They chose the latter option. Tokyo decided to neutralise Australia and Hawaii, by targeting those areas with land-based Japanese bomber aircraft.

Also in April 1942, the new perimeter of the Empire of Japan was enlarged on maps by Tokyo’s strategic planners – in order to include the capture of the Aleutian Islands (North Pacific), Midway (North Pacific), Samoa (south-central Pacific), the Fiji Islands (South Pacific), New Caledonia (south-western Pacific) and Port Moresby (south-western Pacific).

Elsewhere, in south-east Asia the Japanese advance northwards through Burma was continuing. The British commander, Harold Alexander, was forced to retreat with his soldiers to the town of Prome in central Burma. General Alexander was unable to hold on to Prome, which was taken by Japan’s soldiers on 2 April 1942. Just over 2 weeks later, on 18 April Japanese forces had advanced 115 miles north of Prome to capture the city of Yenangyaung, on the famous Irrawaddy River, Burma’s largest river. The final remnants of Britain’s troops withdrawing from Yenangyaung destroyed the city’s power station, so as to prevent its use by the enemy.

On the following day, 19 April 1942, the Japanese 55th Infantry Division took the town of Pyinmana, 95 miles east of Yenangyaung. The day after that, Japan’s troops captured the city of Taunggyi, 140 miles east of Yenangyaung. On 22 April, the British decided to fall back to Meiktila, a city located on the Meiktila Lake.

On 25 April 1942 the Anglo-American commanders in Burma, Harold Alexander, William Slim and Joseph Stilwell, decided to pull all Allied troops out of the country. Nearly a week later, on 1 May the Japanese 18th Infantry Division captured Mandalay, Burma’s 2nd biggest city, while they also cut the Burma Road. The following week, on 8 May the Japanese took the city of Myitkyina in northern Burma.

By mid-May 1942, British-led forces had retreated out of Burma north-westwards to neighbouring India, where they found refuge in the city of Imphal. Military historian Donald J. Goodspeed wrote, “The rains then came and brought another disastrous campaigning season to a close. British casualties in Burma had been about three times higher than the Japanese loss of forty-five thousand men”.

To the east in the North Pacific Ocean thousands of miles away, a greater catastrophe was to unfold for Japan during the Battle of Midway (4–7 June 1942). Their defeat in this engagement, against the Americans, saw Japan’s military lose 4 of their aircraft carriers, 1 heavy cruiser, 275 planes along with the deaths of 3,500 men, including many experienced pilots. In spite of their past victories and huge territorial expansion, Japan’s reverse in the Battle of Midway made certain their utter defeat in World War II. The American admiral Chester W. Nimitz said, “Midway was the most crucial battle of the Pacific War, the engagement that made everything else possible”.

The Americans were assisted in their defeat of the Japanese at Midway, by their having previously cracked Tokyo’s codes. English historian Andrew Roberts wrote, “Intelligence was key to the American victory at Midway, both the accurate and timely information that Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the Commander-in-Chief in the Pacific, was given by his code-breakers, and the halting and inaccurate reports that Admirals [Isoroku] Yamamoto and [Chuichi] Nagumo got from their intelligence officers, who did not have the luxury of reading their enemy’s signals”.

How had it come to this for the Japanese? The fact is that a bloody conflict had ensued in the Eastern hemisphere between two imperial powers, America and Japan, for control over sections of the globe, and Japan would ultimately lose. America had boasted the world’s largest economy since 1871, and was becoming richer as the decades passed. The US was a significantly wealthier and stronger nation than Japan, possessing greater industrial power and manpower.

In 1941 the US was easily the planet’s largest oil producing country. That year the Americans manufactured more than 5 times more oil than the Soviet Union in 2nd place. By the end of World War II, the Americans had in total built an incredible 296,000 aircraft, 86,333 tanks and 952 warships. The German-Axis armies had invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 with 4,400 warplanes and 4,000 tanks.

On 26 July 1941, in response to Japan’s occupation of southern French Indochina, the Roosevelt administration froze all Japanese assets in America, and instituted an oil embargo against Tokyo. Drastic actions like this by Roosevelt’s government, which were the driving force behind the Asia-Pacific War erupting, immediately resulted in 90% of Japan’s oil imports being wiped out along with 75% of its foreign trade. These were grave issues for a resource-poor nation like Japan. Their oil supply could last only until the end of January 1943; that is, unless Japan’s forces embarked upon more military adventures.

By November 1941, a month before Pearl Harbor, the American demands on Japan had become so severe that, according to US historian and analyst Noam Chomsky, “Japan would have had to abandon totally its attempt to secure ‘special interests’ of the sort possessed by the United States and Britain, in the areas under their domination, as well as its alliance with the Axis powers, becoming a mere ‘subcontractor’ in the emerging American world system. Japan chose war – as we now know, with no expectation of victory over the United States but in the hope ‘that the Americans, confronted by a German victory in Europe and weary of war in the Pacific, would agree to a negotiated peace in which Japan would be recognized as the dominant power in Eastern Asia’.”

Japan’s foreign policy was undoubtedly expansionist, up to a point. There was no Japanese presence at all in the Western hemisphere or the Middle East, nor would it have been tolerated by the Americans short of war. Much more serious from Japan’s viewpoint, Washington was not prepared either to grant Japan hegemony within its own spheres of interest in east Asia. Summarising Tokyo’s predicament, the Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Yosuke Matsuoka asked, “Is it for the United States, which rules over the Western hemisphere and is expanding over the Atlantic and Pacific, to say that these ideals, these ambitions of Japan are wrong?”

President Roosevelt from the outset of World War II was “aiming at United States hegemony in the postwar world”, historian Geoffrey Warner wrote. After 1939, top-level US State Department officials highlighted which regions of the globe the US would control, titled by Washington planners as the Grand Area. In the early 1940s, the Grand Area of US hegemony was designated to consist of the entire Western hemisphere, the Far East (at the expense of Japan) along with the former British Empire, which contained the Middle East’s oil and gas reserves. England was to be assigned a junior partner role subordinate to the American boss, a status which has held true ever since.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Sources

Naval History and Heritage Command, “Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941, Carrier Locations”, 1 April 2015

Mark E. Stille, Malaya and Singapore 1941–42: The fall of Britain’s empire in the East (Osprey Publishing; Illustrated edition, 20 Oct. 2016)

Peter Chen, “Invasion of Burma”, World War II Database, October 2006

Antony Beevor, The Second World War (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2012)

Donald J. Goodspeed, The German Wars (Random House Value Publishing, 2nd edition, 3 April 1985)

Andrew Roberts, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War (Harper, 17 May 2011)

Noam Chomsky, On The Backgrounds of the Pacific War, Liberation, September-October 1967, Chomsky.info

The World At War: Complete TV Series (Episode 14, Fremantle, 25 April 2005, Original Network: ITV, Original Release: 31 October 1973 – 8 May 1974)

Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-1945 (Hodder Arnold, 23 Feb. 2007)

Oil production by country, 1900 – 2018, Youtube.com

Featured image: USS Arizona burned for two days after being hit by a Japanese bomb in the attack on Pearl Harbor. (Licensed under the public domain)

ホームページ（デスクトップ版）のトップバナーにある「ウェブサイトの翻訳」ドロップダウンメニューを有効にすると、すべてのグローバルリサーチの記事を51の言語で読むことができます。

Global Researchのデイリーニュースレター（選択した記事）を受け取るには、ここをクリックしてください。

InstagramとTwitterでフォローし、TelegramChannelに登録してください。 Global Researchの記事を自由に再投稿し、広く共有してください。

***

.

.

The follow text is the Preface to the Japanese print Edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s E-Book entitled: 

The 2020-22 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset” which is currently in E-Book format.

***

My thanks to the Publisher and to the translator Tatsuo Iwana.

.

.

この原稿を書いている今日、私は日本の皆さまに思いを寄せています。新型コロナウイルス感染症の危機は、人々の生活を破壊しています。著者としての私の責任は、真実を明らかにし、メディアの偽情報の流れを断ち切り、世界中のできるだけ多くの人々に働きかけることです。

本書は、新型コロナウイルス感染症危機の原因と結果について、2年以上にわたる詳細な調査の結果です。出版社と翻訳者には、この努力をする中で、献身的な支援をしていただき、大変感謝しています。

私の研究結果は、著名な科学者や医師たちの報告に裏打ちされたものです。その研究結果から見ても、mRNAワクチンを含め、各国政府が打ち出した新型コロナウイルス感染症を巡る強制的な施策はまったく無効だということがわかります。

この序文では、以下のことに簡単に焦点を当てます。

・日本に関する新型コロナウイルス感染症の危機の年表。

・2021年2月に日本の厚労省が開始したmRNAワクチンの接種指示。

・2020年の東京夏季オリンピック。

新型コロナウイルス感染症の年表

2020年1月30日（ジュネーブ時間）、WHO事務局長テドロス・アダノム・ゲブレイエソス博士は、中国国外で確認されたPCR検査陽性者83人という数を基に、世界保健緊急事態を宣言しました。83人は、緊急事態を宣言するには、いくら何でも数が少なすぎます。

「新型コロナウイルス感染症確定症例」に分類されたこの83例は、WHOの「国際的に懸念される公衆衛生上の緊急事態（PHEIC）」を発動するための正当な根拠とされました。(詳細は、第１章、第２章を参照）。

WHOのこの歴史的な決定に先立ち、安倍晋三（元）首相はすでに新型コロナウイルスへの懸念を表明していました。内閣総理大臣を本部長とする新型コロナ対策本部（NCRH）が設置されました。

WHOの発表の前日、国会で開かれた新型コロナ対策本部の会合で、安倍晋三首相は次のように述べました。

現在、8人の患者が確認されています … また、昨日帰国された方のうち、3名　　が集団検診検査で陽性となりました。現在、この方々は入院中です。そのうち2名は症状が出ていません。このように、症状がないにもかかわらず陽性となった方がいることを踏まえ、検疫を含めた対応を段階的に進めていくことが必要であると考えています。 (強調は著者)¹

この馬鹿馬鹿しいほどの低い数値は、いかなる事情があろうとも伝染病の発生の証拠とはなりません。検疫措置は必要ありませんでした。さらに、これは基本的なことですが、いわゆる「陽性例」を生み出すのに使われた方法はポリメラーゼ連鎖反応（PCR検査）です。このPCR検査については、後にWHOと米国疾病管理予防センター（CDC）が、誤解を招くものであり、無効なものであることを認めました。(詳細は第３章付録参照）。

その後、SARS-CoV-2検出のためのポリメラーゼ連鎖反応（PCR）法とSARS-CoV-2検出のための他の迅速な検査法が、日本の主要地域で活発に使われました。

検査　検査　検査

このPCR検査による大規模な検査は、いわゆる「サイン型コロナウイルス感染症確定症例」の数を2020年12月に30万人の「累積症例」にまで押し上げることに大いに役立ちました。また、恐怖をあおる政策のの先陣を切ることにも役立ちました。 本稿執筆時点の2022年3月に記録された最新の数字は、「累積症例数」550万件の規模でした²。

私は何ヶ月もかけてPCR検査とその結果を検証してきました。私が明確に断言できることは、PCR検査から導きだされる数値は誤りであり、誤解を招くものであることです。科学的な根拠がないのです。(詳細は第３章を参照）。

このことが意味するのは、2020年3月のパンデミック発生以来、感染症の進行を抑制するために日本の行政当局が適用したすべての新型コロナウイルス感染症の政策の命令が無効であるということです。これには、さまざまな非常事態措置、学校の臨時休校、マスク着用、大規模な社会的集まりの中止などが含まれています。

これらの措置が容易になったのは、「2012年の新型インフルエンザ対策特別措置法」の改正案によります。これにより「新型コロナウイルス感染症を含むインフルエンザが発生した場合」にも緊急措置が適用されることになりました。

「安倍晋三首相が突然、全国の学校の臨時休校を要請したり、大規模なイベントの中止を呼びかけたりしたことは、法的根拠がないとして問題視されています。現行の特別措置法を改正すれば、…これらの要請は法的根拠を持つことになります」。（強調は著者）^３

皮肉にも、2020年3月13日に国会で採択されたこの改正案は、SARS-CoV-2がマスコミが描くような危険な「殺人ウイルス」ではなく、季節性インフルエンザと同様の特徴を持つものとして分類されるという（政府の）認識を意味するものでした。 WHOのSARS-CoV-2の定義によると、「新型コロナウイルス感染症の最も一般的な症状は、発熱、乾いた咳、および疲労感です。…これらの症状は通常、軽度であり、徐々に始まります。中には、感染してもごく軽い症状で済む人もいます。 ほとんどの人（約80％）は、病院での治療を必要とせずに病気から回復します。新型コロナウイルス感染症に感染した人の5人に1人程度が重症化し、呼吸困難に陥ります」。 ⁴（第３章参照）。

WHOが定義した新型コロナウイルス感染症が「季節性インフルエンザに類似」しているということは、日本のマスコミの大見出しになりませんでした。もし、それが明らかになっていたら、安倍晋三首相の緊急対策は、間違いなく日本国民から疑問視され、反対されていたでしょう。

一方、安倍晋三首相の緊急対策に正当性を持たせるために、恐怖をあおる政策が使われました。

この特措法改正は、2020年3月11日（ジュネーブ時間）に国連加盟193カ国に送信された封鎖指示の翌日に、急遽国会で採択されました⁵。これは、一連の抜本的経済措置を採るための、安倍晋三にとって時宜にかなった都合のよい「ゴーサイン」でした。その一連の措置には、 危険なウイルスSARS-CoV-2の拡散への対策として、労働力のロックダウン・閉じ込めが含まれていました。

安倍晋三が実施したこうした強力なロックダウンの手続きは、どのような結果をもたらしたのでしょうか。

その2カ月後（2020年5月28日）、安倍晋三首相は閣僚懇談会で次のように認めました（5月の月例経済報告から引用）：

「新型コロナウイルスにより、日本経済は急速に悪化し、極めて厳しい状況にある」。

さらに、短期的な見通しについては、「当面、感染症の影響により極めて厳しい状況が続くと見込まれる… 」と報告書には記載されています。  (強調は著者) ^６

安倍晋三首相は、巧みに「コロナ・ウイルス氏」（V the Virus）に責任を押し付けていました。誤った発言です。「ウイルス」には 「人の手」はありません。経済や金融の変数に影響を与えることはできません。

（訳注）「コロナ・ウイルス氏」（V the Virus）：新型コロナウイルスを擬人化した著者の造語

「新型コロナウイルスの感染拡大」（PCR検査の間違った数値を基にしている）に、安倍晋三政権によって引き起こされた日本経済の低迷の責任を押しつけることはできません。

この（現在も継続中の）「厳しい経済状況」は、2020年3月に政府が発動したコロナ政策の命令の結果です。

最近の報告が確認しているのは、このような経済対策が市民社会を弱体化させ、社会関係を混乱させ、日本の家庭生活の構造そのものを破壊していることや、特に青年や幼い子どもの自殺の引き金となっていることです。(この問題については第６章で分析しています）。

mRNAワクチン

この原稿を書いている間にも、新型コロナウイルス感染症に関する命令に対する大規模な抗議活動が、主にｍRNAワクチン接種の影響に焦点を当てて、いくつかの国で進行中です。

日本では、存在しない「殺人ウイルス」から日本国民を守る手段として、2021年2月にmRNAワクチン接種が始まりました。すでに2億600万人分以上が投与されています。 日本の国民は、mRNAワクチンの危険性に関して知らされていたのでしょうか？

2021年12月、日本の厚労省は「心筋炎などの副作用の発生率が低い」と指摘し、モデナとファイザーのワクチンのブースター[追加]接種を許可しました。この評価（英国のデータを引用している）は、重大な誤りです。 しかも、このブースターショット[追加接種]は免疫に壊滅的な影響を与えることになります^７。

日本の厚労省の発表によると、「政府は、ワクチン接種の利点が副反応のリスクよりも大きいので、人々にワクチン接種を推奨しています」。 この言い方は誤解を招くものであり、正しくありません。

この原稿を書いている時点で、岸田文雄内閣はそれまでの姿勢を一転させました。コロナワクチンのラベル表示を率先して命じました。「心筋炎などの危険で死に至る可能性のある副作用を警告するため」です。さらに、日本国は起こりうるすべての副作用を確実に記録するために、有害事象報告の義務付けを再確認しています。⁸

さらに、日本の厚労省は、このワクチンを推奨しながらも、新型コロナウイルス感染症のワクチンは「強制・義務ではない」という趣旨の勧告を出しています。

「同意がない場合は、接種を行いません。職場や周囲の人に接種を強要したり、接種していない人を差別するようなことはしないでください」。 ⁹

この規定が、コロナワクチン計画の中止に向けた第一歩となることを願っています。 

ワクチン関連死と有害事象

ワクチンに関連する死亡率と疾病率が世界的に上昇傾向にあることを、証拠が示しています。これは完全に裏付けされています。この公式データは入手可能です。(第７章参照）。

また、情報公開（FOI）手続きにより公開されたファイザー社の機密報告書も適切なものです。ファイザー社は、自社の機密報告書で、ワクチンが危険で安全でないことを認めています。(第７章参照）。また、ファイザー社が米国司法省で犯罪歴があることを、日本の人々が認識することも重要です。(詳細は、第7章参照）

2020年東京夏季オリンピック

2021年8月、延期された東京夏季オリンピックに参加するため、世界を代表する運動選手たちが東京に到着しました。 選手たちのために検疫や検査業務が設けられましたが、これらの手続きは全く不要でした。

日本国民や外国人観光客は、基本的人権を無視した形でオリンピック競技への参加を拒否されました。日本国民は皆、テレビでオリンピックを観戦しました。これらの広範囲に及ぶ決定は、人命を救い、ウイルスの蔓延に対抗する手段として国民に提示されました。

2020年夏季オリンピックの延期と、その後の2021年8月の無観客試合の決定は、RT-PCR検査による「新型コロナウイルス感染症確定症例」の誤った推定に基づいています。

ウイルスの増殖を推定するために適用されていたPCR法は、8月の東京オリンピックの半年以上前の2021年1月20日にWHOによって無効と宣言されていました。(第３章、第３章付録参照）。 さらに、米国疾病管理予防センター（CDC）は2021年7月21日、2021年12月31日まで有効のPCR検査の撤回を求める指示を出しました。(第３章参照)

2021年8月のオリンピックを無観客で実施することは、全く不必要なことでした。日本人の東京オリンピックへの参加を妨げる科学的根拠はありませんでした。

このような政策決定の失敗による財務上の損失は、筆舌に尽くしがたいものがあります。

ミシェル・チョスドフスキー

モントリオール、2022年3月

*

注

1 Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, January 30, 2020. Novel Coronavirus Response Headquarters. https://japan.kantei.go.jp/98_abe/actions/202001/_00034.html

2 WHO, n.d. Japan: WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard. https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/jp

3 The Mainichi, March 5, 2020. Revised influenza law to allow Japan PM to declare state of emergency over coronavirus. https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200305/p2a/00m/0fp/011000c

4 WHO, March 8, 2020. Media Statement: Knowing the risks for COVID-19. https://www.who.int/indonesia/news/detail/08-03-2020-knowing-the-risk-for-covid-19

5 Kyodo News, March 13, 2020. Japan’s Diet gives Abe power to declare emergency amid viral fears. https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/03/57cfa56d5ecc-urgent-japans-diet-gives-abe-power-to-declare-emergency-amid-viral-fears.html

6 Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, May 28, 2020. Ministerial Council on the Monthly Economic Report and Other Relative Issues. https://japan.kantei.go.jp/98_abe/actions/202005/_00027.html

7 Osamu Tsukimori, December 15, 2021. Health ministry formally approves Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for a booster shot. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/12/15/national/science-health/health-ministry-backs-moderna-vaccine-booster/

8 Amy Mek, December 10, 2021. Alert: Japan Places Myocarditis Warning on ‘Vaccines’ – Requires Informed Consent. https://rairfoundation.com/alert-japan-places-myocarditis-warning-on-vaccines-requires-informed-consent/

9 Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, n.d. COVID-19 Vaccines. https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/covid-19/vaccine.html

Video: Foreign Mercenaries in East Ukraine. Appeal of Alexander Drueke, US Fighter Captured in DPR

By South Front, July 19, 2022

My name is Alexander Drueke. I’m a U.S. citizen from Alabama. On June 9th, I was captured outside Kharkof. And I’ve been held in captivity since then. During my captivity I’ve been treated very well. I have food and water. I have access to legal help and medical care if needed. But, of course, I would much rather be back home with my family.

Inside Australian Labor’s Assange Game Plan

By Kellie Tranter, July 20, 2022

“Quiet diplomacy”, a “soft approach”, a “loud approach” and “avoiding megaphone diplomacy” have all been floated as strategies to “bring to an end” the case against WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. In situations like his, the best form of diplomacy is that which produces results most favourable to the citizen involved and at the same time keeps them safe and in good health.

Fifth Generation (5G) Directed Energy Radiation Emissions in the Context of Contaminated Nanometal COVID-19 Vaccines with Graphite Ferrous Oxide Antennas

By Mark Steele, July 20, 2022

Cyber Command USA had been made aware of my expertise and specifically requested my advice with regard to an unusual 5G antenna design deployed across the USA. I have been extremely fortunate that most (but not all) of my research and product development work has been carried out outside of the Official Secrets Acts (OSA) legislation. I have acted as a witness and provided statements in several court cases, exposing the lack of any credible evidence that the 5G light-emitting diode (LED) network and planned neural connection to the 5G grid are safe.

The UK Government’s Official Data Shows They Are Killing Our Children

By Steve Kirsch, July 19, 2022

The UK government seems to be not including the most interesting metrics to assess safety and efficacy. The Expose points this out; it seems when the numbers work against them, they either stop reporting the data entirely, stop breaking it out, or in this case, not doing the calculation of the deaths per 100K person years so that only more motivated people will take the time and see that there is a huge problem.

The COVID Crisis in Japan: Lockdown, Economic Crisis, the mRNA Vaccine, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, July 19, 2022

Today at the time of writing my thoughts are with the people of Japan. The COVID-19 crisis is destroying people’s lives. My responsibility as an author is to reveal the truth, break the tide of media disinformation and reach out Worldwide to as many people as possible. This book is the result of more than two years of detailed research on the causes and  consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. I am much indebted to the publisher and translator for their commitment and support throughout this endeavor.

Joe Biden’s Secret War in Ukraine. The Imminent Danger of a Large Scale US-Russia War

By Philip Giraldi, July 19, 2022

The White House keeps insisting that it will not directly involve American soldiers in the war in Ukraine, but it keeps taking steps that will inevitably lead to a large-scale open combat role for the US against Russia.

Video: The Persecution of Julian Assange: Crimes Upon Crimes Within Crimes

By Kristina Borjesson, July 19, 2022

In this Whistleblower Newsroom editorial, host Kristina Borjesson discusses the illegal actions to which Assange has, and continues to be, subjected to by three nations—the US, UK and Sweden, working to fulfill the American government’s aim to get him to the US to face espionage charges.

The United States Does Not Have an Economy

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, July 19, 2022

The US financial sector has long looted other countries.  A number of participants have described the process.  First a country is enticed with bribes to the leaders to take out loans that cannot be serviced or repaid.  Then in comes the IMF. Austerity is imposed on the population. Public services and employment are cut to free resources for debt service, and public assets are sold to repay the loan. 

U.S. Public Health Agencies Aren’t ‘Following the Science,’ Officials Say

By Dr. Marty Makary and Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg, July 19, 2022

The calls and text messages are relentless. On the other end are doctors and scientists at the top levels of the NIH, FDA and CDC. They are variously frustrated, exasperated and alarmed about the direction of the agencies to which they have devoted their careers.

Against Romanticism: From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery: Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin

By Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin, July 19, 2022

This book looks at the philosophy, politics and history of many different art forms arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment of Enlightenment ideals. In recent times Enlightenment ideas have been characterised as cold, hard science, while Romanticism has been perceived as the ‘caring’ philosophy.

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.

***

On Monday, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu ordered Russian troops to target Ukraine’s long-range weapons and artillery after Ukrainian forces said they used US-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) against Russian targets.

“Army General Sergey Shoigu … instructed the commander to use surgical strikes and crush the enemy’s long-range missile and artillery means,” the Russian Defense Ministry said, according to Tass.

Last week, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces had used HIMARS to launch 30 strikes against Russian targets. Ukraine said the HIMARS were used to destroy two ammunition depots deep inside Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, while Russia said the strikes hit civilian infrastructure.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukraine has used long-range weapons “to shell the residential areas of Donbas and continue the intentional incineration of wheat fields and grain storage facilities.” As Ukraine has been using the Western-provided arms, Russia has stepped up missile attacks across Ukraine.

The HIMARS the US provided Ukraine have a range of 50 miles, although they could be outfitted with munitions to reach longer ranges. When the US sent Ukraine the HIMARS, Biden administration officials said they received “assurances” that they won’t be used to target Russian territory.

The State Department on Sunday implied that under the deal with Kyiv, Ukrainian forces could use HIMARS on Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014. When asked by Antiwar.com if the ban on Ukraine using HIMARS on Russian territory applies to Ukraine, the State Department replied, “Crimea is Ukraine.”

A Ukrainian intelligence official said Saturday that Ukraine could use HIMARS to hit Ukraine. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev responded and said such attacks could lead to “doomsday” for Ukrainian leadership and said it’s a “systemic threat” to Russia that Ukraine and NATO countries don’t recognize Crimea as Russian territory.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

Featured image is from TASS

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.

***

The COVID-19 Lockdown Triggers Worldwide Poverty

Poverty and chronic undernourishment is a pre-existing condition.

First, there is a long term historical process of macroeconomic policy reform under IMF-World Bank auspices which has contributed to depressing the standard living Worldwide in both the developing and the developed countries.

Second, these preexisting historical conditions of mass poverty have been exacerbated and aggravated by the imposition of the Covid lockdown.

With large sectors of the World population already well below the poverty line prior to the March 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, the recent hikes in the prices of basic food staples are devastating. 

Millions of people around the World are unable to purchase food for their survival.  And this is by no means limited to the “developing countries”. 

According to the ILO (2020 report), over two billion people representing 62 percent of the global labor force, are employed in the informal economy.  This population group is impoverished beyond description, with “millions of people facing a growing risk of hunger”.

Earnings of informal sector workers are estimated to have declined by 82 percent as a result of the covid lockdown, “with Africa and Latin America to face the largest decline.” (ILO data quoted by (FAO, p. 6). 

The FAO’s July 2020 report points to 27 countries facing so-called “acute food insecurity”.

Global Famine

The World Food Program (WFP) (November 2021) report points to Global Famine and “Acute Hunger in 80 Countries”:

Global hunger continues to rise at an alarming rate: our latest estimates show that 282.7 million people across 80 countries are experiencing extreme levels of acute hunger. This represents an increase of around 110 percent compared to 2019 (when 135 million people in 58 countries were classified as acutely food insecure).

This “guesstimate” of 287.7 million cases of acute hunger borders on ridicule and “fake statistics”. The real numbers are much higher. Mass poverty is extensive Worldwide. The “estimate” is based on the following concept, which is put forth by the World Food Program (a UN body) as a humanitarian and compassionate criterion:

“one meal a day, the basic needed to survive – costing US$0.43 per person per day”. (WFP, p. 1)

Combined with the spike in the price of oil (which is manipulated), the recent hikes in food prices are contributing in a very real sense to “eliminating the poor” through “starvation deaths” as well as destabilizing the nation-state.

In the words of Henry Kissinger:

“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”

In this regard, Kissinger had intimated in the context of the 1974 “National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests”, that the recurrence of famines could constitute a de facto instrument of population control. It’s part of the WEF’s eugenics agenda.  

***

“The Benefits of World Hunger”

The text below was initially published by the United Nations Chronicle. It was subsequently withdrawn. 

“…how many of us would sell our services so cheaply if it were not for the threat of hunger? When we sell our services cheaply, we enrich others, those who own the factories, the machines and the lands, and ultimately own the people who work for them. For those who depend on the availability of cheap labour, hunger is the foundation of their wealth.” (emphasis added)

Is this text a carefully formulated satire?

While the (satirical?) statements in this article published by the UN appear reprehensible, they reveal and document the Neoliberal consensus which consists in minimizing labor costs Worldwide.

Hunger is the source of enrichment by a social minority. 

It’s the Globalization of Poverty.  

Poverty and cheap labor are good for business.  

And the Covid-19 Mandates contribute to spreading poverty worldwide. 

— Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, July 19, 2022

The Benefits of World Hunger

by Professor George Kent

United Nations Chronicle

***

Emphasis added

We sometimes talk about hunger in the world as if it were a scourge that all of us want to see abolished, viewing it as comparable with the plague or aids. But that naïve view prevents us from coming to grips with what causes and sustains hunger. Hunger has great positive value to many people. Indeed, it is fundamental to the working of the world’s economy. Hungry people are the most productive people, especially where there is a need for manual labour.

We in developed countries sometimes see poor people by the roadside holding up signs saying “Will Work for Food”. Actually, most people work for food. It is mainly because people need food to survive that they work so hard either in producing food for themselves in subsistence-level production, or by selling their services to others in exchange for money. How many of us would sell our services if it were not for the threat of hunger?

More importantly, how many of us would sell our services so cheaply if it were not for the threat of hunger? When we sell our services cheaply, we enrich others, those who own the factories, the machines and the lands, and ultimately own the people who work for them. For those who depend on the availability of cheap labour, hunger is the foundation of their wealth.

The conventional thinking is that hunger is caused by low-paying jobs. For example, an article reports on “Brazil’s ethanol slaves: 200,000 migrant sugar cutters who prop up renewable energy boom”.1 While it is true that hunger is caused by low-paying jobs, we need to understand that hunger at the same time causes low-paying jobs to be created.

Who would have established massive biofuel production operations in Brazil if they did not know there were thousands of hungry people desperate enough to take the awful jobs they would offer? Who would build any sort of factory if they did not know that many people would be available to take the jobs at low-pay rates?

Much of the hunger literature talks about how it is important to assure that people are well fed so that they can be more productive. That is nonsense.

No one works harder than hungry people. Yes, people who are well nourished have greater capacity for productive physical activity, but well-nourished people are far less willing to do that work.

The non-governmental organization Free the Slaves defines slaves as people who are not allowed to walk away from their jobs. It estimates that there are about 27 million slaves in the world,2 including those who are literally locked into workrooms and held as bonded labourers in South Asia. However, they do not include people who might be described as slaves to hunger, that is, those who are free to walk away from their jobs but have nothing better to go to. Maybe most people who work are slaves to hunger?

For those of us at the high end of the social ladder, ending hunger globally would be a disaster. If there were no hunger in the world, who would plow the fields? Who would harvest our vegetables? Who would work in the rendering plants? Who would clean our toilets? We would have to produce our own food and clean our own toilets. No wonder people at the high end are not rushing to solve the hunger problem. For many of us, hunger is not a problem, but an asset.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was taken down from the UN Website, the text above has been republished from IFZ.

George Kent is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Hawaii. 

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.

***

Transcript

One of the most emerging methods for connecting our brains to computers is optogenetics. More than 1,000 labs worldwide are working on this technology. Optogenetics can use LED light to erase memories as well as precisely control and influence thoughts and behaviors.

Is this why advocates of a New World Order are raving about it?

Efforts are in full swing worldwide to install wireless interfaces in the human brain: so-called communication tools, between brain and computer. One of the fastest emerging methods for this is optogenetics. There are now more than 1,000 laboratories worldwide, including those of government organizations, working on various optogenetic methods.

So what is optogenetics?

Optogenetics is a combination of genetic and optical methods to induce events in target cells, tissues or complex organisms using LED light.

Optogenetics is already used worldwide for a wide variety of purposes, such as for biomedical applications and the treatment of neuronal diseases.

One advantage of optogenetics is that it potentially requires no surgical intervention, only a gene-manipulating injection. In this process, certain light-sensitive proteins are packaged in a virus and via injection transmitted to the intended site in the brain, where it infects various cells. These light-sensitive proteins can then be used to specifically excite or even shut down individual neuronal networks using LED light.

In other words, LED light can be used to erase and overwrite memories and to quickly and precisely control and influence brain and muscle cells – and thus feelings, thoughts, body movements and behaviors.

Accordingly, optogenetics requires only LED light that irradiates neurons in the brain. The irradiation takes place, for example, through the brain cover or through nano-LEDs implanted in the body.

Parallel to the optogenetics research, an LED Forum is held every year, where personalities from the international lighting industry meet. Topics at this forum are, for example, the use of micro-LEDs, which are important to improve the light output for optogenetics. Or the Internet of Things and the goal of building a sensor into every LED lamp to provide digital data transmission via LED light. Interestingly, speakers at the LED Forum include people very close to both the World Economic Forum WEF and the Club of Rome. In 2019, for example, Andreas Huber, the current managing director of the Club of Rome Germany, gave a talk.

The Club of Rome is considered the largest think tank of the elite for a New World Order, which sees the solution to global problems in a drastic population reduction. It was this club that supported the founding of Klaus Schwab’s WEF. The WEF, in turn, is pushing a New World Order with its planned “Great Reset.”

According to this, the WEF sees optogenetics as one of the most important technologies. On their homepage, we find this quote:

“Our brains are made up of billions of cells called neurons, and these neurons communicate with each other through neural circuits. Optogenetics allows us, for the first time ever, to manipulate the messages these neurons send to each other. The technique could potentially be used to manipulate memories, emotions and thoughts…”

With senior politicians from the European Commission, such as Ursula von der Leyen, on friendly terms with the WEF, it is no surprise that the European Commission is also raving about optogenetics:

“Although we may not realize it, neurons are central to our ability to understand and interact with our environment. Thanks to optogenetics, these cells can now be controlled by light with high precision.”

It was also the EU Commission that introduced the controversial ban on incandescent light-bulbs in 2009, making seamless LED use possible in the first place.

Dear viewers, it is extremely alarming that circles like the Club of Rome or the WEF are raving about technologies like optogenetics. These are groups of people who see population reduction or the “Great Reset” as the solution to world problems.

A “Great Reset” with the goal that, according to the WEF, by 2030 we will own nothing and still be happy.

Possibly happy through applied manipulative optogenetics?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from kla.tv

Alle Artikel von Global Research können in 51 Sprachen gelesen werden, indem Sie das Dropdown-Menü „Website übersetzen“ im oberen Banner unserer Homepage (Desktop-Version) aktivieren.

Um den täglichen Newsletter von Global Research (ausgewählte Artikel) zu erhalten,  klicken Sie hier .

Folgen Sie uns auf Instagram  und  Twitter und abonnieren Sie unseren Telegrammkanal . Fühlen Sie sich frei, Artikel von Global Research zu reposten und zu teilen.

***

„Ich bin Ökonom und geopolitischer Analyst und versuche so gut wie möglich die sich immer verändernden „heutigen“/ resp. „morgigen“ Lagen zu analysieren. Mit anderen Worten, die Punkte zu verbinden: die Punkte zwischen Covid, dem Ukrainekrieg, dem Reset, dem sich immer mehr aufdrängenden QR-Code, der geplanten „4. Industriellen Revolution“ von Klaus Schwab. Diese beinhaltet den Plan der Digitalisierung von allem, inklusiv dem menschlichen Gehirn usw. usw.“

„Dieser persönliche QR-Code, der wird dann eben ausgebreitet über oder weiter verwendet über ein App in deinem Cellphone. Und diese App wird natürlich verbunden mit einer Zentrale, da können wir überhaupt nichts machen, die Telefone, diese Mobile Phones, die sind alle bereits so ausgerichtet, dass sie von überall her, selbst wenn man das GPS ausschaltet, wissen sie genau, dass es uns begleitet, auch ohne GPS – das ist mal ganz klar. Dann müsste man es wegschmeißen oder zuhause lassen.“

„Deshalb wissen sie gar nicht, dass sie, bereits vermutlich ihren QR-Code irgendwo im Körper mit sich tragen. Und die es noch nicht tun, die haben es auf ihrem Cellphone. Und da müssen wir irgendetwas dagegen machen.“

Sendung

Kla.TV: Peter König war als Ökonom über 30 Jahre bei der Weltbank tätig und hat Wasserprojekte in den Entwicklungsländern auf verschiedenen Kontinenten realisiert. Es freut mich, Peter König bei Kla.TV begrüßen zu dürfen. Können Sie uns etwas über Ihre heutige Tätigkeit sagen?

Peter König: Erstens: Vielen Dank, dass ich bei Ihnen sein darf und mit Ihnen sprechen darf. Ich bin Ökonom und geopolitischer Analyst und versuche so gut wie möglich die sich immer verändernden „heutigen“/ resp. „morgigen“ Lagen zu analysieren. Mit anderen Worten, die Punkte zu verbinden: die Punkte zwischen Covid, dem Ukrainekrieg, dem Reset, dem sich immer mehr aufdrängenden QR-Code, der geplanten „4. Industriellen Revolution“ von Klaus Schwab. Diese beinhaltet den Plan der Digitalisierung von allem, inklusiv dem menschlichen Gehirn usw. usw. Es gibt also jede Menge Punkte, die man verbinden kann und muss, um zu verstehen, was zur Zeit läuft und was geplant ist. Wir müssen wissen, dass im Prinzip nichts stagnant ist und stagnant bleibt, außer dem großen Ziel im Moment: The Great Reset, UN-Agenda 2030, und die 4. Industrielle Revolution. Das sind verschiedene Beschreibungen für dasselbe Ziel. Das muss man wissen. Die sind vielleicht so gemacht worden, um zu verwirren. Aber im Prinzip ist es dasselbe.

Kla.TV: Wie würden Sie denn die heutige Finanzlage beschreiben? Für den Otto Normalverbraucher ist ja immer noch – ja – so alles einigermaßen im Lot. Es geht ihm ja eigentlich noch ganz gut.

Peter König: Ja, stimmt. Der Otto Normalverbraucher, der in der Schweiz lebt, dem geht’s verhältnismäßig noch ganz gut. Aber auch hier in der Schweiz hat die Armut zugenommen, und zwar beträchtlich. Nur hier in der Schweiz redet man nicht davon. Es ist tabu, arm zu sein. Die offiziellen Ziffern über Arbeitslosigkeit in der Schweiz waren im Mai dieses Jahres bei 2,1%, im April noch 2,3%, während Ende Dezember letzten Jahres war sie fast 5%. Diese Zahlen sind meines Erachtens mächtig manipuliert. Das ist übrigens überall im Westen so. Man müsste auch die Kriterien wissen: Was wird als Arbeitslosigkeit eingestuft und angesehen? Wie wird Tagesarbeit, Teilzeitarbeit beurteilt? Wie werden die verschiedenen „Klassen“ von Arbeiten – Bauarbeit, Büroarbeit, Management- / Elite-Arbeit usw. – wie werden die eingeschlossen in die Statistik? Die sind nicht uniform. Und ich nehme an, ich gehe davon aus, das wird eben auch nicht gesagt – diese Analysen sind zwar vorhanden, das ist ganz klar (in der Statistik) – aber die werden nie publiziert. Und es würde mich gar nicht verwundern, wenn sich eine ganze Menge Leute heute mit Teilarbeit beschäftigen müssen und die als Vollangestellte und als Vollarbeitende eingestuft würden. In 2020 – die letzten Zahlen, die man offen finden kann – waren es offiziell 8,5% der Leute, die arm waren. Wie wird Armut definiert? Eine vierköpfige Familie, die unter 4.000 Franken Einkommen im Monat hat, ist in der Schweiz arm. Dieses Kriterium wird aber in der Schweiz nicht offiziell angewandt. Inoffiziell ja. Aber es gibt, glaube ich, nur im Kanton Genf – seit Kurzem – wurde das als offizielle Zahl benannt. Ich schätze heute – das ist meine Schätzung aufgrund vieler Beobachtungen – schätze ich, dass die Zahl mindestens 50% ist, wenn man eben von der Manipulation absieht.

Kla.TV: Sie sagen, dass wir uns in der Endphase eines dämonischen Plans befinden. Sie setzen dies mit der UN-Agenda 2030, dem sogenannten ‚Great Reset‘ oder eben der ‚4. Industriellen Revolution‘ gleich. Können Sie uns sagen, was Ihrer Meinung nach die Ziele dieses Plans oder eben vom ‚Great Reset‘ sind?

Peter König: Ja, ich möchte ganz kurz vielleicht einleitend sagen: Der gesamte ‚Great Reset‘ – der Ukraine-Krieg ist übrigens ein integraler Teil davon. Nur merkt man es nicht. Er ist typisch ein weiteres, … – ein Menschenteiler. Zwar kann der Krieg nie gerechtfertigt werden, so wenig wie irgendeine Art von Töten. Man kann aber erklären, wie es so weit gekommen ist: Die stete Provokation der NATO, die sich gegen das Versprechen der Alliierten beim Kollaps der Sowjetunion „Not One Inch Further East than Berlin“ – das hat der US-Secretary of State, damals James Baker, gesagt und eigentlich versprochen. Und das hat niemand eingehalten. Dagegen, wenn man auch nur ein halbwärtiges Argument für Putin erwähnt, ist man verpönter und gehasster Putin-Freund. Es gibt sogar Schweizer Offiziere, die das gemacht haben, die in der Ukraine gearbeitet haben, die bei der Nato waren und die Sache klar sehen. Die haben sich so geäußert. Die werden jetzt zensiert. Man muss sich das mal vorstellen. Man nennt das auch „Teilen und Herrschen“. Die Menschen spielen eine mächtige Rolle in der Indoktrination der Bevölkerung mit Lügen, praktisch 24 x 7 und die während der letzten – mehr als zwei Jahre – sind sie sehr erfolgreich gewesen. Die werden buchstäblich mit Milliarden subventioniert, diese Lügen. Das heißt also, die Medien, die ich anspreche.

In Kürze, was der Westen, vor allem das Reich USA, schon immer wollte, ist eine Kontrolle über das größte und reichste Land der Welt. Mit weitaus den meisten Bodenschätzen der Welt. Alles Bodenschätze, die der Westen braucht, nicht zuletzt für ihre Kriegsindustrie. Die komplexen, die kleinen „rare earth“ (seltene Erden), also das sind Metalle, die gebraucht werden vor allem in der Elektronik. Der größte Verbraucher in der Elektronik ist die Kriegsindustrie und natürlich unser westlicher Luxuslebensstil. Um den aufrecht zu erhalten, brauchen wir ebenfalls diese Rohmaterialien, die vorwiegend Russland und China liefern können.

Der‚ Great Reset‘ hat meines Erachtens drei gleichwertige und verheerende, aber verbundene Ziele:

Erstens: Depopulation: Das heißt massive Entvölkerung. Die Eugenisten sind am Werk. Das war schon vor 50 Jahren ein Plan des‚ Club of Rome‘. Und war klar ausgesprochen in ihrem Report „Limit to Growth“ von 1972. Der war auch ein Teil der Unterlage für die ersten Formulierungen für die Europäische Union. Covid-19 war die gezielte und psychologische raffinierte Einschüchterungsmethode mit einem Virus, den man nicht sieht natürlich, der nie als solcher existiert. Ein neuer Virus, der nie identifiziert wurde. Er ist grippeähnlich und hat eine Sterblichkeitsrate, die ungefähr derjenigen der jährlichen Grippe entspricht. Etwa 0,07 bis 0,1 Prozent der Infektionen. Und das betrifft vor allem ältere Personen, die ohnehin bereits unter anderen Co-Morbiditäten leiden. Aber die Angstmacherei hat bewirkt, dass sich meist unter Druck und Erpressung zwischen 60 und 80 % der westlichen Bevölkerung hat „impfen“ lassen. Und ich setze also „Impfen“ in Anführungszeichen, denn es ist ja keine Impfung. Und deshalb nenne ich es eher, sie haben sich vaxxen lassen. Mit einer Substanz, oder verschiedenen Substanzen, die genetisch veränderbare Komponenten mRNA enthalten, plus verschiedene Giftstoffe, die die schweren Krankheiten wie Herzinfarkte, verschiedene Krebsarten, Nierenversagen und so weiter auslösen. Und in vielen Fällen, wie wir das gesehen haben, offensichtlich zum Tod führen. In der Tat sind bis jetzt weit mehr Leute an den Folgen der sogenannten Impfung gestorben, als an den Folgen von Covid. Zudem gibt es nicht eine Impfung, es gibt verschiedene Injektionen mit verschiedenen biochemischen Zusammensetzungen. Und das müssen wir uns vor Augen halten: Es gibt nicht nur eine Impfung, eine Art von Chemikalien, die da eingespritzt werden, sondern verschiedene. Ich glaube, Wissenschaftler haben mal darauf hingewiesen, dass es mindestens fünf verschiedene Arten gibt. Aber vermutlich noch mehr. Und zum Teil werden die auch gezielt eingesetzt in gewissen Ländern und gewissen Gesellschaften. Also Angst ist des Feindes größte und stärkste Waffe, das müssen wir uns immer vor Augen halten.

Zweitens: Also der zweite Grund, der dahinter steckt hinter dieser Trilogie, ist die Verschiebung von privatem und öffentlich-privatem Kapital, also die Kombination von öffentlich und privat, von unten und der Mitte nach oben. Durch künstlich hervorgerufene Wirtschaftskrisen, Bankrotte usw., wird Kapital von unten und von der Mitte nach oben zu einer relativ dünnen Schicht von kontrollsüchtigen, ich würde sie sogar kriminellen Eliten nennen, verschoben. Man kann diese Gruppen auch einen Kult nennen. Und ich denke tatsächlich, die leben nach gewissen Normen eines Kults. In den Kulten werden ja gewisse Gewohnheiten und gewisse Gruppen von Leuten als Kult eingeteilt, weil sie eben diese Normen befolgen müssen, um Erfolg zu haben. Gemäß Forbes, also der ökonomische Analyst, gab es am 5. April diesen Jahres (2022) 2.668 Milliardäre. Ein Elon Musk ist scheinbar Nummer Eins mit 219 Milliarden. Man sieht klar, während die Weltbevölkerung ärmer geworden ist, hat sich der Reichtum der Reichen und vor allem der Superreichen vervielfacht. Der Reichtum von Bill Gates, nur ein Beispiel, hat sich von 96 Milliarden in 2019 auf 129 Milliarden gesteigert im April dieses Jahres (Anmerkung: 2022). Das sind etwa 34 Prozent mehr. Während er teilverantwortlich für diese Plandemie ist – ich nenne sie Plandemie, weil die keine Pandemie, sondern eine geplante Pandemie war – für die er für zig-Tausend Vaxx-Tote verantwortlich ist. Vielleicht gibt es einmal ein Nürnberg 2 der einigermaßen Gerechtigkeit bringen würde, also so ein Prozess. (Anmerkung: Nürnberger Prozess).

Dazu kommen die Finanzgesellschaften wie BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street und auch Fidelity und noch viele andere. Und vor allem die ersten drei BlackRock, Vanguard und State Street, die als Co-Aktionäre miteinander verflochten sind – schätzungsweise kontrollieren sie etwa zwischen US$ 20 und US$ 25 Billionen (1 Billion = 1 mit 12 Nullen). Die haben eine „Leverage Power“ – Hebel Kraft (Anmerkung: Hebelwirkung) von über 100 Billionen US$. Dem entgegen gesetzt entspricht das Welt-Bruttosozialprodukt etwa US$ 95 Billionen, das war am Ende letzten Jahres (Anmerkung: 2021). Und mit dieser Macht können sie buchstäblich jedes Land, jede Regierung, jede Gesellschaft unter Druck setzen und erpressen. Und wir haben das schon gesehen. Wer da nicht mitmacht, wird so genannt, neutralisiert. Es gibt schon einige davon, vor allem in Afrika. Das sind Leute oder Finanzorganisationen – zusammen mit anderen Milliardären – die man mit gutem Gewissen – ich würde sagen, krank nennen kann. Deshalb müssen sie, die über solche Kapitalmächte verfügen, …– das gibt ihnen natürlich Macht über den Menschen, aber eigentlich, – das können wir uns nicht vorstellen, ich wenigstens nicht, – was das einem bringen kann.

Das ist die heutige Lage der Welt und wir sind erst am Anfang der Agenda 2030. Solange die Menschen, die Mehrheit der Menschen, unter sogenannter kognitiver Dissonanz leidet, werden wir weiterhin beherrscht und manipuliert werden, bis es zum nächsten Schritt kommt. Und das hat sich bis jetzt bewahrheitet. Es gibt so viele Leute, Psychologen sagen, dass diese Art von Affektion, also von Krankheit kann man es nennen, die die sogenannte kognitive Dissonanz, etwas vom Schlimmsten psychologisch ist, weil es kaum wegzubringen ist.

Kla.TV: Was ist Ihrer Meinung nach der nächste Schritt dann?

Peter König: Das ist genau der dritte Punkt dieser teuflischen Trilogie, des ,Resets‘. Das ist die totale Digitalisierung. Geld, Mensch, Überwachung und Kontrolle von allem. Aus Menschen werden Transhumans. Das hat Klaus Schwab mal sogar schon in einem Interview und im westschweizerischen Fernsehen in 2016 gesagt. Dazu kommt noch – und deshalb brauchen wir in erster Linie den sogenannten QR-Code. Und QR steht für „Quick Response“, also schnelle Antwort. Und die dazugehörende Technologie, die es erlaubt, von jedem Individuum mindestens – bis jetzt, und das kann erhöht werden – mindestens bis jetzt 30.000 Daten zu speichern. Was und wo du bist, kaufst, wohin du gehst, mit wem du zirkulierst, mit wem du redest, dein Gesundheitsstatus, dein Bankkonto, dein Polizeirapport – alles, alles, alles unentweichlich wird gemächlich und langsam und immer wieder auf diesem QR-Code, den jeder hat, gespeichert.

Das wichtigste Instrument für die Volldigitalisierung ist 5G. Also wo wir schon überall Antennen finden. Und in gewissen Kantonen ist es bereits aktiv. Ich war neulich im Tessin, da hat es an meinem Telefon effektiv bereits 5G angezeigt. Hier in der Genfer Umgebung noch nicht. Und vermutlich kommt es auch bald zu 6G. Denn der einzige Grund, der weitaus größte Hauptgrund dafür ist eben die Digitalisierung von allem und vor allem des Menschen.

Die zentrale Kontrolle – also die Kontrolleure, der Kopf der Elite…, so wie die zentralen Kontrolleure meist aus Algorithmen bestehen… – kennen uns besser, als wir uns selber kennen. Leider kümmert sich kaum jemand um den heimlich über das Finanzsystem eingeschleusten QR-Code. Heute ist er überall. Aber selbst aufgeweckte Leute in der Schweiz und im übrigen Europa sehen offenbar keine Gefahr. Ich habe mit verschiedenen meiner Kollegen, die gleichdenkend darüber sind, geredet. Die finden, es ist nicht schlimm, wenn ab dem 01. Oktober alle Banken – Zahlungen über Banken – über einen QR-Code laufen müssen. Ich finde, das ist eine Katastrophe. Und ich glaube auch – ich habe bis jetzt noch keine festen Beweise – ich glaube auch, dass das die Regierung über die Banken einführen will. Weil: wir hatten ja eine Abstimmung vor ein paar, ich glaube sechs, Jahren über die Einführung der sogenannten Agenda 2020. Das wäre eine Identifikation gemäß Bill Gates – und die wurde abgelehnt.

Also: der QR-Code und der daraus abgeleitete sogenannte VC – also der „Vaccine Code“ oder „Vaccine-Certificate-code“ („Vaccination Certificate“ auf englisch) sind das Gefährlichste, was uns droht, was uns bevorsteht, wenn wir nichts dagegen tun. Denn das bedeutet die totale Überwachung. Und wenn wir da sind, dann ist es sehr, sehr schwierig, da raus zu kommen.

Kla.TV: Aber ich sag mal: Der QR-Code ist ja heute aus dem Alltag nicht mehr wegzudenken. Den haben wir halt überall. Und Sie sehen darin das Gefährlichste, was uns passieren kann. Können Sie uns die Gefahr von diesem QR-Code noch etwas näher beschreiben?

Peter König: Über den QR-Code können wir gar zum Verhungern verurteilt werden. Wieso? Dazu muss der QR-Code – oder sein Nachfolger, wie auch immer das genannt wird – auf eine Art den Menschen eingepflanzt werden. Und das hat ja schon Klaus Schwab damals in diesem kurzen Interview mit dem Schweiz-Französischen Fernsehen in Genf gesagt, und das vor sechs Jahren – hat er gesagt: Bei 2025 bis 2030 werden wir alle einen Chip entweder in unserer Kleidung tragen oder unter der Haut. Na, das war, das ist zwar vielleicht sein Traum, ich hoffe nicht, dass es so weit kommt, aber das hat er bereits angekündigt. Und damit sind wir in einem elektro- …, werden wir zu einem elektromagnetischen Feld. Wir Menschen. Es gibt bereits in Schweden Versuchsgruppen, Volontäre-Versuchsgruppen, die haben so einen Chip in der Hand eingepflanzt, ungefähr die Größe eines Reiskorns. Im Moment sind das eben wie gesagt, nur Volontäre, die da mitwirken. Und die brauchen also diesen Code, also diesen Chip, vorwiegend für digitalen Zahlungsverkehr. Aber da kann natürlich erweitert werden, praktisch unbeschränkt. Nicht wahr?

Und das ist dann die Basis für eben diesen QR-Code, eingepflanzt im menschlichen Körper, und deshalb auch manipulierbar mit 5G oder 6G. Man kann sich also vorstellen, dass jemand, der sich nicht systemgetreu verhält, aus dem Zahlungsverkehr, das heißt Nahrungsmittel kaufen und mehr, ausgeschlossen werden kann. Man kann ihm auch sein digitales Bankkonto blockieren oder sein Guthaben konfiszieren. Das macht der Westen ja bereits, das sehen wir, und zwar bis jetzt vielleicht weniger an Individuen – oder wenigsten noch nicht in Europa oder in der Schweiz – aber angetrieben von den USA findet das bereits statt, in dem eben die Regierung, die amerikanische Regierung gefolgt von der europäischen, von Brüssel und von all den Ländern die sich da anschließen – werden die Verhalten von Ländern – wie im Moment Russland ist das beste Beispiel, aber es gibt jede andere Menge davon – die sogenannt sanktioniert werden. Das heißt also, es werden ihre Guthaben blockiert im Ausland, mit anderen Worten gestohlen, und dazu gehören China, Nordkorea, Iran, Venezuela, Syrien und so viel, usw. Also – aber Russland im Moment am meisten.

Kla.TV: Herr König, Sie haben gesagt, dass einen QR-Code heute mittlerweile jeder hat, wie muss man das verstehen?

Peter König: Ja, also ich geh mal davon aus, dass jeder irgendeinmal eine Rechnung bezahlt hat, auf der ein QR-Code ist. Selbst wenn man den nicht braucht, um die Rechnung zu bezahlen, hat man doch den Namen, also seinen eigenen Namen mit diesem QR-Code in Verbindung gebracht, und die Rechnung bezahlt, denn das ist ein integraler Teil des Einzahlungsscheins, den man über die Bank bezahlt oder am Postschalter bezahlt. Aber noch wichtiger ist, dass wahrscheinlich alle von uns – oder fast alle nehme ich mal an – einen PCR-Test gemacht haben, entweder weil sie reisen wollten oder weil sie irgendwo ein Theater besuchen wollten, oder irgendetwas … In den letzten zwei Jahren konnte man ja kaum in ein Restaurant gehen oder in viele Restaurants konnte man überhaupt nicht gehen hier in der Gegend, ohne entweder geimpft zu sein oder einen QR-Test zu haben. Da hat dann jeder, der irgendetwas brauchte einen PCR-Test, hat einen QR-Code, und zwar einen persönlichen QR-Code. Und dieser persönliche QR-Code, der wird dann eben ausgebreitet über oder weiter verwendet über eine App in deinem Cellphone. Und diese App wird natürlich verbunden mit einer Zentrale, da können wir überhaupt nichts machen, die Telefone, diese Mobile Phones, die sind alle bereits so ausgerichtet, dass sie von überall her, selbst wenn man das GPS ausschaltet, wissen sie genau, dass es uns begleitet, auch ohne GPS – das ist mal ganz klar. Dann müsste man es wegschmeißen oder zuhause lassen. Und das machen die wenigsten.

Aber abgesehen davon: Irgendeinmal braucht man dieses Cellphone wieder und dann ist man mit dem verbunden, und wenn man eben wie gesagt, wir haben vorher von der Einspritzung gesprochen, die Graphenoxid enthält und Graphenoxid ist sehr, sehr elektronisch, elektromagnetisch, das ist die Substanz, die gebraucht wird, wahrscheinlich einer der Substanzen, vielleicht die wichtigste, die gebraucht wird, um uns zu manipulieren mit 5G, wenn das mal eingesetzt wird dafür. Und das muss nicht mehr lange dauern. Ich weiß nicht, wenn das geschieht, aber das kann ohne weiteres…, vielleicht hat es schon begonnen für gewisse Leute.

Und dann, wenn das geschieht, dann haben wir praktisch diese Substanz eines QR-Codes bereits in unserem System eingebaut. So funktioniert das. Und da können wir dagegen nichts machen, wir wissen es gar nicht mehr. Die meisten Leute… – ich nehme an, die wenigsten wissen, dass sie mit einem Impfstoff, sogenannten Impfstoff, geimpft worden sind, der aus Graphenoxid besteht, aus einer hoch magnetisierbaren und elektronisch manipulierbaren Substanz, das wissen die wenigsten. Und deshalb wissen sie gar nicht, dass sie bereits vermutlich ihren QR-Code irgendwo im Körper mit sich tragen. Und die es noch nicht tun, die haben es auf ihrem Cellphone. Und da müssen wir irgendetwas dagegen machen, ich glaube, das wäre, es gibt Leute, es gibt effektiv Leute, die sagen: Wir sollten versuchen, zurück zu gehen, kein Mobile Phone mehr zu brauchen, und Festlinien [= Festnetz-Telefone] zu brauchen und uns von dieser ganzen Elektronik entfernen.

Das ist heutzutage, das wurde so langsam… – das heißt, es ist so gemächlich und so gescheit, klug, wurde das in unser Leben infiltriert, dass wir uns ein Leben, vor allem die jüngeren Leute, die jüngere Generation, ohne dieses Cellphone gar nicht mehr vorstellen können. Die meisten finden diesen QR-Code, wenn ich mit Leuten spreche, vor allem mit Jüngeren, die finden den toll, weil damit bezahlt man mit dem Telefon direkt eine Rechnung im Supermarkt oder im Restaurant, fahren sie einfach drüber und die Rechnung ist bezahlt – die finden das toll. Die haben gar keine Ahnung, was damit bezweckt wird, gar keine Ahnung, die wollen auch nicht zuhören. Wenn ich ihnen das erkläre, dann bin ich ein Spinner. Tut mir leid, das ist leider unsere Welt heute.

Und das wird natürlich voran getrieben mit einer unheimlichen Lügenpropaganda. Wenn sie wissen, wie viel selbst die Schweizer Regierung, die Medien, die Mainstream-Medien in der Schweiz subventionieren, sogenannt subventionieren oder kaufen oder korrumpieren mit Geld, mit wie viel Geld, das ist unglaublich. Ich glaube in der Schweiz ist der Betrag pro Kopf – wir haben ja nur 8,4 Millionen Einwohner – bedeutend höher als in den USA. Also der Betrag. Ich habe mal von einer Zahl von 1,7 Milliarden Franken gehört über eine Periode, ich glaub von zwei bis drei Jahren, die den Medien zur Verfügung gestellt wird, eben damit sie sagen, was die Regierung und sehr wohl wahrscheinlich die WHO zu sagen hat.

Kla.TV: Wäre das so die Umwandlung von „human“ zu „transhuman“, wie es von Klaus Schwab irgendwo mit vorgegeben war oder auch von seinem diabolischen Top-Berater, dem Autor und Historiker Yuval Noah Harari, vorgeschrieben oder angepriesen wird? Harari redet davon, wie in Zukunft „humans“ gehackt werden …?

Peter König: Harari nennt uns Menschen buchstäblich „animals that can be hacked“. Das sind seine Worte, also „Tiere, die gehackt werden können“. „Gehackt“ also im Sinne von „elektronisch infiltriert“ und manipuliert werden können. „Tiere, die gehackt werden können“ sind wir. Ich geh davon aus, dass diese arrogante Art der Unverschämtheit von Harari von Klaus Schwab ausgenützt, wahrscheinlich sogar aufgefordert wurde, um den Menschen Angst zu machen. Erstes Motto der Abwendung, der Resistenz, ist keine Angst haben – NIE. Das habe ich schon gesagt und das wiederhole ich immer wieder. Keine Angst haben. Die Angst ist deren größte Waffe. Das ist das Schlimmste. Mit anderen Worten, viele der bereits Geimpften, also sogenannten Geimpften, die haben Graphenoxid gespritzt gekriegt. Und Graphenoxid funktioniert sehr gut als Material, um elektronisch manipuliert zu werden. Und bereits mit dieser Manipulation wird dann ein gewisser Transhumanismus vorbereitet, schon mit der Einspritzung. Die meisten Leute wissen das gar nicht. Aber daraus kann man dann mit 5G ohne weiteres ferngesteuerte Transhumane machen. Das wäre die totale Versklavung der Überlebenden, und ich sage der Überlebenden, die eben die Reduktion der Weltbevölkerung überlebt haben. Von mir aus gesehen ein nicht mehr lebenswertes Leben, aber wir würden davon vermutlich kaum etwas spüren, denn wir sind im Banne von Artificial Intelligence (AI) [= Künstliche Intelligenz (KI)], Algorithmen oder eben wie Klaus Schwab das genannt hat „Du wirst nichts mehr besitzen, aber glücklich sein.“ Das Ziel des dunklen Cabals oder Kults, wie ich das eben immer nenne, diesen Stand zu erreichen bei 2030, nach Erfüllung, nach Implementation der UN-Agenda 2030 – also es fehlen noch 8 Jahre – oder auch bei der Erfüllung vom ,Great Reset‘, oder der Erfüllung der ,4. Industriellen-Revolution‘. Wie schon vorher genannt, das sind eben Ziele, die sich identisch sind in den drei synonymen Programmen, die Terminologien sind eben verschieden, um uns zu verwirren.

Kla.TV: Ja, sehen Sie eine Möglichkeit, dass diese Ziele der totalen Versklavung noch verhindert werden können?

Peter König: Ja, es fehlt zwar noch einiges um die Menschen wirklich aufzuwecken, um die Großzahl aufzuwecken. Aber es muss dazu kommen. Wir müssen aufwachen. Und ich glaube, ich sehe Ansätze dazu, dass das geschieht. Wie lange die dauern, weiß ich leider nicht. Aber es muss geschehen und es wird kommen. Es ist unmöglich, dass sich die Natur von solchen Leuten – Ich kann sie kaum mehr Leute nennen, das sind ja nicht mehr Humane – einschüchtern lässt.

Also: Bewusstsein auf ein höheres Niveau setzen, um der Manipulation des dunklen Kults zu entgehen. Das ist eine Priorität. Um das zu bewerkstelligen, dürfen wir – deshalb wiederhole ich es, – dürfen wir keine Angst haben. Die Anerkennung der Lüge, der wir vermutlich ein ganzes Leben lang ausgesetzt waren, müssen wir akzeptieren. Denn das ist die Überwindung der sogenannten kognitiven Dissonanz. Und sehr wichtig, sehr wichtig ist, wir dürfen keinen Hass spüren oder ausdrücken gegenüber diesen Tätern. Denn wenn wir das tun – das wollen die im Prinzip, wenn sie uns Angst machen oder uns einschüchtern, dann ist ihr Ziel, Hass zu verursachen. Dann setzen wir uns auf dasselbe tiefe Niveau, wie sie selber sind. Das dürfen wir nicht. Also nach dem Motto – „We shall overcome“ – wir werden die Situation beherrschen – OHNE ANGST, ich wiederhole nochmal, OHNE ANGST, dem Licht entgegenleben und in Frieden für die Menschheit entscheiden. Und so können wir uns – ich bin überzeugt – retten.

Kla.TV: Ja, Peter König, Vielen Dank für das Interview. Vielen Dank für die Zeit die Sie sich genommen haben. Und ja, wir werden zusammen überwinden. Vielen Dank.

Peter König: Nichts zu danken. Ich bin Ihnen dankbar, dass Sie mich auf Ihrem Programm haben sprechen lassen und hoffentlich erreicht diese Mitteilung einige, die bereit sind, da mitzumachen, – auch geistig mitzumachen. Vielen Dank.

*

Hinweis für die Leser: Bitte klicken Sie oben oder unten auf die Teilen-Schaltflächen. Folgen Sie uns auf Instagram und Twitter und abonnieren Sie unseren Telegram Channel. Fühlen Sie sich frei, Artikel von Global Research zu reposten und zu teilen.

Peter König ist Ökonom, geopolitischer Analyst und war über 30 Jahre bei der Weltbank tätig. Im Interview mit Kla.TV spricht Herr König über die aktuelle Finanzlage in der Schweiz, über den ,Great Reset‘ und in diesem Zusammenhang über die Kontrolle jedes Einzelnen. Dabei erläutert er, was es mit dem QR-Code auf sich hat.

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.

***

The Syrian conflict is in a stalemate, and wasn’t even mentioned on US President Biden’s recent Middle East trip.  The proxy war in Syria features the US, NATO, EU, Turkey, Iran and Russia all playing roles which vary from conflicting, to competing, and complementing.

While the international media is focused on events in Ukraine, the Syrian people are suffering from the aftermath of war, US-EU sanctions, and an economy near collapse.

Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Dr. Ahmad Alderzi, the noted microbiologist and political activist.  The questions range from Aleppo, to Turkey, to the Kurds, to Qatar, and Iran to delve into the backstory of what is the current situation on the ground in Syria.

*

Steven Sahiounie (SS):  The Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has recently paid a visit to Aleppo for the first time in almost a decade.  Meanwhile, Turkish President Erdogan is threatening to start a military operation in northern Syria.  In your opinion, does Al-Assad’s visit to Aleppo constitute a political message to Erdogan?

Ahmad Alderzi (AA):  Al-Assad’s visit to Aleppo took place in highly grave and complicated international and territorial circumstances for Syria. It was intended to carry a set of local, territorial, and international messages. Locally, it was intended to imply the return of the pre-war policies, in which Aleppo constituted a central concern for the president, Al-Assad, that made it claim its ordinary position as the most important economic city in Syria, and that the aftermath of the war policies, that prevented Aleppo and its industrial men from reclaiming their positions have come to an end. It also denoted that the next phase will witness a dramatic change concerning how to deal with the doomed city and that suitable circumstances and conditions for this return will be achieved, which made the people of Aleppo grasp that message and rush, as they are full of hope, to receive him.

Territorially, the message to Erdogan’s Turkey, which is still working on taking over Aleppo again, is clear; any new attempt to reoccupy Aleppo should witness a different way of military dealing, based on the positions of the Russian and Iranian allies, who firmly stood together with it against any new Turkish military movement.

Internationally, the sent message to the United States and the European Union, is that Syria’s position towards them will not change and that the Aleppo region, through which the Arab gas pipeline was supposed to pass in 2010, will not let the Israeli gas pipeline pass through it as well.

SS:  The international coalition in eastern Syria warns the Kurds against any talks with the Syrian government and the Russians, meanwhile, it does not prevent Erdogan from launching a military operation against the Kurdish militias.   In your opinion, what would the Kurds do to protect themselves?

AA:  The Kurdish leaders are confused as they shifted from the phase of being caressed, where temptations and promises were given by the international powers in case they aligned with them, to the phase of the biggest loser in the international and territorial conflict. They turned to be the weakest party in the international and territorial conflict having their choices reduced dramatically, where they found themselves obliged to align with either the west or the east, either Russia, China, Iran, India, Shanghai, and the Brics system, or with the US, who disappointed and conspired against them, and the European Union states who give up to Turkey, who is a NATO member, for invading the north in exchange for aligning with them in NATO. The last and only safe choice to remain was heading towards Damascus, with the assistance of the Russians and the Iranians, with a different mentality, in return for agreed rights by all parties. However, this is the sole way to protect themselves following the bitter experience they had with the Americans and the Turks.

SS:  A photo that went viral on social media showed cleaning and restoring the Qatari embassy in Damascus.  Will Qatar reopen its embassy in Damascus?

AA:  What Qatar is doing, the restoration of the embassy, does not deviate from the stick and carrot policy. After all, it does not deviate from the US higher policies in exchange for getting American protection and a regional role much larger than its actual size. It’s a clear message that Damascus’ choice about aligning either with the currently hegemonic international order or with the upcoming international one is what would identify the future of Syria and its political system. That is, aligning with Washington would open the doors for reconstruction, restoration of role, and economic prosperity for Damascus; that is what the carrot policy of restoring the embassy represents. As for the stick policy, it would be represented by the Qatari position in the Human Rights Council, which called for opening an investigation and holding the Syrian officials on trial for violating human rights.

SS:  The Iranian foreign minister was in Turkey in an attempt to restore the ties between Ankara and Damascus.   Following this visit, he headed to Damascus and met President Bashar Al-Assad.  In your opinion, will this attempt be fruitful, and is there any progress?

AA:  The Iranian attempts of restoring the ties between Ankara and Damascus set out based on the Iranian policy concerns about what is being hatched over against it internationally and regionally on the one hand, and to protect its allies and partners in a highly dangerous and complicated area from conspiracies on the other hand. This requires screwing up what is being planned by the regional powers; more importantly, working on neutralizing Turkey, which has all the cards that can destabilize the region nationally, religiously, and on the sectarian level, from the direct involvement in the American-Zionist project. However, judgments cannot be passed on this attempt now, they require building trust bridges between the two parties, Turkey’s confession of the unity of the Syrian territory and withdrawing from the areas it occupied, and disbanding terrorist organizations that it harbored, trained, and protected. This requires the Turkish leadership to be aware and realize that its exits from and around the inside and outside can only be achieved by moving towards cooperation policies, as an alternative to rough and violent control attempts.

SS:  Recently in the UN session, Russia vetoed extending the humanitarian aid corridors to Idlib. In your opinion, how will that have an effect on the last area controlled by the terrorists in Syria?

AA:  It’s early to judge the effect of the Russian position in the security council on the future of the terrorist groups. It has nothing to do with them, rather, it has to do with the American sponsor of these groups. The Russian and Chinese vetoes are just one step in a long course to turn the threats into cumulated opportunities on the course of changing the current international order. Therefore, the resolution duration was reduced to only six months, to monitor American promises of dealing differently with the legitimate Syrian government, and we have no choice but to wait to know the trends of international politics and their impact on Syria.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

Year: 2017

Pages: 128 (Expanded edition: 1 new chapter)

Special Price: $5.00

Click to order

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.

***

Guest: Renate Holzeisen is an attorney at law and economist in Italy.

This session is about a report on a remarkable Cautelar order (urgent proceedings due to imminent irreparable damage) of an Italian judge on COVID-19 injection (inaudita altera parte). The Florence Regional Court overturned the suspension of a psychologist (who was subject to mandatory vaccination) on excellent grounds.

The judge explicitly identifies the mRNA injections as experimental substances that, according to current data, are not likely to break the chains of infection. 

The actual trial is set for September.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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.

***

Introduction

We are in an era of Pax Americana where peace supposedly exists under the hegemony of the global superpower, the United States. But the years of American leadership have rather brought more wars, hostilities and chaos than one can remember. Rampant state surveillance, military alliances (against an imagined threat and enemy), international law violations, war crimes, etc. define the current state of nature.

The US, self-proclaimed bastion of democracy and freedom, deprives its citizens of their individual rights and personal freedom. Is this the future we want for our kids and grandkids? Decide on the future by acting on the present.

On Global Research, it is our intention to continue to relentlessly promote independent and authoritative voices that speak out on issues which are deliberately neglected or distorted by the corporate media.

To deliver on this intention, we need your help. Please support us: donate or become a member now by clicking below.

Click to view our membership plans

Click to make a one-time or a recurring donation

Thanks for supporting independent media.

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.

***

.

.

.

.

The follow text is the Preface to the Japanese print Edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s E-Book entitled: 

The 2020-22 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset” which is currently in E-Book format.

***

My thanks to the Publisher and to the translator Tatsuo Iwana.

Today at the time of writing my thoughts are with the people of Japan. The COVID-19 crisis is destroying people’s lives. My responsibility as an author is to reveal the truth, break the tide of media disinformation and reach out Worldwide to as many people as possible.

This book is the result of more than two years of detailed research on the causes and  consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. I am much indebted to the publisher and translator for their commitment and support throughout this endeavor. 

The results of my research, backed up by reports by prominent scientists and medical doctors, confirm that the COVID-19 policy mandates put forth by national governments worldwide, including the mRNA vaccine, are totally invalid.  

In this preface, I will focus briefly on 

• The chronology of the COVID-19 crisis with reference to Japan,
• The mRNA vaccine mandate launched by Japan’s Ministry of Health in February 2021,
• The 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. 

COVID-19 Chronology  

On January 30th, 2020 (Geneva Time), the Director General of the WHO Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared a Global Health Emergency based on 83 PCR positive cases outside of China. A ridiculously low number.

These 83 cases categorized as “COVID-19 confirmed cases” were used as a justification to launch the WHO’s Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). (For more details, see chapters I and II). 

Prior to the WHO’s historic decision, (former) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe [who passed away in July 2022] had already expressed concern regarding the novel corona virus.

A Novel Corona Response Headquarter (NCRH) chaired by the Prime Minister was created.

On the day prior to the WHO announcement, at an NHRH meeting held at the Diet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stated: 

“… There are currently eight patients confirmed … In addition, among those who returned to Japan yesterday, three tested positive in the screening. Currently these individuals are hospitalized …  Two of them show no symptoms. Taking into consideration the fact that individuals have tested positive for the virus despite exhibiting no symptoms, it is necessary for us to phase up our responses including quarantine measures.” (emphasis added)¹

These ridiculously low numbers did not under any circumstances provide evidence of an epidemic. The quarantine measures were not required nor justified. 

Moreover and this is fundamental, the methodology used to generate the so-called “positive cases” was the polymerase chain reaction (PCR test) which was subsequently acknowledged as misleading and invalid by both the WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (See Chapter III, Appendix to Chapter III for details)

In subsequent developments, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR test) methodology coupled with other rapid tests for detecting SARS-CoV-2 were activated in all major regions of Japan.

Test, Test, Test

This process of extensive testing using the PCR test indelibly contributed to hiking up the numbers of so-called “COVID-19 confirmed cases” reaching 300,000 “cumulative cases” in Japan in December 2020. It also contributed to spearheading the fear campaign. The latest figures recorded in early March 2022 at the time of writing were of the order of 5,5 million “cumulative cases”.² 

I have spent months on end examining the PCR test and its results and can state unequivocally that these estimates are erroneous and misleading. They have no scientific basis. (See details in Chapter III) 

What this implies is that all the COVID-19 policy mandates applied by the Japanese authorities since the outset of the pandemic in March 2020, allegedly to curb the progression of the infectious disease are invalid. These include the various state of emergency measures, the temporary closure of schools, the face mask, social distancing, the suspension of large-scale social gatherings, etc.  

These measures were facilitated by a draft amendment “to the Special Measures Act to Counter New Types of Influenza of 2012” which allowed for the extension of emergency measures to “an influenza outbreak which would include COVID-19”.

“Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s abrupt request for all schools in Japan to temporarily close down and his call to cancel large events have been called into question as they have no legal basis. Revising the existing special measures law would … give these requests legal ground.” (emphasis added)³

Ironically, this amendment adopted by the Diet on March 13, 2020 implied the recognition (by the government) that SARS-CoV-2 was not a dangerous “killer virus” as portrayed by the media, it was categorized as having similar features to seasonal influenza. According the WHO’s definition of SARS-CoV-2:

“The most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, dry cough, and tiredness. … These symptoms are usually mild and begin gradually. Some people become infected but only have very mild symptoms. Most people (about 80%) recover from the disease without needing hospital treatment. Around 1 out of every 5 people who gets COVID-19 becomes seriously ill and develops difficulty breathing.”⁴ (See Chapter III) 

The WHO definition of COVID-19 “similar to seasonal influenza” did not hit the headlines of the Japanese media. Had it been revealed, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s emergency measures would no doubt have been questioned and opposed by the Japanese people.

Moreover, according to the WHO, the number of “Covid-19 confirmed case” in Japan recorded on March 16, 2020 was 266. *See WHO Japan 

Meanwhile, the fear campaign was used to provide legitimacy to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s emergency measures.

This amendment to the Special Measures Act was hastily adopted by the Diet, one day after the March 11, 2020 (Geneva time) lockdown instructions transmitted to 193 member states of the United Nations.⁵ It provided a timely and convenient “green light” to Shinzo Abe to adopt a series of drastic economic measures including the lockdown and confinement of the labor force allegedly as a means to combating the spread of a dangerous virus SARS-CoV-2. 

What was the outcome of these forceful lockdown procedures implemented by Shinzo Abe? 

Two months later (May 28, 2020), Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a meeting of the Ministerial Council acknowledged (quoting the May Monthly Economic Report) that:

“The Japanese economy is worsening rapidly in an extremely severe situation, due to the Novel Coronavirus.”

Furthermore, concerning short-term prospects, the Report states that, “an extremely severe situation is expected to remain due to the influence of the infectious disease for the time being….”  (emphasis added)⁶

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had casually placed the blame on “V the Virus”.

A microscopic virus does not have a “human hand”. It cannot influence economic and financial variables. 

The alleged spread of the virus (based on faulty estimates of the PCR test) cannot be held responsible for the engineered slump of the Japanese economy instrumented by the Shinzo Abe government. 

This “severe economic situation” (which is still ongoing) is the result of the COVID policy mandates first instigated by the Abe government in March 2020. 

Recent reports confirm that these ongoing economic measures have undermined civil society, disrupted social relations not to mention  the very structures of family life in Japan, while also triggering a wave of suicides, particularly among adolescents and young children. (This issue is analyzed in Chapter VI)

The mRNA Vaccine

At the time of writing, mass protests against the COVID-19 mandates are ongoing in several countries largely focusing on the impacts of the mRNA vaccine inoculations. 

In Japan, the mRNA vaccine was launched in February 2021 as a means to protect the Japanese people against a non-existent “killer virus”. More than 206 million doses have already been administered. Was the Japanese population informed regarding the dangers of the mRNA vaccine?  

In December 2021, Japan’s Ministry of Health authorized booster shots of  Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, pointing to the “low rate of side effects such as myocarditis”. This assessment (which quotes UK data) is mistaken. Moreover, the booster shots will have a devastating impact on immunity.⁷

According to Japan’s Ministry of Heath’s earlier advisory:

“The Government recommends that people get vaccinated because the benefits of vaccination are greater than the risk of side reactions.” (emphasis added)

The foregoing statement is misleading and incorrect.

At the time of writing, the Fumio Kishida government has reversed its earlier stance. It has taken the initiative to order the labeling of COVID vaccines:

“to warn of dangerous and potentially deadly side effects such as myocarditis. In addition, the country is reaffirming its commitment to adverse event reporting requirements to ensure all possible side effects are documented.⁸

Moreover, Japan’s Ministry of Heath, while recommending the vaccine, issued an advisory to the effect that the Covid-19 vaccine “is not compulsory or mandatory”.

“No vaccination will be given without consent. Please do not force anyone in your workplace or those who around you to be vaccinated, and do not discriminate against those who have not been vaccinated.” (emphasis added)⁹

Hopefully this provision constitutes a first step towards the cancellation of the COVID-19 vaccine programme.

Vaccine-Related Deaths and Adverse Events

The evidence points to a worldwide upward trend of vaccine-related mortality and morbidity which is fully corroborated.

This official data is available. Prominent medical doctors and scientists have called for the immediate repeal worldwide of the COVID-19 vaccine programme. (See Chapter VII)

Also of relevance is the confidential report by Pfizer which was released under a Freedom of Information (FOI) procedure. Pfizer acknowledges in its own confidential report that the vaccine is dangerous and unsafe. (See Chapter VII)

It is also important that people in Japan take cognizance of the fact that Pfizer has a criminal record with the US Department of Justice. (For details, see Chapter VII)

The 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics

The world’s leading athletes arrived in Tokyo in August 2021 to participate in the rescheduled Tokyo Summer Olympics.  Quarantine and testing services were established for the athletes. These procedures were totally unnecessary. 

The people of Japan as well as foreign visitors were refused access to the Olympic events in derogation of their fundamental rights. Everybody in Japan viewed the Olympic Games on TV. These far-reaching decisions were presented to public opinion as a means to saving lives and combating the spread of the virus.

The decision to postpone the 2020 Summer Olympic Games coupled with the subsequent decision to conduct the Olympic games without spectators in August 2021 were based (as outlined above) on erroneous estimates of “COVID-19 confirmed cases” using the RT-PCR test.

The PCR methodology applied to estimate the progression of the virus, was declared invalid by the WHO on January 20th, 2021, more than six months prior to the August Tokyo Olympic Games. (See Chapter III and Appendix to Chapter III).  Moreover, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a directive on July 21, 2021 calling for the withdrawal of the PCR test effective December 31, 2021. (See Chapter III) 

The conduct of the Olympic Games in August 2021 without spectators was totally unnecessary. There was no scientific basis for preventing the Japanese people from attending the Tokyo Olympics. 

The financial losses resulting from these failed policy decisions are beyond description.

Michel Chossudovsky,

Montreal,  March, 2022

Endnotes

1 Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, January 30, 2020. Novel Coronavirus Response Headquarters. https://japan.kantei.go.jp/98_abe/actions/202001/_00034.html

2 WHO, n.d. Japan: WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard. https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/jp

3 The Mainichi, March 5, 2020. Revised influenza law to allow Japan PM to declare state of emergency over coronavirus. https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200305/p2a/00m/0fp/011000c

4 WHO, March 8, 2020. Media Statement: Knowing the risks for COVID-19. https://www.who.int/indonesia/news/detail/08-03-2020-knowing-the-risk-for-covid-19

5 Kyodo News, March 13, 2020. Japan’s Diet gives Abe power to declare emergency amid viral fears. https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/03/57cfa56d5ecc-urgent-japans-diet-gives-abe-power-to-declare-emergency-amid-viral-fears.html

6 Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, May 28, 2020. Ministerial Council on the Monthly Economic Report and Other Relative Issues. https://japan.kantei.go.jp/98_abe/actions/202005/_00027.html

7 Osamu Tsukimori, December 15, 2021. Health ministry formally approves Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for a booster shot. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/12/15/national/science-health/health-ministry-backs-moderna-vaccine-booster/

8 Amy Mek, December 10, 2021. Alert: Japan Places Myocarditis Warning on ‘Vaccines’ – Requires Informed Consent. https://rairfoundation.com/alert-japan-places-myocarditis-warning-on-vaccines-requires-informed-consent/

9 Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, n.d. COVID-19 Vaccines. https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/covid-19/vaccine.html 

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.

***

In this Whistleblower Newsroom editorial, host Kristina Borjesson discusses the illegal actions to which Assange has, and continues to be, subjected to by three nations—the US, UK and Sweden, working to fulfill the American government’s aim to get him to the US to face espionage charges.

The illegal pursuit of Assange was triggered by, most prominently, the Wikileaks release of “Collateral Murder,” a video depicting a war crime in progress: US military gunfire from an Apache helicopter mowing down eleven civilians, including two Reuters journalists.

Borjesson points out that this war crime was a crime within the larger crime of the illegal Iraq war, both of which paved the way for the criminal persecution of Assange.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on The Whistleblower Newsroom.

Featured image: Julian Assange in Belmarsh Prison in 2019 (Source: WSWS)

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.

***

During the 2020 presidential election, President Biden officially set the record for the most votes cast for a presidential candidate in US history. Although many questioned the legality of the election, the numbers were official.

Biden, one of the longest-serving career politicians in US history, finally took the office he had been eyeing for nearly 50 years. He got 81,284,000 votes, far surpassing Obama’s record of 69,498,516 votes in 2008.

However, ever since, the incumbent’s popularity has consistently been one of the lowest ever for a sitting US president. Although initially denied by the neoliberal mass media, Biden’s unpopularity has become so obvious even they had to admit it, including their flagship, the infamous CNN.

According to the latest CNN poll conducted by SSRS, Biden has reached the lowest ratings in his political career. The poll indicates public opinion is by far the worst it has been since 2009. According to the controversial news network, approximately 70% of Americans think President Biden isn’t paying attention to the country’s most pressing issues. His approval rating is 38%, with disapproval standing at 62%. His ratings for running the economy and handling inflation are 30% and 25% respectively, notably lower than the official overall approval rating. Soaring costs of living are the primary concern for most US citizens, with 75% deeming inflation the gravest problem. Just last summer, that figure stood at 43%.

Biden’s unpopularity is spilling over to the DNC itself. CNN claims that even among Democrats, Biden’s approval fell by 13% since late April (86% to 73% in July). The numbers are even worse when broken down. Biden’s DNC approval rating for handling the economy stands at 62% (9% lower than in April, when it stood at 71%). Regarding inflation, it’s even worse, with 51% of Democrats approving, while 47% disapprove. Among people of color, less than half (45%) are content with Biden’s overall performance (down from 54% in April). According to the poll, this includes a 6% and 9% decline among Blacks and Hispanics respectively. Approval ratings for handling the economy and inflation are now in the negative among Blacks, with 52% and 65% disapproval, respectively. Considering the Blacks have been among Biden’s strongest backers, these numbers are pretty indicative of the president’s performance.

At present, only 12% of Americans strongly support Biden, while 43% strongly disapprove. Among Democrats, only 28% strongly approve, while 84% of Republicans strongly disapprove. The public’s views of the economy and the state of the country overall are “deeply negative and worsening”, CNN claims. Since April, the percentage of those saying “things are going badly for the country” now stands at a mindboggling 79%, the highest since February 2009, and just 4% shy of the all-time worst (November 2008). Most alarmingly for the DNC, this shift largely comes from Democrat voters themselves, with only 38% now saying things are going well in the country. This figure was 61% in April. Concurrently, there’s been a similar drop among people of color, from 41% saying things were going well in April to just 27% in July.

Overall, only 18% of Americans think the economy is in good shape, while 82% say it’s poor, with 41% describing it as “very poor,” which is 11% more than in April and nearly double since December 2021. While economists warn of a looming recession, most Americans think it’s already happening. The CNN poll finds that 64% think the economy is going through a recession. This also includes 56% of Democrats, 63% of independents and 76% of Republicans. When asked to name the biggest economic problem facing their family today, 75% of Americans named costs of living and inflation, including 38% who singled out inflation and rising costs generally, with 29% mentioning gas prices, while 18% mentioned food costs. All of those figures have increased sharply since last summer.

While the public’s attention has shifted sharply to inflation, few think Biden’s focus has followed, with 68% saying he hasn’t paid attention to the country’s most important problems, up from 58% who said so last November. Among Democrats, 57% say he has the right priorities, down nearly 20 points from 75% last fall. Among people of color, just 35% say he has the right priorities, and among those younger than 35, only 23% say the President has the right focus. The ratings for handling immigration (39%) and Ukraine (46%) might be better than those regarding the economy, but are still in the negative.

The survey also indicates both the president’s and vice president’s personal ratings have suffered. Just before their inauguration, 59% and 51% held favorable opinions of Biden and Kamala Harris, respectively. Now, those figures stand at 36% and 32%. With midterm elections just months away and no indication whatsoever that Biden’s standing with the public will improve, the incumbent’s unpopularity is extremely likely to affect the DNC’s midterms performance.

The popularity of governments across the political West has diminished sharply in 2022. With Emmanuel Macron facing a hostile Parliament, Boris Johnson’s premiership hanging in the balance, Germany’s government on the verge of collapse and the Italian government effectively collapsed already, the political crisis in the West might soon turn into an overall one, affecting every aspect of the imperialist power pole. On the other hand, the multipolar world is not just stable, but it’s working towards greater integration.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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.

***

More and more information about foreign mercenaries who were captured in the East of Ukraine is shared by the media.

Testimony of Alexander Drueke

My name is Alexander Drueke. I’m a U.S. citizen from Alabama.

On June 9th, I was captured outside Kharkov. (Scroll down for transcript)

On July 15th, the death of one of the foreign citizens who was imprisoned on the territory of the DPR was announced. It was a British citizen, Paul Urey, born in 1977. He suffered from numerous diseases, including Type 1 Diabetes, as well as severe kidney and lung diseases. Paul Urey suddenly died of cardiac distress.

According to the official representatives of the DPR, Paul was provided with all possible medical care, including insulin. Paul was also given the opportunity to call his relatives and any organizations that he considered appropriate to contact in order to speed up his release or which could provide him with additional expensive special medications.

The South Front Team addressed the official representatives of the DPR with a request to provide information about the fate of other foreign citizens imprisoned in the Republic. We asked for details about conditions of their detention, health status and their legal status.

Today we received a reply by mail that the DPR is ready to provide the requested information on foreign prisoners. The SF team was provided with video recordings and background on several foreign mercenaries who were captured.

Starting today, we are publishing a series of articles about foreign mercenaries in custody in the DPR.

My name is Alexander Drueke. I’m a U.S. citizen from Alabama.

On June 9th, I was captured outside Kharkof. And I’ve been held in captivity since then. During my captivity I’ve been treated very well. I have food and water. I have access to legal help and medical care if needed. But, of course, I would much rather be back home with my family.

So, I’m appealing to the U.S. government to find a way to give me back home. I understand that there have been prisoner exchanges between Ukraine and Russia. And, so, that may be a possible option to get me home. I’m not sure what other options there might be, but if there are any options available, that the U.S. government could make happen or influence happen, then I would greatly appreciate them doing everything that they could to make that happen.

I have been allowed to reach out to officials with the U.S. government during my captivity and I haven’t got any kind of concrete answers on what steps they are taking to secure my release. If any, but I would just again ask that the U.S. government do everything that they can to trying give me released. So, I can go back home and be with my family. Thank you.

Alexander Drueke, born in 1982, is a native of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He has a higher education in management.

Being a US Army reservist, Drueke took part in the Iraq campaign with the 942 transport company. He served directly in the combat zone in Iraq for several years. At the time of the campaign, he held the rank of the US Army sergeant. Further, he has moved up through the military ranks. During his service in Iraq, Drueke was awarded several times by the United States, and also got a special life pension.

Then, until 2022, he allegedly worked as a salesman in various companies in the United States.

In February 2022, being influenced by US anti-Russian propaganda, he decided to take part in military operations in Ukraine on the side of Kiev. Having enough financial capacities, he bought military equipment at his own expense, including a helmet, body armor, tactical boots, etc.

On April 15, 2022, he arrived on the territory of Ukraine. He crossed the border without hindrance, telling the border guards that he was entering Ukraine with the “purpose of helping the Ukrainian people.”

Then Alexander Drueke got in touch with representatives of the so-called Ukrainian Foreign Legion through the Internet. He was informed that he had to arrive at the Yavoriv railway station in the Lviv region, where the notorious military training ground used for the formation and combat coordination of foreign mercenaries is located.

Having arrived in Yavoriv, Drueke signed a contract with the Ukrainian Foreign Legion to serve in its ranks on a fee basis. He was enrolled in a unit which only included foreigners. Most of his colleagues did not have any military experience, which later led to a lack of proper military discipline in the unit.

The training of the unit was entrusted to the fighters themselves. In the training camp, Alexander Drueke struck up a friendship with three other mercenaries from the US.

In a week, he and his friends were disillusioned with the unit’s training system and their command. They believed that the Ukrainian Foreign Legion is a large and professional unit but their aspirations radically diverged from reality. As a result, they broke their contracts and left the Foreign Legion at the end of April 2022.

Through their personal contacts in Ukraine, they found another unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine located in the city of Rivne. They signed new contracts with this unit. They were given personal weapons (AK-74, 5.45 x 39 caliber), which Alexander learned to handle from videos on YouTube.

The service in the second unit allegedly also did not suit Alexander and his two friends. The group of mercenaries tried to find another professional unit where their combat skills could be fully applied.

They did it in a month. At the beginning of June 2022, the mercenaries were invited to a sabotage and reconnaissance group of foreigners, which operated in the Kharkiv direction.

They arrived in Kharkiv on June 8, 2022, where they were met by citizens of Germany and France who were members of the tactical force team “Baguette”.

The Baguette group consisted of about 12 military personnel, of which about half were French citizens, former or active servicemen of the French Foreign Legion or other units of the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces of France. Except Alexander Drueke and his two friends, there were 3 others US citizens in the group.

On arrival at the location of the group, each of them was given a CZ807 assault rifle, 7 magazines of 30 rounds and a hand grenade. Aleksander’s partner was also given an RPG-7 with one grenade for the launcher, and Alexander was given two more grenades for the RPG-7. Earlier, during their short-term service in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, they were trained in the handling of these weapons.

On the evening of June 8, 2022, a briefing was held. They were informed that the next day they had to move to a combat position for reconnaissance and mining operations.

On June 9, 2022, the group of 8 foreign soldiers, accompanied by soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, left on a mission. On the spot, Ukrainian servicemen mined the area, and foreigners were tasked to conduct reconnaissance using UAVs. In case of enemy forces detection, they had to ambush them in order to destroy their military equipment.

During the operation, Drueke’s partner detected a Russian tank, which he fired at with his RPG-7.

In response, Russian soldiers opened fire with small arms at the position of the foreign mercenaries. Alexander and his colleague retreated into the forest area, where they hid for a couple of hours until the battle subsided. After that, they decided to dig their RPG-7 and the two remaining grenades. Being armed, they moved to the side where the cars in which they arrived were parked.

However, only one of the three cars remained, and that one was already inspected by the Russian servicemen.

Alexander and his partner tried to leave the battlefield on their own and left in the direction of the location of their group. Having no maps and not knowing the area, they wandered for 6 hours. As a result, they came to a settlement that was under the control of the Russian military, where they were captured.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

SUPPORT SOUTHFRONT: 

PayPal: [email protected], http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

Featured image is from SF

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.

***

The US financial sector has long looted other countries.  A number of participants have described the process.  First a country is enticed with bribes to the leaders to take out loans that cannot be serviced or repaid.  Then in comes the IMF. Austerity is imposed on the population.  Public services and employment are cut to free resources for debt service, and public assets are sold to repay the loan.  Living standards fall, and US corporations take over the country’s economy.

As foreign governments, having experienced or witnessed the economic carnage and fearing accountability, are less willing to be bribed into indebting their countries, American finance is now applying this technique to Americans. Contrary to the narrative in the financial press, the Federal Reserve is not raising interest rates in order to fight inflation.  It is ludicrous to think that a three-quarters of one percent rise in a very low interest rate is going to have any impact on a 9.1% rate of consumer inflation or that speculation that the Federal Reserve has in mind another three-quarters of one percent possibly followed by one half of one percent comprise an anti-inflation policy.  If all these increases occur, it still leaves the interest rate below the inflation rate.

Moreover, as I have previously explained, the inflation is not monetary.  The higher prices are the result of supply disruptions caused by Washington’s Covid lockdowns and Russian sanctions.  Production was stopped and supply chains are broken.  

The Federal Reserve’s rise in interest rates is just a continuation of its policy of concentrating income and wealth in the hands of the One Percent.  Quantitative Easing was the cloak for the Federal Reserve to print $8.2 trillion in new money which was directed or found its way into the prices of stocks and bonds, thus enriching the small number who own most of these financial instruments.  Having maxed out this avenue of wealth concentration, the Federal Reserve is now raising interest rates in order to drive up mortgage costs to aspiring home owners.  The Federal Reserve is driving individuals out of the housing market in order to free up properties for “private equity” firms to purchase homes for their rental values.  That private equity firms see rental income from the existing stock of houses as the best investment opportunity tells us that the US economy has played out.  When investment goes into existing assets, not into producing new assets, the economy ceases to grow.

The Obama regimes policy of bailing out the financial fraudsters responsible for the 2008 crash while foreclosing on their victims, reduced American homeownership from 70% to 63 percent. The Urban Institute predicts further declines. Today homeowners’ equity has declined from 85% after World War II to one-third, leaving two-thirds of homeowner equity in the hands of creditors.  This makes it completely clear that a financialized economy indebts the people for the sake of rentier income to the One Percent.  Indeed, the financialized economy created by the Federal Reserve has reimposed a class system akin to the landed British aristocracy that was overthrown.  Indeed, we have an economically far worst class system.  The landed British aristocrats produced food that fed the nation.  The American class system produces interest and fees for the financial system.

As Michael Hudson has shown us, a no-growth economy is the end result of a financialized economy.  A financialized economy is one in which consumer income is diverted by debt expansion away from the purchase of new goods and services into debt service and fees–interest on mortgages, car loans, credit card debt, student loan debt.  With such a large share of household income spent on debt service, little is left for driving the economy forward.

If American economists were capable of escaping from their neoliberal junk economics, they would realize that “the world’s largest economy” they attribute to the United States is total fiction.  The fact is that the United States does not have an economy.  Corporations driven by Wall Street located American manufacturing in Asia so that the One Percent could benefit from higher profits from lower labor costs, while the deserted city and states had to sell their income streams, such as Chicago’s parking meter revenues for 75 years, to foreigners for one lump sum payment to solve one year’s budget crisis.  

The offshoring of American production, carried out under the cloak of “globalism,” destroyed the American economy and the tax bases of cities and states.  While the real economy declines, the Democrat Party, seeking permanent power, has imposed a policy of open borders for immigrant-invaders.  How are these millions of peoples to support themselves in an economy whose manufacturing has been moved abroad?  How can a population, deserted by American corporations, that is experiencing debt deflation absorb the costs of support and social infrastructure for tens of millions of third world immigrant-invaders?

You will never hear it from the whores in the financial press, but the United States is on the precipice of economic and social collapse.  And what are the fools in Washington doing?  The idiots are ginning up wars with Russia, China, and Iran.  

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

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.

***

The calls and text messages are relentless. On the other end are doctors and scientists at the top levels of the NIH, FDA and CDC. They are variously frustrated, exasperated and alarmed about the direction of the agencies to which they have devoted their careers.

“It’s like a horror movie I’m being forced to watch and I can’t close my eyes,” one senior FDA official lamented. “People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.”

That particular FDA doctor was referring to two recent developments inside the agency. First, how, with no solid clinical data, the agency authorized Covid vaccines for infants and toddlers, including those who already had Covid. And second, the fact that just months before, the FDA bypassed their external experts to authorize booster shots for young children.

That doctor is hardly alone.

At the NIH, doctors and scientists complain to us about low morale and lower staffing: The NIH’s Vaccine Research Center has had many of its senior scientists leave over the last year, including the director, deputy director and chief medical officer. “They have no leadership right now. Suddenly there’s an enormous number of jobs opening up at the highest level positions,” one NIH scientist told us. (The people who spoke to us would only agree to be quoted anonymously, citing fear of professional repercussions.)

The CDC has experienced a similar exodus. “There’s been a large amount of turnover. Morale is low,” one high level official at the CDC told us. “Things have become so political, so what are we there for?” Another CDC scientist told us: “I used to be proud to tell people I work at the CDC. Now I’m embarrassed.”

Why are they embarrassed? In short, bad science.

The longer answer: that the heads of their agencies are using weak or flawed data to make critically important public health decisions. That such decisions are being driven by what’s politically palatable to people in Washington or to the Biden administration. And that they have a myopic focus on one virus instead of overall health.

Nowhere has this problem been clearer—or the stakes higher—than on official public health policy regarding children and Covid.

First, they demanded that young children be masked in schools. On this score, the agencies were wrong. Compelling studies later found schools that masked children had no different rates of transmission. And for social and linguistic development, children need to see the faces of others.

Next came school closures. The agencies were wrong—and catastrophically so. Poor and minority children suffered learning loss with an 11-point drop in math scores alone and a 20% drop in math pass rates. There are dozens of statistics of this kind.

Then they ignored natural immunity. Wrong again. The vast majority of children have already had Covid, but this has made no difference in the blanket mandates for childhood vaccines. And now, by mandating vaccines and boosters for young healthy people, with no strong supporting data, these agencies are only further eroding public trust.

One CDC scientist told us about her shame and frustration about what happened to American children during the pandemic: “CDC failed to balance the risks of Covid with other risks that come from closing schools,” she said. “Learning loss, mental health exacerbations were obvious early on and those worsened as the guidance insisted on keeping schools virtual. CDC guidance worsened racial equity for generations to come. It failed this generation of children.”

An official at the FDA put it this way: “I can’t tell you how many people at the FDA have told me, ‘I don’t like any of this, but I just need to make it to my retirement.’”

Right now, internal critics of these agencies are focused on one issue above all: Why did the FDA and the CDC issue strong blanket recommendations for Covid vaccines in children?

Three weeks ago, the CDC vigorously recommended mRNA Covid vaccines for 20 million children under five years of age. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, declared that the mRNA Covid vaccines should be given to everyone six months or older because they are safe and effective.

The trouble is that this sweeping recommendation was based on extremely weak, inconclusive data provided by Pfizer and Moderna.

Start with Pfizer. Using a three-dose vaccine in 992 children between the ages of six months and five years, Pfizer found no statistically significant evidence of vaccine efficacy. In the subgroup of children aged six months to two years, the trial found that the vaccine could result in a 99% lower chance of infection—but that they also could have a 370% increased chance of being infected. In other words, Pfizer reported a range of vaccine efficacy so wide that no conclusion could be inferred. No reputable medical journal would accept such sloppy and incomplete results with such a small sample size. More to the point, these results should have given pause to those who are in charge of public health.

Referring to Pfizer’s vaccine efficacy in healthy young children, one high-level CDC official—whose expertise is in the evaluation of clinical data—joked: “You can inject them with it or squirt it in their face, and you’ll get the same benefit.”

Moderna’s results—they conducted a study on 6,388 children with two doses—were not much better. Against asymptomatic infections, they claimed a very weak vaccine efficacy of just 4% in children aged six months to two years. They also claimed an efficacy of 23% in children between two and six years old—but neither result was statistically significant. Against symptomatic infections, Moderna’s vaccine did show efficacy that was statistically significant, but the efficacy was low: 50% in children aged six months to two years, and 42% in children between two and six years old.

Then there’s the matter of how long a vaccine gives protection. We know from data in adults that it’s generally a matter of months. But we have no such data for young children.

“It seems criminal that we put out the recommendation to give mRNA Covid vaccines to babies without good data. We really don’t know what the risks are yet. So why push it so hard?” a CDC physician added. A high-level FDA official felt the same way: “The public has no idea how bad this data really is. It would not pass muster for any other authorization.”

And yet, the FDA and the CDC pushed it through. That slap in the face of science may explain why only 2% of parents of children under age five have chosen to get the Covid vaccine, and 40% of parents in rural areas say their pediatricians did not recommend the Covid vaccine for their child.

This isn’t the first time that Covid vaccines recommendations based on scant evidence have been pushed through these agencies.

Most recently, back in May, the lack of clinical evidence for booster shots in young people created a stir at the FDA. The White House promoted it hard even before FDA regulators had seen any data. Once they saw the data, they weren’t impressed. It showed no clear benefit against severe disease for people under 40.

The FDA’s two top vaccine regulators—Dr. Marion Gruber, director of the FDA’s vaccine office, and her deputy director, Dr. Philip Krause—quit the agency last year over political pressure to authorize vaccine boosters in young people. After their departure they wrote scathing commentaries explaining why the data did not support a broad booster authorization, arguing in the Washington Post that “the push for boosters for everyone could actually prolong the pandemic,” citing concerns that boosting based on an outdated variant could be counterproductive.

“It felt like we were a political tool” a CDC scientist told us about the issue. That insider went on to explain that he got vaccinated early but chose not to get boosted based on the data. Ironically, that person was unable to go on a trip with a group of parents because proof of being boosted was required. “I asked for someone to show me the data. They said the policy was based on the CDC recommendation.”

As one NIH scientist told us: “There’s a silence, an unwillingness for agency scientists to say anything. Even though they know that some of what’s being said out of the agency is absurd.”

That was a theme we heard over and over again—people felt like they couldn’t speak freely, even internally within their agencies. “You get labeled based on what you say. If you talk about it you will suffer, I’m convinced,” an FDA staffer told us. Another person at that agency added: “If you speak honestly, you get treated differently.”

And so they remain quiet, speaking to each other in private or in text groups on Signal.

One subject these doctors and scientists feel passionately about but feel they cannot bring up is natural immunity. Why, they wonder, are we insisting on immunizing children who already have some immunity to the disease due to having contracted Covid?

As of February, 75% of children in the U.S. already had natural immunity from prior infection. It could easily be over 90% of children today given how ubiquitous Omicron has been since then. The CDC’s own research shows that natural immunity is better than vaccinated immunity and a recent New England Journal of Medicine study from Israel has questioned the benefits of vaccinating previously infected persons. Many countries have long credited natural immunity towards vaccine mandates. But not the U.S.

In this, the leaders of these American health agencies made the U.S. an international outlier in how it treats children. Sweden never offered vaccination to children under 12. Finland limits Covid vaccines to children under 12 who are at high risk. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has appropriately stated that “some children may benefit” but “previous infection offers as good of protection as the vaccine against reinfection.” Denmark announced on June 22 that its recommendation to vaccinate any children under age 16 was a mistake. “The vaccinations were not predominantly recommended for the child’s sake but to ensure pandemic control,” said Søren Brostrøm, head of the Danish Ministry of Health.

It is statistically impossible for everyone who works inside of our health agencies to have 100% agreement about such a new and knotty subject. The fact that there is no public dissent or debate can only be explained by the fact that they are—or at least feel that they are—being muzzled.

It is an ancient, moral requirement of our profession to speak up when we believe questionable treatments are being proposed. It is also good for the public. Imagine, for example, a world in which those scientists who suggested that masking for children and school lockdowns were worse for public health were not smeared but instead debated?

The official public health response to Covid has undermined the public’s belief in public health itself. This is a terrible outcome with potentially disastrous consequences. For one thing, because of these sloppy and politicized policies, we run the risk of parents rejecting routine vaccines for their children—ones we know are safe, effective and life-saving.

The leaders of the CDC, the FDA and the NIH should welcome internal discussion—even dissension—based on the evidence. Silencing physicians is not “following the science.” Less absolutism and more humility by the men and women running our public health agencies would go a long way in rebuilding public trust.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Dr. Marty Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the author of The Price We Pay, and a medical advisor to Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. 

Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg is an epidemiologist affiliated with The Florida Department of Health who has published research on Covid-19 in schools in the CDC’s journal MMWR.

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.

***

The following text are selections from an incisive report by London’s Daily Mail which reveals the fraud and political complicity behind the Covid crisis which has literally paralyzed the institutions of civil society in more than 190 countries, in the course of more than two years.

The report focusses on how US government agencies led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, et al. were instrumental in the closure of schools across America. This action constitutes a crime against humanity and a crime against our children.

This article by the Daily Mail confirms what the independent media (including Global Research) has been publishing from the very outset of this crisis.

What this article suggests is that the instruments of censorship and so-called “fact checking” are in crisis.

The truth is being revealed. Our thanks to the Daily Mail for having brought this report to our attention.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, July 19, 2022

To read the full text of the Daily Mail article, click here

***

Two of America’s top health agencies are reportedly hemorrhaging staff as poor decision-making, described by staff as ‘bad science,’ has led to low morale.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are both suffering staff shortages, according to Dr. Marty Makary, a top public-health expert at Johns Hopkins University, writes at Common Sense, the Substack run by former New York Times columnist, Bari Weiss.

Major decisions made by the agencies that hurt morale included support for masking in schools, school closures during the pandemic and the authorization of COVID-19 vaccines for children four and under.

Both agencies, along with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have been mired in controversy throughout the pandemic for inconsistent messaging and for decision-making that didn’t seem to line up with available science.

‘They have no leadership right now. Suddenly, there’s an enormous number of jobs opening up at the highest level positions,’ an anonymous NIH scientist told Common Sense.

Schools became a battleground of the COVID-19 pandemic in America.

When the virus stormed the world in 2020, many officials immediately shut things down – schools, retail stores, entertainment venues, restaurants – out of a fear of the unknown.

Initial data showed children suffered limited risk when they contracted the virus, though, and that it was mainly the elderly and severely immunocompromised that bore the virus’s burden.

Despite the evidence, the CDC still recommended schools stay closed until the end of the 2019-2020 school year.

…

COVID tsar Dr. Anthony Fauci repeatedly warned that lifting mask mandates from children was ‘risky,’ while simultaneously saying it was time to return back to normal. That was in February.

On July 13, Fauci flip-flopped again, recommending that masks still be work in indoor public gatherings while telling Americans they shouldn’t let the BA.5 COVID-19 variant ‘disrupt our lives.’

Makary, however, warned masks may’ve harmed kids’ social and emotional development as they couldn’t properly read human emotions or the facial expressions of covered faces.

The decision that seemed to raise the most commotion was the authorization of COVID-19 jabs for children aged six months to five years old.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky signed off on those vaccines in June, after a panel of advisors to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted 12 to 0 in favor of COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as six months on June 18.

…

‘The public has no idea how bad this data really is. It would not pass muster for any other authorization,’ an FDA official said.

Amid the many controversies the agency was facing at the time, the CDC announced in April that it would reevaluate its structure and processes in the hopes of developing better processes to communicate with Americans.

It is unclear what changes, if any, were made as a result of the evaluation.

Click here to read the full article on Daily Mail Online.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from NaturalNews.com

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.

***

Notice the following under “INTENDED USE”:

“Positive results indicate the presence of viral antigens, but clinical correlation with patient history and other diagnostic information is necessary to determine infection status. Positive results do not rule out bacterial infection or co-infection with other viruses. The agent detected may not be the definite cause of disease.” (emphasis mine)

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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.

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

**Voices from Syria**

Author: Mark Taliano

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-9-1

Year: 2017

Product Type: PDF File

List Price: $6.50

Special Offer: $5.00 

Click to order.

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.

***

This book looks at the philosophy, politics and history of many different art forms arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment of Enlightenment ideals. In recent times Enlightenment ideas have been characterised as cold, hard science, while Romanticism has been perceived as the ‘caring’ philosophy.

However, Romanticist emotions lead to self-absorption, escapism and diversion, yet during the Enlightenment, emotion was not only a very important part of Enlightenment philosophy but was the basis of the philosophes’ ideas for combating injustice in society. Throughout the last two centuries, any Enlightenment movements that tried to highlight the plight of the poor or unite the working class (Sentimentalism, Realism, Social Realism, Socialism) have been excluded, swamped or submerged by Romanticist movements that ultimately pose no threat to the status quo.

In other words, just as the Right tries to remake the Left in its own image (to disarm it), the Romanticists try to remake the Enlightenment in theirs (catharsis without progressive social change), thus, maintaining a ‘culture of slavery’.

…

Through developing an awareness of the socio-political fault lines in today’s culture, cultural practitioners can create a new democratic spirit with an emphasis on the value of ordinary people, while at the same time making an important contribution to the fight against poverty, oppression, and injustice.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction
What’s the matter with Romanticism?

Chapter 1 – Philosophy
Re-Examining Emotion and Justice in Enlightenment Ideals

Chapter 2 – Politics
Romanticism as a Tool for Elite Agendas

Chapter 3 – Art
Art Movements and the People’s Movement

Chapter 4 – Music
The Conversion of Music into a Mass Narcotic

Chapter 5 – Opera
Opera in Crisis: Can It be Made Relevant Again?

Chapter 6 – Dance
Diversity in Dance Today

Chapter 7 – Poetry
The Dialectics of Rhyme

Chapter 8 – Literature
Literature Serving Human Liberty

Chapter 9 – Theatre
Popular Theatre as Cultural Resistance

Chapter 10 – Architecture
Neoliberalism, Climate Change and Architecture

Chapter 11 – Cinema
Individual and Collective Struggles in Cinema

Chapter 12 – Television
Game of Thrones: Olde-Style Catharsis or Bloody Good Counsel?

Chapter 13 – Culture
The Culture of Slavery v the Culture of Resistance

Conclusion
The Power of Romanticism today: 21st Century Irrationalism

Bibliography

Index

*

Against Romanticism: From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery

By Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin

Publisher: Gaelart Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-3999-1964-7

Design: Ieva Grbacjana (https://igrbacjana.com/)

Cover photography: Philip O’Neill (https://www.philiponeillphotography.com/)

Cover painting: Sapere Aude! by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin (http://gaelart.net/)

Back cover: Pallas and the Centaur (Public domain / Wikimedia Commons)

Printer: Paceprint (https://paceprint.ie/)

See this for more details.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. Currently working on a book entitled Against Romanticism: From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery. It looks at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment of Enlightenment ideals.

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

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.

***

Today is Dominion Day!

Please do not forget the heroes of Canada that stand for your freedoms and are presently paying the price for your rights!

Say No to the Tyranny!

Below is an interview with Pat King, leader of  Canada’s Truckers Freedom Convoy. He was imprisoned on the orders of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

The COVID-19 Crisis and “The Seventh Wave”: Our Politicians Are Fraudulent, Complicit and Incompetent

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky and Caroline Mailloux, July 18, 2022

The  historic March 11, 2020 lockdown triggered economic and social chaos Worldwide. It was an act of “economic warfare”: a war against humanity. This diabolical agenda has undermined the sovereignty of nation states. It has contributed  to a wave of bankruptcies. It has impoverished people Worldwide. It has led to a spiralling dollar denominated global debt.

US-Israel Joint Declaration. Mossad False Flag on the Way? “Alleged Plan by Iran to Assassinate U.S. Officials”

By Gavin OReilly, July 18, 2022

Wednesday’s report by corporate media outlet Yahoo News, outlining alleged plans by Iran to assassinate senior US officials, including former President Donald Trump, in retaliation for the January 2020 drone strike killing of Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s elite Quds Force unit, should come as little surprise to onlookers.

How Pfizer Profited From the Pandemic

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, July 18, 2022

According to Kaiser Health News (KHN), the COVID-19 pandemic has been a real boon to Pfizer. Not only has it yielded “outsize benefits” in terms of profits, but it has also “given the drugmaker unusual weight in determining U.S. health policy.”

Catastrophic COVID Experience in New Zealand. The Derogation of Human Rights and “The Basic Principles of Medicine”. The Protest Movement

By Dr. Emanuel Garcia, July 18, 2022

If there is a silver lining to the catastrophic Covid experience for us here in New Zealand it is the very clear and indisputable exposure of the political establishment.  The green clean smiling benevolent face of the New Zealand government is nothing more than a mask – yes, a mask – behind which is harsh dictatorial mien of a government that feels no need to answer to the needs of the people it purports to govern.

The West Against Russia: The Strategy Is Being Played Out in Ukraine. “Socio-Economic Suicide” in the EU. Peter Koenig

By Peter Koenig and GEOFOR, July 18, 2022

The EU want sanctions on Russia to stop. The sanctions are foremost hurting the EU, but not Russia. On the basis of these sanctions, the planned One World Order (OWO), currently represented by the World Economic Forum (WEF), is using these sanctions, or rather Russia’s reaction to the sanctions, as a justification for causing massive energy and food shortages throughout the west, and to some extent also the Global South.

Ukraine Peace Talks in the Cards?

By M. K. Bhadrakumar, July 18, 2022

The influential Russian daily Izvestia wrote on Wednesday that the settlement over the “grain corridor” across the Black Sea can create the ambience for resumption of peace talks between Kiev and Moscow.

‘DOD Must End Vaccine Mandate,’ Says Army Doctor Suspended for Writing Exemptions

By Dr. Samuel Sigoloff and Pam Long, July 18, 2022

In an interview with Pam Long, U.S. Army veteran and frequent contributor to The Defender, Dr. Samuel Sigoloff — an osteopath board-certified in family medicine and an active-duty major with the Army suspended for writing COVID-19 vaccine exemptions for service members — explained why he believes the mandates must end.

Does the World Economic Forum Measure Up to Nicaragua?

By Stephen Sefton, July 18, 2022

Few people now doubt that contemporary events worldwide point to a fast accelerating decline of North American and European countries as world leaders in practically any sphere of human activity. The collapse across the world in acceptance of US or European Union moral and political authority is clear from the refusal of most majority world countries to support US-led sanctions attacking the Russian Federation.

Is It Time for Canada to Apologize to Libya?

By Yves Engler, July 18, 2022

Canada said their war in Libya was to defend human rights and enable democracy. But, NATO’s 2011 assault has unleashed a decade of instability and violence as well as deteriorating social and economic indicators. And they still haven’t held presidential elections.

Will the US Supreme Court Make It Illegal to Boycott Israel?

By Azadeh Shahshahani and Dr. Assal Rad, July 18, 2022

With major implications for freedom of speech in the US, it is worth re-examining the historical use of boycott as a tool of resistance by anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist grassroots movements for justice, and the case of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement called for by Palestinians.

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.

***

Wednesday’s report by corporate media outlet Yahoo News, outlining alleged plans by Iran to assassinate senior US officials, including former President Donald Trump, in retaliation for the January 2020 drone strike killing of Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s elite Quds Force unit, should come as little surprise to onlookers.

Indeed, following the assassination of the Iranian General, the Islamic Republic responded by firing a barrage of ballistic missiles at the US Ain al-Asad airbase in neighbouring Iraq, leaving 110 US servicemen with ‘traumatic brain injuries’ according to The White House, a euphemism for deaths according to Tehran.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi also reiterated in January of this year that unless Trump and then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are handed over for trial – an admittedly highly-unlikely scenario – that Tehran would pursue revenge through other means, leaving no doubt as to the lengths that the Islamic Republic is prepared to go in order to avenge its’ foremost military commander.

The timing of Wednesday’s ‘leak’ however, cannot be described as anything less than suspicious.

On the same day, US President Joe Biden marked his first official visit to the Middle East when he touched down in Israel, with Tel Aviv being a long-time opponent of Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution saw the US and UK-backed Shah Pahlavi overthrown and replaced with the anti-Western and anti-Zionist Ayatollah Khomeini.

The seemingly main theme of Biden’s fleeting visit to the Zionist state was the containment of Iran within the region, with the US leader and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid signing a joint strategic declaration affirming that the Washington would use ‘all elements of its national power’ to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, in spite of the production of such weapons being strictly prohibited in the Islamic Republic owing to a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khameni.

This markedly more belligerent tone that Biden has taken towards Iran as a result of his Israeli visit, and the ‘leaking’ of the alleged Iranian assassination plot on the same day, would suggest that the current US administration is now on a trajectory where conflict with Iran may become a distinct possibility, and that the aforementioned intelligence report may, in fact, be foreshadowing a false flag operation intended to create that very scenario.

Indeed, the involvement of Israeli intelligence in false flag operations intended to lead the United States into wars on behalf of the Zionist State has a recent enough history.

On the morning of September 11^th, 2001, as planes crashed into the World Trade Centre, a New Jersey housewife noticed another worrying sight from her apartment window.

Three young men, kneeling on the roof of a removals van in the apartment block’s car park, appeared to be in a celebratory mood in spite of the utter chaos unfolding in front of them, dancing and high-fiving each other and even taking photos as the Towers collapsed.

Reporting this incident as well the vehicle’s registration number to the authorities, the van would be stopped by armed police later that afternoon, with 5 men, aged between 22 and 27, detained.

To the puzzlement of authorities, the men turned out to be Israeli citizens, with the driver of the van, Sivan Kurzberg, announcing upon his arrest “We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.”

In what would arouse suspicion even further from the arresting, $4,700 in cash was discovered on one of the men and two foreign passports were found on another. Box cutters similar to those used by the 9/11 hijackers were also found in the van, as well as traces of explosives.

Having obtained a warrant to search the premises of the men’s employer, Urban Moving System, the FBI would question the firm’s owner, Dominick Suter, also an Israeli citizen, who would initially cooperate with their inquiries before hastily leaving the United States three days later without carrying out a planned follow-up interview.

After 71 days in custody, and following an intervention from the then-Bush administration, the five men, who would become known as the Dancing Israelis, were released and deported back to Israel, where they would later confirm in an interview that they were intelligence operatives, part of a larger Mossad spy ring exposed after 9/11, sent to ‘document the event’.

Indeed, that very event would prove highly beneficial to Israeli interests, with 9/11 being used as the pretext to launch the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that Tel Aviv had stringently lobbied for, the 2011 Syrian regime change operation also supported by Israel, and now, with the possibility that Mossad may stage a false flag operation in the US involving the assassination of senior US officials, a potential devastating war with Iran.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

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.

***

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a real boon to Pfizer. Not only has it doubled Pfizer’s annual revenue, it has also given the drugmaker unique weight in determining U.S. health policy — something that concerns even staunch vaccine-pushers like Dr. Paul Offit

Pfizer’s revenue in 2021 was $81.3 billion — approximately double that of 2020 — and the COVID shot accounted for $36.78 billion of that 

Pfizer’s COVID jab dominates 70% of the U.S. and European markets, and Paxlovid, its COVID drug, has become a standard treatment choice in hospitals. This despite findings showing the shot doesn’t prevent infection or transmission, and that Paxlovid causes severe rebound and supercharges mutations

The U.S. had thrown away 82.2 million expired COVID jab doses as of mid-May 2022, yet the Biden administration ordered another 105 million doses at the end of June 2022 for a fall booster campaign that will cost taxpayers $3.2 billion

Pfizer’s contracts are almost exclusively slanted in Pfizer’s favor. They’re guaranteed payment while having no financial liability for injuries and deaths, and it appears this indemnification applies even if they were to be found guilty of fraud

*

According to Kaiser Health News (KHN),¹ the COVID-19 pandemic has been a real boon to Pfizer. Not only has it yielded “outsize benefits” in terms of profits, but it has also “given the drugmaker unusual weight in determining U.S. health policy.”

“Based on internal research, the company’s executives have frequently announced the next stage in the fight against the pandemic before government officials have had time to study the issue, annoying many experts in the medical field and leaving some patients unsure whom to trust,” KHN reporter Arthur Allen writes, adding:²

“When last year Bourla suggested that a booster shot would soon be needed, U.S. public health officials later followed, giving the impression that Pfizer was calling the tune.

Some public health experts and scientists worry these decisions were hasty, noting, for example, that although boosters with the mRNA shots produced by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech improve antibody protection initially, it generally doesn’t last.

Since January, Bourla has been saying that U.S. adults will probably all need annual booster shots, and senior FDA officials have indicated since April that they agree … The company’s power worries some vaccinologists, who see its growing influence in a realm of medical decision-making traditionally led by independent experts …

When President Biden in September 2021 offered boosters to Americans — not long after [Pfizer CEO Albert] Bourla had recommended them — Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia … wondered, ‘Where’s the evidence you are at risk of serious disease when confronted with COVID if you are vaccinated and under 50?’

Policies on booster recommendations for different groups are complex and shifting, Offit said, but the CDC, rather than Bourla and Pfizer, should be making them. ‘We’re being pushed along,’ he said. ‘The pharmaceutical companies are acting like public health agencies.’”

The fact that a vaccine-pusher like Offit — infamous for claiming a baby can safely tolerate 10,000 vaccines at once³ — is questioning and pushing back against Pfizer’s influence over health policy reveals just how brazen, unethical and potentially dangerous that is.

Massive Profits Made From Useless Products

According to Allen, Pfizer’s revenue in 2021 was $81.3 billion⁴ — approximately double that of 2020 — and the COVID shot accounted for $36.78 billion⁵ of that. For comparison, Lipitor, Pfizer’s previous top selling statin, generates roughly $2 billion a year,⁶ while their strep vaccine, Prevnar 13 rakes in $6 billion a year.⁷

Its mRNA gene transfer injection against COVID now dominates 70% of the U.S. and European markets, and Paxlovid, Pfizer’s COVID drug, has become a standard treatment choice in hospitals. This, despite researchers finding Paxlovid (molnupiravir) causes severe rebound and supercharges mutations.

In a rational scenario, that finding would have put a stop to its use, but no. In an official health advisory⁸ to the public, issued May 24, 2022, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first warns that Paxlovid is associated with “recurrence of COVID-19 or ‘COVID-19 rebound,’” and then in the very next sentence stresses in bold print a narrative supporting its use and enriching Pfizer with instructions saying:

“Paxlovid continues to be recommended for early- stage treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 among persons at high risk for progression to severe disease.”

Allen also notes that, during an investor call, a Pfizer official highlighted reports of Paxlovid’s failure, but spun it into “good news” for investors, as patients may require multiple courses!⁹Obviously the objective has long ago shifted from helping humans to raping them for as much profit as possible.

Similarly, while Pfizer’s COVID jab clearly doesn’t prevent infection or spread, and Americans are rejecting the shots in growing numbers — 82.2 million doses had expired and were chucked in the trash as of mid-May 2022¹⁰ — the U.S. government still went ahead and ordered another 105 million doses at the end of June 2022.

These are intended for a fall booster campaign, at a cost to taxpayers of $3.2 billion.¹¹ The U.S. is actually paying about 50% more for each of these new jab boosters this time around — $30.47 per dose compared to $19.50 per dose paid for the first 100 million doses.

The U.S. government has also promised to purchase another 20 million courses of Paxlovid, at an eye-watering cost of $530 per five-day course. Basically, Pfizer is being financially rewarded for producing products that are useless at best and dangerous at worst, and we’re all paying for it. In case you’re curious, that is another $10.6 billion transferred from U.S. taxpayers to Pfizer.

Future Boosters Won’t Undergo Human Clinical Trials

After you likely thought it couldn’t ever get any worse, KHN also touches on, but doesn’t delve into, the fact that Pfizer suggested they skip human trials as they move forward with jabs that are reformulated for newer variants. If this strikes you as crazy, you’d be right. It’s sheer madness, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — a clearly captured agency — has already surreptitiously agreed to this egregious miscarriage of science.

How this wicked scheme, known as the “Future Framework,”¹² was adopted by the FDA without formal vote is explained by Toby Rogers, Ph.D. — a political economist whose research focus is on regulatory capture and Big Pharma corruption¹³ — in the video above. He also explained it in a June 29, 2022, Substack article:¹⁴

“Yesterday [June 28], the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee approved a bivalent COVID-19 shot with the Wuhan strain and the Omicron variant … Wait, hold up, I thought the FDA was voting on the Future Framework yesterday?

The policy question was whether reformulated COVID-19 shots would be treated as new molecular entities (which they are) in which case they should be subject to formal review or whether reformulated shots would be treated as ‘biologically similar’ to existing Covid-19 shots and be allowed to skip clinical trials altogether.

Apparently the FDA did not have the votes to just pass this as a policy question. If you ask anyone whether reformulated mRNA represents a new molecular entity, well of course it is, so that would require formal regulatory review.

What the FDA did instead was to smuggle the policy question in disguised as a vote about reformulated ‘boosters’ for the fall.

In essence, the FDA just started doing the Future Framework (picking variants willy nilly, skipping clinical trials) and essentially dared the committee members to turn down a booster dose — knowing that all of the VRBPAC members are hand-picked because they’ve never met a vaccine they did not like.

So of course only two people on the committee had the courage to turn down a booster dose — even though it was based on this preposterous process (that was never formally adopted) where there was literally no data at all … By stealth, the FDA replaced a system based on evidence with a system based entirely on belief.”

Countries Held to Ransom

In 2021, secret details of Pfizer’s contracts came to light, showing they are essentially holding countries hostage to nonnegotiable demands for payment in full AND freedom from liability.¹⁵

In late February 2021, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported¹⁶ that Pfizer was demanding countries put up sovereign assets as collateral for expected vaccine injury lawsuits resulting from its COVID-19 jab.

Several countries, including Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Peru, agreed to this demand, putting up bank reserves, military bases and embassy buildings as collateral. In short, theses governments are guaranteeing Pfizer will be compensated for any expenses resulting from injury lawsuits against it, so the company won’t lose a dime if its COVID shot injures people.

Shockingly, these terms are binding even if those injuries are the result of negligent company practices, fraud or malice!

In October that same year, Public Citizen published the secret contracts^17,18 between Pfizer and Albania, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Dominican Republic, the European Commission, Peru, the U.S. and the U.K., further revealing the extent to which these countries handed power over to Pfizer. In almost all scenarios, Pfizer’s interests come first.

For example, government purchasers must acknowledge that the effectiveness and safety of the shots are completely unknown, all while indemnifying Pfizer against any and all financial liability. This is the ultimate corporate maleficence, using their leverage to force the kill shot down these countries’ throats and avoiding any personal responsibility for damages.

Even if Pfizer eventually is convicted of fraud in the U.S. and loses all its liability protection from the COVID jabs because of it, that judgment would not impact these foreign contracts. These countries sold their souls to Pfizer and have absolutely no recourse but to pay even if the shots kill everyone.

The contracts for at least four countries also secure Pfizer’s intellectual property rights even if the company is found to have stolen intellectual property rights of others. In such case, the government purchaser becomes the liable party. As explained by Public Citizen:¹⁹

“For example, if another vaccine maker sued Pfizer for patent infringement in Colombia, the contract requires the Colombian government to foot the bill. Pfizer also explicitly says that it does not guarantee that its product does not violate third-party IP, or that it needs additional licenses.

Pfizer takes no responsibility in these contracts for its potential infringement of intellectual property. In a sense, Pfizer has secured an IP waiver for itself. But internationally, Pfizer is fighting similar efforts to waive IP barriers for all manufacturers.”

Equally shocking is that countries are forced to follow through on their vaccine orders even if other drugs or treatments emerge that can prevent, treat or cure COVID-19.²⁰ Is it any wonder, then, that governments around the world have suppressed the use of safe and effective outpatient drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin?

If these drugs were allowed to be used and could be proven to work, the COVID injections would be completely unnecessary and their emergency use authorization would disappear, yet governments are on the hook for hundreds of millions of doses.

Pfizer Has ‘Habitual Offender’ Track Record

The fact that Pfizer has behaved like a criminal who works out a cover story for a planned murder before committing it is not surprising, considering its history. Pfizer, has been sued in multiple venues over unethical behavior, including unethical drug testing and illegal marketing practices.²¹

In his 2010 paper,²² “Tough on Crime? Pfizer and the CIHR,” Robert G. Evans, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor at Vancouver School of Economics, described Pfizer as “a ‘habitual offender,’ persistently engaging in illegal and corrupt marketing practices, bribing physicians and suppressing adverse trial results.”

Between 2002 and 2010 alone, Pfizer and its subsidiaries were fined $3 billion in criminal convictions, civil penalties and jury awards. They are recurrent criminal felons. None of these convictions has deterred their nefarious behavior.

In 2011, Pfizer agreed to pay another $14.5 million to settle federal charges of illegal marketing,²³and in 2014 they settled federal charges relating to improper marketing of the kidney transplant drug Rapamune to the tune of $35 million,²⁴ as well as $75 million to settle charges relating to its testing of a new broad spectrum antibiotic on critically ill Nigerian children.

As reported by the Independent²⁵ at the time, Pfizer sent a team of doctors into Nigeria in the midst of a meningitis epidemic. For two weeks, the team set up right next to a medical station run by Doctors Without Borders and began dispensing the experimental drug, Trovan. Of the 200 children picked, half got the experimental drug and the other half the already licensed antibiotic Rocephin.

Eleven of the children treated by the Pfizer team died, and many others suffered side effects such as brain damage and organ failure. Pfizer denied wrongdoing. According to the company, only five of the children given Trovan died, compared to six who received Rocephin, so their drug was not to blame.

The problem was they never told the parents that their children were being given an experimental drug. What’s more, while Pfizer produced a permission letter from a Nigerian ethics committee, the letter turned out to have been backdated. The ethics committee itself wasn’t set up until a year after the trial had already taken place. Pfizer’s rap sheet also includes bribery, environmental violations, labor and worker safety violations and more.²⁶

Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

Now, despite Pfizer being one of the least ethical drug companies, we’re told to trust them with our very lives, and the lives of our precious children. They’re going to put out booster shots this fall that have undergone absolutely no testing whatsoever, and we’re to simply throw caution to the wind because Pfizer — which has no liability whatsoever — says so.

In 2014, Pfizer faced a surge of lawsuits that accused it of hiding known side effects of its anticholesterol drug Lipitor.²⁷ They got off scot-free that time, as a federal judge dismissed thousands of cases alleging the drug caused Type 2 diabetes.^28,29 But at least they had liability and could be sued.

When it comes to the COVID jabs, injured patients and family members of those killed by it won’t even have the ability to sue for damages, as governments around the world have indemnified them completely, and it looks as though they might not even be liable even if they’re found guilty of fraud. But we will have to see what the courts rule on that one. Still, that any nation would agree to a contract like that is just mindboggling.

Meanwhile, mounting evidence shows the COVID shots destroy immune function over time, and Pfizer’s own trial data reveal deaths and serious adverse events numbering in the tens of thousands.

It’s hard to tell who’s more deserving of punishment — Pfizer or the equally captured federal agencies, the FDA and the CDC, that go along with them and do nothing to protect the lives of the youngest members of our society. Clearly, it’s up to us to protect ourselves and our loved ones, because wolves in sheep’s clothing are ruling the roost — they’re making all the decisions, and captured agencies are simply doing their bidding.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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.

***

Abstract 

The mission of scientific research is currently contaminated with distortions that undermine its credibility and compromise its fruitfulness.

The main question is: are scientific projects, fundraising activities, papers and scientific findings interrelated? Does innovation need the frenzy of activities that leads to the overproduction of scientific papers? Or are we simply witnessing one of the worst consequences of globalisation, with desperate researchers forced to publish for survival rather than to pursue the advance of knowledge?

This paper examines the environment of scientific research with its current rules and operating mechanisms.

Overproduction of papers is examined in light of the indefinite growth paradigm, which was invented by economists and politicians to ensure big business to some large multinational enterprises.

No natural phenomenon shows a monotonically increasing trend. Indefinite growth and indiscriminate productivity are deceptive chimeras, and those who let themselves be overwhelmed by it risk falling seriously ill.

It is time to significantly reduce the production of often useless (if not harmful) scientific articles, and to give science back its status of process and scientists their professional dignity.

The anomalies I will refer to include:

i) an abnormally high and frenetic production of scientific articles (where are quality and innovation?),

ii) a wide mass of studies of little relevance that seem to respond solely to the publish or perish blackmail;

iii) unheard-of but proven cases of plagiarism and fraud.

Creative work, such as that of researchers and professors, should not be guided and controlled by market rules. 

I  argue that what scientific research bodies and universities need is a work environment inspired by ideals of plurality, solidarity and eclecticism.

Contributing to the advancement of knowledge remains an extraordinary intellectual and ethical adventure. However, subjection to market rules creates distortions, with risks and consequences for all humanity.

Introduction

Science is a Sacred Cow is the title of a 1950 book by chemist and entomologist Anthony Standen [1]. The author argues that some scientists and teachers have «inflated egos» (certain of their superior wisdom and virtue) or «a fabulous collective ego, as inflated as a skilfully blown piece of bubble gum». This irreverent book was widely reviewed and even praised by Albert Einstein.

A 1950 editorial note in Life (an American magazine) states: «With tongue-in-cheek hyperbole, [Standen] suggests that a group that takes itself so seriously deserves some serious skepticism».

Standen, in fact, asserted that the scientists he was referring to are mostly dull and pompous and now and then they should be laughed at. Unfortunately, he argued the general public stood in awe of them, even when they talked Latinised nonsense.

Already in 1950, then, a breach was opened in the compactness of science as a granitic and inviolable corpus of knowledge that aims to preserve and increase itself. Nowadays, moreover, scientists are often turned into media personalities. While they increasingly crowd the news (e.g., television, newspapers, social media), it is unclear whether they are asked to provide solutions to social problems, thereby replacing politicians, or if politicians empower scientists with reporting facts that legitimize policies imposed on populations. In either case, said science would appear to overcome doubt and precaution, which are at the heart of the scientific method and deontology. Science is not a producer of certainties led by unblemished and fearless professionals (namely, researchers, scientists). Does it make sense for scientific research bodies, particularly academics, to influence policy on contingent social and political issues? Should scientific research not be disconnected from political and commercial purposes? Reflections and second thoughts on this fundamental and fantastic profession are definitely urgent.

Many shadows and only a few lights mark the current path of science, as emphatically evidenced over the last years. In the last three decades, we have witnessed the following epistemological changes concerning science:

• from a scientific method adopted to guide managers and management (formal debut in 1911, with The Principles of Scientific Management by Frederick W. Taylor [2]) to the mercantile management of science,
• from science addressing politics to politics incorporating science,
• from science intended as a mission for public interest to science subjected to market rules for profit. 

While we are facing an unprecedented situation, the trend of scientific paper overproduction was born a long time ago. Scientists are under enormous pressure in order to manufacture papers that are mostly useless to the progress of humanity, since the current working conditions, reminding that of assembly line, allow neither reflection nor intuition. Considerations on socio-political and ethical aspects of scientific research are sadly commonly neglected, so that it is not ethics that establishes the priorities and determines the limits.

This paper examines the dark side of science, which operates by distorting and sometimes also perverting the genuine advance of knowledge. Gianfranco Pacchioni, author of “The Overproduction of Truth” [3], argues that, under the weight of its immense productivity, modern science is heading for a collapse. In their recent paper titled “Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science”, J. S. G. Chu and J. A. Evans [4] wrote:

«In many academic fields, the number of papers published each year has increased significantly over time. Policy measures aim to increase the quantity of scientists, research funding, and scientific output, which is measured by the number of papers produced. These quantitative metrics determine the career trajectories of scholars and evaluations of academic departments, institutions, and nations» (Web of Science dataset used, analysing papers published between 1960 and 2014 inclusive).

Does it make sense for public scientific research bodies, particularly universities, to follow these trends and the influence of contingent social and political issues? Does it make sense that public scientific research bodies are subjected to market rules? Considerations on socio-political and ethical aspects of scientific research are commonly neglected, although scientific results strictly depend upon the vision that any scientist has of him/herself, of the natural and social world and of his/her profession with related repercussions and, particularly, social responsibility.

Starting a bibliographical research on a given scientific topic can be discouraging, since some thousands documents can be detected by the database employed. A refined selection of documents is nearly always possible, of course, but the overload remains and a critical investigation is necessary aimed at understanding why the reason for the massive increase of scientific articles over the last thirty years. Are we dealing with an increment in scientific sensitivity? A significantly greater number of researchers, than in the past, is currently engaged? If so, to what end? Or, has the internet simplified and intensified the connection between people, providing a huge growth of relevant scientific results arising from international collaborations?

Over the last three decades we have witnessed a constant and rapid increase in the number of scientific papers published in highly specialized and peer-reviewed journals around the world. This fact can be observed and evaluated according to different perspectives. One can appreciate this growth associating the number of scientific papers to the quality, variety and abundance of the recent scientific thought, thereby arguing that many papers are the obvious and linear consequence of many innovative scientific ideas that impact on social activities and the quality of life. On the other hand, one could ask oneself how the scientific environment, with its peculiar working mechanism and rules, has recently changed. A recent paper [5] examined the growth rate of science publication between 1907 and 2007, recording significant differences in various scientific fields (natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, and so on) and a general difficulty of analysis mainly due to the variety of communication forms (conference proceedings, full articles, short communications, monographies, reviews, and so on) and to databases organisation.

Visiting the backstage of research laboratories may reserve a few surprises to non-experts. Sadly, today scientists are forced to multiply their capacity to publish in order to obtain prestige, power, ordinary research funds and jobs (including tenures, promotions, grants, etc.) for themselves and their collaborators.

Scientific articles are currently used as a tool to regulate temporary employment (a huge skilled and underpaid workforce), recruitment and career progression. In this sense, one is setting up a generation of scientists that are enslaved to the papers they must churn out, i.e. whose institutional aim is shifted from scientific research to publication.

Current science is subservient to politics and used to build domain strategies. “Publish or perish” is the locution coined to describe the pressure in universities and other research institutions to rapidly and continually publish papers to sustain or develop careers, recruiting and funding.

Categorising, ranking, evaluating and, above all, counting publications has become the dominant international way of managing scientific research topics, funding and researchers. This is a sterile and manipulative exercise. Single researchers, as well as the corresponding affiliating institutions, are evaluated by the administrators on the basis of the number of papers produced per year. Furthermore, additional credit points are allocated to those scientists who bring funding to their institution, which penalises those who do not. While a researcher can be unable to generate any original scientific ideas, they can progress their careers by regularly producing papers and finding funds. Here, the key question is: findings or funding? Funding for research findings is an obvious recipe, but innovation requires serenity and lucidity beyond huge amounts of funding. Scientists are distracted from in-depth study by the necessity to get funded, which is bad for innovation, because it distracts from reflection, from the courtship of intuition. In lucky cases, papers quickly produced in an assembly line are mannerist products, mere applications of codified disciplines diligently written by professionals of science, obedient to the diktat of the moment. In the many unlucky cases, however, the papers are merely useless repetitive exercises written by who is pressed to do so to survive.

According to Benjamin Disraeli «A University should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning»; instead, it has become a place dominated by market interests and overwhelmed by waste, blackmail, and exploitation of temporary workers. In my opinion, we are witnessing an epochal and very dangerous systematic distortion, whose main aspects can be summarised through the following points aimed at distinguishing among:

• outstanding scientific research based on an insight that reveals what was previously in the shadows,
• ordinary and diligent collection of data easily interpretable within established scientific paradigms (concepts, theories, models, practices),
• errors in data collection (experimental design step), in measurements, and/or interpretation (modelling step) due to ignorance, naivety or hurry,
• real deceptions based on false data, or biased elaboration of data, and other aberrations [6]. 

Attention: distortion is going to turn into a drift, so a serious shift towards slowness and decency, with a recovery of the sense of public institution disconnected from accounting logic and profit, is urgent. 

The criteria/policies of the scientific journals: writing a scientific paper

Scientific overproduction is strictly correlated with the hypertrophic proliferation of specialized journals.

The glut of scientific reports from scientists – tyrannised by their affiliated institutions and, therefore, driven by the need and the urgency to publish –has allowed journals to proliferate dramatically (a oncogenic-like phenomenon) and to assume behaviours that are as arbitrary as they are tyrannical. Scientific overproduction allows specialised journals to choose and discard.

A range of criteria are adopted, such as, scientific quality (methodological rigor, statistical adequacy in data treatment, innovation, and so on) in the showcase and others in the backstage. Beyond the papers’ intrinsic quality, which remains difficult to evaluate, journals are committed to creating the most diverse acceptance barriers by imposing extremely heavy conditions on authors. Formatting a paper according to a journal’s specific guidelines and completing a submission on its website can be very demanding. Instructions for authors on how to prepare a manuscript for submission includes a series of editorial follies whose purpose would appear to be finding formal reasons to reject articles. Here is a sample of these instructions:

• running title: an abstract of the paper title, with limited number of words allowed,
• structured abstract: a mini-article subdivided into micro-paragraphs, with limited number of words allowed,
• graphical abstract: a relevant image visually showing the content of the work,
• audio summary: the abstract of the abstract, acoustically showing the content of the work, with limited number of words allowed,
• phonetic spelling of name and surname of the principal investigator in view of the audio summary (the summary is also singing or only read?),
• cover letter: an extended version of the abstract addressed to the editor of the journal to highlight the merits (field of investigation covered, novelties, aims, etc.) of the paper,
• requests to each author to disclose private information, more or less pertinent to the paper, but specially related to funding (such as public engagements),
• request to specify the particular type of contribution to the paper by each author,
• stringent rules for tables, figures, captions, text (with limited number of words allowed), references (system of citation imposed), all of which to be strictly observed in view of submission without any guarantees of acceptance: a leap in the void that costs plenty of work and energy, to be repeated elsewhere in case of rejection. 

Homologating work formats and the themes of scientific research means to flatten the differences in the worldviews of individual scientists, which represses their creativity. What seems absurd is that journals require rigid and mandatory adherence to a standard editorial format for the preparation of the text to be submitted. Also, the list of references must be drawn up in accordance with editorial guidelines. Much time is lost in drafting a text according to editorial standards. In the event of rejection, the author has to start anew to match the guidelines of a different journal. Could the substance or content not be distinguished from the form in the first instance?

Furthermore, authors of scientific papers ignore the identity of reviewers, but reviewers generally know both the author’s identity and affiliation – this is one of the unacceptable distortions of this odd social environment. When will scientists be allowed to operate in double blind conditions to ensure real parity as well as disinterested and unbiased evaluation?

In short, only the largest research groups, supported by multiple contributions from different subjects who bring together various type of skills, are able to face the demands of most journals; and this is one the primary methods of paper selection. Hence, only those who can count on strong support can stay in the publication rat-race; while only those who have access to financing can engage runners (researchers) and equipment (places, libraries, instruments, reagents, PC, subscriptions, etc.) suitable to enter the race. To survive in this jungle of rules, standards and formalities, then, a scientist is forced to become a fund manager, an accountant, a clerk typist, an IT specialist as well as a dynamic and smart networker whose aim is to tour the world to collect information, consent and alliances at various conferences and academic gatherings.

The indefinite growth paradigm

Until we continue to think obsessively in terms of growth – economic, scientific, etc. – we will have to compare the academic condition to oncological diseases growing worldwide. The fact that scientists are falling into such a cognitive trap is beyond paradoxical. The growth paradigm was invented by economists and politicians to enhance production and (mostly unnecessary) consumptions. Biologically indefinite growth is nonsense and is, at best, an anticipation of death. The paradigm of indefinite growth, much vaunted in economic and political terms, is mere deception: no natural phenomenon is indefinitely increasing (as far as it is known today), since each is characterised by:

• a latency phase,
• a growth phase,
• a stability phase,
• a decline phase until extinction. 

With regard to biological phenomena, the larger and more complex the living organism, the more rapidly it decays and dies out. Then, imposing to the society’s members the indefinite growth paradigm as a virtuous reference (as a desirable horizon) implies inducing oncogenic thoughts and, thus, overt cancer. This is a vulgar deceit, also useful to sell antineoplastic drugs, maybe as a consequence of some concluding remarks drawn as a result of fraudulent clinical trials [7].

Indefinite growth and indiscriminate productivity are deceptive chimeras, manipulative and harmful paradigms: those who fall for it and let themselves be overwhelmed risk falling seriously ill. Moreover, increasing the rhythm of publications is like progressively exceeding the consumption of sweets: it is an addiction! The craving of papers follows the same rules as the craving of sweets or cocoa: it is an illness, a psychological dependence dopamine-mediated. Sadly, many people are prone to be deceived by the myth of competition, probably because it intercepts survival mechanisms to which each one is ancestrally trained beyond logic, culture or ethics. The divisive logic that makes us believe that everyone survives at the expense of the sacrifice of others (due to a shortage of resources, for example) is powerful and those who are interested in and stress people (including researchers) to unbalance the markets know this very well. Let us now continue to examine those basilar aspects of science together to the currently distorted ones. 

The analogy between scientific and cellular overproduction

Now, let us pause and reflect. The 2014 document by the World Cancer Report [8] gives a comprehensive overview on worldwide disease. It emerges that cancers figure among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with approximately 14 million new cases and 8.2 million cancer related deaths in 2012.

Moreover, the number of new cases is expected to rise by about 70% over the next two decades. These data show that humanity is living in an antibiological way, that implies thinking and behaving in a dysfunctional way to the vital mechanisms. Let us examine some causes of this. Why wonder about the constant increase of oncological diseases in the world when scientists are currently producing impressive masses of scientific articles – published on a constantly increasing impressive masses of journals – for purposes unrelated to the real progress of science and humanity? Any behaviour characterised by a hypertrophic base is the result of people acting in a society characterised by an unhealthy, compulsive and often senseless tendency to the overproduction (scientific, industrial, crafts, and so on), such as cancer cells in an altered metabolism. And all this because it was built a society based on the sale of objects and on craving for profit. The keyword is, in fact, alteration: we are witnessing the decline of a category exhausted by competition in the struggle for survival that ignores (at least partially) that it is being manipulated to be silenced. Scientists currently are:

• obsessively focused on trivial details to give technical meaning to a publication of a certain scientific field,
• jailed in sterile competitions with their peers to grab a keynote or a lecture in a congress, for a grant, for a funding, for a contract, and so on,
• kidnapped by captious intellectual speculations around details that distract from the search for new ways, new models, new concepts, new explanations of phenomena under study,
• possessed by the narcissistic demon to predominate in their field of expertise. 

But, where do we want to go? This situation is particularly serious and significant for scientists who are university professors, because they neglect their teaching commitments to devote him/herself full time to scientific research, fundraising and publication activities that allow them to justify their presence within the University and, therefore, their salary. In her 1990 book, Page Smith [9] claims that:

• the well-known publish or perish dictum and blackmail generates useless research and articles, while leading professors away from their students in the pursuit of tenure,
• academic fundamentalism, the refusal of professors to acknowledge ideas that do not fit their own agenda, is on the rise,
• universities are becoming increasingly dependent on government and big business as these entities award more research grants. 

There is confusion between the publication as a means of communication and dissemination of novel knowledge from publishing as an act for its own sake.

The scientific overproduction (as well as the one recordable in other sectors) is similar to a cellular hyper-proliferation.

For each thing exists a state of balance (a normo-trophic state), one of deficiency (a hypo-trophic state) and one of excess (a hypertrophic state). Excess as well as deficiency are debilitating states and bring with them only destruction enlivening competition for survival, what activates the metabolic pathways of distress (increasing free radical production and specific hormones levels, as that of cortisol and epinephrine) until the appearance of tumours to chronic inflammation and immune disorders. As well-known [10], in fact, cortisol suppresses immune function and also many types of cancer are recognised having a dis-immune origin.

Several diseases that are defined by chronic inflammation result in significantly increased risks of cancer, such as colon cancer in patients with ulcerative colitis [11, 12]. Cortisol has a direct effect on shrinking the thymus and inhibiting white blood cell production and activity. Cortisol suppresses the ability of white blood cells to secrete chemical messengers (interleukins and interferons), so the different varieties of immune-system cells become unable to communicate with each other in a way that would allow them to more effectively fight off infections. Moreover, cortisol can actually act as a signal towards many immune-system cells to simply shut off and stop working (that is, the cells die). In this murky atmosphere of competition and protagonism, in which the race for survival is masked by search of excellence, specialised journals wallow at low cost on the work of scientists stressed and forced into a senseless assembly line (of Tayloristic taste) against all logic and decency.

Cancer cells are full of bioactivity and vigour, but they kill the organisms within which they develop. So it is, in my view at this moment, the world of scientific research and papers. The overproduction of unnecessary, mannerist and repetitive papers is an unequivocal sign of ethical and cognitive decline, and of lack of creativity. This is the current dark side of science: not simply kinky but distinctly dark, noxious. How many scientists are aware of this? How many scientists are interested in this? How many scientists are aware of their real task and mission on the Earth? How many scientists are aware of being working inside a misleading network which aims to marginal objectives, typically mercantile, with respect to that of the progress of humanity? How many scientists have the time and the courage to reflect on these issues?  

The peer-review scam

The instrument to which the scientific community delegated – naively – the custody of the scientific quality is compromised, as documented by the paper [13] appeared on Nature in 2014. Already in 2006, Donald Gillies [14] argued against what he named a Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), moreover explaining that such a tool was introduced in 1986 in the UK by Margaret Thatcher and continued by Tony Blair, thus revealing a political interest connected to. Afterwards, peer review was introduced in other countries and it is now worldwide accepted and used to make decisions for publications in specialised journals. Peer review is the assessment process at the heart of current science: unfortunately, distortions of the process contaminates the sector [13, 15] and we cannot be sure that the quality of the articles is guarded by the peer reviewers hired free of charge from journals between expert researchers.

John Bohannon – a biologist and science journalist based at Harvard University – in his 2013 article published on Science [16] shows the result of his investigation. In September 2013, he submitted a fake scientific article to a large number of fee-charging open-access publishers, revealing that less than 40% were living up to their promise of rigorously peer-reviewing what is published. This approach was criticised by some commentators as well as by some publishers of fee-charging journals, who complained that his sting only targeted one type of open-access journal and no subscription-based journals, damaging the reputation of the open access movement.

As stated by Donald Gillies [14]: «Thus a great deal of taxpayers money will be spent on an exercise whose likely effect is to make research output worse rather than better. Only one conclusion can be drawn from this, namely that RAEs should be abolished rather than introduced».

Richard R. Ernst, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1991, wrote [17]: «And as an ultimate plea, the personal wish of the author remains to send all bibliometrics and its diligent servants to the darkest omnivore black hole that is known in the entire universe, in order to liberate academia forever from this pestilence. And there is indeed an alternative: Very simply, start reading papers instead of merely rating them by counting citations». 

Science/technology vs process/product

Confusion between science and technology is going to kill the content, the mission and the investigation method of science. Science is a process that can, sometimes, give rise to a product: confusing process and product can damage humanity survival and wellness so as its progress. Moreover, making scientific research is different from simple accumulation of data according to a given reference scientific model: the aim of science is to produce new interpreting models of the phenomenal reality by the way of development of a new conceptualisation. Other is technical application of scientific principles or simple strategy to augment the number of papers on the basis of which are decided funding criteria as various indicators of scientific activities.

Current researchers are simple slaves of papers, obsessed by the need of publication to achieve the characteristics to compete for international or national specific funding.

It is time to stop this perverse chain that confuses the evolution of scientific thought with the products derived from it overtime as operating and applicative consequences.

The rush to publish produces artefacts of good (errors) or of bad (fraud) faith and increases the power of the specialised journals (constantly increasing). David M. Markowitz and Jeffrey T. Hancock of the Cornell University (USA), in their paper titled “Linguistic Traces of a Scientific Fraud: The Case of Diederik Stapel” [18] wrote «This research supports recent findings that language cues vary systematically with deception, and that deception can be revealed in fraudulent scientific discourse».

The incidence of fraud in scientific publications is such that it has even urged linguists to work to succeed in revealing the deceptive article from the details of the linguistic fabric. On the other hand, R. Grant Steen and co-workers published an article titled “Why Has the Number of Scientific Retractions Increased?” [19]; authors wrote: «The increase in retracted articles appears to reflect changes in the behaviour of both authors and institutions. Lower barriers to publication of flawed articles are seen in the increase in number and proportion of retractions by authors with a single retraction. Lower barriers to retraction are apparent in an increase in retraction for ‘‘new’’ offenses such as plagiarism and a decrease in the time-to-retraction of flawed work».

The evolution of scientific thought – as a process – is sacrificed on the altar of the product, productivity and profit, because researchers are delegated fund raising for the maintenance of membership. The movement of research funding is regulated by the projects and the testimony of the research work is entrusted to publications: for these reasons, the research products most frequently expressed are scientific articles and patents. This is acceptable in the context of an intellectual and ethical honesty that knows moments of bewilderment.

The experimenter expectancy effects

The Rosenthal effect is the name for a theory which posits that the expectations of an experimenter concerning the results of an experiment may have an unconscious effect which directs the results of said experiment toward the expectation of the experimenter [20]. In too many cases, current scientific research is built on the confirmation of something. Karl Raimund Popper: «It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory – if we look for confirmations. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions… A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or refute it» [21].

The Rosenthal (or experimenter/expectancy) effect is recognised as physiological in scientific research (as in other fields), but the rush (or really the urgency) to publish pushes to get results mostly classifiable into existing and consolidated models. The Rosenthal effect is much more active in scientists, also because they struggle every day on the same things (related to their expertise), sometimes losing lucidity. Moreover, scientists are guided by the burning hope to obtain something relevant to stand out and emerge (and this easily produces artefacts or junk) or to avoid to be fired. The equivocal use and abuse of the scientific method and its results has led over time to the coining of the term scientism, which is the alarming reflection of situations determined by arbitrary decisions, assumed as a function of theorems passed off as scientifically founded but, in reality, mere fruit of opinions. Scientists are not geniuses or superheroes, but fallible human beings with their beliefs and prejudices: it is therefore useless and harmful to overestimate their abilities and above all to stress them with hurry, competition and precariousness. All this if you want an equity society for interpersonal harmony and psychophysical health.

If, instead, one wants a society of alarmism and emergencies built on the problems and behaviours determined by fears, then it is useful to label and demonise as antiscientific everything that adverse the despotic technocratic power exercised through sanitary and technological control of people. 

Compulsive assessment to stimulate sense of competition

With the obsession for the rankings one can create competition to tire and distract scientists with the struggle for survival. Scientists are evaluated by their affiliation institution, journals are ranked with bibliometric criteria and indexes. The obsessive idea of being involved in a dichotomy between loser and winner distorts the research path of scientists. The use of bibliometric indicators as the impact factor is also criticised [22]. Obsession for international ranking of journals and universities is aimed at disseminating malevolence and to discriminate, not to ensure quality, as someone likes to believe or induces others to believe. Competition is a cliché, a myth, a trap for the mind.

Society is inundated with half-truths and misconceptions about the economy and finance in general and free enterprise in particular. It is time to stress cooperation, not competition. Competition is a toxic driving force to stimulate commitment in people: it forces them to identify any medium to survive to pressing requests, thus artefacts of any type may arise to pollute the society. The idea of competition is drummed into us at school. From sports to exam quizzes, it’s about competing with others. Instead of guiding pupils to do their best, one pushes to convince them to do better than other pupils do. It is all good for us, we are told, it gives us an incentive to improve and it fits us for the wider world of work. Competition leads to unified network science that deprives the scientific path of the contributions deriving from the slowness and space granted to inertia prodromal to intuition. Obviously, laboratories are full of competent, passionate, and motivated researchers, we are now focusing on the functioning mechanism of their work, of market tendencies, not of individuals (often crushed by the insane pressures of their employers).

Funding activities and scientific discoveries relationship

Huge amount of funds runs around scientific research, and this can induce reflections: are we assisting a useful intellectual exercise or to a specific form of business astutely masked by a microscope? The big concentration of fund distributed with the label of the pure or applied scientific research gives rise to lobby communities (centres of power) and this compromise the correct selection of either topics, methods or researchers all over the world, thus creating a restricted number of scientific groups able to control and monitor the funds distribution so as the specialised journals policies. Karl R. Popper: «It is a myth that the success of science in our time is mainly due to the huge amounts of money that have been spent on big machines. What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas» [23]. Moreover, scientific research is not simply a field of application of the human intellect, in fact, as Albert Einstein wrote: «The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift». The rush to publish is in contrast with the calm and clarity that are needed to find out something really new and useful for humanity. There are no exceptions to this rule. 

Cui prodest?

Just a simple but crucial question: «Cui prodest?». Who benefits from such an overproduction of scientific papers? To science as a process of knowledge production? To the many public and private scientific institutions? To the publishers? To the governments? Many answers are possible. Surely, it benefits the publishers and all those interested in acquiring personal power (nurturing their CV) acting as editors, guest-editors, and being members of editorial boards. And also the big volume of publications related to conference proceedings is involved in the business of science. The leaders of the research institutions are happy to use the publications to direct selections for hiring and career’s advancements. Moreover, publications are discriminant – in appearance – in regulating fluxes of funding paid by public or private financers of scientific research.

That of the scientist is a creative job, mainly based on imagination and intuition, i.e. irrational mental activities. Science is built on conceptualisation and on modelling (few journals are strictly focused on these basic aspects of science), an overproduction of experiments and calculations simply planned to publish is useless, expensive, and also often harmful for society, particularly as to the biomedical sector of scientific investigation [7], but not only.

Quality and quantity are variables inversely proportional. William Ellery Channing:

«It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind’s dignity».

To avoid misunderstandings, inverse proportion is when one value increases, as the other decreases. The big growth of the quantity of scientific papers is strictly related to the collapse of the scientific quality –that rising by creativity for innovation producing new ideas for old interrogatives or problems – even in absence of frauds. On the other hand, even bibliometric indices are only summary records related to the volumes of consultation, nothing connected to quality. Karl R. Popper:

«It is not his possession of knowledge, of irrefutable truth, that makes the man of science, but his persistent and recklessly critical quest for truth» [24].

Searching for the confirmation of something substantially known, or which is believed to be known, is different from searching for something new, but the second does not guarantee funding neither big amounts of papers, which are, on the other side, strictly correlated according to a simple arithmetic principle.

Moreover, the perverse mechanism for assessing the quality of the research based on counts of articles must be stopped, thus allowing scientists to conduct their investigations without the rush to publish any intermediate (often rough or incorrect) result.

We live with the misfortune of scientists captured by the compulsive urge to perform measurements in order to quickly record publishable data. The imprisonment of these scientists is sanctioned by the priorities established by the entities (often government) recruiting them to procure funds and ensure the international prestige mode that allows access to hosts prominent in the world rankings of research institutions. Pure madness and crimes against humanity unaware. No scientist should be subjected to the stressor to discover something on an established scheduled time: this is bullying, since it is a nonsense approach to this profession, and those responsible for the mechanism must be prosecuted legally. In a world that produces problems and promotes catastrophes, flourishes a science screwed on itself, built on distorted paradigms and guided by deviant incentives. The scientist who cultivates solutions to the horrors of the world is moved from his/her authentic mission to increase knowledge and works only on the distortions artificially imposed on the planet by dominant lobbies interested in conserving and increasing their power by subjugation. Here is who it is convenient for.

Conclusions

Planning the degrowth of human activities to reprogram the social regulation allowing to restart on the paradigm of cooperation (instead of insisting on sale of objects, competition, and cannibalism predatory) and leaving that of unlimited growth is dramatically urgent: concepts and example must come from the holders of knowledge, scientists in the first place.

Knowledge and human beings are not commodities: distorting and bending the work of scientists for profit is a crime against humanity.

Stopping the production of useless, expensive and sometimes harmful scientific papers is very urgent to restore dignity to scientists allowing them to engage in activities of study not finalised to the financing of their institutions but only to conceptualise and model natural phenomena of interest for humanity. Only human consciousness is steadily growing, albeit very slowly.

It is essential and urgent untying public research institutions by cash needs and budget, so that the researchers can study and experiment without wasting their time on porter, clerk and accountancy jobs. In doing so, moreover, they would eliminate the tensions and conflicts caused by competition for funding and need to publish at any cost to prove that they deserve them.

Today’s scientists confuse, or pretend to confuse for convenience, a measurement with a discovery, the diligent accumulation of data with innovation.

Henri Poincaré:

«Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house».

Nowadays, data science is often intended as a method to extract information from a cluster of data (the facts to which Henri Poincaré refers), nevertheless, a general abuse of data (and of output coming from data analysis) is identifiable in current science. Asking to testify one’s work as a researcher to the sound of publications is to perpetrate a deception against defenceless humanity and against those who would like to operate honestly and publish only meaningful and ethical-based results of their scientific path.

The vast majority of scientific papers contain simple data collection and commentaries: measurement results are accumulated and are then framed within consolidated reference theories and interpreted and commented on according to purposes that are primarily contingent on reaching a publication supporting careers, recruiting and funding. Even barbers, tailors, surveyors, salesmen, plumbers, and carpenters should strenuously publish in accredited international journals the diligent results of their daily work. And, moreover, all commercial receipts should be published in the (perhaps nascent?) international research journal “Tickets and Invoices” (founded today by myself for the joyful occasion), that would not disappoint the readers for the importance and variety of its articles. In the same way, a bartender could publish periodic reports on his current business resulting from statistical processing of his/her tax receipts and paid bills in the international journal “Tickets and Invoices”: if s/he does not do so, it is only because fashion is not still launched and because s/he is afraid that such a paper could end up in the hands of the tax authorities and get him/her into troubles. However, according to this type of society based on deception, competition and profit, I presume that whoever will found the international and trendy abovementioned journal “Tickets and Invoices” will have great success and overbooking of papers.

What we are arguing about has remote origins, it is not simply the mirror of a current decadent society which does not spare even the sector of scientific research, commodified and exploited. Enrico Fermi (the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics) wrote:

• «There are only two possible conclusions: if the result confirms the hypotheses, then you have just made a measure; if the result is contrary to the assumptions, then you have made a discovery»,
• «The profession of the researcher must return to his tradition of research for the love of discovering new truths. Because in all directions we are surrounded by the unknown and the vocation of the man of science is to move forward the frontiers of our knowledge in all directions, not only in those that promise more immediate compensations or applause».

Let it be clear once and for all: the overabundance of scientific papers is the indisputable and evident sign of scientific mediocrity, careerism, lobbyism, and exhibitionism. Accumulation of data (from measurements or surveys) is different from scientific speculation for innovation. But overproduction requires an overabundance of data (very easy to acquire, nowadays), better if also suitable for frightening, surprising or amusing depending on the social needs to be faced.

Science is simply collapsing on itself, being the victim of a manipulative governance that spreads competition and a paradigm of indefinite growth (inexistent) to divert the course of the discoveries by tiring the scientist and placing them in the rank of manager, accountant, clerk, cashier, and often handyman too. Stephen R. Covey: «Management works in the system; leadership works on the system», and a scientist is a leader, not a manager and not a janitor.

Slaves of the papers, wake up yourself! Work to innovate, not to repeat a worn-out gregarious protocol. You are currently simple clerks and accountants of a research institution whose main goal is the research of funds, rather than of scientific novelties for increasing knowledge. When humanity will show an ethical-based interest for knowledge we will assist to a new age of science that will bring generous fruits in terms of innovation with significant relapses on health and wellness.

Who animates from behind the scenes the phenomenon of disturbing proliferation of scientific articles to tire and manipulate scientists by stopping humanity’s progress? A humongous production of scientific articles is not necessarily a sign of originality, neither of ingenuity nor of creativity nor of commitment, since in many cases the experimental work and that of drafting the text is subdivided among many people organised in assembly lines for the production in series, exactly as happens for objects leaving industrial chains (Tayloristic assembly line). Not surprisingly, the issues addressed by the most productive and funded research groups are almost always highly repetitive and unfold over decades working mostly with the “variations on the theme” approach (jargon that I borrow from the language of music).

The products of scientific research are not necessarily scientific results, even less significant.

The products of scientific research cannot be subjected to metric evaluations of any kind.

Scientific articles cannot be counted either placed in rankings: these are only senseless operations of bad taste for the exercise of power and to manipulate the attention towards certain topics of scientific investigation (as those of biomedical or energetic fields).

Finally, no scientist should be subjected to the stressor to discover something on an established scheduled time: this is bullying, since it is a cruel approach to this profession, and must be legally pursued.

In this connection, the format in which current scientific research is organised and harnessed all over the world is a nonsense aimed at getting tired and overstressed scientists within the stimulus of competition for survival. Creative work, such as that of the researcher and university professor, cannot be guided and controlled by mercantile and clerical principles. The time of the pirates is not over yet, deception and robbery still guide the current society; however, by eliminating competition, expectations, the command-control paradigm and profit from the equation of scientific research, it can foster openness to the growth mentality [25], proactive confrontation for the common good and lateral thinking for creativity. What scientific research bodies and universities need is an ethical-based workplace guided by ideals of plurality, solidarity, inclusion and eclecticism unrelated by profits.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Enrico Prenesti graduated in chemistry at University of Turin (Italy). In 1994 he completed his Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences and in 1999 he became a university researcher in Analytical Chemistry. He is now an Associate Professor of Environmental and Cultural Heritage Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Turin. His research field covers equilibrium chemistry, analytical chemistry, food chemistry, environmental chemistry, and cultural heritage chemistry. He is the author of about 100 scientific papers mostly published in international journals. In addition to his academic work, he is an Ontological Life Coach and a composer. He writes essays and holds conferences and seminars on the topics of chemistry and biochemistry applied to health and wellness and on personal growth and development.

Notes

[1] A. Standen, Science is a Sacred Cow, E. P. Dutton, 1950

[2] F. W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, New York, NY, USA and London, UK: Harper & Brothers, 1911

[3] G. Pacchioni, The Overproduction of Truth: Passion, Competition, and Integrity in Modern Science, Oxford University Press, 2018

[4] J. S. G. Chu, J. A. Evans, Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 118(41), 1-5, 2021

[5] P. O. Larsen, M. von Ins, The rate of growth in scientific publication and the decline in coverage provided by Science Citation Index, Scientometrics 84, 575–603, 2010

[6] D. Fanelli, How many scientists fabricate and falsify research? A systematic review and meta-analysis of survey data. PloS One, 4(5):e5738, 2009

[7] E. S. Reich, Cancer trial errors revealed, Nature, 469, 139-140, 2011

[8] World Cancer Report 2014 from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Editors: Bernard W. Stewart and Christopher P. Wild

[9] P. Smith, Killing the Spirit: Higher Education in America, Penguin Books, 1990

[10] S. Talbott, The Cortisol Connection: Why Stress Makes You Fat and Ruins Your Health and What You Can Do About It, Hunter House, 2007

[11] A. Ekbom, C. Helmick, M. Zack, et al., Ulcerative Colitis and Colorectal Cancer. New England Journal of Medicine, 323, 1228-1233, 1990

[12] J. A. Eaden, K. R. Abrams, J. F. Mayberry, The risk of colorectal cancer in ulcerative colitis: a meta-analysis, Gut 48, 526-535, 2001

[13] C. Ferguson, A. Marcus, I. Oransky, The peer-review scam, Nature, 515, 480-482, 2014

[14] D. Gillies, Why Research Assessment Exercises Are a Bad Thing, Post-autistic economics review, 37, 2-9, 2006

[15] R. Smith, Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals, J. of the Royal Society of Medicine, 99, 178-182, 2006

[16] J. Bohannon, Who’s Afraid of Peer Review? Science, 342, 60-65, 2013

[17] R. R. Ernst, The Follies of Citation Indices and Academic Ranking Lists A Brief Commentary to ‘Bibliometrics as Weapons of Mass Citation’, Chimia, 64, 90-90, 2010

[18] D. M. Markowitz, J. T. Hancock, Linguistic Traces of a Scientific Fraud: The Case of Diederik Stapel, Plos One, 9(8), e105937, 2014

[19] R. G. Steen, A. Casadevall, F. C. Fang, Why Has the Number of Scientific Retractions Increased?, Plos One, 8(7), e68397, 2013

[20] R. Rosenthal, D. B., Rubin A simple, general purpose display of magnitude of experimental effect, Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 166-169, 1982 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.2.166

[21] K. R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Routledge Classics, 1963

[22] P. O. Seglen, Why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research. BMJ, 314, 498-502, 1997

[23] K. R. Popper, as quoted by Adam Gopnik, writing about his meeting with Karl Popper at home, in “The Porcupine: A Pilgrimage to Popper”, in The New Yorker, 2002

[24] K. R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discover, Hutchison of London, 1959

[25] C. S. Dweck, Mindset, The New Psychology of Success, New York Ballantine, 2008

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.

***

If there is a silver lining to the catastrophic Covid experience for us here in New Zealand it is the very clear and indisputable exposure of the political establishment.  The green clean smiling benevolent face of the New Zealand government is nothing more than a mask – yes, a mask – behind which is harsh dictatorial mien of a government that feels no need to answer to the needs of the people it purports to govern.

During the brief but compelling and compellingly beautiful gathering of the people at Parliament earlier this year, repeated calls for governmental officials simply to meet and simply to discuss issues of import, such as their imposed mandates and societal apartheid that resulted from them, went blithely and purposefully unheeded. Not one single politician from the Prime Minister’s office on down fulfilled their good-faith political obligations by engaging with those from whom they derive their political power.

Furthermore, on the eve of the brutal and unnecessary invasion of Parliament grounds to clear the protesters, it became clear that those in office never had a wish to engage. I was a member of a small task force who the afternoon before, at 1:30 PM to be precise, had gathered in Wellington to negotiate a settlement of the impasse. The police representative who was to join us cancelled at the last minute.

Later that same afternoon I sat as an observer at a meeting of the Human Rights Commission as a number of petitioners presented evidence of the harm against fundamental human rights, evidence of police abuses and other poignant testimony about the harsh consequences of the mandates. An honest Human Rights Commissioner would have taken up the mantle of protecting those whose rights had been violated and would be violated further by violence. He didn’t.

These past two and a half years have seen those who were, during that first harsh lockdown, lauded and thanked for being ‘essential workers’ terminated from their roles as physicians, nurses, midwives and other health-care practitioners for deciding personally and for their own reasons of health and conscience that a hastily concocted genetic inoculation masquerading as a vaccine was not for them.

As a psychiatrist who worked within the system in the general Wellington region and saw firsthand the tenuous nature of mental health services – services characterised by endemic staff shortages, variable levels of skill, and a form of management style emanating from the top which I can only describe as peculiarly vicious, corrupt and inept – the termination of much-needed and highly competent colleagues was a strange, sad and ironic testament to irrationality and a cold heedlessness of the public weal.

I remember working as a psychiatrist during the first lockdown, making home visits, volunteering time at a local primary care facility when I was on leave, and generally carrying on as one would expect a doctor to do: it was no big deal and I bristled at the division of society into ‘essential’ and ‘non-essential’.  This division, however, was a template for the later division of New Zealand into a veritable apartheid society comprised of the jabbed and the unjabbed or, psychologically speaking, the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’, the ‘clean’ and the ‘unclean’, remnants of which we may see among those who mask and those who don’t.

I note, in looking at the past, that no-one in government provided any actual evidence that could justify the extraordinary measures imposed upon the entire country: lockdowns, distancing or masks. Nor have they provided any evidence to justify their demand that all healthcare workers be inoculated to be able to work face to face with clients. Nor, of course have they been able to justify, nor can they justify or explain rationally, the imposition of an inoculation that circumvented the laborious and necessary trials over time, and that have already produced an astonishing legacy  of adverse events, including death. There is not nor can there ever be a substitute for time in the testing and approval of a medical intervention. Heaven knows what will transpire among the inoculated in the years to come.

Physicians who have from the beginning set about to explore the treatment of those who were afflicted by Covid found themselves in very lonely terrain, and worse. The New Zealand government, its Ministry of Health, and allied organisations such as the Medical Council, never once encouraged prevention or treatment. When I brought the issue of treatment up at my local hospital, I was referred to a specialist who told me, simply, that there was no evidence that any treatment worked. When I took the effort to send him quite a lot of substantive evidence, he was silent.

Over these past two and a half years the foundational principles of Medicine have been obliterated by our official organisations and our Ministry of Health: the principles of informed consent, individualised treatment and doing no harm. When physicians attempted to act in accordance with these principles they were hounded, derided and officially sanctioned, losing their licences and their jobs.  When physicians attempted to discuss natural immunity, the irrationality of attempting to eliminate a respiratory virus, the necessity of early treatment; when physicians attempted to engage with public officials to discuss pertinent matters of science and medicine – they were persecuted and rebuffed.

As of today there are nearly thirty thousand doctors in the Medical Council’s register. Of those thirty thousand a pittance have joined with New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out for Science (NZDSOS) to stand up for these foundational principles of our profession.  I am certain that if a mere ten percent of practicing physicians in New Zealand publicly affirmed the basic principles of Medicine we would not be living through the hell of the tyranny imposed by the government in the name of what they call ‘Medicine’ but which every physician understands is merely an Orwellian caricature.

Our government’s Medicine is a world where suffering patients go untreated, where a one-size-fits-all jab that neither prevents infection nor transmission of the pathogen for which it was engineered is safe as water, where informed consent is unnecessary and where masks, despite their inefficacy, should be worn to safeguard health despite the absurdity of how they have instructed people to use them, and despite the consquences of eliminating personal identity and depriving people of their quintessentially human features and means of emotional and expressive communication.

I am repeatedly asked how so many people can participate in cruelties and absurdities, how so many people can be persuaded to overlook what their eyes and ears and hearts tell them, how so many people can go along with what is so obviously destructive to us all.  The comprehensive answer might require a long essay or a book to elucidate. But here I will offer an abbreviated response.

Psychological operations like Covid work successfully by creating shock and awe, instilling fear, and inducing a response akin to something that is supernatural, that draws upon our emotionally regressive attitudes towards the miraculous, which transcends the laws of common sense or reason. The origins story of Covid and the incessant and inescapable drumbeat of deceptive case counts and death by the mainstream media worked wonders on a mainly gullible and trusting population. The inclusion of ‘supernatural’ elements, clearly seen by any analysis of the ridiculousness of the rituals of masking, are purposeful, for it is these supernatural elements that grip us unconsciously.  Masking is itself a propaganda tour de force; and propaganda is, at bottom, an act of violence.

I will conclude my ruminations with two quotations, which may help to frame my remarks.  The first is from Freud who, in his work on group psychology, wrote:

“ … in a group the individual is brought under conditions which allow him to throw off the repressions of his unconscious instinctual impulses. The apparently new characteristics which he then displays are in fact the manifestations of this unconscious, in which all that is evil in the human mind is contained as a predisposition.”

The second is from Goldhagen, who, referring to perpetrators of antisemitic cruelties in Hitler’s Willing Executioners, wrote:

“ … any explanation that fails to acknowledge the actors’ capacity to know and to judge, namely to understand and to have views about the significance and morality of their actions … cannot possibly succeed in telling us much about why the perpetrators acted as they did.”

The State, as all collections of Power tend, would like nothing better than absolute control over a faceless and masked citizenry of submissive digital peasants marching in lockstep to their pronouncements.

Many people, perhaps the great majority, relatively ignorant of history and politics, are primarily occupied with ekeing out an existence amidst the harsh realities of daily living. Trusting in government, they will accept the pronouncements of mainstream media and authorities as Gospel.

There is another group who see quite clearly through the captivating irrationalities and the Siren song of propaganda, and who willingly participate in falsehoods and cruelties not only to save their skins but also to derive pleasure and profit at the expense of others.

And then there are those who speak out.

We, as inherently free and autonomous individuals, are blessed with the responsibility of choice.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

Featured image is from Mises Wire

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.

Peter Konig’s Interview

***

GEOFOR: Greetings, since our last conversation, the conflict between Russia and the West has only continued to gain momentum. How far do you think this proxy war in the Ukraine can go? Is there a chance that the situation will improve?

Peter Koenig: Thank you, for having me again for an interview.

This is a million-dollar question.

Especially when we consider that Russia, by far the world’s largest and resource-richest country, was for over hundred years in the crosshairs of the western empire, led by the US and since WWII also by NATO, to be overtaken or to become a “colony”, similar to or worse than western Europe, the European Union (EU), has become a colony of Washington’s and NATO.

It is worth a distinction though, between the people of Europe and the  governments of western Europe, i.e. the EU member countries and the European Commission (EC), the latter consisting of unelected members.

The EC currently headed by the hawkish EC President, Ursula von der Leyen (unelected), former Minister of Defense of Germany, and close ally of Klaus Schwab. In fact, she is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum. It is unlikely that Ms. Von der Leyen would deviate from the WEF’s globalist agenda. And it looks like part of this globalist agenda is “regime change” in Russia.

On behalf of Washington, it’s driven by NATO and the EU.

Let me make this clear: the EU and EC are not representative of the 450 million people of the EU.  The European Parliament that is supposed to represent the interests of the people has practically no voice. Most people, educated people, inquired about Russia, have a positive opinion about Russia. They want peaceful relations. While perhaps not agreeing with the Ukraine war, they understand what may have led up to it.

The EU want sanctions on Russia to stop. The sanctions are foremost hurting the EU, but not Russia. On the basis of these sanctions, the planned One World Order (OWO), currently represented by the World Economic Forum (WEF), is using these sanctions, or rather Russia’s reaction to the sanctions, as a justification for causing massive energy and food shortages throughout the west, and to some extent also the Global South.

They want to cause suffering and death. This is a gigantic western agenda of mass starvation, possibly mass death – fitting well into the Great Reset’s population reduction program. Having said this, it is difficult to imagine that the west will let go, and pursue a Peace Agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

That would in fact, be easy.

All Ukraine would have to do is to adhere to the Minsk II Agreement (February 2015), which was sponsored by France, President Hollande, and Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel; by the very countries which are now coming down strongest, following US sanctions on Russia.

Let’s just for a moment look at NATO’s Madrid Summit 22-point Declaration, released on 29 June 2022. Item 2 is a statement of utter hypocrisy and item 3 reflects an outright hatred against Russia:

2. We are united in our commitment to democracy, individual liberty, human rights, and the rule of law.  We adhere to international law and to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.  We are committed to upholding the rules-based international order.

3. We condemn Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in the strongest possible terms.  It gravely undermines international security and stability.  It is a blatant violation of international law.  Russia’s appalling cruelty has caused immense human suffering and massive displacements, disproportionately affecting women and children.  Russia bears full responsibility for this humanitarian catastrophe.  Russia must enable safe, unhindered, and sustained humanitarian access.  Allies are working with relevant stakeholders in the international community to hold accountable all those responsible for war crimes, including conflict-related sexual violence.  Russia has also intentionally exacerbated a food and energy crisis, affecting billions of people around the world, including through its military actions.  Allies are working closely to support international efforts to enable exports of Ukrainian grain and to alleviate the global food crisis.  We will continue to counter Russia’s lies and reject its irresponsible rhetoric.  Russia must immediately stop this war and withdraw from Ukraine.  Belarus must end its complicity in this war.

Then, point 4, starts with a love declaration for Ukraine’s President Zelensky:

4. We warmly welcome President Zelenskyy’s participation in this Summit.  We stand in full solidarity with the government and the people of Ukraine in the heroic defense of their country……..

That means and justifies for NATO, continuing the supply of billions worth of weapons to Ukraine – weapons that already now are ending up largely in the hands of dark and criminal weapons dealers. Brussels and Washington know it, but they will not stop it.

Zelenskyy, of course, is not free at all to take any decisions on his own. His decisions are dictated by the west.

GEOFOR: Can the statements of a number of Baltic politicians on the need to take Kaliningrad away from Russia lead to a new hotbed of military confrontation already in Lithuania?

PK: The Kaliningrad Oblast / District, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania, has also an important Baltic Sea port for Russia. Who knows what will really happen, but I do not believe that Poland and / or Lithuania will dare intervene in Kaliningrad.

These statements or declarations may be just hot air, or a new type of western-style anti-Russia propaganda. From my point of view, not to be taken seriously.

GEOFOR: The sanctions confrontation has, apparently, finally gone beyond reasonable explanations. Canada, following the UK, introduced them even against Patriarch Kirill… Tell us, is the bottom already reached, or should we expect new surprises?

PK: Another good question. Frankly I don’t know. I think rather that the [EU] Europeans, as well as Washington, start realizing that they are the ones suffering, I mean them – particularly also the elite, not just the people, about whom they do not care.

Therefore, it just might be, that they are quietly trying to make arrangements with Russia for energy deliveries – dropping “sanctions” and accepting Russia’s ruble-billing and more.

It has been clear from the beginning that the Global South, meaning China and associated Asian countries, like the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), ASEAN, the BRICS-plus Iran – as well as most of Africa and many of Latin American countries, will not adhere to sanctions.

These are also he countries that Russia keeps supplying with energy resources and food.

The west has clearly overreached with their sanctions, totally illegal sanctions, mind you.

Sanctions, any kind of “sanctions”, from one country to another, impacting another country’s economy and the people’s wellbeing, are illegal under international law.

That’s also a reason why the east, led by China and Russia, will dissociate from the western currency and payment system (via US banks and SWIFT) and become an autonomous, sovereign politico-economic force. That may happen soon, possibly later this year or in early 2023. A shockwave may be expected.

It could well be that the financial-economic decoupling of the east from the west – already ongoing — may be the “surprise”, when it reaches its final stages.

And that in the meantime, the west is quietly back-paddling, as they realize to what extent they have been shooting themselves, unwittingly embarking on committing socioeconomic suicide. See also this.

GEOFOR: Autumn is coming soon, will be followed by winter. Judging by the statements of the [EU] Europeans, they will not have time to fill in the gas storage facilities, even despite the fact that many companies have agreed to pay for Russian hydrocarbons “in rubles”, and the United States supplies liquefied natural gas. What will Brussels do in such a situation?

PK: Some of my assessment is already given above. And of course, supposedly NATO approves (despite 28 of the 30 NATO members being European, decisions are made in Washington), they may go back to Russia, quietly “lifting” some (or all) sanctions and trying to re-activate Nordstrom I and activate Nordstrom II.

It is clear that the Middle East, the Saudis, for example, will not jump in to supply Europe and the US with gas and oil, to replace deliveries from Russia. The results of the recent Joe Biden visit to the Saudis may be an indication.

For the Middle East replacing Russian gas, would be like “sanctioning” Russia, when they have clearly indicated that their future trading inclination is more eastwards, Russia, China and SCO and other eastern socioeconomic associations.

The Middle East realizes that the future is in the east. The west has been digging their own grave for decades. But they apparently still cannot admit it. Instead of seeking Peace, they are confronting an impending collapse.

GEOFOR: And the last question. Against the backdrop of the financial and economic crisis gaining momentum, the ratings of leading Western politicians are beginning to fail. B. Johnson is no longer the leader of the Conservatives. They are increasingly talking about the upcoming political crisis in Germany, and the midterm elections to the US Congress are not far off… What are we to expect from all this?

PK: Yes, Boris Johnson is out. But his “outing” was most likely a planned outing. In the west, there are no decisions nor elections made by the people or Parliaments. They are all imposed or planned from the beginning with the consent of the leaders in question – by the WEF and its handlers, or commanders, i.e. the interlinked corporate financial oligarchs of this world, the amalgamation of Black Rock, Vanguard and State Street. Plus, there are other important players like Chase, Bank of America, JPMorgan, CitiGroup, et al.

The WEF is the executioner according to the Great Reset and following the script of UN Agenda 2030. Only people themselves, waking up, can stop this drive to total destruction. And, yes, I’m positive that LIGHT will prevail over darkness.

It is said, the “financial emperors” control close to 90% of the western corporate industrial and service world with majority shareholdings. Under these circumstances it is not difficult to decide who “presides” over what country – and when they have to go.

Boris Johnson will be replaced by another vassal of the financial emperors, the one which best suits their current agenda.

As to Germany’s Olaf Scholz, he has been put into the German Chancellorship just a bit over six months ago, after a long vetting process with important players like the EC, Washington and not least NATO. He had the right profile for what the west is all about.

If one reads or listens to his history, it is amazing that he is not yet in jail. See this, The Olaf Scholz File – His Words, his Deeds (English spoken – 3 March 2022). Or you may watch the video below.

Yes, an economic crisis is coming. Even to Germany. According to many economists, Germany is de-industrializing. I agree. Self-made, by the insane “sanctions”. But even that is part of the plan.

During and after a harsh winter 2022 / 23, there may be lots of bankruptcies, unemployment, poverty to extreme poverty, perhaps even deadly famine for the poorest.

This is not a coincidence. There are no coincidences. This is shifting capital from the bottom and the center to the top – the financial elite, that pretends to rule the world. If they – the WEF-led globalists – have their way, there would be a One World Government. But that will not happen.

The globalist agenda is falling apart. That was already visible at the WEF’s Davos meeting last May. People around the world are waking up to the globalist agenda. The vast majority of them has been suffering under the global everything – and now the attempt of global digitization, meaning total control of every move you make, via the financial system.

Russia and China may lead humanity into a new future, a multipolar world. This is the hope. And the peoples will, is to be expressed in solidarity, and peace may prevail.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

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

Featured image is from Silent Crow News

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.

***

Finance ministers are the pangolins in the world of international diplomacy, solitary animals and predatory, unlike foreign ministers who are like glowworms, mesmerising and gorgeous animals that create light through their tail. While the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken attending G20 foreign ministers meeting in Bali a week ago staged a dramatic walkout when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rose to speak, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen simply sat through the speech by Russian minister Anton Siluanov at the meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs that began in Bali on Friday. 

Indeed, Yellen said her piece — calling Russia’s war in Ukraine the “greatest challenge” to the global economy and all that — while Russian Deputy Finance Minister Timur Maksimov who was present, calmly listened. But a joint communique is unlikely, as the US is pressing G20 allies for a price cap on Russian oil, where consensus is lacking. All the same, the moderation in Yellen’s behaviour catches attention, as she realises, perhaps, that she no longer sets the global agenda. 

Even a close friend of the US such as former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami is advising that “Russia has generally managed to stem the tide” on Ukraine’s battlefield and a “similar shift in Russia’s favour may well be playing out geopolitically,” which would mean that “the consequences of remaining on the current path could prove far worse.”  

Such voices of reason must be getting noticed in Washington. During the past week alone, Washington has shown willingness to “tweak” the western sanctions against Russia on three occasions in a direction that addressed Moscow’s concerns. 

The latest one is with regard to the food crisis where Russia and Ukraine have reached an agreement, whereby Kiev will remove the mines in the waters around its southern ports so that a “grain corridor” opens toward the Bosphorus. Meanwhile, Washington has notified international banks, shipping and insurance companies that the western sanctions are not applicable to Russia’s exports of food grains and fertiliser to the world market. 

Again, a potentially explosive situation arose when on June 18, Lithuania blocked the transit of Russian goods to and from the exclave of Kaliningrad. After Moscow’s furious protests and warnings of retaliation, the European Commission published a revised decision on July 13 in “a display of realism and common sense,” as the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson put it. 

According to the EU guidelines, the rail transit of oil and petroleum products, coal, steel and iron, wood, cement, and other non-military goods to Kaliningrad will not be prohibited under the sanctions. It is inconceivable that EU acted without consulting Washington, who likely intervened to defuse the potentially dangerous confrontation. 

Similarly, on July 11, the US state department spokesman acknowledged that Washington favoured a sanctions waiver by Canada that would enable Siemens to transfer an urgently needed turbine for the operation of Gazprom’s Nord Stream gas pipeline to Europe, so that Germany’s energy situation will not worsen.

In each of the above three situations, Washington’s stance is to not allow the present confrontation between Russia and Europe aggravate further. Washington must be acutely conscious that the war fatigue in Europe is a compelling reality. The farmers’ protests in the Netherlands have quickly spread across Europe. 

The UK prime minister Boris Johnson may have stepped down from a political implosion of his own making, but it was also a process rather than an event, and the state of the British economy teetering on the brink of recession was a major factor. Italy’s government is now on the verge of collapse and, again, the measures to offset the cost of living crisis became a focal point for tensions brewing within Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s broad coalition. 

When it comes to Germany, Europe’s powerhouse, all bets are off. The feasibility of reviving nuclear power generation; inflation and the most effective ways to fight it; rising prices; energy security crisis; looming industrial shutdowns and large-scale reduction in employment — these have exacerbated inter-party disagreements within the coalition government headed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and steadily eroded public support. 

The internal disagreements on key issues are affecting the government’s decision-making and shredding the coalition cabinet’s reputation apart. The British Telegraph reported yesterday,

“Once admired and envied, Germany is now the textbook example of how much damage a misguided foreign and energy policy may do.” 

The newspaper underlined that Scholz is trying to please both the NATO countries and Russia, while ‘no one respects him’ and there are few options for further developments. Its forecast: “Either Berlin will suffer a massive setback, accompanied by the collapse of the ruling ‘traffic light’ coalition, or it will capitulate to Putin.”

Indeed, Moscow is tightening the screws. Gazprom warned on Wednesday it could not guarantee the functioning of “critical” equipment for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline despite Canada’s decision to return an essential turbine after it was repaired. 

Yet, there was a time not too long ago when Putin forecast that Germany would be the world’s next superpower. Germany is indeed paying a very high price for toeing the US’ belligerent line towards Russia. The Greens in Scholz’s coalition, in particular, pushed the envelope. Today, Washington has no solutions to offer as German economy is on the verge of collapse due to the blowback from sanctions against Russia. 

The galling truth is that, as China Daily noted,

“On the European debt crisis of 2011, Germany, with a sufficient supply of Russian energy thanks to the stable relations with Moscow maintained by then chancellor Angela Merkel, acted as the saviour of the European Union… Will Germany be able to save the EU this time? ” 

To be sure, the Biden Administration understands that the Western alliance is facing the moment of truth. The “tweaking” of the sanctions thrice this past week conveys something. 

The influential Russian daily Izvestia wrote on Wednesday that the settlement over the “grain corridor” across the Black Sea can create the ambience for resumption of peace talks between Kiev and Moscow. The daily quoted Ivan Abramov, deputy chairman of the Federation Council (upper house of parliament) committee on economic policy, as saying, 

“Of course, now any agreements can bring positions closer. There have been shifts in Kaliningrad. Perhaps the success of the negotiations on grain will be an incentive for the resumption of peace talks with Ukraine. However, Kyiv should be ready for this.” 

Abramov hinted that President Putin and Turkish counterpart Erdogan may discuss new peace talks at their upcoming meeting in Tehran on Tuesday. The Deputy Chairman of the State Duma (lower house of parliament) Committee on Economic Policy Artem Kiryanov also told Izvestia that in order to stop the special military operation in Ukraine, the conditions declared by Moscow must be met, but Kiev instead appears to be inclined to rely on the supply of Western weapons rather than sit down at the negotiating table.

Against this backdrop, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has paid an “inspection visit” today to the command post of the Southern and Central groups of the Russian armed forces, which are spearheading the special military operations in Ukraine, to be briefed by the army commanders about “the current situation, the action of the enemy and the progress of combat tasks fulfilment”. 

The MOD press release stated that Shoigu “gave necessary decrees for intensifying the action of the groups of troops on all fronts in order to prevent massive missile and artillery attacks launched by the Kiev regime at civilian infrastructure facilities, population of Donbass and other regions.” Shoigu’s focus was on the consolidation of the military gains rather than new offensives.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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.

***

When we’re dealing with a controversial topic, it’s a good item to start with something we know and go from there. What is something that we know for sure about Covid-19 vaccines? They kill people.

Jon Rappoport pointed this out a year ago: “A new May 4 report by independent researcher, Virginia Stoner, reveals US vaccine-death figures. The report is titled, ‘The Deadly Covid-19 Vaccine Coverup.’

Stoner uses the US government’s own numbers.

Here are key quotes from her report:

‘There has been a massive increase in deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) this year. That’s not a ‘conspiracy theory’, that’s an indisputable fact.’

‘We’re talking about a huge and unprecedented increase—so massive that in the last 4 months alone, VAERS has received over 40% of all death reports it has ever received in its entire 30+year history.”

‘The increase in VAERS death reports is not due to more vaccination.’

“Most recently, the death count went from 2794 on April 5, to 3005 on April 12, to 3848 on April 26….1054 deaths in 21 days.’

‘One hypothesis…is that the elderly and infirm, many in long-term care facilities, were the first to be targeted by the COVID-19 vaccine campaign, and they are much more likely to die coincidentally. These coincidental deaths then lead to an increase in suspected vaccine-induced deaths reported to VAERS.’

‘VAERS data just does not support that hypothesis. First, because all age groups—not just seniors—had a dramatic increase in VAERS death reports from COVID-19 vaccines…Across the board, all age groups experienced a dramatic increase in deaths reported to VAERS from the COVID-19 shots—even the under 18 group, which has had very few COVID-19 shots (so far).’

Stoner constructs a chart showing reported deaths from vaccinations in years prior to COVID, and deaths reported so far from COVID vaccines.

For prior years, we’re talking about roughly 100 deaths a year from somewhere between 250 million and 350 million vaccines administered. On the other hand, we’re talking about 3800 deaths from about 150 million COVID shots—not in a full year; in only four months.

The experts would say neither death figure (100 or 3800) is alarming, given the huge number of vaccines administered. But this is a deception.

Over the years, much has been written (even in the mainstream) about what sits behind REPORTED vaccine injuries and deaths. Estimates of TRUE injury numbers range from 10 to 100 times greater than the reported figures.

3800 reported deaths from COVID vaccines would skyrocket when you estimated the true figure.

As Stoner points out in her report, public health officials, in Orwellian fashion, keep repeating, ‘The vaccine is safe and effective.’ A straightforward analysis of their own numbers completely contradicts their stance.

Likewise, the mainstream press, politicians, corporations, and celebrities are on an all-out push to convince the public that the vaccine is a) necessary and b) a marvel, if only the ‘hesitant’ people would ‘follow the science’ and see the light.

Well, some cults are small; that one is huge.

Virginia Stoner’s report is a stark refutation of the conspiracy theory the cult is promoting.

When the entire population is being subjected to a vast experiment deploying a never-before-released RNA technology; when the shot in the arm is actually a genetic treatment; when the entire field of genetic research is riddled with pretense and lies and alarming miscalculations, leading to ripple effects in overall genetic structures; what else would you expect?

You would expect exactly what Stoner’s report shows and implies. The COVID vaccine is a building disaster.”

Vernon Coleman asks the appropriate question: exactly how many people has the Covid vaccine killed? “No one knows how many people the vaccines are killing – or how many they will kill.

But although I haven’t seen the mainstream media mention most of these deaths, people have already died or been injured after being given the vaccine:

SHOCKING – The latest covid jab deaths and injuries from VAERS (infants, teenagers and young adults are dying after the vaccine)

openvaers.com covid data (it is estimated that only 1% of vaccine adverse events is reported)

Note: The following paragraph has now been added to the UK’s Pfizer analysis data print, ‘A report of a suspected ADR to the Yellow Card scheme does not necessarily mean that it was caused by the vaccine…’ In my view, this is yet another attempt to draw attention away from the very real problems associated with the vaccines. We note that when patients die 60 days after a positive covid test, they are added to the covid death figures but if someone were to die 60 minutes after a covid vaccine, then it is just a coincidence.

PFIZER (UK data) – Some of the Injuries include: strokes, heart attacks, miscarriages, Bell’s Palsy, sepsis, paralysis, psychiatric disorders, blindness, deafness, shingles, alopecia and covid-19.

The following paragraph has now been added to the UK’s AstraZeneca analysis data print, ‘A report of a suspected ADR to the Yellow Card scheme does not necessarily mean that it was caused by the vaccine…’ In my view, this is yet another attempt to draw attention away from the very real problems associated with the vaccines. We note that when patients die 60 days after a positive covid test, they are added to the covid death figures but if someone were to die 60 minutes after a covid vaccine, then it is just a coincidence.

ASTRAZENECA (UK data) – Some of the many injuries include: blindness, strokes, heart attacks, miscarriages, sepsis, paralysis, Bell’s Palsy, deafness, shingles, alopecia and covid-19.

European database of suspected adverse drug reaction reports: Moderna, Pfizer-Biontech, AstraZeneca and Janssen.

• Derek Sloan MP raised concerns on covid-19 vaccine censorship of doctors and scientists (video – bitchute)
• Moderna begins first human trials for flu shot based on new mRNA technology used to make the company’s covid-19 vaccine (article – Daily Mail)
• The following is the FDA’s draft working list of possible covid vaccine side effects (see page 16 of document). This was published in October 2020 BEFORE the jab roll-out began.
• Canadian whistleblowers expose 13 stillborn deaths in 24 hours at Lions Gate Hospital caused by covid-19 vaccines (article – dailyexpose.uk)
• 2,620 dead babies in VAERS after covid shots… (article – vaccineimpact.com)
• A list of people who had their leg amputated after receiving the covid-19 vaccine (article – thecovidworld.com)
• Families of South Korea’s covid vaccine victims mourn loved ones during mass memorial service (article – thecovidworld.com)
• Three footballers collapse in three days – (hugotalks – video on brandnewtube.com)
• Paul Dimattina: Australian football league legend rushed to hospital after sever reaction to Pfizer booster shot (article – the covidworld.com)
• Sithipol Bovornkittipaisal: 26-year-old man dies 1 day after receiving Moderna covid-19 vaccine, investigation launched (article – thecovidworld.com)
• As reports of injuries after covid vaccines near 1 million mark, CDC, FDA clear Pfizer, Moderna boosters for all adults (article – childrenshealthdfense.org)
• 29,034 deaths 2,804,900 injuries following covid shots in European database of adverse reactions – corporate journalists have pericarditis after Pfizer shots (article – vaccineimpact.com)
• How many people in key Pfizer covid vaccine trial died? More than Pfizer told you (article – childrenshealthdefense.org)
• Pfizer secretly adds dangerous ingredient to injection for 5 to 11-year-olds as Taiwan stops Pfizer shots for 12 to 17-year-olds (article – vaccineimpact.com)
• Astroworld cover up? Hugo Talks (video – brandnewtube.com)
• Surge in reports of serious injuries as 5-year-olds start getting shots (article – childrenshealthdefense.org)
• German news agency compiles list of 75 European athletes who have died “suddenly” in the past 5 months since being fully vaccinated.
• Woman left wheelchair-bound with neurological damage hours after Pfizer vaccine dose (article – theexpose.uk)
• US Children’s Hospitals Now Overwhelmed with Infant Cardiac Patients (article – theexpose.uk) Copyright © The Expose. See this.

You might wonder, even if the Covid-19 vaccine kills people, doesn’t it also save lives? But in fact it is ineffective in warding off the so-called Covid “pandemic.” Vasko Kohlmayer says, “’Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine is just 39% effective in Israel where the delta variant is the dominant strain according to a new report from the country’s Health Ministry’ we read in a CNBC report.

Astonishment is one’s first reaction when coming across this piece of information, since it was not so long ago the vaccine manufacturers claimed their products were 92 to 98 percent effective.

The manufacturers’ initial claims, however, have been steadily revised down as real-world data has been coming in. In March of this year news came from South Africa that ‘AstraZeneca vaccine doesn’t prevent B1351 Covid.’ A couple of months later, the Hill ran a piece by a Baylor School of Medicine virologist who observed:

‘A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine provides only 51 percent protection against B.1.351 of South Africa.’

Just a couple of weeks ago, we learned that recipients of the Sinovac Biotech’s vaccine have no antibodies after six months. This effectually means that merely half a year after being injected into people’s bodies the vaccine has zero percent efficacy in protecting against Covid-19.

Even factoring for the variants, the hard data makes it quite clear that the initial claims of vaccine effectiveness were greatly exaggerated. This, of course, comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the dynamic of the pharma industry. Drug manufacturers tend to wildly overstate the efficacy of their products, while doing their very best to understate their side effects. It is for this purpose they conduct trials that are manipulated to obtain the results they wish for. Sadly, they too often get away with it because of the corruption of the system by what is called regulatory capture. This is why the outcomes of manufacturers’ trials are almost never replicated by independent trials or real-world data.

This is what has apparently happened with the Covid vaccines. The manufacturers used the sense of emergency brought on by the Covid pandemic to conduct rushed and incomplete trials which were designed to yield the results they wanted to see. There is every reason to believe that the effectiveness of their injections was nowhere close to the 92-98% range they initially claimed even for the variants that were in circulation at that time.

Needless to say, one has a strong suspicion that even the meagre 39 percent figure is still overstated. This would only be natural, since everyone involved in the vaccination enterprise – the manufacturers, politicians, regulators, the medical establishment and corporate scientists – is trying their best to save face and reputation in the face of this fiasco. Bad though the data is, we can be quite sure that it has been massaged to soften the blow.

You can clearly observe this tendency at work in the CNBC piece which claims that even though Pfizer is only 39 percent effective, it still protects against serious disease. But this is simply not true, which you can easily see if you take the trouble to look into the data put out by the Israeli government. At roughly the same time that CNBC filed its report, the Israeli Ministry of Health published a bulletin which reported on Covid cases in the country. According to their data, there were 137 serious cases in Israel of which 95 were fully vaccinated and 42 unvaccinated or partially vaccinated (see here and here). In other words, the bulk of the serious cases was comprised of those who had received their shots. If the vaccine was as effective in protecting against heavy illness as the article claims, the numbers would look completely different. The figures published by the Israeli Ministry of Health shows that the claims of Pfizer’s efficacy of protecting against serious Covid are simply untrue.

This has been confirmed by the testimony of Dr Kobi Haviv, Director of Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem. In a recent TV interview, Dr Haviv stated that the fully vaccinated people account for about 90 percent of hospitalizations. Given that less than 90 percent of the Israeli population is fully vaccinated, it would appear that the vaccination not only does not prevent you from contracting the disease, but actually increases one’s chances of becoming a serious Covid case. Observes Dr Haviv: ‘yes, unfortunately, the vaccine… as they say, its effectiveness is waning.” And so it is, indeed. Dr Haviv’s interview is on YouTube so you can hear the truth straight from his mouth. It will be interesting to see how long it will take for the Establishment Censors to take it down.” See this.

But there is worse. Everybody knows how sensitive and delicate small children are. Now the monsters want to give them the killer jab too! Let’s listen to Kohlmayer again:” “’CDC recommends COVID-19 vaccine boosters down to age 12,’ says a recent CBC news headline.

The article opens as follows:

‘Millions of Americans between the ages of 12 and 15 can now get a booster shot of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, after the CDC formally adopted new recommendations backed by a majority of the agency’s outside vaccine advisers. The CDC now says that Americans as young as 12 who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine should receive a third dose as early as five months after their first two shots. The agency’s officials said that enough time has passed for around 5 million adolescents to be eligible’

‘Why in the world are they doing this?’ one asks in disbelief.

Three basic facts have been well established by data and studies:

1. Healthy children are at virtually zero risk of serious Covid.
2. The vaccines will not prevent children from contracting the virus.
3. Covid injections carry risk of serious side effects.

According to a cost-benefit analysis conducted by Toby Rogers, Ph.D., in the 5 to 11 age range, 117 healthy kids will have to die of vaccine-related side effects in order to save one child from perishing of Covid 19.

A study from Japan has shown that young people are seven hundred percent more likely to be killed by Pfizer jabs than by Covid.

We have been repeatedly told that we must follow facts and science when dealing with this pandemic.

The science on vaccinating children against Covid-19 is in, and it could not be any clearer: while healthy children are at negligible risk from the disease itself, they are at real risk from the shots.

Since the vaccines do not stop infection and transmission, they will protect neither children nor their communities from the spread of the virus.

It makes not scientific or medical sense to give them these shots. Vaccinating children for SARS-CoV-2 violates both the tenets of good medicine and evidence-based science.

According to Dr Robert Malone, who is one of the world’s preeminent vaccine scientists, the cost benefit analysis is not even close.

Those who want to vaccinate children follow neither the science nor logic. Subjecting children to Covid jabs needlessly exposes young lives to potentially grave risks.

The incidence of myocarditis and pericarditis may be as high as 1 in 317 in the young, especially boys, and increases further with each additional dose.

Then there is a danger of deadly blood clots as well as several other serious conditions such as Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Astonishingly, scores of children have already been injected with two doses that turned out to be ineffective, which is the reason a booster is now required.

The booster, however, already looks to be even more useless than the original offering. The booster, in fact, appears to have negative efficacy which means that those who receive it seem to be more likely to contract the virus.

Soon we will have a multitude of 12-year-olds who will have received three of these pointless and dangerous shots without any medical justification whatsoever.

Robert Kennedy, Jr. said that injecting children with the Covid vaccines is a crime. He is not incorrect.

A number of children have already been killed by the vaccines.

Some of the newly vaccinated children will develop serious conditions and some of them will die. The lives of these healthy children will be cut short for no good reason and their parents will be beside themselves with grief.”

We must do everything we can to stop them before they kill more. If we act on what we know, we can stop these demonic monsters.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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.

***

Boris Johnson was shunted out of office by cabinet colleagues increasingly worried about their own careers and electoral prospects. But the prime minister’s downfall was encouraged, even engineered, by parts of the Whitehall establishment. 

This included Britain’s top spooks – what I call the ‘permanent government’ and in the US they call the ‘deep state’. It was a personal victory for a long list of unelected officials.

Among them were both of the prime minister’s old ethics advisers, namely Lord Christopher Geidt – an ex-army intelligence officer who had worked for the Queen – and Sir Alex Allan, a former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee; as well as Sir Philip Rutnam, former permanent secretary at the Home Office; Lord Jonathan Evans, the former head of MI5 who now chairs the Committee on Standards in Public Life; and Lord Simon McDonald, former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office.

It was McDonald’s decision to publish a letter accusing 10 Downing Street of telling lies over what Johnson knew about the behaviour of his former deputy chief whip that was the last straw for hesitant ministers.

After Johnson announced his resignation last Thursday, McDonald tweeted triumphantly: “It was a good day.”

It was a good day. pic.twitter.com/wWHVv93wxY

— Simon McDonald (@SimonMcDonaldUK) July 7, 2022

But McDonald’s move was just the latest in a series of interventions by establishment figures that helped cut short the prime minister’s mandate, after Johnson won an 80-seat majority in December 2019 to run the country for the next five years.

Within months of that landslide victory, Sir Philip resigned in protest against alleged bullying by his boss, home secretary Priti Patel. He sued the government for constructive dismissal, and settled out of court for a reported six figure sum.

Sir Alex then stood down after Johnson rejected his advice that Patel had not “consistently met the high standards required by the Ministerial Code of treating her civil servants with consideration and respect”.

More recently, Lord Geidt resigned after he said Johnson had put him in an “odious and impossible position” by asking him to “risk a deliberate and purposeful breach of the ministerial code”.

Lord Evans has not resigned, but used his committee’s platform to call for stricter guidelines covering leadership and ethical behaviour. “The political system in this country does not belong to one party or even to one government…It is a common good that we have all inherited from our forebears and that we all have a responsibility to preserve and to improve”, he said.

Brexit and beyond

Britain’s top spooks in MI5, MI6, and GCHQ – and senior counter terrorism officers in Scotland Yard – were opposed to Brexit. After the 2016 referendum, they strongly opposed the hard Brexit Johnson demanded, as it broke off close institutional cooperation with their European counterparts, threatening speedy information-sharing on counter-terrorism and other criminal investigations.

Claims that Johnson was leaving secret intelligence reports lying around for all to see in his Downing Street flat reflected increasingly widespread concern in MI5 and MI6 about his behaviour.

Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6 when the agency was responsible for misleading dossiers on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programme before the invasion of Iraq, was the only “securocrat” in favour of Brexit. His grounds were that it would give Britain control over immigration. Curiously, Dearlove also objected to the European Court of Human Rights, which is not an EU body.

Concern about Brexit among Whitehall’s mandarins has been compounded by what they regard as Britain’s declining reputation and standing in the world – and Johnson’s clownish boosterism.

Sir Ivan Rogers, Britain’s EU representative in Brussels, had earlier quit his post over the government’s handling of the Brexit negotiations.

Senior civil servants were aghast when the government decided unilaterally to change the Northern Ireland protocol it had agreed as part of the Brexit negotiations. Sir Jonathan Jones, the government’s top legal adviser, resigned over the decision.

Yet opposition to Johnson and his close political clique was (and remains) much broader than Brexit. What the civil service hierarchy in Whitehall say it is concerned about is propriety, sticking to the rules, opposing corruption in all its manifestations, the waste of taxpayers’ money (though the Ministry of Defence is a notable exception), and “jobs for the boys”.

The growing chumocracy has led to mounting frustration, anger, and even panic in Whitehall. Let us recall the handing out of lucrative Covid-related contracts to Tory friends and donors; ministers discussing official business with their political advisers on private emails away from the prying eyes of civil servants; Priti Patel’s failure to be candid about unofficial meetings with prominent Israeli politicians (leading to Theresa May’s decision to sack her); Johnson’s meeting when he was foreign secretary with ex-KGB officer Alexander Lebedev in his Italian palazzo without officials, and his subsequent awarding of a peerage to Lebedev’s son.

Aided and abetted by his more cavalier ministers and coteries of political advisers, Johnson also bypassed the Public Appointments Commission, part of whose role is to ensure that those involved in such appointments act with “integrity” and “merit”, declaring any relevant interests and relationships.

Downfall

Johnson’s praise of the Civil Service as “peerless” and of the “agencies” – a reference to MI5, MI6, and GCHQ – as “so admired around the world” in his resignation speech outside 10 Downing Street was pure humbug.

Simmering and growing concern throughout Whitehall about Johnson’s lying and the moral corruption in Johnson’s bunker erupted into the open last week when Lord McDonald revealed he had written a letter to Kathryn Stone, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, saying that despite repeated claims, Johnson had known about previous allegations relating to Chris Pincher, the deputy chief whip suspended for allegedly groping two men.

Referring to 10 Downing Street claims that “No official complaints against [Mr Pincher] were ever made”, McDonald told Stone: “This is not true”. In a subsequent interview with the BBC, McDonald said: “I think they need to come clean”. He described a “sort of telling the truth and crossing your fingers at the same time and hoping that people are not too forensic in their subsequent questioning and I think that is not working.”

The letter, and McDonald’s decision to publicise it, reflected Whitehall’s determination to fight its corner in any way it could.

McDonald was keen to attack Downing Street, but he might also have looked at his own backyard. His Foreign Office showed complete disregard for countless civilians killed in Yemen by UK-supplied weapons. And he personally instructed Britain’s ambassador to Burma to be “more flexible” with Aung San Suu Kyi’s regime, as her military committed a genocide of Rohingya Muslims. His old department has also indulged in obsessive secrecy and has refused to declassify files from decades gone by.

Julian Smith, an MP and former Northern Ireland Secretary who was sacked by Johnson, enthusiastically championed the Whitehall establishment, saying civil servants were “up in arms” and tweeting that they had “literally held the administration together”.

Over the past years @UKCivilService has been attacked and maligned by certain government ministers. Over the past 24 hours they have literally held the administration of our country together & are currently sorting out this mess. Thank you.

— Julian Smith MP (@JulianSmithUK) July 7, 2022

The former Head of the Civil Service, the crossbench peer, Bob Kerslake, who had previously criticised the government for withholding official documents from the National Archives, told the BBC at the height of the Pincher row: “There must be a complete openness and transparency from No 10 and the Prime Minister”. The former and long-serving Cabinet Secretary, Lord Butler, has repeatedly implored civil servants to talk truth to power, meaning to their political bosses, not to the public.

And there’s the rub. It is a bit rich for Whitehall, the “permanent government”, to call for more openness and transparency when it has thrived on official secrecy and keeping information from the public to avoid embarrassment, suppress wrongdoing, and protect itself from independent scrutiny. Without warnings by websites and outlets beyond the mainstream media such as Declassified, Whitehall will continue to do so at a time civil liberties and freedom of the press are increasingly under threat.

Whitehall has shown it can brief against a government, for the most part discreetly and via former, retired, officials. Johnson became an increasingly safe target for them as they argued that all they were doing was defending constitutional propriety. A true test in future will be whether their loyalties in our democracy are not only to their political masters honouring those proprieties, but to us, the public. That means abandoning a culture of complacency and much less official secrecy. These must be a key test to judge their behaviour, as well as that of a new prime minister.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Richard is a British editor, journalist and playwright, and the doyen of British national security reporting. He wrote for the Guardian on defence and security matters and was the newspaper’s security editor for three decades.

Featured image: The prime minister announces his resignation. (Photo: Kyle Heller / No 10 Downing Street)

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.

***

The British Parliament is debating a national security bill which could undermine the basis of national security reporting and ultimately throw journalists in jail for life.

A person convicted under the new offense of “obtaining or disclosing protected information,” defined in Section 1 of National Security Bill 2022, faces a fine, life imprisonment, or both, if convicted following a jury trial.

A review of the parliamentary debate on the bill makes clear that work by press outlets such as WikiLeaks is at the heart of Tory and Labour MPs’ thinking as they push to make the bill law.

As currently written, direct-action protests, such as those conducted by Palestine Action against U.K.-based Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems Ltd, could also be captured under the offences of “sabotage” and entering “prohibited places” sections of the bill.

Whistleblowers, journalists and publishers focusing on national security related matters may be most at risk of being prosecuted, though any person who “copies,” “retains,” “discloses,” “distributes” or “provides access to” so called protected information could be prosecuted.

“Protected information” is defined as any “restricted material” and it need not even be classified.

Under this bill, leakers, whistleblowers, journalists or everyday members of the public, face a potential life sentence if they receive or share “protected information” which is widely defined.

That does not mean imprisonment from one day “up to” a life sentence. If a judge determines a fine isn’t suitable enough punishment the only alternative is life in prison. Following a conviction, a judge would have no choice but to either issue a fine or hand down a life sentence, or both.

[Read the bill in its entirety here.]

There is no public interest or journalistic defense in the bill, a fact noted by some of the parliamentarians during the debates.

“The glaring omission at the heart of the National Security Bill is a straightforward public-interest defense, so that those who expose wrongdoing, either as whistleblowers or journalists, will be protected,” Tim Dawson, a long-time member of the National Union of Journalists’ National Executive Council told Consortium News.

“Without this, there is a risk of concerned U.K. citizens being prosecuted as though they were foreign spies,” he added.

The bill can be seen as part of a growing crackdown in both Britain and the United States against legitimate journalism that challenges establishment narratives.

In many respects, the proposed law, which applies to people both inside and outside the U.K., shares many elements with the draconian 1917 Espionage Act, which the U.S. government is using to prosecute WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.

Assange is charged with 17 offenses under the Espionage Act, amounting to a maximum 170 years in prison. None of the charges allege conspiring with a foreign power and merely pertain to receiving and publishing documents leaked to him by U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

No Evidence of Harm

As is the case with the U.S.’ Espionage Act, no evidence of actual harm needs to be proven by prosecutors in order to secure a conviction under the National Security Bill.

There is a broad test of whether the defendant knows or “ought reasonably to know” that their conduct is “prejudicial to safety or interests of the U.K.”

What is, or is not, “prejudicial” to the “safety” or “interests” of the U.K. is also to be determined by the government of the day, according to long established case law from the U.K.’s highest court.

This could include anything from environmental, energy, climate and housing policy, to policing, foreign affairs or military policy.

WikiLeaks-Style Publications

A review of the parliamentary debates over the bill shows that although it is being justified on the basis of protecting the U.K. from the “serious threat from state-backed attacks on assets, including sites, data and infrastructure critical to the U.K.’s safety or interests,” national security leaks and reporting – including that of WikiLeaks — is explicitly in the minds of at least some of the key politicians supporting the bill.

“Will the right honourable lady condemn the WikiLeaks-type mass dumping of information in the public domain? It is hugely irresponsible and can put lives at risk,” Tory MP Theresa Villiers asked Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Yevette Cooper, on June 6.

“Yes, I strongly do, because some of the examples of such leaks that we have seen put agents’ lives at risk, put vital parts of our national security and intelligence infrastructure at risk and are highly irresponsible,” Cooper replied, adding, “We need safeguards to protect against that kind of damaging impact on our national security.”

There is no evidence that anything published by WikiLeaks has resulted in the loss of life.

A U.S.-leaked government report itself concluded that there was “no significant ‘strategic impact’ to the release of the [Iraq War Logs and Afghanistan War Diary]”, from the Manning leaks which Assange is being prosecuted over. “No actual harm [against an individual]” could be shown either, a lawyer acting for the U.S. government admitted during Assange’s extradition hearings.

This contradicts the official government line that the leaks caused serious harm.

Broad Threat

Among the many disclosures revealed by WikiLeaks, include the secret texts of proposed corporate and investor rights treaties such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

These treaties, which were being negotiated in secret and would not have been known to the citizens until just before or even after they had become law, would have preferenced corporate rights over domestic laws and subordinated labor, environmental and health protections and climate policy to the profit-making imperatives of private industry. Their passage stalled after their draft texts were leaked and then published by WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks revelations also include dramatic incidents such as  the execution of 10 handcuffed Iraqi civilians in their family home, including four women, two children and three infants, by U.S. soldiers who later ordered an airstrike to cover it up.

Many around the world might still believe that a U.K. plan to build the world’s largest “marine park” in the Chagos Islands was motivated by environmental concerns, were it not for a cable published by WikiLeaks revealing that the true purpose was to prevent the indigenous population from ever being able to return to their land.

Militarized atoll of Diego Garcia, in Chagos Islands in central Indian Ocean. (Wikimedia Commons)

Torture and rendition of civilians as well as other war crimes were also revealed by WikiLeaks.

All such material, which are among the documents Assange is being prosecuted by the U.S. for publishing, would fall under the National Security Bill’s definition of “protected information.”

Conspiracy with Foreign Power 

In theory, involvement of a “foreign power” must also be proven for Section 1 of the bill to apply. But a review of the “foreign power condition” in Section 24 of the bill shows a myriad of ways that this condition could be satisfied.

Section 24 reads as follows:

“24    The foreign power condition

(1)   For the purposes of this Part the foreign power condition is met in relation to a person’s conduct if —

(a)      the conduct in question, or a course of conduct of which it forms part, is carried out for or on behalf of a foreign power,

and

(b)      the person knows, or ought reasonably to know, that to be the    case.

(2)   The conduct in question, or a course of conduct of which it forms part, is in particular to be treated as carried out for or on behalf of a foreign power if —

(a) it is instigated by a foreign power,

(b)  is under the direction or control of a foreign power,

(c) it is carried out with the financial or other assistance of a foreign power, or

(d) it is carried out in collaboration with, or with the   agreement of, a foreign power.

(3) Subsections (1)(a) and (2) may be satisfied by a direct or indirect relationship between the conduct, or the course of conduct, and the foreign power (for example, there may be an indirect relationship through one or more companies).

(4) A person’s conduct may form part of a course of conduct engaged in by the person alone, or by the person and one or more other persons.

(5) The foreign power condition is also met in relation to a person’s conduct if the person intends the conduct in question to benefit a foreign power.

(6) For the purposes of subsection (5) it is not necessary to identify a particular foreign power.

(7) The foreign power condition may be met in relation to the conduct of a person who holds office in or under, or is an employee or other member of staff of, a foreign power, as it may be met in relation to the conduct of any otherperson.”

Foreign Funded Organizations 

The foreign power condition could potentially be satisfied, therefore, due simply to the involvement, at any stage, of a journalist working for news outlets such as Al Jazeera, Press TV, CGTN, RT, Voice of America, France 24, Redfish or TeleSUr.

Tory MP David Davies, himself a supporter of the bill despite being known for his criticism of the prosecution of Assange, noted that “[human rights group] Reprieve, Privacy International, Transparency International and other excellent organizations that do very good work have received some funding from other nations’ Governments” and could therefore “fall foul” of this law.

“Perfectly legitimate organizations could be left committing an offence, under this area of the bill, if they use leaked information — which may not even be classified — to challenge government policy,” Davies added.

Furthermore, what is deemed to be a “perfectly legitimate organization” is in the eye of the beholder and can change over time – as proven by the increased E.U. and U.S. censorship of RT and Sputnik since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Even if a foreign power is proven to somehow be involved, either in the obtaining of restricted material, sharing or publishing it, there is no apparent need to prove conspiring with that foreign power for the condition to be satisfied and therefore for a defendant to be convicted.

Therefore, if a person reports upon U.K. government documents — which prosecutors argue have been hacked and released by a foreign government agency, or even a hacker group infiltrated or influenced somehow by a foreign government agency — they could be found guilty under this law, without any evidence either of participation in the hack or conspiracy with a foreign power.

The Bill and the Official Secrets Act 

Following the revelations of mass, warrantless, government surveillance, by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, as well as WikiLeaks revelations of war crimes and other state wrongdoing, the Cabinet Office asked the Law Commission to review its official secrecy, data protection and espionage laws.

In 2020, the Law Commission recommended replacing the Official Secrets Acts 1911, 1920 and 1939 with an Espionage Act, and updating the Official Secrets Act 1989. Many of its recommendations on ‘reforming’ U.K, secrecy laws, would make it easier to bring prosecutions against whistleblowers, journalists and publishers by lowering so called “barriers to prosecution”.

For example, the Law Commission recommended that prosecutors should no longer have to prove that leaks by public servants and contractors, covered by the 1989 Act, have caused “damage”. The 1989 Act is the main legislation currently used to target whistleblowers, leakers, journalists and publishers.

The National Security Bill repeals the older official secrets laws and expands criminalisation of conduct which might be useful to an “enemy” with the more broadly defined “foreign power”. This bill also adopts recommendations to expand what can be labelled a “prohibited place” beyond military sites. Section 1 applies to people based outside the U.K,, regardless of their nationality, and this appears to flow from the Law Commission’s proposed amendments to the 1989 Act, which currently only applies to U.K. citizens.

Technically, the National Security Bill hardly amends the Official Secrets Act 1989. Perhaps this is because the Home Office opposes the Law Commission’s insistence that revisions to the 1989 Act re-introduce a public interest defence, which could be used by journalists and everyday civilians. The Home Office also opposes the idea of an independent body to receive whistleblower concerns. Yet many of the most draconian recommendations have been implemented in some form in the Bill.

Section 1 of the Bill – which lacks any requirement to prove damage along with the overly broad foreign power condition– could simply be the Home Office’s way of seeking to expand the scope of conduct covered by the 1989 Act as much as possible without explicitly doing so. The National Security Bill therefore appears to fall foul of the Law Commission’s recommendations that the definition of a foreign power “should not render the offense overly broad”.

National Security Reporting

Vauxhall Cross, London, headquarters of British Secret Intelligence Service. (Laurie Nevay, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

In 2018, emails and other documents belonging to the Institute for Statecraft’s Integrity Initiative, a now defunct U.K.-based, intelligence services-linked, propaganda and psyop organization, were hacked and published online.

The documents revealed that the Integrity Initiative was receiving funding from the U.K. Foreign Office, Facebook, NATO and neoconservative-linked foundations, and was engaged in directing anti-Russian, anti-left and pro-NATO propaganda towards the European and U.K. public.

Integrity Initiative documents, including emails and a contract with the U.K. Foreign Office, revealed an ambitious global agenda involving secret “clusters” of academics, journalists, policy makers and national security-linked officials in Europe, North Africa and North America, with more being planned.

The hacked documents revealed that the purpose of the Integrity Initiative was to shape public opinion and public policy under the guise of combatting Russian “disinformation.”

A group called Anonymous Europe claimed responsibility, though the Foreign Office and Western media suggested, without evidence, that the Russian government was somehow behind the hack.

The BBC even reported, also without evidence, that the documents were “leaked to the Russian media.”

In fact, the documents were published on an internet messaging board and available to anyone aware of the website, including independent British and American journalists who reported upon them.

Reporting on such documents, if the National Security Bill becomes law, could be considered a violation of Section 1, given that some of the files were “restricted” government documents and the Integrity Initiative was partially government funded. If foreign government actors were involved in hacking or releasing the documents that alone could satisfy the “foreign power condition” in Section 24.

Even the fact that journalists (including British citizens) who were writing for foreign government-funded news outlets reported on the documents could satisfy the “foreign power condition.”

Even more disturbing, involvement of a foreign power is not actually needed if the government argues that the conduct of the defendant was “intended” to “benefit a foreign power.” In this circumstance, “it is not necessary [for the prosecution] to identify a particular foreign power.”

Therefore, for example, if a journalist known for writing articles critical of NATO reports on “restricted” material which paints the military alliance in a bad light, regardless of whether the documents were leaked to him directly or even if he simply came across them already published online, that journalist could be prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to life — if the prosecutor convinces the jury that, based on their prior reporting or public comments critical of NATO or of Western foreign policy, they intended their reporting on the “restricted material” to “benefit a foreign power.”

Which foreign power was he intending to benefit? It isn’t necessary for the prosecutor to say, as Section 24 (6) makes clear.

There are a number of other notable elements to this bill worth considering.

‘Sabotage’ & Entering ‘Prohibited Place’

Direct action might also fall foul of provisions in this bill, if the foreign power condition is satisfied.

Committing “damage” against any “asset,” inside or outside the U.K., for “a purpose that they know, or ought reasonably to know, is prejudicial to the safety or interests of the United Kingdom” is also punishable by a fine or life in prison, or both, under Section 12.

“Damage” includes “alteration” or “loss of or reduction in access or availability” to an “asset.”

Under Section 4, entering a “prohibited place” could result in a life sentence, if the person knew or “ought reasonably to know” it is prejudicial to the safety or interests of the U.K. This includes if someone “accesses, enters, inspects [including films], passes over or under, approaches or is in the vicinity of a prohibited place.”

Conceivably, direct action activists such as members of Palestine Action who have successfully shut down factories belonging to Israeli weapons manufacture Elbit Systems Ltd, would be caught by such provisions, The same goes for journalists filming them or entering a premises designated “prohibited.”

BREAKING: Palestine Action has scaled the roof and seized control of Elbit's weapons factory in #Shenstone, knocking out the engines manufacturer for Israel's killer drones🔨 #ShutElbitDown pic.twitter.com/mVatwdb9Hk

— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) June 22, 2022

In the 1964 case of Chandler v Director of Public Prosecutions, the U.K.’s highest court upheld  conviction of members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament  for violating the Official Secrets Act. The activists were convicted for entering Wethersfield RAF base “a prohibited place” for a purpose deemed “prejudicial to the security of the state.” The trial judge was said to be within his right to deny the defendants the ability to offer evidence or cross-examine witnesses to argue that their purpose in entering the base was to improve the U.K.’s security.

This is the same case that held that what is “prejudicial” to the “safety” or “interest” of the country is up to the government of the day to determine.

Protecting Corporate Secrets

Section 2 of the bill also creates a crime of “obtaining or disclosing trade secrets.” As is the case with Section 1, this occurs whether the person knew or “ought reasonably to know” that their conduct is “unauthorised.”

A person faces either a fine or up to 14 years in prison, or both, if they are convicted.

There is no whistleblowing, journalistic or public interest protection provided in this section either.

Arguably, obtaining or disclosing “trade secrets” which could reveal, for example, corruption, environmental pollution, labor violations and other human rights abuses or other forms of corporate malfeasance could conceivably result in prosecution under this bill.

The foreign power condition must be satisfied for Section 2 to apply, which, it has already been shown, is arguably easier to do than one might think.

Limiting Legal Aid Access

Access to legal aid is also restricted for anyone convicted of a “terror” offence. This means that someone who, for example, was convicted for violating Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 — for refusing to give access to their mobile phone password at the airport — could find themselves denied legal aid years later.

Freezing Funds & Other Assets

The ability of the government to “freeze” assets is also made easier in the Bill. The law currently permits freezing and seizing of assets if it can be shown that they are “intended to be used” for terrorism.  This is replaced in Section 61 and Schedule 10 with the lower threshold of “at risk of being used” for terrorism.

State Crimes Committed Abroad

Interestingly, Section 23 amends the Serious Crime Act 2007 to note that it can’t be used to prosecute members of MI5 (Security Service), MI6 (Secret Intelligence Service), GCHQ or the armed forces, for any criminal conduct committed outside the U.K,, if their criminal conduct is deemed “necessary for the proper function” of those institutions.

Leaking & Direct Action 

When the National Security Bill was first revealed, a number of observers seemed somewhat sanguine about it on the basis that the foreign power condition needed to be met before a conviction could be secured under Section  1.

The Freedom of Information Campaign, for example, tweeted:

The government appears to have dropped plans to tighten the 1989 Official Secrets Act which punishes the leaking of certain classes of information. Today's National Security Bill replaces the 1911, 1920 and 1939 OSAs but makes no substantive change to the 1989 Act. #FOI

— Campaign for Freedom of Information (@CampaignFoI) May 11, 2022

When journalist Richard Spence asked about the potential life sentence, they replied:

The government appears to have dropped plans to tighten the 1989 Official Secrets Act which punishes the leaking of certain classes of information. Today's National Security Bill replaces the 1911, 1920 and 1939 OSAs but makes no substantive change to the 1989 Act. #FOI

— Campaign for Freedom of Information (@CampaignFoI) May 11, 2022

Since then, however, the Freedom of Information Campaign, jointly with Article 19, submitted a brief for MPs making clear that journalists and civil society activists who receive some foreign funding and yet are engaged in “legitimate activities” could be caught by this bill.

The Bill appears to have cross-party support (with few dissenters) amid seeming hysteria over alleged Chinese government influence operations.

Laws are versatile and can, if not strictly drafted, be used in circumstances that even the original drafters had not intended. All it requires is for a prosecutor to be willing to bring a case and for a judge to allow it to go forward.

Beyond Stated Purpose

Jan. 1 1916: Pacifists on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. (Library of Congress)

The Espionage Act is a perfect case in point. Ostensibly created to protect the U.S. from German spies during WWI, it was used to successfully prosecute people for their opposition to their country’s involvement in the war. Their convictions were upheld on appeal despite the fact that the First Amendment protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Decades later the administration of Richard Nixon used the same act to prosecute Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. The governments of George W. Bush and Barack Obama would then use the law, again to target whistleblowers such as John Kiriakou who revealed C.I.A. torture, Jeffrey Sterling who used official channels to blow the whistle on a dangerous and ultimately botched plot to undermine Iran’s nuclear program and Daniel Hale who revealed that 90 percent of those killed by U.S. drones in Afghanistan were civilians.

Now this same 1917 law is being used to prosecute Assange, an award-winning journalist, for publishing “restricted” documents while based outside the U.S.

During a debate, Margaret Ferrier, an independent MP from Scotland, asked whether the home secretary has “considered the dangers to freedom of the press that the National Security Bill presents.”

“Many of my constituents,” Ferrier added, “are concerned that measures that could prevent journalists from publishing stories of public interest are undemocratic.”

‘Online Safety Bill’

“No, I do not see a danger to journalistic freedoms,” Minister for Security and Borders Damian Hinds replied. He proceeded to change the subject by referring to another proposed bill saying that the government is “taking stringent steps to ensure, for example, that in the Online Safety Bill journalistic rights and freedoms are absolutely to the fore, because of the vital and irreplaceable role that a free and sometimes boisterous media plays in underpinning and challenging us in our democracy.”

The Online Safety Bill, described as an “Orwellian censorship machine” by the Open Rights Group, would grant powers to ministers to censor legal content. It requires all online communications – public and private — to be monitored for “harmful content” and undermines encryption of private messenger apps like WhatsApp and Signal.

“The Online Safety Bill creates a carve out for news media organizations (defined as ‘news publishers’) who are registered with the Independent Press Standards Organisation or IMPRESS or Ofcom in the case of broadcasters,” said Monica Horten, policy manager for freedom of expression at the Open Rights Group.

In theory, this carve out means news organizations “are not subject to platform content moderation policies in the same way as everybody else.” Horten added that online platforms “are mandated to leave their content online, regardless of whether it meets their policies, or other Online Safety Bill compliance requirements.”

This censorship exemption ostensibly applies to “all content that is created for the purpose of journalism and which is U.K.-linked,” according to a convoluted explanatory note recently published by the Home Office.

Regulated media outlets will also have a fast-track complaint process if their material is taken down.

In other words, a two-tier freedom of expression between the press and everyday people.

What will happen in practice to citizen journalists, bloggers and independent and alternative outlets which are not, cannot or have no interest in being, regulated by U.K. press regulators remains to be seen.

“It will be impossible for large platforms, operating at scale, to determine on that basis who is and who is not a ‘journalist,’” Horten argued.

Ominously, she assessed that it is “therefore probable that the only way to make this provision work will be to institute a register of media.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Mohamed Elmaazi studied law at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and has contributed to numerous news outlets, including Jacobin, The Dissenter, The Canary, Open Democracy, The Grayzone and The Real News Network. He has covered all of Julian Assange’s extradition hearings.

Featured image: Assange supporters marching on Parliament, February 2020. (Joe Lauria)