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“No one makes a billion dollars. You TAKE a billion dollars. You take it from your workers…you plunder it from the environment…you strip it using patents/protections” (Stephanie Kelton tweet(1))

Rent-seekers: Who gets the Free Lunch? 

Many writers have noted that capitalism concentrates wealth and power into a small number of hands. Up until approximately 1890, economists understood that a key part of the economic system is what are known as rents.(2) This means unearned income, or excess profits. Recent economic theory does not talk about rents very much – there is an assumption that all income is earned. The people and companies who receive excess wealth from rents are usually described by the media as wealth-creators, but this is partly propaganda. Many of them are ‘rent-seekers’ (also known as rentiers) – people who know how to take money from the system because they understand how it is rigged.

Critical economists sometimes discuss the most important ways in which big companies can extract wealth from society. This includes Crony Capitalism where big companies receive subsidies from governments; monopoly and oligopoly, where companies are so dominant in each industry that they can limit competition, charge higher prices and make excess profits; and externalities where companies do not pay the true cost of their activities, such as pollution, global warming and the destruction of the environment.

This post explains other methods that big companies use to extract wealth from society, and to maintain their dominance. This gives a brief overview of the extent to which the system is rigged in favour of the biggest and most powerful companies.

Economies of scale – Size Matters 

As a general rule, the more you produce of something, the more cheaply you can make each item.(3) This means that in many industries it is impossible for small companies to produce things as cheaply as big companies. There are a number of techniques that companies use to establish and maintain dominance.

Spend, spend, spend to become dominant 

Big companies have deep pockets to enable them to invest in new industries, and to survive short-term losses whilst they try to establish market dominance early on. This creates what is known as first-mover advantage. This is the business model of Uber, the taxi company. To start with, they pay drivers well and they charge low fares to customers. Once they become dominant, they increase fares and decrease pay to drivers. Despite this, customers and drivers remain loyal, because customers know they can get a taxi quickly, and drivers know they will get regular fares. It is difficult for competing businesses to establish a foothold because initially they don’t have enough drivers to attract customers, or enough customers to attract drivers. When Uber began in the US they paid drivers $40/hour. A few years later they were paying $9/hour.(4)

More generally, bigger companies tend to have bigger marketing budgets.(5) They spend huge amounts on advertising and on more direct forms of marketing, such as pharmaceutical companies ‘persuading’ doctors to use their medicines.(6) The role of advertising and marketing to achieve and maintain dominance and excess profits will be discussed in later posts.

One Big Business becomes Many Big Businesses 

It is easy for big companies to invest in the same industry in other countries, and sometimes in new industries. Amazon started out selling books, but soon realised that it was well positioned to dominate online selling more generally in much of the world. As with other tech companies, Amazon is also able to make money by collecting and selling immense amounts of data to advertisers, market researchers, and governments.

Many of the biggest companies control different parts of a supply chain. For example, oil companies dig oil out of the ground, refine it in their own refineries, and sell it from their own petrol stations.(7) They are therefore able to take profit at every stage. They do not have to share the profit with anyone else. (This is known as vertical integration(8)).

The Global Trade System is Rigged 

A number of international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) try to force countries to adopt neoliberal economic policies.(9) This creates huge profit opportunities for global companies.

A company that might only make moderate profits if it dominates in its own country, is able to make spectacular profits if it is able to use its existing knowledge and resources to dominate in many countries. The US government is able to ‘persuade’ other countries to pursue policies that work for US companies, using a combination of threats and bribes. This has contributed significantly to US companies being able to extract wealth from many countries simultaneously. The same applies to a smaller number of big companies from other countries, including Britain and France.

Most people associate corruption with developing countries, but big companies from advanced nations are responsible for paying many of the biggest bribes in order to gain contracts overseas. We saw in an earlier post about the weapons industry that British Aerospace was able to pay a bribe of £7 billion to the government of Saudi Arabia so that they would buy military weapons.(10) 

The profit motive encourages companies to exploit everyone else 

Most of the business world follows the idea of ‘Greed is Good’ (made famous by the 1980s film ‘Wall Street’). In other words, their main goal is their own profit. However, recent evidence shows that structuring big, dominant businesses to selfishly pursue their own profits does not lead to good outcomes for society. The economist, Mariana Mazzucato, demonstrates in her book ‘The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy’ that modern capitalism encourages businesses to take from the economy.

In practice, the profit motive incentivises companies to exploit people.(11) There are four main groups of people that get exploited – customers get ripped-off; suppliers get unfair contracts; employees receive low pay and are exploited in many different ways; and governments provide huge subsidies without receiving all the taxes they are owed. Different industries exploit different groups so, for example, banks pay their staff well, but de-fraud customers.

Economists refer to textbook theories where companies have to become ‘efficient’ in order to survive. However, in the real world, ‘efficiency’ has become a code that means earning the maximum profit by almost any means, whether legal or illegal. In service industries where the main cost is staff, efficiency means paying staff less, employing fewer staff, giving them less training, making them work longer hours, and putting them on contracts where they have no certainty about how much they will earn each week. In private hospitals, efficiency means turning patients out of their hospital bed before they are ready, so another paying customer can use that bed. In insurance, efficiency means finding ways to not pay out on genuine claims.

Companies offer goods at lower prices, but they are able to do this because they offload some costs onto the customer. A good example is self-assembly flat-pack furniture. Millions of people with poor DIY skills each spend hours interpreting complex instructions and assembling things that can be put together by experts in minutes. By any normal definition, this is very inefficient. If a customer has to wait for a long time when phoning a company helpline, this is similarly inefficient, but profitable for the company.

Corporate Lawyers, Bankers and Accountants Help Companies Bend, Break and Make the Rules 

Big companies employ large numbers of lawyers who play multiple roles. They write laws and regulations that benefit their companies, and they set up offshore bank accounts to avoid paying tax. It is estimated that there are currently $20-30 trillion in tax havens.(12) Together the lawyers and accountants set up complex webs of international companies, so that they can manipulate laws and prices, and hide profits overseas. The main accountancy firms, known as the Big 4, have repeatedly engaged in corrupt accounting, to help companies manipulate their financial statements to avoid tax, and exaggerate profits to mislead investors.(13) Most tax avoidance scams are believed to be illegal but are never tested in court. The billionaire, Warren Buffett, has famously pointed out that he pays a lower rate of tax than any of the staff in his office.(14)

Privatisation 

One of the easiest ways for people with political connections to get much richer is by taking over state industries and extracting profits from them. This is known as privatisation. This includes the privatised infrastructure monopolies such as water, sewerage, healthcare, transport, electricity and energy supplies, and broadcasting and communications spectrum. The agreed sale-price is often well below the true value. Many economists, including one of the leading experts on economic rents, Michael Hudson, has explained that all of these should be public utilities, owned and controlled by the government and provided to everyone at the lowest possible price, so that they cannot be exploited to make excess profits.(15)

Exploiting natural resources provided by nature at no cost, such as oil and minerals. The cost of extracting and processing these resources varies considerably, and is often not related to the price at which they can be sold. Oil and mining companies have been some of the most profitable in the world for many years.(16)

Patents and Copyright – being able to charge extremely high prices, and make excess profits, because no other company is allowed to compete against you. This particularly applies to medicines and software.

Criminal Activity – Many of the activities mentioned above, such as price fixing or tax evasion, are illegal. Financial companies have committed multiple huge frauds.(17) Big companies are able to get away with their crimes, and effectively operate outside the law, because politicians are reluctant to take serious action against them.

Much of this is missing from economics textbooks 

The importance of friends in high places, criminal activity, bribery and corruption, exploitation, power, externalities, and the general extent to which the system is rigged in favour of the rich and the powerful does not receive much attention in economics textbooks. The financial system is also rigged, but does not appear in most economics textbooks at all. Debates about this system have become more prominent in the US in recent years, but this has not yet had any impact on policy.(18) In Britain there is still little awareness of just how rigged the system is.

The correct term for this system is rentier capitalism, but this is not helpful for non-economists. We need a better term to allow everyone to talk about this. The civil rights campaigner, Malcolm X, once said “You show me a capitalist, I’ll show you a bloodsucker.”(19) The expression ‘Bloodsucker Capitalism’ seems to accurately describe how British and US companies operate, extracting wealth from everyone else, destroying the planet and our societies along the way.

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This article was first posted at medium.com/elephantsintheroom.

Rod Driver is a part-time academic who is particularly interested in de-bunking modern-day US and British propaganda, and explaining war, terrorism, economics and poverty, without the nonsense in the mainstream media.

Source

Joseph Stiglitz, ‘America has a monopoly problem – and it’s huge’, The Nation, 23 Oct 2017, at https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/america-has-a-monopoly-problem-and-its-huge/

Notes 

1) Stephanie Kelton, 22 Jan 2019, at https://twitter.com/stephaniekelton/status/1087780034348306432?lang=en

2) Michael Hudson, J is for Junk Economics

3) Prateek Agarwal, ‘Economies of Scale’, 13 April 2020, at https://www.intelligenteconomist.com/economies-of-scale/

4) CBInsights, ‘How Uber Makes Money Now’, Dec 2020, at https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/how-uber-makes-money/

5) Business Chief,  ‘Top 20 companies with the biggest advertising budget’,  19 May 2016, at https://www.businesschief.eu/digital-strategy/top-20-companies-biggest-advertising-budget 

6) Carl Heneghan, ‘The influence of medical marketing’, BMJ, 21 Jan 2019, at https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjebmspotlight/2019/01/21/the-growing-influence-of-medical-marketing/ 

7) Kiran Stacey and Ed Crooks, ‘Oil majors find virtue in integration’, FT, 12 June 2016, at https://www.ft.com/content/8ff8ec62-2dcc-11e6-a18d-a96ab29e3c95

8) Evan Tarver, ‘Horizontal vs Vertical Integration: What’s the difference?’, Investopedia, 18 Jan 2021, at https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/051315/what-difference-between-horizontal-integration-and-vertical-integration.asp 

9) Richard Peet, Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank and WTO, 2009

10) Andrew Feinstein: The Shadow World of the Global Arms trade’, talk at Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, 22 Nov 2017, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCjZXCYD_8c

11) Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich, The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy, 2005

12) Nicholas Shaxson, ‘Tackling Tax Havens’, Finance and Development, Sep 2019, Vol.56, No.3, at https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/09/tackling-global-tax-havens-shaxon.htm#:~:text=Individuals%20have%20stashed%20%248.7%20trillion,of%20up%20to%20%2436%20trillion. 

13) Hanna Ziady, ‘The big 4 audit firms keep failing. Now they’re being forced to change’, 6 July 2020, at https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/06/business/uk-big-4-accountancy-firms-frc/index.html 

14) https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/bp210-economy-one-percent-tax-havens-180116-en_0.pdf

15) Michael Hudson, ‘The rentier resurgence and takeover: Finance capitalism vs Industrial capitalism’, 27 Jan 2021, at https://michael-hudson.com/2021/01/the-rentier-resurgence-and-takeover-finance-capitalism-vs-industrial-capitalism/ 

16) Matthew Taylor and Jillian Ambrose, ‘Revealed: Big oil’s profits since 1990 total nearly $2tn’, The Guardian, 12 Feb 2020, at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/12/revealed-big-oil-profits-since-1990-total-nearly-2tn-bp-shell-chevron-exxon 

17) ‘Inside Job’, 2010, documentary by Charles Ferguson about the 2008 financial crisis, at https://watchdocumentaries.com/inside-job/ 

18) Emily Peck, ‘Should Billionaires Even Exist’, Huffington Post, 30 Jan 2019, at https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/billionaires-tax-the-rich_n_5c51ea30e4b0ca92c6dcafc6?ri18n 

Joseph Stiglitz, ‘America has a monopoly problem – and it’s huge’, The Nation, 23 Oct 2017, at https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/america-has-a-monopoly-problem-and-its-huge/ 

19) Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom, 20 Dec 1964, at https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/at-the-audubon/

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The Biden White House has seemingly disappeared its “100 days” back to normal COVID-19 plan, substituting its highly-publicized pledge for a more permanent safety regime, at the request of power-drunk officials and “public health experts” who continue their reign over U.S. society.

Strategy document laying out President Biden’s 100 day COVID-19 response plan

Schools

Reopening schools was the staple of Joe Biden’s 100 days COVID-19 response plan.

“The United States is committed to ensuring that students and educators are able to resume safe, in-person learning as quickly as possible, with the goal of getting a majority of K-8 schools safely open in 100 days,” the plan reads.

However, the White House is now suggesting that this is no longer an obtainable goal, and they’ve lowered the benchmark significantly.

Jen Psaki: Kids Going to School ONE Day a Week is Bold and Ambitious. #COVID19https://t.co/UT2s8NmqV1

— Mr Producer (@RichSementa) February 10, 2021

With millions of children still remaining at home, and a nationwide children’s mental health crisis damaging millions of American families, Team Biden has completely backed off of the 100 day “majority of schools” opening plan.

Instead of stressing the urgency of a return to the classroom, the White House, government health agencies, and teachers unions have acted in concert to pump the brakes on a return to school anytime soon. Both institutions are peddling pure pseudoscience and evidence-free definitive statements in suggesting that it is not safe to return to schools. The teachers unions, which have enormous influence over the Democratic Party, have taken to demanding a $130 billion dollar ransom payment in exchange for their endorsement of a very gradual reopening plan.

Anthony Fauci, for his part, is now demanding that Congress passes a stimulus package before schools reopen.

Fauci: Stimulus bill needs to be passed for schools to reopen https://t.co/XQPz5UwRYO pic.twitter.com/OoBC0K5xB8

— The Hill (@thehill) February 14, 2021

Masks

As part of the 100 day plan, President Biden famously stressed the supposed importance of wearing a mask as an apparent accelerant to a full reopening society.

“President Biden has called on every American to wear a mask for 100 days when they are around people outside of their household,” the Biden plan states.

Team Biden has backtracked on that component of the plan, too. After talking with government health bureaucrats, President Biden is now demanding that Americans wear masks until at least 2022 in order to “stop the spread” of the coronavirus.

“You know that wearing this mask through the next year here can save lives — a significant number of lives,” a masked President Biden said at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) this week, after a meeting with Anthony Fauci and NIH Director Francis Collins. “And so I apologize if you don’t hear me as clearly as you, maybe you should.”

“The new strains emerging create immense challenges, and masking is still the easiest thing to do to save lives. But we need everyone to mask up,” Biden added.

Biden tells Americans to wear masks for COVID-19 until at least 2022 https://t.co/SnkIWh7c4s pic.twitter.com/pXZErV38cS

— New York Post (@nypost) February 12, 2021

Vaccines

The final component of the 100 days plan was to deploy 100 million vaccines into 100 million arms in 100 days. This was not much of a lofty target, as the Trump Administration had already ramped up deployment to the per day average needed for the Biden Administration to accomplish that goal. Moreover, vaccine efficacy remains unclear, and “public health experts” now claim that “new variants” may not work on some COVID-19 vaccines. Big Pharma companies, academic epidemiologists,  and government health bureaucrats are slowly popularizing the idea that COVID vaccination may have to become an annual event, similar to the Flu shot.

If Team Biden had just followed the actual science on COVID-19 spread, their 100 day COVID plan would have been a layup for success, but we are dealing with politicians and bureaucrats, who are not the most competent of human beings. As I have explained in The Dossier, there are several metrics that guaranteed this plan would have succeeded. For a quick summary, refer to this paragraph I wrote in December:

“Given that we’ve now been monitoring COVID-19 for a full year, observers of the pandemic have been able to track how seasonal changes impacted the spread of the novel coronavirus. During the warmer months, the United States and every other nation on a similar geographic latitude experienced a dramatic dip in cases in addition to every other metric, such as hospitalizations and COVID-19 deaths. This is not some miraculous coincidence of human behavior. It’s a scientific reality.”

Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths will continue to decline, not because of any human interventions, but because this is an annual occurrence and respiratory season will fade in warmer months. The incompetence of the Biden White House has resulted in the destruction of their 100 day COVID plan, in exchange for an indefinite COVID regime that is ruled by the people who helped get us into this mess. Similar to the mistakes made by the past administration, this White House has handed off the levers of power indefinitely to power-drunk state governors, “public health expert” witch doctors, and other incompetent politicians and bureaucrats.

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Canada is purchasing a “civilian” version of the Hermes 900 drone made by Israel’s largest privately-owned arms company, Elbit Systems, Electronic Intifada reported.

The deal which was announced in December by Canada’s transport ministry is worth $28 million.

As Israeli media reported, the Hermes 900 was first “tested” by ‘Israel’ during its 2014 war on Gaza, when it killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 550 children, in attacks that frequently obliterated entire families.

“The air force used the Hermes 900 in Gaza in the final days of Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, even though it was still in the initial stages of being adopted by the IDF,” said the Globes, Israel Business News.

Aa a major weapons supplier to the Israeli military, Elbit was deeply involved in, and reaped huge profits from, that attack on Gaza.

Canada is greenwashing the purchase from Elbit by claiming the drones will be used for surveillance of the Arctic region, including “to detect oil spills, survey ice and marine habitats.”

The Trudeau government claims that this purchase will help “to keep our waters clean and safe.”

In fact, what it will do is put money into the hands of Israel’s blood-soaked arms industry, effectively rewarding it for perpetrating war crimes whose investigation and prosecution Trudeau opposes.

Canada opposed the ICC ruling that it has jurisdiction to open a criminal investigation into ‘Israel’ for war crimes in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, saying it “does not recognize a Palestinian state.”

“Canada is firmly committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We continue to support the goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, including the creation of a Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel. The creation of a Palestinian state can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties,” Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau said.

“Until such negotiations succeed, Canada’s longstanding position remains that it does not recognize a Palestinian state and therefore does not recognize its accession to international treaties, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Canada has communicated this position to the Court on various occasions.”

Canada is firmly committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Until such negotiations succeed, Canada’s longstanding position remains the same. We will continue to support the @IntlCrimCourt and its critical work.

My statement: pic.twitter.com/nbhB0bWUeL

— Marc Garneau (@MarcGarneau) February 7, 2021

While the Trudeau government claims to be a global champion of human rights, it has massively expanded its arms trade with Saudi Arabia, despite that country’s brutal war on Yemen.

Last month, activists protested the Trudeau policy by blocking the entrance of a Hamilton, Ontario, factory that ships weapons to the Saudis.

More photos from today's action…activists blocked trucks at @PaddockTrans, a Hamilton-area transportation company involved in shipping Canadian-made, light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. #CanadaStopArmingSaudi#YemenCantWait#StopArmingSaudi pic.twitter.com/ncmc47vA39

— World BEYOND War Canada (@WBWCanada) January 25, 2021

And now Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, an advocacy group, is urging Canadians to write the Trudeau government opposing the Elbit deal.

“Through this purchase, Canada directly supports the profits of a weapons company responsible for ongoing human rights violations against Palestinians,” CJPME says in an action alert.

As CJPME notes in a useful backgrounder, Elbit brags that the “civilian” drones Trudeau’s government is purchasing draw on the “legacy” of its killer drones used on Palestinians.

Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems is deeply involved in violations of human rights. Why should Canada give it $36m?

Tell @OmarAlghabra: Canada must cancel the drone contract! https://t.co/8Ug6UUL8Tr @JustinTrudeau @MarcGarneau @AnitaOakville #cdnpoli #StopElbitDrone pic.twitter.com/0XuL6KU3GP

— Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (@CJPME) February 10, 2021

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The United States has an extensive sanctions programme affecting two dozen countries across the globe, and three of those states singled out for coercive measures are in Latin America: Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. 

The cost to those three nations of US sanctions imposed allegedly “to counter threats to national security” are breathtakingly severe and must be stopped.

Not only do these unilateral sanctions cause immense harm to each country’s inhabitants, but they are also illegal under the charters of both the UN and the Organisation of American States.

In the last four years under the Trump administration, all three states have experienced an alarming extension in the breadth and harshness of the sanctions levied against them.

During the period from April 2019 to March 2020, for example, the US introduced 90 new economic actions and measures against Cuba, reaching unprecedented levels of hostility.

Nor are the sanctions — deadly as they are — the only form of aggression that the US has been employing against these three countries.

All have been subjected to internal destabilisation through, for example, US funding of right-wing (and often violent) opposition groups, and disinformation strategies aiming to discredit and isolate them internationally.

The US’s ultimate purpose is always the same: to bring about regime change in the country and enable the US to secure its economic and political dominance in the region.

The damage that US sanctions have imposed on Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua is huge.

In the case of Cuba, the six-decade-long blockade is estimated to have caused losses to its economy of over $144 billion (£105bn).

At its core is the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 which authorises the US president to establish and maintain a total embargo on trade with Cuba and prohibits the authorisation of any aid to the Cuban government.

Over time the embargo has become a multilayered blockade that not only restricts trade, especially through provisions for enforcing it extraterritorially on non-US companies, but has also frozen and confiscated Cuban assets, limited or prohibited tourism, cut flights to Cuba, and levied a host of other penal measures designed to strangle Cuba’s economy and make ordinary life for Cubans as uncomfortable as possible.

For Nicaragua, the US’s main vehicle for applying economic pressure to destabilise the country’s government and economy is the “Nica Act” (Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act), introduced by Trump in December 2018.

This followed the failure by US-funded opposition forces to secure regime change through an attempted violent coup in spring 2018 which led to 200 deaths and untold economic damage.

The Nica Act’s aim is to cut Nicaragua off from loans and financial or technical assistance by multilateral-lending institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF.

The Act also grants the president powers to block and prohibit financial and other asset transactions, and sanctions serving and former government officials.

Coupled with these sanctions, the United States Agency for International Development (USAid) committed in 2018 a further $1.5 million in assistance “to continue to support freedom and democracy in Nicaragua”.

USAid has an infamous reputation for funding “civil society” groups and right-wing opposition parties to undermine and oust elected governments seen as detrimental to US interests.

In anticipation that President Daniel Ortega and the FSLN party are likely to win the presidential election scheduled for November 2021, USAid has also secretly hired a contractor to work on plans, codenamed Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua (Rain), to destabilise and replace Nicaragua’s elected government.

The US’s aggressive tactics against Venezuela have drawn on its in-depth experience of destabilising and sanctioning both Cuba and Nicaragua in pursuit of regime change.

And the prize for securing such change in Venezuela would arguably be incalculably greater  — the world’s largest oil reserves, as well as extensive mineral wealth, notably gold and bauxite.

The raft of sanctions applied to Venezuela since an Executive Order in 2015 declaring Venezuela a threat to US national security now amounts to a blockade virtually indistinguishable from that imposed on Cuba.

The effects have been similarly far-reaching, with the Washington-based Centre for Economic and Policy Research calculating that US sanctions led to more than 40,000 deaths in 2017-18 alone.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic struck, these sanctions have had an even greater effect by restricting all three countries’ ability to buy medicines and equipment to address the current health emergency.

Opposition to the sanctions has come from a range of voices.

In March 2020 UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres called for the waiving of sanctions, saying: “This is the time for solidarity not exclusion.”

The Pope has also appealed for an end to sanctions preventing countries from “providing adequate support to their citizens.”

And in an unexpected move that may signal a possible thawing in US policy, US Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who chairs the Senate finance committee, has introduced a Bill to end Cuba’s blockade and establish normal trade relations with the US.

A change of president potentially offers an opportunity for constructive engagement and dialogue with Biden.

But given his track record and position to date, a dialogue that could benefit all three countries cannot be assured.

Now more than ever it is vital to step up our expressions of international solidarity with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela in defence of their national sovereignty and to make it clear that sanctions are not only illegal but also unacceptable and unjustifiable.

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Featured image: US Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who chairs the Senate finance committee, has introduced a Bill to end Cuba’s blockade and establish normal trade relations with the US (Source: Morning Star)

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Why has the flu disappeared since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic?

In 2020, after the global coronavirus pandemic began, influenza viruses mysteriously disappeared from global circulation (see WHO FluNet chart below). Some skeptics suspected that influenza was simply reclassified as covid, while many journalists and ‘fact checkers’ claimed influenza was suppressed by face masks and lockdowns.

Global circulation of influenza viruses, 2018-2021 (WHO FluNet)

But influenza has not been reclassified as covid, and influenza viruses have disappeared even in countries without face masks and lockdowns, while they had not disappeared during previous flu epidemics and pandemics, despite face masks, school closures, and other measures.

Instead, influenza viruses have simply been displaced by the more infectious novel coronavirus. This displacement effect is well known from previous influenza pandemics: the 1918 flu virus was displaced by the 1957 flu virus, which in turn was displaced by the 1968 flu virus (see chart). The 2009 swine flu virus temporarily displaced previous flu viruses, but eventually couldn’t assert itself (see chart). And even during the current coronavirus pandemic, more transmissible virus strains have repeatedly displaced previous coronavirus strains, often within weeks.

The last coronavirus pandemic is thought to have occurred in the 1890s (“Russian flu”), which is why a coronavirus displacing influenza viruses was not seen for more than a century. It is well known, however, that influenza vaccinations do not reduce the overall incidence of influenza-like illnesses, as influenza viruses simply get replaced by other respiratory viruses, including coronaviruses.

But why do countries with little or no covid – most of them are islands – also have no influenza? Because they closed their borders early. If the coronavirus doesn’t get in, influenza viruses – which normally oscillate between the northern and southern hemispheres – won’t get in, either.

An interesting and open question is whether the novel coronavirus might permanently suppress some or all of the existing influenza virus strains. This might, at last, be a positive development.

Additional figures

1) Competition between various respiratory viruses

Temporal patterns of seasonal respiratory viral infections in Glasgow (UK). Red: rhinoviruses, orange and yellow: influenza viruses; light green: coronaviruses.

Temporal patterns of viral respiratory infections (Nickbaksh et al, 2019)

2) The 2009 swine flu virus (almost) displacing other flu viruses

3) Timeline of pandemic influenza viruses

Timeline of pandemic influenza viruses (Nickol, 2019)

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A new report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that US economic sanctions on Venezuela are harming the Venezuelan economy, especially by depressing oil production and exports, and that they are also hindering US-backed humanitarian assistance to the country. The report, which looks at the impact of US sanctions on Venezuela’s economic crisis, was requested by former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Eliot Engel (D-NY) and committee member Congressman Andy Levin (D-MI).

“This report from the GAO offers more evidence that these unilateral, illegal US sanctions are a form of collective punishment against the Venezuelan population and should be ended immediately,” Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said. “The sanctions have already killed tens of thousands of people in Venezuela.”

The report, which “review[s] information on the impact that U.S. sanctions have had on the Venezuelan crisis,” affirms the conclusions of a 2019 Center for Economic and Policy Research report by economists Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot, which found that US sanctions were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in Venezuela. The sanctions drastically reduced Venezuelan oil production, which in turn means fewer imports, including of food, medicines, medical equipment, and other health-related necessities. “U.S. sanctions have contributed to the revenue decline by making it more difficult for [Venezuelan state oil company] PdVSA to market its oil, according to a Congressional Research Service report,” the GAO notes.

“According to experts we interviewed and literature we reviewed, U.S. sanctions have had a negative impact on the already declining Venezuelan economy,” the GAO report says. It notes that electricity blackouts have increased “in frequency and duration” under the sanctions.

Citing the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Weisbrot noted that the collective punishment that is administered through sanctions is a crime under the Geneva Conventions. “As the UN has noted, civilians who are killed by sanctions ‘deserve the same protections provided by the Geneva Conventions to people in war.’ In other words, something that is a crime when it happens during a war is still a crime when it is perpetrated during peacetime. These sanctions are a very serious crime, as any number of human rights experts will affirm.”

Another 2019 report by Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez, “Sanctions and the Venezuelan Economy: What the Data Say,” “estimate[s] that financial sanctions were associated with a decline in [oil] production of 797 tbd, which at today’s oil prices would represent USD 16.9 bn a year in foregone oil revenues.” By itself, this drop in foreign exchange revenue has enormous repercussions for the importation of humanitarian needs, as exemplified by the fact that from 2017 to 2018, total pharmaceutical imports collapsed by more than half.

The GAO also noted that the IMF revised its projections for how much the Venezuelan economy would contract in 2019, from 5 percent to 25 percent, due to the estimated impact of US sanctions. “An economic collapse of this magnitude, in a country that is already unable to import sufficient medicines, will result in many excess deaths,” Weisbrot noted.

“It is clear that in a country that cannot access the resources needed to purchase a sufficient quantity of medicines as well as public health infrastructure, a collapse of the economy of this magnitude is quite devastating,” Weisbrot said.

The GAO report also reveals that USAID implementing partners, tasked with providing humanitarian assistance, have been hindered by the sanctions: “All nine USAID implementing partners we spoke with reported instances of banks closing their accounts or delaying or rejecting transactions due to concerns over U.S. sanctions.” Humanitarian groups also struggle with challenges such as “gas shortages and electrical outages, supply chain and labor disruptions, security concerns, and the politicization of humanitarian aid” that the groups say may be made worse by US sanctions.

The GAO report also finds that the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Treasury Department has not been tracking inquiries related to the sanctions.

“The Trump administration, in its public statements, acknowledged that the purpose of sanctions in both Venezuela and Iran was to cause mass suffering that would lead people to rise up against their governments,” Weisbrot noted.

On March 11, 2019, Pompeo stated:

“The circle is tightening. The humanitarian crisis is increasing by the hour. I talked with our senior person on the ground there in Venezuela last night … You can see the increasing pain and suffering that the Venezuelan people are suffering from.”

Human Rights Watch has called attention to a similar statement on sanctions strategy, from Pompeo, with regard to Iran:

“Things are much worse for the Iranian people [with the US sanctions], and we are convinced that will lead the Iranian people to rise up and change the behavior of the regime.”

“President Biden has already ordered a review of economic sanctions to determine their humanitarian impact,” Weisbrot observed. “This is positive, but only if it leads to a lifting of the sanctions. The GAO report provides further confirmation that the sanctions on Venezuela are attacking the civilian population, and are worsening a humanitarian crisis. There is no reason to allow this crime from the Trump administration to continue.”

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Featured image: Since the cutting off of electricity, food and water inside the embassy has not been enough to force the collective to leave, late Tuesday afternoon, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police handed out a trespassing notice that was printed without letterhead or signature from any U.S. government official. (Photo: CodePink)

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***

“South Africa suspends Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine rollout after researchers report minimal protection against variant” announces the headline of a recent Washington Post report.

The article’s opening sentence reads as follows:

“South Africa will suspend use of the coronavirus vaccine being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca after researchers found that it provided ‘minimal protection’ against mild to moderate coronavirus infections caused by the new variant first detected in that country.”

The information conveyed by the above exposes the gargantuan fraud that has been perpetrated upon humanity in the name of COVID-19.

Even though many people will be deeply disappointed and disheartened by what happened in South Africa, the news should not have come as a surprise to anyone, since the vaccine failure was completely predictable and inevitable.

Here is the truth: It is not possible to devise an effective vaccine for the type of virus that causes COVID-19. Why? For the very reason that AstraZeneca’s vaccine has failed in South Africa and will fail elsewhere as well.

Coronavirus is a type of virus that mutates widely and because of that it is impossible to come up with a vaccination protocol that would stop its spread.

Every bona fide virologist knows this. And yet the public has not been advised of this. Quite to the contrary, this crucial information has been actively suppressed.

Rather than being told the truth, we were commanded to hunker down in lengthy lockdowns and ordered to wait until the vaccine was found. Once that happened, they told us, we would be able to prevail over the virus and get our lives back. Until quite recently, this was the official narrative propagated by the governing elites around the world.

Consequently, billions of people pinned their hopes on the vaccine and desperately waited for its deliverance. At the same time, governments channeled billions of dollars into the development of these fake concoctions and a number of pharma executives and scientists became billionaires on the news of “progress” and “successful” trials.

While some were getting fabulously wealthy, the frightened and gullible public was kept in the dark about the racket. Sadly, most people apparently lack the will and independence of mind to go beyond the propaganda and do their own research. It does not help, of course, that the establishment has done its best to censor and suppress the information that goes against its official narrative.

The first news that showed that all was not well came when the Chinese vaccine Sinovac was found to be only fifty percent effective in Brazil. Bad as it was, we can be sure that even the paltry fifty percent figure was tweaked upwards by a joint effort of the Brazilian authorities who purchased the vaccine and the vaccine’s Chinese manufacturer. They lied because it is in the interest of both parties to do so. The government authorities needed to cover for their incompetence of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a bad product while the manufacturer wants to protect his profits. The likely truth is that the Chinese vaccine is for all practical purposes useless and possibly dangerous due to potential side effects for which it has not been adequately tested in the extremely short time frame in which it was developed.

Tellingly, the Chinese manufacturer of the shoddy Sinovac vaccine initially claimed an effectiveness of nearly one hundred percent. Their claims were in line with those of western manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines. We can be sure – given the mutating nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus – that the vaccines developed by western pharma companies are equally as useless as that of their Chinese counterpart. We have already seen clear evidence of it from South Africa. In the aforementioned piece by the Washington Post we learn that when in South Africa the new “variant became dominant in the country in November, the vaccine [by Oxford-AstraZeneca] provided no significant protection against illness…” South African researchers estimated that the effectiveness of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is ten percent.

Think about it: The vaccine is ten percent effective! And this likely is still an exaggeration as all the parties involved try to save face.

But even at ten percent the vaccine would be worse than useless, because while it offers virtually no protection it potentially carries serious side effects for which it has not been adequately tested.

Because of the potential dangers inherent in this kind of medical product, it normally takes around six years to develop a vaccine that ban be considered reasonably safe. According to Business Insider “vaccines often take years, and sometimes even decades, to develop, test, and approve for public use.”

It was only in April of last year that CNN claimed that a year and a half timeframe of producing a vaccine would raise safety concerns:

“Eighteen months might sound like a long time, but in vaccine years, it’s a blink. That’s the long end of the Trump administration’s time window for developing a coronavirus vaccine, and some leaders in the field say this is too fast – and could come at the expense of safety.”

This was one of those rare occasions on which CNN said something that was actually true. The piece goes on to quote real experts in the field like Dr. Peter Hotez, an expert on infectious disease and vaccine development at Baylor College of Medicine who said: “Tony Fauci is saying a year to 18 months – I think that’s optimistic. Maybe if all the stars align, but probably longer.”

Dr. Paul Offit, the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, had this to say: “When Dr. Fauci said 12 to 18 months, I thought that was ridiculously optimistic. And I’m sure he did, too.”

To rush, therefore, COVID vaccines on the market after mere nine months of development is beyond irresponsible. To do this with “vaccines” that their manufacturers know cannot be ultimately effective is outright criminal.

Being part of the establishment, the vaccines manufacturers will not get called out and punished for their misdeeds. Their face (and their business model) will be saved. The data showing the ineffectiveness of their products will be tweaked and shown in the best light possible. They will then offer to devise boosters for different variants, which will be as ineffective in stopping COVID-19 as their original vaccine was. But never mind this: it will be excellent for their business, since each new variant represents more than seven billion potential customers. Western pharma conglomerates are known to be among the greatest scam artists within the system, and they will exploit the COVID scam to line their pockets in a big way.

While the effectiveness of the vaccines to protect against COVID is questionable at best, there is no doubt that they have already produced some serious side effects. One of these side effects happens to be death. In a number of countries hundreds of elderly people died after having received their shots. This side effect became so troublesome that some governments – Norway, for instance – issued new advisories and guidelines concerning vaccinations for older individuals. They did this even though the elderly were initially the first group targeted for this treatment. But rather then benefiting from it, many seniors were killed by the very thing they were told would protect their lives.

Given that it was never possible to stop a highly mutating virus by vaccination – which was something that has been well known – the whole COVID vaccine enterprise was fraud from the beginning and a dangerous one at that. The best we can hope for is that that these fake vaccines being peddled by the unscrupulous governments and greedy pharma companies are ineffective. Being administered on the order of millions of doses a day, we can only pray that the potential side effects of these untested concoctions hastily cobbled together by ruthless profiteers will not produce the greatest man-made medical calamity in history.

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Vasko Kohlmayer [email] was born and grew up in former communist Czechoslovakia. He is the author of The West in Crisis: Civilizations and Their Death Drives.

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***

As much as some Canadians would like to believe their country is a force for good in the world, the truth is more sobering. Extreme inequality is rampant and the Canadian government is an important supporter of corporate power and imperialism in global affairs. The good news is that the pushers of the unfair, unjust and immoral existing world order do not always get their way.

It is uplifting to tally some of the Trudeau government’s setbacks:

• Last Friday the International Criminal Court ruled that it has jurisdiction over Israeli war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, which should pave the way for a possible criminal investigation. A year ago the Trudeau government sent a letter to the ICC saying it didn’t believe the court had jurisdiction over Palestine. Its letter implied it could sever funding to the ICC if the court pursued an investigation of Israeli crimes. After the recent decision new Foreign Minister Marc Garneau released a statement criticizing the ICC decision.
• On January 26 former Liberal finance minister Bill Morneau withdrew his bid to lead the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries after it was determined he had no chance of winning.
• On January 22 the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force, making weapons that have always been immoral also illegal under international law. Canada voted against holding the 2017 UN Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination and boycotted the TPNW negotiating meeting, which two-thirds of the world’s countries attended.
• On January 20 new US President Joe Biden revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. The Trudeau government pressed the president-elect to break a direct promise and maintain a climate-destroying pipeline okayed by Donald Trump.
• Since Venezuela’s new National Assembly began sitting on January 6 numerous countries have withdrawn from the US–Canada led campaign to anoint Juan Guaidó President. The European Union dropped its de facto recognition of Guaidó. As did the Dominican Republic. Even the Ottawa-led Lima Group has softened its stance. Last week Panama withdrew the credentials of Guaidó’s ambassador.
• In October Chileans voted overwhelming to rewrite the country’s Pinochet-era constitution. The referendum was a blow to Canadian corporations operating in Chile and the Trudeau government’s alliance with right-wing governments in the hemisphere.
• A week earlier Bolivia’s Movimiento al Socialismo won a decisive election victory that was a rejection of the Canadian-backed coup against Evo Morales a year earlier. The overwhelming results were also a blow to Ottawa’s bid to wipe out the remnants of the leftist pink tide in Latin America. (On Sunday an ally of leftist former President Rafael Correa, Andrés Arauz, gained the most votes in the first round of Ecuador’s presidential election.)
• In June the international community decisively rejected Trudeau’s foreign policy. They voted against Canada’s bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council by a larger margin than a decade earlier under Stephen Harper.

People who support a fairer, more just and equal world should take comfort from these defeats for the Trudeau government’s pro-corporate and imperial policies. Proof that the bad guys are not invincible should offer hope for bigger victories to come.

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***

Last Monday, US General Frank McKenzie stated that the US shall continue to help Saudi Arabia defend itself against “the common threat of Iran”. On Tuesday, the Saudi government stressed the importance that the countries affected “by Iranian threats” should be a party to all international negotiations about the Iranian nuclear programme, while accusing Iran of “threatening the security of the region”. Tensions are on the rise, it would seem. But the situation is more complex. For the last weeks, Saudi Arabia has been alternating between sending “warnings” to Iran and making conciliatory statements. Meanwhile, Qatar aims to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran and to de-escalate tensions.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan claimed on January 22 that the Kingdom’s hands “are extended” to Iran to make peace – at the same time, he also accused Tehran of not being serious enough about peace talks and of not complying with agreements. The two countries have not had diplomatic relations since the 2016 attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran after Sunni-governed Saudi Arabia executed Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr – Iran is the world’s largest Shia-governed country (Shia and Sunni being the two major denominations within Islam). Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh responded by remarking to the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) that Iran, in its turn, would welcome reforms in Saudi policies to establish a “security mechanism” in the region.

The Middle East geopolitical scenario is changing. We have seen for example how different Arab countries signed normalization agreements with Israel. While Turkey is involved in a proxy war with some Arab states in North Africa, in the Gulf region things are perhaps even more complex. In a new development, Qatar is urging Gulf Arab states to enter a dialog with Iran; according to a statement by Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani on January 18, authorities in the Qatari capital of Doha could broker such negotiations. This happened some days after Joe Biden was sworn in as the new American president – during the campaign, he promised to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Meanwhile, Doha is also having discussions with Iran and South Korea to ensure the release of an oil tanker seized by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Saudi Arabia’s small and yet significant gesture took place after the Qatari statements.

This is also happening at a time when a landmark “solidarity and stability” agreement was signed on January 5 between Qatar on one hand, and the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain on the other, thus re-establishing full diplomatic relations with Doha. Such agreement basically ended the blockade on Qatar and, at least for now, the Gulf crisis which lasted for three-and-a-half years. The crisis was also about Iran. In 2017, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE had cut all ties with Qatar, accusing it of being “too close” to Iran (Saudi Arabia’s archenemy) and supporting “terrorism”. Could things be changing? Such rapprochement between Gulf states, according to Emadeddin Badi (an Atlantic Council senior fellow), was clearly also influenced by their desire “to preempt pressure” from the incoming Biden administration. All is not well in the Gulf, however.

Qatar basically still wishes to maintain its good relations with both Turkey and Iran. It is a complicated task: the priority today for the Arab Gulf states, after all, is no longer antagonizing Israel but countering both Turkey and Iran – two countries which also have complex and often tense relations.

In the aftermath of the Gulf countries agreement, the UAE and Oman are also making efforts to improve their relations with Turkey. Qatar has also offered to mediate between Ankara and the authorities in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. And indeed for the first time in two years – since Saudi dissident journalist of Turkish origins Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul (Turkey) – there seems to be a path for reconciliation between Ankara and Riyadh.

With Iran, however, things are far from that and tensions remain high. On January 22, Emirati (along with Israeli) officials expressed their approval for former US president Donald Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran – but Omar Ghobash, UAE assistant minister for public diplomacy, also stated that the UAE does not oppose a new deal with Tehran, even though he disagrees with the way Gulf states were not included in the nuclear deal of 2015 (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – JCPO – signed by Iran, China, US, France, Russia, the UK, and Germany).

The Kingdom of Bahrain, in its turn, accuses the Islamic Republic of Iran of fomenting unrest in the country. Bahrain is now facing demonstrations from the Shia-led opposition that are demanding reforms in the Sunni-led country.

Meanwhile, Turkey and Iran have nonetheless signed agreements with Pakistan to boost railway cooperation – thus further developing the routes linking Istanbul, Tehran and Islamabad, and even further, enhancing connectivity with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It is worth remembering that in February 2020, state-owned Russian Railways pulled out from a $1.3 billion railway electrification project which includes a line between Gamsar (Iran) and Ince Burun (Turkey). This was due to US pressure regarding sanctions imposed on Iran. This is a railway line also designed to connect Turkey (via Iran) to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

In the end, the interests of countries such as Turkey and Iran, and even Russia, can converge against US sanctions and such countries should work together at some levels in dialog with Gulf countries to counter international isolation. In this scenario, the role of Qatar is very relevant.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

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***

US President Joe Biden wants to “End the Yemen War” by cutting support to the Saudi-led coalition and focusing on diplomacy to end the six-year conflict in one of the world’s poorest countries, which has brought 30 million Yemenis close to famine.

The US has a history of looking for a quick fix, without considering the complex reality on the ground.  Yemen’s conflict is multifaceted, includes many actors, and can’t be solved in a rushed political agreement.

Biden may be considered for the Noble Peace Prize if his administration could bring peace to Yemen; however, halting arms sales to the Saudis, or making a deal between the Hadi government and the Houthis won’t end Yemen’s war, or stop the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Biden has announced a big policy shift on Yemen by ending US support for the Arab Coalition’s operations in Yemen, calling out Saudi Arabia for human rights issues, halting arms sales to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, and holding the Saudi-led coalition accountable for their role in mismanaging the war.

Biden has appointed Timothy Lenderking, former deputy assistant secretary for Arabian Gulf affairs, as the special envoy to Yemen, and called the Saudi foreign minister twice over the past week.

Lenderking met with the internationally recognized Yemeni President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi in Riyadh on February 11 and also met with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, while discussing a comprehensive solution to ending Yemen’s war.

Saudi Arabia’s military spending has been exceeding even that of global powers, although direct Saudi-led coalition attacks against the Houthis have decreased in recent years while shifting the Saudi strategy to defending the border with Yemen.

Riyadh is aiming to strengthen its influence among all Yemeni factions and is now more actively pursuing negotiations with the Houthis.

Farhan went to Moscow a few weeks ago, and the Kingdom enjoys a good relationship with China, which provides the oil-rich monarchy a contingency plan.

Saudi Arabia can’t afford to get out of Yemen entirely, as the security cost would be too high. Riyadh might invest in mercenaries while it continues to reduce its direct military interventions.

Trump

President Trump imposed upon the Houthi movement the specially designated global terrorist (SDGT) and foreign terrorist organization (FTO) designations on his last full day in office, in a final attempt to cut off funding, weapons, and other support for Iran’s proxy fight in Yemen. Trump was often criticized for his close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, while he used his close ties to push through peace deals between Arab states and Israel.

Sanctions

The United Nations describes Yemen as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 80 percent of its people in need. The Trump-ordered terrorist designation threatened to deepen the humanitarian crisis by denying food, fuel, and other basic commodities to civilians.  Importers would have faced criminal penalties should the goods fall into Houthi hands, which could push Yemen into a major famine.

The US and EU sanctions on Syria, for example, have caused hospitals to be without chemotherapy drugs, ventilators, and other essential medicines and medical equipment. Gasoline, heating oil, and electricity supplies have all been in dire short supply because of the sanctions on Syria. It is the innocent, unarmed civilians who suffer from Western sanctions.

“This decision is a recognition of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen,” Blinken said in a statement.

“We will continue to closely monitor the activities of Ansar Allah and its leaders and are actively identifying additional targets for designation,” Blinken said, referring to the name of the Houthi movement.

Houthi

The Houthis currently have the upper hand militarily, and a political settlement risks tipping the military balance in favor of the Houthis, who have not held to cease-fires in the past.

Biden’s speed to call out Arab Gulf monarchies, without first condemning actions taken by the Houthis was perceived by the group as a sign of American weakness, and a Houthi victory.

The move created widespread anger among Yemenis, who saw it as the Biden administration giving the Houthis a green light and a new sense of confidence.

The US administration’s decision to revoke the terrorist designation of the Houthis has emboldened the group, and they escalated their offensive to capture Marib the following day after the designation was rescinded when a Houthi drone was launched toward Khamis Mushait in the kingdom’s Asir province.

On February 12, the Houthis claimed a drone attack that targeted a civilian airplane in Saudi Arabia’s Abha airport.

How the war started

In 2011, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Initiative resulted in a power-sharing deal between former President Saleh and his opponents and called for a political transition process.

Lost between the two sides were the long-standing grievances of ordinary Yemenis, who still feel their voices are not heard.

The deal granted former President Saleh immunity, which effectively allowed him to remain in control of most of the armed forces. He then allied with the Houthis and overthrew the government in September 2014, and from there the country was dragged into a civil war.

The war in Yemen is between the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement, and the internationally recognized government of Yemen, which has been supported since 2015 by a Saudi-led military coalition.

The Stockholm Agreement was brokered by the UN envoy in December 2018 between the Hadi government and the Houthis but failed to deliver peace or stability.

The UN

A series of UN special envoys for Yemen has tried to broker a political settlement between the two sides since 2014.

The Biden administration should work with the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Yemen Martin Griffiths to ease access to humanitarian aid and opening airports, seaports, and key roads to cities for the sake of the suffering civilians.

Down the road

Yemen is a conflict that’s more than just politics and will require getting firm commitments from the Houthis while working with the Saudis as well.

Most Yemenis are currently not represented in the peace talks. Western policy experts, diplomats, and peace activists are not enough to end the war when most Yemenis have animosity toward both the Houthis and Hadi’s government. The voiceless civilians must be made part of the solution for the war to come to an end, and have lasting stability.

The Biden administration must look farther down the road than just a quick fix, or risk an uptake in violence and a long-lasting conflict with no end in sight.

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Steven Sahiounie is an award-winning journalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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***

It’s all over but the postmortems. Trump’s five day Senate trial ended as expected with acquittal. More on this below.

Trump remains unaccountable for crimes of war, against humanity, breaching the public trust and other offenses he committed.

None of the above were part of his year ago politicized Senate show trial — nor Act II now over.

He’s innocent of earlier charges and the current one.

They’re phony without a leg to stand on.

Not a shred of credible evidence provides proof because there is none.

Trump had nothing to do with inciting insurrection on Capitol Hill that didn’t occur in the first place.

Witch hunt Dems and complicit media lied and mass deceived the public claiming otherwise.

What occurred earlier and currently are two of the most disgraceful political chapters in US history.

They further blackened the nation’s already sullied image — a rogue state masquerading as democratic, what it never was, isn’t now, and won’t tolerate anywhere.

Despite no evidence linking Trump to the allegation of inciting insurrection on Capitol Hill that didn’t happen, NYT editors pronounced him guilty by accusation.

Disgracing themselves more than already — no simple task — they roared the following:

“There’s no doubt who must be held responsible for attacking the Capitol (sic) and trying to overturn the results of the election (sic).”

The January 6 Capitol Hill episode was an orchestrated anti-Trump false flag.

Aided and directed to where they wanted to go by guards, bussed in hooligans stormed the main building, not Trump supporters whose actions were lawful.

Instead of reporting accurately about what happened, the NYT and other anti-Trump media pronounced him guilty by accusation — despite no evidence proving the phony charge.

Screaming for his unjustifiable conviction, Times editors recited a litany of beginning-to-end bald-faced Big Lies, typical Times misinformation, disinformation and fake news it features on all major issues.

“If you fail to hold him accountable, it can happen again,” the Times deceptively roared.

Charging, prosecuting and convicting someone without supportive evidence is what police state injustice is all about.

It’s what Times editors demand. They should be in the dock, not Trump.

They’re guilty of endless counts of fake news propaganda pretending to be real news and information.

No “mob of Trump supporters sacked the US Capitol,” no “attack on America’s democracy” that doesn’t exist.

“Trump stands (falsely) charged with inciting of insurrection.”

The Times stands guilty of inventing its own reality to serve its diabolical agenda against Trump in cahoots with undemocratic Dems and other dark forces.

Time and again, it finds new ways to disgrace itself.

Gray Lady presstitution substitutes for truth and full disclosure.

Earlier it called Trump’s reelection campaign “the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II (sic).”

What doesn’t exist can’t be threatened.

The US is the greatest threat to virtually everything just societies hold dear.

The Times and other Big Media share guilt.

On all things Trump, it piles on one phony charge on top of others, ignoring legitimate ones.

On all things undemocratic Dems, their highest of high crimes are supported.

On all things journalism as it should be, it was long ago banned in its editions.

The Dems case against Trump was emotionally charged with no supportive evidence.

The Times lied claiming otherwise.

Law Professor Jonathan Turley slammed orchestrated proceedings by Dems, saying:

There’s no (House) record. None.”

“There was no hearing, no investigation. Just a snap impeachment” with no credible evidence backing it.

According to undemocratic Dems, the Times and other anti-Trump media, no proof is needed to pronounce guilt as charged.

Turley: “(T)he burden is on (Dems), and they presented an entirely circumstantial case” proving nothing.

So much for the democratic process, due process and judicial fairness. They’re off the table when conflict with diabolical aims of US dark forces.

When it comes to Trump for Dems and other diabolical aims they pursue, the above aren’t tolerated — how all police states operate.

At the 11th hour with proceedings nearing an end, Dems and five Republicans agreed to call witnesses, delaying closing arguments and a floor vote.

Reversing the above followed, no witnesses called.

Final arguments were made Saturday.

Earlier in the day, it was unclear when Trump’s witch hunt show trial would end.

It’s been very clear all along that no credible evidence supports the phony inciting insurrection charge.

It’s clear as well that democracy and rule of law in the US don’t exist.

Later on Saturday, Trump’s politicized show trial ended.

During the day, GOP Senate Minority Leader notified Republicans that he’d vote for acquittal.

As expected, Trump was acquitted by a vote of 57 – 43 vote, well shy of a two-thirds super-majority needed to convict.

Will undemocratic Dems and their Big Media press agents go for a third time around impeachment and trial — further shaming and discrediting themselves than already?

Put nothing past the US criminal class. They keep searching for new lows and finding them.

All they achieved by impeaching and trying Trump twice on phony charges was to display their contempt for the rule of law.

On that count, they showed the world community the ugliness of their true colors!

A Final Comment

On Friday, Trump’s legal team hoisted undemocratic on their own petard.

They played videos of Dems screaming threats against Trump and his supporters in sharp contrast to DJT’s call to protest against brazen election fraud.

In 2016, Pelosi falsely accused Trump of hijacking the election, adding:

He’s “an imposter and a traitor.”

Many Dems encouraged mass anti-Trump protests and riots.

When Dem-supporting extremists rioted in Portland, OR, she failed to accuse them of staging an insurrection.

When mobs she supported destroyed public property, she and other undemocratic Dems turned a blind eye to their rampaging.

Pelosi is a war-mongering corporate tool, a guardian of power against public health and welfare.

She supports virtually everything just societies abhor, including endless wars on humanity at home and abroad, corporate empowerment, and what benefits privileged Americans at the expense of most others.

Disgracing the office she holds,   she and her co-conspirators belong in the dock — accountability for their abuses of power long overdue.

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

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

Featured image: President Trump at a July briefing at Southern Command Headquarters in Miami.

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***

Nicaragua’s elected leftist government passed a law requiring NGOs funded by outside governments to register as foreign agents, so a CIA agent-turned-Biden State Department spokesman smeared it as “driving toward dictatorship” — despite the policy’s similarity to US legislation.

Since Nicaragua’s socialist Sandinista Front returned to power through democratic elections in 2006, the United States government has poured many millions of dollars into right-wing opposition groups in the Central American country.

These US-funded NGOs have aimed to destabilize the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and played a central role in a brutally violent coup attempt in 2018.

Nicaragua’s National Assembly responded to the Washington-sponsored violence and destabilization efforts by passing a law in October 2020 that requires organizations funded by outside governments to register as foreign agents.

The legislation is very similar to a law passed by the United States in 1938 known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). In recent years, Washington has exploited FARA to force Russian and Chinese media outlets and journalists working in the United States to register as foreign agents — in a bipartisan, Cold War-style political escalation against both countries.

Though Washington has had this legislation on the books for more than eight decades, and still utilizes it regularly, the Joe Biden administration has lashed out at Nicaragua for its decision to pass a similar law.

On February 8, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price, a former CIA agent, published a statement condemning the elected Sandinista government.

Price claimed that President “Ortega is driving Nicaragua toward dictatorship,” because the new foreign agent law led to the voluntary suspension of operations of a major US government-funded opposition organization in the country.

Price demonized Nicaragua’s democratically elected government as a “regime,” while stressing that the US government is “focused on empowering civil society.”

President Ortega is driving Nicaragua toward dictatorship with the foreign agents law, isolating his country and depriving his people of progress toward democracy and prosperity. We urge President Ortega to change course now. https://t.co/6UnHlVhWWL

— Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox) February 9, 2021

Price’s statement condemning Nicaragua came one day after the US-backed right-wing president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, effectively declared himself a dictator, ruling without a Senate or Chamber of Deputies, hand-picking mayors, shooting journalists, and killing protesters.

Fixating on Nicaragua, the CIA staffer-turned-State Department spokesperson concluded his declaration with a thinly veiled threat: “We urge President Ortega to change course now.”

Despite the Biden administration’s hyperbolic rhetoric, it was not Ortega that passed the law; rather, it was the elected deputies of Nicaragua’s National Assembly that did so.

If the US Congress approved a law, it would be very strange for a foreign government to blame the US president for the legislation. But Washington reduces all of Nicaragua’s government, including its 92 assembly members and other state officials, to just one man, grossly simplifying the country’s politics.

The author of the State Department declaration, Ned Price, worked at the CIA for more than a decade, although he retired early in 2017 in protest of Donald Trump’s presidency.

The CIA has a long history of supporting right-wing opposition groups in Nicaragua. During the 1980s, the CIA armed and trained far-right death squads, known as the Contras, who waged a terrorist war on the revolutionary Sandinista government, massacring civilians, torturing officials, bombing infrastructure, mining ports, and burning down hospitals, schools, and farms.

Today, funding for anti-Sandinista NGOs comes largely through the US government’s regime-change arms the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The latter is a CIA cut-out created by the Ronald Reagan administration at the same time when it was waging this Contra terror campaign, in order to finance similar destabilization schemes in the guise of democracy promotion.

USAID pours tens of millions into right-wing opposition media in Nicaragua

The real source of the Biden administration’s anger over Nicaragua’s foreign agent law was the announcement that a right-wing opposition group funded with millions of US government tax dollars had decided to shut down.

On February 5, the anti-Sandinista activist organization the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation announced that it is voluntarily suspending operations in protest of the foreign agent law.

The US State Department press release falsely accused the Nicaraguan government of closing the Chamorro Foundation. In reality, the Sandinista government was not shuttering or expelling the foundation or any other organization; rather, they voluntarily decided to cease activities to avoid compliance with the new legislation.

The Chamorro Foundation was founded by and is named after Nicaragua’s neoliberal former President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who came to power in 1990 thanks to a US-backed terror war and blockade of the country, along with funding from Washington’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

In 1991, the NED personally rewarded President Barrios de Chamorro for her loyalty to Washington, giving her a high-profile award.

The Chamorro clan is one of the wealthiest and most powerful oligarch families in Nicaragua. Many right-wing opposition leaders in the Central American nation are Chamorros, and they enjoy a close relationship with the US government.

This oligarch family’s foundation is bankrolled by Washington’s soft-power arm, the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

While the minimum wage in Nicaragua is just over $200 per month, USAID has poured millions of dollars into the Chamorro Foundation, allotting the following sums:

• $1.7 million in 2020
• $1.7 million in 2019
• $1.2 million in 2018
• $1.6 million in 2014

The Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation has also been used to run USAID’s Media Strengthening Program (MSP), funding and training right-wing media activists on behalf of Washington.

According to a review of USAID’s publicly available data, the agency has spent the following sums of money just on opposition media outlets in Nicaragua since 2011:

• $1,697,400 in 2020
• $1,729,645 in 2019
• $889,355 in 2018
• $400,000 in 2017
• $1,600,000 in 2014
• $550,000 in 2013
• $413,163 in 2012 (1)
• $286,387 in 2012 (2)
• $541,000 in 2011

And this does not include many millions of dollars more that were rewarded to redacted grantees, whose information is not revealed on the USAID website.

A small sample of USAID funding for opposition media outlets in Nicaragua

One of the recipients of US government funding through the Chamorro Foundation was Nicaragua’s far-right opposition media outlet 100% Noticias. This channel actively encouraged violence during the 2018 coup attempt, promoting extremists who used mortar cannons to kill and injure Sandinista activists and state security forces.

Washington-funded 100% Noticias director Miguel Mora has openly requested that the US military invade his country and overthrow President Daniel Ortega, citing the war on Panama in 1989. Mora also hosted extremists who called on Nicaraguans to organize a violent mob to invade the presidential compound and lynch the elected leader.

The Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation is directed by Cristiana Chamorro, a wealthy right-wing operative who will likely be the opposition’s presidential candidate in the November 2021 election. Cristiana Chamorro has also helped to run the leading conservative newspaper, La Prensa.

In effect, this means that USAID has been bankrolling the Nicaraguan right-wing’s presidential candidate and the country’s top media outlet with millions of dollars over many years.

USAID allotted more than $122 million overall on operations in Nicaragua in the five years from 2016 through 2020. The majority of that money went to “Leadership, Management, Governance,” the “Municipal Governance Program,” and the “Democratic Leadership Development Program” – in other words, funding and cultivating right-wing opposition leaders.

While USAID claims that its projects are “humanitarian,” its own publicly available data shows that the vast majority of its spending in Nicaragua goes to funding “Government and Civil Society” and operating expenses for its staff, while less than 1 percent of its money goes to supporting public health and agriculture.

The Grayzone has exposed USAID’s role in overseeing a regime-change operation called Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua (RAIN), which explicitly aims to overthrow the socialist government, impose neoliberal reforms that lead to a “transition to a rules-based market economy” based on the “protection of private property rights,” and purge state institutions of Sandinistas.

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Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the assistant editor of The Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with editor Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.

Featured image: Sandinistas at a peace rally in Managua, Nicaragua on February 1, 2020 (Photo: Ben Norton / The Grayzone)

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***

It goes without saying that the Constitution called into existence a government with few, limited powers. That was the purpose of enumerating the powers of the federal government. If the Constitution was bringing into existence a government of unlimited or omnipotent powers, then there would have been no point in enumerating a few limited powers. In that event, the Constitution would have called into existence a government with general, unlimited powers to do whatever was in the interests of the nation.

If the Constitution had proposed a government of omnipotent powers, there is no way the American people would have accepted it, in which case America would have continued operating under the Articles of Confederation. Our American ancestors didn’t want a government of omnipotent powers. They wanted a government of few, limited, enumerated powers.

Among the most omnipotent powers a government can wield is the power of government officials to assassinate people. Our American ancestors definitely did not want that type of government. That is why the power to assassinate is not among the enumerated powers of government in the Constitution.

Despite the enumerated-powers doctrine, our American ancestors were still leery. They knew that the federal government would inevitably attract people who would thirst for the power to assassinate people. So, to make certain that federal officials got the point, the American people enacted the Fifth Amendment after the Constitution was ratified. It expressly prohibited the federal government from taking any person’s life without due process of law.

Due process of law is a term that stretches all the way back to Magna Carta. At a minimum, it requires formal notice of charges and a trial before the government can take a person’s life. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, assassination involves taking a person’s life without notice or trial.

For some 150 years, the federal government lacked the power to assassinate people. For the last 75 years, however, the federal government has wielded and actually exercised the omnipotent power to assassinate, including against American citizens.

How did it acquire this omnipotent power? Certainly not by constitutional amendment. It acquired it by default — by converting the federal government after World War II from a limited-government republic to a national-security state.

A national-security state is a totalitarian form of governmental structure. North Korea is a national security state. So is Cuba. And China, Egypt, Russia, and Pakistan. And the United States, along with others.

A national-security state is based on a vast, all-powerful military-intelligence establishment, one that, as a practical matter, wields omnipotent powers. Thus, when the CIA, one of the principle components of America’s national-security state, was called into existence in 1947, it immediately assumed the power to assassinate. In fact, as early as 1952 the CIA published an assassination manual that demonstrates that the CIA was already specializing in the art of assassination (as well as cover-up) in the early years of the national-security state.

In 1954, the CIA instigated a coup in Guatemala on grounds of “national security.” The aim of the coup was to oust the country’s democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, and replace him with a military general. As part of the coup, the CIA prepared a list of people to be assassinated. To this day, the CIA will not disclose the names of people on its kill list (on grounds of “national security,” of course) but it is a virtual certainty that President Arbenz was at the top of the list for establishing a foreign policy of peace and friendship with the communist world. To his good fortune, he was able to flee the country before they could assassinate him.

In 1970, the CIA was attempting to prevent Salvador Allende from becoming president of Chile. Like Arbenz, Allende’s foreign policy was based on establishing a peaceful and friendly relationship with the communist world. The CIA’s plan included inciting a coup led by the Chilean military. However, the overall commander of Chile’s armed forces, Gen. Rene Schneider, stood in the way. His position was that he had taken an oath to support and defend the constitution and, therefore, that he would not permit a coup to take place. The CIA conspired to have him violently kidnapped to remove him as an obstacle to the coup. During the kidnapping attempt, Schneider was shot dead.

Schneider’s family later filed suit for damages arising out of Schneider’s wrongful death. The federal judiciary refused to permit either U.S. officials or the CIA to be held accountable for Schneider’s death. Affirming the U.S. District Court’s summary dismissal of the case, the D.C. Court of Appeals held that U.S. officials who were involved in the crime could not be held liable since they were simply acting within the course and scope of their employment. Moreover, the U.S. government couldn’t be held liable because, the court stated, it is sovereignly immune.

Central to the Court’s holding was what it called the “political question doctrine.” It holds that under the Constitution, the judicial branch of the government is precluded from questioning any “political” or “foreign policy” decision taken by the executive branch.

Actually though, the Constitution says no such thing. It is in fact the responsibility of the judicial branch to enforce the Constitution against the other branches, including the national-security branch. That includes the Fifth Amendment, which expressly prohibits the federal government from taking people’s lives without due process of law.

So, why did the federal judiciary come up with this way to avoid taking on the CIA? Because it knew that once the federal government was converted to a national-security state, the federal government had fundamentally changed in nature by now having a branch that could exercise omnipotent powers, such as assassination, with impunity. The federal judiciary knew that there was no way that the judicial branch of government could, as a practical matter, stop the national-security branch with assassinating people. To maintain the veneer of judicial power, the judiciary came up with its ludicrous “political question doctrine” to explain why it wasn’t enforcing the Constitution

Once Pinochet took office after the coup in Chile, the Chilean judiciary did the same thing as the U.S. judiciary. It deferred to the power of the Pinochet military-intelligence government, declining to enforce the nation’s constitution against it. Like the U.S. judiciary, the Chilean judiciary recognized the reality of omnipotent power that comes with a national-security state. Many years later, the Chilean judiciary apologized to the Chilean people for abrogating its judicial responsibility.

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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

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***

During the first six weeks of the coronavirus vaccine rollout among U.S. adults, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — notorious for collecting only a tiny fraction of adverse events — received reports of more than 500 post-vaccination deaths and close to 11,000 other injuries.

Internationally renowned molecular genetics expert Dolores Cahill believes that these injuries portend a forthcoming tsunami of crippling and fatal problems. In the coming months, Cahill expects to see successive waves of adverse reactions to the experimental messenger RNA (mRNA) injections ranging from anaphylaxis and other allergic responses to autoimmunity, sepsis and organ failure.

Notwithstanding these and other credible warnings, U.S. health officials are signaling their intent to rapidly green-light the as-yet unlicensed mRNA vaccines for children.

Already last April — when next to nothing was known about COVID’s epidemiology, and candidate vaccines had barely begun to be studied — Bill Gates set the stage for the pediatric push, declaring that the end goal is to make COVID-19 vaccines “part of the routine newborn immunization schedule.”

We have since learned that 99.997% of young people ages 0-19 survive COVID-19 (with most experiencing either mild symptoms or no symptoms at all). But that does not seem to matter. Nor does a January 2021 study, which confirmed that it is only in a minuscule subset of children — mostly kids with serious underlying medical conditions — that the illness occasionally takes a turn for the worse.

In this low-risk context, public health officials know that they need to come up with different arguments to persuade parents to give the coronavirus vaccines to their offspring. Fortunately for these vaccine functionaries, there is a concept that is readily at hand: herd immunity.

And as Moderna joins Pfizer in conducting vaccine experiments on 12- to 17-year-olds — with additional trials in the works to test the injections in children under-12, including infants as young as six months — the chorus of voices casting herd immunity as “the main driver for COVID-19 child vaccinations” is growing noticeably louder.

A flawed ‘marketing gimmick’

Several years ago, JB Handley, author of “How to End the Autism Epidemic,” dissected herd immunity’s use as a “marketing gimmick” to shame and pressure people into vaccination, based on the guilt-tripping claim that non-compliers are free-riders who “put the health of the ‘herd’ at risk.”

Immunologist Tetyana Obukhanych, Ph.D., and others concur that officials enjoy wielding herd immunity “as a trump card to justify any measures, often at odds with personal freedom of choice, aiming to increase vaccination compliance.”

There’s just one problem with vaccine herd immunity claims, says Handley: “[W]e’ve never come close to achieving ‘herd immunity’ through vaccination, and we never will.”

Having conducted extensive research on the history of vaccine policies (such as mandated vaccines for school attendance), Children’s Health Defense (CHD) President and General Counsel Mary Holland agrees, stating that decades of intensive effort “have not attained herd immunity for any childhood disease.”

The theory of herd immunity originated with a health officer working in Chicago in the 1930s. At its inception, the concept “had nothing to do with vaccination.” Instead the theory reflected the physician’s careful observations “about the process of how a disease works its way through a community and how that community, eventually, naturally builds up a resistance to it as a result.”

As Obukhanych also explains, herd immunity evolved as an epidemiologic rather than an immunologic construct, offering at best a theoretical opportunity to predict successful disease control. As vaccines (and vaccine mandates) became more widespread in the mid-20th century, herd immunity theory underwent a pivotal transformation, based on the “faulty assumption that vaccination elicits in an individual a state equivalent to bona fide immunity,” Obukhanych said. Overlooking the sophistication of the human immune system — the very model of versatility — vaccine scientists adopted the flawed assumption of equivalence and, despite decades of evidence to the contrary, now view vaccination as a superior — even ideal — route to herd immunity.

The World Health Organization goes even further, omitting any reference to natural infection and defining herd immunity solely as “a concept used for vaccination.” Ironically, even as medical facilities report “an uptick in the recording of [COVID-19 vaccine] side effects” — not to mention disruptive “health impact events” — the Mayo Clinic asserts that vaccination “create[s] immunity without causing illness or resulting complications.”

The moving herd immunity target

Dr. Anthony Fauci — director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is 50% owner of the royalty-generating Moderna vaccine patent — has declared that herd immunity cannot be achieved and life cannot “return to some kind of normal” unless 85% to 90%of the entire U.S. population gets a coronavirus vaccine, children included. Today, Fauci told ProPublica children as young as first graders may be authorized to get the coronavirus vaccine by the time school starts in September.

Children (ages 0-17) make up 22% of the U.S. population. In late December, Fauci breezily admitted to the New York Times that he “nudged” the herd immunity target up to 90% (from a prior estimate of 70%) after he saw polls indicating growing public willingness to get a vaccine.

Educators have been quick to reinforce Fauci’s message that young people should get the shots, stating that vaccinating students is “a crucial step in the return-to-normal for schools.” Conversely, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), recently asserted that teachers don’t need to be vaccinated to reopen schools safely.

Two French scientists at the Pasteur Institute published a slightly more scientific discussion of COVID-19 herd immunity goals last September. While still promoting vaccination as the pathway of choice, they acknowledged that herd immunity calculations necessarily must account for variables such as susceptibility and transmission. They also noted that “children, particularly those younger than 10, may be less susceptible and contagious than adults, in which case they may be partially omitted from the computation of herd immunity.”

Although American officials admit that “kids do not generally suffer from severe COVID-19” and are unlikely to directly benefit from the injections, they have no intention of following the French authors’ advice to exclude children from their herd immunity calculus. Instead, framing their ethically shaky and scientifically doubtful argument in the conditional tense, they claim that “inoculating [children] could reduce the spread to people at higher risk.”

In short, public health leaders say, parents must “vaccinate the young to protect the old.” Given the federal government’s estimate that one vaccine injury results from every 39 vaccines administered, it seems clear that officials expect children to shoulder 100% of the risks of COVID vaccination in exchange for zero benefit.

Natural immunity and COVID

Interestingly, the experts issuing sweeping statements about the need for 90% vaccine coverage and protection of the elderly make no mention of the many Americans who have already had COVID-19, even though a growing number of studies point to “persistent [natural] immunity” in recovered individuals (see here and here).

Rep.Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), an MIT-trained scientist and inventor who had COVID early on in the pandemic, scrutinized data from the Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials and ascertained that neither vaccine offers any benefit to those with naturally acquired immunity.

However, Massie discovered that the CDC not only was advising previously infected individuals to get vaccinated but continued to do so even after Massie alerted them to their propagation of “false and incorrect science.”

A phenomenon known as pathogenic priming (also called “disease enhancement”) represents another important reason to question the advisability of recommending that adults and children who have already had a SARS-CoV-2 infection get a COVID vaccine.

A pivotal April paper by Dr. James Lyons-Weiler explained how exposure to specific peptides (components of proteins) through infection may “prime” some individuals “for increased risk of enhanced pathogenicity during future exposure” — including subsequent exposure in the form of vaccination.

In December, Lyons-Weiler and CHD Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. noted that the clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines “did not rule out pathogenic priming in any way.” Reports of post-COVID-vaccine deaths filed with VAERS (searchable at medalerts.org) indicate that some of the deceased had previously experienced COVID illness, including seniors who were a couple of weeks “post COVID” and then died within minutes or hours of receiving their injections.

A multi-country serological analysis published in Nature estimated (Table S4) that by the beginning of September, 14% of Americans had been infected — a conservative estimate given that serology (antibody) testing provides only a partial picture, assessing what is called “humoral immunity.” As the two Pasteur Institute authors observed in their fall paper, humoral immunity (which is the type of immunity induced by vaccination) “does not capture the full spectrum of SARS-CoV-2 protective immunity.”

Also in September, Dr. Peter Doshi, associate editor of The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), drew attention to studies showing mobilization of memory T cells against SARS-CoV-2 “in 20% to 50% of people with no known exposure to the virus.” The scientists quoted by Doshi in his article attribute this to prior exposure to common cold and other coronaviruses — and wonder whether “there is more immunity out there” than meets the eye.

In fact, memory T cells are some of the immune system’s busiest white blood cells, and Doshi notes that they “are known for their ability to affect the clinical severity and susceptibility to future infection.” He suggests, therefore, that they could help elucidate “mysteries of COVID-19, such as why children have been surprisingly spared the brunt of the pandemic. . . and the high rate of asymptomatic infections in children and young adults.”

However, vaccine-centric scientists (and their mainstream media promoters) are not exploring these mysteries, instead ignoring T cells while maintaining their narrow focus on antibodies. Piggy-backing on Doshi’s questions, another writer asks: “Is [the lack of research attention to T cells] because vaccines are good at provoking antibody responses but not so great at generating T-cells?”

Protecting the young

Over many decades, the far-from-uncommon phenomenon of vaccine failure in fully vaccinated individuals has made it abundantly clear that antibody responses are inadequate as a guarantor of real immunity. For children, an even bigger problem is that, before their immune system has even had a chance to develop, a pile-up of vaccinations aggressively overstimulates them into a state of artificial immunity. Immune dysfunction and chronic illness are the not-infrequent outcomes.

The pediatric study that recently identified underlying medical conditions as the strongest risk factor responsible for COVID-19 deaths in children cited conditions such as “asthma, autoimmune disease, cardiovascular disease, chronic lung disease, GI/liver disease, hypertension, immune suppression, metabolic disease, neurologic disease, obesity and renal disease.” Coincidentally or not, these are among the nearly 400 adverse reactions identified in package inserts as being potentially associated with vaccination.

As Lyons-Weiler reminded us several years before COVID, “The determination of the benefit of widespread vaccination for any vaccine must consider not only the ability to protect those at risk, but also the downstream costs due to vaccine injuries.”

Instead of absurdly arguing (as some are doing) that rushing risky mRNA vaccines into children is what is needed not just to achieve an arbitrary level of herd immunity but to “fully revive the economy,” let’s heed Handley’s words: “Until we are honest in our assessment of both the safety and efficacy of vaccines, kids will continue to be hurt, rights will continue to be trampled, and mythology will continue to trump science.”

Parents should not be lulled into the false notion that vaccines (or any medical procedure) are all benefit and no risk.

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***

Although the effort has never produced the results expected by its organizers, subversion against Cuba continues to be a profitable business involving millions of dollars.

Disguised in multiple trappings, through agencies, companies and organizations, which rarely offer public information on the management of their funds, the financing of actions intended to undermine the Revolution have exceeded 249.5 million dollars, over the last two decades.

This has been investigated and published by the Cuba Money Project, a website devoted to covering stories on U.S. government programs and projects related to the island.

In 2020 alone, a report based on public information found on the digital portals of agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), estimates the total allocated to finance subversive initiatives at 2.5 million.

This is only a partial figure since, “Some programs are so secret that the recipients of funds are never disclosed,” explains journalist Tracey Eaton, in an article for the Cuba Money Project, entitled “The democracy business in Cuba is bustling.”

Eaton reports that at least 54 groups have operated programs on the island with money from USAID and NED since 2017, when Donald Trump assumed the Presidency.

“A sprawling network of U.S. government-financed groups sends cash to thousands of Cuban democracy activists, journalists and dissidents each year,” he wrote.

Recently, after the provocation at the Ministry of Culture, a reporter for the ADN-Cuba website – one of the foreign-run outlets that regularly distorts the country’s reality – acknowledged in a video circulating on social networks having received between 150 and 200 dollars to cover the event.

Other publications with an anti-Cuban agenda, describing themselves as practitioners of “independent” journalism, have also admitted having ties to U.S. agencies.

This, however, is only the visible face of an extremely lucrative business, since the State Department, USAID and NED report having “undisclosed” contractors, who receive an unknown portion of the funds directed toward changing our country’s political system.

It is impossible to know exactly how much of U.S. money ends up in Cuba and how many individuals are paid, Eaton concludes. What is very clear is that the millions invested have not been enough for the empire to subjugate a people determined to defend our sovereignty at any cost.

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According to a directive from Quebec’s Ministry of Health :

“If the presumed cause of death is Covid-19 (with or without a positive test) an autopsy should be avoided  [emphasis in original document] and death should be attributed to Covid-19 as the probable cause of death. In addition, deaths whose probable cause is Covid-19 are considered natural, and are not subject to a coroner’s notice. “

The directive does not allow the counting of co-morbidities. And if the family of the deceased does not accept the Covid-19 categorization (which incidentally requires no PCR test), the autopsy request procedures are complex (almost impossible, two hospitals for the whole of Quebec, see document below).

This directive dated Thursday, April 16, 2020 was conducive to an immediate sharp increase in the number of deaths attributed to Covid-19: 44.9% of total deaths in Quebec are attributed to Covid-19 (week of 11-18 April 2020).

Read carefully the text of the directive sent to the managers of the OPTILAB clusters (the clinical-administrative and medical co-directors). (Les Grappes – OPTILAB are the medical biology laboratories)

The directive is issued on April 16, 2020.

Four days later, Monday April 21, 2020, La Presse (Montreal) reports that Covid-19 has become:

“…  the main cause of death in Quebec, beating the daily average of deaths attributable to cancer and heart disease”

“The coronavirus, with 62 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours [20-21 April 2020], also claims more lives than the flu, alzheimer’s, road accidents and all the other causes of death listed by Health public.

According to La Presse,  April [2020] was the deadliest month . But  did La Presse consult the directives of the Ministry of Health:

Similarly, Le Devoir confirms that COVID-19 had become deadly precisely in April 2020,  at the very moment when the Ministry imposed its new guidelines concerning the Covid to the OPTILAB grappes labs.

And below is the (daily) mortality statement for Quebec corresponding to the week of April 12 to 18, 2020 measured according to the criteria issued by the Ministry of Health.

Are these figures the result of the so-called deadly pandemic?

Or is it the result of the Ministry of Health’s “guidelines” based on erroneous criteria? See below:

•  “presumed” case pertaining to Covid,
• “With or without a positive test”,
• “probable” cause of death,
• “Autopsy should be avoided” in the case of Covid-19.
• “ Deaths of which the probable cause is Covid-19, are considered natural, and are not the object of a notice to the coroner “

Mortality statistics go fly high following the implementation of the Ministry guidelines.

It is not even necessary to require a “confirmed positive cause” (PCR test) to establish that the death is caused by the virus. Covid-19 “presumed cause” (which proves absolutely nothing) is sufficient. It meets the requirements of the Ministry of Health.

Are the criteria dictated by the Ministry valid? Do they abide by scientific and medical standards?

These directives of April 16, 2020 have triggered a surge in mortality figures in Quebec attributed to the virus. (See figure below).

See the progression of mortality from April 2020  (figures from April 11 are categorized according to the April 16, 2020 guideline).

There were no cases of death (attributable to Covid) in Quebec before March 18, 2020. And all of a sudden in April the death figures associated with Covid-19 go fly high, thereby  becoming the leading cause of death in Quebec.

In April, 1989 deaths associated with COVID-19 were reported by the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ).

This flawed methodology has allowed the government to claim that Covid is the main cause of “excess mortality” compared to previous years.

It is also used to distort the causes of mortality in the CHSLDs [Quebec’s nursing homes]. And most of the media contend (without examining the directives of the Ministry) that it is the virus which caused a death trap [hecatomb] in the CHSLDs” ( Le Devoir ).

This rise of the mortality statistics pertaining to Covid-19 has contributed to triggering a fear campaign. It is also being  used by the Legault government to justify diabolical measures imposed on Quebecers including the curfew and a partial closure of the national economy (which has been conducive to creating mass unemployment).

Deaths in the CHSLD are not attributable to the Covid

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***

As relations between the USA and Russia continue to fall ever deeper into the abyss, and as China’s Belt and Road Initiative continues to evolve deep into the Eurasian Arctic via the Polar Silk Road, a new era of potential for cooperation as well as nuclear war awaits humanity. The decisions made over the coming months will determine which of those two opposing destinies are selected.

For the time being, things are looking bad.

On February 5, 2021 the Canadian press was lit abuzz with the headline NORAD Modernization to Dominate Agenda of Canada-U.S. Defence Relations citing various military think tanks and ivory tower game theorists who should be kept as far from any actual policy making circles if the world is going to survive beyond the coming decade.

Citing the recent Biden-Trudeau meeting which featured a long discussion about Russian-Chinese aggression and Arctic defense, Andrea Charron (head of Manitoba’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies) states:

“Where as before the primary threat during the Cold War was one peer competitor, who wasn’t using greyzone tactics, or at least not to the same extent as now, we now have two peer competitors to the U.S. – China and Russia – and they are using greyzone tactics, and they’re developing more sophisticated weapons like hypersonic glide vehicle weapons,”

The idea being conveyed here is that Russian hypersonic air launched Kinzhal ballistic missiles will soon be stationed in Russia’s north which should cause NORAD to be completely revamped.

Of course, these academics are quick to ignore all evidence of NATO encirclement of Russia and China under the insane “full spectrum dominance” game plan which certain geopoliticians believe will make nuclear war somehow winnable with 21^st century technology.

In the face of this supposed Russian and Chinese aggression, NATO-philes are screeching for Canada’s speedy entry into the NORAD Ballistic Missile shield which it abandoned over 15 years ago.

Citing the 2020 Wilson Center report co-written by former NORAD chief Terrance O’Shaughnessy, and published by the Canada Institute, artificial intelligence programs (“SHIELD” and “Pathfinder”) are introduced as the key to the total overhaul of Canada-USA arctic strategy. O’Shaughnessy wrote of SHIELD that “It pools this data and fuses it into a common operational picture. Then, using the latest advances in machine learning and data analysis, it scans the data for patterns that are not visible to human eyes, helping decision-makers understand adversary potential courses of action before they are executed.”

Anyone who has read Cynthia Chung’s Dr. Strangelove’s Spoonbenders will quickly realize why using AI to pick up algorithms that would normally be missed by human analysts, and generate hair-trigger decisions to counter threats from Eurasia creates a mountain of trouble for humanity, as glitches and mis-readings of Russian/Chinese intentions can easily escalate unstoppably into a nuclear retaliation by deductive/inductive machine thinking.

Now at this point, many onlookers might make the mistake of brushing off these obvious plans for a revamped NORAD-NATO Arctic doctrine since Canada’s military is negligible, and it is merely a “middle power” that couldn’t possible do great damage anywhere.

It is to the person asking this question that this report was written.

The British Great Game Past and Present

The first factor which such a person must recognize is the nature of the British Empire as an efficient power structure dominating the world even today.

Anyone confused about this still-existing power structure need only read Eric Zuesse’ new report entitled ‘Further Proof that the U.S. and UK are One Empire’ where the author astutely writes:

“Although the “Special Relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom was first announced by Winston Churchill at Fulton Missouri on 5 March 1946, in the company of an approving U.S. President Harry S. Truman, it was actually started by Cecil Rhodes in 1877 when he drew up his plan for England secretly to retake America and use it so as to preserve and expand Britain’s empire throughout the world, via the Rhodes Trust. Rhodes was the first person to think up a “U.S. empire,” but it was actually only as a tool for the preservation and extension of England’s existing empire. And Winston Churchill, as a young man at the start of the 20th Century, was an acolyte and friend of Rhodes, and was viewed by Rhodes as being one of his most promising young followers.”

The Post-WWII Order and the Rhodes Trust Origins of NATO

In the Post-WWII order, the important tendency for U.S.-Russian partnership which shaped the 1780 League of Armed Neutrality, Russia’s support for the union in 1863 and the U.S.-Russia friendship that made WWII a success was overthrown.

This historic friendship was directly targeted by forces loyal to the British Empire’s grand strategy for global Anglo-Saxon Dominance exemplified by Sir Winston Churchill’s unveiling of the Cold War during his March 5, 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton Missouri and the follow-up creation of NATO in 1949 as a military bloc which would operate independently of the UN Security Council.

An under-appreciated role in the formation of NATO and international dis-order more generally during these Cold War years is the British Deep State of Canada and due to the neglect of this fact, a few words should be said about this problem here and now.

While official narratives have tried to spin NATO’s origins as the effect of an agreement amongst all western powers, the fact is that British intelligence operations are the true source, with British-trained Rhodes Scholar Escott Reid laying out the thesis for a supranational military body outside of the influence of the UN Security Council as early as August 1947. It was another two years before the design would materialize as an anti-Soviet military coalition based on the binding agreement that if one member enters a conflict, then all members must so enter.

At a Round Table-directed Conference on August 13, 1947, Reid, an ardent globalist and co-founder of the Canadian branch of the London Fabian Society:

“recommended that the countries of the North Atlantic band together, under the leadership of the United States, to form ‘a new regional security organization’ to deter Soviet expansion.” He went on to state “In such an organization each member state could accept a binding obligation to pool the whole of its economic and military resources with those of the other members if any power should be found to have committed aggression against any one of the members.”

The name of the British Imperial game has always been “balance of power”. Manipulate society as a single closed system by monopolizing resources, and then manage the diminishing rates of return by creating conflict between potential allies. This process can be seen clearly today behind the conflicts manipulated in the South China Sea between China and Philippines, the Diaoyu-Senkaku Islands between China and Japan, wars for oil in the Middle East and the new tension being created in the Arctic. The opposing, typically “American System of Political Economy” has always disobeyed this game of “balancing a fixed system” by introducing creative change.

The American System on the other hand, has traditionally located its point of emphasis primarily upon creating new resources, through inventions and discoveries, rather than simply looting, consuming, and distributing what already exists. This system formulated by Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt proved that more energy could always be produced than was consumed IF discoveries and inventions were cultivated in a creatively developing society, shaped by concrete national intentions and bold visionary goals to increase the powers of production of society. The American System is thus understood as an open-system founded upon win-win cooperation while the British System is based on a closed-system worldview under a win-lose operating system where the elite managing nations from above dictate the wars, and diminishing rates of returns to a depopulated society.

Since the British system implies that the world resources are limited, then the stronger will necessarily have to loot the weaker… Hence, the system is also “zero-sum”.

Throughout the Cold War, Canada’s role as a “middle power” was defined most succinctly by Fabian Society asset Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who, when asked what his foreign policy was, explained simply: “to create counterweights”. That is, when the “geopolitical center of gravity” moves towards “capitalist America”, then Canada must move towards befriending “socialist” Russia and its allies. When the center of gravity moves towards a Russian edge within the Great Game, then do the opposite. Although the Cold War “officially” ended in 1991, the imperial Great Game never did, and Canada’s role as a British chess piece continues unabated to the present.

The future battleground which Canada is being prepared to set up is to be found in the Arctic.

The Strategy of the Arctic in History

The struggle for Arctic dominance is currently being defined by the rules of British geopolitics. The above map features the layout of the arctic with dotted lines defining areas still not under the control of any particular nation.

Today, the northern Arctic is among the last unexplored and undeveloped frontiers on the earth. With an area over 14 million square kilometers, this area is rich in a variety of mineral and gas deposits containing approximately 90 billion barrels of oil and 1670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This abundance is complicated by the fact that its borders are highly undefined, overlapping eight major nations with Canada and Russia as the dominant claimants.

In recent history, American System methods were attempted in the opening up of the Arctic for mutual development and cooperation beginning with the sale of Alaska to America in 1867 by the “American system Czar” Alexander II to the allies of Abraham Lincoln. These same forces orchestrated the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway and heavily promoted the Bering Strait Rail tunnel connecting the two great continents which arose by the turn of the century. Early designs for the Russian-American rail connection were published in 1893 by Governor William Gilpin of Colorado which gained renewed support by the soon-to-be-deposed Czar Nicholas II in 1905. Russia again revived this project in 2011.

Throughout the 20th Century, Russia has developed a far greater aptitude at creating corridors of permanent habitation in the Arctic relative to their North American counterparts which are expanding at a fast pace under Putin’s Eastern vision and China’s Polar Silk Road. Due to the post WWII Cold War dynamic of tension, much that could have been accomplished, had resources not been so badly drained by Cold War militarization, was not.

The beacon of light during this Cold Dark process was to be found in Canada’s 13th Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, whose Northern Vision, unveiled in 1958, hinged upon his $78 million allocation for funds to construct a permanent domed nuclear-powered city in Frobisher Bay (now named Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut), as a test case for a greater nation building program in the Arctic. When Diefenbaker was run out of office in 1963 through a British-steered operation, his vision was scrapped, and a new Arctic doctrine was artificially imposed upon Canada.

False Polarizations Imposed onto Arctic Grand Strategy

This new imperial Arctic doctrine was modeled around the two (anti-nation building) measures of “conservation” of fixed ecosystems and indigenous cultures on the one side, and rapacious mineral exploitation for the increasingly deregulated “global markets” on the other. Canadian examples of this operation can be seen in the Munk School of Global Affairs, the World Wildlife Fund of Canada (whose 2^nd president was the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell), and their powerful affiliate, the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, presided over by Pierre Trudeau’s former Principal Secretary Thomas Axworthy. Barack Gold Founder and CEO Peter Munk was one of hundreds of oil barons who acted as founding members of the 1001 Club which was created by Prince Bernhardt of the Netherlands and Prince Philip of England in order to fund the WWF in its early years. Other Canadian Deep State founding members of the 1001 Club included WWF Vice Presidents Maurice Strong and Louis Mortimer Bloomfield.

Axworthy is a major player in the Canada 2020 machine associated with the current Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau. The overlap of major banking institutions like the Royal Bank of Canada and Scotiabank with the mineral cartels, holding companies and environmental organizations in this structure produces a very real picture that the left and the right are merely two sides of the same imperial beast.

The role of the above interests in creating the Arctic Council in 1996 (and the later Circumpolar Business Forum) was designed to trap nations into an intellectual cage of resource exploitation under free market doctrines of zero national planning on the one side, with eco-systems management and zero national planning on the other. Now that the post-1971 world financial order is on the verge of collapse, these technocrats believe that a new replacement system will allow for national planning, but only on condition that it be directed by Malthusian technocrats and aimed at the goal of lowering the population potential of the planet. This agenda has come to be known as the Green New Deal in 2018 and since evolved into the Great Reset Agenda.

To re-emphasize: When observed from a top-down perspective, both the “left” eco-green movement and the “right” monetarist institutions are one single thing. It is only by foolishly looking at this process from the “bottom up” that apparent differences are perceived. This is just an illusion for the credulous victims of an imperial education system who have been taught to believe their sense perceptions more than their powers of reason. The reality is that this is nothing more than British Malthusian geopolitics.

Breaking Out of the Great Game

The fact is that while the Atlantic economies have currently submitted to the City of London- Wall Street and Troika demands for policies of depopulation, austerity and hyperinflation, Russia and China are committed to true development. Both countries are intent on creating a unified block of win-win cooperation based upon the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Eurasian Economic Union and BRICS and that intention is based on anti-Malthusian scientific and technological progress. The Belt and Road Initiative which now involves over 135 countries exemplifies this spirit.

The financial system of the trans-Atlantic is collapsing and it will be reset. The only question is, will it be reset by the open system agenda advocated by Russia and China or will it be the closed system unipolar agenda promoted by sociopathic Davos creatures?

If western societies should wish to have any claim to being morally fit to survive, then this is an optimistic power that we must re-awaken in ourselves fast. For it is only by acting on principles of scientific discovery and progress that a proper perspective can be discovered to overcome the current obstacles to our survival. That is, the discovery of what the future can and must become IF a creative change is introduced into the system.

The only pathway to avoiding the collapse of the financial system and a thermonuclear war is to be found in imposing Natural Law vigorously upon the claimed “debts” which Wall Street, and the City of London wishes to have bailed out. The expression of this Natural Law takes the form of the restoration of Glass-Steagall laws across the trans-Atlantic economies, eliminating the $1.5 quadrillion debt bomb before it explodes and returning to the principles of national banking for all countries. Under such a reform and by joining in common interest with other nations in the Eurasian zone, a commitment to progress and security can be realized, and such poisonous agendas as the Great Reset can be avoided.

Escaping the British two-sided trap of monetarism and ecologism means going to fusion energy, space exploration, and mining the moon for Helium-3 as China is already preparing to do. It means closing the fuel cycle, and scrapping low quality “green” energy boondoggles.

The applications of a forward-looking space age society using fusion power, involves not only rendering imperial wars for oil and water obsolete (as energy and water will be made both incommensurably cheap and abundant relative to the fossil fuel based system now defining society’s limits), but gives mankind the tools to green deserts, build great projects, create a system of Asteroid Defense and construct the long-overdue Bering Strait Tunnel, a key link in the World Land Bridge. These are the sorts of long term projects which not only remind us of our common self interests, but as JFK described the space program in 1962, create goals which “will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills”.

Without this sort of “outside the box” thinking, it is safe to say that the current rules of the game now in place are set for total self-destruction.

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Matthew J.L. Ehret is a journalist, lecturer and founder of the Canadian Patriot Review. The author can be reached at [email protected]

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***

Letter to the President of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz,

Dear colleagues,

With greatest astonishment, with deepest concern, even bewilderment, I have taken note of the “7th ad hoc statement” of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina of 8.12.2020. In my opinion, this paper is not worthy of an honest, critical-balancing science oriented towards the service and welfare of human beings. I do not have medical expertise. However, as a scientist committed to nothing but the pure truth, I take the liberty of speaking out.

I feel very strongly alarmed by several points:

1. on 11/27/2020, a group of 22 internationally renowned experts submitted the following expert opinion on the PCR test, the linchpin of the “pandemic”, for the journal Eurosurveillance:

“External peer review of the RT-PCR test to detect SARS-CoV-2 reveals 10 major scientific flaws at the molecular and methodological level: consequences for false positive results”.

Quote: “This highly questions the scientific validity of the test”. Furthermore, the serious remark: “serious conflicts of interest of the authors are not mentioned” (1).

2. The PCR test is the basis of the justification for declaring a “pandemic”, and RKI, politicians and the media announce the positive test results daily as so-called “new infections”. According to the 22 independent experts, the test contains “several scientific inadequacies, errors and flaws”. It is clearly stated:

“the test (is) unsuitable as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus and make inferences about the presence of an infection”.

Is it not obvious that there is an extremely serious problem here, which should actually shake the whole “pandemic”? I cannot understand why neither the Leopoldina nor other academies include this well-founded expert opinion and demand or initiate a further, thorough and scientifically clean clarification.

3. Based on this “pandemic”, which is based on at least a very questionable test, a worldwide vaccination campaign is now to be started on an unprecedented scale; and this with vaccines that have never been tested before and that have been developed at a

In unprecedented speed. In light of the first reported serious side effects and after warnings from renowned experts, it is clear that the completely novel RNA vaccines have been far from adequately tested, especially with regard to long-term effects. Why are the academies silent on such existential issues?

4. Problematic aspects of the Leopoldina statement are even named by Die Welt [German Newspaper] in a scathing analysis (2). Quote: “The damage done by the science functionaries is immense.“

Incidentally, there are currently several statements by medical practitioners that are diametrically opposed to the Leopoldina paper. For example, the Chairman of the Board of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, Prof. Gassen, expects that the hard lockdown now ordered will fail (3). The infectiologist Prof. Schrappe declares the entire lockdown policy a definite failure (4).

I had hoped that the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz, as an important sister organization of the National Academy of Sciences, would make a critical statement on the Leopoldina statement. Regrettably, this has not happened so far. Are not the academies the guardians of pure science and also of the freedom of the sciences ? Aren’t the venerable academies particularly challenged in a scientific landscape that is increasingly characterized by third-party funding and the massive influence of powerful lobby interests (e.g. the pharmaceutical industry)? Is it really the task of an academy such as the Leopoldina to fuel the scaremongering of the media and politics?

5. Where is the broad discourse that used to be customary, with a balanced assessment of the sometimes very contradictory statements by scientists and physicians from various disciplines, lawyers, psychologists, sociologists, economists and philosophers? Why is there no reaction from the academies when, in recent months, the voices of proven experts (often of international standing) who articulate an assessment that deviates from the one-size-fits-all narrative, indeed in some cases diametrically contradicts it, are repeatedly ignored, marginalized, even defamed, censored, and deleted from social media? Why no reaction of the academies, if the right to freedom of science and freedom of expression, which is guaranteed in the Basic Law, as well as other fundamental rights are trampled ? Has Germany learned nothing from history?

After the governments refer to this, from my point of view disastrous paper of the National Academy of Sciences when imposing a renewed “hard lockdown”, as well as because of the points listed above, I have decided, after careful consideration, to take the certainly unusual step of resigning from the Academy of Sciences in Mainz as an expression of my personal protest.

I cannot reconcile it with my conscience to be a part of this kind of science. I want to serve a science that is committed to fact-based honesty, balanced transparency, and comprehensive humanity.

For the attention of Prof. Dr. Burkhard Hillebrands (Vice President, Mathematical and Natural Sciences Class),

members of the Mathematical and Natural Sciences Class of the Mainz Academy of Sciences,

and Prof. Dr. Gerald Haug (President of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina).

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Notes

1 https://cormandrostenreview.com/…

2 https://www.welt.de/kultur/plus222264910/Angela-Merkel-und-das-Leopoldina-Desaster.html

3 https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/kassenaerzte-chef-harter-lockdown-wird-scheitern-li.126568

4 https://www.focus.de/gesundheit/news/matthias-schrappe-im-focus-online-interview-medizin-professor-lockdown-politik-ist-endgueltig-gescheitert-das-raecht-sich-bei-impfung_id_12780854.html

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***

A geopolitically changing event took place on February 11 when Athens hosted the Foreign Ministers of Cyprus, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iraq, as well as the Minister of State for International Cooperation of the United Arab Emirates. The French Foreign Minister participated via video link. Their attendance, whether in Athens or via video link, was for the inauguration of the Philia Forum. Officially called the “Philia Forum – Building Friendship, Peace and Prosperity from the Mediterranean to the Gulf,” the name explicitly highlights the intentions of the forum – Philia, coming from the Greek word for friendship.

The forum was the brainchild of Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias, who since assuming his role in mid-2019, has been working tirelessly to change the international perception of Greece as an economical and geopolitical nuisance on the periphery of the European Union, to a geopolitical center that connects Europe, West Asia and North Africa together.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis opened the forum and explained that it is natural for Greece to establish this forum as it is positioned in the middle of two geographical arcs – a horizontal one from Portugal to the Persian Gulf, and a vertical one from the Balkans to Egypt which connects Europe with Africa. Emphasis on Greece’s geopolitical positioning was again made by Dendias, who said “Greece’s ambition is to be a bridge between the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf.”

The Greeks were the original Eurasian civilization. In fact, Greek civilization spanned three continents when we consider Greek colonies in Ancient Egypt and Libya. However, the modern Greek state, which celebrates its 200th anniversary of independence from the Ottoman Empire on March 25, lays entirely within the European continent. Being reduced to the bounds of Europe and thanks to Russia, France and Britain for their contributions to the War of Independence, Greece has always looked westwards rather than towards their ancient civilizational connections in the east. This was especially consolidated in 1952 when U.S.-backed Nazi-collaborators forced Greece into NATO.

Under Dendias though, the prevalence of Greece’s westward pivot is finally being balanced out by an equal eastward focus. Previous to Dendias, Greek diplomacy and attitude was one of inferiority to their Turkish neighbors – one that believed Greece could not compete with Ankara because Turkey controls the Dardanelle and Bosporus Straits, has land borders with Europe, the Caucasus and West Asia, and has access to the Aegean, Black and Mediterranean Seas. This certainly gives Turkey a geopolitical advantage that it leverages to make demands against the Great Powers.

However, NATO’s reliance on Turkey against Russia has been significantly reduced as the Alliance now also has access to the Black Sea via Bulgaria and Romania, direct borders with Russia via Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and can block the Dardanelle Straits via the Alexandroupolis Port in northern Greece. NATO’s reduced reliance on Turkey is coupled with the country’s growing isolation from its neighbors and the Great Powers as it continues to antagonize states through unlawful and unilateral actions in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Cyprus, the Caucasus and the East Mediterranean.

Through these antagonizations, Turkey has a host of adversaries, especially in the Arab World. It is no surprise that Greece has now created a Forum, where it emphasises its newfound confidence and strategic location, to include France, Cyprus and the Arab countries that have issues with Turkey.

“What unites us all today is the condemnation of illegal acts and the condemnation of irrational acts that undermine peace and security,” Dendias said at the forum, adding “Our goal is to create a bulwark against threats, violence, extremism, intolerance and distortion of religion.”

This again is in clear reference to Turkey’s destabilization across the region and its utilization of Political Islam to work towards its ambitions. After highlighting Turkey’s destabilizing actions, Dendias said “the Philia Forum on the other hand is the background for the creation of synergies in various fields, such as the economy, energy, transport, tourism, culture, education, civil protection and dialogue between religions.”

Most importantly, in preparation of changing Greece’s global image as a near bankrupt peripheral and unimportant European Union member, Dendias has prioritized engaging all the Great Powers, not just the U.S., in a positive manner. Whereas the West is consumed by Russophobia and Sinophobia, Dendias opened the path to mend relations with Russia, something Moscow has recognized by acknowledging openly why Athens cannot veto European Union sanctions but can still maintain positive relations, and by announcing 2021 to be the year of Greek-Chinese Culture and Tourism. In addition, Dendias was to be the first Greek Foreign Minister to meet an Indian counterpart since 2003. The COVID-19 pandemic put the meeting on hold, but Dendias emphasized last month that “it is a fact that on many issues of international interest, our positions are identical with those of India.”

Through the Philia Forum, Greece is also prioritizing its relations with France and the Arab World. Greece is already acquiring the powerful Rafale fighter jets from France and will likely procure the French-made Belharra frigates. However, it is with the Arab World where Dendias’ work has been most impressive, signing a mutual defense clause with the UAE, the first such agreement Greece has outside of NATO and Cyprus, and building military, economic and diplomatic relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iraq.

Through the Philia Forum, Greece is advertising itself as the geopolitical center that connects West Asia, North Africa and Europe together, thus sidelining Turkey’s traditional role as this meeting point. Greece will certainly remain a NATO and European Union member, and will continue to build its relations with Washington, but it appears that it has taken a much more realistic approach, rather than liberal, to international relations. As part of this newfound confidence, Greece will no longer be bound by the interests of Washington and Brussels, but pursue multipolar policies to its own advantage that includes balancing its relations with the Great Powers and building strong ties with countries to its east. The Philia Forum is the first major step towards not only increasing Greece’s importance in the regional chessboard, but a player that can no longer be ignored.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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***

“There isn’t one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians. People who are not in the Midwest do not understand that this [the US] is a socialist country”
(Dwayne Andreas, former CEO of Archer Daniels Midland(1))

Monopoly and Oligopoly: ‘The Invisible Hand of the Market’ is Nonsense

A market is where people who have things to sell meet up with people who want to buy. We are all familiar with the local markets where small traders set up their stalls, but the term also applies on a worldwide scale, so there are global markets, such as the market for oil, or the market for coffee. The theory of markets assumes that sellers will vary their prices in order to try to make the most profit, but at the same time buyers can shop around to find the lowest prices. If one seller is making excessive profits, another seller will step in and sell more cheaply, so competition between sellers stops profits from becoming too big. All sellers are forced to become more ‘efficient’, otherwise they will go out of business. If there are lots of buyers and lots of sellers then all buyers can get a low price. This is known as competitive markets, or ‘the invisible hand’ of the marketplace. Mainstream economists suggest that this ‘invisible hand’ is the best way for economies to operate.

There are lots of problems with this theory, but the main one is that whilst it sounds good in a textbook, it has little relevance to the real world. The theory only works if it is applied to large numbers of small businesses. It assumes that no business has too much power. But in the real world, many industries are now dominated by a single dominant company, such as Google (known as monopoly), or a handful of big players (known as oligopoly).(2) These big companies are able to limit competition to make excess profits. For example, in Britain and the US, there are only a small number of major banks, and a small number of dominant supermarkets.(3) The same is true in much of the rest of the world. Oligopoly is often true with international trade.

Sometimes small groups of dominant companies will illegally collaborate to fix prices.(4) This is called a cartel. A notorious example of this was the seven largest oil corporations, known as the Seven Sisters oil cartel.(5) They met in Scotland in 1928 to agree to stop competing against each other. They fixed prices and partitioned the world’s oil supplies, guaranteeing huge profits for themselves. This type of price-fixing is much more widespread than most people realise.

The global trading system today also has extra layers of powerful middlemen who control much of the buying and selling. The prices of tobacco, coffee, bananas and many other basic foods are manipulated by small numbers of big buyers, who again make sure that there is only limited competition between them.(6) If they work together to control prices then they are able to overcharge customers and pay less to suppliers, thus making excess profits at the expense of everyone else. The prices paid to growers in poor countries often bear no relationship to the prices paid by consumers in rich countries.

Senior executives of big companies claim publicly to be in favor of competitive arrangements of markets and trade, but in practice they try to develop the monopoly or oligopoly arrangements that are intended to avoid competition, and they bribe governments to assist and protect them. These are important parts of ‘really existing capitalism’.

Wealth equals Power

Unlike democracy, which is one person = one vote, a market system is one pound or one  dollar = one vote. In other words, money gives people economic power. If we lived in a society where everyone was reasonably wealthy and approximately equal, then it might be possible to make an argument that market-based systems could work. However, we live in a society where most people are not rich, and there is great inequality. Markets take no account of the unequal distribution of wealth that already exists. Under these circumstances, market-based systems always give an advantage to those who are already wealthy and powerful.

How Adam Smith Has Been Misrepresented to Create propaganda

Supporters of ‘free’ markets use the word ‘free’ to mean free from government interference. They often quote the economist and philosopher, Adam Smith, who wrote about the ‘invisible hand of the market’ creating good outcomes for society. However, his writing has been deliberately distorted to turn it into propaganda. Smith used the word ‘free’ to mean something completely different. He meant free from big companies and wealthy landowners with too much power, who could make unearned profits (these are sometimes called economic rents, or ‘free lunches’.) Smith was all in favour of governments interfering to stop companies gaining that power, and to stop them making excessive profits.(7)

Markets might work for haircuts, but cannot be relied upon for essentials

If a market is structured correctly and properly regulated, then it might work reasonably well for some things, such as hair-cuts or restaurant meals. In general, things that are not considered essential, where new businesses can be set up fairly easily, and no business dominates the industry.

When there is a shortage of something, the price will usually rise, so the rich can always buy whatever they want, but the poor are not able to afford things. If computer consoles are too expensive, some people go without. This creates lots of unhappy children but no one dies. If food is too expensive, people starve. When we see a famine on TV, it is rarely because there is a shortage of food in the world. It is because people in some places cannot afford to buy food.(8) In the US, millions of poor people cannot afford healthcare. It is widely recognised that markets and private companies cannot be relied upon to provide essentials for the poorest people.

Externalities – Corporations do not pay their true costs

There is one particular area where even free-market supporters recognise that markets don’t work. This is called externalities, where corporations do not pay the full costs of their activities.(9) At the moment, corporations do not pay for the depletion of natural resources, such as fishing stocks, freshwater, forests, and soil, all of which play an important role in life on Earth. They do not pay for causing global warming, or for other forms of pollution, such as plastics in the ocean. They do not pay for the ill health of employees, or the health consequences of people in developing countries who are affected by corporate activities such as mining. They do not pay for bank bail-outs when the financial system fails. Different groups of companies pursue different activities that create huge externalities, such as ill health being caused by tobacco companies, or cities becoming ghost-towns when factories relocate abroad. Some corporate activity poses a risk that the whole financial system could collapse, or that large numbers of animal species will be lost. However, these tend to be ignored because economists have no way of calculating them and incorporating them into their mathematical models.

Most economics textbooks give the impression that externalities are a trivial issue, but in the real world they have huge impacts on many people. Research in 2010 suggested that externalities add up to at least $2trillion each year(10) but externalities like global warming or the destruction of ecosystems are many times greater than this. They are so big that they swamp everything else. In reality, the cost is so great that it cannot be calculated.

One of the best writers on the subject, Jonathan Cook, has explained that the profit motive actually encourages companies to offload costs onto others in order to make profit. The more externalities they can offload, the more profit they make. “Externalities are not incidental to the way capitalist economies run. They are integral to them.”(11)

The Myth That Big Companies ‘Earn’ their profits – Private profits for the few at the expense of the many

Executives and shareholders of private companies are aware that they would make much less profit, or none at all, without government subsidies and bailouts, and without society paying so many of their costs. This is known as privatising profits while socialising costs(12) and is one reason why great wealth ends up in the pockets of a small number of people. This raises the obvious question:

Why should companies make huge profits, and why should executives and shareholders be entitled to enormous payments, when they receive so much help from the government, and when they offload huge costs onto the rest of society?

In fact there is no real justification. The system has simply become a mechanism to allow the rich and powerful to extract wealth from society. The profit motive is now specifically about pursuing inequality, as the aim is to pay more to shareholders and executives by exploiting everybody, and everything, else.

Wealth Extraction – ‘The Market’ is code for Privatisation and De-regulation

If markets worked as textbooks say they do, no business could make big profits, and executives and shareholders would find it almost impossible to become excessively rich. Academics and journalists interpret ‘markets’ to mean ‘competition’, but they forget that when we have big, dominant companies, competition will usually end up with those dominant companies being successful, earning excess profits, and enabling executives and shareholders to extract excess wealth. People sometimes use the phrase ‘market failure’, as if we should be able to make slight changes to get competition to work, but this is unlikely when big companies can manipulate the rules in their favour.

The mainstream media’s use of the term ‘free markets’ is propaganda. It has become code for ‘less regulation by governments’ (de-regulation or liberalisation) and persuading governments to allow businesses to make excess profits by controlling more of our societies (privatisation). It is not about good outcomes for society, or the ‘best’ economic system. The success of this propaganda about markets has led to what is known as a ‘market society’, where more and more aspects of our daily lives are re-structured to allow powerful people to extract more wealth.

*

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This article was first posted at medium.com/elephantsintheroom

Rod Driver is a part-time academic who is particularly interested in de-bunking modern-day US and British propaganda, and explaining war, terrorism, economics and poverty, without the nonsense in the mainstream media. 

Notes

1) Dan Carney, ‘Dwayne’s World’, Mother Jones, July/August 1995, at https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1995/07/dwaynes-world/

2) Joseph Stiglitz, ‘America has a monopoly problem – and it’s huge’, The Nation, 23 Oct 2017, at
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/america-has-a-monopoly-problem-and-its-huge/

3) Jonathan Ford, ‘Watchdog needs to check out merits of supermarket merger’, Financial Times, 29 April 2018, at https://www.ft.com/content/d643b1ca-4b8e-11e8-97e4-13afc22d86d4

4) Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks, The Trouble with Billionaires, p.48

5) Daniel Yergin, The Prize, p.503

6) Oxfam, ‘Mugged: Poverty in your coffee cup’, 2002, at https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/www/static/oa3/files/mugged-full-report.pdf

7) Jesse Norman, ‘How Adam Smith would fix capitalism’, 22 June 2018, at https://www.ft.com/content/6795a1a0-7476-11e8-b6ad-3823e4384287

8) Amartya Sen, Development As Freedom

9) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

10) Juliette Jowett, ‘World’s top firms cause $2.2tn of environmental damage, report estimates’, Guardian, 18 Feb 2010, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms-environmental-damage

11) Jonathan Cook, ‘Capitalism is double-billing us: We pay from our wallets only for our future to be stolen from us’, 25 Oct 2020, at https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-10-25/capitalism-double-billing/

12) David Rosen, ‘Socialize costs, Privatize Profits’, 1 March 2013, at https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/01/socialize-costs-privatize-profits/

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Montreal-based publisher Robin Philpot joins the program to discuss two subjects:

• America’s new favourite freedom-fighter Navalny
• another journalist speaking out about Kagame’s crimes.

With regard to the latter, Philpot praises Nathalie Blaquiere for adding her voice to that of Judi Rever in demanding the truth be told in Canadian media.

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***

Instead of explaining the dire state of things in the US, West and elsewhere — Main Street economies in collapse — establishment media pretend otherwise.

One example among many was from the NYT in late January, saying:

“(N)ew injections of government aid into the economy and of vaccines into people’s arms should power a much stronger recovery in 2021 (sic).”

Reality in the US and elsewhere is worlds apart from the above rosy scenario.

Paul Craig Roberts asked if a US economy still exists — no longer, he stressed for clear reasons.

He lists a menu of them, including the offshoring of industrial America — millions of high-pay, good benefits jobs and investments gone to low-wage countries.

What remains for most working Americans at a time of high unemployment are largely low-pay service jobs with few or no benefits.

In 1962, I was a marketing analyst for J&L Steel in Pittsburgh when industrial America thrived.

What I recall no longer exists, the company sold to LTV Corp., its area buildings and facilities dismantled.

Today the city is part of the nation’s rust belt. Countless numbers of industrial jobs in the area and elsewhere nationwide no longer exist.

What benefits privileged interests came at the expense of ordinary Americans.

The nation’s super-rich never had things better while most Americans suffer during the nation’s most severe ever Main Street Depression with no end of it in prospect.

The state of Main Street America is dismal at a time when poverty is its new growth industry.

Over one-fourth of working-age Americans are jobless while equity valuations are at or near all-time highs.

The disconnect is unprecedented. The world’s long ago leading industrial powerhouse was thirdworldized to its current state.

For the 47th straight week, around a million or more jobless Americans filed claims for unemployment insurance — 1.1 million in the latest reporting period.

Virtually no US jobs-creation programs exist when they’re most needed.

Nothing before in US history matches the severity of what’s ongoing for ordinary Americans and small businesses.

Distorted official data mask how bad things really are.

According to a new Fed report, around nine million US small businesses may shut down permanently this year without government help to continue operating.

Along Chicago’s upscale Magnificent Mile shopping district, stores are sparsely trafficked, some closing down altogether for lack of enough revenue to keep operating.

Last month, the Chicago Tribune reported that area’s landmark Water Tower Place (WTP) shopping mall faces its greatest challenge since opening a near-half century ago.

Anchor store Macy’s is closing, everything on sale at deep discounts.

When shuttered, nearly 324,000 square feet of shopping space will be empty with little near-term prospect of attracting new tenants.

Other WTP shops and restaurants closed. The same goes for area stores along the avenue — some with closeout sale signs of the times displayed.

According to the Tribune, “the health of Chicago’s premier commercial street” is jeopardized.

Stone Real Estate head David Stone noted that the once “seemingly invincible” Magnificent Mile shopping district lost its status to the economy’s dismal state.

Since WTP opened in 1975 with great fanfare, I and my family patronized some of its stores from inception.

Now it’s in danger closing if things don’t improve — along with other shops along the avenue.

At the time of the Tribune’s report, it said “(e)ach floor at Water Tower Place had just a handful of shoppers walking around…and at many stores, employees outnumbered customers.”

Will that be WTP’s epitaph one day, the same true for millions of retail and other US small businesses ahead?

Since Apple relocated its Magnificent Mile store to a new location along the Chicago River several years ago, the other building remains vacant.

The current conventional retail environment in the US was never more challenging than now with little prospect for improvement any time soon.

The same is true for millions of other US small business. Many shut down permanently, many more likely to follow this year.

Because of Depression-level unemployment, millions of US renters lack income to pay landlords.

They’re hard-pressed for enough revenue to pay expenses.

When rent moratoriums end, millions of US households will be at risk of eviction with nowhere to go.

According to Pew Research, around one-fourth of US households struggle to pay for food, rent, medical expenses, and other essentials.

For countless millions of Americans and others hard hit by economic collapse since last year, what’s ongoing may be prelude for much harder times ahead.

If dark forces behind the diabolical Great Reset aren’t challenged, the worst of dystopia may permanently replace what I remember as an adolescent, youth and young adult.

*

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

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

Featured image is from Pixabay

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

“Love is Dead” is the title of British singer-songwriter Brett Anderson’s first single released on 19 March 2007 with the following lyrics:

Nothing ever goes right

Nothing really flows in my life

No one really cares if no one ever shares my care

People push by with fear in their eyes in my life

Love is dead, love is dead

The telephone rings, but no one ever thinks to speak to me

The traffic speeds by, but no one’s ever stopped too late

Intelligent friends don’t care in the end, believe me

Love is dead, love is dead

And plastic people with imaginary smiles

Exchanging secrets at the back of their minds

Plastic people

Plastic people

Nothing ever goes right

Nothing really flows in my life

No one really cares if this horror’s inside my head

People push by with fear in their eyes in my life

Love is dead, love is dead

Love is dead, love is dead

Love is dead, love is dead

And all the lies that you’ve given us

And all the things that you said

And all the lies that you’ve given us…

Blow like wind in my head

“Love is dead” may only be taken meaningfully if viewed in a context. As a description of a particular event, we may utter it in reference to a specific relationship that has lost its original state of deep intimacy. The statement, therefore, refers and points to a concrete circumstance of actual human experience; something whose real occurrence is not special or unique but commonplace in a variety of conditions. It points to the fact that there is nothing persistently eternal in love. Love comes and goes; it appears and disappears. Its magic shines at one point and loses its brilliance at another. There is nothing permanent and immortal in love. But again, lest we lose track of our reference point, the context is particular–or more accurately, specific–experience and not general, much less universal.

The death of love in one particular experience does not accurately sustain the idea that love is dead as a matter of generalization for reality proves otherwise. Such is a clear case of hasty generalization that only feeds emotional exaggeration. There could be thousands of instances where we could consistently say that love has already died in the personal lives of diverse individual persons, but love remains alive and kicking in thousands of other people’s lives. As long as there are lovers, love cannot die in the experiences of these people. And in this connection, even if we stretch the scope of signification to the universal degree, love as such will never die.

In fact, even when a partner in a relationship bound by deep love as in the case of two lovers–they could be husband and wife–has already passed on (read: died), the love of the living partner for the former lingers and lives on within the lifetime of the latter. This is, therefore, an affirmation that in certain cases, love seems undying. And what could be the problem if we call this “true love”? Nothing at all, for true love is the love that never dies.

God may die as the German philologist Friedrich Nietzsche figuratively puts it in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra (in the original German: Also Sprach Zarathustra) while advancing the notion that in reality, there is no God at all since such is just a product of human conceptualization. But such formulation never applies to love since it is above and beyond a concept. In fact, the Austrian-Jewish Hasidic philosopher Martin Buber situates it in a more noteworthy location in his I-Thou (in the original German: Ich-Du) by describing love as “a relationship-between” and not “an experience-within”. Buber asserts:

“Love is the responsibility of an I for a You: in this consists what cannot consist in any feeling – the equality of all lovers. . . .”

Perhaps, appropriating the Buberian contextual configuration would lead us to infer that, on the one hand, “experiential love” which generally depends on an emotional platform as a matter of subjective feeling is the kind of love that could possibly meet its death. On the other hand, “relational love” which draws its strength equally from the energies of individual persons in love with each other is the kind of love that never dies. This notion is likewise echoed in the Lebanese philosopher Kahlil Gibran’s words “On Love” in his monumental opus, The Prophet:

Love gives naught [nothing] but itself

and takes naught[nothing] but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

In the final analysis, we could truly say that for some individuals, love is really dead, but lovers come and go every now and then without losing their sense of love and this assures us that by and large, love is always alive.

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Prof. Ruel F. Pepa is a Filipino philosopher based in Madrid, Spain. A retired academic (Associate Professor IV), he taught Philosophy and Social Sciences at Trinity University of Asia, an Anglican university in the Philippines. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia Pacific Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Associate Professor of Health Sciences Adam MacNeil at Brock University, Canada and his PhD student Jeremia Coish were among the earliest to warn, last June, of the dangers of not looking very carefully at the possibility that vaccines might trigger antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) of disease. This could mean that people who are vaccinated might, paradoxically, suffer more severe disease when exposed to the wild virus than if they hadn’t been vaccinated.

In their aptly titled article, “Out of the frying pan and into the fire? Due diligence warranted for ADE in COVID-19,” published in the journal Microbes and Infection in June 2020, they argue that ADE is well known to be a risk for coronavirus-mediated infections, as well as dengue. For those not already familiar with ADE, it is the paradoxical immune response that makes a person who was previously exposed to the disease, or a vaccine targeting it, more – not less – susceptible in the event that they’re subsequently infected.

Proceed with caution

Seemingly countering this view, in August 2020, was viral epidemiologist Leah Katzelnick PhD, a dengue and zika specialist now in the employ of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) headed by Dr Tony Fauci. Along with co-author Scott Halstead, Dr Katzelnick argued that ADE shouldn’t be something to be feared. Katzelnick and Halstead proposed that the fundamental differences between SARS-CoV-2 infection that can cause covid-19 and other diseases, for which ADE has been shown, meant that ADE would be highly unlikely. They supported their arguments with evidence from cases of classic, intrinsic ADE, notably infectious peritonitis (FIP), a coronavirus infection in cats, as well as from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), dengue and SARS – suggesting significant differences in the pathology, epidemiology and immune responses involved in these diseases as compared with covid and SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Careful readers of Halstead and Katzelnick’s paper will note that while the authors largely dismiss the ADE risk, they very clearly identify a risk of vaccine hypersensitivity (or VAH), a closely related immunological hyper-reaction that was first identified in the late 1960s when children developed atypical measles following measles vaccination. Many who’ve used the paper to dismiss ADE risks may only have read the title and abstract and not picked up that Katzelnick and Halstead dismiss only intrinsic ADE or iADE (i.e. the risk of disease enhancement on re-infection in the absence of vaccination). They also may not have read the sombre advisory in the paper’s last sentence: “Given the magnitude of the repertoire of COVID-19 problems and the need for an effective vaccine, the full force of worldwide investigative resources should be directed at unravelling the pathogenesis of VAH.”

There is not much to suggest that this advisory has been heeded, other than the fact that thousands of volunteers have been put through Phase 3 trials and there has been no evidence of spikes in more severe reactions among those vaccinated with the real thing, as opposed to the placebo.

Herbert Virgin, Ann Arvin and colleagues, writing in Nature, one of the most influential journals in the world, made a not dissimilar call for caution back in July.  These authors discuss the great difficulties in identifying the incidence and frequency of ADE (and VAH) and suggest that “…it will be essential to depend on careful analysis of safety in humans as immune interventions for COVID-19 move forward”.

Transparency is key

This requires full transparency of surveillance data so that cases of infection and re-infection post-vaccination can be correlated against severe reactions following infection or vaccination. It also requires time – much more time than we’ve had so far.

Presently, data released by VAERS in the US and the MHRA in the UK don’t come close to telling us anything about the ADE or VAH risk. In fact, there will have to be a lot more re-infection before we know conclusively one way or another. And will we be able to find out if there are genuine issues with ADE or VAH, or will the authorities manage to keep a lid on it by just not communicating them given many reactions will be substantially delayed following vaccination?

Timothy Cardozo from New York University and Ronald Veazy from Tulane University took it a step further in their article in the International Journal of Clinical Practice published in October, when Phase 3 trials for the covid frontrunner vaccines were in full swing. They argued not only that vaccine-mediated ADE (i.e. VAH) risks were more than just theoretical, they also suggest that the risks may be greater following particular types of mutations in the circulating viruses.

In their discussion on SARS-CoV-2, they discuss how very tiny changes, such as changes in the conformity (shape) of its spike protein both before and after fusion with host cells, via ACE2 receptors might impact those who’ve been vaccinated. Several months on with emerging evidence that some variants are able to evade the immune response that has been trained to offer protection against the original Wuhan variants, there is cause for even greater concern. This risk also can’t be dismissed on the basis of the results of the Phase 3 trials.

What Drs Cardozo and Veazy also suggest is another point we’ve long been concerned about. That relates to the fact that trial subjects – let alone members of the public who’re now lining up for covid vaccines – are just not being informed of these potential risks, and the delayed nature of possible ADE/VAH reactions. What about vaccinees who become ill several months after being vaccinated, suffering the classic range of symptoms associated with many respiratory diseases (including covid), such as fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, headache, fatigue, and so on? Will they know that these symptoms might be related to enhanced covid disease mediated by the vaccination given to them months before, something that didn’t occur to them because they thought the vaccine gave them protection from covid?

Cardozo and Veazy then show how informed consent forms for volunteer subjects in vaccine trials fail to meet the required ethical standards for informed consent. While ADE is mentioned, it is generally added at the end of the list of possible risks and its implications and identification are unlikely to be adequately understood by the lay public.

With a tick in the box and a sense from regulators and vaccine makers that they’ve successfully negotiated the hurdle of ADE/VAH risks, there’s been no further discussion of the issue. The vast majority of pre-vaccinees lining up as part of the global mass vaccination roll out simply have no idea of the risk – because they’re not being told.

Could ADE be a ticking time bomb?

Does non-disclosure as part of the informed consent process constitute not only a breach of medical ethics, but also a breach of law? In our view, that’s highly likely and should evidence accrue in the future, this will be something the courts will need to grapple with.

Presently there is no evidence of any significant ADE/VAH signal – but it is too early to tell and many cases could have gone undetected.

Is it possible that some instances of ‘long covid’ could be a form of ADE? This is a possibility we have been considering. Typically people who get long covid don’t test as positive from nasopharyngeal swab tests. But in deep seated systemic infections the mucosa may no show evidence of viral multiplication, whereas the infection may become systemic in certain tissues and be enhanced. This possibility cannot easily be dismissed.

Could the problem increase with new variants of SARS-CoV-2? Yes, as explained above.

What you can do

1. Anyone who is deciding to have the vaccine should inform themselves of the ADE and VAH risk, where there could be a considerable delay between vaccination and the experience of disease symptoms that may be more severe than those that would occur without the vaccine.
2. Let those you know who are considering or planning to have the covid vaccine of this risk. Read and share our article, “Informed consent – is this fundamental right being respected?”
3. Share this article widely.

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***

As US senator and vice president for nearly half a century, Biden supported US aggression against invented enemies.

He partnered with Obama’s preemptive wars on nonbelligerent Libya and Syria, continued inherited wars on Afghanistan and Yemen.

Their troop drawdown from Iraq was head fake deception. The country remains occupied by unwelcome Pentagon forces.

Along with orchestrated coups in Honduras, Paraguay and Brazil, they replaced democracy in Ukraine with Nazi-infested fascist tyranny.

They supported multiple Israeli wars on Occupied Palestine, along with war by other means on nations free from US control.

As selected, not elected, president, Biden’s geopolitical team is stacked with hawks.

Are plans afoot for escalated warmaking ahead?

Was pledging “to bring a responsible end to wars that have dragged on for far too long” polar opposite of what his hardline geopolitical team intend?

Was saying he’ll “ensure that terrorist threats cannot endanger the security of the American people” code language for continuation of Washington’s permanent war on humanity?

In mid-March, US aggression in Syria will enter its 11th year.

Instead of ending America’s fourth longest war in modern times — after Afghanistan, Yemen and Southeast Asia — Biden appears intending to escalate it on the phony pretext of combatting ISIS (again).

Unexplained is that the US created and supports the terrorist group and likeminded ones.

Their jihadists are used as proxy fighters where deployed by the Pentagon and CIA.

They’re recruited, armed, funded, trained, directed, and used to advance US imperial interests in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries.

On Wednesday, Iran’s judiciary head Ebrahim Raeisi said the Biden/Harris regime is relocating and “strengthening Daesh (ISIS) in terms of weapons, logistics, intelligence, and other aspects,” adding:

“While Iraq, Syria, Iran and regional countries are working together to eliminate the remnants of Daesh, the Americans do nothing but relocate the Daesh terrorists in the region” to continue pursuit of their hegemonic aims.

After withdrawing from Iraq in 2011, US forces were redeployed to the country on the phony pretext of combatting ISIS.

Belying Biden’s message about turning a page for peace by ending ongoing US wars, Southfront reported the following:

The US “is returning to a level of activity in the Middle East unseen in nearly 4 years.”

Instead of withdrawing US forces from Syria, a buildup of larger numbers is underway.

On Monday, the Pentagon said its mission in the country is once again combatting ISIS (sic).

The announcement came after the terrorist group’s force strength in the country was increased by its US handlers — a convenient pretext for escalating war in Syria instead of ending it once and for all.

Southfront noted “a massive shift in posture (by) the US,” terrorist infested Idlib province the main battleground in Syria.

Building up ISIS forces in Syria and elsewhere assures continued wars and no US regional withdrawal.

Are things on the cusp of escalated US war in Syria and perhaps elsewhere?

Last week, AMN News reported that Syrian forces were engaged in “fierce battles” with ISIS in central parts of the country.

Around the same time, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported the following:

Israel carried out “air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan with bursts of air-to-surface and ground-to-ground missiles, targeting some sites in the southern region.”

Since early January, Israel terror-bombed Syria a number of times, “including a massive attack on the eastern governorate of Deir Ezzor near the Iraqi border.”

It’s part of undeclared Jewish state war on Syria, missiles and rockets most often fired from Lebanese airspace and Occupied Golan.

In late January after Biden replaced Trump, AMN News said southern Syria experienced an increased “wave of violence” by US proxy fighters.

“(A)ttempts to ease the tensions in southern Syria have failed thus far…”

According to the Biden regime’s State Department:

The US “supports the UN-facilitated, Syrian-led process mandated by UNSCR 2254 (sic).”

“There is no military solution to the Syrian conflict (sic).”

Hardliners surrounding Biden falsely blame Syria, Russia and Iran for US aggression with no end of it in prospect ahead under Biden.

Claiming that Washington is committed to defeating ISIS is belied by its actions in support of the terrorist group and likeminded ones.

Deceptively claiming that the US “is the largest single donor to the humanitarian response in Syria” ignores so-called Caesar Syria Civilian Protection legislation (Caesar Act).

Signed by Trump in December 2019, implemented last June, the draconian measure has nothing to do with protecting Syrian civilians.

It’s all about wanting them starved into submission to Washington’s imperial aims.

In stark contrast to claims about providing vital humanitarian aid to long-suffering Syrians, the measure threatens US sanctions on nations, entities and individuals that help the Syrian Arab Republic and its people.

Endless war on the country continues under Biden.

Based on what’s discussed above, things appear heading for escalating US aggression instead of steps to end it altogether.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

Featured image: Biden was sworn into office by Associate Justice John Paul Stevens on January 20, 2009. (Public Domain)

“The ways that we’ve had to adapt this year, and what it means to come together as a community in order to be able to do that, and how we are rethinking the importance of what it means to be a community, and hold that vision. And for organizations like CKUW, that already exist in such a powerful and profound way in Winnipeg, that is it’s own community, within it’s walls, and it’s virtual walls these days, that extends its tentacles far into the community and really creates this net and it’s web of community support.”

– Robin Eriksson, Program Director at CJSF 90.1 FM in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (from this week’s program)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

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Collated by Dr. Gary G. Kohls

“In 1986, Congress—awash in Pharma money (over the past 20 years, the pharmaceutical industry has been number one for both political campaign contributions and lobbying spending on legislators) – enacted a law granting vaccine makers blanket immunity from liability for injuries (or deaths) caused by vaccines. The subsequent gold rush by pharmaceutical companies boosted the number of recommended inoculations from twelve shots of five vaccines in 1986 to 54 shots of 13 vaccines today. A billion-dollar sideline grew into the $50 billion vaccine industry behemoth.” — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr 

“As of 1986, only 12.8% of American kids had chronic (and usually incurable) diseases. That number has grown to 54% among the vaccine generation (children born after 1986) in lockstep with the CDC’s and AAP’s (American Academy of Pediatrics) expanding vaccine schedule.” — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“Since vaccines are liability-free – and effectively compulsory to a captive market of 76 million children – there is meager market incentive for companies to make them safe. The public must rely on the moral scruples of Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, and Pfizer. But these companies have a long history of operating recklessly and dishonestly, even with products for which they can be sued for injuries. The four companies that make virtually all of the recommended vaccines are all convicted felons. Collectively they have paid over $35 billion since 2009 for defrauding regulators, lying to and bribing government officials and physicians, falsifying science, and leaving a trail of injuries and deaths from products they knew to be dangerous and still sold under pretense of safety and efficacy.” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“Safety testing, which typically requires months and years for other medical products, often lasts only a few days with vaccines – not nearly long enough to spot cancers or chronic conditions like autoimmune diseases(e.g. juvenile diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis), allergic illnesses (e.g. food allergies, allergic rhinitis, eczema, asthma), or neurological and neurodevelopmental injuries (e.g. ADD, ADHD, narcolepsy, epilepsy, seizure disorders, and autism). Vaccine manufacturer’s vaccine inserts that accompany every vial of mandated vaccines include warnings about these and over 400 other injuries including many serious immune, neurological, and chronic illnesses for which FDA suspects that vaccines may be the cause.” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“The children who comprise this vaccine-injured generation are now aging out of schools that needed to build quiet rooms and autism wings, install wobble chairs, hire security guards and hike special education spending to 25% to accommodate them. They are landing on the social safety net which they threaten to sink. As Democratic lawmakers all around the nation vote to mandate more vaccines and call for the censorship of experts (including parents of vaccine-injured or killed children) that are expressing concerns about vaccine safety, Democratic Presidential candidates argue about how to fix America’s dysfunctional and unaffordable health care system without addressing the reality of the vaccine-related chronic disease and autoimmune disorder epidemic. The good news for Big Pharma (and Big Medicine), of course, is that many of these vaccine-injured children have lifelong dependencies on unaffordable blockbuster drugs like insulin, Adderall, anti-psychotic drugs, Epi-Pens, asthma inhalers, and diabetes, arthritis, and anti-seizure meds made by the same companies that made the vaccines.” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“An overwhelming majority of the FDA officials directly charged with licensing vaccines, and the CDC officials who effectively mandate them for children, have personal financial entanglements with vaccine manufacturers. These ‘public servants’ are often shareholders in, grant recipients from, and/or paid consultants to vaccine manufacturers, and, occasionally, even patent holders of the very vaccines they vote to approve. Those conflicts of interest motivate them to recommend ever more vaccines with minimal support from evidence-based science” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. 

“The FDA receives 45% of its annual budget from the pharmaceutical industry. The World Health Organization (WHO) gets roughly half its budget from private sources, including Pharma and its allied foundations. And the CDC, frankly, is a vaccine company; it owns 56 vaccine patents and buys and distributes $4.6 billion in vaccines annually through the Vaccines for Children program, which is over 40% of its total budget.” — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“The HHS (US Health and Human Services partners with vaccine makers to develop, approve, recommend, and pass mandates for new products and then shares profits from vaccine sales. HHS employees can personally collect up to $150,000 annually in royalties for products they work on. For example, key HHS officials collect money on every sale of Merck’s controversial HPV vaccine Gardasil, which also yields tens of millions annually for the agency in patent royalties.” — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“In 2009 or 2010, Bill Gates went in front of the United Nations, pledged $10 billion to the World Health Organization, and most of it ended up coming from government, not from him, but he put in a couple of billion. And he declared a decade of vaccines. Nobody paid much attention to him. But he was the first unelected official, with no diplomatic portfolio, who appeared before the United Nations and he made this declaration.

“Immediately, he started putting all of these wheels spinning. He created all of these groups that fight anti-vaccination, and he started promoting vaccines all over the world … and he created all of these quasi-governmental organizations, CEPI [The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness] and PATH and GAVI, [the Vaccine Alliance] that everybody thinks are government, but they’re just Bill Gates. He took over the World Health Organization during this decade. Even the Financial Times said no decision is made at the World Health Organization that is not run through the Gates Foundation first. And in 2019, the World Health Organization comes out in January, and says that vaccine hesitancy is one of the 10 greatest threats to global health. Did they offer any scientific study to prove that? No. They just stated it. Immediately, the world fell in order. In 150 countries, legislatures, politicians who are on the payroll of big pharma and pushing vaccine mandates and abolishing exemptions.

“In the United States, within three months, 100 bills in 50 states had been entered into the legislative process to mandate vaccines, and to ban exemptions … Adam Schiff, who’d been taking money from Gates, the head of the Intelligence Committee, comes forward and tells the social media CEOs, Pinterest, Facebook, Google, all of them, Instagram, YouTube, etc: ‘You’ve got to start censoring vaccine misinformation.’

“And then we had the roll up to 2020, and 2020 in January, right on time for his decade of vaccines, we get COVID. And Fauci, who’s his partner, puts $48 billion into pushing vaccines. Gates gets on TV every day saying, ‘Until everybody gets vaccinated, we have to stay locked down. We’re going to crash the global economy till all of you do what you’re told and get your vaccine.’

“Gates paid for studies to kill Ivermectin, to kill Hydroxychloroquine, to discredit them. We’ve spent in our country $0 on off-the-shelf antivirals, researching them, vitamin D, all the things we know that reduce fatalities for COVID. None of that was studied. None of it was recommended. Instead, all of the money, $48 billion, went to vaccines.

“Now, Gates is reproducing that. He has succeeded with his ‘Decade of Vaccines’ beyond anybody’s wildest dreams. And now, he’s gone on to Part Two, which he’s declared the ‘Decade of Food’, and he’s doing the same thing. It’s all chemical food. It’s synthetic food. He owns the ‘Impossible Burgers’, ‘Beyond Beef’ – all of these things, which are loaded with pesticides, and he’s trying to get the farmers off the farms. He’s taking over the farms with his robots and his artificial intelligence in India, in Africa, and now in the United States, and giving us unhealthy food, and it’s contributing to the chronic illnesses that are going to make us addicted to his medications.

“Gates owns a big stake in Philip Morris, which owns Kraft Foods and also owns General Foods. And they make processed foods and they make American cheese singles and Cheez Whiz. Those are so devoid of nutrition that the government makes those companies put in vitamins, vitamin A, vitamin C, et cetera. There are some vitamins in them. What Gates is doing now all across Africa, all across the world, is he’s passing laws, he’s buying off politicians and forcing through mandates for fortified food so that you will not be able to sell food in markets in Africa, unless it’s fortified. Well, the food, the goat cheese that the farmer makes in Masai Mara in Kenya does not need fortification. It already has all the nutrients we want in it, but that farmer will not be able to sell that goat cheese in his local market. Instead Cheez Whiz will be the monopoly there. And that’s one of the ways that he’s using what Vandana Shiva’s saying about illegalizing health or outlawing healthy food to open up these markets and compel us to eat his dirty filthy poisonous food.” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

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This article was originally published on February 13, 2007, in commemoration of the Ameriya Shelter bombing in Baghdad, Iraq.

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It is sixteen years since the Ameriyah Shelter in west Baghdad was bombed, incinerating all but eight, inside. Figures for the souls lost, still vary from four hundred and five to over twelve hundred, the registration book was incinerated along with those who had sought refuge, women,children, students and on occasion, the very old. The men stayed out to make room for those whom they wished protection – and to rescue others from the ongoing carpet bombing. The Shelter was only used over night.

The shelter had been built to withstand a possible nuclear attack, during the eight year, western driven, Iran-Iraq war. Walls three metres thick with the roof reinforced by the near indestructable steel ‘mesh’ used to support four or six lane road bridges. The only vulnerable point was the ventilation shaft. Iraq had chosen a Finnish company to build shelters throughout Baghdad, selecting the company because of perceived Finnish neutrality and commercial integrity. The company, reportedly passed the plans to the US prior to the 1991 onslaught.

I visited the Shelter just months after the bombing. We were a group from various countries and arrived in the early, sparkling sunlight. So unscathed was the building from the outside, that we had not realised where we were, talking and laughing under a sky still painted with dawn’s translucent trails and myriad shades of orange and ochre.

Iraqi reads holds a 1000 cranes peace offering at the Al-Amiriyah bomb shelter in Baghdad where 408 people died after two bombs destroyed it in 1991. Three days after the bombing the U.S. government apologized for bombing the shelter which protected families. (Photo by Paul Kitagaki Jr./Seattle Post-Intelligencer For News story by Larry Johnson)

Entering, there was a stunned silence. The smell of burning flesh still overwhelmed. I found myself tiptoeing through the blackened interior, under the melted piping, tiptoeing through the screams. There were sooted plastic flowers laid in dark corners, pathetic scraps of bloodied gauze. The only light was from the near perfect spherical entry point of the missiles, illuminating below, the great crater where they fell, the jagged remains of the centimetres thick steel mesh, hanging, a ‘surgical strike’ indeed, as a knife through butter – against women and children.

The Shelter, as during the Iran-Iraq war and in 1991, had been a safe haven in abnormal times. With electricity bombed, the huge generators allowed the children brief childhood normality: watching television, playing video games, reading, playing, homework – and the bombs could not be heard. The rows of bunk beds were a treat, with a rush to get the top bunk, a joyous eyrie of escape and escapism.

There were two vast floors, the top for sleeping, studying, socialising, sharing meals, the lower had showers, kitchens, a medical centre. When the bombs fell, the heat incinerated those on the top floor – and the vast water tank on the lower floor heated to bursting – boiling those showering, or chatting whilst cooking the evening meal, or those whose ailments were being treated and the medical staff.

The breast high ‘scum’ on the walls, was the flesh of those who perished. On the upper floor is the seared ‘shadow’ of a mother, holding her baby. Hiroshima revisited. I could bear the screams no longer and fled out and in to the sunlight. Noticing a small, blackened, brass plaque on the wall, I asked a Jordanian friend what it read. He struggled with the translation for a moment, the: ‘It is like when there is a crisis and civilian people try to help ..’ ‘Civil Defence?’ I asked : ‘Yes, yes, it says Civil Defence Shelter No:24.’

America had, of course, claimed it was a Command Centre for Saddam Hussein’s government. A lie, as ever, of enormity. Further, the U.S. had satellites watching everything (which continued through the embargo years, as now, clearly visible, blinking away like vast stars, floating, rotating.) A consistent comment over numerous interviews in the area and Baghdad, about the Shelter horror, that first visit and over subsequent years, was that for three days before, a satellite had been rotating over the district.Thus it would have recorded women and children entering it at dusk and leaving at dawn. That night there would have been a particular procession and it was the eve of the festival of Eid and with no means of cooking at home for the fast breaking, women took their food to prepare in the kitchens and their festive gifts, to wrap under the lights.

When the fire engines arrived, the rescuers could hear the screams, until they began to fade away – but the great metre thick steel door, with airline type handles to seal it from the inside for safety, was glowing like a furnace, then as it melted, re-sealed itself. Dante, revisited. To have poured water from gaping missile hole in the roof, would have subjected those inside to boiling steam. The fire chief, the toughest of men, who had seen the unimaginable and directed rescues over many years, faltered as he said, of the remains they finally brought out: ‘We thought we were bringing out only children and wondered why they were there alone – then we realised the (adult) bodies had (contracted) to child size with the intensity of the heat.’

Anwar, then eighteen and a student ran to help, with a friend with whom he was staying, nearby. When talking of that night, he too faltered and stilled, then gestured with his hands, saying: ‘The peoples, the bodies, they had gone so small – like this ..’ There is a haunting tale told by Umm Rheda (mother of Rheda) who left the shelter temporarily to take some preparations home. Whilst she was away, the bombs fell her children were incinerated, with Rheda, her eldest daughter. When all the emergency services experts, the army which was drafted in, had failed to open the door, she begged and screamed to try. It opened: ‘Rheda opened it for me’, she says. The fire chief confirmed that Umm Rheda opened the door.

The Shelter, over time, became a shrine, the bereaved, visitors brought momentos, pictures of the dead, the babies, the mischevious, the young mothers, the earnest students, stared from the walls. The floor was cleaned and polished, but the skin, the shadows, the seared walls and the screams remained. Until 2003, this was a unique U.S. wickedness. Another was an early act of their invading troops : to storm it (with their boots on of course) and search this sacred, sobbing site, for weapons. And now courtesy again, of the U.S.A., all Iraq is Al Ameriyah.

Three days before the Shelter bombing, Dick Cheney, now Vice President and General Colin Powell (designated a ‘dove’ by the George W. Bush Administration) visited the US Air base at Khamis Mushat, Saudia Arabia (slogan: ‘bombs are us’ and ‘we live so others may die.’) After a pep talk to troops, they both signed two thousand pound bombs: ‘To Saddam with fond regards’, wrote Cheney (‘A General’s War’, General Bernard Traynor and Michael Gordon, Little Brown, p.324.)

When the Shelter was bombed, frantic calls followed incase the bombs might have been involved in this massacre. Cheney’s bomb apparently fell on northern Iraq, dropped by a Major Wes Wyrich. What souls Powell’s decimated, is seemingly unknown.

The Ameriyah Shelter was bombed on the night of 13th/14th February: the celebration of Eid, St. Valentine’s Day and the anniversary of the fire bombing of Dresden. When I put this to a U.S. General and remarked on the ‘coincidence’, he looked me in the eye and said: ‘Kinda neat, eh?’

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Featured image is from uruknet.info

First published on GR on March 21, 2018.

Listen to the interview with Felicity Arbuthnot on the 1991 bombing of Al-Amiriyah shelter in Iraq by the US Air Force.

According to Arbuthnot, the nuclear shelter was built during the Iran-Iraq War by a Finnish company which allegedly shared the map and the design with the United States who later on bombed the shelter through its only vulnerable place which was the ventilation shaft. 

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Italian Transcript below

Thank you, Mr President.

We have been spied on, subjugated, treated like criminals by a government that in two months has destroyed our fundamental, natural and constitutional rights. Parliament has been replaced by the various task forces that have de facto placed Italy in the hands of Commissions composed of lobby colleagues and international colleagues.

The ability of the old trick of media bombardment was used as a means of propaganda to condition the minds of Italians by leveraging their atavistic fear of dying and censoring anyone who dares to raise their heads and denounce these abuses.

You had to mask yourselves so that you would not be recognized by the Italians who know very well that you are responsible for this emergency. They are all in this room: the Centre-Right of the Venetian and Mantovan Twill Company, model 0, that in the last 10 years has cancelled 40% of the beds in intensive care, as well as the so-called Left that with its Zingaretti has been the perfect executor of the predatory neo-liberal policies of the last thirty years speculating as jackals, enriching private individuals waiting for the Guardia Finanza that evidently in these hours is already in the offices of the Giunta of Lazio.

Zingaretti, then, taking example from the Lombard vaccination campaign that caused the disasters that we are paying for today has well thought to impose it even in Lazio, knowing all the while that there is already ample evidence that influenza vaccinations have implications and in 40% of cases accounting for more viral interference — as if you did not know that coronavirus is correlated with indicators of other critical environmental pollution: First of all, also electromagnetic pollution with its harmful effects, and retarded consequences, because the construction of the antennas as well as those of major works from north and south of Italy have never stopped for Covid. One wonders why?

And so, in the midst of this Holy Inquisition of Scientism, we can sacrifice military personnel, policemen, medical personnel, our children, our elderly to the testing of a vaccine that we know — and even rocks know — will not help at all! On account of the evolving virus.

All obviously endorsed by this 5 Star Movement that we have seen even today is in full identity crisis but which remains attached to the skirts of the PD, by betraying all – I mean all the electoral promises – in exchange for a few comfy-chairs, too preoccupted with ites to Tallinn.

Closing colleagues: Nests of injustice in the Giusta of Lazio? Congratulations! If we weren’t in a democratic country we would think things were bad, but really bad!

All these DPCMs are unconstitutional. We know this very well: they are the symbol of authoritarianism from a mass-media health regime stained with the red blood of our natural constitutional rights far beyond those of April 25.

History does not forgive, President, and one day very soon you will have to explain why you have sacrificed Italy and our constitutional charter, submitting us to the geopolitical game beign played by the United States and China, letting this country become the territory of new wars, made indeed with the virus, and selling all our information, even the most private and intimate ones, to the highest bidder.

So I turn to you, Mr. President, and to the relator, Mrs. Lorenzin, who is already so dear to the Italian people, and I have a message from all the Italians who are not here, who want to show you what they will do with all these unconstitutional measures!

(the MP then shreds a copy of the #CuraItalia Law)

Session 331 of the Italian Camera, the lower house of Parliament

Prego collega, Grazie Presidente.

Ssiamo stati spiati, soggiogati, trattati come delinquenti da un governo che in due mesi ha distrutto i nostri diritti fondamentali naturali e costituzionali. Il parlamento si è fatto sostituire dalle varie task force che hanno commissariato di fatto l’italia alle lobby colleghi, internazionali colleghi.

L’abilità della stazione di fu del bombardamento mediatico sono stati usati come mezzi di propaganda per condizionare le menti degli italiani facendo leva sulla loro atavica paura di morire e censurando chiunque osi alzare la testa e denunciare questi abusi.

Vi siete dovuti mascherare per non farmi riconoscere dagli italiani che ben sanno che siete responsabili di questa emergenza. Ci sono tutti in questa aula: il centrodestra del modello azienda veneto 0 di saia e Mantuan che negli ultimi 10 anni ha cancellato il 40 per cento dei posti letto in terapia intensiva così come la cosiddetta sinistra che con il suo Zingaretti ha fatto da perfetto esecutore delle politiche neoliberiste predatorie degli ultimi trent’anni speculando come sciacalli arricchendo i privati in attesa della guardia di finanza che evidentemente in questi in queste ore è già negli uffici della Giunta Laziale.

Zingaretti poi prendendo esempio dalla campagna vaccinale Lombarda che ha causato i disastri che oggi paghiamo ha ben pensato di imporla anche nel Lazio pur sapendo che esistono già ampie evidenze che le vaccinazioni antinfluenzali porta colleghi e in 40 per cento dei casi covi di in più per interferenza virale come se non si sapesse che coronavirus a un cofattore quindi indicatori di altre criticità ambientali l’inquinamento: anzitutto anche quello elettromagnetico con i suoi effetti nocivi tardis colleghi perché i cantieri delle antenne come quelli anche delle grandi opere da nord e sud d’italia non si sono mai fermati per il Covid. Chissà come mai?

Ed allora nel pieno segue di questo scientismo della Santa Inquisizione da salotto televisivo si possono sacrificare il personale militare, i poliziotti, personale medico, i nostri figli, i nostri anziani alle sperimentazione di un vaccino che sappiamo e lo sanno anche i sassi non servirà a nulla per la punto evollezza del virus.

Il tutto ovviamente avallato da questo Movimento 5 Stelle che abbiamo visto anche oggi essere in piena crisi d’identità ma che resta attaccato alle sottane del PD tradendo tutte — dico tutte le promesse elettorali — in cambio di qualche poltrona, impegnato forse troppo legame di Tallinn.

Chiudere colleghi: neste ingiustizie levino nella Giunta Laziale. Ccomplimenti! Se non fossimo in un paese democratico ci sarebbe da pensare male ma veramente male!

Tutti questi DPCM sono incostituzionali. Lo sappiamo bene: sono il simbolo dell’autoritarismo dal regime sanitario mediatico smacchiato col rosso sangue dei nostri diritti naturali costituzionali altro che 25 aprile.

La storia non perdona, Presidente, ed un giorno molto presto dovete spiegare perché avete sacrificato l’Italia, la nostra carta costituzionale, sottomettendoci ai giochi nel geopolitici tra gli Stati Uniti e Cina, lasciando che questo paese divenisse territorio di nuove guerre fatto certamente con il virus, e svendendo tutte le nostre informazione, anche quelle più private e intime al miglior offerente.

E allora mi rivolgo a Lei, Presidente, e alla relatrice Lorenzin, tanto cara già al popolo Italiano, e ho un messaggio da parte di tutti Italiani che non ci stanno che vogliano farvi vedere cosa se ne faranno di tutti questi provvedimenti inconstituzionali!

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results:” this quote is wrongly attributed to Einstein, but regardless of who said it, this is what best describes the Palestinian resistance participation in the new Palestinian legislative elections. The new elections are being sold as the way for reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. However, the Palestinian division occurred in the light of the results of the 2006 legislative elections, and as a direct result of the contrast between Hamas and Fatah strategies towards the Palestinian cause.

The strategies of the Palestinian factions have not changed since the previous elections. On the contrary, the Palestinian Authority (which in fact represents Fatah) has become entrenched further with the occupation, and the foreign actors’ stance against the Palestinian resistance has become more rigid. And it is stands to reason that a significant change in at least one of these two factors is a prerequisite to expect different outcome of any new elections  

So, away from the slogans of the reconciliation between Palestinian factions and the accompanied PR campaigns, what does each of the Palestinian factions hope to achieve from these elections?  And more importantly, what is the solution to break the siege imposed on the Palestinian resistance in Gaza?

The Palestinian Authority (PA)

In January 2020, the former U.S. administration announced the ‘deal of the century’; this deal in fact exposed the hidden intention of the successive U.S. administrations. This announcement was preceded by the Zionist Entity revealing its intention to annex the West Bank. Add to this, the ‘Jewish nation-state’  laws which the Zionist Entity passed in 2018 that may lead to transportation of the Palestinians in the 1948 territories out of their homes.

After all these developments, Mahmoud Abbas declared Oslo Accords dead and the end of the security coordination with the occupation. With this, a glimmer of hope within the Palestinian factions that the PA had finally benefited from its disastrous experience over the past 30 years has emerged.

It was said at the time that it was possible for Fatah to agree with the other Palestinian factions on the basis of civil resistance to the occupation. And a meeting of the Secretaries-Generals of the Palestinian factions was held in Beirut on this basis. However, soon the hope of any change in the performance of the PA evaporated. The PA continued to coordinate fully with the ‘Israelis’ forces in order to thwart any attempt to resist the occupation and continued to suppress any popular movement on the ground, no matter how peaceful it was. The PA relentlessly suppressed Even the peaceful popular demonstration of solidarity with the hunger-striking detainee Maher al-Akhras at the time. Then came the shocking statement of Hussein al-Sheikh, the PA Civil Affairs Minister, when he announced the return of the PA diplomatic relations with ‘Israel’ to how it was, including the security coordination- which in truth never ceased.

It has become clear to most observers that the PA function has become limited to two   tasks: first, collecting financial aid; and second, paving the way (knowingly or unknowingly) for the occupation to accomplish its aims of annexing what little that remains of the West Bank.

By stifling any form of Palestinian movements, peaceful or otherwise, to resist the occupation’s changing the facts on the ground, the Pa has become de-facto complicit of the occupation. Hence, all PA talk still possessing a Palestinian national project becomes no more than empty rhetoric. Because even he who believes in the negotiations as the only path to attain Palestinian rights does not strip himself of all negotiation leverages as the PA has indeed done. The PA has become a mockery of itself. It now mimics the French government of Vichy or the South Lebanon Army; with the difference that the last two had a project, regardless of our view of their projects, whereas the PA no longer has a task to speak of. These are not labels that can be given lightly or as a matter of populism, nor it is a call for internal fighting which must be avoided at all cost, especially in the presence of the occupation. But this is a description of the current situation that must be taken into account when assessing any future Palestinian strategy.

Thus, it can be reasoned that the goal of Mahmoud Abbas and the PA from the elections is to renew their legitimacy, or more precisely to take allegiance from Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian factions, and then to return to the vortex of what they call peace process and with no horizons in sight, of course.

Hamas and the Palestinian resistance factions

Hamas and the Palestinian resistance are going through an evident crisis, because of their limited options and their failure to lift the 15-year siege imposed on the Gaza Strip. It can be argued that the origins of the blockade were Hamas’s strategic miscalculations to run in the 2006 legislative elections- which did not secure Hamas any immunity nor protected it as it had hoped. Notwithstanding this argument, the occupation remains the prime source of the blockade. The Zionist Entity is the holder of the blockade keys and no one else. This is the primary fact and must not be ignored when formulating any   strategy to dismantle the blockade.

It is not a secret that Hamas is hoping that running in the upcoming elections will lead to lifting the blockade or at the very least easing it. This presents two assumptions: either Hamas competes against Fatah to win the majority in the legislative elections or runs with Fatah on the same party list. Suppose it is the former, and Hamas wins the election. In that case, Hamas will face a repeat of the 2006 scenario if there is no change in the Palestinian faction’s policies nor any change in the key international players’ stance towards the Palestinian resistance.

But if Hamas runs in the elections on a party list with Fatah, and it agrees to be a minority in the legislative elections, it will become an opposition party within the Oslo system. At which point, they will be obliged to play according to the Oslo rules. We observe the emergence of two parallel lines on the Palestinian scene- that can never converge. One represents the PA which has become linked to the occupation (and part of it, in reality), and which does not believe in any form of confrontation with the occupation, even a peaceful one; whilst the other believes in Resistance to restore Palestinian rights. As a result, the resistance factions will find themselves facing the same current dilemma. With the difference that this time they will have given to the opposite side new ammunition to use against them.

The Palestinian resistance will be required internally and internationally to respect the elections’ results and hand over the Gaza Strip to the PA before any easing of the blockade takes place.  And because the blockade keys are with the occupation, the Palestinian resistance will have to follow the Zionist Entity’s definition of handing over control of the Gaza Strip. And that means the disarmament of the Palestinian resistance and nothing else.

The solution to break the siege on the Palestinian resistance

It must be recognized first that finding a solution to the Gaza crisis is not a simple task, because the blockade is linked first and foremost to the occupation itself and is only one of its   symptoms. Nevertheless, what deserves attention is that the Occupation Entity has allowed a lot of financial aid to the PA in Ramallah and even to the Gaza Strip, whenever the status quo nears the point of collapse in the West Bank or Gaza. This indicates that the Zionist Entity fears an explosion in either of these arenas. For instance, Netanyahu retreated from his decision to announce the West Bank’s annexation fearing the break of a third intifada based on the estimates of his security advisers and nothing else. This casts doubt on the idea that the West Bank    is not ready for a popular movement and a third intifada. It is true that starting a popular movement is not without many obstacles, first of which   is the presence of the PA intelligence services, who are now directly coordinating with the Shin Bet. Nevertheless, is it really possible that the Palestinian factions are short of the means to motivate people and move onto the street if they put their mind to it?

In addition to what has been said, if we put the blockade imposed on the Palestinian resistance in its broader context as part of the economic war imposed on all resistance forces in the region, movements and states alike, the lifting of the siege on Gaza clearly becomes a common interest for all these actors. And this calls for the Palestinian factions to try to formulate a unified strategy with all the resistance forces in the region (i.e. the Axis of Resistance) to lift the blockade. It is, of course, obvious that this requires rounds and rounds of discussion, and that any strategy to break the siege with the support of the Axis of Resistance will be a medium-term strategy, but this remains the more productive option. Engaging in uncalculated adventures such as new elections will only lead to more time-wasting, even according to the most optimistic estimates.

Conclusion

The siege imposed on the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip is a vital component in the overall strategy of the Zionist Entity, and any counter plan to break the siege that does not take in account this fact will be bound to fail. Therefore, steps that can change the equations on the ground and the development of a comprehensive national Palestinian strategy are paramount for dismantling the siege. Today the Palestinians have a realistic opportunity to impose withdrawal of the occupation from the 1967 territories through a third intifada. This would undoubtedly change all the existing equations on the ground.

What is put forward in this article are only thoughts for deliberation. The formulation of a complete future Palestinian strategy needs the participation of many minds. But what this article has tried to avoid is sugar-coating the reality, simplifying the status quo, and providing solutions that appear attractive on the outside but bear the seeds of their own failure in the inside.

*

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Amro Allan ([email protected]), is an independent Palestinian writer and Political researcher. He publishes in Al-Akhbar newspaper, Rai Al-Youm, and Arabi 21.

Featured image is from IMEMC

Global Research brings to the attention the attention of our readers a selection of articles on the coronavirus vaccine.

“The Second Wave of the pandemic commenced in October 2020. The Pfizer Moderna corona vaccine was launched in early November 2020.

Worldwide, people are led to believe that the corona vaccine is a solution. And that “normality” will then be restored.

How is it that a vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which under normal conditions would take years to develop, was promptly launched on the 9th of November 2020?

Moreover, the vaccine announced by Pfizer and Moderna is based on an experimental gene editing mRNA technology which has a bearing on the human genome. Coupled with the vaccine initiative is the development of a so-called digital passport which will be imposed on entire populations. 

And why do we need a vaccine for Covid-19 when the WHO, the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as numerous scientists have confirmed unequivocally that Covid-19 is  “similar to seasonal influenza”. (Michel Chossudovsky)

***

501 Deaths + 10,748 Other Injuries Reported Following COVID Vaccine, Latest CDC Data Show
By Children’s Health Defense, February 06, 2021

The numbers reflect the latest data available as of Jan. 29 from the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System website.

Big Pharma’s COVID Vaccine

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 10, 2021

The plan to develop the Covid-19 vaccine is profit driven. The US government had already ordered 100 million doses back in July 2020 and the EU is to purchase 300 million doses.

Did CDC Deliberately Mislead Public on Allergic Reactions to Moderna Vaccine?

On Jan. 13, California health officials issued a hold on 330,000 doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine after “fewer than 10” people at San Diego’s Petco Park stadium vaccine clinic suffered allergic reactions to the vaccine.

Urgent Warning on COVID-19 Vaccine-related Deaths in the Elderly and Care Homes

We now call for an immediate and urgent audit of deaths that have occurred since the beginning of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout, to ascertain if Covid-19 vaccines are leading to an increased number of deaths.

Big Pharma and Big Profits: The Multibillion Dollar Vaccine Market

The business of vaccines is soon to become a major source of profits for the world’s largest pharmaceutical corporations.

The Injection Fraud – It’s Not a Vaccine

Of all the questions that I had, the one that I spent the most time researching and thinking about was why. Why was the medical establishment intentionally poisoning generations of children?

Microsoft, Big Tech Coalition Developing Rockefeller Funded COVID Vaccine Passports

A coalition of big tech companies, including Microsoft is developing a COVID passport, with the expectation that a digital document linked to vaccination status will be required to travel.

The COVID-19 Vaccine. The Imposition of Compulsory Vaccination with a Biometric Health Passport?

Is this THE final goal of this crisis, to impose a compulsory vaccination on everyone, with a biometric health passport and without it, the impossibility to move, to buy, to eat?

The WHO and Big Pharma Rejected by Tanzania: President John Magufuli Says COVID-19 Vaccines Are “Dangerous and Unnecessary”

There is a glimmer of hope in Africa in regards to the Covid-19 world-wide pandemic where there are no lockdowns, no mandatory facemasks and no required vaccines.

Could Spike Protein in Moderna, Pfizer Vaccines Cause Blood Clots, Brain Inflammation and Heart Attacks?

By Lyn Redwood, February 11, 2021

Dr. J. Patrick Whelan, a pediatric rheumatologist, warned the FDA in December that mRNA vaccines could cause microvascular injury to the brain, heart, liver and kidneys in ways not assessed in safety trials.

Vaccine Injury Reporting Systems ‘Utterly Inadequate,’ Independent Researchers Say

By Children’s Health Defense, January 21, 2021

New peer-reviewed study of adverse events following MMRV vaccines highlights the urgent need for independent research on vaccine safety and the importance of informed consent and vaccine choice.

Vaccines: “Death by Coincidence”. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Declarations by health officials and vaccine makers that deaths and injuries following COVID vaccinations are unrelated coincidences are becoming a pattern.

Dr. Wodarg and Dr. Yeadon File Application for Suspension of All SARS CoV-2 Vaccine Studies and Call for Co-signing the Petition

By 2020 news, December 25, 2020

Dr. Wodarg and Dr. Yeadon demand that the studies – for the protection of the life and health of the volunteers – should not be continued until a study design is available that is suitable to address the significant safety concerns.

Ten Things You Need to Know about the Experimental COVID Vaccines

By Makia Freeman, January 13, 2021

Here’s 10 things you need to know about the COVID vax, plus a list at the end of the article of just some of the horrendous injuries and deaths it has caused thus far.

The Coronavirus Vaccine: The Real Danger is “Agenda ID2020”

On January 29, 2021, The Bundestag, Germany’s parliament ratified the implementation of Agenda ID 2020. It still needs to go through the German Federal Council, The Bundesrat: little chance they will reject it.

What’s Not Being Said About the Pfizer Coronavirus Vaccine. “Human Guinea Pigs”?

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is experimental and far from guaranteed safe, despite the fact that Pfizer, the EU and the notorious Dr Tony Fauci seem ready to roll it out even before year end to hundreds of millions of humans.

76 Years Ago: “The 1945 Dresden Raid was surely one of the most destructive air-raids during the WWII but in the world history of massive military destructions and the war crimes against humanity too.[i] The main and most destructive air-raid was during the night of February 13^th−14^th, by the British Bomber Command”

***

It is 76-years anniversary of the end of the WWII – the bloodiest and most horrible war ever fought in the human history. The war that caused creation of the UN in 1945 in order to protect the world from similar events in the future – a pan-global political-security organization of which first issued legal act was the UN Charter, which inspired the 1948 Geneva Conventions’ definition of genocide.

The Nüremberg and Tokyo Trials were organized as “The Last Battles” for justice as the first ever global trials for the war criminals and mass murderers including and the top-hierarchy statesmen and politicians. However, 70 years after the WWII the crucial moral question still needs a satisfactory answer: Are all the WWII war criminals faced the justice at the Nüremberg and Tokyo Trials? Or at least those who did not escape from the public life after the war. Here we will present only one of those cases from the WWII which has to be characterized as the genocide followed by the personalities directly responsible for it: The 1945 Dresden Massacre.

The 1945 Dresden Raid was surely one of the most destructive air-raids during the WWII but in the world history of massive military destructions and the war crimes against humanity too.[i] The main and most destructive air-raid was during the night of February 13^th−14^th, by the British Bomber Command when 805 bomber military crafts attacked the city of Dresden which up to that time was protected from similar attacks primarily for two reasons:

1. The city was of an extreme pan-European cultural and historical importance as one of the most beautiful “open-air museum” places in Europe and probably the city with the most beautiful Baroque architectural inheritance in the world.[ii]
2. The lack of the city’s geostrategic, economic and military importance.

The main air-born raid was followed by three more similar raids in daylight but now by the U.S. 8^th Air Force. The Allied (in fact, the U.K.−U.S.) Supreme Commander-In-Chief the U.S. a five-star General Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890−1969) was anxious to link the Allied forces with the very advancing Soviet Red Army in the South Germany. For that reason, Dresden suddenly became to be taken into consideration as a point of high strategic importance as a communication center, at least at the eyes of Eisenhower.

However, at that time Dresden was known as a city that was overcrowded by up to 500,000 German refugees from the east. For the U.K.−U.S. Supreme Command Headquarters it was clear that any massive air-bombing of the city will cost many human lives and cause a human catastrophe. That was not primarily only on Eisenhower’s conscience to decide to launch massive air-born attacks on Dresden or not as we have not to forget that Eisenhower was only a military commander (a strateg in the Greek) but not a politician. Unquestionably, the Dresden question in January−February 1945 was and of a political and human nature not only of military one. Therefore, together with a Supreme Commander-In-Chief of the Allied Forces a direct moral and human responsibility for the 1945 Dresden Massacre was on the British PM Winston Churchill (1874−1965) and the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882−1945) too.

These three men, however, finally agreed that the inevitably very high casualties in Dresden might in the end, nevertheless, help to shorten the war, that from a technical point of view was true. During one night and one day of the raids there were over 30,000 buildings destroyed and the numbers of those who were killed in the bombing and the ensuing firestorm are still in dispute among the historians as the estimations go up to 140,000. Here it has to be noticed that if this highest estimation number is going to be true it means that during the 1945 Dresden Massacre were killed more people than in Hiroshima case from August 1945 (around 100,000 that was one third out of total Hiroshima’s pre-bombing population).

One person with direct responsibility for transforming Dresden into the open-air crematorium, as the city was bombed by forbidden flammable bombs for massive destructions (Saddam Hussein was attacked in 2003 by the NATO’s alliance under the alleged and finally false accusation to possess exactly such weapons – WMD) is the “Bomber Harris” – a commander of the British Royal Air-Forces during the Dresden Raid. The “Bomber Harris” was in fact Arthur Travers Harris (1892−1984), a Head of the British Bomber Command in 1942−1945. He was born in Cheltenham, joined the British Royal Flying Corps in 1915, before fighting as a solder in the South-West Africa. He became a Commander of the Fifth Group from 1939 till 1942 when he became the Head of this Group (Bomber Command). The point is that it was exactly Arthur Travers Harris who stubbornly required and defending the massive area bombing of Germany under the idea that such practice will bring the total destruction of Germany (including and civil settlements) that would finally force Germany to surrender  without involving of the Allied forces into the full-scale overland military invasion. The crucial point is that this “Bomber Harry’s” strategy received a full support by the British PM Winston Churchill who, therefore, became a politician who blessed and legitimized massive aerial massacres in the legal form of genocide as it was described in the post-WWII Charter of the UNO and other international documents on protection of human rights (ex. the 1949 Geneva Conventions). Nevertheless, there were the “Bomber Harry”, Dwight Eisenhower, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill who transformed the bombing of selected targets as transport systems, industrial areas or oil refineries into the massive aerial destruction of the whole urban settlements with transforming them into the open-air crematoriums like it was done for the first time in history with Dresden – a city with a rare historical heritage (today pre-war Dresden would be on the UNESCO list of protected places of the world’s heritage) but flattened during one night and one day.[iii]

This successful practice became very soon followed by the Allied forces in the cases of other German cities,[iv] like Würtzburg – a tightly packed medieval housing city that exploded in a firestorm in March 1945 in one night with 90% of destroyed city-space which had no strategic importance.[v] However, a strategic bombing of the urban settlements in the WWII reached its peak by destructions of  Hiroshima and Nagasaki under the order by the U.S. President (Democrat) Harry Truman – the “Atomic Harry” (1884−1972) who authorized the dropping of the atomic bombs over these two Japanese cities in order to end the war against Japan without further loss of the U.S. military troops, insisting on unconditional surrender of Japan.[vi]

Surely, one of the most obvious results of WWII was:

“its unparalleled destructiveness. It was most visible in the devastated cities of Germany and Japan, where mass aerial bombing, one of the major innovations of the Second World War, proved much more costly to life and buildings than had been the bombing of Spanish cities in the Spanish civil war”.[vii]

For that and other reasons, we believe that many Allied military and civil top decision-making personalities from the WWII should have been indicted at the Nüremberg and Tokyo Trials together with Hitler, Eichmann, Pavelić and many others. However, it is old truth that the victors are writing history and re-writing historiography. Therefore, instead to see Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), Harry Truman or Arthur Travers Harris at the Nüremberg and Tokyo Trials’ courtrooms as indicted on such charges as crimes against humanity and genocide as were the German Nazi defendants, who included NSDAP’s officials and high-ranking military officers along with the German industrialists, lawmen and doctors, we are even 70 years after the WWII reading and learning politically whitewashed and embellished biographies of those war criminals who destroyed Dresden, Hiroshima or Nagasaki as national heroes, freedom fighters and democracy protectors.[viii] For instance, in any official biography of Winston Churchill is not written that he is responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the German civilians in 1945 but we know that the British PM clearly promised to the Poles to get after the war ethnically cleansed territory from the Germans.[ix]

If the Nüremberg Trial, 1945−1949 was “The Last Battle” for justice,[x]then it was incomplete. Moreover, two the most ardent killers of Dresden – Churchill and Eisenhower were granted after the war by the second premiership and double-term presidentship, respectively, in their countries.

The Gamers’ Uprising Against Wall Street Has Deep Populist Roots

By Ellen Brown, February 12 2021

Wall Street may own the country, as Kansas populist leader Mary Elizabeth Lease once declared, but a new generation of “retail” stock market traders is fighting back.

Venezuela – Food Security and Sovereignty to Fight Starvation Sanctions

By Nino Pagliccia, February 12 2021

More accurately they should be called “starvation sanctions”. They cut off the revenue sources that the Venezuelan government needs to import food, equipment and agricultural supplies necessary for food production.

Security Services Reveal that Turkey Attempts to Control the Muslims of France

By Paul Antonopoulos, February 12 2021

Newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche reported days ago that French security services alerted the Elysee last October about Turkey’s interference in the country’s Muslim community.

Is America on a Collision Course with China over Iran?

By Shahbazz Afzal, February 12 2021

The ‘Iran-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ agreement has caused considerable alarm for America.   China may be seen as undermining America’s plan to isolate Iran and this places China on a direct collision course with America.

Head of Strategic Command: US Must Prepare for “Very Real Possibility” of Nuclear War with China

By Alan MacLeod, February 12 2021

In an era when international cooperation in the face of pandemics and climate change is essential, the world appears to be racing towards a new Cold War, and unfortunately, few except the military top brass are talking about it.

Uncertain Future of US-China Relations: Biden’s Envisioned “Extreme Competition” with China

By Andrew Korybko, February 12 2021

If Biden really knew China’s President Xi as well as he thought, then he wouldn’t have taken their countries’ “extreme competition” for granted. In fact, one doesn’t even have to know the Chinese leader personally to be aware that this is the wrong conclusion to make.

Biden’s North Korea Policy: Can Washington Solve this Time the 70-year Old North Korea Issues?

By Prof. Joseph H. Chung, February 12 2021

Washington’s North Korea policy was designed to change the Juche regime and eliminate the nuclear threat of Pyongyang. But, the policy of regime change has failed because of wrong strategies.

UK COVID Police State: Travellers Must Quarantine in Hotels at Their Own Cost, Have 3 Tests, £10k Fine for Going Outside, and 10 Years Prison if Caught Trying to Avoid ‘The Law’

By Steve Watson, February 12 2021

Anyone traveling to Britain from a country on the government’s ‘red list’ must quarantine in a hotel (which they will have to pay for), and have THREE COVID tests, under draconian new laws being implemented by the government.

Tearing Down the Edifice of American Democracy

By Scott Ritter, February 12 2021

The fact of the matter is that politics—at least how it is practiced in the United States—is more about perception than reality. The nuance associated with lawmaking, the arcane art of manufacturing the rules and regulations that hold society together, are hidden and therefore unknown to the vast majority.

Review: Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies

By Ray McGinnis, February 12 2021

Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies is a selection of essays. They reveal what stirs author Ed Curtin’s heart, his mind, and his path toward clarity. With each chapter he passionately reflects on the state of his country and what matters most to him. It is a compelling read.

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

In a telephone interview on Thursday (11 February) the Ambassador of Russia to the EU Vladimir Chizhov evokes the recent visit of EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell to Moscow, which he helped arrange.

Vladimir Chizhov is a career diplomat. Before being appointed ambassador to the EU in 2005, he was Russia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He spoke to EURACTIV’s senior editor Georgi Gotev.

*

Euractiv: Why did you, why did Russia, as host country, humiliate your European guest, Mr. Borrell, who came to you with an open mind and an open heart?

Vladimir Chizhov: I am surprised to hear such a question. Even if the High Representative feels humiliated, I believe this humiliation comes not from Russia – it certainly didn’t happen in Moscow, but rather here in Brussels upon his return.

I saw the debate in the European Parliament, and I read a number of comments, some of which actually preceded his trip to Moscow, while most of them followed the trip. Evidently, there were people who didn’t like the very idea of the trip. And I appreciate that despite these “friendly advices” Josep Borrell has shown will and determination to go to Moscow.

So this artificially tense situation was created in Brussels, not in Moscow.

E: Mr Borrell probably now regrets having gone to Moscow.

VC: Well, you will have to ask him. But I hope he does not because the visit was useful. The discussion was quite frank and highly professional.

E: Maybe that discussion took place behind closed doors. But what we saw at the press conference as Russian public communication was quite shocking. During the exchange, Russian foreign minister Lavrov described the EU as an “unreliable partner”? Can you explain what this means? In what way is the EU an unreliable partner to Russia?

VC: Well, I think it refers to the previous record of Russia-EU relations. You are aware probably, having dealt with this topic for a long time, that we had created – with joint efforts – a multifaceted and complex architecture of cooperation. But most of those formats, including regular summits, the Permanent Partnership Council at ministerial level, a lot of sectoral dialogues and the parliamentary cooperation committee, they were all frozen by the EU, on dubious pretense back in 2014.

E: This is not “dubious pretense”, Mr. Ambassador. For the first time in post-World War II history in Europe a country annexes foreign territory. This is not “dubious pretense”.

VC: Of course, Russia didn’t annex anything. Look at how things developed, if you refer to Crimea. What preceded the referendum, what led to it, how it was held, what was the turnout and what was the outcome.

E: Europe doesn’t recognise this referendum.

VC: Most EU member states have recognised the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo, splitting a sovereign European country, which was then called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. With no referendum whatsoever.

E: Two wrongs do not make a right.

VC: That’s why I pinpoint the factual difference between the two cases.

E: Tell me, would you do the same trick to Mr. Macron, if he comes to Moscow, as you did to Mr Borrell, would you humiliate him? I’m asking because I don’t think so. Are you mocking the EU as a non-entity?

VC: Again, I cannot understand what you mean by using the term of “humiliation” in the context of Mr. Borrell’s visit to Moscow. There was nothing that could be perceived as humiliation. I was there during the official part of the negotiations, from the very first moment until the very last. And I didn’t sense anything that could be perceived as such.

E: But you lost a friend. Judging from what Mr. Borrell said before going to Moscow and after his visit, Russia should now brace for sanctions. And he was not in that state of mind before going to Moscow. Do you think this was a successful visit?

VC: I think it was a useful visit. Whether it was successful, it is perhaps too early to judge. But evidently it was successful in terms of frank and open discussion of issues that bring us closer, as well as on issues that for the moment divide us.

You know, as Borrell himself admitted, when the two sides have problems it is particularly necessary to maintain dialogue to discuss those differences. And that’s exactly what happened.

E: I have had the opportunity to interview you in your capacity as Ambassador to the EU over the years since 2008, and thank you for always being responsive. But EU-Russia relations have deteriorated steadily, while the duty of an ambassador is to improve relations. Do you have any frustration?

VC: Of course I do. Our relations have had their ups and downs. I have been here perhaps longer than you. And I’ve been dealing with Russia-EU relations directly since 1999. So, I’ve really seen ups and downs.

For instance, I’ve seen a certain down due to events in my country, namely in the Republic of Chechnya back in 2002-2003, when genuine terrorists were courteously called “rebels” by some democratic partners. After that we managed to put our relations on a more positive track, with the four roadmaps, the four common spaces. We had two summits every year, in the better years and in the more complicated years.

The latest summit took place in January 2014, but for the next one, which was scheduled for June 2014 in Sochi, the EU failed to show up. It was not our fault; we didn’t close any negotiating venue. We never shut up any door on the EU.

I have to admit that we did have certain difficulties, certain problems, well before the Ukraine crisis erupted in 2014. Let me just remind you of the negotiations we had on visa liberalisation. We had the feeling that every time we were at the threshold of an agreement, for some reason the EU rolled back. And there were similar other cases.

But with perseverance and determination, that both sides showed, we were able to overcome these differences. I hope that we will still be able to do that sooner rather than later.

E: Yes, but it will be more difficult. Mr. Ambassador, we are both people with experience. We remember the Helsinki Process, 1975, and at that time, it was possible to discuss human rights, as part of the so-called “third basket”, the first one being disarmament and security, and the second economic relations. Why isn’t it possible to discuss human rights with Russia any longer?

VC: I didn’t say that. It is possible of course. We are fully prepared to discuss human rights in Russia, in the EU and at the global scale.

E: But you don’t accept the EU raising the question of sending Navalny to jail?

VC: We can discuss this issue, however pointless it may be. By the way, that issue was mentioned by both sides during the negotiations between Lavrov and Borrell in Moscow.

E: And what was the result?

VC: We explained our view. We reminded, and we always remind the EU, that independence of the judiciary is part of the values the EU cherishes so much. So we expect that independence of the judiciary in Russia is respected by the EU.

When we hear appeals that Navalny or other people that may be spending time in jail in Russia should be immediately and unconditionally released, this is surprising. It contradicts our common commitment to the principle of independence of the judiciary, and above all it represents flagrant intervention in the internal affairs of my country.

E: Discussing human rights is not intervening in internal affairs.

VC: You know, I would like to see the same energy on behalf of the EU demanding unconditional release of, for example, Julian Assange who is in a UK prison without verdict or even charges.

E: During Soviet times Moscow replied to US criticism by saying «А у вас негров линчуют», which means “in your country you lynch the Negroes”. It sounds the same to me.

VC: You shouldn’t use this terminology. Afro-Americans is more correct.

E: I’m quoting.

VC: Then you should take into consideration certain specificity of the Russian language. So do you want to go back to those times? Those were different times, those were the times of the Cold war which we all celebrated the end of.

E: After the Cold War there was détente. Now I don’t see détente.

VC: Détente was also linked to those previous times. I think détente should not be used to describe what we have today. We live in a different world, a multi-polar world where countries and governments should look towards combating common challenges and threats, like for example the current coronavirus.

E: Mr. Borrell complimented Russia over the Sputnik vaccine…

VC: That was appreciated, also publicly.

E: But he was still humiliated.

VC: Who says that?

E: Everybody.

VC: Well, again, I believe, even if he was humiliated, it was done not in Moscow, but here in Brussels upon his return.

E: Judging from his latest statements, Mr. Borrell is now an advocate for inflicting new sanctions on Russia.

VC: I didn’t read his statements in that way, he was much more cautious than that. And of course, it’s not up to him to decide on any restrictive measures. By the way, when we speak about what the EU can do, we can only speak of unilateral restrictive measures, not sanctions. The EU is not entitled to introduce sanctions, it’s only up to the UN Security Council.

E: Call it restrictive measures, but they will target Russian officials in high positions.

VC: For ostensibly humiliating Borrell? Look, that is nonsense.

*

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Featured image: Vladimir Chizhov [European Commission]

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

In an era when international cooperation in the face of pandemics and climate change is essential, the world appears to be racing towards a new Cold War, and unfortunately, few except the military top brass are talking about it.

Writing in the U.S. Naval Institute Journal, Admiral Charles A. Richard warned that the military must “consider the possibility of great power competition, crisis, or direct armed conflict with a nuclear-capable peer” and update and modernize its approach to its two principal adversaries.

“There is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons,” he wrote, demanding that the United States “prepare for the conflict we prefer, instead of one we are likely to face.”

Richard accused the Chinese of “mak[ing] technological leaps in capabilities in every domain” and Russia of “aggressively modernizing its nuclear forces.” He concluded that “the probability of nuclear use is low, but not impossible, particularly in a crisis and as our nuclear-armed adversaries continue to build capability and exert themselves globally,” and that the U.S. risks suffering “embarrassment” or worse if they do not act.

The admiral’s words closely echo a recent report from the Atlantic Council — a body that is filled with top American generals and closely linked to NATO. The council advised President Biden to draw a number of “red lines” around China, past which the U.S. would respond militarily. These included virtually any Chinese military actions in the South China Sea, cyberattacks on its neighbors, or even a North Korean strike on its adversaries. Any backing down from the brink, the council insisted, would mean national “humiliation” for the United States.

In recent months, the United States has taken a number of provocative military actions on China’s doorstep. In July, it conducted naval exercises in the South China Sea, with warships and naval aircraft spotted just 41 miles from the coastal megacity of Shanghai, intent on probing China’s coastal defenses. In December, it flew nuclear bombers over Chinese vessels close to Hainan Island. Last year Florida Senator Rick Scott stated that every Chinese national in the U.S. was a communist spy and should be treated with extreme suspicion.

Scott’s words are part of a broader propaganda war against China. In 2011, the American public’s view of the country was strongly favorable. However, due in no small part to fearmongering stoked by politicians and media pundits, nearly three-quarters of Americans (a historic high) hold negative views of China, with less than one-quarter positively rating the country, according to Pew Research.

It is a similar story with Russia. During the 2012 presidential debates, Republican nominee Mitt Romney was relentlessly mocked for his position that Russia was an adversary. “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” President Obama famously quipped. Since then, however, the number of Americans with a favorable view of Russia has dropped from an all-time high in 2011 of 49% to just 19% today.

Perhaps due to increased nationalistic sentiment, little attention has been paid to the Trump administration’s decisions to back out of every international anti-nuclear weapons deal the U.S. had signed, including the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) and the Open Skies treaties as well as the New START agreement.

Last week, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reset their famous Doomsday Clock — an estimation to how close the world is to armageddon — to just 100 seconds to midnight, the closest, in their estimation, we have ever been to complete destruction. Explaining their decision, the committee, which includes 13 Nobel laureates, stated that nuclear nations have,

Ignored or undermined practical and available diplomatic and security tools for managing nuclear risks. By our estimation, the potential for the world to stumble into nuclear war—an ever-present danger over the last 75 years—increased in 2020.”

One piece of good news came down on Wednesday when the White House announced it had renewed the New START treaty — a deal which limits the number of nuclear missiles the U.S. and Russia can possess. However, on Iran, Venezuela, China, Afghanistan, and other nations, Biden appears to be maintaining Trump’s aggressive policies.

The outcome of any nuclear confrontation has been well understood by war planners for over half a century. In his book “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner” former military analyst and whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg explained that his team calculated that, in the event of a totally successful widespread American nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, with no retaliation whatsoever, at least 99% of the world’s population would die as a result. As he noted:

It is the smoke, after all (not the fallout, which would remain mostly limited to the northern hemisphere), that would do it worldwide: smoke and soot lofted by fierce firestorms in hundreds of burning cities into the stratosphere, where it would not rain out and would remain for a decade or more, enveloping the globe and blocking most sunlight, lowering annual global temperatures to the level of the last Ice Age, and killing all harvests worldwide, causing near-universal starvation within a year or two.”

In an era when international cooperation in the face of pandemics and climate change is essential, the world appears to be racing towards a new Cold War. Unfortunately, few except the military top brass are talking about it. Worse still, they seem to be almost delighted at the prospect.

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Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

Featured image is by Pete Linforth/Pixabay

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling)
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Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

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

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

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

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As coronavirus infection rapidly spreads across the African continent, reaching nearly 3.5 million [according to unconfirmed PCR estimates] , China has shown support by making vaccine donations for Zimbabwe in Southern Africa and Equatorial Guinea in West Africa. China has donated 200,000 doses to Zimbabwe, while the country will procure additional 600,000 vaccine doses from China’s Sinopharm, according to reports.

President Mnangagwa has lauded China for standing with Zimbabwe. “Allow me to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt and sincere gratitude to the President of the People’s Republic of China, His Excellency, Xi Jinping, the Government and people of China for their kind donation of 200 000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine.

“We applaud China for taking a leading role in contributing to our national vaccine deployment strategy and for its consistent humane policy of treating Covid-19 vaccines as global public goods. This kind gesture is in addition to the numerous donations, support and interventions made by China since the outbreak of the virus. It further attests to the fact that the People’s Republic of China is indeed a true friend of Zimbabwe, whose relations has been enhanced to strategic partnership and cooperation,” said President Mnangagwa.

The government has submitted its expression of interest to participate under the African Union Covid-19 Vaccination Programme, on which the private sector support companies will keep 50 percent for their employees. Zimbabwe has set aside $100 million for vaccine procurement, and is looking to buy 20 million doses in a bid to immunize about 60% of its population and achieve herd immunity.

With donation of 100,000 doses also from Sinopharm, Equatorial Guinea will be able to launch an immunization campaign. The vaccines were handed over at Malabo airport to Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the son of head of state Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the presidency said on its website.

Equatorial Guinea, an oil-rich but widely impoverished nation of 1.3 million people, declared a nightly curfew and reimposed restrictions that had been lifted against the coronavirus. The Chinese vaccines will be used to provide two doses to 50,000 people in the front line of the pandemic — health workers, people with serious underlying illnesses and border officials, the presidency said in its statement.

Only a handful of African nations have begun giving vaccinations as the continent scrambles to obtain supplies for its 1.3 billion people, even as many richer nations are racing ahead with mass immunization campaigns. Besides, individual African countries tackling the pandemic through bilateral relationships, the African Union has also been mobilizing efforts with all the countries of the continent and foreign partners to face this challenging moment and fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a frequent and passionate contributor to Global Research.

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Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies is a selection of essays. They reveal what stirs author Ed Curtin’s heart, his mind, and his path toward clarity. With each chapter he passionately reflects on the state of his country and what matters most to him. It is a compelling read. 

The epigraph at the beginning of Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies, “In a dark time, the eye begins to see,” comes from Theodore Roethke’s poem “In A Dark Time”. Here the poet describes a state of disorientation and dislocation of identity. Roethke asserts this is essential to achieve clarity, insight and wisdom. In a dark time, one discovers the fragmented and broken state of things. With this fitting epigraph, Ed Curtin proceeds to alert his readers to the fragmented and broken state of things in America, and the task of its citizenry to begin to see more clearly.

The topics Curtin, a former professor at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, takes up are not original to him. But they are marked with his own articulate original stamp. One aspect of his novel contribution is that Curtin steps beyond standard frameworks of political analyses.

Three themes have permeated his attention from a young age: truth, death and freedom. He cites an excerpt from an interview with the poet Kenneth Rexroth who told journalist Lawrence Lipton in 1959 “Since all society is organized in the interest of exploiting classes and since if men knew this they would cease to work and society would fall apart, it has always been necessary, at least since the urban revolutions, for societies to be governed ideologically by a system of fraud.”  Rexroth referred to this system of fraud as the “social lie.” And in Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies, Curtin takes on the task of describing the roots of the fraud, and its’ more recent manifestations. He also takes time to point out, despite the burdens’ society grapples with in an age of deceit, that beauty, art, love, and whimsy are among the qualities that persist as signs of grace.

In his essay “Inside America’s Doll House: A Vast Tapestry Of Lies,” Curtin cites Jim Garrison, the District Attorney of New Orleans who in 1969 brought to trial a a case naming persons connected to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Garrison attempted to show that the assassination of JFK was the work of the CIA and Allen Dulles. However, Garrison was routinely described as a lunatic by CIA-connected media spokespersons. It was Garrison’s conclusion that American citizens passively consumed television news that was laced with propaganda. Such propaganda was manufactured to preclude Americans from “understanding…what is really happening….” Garrison warned that Americans were living “in a doll’s house.” Building on the hard lessons Jim Garrison learned from the trial in 1969, Ed Curtin observes “In the doll’s house into which America gradually has been converted, a great many of our basic assumptions are totally illusory.” His book was also released on November 22, 2020, some 57 years after JFK’s assassination.

Curtin notes that in 2009 President “Obama backed the 2009 coup d’état in Honduras that has resulted in so many deaths at the hands of U.S. trained killers, and now” followers of Trump complain about “all these ‘non-white’ people fleeing to the U.S. to escape a hell created by the U.S….”

After 2009. it was learned that U.S. officers at the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies trained members of the Honduran military to oust democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. In 2009 and the years following Honduras has had one of the highest rates of murder in the world. These have been driven my death squads connected to the Honduran military. But this coup mattered little to both President’s Obama and Trump. While Hondurans have paid the price in murder, increased debt and poverty.

Examples of what Curtin raises continue since his book was published in late 2020. For Venezuelans it matters little whether a Republican or a Democrat is president in the USA. Under Donald Trump there was a failed attempt in May 2020 to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. And on the first day of his presidency, Joe Biden signed an executive order declaring the United States recognizes Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the nations’ president. This despite Maduro winning over 67% of the popular vote in 2018; That the second candidate in the election results was Henri Falcón who won 21%; And Juan Guaidó wasn’t even a candidate in 2018. Imagine if Venezuela protested the result of the 2020 United States election, and recognized Mitt Romney as president (who ran in 2012 but didn’t run in 2020).

With Biden there is a change of tone from Trump, but many American foreign policies remain the same. Former President Jimmy Carter said of Venezuela’s 2012 elections when Hugo Chavez was re-elected: “…of the 92 elections that we’ve (Carter Centre Foundation in Atlanta) monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.” But that story that doesn’t conform the with media’s narrative. So, it goes down the memory hole.

Curtin notes that while average Americans have not constructed the doll’s house they live in, they are complicit. It is average Americans who have accepted “decades of fabricated reality for so-called peace of mind.” A consequence of accepting illusory narratives is that people are not really free. In order to cope with a plausible lie, consumers of the news play dumb. And Curtin notes most Americans “want to be nice (Latin, nescire, not to know, to be ignorant) and to be liked.” As they become a people of the lie, repeating the lies they are fed, a memetic desire arises in society. And the repetition of these lies fuels violence and scapegoating. The doll’s house that Americans (and many citizens of other countries who consume the news uncritically) live in, are reinforced by contracts they have made with the world. This is in order to enhance their social standing, financial status, professional advancement and maintain familial harmony. That kind of peace of mind and contentment require individuals not to venture out far from the doll house, in case they encounter truths they find hard to handle.

Curtin notes that the Central Intelligence Agency began to use the term “conspiracy theory” in a memo on April 1, 1967. This was to discredit assassination theories about other plausible actors in the death of the slain president on November 22, 1963. And he notes that it just so happens that the term “9/11” was first used on September 12, 2001, by future New York Times editor Bill Keller to designate the language for how to refer to the day of the attacks. By using a term synonymous with dialing an emergency number in the United States, the term became fused with feelings of “anxiety, depression, panic and confusion.”

It is useful to note that at the time of the attacks on September 11, 2001, the emergency number in Saudi Arabia was 999. The numbers in Yemen were 191 and 194. The emergency numbers in the United Arab Emirates were 112, 998 and 999. The emergency number in Libya was 1515. The number in Kuwait was 112. The numbers in Iraq were 104, 115 and 122. In Syria emergency numbers were 110, 112 and 113. In Lebanon the numbers variously were 112, 140, 175 and 999. The emergency numbers in Egypt were 122, 123 and 180. Across continental Europe the emergency number to call on September 11, 2001, was 112. The emergency numbers in Iran were 110, 112, 115 and 125. Curiously, 911 was a number to dial an emergency uniquely in the United States, Canada, Mexico (as well as 065, 066 and 068), and South America. 911 was not an emergency number in the states where Arabs were alleged to have plotted to attack the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

In some future scenario – were it to ever happen – might rogue American terrorists fly planes into skyscrapers in Tehran, Iran? And in such a scenario, might such terrorists plot an attack on a January 10^th, 12^th or 15^th of a given year, fusing the day of the atrocity with the abbreviation for a date synonymous with one of the numbers Iranians dialed in case of an emergency?

In his essay “Why I Don’t Speak of 9/11 Anymore,” Curtin notices that by “referring to September 11 as 9/11,” Keller ensured “an endless national emergency became wedded to an endless war on terror aimed at preventing Hitler-like terrorists from obliterating us with nuclear weapons that could create another ground zero or holocaust. It is a term that pushes all the right buttons evoking unending social fear and anxiety. It is language as sorcery; it is propaganda at its best.”

Because Curtin suspects that the repetition of the term “9/11” is embedded in an advanced form of mind-control, he refuses to use the term in relation to the attacks. Instead, he uses the phrase “the attacks of September 11, 2001.” Whatever vocabulary we use to refer to the attacks, Curtin advises that we find one that can unbind us from the mesmerizing impact of its official shorthand repeated endlessly, subliminally evoking confusion, depression and panic in its hearers.

As our post-modern society has evolved, the task of creating propaganda is more complex. And so, the complexity of society drives a majority to want ready-made frameworks for understanding their reality coherently. Curtin shows that “people want to be provided with myths to direct them to the ‘truth,’ but that so-called truth has been preconceived within the overarching myth provided by propaganda.”

Nonetheless, the propaganda is efficient enough to allow most people to deduce that they’ve reached their conclusions of their own free will. Most people will assume that they’ve been provided with a suitable range of information about the key points of a given topic in order to decide what is trustworthy. However, the same consumers of the news will regard as inconceivable that the narrative they’ve been led to accept contains cherry-picked news that omits perspectives that are off-message. Surely, wouldn’t any dissenting voices that are worth knowing about would be given a hearing on the six o’clock news?

Curtin concurs with author Lisa Pease who wrote in her book A Lie Too Big To Fail: The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, “The way the CIA took over America in the 1960s is the story of our time, and too few recognize this. We can’t fix a problem we can’t even acknowledge exists.” To support his assessment, Curtin points to numerous examples in different chapters across his book. This includes a chapter on “The Message From Dallas, JFK and The Unspeakable,” where he summarizes JFK author James W. Douglass’ layer-by-layer excavation of a CIA-backed assassination of a president who had turned from war-making toward peace-making.

In another chapter titled “What Are We Working For ‘At Eternity’s Gate’,” Curtin writes about the rat-race. He recalls a summer job as a clerk in a General Motors office in Manhattan. The “bait” was the salary, and so his youth was spent that summer confined to a boring job. As I read Curtin’s description, I thought about some of the jobs I had: working a night shift as a hotel security guard, a cleaner at a private golf club, and working at a vehicle repair shop for the Ministry of Forests for the Province of British Columbia. The latter I spent a summer affixing forestry vehicle identification serial numbers on the side of government trucks.

The author mentions a film about the life of Vincent Van Gogh, titled At Eternity’s Gate, which offers a vision of new possibilities for what it means to work, to be alive. For Van Gogh it was the “act of painting” that was “the stroke of genius.” And so, for the impoverished painter it was not the completion of paintings that was important, but immersing himself in painting. This was the key to life. In this essay, Curtin invites the reader to contemplate what it means to live and to ask ourselves why we work. He tells us “For Vincent the answer was simple: reality. But reality is not given to us and is far from simple; we must create it in acts that penetrate the screens and clichés that wall us off from it.” One of the screens that Curtin had to penetrate was a slogan he was taught as a United States Marine: “my rifle is my life.” Curtin saw through the slogan, recognizing that being human meant to be a lover of life and being committed to waging peace.

In yet another essay, “The Sexual Passion of Winston Smith”, Curtin details the commodification of society, where everything can be bought and sold. As he speaks about the body’s commodification, Curtin reminds us that part of the body – “the tongue is a bell, tolling out its (language’s) meaning.”  It is finally the tongue that helps us in speech to “tell the truth that propagandists try to deny.”

In his book, the author offers suggestions for pointing a way forward that can help us search for truth in a landscape of falsehoods. One of these is poetry. He points out that citizens in Chile, Ireland and Russia know their national poets and can quote their works “by heart.” But in America poets and poetry are ignored. A new generation is too busy checking Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. But Curtin argues “Poetry is the search for truth. It marries outer to inner.” The best of what poetry can offer helps a society “address questions of value and ultimate concern…of truth and lies.” He contacts these with the “screen and selfie culture (where) these matters are irrelevant.”

In addition to truth and lies, Curtin points to myriad oddities that dot the landscape of America’s cultural past. Many of the rock n’ roll bands in the mid-sixties were viewed as part of a countercultural/anti-war protest movement against the establishment. There are books like one by Alex Constantine, The Covert War Against Rock, that document operations by the CIA and FBI to discredit and disrupt the lives of pop-rock stars identified as subversive. Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and others had extensive intelligence files on them. Constantine cites a leaked intelligence memorandum discussed in testimony before the Church Committee on April 26, 1976.

Regarding certain recording artists, the FBI wrote to its agents: “Show them as scurrilous and depraved. Call attention to their habits and living conditions, explore every possible embarrassment. Send in women and sex, break up marriages. Have members arrested on marijuana charges….Send articles to newspapers showing their depravity. Use narcotics and free sex to entrap. Use misinformation to confuse and disrupt….Provoke target groups into rivalries that may result in death.”

But was another arm of the intelligence community simultaneously grooming anti-establishment recording artists? In Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies Curtin notes that  Buffalo Springfield performed in concert, along with the Beach Boys, at the United States Military Academy at West Point, in Orange County, New York, on November 25, 1967. Curtin points out that this is “a very odd venue for a ‘dissident’ rock group.” Their Top Ten hit in the spring of ’67 – “For What It’s Worth” – invited radio listeners to consider, though it wasn’t “exactly clear”, what was “ appening,” to “stop,” and “look” at what was “going down.” How did members of the Buffalo Springfield feel about performing at the military academy when there were “battle lines being drawn?” And what an odd thing for cadets at West Point to be listening to lyrics that warn: “step out of line, the man come and take you away.”

Citing David McGowan’s Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon, Curtin notes that “Papa” John Philips of the Mamas and the Papas attended the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, and that his dad was a Marine Corps Captain. “John’s wife had worked at the Pentagon and her father was involved in covert intelligence in Vietnam.” The Doors Jim Morrison, a neighbor and friend of Philips, was the son of U.S. Navy Admiral George Morrison who was the commander of American Naval ships during the Gulf of Tonkin incident that accelerated the Vietnam War. Frank Zappa’s father happened to be a chemical warfare specialist.

Curtin notes others like David Crosby and Stephen Stills were also from military family backgrounds. And many of these young musicians all converged at Laurel Canyon. “Although they were draft age, none of them (were) drafted as they played music, dropped acid, and created the folk-rock movement…” Were these musicians’ part of intelligence community operations, as much as the agents who were harassing them? Or as David McGowan asks, was “the entire youth culture of the 1960s…created not as a grass-roots challenge to the status quo, but as a cynical exercise in discrediting and marginalizing the budding anti-war movement and creating a fake opposition that could be easily controlled and led astray…?”

With each chapter, Ed Curtin takes us into different rooms in the doll’s house, and helps us connect the dots. His stories and reflections – in an age of “fake news” are essential reading.

In the quest for truth, readers of Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies will be advised to take the road less travelled. This road requires we quiet our minds, and welcome silence. It is a road less travelled where each must ask what can I do to help transform our terrible, corrupt, beautiful world longing to be more human, just and peaceful.

Curtin does not intend for us as readers to simply finish his book unfazed. He hopes his chapters might rouse us to find ways to resist in this age of permanent war and oligarchy, in a world still longing for peace and justice.

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Ray McGinnis is author of Writing the Sacred. His forthcoming book is Unanswered Questions: What the September Eleventh Families Asked and the 9//11 Commission Ignored. 

Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies

Author: Edward Curtin

ISBN: 9781949762266

Published: 2020

Options: EBOOK – Epub and Kindle, paper, PDF

Click here to order.

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The United States is returning to a level of activity in the Middle East unseen in nearly 4 years. This development has become obvious over the weeks since Joe Biden became US President, firstly with a large deployment into Syria, and subsequently with smaller ones.

On February 9th, the Pentagon said that it was no longer in Syria to protect and exploit oil fields.

It is now back to hunting ISIS. Back to the square one of 2014 and the Obama era. ISIS somehow obliged by ramping up their activities throughout Syria.

It is a mystery that they were able to make such a sharp and sudden resurgence. It should also be noted that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces allegedly have about 10,000 ISIS terrorists imprisoned.

This statement of intent denotes a massive shift in posture for the US.  When defending the oil fields the US troops were mostly static, when hunting ISIS they can, once again, roam around and carry out various operations.

It appears likely that Idlib is now also in focus – US combat drones were observed surveying Greater Idlib. Idlib is a mixed bag – it has Turkish troops, Russians, the Syrian Arab Army along with terrorists and the moderate opposition, although confusing these two groups can be forgiven. The newest, future, US ally is there – the soon-to-be-rebranded Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.

An indication of expected escalations and attacks are the Russian and Syrian military drills being carried out near Aleppo during effective wartime. Russia, separately, carried out a naval drill near Tartus.

And, as if by design, long-range missiles attempted to strike Russia’s forces at the Hmeimim Air Base. Drones occasionally attempt to infiltrate its airspace, but missiles are a rare sight.

Meanwhile in Western Daraa, the rebel leaders submitted to Damascus, likely fearing the upcoming chaos and wanting to choose a side.

Finally, the Biden administration is also working to secure Israeli support. The State Department said it doesn’t endorse Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, but doesn’t oppose it. It also provided a $9bn weapon sale as consolation. Tel Aviv is likely to use these weapons to counter its nemesis – Iran. It does so by targeting alleged Iranian interests in Syria.

Syria remains the lynchpin of US Middle East policy but the US posture in Iraq and Afghanistan has also changed. Withdrawing from the region is now out of the question – ISIS is making a resurgence, and there are other groups targeting American forces and convoys.

In Afghanistan, specifically, if the withdrawal does not move forward, the Taliban are also likely to begin targeting the US again.

The democrats are back in control and back to spreading democracy in the Middle East.

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RFK, Jr.’s Instagram account was deplatformed Wednesday. Dozens of media outlets reported the censorship, saying the account was removed over “vaccine misinformation,” a characterization Kennedy unequivocally rejected.

Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Instagram account was deplatformed without advanced notice. Dozens of media outlets reporting on this censorship asserted the account was removed over “false COVID vaccine claims” or “vaccine misinformation.” Some reports referred to Kennedy as an “anti-vaxxer.”

Kennedy, founder, chairman and chief legal counsel of Children’s Health Defense,” unequivocally rejects those characterizations as false and misleading.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD), including Kennedy, advocates for vaccine safety and health freedom. CHD’s mission is to end childhood health epidemics by exposing the causes, eliminating harmful exposures, holding those responsible accountable and seeking justice for those harmed.

As Kennedy has said many times, for a democracy to function, civil debate of issues —  including vaccine science — must be allowed. Censorship of that debate is anathema to democracy.

Kennedy and Mary Holland, CHD president and general counsel, issued the following statements on Instagram’s removal of Kennedy’s account:

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Chairman of Children’s Health Defense, said:

“Every statement I put on Instagram was sourced from a government database, from peer-reviewed publications and from carefully confirmed news stories. None of my posts were false. Facebook, the pharmaceutical industry and its captive regulators use the term ‘vaccine misinformation’ as a euphemism for any factual assertion that departs from official pronouncements about vaccine health and safety, whether true or not. This kind of censorship is counterproductive if our objective is a safe and effective vaccine supply.

“The pharmaceutical industry is hastily creating vaccines using taxpayer money and untested technologies. These include a rash of risky new products that are exempt from liability, from long-term safety testing and that have not received FDA approval. Emergency Use Authorization is a mass population scientific experiment. If it has any prayer of working, it will require extraordinary scrutiny from the press and the public.

“Instead, the mainstream media and social media giants are imposing a totalitarian censorship to prevent public health advocates, like myself, from voicing concerns and from engaging in civil informed debate in the public square. They are punishing, shaming, vilifying, gaslighting and abolishing individuals who report their own vaccine injuries.

“Anyone can see that this is a formula for catastrophe and a coup d’état against the First Amendment, the foundation stone of American democracy.”

Mary Holland, President of Children’s Health Defense, said:

“Freedom of expression is the cornerstone of democracy. Children’s Health Defense and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. provide critically needed information on environmental culprits, including vaccines, that are linked to many chronic diseases that now affect 54% of America’s children. Dr. Anthony Fauci has made it clear that young children will be included in COVID-19 vaccination plans even though children have almost zero risk of serious COVID-19 illness. CHD feels strongly that children should not take on 100% risks of vaccine injuries with 0% benefit.

“The sad reality is vaccine injuries can and do happen. The U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database has more than 11,500 COVID-19 vaccine adverse event reports including more than 500 deaths in just six weeks since the vaccination campaign began. Why would Instagram censor Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s platform and call it ‘misinformation’? Why now?

“Instagram deplatformed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Hirewire host, Del Bigtree, just 15 minutes before they were to air the webinar, ‘COVID Vaccine on Trial, If You Only Knew’ highlighting COVID concerns, injuries, mechanisms and other facts from four MDs, several Ph.D.s and leaders from the vaccine-injured community. COVID-19 vaccines use novel technology never before used in a human population. With that comes great unknown risks. The people of the world deserve to have this crucial information to protect their health and that of their children.”

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The joists and beams that hold U.S. democracy are not as flexible as they appear, writes Scott Ritter. They are the byproduct of societal passion of two political parties and are on the brink of failure. 

The fact of the matter is that politics—at least how it is practiced in the United States—is more about perception than reality. The nuance associated with lawmaking, the arcane art of manufacturing the rules and regulations that hold society together, are hidden and therefore unknown to the vast majority of those who participate in the electoral processes that are the hallmark of American democracy.

Most Americans have not taken the time to follow a bill as it makes it way through the legislative process. Instead, they may hear about it at its inception, and then, if the bill is adopted, watch as the Executive signs it into law. They get the headline version—what the brokers of “truth” in the media opt to say about the legislation, and not what it really represents:  an amalgam of special interest money sprinkled with a modicum of societal need, want or desire.

Americans get their news like a baby bird gets its meal—waiting for a “mother” figure to digest it and then regurgitate it down their collective throats. They are not informed so much as shaped, the byproduct of a system that is built on manufactured consent derived from half-truths, myths and outright lies.

For politics to work in a nation as large and complex as the United States, there must be a rock-solid foundation upon which everyone operates. This role is served by the Constitution, the document which provides foundational principles that guide everything that follows. Adherence to the Constitution is mandatory if everything else that follows is to have a chance at success.

But even here, the perception of law-and-order masks a grim reality that the rules collectively embraced as “constitutional” are every bit as partisan as the politics Americans pretend are removed from their system of “blind” justice. For a rule to have meaning, it must be widely embraced as viable and fair.

In a system where the final arbiter of the rules is a panel of nine justices whose selection is predicated on the whims of a partisan political elite, the result of many of the most controversial decisions about the very rules that govern society come down to a narrow 5-4 vote, which means that while five justices believe that something is “constitutional”, there are four who do not. If that which divides the two sides is merely an interpretation of legal nuance, then this disparity is irrelevant—the underlying legal principle holds.

But when the deviation is significant, to the point that the difference represents a fundamental disagreement, then the law it portends to uphold itself becomes divisive. When something as supposedly as black and white as constitutional law comes down to a single vote by a highly politicized body, the reality is that the foundation it underpins is far more fragile than anyone realizes.

On top of this shaky foundation of politicized principle Americans have constructed an edifice of governance which is not nearly as solid as they would like to believe. The joists and beams that hold American democracy together are not as flexible as they appear. Like the Supreme Court, they are the byproduct of a bi-polar reality of societal passion contained in the vehicle of two political parties—Republican and Democrat—which must work in harmony if the building is to withstand the storms that periodically sweep across the landscape.

A Unifying Concept

America was born from a revolution which manifested itself from the failure of the British system of colonialism, and further shaped by a Civil War where a divided nation had to be reformed into a union not through an expression of democratic will, but rather prodded along by the tip of a bayonet. In both Revolution and Civil War, it was the perception that the system of governance had failed the people, rather than the reality, that inflamed the masses.

The Pennsylvania farmer who marched to Boston in 1775, like the Pennsylvania farmer who marched on Richmond in 1865, was not versed in the political complexities that defined the side he was fighting for. These men fought for a unifying concept, a belief constructed more from passion than fact. For this concept to succeed, there needed to be a fundamental core of agreement, with the space between the differences that naturally arise when dealing with independently thinking humans kept as small as possible.

It is this space that is the key to the success, and ultimately survival, of the great American experiment in democracy. Here, Newton’s Third Law of Physics applies in full force—for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. American democracy is not a singular entity operating on its own, but rather formed from millions of threads of beliefs and passions that have come together in harmony.

These threads work if they operate on the same—or similar—wavelength, bending this way and that in relative unison. There can be pushing and shoving, but the harmonic holds so long as the resistance is minimal.

Broken Harmony

This notion fails, however, when the threads start to collide significantly—a strong push gets an equally strong pushback. The harmony is broken, and the weave of the threads unravels. So long as the American political parties served as a buffer to the passions and beliefs of their constituent threads, harmony could be sustained. To do this, the parties need to operate from the same sheet of music, directed by the same conductor.

A unifying narrative must be maintained to shape the perception of the people. When competing narratives exist, they must adhere to a similar core concept, or else risk being torn apart by the destructive echo produced by the space between.

The concept of a “stolen election” is the antithesis of the model of a free and fair election that underpins American democracy. For the supporters of Donald Trump, the events of Jan. 6 did not occur in a vacuum but were rather the culmination of what they believed to be a four-year campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the president they voted for and, by doing so, disenfranchising not only their vote, but by extension their role as citizens.

The collapse of the Russian collusion allegations is, today, historic fact. The recent declassification of additional documents related to the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation targeting the Trump campaign only reinforce what most Trump supporters had come to firmly believe—that the FBI, working in concert with the Obama administration and sympathetic Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans (John McCain comes to mind), sought to manufacture a narrative that could sustain the perception of Trump-Russian collusion in an effort to prevent Trump from prevailing in November 2016 or, failing that, serve as the basis of undermining his presidency going forward.

The persecution of Carter Paige, the politicization of the Steele Dossier, and the failure of the Mueller investigation have all been well documented, while the issue of legal culpability regarding the various Constitutional abuses associated with these, and other, activities may never be finalized.

In the end, the lack of legal finality misses the point. In the minds of Trump’s many supporters, there was clear and incontrovertible proof that the establishment was conspiring to suborn the victory they had achieved at the polls. The drawn out political drama that was the Democrats’ first effort to remove Trump from office through the vehicle of impeachment only reinforced this conclusion.

Justice or Revenge?

The events of Jan. 6 represent the culminating moment where the disharmony of American politics brought on by the unbridgeable gap between those citizens whom Trump said he had empowered as the guardians of American democracy in his January 2017 inaugural address, and those citizens who had, since 2017, been struggling to undermine Trump, created a harmonic whose echo tore down the edifice of American democracy.

As fervently as the Democrats and their “never Trump” allies in the Republican Party believe that Trump and his supporters represent a clear and present danger to American democracy, so, too, do the supporters of Trump view those who conspired to undo the will of the people as expressed in a free and fair election as enemies of the state.

These perceptions remain valid in the minds of tens of millions of Americans as they watch the second impeachment trial of Trump get underway. Some view the proceedings as necessary justice; others as an act of political revenge. There is no common ground, and no outcome—either conviction or acquittal—will change that.

Joe Biden supporters will have four years to try and repair the institution of American democracy, but for all the rhetoric of unity, the impending second impeachment trial of Trump provides living proof that there remains a deep and dark divide between those who support the 46^th president, and those who continue to support his predecessor—and never the two shall meet.

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Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.

Featured image is from Joe Lauria/Consortiumnews

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It must have been a winter resident of upstate New York who set Valentine’s Day in mid-February. Because this is our time of year when we really need a lover to wrap around our arms and legs, snuggling up, nibbling chocolates, blossoms on bedside table.

Notwithstanding this conditional single day, February is a downer. Can’t blame it on Covid; February is always a nothing-28 days, so arrogant it demands we endure it for an additional 24 hours every four years. I’m speaking not politically, not ecologically but weatherwise. Weather is what demands almost all my energy after two months asserting itself indoors and outside.

February is an utter vacuum that sucks up everything delightful about winter and obliterates any hint of sweet fragrances that might follow. I glare at spindly, brown branches crowding the hillsides daring them to sprout a single leaf again.

I admit, January’s winter can be pretty. Soothingly silent too; nothing matches moonlight on glistening snow. We’ve had glorious sunny mornings when we’re deceived that the entire world is at peace, blanketed in gentle fluff.

Almost daily, if a bald eagle doesn’t swoop low over the river, I spot one perched high above threads of running water.

I meet a neighbor at my library who eagerly opens her phone to share a snapshot of meter-long icicles hanging from her roof. (We used to break them off and suck at them. Do kids do that today?)

It’s fun to hear children gleefully leaping into the drifts, with ‘Rover’ clumsily stumbling around them. Despite the mess they trail indoors it’s a deserving break from Covid confinement.

But that’s all I concede. There’s treacherous ice under those narrow pathways of packed snow. An uninterrupted slab of ice is firmly embedded into those steps, around the car, along the walk, up the curbside to the pharmacy, grocery store, post office. My car, if accessible at all, is spattered with mud and salt, inside and out.

No stranger to this climate, I prepared for winter: ordered a face cord of firewood early so logs would dry by December; hauled garden stuff inside; plugged door hinges with felt strips; inspected the roof; stretched plastic across single plate windows. Yes, everything’s secure.

But this—this– can’t go on past February. I felt heartened a week ago, noticing a change in the arch of the sun. It rises over the eastern hillside at 8:30 now, an hour earlier than last month, and I follow its glow above the edge of the hill behind me until it slips away at 3. This surely signals winter’s end.

But no. Our nights seem colder as we move through this endless February. A blizzard arrives every four days, a nasty reminder it’s not over, not for two additional months, maybe 10 weeks. Perhaps longer.

We can’t let down our guard—can’t step into the winter sun without bundling up, without mittens and a hat; can’t put away those extra blankets or clean out the mud room; can’t not repair the humidifier.

I see a flash of red on the tedious white. It’s a rose-breasted grosbeak! Perhaps the red crossbill? A squawking bluebird distracts me as I rush out to top up the birdfeeder.

From Facebook I grab a photo of a crazed looking snow-he/she, an ideal companion to my Valentine ode to February.

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BN Aziz whose anthropological research has focused on the peoples of the Himalayas is the author of the newly published “Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”, available on Amazon. 

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Anyone traveling to Britain from a country on the government’s ‘red list’ must quarantine in a hotel (which they will have to pay for), and have THREE COVID tests, under draconian new laws being implemented by the government.

The unprecedented and sweeping new rules were announced by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who said that he makes ‘no apologies’ for such severe measures.

From Monday anyone entering the country will have to pass three PCR tests in order to be allowed any freedom inside the country after they have completed a ten day quarantine at a government selected hotel, at a cost of almost two thousand pounds.

Security guards will be stationed throughout the hotels, with police on standby if those inside try to leave before their release date.

Hancock said that anyone caught breaking their quarantine could be fined ten thousand pounds, while anyone caught lying about coming from a COVID ‘hotspot’ could be jailed for up to a decade.

Even those not coming from one of the 33 ‘red list’ countries, and arriving from elsewhere, will have to test negative before being allowed to travel, then quarantine at their home address for ten days and allow authorities to ‘check that they are obeying the rules’.

COVID tests, which cost more than £100 each, will be required on day two and day eight of isolation, and must be booked through a new government portal in advance of travel, according to the new law.

If the tests are positive, a further ten day quarantine will be mandated.

Failure to comply with the testing will incur fines of £1,000 the first time, and £2,000 the second time.

Hancock noted “This includes a £1,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take a mandatory test, a £2,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take the second mandatory test, as well as automatically extending their quarantine period to 14 days, and a £5,000 fixed penalty notice – rising to £10,000 – for arrivals who fail to quarantine in a designated hotel.”

Anyone hoping to escape the crackdown via booking travel through a budget or less thorough carrier will likely be disappointed as Hancock announced that “Passenger carriers will have a duty in law to make sure that passengers have signed up for these new arrangements before they travel, and will be fined if they don’t.”

However, an aviation source told reporters yesterday “We’re completely in the dark. We don’t know yet whether the Government will want us to deny boarding,” to people who haven’t presented test results or booked into a quarantine hotel.

Airports in the UK have also expressed concern about how the rules will be enforced, with a Heathrow spokesman noting “ministers need to work with industry to establish how this policy will actually be implemented at the border.”

Border staff have also said they have not been told anything, with one immigration officer noting “This is all likely to be honesty-based though. Short of us physically getting off the arrivals desks and phoning the hotels to check that those individuals have booked into them, we have no way of confirming.”

Hancock gave no indication of how long the new laws would remain in place, however members of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) have suggested that lockdowns could last for “several years”.

Conservative MPs who oppose the current nation-wide restrictions slammed Hancock in the House of Commons, warning that the country faces a ‘forever lockdown’.

MP Mark Harper asked “When is this policy going to end, if ever? Because if the virus continues to mutate, surely the risk is going to be there forever and so when can it be removed?”

SAGE has also suggested that in addition to the forced quarantines, those entering Britain, including citizens could be tracked using the GPS on mobile phones.

The notion was previously raised by a Conservative MP last month.

Conservative MP Calls for GPS Tracking of Quarantined Britons https://t.co/Lg0Q0HP8LA

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 27, 2021

What in God's name will Tier 5 be? Are they going to tag us all with electronic ankle bracelets?

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) January 4, 2021

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The supreme appeal of Corbynism consisted in its faith in the primacy of the public over the machinery of power, rehabilitating a solidarity amidst grassroots society destroyed by the reaping of Thatcher.

It was an agenda for the liberation of the masses from elite domination, a programme for the nationalisation of power, and made enemies of some of the most powerful corporate ambassadors on earth, provoking rebuke and opprobrium in establishment media. Corbynism was a formidable, visceral challenge to the authoritarian politics of a transnational financial elite, whose lobbying influence over domestic legislative agendas has eroded the democratic role of public reason and made public sovereignty an anachronism. The battle between left and right for hegemony in Labour is symbolic of the struggle of the public for true sovereignty in an age of corporate domination.

Corporations are the kings of modernity. Like royalty in the age of feudalism, they possess vast resources for social control. In the information age, our vassalage derives from the fact corporations have proprietorship of a global telecommunications infrastructure, which is harnessed for anti democratic purposes like surveillance and propaganda dissemination. The wisdom of the revolutionary cypherpunk movement consists in the recognition that in order for technology to be progressive, it ought to be administered and run by a sovereign public. The dominance of corporations over algorithms builds up automation as a tool to support the infrastructure of capitalism.

Politicians disloyal to the public good acquiesce in the elite agenda and betray the national interest to enrich the few, whilst feigning a politics of solidarity. The foremost symbol of elitism at the moment is UK Labour leader Kier Starmer, who is shutting down people power in the party, a threat to elites which smashed the tight neoliberal consensus grafted by New Labour. Kier Starmer cut his teeth as a City lawyer in circles adept at using their education to innoculate privilege, and he has become a loyal ally of power, developing prestige by courting networks of establishment actors. Starmer espouses a conservative line on national security that exalts the role of the intelligence apparatus, which ostensibly exists to defend the polity from fatal threats to its liberal way of life. In all truth the intelligence apparatus has a more Machiavellian function, existing to protect the crown from threats to its hegemony.

Because intelligence is not a witness to the social contract, liberated of the standards of the ethical code to which most citizens abide, it is an existential threat to democracy that subverts the constitution with impunity. The astronomical power of the military intelligence complex in modern society has spawned the genesis of what is called the “deep state,” a dubious entity of perverse influence that defends the empire’s incumbent powers against the threat of true democracy. The transnational structure of the deep state empowers it to indulge programmes that violate domestic laws which protect civil liberties, and its mission corrupts public office.

Kier Starmer has proven himself a loyal ally of the deep state, foregoing genuine opposition to unethical legislation that protects perpetrators of crimes against humanity working for the higher echelons of the state from prosecution. Starmer has forfeited solidarity with humanitarian concern for obedience to the current order of power, for which he is rewarded with good press that whitewashes his complicity in oppression. Jeremy Corbyn defined himself in rebellion against the agenda of corporate oligarchy, whereas Starmer’s validity in the eyes of the establishment consists in his refusal to challenge institutions and cultures of privilege.

Starmer is a second generation Blair who only courts social justice within the dishonest parameters of tokenism. His power games have attacked Labour’s internal democracy and augmented his status as a dictator of party policy. His moral fibre – or lack thereof – as a leader can be gauged by his patronage of the military intelligence establishment. In an age when sovereign democracy is threatened by the deep state, Starmer has demonstrated that he is on the side of narrow imperial power. Under his leadership Labour has ceased to be a leader of righteous protest.

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A short squeeze frenzy driven by a new generation of gamers captured financial headlines in recent weeks, centered on a struggling strip mall video game store called GameStop. The Internet and a year off in this shut down to study up have given a younger generation of investors the tools to compete in the market. Gerald Celente calls it the “Youth Revolution.” A group of New York Young Republicans who protested in the snow on January 31 called it “Re-occupy Wall Street.” Others have called it  Occupy Wall Street 2.0. 

The populist uprising against Wall Street goes back farther, however, than to the 2010 Occupy movement. In the late 19th century, the country was suffering from a depression nearly as severe as the Great Depression of the 1930s. Kansas populist leader Mary Elizabeth Lease declared in a fiery speech in 1890:

Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.

Wall Street still owns the country. Millions of people have been forced out of work, while billionaires have doubled their money in the stock market. But a new generation of “retail” stock market traders is fighting back. (“Retail” traders are individuals trading for their own accounts as opposed to institutional investors.) Occupy Wall Street succeeded in raising awareness of the issues and putting a spotlight on the villains: the chief fault for the subprime crisis and 2008 crash was not with the defaulting homeowners but was with the banks. The Wall Street bankers, however, were not much fazed by the protests on the streets outside their windows. Not until January 2021 was Wall Street actually “occupied,” with millions of small traders landing a multibillion-dollar blow to at least a few of the mighty Wall Street hedge funds. GameStop was the most heavily shorted stock on the market, and the losing hedge funds were on the short end of the stick.

The Short Squeeze

“Short selling” works like this: an investor borrows shares from a broker middleman and immediately sells them, hoping to buy them back later at a lower price, return them to the broker, and pocket the difference. The trade, however, is quite risky. If the shorted stock keeps going up, the shorter’s potential loss is unlimited. “Covering” the short position by buying the shares at the higher price and returning them to the lender will result in a loss. But if the shorter fails to cover, the broker will eventually demand more collateral as protection against its own potential losses.

“Naked” short-selling involves selling stock without borrowing it. Naked short-selling is illegal, but the regulation is not well enforced; and in this case short-sellers had sold 40% more GameStop shares than were in existence. That made the short sellers extremely vulnerable to a “short squeeze.” WallStreetBets, a Reddit social media forum that then had 2.7 million members (a number that has since risen to about 8 million) called the shorters’ bluff and bought furiously, using a game-like trading app called “Robinhood.” The hedge funds had to buy the shares back to cover at the new price, further driving the stock up; and other players, seeing the action, jumped in. This is what is known as a “short squeeze” – driving the shorters to buy before the stock is out of reach. The WallStreetBets short squeeze drove the GameStop stock price up nearly 900% in five days, to around $380 on January 27. The 52-week low before that was $2.57.

Legally, traders cannot engage in “market manipulation,” but the term is poorly defined and the rule is poorly enforced. Hedge funds are reported to hold “idea dinners” where they get together and pitch each other on their favorite trades. As pointed out in a Peak Prosperity interview with financial researcher Jim Bianco, the big players routinely act together. Wall Street has been run as a cartel, and the house always wins; or at least it did until recently.

Bianco explained that formerly, small traders lacked the tools to compete. They lacked the knowledge base, the money to buy full shares of the higher priced stocks, and the time needed to study the market. But in the last two decades, technical advances have given the “little guys” connectivity and access to market information. And in 2020, forced lockdowns gave them the time to sit in front of their computers studying the market and playing it, while stimulus payments gave them some extra cash to play with. New game-like online trading apps such as Robinhood, billed as “democratizing” investing, waived commissions. The purchase of fractional shares was allowed, and social media groups such as WallStreetBets shared investment information and strategies with each other.

The “little guys” learned how to use the rigged stock market system to beat the big boys at their own game. By January 30, short-sellers had lost an estimated $19 billion on GameStop alone, and other heavily shorted stocks were hit as well. Hedge funds lost over $70 billion in January 2021, with GameStop jumping 1000% the last week of the month.

The Empire Strikes Back

Predictably, on January 28 the game came to a screeching halt. Robinhood restricted trades of GameStop and other shorted stocks, allowing investors to settle their trades but not make new purchases. GameStop closed down 44%. This market manipulation appeared to be so blatantly in favor of Goliath against David that congressional representatives from both sides of the aisle protested. Rather than a left/right issue or a racial issue, it was a class issue, one that has fortuitously served to align the 99% on all sides of the political spectrum.

By February 2, the GameStop stock price had plummeted to $97, and hedge fund losses dropped to $13 billion, half of what they were the previous week but still a serious hit. Some retail investors had struck it big, and used the proceeds to pay student loans or rent or mortgages; but others, those who bought or sold last, lost big. The rule is to invest no more than you can afford to lose, but some desperate gamers may have unfortunately learned that lesson the hard way.

According to the message boards, however, for other players it was not chiefly about making money on a single trade. It was an uprising, a show of force against a Wall Street behemoth that had destroyed small businesses, turned families out of their homes, and robbed young people of the “American dream.” In a February 6 post titled “This Is for You, Dad,” Matt Taibbi recounts the touching tales of young people whose parents’ lives were ruined by the 2008 crash, who were willing to risk their own money to see justice done.

In that sense it is an emotionally satisfying “Robinhood” tale, but it has a dark side. Pam and Russ Martens point out that the short squeeze was not actually a spontaneous, grassroots uprising. It was coordinated by a “sophisticated” trader in the Reddit sub-group, whose trading license forbids that sort of practice.

He could be in trouble with his employer or his licensing board, but the larger WallStreetBets group does not seem to have been guilty of “market manipulation” as usually defined. The group did not engage in fraudulent activity; for example, a “pump and dump” scheme based on false advertising of a product. The Reddit group was not conspiring behind closed doors to commit fraud. They were quite open about what they were doing, and there is nothing illegal about advocating the purchase of a stock, something investor newsletters do routinely. GameStop was a beloved retail store of the young traders, and they wanted to save it from the marauding hedge funds. As Jill Carlson observed on Yahoo.com:

When hedge fund managers get together and share insights and ideas, it is all in the name of moving towards a more efficient free market. Yet, when the online mob of retail traders comes to consensus about which stock is worth buying, they are considered by some to be artificially pumping the name and manipulating the market.

And there’s the rub. The disruption of the market caused by the WallStreetBets play could be the rationale for new regulations that hurt retail investors. It could also be another excuse to shut down free speech on the Internet and social media. And as Whitney Webb points out, it was not just a battle of David versus Goliath but one of hedge fund against hedge fund. The biggest winners included some of the most notorious Wall Street institutions – BlackRock, J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. They saw what was happening, bought early, bought big, and sold near the top. BlackRock made a staggering 700% on its trades.

In a February 9 article, Pam and Russ Martens show that the biggest winners were high-frequency program traders. They jumped in front of the WallStreetBets trades using sophisticated algorithms feeding on data provided by Robinhood and other trading platforms. Lance Roberts argues that Wall Street won again.

The Power of the People

So what was achieved by the GameStop short squeeze? Financial analyst Wolf Richter contends:

What all this shows, for all to see, is just how massively the stock market has been manipulated, from the Fed on down. Most of these manipulations attempt to manipulate prices up. But some manipulations are aimed at pushing prices down. What the millions of people conspiring on WallStreetBets to exact their pound of flesh accomplished was nevertheless enormous: They showed for all to see just how completely broken the stock market is.

True, but they showed more than that. They showed that the 99%, if organized and acting in concert, have the tools to overwhelm the 1%. Information, communication, and collective action are key.

The American people acting together have beaten the financial elite before. In the 18th century, it was London bankers who held the British colonies in financial bondage. The American colonists broke free by issuing their own paper currencies. The colony of Pennsylvania and then Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton refined that system by establishing publicly-owned banks that extended the credit of the colony and then of the nation; and Abraham Lincoln’s government avoided a 30% interest rate by reviving the colonial practice of issuing debt-free, interest-free paper currency.

The 19th century movement against Wall Street largely faded after Populist and Democratic Party candidate William Jennings Bryan lost to Republican candidate William McKinley in the 1896 and 1900 presidential elections. But a remnant of the Midwest movement triumphed in 1919, when the Non-Partisan League (NPL) was formed in protest against widespread foreclosures on North Dakota farms. The NPL won a statewide election and beat Wall Street at its own game by establishing a state-owned bank. The Bank of North Dakota cut out the Wall Street middlemen and partnered with local community banks; and by 2014, according to the Wall Street Journal, it was more profitable than either J.P. Morgan Chase or Goldman Sachs.

We the people need to recapture our local and national governments and regulators. If we had a popular nonpartisan government that put the public interest above the Corporatocracy, we could do remarkable things as a nation. Congress could even follow Lincoln in exercising its constitutional right to mint some very large coins, perhaps $1 trillion each, buy a controlling interest in some major corporations (Amazon? The New York Times? Some pharmaceutical or energy or telecommunications giants?), and distribute the dividends to the people. The public acting together is Goliath. E pluribus unum: strength in unity.

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Ellen Brown is an attorney, chair of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books including Web of Debt, The Public Bank Solution, and Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age.  She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com. 

She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). A mobile version is forthcoming.

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The visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Tehran in January 2016 laid the foundations for a future partnership agreement.  He stated that he sought to open a “new chapter” in China’s relations with Iran.  The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, “The Islamic Republic will never forget China’s cooperation during the sanctions era.”

In July 2020, ‘New York Times’ reported it had acquired an 18-page document titled, ‘Iran-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’, which concluded a long-term trade and military negotiations between China and Iran – and would see China invest $400 billion over the next 25 years in Iran.

It would “vastly expand Chinese presence in banking, telecommunications, ports, railways and dozens of other projects” and allow China to receive Iranian oil at a reduced price in order meet its growing energy needs.  The opening statement of the document reads, “Two ancient Asian cultures, two partners in the sectors of trade, economy, politics, culture and security with a similar outlook and many mutual bilateral and multilateral interests will consider one another strategic partners.”

There are many benefits for Iran with the partnership.  Although not a member of the strategic Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which includes Iran’s neighbour, Pakistan, the potential for increased opportunities with China with the current arrangement makes achieving SCO membership less of a priority.  In return for cheaper Iranian oil exports and other concessions, China injects billions of dollars into its struggling economy.  China is now Iran’s largest trade partner, its largest oil purchaser, and its largest foreign investor.  With Iran’s economic isolation due to American led sanctions, China provides a much-needed lifeline.

The ‘Iran-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ agreement has caused considerable alarm for America.   China may be seen as undermining America’s plan to isolate Iran and this places China on a direct collision course with America.   When the Trump administration pulled America out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’, in 2018, it imposed stricter sanctions on Iran, threatening countries with punishment if they did any business with Iran.

Previously, one of the main factors constraining China’s relationship with Iran may have been the attitude of America.  In July 2020, the American based ‘Center for Strategic and International Studies’ had argued that the enhanced partnership could be the prelude to a serious Chinese challenge to the American position in both the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean region.  China is now defying America’s position on Iran.

In December 2020, ‘The Wall Street Journal”, claimed Iran had circumvented American led sanctions and “exported more oil to China and other countries in recent months, providing a lifeline for its struggling economy and undermining the Trump administration’s so-called maximum pressure campaign against Tehran.”  On 26 January 2021, the Chinese newspaper, ‘Global Times’ reported that China’s top legislator, Li Zhanshu, called for closer ties with Iran, “China stands ready to work with Iran to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state and promote the continued development of the China-Iran comprehensive strategic partnership.”

Some observers argue American obsession with Iran is about securing access to Iran’s abundant resources, oil and natural gas – and without a compliant Iranian leadership, this is difficult.  America has implemented many measures to create the conditions to bring about the right leadership.  Strict and severe crippling economic sanctions against the people of Iran in the midst of a global pandemic remains in place.  This has the potential to create the conditions for civil unrest that could see the Iranian leadership fall.  The sanctions amount to one of America’s many ruthless and vicious policies in the Middle East.

In 2017, writer and journalist, Andrew Buncombe, penned an article for the British newspaper, ‘The Independent’ – and probably summed up the opinion of many.  Describing the impact of American intervention and policies in the Middle East he argued, “millions of people’s lives have been turned upside down, Isis has been allowed to fester and spread, and Iraq is a nation at risk of fracturing apart.  Moreover, an untold number of innocent civilians have been killed – by disease, illness, in gruesome tortures performed by local and foreign insurgents, and by the US and UK-led military campaign.”

With regards to the behaviour of China and Iran, there is widespread global outrage over horrifying reports of China’s treatment of Muslim Uyghurs, which includes claims of genocide, systemic rape, mass incarceration, slave labour and forced sterilisation – and Iran is the cause of destabilisation in the Middle East, it has been argued.

At the start of this year, Reuters reported Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab and America’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken were in talks regarding how to deal with Iran’s “destabilising behaviour” and to hold China to its international commitments.  America’s National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, asserted China, Afghanistan and Iran key priorities for the new administration.

Earlier this month, the US President Joe Biden confirmed America would not lift its economic sanctions on Iran in order to get Tehran back to the negotiating table to discuss how to revive the ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’. Iran’s leadership has demanded America lift all sanctions before any negotiations take place.

China has been crucial in assisting Iran escape deep isolation and rejoin the global economy through the conclusion of the ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’.  With its multi-dimensional partnership with Iran, China presents a direct challenge to America.  Both nations risk falling into the deadly ‘Thucydides’s Trap’ – and Iran could become the battleground between a rapidly ascending power and an established power.

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Shahbazz Afzal is an independent writer and political activist.

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Washington’s North Korea policy was designed to change the Juche regime and eliminate the nuclear threat of Pyongyang.

But, the policy of regime change has failed because of wrong strategies. Washington has relied on harsh and hostile strategy which has rather strengthened the Juche regime. The sun-shine policy could have done better.

Moreover, Washington’s policy of denuclearization of North Korea has also failed because of mutual mistrust and North Korea demonization.

If Biden wishes to succeed with his North Korea policy, he should revise the very philosophy of its North Korea policy; he should better understand North Korea in the light of more objective information about the country; he should accept North Koreans as normal people; he should free himself from North Korea demonization.

Joe Biden became the 46th president of the U.S. on January 20, 2021. Few would envy him. He will have the glory and power, but the weight of his glory and power might be easily outweighed by the heavy burden of solving immediate problems left unsolved by Trump.

His immediate challenges are several. His has to continue the difficult fight against the pandemic. He has to restore the torn economy. Both tasks are mission quasi impossible. They require innovative imagination, bold determination, a lot of resources, and especially people’s trust in the government. Before anything else, Biden needs sustained cooperation of the people. But, the violent revolt of people in Washington on January 6 demonstrates the width and the depth of the division of the American people. The biggest challenge for Biden is the unification of the people and unified popular cooperation.

But, the unified cooperation of the American people for the fight against the corona-virus and the revival of the economy is not easy because of American people’s cumulated dissatisfaction with political and economic leadership of Washington. The pro-business policy has widened the income gap between the rich and the poor and killed the American dream. The racial discrimination remains unsolved. The mass killing on the street is a daily event.

The insurrection of January 6 shows the frustration and the anger of a significant part of American white population who are the victims of high technology, neo-liberal free trade and the corruption culture in Washington. They are in a way alienated people; they are the people who have lost the American dream. They shout “We want the country back!”, that is, a country where their voice was heard; this is the war cry of the white supremacy group. As long as Trumpism is around, this group will make noise and threaten the American society.

Given the size of its economy, the U.S. could have solved these internal problems. But, leaders have not solved them.  Why did Washington fail to solve these problems? The obvious reason is the never ending war and Washington’s global police role which has not been always solicited. The war and the global police work of Washington have prevented the government from investing adequate resources for the solution of the internal problems. Leaders in Washington should ask themselves to what extent the war and global police work has imposed hardship on the American people.

It is about the time for Biden to reduce investments in making wars in the name of global order; it is not too early for Biden to allocate more resources to the solution of internal problems. In fact, Biden in his speech of February 5, 2021 on foreign policy promised such policy. It is sincerely hoped that he will succeed with this policy.

Trump and Kim meet Sunday before Trump became first US president to step on North Korean territory. (White House photo)

It is also the time for ending 70-year old irritating issue of North Korean crisis. In fact, Biden could be the first American leader who can bring shining peace on the Korean peninsula, if he so desires. He is surely one of the American presidents who know well foreign relations. And, Kim Jong-un is ready to negotiate with Biden for the final solution; this is indicated in his speech at the 8th congress of the Workers Party of Korea held in Pyongyang on January 5-12, 2021.

In his concluding speech, Kim Jong-un made three meaningful points. First, the peace dialogue with Trump was a big success in improving the image of North Korea. Second, the U.S. remains the chief obstacle and enemy to the development of North Korea. Third, he would deal “power with power and good with good” (강대강 선대선). Here, we can read Kim Jong-un’s mind. He is ready to continue the peace negotiations but as equal negotiating partner. However, this requires mutual trust and respect which were made possible by President Moon Jae-in’s mediation role at the Trump-Kim dialogue. President Moon will leave his office in 2022. Hence, Washington and Pyongyang should make real efforts to dissipate the mutual mistrust and even hatred cumulated over decades.

Moreover, to succeed with his North Korea policy, Biden should clarify its objectives. Officially, Washington’s North Korea policy is to make Korea more open and more democratic nation on the one hand and, on the other, assure regional security by denuclearizing North Korea. But both policies have failed.

But, is it a really a failure? In South Korea, there are those experts in North Korean affairs who doubt if the regime change or the denuclearization was the real objective of Washington’s North Korea policy. They even think that Washington’s hidden objective was to keep the Juche regime and the nuclear programs so that it can justify the huge presence of US military in South Korea needed for China containment strategy and the expansion of US military equipment marker in the East Asian region. If this is the case, what seems to be the failure of Washington’s North Korea policy could be, in fact, a success.

However, in this paper, I assume that the objective of Biden’s North Korea policy is the democratization and the denuclearization of North Korea. In this paper, I am tackling two related issues: the reason of failure of U.S. North Korea policy and Biden’s alternative approach to his North Korea policy.

Why has Washington failed in its North Korea Policy? 

Washington’s idea of making the Juche regime more open and more democratic country relied on two strategies. One was to invade with South Korean army to destroy the regime and transplant a sort of democracy. It is more than likely that it was rather the Korean conservative government which insisted more on this strategy. As a matter of fact, in 2017, when Trump was threatening Pyongyang with “fire and fury”, the South Korean president, Mme Park Geun-hye, daughter of, the military dictator, Gen. Park Chung-hee was reported to have cried with joy “Jackpot” suggesting the windfall benefit of the military invasion. Actually, the idea of military invasion of North Korea was not new. Bill Clinton tried in early 1990s; in 1968, under Lyndon B. Johnson, when the USS Pueblo was captured by North Korean armed forces, the military invasion was on the table. However, the military invasion did not take place simply because of heavy human casualties including the deaths of American GIs and their families in South Korea and Japan.

The second option of changing Juche regime was the use of pressure provided by annual joint military exercises, international isolation of Pyongyang, anti-North Korea propaganda and the sanctions. None of these measures worked. True, the joint military exercises of American and South Korean armed forces were so violent and threatening that North Koreans were utterly terrorised. But, the people of North Korean endured and blamed Washington and Seoul instead of complaining against Pyongyang.

The strategy of isolating North Korea from international community was not a major problem, for Juche ideology was intended to make North Korea to survive as much as possible without depending on other countries. The anti-North Korea propaganda took two forms. First, the negative image of North Korea was created on the basis of biased information provided by North Korean refugees and it was diffused through anti-Pyongyang media in the West, in general, and Korea and the U.S., in particular.

Another method has been the air-born balloons showing the superiority of the South Korean democracy to the North Korean regime on the one hand and, on the other, demonizing the Juche regime. However, the air-born anti-Juche propaganda balloons have produced little expected results, because North Koreans despised South Korea society under the conservative government for its corruption and its being vassal country of the U.S.

Finally, the dreadful sanctions have not brought down the Juche regime. It is hard to imagine how North Koreans have survived these sanctions. It is true that the black markets and the underground China-North Korea trade network may have provided an answer. But, the more meaningful factor was the character of North Koreans. We must remember that leaders of North Koreans are mostly the descendents of Patriots who fought against the Japanese invaders; they are determined nationalists. They are proud of establishing an autonomous self-sufficient nation and adopting unique socialist ideology – the Jucheism – despite the heavy pressure imposed by the Soviet Union and China. They are the people who survived the terrible decade-long starvation and misery in the 1990s.

The sanctions have proved to be a wrong approach of the American policy of North Korean regime change or denuclearization. They have failed in changing the Juche regime or denuclearizing North Korea. The sanctions have turned out to be too destructive. They have pushed 25 million North Korean people to starve; they have killed a great number of children because of the shortage of medical facilities and medicines.

In other words, these sanctions have not been a great contributor to Washington’s North Korea policy. If so, how do we justify the sanctions? Is there anyone who benefits from these sanctions? To be sure, the American people are not benefitting from these sanctions. The potential traders with North Korea would be the losers. These sanctions – if it continues – can destroy completely the very foundation of the survival of millions of people as a nation. In this sense, prolonged sanctions could be the worst kind of human right violation.

It is sincerely hoped that Biden gives serious thought to the use of sanctions as a tool of North Korea policy.

Washington has failed also in its policy of North Korea’s denuclearization. Clinton had a good chance in 1994; George W. Bush had a good possibility in 2005, Trump had a golden chance in 2019. But, they all blew these opportunities. The main reason for the failure was the absence of interest of Washington to solve the nuclear crisis or the mutual hatred. It is possible that the two factors are all responsible.

To sum up, the performance of Washington’s North Korea policy is a failure. So, if Biden wished to do something to solve the 70-year old North Korea headache, he should do something different from what his predecessors have done.

What should be Biden’s North Korea Policy?

The success of Biden’s North Korea policy requires a few preconditions. Washington should get rid of Pyongyang demonization deriving from mutual mistrust and mutual hatred. Moreover, Washington should accept the reality of North Korea as a de facto nuclear weapon state. And, finally, Biden should speed up the process of the normalization of Washington-Pyongyang diplomatic relations.

What are the origins of mutual mistrust and hatred?

To find the root of mistrust and hatred between the U.S. and North Korea, we have to go back to the period of the Korean War (1950-1953), which ended with no clear-cut winner, but it created deep lasting relations of mistrust and hatred between the U.S. and North Korea.

North Koreans do not forget what the U.S. did against innocent civilians during the Korean War. According to reliable sources, about 20% of North Korean population-4 million out of 20 million-were bombed to death. More than 80% of the victims were women and children. The American bombers destroyed every single standing structure. The American bombers dropped about 700,000 tons of bombs as against 500,000 tons of bombs dropped on Japan during the 4-year war. The U.S. dropped the napalm bombs which burn the flesh of victims.

General Douglas McArthur said this about American bombing on North Korea:” A slaughter never heard of in the history of mankind.”

For North Koreans, it is difficult to forget what the U.S. has done. We can easily imagine what kind of feeling North Korean would have toward the Americans. In the eyes of North Koreans, Americans are brutal, not trust worthy and even hateful. These feeling have lasted for 70 years.

On the other hand, Americans also have hostile feeling toward North Korea. The U.S. did not win the Korean War. This was humiliating for a country which had won the World War II. The U.S. lost 54,000 lives of which 33,000 on the battle ground. The American prisoners of war suffered from physical and psychological torture during the Korean War. The capture of USS Pueblo in 1968 and the shooting-down of an American spy aircraft in 1969 did hurt the pride of Americans. For the citizens of the mighty super power like the U.S., it may be difficult to swallow the insult. So, Americans hate North Koreans.

The point here is that the mutual hatred is one of major difficulties to overcome in the Washington-Pyongyang relations. True, such mutual hatred has dissipated, but it is still there and the politicians exploit such feeling for their political and financial interests. If Biden wants really to solve the North Korean problem, he has to do something to further dissipate the mutual hatred.

How bad is the demonization of North Korea? 

The North Korea demonization is a widely-spread perception of the great majority of Americans. This has been deliberately promoted by warmongering Washington establishment, media and academics. As long as the demonized image of North Korea is deeply imprinted in the minds of Americans, it is by no means easy to get rid of it, and Biden will have hard time to go forward in his engagement with North Korea.

The demonization of North Korea relies on the simple and dangerous arguments. It goes like this. North Korea is a military threat; Juche ideology is an ideological threat; North Korea is the worst violator of human rights; North Korean government is authoritarian. However, the most important threat is the military threat.

The West, in particular, the U.S., argues that North Korea is a military threat. Therefore, one cannot trust North Korea. Hence, one has to punish North Korea. The best way to punish North Korea is to use military force. The pre-emptive attack is justified. If necessary, North Korea should be punished with nuclear weapons.

But, we must be honest with ourselves. Can North Korea be a real threat? If it is, to whom is it a threat? It is true that North Korea threatened South Korea. The tool of threat was the vast set of several thousand artillery pieces deployed along the demarcation line. It was the period when Pyongyang threatened by shouting “We can make Seoul a sea of fire!” But we knew that it was a simple rhetoric, for South Korea could retaliate.

It is true that North Korea made six nuclear tests and 147 missile tests. But are these tests conducted to threaten some country? Or, are they designed to serve as deterrent against foreign attacks? The response to these questions is simple enough; it is for the deterrence purpose.

If there are countries which could be the target of North Korean threat, it would be the U.S., South Korea and Japan. But, this is a pure nonsense. To begin with, North Korean GDP was, in 2019, about 32 billion USD as against 1.7 trillion USD of South Korea, about 5.3 trillion USD of Japan and 23trillion USD of the United Sates. North Korea’s annual defence budget was mere 7 billion USD as against 700 billion USD in the U.S., more than 40 billion USD in South Korea and 50 billion USD in Japan.

So, the combined GDP of the U.S., Japan and South Korea was 30,000 billion USD as against North Korea’s 32 billion USD. The combined defence budget of the three countries which could be targets of North Korea’s threats was 790 billion USD as against 7 billion USD for North Korea. Can you imagine a situation where the tiny North Korea can threat these three economic and military powers?

North Korea is not stupid enough to attack these countries with its nuclear weapons, because it knows very well that it is pure “harakiri” (Bushido-inspired suicide).

What should be the strategies of Biden’s North Korea Policy?

In what follows, I will discuss what Biden’s North Korea policy strategies should be. My hypothesis is that Biden will sincerely seek for the real solution for peace and prosperity in North Korea. This is only a hypothesis. I am not convinced that Biden will do that. What I am saying is that, if Biden wants to do something of historical significance, he should do what I am suggesting.

To solve the North Korean problems, Biden should do this.

First, before anything else, he should stop North Korea demonization and get rid of mutual mistrust and mutual hatred so that American public accept North Korea as a normal society. This would require heavy investments in the friendship building promoted by cultural and sport exchanges.

Second, he should accept North Korea as a nuclear weapon state, conduct well planed arms control and normalize the diplomatic relations. It appears that the level of North Korean nuclear capacity is beyond what the West would like to admit. The system of training nuclear experts at universities and the military seems well established. The system of the production of nuclear weapons seems well developed. The capacity to transport the nuclear war heads seems operational. Even if denuclearization takes place, it is just unrealistic to suppose that North Korea will give up all of its cumulated nuclear capacity. In this case, the more realistic approach would be to accept North Korea as a nuclear weapon state, agree upon a moratorium on nuclear programs and conduct progressive reduction of nuclear capacity in exchange of the progress of the peace process including the lifting of sanctions.

Third, the process of the creation of normal diplomatic relations should include the following approaches.

To begin with, it is not too early to make the declaration of the end of the Korean War. It has only declaratory meaning; it has no de jure significance. Besides, after three North-South Summits, the Korean War ended as far as the two Koreas are concerned. I believe that, if Biden decides to make such declaration, no country including China would object. Even Japan would not object, for Tokyo is keen to establish normal diplomatic relations with country of Jucheism. The declaration of the end of the Korean War is useful in building mutual trust between Washington and Pyongyang.

As for the joint military exercises, they may be necessary for training, the maintenance of disciplines and the tests of new weapons. But it is better not to give the impression that these exercises are designed to intimidate or attack North Korea.

What is the most important is the removal of the sanctions. One wonders what the sanctions have achieved so far. What are the objectives of these sanctions? The objectives may include the regime change and denuclearization. None of these objectives has been attained. The Jucheism is still there; Kim Jong-in has nuclear bombs; Washington has not been able to isolate North Korea. Pyongyang is not as isolated as one may wish to believe. North Korea has diplomatic relations with 164 countries.

The final step toward the solution of North Korean problem is the establishment of Washington’s diplomatic relations with North Korea. It is more likely that Biden might oppose such measure because of the issue of human right violation. But, do we know the exact situation of human right abuse in North Korea? Can we trust the related information provided by the North Korean refugees? Should we generalize the experiences of some refugees? It may be impossible to find answers to these questions. It seems that the abuse of human right exists in North Korea as it does in many countries including China and even the U.S. But, this issue has not prevented Washington from normalizing diplomatic relations with many countries.

Remember that Richard Nixon who was well aware of the violation of human rights under Mao Zedong established the normal diplomatic relations in 1979 with China. George W. Bush did not make major fuss about this problem. Even Barack Obama was ready in 2014 to accept Xi Jinping’s proposal for “New Power Relations between super Powers” despite China’s violation of human rights. The issue of human right abuse in North Korea cannot be and should not be the excuse for not having normal diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.

I may conclude by saying that the normalization of Washington’s diplomatic relations with North Korea is the only way to solve the North Korean problems. If Washington succeeds this policy, it might even contribute to the improvement of Washington’s hegemonic position in East Asia and enforce its image as a peace loving super power which is generous toward such a small country like North Korea.

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Professor Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics and co-director of the East Asia Observatory (OAE) of the Center of Studies on Integration and Globalization (CEIM), Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM)

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

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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Mandatory masks continue to be the standard operating procedure for many counties, regions, districts, states and nations worldwide, as the COVID cult agenda progresses. In many places, while COVID vaccines are not yet mandatory, authorities are rushing to prepare to make them so, by setting up schemes like immunity passports, vaccine certificates and mandatory tracking databases which log who has taken the shot and who has not. Meanwhile, inherent sovereign human rights are being limited to those who acquiesce to tkae the shot. The insanity and absurdity of the COVID cult is all the more apparent when you realize that its mandatory or quasi-mandatory rules stand in contradiction to a very important set of principles decided upon in 1947. I refer to the Nuremberg Code, the set of 10 points that arose from the infamous Nuremberg Trials conducted in the aftermath of World War II. I am not passing judgement on how impartial those trials were, because I know they were mainly run by the US and the Allies (as the victors), who for obvious reasons did not press charges against American generals such as Eisenhower (who later became US President) for his POW camps inside of Germany and carpet-bombing of Dresden. Nonetheless, the trials produced the Nuremberg Code which enshrined the principle of informed consent – a principle which, in the advent of the COVID scamdemic, is now highly relevant and is continually being put to the test. This article will look briefly at each of the 10 points in the light of COVID restrictions and rules.

The 10 Points of the Code

This website gives a brief history of how the 10 points of the Nuremberg Code came into existence. Interestingly, although the code is an international ethical landmark, it is apparently still not enshrined in American or German national law. We must assume those governments via their secret agencies like the CIA wanted to keep the door open to conduct medical experimentation (such as bioweapon programs like weaponized ticks) upon their citizenry without technically breaking the law:

“On August 19, 1947, the judges of the American military tribunal in the case of the USA vs. Karl Brandt et. al. delivered their verdict. Before announcing the guilt or innocence of each defendant, they confronted the difficult question of medical experimentation on human beings. Several German doctors had argued in their own defense that their experiments differed little from previous American or German ones. Furthermore they showed that no international law or informal statement differentiated between legal and illegal human experimentation. This argument worried Drs. Andrew Ivy and Leo Alexander, American doctors who had worked with the prosecution during the trial. On April 17, 1947, Dr. Alexander submitted a memorandum to the United States Counsel for War Crimes which outlined six points defining legitimate research. The verdict of August 19 reiterated almost all of these points in a section entitled “Permissible Medical Experiments” and revised the original six points into ten. Subsequently, the ten points became known as the “Nuremberg Code.” Although the code addressed the defense arguments in general, remarkably none of the specific findings against Brandt and his codefendants mentioned the code. Thus the legal force of the document was not well established. The uncertain use of the code continued in the half century following the trial when it informed numerous international ethics statements but failed to find a place in either the American or German national law codes. Nevertheless, it remains a landmark document on medical ethics and one of the most lasting products of the “Doctors Trial.””

Nuremberg Code #1: Voluntary Consent is Essential

The first point of the Code is:

“The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.”

This point has already been broken many times over just with the introduction of mandatory masks alone. In the US, for example, masks are defined in several places as “medical devices” according to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). The first piece of evidence is on the FDA’s website itself at this page that discusses masks and which is nested under the category Medical Devices as follows:

“Home / Medical Devices / Products and Medical Procedures / General Hospital Devices and Supplies / Personal Protective Equipment for Infection Control / N95 Respirators, Surgical Masks, and Face Masks”

The second piece of evidence is in the law: the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) which is US federal law enacted by Congress. It and other federal laws establish the legal framework within which FDA operates. The FD&C Act can be found in the United States Code (USC), which contains all general and permanent US laws, beginning at 21 USC 301. You can read it here. Look under Chapter II Definitions (pg.3) and scroll down to Section 201(h):

“(h) The term “device” (except when used in paragraph (n) of this section and in sections 301(i), 403(f), 502(c), and 602(c)) means an instrument, apparatus, implement, machine, contrivance, implant, in vitro reagent, or other similar or related article, including any component, part, or accessory, which is — (1) recognized in the official National Formulary, or the United States Pharmacopeia, or any supplement to them, (2) intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, in man or other animals, or (3) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals, and which does not achieve its primary intended purposes through chemical action within or on the body of man or other animals and which is not dependent upon being metabolized for the achievement of its primary intended purposes.”

Under this section, a mask meets the criteria required for being designated as a medical device, since it meets point (2), being an apparatus which is intended to prevent disease.

Did any politician ask the people of the world whether they wanted to wear masks and volunteer themselves to wear medical devices? No. There has been no voluntary or informed consent.

Nuremberg Code #2: Yield Fruitful Results Unprocurable By Other Means

The second point of the Code is:

“The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.”

We have to face reality that COVID measures such as mandatory masks or vaccines are a giant medical experiment. Many people have been suffering the ill effects of under-oxygenation due to prolonged mask wearing. The untested vaccines constitute the biggest worldwide experiment in human history, having been rushed to market in under 12 months when vaccines usually take 7-20 years to develop. As covered in previous articles, these so-called vaccines (actually mRNA devices) were not designed to stop transmission, elicit a direct immune response (as traditional vaccines do) nor to stop moderate to severe symptoms, so their risk-to- benefit ratio is massively high. Cloth masks made of bandannas and rags are utterly “random and unnecessary in nature.” Meanwhile, there are many other ways to produce “fruitful results” for society without this experimentation: educating people about the principles of natural health, boosting the immune system naturally and even supplementing with vitamin D (research has shown a connection between those acquiring COVID and vitamin D deficiency).

The third point of the Code is:

“The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.”

This point has also been broken. Big Pharma companies skipped animal trials in their rush to get their “vaccines” to market.

Nuremberg Code #4: Avoid All Unnecessary Suffering and Injury

The fourth point of the Code is:

“The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.”

None of the masks and “vaccines” (which indisutably cause suffering, injury and death) are necessary for many reasons:

• the COVID case and death count has been wildly inflated from the beginning;
• COVID is a repackaging scheme which reclassifies existing diseases to create the appearane of a new deadly disease and pandemic when there is none. See the work of people such as Dr. Genevieve Briand;
• the alleged novel virus SARS-CoV-2 has never been isolated, purified and proven 100% to exist.

Nuremberg Code #5: No Experiment to be Conducted if There’s Reason to Think Injury or Death Will Occur

The fifth point of the Code is:

“No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.”

Is there an a priori reason to believe disabling injury or death will occur from the COVID not-vaccines? Given the past history of vacine injury, yes there is. Around 2 weeks ago on January 29th 2021, the CDC reported over 11,000 adverse reactions to the COVID vaccine, including 501 deaths and 10,748 other injuries, some of which were indeed disabling injuries. If you are not fainthearted, see these video clips and compilations (here, here, here and here) which show the horrible side effects of the vax.

Nuremberg Code #6: Risk Should Never Exceed the Benefit

The sixth point of the Code is:

“The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.”

From Big Pharma’s point of view, the risk doesn’t exceed the benefit. They are shielded from legal liability thanks to the 1986 NCVIA and other preparatory laws like the 2005 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act which paved the way for Big Pharma legal immunity. There’s no risk, and the profits are astronomical. For the average individual, on the other hand, the situation is exactly the reverse; there’s no benefit to taking a non-vaccine which doesn’t protect you from severe symptoms and which doesn’t stop transmission, but which could lead to serious and debilitating effects like paralysis and death.

Nuremberg Code #7: Preparation Must Be Made Against Even Remote Possibility of Injury, Disability or Death

The seventh point of the Code is:

“Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.”

No preparations have been made! The COVID vaccines are a giant worldwide human experiment, and every single participant is the equivalent of a human hamster or guinea pig. If you die, bad luck! Big Pharma will be sure to roll out their legal and PR departments and immediately question the connection bewteen their vax and your death. They will never, ever admit a connection, and even if they did, there are no legal consequences for them. There is no recourse.

Nuremberg Code #8: Experiment Must Be Conducted by Scientifically Qualified Persons

The eighth point of the Code is:

“The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.”

Doctors such as Dr. Stefan Lanka and Dr. Tom Cowan who challenge the mainstream narrative of virology – namely that contagious viruses exist and can infect you – would most certainly dispute that career bureaucrats like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Big Pharma scientists are truly qualified, but even if you accept that they are, the scientists that make the vaccines are not the ones administering them. It’s the regular nurses and doctors who are doing that. How many of them truly know what the non-vaccine is, what it does, the complete list of its ingredients and the full list of its long-term side effects? No one knows the latter, precisely because this is a giant experiment.

By creating unlawful mask mandates, politicians are playing doctor, putting themselves in the position of being medical experts by dictating health directives and medical interventions to the entire population. The people have not given consent for politicians, who are medically untrained, to act as their personal physicians.

Nuremberg Code #9: Anyone Must Have the Freedom to Bring the Experiment to an End At Any Time

The ninth point of the Code is:

“During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.”

Do you have the right to bring the insane COVID cult medical experimentation to an end? Of course you don’t! People are being discriminated against for not wearing masks by being deprived of their rights to freely travel, trade and work. People are being threatened with fines and prison for not wearing masks. People’s rights are being violated when they exercise their right to make thier own medical decisions by refusing the vax. There is no freedom for the COVID subject who is being experimented upon.

Nuremberg Code #10: The Scientist Must Bring the Experiment to an End At Any Time if There’s Probable Cause of it Resulting in Injury or Death

The tenth point of the Code is:

“During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.”

This point includes the phrase “probable cause” which is probably well-known to many people, especially Americans, since it is enshrined in the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution that protects people against searches and seizures unless the police have a warrant based on probable cause that that person has a committed a crime. Probable cause is legally considered to be a higher standard than “reasonable belief” or “reasonable suspicion” which is the wording used in other jurisdictions. Regardless, do you think any Big Pharma company has EVER voluntarily halted their vaccine rollout because of their “superior skill and careful judgment” that they might be harming people? No way! The profits are too great, and their line of defense is that some people may be injured or killed by the vaccines, but it’s all for the “greater good” of protecting society. As Martin Luther King said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

Conclusion

Society is regressing right now. We are giving up hard-fought rights and freedoms out of fear. Collectively, we are forgetting that we have already long ago established fundamental human rights such as bodily autonomy, medical sovereignty and informed, voluntary consent. The Nuremberg Code is a stark reminder that we have been through all this before, and got through it to crystallize the lessons learned. We must remember Who We Are and stop this insane COVID medical experimentation – before it’s too late.

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Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative media / independent news site The Freedom Articles, author of the book Cancer: The Lies, the Truth and the Solutions and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com. Makia is on Steemit and Parler.

Sources

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https://thefreedomarticles.com/bioweapons-bioterrorism-lyme-disease-weaponized-ticks/

https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/doctors-trial/nuremberg-code#Permissible

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-surgical-masks-and-face-masks

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https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article/doi/10.1210/clinem/dgaa733/5934827

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https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/deaths-injuries-following-covid-vaccine-cdc/

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https://www.bitchute.com/video/KpF6oEZ9TX36

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https://thefreedomarticles.com/deep-down-virus-rabbit-hole-question-everything/

Featured image is from Viacheslav Lopatin | scaliger – stock.adobe.com

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It began as a shudder through the scientific and public health establishments.  A new variant of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 had been found, mutating in South African climes, potentially outwitting human responses to it.  Vaccines such as Oxford-AstraZeneca’s would have to be brushed up.  Rollouts would have to be reconsidered. 

The South African variant has been given a few designations: 501Y.V2 or B.1.351.  Within it lies a mutation –N501Y – which suggests a greater degree of contagiousness.  Another, E484k, might bypass the human immune system, thereby blunting the effectiveness of the vaccines.

A study on the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine against N501Y and E484k mutations found that the vaccine did still work, but with less efficacy.  The authors of the study treaded carefully, making it clear that the study had made assumptions about levels of neutralisation.  The biological functions of N501Y and other mutations also remained “to be defined for viral replication, pathogenesis, and/or transmission in animal models.”

The concern for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is graver, given that it was deemed the great hope for developing countries, with lower pricing and less demanding conditions for storage.  Preliminary, and yet to be peer-reviewed research of some 2,000 individuals, has found the vaccine to have less impressive protections (under 25%) against mild-to-moderate illness caused by the 501Y.V2 variant. 

The same cannot be said about protecting against severe COVID-19, an open point given that those recruited in the study were generally healthy, young and sporting only mild symptoms.  None required hospitalisation.  Such qualifications were seized uponby World Health Organization’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.  “Given the limited sample size and the younger, healthier profile of the participants it is important to determine whether or not the vaccine remains effective in preventing more severe illness.”

Despite this not entirely gloomy picture, politicians in South Africa have been bitten by fear.  As the country most affected on the African continent, doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are being traded in favour of Johnson & Johnson shots.  The latter vaccine has also been shown in trials to be less effective in combating the mild aspect of 501.V2 (57%) though does a much better job of combating instances of severe disease (85%).

The announcement of this policy shift came from the Health Minister Zweli Mkhize on February 10: “Given the outcome of the efficacy studies [the government] will continue with the planned phase one vaccination using the Johnson & Johnson vaccines instead of the AstraZeneca vaccine.”

This would have delighted the J&J crew, given that the one-shot vaccine has only been approved for use in studies in South Africa and has yet to be officially authorised for general use in any country.  Applications for emergency use from South Africa’s regulatory authority and the US Food and Drug Administration have been made.   Not to worry, claimed Mkhize: the vaccine had been tested on 44,000 people so far; safety for intending recipients was assured.

The health minister was also keen to give the impression of business.  “Our scientists are continuing to evaluate other [vaccine] candidates and we are simultaneously engaging manufacturers.  We are in advanced stages of evaluating and engaging the manufacturers of the Sputnik V candidate.  Engagements with Sinopharm continue, with an offer already made by China for vaccines which are being considered.”

The move has not convinced certain health practitioners.  Sipho Dinabantu of Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital is worried that “that trust we had in the government to do a proper vaccination program” has evaporated.  “We were given assurances that it was ready to go but now it has been put on hold.  It makes me wonder a lot about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which has yet to be approved.”

The risk of waste is a serious one.  A million Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines have been procured from the Serum Institute of India.  These are due to expire at the end of April.  Shabir Madhi of the University of Witwatersrand, the lead investigator of the South African trials of that vaccine, finds it rather daft that these would not be used, despite acknowledging its weaknesses.  “It doesn’t make any sense to have 1 million doses of vaccine available to us known to be safe and to not start distributing it at least for high-risk groups.”  The country’s elderly and those with comorbidities could receive those shots.

Mkhize hopes that these might be sold or swapped depending on what the Ministerial Advisory Committee suggests.  Countries were already making inquiries.  But there are concerns that expired vaccines might also find their way into the program.  We only have Mkhize’s assurance that the vaccines had not expired, and would not be administered if they had. 

Confidence in public health authorities has again received a bruising, though the South African government has its defenders.  Professor Willem Hanekom, director of the Africa Health Institute, was all praise at the decision to embrace the J&J option.  “We’ve never been in such a situation. Every day things change, and we need to adapt to these changes.”  The trend of treating whole populations as guinea pigs in a grand public health experiment continues.

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

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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Mainstream media references to Venezuela always focus on the devastating economic crisis, which they directly or indirectly attribute either to the Maduro government mismanagement or to a total failure of the Bolivarian Revolution envisioned by Hugo Chávez. US sanctions are mentioned (if they are at all) as if they were a benign slap on the hand to change the conduct of a misbehaving child. More seriously, sanctions are unilateral coercive economic measures forcing “a change of conduct” in target countries as punishment for falsely reputed violation of “international norms of behaviour”.

The reality is that the US has been enforcing an escalating hybrid war on Venezuela for the purpose of changing its independent social development free from the imposition of neoliberal policies. Possibly the most lethal tools of this kind of warfare are the criminal, illegal and inhumane coercive economic and financial measures, euphemistically called “sanctions”.

More accurately they should be called “starvation sanctions”. They cut off the revenue sources that the Venezuelan government needs to import food, equipment and agricultural supplies necessary for food production. This results in critical food shortages that the media gloats reporting with images of long lines of people to buy the scarce supply of food. As a consequence Venezuela has denounced the US government before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Former UN rapporteur on Human Rights reported that US sanctions have killed more than 100 thousand Venezuelans.

How is Venezuela tackling this serious foreign-induced food crisis?

Venezuela has had a pro-active approach towards food sovereignty and food security as an essential necessity since the beginning of the Bolivarian revolution. The situation would be much worse had Venezuela not taken on fully the responsible obligation of guaranteeing food access for its citizens. The Venezuelan government needs to be praised for implementing measures to ensure food security to the population in order to counter the nefarious impact of “sanctions”.

Food sovereignty and food security are strictly connected. The former is the fundamental proposition of a State that cannot be renounced under any circumstances. The latter implies the process that guarantees access to food to all citizens under the tenet of responsibility, equality, fairness and social justice.

The international peasants’ movement called La Via Campesina developed the concept of food sovereignty during the World Food Summit in 1996 as a resistance movement against neoliberal policies. The prevailing neoliberal economic system, represented by the World Bank and the IMF with their structural adjustment policies, was perceived as a threat to food sovereignty and food security.

Neoliberal policies cause most harm to food security by allowing corporate-driven agricultural land grab, control over type of food production and distribution, dependency on patented genetically modified seeds, high food prices and low farmers wages, and forced imports as opposed to local production of food.

In the early 20th century Venezuela jumped almost overnight from having an economy based on agriculture, contributing about one third to Venezuela’s GDP in the 1920s, to becoming a large producer and exporter of oil in the late 1920s under the management and control of multinational corporations. The wealth derived by the oil extraction destroyed farming and agricultural production.

When Hugo Chavez became president in 1999 Venezuela recognised the importance of food sovereignty and food security, which were embedded in Articles 156 and 305 of the 1999 constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Accordingly, in 2001 Chavez issued a series of decrees shaping the revolutionary Land Law with its leading project Misión Zamora that led to assigning to landless farmers land belonging to large estates, or latifundios, that were not producing at least 80% of their potential and therefore were nationalised under Venezuelan Food Security and Sovereign Law.

By the end of 2003, 60,000 families had received temporary title to a total of 55,000 km² of land. The law stimulated co-ops and the necessary food production. The land reform may have been what triggered the failed coup attempt against him in 2002.

A report in 2009 describes the Venezuelan effort to build a new food and agriculture system with Chavez’s vision of Socialism of the Twenty-First Century, political will, and the necessary infrastructure to support farmers with credit and technical assistance, as well as social services and market access. Results were outstanding with significant increased production of crops like black beans, root vegetables, and sunflowers for cooking oil. In some cases Venezuela reached levels of self sufficiency like in its two most important grains, corn and rice.

However, A Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) report in 2016 identified that a small number of companies in the still existing private sector had control over imports and distribution of the most demanded items that showed shortages, lineups, and high prices. In some cases there has been hoarding of goods and price speculation.

Forced to confront food shortages mainly caused by the “sanctions” and US financial barriers to imports, the Maduro government undertook one of the most successful programs to guarantee equitable access to food so no one would be left behind: the Comité Locales de Abastecimiento y Producción (CLAP – Local Committees for Supply and Production of food).

The CLAP, founded in 2016 and financially supported in part by the government, distributes house-to-house boxes of food, containing some of the main staples of the Venezuelan diet: cornflour, pasta, rice, black beans, cooking oil, and more, at reduced affordable cost.

It is considered a flagship program against the imperial aggression controlling the distribution channels of grains, rice, corn flour, vegetable oil and other items. It is not meant to be a permanent structure for food distribution but its scope and function is presently strictly regulated in a formal constitutional legislation as a dire necessity.

From 2017 to 2020 the CLAP has distributed almost 500 million food boxes equivalent to 6.5 million metric tons of food. Currently it benefits a reported six million Venezuelan families through monthly deliveries of food boxes at subsidised cost.

In the most cruel action bordering callous criminality the US Treasury Department has imposed sanctions curtailing the effectiveness of the CLAP food program!

The government of Venezuela together with the active participation of the majority of the population and farmers in their respective communities – known as Communes – have to be praised for tackling the most pressing problem: food shortage. They are doing so by increasing the production of staple food items like corn, beans and root vegetables among others, including fish in coastal areas. The response has been quite prompt and effective thanks to the early preparatory plans for food security and sovereignty that had been established by Chavez’s visionary government as mentioned before. However, the problem has not been fully solved and continues being a challenge for Venezuelans.

Finally, it is important to recognise that the Bolivarian revolution is not only dealing with the immediate urgent need to put food on the table of Venezuelan families, but it also deals with the more significant long-term political goal of developing all the necessary programs and infrastructure to turn Venezuela in a truly food independent and sovereign country.

The full systematic and comprehensive plan – as a strategic response to the siege of the US unilateral coercive economic and financial measures – is laid out in the program Gran Misión Agro-Venezuela that includes land reform, agricultural practice, biological use of inputs, development of native seeds, popular production organisations, financing, and distribution to consumers.

For example, biological labs are being created for pest control in agriculture in order to increase organic production of food. At the same time labs are created to produce microorganisms for natural fertilisers to reduce the imports of expensive fertilisers.

There is also a strong push to rescue endogenous foods to eliminate the dependency from the genetically modified varieties exported by large corporations and not adapted to the local environment. This is leading to the production of native seeds that are then used by farmers with their old agricultural traditions.

But while we praise Venezuela’s commitment to Chavez’s vision, we must strongly condemn the “starvation sanctions” imposed by the illegal US coercive measures. The use of food as a weapon cannot be accepted.

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Nino Pagliccia is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Rally in rejection of the U.S. destabilizing plan against Venezuela, 2019. | Photo: Twitter/ @codepink

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The extension of the nuclear arms agreement between Russia and the United States and the decision to stop directly supporting the war on Yemen may have been the only good news items to come out of Washington last week. The really bad news came when President Joe Biden warned Russia that “the days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions, interfering with our elections, cyber-attacks, poisoning its citizens, are over.” It was an empty threat full of innuendo that virtually guarantees four more years of Russiagate or something like it. It was an odd statement considering that it has been Washington doing all of the provoking during the Donald Trump administration, much of it instigated by Democrats who are still looking for a scapegoat for the defeat of Hillary in 2016.

The mainstream media hasn’t been reporting many second-tier stories because of the still playing out double impeachment saga combined with the lingering debate over who actually won the election. Whether Trump personally incited a riot or something worse depends on one’s point of view, but what is really sad to watch is the efforts being made by a “woke” Democratic Party leadership and a frenzied media to destroy Trump’s life and businesses even though he is no longer in office, a revenge scenario that goes well beyond previous political vendettas. Worse still, the attempts being made to render White House employees and Trump supporters unemployable or even try to send them to jail based on convoluted interpretations of legislation reflects a level of vindictiveness not seen since the Catiline Conspiracy in Republican Rome.

Well, the incident on January 6^th wasn’t exactly a replay of the storming of the Bastille, but as it is all we have it will have to make do. Were those folks wandering around inside the Capitol Building tourists who had gotten separated from their tour guide or were they confused citizens from the Dakotas who had a couple of stamps remaining on their hunting licenses allowing them to bag a Democrat or two? They would have been better advised to set up a couple of feeder bait sites under the Rotunda loaded with Benjamins and the Congress-critters would have arrived in droves. And that guy who stole Nancy Pelosi’s podium only had to announce that he was holding a Black Lives Matter meeting and good old Nancy would have arrived tout suite on her knees with an African kente cloth stole draped around her neck. Alas, we may never know the truth about what actually happened on that fateful day, but the speculation will keep us going for months more.

There is a definite paucity of actual fact-based news that might make sense to a third grader, particularly given the decline in American public education, which now only teaches about the holocaust and racism. Consequently, I have fallen into the habit of saving links to stories during the week and then deciding on the weekend which are worthy of special recognition for being particularly ridiculous.

There were some really absurd articles last week. A particularly fascinating story describes what is going on at the Pentagon, which is frantically sneaking more soldiers into Syria and canceling any reduction in force in Afghanistan until the situation stabilizes, a policy move by Biden that reverses one of the few good things that Trump initiated. Unfortunately, the withdrawal from Afghanistan should take another twenty years or so to finish.

But the really interesting development is the new mission of the U.S. Army, which will soon be halting training and other bellicose activity to ease the transition into a full-time military force dedicated to making sure that everyone observes diversity. It is a long overdue move that the entire nation can be proud of, plus the U.S. will as a result be made safer from the Chinese, Iranian and Russian threats. The tricky part is identifying those soldiers who think racist thoughts, even if they never perform a racist act, because they are guilty of not conforming to “woke world.” They will have to be identified by special trained psychologists before being dishonorably discharged and made unemployable as they are not fit to mix with decent people.

Paul Kersey reports some of the details, how the “Pentagon [has ordered] a ‘stand down’ in [the] next 60 Days” to identify and address the problem of extremists in the military. It should be observed that soldiers who kill civilians are not the extremists in question because killing is what soldiers are supposed to do. It is instead “white people in the U.S. Military who display an insufficient loyalty to Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Tolerance. [They] are [the] domestic enemy, and unworthy as individual[s] of defending our nation against the only threat our elite have united to defeat: that, of course, being whiteness.”

And for those apostatizing white supremacist civilians who don’t want to get left out when the diversity train rolls into their town, the Democratic Party is looking into setting up Truth Commissions to make sure that anyone who ever entertained a racist thought or used the “N” word will not be missed.

Make no mistake, an army that really knows what is important is surely great news. It will be an excellent return on the taxpayers’ trillion dollars annual investment, particularly as the Constitution was written by a bunch of slave holders and is no longer worth swearing an oath of allegiance to. But perhaps of more interest to foreign policy wonks is what is going on in some of the other Pentagon offices dedicated to finding new enemies so there will always be a supply of wars to fight after everyone in Afghanistan and Syria is exterminated.

Image on the right: The Washington Institute

As telling other nations how to behave backed up by the 101^st Airborne division has become a wonderful indoor board game in this age of Coronavirus-19, my favorite article for the past week has to be the news that Honest Joe Biden has appointed yet another Zionist harpy to his team of war planners in an apparent attempt to keep Nuland, Sherman, Haines, Rice, Power and Neuberger company. Her name is Dana Stroul and she will be running the Pentagon’s Middle East Desk, making her the senior policy official focused on that region. Indications are that her eagle eye will be fixed on those major malefactors Iran and Syria.

Stroul has been whisked away from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), where she has been the Shelly and Michael Kassen Fellow in the Institute’s Beth and David Geduld Program on Arab Politics. WINEP is the think tank founded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in an attempt to demonstrate that hatred of all of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East is somehow an American vital interest, so it is perhaps odd to consider that the organization would even allow Arabs to have politics. Stroul had worked at the Pentagon and had also co-chaired the Syria Study Group set up by Congress prior to landing at WINEP.

Stroul, who believes that there is a threat to the U.S. from “Iranian nuclear ambitions and support for terrorist groups throughout the region,” also has had some interesting ideas about what should be done to Syria, some of which was laid out in a final report that was presented to Congress in September 2019 by the Syria Study Group.

The report states that

“From the conflict’s beginning in 2011 as a peaceful domestic uprising, experts warned that President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal response was likely to have serious, negative impacts on U.S. interests. Given Syria’s central location in the Middle East, its ruling regime’s ties to terrorist groups and to Iran, and the incompatibility of Assad’s authoritarian rule with the aspirations of the Syrian people, many worried about the conflict spilling over Syria’s borders… The threats the conflict in Syria poses—of terrorism directed against the United States and its allies and partners; of an empowered Iran; of an aggrandized Russia; of large numbers of refugees, displaced persons, and other forms of humanitarian catastrophe; and of the erosion of international norms of war and the Western commitment to them—are sufficiently serious to merit a determined response from the United States. The United States and its allies retain tools to address those threats and the leverage to promote outcomes that are better for American interests than those that would prevail in the absence of U.S. engagement. The United States underestimated Russia’s ability to use Syria as an arena for regional influence. Russia’s intervention, beginning in 2015, accomplished its proximate aim—the preservation of the regime in defiance of U.S. calls for Assad to ‘go’—at a relatively low cost. Russia has enhanced its profile and prestige more broadly in the Middle East.”

One immediately notes the incoherence of the argument being made. To make U.S. presence in Syria palpable to the long-suffering American public, it is necessary to attempt to establish a threat against the United States even though in this case there is none. And the repeated citation of “interests” without credibly explaining what interests might compel invading and occupying a foreign country is completely lacking in any detail. Stroul also several times cites the heavy terrorist threat, ignoring the fact that the existing terrorists are being sustained by Israel and by the United States, while President Bashar al-Assad has the overwhelming support of most of the Syrian people. Reports are that Syrians are returning home after a refugee crisis caused by the United States and its allies. And we all know that the last refuge of a scoundrel is to play the Russian card, which Stroul does, as well as surfacing that perennial demon Iran. U.S. support of Israeli bombing attacks are also just fine in her opinion, even though they are a clear violation of the “international norms of war” that she pretends to defend.

Stroul inevitably supports U.S. retention and what she curiously refers to as “ownership” of the one third of Syria that is “resource rich.” That includes the Syrian oil producing region now occupied by U.S. troops as well as by what she euphemizes as “Syrian Democratic Forces.” She observes that it also includes the country’s best agricultural land, which, if denied to the government in Damascus, could be used as leverage to bring about regime change. Starving Syrians are not Stroul’s concern so she consequently opposes any form of international relief or reconstruction funding for the Syrian people and supports U.S. pressure on international lenders through the worldwide banking system to deny Damascus any money to rebuild.

So, the prize for the truly awful story of the week goes to the appointment of this monster daughter of AIPAC to head Pentagon planning for the Middle East, joining a sterling cast of characters at State Department and in the intelligence community. Also, if one includes the account of a diversified U.S. Army where soldiers will now be encouraged to snitch on each other over privately held views, one has to ask “Can it get any worse?” Judging from Joe Biden’s list of appointments so far, it will, yes it will.

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Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests.

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: From left to right: Amb. Frederic Hof, Vance Serchuk, Melissa Dalton, Dr. Kimberly Kagan, Dana Stroul of the Syria Study Group discuss the new report’s main findings and conclusions. Credit: U.S. Institute of Peace/ Flickr

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Newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche reported days ago that French security services alerted the Elysee last October about Turkey’s interference in the country’s Muslim community. The French newspaper reported about a strategy of infiltration by certain Turkish associative, educational and religious networks that have the objective, according to the security services, of not only controlling the one million people strong Turkish diaspora, but all 5.7 million Muslims in France. By interfering so strongly into the Turkish diaspora and Muslim community in France, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hopes to build support for his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in future elections and be able to influence French elections by being the voice for millions of Muslims in the country.

The report emerged at a precise moment. The bill on religious separatism is being debated in Parliament and the discussion focuses on the formation of a French Islam that is not subservient to external influences.

Erdoğan does not hide using a discourse of Political Islam aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood. In Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans he speaks of pan-Turkism, but elsewhere in the Muslim World he uses pan-Islamism to extend his influence. Erdoğan considers the Muslims of Europe as his subjects. It is recalled that on January 5, 2018 the Turkish leader publicly supported the French Council for Muslim Worship by declaring that “the Muslims of France are under my protection. Those who touch you, touch me.” Taking advantage of European weakness in dealing with extremism, Erdoğan intends to give Muslims a voice and a vision under his model.

From mosques to associations, there is powerful organization behind Turkey’s efforts to coercively control the Turks and Muslims of France. This organization is to indoctrinate new generations towards radical Islam and pan-Turkism. Turkey exercises a real power of attraction for many Muslims as it portrays itself as a dynamic country with huge economic and military ambitions that manages to oppose the West on questions relating to Islam whilst simultaneously being appeased by the West.

Erdoğan is now leading condemnations against France’s limited efforts to control and reform Islam. The Turkish president even launched an international boycott against all French products, in which several Muslim countries joined. This was in protest against French President Emmanuel Macron’s outrage against radical Islam following the beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty.

Due to its proximity to Germany, Turkish influence is especially strong in the Alsace-Lorraine region. According to Le Journal du Dimanche, several local elected officials are subservient to Ankara. Turkish authorities are taking advantage of this to establish their religious and community presence because of the special status the region enjoys. Alsace-Lorraine is not subject to the 1905 Law of Separation of Church and State. With this growing Turkish influence in France, local authorities are to blame for their immobility. Erdoğan, with the help of Turkish intelligence services, impose a right of scrutiny over the diaspora.

France is not alone in this penetration of Turkish influence. Not wanting to alienate the Turkish diaspora that mostly give their votes to her, Angela Merkel allows Erdoğan greater privileges in domestic affairs not afforded to most other foreign leaders. Erdoğan even went to the inauguration of the Grand Mosque in Cologne, a ceremony which attracted more than 20,000 Muslims.

However, returning to France, since the 1970’s, the teaching of language and culture of origin allowed the Turkish Ministry of Education to send their own textbooks to France which are full of Turkish and Islamist propaganda. There is no control by French authorities over these textbooks that are full of anti-Greek and anti-Armenian sentiment, as well as Islamist rhetoric.

Erdoğan also benefits from a multitude of Turkish and Islamic associations that aim to promote education in line with the Islamo-nationalist line of the AKP, according to the French newspaper. Recently, politicians have been debating the importance of training imams in France. Turkey, a follower of Political Islam, trains and controls many of the imams who preach in France. Today, 50% of imams in France are trained in Turkey and serve Turkish interests rather than French.

In addition, despite its dissolution by the Ministry of the Interior last November, Turkey continues to support the Far Right and once CIA Operation Gladio funded and supported Gray Wolves. This extremist group regularly calls for raids in Armenian neighborhoods in France. They conducted several such raids during last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Erdoğan does not hesitate to publicly show them his support by making their distinctive hand gesture.

Through the Qatari-funded Muslim Brotherhood ideology, Turkey continues to extend its influence via Islamic networks in France. Mosques, Qu’ranic schools, associations, and a whole range of organizations are part of Erdoğan’s project. In addition to financing its military interventions in Libya, Syria and Iraq, Qatar ensures that Turkey lacks nothing to support the Muslim Brotherhood ideal, including in France. This latest revelation will likely force Macron to take full control of Islam in his country, something that Erdoğan will surely claim is an attack against Islam in which he needs to defend against.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Does the US Still Have an Economy?

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, February 11 2021

People want to know where the economy is headed.  What they should be asking is does the US still have an economy?  My answer is no, it doesn’t.  I will explain why.

Contemporary Global Capitalism Is “Crony Capitalism”

By Rod Driver, February 11 2021

A full discussion of how rich countries developed would require a whole book, so I shall simply highlight a few basic principles. The world’s advanced nations have achieved their current level of development using what is known as a mixed economy. This has three main parts.

History: US Business Operations with Nazi Germany

By Shane Quinn, February 11 2021

The Third Reich’s destruction of the left, along with Hitler’s stated intention to preserve big business, was welcomed by corporate managers. Before Hitler had even come to power, his views had drawn approval abroad from leading industrialists; like the American tycoon Irénée du Pont.

Why Russia Is Driving the West Crazy

By Pepe Escobar, February 11 2021

Future historians may register it as the day when usually unflappable Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov decided he had had enough: “We are getting used to the fact that the European Union are trying to impose unilateral restrictions”.

Through the “Bolivar Act” U.S. Congressmen Intend to Tighten the Blockade Against Venezuela

By Internationalist 360, February 11 2021

On January 28th, a group of U.S. Congressmen, led by former Green Beret and now Republican Party legislator, Michael Waltz, introduced to the U.S. Congress a new bill dedicated to Venezuela entitled the “Bipartisan Banning Operations and Leases with Illegitimate Authoritarian Regime Act”.

How Ecuador’s US-backed, Coup-supporting ‘Ecosocialist’ Candidate Yaku Pérez Aids the Right-wing

By Ben Norton, February 11 2021

Ecuador’s presidential candidate Yaku Pérez supported coups in Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. His US-backed party Pachakutik and supposedly “left-wing” environmentalist campaign is being promoted by right-wing corporate lobbyists.

The US Space Force (USFF), New Domain to Pressure China?

By Ulson Gunnar, February 11 2021

The real problem with the US Space Force is not the concept behind its face-value creation or its stated mission, but with the inevitable abuse of this new branch of military service by the special interests that drive US foreign policy.

The Myth of the Good War: America in World War II. The Bombing of Dresden

By Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels, February 11 2021

In the night of February 13-14, 1945, the ancient and beautiful capital of Saxony, Dresden, was attacked three times, twice by the RAF and once by the USAAF, the United States Army Air Force, in an operation involving well over 1,000 bombers.

Red Alert Warning About Pfizer and Moderna COVID Inoculations

By Stephen Lendman, February 11 2021

Immunization is a “process by which a person becomes protected against a disease through vaccination.” The above is not what mRNA inoculations are designed to do. They’re something else entirely.

The Pharma-Med Cartel Consider the Immune System Their Competition

By Reggie Selwyn, February 11 2021

It’s been apparent for decades that Big Pharma hates natural vitamins and supplements with a passion. They consider them competition, and so they induce the media, government and public health officials to malign vitamins in every way they can.

Could Spike Protein in Moderna, Pfizer Vaccines Cause Blood Clots, Brain Inflammation and Heart Attacks?

By Lyn Redwood, February 11 2021

Dr. J. Patrick Whelan, a pediatric rheumatologist, warned the FDA in December that mRNA vaccines could cause microvascular injury to the brain, heart, liver and kidneys in ways not assessed in safety trials.

Ontario “Covid Measures” Are Destroying Our Public Health

By Mark Taliano, February 11 2021

Dr. Patrick Philips, who practices medicine in Englehart, Ontario, explains in an interview with MPP Randy Hillier, that current public health measures are harming the overall public health of Canadians.

Twenty Reasons Mandatory Face Masks are Unsafe, Ineffective and Immoral

By John C. A. Manley, February 11 2021

At an Oklahoma Press Conference, Dr. James Meehan, MD testified: “Reports coming from my colleagues all over the world are suggesting that the bacterial pneumonias are on the rise” as a result of moisture collecting in face masks.

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The US Space Force (USSF) is the newest branch of the US Armed Forces. Its personnel are referred to officially as “Guardians” versus “soldiers,” “sailors,” “airmen,” and “Marines” of other branches.

The USSF is a military service that organizes, trains, and equips space forces in order to protect US and allied interests in space and to provide space capabilities to the joint force. USSF responsibilities include developing Guardians, acquiring military space systems, maturing the military doctrine for space power, and organizing space forces to present to our Combatant Commands.

Organized into various “Deltas,” the USSF is tasked with developing space doctrine, monitoring the space domain, overseeing space electronic warfare, manning missile warning systems, overseeing cyberspace operations, controlling intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and conducting orbital warfare

The USSF’s “Delta 8″ now operates the United States’ Global Positioning System (GPS) as part of carrying out satellite communication and navigation warfare.

The concept of having a dedicated branch of the US Armed Forces monitoring the space domain for threats and developing capabilities to defend against those threats makes perfect sense, particularly at a time when space is becoming increasingly accessible and space-based capabilities for civil, economic and military applications become increasingly central to modern daily life.

Russia and China have their own services within their respective armed forces to do precisely this as well, with Russia having established the Russian Space Forces and China having created the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force.

The real problem with the US Space Force is not the concept behind its face-value creation or its stated mission, but with the inevitable abuse of this new branch of military service by the special interests that drive US foreign policy.

Protecting America or Preventing Others from Protecting Themselves From America? 

When the US Space Force talks about protecting its GPS capabilities from attack, it is not talking about a Russian or Chinese attack on GPS capabilities over the United States to disrupt applications essential for daily life in America.

It is actually talking about the disruption of GPS capabilities overseas in theaters of war the US is illegally involved in.

The National Interest in a 2019 article titled, “GPS Jammed: Russia Is Messing with America’s F-35s,” would claim:

Russian forces have been jamming GPS systems in the Middle East. The electronic-warfare campaign could affect US forces gathering in the region in advance of potential strikes on Iran. 

“Since last spring, pilots flying through the Middle East, specifically around Syria, have noted that their GPS systems have displayed the wrong location or stopped working entirely,” The Times of Israel reported in late June 2019.

Syria is a nation the US has illegally occupied for years. This is in addition to its military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and, as the article points out, its planned military aggression against Iran, all nations thousands of miles from America’s shores, and all nations that pose no direct threat to the US itself.

With the founding of the US Space Force in late 2019, and with the new armed forces branch overseeing America’s GPS capabilities, it is certain that stopping Russia or any other nation from disrupting these capabilities overseas will become part of its mission.

Thus the US Space Force is not actually protecting the United States, its people or its economy, but actually playing a role in preventing other nations around the globe from protecting themselves and their allies from US military aggression in places like Syria and capabilities used to carry out that aggression like GPS.

In the future, China will likely employ similar tactics to hinder the activities of the uninvited US military presence in places like the South China Sea and in or around the Taiwan Strait, and likewise the USSF will be utilized to prevent China from disrupting that uninvited military presence.

New Branch, New Domain to Target China

The US aerospace industry’s ties to the newly established US Space Force is essential.

Among the leading companies in that industry is Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

It was interesting to see Musk interact with US Air Force Lieutenant General John Thompson during the 2020 Air Warfare Symposium, and in particular, the latter’s reoccuring concern over America’s ability to maintain a competitive edge over China.

Musk described China as:

…a real interesting country, I have to say. The thing to appreciate about China is just that there’s a lot of really smart, really hard-working people there. And they’re gonna do a lot of great things.

He also noted:

The thing that will feel pretty strange is that the Chinese economy is going to be probably at least twice as big as the US economy. Maybe three times, but at least twice. Yeah, so, that assumes a GDP per capita still less than the US But since they have about four or five times the population, then it would only require getting to a GDP per capita of half the United States for their economy to be twice the size of ours. And as I’m sure people in this room know, the foundation of war is economics. 

And so if you if you have half the resources, of the counterparty, then you better be real innovative. If you’re not innovative, you’re gonna lose.

For Musk, it seems, it is not a matter of whether or not China would overtake the US, but a matter of how the US would remain competitive once it did.

China is a geographically enormous nation and possesses the largest population on Earth. If allowed to develop, it will inevitably surpass the US economically as well as militarily.

Remaining competitive doesn’t necessarily mean maintaining primacy. Yet by all accounts, from statements from the US military’s senior leadership to the corporate-funded think tank policy papers they echo in their talks, the US seeks primacy, not merely remaining competitive versus a larger and more powerful China. The US seeks to prevent China from ever becoming larger and more powerful in the first place. To do so will obviously involve the use of force, whether in the form of economic sanctions, trade warfare, hybrid warfare or actual warfare.

And it will be in this vein that the US Space Force will seek to use its capabilities to achieve this as part of a continued campaign of political, economic and military pressure aimed at China, its allies and at its ongoing development and in turn, at its ability to surpass the US economically and militarily.

The US Space Force will be tasked not with defending space-based infrastructure, but ensuring others, particularly Russia and China, cannot be defended from it and its use in US military aggression abroad.

And the orbital warfare capabilities the US Space Force is developing will not likely be used for defense or even retaliation as many would probably like to assume, but for the same sort of military aggression other US military branches carry out terrestrially.

Thus, the concept behind the US Space Force is sound, but the current path of US foreign policy ensures that its actual mission will drift far from both this concept and its stated mission, potentially impeding its development into a truly capable defensive branch of America’s armed forces, and instead disfigure it into another appendage of modern American hegemony.

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Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NEO