Global Research

Inroduction

This short critical review explores the findings of extant research on the health risks posed by 5G technologies that emit radiofrequency radiation (RFR)1. It also provides evidence that the processes by which policy decisions have been made concerning the protection of public health may be significantly flawed, as the overwhelming body of scientific evidence appears to have been ignored by relevant government departments and agencies in arriving at decisions about the introduction of 5G. This lacuna comes about due to the over-reliance on expert opinion from the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), an NGO whose members have traditionally had close ties to industry. It is significant that the UK government and its agencies neither sought nor obtained independent scientific advice on a matter of importance to public health. Consequently, it failed in its duty to identify, assess,and mitigate the risks posed by RFR-based technologies before their introduction, specifically 5G networking and related technologies, thereby protecting public health.

The COVID-19 War in Japan: Is National Face-Saving More Important than the People’s Lives?

By Prof. Joseph H. Chung, June 09, 2020

The bad choice of policy priority was shown with the arrival of the cruiser Diamond Princess on February 3 in Yokohama Bay. This seems to have disturbed much Abe’s government.

There were already unknown infections cumulated up in January and, now, there were 3,711 individuals on the cruiser without knowing how many were infected among the passengers and the crew.

SouthFront Is Censored Under Cover of Pandemic

By Rick Sterling, June 09, 2020

The censorship has been accompanied by a parallel disinformation campaign promoted by corporate, governmental and establishment “think tank” organizations.  This is in the context where the US State Department’s  Global Engagement Center (GEC) has a direct liaison with Silicon Valley companies and teams focused on “countering the propaganda” from Russia, China and Iran with a current budget of $60 million per year.

A Pipelineistan Fable for Our Times

By Pepe Escobar, June 09, 2020

Once upon a time in Pipelineistan, tales of woe were the norm. Shattered dreams littered the chessboard – from IPI vs. TAPI in the AfPak realm to the neck-twisting Nabucco opera in Europe.

In sharp contrast, whenever China entered the picture, successful completion prevailed. Beijing financed a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Xinjiang, finished in 2009, and will profit from two spectacular Power of Siberia deals with Russia.

The Six-Day War: The Myth of an Israeli David Versus an Arab Goliath

By Miko Peled, June 09, 2020

June 2, 1967, was a tense day at the Israeli army headquarters in Tel Aviv. For weeks, IDF generals had been pushing the government to initiate a war and the atmosphere was tense. Israel’s Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who also acted as minister of defense, came to see the generals at the IDF command center. All the generals who made up the IDF high command were present. This meeting became known as the showdown. Years later, some would even accuse the army of an attempted coup d’etat.

Palestinian Lives Matter: Huge Jewish-Arab Rally in Tel Aviv Decries Netanyahu’s Plan to Annex 1/3 of West Bank

By Prof. Juan Cole, June 09, 2020

The crowds shouted slogans against the annexation plan, against the continuing Occupation and depriving Palestinians of basic rights, and against last week’s killing of an autistic Palestinian man by Israeli border guards in East Jerusalem. Many in the crowd also accused Netanyahu of destroying Israeli democracy.

Camouflage: How the Israeli Left Continues to Hoodwink Us with Corrupted Slogans

By Rima Najjar, June 08, 2020

When White supremacists in the U.S. adopted the “All Lives Matter” slogan, everyone quickly understood that the use of it was intended to denigrate the “Black Lives Matter” slogan. The Zionist embrace of “Palestinian Lives Matter” is also a denigration. Palestinian lives suddenly matter to them now only out of fear that Israel’s impending annexation of parts of the West Bank means the end of Zionism and will allow the world to understand the true supremacist nature of the state, which at heart is: “only Jewish lives matter”.

The Gaza Strip Under Israeli Military Siege

By Dr. Zuhair Sabbagh, June 08, 2020

In accordance with International Law, both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, i.e. the Palestinian Territories, are considered occupied territories. It has been agreed upon by the international community, including its astounding legal experts, that the proper legal tools that are applicable in cases of belligerent occupation, are the 1907 Hague Regulations, the 1949 Four Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I, and customary international humanitarian law.

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The performance of Shinzo Abe in the war against the corona virus has been less than poor.  

Abe is blamed for having put the policy priority to the Olympics and Abenomics over human life.

The Japanese people have the legendary docility and they seldom protest government policies.

But, this time, the life of each Japanese person is threatened. Would they continue their docility and silence?

In this paper I will do the following.

First, I will discuss the problems of Abe’s handling of the COVID-19. I argue that Abe made two errors, namely the missing of the golden time and mismanagement of the whole process of fighting the virus.

Second, I will see the nature and the depth of the ordinary Japanese people’s dissatisfaction with Abe’s government’s handling of the corona-virus crisis.

Third, I am asking myself how much longer the ordinary Japanese people will tolerate the corruption of the right-wing establishment, risk the restoration of the pre-1945 military imperial Japan and the ruin of the national economy which Abenomics could not prevent.

The COVID-19 Crisis and Abe’s Policy Failure

From the mid January 2020, the cases of the infected were observed in several prefectures. The government was aware of this trend and began to prepare anti-virus measures.

On January 30, the government established the Novel Corona Virus Response Headquarters under the Task Force headed by the Deputy Chief Secretary of the Cabinet, Okita Yoshiki with high ranking government officials who were far from being experts in the field of infectious diseases.

On February 6, the medical tests and consulting system was established. On February 16, Abe held the first meeting with the experts.

And, the criteria of testing were the fever of 37.5 C for four days and pronounced fatigue. This criterion was largely criticized as being too restrictive to find out the extents of infections.

In fact, a good part of infected is not symptomatic, that is, there are no visible signs of infections. In some studies, the asymptotic cases represent as much as 80% of the infections.

On February 25, Abe announced concrete anti-virus measures consisting of home quarantine and social distancing. These measures required that those who were of high risk should not go the hospital for treatment and they should get the prescription through phones.

Thus, Abe’s government was well aware of the crisis by creating needed institutions, but the trouble was that these institutions could not do their expected functions.

The basic problem of Abe’s anti-virus measures may be characterized in terms of the choice of wrong policy priority, bad planning and poor coordination.

The bad choice of policy priority was shown with the arrival of the cruiser Diamond Princess on February 3 in Yokohama Bay. This seems to have disturbed much Abe’s government.

There were already unknown infections cumulated up in January and, now, there were 3,711 individuals on the cruiser without knowing how many were infected among the passengers and the crew.

But, 13 individuals infected were allowed to leave the ship without tests; they were allowed to use public transportation facilities. If these 13 individuals were infected in addition to unknown infected persons on the land who had not been quarantined, they could have transmitted the virus to a huge number of individuals.

Suppose that there are 100 persons infected and that the multiplier of virus propagation, Ro is 2 and that the transmission period is three days. It means that the number of infected doubles every three days.

On Day 1, we have 100 infected; on Day 3, we have 200 infected; on Day 6, we have 400 infected; on Day 9, we have 800 infected; on Day 12, we have 1,600 infected. Nobody knows how many persons were infected in Japan by February 3, the day of the cruiser’s arrival in Yokohama Bay.

But, one thing sure was that the government should have better managed the situation on the board of the cruiser and made suitable planning of the anti-virus war.

Speaking about the government’s handling of the Diamond Princess cruiser, Iwata Kentaro of Kobe University a specialist on infectious diseases was known to have evaluated the cruiser handling as “the violation of all elementary principles of dealing with infectious diseases”.

The fundamental question is about Abe’s perception of the corona virus crisis. Professor Iwata Kentaro was quoted to have said that “the leaders’ sense of entitlement was breeding indifference to the crisis and incompetence in dealing with the crisis” (1)

Koichi Nakano of Sophia University was quoted to have said:

“The Abe government has approached this crisis first as and foremost economic crisis and government public relation crisis rather than an epidemiological crisis.” (2)

This was clearly shown by the nomination of Yasutoshi Nishimura, minister of economic rehabilitation, as minister of corona virus counter measures. Abe was concerned with the salvaging what was left of his Abenomics.

The most important issue for Abe was the opening of the July Olympics, which was threatened by the corona virus crisis.

For Abe, the Olympics Game was a sort of saviour for him and for his government. It could be redemption for the failure of Abenomics; Abe was hoping to have tens of billions of billion dollars of income through Olympics related tourism; there was huge expected income from the rights of TV diffusions. The huge multiplier effects of employment and income deriving from the construction of facilities would have been considerable

For Abe, the Olympics Game was something perhaps more important than the economic and financial bonanza; it was also the question of “saving face of Japan.”

Japan was losing face because of the three-decade economic deflation, the mishandling of the 2011 triple disasters of earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear melt-down in addition to disappointing treatment received from Trump and the “Japan-passing” in the North-Korean peace dialogue.

So, it was more difficult for Abe to give up the Olympics, In fact, he waited until March 24th, before he postponed it for July 2021.

In the meantime, for more than three months from January to mid March had passed and the number of infected could have increased beyond our imagination; nobody knows how many, but it could be several tens of thousands, may be, more than hundred thousand, given the total population of 127 million inhabitants.

In fact, there are some experts who think that the total number of the infected could be 8 times of the reported cases of infections, if the testing campaign were more aggressive.

Nevertheless, Abe waited until April 7 before he declared the state of emergency for Tokyo and six surrounding prefectures. The world could not understand Abe’s way of handling the crisis.

Professor Koichi Nakano of Sophia University said this.

“Abe seemed generally reluctant to call the state of emergency, so may be out of fear of further damaging the economy, he dragged his feet too long, but he had no choice but to accept the outbreak which is now out of control.” (3)

Thus, Abe missed the golden opportunity to save Japanese lives most likely because of his concern about his Abenomics and the interests of his corporate friends.

Abe has been criticized for the wrong timing of the closing of schools in February without proper planning and coordinating.

Abe was widely criticized for the terribly sub-standard face masks which were suspected to have been produced by incompetent company close to the establishment.

But, Abe’s failure the most criticized was the poor testing. As of May 3, the number of tests in Japan was 1.3 per 1,000 people as against 12.0 for South Korea and 18.0 for the United States.

And the number of cases of infections, as of May 3, was 15,789 to increase to 16,779 as of June 3. The number of death rose from 549 to 900 in the same period.

It is the generalized view that the number of cases and deaths are low, simply because the number of tests is low. Abe tries to justify the low level of tests by evoking the poor reliability of the test kits, the lack of hospital facilities to deal with a large number of cases.

Such arguments are not very convincing, because Japan has been boasting about the high quality of the public health system.

The Voice of the Ordinary Japanese

One of the sad aspects of the corona virus crisis is the Japanese people’s impression that Abe attaches greater importance to money and the glory of his “New Japan” than to human life.

The ordinary Japanese have been enduring the decades-long economic deflation, shrinking value of income, decreasing real jobs, the wide spread corruption of the establishment of the Japanese society and suffering of the elderly from hunger and social alienation.

But, now, they might have had enough; the life of each Japanese man, women and child is threatened. This is a new experience; they are frightened. They might have decided not to accept the loss of human life for Abenomics and Japan’s Face-Saving.

In fact, they seem to have given up their legendary docility and have decided to open up their mind; they seem to liberate themselves from the pejorative image of “docile sheep”.

The following is the results of the poll conducted by Mainichi Shimbum in collaboration of a research partner on May 8, 2020.

Evaluation of the government and political parties

Do you support the current administration in Japan led by Abe?

• No (45%);
• Yes (40%)

Which political party do you support?

• LDP (30%),
• the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) (9%),
• Nippon Innovation Party (11%),
• four other minor political parties (below 5 %)

It is interesting to notice that while 40% of the poll respondents support the government, only 30% support the Liberal Demographic Party (LDP) led by Abe. This seems to show that Abe is losing people’s support. In the past, LDP used to have 70% popular support.

Evaluation of the COVID-19 policies 

Do you think that the declaration of state of emergency in the area you live can be lifted by the end of May?

• No (46%),
• Yes (36%)

Do you feel uneasy about Japan’s medical and testing system in relation to novel corona-virus?

• Yes (68%);
• Not uneasy (14%)

How do you evaluate the administration’s response to novel corona virus?

• Negatively (48%);
• Positively (22%)

As many as 46% of the respondents believe that the state of emergency will not be lifted, while it has been lifted.

This means that Abe has ignored the people’s fear. Such fear seems to come from their mistrust in the medical and the testing system. As a matter of fact, 68% do not feel easy with the system. All in all, 48% of the respondents evaluate negatively the government response to corona virus.

Japanese people’s docility 

Since the declaration of the state of emergency did you go out of home?

• Not at all (15%);
• went out for essential needs such as works and shopping (82%)

How much have your own direct contacts with other people declined since the declaration of the state of emergency?

• Declined by 80% (56%);
• by at least 20% (26%)

The respondents’ responses to these questions seem to reflect that the Japanese people respect the government instruction of self quarantine and social distancing.

Since the declaration of the state of emergency 15% did not go out all, while 82% went out for essential missions.

On the other hand, as many as 80% of the respondents say that, since the declaration of the state of emergency, the contact with other people declined by 56%.

These poll results seem to lead to two conclusions. First, the Japanese people are not happy with the way the government has been handling the corona-virus crisis.

Second, even if they are not satisfied with the whole system of public health and government reactive policies, the Japanese people could have saved many lives by virtue of self quarantines, social distancing, saluting by bowing instead of shaking hands, frequent hand washing and the culture of wearing face masks.

However, nobody knows how many lives have been saved by the Japanese docility and popular culture. It is more than certain that the real number of the infected and the corona-virus related death could be much higher than the reported figures.

There is a theory saying that the government does not report the true figures of infections and deaths, even if it has the true data, in order not to make the people feel insecure.

But, this theory does not seem defendable, because each individual having the risk of being infected should be eager to know the truth. Anyway, by the end of June, the true picture might emerge. 

What will happen to the Japanese Culture of Docility and Harmony?

A part of my education took place in Korea under the Japanese rule. I used to admire the docility, the obedience to authorities, strict disciplines and the quest for harmony of the Japanese people.

On the other hand, I was sad to see that the great majority of the Japanese people had to suffer from decades-long war without much complaining; it was difficult for me to see the Japanese families sending their fathers, sons, brothers to Kamikaze fighter planes.

I was wondering for whom the war was? I was wondering who was benefitting from the war?

Was it for the people or for the glory of a few ambitious political and military leaders who had the illusion of conducting the “holy war of liberating Asia from the White”?

Even now, I see, in front of my eyes, the poor Japanese children and the elders starving to death on the street of Tokyo and other Japanese cities in 1944 and 1945.

The Japanese people thought, since the Hiroshima and the Nagasaki, that they would enjoy peace, prosperity, the end of Kempeitai (cruel military police) and ordinary people-friendly government.

In short, they were hoping a decent and human society in which even the ordinary people can enjoy. But the ordinary Japanese people have been denied of such world.

History tells us that, if a single political force rules the country for very long period, the probability of corruption of the political establishment, the abuse of power and the alienation of the week increases. This has happened in Japan.

One of the amazing political scenes in Japan is the one in which one political party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ruled, since 1957, 57 years out of 63 years, or 91% of the period.

During this period, Japan had 21 prime ministers. The longevity of Japanese prime ministers has been as follows:  1-year PMs: 4;  2-year PMs: 11;  3-year PMs: 2;  5-year PMs: 2;  8-year PM:1; 10-year PM:1

Shinzo Abe has been prime minister for 10 years (2006-2007 and 2012-2020).

Yasuhiro Nakasone (1982-1987) and Junichiro Koizumi (2001-2006) were two 5-year prime ministers.

Abe’s maternal grandfather, Nobuske Kishi (1957-60) and Hayato Ikeda (1961-64) were two 3-year prime ministers.

The instability of the Japanese government is well reflected by the fact that 71.4 % of prime ministers since 1957 were 1-year or 2-year prime ministers.

The excessive instability of the Japanese government was attributable partly to the different term for the party presidency (3 years for LDP) and the term of prime minister (4 years). The prime minister is the president of the party in power; this can create confusion.

However, the more important reason for the instability could be the never ending corruption of the political leaders. In fact, many of them killed themselves or lost the position of prime minister because of corruption.

One of the notorious scandals was the Recruit Scandal in which 70 lawmakers bought, in 1988, the stock of a company before its listing and made fortune. There were savage sex offenses at night clubs by lawmakers of the LDP. The bribery scandals of construction industry has been a part of the corruption culture of the establishment.

The land dealing scandal in which the first lady was involved was related to the acquisition of public land for a small portion of the land’s market price; the land was for the establishment of a Meiji-era inspired ultra-right primary school, Moritomo Gakuen.

The scandal which made the Japanese the very angry was the scandal of prolonging the tenure of the Tokyo chief prosecutor, Hiromu Kurokawa, from 63 years to 65 years.

The chief prosecutor is a strong supporter of Abe, who needed the prosecutor in order to use the Bureau of Prosecutor for Abe’s political purpose including the silencing of the voice of objections to his ambitions.

For the first time, 4 million twitters of the ordinary Japanese people emerged to protest Abe’s hidden intention. It happened that Kurokawa played, for money, the illegal “mahjong” game and he resigned.

There is a close correlation between the length of power and the extent of the corruption culture. As we saw, out of 63 years since 1957, the year of the creation of LDP by Abe’s grandfather, it ruled Japan for 57 years, that is, 91% of the period.

Such long period of power leads necessarily to the creation of the corruption culture dominated by big business, bureaucrats and politicians. This group begins with money-power collusion, then the creation of the oligarchy and eventually the creation of corruption culture.

Once you come to the era of the corruption culture, it is very difficult to get rid of it. We have seen it in South Korea under the 58-year rule by the conservative governments since 1948, that is, 81% of the period, 1948-2020.

The most disastrous effect of the corruption culture is this. The core of the culture is the monetary-political establishment whose interest is the maximization of the interests of the establishment at the expense of those of the ordinary people.

The nomination and the expulsion of prime ministers are most likely determined by the establishment. Many of the short-term prime ministers are those who might have done something which he establishment did not like.

Under this situation, the economic prosperity has not been very beneficial to the ordinary Japanese. One of the popular descriptions of Japan since the 1980s was “the country is rich but, the ordinary people are poor.”

There is another political phenomenon which makes the Japanese people worried and insecure; it is the Abe group’s dream of restoring the pre-1945 military imperial empire of Japan.

Abe’s decades-long ambition has been the amendment of the Peace Constitution, in particular, Article 9, which prevents Japan from making offensive wars. His group proposes even the way Hitler changed the Weimer Constitution by force.

The statement of the deputy prime minister who was also foreign minister, Taro Aso, showed how much the Abe team admired the Nazi constitution.

“German’s Weimer constitution was changed into Nazi constitution before anyone knew. It was changed before anyone else notices. Why don’t we learn from that method?” (4)

There was also the State Secret Act adopted in 2013 designed to silence the voices of objection. This Act has the following characteristics.

• Civil servant who leaks state secrets can be imprisoned up to 10 years.
• Civilians and journalists who reveal state secrets may be imprisoned up to 5 years.
• It is the government which defines what should be state secrets

To restore the old Japanese empire, Abe has to silence the voice of objection. Abe has made the NHK (Japan’s national TV) into “Ave TV.”

The Japanese people have endured all these realities; they have suffered from 3-decade long economic deflation; they have had to watch helplessly how Abenomics could not find the solution.

As a matter of fact, Abenomcs has failed. The fiscal arrow and the monetary arrow have hit the wrong targets. The fiscal arrow has increased the national debt to 253% of GDP. The monetary arrow had inundated cash, in the name of QE (quantity easing), in the financial institutions without really connecting the money to the real economy, the good-producing economy.

The real arrow was the third arrow of structural adjustment. This policy means the strengthening of the industries by not bailing out the hopeless big companies. Most of the monetary and fiscal resources have been used for the bailout of businesses close to LDP.

The Japanese people have endured all these hardship caused by wrong policies. Yet, they have not gone down to the streets to protest.

They did once for the antiwar movement in 1969. In 2011, more than 300 civic organizations made street demonstration against the government mishandling of the triple disasters of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meld-down.

But, they could not continue, because of the lack of sustained backing of political forces.

However, Abe’s choice of the glory of New Japan (neo-military and imperial Japan) at the expense of simple happiness of simple people might lead to the open protests against Abe’s political forces.

The simple happiness of simple Japanese is peace, more equal distribution of the fruits of economic development and a little better social status recognized and respected by the elite group.

To do this, they need strong opposition parties. But, there are too many small political parties and the Abe’s LDP is too strong and still popular.

However, if united, the ordinary Japanese people can change things.

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Professor Joseph H. Chung is professor of Economics and co-director of the Observatoire de l’Asie de l’Est (OAE) of the Centre d’Études sur l’Intégration et la Mondialisation (CEIM), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Notes

(1) thedailybeast.com/japans-covid-19-state-of-emergency-locks-down-criticism

(2) Ibid

(3) theguardian.cm/world/2920/apeil/09/dash-loom-in-japan-as-tokyo-governor-says-abe-covid-mesures-not-enough)

(4) thedeadlybeast.com/japan-shinzo-abe-government-has-a-thing-about-hitler-it likes-him

Introducing SouthFront

Where do you find daily news, videos, analysis and maps about the conflict in Syria?  Detailed reports about the conflicts in Libya, Yemen and Venezuela?  News about the rise of ISIS in Mozambique?  Original analysis of events in the US and Russia?  SouthFront is the place.

SouthFront is unique and influential, reaching a global audience of hundreds of thousands. They have  opinion articles but their reports and videos are informational and factual. Their website says,

“SouthFront focuses on issues of international relations, armed conflicts and crises…. We try to dig out the truth on issues which are barely covered by the states concerned and the mainstream media.”

Censorship by Facebook and YouTube

A major disinformation and censorship drive against SouthFront was recently launched.  On April 30 the SouthFront Facebook account with about 100,000 subscribers was deleted without warning or notice.

On May 1,  SouthFront’s main YouTube account with over 150 thousand subscribers was terminated. The English language channel had 1,900 uploaded videos with 60 million views over the past 5 years.

While the SouthFront website continues as before, the above actions remove important distribution channels which SouthFront has painstakingly built up.

The censorship has been accompanied by a parallel disinformation campaign promoted by corporate, governmental and establishment “think tank” organizations.  This is in the context where the US State Department’s  Global Engagement Center (GEC) has a direct liaison with Silicon Valley companies and teams focused on “countering the propaganda” from Russia, China and Iran with a current budget of $60 million per year.

In a March 2020 hearing, Senator Chris Murphy (D – Conn) lobbied for increased funding and more censorship. He said, “It’s hard to chase one lie after another. You have to actually go after the source and expose the source as illegitimate or untrustworthy, is that right?” Lea Gabrielle, head of GEC, responded “That’s correct.”

When the Senator says “it’s hard to chase one lie after another“, he is acknowledging that it’s often hard to show that it’s a lie. Even more so when it is not a lie. It is much easier for the authorities to simply say the source is untrustworthy- or better yet to eliminate them – as they have tried to do with SouthFront.

False Accusations by Facebook

The elimination of SouthFront’s Facebook account was based on a Facebook sponsored investigation titled “April 2020 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report”.  The 28 page report says,

“We’re constantly working to find and stop coordinated campaigns that seek to manipulate public debate across our platforms….We view influence operations as coordinated efforts to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal where fake accounts are central to the operation…. This month we removed eight networks of accounts, Pages and Groups….. Our investigation linked this activity to … two media organizations in Crimea – News Front and SouthFront. We found this network as part of our internal investigation into suspected coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

First, SouthFront is not trying to “manipulate public debate”; they are providing news and information which is difficult if not impossible to find elsewhere.  It seems to be the censors who are trying to manipulate debate by shutting out some voices.

Second, SouthFront does not have “fake accounts”; they have a public website plus standard social media outlets like Facebook and YouTube (until cancelled). Third, SouthFront has no connection to NewsFront nor operations in Crimea.

NewsFront and SouthFront are completely different organizations. They share the name “Front” but that is irrelevant. Does Facebook confuse the New York Times with Moscow Times?  After all, they both have “Times” in their title.

Facebook has shut down SouthFront on the basis of misinformation and smears.

False Accusations by DFRLab

The  Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) was created by the Atlantic Council, a “non partisan organization that galvanizes US global leadership”. It is another organization which is quick to label alternative foreign policy voices as “Russian propaganda”. DFRLab claims to have “operationalized the study of disinformation by exposing falsehoods and fake news”. They reported the censorship of SouthFront with a report titled “Facebook removes Russian propaganda outlet in Ukraine” with subtitle “The social network took down assets connected to News Front and SouthFront, propaganda websites supportive of Russian security services”.  They reported that the two “demonstrated a close relationship by liking each other’s pages.” As anyone who uses Facebook is aware, it is common to “like” a wide variety of articles and publications. The suggestion that “liking” an article proves a close relationship is silly.

The DFRLab  report says News Front and SouthFront “disseminated pro-Kremlin propaganda in an array of languages, indicating they were attempting to reach a diverse, international audience beyond Russia.”

First, NewsFront and SouthFront are completely distinct and separate organizations.  Second, is there anything unusual about a website trying to expand and reach different audiences? Don’t all publications or outlets do that?  This is a tactic of the new censors: to portray normal behavior as sinister.

Another censorship tactic is to assert that it is impermissible to question the veracity of certain findings.  Thus DFRLab report says NewsFront posted “outright disinformation” when it published a story that “denied the culpability of Russian-backed separatists’ involvement in the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines MH-17”.  They suggest this proves it is Russian propaganda and false. However, the facts about the downing of MH-17 are widely disputed. For example. one of the foremost American investigative journalists, the late Robert Parry, came to the same conclusion that the MH-17 investigation was manipulated and the shoot-down was probably NOT as portrayed. Parry did many articles on this important event, confirming that it is not “Russian propaganda”.

The Atlantic Council is one of the most influential US “think tanks”. It appears they have created the DFRLab as a propaganda tool to disparage and silence the sources of alternative information and analysis.

Disinformation by European Council “Task Force”   

The goals and priorities of the European Union are set by the European Council.  They are also increasingly active in suppressing alternative information and viewpoints.

In 2015 the European Council created a East StratCom Task Force to “address Russia’s ongoing disinformation campaigns”. Their major project is called EUvsDISINFO. They say,

“Using data analysis and media monitoring services in 15 languages, EUvsDISINFO identifies, compiles, and exposes disinformation cases originating in pro-Kremlin media.”

This organization is part of the disinformation campaign against SouthFront. In April 2019 they published an analysis “SouthFront – Russia Hiding Being Russian“. The story falsely claims that SouthFront “attempts to hide the fact it is registered and managed in Russia.”  The SouthFront team is international and includes Russians along with numerous other nationalities. Key spokespersons  are a Bulgarian, Viktor Stoilov, and an American, Brian Kalman. They do not hide the fact that the website is registered in Russia or that PayPal donations go to an account in Russia. The website is hosted by a service in Holland. It is genuinely international.

EUvsDISINFO demonstrates disinformation tactic of falsely claiming to have “exposed” something that is “hidden” when it is public information. There is nothing sinister about collaboration between different nationalities including Russia. EUvsDISINFO suggests there are sinister “pro-Kremlin networks”.  In reality, SouthFront is a website run by a dedicated and underpaid staff and lots of volunteers.  While the European Council gives millions of dollars to EUvsDISINFO, SouthFront operates on a tiny budget without government support from Russia or anywhere else.

False accusations by US Department of Defense

On April 9,  the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Laura Cooper, spoke at a press briefing.  She identifies SouthFront by name and accuses them of “reporting that there actually was no pandemic and that some deaths in Italy might in fact have been from the common flu”.

The first accusation is because of the SouthFront article “Pandemic of Fear”. In contrast with the accusation, the article says, “The COVID-19 outbreak is an apparent threat which cannot be ignored.”  The article also discusses the much less reported but widespread pandemic of fear.

The second false accusation is regarding the high death toll in Italy. SouthFront reported the findings of a report from the Italian Ministry of Health which suggested the previous mild winter and flu season had “led to an increase in the pool of those most vulnerable (the elderly and those with chronic illnesses) that can increase the impact of the epidemic COVID-19 on mortality and explain, at least in part, the increased lethality observed in our country.” This is very different than saying the deaths were caused by the common flu. In any case, the findings came directly from Italian health authorities not SouthFront.

In the same press conference, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense says she wishes to “reign in malign actors that are spreading misleading disruptive information”.   The censors claim the higher ground but engage in misinformation and falsehoods as they seek to silence discussion and debate.

Conclusion

There is a coordinated effort to manipulate and restrict what the public sees and hears in both North America and Europe.  Under the guise of “fact checking” and stopping “Russian propaganda”, the establishment has created private and government sponsored  censors to distort and diminish  questioning media.  They label alternative media “Russian” or “pro Kremlin” even though many of the researchers and writers are from the West and have no connection or dependency on the Russian government.

SouthFront is an example of a media site doing important and original reporting and analysis.  It is truly international with offices in several countries. The staff and volunteers include people from four continents. The censorship and vilification they are facing seems to be because they are providing information and analysis which contradicts the western mainstream narrative.

In recent developments, SouthFront is posting videos to a secondary YouTube channel called SouthFront TV. When that was also taken down on May 16, they challenged the ruling and won. The channel was restored with the acknowledgment “We have confirmed that your YouTube account is not in violation of our Terms of Service.”

SouthFront is still trying to have their main channel with 152K subscribers restored. Their Facebook account is still shut down and attempts to disparage their journalism continues. The censorship has escalated during the Covid19 crisis.

 

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Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be reached at [email protected].

From their front porches, regular citizens watched a cordon of cops sweep down their peaceful street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Rankled at being filmed, the cops exceeded their authority and demanded that people go inside their houses. When some of them didn’t obey quickly enough, the order — one heard so many times in the streets of Iraqi cities and in the villages of Afghanistan — was issued: “Light ’em up.” And so “disobedient” Americans found themselves on the receiving end of non-lethal rounds for the “crime” of watching the police from those porches.

It’s taken years from Ferguson to this moment, but America’s cops have now officially joined the military as “professional” warriors. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder on May 25th, those warrior-cops have taken to the streets across the country wearing combat gear and with attitudes to match. They see protesters, as well as the reporters covering them, as the enemy and themselves as the “thin blue line” of law and order.

The police take to bashing heads and thrashing bodies, using weaponry so generously funded by the American taxpayer: rubber bullets, pepper spray (as Congresswoman Joyce Beatty of Ohio experienced at a protest), tear gas (as Episcopal clergy experienced at a demonstration in Washington, D.C.), paint canisters, and similar “non-lethal” munitions, together with flash-bang grenades, standard-issue batons, and Tasers, even as they drive military-surplus equipment like Humvees and MRAPs. (Note that such munitions blinded an eye of one photo-journalist.) A Predator drone even hovered over at least one protest.

Who needs a military parade, President Trump? Americans are witnessing militarized “parades” across the U.S.A. Their theme: violent force. The result: plenty of wounded and otherwise damaged Americans left in their wake. The detritus of America’s foreign wars has finally well and truly found its place on Main Street, U.S.A.

Cops are to blame for much of this mayhem. Video clips show them wildly out of control, inciting violence and inflicting it, instead of defusing and preventing it. Far too often, “to serve and protect” has become “to shoot and smack down.” It suggests the character of Eric Cartman from the cartoon South Park, a boy inflamed by a badge and a chance to inflict physical violence without accountability. “Respect my authoritah!” cries Cartman as he beats an innocent man for no reason.

So, let’s point cameras — and fingers — at these bully-boy cops, let’s document their crimes, but let’s also state a fact with courage: it’s not just their fault.

Who else is to blame? Well, so many of us. How stupid have we been to celebrate cops as heroes, just as we’ve been foolishly doing for so long with the U.S. military? Few people are heroes and fewer still deserve “hero” status while wearing uniforms and shooting bullets, rubber or otherwise, at citizens.

Answer me this: Who granted cops a specially-modified U.S. flag to celebrate “blue lives matter,” and when exactly did that happen, and why the hell do so many people fly these as substitute U.S. flags? Has everyone forgotten American history and the use of police (as well as National Guard units) to suppress organized labor, keep blacks and other minorities in their place, intimidate ordinary citizens protesting for a cleaner environment, or whack hippies and anti-war liberals during the Vietnam War protests?

Or think of what’s happening this way: America’s violent overseas wars, thriving for almost two decades despite their emptiness, their lack of meaning, have finally and truly come home. An impoverished empire, in which violence and disease are endemic, is collapsing before our eyes. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” America’s self-styled wartime president promised, channeling a racist Miami police chief from 1967. It was a declaration meant to turn any American who happened to be near a protest into a potential victim.

As such demonstrations proliferate, Americans now face a grim prospect: the chance to be wounded or killed, then dismissed as “collateral damage.” In these years, that tried-and-false military euphemism has been applied so thoughtlessly to innumerable innocents who have suffered grievously from our unending foreign wars and now it’s coming home.

How does it feel, America?

The End of Citizen-Soldiers, the End of Citizen-Cops

I joined the military in 1981, signing up in college for the Reserve Officer Training Corps, or ROTC. I went on active duty in 1985 and served for 20 years, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. I come from a family of firefighters and cops. My dad and older brother were firefighters, together with my brother-in-law and nephew. My niece and her husband are cops and my sister worked for her local police department for years. My oldest friend, a great guy I’ve known for half a century, recently retired as a deputy sheriff. I know these people because they’re my people.

Many cops — I’d say most — are decent people. But dress almost any cop in combat gear, cover him or her in armor like a stormtrooper out of Star Wars, then set all of them loose on the streets with a mandate to restore “LAW & ORDER,” as our president tweeted, and you’re going to get stormtrooper-like behavior.

Sure, I’d wager that more than a few cops enjoy it, or at least it seems that way in the videos captured by so many. But let’s remind ourselves that the cops, like the rest of America’s systems of authority, are a product of a sociopolitical structure that’s inherently violent, openly racist, deeply flawed, and thoroughly corrupted by money, power, greed, and privilege. In such a system, why should we expect them to be paragons of virtue and restraint? We don’t recruit them that way. We don’t train them that way. Indeed, we salute them as “warriors” when they respond to risky situations in aggressive ways.

Here’s my point: When I put on a military uniform in 1985, I underwent a subtle but meaningful change from a citizen to a citizen-airman. (Note how “citizen” still came first then.) Soon after, however, the U.S. military began telling me I was something more than that: I was a warrior. And that was a distinct and new identity for me, evidently a tougher, more worthy one than simply being a citizen-airman. That new “warrior” image and the mystique that grew up around it was integral to, and illustrative of, the beginning of a wider militarization of American culture and society, which exploded after the 9/11 attacks amid the “big-boy pants” braggadocio of the administration of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney as they set out to remake the world as an American possession.

Why all the “warrior” BS? Why “Generation Kill” (one of those memorable phrases of the post-9/11 era)? Was it to give us a bit more spine or something to rally around after the calamity of those attacks on iconic American targets, or perhaps something to take pride in after so many disastrous wars over the last 75 years? It took me a while to answer such questions. Indeed, it took me a while to grasp that such questions were almost beside the point. Because all this warrior talk, whether applied to the military or the cops, is truly meant to separate us from the American people, to link us instead to wider systems of impersonal authority, such as the military-industrial-congressional complex.

By “elevating” us as warriors, the elites conspired to reduce us as citizens, detaching us from a citizen’s code of civics and moral behavior. By accepting the conceit of such an identity, we warriors and former warriors became, in a sense, foreign to democracy and ever more divorced from the citizenry. We came to form foreign legions, readily exploitable in America’s endless imperial-corporate wars, whether overseas or now here.

(Notice, by the way, how, in the preceding paragraphs, I use “we” and “us,” continuing to identify with the military, though I’ve been retired for 15 years. On rereading it, I thought about revising that passage, until I realized that was precisely the point: a career military officer is, in some way, always in the military. The ethos is that strong. The same is true of cops.)

In 2009, I first asked if the U.S. military had become an imperial police force. In 2020, we need to ask if our police are now just another branch of that military, with our “homeland” serving as the empire to be conquered and exploited. That said, let’s turn to America’s cops. They’re now likely to identify as warriors, too, and indeed many of them have served in America’s violent and endless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. These days, they’re ever more likely to identify as well with authority, as defined and exercised by the elites for whom they serve as hired guns.

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, the warrior-mercenary mindset of the police has been fully exposed. For what was Floyd’s great “crime”? At worst, if true, an attempt at petty theft through forgery. He’d lost his job due to the Covid-19 crisis and, like most of us, was lucky if he saw a one-time check for $1,200, even as the rich and powerful enjoyed trillions of dollars in relief.

Rarely are the police sent to prosecute scofflaws in high places. I haven’t seen any bankers being choked to death on the street under an officer’s knee.  Nor have I seen any corporate “citizens” being choked to death by cops. It’s so much easier to hassle and arrest the little people for whom, if they’re black or otherwise vulnerable, arrest may even end in death.

By standing apart from us, militarized, a thin blue line, the police no longer stand with us.

A friend of mine, an Air Force retired colonel, nailed it in a recent email to me: “I used to — maybe not enjoy but — not mind talking to the police. It was the whole ‘community partners’ thing. Growing up and through college, you just waved at cops on patrol (they’d wave back!). Over the last five years, all I get is cops staring back in what I imagine they think is an intimidating grimace. They say nothing when you say hello. They are all in full ‘battle rattle’ even when directing traffic.”

When military “battle rattle” becomes the standard gear for street cops, should we be that surprised to hear the death rattle of black men like George Floyd?

Speaking Truth to Power Isn’t Nearly Enough

Perhaps you’ve heard the saying “speaking truth to power.” It’s meant as a form of praise. But a rejoinder I once read captures its inherent limitations: power already knows the truth — and I’d add that the powerful are all too happy with their monopoly on their version of the truth, thank you very much.

It’s not enough to say that the police are too violent, or racist, or detached from society. Powerful people already know this perfectly well. Indeed, they’re counting on it. They’re counting on cops being violent to protect elite interests; nor is racism the worst thing in the world, they believe, as long as it’s not hurting their financial bottom lines. If it divides people, making them all the more exploitable, so much the better. And who cares if cops are detached from the interests of the working and lower middle classes from which they’ve come? Again, all the better, since that means they can be sicked on protesters and, if things get out of hand, those very protesters can then be blamed. If push comes to shove, a few cops might have to be fired, or prosecuted, or otherwise sacrificed, but that hardly matters as long as the powerful get off scot-free.

President Trump knows this. He talks about “dominating” the protesters. He insists that they must be arrested and jailed for long periods of time. After all, they are the “other,” the enemy. He’s willing to have them tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets just so he can pose in front of a church holding a Bible. Amazingly, the one amendment he mentioned defending in his “law and order” speech just before he walked to that church was the Second Amendment.

And this highlights Trump’s skill as a wall-builder. No, I don’t mean that “big, fat, beautiful wall” along the U.S. border with Mexico. He’s proven himself a master at building walls to divide people within America — to separate Republicans from Democrats, blacks and other peoples of color from whites, Christians from non-Christians, fervid gun owners from gun-control advocates, and cops from the little people. Divide and conquer, the oldest trick in the authoritarian handbook, and Donald Trump is good at it.

But he’s also a dangerous fool in a moment when we need bridges, not walls to unite these divided states of ours. And that starts with the cops. We need to change the way many of them think. No more “thin blue line” BS. No more cops as warriors. No more special flags for how much their lives matter. We need but a single flag for how much all our lives matter, black or white, rich or poor, the powerless as well as the powerful.

How about that old-fashioned American flag I served under as a military officer for 20 years? How about the stars and stripes that draped my father’s casket after his more than 30 years of fighting fires, whether in the forests of Oregon or the urban tenements of Massachusetts? It was good enough for him and me (and untold millions of others). It should still be good enough for everyone.

But let me be clear: my dad knew how to put out fires, but once a house was “fully involved,” he used to tell me, there’s little you can do but stand back and watch it burn while keeping the fire from spreading.

America’s forever wars in distant lands have now come home big time. Our house is lit up and on fire. Alarms are being sounded over and over again. If we fail to come together to fight the fire until our house is fully involved, we will find ourselves — and what’s left of our democracy — burning with it.

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A retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and history professor, William Astore is a TomDispatch regular. He is proud to count many “first responders” in his immediate family. His personal blog is Bracing Views.

Featured image is from The Crux

Ajamu Baraka, National Coordinator for Black Alliance for Peace joins Camila on From the South to discuss the rebellion which has come in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

Black Alliance for Peace has called on the UN to address the U.S. human rights crisis. Ajamu says that the capitalist class is doing the real looting, like in the case of the billions in bailouts all while the U.S. engages in militarism and warmongering globally.

BAP opposes US/NATO expansion in Africa and Latin America, as the U.S. army deploys in Colombia this week as part of its aggression against Venezuela.

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Featured image: George Floyd Mattered graffiti along 38th St in Minneapolis on Wednesday, after the death of George Floyd on Monday night in Minneapolis, Minnesota (Source: Flickr)

On June 3 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the new over-the-top use registrations of dicamba formulations XtendiMax, FeXapan, and Engenia are null and void, effective immediately. The ruling was crystal clear: These pesticides can no longer be legally sold or sprayed on dicamba-resistant soybeans or cotton.

State officials have called on EPA for clarification of the Court’s ruling, some maintaining their states will allow continued use of dicamba unless or until directed otherwise. But the EPA has ignored their calls, just as it ignored the growers harmed by dicamba.

Instead of helping farmers understand and implement the Court’s order to immediately stop the use of dicamba, on Friday EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler released a statement alleging the decision was a “threat to America’s food supply,” an assertion totally unsupported by any facts. Then, citing the potential economic harm to farmers using dicamba—but not mentioning the overwhelming and well-documented harm to farmers damaged by its use—Wheeler said EPA “is assessing all avenues to mitigate the impact” of the Court’s decision.

EPA should immediately confirm to the states that these uses are illegal. EPA’s failure to do so to this point is a dereliction of the agency’s duty to farmers and the public. We represent farmers, including many who have suffered years of drift damage from these harmful dicamba products. They must not be subjected to a fourth year of rampant injury to their crops from dicamba drift.

As the Court held, EPA both grossly understated the damage and ignored that it is virtually impossible for dicamba-users to follow—in real world conditions—the EPA’s use instructions. And the damages are more than economic: Allowing these uses is tearing the social fabric of farming communities as well as having anti-competitive, monopolistic effects.

The pesticide companies have already deceived farmers twice. They pressured EPA for approval and then sold their dicamba products for four years in the face of substantial evidence that they would cause disastrous offsite drift damage. Worse, when unprecedented and disastrous drift injury did occur, these companies blamed their farmer customers rather than their harmful products. If Bayer/Monsanto, Corteva, and BASF want to help their customers, they should reimburse them for their unusable dicamba products, facilitate safe disposal, and make their farmer-customers whole, rather than leave them in the lurch, yet again.

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It’s a political lifetime from now to November 3 presidential, congressional, and local elections.

Things can swing back and forth numerous times between now and then.

Most often, Americans vote with their pocketbook. 

If unprecedented main street Depression and unemployment continue into November, chances are great that Trump will be a one-term president, along with Dems able to keep House control and perhaps gain it from Republicans in the Senate.

According to an average of early June polls, Trump’s disapproval is 54.4% v. 41.2% approving of his job performance.

A new Morning Consult poll shows a negative 59 – 36% divergence against him.

A CNN/SSRS polls 38% approval v. 57% disapproving.

An Ipsos poll shows a negative 39 – 56% divergence against him.

An Optimus poll showed the largest negative divergence of 37 – 63%.

It gets worse. An ABC/Ipsos poll shows only 32% of respondents approving of how he’s handled days of nationwide protests following the killing of African American George Floyd by 4 Minneapolis cops.

Nearly three-fourths of respondents agree that his death is a “sign of broader problems in the treatment of African Americans by police.”

A new CBS poll found that 57% of respondents say police are more likely to use force against Black Americans than others.

Numerous polls conducted in recent days found that most Americans believe that ongoing nationwide protests are based on legitimate grievances.

Trump’s call for “toughness” and threat to deploy combat troops to US streets was a strategic error, what most Americans oppose.

So do many governors, mayors, and other local officials.

Polls published in the last five days show Biden defeating Trump in November by a margin of from 7 to 14 points.

On June 8, FiveThirtyEight.com published results of two polls showing Biden a heavy favorite to defeat Trump in November by margins of 10 – 14 points.

According to Real Clear Politics, Biden is favored over Trump in key battleground state Florida by an average of 3.4 points, in Ohio by one point, in Pennsylvania by 3.3 points, in Michigan by 7.3 points, in Wisconsin by 3.3 points, in New York by 24 points, and in California by 27 points.

Translating sentiment into turnout is key. Candidates work hard to energize their base to vote on election day.

Based on current polls, Biden has a significant edge over Trump.

If the economy stays weak into the fall, the human misery level in the country staying high, a new White House incumbent in January is likely.

Does it matter in the greater scheme of things?

Presidents and congressional leaders front for wealth and power interests at the expense of public health and welfare they’re indifferent toward.

They’re also liars. Nothing they say can be believed. Trump’s inaugural sounded like a political sermon on the mount.

He followed through by escalating inherited wars by hot and other means.

His regime indicted Julian Assange for the “crime” of truth-telling journalism.

He considers vital information for everyone to know a threat to national security.

He’s at war with immigrants of the wrong color, faith, and countries.

He’s no friend of the earth. His ecocide agenda supports corporate polluters over ecosanity, public health and the general welfare.

Throughout his tenure, he oversaw the greatest ever wealth transfer heist from ordinary Americans to privileged ones and corporate America.

He wants healthcare, a fundamental human right, based on the ability to pay.

He supports mass-vaxxing everyone with hazard to human health/rushed developed and tested COVID-19 vaccines by yearend or early 2021.

His inaugural address promise about “transferring power from Washington, DC and giving it back to you, the American people” was and remains a bald-faced Big Lie.

So was saying policies favoring privileged interests over the public wealth “changes starting right here and right now.”

The vast majority of ordinary Americans are still waiting for fulfillment of his pledge not forthcoming so far nor is it likely ahead.

He proved time and again by his pro-war, pro-corporate welfare, anti-populist agenda.

Is change for the better likely under Biden if elected president in November?

His near-half century record as US senator and vice president shows one-sided support for the nation’s privileged class.

He’s a Trump clone with a style and party label difference, a neoliberal/war on humanity Obama clone with a racial difference, a Hillary clone with a gender difference.

Republicans and Dems are two sides of the same coin, not a dime’s worth of difference between them on issues mattering most.

Whenever US elections are held, names and faces alone change. Dirty business as usual remains the same.

Unless or until independent challengers to unacceptable continuity compete for president, congressional positions, along with key state and local ones, democracy in America will remain pure illusion like it’s always been from inception.

America the beautiful will be no more than unfulfilled 19th lyrics by Katherine Lee Bates and music by Samuel Ward.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Syria News

Once upon a time in Pipelineistan, tales of woe were the norm. Shattered dreams littered the chessboard – from IPI vs. TAPI in the AfPak realm to the neck-twisting Nabucco opera in Europe. 

In sharp contrast, whenever China entered the picture, successful completion prevailed. Beijing financed a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Xinjiang, finished in 2009, and will profit from two spectacular Power of Siberia deals with Russia.

And then there’s Ukraine. Maidan was a project of the Barack Obama administration, featuring a sterling cast led by POTUS, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John McCain and last but not least, prime Kiev cookie distributor Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland.

Ukraine was also supposed to prevent Russia from deepening energy ties with Germany, as well as other European destinations.

Well, it did not exactly play like that. Nord Stream was already operational. South Stream was Gazprom’s project to southeast Europe. Relentless pressure by the Obama administration derailed it. Yet that only worked to enable a resurrection: the already completed TurkStream, with gas starting to flow in January 2020.

The battlefield then changed to Nord Stream 2. This time relentless Donald Trump administration pressure did not derail it. On the contrary: it will be completed by the end of 2020.

Richard Grennel, the US ambassador to Germany, branded a “superstar” by President Trump, was furious. True to script, he threatened Nordstream 2 partners – ENGIE, OMV, Royal Dutch Shell, Uniper, and Wintershall – with “new sanctions.”

Worse: he stressed that Germany “must stop feeding the beast at a time when it does not pay enough to NATO.”

“Feeding the beast” is not exactly subtle code for energy trade with Russia.

Peter Altmaier, German minister of economic affairs and energy, was not impressed. Berlin does not recognize any legality in extra-territorial sanctions.

Grennel, on top of it, is not exactly popular in Berlin. Diplomats popped the champagne when they knew he was going back home to become the head of US national intelligence.

Trump administration sanctions delayed Nordstream 2 for around one year, at best. What really matters is that in this interval Kiev had to sign a gas transit deal with Gazprom. What no one is talking about is that by 2025 no Russian gas will be transiting across Ukraine towards Europe.

So the whole Maidan project was in fact useless.

It’s a running joke in Brussels that the EU never had and will never have a unified energy policy towards Russia. The EU came up with a gas directive to force the ownership of Nord Stream 2 to be separated from the gas flowing through the pipeline. German courts applied their own “nein.”

Nord Stream 2 is a serious matter of national energy security for Germany. And that is enough to trump whatever Brussels may concoct.

And don’t forget Siberia 

The moral of this fable is that now two key Pipelineistan nodes – Turk Stream and Nord Stream 2 – are established as umbilical steel cords linking Russia with two NATO allies.

And true to proverbial win-win scripts, now it’s also time for China to look into solidifying its European relations.

Last week, German chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese premier Li Keqiang had a video conference to discuss Covid-19 and China-EU economic policy.

This summit should be the climax of the German presidency of the EU, which starts on July 1. That’s when Germany would be able to present a unified policy towards China, uniting in theory the 27 EU members and not only the 17+1 from Central Europe and the Balkans – including 11 EU members – that already have a privileged relationship with Beijing and are on board for the Belt and Road Initiative.

In contrast with the Trump administration, Merkel does privilege a clear, comprehensive trade partnership with China – way beyond a mere photo op summit. Berlin is way more geoeconomically sophisticated than the vague “engagement and exigence” Paris  approach.

Merkel as well as Xi are fully aware of the imminent fragmentation of the world economy post-Lockdown. Yet as much as Beijing is ready to abandon the global circulation strategy from which it has handsomely profited for the past two decades, the emphasis is also on refining very close trade relations with Europe.

Ray McGovern has concisely detailed the current state of US-Russia relations. The heart of the whole matter, from Moscow’s point of view, was summarized by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, an extremely able diplomat:

“We don’t believe the US in its current shape is a counterpart that is reliable, so we have no confidence, no trust whatsoever. So our own calculations and conclusions are less related to what America is doing …. We cherish our close and friendly relations with China. We do regard this as a comprehensive strategic partnership in different areas, and we intend to develop it further.”

It’s all here. Russia-China “comprehensive strategic partnership” steadily advancing. Including “Power of Siberia” Pipelineistan. Plus Pipelineistan linking two key NATO allies. Sanctions? What sanctions?

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This article was originally published on Asia Times.

Pepe Escobar is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

It seems that collapse of the institution would destroy global financial system.

Deutsche Bank, one of Europe’s largest banks, recently asked hundreds of its managers to voluntarily renounce receiving their monthly salaries, complying with the bank’s program to try to reduce losses. Formally, senior managers voluntarily renounced their respective salaries, giving up their personal earnings to try to save their own jobs. As explained by the bank’s executive director, Christian Zeving, “this decision is part of the cost reduction program”.

Deutsche Bank is in the midst of a difficult austerity program to try to balance accounting after several years of losses. By the end of 2022, the bank plans to reduce the number of full-time jobs by around 18,000 employees, to 74,000 worldwide. Since the 2008 crisis, which shook the foundations of financial system, Deutsche Bank has been going through a constant crisis, having to deal with the great challenge of balancing its finances to survive. However, the situation has started to worsen considerably since 2016, when it added a net loss of almost 7 billion euros (about 7,800 million dollars). In 2018, the International Monetary Fund recognized DB as “the greatest source of risk among systemically important banks in the world”.

In 2019, Deutsche Bank announced a merger with Commerzbank to try to resolve its financial crisis. However, German regulators vetoed the deal, fearing that, instead of saving DB, the merger could destroy Commerzbank, which is the country’s second largest bank. In July of the same year, Christian Zeving announced the restructuring of the financial giant, which is part of the dismissal of thousands of employees worldwide: “I am sorry that, for the restoration of our bank, we have to apply massive reductions,” said the executive director at the time, explaining that “it will serve the bank’s long-term interests” and therefore decisive action is needed. Now, likewise, the Bank harms its employees by trying to “reduce expenses” by failing to pay them instead of firing them.

In early 2020, the bank drew up a plan to cut its expenses by around 2 billion euros to 19.5 billion euros. However, the global pandemic of the new coronavirus has already drastically changed these plans and in the first quarter of the year alone it brought losses of more than 5,600 million euros, which already represents an excessive expenditure of 15% quarterly.

The scenario, however, seems to get worse, with no good news for DB. American officials believe Deutsche Bank was allegedly involved in the financial fraud of Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested on sex trafficking charges and, according to authorities, committed suicide in federal prison. The bank not only provided him with large loans, but also opened many bank accounts for him under fictitious names. According to The New York Times, the New York financial services department will announce serious sanctions against the German bank before the end of July, which is sure to further damage the bank’s financial condition and contribute to its possible bankruptcy.

Currently, the DB is the main maintainer of European economies, despite its fragility and financial difficulties. DB has many bonuses from Italy, Spain, Portugal and other European countries. The biggest fear of these countries is a situation of economic worsening or bankruptcy, in which the bank will be forced to sell these values at low prices, in order to pay off its debts, which could really break several European economies.

Last year, the Financial Stability Board launched a report with the list of the so-called “too big to fail”, which consists of financial institutions whose size and power are so big that their bankruptcy could represent a systematic global crisis, in domino effect, whose consequences would be unprecedented and would threaten the very survival of the financial system.

The list serves, above all, as a warning to the governments of the countries of such institutions: if the banks are to fail, the State must inject public money to save them and thus avoid a world crisis. However, this list came about in a global pre-pandemic context, which makes this possibility more difficult now.

What will European governments do with their financial institutions amid the social, economic and political chaos generated by the new coronavirus? Will the German government invest public money in Deutsche Bank to save it? Is it still in the interest of European governments to save financial capitalism?

Many questions remain unanswered. In fact, it is almost undeniable that the fate of Deutsche Bank, without strong state aid, will be the fall and the absolute bankruptcy, which will bring about a compulsory change in the world system, perhaps definitively burying the present “financial age”.

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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

June 2, 1967, was a tense day at the Israeli army headquarters in Tel Aviv. For weeks, IDF generals had been pushing the government to initiate a war and the atmosphere was tense. Israel’s Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who also acted as minister of defense, came to see the generals at the IDF command center. All the generals who made up the IDF high command were present. This meeting became known as the showdown. Years later, some would even accuse the army of an attempted coup d’etat.

A fraud

One of the biggest frauds perpetrated by the Israeli military is the claim that the Six-Day War was initiated by Israel due to an existential threat. The reality though is that in 1967, the Israeli army faced an elected civilian government that was less excited about the prospects of war than the generals were. So, as is clearly seen in the minutes of meetings between IDF generals from those days, minutes that are available in the IDF archives, seeing that the government was hesitant, the military decided to sow fear, and they did it very effectively, claiming that the Jewish state faced an existential threat and that the army must act decisively.

The deception worked and over the following three days, Eshkol was forced to yield. He resigned his post as minister of defense and gave it to retired army Chief of Staff, General Moshe Dayan. The IDF generals got the war they so badly wanted. They initiated a massive assault against Egypt, reducing the Egyptian military to ashes and taking over the entire Sinai Peninsula. As a result, the IDF was able to capture the largest stockpile of Russian made military hardware outside of the Soviet Union.

Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, center, is pictured with General Peled, right, circa 1967. Photo | Courtesy | Miko Peled

Israel would make good use of the knowledge that came with this loot.

It also captured thousands of Egyptian soldiers who were stationed in the Sinai Desert and caught unprepared. According to the testimonies of Israeli officers, at least two thousand Egyptian prisoners of war were executed right there and buried in the dunes.

But the generals were not satisfied. They seized the opportunity that they were given and decided to make the most of it. Without any discussion, much less approval from the elected civilian government, the army proceeded to take the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and something the generals had been chomping at the bit to take for many years, the fertile water-rich Syrian Golan Heights, tripling the size of the state of Israel. They had finally completed the conquest of Palestine and pushed the eastern border of Israel all the way to the Jordan River.

The military moved like a bulldozer, destroying cities and towns both in the Golan Heights and in the West Bank. As a result, countless Syrians who lived in the Golan Heights, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents of the West Bank and East Jerusalem became refugees.

The myth of the threat

As the generals themselves stated during their meetings prior to the war, the entire affair was about seizing an opportunity to start a war they knew they would win, and not about averting some existential threat. In fact, the word “opportunity” is mentioned several times in their discussions and the word “threat” is not mentioned at all.

One general who was present in the June 2 meeting was my father, General Matti Peled. According to accounts by some of his comrades who were there, accounts that I later verified by reading the minutes of the meetings, he stood up and told Prime Minister Eshkol that the Egyptian army was an ill-prepared army and therefore Israel must seize the opportunity to destroy it. He stated that the Egyptian army, which at the time was recovering from a war in Yemen, would need at least a year and a half to two years before it was prepared for war. The other generals concurred. My father then went further and said that the IDF command “demands to know why this army that has never lost a battle” is being held back. He didn’t say one word about a threat.

General Matti Peled in the field, June, 1967. Photo | Courtesy | Miko Peled

More of the minutes of the general’s meeting are included in my book, “The General’s Son,” but it is clear that Israel initiated the war, not out of concern for the safety of Israel, but out of a desire to demonstrate its power and use it to achieve territorial gains. For anyone paying attention the result of the war proved that there could not possibly have been a military threat to Israel. However, people were so moved by the story of little David defending himself from the onslaught of the evil Goliath that they let themselves be taken by the fraud.

Divine intervention

There is a story that I heard from Rabbi Moishe Beck, a revered Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi who used to live in Jerusalem and moved to New York. I asked him why he decided to leave after the Six-Day War. He told me that he was sitting in a bomb shelter in Jerusalem’s Me’a Sha’arim neighborhood and there was the sound of shelling not far from there. At one point, people could hear Israeli Air Force planes flying overhead and began referring to the IDF successes as a sign of divine intervention. He found it abhorrent that people would see the Zionist state military force, which he viewed as criminal, as divine intervention. As soon as he was able, he took his family and with very little means, left Jerusalem. He did not want his children to grow up in an atmosphere that idolized the Israeli military, or any military for that matter.

Many years later, while sitting with Ultra-Orthodox friends in New York, I was asked if it was true that the 1967 victory was so unpredictable that even people who were secular saw it as divine intervention. There was nothing divine about the Israeli assault and the theft of Arab lands. Not in 1967 and not at any other time. The Israeli army was well prepared, well-armed, and well trained and the generals knew victory was inevitable.

Gough Whitlam speaks on the Parliament House steps in Canberra after his dismissal on November 11, 1975. Photo | Australian Information Service | National Library Of Australia

The writing on the wall

Israel had, in fact, intended to occupy the West Bank and the Golan Heights many years prior to 1967 and the war presented the perfect opportunity. In the memoirs of Israel’s second Prime Minister, Moshe Sharet, he describes a meeting that took place in Jerusalem in 1953 where dignitaries from around the world were present. Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, was also present.

One of the presentations given to this gathering was by my father, then a young and promising IDF officer. He gave the talk in English which he spoke well, and among other things, he stated in no uncertain terms that the IDF was prepared for the moment that the order would be given to “push Israel’s eastern border to its natural place, the Jordan River.” In other words, take the West Bank and complete the conquest of historic Palestine.

IDF Generals in the field circa 1967. Rabin, left, Bar-Lev, center, Peled, right. Photo | Courtesy | Miko Peled

Today we know that Israel had plans in place to occupy and impose its own military rule in the West Bank as early 1964. It is also well known that Israel initiated skirmishes with the Syrian army throughout the early 1960s in the hopes that Syria would initiate a war.

The USS Liberty

On the morning of June 8, 1967, in the midst of the war, the USS Liberty was about 17 miles off the Gaza coast, in international waters. Being an intelligence-gathering ship, it had no battle capabilities and was armed only with four fifty caliber machine guns to ward off unwanted boarders. For several hours throughout that day, Israeli Air Force reconnaissance planes had been flying over the Liberty in what seemed like attempts to identify it. The crew felt no threat – quite the opposite, Israel was a U.S. ally.

Then, at 14:00 hours, (2:00 PM local time) and without any warning, Israeli fighter jets launched an attack on USS Liberty. The attack included rockets, cannon fire, and even napalm, a toxic, flammable combination of gel and petroleum that sticks to the skin and causes severe burns.

The attack ended with 34 U.S. sailors dead and 174 injured, many seriously. As the wounded were being evacuated, an officer with the Office of Naval Intelligence instructed the men not to talk to the press about their ordeal.

Within three weeks of the attack, the Navy put out a 700-page report exonerating the Israelis, claiming the attack had been accidental and that the Israelis had pulled back as soon as they realized their mistake. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara suggested the whole affair should be forgotten. “These errors do occur,” McNamara concluded. The U.S. desire to see the Soviet arms that Israel had in its possession had something to do with the ease with which the Pentagon swept this affair under the rug.

In 2003, almost forty years after the fact, the “Moorer Commission,” an independent commission chaired by retired Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, United States Navy, was established in order to investigate the attack. The commission included a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, retired admirals, and a former ambassador. Among its findings are the following:

That Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned the Liberty’s firefighters, stretcher-bearers and the life rafts that had been lowered into the water to rescue the most seriously wounded.”

That fearing conflict with Israel, the White House deliberately prevented the U.S. Navy from coming to the defense of USS Liberty by recalling Sixth Fleet military rescue support while the ship was under attack […] never before in American naval history has a rescue mission been cancelled when an American ship was under attack.”

That surviving crew members were threatened with “court-martial, imprisonment or worse” if they exposed the truth.”

That due to continuing pressure by the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, this attack remains the only serious naval incident that has never been thoroughly investigated by Congress.”

In five days it was over. The war ended as expected, with a massive Israeli victory. The IDF destroyed the armies of the Arab countries around it. The death toll was 18,000 Arab soldiers and 700 Israeli soldiers.

In retrospect, one would do well to stop calling what took place in June of 1967 a war, but rather an Israeli assault on its neighboring countries. The name Six-Day War was no coincidence. Israel took the name from the Jewish scriptures, more specifically from the prayer book, where one sees reference after reference to the divine creation or The Six Days of creation.

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Miko Peled is an author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. He is the author of “The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”

The ABCs Insider program broadcast each Sunday morning is one of the ABCs most watched and most important programs. The three guests are drawn from the country’s mainstream media outlets. This is perhaps itself a limitation considering the broad range and frequently high standards of much political analysis in the country are non-mainstream outlets. The invited person subjected to questioning by the show’s host is almost invariably a politician drawn from either the Liberal or Labor parties.

One would be unwise to expect much more than a partisan view from the weekly political guest. It is, however, not unreasonable to think that the members of the panel might be expected to offer a factual analysis, albeit tempered by the political stance of their employee newspapers.

On the program broadcast on 7 June 2020 both the political guest, Labor deputy leader Richard Miles, and one of the panelists, the Sydney Morning Herald’s David Crowe offered an opinion that was stunning in its disregard for the body of information that is now available on the topic of the comment.

That topic was the shooting down of Malaysian airlines MH 17 in July 2015 with the loss of life of 298 passengers and crew. The Dutch lost the largest proportion of the passengers, followed by Australia with 38 citizens and residents, then Malaysia and a smattering of citizens from a number of other countries.

An inquiry team was immediately established led by the Dutch, with other representatives coming from Australia, Belgium and Ukraine. There were three surprises in this contingent. The Dutch and Australians were not unexpected as having lost a significant number of their citizens. The inclusion of Belgium was puzzling and perhaps, in the light of subsequent events, only explicable in their role as the host of the NATO military alliance.

The second surprise was the inclusion of Ukraine. Although the tragedy occurred over Ukrainian territory it was clearly not an accident but the result of unfriendly criminal activity by a party or parties then unknown. Ukraine was at the very least a possible culprit.

The third surprise was the exclusion of Malaysia which as the owner and operator of the flight would normally be an automatic inclusion in any inquiry. Their exclusion was unexplained at the time. It was only later that it emerged that the four investigating countries had reached an agreement between themselves, the details of which have never been fully disclosed.

What is known however, is that part of the agreement provided that no statement on the investigation would be released without the unanimous agreement of all four members. To describe this as astonishing would be an understatement. It was one of the early clues that the investigation would not be an impartial investigation, but would in effect follow a political agenda. This has indeed proven to be the case.

What was also unknown at the time, but revealed relatively recently by the Malaysians, was that they had sent a team to the Ukraine immediately. Thanks to the assistance of Ukrainian rebels then (and now) engaged in a bitter war with the Kiev government, the plane’s black boxes had been retrieved. The rebels handed those over to the Malaysians who returned to Malaysia where they were examined before being in turn given to the British for further analysis.

It was with this information that the Malaysians then negotiated their entry into the inquiry team in late 2015. It was one of the features of this case that the Malaysian viewpoint has been almost entirely absent from the Dutch and Australian reporting of the case.

It did not take long for the Dutch, Australians and Ukrainians to blame Russia for the tragedy despite the fact, then and now, of anyone being able to offer even a remotely plausible reason for Russia to have shot down the civilian airliner of a friendly country. The improbability was compounded by the fact that the tragedy occurred over Ukrainian territory.

The implausibility of this version of events was enhanced when a British organisation known as Bellingcat published what they claimed to be pictures of a Russian missile firing weapon system returning to Russia from the area where the alleged missile had been fired from.

It is one of the telling features of this case that later evidence was disclosed, but not reported in the Australian media, that there were no Russian weapons capable of firing a BUK missile (the alleged weapon used) in the vicinity of the area it would have to be in to have fired the allegedly fatal missile. Neither for that matter was there any Ukrainian BUK missile facility within range, although the Ukrainians certainly possessed such missiles, a left over from the days when it was a part of the old Soviet Union and used Russian supplied weapons.

The other relevant point about the shoot down was the claim by then United States secretary of state John Kerry that United States satellites overhead at the time (observing what was a war zone) had seen exactly what had happened. There is no reason to doubt Mr Kerry’s claim. It is also likely that the Russians had overhead satellites, for exactly the same reason.

The important point, however, is that the United States has never produced that evidence to the Dutch led inquiry or anybody else. Given that such photos would in all probability be conclusive of the argument, their nonproduction leads to an irresistible inference. They do not support the Dutch-Ukrainian version. It is a safe assumption that if they did, we would have been inundated with those pictures, ad nauseam, ever since.

What the Russians and the Ukrainian rebels have said all along was that the plane was brought down by the actions of two Ukrainian jet fighters observed by independent eye witnesses at the time. The presence of multiple bullet holes in the plane’s recovered fuselage further confirms this interpretation of how MH 17 came to its tragic end.

There is no obvious reason as to why the Ukrainians would shoot down a civilian airliner. The first of the three most likely possibilities are that it was a genuine accident, but if that was the case why not admit it, plead accident and pay appropriate compensation.

The second possibility is that it was a case of mistaken identity. It is known that a plane carrying Russia’s President Putin was in the general vicinity at that time, returning from an official trip to South America. Putin’s official plane carries very similar markings to Malaysian airlines.

The third possibility, which frankly is rather horrible to contemplate, is that it was a deliberate attempt to frame Russia, the major supporter of the Ukrainian rebel groups (overwhelmingly Russian speaking). It should not be forgotten also that the former Russian territory of Crimea (gifted to Ukraine by Khrushchev in Soviet days) had voted overwhelmingly to return to Russia.  This had outraged the Ukrainian government who had vowed to retake Crimea by force. The United States also had plans to take over the Russian naval base on Crimea, thereby depriving Russia of a vital warm water port.

All of these facts make the rather ludicrous threat by then Australian prime minister Abbott of military action in support of Ukraine’s attempt to force Crimea back within its fold all the more ridiculous. More importantly, it makes the allegations of Messrs Marles and Crowe completely unsupportable. Australian government policy towards Ukraine, then as now, completely ignores the fact that it is a neo-fascist regime that came to power by violently overthrowing the legitimate Ukrainian government.

Both men ought to have known better. Indeed, it is probable both do know better but because Australia is a loyal supporter of the West’s official anti-Russian line, have gone along with helping perpetrate a manifest fiction, unsupported by the five years of evidence that have been accumulated in the interim. The Moscow based Australian journalist Jphn Helmer is one of the very few to have consistently followed this Dutch led travesty and disclosed the evidence as it has emerged.

That the Australian mainstream media have chosen to ignore that evidence, to actively conceal the investigative role played by Australian forces in the early stages, and to perpetuate a gross falsehood does neither Mr Marles nor Mr Crowe or any organisation they represent any credit at all.

The families of the victims of this tragedy do not need the perpetuation of shoddy lies for geopolitical purposes. Messrs Marles and Crowe do neither themselves, their country, nor the organisations they represent any credit by helping to perpetuate a shameful lie.

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James O’Neill is a Barrister at Law and geopolitical analyst. He can be contacted at [email protected].

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Arab48 reports that some 6,000 Israelis gathered in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday to protest the Netanyahu government’s plan to annex one third of the Palestinian West Bank.

The gathering was addressed via video by US Senator Bernie Sanders, who said,

“It has never been more important to stand up for justice and to fight for the future we all deserve. I am extremely heartened to see that so many of you, Arabs and Jews alike, are standing together tonight for peace, justice and democracy.” “It is up to all of us to stand up to authoritarian leaders and work together to build a peaceful future for every Palestinian and every Israeli. Like you, I believe that the futures of the Israeli and Palestinian people are entwined and that all of your children deserve to live in safety, freedom and equality. For that to be possible, the plan to illegally annex any part of the West Bank must be stopped; the Occupation must be ended, and we must work together toward a future or equality and dignity for all people in Israel and Palestine. I know that on the day when we finally celebrate the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel it will be because people like you stood up for justice, stood up for democracy, and stood up for human rights. In the words of my friend Ayman Odeh, “The only future is a shared future. We will build it together.”

Odeh himself, the leader of the largely Palestinian-Israeli Joint List Coalition, also spoke on video because he is self-quarantining because of the novel coronavirus.

He said,

“We are at a crossroads. One of the roads leads to a joint society with true democracy and civil and national equality for Arab citizens. The second road will lead us to hatred and violence and annexation and racist segregation. We can stop annexation, but it requires that we all fight it together. There will never be social justice if we do not end the Occupation, for democracy is not solely for Jews.”

What I call Palestinian-Israelis constitute over 20 percent of the Israeli population, but are second-class citizens. The Joint List won 15 seats in the 120-member parliament or Knesset in the recent elections, but has been excluded entirely from any say in national politics.

The head of the center-left Meretz Party, Nitzan Horowitz, addressed the huge rally, saying,

“Annexation is a war crime, a crime against humanity and against peace, a crime against democracy, a crime that will cost us blood.” He added, “The persons who would have been expected to constitute an alternative–the persons who won our votes– gave up and joined the other side.”

He was ripping Benny Gantz and the Blue and White Coalition, as well as the Labor Party, which gained cabinet seats by joining with Likud’s Binyamin Netanyahu in a national unity government.

The crowds shouted slogans against the annexation plan, against the continuing Occupation and depriving Palestinians of basic rights, and against last week’s killing of an autistic Palestinian man by Israeli border guards in East Jerusalem. Many in the crowd also accused Netanyahu of destroying Israeli democracy.

The police killing in the US of George Floyd was also denounced at the rally.

It was the biggest demonstration by the Israeli left wing in many years, and was remarkable for its mixed character, with both Jewish and Palestinian Israelis coming out.

If the goal of the event was to forestall annexation, however, it is doomed to fail, since Netanyahu has the votes in parliament to go forward, and the Trump administration is a cheer leading section for the far right wing Likud-led government. The annexation will completely end any prospect of anything resembling an actual Palestinian state and will formalize for decades to come Israeli Apartheid on the Palestinian West Bank, which is under Israeli military occupation.

Under the terms of the Kushner Plan, Netanyahu appears willing to declare some sort of feeble Palestinian administrative authority, which lacks any of the prerogatives of a real state, a “Palestinian state,” which has angered the many Israelis to his Right.

Palestinians are actually stateless and lack control over their air, water and territory, and lack basic human rights.

Some forms of Apartheid lasted in South Africa from 1910 until 1991, and from the vantage point of 2020, it seems likely that Israeli Apartheid will beat that record, lasting substantially more than 80 years.

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It seems like only yesterday. Americans were denied the right to go to their churches. They were denied the right to visit their loved ones in the hospital. They were denied the right to open their businesses and go to work to provide for themselves and their families. They were denied the right to go to restaurants, to bars, to hair salons.

No laws were passed denying these rights. Even that would be illegal and immoral. But what happened was worse. They were denied these basic rights by governors, county judges, and even local mayors who used the coronavirus outbreak as an excuse to rule by decree. They stole power that was not theirs to take and wielded it at all levels to force America into three months of house arrest.

Then, in the midst of stay-at-home orders across the country, the same governors and local officials who locked Americans in their homes suddenly came around with their keys and threw open the doors. Suddenly not only was it OK to go out into the street, it was required to go out into the street!

What happened? A cure? A miraculous vaccine? No. The officials who locked Americans up found a cause they felt required Americans in the streets to protest. Police had killed a black man, George Floyd, in their custody in Minneapolis and suddenly the need to protest trumped the need to “stay home, save lives.”

Suddenly the same health “experts” who told us we must not gather in crowds or there will be death in the millions from coronavirus issued statements supporting gathering in crowds. An open letter on the George Floyd protests signed by more than 1,200 doctors and other health professionals clarified that they “do not condemn these gatherings as risky for Covid-19 transmission.” However, they wrote, “this should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings, particularly protests against stay-at-home orders.”

Did the coronavirus develop some kind of superior intelligence enabling it to distinguish between those who were congregating for a “good cause” and those who were congregating for a “bad cause”? Of course not. What has happened from the beginning of this shameful coronavirus episode is the politicization of public health at the hands of authoritarians.

Two prestigious medical journals, The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine, were forced to retract studies they had published concluding that Hydroxychloroquine was harmful to Covid patients. The rush to print the studies looks very much like a political move rather than one based on scientific principles. Once President Trump revealed that he was taking hydroxychloroquine the mainstream media and even “expert” journals began attacking the drug.

This is what happens when medicine merges with the state. We get the worst of both. We get career bureaucrat Dr. Fauci telling us we can never shake hands again and that we must stay home until a vaccine is found. Meanwhile, doctors across the globe are reporting that this variation of the coronavirus is disappearing on its own.

We have a tradition of separation of church and state in the United States for good reason. The merger of state and church invites oppression and corruption. We need to adopt this same approach to medicine and the state. We now see how this merger has produced the same kind of widespread tyranny and corruption.

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Leaving aside personal political allegiances for one moment, it should not be forgotten that without doubt, the cabinet run by Boris Johnson is the least experienced to lead the country, probably since the first Labour party win in 1924. It doesn’t help that Boris Johnson himself has no reputation for diplomacy, hard work, attention to detail or as we have recently witnessed – leadership.

Despite the Conservative Party being in power for 10 years now, it is often overlooked that the average member of the ministerial team leading the UK through its worst public health, economic and diplomatic crisis in nearly a century has just 19 months of Cabinet-level experience. Worse, fourteen out of the 22 have been in Cabinet for less than a year. Like him or not, the influential Whitehall fixer Michael Gove is a veteran of David Cameron’s first Cabinet a decade ago – the only one to have survived and the only one with proper ministerial experience.

The main reason for this lack of experience is Brexit and the huge swing away from moderate Conservative values to the political hard right. The Tory Party’s civil war over EU membership and the Brexit deal ended or derailed the political careers of a string of senior well-seasoned politicians who could have added so much value in times of crisis.

After the events of the last three months, it is easy to forget that Britain was suffering a housing crisis, rising homelessness and inequality, a health crisis and a fall in overall lifespan driven by austerity. Add to that the economic damage that Brexit was forecast to bring, estimated to bring another recession to match the last one. Now add a pandemic, the decoupling of globalisation, America’s rapid fall as the world’s referee and the vacuum that will create. Then add fuel to the fire with scenes of protestors and police forces attempting to keep the peace, looting and violence. And as the smoke clears, metaphorically speaking, in just eight weeks time, the economic damage caused by the lockdown is likely to see a quarter of carefully nurtured small and medium-sized businesses (by far the biggest employers in Britain) collapse over the following eight weeks. The likelihood is that a couple of million normally hard-working people will be added to the queues of the unemployed outside jobcentres by Christmas.

Could it get any worse?

Actually, yes. It turns out that Brexit will do substantially more harm to ‘global Britain’ than first anticipated – and No, this is not a Brexit bashing article per se, but it does highlight other worries hardly anyone is talking about.

Brexit is an ideology. It never was an economic policy written down on paper, debated over by experts and then with political will, moved into the public sphere for further debate and decision. This is why it will have taken nearly four years to achieve nothing more than a hard-Brexit at the cost of two Prime Ministers, the Conservative party itself, endemic social division and the anti-democratic crushing of institutions to keep it alive.

If anything Brexit is a pivot away from the moderate political centre-ground that provides the regulatory constraints to corporatism to one that is deregulated and firmly right-wing. This means taking one choice of two super-powers, towards the EU or towards America.

But now, with shifting geopolitical sands, Britain finds itself in a no-win situation. The UK’s special relationship with the US may end if Donald Trump wins a second term, some of the UK’s most senior retired diplomats and Conservative foreign policy specialists have said. They also say that if the Democrat Joe Biden wins, Washington may view the EU rather than the UK as its primary partner in the region. In other words – if ever there was a ‘special-relationship,’ it’s now over.

Donald Trump is now so politically toxic, that the EU and especially Germany have come to the conclusion that the USA is no longer an economic partner or a democratic ally.

Sir John Sawers, the former head of M16 and a former UK ambassador to the UN, also said Trump’s re-election would be problematic. He said:

“There is no doubt President Trump is the most difficult president for us to deal with.  He does not really feel that sense of being part of that transatlantic community, he does not really believe in alliances. He does not really believe in American leadership in the world. We are seeing in this pandemic for the first time what a crisis is like without American leadership. It is the first time in our lifetime we have experienced that.

“If he gets elected for a second time some of the changes we have seen in the past few years will become embedded and entrenched and then, absolutely Britain will not be so much a bridge between the US and Europe. We will need to be bounding closely together with our European partners.” 

The consequence of pandering to the slogans and messages of Brexit is that it has ripped apart Britain’s good diplomatic relations with its neighbours and is threatening to damage its economy by pulling away in a very detrimental way that may cause long-lasting scars. It also sees Donald Trump putting America’s considerable political weight on British negotiators demanding a deal that will be extremely uncomfortable for the general public to accept. Negotiating a trade deal with the USA having ditched the EU is an absolute minefield.

The Guardian reports that – in a sign of British diplomats’ despair with Trump, Sir Peter Westmacott, a former ambassador to Washington, said:

“I would love to say, as we look to the future, would it not be nice to see political leadership also addressing old-fashioned principles such as accountability, respect for the rule of law, independent judiciary, telling the truth, institutional independence and indeed the importance of a free press? That may not be what public opinion is crying out for, but they are not very far removed from the principles that Biden believes in. Otherwise, the chances of the western world retaining any sort of moral leadership and giving itself the right to call out other people when they behave badly will be gone forever.”

What Westcott says is true but it reflects badly on a British government run by novices and dependent on people like Dominic Cummings who have hugely over-estimated their abilities. The Covid crisis confirms that much. Boris Johnson’s government have relied heavily on a lack of ‘accountability, respect for the rule of law, an independent judiciary, telling the truth, institutional independence and indeed the importance of a free press. Indeed, that is THE very hallmark of Johnson’s government. So far, the only effective and visible skillsets demonstrated have been the weaponising of misinformation, disrespecting hundreds of years of political protocol, law-breaking and attempting to silence, coerce or co-opt the media.

The fact is – as America withdraws from its global primacy, from its version of dictating the world order, democratic nations need to get together and reset the rules – or someone else will. That someone is already on the podium in the guise of Xi Jinping – a man with huge experience on the world stage.

Right on cue – Joe Biden’s chief foreign policy adviser, Antony Blinken recently said – “If we are not (setting the global order), then one of two things happen. Either someone else is, and probably not in a way that advances our interest and values, or no one is, and that can be even worse. Then you have a vacuum which tends to be filled by malevolent things before good things. So the US has a responsibility and self-interest in leading with humility.”

As it turns out – UK diplomats are not just seeing this threat they are actively moving towards looking to form a broader alternative alliance of democracies that dilutes dependence on the US. And as one diplomat says –

“If we get another four years of (Trump’s) leadership, then some of the bonds and some of the cement that holds the west together, and holds Europe and America together will be broken forever.”

However, if Biden is elected US president in November, America will focus on the European Union as its partner, leaving a small island off Europe’s coast to fend for itself. This is what British diplomats now fear – a no-win geopolitical situation that further isolates Britain from the global stage. Any notion that Brexit, no-deal with the EU and a pivot towards Trump’s America, will deliver sunny uplands and a renewed global confidence are now nothing more than the thoughts of fantasists and novices currently sat in No10 Downing Street.

As of May 28th, 45 per cent of the British public think it was wrong to leave the EU against 42 per cent who think it right. At the very least, 56 per cent now support a Brexit extension due to the damage the pandemic has caused against 27 per cent who think Brexit should happen as legislated for.

Public opinion has moved – and it is in favour of staying within the influence of the EU. In a few months time, you will see that sentiment swing further towards the EU as Trump’s America continues to embarrass the democratic West, especially if he is elected again and more so as a US/UK trade deal exposes the reality of an ideology designed to exploit people and resources, not reward or repair.

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The “Defender Europe 2020” was to be the most ambitious and largest military exercise by the U.S. and NATO since the Cold War. The U.S.-led multinational exercises are undoubtedly hostile actions against Russia. It is through these military exercises that Poland wants to demonstrate and become the main stronghold of the U.S. military in Eastern Europe. NATO, regardless of the coronavirus pandemic, wanted to significantly increase the number of military exercises which have a clear anti-Russian orientation, but ultimately had to scale it down.

The Russian Ministry of Defense addressed NATO and the U.S. with a proposal to postpone military exercises entirely for the duration of the pandemic. In addition, Russia suggested that no exercises be conducted on common borders. On June 1, the Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff, Colonel General Sergei Rudskoy, said that the “Caucasus 2020” exercises of the Russian army would be postponed. The Americans did not follow that path and are still active in and around Russia’s borders. Moreover, these are not the only manoeuvres that are taking place. On June 1, the Poles started the “Anaconda 2020” exercises, in which 5,000 soldiers are participating. On June 7, the “Baltops 2020” exercises began on the Baltic Sea, where there are 3,000 soldiers, 29 warships, as well as planes and helicopters.

The Pentagon originally planned for the Defender Europe 2020 military exercises to be the largest in the post-Cold War period with the participation of about 20,000 American soldiers and another 17,000 soldiers from 17 Allied countries. The task of NATO countries in these manoeuvres was to repel a nuclear attack and an invasion from the East from an unspecified enemy. But it is not hard to see that this unspecified enemy is Russia. However, the pandemic disrupted plans and forced the leaders of the Pentagon to reshape their tactics by reducing the scope of the exercises.

Polish and American troops are participating in manoeuvres in northwest Poland that will last until June 19. It will involve 6,000 soldiers, of which 4,000 arrived from the U.S. The exercises also involve 100 tanks, 230 combat vehicles, artillery, missile systems and aviation, a total of about 2,000 units of military equipment. The goal of the exercises is to check the readiness of American and Polish soldiers for joint actions. The exercises are being held at the military training ground in Drawsko Pomorskie, and the Polish Minister of Defense, Mariusz Błaszczak, said that these exercises are proof of the close cooperation between the Polish and American armies.

It is clear that Poland obviously wants to become the main stronghold of the American military presence in Eastern Europe, which is confirmed by the Polish leaderships long-term consistent policy of wanting American support for their own so-called defense concerns. The Poles wanted to be and have probably already become the main ally of the U.S. in Eastern Europe, as well as in the EU. It was Poland that initiated the suggestion to create the “Fort Trump” base. The Poles were even ready to invest $2 billion towards the American base. Poland’s previous defense minister said they needed at least two U.S. divisions in their country to meet their so-called security demands, but the Americans did not want that and increased their forces in Poland only modestly.

Continuing a policy of de-escalating the hostile situation in Eastern Europe, Russia cancelled all its major exercises near the borders of NATO countries planned for this year. However, the Russian Ministry of Defense notes a high level of military activity by the U.S. and its NATO allies around Russia’s borders.

There is little doubt that such manoeuvres are aimed at restraining and exerting strong pressure against Russia, particularly against the Kaliningrad region that is wedged between Poland and Lithuania, and is detached from Russia proper. These U.S.-led exercises demonstrate that Russia must strengthen the defense capability of not only the Kaliningrad region, but also the Western Military District in general.

Although Moscow is attempting to de-escalate under the guise of the coronavirus pandemic, Polish newspapers are still speculating that Russia will allegedly attack and invade Poland via Belarus. This however is just unfounded rhetoric used to justify why Poland wants to become Eastern Europe’s bulwark against Russia in its own aggressive manoeuvres. It is likely that Washington encourages its European allies to engage more in the military sphere in order to pursue a policy of opposition to Russia, although Moscow has repeatedly said that it has no intention of attacking anyone. While many European countries, like France, wants a de-escalation with Russia, Poland is more then happy to carry out Washington’s demands.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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Actualmente, discute-se quanto e que financiamento a Itália receberá da União Europeia e sob que condições. Chegam mensagens tranquilizadoras de Bruxelas. Mas como tais financiamentos serão concedidos em grande parte, sob a forma de empréstimos, vários economistas alertam que existe o perigo de forte endividamento e de uma perda posterior de soberania económica. Assim sendo, a atenção política-mediática concentra-se nas relações entre a Itália e a União Europeia.

Tema importante, que não pode ser separado das relações entre a Itália e os Estados Unidos, que ninguém discute no Parlamento e nos meios de comunicação mediática. Assim, continuam a ignorar-se as implicações do plano de “assistência” à Itália, lançado pelo Presidente Trump em 10 de Abril (il manifesto, 14 de abril de 2020).

No entanto, o Embaixador dos EUA em Itália, Lewis Eisenberg, define-o como “a maior ajuda financeira que os Estados Unidos já deram a um país da Europa Ocidental desde 1948, desde a época do Plano Marshall”. Em apoio às actividades de saúde anti-Covid, “dezenas de milhões de dólares já foram e irão para a Cruz Vermelha e algumas organizações não-governamentais” (não perfeitamente identificadas). Além disso, o plano prevê uma série de intervenções para “apoiar a recuperação da economia italiana”.

Para este fim, o Presidente Trump ordenou aos Secretários do Tesouro e do Comércio, ao Presidente do Banco de Exportação e Importação, ao Administrador da Agência dos EUA para o Desenvolvimento Internacional, ao Director da Corporação Internacional de Financiamento ao Desenvolvimento dos Estados Unidos (agência governamental que financia projectos de desenvolvimento privado) para usarem os seus instrumentos para  “as empresas italianas”. Não está dito que empresas são e quais serão financiadas por este plano, nem a que condições estão vinculados estes empréstimos.

O Embaixador Eisenberg fala, em geral, das óptimas relações entre os Estados Unidos e Itália, demonstradas por “importantes indicadores económicos e estratégicos”, incluindo “um dos maiores acordos militares com a empresa Fincantieri”, que ganhou um contrato em Maio passado de cerca de 6 biliões de dólares para a construção de dez fragatas multifuncionais da Marinha dos EUA. O grupo italiano,  70% controlado pelo Ministério da Economia e Finanças, possui três estaleiros nos EUA, onde também estão em construção quatro navios de guerra semelhantes para a Arábia Saudita.

Outro indicador económico e estratégico importante é a integração crescente da Leonardo, a maior indústria militar italiana, no complexo industrial militar dos EUA, sobretudo através da Lockheed Martin, a maior indústria militar dos EUA. A Leonardo, da qual o Ministério da Economia e Finanças é o principal accionista, fornece aos EUA produtos e serviços para as forças armadas e para as agências de serviços secretos e administra em Itália, as instalações fabris de Cameri, dos caças F-35 da Lockheed Martin.

São estes e outros interesses poderosos – especialmente os dos grandes grupos financeiros – que ligam a Itália aos Estados Unidos. Não só a política externa e militar da Itália, mas também a política económica, subordinada à estratégia dos Estados Unidos, baseada num confronto político, económico e militar cada vez mais agudo com a Rússia e com a China. O plano de Washington é claro: explorar a crise e as fracturas na União Europeia para fortalecer a influência dos EUA em Itália.

As consequências são evidentes. Embora, por exemplo, seja do nosso interesse nacional suspender as sanções a Moscovo, a fim de relançar as exportações italianas para a Rússia para restaurar o oxigénio, especialmente às pequenas e médias empresas, tal alternativa foi impossibilitada pela dependência das escolhas de Washington e de Bruxelas.

Ao mesmo tempo, estão em perigo os acordos da Itália com a China no âmbito da Nova Rota da Seda, que não são bem aceites por Washington. A falta de soberania política real impede estas e outras escolhas económicas de importância vital para sair da crise. Mas, no ‘talk show’ político, não se fala de toda esta conjuntura.

Manlio Dinucci

 

Foto : Conte e Profumo con il nuovo Falco Xplorer, il drone più grande mai realizzato da Leonardo

Artigo original em italiano :

Niente sovranità economica senza quella politica

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

Si discute attualmente su quanti e quali finanziamenti l’Italia riceverà dall’Unione europea e a quali condizioni. Da Bruxelles arrivano messaggi tranquillizzanti. Ma poiché tali finanziamenti saranno forniti per la maggior parte sotto forma di prestiti, diversi economisti avvertono che c’è il pericolo di un forte indebitamento e di una ulteriore perdita di sovranità economica.

L’attenzione politico-mediatica si concentra quindi sui rapporti tra Italia e Unione europea. Tema importante, che non può però essere separato da quello dei rapporti tra Italia e Stati uniti, di cui in  parlamento e sui grandi media nessuno discute. Si continuano così a ignorare le implicazioni del piano di «assistenza» all’Italia varato il 10 aprile dal presidente Trump (il manifesto, 14 aprile 2020).

Eppure l’ambasciatore Usa in Italia, Lewis Eisenberg, lo definisce «il più grande aiuto finanziario che gli Stati Uniti abbiano mai dato a un paese dell’Europa occidentale dal 1948, dai tempi del Piano Marshall». A supporto delle attività sanitarie anti-Covid già «decine di milioni di dollari sono andati e andranno alla Croce rossa e ad alcune organizzazioni non governative» (non meglio identificate). Oltre a questo il piano prevede una serie di interventi per «sostenere la ripresa dell’economia italiana».

A tal fine il presidente Trump ha ordinato ai segretari del Tesoro e del Commercio, al presidente della Banca di Export-Import, all’amministratore dell’Agenzia Usa per lo sviluppo internazionale, al direttore della United States International Development Finance Corporation (agenzia governativa che finanzia progetti di sviluppo privati) di usare i loro strumenti per «sostenere le imprese italiane». Non viene detto quali imprese sono e saranno finanziate nel quadro di tale piano, né a quali condizioni sono vincolati tali finanziamenti.

L’ambasciatore Eisenberg parla in generale degli ottimi rapporti tra Stati uniti e Italia, dimostrati da «importanti indicatori di tipo economico e strategico», tra cui  «uno dei più grandi accordi militari con Fincantieri», che lo scorso maggio si è aggiudicata un contratto da circa 6 miliardi di dollari per la costruzione di dieci fregate multiruolo della US Navy. Il gruppo italiano, controllato per il 70% dal Ministero dell’economia e delle finanze, ha negli Usa tre cantieri, in cui sono in costruzione anche quattro analoghe navi da guerra per l’Arabia Saudita.

Altro importante indicatore di tipo economico e strategico è la crescente integrazione della Leonardo, la maggiore industria militare italiana, nel complesso militare-industriale Usa soprattutto attraverso la Lockheed Martin, la maggiore industria militare statunitense. La Leonardo, di cui il Ministero dell’economia e delle finanze è il principale azionista, fornisce negli Usa prodotti e servizi alle forze armate e alle agenzie d’intelligence, e in Italia  gestisce l’impianto di Cameri dei caccia F-35 della Lockheed Martin.

Sono questi e altri potenti interessi – in particolare quelli dei grandi gruppi finanziari – che legano l’Italia agli Stati uniti. Non solo la politica estera e militare, ma anche quella economica dell’Italia viene così subordinata alla strategia degli Stati uniti, improntata a un sempre più acuto confronto politico, economico e militare con la Russia e la Cina. È chiaro il piano di Washington: sfruttare la crisi e le fratture nella Ue per rafforzare l’influenza Usa in Italia.

Le conseguenze sono evidenti. Mentre ad esempio sarebbe nostro interesse nazionale togliere le sanzioni a Mosca, così da rilanciare l’export italiano in Russia per ridare ossigeno soprattuttto alle piccole e medie imprese, tale scelta è resa impossibile dalla nostra dipendenza dalle scelte di Washington e di Bruxelles.

Sono allo stesso tempo in pericolo gli accordi dell’Italia con la Cina nel quadro della Nuova Via della Seta, non graditi a Washington. La mancanza di reale sovranità politica impedisce queste e altre scelte economiche di vitale importanza per uscire dalla crisi. Ma di tutto questo, nel talk show della politica, non si parla.

Manlio Dinucci

The “lost child” endures as motif and theme, the stalking shadow of much literature, the background to a society’s anxiety.  The child, often deemed innocent, becomes the ink blot of loss in such disappearance.  In Australia, it was captured by Peter Pierce’s The Country of Lost Children: An Australian Anxiety (1999).  In wide spaces, innocence has much room to go wrong in, to vanish and encourage judgment. 

Madeleine McCann was never merely a lost child who disappeared in the Algarve from her family’s holiday apartment on May 3, 2007.  She remains a fixation of the British media stable, and, it should be said, to an unhealthy degree.  Her disappearance was a fire that burned with little Englander, flag-waving rage, often directed against the Portuguese and judgmental about any efforts in investigation.  The McCann story was, in Giles Tremlett’s words, “a snapshot of Britain and its poisonous media culture”, but also those indifferent Britons who were happy to enjoy the sun of the Iberian Peninsula without much care for their host countries.  Such tourists, and residents, could often be beastly, preoccupying local police and emergency units with their overdoses, intoxicated late night swims, night club fighting and the occasional drowned toddler in a villa swimming pool.

The McCann furnace tended to burn most of its participants, including the grieving parents, who were a daily feature of news bulletins till saturation, stepping out of their Praia da Luz apartment and photographed with paparazzi enthusiasm.  For a brief spell, police interest shifted to them, more out of formality than anything else.  An interest was registered in their parenting skills and their lifestyle.  Should they have left their three-year old daughter unattended in an easily accessible flat as they feasted on tapas with friends who did the same?  Did they sedate their child?  It would explain why there were no screams, no howls of despair, as a stranger carted the child away. 

As novelist Anne Enright weighed in, “If someone else is found to have taken Madeleine McCann – as may well be the case – it will show that the ordinary life of an ordinary family cannot survive the suspicious scrutiny of millions.”  (Worth noting here is the savage attack on Enright for her generally balanced reflection.  Janet Street-Porter, editor-at-large at The Independent raged, calling her “charmless”, a hater of Kate McCann “who is guilty of no crime, except being fit and attractive”.)

In covering the disappearance, and the vain investigation to recover her or find a culprit, views and commentaries flourished with speculative detail, malicious mauling, and mawkish reverence.  The reputation of Kate and Gerry McCann served to shift in the sands of public consciousness, a projection of class and status.  Initially, as was to be found in the Daily Mail, they were the perfect, unsullied parents, both of medical background, their daughter being blond and insufferably cute.  Brimming of the middle class ethic, they were to be seen and judged through such eyes, with their daughter fulfilling a role akin to caricature about what innocence would look like.  “This kind of thing doesn’t usually happen to people like us,” bleated Allison Pearson of the Daily Mail. 

But things did turn on them, with a sort of reverse snobbery.  The Daily Express was particularly keen on that front, with their reporters encouraged to target the McCanns for unsubstantiated responsibility for their daughter’s demise.  The same attention had not been paid to, for instance, the vanishing of British toddler Ben Needham in Kos in 1991.  As Owen Jones noted in sharp fashion in Chavs (2012), “Kidnappings, stabbings, murders; those are things you almost expect to happen to people living in Peckham or Glasgow.  This sort of tragedy was not supposed to happen to folks you might bump into doing the weekly shop at Waitrose.”

The McCanns could always count on their defenders.  Des Spence found himself performing that role in the British Medical Journal, finding it impossible to presume that the parents were culpable in any way.  (Sod the police; we know better.)  “The McCanns merely did as countless thousands of other parents have done.  Any blame of guilt is grossly misplaced and unkind, for they are victims of an act of utter malevolence. No one has the right to question the McCanns’ parental commitment.”

The case had been on a slow burn, embers visible to those caring to watch.  In addition to personal efforts on the part of the McCanns to hire personal investigators, Scotland Yard also committed its own resources in Operation Grange.  Several police forces have been preoccupied with the investigation.

Now, a blast of air has been given to the matter, with the grim announcement by the Braunschweig Public Prosecutor’s Office about the latest developments.  “We are assuming,” stated a solemn Hans Christian Wolters, “that the girl is dead.  With the suspect, we are talking about a sexual predator who has already been convicted of crimes against little girls and he’s already serving a long sentence.”  The suspect in question, one Christian D., had been a regular resident of the Algarve between 1995 and 2007, working in the catering industry and doing his bit of drug dealing and burgling of holiday flats.  To date, the prosecutor general’s office in Portugal have yet to find a record of any crimes committed by the suspect, though they are re-opening their investigation on that front.

Despite the news, family spokesman Clarence Mitchell revealed that he could not “recall an instance when the police had been so specific about an individual.  Of all the thousands of leads and potential suspects that have been mentioned in the past, there has never been something as clear cut as that from not just one, but three police forces.”   

While the German stance on this has settled upon the view that Madeleine is no longer alive, the Met Police in Britain hold to the view that this remains a “missing persons” investigation.  In doing so, another offering to perpetuate the McCann mystery has been made, one that has become self-propagating, ceaseless and remorselessly vulgar.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

If there were a Russian version of the website PropOrNot, Academician Arbatov could find himself listed there as “American agent/dupe.”

Arbatov directs the International Security Center of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  He demonstrates his Washington leanings by his recommendation that Russia avoid a strategic alliance with China.  This, of course, is a Washington position.  It seems curious coming from a Russian security expert at a time when US foreign policy is dominated by neoconservatives who are hostile to both Russia and China because the two countries are obstacles to American hegemony.  

Washington demonizes both Russia and China, imposes sanctions and threats, conducts aggressive military maneuvers in the spheres of influence of both countries, dismisses the Russian president as “the new Hitler,” threatens China with a trade war, and blames China for the coronavirus and threatens to make China pay for it.

Confronted by such a hostile and unreasonable power as the US presents itself to be, a strategic alliance between Russia and China seems to be precisely what is required in order to deter Washington from its hostile intentions.  With the American organized and financed Hong Kong riots and efforts to destabilize a Chinese province and with the neoconservatives’ intention of overthrowing the Iranian government and sending jihadists into the Russian Federation, Washington has demonstrated its intention to destabilize first one country and then the other.  A common front evidenced by a strategic alliance would represent power greater than Washington and prevent Washington miscalculations that could lead to the outbreak of war.

Why is Arbatov opposed to such a desireable result? Why does he want Russia “to keep its distance” from China?  Does he trust Washington more than China?  

He gives this answer:  A half century ago the Soviet Union

“officially proclaimed in its program that China was the greatest threat to the world.  We cannot go back and forth between extremes, from China being the world’s greatest threat to it being our strategic ally or partner. One cannot play with such concepts. A strategic ally is when you are ready to send your soldiers to fight for the interests of your ally, and vice versa. I am confident that we don’t have and will not have such a situation with China.”

What strategic sense does it make for Arbatov to use a minor conflict of a half century ago between China and a government and country that no longer exist to discourage a strategic alliance that would prevent a much more serious conflict today?  One possible answer is that some Russians, despite Washington’s demonstrated aggressive intentions toward Russia, are more enamored of America than they are of China.  The romanticism of the Atlanticist Integrationists remains Russia’s greatest threat. 

Arbatov is not alone in his view. A number of Russian experts believe that Russia should not get too close to China whose economic position they believe is stronger than Russia’s.  They fear that a close relationship would result in Russia becoming a servant of China’s, with the Russian economy being limited to being a source of natural resources.

Russia’s experts should remember that it is Washington’s plan to limit the Russian economy to the export of raw materials except for energy to Europe.  Do the experts who are discouraging alliance with China prefer for Russia to be Washington’s servant?  The prevention of a strategic alliance between Russia and China is essential to US hegemony. Russians should avoid being manipulated into a fear of China that exposes them to the danger of being Washington’s servant. A strategic alliance is the best way for Russia and China to protect themselves from Washington’s machinations. 

It makes sense for Russia, threatened as it is by Washington, to make friends and build bridges to other countries.

Russia’s concession to Norway in the Barents Sea, to China over an island in the Amur River, and consideration of Japan’s request for the return of the Kuril Islands are marks of thoughtful diplomacy.  Whatever the basis for Russian distrust of China, it makes less sense for Russia to trust Washington, which continues to prepare the path for war by dismantling the last remaining agreements put in place to ensure peace.  Nothing is more important to Russia and China, and to world peace, than a solid alliance between Russia and China.  This is the best way for the two countries to protect their sovereignty and perhaps the only way of preventing the drive for American hegemony from resulting in nuclear war.  If Russians cannot understand this, they are doomed along with the rest of us.

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

Mass protests in the US and elsewhere over racist killings of Black men like George Floyd aren’t good enough.

They divert attention from an array of core issues ignored by officialdom and establishment media.

Justice won’t be served unless they’re all addressed and corrected, systemic change that requires longterm struggle.

Days, weeks, even a few months of street protests alone will fail like always before, especially if pacified by cosmetic changes alone.

Tinkering around the edges alone assures status quo forever wars, inequity and injustice for ordinary people while privileged ones enjoy gravy train benefits.

That’s the American way that’s replicated throughout the West and elsewhere worldwide — governance of, by, and for special interests at the expense of the exploited vast majority.

All lives matter, those most disadvantaged harmed most by institutionalized fantasy democracy, racism, inequity and injustice in the US and worldwide.

Systemic change that’s needed demands going for the following — without compromise:

Money power put back in public hands where it belongs, in the US by abolishing the Wall Street owned Fed and giving back to Congress what’s constitutionally mandated.

Break up and prohibit too-big-to-fail banks, including an end to allowing commercial and investment banking combinations, along with letting them own insurance companies.

End countless billions of dollars of corporate handouts and bailouts.

Rescind the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that greatly contributed to speculative excess, including no regulatory oversight of derivatives and leveraging that turned Wall Street more than ever into a casino

Enact progressive policies, eliminating neoliberal ones, including force-fed austerity on ordinary people, the nation’s wealth used for everyone, not just the privileged few.

Mandate social justice in the US by constitutional amendment, including universal healthcare, public education to the highest levels, along with human, civil and organized labor rights, what was omitted in the US founding document.

Breaking up and banning corporate monopolies and oligopolies.

Getting money entirely out of politics.

Changing rigged elections to free, fair and open ones.

In the US, ending one-party rule with two right wings, fostering a climate that encourages parties independent from the current system.

Mandate ecosanity over raping and plundering the earth for maximum profits.

Reestablish and strengthen the vanishing middle class.

Reinstate progressive taxes, requiring the wealthy and business to pay their fair share.

Slash military spending, declaring a new era or peace and stability by beating swords into plowshares, using the revenue for rebuilding US infrastructure and enhancing social programs.

End corporate personhood, the US gulag prison system, capital punishment, and unrestrained predatory capitalist practices.

The difference between the latter and my decades of experience in small family business is worlds apart — public service v. big business rapaciousness for maximum profits in cahoots with big government, an unholy alliance against peace, equity and justice.

Todays America is the product of its founders — a men-only Wall Street crowd equivalent, given their economic status and prominence.

Designers of the nation’s founding document were bankers, merchants, lawyers, politicians, judges, and other wheeler-dealers.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights five years later served their interests, not the general welfare — notably not African Americans considered property, not people.

Not women at the time, considered child-rearers and homemakers alone, not decision-makers, not independent from their husbands.

The general welfare was off the table, special interests alone served, not ordinary America — fantasy democracy institutionalized from inception.

In his last State of the Union address on January 11, 1944, Franklin Roosevelt proposed a second bill of rights, economic ones, because original ones in the Constitution’s first 10 amendments “proved inadequate to assure us equality…”

FDR didn’t live long enough to push for what he proposed to become the law of the land post-WW II.

Economic rights he proposed are more greatly needed now, what should be core demands of protesters on US streets. They included the following:

• Full employment with a guaranteed living wage adjusted to the real cost of living the way it was calculated pre-1990.
• Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies.
• Ending homelessness by assuring housing for all.
• Universal healthcare and public education to the highest levels.
• Enhanced social security beyond what New Deal legislation provided — that’s greatly eroded today.

All of the above and more are needed for egalitarian rule over governance serving privileged interests alone like now.

Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, his economic bill of rights along with him.

The vast majority of protesters on US streets know nothing about it, along with little about the nation’s dark history from before its inception to the present day.

Ending institutionalized racism and police brutality are vital objectives.

It’s not enough. Key is ending all forms of inequity and injustice along with forever wars on humanity at home and abroad.

These are goals to pursue by committed longterm struggle.

Achieving them won’t come any other way.

Iconoclast muckraking journalist IF Stone once explained the following:

“The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins…”

That’s what longterm struggle is all about — fighting the good fight for peace, equity and justice so one day what’s now unattainable is possible.

If that’s not worth fighting for, what is?

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Rise Up Times

The secret services of Czechia had first informed its government in April that it had damning evidence against two Russian diplomats in the country that would warrant their expulsion. It was alleged, without any evidence given publicly, that Russian diplomats smuggled ricin poison to Czechia. According to the Czech Security Information Service, they ‘discovered’ that there was a planned attack against three Czech politicians, including Prague’s mayor, Zdeněk Hřib, who went under police protection in April.

However, on Friday, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, said in a statement that the whole Russian plot had been fake and rather the information emerged because of an internal struggle between Russian diplomats.

“The entire case came to being as a result of internal feuding among workers at the [Russian] embassy,” he said. “One of them sent false information about a planned attack against Czech politicians to our counter-intelligence service.”

The Russian embassy in Czechia called the whole case a contrived provocation and pointed out that the decision to expel diplomats means less room for constructive dialogue. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also responded to the incident, saying in a statement that Moscow will make an appropriate retaliation and that the Czech side would have to take responsibility for its actions. According to the ministry, Prague acted dishonestly and without any reasons caused serious damage to Russian-Czech relations.

Czech journalist who first broke the story about the alleged plot, Ondřej Kundra of the Czech weekly Respekt, highlighted that there are inconsistencies in Babiš’ story.

“The government has offered an explanation, but we still don’t see the full picture. It’s hard to imagine the government would expel two Russian diplomats just because they said nasty things about each other,” he said.

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said that relations between Moscow and Prague are being “deliberately worsened by a certain part of the Czech elite,” and there is little doubt that this is occurring, especially with Czech provocations against Russia increasing.

In April, Prague councillors voted to rename the “Under the Chestnuts” square to “Boris Nemtsov Square” to commemorate the murdered Russian political opposition. The West blames Russian President Vladimir Putin for Nemtsov’s death, without evidence of course. Hřib spearheaded the renaming of the square and said it was a part of the “Czech human rights tradition.” Unsurprisingly the renamed square is at the Russian Embassy, forcing the Embassy to change its official address from the square name to 36 Korunovacni Street.

Also in April, Prague District 6 mayor Ondřej Kolář used the coronavirus state of emergency to remove a statue of Marshal Ivan Konev, the famous Soviet general who was responsible for liberating most of Eastern Europe from Nazi Germany, to avoid protests from “strange people from both the right and left scum.” This was his description of the people who opposed the statues removal. Czech President Miloš Zeman shared outrage over the removed statue as “an abuse of the state of emergency.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that nobody presented evidence that Moscow was trying to poison anyone. Zeman also doubted the authenticity of the poisoning, while the First Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Jan Gamachek admitted that police and special services did not see any available evidence.

It certainly appears that there is a large split in the Czech establishment between two factions: those hostile to Russia and those who want friendly relations with Russia. There is little doubt that Zeman takes a Russia-friendly position, but that puts him at odds with the Prime Minister, the Prague Mayor, and many others in position of power. So  Zeman is in the minority as the anti-Russia faction appears to be gaining stronger influence and power, especially in the aftermath of the square name change, the removal of a Soviet statue and the expulsion of the Russian diplomats.

Babiš said the expulsions were “appropriate and adequate,” despite conceding that the allegations that Russia was planning to use ricin to assassinate three Czech politicians was not true. It is likely that no Russian diplomats in the Prague Embassy sent notes to the Czech intelligence services about the impending assassinations and the Czech government were caught out making fake news. To cover the embarrassment, they could have concocted a story that they received false leads from Russian diplomats about the alleged assassination planning, and to legitimize the story are now expelling the Russian diplomats. Just as Kundra said, the changing story by Babiš is not adding up.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Sparked by the police murder of George Floyd and fueled by Minneapolis authorities’ reluctance to arrest and charge the murderer’s three police accomplices, mass protests have been sweeping across the US with an intensity not seen since the 1960s. In over 150 cities, African Americans and their allies have flooded the streets, braving the COVID-19 pandemic, braving police violence, challenging centuries of racial and class inequalities, demanding liberty and justice for all, day after day defying a corrupt, racist power structure based on violent repression.

1. Breaches in the System’s Defenses

Today, after ten consecutive days in the streets, this outpouring of popular indignation against systematic, historic injustice has opened a number of breaches in the defensive wall of the system. The legal authorities in the state of Minnesota, where George Floyd was murdered, have been forced to arrest and indict as accomplices the three other policemen who aided and abetted the killer, against whom the charges were raised from third to second degree murder. A split has opened at the summit of power, where the Secretary of Defense and numerous Pentagon officials have broken with their Commander in Chief, Donald Trump, who has attempted to mobilize the US Army against the protestors.

This historic uprising is an outpouring of accumulated black anger over decades of unpunished police murders of unarmed African-Americans. It articulates the accumulated grief of families and communities, the sheer outrage over impunity for killer cops in both the North and the South. It reflects anger at capitalist America’s betrayal of Martin Luther King’s “dream” of non-violent revolution and horror at the return to the era of public lynchings cheered on by the President of the United States. It impatiently demands that America at long last live up to its proclaimed democratic ideals, here and now. In the words of one African-American protester, William Achukwu, 28, of San Francisco: “Our Declaration of Independence says life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We are only dealing with the life part here. This is a first step. But liberty is what a lot of people are marching for.”

2. Violence and Non-Violence

It came as no surprise that local and state officials across the US reacted to largely peaceful, spontaneous mass protests against police brutality and racism by unleashing a maelstrom of militarized police violence.[1] For a generation, the Federal government has been quietly gifting huge stocks of surplus military equipment, including tanks, to local police forces and sheriff’s offices eager to play with lethal new toys designed for counter-insurgency in places like Afghanistan. Under both Democrats (Clinton, Obama) and Republicans (Bush, Trump) the federal state has been arming law enforcement in preparation for a preventive counter-revolution. This is precisely what President Trump is calling for today: “full dominance” by means of military crackdowns, mass arrests, and long prison sentences in the name of “law and order.” Thanks to the determination of these masses of militant but largely non-violent protestors, the military is divided, and Trump will not have his way.

Source: The Bullet

Apropos of violence, it was feared at first that the numerous incidences of setting fires, smashing shop fronts, and looting, especially after dark when the large, orderly crowds of mixed demonstrators had gone home, would in some way “spoil” the uprising and provide a pretext for the violent, military suppression of the whole movement, as called for by Trump, who blamed it all on an imaginary terrorist group called “ANTIFA” (short for “anti-fascism,” in fact, a loose network). At the same time, reports of gangs of young white racists wearing MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) hats committing vandalism, of “accelerationists” systematically setting fires in black neighborhoods to “provoke revolution,” and of violent police provocateurs are not entirely to be discounted.

Such actions play into Trump’s hands. On the other hand, the more reasonable voices of the hundreds of thousands of angry but nonviolent protestors might not have been listened to by the authorities if it had not been for the threat of violence from the fringes if their voices were ignored. Instead of burning their own neighborhoods as has happened in past riots, today’s militants are strategically hitting symbols of state repression and capitalism – lighting up and destroying police property, trashing the stores of million-dollar corporations, and even pushing against the gates of the White House. In any case, as far as “looting” is concerned, as the spokeswomen of BLM argued at George Floyd’s memorial, white people have been looting Africa and African-Americans for centuries. Pay-back is long over-due.

3. Black and White Anti-Racist Convergence

What is especially remarkable and heartening to see as we view the impassioned faces of the demonstrators through images on videos, newspaper photos, and TV reports is the realization that at least half the demonstrators in the crowds proclaiming “Black Lives Matter” are white people! Here again, a serious breach has been opened in the wall of systemic, institutionalized racism that has for centuries enabled the US ruling class to divide and conquer the working masses, pitting slave labourers and their discriminated descendants against relatively “privileged” white wage slaves in a competitive race to the bottom. Today, they are uniting in the fight for justice and equality. Equally remarkable is the continuing. leadership role of women, especially African American women in the founding of both the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the Women’s March against Trump’s Inauguration. The participation of young and old, LGBT and physically challenged folks is also to be remarked.

This convergence of these freedom struggles across deeply-rooted racial divides promises to open new paths as US social movements emerge from the Covid confinement. Even more remarkable, albeit limited, are incidents, also recorded on citizen video, of individual cops apologizing for police violence, hugging victims, and taking the knee with demonstrators. Public officials, like the Mayor of Los Angeles, have also been obliged to meet with the protestors and to apologize for the previous racist remarks. Moreover, as we shall see below, serious cracks have emerged in the unity of the US military, both among the ranks, which are 40 per cent African American, and also among top officers. Such is the power of this massive, self-organized, inter-racial movement demanding “freedom and justice for all” (as stated in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Republic).

4. Cracks Within the Regime

Today, after ten days, during which the protests have continued to increase numerically and to deepen in radical content, cracks have opened in the defenses of the ruling corporate billionaire class and have reached the White House, where Donald J. Trump, the self-deluded, ignorant bully and pathological liar supposedly in charge, has finally been challenged by his own appointed security officials.

It must be said that today’s billionaire ruling class has the representative it deserves in Trump, and the Donald’s ineptitude, visible to all, is symbolic of its historic incapacity to retain the right to rule. Trump’s flawed, self-centered personality incarnates the narrow class interests of the 0.01% who own more than half the wealth of the nation. His obvious selfishness exemplifies that of the billionaires he represents (and pretends to be one of). Out of his willful ignorance, Trump speaks for a corporate capitalist class indifferent to the global ecological and social consequences of its ruthless drive to accumulate, indifferent to truth and justice, indifferent indeed to human life itself.

Trump’s clownish mis-rule has embarrassed the state itself. First came the childish spectacle of the most powerful man in the world hunkering down in his basement bunker and ordering the White House lights turned off (so the demonstrators outside couldn’t see in?). Then came the order to assault peaceful protestors with chemical weapons so as to clear the way for President Trump to walk to the nearby “Presidents’ Church” (which he never attends and whose pastor he didn’t bother to consult) in order to have himself photographed brandishing a huge white Bible (which he has most likely never read) like a club.

Trump, whose only earned success in life was his long-running reality-TV show “The Apprentice,” apparently devised this bizarre publicity stunt to rally his political base of right-wing Christians and show how “religious” he is. But it backfired when the Bishop of Washington pointed out that Jesus preached love and peace, not war and vengeance. The next day, even demagogues like Pat Robinson of the far-right wing Christian Coalition spoke out against him, while the anti-Trump New York Times triumphantly headlined: “Trump’s Approval Slips Where He Can’t Afford to Lose It: Among Evangelicals.”

Let us pause to note that American Christianity, like every other aspect of American civilization, is a knot of contradictions all rooted in the fundamental problem of “the color line.” Although the racist, conservative, pro-Israel, Christian right has been the core of Trump’s support, liberation theology and the black church have long been the base of the Civil Rights movement for equality. Indeed, George Floyd the murdered African-American (known as “Big Floyd” and “the Gentle Giant”) was himself a religiously motivated community peacemaker. So are many of the demonstrators, white and black, chanting “No Justice, No Peace.”

Trump’s phony populist act may have helped catapult him into office in 2016 (thanks to Republican-rigged electoral system and despite losing the popular vote by three million votes), but as Abraham Lincoln once remarked of the American public, “You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Today, Trump’s time is up.

5. Police: The Vicious Dogs of the Bourgeoisie

To me, the most emblematic image of the moment is that of a self-deluded Donald Trump, huddled (like Hitler) in his underground bunker with the White House lights turned off, shivering with fear and rage at the demonstrators outside, and threatening to sick (purely imaginary) “vicious dogs” on them. Trump has the Doberman mentality of the junk-yard owner from Queens he incarnates; he is the spiritual descendant of the slave-catcher Simon Legree chasing the escaped slave Eliza with his dogs (see Uncle Tom’s Cabin).

Vicious dogs of the bourgeoisie: that’s what the police are paid to be (even if a few of them may turn out to be basically friendly German Shepherds underneath, like those who took the knee with the protestors). Their canines are the sharp teeth of the American state. Along with the Army, cops are the essence of the actual deep state which Marx defined as “special bodies of armed men, courts, prisons, etc.” (as opposed to “the people armed” in democratically-run popular militias).

Although subservient to the bourgeois state, this police apparatus, like the Mafia with which it is sometimes entwined, has a corporate identity of its own based on omertà or strict group loyalty. This unwritten rule is the notorious “Blue Wall of Silence” which prevents cops who see their “brothers” committing graft and violent abuses from speaking out or testifying against them. The blue wall assures police impunity and is organized through police “unions” which, although affiliated with the AFL-CIO, are violently reactionary, anti-labour, and pro-Trump. The President of the International Police Union has been filmed wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat and shaking hands with Trump at a political rally, while protesters in Minneapolis have been calling for the ousting of Bob Kroll, the local police union president who has been widely criticized for his unwavering support of officers accused of wrongdoing.

The Blue Wall of silence extends up the repressive food chain to prosecutors, District Attorneys, and even progressive mayors, like New York’s Bill Di Blazio, who defended New York police driving their SUVs straight into a crowd of demonstrators, although his own mixed-race daughter was arrested as a Black Lives Matter demonstrator! Di Blazio, like his reactionary predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, former “law and order” District Attorney and current Trump advisor, knows that his political future is dependent on the good will of the Police Union (like junk-yard owners who are afraid of their own vicious dogs).

This customary coddling of the police even extended to the New York Times initial coverage of violent police attacks on members of the press in Minneapolis and elsewhere. In its report, The Timeshid behind a twisted notion of “objectivity” (blame both sides) to avoid pointing fingers at cops, thus observing the “blue wall of silence” even when reporters are victims. (At this writing, over a thousand such attacks have been recorded.) Using passive voice rather than naming the actual assailants (brutal racist cops), the New York Times report conflated a single isolated incident where a crowd attacked news people from Trump’s FOX network, with systematic, nationwide police attacks on members of the media.[2]

A week later, that sacrosanct Blue Wall is beginning to crumble. Not only have the D.A. and Governor of Minnesota been forced to escalate the charges against Derek Chauvin, George Floyd’s killer, to second degree murder (why not first?) and arrest his three police accomplices, the latter have begun to rat each other out. Facing 40 years in prison and a bail of at least $750,000, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, both rookies, are blaming Chauvin, the senior officer at the scene and a training officer, while Tou Thao, the other former officer charged in the case, had reportedly cooperated with investigators before they arrested Chauvin.

6. Cracks in the Military Wall

Such is the power of today’s mass Black Lives Matter uprising, that it has opened a breach in US capitalism’s most important defense wall: the military. For if the police are American capitalism’s junk yard Dobermans, the Armed Forces are basis of its domination over the world. And if the cry for equal justice has opened a tiny crack in the Blue Wall of Silence, the breach in the ranks of the US military, which is 40% colored and recruited from the poorest classes of American society, is more like a gulf.

The rank and file in today’s US Army, Navy and Air Forces are a reflection of American society, of a population of mainly poor and minority people for whom the military provides one possible solution to unemployment and discrimination. The mood of the troops reflects that of the communities they are recruited from, and their officers, who are responsible for their morale, discipline, and loyalty, must be sensitive to their feelings. This situation is epitomized by the following quotations from the New York Times:

“Chief Master Sgt. Kaleth O. Wright of the Air Force, who is black, wrote an extraordinary Twitter thread declaring, ‘I am George Floyd’.

“The Navy’s top officer, Adm. Michael M. Gilday, said in a message on Wednesday to all sailors: ‘I think we need to listen. We have black Americans in our Navy and in our communities that are in deep pain right now. They are hurting’.”

Although Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, released a message to top military commanders on Wednesday affirming that every member of the armed forces swears an oath to defend the Constitution, which he said “gives Americans the right to freedom of speech,” The Generals and Admirals, retired and active, who have been speaking out for racial justice and the rights of demonstrating citizens this week are not all sudden converts to the cause of peace and justice. Rather, the America officer class is sharply focused on its global mission, which is to protect American domination around the world by leading these troops to kill and be killed in bloody civil war situations in mainly non-white countries.

“‘We are at the most dangerous time for civil-military relations I’ve seen in my lifetime’, Adm. Sandy Winnefeld, a retired vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an email. ‘It is especially important to reserve the use of federal forces for only the most dire circumstances that actually threaten the survival of the nation. Our senior-most military leaders need to ensure their political chain of command understands these things’.”

For the troops, policing the world for capitalism is an endless, incompressible and demoralizing mission of violent counter-insurrection from which they return physically and psychologically damaged, often haunted by guilt, only to face unemployment and lack of support from the public and the underfunded Veterans’ Authority. As for the officers, it is a question of maintaining discipline and morale. The top brass know that deploying troops trained in counter-insurrection to control civil disturbances on US soil would inevitably have one of two negative results (if not both): 1. Un-acceptable violence against civilians and/or 2. fraternization with the protestors, mutiny, and disobedience among the ranks. Hence the Pentagon’s open break with their “law and order” Commander in Chief. The danger of fraternization is especially real in National Guard regiments, whose troops are drawn from the populations of the states their families live in.

“Senior Pentagon leaders worry that a militarized and heavy-handed response to the protests, Mr. Trump’s stated wish, will turn the American public against the troops, like what happened in the waning years of the Vietnam War, when National Guard troops in combat fatigues battled antiwar protesters at Kent State. Adm. Mike Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, denounced the use of the military to support the political acts of a president who had “laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country.”

Although the eternal showman Trump apparently appointed Mark Milley chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the basis of the General’s physical resemblance to John Wayne, Milley happens to be a serious military historian. So is Secretary of Defense Esper. Both are aware that revolutions can only happen when there is a split in the ranks of the soldiers. In their West Point courses on counter-insurgency, they have certain read of the classic example of Russia in 1917 when the Cossacks were sent to block the demonstrators in St. Petersburg. These fierce cavalry men sat passively still on their horses as the strikers dove between their legs, leading Trotsky to famously remark that “the revolution passes underneath the belly of a Cossack’s horse.” And indeed, not long after this incident the Russian soldiers formed ‘Soviets’ (councils) and joined the workers’ and peasants in overthrowing the Czar.

Of course Russia in 1917 was in the middle of a social crisis, led by an inept, self-deluded Autocrat, bleeding lives and treasure into an endless, pointless foreign war. Nothing even vaguely similar could ever happen in optimistic, triumphant, happy, America under the firm leadership and uniting presence of our loveable President, Donald J. Trump.

7. Race and Class in US History

American society has been riddled with contradictions since its beginnings, and these contradictions, rooted in race and class, are still being played today out in the streets of over 150 US cities. Today’s uprisings, interracial from the beginning, express popular frustration that after centuries of struggle against slavery, after a bloody fratricidal Civil War in the 1860s and after the “second American revolution” of Reconstruction, after the Civil Rights movement and the urban riots of the 1960s, the lives of the descendants of black slaves are still not safe in the land that first proclaimed the human right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The American Revolution of the 18th century professed the universal principle, as expressed in the 1776 Declaration of Independence that “All men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights.” Yet, despite the participation of free blacks in the Revolution (Crispus Attucks), that promised equality was quickly contradicted by the inclusion in the US Constitution of notorious clauses which not only institutionalized black slavery in the American Republic, but also assured the permanent predominance in the federal government for the slaveholding Southern states.

The electoral system created by that slave-owners Constitution was based on the relative male populations of the several states, however allowed the Southerners to include their slaves as “three fifths of a man” (!) in the census. Thus the minority of white Southerners could always outvote the more populous North and dominate the Union. This hypocritical “compromise” was the price of national unity in a nation “half-free and half-slave.” Accordingly, ten of the first twelve American Presidents were slave-owners, and more and more such “compromises” favoring the slave-owner interests were introduced as new states were added to the Union, spreading the Southern slave empire further and further west. This rickety, lopsided Federal Union based on Southern domination held until 1860.

However, when Northern moderate Abraham Lincoln took office as President in 1861, most of the slave-owning states seceded from the Union, formed a rebellious Confederacy, launched a war on the United States, and sought recognition from Great Britain – the Confederacy’s main customer for slave-grown cotton. It is often been argued that the bitterly fought US Civil War, which lasted four years and registered higher casualty rates than even WWI, was not really “about slavery.” But it was. To hide this ugly truth, the white Southerners still call it “the War Between the States.” Yet the war was precipitated by white Abolitionists like John Brown, who aided and provoked slave rebellions. Moreover, the huge numbers of young farmers and mechanics who volunteered and even re-enlisted to fight for the North knew they were fighting for human freedom, as their correspondence with their families and hometown newspapers indicated.

Finally, the Civil War, long a bloody stalemate, was won by the Union North only after Lincoln unleashed the fighting power of the Negro slaves in the South by reluctantly issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, as Karl Marx, writing on behalf of anti-slavery British textile workers, had urged American President in a famous letter. Soon, slaves began escaping from their plantations and flocking to the Union Armies, depriving the white South of much of its black labour force. The Union Army fed them, immediately put them to work, and later enrolled them in Negro regiments who fought bravely and effectively to defeat the slaveocracy. Not “about slavery?”

Marx, speaking for the boycotting white English textile workers, had explained their unity with the slaves: “Labour in the white skin can never be free as long as labour in the black skin is branded.” A century and a half later, African-American workers in the US are no longer “branded” like their enslaved ancestors, but even today the color of their skin brands them and makes them prey to oppressors, like bosses, landlords, discriminatory banks, and the violent racist police who, up to now, have correctly assumed they can mistreat and even murder them with impunity.

The tragedy of the Civil War, which as we have seen was fought over slavery, is that although the North won the War, the South won the peace. Lincoln was shot in 1865, and his Vice-President, a border state Republican name Johnson, had strong pro-slavery Southern sympathies, and he used his power to sabotage the efforts to reconstruct the slave South on a new basis of freedom and equality. Although the Union passed three Reconstruction Amendments to the US Constitution, granting the former slaves and their descendants citizenship and full civil rights including the ballots. Reconstruction of the South was a “Second American Revolution,” making real and legal the freedom and equality promised by the Revolution of 1776.

Tragically, under President Johnson the former Confederate leaders, instead of being tried for treason, were pardoned and allowed to take high office. Supported by armed mobs of whites, they proceeded to discourage the newly-freed slaves from voting and owning property through Ku Klux Klan racist terror, even though the South was still occupied by victorious Union troops. President Johnson was impeached (but not convicted) by Congress, and by the time President Grant took office and attempted to use the Federal Troops occupying the South to protect the nascent democracy of elected Negroes, it was too late. Thousands of Northern whites went South to help newly freed blacks through literacy and political education, at the risk of being lynched by local racists. Great progress was made and America’s first free public school system established (only to be later forcibly segregated and privatized by racists).

Through armed white violence, slavery had been “replaced” by segregation, inequality and a racist economic system of “boss over black.” In 1876, twenty years after the Civil War, the ruling classes of the industrial North and formerly rebellious cotton-producing South united politically. They celebrated this ruling class unity by withdrawing the Federal occupation from the south, leaving the Negroes helpless before the armed KKK and racist local authorities. Why? The troops were needed in the North to crush the violent strikes of the industrial workers, who were organizing unions (but largely on a “whites only” basis). Later, unwitting blacks were brought North by train to be used as strikebreakers – another ploy in the capitalists’ racist “divide and rule.”

By 1900, W.E.B. Dubois, the black Marxist sociologist, historian of Reconstruction, and founder of the NAACP, was describing the US as a country with “two working classes,” one black one white. African American troops fought bravely (in segregated units) for the United States in the First World War in the hope of having their manhood recognized, but they returned to face increased racist repression. President Wilson pronounced Griffith’s racist pro-KKK film “Birth of a Nation” a masterpiece, and 1919 was a record year for lynchings, especially of ‘uppity’ black soldiers who returned in uniform.

The struggle to make the Second American Revolution established by the post- Civil War Reconstruction Amendments a reality was resumed after the Second World War and gave birth to the Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Rights laws of the 1960s in the hope of completing America’s promise, the “dream” of Martin Luther King. Federal troops were once more mobilized to prevent white racist mobs from attacking African Americans to exercise their legal right vote and attend the same schools as whites: by Eisenhower in 1956 at Little Rock and by JFK in Mississippi in 1962. Yet once again, despite legal victories and more blacks in visible the media and government, nothing fundamental changed on the ground. Sixty years later, African Americans are just a poor, just as segregated, just as excluded from first-class health, education and housing services, and just as subject to racist police violence as were their grand parents.

The murder of George Floyd is said to be the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” It was the straw that set fire to the haystack of anger and frustration that was smoldering for generations. Will this blaze be yet another fire of straw, fated to die out? I think not. The context has changed. US society, like the whole capitalist world, is in crisis. The economy, with productivity declining, with inequality and unemployment increasing, with debt and speculation ballooning was already in crisis. The pandemic pushed it over the top, and the resulting recession has only just begun. Thirty years after the post Cold War “new world order” of democracy, peace and un-ending growth was proclaimed, few Americans believe that their lives and those of their children likely to improve, what with social and ecological doom impending. The system has little to promise them and its leaders little to inspire confidence in them. In other words, they are no longer politically and socially ‘hegemonic’ and must depend on coercion to hold power. Today, the credibility and legitimacy of that coercive power, the cops and army, is being called into question by the masses, white and colored, demanding justice and equality.

The police may well continue to attack the demonstrators and while Trump and his followers call for militarization of the country in the name of protecting property, law, and order, it is clear that a breach has been opened in the Blue Wall of Silence protecting the privileges of the billionaire class against the power of the working masses who today face not only a political crisis but also the crisis of an ongoing pandemic, the crisis of poverty and mass unemployment, and the impending climate crisis of which Covid is a symptomatic forerunner.

Throughout US history, from the white Abolitionists, to the Yankee Civil War volunteers, to the Northern “carpetbaggers” who worked for Reconstruction, to the white Civil Rights marchers of the 1960s to the millions of whites in the streets proclaiming Black Lives Matter today, the unity in struggle of America’s racialized peoples has brought about whatever progress in freedom and democracy this race-benighted Republic has ever known.

Like the British workers in Marx’s day, today’s “privileged” white demonstrators, themselves victims, to a lesser degree, of American capitalism, know in their hearts that they can “never be free” and never be safe from state violence until Black Lives really do matter and black skins are no longer “branded.” They know that “Black and White Unite and Fight” is the only possible way to block authoritarian government, prevent fascism, establish democracy, institute class equality and face the future with a modicum of hope.

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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.

Richard Greeman has been active since 1957 in civil rights, anti-war, anti-nuke, environmental and labour struggles in the U.S., Latin America, France (where he has been a longtime resident) and Russia (where he helped found the Praxis Research and Education Center in 1997). He maintains a blog at richardgreeman.org.

Notes

1. “Facing Protests Over Use of Force, Police Respond With More Force.” Videos showed officers using batons, tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets on protesters and bystanders.
2. A Reporter’s Cry on Live TV: “I’m Getting Shot! I’m Getting Shot” (see phrases in italics): “From a television crew assaulted by protesters to a photographer struck in the eye, journalists have found themselves targeted on the streets of America. Linda Tirado, a freelance photographer, activist and author, was shot in the left eye Friday while covering the street protests in Minneapolis. Ms. Tirado is one of a number of journalists around the country who were attacked, arrested or otherwise harassed – sometimes by police and sometimes by protesters – during their coverage of the uprisings that have erupted nationwide after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis… With trust in the news media lagging, journalists have found themselves targeted.”

Russia is one step closer to achieving year-round navigation in the Arctic. An ice-capable tanker made the earliest delivery of LNG to China via the Northern Sea Route.

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For the past several years a fleet of fifteen specialized Arc7 icebreaking liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers have transported natural gas from a large LNG plant on Russia’s Yamal peninsula to countries in Asia via the Arctic. Even with the rapid melt of Arctic sea ice, these voyages have typically only been possible between July and November.

Now, Russia’s largest private natural gas company Novatek, which operates the Yamal LNG facility, conducted a voyage using its flagship and the world’s first icebreaking LNG carrier, the Christoph de Margerie, to examine how feasible an eastward voyage on the Northern Sea Route (NSR) would be during the month of May, almost two months earlier than previous such voyages. The ship, escorted by a nuclear icebreaker, completed the ice-covered part of the trip, around 2,500 nautical miles, in just twelve days and is expected in China by the middle of next week.

The voyage represented a test-case for early-season navigation on the route and may help to expedite the future growth of cargo traffic on the route, confirms Novatek.

The Christoph de Margerie departed from the port of Sabetta on May 18 and met up with the nuclear icebreaker Yamal in the Kara Sea. The LNG carrier passed through the Bering Strait and entered the Pacific Ocean on May 31 and the ship is expected in the port of Tangshan in northern China on June 11 after a 25 day voyage, compared to 36 days through the Suez Canal. During summer time the voyage from Sabetta to China can be completed in under 20 days.

“We are actively working to expand the eastbound navigation season for the NSR and looking forward to further development of state support for this trade route by increasing icebreaking capabilities,” explained Novatek’s CEO and Chairman of the Board Leonid Mikhelson.

A similar sentiment was echoed by Igor Tonkovidov, President and CEO of Sovcomflot, operator of the Christoph de Margerie.

“This successful voyage across the NSR, in May, allows us to move one step closer to realising the full transit potential of the Northern Sea Route, marking an important expansion in the shipping opportunities available to Arctic industrial projects in particular.”

Fast trip despite challenging ice conditions 

While the Arc7 LNG carriers are capable of breaking through 2.1 meters of ice, this early in the melt season an icebreaker escort was needed for part of the voyage, especially the East Siberian Sea where the convoy faced a fast-ice field in the Vilkitsky Strait and hummocked ice floes in the Chukchi Sea. The convoy encountered ice up to 1.3 meters thick.

However, despite challenging ice conditions and the resulting slower sailing speed the NSR represented a shortcut between Northern Russia and China compared to the traditional route officials explained.

“Even in the challenging ice conditions encountered during this time of the year, choosing the NSR allows for a significant reduction in the length of a voyage delivering LNG to Asia Pacific ports compared with using the Suez Canal,” confirmed Tonkovidov.

Going east earlier and earlier

The transit represents the earliest eastbound voyage by an LNG carrier. In previous years deliveries of LNG from Yamal to Asia did not occur until July, 6-8 weeks later than this most recent voyage. The Eastern reaches of the NSR are usually only navigable between July and December. Long term Novatek expects to export the majority of LNG to Asia, especially China. Last year it sent only 6.5 percent of production, or 1.2 million tons in an eastward direction.

During the remainder of the year the company ships its cargo in the westerly direction to Europe. For this purpose Novatek has for the last two years past cooperated with Norwegian company Tschudi during a ship-to-ship transfer operation off the coast of Honningsvåg. This allows Novatek to optimize the use of its speciality Arc7 LNG carriers and only use them for the icy stretches of the voyage.

View from nuclear icebreaker 50 years of Victory. (Source: Courtesy of Rosatomflot)

New icebreakers for year-round navigation

Russia is currently engaged in upgrading and expanding its fleet of nuclear icebreakers with four new vessels under construction or commissioned and a further vessel to be laid down next year. With the help of these new and more capable icebreakers the company hopes to expand the navigation season from May to January. At that point eastbound traffic would be feasible except for in the heart of winter in February, March and April.

“[State icebreaker] support allows us to significantly contribute to the annual cargo turnover along the Northern Sea Route by implementing our large-scale LNG projects to produce up to 70m tonnes by 2030,” explained Mikhelson.

While voyages along the NSR remain novel territory, vessels and crews are quickly gaining levels of experience. This was Christophe de Margerie’s 45th trip along the NSR.

The ultimate goal is to achieve year-round navigation capabilities for the purpose of which Russia is constructing a new super icebreaker capable of escorting the Arc7 LNG carriers even during the depths of winter.

Contracts for the construction of the Leader-class icebreaker were signed between Rosatomflot and the Zvezda shipyard earlier this year. The first vessel of the type is expected to be commissioned in 2027.

Next ship already en route

In fact, less than a week after Christophe de Margerie another Arc7 carrier departed from Sabetta on its way to China. The Vladimir Voronin initially followed a more coastal route escorted by the nuclear icebreaker 50 years of Victory during the first part of the voyage before being handed off to Yamal further east. The vessel is on track to transit the NSR even faster in less than 10 days. The convoy found an “ice-free highway” along the Siberian coastline allowing it to make fast progress.

Path of the Christophe de Margerie (yellow) and Vladimir Voronin (pink) through the Kara and Laptev Sea. (Source: IHS Markit Maritime & Trade via Twitter)

Donald Trump has no solution to the crisis in the domestic hydraulic fracturing industry that won’t have dire consequences for the economy.  The survival of the industry lies in Saudi Arabia.

It was not until 2013 that the real potential of hydraulic fracturing came into play.  Here was the possibility for the United States to achieve energy independence. By 2015, President Barak Obama had removed the restrictions on the export of crude oil and made the U.S. a world petroleum player.

Two years later at the Unleashing of the American Energy conference on June 29, 2017, President Donald J. Trump declared to the representatives of the energy industry,

“With these incredible resources, my administration will seek not only American energy independence that we’ve been looking for so long, but American energy dominance.”

American growing oil production enabled him to impose sanctions upon Iran and Venezuela without disrupting the market.  He went further and imposed Sanctions in December 2019 on the two Swiss pipeline construction companies pipelay and Allseas to blocked completion of the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.  Backed up with a supply of natural gas from the fracking, the act was a clear sign that Washington was prepared to use any measure to replace Russian gas in Europe with American LNG.  Donald Trump got his energy war, but he is waging it with an empty arsenal.  The fracking industry has been built literally and figuratively on a foundation of sand.  Only Exxon Mobil Corp., Occidental Petroleum Corp. Chevron Corp. and Crownquest Operating LLC with wells in the Permian Basin are able to turn a profit with an oil price as low as thirty-one dollars per barrel.  Between 2014 and the present, two hundred and fifteen companies involved in high cost hydraulic fracturing have gone bankrupt.

The law firm of Haynes & Boone in Houston Texas anticipates that another sixty are likely to follow.  With that prospect looming, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Wells Fargo & Co, Bank of America Corp and Citigroup Inc are establishing companies to hold the depreciating resource assets of failing fracking and related companies that owe an estimated two hundred billion dollars.  Even before the conflict between Russia and Saudi Arabia, smaller banks in Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma were facing credit issues with defaulting borrowers. Goldman Sachs places the over leveraged bonds of the firms in the fracking sector at higher risk  compared to the more financially important areas of the economy.

Donald Trump seems to have been unaware of the financial stresses within the oil industry.  When oil prices crashed on March 9, he celebrated that the American consumer would be getting bargain energy when what he was really seeing was the destruction of his dream of global energy domination. By April 2, the reality of the collapsing industry prompted him to telephone President Vladimir Putin and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to have them reduce the supply of oil.  Reuters reports that Donald Trump threatened the Saudi prince to withdraw U.S. military support if he did not reduce oil production; and it was not the first time that the president threatened the prince.  In July of 2018, he pressured the Saudi to lower prices or lose military protection for the Kingdom.  Despite the threats, what Donald Trump learned was that control of energy was in the hands of the Saudi prince.

Ten days after the telephone calls, OPEC + Agreed upon a ten-million-barrel reduction with another possible ten million, while Donald Trump offered the decline in production due to price erosion to serve as his contribution.  His acknowledgement of the drop was his recognition that the dream of world energy domination had been abandoned for the time.  What was really needed to save the industry was a thirty-million-barrel reduction in supply.

The Texas Railroad Commission that regulates oil and gas production in the state that contributes forty-one percent of oil and twenty-five percent of gas to the national pool is forecasting a contraction of three to four million barrels per day that would make the United States a net oil importer again.  In Spite of appeals from Pioneer Natural Resources and Parsley Energy executives For the Commission to impose quotas upon the industry, it has opted to stand aside.  Since the OPEC agreement, a loss of twenty million barrels per day of production by other producers is reflecting their high cost production.  Although prices are recovering to forty dollars per barrel, it will not help much of the domestic industry that requires levels closer to fifty or sixty dollars. That is leaving Donald Trump with several hard choices. In order to save the inefficient industry, Donald Trump will have to impose stiff tariffs or quotas to push prices back into the fifty-dollar range that will enable more firms to be profitable with the overall economy bearing the costs.  The other choices are to reduce royalty charges that is being done already and finance the temporary shut down of troubled producers until oil prices stabilize at a higher level at which point the problem of too much supply will repeat.  The fracking industry with its ability to stop and start production quickly and to raise funds is the core of the problem.

According to a report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, the oil industry ranks last in the S&P 500 index. Despite its minor economic importance, it commands so much interest because it has been politicized by being declared vital to the national security and used for international leverage. When placed in a historical context, the industry is going simply through a normal upsurge in growth followed by a purging of many insolvent firms with a few larger companies assuming domination.  It happened to the automobile, the railway, the computer industries and others.

Time is not on President Donald J. Trump’s side.  He will have to make decisions soon, very soon.  Fifty million barrels of Saudi oil is heading for the Gulf and Pacific coasts. The Saudi prince will not allow the hydraulic fracturing industry in the United States to challenge Saudi world energy domination.

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The world is in turmoil. 2020 has already brought major multiple crises, with the Iranian-American clash in Iraq which followed the US assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani, and the COVID-19 health pandemic and economic disaster that struck all continents and stole the lives of over 400 thousand people around the world, costing tens of millions of jobs. None of this, however, prevented America from imposing even more sanctions on Iran, Syria and Venezuela. Iran – already under maximum sanctions since 1979 – sent five tankers to Venezuela to break the embargo on components and spare parts much needed to process the low octane Venezuelan oil. In parallel with America’s implosion due to domestic protests caused by deep-rooted racism and injustice, in the Middle East other fronts are taking shape in the shadows, to prevent war or to trigger a wider military confrontation. 

A likely front is the Levant, where preparations are being made to confront Israel and end its continued violations of Syria’s sovereignty and bombardment of hundreds of targets in Syria throughout the years of the war. This particular issue may bring the Middle East into an all-out war; one mistake could turn fatal and drag the region into an all-out clash in which Syria will not be alone.

It is well known that Israel possesses enormous firepower and strong armed forces for land, sea, and air combat, and is better equipped than any other army in the Middle East. It is also known that Israel’s main enemy and nightmare, the Lebanese Hezbollah, possesses sophisticated weapons, armed drones, and land attack long-range all-weather subsonic cruise missiles. Hezbollah also has long-range strategic anti-ship missiles, anti-tank laser-guided missiles, anti-air low and medium altitude missiles, and precision missiles. These are pointed at precise targets over all the Palestinian geography controlled by Israel, including ports, airports, military barracks, infrastructure, ships, oil-rigs and flying helicopters or jets at medium altitude. Thousands of Hezbollah’s Special Operation Forces, al-Ridwan, never lost a battle since their first engagement in Syria.

Israel has never ceased acquiring the most modern military hardware but it has failed to develop its fighting spirit. It has no newly acquired military experience on the battlefield, because the last battle it fought dates back to 2006, which was considered the second war on Lebanon (after the first invasion of 1982) which resulted in failure on many levels. Meanwhile Israel’s enemy, Hezbollah, developed and strengthened its fighting spirit following its participation for many continuous years in a very wide geographical military theatre estimated to be almost 12 times bigger than Lebanon and 60 times wider than the area of combat in which it confronted Israel in the south of Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

Hezbollah fought alongside classic (Syrian, Russian, and Iraqi) armies, gaining battlefield experience against armed groups trained and armed by the CIA and other jihadists affiliated with Al Qaeda and ISIS and possessing highly developed combat skills (combined with classical and guerrilla skills) and high spiritual motivation, far more motivated than the Israeli soldiers. These jihadists fought against the American army throughout its occupation of Iraq and Syria and completed their journey fighting against the Iraqi and Syrian armies and against various organisations, which gave them significant combat experience, an aspiration for martyrdom and advanced guerrilla fighting tactics.

However, their defeat by Syria and its Russian and Iranian allies dashed Israel’s hopes, as expressed by defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, who said that he preferred “the presence of ISIS on Israel’s borders, not Iran and its allies.” Israel attacked Syrian planes, artillery and intelligence capabilities in support of the jihadists, especially in the Quneitra areas where the Khaled bin Walid army that pledged allegiance to ISIS was deployed, and in areas favourable to al-Nusra – al-Qaeda in Daraa and other southern regions.

However, Israel was not satisfied with these attacks. Israeli jets went on to strike Syria in depth in Damascus, Homs, Hama, Al-Qaim, the desert of the Badia, and any area where there are military warehouses and missiles that Iran supplied to Syria in order to support the Syrian army and rearm it with precision missiles.

Israel was able to hit and destroy a large number of these stores. This prompted Iran to change its armament storage policy for the Syrian army. Syria has built strategic warehouses in the mountains and underground in silos, waiting for the appropriate moment to impose a balance of deterrence – in response to hundreds of Israeli raids – a moment that has not yet come. The Syrian priority is still liberation of its still occupied territories, mainly in Afrin, Idlib and surroundings, without excluding the US-occupied oil and gas fields in the north-east of Syria.

In Idlib and its countryside, the Turkish army has established large military bases. Groups of the Hayat Tahrir Sham (formerly al-Nusra) and Ansar al-Din (al-Qaeda and the remains of ISIS) still exist in and around the established Turkish military bases (i.e. Idlib and its countryside).

However, Iran no longer wants to accept Israeli strikes on its warehouses without any response. Iranian advisers (a few hundred) are not free to respond to these attacks because the decision is in the hands of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Assad and his allies are aware that any Iranian response from Syria would most likely drag the US into the battle to support its ally Israel and have an impact in the forthcoming US elections in favour of President Trump. Trump, who suffers from countless problems in managing his foreign and domestic affairs, is far from assured of regaining his seat in the White House for another four-year term.

Hence, Iran has decided – according to private sources – to evacuate the sites of the gatherings of its advisers, not for withdrawal or for redeployment but to find bases within the Syrian Army barracks. Hezbollah has taken over the vacated Iranian buildings. Russia has been informed of the change so that the information would reach Israel, which is coordinating with Moscow and its base in Syria (Hmeimim military airport base, north-western Syria) every time Tel Aviv sends its planes to Syria to hit certain targets. It was agreed between Israel and Russia that Moscow and Hmeimim would be informed of the details of any strike hours before it occurred to avoid accidents, especially after Russia accused Israel of deliberately taking cover behind its planes to mislead the Syrian air defences, downing the Ilyushin-20 and killing 15 Russian officers in September 2018. Russia, in turn, informs the Syrian army and its allies of coming Israeli strikes. Moscow refuses to be involved in the Iran-Syria-Israel conflict. Russia has strategic interests with all belligerents and is not a party to the “axis of resistance”.

Russia has informed Israeli leaders of this move by Iranian advisers and their presence among the Syrian army units. Russia warned Israel not to strike the Syrian army under any circumstance and informed them that the Iranian bases have been handed over to Hezbollah.

It seems obvious that Hezbollah wants to relieve Syria and Iran from the responsibility for a response. Israel is aware that any attack against Hezbollah’s men in Lebanon or Syria would lead to a direct response along the Lebanese borders and inside Palestine. This means that Israel must think carefully before bombing any Hezbollah objective because retaliation will certainly follow, preventing a US-Israeli response against Syria. Hezbollah is offering a new “Rule of Engagement” in Syria which cripples or limit Israel’s freedom to violate Syria’s sovereignty.

Before any airstrike aimed at specific targets in Syria, Israel’s drones make sure these locations are free of Iranian advisers and that the Russian warning reaches those concerned to evacuate human personnel and reduce casualties. Israel follows the same practice when it attacks Hezbollah cars or trucks, warning drivers and passengers in advance. Israel fires a missile, and on the last occasion two missiles, in front of the car or truck so passengers understand to leave it and take a distance to allow Israel a safe-bombing. In this case, Hezbollah’s deterrent response may or may not be required or painful because only material losses are involved.

Israeli minister Naftali Bennett has stated that “Israel would hit one truck and let five other trucks pass”. Israel is looking to avoid further embarrassment from Hezbollah deterrence as happened when Israel tried to send suicide drones into the suburbs of Beirut last year. Hence, it is likely that Israeli strikes on Syria will decrease in number, or Israel will rely on its intelligence information before hitting any Hezbollah target to make sure it is free of any human presence to avoid losses and consequent further humiliation like that imposed on the Israeli army in the past months on the Lebanese-Palestinian border.

Israel is walking through a strategic minefield. The danger for Israel lies in any potential error that might kill Hezbollah members in Syria. Such an outcome would lead to an escalation that may take the Middle Eastern region into a larger and more comprehensive war. The timing will not be to the advantage of Israel and its ally Donald Trump. His presidency is already mired in foreign crises with Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, and also domestically due to Corona pandemic mismanagement plus the consequences of recent riots and racial unrest after the killing of a black American by the police- and in addition the losses of American jobs in numbers exceeding fifty million.

Hezbollah’s new rules of engagement, its advanced armaments and outstanding military experience amount to a significant deterrent. Nevertheless, wars can start by mistake. Will Israel make such a fatal mistake?

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All images in this article are from the author

State-sponsored class warfare rages. Ongoing for decades, it’s all about governance of, by, and for the privileged few at the expense of most others.

What’s untenable persists with no end of it in prospect, no plan for improving the lives and welfare of ordinary Americans by its ruling authorities, notably ones most disadvantaged.

The divide between super-rich and growing poverty and subsistence-level income in the US is greatest since the late 19th/early 20th century robber baron age.

Because of bipartisan complicity against social justice, inequality and injustice are deepening, not improving — notably at a time of protracted main street Depression conditions since 2008 that’s greatly worsened by the current economic collapse.

Real unemployment is about 40% of working-age Americans, reality concealed by phony Labor Department numbers and failure by establishment media to set the record straight.

Before the current economic collapse, over 20% of Americans were unemployed, based on how data were calculated pre-1990.

Today the figure is around double that level, likely to worsen before improving.

Most US workers with jobs earn poverty-level wages with few or no benefits, why households need two or more to survive.

The self-styled “land of the free and home of the brave” from “sea to shining sea” is indifferent toward the rights and welfare of its ordinary people — exploiting, not serving them so the nation’s privileged class can benefit.

It’s why protests in large and smaller US cities nationwide continue in their second week, triggered by the death of a single Black man at the hands of 4 Minneapolis cops.

What touch a raw nerve at the right time could have been something else.

Mass outrage against systemic inequality and injustice has been simmering longterm.

It was just a matter of time before exploding into rage in the streets for positive change.

Most individuals involved are peaceful, expressing their constitutionally affirmed First Amendment rights.

Violence and vandalism appear orchestrated by rogue elements. Piles of bricks, rocks, and other projectiles discovered in cities before lawless actions began raised obvious red flags.

Instead of White House leadership when most needed,

Trump threw more fuel on a raging inferno.

Notably it was by threatening to use combat troops to restore order and supporting unacceptable remarks that referred to protesters as “terrorists.”

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law president Kristen Clarke called characterizing “peacefully assembled demonstrators (as terrorists) abhorrent,” adding:

“It is remarkable that…Trump objects so vehemently to those speaking out against racial and police violence while embracing gun-toting activists who take siege of government buildings and violent white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville” — in August 2017.

Since largely peaceful protests began in response to George Floyd’s May 25 death at the hands of Minneapolis cops, over 10,000 arrests were made — mainly for peaceful civil disobedience.

Resisting tyranny is a universal right, an obligation to challenge what’s unacceptable — clearly the state of America that’s beautiful for the privileged few alone at the expense of most others.

Jefferson called “resistance to tyranny…obedience to God.”

Philosopher John Locke said when government fails the people, its “trust must necessarily be forfeited, and the power devolve into the hands of those that gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security.”

In his landmark essay on civil disobedience, Henry David Thoreau said “(m)ust the citizen ever for a moment…resign his conscience to the legislator,” adding:

“The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”

“All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.”

“Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?”

The state “is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength.”

“I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion…They can only force me who obey a higher law than I.”

Martin Luther King stressed that “noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”

He championed “creative protest,” adding: Passivity is no option in the face of injustice.”

At a time of institutionalized racism, inequality and injustice in the US, sustained resistance in the streets against what’s intolerable is the only viable option.

Nothing else can work. Nothing ever has. Nothing ever will. The only language the US ruling class understands is toughness.

People power alone can change things, More than an option, it’s a moral obligation.

The late human rights champion/defense attorney Lynne Stewart urged Americans to “Organize, Organize, Organize.”

“The only thing we have is each other,” she stressed.

Resisting tyranny and courage for justice defined her activism.

People have power when they use it. At a time of eroded constitutional protections,  repressed dissent, government as the handmaiden of monied interests, and raging war on humanity at home and abroad, it’s vital for ordinary people to resist.

Ballot box activism is futile, taking to the streets nonviolently essential.

Sustained collective defiance against the unacceptable system is the only chance for constructive change.

It took a decade of anti-war activism in the 60s and 70s to end US aggression in Southeast Asia — a pyrrhic victory as things turned out because activism for peace, equity and justice waned.

Struggles for justice are long-term, compromises unacceptable.

So is letting energy for change wane, what time and again defeats social movements.

The hugely corrupted US system is too debauched to fix.

They only option is replacing it with governance serving everyone equitably, not just the privileged few, the unacceptable way things are now.

Formidable tasks take time, the impossible a little longer.

People power makes positive change possible.

Now is the time to go for it without quitting until peace and social justice goals are achieved.

It won’t happen any other way.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from OneWorld

Under FBI orders, Facebook and Google removed American Herald Tribune, an alternative site that publishes US and European writers critical of US foreign policy. The bureau’s justification for the removal was dubious, and it sets a troubling precedent for other critical outlets.

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The FBI has publicly justified its suppression of dissenting online views about US foreign policy if a media outlet can be somehow linked to one of its adversaries. The Bureau’s justification followed a series of instances in which Silicon Valley social media platforms banned accounts following consultations with the FBI.

In a particularly notable case in 2018, the FBI encouraged Facebook, Instagram and Google to remove or restrict ads on the American Herald Tribune (AHT), an online journal that published critical opinion articles on US policy toward Iran and the Middle East. The bureau has never offered a clear rationale, however, despite its private discussions with Facebook on the ban.

The FBI’s first step toward intervening against dissenting views on social media took place in October 2017 with the creation of a Foreign Influence Task Force (FTIF) in the bureau’s Counterintelligence Division. Next, the FBI defined any effort by states designated by the Department of Defense as major adversaries (Russia, China, Iran and North Korea) to influence American public opinion as a threat to US national security.

In February 2020, the FBI defined that threat in much more specific terms and implied that it would act against any online media outlet that was found to fall within its ambit. At a conference on election security on February 24, David K. Porter, who identified himself as Assistant Section Chief of the Foreign Influence Task Force, defined what the FBI described as “malign foreign influence activity” as “actions by a foreign power to influence U.S. policy, distort political sentiment and public discourse.” 

Porter described “information confrontation” as a force “designed to undermine public confidence in the credibility of free and independent news media.” Those who practice this dark craft, he said, seek to “push consumers to alternative news sources,” where “it’s much easier to introduce false narratives” and thus “sow doubt and confusion about the true narratives by exploiting the media landscape to introduce conflicting story lines.”

“Information confrontation”, however, is simply the literal Russian translation of the term “information warfare.” Its use by the FTIF appears to be aimed merely at justifying an FBI role in seeking to suppress what it calls “alternative news sources” under any set of circumstances it can justify.

While expressing his intention to target alternative media, Porter simultaneously denied that the FBI was concerned about censoring media. The FITF, he said “doesn’t go around chasing content. We don’t focus on what the actors say.” Instead, he insisted that “attribution is key,” suggesting that the FTIF was only interested in finding hidden foreign government actors at work.

Thus the question of “attribution” has become the FBI’s key lever for censoring alternative media that publishes critical content on U.S. foreign policy, or which attacks mainstream and corporate media narratives. If an outlet can be somehow linked to a foreign adversary, removing it from online platforms is fair game for the feds. 

The strange disappearance of American Herald Tribune

In 2018, Facebook deleted the Facebook page of the American Herald Tribune (AHT), a website that publishes commentary from an array of notable authors who are harshly critical of U.S. foreign policy. Gmail, which is run by Google, quickly followed suit by removing ads linked to the outlet, while the Facebook-owned Instagram scrubbed AHT’s account altogether.

Tribune editor Anthony Hall reported at the time that the removals occurred at the end of August 2018, but there was no announcement of the move by Facebook. Nor was it reported by the corporate news media until January 2020, when CNN elicited a confirmation from a Facebook spokesman that it had indeed done so in 2018.  Furthermore, the FBI was advising Facebook on both Iranian and Russian sites that were banned during that same period of a few days.  As Facebook’s chief security officer Alex Stamos noted on July 21, 2018,

“We have proactively reported our technical findings to US law enforcement, because they have much more information than we do, and may in time be in a position to provide public attribution.”

On August 2, a few days following the removal of AHT and two weeks after hundreds of Russian and Iranian Pages had been removed by Facebook, FBI Director Christopher Wray told reporters at a White House briefing that FBI officials had “met with top social media and technology companies several times” during the year, “providing actionable intelligence to better enable them to address abuse of their platforms by foreign actors.”  He remarked that FBI officials had “shared specific threat indicators and account information so they can better monitor their own platforms.”

Cybersecurity firm FireEye, which boasts that it has contracts to support “nearly every department in the United States government,” and which has been used by Department of Homeland Security as a primary source of “threat intelligence,” also influenced Facebook’s crackdown on the Tribune. CNN cited an unnamed official of FireEye stating that the company had “assessed” with “moderate confidence” that the AHT’s website was founded in Iran and was “part of a larger influence operation.”

The CNN author was evidently unaware that in U.S. intelligence parlance “moderate confidence” suggests a near-total absence of genuine conviction. As the 2011 official “consumer’s guide” to US intelligence explained, the term “moderate confidence” generally indicates that either there are still differences of view in the intelligence community on the issue or that the judgment ”is credible and plausible but not sufficiently corroborated to warrant higher level of confidence.” 

CNN also quoted FireEye official Lee Foster’s claim that “indicators, both technical and behavioral” showed that American Herald Tribune was part of the larger influence operation. The CNN story linked to a study published by FireEye featuring a “map” showing how Iranian-related media were allegedly linked to one another, primarily by similarities in content.  But CNN apparently hadn’t bothered to read the study, which did not once mention the American Herald Tribune.

Finally, the CNN piece cited a 2018 tweet by Daily Beast contributor Josh Russell which it said provided “further evidence supporting American Herald Tribune’s alleged links to Iran.” In fact, his tweet merely documented the AHT’s sharing of an internet hosting service with another pro-Iran site “at some point in time.”  Investigators familiar with the problem know that two websites using the same hosting service, especially over a period of years, is not a reliable indicator of a coherent organizational connection.

CNN did find evidence of deception over the registration of the AHT. The outlet’s editor, Anthony Hall, continues to give the false impression that a large number of journalists and others (including this writer), are contributors, despite the fact that their articles have been republished from other sources without permission.

However, AHT has one characteristic that differentiates it from the others that have been kicked off Facebook: The American and European authors who have appeared in its pages are all real and are advancing their own authentic views. Some are sympathetic to the Islamic Republic, but others are simply angry about U.S. policies: Some are Libertarian anti-interventionists; others are supporters of the 9/11 Truth movement or other conspiracy theories.

One notable independent contributor to AHT is Philip Giraldi, an 18-year veteran of the CIA’s Clandestine Service and and an articulate critic of US wars in the Middle East and of Israeli influence on American policy and politics. From its inception in 2015, the AHT has been edited by Anthony Hall, Professor Emeritus at University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada.

In announcing yet another takedown of Iranian Pages in October 2018, Facebook’s Gleicher declared that “coordinated inauthentic behavior” occurs when “people or organizations create networks of accounts to mislead others about who they are what they’re doing.” That certainly doesn’t apply to those who provided the content for the American Herald Tribune.

Thus the takedown of the publication by Facebook, with FBI and FireEye encouragement represents a disturbing precedent for future actions against individuals who criticize US foreign policy and outlets that attack corporate media narratives.

Shelby Pierson, the CIA official appointed by then director of national intelligence in July 2019 to chair the inter-agency “Election Executive and Leadership Board,” appeared to hint at differences in the criteria employed by his agency and the FBI on foreign and alternative media.

In an interview with former acting CIA Director Michael Morrell in February, Pierson said,

“[P]articularly on the [foreign] influence side of the house, when you’re talking about blended content with First Amendment-protected speech…against the backdrop of a political paradigm and you’re involving yourself in those activities, I think that makes it more complicated” (emphasis added).

Further emphasizing the uncertainty surrounding the FBI’s methods of online media suppression, she added that the position in question “doesn’t have the same unanimity that we have in the counterterrorism context.”

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Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist who has covered national security policy since 2005 and was the recipient of Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2012.  His most recent book is The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis co-authored with John Kiriakou, just published in February.

Featured image is from The Grayzone

There is no doubt that colonialism and racism sit at the root of America’s domestic problems. The push to dominate others abroad is directly linked to the belief that those who are different at home should also be dominated.

There are still Americans alive today that remember segregation laws that denied black Americans their basic rights and dignity. Before that, there was outright slavery.

Even today, racism is still institutionalized. It also permeates American culture, laying just beneath a superficial layer of tolerance and equality.

This is not just about white people who remain racist against blacks and other minorities – a product of America’s terminally ill culture – it is also about fundamental racism that still very much sits at the heart of American foreign and domestic policy – against not only blacks, but virtually every race on the planet from Africans to Asians to even Slavs.

The US is a nation that encourages its people to hate entire groups of people abroad to help justify otherwise unjust wars. Arabs, Chinese people, Russians – are all vilified with bigotry and hatred sanctioned by mainstream American culture. It isn’t hard to see why in a nation like this, hatred for other groups is easily justified in the minds of racists and the unjust.

Not Just Police in America – Racism is a Key Feature of US Foreign Policy 

It was under US President Barack Obama that the US decimated the North African nation of Libya, deposing Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi – a champion of African dignity and progress and the champion of tens of thousands of blacks from all over Africa who travelled to Libya to find work and a better life – work and a better life Gaddafi provided them until he was brutally murdered and his government replaced by heavily armed, racist terrorists backed by the US and its European allies.

US-backed militants in Libya would hunt down Libya’s black population, killing them, torturing them, and even enslaving them in open air slave markets – a spectacle one might have believed was unthinkable in the 21st century – but something made possible by America, its foreign policy, and its deeply rooted racism and sense of supremacy – despite having a “black” president at the time.

President Obama is hardly the only one to blame – he simply picked up where others left off – and his successor, US President Donald Trump is simply next in line to carry forward systemic US injustice worldwide. The fact that President Obama was black made no difference and simply helps illustrate how while superficial milestones are waved in America’s face – the fundamental rot of injustice, racism, and supremacist thinking persists.

When a nation is able to justify denying one group of people their dignity, worth, and rights as human beings it is a slippery slope that easily leads to other groups likewise being stripped of their humanity and abused.

If Black Lives Matter – They Must Always Matter, Everywhere, All the Time 

Any case of police brutality is tragic and needs to be addressed -a problem in its own right. If officers killed George Floyd because he was black, it represents an additional problem that must also be addressed.

If Americans genuinely believe black lives matter – then they need to commit to fighting injustice against them, and all other victims of American racism and supremacy. If they speak up only when it is popular and “trending” it’s as good as not speaking up at all.

If they are silent when America is mass murdering blacks overseas, killing brown people across the planet, or attempting to normalize racism against Asians – Chinese people in particular – they are complicit in the very sort of deeply rooted, institutionalized racism that underpins US foreign policy and the globe-spanning industrialized injustice it represents – and the very sort of racism that manifests itself as injustice against blacks at home.

America needs genuine opposition to racism. Not opportunistic posturing.

US politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pose as dedicated to racial equality and fighting racism – yet she regularly finds herself in support of US military aggression abroad which exclusively targets nations populated by black, brown, and Asian people.

Her most recent display of supreme hypocrisy was her support of US meddling in Hong Kong – an extension of the British Empire’s seizure from and subjugation of this Chinese territory.

The British Empire – of course – also pursued its foreign policy based entirely on the belief that white Westerners were superior to all others and that it was their right – even duty – to impose British “civilization” upon “heathen” races – China was no exception to this belief.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may or may not appreciate that her support for US meddling in Hong Kong helps continue this disgraceful tradition and agenda – believing instead that supporting “democracy” in Hong Kong is not simply the same brand of Anglo-American racism merely repackaged for more sensitive global audiences. But she is supporting racism, supremacy, and hegemony all the same.

Black lives will never matter as long as “Black Lives Matter” remains a hollow political slogan shouted by interests easily able to ignore or even support injustice purveyed by the US against others abroad – including blacks.

Deeply rooted racism in the US is just one of many symptoms of an overall desire for hegemony and the notions of racial, political, and cultural supremacy that underpin it. Until this is addressed, racism will continue, with only the most superficial and unsustainable efforts made to stop it.

As long as America believes it is better than all others abroad – able to justify exploitation, coercion, and even military aggression to assert itself and pursue its “interests” – racism and injustice will persist at home. The same corporate-financier interests driving US injustice abroad see the US population – white and black – as merely another market segment to use and abuse – to divide and conquer – to put under itself for its own benefit.

Black lives matter, whether they are being strangled by a racist white cop in America or being bombed by US warplanes in Libya. Once Americans can unite in both understanding and opposing this across-the-board racism and injustice, something might actually be done about it besides kicking the can down the road for a few more months until the next video of police abuse emerges online.

America will not heal its domestic hatred and divisions if it remains built entirely on projecting and profiting from hatred and division abroad. It was no coincidence that legendary champions for equality like Martin Luther King Jr. were both opposed to racism and injustice at home and ceaselessly opposed  to American aggression and hegemony abroad. The two are linked by the common thread of fundamental injustice. Until they are both exposed and smashed completely, they will both continue.

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Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NEO

The US-China relationship continues to sour under the impact of Covid-19, with the Trump administration threatening to cut all ties with China in a move that would divide the world into two competing trade entities.¹ It’s been a bad year for China, with accusations over the origins of the pandemic coming on top of China’s difficulties in managing the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.² Under these circumstances, the energy perspective provides a fascinating set of insights into the evolving US-China relationship.

The economic havoc unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic has been bad enough, with reports of looming industry collapse by the International Energy Agency and others.³ But its economic impact has been exacerbated by an ugly price war in the oil industry, seeing prices tumble alongside a collapse in demand. At one point in April, the oil price reached a widely publicised negative level – an unprecedented phenomenon. Now the price is low but at present relatively stable, following a tripartite agreement between the world’s three largest oil suppliers – the US, Saudi Arabia and Russia. In the last few days, the oil price has recovered to nearly $30 per barrel, providing some modest relief.⁴ But the impact on the US has been severe, with the high-cost and highly debt-leveraged shale oil industry, which propelled the US to become the world’s largest oil producer, facing near collapse. It has long been the goal of both the Saudi and Russian oil industries to damage the upstart US shale industry, which was protected by relatively high oil prices. Now with this protection withdrawn, combined with collapsing demand, the US industry faces severe problems.

Meanwhile the clean energy transition continues apace, and looks like being strengthened in Asia by the chaos unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic. In China in particular, but also in Japan and Korea, clean energy promises a lower cost energy alternative to the fossil fuels – coal, oil, gas – that powered Asia’s industrialization. The effect of the plunging oil price on everyone is decidedly mixed. The effect on China, the world’s largest oil importer, is entirely benign. China’s state-owned oil enterprises are benefiting from the low oil price by replenishing the national oil reserves. Meanwhile the US reliance on fossil fuels, notably shale oil where big players like Exxon-Mobil have been investing heavily, with full political support from President Trump, is about to take a severe beating. Had the US been diversifying its energy base and building a strong renewables sector, it would have taken advantage of this crisis (self-inflicted by major producers Russia and Saudi Arabia), to enhance its technological leadership. In the US power sector, solar and wind continue to grow only modestly (as shown in Fig. 4 below) while fossil fuel suppliers are now in deep trouble. Obvious opportunities are ignored — even pandemic-related loans for renewables to revive the economy remain untapped. Meanwhile China continues to ramp up its green economy sectors at a speed that could take it to a leadership on energy matters in the 21^st century – from green electric power generation (solar and wind) and the manufactured devices involved, to green transport (electric vehicles EVs and fuel cell vehicles FCVs), energy storage, and the beginnings of a comprehensive hydrogen economy that could eventually phase out the fossil fuel economy.⁵

It takes a crisis to reveal the relative strengths of competing global giants. It is the oil price crisis and its impact on US shale oil production that is revealing just where China and the US stand with their very different energy strategies.

How oil market shares have evolved

The US ceased to be a dominant exporter of conventional oil in the 1970s – from which time US foreign policy was shaped by managing the flow of oil from Middle East suppliers such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran. But the technological innovation of hydraulic fracture (fracking), along with deep sea oil drilling and tar sands recovery, changed all that in the early 21^st century. Horizontal drilling and other innovations helped create a new US oil industry based on huge reserves such as the Permian and the Bakken in Texas and Eagle Ford in Montana and North Dakota and into Canada. Fears of oil supplies peaking abated. The next decade of the early 2000s saw US oil fortunes transformed on the basis of unconventional oil – and focusing US energy interests once again on oil and fossil fuels and neglecting alternatives such as renewables.

Source

US oil production (with unconventional shale oil from hydraulic fracturing playing a major role) overtook Russian production in Feb 2018 and then Saudi production in July 2018, rising to account for 15% of global oil production by the end of 2019. This is costly production, due to the complex production methods and the high levels of debt leverage that enabled shale oil producers to break into the oil industry dominated by giant incumbents. This was a classic instance of Schumpeter’s argument that the dynamism of capitalism is unleashed by the capacity of innovators to break into an established industrial sector on the strength of debt finance. But in the case of shale oil, US producers need a break-even price of oil more than $45 per barrel in order to be profitable – a level that is much higher than costs of production of conventional oil producers.⁶ Over the past decade this break-even condition was satisfied, more or less (with the exception of an earlier price war in 2015 launched by Saudi Arabia to try to knock the US shale oil producers out of contention). But the combination of collapse in demand in March 2020 due to the pandemic, and the oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, destroyed these favorable circumstances. The US shale oil industry has been in free fall ever since. According to an influential op-ed in the NY Times, “Energy independence was a fever dream, fed by cheap debt and frothy capital markets.”⁷The Financial Times is adopting a similarly pessimistic tone in stating that at current levels (around $20 a barrel) the US shale oil industry cannot cover its costs, and bankruptcies are inevitable.⁸

How the oil price war unfolded

Oil prices have been maintained in recent years by agreements to curtail production by OPEC members (led by Saudi Arabia) and extended beyond OPEC to include Russia (OPEC +). In early March, OPEC and Russia agreed to extend production curtailment designed to bring supply into closer alignment with falling demand, under the impact of Covid-19. This agreement, the latest in an arrangement involving the OPEC+ countries, did not last. By March 13, it was clear that Russia would not go along with further cuts (which its strategists saw as unduly benefiting the US shale oil industry). So Saudi Arabia, under its mercurial crown prince, MBS, responded by launching a major price war, with its lead oil supplier Saudi Aramco offering steep discounts to leading customers, particularly in the EU, and at the same time drastically expanding the level of supplies. This price war was fuelled by long-standing rivalry between these two major oil producers, as well as their joint hostility to the US shale oil industry.

What followed was global chaos in the oil market – what the FT called “8 days that shook the oil industry – and the world”.⁹ Over the course of March and April, oil prices fell dramatically, actually reaching negative territory on April 20 – due to oil storage options dwindling and futures traders scrambling to find places to store unwanted deliveries. Saudi Aramco announced yet steeper discounts for its customers in April, leading to lower prices on the commodity exchanges.¹⁰ The dramatically lower oil prices in turn led to stock market mayhem.

The collapse in oil prices has been a dramatic illustration of the consequences of an otherwise strong cartel (in this case OPEC + Russia) falling apart, and the protagonists having the market muscle to engage in a “nuclear level” price war. It is the timing of this price war combined with the collapse in demand due to the pandemic that has unleashed the chaos that could prove ruinous to the US shale oil industry with profound impact on the US economy.¹¹

Source

A price war generally lasts as long as the protagonists can withstand the damage they create. In this case the damage was enormous – described in the industry as a “nuclear version” of a price war. Saudi Arabia could withstand prolonged price cutting because of its low costs – reported to be as low as $4 per barrel.¹²Russia likewise was prepared for a long price reduction, particularly because its supply lines – in the form of pipelines – are superior to those of its OPEC rivals. But it was the impact on the US shale oil industry that was most savage.

US shale oil production had been riding high after a decade of substantial investment, powered by debt leveraging. US oil production overtook that of Saudi Arabia and Russia as the shale revolution prospered. But this industry was uniquely vulnerable to a downturn because of its high costs.

The predictions from oil industry observers are dire. The Norwegian oil consultancy Rystad predicted on April 22 that the US shale oil industry was set for its biggest monthly decline in history amidst the “double whammy” of the oil price collapse and demand destruction due to Covid-19. The number of new- start fracking operations (lifeblood of the industry) in April fell by 60% (to below 300 wells – 200 in the Permian and 50 wells each in the Bakken and Eagle Ford). Rystad is predicting numerous bankruptcies in the US shale oil industry in 2020.¹³ The US business magazine Forbes describes the situation as “fracking’s new world order” where only the strongest US companies will be able to survive.¹⁴

What about the effects on China? China is the world’s largest oil importer (after the EU), and consumer (after the US), importing more than 70% of its crude oil requirements in 2019 – equivalent to 10.1 million barrels per day. With its largest oil supplier, Saudi Arabia, locked in a price war with Russia, its second largest supplier, China is able to take tactical advantage of the lower prices to expand its strategic oil reserves.¹⁵ But there is not the slightest hint that this welcome reduction in prices will shift China’s energy strategy, which favors a green shift linked to manufacturing and urbanization. As argued earlier, this shift has everything to do with maintaining energy security and relieving air pollution from burning of fossil fuels.¹⁶ It does not appear to be side-tracked by the economic slowdown sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic. The story is a complicated one, because China’s scale of industrialization is so large, and its early dependence on fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) was so complete. So it is worth examining China’s quite different energy strategy, and the extent to which it is maintained even at a time of US-China hostility. While it remains a major user of coal, and still has the world’s largest carbon emissions, what is less widely known is that China is a world leader in the shift to renewables. It is a fortunate side effect of this consistent strategy that it is also a low-carbon strategy that can mitigate climate change.

The alternatives to oil – “manufactured energy” based on renewables

In the international political economy of the oil industry, Russia and Saudi Arabia have long been leaders because of the fortuity of large domestic oil reserves combined with national strategic choices made to build their economies around these accidents of geography. But China and the US are different. They need broad energy supplies – and their national great power strategies turn largely upon what their energy choices imply for securing those supplies. The US rose to great power status in the 20^th century on the back of its oil industry, and it has been an oil power for the past century and more – reviving its industry dominance in the past decade by the turn towards alternatives like shale oil. China on the other hand has never been an oil power but has grown to become a major oil consumer and importer, with its troika of state-owned oil firms PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC. China has looked for stability in oil supplies even as it accesses supplies from late arrivals such as Iran (which became a major oil producer in the 1970s and is now a major supplier to China), Namibia and South Sudan – with all the geopolitical complications associated with these powers. For example, when China became an early customer of oil imported from South Sudan, the country was plunged into a civil war that curtailed these supplies. (As early as 2011, the year of South Sudan’s independence, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) established an office in the country – but it had to withdraw when the civil war intensified.¹⁷) Such are the geopolitical constraints that have shaped China’s energy strategies towards favoring manufactured green choices and away from fossil fuel dependence.

Little wonder then that China has maintained an open-ended energy strategy, avoiding dependence on any single source (such as imported oil or coal) and maximizing its reliance on its strength in domestic manufacturing. As the rising 21^st century great power, China first industrialized on the foundations of fossil fuels – coal, oil and natural gas. But the geopolitical constraints associated with this strategy (at the scale being pursued by China) proved to be severe, and have driven China to switch to a strategy where investments in clean energy outrank fossil fuel investments, and so the country’s energy system as a whole edges towards being more green than black (even if there are occasional instances of backsliding). When I last looked at these issues in detail, covering the years to 2017, the trend towards the greening of China’s electric power system was clear.¹⁸ But the system as a whole continued to be more black than green; electric power generated in 2017 was sourced overall from thermal sources to the extent of 71% with 25% from WWS sources.¹⁹ This shows that the transition at such a large scale is complex, and huge industries like coal mining and transport and coal burning cannot be phased out overnight if jobs and livelihoods are not to be savaged.

Neverthelss China’s overall energy strategy, based as it is on utilizing a foundation of urbanization, electrification and reliance on domestic sources of manufactured energy, has continued to place emphasis on renewable sources that provide a measure of domestic energy security. Wind power based on manufactured wind turbines; solar PV power based on manufactured solar cells; hydroelectric power based on dams and water turbines – these are the foundations of an energy strategy based on manufacturing rather than on drilling and digging for supplies beset by geopolitical uncertainties.

China’s investments in its domestic electric power system have been favoring renewable green (water, wind, sun: WWS) sources over black, fossil fuel sources, for the past several years. The impact is visible clearly in the rising trend towards WWS electric power, shown in Figure 3.

Fig. 3. China electric power generation, 1990 – 2019. Source: Author (with thanks to Ms Carol X. Huang)

The chart shows that in the past decade, China’s electric power capacity sourced from green renewable sources (WWS) has increased from 24% to 38% — or a 14% green shift in a decade. This is a huge shift for such a large system. At this rate, China’s electric power capacity would exceed 50% WWS within the next decade – by 2030 or possibly earlier. This would be a tipping point of enormous significance – meaning that China’s electric power system (the biggest in the world) would be more green than black by this date. The chart reveals that China’s actual generation of green electricity (from WWS sources) has risen over the same decade from 18% to 27% of total electric generation – or a 9% green shift in a decade.²⁰ Green power would then feed into other sectors including transport (EVs and FCVs as well as electric trucks, buses and fuel cell powered ships), construction and wider industry such as steel and cement. Because a green electric power system is based on manufacturing, and its costs are declining as per the manufacturing learning curve, so the greening trend can be expected to accelerate.

Meanwhile the US with its Trump-sanctioned bets being placed on the instabilities and high costs of shale oil, as opposed to the diminishing costs and energy security of manufactured energy associated with the green shift, is headed into an energy danger zone. US electric power capacity is still dominated by fossil fuels (LNG 43% and coal 21%, plus oil 3% — totalling 67%) with WWS sources accounting for just on 24% in 2019.²¹ The nuclear share remains at 9%, stable over many years, while wind and solar are rising slowly. The US counterpart to China’s green shift in electric power is shown in Chart 4, from the year 2005 when the US entered shale oil production. While there is a slow increase in renewables (mostly wind and solar with hydro barely changing) it is not on anything like the scale seen in China.²² Of course these are trends that could well be buffeted by continuing trade hostility between the US and China – but there is a momentum behind China’s strategic direction, given the continuing likely fall in costs of generating power from WWS sources, associated with the learning curve.

Fig. 4 US vs China: WWS sources of electric power (capacity and generation), 2005-2019. Source: Author, based on data from the BP Statistical Review and (for 2019) the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Thanks to Ms Carol X. Huang for the chart.

The continuing trade war between the US and China largely bypasses these central energy issues, because the US and China are pursuing such different strategies. China is clearly not attempting to oust the US as an oil producer, while the US, since 2005 and particularly under Trump, is clearly not attempting to oust Chinese global ambitions in renewables and green energy. The result is a stand-off so far where Trump’s anti-China rhetoric has yet to claim any major casualties – but the election year 2020 could hold further surprises.²³

These differences in trends in electric power capacity between China and the US are emblematic of starkly contrasting energy strategies. And it looks in early May as if a strategy based on continued reliance on extracting liquid fossil fuels from the ground, utilizing high-cost technological innovation in the form of hydraulic fracture, deep sea drilling and tar sands recovery is not such a good bet as contrasted with rising electrification, rising reliance on renewables (WWS) and the building of vast domestic manufacturing industries to supply the devices needed. China has discovered a formula for driving its industrial development with an energy strategy, building the industries of the future (renewable power, electric transport, regenerative farming) and allowing them to progressively take over the fossil fuelled incumbents. China has discovered that the costs of the clean energy transition are no more than would be required to maintain the fossil fuel status quo – and build new export-oriented industries at the same time, while reducing its dependence on foreign energy imports. It has taken an oil price crisis and a pandemic to reveal the clear differences between these competing national strategies and their contrasting implications.

Acknowledgments: My thanks to Dr Michael Peck and Prof Linda Weiss for their comments on an earlier draft, and to Ms Carol X. Huang for her assistance in drawing the charts.

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John A. Mathews is Professor Emeritus in the Macquarie Business School, Macquarie University, Sydney. He was Professor of Strategy for many years at Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Sydney, and concurrently the Eni Chair of Competitive Dynamics and Global Strategy at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome.

Notes

¹ ‘Trump threatens to cut off relations with China’, Financial Times, 14 May 2020.

² ‘Hong Kong in 2020: Pandemic, protest, and great power rivalry’, Mark W. Frazier, Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, May 15 2020.

³ ‘Renewable power surges as pandemic scrambles global energy outlook’, report finds, Science Mag, April 30 2020.

⁴ ‘Oil prices stage a modest recovery as demand rises and supply drops’, New York Times, May 17 2020.

⁵ ‘Covid-19 will not slow Southeast Asia’s shift from coal to renewables’, Sara Jane Ahmed, Nikkei Asian Review, May 11 2020.

⁶ ‘Falling prices are hitting US shale oil producers’, Stockhead, Feb 9 2020.

⁷ ‘Coronavirus may kill our fracking fever dream’, Bethany McLean, New York Times, Apr 10 2020. Bethany McLean is the author of Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It’s Changing the World (Columbia Global Reports, 2018).

⁸ ‘Will American shale oil rise again?’, Derek Brower and David Sheppard, Financial Times, April 25 2020.

⁹ ‘Eight days that shook the oil market – and the world’, Financial Times, Mar 13 2020.

¹⁰ ‘Saudi Arabia shows Asia focus with renewed oil price discounts’, Financial Times, May 8 2020.

¹¹ ‘Will American shale oil rise again?’, Derek Brower and David Sheppard, Financial Times, April 25 2020.

¹² ‘By pumping at will, Saudi Arabia hurts oil investment’, Washington Post, March 16 2020.

¹³ ‘Few US shale firms can withstand prolonged price war’, Reuters, March 16 2020.

¹⁴ See Forbes May 7 2020.

¹⁵ South China Morning Post, Mar 10 2020.

¹⁶ See my 2017 book, John A. Mathews, Global Green Shift, London, Anthem Press – and accompanying webpage.

¹⁷ ‘How China came to dominate South Sudan’s oil’, The Diplomat, February 11 2019.

¹⁸ New capacity added in 2017 amounted to 132 GW, of which 52 GW was thermal capacity (mainly coal) and 77 GW was sourced from WWS; likewise in terms of investment, fresh investment in 2017 on power generation was RMB 270 billion, of which RMB 74 billion went to thermal sources and 156.5 billion went to clean WWS sources. Both these results indicated that the system was greening more than blackening at the margin. See ‘The greening of China’s energy system outpaces its further blackening: A 2017 update’, John A. Mathews and Carol X. Huang, with comments from Thomas Rawski and Mark Selden, Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, May 1 2018.

¹⁹ In 2019 generation from thermal sources dropped to 69%, while generation from WWS rose to 26.4%.

²⁰ The shift in green power for electricity generation includes generation from hydro power, wind power and solar power, with their different capacity utilization rates. Hence the extent of the green shift for electric generation is lower than for capacity.

²¹ See data from US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

²² As shown in Fig. 4, by 2019 the US had built electric capacity from WWS sources amounting to just over 25%, compared with China’s level of 38.4%; and in terms of actual electricity generated, the US generated 18.7% from WWS sources, compared with China’s level of 26.4%. China has clearly advanced a lot closer to installing a clean energy economy in recent years.

²³ See Mel Gurtov and Mark Selden, The dangerous new US consensus on China and the future of US-China relations, Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Aug 1 2019, 17 (15/5).

Featured image is from InfoBrics

There is no question that the number of police killings of civilians in the U.S. – who are disproportionately Black and other people of color – are the result of policies and practices that enable and even encourage police violence. Compared to police in other wealthy democracies, American police kill civilians at incredibly high rates:

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The chart above compares the annual rates of police killings in each country, accounting for differences in population size. This is the most apples-to-apples comparison we can make. But the total number of deaths at the hands of police is also worth seeing in comparison with other countries:

The sources for these charts are listed in the table below:

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To reach the hearts and minds of Americans, the Zionist Israeli Left is manipulating the Black Lives Matter movement. The slogans and images of protestors coming out of Tel Aviv continue to hoodwink the world with a sudden and self-serving concern for Palestinian lives.

Two slogans are circulating among the Zionist Israeli Left: ‘Jewish and democratic’ and ‘Palestine Lives Matter’. These are, simply put, a contradiction in terms designed to whitewash the racist nature of Zionism.

When White supremacists in the U.S. adopted the “All Lives Matter” slogan, everyone quickly understood that the use of it was intended to denigrate the “Black Lives Matter” slogan. The Zionist embrace of “Palestinian Lives Matter” is also a denigration. Palestinian lives suddenly matter to them now only out of fear that Israel’s impending annexation of parts of the West Bank means the end of Zionism and will allow the world to understand the true supremacist nature of the state, which at heart is: “only Jewish lives matter”.

To be truly pro-Palestinian one must be anti-Israel, anti-Zionist. These protestors cling, cynically or out of some delusion, to the notion that to be “Jewish and democratic” is possible, that denying Palestinians equality and return to their stolen homeland is a matter of Jewish national “survival”.

It’s the same lying story or so-called “narrative” that Zionists have long succeeded in imposing on the world by camouflaging Zionism’s racist Jewish supremacist nature and denying the devastation the founding of this Jewish state on Palestinian soil has wreaked on Palestinians. Now that their leaders are up-front with their racist plans and supremacist ideology, they no longer deny, and are even apologetic, but they continue to lie.

Commenting on Facebook, Ronnie Barkan says about the protestors:

They haven’t demonstrated against Zionism — most of them are fascist and Zionist! they simply don’t like the “demographic threat” in losing their cherished ethnic-majority in their cherished race-state via possible annexation. the leftists, ie anti-Zionist and humanist, in that demo are minimal to insignificant in numbers. The overwhelming majority were the “liberal Zionists” mentioned above who dread the notion of equal rights among the ~20 million sons and daughters of this land.

In defense of some of the euphoria of the moment, Christopher Ben Kushka comments:

Jonathan Ofir has pointed out in great detail why larger parts of that demonstration were problematic (to put it mildly). “We can´t breathe since 1948” (on your own wall) plus “Nakba since 1948 — Abolish Zionism” plus “Israel is no democracy but Apartheid (state)” are among the strongest statements I have seen at an Israeli demonstration. And acknowledging that doesn´t turn me … into cheer leaders for the liberal-zionist discourse for whom the 67 occupation is a nuisance to get rid of so they can live their hedonist life style.

Nur Masalha explains:

I think there were a minority of anti-Zionist Israelis and Palestinians in that recent “anti-annexation” demo in Tel Aviv — but there is also a lot of truth in what Rima Najjar says, especially the fact that “Zionism” and “democracy” are a contradiction in terms; that liberal Zionists see the annexation of the West Bank as an existential threat to the “demography” to the self-defined “Jewish state of Israel” — a form of demographic racism; and that liberal Zionists see the “Jewish and democratic” state of Israel as “democratic for Jews” and “Jewish to Palestinians”. Some of the tangible evidence for the presence of anti-Zionist Israelis and Palestinians at the anti-annexation demo in Tel Aviv was the banners: “Nakba since 1948: Abolish Zionism”.

Back in 1964, in an essay titled ‘Zionist logic’, Malcolm X offered Americans a hard-hitting attack on Zionism and explained how it is tinged with messianic religiosity and how it was basically a new form of colonialism in disguise that threatened, not only Palestinians, but also the newly independent African countries that accepted Israeli aid. He wrote:

The Israeli Zionists are convinced they have successfully camouflaged their new kind of colonialism. Their colonialism appears to be more “benevolent,” more “philanthropic,” a system with which they rule simply by getting their potential victims to accept their friendly offers of economic “aid,” and other tempting gifts, that they dangle in front of the newly-independent African nations, whose economies are experiencing great difficulties. During the 19th century, when the masses here in Africa were largely illiterate it was easy for European imperialists to rule them with “force and fear,” but in this present era of enlightenment the African masses are awakening, and it is impossible to hold them in check now with the antiquated methods of the 19th century.

In 1970, The Committee for Black Americans for Truth about the Middle East published ‘An Appeal by Black Americans Against United States Support for the Zionist Government of Israel’ in The New York Times. In it, they affirmed: “We stand with the Palestinian people in their efforts to preserve their revolution, and oppose its attempted destruction by American Imperialism aided by Zionists and Arab reactionaries.”

Adding: “Zionism is a reactionary racist ideology that justifies the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes and lands, and attempts to enlist the Jewish masses of Israel and elsewhere in the service of imperialism to hold back the Middle East revolution.”

In the euphoria of the Black Lives Matter moment and all the slogans it has inspired, let’s not forget that Zionism is Jewish supremacy.

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Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Palestine Solidarity Campaign

The following article aims at providing a critical analysis of the Israeli policies towards the colonized Gaza Strip and its Palestinian people. Consequently, it will concentrate on the Military Siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, and on the deliberate Israelipolicy of undernourishment of  Gazans. It will be concluded with an analysis of the impact of this policy on the Gazans and the relationship of this policy and Israel’s national security.

Before we deal with these issues, it is necessary to analyze the legal status of the Palestinian territories because its status is interpreted differently by a section of Israeli legal experts and by the International Law, international treaties and international legal experts.

Sovereignty and Belligerent Occupation

In accordance with International Law, both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, i.e. the Palestinian Territories, are considered occupied territories. It has been agreed upon by the international community, including its astounding legal experts, that the proper legal tools that are applicable in cases of belligerent occupation, are the 1907 Hague Regulations, the 1949 Four Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I, and customary international humanitarian law.[1]

According to Article 42 of the 1907 Hague Regulations, a “territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.”[2]

Moreover, according to Article 2, the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 “…apply to any territory occupied during international hostilities. They also apply in situations where the occupation of state territory meets with no armed resistance.”[3]

In addition to these international treaties, the UN Charter defines and regulates the legality of any particular occupation. It uses a law known as jus ad bellum that clearly states that“Once a situation exists which factually amounts to an occupation the law of occupation applies – whether or not the occupation is considered lawful.”[4]

The applicability of the law of occupation is not dependent on “…whether an occupation has received Security Council approval, what its aim is, or indeed whether it is called an “invasion”, “liberation”, “administration” or “occupation”.[5]

Since the very beginning of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories in 1967, the Israeli authorities have avoided using the term occupation and replaced it with the terms, “administration”, “liberation”, and “disputed territories”. In recent years, they succumbed to the term “territories” as if the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) were territories located on Mars waiting to be defined by Israeli legal innovative experts.

Negation of Occupation by the Levy Report

In an attempt to legitimize the illegal Israeli colonial settlements inside the West Bank, Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu set up, in January 2012, a committee of three legal experts that became known later as the Levy Committee. The Committee was chaired by right-wing former Supreme Court justice Edmond Levy (image on the right; source is Wikimedia Commons) and it included also two former right-wing justices, Alan Baker, a settler and Techia Shapira, former deputy president of the Tel Aviv District Court.[6]

The Levy Committee was delegated with the task of investigating the legal status of unauthorized West Bank Jewish settlements. In addition, the Levy Committee also examined whether the Israeli “presence” in the West Bank is to be considered an occupation or not.[7] On 9 July 2012 the Levy Committee issued its report which became known as the Levy Report. Its most important conclusion was

…that the classical laws of belligerent occupation “as set out in the relevant international conventions cannot be considered applicable to the unique and sui generis historic and legal circumstances of Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria spanning over decades”, and that the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention against the transfer of populations is not applicable to the Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank. The Report concluded that “Israelis have the legal right to settle in Judea and Samaria and the establishment of settlements cannot, in and of itself, be considered illegal”.[8]

In other words, the Levy Committee arbitrarily decided that both the 1907 Hague Convention and the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 are not applicable to the West Bank under Israeli rule. According to the bizarre logic of the three bogus legal experts there is no Israeli military occupation in the West Bank. Instead, there is what they called an “Israeli presence” in the West Bank including Israeli settlements, which were considered by the rightist legal experts as perfectly legal. They based this dubious “legality” on fictitious and bizarre international law.

Nevertheless, the Levy Report was praised by settler circles and a collection of Zionist right wing writers and politicians. However, a group of Israeli authentic legal experts voiced their criticism of the Levy Report.

In their response to the Levy Report, both human rights legal activists Anu Deuel Lusky of Yesh Din and Keren Michaeli of the Emile Zola Chair for Human Rights, wrote a critical reading and legal analysis of the Levy Committee’s conclusions. Both legal experts remarked that:

A review of the report shows that it chose to ignore hundreds of Supreme Court rulings, dozens of decisions by United Nations bodies and international tribunals, and thousands of articles by international legal experts. All these sources show a rare consensus in the legal community regarding the status of the West Bank as occupied territory. The Levy report does not engage with accepted legal principles and its conclusions lack any legal foundation.[9]

Despite its legal fragility, the Levy Report was taken with utmost respect by the Israeli colonial right. It was later adopted by the Netanyahu rightwing government which stopped using the term occupied West Bank and began to call it “the disputed territories”. Later on, they began to call the West Bank and the Gaza Strip “the territories”. In other words, “Israel asserts that these territories are not currently claimed by any other state, and that Israel has the right to control them.”

In contradiction to this false and weak legal argument, legal experts at the Institute for Middle East Understandingpointed out that the term:

“Occupation” is a legal status in international law, not just a description of the forceful means by which Israel has controlled the territories it seized in 1967. Although Israeli diplomats contest the designation of the territories as “occupied,” and describe them as merely “administered” by Israel, there is no such status in international law.[10]

By rejecting the applicability of the internationally accepted international law to their military occupation, the Israeli colonial right used what could be called “legal acrobatics” to redefine the legal status of the West Bank.

A graffiti of Naji al-Ali’s Handala on the West Bank separation wall

Consequently, the actual daily activities of the Israeli army inside the West Bank and the active support of colonial settler vigilantes, who daily shoot, burn, and cut Palestinian olive trees, were both regarded by those bogus legal experts of Levy and company, as being an innocent “presence” of Israelis but not as components of a vicious military occupation. Apparently, it was the fault of the Palestinians who committed a grand mistake by regarding them as vicious military army and vigilantes. Palestinians sick imagination has made up this image with a hidden intention to tarnish the civilized image of these innocent Israelis who happen to be visiting their ancestral country.

Finally, one should conclude this legal argument by asserting that despite the efforts extended by the Israeli dubious legal experts, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are occupied territories. Therefore, “… Israel has never had any legal rights of sovereignty over any of the lands it took in 1967, and never had any right to settle its own citizens there.”[11]

Despite the preposterous argument put forward by Israeli and Zionist propagandists that after the withdrawal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the Gaza Strip is no longer occupied by Israel. This feeble fairy tale does not seriously take into regard that “…Even after its 2005 redeployment, Israel did not release its hold on Gaza; it continues to control all access to the territory, as well as its airspace, territorial waters and even its population registry…”[12]

Gaza Siege and the Diet of the Colonized

The Israeli colonial authorities have frequently used the pretext of security as a justification for its settler colonialist policies pursued, for 53 years, over the Palestinian civilians. The grossly inhuman nature of these policies needed some sort of legitimacy, even fictitious legitimacy. So, the brutal siege of the Gaza Strip and the consequent restrictions imposed on the Palestinian colonized residents, were in dire need for “legitimacy”. Consequently, the mantle of “national security” was thrown on the siege of the Gaza Strip, which is in fact the most brutal colonial siege in the annals of human history.

In a method that is devoid of the slightest segment of empathy and human feelings, Israeli colonial fascistic experts devised a program of starvation for two million Palestinian civilians living inside the Gaza Strip, which is literally a huge open-air prison camp. Starvation was meant to be a punitive policy towards the Palestinian civilians who chose a Hamas government in an internationally monitored parliamentary elections in 2006. The result of the elections was not acceptable by the two Western democracies, Zionist colonialist Israel and imperialist USA. Therefore, they complicity collaborated to get rid of Hamas through a starvation program that chillingly calculated the minimum number of calories that are necessary to prevent the genocide of two million human beings.According to Gisha, an Israeli human rights organization“… Israeli authorities had calculated the number of calories consumed by Gaza residents and used it to establish a “humanitarian minimum”, a minimum of food supply necessary for not causing hunger or malnutrition in the area…”[13]

In order to cover up this fascist inhuman program, the Israeli army generals Beni Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi hid the starvation program under the claim of a fictitious security mantle. “…claiming that disclosure would put national security at risk and damage Israel’s foreign policy…”[14] They were forced to disclose their horrible starvation program by “Gisha”, which managed to force the IDF, in the court of law, to disclose it. In court, the Israeli ministry of defense

“… agreed to disclose some of the documents stating that their disclosure no longer threatened national security or foreign affairs. However, it refused to make public the “red line document” which supposedly contained calculations of the most minimal consumption of food in Gaza that the closure policy would not cross…”[15]

This brutal colonial policy towards the Gaza Strip was elaborated by the Israeli colonialist army in cooperation with the Israeli Ministry of Health. Already on 1 January 2008, a document was produced. It bore the innocent title of “Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip – Red Lines.”[16] According to Major Guy Inbar, the Israeli military spokesman,“… the calculation, based on a person’s average requirement of 2,300 calories a day, was meant to identify warning signs to help avoid a humanitarian crisis, and that it was never used to restrict the flow of food.”[17]

Based on this document, the Israeli colonialist army regulated the exact number of trucks that were allowed to enter the Gaza Strip, bringing in food and medicine. Furthermore, based on this document, the Israeli colonial authorities decided how many Gazans can exit the Gaza Strip for the purpose of receiving medical treatment.

This criminal Israeli policy of denying medical permits and restricting import of medicine to Gaza residents was continued in 2019. In its report “Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories 2019”, Amnesty International reported the following:

“In June, 2019 the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reported an acute medicine shortage for patients with cancer and chronic diseases in Gaza. Israel continued to arbitrarily deny medical permits to Gaza residents to allow them to enter Israel or the West Bank for treatment…”[18]

Saree Makdisi, an author of Palestinian and Lebanese descent, has reported that:

Patients are dying unnecessarily: cancer patients cut off from chemotherapy regimens, kidney patients cut off from dialysis treatments, premature babies cut off from blood-clotting medications. In the past few weeks, many more Palestinian parents have watched the lives of their sick children ebb slowly, quietly and (as far as the global media are concerned) invisibly away in Gaza’s besieged hospitals.[19]

In reality, the Israeli colonial masters have replaced God Almighty in actually deciding who among Gazan cancer patients, kidney patients, premature babies, should live and get the life-saving medical treatment and who should die.

Deliberate Undernourishment for Security Reasons

To begin with, Israeli military siege of the Gaza Strip went through stages of severity. Actually, the siege did not start in 2006. Preliminary steps of rough and inhuman treatment of Gazans were already taken in 1991 during the PLO-Israeli secret negotiations that preceded the Oslo Accords. Later on, more severe stages that coincided with political developments, took place. According to the analysis of Saree Makdisi, these stages could be pointed out as follows:

The current squeeze on Gaza began in 1991. It was tightened with the institutionalization of the Israeli occupation enabled by the Oslo Accords of 1993. It was tightened further with the intensification of the occupation in response to the second intifada in 2000. It was tightened further still when Israel redeployed its settlers and troops from inside Gaza in 2005 and transformed the territory into … a prison… It was tightened to the point of strangulation following the Hamas electoral victory in 2006, when Israel began restricting supplies of food and other resources into Gaza. It was tightened beyond the point of strangulation following the deposition of the Fateh-led government in June 2007.[20]

The following is a partial list of 54 items, prohibited to import into the Gaza Strip, by the Israeli colonial authorities. It was revealed by the Israeli ministry of defense after it was taken to the court of law by Gisha – The Israeli Human Rights Organization:

sage, cardamom, cumin, coriander, ginger, jam, halva, vinegar, nutmeg, chocolate, fruit preserves, seeds and nuts, biscuit and sweets, potato chips, gas for soft drink, dried fruit, fresh meat, plaster, tar, wood for construction, cement, iron, glucose, industrial salt, plastic/glass/metal containers, industrial margarine, tarpaulin sheets for huts, fabric (for clothing), flavor and smell enhancers, fishing rods, various fishing nets, buoys, ropes for fishing, nylon nets for green houses, hatcheries and spare parts for hatcheries, spare parts for tractors, dairies for cowsheds, irrigation pipe systems, ropes to tie green houses, planters for saplings, heaters for chicken farms, musical instruments, size A4 paper, writing implements, notebooks, newspapers, toys, razors, sewing machines and spare parts, heaters, horses, donkeys, goats, cattle, chicks.[21]

One wanders about the rationale behind the prohibition of allowing the import of these items into the besieged Gaza Strip. Could it be Israeli “national security”? The prohibition against the import of these items show a discreet number of colonial rationales behind it and a number of colonial aims.

To begin with, there is a calculated attempt to obstruct a number of economic aspects of life of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. For example there appears an attempt to hinder and obstruct the already weak Gazan industrial base by two methods: (1) prohibiting the import of industrial related items, raw materials and spare parts; (2) the closure of “…5,000 factories in Gaza which were closed down due to the 14-year-long Israeli siege.”[22] This obstruction caused to the industrial base by the Israeli siege of Gaza has forced “…thousands of workers, engineers, accountants and technicians to lose their jobs”[23]. According to member of parliament and head of the Popular Committee Against the Siege on Gaza, Jamal Al-Khodari, “… the Israeli occupation is still imposing a ban on exports and imports and putting many restrictions on the entry of raw materials…”[24]

Another attempt clearly appears to be the calculated policy to obstruct and restrict the development of the agricultural sector.  The Israeli siege prohibits the import into the Gaza Strip of agricultural equipment necessary for irrigation, hatcheries, green houses, and fishing. It furthermore, prohibits the import of spare parts for hatcheries and tractors. In addition, the Israeli colonial authorities banned the import of horses, donkeys, goats, cattle and chicks.

The attempt to obstruct both the Gazan industrial base and the agricultural sector, aim at destroying the productive branches of Gazan economy, thus increasing Palestinian economic dependency on the Israeli economy. It further leads to severe levels of unemployment and poverty among the Gazan workers.

Consequently, the prohibition of the import of musical instruments, size A4 paper, writing implements, notebooks, and newspapers, aims at harming the intellectual development of the Gazans. It further creates problems to the activities of the non-government organizations, government ministries, institutions, political parties, universities and schools.

Finally, the prohibition of importing a number of essential spices aims at obstructing the tastes and cooking culture of the Gazan society, which uses lots of spices in their cooking meals. The targeting of these spices for prohibition reveals the existence of an extreme and dark racist frame of mind by the Israeli colonial army and the Israeli colonial ministry of health. Both of these colonialists calculated and conspired to make Gazans suffer more by eating tasteless food that lack essential spices. These barbaric colonialists insisted on devising advanced inhuman levels in their policy of collective punishment of Gazan stomachs and senses of smelling and tasting. 

When taking the entire list of prohibitions into consideration, the tight siege of the Gaza Strip would appear devoid of the slightest relation to so-called Israeli national security. When the security element is completely discounted, the siege of the Gaza Strip appears to be nothing but an expression of a brutal, colonial, inhuman, barbaric and racist practice which has been callously and chillingly calculated by inhuman and alienated generals and functionaries of the Israeli ministry of health. This policy drives at creating deliberate undernourishment andhorrible starvation for two million Palestinians. Therefore, it is a policy of collective punishment which flagrantly contravenes international law.

As a direct result of this brutal starvation program, the health of the people of the Gaza Strip deteriorated to dangerous scales. “…Anemia rates rocketed to almost 80 percent. UNRWA noted at about the same time that “we are seeing evidence of the stunting of children, their growth is slowing, because our ration is only 61 percent of what people should have and that has to be supplemented.”[25]

Moreover, Israeli colonial policy towards the Gaza Strip has severely harmed the general health situation of the people of the Gaza Strip. In addition to undernourishment, Israeli colonial policy has led to the following hazardous developments. The people of the Gaza Strip

… are now essentially out of food; the water system is faltering (almost half the population now lacks access to safe water supplies); the sewage system has broken down and is discharging raw waste into streets and the sea; the power supply is intermittent at best; hospitals lack heat and spare parts for diagnostic machines, ventilators, incubators; dozens of lifesaving medicines are no longer available. Slowly but surely, Gaza is dying.[26]

This state of affairs in the Gaza Strip, has been already confirmed by commissioner general of UNRWA who warned that: “Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and — some would say — encouragement of the international community…”[27]

When put under the scrutiny of international law and relevant international treaties, many of the Israeli policies and practices towards the Gaza Strip could be easily regarded as different types of war crimes. The following is an appraisal of some of the war crimes that were committed by the Israeli colonial authorities who were supported and sanctioned by the Israeli government and the various Israeli politicians.

Israeli War Crimes in the Gaza Strip

In accordance with the International Committee of the Red Cross, war crimes could be defined as: “… any serious violation of international humanitarian law constitutes a war crime. This is clear from extensive and consistent case-law from the First World War until the present day.[28]

Moreover, there are two distinguished types of war crimes, those violations “…that are committed willfully, i.e., either intentionally (doles directus) or recklessly (dolus eventualis)…”[29]

Furthermore, the ICRC has carried out “A deductive analysis of the actual list of war crimes found in various treaties and other international instruments, as well as in national legislation and case-law…”[30] This deductive analysis clearly “… shows that violations are in practice treated as serious, and therefore as war crimes, if they endanger protected persons or objects or if they breach important values.”[31]

When it comes specifically to situations of war crimes committed, under belligerent military occupation, against persons or property, the most appropriate instrument to use is the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. According to provisions of this Convention, war crimes are any of the following acts[32]:

• willful killing;
• torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments;
• willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health;
• extensive destruction or appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly;
• compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power;
• willfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of a fair and regular trial;
• unlawful deportation or transfer;
• unlawful confinement;
• taking of hostages.

Acts or omissions. War crimes can consist of acts or omissions. Examples of the latter include failure to provide a fair trial and failure to provide food or necessary medical care to persons in the power of the adversary.

On 24 June 2015, the United Nations Human Rights Council, issued a report entitled “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories”, in which it revealed the relevant statistics on the death toll of the Palestinian civilians who were killed by the Israeli army during the aggressive attacks on the Gaza Strip that were conducted in 2014. The Report mentioned that

“…The death toll alone speaks volumes: 2,251 Palestinians were killed, including 1,462 Palestinian civilians, of whom 299 women and 551 children;[33] and 11,231 Palestinians, including 3,540 women and 3,436 children, were injured (A/HRC/28/80/Add.1, para. 24),of whom 10 per cent suffered permanent disability as a result…”[34]

In addition to that, the Report mentioned that

“…Alongside the toll on civilian lives, there was enormous destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza: 18,000 housing units were destroyed in whole or in part;[35] much of the electricity network and of the water and sanitation infrastructure were incapacitated; and 73 medical facilities and many ambulances were damaged…”[36]

The Human Rights Council concluded by accusing Israel of committing “…violations of international humanitarian law … which may amount to war crimes…”[37] It will take lot of efforts until the International Court of Justice will investigate Israeli war crimes. This step depends on the UN Security Council which is legally responsible to take a decision on this issue. As long as the US dominates the Security Council, Israel will have protection and thus can escape impunity.

“…despite considerable information regarding the massive degree of death and destruction in Gaza, the Human Rights Council raises questions about potential violations of international humanitarian law by these officials, which may amount to war crimes. Current accountability mechanisms may not be adequate to address this issue…”[38]

The above mentioned war crimes have been repeatedly committed by the Israeli army, security institutions and settler vigilantes. The killings of Palestinians, by these Israeli authorities, is a daily practice. No serious official investigations are conducted when the victim is a Palestinian Arab. This state of affairs encourages more Israeli perpetrators to shoot and kill Palestinians, not only inside the colonized Palestinian territories but also inside the Israeli settler colonialist state.

So far, no Israeli war criminal has been brought to the International Court of Justice, and the Israeli state has managed to escape impunity, due to the direct support and protection that have been provided to Israel by the imperialist leaders in the West, especially the United States. However, there is no limitation of time on war crimes and Israel might one day pay for the war crimes, the massacres, the daily killings, the destruction of villages and cities, the ethnic cleansing, and the many more war crimes that Israel perpetrated not only in Palestine but also in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan.

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Dr. Zuhair Sabbagh teaches sociology at Birzeit University in the colonized West Bank. He is a resident of Nazareth, Israel. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Manchester and is author of a number of books and research articles.

Notes

[1] International Committee of the Red Cross, “Occupation and international humanitarian law: questions and answers”, https://www.icrc.org, 4-8-2004.

[2] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Laws and Customs of War on Land (HAGUE, IV) of 1907”, https://www.britannica.com .Relieved on: 1-6-2020.

[3] International Committee of the Red Cross, op. cit.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Wikipedia, “Levy Report”, http://en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved on:  8-5-2020.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Lazaroff, Tovah (9 July 2012). “Legal report on outposts recommends authorization”. The Jerusalem Post.,http://web.archive.org, as quoted by Wikipedia, “Levy Report”, http://en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved on: 8-5-2020.

[9] Lusky, Anu Deuel and Michaeli, KerenYesh Din, “Unprecedented: A legal analysis of the report of the Committee to Examine the Status of Building in Judea and Samaria (The Levy Committee)”, https://www.yesh-din.org, 19.5.2014

[10] Institute for Middle East Understanding, “What are the Occupied Territories?”, https://imeu.org, 21-12-2005

[11] Ibid.

[12] Makdisi, Saree “Starving Gaza”,  The Nation, https://electronicintifada.net,  2-2-2008

[13] Gisha, “Ministry of  Defence V. Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement”, https://www.right2info.org, 19-12-2011

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] AAA 3300/11 Ministry of Defense v. Gisha “Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip – Red Lines” Presentation,  www.gisha.org, 5-9-2012

[17] Associated Press, “Israel used ‘calorie count’ to limit Gaza food during blockade, critics claim”, https://www.theguardian.com, 17-10-2012

[18] Amnesty International, “Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories 2019”, https://www.amnesty.org.Retrieved on: 6-5-2020

[19] Makdisi, Saree, “Starving Gaza”, The Nation, https://electronicintifada.net,  2-2-2008.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Gisha, “Partial List of Items Prohibited/Permitted into the Gaza Strip – May 2010”, www.gisha.org.Retrieved on: 1-6-2020.

[22] The Palestine Chronicle, “5,000 factories Closed in Gaza Due to Israeli Sieg”, https://www.palestinechronicle.com, February 22, 2020

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Makdisi, Saree , op. cit.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Ibid.

[28] ICRC, “Definition of War Crimes”, https://ihl-databases.icrc.org, Retrieved on: 10-5-2020

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Data compiled by the OCHA Protection Cluster, 31 May 2015. For its methodology, see A/HRC/28/80/Add.1, para. 24, footnote 43.

[34] Human Rights Council, “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories”, https://www2.ohchr.org,24 June 2015

[35] OCHA, Gaza Initial Rapid Assessment, 27 August 2014, p. 4.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid.

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Venezuelan authorities appeared in court in London last Thursday May 28 to demand that the Bank of England comply with instructions to sell part of the 31 tons of gold it holds on behalf of Venezuela.

Venezuelan Central Bank President Calixto Ortega reported on Wednesday that an agreement had been made with the United Nations Development Programme that it would receive the proceeds of the sale, and these would be used to buy food, medicine and health imports to tackle the Covid 19 pandemic and save many lives.

The Bank of England, which is ostensibly independent of the UK government, is arguably in breach of its contract with the Central Bank of Venezuela by refusing to comply with requests for repatriation of the gold on the pretext that the legitimacy of the Venezuelan government has been questioned. Such justification is demonstrably false, since the government of President Nicolas Maduro is recognised by the United Nations.

Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuelan Vice-President, stated that behind the Bank of England’s decision to freeze the Venezuelan gold lies a UK government manoeuvre to strip her country of its assets as part of an attempt at ‘regime change’.

Venezuela Solidarity Campaign fully supports Venezuela’s plan, negotiated with the UNDP, to use its own gold reserves to fund vital supplies of food, medicine and other medical supplies.

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The justice for George Floyd mobilizations today reflected the state’s worst nightmare – a multi-national and multi-racial action initiated by Black people with Black leadership.

So, we say: Justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland; for our political prisoners; for the super-exploited Black and Brown working class; for oppressed Indigenous nations; and for the millions subjected to U.S. warmongering, sanctions and criminality. We say this to shift the focus from the individualization of this week’s rebellion back to the objective structures of white supremacist, global colonial/capitalist domination. (BAP Newsletter )

The ruling class is befuddled and confused about how to respond to the ongoing street demonstrations sparked by the murder of George Floyd. The mobilizations clearly disrupted their plans for “normalcy” with the forced opening of the economy. The ferocity of the demonstrations that had not been seen since the brief uprising in 92 in response to the Rodney King verdict seems to have caught the authorities completely by surprise.

In the 1992 street actions in Los Angeles the nation and the world saw the first multi-racial, multi-national street action that was very different from the Black rebellions that rocked the U.S. in the 1960s. The racial configuration of the participants captured the range of non-European national minority communities and migrant peoples from across the Americas’ region.

But even in a departure from what occurred in 92, the justice for George Floyd mobilizations today reflected the state’s worst nightmare – a multi-national and multi-racial action of whites, Latinx, LGBTQ, immigrant and migrant workers and Black youth, initiated by Black people with Black leadership. The response from the rulers was predictable but unsurprising in its ideological and strategic coherence to break that emerging coalition of social forces.

I posted a comment on Facebook in response to what I saw as the counter-moves being made by the state. I was asked by several people to elaborate on those points, which I offer here.

In my original Facebook post I said:

“The enemy knows how to quickly adapt in the ideological struggle: 1) undermine the emerging unity with white agitator propaganda, 2) follow up with declaration against something called Antifa as a terrorist group, 3) instruct the police to join demos and express solidarity, 4) release statements from police chiefs and others pushing the bad apples theme, and most important, 5) keep the focus on the individual and call for “justice” for that individual to avoid attention on the systemic and enduring elements of Black and Brown colonized oppression.”

The white outside agitator trope. If it wasn’t frightening enough to see images of young white kids marching shoulder to shoulder with African and other colonized peoples, seeing white kids actually engaged in militant engagement with police authorities, which went beyond the approved forms of resistance, triggered a cognitive dilemma almost as serious as when they tried to comprehend and explain how China could escape the COVID-19 with five thousand deaths while the virus was killing tens of thousands in the U.S.

That cognitive dissonance could only be achieved by resurrecting the outside agitator notion that emerged in the 30s and was directed at organizers from the Communist Party and militant union organizers who were working in the U.S. South. But that trope was given its fullest form in the Civil rights struggles in the 50s and 60s.

It’s redeployment today is geared to 1) delegitimizing Black agency by implying that resistance of this sort had to be directed by white folks, and, 2) generating suspicion and even hostility toward white participants. Granted, issues of counter-productive tactics and police infiltration are real issues. But the state saw a vulnerability in evoking the white agitator trope that the black petit-bourgeois administrators in various cities enthusiastically embraced.

Antifa as a terrorist group: With the ideological foundation of the white outside agitator, the next step was creating a more understandable target by inventing an organizational form in order to give the threat a more serious and ominous character. The problem should have been, though, that Antifa is not really an organization but an idea with a loose network of some organizations and mostly individuals, many of whom are anarchists with many other political orientations, who believe that the U.S. is facing a neofascist threat that should not be ignored.

But the fact that Antifa is a mirage is secondary when the objective is to drive an ideological agenda. The success of this, however, is yet to be determined.

Instruct/encourage police to engage in public relations shunts like taking a knee or even walking with the demonstrators in some locations. Shrinking the distance between the police and the demonstrators is easy when the issue is being framed as “justice” for George Floyd, and by implication the idea that his killers were “bad apples.”

Those kinds of political stunts are not even inconsistent with a simultaneous display of military prowess and heavy-handed treatment of demonstrators, especially if the idea is taking hold that it is the “bad apples” among the demonstrators that are deserving of policing.

The bad apple trope plays right into the monumental political error being made by resisters by keeping focus on George Floyd as an individual, even if by extension the critique extends to the police and policing as a whole. The bad apple notion exempts a condemnation of the institution as a whole and diverts attention away from a deeper understanding of the role of the police as the leading edge of the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state.

Hundreds of Black and Latinix people are dying every day from what the Black is Back Coalition  calls the colonial virus known as COVID-19. Yet because we are not watching grandma take her last breath on the ventilator after having been laying around the hospital for days, her unnecessary death and the literal deaths of thousands of our people did not bring the people out of their houses during lockdown and into the streets.

Those deaths will continue long after the other cops are charged, and the military secures the cities and people go home, because those deaths are generated by the contradictions of capitalism. They are produced by the structural violence that is inherent in a system that devalues all life but especially the life of non-European workers and the poor.

So, the state has responded. The challenge for us is how do we counter the state’s attempt to pre-empt the development of a new movement.

The definition of the “people” is an historic one that emerges out of concrete struggle with specific historical conditions. The deep structural crisis of the system of national and global capital are creating the conditions for neofascism as a capitalist reform strategy. Therefore, we must not allow the state to undermine the basis for building new forms of solidarity among people who are finding their voice.

“The bad apple notion exempts a condemnation of the institution as a whole and diverts attention away from a deeper understanding of the role of the police.”

And while Trump may be the face of this movement and the public attention fixed on his most bombastic statements and the spectacle of armed citizen groups showing up at various state capitals, he does not have complete power over the real rulers of capital. Trump barely controls the Executive branch and has had his program of radical nationalist economic reform, including gutting Obamacare, curtailed. Instead, he has become an administrator of the neoliberal agenda like the last five presidents before him.

It is those ruling class forces who fear the masses and will give Trump or even Biden, if he is elected, free reign to continue to jettison the last vestiges of liberal democracy in order to maintain the rule of capital. When it was clear to the Obama Administration that he was not going to be able to co-opt the occupy movement, he moved with decisive action to shut it down across the country.

Trump will move just as decisively and with same level of ruling class support to shut down the protests when he sees it politically advantageous to do so.

Two things must happen fairly quickly. On the ideological level, a shift must occur away from the focus on individual justice for Floyd back to a critique and opposition to the ongoing structural violence of the system. It is clear that the state is unwilling and unable to protect the fundamental human rights of the people. The demand for People(s)-centered human rights provides a broad, radical framework for advancing concrete demands that can unite broad sectors of the population.

And secondly, and most importantly, the theme and message around the importance of organization must be aggressively advanced. Mass mobilizations have a place but developing the organizational forms that will build and sustain the power necessary to bring about radical fundamental change is the primary challenge and historic task.

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This article was originally published on Black Agenda Report.

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC). He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch. He was recently awarded the US Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and the Serena Shirm award for uncompromised integrity in journalism.  

Featured image is from BAR

Three years ago, on this day, Francois Houtart left us.

He died in his sleep in the early hours of June 6 in Quito. It was only when I was working on his autobiography after his death that I learnt that he had long been carrying a pacemaker on him. Living in Quito at 2850 metres above sea level no doubt added to the stress. A year before, in July 2016, we invited Francois to Hong Kong to participate in the Third South South Forum on Sustainability, and the format that year was that he gave a lecture every morning for four consecutive days on July 23-26, followed by discussions. At the age of 91, Francois delivered his lectures with great lucidity, and his spirit for struggle and his faith in utopia were contagious. To you, I recommend his autobiography (the English edition was published by Global U for free download from the Global U website) and his lectures.

Please see this.

Let us remember Francois on this day, and take strength from his way of living his life as intensely as possible.

On June 2, President Trump threatened to deploy military troops against Americans in response to nationwide protests after the recent murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Trump’s suggestion to use military force against U.S. civilians shocked many—but in fact police already have been using a weapon banned in international warfare against protesters: tear gas.

Across the country, police officers have tear-gassed protesters in attempts to clear out crowds. While U.S. officials have a history of using tear gas as a “riot control agent” (defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as “chemical compounds that temporarily make people unable to function by causing irritation to the eyes, mouth, throat, lungs and skin”), tear gas was banned in international warfare through the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997.

The Convention is a treaty that 193 nation-states are party to through the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) headquartered in the Netherlands. The treaty’s purpose was to eliminate weapons of mass destruction in international warfare by prohibiting the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons, defined by the OPCW as a “chemical used to cause intentional death or harm through its toxic properties.” Tear gas irritates the respiratory system, skin and eyes, which can lead to loss of eyesight and breathing problems, classifying it as a chemical weapon if used to intentionally cause harm or death (such as when it was used during World War I).

Under Article II Section 9 of the treaty, however, chemical agents used for “domestic riot control purposes” by law enforcement are not prohibited. Because U.S. law enforcement claims to use tear gas as a method to clear crowds, rather than to cause “intentional death or harm,” it has been used widely by police officers across the country.

Aside from international regulations that limit tear gas use in warfare, the United States has no regulations on the use of tear gas domestically, nor does it require training for officers who do use it.

The CDC reports that “prolonged exposure [to tear gas], especially in an enclosed area, may lead to long-term effects such as eye problems including scarring, glaucoma and cataracts, and may possibly cause breathing problems such as asthma.” ProPublica also reports that the chemical may make people “more susceptible to contracting influenza, pneumonia and other illnesses.”

Despite these risks, on Monday night federal law enforcement officers tear-gassed peaceful protesters in front of a church in Washington, D.C., to make way for the president’s photo-op. The White House has since claimed that a “pepper irritant” was used rather than tear gas; yet the CDC still defines the irritant as a type of tear gas because of the physical damage it can cause. As we enter day 10 of protests against police violence, and despite first-amendment rights to peacefully gather, tear gas continues to be used on protesters.

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Janea Wilson is a summer 2020 editorial intern for In These Times.

“Ancient and slow-growing deep sea corals, endangered large whales and sea turtles, and an incredible array of fish, seabirds, sharks, dolphins and other wildlife—these are the species and habitats that will pay the price.”

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In a move that environmentalists warned could further imperil hundreds of endangered species and a protected habitat for the sake of profit, President Donald Trump on Friday signed a proclamation rolling back an Obama-era order and opening nearly 5,000 square miles off the coast of New England to commercial fishing.

“We’re opening it today,” Trump said during a roundtable talk in Maine with commercial fishermen and the state’s former governor Paul LePage. “What reason did he have for closing 5,000 miles? That’s a lot of miles. Five thousand square miles is a lot. He didn’t have a reason, in my opinion.”

The reason behind the establishment of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in 2016, conservation groups hastened to point out, was to shield endangered species and their ecosystem from harmful intrusion and permanent damage by commercial interests.

Fishing industry interests challenged former President Barack Obama‘s designation of the marine monument but were rebuffed in federal court last year.

“Opening up the nation’s only marine national monument in the Atlantic will help no one but a handful of fishers while risking irreparable damage to the marine wildlife that have no other fully protected areas off our eastern seaboard,” said Bob Dreher, senior vice president of Conservation Programs at Defenders of Wildlife. “Ancient and slow-growing deep sea corals, endangered large whales and sea turtles, and an incredible array of fish, seabirds, sharks, dolphins, and other wildlife—these are the species and habitats that will pay the price.”

During the roundtable discussion Friday, Trump said “I love that” when Interior Secretary David Bernhardt—a former oil and mining lobbyist—informed the president that his proclamation is effectively “taking down a ‘no fishing’ sign” in the Atlantic Ocean.

“The minute you sign it, we will begin planning,” Bernhardt said.

Trump’s order Friday is just the latest move the president has taken to gut environmental protections under the cover of the Covid-19 pandemic and a nationwide uprising over police brutality. On Thursday, as Common Dreams reported, Trump signed an executive order allowing federal agencies to waive environmental rules to speed approval of energy projects like oil pipelines.

Brad Sewell, senior director of oceans for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said in a statement that commercial fishing “poses a range of threats, such as harm to deep-sea corals from heavy fishing gear, and entanglement of bycatch and marine mammals.”

Sewell said NRDC is prepared to take legal action against the Trump administration to “protect these marine treasures from harm and exploitation by commercial fishing and other extractive industries.”

“These fragile, extraordinary ocean areas are full of thousand-year-old corals, endangered whales, and other precious marine life,” said Sewell. “They belong to all Americans, and they are held in trust for future generations.”

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

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In this final post to mark our 10th birthday, I want to peek a little into the future, looking at what we are facing in relation to drone warfare in the coming years. Of course predicting the future is always a little foolish – perhaps especially so in the middle of a global pandemic – but four areas of work are already fairly clear: public accountability over the deployment of armed drones; the push to open UK skies to military drones;  monitoring the horizontal and vertical proliferation of military drones and opposing the development of lethal autonomous weapons, aka ‘killer robots’.

Public accountability over the deployment of armed drones

Most immediately, there is an need to discover where British armed drones have been deployed outside of action against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. All the MoD will currently say is that RAF Reapers have been undertaking missions outside of Operation Shader, but refuse to give any other details.

The deployment of UK Reaper drones for unknown purposes and without public accountability or oversight (or any seeming interest) by MPs is very worrying. Not only is it right that there should be proper public and parliamentary oversight over the deployment of military force , but such secret deployments also lays open the possibility of the UK being held responsible for military action when it is not actually involved.

The UK should not be following the US down the path of secret drone deployments and unaccountable use of armed force.  Although there is a clear desire by the government and the Ministry of Defence to treat drones akin to special forces and simply not discuss them, this must be resisted. It is vital that proper parliamentary and public accountability over the deployment of British armed drones is established now, else unaccountable deployments will become the norm over the next few years.

Opening UK skies to military drones

Another area that is likely to be a focus of our work over the coming years is the push to open UK airspace to military drones. The MoD have initiated proceedings to allow the UK’s new armed drones, which the UK is choosing to call ‘Protector’ to fly initially in and around the area where RAF Waddington is situated in Lincolnshire as a first step to gaining authorisation to fly it in unsegregated airspace across the UK (see left).  There are serious safety, privacy and civil liberties concerns about this proposal and we are determined that there should be proper public engagement in the decision to open UK skies to military drones. The fact that the MoD have already pressurised the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) into changing safety procedures to allow the flight of a military drone into the UK bodes ill.

Campaigners in the US are arguing that when it comes to opening their airspace to military drones, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has been ‘captured by the Pentagon‘. It is notable that here in the UK, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) are attempting to pass decisions about whether military drones are safe to fly ‘beyond line of sight’ to the Military Aviation Authority (MAA), a wholly owned agency of the Ministry of Defence, and not in any way an independent regulator.  Meanwhile the CAA have announced that its new chair is to be Sir Stephen Hillier, the former Head of the RAF.

The government are likely to insist that the UK must open our skies to military drones to enable RAF crews to train with these systems. Once permission is granted, however, it is likely that the UK will begin training the aircrews of other nations on these systems within UK airspace, no doubt a money spinner for the MoD, but further supporting and enabling the proliferation of armed drones.

The next generation

While the UK is currently acquiring the latest, updated version of the Predator drone – the Protector – work is continuing, behind the scenes on the next generation of armed drones. BAE Systems’ advanced stealth drone, Taranis, has reportedly ended its development journey and is sitting quietly somewhere in a hangar. Officially, at least, lessons learned from developing, building, trialling and testing this advanced drone are simply being fed into the UK’s next generation aircraft, the Tempest, which according to official reports, may end up being ‘optionally manned’.

However, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the work done on Taranis (and the vast sums spent on it) are being used to develop a Taranis-like drone in secret. Just last autumn, Aviation Week revealed that a US drone developed in secret had become operational and it’s possible that a similar secret drone development programme is underway within the UK, although at this stage it is pure speculation.

Separate from this, the UK is investing and developing a number of smaller, swarming drone projects and a separate ‘loyal wingman’ drone programme. Both of these projects are to enable other states air defences to be overwhelmed in order to carry out armed attacks.

It is very important that there is proper scrutiny of these developments and their impact on peace and security is examined and evaluated. Government and industry spokespeople will insist that these systems must be developed in order to increase security and save lives. It is vital that these claims are contested. Researchers are already pointing out that some types of swarming drones could be considered a weapon of mass destruction, while others suggest they could be developed to target a particular ethnicity in an act of genocide.

Autonomy, AI and LAWS

Taranis and early swarming drones, mentioned above, rely to some degree on being able to operate autonomously and raise concerns about the ethics and legality of autonomous weapons.  Beyond those specific systems however, there are now real worries that the building blocks for the development of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) are being put in place.

Drone Wars is a founder member of the Killer Robots Campaign and we see much of the work being done around developing future combat drones as a gateway to the development of these weapons. In 2018 we published Off the Leash, a detailed report into the development of autonomous military systems in the UK and we are continuing to investigate and research developments both here in the UK and globally.

Although many envisage and fear a Terminator-style, fully autonomous weapons systems, what is more concerning over the next decade is the growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the intelligence and targeting chain. General Atomics are developing and promoting systems that use AI to ‘transform data into actionable intelligence’ for drones, while BAE Systems, another key drone manufacturer want to ‘expedite machine learning adoption across the US defense and intelligence communities’ through using AI to turn ‘unstructured and semi-structured data into relevant and actionable intelligence for its customers’.

While some of this may no doubt be hyperbole and marketing spin, the push to use AI to search through thousands of hours of drone surveillance video and other electronic data in order to be able to ‘find, fix and finish’ targets is all too real and all too dangerous. Lessons from the killing of innocent civilians due to misreading of intelligence and data are simply not being learned.

Grateful thanks

So, there is much work to be done over the next few years, but it has been good to take some time to reflect and to mark the decade’s work.

It is also right to say a few words of thanks. In particular, I want to name and thank the wonderful Angela Broome, sadly no longer with us, but without whom there would be no Drone Wars. Also to thank my past and present colleagues – Mary, Peter, Joanna and Tim; our Steering Committee Pat, Ann, Dave, Penny, Max and Haifa, and our institutional funders.  There are, of course, a great many other people who have contributed and helped in many different ways –  far too many to name – but to all those who have contributed time and ideas, who have assisted in research and helping us think through strategy, who have participated in debate and discussion, and who have contributed financially, I am deeply grateful. Onwards.

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Featured image is from Drone Wars UK

There comes a time when shooting around in circles just hits walls, bullets splinter off sidewalks, and shatter a window here and there. But people are in safety. They watch from a distance and with self-assurance.

Venezuela has received five tankers from Iran loaded with hydrocarbons – petrol gas, additives – shipped through a totally US-militarized Caribbean Sea, amidst warnings of attacks and retaliations – and as usual, sanctions ’no end’. How much more sanctions can a country get?

There is an immune system, called sovereignty and fearlessness – confidence and dignity. Knowing your rights. That’s what makes the whole difference.

Granted, the tankers were escorted by the Venezuelan Navy and Air Force; especially through Venezuelan waters. And they made it undisturbed to the port of El Palito, a small Venezuelan port run by Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA.

The American shooting didn’t take place and the event was not televised.

Another aggression against Venezuelan sovereignty is the Bank of England’s withholding totally illegally some US$ 1.2 billion worth of Venezuelan gold, deposited voluntarily by Venezuela in times of trust – as part of Venezuela’s reserve funds. With oil prices collapsed, Venezuela decided to use part of her gold reserves to purchase medication and food to counter the disastrous corona effects.

Venezuela claimed the gold deposited at the Bank of England (BoE) which offers gold custodian services mostly but not exclusively to developing nations; and so, does the New York FED and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basle and several other international institutions and central banks considered safe and trustworthy. These are legal arrangements under which the depositing country may withdraw the funds at any time and at will.

Venezuela has a sovereign right to claim these funds without any explanation or justification. The BoE refused, claiming the Government of Nicolas Maduro was not the legitimate government recognized by the UK. Can you imagine – if any government decides to confiscate funds from another government, because they don’t like its leadership — where would we end up? – Well, there is not much guessing. We are already there. The Anglo-Zionist world makes its own rules and decides over and above any international law. And the spineless European puppets follow their cue. It is high time that this matrix collapses and gives way to a civilization that recognizes the values of democracy, justice, basic ethics and human rights.

In this case, Venezuela explained that the money is needed to buy food and medication to counter the nefarious effects of COVID-19.  The UN, intervening on behalf of Venezuela, has requested the BoE to return the money. That gesture or action by the UN is in itself is an act of ‘independence’ by the UN against the US, for whom the UN otherwise does the bidding. But to no avail. The BoE didn’t release the Venezuelan-owned gold. As a compromise, Venezuela suggested that the funds be handed over to UNDP (United Nations Development Program) which would buy vital food and medication for Venezuela.

Already at the end of 2018, Venezuelan Finance Minister Simón Zerpa and Central Bank President Calixto Ortega, travelled to London to demand that Venezuela be allowed to take the gold back to Venezuela. In January 2019, the BoE refused the request. All it said publicly was that it did not comment on customer relationships. However, the real reason was clear.

The US-trained and self-proclaimed, US supported Juan Guaido, an Assembly member, who was never elected – who never faced a presidential election – asked Downing Street that the gold was not returned to the legitimate Maduro Government which Washington, the UK and other EU members, out of the blue and without any legal reasons declared illegitimate. What a world! – Imagine that some 40 or 50 countries in the world would decide that Donald Trump and Angela Merkel were illegitimately in their high offices. Well, you laugh. It would never happen.

Under pressure from Washington, and her own neofascist government, the UK and her central bank didn’t budge. The case was brought on May 14, 2020, to a Court in London. A Venezuela-favorable judgement is however unlikely. The case will then go to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Will the ICJ have enough backbone to decide against Washington? That  remains to be seen. It would be another sign that Trump’s last trumps are gone.

On yet another account, the Trump Administration has seized all Venezuelan assets in the US, including in 2018, the CITCO refinery and gas station network, in a further attempt to hurt their self-made archenemy, socialist Venezuela. CITCO’s assets in the United States, are estimated at about 8 billion dollars, plus about 30 billion dollars of annual revenues. CITCO covers about 10% of the US domestic gasoline market. Overall Venezuelan assets confiscated – or more accurately described as stolen – in the US and overseas are estimated at about 50 to 70 billion dollars.

In addition to other strangulating sanctions and coercive actions by Washington against Venezuela, just think what these illegally US-appropriated funds could do to ease living conditions of Venezuelans whose hardship has exclusively been brought about by Washington and Washington’s coercion of its so-called western allies – alias vassals, especially Europe – to economically sanction Venezuela. A hardship being exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis. Mind you, Venezuela has done no harm, has never threatened any of the countries that follow the US dictate on “economic sanctions”.

Yet, through this all, Venezuela remains calm, non-aggressive, non-conflictive, self-assured and survives; and Venezuela has actually mastered the Covid-crisis better than most of Latin America. According to WHO, as of 4 June Venezuela registered 1819 confirmed cases and only 18 deaths.

Venezuela’s strength of resistance and self-determination is extraordinary. It is THE recipe for success and for overcoming western oppression. This autonomy and Iran’s undisturbed solidarity and sovereign action to help Venezuela with oil tankers despite the US threats, are signals to the world that Washington’s empire is crumbling.

Or, as Andre Vltchek pointedly says in his article about the brutal police murder of Mr. George Floyd,

“The World Cannot Breathe!” Squashed by the U.S. – A Country Built on Genocide and Slavery: Now more and more people can finally see what few of us have been repeating for years: The entire world has its neck squashed by the U.S. boot. The entire world “cannot breathe”! And the entire world has to fight for its right to be able to breathe!”

Let’s add to this: And the entire world is no longer afraid to stand up and defend and fight for their rights.

This “fight” is increasingly a battle of the 99 % against the 1% – the rich and powerful wanting to control ever more of the globe’s resources.

With every day this battle is turning more in favor of We, the People.

The worldwide corona-lockdown and the social and economic calamity of uncountable unemployment, famine and misery – unheard of in human history – is unwittingly inciting  billions of victims worldwide into an important awakening, of which the masters behind this nonsensical lockdown, behind the power and control thirst – the Gates, Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Et Al, are possibly not aware of.   

The ruthless killing of George Floyd has set in motion a series of riots throughout the US – affecting some 150 US-cities.

These unrests will likely gain their own dynamic, as the wave spreads to Europe and possibly also to the Global South.

While the generous financiers of Antifa, Black Lives Matter (supported by the Ford Foundation and Soros) and other protest organizations may have as a clear objective, namely the  outright “Militarization of the West”, the dynamics of an awakened people may potentially derail this diabolical project and ring in a new set of societal values.

The resisting forces and perseverance of the people of Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, let alone, Russia and China, have magical power.

Never mind the physical losses of stolen assets, of economic sanctions, of attempted humiliation by the neoliberal western alliance breaching contracts and agreements at will, i.e. the Iran Nuclear Deal, several disarmament agreements with Russia – and more – the new wave of spiritual and universal consciousness gains, far outpace these losses.

The forces of Light may overcome the Darkness which has engulfed humanity over the last 5,000 years – laying the foundation for a new society with values of equality and peace for a common future for mankind.

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; New Eastern Outlook (NEO); RT; Countercurrents, Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press; The Saker Blog, the and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

As global affairs intensify, I often find myself in that category of those discouraged and disillusioned, fully cynical, wondering if anything I can do is worthwhile in the long run.  A global pandemic, an economic collapse preceding the pandemic and severely worsened by it (and different reactions to it); an infrastructure continually pumping more and more carbon and other chemicals into the atmosphere; nuclear war always imminent; a powerful rogue nation dealing internally with its own internal rogue elements and externally applying illegal actions against countries it disagrees with over oil and the avoidance of the US$:  all add up to a world of dystopian insanity.

On the other hand, the beautiful spirit of human creations with music, art, theater, dance; and  human endeavours challenging humanity for a better world with science, education, health, human rights; the recognition that we are all one race, all cousins, living on a single blue planet; the astounding beauty of nature as it cycles through seasons and lifecycles: that part adds up to a world of beauty and inspiration.

I cannot reconcile the two, the ugly side of humanity and the beautiful side of humanity, other than to think of human nature, with the emphasis on nature and its long biological imperative to survive.  Obviously, for the short term, a dystopian society benefits a few, while harming many and harming the prospect of longterm societal cooperation.  An increasingly industrialized, technological, financialized society attempting to defy death and celebrate youth, but above all else promoting the falsehood that we are all individuals with the liberty and freedom to act as we please without any responsibility attached for the assistance and betterment of others and the environment we need to survive in, has proven to be a disaster of its own making.

The U.S., the great promoter of all the liberty, freedom, and rugged individualism platitudes (a polite word for verbal garbage), has used that language to cover up many aggressions towards other nations over many decades.  In essence it is a colonial settler country within which violence and domination have been used to carve out its empire.  Now it has come home with alarming force – blowback of its militarization of other nations’ struggles.

While the mainstream media follows all the COVID news and now the riots and demonstrations in the U.S. and elsewhere, Israel is quietly – at least as far as the media is concerned about reporting it – preparing to annex all but a tiny fraction of the occupied West Bank.

In Canada, Justin Trudeau has reacted well to the COVID crisis, and his twenty one second pause after a reporter’s question was probably the best response to questions about Trump’s actions and comments in the U.S. Really, what can you honestly say to the guy without inflaming his narcissistic bullying threats and rants although it would be benificial if some top politician would risk sticking it in his craw (cause considerable or abiding resentment).

Trudeau was also questioned about Israel, and responded in what some claim as unfair criticism of Israel.  Part of the criticism of Trudeau’s response is the old canard about why criticize Israel when many other countries also have serious human rights problems.  Well, yes they do, but Israel just happens to be at the center of and actively involved in global geopolitical events supported by our rogue southern neighbour.  It is involved both as an ally of global dominance and involved as a purveyor of military, security, and technological information “field tested” in Palestine for better crowd control and domination of an indigenous or domestic population.

But Trudeau’s actual response was rather timid, and is probably aimed at his attempts to put Canada into the UN Security Council (two seats available for three contenders: Ireland, Norway, and Canada):

“I have highlighted both publicly and directly to Prime Minister Netanyahu and alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz the importance of staying away from measures that are unilateral and our deep concerns and disagreement with their proposed policy of annexation,” Trudeau said.

“We think that the path forward is a two-state solution reached to by dialogue between the parties involved and anything that is unilateral action by either side is unhelpful in the cause of peace.”  CBC, Evan Dyer, June 02, 2020.

In other words, Canada effectively is allowing the status quo to continue its slow ethnic cleansing of Palestine.  The two state solution is gone and Canada – at least the government – has not yet realized it, or is wilfully not wanting to admit it.

“Dialogue between the partners” is another spurious argument as there are no partners – Israel is fully supported by the rogue manipulations of the U.S. government and there is no balance of partners when Israel has all the firepower it needs, using the military to control the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza.  Dialogue never worked, was never intended to work, not for a two state solution.  It was used to delay, obfuscate, dissimulate, and outright lie about Israel’s intentions towards its final goal of an ethnically cleansed Jewish state.

In a world dominated by Trump tweets, COVID fears, economic uncertainty Israel is simply going about its own business with a free hand.  Canada will not offer a significant protest, only offer the official dead-end two state solution and “dialogue”.

In a world on the edge of losing control and when social/economic uncertainty combine with systemic racism it is difficult to not just sit back, and let it all happen as beyond one’s control.  But Palestine needs a voice, more correctly needs its voice to be heard, and at times such as these when concerns about racism and indigenous rights are brought to the fore, it is all the more important to say, yes you are being heard.  If nothing else, I can say, I hear you.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Lately, a particular memory/image of my grandmother Sitti Fattoum has been coming back to me vividly. She’d be sitting in a chair, maybe watching TV, or at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee, when suddenly, without provocation, she would clap her hands, the palm of one striking the back of the other, and say, to no one in particular:

راحت فلسطين

Palestine is gone! Gone!

I think part of it is that, as a child, I never understood her agony properly — how could I? Startled, I would ask, what was that, Sitti? And she would simply repeat the phrase with such sadness and alarm on her face, it could have all happened yesterday.

How could I, born in exile just after the Nakba, in the arid town of Zarka in Jordan, have any sense of what she had lost, the beauty and richness of what she was holding onto in her heart, her village of Lifta? Even as she went around muttering at the poor soil of her Zarka garden and how it yielded something only with extreme difficulty, I still could not fathom her deprivation and the enormity of her loss. She was an uneducated fellaha (farmer) for whom land and growing things were part of her soul.

And now, on the eve of Israel’s annexation of parts of the West Bank, I feel the urge to lament to my children and grandchildren about it, just as she did to me, but I don’t know how much of the pain they would understand or absorb.

One thing I wonder about: how did I, born and reared in exile from Palestine, grow up to inherit and possess a psyche that totally inhabits my grandmother’s loss and pain. Perhaps part of it is the result of the few years of my life, when I too experienced the feel of the soil of Palestine in my hands, not as a farmer, but as a boarder in Schmidt’s Girls College in Jerusalem, where I and my sisters were placed after the early death of our mother and before the Naksa, the Six-Day War on 5 June 1967 and Israel’s annexation of Jerusalem, 53 years ago today.

But what about my children and grandchildren? Is their birthright completely lost to them, as I ask in Palestine is now the birthright of Trump’s grandchildren rather than mine?

The Palestinian plight is savagely painful and the pain is compounded by the bafflingly off-hand dismissal and erasure by Western powers of that pain, and by the monumental challenges facing Mahmoud Abbas, our nominal and imposed leader, for many of our true leaders are either murdered or languishing in Israeli prisons. I hope and pray Abbas will find his way, as mapped for him here, to doing the right thing — transfer the Palestinian Authority apparatus to the Palestinian National Council (PNC)

As a supporter of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, heart and soul, I find empowerment, inspiration, hope and comfort in connecting what’s happening globally regarding Black lives, police brutality and the ongoing exposure of the myriad systemic injustices and inequalities in the U.S. that devalued George Floyd’s life, with the Palestinian struggle.

As someone said on Facebook, “It literally took the whole damn world to make it happen” — to draw attention to the injustice.

Given Israel’s forthcoming unconscionable annexation of parts of the West Bank, even though, in large part, it is merely rubber-stamping the status quo, there is an urgency to the Palestinian struggle that imposes its own priority on the moment and gains strength and solace from what’s happening globally with BLM. It will take the whole damn world to rise up against Zionism before Palestine will be free at last.

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Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The 1% is the source of violence in the U.S.  Antifa is nothing but a flag which is carried mostly by “secret informants” rather than by a few politically confused Antifa disciples!

The Trump Administration is using this name to suppress the legitimate voices of all in opposition.

For a peaceful society and economic equality, working people and youth must organize in their communities, independent of billionaire parties. To rely on either party will only bring more misery.

The Democratic Party wants us to suffer peacefully and the Republicans make us suffer painfully.

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Massoud Nayeri is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author

As a European growing up in the Cold War with the image of America as the land of liberty and freedom the scenes of carnage that we see today are truly saddening.  Superficially this is a problem of racial discrimination within the backdrop of a failed COVID-19 response and rising unemployment. However, although riots have been sparked by the death of African American George Floyd at the hands of police, the fuel that continues to kindle this blaze is systemic in nature.

Two acute meta-problems have matured and coalesced to bring the U.S. to the state it is in now. Firstly, there is the problem of the ordinary citizen who is indoctrinated with the dogma of ‘market-fundamentalism’. Secondly, there exists the true state of economic affairs which is ‘corporate-welfarism’.

Market-fundamentalism is a belief that only the free-market can solve social-economic problems. Here everything from infrastructure, transport, healthcare, and even prisons must fall into the realm of private-capital who act in the interests of maximizing profits rather than overall social good. Under this ideology, poverty is blamed on the poor who in the Darwinian market struggle deserve their poverty due to their inherent deficiencies.

In the U.S. questioning this market-fundamentalism is heresy. The public has been conditioned to believe in the famous Margaret Thatcher maxim that, “there is no alternative”. However, whether one believes this or not, the deeper underlying problem is that this ideology does not actually reflect the true nature of the U.S.’s political-economic system which is one based on corporate-welfare. Consequently, by not even recognizing the facts as they are, transformation and development becomes arduous if not impossible.

Corporate-welfarism is when private-enterprises, which run on the motive of delivering capital to shareholders, are given huge tax breaks, subsidies, and grants. This creates a parasitical class who remain detached from the imperative of providing comprehensive economic development while also remaining outside the disciplining force of the market. Martin Luther King Jr termed this system of corporate-welfare, “socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor”. This is because losses incurred are socialized and profits are privatized.

The 2008 recession provides a textbook example of this systemic inequality. The banking subprime mortgage scam led to millions of foreclosures on U.S. properties. Statistics by Attom data solutions show that U.S. foreclosures in both 2009 and 2010 reached almost 3 million. Despite the well-known fraud President Barrack Obama tragically bailed out the private banks to the tune of over $700 billion dollars. He sided with the banking elites over the masses.

As the first president with African roots, it was hoped Obama would understand the developmental rights of the American poor whose ranks are over-represented by black Americans. However, he was a servant for entrenched banking interests. For example, Goldman Sachs was one of Obama’s biggest donors. A WikiLeaks document revealed that Citigroup bank had given him a list of preferred candidates for cabinet positions, one month before his presidential election of 2008, which corresponded almost exactly to the eventual composition of Obama’s cabinet. After his presidency, Obama made $1.2 million from just three speeches to Wall Street firms.

When ideology no longer reflects lived experience propaganda becomes glaringly obvious and social tensions ensue. America prides itself as being ‘number one’. It markets itself as the land of the just, the land of the free and the land of the plenty. However, increasingly for many whose lives are becoming progressively difficult, they can’t relate to this narrative and refuse to blame themselves for their poverty. At the same time, they realize their dilemma does not stem from the oft evoked foreign ‘bogeyman’ that U.S. elites so often call upon.

Despite all the abundance that exists in America, infrastructure is in decay. The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness reveals that the US has roughly 563,000 homeless people, more than any other developed nation. As shown by World Prison Brief, America has the highest prison population in the world of whom 33% are African-American. Combined with these stark figures the U.S. has a health system controlled by private-capital that is not fit for an advanced country. On the other hand, while there is not enough money for socialized health care, America has more than enough finances to fund several ongoing conflicts and hundreds of military bases around the world.

During the riots, there was a recognition by U.S. citizens that these systemic inequalities, combined with a mediated view that does not match lived experience, exists. This was clearly shown with the destruction of the CNN Atlanta Headquarters that was attacked by crowds recently. There have also been numerous targeted offensives on banks during the midst of the riots.

Nevertheless, America is still a great nation that has great potential to thrive and improve. The U.S. is a country rich in resources; it has brought to the world incredible technological innovations and ideas, and its population is hardworking and entrepreneurial. As such it has the basis to bring greater benefit to its citizens and the whole world rather than just Wall Street. However, to do so America must address its own internal contradictions and dogma rather than resorting to its usual knee jerk reaction of blaming country ‘x’.

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Featured image is by Rosa Pineda/Wikimedia Commons

Eight minutes, forty-six seconds is a long time: a long time when you are meditating; a long time while waiting for a protest march to pass; a long time with your finger on the video button of your phone following a scene of terror; an unimaginable time when you are being slowly crushed by human weights on your neck, perhaps detecting some mildly agitated bystanders through the haze of your dying brain.

I realized how very, very long 8:46 minutes can be when participating by video in George Floyd’s memorial service in Minneapolis Thursday evening. I activate the PBS video link to the celebration and eulogy, then without knowing how it will end, I find myself compelled to follow the entire recording.

At 1:32:25, following Rev. Al Sharpton’s rousing and resolute eulogy, this indefatigable American activist invites us to join their 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silent tribute to George Floyd.

Sharpton does not end his summons here. He challenges me in the next 8:46 minutes, to ‘feel’ what this space-in-time meant to George Floyd, namely the extinguishing of the person George Floyd, pinned under three American policemen, crushed to death, with the man’s final three lifeless minutes held there by their combined contempt.

In the past, I have bowed in prayer for 1 minute, even for 2 minutes in tribute to I-cannot-recall-what. I’ve kept abreast of news reports of Back Americans murdered and brutalized by police. I know the names and some details of the most notorious cases—twelve or fifteen in recent years. I’ve viewed historical footage of public lynchings of our Black Americans. I review videos of U.S. police terrorizing citizens, of guards brutalizing prisoners, of U.S. troops wantonly humiliating Arab and Asian captives.

I claim I can share the anger of Black colleagues, the fears of parents of Black children, the conviction of their prayers and abiding faith. I’ve listened attentively to African American civil rights orators. I post quotes by Martin Luther King Jr., invoke the simple counsel of Jesse Jackson, reference Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, celebrate Colin Kaepernick’s ‘taking the knee’, scrutinize essays by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and repeat Maya Angelou’s pithy wisdoms. Yet, I’d never directed my compassion for eight minutes and 46 seconds—neither during an anthem, nor Barack Obama intoning Amazing Grace, nor a Qur’anic ayah or Arab nasheed, nor any Christian psalm – on the concept of an individual’s martyrdom in a finite incident of Black American life.

Source: the author

This 8 minutes and 46 seconds is inimitable.

The almost two hour pre-recorded ceremony ends in 15 minutes. Here in my home it’s approaching midnight; I could fast-forward this segment or watch just one minute of the 8:46 minutes. I could simply close my computer.

No. I cannot disengage from this call to prayer.

My concentration breaks after a few seconds, distracted by camera shots scanning the room of weeping, embracing mourners. I resume my meditation, taking up Sharpton’s invitation to enter the body of George Floyd lying on the street for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. I concentrate for a further minute as I gaze at that gleaming copper coffin cradling Floyd’s body. My meditation breaks again. I refocus: feel Floyd’s weakening heart beats; listen to the murderers’ mocking; then hear George Floyd’s final call: “Mama”.

“America?”

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B. Nimri Aziz is an anthropologist and journalist who’s worked in Nepal since 1970, and published widely on peoples of the Himalayas. A new book on Nepali rebel women is forthcoming.

Hanne Herland of the European Herland Report has just had her book published in which she argues that the ruling elite has resurrected feudalism by financializing the economy and offshoring middle class jobs.  The title is New Left Tyranny, but it is about gangster state capitalism. 

Historically, capitalism freed labor from bondage by making labor the private property of the person. Serfs who owed labor obligations to lords became free individuals. Free labor markets and emergent capitalism made productive by technological advancements created with time rising living standards and a free people determined to protect their independence by holding government accountable. 

This system was eventually wrecked by banks that financialized the economy and diverted discretionary personal income to the payment of interests and fees to banks, and by global corporations that moved first world jobs to Asia, thus raising their profits at the expense of domestic consumer purchasing power and living standards.  The result was the concentration of income and wealth in the hands of a few multi-billionaires.

First world work forces were re-enserfed as part-time jobs with no health or pension benefits replaced the security of a middle class existence. Corporate investment in the US ceased as corporations used their profits to buy back their own stocks, thus raising share prices and maximizing executive bonuses and shareholders’ capital gains.  This selfish management of corporations brought economic growth to a halt.  The ladders of upward mobility were dismantled.

Growing economic uncertainty for larger numbers of people put further stress on already stressed marriage and family relationships. Years of attacks by left-wing intellectuals on Western principles and values, the re-writing of history to serve left-wing agendas, the dilution of national identity in diversity and multiculturalism, and the teaching of race and gender hatreds by Identity Politics has produced a disunited and dysfunctional society.  In the US the Democrat Party has abandoned the working class it once championed, labeling blue collar workers “the Trump deplorables.”  

Everywhere in the Western World Towers of Babel are being erected. The ethnic nationalities that constituted a country are becoming increasingly alienated from their country as it ceases to be theirs.  In France, Sweden, and Germany law favors immigrant-invaders over the ethnicities—French, Swedes, Germans—that gave the countries their names. Ethnic nationalities are also under attack from the European Union whose purpose is to replace European ethnicities with “Europeans” of no ethnicity.  Everywhere the bonds that held things together are being severed.

Tyranny can be the only outcome.

Democracy is touted, but everywhere in the Western World the traditional ethnicities feel powerless and unable to affect how they are governed. Dissent is censored by the ruling elites who have in place powerful means to control explanations and to implement agendas that the people do not support.  

Capitalism, no longer productive, has turned to looting. Privatization is the method.  First it was third world countries that were looted. Then the weaker first world countries such as Greece, which lost its municipal water companies and ports. Real estate speculators made a grab for the country’s protected islands. Now it is the public sectors of the First World countries that are being looted. Regulations that protect the environment are ignored or withdrawn so that private firms can plunder national forests and mine wildlife refuges. Valuable public assets are sold at prices below value to well-connected elites. For example, the British post office was sold to a private company at a fraction of the value of the properties it owned. France sold off its public companies. New private firms are created, the revenues of which come entirely from public budgets.  The number of private businesses today whose only revenues come from some government’s budget is stunning. 

The examples of politicians creating private businesses for politically-connected people by assigning the provision of various government services to private companies is endless. The state of Florida has contracted out to a private firm the issuance of new vehicle license tags. Will driver’s licenses be next? Soldiers no longer perform guard duty or KP.  The army is fed and guarded by private contractors. See this. 

The claim is always made that it is less costly and saves taxpayers money to rely on the private sector, but it always costs much more. Individuals working for private military contractors, for example, earn between $9,000 and $22,500 per month. If the person is working abroad, $104,100 of his earnings are tax free under the IRS foreign earned income inclusion. A soldier earns $1,468 a month.  A captain’s pay is $4,952.

In the US traditional government functions are being turned over to newly created “private” companies that have no customers but the government.  Soon the US government will be merely a revenue collector that hands out money to private firms.

Private billionaires will have superseded the government just as in the feudal age Dukes, earls, and barons superseded the king.

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

Protracted main street depression conditions have existed in the US since 2008 with no relief for ordinary Americans in prospect.

Before economic collapse this year, unemployment exceeded 20%, Labor Department numbers rigged to pretend otherwise.

The so-called U-3 BLS number omits working-age Americans without jobs who want them, including many longterm unemployed individuals not looking after months of failure to find employment.

Monthly BLS jobs report conceal what should be headline news, including that most US jobs created are poverty-wage, poor-or-no benefit temporary or part-time service industry ones.

Most households need two or more to survive. Living on the edge, they’re one or a few missed paydays from homelessness, hunger, despair and overall deprivation.

Record numbers of Americans are food insecure, the specter of hunger haunting the world’s richest country because its ruling class serves privileged interests exclusively at the expense of the public welfare.

It’s what the scourge of neoliberal harshness is all about, supported by both right wings of the one-party state.

It’s not a pretty picture. “America the beautiful” is a mirage in a nation where poverty is the leading growth industry — disturbing reality concealed by establishment media.

Michal Harrington explained the problem in 1962, things far worse today than what he described in his book titled “The Other America,” saying:

“In morality and in justice, every citizen should be committed to abolishing the other America, for it is intolerable that the richest nation in human history should allow such needless suffering.”

“But more than that, if we solve the problem of the other America, we will have learned how to solve the problems of all of America.”

Food insecurity, hunger, and unemployment haunted America at higher levels than at any time since the Great Depression before 2020 economic collapse began.

Now they’re off the charts with no near-or-longer-term plan for turning things around — just continued governance of, by, and for the privileged few alone at a time of a growing permanent underclass.

During the Great Depression, FDR explained that “one-third of (the US was) ill-housed, ill-clad (and) ill-nourished” — the problem far greater today than then.

It’s because unemployment is far greater now than in the 1930s, the highest in US history by far.

FDR’s “New Deal for the American people” was polar opposite today’s bipartisan conspiracy against public health and welfare.

He called “vast unemployment (of his time) the greatest menace to our social order,” calling for “social justice” that’s fast eroding today at a time when boosting it greatly is needed.

Friday’s jobs report concealed reality. Economist John Williams said BLS numbers are “not particularly credible.”

“Prior period downside revisions” weren’t explained, nor “revised methodologies and seasonal adjustments” that distorted reality.

Nearly 5 million unemployed Americans were counted as “employed, the third (consecutive) month of acknowledged misreporting.”

Last month’s reporting period was at a time of US lockdown nationwide.

Yet the BLS claimed 2.5 million new jobs were created — when millions of new weekly unemployment claims continue to be filed.

The report noted that hundreds of thousands more workers were permanently laid off because lost business isn’t coming back soon.

Hundreds of thousands of public workers continue to be let go, mostly at the state and local levels because of severe budget constraints, revenues falling way short of the ability to maintain public services at pre-economic crisis levels.

Through May into early June, data show the US economy contracting, far from expanding.

Key economic metrics contracted to record-low levels. Q II GDP is estimated to show around a 50% contraction, a number far exceeding anything during the Great Depression or any previous time in US history.

Based on how US unemployment was calculated pre-1990, Williams now puts it at 35%, over one-third of US workers without jobs.

Along with the vast majority of others underemployed, the US is a nation of paupers while its privileged class never had things better.

Notably the wealth of super-rich Americans is increasing during hard times while food banks are hard-pressed to feed millions of hungry Americans.

The USA is a nation in decline, a surging stock market concealing reality.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) said nationwide “economic pain” continues, stressing it’ll “be longstanding without” considerable federal aid — that’s not forthcoming.

California, the state with the nation’s largest economy, teeters on bankruptcy, needing $54 billion in federal aid to provide basic services.

Many are being slashed, including for health, education, and other vital programs.

New York, Illinois and other US states are face similar hard choices.

Instead of federal aid to states in need and to stimulate economic growth and jobs creation, trillions of federal dollars went to Wall Street and other corporate America favorites.

Crumbs alone have gone to the unemployed, the impoverished underemployed, the “ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished.”

While most US states ended lockdowns, others likely to end them in short order, mass unemployment remains at a record high.

Over 40 million Americans employed in January were fired, laid off, or furloughed, record numbers over a short period.

Small and medium-sized businesses were most affected, the backbone of the nation.

Around half of lost jobs are permanent because countless numbers of shut down companies face bankruptcy.

The Wall Street Journal reported that 722 US firms filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May alone, a near-50% year-over-year increase, much more of the same ahead.

Many reopening won’t operate at previous levels, notably restaurants, hotels, airlines, shopping malls, retail stores, commercial real estate, enterprises related to tourism, and others relying on large gatherings like sports.

According to US bankruptcy attorney James Conlan, “we’re going to see an extraordinary number of large corporate bankruptcies, not just in the US but across the globe.”

The effects of unprecedented US economic collapse won’t magically turn around any time soon — especially with no federal economic stimulus and jobs creation programs planned.

Trump’s phony Friday claim about the US economy ready to take off like a “rocket ship” belies the dismal state of main street America — his regime and Congress doing nothing to turn things around.

What happens when millions of unemployed Americans can’t pay mortgage, car loans, or credit card bills.

Are mass evictions coming, numbers of homeless to increase exponentially, along with growing hunger?

The notion that Friday’s jobs report showed the beginning of economic recovery is belied by reality in US cities and towns nationwide.

Ongoing protests against institutionalized racism, inequality and injustice met by police violence reflect America’s dismal state.

It’s not about to change by the nation’s ruling class without sustained public activism in the streets for redress of longstanding grievances.

It’s the only way change ever comes. There’s no other way.

Power yields nothing without a demand. It never did and never will.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Charleston’s The Digitel | CC BY 2.0

It is time for power to the people! 

Global capitalist inequality contributes directly to health pandemics, environmental degradation, and mass poverty. Elite-corporate oligarchs control the governments and political parties. They use established militarized police states to protect their vast empires of property and money worldwide. The global one percent own half of the world’s wealth, and the richest 10 percent control 81 percent of all wealth. Only 200 elite people in a handful of companies make the investment decisions for over $50 trillion of capital.

Concentrated wealth is violence towards the 80 percent of the people in the world living on less than ten dollars a day, with a majority of those surviving on just a few dollars. Over 30,000 people die daily from the violence of empire. Mass malnutrition, homelessness, imprisonment, insecurity are the manifestations of concentrated global capital.

A racist police murder has triggered a national revolt. Massive, mostly peaceful protests have resulted, expressing outrage against continued killings of people of color. The circumstances of this outrage are amplified by the forty million newly unemployed in the US, and the friends and families of the 100,000 plus virus victims.

The people protesting in the streets lack any real form of democratic power other than the ability to destroy property and disrupt daily commerce. When property damage, fires, and lootings occur there has been widespread condemnation of these behaviors by politicians, and corporate media opinion writers. Accordingly, we know that agents of the national security state will foment property damage to use as a justification for expanded repression and increased militarism.

For many middle-class folks the looting of property is considered morally wrong. They worry about losing their own modest assets in widespread civil unrest and are quick to say they oppose racism but deplore violence. However, many would likely applaud democratic governmental appropriations of 90 percent of Jeffrey Bezos’ $151.6 billion, Bill Gates’ $102 billion and other elite billionaires if the money were to be used for the permanent elimination of hunger and basic human needs in the world. The real moral obligation for us all is the reallocation of world resources for all humankind to have their essential needs covered. Electoral politics, spontaneous marches, and general strikes will likely not result in the transfer of wealth from the 1 percent to the rest. We need an easily adoptable strategy of resistance.

Capital violence happens every day worldwide, and US racism is a major aspect of that violence. We must ask ourselves– Is the widespread revolt against police racism in the US today the possible beginning of a broader social democracy movement to openly address the inequality of concentrated wealth? Could a widespread revolt become a human rights revolution? Can we build a grassroots democratic movement that seeks to bring about a greater sharing of the world resources controlled by the 1 percent? 

A democratic movement, with activists following the moral guidelines from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and holding a united strategy, could well pressure elites into a greater sharing of their wealth without the turning to violent fascist repression. Here is how that could work.

A grassroots democracy movement could engage in targeted property restrictions and disruptions of commerce within the global elites themselves and their businesses. This type of property disruption is morally justified as a strategy for broader change. We all know the names of and have access to the transnational corporate properties benefiting from the continued violence of inequality, racism, and militarism worldwide. Were democracy movement protests to make these properties commercially unusable there would be rapid adjustments sought by the elite oligarchs.  Some elites would call for greater repression and others would be open to economic sharing. The key for movement activists would be to maintain disruptive pressures on targeted transnational concerns through boycotts, sit-ins and blockades, and to carefully avoid violence towards the police and the elites themselves.

A strategy of commerce disruption that focuses on transnational business and elite oligarchs could be adopted by peaceful human rights movements with very positive effects for human inequality. These actions should strategically avoid the disruption of locally-owned businesses, family commerce, and working peoples’ livelihoods whenever possible.

We should try to transform current and future protests from random street disruptions to the specific targeting of businesses controlled by the global power elites. Elite responses will likely be strained, some will demand martial law, but many in the Davos crowd already recognize that the current economy is unsustainable. We should pressure them to mediate wealth sharing among the global elites and suspend the tendency towards repressive fascism. There is hope for a better world and we can pressure elites through moral collective actions to help achieve that goal.

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This article was originally published on Project Censored.

Prof. Peter Phillips is a Political Sociologist at Sonoma State University; author Giants: The Global Power Elite, (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2018); past director of Project Censored; co-author/editor of fourteen Censored yearbooks, 1997 to 2011; co-author of Impeach the President, (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007); and winner of the Dallas Smythe Award from the Union for Democratic Communications. Peter Phillips is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 

Featured image is from Project Censored

Israel Is, Like the US, Prime Target for New Mass Uprising

By Michael Jansen, June 05, 2020

Having announced he would begin the process to annex portions of the occupied Palestinian West Bank on July 1, he must be concerned that in response, violence, similar to the rioting in the US, could erupt in the, so far, mainly quiet West Bank and East Jerusalem. After more than a century of Palestinian resentment and resistance to expropriation and suppression, Israel is, like the US, a prime target for a new mass uprising, a Third Intifada.

The Shallow Deep-State Goes Deeper as It Moves Toward Martial Law

By Edward Curtin, June 05, 2020

The people who own the United States and their allies around the world have a plan.  It is so simple that it is extremely devious.  Their plan has been in operation for many years.  It has most people bamboozled because it is Janus-faced by design, overt one day, covert the next, but both faces operate under one controlling head.  Some call this head the Deep-State. Even the Deep-State calls itself the Deep-State in a double fake. It is meant to make people schizoid, which it has.

Obama’s Essay on Protests: Maintaining the Status Quo

By Robert Fantina, June 05, 2020

Former President Barack Obama has weighed in on the current civil unrest and ongoing racial injustice. While most people recognize his intelligence, especially when compared to the irrational blustering of his successor, his calm, measured opinion on how the nation should move forward only perpetuates the current injustices.

The DOJ Has Launched an Investigation as More Evidence Emerges that Someone Is Orchestrating the Violent Riots

By Michael Snyder, June 05, 2020

The Department of Justice has announced that it is attempting to determine if there is a “coordinated command and control” behind the violent riots that have erupted all over the United States.  In recent days, officials all over the country have used words such as “organized” and “organizers” to describe the orchestration that they have been witnessing in their respective cities.  And all over the U.S., law enforcement officials have reported finding huge piles of rocks and bricks pre-staged at protest locations in advance, and scouts have often been used to direct rioters to locations where police are not present.  In addition, something that we have been hearing over and over again is that many of the people that are involved in the violence are not known by any of the locals.

 The Corona “Global False Alarm”, the Campaign against Racism and Neoliberalism

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, June 04, 2020

Across America, as well as in Western Europe, there is an ongoing campaign against racism following the dramatic events in Minneapolis. Our thoughts are with George Floyd, his family and friends.  We stand in solidarity with African-Americans who are the target of police killings and racial discrimination. Colonial and contemporary history has left its mark. Today, African-Americans are also the victims of neoliberalism which triggers poverty, social inequality and unemployment.

How Endless War Contributes to Police Brutality

By Bonnie Kristian, June 05, 2020

It is not a conversation we may quickly or easily conclude. The problems in American policing are multitude and systemic, matters of both policy and culture. Much of this can only be corrected at the state or local level, and as there are around 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States, this is a monumental task. In very few cases could sweeping federal action affect any substantive reform.

The Truth Behind the Murder of Robert F. Kennedy: Conspiracy and Cover-up

By Michael Welch, William Pepper, and Mark Robinowitz, June 04, 2020

On June 6th 1968, one more flame illuminating a social landscape darkened by war, poverty, and civil unrest was snuffed out, and along with it, any optimism of a peaceful transition to a brighter future.

The shooting death of Senator and Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, apparently at the hands of a lone assassin marked the third such murder of high profile political leader in the United States in a five year period, and the second in a little over two months.

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China’s priority infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), faces enormous problems just seven years after it was proclaimed in 2013. Serious problems and charges of China luring poorer nations into what a leading Indian analyst termed a “debt trap diplomacy,” began to appear already in 2018 when Malaysia and Pakistan, under new governments demanded a renegotiation of terms with Beijing. Now the global economic impact of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, with the simultaneous collapse of economies from China to the USA, to the EU and across the developing world, are creating staggering new challenges for the China prized project.

When Xi Jinping first announced the ambitious China Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), then known as the Economic Silk Road in 2013, it was hailed as a much-needed boost to world infrastructure development which had the promise to lift hundreds of millions across Eurasia and beyond out of poverty. Many saw it as the effort to replicate the economic model that gave China the most extraordinary industrial growth of any nation in modern history.

While detailed information is anecdotal so far, it is clear that the massive global lockdown around the covid19 is having a major impact for many BRI member countries. A major problem is that the China BRI major pathways for railway and shipping infrastructure involve agreements with some of the world’s poorest economies and some of the largest credit risks.

Initially most financing has come from Chinese state banks, in order to rapidly kick-start the BRI concept. While exact figures are not available from Chinese agencies, best estimates by the World Bank are that through 2018 Beijing has made a total of $ 575 billion in commitments for overseas investment in BRI projects. Officially Beijing has stated plans to invest up to $1 trillion over several decades and hopes to attract other funders to total $8 trillion.

According to various studies, most of the China financial support for BRI member state infrastructure projects are in the form of loans at commercial terms, project financing where the resulting rail or port revenue goes to repay the loans. As many recipients such as Sri Lanka are already in precarious economic status, the risk of default even before the covid19 crisis was high. Now it is far, far worse.

Among the top 50 countries owing significant debt to China are Pakistan, Venezuela, Angola, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Kenya, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Indonesia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Zambia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Sudan, Cameroon, Tanzania, Bolivia, Zimbabwe, Algeria and Iran. These are definitely not countries with AAA credit rating. Before covid19 lockdowns they were struggling. Now several of the BRI debtor countries are asking Beijing for debt relief.

Debt relief?

Until now China has reacted to the demands of Malaysia and Pakistan for earlier debt relief in a pragmatic manner, changing terms of earlier debt agreements. However, now, with China’s economic growth officially at the lowest in 30 years, and still well below full capacity following the January-March coronavirus lockdowns, Chinese banks face an entirely new international debt crisis, in some ways similar to that of Latin America and African countries in the late 1970s. China is ill-prepared to step in this time, with a major domestic banking problem and staggering bank debts.

All these BRI countries depend on export revenues to the industrial economies to service their China BRI debt. This is just what is being devastated during the global lockdown. Oil producing countries such as Angola or Nigeria find their oil revenue drastically down as global air and land and sea transport since February has plunged. In addition, as EU and North American economies lockdown much of their industry, they do not import the raw materials from China’s BRI partner countries. Return to normal is not even in sight. African mining companies producing lithium, cobalt, copper and iron ore are experiencing decreasing demand from China.

Pakistan and Indonesia Danger

Pakistan of all BRI partner states is one of the most strategic for China. The BRI China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, originally projects totaling $61 billion, was reduced to a more manageable $50 billion in 2018 when Imran Khan became Prime Minister. Then the bottom fell out of the Pakistani economy in 2019. Now in 2020 with spread of reported covid19 cases across Pakistan, the government reported a catastrophic 54% plunge in exports in April. A March 31 report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimated that Pakistan will be one of the states hardest hit by the economic fallout of covid19 along with sub-Saharan African BRI partners. It faces a “frightening combination” of crises including mounting debts, a potential deflationary spiral as well as a disastrous impact on the health sector.

Clearly since the January developments around coronavirus in China and Pakistan, economic growth has been devastated even more. The Khan government is drawing up a list of new BRI projects in hopes Beijing will approve when Xi Jinping visits later this year. At this point it is highly questionable if China will be receptive to lending even more to Pakistan.

Indonesia is another key BRI partner in Asia where the China projects have been forced on hold by covid19. A $6 billion, 150 km-long Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail line lies dormant as Chinese key personnel had been blocked from travel by the lockdowns in both China and Indonesia. The rail project is 40 per cent owned by China Railway International and was financed principally by a $4.5 billion loan from China’s Development Bank. In 2019 Indonesian President Joko Widodo proposed a list of projects totaling some $91 billion to China. Their future is now in doubt given the collapse of Indonesian oil and gas revenue.

Africa hard hit

A recent report by Fitch Rating agency estimates that the Coronavirus outbreak will seriously impact sub-Saharan African growth, particularly in Ghana, Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Zambia, South Africa, Gabon and Nigeria – all countries that export large amounts of commodities to China. China state banks loaned $19 billion to sub-Saharan African energy and infrastructure projects since 2014, most of it in 2017. In total, African states owe some $145 billion to China with $8 billion due this year.

For more than a decade China has been involved in Africa, even predating the BRI. Oil-rich Nigeria has been a major focus of BRI investing with Huawei Technologies investing a reported $16 billion to date in IT infrastructure. The CCECC state-owned Chinese construction firm has contracts to build four international airport terminals. In addition it has contracted to build the Lagos-Kano, Lagos-Calabar rail and Port Harcourt-Maiduguri railways, with costs at $9bn, $11bn and $15bn respectively. The China National Offshore Oil Corp. has invested some $16 billion in projects in the Nigerian oil and gas industry. Many of these are project financing deals where the revenue from the rails or airports or oil refining should repay the Chinese investors. With the dramatic collapse of world trade and economy, much of that revenue is in severe question for the forseeable future.

In Kenya China holds an estimated 72% of that country’s bilateral debt. The country has a total of $50 billion in external debt. China financed the $4 billion Mombasa-Nairobi railway to the Mombasa Port, also known as the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), the country’s largest infrastructure project. The costs for the China-financed project were to be paid out of port revenues. However even before the coronavirus economic shocks, revenues were running far below projections and in July, 2019 a 5-year grace period ended, forcing Kenya to repay almost $1 billion of the cost annually. Kenya owes $2.3 billion for the project to the China Ex-Im Bank. Its foreign reserves at end 2018 were only $9 billion.

Ethiopia with a population of over 100 million, is another key troubled member of China’s Africa BRI. China is Ethiopia’s major creditor and already in March, 2019 the country was forced to ask China to restructure debt repayment, well before the present global crisis hit. At that point imports exceeded exports by some 400% and government debt stood at 59% of its gross domestic product. External debt was $26 billion. The largest project, the $4bn Ethiopia-Djibouti railway, was backed by a $3.3 billion loan from the Export-Import Bank of China. So far the railway revenue has been crippled by light loads, electricity shortages and disruptions due to protests in the Afar region, making loan repayment dubious even before. To deal with electricity shortages, China Gezhouba Group is working to complete already existing Grand Renaissance Dam to support the electrified railway.

From trains and buildings to roads and highways, China has become a major player in the development of Ethiopia’s infrastructure and economy. Ethiopia owes more than $12 billion in loans to China, not only for the construction of its cities, but also for its import and export needs. The Exim Bank of China lends money to organizations like the Ethiopian Airlines for things such as aircraft purchases. In 2019 according to UNCTAD, 60% of all Ethiopian project financing came from China. How the global economic and trade collapse impacts repayment of that China debt is unclear.

In 2018 China pledged to set up a special investment fund of some $60 billion to invest in further BRI projects across Africa. At this point that looks highly doubtful both in terms of Chinese funding amid the global crisis and of African countries’ ability to pay.

Peak BRI?

Add to the growing headaches for China state banks and companies in the now 138 countries in some degree affiliated with China’s Belt, Road Initiative, the economic problems in Venezuela, Iran and countless other developing economies, and it becomes clear that a major strategic rethink of the BRI is inevitable. In 2018, the Politburo Standing Committee of the CCP set up its own BRI think tank – the Center of One Belt and One Road Security Studies in Shanghai – to get a comprehensive overview of the vast global commitments under the banner of BRI for the first time.

In their official 2019 report, ‘The Belt and Road Initiative: Progress, Contributions and Prospects’ they recognized that “the Belt and Road Initiative is in urgent need of finance” from new models of international investment and funding due to its massive scale. Now, amid the worst world economic collapse since the 1930’s, with a trade war with its largest trading partner, USA, the prospects of major new capital from the World Bank, IMF and other international sources are dim. Hopes of billions in BRI co-financing from sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf oil monarchies has evaporated with the collapse of oil prices. The Chinese government has just stated that the impact of covid19 on the BRI will be “temporary and limited.” That will require major rethinking, if so.

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is from NEO

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Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

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Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

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This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

“You have no right not to be vaccinated, you have no right not to wear a mask, you have no right to open up your business… And if you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm.”—Alan Dershowitz, Harvard law professor

You have no rights.

That’s the lesson the government wants us to learn from this COVID-19 business.

Well, the government is wrong.

For years now, the powers-that-be—those politicians and bureaucrats who think like tyrants and act like petty dictators regardless of what party they belong to—have attempted to brainwash us into believing that we have no right to think for ourselves, make decisions about our health, protect our homes and families and businesses, act in our best interests, demand accountability and transparency from government, or generally operate as if we are in control of our own lives.

We have every right, and you know why? Because we were born free.

As the Declaration of Independence states, we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights—to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness—that no government can take away from us.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped the government from constantly trying to usurp our freedoms at every turn. Indeed, the nature of government is such that it invariably oversteps its limits, abuses its authority, and flexes its totalitarian muscles.

Take this COVID-19 crisis, for example.

What started out as an apparent effort to prevent a novel coronavirus from sickening the nation (and the world) has become yet another means by which world governments (including our own) can expand their powers, abuse their authority, and further oppress their constituents.

Until now, the police state has been more circumspect in its power grabs, but this latest state of emergency has brought the beast out of the shadows.

We are on a slippery slope to outright despotism.

This road we are traveling is paved with lockdowns, SWAT team raids, mass surveillance and forced vaccinations. It is littered with the debris of our First and Fourth Amendment freedoms.

This is what we have to look forward to in the months and years to come unless we can find some way to regain control over our runaway government.

The government has made no secret of its plans.

Just follow the money trail, and you’ll get a sense of what’s in store: more militarized police, more SWAT team raids, more surveillance, more lockdowns, more strong-armed tactics aimed at suppressing dissent and forcing us to comply with the government’s dictates.

It’s chilling to think about, but it’s not surprising.

We’ve been warned.

Remember that Pentagon training video created by the Army for U.S. Special Operations Command? The one that anticipates the future domestic political and social problems the government is grooming its armed forces to solve through the use of martial law?

The chilling five-minute training video, obtained by The Intercept through a FOIA request and made available online, paints a dystopian picture of the future bedeviled by “criminal networks,” “substandard infrastructure,” “religious and ethnic tensions,” “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” a “growing mass of unemployed,” and an urban landscape in which the prosperous economic elite must be protected from the impoverishment of the have nots.

But here’s the kicker: what they’re really talking about is martial law, packaged as a well-meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security.

This COVID-19 crisis is pushing us that much closer to that dystopian vision becoming a present-day reality.

For starters, let’s talk about the COVID-19 stormtroopers, SWAT team raids and ongoing flare-ups of police brutality.

With millions of dollars in stimulus funds being directed towards policing agencies across the country, the federal government plans to fight this COVID-19 virus with riot gear, gas masks, ballistic helmets, drones, and hi-tech surveillance technology.

Indeed, although crime rates have fallen dramatically in the midst of this global COVID-19 lockdown, there’s been no relief from the brutality and violence of the American police state.

While the majority of the country has been social distancing under varying degrees of lockdowns, it’s been business as usual for the nation’s SWAT teams and police trained to shoot first and ask questions later.

In Kentucky, plain-clothed cops in unmarked cars used a battering ram to break down Breonna Taylor’s door and carry out a no-knock raid on her home after midnight. Fearing a home invasion, the 26-year-old emergency medical technician and her boyfriend—who had been in bed at the time of the invasion—called 911 and prepared to defend themselves. Taylor’s boyfriend shot one of the intruders—later identified as police—in the leg. Police fired at least 20 shots into the apartment and a neighboring home, killing Taylor. The drug dealer who was the target of the late-night raid lived 10 miles away and had already been arrested prior to the raid on Taylor’s home.

In Illinois, police opened fire in a subway station, shooting a 33-year-old man who allegedly resisted their attempts to tackle and arrest him for violating a city ordinance by passing between two cars of a moving train. Ariel Roman, a short-order cook, claimed he was suffering from an anxiety attack when he was “harassed, chased, tackled, pepper-sprayed, tasered and shot twice” by police.

In Maryland, police dispatched on a nuisance call to break up a crowd of neighborhood kids( half of them teenagers, and the other half youngsters around 4 and 5 years old) gathered in an apartment complex parking lot opened fire on a 29-year-old man seen exiting his car with a gun. An eyewitness claimed “the officer pointed a flashlight and his gun at the group immediately and began chasing and shooting a minute or two after getting out of the patrol car.” Police reportedly shot the man after he threw down his gun and ran in the opposite direction.

In Virginia, more than 80 local, state, and federal police agents risked spreading COVID-19 to “a highly vulnerable population” when they raided a low income, public housing community in an effort to crack down on six individuals suspected of selling, on average, $20 to $100 worth of drugs.

In Texas, a SWAT team backed up with a military tank Armored Personnel Carrier raided Big Daddy Zane’s Bar whose owner and patrons were staging a peaceful First and Second Amendment protest of the governor’s shutdown orders.

Police have even been called out to shut down churches, schools and public parks and beaches that have been found “in violation” of various lockdown orders.

Now there’s talk of mobilizing the military to deliver forced vaccinations, mass surveillance in order to carry out contact tracing, and heavy fines and jail time for those who dare to venture out without a mask, congregate in worship without the government’s blessing, or re-open their  businesses without the government’s say-so.

There are rumblings that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will start thermal screenings to monitor passengers’ temperatures in coming weeks. This is in addition to the virtual strip searches that have become routine aspects of airport security.

Restaurants in parts of the country are being tasked with keeping daily logs of phone numbers, emails, and arrival times for everybody who participates in dine-services, with no mention of how long such records will be kept on file, with whom they will be shared, and under what circumstances.

With the help of Google and Nest cameras, hospitals are morphing into real-time surveillance centers with round-the-clock surveillance cameras monitoring traffic in patients’ rooms. Forget patient privacy, however. Google has a track record of sharing surveillance footage with police.

And then rounding out the power-grabs, the Senate just voted to give police access to web browsing data without a warrant, which would dramatically expand the government’s Patriot Act surveillance powers. The Senate also voted to give Attorney General William Barr the ability to look through the web browsing history of any American — including journalists, politicians, and political rivals — without a warrant, just by saying it is relevant to an investigation. If enacted, privacy experts warn  that the new provisions threaten to undermine the free press by potentially preventing the media from exposing abuses of power or acting as a watchdog against political leaders.

If we haven’t already crossed over, we’re skating dangerously close to that line that keeps us on the functioning side of a constitutional republic. It won’t take much to push us over that edge into a full-blown banana republic.

In many ways, this is just more of the same heavy-handed tactics we’ve been seeing in recent years but with one major difference: this COVID-19 state of emergency has invested government officials (and those who view their lives as more valuable than ours) with a sanctimonious, self-righteous, arrogant, Big Brother Knows Best approach to top-down governing, and the fall-out can be seen far and wide.

It’s an ugly, self-serving mindset that views the needs, lives and rights of “we the people” as insignificant when compared to those in power.

That’s how someone who should know better such as Alan Dershowitz, a former Harvard law professor, can suggest that a free people—born in freedom, endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, and living in a country birthed out of a revolutionary struggle for individual liberty—have no rights to economic freedom, to bodily integrity, or to refuse to comply with a government order with which they disagree.

According to Dershowitz, who has become little more than a legal apologist for the power elite, “You have no right not to be vaccinated, you have no right not to wear a mask, you have no right to open up your business… And if you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm.”

Dershowitz is wrong: while the courts may increasingly defer to the government’s brand of Nanny State authoritarianism, we still have rights.

The government may try to abridge those rights, it may refuse to recognize them, it may even attempt to declare martial law and nullify them, but it cannot litigate, legislate or forcefully eradicate them out of existence.

Up to now, we’ve been largely passive participants in this experiment in self-governance. Our inaction and inattention has left us at the mercy of power-hungry politicians, corrupt corporations and brutal, government-funded militias.

Wake up, America.

As I  make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, these ongoing violations of our rights—this attitude by the government that we have no rights—this tyrannical movement that is overtaking our constitutional republic and  gaining in momentum and power by the minute—this incessant auction block in which government officials appointed to represent our best interests keep selling us out to the highest bidder—all of these betrayals scream for a response.

To quote the great Rod Serling: “If we don’t listen to that scream—and if we don’t respond to it—we may well wind up sitting amidst our own rubble, looking for the truck that hit us—or the bomb that pulverized us. Get the license number of whatever it was that destroyed the dream. And I think we will find that the vehicle was registered in our own name.”

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

On June 6, 2020, we will be commemorating the passing of Robert F. Kennedy. His legacy will live. Below is Michael Welch‘s Global Research radio interview with William Pepper. A full transcript is included.

“I went there because I was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence…I was disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father. My father was the chief law enforcement officer in this country. I think it would have disturbed him if somebody was put in jail for a crime they didn’t commit.”

– Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (quoted in the Washington Post, May 26, 2018)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

On June 6th 1968, one more flame illuminating a social landscape darkened by war, poverty, and civil unrest was snuffed out, and along with it, any optimism of a peaceful transition to a brighter future.

The shooting death of Senator and Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, apparently at the hands of a lone assassin marked the third such murder of high profile political leader in the United States in a five year period, and the second in a little over two months.

As with the killings of his brother President John F. Kennedy, and of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, suspicions have emerged that Bobby’s murder following a resounding victory during the Democratic Primaries for President of the United States may have been the result of a conspiracy involving elements of government and law enforcement.

RFK was opposed to the war in Vietnam and had been campaigning on promises to alleviate poverty and heal the racial divide within America. These positions helped endear him to desperate and hopeful public while potentially making him a target for those literally invested in the state of affairs at the time.

This week’s broadcast of the Global Research News Hour marks the 50th anniversary of the passing of Robert F. Kennedy with a show focused on a re-examination of the case, and evidence that accused assassin Sirhan Sirhan, currently serving a life sentence, was not the primary culprit.

We first speak with repeat guest Mark Robinowitz. Robinowitz has reviewed available research on suspected Deep Political events from the JFK assassination to 9/11. He helps address the question of possible motives for RFK’s assassination, the option of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for getting to the bottom of this and other State Crimes Against Democracy, and the significance of RFK Jr.’s recent admission to the Washington Post newspaper that he does not believe Sirhan Sirhan murdered his father.

We follow up that conversation with another repeat guest – William Pepper. A skeptic of the official stories behind both Robert Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King’s assassinations, Dr. Pepper has acted as counsel for Sirhan Sirhan in the Kennedy assassination case, and is seeking an official judicial review of the evidence. We’ll go over some of the forensic details of the crime in our second half hour.

Mark Robinowitz is a writer, political activist and ecological campaigner. He manages the site JFKMLKRFK.com which looks into the political assassinations of the 1960s and connects them to political and economic realities of that time. He is based in Eugene, Oregon.

William Pepper is a barrister in the United Kingdom and admitted to the bar in numerous jurisdictions in the United States of America. He is the author of three books on the assassination of Martin Luther King. He has acted as counsel for Robert F Kennedy’s accused murderer Sirhan Sirhan. His website is williampepper.com. 

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

Transcript- Interview with William Pepper, May 30, 2018

Global Research: We’re joined once again by Dr. William Pepper. He’s a barrister in the United Kingdom and admitted to the bar in numerous jurisdictions in the United States of America. He’s the author of three books on the assassination of Martin Luther King. He’s also acted as counsel for Robert F Kennedy’s accused murderer, Sirhan Sirhan. He joins us now from New York, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, to help us explore that case welcome back Dr. Pepper.

William Pepper: Thanks, it’s good to hear you Michael.

GR: Now I understand you met Bobby Kennedy and person. What were your impressions of the man?

WP: Well, I knew Bobby Kennedy back in 1964. I was quite young, but I was his citizens’ chairman in Westchester County, New York, when he ran for the Senate, so I had basically control of that aspect of his senatorial campaign. At that point in time, I didn’t like him personally. I thought he was arrogant. I thought that he was out of touch with the needs of poor people in America and that his views were quite restricted in that respect.

But the Bob Kennedy they killed in 1968 was really quite a different person. He had traveled into Appalachia and he had seen things he never saw before in terms of how people were forced to live. And he developed a degree of empathy that was remarkable, so he was really quite a different person and …considering those experiences over the four-year period.

GR: How did you come to be convinced of the innocence of his accused murderer, Sirhan Sirhan?

WP: Well, by examining the evidence. I was asked to look at the evidence of the case, and the number one piece of evidence was Tom Noguchi, the medical examiner, Tom Noguchi’s autopsy report of the senator. And it showed that the senator was hit with three bullets at powder burn range in the rear, fired from the rear, slightly upward, with the final shot entering his head right by the right ear, about an inch, inch-and-a-half from behind the right ear. A fourth bullet went through a shoulder pad. There was testimony of upwards of 40 people available, witnesses, all of whom put Sirhan in front of the senator, between three and five feet in front of him.

So there was no way that he could have fired the fatal shot at Senator Kennedy. It’s just, it’s just, it was impossible. As I looked further, I found out that his own defense counsel really joined the prosecution team. Grant Cooper was his name, and he was under, himself, he was under a pending indictment at that time for the illegal possession of grand jury minutes in another case. So he was really effectively working under the control of the prosecution when he addressed the jury for the first time he said, “We are not here to prove our client innocent of this crime. He is guilty of it. We are only here to save this life from the very, from an order of capital punishment.”

So the evidence was just so powerful that it, to me, it was inconceivable, that if an evidentiary hearing was allowed or a jury trial was allowed where the evidence would be put into play, there’s no question that he would have to be found not guilty of that crime.

GR: Now, you just mentioned Grant Cooper, and he clearly, there was an irregularity there, and at least in theory everyone is entitled to a fair trial. How is it that, that aspect of it… Even if you believe that Sirhan Sirhan was guilty, he didn’t get a fair trial. So how do you explain the inability for this to be addressed through a formal process and appeal?

WP: Well they… There’s never been an evidentiary hearing. They blocked us every step of the way. I’ve been involved in the case since 2007, and we’ve been unsuccessful, and you are asking a very good question. How does that happen? We have filed very strong briefs of appeal. I don’t believe they’ve been read, or if they’ve been read, they just have been dismissed out of hand, and that’s a sign of the weakness and the failure of the criminal justice system in the United States.

It’s a political case, it’s a high-profile case, and there was just no deliberate intention to grant our appellant briefs. So they have denied us all the way to the Supreme Court, and we are at this point, we’ve exhausted our domestic remedies, and we are at this point filing a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. And we’re hopeful that we may get a hearing before that commission, which is a part of the requirements of the undertaking of the United States in the Organization of the American States Treaty.

It’s a devastating situation, and I’m sure that this occurs again and again in cases where verdicts are simply effectively locked in all the way up the appellant structure.

GR: Do you, do you have any further comments… I mean you just mentioned in the evidence of powder burns, the idea that Bobby Kennedy was shot from behind when Mr Sirhan was clearly in front of him as confirmed by multiple witnesses, but there were ballistics reports, were there not, that… Well there were some… more recent indications that there were far more bullets fired than were actually, could have been in Mr. Sirhan’s gun. Do you want to maybe speak a little bit more to these sorts of …well, the ballistics evidence?

WP: Yes, yes. Philip Van Praag, who’s an audiologist and an audio specialist, using highly sophisticated equipment was able to ascertain, on the basis of a tape recording that was made at the time, that 13 bullets were fired. Sirhan’s gun, of course, only had eight, but that’s beside the point because Sirhan was cued to stand up by his controller. He was very heavily under chemical and orthodox hypnosis, and on the cue, he stepped up and was fulfilling the role of distracting everyone by firing at what he saw was a target that he had recently fired at, they…at a pistol range where he had been that afternoon.

He discharged two bullets. After he fired the two bullets his arm was pinned to the surrounding table, and he was, had no control over the gun hand when he pulled… kept pulling the trigger and bullets went flying all over the place.

But he shot two bullets only, only two bullets, and there were a total of 13 bullets which of course included the total of four bullets fired at Senator Kennedy by the real assassin. So Philip Van Praag was able to put the number fired at that amount, but in addition to that, he was able to show with his equipment that the bullets were fired in two different directions. The ones into the senator were fired in a direc…in the opposite direction of the two bullets that were fired by Sirhan in front. So the audiological evidence – ballistic evidence that was not introduced, not put forward at the trial, is another indication of the existence of a second shooter who fired the fatal bullet.

GR: Now, you alluded to the idea that Sirhan Sirhan had been under heavy influence, chemically, and hypnotic suggestion, and what not, and that’s probably one of the more contentious aspects of the case, at least to the casual observer, because you’re invoking the whole idea of MK Ultra and the Manchurian Candidate, like a real life Manchurian Candidate, somebody weaponized to fulfill some sort of a role.

I was wondering if you could maybe help put some meat to that, something that… can we independently confirm that he was under that kind of influence given that he himself admits no memory of what happened that day. That’s his story anyway.

WP: Yes, yes, Well we use the, probably the world’s leading expert on hypnosis and the MK Ultra experience. MK Ultra was a CIA program, of course, that was in effect in the 1960’s, where hypnosis was used. We had Dr. Daniel Brown of Harvard, an associate professor of Harvard psychology, who spent over 70 hours with Sirhan and worked with him both, had him under hypnosis and also in a free state.

And Dan Brown’s reports were a part of our own analysis of the case and our putting forth a defense, and Dan was able to ascertain that Sirhan was in a clinic for a period of two weeks when he dropped out of sight, no one knew who he where he was, he allegedly had fallen off a horse, and he was in the clinic getting a treatment for that, but, in fact, that experience exposed him to both chemical and regular hypnotic procedures.

So he was well-prepared as… to be the patsy distracter. That function on the evening, after being effectively picked up by a woman in a black polka dot dress who guided him through the whole event, and on cue had him stand up and distract by firing those two bullets.

So that was, it was Dan Brown’s analysis after over 70 hours of working with Sirhan that that was what happened. And how he was prepared. So it’s contentious. Of course it’s contentious. No one wants to believe that that is possible, but it certainly is possible, and the CIA developed techniques with great sophistication, that was a part of their MK-Ultra program, and Sirhan fell right into it.

On a 1 to 5, 5 being the highest possibility of being susceptible to hypnosis, on a 1 to 5, Dan put Sirhan at a 5, and there is just no question in our mind that that was what happened, that Dr. Brown is correct.

GR: You mentioned that the involvement of a woman in a black polka dot dress. Now the existence of this person was confirmed by multiple independent eyewitnesses and… Can you comment on who that person was? Did she appear in any official reports?

WP: Well, we don’t know who the person was at this point. She was obviously someone who was sent for and used for that particular purpose, and, as you said, a number of eyewitnesses confirmed her existence and her presence. There are some minor references to her in official reports. They tried to determine that she was another woman who was there and identified her as a member of the Kennedy team even, who was there. But that was a false effort, and, very clearly, the other woman was not involved, was even on crutches at the time, so there is a great deal of speculation as to the woman in the black polka dot dress.

But as she fled the pantry room right after the killing, she ran down a flight of stairs with a couple of her colleagues and ran past a woman named Serrano who was a witness, and said, We shot him. We’ve shot him, and when asked who they shot, she said they shot Senator Kennedy. And as she continued, they continued out on the parking lot and ran past a New York couple called Bernstein, and said the same thing, We’ve shot him. We’ve shot him. This woman then disappeared into the night, and she has not been found located or surfaced. We believe we had an idea who she was, but that is still subject to the investigation.

GR: You mentioned that this young woman Serrano, who heard that admission of We shot him, she’s not, she’s still alive but she’s not willing to speak any further on this whole subject. I think it’s kind of an interesting aspect, because there are indications that she had been, that there’d been efforts to get her to rethink what she said she saw, and she seemed to stick to her story. Can you talk about that, you know, efforts by the official authorities to address her inconvenient testimony.

WP: Yes, they brutally… they brutally interrogated her, did everything they could to get her, to to try to get her to change her story and to make it more, I think you used the word inconvenient, make a more convenient statement that would be compatible with the official account. And it’s unfortunate that she went through that kind of experience, but it’s indicative of the efforts of the local law enforcement officials to cover up what really happened.

In addition to that, they took away ceiling tiles, they took away door panels that had bullet holes in them, anything too that indicated that there were more bullets fired. They removed evidence from the crime scene in an effort to cover up what really happened actually.

GR: That’s very interesting, because if you recall in our last interview about the death of Martin King, you mentioned the corruption within the Memphis Police Department, and not only the failure to get to the truth, but efforts to cover up the crime. Could you comment any further on the LAPD’s investigation of the Kennedy assassination and any parallels between the way the LAPD and the Memphis Police Department investigated these high crimes?

WP: Yeah, I mean, they are similar in the efforts of local law enforcement to cover up the truth and to effectively establish an official account of the assassination which involves a patsy. In the case of Martin King, of course, it was James Earl Ray, who I represented the last 10 years of his life, and that story is so, now so officially destroyed, that the evidence that I put forward — my final book on the King case is called The Plot to Kill King, the evidence set out there is so powerful, so strong, that there’s just no way that the official story can stand.

So we have a similar situation with respect to the assassination of Bob Kennedy two months later. The evidence is so overwhelming, despite the really hard, heavy efforts of the Los Angeles police to cover up, that if a hearing or trial were ever allowed where the evidence could be put forward, there’s no doubt in my mind that Sirhan would be found not guilty. But that, of course, is a struggle. You have an official story, and you have official efforts to make sure that that story stands up as best as they can, and they do everything possible to effect that result.

GR: You mentioned earlier that you want to, you’re presenting the evidence to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Now that’s under the umbrella of the organization of American states which is seen by some as a construct furthering US Colonial dominance of the Americas. I discussed that in a previous show, a report they put together that seems skewed in its examination of the unrest currently in Nicaragua, so I’m wondering, is it reasonable to assume that this construct would be any more accommodating of a new trial or a new hearing of the evidence than traditional US-based courts have been?

WP: Well, I think your analysis is apt. It may be suited to a different time, and that’s a hope that we have. There is now increasing amounts of skepticism, cynicism, and even open hostility toward the United States for it efforts in Latin and South America in support of oligarchic or dictatorial regimes that are more sympathetic to American effective colonization of the region.

The United States used to have a great deal of influence over the Inter-American Commission, as well as the Inter-American Court. I think that has waned considerably, and… at this point in time. So we do have, and perhaps naively, but we do have hope that the Inter-American Commission will give us an opportunity to put evidence on the record and effectively for the world to see, and for the American criminal justice system to see, with respect to this case.

But I think you’re quite right, it is, in many ways it’s a difficult task that we’ve undertaken, so I don’t know how it will come out. But we do expect a ruling within the next 60 days. They have had this 213-page petition now for ten months, and we understand we will get some kind of ruling within that period of time.

GR: Now, William Pepper, I’m sure you were aware that Robert F, Robert Kennedy Jr, has been reported as not believing the official story of the Kennedy assassination in the Washington Post, of all places, and of course Robert Kennedy Jr is a pretty prominent personality in his own right. I just wanted to ask what you make of that admission and if that may change the playing field in any way?

WP: Well, I think it’s certainly supportive of the truth. And the search for truth. And I think that Bob Kennedy Jr., along with Paul Schrade, who was a victim of the shooting on the night, I think both of them have provided a basis for an effort to bring the truth forward. So I think yes, I think to the extent that after a long period of time, Bobby Kennedy Jr. has had the opportunity to evaluate all the evidence and in good conscience is now come out and made this statement of support.

I think it’s not immediately known, but his sister, Kathleen Kennedy, who is the eldest of the Kennedy children, and a former lieutenant governor of the state of Maryland, has also come out now in support of this search for the truth and in support of her brother. She has made that quite clear.

GR: Just as a final thought, I was wondering if you have any intuitions about how history might have played out differently if Bobby Kennedy had not been killed that fateful evening.

WP: Oh, yes, I think there would have been an effort, at least, to dramatically change the socio-economic and international position of the United States in the world, and at home, if Bob Kennedy had been elected president. The war in Vietnam would have ended much more quickly, the oil depletion allowance, the 27 and a half percent tax credit on oil that’s removed from American soil, would have been ended, I think the Federal Reserve System would have undergone a serious examination and probably would have been replaced as well.

So, we would have had a different position in the world as well as in the United States. And the oligarchic forces in this country, in the United States, the powerful and the wealthy, would have been impacted greatly by a Kennedy Administration. And that, of course, is the reason why he was killed, why he was taken out of the picture.

GR: William Pepper, it’s always a pleasure to speak with you. Thanks again for making yourself available to address this important topic.

WP: You’re welcome. I hope you can distribute these thoughts as widely as possible so that we have a more informed people that a democracy requires.

GR: We’ve been speaking with New York City-based lawyer and author William Pepper. His publications on the topics of the Martin King and Kennedy assassinations can be found at the site williampepper.com

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . Excerpts of the show have begun airing on Rabble Radio and appear as podcasts at rabble.ca.

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.

Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario –1  Thursdays at 1pm ET

Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the North Shore to the US Border.

It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in  at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.

Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.

CORTES COMMUNITY RADIO CKTZ  89.5 out of Manson’s Landing, B.C airs the show Tuesday mornings at 10am Pacific time.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 6am pacific time.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca

RIOT RADIO, the visual radio station based out of Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario has begun airing the Global Research News Hour on an occasional basis. Tune in at dcstudentsinc.ca/services/riot-radio/

Radio Fanshawe: Fanshawe’s 106.9 The X (CIXX-FM) out of London, Ontario airs the Global Research News Hour Sundays at 6am with an encore at 4pm.

Los Angeles, California based Thepowerofvoices.com airs the Global Research News Hour every Monday from 6-7pm Pacific time. 

Notes:

1) Tom Jackman (May 26, 2018), ‘Who killed Bobby Kennedy? His son RFK Jr. doesn’t believe it was Sirhan Sirhan’, Washington Post; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/05/26/who-killed-bobby-kennedy-his-son-rfk-jr-doesnt-believe-it-was-sirhan-sirhan/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a4828031c707

International Conference on the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Italy and the End of World War II organised by the Italian Committee No War, No Nato and Global Research. 

The great Italian journalist Giulietto Chiesa passed away a few hours after the realization of this Conference.

His last words (Panel 4 and Conclusion) focussed on Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Information, and Freedom for Julian Assange. 

“It is essential to join all our forces together, which are significant, “not so small” but there is a fundamental flaw: that of being divided, unable to speak with a single voice. We need the means and the instrument to speak to the millions of citizens who want to know.”

His last words were confirmed by the fact that, immediately after the streaming, the online conference was “obscured” because the following content had been identified by the so-called YouTube community as “inappropriate or offensive to some audiences.”  That’s what is commonly referred to as Censorship. 

Scroll down for list of  participants and index

VIDEO

International Conference on the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Italy and the End of World War II.

In the Panel 4 and in the Conclusions, the last words of the great Italian journalist Giulietto Chiesa who passed away a few hours after the realization of this online Conference:

Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Information, and Freedom for Julian Assange. www.cngnn.it

***

Participants and index:

Welcome: Jean Toschi Marazzani Visconti (Italy) journalist, writer. 00:00:16

Opening: Manlio Dinucci (Italy) essayist, geopolitical journalist. 00:03:59

PANEL 1 – SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT OF CORONAVIRUS CRISIS 00:12:41

Michel Chossudovsky (Canada) Economist, 00:13:17

Peter Koenig (Switzerland) Economist 00:29:40

PANEL 2 – 75 YEARS OF WARS 00:42:56

Video “The wars after the Cold War” : 00:43:31

Yugoslavia a Founding War; 00:43:40

Nato expansion in the East toward Russia; 00:47:02

US and NATO attack and invade Afghanistan and Iraq 00:49:17

Nato demolishes Libyan State 00:52:13

David Swanson, director of World Beyond War (USA); 00:56:23

Video “The US/Nato War to Demolish Siria” 01:07:22

Tim Anderson (Australia) Economist; 01:09:15

Video “The US/Nato direction in the Ukrainian Coup” 01:15:41

Giorgio Bianchi (Italy) Photo journalist 01:18:54

Franco Cardini (Italy) Historian and writer 01:26:52

Video “The Italian Aircraft Carrier on the War Front” 01:39:05

PANEL 3 – THE THREAT OF NUCLEAR WAR 01:44:56

Video “Nato is Born of a Bomb” 01:45:34

Video “US and Nato Tear Treaties” 01:47:04

Vladimir Kozin (Russia), Chief Adviser of the Center for Political-Military Studies; 01:50:33

Diana Johnstone (USA) author and journalist, 02:07:11

Kate Hudson (United Kingdom) Secretary General of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament 02:20:07

PANEL 4 – FREEDOM FOR JULIAN ASSANGE 02:23:21

Giulietto Chiesa (Italy) Journalist and writer 02:24:24

Video card on Julian Assange by Oceans on the moon group. 02:31:45

Ann Wright (USA), former US Army Colonel and Depute, 02:38:04

John Shipton (Australia) Julian Assange’s father, exclusive interview by Berenice Galli 02:50:50

Germana Leoni von Dohnanyi (Italy) journalist, writer 03:06:17 –

 

 

,

His Legacy will live.

Let us build the grassroots movement both nationally and internationally.

CLOSING Giulietto Chiesa 03:09:06

“The tool is not the problem, it’s what we do with it.”

– Tests which are not reliable!
–  False negatives (real patients not detected).
– False positives (patients who are not positive)
– Tests that detect fragments of the virus and not the virus itself!
– Tests that don’t quantify the viral load, the most important thing…
– Test kits infected with the virus itself: you could catch it by getting tested!

So, you’ve been tested? Negative? Positive?

Maybe you’re like most people, eager to find out if you’ve got it or better yet, prove that you’re immune to the VID thing.

With this article, I don’t want to add a layer of fear to the pandemic of panic spread by our dear media in recent months.

Nevertheless, even if some people don’t want to “know anything” and will do whatever they are told to do [1]:

E.g. Wear a mask everywhere all the time, stay away from your family and friends, don’t dare to go out or take public transport without your “armour and visor”, don’t dare to touch anything without wearing gloves stuck to the skin as a result of sweating…  Etc.

I think that looking for more truth and getting closer to the truth is the best antidote to fear.

So, these tests! what are they

Introduction: Diagnosing COVID-19 disease

People confuse the disease with the agent accused of causing it.

COVID-19 refers to the disease characterized by “airway involvement” with a wide variety of symptom patterns (see below).

It is caused by a virus, SARS-CoV-2, of the coronavirus family [2], SARS for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

Another coronavirus of this type, SARS-CoV-1, had already occurred in 2003, less contagious but more dangerous (in terms of mortality).

FIRST, On the one hand, you have a disease marked by the existence of signs or symptoms [3]. [No be confused with the causative virus]

The diagnosis is clinical!

Major signs/symptoms :

1.  Cough
2.  Dyspnea (difficulty breathing)
3.  Chest pain
4. Anosmia (loss of sense of smell)
5. Dysgeusia (taste abnormality) with no other apparent cause.

Minor signs/symptoms :

1. Fever
2. Muscle aches and pains
3. Fatigue
4. Rhinitis (cold)
5.  Sore throat
6.  Headaches
7. Anorexia (loss of appetite and weight loss)
8. Acute confusion
9. Acute confusion
10. Sudden fall without apparent cause

As you can see, it’s a bit of everything and anything.

A little fever and a troubled sense of smell (which can be caused by a zinc deficiency) and hop, you’re clinically suspect of COVID-19.

SECOND, On the other hand, you are diagnosed as having the “causative virus”, SARS-CoV-2, linked to this clinical picture with possibly (severe forms) a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that can lead to hospitalization or even admission to the intensive care unit.

The main technique used around the world, in hospitals as well as by general practitioners and/or mobile screening centres, to detect the presence of the virus is called RT-PCR. This technique confirms the presence of SARS-CoV-2 (a fragment actually), not the disease!

Tests for the diagnosis of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus

1- RT-PCR

For Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction, invented in 1985 by the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1993) Kary Mullis.

It is a machine capable of detecting the smallest amount of DNA or RNA (nucleic acids) present in the cell being studied. It detects and then amplifies the detected material, much like a photocopier-enhancer.

The material detected is RNA in the case of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

The primers specific to the genetic material of the virus under study, in this case SARS-CoV-2, are all that is needed to detect the slightest trace of it in the cells collected.

A few definitions before going any further:

–  The sensitivity of the test is the ease with which the test identifies the target.
–  The specificity of the test is the ability of the test to identify the target and not another one.

The ideal test is both highly sensitive (100%) and highly specific (100%).

Is RT-PCR highly sensitive and highly specific? It depends.

– False negatives: RT-PCR comes back negative for SARS-CoV-2 even though the patient is infected. The less sensitive the test is, the more false negatives will occur.
–  False positive: RT-PCR comes back positive for SARS-CoV-2 when the patient is NOT infected. The less specific the test is, the more false positives will occur.

Can you imagine the possible dramatic consequences of such errors, in terms of contagion, contamination, improper containment or epidemiological evaluation?

In the literature [4], the PCR technique is called “rapid, sensitive and reproducible”.

For the WHO, our health institutes, most of the media, everything is fine.

However, it’s not all that idyllic!

The first disappointment is that RT-PCR does not detect the virus, but a genetic trace (RNA) of the virus, which is not the same thing.

A positive RT-PCR test does not necessarily indicate the presence of a complete virus. It is the complete, intact virus that is the transmissible actor of COVID-19.

As the FDA [based on CDC] admits [5], the detection of viral RNA by RT-PCR does not necessarily indicate an active viral infection (with clinical syndrome)!

A second disappointment is that RT-PCR cannot quantify the viral load since it artificially amplifies (multiplies) the detected genetic material. It only says whether the virus is present or not, and again, only traces of the virus, not the whole virus.

Third disappointment, the technique is complex and has many limitations! Even more so in detecting RNA viruses as in the case of SARS-CoV-2.

“The interpretation of PCR results is difficult. Any PCR must be performed on a good quality sample and adapted to the indication. For some viral infections, a positive PCR is not synonymous with disease… The dialogue between the clinician and the microbiologist is essential for a good diagnosis. “(RMS, 2007, Vol 3).

In most cases, the cells studied come from the upper respiratory tract, and are collected using a long cotton swab inserted into the nasal cavity at a relatively deep level [6]. It is said that to be effective, the procedure must be painful for the person being tested.

If the cells contain the smallest nucleic fragment (RNA) of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, the theory is that it will be detected by RT-PCR. But not that the patient is necessarily sick with COVID-19!

In this article from the Swiss Medical Journal of 2005 [7], we read that :

“For some infections, PCR tests are considered as a reference method while for others, they are only an aid to diagnosis. Contact with the laboratory performing the analysis is important in order to interpret the PCR results correctly.”

For respiratory infections,

“Serology (blood test – see below) remains the definitive proof of an infection that has caused an immune response and is therefore still considered…as a reference test.”

For coronaviruses, culture is difficult and detection by RT-PCR is the technique of choice.

But many steps are required to prime and amplify the specific genetic material and it is a complex and very sophisticated process with many opportunities for misinterpretation or misrepresentation [8] :

Mishandling, miscalibrated or contaminated equipment (from the person being tested, the laboratory technician or the environment), misstorage or misdirection and the whole result can be compromised.

PCR tests can be falsified when the sample is contaminated with other strains, especially bacterial strains.

There is a significant risk of false negatives, as reported on the Alternative Well-Being website [9] :

1- The test is badly done

2- The virus is elsewhere (not in the site where the sample is taken)

3- The tests have not been approved

4- The virus is already mutating

There is an even higher risk of false positives, as pointed out by the independent journalist Pryska Ducoeurjoly [10], based on the Swiss Medical Journal (8 April 2020) and the French journal Prescrire [11].

2- Rapid antigenic test

A variant of PCR, the results of which may take 24 to 48 hours to be known, is a faster antigenic test (results in 15 minutes), certified by the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products in Belgium [12]. It allows the detection of antigens (viral proteins), again from a nasopharyngeal swab.

However, it is much less specific!

In one study, only 50% of patients confirmed positive by RT-PCR were detected by this antigenic test.

This test is not recommended by the WHO for the detection of COVID-19 disease.

That says it all.

Tests for confirmation of viral infection and its follow-up

1- Serological tests

These tests are based on a blood test followed by an analysis in a specialized laboratory.

We look for the presence of antibodies developed by the patient. This is used to find out whether the person has actually been in contact with SARS-CoV-2 (IgM) and whether they have become immune to it (IgG).

This is the test that many Belgians are eagerly awaiting and which will be reserved in priority for care personnel.

2- ELISA tests

These special serological tests (dozens of samples processed at one time) are carried out in university laboratories to monitor the evolution of antibodies over time and to assess the type and duration of immunity induced by SARS-CoV-2 infection.

What is the cost of these tests in Belgium?

1. For the molecular detection test (PCR), the RIZIV reimburses 46.81 EUR.
2. For the antigen detection test, the RIZIV reimburses 16.72 EUR.
3. For the antibody detection test (serological test), the RIZIV reimburses 9,60 EUR.

These amounts include all costs related to the test: sampling material, equipment, reagents, investment costs, quality monitoring, personnel costs, supervision, protective material, transport costs, etc.

There is no patient co-payment (no co-payment) [13].

Infected specimen collection kits!

As if that were not enough, we learn that batches of detection kits are infected with SARS-CoV-2!

Notably in the USA [14], Quebec [15], UK [16], Africa (Tanzania) [17]…

“As the new coronavirus began to spread across the country, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent contaminated test kits to the states in early February, according to a federal investigation.”

“Thousands of swabs ordered by Quebec City to test for COVID-19 were found to be potentially contaminated... Fungal contamination was found on several swabs. According to Nicolas Vigneault, spokesperson for the Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux, the swabs came from a shipment received from China.”

“One batch of coronavirus tests, out of the millions expected by the UK, has been contaminated by the virus itself. The British government had ordered batches of tests for coronavirus from a laboratory. But one of these was infected by … Covid-19 itself,” the Telegraph explains, without giving any explanation as to why this unfortunate contamination occurred. The delivery of these tests was immediately cancelled.”

“The Tanzanian President believes that the coronavirus epidemic is not yet on the scale of the official figures. According to him, the data on Covid-19 are being doctored by alarmist authorities, he denounced in his speech… He claims to have himself secretly tested a goat, a quail and a papaya, but to his astonishment the results were positive. He therefore questions the reliability of the tests. These positive results on animals and even plants are, for him, proof that people declared positive for the virus might not actually be carriers. This would mean that the real situation is not as alarming in Tanzania.”

That’s a lot of mistakes, all over the world, don’t you think?

Strange, the lack of coverage in major Western media.

It’s very serious though, and it calls into question the whole campaign of massive screening for this coronavirus.

The opinion of an international expert

John P. A. Ioannidis is not just anyone on the international medical scene.

“John P. A. Ioannidis is a professor of medicine and a researcher at Stanford University’s School of Medicine and School of Humanity and Science. Director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center, he is co-director, with Steven N. Ioannidis, of the Stanford Prevention Research Center. Goodman, the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford. “[18].

He is one of the most recognized specialists in health epistemology.

He is adamant:

“As the coronavirus pandemic unfolds, we’re making decisions without reliable data.” [19]

It confirms that the PCR tests used in the COVID-19 crisis are not as reliable as that, despite the efforts of the media and our health institutes (Sciensano in Belgium) to make us believe so.

See his interview : Perspectives on the Pandemic | Dr. John Ioannidis Update: 4.17.20, at minute 27 for his comments on PCR testing in the context of COVID-19.

In summary

What a fiasco.

The diagnostic tests represented above all by RT-PCR, a gene amplification technique, are far from having the expected reliability, which is crucial in a crisis such as the one we are going through.

Even if positive, the RT-PCR test only reveals an RNA fragment of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, not the COVID-19 disease itself. In order to say that, we need a corresponding clinical picture! All other pathologies of the patient must be considered and if the patient dies, they must be taken into account before attributing death to COVID-19!

This is frightening when you imagine the possible unjustified consequences of decisions made on the basis of these tests!

– Confinement/quarantine
– Unprecedented freedom-destroying measures
–  Hospital and health centre upheavals
–  Serious diagnoses may be wrongly given to terrorized people who are actually in good health.
– Social distancing with heavy consequences on human relations
– Major economic and social impact, the real scope of which is currently unknown
–  Suspension of all social activities (schools, restaurants, leisure activities)
– Whole population tracking and policing projects

I think that in the face of so much self-sustained insanity, despite the widespread virus of fear, the best antidote is to stay calm.

Come to your senses.

Reassess the true extent of this disease (mortality below 3% [of positive cases] as of May 26, 2020- [20]).

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus will have to take its rightful place among all other health problems, no more, no less.

And we, may we quickly live again without masks, without social distance and without  laws which threaten civil rights.

And learn from so many mistakes.

                                                                                                                                                                                            

Dr. Pascal Sacré

Translation by Maya from the French original published by Mondialisation.ca

Notes:

[1] Wear a mask everywhere all the time, stay away from your family and friends, don’t dare to go out or take public transport without your armour and visor, don’t dare to touch anything without wearing gloves stuck to the skin by perspiration…

[2] Coronaviruses Coronaviruses (CoVs) are a large family of viruses that cause symptoms ranging from the common cold to more serious illnesses such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). World Health Organization (WHO).

[3] PRISE EN CHARGE D’UN PATIENT POSSIBLE OU CONFIRMÉ DE COVID-19

[4] PCR en microbiologie : de l’amplification de l’ADN à l’interprétation du résultat, Revue Médicale Suisse, RMS 106, 2007, Vol 3

[5] FAQs on Testing for SARS-CoV-2 U.S. Food and Drug Administration FDA

[6] Tutoriel prélèvement nasopharyngé : Un geste technique, essentiel à la fiabilité du test COVID-19

 [7] Détection et quantification des acides nucléiques en infectiologie : utilité, certitudes et limites « Nous présentons ici une revue de l’utilité des techniques PCR pour identifier les pathogènes les plus courants ainsi que des commentaires permettant de guider l’interprétation de ces résultats dans un contexte clinique. », Revue Médicale Suisse, RMS 13, 2005, Vol 1

[8] The Inconsistences of Quantitative Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction in Diagnostics Microbiology Acta Scientific Microbiology Vol 1 Issue 2 February 2018

[9] 4 explications à l’échec des TESTS du Covid-19 , 9 avril 2020

[10] Tests du covid-19, attention aux faux positifs !, Pryska Ducoeurjoly  5 mai 2020

[11] Valeur prédictive des résultats des tests diagnostiques : l’exemple des tests covid-19 23 avril 2020

[12] COVID-19 : le dépistage Le test a été développé par le Laboratoire Hospitalier Universitaire de Bruxelles, le LHUB – ULB : un des cinq plus grands laboratoires hospitaliers universitaires en Europe, à la pointe en matière de biologie clinique.

[13] Remboursement des tests de détection du Coronavirus pendant la pandémie de Covid-19

[14] Les tests de dépistage fournis par les centres de contrôle aux USA étaient infectés par le Covid-19 

[15] Des milliers d’écouvillons importés de Chine par Québec sont inutilisables. D’autres provinces signalent des tests de dépistage contaminés. 22 avril 2020

[16] Coronavirus. Des tests de dépistage commandés par le Royaume-Uni contaminés par le Covid-19 

[17] Tanzanie, Coronavirus : le Président John Magufuli dénonce des « statistiques trafiquées et revues à la hausse » 4 mai 2020

[18] John P. A. Ioannidis

[19] Un fiasco en devenir? Alors que la pandémie de coronavirus s’installe, nous prenons des décisions sans données fiables Nous manquons de preuves fiables sur le nombre de personnes infectées par le SRAS-CoV-2 ou qui continuent de l’être.

[20] Le coronavirus (COVID-19) – Faits et chiffres, 26 mai 2020

 

Today the non-profit organization Beyond Nuclear filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit requesting review of an  April 23, 2020 order and an October 29, 2018 order by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), rejecting challenges to Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance’s application to build a massive “consolidated interim storage facility” (CISF) for nuclear waste in southeastern New Mexico. Holtec proposes to store as much as 173,000 metric tons of highly radioactive irradiated or “spent” nuclear fuel – more than twice the amount of spent fuel currently stored at U.S. nuclear power reactors – in shallowly buried containers on the site.   

But according to Beyond Nuclear’s petition, the NRC’s orders “violated the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act  by refusing to dismiss an administrative proceeding that contemplated issuance of a license permitting federal ownership of used reactor fuel at a commercial fuel storage facility.”

Since it contemplates that the federal government would become the owner of the spent fuel during transportation to and storage at its CISF, Holtec’s license application should have been dismissed at the outset, Beyond Nuclear’s appeal argues. Holtec has made no secret of the fact that it expects the federal government will take title to the waste, which would clear the way for it to be stored at its CISF, and this is indeed the point of building the facility. But that would directly violate the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), which prohibits federal government ownership of spent fuel unless and until a permanent underground repository is up and running.  No such repository has been licensed in the U.S. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) most recent estimate for the opening of a geologic repository is the year 2048 at the earliest.

In its April 23 decision, in which the NRC rejected challenges to the license application, the four NRC Commissioners admitted that the NWPA would indeed be violated if title to spent fuel were transferred to the federal government so it could be stored at the Holtec facility.  But they refused to remove the license provision in the application which contemplates federal ownership of the spent fuel. Instead, they ruled that approving Holtec’s application in itself would not involve NRC in a violation of federal law, and that therefore they could go forward with approving the application, despite its illegal provision. According to the NRC’s decision, “the license itself would not violate the NWPA by transferring the title to the fuel, nor would it authorize Holtec or [the U.S. Department of Energy] to enter into storage contracts.” (page 7). The NRC Commissioners also noted with approval that “Holtec hopes that Congress will amend the law in the future.” (page 7).

“This NRC decision flagrantly violates the federal Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which prohibits an agency from acting contrary to the law as issued by Congress and signed by the President,” said Mindy Goldstein, an attorney for Beyond Nuclear. “The Commission lacks a legal or logical basis for its rationale that it may issue a license with an illegal provision, in the hopes that Holtec or the Department of Energy won’t complete the illegal activity it authorized. The buck must stop with the NRC.”

“Our claim is simple,” said attorney Diane Curran, another member of Beyond Nuclear’s legal team. “The NRC is not above the law, nor does it stand apart from it.”

According to a 1996 D.C. Circuit Court ruling, the NWPA is Congress’ “comprehensive scheme for the interim storage and permanent disposal of high-level radioactive waste generated by civilian nuclear power plants” [Ind. Mich. Power Co. v. DOE, 88 F.3d 1272, 1273 (D.C. Cir. 1996)]. The law establishes distinct roles for the federal government vs. the owners of facilities that generate spent fuel with respect to the storage and disposal of spent fuel. The “Federal Government has the responsibility to provide for the permanent disposal of … spent nuclear fuel” but “the generators and owners of … spent nuclear fuel have the primary responsibility to provide for, and the responsibility to pay the costs of, the interim storage of … spent fuel until such … spent fuel is accepted by the Secretary of Energy” [42 U.S.C. § 10131]. Section 111 of the NWPA specifically provides that the federal government will not take title to spent fuel until it has opened a repository [42 U.S.C. § 10131(a)(5)].

“When Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and refused to allow nuclear reactor licensees to transfer ownership of their irradiated reactor fuel to the DOE until a permanent repository was up and running, it acted wisely,” said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist for Beyond Nuclear. “It understood that spent fuel remains hazardous for millions of years, and that the only safe long-term strategy for safeguarding irradiated reactor fuel is to place it in a permanent repository for deep geologic isolation from the living environment. Today, the NWPA remains the public’s best protection against a so-called ‘interim’ storage facility becoming a de facto permanent, national, surface dump for radioactive waste. But if we ignore it or jettison the law, communities like southeastern New Mexico can be railroaded by the nuclear industry and its friends in government, and forced to accept mountains of forever deadly high-level radioactive waste other states are eager to offload.”

In addition to impacting New Mexico, shipping the waste to the CISF site would also endanger 43 other states plus the District of Columbia, because it would entail hauling 10,000 high risk, high-level radioactive waste shipments on their roads, rails, and waterways, posing risks of radioactive release all along the way.

Besides threatening public health and safety, evading federal law to license CISF facilities would also impact the public financially. Transferring  title and liability for spent fuel from the nuclear utilities that generated it to DOE would mean that federal taxpayers would have to pay for its so-called “interim” storage, to the tune of many billions of dollars.  That’s on top of the many billions ratepayers and taxpayers have already paid to fund a permanent geologic repository that hasn’t yet materialized.

But that’s not to say that Yucca Mountain would be an acceptable alternative to CISF.

“A deep geologic repository for permanent disposal should meet a long list of stringent criteria: legality, environmental justice, consent-based siting, scientific suitability, mitigation of transport risks, regional equity, intergenerational equity, and safeguards against nuclear weapons proliferation, including a ban on spent fuel reprocessing,” Kamps said. “But the Yucca Mountain dump, which is targeted at land owned by the  Western Shoshone in Nevada, fails to meet any of those standards.  That’s why a coalition of more than a thousand environmental, environmental justice, and public interest organizations, representing all 50 states, has opposed it for 33 years.”

Kamps noted that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has upheld the NWPA before, including in the matter of inadequate standards for Yucca Mountain.  In its landmark 2004 decision in Nuclear Energy Institute v. Environmental Protection Agency, it wrote, “Having the capacity to outlast human civilization as we know it and the potential to devastate public health and the environment, nuclear waste has vexed scientists, Congress, and regulatory agencies for the last half-century.”  The Court found the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s insufficient 10,000-year standard for Yucca Mountain violated the NWPA’srequirement that the National Academy of Sciences’ recommendations must be followed, and ordered the EPA back to the drawing board. In 2008, the EPA issued a revised standard, acknowledging a million-year hazard associated with irradiated nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Even that standard falls short, Kamps said, because certain radioactive isotopes in spent fuel remain dangerous for much longer than that.  Iodine-129, for example, is hazardous for 157 million years. 

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 Well, let’s go to that sea of new human interest corporate commercials saying how they all ‘Care about you during this pandemic’.

All those nice and decent companies want to see you through this, of course IF you use their products or services. They care!

How about those Big Pharma commercials that tout how they will ‘Help’ you to pay for their overpriced, under regulated and too often over proscribed drugs?

Thank God for the one rule that, to date, has not (Yet) been repealed forcing Big Pharma to list the many side effects from those drugs. The number of them for each drug is mind boggling!

I also just love how many corporate retail chains offer to donate pennies from each of your transactions to the pandemic relief efforts nationwide. Duh, why haven’t those chains and franchises just donated pennies from said transactions into a pool to give back to their employees as extra income? As is, most of those jobs are what Henry Hill in the film Goodfellas referred to as ‘Dead end jobs with bum paychecks’.

Don’t you just love the BS  that comes out of the mouths of all those mega millionaire television newscasters and guest ‘Experts’?

They all listen to the myriad of stories about working stiffs and unemployed working stiffs who face eviction and or foreclosure during this pandemic, and reveal their usual Crocodile Tears to the cameras.

Wouldn’t it be nice, as former NFL star running back Warwick Dunne did around 20 years ago, to purchase homes for single Moms in economic distress? I mean, a guy earning mega millions on television, the movie industry, or professional sports can easily afford to fork out one or two million to buy a slew of homes for those in need. They get a hefty tax write off anyway, on top of the good deed. Maybe if Sean Hannity, the finally revealed slumlord, was to donate some of his rental properties to his low income tenants, perhaps we could begin to see the ‘Hope and Change’ that the phony Obama lectured us on.

Then we come to the greatest group of hypocrites ever assembled, our politicians. Wow! These guys and gals really take the cake! The Republicans on the far right, and their Democratic adversaries on the center right love to pontificate about how they ALL care. Really? Who do they care for? Is it their working stiff constituents or the high roller corporate donors and Military Industrial Empire that they always vote to protect?

Well, look at this current economic depression we are wading through, along with the uncertainty of life itself during the pandemic. What the two parties joined together to do is give away, as in 2008-09, most of the money to prop up the house of cards called Wall Street, along with those huge corporations who together run Amerika… or should I say ‘Ruin Amerika’. Have you even heard, on most of the mainstream, and even alternative electronic media, about the ONLY solution to immediately save us working stiffs? That being a UBI, or  (Non inflationary, by the way) Universal Basic Income that continually puts anywhere from $1000 to $2000 a month per person into our own hands, hopefully Tax Free. Imagine how those big corporate behemoths will salivate as our UBI stimulates this economy in the best and most useful manner.

Think of all the customers the millions of retailers will get back. The bastard absentee landlords will lick their lips to finally get paid their rent each month.

Maybe a pandemic and economic recovery will get those hypocrite politicians to subsidize local community efforts  to buy up all  rental property thru eminent domain and become ‘Non Profit Landlords’.

The next step should be forming Non Profit local mortgage banks that charge but ‘Overhead’ on mortgage loans. Imagine how tens of millions of current renters could now actually afford to own a home or apartment. Factored  in with a UBI, there would be such economic stimulus to really Make America Great Again, pardon my borrowing of that phrase.

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Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, Countercurrents.org, and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 400 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].

Riots have sparked all over US’ cities for more than a week now for the extrajudicial killing of a black man named George Floyd on May 25 in Minnesota, USA. Similar protests on police’s violence after the death of George Floyd also starting in France for the murder of Adama Traoré, a black man suffocated while he was pinned down by gendarmes after his arrest in July 2016. Around 20,000 protesters gathered in Paris on June 2 to show solidarity for victims of police brutality and to demand justice for Traoré. 

In April 2020, similar police  brutality and racism even though not resulting in death also occurred to a man of colour from Egypt who was humiliated and beaten up by the police inside the police van in Ile-Saint Denis. Suspected of theft of building materials, the man jumped to the river Seine and when the police managed to take him out from the river he was mocked in a very racist way and received some violent abuse inside the police’s van. One of the police said “A ‘bicot’ like that doesn’t swim” which followed by the laughter from the other police. The word “bicot” which derived from the word “l’arbicot” (means “petit arabe” or little Arab in French) is a very racist language term that goes back to the French colonial history.

In the video of the incident from the Twitter account of ‘Là-bas si j’y suis’, media site where journalist and activist Taha Bouhafs works and reported the incident, we can hear the scream and cry of the Egyptian man suspected of theft and the laughters of the police inside the van.

La vidéo en question pic.twitter.com/qRZ6UX1MJ7

— Là-bas si j'y suis (@LabasOfficiel) April 26, 2020

Journalist and writer Claude Askolovitch explained this police’s racism and the origin of the racist word “bicot” in “28 Minutes” on Arte TV. The word came from the 19th century when French army colonised Algeria and the word is used to add insult to the oppressed Algerian people who have to obey their French colonisers. It started with the word “larbi” or “l’arabe” (means Arab) which later on transformed to “larbicot” and in 1892 it became “bicot” (means little Arab) which became an authorised insult to use to the North Africans people. There are other racist terms such as “l’ignoble crouille” (horrible North African Arab), “melon” (person from Arab origin), “raton” (rat), “bougnoule” (black, north african), “youpin” (person with origin or belief in Judaism), etc.

Claude Askolovitch also commented that these police’s behaviour brings the French back to a time when racism was a way of being French (“Ce temps ou le racisme était une manière d’etre francais”), implying that there was a systemic racism in France or that racism was part of the French culture, embedded in the French’s DNA.

France like USA also has a very dark history of slavery (more than 400 years ago) and colonialism (ancient form of imperialism). Until today France still imperialise its ex-colonies countries in Africa and the French central bank “Banque de France” governs their currencies, which is unitedly named “CFA Franc”. France pillages Africa’s natural resources and governs every aspect of those countries in Africa from economic, politic, democracy, etc.

The beautiful city of Nantes, France despite its very dark history of slavery. Pictured here is The Castle of the Dukes of Brittany. Photo Credit: Avion Tourism

Memorial of the Abolition of Slavery in Nantes, France is a symbolic witness to France’s horrific past of slavery, abuse of another human beings and trading black slaves as if human beings are commodity. The hypocrisy of how France perceives its dark history and acknowledges its crimes against humanity is clearly shown when the monument to commemorate the victims of slavery is called the “Memorial of the Abolition of Slavery”, as if the perpetrator takes credit of its own crimes by making himself a hero by abolishing slavery, a slavery that the perpetrator created in the first place. Clearly there is a part-denial on how France is accepting and taking responsibility of its past.

Mémorial de l’abolition de l’esclavage (Memorial of the Abolition of Slavery) in Nantes, France. ©Discover Paris!

It is important to understand that to justify the inhumane slavery and colonialism, it is crucial to see the oppressed as less human than the oppressor, it is important to see them as lower, objectify them as sub-human to devoid us from conscience of the horrible wrong things we did to others (another human beings). Thus it is important to instil racism for political purposes so the oppressor can build an empire for power and profit. Racism is a tool of manipulation in the quest for control, power, hegemony and greed.

The systemic or institutionalised racism in French Police or in France as a state as general definitely goes a long way back to its dark history of slavery and colonialism. And until this matter is fully addressed, there will always be the injustice sentiment and social unrest lurking under the surface of society, ready to emerge anytime.

Photo Source: FemmedInfluence

For every nation to develop or advance in humanity, it has to embrace its past and history fully no matter how dark it is, and to learn from its history because those who have never learned from history are doomed to repeat it.

Understanding Human Behaviours, Psychology (How to Maintain Division or Population Control in Society through Institutionalised Racism)

“Divide and Conquer” or “Divida et Impera” (Divide and Rule) of Julius Caesar’s strategy to divide Rome is an old strategy that has been used even before Julius Caesar was born. It is an old tactic used by our “ruling elites” to easily manipulate, divide and distract us, to keep us busy fighting and destroying each other instead of realising the real issues and concentrating our power against the real “enemies”.

To easily control us, we need to be ignorant and brainwashed to keep us dumb and docile, to deprive us from any chance of realizing of what is going on and any chance of fighting back. To easily divide people, racism can be a useful tool.

In our modern society, to control us the people, these are the several pillars of strategy being used against us:

1) Fake Corporate Mainstream Media

Our mainstream medias are owned by the ruling elites. The purpose of the mainstream media is to manufacture our consent, perfectly explained by the renowned intellectual Prof. Edward S. Herman (together with Noam Chomsky) in his book “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media”. Its purpose is to manufacture our consent to align with the ruling elites’ plan and agenda. For example to go to war which is consent to justify killing others in the name of lies and profit, not for humanitarian reasons. The mainstream corporate media is a propaganda tool to propagate lies, to brainwash our way of thinking, and manufacture consent for the ruling elites’ agenda. It is also one of the main tools to instil hate, fear, white supremacy and racism in society for example by propaganda of blaming the immigrants for all the problems occurred in a country or instilling “Yellow Fear” by blaming China for the Covid-19 pandemic.

2)  Education System that Indoctrinate not Educate

Our education system does not educate but instead indoctrinate. It teaches us lies instead of our real history. Our education system shapes our way of thinking for the purposes of aligning with our ruling elites’ agenda. Its objective is not to make us smarter but to control our mind and how we are supposed to think. Indoctrination is an act of war to people’s mind and intelligence.

Education system is the other arm of the propaganda after the Fake Mainstream Media. It can act as a propaganda arm for the government or the ruling class, to maintain control, division and White Supremacy which is the deep ideology behind racism. Education institution teaches lies in history, lies in the concept of economic and finance so that the gullible masses have difficulty understanding the manipulation, the fraud and the mass plundering of wealth by our ruling class (government, elites, bankers, corporations, billionaires, etc). By not teaching the truth in history and inducing chauvinism one can feel superior compare to other nationalities which can lead to deluded exceptionalism. This delusional superiority and exceptionalism can drive one to become white supremacist or racist.

3) Agents Provocateur (The Fake Experts)

Our world is inundated with incompetent, pseudo-elected and unelected leaders and experts who don’t have the people’s interests in their mind. They are paid and bought for, to do the bidding for the ruling elites.

The leader of USA, President Donald Trump often spews racism in his speech. Bill Gates who recently suddenly appeared all over the news and media to talk about Covid-19 pandemic as if he is an expert on pandemic and idolised as a genius and generous donor by the mainstream media turned out to be a scam when the real truth comes out. We pay respect or listen to the wrong people or the wrong experts because that is what the mainstream media and ruling elites want for us.

In France, the agent provocateur expert in racism is none other than the right-wing extremist Eric Zemmour. Eric Zemmour is notoriously well known in France for his racist sexist comments or speeches and for inciting hate against minorities. He has been sued several time by ‘SOS Racisme’, a non-profit organisation that tries to eliminate racism and xenophobia in France. The problem with Zemmour is that in a normal democratic society, he will not be given platform for his own regular TV shows for him to spew hate and racism. For sure there is a vested interest by the ruling elites and the mainstream media for Zemmour to appear regularly on TV giving his opinions and views to influence the public sphere as much as possible and to move the public more to the extreme right-wing political ideology. What is even more bizarre is Zemmour’s cult followers who really believe whatever Zemmour says and support his racism and sexism. As long as there are agent provocateur like Zemmour and his blind incapable of logical thinking followers, ending racism and sexism will be a very difficult battle.

In France police violence and brutality has spread to other citizens not just to citizens of colour, example during the Yellow Vest Movement or early in this year alleged murder of Cédric Chouviat, a delivery man who was stopped by the police because of his dirty motorcycle’s number plate that resulted in a violent inspection control that caused Cédric Chouviat his death.

To fight racism and police brutality we also need to fight impunity of those in power who have done wrong to the people. There should be justice in a society for it to be able to run smoothly and to have peace.

From Slavery to Modern Slavery, White Supremacy, Systemic Racism, and Imperialism

There is still a long road to fight racism and to achieve equality and justice for all, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, etc. The old form of slavery and colonialism have evolved to another more modern form of racism and imperialism, but the essence is still the same. At the core, it is discrimination and exceptionalism, to see others different races from the White as subordinate, as less human than the White that gives the White the illusion that they have the rights to do everything including inhumane things to others different than them.

To have deep understanding in order to bring real systemic changes we have to understand the root cause of the problems which linked to the West’s dark history of slavery and colonialism, understand the pillars of strategy used against us listed above, know the truth and be well-informed as responsible world citizens. We need to solve the real root causes of the problems and not just its symptoms. To bring real changes, we as society as a whole, the whole world have to relentlessly fight until real systemic changes are achieved.

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This article was originally published on Indonesia Merdeka.

The Syrian Government is trying to keep medicine at an affordable price for the consumer by limiting the price of medicines, but the pharmaceutical industry inside Syria needs to raise the prices to sustain production.

This is due to two main factors: Sanctions and economy.

Some factories are closing and some are reducing work force.

It’s extremely difficult to purchase the ingredients to make basic medicines through sanctions and also through the exchange rate dollar and the Syrian pound.

Most Syrians earn the same salary they did prior to the beginning of the war 12 years ago but the cost of living has become unbearable for the average family, because the price of manufacturing has increased, and the pharmaceutical companies need to pass on to the consumer, and here is the rub, the consumer can’t afford the increase on its present salary.

The Syrian Government is conducting negotiations with the manufactures at this moment to reach some kind of compromise.
Sanctions

The United States first introduced sanctions at the end of April 2011 against five key persons and entities in the Syrian Government. This measure was followed shortly afterwards by similar sanctions imposed by the European Union. The US sanctions were significantly extended on 18 August 2011 and the list of sanctioned parties has grown. The EU followed on 3 September 2011 by targeting the supply, transport, financing and insurance of Syrian oil and petroleum products.

That was the beginning closely followed by EU sanctions against persons & entities 2013 sanctions can be increased at any time without notice:

• embargo on telecommunications monitoring and interception equipment
• ban on provision of certain services (related to such equipment)
• import ban on crude oil and petroleum products
• ban on provision of certain services (related to crude oil and petroleum products)
• embargo on key equipment and technology for the oil and natural gas industries
• ban on provision of certain services (to the oil and natural gas industries) – ban on provision of new Syrian banknotes and coins
• ban on trade in gold, precious metals and diamonds with the Government of Syria
• embargo on luxury goods
• ban on certain investment (in the oil and natural gas industries, in construction of power plants for electricity production)
• prohibition to participate in the construction of new power plants for electricity production
• restraint on commitments for public and private financial support for trade with Syria and ban on new long term commitments of Member States
• ban on new commitments for grants, financial assistance and concessional loans to the Government of Syria
• prohibition for the European Investment Bank to make certain payments
• restrictions on issuance of and trade in certain bonds
• restrictions on establishment of branches and subsidiaries of and cooperation with Syrian banks
• restrictions on provision of insurance and re-insurance – restrictions on access to airports in the EU for certain flights
• inspection of certain cargoes to Syria and prior information requirement on cargoes to Syria
• restrictions on admission of certain persons
• freezing of funds and economic resources of certain persons, entities and bodies
• prohibition to satisfy claims made by certain persons, entities or bodies – valid until 1.6.2017

And each year it gets worse.

With the fake gas attacks an increase in sanctions came into force, this was partially due to the report on Douma by the OPCW which left out valuable information it was not until 2020 when whistle blowers revealed the truth ,but still strict sanctions on Syria were imposed.

Equipment Laboratory equipment, including parts and accessories for such equipment, (destructive or non-destructive) analysis or detection of chemical substances,

This part read carefully,

with the exception of equipment, including parts or accessories, specifically designed for medical use, universities inside Syria cannot purchase test tubes or basic lab equipment due to sanctions.

Trump is also going to extend more measures through the Caesar Act.

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ANNEX

A list of Banned Chemicals

A list of Banned Chemicals:

Separate chemically defined compounds according to Note 1 to Chapters 28 and 29 of the Combined Nomenclature (1), at 90 % concentration or greater, unless otherwise indicated, as follows: Acetone, (CAS RN 67-64-1) (CN code 2914 11 00) Acetylene, (CAS RN 74-86-2) (CN code 2901 29 00) Ammonia, (CAS RN 7664-41-7) (CN code 2814 10 00) Antimony, (CAS RN 7440-36-0) (heading 8110) Benzaldehyde, (CAS RN 100-52-7) (CN code 2912 21 00) Benzoin, (CAS RN 119-53-9) (CN code 2914 40 90) 1-Butanol, (CAS RN 71-36-3) (CN code 2905 13 00) 2-Butanol, (CAS RN 78-92-2) (CN code 2905 14 90) Iso-Butanol, (CAS RN 78-83-1) (CN code 2905 14 90) Tert-Butanol, (CAS RN 75-65-0) (CN code 2905 14 10) Calcium carbide, (CAS RN 75-20-7) (CN code 2849 10 00) Carbon monoxide, (CAS RN 630-08-0) (CN code 2811 29 90) Chlorine, (CAS RN 7782-50-5) (CN code 2801 10 00) Cyclohexanol, (CAS RN 108-93-0) (CN code 2906 12 00) Dicyclohexylamine (DCA), (CAS RN 101-83-7) (CN code 2921 30 99) Ethanol, (CAS RN 64-17-5) (CN code 2207 10 00) Ethylene, (CAS RN 74-85-1) (CN code 2901 21 00) Ethylene oxide, (CAS RN 75-21-8) (CN code 2910 10 00) Fluoroapatite, (CAS RN 1306-05-4) (CN code 2835 39 00) Hydrogen chloride, (CAS RN 7647-01-0) (CN code 2806 10 00) Hydrogen sulfide, (CAS RN 7783-06-4) (CN code 2811 19 80) Isopropanol, 95 % concentration or greater, (CAS RN 67-63-0) (CN code 2905 12 00) Mandelic acid, (CAS RN 90-64-2) (CN code 2918 19 98) Methanol, (CAS RN 67-56-1) (CN code 2905 11 00) Methyl chloride, (CAS RN 74-87-3) (CN code 2903 11 00) 23.7.2013 Official Journal of the European Union L 198/33 EN ( 1) As set out in the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 927/2012 of 9 October 2012 amending Annex I to Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff (OJ L 304, 31.10.2012, p. 1). Methyl iodide, (CAS RN 74-88-4) (CN code 2903 39 90) Methyl mercaptan, (CAS RN 74-93-1) (CN code 2930 90 99) Monoethyleneglycol, (CAS RN 107-21-1) (CN code 2905 31 00) Oxalyl chloride, (CAS RN 79-37-8) (CN code 2917 19 90) Potassium sulphide, (CAS RN 1312-73-8) (CN code 2830 90 85) Potassium thiocyanate (KSCN), (CAS RN 333-20-0) (CN code 2842 90 80) Sodium hypochlorite, (CAS RN 7681-52-9) (CN code 2828 90 00) Sulphur, (CAS RN 7704-34-9) (CN code 2802 00 00) Sulphur dioxide, (CAS RN 7446-09-5) (CN code 2811 29 05) Sulphur trioxide, (CAS RN 7446-11-9) (CN code 2811 29 10) Thiophosphoryl chloride, (CAS RN 3982-91-0) (CN code 2853 00 90) Tri-isobutyl phosphite, (CAS RN 1606-96-8) (CN code 2920 90 85) White/yellow phosphorus, (CAS RN 12185-10-3, 7723-14-0) (CN code 2804 70 00) ANNEX II Entry referred to in point (11)(c) IX.A2.010.