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***

The US State Department dismissed an idea floated by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who suggested the EU could help coordinate the actions needed to be taken by the US and Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.

When asked about Zarif’s offer, State Department spokesman Ned Price said there are “many steps” the US has to take before engaging “directly with Iran” and before the US is willing to “entertain any sort of proposal.”

Price restated the Biden administration’s demand for Iran to return to commitments it agreed to when the JCPOA was negotiated. Iran’s argument against this demand is that since the US violated the deal, it is on Washington to return to compliance.

Price also stressed the need for the administration to consult with US allies, partners, and Congress on Iran before going forward.

A US official speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity said Price’s comments should not be taken as a “rejection” of Zarif’s proposal. The official said the US has not “begun negotiating with Iran, or with anyone else, because our priority is to consult” with allies and partners.

The focus on consulting with other countries before even talking to Iran shows the Biden administration is in no hurry to revive the JCPOA and give Iran sanctions relief. Most regional US partners, like Israel and Saudi Arabia, are strongly opposed to the JCPOA.

European signatories to the deal are also signaling opposition to reviving the JCPOA as it was agreed to in 2015. French President Emmanuel Macron called for new, “strict” nuclear negotiations with Iran that include regional countries like Saudi Arabia, something Iran rejected.

Zarif offered the idea to coordinate a return to the JCPOA in an interview with CNN on Monday. He also said that the time for a possible return to the deal is “not unlimited,” a sign of Tehran’s frustration with the Biden administration’s failure to act.

As per a law passed by Iran’s parliament in the wake of the assassination of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakrizadeh, if sanctions are not lifted by February 21st, IAEA inspections on Iran’s nuclear program will be slightly restricted.

“Iran has the strictest IAEA inspection mechanism anywhere in the world,” Zarif said. “We will be limiting that, but there is a very easy way of addressing it, and that is for the United States to come back into compliance before that date.”

*

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

Featured image is from Jared Rodriguez/Truthout

Political Left Close to Winning Elections in Ecuador

February 4th, 2021 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

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 few days before the presidential elections in Ecuador, scheduled for February 7, there are still threats to the candidacy of Andrés Arauz, the favorite to win, and to the democratic electoral process itself. It is a dispute that faces numerous obstacles in the context of a systematic political persecution initiated by the government of Lenin Moreno.

With the greatest chance of victory according to all surveys, Arauz is presented by the “UNES”, a party coalition that represents the defenders of the so-called “Citizen Revolution” – a movement led by the former President Rafael Correa. Arauz has signaled that he will increase government spending in favor of social reforms and prioritize topics such as reducing poverty, increasing popular power, among other topics that marked Correa’s years in power. One of his campaign promises is to distribute a thousand dollars to about a million families as soon as he takes power, aiming to increase the population’s purchasing power and raise the country’s social indexes.

On the other hand, the candidate that appears in second place is Guillermo Lasso, a former banker, presented by the “CREO” party in alliance with the Christian Social Party. Contrary to all Arauz’s promises, Lasso defends liberal reforms and promises a continuation of Lenin Moreno’s legacy, with pro-market policies, being a candidate clearly not concerned with social issues and popular agendas.

In third place is Yaku Pérez, a candidate from the Pachakutik movement, who, despite his position, is a long way from the top two, and his victory is unlikely. His main promises are to ban the current mining policy and impose limits on concessions in oil and gas production.

According to Ecuadorian law, for a candidate to win in the first round, it is necessary to obtain more than 40% and 10 points of difference over the second candidate. Otherwise, the first two candidates will face each other again in a second round. Arauz, who in most polls is close to 40%, appears to be close to winning in the first round – and it is precisely around this that arise threats from his opponents.

Several obstacles have been imposed on Arauz since the beginning of his campaign. Allegations of irregularities and illegalities abound from his opponents, almost always without any reasoning. Indeed, Moreno’s legacy has been one of political persecution against his opponents, albeit always disguised as legalism. Censors have been imposed on the campaigns and it is forbidden to even pronounce the name of Rafael Correa. In addition, several candidacies, mainly for the legislative branch which will also have its elections this year, were vetoed by the simple fact of the candidates supporting Correa, which means that, even if Arauz becomes president of Ecuador, Moreno is managing to form a hostile institutional scenario to force the pro-Correa candidate to capitulate to the interests of the liberal right.

Moreno, who started as an ally of Correa and then helped to overthrow him, not only started a major national dismantling process through neoliberal reforms, but also initiated a major judicialization of Ecuadorian politics, creating a police and judicial apparatus to persecute his opponents and justify any form of oppression with a speech of “defending law”. This form of judicial dictatorship is a recent trend in different parts of the world and works perfectly to guarantee the dictatorial intentions of liberal politicians who still want to maintain the democratic and legalistic discourse publicly – a true democratic and legalistic authoritarianism. With this, attempts are made to extinguish all political opposition through judicial sanctions and reprisals. It was in this way that the Ecuadorian liberal right managed to eliminate its greatest opponents, arresting not only Correa but also several of his allies, such as his former vice president, Jorge Glas. The charges – which generally involve crimes of corruption – are always generic and have little factual basis, with several irregularities in the legal processes.

The registration of Arauz’s candidacy itself was complicated, having gone through several legal bureaucracies that would not normally occur. Furthermore, once the registration was obtained, Arauz suffered threats to have his candidacy canceled due to links with Correa. These threats are unlikely to stop any time soon. Even if he is elected, Arauz will be legally threatened by his opponents and forced to make decisions that he would not like to make.

Amid a scenario of a possible resurgence of the left, Moreno traveled to Washington in the last week of January. There, he met with several American politicians, as well as figures like Kristalina Georgieva, Director of the International Monetary Fund and Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States, among others. The real intentions behind these meetings are still obscure and raise suspicions among Moreno’s opponents in Ecuador about possible articulations involving international agents for a reversal in the electoral process – or agitations for a possible removal of Arauz in the first moments of his office, if elected.

Undoubtedly, electing Arauz will directly damage the American plans, as it will represent a return of the nationalist left, which defends the political and economic integration of the Latin American continent and condemns foreign interference in the region. Washington is interested in continuing Moreno’s legacy, now represented by Lasso, but it may not be strong enough to contain the popular will to elect Arauz. What can come of this is a great horizon of possibilities, including an overthrow of Arauz through some judicial maneuver, an attempt to co-opt him as they managed to do with Moreno, who was Correa’s ally before or even simply invalidate his candidacy before elections are held.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Calling for an “American Ministry of Truth”. The US Media’s Dystopian “2021”

By Stephen Lendman, February 03 2021

Along with Big Brother mass surveillance and newspeak, Orwell’s Ministry of Truth was all about controlling the message, eliminating whatever conflicts with it, memory holes used for this purpose. The Times and other US major media operate this way now — a collective ministry of truth as described above.

Long-term Mask Use May Contribute to Advanced Stage Lung Cancer, Study Finds

By Phillip Schneider, February 03 2021

A recent study in the journal Cancer Discovery found that inhalation of harmful microbes can contribute to advanced stage lung cancer in adults. Long-term use of face masks may help breed these dangerous pathogens.

Implanted “Vaccine Package” ID: Germany’s Parliament Has Ratified GAVI’s Digital “Agenda ID2020”

By Peter Koenig, February 03 2021

Alarming News. In Germany the Parliament (Bundestag) ratified on 29 January 2021, the implementation of Agenda ID2020. This is a centralized general electronic data collection of every citizen to which every government agency, police – and possibly also the private sector would have access.

Sky News Acts Largely as a Platform for the UK Defence and Foreign Ministries, Research Finds

By Mark Curtis, February 03 2021

Declassified UK’s analysis of the written outputs of three of Sky News’ principal foreign affairs journalists has found that the media outlet acts largely to amplify the views of the British Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office, while rarely offering critical, independent analysis.

Examining the Ethics and Implications of Twitter’s Censorship Policy in India

By Andrew Korybko, February 03 2021

Twitter caused a stir by complying with the Indian government’s request to temporarily “withhold” access to dozens of accounts for users within the country in response to claims that they were “inciting violence” during the ongoing farmers’ protests.

JFK vs. Allen Dulles. Battleground Indonesia. A Review of Greg Poulgrain’s Book

By Edward Curtin, February 03 2021

The story he tells is one you will read nowhere else, especially in the way he links the assassination of President Kennedy to former CIA Director Allen Dulles and the engineering by the latter of one of the 20th century’s most terrible mass murders.

Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network Demands Biden End War in Afghanistan

By Black Alliance for Peace, February 03 2021

In response to the Biden administration suggesting it will not complete the withdrawal of U.S. forces, per the Doha Agreement of February 2020, the Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network demands the U.S. end the war in Afghanistan.

Racial Inequality, Institutional Discrimination: The “Great Awokening” in Global and Class Context

By Prof. Charles McKelvey, February 03 2021

The Woke ideology has the support of the political establishment.  Politicians invoke its rhetoric; the media editorializes in its defense; and corporations promise to reform in accordance with its teachings.  There is a reason for this: The Woke ideology functions to channel popular anger and discontent in a manner that does not threaten elite interests.

Russia’s Demography Crisis

By Kester Kenn Klomegah, February 03 2021

According to official data cited last month, Russia’s population stands at 146.24 million as of Jan. 1, 2021, down from 146.75 million the previous year. Russia’s population could drop by more than 12 million by 2035, the national statistics office said in its annual forecast published on its website.

US Pressure on China; The Thai Connection

By Christopher Black, February 02 2021

The change of guard in the American White House has proved that nothing has changed from the Trump regime with respect to US foreign policy. President Biden and his party continue the American propaganda attacks on Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and other nations that try to march to their own tune.

Glyphosate Endangers Wildlife, Too. Tell the EPA to Ban It.

By Zen Honeycutt, February 03 2021

The EPA wrongfully claims that glyphosate used on crops grown for human and animal food has no impact on endangered species. The public has until March 12 to submit comments asking the agency to ban or restrict the chemical.

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“Politicized Science”: Combatting Vaccine Tyranny

February 3rd, 2021 by Stephen Lendman

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).

***

America’s Frontline Doctors (AFD) are in the vanguard of supporting medicine the way it should be practiced over politicized science.

At a time when Big Government in cahoots with Big Pharma and Big Media are hellbent for mass-vaxxing everyone everywhere with hazardous to health covid vaccines, AFD is actively involved in combatting their diabolical scheme with scientific truth-telling.

It provides “honest healthcare solutions” at a time of state-sponsored mass deception.

AFD: “The doctor-patient relationship is being threatened” today, notably in the West.

“(Q)uality patient care is under fire like never before.”

“Powerful interests are undermining the effective practice of medicine with politicized science and biased information.”

“Now more than ever, patients need access to independent, evidence-based information to make the best decisions for their healthcare.”

“Doctors must have the independence to care for their patients without interference from government, media and the medical establishment.”

AFD and likeminded medical professionals are on the frontlines of practicing medicine as it should be.

They reject politicized (voodoo) economic agendas “at the expense of science and quality healthcare solutions” — prioritizing the following:

Providing science-based facts about seasonal flu-renamed covid.

“Protecting physician independence from government overreach.”

Combatting “covid” with “science-based” practices that don’t compromise constitutional rights.

“Fighting medical cancel culture and media censorship.”

“Advancing healthcare policies that protect the physician-patient relationship.”

Treating “covid” with safe, effective, low-cost drugs known to work when used as directed.

Avoiding experimental, inadequately tested, hazardous to health “covid” vaccines that don’t protect and risk enormous harm.

Everyone is entitled to accurate information on how best to protect and preserve their health and well-being.

Government in cahoots with Pharma and establishment media long ago lost credibility.

Their enemies of ordinary people, exploiting them to benefit privileged interests at their expense.

AFD reject shutdowns, quarantines, and other practices not backed by scientific evidence.

They’re committed to maintain the sanctity of doctor-patient relationships — to benefit health by safe and effective practices that work and do no harm.

Emergency care physician Simone Gold MD founded AFD.

She was fired after appearing with other truth-telling physicians who explain what works in treating seasonal flu-renamed covid and what to avoid — namely toxic vaccines.

Last August, she tweeted the following:

“I was defamed by the media, censored by social media companies, terminated from employment, and viciously attacked, all for advocating for the right of physicians to prescribe what they believe is best for their patients.”

When used as directed, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) combined with either azithromycin or doxycycline and zinc are highly effective in treating and curing “covid” — what government and Pharma in cahoots with establishment media want suppressed.

Doctors using this protocol — or ivermectin — understand their effectiveness and recommend them.

Dr. Stella Immanuel treated hundreds of “covid” infected patients with the above protocol, earlier saying:

“Any study that says hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work is fake science.”

“…I want them to show me how it doesn’t work.”

“How is it going to work for 350 patients for me, and they are all alive, and then somebody says it doesn’t work?”

“These so-called (establishment media promoted) studies (are) fake science.”

She, Gold, and AFD members debunked what they called a “massive disinformation campaign” against safe and effective HCQ in favor of hazardous to human health mass-vaxxing.

Immanuel had 100% success in treating 350 “covid” patients with the HCQ protocol.

She slammed politicians (and media) for trying to prevent doctors from being doctors, free to treat patients with medications known to work.

After going viral, truth-telling AFD video information was suppressed by You Tube, Facebook, Twitter and Google — to support hazardous to health mass-vaxxing.

AFD stressed the following:

People should never be pressured to comply with taking an experimental vaccine.

“This is becoming a very real danger.”

“The coercion can be implemented by government legislation or through policy directives by large private and public corporations, including airlines, employers, schools, and other institutions.”

“This type of assault on your medical privacy is invasive, aggressive, and unethical.”

The group supports a Vaccine Bill of Rights (VBOR), urging its adoption by all 50 US states.

It prohibits mandatory vaxxing for covid, vaccine passports, digital IDs, and other practices that compromise health, well-being, and fundamental rights of everyone.

Its principles state the following:

“No persons will be mandated, coerced, forced or pressured to take a COVID-19 vaccine.”

“No physician or nurse shall be asked by their employer to promote a COVID-19 vaccine.”

“All persons reserve the right, at all times, to determine what is in their own best medical interest without threat to their livelihood or freedom of movement.”

“All persons must be given access to independent information to help them determine what is in their own best medical interest, including the risk of death based upon age/condition from contracting COVID-19 naturally.”

“This information must include information from sources that are independent of a conflict of interest such as a government, political or commercial entity.”

“Such information can be included but cannot be the sole source of information.”

“The elderly are additionally entitled to a knowledgeable, independent advocate with medical training to help them determine their own medical interest.”

“Private businesses operating within the jurisdiction have no legal authority to require or mandate or coerce medication or experimental medication for any persons.”

The survival rate for seasonal flu-renamed covid is “99.7.”

The vast majority of individuals succumbing to the illness are elderly with weakened immune systems.

There’s no science-based justification for anyone anywhere to be vaxxed for “covid” when the HCQ protocol or ivermectin work safely and effectively in treating the illness.

Heavily promoted vaccines DO NOT protect and risk serious harm to health that for some is deadly.

Powerful — media supported — interests prioritize maximum profits over human health.

AFD members and likeminded medical professionals operate in polar opposite fashion — prioritizing health and well-being above all else.

Follow their advice to preserve and protect what’s too precious to lose.

*

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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 Shutterstock

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***

The Times never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity for truth-telling as it should be.

It’s a notion long ago abandoned in deference to providing press agent services for powerful interests.

At the same time, the Times finds new ways to disgrace itself.

Calling for a US Ministry of Truth headed by a “reality czar” sounds ominously like what Orwell described in his dystopian “1984” novel that’s no longer fiction, saying:

“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation.”

“These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy.”

“They are deliberate exercises in doublethink.”

Along with Big Brother mass surveillance and newspeak, Orwell’s Ministry of Truth was all about controlling the message, eliminating whatever conflicts with it, memory holes used for this purpose.

The Times and other US major media operate this way now — a collective ministry of truth as described above.

Featuring the official narrative exclusively, alternative views are filtered out and suppressed, free and open expression banned in their reports.

In “1984,” unnwanted material went down memory holes to “be whirled away (in) enormous furnaces…devoured by the flames,” said Orwell, adding:

“(T)here were the directing brains who co-ordinated the whole effort and laid down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this fragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified, and the other rubbed out of existence.”

In the US and West, no Orwell-style memory hole is needed, no furnaces, no ceremonial book-burnings.

Big Media in cahoots with diabolical government officials censor and eliminate truth-telling on what’s vital for everyone to know.

What Times fake news called a US “reality crisis” amounts to urging greater state-sponsored censorship than already.

What it called “the scourge of hoaxes, lies and delusions” are hard truths about US imperial wars, hazardous covid vaccines to be shunned, stolen Election 2020, unelected/cognitively impaired Biden unable to serve in any public capacity, the anti-Trump Jan. 6 Capitol Hill false flag, and other cutting-edge issues.

What the self-styled newspaper of record calls “misguided beliefs” are indisputable facts important for everyone to know.

A real “national reality crisis” exists because of Big Government in cahoots with Big Media – like the Times — serving privileged interests exclusively at the expense of most others.

It’s because of US police state totalitarian rule on a fast track toward full-blown tyranny.

It’s because the US no longer is open, free, and fair.

It’s because hardline government is the mortal enemy of ordinary people — their health, well-being, safety, and fundamental freedoms being eliminated in real time.

It’s because of US war OF terrorism, not on it, rages against ordinary people, wanting them exploited to serve privileged interests.

It’s because America is no longer safe and fit to live in for most of its people.

It’s because of the largely ignored greatest ever US Main Street Great Depression while wealth, power, and privileged interests never had things better.

It’s because media like the Times suppress what’s crucial for everyone to know.

What the Times called “violent extremism” is state-sponsored.

What it calls a “truth commission” reflects shades of “1984.”

What it calls “domestic terrorists” are FBI, CIA, DHS, local police, and other elements of oppression to cow ordinary people into submission to a diabolical higher power in Washington.

Truth-telling as it should be is polar opposite how the Times and other establishment media operate.

As a collective lying machine, truth-telling is their moral enemy, what they’re hellbent for eliminating in whatever form it shows up.

In today’s America, Big Brother mass surveillance, police state control, and ministry of truth Big Lies are part of the national fabric.

That’s the ugly reality suppressed by the Times and other Big Media.

The nation I grew up in long ago no longer exists.

Growing tyranny heading toward becoming full-blown replaced it.

That’s the ugly reality establishment media like the Times suppress — to their disgrace.

*

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/

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).

***

Many of the world’s most polluting companies are being handed a “get out of jail free” card by being invited to shape a scaled-up offsetting market, campaigners claim.

The Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets is due to publish its “roadmap for implementation” on Wednesday, four months after it was launched by former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, who is now a UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance.

Carney’s group wants to hugely scale up the existing market, making it “large, transparent, verifiable and robust”. This, it claims, will help private corporations meet the UK’s net zero target by 2050, in line with Paris Agreement targets to limit the worst impacts of climate change by restricting global warming to 1.5C or “well below” 2C.

But critics have questioned whether the taskforce’s membership – which includes oil majors, banks and airlines – is best placed to shape the future of that market, given their problematic histories of delivering carbon offsetting projects.

Wild West’

The concept of “net zero” poses a significant challenge to private companies, 20 of which have contributed to a third of all global emissions.

Corporations often claim they are using offsets as a last resort, after decarbonisation and carbon capture and storage options have been exhausted. But critics say there is limited evidence that counter-balancing carbon dioxide emissions in this way actually works.

The practice of offsetting is itself controversial. Offsetting involves buying a carbon credit – one tonne of verified carbon dioxide equivalent – which removes, replaces or avoids the equivalent amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere, usually by funding a carbon-saving project in the developing world.

Interest in the voluntary carbon market – which allows buyers to offset some of their greenhouse gas emissions – has correspondingly surged, as businesses look for ways to rapidly slash their overall carbon footprint. Latest figures from non-profit Forest Trends show corporate carbon-neutral pledges led to transactions of carbon credits surging to cover 104 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2019.

But the effectiveness of forest offsets traded through the UN’s existing REDD+ programme (the acronym to describe reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries) has plagued the existing voluntary carbon market, along with concerns over lack of regulation.

Carney has cited these concerns as a motivating factor for the taskforce, acknowledging that the current market is “opaque, cumbersome and fragementated”, with a recent Telegraph investigation calling it a “Wild West” of ineffective schemes.

Problematic pasts 

A number of green NGOs are involved in funding and overseeing the taskforce, but this hasn’t stopped it being accused of corporate capture, with companies with mixed records on offsetting, including oil majors such as Shell, BP and Total, to airlines like Easyjet and Etihad, and banking groups Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, BlackRock and UBS, having a strong presence in the group.

Shell

The world’s seventh highest historic polluter has long bought credits from accredited REDD+ projects, predominantly from the Katingan Mentaya project in Indonesia, and the Cordillera Azul national park in Peru.

Both projects are designed to conserve carbon stocks in existing forest reserves, but their effectiveness has been highly contested. In 2019, a joint Dutch and Indonesian investigation into the Katingan Mentaya project highlighted an increase in forest fires and land conflict around the project area, concluding that proving the permanent avoidance of carbon emissions was nearly impossible. According to the article, international banking group and taskforce member BNP Paribas also purchased carbon credits from the project.

Another investigation by Danish journalists in December 2020 looked at the Cordillera Azul national park in Peru, quoting experts who also said deforestation had increased directly outside the REDD+ zone, and major forest fires had broken out inside the project area — a common criticism of REDD+ projects.

Shell has also been criticised for projects closer to home, after announcing a number of new offset projects as part of a $300 million investment in “natural climate solutions”. Last year it emerged that Scottish Government officials warned each other that partnering with Shell to fund forests for carbon offsetting could be seen as “greenwashing” – before ultimately accepting £5 million for the million-tree project.

That initiative feeds into Shell’s Drive Carbon Neutral programme, by creating 250,000 credits towards offsetting customer emissions. The scheme – now in the UK, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany and Denmark – has faced ongoing criticism, with experts asking whether it encourages, rather than prevents, a business-as-usual attitude among corporations and individuals.

Shell’s new nature-based unit has been undeterred by external criticism, recently acquiring Select Carbon, which works with landowners to improve the carbon yield of nine million hectares of land in Australia. It has even started selling its own nature-based credits. Last week airline Etihad – also a taskforce member – announced it was expanding its current offset programme to include Shell’s projects in the Katingan Mentaya, as well as the Cordillera Azul in Peru.

Defending its record on carbon offsetting, Shell told DeSmog: “Independent third-party verification companies evaluate and review the projects regularly to assure CO2 reductions are real … Shell only trades credits that have been assessed by independent third-party processes.”

BP

Fellow oil major BP has also been pursuing forest offsets for the past decade. In 2011 it paid $5 million into the World Bank’s Carbon Fund that it helped found, part of the UN’s deforestation prevention carbon trading scheme. At the time, BP said it wanted to “increase our understanding of the evolution of carbon markets and policy, as well as helping to catalyse the development of this important sector”.

However, campaigners accused BP of becoming involved in the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) to greenwash its image, a year after it was found responsible for the 5 million barrel oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP was the only energy company involved in the fund, and just the second non-governmental body, after conservation NGO The Nature Conservancy (TNC) joined in 2007. TNC, which has previously worked with Shell on its strategy for nature-based solutions, is also represented on Carney’s taskforce as a Consultation Group member.

FCPF was intended to “jump-start a forest carbon market”, but a report by NGO Fern described the partnership as “smoke and mirrors”, saying it had failed to achieve social and environmental improvements. A letter written by Rainforest Foundation UKand other NGOs to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim in 2017, a decade after the programme first launched, claimed the millions spent on administering the programme had not translated into saving trees.

The FCPF’s perceived lack of success did not stop BP from exploring other offset avenues. In 2019, the company invested $5 million into Finite Carbon, the largest US forest carbon offset developer, before becoming the largest shareholder in the business.

Like Shell, BP has developed its own offset programme, “Target Neutral”, allowing customers to offset emissions through funding forest management in Zambia and more efficient cookstoves in India. The initiative is also used to offset harmful greenhouse gases from Air BP, which claims to be the first aviation fuel provider to have achieved carbon neutral operations globally.

Oil majors have also been burnishing their climate credentials on a global stage. During COP25, the UN’s 2018 climate summit in Madrid, both BP and Shell were introduced as founding members of the new International Emissions Trading Association (IETA)’s advisory panel for its Markets for Natural Climate Solutions. Dozens of environmental and Indigenous activists walked out in protest over the involvement of oil companies and fears the scheme would discourage companies from making substantial emissions cuts.

Just this month, the Scottish Greens accused BP of “classic greenwash” after it paid £2 million to expand Scotland’s native woodlands. Friends of the Earth Scotland said the emissions the scheme would save were “trivial” compared to the company’s contribution to climate change, whilst campaign group Glasgow Calls Out Polluters said the contribution was a “paltry sum” that allowed the company to “pursue their climate-wrecking activities unimpeded”.

A BP spokesman told DeSmog: “We support the use of high quality carbon offsets or credits by companies, countries and society to achieve faster and lower cost pathways to achieving net zero and meeting the Paris goals.”

“We intend to reach our 2030 emissions reduction aims without relying on offsets – but they may help us to go beyond those aims, if we can.”

Easyjet

Airlines have helped fuel the trend for voluntary offsets, as operators respond to the Paris Agreement target of reaching net-zero emissions mid-century. Aviation made up around 2.4 percent of global fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions in 2018 – around the same as Germany – with emissions expected to triple by 2050 under current projections.

Taskforce member Easyjet was recently revealed as one of the 15 biggest polluters in the UK, but has marketed itself as a climate conscious airline which was the first to offset fuel used for all its customers’ flights. Fellow taskforce member Delta Airlines has also pledged to go “carbon neutral” with the help of offsets, and plans to spend $1 billion over a decade to achieve this.

According to a January 2021 Greenpeace report, BA’s operator International Airlines Group has said it will use forests to offset 30 million metric tons of CO2e per year by 2050. This, together with a similar pledge by Italian oil giant Eni, could exhaust up to 12 percent of the total budget that the IPCC says is available for sequestration in new forests.

Easyjet has been one of the many airlines to be hit by COVID-19 travel restrictions, as the sector continues to suffer during the pandemic. Last year, the low-cost airline faced a backlash after asking the UK government for a bailout weeks after paying £171 million in dividends to its shareholders, including £60 million to its billionaire founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou. Easyjet later secured a £600 million loan from the Bank of England’s emergency bailout scheme, but in May announced it would still be making 30 percent of its workforce redundant. Easyjet told DeSmog it worked with unions to complete the process, which resulted in 1100 crew taking voluntary reduncies.

Offsets go hand in hand with attempts to move to sustainable fuel, but sustainable aviation is still some way from taking off. Delta Airlines and Easyjet are among a growing number of airlines exploring low-carbon fuels, but Shell has just left the UK’s flagship programme — a joint venture with British Airways and Velocys to build a sustainable jet fuels plant in the UK.

A report by the International Council on Clean Transportation found that meeting Paris Agreement targets primarily through low-carbon fuels would be “beyond difficult”, pointing out that biofuels, often used as an alternative to fossil fuels, tend to be made from food crops associated with high land-use change emissions.

Responding to questions from DeSmog, Easyjet defended its involvement in the taskforce, saying:

“Whilst the voluntary carbon offset market is increasingly recognised as having major potential to contribute towards limiting global warming, it remains relatively small and so the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets is working to create a framework and mechanisms to stimulate greater rigour and investment for carbon offset projects.”

We understand that offsetting can only be an interim solution while the zero-emissions technology we need is developed. We are fully committed to the UK Government and EU targets of net zero emissions by 2050 and believe that European aviation should aim to reach net zero earlier than this.”

BlackRock and others

As with airlines, carbon neutrality has become a growing mantra for banking groups. But the companies haven’t always put their money where their mouths are.

In December 2020, a Bloomberg report cast doubt on the integrity of forest offsets bought by taskforce member and the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock in Albany, New York. The article cites project documents that claimed no harvesting had taken place in Albany for nearly 20 years, seemingly contradicting the claims that large areas of the forests would be logged within a decade. BlackRock has been approached for a comment.

And this month, campaigners Reclaim Finance and Urgewald revealed that BlackRock still held $85 billion of shares in coal companies, despite a pledge to sell most of its fossil fuel shares.

BlackRock last year signalled a dramatic shift in financial strategy. In his annual letter to chief executives, CEO Laurence Fink said the climate crisis had brought the company “on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance”, calling on “every company, not just energy firms, to rethink their carbon footprints”.

But decarbonising its $7 trillion assets will not be easy, and it’s unclear how reliant BlackRock will be on offsets for its own operations and those of its investors. According to its last sustainability report in 2019, the company had offset 100 percent of its employees’ travel-related emissions since 2017, alongside other carbon-cutting strategies. The decarbonisation approach of BlackRock, which acquired another taskforce member Merrill Lynch in 2009, is likely to have a strong ripple effect in the financial sector.

Consultancy McKinsey & Company, which provides “knowledge and advisory support” to the taskforce, likewise has a chequered history on offsetting. A 2011 report by Greenpeace claimed that McKinsey’s REDD+ cost curve and baseline scenarios were being used to justify expansion of high-carbon industrial capacity in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Guyana. McKinsey has been approached for a comment.

Lack of transparency’

Campaigners are concerned that the companies’ problematic past experiences of carbon sequestration and offsetting programmes mean some of the taskforce members are not best placed to make strong recommendations for an effective voluntary carbon market.

Gilles Dufrasne, Policy Officer at NGO Carbon Market Watch, says the key challenge for the taskforce is to “get their priorities straight”.

He told DeSmog:

“The key objective should be to drive more finance towards concrete mitigation projects that deliver emission reductions and benefit local people and the environment.”

The taskforce places a lot of emphasis on increasing the volume of transactions in the market. I think we shouldn’t assume that more transactions necessarily translate into more emissions reductions.”

There are still legitimate concerns about the integrity and transparency of voluntary markets. For example, some projects issue more credits than they actually reduced emissions, and there is a lack of information regarding who buys which credits and at what price. The taskforce should make sure that it is not about to scale up a non-functional system, and therefore needs to put more emphasis on transparency and quality,” he said.

Dufrasne added that he was particularly concerned over the concept of “core carbon contracts” in the consultation document, “which seem to be designed by and for the financial industry”, and could “make it difficult to track what the underlying climate projects really are”.

Responding to questions raised over the taskforce’s integrity, Chris Leeds, operating team member and Executive Director at Standard Chartered, told DeSmog:

Carbon markets alone will not address the problem of climate change, however, for large emitters in hard to abate sectors investing in emissions abatement projects and new clean technology can be a key tool to reaching net-zero by 2050. The Taskforce’s aim is to create a transparent, robust voluntary carbon market to better channel needed investment into carbon reduction, avoidance or removal projects.”

He added:

“We are working to scale the market and demonstrate how carbon credits can be used legitimately and effectively in net-zero strategies, with the priority being for companies to reduce emissions in the first place.”

There are some supporters of big business’ involvement in the taskforce. Dr Jeremy Woods, a Reader in Sustainable Development at Imperial College London, said initiatives such as this were “hugely overdue, urgent and very much needed”.

It needs to have core representation of big business as this is where virtually all the investment capital will come from to drive material change to the global value chains needed, and against the almost impossibly short timelines that are implicit to the climate crisis,” he said.

But Dr Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace UK, said the involvement of some of the companies in the taskforce “raises some huge red flags” and that their involvement could set a  “terrible example” to the rest of the world ahead of the annual UNclimate talks, COP26, which will be held in Glasgow in November.

DeSmog approached the government’s COP26 unit, which is run by the Cabinet Office, to ask how the taskforce’s blueprint is likely to feed into November’s summit. In response, a spokesman said the taskforce was “a private sector-led initiative, supported by Mark Carney, and independent of UK Government efforts as the hosts of COP26”.

Parr told DeSmog:

“The lack of transparency in many of these companies’ plans, and the failure of Carney’s taskforce to impose strict emission reduction requirements on them, suggests they are banking on offsetting as a get out of jail free card in tackling the climate emergency.”

The failure of offset schemes in the past gives no confidence that Mark Carney’s taskforce can introduce robust rules to guarantee emissions cuts, whilst there’s nothing to make sure corporates still do the necessary heavy lifting on their own performance.”

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The Ministry of Public Health announced that the Cuban drug Itolizumab – developed by the Center for Molecular Immunology (CIM) – has shown positive results as an anti-inflammatory treatment in patients with COVID-19.

According to a study published on the Infomed website, patients infected with the SARS-COV2 virus can develop a very severe case of the illness, distinguished by the appearance of what is called “cytokine storm syndrome.”

Itolizumab, as a molecule capable of blocking the proliferation and activation of T-lymphocytes, and also behaves as an immunomodulator, has been shown to reduce the release of cytokines that produce inflammation.

In January, Cuban researchers at the CIM, the Victoria de Girón Institute of Basic and Preclinical Sciences, and the Manuel Piti Fajardo and Arnaldo Milián Castro Hospitals in the city of Santa Clara, presented findings from a study of the effectiveness of the medication in treatment of three patients with COVID-19 in serious or critical condition, in the international medical journal Immunotherapy.

The scientists reported that the administration of Itolizumab succeeded in reducing the concentrations of the cytokine IL-6 in all three cases, and two of the patients exhibited respiratory and radiological improvement allowing them to recover completely.

They concluded that this anti-inflammatory therapy, in addition to antiviral and anticoagulant medication, could reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with severe cases of COVID-19.

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The EPA wrongfully claims that glyphosate used on crops grown for human and animal food has no impact on endangered species. The public has until March 12 to submit comments asking the agency to ban or restrict the chemical.

Your actions, based on the following information, could alter the future of our planet.

Glyphosate herbicides are among the most widely used agrochemicals in the world. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), more than 300 million pounds are used in the U.S. each year — 280 million pounds of which are used directly on our food.

Crops such as soy, corn, sugar, wheat, beans, peas, alfalfa and oats make up just some of the crops used to feed livestock and humans that are contaminated with high levels of glyphosate.

Glyphosate has been found on thousands of samples of human food such as cereal, orange juice, eggs, and in pet food, tap water, breastmilk, children’s urine, streams, ocean water, and even in vaccines and rain.

A study by Paul J. Mills Ph.D., and his clinical research team at the University of California, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed a greater-than-1000% increase in the level of glyphosate in human bodies over the past 23 years.

Studies on glyphosate herbicides have proven either causal or direct connection to increased risks of multiple cancers, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, neurotoxicity, thyroid damage, autism symptoms, nonalcoholic liver disease, the disruption of gut bacteria which weakens the immune system and can lead to chronic illness, hormonal imbalance, depression, aggression and addiction. Glyphosate has also been linked to birth defects, miscarriages and endocrine disruption, which is linked to diabetes, obesity and other illnesses.

The federal EPA is currently accepting comments on whether or not to revoke the license for glyphosate, or restrict its use, based on the agency’s assessment of harm to endangered species.

The EPA’s initial report claims that the 280 million pounds of glyphosate used per year on agriculture have no impact on endangered species, and instead assigns all of the blame to the 20 million pounds used in landscaping. This is false.

The agricultural use of glyphosate also has a huge impact on endangered species. The drift, runoff into waterways and impact on the soil and wildlife surrounding agricultural land, which consists of 913 million acres in the U.S., is the primary source of harm to our environment. For some states, such as Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska, between 85-91% of the state is farmland, used primarily for conventional farming which involves the use of glyphosate. This means that many states have more land being sprayed with glyphosate than not, and the impact is detrimental for those states’ soil, water, air, wildlife, organic farming and human health.

One can only ascertain that if glyphosate is proving to cause harm to 93% of endangered species and 97% of their critical habitats, which are also our habitats, that if we do not act now, we humans and our pets will also soon be endangered species.

Make a direct comment to the EPA by March 12. Ask the agency to ban the use of glyphosate herbicides in the U.S. You may use any of the links to studies found on the Moms Across America data page and any of the following reasons in your comments:

  1. Glyphosate is never used alone, therefore the impact of use, assessment and approval or denial of it’s license must include the full-formulation studies. Independent, long-term studies with blood analysis of the full formulation impact must be included.
  2. Glyphosate herbicides have been found to be endocrine disruptors by many independent studies and studies have shown that the impact carries over to multiple generations.
  3. More than 40 countries and hundreds of cities, school districts and counties have banned or severely restricted the use of glyphosate around the world. Discontinuing the use of glyphosate in farming, particularly as a desiccant, has been shown to improve the quality of the grains and the soil, and reduce contamination of the environment and residues in food consumed by humans and animals.
  4. Glyphosate herbicides have been classified as a “probable” human carcinogen by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. Cancer is often caused by endocrine disruption. Cancerous, life-threatening tumors have been found in alarming numbers on turtles, deer, fish, and numerous species.
  5. Glyphosate herbicides have been found in streams, ocean water and even the rain, and by the EPA’s own acknowledgment, is highly toxic to aquatic life. Glyphosate herbicides harm 93% of endangered species and 97% of their critical habitats.

Continuing the use of glyphosate for any reason only increases the rate of losing our endangered species. It must be discontinued in the marketplace and in agricultural, landscaping, forestry and utility use.

We encourage you to personalize your message or the EPA will not count it as a unique comment. State in your words why it is important to you or your organization to ban the use of glyphosate in the U.S. for any reason.

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Zen Honeycutt is the Founding Director of Moms Across America, a non-profit National Coalition of Unstoppable Moms.

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Declassified UK’s analysis of the written outputs of three of Sky News’ principal foreign affairs journalists has found that the media outlet acts largely to amplify the views of the British Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office, while rarely offering critical, independent analysis.

A study by Declassified, covering 203 articles written by Deborah Haynes, Alistair Bunkall and Dominic Waghorn, has found that Sky routinely amplifies the views of the UK government in its military and foreign policies and provides almost no serious attempts to independently scrutinise or criticise them.

The research, which has analysed all articles by the three correspondents that could be found from November 2019 to November 2020, found that the primary focus of Sky’s critical reporting has overwhelmingly been countries presented by British officials as enemies of the UK – Russia, China and Iran – as well as the US under Donald Trump.

Two of the reporters, Haynes and Bunkall, offered no serious critical coverage of UK military or foreign policies or the human rights abuses committed by Britain’s close allies, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel, which all receive substantial UK military and other support. Waghorn’s articles offered only very occasional critical coverage.

In Sky’s written outputs, British government officials and their claims are routinely quoted favourably, with little or no independent commentary, context, or qualifications provided by the journalists.

Declassified’s analysis does not cover the video outputs of these and other Sky journalists, nor all of its journalists reporting on foreign affairs, and therefore offers a partial picture of Sky’s foreign news reporting.

However, Haynes is Sky’s foreign affairs editor, Alistair Bunkall is its defence and security correspondent and Dominic Waghorn its diplomatic editor.

Deborah Haynes provides the most striking example of reporting favourable to the UK government. Of the 107 of her articles analysed in the research, Declassified found 39 with the words Russia, China, Iran or Belarus in the headline. No headlines could be found that mentioned UK-allied states such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel or Bahrain.

Declassified found 670 mentions of the four UK rival states in Haynes’ articles and 25 for the four UK-allied states.

Haynes’ articles covering UK foreign policies were few in number but routinely tended to reinforce government messaging. Several articles were based on uncritical interviews or press conferences with figures such as the chief of the defence staff, the head of the domestic security service, MI5, the head of signals intelligence agency GCHQ, the head of UK Strategic Command, the head of the Royal Air Force, and the foreign secretary.

Some other articles are based on unidentified “sources” in the Ministry of Defence (MOD) or Whitehall. These pieces typically allow officials to put forward government positions, especially on alleged increasing threats to the UK posed by Russia, unfiltered by independent scrutiny.

Deborah Haynes (centre) speaks at an event on drone warfare in 2013. (Photo: Chatham House / Creative Commons 2.0)

Dr Justin Schlosberg, a media specialist at Birkbeck, University of London, said:

“This research provides yet another example of how, all too often, journalists at the biggest and most respected news brands tend to treat official sources with enormous deference – especially those from within the security state.

He added:

“This fundamental blind spot has had disastrous consequences in recent years – notably in skewing public attention away from inconvenient conflicts and issues, and allowing the UK government to broadly shape Sky’s foreign news agenda.”

Informing the public

Haynes’ articles often simply convey the view of the MOD to the public without distinguishing whether government messaging is correct or false, in effect adding to Whitehall’s public relations machinery.

For example, a series of articles written in April 2020, at the beginning of the coronavirus emergency, highlight the armed forces’ role in aiding the domestic response to the pandemic, which appear largely to be simply passing on information from the MOD, unfiltered by independent commentary.

Many of Haynes’ articles contain approving quotes and articulate positions supportive of the government’s military and foreign policies, especially on threats posed by Russia and China.

“Russian cyber spies are trying to steal research into coronavirus vaccines and treatments from Britain, the US and Canada, the three countries claimed on Thursday”, Haynes wrote in July 2020, in an article sourced to GCHQ.

In December 2019, Haynes wrote:

“Efforts by states such as Russia to break international rules, undermine democratic governments and exploit divisions in societies pose a far more insidious danger to the security that Britain and its allies have enjoyed since the end of the Second World War.”

Haynes made no similar statements that could be found about any threats posed to international security by the US or the UK.

In one of several articles on China, Haynes observed in June 2020:

“China is in the ascendancy while an international system of rules and institutions that underpin UK power and influence is under increased strain”.

Haynes conveys the view promoted by the establishment that NATO is a purely defensive alliance needing to contain an expansionist Russia. She wrote in June 2020, for example:

“NATO was established to defend against the former Soviet Union and is now actively pushing back against Russian activities”.

Russia has violated international law in several areas, notably in its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and is believed to be behind attacks in the UK – such as the murder of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 and the attempted poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, southern England, in 2018.

However, Russia’s abuse of international rules is typical of all “great powers”, including the US and the UK which are also serial violators of international law and contributors to human rights abuses, unmentioned in any article by Haynes that could be found.

UK policies concerning its occupation of the Chagos Islands, its role in US drone wars, its covert military policies, the detention and torture of Julian Assange, its complicity in the torture of terror suspects in the “war on terror”, and mass surveillance techniques practised by GCHQ, are all instances of policies violating domestic or international law.

Our research could find no mentions of these policies in the articles reviewed. The focus of British journalists on official enemies rather than the UK itself suggests they are keener to contribute to political objectives than to hold their own authorities to account.

A freedom of information response from the MOD to Declassified indicates how much the military values Haynes’ reporting.

When Russian naval ships sailed through the English Channel in March 2020, MOD media officers noted approvingly that a Royal Navy press release had received: “Repeated broadcast on Sky News, featuring analysis from Deborah Haynes and breaking news ‘ticker’”.

An assessment of coverage of the the Russian Navy transits produced by the Royal Navy’s media team in March 2020. (Photo: Ministry of Defence via Declassified UK)

Rivalries

Haynes, who was previously defence editor at The Times and has worked at Sky since 2018, is an honorary member of the Pen & Sword Club, an invitation-only organisation created by Territorial Army press officers.

She is highly supportive of British military policy, her articles describing Britain’s “nuclear deterrent” as “vital to the UK’s national security”, for example.

In February 2020 she argued:

“Sources in Whitehall… said they are sceptical whether Mr Johnson and his top adviser, Dominic Cummings, will achieve the overhaul of spending priorities that is needed to achieve generational change to match the changing nature of war and keep up with rivals like Russia and China.”

Haynes’ adoption of the views of the Foreign Office is noticeable in her articles. In a piece on Afghanistan in March 2020, she claimed:

“The international community bowled in with laudable aims of creating a democratic government in Afghanistan and offering its war-weary … people the chance to enjoy a Western-style democracy and a country no longer reliant on funding from the opium trade.”

The claim paints a rosy view of Anglo-American goals in Afghanistan and ignores how Western countries have consistently allied with repressive regimes in the Middle East and South Asia – from Egypt to Sri Lanka –  before, during and after the invasion of Afghanistan.

Haynes also amplifies the establishment notion that the UK is a supporter of human rights in its foreign policy.

In an article in February 2020 on the subject of British fighters for Islamic State in Syria being required to come back to the UK to face justice, she wrote:

“There will be those who shrug their shoulders at the prospect of such a fate for British citizens accused of involvement in a murderous organisation that terrorised the world. But if Britain starts to compromise its democratic values of human rights and the rule of law because it is just too difficult, then terrorist groups like IS – which seek to undermine those principles – have won.”

Again, Haynes’s generalisation fails to account for how Britain’s Foreign Office routinely allies with repressive regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, to secure oil and arms deals at the expense of human rights or anti-corruption.

Haynes wrote in an article in June 2020 about Sir Simon McDonald, who was retiring as the permanent secretary to the Foreign Office:

“Sir Simon has enjoyed a hugely successful career during 38 years of diplomatic service”. It is not clear what definition of success was being used.

Haynes added in support of her claim:

“He [McDonald] has been posted around the world, including to Germany, Saudi Arabia, the US and Israel. Sir Simon was ambassador to Berlin from 2010 to 2015 and ambassador to Israel from 2003 to 2006.”

Haynes did not mention that throughout McDonald’s tenure at the top of the Foreign Office, Britain continued to, among other policies, arm and support Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, a conflict which turned the country into the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with millions on the brink of famine.

Both Haynes and Alistair Bunkall covered the story emanating from US intelligence sources, which was also widely picked up in other traditional media, that Russia offered “bounties” in Afghanistan to Taliban-linked militias in order to kill British and other NATO forces. However, the veracity of the claim was unclear and was described as “uncorroborated” by a US intelligence official.

Despite a history of official sources providing false information, however, Sky reporters took at face value the word of the UK security establishment.

“Moscow dismissed the claims as ‘fake news’. But British and European security officials say the US intelligence is ‘credible’”, Haynes wrote.

Bunkall similarly assured readers:

“British security officials have confirmed to Sky News that the reports about the plot are true”.

Safe pair of hands

Declassified’s analysis found 64 articles by Sky’s defence correspondent Alistair Bunkall in the review period, many of which focused on Russia and coronavirus in the US. His brief at Sky is to cover “global security issues from conflict to counter-terrorism”.

Similar to Haynes, Bunkall’s articles largely provide a platform for the British military and security services, often uncritically carrying the views of officials such as the chief of the defence staff and reporting information largely from the MOD.

The security establishment appears to regard Bunkall as a safe recipient for its public relations work. In September 2020, for example, Bunkall was given “rare access” to the “army’s elite Pathfinder unit”, many of whose members also work in the Special Air Service (SAS), which was on a joint exercise in Ukraine to “practise covert insertion techniques”.

Such access tends to be given by officials to journalists who can be relied on to report government policies favourably.

Similarly, in November 2019, Bunkall was granted an interview with the head of MI6, Sir Alex Younger, billed as “the first time ever that a serving chief of MI6 has given a recorded interview”.

Bunkell did not provide independent commentary on, or examination of, MI6’s world role in the piece. Nor does he appear to have asked Younger any questions critical of MI6, such as the agency’s role in working alongside Islamist militias in Libya, one of whose members went on to kill 22 people at the Manchester Arena in 2017, or its role in illegal renditions of terror suspects and torture.

Younger was instead allowed to expound the view that the UK faced a “high point” of threats from Russia, China, Iran and terrorism.

Sky’s biography of Bunkall states:

“He has been given unprecedented access to some of the UK’s most secretive establishments: GCHQ, the Trident nuclear deterrent, the country’s highly secure air command bunker and the UK’s covert drone base in the Middle East”.

In an article in October 2020 entitled “Over in minutes: Special Boat Services’s ‘textbook’ raid shows why they have a fearsome reputation”, Bunkall described an operation by the navy’s special forces, the Special Boat Squadron (SBS), to board a supposedly hijacked ship off the coast of the Isle of Wight in southern England.

It was “another faultless operation”, Bunkall wrote. “The brave work of the SBS, for so long unfairly in the shadow of their Hereford cousins, the SAS … are building a fearsome global reputation”.

It was later reported that no hijacking took place and charges were dropped against the stowaways on board for lack of evidence there was any attempt to take control of the ship.

Despite Bunkell’s praise for Britain’s special forces, in 2019 the United Nations launched an investigation into claims that the SBS was fighting alongside child soldiers on covert operations in Yemen.

Bunkall’s commentary, like Haynes’, invariably supports and tends to echo concerns of the UK military, especially on the Russian threat. For example, Bunkall wrote in December 2019, on the 70th anniversary of the founding of NATO, that the organisation “is the longest, largest and most successful military alliance in history”.

He added in a second article on the subject:

“NATO is rightly proud of its 70-year history – it has achieved great things in that time and remains the diplomatic and military union around which our security is still built.”

No mention was made of, for example, the NATO intervention in Libya in 2011 which nearly destroyed the country and contributed to Libya acting as a base for international terrorism.

Bunkall added:

“In recent years Russia has ruthlessly exposed western splits and if NATO members continue to drift in different directions then Moscow will fill the cracks.”

Again echoing British security officials, he also wrote:

“The world is a no less dangerous place today than it was during the Cold War but the threats we face are more complex, more nuanced and more diverse.”

The benevolent US

The third journalist analysed, Sky’s diplomatic editor Dominic Waghorn, is described by Sky as one its most experienced foreign correspondents, and mostly covered coronavirus and US politics in 32 articles found in the period under review. Several of these articles were strongly critical of President Trump.

At the same time, Waghorn’s praise for the US role in the world was often striking. He wrote in November 2020:

“America built the world we live in, it was the architect of the post-war world order, its institutions, and the rules and agreements that have made our lives safer and more prosperous than they would otherwise have been”.

The following month Waghorn was even more effusive in his claim of a benevolent US role in the world, writing:

“America led efforts to build the postwar world order, a system of democratic and international institutions designed to keep the world prosperous and safe.”

He made these claims, contrasting them with Trump’s presidency, despite well-documented US postwar policies to foment coups, overthrow democratic governments and support human rights-abusing regimes, violating many international laws.

Unlike his colleagues, however, Waghorn did mention in a handful of articles countries where UK government policies are highly controversial, especially in supporting dictatorships and human rights abuses.

In November 2019, Waghorn mentioned British support for the military regime of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt which had come to power after it “carried out a series of massacres, using military snipers to kill hundreds of protesters”, including Sky cameraman Mick Deane.

Waghorn added correctly: “Despite all this it continues to enjoy the support of the British government, both diplomatically and financially.” Such mentions of British support for Sisi have been unusual in the British media.

In a further article on Egypt in February 2020, however, Waghorn failed to mention UK support for the regime and excused British and Western support for the previous dictatorship under Hosni Mubarak. He wrote:

“Outside powers, including Britain, fell for Mubarak’s claim that only he stood in the way of his country collapsing in chaos and propped him up”.

He provided no evidence to support this claim as to why Mubarak received British support. The more likely reason is that Egypt offered favourable terms to British big business interests, such as to oil giant BP.

Waghorn also wrote what was largely a puff piece on the British-backed dictator of Oman, Sultan Qaboos, on his death in January 2020. He claimed Qaboos “used oil money to turn his desperately poor country into a rich stable oasis” and that his “five decades in power have transformed the living standards and welfare of his subjects”.

Waghorn qualified this rosy picture by stating:

“Critics say the stability and prosperity of Oman has come at a cost, the intolerance of dissent that comes with absolute rule.”

But there was no mention of the systematic repression meted out by the Sultan over those five decades or his ban on political parties, independent media and free speech.

Missing policies

When aspects of UK foreign or military policies are criticised in articles by Haynes or Bunkall, the focus is invariably on relatively minor, less controversial issues. For example, Haynes wrote two articles about a submarine commander losing his job after throwing a barbecue under coronavirus lockdown and a piece on whether NATO was too slow in responding to the pandemic.

Haynes lamented in one article “that Britain has fallen short in its role as a leading, influential, serious democracy on the world stage” – a  standard argument used by pro-establishment voices who seek an even greater British role in the world.

Similarly, Bunkall wrote critically on the UK government’s lack of representation at an international security conference in February 2020.

Haynes did mention in passing in one article: “The Ministry of Defence’s procurement practices have come under heavy and repeated criticism for waste, mismanagement and incompetence for decades.” But her strongest criticism of the British military that could be found was a long piece in May 2020 about sexism and harassment in the army.

In an article in September in 2020, Bunkall quoted defence secretary Ben Wallace mentioning Britain’s military presence in Oman and Bahrain, but he did not write about the nature of these regimes or why the British policy might be controversial.

Declassified found scant mention by the three journalists of Britain’s war in Yemen, which has raged for nearly six years. No article by Sky’s foreign affairs editor could be found covering the conflict. One article written by Bunkall came in July 2020 highlighting opposition to the UK’s decision to resume arms exports to Saudi Arabia.

Declassified also found one article by Waghorn on the Yemen war, in September 2020, which mentioned that Britain and the US have supplied the Saudis “with weapons and warplanes and insist they have the right to defend themselves”. It added that the air offensive “has led to enormous numbers of civilian casualties”.

Declassified has seen some reporting by Sky’s Alex Crawford on the impact of UK-backed air strikes in Yemen. It is not clear the extent to which Haynes, Bunkall or Waghorn have covered Yemen in their video reporting.

Opposition and protest

While Haynes has covered sympathetically opposition and protests against the repressive regimes in Belarus and Hong Kong, in line with Whitehall’s positions, no coverage by her could be found of similar crackdowns by UK-supported regimes in Bahrain or Egypt.

Haynes’ only coverage of Bahrain was when she was “given rare access to a patrol with the Bahrain navy” in the Gulf in February 2020. During this visit, a Bahraini naval officer “showed me the ship’s weapons”, Haynes wrote.

The article contained no mention of the nature of the repressive Bahraini regime and its extensive links to the British military and intelligence services. Her report was published at a time of mounting concern over Bahrain’s human rights record, after a court had upheld the death sentences of two political prisoners in January.

Haynes quotes foreign secretary Dominic Raab in at least 10 of her articles, according to our research, but no serious critical mentions or scrutiny of the government’s foreign policy could be found.

Haynes interviewed Raab in an exclusive interview in the Locarno suite of the Foreign Office in June 2020, basing her article on UK policy towards China. She quoted him as saying, “I think Britain still has an incredible role in the world as a force for good,” but did not noticeably ask him about British policy towards any of the Gulf regimes it supports, Egypt, Israel or the war in Yemen, for example.

In an article in December 2019, Haynes noted in passing that “Western powers, including the United States and Britain, supported the uprising against President Assad in 2011. But they are not key players any more.”

Haynes has not apparently mentioned in her reporting in the review period the years-long British covertoperation in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime.

Sky News, previously owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, is now owned by Comcast, a US-based media corporation. Comcast bought Sky plc in 2018 in a £29.7-billion takeover.

Deborah Haynes, Alistair Bunkall and Dominic Waghorn were approached for comment.

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Mark Curtis is the editor of Declassified UK, an investigative journalism organisation that covers the UK’s role in the world. James Broadway contributed to the research.

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***

Twitter caused a stir by complying with the Indian government’s request to temporarily “withhold” access to dozens of accounts for users within the country in response to claims that they were “inciting violence” during the ongoing farmers’ protests, which prompts some very important ethical questions that have a few disturbing implications for the freedoms of speech and assembly in Western-style democracies across the world.

Everyone across the world is talking about social media censorship after former US President Trump was deplatformed last month by the world’s largest companies in this sphere following the storming of his country’s Capitol on 6 January, but another recent incident is similarly alarming but hasn’t received the amount of global attention that it deserves.

Twitter caused a stir by complying with the Indian government’s request to temporarily “withhold” access to dozens of accounts for users within the country in response to claims that they were “inciting violence” during the ongoing farmers’ protests. To its credit, Reuters reported on this controversial decision when it happened, and the BBC just followed up to inform its readers that access has been restored to many of the affected accounts. Nevertheless, the ethical questions related to this course of events and the disturbing implications that they pose for the freedoms of speech and assembly in Western-style democracies haven’t been adequately addressed.

Strictly speaking, “India’s information technology laws empower the government to seek to block online content deemed as inciting disruption to public order”, according to Reuters. In this sense, Twitter was just abiding by the legal request of one of the many countries in which it operates. Be that as it may, there are concerns that the affected accounts weren’t objectively “inciting disruption to public order” simply for posting with the hashtag #modiplanningfarmersgenocide. The politics of genocide are very emotive and the issue is oftentimes exploited for ulterior motives. Even so, it’s questionable whether provocative claims such as that one amount to “Genocide incitement (which) is a public offence and a great threat to public order”, according to one of the unnamed Indian officials that spoke to Reuters. Rather, as some observers suspect, India might have exploited its pertinent legislation in order to suppress the largest and most sustained anti-government protests in recent memory.

It’s up to the reader themselves to investigate this issue more thoroughly in order to draw their own conclusions about that particular example, but the takeaway is that governments across the world could at least in theory take advantage of the law in order to censor their political opponents.

At the same time, however, there are plenty of examples that one can think of where it would be necessary for governments to request the immediate “withholding” of access to certain accounts that are genuinely “inciting disruption to public order”, such as during the midst of an ongoing Color Revolution attempt. It’s unclear, though, whether Twitter would dutifully comply in those scenarios since the company is regarded as having a very strict liberal-globalist worldview which is thought to generally align with the goals of Color Revolution participants in Belarus, Venezuela, and elsewhere. One can easily imagine the company denying such requests for political reasons, unlike in India where it fears being shut out of its enormous market if it goes against the government.

These points raise two serioius questions. The first is whether Twitter will follow an apolitical approach of complying with all governments’ relevant requests without discrimination, even if there are grounds like in the Indian case to legitimately wonder whether the law is being exploited for domestic partisan purposes. The second question is whether exceptions will be made on a case-by-case basis due to ideological and/or economic considerations, the first of which is relevant to the Belarusian and Venezuelan scenarios as mentioned and the latter in regards to retaining access to India’s enormous market. The answers to these questions will directly affect the lives of countless people living in Western-style democracies, especially those in the US and Western Europe. As it stands, it’s unclear whether Twitter would temporarily withhold access to accounts within America and France for instance if Washington and Paris claim that some participants in certain rallies (e.g. anti-Biden and Yellow Vests, respectively) are “inciting disruption to public order”.

Of course, it would help those governments’ cases if they could at least point to some law or another that’s officially on the books in order to “justify” what could in reality just be their exploitation of the legal process for the purpose of censoring their political opponents, but even if they can’t, Twitter has both ideological and economic reasons to comply with their requests. It’s for this reason why lawmakers in those countries and others should raise this scenario within their legislatures in order to hold decision makers to account in the event that they attempt to exploit the law to that end. Every Western-style democracy must have a serious discussion about the ethical questions and implications posed by the Indian precedent. Failure to do so will actually put their citizens’ freedoms of speech and assembly at risk of being undermined through potential collusion between corrupt government officials and Big Tech. It also risks empowering Big Tech into thinking that it can carry out its own widespread censorship sprees for ideological reasons with impunity.

To be clear, Twitter itself is a complex entity. It can be used as a tool for good in the hands of responsible decision makers who understand the need to temporarily “withhold” access to accounts that are genuinely “inciting disruption to public order”. Peaceful members of the population also use its free services to organize protests in accordance with the law. On the other hand, Twitter can also be exploited as a weapon by corrupt bureaucrats to censor their political opponents on false “security” pretexts. The company can also “go rogue” and impose its own censorship scheme on targeted populations using the same pretext (albeit arguing that the affected accounts’ posts “violated its terms of service” instead of “the law”) in order to meddle in the domestic political affairs of sovereign states. With these risks in mind, countries should urgently initiate conversations between the state and civil society over the contentious issue of Big Tech’s growing role over nearly every facet of people’s lives, and credible steps should be undertaken to preemptively thwart these dark scenarios.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

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

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***

From 1972 to 2010, at three church-related colleges and one public university, I was among the professors of sociology teaching concepts that provided the foundation for the current racial awakening in the United States.  In courses on Race and Ethnic Relations, I taught the concept of institutional discrimination, describing it as involving common institutional patterns that perpetuate racial inequality, even when the intention is not to do so; exemplified by the use of SAT scores in college admissions.  I told my students that it is racist to say or think that “Everyone can succeed in this society if they work hard enough,” but classifying the belief as a subtle form of racism by some individuals, rather than as an example of “systemic racism;” and I noted that social inequalities also are rooted in class factors.

I was formed in the early 1970s in the African-American intellectual tradition of black nationalism, which did not focus on white racism; but on the need for black empowerment and black consciousness to confront and transform global colonial and neocolonial structures, which have their particular manifestations in the United States.  In accordance with this teaching, I developed several courses that emphasized the colonial and neocolonial structures of the world-system and the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements of the Third World.  Unfortunately, these dimensions are rarely included in today’s racial awakening, even though they relate to the most profound aspects of the meaning of race in the modern world.

The reductionism of the racial awakening

I am saddened to observe that, in today’s racial awakening, the typical concepts of standard academic courses on race relations in the not-so-distant past have evolved to an overly racialized and inaccurate description of U.S. contemporary reality, while the most important dimensions of the meaning of race are not seen.  I have been so deeply disturbed with today’s racialized narrative and its taking of the U.S. left by storm, that I began to look for alternative sources of intellectual nourishment.  I have initiated extensive reading of articles in magazines of traditional conservatism (to be distinguished from neoconservatism), such as Chronicles and The American Conservative.  To my surprise, I have found that many of the articles were informed by extensive reading in history and literature, and they displayed considerable common-sense intelligence as well as a sense of humor.

I also found that one does not have to be formed in black nationalism to see the intellectual and political limitations of today’s racial awakening, which some have called the “Great Awokening,” a disparaging play on words that references the American religious revivals known as the “Great Awakening,” which in its second manifestation from the late eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century, was characterized by extreme emotionalism and hellfire-and-damnation preaching.  With respect to what some have called the “Woke Ideology,” I find myself in agreement with Zach Goldberg, doctoral candidate in Political Science at Georgia State University, cited in the pages of Chronicles.  Goldberg describes the ideology as a Manichean conceptualization that divides “a diverse, multiethnic society into oppressed and oppressor categories on the basis of skin color.”  He maintains that it is “a theory of racism that misrepresents facts about the world while stigmatizing any effort to criticize those facts as racist.”

The analytical weakness of the Woke ideology ought to be clear to historians and social scientists.  It downplays consistent societal efforts since the Civil Rights Law of 1964 and the Voting Rights Law of 1965 to eliminate racial discrimination, which have resulted in the removal of previously existing barriers in many institutions and areas of life, and which have created a new reality for the black middle class.  Some articles, for example, jump immediately from slavery or the Jim Crow segregationist era to the killing of George Floyd.  In general, an attempt is not made to place discussion of racism today in the context of a careful analysis of significant changes since the 1960s.

The Woke ideology bypasses the two most important prophetic voices of the African-American movement of the twentieth century, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, both of whom called for a direction fundamentally different from that implied by the Woke ideology. Malcolm, an advocate of self-help, emphasized the development of the black community through black control of its economic, political, and cultural institutions.  King, following the civil rights gains of 1964 and 1965, turned to the development of a multiracial alliance against poverty in the Poor People’s Campaign.

The limitations of the current racial awakening are illustrated by the 1619 Project of The New York Times Magazine.  The project lacks understanding of the political-economy of slavery, and therefore, it cannot explain how slavery in the Caribbean and the U.S. South contributed to the spectacular economic ascent of the nation, from which all Americans today benefit materially, including blacks and the advocates of the Woke ideology; its moralistic focus on slaveholders and slave traders of that time misses the central historical and economic point.  Moreover, the project does not see that conquest and exploitation are in no sense unique to Western Europeans or whites; and that conquest and exploitation have been a prevailing human tendency since the Agricultural Revolution, providing the foundation for great empires and civilizations.

In addition, the 1619 Project sets aside the anti-imperialist projection of the leftist governments and movements of the Third World, which for the past seventy years have declared the need for humanity to cast aside the historic human pattern of conquest and to forge an alternative to the European-centered capitalist world-economy, an alternative based on cooperation and mutually-beneficial trade.  The 1619 Project, therefore, does not formulate a national plan based on the appropriation of insights emerging from peoples of color beyond U.S. borders.

And the Woke ideology has destructive political consequences. Although it influences white liberals to some extent, it has the opposite effect on white moderates and conservatives.  It thus deepens divisions among the people and stokes racial polarization.

The power elite, defending its interests, promotes the racial awakening

The Woke ideology has the support of the political establishment.  Politicians invoke its rhetoric; the media editorializes in its defense; and corporations promise to reform in accordance with its teachings.  There is a reason for this: The Woke ideology functions to channel popular anger and discontent in a manner that does not threaten elite interests, which is especially important in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and the Occupy movement.

As Jeff Groom writes in Chronicles, “The establishment’s race narrative has redirected the rage of Occupy Wall Street and saved the regime from a reckoning.”  He maintains that the Occupy movement, which “was generally devoid of any mention of race,” and which declared the corporate elite as the enemy of the 99%, has been transformed and redirected by corporations and the media, such that the whole left has been subsumed into the race narrative.

The leftist popular movement today, in the context of the pandemic-induced economic crisis, focuses not on economic injustices but on “racial oppression and injustice.” The central problem is not defined as “rule by the elites” but as “the enduring reign of white supremacy.”  Consistent with Groom’s analysis, Goldberg presents extensive empirical evidence indicating that the media played a central role in stimulating the racial awakening.

The power elite today confronts unprecedented threats to its privileged position.  The European-centered capitalist world-economy is unsustainable, as a result of it having reached and overextended the geographical and ecological limits of the earth.  The elite increasingly turns with desperation to imperialist wars of aggression, financial speculation, and Orwellian ideological manipulation, while Third World governments are increasingly united in their just call for an alternative, more democratic and sustainable world-system.  During the last 75 years, popular movements have been able to take political power in various nations, and some have developed sustainable alternative projects, such as China, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Bolivia, (projects that U.S. intellectuals, of both the left and the right, ought to spend more time studying).

At the present time, the United States is vulnerable to the popular taking of power, inasmuch as it is a declining hegemonic power, experiencing intensified conflicts among its classes and interests.  Therefore, the U.S. power elite must devise strategies to channel popular rebellions, preventing them from becoming a unified project seeking control of the federal government.  Stoking racial and ethnic divisions among the people, through identity politics and the Woke ideology, is a logical course of action.

When we study revolutionary processes throughout the world, we find that the pre-revolutionary situation is characterized by chaotic and undirected rebellion, when a wide variety of idealist and contradictory ideas are in the air.  No leader is present to put forth an accurate interpretation of the nation’s history and its current problems and divisions, and to unify the people in support of a comprehensive set of intelligent proposals.  But then something happens to galvanize the rebellion to revolution, such as a disastrous war, an earthquake, or some other crisis.

In the case of Cuba, the galvanizing event was the attack on the Moncada military barracks by a group of 126 revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro.  The attack failed; but it aroused the nation.  The unfolding of events in the aftermath of the attack provided Fidel the opportunity to present a manifesto and a platform, calling the diverse sectors of the people, each called by name, to a unified struggle to overcome their common and particular problems, each analyzed accurately; as the entire nation watched, listened, and read.

The financial crisis of 2008 had all the ingredients of a galvanizing event.  The indifference of the power elite and the political establishment to the needs of the working and middle classes as well as to the long-term productive needs of the nation had been increasingly evident since 1980.  With the crisis of 2008, the reckless financial speculation of the corporate and financial elite now stood dramatically exposed.   The people rebelled, and the Occupy Movement came into being.  An accurate concept was formulated: the 99% against the 1% corporate elite.  And a few concrete proposals in defense of the people were put forth.

But unlike Moncada, leaders did not emerge to have presence on the national scene.  A manifesto interpreting the nation’s history and a platform with a comprehensive package of realistic and intelligent proposals were not disseminated.  In part, this was due to the lack of preparation for the historic moment by intellectuals and activists.  But perhaps, with more time, prepared leaders would have emerged.  And perhaps this possibility was eclipsed by an elite-supported emphasis on race, exploiting the divisions and confusions among the people.

What should be done?

I like what Goldberg says,

“Working to ensure that Americans of any background aren’t unjustly victimized by the police and have access to quality health care, schools, and affordable housing doesn’t require the promotion of a ‘race-consciousness’ that divides society into ‘oppressed’ and ‘privileged’ color categories. To the contrary, it requires that we de-emphasize these categories and unite in pursuit of common interests.”

In various essays written over the past several years, drawing upon study of victorious popular revolutions in various lands, I have argued that we need to form an alternative political party that would see the taking of political power, through democratic electoral means, as a long-term project, and that would focus in the near-term on the education of the people, through the dissemination of pamphlets and the organization of regular face-to-face discussion and study meetings; including a manifesto that interprets national and human history, and a platform that puts forth a comprehensive and realistic program of specific proposals.

It would form its interpretations and proposals on the basis of consciousness of the experiences of all of the peoples of the nation and the world.  It would call to participation peoples of all colors (including whites) and all workers (including union, non-union, and self-employed workers), intellectuals, professionals, businesspersons, homemakers, and farmers that that pertain to the 99%. It would explain the necessary role of the state in the economy and in the creation of conditions that ensure the protection of the social and economic rights and needs of the people.

And it would explain the need for an anti-imperialist foreign policy that respects the sovereignty of nations, as the only possible foundation for world peace.  It would sponsor extensive and respectful debate and discussion among the people with respect to complex and divisive issues, such as abortion, gender identity, sexuality, gun ownership, family, religion, and patriotism, seeking national consensus in regard to courses of action.

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Charles McKelvey is Professor Emeritus, Presbyterian College, Clinton, South Carolina.  He has published three books: The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution: The Light in the Darkness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); The African-American Movement:  From Pan-Africanism to the Rainbow Coalition (General Hall, 1994); and Beyond Ethnocentrism:  A Reconstruction of Marx’s Concept of Science (Greenwood Press, 1991).  In addition to contributing to Global Research, he has published articles on Cuba, on the characteristics of socialism, and on current conflicts and issues in the United States in Counterpunch.

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***

Before I digress slightly, let me state from the outset that the book by Greg Poulgrain that I am about to review is extraordinary by any measure. The story he tells is one you will read nowhere else, especially in the way he links the assassination of President Kennedy to former CIA Director Allen Dulles and the engineering by the latter of one of the 20th century’s most terrible mass murders.  It will make your hair stand on end and should be read by anyone who cares about historical truth.

About twelve years ago I taught a graduate school course to Massachusetts State Troopers and police officers from various cities and towns.  As part of the course material, I had created a segment on the history of the United States’ foreign policy, with particular emphasis on Indonesia.

No one in this class knew anything about Indonesia, not even where it was. These were intelligent, ambitious adults, eager to learn, all with college degrees. This was in the midst of the “war on terror” – i.e. war on Muslim countries – and the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency.  Almost all the class had voted for Obama and were aware they he had spent some part of his youth in this unknown country somewhere far away.

I mention this as a preface to this review of JFK vs. Dulles, because its subtitle is Battleground Indonesia, and my suspicion is that those students’ lack of knowledge about the intertwined history of Indonesia and the U.S. is as scanty today among the general public as it was for my students a dozen years ago.

This makes Greg Poulgrain’s remarkable book – JFK vs. Allen Dulles: Battleground Indonesia – even more important since it is a powerful antidote to such ignorance, and a reminder for those who have fallen, purposefully or not, into a state of historical amnesia that has erased the fact that the U.S. has committed systematic crimes that have resulted in the deaths of more than a million Indonesians and many more millions throughout the world over innumerable decades.

Such crimes against humanity have been hidden behind what the English playwright Harold Pinter in his 2005 Nobel Prize address called “a tapestry of lies.”  Of such massive crimes, he said:

But you wouldn’t know it.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened.

Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening.

It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.

The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them.

And when one examines the true history of such atrocities, again and again one comes up against familiar names of the guilty who have never been prosecuted.  Criminals in high places whose crimes around the world from Vietnam to Chile to Cuba to Nicaragua to Argentina to Iraq to Libya to Syria, etc. have been – and continue to be – integral to American foreign policy as it serves the interests of its wealthy owners and their media mouthpieces.

In his brilliant new book on U.S./Indonesian history, Dr. Greg Poulgrain unweaves this tapestry of lies and sheds new light on the liars’ sordid deeds. He is an Australian expert on Indonesia whose work stretches back forty years, is a professor at University of the Sunshine Coast in Brisbane and has written four highly-researched book about Indonesia.

In JFK vs. Dulles, he exposes the intrigue behind the ruthless regime-change strategy in Indonesia of the longest-serving CIA director, Allen Dulles, and how it clashed with the policy of President John F. Kennedy, leading to JFK’s assassination, Indonesian regime change, and massive slaughter.

Poulgrain begins with this question:

Would Allen Dulles have resorted to assassinating the President of the United States to ensure that his ‘Indonesian strategy’ rather than Kennedy’s was achieved?

To which he answers: Yes.

But let me not get ahead of myself, for the long, intricate tale he tells is one a reviewer can only summarize, so filled is it with voluminous details.  So I will touch on a few salient points and encourage people to buy and read this important book.

Indonesia’s Strategic Importance

The strategic and economic importance of Indonesia cannot be exaggerated.  It is the world’s 4th most populous country (275+ million), is located in a vital shipping lane adjacent to the South China Sea, has the world’s largest Muslim population, has vast mineral and oil deposits, and is home in West Papua to Grasberg, the world’s largest gold mine and the second largest copper mine, primarily owned by Freeport McMoRan of Phoenix, Arizona, whose past board members have included Henry Kissinger, John Hay Whitney, and Godfrey Rockefeller.

Long a battleground in the Cold War, Indonesia remains vitally important in the New Cold War and the pivot to Asia launched by the Obama administration against China and Russia, the same antagonists Allen Dulles strove to defeat through guile and violence while he engineered coups home and abroad. It is fundamentally important in the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific strategy for what it euphemistically calls a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” While not front-page news in the U.S., these facts make Indonesia of great importance today and add to the gravity of Poulgrain’s historical account.

JFK

Two days before President John Kennedy was publicly executed by the US national security state led by the CIA on November 22, 1963, he had accepted an invitation from Indonesian President Sukarno to visit that country the following spring.  The aim of the visit was to end the conflict (Konfrontasi) between Indonesia and Malaysia and to continue Kennedy’s efforts to support post-colonial Indonesia with economic and developmental aid, not military.   It was part of his larger strategy of ending conflict throughout Southeast Asia and assisting the growth of democracy in newly liberated post-colonial countries worldwide.

He had forecast his position in a dramatic speech in 1957 when, as a Massachusetts Senator, he told the Senate that he supported the Algerian liberation movement and opposed colonial imperialism worldwide.  The speech caused an international uproar and Kennedy was harshly attacked by Eisenhower, Nixon, John Foster Dulles, and even liberals such as Adlai Stevenson.  But he was praised throughout the third world.

Poulgrain writes:

Kennedy was aiming for a seismic shift of Cold War alignment in Southeast Asia by bringing Indonesia ‘on side.’  As Bradley Simpson stated (in 2008), ‘One would never know from reading the voluminous recent literature on the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and Southeast Asia, for example, that until the mid-1960s most officials [in the US] still considered Indonesia of far greater importance than Vietnam or Laos.

Of course JFK never went to Indonesia in 1964, and his peaceful strategy to bring Indonesia to America’s side and to ease tensions in the Cold War was never realized, thanks to Allen Dulles.  And Kennedy’s proposed withdrawal from Vietnam, which was premised on success in Indonesia, was quickly reversed by Lyndon Johnson after JFK’s murder on November 22, 1963.  Soon both countries would experience mass slaughter engineered by Kennedy’s opponents in the CIA and Pentagon. Millions would die.

While the Indonesian mass slaughter of mainly poor rice farmers (members of the Communist Party – PKI) instigated by Allen Dulles began in October 1965, ten years later, starting in December 1975, the American installed Indonesian dictator Suharto, after meeting with Henry Kissinger and President Ford and receiving their approval, would slaughter hundreds of thousands East-Timorese with American-supplied weapons in a repeat of the slaughter of more than a million Indonesians in 1965 when the CIA engineered the coup d’état that toppled President Sukarno.  The American installed dictator Suharto would rule for thirty years of terror.  The CIA considers this operation one of its finest accomplishments.  It became known as “the Jakarta Method,” a model for future violent coups throughout Latin America and the world.

And in-between these U.S. engineered mass atrocities, came the bloody coup in Chile on September 11, 1973 and the ongoing colossal U.S. war crimes in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

Dulles’s Secret

What JFK didn’t know was that his plans for a peaceful resolution of the Indonesia situation and an easing of the Cold War were threatening a covert long-standing conspiracy engineered by Allen Dulles to effect regime change in Indonesia through bloody means and to exacerbate the Cold War by concealing from Kennedy the truth that there was a Sino-Soviet split.  Another primary goal behind this plan was to gain unimpeded access to the vast load of natural resources that Dulles had kept secret from Kennedy, who thought Indonesia was lacking in natural resources. But Dulles knew that if Kennedy, who was very popular in Indonesia, visited Sukarno, it would deal a death blow to his plan to oust Sukarno, install a CIA replacement (Suharto), exterminate alleged communists, and secure the archipelago for Rockefeller controlled oil and mining interests, for whom he had fronted  since the 1920s.

Reading Poulgrain’s masterful analysis, one can clearly see how much of modern history is a struggle for control of the underworld where lies the fuel that runs the megamachine – oil, minerals, gold, copper, etc.  Manifest ideological conflicts, while garnering headlines, often bury the secret of this subterranean devil’s game.

The Discovery of Gold

His murder mystery/detective story begins with a discovery that is then kept secret for many decades.  He writes:

In the alpine region of Netherlands New Guinea (so named under Dutch colonial rule – today, West Papua) in 1936, three Dutchmen discovered a mountainous outcrop of ore with high copper content and very high concentrations of gold.  When later analyzed in the Netherlands, the gold (in gram/ton) proved to be twice that of Witwatersrand in South Africa, then the world’s richest gold mine, but this information was not made public.

The geologist among the trio, Jean Jacques Dozy, worked for the Netherlands New Guinea Petroleum Company (NNGPM), ostensibly a Dutch-controlled company based in The Hague, but whose controlling interest actually lay in the hands of the Rockefeller family, as did the mining company, Freeport Sulphur (now Freeport McMoRan, one of whose Directors from 1988-95 was Henry Kissinger, Dulles’ and the Rockefeller’s close associate) that began mining operations there in 1966.

It was Allen Dulles, Paris-based lawyer in the employ of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, who in 1935 arranged the controlling interest in NNGPN for the Rockefellers.  And it was Dulles, among a select few others, who, because of various intervening events, including WW II, that made its exploitation impossible, kept the secret of the gold mine for almost three decades, even from President Kennedy, who had worked to return the island to Indonesian control. JFK “remained uninformed of the El Dorado, and once the remaining political hurdles were overcome, Freeport would have unimpeded access.” Those “political hurdles” – i.e. regime change – would take a while to effect.

The Need to Assassinate President Kennedy

But first JFK would have to be eliminated, for he had brokered Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua/West Irian for Sukarno from the Dutch who had ties to Freeport Sulphur.  Freeport was aghast at the potential loss of “El Dorado,” especially since they had recently had their world’s most advanced nickel refinery expropriated by Fidel Castro, who had named Che Guevara its new manager.  Freeport’s losses in Cuba made access to Indonesia even more important. Cuba and Indonesia thus were joined in the deadly game of chess between Dulles and Kennedy, and someone would have to lose.

While much has been written about Cuba, Kennedy, and Dulles, the Indonesian side of the story has been slighted. Poulgrain remedies this with an exhaustive and deeply researched exploration of these matters. He details the deviousness of the covert operations Dulles ran in Indonesia during the 1950s and 1960s.  He makes it clear that Kennedy was shocked by Dulles’s actions, yet never fully grasped the treacherous genius of it all, for Dulles was always “working two or three stages ahead of the present.”  Having armed and promoted a rebellion against Sukarno’s central government in 1958, Dulles made sure it would fail (shades of the Bay of Pigs to come) since a perceived failure served his long-term strategy.  To this very day, this faux 1958 Rebellion is depicted as a CIA failure by the media.  Yet from Dulles standpoint, it was a successful failure that served his long-term goals.

“This holds true,” Poulgrain has previously written, “only if the stated goal of the CIA was the same as the actual goal.  Even more than five decades later, media analysis of the goal of The Outer Island rebels is still portrayed as a secession, as covert US support for ‘rebels in the Outer Islands that wished to secede from the central government in Jakarta’.  The actual goal of Allen Dulles had more to do with achieving a centralized army command in such a way as to appear that the CIA backing for the rebels failed.”

Left to right: Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell, President Kennedy, John McCone. April 1962. Photo credit: CIA.GOV

Left to right: Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell, President Kennedy, John McCone. April 1962. Photo credit: CIA.GOV

Dulles’ the Devil

Dulles betrayed the rebels he armed and encouraged, just as he betrayed friend and foe alike during his long career.  The rebellion that he instigated and planned to fail was the first stage of a larger intelligence strategy that would come to fruition in 1965-6 with the ouster of Sukarno (after multiple unsuccessful assassination attempts) and the institution of a reign of terror that followed.  It was also when – 1966 – Freeport McMoRan began their massive mining in West Papua at Grasberg at an elevation of 14,000 feet in the Alpine region.  Dulles was nothing if not patient; he had been at this game since WW I.  Even after Kennedy fired him following the Bay of Pigs, his plans were executed, just as those who got in his way were.  Poulgrain makes a powerful case that Dulles was the mastermind of the murders of JFK, U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold (working with Kennedy for a peaceful solution in Indonesia and other places), and Congolese President Patrice Lumumba, the first president of a newly liberated Congo.

His focus is on why they needed to be assassinated (similar in this regard to James Douglass’s JFK and the Unspeakable), though with the exception of Kennedy (since the how is well-known and obvious), he also presents compelling evidence as to the how. Hammarskjold, in many ways Kennedy’s spiritual brother, was a particularly powerful obstacle to Dulles’s plans for Indonesia and colonial countries throughout the Third World. Like JFK, he was committed to independence for indigenous and colonial peoples everywhere and was trying to implement his Swedish-style ‘third way,’ proposing a form of ‘muscular pacifism’.

Poulgrain argues correctly that if the UN Secretary General succeeded in bringing even half these colonial countries to independence, he would have transformed the UN into a significant world power and created a body of nations so large as to be a counter-weight to those embroiled in the Cold War.

He draws on documents from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and Chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu to show the connection between South Africa’s “Operation Celeste” and Dulles’s involvement in Hammarskjold’s murder in September 1961.  While it was reported at the time as an accidental plane crash, he quotes former President Harry Truman saying, “Dag Hammarskjold was on the point of getting something done when they killed him.  Notice that I said, ‘When they killed him’.”  Hammarskjold, like Kennedy, was intent on returning colonized countries to their indigenous inhabitants and making sure Papua was for Papuans, not Freeport McMoRan and imperial forces.

And Dulles sold his overt Indonesian strategy as being necessary to thwart a communist takeover in Indonesia. Cold War rhetoric, like “the war on terrorism” today, served as his cover.  In this he had the Joint Chiefs of Staff on his side; they considered Kennedy soft on communism, in Indonesia and Cuba and everywhere else. Dulles’s covert agenda was to serve the interests of his power elite patrons.

While contextually different from David Talbot’s portrayal of Dulles in The Devil’s Chessboard, Poulgrain’s portrait of Dulles within the frame of Indonesian history is equally condemnatory and nightmarish.  Both describe an evil genius ready to do anything to advance his agenda.

Dulles and George de Mohrenschildt

Poulgrain adds significantly to our understanding of JFK’s assassination and its aftermath by presenting new information about George de Mohrenschildt, Lee Harvey Oswald’s handler in Dallas.  Dulles had a long association with the de Mohrenschildt family, going back to 1920-21 when in Constantinople he negotiated with Baron Sergius Alexander von Mohrenschildt on behalf of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil.  The Baron’s brother and business partner was George’s father.  Dulles’s law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, was Standard Oil’s primary law firm. These negotiations on behalf of elite capitalist interests, in the shadow of the Russian Revolution, became the template for Dulles’s career: economic exploitation was inseparable from military concerns, the former concealed behind the anti-communist rhetoric of the latter.  An anti-red thread ran through Dulles’s career, except when the red was the blood of all those whom he considered expendable.  And the numbers are legion.  Their blood didn’t matter.

Standard Oil is the link that joins Dulles [who controlled the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of JFK] and de Mohrenschildt. This connection was kept from the Warren Commission despite Dulles’ prominent role and the importance of the testimony of de Mohrenschildt. Poulgrain argues convincingly that de Mohrenschildt worked in “oil intelligence” before his CIA involvement, and that oil intelligence was not only Dulles’s work when he first met George’s father, Sergius, in Baku, but that that “oil intelligence” is a redundancy. The CIA, after all, is a creation of Wall Street and their interests have always been joined. The Agency was not formed to provide intelligence to US Presidents; that was a convenient myth used to cover its real purpose which was to serve the interests of investment bankers and the power elite, or those I call The Umbrella People who control the U.S.

While working in 1941 for Humble Oil  (Prescott Bush was a major shareholder, Dulles was his lawyer, and Standard Oil had secretly bought Humble Oil sixteen years before), de Mohrenschildt was caught up in a scandal that involved Vichy (pro-Nazi) French intelligence in selling oil to Germany.  This was similar to the Dulles’s brothers and Standard Oil’s notorious business dealings with Germany.

It was an intricate web of the high cabal with Allen Dulles at the center.

In the midst of the scandal, de Mohrenschildt, suspected of being a Vichy French intelligence agent, “disappeared” for a while.  He later told the Warren Commission that he decided to take up oil drilling, without mentioning the name of Humble Oil that employed him again, this time as a roustabout.

“Just when George needed to ‘disappear’, Humble Oil was providing an oil exploration team to be subcontracted to NNGPM – the company Allen Dulles had set up five years earlier to work in Netherlands New Guinea.”  Poulgrain makes a powerful circumstantial evidence case (certain documents are still unavailable) that de Mohrenschildt, in order to avoid appearing in court, went incommunicado in Netherlands New Guinea in mid-1941 where he made a record oil discovery and received a $10,000 bonus from Humble Oil.

“Avoiding adverse publicity about his role in selling oil to Vichy France was the main priority; for George, a brief drilling adventure in remote Netherlands New Guinea would have been a timely and strategic exit.”  And who best to help him in this escape than Allen Dulles – indirectly, of course; for Dulles’s modus operandi was to maintain his “distance” from his contacts, often over many decades.

In other words, Dulles and de Mohrenschildt were intimately involved for a long time prior to JFK’s assassination. Poulgrain rightly claims that “the entire focus of the Kennedy investigation would have shifted had the [Warren] Commission become aware of the 40-year link between Allen Dulles and de Mohrenschildt.” Their relationship involved oil, spying, Indonesia, Nazi Germany, the Rockefellers, Cuba, Haiti, etc.  It was an international web of intrigue that involved a cast of characters stranger than fiction, a high cabal of the usual and unusual operatives.

Two unusual ones are worth mentioning: Michael Fomenko and Michael Rockefeller.  The eccentric Fomenko – aka “Tarzan” – is the Russian-Australian nephew of de Mohrenschildt’s wife, Jean Fomenko.  His arrest and deportation from Netherlands New Guinea in 1959, where he had travelled from Australia in a canoe, and his subsequent life, are fascinating and sad. It’s the stuff of a bizarre film. It seems he was one of those victims who had to be silenced because he knew a secret about George’s 1941 oil discovery that was not his to share. “In April 1964, at the same time George de Mohrenschildt was facing the Warren Commission – a time when any publicity regarding Sele 40 [George’s record oil discovery] could have changed history – it was decided that electro-convulsive therapy would be used on Michael Fomenko.” He was then imprisoned at the Ipswich Special Mental Hospital.

Equally interesting is the media myth surrounding the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller, Nelson’s son and heir to the Standard Oil fortune, who was allegedly eaten by cannibals in New Guinea in 1961. His tale became front-page news, “a media event closed off to any other explanation and the political implications of his disappearance became an ongoing tragedy for the Papuan people.”  To this very day, the West Papuan people, whose land was described by Standard Oil official Richard Archbold in 1938 as “Shangri-la,” are fighting for their independence.

The Sino-Soviet Split

While the gold in West Papua was very important to Allen Dulles, his larger goal was to keep the Cold War blazing by concealing the dispute between China and the Soviet Union from Kennedy while instigating the mass slaughter of “communists” that would lead to regime change in Indonesia, with Major-General Suharto, his ally, replacing President Sukarno. In this he was successful. Poulgrain says:

Not only did Dulles fail to brief Kennedy on the Sino-Soviet dispute early in the presidency, but he also remained silent about the rivalry between Moscow and Beijing to wield influence over the PKI or win its support.  In geographical terms, Beijing regarded Indonesia as its own backyard, and winning the support of the PKI would give Beijing an advantage in the Sino-Soviet dispute.  The numerical growth of the PKI was seen by Moscow and Beijing for its obvious political potential.  Dulles was also focused on the PKI, but his peculiar skill in political intelligence turned what seemed inevitable on its head.  The size of the party [the Indonesian Communist Party was the largest outside the Sino-Soviet bloc] became a factor he used to his advantage when formulating his wedge strategy – the greater the rivalry between Moscow and Beijing over the PKI, the more intense would be the recrimination once the PKI was eliminated.

The slaughter of more than a million poor farmers was a trifle to Dulles.

The September 30, 1965 Movement

In the early hours of October 1, 1965, a fake coup d’état was staged by the CIA’s man, Major-General Suharto.  It was announced that seven generals had been arrested and would be taken to President Sukarno “to explain the rumor that they were planning a military coup on October 5.” Suharto declared himself the head of the army. Someone was said to have killed the generals. In the afternoon, a radio announcement was made calling for the Sukarno government to be dismissed.  This became Suharto’s basis for blaming it on the communists and the so-called September 30 Movement, and he gave the order to kill the PKI leaders.  This started the massive bloodshed that would follow.

With one hand, Suharto crushed the Movement, accusing the PKI of being the ultimate instigator of an attempt to oust Sukarno, and with the other hand he feigned to protect the “father of the Indonesian revolution,” while actually stripping Sukarno of every vestige of political support.

When the generals’ bodies were recovered a few days after Oct 1, Suharto falsely claimed the PKI women had tortured and sexually mutilated them as part of some primitive sexual orgy.  This heinous perversion of power was the start of the Suharto era.  In total control of the media, he manipulated popular wrath to call for revenge.

If this confuses you, it should, because the twisted nature of this fabricated coup was actually part of a real coup in slow motion aimed at ousting Sukarno and replacing him with the CIA’s man Suharto.  This occurred in early 1967 after the mass slaughter of communists.  It was a regime change cheered on by the American mass media as a triumph over communist aggression.

New Evidence of U.S. Direct Involvement in the Slaughter

Poulgrain has spent forty years interviewing participants and researching this horrendous history. His detailed research is quite amazing. And it does take concentration to follow it all, as with the machinations of Dulles, Suharto, et al.

Some things, however, are straightforward.  For example, he documents how, during the height of the slaughter, two Americans – one man and one woman – were in Klaten (PKI headquarters in central Java) supervising the Indonesian army as they killed the PKI. These two would travel back and forth by helicopter from a ship of the U.S. 7th Fleet that was off the coast of Java.  The plan was that the more communists killed, the greater would be the dispute between Moscow and Beijing, since they would accuse each other for the tragedy, which is exactly what they did.  This was the wedge that was mentioned in the Rockefeller Brothers Panel Report from the late 1950s in which Dulles and Henry Kissinger both participated.

The hatred drummed up against these poor members of the Communist Party was extraordinary in its depravity.  In addition to Suharto’s lies about communist women mutilating the generals’ bodies, a massive campaign of hatred was directed against these landless peasants who made up the bulk of the PKI.  False Cold War radio broadcasts from Singapore stirred up hostility toward them, declaring them atheists, etc.  Wealthy Muslim landowners – the 1 per cent – made outrageous charges to assist the army’s slaughter.  Poulgrain tells us:

Muhammadiyah preachers were broadcasting from mosques that all who joined the communist party must be killed, saying they are the ‘lowest order of infidel, the shedding of whose blood is comparable to killing a chicken.’

For those Americans especially, who think this history of long ago and far away does not touch them, its compelling analysis of how and why Allen Dulles and his military allies would want JFK dead since he was a threat to national security as they defined in it their paranoid anti-communist ideology might be an added impetus to read this very important book. Indonesia may be far away geographically, but it’s a small world.  Dulles and Kennedy had irreconcilable differences, and when Dulles was once asked in a radio interview what he would do to someone who threatened national security, he matter-of-factually said, “I’d kill him.”  The Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say that the introduction to JFK vs. Dulles by Oliver Stone and the afterward by James DiEugenio are outstanding.  They add excellent context and clarity to a really great and important book.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Behind the Curtain.

Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He is the author of the new book: https://www.claritypress.com/product/seeking-truth-in-a-country-of-lies/

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Russia’s Demography Crisis

February 3rd, 2021 by Kester Kenn Klomegah

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Russia has demographic crisis. Notwithstanding official efforts to boost birth rates, reverse brain drain, use immigration policy over the past few years, Russia’s population still falls by half a million.

According to official data cited last month, Russia’s population stands at 146.24 million as of Jan. 1, 2021, down from 146.75 million the previous year. Russia’s population could drop by more than 12 million by 2035, the national statistics office said in its annual forecast published on its website.

The State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said that Russia experienced its highest natural population decline in 11 years.

Here are the three population scenarios that Rosstat predicted for the next 15 years. That, however, Russia’s natural population is expected to continue to decline — meaning deaths will continue to outnumber live births.

Optimistic scenario: 150.1 million. Natural population is expected to slow its contraction from nearly 250,000 next year to 21,300 in 2035. Migration is expected to grow from under 340,000 next year to more than 385,000 in 2035.

Baseline scenario: 142.9 million. Natural population is expected to decline by more than 350,000 next year and almost 400,000 in 2035. Migration is expected to drop slightly from almost 265,000 next year to around 264,000 in 2035.

Worst-case scenario: 134.2 million. Natural population is expected to contract by 484,400 next year and near 1 million people by 2035. Migration is expected to drop from almost 191,000 to under 16,000 arrivals in 2035.

All the figures were revised downward from 2018, when Rosstat forecast Russia’s population to grow to 153.2 million under an optimistic scenario, 144 million under a baseline scenario and 138.1 million under the worst-case scenario.

Besides, there are Russian Ministries that show concern and closely involved in discussing ways to implement measures to support population growth. For instance, the Health Ministry and the Economic Development Ministry.

Russia’s Health Ministry

Deputy Health Minister Evgeny Kamkin, back in October 2020 at the Territory of Care forum, said that “By the decree of the President of the Russian Federation on national goals and strategic development objectives for the period up to 2030, we have been given an ambitious but achievable task – increasing the life expectancy of Russians to 78 years by 2030. Increasing the share of older citizens of working age in the structure of the country’s population requires a timely restructuring of the entire health care system, with an emphasis on early detection of age-related diseases and risk factors for their development.”

The Demography National Project for 2019-2024 consists of five federal projects: Financial support for families with newborn children, Support for female employment, Older generation, Public health promotion and Sport as a norm of lifestyle.

The project’s key goals include: increase in life expectancy; decrease in mortality of the population over the working age; increase in birth rate; promotion of a healthy lifestyle. At present, relevant ministries and agencies are adjusting the indicators of the national project. The project was extended until 2030.

Economic Development Ministry

The Economic Development Ministry, as far back in August 2019, expected the population in Russia to grow by almost two million people in five years. This is according to the ministry’s basic macroeconomic forecast for 2019-2024, the outlook on demography took into account “the development of measures to support the birth rate.”

According to the document, the population would increase annually by 0.2-0.5 million people and would grow from 146.8 million people to 148.7 million people by 2024.

According to the forecast, the number of working-age population would also increase – from 82.0 million people to 85.3 million people. At the same time, the number of retired people would decrease from 37.3 million people to 35.6 million people.

Experts on Population Growth

Many Russian experts say population growth in any country can be ensured by either a natural increase (the difference between the number of births and deaths) or migration. That said, migration can become a demographic resource, but for this, Russia’s migration policy needs to be changed, Director of the Higher School of Economics’ Institute of Demography, Anatoly Vishnevsky, suggested.

Russia must have “special programmes focused on receiving migrants, and furnishing mechanisms for them to adapt and integrate, but Russia doesn’t have them,” he stressed. His proposal implies adopting one more measure for boosting the population, and to ensure a growing population as people makes up the wealth of a country. On the contrary, Russia has let the pace of migration slip through its fingers over the past decade. If we had a sound migration policy, then we could be considering migration from other countries,” suggested Anatoly Vishnevsky.

Putin on Population Growth

In his Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly delivered at the Manezh Central Exhibition Hall in January 2020, President Vladimir Putin said “There are nearly 147 million of us now. But we have entered a difficult, a very difficult demographic period. We are alarmed by the negative demographic forecasts. It is our historic duty to respond to this challenge. We must not only get out of this demographic trap, but ensure a sustainable natural population growth by 2025. The aggregate birth rate must be 1.7 in 2024.”

“Demography is a sector where universal or parochial solutions cannot be effective. Each step we take and each new law or government programme we adopt must be scrutinised from the viewpoint of our top national priority – the preservation and increase of Russia’s population,” he told the gathering.

Putin suggested building a long-term policy to support population growth, adding “it is our historic duty to respond to this challenge. We must not only get out of this demographic trap but ensure a sustainable natural population growth by 2025. Demography is a sector where universal or parochial solutions cannot be effective. Each step we take and each new law or government programme we adopt must be scrutinised from the viewpoint of our top national priority – preservation and increase of Russia’s population.”

The federal assembly includes members of the Federation Council, State Duma deputies, members of the Government, the heads of the Constitutional and Supreme courts, regional governors, speakers of regional legislatures, the heads of traditional religious denominations, public activists, the heads of regional civic chambers and the heads of major media outlets.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who previously worked with Inter Press Service (IPS), is a frequent and passionate contributor to Global Research.

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In response to the Biden administration suggesting it will not complete the withdrawal of U.S. forces, per the Doha Agreement of February 2020, the Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network demands the U.S. end the war in Afghanistan.

The BAP Solidarity Network, comprised of non-African/Black people and organizations who support BAP’s anti-imperialist mission, released a petition today, calling on everyone committed to peace, human rights and common sense, to demand Biden re-start peace talks; immediately withdraw all U.S. forces, private contractors, and other mercenaries; close all U.S. bases; and respect the sovereignty of Afghanistan.

Nearly 20 years ago, the United States invaded the sovereign nation of Afghanistan, initiating decades of violence and occupation. To date, the war has resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 Afghan adults and children, leaving thousands more injured or permanently disabled.

“As usual, it is the people of the United States who are forced to fund these imperialist endeavors,” according to Danny Haiphong, co-coordinator of the BAP Solidarity Network. “The financial cost to U.S. citizens has, so far, edged over $1 trillion, much of it lost in a sink-hole of corruption, or spent enriching military contractors and the financial elite.”

After several months of negotiations, direct peace talks between the Taliban and the U.S.-installed Afghan government finally began this past September. The U.S. news media, Congress, the military-industrial complex, and the foreign-policy community immediately hit out in opposition against Trump’s brokered deal. Now, the Biden administration suggests it will not complete the withdrawal of U.S. forces, which the United States had agreed to when it and the Taliban signed the Doha Agreement in February 2020.

“It is time to stop the lies and for the Biden administration to end this bloody, trillion-dollar war,” says BAP Solidarity Network member Zach Kerner. “The U.S., the most violent country in the world, has been wreaking nothing but violence on the Afghan people for nearly 20 years. But now it is now claiming it cannot move forward on the peace process because of ‘violence.’”

Read the petition below. You may sign it here.

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Demand An End to War in Afghanistan

Nearly 20 years ago, the Bush administration and the U.S. ruling class invaded the sovereign nation of Afghanistan, initiating decades of violence and occupation of the Afghan people. To date, the U.S. empire and its Western allies are complicit in the deaths of over 100,000 Afghan adults and children, leaving thousands more injured or permanently disabled. As usual, it is the people of the United States who are forced to fund these imperialist endeavors: The financial cost to U.S. citizens has so far edged over $1 trillion, much of it lost in a sink-hole of corruption, or spent enriching military contractors and the financial elite (the debt for the war will take years to pay off).

Two decades of repeated U.S. bombing—nearly 50,000 bombs have been dropped on a country the size of Texas—have left Afghanistan with catastrophic levels of poverty, an economy in shambles, and health care workers struggling with the added burden of the pandemic. In 2019 alone, the United States dropped 7,423 bombs and missiles, the most since 2006 (when data became available).

Nearly 3 million Afghans refugees have fled their country to escape the violence, making Afghanistan one of the world’s biggest sources of refugees, and over 2 million Afghans have been internally displaced.

In February 2020, the Trump administration and the Taliban—without the U.S.-dominated Afghan government—signed a peace agreement that called for the scheduled withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign forces. The corporate media, foreign-policy community and other profiteers of the military-industrial complex swiftly criticized the talks. But within days of taking office, the Biden administration signaled the deal is off, citing the importance of supporting a “stable, sovereign, democratic, and secure future for Afghanistan.” That is the same language we hear whenever the United States conspires to overthrow a foreign leader who is hostile to U.S. capital, thereby presenting a threat to U.S. hegemony (see Iraq, Libya, Syria, Chile, Venezuela, to name a few).

The Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network, comprised of non-African/Black people and organizations who support BAP’s mission, condemns the continued war and occupation of Afghanistan, as we condemn the use of state violence and militarism against poor and working-class people of all nations. That is why demand the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO-backed forces from Afghanistan and from the region.

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The Corona “Pandemic” Timeline: What Happened in January – March 2020?

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 02 2021

Facts corroborated by official statements reveal that the Covid pandemic which served to justify the Lockdown is deceptive to say the least. This article (based on Chapter III of my E-Book) will focus on the Corona Timeline starting in January.

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

By Peter Koenig, February 02 2021

WHO has most likely received orders from “above”, from those people who also manage Trump and the “leaders” (sic) of the EU, European Union. The final decision to go ahead NOW with COVID-19 pandemic, was taken in January 2020 at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos – behind very much closed doors.

Dangerous mRNA Vaccine: Is Mandatory US Covid Vaxxing Coming?

By Stephen Lendman, February 02 2021

The threat of mandatory covid vaxxing by federal, state, local authorities, and/or employers, businesses across the board, schools, and for access to public places should terrify everyone.

Video: Myanmar Crisis Explained… Towards a Regional Arc of Instability?

By Brian Berletic, February 02 2021

I explain why the US had been placing pressure on Aung San Suu Kyi in recent years and why the US is still going to support her and the vast network the US built up in Myanmar to propel her into power regardless.

History: ‘Who Ended the Holocaust?’ The Liberation of Auschwitz

By Martin Sieff, February 02 2021

The anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945 and Holocaust Remembrance Day every year have been hijacked. They have become bizarre photographic negatives of the horrors they were meant to commemorate and manipulated to insult the millions of victims and the heroic warriors who gave their lives to end such horrors

Switzerland’s Dangerous Turn to the Far Right

By Franklin Frederick, February 02 2021

Experts from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights itself warned that this new legislation violates international human rights standards in the way that it expands the definition of terrorism, and would set a dangerous precedent for the suppression of political dissent worldwide.

Wall street

Gamestop — And the Financial Game that Never Stops!

By Dr. Jack Rasmus, February 01 2021

This past week a video game company in trouble, Gamestop, became the center of media attention.  Day traders had driven up the company’s stock price by thousands of percent in just one day.

Video: The State of Our Currencies with Catherine Austin Fitts

By James Corbett and Catherine Austin Fitts, February 01 2021

With the global technocrats taking the world through the “Going Direct” Reset into the abyss of the End of Currency and the ultimate transhuman slave state, things could not be more dire. But, as Catherine Austin Fitts of Solari.com tells us, there are options on the table for taking things in a completely different direction and unlocking the incredible abundance of the planet.

Viral Inequality and the Farmers’ Struggle in India

By Colin Todhunter, February 01 2021

According to a new report by Oxfam, ‘The Inequality Virus’, the wealth of the world’s billionaires increased by $3.9tn (trillion) between 18 March and 31 December 2020.

The Destructive Plan Behind the Biden Russia Agenda

By F. William Engdahl, January 31 2021

The new Biden Administration has from day one made it clear it will adopt a hostile and aggressive policy against the Russian Federation of Vladimir Putin.

US ‘Stealing, Plundering’ Syrian Oil: Mark Taliano

By Mark Taliano and Press TV, February 02 2021

Author and political analyst Mark Taliano told Press TV on Saturday that the US had never been invited, nor ever will be invited into Syria, and military American forces occupation and killing of the men, women and children in the country constituted a war crime.

Psychology: Pretending There Is Nothing Wrong

By Rod Driver, February 02 2021

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us.”

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Author’s Introductory Note

Facts corroborated by official statements reveal that the Covid pandemic which served to justify the Lockdown is deceptive to say the least.

This article (based on Chapter III of my E-Book) will focus on the Corona Timeline starting in January.

These are some of the highlights:

1. A Covid Vaccine had already been envisaged several months prior to the “official” discovery of the virus in late December 2019. The Covid Vaccine initiative was discussed and debated at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos on January 21-24, 2020.

2. On January 30, 2020, the WHO confirmed that there were 83 positive cases outside China including 5  in the US, 3 in Canada, 4 in France, 4 in Germany.

Based on these ridiculously low numbers the WHO launched a Worldwide public health emergency (PHEIC)

4. On the following day, January 31st, 2020, President Trump decided to suspend Air Travel with China. The five WHO “confirmed cases” in the US were sufficient to “justify” a far-reaching decision which triggered a crisis in international trade and air travel, which is still ongoing, not to mention the bankruptcies of the airlines and the tourist industry.

5. On February 20th, the WHO Director General Tedros held a press conference warning that a pandemic was imminent, intimating “that the chance to contain the coronavirus outbreak..[is] closing” …: “I believe the window of opportunity is still there, but that the window is narrowing.”

These shock and awe statements have no scientific basis. On February 20, 2020, the recorded number of covid positive cases was ridiculously low: confirmed cases outside China was 1073 out of population of 6.4 billion.

Tedros’ statements nonetheless served to trigger the 2020 Corona Financial Crash. The fear campaign went into high gear. The evidence suggests that the stock market crisis was engineered. There was no cause for alarm. (See Chapter IV for details)

6. On March 11, 2020 the WHO Director General officially declared a Worldwide  Pandemic at a time when the number of  confirmed cases outside China (6.4 billion population) was of the order of  44,279 and 1440 deaths (recorded by WHO for March 11, see table right).

Immediately following the March 11, 2020 WHO announcement, the fear campaign gained impetus. 193 member states of the United Nations were instructed to implement the lockdown and close down their economies as a means to resolving a Worldwide public health crisis.

We can distinguish and identify three important decisions (January 30-31, February 20, 2020, March 11, 2020 which served to set the stage of the ongoing corona crisis:

  • January 30, 31, 2020: Worldwide public health Emergence declared by WHO (83 cases outside China)
  • February 20th, 2020. WHO Warning that a pandemic is imminent, leading to stock market crash (1073 cases outside China)
  • March 11, 2020, The Lockdown and the recommended Worldwide closure of economic activity as a means to resolving an alleged public health crisis.(44,279 cases outside China). At a time when the covid crisis in China was virtually over.

These ridiculously low numbers of estimated positive cases based on the PCR test do not under any circumstances justify the lockdown and closing down of economic activity.

In the wake of the March 11, 2020 Lockdown (supported by the fear campaign) the process of testing went into high gear.

There is now ample evidence that the estimates resulting from the PCR tests used to justify the “Second Wave” lockdown measures are flawed and invalid. (See Chapter II)

The following text entitled  The Corona Time Line is Chapter III of my E-book which consists of nine chapters. To access the full text of the E-book  click here 

The 2020 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset”

 

Michel Chossudovsky, February 2, 2021

***

THE CORONA TIMELINE

Text of Chapter II: To read the E-Book including a detailed analysis pertaining the economic and financial dimensions (Chapters IV, V and IX) click here:

***

August 1, 2019:  Glaxo -Smith -Kline and Pfizer announce the establishment of a corporate partnership in Consumer Health Products including Vaccines.

September 19, 2019: The ID2020 Alliance held their Summit in New York, entitled “Rising to the Good ID Challenge”. The  focus was on the establishment of a vaccine with an embedded digital passport.

October 18, 2019. Event 201. The 201 Pandemic Simulation Exercise

The coronavirus was initially named 2019-nCoV by the WHO, the same name (with the exception of the placement of the date) as that adopted atthe October 18, 2019 201 Simulation exercise under the auspices of the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health, Centre for Heath Security (an event sponsored by the Gates Foundation and World Economic Forum).(Event 201)

In October 2019, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security hosted a pandemic tabletop exercise called Event 201 with partners, the World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. …  For the scenario, we modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction.

Instead, the exercise served to highlight preparedness and response challenges that would likely arise in a very severe pandemic. We are not now predicting that the nCoV-2019 outbreak will kill 65 million people.

Although our tabletop exercise included a mock novel coronavirus, the inputs we used for modeling the potential impact of that fictional virus are not similar to nCoV-2019.“We are not now predicting that the nCoV-2019 [which was also used as the name of the simulation] outbreak will kill 65 million people.

.Although our tabletop exercise included a mock novel coronavirus, the inputs we used for modeling the potential impact of that fictional virus are not similar to nCoV-2019.

December 31, 2019: First cases of pneumonia detected and reported in Wuhan, Hubei Province. China.

January 1, 2020: Chinese health authorities close the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market after Western media reports that wild animals sold there may have been the source of the virus. This initial assessment was subsequently refuted by Chinese scientists.

January 7, 2020: Chinese authorities “identify a new type of virus” which was isolated  on 7 January.

January 11, 2020 – The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission announces the first death caused by the coronavirus.

January 22, 2020: WHO. Members of the WHO Emergency Committee “expressed divergent views on whether this event constitutes a PHEIC or not”. The Committee meeting was reconvened on January 23, 2020, overlapping with the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos (January 21-24, 2020).

The meeting of the Emergency Committee convened by the WHO Director-General under the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) expressed divergent views on whether this event constitutes a PHEIC or not. At that time, the advice was that the event did not constitute a PHEIC, but the Committee members agreed on the urgency of the situation and suggested that the Committee should be reconvened in a matter of days to examine the situation further.

January 21-24, 2020: Consultations at the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland under auspices of  the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) for development of a vaccine program. CEPI is a WEF-Gates partnership. With support from CEPI, Seattle based Moderna will manufacture an mRNA vaccine against 2019-nCoV, “The Vaccine Research Center (VRC) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of NIH, collaborated with Moderna to design the vaccine.”

Note: The development of a 2019 nCoV vaccine was announced at Davos, 2 weeks after the January 7, 2020 announcement, and barely a  week prior to the official launching of the WHO’s Worldwide Public Health emergency on January 30.  The WEF-Gates-CEPI Vaccine Announcement precedes the WHO Public Health Emergency (PHEIC)

See WEF video 

Dominant financial interests, billionaire foundations and international financial institutions played a key role in launching the WHO Public Health Emergency (PHEIC).

In the week preceding this historic WHO decision. The PHEIC was the object of “consultations” at the World Economic Forum (WEF), Davos (January 21-24). The WHO Director General Dr. Tedros was present at Davos. Were these consultations instrumental in influencing the WHO’s historic decision on January 30th.

Was there a Conflict of Interest as defined by the WHO? The WHO’s largest donor is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which together with the WEF and CEPI had already announced in Davos the development of a Covid-19 vaccine prior to the historic January 30th launching of the PHEIC.

January 28, 2020:  The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that the novela corona virus had been isolated.

The WHO Director General had the backing of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Big Pharma and the World Economic Forum (WEF). There are indications that the decision for the WHO to declare a Global Health Emergency was taken on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos (January 21-24) overlapping with the Geneva January 22 meeting of the Emergency Committee.

The  WHO’s Director Tedros was present at Davos 2020. At Davos, the Gates Foundation announced $10 billion commitment to vaccines over the next 10 years.

This pledge was made in Davos, Switzerland, barely a week prior to the WHO decision to launch the PHEIC.

January 30, 2020: The WHO’s Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)

The first stage of this crisis was launched by the WHO on January 30th. While officially it was not designated as a “Pandemic”, it nonetheless contributed to spearheading the fear campaign.

From the very outset, the estimates of “confirmed positive cases” have been part of a “Numbers Game”.

In some cases the statistics were simply not mentioned and in other cases the numbers were selectively inflated with a view to creating panic.

Not mentioned by the media: The number of “confirmed cases” based on faulty estimates (PCR) used to justify this far reaching decision was ridiculously low.

The Worldwide population outside China is of the order of 6.4 billion. On January 30, 2020 outside China there were:

83 cases in 18 countries, and only 7 of them had no history of travel in China. (see WHO, January 30, 2020).

On January 29, 2020, the day preceding the launching of the PHEI (recorded by the WHO), there were 5  cases in the US, 3 in Canada, 4 in France, 4 in Germany.

There was no “scientific basis” to justify the launching of a Worldwide public health emergency.

Screenshot of WHO table, January 29, 2020,

Those low numbers  (not mentioned by the media) did not prevent the launching of a Worldwide fear campaign.

January 31, 2020:  President Trump’s Decision to Suspend Air Travel with China

On the following day (January 31, 2020), Trump announced that he would deny entry to the US of both Chinese and foreign nationals “who have traveled in China in the last 14 days”. This immediately triggered a crisis in air travel,  transportation, US-China trade relations as well as freight and shipping transactions.

Whereas the WHO  “[did] not recommend any travel or trade restrictions” the five so-called “confirmed cases” in the US were sufficient to “justify” President Trump’s January 31st 2020 decision to suspend air travel to China while precipitating a hate campaign against ethnic Chinese throughout the Western World.

This historic January 31st decision paved the way towards the disruption of international commodity trade as well as Worldwide restrictions on air travel.

“Fake media” immediately went into high gear. China was held responsible for “spreading infection” Worldwide.

Early February 2020: the acronym of the coronavirus was changed from nCoV- 2019 (its name under the October Event 201 John Hopkins Simulation Exercise before it was identified in early January 2020) to SARS-nCoV-2. Covid-19 indicates the disease triggered by SARS-CoV-2

February 20-21, 2020. Worldwide Covid Data Outside China: The Diamond Princess Cruise Ship 

While China reported a total of 75,567 cases of COVID-19, (February 20) the confirmed cases outside China were abysmally low and the statistics based in large part on the the PCR test used to confirm the “Worldwide spread of the virus” were questionable to say the least. Moreover, out of the 75,567 cases in China, a large percentage had recovered. And recovery figures were not acknowledged by the media.

On the day of Dr. Tedros’ historic press conference (February 20, 2020) the recorded number of confirmed cases outside China was 1073 of which 621 were passengers and crew on the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship (stranded in Japanese territorial waters).

From a statistical point of view, the WHO decision pointing to a potential “spread of the virus Worldwide” did not make sense.

On February 20th, 57.9 % of the Worldwide Covid-19 “confirmed cases” were from the Diamond Princess, hardly representative of  a Worldwide “statistical trend”.The official story is as follows:

  • A Hong Kong based passenger who had disembarked from the Diamond Princess in Hong Kong on January 25 developed pneumonia and was tested positive for the novela coronavirus on January 30.
  • He was reported to have travelled on January 10, to Shenzhen on mainland China (which borders on Hong Kong’s new territories).
  • The Diamond Princess arrived at Yokohama on February 3. A quarantine was imposed on the cruiser See NCBI study.
  • Many passengers fell sick due to the confinement on the boat.
  • All the passengers and crew on the Diamond Princess undertook the PCR test.
  • The number of confirmed cases increased to 691 on February 23.

Scan Source: NCBI Study

Read carefully: From the standpoint of assessing Worldwide statistical trends, the data doesn’t stand up. Without the Diamond Princess data, the so-called confirmed cases worldwide outside China on February 20th 2020 were of the order of 452, out of a population of 6.4 billion. 

Examine the WHO Graph below. The blue indicates the confirmed cases on the Diamond Princess (international conveyance) (which arrived in Yokohama on February 3, 2020), many of whom were sick, confined to their rooms for more than two weeks (quarantine imposed by Japan). All passengers and crew took the RT-PCR test (which does not detect or identify Covid-19).

Needless to say, this so-called data was instrumental in spearheading the fear campaign and the collapse of financial markets in the course of the month of February. (see section below)

February 20th, 2020: At a press conference on Thursday the 20th of February afternoon (CET Time) in a briefing in Geneva, the WHO Director General. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that he was

“concerned that the chance to contain the coronavirus outbreak was “closing” …

“I believe the window of opportunity is still there, but that the window is narrowing.”

There were only 1076 cases outside China (including the Diamond Press:

Screenshot, WHO Press Conference, February 20th, 2020

Note: The tabulated data above for February 20, 2020 indicates 1073 cases. 1076 cases in WHO Press Conference)

These “shock and awe” statements contributed to heightening the fear campaign, despite the fact that the number of confirmed cases outside China was exceedingly low. February 20-21, 2020 marks the beginning of the 2020 Financial Crash. 

Officially 1073 cases Worldwide.

Excluding the Diamond Princess, 452 so-called “confirmed cases” Worldwide outside China, for a population of 6.4 billion recorded by the WHO on February 20th, 15 in the US, 8 in Canada, 9 in the UK. (See table right, February 20, 2020). Those are the figures used to justify Dr. Tedros’ warnings: “the window is narrowing”:

A larger number of cases outside China were recorded in South Korea (153 cases according to WHO) and Italy (recorded by national authorities).

WHO data recorded on February 2020 at the outset of the so-called Covid Financial Crash (right)

The statement by Dr. Tedros (based on flawed concepts and statistics), set the stage for  the February financial collapse. (See Chapter IV).

February 24:  Moderna Inc supported by CEPI  announced  that its experimental mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, known as mRNA-1273, was ready for human testing.

February 28, 2020: A  WHO vaccination campaign was announced by WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus  

More than 20 vaccines are in development globally, and several therapeutics are in clinical trials. We expect the first results in a few weeks.

The campaign to develop vaccines was initiated prior to decision of the WHO to launch a Global Public Health emergency. It was first announced at the WEF meeting at Davos (21-24 January) by CEPI.

Early March: China: More than 50% of the infected patients recovered and were discharged from the hospitals.

A total of 49,856 patients have recovered from COVID-19 and were discharged from hospitals in China. (WHO).  What this means is that the total number of  “confirmed infected cases” in China was 30,448. (Namely 80,304 minus 49,856 = 30,448  (80,304 is the total number on confirmed cases in China (WHO data, March 3, 2020). These developments concerning “recovery” are not reported by the Western media.

March 5, WHO Director General confirms that outside China there are 2055 cases reported in 33 countries. Around 80% of those cases continue to come from just three countries (South Korea, Iran, Italy).

March 7: USA: The number of “confirmed cases” (infected and recovered) in the United States in early March is of the order of 430, rising to about 600 (March 8). Rapid rise in the course of March.

Compare that to the figures pertaining to the Influenza B Virus: The CDC estimated for 2019-2020 “at least 15 million virus flu illnesses… 140,000 hospitalizations and 8,200 deaths. (The Hill)

March 7:  China: The Pandemic is Almost Over

Reported new cases in China fall to double digit. 99 cases recorded on March 7.  All of the new cases outside Hubei province are categorized as  “imported infections”(from foreign countries). The reliability of the data remains to be established:

99 newly confirmed cases including 74 in Hubei Province, … The new cases included 24 imported infections — 17 in Gansu Province, three in Beijing, three in Shanghai and one in Guangdong Province.

March 11, 2020: The Historic Covid-19 Pandemic, Lockdown, Closing Down of 190 National Economies

The WHO Director General had already set the stage in his February 21st Press Conference .

“the world should do more to prepare for a possible coronavirus pandemic”. The WHO had called upon countries to be “in a phase of preparedness”.

The WHO officially declared a Worldwide pandemic at a time when there were 118,000 confirmed cases and 4291 deaths Worldwide (including China). (March 11, 2020, according to press conference). What do these “statistics” tell you?

The number of confirmed cases outside China (6.4 billion population) were of the order of  44279 and 1440 deaths (figures recorded by the WHO for March 11, (on March 12) (see table right). (The death figure outside China mentioned in Tedros’s press conference was 4291).

Immediately following the March 11, 2020 WHO announcement, the fear campaign went into high gear. (the economic and financial impacts are reviewed in Chapter IV)

March 16: Moderna  mRNA-1273 is tested in several stages with 45 volunteers in Seattle, Washington State. The vaccine program started in early February:

“We don’t know whether this vaccine will induce an immune response, or whether it will be safe.That’s why we’re doing a trial,” Jackson stressed. “It’s not at the stage where it would be possible or prudent to give it to the general population.” (AP, March 16, 2020)

Second Wave Announcements and Press reports Canada and the US. Early to Mid-June

November, December:  Ongoing, Partial Lockdown, Social Distancing and Social Gathering measures taken by Britain, France, Germany, Canada. Introduction of Covid Vaccine

To read the E-Book including a detailed analysis pertaining the economic and financial dimensions (Chapters IV, V and IX) click here:

The 2020 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset”

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US Pressure on China; The Thai Connection

February 2nd, 2021 by Christopher Black

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Em direcção a 2030, nasceu (è NATO) o futuro

February 2nd, 2021 by Manlio Dinucci

A NATO está a olhar para o futuro.* Por isso, é que o Secretário Geral, Jens Stoltenberg, apelou aos estudantes e jovens líderes dos países da Aliança para proporem “novas ideias para a NATO 2030”, em 4 de Fevereiro, numa videoconferência.

A iniciativa faz parte do envolvimento crescente das universidades e das escolas, também com um concurso sobre o tema: “Quais serão as maiores ameaças à paz e à segurança em 2030 e como terá a NATO de se adaptar para as combater?

Para levar a cabo o tema, os jovens já têm o manual: “NATO 2030/Unidos para uma Nova Era”, o relatório apresentado ao grupo de dez peritos nomeados pelo Secretário Geral. Entre eles está Marta Dassù que, depois de ter sido conselheira de política externa do Primeiro Ministro, Massimo D’Alema, durante a guerra da NATO contra a Jugoslávia, ocupou cargos importantes em governos sucessivos e foi nomeada pelo Primeiro Ministro, Matteo Renzi, para a direcção da Finmeccanica (agora Leonardo), a maior indústria de defesa italiana.

Qual é a “nova era” que o grupo de peritos prevê?

Depois de ter definido a NATO como “a aliança mais bem sucedida da História”, que “pôs fim a duas guerras” (as que ocorreram  contra a Jugoslávia e contra a Líbia, que a NATO iniciou), o relatório traça um quadro de um mundo caracterizado por “Estados autoritários que procuram expandir o seu poder e influência”, colocando aos aliados da NATO “um desafio sistémico em todos os domínios da segurança e da economia”.

Distorcendo os factos, o relatório argumenta que, enquanto a NATO estendeu uma mão amiga à Rússia, a mesma respondeu com “a agressão na zona Euro-Atlântica” e, ao violar os acordos, “provocou o fim do Tratado das Forças Nucleares Intermédias”. A Rússia, sublinham os dez peritos, é “a principal ameaça que a NATO tem de enfrentar nesta década”. Ao mesmo tempo – reiteram – a NATO enfrenta os crescentes “desafios de segurança colocados pela China”, cujas actividades económicas e tecnologias podem ter “um impacto na defesa colectiva e na preparação militar na área da responsabilidade do Comandante Supremo Aliado na Europa” (que é sempre um general USA nomeado pelo Presidente dos Estados Unidos).

Depois de ter lançado o alarme sobre estas e outras “ameaças”, que também viriam do Sul do mundo, o relatório dos dez peritos recomenda “cimentar a centralidade da ligação transatlântica”, ou seja, a ligação da Europa com os Estados Unidos, na aliança sob o comando USA.

Ao mesmo tempo, recomenda o “reforço do papel político da NATO”, sublinhando que “os Aliados devem reforçar o Conselho do Atlântico Norte”, o principal órgão político da Aliança que se reúne ao nível de Ministros da Defesa e dos Negócios Estrangeiros e à competência de Chefes de Estado e do Governo.

Uma vez que, de acordo com as regras da NATO, toma as suas decisões não de acordo com a maioria, mas sempre “por unanimidade e de comum acordo”, ou seja, basicamente, de acordo com o que é decidido em Washington, o maior reforço do Conselho do Atlântico Norte significa um maior enfraquecimento dos parlamentos europeus, em particular do Parlamento italiano, que já se encontram privados dos verdadeiros poderes de decisão sobre política externa e militar.

Neste âmbito, o relatório propõe reforçar as forças da NATO, em particular no flanco oriental, dotando-as de “capacidades militares nucleares adequadas”, adaptadas à situação criada pelo fim do Tratado das Forças Nucleares Intermédias (revogado pelos EUA). Por outras palavras, os dez peritos pedem aos EUA para acelerarem a instalação na Europa, não só das novas bombas nucleares B61-12, mas também de novos mísseis nucleares de alcance  médio, semelhantes aos mísseis europeus dos anos oitenta. Pedem em particular para “prosseguir e revitalizar os acordos de partilha nuclear”, que permitem aos países formalmente não nucleares, como a Itália, preparar-se para o uso de armas nucleares sob o comando dos EUA.

Por fim, os dez peritos recordam que é essencial que os aliados mantenham o compromisso, assumido em 2014, de aumentar a sua despesa militar até 2024, pelo menos para 2% do PIB, o que significa para a Itália que a sua despesa passará de 26 para 36 biliões de euros por ano. Este é o preço a pagar para usufruir o que o relatório define como “os benefícios de estar sob o guarda-chuva da NATO”.

Manlio Dinucci

 

Artigo original em italiano :

Verso il 2030, è Nato il futuro

Il manifesto, 02 febbraio 2021

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

 

*Trocadilho do  particípio passado do verbo IT ‘nascere’ com a designação da aliança militar mais poderosa do mundo

A Fotografia (Nexium Defence Cloud © Thales)

A NATO Selecciona Thales para Fornecer a Sua Primeira Nuvem de Defesa para as Forças Armadas

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210125005006/en/  

“Thales orgulha-se de estar a contribuir para a transformação digital das forças armadas, fornecendo esta primeira solução de nuvem de defesa táctica, certificada e destacável. Estamos gratos à NATO por renovar a sua confiança na nossa perícia em sistemas de informação e comunicação seguros e interoperáveis”. Marc Darmon, Vice Presidente Executivo, Secure Communications and Information Systems, Thales.

Sobre Thales

Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) é um líder global de alta tecnologia que investe em inovações digitais e de “tecnologia profunda” – conectividade, grandes dados, inteligência artística-social, segurança cibernética e tecnologia quântica – para construir um futuro em que todos possamos confiar, o que é vital para o desenvolvimento das nossas sociedades. A empresa fornece soluções, serviços e produtos que ajudam os seus clientes – empresas, organizações e estados – nos mercados da defesa, aeronáutica, Espaço, transporte e identidade digital e de segurança a cumprir as suas missões críticas, colocando o ser humano no centro do processo de tomada de decisão.

Com 83.000 empregados em 68 países, a Thales gerou vendas de 19 biliões de euros em 2019 (numa base que incluiu a Gemalto durante 12 meses).

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***

Which is the more reasonable approach a society might take in the outbreak of epidemic:

To quarantine the sick, and take reasonable precautions to stop those who are identified as vulnerable from contracting the illness.

To attempt to “control the virus” by preventing millions of healthy people from having contact with other healthy people.

To any society prior to 2020, it would have been obvious that the first approach is not only logical and proportionate, but the one least likely to have other unintended and highly destructive consequences. However, to my continued astonishment, many in our society not only believe that the answer is the second, but they somehow believe it to be based on established science.

Now I understand that many who support Lockdown will object to my characterisation of their position. They will say that it is deliberately misleading, since it talks about healthy people, and does not mention the sick. Such objections founder, however, on this undeniable fact: Lockdowns are, by their nature, an entirely untargeted and indiscriminate approach to a health issue, and the prohibiting by law of millions of healthy people from having contact with other healthy people is a feature, not a bug of a policy that was untried and untested before it was first implemented by the Chinese Communist Party in January last year, then copied by many Governments around the world thereafter.

For some reason, many Lockdownists seem to think that the onus is on Lockdown opponents to disprove their position. But as Dr Malcolm Kendrick points out in his excellent piece – Does Lockdown Work or Not, this is the opposite of how things are supposed to work:

“The starting point, for any scientific hypothesis, is for the proponents to disprove the null hypothesis. Demanding that those who believe something may not work, to prove that it doesn’t, is to turn the scientific method upside down. You can never prove a negative.”

Even so, he goes on to point out that most of the countries with the highest deaths per million are those which had fairly stringent Lockdowns, and therefore the data so far most certainly does not show that Lockdowns are effective, even on their own terms. Of course, Covidian Logic always has an answer to this, which is that these Lockdowns weren’t real Lockdowns. They were too little, too late, too soft, too lenient, too short, too small, too purple or something like that! But they can never be wrong. Low death rates show they work. High death rates show they would have worked if only people hadn’t been bad.

But the main point I wish to make about them is that they are not something that has been proposed, studied or trialled before, but are an entirely new practice, foisted upon the world for the first time in 2020. Which means what? It means that they are an experiment in real time. It means that our society (along with many others) has for the last year, and continues to be for the foreseeable future, subject to an experiment. In fact, the largest psychological, social and experiment ever conducted.

When I use this sort of language, it tends to meet the following mocking response: “So are you saying it’s all a mass conspiracy? Who’s the puppet-master then?” But this just misses the point. It does not need some Dark Lord sitting over all of it in order to be an experiment, although it has to be said that the likes of Professor Schwab do seem keen on putting themselves forward as pretty good candidates. No, it simply is by definition a psychological, social and economic experiment by the very nature of the fact that the mass quarantining and mass masking of millions of people, which cannot fail to change the psychology, society and economy, are untried, untested methods, based merely on hypothesis, and not on hard data. In fact, the data is still coming in from this enormous experiment, but as Dr Kendrick says, it doesn’t actually look good for the hypothesis:

“…I would conclude that the observational studies had – thus far – failed to disprove the null hypothesis. In fact, the evidence up to this point could suggest that lockdowns may actually increase the death rate. In short, I would look for another idea.”

But the psychological, social and economic experimentation are by no means the end of it. We have now moved on to the medical experimentation, by which I mean the giving of so-called “vaccines” to millions of people (so-called because they don’t actually stop people getting the virus, and it is not yet known whether they prevent transmission).

Incredibly, if you look at the Pfizer BioNTech SE Clinical Study Trial on the US National Library of Medicine Clinical Trials database, you will notice something very odd, which is that the Estimated Study Completion Date is on January 31st 2023. This is:

“the date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention/treatment to collect final data for the primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, and adverse events.”

In other words, the medium to long-term side effects of this product cannot possibly be known, because the study is still ongoing. The long and short of it, as Professor Sucharit Bhakdi points out in this excellent interview (watch it soon before the YouTube Gatekeepers scrub it) is this: every single person now getting these jabs is effectively an unwitting test subject in the largest medical experiment ever carried out, having been asked to give their consent to receive a product injected into their bodies without being properly informed as to the status of the product.

Simply put, neither those administering these jabs nor those receiving them can have any idea of the potential medium to long-term consequences of these things, because the companies producing them have not completed the studies on them. And no, it is not the mark of an anti-vaxxer to be deeply concerned about this (I am not); it is just the mark of having one’s critical faculties in working order and of caring about what is being done to people – it’s called Loving Your Neighbour as Yourself.

In summary, both Lockdowns and the “vaccines” are essentially a mass experiment on humanity. The mid to long-term consequences of both are entirely unknown. Future generations will marvel at how the authorities were able to do this, but they will marvel even more at how millions of people acquiesced without much thought. None of this can possibly bode well. We need to humble ourselves and take a long hard look at what we are doing, or allowing to be done to us, as a matter of the utmost urgency.

*

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Video: Dress Rehearsal of Color Revolution in Russia?

February 2nd, 2021 by South Front

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***

Anti-government protests under the pretext of the detention of the notorious Russian opposition leader Navalny took place in various cities across the country.

They were characterized by underwhelming attendance, claims of grandeur and awkward attempts at spreading violence. Protests were immediately endorsed by the Washington establishment. Notably, the United States Embassy in Moscow published detailed times and locations of unsanctioned rallies. Some Western leaders have made direct calls for an escalation of violence.

The entire situation resembled a staged performance that took place just days after the US President Joe Biden was inaugurated. The Russian scare narrative has already been pushed by the US Democrats and the US MSM for a long time. It is expected that the new Administration policy regarding Moscow will become even more hawkish. The detention of Alexey Navalny will be simply used as a justification for further aggressive actions against Russia. It fits perfectly with the Washington concept of cultivating an image of an unpredictable and irreconcilable foreign enemy to American values and democracy in general.

It is quite evident that Alexey Navalny, his sponsors, teammates and supporters were fully aware that he would get arrested when he returned to Russia. This could have been entirely avoided if he simply returned a bit earlier. He would thus meet the terms of his suspended sentence over the corruption and bribery in Russia. But then there would be no reason to protest.

Navalny even published a dramatic address saying that he had no desire to kill himself, to avoid any potential scenarios and being used as a sacrifice for the greater neo-liberal good.

As the hubs of the neo-liberal agenda in Russia, Moscow and Saint Petersburg hosted the largest protests. Protests in other regions were much smaller. However, there were even those protesting in extreme temperatures, showing that there is a motivated and unrelenting core.

The protest attendance, against the entire population of the cities, however, pales and shows an unimpressive turnout.

Reports of attendance vary, with some claiming at least 40,000 gathered in Moscow, with the authorities putting the number at merely 4,000. Others claimed that the numbers somewhere in the middle.

In Saint Petersburg, Kommersant reported that there was an attendance of about 5,000.

Other cities with a significant protest presence include Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok and Nizhny Novgorod.

The Russian branch of the BBC said that protests took place in 122 towns and cities across the country.

It appears that there was little friction among the general population. A notable part of protesters were likely paid. The core consisted of various unemployed idlers, young city hipsters, liberals and different minorities. A significant presence was seen from youths and minors, who were subjected to a large-scale social media campaign.

Many videos were released claiming police violence. Every video showed the same situation – an individual rushing towards police and attempting to assault the officers, and then getting detained in return.

There were no casualties, however, not from the side of the authorities, nor from the protesters. Evident attempts at causing casualties, by involving minors and youths, were obviously made, but they failed.

Fake news also became the integral part of this anti-government campaign. They were mostly dedicated to alleged killings and incredible numbers of arrests by the authorities. These messages were actively endorsed by mainstream social media, including the Chinese-operated TikTok. While Washington, which prefers to see the Russian statehood destroyed, Beijing is also not averse to use the situation for getting additional leverage on the Kremlin to strengthen its own position in joint projects. As a result, the narrative is being constructed as a “political persecution”.

The side shouting “witch hunt” the most, is the United States, whose administration referred to half of its population of Trump supporters as “domestic terrorists”, and “fascists” for not supporting the establishment of the neo-liberal agenda.

Despite the lack of success in the protests, this was simply a dress rehearsal. It is used to pave the way for a large-scale campaign to undermine Russia’s stability and compromise its statehood.

It seems that the ramping up of the destabilization attempts is scheduled for September 2021, – the period of the Russian general election that will include the next legislative election and the election of 11 governors. The liberal opposition has already proven that it is ready to even sacrifice children in order to achieve the ambitions of its sponsors. If the Russian government does not employ preventive measures, these people will easily find large support from Russia’s geopolitical opponents. Next time staged anti-government protests can ‘accidentally coincide’ with industrial disasters, cyberattacks, and even terrorist attacks.

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Verso il 2030, è Nato il futuro

February 2nd, 2021 by Manlio Dinucci

La Nato guarda al futuro. Per questo il Segretario generale Jens Stoltenberg ha convocato, il 4 febbraio in videoconferenza, studenti e giovani leader dei paesi dell’Alleanza perché propongano «nuove idee per la Nato 2030».

L’iniziativa rientra nel crescente coinvolgimento di università e scuole, anche con un concorso sul tema: «Quali saranno le maggiori minacce alla pace e alla sicurezza nel 2030 e come la Nato dovrà adattarsi per contrastarle?».

Per svolgere il tema i giovani hanno già il libro di testo: «Nato 2030 / United for a New Era», il rapporto presentato dal gruppo di dieci esperti nominato dal Segretario generale. Tra questi Marta Dassù che,  dopo essere stata consigliera di politica estera del premier Massimo D’Alema durante la guerra Nato alla Jugoslavia, ha ricoperto importanti incarichi nei successivi governi ed è stata nominata dal premier Matteo Renzi nel consiglio di amministrazione di Finmeccanica (oggi Leonardo), la maggiore industria bellica italiana.

Qual è la «nuova era» che prospetta il gruppo di esperti?

Dopo aver definito la Nato «l’alleanza di maggiore successo nella storia», che ha «posto fine a due guerre» (quelle contro la Jugoslavia e la Libia che invece è stata la Nato a scatenare), il rapporto traccia il quadro di un mondo caratterizzato da «Stati autoritari che cercano di espandere la loro potenza e influenza», ponendo agli Alleati Nato «una sfida sistemica in tutti i campi della sicurezza e dell’economia».

Capovolgendo i fatti, il rapporto sostiene che, mentre la Nato ha teso amichevolmente la mano alla Russia, questa ha risposto con «l’aggressione nell’area Euro-Atlantica» e, violando gli accordi, ha «provocato la fine del Trattato sulle forze nucleari intermedie». La Russia, sottolineano i dieci esperti, è «la principale minaccia che ha di fronte la Nato in questo decennio». Allo stesso tempo – sostengono – la Nato ha di fronte crescenti «sfide alla sicurezza poste dalla Cina», le cui attività economiche e tecnologie possono avere «un impatto sulla difesa collettiva e la preparazione militare nell’area di responsabilità del Comandante Supremo Alleato in Europa» (che è sempre un generale Usa nominato dal Presidente degli Stati uniti).

Dopo aver lanciato l’allarme su queste e altre «minacce», che verrebbero anche dal Sud del mondo, il rapporto dei dieci esperti raccomanda di «cementare la centralità del legame transatlantico», ossia il legame dell’Europa con gli Stati uniti nell’alleanza sotto comando Usa.

Raccomanda allo stesso tempo di «rafforzare il ruolo politico della Nato», sottolineando che «gli Alleati devono rafforzare il Consiglio Nord Atlantico», il principale organo politico dell’Alleanza che si riunisce a livello dei ministri della Difesa e deli Esteri e a quello dei capi di stato e di governo.

Poiché secondo le norme Nato esso prende le sue decisioni non a maggioranza ma sempre «all’unanimità e di comune accordo», ossia fondamentalmente d’accordo con quanto deciso a Washington, l’ulteriore rafforzamento del Consiglio Nord Atlantico significa un ulteriore indebolimento dei parlamenti europei, in particolare di quello italiano, già oggi privati di reali poteri decisionali su politica estera e militare.

In tale quadro, il rapporto propone di potenziare le forze Nato in particolare sul fianco orientale, dotandole di «adeguate capacità militari nucleari», adatte alla situazione creatasi con la fine del Trattato sulle forze nucleari intermedie (stracciato dagli Usa). In altre parole, i dieci esperti chiedono agli Usa di accelerare i tempi per schierare in Europa non solo le nuove bombe nucleari B61-12, ma anche nuovi missili nucleari a medio raggio analoghi agli euromissili degli anni Ottanta. Chiedono in particolare di «proseguire e rivitalizzare gli accordi di condivisione nucleare», che permettono a paesi formalmente non-nucleari, come l’Italia, di prepararsi all’uso di armi nucleari sotto comando Usa.

I dieci esperti ricordano, infine, che è indispensabile che tutti gli alleati mantengano l’impegno, preso nel 2014, di aumentare entro il 2024 la propria spesa militare almeno al 2% del pil, il che significa per l’Italia portarla da 26 a 36 miliardi di euro annui. È questo il prezzo da pagare per godere di quelli che il rapporto definisce  «i benefici derivanti dall’essere sotto l’ombrello Nato».

Manlio Dinucci

Immagine

La NATO sceglie Thales per fornire la sua prima nuvola di difesa per le forze armate

Foto : (Nexium Defence Cloud © Thales)

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210125005006/en/   

“Thales è orgogliosa di contribuire alla trasformazione digitale delle forze armate fornendo questa prima soluzione cloud per la difesa tattica, implementabile e certificata. Siamo grati alla NATO per aver rinnovato la loro fiducia nella nostra esperienza in sistemi di informazione e comunicazione sicuri e interoperabili”. Marc Darmon, vicepresidente esecutivo, comunicazioni sicure e sistemi di informazione, Thales.

Informazioni su Thales

Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) è un leader globale dell’alta tecnologia che investe in innovazioni digitali e “deep tech” – connettività, big data, intelligenza artificiale, cybersecurity e tecnologia quantistica – per costruire un futuro di cui tutti possiamo fidarci, che è vitale per lo sviluppo delle nostre società. L’azienda fornisce soluzioni, servizi e prodotti che aiutano i suoi clienti – aziende, organizzazioni e stati – nei mercati della sicurezza, dell’aeronautica, dello spazio, dei trasporti e dell’identità digitale a compiere le loro missioni critiche, mettendo l’uomo al centro del processo decisionale.

Con 83.000 dipendenti in 68 paesi, Thales ha generato un fatturato di 19 miliardi di euro nel 2019 (su una base che include Gemalto su 12 mesi).

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Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy: Israel Cracks the Whip

February 2nd, 2021 by Philip Giraldi

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***

Anyone who persists in believing that the United States is not Israel’s poodle should pay attention to the comedy that is playing out right now. Joe Biden was president for less than a week when the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu government announced that he would soon be receiving a possibly unwelcome visitor in the form of the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad’s chief Yossi Cohen, who will be flying to Washington in February to explain the correct policy when dealing with Iran.

And lest there be any confusion on the issue, the Israel Defense Force chief of staff Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi also announced that any Biden attempt to mend fences with the Islamic Republic will have to meet certain conditions or Israel will exercise other options. He said “In light of this fundamental analysis, I have instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare a number of operational plans, in addition to those already in place. It will be up to the political leadership, of course, to decide on implementation but these plans need to be on the table.” Another government minister clarified that the options would include “an attack” on Iran, though there has been no indication whether or not Israel would possibly contemplate deploying its tactical nuclear weapons to prevent retaliation by Iranian forces.

There is no limit to Israeli hubris. A leading Rabbi in Israel is predicting that as the United States is in decline it is up to the Jewish state to take over the role of “guiding civilization forward.” And that kind of thinking shapes how Israel treats the United States with condescension, acting as if it is the knowledgeable elder statesman whose guidance must be respected. In this case the Zionist solution to the Iran problem will by design be unpalatable for the government in Tehran if it intends to remain sovereign. For Israel the correct policy for dealing with Iran is to effectively disarm it and make it impossible to establish any sphere of influence in the countries adjacent to it, to include Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. That would be to concede Israeli dominance over the entire region and if the Iranians do not play ball the next step would be to convince the United States to attack it on some pretext, possibly to include an Israeli “false flag” to start the process going.

The Times of Israel sums up the Israeli official position as

“…Iran must halt the enriching of uranium; stop producing advanced centrifuges; cease supporting terror groups, foremost Lebanon’s Hezbollah; end its military presence in Iraq, Syria and Yemen; stop terror activity against Israeli targets overseas; and grant full access to the IAEA on all aspects of its nuclear program.”

Completing the disarming of Iran would also include requiring Tehran to abandon its ballistic missile program.

The irony is, of course, that it is Israel that has a secret nuclear arsenal that it created by stealing uranium and triggers from the United States and it is also the leading regional supporter of terrorist groups, to include al-Qaeda and ISIS. Iran’s presence in Syria is due to its lending assistance to the Damascus government’s resistance to the insurgencies supported by Israel and the United States. And Iran has not targeted Israeli citizens and groups overseas, but Israel and the U.S. have assassinated Iranian officials while also bombing both government and civilian targets in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. And all of the kinetics occur in a context where Israel continues its illegal occupation of Palestine and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people replete with both war crimes and crimes against humanity. Iran is also a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Israel is not, so who is the rogue state?

Biden will likely fold like a cheap suit when confronted by the force majeure of Cohen. The new American president has assembled a national security team for dealing with the Middle East that is nearly all Jewish and all Zionist, an affliction that he himself claims to suffer from. The Biden nominee for secretary of state Tony Blinken said at a confirmation hearing last week that the new administration would “consult with Israel” before any possible return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal and he also made clear that there would be additional conditions for Iran. It was an odd comment for a government official who is supposed to support American interests, but it was predictably what Congress wanted to hear. As Iran has already indicated that it is unwilling to abandon its defenses and its role in the region, the Biden proposal will be a non-starter in any case, though Israel will be prepared to apply its own veto if anything undertaken by the State Department moves beyond the talking stage.

Currently there is credible speculation that Israeli intelligence has been able to compromise most if not all of the U.S. government’s information systems as well as those of major corporations. As the Jewish state is the most active in spying against the United States, that should surprise no one. For Israel to interfere in U.S. politics or government blatantly is not exactly new, though it is rare to have anyone in the mainstream media or in government say anything about. That is because Israel’s ability to wage war against critics is second to none, having at its back nearly unlimited financial resources and easy access to the media as well as active supporters from among the nearly six hundred Jewish organizations that exist in the United States.

Indeed, Israel has been involved in American politics frequently, one might even argue incessantly, even if it is predictably never held accountable. To cite only one well known example, it has been suggested that Russiagate was really Israelgate based on what actually took place shortly after the 2016 election. The contact with Russia was set up by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was at the time seeking to kill an anti-Israeli vote in the United Nations. He sought to do so by lobbying Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner on the matter shortly after the 2016 election. Netanyahu was particularly close to the Kushner family, having on at least one occasion slept overnight at their mansion in Manhattan.

Prompted by Netanyahu, Kushner dutifully contacted Trump National Security Advisor-designate Michael Flynn and asked him to privately call Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak to lobby Moscow to vote against the bill. There were two phone calls but Kislyak refused to cooperate. It should be noted that while all of this was taking place Barack Obama was still president and his intention to abstain on a vote on Israel’s illegal settlements is what provoked Netanyahu to act, so Netanyahu-Kushner-Flynn were subverting their own elected government and were definitely in the wrong. Flynn was subsequently thrown under the bus by his Jewish friends without any mention in the media of the Israeli role, thereby becoming the first casualty of “Russiagate.” He was subsequently forced to resign from his post in disgrace in February 2017.

The whole issue of the U.S.-Israel relationship constitutes one of the most formidable “red lines” in American politics as part of its power comes from the fact that the media and political classes pretend that it does not even exist. Israel’s power was poisonous enough prior to the election of Donald Trump, but Trump, “advised” by a gaggle of orthodox Jews, dramatically shifted the playing field to favor Israel in ways that will define the relationship for years to come. Biden’s team is little better and the president will be taking his orders from Jerusalem and saluting as long as he stays in the White House. Will it lead to a totally unnecessary and unwinnable war with Iran? That is what Israel demands above all, and Israel always gets what it wants.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

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

Philip M. Giraldi is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

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***

Today in the West, real history continues to be suppressed and denied. 

The anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945 and Holocaust Remembrance Day every year have been hijacked. They have become bizarre photographic negatives of the horrors they were meant to commemorate and manipulated to insult the millions of victims and the heroic warriors who gave their lives to end such horrors

For who ended the Holocaust? Who actually liberated and shut down every one of the six great Nazi industrialized extermination camp killing centers of death at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, Sobibor, Chelmno, Treblinka and Belzec? Why the Soviet Red Army did of course.

They did not just stroll into camps at the end of the war where the cowardly Nazi SS ubermenschen had just fled for their lives to forever after fearfully claim they were “just following orders.” No. From October 1944 when astonished and revolted Red Army soldiers and officers first uncovered the horrors of Majdanek in central Poland to the fierce battle that still cost many lives in the freeing of Auschwitz-Birkenau itself on January 27, 1945, the war was still raging, the Nazi war machine was still fiercely functioning and previous innocent blood had to paid for every yard that was freed.

Yet today, and for many years now, we have entered a world of the Great Moral Inversion. The thousands of precious lives that the extraordinarily dedicated medical staff of Marshal Ivan Konev’s First Ukrainian Front of the Red Army saved at Auschwitz alone are forgotten. Western intellectuals now proclaim a contemptible moral equivalence between those who died fighting to rescue and save, and those who killed them and all the genocide victims.

The scale of this moral inversion – this contemptible behavior that the great Sigmund Freud – whose own sisters and their families died in the Holocaust – identified as “projection,” becomes more huge and disgusting every year. We now know that in addition to the six million Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide, at least 20 million innocent Russian civilians were deliberately exterminated too in 200 smaller camps across the occupied East set up and run for that very purpose. Where are the ceremonies and heartfelt tears in the West for them?

The very commander of the heroic unit that liberated Auschwitz, the 1085th ‘Tarnopol’ Rifle Regiment of Major General Petr Zubov’s 322nd Division, was of Ukrainian Jewish origin himself, Lieutenant Colonel Anatoly Shapiro lived to the age of 92 and eventually died on Long Island in the United States. To the end of his days, he was proud of his lifetime service in the Red Army: He spent the last years of his life combatting the Big Lie of Holocaust denial by neo-Nazis.

By contrast, today in the West, while hypocritical empty crocodile tears are wept over the Nazis’ victims, real history continues to be suppressed, denied and buried beneath mountains of lies. And not coincidentally, new Nazi slugs arise from the garbage piles from Ukraine to Washington. Starting with the 2014 US and European Union-backed coup that murderously toppled the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych led to the open, defiant emergence of open neo-Nazi militias and forces that continue to weld disproportionate power in Ukraine, backed by the US government to this day.

New US President Joe Biden has already approved the appointment of one of the open architects and champions of the infamous coup, neocon Victoria Nuland, then Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, as the new Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs – the position that basically tells Secretary of State Antony Blinken what to think. From Kiev to Moscow, Nuland has been remembered unforgettably as “The Cookie Lady” who openly handed out sweet treats on the streets of Kiev to encourage the rioters who were waging revolution and war on their democratically elected government.

But what goes around comes around. Blowback of course is now happening all across the United States. The mob that blundered into the US Capitol, more by luck and permission than by deliberate armed force, on January 6 was mixed with individuals who were idealistic and admirable as well as contemptible clowns. Several white supremacists among them were proudly photographed in Camp Auschwitz T-shirts. One can only imagine how such vile slugs would scream in terror if confronted with any of Marshal Konev’s brave real warriors.

The 2014 coup is now called with masterly irony in Wikipedia “The Revolution of Dignity.” That is a Big Lie even Josef Goebbels would have envied.

Scores of millions of decent, suffering working class Americans who have been crucified on the crazed policies of global liberalism, open borders and hard drugs on demand for the past half century are now being slandered and conflated with a handful of jerks and agent provocateurs. The new fascism across the West justifies itself by suppressing traditional freedoms and speech by sticking on the Innocent, labels taken from the Guilty.

According to Lev Golinkin, writing on the New York Forward news web site, well over a thousand statues to Nazi war criminals have been erected from the United States to Ukraine over the past 20 years.

“Wherever you see statues of Nazi collaborators, you’ll also find thousands of torch-carrying men, rallying, organizing, drawing inspiration for action by celebrating collaborators of the past,” Golinkin writes.

In Ukraine, where 25 percent of the Jews killed in the Holocaust died: “In 2016, a major Kyiv boulevard was renamed after [Nazi collaborator Stepan] Bandera. The renaming is particularly obscene since the street leads to Babi Yar, the ravine where Nazis, aided by Ukrainian collaborators, exterminated 33,771 Jews in two days, in one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust,” Golinkin continued.

Yet of course, the Biden administration has made clear it is preparing to send even more lethal weapons to arm the ferociously Russian-hating regime which perpetrates such despicable measures.

This obscene farce unfolds now every year, but it is not even a constant: It is getting worse than ever at an exponentially accelerating rate of intensity. One now has to turn to calculus to grasp it.

It is surely more than an ordinary coincidence that on Holocaust Memorial Day this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced its latest setting of its fearful Doomsday Clock assessing the possible imminence of nuclear war.

The experts who set the clock clearly welcomed Joe Biden replacing Donald Trump as US president, a predictable liberal bigotry. Yet they remained clear-eyed enough, scientific enough to recognize and publicly acknowledge that this would be no improvement at all. The setting of the symbolic clock remains at only 100 seconds to midnight, the closest setting to nuclear war in its 74 year history.

It should have been moved much closer – perhaps to only 75 seconds to catastrophe: For the intensifying phenomena on Western Holocaust denial and projection: The obsession with backing real live 21st century Nazis in Ukraine against the descendants of the very people who died to save the world from them, is now clearly linked to the blowback of emerging white supremacy and leftist anti-Russian conspiracy theories alike in the United States.

Stupid and wicked policies pursued across Eastern Europe have driven US policymakers literally mad – or perhaps just even more insane – and that mania has poisoned and destroyed the fading embers of democratic due process and fair play in the United States itself. The two theaters of madness generating more wickedness are inextricably linked. They cannot be separated.

To truly be a great president and bring the peace at home he claims to cherish, President Biden needs to end at last the disastrous policies in Ukraine and elsewhere that he supported as vice president under Barack Obama. But that would be a new idea – and the new president appears to be incapable of ever accepting such things. Then the obscenity of Holocaust Remembrance Hypocrisy will continue – until its madness brings Destruction upon all.

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During his 24 years as a senior foreign correspondent for The Washington Times and United Press International, Martin Sieff reported from more than 70 nations and covered 12 wars. He has specialized in US and global economic issues.

Libertarian “Domestic Terrorists”?

February 2nd, 2021 by Rep. Ron Paul

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***

The Department of Homeland Security issued on Wednesday a nationwide terror alert lasting until April 30. The alert warns of potential terrorist attacks from Americans who are “ideologically motivated” and have “objections to the exercise of government authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives.”

The language used in this alert suggests that millions of Americans are potential terrorists. Second Amendment supporting, antiwar, anti-tax, anti-politics, anti-militarization, pro-life, and anti-Federal Reserve activists certainly have “objections to the exercise of government authority.” They are certainly viewed by the political class and its handmaidens in big tech and the mainstream media as ideological extremists. Anyone who gets his news from sources other than mainstream media or big tech, or who uses certain “unapproved” social media platforms, is considered to have had his grievances “fueled by false narratives.” For something to be considered a false narrative, it need only contradict the “official” narrative.

The “domestic terrorist” alert is the latest sign that activities on January 6 on Capitol Hill, like the attacks of September 11, 2001, are being used to advance a long-standing anti-liberty agenda. Legislation expanding the federal government’s authority to use its surveillance and other unconstitutional powers against “domestic terrorists” is likely to soon be considered by Congress. Just as the PATRIOT Act was written years before 2001, this legislation was written long before January 6. The bill’s proponents are simply taking advantage of the hysteria following the so-called insurrection to push the bill onto the congressional agenda.

Former CIA Director John Brennan recently singled out libertarians as among the people the government should go after. This is not the first time libertarians have been smeared. In 2009, a federally-funded fusion center identified people who supported my presidential campaign, my Campaign for Liberty, or certain Libertarian and Constitution parties candidates as potentially violent extremists.

The idea that libertarianism creates terrorists is absurd. Libertarians support the non-aggression principle, so they reject using force to advance their political goals. They rely instead on peaceful persuasion.

Libertarianism is being attacked because it does not support just reforming a few government policies. Instead, it presents a formidable intellectual challenge to the entire welfare-warfare state.

The ultimate goal of those pushing for a crackdown on “domestic terrorism” is to make people unwilling to even consider “radical” ideas — to make people so afraid of certain ideas that they refuse to even give those ideas a fair hearing.

Progressives who are tempted to support what is being promoted as a crackdown on right-wing violence should consider the history of government harassment of progressive movements and leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. What do they think a future right-wing authoritarian would do if given power to go after “ideological extremists”?

All Americans who cherish the Bill of Rights should come together to stop this latest crackdown on liberty. My Campaign for Liberty will be mobilizing Americans to stop passage of any domestic terrorism legislation, while my Institute for Peace and Prosperity and my Liberty Report will provide Americas with the most up-to-date information about the continuing attempts to smear those who speak the truth about government lies.

(You can watch the Ron Paul Liberty Report live on YouTube Monday-Friday at noon, eastern time.)

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US ‘Stealing, Plundering’ Syrian Oil: Mark Taliano

February 2nd, 2021 by Mark Taliano

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***

The United States has occupied certain parts of Syrian territory and is stealing and plundering the war-torn country’s national resources, says a political analyst.

Author and political analyst Mark Taliano told Press TV on Saturday that the US had never been invited, nor ever will be invited into Syria, and military American forces occupation and killing of the men, women and children in the country constituted a war crime.

The Canada-based analyst pointed out that the US military had absolutely no legitimacy and legal basis to justify its occupation of Syrian territory.

Taliano pointed out the US forces were “not guarding the oil. They are stealing the oil, looting, plundering. These are war crimes.”

He said that even the al-Qaeda and Daesh were both creations of the US government to push ahead with its imperialistic agenda.

Taliano said both the Republicans and Democrats, who portray themselves to the public as being progressive, were accomplices in this crime and guilty in this regard, adding that the US military was in Syria to “support terrorism and plunder and loot, and destroy the country. That’s what imperialists do.”

Democratic President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Pentagon’s Middle East Desk Dana Stroul had said that the US military “owns” the resource-rich north eastern territory in Syria

Taliano pointed out that the American politicians, who portray themselves to the American public as progressives opposed to the US pursuance of imperialistic crimes across the globe, were delusional.

“Any progressive person who votes for this kind of supreme high criminality is not progressive,” he noted. He said it was high time that Americans break the chains and shackles of delusion and liberate themselves from further ignorance and slavery.

Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

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***

In 2011, Obama/Biden announced their Asia pivot to advance America’s military in a part of the world where it doesn’t belong.

What’s gone on for the last decade continues under Biden/Harris.

It’s all about seeking to weaken, contain, and isolate China — aiming to undermine the nation politically, economically, industrially, technologically and militarily.

A similar strategy is used against Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and other nations on the US target list for regime change.

The ultimate aim is wanting them transformed into pro-Western vassal states, their sovereignty lost to a higher power in Washington.

The policy consistently fails, yet continues unabated, how the scourge of US imperialism operates — notably by waging endless wars by hot and other means on invented enemies.

No real ones exist so they have to be invented.

The longstanding strategy is contributing to Washington’s decline, yet persists anyway.

After being confirmed as Biden/Harris war secretary, Lloyd Austin spoke to Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, and his counterparts in Japan, South Korea, Australia and India.

Biden’s double represents him publicly because the real Joe Biden is too cognitively impaired to conduct affairs of state — a disturbing situation suppressed by establishment media, supporting the ruse.

Remarks below largely refer to Biden’s double, not the hollow shell of what remains of the measure of the man in his current state.

“Biden” and Japanese Prime Minister Suga reportedly discussed Washington’s unwavering commitment to the defense of Japan under Article 5 of their mutual security treaty — at a time when neither the US or Japan face real threats, just invented ones, mainly nonbelligerent China threatening no one.

Austin reportedly told his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh that the US remains committed to the US-India Major Defense Partnership.

US engagement with other nations is all about confronting China and other nations free from its control.

According to international relations expert Li Haidong:

“Biden is trying to woo US partners in the Indo-Pacific region by sending goodwill signals.”

“Those signals carried a clear message that joining hands with partners in this region to counter China will still be a major goal of Biden’s Indo-Pacific policy.”

Biden/Harris are likely to continue Trump’s anti-China agenda — couched in different rhetoric, objectives similar.

Li added that “(t)he core of the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy is to kick off an all-round strategic competition with China. We should have a clear picture of it.”

According to China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhou Lijian:

“The US-Japan security treaty is a product of the Cold War.”

“It should not jeopardize the interests of a third party, nor should it put regional peace and stability in risk.”

International affairs expert Wang Yiwei believes that Japan, India, and other Indo-Pacific countries are leery about Washington’s regional aims, adding:

They prioritize their own interests that often differ from Washington’s, notably on relations with China — a valued trade partner too important to lose.

They also understand that US relations with other countries prioritize its own interests that often differ sharply from allied nations it seeks to co-opt in furthering them.

They understand chaotic conditions in Washington in the run-up to and aftermath of last November’s election.

They also know that “US meddling is destroying regions such as the Middle East,” Wang explained, adding:

“(T)hey are cautious about siding with the US (in) an all-round confrontation with China. Regional stability matters to all of them.”

Britain, France, Germany, and other European countries value normal trade and investment relations with China — so differ with Washington on these issues.

Before taking office, dark forces controlling Biden/Harris signaled continued US toughness on China.

According to a European Council on Foreign Relations report on EU and UK relations with China, these countries are neutral toward hardline US policies toward Beijing.

About one-third of European countries are leery about trusting the US going forward because of Trump’s geopolitical agenda.

The Sino/European investment deal shows uncertainty about US leadership longterm because of China’s growing economic power.

Blinken reportedly told his Philippines counterpart Teodoro Locsin that the US defense treaty with the island state includes the South China Sea.

Policies of Biden/Harris will likely continue Obama/Biden’s Asia pivot.

Politico reported that the new US regime in charge “wants to avoid another quagmire in the Middle East” so intend to focus heavily on the Indo-Pacific.

Reported architect of Obama/Biden’s Asia pivot Kurt Campbell was appointed head of Biden/Harris’ Indo-Pacific affairs.

He prioritizes great power competition with China and Russia.

On Friday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US must be “prepared to act (and) impose costs on China on issues relating to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and phony charges of what Pompeo falsely called “genocide” in Xinjiang against its Muslim population.

The new US regime prioritizes countering China, Russia, Iran, and other nations on its target list for regime change.

Hawks dominate Biden/Harris’ geopolitical team.

They’ll likely continue dirty business as usual on the word stage — at the expense of peace, stability and cooperative relations with other nations.

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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/

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***

Myanmar’s military has seized power, detained Aung San Suu Kyi and has begun rounding up members of her National League for Democracy political party. 

I explain how the US has spent decades building ASSK’s political network and installing her into power and how US-backed groups – including those in Thailand – are already mobilizing to undermine not only Myanmar’s political stability – but also that of the entire region.

For a much more in-depth explanation, please view the video below.

I explain why the US had been placing pressure on Aung San Suu Kyi in recent years and why the US is still going to support her and the vast network the US built up in Myanmar to propel her into power regardless.

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This article was originally published on Land Destroyer.

Brian Berletic, formally known under the pen name “Tony Cartalucci” is a geopolitical researcher, writer, and video producer (YouTube here and BitChute here) based in Bangkok, Thailand. He is a regular contributor to New Eastern Outlook and more recently, 21st Century Wire. You can support his work via Patreon here

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***

“The Bolsonaro government has a clear policy for dismantling national environmental policies. It is delegitimizing the federal environmental bodies and its employees, sacking competent staff and appointing ill-prepared people to head departments and ‘flexibilizing’ the regulations that form an important part of environmental policies in every country. He is destroying all this,” Suely Araújo told Mongabay. She is a senior specialist in public policies at Observatório do Clima, a network of Brazilian NGOs working on climate change issues.

What the dismantling of the country’s environmental agencies and policies looks like in practice has been described in detail in a new report, published 22 January by Observatório do Clima. It maps out how the Bolsonaro government has systematically slashed the budget for environmental monitoring and firefighting — reduced by 9.8% in 2020, then by another 27.4% in 2021. The cuts are so sweeping they make it impossible for the nation’s environmental agencies to carry out their work effectively, according to the report.

Critics point out that, if the government was truly committed to environmental protection, these cuts would make no sense at all. Another proof: even as Brazil’s deforestation soars under Bolsonaro (with an increase of 34% in the last two years) federal agencies’ capacity to punish criminals has steeply declined due to chronic funding shortages. The number of fines imposed for illegal deforestation and damage to vegetation, instead of rising with increased criminal activity, has fallen steeply by 42% from August 2019 to July 2020, according to figures supplied by the government’s environment agency, IBAMA.

A side-by-side comparison of rising annual deforestation in square kilometers and the plummeting number of forest-related environmental crimes charged in Brazil from 2014 to 2020. Image by Thais Borges / data by INPE (deforestation) and IBAMA (crimes).

Far from trying to stem deforestation, Observatório do Clima believes the government has a very different goal.

“It is opting not to have environmental policies, to have paralysis,” said Araújo. “The resources going to the Ministry of the Environment and bodies linked to it are so small that reducing them won’t make much difference to the country’s account. When you cut yet further resources that are already insufficient, your goal is to mess things up. It is sabotage. We must remember that, as well as the unacceptably low 2021 budget allocation, the government has refused money from the [internationally supplied] Amazon Fund since January 2019.”

The government’s intention of dismantling environment protections isn’t only apparent in its drastic budget cuts, says the report. The administration has also pushed deregulation and rule changes rapidly, in an “infra-legal” way; that is, moving outside legal processes. Nearly 600 important regulatory changes have been implemented to date with nothing more than a presidential signature.

These key alterations include the “flexibilization” of controls over suspicious Amazon timber exports; attempts to permit oil exploration in sensitive areas, as for example when it endeavored to open up the Abrolhos archipelago, the most diverse marine region in the South Atlantic, to oil exploration; the cramming of military officers into environmental bodies; and the proposed merging of ICM-Bio (the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation which administers the nation’s protected areas), with IBAMA.

The approach to the government’s wholesale environmental deregulation, says the report, was revealed by Brazilian Environment Minister Ricardo Salles at a meeting of state government ministers on 22 April 2020, which was videotaped. The government tried to prevent the video being made public, but its release was forced by a ruling on 22 May by judge Celso de Mello, who heads the Federal Supreme Court (STF).

Using a phrase during the meeting that has since become famous across Brazil, Salles urged the state governors to take advantage of the mainstream media’s hyper-focus on the COVID-19 pandemic in order to get to work “passando a boiada” (pushing through the cattle). That’s a ranching term originally referring to the rounding up of cattle to quickly get them across a river — a phrase which Observatório do Clima used as the title to its report. Salles was explicit in his meaning: “There’s an enormous list of things we can simplify in all the ministries that have a regulatory role. We don’t need Congress,” he said.

An IBAMA agent on an illegal deforestation raid inside Jamanxim National Forest in Pará state, Brazil, previous to Jair Bolsonaro’s rise to power in January 2019. The Bolsonaro administration has largely defunded IBAMA, greatly diminishing its capacity to make such raids. Jamanxim today is seeing an extraordinary rate of illegal deforestation. Image courtesy of IBAMA.

Mongabay contacted Brazil’s Environment Ministry for a comment on the allegations made in the report. As of the time the article went to press, the ministry had not replied.

But, says the report, Bolsonaro’s policies face pushback in Congress, the judiciary and civil society. The government ended 2020 facing four high-impact lawsuits which are going before the Federal Supreme Court (STF), addressing attempts to dismantle environmental policies. Earlier, the STF imposed defeats on the administration by requiring explicit policies to better protect Indigenous peoples and force it to supply emergency help to combat COVID-19 outbreaks in Indigenous territories.

The dismantling of environmental policies has also been clearly aimed at traditional communities, including Indigenous peoples. But there are other ways in which indigenous peoples have been deliberately targeted by the Bolsonaro government.

The Observatório do Clima gives several examples: Normative Ruling no.9, issued by the indigenous agency, FUNAI, permits private landowners to claim land in Indigenous territories, provided the Indigenous land hasn’t been fully demarcated; and Draft Law 191/2020, regulates economic activities, such as mining and logging, and the construction of hydroelectric dams within Indigenous territories. Add to that Bolsonaro’s diatribes against Indigenous people in which he encourages invasions of Indigenous land, invasions which, according to the Catholic Church’s Indigenous Council CIMI, increased 135% in 2019.

Cacique (chief) Raoni Metuktire, head of the Kayapo Indigenous people. Photo credit: European Committee of the Regions on Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-SA

International Criminal Court asked to investigate

Faced with Bolsonaro’s gutting of federal environmental agencies and protections and his anti-Indigenous policies, two Brazilian Indigenous caciques — Chief Raoni Metuktire, head of the Kayapo people, and Chief Almir Surui, leader of the Surui group — have asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague to investigate President Bolsonaro for “crimes against humanity.” The charges are wide-ranging, with Bolsonaro being accused of deaths, extermination of Indigenous people, forced migration, slavery, and for carrying out anti-environmental policies.

One of the caciques, Raoni Metuktire, aged about 90, said last year:

“Ï have seen many presidents come and go, but none spoke so badly of Indigenous people or threatened us and the forest like this one. Since he [Bolsonaro] became president, he has been the worst for us.”

This is not the first time that charges have been brought against Bolsonaro at the ICC. Three attempts have been made to charge him with “crimes against humanity” because of negligence in his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Each time the Brazilian government has refused to comment. Mongabay contacted the presidency for comment with respect to the caciques’ charges and, as of the time this article went to press, had not received a reply.

A Paris-based lawyer, William Bourdon, is acting on behalf of the Indigenous leaders in the case. He told Mongabay that the ICC has a “subsidiary jurisdiction” to that of national courts and can only get involved when the latter refuse to prosecute or are unable to. Bourdon explained: “In this case, the principle of subsidiarity [jurisdiction] is satisfied because the Brazilian judicial authorities refuse to prosecute and… are also unable to do so.” He said that Bolsonaro would likely be charged with “crimes against humanity perpetuated in the broader context of environment crime.” In other words, he added, if the case goes forward, Bolsonaro will likely be charged with “ecocide.”

In coming months, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will need to determine whether or not there are sufficient grounds for an investigation of Bolsonaro. There is no deadline for a decision, but Bourdon told Mongabay that it is a matter of great urgency. “Bolsonaro wants to destroy these Indigenous communities. We have a collective duty to protect them.”

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Featured image: Illegal mining, deforestation and stream destruction within the Yanomami Indigenous Reserve in northern Brazil. The Bolsonaro government has yet to successfully curb this invasion by more than 20,000 illegal miners. Image by Chico Batata / Greenpeace.

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The New York Times explained how the government poured $18.5 billion into experimental, fast-tracked vaccines, leaving doctors with “woefully few” drugs to treat the sick. But the author neglected to explain why that happened.

On Jan. 30, the New York Times published an article, “How the Search for COVID-19 treatments Faltered While Vaccines Sped Ahead.” The article bemoaned the fact that “nearly a year into the coronavirus pandemic, as thousands of patients are dying every day in the United States and widespread vaccination is still months away, doctors have precious few drugs to fight the virus.”

According to the Times:

“The government poured $18.5 billion into vaccines, a strategy that resulted in at least five effective products at record-shattering speed. But its investment in drugs was far smaller, about $8.2 billion, most of which went to just a few candidates, such as monoclonal antibodies. Studies of other drugs were poorly organized.

“The result was that many promising drugs that could stop the disease early, called antivirals, were neglected. Their trials have stalled, either because researchers couldn’t find enough funding or enough patients to participate.”

The article also pointed out that in many cases, “researchers have been left on their own to set up trials without the backing of the federal government or pharmaceutical companies.”

The Times article was informative, but it failed to answer the most basic and important question: Why did this happen?

The answer to that question is fairly simple. And the situation we find ourselves in now was as preventable as it was predictable.

As far back as March 2020, Children’s Health Defense was well aware of the direction our federal agencies were headed. That’s when we ran this short video and accompanying article posing this question: “How should America respond to the coronavirus pandemic? With therapeutic drugs or a vaccine?”

In our article, published March 27, we cited a March 16 MSNBC interview conducted by Rachel Maddow with Dr. Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia School of Public Health. In the interview, Lipkin acknowledged that our national priorities for tackling the pandemic were being driven by a desire to create new patents and in turn, new profits.

Lipkin told Maddow:

“We are not investing as much in tried and true classical sort of methods, repurposing drugs and strategies that have already been shown to work. Most of our investment is in things which are sexy, new and patentable.”

Indeed, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in partnership with Moderna, began developing a new vaccine before a single COVID case had appeared in the U.S.

The first batch of the Moderna vaccine was completed within 42 days of the company obtaining genetic information on the coronavirus.

NIAID, which operates under the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is directed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, is a joint patent holder with Moderna on its COVID vaccine. Through royalties, Fauci’s agency and employees stand to profit immensely.

The NIH Office of Technology Transfer FY 2014 annual report explains how royalties collected on product sales, primarily drugs and biologics, accounted for 84% of the $138 million in royalties collected by NIH in 2014. The three best-selling products utilizing technology licensed from NIH that year were a novel protease inhibitor for the treatment of HIV-1, Merck’s Gardasil vaccine and AstraZeneca’s Synagis, a monoclonal antibody for the treatment of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants.

In December 2020, the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Moderna and PfizerCOVID vaccines for emergency use in the U.S. The secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services then made the official emergency use declarations for the Moderna and Pfizervaccines.

The FDA’s emergency use approval paved the way for the NIAID and Fauci to start cashing in on the vaccines.

So, back to the New York Times article and the point it makes — that the government poured $18.5 billion into COVID vaccines, but only about $8.2 billion in to therapeutics — and our question: Why?

The answer lies in FDA regulations for approving a drug, including a COVID vaccine, for emergency use. Section 564 §360bbb-3 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act states that the FDA commissioner may allow unapproved medical products or unapproved uses of approved medical products to be used in an emergency to diagnose, treat, or prevent serious or life-threatening diseases only when “there is no adequate, approved, and available alternative to the product for diagnosing, preventing, or treating such disease or condition.”

In other words, if non-vaccine therapeutics for COVID, such as vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc or the inexpensive treatment protocol developed by the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance had been approved as viable treatments for COVID, the experimental mRNA Moderna and Pfizer vaccines wouldn’t have been eligible for Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA.

Instead, Moderna and Pfizer would have been required to go through the normal licensing procedure for vaccines, including more extensive safety testing. That would have taken longer, and perhaps led to safety concerns that might have kept them from ever being approved. Either scenario would have cut into profits for NIAID and the vaccine makers and jeopardized millions of dollars in royalties.

As we wrote in March 2020:

“In light of the immunity from liability guaranteed by the PREP (Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness) Act during declared emergencies, fast-tracked vaccines are a sweetheart deal for both biopharma and government. A safer and common-sense approach would direct resources toward examining the merits of existing therapeutics that can be put to immediate use. The government must not allow Big Pharma and biotech companies to cash in on this catastrophe with speculative, patentable vaccines at the expense of the therapeutics needed to save lives now.”

Unfortunately, the fast-tracked vaccine ship has sailed, and we are now just beginning to see the consequences of the government’s decision to put all of its eggs in the vaccine basket in the form of thousands of vaccine injury reports, including possible hundreds of deaths since Jan. 22.

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Less than one week after advising Americans that wearing two or even three masks would be ‘more effective’ against the spread of coronavirus, Dr Fauci has done a complete 180 (again) and admitted that there is no data to suggest it will make any difference.

After Fauci made the comments last week, the media began to push the idea that two masks wasn’t enough, and that people need to wear three, or even four masks.

However, during an interview at the weekend, Fauci completely contradicted his own comments from the previous week.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that Fauci has flip-flopped continuously on masks, having originally said that “there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,” and that they are little more than symbolic.

Later, Fauci fully embraced the masks and stated that they ‘need to stay on’ until everyone is vaccinated.

As we previously highlighted, it went from wearing a mask to now wearing two masks being the best way virtue signal.

Why concern yourself with trivial matters such as breathing when the wearing of multiple face coverings is so effective in delivering social media clout?

Don’t let the fact that there is no evidence masks do anything get in the way of that dopamine hit.

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The threat of mandatory covid vaxxing by federal, state, local authorities, and/or employers, businesses across the board, schools, and for access to public places should terrify everyone.

As explained earlier, all vaccines contain hazardous to health toxins and should be avoided.

Covid vaccines already showed they’re extremely dangerous because of their fast-tracked development, inadequate testing, experimental technology, and numerous adverse events from vaxxing, including deaths.

High risks to health will be best understood after the fact when it’s too late to undo likely widespread harm to countless numbers of vaxxed people.

Because of the hazards posed by covid vaccines and their inadequate testing, they’re unapproved by the FDA — yet are being used anyway under so-called emergency conditions that don’t exist.

They’re invented, not real, to push mass-vaxxing with what demands mass rejection to protect health and well-being.

FDA guidelines for use of Pfizer and Moderna covid vaccines explain their unapproved status, stating:

“There is no US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19.”

Pfizer and Moderna [mRNA] covid vaccines are “unapproved,” adding:

These vaccines “may not protect everyone…The duration of (alleged) protection against COVID-19 is currently unknown.”

FDA acknowledged potential side effects include “pain, tenderness and swelling of the lymph nodes in the same arm of the injection, swelling (hardness), redness, fatigue, headache, muscle pain, joint pain, chills, nausea and vomiting, fever, (and at times)  severe allergic reaction.”

The latter includes “difficulty breathing, swelling of your face and throat, a fast heartbeat, a bad rash all over your body, dizziness, weakness,” and possible anaphylactic shock that risks death.

Omitted by the FDA are potential longer-term threats that include major illnesses like cancer, diabetes, autism, and heart disease.

Vaccines don’t protect as claimed. When used as directed, they risk serious harm to health and well-being — why avoiding them is crucial.

The FDA, HHS, CDC, and other US public health agencies protect Pharma, not ordinary Americans, from harm when using vaccines and other drugs that are potentially hazardous to health.

Many noted doctors and scientists warned against use of covid vaccines because of potentially hazardous side effects.

Mandatory covid vaxxing if ordered in the US will breach the Nuremberg Code, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and other international laws.

A previous article explained that US workers can be let go by employers for refusing to be vaxxed — with exceptions for religious and medical reasons, not easily gotten at times.

It’s largely an issue for individual states and local communities to set standards.

Along with federal authorities, state and local ones most often favor monied interests over the public welfare.

Promoting mass-vaxxing for covid is intense, potential harm to health ignored.

While federal, state and local authorities can mandate vaxxing, Children’s Health Defense president Mary Holland and vaccine rights attorney Greg Glaser explained the following:

Pfizer and Moderna covid vaccines are OK’d for emergency use only.

“Under 21 U.S.C. § 360bbb-3, “authorization (of) medical products for use in emergencies,” cannot be mandatory because what’s OK’d under these conditions hasn’t received FDA approval.

Holland and Glaser further explained that federal emergency authorization use “trumps state (and local communities’) law.”

According to the FDA:

The agency “believes that the terms and conditions of an EUA issued under section 564 preempt state or local law, both legislative requirements and common-law duties, that impose different or additional requirements on the medical product for which the EUA was issued in the context of the emergency declared under section 564.”

“In an emergency, it is critical that the conditions that are part of the EUA or an order or waiver issued pursuant to section 564A — those that FDA has determined to be necessary or appropriate to protect the public health—be strictly followed, and that no additional conditions be imposed.”

In August 2020, CDC executive secretary of its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Dr. Amanda Cohn said the following:

“(U)nder an Emergency Use Authorization, an EUA, vaccines are not allowed to be mandatory.”

“So, early in this vaccination phase, individuals will have to be consented and they won’t be able to be mandated.”

“A private party, such as an employer, school or hospital, cannot circumvent the EUA law.”

“Nowhere in the (FDA’s) fact sheet does it specify that a person may be fired from their employment, denied education, disciplined or otherwise discriminated against for refusal” to be vaxxed against covid.

The FDA Fact Sheet for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (and Moderna’s) states:

“It is your choice to receive or not receive” vaxxing for covid.

“Should you decide not to receive it, it will not change your standard medical care.”

“(P)eople cannot lose healthcare coverage for refusal,” Holland and Glaser explained — nor be punished in other ways.

If private businesses or other entities go another way, they’ll be subject of civil liability actions against their practices, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Key is that what’s legally the case now may change ahead.

At some point, one or more covid vaccines are likely to receive FDA approval.

If and when it happens, federal, state, and local communities can legally mandate covid vaxxing for access to public places.

Employers, schools, and other entities will be free to act in similar fashion.

If mass-vaxxing for covid is mandated ahead, the potential for widespread harm to health will be enormous.

Mass-action will be vital, aided by competent legal help, to protect what’s too precious to lose.

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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 by Renzo Velez / POGO

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Switzerland’s Dangerous Turn to the Far Right

February 2nd, 2021 by Franklin Frederick

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***

On 25 September 2020, the Swiss Parliament passed a revision of the federal anti-terrorism law. This new law provoked many protests, some quite vehement, including the launch of a national referendum.

One of the main instruments of direct democracy as practised in Switzerland, the people’s referendum allows the citizenry to vote to approve or nullify laws voted by Parliament. To organize such a vote, 50,000 valid signatures are required (from an overall population of 8.6 million) accompanied by each signatory’s legal address, subsequently certified by the relevant authorities. Owing to the pandemic, the collection of signatures has been done mainly on-line, and the result seems to have already exceeded double the required number.

This popular reaction to the new legislation is very welcome because, according to the website of those who launched the referendum (https://detentions-arbitraires-non.ch/), the new law would abolish the presumption of innocence: “The measures provided for in the law are not to be ordered by a court, but by the police on the basis of mere suspicion (no evidence needed). This violates the European Convention on Human Rights” to which Switzerland is a party.

The website points out further violations of the European Convention:

“One can be placed under house arrest for up to nine months without evidence, on mere suspicion. This would make us the first and only Western country to have such arbitrary deprivation of liberty. The only exception: the USA with its camps in Guantanamo.”

Even more disturbing, the new law violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child, for its measures allow the imposition of compulsory registration and a ban on minors 12 years and up leaving the country, as well as house arrest from the age of 15. The protection of minors is thus seriously undermined.

Fifty law professors from Switzerland have communicated their concerns to the federal government (the Federal Council): see this.

And experts from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights itself warned that this new legislation violates international human rights standards in the way that it expands the definition of terrorism, and would set a dangerous precedent for the suppression of political dissent worldwide.

The experts were particularly alarmed that the bill’s new definition of ‘terrorist activity’ no longer requires the prospect of any crime at all. On the contrary, it may encompass even lawful acts aimed at influencing or modifying the constitutional order, such as legitimate activities of journalists, civil society and political activists.

The experts also warned against sections of the bill that would give the federal police extensive authority to designate “potential terrorists” and to decide on preventive measures against them without meaningful judicial oversight.

Under the guise of the ‘fight against terrorism’, many governments seek to suppress any legitimate criticism of the neoliberal economic model. Thus, laws supposedly created to ‘defend democracy’ are actually instruments in defence of a particular economic order: neoliberalism. What is new in this Swiss legislation is the possibility of criminalisation of young people from the age of 12 (!), as mentioned above.

The obvious target of such criminalisation is the climate movement. An increasing number of young people have taken to the streets in various parts of the world with clear and forceful criticism of the lack of effective action by governments in relation to the seriousness of global warming, drawing attention above all to the contradiction between neoliberal capitalism and environmental preservation. This movement has grown exponentially in Switzerland, becoming a political force to be reckoned with.

In September 2018, for example, the largest demonstration ever recorded in the history of the city of Bern occurred: some 100,000 people, mostly young, took to the streets in protest. This movement had a decisive effect on the parliamentary elections that followed in October, leading the Green Party to obtain the largest vote in its history.

On 21 September 2020, the young activists occupied Bern’s Federal Square, in front of the Parliament building. This action produced a considerable stir the international media, and messages of support to the activists came from various parts of the world, including from the Landless Movement (MST) and several parliamentarians from Brazil. (See this)

The occupation, which was totally peaceful, was shut down by the police and triggered reactions that were not without overtones of outright hysteria from many members of parliament and a major part of the Swiss media, all of whom condemned the activists’ ‘illegal’ action. Some parliamentarians even asked the intelligence service to investigate the young people. More recently, another Swiss parliamentarian compared the occupation to the invasion of the U.S. Capitol by far-right demonstrators!

Under the new law, most of the young people involved in the occupation could be accused of ‘terrorism’ – and punished accordingly. Thus, fighting for the future of the planet has become a ‘crime’ to be punished by the state!

But how was it possible that legislation allowing the criminalisation of children from the age of 12 as ‘terrorists’ was proposed and approved by the parliament of a country as democratic and enlightened as Switzerland?

Such legislation has long been the dream of the extreme right in Brazil, which has fought fiercely for the possibility of criminalising both social movements and young people. Bolsonaro and his supporters would love to enact similar legislation in Brazil and will probably try to follow this Swiss example.

The political forces in Switzerland behind this law have a long history, which is also partly the history of the construction of the neo-liberal order itself.  In an important book, The Road from Mont Pélerin, a collection of essays by several authors on the history of neo-liberalism, Dieter Plehwe wrote in the ‘Introduction’:

The transnational dimension of the local/national history of neoliberalism has been particularly strong in the U.K. and the United States. Switzerland also deserves recognition as a particular transnational neoliberal space because of the hospitality of Swiss neoliberal intellectuals and institutions to Austrian, German, and Italian refugee neoliberals. It was certainly not mere coincidence that the Mont Pélerin Society was founded in this country: only Switzerland provided neoliberal intellectuals the intellectual and institutional space and financial backing needed to organize an international conference of and for neoliberals right after World War II. Until the end of the 1950s, it remained easier for neoliberals to congregate in Switzerland than anywhere else: four of the ten Mont Pélerin Society meetings between 1947 and 1960 took place in Switzerland. It took more than ten years after the war for a meeting to be held in the United States.

Those political and economic forces that made Switzerland so receptive to neoliberal ideology by providing neoliberals the intellectual and institutional space and the financial backing, ahead of any other country, are still very active and are the driving proponents of the new law.

In another essay in The Road from Mont Pélerin Keith Tribe wrote:

What distinguishes neoliberalism from classic liberalism is the inversion of the relationship between politics and economics. Arguments for liberty become economic rather than political, identifying the impersonality of market forces as the chief means for securing popular welfare and personal liberty.

Thus, any criticism of neoliberalism becomes criticism of freedom itself, and should be punished by the State as ‘terrorism’.

And in the same book, Rob van Horn and Philip Mirovsky observed that ‘neoliberalism is first and foremost a theory of how to engineer the state in order to guarantee the success of the market and its most important participants, modern corporations.’

Many of these large corporations have been the target of the climate movement’s most incisive criticism, causing much damage to their corporate public image. It is not surprising, then, that the market’s ‘most important participants’ are behind the drafting of specific legislation to control these ‘abuses’.

That such an anti-terror law has been passed by the Swiss parliament reveals the power of neoliberal ideology within this country and the ability of large corporations to influence governments and legislation even in a recognized democracy such as Switzerland.  At a time when neoliberalism is failing all over the world, a reaction from the neoliberal establishment is to be expected, for neoliberalism can be sustained only by lying, by force or by a combination of the two. But the neo-liberal lie can no longer hoodwink the world’s peoples, for the failure is too visible, too eloquent. Neoliberalism, for its own survival, is left with the use of violence and repression, by all possible means, including legal ones.

Switzerland’s humanitarian and democratic tradition is now in the hands of its young activists. The climate movement has the potential to transcend borders and generations, to unite the North and South of the planet in a common struggle for our mother Earth against those who exploit it. But the combined reaction of economic and state power can be overwhelming, and laws like these clearly show the risks and dangers to which these young people are exposed. It is up to each of us now to support this struggle with the creativity, affection and joy that the preservation of life deserves.

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The administration of former US President Donald Trump, escalated tensions with Beijing to the highest level in recent history in all aspects: economy, technology and military. Global security depends on a stable relationship between the two superpowers. Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse reached out to China expert, Jeff J. Brown for some answers to pertinent questions. 

Jeff J. Brown is author of The China Trilogy ,blogs and podcasts at China Rising Radio Sinoland, is the producer of China Tech News Flash! , and is a co-founder and the curator of the Bioweapon Truth Commission Global Online Library . His forthcoming book, Faster than a Speeding Bullet – the Chinese People’s Unstoppable Socialist Dream for Global Leadership into the 22nd Century, will be released in 2021. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Steven Sahiounie (SS):  The former US President Trump’s administration escalated the tension between Beijing and Washington to the highest level. The biggest loser in the US-China trade war was the United States.

Do you think the new Biden administration will repair the US-China relationship, or will it maintain the escalation of tensions?

Jeff Brown (JB):  I don’t see a lot of change, simply because before Trump, the last US president who acted “presidential” got his brains blown out in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas in 1963. This has been a problem since 1833, when the gangster banksters tried to assassinate US President Andrew Jackson, for closing down their private US central bank, which was printing the people’s money, at interest. We can see with Trump that if you stand up to the oligarchic elite, they will kill you or destroy you.

Trump was no more bellicose or anti-Chinese than every US president/government since 1921, when the Communist Party of China (CPC) was founded, and especially since Mao & Company beat Japan and the West, with the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. In fact, the USA and China nearly went to war a number of times in the 1950s-1960s.

Trump simply used the tools at his disposal that the deep state could not manipulate: tariffs, sanctions and embargoes focused on high tech, military, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang and his powerful bully pulpit.

I’m not even sure how much the US lost or gained, since the West’s Big Lie Propaganda Machine (BLPM) spewed anti-Trump projectile vomit from before he even got elected, still do, while censoring any data or news that was and is to his benefit, as reported here.

SS:  The former US administration supported Taiwan in the China-Taiwan dispute. Do you perceive US President Biden as being a fair broker between the two sides?

JB:  Honestly, I don’t think so, except possibly for some cosmetic PR moves.

Chiang Kai-Shek, his fascist KMT and the US military got whipped by Mao Zedong and the Red Army by 1949, running with their tails between their legs to Taiwan. Since then, every US administration has used this renegade China province to try to harass and overthrow the CPC. Arms have continued to pour into the island, preferential trade policies passed and the tacit threat that Uncle Sam will join Taiwan if attacked by the Mainland, have not changed. After Nixon’s overtures to China in 1972, the US mostly adhered to the One-China policy, which they could afford to do, since the West was still far and away much more economically and militarily powerful than the PRC.

But times have changed. Communist-socialist China’s (PPP- purchasing power parity) economy surpassed the US’ in 2014 and is like an unstoppable 600kph maglev train; China Tech is racing past the West at the speed of light and President Xi Jinping has put the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with its air force, navy, rocket, strategic, armed police and reserve forces on par with, and in a number of cases, outstripping Uncle Sam’s capabilities.

The West’s oligarchic deep state cannon only knows how to shoot in one direction: destroy all peoples and their countries that are not controlled and exploited by them. So, these efforts vis-à-vis China will continue, including pushing the Taiwan issue.

SS:  The former Trump administration perceived the China-Russia growing relationship as a threat. In your opinion, will the Biden administration continue this perception of the strong relationship as a threat to US interests?

JB:  To understand China versus the West, we have to go back in history. Every US administration has worked overtime to keep USSR/Russia and the PRC divided, which they were able to do in 1960, helping orchestrate the Sino-Soviet split. It lasted until Vladimir Putin became Russian president in 2000.

One can only imagine how world history would have been much better for the global 99%, without that cataclysmic, 40-year geopolitical divorce. I think both current leaderships in China and Russia realize that the Sino-Soviet split only served the interests of NATO and they are not going to repeat that tragic mistake, which cascaded disastrously throughout Asia – Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine, etc. – to the West’s benefit.

Now, with wise and visionary leadership in both 21st century Moscow and Beijing, Eurangloland has not been able pit these two Asian giants against each other a second time, while working furiously to destroy them individually. On the contrary, global multipolar forces are moving in the opposite direction. With the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), BRICS/BRICS Bank, Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), not to mention the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), it’s more and more difficult for the West’s deep state to impose its will in Asia, like it has so successfully done for much of the last 500 years of colonialism and imperialism.

SS:  The west continues to use the Uyghurs as political pressure upon Beijing. If the west continues to use the Uyghurs as a threat to China, what would be China’s possible response?

JB:  Britain was using Xinjiang (where most of China’s Uyghurs live) and Tibet early in the 20th century, to limit Russia’s influence and possible expansion into its empire, especially India, so this is not new. After the West working furiously to use Tibet and Taiwan to overthrow the CPC, starting in the 1950s, Hong Kong after 1997 and the South China Sea in the 2000s, all ongoing, it was only a matter of time before NATO would use its vast network of global proxy armies, posing as “true religion Islamisists”, to try to subvert China and its 25 million Muslim citizens.

Like the Western oligarchs’ tsunami of endless false flags and psychological warfare, the BLPM can brainwash most of the world’s people to believe absolutely anything they want promote, no matter how preposterous. Perception becomes mass induced delusions of “reality”, even though it is total fiction.

Based on experience, I know the truth. I have traveled throughout China’s Muslim regions and met many people. My family and I lived in a Muslim neighborhood in Beijing for four years. I have also written much about Islam in China.

Biden’s UN Ambassador nominee, Linda Thomas-Greenfield has declared she is anxious to declare Xinjiang and its Muslims as victims of Sino-genocide, so nothing will change.

Baba Beijing, China’s leadership will do what I do: keep telling the truth and fighting the good fight against the West’s relentless and very efficacious global BLPM.

SS:  Late in 2020, the world saw the tension between Beijing and New Delhi escalate from a political level to a military confrontation with losses on both sides.  In your opinion, did the former US administration’s support of the Indian position contribute to the confrontation on the ground? Additionally, what is your take on the future of China-India relations?

JB:  Like every other US administration since the Russian Revolution of 1917, or as Dr. Joan Roelofs likes to say, Since the beginning of the Cold War in 1848, with the publication of the Communist Manifesto.  Western empire continues to work tirelessly to create alliances and ententes to destroy its many anti-global capitalist enemies. Trump’s “Quad”, which joins the US with India, Australia and Japan, is just one more of endless permutations throughout colonial-imperial history.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi started out in 2014 supporting the aforementioned Asian institutions. He is also a Hindu Nationalist; this segment of India’s population is generally rabidly Sinophobic. It may help explain why for the last couple of years, he has moved to stoke these sentiments in-country, to maintain popularity, while imposing more and more neoliberal policies, which are making a poor population even poorer.

In 2019, Modi pushed Hindu nationalism in the Sino-Paki-Indian tinderbox of Jammu-Kashmir-Jammu, so may have gotten some Western behind-the-scenes quid pro quo on all this. Or, like countless others, he could have simply succumbed to the imperial toolbox: bribery, blackmail and extortion. In any case, ongoing border tensions and banning China Tech (Huawei, ZTE, WeChat, TikTok, etc.) all keeps suffering Indian minds off the fact that neighbor China has completely outclassed them socio-economically, developmentally and geopolitically for the last 70 years.

While heavily censored, downplayed or misrepresented in the BLPM, India is currently dealing with human history’s largest popular protests, as hundreds of millions of citizens are on the march against Modi’s impoverishing, neoliberal policies. My Indian friends say they are organized for the long haul and are being financed by popular support.

Whether this may push India away from the Quad and back towards Asia is hard to say. Just this week, Modi’s Foreign Minister gave a surprising policy speech, which laid out cooperation with China, including three mutuals and eight propositions.  It is highly unlikely that this was done without Modi’s approval.

We can speculate two ways. First, India is going back to the grand Asian project, with China and Russia. Or, Modi & Company are trying to leverage the Quad for more concessions, especially as a shot across the bow of the new Biden administration.

We’ll know more in the months to come, as India’s inspiring protests continue to rage on.

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

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The conflict in Syria does not seem to be nearing its end despite the diplomatic efforts to find a solution for it. Every participant in the standoff is undertaking actions to pursue their interests, and many of them evidently are in conflict with one another.

Israel and its never-ending fight against the ‘Iranian threat’, as usual, appears to be in the middle of it.

On January 31st, along the separation line of the Golan Heights, a Syrian Arab Army (SAA) post was attacked by unknown gunmen. They came from the Israeli-occupied side, and a loud explosion followed. No casualties were reported, and it is possible that Israel was behind it, since the IDF has done raids such as these in the past, including twice in 2020. According to pro-militant sources, the IDF operation was carried out to deter purported Iranian forces in the area.

Israeli media reported that several months ago that in Damascus itself, an unnamed “Western Intelligence Agency” carried out a raid the headquarters of Iran’s Quds Force Unit 840. While the report remains questionable, at minimum, it can be considered as a direct threat to Tehran and Damascus.

In Northeast Syria, a severe conflict appears to be in the making, as US President Joe Biden seems to want an extremely negative outward scenario in order to reverse the limited involvement approach of Donald Trump.  Soon, MSM may get a new ‘war for democracy’ to cover, so, the population can focus less on what is transpiring inside the US.

The US-supported Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) appear to be the prime candidates to lead the situation towards critical mass. Hillary Clinton, and her daughter Chelsea are already moving with propaganda preparations: a Kurdish soap opera, focused on the lives and struggle of Kurdish women who fought not only against ISIS, but also fought for their liberty and their rights.

The Kurdish “freedom fighters” also fight against Turkey and reject a political settlement with Damascus.

Still, the SDF is now emboldened, it has support from the US, and little else in the region, except the poison hand of “friendship” from Israel. If all hell breaks loose, however, it is dubious whether or not Tel Aviv would come running to help.

This, however, does not stop the Kurdish leadership from employing harsh approaches to suppress local discontent with its anti-Syrian approaches. Just recently in Al-Hasakah, a pro-government protest was democratically put down by live fire and killings by the SDF’s “freedom fighters”.

It is an open secret the SDF-controlled area is in fact run by the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) “shadow government” and the SDF itself is full of PKK members, including the SDF commander in chief himself. This creates conditions for a continuous fight against the Turkish forces, and provides additional motivation for the SDF rejection of a political settlement with the Damascus government.

The Kurdish leaders are happy to receive weapons and funds from the US in exchange for loyalty to the project of the dismantling of the Syrian state.

Emboldened by the supposed support from the US, and the recent large deployments that have been carried out, the SDF and co. have recently become more active in their attempts to hinder the interests of Damascus, Russia and Iran.

The SDF’s mismanagement of the situation is further evidenced by the permanent tensions with Arab locals in the controlled areas and the deep humanitarian problems in SDF-run camps for displaced persons, including those affiliated with ISIS members. There are about 27,000 children in the SDF-run Al-Hol camp, where families of ISIS members and supporters are held. ISIS activity has seen an incredible increase in 2021, and the terrorist group would be more than content with “adopting” these young recruits.

With the new administration in Washington, the wind is blowing towards an incredibly violent scenario. The resumption of the ‘active’ policies to ‘deter’ Russia, Iran and the ‘Assad regime’ by playing the Kurdish card creates conditions for a further destabilization of Syria’s northeast. In some scenarios, the situation could swiftly descend into complete chaos.

To avoid this scenario, Kurdish leadership needs to remember that they are short on allies in the region and adapt a more constructive approach towards a political settlement with Damascus. Otherwise it is “highly likely” that dark clouds are soon to come on the horizon and the SDF card will once again become a small coin in the Big Middle Eastern Game.

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Psychology: Pretending There Is Nothing Wrong

February 2nd, 2021 by Rod Driver

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“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”(1)

In 2011 there was a devastating nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant in Japan. An “investigation” concluded that:

“its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture, our reflexive obedience, our reluctance to question authority, our devotion to sticking with the programme”.(2)

However, there is nothing specifically Japanese about these attitudes. A similar mindset explains many of the issues discussed in other posts. This post is the first of two giving some insights into why we behave as we do. Why do powerful people in governments and corporations commit so many crimes? Why do people tolerate a government that commits war crimes? Why do people turn a blind eye when large corporations repeatedly carry out unethical activities? Why is it we are so easily misled?

Do We Want To Know The Truth? Denial and Self-deception

Stanley Cohen wrote a book entitled ‘States of Denial’, which looked at why whole populations allow their governments to commit atrocities. He described a mindset which was ‘simultaneously knowing and not-knowing’. We partially know something, but we do not want to discover the rest, due to a fear of discovering something troubling.(3) The human brain is capable of great insights and independent thought, but we have conditioned ourselves not to ask too many difficult questions, because we are afraid of the answers. We are vaguely aware that we choose not to look at the facts, without really understanding what it is we are evading.

This is usually called ‘wilful blindness’ or ‘denial’. It covers a huge range of phenomena, from governments committing atrocities, and companies behaving unethically, to individuals trying to convince themselves that their partners are not having affairs. If we commit or witness harmful practices, we try to deceive ourselves into believing that they were reasonable. We come up with justifications, we use euphemisms to avoid accurate descriptions, and we ignore the consequences.(4) This form of self-deception allows individuals, organisations and even whole countries to deny knowledge of things that make them uncomfortable.

Numerous government and corporate employees who have participated in unethical behaviour have admitted afterwards that they knew their actions were wrong, but managed to convince themselves that the normal rules did not apply. Most people in Britain and the US, including journalists, have some understanding that the destruction of Iraq and Libya are monstrous crimes, but they are so uncomfortable admitting this that they delude themselves into believing it is not true.

Brainwashing – We are lied to every day

The more people are exposed to an idea, the more they are likely to accept it. If we hear the same information from the media over and over again, we come to believe it must be true. If we are also surrounded by friends, family and colleagues repeating the same perspective, because they have also been bombarded by the same misleading information from the media, then it becomes harder and harder to say it is not true.

Convincing people to believe distorted versions of events is a form of brainwashing. Every soldier in history who has killed people in another country has been brainwashed to some extent. They are led to believe that shooting people, dropping bombs on them or burying them alive beneath a tank is reasonable, even if the people being killed are trying to surrender. Ordinary people who support these policies have also been brainwashed to accept these policies. This is connected to another aspect of psychology known as dehumanisation – the ability to see others as less than human.(5) This plays an important part in enabling governments to get away with war crimes overseas, because the people being slaughtered, such as Muslims in the Middle East, are different from us.

Confirmation Bias and a ‘Framework of Understanding’

Psychologists have recognised that our beliefs are an important part of how we see ourselves. We prefer to receive information that confirms our existing views or beliefs, because it makes us feel good about ourselves. Psychologists use the term ‘cognitive dissonance’ to describe a situation where people feel uncomfortable because they are presented with evidence that contradicts their existing beliefs. We try to find ways to deal with this discomfort, either by ignoring the information, or by using faulty logic to justify our existing beliefs. This is known as ‘confirmation bias’,(6) and is often divided into three main areas.

Firstly, biased search is where we actively seek out information that supports our existing views. Most newspaper readers will be aware that they choose a newspaper where the writers express similar views to their own.

Secondly, biased interpretation is where we interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting our existing position. We also find reasons to dismiss evidence that contradicts our beliefs, by convincing ourselves that the source was unreliable.

Finally, biased memory is where we remember information that supports our existing beliefs, and forget information that contradicts them. Over time, most people forget the detail of what they have learned. They create a framework of understanding, or a framework of knowledge. This is like a general overview of how we see the world. If new information is consistent with this framework, it fits into the framework easily, reinforces the framework, and might be remembered. If new information does not fit easily into the framework then we don’t know what to do with it, so it will tend to be dismissed and quickly forgotten.

Affection for beliefs seems to be similar to affection for people. Recent research has shown that some parts of the brain are de-activated when thinking about people we love. In particular, some of the areas responsible for critical thinking. The same appears to be true when thinking about beliefs.(7) Our brain treats differently any information that might challenge our beliefs. The effect seems to be stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. This is particularly the case where people believe in a powerful ideology, or a big idea, such as ‘markets’. We are mostly unaware of how deeply these big ideas affect the way we think. Confirmation bias can lead to a situation where people will continue to believe something, even when it is strongly contradicted by the evidence.(8)

Ideas seem ‘normal’ if lots of other people share them – even if they’re wrong

If a minority of people hold an unusual view, such as ‘the world is coming to end’, they seem weird to the majority. But when ideas are widely shared they seem less weird, and may even come to seem normal. This was evident during the run-up to the financial crisis in 2008. Belief in ‘the markets’ had become ever more reinforced, with few people openly questioning them. Most people, including supposed experts, chose to overlook the well-established downsides of financial deregulation, such as catastrophic crashes.

This is partly because people’s beliefs tend to develop over time. Whilst these beliefs are being formed, they can be changed, but once they have become established it becomes more difficult to change them. In particular, if someone has stated their opinion, they feel that changing their opinion appears weak.(9) Eventually they feel they have too much to lose, and it becomes almost impossible to change their views. If a journalist has made a living openly supporting invasions of other countries, it is very difficult for them to admit that they have been supporting the worst crimes of this century.

This is particularly relevant to the belief that the people we have elected to run our country are reasonable people with good intentions. We want to believe that they are not insane, war-mongering sociopaths, so we come up with all manner of explanations for their crimes. If they kill two million people in Iraq, we convince ourselves that their explanation, that they were worried about WMD, or terrorism, or human rights, must be correct. Even though, deep down, we know these are lies.

Destructive Obedience – Causing Harm by Following Orders

Some famous experiments have focussed on the role of obedience to authority. The best known of these were initially performed by Stanley Milgram in 1963.(10) These studies examined why individuals obey authorities even when the task is morally repugnant, when there is no reward for doing so, and where there is no punishment for disobedience. In the experiment people were told to give severe electric shocks to other people. The studies found that many people will obey those orders. Variations of the experiments have been performed around the world, to see if the results are true in other countries. Whilst the details sometimes vary, the general principle that many people will do terrible things when following orders appears to be true.(11)

Similar studies have been tried in the real world, where nurses were observed to see if they would administer lethal doses of drugs on the order of a doctor. Again, perhaps surprisingly, very few questioned the instruction.(12) Non-experimental real world evidence of these effects is widespread. It is thought that a quarter of plane crashes are caused by ‘destructive obedience’(13) and there is a famous incident of battleships crashing because no one questioned their orders.(14)

This obedience without question creates repeated problems in many industries. Safety failings due to cost cutting are a common problem, even where people know that the cuts would create danger. This creates a situation where ethics, legality and safety become irrelevant due to orders from bosses. Numerous oil leaks and gas explosions, such as the Texas City oil refinery or the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, have occurred because of cost-savings and cutting corners on safety standards.(15)

Conformity and The Disappearance of Ethics

Conformity is where people try to fit in with those around them, to conform.(16) The most well-known experiments in this area were carried out by Solomon Asch in 1951.(17) Subjects were placed in groups that had to do simple tasks, such as counting the number of chimes of a bell. Unknown to the subject, all other members of the group were ‘in’ on the experiment, and had been instructed to state the wrong number of chimes. Overwhelmingly, subjects agreed with the rest of the group, rather than stating the correct number. It turns out that under social pressure most of us would rather be wrong than alone. Independence of mind can lead to a sense of isolation, and affect our self-esteem, so we try to protect ourselves by fitting-in with the group.(18) This type of research has been consistently repeated. One of the most interesting findings is that some participants have no sense of having conformed – it is completely subconscious.(19)

Conformity may explain a number of phenomena that have been observed. In particular, researchers have noted groupthink, where the desire for harmony within a group overrides an honest discussion of alternatives. People are reluctant to suggest dissenting opinions because of their desire to conform. Attitude polarisation is where groups of like-minded thinkers tend to develop even more extreme views. It seems highly likely that both of these are at work when groups of politicians pursue extremist foreign policies such as war. Leaders appoint like-minded thinkers as advisors, and people with challenging opinions tend to be excluded from decisionmaking.

Real-world evidence of conformity also suggests that individual ethical standards decrease in groups. Young medical students are unlikely to blow the whistle if they see something unethical. However, research indicates that they are even less likely to blow the whistle after 3 years of medical and ethics training.(20) Doctors are reluctant to challenge their colleagues, even where evidence of incompetence leading to death is clear.(21) Many people involved in financial activities in the boom years prior to the global financial crisis of 2007 have explained that there was no clear sense of moral norms. If everyone around you is being rewarded for doing crooked deals, what is normal? If companies are spending lots of money lobbying politicians to change laws, this makes them believe that laws do not have to be taken seriously, they are merely obstacles to be circumvented.(22)

Obedience and Conformity are a dangerous combination

In many workplaces, both obedience and conformity are present. Staff obey their superiors, but they also want to conform to fit in with their colleagues. In practice, standing up against consensus is difficult for numerous reasons.(23) Most obviously, many of the systems that we currently have in place provide no encouragement or tangible rewards for bucking the system or challenging decisions. In fact, just the opposite is true. Questioning your colleagues, and particularly your superiors, can have a negative impact on your job, your reputation, your career prospects and your financial rewards.

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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. This is the twentieth in a series entitled Elephants In The Room, which attempts to provide a beginners guide to understanding what’s really going on in relation to war, terrorism, economics and poverty, without the nonsense in the mainstream media.

Notes 

1) Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1995 

2) Justin McCurry, ‘Japanese cultural traits ‘at heart of Fukushima disaster’’, Guardian, 5 July 2012, at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/05/japanese-cultural-traits-fukushima-disaster 

3) Stanley Cohen, States of Denial, 2001, pp. 24 – 33

4) Margaret Heffernan, Wilful Blindness: Why we ignore the obvious at our peril, 2011, pp.258-259

5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehumanization

6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

7) Margaret Heffernan, Wilful Blindness: Why we ignore the obvious at our peril, 2011, pp. 45-46

8) Lee Ross and Craig Anderson, ‘Judgement under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases’, 1974, Science 185 (4157): 1124-31

9) Margaret Heffernan, Wilful Blindness: Why we ignore the obvious at our peril, 2011, 316

10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Milgram

11) Brian Resnick, ‘The Stanford prison experiment was massively influential. We just learned it was a fraud’, Vox, 13 June 2018, at https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-experiment-fraud-psychology-replication

12) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofling_hospital_experiment

C.K.Hofling et al, ‘An experimental study in nurse-physician relationships’, Journal of nervous and mental disease, 143(2): 171-80, at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5957275/

13) Eugen Tarnow, ‘Self-destructive obedience in the airplane cockpit and the concept of obedience optimisation’, in Thomas Blass (ed.) Obedience to Authority: Current perspectives on the Milgram paradigm, 2000, at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/self-destructive-obedience-airplane-cockpit-concept-obedience-optimization-eugen-tarnow/e/10.4324/9781410602022-11 

14) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Victoria_(1887)

15) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Refinery_explosion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

16) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity

17) Asch, S.E., ‘Opinions and Social Pressure’, Scientific American, 1955, 193(5) pp.3-5

18) Margaret Heffernan, Wilful Blindness: Why we ignore the obvious at our peril, 2011, p.296

19) G. Berns et al, ‘Neurobiological correlates of Social Conformity and Independence During mental Rotation’, Journal of Biological Psychiatry, no.58, pp.245-253

20) J. Goldie et al, ‘Students attitudes and potential behaviour with regard to whistle blowing as they pass through a modern medical curriculum’, Medical Education, 37, pp.368-375, at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12654122/

21) ‘Learning from Bristol: Report of the Public Inquiry into children’s heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary 1984-1995’ (also known as The Kennedy Report), July 2001, at http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sites3/documents/441/The%20Kennedy%20Report.pdf 

22) Margaret Heffernan, Wilful Blindness: Why we ignore the obvious at our peril, 2011, 202

23) Stanley Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing about atrocities and suffering, 2001, p.19

Featured image is from New Forest Advisory 

COVID-19 Pandemic Dealt Women a Painful Blow

February 2nd, 2021 by Kester Kenn Klomegah

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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On January 28, Women Deliver and Focus 2030 released the first-of-its-kind multi-country public opinion survey, carried out in 17 countries spanning six continents, which captures the attitudes and expectations for major actions to address gender equality during COVID-19. The data reveal that an overwhelming majority of respondents want their governments to do more to promote gender equality.

The survey comes at a time when the ongoing COVID-19 crisis has deepened the imbalanced economic opportunities for men and women and shown the discrimination and abuse that women face in the workplace and at home. The results of the survey serves to make visible the urgency of gender issues and hold governments accountable to address the discrimination against women.

The new multi-country survey finds overwhelming majority of citizens want their governments to act now to accelerate progress on gender equality.

  • A new survey covering 17 countries on six continents – representing half the world’s population – reveals that a majority of respondents want their governments to devote more resources and attention to supporting gender equality.
  • The first survey of its kind since the outbreak of COVID-19, the new poll shows that the pandemic has taken a disproportionate toll on women compared to men, in terms of both mental health and household obligations.
  • The survey offers a roadmap for actions that the public most wants to see, spotlighting where leaders’ and decision-makers’ focus and investments can have the most striking impact.

The first-of-its-kind international survey finds that the global public overwhelmingly supports gender equality, and a resounding majority is ready for their governments and business leaders to take action to bridge the gender divide.

At the same time, women and girls around the world are suffering the worst impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, which has disproportionately affected their mental and physical health, as well as their economic prospects.

The vast majority of respondents – 80% on average across the 17 surveyed countries – said gender equality is a priority to them personally, and 65% said their government should do more to promote gender equality in their country.

The global public perception survey, released in a new report by Women Deliver and Focus 2030, includes 17 countries across six continents whose inhabitants represent half the world’s population.

The results come two months before the Generation Equality Forum, a civil society – centered, global gathering for gender equality convened by UN Women and co-hosted by the governments of Mexico and France. There, leaders in government, the private sector, and civil society will have a critical opportunity to commit to bold, specific actions on gender equality issues.

The forum will galvanize political action and secure financial commitments for the period of 2021-2026 on measures to advance women’s rights and opportunities around the world.

Sixty-one percent of respondents urged their governments to use this forum as an opportunity to increase funding for gender equality initiatives. “2021 promises to be a milestone year for accelerating global progress on gender equality.

The Generation Equality Forum will call on governments, corporation, civil society and people of all ages and backgrounds around the world to step up with bold commitments to make gender equality a reality,” said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women.

“At such a critical moment it is invigorating to see that global public opinion is not only behind us, but pushing us to do more. The world is affirming that gender equality cannot wait. We can and we must achieve it in our generation, and it must be intersectional and intergenerational.”

Despite 25 years of progress since the landmark World Conference on Women in Beijing, no country has fully met its commitments to gender equality. More than half of the world’s girls and women – as many as 2.1 billion people – live in countries that are not on track to reach key gender equality-related targets by 2030.

“We’ve made a lot of progress on gender equality over the last 25 years, but there’s so much work left to do. Now, with COVID-19, just as women are assuming an outsized role in responding to the pandemic in their communities and at home, they are also experiencing enormous added burden, and we could see the consequences of that strain playing out for years to come,” said Divya Mathew, Senior Manager, Policy and Advocacy at Women Deliver.

“This survey shows us where the world has fallen short, but it also delivers the encouraging news that the vast majority of women and men around the world expect their leaders to take action to advance gender equality.”

Fielded in July and August of 2020, the survey offers a comprehensive picture of public experience and perception across six major gender equality issues, in addition to insights on how the COVID-19 pandemic had affected respondents’ lives, livelihoods, and emotional health.

It also asked participants about their personal experiences with gender discrimination, their attitudes about sexist practices, and their beliefs about the causes of gender discrimination.

Key findings on these questions include:

  • The global public supports the need for women to play a role in all aspects of the pandemic response, with 82% of survey respondents on average saying they believe women should be involved in the response at all levels. However, facts bear witness to another situation: although women make up 70% of frontline workers, they currently make up only 24% of COVID-19 response committees. To address these realities, a gender lens must be applied to COVID-19 response and recovery plans.
  • COVID-19 has had a significant impact on women (ages 18-44), who are more likely to report both increased household burdens and greater emotional stress. In 13 of the 17 countries surveyed, women report experiencing more emotional stress and mental health challenges compared to men during the pandemic.
  • Young people, especially young women, have the highest expectations of their governments to advance gender equality. Three in four young women (aged 18 to 24), across all 17 countries, call on their government to increase funding for equality in their country on the occasion of the Gender Equality Forum, compared to two in three respondents on average.
  • 57% of women on average reported experiencing some form of gender-based discrimination in their lifetimes, with the highest rates of discrimination reported in middle-income countries like Kenya (83%), India (81%) and South Africa (72%).
  • Overall, the top priority for improving gender equality is ending gender-based violence, including online harassment, sexual assault, forced and child marriage, and female genital mutilation. This was selected as first choice by 32% of respondents on average across the 17 countries.
  • In the United States, self-identified Black or African American respondents are less likely to say that gender equality has improved over the last 25 years, in comparison to respondents who self-identify as white. This trend was not observed, to such a large extent, in any other country including countries with a documented history of racial discrimination, such as South Africa. The public’s support for gender equality cuts across generations, political leanings, and socioeconomic groups.

While women are stronger supporters of most gender equality issues than men, a great majority of men also support gender equality. Young people under the age of 25, women in particular, are especially likely to hold their governments accountable for advancing gender equality initiatives.

The survey asked respondents for their opinions on six major gender equality issues, all of which the public resoundingly expects governments to address:

  • Violence against women
  • Women’s economic justice and rights
  • Women’s movements and leadership
  • Sexual and reproductive health and rights
  • Women and climate change
  • Technology for gender equality

Despite the widespread support for greater gender equality, persistent discriminatory attitudes towards women continue to hinder progress towards ending domestic violence and closing the gender pay gap. At the current rate of progress, it will take another century to achieve professional, political, and economic equality between women and men worldwide.

Against this backdrop, the survey offers a roadmap for actions that the public most wants to see, spotlighting where leaders’ and decision-makers’ focus and investments can have the most striking impact.

“The onus is on the world’s decision-makers to respond to the most pressing needs of girls and women and deliver real progress toward gender equality,” said Fabrice Ferrier, Director of Focus 2030. “Beyond that, women must have a seat at the tables where decisions about their lives and wellbeing are made. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers have a duty to match their words with action on gender equality, and value the insights and leadership that women bring. Decision-makers should remember that their constituents are watching – and have very high expectations.”

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is a frequent and passionate contributor to Global Research.

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Cowardly History: Australia Day and Invasion

February 2nd, 2021 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

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***

The state’s largest newspaper company has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Google and Facebook alleging the tech giants have monopolized the digital advertising market.

The complaint was filed January 29 by HD Media Company LLC against Google and Facebook in federal court in Huntington.

HD Media claims Google has such a monopoly on the digital advertising market that it has secured a “supracompetitive share” of the company’s advertising revenues, affecting the company’s ability to effectively monetize its content. HD Media also says Google and Facebook are violating antitrust laws with a secret agreement codenamed “Jedi Blue” to manipulate online auctions.

“We invite every other newspaper in America to join this cause,” Doug Reynolds, HD Media managing partner, said in a statement. “We are fighting not only for the future of the press but also the preservation of our democracy.”

HD Media owns The (Huntington) Herald-Dispatch, the Charleston Gazette-Mail and several smaller newspapers.

“HD Media, and other newspapers across the country, compete for revenue in the digital advertising market,” the complaint states. “Google monopolizes the market to such extent that it threatens the extinction of local newspapers across the country.

“There is no longer a competitive market in which newspapers can fairly compete for online advertising revenue.”

It says Google has vertically integrated itself, through hundreds of mergers and acquisitions, to enable dominion over all sellers, buyers, and middlemen in the marketplace.

“It (Google) has absorbed the market internally and consumed most of the revenue,” the complaint states. “Google’s unlawful anticompetitive conduct is directly stripping newspapers across the country, including plaintiff, of their primary revenue source.

“The freedom of the press is not at stake; the press itself is at stake.”

The complaint also explains how “Jedi Blue” allegedly works.

“Google and Facebook, archrivals in the digital advertising market, conspired to further their worldwide dominance of the digital advertising market in a secret agreement,” the complaint explains. “The two archrivals, who are sometimes referenced as operating a duopoly in the market, unlawfully conspired to manipulate online auctions which generate digital advertising revenue.

“Facebook and Google agreed to avoid competing with another in September 2018. The quid-pro-quo was as follows—Facebook would largely forego its foray into header bidding and would instead bid through Google’s ad server. In exchange, Google agreed to give Facebook preferential treatment in its auctions.”

HD Media says this agreement “closed a growing threat to Google’s primacy and has since further cemented its stranglehold on the marketplace.”

“These actions are illegal and directly caused newspapers across the country, including the plaintiff, enormous financial harm in the form of loss of revenue sources,” the complaint alleges. “This is a per se violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act which declares “every … conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states” to be illegal.”

HD Media says the harm to it was intentional and intended.

“The harm is of a type that Congress sought to redress in providing a private remedy for violations of the antitrust laws,” the complaint claims. “The loss of revenue streams can be directly tied to the antitrust conduct of the defendants.

“Plaintiff is a direct victim of the alleged antitrust injury as a competitor in the digital advertising market. Damages can be quantified and apportioned among those directly and indirectly harmed.”

Since 2000, almost 1,800 newspapers have closed. More than 60 percent (more than 30,000) of newspaper jobs have been lost since 1990. Since 2006, newspaper ad revenue has fallen from $49 billion annually to $16.5 billion in 2017.

HD Media seeks an order declaring the actions of Google and Facebook violate the law and to have the defendants and their affiliate companies from adopting or following any practice, plan, program or device having a similar purpose or effect. It also seeks treble (triple actual compensatory) damages, punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, court costs, attorney fees, expenses and other relief.

HD Media is being represented by Paul T. Farrell Jr. and Michael J. Fuller Jr. of Farrell & Fuller PLLC in San Juan, Puerto Rico; John C. Herman and Serina M. Vash of Herman Jones in Atlanta; Paul J. Geller and Stuart A. Davidson of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd in Boca Raton, Florida; David W. Mitchell and Steven M. Jodlowski of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd in San Diego; and Robert P. Fitzsimmons and Clayton J. Fitzsimmons of Fitzsimmons Law Firm in Wheeling.

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American Presence in the Black Sea Generates Tensions

February 2nd, 2021 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

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The aggressive US policy on the Black Sea continues. The presence of destroyers by American armed forces in the Russian Coast is notorious and causes discomfort among Russians due to the proximity of the region to their national territory. In a context of strong foreign presence, any military exercise or test of weapons that the Russian armed forces carry out in the region – which would be absolutely normal, considering that it is the Russian border – immediately becomes a focus of international tensions and threats. However, Moscow will not give up its strategies for simply accepting the American presence.

The Russian fleet recently conducted a simulated naval combat in the Black Sea, where two American destroyers remain. Despite being a common and routine exercise of the naval forces of any country, the situation generated a great concern in international society due to the proximity between Russian vessels and American destroyers. Clearly, in this case, Russia is just performing common maneuvers in its area of influence and the “atypical” factor would be the American presence.

The Russian exercise was a simulation of a naval combat situation, focused on the detection of enemies and neutralization by means of electronic warfare. The first phase of operations has been completed, but at a later time, new tests with the same objective will be carried out. One of the reasons why tensions increased in the region was also the fact that the Russian exercises were carried out at a time almost simultaneous with American exercises. At the end of January, a major NATO air-naval operation was carried out in the Black Sea, with the participation of the American destroyers currently allocated in the region (USS Porter and USS Donald Cook).

It has long been clear that Washington intends to encircle Russia by the seas. The presence of American ships along the Russian coast is a clear proof that there is a project to monitor and patrol Russian activities in its own zone of influence. American presence is particularly strong in the north and southeast of the coast and means a clear attempt by Washington to demonstrate strength, trying to attest its ability to monitor Russian naval activities.

In addition to the fact that Washington is maintaining combat ships in a region under the influence of a potential enemy power, a factor of great concern is the war capabilities of these American ships. The American destroyers that are currently allocated on the Russian coast stand out for being equipped with about 90 cruise missiles with a range of about 3,000 kilometers. Together, the capacity of these ships can cover almost the entire Russian territory, including Moscow. In other words, the American presence on the Russian coast has reached intolerable levels of provocation and affront to national sovereignty.

This policy is not by chance. Washington fears the advanced process of the declining of its naval hegemony, so it begins to focus on strategic points with specific tactics, which seek to inhibit its enemies – not to confront them directly. Under the “Russian threat” speech, the US and NATO place ships and conduct war tests on the Russian coast because they are aware that, in truth, there is no Russian threat or war plan on the part of Moscow, which means that the Russians will avoid as much as possible to respond to provocations with equivalent force. It is all about an attempt to contain military activities so that the Russian coastal zone remains vulnerable to NATO’s presence.

In response, Moscow’s strategy is simply to maintain its common routine of tests and exercises – which is enough for Washington to further elevate the thesis of a “Russian threat”.

The scenario does not tend to improve in the near future. With Biden, American foreign policy will become even more aggressive and the new president is likely to invest heavily in the recovery of American naval dominance – which is an important step to recover the global hegemonic status. We will probably have a future of many conflicts in the Russian coastal region – perhaps not direct confrontations, but increasingly strong and frequent tests, generating constant tensions and concerns.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

This article was originally published on November 8.

Dear Chancellor Dr. Merkel,

We, the signatories, are doctors from all areas of healthcare, who have been serving people in practices and clinics for decades. During this time, we have witnessed more than one seasonal infection in Germany, most of them with far more severe conditions and significantly more deaths than since January 2020 from COVID infectious diseases. Together we serve approx. 70.000 people.

The circumstances of the coronavirus wave in the FRG have been perceived differently than the media and the ongoing warnings of politics, which were unjustified in fact, presented to the public for months. Predictions of individual advisory virologists with millions of seriously ill and hundreds of thousands of deaths in Germany have not been true in any way.

In the practices, hardly any infected patients were infected and if, then with normal, mostly mild progressions of virus flu. The hospitals have been more empty than ever before. There was no overload of ICU. Doctors, doctors and nurses were skillful in short-term work. Initially, we found the wave of the virus running towards us to be threatening and were able to understand the infection protection measures. However, there are months of secured evidence and facts that this wave of the virus is only slightly more intense than an ordinary seasonal flu and must be considered much more harmless than, for example, influenza infection in 2017/2018 with 27.000 deaths in Germany. According to the data situation, there hasn’t been a threat to the German population from Covid-19 for months.

This must be the reason to return to normal life in Germany – a life without restrictions, fear and infection hysteria.

We’re increasingly seeing older people with depression, young children and adolescents with severe anxiety and behavioral disorders, people with severe conditions who could have been cured in timely treatment. We notice disruptions in interpersonal cooperation, hysteria and aggression caused by fear of infection, there are more and more vigilations and denunciations of ′′ positive swab victims ′′ – all this leads to an unprecedented tension and division of the population. The development of additional severe chronic diseases is foreseeable. These diseases with their severe consequences are expected to far outweigh the possible Covid-19 damage in the FRG.The signatories therefore call on those responsible for health care and politics to discharge their responsibilities for the people of our country and immediately avert this threatening development. We demand an immediate revision of the available data by an independent panel of experts from all relevant specialized groups and a prompt implementation of the resulting consequences for the people of our country.We demand that ineffective and possibly even harmful anti-infection measures be stopped immediately and that mass testing is meaningful (e.g. Currently, 1,1 million tests / week, of which 99,3 % negative, cost per week: EUR 82,5 million) to be audited by a panel of independent experts.

We demand to intensify the protection of risk patients and only from them, where every viral infection can take a dramatic course – the healthy, immune competent population does not need protection beyond the general hygiene and health measures that have been known and proven for generations. Children and adolescents in particular need contacts with viruses to ′′ format ′′ your immune system. Coronavirus has always existed and will continue to exist. Natural immunity is the weapon against it. On the other hand, the mouth-nose cover demanded by politicians does not have a solid scientific foundation.

We call on politicians and medical professional representatives to refrain from daily public warning and fear machines in the press and talk shows – this creates a deep and unsubstantiated fear among the population.

The Bundestag has gem. § 5 IfSG identified an ′′ epidemic situation of national scope Obviously, the conditions for this are not fulfilled anymore. We therefore call on the members of the Bundestag to lift this statement immediately and thereby to shift the decision and responsibility for this to where they belong: into the hands of the democratically legitimate Parliament.

If there is an independent free press in Germany, we call on them to research in all directions and also allow critical voices. Opinion formation can only take place if all voices are heard without value and facts and figures are neutral.

Through daily contact with the people entrusted to us and many conversations, we as doctors working at the base of the population know that the hygiene awareness of people has grown so far through the experience of this virus wave that normal hygiene measures without coercion will be sufficient in the future.

Drawn:

Dr. Robert Kluger

Dr. Bruno Weil

Dr. Antonia

Dr. Felix Mazur

Dr. Katharina Hotfiel

Dr. Christine Knshnabhakdi

Dr. Hanna LübeckHeiko Strehmel

Dr. Norbert Bell

Dr. Heinz-Georg Beneke

Dr. Hans-Jürgen Beckmann

Dr. Thomas Hampe

Dr. Luke Mine’sRadim Farhumand

Dr. Tillmann Otlerbach

Dr. Ulrich RebersDr. Dr. Hubert hair

Dr. Verena Meyer-RaheDr. Dr. Manfred Conradt

Dr. Matthias KeillchPhv.- Doz. Diploma Psych. Dr. Dr. Christian Wolff

Dr. Holger Schr

Dr. Michael KühneDorothe G öllner

Dr. Wolf Schr

Dr. Ernst Schahn

Dr. Michael SeewaldStefan KurzKonrad Schneider-Trench Schroer

Dr. Anna Pujdak

Dr. Stefan S ällzer

Dlpl.- Med. Holger Dreier

Dr. Norbert Katte

Dr. Thomas Gerenkamp

Dr. Flllp SalemDominik jokes

Dr. Karsten Karad

Dr. Georg RüwekampSchmidt Krause,

Dr. Elizabeth Kiesel

Prof. Dr. Henbert Jürgens

Dr. See Christine Jürgens Less

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Nicaragua’s Indigenous Territory Wangki Awala Kupia

February 1st, 2021 by Rose Cunningham Kain

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Tortilla con Sal: We came to ask about the problem of so-called invasions of indigenous lands, so perhaps you could tell us a little bit about the reality, perhaps bit about the historical context and what the reality is now?

Rose Cunningham Kain: I think in today’s world, there are so many ways to distort history. There are so many ways to make up stories to believe that sometimes one is amazed at the stories that people tell about one’s life. I think they are very disrespectful in that sense. Indeed, in the Río Coco communities, we have had about six communities that have had serious difficulties with people who have invaded indigenous lands.

Indigenous lands and remediation

All these invasions began in the 1990s when the government presided by Doña Violeta assigned some lands to ex-combatants, also violating the indigenous rights over indigenous people’s lands. Back then she gave some locations so that indigenous people could subsist who had been in the conflict and many of them returned without a serious process of social reinsertion. “Take your machete, your waterproof boots, and three sheets of zinc and demobilize”. There was no serious social reinsertion process. Therefore, these indigenous people started selling land to non-indigenous people. And that’s where all the invasions began… that process began.

But, please note that the dimension of the problem is not the one that is depicted. In other words, as if there was chaos here, as if there was a great conflict here. We have different indigenous territories. In this municipality there are seven indigenous territories and I am president of one of those indigenous territories. In one indigenous territory, the people have been protecting their lands through a model of forest rangers. Forest rangers have been taking care of all the part that corresponds to them as a territory. And that is the Li Lani model.

There is another territory called Li Aubra. So they have their own groups of forest rangers that protect the area. Li Lani is made up of 27 communities. They protect their area and they do not have any type of conflict to date with non-indigenous people. They have not had any invasion of non-indigenous people on their lands. Their methodology has been working. Then we have the other methodology, the other model, which is the Li Aubra model. Li Aubra is the middle part of the river basin. This model has been developed by the indigenous leaders of 18 communities that have initiated a process with their territorial government of talks with non-indigenous people.

TcS: Is that what is meant by remediation?

Rose: The first remediation we should talk about is remediation via the social reinsertion of the people. In law, remediation has to do with seeing that the territory of the indigenous peoples does not have any type of conflict due to properties overlapping that might exist there. But in the context of our whole history of struggle for rights as indigenous peoples, we have had historical legal achievements that have not been seen in the overall indigenous movement, at least in Latin America, namely to have a law of indigenous peoples’ property… that empowers us for the use, enjoyment and enjoyment of our resources.

So, the presence of non-indigenous people in our lands logically creates tension for us because it means that these non-indigenous people are occupying our lands, they are occupying our resources. For this situation, the territorial government of Li Aubra initiated a couple of years ago contact with the non-indigenous people and dialogues, talks. We have been observing the meetings that are held between indigenous and non-indigenous people. Indigenous people meet in their communities and build consensus on whether or not they want to expel them, whether or not they want to lease to them, whether or not they want to live or not to live with them. And then, they get together. There are some mining properties, some mines where there are non-indigenous people, and they have managed to go and make agreements with them in situ.

At this point, the Li Aubra model is a model in which the indigenous families have already been building consensus to discuss with non-indigenous people the legality of their presence on indigenous peoples’ lands. And there you have to respect the self-determination of the people and our government does that. It is a door, a window that has been opened to us to be able to exercise our rights. So, some of the communities, in this territory what we want to do is agree a lease, and the law permits that.

In other communities they have said that what we need is to change. To change is for the the non indigenous settlers to go back, to expel them, to remove them. And they continue talking, they continue dialoguing, no consensus is built in a single assembly… in the framework of the indigenous peoples. We always leave for tomorrow another little bit more and we go on talking and going deeper in the effort to reach a consensus. Because that is precisely why it is a consensus. So one of the… one of our basic practices is to build consensus with sincere dialogue and in good faith.

The other model is the model of the territory of Wangki Twi Tasba Raya where you just came from, which is pure forest, beautiful, the pine trees, right? That landscape, the people love their landscape, they love their trees, they love their water, their resources. There the model that is being developed is the judicial model. It is to be able to capture invaders on indigenous lands and put them through a legal process where they come to trial and currently they already have seven people who have been convicted for buying or selling indigenous lands. This is another type of process that is being carried out in this other territory.

This territory of Wangki Maya, which also belongs to this municipality, is a territory free of invaders. It is free of invaders. In Waspam we could say that we have a territory, the Wangki Awala Kupia territory, which is part of Waspam municipality, here where you are currently. It is a territory where we have a harmonious coexistence. Because we have indigenous Miskito and we always say to the non-indigenous, the mestizos of the Pacific, that we call them hispanes, Spaniards. Now we call them indigenous too, it’s just that they lost their identity along their way in life.

But, here in Waspam we are practicing coexistence with those who have come to settle in Waspam. So in this municipality we have different models of relations with non-indigenous peoples, with non-indigenous settlers. At this moment in the context of the hurricane, we have also had news of agricultural losses these non-indigenous people have suffered too. And as the mayor’s office we have to listen to them because they are Nicaraguan citizens. They have human rights. They are human too.

What is true is that we always call on them to reach agreement with the indigenous peoples. Either they leave or they come to an agreement with the owners of the land. The last violent activity must have been in about 2013/14. We have not had violent activities in this part of our territory. Here we have seen meetings where people speak their minds. We have documented meetings that have taken place in the mountains between non-indigenous settlers and indigenous settlers where 17 communities, leaders of 17 communities, come together and walk to meet at a certain point.

The NGOs, Lottie Cunningham

I think that, like this person, there are many who take advantage of the poverty and conflict of others. That is not and never has been the spirit of the creation of non-governmental organizations. For me, non-governmental organizations should not want to profit from poverty or people’s conflicts. And when I say poverty, it’s not that we are poor. We have been impoverished by the same people who have funded the people who say that we live in conflict. Yes, because we have our wealth. And we have the capacity to make decisions about our wealth because that is what the law allows us to do, and this law is a law that we are executing from every point of view.

We are… there are some organizations that you can see here in the shelters, in this emergency mobilization to protect us against hurricanes, organizations that are working together with the State, that believe in the State because they have seen how it works. But there are other organizations that have even reached out to people sheltering against these winds and hurricanes to talk to them suggesting “Isn’t it true that the government doesn’t feed you? Isn’t it true that things are very  bad? That kind of harmful, corrupt, underhand manipulation, and those are the same people who then say that we are in conflict.

We have had conflicts. We have had problems. But we have been overcoming all that and trying with the people of the communities to reach our full potential as indigenous peoples. Exercising and living in the exercise of our rights. So, it is a pity that there are Miskitos who found an easy life through those who finance evil. A pity also that they some even say sometimes they are Christians. And that is an issue. Let’s not go into that issue but yes, they go to mass, they take communion and they put on their Sunday best but they are incapable of having compassion for their indigenous brothers and sisters who are trying to get ahead.

It is a big lie and we have not had that kind of conflict for many years. We are building peace. Peace is not just words. Peace is a process. And the social reinsertion after the eighties, when the counterrevolution was also financed from the north, that peace process that led us to Autonomy, we continue to weave it, we continue to build it, and we continue to strengthen it. And today, after 33 years of Autonomy, we feel, and I in particular feel very proud to see how our community leaders are able to give you an interview and tell you the reality. And they know where the bad is and where the good is.

Cattle

TcS: Specifically in relation to cattle, can you give us a profile of how cattle are managed here in the municipality of Waspam?

Rose: The cattle in the municipality of Waspam, the cattle among us indigenous people, I remember my father, who is no longer alive, who used to name each one of the cows. Our cattle were cattle we kept like a piggy bank, like our own bank, so cattle that perhaps we might slaughter maybe would for a wake. Or if we had to send our son to school, or at Christmas time. Cattle here has been like pets in other countries. And little by little we have been making a shift to having more cattle. But here there has been no certification process to permit meat exports. That is not true.

The people here supply the local market and, as often as not with some difficulty, we manage to find someone who wants to butcher their cattle for the local market. Of course, in the last few years we have been encouraging people to improve their cattle stock, so that IPSA can do its work teaching us how to improve our cattle rearing. But we keep animals on a very small scale. So this report saying that settlers are killing us for land to raise cattle on is not true either. That is not true. Not one cattle rancher has died here, not one Miskito involved in any kind of cattle related killing. It’s a Disney World story, maybe, a Mickey Mouse story, who knows. But itt is not a real story of this municipality Waspam or any of these municipalities where there are indigenous peoples.

Because we love our cattle very much still . I am sure that when you go down the road you will find cattle there walking among the people and that very harmonious relationship between all of us whether we have cattle or not. In fact, cattle are wandering around, in many cases without being fenced off, without a place to keep them, and occasionally we even joke among ourselves because in some cases our people don’t like to milk our cows. It is our culture. It is a different way of thinking about cattle raising.

TcS: I understand that because of the communal management of cattle, the IPSA system, which is based on farmsteads, on the registration of individual farms, cannot operate because there are no farms as such.

Rose: There aren’t. There aren’t. And cattle roam free. The cattle roam free. Among the communities we receive here at the mayor’s office, many communities ask us as a priority for wire, barbed wire, to be able to put a wire fence so the community’s cattle cannot enter the area where they are cultivating agriculture for self-consumption. But these the cattle of all the people in the community all mixed together and these are not the farms they are talking about.

So, I think their reports have failed really because first they talked about mining, that mining… here we are not going to deny it, on the river there are people who work in artisanal mining and they pan maybe in banana leaves and sometimes in sieves. And they are careful because there’s been been awareness raising on the issue. But it is not that the case that there’s an extractive industry here that’s contaminating. So, that lie didn’t work and now they coming with the lies about cattle and the lies about the settlers. And it’s all untrue just so that those who like weird stories can believe and fall for those stories and pay out money. That’s the whole story.

So, in any case, I would say that when in the United States or in any part of the world it is said that indigenous people are killed here in order to promote cattle ranching and that beef from cattle equals indigenous people’s blood, that is one of those stories. It is one of those stories. They are inventing and living off stories about indigenous peoples. And in the whole world of the indigenous peoples’ movement, we deplore, we condemn this type of accusation involving the indigenous peoples.

From Nicaragua or from any part of the world we are always going to find nefarious people who want to invent this type of story in order to benefit themselves. And they do not really work from the cosmogony vision of our indigenous peoples, respecting our lives, our human rights. Respecting our history, our culture, our dignity. They play with the dignity of indigenous peoples and one feels sorry those who take seriously the people who want to promote that story.

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Hat die panische Angst, die Politiker aller Couleur im Auftrag der globalen kriminellen Elite den Menschen seit einem Jahr einzujagen versucht und der reflexartige Gehorsam uns Eltern, Großeltern und Mitbürgern jegliches Mitgefühl geraubt? Oder wie ist es zu verstehen, dass Kinder und Jugendliche – vermutlich nicht nur in Deutschland – am schlimmsten unter der illegalen und nutzlosen Massenquarantäne korrupter Regierungen leiden und äußern: „Ich will nicht mehr leben!“ – und im Land erhebt sich kein Aufschrei und kein Aufstand? Der Höhepunkt dieses himmelschreienden Skandals: Die Chefin der deutschen Regierung vertröstet die Eltern auf den Sankt-Nimmerleins-Tag.

Was ist von einem Staat zu halten, der seine Jugend und damit die Zukunft seines Volkes stranguliert, nur um den satanischen Auftraggebern im Hintergrund sklavisch zu dienen und vielleicht eines Tages ihr Höfling sein zu dürfen? Was ist zu halten von Bürgern, die dies schweigend hinnehmen, nur um nicht aufzufallen und nicht NEIN! sagen zu müssen?

Als Erziehungswissenschaftler und klinischer Psychologe fühlt sich der Autor seit Monaten dazu aufgerufen, seine Meinung zu diesem Skandal kundzutun. Da jedoch viele Jugendpsychiater, Psychotherapeuten, Kassenärzte und Opferhilfeorganisationen wie der „Weiße Ring“ seit langem Alarm schlagen, wartete ich ab. Erst als ich am 31. Januar im Massenblatt „WELT“ die Meldung las, dass junge Menschen das Geschenk des Lebens wegwerfen wollen (“Ich will nicht mehr leben“, sagte das Kind zu seiner Mutter), konnte ich nicht mehr schweigen (1).

Welt, 31 Januar 2021

Da die Mehrzahl der Leser die Meldungen über schwere körperliche Schäden, psychische Verhaltensstörungen und Suizidversuche infolge der Massenquarantäne sicher schon mitverfolgt haben, zähle ich nur einige Ursachen nochmals kurz auf: Soziale Distanzierung, das Tragen von gesundheitsschädlichen und entstellenden Gesichtsmasken auch in der Schule, die fehlende schulische Bildung, das Fehlen kultureller und sportlicher Veranstaltungen, die unendliche Einsamkeit, die sich durch virtuelle Facebook-Kontakte sowie Computerspiele und Drogen aller Art nicht aus der Welt schaffen lässt und schließlich die zunehmende häusliche Gewalt (Sexualdelikte und Körperverletzungen).

Sind wir Menschen tatsächlich nicht in der Lage, unsere Angstgefühle und unseren in der Kindheit anerzogenen geistigen Gehorsamsreflex zu überwinden, um das Leben unserer Kinder zu schützen und unser aller Zukunft zu bewahren?

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel ist Erziehungswissenschaftler und Diplom-Psychologe.

Quellenangabe

[1] welt.de/Panorama: Corona-Zeit: „Ich will nicht mehr leben“, sagte das Kind zu seiner Mutter

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From “Blue Homeland” to Reuniting the Ottoman Empire?

February 1st, 2021 by Dimitris Eleas

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“Mavi vatan,” or “blue homeland,” has become a common phrase in Turkish political life. It is most often used as a shorthand expression for Ankara’s maritime claims in the eastern Mediterranean. Central to these interests is the presence of large deposits of natural gas off the coast of the island of Cyprus.” R. Gingeras

See map below

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The interests of states are permanent and alliances are by definition changeable, and when one country calls on another to resume talks, as Turkey did through its Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to Greece, the one in power will impose conditions. Why am I emphasizing this? Turkey has already issued a NAVTEX until the end of 2021 and in the heart of the Aegean. After the call, we also had overflights of Turkish warplanes over Eastern Aegean islands.

Greece agrees to discuss only the demarcation of maritime zones, while Turkey, which has grayed the Aegean by disputing up to 150 tiny islands, wants to discuss the demilitarization of islands, a national airspace of 10 nautical miles (nmi), and other issues. Is Turkey preparing for another show of strength, having in its pocket after January 25, a new blame game against Athens?

And in a way, they will want to throw ashes in the eyes of the US (with a new leadership in the State Department) and the EU, saying that if the talks that are most likely to fail and “it is the fault of Athens, which is rearming like lobster.” We have to look between the words of what Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan achieved in recent years. And clearly, it does not matter if his mansion has 300 rooms or if he teaches democracy lessons to the Americans after the events of January 6. It concerns us if Turkey has launched a kind of hybrid attack against the country that is celebrating 200 years since 1821.

And it concerns the Greek people that in the years from 2002 to 2016 in the exploratory that were conducted (this was highlighted by recent SLpress articles), they did not discuss the delimitation of the continental shelf and the Exclusive Economic Zone, the outstanding issue, but various issues that arose by Turkey and for the coastal zone of the country, the 12 nmi, which it should be only a domestic issue of Greece based on international law. And if you talk to Turkey about something that is your right, then do you not cease to be a sovereign state?

On the other hand, in recent years from an economic point of view, Turkey is following in the footsteps of Argentina. Mr Erdogan has worked wonders and is carefully planning for the future, strengthening the defense industry and preparing to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic in 2023 (perhaps by stealing some glory from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk). He gives interviews on TV talking about the “Blue Homeland” doctrine and blaming all their misfortunes on their Greek neighbors.

Source: Dimitris Eleas

Foreign policy in vertigo

Turkey is pursuing a foreign policy as if it were dizzy. It behaves in neighboring countries as if they were still provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey has a rivalry with Israel, attacked Syria, is militarily involved in Libya, built a military base in Somalia, and expands into the Caucasus via Azerbaijan in order to harm Armenia.

In Greece and Cyprus it exercises unprecedented psychological violence and madly violates their rights at sea and air. It faces the Eastern Mediterranean like a private lake in a zoo. But what is Erdogan’s Turkey really seeking? How is he doing so far? “Strategically, modern Greece is a dwarf” pointed out Professor Panagiotis Hephaestus. “Dwarf” because the Ionian is “the wrong sea” to expand your territorial waters.

The Turks also ostentatiously underestimate the statements of the American ambassador in Athens, Geoffrey Pyatt, which are clear regarding the inhabited islands, “which have equal rights with the mainland”, always based on international law. And perhaps, let it be said, that it is not only psychological violence and constant bullying, but the Greeks are directly threatened by Turkey with military action – a NATO “ally” country – and this is something they probably do not want.

With incredible logic

For decades, Turkish diplomacy has repeatedly shown that it blatantly violates the rights of Greece. It does not want to hear about its maritime zones in the Aegean, which is the de facto exercise of its sovereign rights (it wants to limit Greece to 6 nmi). Turkey signed an agreement with the Muslim Brotherhood Government of National Accords in Libya (November 28, 2019) for “fantastic sea borders”, without taking into account Crete, Karpathos, Rhodes, and small Greek islands like Kastellorizo.

Why fantastic? If one reads the map carefully one will immediately notice the absurdity.
With incredible logic, it is as if we are excluding maritime zones in Hawaii and the United Kingdom as an example. Turkey also does not respect the maritime zones that Cyprus has. As for Cyprus’ maritime zone, Turkey generously wants to “offer it” to Israel, in a “Libyan type” agreement.

In addition, Turkey does not like the construction of the EastMed pipeline (a pipeline that will be built by Israel, Cyprus and Greece and will transport natural gas to Europe via Italy). In addition, there’s the electricity interconnection from Crete to Israel through Cyprus. And in the air, Turkish warplanes not only violate Greek airspace, but thresh in the Aegean. With so many violations, the Turks seek to create a gray area regime, with sovereignty at odds, as they almost did after the Imia crisis of 1996. Why do the Turks humiliate their neighbors? What have they really orchestrated for decades now?

Expensive path

The scenario for a war like a ghost hovers over the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean (and is “postponed” for later by the Athenian elite). The Greeks are a historical nation, they cannot, almost always expect someone else to do something on their behalf. It should also cease to be taboo that Greece needs to move, one day, to the “expensive path” of nuclear technology as an additional means of deterrence – Israel did, Turkey tries it through Pakistan.

Greece is dragging itself to the negotiating table, and at least it should have demanded that Turkey renounce the idea of a “Blue Homeland” and the casus belli as conditions for attending. The “Blue Homeland” threatens Greece, “showing” the borders that Turkey will want to impose, in a reversal of the geopolitical status quo. And how will Greece prevent the Aegean from splitting into the 25th Meridian?

The multiplier of power for Greece is to be happy and to have the best possible military leadership, at the “zero moment”, that is, when Turkey will start the attack. It is not at all unlikely that this will happen before Mr Erdogan leaves the limelight. With an attack on Greece before 2023, he may want this to be his own legacy in world history, like another Mussolini, but from the east this time. Through military force Greece can repel the nightmarish scenario. And a nightmarish scenario for Greece will be bad for Armenia too, for Israel too, for Cyprus, for Syria and for all.

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Dimitris Eleas is a New York City-based writer, independent researcher and political activist. His writings in the Greek language have appeared in books, journals and newspapers. You can contact him via his e-mail: [email protected] 

U.S. Lobbying Spending Nears Record High in 2020 Amid Pandemic

February 1st, 2021 by Karl Evers-Hillstrom

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Lobbying spending remained steady in 2020 amid partisan gridlock, a tumultuous election and the devastating COVID-19 pandemic.

Lobbying spending nearly reached $3.5 billion in 2020, according to OpenSecrets’ review of lobbying filings, just falling short of 2019’s record total. The final year of former President Donald Trump’s term capped three straight years of relatively high lobbying spending, a departure from the final years of the Obama administration.

Lobbying spending totaled roughly $839 million from October through December, according to OpenSecrets’ initial review of fourth-quarter lobbying data. That figure will likely increase as firms file late reports.

The year kicked off with a record $941 million in lobbying spending in the first quarter, driven by an all-out lobbying push from every major industry to influence the initial COVID-19 stimulus package. Lobbying spending took a dip in the second quarter after many industries missed out on government aid. And spending stagnated in the third quarter as it became clear Congress would not come to another bipartisan stimulus agreement before the November election.

Much of 2020’s lobbying activity revolved around proposed stimulus legislation to combat the virus and its damaging effect on the economy. The bipartisan CARES Act — the $2.2 trillion package Congress passed in March — and Democrats’ HEROES Act, which passed the House but not the Senate, became the second and third most lobbied non-appropriations bills of all time, respectively.

Some sectors had more to gain — and lose — from the pandemic than others. The health sector was the top lobbying spender in 2020, shelling out a record $615 million. Congress delivered massive windfalls to hospitals and the federal government awarded lucrative contracts to pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. The pharmaceutical industry spent a record amount on lobbying in 2020, and many companies hired lobbyists with close ties to Trump and congressional leaders.

Health care providers ultimately won an expensive lobbying battle against insurers over “surprise” medical bills last year. Congress included a measure in the year-end spending package that will use arbitration to determine how much insurers would pay medical providers when the patient isn’t covered. Emergency services companies, physician groups and private equity firms backing them spent massive sums on lobbying and aired a $75 million ad campaign to oppose a different proposal that would have the government set rates.

The finance, insurance and real estate sector also spent a record high on lobbying in 2020, shelling out $539 million. That figure is boosted by the National Association of Realtors, which spent $84 million on lobbying, more than any other organization. Congress, whose members are heavily invested in real estate, included new tax breaks for real estate investors in the CARES Act. With the pandemic hitting renters and homeowners hard, Realtors pushed Congress to include mortgage and rental assistance in its stimulus packages.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent nearly $82 million on lobbying in 2020. It’s the first time the business lobbying giant didn’t claim the top spot among lobbying spenders since 2000. After spending tens of millions backing Republicans over the last decade, the Chamber made the rare step of endorsing congressional Democrats last year. It has also supported many of President Joe Biden’s plans, including his proposed COVID-19 relief bill.

Tech giants Amazon and Facebook topped all other companies on lobbying spending in 2020, bested only by massive trade associations. Among Amazon’s recent hires is a lobbyist whose brother is a top Biden adviser. Those powerful companies and others in the tech industry have increased their presence in Washington each year, hoping to defeat calls from lawmakers on both sides to regulate or break up tech giants. Those proposals could gain traction under the Biden administration, which is expected to more strongly regulate Silicon Valley.

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Karl Evers-Hillstrom joined the Center for Responsive Politics in October 2018. As CRP’s money-in-politics reporter, he writes and edits stories for the news section and helps manage a team of diligent writers. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Karl graduated from State University of New York at New Paltz in 2016 with a B.A. in journalism. He previously worked at The Globe, a regional newspaper based in Worthington, Minnesota. His email is [email protected].

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The aggressive statement by Bangladesh-based ‘Rohingya’ leader Dil Mohammad imploring the international community “to come forward and restore democracy at all costs” in Myanmar following Monday’s dramatic developments there is extremely counterproductive and risks confirming accusations that this Muslim minority group is being exploited as proxies for carrying out regime change in the Southeast Asian state.

“Rohingya” Rabble-Rousing

Dil Mohammad, a Bangladesh-based “Rohingya” leader who previously represented this Muslim minority community in repatriation talks with Myanmar, told Reuters that the international community must “come forward to restore democracy at all costs” following Monday’s dramatic developments in the Southeast Asian state. The “Rohingya” regard themselves as indigenous to Myanmar’s restive northwestern Rakhine State but some state officials consider them to be the descendants of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. The country’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, launched a large-scale security operation there in 2017 in response to ethno-separatist terrorist actions at the time which resulted in a massive outflow of people to neighboring Bangladesh. Some members of the international community regard those events as “ethnic cleansing” or even “genocide” despite the Tatmadaw and even recently detained “State Counsellor” Aung San Suu Kyi defending them as a legitimate response to ensure national stability and security during a time of crisis.

Background Context

I wrote about the “Rohingya” in several articles over the past few years where I warned that this minority group could be exploited by foreign forces to support a regime change in Myanmar on the pretext of either “defending human rights” and/or “spreading democracy”. That’s not at all to say that every person who self-identifies as “Rohingya” is a foreign proxy, but just that there are legitimate concerns that the conflict’s dynamics can be manipulated from abroad for the aforementioned Hybrid War aims. For those who aren’t already familiar with my work on this topic, here are some of the relevant analyses:

To summarize, the country’s preexisting identity tensions could be taken advantage of by arming and providing other forms of assistance to “Rohingya” insurgents for the purpose of carving out a new country at the crossroads of South and Southeast Asia. This new statelet, tentatively described as “Rohingyaland”, could function in a similar manner to “Kosovo” by potentially serving as the center for the US’ regional military operations. No prediction is being made about the certainty of this scenario transpiring, but just that the dynamics very strongly parallel what previously happened in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo & Metohija.

A Strictly Internal Affair

However one feels about the Tatmadaw detaining Suu Kyi and imposing a one-year state of emergency in response to last year’s contested elections, which the military maintains were marred by systemic fraud despite the Election Commission rejecting that accusation as recently as last week, it must be objectively recognized that this is a strictly internal political dispute. Suu Kyi largely maintained the foreign policy of her military predecessors by continuing to improve ties with China while also expanding Myanmar’s relations with other countries. It also shouldn’t be forgotten that she supported the Tatmadaw’s security operation in Rakhine State despite strong international criticism, including from many of her foreign friends. These observations further confirm that what transpired in the country is a purely domestic affair. As such, no foreign forces should agitate for regime change, especially not “Rohingya” representatives who already have a troubling reputation for this. All that Mr. Dil is accomplishing is reinforcing the Tatmadaw’s views that some “Rohingyas” are a threat.

Counterproductive To The Cause

In fact, those who support the “Rohingya” should consider publicly condemning his aggressive demands because of how counterproductive they are to his community’s cause. Calls for what can clearly be interpreted as a foreign military intervention on supposed “democracy” and “human rights” pretexts violate international law. Not only that, but they imply that Mr. Dil has ulterior motives than just “restoring democracy” considering the political track record of some of the “Rohingya” that he represents who unquestionably resorted to terrorist activity in support of their ethno-separatist cause. It certainly seems as though he hopes that his far-fetched plea for a “pro-democracy” invasion of Myanmar would create strategic opportunities there for him to promote his political agenda, which could very well manifest itself in the earlier described scenario of a “South Asian Kosovo in Rohingyaland”. During this sensitive moment, Myanmar needs political support in order to retain stability, not warmongering demands from self-interested minority representatives based abroad.

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

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After his alleged poisoning, accusations that the Kremlin was responsible, then his immediate arrest on returning home, Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny is enjoying notoriety like never before. But who is he, exactly?

Media portrayals of the Moscow street-protest leader have ranged from comparing him to a western-style liberal, to a far-right radical racist to a persecuted freedom fighter. While many Russians from all points along the political spectrum support his investigations into corruption at the highest levels of government, there is little agreement on what he actually stands for or how he’d act if he were somehow thrust into a leadership role.

A former student at America’s Yale University, Navalny first gained international prominence in 2011, over a decade after he first became active in politics. Since then, he has been arrested on numerous occasions, received two suspended sentences, and participated in a Moscow mayoral election. He is well known for opposing President Vladimir Putin and exposing corruption, but what are his political positions? What does he believe in, other than simply removing Putin?

For many within the non-systemic opposition, Navalny’s opinions are unimportant. He represents a real alternative to the current administration and is a fighter against what his followers see as two decades of oppressive leadership that has failed to tackle the endemic corruption of post-Soviet Russia.

For his Western backers, the same applies. He is not Putin, and there’s no way he can be worse than Putin, in their opinion, so he’s worth supporting. However, many of them sweep under the carpet some of the activist’s unsavory history.

Navalny’s Nationalist Roots

Navalny first entered political life in 2000 as part of the liberal Yabloko party. Despite officially being a member of a left-wing faction, the activist was a fixture of far-right politics, becoming a familiar face in the ‘Russian March,’ an ultranationalist gathering that ran with slogans like “Stop Feeding the Caucasus” while flying the Russian Empire’s Black-Yellow-White flag.

Yabloko eventually kicked him out for his far-right leanings. Its leadership later noted that “infatuation with Navalny and membership of the party are incompatible.”

In 2011, a profile of Navalny in the New York Times noted that Russian liberals have “deep reservations about him,”particularly regarding his outward and open racism.

“He has appeared as a speaker alongside neo-Nazis and skinheads, and once starred in a video that compares dark-skinned Caucasus militants to cockroaches. While cockroaches can be killed with a slipper, he says that in the case of humans, ‘I recommend a pistol.’,” the profile read.

The BBC, which reported on Navalny’s involvement in the ‘Russian March,’ noted that he spoke to a crowd of 7,000 people, bashing the Kremlin.

“We have problems with illegal migration, we have the problem of the Caucasus, we have a problem of ethnic crimes…,”he said, according to the state-funded British outlet.

Two years later, in 2013, 37-year-old Navalny spoke out in favor of the 2013 Biryulyovo race riots, when up to 1,000 nationalists attacked Central Asian immigrants in the streets.

He lashed out on his blog against “hordes of legal and illegal immigrants,” once again using his trademark animal imagery, claiming that they “crawl out to the surrounding neighborhoods.”According to the BBC, participants chanted “Russia for the Russians!” and “White Power!”

2013 seemed to represent a turning point for Navalny. As he sought to hold political office, he began to clean up his image, toning down the nationalist rhetoric of his past. After coming second in the Moscow mayoral election, the world began to take even more notice of the anti-Kremlin politician.

Subsequently, Navalny largely dropped his racist beliefs, at least in public, and shifted his movement towards picking up Russia’s disaffected youth – many of whom are Moscow-dwelling and left-leaning. To target Russians who have never experienced life without the presence of Putin in politics, his nationalism took a back seat. However, while these views were front and center in his thirties, it’s quite clear that he has not changed his mind in his forties.

In 2016, he condemned the banning of the far-right Russian March, writing on his blog that “nationalists are under pressure more than liberals.”

In 2017, in an interview with The Guardian, Navalny was given an opportunity to renounce his far-right views but refused to apologize.

Then, three years later, in an October 2020 interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel, he once again admitted that he still holds the nationalist opinions he did in the early 2000s.

“I have the same views that I held when I went into politics,” he said. “I see no contradiction in promoting trade unions while at the same time demanding a visa requirement for migrants from Central Asia.”

Navalny’s Liberal Turn

Nowadays, Navalny positions himself – or rather, has been positioned by others – as a liberal politician with a focus on rooting out corruption and developing closer ties to the West. For his supporters, he is a Mandela or Ghandi-like figure, having been likened by those such as former US Ambassador Michael McFaul to the famous 20th century civil rights activists.

Navalny’s heroic struggle is no different from what [Mahatma] Gandhi, [Martin Luther] King, [Nelson] Mandela, and [Václav] Havel fought for,” he wrote, in a piece for The Washington Post. “While Navalny has not succeeded yet, there should be no doubt that his cause is good and just.”

When it comes to money, his politics certainly have been consistent with liberal ideas. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, he worked in finance and was a staunch proponent of capitalist economics, calling himself a “market fundamentalist.”

During an ill-fated presidential election run in 2018, when he was refused permission to participate in the contest owing to criminal convictions, which he says are politically motivated, he published a manifesto listing his political positions. Many of his policy suggestions were left-wing in nature, including the introduction of a minimum wage and making medical care and education completely free. It also included some common pillars of modern neoliberalism, like lowering taxes on small businesses and reducing the “presence of the state in the economy as an owner and an economic entity.”

Some other of his flagship policies included ratifying the UN Convention Against Corruption, decentralization, demonopolizing the economy, and introducing visa regimes for Central Asian countries, instead of migrants coming “uncontrollably,” as he sees it.

Taken at face value, most of Navalny’s published positions are broadly similar to those of liberal parties in Europe. However, many of his views don’t quite match up with those of his Western backers. For example, Navalny has been criticized as an imperialist and believes that Crimea is rightfully a part of Russia. The opposition figure has also engaged in jingoistic rhetoric during the 2008 war with Georgia, supporting “serious military and financial assistance” to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He also backed expelling all Georgians from Russian territory. In a blog post, he called for Russia to “fire a cruise missile” at the Georgian General Staff, dubbing the country’s inhabitants ‘grizuny’ – literally, rodents, in yet another animal metaphor.

Does It Actually Matter What He Believes?

For a segment of Navalny’s supporters, his opinions don’t matter. He is the embodiment of anti-Putin sentiment and the person to open Russia up to a better future with western-style liberal democracy. In 2013, as quoted by registered foreign agent RFE/RL, left-wing Russian-Ukrainian journalist Matvey Ganapolsky labeled him “a tool” to move towards “honest elections,” with “anti-Kremlin” views similar to his own.

Like Ganapolsky, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ mantra has guided much of Navalny’s following. Eight years later, this phrase is still uttered, with many of his backers urging critics to focus on the more important, immediate goal, as they see it – removing Putin.

For many of these people, Navalny is a means to an end. They don’t want him to become president, or to come into any power, but simply want him to topple the existing system and help push the country towards a different political future.

For others, they genuinely believe that Navalny has reformed, and his old views no longer correspond to who he is today.

No matter his true opinions, the Russian opposition figure might be the only politician in the world to have an abundance of domestic supporters and foreign cheerleaders who disagree with his views.

So, What Is He?

With Navalny’s strong racist roots and a decade of courting western support, it’s hard to know which box he fits in, in 2021. He might still be a nationalist or he may have become a liberal. Who knows? But what is certain is that he has become an extremely shrewd and versatile opportunist.

If Navalny is to succeed, he will have to create an all-encompassing supporter base, using populism to attract both Russian nationalists and west-leaning liberals. In this regard, as he looks to form a broad anti-Kremlin coalition, his tendency to change his political stances to the prevailing view of the day may be his superpower. Navalny may potentially be unique in world politics in his ability to garner support from young, pro-LGBT rights liberal socialists and far-right monarchists.

However, despite their hope that the blogger-turned-activist is the person to eventually remove Putin, Western commenters are likely being disingenuous in projecting a rosy future with Navalny at the helm. His deep-rooted views are more similar to those found in some of Europe’s most maligned leaders, such as Hungary’s conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban or French opposition leader Marine Le Pen, than the liberal platforms espoused by Angela Merkel or Emmanuel Macron. In the end, Western activists may discover that sometimes, the enemy of their enemy turns out to be an enemy as well.

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Featured image is from Sputnik / Valeriy Melnikov

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China’s Scottish Energy Connection

February 1st, 2021 by Shahbazz Afzal

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In 2006, the Scottish government published ‘Scotland’s strategy for stronger engagement with China’, a call for aligning policies and objectives in response to China’s rise.  It captured the government’s sense of urgency created by a rising China, emphasising that “the speed and scale of China’s growth means that the stakes are rising: the benefits will be higher if we get our response right.”  Scotland was one of the first countries to recognise China had been in ascendancy for some time and changing the world – and this would present Scotland with an array of opportunities.

Links between Scotland and China are already established. [outline the realm of the UK]

Trade between the two nations has been steadily increasing.  According to the Scottish government sources published in 2019, overall export figures show exports from Scotland to China were worth £625 million in 2017 – rising from £590 million in 2016.

The Chinese Consulate has been in Edinburgh for over 20 years and Scottish Development International has offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen.  Glasgow is twinned with Dalian – and since 1985, Edinburgh has been twinned with Xi’an, the ancient capital gateway to the Silk Road.  In 2006, the Strathmore Woollen Company and the Scottish Tartans Authority formally created and launched the Chinese-Scottish tartan, incorporating colours of the Saltire and Chinese flag, representing the friendship between the two nations.

The Scottish government is clearly committed to further strengthening relations with China.  Since 2007, there have been 13 Scottish Ministerial visits to China.  In 2017, Scotland welcomed Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Yandong.  The following year, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon made a successful visit to China, in which she carried out a wide range of engagements, including a meeting with Vice Premier, Hu Chunhua.

In the same year, the Scottish government published its third and latest detailed engagement strategy setting out its ambition for Scotland to become a preferred trade and investment partner in China.  It recognised that China’s ambitious plans such as the monumental Belt and Road Initiative, “offer valuable opportunities for Scotland’s businesses and institutions” – and emphasised Scotland’s commitment to build cooperation with China on renewable energy and environmental issues.

The Scottish government recognises “renewable and low carbon energy will provide the foundation of our future energy system, offering Scotland a huge opportunity for economic and industrial growth” – and with its policy, ‘Climate Change Emissions Reduction Targets Scotland Act 2019′, the government aims to generate 50% of Scotland’s overall energy consumption from renewable sources by 2030, and to have decarbonised Scotland’s energy system completely by 2050.  Scotland’s target of net-zero emissions by 2045 is five years ahead of the rest of the UK – and is firmly based on what the independent Committee on Climate Change advise.

China is several steps ahead with its many renewable energy commitments.  According to the Global Wind Energy Council the world’s offshore wind farm capacity could grow eightfold by the end of the decade powered by a clean energy surge led by China.  In January 2021, Bloomberg reported that “China blew past its previous record for renewable energy installations last year with a massive – and surprising – addition of wind power.”

In 2016, Nicola Sturgeon welcomed the set-up of new offices of Red Rock Power Limited, a subsidiary of State Development & Investment Corporation (SDIC) in Scotland.  SDIC, a Chinese state-owned investment holdings company planned to invest further in renewable developments in Scotland, building on its existing offshore wind projects.  Today, Red Rock Power Limited is actively involved in a number of energy projects in Scotland, including 25% ownership of Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm – a 588 MW offshore wind farm and 15km off the Moray Firth Coast in North of Scotland.  It became fully operational in June 2019.  As well as being Scotland’s largest offshore wind farm, ‘Beatrice’ is also the fourth largest in the world and is apparently capable of providing enough wind powered electricity for up to 450,000 homes.

Although the Scottish government believes a strong Scotland-China relationship will create significant opportunities for Scotland, serious concerns have been raised.  In July 2020, the Scottish newspaper, ‘The Herald’, warned “China has a dangerous foothold in the UK nuclear power sector” and “Huawei presents security concerns when it comes to Britain’s telecoms infrastructure.”  In December 2020, ‘The National’ reported that the Scottish National Party MP, Ian Blackford, called for cross-party action to tackle human rights abuses in Xinjiang province – adding, “Scotland and the UK have enjoyed good relationships with China with potential to co-operate further on trade, education, tourism and science, but we have to hold states to account when it comes to human rights.”  In the same month, the newspaper penned another article headlined, “Scotland must be wary of China’s bid to spread its influence.”

Covid has stalled many planned projects and operations with China – and has had an impact on some existing agreements with China.  In December 2020, the ‘Sunday Times’ reported Edinburgh Zoo may have to return two giant pandas, Tian Tian and Yang Guang, or Sweetie and Sunshine, back to China due to financial pressures caused by Covid.

However, despite Covid and criticisms, new joint projects are still being considered.  In December 2020, ‘The Scotsman’ reported plans had been unveiled to construct a large-scale renewable energy park in the north east of Scotland, with the potential for harnessing deep geothermal energy, designed to deliver up to 200 megawatts of environmentally friendly power to the Scottish grid.  The company and developer, Edinburgh-based Holistic Energy, has completed a feasibility and evaluation study of what is claimed will be the UK’s “first holistic low carbon energy facility”.  Holistic Energy will work with several partners in the design, civil engineering and construction phases, including Aberdeen-based companies Wood Group and XL Group, Will Rudd Davidson and Bell Ingram Design.  The company hopes to commence construction of the facility in 2023 and be operational by 2026.  Chinese investors back the project, with North China Power Engineering investing £800 million.

In 2019, the Global Commission on Geopolitics of Energy Transformation confirmed China was set to become the world leader in renewable energy.  With Scotland’s decision to go green with China – with a clear focus to develop renewable energy together – both nations can take the lead in saving the planet.

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Shahbazz Afzal is an independent writer and political activist.

Featured image: Scottish First Minister meets Chinese Vice Premier. (Source: The Scottish Government)

O Perigoso Caminho da Suíça para a Extrema-Direita 

February 1st, 2021 by Franklin Frederick

No dia 25 de setembro de 2020 o Parlamento Suíço aprovou a revisão da lei federal de combate ao terrorismo. A nova lei provocou muitos protestos, incluindo o lançamento de um referendo popular, um dos principais instrumentos da democracia direta como praticada na Suíça, permitindo aos cidadãos rejeitar  decisões tomadas pelo Parlamento. São necessárias 50.000 assinaturas válidas – confirmadas pelas autoridades competentes, com endereço correspondente à assinatura – para que um referendo seja aprovado. Devido à pandemia, a colheita de assinaturas têm sido feita principalmente por internet, mas os números parecem já ter ultrapassado o dobro das assinaturas necessárias.

Esta reação popular à nova legislação se explica e é muito bem vinda pois,  de acordo com o site das entidades responsáveis pelo referendo (https://detentions-arbitraires-non.ch/), a nova lei pode abolir  a presunção de inocência:

‘As medidas previstas na nova lei não são ordenadas por um tribunal, mas pela  Polícia Federal, com base em meras suspeitas (não são necessárias provas). A falta de um órgão de controle judicial é uma violação da separação de poderes. Além disso, estas medidas violam claramente os direitos fundamentais e os direitos humanos.’

Um ativista do clima que ocupava a Praça Federal foi evacuado pela polícia no dia 23 de Setembro de 2020, em Berna. – © keystone-sda.ch. Fonte : Le Temps

A lei também viola a Convenção Européia de Direitos Humanos, ainda segundo o site mencionado:

‘A nova lei prevê a possibilidade de aplicar a prisão domiciliar. (…) Pode ser aplicada sem que exista realmente um crime e não requer provas como o local ou a data do alegado crime. Qualquer pessoa pode ser punida com esta medida durante seis meses e sem necessidade de provas. Esta privação de liberdade representa uma violação da Convenção Europeia de Direitos Humanos. O artigo 5º da Convenção Europeia de Direitos Humanos proíbe a privação arbitrária de liberdade com base unicamente na suspeita. A Suíça seria assim a única democracia ocidental que permitiria a prisão de cidadãos sem qualquer razão. As únicas exceções são os Estados Unidos com os campos de Guantanamo.’

E ainda mais grave, a nova lei também viola a Convenção relativa aos Direitos da Criança, pois suas medidas ‘podem ser aplicadas a crianças a partir dos 12 anos de idade, respectivamente 15 anos de idade para prisão domiciliar, novamente sem ordem judicial.’

Cerca de cinquenta professores de direito da Suíça comunicaram as suas preocupações em relação à esta lei ao Conselho Federal. (amnesty.ch ).

E peritos do próprio Alto Commisariado para os Direitos Humanos da ONU   advertiram que  esta nova legislação ‘viola as normas internacionais de direitos humanos ao expandir a definição de terrorismo, criando um precedente perigoso para a supressão da dissidência política a nível mundial (…).’ (ohchr.org)  

Os peritos do Alto Commissariado da ONU ‘ficaram particularmente alarmados com o fato de a nova definição de ‘atividade terrorista’ da lei já não exigir a perspectiva de qualquer crime. Pelo contrário, pode mesmo abranger atos lícitos destinados a influenciar ou modificar a ordem constitucional, tais como atividades legítimas de jornalistas, da sociedade civil e de ativistas políticos.’ 

Os peritos também criticaram o fato de que a nova lei concede ‘à polícia federal ampla autoridade para designar ‘potenciais terroristas’ e para decidir sobre medidas preventivas contra eles sem um controle judicial significativo.’

Sob o pretexto de ‘luta contra o terrorismo’, muitos governos procuram suprimir qualquer crítica legítima ao modelo neoliberal. Deste modo, leis supostamente criadas para ‘defender a democracia’ são na verdade instrumentos de defesa de uma ordem econômica particular: o neoliberalismo. O que é novo na legislação da Suíça é a possibilidade de criminalização de jovens: a partir de 12 anos (!) como mencionado acima. O alvo óbvio desta criminalização é o movimento dos jovens pelo clima. Um número cada vez maior de jovens  tem se manifestado nas ruas em diversas partes do mundo com críticas à falta de ação efetiva dos governos em relação à gravidade da mudança climática, denunciando com muito vigor  a incompatibilidade entre o capitalismo neoliberal e a preservação ambiental. Este movimento tem crescido exponencialmente na Suíça, tornando-se uma força política considerável. 

Em setembro de 2018, por exemplo, aconteceu em Berna a maior demonstração já registrada na história da cidade:  cerca de 100.000 pessoas, na sua vasta maioria jovens, tomaram as ruas em protesto.Este movimento teve um impacto decisivo nas eleições para o Parlamento que se realizaram  a seguir, em outubro, levando o Partido Verde a obter a maior votação de sua  história.

No dia 21 de setembro de 2020 os jovens ativistas ocuparam a Praça Federal em Berna, em frente à sede do Parlamento. Esta ação teve muita repercussão na imprensa internacional e mensagens de apoio aos ativistas vieram de várias partes do mundo, inclusive do MST e de vários parlamentares do Brasil. ( Ver em alainet.org)

 A ocupação, totalmente pacífica, foi terminada pela polícia e gerou reações histéricas por parte de muitos parlamentares e de grande parte da imprensa na Suíça, condenando a ação ‘ilegal’ dos ativistas. Alguns parlamentares solicitaram que o Serviço Secreto passasse a investigar os jovens e mais recentemente um outro parlamentar  suíço chegou a comparar a ocupação com a invasão do Capitólio pelos manifestantes  da extrema-direita dos EUA!

Pela nova lei, a maioria dos jovens envolvidos na ocupação poderia ser acusada de ‘terrorismo’, sofrendo as punições previstas. Lutar pelo futuro do planeta passou a ser um ‘crime’ a ser punido pelo Estado!

Mas como foi possível que uma legislação que permite a criminalização de crianças à partir de 12 anos como ‘ terroristas’ tenha sido proposta e aprovada pelo parlamento da democrática e esclarecida  Suíça? Uma tal legislação tem sido há muito o sonho da extrema direita no Brasil, que tem trabalhado ferozmente pela possibilidade de criminalizar tanto os  movimentos sociais quanto os jovens. Bolsonaro e seus apoiadores adorariam ter uma lei semelhante no Brasil e provavelmente vão tentar seguir este exemplo da Suíça.

As forças políticas  por trás desta lei tem uma longa história, que em parte é  também a história da construção da própria ordem neoliberal.  Numa obra importante – The Road from Mont Pélerin – uma coleção de ensaios de vários autores sobre a história do neoliberalismo, Dieter Plehwe escreveu na ‘Introdução’:

A dimensão transnacional da história local / nacional do neoliberalismo tem sido particularmente forte no Reino Unido e nos Estados Unidos da América. A Suíça também merece reconhecimento como um espaço neoliberal transnacional particular devido à hospitalidade dos intelectuais e instituições neoliberais suíças  aos neoliberais austríacos, alemães e italianos refugiados. Não foi certamente mera coincidência que a Sociedade Mont Pèlerin tenha sido fundada neste país: apenas a Suíça forneceu aos intelectuais neoliberais o espaço intelectual e institucional e o apoio financeiro necessário para organizar uma conferência internacional de e para os neoliberais logo após a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Até ao final dos anos 50, continuou a ser mais fácil para os neoliberais reunirem-se na Suíça do que em qualquer outro lugar: quatro das dez reuniões da Sociedade Mont Pèlerin entre 1947 e 1960 ocorreram na Suíça. Levou mais de dez anos após a guerra para que uma reunião se realizasse nos Estados Unidos.

As forças políticas e econômicas que fizeram a Suíça tão receptiva à ideologia neoliberal, fornecendo ‘aos intelectuais neoliberais o espaço intelectual e institucional e o apoio financeiro necessário’ antes de qualquer outro país, continua atuando e são as principais responsáveis pela nova lei.

Em um outro ensaio em The Road from Mont Pélerin  Keith Tribe escreveu: 

‘O que distingue o neoliberalismo do liberalismo clássico é a inversão entre as relações políticas e econômicas. Os argumentos pela liberdade tornam-se econômicos e não políticos, identificando a impessoalidade das forças de mercado como o principal meio para assegurar o bem-estar popular e a liberdade pessoal.’

Deste modo,  qualquer crítica ao neoliberalismo se transforma numa crítica à própria liberdade, devendo, portanto, ser punida pelo Estado como ‘terrorismo’.

Ainda nesta obra,  Rob van Horn e Philip Mirovsky observaram que o ‘neoliberalismo é, sobretudo, uma teoria de como reorganizar o Estado de modo a garantir o sucesso do mercado e dos seus participantes mais importantes, as grandes corporações.’

Muitas dessas grandes corporações tem sido justamente o alvo das críticas mais contundentes do movimento pelo clima, causando um enorme dando à imagem pública das mesmas. Não é de surpreeder, então, que os ‘participantes mais importantes do mercado’ estejam por trás da elaboração de  uma legislação específica para controlar estes ‘abusos’.

Que uma tal lei antiterror tenha sido aprovada pelo Parlamento da Suíça revela o poder da ideologia neoliberal dentro deste país e a capacidade das grandes corporações de influenciar governos e legislações mesmo numa reconhecida democracia   como a da Suíça.  Num momento em que o neoliberalismo fracassa em todo o mundo, uma reação do establishment neoliberal era de se esperar. Pois o neoliberalismo só consegue se manter pela mentira, pela força ou por uma combinação dessas duas. Mas a mentira neoliberal não consegue iludir mais ninguém, o fracasso é por demais visível e eloquente. Para a sua sobrevivência, restam ao neoliberalismo apenas a violência e a repressão, por todos os meios possiveis, inclusive os legais.

A tradição humanitária e democrática da Suíça está agora nas mãos dos seus jovens ativistas. O movimento pelo clima tem o potencial de transcender fronteiras e gerações, de unir o Norte e o Sul do planeta numa luta comum pela nossa mãe Terra contra seus exploradores. Mas a reação combinada do poder econômico e do poder de Estado pode ser demasiada e leis como esta mostram claramente os riscos e perigos a que estes jovens estão expostos. Cabe a cada um de nós agora apoiar esta luta, com a  alegria, a criatividade e o carinho que a preservação da vida merece.

                                                                                                   Franklin Frederick

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The Atlantic Council’s Anti-China Containment Strategy

February 1st, 2021 by Andrew Korybko

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What the Atlantic Council doesn’t realize is that its unnamed author’s visceral hatred for the Chinese President is actually a powerful endorsement of his leadership successes.

The Atlantic Council, one of the US’ most powerful think tanks, published an extremely provocative anti-Chinese containment strategy proposal titled “The Longer Telegram: Toward a new American China strategy”.

The title is purposely meant to evoke historical comparisons to George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” which set the stage for the US’ decades-long containment strategy against the former Soviet Union.

Its author remains anonymous per their request, but their highly detailed document has already generated significant attention across America’s leading policy circles. The problem, however, is that it’s doomed to fail if implemented.

Screenshot Atlantic Council Report

The strategy’s primary theses are several-fold:

  • the US must retain self-belief in its global supremacy in all respects;
  • America must assemble a global coalition to contain China;
  • China must be forced to incur significant costs for refusing to abide by Washington’s envisioned liberal international order;

And the consequences of these aggressive actions must be exploited for the purpose of dividing and ruling the Communist Party of China (CPC) so that they replace President Xi Jinping and transition to a collective leadership model that the Atlantic Council believes will agree to submit to America’s will.

That final goal is nothing but a political delusion.

Some of the proposals to these ends are equally unrealistic. One of the organizing principles states that the US must rebalance its relations with Russia in order to divide it from China and provoke a security crisis along their shared border. A ridiculous red line is also suggested to make China responsible for any attack that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) might launch against its neighbors. On the topic of major national concerns, the US is encouraged to support India should its economic and/or military relations with China worsen. In other words, the Atlantic Council wants to revive the era of proxy warfare.

With that in mind, the mysterious author of “The Longer Telegram” implores his country to clinch mega trade pacts with the Asia-Pacific and EU in order to compete with China in a clear allusion to Beijing’s recently agreed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) respectively.

They also propose scaling investment into the World Bank and regional development banks as a means of countering Beijing’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). In addition, there’s a strong appeal to double down on information warfare activities against China in what’s described as “the global battle for ideas”.

Most ominously, however, is the innuendo that a physical battle between China and the US might soon be in the cards, perhaps over the renegade island province of Taiwan, the South China Sea, or the Diaoyu Islands. The Atlantic Council speculates that China might not achieve a conclusive victory if the US militarily intervenes in any of these scenarios, which they claim would in turn diminish President Xi’s legitimacy.

It’s not directly stated in the text, but the author strongly hints that a limited hot war between the two without any clear victory on China’s part could trigger the CPC intra-party coup against President Xi that they’re hoping for.

None of these proposals are all that novel, but the difference between this comprehensive set of them and others is the focus on trying to provoke regime change within the CPC against President Xi. The unnamed author even absurdly suggests that this might happen during next year’s Twentieth Party Congress. In order to improve the US’ odds of more effectively manipulating elite party officials to that end, the Atlantic Council proposes that “the public language and operational focus must be ‘Xi’s Communist Party’”, not the CPC in general. This is because the entire strategy is basically all about demonizing the Chinese leader himself.

What the Atlantic Council doesn’t realize is that its unnamed author’s visceral hatred for the Chinese President is actually a powerful endorsement of his leadership successes.

He’s personally credited with defending China’s interests in all respects, which is of course portrayed in a highly negative way from the American grand strategic perspective. That said, while President Xi is at the core of the CPC, there are still approximately 91 million other people in the party who represent the over 1.3the longer billion citizens of China. The country’s recent ascent as one of the planet’s most influential forces in history is due to their collective efforts, not just one single man’s.

This makes the Atlantic Council’s strategy document inherently flawed since it strangely presupposes that President Xi’s countless successes aren’t popular at home, whether among average Chinese or the CPC elite.

It also imagines that the US is still seen as the “city upon a hill” by the international community, not realizing that the majority of people actually perceive it as a spooky castle inhabited by the ghosts of imperialism’s past than any sort of inspiration to follow. In the dangerous event that elements of this policy are implemented, they’re doomed to fail and accelerate the US’ global decline, but it might temporarily unite its fractured political class.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

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

Featured image is from OneWorld

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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Has the panic fear that politicians of all stripes have been trying to instil in people on behalf of the global criminal elite for the past year and the reflexive obedience robbed us parents, grandparents and fellow citizens of all compassion?

Or how is it to be understood that children and young people – presumably not only in Germany – suffer the worst under the illegal and useless mass quarantine of corrupt governments and express: “I don’t want to live anymore” – and there is no outcry or uprising in the country?

The climax of this outrageous scandal: the head of the German government puts off the parents until the day of never-never.

What are we to think of a state that strangles its youth and thus the future of its people, only to slavishly serve the “satanic clients” in the background and perhaps one day be allowed to be their courtier? What are we to think of citizens who silently accept this just so as not to attract attention and not to have to say NO!

As an educationalist and clinical psychologist, the author has felt called upon for months to express his opinion on this scandal. However, since many youth psychiatrists, psychotherapists, panel doctors and victim support organisations like the “White Ring” have been sounding the alarm for a long time, I waited. Only when I read the report in the mass magazine “WELT” on 31 January that young people want to throw away the gift of life (“I don’t want to live any more”, said the child to her  mother), I could no longer remain silent (1)

Screenshot of Die Welt

Since the majority of readers have surely already followed the reports of severe physical damage, psychological behavioural disorders and suicide attempts as a result of the mass quarantine, I will only briefly list some of the causes again:

  • Social distancing,
  • the wearing of unhealthy and disfiguring face masks even at school,
  • the lack of school education,
  • the absence of cultural and sporting events,
  • the endless loneliness that cannot be eradicated by virtual Facebook contacts as well as computer games and drugs of all kinds, and finally
  • the increasing domestic violence (sexual offences and assaults).

Are we humans really incapable of overcoming our feelings of fear and our mental obedience reflex instilled in childhood in order to protect the lives of our children and preserve the future of all of us?

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is an educationalist and qualified psychologist.

Notes

(1) www.welt.de/Panorama: Corona time: “I don’t want to live any more”, the child said to his mother.

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The International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea, a UN body based in Hamburg, last week delivered a stern and unequivocal rebuke to the UK in ruling the UK has no legal interest in the maritime area of the Chagos Islands. You will recall that the UK in the 1970’s ethnically cleansed the entire population from Chagos at gunpoint to make way for the US nuclear base on the Chagos Island of Diego Garcia.

In its judgement, The Special Chamber of the Tribunal last week ruled (para 247) by 8 votes to 1 that the Maldives must agree a boundary with Mauritius, as

it is inconceivable that the United Kingdom, whose administration over the Chagos
Archipelago constitutes a wrongful act of a continuing character and thus must be
brought to an end as rapidly as possible, and yet who has failed to do so, can have
any legal interests in permanently disposing of maritime zones around the Chagos
Archipelago by delimitation.

The Tribunal was of course here following the UN General Assembly and the International Court of Justice; the illegality of British occupation of the Chagos Islands is now indisputable in international law. What this tribunal adds is the dismissal of the notion that the UK has any legal rights to impose administrative or regulatory measures on the grounds that sovereignty is disputed. The Tribunal has said the Chagos Islands are part of Mauritius and there can be no dispute.

I am pleased partly because of my long term advocacy for the Chagos Islanders, but also because enabling the coming into force of the Tribunal was one of the proudest moments of my life. It is a very long story, and some day I will tell it, but the short version is that the entry into force of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea had been delayed for decades because of a dispute over the deep seabed mining regime. This specified a licensing system for mining in the deep seabed beyond all national limits, with the proceeds from licenses being distributed to developing nations. The United States had refused to ratify and the entire Convention, including the Tribunal, had been stymied as Western European powers followed the US lead over deep seabed mining.

When I became Head of Maritime Section at the FCO and Alternate Head of the UK Delegation to the UN Preparatory Commission (Prepcom) for the Convention – which was tasked with sorting out the mess – I can genuinely say that by persuading the UK government to soften its stance, (a Herculean task within Whitehall) and by establishing a strong personal rapport with the leaders of the developing world delegations, and especially with Dolliver Nelson and UN Under Secretary General Satya Nandan, I broke the impasse. My writing talent in clever drafting that eventually fed into the Protocol on Deep Seabed Mining made a real difference, but it really was the fact that I mixed freely with the developing world delegations, and sat on the beach with them drinking rum punch or eating ackee and fish washed down with Red Stripe in local restaurants, that broke the barriers.

I don’t know how to make you believe this, but this really was pretty revolutionary. The Prepcom met in Jamaica for a month every year and again in New York every August, and the “First World” delegates just did not socialise with the “G77 Delegates” except at stilted formal occasions or with enormous condescension. Making real friends across the barrier was not normal. I strongly recommend to you the current BBC true story drama “The Serpent”. Apart from the major subject, its portrayal of the milieu, lifestyle and attitudes of Western diplomats abroad is absolutely spot-on. I made the political breakthrough just by being straight and friendly with people. Indeed the key compromises were agreed with Satya and Dolliver while we splashed our legs in a pool. By coincidence, the UK had the revolving chair of the Western European and Others (WEOG) group at just the crucial time, which was a great help in getting the compromises through.

I should add that the FCO Legal Adviser, David Anderson, was my boss most of the time at these meetings; he was arguably the world’s leading authority on the law of the sea and the primary credit for the Convention coming onto force goes to him. He was to become one of the first judges at the Tribunal. A true Yorkshireman, I remember many hours walking around Brussels and New York with him while he peered at restaurant menus finding where he could get his chosen meal cheapest. I should also mention the tolerant and visionary Dr John Hughes, my line manager, who trusted me and gave me huge latitude. It is further fair to note that others took on the work to completion after me as I was posted to Poland by the time the Convention came into force. But somewhere I have kept the lovely note from John Hughes telling me the Convention had come into force, and that while my name would not be on it, the achievement was enormous.

I am very conscious that the strain of being on trial, and particularly awaiting the verdict, has made me self-obsessed. I have received really awful online abuse since I published my affidavits, and it has led me to want to think about the real achievements of my life, and even about the time when I was highly valued within the political establishment rather than somebody entirely outside of respectable society. Not that I would change a thing about my whistleblowing and I am sure this maudlin period will pass. Please forgive and indulge me for a little while.

Being chosen as the seat of the Tribunal was very important both to Hamburg and Germany, and I remember an official visit there to look at the site and discuss the accommodation for judges, the diplomatic status of staff and numerous other points. The hospitality was amazingly good, and I got taken out on the Gorch Fock for a day, which I shall never forget.

So I am delighted now to see the Tribunal be so robust over the Chagos Islands. It really does matter that the UK is in defiance of these international courts. The UK has wide interests, and may from time to time need to seek the authority of the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to assert them. That the UK has ignored major and overwhelming majority rulings from these courts, will undoubtedly be likely to rule the courts’ perception of the UK in other cases. Which will, for example, one day include the maritime boundary dispute with an independent Scotland.

The major question on Scottish Independence in international law is whether Wales, England and Northern Ireland (WENI) and Scotland will both be successor states, inheriting all the legal benefits and obligations of the UK, or whether only WENI is the successor state to the UK and Scotland is a new state. This is a crucial matter. There are examples both ways. For example, only Russia is the successor state of the Soviet Union, whereas Czechia and Slovakia are both successor sates of Czechoslovakia.

If WENI wants to keep its position on the UN Security Council it will need to be the sole successor state. But if it is, it will need to inherit all of the UK’s national debt and Scotland none (as Russia did for the Soviet Union). There will be strong international interest in WENI not being the sole successor state, as a lever to get this second rate power off its anomalous position on the UN Security Council. There are also consequences for nuclear weapon power status. Then there is the question of the colonies – to whom will they belong after separation? A disproportionate number of Scots shed their blood in obtaining those colonies or died of malaria administering them. (It is not lost on me they shed a lot more of the blood of those the colonies were stolen from). Scotland should demand the Chagos Islands as its share of colonial possessions – and then immediately decolonise. A plan which properly explained will certainly help attain UN recognition. The US base would then become a matter of negotiation between Mauritius and the USA, but from the starting point of the US having no right to be there.

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When Pathology Becomes the Norm. The Ruling Elites

February 1st, 2021 by Anna Tolstoyevskaya

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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When scientists a thousand years from now will be studying our time, much about it will strike them as strange. They will be puzzled by how technically advanced we were, but how little we were able to understand each other. It will be hard for them to comprehend why, with such rare, once in thousands of years, scientific and technical ability to create a true paradise on earth, we continued to choose the path of wars, violence, and destruction.

They will be mystified by our persistent failure to heed our scientists’ dire warnings that the Doomsday Clock was seconds away from midnight, abandoning ourselves to unbridled consumption and greed. Why we believed tenaciously that truth is always on our side, even as it deprives others of life and justice?

The big question is: will there be scientists at all a thousand years from now, or will our planet go back to the age of reptiles? In fact, it is high time we start tackling some of these questions, if only so there will be somebody to study US many years from now. 

Our main problem lies in our relationship with our elites. This relationship, in turn, reflects our fundamental misunderstanding of ourselves.

We as homo sapiens still have not learned to coexist with each other. This is no accident. By and large, our ruling elites do not consider themselves created the same and equal with the rest of us. This gives them the right to control, manipulate, and sacrifice us, while enriching themselves at our expense. It is not a problem for them, because– in their opinion – we are different, they are superior to us, we are slaves, and our lives don’t matter, aside from whatever material benefit we may bring to our masters.

Such superiority complex, especially when combined with psychopathy, is a manifestation of psychological pathology. Accordingly, we live in a “pathocracy” that was described nearly half a century ago by the Polish psychiatrist Andrzej Łobaczewski as “a system of government…wherein a small pathological minority takes control over a society…”[1]

Our history of wars, with tens of millions of victims in the two world wars only in the last century, confirms this. However, as Steve Taylor writes in Psychology Today, “The problem is not that all people are inherently brutal and cruel, but rather that a small number – those with personality disorders – are brutal and cruel, intensely self-centered, and lacking in empathy. And this small minority has frequently held power and managed to influence the majority to commit atrocities on their behalf.”[2]

This is usually done by impressing the same psychopathic worldview upon US as well. In order not to see other human beings as our brothers and sisters, we are taught to fear them, blame for our troubles and grievances, and be proud of our own superiority. This belief that we are DIFFERENT and EXCEPTIONAL, endowed with the rights of a victim, and with absolute truth on our side only, feeds our sense of primacy and allows us to ignore all violations of their rights, including to life. This is how we all become hostage to the psychopathology, greed, and fighting of the elites for power.

Humanity has always had rulers throughout the entire history of our civilization. There were always those who owned nearly everything and could control multitudes of human lives. Our social contract always relied on their power and edicts. On the other hand, the elite’s social duties, depending on the degree of fairness of a particular system, always included certain responsibility for us, their subjects.

The ruling elites, one way or another, needed the support of their population to carry out their functions. So their goals always included the creation of a certain consensus, frequently by means of fear and violence, around the rightness of their actions. But inevitably, the further the results of their actions diverged from the true interests and realities of people’s lives, the harder it was to maintain the semblance of such accord. This would strain the relationship between the powers and the people to the point of riots and rebellion.

Excesses and abuses by the ruling elites and the flooding rivers of people’s suffering led to several countries, such as Russia and China, conducting revolutionary experiments in violent regime change during the last century. Under the slogans of equality and brotherhood, they gave birth to new social forms rooted in the same old principle of hierarchy and control. Except now they relied on the coercion and exploitation of the many by the privileged party few. The elites and the slogans changed, but the people remained separated from the truth and manipulated just the same.

The relationship that developed between the rulers and the people in the USSR is not alien to the XXI century either. Soviet elites concluded rather quickly that they didn’t need the people as coparticipants in historic decision-making. At best, they needed only producers and performers, but continuing to believe mindlessly in choosing their own leaders and their destiny.

In the U.S., in its turn, sophisticated methods of public opinion control were described almost a century ago by Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays (1891–1995). In his understanding, people must be kept in subordinate submission by distracting our attention with desires and sexual lusts. While the fueling of consumer greed allows for public opinion to be maintained within the confines of manufactured “consent” on key social and political issues. As for the public policy itself, it is dictated in the U.S. through the “Overton window[3] exclusively by the elites (the “invisible government,” in the words of Bernays’ book, Propaganda[4]).

These “invisible” elites are producing ever more colorful characters and intricate narratives, taking us further and further away from the truth and the possibility of changing anything. Yet such is the lot of the people from the rulers’ point of view – to live by the habits, desires, and myths assimilated while we are being programmed by the social and mass media.

While our attention is occupied with the ephemeral glamor, luxury, and endless intrigue, entertaining us from the ubiquitous screen, it doesn’t have even the slightest chance of recognizing the most urgent challenges of our collective existence. And these challenges multiply daily.

World elites compete for power and limited natural resources that they can never have enough of. They apparently have come to believe that we the people are no longer needed and that at this point, there are simply too many of us for “their” planet.

National and religious ideologies are used to justify all their actions, their ends evidently justifying any means. The mass media, controlled by them, spotlight events from their point of view and allow them to get away with unthinkable atrocities.  (Professor Lance deHaven-Smith defines these as “State Crimes against Democracy” (SCAD) in his book, Conspiracy Theory in America.[5]) This is all done under the pretext of the most noble intent and on our behalf, but without our knowledge or consent.

In contempt of the collective karmic burden that will be passed on to our offspring, the range of acceptable opinion for the media is quite narrow. Ruling elites view the free individual as competition and, therefore, a threat. The modern man perceives himself with their help as a material appendage of a certain system, competing with other appendages of his and other countries, or as a believer whose God doesn’t love some people, or as a member of the community with elements of both in the form of a nation. Our convictions dictate our behavior, and when your God doesn’t love some folks, you don’t have to love them either. Speaking of the roots of racism.

Contemporary elites, just like their predecessors, benefit from racism, for it allows them to control mass movements, directing and diffusing their energy into mutual enmity within disaffected masses.This prevents the possibility of their broad solidarity and rallying against the oppressor. Meanwhile, the system of power and control itself remains by design unaffected.

Image on the right is from Wikimedia Commons

Take Black Lives Matter. While crowds destroy monuments and fight each other, the American public has lost the ability of understanding and dialogue, and with it, the capacity to escape conflict and further escalation of violence. In the meantime, appropriations for the Pentagon, militarism, and endless wars continue to grow, as intended, despite the fact that militarism not only prevents the American society from addressing its most pressing problems, but also aggravates them catastrophically.

After all, the real issue in Minneapolis was not the identity of George Floyd, but rather the method that was used to pacify him. Its application doesn’t make it less brutal and inhuman, when it is used to suppress civilians of any other skin color and nationality.

But shifting public attention solely to the race of the victim and channeling mass protests in this direction have led only to the widening schism and polarization of society, given the colossal historical burden of slavery and the psychological and economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. The racial conflict, in the meantime, has completely overshadowed any serious discussion of why the American police use such methods to begin with. What is the purpose of police militarization? Why is the local population being viewed as the enemy and treated in much the same way as foreign adversaries?

Meanwhile, physical abuse is a litmus test of the attitude towards others. The application of brute physical force, even to the point of lethality, to suppress another human being is an indication that one side considers itself to be superior and above the law, with the full right of using such measures. These harsh methods must first and foremost attract our attention in order to reject their application to us and our kind.

In this respect, the issue of Palestinians is in many ways the question of conscience for our time,[6] as was the question of Jews in the 1930s and 40s. Oppression of Palestinians is a symbol of the condition that all non-elite humanity finds itself in. Certainly, Palestinians are not the only ones who suffer. But their suffering personifies and embodies the suffering of mankind at large from oppression by the ruling class, who consider themselves above all the rest of us and crave to own everything around them, including us. Our opinions and even our lives do not matter; we are only pawns in the game that tilts the status quo further and further not in our favor.

The physical violence inflicted on Palestinians incarnates the intellectual violence of lies and distortions that constantly afflicts and numbs our consciousness, lest we notice their suffering and the injustices committed by the powers that be against us and our brothers and sisters. We are distracted, misinformed, miseducated, trained to fight and live in ignorance, fear, and distrust of each other. And it’s becoming quite obvious.

For example, the declarations of Russian interference in American elections by and large boil down to acknowledging the fact that broad swaths of the electorate have been reduced to such lamentable cognitive condition that some Russian bots on Facebook were able to completely disorient the legendary freedom of American citizens in their individual political choices.

The argument is as remarkable as it is instructive. Just imagine what kind of resources are necessary to bring the country’s system of education and mass culture into a state of crisis and deliberately reduce large segments of its population to a position of emotionally underage consumers of things and ideas.

Intelligence agencies with such abilities, above all America’s own, with their colossal resources, could most certainly bring order, prosperity, and cognizance to their countries, if that were the priority. But, unfortunately, this clearly does not apply to the situation in either the U.S. or Russia. The Russian population is being treated in much the same way by its own ruling elite, as Americans are by theirs, also under all kinds of pretexts, including external interference, and with similarly deplorable consequences.

The reality is that there is nothing inherently more evil about the regime in Russia than about the regimes in America, Great Britain, or the majority of European nations. The ruling elites in all these countries think and act about the same, as can be witnessed by the profound similarity of their response to the coronavirus pandemic.[7]

They all fear and manipulate public protests by dividing and conquering, as thousands of years ago. Real pain and anger of the people against the elite degenerate into civil strife, without changing the structure of power. Then the media can even participate in fanning the flames of such unrest against the backdrop of intense struggle of the different segments within elites for power, resources, and information, as is happening in the U.S. right now.[8]

In the case of Russia, this intra-elite fighting has to some extent been temporarily settled in Moscow’s favor in the course of the evolution of Putin’s regime. Nonetheless, the conflict between central and regional clans of the ruling elites continues, periodically spilling into regional unrest. But the favorite method of Russian media, especially television, controlled by the central authority, is to simply withhold coverage of unwanted protests in the regions, as they have been doing for over half a year with demonstrations in support of the former governor of Khabarovsk Krai Sergei Furgal.[9]  

These peaceful protests in the far-eastern region of Russia have been largely ignored by central TV, which is unable to compromise them in the eyes of the general public absent acts of vandalism and violence. In this way, average Russians are deprived of the temptation to join the protests.

But despite the difference in media tactics, the essence of the struggle within the ruling elites both in the U.S. and Russia is the same – being able to use public unrest to advance their own interests. The main thing for them is to retain control over state resources and the right to determine government policy on their use.

As is well known, the military-industrial complex in the U.S. has attained enormous budget allocations over the last 75 years by manipulating the population with fears of an “external threat.” Now the U.S. has the most powerful military machine in the history of mankind. In order to divert the lion’s share of state resources to build weapons of destruction, constant presence of an external enemy is required. And the majority of citizens have to be convinced that military might is necessary as the most effective instrument of foreign policy. Because militarism and democracy are in this sense incompatible (average American doesn’t need war), the image of an external enemy is inevitably projected inside the society to control dissent in the process of law enforcement militarization. That is indeed what we have been observing – and not only in the U.S. – in recent decades.

According to the authors of the Anti-Nuclear Manifesto dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, President Eisenhower formulated the “law” of the military-industrial complex. “Only the MIC [military-industrial complex, whether American, Russian, or any other] requires and benefits from constant global confrontation, tension, hostility, suspicion, mistrust, alienation, fragmentation, lies, deception, falsifications, threats, sanctions, destruction of cooperation and solidarity in all spheres and relations. The MIC creates a so-called “militaristic security system”, built on balancing “on the war brink” and intimidation by force: “PEACE THROUGH FORCE.””[10]

If Palestinians have become the symbol of contemporary humanity in confrontation with the world elites, the military-industrial complex fully personifies the latter. See this.

“The MIC has become the only source of “nuclear death of humanity”, the main threat to its survival and a danger to the life of the biosphere, noosphere and the planet as a whole that President Eisenhower first realized and expressed.” The MIC is a shared enemy of all nations that “continuously targeted for extinction each of us” and “has become that genocidal terrorist with nuclear weapons who commits “the outrage of holding the entire world hostage.””[11]

Seven Catholics who call themselves the Kings Bay Plowshares are seen April 4, 2018, before they entered the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia to protest nuclear weapons. On Oct. 15, Rev. Stephen M. Kelly (center, wearing glasses) a 71-year-old Jesuit priest, was sentenced to 33 months in jail, three years’ probation and restitution fees after he and others infiltrated a nuclear submarine base as part of a nuclear disarmament action. (CNS/Kings Bay Plowshares)

To preclude the possibility of our awareness in the middle of all this, world elites have erected a separation wall of state propaganda between us and reason. This “invisible” wall blocks our common sense, hiding from us the urgency of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty,[12] which entered into force on January 22, and the repeated warnings from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists of just 100 seconds to midnight left on our Doomsday Clock,[13] and the unjust trial of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, who with their biblical act of nonviolence tried – for a 100th time! – to wake our world from this insane nuclear nightmare.[14]

Three of the remaining four KBP7 defendants, including Martha Hennessy, the granddaughter of one of the founders of the Catholic Worker Movement Dorothy Day, received their sentences, ranging from 10 to 14 months, in November. The last defendant, Mark Colville, is scheduled to appear before the federal court in Brunswick, Georgia, for sentencing on February 19, 2021. Have you heard anything about it in the media? 

If we don’t overcome this wall of silence, wake up and unite with our long-blocked reason, there will be no hope for the Palestinians, nor for the Israelis, and certainly not for us. Our incited enmity and unchecked technologies of destruction will sooner or later blow up our planet along with us.

Our individual scaling of this wall (the actual process of waking up and becoming aware) is no simple task. We really are our breath, and the beating of our hearts, and the firing of neurons, and the toiling of our cells that make it all possible. The critical component of all this is our consciousness. The more we become aware, the less we are okay with the tendency in our modern human society to take this all for granted, abusing and defying the miraculous gift of life.

Everything within and without us is interconnected. Information that enters our consciousness creates the mental and physiological imprints, which form and shape who we are and how we behave. A famous Russian neurolinguist Tatyana Chernigovskaya says that “If your brain is going to read idiotic magazines, communicate with fools, listen to light mindless music, and watch dumb movies, then there is really nothing to complain about.[15]

We are all reading the book of life, and what we choose from it depends first and foremost on what we have developed in our consciousness. Per Chernigovskaya, “There is always an object and the one who reads it all. “If there is an ancient papyrus in front of us, and nobody can read it, then that is not information. It is just a physical object. And what I read from it depends on my education, on my plans, and my reasons for reading it.“”[16]

How we react to and perceive ourselves and others is determined to a large degree by the quality and direction of our internal monologue. Our thoughts and our words reflect and create who we are and who we become, and they lead to actions and consequences for ourselves and those around us. Yes, the media and the powers that control them have long ago learned how to take advantage of it. However, we do have some patient “teachers” on our side in stubborn circumstances. The more we pay attention to what happens in our life, the less we are affected by the hypnotic spell of the media and the more we reclaim the sovereignty of our own mind.

One of the most important concepts in our development is WORK. Work forms a cornerstone idea in many world religions for good reason. We realize ourselves and fulfill our mission through work. A great spiritual master of the twentieth century Siva Yogaswami taught that “All work must be done with the aim of reaching God.[17] In the understanding of Pope Francis, “Work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development and personal fulfillment.[18]

According to Cyberspheronics, which the authors of the Anti-Nuclear Manifesto, including several Nobel Peace laureates, consider “a holistic Megascience…of humanity for its spheral third way in the XXI century,[19] society consists of four spheres: People, Information, Organizations, and Things (PIOT). These four spheres of the social production/autopoiesis of PIOT constitute the noosphere created by our society’s life on Earth. These four spheres of production and the social groups employed in them form the basis for the spheral structure of humanity, which was heralded by Mahatma Gandhi.[20]

Cyberspheronics offers a theoretical and practical basis for harmonizing the life of humanity in equilibrium with our Planet and in equality and inevitable interdependence of the four spherons, or classes, of society.

The class employed in Sociosphere, the main resource and product of which are People, bears tremendous responsibility for the future of our species that is impossible to fulfill without cooperation of the other spherons.

This responsibility is expressed in the words of Chernigovskaya: “…right now a lot depends on whether we will find the strength within us, we adults…to think of how we should live in this new world and how we should bring up our dependents. Because the world will fall into their hands very soon…and upon their outlook on life in general, not on what type of a phone they have and whether they need a new one, but the earnest outlook, will depend not just what kind of a world it will be, but whether it will exist at all, and whether it will withstand the terrible onslaught that is currently taking place.[21]

It is vitally important, therefore, that our work not cause harm. Buddhists consider the right livelihood and the right effort indispensable parts of the Noble Eightfold Path, leading to liberation in nirvana. And the Native American nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy believed that “we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.[22] As far as our time is concerned, we are not even taking existential interests of our children into account, to say nothing of the seventh generation! Thus, we allow the military-industrial complex to take control of our lives.

Weapons of mass destruction created by our labor threaten annihilation to our entire species and to life on our planet as we know it, while most of us don’t give it even a second thought. This underscores the role of the spherons of Information and Organizations in human society, the critical function of which we must grasp and put in order. Only bringing the four spheres of society in harmony and equilibrium will allow people employed in Technoecosphere, which produces Things, to neutralize nuclear weapons and finally “beat swords into plowshares.”

It is hard to disagree with Deepak Chopra that “Human evolution is the history of human choices.”[23] We have reached a stage in our historical development, at which our individual and collective choices can end the history of ourselves and our civilization. We all have responsibility in this life for ourselves and for our loved ones. We have to take care of our and their existence. The natural corollary to this responsibility is that we have to do it in harmony and balance with our environment, for it is critical to our own survival and that of our children.

To care for humanity, we must care for nature.” In these words of the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on World Environment Day in June[24] is the simple truth that our attitude towards each other reflects and personifies our attitude towards nature. We don’t take care of nature and destroy it just as much as we don’t understand and don’t spare each other. And the ever-increasing weight of our lethal impact on our Planet inevitably darkens our collective destiny with the ever-rising stream of violence and mutual destruction. The ubiquitous destructive force of wars and conflicts is just another face of the catastrophic harm that we are inflicting upon our environment and the diversity of life on our planet.

Our individual lives in the comfort of western civilization haven’t been directly affected by this evil for some time, but just like that proverbial frog in the gradually heated water, we are starting to realize that something is not right. The question is: are we going to wake up from this stupor in time to change anything, while it’s still possible?

Even the elites have started to realize that the path we are on leads to ecological catastrophe and ultimate destruction. Although from their perspective, the problem lies in affluence, which leads to overconsumption. Referencing the conclusions of a new scientific report that “Affluence is the biggest threat to our world,” and “True sustainability will only be achieved through drastic lifestyle changes,” the World Economic Forum is calling for “a great reset of capitalism in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.”[25]

This, in turn, makes you wonder what motives are behind the coordinated demolition of the global economy under the auspices of fighting COVID-19. It is taking a significant physical and psychological toll on humanity, far exceeding considerable direct losses from the pandemic.[26]

It also makes you think about the words of one of the great Russian writers of the twentieth century Alexander Solzhenitsyn that, apart from repentance, there is no moral escape route from the pit into which we have fallen. And every other way out is illusory, no more than a short-lived social delusion.

…the universal dividing line between good and evil runs not between countries, not between nations, not between parties, not between classes, not even between good and bad men: the dividing line cuts across nations and parties, shifting constantly, yielding now to the pressure of light, now to the pressure of darkness. It divides the heart of every man…[27]

My friend, Professor Vladislav Krasnov, who has dedicated several decades of his life to the Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) he had founded, likes to quote the great Mahatma Gandhi’s advice: “The Satyagrahi’s goal is to convert, not to coerce, the one who disagrees.[28]

We all have a good reason to recognize our interdependence and learn to use it for mutual benefit. We all strive for the same things in this life health, happiness, and prosperity. Only by treating each other as equal partners, can we attain self-realization and not burden the future for ourselves and our descendants with inescapable destructive consequences of enmity with our Planet and each other.

We can see them all around us already, from catastrophic wildfires and super hurricanes to the warming, polluted oceans and melting glaciers. Our earthly home can barely withstand the never-ending and increscent human mischief. Our wars and our waste, including nuclear, have mutilated the world around us for the majority of planetary life forms. When there is more plastic in the oceans than fish in some 30 years, we may become aware of this, but I’m afraid by then it will be too late. It is time to start changing something right now.

We always have to start with ourselves. We all have a choice when it comes to using the resources available to us. Solzhenitsyn called this “self-limitation” and considered it critically important to be applied in the life of every person and the whole nation. Russian Old Believers in the nineteenth century called this “self-restriction” and wrote that “Save through self-restriction, there is no other true freedom for mankind.[29]

And again Solzhenitsyn: “Every nation without exception, however persecuted, however cheated, however flawlessly righteous it feels itself to be today, has certainly at one time or another contributed its share of inhumanity, injustice and arrogance.” Indeed, “The nation is mystically welded together in a community of guilt, and its inescapable destiny is common repentance.[30]

At all times, all the pathologies of humankind have come from the dominance of one part or another over the whole. In the assessment of the authors of the Anti-Nuclear Manifesto, “The source of social pathologies/diseases of humankind…have occurred at various historical stages among various, historical transient parts…of humanity: nations, classes, groups, parties, elites, states, etc.[31]

Only in the indivisible unity of all the “equally necessary and sufficient groups of the population,” spherons, genders, and ethnicities on our Planet, having dealt with enmity and its causes, can we solve the problems of the military-industrial complex and the pathologies of our elites, eliminate nuclear weapons, rehabilitate the system of education, create a just and sustainable economy, and overcome the catastrophic ecological consequences of our activity. The Anti-Nuclear Manifesto of the “Humanity Spheral Third Way of the XXI Century…[is] the Manifesto of the Norm Replacing the Humanity Pathologies.[32]

Science will play a leading role on this third way of humanity. Without science uniting all the institutions that advance it with the entire collective structure of society, we cannot even hope to solve the most vitally important public goods challenges, such as health security, sustainability of our way of life, and climate disruption, that we are facing in our time.

In the assessment of Andrzej Łobaczewski, “The development of science, whose final goal is a better understanding of man and the laws of social life, could, in the long run, cause public opinion to accept the essential knowledge about human nature and the development of the human personality, which will enable the harmful processes to be controlled.”[33]

Science could even now help us deal with the pathologies of those small groups of people, who are lacking the capacity for empathy and repentance, and allow us to safeguard our society from their dominance. One of the proposals: “All potential leaders (or members of a government) should be rigorously assessed by psychologists to determine their levels of empathy, narcissism or psychopathy – and hence determine their suitability for power.”[34]

At the same time, psychology, neurolinguistics, medicine, and other sciences understand even today how words and images affect our mind. And can help us grasp how different ideologies use this to their advantage, and which of their goals and beliefs are beneficial to us, as a society and as individuals, and which cause harm to us and our kind.

That would be easier to accomplish if in the U.S., for instance, we had more scientists conducting research, such as the four-year inquiry into the collapse of the World Trade Center Building 7 completed at the University of Alaska Fairbanks last year.[35] With their help, we would have better chances of comprehending the crux of world events and searching successfully for a safer path for America and for the Planet.

Furthermore, climate research initiatives, like the recently-launched by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Climate Grand Challenges,[36] coordinated among the leading research centers and government organizations, could increase our odds of survival in the impending ecological calamity.

In the end, science united with Cyberspheronics will let humanity on our third way figure out when we are being misled and for what, as well as how we should be directing ourselves and where to. And will enable us to make our own informed choices. In this way, not only will we facilitate the task of future scientists in studying our time but also ensure the possibility of their existence. Not to mention the safety of our own and of our children for the foreseeable future.

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Anna Tolstoyevskaya grew up in the Soviet Union and came to the U.S. as a student of Philology and Foreign Service in the mid-1990s. She is an analyst by trade and an Austinite at heart, having spent a third of her life in that beautiful city. She can be reached at [email protected]. 

Notes

[1] Andrew M. Lobaczewski, Political Ponerology. 2007, Grande Prairie, AB: Red Pill Press. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1476637.Political_Ponerology.  The author adopted the title of his book from theology, where ponerology is the branch that deals with the study of evil.  The subtitle of his work is “A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes.”

[2] Steve Taylor, “In the Seat of Pathocracy,” Psychology Today, Volume 52, Issue 6, 2019.  https://www.questia.com/read/1P4-2312181301/in-the-seat-of-pathocracy

[3] The Overton window is also known as the window of discoursehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

[4] Edward Bernays, Propaganda. 1928, New York: H. Liveright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_(book) 

[5] Lance deHaven-Smith, Conspiracy Theory in America. 2013, Austin: University of Texas Press.

[6] John Pilger made one of the best documentaries on the subject – Palestine Is Still the Issue. 2002, Carlton Television Limited.  https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/palestine-is-still-the-issue-2002/

[7] Mike Whitney presents convincing evidence of the counter-productive and disastrous nature of the policy of lockdowns in his article at The Unz Review, “CODENAME: Operation Virus Identification 2019; the Elitist Plan to Remake Society.”  https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/codename-operation-virus-identification-2019-the-elitist-plan-to-remake-society/  He draws on an article written by four distinguished professors, including a Nobel Prize-winning (Chemistry, 2013) Structural Biologist Michael Levitt from Stanford, that was published in Ha’aretz in July 2020, “Countering the Second Wave with Facts, not Misconception.”

[8] See also: Mike Whitney, “BLM’s War on the Deplorables,” The Unz Review, 2020.  https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/blms-war-on-the-deplorables/

[9] Sergei Ivanovich Furgal (Russian: Сергей Иванович Фургал; born 12 February 1970) is a Russian politician who served as Governor of Khabarovsk Krai from 28 September 2018 until 20 July 2020.  On 9 July 2020, Furgal was arrested by authorities and brought to Moscow on charges of involvement in murders of several businessmen in the region in 2004 and 2005. He denied the allegations. Protests and demonstrations in support of Furgal began after his arrest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Furgal (edited by AT)

Furgal is more popular than Putin in this remote far-eastern region of Russia, for, among other things, he cut the salaries and pensions of local bureaucrats and prohibited them from flying first class on administration’s business, saving money for the region’s budget.  This has created many enemies for him among the ruling circles.  When Furgal was taken under arrest to Moscow to stand a closed trial, his voters took to the streets to demand that their governor be released and brought back for an open trial to Khabarovsk.  Central authorities only added fuel to the fire, when they sent a young mediocrity from the capital to the region as Furgal’s replacement.

[10] Anti-Nuclear Peace/Cyberspheronics Manifesto: The Noosphere Third Way XXI, dedicated to the Hiroshima/Nagasaki victims 75th anniversary by 44 coauthors from 25 countries, representing the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and Global Harmony Association (GHA). 2020, New York.  https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=908

[11] Ibid.

[12] The U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, ICAN. https://www.icanw.org/the_treaty

[13] John Mecklin (Editor), 2021 Doomsday Clock Statement, “This is your COVID wake-up call: It is 100 seconds to midnight,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2021.  https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/

[14] Kings Bay Plowshares 7.  https://kingsbayplowshares7.org/

[15] Anna Semenets, “We Are All Homo Confusus Now” (in Russian: «Мы все теперь «хомо конфузус»») Rosbalt, 2019.  https://www.rosbalt.ru/moscow/2019/01/19/1758860.html

[16] Ibid.

[17] Markandu Swami, A. Chellathurai, Sandaswami, M. Sri Khanta, Words of Our Master.  1972, Jaffna. https://www.himalayanacademy.com/media/books/words-of-our-master/Words_of_Our_Master.pdf

[18] The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.  https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catholic-social-teaching/the-dignity-of-work-and-the-rights-of-workers

[19] Anti-Nuclear Manifesto. 2020, New York.  https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=908

[20] See: Leo Semashko, Gandhicracy. Introduction, Global Harmony Association.  https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=929

[21] Anna Semenets, “We Are All Homo Confusus Now” (in Russian: «Мы все теперь «хомо конфузус»») Rosbalt, 2019.  https://www.rosbalt.ru/moscow/2019/01/19/1758860.html

[22] 7th Generation Principle, Seven Generations International Foundation Australia Limited. http://7genfoundation.org/7th-generation/

[23] Deepak Chopra: Becoming MetaHuman, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Special. https://www.pbs.org/video/deepak-chopra-becoming-metahuman-3uglbm/

[24] This is now the world’s greatest threat – and it’s not coronavirus, World Economic Forum, 2020. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/affluence-bigger-threat-than-coronavirus-scientists-capitalism

[25] Ibid.

[26] See: Udi Qimron, Uri Gavish, Eyal Shahar, Michael Levitt, “Countering the Second Wave with Facts, not Misconception,” Ha’aretz, 2020. (Published in Ha’aretz in Hebrew on July 20, 2020. The English text contains minor revisions.) https://www.dropbox.com/s/72hi9jfcqfct1n9/Haaretz-20Jul20_ENGLISH%2012082020%20v3.pdf?dl=0

See also: Open Letter to All the Citizens of the World and All the Governments of the World, World Doctors Alliance, 2020. https://worlddoctorsalliance.com/

See also: Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, The 2020 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset,” Center for Research and Globalization, 2021.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-2020-worldwide-corona-crisis-destroying-civil-society-engineered-economic-depression-global-coup-detat-and-the-great-reset/5730652

[27] Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations in From Under the Rubble by Alexander Solzhenitsyn et al.  1975, Boston: Little, Brown and Company.  https://archive.org/stream/SolzhenitsynAleksandrIsaevichFromUnderTheRubble/Solzhenitsyn,%20Aleksandr%20Isaevich%20-%20From%20Under%20the%20Rubble_djvu.txt

[28] W. George Krasnow, Ph.D, RAGA Antidote 57 – Krasnow’s Antiwar Newsletter: CODID-19, Putin, Belarus, Krasnov’s NEW BOOK, Seattle riots, Solzhenitsyn, Karl Marx, Anti-Nuclear Manifesto, Thomas Sowell … and morehttp://www.raga.org/news/raga-antidote-57-krasnows-antiwar-newsletter-codid-19-putin-belarus-krasnovs-new-book-seattle-riots-solzhenitsyn-karl-marx-anti-nuclear-manifesto-thomas-sowell-and-more-inside

[30] Ibid.

[31] Anti-Nuclear Manifesto. 2020, New York.  https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=908

[32] Ibid.

[33] Andrew M. Lobaczewski, Political Ponerology. Red Pill Press.

[34] Steve Taylor, “Pathocracy: When people with personality disorders gain power,” Psychology Today, 2019. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201907/pathocracy

[35] Based on their peer-reviewed inquiry, scientists in Fairbanks concluded that the collapse of Building 7 was not caused by fire. Their conclusion: it was caused by a “near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building.” See: Max Parry, “9/11 Truth: Under Lockdown for Nearly Two Decades,” The Unz Review, 2020. https://www.unz.com/article/9-11-truth-under-lockdown-for-nearly-two-decades/

[36] Climate Grand Challenges:  A Call to the MIT Community, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020. http://climategrandchallenges.mit.edu/

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***

Although Azerbaijan won the war against Armenia, both countries have in fact lost part of their sovereignty.

Azerbaijan won the war and expanded territorially after it captured or received the districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh proper that Armenian forces captured in the first war (1988-1994). The status of Nagorno-Karabakh proper remains undetermined but is protected by Russian peacekeepers and is still governed by Armenians.

Despite this territorial expansion, Azerbaijan has in fact partly lost its sovereignty. During the war, reports began emerging that Azerbaijani military leaders were becoming increasingly frustrated with the level of control that Turkey had over their fighting forces. These reports were quickly dismissed and denied by Azerbaijan as Armenian attempts to create division through misinformation. But if this was just misinformation, then there would be no risk of division to begin with, meaning it would not be worth giving attention to, suggesting there was certainly an element of truth to it.

Azerbaijan’s military success lays with two key factors: the Armenian political and military incompetency and lack of will, and Turkey’s contribution with drones, special forces, intelligence and transfer of Syrian jihadists.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan never truly committed to the war effort as Armenian forces were never fully mobilized, powerful Iskander missiles infrequently used, the Armenian Air Force mostly grounded, Armenian diaspora and foreign volunteers rejected from fighting, and local Armenian militias not equipped with enough ammunition, maps and communication devices, nor were the militias assigned commanders – yet this was supposedly a “war for survival,” as Pashinyan termed it.

None-the-less, despite the incompetency of the Armenian leadership, Azerbaijan’s rapid success in Nagorno-Karabakh would not have been possible without significant Turkish support. Even Azerbaijan’s success is limited as it did not achieve its main war aim – the capture of Nagorno-Karabakh.

More importantly, Ankara’s footprint in the country massively expanded through the deployment of more Turkish troops to Azerbaijan, control of more military bases, and the establishment of a joint observation center with Russia in the Agdam region.

As said, reports circulated during the war that divisions in the Azerbaijani military and political circles were emerging between a pro-Turkish faction and another faction in opposition to Turkey’s dominant role in the war effort. These reports have only intensified in recent days as Turkish troops are now deployed in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani politicians and military leaders are beginning to worry about Ankara’s strong influence in the country, with critics commenting that Azerbaijan has become the 82nd province of Turkey. Although Azerbaijan now controls most of the formerly Armenian-held territory, it cannot exercise control over it without Turkish and Russian oversight.

In fact, even Iran has greater opportunities to influence Azerbaijan that it was not able to do before the war. Azerbaijan’s capture of the districts to the south of Nagorno-Karabakh proper means that it shares external borders with only Armenia and Iran. Effectively Iran has great opportunities to be one of the leading foreign investors in the region as Armenia and Azerbaijan have not normalized their relations. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited the Nakhichevan exclave of Azerbaijan, the region wedged between Armenia, Turkey and Iran, to boost regional cooperation through new railroad and transportation routes.

In turn, it will be inevitable that Iran will attempt to gain influence through pan-Shi’ism, but this may prove difficult to gain a foothold as pan-Turkism has become the dominant ideology of Azerbaijan because of Turkey’s own soft power manoeuvers. Russia will utilize its influence through its peacekeepers in the region, and also soft power through economic exchanges.

Although Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will relish his country’s long-awaited victory after his father Heydar Aliyev signed a humiliating ceasefire in May 1994 to conclude the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, the long-term repercussion means that Turkey dominates the Azerbaijani military and wields great political influence over Baku. Also, there is limited Azerbaijani governance in the territories it controls because of Russia’s watchful eye through the deployment of peacekeepers. And finally, we can see much stronger Iranian influence as it aims to penetrate the region through economic and religious means.

Azerbaijani flags may be flying over the captured territories, but it certainly has come at the price of reduced sovereignty – militarily, economically, politically, and perhaps even religiously and culturally.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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Gamestop — And the Financial Game that Never Stops!

February 1st, 2021 by Dr. Jack Rasmus

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***

This past week a video game company in trouble, Gamestop, became the center of media attention.  Day traders had driven up the company’s stock price by thousands of percent in just one day. The mainstream media narrative was the ‘small guy’ investor challenged the big boys of finance who had bet Gamestop stock price would contract, not rise sharply.  The little investor, so the story goes, initially won big but Gamestop’s stock price escalation was stopped in its tracks by coordinated forces of Wall St., as trading was abruptly halted later in the day in the midst of the run-up. But that narrative, that media spin, has it wrong.  The real meaning of what has happened is quite different.

The Facts

Earlier in the week stock day traders gathered on the platform called Reddit in what’s called a  crowdsourcing event. They communicated among themselves in a forum called ‘WallStBets’ and as a group began betting up the stock price of Gamestop, using the no cost stock trading platform called ‘Robinhood’. Similar moves were made against the movie theater chain, AMC, also in big financial trouble, with little revenue coming in but loaded up with mountains of junk debt. A couple other companies in similar condition were targeted by the day traders as well.  Stock prices of these companies—all losers or about to be losers—were in a matter of hours driven to record heights in some cases—as if these companies were raking in profits like a Tesla or Google. But there were no fundamental reasons for the price acceleration; in fact just the opposite.  Betting so, hedge funds and other financial market speculators were short selling their stock, betting their price would fall; and by ‘short selling’ they were actually manipulating the stock to force a price decline.

Short selling has a time limit on the bet. If the stock price doesn’t fall by a certain time, then all the money ‘bet’ by the short selling hedge fund is lost. As Gamestop’s price kept rising, some of them found themselves short of ‘liquidity’ (money) to cover their short sale bets. They had to sell other assets to pay for them. Or they have had to borrow money from other speculators and lenders (and pay interest) to cover their failed bets.

This had never happened before! That’s not how the system is supposed to run, the hedgies cried! The day traders weren’t playing by the rules of the game, they shouted!  But of course they were. It was the hedge funds very own rules. It was all quite capitalist legal.

It was kind of like a poker hand at a Casino.  If you bet your opponent isn’t holding a winning hand, you can raise the stakes and hope he drops out. You win the pot. But if some other player puts money on the table and raises you back, i.e. in this case raising the price of the stock like the day traders did with Gamestop, then they in effect call the hedge funds bluff; the hedge funds lose!  The hedgies didn’t like that, of course.  They are used to short selling without interference and then taking home the entire pot. But this time they didn’t. The day traders were winning the bet—at least the first hand played for the hedge funds got the Casino manager to change the house rules at the last minute to minimize their losses by halting further trading.

So the hedge funds, the big finance capitalist price speculators—as opposed to the crowdsourcing small day trader speculators—immediately changed the rules of the game, i.e. their rules, in order to teach the upstarts a lesson.

Robin Hood of Capitalist Finance

The small speculator capitalists used a trading system called Robin Hood in order to place their disruptive bets to drive up Gamestop’s stock price.  What’s Robin Hood? It’s a finance trading competitor to the Schwabs, Interactive Brokers, and other low cost stock trading platforms. In recent years there’s been a ‘race to the bottom’ in charges for stock trades across the trading industry. Who can charge the least per trade can steal trading market share from the others. Robin Hood broke into the sector by introducing ‘no fee’ trades. It appealed to the ‘day trader’ by peddling the message that Robin Hood was about enabling the small trader to compete with the big boys. Robin Hood promised to enable the small speculator day trader to make more money at the expense of the big boys like the hedgies.

Except Robin Hood kept it a secret from its day trader clientele that it was funded in large part by the same big hedge funds. In fact, one of its biggest, Citadel Securities, which reportedly had a $2.7B stake in Robin Hood.

So Robin Hood halted the day traders’ speculation in Gamestop…and almost certainly at the behest of Citadel and other Wall St. finance capitalists. By stopping the day traders driving up the price of Gamestop stock, it saved the hedge funds and other short sellers billions of dollars of potential additional losses. They next day, January 28, Gamestop and other targets’ stock prices began to retreat once again. While Robin Hood has since indicated day trading of Gamestop could resume, it would have certain limits on trading and Robin Hood made it clear it would halt trading again if necessary.

The CEO of Robin Hood was interviewed on CNN shortly after these events by host, Chris Cuomo, who asked outright: “How do you make sure Robin Hood isn’t rigging it for the Sheriff of Nottingham?”—the Sheriff of course being Citadel, other hedge funds, and other short selling institutional speculators.  Robin Hood’s CEO hemmed and hawed during the interview and hid behind the claim that it wasn’t Citadel or other  that made him halt the buying of Gamestop stock and its price escalation. No, Robin Hood was just following regulatory requirements by the SEC and other government regulatory bodies, its CEO argued.

Left unanswered, however, was why did Robin Hood stop the buying of Gamestop stock when the SEC and other real regulatory bodies did not intervene themselves to stop the trading in the stock?  When asked what regulatory agency asked Robin Hood to do so, the CEO had no answer to Cuomo. And why did Robin Hood halt only the buying of the stock that was driving up the price, but not the selling of the stock? Why did Robin Hood act as regulator, when the regulators saw no need to intervene? After all, the buying of Gamestop stock was no less legal than the short selling of Gamestop stock, according to capitalist regulatory rules. Government regulators didn’t tell Robin Hood it had to shut down Gamestop trades.  A smoking gun anyone?

A Finance Speculator Food Fight

What happened with Gamestop, Robin Hood, Citadel and who knows what other big boys behind the scene, is best understood as a feud between two wings of Finance Capital. This isn’t about the small mom and pop day trader David vs. the Hedge Fund Goliath! It isn’t about Goliath telling David to put down his sling because it’s not allowed to fight that way.

Both the hedge funds and the day traders are financial asset market speculators. What’s a speculator? It’s someone who ‘invests’ (aka bets) that the price of some stock or bond or derivative or currency will rise (or fall). The speculator then bets on the rise or fall by buying or short selling the stock. The objective is to then ‘flip’ the stock purchased in a relatively short time and thereby make a quick capital gain. It isn’t investing in a normal sense. It’s just the mere buying or selling of a piece of paper (or now mere electronic entry) claiming temporary ownership of the paper.  An actual investment is buying and holding a stock longer term in expectation of the company realizing future profits that will eventually drive up its stock value—in a company that actually makes things or provides an actual service, that requires hiring workers who in turn earn wages or revenue that would benefit the real economy.

In contrast, financial speculators are interested only in boosting demand for a stock in order to artificially drive up its price, then to flip it, and realize a financial profit—i.e. a capital gain.  Speculative investing is about making a purchase and then a quick sale to realize a capital gain. That may also take the form of a short sale—i.e. a contract to buy a stock after its price had fallen and sell it at its higher price at the time of the contract.  In both cases, its about selling after a price appreciation.

Make no mistake: the day traders driving up the price of Gamestop stock price weren’t doing it for the pleasure of tweaking the nose of short selling hedge funds. They were doing it to accelerate the stock price in order to later quickly sell it—just as the hedge funds were ‘short’ selling it for an expected profit as well. Only the method of the selling is different.

So both sides were planning on ‘selling’ Gamestop stock—just in different ways. The day traders by driving up the price by buying it first; the hedgies by reserving the right to sell the stock at yesterday’s price, after they ‘buy’ it when the price collapses tomorrow.

In other words, they’re both financial stock speculators. They’re both committing money capital that could—and should—be invested in the real economy not in paper claims of temporary ownership. Real investment is about longer term money capital commitment in order to make real things or services that required hiring and paying wages.

Both forms of stock price speculators are thus vultures preying on the real economy and undermining its recovery! They divert much needed money capital from the real economy into the financial sector that produces no actual economic growth, no jobs, no wage incomes, no consumption. The day traders aren’t the ‘poor little guy’ being exploited by big Wall St. hedge funds. They’re part of the problem.

Day Trading Is Also Casino Capitalism

Crowdsourcing day trading stock speculation is just the latest form of Casino capitalism, clashing with traditional financial speculators dominated by hedge funds, private equity companies, investment banks, and the other forms of shadow bank institutions that have risen in recent decades to prominence and power in 21st century capitalism. The newcomers are just fighting for a piece of the finance asset speculation pie, previously eaten whole by the hedge funds and the other shadow banks and professional investors.

It’s therefore absolute nonsense to make the latest specie of financial speculators—the crowdsourcing day traders—appear as if they are the ‘little guy’ being crushed by big guy Wall St. players. This isn’t about small financial speculator good, large financial speculator bad. This is a family food fight between sectors of capitalist finance.

The real question is what has given rise to the family food fight? What has enabled it in the first place? And how does it reflect a deeper social crisis in the country?

Technology the Great System Destabilizer

Technology in general, and social media in particular, has contributed significantly to the growing political instability in America. It has enabled conspiracy theories and lies to displace debate over facts. Without technology and social media there would have been no Trump, Trumpism, Breitbart, Parler, Proud Boys-Oath Takers, political institutional collapse, and now accelerating decline of Democracy in America. Technology may not be the fundamental cause of the above, but it certainly has been a major enabler of the deepening of the more fundamental causes.

Think of Reddit, the day trader’s WallStBets app, Robin Hood, etc. as the financial markets analog to the Breitbarts, Parlers, etc. in the sphere of political markets! Technology is disrupting 21st century capitalism in myriad ways. The Moloch has begun to devour itself!

Technology has enabled the day trader speculator gang to challenge the hedge funds and other shadow banks’ ability to manipulate the capitalist speculator show as they will.  It has enabled the ‘small’ investor to aggregate his bets into a big enough play to compete with the traditional finance capitalists; it has enabled the ‘small’ investor to inter-communicate and coordinate those bets; and it has enable the concentration of financial bets to move a stock or even perhaps a market—contrary to the bets of the hedgies and other traditional speculators.  And that’s what has really pissed off the latter.

So the old speculators quickly struck back! And their political allies will now hold meetings and deliver yet another slap on the wrist of the newcomers. Congress has already called committee hearings to figure out how to deal with it should it happen again.

The Real Origins of the Conflict

The ‘small guy’ crowdsourcing financial speculators aren’t really so ‘small’. Virtually all the stock trading by day traders is done by players who are easily within the wealthiest 5% of households in the US, and probably even fewer.  So where have they gotten their money capital to make such bets sufficient to challenge the established rules of the game? The same place that the hedge funds and others ultimately get their money capital.

Since at least the past quarter century the central bank of the US, the Federal Reserve, has pumped tens of trillions of dollars into the banking system. The big commercial banks affiliated with the Fed—i.e. Chases, Wells, Citi, Bank of America—in turn have loaned the tens of trillions of dollars to the shadow banks—i.e. investment banks, private equity, VCs, hedge funds, etc. They in turn redirect much of it into financial asset markets—stocks, bonds, derivatives, etc. They reap record financial profits for themselves and their owners and members, who then redirect it back into the same markets as well.

At the same time, the US tax system has been turned on its head:  More than $15 trillion in tax cuts has flowed to the investor class since 2001. That too gets largely redirected into financial markets.

Then there’s the corporate conduit itself. US corporations have redistributed more than a $ trillion dollars a year on average, every year, since 2010 to their shareholders in the form of stock buybacks and dividend payouts. Under Trump, the average for 2017-19 was $1.3 trillion a year. The deep tax cuts on capital gains since 2001 means the shareholders then get to keep more of the buybacks and dividend payouts, and that in turn means even more funneled into financial asset markets.

So the Fed’s monetary policy, the US government’s tax policy, and corporations’ buybacks-dividend practices have all converged the past two decades to keep the US and global stock markets ever rising.  But the hedge funds haven’t been the only investors grown fat on the redirecting of massive money capital to investors. Nearly all within the top 5% of the income scale—and that means the day trader crowd—have benefited as well.

The crowdsourcing ‘small guy’ has had excess money capital with which to risk in speculative trades like Gamestop no less than the hedge funds—thanks to the Fed, government, and corporate America.  Add the new technologies to the dry powder of excess speculative capital and the mix is explosive. It’s a witches brew of financial speculation!

The Realization Behind the Appearance

What appeals in this story of Gamestop is the appearance of ‘small guys’ getting screwed by the big guys even after they figure out how to ‘win one’.  The Gamestop affair is just another confirmation for John Q. Public that the system is rigged. Gamestop is an example of how those with wealth and power are able to change the rules of the game in the middle of the game to ensure they will always come out on top! And they not only do it to ‘us’. They do it to each other. The big fish always eat the smaller, even the smaller of their own species.

But one should be less concerned about day traders getting burned, and more about the tens of millions of Americans families going hungry, jobless, being evicted from their rents, and dying in the hundreds of thousands due to a failed health care system and gross government mismanagement. The day trading stock speculators will survive. Many who have no idea what a stock trade is may not.

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***

The Democratic Party and its corporate media have already white-washed Biden, and nothing will be demanded of him except that he not be Trump.

The bad orange man is now back in Florida. Donald Trump, known as “45” by people who refused to speak his name, is history. His accidental presidency is now a bad memory and the sight of him taking his last flight onboard Air Force One was a moment of relief at the very least. Unfortunately, there is too much joy and not enough analysis about his departure and the new Biden administration.

Inauguration day was of course full of pomp and ceremony but this year there was more propaganda than usual. Some of it appeared to be trivial, such as the news that former first ladies wore purple to signify unity between red and blue states. But the pro-Biden narrative is strong, so much so that a New York Times editor deviated from the rules of journalistic ethics and declared, “I have chills,” upon watching his arrival in Washington.

It was especially sad to see black people being entirely too enthusiastic about the occasion. There was excitement at the sight of the Obamas, and Michelle’s lovely outfit and a young black poet reciting her work at the event. Kamala Harris was sworn in as vice president and added a fist bump with Barack Obama to put icing on the cake.

“A New York Times editor declared, ‘I have chills.’”

Anyone who dared bring a skunk to the party and point out that the promised $2,000 stimulus was reduced to $1,400 and that no one will see this tiny amount until April, was deemed a sneering killjoy who wanted to rain on others’ parades. The lament ran along the lines of, “Can’t we be happy for one day?” Of course, individuals can be as happy as they would like but that is no reason for anyone else to censor themselves.

Joe Biden is in a position to be a very dangerous president precisely because he follows Trump. The sighs of relief give him an opportunity to get away with just about anything he wants. We have already seen the rehabilitation of George W. Bush, election thief and killer of up to 1 million Iraqis, all because he seemed nicer than Trump. Barack Obama could destroy Libya, bail out banks and claim a right to kill anyone he wanted but he had a formidable marketing team, solid support from corporate media, and the gift of knowing how to play to the crowd.

The Democratic Party and its corporate media have already white-washed Biden, a right wing senator, mediocre vice presidential sidekick, and architect of mass incarceration. They protected him as soon as it was clear the Democratic Party establishment had chosen him to be their nominee. They covered up when it was clear he was not in good health and invented a story of a stutter that no one had ever heard in his 48 years in public life. Twitter banned anyone from sharing the story of his son Hunter Biden’s lost laptop and evidence that he met with Ukrainians who were paying $50,000 a month for a no-show position at an energy company. Joe Biden has more than the secret service giving him protection.

“The sighs of relief give Biden an opportunity to get away with just about anything he wants.”

We are told that Joe is a devout Catholic who loves his wife and is a good and decent man and a loving dad. He is honorable, patriotic and even mentioned white supremacy in his inaugural speech. Of course, the United States is foundationally white supremacist but raising that point consigns one to killjoy status.

No one wants to be thought of as the party pooper but no one should want to be a chump either. The man who was supposed to save us from Trump’s COVID-19 ineptitude  now says that the disease trajectory is such that he can’t do anything about the death toll which he estimates will rise to 600,000 victims.

The for-profit health care system can’t produce enough hospital beds for the already sick or enough vaccine to prevent further harm. The 50 states have 50 different rules for inoculations. Some have run out of the vaccines while others are throwing away a supply that can no longer be used. Of course, Trump will be blamed forever and the miracle that was supposed to come with a new president is nothing but cheap talk.

Of course foreign policy hasn’t changed either. Biden will keep the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, and continue to recognize Trump’s hand picked fake Venezuelan president Juan Guaido. His nominee for secretary of state spits out the usual attacks on China with phony charges of genocide. While the Syrian government demanded that the United States stop stealing its oil , the U.S. announced that it would increase its deployment levels  in that country which wants it to go away.

Biden will be like his old boss Obama, not a lesser evil, but a more effective one. His level of effectiveness is directly tied to the support he receives from the donor class and the corporate media. The stimulus is too little too late and so is any COVID response. That is not how the story will be told, however. The Trump specter will be pulled out of the closet and cheap identity politics along with it. “Do you prefer Trump?” “Can’t you give Biden a chance?” “A black woman is the vice president!”

Let those who want to be happy at this state of affairs enjoy the moment. Although no one else should silence themselves or stop paying attention. Many crises are coming to a head, and Kamala Harris and her wardrobe choices won’t save anyone.

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Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well at patreon.com/margaretkimberley and she regularly posts on Twitter @freedomrideblog. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

Featured image is from Black Agenda Report

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With the global technocrats taking the world through the “Going Direct” Reset into the abyss of the End of Currency and the ultimate transhuman slave state, things could not be more dire.

But, as Catherine Austin Fitts of Solari.com tells us, there are options on the table for taking things in a completely different direction and unlocking the incredible abundance of the planet.

The choice is ours, but for how long? Don’t miss this important, solutions-focused discussion on The State of Our Currencies.

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Kurds, Stolen Oil, and an American Domestic Terrorist

February 1st, 2021 by Steven Sahiounie

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“YPG is a sub-affiliate of the Kurdistan’s Working Party (PKK), which is designated by the United States government as a Foreign Terrorist Organization”, according to the US justice department. 

Federal law enforcement agents arrested Daniel Baker of Tallahassee, Florida. He had specifically called for others to join him in encircling any protestors and confining them at the Florida Capitol complex on January 15 using firearms. Baker, a former US Army Airborne infantryman received an other-than-honorable discharge in 2007 after he went AWOL before his unit was to deploy to Iraq. In 2017, he joined the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish group fighting in Syria against ISIS and the Turkish government. He claimed on social media that he was a trained sniper for the YPG, who is a sub-affiliate of the Kurdistan’s Working Party (PKK), which is designated by the US as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Surprisingly, the US army has had good relations with the YPG in North-East Syria. The US provided the militia with air support and training, it has also armed and funded them since 2014. The Pentagon issued a $550-million-dollar budget in 2019, and a $200-million-dollar budget to the YPG in 2020.

The question is: how will the Biden administration explain continuing support of a Foreign Terrorist Organization, even though it was inherited from the Trump administration.

On January 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia will not “chase” the US military out from Syria or engage in hostilities, but it does engage in a dialogue with Washington, trying to ensure compliance with certain rules, while he noted that Russia is adamant about the unacceptability “of the use of force against the objects that belong to the Syrian state.”

UN Security Council Resolution 2254, adopted unanimously, demands to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of the Syrian Arab Republic. “What the US does in Syria is, of course, a blatant violation of this resolution,” the minister said, referring to the plundering of the nation’s oil resources.

“Washington’s line on blocking shipments of humanitarian aid to the Syrian Arab Republic via all possible means of blackmail and ultimatums, is a violation of this resolution, as well,” the Foreign minister noted.

While forbidding everyone from sending humanitarian aid to Syria, the US itself has “occupied significant territories on the east bank of Euphrates, and exploit mercilessly the Syrian hydrocarbons, Syrian national wealth, the rob it, sell it, and using the money gained, they fund their viceroys, including the Kurdish separatists, persuading the Kurds not to engage in a dialogue with Damascus, and promoting separatist ideas.” Lavrov further reminded all that nobody invited the Americans into Syria.

On January 18, the latest negotiations between the Kurds of North East Syria and Damascus have reached an impasse. Sponsored by Russia, the negotiations were initiated in response to the military operation launched by the Turkish-backed terrorists in December to control Ain Issa, the de facto political capital of the Kurds.

The central government of Damascus and its forces represent an option for the Kurds in the event of any Turkish threat. During the “Peace Spring” military operation, launched by Turkey in October 2019, the Kurds resorted to Russian and Syrian forces to protect them, and repel the invasion.

The Kurds attempt to hold their political capital at Ain Issa. They have an option to coordinate with Russian forces to take control of Ain Issa, which would lead to the return of the city to Damascus control, and Turkey would accept that, as long as the SDF, YPG, and all the Kurdish separatist institutions were removed.

Syrian permanent representative to the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari sent the first message to the Biden administration, newly in office. During a virtual session of the UN Security Council, Jaafari called for an immediate change in Washington’s foreign policy in Syria.

“The American occupation forces continue to plunder Syria’s wealth of oil, gas, and agricultural crops, burning and destroying what it cannot steal,” Jaafari said.

“The new US administration must stop acts of aggression and occupation, plundering the wealth of my country, withdraw its occupying forces from it, and stop supporting separatist militias, illegal entities, and attempts to threaten Syria’s sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity,” Jaafari said.

The American troops have been tasked with maintaining control over oil and gas sites, where the Trump administration sought to bring in US energy companies. The US and partnered SDF, and YPG militias, operate without permission from the Syrian government, which is backed by Russia and Iran.

Russian efforts to reconcile between the Kurdish militias and the central government in Damascus have repeatedly collapsed despite their common desire to end the war and expel a Turkish invasion headed by Radical Islamic terrorists.

 “Companies like Exxon and Chevron don’t do this kind of thing,” said James Cain, one of the three founders of the US oil company, Delta Crescent Energy. “It’s too pioneering; too adventuresome; some might say too risky,” said James Cain, the former US ambassador to Denmark. His US company wants to explore, refine and export oil from North-East Syria.

The Kurds are willing to do business with the American company, which has a rare US sanctions waiver allowing it to engage in the Syrian oil trade, obtained under the Trump administration.

The region remains at risk of attack from either Turkey or IS, and is under occupation by 900 US soldiers. The oilfields are Syrian owned resources, and the Kurds, SDF, and YPG do not have legal title to the oil, which has current output estimated at just 30,000 barrels a day.

The Kurds do not allow either the Russians or the Damascus administration direct access to the fields.

Former US President Donald Trump threatened twice to pull American soldiers out of the north-east, but reversed his decision after a backlash in Washington and has previously said troops are still there “only for the oil”, which is currently processed in thousands of hazardous makeshift refineries. Sold cut-price on the black market, it earned up to $3m a day in revenues for the SDF before the 2020s oil price crash.

President Joe Biden, and his Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, will have to ponder a new strategy on Syria.  Biden has portrayed himself as morally superior to Donald Trump.  Will Biden order the US troops to stop plundering the oil in Syria, and to disengage with a militia that has ties to the PKK, who are responsible for over 30,000 deaths from terrorist acts in Turkey spanning decades?

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

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Biden Appoints Warmongers, Military-Industrial Insiders

February 1st, 2021 by Sara Flounders

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The Senate confirmation hearings for Biden’s cabinet appointees — which began the week of Jan. 18 — should serve as a sharp warning of the continuation of dangerous U.S. war policies.

The corporate media has focused on Biden’s promise to overturn many of former-President Trump’s policies. But Biden pledged throughout his campaign to make “no substantial change” — and his foreign policy appointments show he meant that. Despite the media talk of justice, new policy and diversity, behind the scenes the same old U.S. militarist policies are being reinforced through Biden’s cabinet choices and their direct ties to industry-funded think tanks and military contractors.

Biden’s cabinet nominations follow the failed imperialist policies of the Trump, Obama, Bush Jr., Clinton and Bush Sr. administrations of the past three decades. These choices are ominous for working people in the U.S. and for people around the world suffocating under the knee of U.S. imperialism.

The appointment and testimony of war hawk Anthony Blinken, nominated to serve as secretary of state, is one of many searing examples of Biden’s militarist stance.

Blinken, in his Jan. 19 confirmation testimony, was clear that he supports expanding imperialist war in Syria, saying: “The U.S. is not doing enough.” He is for “unrelenting pressure on North Korea [the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea]” to “cut off all resources.” He is for expanded deployment of missiles to surround and pressure China. He is for new demands and continued sanctions on Iran. He supports continued efforts to overthrow the elected government of Venezuela. (Blinken’s full testimony is available at tinyurl.com/yyr7k58w.)

Blinken also testified: “Our commitment to Israel’s security is sacrosanct, and this is something that the president–elect feels very strongly.” He repeatedly praised Trump policy on normalizing relations between apartheid Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, emphasizing: “There are a number of things from where I sat that the Trump administration did beyond our borders that I would applaud.” Right-wing racist South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham called Blinken an “outstanding choice.”  (Washington Post, Jan. 19)

Military-industrial insiders

Blinken, a former deputy secretary of state under Obama, is well–known for trading on his past government positions to get lucrative consulting jobs with military contractors. Blinken co-founded WestExec Advisors, a secretive consulting firm for military industries like Boeing and for major banks and investment firms such as Bank of America and Blackstone.

WestExec has actually been called a shadow “government-in-waiting” for former Obama administration officials tied to U.S. military policy. (politico.com, Nov. 23, 2020)  It boasts on its website that its name “is derived from ‘West Executive Avenue,’ the closed street that runs between the West Wing of the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It is, quite literally, the road to the Situation Room.”

WestExec partners are former government officials, military officers and diplomats. By defining themselves as “strategic consultants,” they can avoid becoming registered lobbyists or foreign agents and can thus (re)enter government service without the one-year wait required of paid lobbyists. The clients who consult with WestExec are kept secret.

Recently confirmed Biden cabinet nominee General Lloyd Austin has been affiliated with WestExec Advisors, as well as sitting on the board of the one of the largest U.S. weapons manufacturers, Raytheon. Austin formerly served as commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and special forces in Syria. His appointment required a special waiver since by U.S. law; the secretary of defense must be a civilian.

Avril Haines, recently confirmed as Director of National Intelligence, has also been affiliated with WestExec. As the former deputy director of the CIA, Haines headed its drone program and helped create the legal justification for targeted killings as a normalized action within U.S. foreign policy. Along with assassination by drone strikes, she supported U.S. economic sanctions that attack the nutrition and health of civilian populations of entire countries.

According to Politico News, WestExec is loaded with other former top Democratic national security and foreign policy officials who raised money for the Biden campaign, have joined his transition team or have served as unofficial advisers. Many other consultants are expected to receive Biden appointments.  (tinyurl.com/y2hydkdm)

Think-tank war hawks

There are a variety of other think-tank and strategic consulting firms that provide extremely well-funded positions for government officials — both Republicans and Democrats — between government appointments. The role of these think tanks is to develop a well-vetted and experienced staff who are on-call to serve corporate power both inside government and out.

A 2020 report from the Center for International Policy found that defense contractors, as well as U.S. government national security and defense agencies, contributed more than $1 billion to 50 of the most influential U.S. think tanks over the last five years.

Other recent think-tank appointees by Biden include Kathleen Hicks as deputy secretary of defense. She served as senior vice president of CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies), the most hawkish think tank in Washington. CSIS  is funded by and acts as an “influence center” for giant military industries such as BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Hicks opposes the drawdown of U.S. troops from South Korea, Afghanistan and Syria.

Kurt Campbell — chairman of The Asia Group, a “strategy and capital advisory” think tank — has been appointed to the newly created position of National Security Council Indo-Pacific coordinator. Campbell, as the former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, was considered the architect of Obama’s “Pivot to Asia.” This was a provocative policy of repositioning missile batteries, troops and aircraft carriers to encircle China and threaten the DPRK. His new role as Biden’s “Asia Czar” is to integrate anti-China strategy and strengthen U.S. alliances in the region.

The naming of Victoria Nuland as under secretary of state is especially revealing of Biden’s militarist policy. Nuland has served as the CEO of CNAS (Center for New American Security), another well-funded military think tank. She has also been with the Albright Stonebridge Group, a think tank set up by former-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Nuland served in both the Bush-Cheney administration and the Obama-Biden administration.

Under the latter administration, as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, Nuland bragged that she helped engineer the 2014 fascist coup that overthrew the elected government of Ukraine, using $5 billion in funding from National Endowment for Democracy.

All these appointees promoted U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya;  starvation sanctions on Venezuela, Korea and Iran; and U.S. plans to reinforce NATO against Russia, surround the DPRK and especially threaten China militarily and economically.

These appointments contradict those liberal and social democratic forces who argued that Biden could be pushed into progressive policies by left pressure.

Wars abroad — and wars at home

Within 24 hours of Biden’s inauguration, a large convoy of U.S. military supported by helicopter gunships headed into Syria from Iraq, according to the SANA, the Syrian state news agency. The convoy of 40 trucks, loaded with weapons and logistical materials, reinforced illegal bases in the area.Tons of U.S. heavy equipment were observed travelling toward U.S. positions at the Conoco oil and gas field. This aggression continues the direct imperialist theft of Syria’s oil resources and is intended to disrupt Syria’s efforts to rebuild and provide for its war-torn population. (tinyurl.com/y3tor8fq)

This convoy movement showed the Biden administration’s rush to affirm its absolute commitment to ruthlessly enforce U.S. imperialist interests, within a “two-party system” unified in serving U.S. capitalism.

U.S. wars provided guaranteed profits and lucrative military contracts stretching back through decades to banks and military industries. The trillions for endless war leaves working people in the U.S. holding empty promises, while they struggle and die in the surge of the COVID-19 virus, in the grip of racist police and under the collapsing infrastructure of an economy in crisis.

The trillions spent on war for profit could easily alleviate all these crises and give health, housing and hope to the millions of U.S. working and oppressed people.

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This article was originally published on Workers World.

Featured image: Jan. 25, 2020, Philadelphia. (Joe Piette via Workers World)