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As coronavirus infection rapidly spreads across the African continent, reaching nearly 3.5 million [according to unconfirmed PCR estimates] , China has shown support by making vaccine donations for Zimbabwe in Southern Africa and Equatorial Guinea in West Africa. China has donated 200,000 doses to Zimbabwe, while the country will procure additional 600,000 vaccine doses from China’s Sinopharm, according to reports.

President Mnangagwa has lauded China for standing with Zimbabwe. “Allow me to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt and sincere gratitude to the President of the People’s Republic of China, His Excellency, Xi Jinping, the Government and people of China for their kind donation of 200 000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine.

“We applaud China for taking a leading role in contributing to our national vaccine deployment strategy and for its consistent humane policy of treating Covid-19 vaccines as global public goods. This kind gesture is in addition to the numerous donations, support and interventions made by China since the outbreak of the virus. It further attests to the fact that the People’s Republic of China is indeed a true friend of Zimbabwe, whose relations has been enhanced to strategic partnership and cooperation,” said President Mnangagwa.

The government has submitted its expression of interest to participate under the African Union Covid-19 Vaccination Programme, on which the private sector support companies will keep 50 percent for their employees. Zimbabwe has set aside $100 million for vaccine procurement, and is looking to buy 20 million doses in a bid to immunize about 60% of its population and achieve herd immunity.

With donation of 100,000 doses also from Sinopharm, Equatorial Guinea will be able to launch an immunization campaign. The vaccines were handed over at Malabo airport to Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the son of head of state Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the presidency said on its website.

Equatorial Guinea, an oil-rich but widely impoverished nation of 1.3 million people, declared a nightly curfew and reimposed restrictions that had been lifted against the coronavirus. The Chinese vaccines will be used to provide two doses to 50,000 people in the front line of the pandemic — health workers, people with serious underlying illnesses and border officials, the presidency said in its statement.

Only a handful of African nations have begun giving vaccinations as the continent scrambles to obtain supplies for its 1.3 billion people, even as many richer nations are racing ahead with mass immunization campaigns. Besides, individual African countries tackling the pandemic through bilateral relationships, the African Union has also been mobilizing efforts with all the countries of the continent and foreign partners to face this challenging moment and fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

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

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

The epigraph at the beginning of Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies, “In a dark time, the eye begins to see,” comes from Theodore Roethke’s poem “In A Dark Time”. Here the poet describes a state of disorientation and dislocation of identity. Roethke asserts this is essential to achieve clarity, insight and wisdom. In a dark time, one discovers the fragmented and broken state of things. With this fitting epigraph, Ed Curtin proceeds to alert his readers to the fragmented and broken state of things in America, and the task of its citizenry to begin to see more clearly.

The topics Curtin, a former professor at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, takes up are not original to him. But they are marked with his own articulate original stamp. One aspect of his novel contribution is that Curtin steps beyond standard frameworks of political analyses.

Three themes have permeated his attention from a young age: truth, death and freedom. He cites an excerpt from an interview with the poet Kenneth Rexroth who told journalist Lawrence Lipton in 1959 “Since all society is organized in the interest of exploiting classes and since if men knew this they would cease to work and society would fall apart, it has always been necessary, at least since the urban revolutions, for societies to be governed ideologically by a system of fraud.”  Rexroth referred to this system of fraud as the “social lie.” And in Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies, Curtin takes on the task of describing the roots of the fraud, and its’ more recent manifestations. He also takes time to point out, despite the burdens’ society grapples with in an age of deceit, that beauty, art, love, and whimsy are among the qualities that persist as signs of grace.

In his essay “Inside America’s Doll House: A Vast Tapestry Of Lies,” Curtin cites Jim Garrison, the District Attorney of New Orleans who in 1969 brought to trial a a case naming persons connected to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Garrison attempted to show that the assassination of JFK was the work of the CIA and Allen Dulles. However, Garrison was routinely described as a lunatic by CIA-connected media spokespersons. It was Garrison’s conclusion that American citizens passively consumed television news that was laced with propaganda. Such propaganda was manufactured to preclude Americans from “understanding…what is really happening….” Garrison warned that Americans were living “in a doll’s house.” Building on the hard lessons Jim Garrison learned from the trial in 1969, Ed Curtin observes “In the doll’s house into which America gradually has been converted, a great many of our basic assumptions are totally illusory.” His book was also released on November 22, 2020, some 57 years after JFK’s assassination.

Curtin notes that in 2009 President “Obama backed the 2009 coup d’état in Honduras that has resulted in so many deaths at the hands of U.S. trained killers, and now” followers of Trump complain about “all these ‘non-white’ people fleeing to the U.S. to escape a hell created by the U.S….”

After 2009. it was learned that U.S. officers at the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies trained members of the Honduran military to oust democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. In 2009 and the years following Honduras has had one of the highest rates of murder in the world. These have been driven my death squads connected to the Honduran military. But this coup mattered little to both President’s Obama and Trump. While Hondurans have paid the price in murder, increased debt and poverty.

Examples of what Curtin raises continue since his book was published in late 2020. For Venezuelans it matters little whether a Republican or a Democrat is president in the USA. Under Donald Trump there was a failed attempt in May 2020 to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. And on the first day of his presidency, Joe Biden signed an executive order declaring the United States recognizes Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the nations’ president. This despite Maduro winning over 67% of the popular vote in 2018; That the second candidate in the election results was Henri Falcón who won 21%; And Juan Guaidó wasn’t even a candidate in 2018. Imagine if Venezuela protested the result of the 2020 United States election, and recognized Mitt Romney as president (who ran in 2012 but didn’t run in 2020).

With Biden there is a change of tone from Trump, but many American foreign policies remain the same. Former President Jimmy Carter said of Venezuela’s 2012 elections when Hugo Chavez was re-elected: “…of the 92 elections that we’ve (Carter Centre Foundation in Atlanta) monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.” But that story that doesn’t conform the with media’s narrative. So, it goes down the memory hole.

Curtin notes that while average Americans have not constructed the doll’s house they live in, they are complicit. It is average Americans who have accepted “decades of fabricated reality for so-called peace of mind.” A consequence of accepting illusory narratives is that people are not really free. In order to cope with a plausible lie, consumers of the news play dumb. And Curtin notes most Americans “want to be nice (Latin, nescire, not to know, to be ignorant) and to be liked.” As they become a people of the lie, repeating the lies they are fed, a memetic desire arises in society. And the repetition of these lies fuels violence and scapegoating. The doll’s house that Americans (and many citizens of other countries who consume the news uncritically) live in, are reinforced by contracts they have made with the world. This is in order to enhance their social standing, financial status, professional advancement and maintain familial harmony. That kind of peace of mind and contentment require individuals not to venture out far from the doll house, in case they encounter truths they find hard to handle.

Curtin notes that the Central Intelligence Agency began to use the term “conspiracy theory” in a memo on April 1, 1967. This was to discredit assassination theories about other plausible actors in the death of the slain president on November 22, 1963. And he notes that it just so happens that the term “9/11” was first used on September 12, 2001, by future New York Times editor Bill Keller to designate the language for how to refer to the day of the attacks. By using a term synonymous with dialing an emergency number in the United States, the term became fused with feelings of “anxiety, depression, panic and confusion.”

It is useful to note that at the time of the attacks on September 11, 2001, the emergency number in Saudi Arabia was 999. The numbers in Yemen were 191 and 194. The emergency numbers in the United Arab Emirates were 112, 998 and 999. The emergency number in Libya was 1515. The number in Kuwait was 112. The numbers in Iraq were 104, 115 and 122. In Syria emergency numbers were 110, 112 and 113. In Lebanon the numbers variously were 112, 140, 175 and 999. The emergency numbers in Egypt were 122, 123 and 180. Across continental Europe the emergency number to call on September 11, 2001, was 112. The emergency numbers in Iran were 110, 112, 115 and 125. Curiously, 911 was a number to dial an emergency uniquely in the United States, Canada, Mexico (as well as 065, 066 and 068), and South America. 911 was not an emergency number in the states where Arabs were alleged to have plotted to attack the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

In some future scenario – were it to ever happen – might rogue American terrorists fly planes into skyscrapers in Tehran, Iran? And in such a scenario, might such terrorists plot an attack on a January 10^th, 12^th or 15^th of a given year, fusing the day of the atrocity with the abbreviation for a date synonymous with one of the numbers Iranians dialed in case of an emergency?

In his essay “Why I Don’t Speak of 9/11 Anymore,” Curtin notices that by “referring to September 11 as 9/11,” Keller ensured “an endless national emergency became wedded to an endless war on terror aimed at preventing Hitler-like terrorists from obliterating us with nuclear weapons that could create another ground zero or holocaust. It is a term that pushes all the right buttons evoking unending social fear and anxiety. It is language as sorcery; it is propaganda at its best.”

Because Curtin suspects that the repetition of the term “9/11” is embedded in an advanced form of mind-control, he refuses to use the term in relation to the attacks. Instead, he uses the phrase “the attacks of September 11, 2001.” Whatever vocabulary we use to refer to the attacks, Curtin advises that we find one that can unbind us from the mesmerizing impact of its official shorthand repeated endlessly, subliminally evoking confusion, depression and panic in its hearers.

As our post-modern society has evolved, the task of creating propaganda is more complex. And so, the complexity of society drives a majority to want ready-made frameworks for understanding their reality coherently. Curtin shows that “people want to be provided with myths to direct them to the ‘truth,’ but that so-called truth has been preconceived within the overarching myth provided by propaganda.”

Nonetheless, the propaganda is efficient enough to allow most people to deduce that they’ve reached their conclusions of their own free will. Most people will assume that they’ve been provided with a suitable range of information about the key points of a given topic in order to decide what is trustworthy. However, the same consumers of the news will regard as inconceivable that the narrative they’ve been led to accept contains cherry-picked news that omits perspectives that are off-message. Surely, wouldn’t any dissenting voices that are worth knowing about would be given a hearing on the six o’clock news?

Curtin concurs with author Lisa Pease who wrote in her book A Lie Too Big To Fail: The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, “The way the CIA took over America in the 1960s is the story of our time, and too few recognize this. We can’t fix a problem we can’t even acknowledge exists.” To support his assessment, Curtin points to numerous examples in different chapters across his book. This includes a chapter on “The Message From Dallas, JFK and The Unspeakable,” where he summarizes JFK author James W. Douglass’ layer-by-layer excavation of a CIA-backed assassination of a president who had turned from war-making toward peace-making.

In another chapter titled “What Are We Working For ‘At Eternity’s Gate’,” Curtin writes about the rat-race. He recalls a summer job as a clerk in a General Motors office in Manhattan. The “bait” was the salary, and so his youth was spent that summer confined to a boring job. As I read Curtin’s description, I thought about some of the jobs I had: working a night shift as a hotel security guard, a cleaner at a private golf club, and working at a vehicle repair shop for the Ministry of Forests for the Province of British Columbia. The latter I spent a summer affixing forestry vehicle identification serial numbers on the side of government trucks.

The author mentions a film about the life of Vincent Van Gogh, titled At Eternity’s Gate, which offers a vision of new possibilities for what it means to work, to be alive. For Van Gogh it was the “act of painting” that was “the stroke of genius.” And so, for the impoverished painter it was not the completion of paintings that was important, but immersing himself in painting. This was the key to life. In this essay, Curtin invites the reader to contemplate what it means to live and to ask ourselves why we work. He tells us “For Vincent the answer was simple: reality. But reality is not given to us and is far from simple; we must create it in acts that penetrate the screens and clichés that wall us off from it.” One of the screens that Curtin had to penetrate was a slogan he was taught as a United States Marine: “my rifle is my life.” Curtin saw through the slogan, recognizing that being human meant to be a lover of life and being committed to waging peace.

In yet another essay, “The Sexual Passion of Winston Smith”, Curtin details the commodification of society, where everything can be bought and sold. As he speaks about the body’s commodification, Curtin reminds us that part of the body – “the tongue is a bell, tolling out its (language’s) meaning.”  It is finally the tongue that helps us in speech to “tell the truth that propagandists try to deny.”

In his book, the author offers suggestions for pointing a way forward that can help us search for truth in a landscape of falsehoods. One of these is poetry. He points out that citizens in Chile, Ireland and Russia know their national poets and can quote their works “by heart.” But in America poets and poetry are ignored. A new generation is too busy checking Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. But Curtin argues “Poetry is the search for truth. It marries outer to inner.” The best of what poetry can offer helps a society “address questions of value and ultimate concern…of truth and lies.” He contacts these with the “screen and selfie culture (where) these matters are irrelevant.”

In addition to truth and lies, Curtin points to myriad oddities that dot the landscape of America’s cultural past. Many of the rock n’ roll bands in the mid-sixties were viewed as part of a countercultural/anti-war protest movement against the establishment. There are books like one by Alex Constantine, The Covert War Against Rock, that document operations by the CIA and FBI to discredit and disrupt the lives of pop-rock stars identified as subversive. Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and others had extensive intelligence files on them. Constantine cites a leaked intelligence memorandum discussed in testimony before the Church Committee on April 26, 1976.

Regarding certain recording artists, the FBI wrote to its agents: “Show them as scurrilous and depraved. Call attention to their habits and living conditions, explore every possible embarrassment. Send in women and sex, break up marriages. Have members arrested on marijuana charges….Send articles to newspapers showing their depravity. Use narcotics and free sex to entrap. Use misinformation to confuse and disrupt….Provoke target groups into rivalries that may result in death.”

But was another arm of the intelligence community simultaneously grooming anti-establishment recording artists? In Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies Curtin notes that  Buffalo Springfield performed in concert, along with the Beach Boys, at the United States Military Academy at West Point, in Orange County, New York, on November 25, 1967. Curtin points out that this is “a very odd venue for a ‘dissident’ rock group.” Their Top Ten hit in the spring of ’67 – “For What It’s Worth” – invited radio listeners to consider, though it wasn’t “exactly clear”, what was “ appening,” to “stop,” and “look” at what was “going down.” How did members of the Buffalo Springfield feel about performing at the military academy when there were “battle lines being drawn?” And what an odd thing for cadets at West Point to be listening to lyrics that warn: “step out of line, the man come and take you away.”

Citing David McGowan’s Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon, Curtin notes that “Papa” John Philips of the Mamas and the Papas attended the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, and that his dad was a Marine Corps Captain. “John’s wife had worked at the Pentagon and her father was involved in covert intelligence in Vietnam.” The Doors Jim Morrison, a neighbor and friend of Philips, was the son of U.S. Navy Admiral George Morrison who was the commander of American Naval ships during the Gulf of Tonkin incident that accelerated the Vietnam War. Frank Zappa’s father happened to be a chemical warfare specialist.

Curtin notes others like David Crosby and Stephen Stills were also from military family backgrounds. And many of these young musicians all converged at Laurel Canyon. “Although they were draft age, none of them (were) drafted as they played music, dropped acid, and created the folk-rock movement…” Were these musicians’ part of intelligence community operations, as much as the agents who were harassing them? Or as David McGowan asks, was “the entire youth culture of the 1960s…created not as a grass-roots challenge to the status quo, but as a cynical exercise in discrediting and marginalizing the budding anti-war movement and creating a fake opposition that could be easily controlled and led astray…?”

With each chapter, Ed Curtin takes us into different rooms in the doll’s house, and helps us connect the dots. His stories and reflections – in an age of “fake news” are essential reading.

In the quest for truth, readers of Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies will be advised to take the road less travelled. This road requires we quiet our minds, and welcome silence. It is a road less travelled where each must ask what can I do to help transform our terrible, corrupt, beautiful world longing to be more human, just and peaceful.

Curtin does not intend for us as readers to simply finish his book unfazed. He hopes his chapters might rouse us to find ways to resist in this age of permanent war and oligarchy, in a world still longing for peace and justice.

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This article was originally published on OffGuardian.

Ray McGinnis is author of Writing the Sacred. His forthcoming book is Unanswered Questions: What the September Eleventh Families Asked and the 9//11 Commission Ignored. 

Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies

Author: Edward Curtin

ISBN: 9781949762266

Published: 2020

Options: EBOOK – Epub and Kindle, paper, PDF

Click here to order.

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The United States is returning to a level of activity in the Middle East unseen in nearly 4 years. This development has become obvious over the weeks since Joe Biden became US President, firstly with a large deployment into Syria, and subsequently with smaller ones.

On February 9th, the Pentagon said that it was no longer in Syria to protect and exploit oil fields.

It is now back to hunting ISIS. Back to the square one of 2014 and the Obama era. ISIS somehow obliged by ramping up their activities throughout Syria.

It is a mystery that they were able to make such a sharp and sudden resurgence. It should also be noted that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces allegedly have about 10,000 ISIS terrorists imprisoned.

This statement of intent denotes a massive shift in posture for the US.  When defending the oil fields the US troops were mostly static, when hunting ISIS they can, once again, roam around and carry out various operations.

It appears likely that Idlib is now also in focus – US combat drones were observed surveying Greater Idlib. Idlib is a mixed bag – it has Turkish troops, Russians, the Syrian Arab Army along with terrorists and the moderate opposition, although confusing these two groups can be forgiven. The newest, future, US ally is there – the soon-to-be-rebranded Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.

An indication of expected escalations and attacks are the Russian and Syrian military drills being carried out near Aleppo during effective wartime. Russia, separately, carried out a naval drill near Tartus.

And, as if by design, long-range missiles attempted to strike Russia’s forces at the Hmeimim Air Base. Drones occasionally attempt to infiltrate its airspace, but missiles are a rare sight.

Meanwhile in Western Daraa, the rebel leaders submitted to Damascus, likely fearing the upcoming chaos and wanting to choose a side.

Finally, the Biden administration is also working to secure Israeli support. The State Department said it doesn’t endorse Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, but doesn’t oppose it. It also provided a $9bn weapon sale as consolation. Tel Aviv is likely to use these weapons to counter its nemesis – Iran. It does so by targeting alleged Iranian interests in Syria.

Syria remains the lynchpin of US Middle East policy but the US posture in Iraq and Afghanistan has also changed. Withdrawing from the region is now out of the question – ISIS is making a resurgence, and there are other groups targeting American forces and convoys.

In Afghanistan, specifically, if the withdrawal does not move forward, the Taliban are also likely to begin targeting the US again.

The democrats are back in control and back to spreading democracy in the Middle East.

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RFK, Jr.’s Instagram account was deplatformed Wednesday. Dozens of media outlets reported the censorship, saying the account was removed over “vaccine misinformation,” a characterization Kennedy unequivocally rejected.

Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Instagram account was deplatformed without advanced notice. Dozens of media outlets reporting on this censorship asserted the account was removed over “false COVID vaccine claims” or “vaccine misinformation.” Some reports referred to Kennedy as an “anti-vaxxer.”

Kennedy, founder, chairman and chief legal counsel of Children’s Health Defense,” unequivocally rejects those characterizations as false and misleading.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD), including Kennedy, advocates for vaccine safety and health freedom. CHD’s mission is to end childhood health epidemics by exposing the causes, eliminating harmful exposures, holding those responsible accountable and seeking justice for those harmed.

As Kennedy has said many times, for a democracy to function, civil debate of issues —  including vaccine science — must be allowed. Censorship of that debate is anathema to democracy.

Kennedy and Mary Holland, CHD president and general counsel, issued the following statements on Instagram’s removal of Kennedy’s account:

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Chairman of Children’s Health Defense, said:

“Every statement I put on Instagram was sourced from a government database, from peer-reviewed publications and from carefully confirmed news stories. None of my posts were false. Facebook, the pharmaceutical industry and its captive regulators use the term ‘vaccine misinformation’ as a euphemism for any factual assertion that departs from official pronouncements about vaccine health and safety, whether true or not. This kind of censorship is counterproductive if our objective is a safe and effective vaccine supply.

“The pharmaceutical industry is hastily creating vaccines using taxpayer money and untested technologies. These include a rash of risky new products that are exempt from liability, from long-term safety testing and that have not received FDA approval. Emergency Use Authorization is a mass population scientific experiment. If it has any prayer of working, it will require extraordinary scrutiny from the press and the public.

“Instead, the mainstream media and social media giants are imposing a totalitarian censorship to prevent public health advocates, like myself, from voicing concerns and from engaging in civil informed debate in the public square. They are punishing, shaming, vilifying, gaslighting and abolishing individuals who report their own vaccine injuries.

“Anyone can see that this is a formula for catastrophe and a coup d’état against the First Amendment, the foundation stone of American democracy.”

Mary Holland, President of Children’s Health Defense, said:

“Freedom of expression is the cornerstone of democracy. Children’s Health Defense and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. provide critically needed information on environmental culprits, including vaccines, that are linked to many chronic diseases that now affect 54% of America’s children. Dr. Anthony Fauci has made it clear that young children will be included in COVID-19 vaccination plans even though children have almost zero risk of serious COVID-19 illness. CHD feels strongly that children should not take on 100% risks of vaccine injuries with 0% benefit.

“The sad reality is vaccine injuries can and do happen. The U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database has more than 11,500 COVID-19 vaccine adverse event reports including more than 500 deaths in just six weeks since the vaccination campaign began. Why would Instagram censor Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s platform and call it ‘misinformation’? Why now?

“Instagram deplatformed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Hirewire host, Del Bigtree, just 15 minutes before they were to air the webinar, ‘COVID Vaccine on Trial, If You Only Knew’ highlighting COVID concerns, injuries, mechanisms and other facts from four MDs, several Ph.D.s and leaders from the vaccine-injured community. COVID-19 vaccines use novel technology never before used in a human population. With that comes great unknown risks. The people of the world deserve to have this crucial information to protect their health and that of their children.”

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The joists and beams that hold U.S. democracy are not as flexible as they appear, writes Scott Ritter. They are the byproduct of societal passion of two political parties and are on the brink of failure. 

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

Most Americans have not taken the time to follow a bill as it makes it way through the legislative process. Instead, they may hear about it at its inception, and then, if the bill is adopted, watch as the Executive signs it into law. They get the headline version—what the brokers of “truth” in the media opt to say about the legislation, and not what it really represents:  an amalgam of special interest money sprinkled with a modicum of societal need, want or desire.

Americans get their news like a baby bird gets its meal—waiting for a “mother” figure to digest it and then regurgitate it down their collective throats. They are not informed so much as shaped, the byproduct of a system that is built on manufactured consent derived from half-truths, myths and outright lies.

For politics to work in a nation as large and complex as the United States, there must be a rock-solid foundation upon which everyone operates. This role is served by the Constitution, the document which provides foundational principles that guide everything that follows. Adherence to the Constitution is mandatory if everything else that follows is to have a chance at success.

But even here, the perception of law-and-order masks a grim reality that the rules collectively embraced as “constitutional” are every bit as partisan as the politics Americans pretend are removed from their system of “blind” justice. For a rule to have meaning, it must be widely embraced as viable and fair.

In a system where the final arbiter of the rules is a panel of nine justices whose selection is predicated on the whims of a partisan political elite, the result of many of the most controversial decisions about the very rules that govern society come down to a narrow 5-4 vote, which means that while five justices believe that something is “constitutional”, there are four who do not. If that which divides the two sides is merely an interpretation of legal nuance, then this disparity is irrelevant—the underlying legal principle holds.

But when the deviation is significant, to the point that the difference represents a fundamental disagreement, then the law it portends to uphold itself becomes divisive. When something as supposedly as black and white as constitutional law comes down to a single vote by a highly politicized body, the reality is that the foundation it underpins is far more fragile than anyone realizes.

On top of this shaky foundation of politicized principle Americans have constructed an edifice of governance which is not nearly as solid as they would like to believe. The joists and beams that hold American democracy together are not as flexible as they appear. Like the Supreme Court, they are the byproduct of a bi-polar reality of societal passion contained in the vehicle of two political parties—Republican and Democrat—which must work in harmony if the building is to withstand the storms that periodically sweep across the landscape.

A Unifying Concept

America was born from a revolution which manifested itself from the failure of the British system of colonialism, and further shaped by a Civil War where a divided nation had to be reformed into a union not through an expression of democratic will, but rather prodded along by the tip of a bayonet. In both Revolution and Civil War, it was the perception that the system of governance had failed the people, rather than the reality, that inflamed the masses.

The Pennsylvania farmer who marched to Boston in 1775, like the Pennsylvania farmer who marched on Richmond in 1865, was not versed in the political complexities that defined the side he was fighting for. These men fought for a unifying concept, a belief constructed more from passion than fact. For this concept to succeed, there needed to be a fundamental core of agreement, with the space between the differences that naturally arise when dealing with independently thinking humans kept as small as possible.

It is this space that is the key to the success, and ultimately survival, of the great American experiment in democracy. Here, Newton’s Third Law of Physics applies in full force—for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. American democracy is not a singular entity operating on its own, but rather formed from millions of threads of beliefs and passions that have come together in harmony.

These threads work if they operate on the same—or similar—wavelength, bending this way and that in relative unison. There can be pushing and shoving, but the harmonic holds so long as the resistance is minimal.

Broken Harmony

This notion fails, however, when the threads start to collide significantly—a strong push gets an equally strong pushback. The harmony is broken, and the weave of the threads unravels. So long as the American political parties served as a buffer to the passions and beliefs of their constituent threads, harmony could be sustained. To do this, the parties need to operate from the same sheet of music, directed by the same conductor.

A unifying narrative must be maintained to shape the perception of the people. When competing narratives exist, they must adhere to a similar core concept, or else risk being torn apart by the destructive echo produced by the space between.

The concept of a “stolen election” is the antithesis of the model of a free and fair election that underpins American democracy. For the supporters of Donald Trump, the events of Jan. 6 did not occur in a vacuum but were rather the culmination of what they believed to be a four-year campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the president they voted for and, by doing so, disenfranchising not only their vote, but by extension their role as citizens.

The collapse of the Russian collusion allegations is, today, historic fact. The recent declassification of additional documents related to the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation targeting the Trump campaign only reinforce what most Trump supporters had come to firmly believe—that the FBI, working in concert with the Obama administration and sympathetic Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans (John McCain comes to mind), sought to manufacture a narrative that could sustain the perception of Trump-Russian collusion in an effort to prevent Trump from prevailing in November 2016 or, failing that, serve as the basis of undermining his presidency going forward.

The persecution of Carter Paige, the politicization of the Steele Dossier, and the failure of the Mueller investigation have all been well documented, while the issue of legal culpability regarding the various Constitutional abuses associated with these, and other, activities may never be finalized.

In the end, the lack of legal finality misses the point. In the minds of Trump’s many supporters, there was clear and incontrovertible proof that the establishment was conspiring to suborn the victory they had achieved at the polls. The drawn out political drama that was the Democrats’ first effort to remove Trump from office through the vehicle of impeachment only reinforced this conclusion.

Justice or Revenge?

The events of Jan. 6 represent the culminating moment where the disharmony of American politics brought on by the unbridgeable gap between those citizens whom Trump said he had empowered as the guardians of American democracy in his January 2017 inaugural address, and those citizens who had, since 2017, been struggling to undermine Trump, created a harmonic whose echo tore down the edifice of American democracy.

As fervently as the Democrats and their “never Trump” allies in the Republican Party believe that Trump and his supporters represent a clear and present danger to American democracy, so, too, do the supporters of Trump view those who conspired to undo the will of the people as expressed in a free and fair election as enemies of the state.

These perceptions remain valid in the minds of tens of millions of Americans as they watch the second impeachment trial of Trump get underway. Some view the proceedings as necessary justice; others as an act of political revenge. There is no common ground, and no outcome—either conviction or acquittal—will change that.

Joe Biden supporters will have four years to try and repair the institution of American democracy, but for all the rhetoric of unity, the impending second impeachment trial of Trump provides living proof that there remains a deep and dark divide between those who support the 46^th president, and those who continue to support his predecessor—and never the two shall meet.

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Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.

Featured image is from Joe Lauria/Consortiumnews

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It must have been a winter resident of upstate New York who set Valentine’s Day in mid-February. Because this is our time of year when we really need a lover to wrap around our arms and legs, snuggling up, nibbling chocolates, blossoms on bedside table.

Notwithstanding this conditional single day, February is a downer. Can’t blame it on Covid; February is always a nothing-28 days, so arrogant it demands we endure it for an additional 24 hours every four years. I’m speaking not politically, not ecologically but weatherwise. Weather is what demands almost all my energy after two months asserting itself indoors and outside.

February is an utter vacuum that sucks up everything delightful about winter and obliterates any hint of sweet fragrances that might follow. I glare at spindly, brown branches crowding the hillsides daring them to sprout a single leaf again.

I admit, January’s winter can be pretty. Soothingly silent too; nothing matches moonlight on glistening snow. We’ve had glorious sunny mornings when we’re deceived that the entire world is at peace, blanketed in gentle fluff.

Almost daily, if a bald eagle doesn’t swoop low over the river, I spot one perched high above threads of running water.

I meet a neighbor at my library who eagerly opens her phone to share a snapshot of meter-long icicles hanging from her roof. (We used to break them off and suck at them. Do kids do that today?)

It’s fun to hear children gleefully leaping into the drifts, with ‘Rover’ clumsily stumbling around them. Despite the mess they trail indoors it’s a deserving break from Covid confinement.

But that’s all I concede. There’s treacherous ice under those narrow pathways of packed snow. An uninterrupted slab of ice is firmly embedded into those steps, around the car, along the walk, up the curbside to the pharmacy, grocery store, post office. My car, if accessible at all, is spattered with mud and salt, inside and out.

No stranger to this climate, I prepared for winter: ordered a face cord of firewood early so logs would dry by December; hauled garden stuff inside; plugged door hinges with felt strips; inspected the roof; stretched plastic across single plate windows. Yes, everything’s secure.

But this—this– can’t go on past February. I felt heartened a week ago, noticing a change in the arch of the sun. It rises over the eastern hillside at 8:30 now, an hour earlier than last month, and I follow its glow above the edge of the hill behind me until it slips away at 3. This surely signals winter’s end.

But no. Our nights seem colder as we move through this endless February. A blizzard arrives every four days, a nasty reminder it’s not over, not for two additional months, maybe 10 weeks. Perhaps longer.

We can’t let down our guard—can’t step into the winter sun without bundling up, without mittens and a hat; can’t put away those extra blankets or clean out the mud room; can’t not repair the humidifier.

I see a flash of red on the tedious white. It’s a rose-breasted grosbeak! Perhaps the red crossbill? A squawking bluebird distracts me as I rush out to top up the birdfeeder.

From Facebook I grab a photo of a crazed looking snow-he/she, an ideal companion to my Valentine ode to February.

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BN Aziz whose anthropological research has focused on the peoples of the Himalayas is the author of the newly published “Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”, available on Amazon. 

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

The unprecedented and sweeping new rules were announced by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who said that he makes ‘no apologies’ for such severe measures.

From Monday anyone entering the country will have to pass three PCR tests in order to be allowed any freedom inside the country after they have completed a ten day quarantine at a government selected hotel, at a cost of almost two thousand pounds.

Security guards will be stationed throughout the hotels, with police on standby if those inside try to leave before their release date.

Hancock said that anyone caught breaking their quarantine could be fined ten thousand pounds, while anyone caught lying about coming from a COVID ‘hotspot’ could be jailed for up to a decade.

Even those not coming from one of the 33 ‘red list’ countries, and arriving from elsewhere, will have to test negative before being allowed to travel, then quarantine at their home address for ten days and allow authorities to ‘check that they are obeying the rules’.

COVID tests, which cost more than £100 each, will be required on day two and day eight of isolation, and must be booked through a new government portal in advance of travel, according to the new law.

If the tests are positive, a further ten day quarantine will be mandated.

Failure to comply with the testing will incur fines of £1,000 the first time, and £2,000 the second time.

Hancock noted “This includes a £1,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take a mandatory test, a £2,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take the second mandatory test, as well as automatically extending their quarantine period to 14 days, and a £5,000 fixed penalty notice – rising to £10,000 – for arrivals who fail to quarantine in a designated hotel.”

Anyone hoping to escape the crackdown via booking travel through a budget or less thorough carrier will likely be disappointed as Hancock announced that “Passenger carriers will have a duty in law to make sure that passengers have signed up for these new arrangements before they travel, and will be fined if they don’t.”

However, an aviation source told reporters yesterday “We’re completely in the dark. We don’t know yet whether the Government will want us to deny boarding,” to people who haven’t presented test results or booked into a quarantine hotel.

Airports in the UK have also expressed concern about how the rules will be enforced, with a Heathrow spokesman noting “ministers need to work with industry to establish how this policy will actually be implemented at the border.”

Border staff have also said they have not been told anything, with one immigration officer noting “This is all likely to be honesty-based though. Short of us physically getting off the arrivals desks and phoning the hotels to check that those individuals have booked into them, we have no way of confirming.”

Hancock gave no indication of how long the new laws would remain in place, however members of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) have suggested that lockdowns could last for “several years”.

Conservative MPs who oppose the current nation-wide restrictions slammed Hancock in the House of Commons, warning that the country faces a ‘forever lockdown’.

MP Mark Harper asked “When is this policy going to end, if ever? Because if the virus continues to mutate, surely the risk is going to be there forever and so when can it be removed?”

SAGE has also suggested that in addition to the forced quarantines, those entering Britain, including citizens could be tracked using the GPS on mobile phones.

The notion was previously raised by a Conservative MP last month.

Conservative MP Calls for GPS Tracking of Quarantined Britons https://t.co/Lg0Q0HP8LA

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 27, 2021

What in God's name will Tier 5 be? Are they going to tag us all with electronic ankle bracelets?

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) January 4, 2021

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The supreme appeal of Corbynism consisted in its faith in the primacy of the public over the machinery of power, rehabilitating a solidarity amidst grassroots society destroyed by the reaping of Thatcher.

It was an agenda for the liberation of the masses from elite domination, a programme for the nationalisation of power, and made enemies of some of the most powerful corporate ambassadors on earth, provoking rebuke and opprobrium in establishment media. Corbynism was a formidable, visceral challenge to the authoritarian politics of a transnational financial elite, whose lobbying influence over domestic legislative agendas has eroded the democratic role of public reason and made public sovereignty an anachronism. The battle between left and right for hegemony in Labour is symbolic of the struggle of the public for true sovereignty in an age of corporate domination.

Corporations are the kings of modernity. Like royalty in the age of feudalism, they possess vast resources for social control. In the information age, our vassalage derives from the fact corporations have proprietorship of a global telecommunications infrastructure, which is harnessed for anti democratic purposes like surveillance and propaganda dissemination. The wisdom of the revolutionary cypherpunk movement consists in the recognition that in order for technology to be progressive, it ought to be administered and run by a sovereign public. The dominance of corporations over algorithms builds up automation as a tool to support the infrastructure of capitalism.

Politicians disloyal to the public good acquiesce in the elite agenda and betray the national interest to enrich the few, whilst feigning a politics of solidarity. The foremost symbol of elitism at the moment is UK Labour leader Kier Starmer, who is shutting down people power in the party, a threat to elites which smashed the tight neoliberal consensus grafted by New Labour. Kier Starmer cut his teeth as a City lawyer in circles adept at using their education to innoculate privilege, and he has become a loyal ally of power, developing prestige by courting networks of establishment actors. Starmer espouses a conservative line on national security that exalts the role of the intelligence apparatus, which ostensibly exists to defend the polity from fatal threats to its liberal way of life. In all truth the intelligence apparatus has a more Machiavellian function, existing to protect the crown from threats to its hegemony.

Because intelligence is not a witness to the social contract, liberated of the standards of the ethical code to which most citizens abide, it is an existential threat to democracy that subverts the constitution with impunity. The astronomical power of the military intelligence complex in modern society has spawned the genesis of what is called the “deep state,” a dubious entity of perverse influence that defends the empire’s incumbent powers against the threat of true democracy. The transnational structure of the deep state empowers it to indulge programmes that violate domestic laws which protect civil liberties, and its mission corrupts public office.

Kier Starmer has proven himself a loyal ally of the deep state, foregoing genuine opposition to unethical legislation that protects perpetrators of crimes against humanity working for the higher echelons of the state from prosecution. Starmer has forfeited solidarity with humanitarian concern for obedience to the current order of power, for which he is rewarded with good press that whitewashes his complicity in oppression. Jeremy Corbyn defined himself in rebellion against the agenda of corporate oligarchy, whereas Starmer’s validity in the eyes of the establishment consists in his refusal to challenge institutions and cultures of privilege.

Starmer is a second generation Blair who only courts social justice within the dishonest parameters of tokenism. His power games have attacked Labour’s internal democracy and augmented his status as a dictator of party policy. His moral fibre – or lack thereof – as a leader can be gauged by his patronage of the military intelligence establishment. In an age when sovereign democracy is threatened by the deep state, Starmer has demonstrated that he is on the side of narrow imperial power. Under his leadership Labour has ceased to be a leader of righteous protest.

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***

A short squeeze frenzy driven by a new generation of gamers captured financial headlines in recent weeks, centered on a struggling strip mall video game store called GameStop. The Internet and a year off in this shut down to study up have given a younger generation of investors the tools to compete in the market. Gerald Celente calls it the “Youth Revolution.” A group of New York Young Republicans who protested in the snow on January 31 called it “Re-occupy Wall Street.” Others have called it  Occupy Wall Street 2.0. 

The populist uprising against Wall Street goes back farther, however, than to the 2010 Occupy movement. In the late 19th century, the country was suffering from a depression nearly as severe as the Great Depression of the 1930s. Kansas populist leader Mary Elizabeth Lease declared in a fiery speech in 1890:

Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.

Wall Street still owns the country. Millions of people have been forced out of work, while billionaires have doubled their money in the stock market. But a new generation of “retail” stock market traders is fighting back. (“Retail” traders are individuals trading for their own accounts as opposed to institutional investors.) Occupy Wall Street succeeded in raising awareness of the issues and putting a spotlight on the villains: the chief fault for the subprime crisis and 2008 crash was not with the defaulting homeowners but was with the banks. The Wall Street bankers, however, were not much fazed by the protests on the streets outside their windows. Not until January 2021 was Wall Street actually “occupied,” with millions of small traders landing a multibillion-dollar blow to at least a few of the mighty Wall Street hedge funds. GameStop was the most heavily shorted stock on the market, and the losing hedge funds were on the short end of the stick.

The Short Squeeze

“Short selling” works like this: an investor borrows shares from a broker middleman and immediately sells them, hoping to buy them back later at a lower price, return them to the broker, and pocket the difference. The trade, however, is quite risky. If the shorted stock keeps going up, the shorter’s potential loss is unlimited. “Covering” the short position by buying the shares at the higher price and returning them to the lender will result in a loss. But if the shorter fails to cover, the broker will eventually demand more collateral as protection against its own potential losses.

“Naked” short-selling involves selling stock without borrowing it. Naked short-selling is illegal, but the regulation is not well enforced; and in this case short-sellers had sold 40% more GameStop shares than were in existence. That made the short sellers extremely vulnerable to a “short squeeze.” WallStreetBets, a Reddit social media forum that then had 2.7 million members (a number that has since risen to about 8 million) called the shorters’ bluff and bought furiously, using a game-like trading app called “Robinhood.” The hedge funds had to buy the shares back to cover at the new price, further driving the stock up; and other players, seeing the action, jumped in. This is what is known as a “short squeeze” – driving the shorters to buy before the stock is out of reach. The WallStreetBets short squeeze drove the GameStop stock price up nearly 900% in five days, to around $380 on January 27. The 52-week low before that was $2.57.

Legally, traders cannot engage in “market manipulation,” but the term is poorly defined and the rule is poorly enforced. Hedge funds are reported to hold “idea dinners” where they get together and pitch each other on their favorite trades. As pointed out in a Peak Prosperity interview with financial researcher Jim Bianco, the big players routinely act together. Wall Street has been run as a cartel, and the house always wins; or at least it did until recently.

Bianco explained that formerly, small traders lacked the tools to compete. They lacked the knowledge base, the money to buy full shares of the higher priced stocks, and the time needed to study the market. But in the last two decades, technical advances have given the “little guys” connectivity and access to market information. And in 2020, forced lockdowns gave them the time to sit in front of their computers studying the market and playing it, while stimulus payments gave them some extra cash to play with. New game-like online trading apps such as Robinhood, billed as “democratizing” investing, waived commissions. The purchase of fractional shares was allowed, and social media groups such as WallStreetBets shared investment information and strategies with each other.

The “little guys” learned how to use the rigged stock market system to beat the big boys at their own game. By January 30, short-sellers had lost an estimated $19 billion on GameStop alone, and other heavily shorted stocks were hit as well. Hedge funds lost over $70 billion in January 2021, with GameStop jumping 1000% the last week of the month.

The Empire Strikes Back

Predictably, on January 28 the game came to a screeching halt. Robinhood restricted trades of GameStop and other shorted stocks, allowing investors to settle their trades but not make new purchases. GameStop closed down 44%. This market manipulation appeared to be so blatantly in favor of Goliath against David that congressional representatives from both sides of the aisle protested. Rather than a left/right issue or a racial issue, it was a class issue, one that has fortuitously served to align the 99% on all sides of the political spectrum.

By February 2, the GameStop stock price had plummeted to $97, and hedge fund losses dropped to $13 billion, half of what they were the previous week but still a serious hit. Some retail investors had struck it big, and used the proceeds to pay student loans or rent or mortgages; but others, those who bought or sold last, lost big. The rule is to invest no more than you can afford to lose, but some desperate gamers may have unfortunately learned that lesson the hard way.

According to the message boards, however, for other players it was not chiefly about making money on a single trade. It was an uprising, a show of force against a Wall Street behemoth that had destroyed small businesses, turned families out of their homes, and robbed young people of the “American dream.” In a February 6 post titled “This Is for You, Dad,” Matt Taibbi recounts the touching tales of young people whose parents’ lives were ruined by the 2008 crash, who were willing to risk their own money to see justice done.

In that sense it is an emotionally satisfying “Robinhood” tale, but it has a dark side. Pam and Russ Martens point out that the short squeeze was not actually a spontaneous, grassroots uprising. It was coordinated by a “sophisticated” trader in the Reddit sub-group, whose trading license forbids that sort of practice.

He could be in trouble with his employer or his licensing board, but the larger WallStreetBets group does not seem to have been guilty of “market manipulation” as usually defined. The group did not engage in fraudulent activity; for example, a “pump and dump” scheme based on false advertising of a product. The Reddit group was not conspiring behind closed doors to commit fraud. They were quite open about what they were doing, and there is nothing illegal about advocating the purchase of a stock, something investor newsletters do routinely. GameStop was a beloved retail store of the young traders, and they wanted to save it from the marauding hedge funds. As Jill Carlson observed on Yahoo.com:

When hedge fund managers get together and share insights and ideas, it is all in the name of moving towards a more efficient free market. Yet, when the online mob of retail traders comes to consensus about which stock is worth buying, they are considered by some to be artificially pumping the name and manipulating the market.

And there’s the rub. The disruption of the market caused by the WallStreetBets play could be the rationale for new regulations that hurt retail investors. It could also be another excuse to shut down free speech on the Internet and social media. And as Whitney Webb points out, it was not just a battle of David versus Goliath but one of hedge fund against hedge fund. The biggest winners included some of the most notorious Wall Street institutions – BlackRock, J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. They saw what was happening, bought early, bought big, and sold near the top. BlackRock made a staggering 700% on its trades.

In a February 9 article, Pam and Russ Martens show that the biggest winners were high-frequency program traders. They jumped in front of the WallStreetBets trades using sophisticated algorithms feeding on data provided by Robinhood and other trading platforms. Lance Roberts argues that Wall Street won again.

The Power of the People

So what was achieved by the GameStop short squeeze? Financial analyst Wolf Richter contends:

What all this shows, for all to see, is just how massively the stock market has been manipulated, from the Fed on down. Most of these manipulations attempt to manipulate prices up. But some manipulations are aimed at pushing prices down. What the millions of people conspiring on WallStreetBets to exact their pound of flesh accomplished was nevertheless enormous: They showed for all to see just how completely broken the stock market is.

True, but they showed more than that. They showed that the 99%, if organized and acting in concert, have the tools to overwhelm the 1%. Information, communication, and collective action are key.

The American people acting together have beaten the financial elite before. In the 18th century, it was London bankers who held the British colonies in financial bondage. The American colonists broke free by issuing their own paper currencies. The colony of Pennsylvania and then Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton refined that system by establishing publicly-owned banks that extended the credit of the colony and then of the nation; and Abraham Lincoln’s government avoided a 30% interest rate by reviving the colonial practice of issuing debt-free, interest-free paper currency.

The 19th century movement against Wall Street largely faded after Populist and Democratic Party candidate William Jennings Bryan lost to Republican candidate William McKinley in the 1896 and 1900 presidential elections. But a remnant of the Midwest movement triumphed in 1919, when the Non-Partisan League (NPL) was formed in protest against widespread foreclosures on North Dakota farms. The NPL won a statewide election and beat Wall Street at its own game by establishing a state-owned bank. The Bank of North Dakota cut out the Wall Street middlemen and partnered with local community banks; and by 2014, according to the Wall Street Journal, it was more profitable than either J.P. Morgan Chase or Goldman Sachs.

We the people need to recapture our local and national governments and regulators. If we had a popular nonpartisan government that put the public interest above the Corporatocracy, we could do remarkable things as a nation. Congress could even follow Lincoln in exercising its constitutional right to mint some very large coins, perhaps $1 trillion each, buy a controlling interest in some major corporations (Amazon? The New York Times? Some pharmaceutical or energy or telecommunications giants?), and distribute the dividends to the people. The public acting together is Goliath. E pluribus unum: strength in unity.

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Ellen Brown is an attorney, chair of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books including Web of Debt, The Public Bank Solution, and Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age.  She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com. 

She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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

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The visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Tehran in January 2016 laid the foundations for a future partnership agreement.  He stated that he sought to open a “new chapter” in China’s relations with Iran.  The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, “The Islamic Republic will never forget China’s cooperation during the sanctions era.”

In July 2020, ‘New York Times’ reported it had acquired an 18-page document titled, ‘Iran-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’, which concluded a long-term trade and military negotiations between China and Iran – and would see China invest $400 billion over the next 25 years in Iran.

It would “vastly expand Chinese presence in banking, telecommunications, ports, railways and dozens of other projects” and allow China to receive Iranian oil at a reduced price in order meet its growing energy needs.  The opening statement of the document reads, “Two ancient Asian cultures, two partners in the sectors of trade, economy, politics, culture and security with a similar outlook and many mutual bilateral and multilateral interests will consider one another strategic partners.”

There are many benefits for Iran with the partnership.  Although not a member of the strategic Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which includes Iran’s neighbour, Pakistan, the potential for increased opportunities with China with the current arrangement makes achieving SCO membership less of a priority.  In return for cheaper Iranian oil exports and other concessions, China injects billions of dollars into its struggling economy.  China is now Iran’s largest trade partner, its largest oil purchaser, and its largest foreign investor.  With Iran’s economic isolation due to American led sanctions, China provides a much-needed lifeline.

The ‘Iran-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ agreement has caused considerable alarm for America.   China may be seen as undermining America’s plan to isolate Iran and this places China on a direct collision course with America.   When the Trump administration pulled America out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’, in 2018, it imposed stricter sanctions on Iran, threatening countries with punishment if they did any business with Iran.

Previously, one of the main factors constraining China’s relationship with Iran may have been the attitude of America.  In July 2020, the American based ‘Center for Strategic and International Studies’ had argued that the enhanced partnership could be the prelude to a serious Chinese challenge to the American position in both the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean region.  China is now defying America’s position on Iran.

In December 2020, ‘The Wall Street Journal”, claimed Iran had circumvented American led sanctions and “exported more oil to China and other countries in recent months, providing a lifeline for its struggling economy and undermining the Trump administration’s so-called maximum pressure campaign against Tehran.”  On 26 January 2021, the Chinese newspaper, ‘Global Times’ reported that China’s top legislator, Li Zhanshu, called for closer ties with Iran, “China stands ready to work with Iran to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state and promote the continued development of the China-Iran comprehensive strategic partnership.”

Some observers argue American obsession with Iran is about securing access to Iran’s abundant resources, oil and natural gas – and without a compliant Iranian leadership, this is difficult.  America has implemented many measures to create the conditions to bring about the right leadership.  Strict and severe crippling economic sanctions against the people of Iran in the midst of a global pandemic remains in place.  This has the potential to create the conditions for civil unrest that could see the Iranian leadership fall.  The sanctions amount to one of America’s many ruthless and vicious policies in the Middle East.

In 2017, writer and journalist, Andrew Buncombe, penned an article for the British newspaper, ‘The Independent’ – and probably summed up the opinion of many.  Describing the impact of American intervention and policies in the Middle East he argued, “millions of people’s lives have been turned upside down, Isis has been allowed to fester and spread, and Iraq is a nation at risk of fracturing apart.  Moreover, an untold number of innocent civilians have been killed – by disease, illness, in gruesome tortures performed by local and foreign insurgents, and by the US and UK-led military campaign.”

With regards to the behaviour of China and Iran, there is widespread global outrage over horrifying reports of China’s treatment of Muslim Uyghurs, which includes claims of genocide, systemic rape, mass incarceration, slave labour and forced sterilisation – and Iran is the cause of destabilisation in the Middle East, it has been argued.

At the start of this year, Reuters reported Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab and America’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken were in talks regarding how to deal with Iran’s “destabilising behaviour” and to hold China to its international commitments.  America’s National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, asserted China, Afghanistan and Iran key priorities for the new administration.

Earlier this month, the US President Joe Biden confirmed America would not lift its economic sanctions on Iran in order to get Tehran back to the negotiating table to discuss how to revive the ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’. Iran’s leadership has demanded America lift all sanctions before any negotiations take place.

China has been crucial in assisting Iran escape deep isolation and rejoin the global economy through the conclusion of the ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’.  With its multi-dimensional partnership with Iran, China presents a direct challenge to America.  Both nations risk falling into the deadly ‘Thucydides’s Trap’ – and Iran could become the battleground between a rapidly ascending power and an established power.

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Shahbazz Afzal is an independent writer and political activist.

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Washington’s North Korea policy was designed to change the Juche regime and eliminate the nuclear threat of Pyongyang.

But, the policy of regime change has failed because of wrong strategies. Washington has relied on harsh and hostile strategy which has rather strengthened the Juche regime. The sun-shine policy could have done better.

Moreover, Washington’s policy of denuclearization of North Korea has also failed because of mutual mistrust and North Korea demonization.

If Biden wishes to succeed with his North Korea policy, he should revise the very philosophy of its North Korea policy; he should better understand North Korea in the light of more objective information about the country; he should accept North Koreans as normal people; he should free himself from North Korea demonization.

Joe Biden became the 46th president of the U.S. on January 20, 2021. Few would envy him. He will have the glory and power, but the weight of his glory and power might be easily outweighed by the heavy burden of solving immediate problems left unsolved by Trump.

His immediate challenges are several. His has to continue the difficult fight against the pandemic. He has to restore the torn economy. Both tasks are mission quasi impossible. They require innovative imagination, bold determination, a lot of resources, and especially people’s trust in the government. Before anything else, Biden needs sustained cooperation of the people. But, the violent revolt of people in Washington on January 6 demonstrates the width and the depth of the division of the American people. The biggest challenge for Biden is the unification of the people and unified popular cooperation.

But, the unified cooperation of the American people for the fight against the corona-virus and the revival of the economy is not easy because of American people’s cumulated dissatisfaction with political and economic leadership of Washington. The pro-business policy has widened the income gap between the rich and the poor and killed the American dream. The racial discrimination remains unsolved. The mass killing on the street is a daily event.

The insurrection of January 6 shows the frustration and the anger of a significant part of American white population who are the victims of high technology, neo-liberal free trade and the corruption culture in Washington. They are in a way alienated people; they are the people who have lost the American dream. They shout “We want the country back!”, that is, a country where their voice was heard; this is the war cry of the white supremacy group. As long as Trumpism is around, this group will make noise and threaten the American society.

Given the size of its economy, the U.S. could have solved these internal problems. But, leaders have not solved them.  Why did Washington fail to solve these problems? The obvious reason is the never ending war and Washington’s global police role which has not been always solicited. The war and the global police work of Washington have prevented the government from investing adequate resources for the solution of the internal problems. Leaders in Washington should ask themselves to what extent the war and global police work has imposed hardship on the American people.

It is about the time for Biden to reduce investments in making wars in the name of global order; it is not too early for Biden to allocate more resources to the solution of internal problems. In fact, Biden in his speech of February 5, 2021 on foreign policy promised such policy. It is sincerely hoped that he will succeed with this policy.

Trump and Kim meet Sunday before Trump became first US president to step on North Korean territory. (White House photo)

It is also the time for ending 70-year old irritating issue of North Korean crisis. In fact, Biden could be the first American leader who can bring shining peace on the Korean peninsula, if he so desires. He is surely one of the American presidents who know well foreign relations. And, Kim Jong-un is ready to negotiate with Biden for the final solution; this is indicated in his speech at the 8th congress of the Workers Party of Korea held in Pyongyang on January 5-12, 2021.

In his concluding speech, Kim Jong-un made three meaningful points. First, the peace dialogue with Trump was a big success in improving the image of North Korea. Second, the U.S. remains the chief obstacle and enemy to the development of North Korea. Third, he would deal “power with power and good with good” (강대강 선대선). Here, we can read Kim Jong-un’s mind. He is ready to continue the peace negotiations but as equal negotiating partner. However, this requires mutual trust and respect which were made possible by President Moon Jae-in’s mediation role at the Trump-Kim dialogue. President Moon will leave his office in 2022. Hence, Washington and Pyongyang should make real efforts to dissipate the mutual mistrust and even hatred cumulated over decades.

Moreover, to succeed with his North Korea policy, Biden should clarify its objectives. Officially, Washington’s North Korea policy is to make Korea more open and more democratic nation on the one hand and, on the other, assure regional security by denuclearizing North Korea. But both policies have failed.

But, is it a really a failure? In South Korea, there are those experts in North Korean affairs who doubt if the regime change or the denuclearization was the real objective of Washington’s North Korea policy. They even think that Washington’s hidden objective was to keep the Juche regime and the nuclear programs so that it can justify the huge presence of US military in South Korea needed for China containment strategy and the expansion of US military equipment marker in the East Asian region. If this is the case, what seems to be the failure of Washington’s North Korea policy could be, in fact, a success.

However, in this paper, I assume that the objective of Biden’s North Korea policy is the democratization and the denuclearization of North Korea. In this paper, I am tackling two related issues: the reason of failure of U.S. North Korea policy and Biden’s alternative approach to his North Korea policy.

Why has Washington failed in its North Korea Policy? 

Washington’s idea of making the Juche regime more open and more democratic country relied on two strategies. One was to invade with South Korean army to destroy the regime and transplant a sort of democracy. It is more than likely that it was rather the Korean conservative government which insisted more on this strategy. As a matter of fact, in 2017, when Trump was threatening Pyongyang with “fire and fury”, the South Korean president, Mme Park Geun-hye, daughter of, the military dictator, Gen. Park Chung-hee was reported to have cried with joy “Jackpot” suggesting the windfall benefit of the military invasion. Actually, the idea of military invasion of North Korea was not new. Bill Clinton tried in early 1990s; in 1968, under Lyndon B. Johnson, when the USS Pueblo was captured by North Korean armed forces, the military invasion was on the table. However, the military invasion did not take place simply because of heavy human casualties including the deaths of American GIs and their families in South Korea and Japan.

The second option of changing Juche regime was the use of pressure provided by annual joint military exercises, international isolation of Pyongyang, anti-North Korea propaganda and the sanctions. None of these measures worked. True, the joint military exercises of American and South Korean armed forces were so violent and threatening that North Koreans were utterly terrorised. But, the people of North Korean endured and blamed Washington and Seoul instead of complaining against Pyongyang.

The strategy of isolating North Korea from international community was not a major problem, for Juche ideology was intended to make North Korea to survive as much as possible without depending on other countries. The anti-North Korea propaganda took two forms. First, the negative image of North Korea was created on the basis of biased information provided by North Korean refugees and it was diffused through anti-Pyongyang media in the West, in general, and Korea and the U.S., in particular.

Another method has been the air-born balloons showing the superiority of the South Korean democracy to the North Korean regime on the one hand and, on the other, demonizing the Juche regime. However, the air-born anti-Juche propaganda balloons have produced little expected results, because North Koreans despised South Korea society under the conservative government for its corruption and its being vassal country of the U.S.

Finally, the dreadful sanctions have not brought down the Juche regime. It is hard to imagine how North Koreans have survived these sanctions. It is true that the black markets and the underground China-North Korea trade network may have provided an answer. But, the more meaningful factor was the character of North Koreans. We must remember that leaders of North Koreans are mostly the descendents of Patriots who fought against the Japanese invaders; they are determined nationalists. They are proud of establishing an autonomous self-sufficient nation and adopting unique socialist ideology – the Jucheism – despite the heavy pressure imposed by the Soviet Union and China. They are the people who survived the terrible decade-long starvation and misery in the 1990s.

The sanctions have proved to be a wrong approach of the American policy of North Korean regime change or denuclearization. They have failed in changing the Juche regime or denuclearizing North Korea. The sanctions have turned out to be too destructive. They have pushed 25 million North Korean people to starve; they have killed a great number of children because of the shortage of medical facilities and medicines.

In other words, these sanctions have not been a great contributor to Washington’s North Korea policy. If so, how do we justify the sanctions? Is there anyone who benefits from these sanctions? To be sure, the American people are not benefitting from these sanctions. The potential traders with North Korea would be the losers. These sanctions – if it continues – can destroy completely the very foundation of the survival of millions of people as a nation. In this sense, prolonged sanctions could be the worst kind of human right violation.

It is sincerely hoped that Biden gives serious thought to the use of sanctions as a tool of North Korea policy.

Washington has failed also in its policy of North Korea’s denuclearization. Clinton had a good chance in 1994; George W. Bush had a good possibility in 2005, Trump had a golden chance in 2019. But, they all blew these opportunities. The main reason for the failure was the absence of interest of Washington to solve the nuclear crisis or the mutual hatred. It is possible that the two factors are all responsible.

To sum up, the performance of Washington’s North Korea policy is a failure. So, if Biden wished to do something to solve the 70-year old North Korea headache, he should do something different from what his predecessors have done.

What should be Biden’s North Korea Policy?

The success of Biden’s North Korea policy requires a few preconditions. Washington should get rid of Pyongyang demonization deriving from mutual mistrust and mutual hatred. Moreover, Washington should accept the reality of North Korea as a de facto nuclear weapon state. And, finally, Biden should speed up the process of the normalization of Washington-Pyongyang diplomatic relations.

What are the origins of mutual mistrust and hatred?

To find the root of mistrust and hatred between the U.S. and North Korea, we have to go back to the period of the Korean War (1950-1953), which ended with no clear-cut winner, but it created deep lasting relations of mistrust and hatred between the U.S. and North Korea.

North Koreans do not forget what the U.S. did against innocent civilians during the Korean War. According to reliable sources, about 20% of North Korean population-4 million out of 20 million-were bombed to death. More than 80% of the victims were women and children. The American bombers destroyed every single standing structure. The American bombers dropped about 700,000 tons of bombs as against 500,000 tons of bombs dropped on Japan during the 4-year war. The U.S. dropped the napalm bombs which burn the flesh of victims.

General Douglas McArthur said this about American bombing on North Korea:” A slaughter never heard of in the history of mankind.”

For North Koreans, it is difficult to forget what the U.S. has done. We can easily imagine what kind of feeling North Korean would have toward the Americans. In the eyes of North Koreans, Americans are brutal, not trust worthy and even hateful. These feeling have lasted for 70 years.

On the other hand, Americans also have hostile feeling toward North Korea. The U.S. did not win the Korean War. This was humiliating for a country which had won the World War II. The U.S. lost 54,000 lives of which 33,000 on the battle ground. The American prisoners of war suffered from physical and psychological torture during the Korean War. The capture of USS Pueblo in 1968 and the shooting-down of an American spy aircraft in 1969 did hurt the pride of Americans. For the citizens of the mighty super power like the U.S., it may be difficult to swallow the insult. So, Americans hate North Koreans.

The point here is that the mutual hatred is one of major difficulties to overcome in the Washington-Pyongyang relations. True, such mutual hatred has dissipated, but it is still there and the politicians exploit such feeling for their political and financial interests. If Biden wants really to solve the North Korean problem, he has to do something to further dissipate the mutual hatred.

How bad is the demonization of North Korea? 

The North Korea demonization is a widely-spread perception of the great majority of Americans. This has been deliberately promoted by warmongering Washington establishment, media and academics. As long as the demonized image of North Korea is deeply imprinted in the minds of Americans, it is by no means easy to get rid of it, and Biden will have hard time to go forward in his engagement with North Korea.

The demonization of North Korea relies on the simple and dangerous arguments. It goes like this. North Korea is a military threat; Juche ideology is an ideological threat; North Korea is the worst violator of human rights; North Korean government is authoritarian. However, the most important threat is the military threat.

The West, in particular, the U.S., argues that North Korea is a military threat. Therefore, one cannot trust North Korea. Hence, one has to punish North Korea. The best way to punish North Korea is to use military force. The pre-emptive attack is justified. If necessary, North Korea should be punished with nuclear weapons.

But, we must be honest with ourselves. Can North Korea be a real threat? If it is, to whom is it a threat? It is true that North Korea threatened South Korea. The tool of threat was the vast set of several thousand artillery pieces deployed along the demarcation line. It was the period when Pyongyang threatened by shouting “We can make Seoul a sea of fire!” But we knew that it was a simple rhetoric, for South Korea could retaliate.

It is true that North Korea made six nuclear tests and 147 missile tests. But are these tests conducted to threaten some country? Or, are they designed to serve as deterrent against foreign attacks? The response to these questions is simple enough; it is for the deterrence purpose.

If there are countries which could be the target of North Korean threat, it would be the U.S., South Korea and Japan. But, this is a pure nonsense. To begin with, North Korean GDP was, in 2019, about 32 billion USD as against 1.7 trillion USD of South Korea, about 5.3 trillion USD of Japan and 23trillion USD of the United Sates. North Korea’s annual defence budget was mere 7 billion USD as against 700 billion USD in the U.S., more than 40 billion USD in South Korea and 50 billion USD in Japan.

So, the combined GDP of the U.S., Japan and South Korea was 30,000 billion USD as against North Korea’s 32 billion USD. The combined defence budget of the three countries which could be targets of North Korea’s threats was 790 billion USD as against 7 billion USD for North Korea. Can you imagine a situation where the tiny North Korea can threat these three economic and military powers?

North Korea is not stupid enough to attack these countries with its nuclear weapons, because it knows very well that it is pure “harakiri” (Bushido-inspired suicide).

What should be the strategies of Biden’s North Korea Policy?

In what follows, I will discuss what Biden’s North Korea policy strategies should be. My hypothesis is that Biden will sincerely seek for the real solution for peace and prosperity in North Korea. This is only a hypothesis. I am not convinced that Biden will do that. What I am saying is that, if Biden wants to do something of historical significance, he should do what I am suggesting.

To solve the North Korean problems, Biden should do this.

First, before anything else, he should stop North Korea demonization and get rid of mutual mistrust and mutual hatred so that American public accept North Korea as a normal society. This would require heavy investments in the friendship building promoted by cultural and sport exchanges.

Second, he should accept North Korea as a nuclear weapon state, conduct well planed arms control and normalize the diplomatic relations. It appears that the level of North Korean nuclear capacity is beyond what the West would like to admit. The system of training nuclear experts at universities and the military seems well established. The system of the production of nuclear weapons seems well developed. The capacity to transport the nuclear war heads seems operational. Even if denuclearization takes place, it is just unrealistic to suppose that North Korea will give up all of its cumulated nuclear capacity. In this case, the more realistic approach would be to accept North Korea as a nuclear weapon state, agree upon a moratorium on nuclear programs and conduct progressive reduction of nuclear capacity in exchange of the progress of the peace process including the lifting of sanctions.

Third, the process of the creation of normal diplomatic relations should include the following approaches.

To begin with, it is not too early to make the declaration of the end of the Korean War. It has only declaratory meaning; it has no de jure significance. Besides, after three North-South Summits, the Korean War ended as far as the two Koreas are concerned. I believe that, if Biden decides to make such declaration, no country including China would object. Even Japan would not object, for Tokyo is keen to establish normal diplomatic relations with country of Jucheism. The declaration of the end of the Korean War is useful in building mutual trust between Washington and Pyongyang.

As for the joint military exercises, they may be necessary for training, the maintenance of disciplines and the tests of new weapons. But it is better not to give the impression that these exercises are designed to intimidate or attack North Korea.

What is the most important is the removal of the sanctions. One wonders what the sanctions have achieved so far. What are the objectives of these sanctions? The objectives may include the regime change and denuclearization. None of these objectives has been attained. The Jucheism is still there; Kim Jong-in has nuclear bombs; Washington has not been able to isolate North Korea. Pyongyang is not as isolated as one may wish to believe. North Korea has diplomatic relations with 164 countries.

The final step toward the solution of North Korean problem is the establishment of Washington’s diplomatic relations with North Korea. It is more likely that Biden might oppose such measure because of the issue of human right violation. But, do we know the exact situation of human right abuse in North Korea? Can we trust the related information provided by the North Korean refugees? Should we generalize the experiences of some refugees? It may be impossible to find answers to these questions. It seems that the abuse of human right exists in North Korea as it does in many countries including China and even the U.S. But, this issue has not prevented Washington from normalizing diplomatic relations with many countries.

Remember that Richard Nixon who was well aware of the violation of human rights under Mao Zedong established the normal diplomatic relations in 1979 with China. George W. Bush did not make major fuss about this problem. Even Barack Obama was ready in 2014 to accept Xi Jinping’s proposal for “New Power Relations between super Powers” despite China’s violation of human rights. The issue of human right abuse in North Korea cannot be and should not be the excuse for not having normal diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.

I may conclude by saying that the normalization of Washington’s diplomatic relations with North Korea is the only way to solve the North Korean problems. If Washington succeeds this policy, it might even contribute to the improvement of Washington’s hegemonic position in East Asia and enforce its image as a peace loving super power which is generous toward such a small country like North Korea.

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Professor Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics and co-director of the East Asia Observatory (OAE) of the Center of Studies on Integration and Globalization (CEIM), Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM)

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

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

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Mandatory masks continue to be the standard operating procedure for many counties, regions, districts, states and nations worldwide, as the COVID cult agenda progresses. In many places, while COVID vaccines are not yet mandatory, authorities are rushing to prepare to make them so, by setting up schemes like immunity passports, vaccine certificates and mandatory tracking databases which log who has taken the shot and who has not. Meanwhile, inherent sovereign human rights are being limited to those who acquiesce to tkae the shot. The insanity and absurdity of the COVID cult is all the more apparent when you realize that its mandatory or quasi-mandatory rules stand in contradiction to a very important set of principles decided upon in 1947. I refer to the Nuremberg Code, the set of 10 points that arose from the infamous Nuremberg Trials conducted in the aftermath of World War II. I am not passing judgement on how impartial those trials were, because I know they were mainly run by the US and the Allies (as the victors), who for obvious reasons did not press charges against American generals such as Eisenhower (who later became US President) for his POW camps inside of Germany and carpet-bombing of Dresden. Nonetheless, the trials produced the Nuremberg Code which enshrined the principle of informed consent – a principle which, in the advent of the COVID scamdemic, is now highly relevant and is continually being put to the test. This article will look briefly at each of the 10 points in the light of COVID restrictions and rules.

The 10 Points of the Code

This website gives a brief history of how the 10 points of the Nuremberg Code came into existence. Interestingly, although the code is an international ethical landmark, it is apparently still not enshrined in American or German national law. We must assume those governments via their secret agencies like the CIA wanted to keep the door open to conduct medical experimentation (such as bioweapon programs like weaponized ticks) upon their citizenry without technically breaking the law:

“On August 19, 1947, the judges of the American military tribunal in the case of the USA vs. Karl Brandt et. al. delivered their verdict. Before announcing the guilt or innocence of each defendant, they confronted the difficult question of medical experimentation on human beings. Several German doctors had argued in their own defense that their experiments differed little from previous American or German ones. Furthermore they showed that no international law or informal statement differentiated between legal and illegal human experimentation. This argument worried Drs. Andrew Ivy and Leo Alexander, American doctors who had worked with the prosecution during the trial. On April 17, 1947, Dr. Alexander submitted a memorandum to the United States Counsel for War Crimes which outlined six points defining legitimate research. The verdict of August 19 reiterated almost all of these points in a section entitled “Permissible Medical Experiments” and revised the original six points into ten. Subsequently, the ten points became known as the “Nuremberg Code.” Although the code addressed the defense arguments in general, remarkably none of the specific findings against Brandt and his codefendants mentioned the code. Thus the legal force of the document was not well established. The uncertain use of the code continued in the half century following the trial when it informed numerous international ethics statements but failed to find a place in either the American or German national law codes. Nevertheless, it remains a landmark document on medical ethics and one of the most lasting products of the “Doctors Trial.””

Nuremberg Code #1: Voluntary Consent is Essential

The first point of the Code is:

“The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.”

This point has already been broken many times over just with the introduction of mandatory masks alone. In the US, for example, masks are defined in several places as “medical devices” according to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). The first piece of evidence is on the FDA’s website itself at this page that discusses masks and which is nested under the category Medical Devices as follows:

“Home / Medical Devices / Products and Medical Procedures / General Hospital Devices and Supplies / Personal Protective Equipment for Infection Control / N95 Respirators, Surgical Masks, and Face Masks”

The second piece of evidence is in the law: the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) which is US federal law enacted by Congress. It and other federal laws establish the legal framework within which FDA operates. The FD&C Act can be found in the United States Code (USC), which contains all general and permanent US laws, beginning at 21 USC 301. You can read it here. Look under Chapter II Definitions (pg.3) and scroll down to Section 201(h):

“(h) The term “device” (except when used in paragraph (n) of this section and in sections 301(i), 403(f), 502(c), and 602(c)) means an instrument, apparatus, implement, machine, contrivance, implant, in vitro reagent, or other similar or related article, including any component, part, or accessory, which is — (1) recognized in the official National Formulary, or the United States Pharmacopeia, or any supplement to them, (2) intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, in man or other animals, or (3) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals, and which does not achieve its primary intended purposes through chemical action within or on the body of man or other animals and which is not dependent upon being metabolized for the achievement of its primary intended purposes.”

Under this section, a mask meets the criteria required for being designated as a medical device, since it meets point (2), being an apparatus which is intended to prevent disease.

Did any politician ask the people of the world whether they wanted to wear masks and volunteer themselves to wear medical devices? No. There has been no voluntary or informed consent.

Nuremberg Code #2: Yield Fruitful Results Unprocurable By Other Means

The second point of the Code is:

“The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.”

We have to face reality that COVID measures such as mandatory masks or vaccines are a giant medical experiment. Many people have been suffering the ill effects of under-oxygenation due to prolonged mask wearing. The untested vaccines constitute the biggest worldwide experiment in human history, having been rushed to market in under 12 months when vaccines usually take 7-20 years to develop. As covered in previous articles, these so-called vaccines (actually mRNA devices) were not designed to stop transmission, elicit a direct immune response (as traditional vaccines do) nor to stop moderate to severe symptoms, so their risk-to- benefit ratio is massively high. Cloth masks made of bandannas and rags are utterly “random and unnecessary in nature.” Meanwhile, there are many other ways to produce “fruitful results” for society without this experimentation: educating people about the principles of natural health, boosting the immune system naturally and even supplementing with vitamin D (research has shown a connection between those acquiring COVID and vitamin D deficiency).

The third point of the Code is:

“The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.”

This point has also been broken. Big Pharma companies skipped animal trials in their rush to get their “vaccines” to market.

Nuremberg Code #4: Avoid All Unnecessary Suffering and Injury

The fourth point of the Code is:

“The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.”

None of the masks and “vaccines” (which indisutably cause suffering, injury and death) are necessary for many reasons:

• the COVID case and death count has been wildly inflated from the beginning;
• COVID is a repackaging scheme which reclassifies existing diseases to create the appearane of a new deadly disease and pandemic when there is none. See the work of people such as Dr. Genevieve Briand;
• the alleged novel virus SARS-CoV-2 has never been isolated, purified and proven 100% to exist.

Nuremberg Code #5: No Experiment to be Conducted if There’s Reason to Think Injury or Death Will Occur

The fifth point of the Code is:

“No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.”

Is there an a priori reason to believe disabling injury or death will occur from the COVID not-vaccines? Given the past history of vacine injury, yes there is. Around 2 weeks ago on January 29th 2021, the CDC reported over 11,000 adverse reactions to the COVID vaccine, including 501 deaths and 10,748 other injuries, some of which were indeed disabling injuries. If you are not fainthearted, see these video clips and compilations (here, here, here and here) which show the horrible side effects of the vax.

Nuremberg Code #6: Risk Should Never Exceed the Benefit

The sixth point of the Code is:

“The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.”

From Big Pharma’s point of view, the risk doesn’t exceed the benefit. They are shielded from legal liability thanks to the 1986 NCVIA and other preparatory laws like the 2005 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act which paved the way for Big Pharma legal immunity. There’s no risk, and the profits are astronomical. For the average individual, on the other hand, the situation is exactly the reverse; there’s no benefit to taking a non-vaccine which doesn’t protect you from severe symptoms and which doesn’t stop transmission, but which could lead to serious and debilitating effects like paralysis and death.

Nuremberg Code #7: Preparation Must Be Made Against Even Remote Possibility of Injury, Disability or Death

The seventh point of the Code is:

“Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.”

No preparations have been made! The COVID vaccines are a giant worldwide human experiment, and every single participant is the equivalent of a human hamster or guinea pig. If you die, bad luck! Big Pharma will be sure to roll out their legal and PR departments and immediately question the connection bewteen their vax and your death. They will never, ever admit a connection, and even if they did, there are no legal consequences for them. There is no recourse.

Nuremberg Code #8: Experiment Must Be Conducted by Scientifically Qualified Persons

The eighth point of the Code is:

“The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.”

Doctors such as Dr. Stefan Lanka and Dr. Tom Cowan who challenge the mainstream narrative of virology – namely that contagious viruses exist and can infect you – would most certainly dispute that career bureaucrats like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Big Pharma scientists are truly qualified, but even if you accept that they are, the scientists that make the vaccines are not the ones administering them. It’s the regular nurses and doctors who are doing that. How many of them truly know what the non-vaccine is, what it does, the complete list of its ingredients and the full list of its long-term side effects? No one knows the latter, precisely because this is a giant experiment.

By creating unlawful mask mandates, politicians are playing doctor, putting themselves in the position of being medical experts by dictating health directives and medical interventions to the entire population. The people have not given consent for politicians, who are medically untrained, to act as their personal physicians.

Nuremberg Code #9: Anyone Must Have the Freedom to Bring the Experiment to an End At Any Time

The ninth point of the Code is:

“During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.”

Do you have the right to bring the insane COVID cult medical experimentation to an end? Of course you don’t! People are being discriminated against for not wearing masks by being deprived of their rights to freely travel, trade and work. People are being threatened with fines and prison for not wearing masks. People’s rights are being violated when they exercise their right to make thier own medical decisions by refusing the vax. There is no freedom for the COVID subject who is being experimented upon.

Nuremberg Code #10: The Scientist Must Bring the Experiment to an End At Any Time if There’s Probable Cause of it Resulting in Injury or Death

The tenth point of the Code is:

“During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.”

This point includes the phrase “probable cause” which is probably well-known to many people, especially Americans, since it is enshrined in the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution that protects people against searches and seizures unless the police have a warrant based on probable cause that that person has a committed a crime. Probable cause is legally considered to be a higher standard than “reasonable belief” or “reasonable suspicion” which is the wording used in other jurisdictions. Regardless, do you think any Big Pharma company has EVER voluntarily halted their vaccine rollout because of their “superior skill and careful judgment” that they might be harming people? No way! The profits are too great, and their line of defense is that some people may be injured or killed by the vaccines, but it’s all for the “greater good” of protecting society. As Martin Luther King said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

Conclusion

Society is regressing right now. We are giving up hard-fought rights and freedoms out of fear. Collectively, we are forgetting that we have already long ago established fundamental human rights such as bodily autonomy, medical sovereignty and informed, voluntary consent. The Nuremberg Code is a stark reminder that we have been through all this before, and got through it to crystallize the lessons learned. We must remember Who We Are and stop this insane COVID medical experimentation – before it’s too late.

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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.

Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative media / independent news site The Freedom Articles, author of the book Cancer: The Lies, the Truth and the Solutions and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com. Makia is on Steemit and Parler.

Sources

https://thefreedomarticles.com/covid-cult-and-the-10-stages-of-genocide/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/not-a-vaccine-mrna-covid-vaccine-chemical-pathogen-device/

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https://thefreedomarticles.com/bioweapons-bioterrorism-lyme-disease-weaponized-ticks/

https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/doctors-trial/nuremberg-code#Permissible

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-surgical-masks-and-face-masks

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https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article/doi/10.1210/clinem/dgaa733/5934827

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https://thefreedomarticles.com/10-reasons-sars-cov-2-imaginary-digital-theoretical-virus/

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/deaths-injuries-following-covid-vaccine-cdc/

https://www.bitchute.com/video/9KCxyj9zQ4N8

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https://thefreedomarticles.com/deep-down-virus-rabbit-hole-question-everything/

Featured image is from Viacheslav Lopatin | scaliger – stock.adobe.com

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

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It began as a shudder through the scientific and public health establishments.  A new variant of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 had been found, mutating in South African climes, potentially outwitting human responses to it.  Vaccines such as Oxford-AstraZeneca’s would have to be brushed up.  Rollouts would have to be reconsidered. 

The South African variant has been given a few designations: 501Y.V2 or B.1.351.  Within it lies a mutation –N501Y – which suggests a greater degree of contagiousness.  Another, E484k, might bypass the human immune system, thereby blunting the effectiveness of the vaccines.

A study on the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine against N501Y and E484k mutations found that the vaccine did still work, but with less efficacy.  The authors of the study treaded carefully, making it clear that the study had made assumptions about levels of neutralisation.  The biological functions of N501Y and other mutations also remained “to be defined for viral replication, pathogenesis, and/or transmission in animal models.”

The concern for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is graver, given that it was deemed the great hope for developing countries, with lower pricing and less demanding conditions for storage.  Preliminary, and yet to be peer-reviewed research of some 2,000 individuals, has found the vaccine to have less impressive protections (under 25%) against mild-to-moderate illness caused by the 501Y.V2 variant. 

The same cannot be said about protecting against severe COVID-19, an open point given that those recruited in the study were generally healthy, young and sporting only mild symptoms.  None required hospitalisation.  Such qualifications were seized uponby World Health Organization’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.  “Given the limited sample size and the younger, healthier profile of the participants it is important to determine whether or not the vaccine remains effective in preventing more severe illness.”

Despite this not entirely gloomy picture, politicians in South Africa have been bitten by fear.  As the country most affected on the African continent, doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are being traded in favour of Johnson & Johnson shots.  The latter vaccine has also been shown in trials to be less effective in combating the mild aspect of 501.V2 (57%) though does a much better job of combating instances of severe disease (85%).

The announcement of this policy shift came from the Health Minister Zweli Mkhize on February 10: “Given the outcome of the efficacy studies [the government] will continue with the planned phase one vaccination using the Johnson & Johnson vaccines instead of the AstraZeneca vaccine.”

This would have delighted the J&J crew, given that the one-shot vaccine has only been approved for use in studies in South Africa and has yet to be officially authorised for general use in any country.  Applications for emergency use from South Africa’s regulatory authority and the US Food and Drug Administration have been made.   Not to worry, claimed Mkhize: the vaccine had been tested on 44,000 people so far; safety for intending recipients was assured.

The health minister was also keen to give the impression of business.  “Our scientists are continuing to evaluate other [vaccine] candidates and we are simultaneously engaging manufacturers.  We are in advanced stages of evaluating and engaging the manufacturers of the Sputnik V candidate.  Engagements with Sinopharm continue, with an offer already made by China for vaccines which are being considered.”

The move has not convinced certain health practitioners.  Sipho Dinabantu of Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital is worried that “that trust we had in the government to do a proper vaccination program” has evaporated.  “We were given assurances that it was ready to go but now it has been put on hold.  It makes me wonder a lot about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which has yet to be approved.”

The risk of waste is a serious one.  A million Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines have been procured from the Serum Institute of India.  These are due to expire at the end of April.  Shabir Madhi of the University of Witwatersrand, the lead investigator of the South African trials of that vaccine, finds it rather daft that these would not be used, despite acknowledging its weaknesses.  “It doesn’t make any sense to have 1 million doses of vaccine available to us known to be safe and to not start distributing it at least for high-risk groups.”  The country’s elderly and those with comorbidities could receive those shots.

Mkhize hopes that these might be sold or swapped depending on what the Ministerial Advisory Committee suggests.  Countries were already making inquiries.  But there are concerns that expired vaccines might also find their way into the program.  We only have Mkhize’s assurance that the vaccines had not expired, and would not be administered if they had. 

Confidence in public health authorities has again received a bruising, though the South African government has its defenders.  Professor Willem Hanekom, director of the Africa Health Institute, was all praise at the decision to embrace the J&J option.  “We’ve never been in such a situation. Every day things change, and we need to adapt to these changes.”  The trend of treating whole populations as guinea pigs in a grand public health experiment continues.

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

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Mainstream media references to Venezuela always focus on the devastating economic crisis, which they directly or indirectly attribute either to the Maduro government mismanagement or to a total failure of the Bolivarian Revolution envisioned by Hugo Chávez. US sanctions are mentioned (if they are at all) as if they were a benign slap on the hand to change the conduct of a misbehaving child. More seriously, sanctions are unilateral coercive economic measures forcing “a change of conduct” in target countries as punishment for falsely reputed violation of “international norms of behaviour”.

The reality is that the US has been enforcing an escalating hybrid war on Venezuela for the purpose of changing its independent social development free from the imposition of neoliberal policies. Possibly the most lethal tools of this kind of warfare are the criminal, illegal and inhumane coercive economic and financial measures, euphemistically called “sanctions”.

More accurately they should be called “starvation sanctions”. They cut off the revenue sources that the Venezuelan government needs to import food, equipment and agricultural supplies necessary for food production. This results in critical food shortages that the media gloats reporting with images of long lines of people to buy the scarce supply of food. As a consequence Venezuela has denounced the US government before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Former UN rapporteur on Human Rights reported that US sanctions have killed more than 100 thousand Venezuelans.

How is Venezuela tackling this serious foreign-induced food crisis?

Venezuela has had a pro-active approach towards food sovereignty and food security as an essential necessity since the beginning of the Bolivarian revolution. The situation would be much worse had Venezuela not taken on fully the responsible obligation of guaranteeing food access for its citizens. The Venezuelan government needs to be praised for implementing measures to ensure food security to the population in order to counter the nefarious impact of “sanctions”.

Food sovereignty and food security are strictly connected. The former is the fundamental proposition of a State that cannot be renounced under any circumstances. The latter implies the process that guarantees access to food to all citizens under the tenet of responsibility, equality, fairness and social justice.

The international peasants’ movement called La Via Campesina developed the concept of food sovereignty during the World Food Summit in 1996 as a resistance movement against neoliberal policies. The prevailing neoliberal economic system, represented by the World Bank and the IMF with their structural adjustment policies, was perceived as a threat to food sovereignty and food security.

Neoliberal policies cause most harm to food security by allowing corporate-driven agricultural land grab, control over type of food production and distribution, dependency on patented genetically modified seeds, high food prices and low farmers wages, and forced imports as opposed to local production of food.

In the early 20th century Venezuela jumped almost overnight from having an economy based on agriculture, contributing about one third to Venezuela’s GDP in the 1920s, to becoming a large producer and exporter of oil in the late 1920s under the management and control of multinational corporations. The wealth derived by the oil extraction destroyed farming and agricultural production.

When Hugo Chavez became president in 1999 Venezuela recognised the importance of food sovereignty and food security, which were embedded in Articles 156 and 305 of the 1999 constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Accordingly, in 2001 Chavez issued a series of decrees shaping the revolutionary Land Law with its leading project Misión Zamora that led to assigning to landless farmers land belonging to large estates, or latifundios, that were not producing at least 80% of their potential and therefore were nationalised under Venezuelan Food Security and Sovereign Law.

By the end of 2003, 60,000 families had received temporary title to a total of 55,000 km² of land. The law stimulated co-ops and the necessary food production. The land reform may have been what triggered the failed coup attempt against him in 2002.

A report in 2009 describes the Venezuelan effort to build a new food and agriculture system with Chavez’s vision of Socialism of the Twenty-First Century, political will, and the necessary infrastructure to support farmers with credit and technical assistance, as well as social services and market access. Results were outstanding with significant increased production of crops like black beans, root vegetables, and sunflowers for cooking oil. In some cases Venezuela reached levels of self sufficiency like in its two most important grains, corn and rice.

However, A Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) report in 2016 identified that a small number of companies in the still existing private sector had control over imports and distribution of the most demanded items that showed shortages, lineups, and high prices. In some cases there has been hoarding of goods and price speculation.

Forced to confront food shortages mainly caused by the “sanctions” and US financial barriers to imports, the Maduro government undertook one of the most successful programs to guarantee equitable access to food so no one would be left behind: the Comité Locales de Abastecimiento y Producción (CLAP – Local Committees for Supply and Production of food).

The CLAP, founded in 2016 and financially supported in part by the government, distributes house-to-house boxes of food, containing some of the main staples of the Venezuelan diet: cornflour, pasta, rice, black beans, cooking oil, and more, at reduced affordable cost.

It is considered a flagship program against the imperial aggression controlling the distribution channels of grains, rice, corn flour, vegetable oil and other items. It is not meant to be a permanent structure for food distribution but its scope and function is presently strictly regulated in a formal constitutional legislation as a dire necessity.

From 2017 to 2020 the CLAP has distributed almost 500 million food boxes equivalent to 6.5 million metric tons of food. Currently it benefits a reported six million Venezuelan families through monthly deliveries of food boxes at subsidised cost.

In the most cruel action bordering callous criminality the US Treasury Department has imposed sanctions curtailing the effectiveness of the CLAP food program!

The government of Venezuela together with the active participation of the majority of the population and farmers in their respective communities – known as Communes – have to be praised for tackling the most pressing problem: food shortage. They are doing so by increasing the production of staple food items like corn, beans and root vegetables among others, including fish in coastal areas. The response has been quite prompt and effective thanks to the early preparatory plans for food security and sovereignty that had been established by Chavez’s visionary government as mentioned before. However, the problem has not been fully solved and continues being a challenge for Venezuelans.

Finally, it is important to recognise that the Bolivarian revolution is not only dealing with the immediate urgent need to put food on the table of Venezuelan families, but it also deals with the more significant long-term political goal of developing all the necessary programs and infrastructure to turn Venezuela in a truly food independent and sovereign country.

The full systematic and comprehensive plan – as a strategic response to the siege of the US unilateral coercive economic and financial measures – is laid out in the program Gran Misión Agro-Venezuela that includes land reform, agricultural practice, biological use of inputs, development of native seeds, popular production organisations, financing, and distribution to consumers.

For example, biological labs are being created for pest control in agriculture in order to increase organic production of food. At the same time labs are created to produce microorganisms for natural fertilisers to reduce the imports of expensive fertilisers.

There is also a strong push to rescue endogenous foods to eliminate the dependency from the genetically modified varieties exported by large corporations and not adapted to the local environment. This is leading to the production of native seeds that are then used by farmers with their old agricultural traditions.

But while we praise Venezuela’s commitment to Chavez’s vision, we must strongly condemn the “starvation sanctions” imposed by the illegal US coercive measures. The use of food as a weapon cannot be accepted.

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Nino Pagliccia is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Rally in rejection of the U.S. destabilizing plan against Venezuela, 2019. | Photo: Twitter/ @codepink

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The extension of the nuclear arms agreement between Russia and the United States and the decision to stop directly supporting the war on Yemen may have been the only good news items to come out of Washington last week. The really bad news came when President Joe Biden warned Russia that “the days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions, interfering with our elections, cyber-attacks, poisoning its citizens, are over.” It was an empty threat full of innuendo that virtually guarantees four more years of Russiagate or something like it. It was an odd statement considering that it has been Washington doing all of the provoking during the Donald Trump administration, much of it instigated by Democrats who are still looking for a scapegoat for the defeat of Hillary in 2016.

The mainstream media hasn’t been reporting many second-tier stories because of the still playing out double impeachment saga combined with the lingering debate over who actually won the election. Whether Trump personally incited a riot or something worse depends on one’s point of view, but what is really sad to watch is the efforts being made by a “woke” Democratic Party leadership and a frenzied media to destroy Trump’s life and businesses even though he is no longer in office, a revenge scenario that goes well beyond previous political vendettas. Worse still, the attempts being made to render White House employees and Trump supporters unemployable or even try to send them to jail based on convoluted interpretations of legislation reflects a level of vindictiveness not seen since the Catiline Conspiracy in Republican Rome.

Well, the incident on January 6^th wasn’t exactly a replay of the storming of the Bastille, but as it is all we have it will have to make do. Were those folks wandering around inside the Capitol Building tourists who had gotten separated from their tour guide or were they confused citizens from the Dakotas who had a couple of stamps remaining on their hunting licenses allowing them to bag a Democrat or two? They would have been better advised to set up a couple of feeder bait sites under the Rotunda loaded with Benjamins and the Congress-critters would have arrived in droves. And that guy who stole Nancy Pelosi’s podium only had to announce that he was holding a Black Lives Matter meeting and good old Nancy would have arrived tout suite on her knees with an African kente cloth stole draped around her neck. Alas, we may never know the truth about what actually happened on that fateful day, but the speculation will keep us going for months more.

There is a definite paucity of actual fact-based news that might make sense to a third grader, particularly given the decline in American public education, which now only teaches about the holocaust and racism. Consequently, I have fallen into the habit of saving links to stories during the week and then deciding on the weekend which are worthy of special recognition for being particularly ridiculous.

There were some really absurd articles last week. A particularly fascinating story describes what is going on at the Pentagon, which is frantically sneaking more soldiers into Syria and canceling any reduction in force in Afghanistan until the situation stabilizes, a policy move by Biden that reverses one of the few good things that Trump initiated. Unfortunately, the withdrawal from Afghanistan should take another twenty years or so to finish.

But the really interesting development is the new mission of the U.S. Army, which will soon be halting training and other bellicose activity to ease the transition into a full-time military force dedicated to making sure that everyone observes diversity. It is a long overdue move that the entire nation can be proud of, plus the U.S. will as a result be made safer from the Chinese, Iranian and Russian threats. The tricky part is identifying those soldiers who think racist thoughts, even if they never perform a racist act, because they are guilty of not conforming to “woke world.” They will have to be identified by special trained psychologists before being dishonorably discharged and made unemployable as they are not fit to mix with decent people.

Paul Kersey reports some of the details, how the “Pentagon [has ordered] a ‘stand down’ in [the] next 60 Days” to identify and address the problem of extremists in the military. It should be observed that soldiers who kill civilians are not the extremists in question because killing is what soldiers are supposed to do. It is instead “white people in the U.S. Military who display an insufficient loyalty to Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Tolerance. [They] are [the] domestic enemy, and unworthy as individual[s] of defending our nation against the only threat our elite have united to defeat: that, of course, being whiteness.”

And for those apostatizing white supremacist civilians who don’t want to get left out when the diversity train rolls into their town, the Democratic Party is looking into setting up Truth Commissions to make sure that anyone who ever entertained a racist thought or used the “N” word will not be missed.

Make no mistake, an army that really knows what is important is surely great news. It will be an excellent return on the taxpayers’ trillion dollars annual investment, particularly as the Constitution was written by a bunch of slave holders and is no longer worth swearing an oath of allegiance to. But perhaps of more interest to foreign policy wonks is what is going on in some of the other Pentagon offices dedicated to finding new enemies so there will always be a supply of wars to fight after everyone in Afghanistan and Syria is exterminated.

Image on the right: The Washington Institute

As telling other nations how to behave backed up by the 101^st Airborne division has become a wonderful indoor board game in this age of Coronavirus-19, my favorite article for the past week has to be the news that Honest Joe Biden has appointed yet another Zionist harpy to his team of war planners in an apparent attempt to keep Nuland, Sherman, Haines, Rice, Power and Neuberger company. Her name is Dana Stroul and she will be running the Pentagon’s Middle East Desk, making her the senior policy official focused on that region. Indications are that her eagle eye will be fixed on those major malefactors Iran and Syria.

Stroul has been whisked away from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), where she has been the Shelly and Michael Kassen Fellow in the Institute’s Beth and David Geduld Program on Arab Politics. WINEP is the think tank founded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in an attempt to demonstrate that hatred of all of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East is somehow an American vital interest, so it is perhaps odd to consider that the organization would even allow Arabs to have politics. Stroul had worked at the Pentagon and had also co-chaired the Syria Study Group set up by Congress prior to landing at WINEP.

Stroul, who believes that there is a threat to the U.S. from “Iranian nuclear ambitions and support for terrorist groups throughout the region,” also has had some interesting ideas about what should be done to Syria, some of which was laid out in a final report that was presented to Congress in September 2019 by the Syria Study Group.

The report states that

“From the conflict’s beginning in 2011 as a peaceful domestic uprising, experts warned that President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal response was likely to have serious, negative impacts on U.S. interests. Given Syria’s central location in the Middle East, its ruling regime’s ties to terrorist groups and to Iran, and the incompatibility of Assad’s authoritarian rule with the aspirations of the Syrian people, many worried about the conflict spilling over Syria’s borders… The threats the conflict in Syria poses—of terrorism directed against the United States and its allies and partners; of an empowered Iran; of an aggrandized Russia; of large numbers of refugees, displaced persons, and other forms of humanitarian catastrophe; and of the erosion of international norms of war and the Western commitment to them—are sufficiently serious to merit a determined response from the United States. The United States and its allies retain tools to address those threats and the leverage to promote outcomes that are better for American interests than those that would prevail in the absence of U.S. engagement. The United States underestimated Russia’s ability to use Syria as an arena for regional influence. Russia’s intervention, beginning in 2015, accomplished its proximate aim—the preservation of the regime in defiance of U.S. calls for Assad to ‘go’—at a relatively low cost. Russia has enhanced its profile and prestige more broadly in the Middle East.”

One immediately notes the incoherence of the argument being made. To make U.S. presence in Syria palpable to the long-suffering American public, it is necessary to attempt to establish a threat against the United States even though in this case there is none. And the repeated citation of “interests” without credibly explaining what interests might compel invading and occupying a foreign country is completely lacking in any detail. Stroul also several times cites the heavy terrorist threat, ignoring the fact that the existing terrorists are being sustained by Israel and by the United States, while President Bashar al-Assad has the overwhelming support of most of the Syrian people. Reports are that Syrians are returning home after a refugee crisis caused by the United States and its allies. And we all know that the last refuge of a scoundrel is to play the Russian card, which Stroul does, as well as surfacing that perennial demon Iran. U.S. support of Israeli bombing attacks are also just fine in her opinion, even though they are a clear violation of the “international norms of war” that she pretends to defend.

Stroul inevitably supports U.S. retention and what she curiously refers to as “ownership” of the one third of Syria that is “resource rich.” That includes the Syrian oil producing region now occupied by U.S. troops as well as by what she euphemizes as “Syrian Democratic Forces.” She observes that it also includes the country’s best agricultural land, which, if denied to the government in Damascus, could be used as leverage to bring about regime change. Starving Syrians are not Stroul’s concern so she consequently opposes any form of international relief or reconstruction funding for the Syrian people and supports U.S. pressure on international lenders through the worldwide banking system to deny Damascus any money to rebuild.

So, the prize for the truly awful story of the week goes to the appointment of this monster daughter of AIPAC to head Pentagon planning for the Middle East, joining a sterling cast of characters at State Department and in the intelligence community. Also, if one includes the account of a diversified U.S. Army where soldiers will now be encouraged to snitch on each other over privately held views, one has to ask “Can it get any worse?” Judging from Joe Biden’s list of appointments so far, it will, yes it will.

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Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests.

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: From left to right: Amb. Frederic Hof, Vance Serchuk, Melissa Dalton, Dr. Kimberly Kagan, Dana Stroul of the Syria Study Group discuss the new report’s main findings and conclusions. Credit: U.S. Institute of Peace/ Flickr

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Newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche reported days ago that French security services alerted the Elysee last October about Turkey’s interference in the country’s Muslim community. The French newspaper reported about a strategy of infiltration by certain Turkish associative, educational and religious networks that have the objective, according to the security services, of not only controlling the one million people strong Turkish diaspora, but all 5.7 million Muslims in France. By interfering so strongly into the Turkish diaspora and Muslim community in France, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hopes to build support for his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in future elections and be able to influence French elections by being the voice for millions of Muslims in the country.

The report emerged at a precise moment. The bill on religious separatism is being debated in Parliament and the discussion focuses on the formation of a French Islam that is not subservient to external influences.

Erdoğan does not hide using a discourse of Political Islam aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood. In Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans he speaks of pan-Turkism, but elsewhere in the Muslim World he uses pan-Islamism to extend his influence. Erdoğan considers the Muslims of Europe as his subjects. It is recalled that on January 5, 2018 the Turkish leader publicly supported the French Council for Muslim Worship by declaring that “the Muslims of France are under my protection. Those who touch you, touch me.” Taking advantage of European weakness in dealing with extremism, Erdoğan intends to give Muslims a voice and a vision under his model.

From mosques to associations, there is powerful organization behind Turkey’s efforts to coercively control the Turks and Muslims of France. This organization is to indoctrinate new generations towards radical Islam and pan-Turkism. Turkey exercises a real power of attraction for many Muslims as it portrays itself as a dynamic country with huge economic and military ambitions that manages to oppose the West on questions relating to Islam whilst simultaneously being appeased by the West.

Erdoğan is now leading condemnations against France’s limited efforts to control and reform Islam. The Turkish president even launched an international boycott against all French products, in which several Muslim countries joined. This was in protest against French President Emmanuel Macron’s outrage against radical Islam following the beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty.

Due to its proximity to Germany, Turkish influence is especially strong in the Alsace-Lorraine region. According to Le Journal du Dimanche, several local elected officials are subservient to Ankara. Turkish authorities are taking advantage of this to establish their religious and community presence because of the special status the region enjoys. Alsace-Lorraine is not subject to the 1905 Law of Separation of Church and State. With this growing Turkish influence in France, local authorities are to blame for their immobility. Erdoğan, with the help of Turkish intelligence services, impose a right of scrutiny over the diaspora.

France is not alone in this penetration of Turkish influence. Not wanting to alienate the Turkish diaspora that mostly give their votes to her, Angela Merkel allows Erdoğan greater privileges in domestic affairs not afforded to most other foreign leaders. Erdoğan even went to the inauguration of the Grand Mosque in Cologne, a ceremony which attracted more than 20,000 Muslims.

However, returning to France, since the 1970’s, the teaching of language and culture of origin allowed the Turkish Ministry of Education to send their own textbooks to France which are full of Turkish and Islamist propaganda. There is no control by French authorities over these textbooks that are full of anti-Greek and anti-Armenian sentiment, as well as Islamist rhetoric.

Erdoğan also benefits from a multitude of Turkish and Islamic associations that aim to promote education in line with the Islamo-nationalist line of the AKP, according to the French newspaper. Recently, politicians have been debating the importance of training imams in France. Turkey, a follower of Political Islam, trains and controls many of the imams who preach in France. Today, 50% of imams in France are trained in Turkey and serve Turkish interests rather than French.

In addition, despite its dissolution by the Ministry of the Interior last November, Turkey continues to support the Far Right and once CIA Operation Gladio funded and supported Gray Wolves. This extremist group regularly calls for raids in Armenian neighborhoods in France. They conducted several such raids during last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Erdoğan does not hesitate to publicly show them his support by making their distinctive hand gesture.

Through the Qatari-funded Muslim Brotherhood ideology, Turkey continues to extend its influence via Islamic networks in France. Mosques, Qu’ranic schools, associations, and a whole range of organizations are part of Erdoğan’s project. In addition to financing its military interventions in Libya, Syria and Iraq, Qatar ensures that Turkey lacks nothing to support the Muslim Brotherhood ideal, including in France. This latest revelation will likely force Macron to take full control of Islam in his country, something that Erdoğan will surely claim is an attack against Islam in which he needs to defend against.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Does the US Still Have an Economy?

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, February 11 2021

People want to know where the economy is headed.  What they should be asking is does the US still have an economy?  My answer is no, it doesn’t.  I will explain why.

Contemporary Global Capitalism Is “Crony Capitalism”

By Rod Driver, February 11 2021

A full discussion of how rich countries developed would require a whole book, so I shall simply highlight a few basic principles. The world’s advanced nations have achieved their current level of development using what is known as a mixed economy. This has three main parts.

History: US Business Operations with Nazi Germany

By Shane Quinn, February 11 2021

The Third Reich’s destruction of the left, along with Hitler’s stated intention to preserve big business, was welcomed by corporate managers. Before Hitler had even come to power, his views had drawn approval abroad from leading industrialists; like the American tycoon Irénée du Pont.

Why Russia Is Driving the West Crazy

By Pepe Escobar, February 11 2021

Future historians may register it as the day when usually unflappable Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov decided he had had enough: “We are getting used to the fact that the European Union are trying to impose unilateral restrictions”.

Through the “Bolivar Act” U.S. Congressmen Intend to Tighten the Blockade Against Venezuela

By Internationalist 360, February 11 2021

On January 28th, a group of U.S. Congressmen, led by former Green Beret and now Republican Party legislator, Michael Waltz, introduced to the U.S. Congress a new bill dedicated to Venezuela entitled the “Bipartisan Banning Operations and Leases with Illegitimate Authoritarian Regime Act”.

How Ecuador’s US-backed, Coup-supporting ‘Ecosocialist’ Candidate Yaku Pérez Aids the Right-wing

By Ben Norton, February 11 2021

Ecuador’s presidential candidate Yaku Pérez supported coups in Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. His US-backed party Pachakutik and supposedly “left-wing” environmentalist campaign is being promoted by right-wing corporate lobbyists.

The US Space Force (USFF), New Domain to Pressure China?

By Ulson Gunnar, February 11 2021

The real problem with the US Space Force is not the concept behind its face-value creation or its stated mission, but with the inevitable abuse of this new branch of military service by the special interests that drive US foreign policy.

The Myth of the Good War: America in World War II. The Bombing of Dresden

By Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels, February 11 2021

In the night of February 13-14, 1945, the ancient and beautiful capital of Saxony, Dresden, was attacked three times, twice by the RAF and once by the USAAF, the United States Army Air Force, in an operation involving well over 1,000 bombers.

Red Alert Warning About Pfizer and Moderna COVID Inoculations

By Stephen Lendman, February 11 2021

Immunization is a “process by which a person becomes protected against a disease through vaccination.” The above is not what mRNA inoculations are designed to do. They’re something else entirely.

The Pharma-Med Cartel Consider the Immune System Their Competition

By Reggie Selwyn, February 11 2021

It’s been apparent for decades that Big Pharma hates natural vitamins and supplements with a passion. They consider them competition, and so they induce the media, government and public health officials to malign vitamins in every way they can.

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

By Lyn Redwood, February 11 2021

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

Ontario “Covid Measures” Are Destroying Our Public Health

By Mark Taliano, February 11 2021

Dr. Patrick Philips, who practices medicine in Englehart, Ontario, explains in an interview with MPP Randy Hillier, that current public health measures are harming the overall public health of Canadians.

Twenty Reasons Mandatory Face Masks are Unsafe, Ineffective and Immoral

By John C. A. Manley, February 11 2021

At an Oklahoma Press Conference, Dr. James Meehan, MD testified: “Reports coming from my colleagues all over the world are suggesting that the bacterial pneumonias are on the rise” as a result of moisture collecting in face masks.

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

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The US Space Force (USSF) is the newest branch of the US Armed Forces. Its personnel are referred to officially as “Guardians” versus “soldiers,” “sailors,” “airmen,” and “Marines” of other branches.

The USSF is a military service that organizes, trains, and equips space forces in order to protect US and allied interests in space and to provide space capabilities to the joint force. USSF responsibilities include developing Guardians, acquiring military space systems, maturing the military doctrine for space power, and organizing space forces to present to our Combatant Commands.

Organized into various “Deltas,” the USSF is tasked with developing space doctrine, monitoring the space domain, overseeing space electronic warfare, manning missile warning systems, overseeing cyberspace operations, controlling intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and conducting orbital warfare

The USSF’s “Delta 8″ now operates the United States’ Global Positioning System (GPS) as part of carrying out satellite communication and navigation warfare.

The concept of having a dedicated branch of the US Armed Forces monitoring the space domain for threats and developing capabilities to defend against those threats makes perfect sense, particularly at a time when space is becoming increasingly accessible and space-based capabilities for civil, economic and military applications become increasingly central to modern daily life.

Russia and China have their own services within their respective armed forces to do precisely this as well, with Russia having established the Russian Space Forces and China having created the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force.

The real problem with the US Space Force is not the concept behind its face-value creation or its stated mission, but with the inevitable abuse of this new branch of military service by the special interests that drive US foreign policy.

Protecting America or Preventing Others from Protecting Themselves From America? 

When the US Space Force talks about protecting its GPS capabilities from attack, it is not talking about a Russian or Chinese attack on GPS capabilities over the United States to disrupt applications essential for daily life in America.

It is actually talking about the disruption of GPS capabilities overseas in theaters of war the US is illegally involved in.

The National Interest in a 2019 article titled, “GPS Jammed: Russia Is Messing with America’s F-35s,” would claim:

Russian forces have been jamming GPS systems in the Middle East. The electronic-warfare campaign could affect US forces gathering in the region in advance of potential strikes on Iran. 

“Since last spring, pilots flying through the Middle East, specifically around Syria, have noted that their GPS systems have displayed the wrong location or stopped working entirely,” The Times of Israel reported in late June 2019.

Syria is a nation the US has illegally occupied for years. This is in addition to its military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and, as the article points out, its planned military aggression against Iran, all nations thousands of miles from America’s shores, and all nations that pose no direct threat to the US itself.

With the founding of the US Space Force in late 2019, and with the new armed forces branch overseeing America’s GPS capabilities, it is certain that stopping Russia or any other nation from disrupting these capabilities overseas will become part of its mission.

Thus the US Space Force is not actually protecting the United States, its people or its economy, but actually playing a role in preventing other nations around the globe from protecting themselves and their allies from US military aggression in places like Syria and capabilities used to carry out that aggression like GPS.

In the future, China will likely employ similar tactics to hinder the activities of the uninvited US military presence in places like the South China Sea and in or around the Taiwan Strait, and likewise the USSF will be utilized to prevent China from disrupting that uninvited military presence.

New Branch, New Domain to Target China

The US aerospace industry’s ties to the newly established US Space Force is essential.

Among the leading companies in that industry is Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

It was interesting to see Musk interact with US Air Force Lieutenant General John Thompson during the 2020 Air Warfare Symposium, and in particular, the latter’s reoccuring concern over America’s ability to maintain a competitive edge over China.

Musk described China as:

…a real interesting country, I have to say. The thing to appreciate about China is just that there’s a lot of really smart, really hard-working people there. And they’re gonna do a lot of great things.

He also noted:

The thing that will feel pretty strange is that the Chinese economy is going to be probably at least twice as big as the US economy. Maybe three times, but at least twice. Yeah, so, that assumes a GDP per capita still less than the US But since they have about four or five times the population, then it would only require getting to a GDP per capita of half the United States for their economy to be twice the size of ours. And as I’m sure people in this room know, the foundation of war is economics. 

And so if you if you have half the resources, of the counterparty, then you better be real innovative. If you’re not innovative, you’re gonna lose.

For Musk, it seems, it is not a matter of whether or not China would overtake the US, but a matter of how the US would remain competitive once it did.

China is a geographically enormous nation and possesses the largest population on Earth. If allowed to develop, it will inevitably surpass the US economically as well as militarily.

Remaining competitive doesn’t necessarily mean maintaining primacy. Yet by all accounts, from statements from the US military’s senior leadership to the corporate-funded think tank policy papers they echo in their talks, the US seeks primacy, not merely remaining competitive versus a larger and more powerful China. The US seeks to prevent China from ever becoming larger and more powerful in the first place. To do so will obviously involve the use of force, whether in the form of economic sanctions, trade warfare, hybrid warfare or actual warfare.

And it will be in this vein that the US Space Force will seek to use its capabilities to achieve this as part of a continued campaign of political, economic and military pressure aimed at China, its allies and at its ongoing development and in turn, at its ability to surpass the US economically and militarily.

The US Space Force will be tasked not with defending space-based infrastructure, but ensuring others, particularly Russia and China, cannot be defended from it and its use in US military aggression abroad.

And the orbital warfare capabilities the US Space Force is developing will not likely be used for defense or even retaliation as many would probably like to assume, but for the same sort of military aggression other US military branches carry out terrestrially.

Thus, the concept behind the US Space Force is sound, but the current path of US foreign policy ensures that its actual mission will drift far from both this concept and its stated mission, potentially impeding its development into a truly capable defensive branch of America’s armed forces, and instead disfigure it into another appendage of modern American hegemony.

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Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NEO

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Fine artist Jordan Henderson has just released his third painting exposing the COVID-19(84) deception. Today, in case you’ve forgotten, is COVID-19’s first birthday. The WHO made the term official on February 11, 2020 — making COVID-19 the horrific new acronym for the cold and flu season. How appropriate, therefore, to release this horrific new painting for its one year anniversary. The following is a interview I conducted with Jordan regarding Safe & Sanitized.

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John Manley: Why do you associate a face mask (which is promoted as a life saving miracle) with a skull (a long dead head)?

Jordan Henderson: The association of the face mask with the skull illustrates what COVID-19 restrictions really are: a cause of death, suffering and loss of freedoms. The people most likely to die of “COVID-19” are those who believe the official narrative. For example; they lock themselves away, live in fear, get a test, test positive, agree to a ventilator and are then killed by the ventilator.

JM: The mask appears not to merely be a face covering, but a gag. Can you speak more about this?

JH: The mask acts as a gag, because forced covering of the human face is a direct assault upon freedom of expression. It is nothing less than suppression of dissent, “Oh, you see through the lie, well you must act as though you believe in it. Under threat of fines and imprisonment, we order you to act like you believe the official lies, and we order you to force anyone entering your business to do the same.”

JM: Now, masks are common enough these days; what about the handcuffs?

JH: The handcuffs represent the lockdowns and restrictions on movement and travel. Blood is suggested through streaks of red paint underneath the handcuffs as a reminder of the very real deaths brought about by COVID-19 mandates. The blood is kept in the shadows, almost ignored; the same way the destruction caused by government mandates is ignored by the establishment media and figureheads.

JM: There’s nothing more sanitary than a bleached skull. Can you speak about the brilliant title you chose?

JH: The title Safe & Sanitized is intended as dark humour, for the purpose of illustrating the hypocrisy of the Medical Police State. Death, destruction, censorship, imprisonment, persecution, and the ensuing loss of health and freedom for the general population are carried out under the guise of “safety” and “sanitation”. 

Jordan using a mirror to explore different angles and hand positions to see what conveys the most emotion.

JM: You said you felt driven to paint this horrific image. What message are you trying to convey?

JH: My drive in creating this image was the desire to visually encapsulate the end goal of all COVID-19 policies — the subjugation of the general populace. The subjugation of a human or group of humans by another human or group of humans is the common denominator to those things universally regarded as evil; murder, torture, rape, genocide, and slavery, all involve one human or group of humans being forced under the authority of another human or group of humans.

JM: Despite the horror of it, there is a definite and striking beauty to the painting.

JH: While the subject matter is dark, the painting itself is meant to be aesthetically pleasing; hands, skulls, and blood, all have a beauty of their own. The beauty of these three elements (hands, the skull, and blood) hopefully remind the viewer of how marvelous human beings are, thereby increasing the viewer’s empathy for any human being forced under the authority of another.

JM: Thank you very much for taking the time to both paint it and answer my questions. Where can readers go to purchase the original or prints?

JH: The original is for sale at JordanHendersonFineArt.com. And prints, as well as stationary cards, T-shirts and other memorabilia, are available at jordan-henderson.pixels.com.

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John C. A. Manley has spent over a decade ghostwriting for medical doctors, naturopaths and chiropractors. Since March 2020, he has been writing articles that question and expose the contradictions in the COVID-19 narrative and control measures. He is also completing a novel, Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story. You can visit his website at MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca.

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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

***

People want to know where the economy is headed.  What they should be asking is does the US still have an economy?  My answer is no, it doesn’t.  I will explain why.

For a quarter century I have pointed out the destructive effect of moving American investment and jobs to China and other points abroad.  Offshoring served the interests of corporate executives and shareholders. The lower labor costs raised profits and, thereby, executive bonuses and the prices of the stocks, resulting in capital gains for shareholders.  

These benefits accrued to a small percentage of the population.  For everyone else these closely held benefits imposed huge external costs many times greater than the rise in profits.  The American manufacturing workforce was devastated, as was the tax base of cities, states, and the federal government. The middle class shrunk and the populations of St Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, South Bend and Gary Indiana, Flint Michigan and other cities declined as much as 20%. The hopes and aspirations of millions of Americans were crushed. Once thriving American cities became blighted. Supply chains and real estate values collapsed. (See Paul Craig Roberts, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism, Clarity Press, 2013)

As incomes fell for the bulk of the American population, incomes rose for the One Percent. Income and wealth gains have been concentrated at the top resulting in the United States today having one of the most unequal distributions of income and wealth in the world.

As the offshoring of high productivity, high value-added manufacturing jobs reduced American incomes, US aggregate domestic demand was impacted and economic growth fell.  The Federal Reserve expanded credit and substituted an increase in consumer debt for the missing growth in consumer income.  This aggravated the indebtedness that economist Michael Hudson correctly emphasizes is exhausting consumer income to pay debt service—mortgages, car payments, credit card and student loan debts—which leaves little or no discretionary income to drive economic growth. 

Hudson, who has been on the job of analyzing America’s eroding economy for a long time, emphasizes that the US economy is no longer a productive or industrial economy but a financialized economy in which bank lending is not used for new plant and equipment but for the financing of takeovers of existing assets in pursuit of interest, fees, and capital gains– what the classical economists called unearned income or “economic rent.”  In short, Hudson demonstrates that the American economy is no longer a productive economy.  It is a rent-seeking economy.

Hudson points out that as the economy is increasingly financialized, looting shifts to the privatization of public assets.  The examples are endless. In the UK the post office was privatized at a fraction of its value, along with public housing, transportation and British Telephone, resulting in huge private gains. The French also privatized public holdings. In Greece the municipal ports and water companies were privatized along with Greek protected islands. In the US, segments of the armed forces are privatized, along with prisons. Chicago sold 75 years of its parking meter fees to a private entity for one lump sum payment. Everywhere public assets, including services, are being sold to private interests.  In Florida, for example, the issuance of the annual vehicle license tag is privately provided. When there is nothing left to privatize, what will banks finance?

Hudson notes that the real economists, the classical ones, focused on taxing unearned economic rent, not labor income and productive activity.  Today’s neoliberal economists are unable to differentiate between economic rent and productive activity. Consequently, GDP analysis fails to reveal the economy’s transformation from a productive to a rentier economy. Hudson terms neoliberal economists “junk economists,” and I concur.  Essentially, they are shills for the financial sector and for the offshoring corporations who paid them to conflate job and investment offshoring with free trade.

I am convinced that if the entirety of neoliberal economics were erased nothing of value would be lost.  Economists, particularly academic economists, are in the way of truth. They live in a make-believe world that they created with assumptions and models that do not bear on reality.

I am familiar with universities and academic economics. I graduated from an engineering and scientific institution—Georgia Tech—and then was a graduate student in economics at the University of Virginia, University of California, Berkeley, and Oxford University. I had four Nobel prize-winners as professors. I have a Ph.D. in Economics. I have made contributions to major journals of economics and to others outside the field, 30 published articles altogether before I left academia. I served for years as a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy with the power to decide publication of submitted research. 

I have peer-reviewed books from Harvard University Press and Oxford University Press. I have debated Nobel prize winners before professional audiences. I served as a Wall Street Journal editor and as Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, and have had many university appointments.  Michael Hudson also has real world experience in major financial institutions, international organizations, and governments, as well as US and overseas professorships  and  contributions to academic publications in many languages.

In other words, we know what we are talking about. We have no interest to serve except truth. No one pays us to serve an agenda. 

But we are only two voices.

Two decades ago I was presented with the prospect of a large increase in amplification of my voice about the deleterious effects of offshoring.  In December 2003 I received a telephone call from US Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat, New York. Senator Schumer had been reading my columns in which I made the case that under the guise of free trade, jobs and investment were being moved offshore at the expense of US economic success. Senator Schumer shared my concern and asked if a Reagan Treasury official would agree to coauthor with a Democrat Senator an article for the New York Times raising the issue whether job offshoring was in America’s interest. 

Our article appeared on January 6, 2004.  Here it is.

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Second Thoughts on Free Trade

By CHARLES SCHUMER and PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

New York Times, January 6, 2004

“I was brought up, like most Englishmen, to respect free trade not only as an economic doctrine which a rational and instructed person could not doubt but almost as a part of the moral law,” wrote John Maynard Keynes in 1933. And indeed, to this day, nothing gets an economist’s blood boiling more quickly than a challenge to the doctrine of free trade.

“Yet in that essay of 70 years ago, Keynes himself was beginning to question some of the assumptions supporting free trade. The question today is whether the case for free trade made two centuries ago is undermined by the changes now evident in the modern global economy.

“Two recent examples illustrate this concern. Over the next three years, a major New York securities firm plans to replace its team of 800 American software engineers, who each earns about $150,000 per year, with an equally competent team in India earning an average of only $20,000. Second, within five years the number of radiologists in this country is expected to decline significantly because M.R.I. data can be sent over the Internet to Asian radiologists capable of diagnosing the problem at a small fraction of the cost.

“These anecdotes suggest a seismic shift in the world economy brought on by three major developments. First, new political stability is allowing capital and technology to flow far more freely around the world. Second, strong educational systems are producing tens of millions of intelligent, motivated workers in the developing world, particularly in India and China, who are as capable as the most highly educated workers in the developed world but available to work at a tiny fraction of the cost. Last, inexpensive, high-bandwidth communications make it feasible for large work forces to be located and effectively managed anywhere.

“We are concerned that the United States may be entering a new economic era in which American workers will face direct global competition at almost every job level — from the machinist to the software engineer to the Wall Street analyst. Any worker whose job does not require daily face-to-face interaction is now in jeopardy of being replaced by a lower-paid, equally skilled worker thousands of miles away. American jobs are being lost not to competition from foreign companies, but to multinational corporations, often with American roots, that are cutting costs by shifting operations to low-wage countries.

“Most economists want to view these changes through the classic prism of “free trade,” and they label any challenge as protectionism. But these new developments call into question some of the key assumptions supporting the doctrine of free trade.

“The case for free trade is based on the British economist David Ricardo’s principle of “comparative advantage” — the idea that each nation should specialize in what it does best and trade with others for other needs. If each country focused on its comparative advantage, productivity would be highest and every nation would share part of a bigger global economic pie.

“However, when Ricardo said that free trade would produce shared gains for all nations, he assumed that the resources used to produce goods — what he called the “factors of production” — would not be easily moved over international borders. Comparative advantage is undermined if the factors of production can relocate to wherever they are most productive: in today’s case, to a relatively few countries with abundant cheap labor. In this situation, there are no longer shared gains — some countries win and others lose.

“When Ricardo proposed his theory in the early 1800’s, major factors of production — soil, climate, geography and even most workers — could not be moved to other countries. But today’s vital factors of production — capital, technology and ideas — can be moved around the world at the push of a button. They are as easy to export as cars.

“This is a very different world than Ricardo envisioned. When American companies replace domestic employees with lower-cost foreign workers in order to sell more cheaply in home markets, it seems hard to argue that this is the way free trade is supposed to work.

“To call this a “jobless recovery” is inaccurate: lots of new jobs are being created, just not here in the United States.

“In the past, we have supported free trade policies. But if the case for free trade is undermined by changes in the global economy, our policies should reflect the new realities. While some economists and elected officials suggest that all we need is a robust retraining effort for laid-off workers, we do not believe retraining alone is an answer, because almost the entire range of “knowledge jobs” can be done overseas. Likewise, we do not believe that offering tax incentives to companies that keep American jobs at home can compensate for the enormous wage differentials driving jobs offshore.

“America’s trade agreements need to to reflect the new reality. The first step is to begin an honest debate about where our economy really is and where we are headed as a nation. Old-fashioned protectionist measures are not the answer, but the new era will demand new thinking and new solutions. And one thing is certain: real and effective solutions will emerge only when economists and policymakers end the confusion between the free flow of goods and the free flow of factors of production.

“Charles Schumer is the senior senator from New York. Paul Craig Roberts was assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy in the Reagan administration.”

Senator Schumer’s staff seemed to think that free trade was the problem because real world conditions had changed.  My position was that jobs offshoring was not free trade.  But I realized that any opening of the question was promising.

Our article in the New York Times had an extraordinary impact. The Brookings Institution, at that time an important liberal economic policy think tank that was home to former economic policy makers, called a Washington conference to hear us and examine our position. There was a panel with myself, Schumer, a former policymaker and the head of the US manufacturing lobby who could not figure out which side to be on.  C-Span gave the conference  live coverage and rebroadcast it a number of times.

Here is the video of the conference called in Washington to submit the argument by Schumer and myself to scrutiny:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?179821-1/us-trade-policy-global-economy 

click the video screenshot to access video

Schumer and I carried the day. Members of the audience came up afterwards, including World Bank economist Herman Daly, in support of my position that the destruction of the American manufacturing economy could not be reasoned away as a free trade result.

Senator Schumer had a sincere interest in what job offshoring was doing to his constituents.  He proposed that we continue our collaboration and write a second article for the New York Times. In those days the Times was still, partly, a newspaper rather than a total propaganda voice for the Establishment, and the Times assumed nevertheless that a Democrat Senator from New York and an Treasury Official who had been confirmed in office by the US Senate  were part of the establishment. 

The second column began and then suddenly went dead.  No response.  A telephone call revealed that the staffer with whom I was working was no longer there.  After discussing this with old Washington hands, I concluded that Schumer had not realized that he was threatening Wall Street’s interest in higher profits by opening the question of jobs offshoring and had received a good talking to.  

Wall Street Killed the Schumer/Roberts truth squad and protected the profits from job and investment offshoring.

This is what happens to elected officials when they attempt to represent the general interest rather than the special interests that finance political campaigns. The public interest is blocked off by a brick wall posted with a sign that says get compliant with the Establishment or get out of politics. Unless money is taken completely out of electoral politics, there will be no democracy.

Globalism serves to destroy sovereign and accountable government. In the US globalism destroyed the manufacturing middle class. Now Covid lockdowns are destroying the remainder of the middle class—family businesses.  Businesses have fixed costs.  When they cannot operate red ink mounts and the businesses fail.  The lockdowns together with jobs offshoring monopolize the economy in few hands.  This is not a theory.  It is what we are experiencing.  Feudalism is being resurrected.  A few lords and many serfs. The serfs will be dependent on the lords and will have no independence.

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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.

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

***

“We foreign bankers are in favor of free markets when we’re out to make a buck and believe in the state when we are about to lose a buck.” (Anonymous foreign banker(1)) 

The Success of Mixed Economies 

A full discussion of how rich countries developed would require a whole book, so I shall simply highlight a few basic principles. The world’s advanced nations have achieved their current level of development using what is known as a mixed economy. This has three main parts.  First, huge investment by the government in public services, such as education, healthcare and social safety nets. Second, a system of trade, where private businesses sell goods and services to each other, the public and the government. Third, government support for big business. This post will focus on this third part. The mainstream media tend to focus on the role of private businesses in creating wealth, whilst downplaying the other two parts. This is propaganda. As we shall see, the role of government is crucial. 

There is an additional reason for the success of advanced nations. That is, their role in ‘stealing’ from poor countries. I will not discuss that in this post.

The Biggest Welfare Scroungers are Big Business 

A subsidy is when a government provides some assistance to a business. This can take many forms. Giving a company a tax-break is a subsidy. If a government does not charge tax on aviation fuel, this is a subsidy to the airline industry. Purchases of weapons by the government subsidise many high-tech industries. Sending your soldiers to protect oil pipelines is a subsidy to the oil industry. When the US and British governments lend money to poor countries and insist that it has to be spent on exports from US or British companies, this is a subsidy to those companies. Government spending on research which leads to profitable products sold by private companies is a huge subsidy. Governments in rich countries have subsidised almost every major corporation at some point.(2)

It is estimated that the US government spends at least $800 billion dollars subsidising the biggest US corporations each year.(3) It has helped to finance the development of the aerospace, biotech, nuclear, electronics, synthetics, space communications, mineral exploration, computing and many other industries. The government, and therefore the taxpayer, covers much of the costs and takes many of the risks, then hands the profits to private companies. Many of the recipients of these subsidies dominate their industries, make big profits and pay large amounts to shareholders and senior executives. America’s oil, gas and mining corporations are among the most profitable in the world, yet they receive tax breaks and other subsidies worth billions of dollars. The big agricultural companies, particularly rice, wheat, corn, cotton and soybeans, receive some of the biggest subsidies, totaling approximately $30 billion each year in the US. One-tenth of the farms, usually the biggest, get three-quarters of the subsidies. Similarly, studies of European farming show that most of the subsidies go to a small number of the biggest farms.(4)

In Britain, a 2013 report entitled ‘The Great Train Robbery’(5) showed how private rail companies took big subsidies from the government and paid substantial amounts to executives and shareholders. The billionaire, Richard Branson, received almost £3billion in subsidies for the West Coast Line between 1997 and 2012. Shareholders took over £500 million in dividends. Without the subsidies, the companies would have lost money. In fact there are additional, hidden subsidies, that amount to £30 billion for all of the train companies.

Most advanced nations have similar systems of government support for big business. We saw this in banking, where banks in many countries were bailed out by their governments in 2008 because the financial system was in danger of collapsing, and some of the biggest companies were in danger of going bust due to their gambling and fraudulent activities in the previous few years. This is like an insurance policy valued at over $40 billion per year in the US (maybe much more), which allows the banks to take extreme risks, knowing that someone else will pay for it when it all goes wrong. Many of the world’s biggest businesses would have gone bust at some point in the past if they had not been bailed out by their government. The academic, Noam Chomsky, uses the expression ‘really existing capitalism’(6) to describe this system based on government support for big business. Others use the term ‘crony capitalism’.

Business as an Extension of Government 

The connection between governments and some of the biggest corporations is so strong that it can sometimes be hard to know where one ends and the other begins. We have already seen in earlier posts that personnel move seamlessly between business and government. The software that enables Google to search through trillions of items on the internet is the same technology that enables the US spy agency, the NSA, to illegally analyse trillions of items of electronic communications.(7) The US government provides huge assistance with research to help make US companies dominant, and government-to-government lobbying to enable them to gain a foothold in other countries. Many big companies obtain guaranteed contracts with the government. Noam Chomsky has explained that these contracts are yet another form of government subsidy.(8) This even involves funding things for which there is initially no demand, such as early electronic components, like transistors after world war 2. This is particularly noticeable with military contracts, aeroplanes, and technology companies. As we saw in earlier posts about the weapons industry, governments often overpay for these contracts by large amounts.

Chomsky has been writing and speaking about the role of government in supporting big business for many years, but has been mostly ignored by the mainstream media. However, Mariana Mazzucato wrote a book in 2013 called ‘The Entrepreneurial State’,(9) which has attracted mainstream attention. In it, she debunks the myth that private business is the source of most innovation, pointing out, for example, that in the US, 75% of new drugs come from state-funded investment and research.

Neoliberalism – Crony Capitalism is being used to destroy the US, Britain and many other countries 

The close relationship between government and corporations can take many forms. If governments choose to use their power to limit the worst excesses of business, then business can be forced to operate in a way that primarily benefits society. This has been the case for many years in some European countries, and perhaps Britain and the US were closer to this system during the years 1945-1970.

At the other extreme, government can be ‘captured’ by business. We have seen in earlier posts, about corruption and lobbying, that big companies bribe governments, particularly in the US, to manipulate policy. The extreme system that has developed is usually known as neoliberalism. The key aspects of neoliberalism are as follows:

• Huge global companies pursue their own profits, irrespective of the downsides to society.
• They have too much influence over politics, so the government helps them extract ever more wealth from the economy.
• They have the power to exploit customers, suppliers, staff, governments and the environment.
• They effectively operate outside the law. They are able to commit crime after crime with no punishment worse than a fine.

The US and Britain in the 21^st Century are examples of this type of extreme system, and some other advanced nations are heading in this direction. President Trump and his corporate cronies were openly rigging the economy to benefit themselves. In Britain in 2020, there was widespread evidence of corruption in the awarding of contracts for personal protective equipment in hospitals. The more neoliberal Britain and the US become, the more wealth the rich are able to extract, and the more problems we see. For example, millions of people were already using food banks before 2020, and that number has increased hugely during the Coronavirus lockdowns.(10) More and more people are finding it difficult to make ends meet, whilst the wealth of the world’s richest people is increasing dramatically.   

Even the most ardent supporters of capitalism, such as Milton Friedman, believed that companies had to operate without deception or fraud, and should conform to the basic rules of society according to the law and to ethical custom.(11) Mainstream commentators, such as the former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, have commented on how the relationship between the government and big business has changed for the worse.(12) The extreme focus on profit (which some people call the ‘greed economy’) is destroying our societies.

Extreme economic systems do not work 

All over the world, those countries that have neglected government provision of basic services have fared badly. Governments in South America and Africa were ‘encouraged’ to spend very little on basic services (discussed in later posts) with disastrous consequences for the poorest parts of their populations. The same is true in Greece, where the government has been forced to cut basic services (this is known as austerity) since 2010.(13)

Other countries that focused too much on the government control of the economy, whilst neglecting private businesses (sometimes described as communist) were only partly successful. Russia before 1989 is a good example. It provided education, healthcare, homes and jobs for almost everyone, but the variety of consumer goods available in Russia was much less than in Western nations. British and American television frequently showed Russians queuing for bread, but people in Russia in the 1980s were surprised to discover that there were homeless people in New York. They were so surprised that they thought it must be propaganda by their government.(14)

It was recognised many years ago that extreme economic systems do not work very well. In 1953 an influential report stated “Both capitalism and communism in their raw forms had failed.”(15) The evidence suggests that there is no single, best economic system. Each country’s economy is different from every other country, and any one country’s economy needs to evolve and adapt over time as circumstances change.

Benign Government and Industrialisation Is The Key 

Real wealth begins when governments ensure that everyone has food, a home, healthcare, education, energy, clean water and sanitation, social safety nets, a fire service, the rule of law and equal rights for everyone. There are then two main ideas that have enabled nations to become extremely prosperous in the last few hundred years. The first is industrialisation. This means replacing human and animal labour with machines. The second is specialisation. This means getting each worker to do a single task over and over again very efficiently, and is associated with production lines in factories. These ideas are not directly related to capitalism. They have all been used in communist countries. Private companies are very good at providing lots of consumer goods, and allow people to experiment with products and business ideas, but they are not the most important ingredient in the functioning of an advanced nation. As we will see in later posts, they have a poor track record in getting people out of poverty.

Mainstream Journalists and Economics Lecturers Don’t Understand that the Economic System in Britain and the US is Crony Capitalism 

When people use the term ‘capitalism’, they give the impression that it is a well-defined system. In fact it is a general term meaning the private (as opposed to government) ownership of business, and the right of those with money to make profits. There have been big debates about whether private businesses should be able to own essential industries such as the water supply, or whether those industries should be controlled by the government. There have also been debates about what the laws should be concerning how those businesses operate.

However, those debates tend to present private companies as separate from government, and to ignore the real-world role of governments helping those companies to make profits. Executives and shareholders of the biggest companies do not want you to understand how really existing capitalism works. They want you to believe that big companies are dynamic risk-takers who deserve immense rewards if they are successful. Most mainstream journalists (and many economics lecturers) writing about capitalism have fallen for this propaganda, and repeat it themselves with little questioning. They are aware that crony capitalism exists in other countries, but they fail to understand how widespread it is in the US and Britain.

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

Sources

Noam Chomsky, ‘Can human civilization survive really existing capitalism’, talk given at University College, Dublin, 2013, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uuYjUxf6Uk 

Notes

1) George Hatch,’Argentina’s banking woes aren’t likely to lead to system’s collapse, experts say’, Wall Street Journal, May 24, 1985 

2) Ruigrock and Van Tulder, cited in Deconstructing Laissez-Faire, at www-tech.mit.edu/V120/N1/col1guest.1c.html

3) Mark Zepezauer, Take The Rich Off Welfare

4) Crispin Dowler and Lawrence Carter, Common Agricultural Policy: Rich List receive millions in EU subsidies’, Greenpeace, 29 Sep 2016, at https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2016/09/29/common-agricultural-policy-millions-eu-subsidies-go-richest-landowners/

5) Aditya Chakrabortty, ‘The truth about Richard Branson’s Virgin Rail profits’, theGuardian, 10 Jun2013, at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/truth-richard-branson-virgin-rail-profits 

6) Noam Chomsky, ‘Can civilization survive really existing capitalism’, 2013 University College Dublin Philosophy Society, 3 April 2013, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uuYjUxf6Uk

Some writers have labeled this system as ‘corporatism’, although the exact meaning of the term is debated.

7) Julian Assange, When Google Met Wikileaks, 2014

8) Chomsky – talk Can human civilization survive really existing capitalism – 2013

9) Mariana Mazzucato, The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs Private Sector Myths, 2013

10) Danielle Zoellner, Americans join mile-long queues at food banks across the US as thousands face hunger during pandemic, Independent, 25 Nov 2020, at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-food-banks-thanksgiving-poverty-b1761426.html

https://www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/

11) Peter Prevos and Ian Watson, ‘Milton Friedman on Corporate Social Responsibility’, Lucid Manager, 16 July 2020, at https://lucidmanager.org/management/milton-friedman-corporate-social-responsibility/ 

12) Mark Carney, ‘How we get what we value – From Moral to Market Sentiments’, The Reith Lectures, at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000py8t

Mark cites Thomas Hobbes 

13) Oxfam, The True Cost of Austerity and Inequality: Greece case study, Sep 2013, at https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/cs-true-cost-austerity-inequality-greece-120913-en_0.pdf

14) Anelaukas, V. (1999) Discovering America As It Is, Clarity Press (For an insight into Russian perceptions of the US)

15) R. Dahl and C. Lindblom, ‘Politics, Economy and Welfare: Planning and Politico-Economic Systems Resolved into Basic Social Processes’, cited in David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, p.10

Featured image is from Black Agenda Report

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This article was originally published on Asia Times.

Future historians may register it as the day when usually unflappable Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov decided he had had enough:

We are getting used to the fact that the European Union are trying to impose unilateral restrictions, illegitimate restrictions and we proceed from the assumption at this stage that the European Union is an unreliable partner.

Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, on an official visit to Moscow, had to take it on the chin.

Lavrov, always the perfect gentleman, added, “I hope that the strategic review that will take place soon will focus on the key interests of the European Union and that these talks will help to make our contacts more constructive.”

He was referring to the EU heads of state and government’s summit at the European Council next month, where they will discuss Russia. Lavrov harbors no illusions the “unreliable partners” will behave like adults.

Yet something immensely intriguing can be found in Lavrov’s opening remarks in his meeting with Borrell: “The main problem we all face is the lack of normalcy in relations between Russia and the European Union – the two largest players in the Eurasian space. It is an unhealthy situation, which does not benefit anyone.”

The two largest players in the Eurasian space (italics mine). Let that sink in. We’ll be back to it in a moment.

As it stands, the EU seems irretrievably addicted to worsening the “unhealthy situation”. European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen memorably botched the Brussels vaccine game. Essentially, she sent Borrell to Moscow to ask for licensing rights for European firms to produce the Sputnik V vaccine – which will soon be approved by the EU.

And yet Eurocrats prefer to dabble in hysteria, promoting the antics of NATO asset and convicted fraudster Navalny – the Russian Guaido.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, under the cover of “strategic deterrence”, the head of the US STRATCOM, Admiral Charles Richard, casually let it slip that “there is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons, if they perceived a conventional loss would threaten the regime or state.”

So the blame for the next – and final – war is already apportioned to the “destabilizing” behavior of Russia and China. It’s assumed they will be “losing” – and then, in a fit of rage, will go nuclear. The Pentagon will be no more than a victim; after all, claims Mr. STRATCOM, we are not “stuck in the Cold War”.

STRATCOM planners could do worse than read crack military analyst Andrei Martyanov, who for years has been on the forefront detailing how the new hypersonic paradigm – and not nuclear weapons – has changed the nature of warfare.

After a detailed technical discussion, Martyanov shows how “the United States simply has no good options currently. None. The less bad option, however, is to talk to Russians and not in terms of geopolitical BS and wet dreams that the United States, somehow, can convince Russia “to abandon” China – US has nothing, zero, to offer Russia to do so. But at least Russians and Americans may finally settle peacefully this “hegemony” BS between themselves and then convince China to finally sit as a Big Three at the table and finally decide how to run the world. This is the only chance for the US to stay relevant in the new world.”

The Golden Horde imprint

As much as the chances are negligible of the EU getting a grip on the “unhealthy situation” with Russia, there’s no evidence what Martyanov outlined will be contemplated by the US Deep State.

The path ahead seems ineluctable: perpetual sanctions; perpetual NATO expansion alongside Russia’s borders; the build up of a ring of hostile states around Russia; perpetual US interference on Russian internal affairs – complete with an army of fifth columnists; perpetual, full spectrum information war.

Lavrov is increasingly making it crystal clear that Moscow expects nothing else. Facts on the ground, though, will keep accumulating.

Nordstream 2 will be finished – sanctions or no sanctions – and will supply much needed natural gas to Germany and the EU. Convicted fraudster Navalny – 1% of real “popularity” in Russia – will remain in jail. Citizens across the EU will get Sputnik V. The Russia-China strategic partnership will continue to solidify.

To understand how we have come to this unholy Russophobic mess, an essential road map is provided by Russian Conservatism, an exciting, new political philosophy study by Glenn Diesen, associate professor at University of Southeastern Norway, lecturer at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, and one of my distinguished interlocutors in Moscow.

Diesen starts focusing on the essentials: geography, topography and history. Russia is a vast land power without enough access to the seas. Geography, he argues, conditions the foundations of “conservative policies defined by autocracy, an ambiguous and complex concept of nationalism, and the enduring role of the Orthodox Church” – something that implies resistance to “radical secularism”.

It’s always crucial to remember that Russia has no natural defensible borders; it has been invaded or occupied by Swedes, Poles, Lithuanians, the Mongol Golden Horde, Crimean Tatars and Napoleon. Not to mention the immensely bloody Nazi invasion.

What’s in a word? Everything: “security”, in Russian, is byezopasnost. That happens to be a negative, as byez means “without” and opasnost means “danger”.

Russia’s complex, unique historical make-up always presented serious problems. Yes, there was close affinity with the Byzantine empire. But if Russia “claimed transfer of imperial authority from Constantinople it would be forced to conquer it.” And to claim the successor, role and heritage of the Golden Horde would relegate Russia to the status of an Asiatic power only.

On the Russian path to modernization, the Mongol invasion provoked not only a geographical schism, but left its imprint on politics:  “Autocracy became a necessity following the Mongol legacy and the establishment of Russia as an Eurasian empire with a vast and poorly connected geographical expanse”.

“A colossal East West”

Russia is all about East meets West. Diesen reminds us how Nikolai Berdyaev, one of the leading 20^th century conservatives, already nailed it in 1947: “The inconsistency and complexity of the Russian soul may be due to the fact that in Russia two streams of world history – East and West – jostle and influence one another (…) Russia is a complete section of the world – a colossal East West.”

The Trans-Siberian railroad, built to solidify the internal cohesion of the Russian empire and to project power in Asia, was a major game-changer: “With Russian agricultural settlements expanding to the east, Russia was increasingly replacing the ancient roads who had previously controlled and connected Eurasia.”

It’s fascinating to watch how the development of Russian economics ended up on Mackinder’s Heartland theory – according to which control of the world required control of the Eurasian supercontinent. What terrified Mackinder is that Russian railways connecting Eurasia would undermine the whole power structure of Britain as a maritime empire.

Diesen also shows how Eurasianism – emerging in the 1920s among émigrés in response to 1917 – was in fact an evolution of Russian conservatism.

Eurasianism, for a number of reasons, never became a unified political movement. The core of Eurasianism is the notion that Russia was not a mere Eastern European state. After the 13^th century Mongol invasion and the 16^th century conquest of Tatar kingdoms, Russia’s history and geography could not be only European. The future would require a more balanced approach – and engagement with Asia.

Dostoyevsky had brilliantly framed it ahead of anyone, in 1881:

Russians are as much Asiatics as European. The mistake of our policy for the past two centuries has been to make the people of Europe believe that we are true Europeans. We have served Europe too well, we have taken too great a part in her domestic quarrels (…) We have bowed ourselves like slaves before the Europeans and have only gained their hatred and contempt. It is time to turn away from ungrateful Europe. Our future is in Asia.

Lev Gumilev was arguably the superstar among a new generation of Eurasianists. He argued that Russia had been founded on a natural coalition between Slavs, Mongols and Turks. The Ancient Rus and the Great Steppe, published in 1989, had an immense impact in Russia after the fall of the USSR – as I learned first hand from my Russian hosts when I arrived in Moscow via the Trans-Siberian in the winter of 1992.

As Diesen frames it, Gumilev was offering a sort of third way, beyond European nationalism and utopian internationalism. A Lev Gumilev University has been established in Kazakhstan. Putin has referred to Gumilev as “the great Eurasian of our time”.

Diesen reminds us that even George Kennan, in 1994, recognized the conservative struggle for “this tragically injured and spiritually diminished country”. Putin, in 2005, was way sharper. He stressed,

the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. And for the Russian people, it was a real drama (…) The old ideals were destroyed. Many institutions were disbanded or simply hastily reformed…With unrestricted control over information flows, groups of oligarchs served exclusively their own corporate interests. Mass poverty started to be accepted as the norm. All this evolved against a background of the most severe economic recession, unstable finances and paralysis in the social sphere.

Applying “sovereign democracy”

And so we reach the crucial European question.

In the 1990s, led by Atlanticists, Russian foreign policy was focused on Greater Europe, a concept based on Gorbachev’s Common European Home.

And yet post-Cold War Europe, in practice, ended up configured as the non-stop expansion of NATO and the birth – and expansion – of the EU. All sorts of liberal contortionisms were deployed to include all of Europe while excluding Russia.

Diesen has the merit of summarizing the whole process in a single sentence: “The new liberal Europe represented a British-American continuity in terms of the rule of maritime powers, and Mackinder’s objective to organize the German-Russian relationship in a zero-sum format to prevent the alignment of interests”.

No wonder Putin, subsequently, had to be erected as the Supreme Scarecrow, or “the new Hitler”. Putin rejected outright the role for Russia of mere apprentice to Western civilization – and its corollary,  (neo) liberal hegemony.

Still, he remained quite accommodating. In 2005, Putin stressed, “above all else Russia was, is and will, of course, be a major European power”. What he wanted was to decouple liberalism from power politics – by rejecting the fundamentals of liberal hegemony.

Putin was saying there’s no single democratic model. That was eventually conceptualized as “sovereign democracy”. Democracy cannot exist without sovereignty; so that discards Western “supervision” to make it work.

Diesen sharply observes that if the USSR was a “radical, left-wing Eurasianism, some of its Eurasian characteristics could be transferred to conservative Eurasianism.” Diesen notes how Sergey Karaganov, sometimes referred to as the “Russian Kissinger”, has shown “that the Soviet Union was central to decolonization and it mid-wifed the rise of Asia by depriving the West of the ability to impose its will on the world through military force, which the West had done from the 16^th century until the 1940s”.

This is largely acknowledged across vast stretches of the Global South – from Latin America and Africa to Southeast Asia.

Eurasia’s western peninsula

So after the end of the Cold War and the failure of Greater Europe, Moscow’s pivot to Asia to build Greater Eurasia could not but have an air of historical inevitability.

The logic is impeccable. The two geoeconomic hubs of Eurasia are Europe and East Asia. Moscow wants to connect them economically into a supercontinent: that’s where Greater Eurasia joins China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). But then there’s the extra Russian dimension, as Diesen notes: the “transition away from the usual periphery of these centers of power and towards the center of a new regional construct”.

From a conservative perspective, emphasizes Diesen, “the political economy of Greater Eurasia enables Russia to overcome its historical obsession with the West and establish an organic Russian path to modernization”.

That implies the development of strategic industries; connectivity corridors; financial instruments; infrastructure projects to connect European Russia with Siberia and Pacific Russia. All that under a new concept: an industrialized, conservative political economy.

The Russia-China strategic partnership happens to be active in all these three geoeconomic sectors: strategic industries/techno platforms, connectivity corridors and financial instruments.

That propels the discussion, once again, to the supreme categorical imperative: the confrontation between the Heartland and a maritime power.

The three great Eurasian powers, historically, were the Scythians, the Huns and the Mongols. The key reason for their fragmentation and decadence is that they were not able to reach – and control – Eurasia’s maritime borders.

The fourth great Eurasian power was the Russian empire – and its successor, the USSR. A key reason the USSR collapsed is because, once gain, it was not able to reach – and control – Eurasia’s maritime borders.

The US prevented it by applying a composite of Mackinder, Mahan and Spykman. The US strategy even became known as the Spykman-Kennan containment mechanism – all these “forward deployments” in the maritime periphery of Eurasia, in Western Europe, East Asia and the Middle East.

We all know by now how the overall US offshore strategy – as well as the primary reason for the US to enter both WWI and WWII – was to prevent the emergence of a Eurasian hegemon by all means necessary.

As for the US as hegemon, that would be crudely conceptualized – with requisite imperial arrogance – by Dr. Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski in 1997: “To prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and keep the barbarians from coming together”. Good old Divide and Rule, applied via “system-dominance”.

It’s this system that is now tumbling down – much to the despair of the usual suspects. Diesen notes how, “in the past, pushing Russia into Asia would relegate Russia to economic obscurity and eliminate its status as a European power.” But now, with the center of geoeconomic gravity shifting to China and East Asia, it’s a whole new ball game.

The 24/7 US demonization of Russia-China, coupled with the “unhealthy situation” mentality of the EU minions, only helps to drive Russia closer and closer to China exactly at the juncture where the West’s two centuries-only world dominance, as Andre Gunder Frank conclusively proved, is coming to an end.

Diesen, perhaps too diplomatically, expects that “relations between Russia and the West will also ultimately change with the rise of Eurasia. The West’s hostile strategy to Russia is conditioned on the idea that Russia has nowhere else to go, and must accept whatever the West offers in terms of “partnership”. The rise of the East fundamentally alters Moscow’s relationship with the West by enabling Russia to diversify its partnerships”.

We may be fast approaching the point where Great Eurasia’s Russia will present Germany with a take it or leave it offer. Either we build the Heartland together, or we will build it with China – and you will be just a historical bystander. Of course there’s always the inter-galaxy distant possibility of a Berlin-Moscow-Beijing axis. Stranger things have happened.

Meanwhile, Diesen is confident that “the Eurasian land powers will eventually incorporate Europe and other states on the inner periphery of Eurasia. Political loyalties will incrementally shift as economic interests turn to the East, and Europe is gradually becoming the western peninsula of Greater Eurasia”.

Talk about food for thought for the peninsular peddlers of the “unhealthy situation”.

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Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Dr. Patrick Philips, who practices medicine in Englehart, Ontario, explains in an interview with MPP Randy Hillier, that current public health measures are harming the overall public health of Canadians.

At first glance, this appears to be counter-intuitive, since public health measures should improve public health, but in reality, public health “Covid Measures” are currently a threat to everyone’s health.

How is that?

Philips explains that the government’s singular focus on COVID means that other determinants of health, including social determinants, are being neglected and denied to the point that our overall health is suffering dramatically.

During lockdowns, surgical and dental procedures have been postponed or cancelled. Cancer screenings have been postponed or cancelled. Consequently, explains Philips, people are presenting, as an example, with late stage cancer, which under normal conditions, would have been detected and treated earlier. Similarly, people, from fear of contracting COVID, are waiting too long to address cardiac issues.

Hospital emergency services have been under-utilized, explains Hillier, and there were fewer diagnostic tests, and fewer Doctor visits between March and June of 2020.

Dr. Philips adds that ICU units have also been under-utilized.

Philips explains that whereas children have practically NO RISK of dying from COVID, he has seen vast increases in depression, anxiety, and suicidality amongst children. Likewise, elderly patients are suffering from isolation and depression, and are losing their will to live.

Whereas Public Health is focusing almost exclusively on COVID, with its fear-mongering propaganda and seriously flawed statistics, Philips explains that at the same time it is failing to address measures that would improve public health — and COVID outcomes. It is failing, for example, to address obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and myriad other factors that contribute to public health outcomes.

Exercise, diet, sunshine, Vitamin D, and social activities all contribute to health and well-being. They also mitigate risks from COVID.

Following the advice of “experts” says Philips, is the lowest form of evidence. Instead, data should be assessed against opposing data, and a meta-analysis should be conducted by competent authorities. Decisions should be based upon the meta-analysis. Currently, opposing views and data are being heavily censored by Mainstream Everything.

Current government measures, which violate our constitutional rights to assemble and protest and present alternate information, are all toxic in terms of our public health. Unsound public health diktats, an off-shoot of the censorship, have become a danger to our collective Public Health.

See the full interview here.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. Visit the author’s website at https://www.marktaliano.net where this article was originally published.

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Ecuador’s presidential candidate Yaku Pérez supported coups in Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. His US-backed party Pachakutik and supposedly “left-wing” environmentalist campaign is being promoted by right-wing corporate lobbyists.

Ecuador’s February 7 presidential election concluded in a surprise: The quick count published by the country’s National Electoral Council appeared to show a little-known candidate named Yaku Pérez Guartambel in second place, securing a narrow victory over right-wing candidate Guillermo Lasso, a banker with significant influence in the country.

Most polls had predicted that the presidential race would boil down to two presidential candidates, who could hardly have been more different: On one side was the conservative banker Lasso, who had the backing of Ecuadorian elites and the United States, and had unsuccessfully run for president twice before; while on the other was a youthful left-wing economist, Andrés Arauz, who follows in the footsteps of socialist former President Rafael Correa and wants to return to his Citizens’ Revolution.

But while polling consistently showed him coming in third place, Yaku Pérez stayed in the race until the end. And unlike Lasso, Pérez didn’t claim fidelity to the right-wing; he ran what was marketed as a progressive environmentalist campaign.

Pérez, an Indigenous leader from Ecuador’s party Pachakutik, purported to be the true left-wing option in the election, condemning Arauz and the socialist Correista movement he represents for being insufficiently pure. But Pérez’s political record suggests he is a Trojan horse for the left’s most bitter enemies.

The support Pérez apparently has from the US embassy reflects his dubious role. Immediately after the election, when Ecuador’s National Electoral Council (CNE) had still not officially published results determining who would go to the presidential run-off in April, Pérez said the US embassy called him and assured he would be the second-place candidate.

🚨La Embajada de #EEUU llamó a ⁦@yakuperezg⁩ a darle los resultados y confirmar que pasaba a segunda vuelta! ⁦@CarlosVerareal⁩ lo confirma! ¿Ese es el rol de ⁦@JoeBiden⁩ en #DecideEcuador y asumió como información oficial el candidato de ⁦@PKnacional18⁩ ? pic.twitter.com/wvSWGmqeCH

— Ruta Krítica (@RutaKritica) February 9, 2021

Pérez has viciously attacked other progressive movements in Latin America, supporting right-wing US-backed coups targeting Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, and demonizing those countries’ leftist governments as “racist.”

His political views fuse ultra-leftist, anarchistic critiques of existing left-wing states with an objectively right-wing political agenda. And his opposition to state power is deeply opportunistic. While Pérez harshly criticizes China, he has simultaneously pronounced he “will not think twice” about signing a trade deal with the United States.

Pérez’s ostensibly progressive ideology is filled with contradictions. While the Correista candidate Arauz has proposed giving $1000 checks to one million working-class Ecuadorian families, Pérez has attacked the plan on the grounds that poor citizens would spend all the money on beer in one day.

And while Pérez has criticized the current government of Ecuador and protested against its right-wing, US-backed President Lenín Moreno — who has an approval rating of just 8 percent, and is thus politically poisonous for all of the country’s electoral candidates — Pérez previously praised the corrupt and authoritarian leader as “a good man.”

Another Indigenous leader in Ecuador, Leonidas Iza, publicly warned that right-wing activists and members of the banker Guillermo Lasso’s conservative CREO party are in Pérez’s inner circle and are advising him.

#ATENCIÓN | @LeonidasIzaSal1 advierte que hay gente cercana a CREO y a la derecha, que están dentro del círculo de Yaku Pérez: “Ya he sido claro con qué propuestas no estamos de acuerdo y que apuntalan a ciertos sectores alrededor del Dr. Yaku Pérez”.
Vía: @UnCafeConJJ pic.twitter.com/GARs7WmV3i

— Pichincha Comunicaciones (@pichinchauniver) February 8, 2021

The party of Yaku Pérez, Pachakutik, identifies as “ecosocialist” and claims to represent Ecuador’s Indigenous communities. But like the candidate that represents it, the party employs left-wing rhetoric to paper over regressive goals.

Pachakutik is closely linked to NGOs funded by Washington and EU member states. The party’s leaders have been trained by the US government-funded National Democratic Institute (NDI), a CIA cutout that operates under the auspices of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

The NED publicly lists more than $5 million in grants for NGOs in Ecuador just in the years from 2016 to 2019. Much of this money has bankrolled anti-Correa opposition groups like Pachakutik and its allies.

Pachakutik is the political arm of the Indigenous confederation CONAIE, which helped lead protests against Ecuador’s former President Correa, forming an unspoken alliance with the country’s right-wing oligarchs in a bid to destabilize and overthrow the socialist president.

In fact, CONAIE and Pachakutik played a significant role in a violent US-backed 2010 coup attempt, supporting treasonous police that turned against the elected Correista government, kidnapped the president, and came close to undemocratically removing Correa from power.

In 2012, a co-founder of Pachakutik and former leader of CONAIE, Auki Tituaña, went so far as to form an open alliance with right-wing presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso, announcing that he would run as the banker’s vice president. In response, CONAIE expelled him.

CONAIE has internal divisions, some more right-wing and some more left-wing. The CONAIE leaders Leonidas Iza and Jaime Vargas helped lead October 2019 protests against neoliberal reforms imposed by sitting President Lenín Moreno. Pérez was noticeably not a leader of these anti-neoliberal demonstrations. But in general CONAIE has been a significant voice of opposition to Correismo.

Lasso is not threatened by the “ecosocialist” rhetoric of Pérez and Pachakutik; he seems keenly aware that the label is a marketing plot. The banker publicly declared before the February 7, 2021 vote that, if Pérez made it to a second round, Lasso would gladly support Pérez to defeat the Correistas.

The banker’s endorsement is unsurprising when one considers that, back in 2017, before he changed his name from Carlos to Yaku, Pérez himself supported Lasso’s presidential bid.

Carlos Pérez Guartambel, before he changed his name to Yaku in August 2017

Pachakutik’s ties to Washington are extensive. One of its most prominent former members is Fernando Villavicencio, an Ecuadorian journalist who spearheaded a disinformation campaign targeting journalist Julian Assange, peddling discredited but deeply damaging claims about the Wikileaks publisher through the major British newspaper The Guardian.

Villavicencio’s anti-Correa activism also appears to have been funded by the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy.

Villavicencio served as an advisor for Pachakutik National Assembly member Cléver Jiménez, who helped lead the 2010 coup attempt against Correa.

Yaku Pérez held a public demonstration in support of Villavicencio and Jiménez when Correa sued them for defamation for spreading blatant fake news about him.

Pachakutik even has links to Ecuador’s National Electoral Council (CNE), which runs the elections, and which was taken over and deeply politicized by the US-backed Moreno government. After purging all pro-Correista officials from the CNE, Moreno selected a former Pachakutik member of the National Assembly, Diana Atamaint, to serve as president of the electoral council.

Under Atamaint’s leadership, the CNE put up many obstacles to prevent the leftist Correista movement from being able to freely participate in the election, blocking Correa’s attempt to run as vice president and even banning Andrés Arauz’s political party.

Before joining Pachakutik and being appointed head of Ecuador’s top electoral body, Atamaint worked with the World Bank, a notorious US government-backed institution that has imposed devastating neoliberal shock therapy across Latin America. Atamaint oversaw the World Bank’s initiatives in her country, including its so-called “Development Project for Indigenous and Black Peoples of Ecuador.”

Pachakutik’s tactics echo those of Nicaragua’s Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS), another fringe US-backed party that played a leading role in a violent 2018 coup attempt against the Central American nation’s democratically elected Sandinista government. Like Pachakutik, the MRS is supported by the US government and works closely with Western-funded NGOs. Both groups act as though they are principled left-wing critics of popular leftist movements, when in reality they form de facto political alliances with right-wing oligarchs.

Then there is Pérez’s wife Manuela Picq, a French-Brazilian academic, herself a prominent anti-Correista activist and opponent of leftist governments in Latin America who was deported by Correa in 2015. Her opposition work in Ecuador has been funded by NGOs bankrolled by Western governments.

Although she is today a liberal specialist on sexuality and gender studies, Picq previously worked for Florida’s Republican government and was involved in unsuccessful negotiations of a neoliberal US trade agreement in Latin America, which leftist leaders condemned as “colonial.”

A January poll of Ecuador’s presidential candidates, showing Andrés Arauz with 43.22%, Guillermo Lasso with 25.54%, and Yaku Pérez with 19.87%

The tactics of Pérez, his partner Picq, and his party Pachakutik mirror another campaign in South America that exploited ostensibly left-wing forces on behalf of right-wing ends.

During the lead-up to the US-backed coup against Bolivia’s democratically elected socialist government in 2019, NGOs that claimed to support environmentalist causes participated in a disinformation operation to demonize then-President Evo Morales, the first Indigenous president in Bolivia’s history, himself a strong supporter of environmental protections.

Regime-change activists from organizations funded by the US and European governments accused the Morales administration of fueling fires in the Amazon rainforest that were most concentrated in Brazil, where far-right President Jair Bolsonaro proudly branded himself “captain chainsaw.”

Yaku Pérez and Pachakutik play a similar role in Ecuador, attacking popular leftist forces from the left, thereby opening up space for the right-wing to advance.

As in Bolivia, where Western environmental groups like Extinction Rebellion helped support the 2019 coup on the grounds of green concerns, self-declared anarchists from the ostensibly progressive organization are heaping praise on Pérez.

Extinction Rebellion is joined in its praise for the marginal pseudo-left figure by right-wing corporate lobby groups like the Americas Society and Council of the Americas (AS/COA), which is funded by planet-destroying fossil fuel corporations, weapons manufacturers, and banks that have a vested interest in trying to stop the Correistas from returning to power.

“Left-wing” support for right-wing coups in Latin America

Yaku Pérez Guartambel says he wants Ecuadorians to use fewer cars and plant more trees. With campaign photos often showing him riding a bicycle at rallies, Perez’s image seems custom tailored to appeal to the sensibility of Western green activists.

Pérez is especially critical of the Correista movement for its reliance on extraction. He has proposed an end to mining in Ecuador and a restriction of oil extraction.

Ecuador is a developing, formerly colonized country and thus relatively poor compared to Global North imperialist nations. But it has an advantage: large oil and mineral reserves.

These resources have been key to the political and economic program of Correa and his followers, who used them to turbocharge development of Ecuador, fund popular social programs, and invest billions of dollars in universal healthcare, high-quality education, and advanced infrastructure.

Yet the supposed progressive appearance of Pérez’s political program ends with his environmental policies. When it comes to international politics, he has shown himself to be deeply right-wing.

And while Pérez uses his Indigenous Kañari heritage to claim to represent Ecuador’s Native communities, many are in fact strongly against him and his party.

Indigenous outrage against Pérez especially grew when he supported the US-backed military coup in Bolivia in November 2019.

In October 2020, Evo Morales’ Indigenous-majority Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party won the election in a landslide, defeating the US-backed coup regime. Numerous Ecuadorian Indigenous leaders were invited to the inauguration of MAS President Luis Arce, but Pérez was not. When asked why, it was made clear that Pérez was shunned because he had supported the coup.

Even before the violent regime-change operation, Pérez was a harsh critic of Morales, accusing him and Correa of “authoritarianism, machismo, extractivism, and populism.” Pérez flatly refused to recognize the legitimacy of Evo’s government.

In 2017, Pérez attacked Evo again, tweeting, “His ignorance is encyclopedic. Evo is biologically Indigenous; in terms of his identity he whitewashed and colonized himself and doesn’t feel or understand the Native cosmovision.”

Enciclopédica su ignorancia Evo biológicamente es indígena, identitariamente se blancó colonizó no siente ni comprende la cosmovivencia runa https://t.co/19WujAico0

— Yaku Pérez Guartambel (@yakuperezg) May 27, 2017

After backing the coup, Pérez went silent about Bolivia, saying nothing as the junta, led by racist Christian extremists, massacred Indigenous protesters they dehumanized as “satanic.”

But the coup in Bolivia is not the only US-led regime-change campaign in Latin America that Yaku Pérez has supported.

In November 2016, Pérez praised the US-backed soft coup that removed Brazil’s left-wing Workers’ Party government from power, while endorsing a right-wing “lawfare” (legal warfare) campaign that had targeted Argentina’s progressive President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Pérez also openly called for Ecuador’s leftist President Correa and Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolás Maduro to be overthrown.

“Corruption ended the governments of Dilma [Rousseff] and Cristina,” Pérez tweeted approvingly. “Now all that’s missing is for Rafael Correa and Maduro to fall. It is just a matter of time.”

La #Corrupción acabó al gob d Dilma y Cristina; ahora falta q caigan @MashiRafael y Maduro. Solo es cuestión d tiempo https://t.co/6JPpgBicZM

— Yaku Pérez Guartambel (@yakuperezg) November 15, 2016

Pérez condemned the socialist governments of Correa in Ecuador and Maduro in Venezuela as “colonial, ethnocidal, and racist.” And he denounced the elected left-wing governments in Venezuela and Argentina as “authoritarian, extractivist, and corrupt.”

No habido gobierno en Ecuador tan colonial etnocida y racista q @MashiRafael y será algo parecido su sucesor @Lenin como Maduro en Venezuela https://t.co/jxS4BvxcOD

— Yaku Pérez Guartambel (@yakuperezg) December 2, 2016

Pérez resorted to the kind of superficial anti-Venezuela rhetoric favored by the Latin American right-wing once again on the day of the February 7 election. In a friendly interview with a conservative media outlet, Pérez denounced the leading leftist presidential candidate, stating, “Rafael Correa, as Chávez did giving power to Maduro, today he is trying to give power to Andrés Arauz. Arauz is the Maduro of Ecuador.”

#EcuadorElige | "Rafael Correa, como hizo Chávez de entregar el poder a Maduro, hoy él pretende entregar el poder a Andrés Arauz. Arauz es el Maduro del Ecuador": @yakuperezg candidato a la Presidencia de Ecuador https://t.co/CRHZkuP4FN pic.twitter.com/TjNCPrMM2I

— NTN24 (@NTN24) February 7, 2021

In 2017, when Brazil was ruled by the unelected neoliberal coup government of Michel Temer, Pérez publicly expressed hope that former left-wing Presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff would be arrested, alongside Correa and his former Vice President Jorge Glas. (Ecuador’s US-backed Lenín Moreno government did arrest Glas and throw him in prison on bogus charges, as part of an authoritarian crackdown on leftist Correista politicians.)

En #Brasil están peces gordos Lula y Dilma curioso en #Ecuador todavia nada #juicio a @MashiRafael y @JorgeGlas.La justicia tarda pero llega https://t.co/RIUjVx033O

— Yaku Pérez Guartambel (@yakuperezg) June 9, 2017

In the same vein, Pérez supported a brutal US-backed coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018.

After right-wing extremists, with support from Washington, spent months murdering, torturing, and terrorizing supporters of the socialist Sandinista Front, Pérez responded by blaming all of the violence on Nicaragua’s elected left-wing government.

“Who would have thought that the Sandinistas that before fought against the dictatorship are now shooting their people,” Pérez wrote in October 2018.

Nicaragua es singular desde el 19 abril cerca d 500 muertos, 558 presos políticos, pueblo vigilado por paramilitares a Rosen d OrtegaMurillo. Quien pensaría q los Sandinistas q antes luchaban contra la dictadura ahora estos disparan a su pueblo pic.twitter.com/LHtI7DKqYv

— Yaku Pérez Guartambel (@yakuperezg) October 30, 2018

Everything Pérez has said about Ecuador’s neighbors shows that, if he were to take power, he would help Washington and the region’s right-wing oligarchs wage war against the so-called Pink Tide, the wave of leftist governments that won power in Latin America starting in the early 2000s.

Friendly ties with the US government

While Yaku Pérez Guartambel has no problem demonizing revolutionary left-wing governments in Latin America as “colonial, ethnocidal, and racist,” he is curiously silent about the US government’s massive human rights violations.

That is because Pérez has fostered cozy ties with Washington, while advancing its agenda in his country.

Before running for president, Pérez served as the prefect for Ecuador’s Azuay province, whose capital, Cuenca, has become a major hub for US expats.

Entire communities of North Americans exist in Cuenca, speaking only English and paying for everything in US dollars (which have been the official currency of Ecuador since 2000 dollarization, following a 1999 economic crash overseen by former Economic Minister Guillermo Lasso, now the major right-wing candidate in the 2021 election).

In June 2019, just as the Donald Trump administration’s new representative in Ecuador, Michael J. Fitzpatrick, was sworn in, Pérez publicized his meeting with the US ambassador in Cuenca.

Yaku Pérez with US Ambassador to Ecuador Michael J. Fitzpatrick in June 2019

A month later, Pérez attended a celebration marking Independence Day in the United States, again welcoming the new US ambassador. He posed for a photo smiling in front of an illuminated US flag.

Yaku Perez celebrating United States Independence Day and the swearing in of the new US ambassador in July 2019 in Cuenca, Ecuador

During his presidential campaign, despite garnering little support from the Ecuadorian public, Pérez has found an eager audience from the ambassadors of France and Germany.

Hoy en #Quito, nos reunimos con Jean Baptiate Chauvin Embajador de #Francia y Philipp Schaver Embajador de #Alemania en #Ecuador, hablamos de como generar trabajo y desarrollo para nuestra gente del #Azuay y el país, disminuyendo afectaciones al medio ambiente. pic.twitter.com/TSs2agJVlB

— Yaku Pérez Guartambel (@yakuperezg) September 10, 2020

US-backed “ecosocialists” ally with right-wing in coup attempt against Rafael Correa

The deployment of ostensibly progressive “environmentalist” talking points to destabilize left-wing governments in Bolivia, Venezuela, Mexico, and beyond was developed over a decade ago, to weaken the democratically elected government of Ecuador’s former socialist President Rafael Correa.

To undercut Correa, the United States and Western European governments funded civil society groups in Ecuador that claimed to support environmental causes and indigenous rights, but ended up serving as tentacles of the right-wing opposition.

Throughout their tenures in office, Ecuador’s Correa and Bolivia’s Evo Morales faced heavy opposition to their ambitious infrastructure initiatives. Environmentalist and indigenous groups, many supported by the United States, initiated widespread protests in 2011 to try to stop the construction of a large highway in Bolivia, with similar demonstrations to obstruct mining projects in Ecuador in 2012.

Cables from the intelligence firm Stratfor, known as the “shadow CIA,” that were published by WikILeaks show that the US government contractor was carefully monitoring anti-Correa protests, and specifically named Pérez Guartambel, then known as Carlos Pérez, in 2011.

The most extreme attempt at destabilizing Correa’s government came with a violent US-backed coup attempt on September 30, 2010. Defectors from the Ecuadorian police and military occupied the parliament, blocked major streets, took over state institutions, and effectively kidnapped Correa.

Five people were killed in the attempted putsch, and hundreds were wounded. Ecuador’s opposition nearly succeeded in removing the elected president from power.

One of the main organizations involved in this coup attempt was the Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE). CONAIE is an indigenous organization that advances an ultra-leftist, anarchist-inspired politics that is deeply suspicious of the state and industrial development, even if the government is led by a democratically elected socialist.

CONAIE took a hardline position against Correa, hammering him constantly and demanding his removal. This undercut Correa’s support from leftists abroad and drove criticism of his Citizens’ Revolution movement.

What CONAIE did not acknowledge in its constant attacks on Correa was that its political wing was heavily supported by the US government.

Indeed, CONAIE’s de facto political arm is the party Pachakutik, whose 2021 presidential candidate is Yaku Pérez.

During the September 2010 coup attempt, Pachakutik published an open call for Correa to be removed from power, expressing public support for the police and soldiers who had defected. Pachakutik sent out a press release accusing Correa of a “dictatorial attitude,” and Pachakutik leader and National Assembly member Cléver Jiménez “called on the indigenous movement, social movements and democratic political organizations to form a single national front to demand the exit of President Correa.”

The Pachakutik press release stressed that “Jiménez backed the struggle of the country’s public servants, including the police troops who have mobilized against the regime’s authoritarian policies.”

Journalist Eva Golinger later showed how Pachakutik had been supported by the US government’s National Democratic Institute (NDI), a subsidiary of the NED regime-change umbrella that is loosely affiliated with the Democratic Party and acts as a cutout for the CIA.

A 2007 NDI document showed that Pachakutik had been directly trained by the US government’s NDI, along with activists from Venezuela’s anti-Chavista opposition parties Acción Democrática and Primero Justicia, as well as Mexico’s right-wing National Action Party (PAN).

A 2007 document showing how the US government’s National Democratic Institute (NDI) trained the Ecuadorian opposition group Pachakutik

CONAIE and Pachakutik do not represent all Indigenous communities in Ecuador. There are major political divisions, and some communal organizations and leaders support Correismo.

The United States has a history of backing specific Indigenous organizations in order to divide Native communities. This strategy is far from new. During Washington’s terror war on Nicaragua in the 1980s, for instance, the CIA supported leaders from Nicaragua’s Miskito community in order to undermine the revolutionary Sandinista government.

The New York Times reported in 1986, “Some Indian leaders said they fear that their people could become like the Hmong and Meo tribesmen in Asia – indigenous people drafted into a war by the C.I.A. and later abandoned.”

Today the Miskitos remain politically divided, but there are some Nicaraguan Native organizations and leaders who support Sandinismo, just as there are Ecuadorian Indigenous groups that support Correismo.

In a 2019 report, Ecuadorian-Canadian writer Joe Emersberger exposed CONAIE’s role as a Trojan horse for the right-wing.

Virgilio Hernandez, a leader from Ecuador’s left-wing Correista movement who was forced into asylum in Mexico’s embassy following a brutal crackdown by the US-backed Lenín Moreno government, explained to Emersberger:

Since about the end of the 1990s and the beginning of this century I would say what is evident in CONAIE is that a current became dominant that we’d call a ‘conservative indigenist’ current that has put everything into what they call the ‘ethnic cause’ and left aside the causes of social movements and the left in the country. That explains … that in the last presidential campaign they openly supported the candidate of the oligarchy and the banks, Guillermo Lasso. It is very clear for almost two decades they lost course and have been useful to the oligarchic groups that have always rabidly opposed Rafael Correa and the Citizens Revolution.

Non-Indigenous anti-Correa activist from Indigenous party spreads disinformation against Julian Assange

One of the co-founders of Pachakutik, who is not indigenous, Fernando Villavicencio, played a major but under-acknowledged role in the Russiagate conspiracy that consumed official Washington during the Trump era.

Villavicencio is an Ecuadorian opposition activist and journalist who dedicated years of his life to destroying Rafael Correa. Besides his work with Pachakutik, Villavicencio established an anti-Correa media outlet to spread disinformation against the leftist president.

Villavicencio hated Correa so much that he publicly called for the United States to impose sanctions on Ecuador to punish his government, and said he would lobby the US Senate to do so. (This led Correa to dub Villavicencio a “traitor.”)

In 2018, Villavicencio went on to co-author a highly dubious report in the major British newspaper The Guardian, alongside its Russiagate-promoting reporters Luke Harding and Dan Collyns, accusing WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange of holding secret meetings with Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Una de mis mayores experiencias periodísticas fue trabajar durante meses la investigación sobre Assange con los colegas del diario británico The Guardian, Luke Harding, Dan Collins y con la joven periodista Cristina Solórzano de @somos_lafuente pic.twitter.com/IQbZwAkKNx

— Fernando Villavicencio (@VillaFernando_) December 2, 2018

WikiLeaks strongly denied the report, calling it a complete fabrication and launching a legal fund to sue The Guardian over the story.

The Guardian removed Villavicencio’s byline from the article, even as the Ecuadorian activist boasted on Twitter that he had been a co-author and the apparent source of the questionable claims.

La reunión entre Lenín Moreno y Paul Manafort y las visitas a Assange del exgerente de campaña de Trump, están en la agenda del fiscal Robert Mueller que investiga una presunta conspiración para filtrar los mails de Hillary Clinton. Aquí la versión impresa del diario The Guardian pic.twitter.com/etdqeWCRXx

— Fernando Villavicencio (@VillaFernando_) November 28, 2018

Villavicencio also runs a website that publishes constant questionable materials demonizing Correa and WikiLeaks. He calls it La Fuente – Periodismo de Investigación, or The Source – Investigative Journalism.

This publication appears to be funded by the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA front founded by the Ronald Reagan administration to push regime-change in foreign socialist countries.

In its database, the NED has listed annual $65,000 grants for a media outlet in Ecuador that is “Promoting Investigating Journalism,” using a description that is almost identical to the about page on Villavicencio’s website La Fuente.

Ecuadorian opposition activist and Guardian contributor Villavicencio runs an "investigative journalism" site that churns out nonstop propaganda against Correa, the left, and @WikiLeaks.

He does not disclose his funding, but this NED (US gov) grant description looks very similar pic.twitter.com/XDOloHNIP5

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) December 18, 2018

Villavicencio frequently faced legal troubles when Correa was president. He and Pachakutik National Assembly member Cléver Jiménez, for whom Villavicencio served as an advisor, were accused of helping to hack Correa’s emails and then publishing them to hurt the Ecuadorian president — charges they denied.

Correa took Villavicencio and Jiménez to court for spreading false, defamatory claims about him and accusing the president of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” for quelling the September 30, 2010 coup attempt.

Yaku Peréz helped organized public demonstrations in support of Villavicencio and Jiménez. Pérez condemned Correa as a “caudillo” over the case, and in 2017 held a protest outside of the appeals court, which he called a “court of injustice.”

Aprestamos a la audiencia d recurso d revisión en corte d injusticia caso cleverjimenez fernando Villavicencio y carlos Figueroa pic.twitter.com/0eUf5K96Tu

— Yaku Pérez Guartambel (@yakuperezg) July 6, 2017

Villavicencio went on to leave Pachakutik in 2017. In the 2021 election, he was a National Assembly candidate running with the center-left Socialist Party of Ecuador, another fringe anti-Correa group that officially broke all ties with Marxism, calling itself social democratic, and has often found itself in alliance with the right-wing.

Husband of Western government-linked, NGO-backed anti-Correa academic Manuela Picq

Yaku Pérez’s longtime partner is also a prominent opponent of Correismo who has previously worked for the US government and whose activism has been funded by NGOs bankrolled by Western governments.

In 2013, Pérez married Manuela Picq, a French-Brazilian academic who specializes in Indigenous, sexuality, and gender studies, and who, like her husband, is a staunch critic of leftist governments in Latin America who supported the US-backed coup in Bolivia in 2019.

Picq works closely with regime-change-lobbying NGOs, and is infamous in Ecuador for her anti-Correa activism.

Yaku Pérez with his wife, anti-Correa activist Manuela Picq, in 2015

Picq played a significant role in 2015 protests against President Correa, which were often very violent. She was arrested at a demonstration in August, and her visa was cancelled and she was deported from Ecuador.

With support from the European Union and billionaire-funded NGOs, Picq turned her deportation case into a scandal, portraying herself as a victim and using it to attack Correa and demonize his elected socialist government as a chronic human rights violator.

Picq was allowed to return in Ecuador in 2018, under the right-wing US-backed government of Lenín Moreno.

And while Yaku Pérez and Picq claim to be critics of Moreno, after he entered power, a video interview shows that Picq called on Ecuadorians to vote in a referendum that handed Moreno absolute power.

Before she became an academic, Manuela Picq worked with right-wing US government institutions. According to her professional CV, in 2003, Picq served as a “foreign affairs specialist” in the Office of International Relations for Florida’s Republican Governor Jeb Bush.

That same year, Picq served as a Miami-based “co-coordinator for the participation of civil society organizations” for the Trade Ministerial for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a neoliberal agreement pushed aggressively by the US government.

The left-wing governments in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia opposed the FTAA. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called it a “tool of imperialism” that would help Washington further exploit and dominate the region.

It was in fact in rejection of the FTAA that Venezuela and Cuba in 2004 founded by the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty, or ALBA-TCP, to integrate Latin America’s economies together, excluding the United States, and strengthen their sovereignty.

Ecuador joined the ALBA under President Correa in 2009. His membership in the organization was one of the reasons for the US-backed coup attempt targeting him in 2010. Ecuador’s right-wing US-backed Moreno government went on to withdraw from the ALBA in 2018.

Manuela Picq’s CV, showing her work for the Florida government and Free Trade Area of the Americas

According to her CV, Picq has worked since 2015 with Front Line Defenders, an NGO funded by the European Union, numerous Western European governments, Taiwan, anti-communist billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, and the CIA cutout the Ford Foundation.

In 2016, Picq was rewarded for her anti-Correa activism in Ecuador with a “Human Rights Defender” grant from ProtectDefenders.eu, a soft-power instrument funded by the European Union that weaponizes human rights to push regime change in foreign nations and advance the EU’s economic interests.

In 2018, the publication Global Americans dubbed Manuela Picq one of the “20 New Public Intellectuals in the Americas.” As The Grayzone previously reported, Global Americans is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a regime-change arm of the United States that acts as a CIA cutout, and the website boasted of the NED’s role in “laying the groundwork for insurrection” during a bloody US-backed coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018.

Today, Picq is a professor of “Latinx and Latin American Studies” at Amherst College in the United States. She is author of books with titles like “Queering Narratives of Modernity,” “Sexualities in World Politics,” and “Sex and Tongue in International Politics.”

Picq has also taught for years at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, one of Ecuador’s most elite schools.

Before establishing her professional academic career, Picq got her start as a postdoctoral fellow in the “Study of Democracy in Latin America” at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a US government-funded think tank that has a revolving door with the State Department and intelligence agencies, and is physically located in the US government’s Ronald Reagan Building.

From the United States, Picq continues writing anti-Correista articles for liberal media outlets and the regime-change-lobbying NGO NACLA.

And like her partner Yaku Pérez, Manuela Picq has aggressively attacked other leftist governments in Latin America and supported US-backed coup attempts. (In 2019, she also called for Western governments to make a “no fly zone” in northeastern Syria.)

Before a US-backed soft coup removed Brazil’s elected government from power in 2016, Picq published articles criticizing its developmental projects.

Picq has expressed support for the right-wing opposition in Nicaragua, demonizing the elected leftist Sandinista government as a “patriarchal macho rapist anti-women state.” (In reality Nicaragua has the highest level of gender equality in all of Latin America, and the fifth-best in the entire world.)

In September 2019, in the lead-up to the US-backed coup in Bolivia, Picq published an outlandish article preposterously accusing the country’s first and only ever Indigenous President Evo Morales of carrying out an “ecocide” and “genocide.” This helped fuel a smear campaign against Morales, setting the stage for the violent putsch.

Evo Morales’ ecocide is a genocide https://t.co/gIEEwYcaIT

— Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (@chgsumn) September 26, 2019

Mere days before the coup, Picq then joked on Twitter that she had “wet dreams” fantasizing about overthrowing Evo Morales.

Wet dreams from midia ninja….. falta o Evo na lista pic.twitter.com/49NtMOM4qy

— Manuela Picq (@manuelapicq) October 29, 2019

Then when the coup was being carried out in November, Picq spread absurd disinformation, writing, “Sisters from the Indigenous base in Bolivia are denouncing massive violence by groups from the MAS [ruling Movement Toward Socialism party] — not only houses of the opposition being burnt, there is also a network and rapes in the streets. There is fear that Evo is launching a civil war with his militias.”

Hermanas de las bases indígenas en #Bolívia denuncian violencia masiva por grupos del #MAS – no solo casas de oposición quemadas, hay más red e violaciones en las calles. Se teme que Evo esté armando una guerra civil con sus milicias

— Manuela Picq (@manuelapicq) November 11, 2019

The work of Pérez and Picq shows how Western governments can use ostensibly left-liberal activists, academics, and NGOs to push their imperial interests, destabilizing socialist states in Latin America in the guise of purportedly protecting the environment, Indigenous communities, and human rights.

Right-wing corporate lobby group AS/COA promotes Yaku Pérez’s campaign

Articles by anarchist-oriented US environmentalist organizations like Extinction Rebellion leave readers with the impression that Yaku Pérez Guartambel is Ecuador’s best choice for the left.

But a look at some of Pérez’s most high-profile promoters, including powerful right-wing corporate lobby groups, illustrates an ulterior agenda.

On February 1, the US website Americas Quarterly published a puff piece praising the third-place candidate, titled “Yaku Pérez: The New Face of Ecuador’s Left?”

The article spread misleading disinformation demonizing Rafael Correa, trumpeting, “Pérez said he offers such voters an alternative to the ‘authoritarian and corrupt left’ of Correa.”

Americas Quarterly said it conducted a survey of a dozen analysts who “ranked Pérez further to the left than Arauz.”

The website also happily pointed out, “On foreign policy, Pérez has said he is open to a trade deal with the United States and has called out China’s ‘aggressive policies around extractivism and human rights.’”

Author Brendan O’Boyle shared the piece promoting “the anti-Correa, ‘ecological left’ that he represents.”

NEW: I spoke to @yakuperezg about his unlikely bid to become Ecuador's first indigenous president and the anti-Correa, "ecological left" that he represents.

Hope you'll take a look!https://t.co/6wz2DdeAmh

— Brendan O'Boyle (@BrenOBoyle) February 1, 2021

So what exactly is Americas Quarterly? Is it a left-liberal publication that promotes environmentalism and Indigenous rights?

On the contrary: Americas Quarterly is an arm of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA), a right-wing lobby group funded by most major US corporations.

AS/COA has played an important role in backing coups against progressive governments in Latin America and propping up unpopular neoliberal regimes.

AS/COA’s list of corporate members is a Who’s Who of the most powerful companies on the planet, many of which profit from destroying the environment and waging war, such as Amazon, Apple, BlackRock, Boeing, Caterpillar, Chevron, Chiquita, Exxon Mobil, Ford, GE, Goldman Sachs, Google, JP Morgan, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Walmart.

AS/COA’s corporate members

So why would an organization funded by these mega-corporations, which normally supports right-wing politicians across Latin America, suddenly promote a left-wing candidate in Ecuador? And why would it have us believe that Yaku Pérez is in fact even more left-wing than Andrés Arauz and the Correista movement?

The answer is that Pérez does not truly represent the left; he is an insidious vehicle for Washington’s interests in Ecuador. AS/COA has sought to falsely portray Pérez as the left-wing alternative to Correismo because it recognizes that he would serve their interests if he somehow managed to win, and is splitting the left by simply staying in the race, making a second round more likely.

It is for the same reason that right-wing banker Guillermo Lasso has said he would support Pérez.

The United States is desperate to prevent the socialist wave that washed across Latin America during the first decade of the 21st century from coming back. And in Washington’s bid to stop the tide, “ecosocialist” figures like Yaku Pérez are perfect tools.

*

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

All images in this article are from The Grayzone unless otherwise stated

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

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On January 28th, a group of U.S. Congressmen, led by former Green Beret and now Republican Party legislator, Michael Waltz, introduced to the U.S. Congress a new bill dedicated to Venezuela entitled the “Bipartisan Banning Operations and Leases with Illegitimate Authoritarian Regime Act”.

Today, Congressman Waltz introduced the bipartisan Banning Operations and Leases with Illegitimate Authoritarian Regime Act, or the BOLIVAR Act, that will prohibit government contracting with persons that have business operations with the Maduro regime. pic.twitter.com/sdw2RO0OhY

— Congressman Waltz Press (@RepWaltzPress) January 28, 2021

In an act of cynicism, the creators and promoters of the law tendentiously and symbolically established the contradictory short title of “BOLIVAR Act”, its acronym in English.

The immediate precedent dates back to 2019, when Senator Rick Scott, obsessive opponent of the Venezuelan Government since his years as Governor of Florida, sponsored together with Marco Rubio and Waltz himself the Venezuelan Restriction on Contracting Act, which at that time did not even pass to a vote in the plenary.

It should be noted that the bill reached the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, where the now Vice President Kamala Harris was a member, and that through a report they justified that legislation.

Rick Scott promoter of the Venezuelan Contracting Restriction Act (2019 – S 1151)

Scott is one of the most active operators in the anti-Venezuelan lobby, a character who has been in charge of pressuring the U.S. Government to intensify the unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela, accompanied by Rubio and the fugitive from national justice Carlos Vecchio.

He rejoices about it in his web portal rickscott.senate. gov, when he highlights his impressions after the signing of the Executive Order that imposed the economic embargo on Venezuela in August 2019: “I have been asking the [then] [Trump] Administration to use all available options, including an embargo,” commented the Republican senator referring to the fact that months earlier, during that same year, he urged Mike Pompeo and Steven Mnuchin, the then Secretaries of State and Treasury respectively, the implementation of stricter “sanctions” against Cuba, Venezuela and their international allies.

The focus of the new mutation of the title in the bill (“Contracting Restriction”) alludes to another operation of the well-known plan to make impossible the financial transactions of the Venezuelan State with any entity, subject or company prominent in international trade. According to the document, the purpose is to prohibit the head of the U.S. Government from contracting persons who have commercial operations with the “Maduro regime”.

Who are the promoters of the proposal?

Most of the U.S. congressmen in the House of Representatives who are pushing the legislative proposal against Bolivarian Venezuela belong to the representation of Florida districts.

Although on this occasion Rick Scott does not appear in the list because he is a senator, it is important to mention part of his dossier as the original promoter of the iniquitous project.

Scott is implicated in the largest Medicare fraud in the United States, when he was CEO of the health care company Columbia/Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). That controversial matter gravitated to the FBI investigation, later made public in 1997, in which the company in question admitted to felony billing and fraudulent practices three years later. Most of these events occurred under Scott’s leadership.

According to Sun Sentinel columnist Randy Schultz, Columbia/HCA gave kickbacks to doctors to refer patients to make them look sicker than they were, so Medicare would pay more.

With that attitude of false concern for Venezuela and a questionable track record, Scott used the Fifth Amendment (part of the U.S. Bill of Rights that guarantees certain protections to a person accused of a crime or involved in a legal proceeding) 75 times for this case and walked away from the company with $300 million in stock and a $5.1 million severance package.

Now, who is Michael Waltz?

• He served for 20 years in the U.S. Army Special Forces, known as the Green Berets, participating in the invasions of Afghanistan and other missions of interference in the Middle East and Africa.
• He then went on to serve in the White House as a counterterrorism advisor to then Vice President Dick Cheney (a noted neoconservative) during the George W. Bush administration.
• Waltz voted for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans in the United States.
• On February 1, he signed a petition to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to reconsider his possible plans to close the Guantanamo prison.
• He is president of METIS, a firm dedicated to advising and strategizing for the U.S. defense, national security and intelligence community.
• He is also a co-founder and partner in an international consulting firm, Askari Associates, which provides consulting and strategic advisory services to foreign governments.
• At the end of 2019, he stated that he was promoting the plan to create the zone of distension or strip on the Colombian-Venezuelan border, managed by the Lima Group with support from the U.S. armed forces.
• Likewise, he added a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to prohibit the U.S. Department of Defense from signing contracts with companies working with the Venezuelan State.

Waltz’s discursive and repetitive line on Venezuela is no surprise, nor is the list of co-sponsors joining him on the bill. Congressmen such as Debbie Schultz and Mario Diaz-Balart are a case in point, as they put forward the idea of labeling Venezuela as a terrorist state.

Each one of the members of that clique is in sync with the interests of the anti-Venezuelan lobby in Miami, without half measures.

Some implications of the Bolivar Act

The new U.S. legislative project takes the character of “bipartisan”, while Congressman Waltz commented that said instrument is the road map that the rest of the countries in the world should take as an example. In addition, he made the worn-out call that the United States must use all means to eliminate any financing mechanism of the “Maduro regime”.

The United States has a history of using “humanitarian aid” as a weapon of war against the Bolivarian Republic and unscrupulous financing of the Venezuelan opposition (Photo: Image capture).

Within the pantomime in which they wrap the subject of “sanctions”, postulating some supposed exceptions that in the end are not taken into account or are an ordinary play on words to the legal sound of the congressmen, the bill adds a couple of points, little specified, which refer to the exception on the shipments of “humanitarian aid”, of course, under the conditions and schemes that the U.S. administration considers.

Under the guise of “humanitarian aid”, the U.S. Government through agencies such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have channeled funding to the Venezuelan anti-Chávez leadership in order to stimulate the strategy of “regime change” in Venezuela.

A fraction of that amount was transferred to Julio Borges, Carlos Vecchio and Lilian Tintori in September/2019, as announced by Mark Green, director of the agency pic.twitter.com/mb0iMWTFQG

– Sures Organization (@SuresDDDHH) January 18, 2020

La #USAID informó que ha entregado 654 millones de dólares a la oposición del gobierno de #Venezuela para derrocarlo

Una fracción de ese monto fue transferido a Julio Borges, Carlos Vecchio y Lilian Tintori en septiembre/2019, tal como anunció Mark Green, director de la agencia pic.twitter.com/mb0iMWTFQG

— Organización Sures (@SuresDDHH) January 18, 2020

The #USAID reported that it has delivered $654 million to the opposition #Venezuela government to overthrow it.

On the other hand, and in light of what characterizes that proposed law, when mention is made of “business operations,” it refers to engaging in commerce in any form, including the acquisition, development, maintenance, possession, sale, lease, or operation of equipment, facilities, personnel, products, services, personal property, real property, or any other apparatus of business or commerce.

The “BOLIVAR Act” intends to deepen the blockade against Venezuela (Photo: Archive)

Based on this, it is evident, firstly, that the oil and service companies in that sector at an international level should cease their operations with Venezuela or should triangulate in order to avoid the attacks of the US blockade.

But not only that: the companies must choose whether to do business with Venezuela or with the oil companies of the United States, taking into consideration both monetary and sanction retaliations. However, what is striking about this description is its breadth, since it covers any commercial dynamics, including the acquisition of drugs, medical supplies or even vaccines. Not to mention the food sector. And the same premise applies: companies must decide between doing business with the United States or with the Venezuelan State.

Although in practice the U.S. Government has prevented imports in the food and pharmaceutical sectors by the Venezuelan State through executive orders, through the “BOLIVAR Act” it intends to make this imprint official on the legislative paper, a trademark of the blockade against Venezuela and key to the deepening of the economic and social crisis that the country is experiencing in an induced manner.

The U.S. political class continues to apply its economic and financial gunboat diplomacy disguised as progressive humanitarianism. These congressmen, unified Democrats and Republicans under the same anti-Venezuelan criteria, continue to move in this macabre and pestilent enjoyment.

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Featured image: Rick Scott and Marco Rubio are the most active operators in the lobby against Venezuela (Source: Internationalist 360)

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The average energy investor is by now well aware of the sector’s monumental shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Coal-powered power plants have been shuttering at an alarming clip as the price of electricity from natural gas and renewables undercuts them while wind and solar generation continue to gain the ascendancy.

But nowhere has this change been as dramatic as the transport industry, with EV titans such as Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) and NIO Ltd. (NYSE:NIO) now commanding substantially higher valuations than their imposing ICE brethren, General Motors (NYSE:GM) and Ford Motors (NYSE:F). Indeed, the global EV sector now carries a higher valuation than the global ICE sector despite accounting for less than 3% of new vehicle sales in 2020.

It’s a situation eerily reminiscent of the thousands of buggy and whip companies that were rendered obsolete in the early 20th century.

But now, a section of Wall Street says the situation is a lot more dire than that.

Morgan Stanley has argued that traditional ICE makers are destined to become money-losers as early as 2030.

MS’ analyst Adam Jonas says the market may be ascribing zero or even negative value for ICE-derived revenues at GM and Ford and has listed a variety of factors that are likely to transform the companies’ once-profitable assets into potentially cash-burning and loss-making businesses.

Pivoting to EVs

Morgan Stanley is hardly alone in its very dim outlook of the traditional auto industry.

A recent survey on institutional investors by the investment firm has revealed that 17% of respondents think ICE technology has no zero or negative value today, while 60% have rated ICE technology as only slightly positive. Just 23% think gasoline and diesel tech still carries a significant positive value.

But don’t get us wrong: Nobody is saying that GM and F stocks are about to go the way of DMC, maker of the once-iconic DeLorean car of the Back to the Future fame.

In fact, GM and Ford could gain a new lease of life after belatedly going all-in into the EV megatrend.

Indeed, General Motors has vowed to end production of all diesel and gasoline-powered cars, trucks and SUVs by 2035 as part of the company’s plan to shift its entire new fleet to electric vehicles.

GM also says it plans to use 100% renewable energy to power its U.S. facilities by 2030 and in its global facilities by 2035 and intends to become GM carbon neutral in both its global products and its operations by 2040. Further, the automaker says it will focus on offering zero-emissions vehicles across a wide range of price points and work with various stakeholders to build out the necessary charging infrastructure while promoting consumer acceptance.

If you think that does not sound like the usual GM playbook, you are not imagining things.

GM supported the Trump administration’s pro-carbon lawsuit that was meant to force California and several other states with gas-mileage standards to lower them to the national standards. GM, however, flipped after Trump lost in November and withdrew from the suit on Nov. 23 after Biden became the clear winner. Since then, GM has announced a raft of electrification plans, which has helped GM stock rally 35% in the year-to-date.

Morgan Stanley itself prefers General Motors to Ford, maintaining an Overweight rating on the stock while dropping Ford to an Underweight rating from Equal Weight due to a less-than-stellar sum-of-the-parts value.

In fact, Adam Jonas thinks GM’s fair value could exceed 50% of current share price while Ford’s is 20% lower:

“Our revised DCF and SOTP composition through the 2030 horizon factors in greater caution on our ICE forecasts for both companies, while increasing the value of the EV and AV-related businesses for each. For GM, the offset of the negative ICE adjustments and positive EV adjustments drives an increase in our price target to $80, suggesting over 50% upside. For Ford, our adjustments are substantially offsetting. This, combined with the recent run-up in the stock (which has kept pace with GM YTD) offers more than 20% downside to our price target.”

Nevertheless, F shares have similarly climbed 35% YTD.

Need we say that both ICE stocks have handily outperformed TSLA, which has only managed a 20% YTD return.

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***

Victoria Nuland exemplifies the neocons who have led US foreign policy from one disaster to another for the past 30 years while evading accountability. It is a bad sign that President Joe Biden has nominated Victoria Nuland for the third highest position at the State Department, Under Secretary for Political Affairs.

As a top-level appointee, Victoria Nuland must be confirmed by the US Senate.  There is a campaign to Stop her confirmation. The following review of her work shows why Victoria Nuland is incompetent, highly dangerous and should not be confirmed.

Afghanistan and Iraq

From 2000 to 2003, Nuland was US permanent representative to NATO as the Bush administration attacked then invaded Afghanistan. The Afghan government offered to work with the US remove Al Qaeda, but this was rejected. After Al Qaeda was defeated, the US could have left Afghanistan but instead stayed, established semi-permanent bases, split the country, and is still fighting there two decades later.

From 2003 to 2005 Nuland was principal foreign policy advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney who “helped plan and manage the war that toppled Saddam Hussein, including making Bush administration’s case for preemptive military actions based on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.” The foreign policy establishment, with Nuland on the far right, believed that removing Saddam Hussein and installing a US “ally” would be simple.

The invasion and continuing occupation have resulted in over a million dead Iraqis, many thousands of dead Americans, hundreds of thousands with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at a cost of 2 to 6 TRILLION dollars.

From 2005 to 2008 Victoria Nuland was US Ambassador to NATO where her role was to “strengthen Allied support” for the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

On the 10^th anniversary of the invasion, when asked about the lessons learned Nuland responded “Compared to where we were in the Saddam era, we now have a bilateral security agreement … We have deep economic interests and ties. We have a security relationship. We have a political relationship.”  Nuland is oblivious to the costs. Nuland’s loyalties are to the elite who have benefitted from the tragedy. According to online google, “One of the top profiteers from the Iraq War was oil field services corporation, Halliburton. Halliburton gained $39.5 billion in ‘federal contracts related to the Iraq war.’ Nuland’s boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, was the former the CEO of Halliburton.

In January 2020, seventeen years after the US invasion,  the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution demanding the US troops and contractors leave.  Now, over one year later, they still have not left.

Libya

In spring 2011, Victoria Nuland became State Department spokesperson under Hillary Clinton as she ramped up the “regime change” assault on Moammar Ghaddafi of Libya. UN Security Council resolution 1973 authorized a “No Fly Zone” for the protection of civilians but NOT an air assault on Libyan government forces.

That summer, as US and others bombed and attacked Libyan forces, she dismissed the option of a peaceful transition in Libya and falsely suggested the UN Security Council required the removal of Ghaddafi.

The campaign led to the toppling of the Libyan government and killing of Ghadaffy. Commenting on the murder and bayonet sodomizing of Ghaddafi, Nuland’s boss Hillary Clinton chortled “We came, we saw, he died.”

Before the overthrow, Libya had the highest standard of living in all of Africa. Since the US led assault, Libya has become a failed state with competing warlords, huge inflation, huge unemployment, and exploding extremism and violence that has spread to neighboring countries. Most of the migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe, or drowned trying to, are coming from Libya. By any measure, the goal of “protecting” Libyan civilians has failed spectacularly.

Syria

One reason that Clinton and hawks such as Nuland wanted to overthrow Ghaddafi was to get access to the Libyan military arsenal. That way they could funnel arms to insurgents seeking to overthrow the Syrian government. This was confirmed in secret DOD documents which state: “During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria”

In January 2012, Nuland claimed the US is “on the side of those wanting peaceful change in Syria.” While saying this, the US was supplying sniper rifles, rocket propelled grenades, and 125 mm and 155 mm howitzer missiles to the “peaceful” protestors.

The US “regime change” strategy for Syria followed the pattern of Libya. First, claim that the protestors are peaceful. Then claim the government response is disproportionate. Put pressure on the target government to paralyze it, while increasing support to proxy protesters and terrorists. As documented, there were violent Syrian protesters from the start. During the first days of protest in Deraa in mid-March 2011, seven police were killed. As spokesperson for the State Department, Nuland was a major figure promoting the false narrative to justify the “regime change” campaign.

Ukraine

In September 2013 Victoria Nuland was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. The uprising in the central plaza known as the Maidan began soon after her arrival. To underscore the US support for the protests, Nuland and Senator John McCain passed out bread and cookies to the crowd.

Protests continued into January 2014. The immediate issue was whether to accept a loan from the International Monetary Fund which was going to require a 40% increase in natural gas bills or to accept a loan from Russia with the inclusion of cheap oil and gas. The opposition wanted the Yanukovych government to take the EU/IMF loan. The opposition was comprised of different factions, including the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and Right Sector.

In early February 2014, an audio recording of Victoria Nuland talking the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, was leaked to the public. The 4-minute conversation was a media sensation because it included Victoria Nuland saying, “Fuck the EU.”.

But Nuland’s cursing was a distraction from what was truly significant. The recording showed that Nuland was meddling in domestic Ukraine affairs, had direct contacts with key opposition leaders, and was managing the protests to the extent she was deciding who would and would not be in the post-coup government! She says, “I don’t think Klitsch [Vitaly Klitschko] should go into government…… I think Yats [Arseniy Yatseniuk] is the guy… “

The reason she wanted to “Fuck the EU” was because she did not approve the EU negotiations and compromise. Nuland and Pyatt wanted to “midwife” and “glue” the toppling of the Yanukovych government despite it being in power after an election that was observed and substantially approved by the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe).

Over the next few weeks, the protests escalated. The President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kiev, Bernard Casey, described what happened next. “On February 18-20, snipers massacred about 100 people [both protestors and police] on the Maidan …. Although the US Ambassador and the opposition blamed the Yanukovych Administration, the evidence points to the shots coming from a hotel controlled by the ultranationalists, and the ballistics revealed that the protestors and the police were all shot with the same weapons.”

The Estonian Foreign Minister later said the same thing: “behind the  snipers it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new (opposition) coalition”.

President of the American Chamber of Commerce President for Ukraine, Bernard Casey, continues: “On February 20, 2014 an EU delegation moderated negotiations between President Yanukovych and the protestors, agreeing to early elections – in May 2014 instead of February 2015…. Despite the signing of an agreement … the ultranationalist protestors, and their American sponsors, rejected it, and stepped up their campaign of violence.”

The coup was finalized over the coming days.  Yanukovych fled to for his life and Yatsenyuk became President after the coup as planned.

One of the first acts of the coup leadership was to remove Russian as an official state language, even though it is the first language of millions of Ukrainians, especially in the south and east. Over the coming period, the “birth” of the coup government, violence by ultranationalists and neo-Nazis was prevalent. In Odessa, they attacked people peacefully protesting the coup. This video shows the sequence of events with the initial attack followed by fire-bombing the building where protestors had retreated. Fire trucks were prevented from reaching the building to put out the fire and rescue citizens inside. Forty-two people died and a 100 were injured.

A bus convoy heading back to Crimea was attacked with the anti-coup passengers beaten and some killed.

In the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, protests against the coup were met by deadly force.

Victoria Nuland claims to be a “victim” because her conversation was leaked publicly. The real victims are the many thousands of Ukrainians who have died and hundreds of thousands who have become refugees because of Nuland’s crusade to bring Ukraine into NATO.

The audio recording confirms that Nuland was managing the protests at a top level and the results (Yats is the guy) was as planned. Thus, it is probable that Nuland approved the decision to 1) deploy snipers to escalate the crisis and 2) overturn the EU mediated agreement which would have led to elections in just 3 months.

Why were snipers deployed on February 18? Probably because time was running out. The Russian leadership was distracted with the Sochi Olympic Games ending on February 23. Perhaps the coup managers were in a hurry to “glue” it in advance.

Russia

During the 1990’s, Nuland worked for the State Department on Russia related issues including a stint as deputy director for former Soviet Union affairs. The US meddled in Russian internal affairs in myriad ways. Time magazine proudly proclaimed “Yanks to the rescue: the secret story of how American advisors helped Yeltsin win.”  The Yeltsin leadership and policies pushed by the US had disastrous consequences. Between 1991 and 1999, Russian Gross Domestic Product decreased by nearly 50% as the social safety net was removed. The Russian economy collapsed, oligarchs and lawlessness arose. Nuland was part of the US group meddling in Russia, deploying economic “shock therapy” and causing widespread social despair.

Meanwhile, the U.S. reneged on promises to Soviet leader Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch” eastward. Instead, NATO became an offensive pact, bombing Yugoslavia in violation of international law and then absorbing Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Albania, Croatia and more.

Coming into power in 2000, Putin clamped down on the oligarchs, restored order and started rebuilding the economy. Oligarchs were forced to pay taxes and start investing in productive enterprises. The economy and confidence were restored. Over seven years, GDP went from $1300 billion (US dollars) to $2300 billion.  That is why Putin’s public approval rating has been consistently high, ranging between 85% and a “low” approval rating of 60%.

Most Americans are unaware of these facts. Instead, Putin and Russia are persistently demonized. This has been convenient for the Democratic Party establishment which needed a distraction for their dirty tricks against Bernie Sanders and subsequent loss to Donald Trump. The demonization of Russia is also especially useful and profitable for the military industrial media complex.

Victoria Nuland boosted the “Steele Dossier” which alleged collaboration between Russia and Trump and other salacious claims. The allegations filled the media and poisoned attitudes to Russia.  Belatedly, the truth about the “Steele Dossier” is coming out. Last summer the Wall Street Journal reported “the bureau (FBI) knew the Russia info was phony in 2017” and that “There was no factual basis to the dossier’s claims”.

While promoting disinformation, Victoria Nuland is pushing for a more aggressive US foreign policy. In an article titled “Pinning Down Putin”, she says “Russia’s threat to the liberal world has grown”, that Washington should “deter and roll back dangerous behavior by the Kremlin” and “rebuff Russian encroachments in hot spots around the world.”

The major “hot spots” are the conflicts which Victoria Nuland and other Washington neocons promoted, especially Syria and Ukraine. In Syria, the US and allies have spent hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars promoting the overthrow of the Assad government. So far, they have failed but have not given up. The facts are clear: US troops and military bases in Syria do not have the authorization of the Syrian government.  They are actively stealing the precious oil resources of the Syrian state. It is the US not Russia that is “encroaching”. The dangerous behavior is by Washington not Moscow.

Conclusion

Victoria Nuland has promoted a foreign policy of intervention through coups, proxy wars, aggression, and ongoing occupations. The policy has been implemented with bloody and disastrous results in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine.

With consummate hypocrisy she accuses Russia of spreading misinformation in the US, while she openly seeks to put “stress on Putin where he is vulnerable, including among his own citizens.”  She wants to “establish permanent bases along NATO’s eastern border and increase the pace and visibility of joint training exercises.”

Victoria Nuland is the queen of chicken hawks, the Lady Macbeth of perpetual war. There are hundreds of thousands of victims from the policies she has promoted.   Yet she has not received a scratch. On the contrary, Victoria Nuland probably has profited from a stock portfolio filled with military contractors.

Now Victoria Nuland wants to provoke, threaten and “rollback” Russia. A quick look at a map of US military bases shows who is threatening whom.

Victoria Nuland is  dangerous and should not be confirmed.

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

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

***

It’s been apparent for decades that Big Pharma hates natural vitamins and supplements with a passion. They consider them competition, and so they induce the media, government and public health officials to malign vitamins in every way they can.

This is easy, because they give vast sums of cash to the media through advertising, fund politicians’ campaigns, and provide rich, cushy jobs to cooperative public health officials when they leave government. And they fund scientists to run rigged studies intended to discredit vitamins and other natural treatments.

That’s why we’re always reading propaganda from the media and government that claim vitamins and supplements are ineffective and dangerous.

US health officials, with their eye on that sweet Pharma paycheck they will be getting in a few years, dutifully set the daily vitamin requirements (RDA) much lower than what is needed to maintain peak health and immunity. They are set at a level that will prevent you from dying but keep you highly susceptible to profitable illnesses, instead of a level that will maintain vigorous health. And, unfortunately, many other countries copy the US’s RDA for their own populations, in the misguided belief that the US has the best science.

So, to use the disparaging language that the Pharma shills routinely use against advocates of natural health, Big Pharma and their confederates are “Nutrient Deniers.”

But it goes beyond that. They are also Immunity Deniers. Our immune systems, which are a marvel of engineering vastly more effective than anything invented by Pharma or the medical establishment, are increasingly the targets of their assaults.

Covid-19 is a perfect example, but far from the only one. Here we have a disease that 99.8% of infected people survive thanks to their immune systems. But that comforting fact must be denied or censored to promote fear and terror in the public mind, providing a justification for lockdowns, travel restrictions, and other unprecedented dictatorial measures to “keep us safe.”

With most people nutrient-deficient these days thanks to inadequate RDAs, poor diets, and food that is depleted of nutrients due to chemically based overfarming of the soil, it is remarkable, and a tribute to the Immune System, that so many of them recover from Covid regardless. They would probably never get sick in the first place, or even test positive on the highly inaccurate tests, if they maximized their immunity with proper nutrition, exercise, sleep, and by avoiding toxins, pollution, and stress.

Yet practically nowhere from official government authorities like the WHO or CDC, or most of the media, do we see suggestions to boost your immune system to fight the virus. Even though there is plenty of evidence that vitamins, especially D, C, A, B, E, probiotics and minerals like zinc, magnesium, iodine and selenium, given in strong doses, exercise and quality sleep boost your immunity.

Thomas E. Levy, MD, JD, writes:

“Vitamin C has been documented to readily cure all acute viral syndromes in which it has been adequately dosed. As the ultimate virucide, vitamin C has been documented to inactivate/destroy every virus against which it was tested in vitro (in the test tube). Similarly, vitamin C has consistently resolved nearly all acute viral infections in patients treated with sufficient doses.”

Dr. Joseph Mercola wrote:

“Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a pulmonologist and critical-care specialist affiliated with two Northwell Health facilities on Long Island, said his intensive-care patients with the coronavirus immediately receive 1,500 milligrams of intravenous vitamin C. Identical amounts of the powerful antioxidant are then re-administered three or four times a day, he said…The regimen is based on experimental treatments administered to people with the coronavirus in Shanghai, China…‘The patients who received vitamin C did significantly better than those who did not get vitamin C,’ he said. ‘It helps a tremendous amount, but it is not highlighted because it’s not a sexy drug.’”

Although forced by the huge number of Vitamin C studies to acknowledge that Vitamin C can boost the immune system, the NIH denies that this boost will help you fight Covid in any way. “There are insufficient data for the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) to recommend either for or against the use of vitamin C for the treatment of COVID-19 in [critically ill or] non-critically ill patients.” And, thanks to this rationale, IV vitamin C is not an approved treatment for Covid.

Internet Pharma shills, naturally, sing the same tune as the NIH. Arjun Walia notes:

“An article published by LiveScience, a mainstream science website, states that ‘Vitamin C is extremely unlikely to help people fight off the new coronavirus.’ This is the narrative that’s been portrayed by multiple mainstream media outlets since the beginning of the new coronavirus outbreak. In fact, they’ve gone as far as labelling the suggestion that vitamin C could help, as ‘fake news’ in some cases.”

Richard Z. Cheng, MD, PhD, a Chinese physician who has had remarkable results treating Covid-19 with intravenous Vitamin C, has had his Youtube Channel censored, also Facebook. He writes:

“I was made aware that FB Fact Check claims “Shanghai did not officially recommend high-dose IVC for the treatment of Covid-19”. Let me make it clear that not only Shanghai, but also Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, another major city in China, publicly endorsed high-dose IVC for the treatment of Covid-19. Those who does Fact Check, please be more careful.”

It seems that medical researchers and Public Health officials in China are much less corrupted by Pharma than their counterparts in the US.

The WHO recently took its war on the immune system to new heights. Jeffrey A. Tucker of the American Institute for Economic Research recently discovered that the WHO has altered its website’s explanation of “Herd Immunity” to airbrush out the role that natural exposure to microbes plays in achieving this protection.

Where several months earlier the WHO’s webpage had said that herd immunity was achievable either by natural exposure to a microbe or by vaccination, their new revised page insists that herd immunity requires vaccination. “Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it,” says the Pharma and Gates-funded WHO.

Tucker points out that “In effect, this change at WHO ignores and even wipes out 100 years of medical advances in virology, immunology, and epidemiology. It is thoroughly unscientific – shilling for the vaccine industry in exactly the way the conspiracy theorists say that WHO has been doing since the beginning of this pandemic.”

The people who are dying “from” Covid are the ones whose immune systems are weakened by diabetes, heart and lung diseases, obesity, cancer, toxic medicines and old age as well as nutrient deficiency. (That’s not counting the legions of motorcycle accident victims, heart attack victims, flu, cancer and trauma victims who are being branded “Covid” on their death certificates to boost the death count and swell hospitals’ coffers with the Covid bonus payment that the US government gives them — those are a different story.)

Studies have found that most Covid-19-positive people who actually get symptoms (most have no symptoms) are deficient in Vitamin D. Other studies have shown that people with ample Vitamin D are much less likely to test positive. Coincidence?

And the naturally derived medicine hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), combined with zinc, has been shown in numerous studies to help the immune system cure Covid-19 in its early stages. But it’s been banned in many countries because the Pharma-Med-WHO-CDC establishment hate it, because it’s cheap, natural (from quinine) and its patent expired many years ago, so there’s no profit in it. Ivermectin is the same story. Cheap, naturally derived, and it works. Of course, the Covid promoters don’t want a cure, because a cure would make the vaccine unnecessary, and they are absolutely determined to inject everyone with their dubious vaccines, for motives about which one can only speculate.

Instead of these facts, we get “fact checker” websites, run and funded by the Pharma Disinformation Complex (media, pharma, NGOs, globalists), that tell us that vitamins and your immune system will not help you fight Covid, and that people that claim they will help are providing “medical misinformation.” And we get outright censorship of pro-vitamin facts from the media: Facebook, Twitter, Google and many other popular websites and media outlets.

If our governments were not saturated with corruption, they would be dispensing Vitamins, C, D, A, essential minerals and HCQ to our malnourished public for free, not tyranically locking people in their homes, quarantining them, thus depriving them of Vitamin D from sunlight, exercise, and effectively motivating them to eat Spam and potato chips instead of fresh, healthy food. It’s crystal clear that they don’t want the public to be healthy, there’s no profit in that for their paymasters.

Instead, governments give billions of taxpayer dollars to the drug companies to develop vaccines, even though Pharma is the most profitable industry on earth and its companies can well afford to spend their own money on R&D.

Nutrient denial is not Pharma-Med’s only assault on the Immune System. Antibiotics, chemotherapy, antivirals, radiation, vaccines — the most used “remedies” in the Pharma-Med toolbox — have all been implicated in immune system damage and death.

Pharma and their media and government accomplices mass produce stress and depression in the public with their relentless scaremongering about the latest “deadly virus,”and these are very powerful immune system depressors. Face masks deprive you of oxygen which damages immunity as well as causing brain damage. Depression, lack of exercise, lack of sunlight, lack of human contact caused by Covid lockdowns, all damage immunity.

Back in 1984, Pharma-friendly scientists claimed there was a new virus that destroyed the immune system. Although never proven, and fiercely rebutted by many distinguished scientists, the HIV causes AIDS theory became accepted fact through sheer repetition by the terror-mongering media, and by the fact that drug companies knew that it would be a money tree for them, and researchers understood the reality that they would be blacklisted if they dissented. Much as with today’s Covid narrative, one of the main promoters of the idea was Anthony Fauci, and one of its main funders over the years has been Bill Gates.

To treat a virus that was hypothesized to destroy the immune system, they prescribed toxic drugs that were well known to destroy the immune system, such as AZT. And when the person died, they blamed the virus.

Would it be presumptuous to suggest that the virus that destroys the immune system is none other than the Pharma-Med-Media-Government complex itself?

Now the elitists are busily developing “immunity passports” to enable people to freely travel and shop. But these passports, as planned, will not confirm that you have a strong natural immune system and thus are in no danger of getting infected or infecting others. They will not confirm that you’ve had Covid already, or a related coronavirus, and thus are protected by natural immunity that’s generally far superior to vaccine immunity.

They will only confirm that you’ve been vaccinated with vaccines that, by the manufacturers’ own admissions, have not been proven to effectively prevent infection, nor to make a person non-contagious. And they want to make these passports a prerequisite to travel or to attend concerts or sporting events, even to be able to enter a supermarket.

These are the actions of a cabal that view the immune system as their competition. And how does a business deal with its competition? They try to put it out of business. Which seems to be exactly what the Pharma folks are doing.

But, looking at it from their point of view, one can sort of understand their position. Why should people have natural immunity for free when they can pay Big Pharma for it? It’s not right. Pharma must be paid. After all, they are the saviors of humanity according to their PR agencies.

People like me, who never get sick during “flu season”, even though we have never taken flu vaccines, are just crazy to suggest that our strong nutrient intakes and avoidance of vaccines and toxic medicines have anything to do with that.

So, I hope this will become a meme, because, although it’s obvious, I’ve never seen it stated so plainly: Big Pharma and the Medical Establishment regard the human Immune System as their competition.

*

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Reggie Selwyn is a writer with a special interest in alternative medicine.

Sources

Fact #1: The Infection Fatality Rate for COVID-19 is somewhere between 0.07-0.20%, in line with seasonal flu
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/lockdown-lunacy-the-thinking-persons-guide/ 

COVID-19. How can I cure thee? Let me count the ways. Thomas E. Levy, MD, JD:
http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n37.shtml

Vitamin D Insufficiency May Account for Almost Nine of Ten COVID-19 Deaths: Time to Act. Comment on: “Vitamin D Deficiency and Outcome of COVID-19 Patients”. Nutrients 2020, 12, 2757  https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/12/3642/htm

Short term, high-dose vitamin D supplementation for COVID-19 disease: a randomised, placebo-controlled, study (SHADE study)
https://pmj.bmj.com/content/early/2020/11/12/postgradmedj-2020-139065

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2020/09/17/Vitamin-D-deficiency-increases-COVID-19-risk-by-more-than-50/1751600361571/

https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535 (about Hydroxychloroquine)

Early Large Dose Intravenous Vitamin C is the Treatment of Choice for 2019-nCov Pneumonia
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n11.shtml

China Treating Coronavirus COVID-19 with Intravenous Vitamin C

http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n16.shtml

Shanghai Government Officially Recommends Vitamin C for COVID-19
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n16.shtml

https://www.collective-evolution.com/2020/03/29/high-dose-vitamin-c-has-successfully-treated-50-moderate-to-severe-covid-19-patients/

Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients That Should Be Ramped Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis (about Hydroxychloroquine)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32458969/

https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/adjunctive-therapy/vitamin-c/

WHO Deletes Naturally Acquired Immunity from Its Website
https://www.aier.org/article/who-deletes-naturally-acquired-immunity-from-its-website/

https://nypost.com/2020/11/24/moderna-boss-says-covid-shot-not-proven-to-stop-virus-spread/

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

***

The Russian Revolution in 1917 panicked Europe’s upper middle classes, already much discredited and weakened by the gigantic tragedy of the First World War, the result of their own greed, irresponsibility and incompetence. The crash of 1929, which almost ruined most of the industrialized capitalist countries but hardly affected the young Soviet Union, further strengthened the alternative posed by the Russian Revolution. This “bourgeoisie” subsequently faced two huge tasks: rebuild the international capitalist order and respond to the challenge posed by Marxist criticism and the Russian Revolution.

A group of intellectuals hostile to communism, to the left in general, and even to New Deal capitalism in the U.S., sought to develop and impose a more authoritarian and profoundly anti-democratic reconstruction of capitalism: neoliberalism. As mentioned in a previous article, Switzerland was the first country to welcome and finance these intellectuals, playing a key role in shaping the neoliberal order.

Quinn Slobodian, author of Globalists, gave a name to Switzerland’s contribution to neoliberalism: the Geneva School.

For Slobodian:

“The Geneva School includes: thinkers who held academic positions in Geneva, among whom Wilhelm Röpke, Ludwig von Mises, and Michael Heilperin; those who pursued or presented key research there, including Friedrich Hayek, Lionel Robbins, and Gottfried Haberler; and those who worked at the secretariat of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), such as Jan Tumlir and Frieder Roessler. Geneva School neoliberals transposed the ordoliberal idea of ‘the economic constitution’ – or the totality of rules governing economic life – to a scale beyond the nation.”

Still according to this author:

“Geneva – later the home of the WTO – became the spiritual capital of the group of thinkers who sought to solve the riddle of postimperial order “– the period following the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – that obviously included the challenge posed by the Russian Revolution. Slobodian added:

“What the neoliberals of the Geneva School sought was not a partial but a complete protection of the rights of private capital, and the ability of supranational judiciary bodies like the European Court of Justice and the WTO to override national legislation that might disrupt the global rights of capital”, in short, an economic constitution for the world.

For the Geneva School, always according to Slobodian:

“Commitments to national sovereignty and autonomy were dangerous if taken seriously. The Geneva School stalwarts thus believed that after empire, nations must remain embedded in an international institutional order that safeguarded capital and protected their right to move it freely throughout the world. The cardinal sin of the twentieth century was unfettered national independence, and the neoliberal world order required enforceable isonomy – or “same laws”, as Hayek would later call it – against the illusion of autonomy, or “own laws”.”

Put another way, for neoliberals in the Geneva School, laws defending the ‘rights’ of capital should overlap with national laws concerning workers’ rights or environmental protection, for example.

Many of the Geneva School’s participants were among the founders of the Mont Pélerin Society in Switzerland, an organization that played a key role in the intellectual construction of neoliberalism and the international dissemination of its proposals. The Mont Pélerin Society has served as an inspiration and model for other important organizations on the international right such as the Atlas Network and the Atlantic Council.

Faced with the challenge posed by the Russian Revolution, the Swiss elites very early on sided with capital, embracing even the most authoritarian extremes of capitalism as represented by neoliberalism, all to stop the ever more threatening ‘danger’ of the left, always much more menacing, from the point of view of capital, than any totalitarian threat from the right.

An important testimony of the Swiss bourgeoisie’s crusade against communism and the left in general is given by the writings of Harry Gmür, Swiss writer and communist. Born in Bern in 1908, Gmür witnessed the rise of fascism in Europe and the neo-liberal reaction in Switzerland, both reactions to the challenge posed by workers and the Russian Revolution. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Gmür embraced the left and its humanitarian values. In a text published in 1965 under the title Hitler’s War and Switzerland, Gmür wrote: “After the outbreak of war, the government in Bern, under German pressure, but certainly availing itself all too readily of the opportunity, had hastened to ban and subject to police surveillance all consistently anti-fascist parties, associations, newspapers, book distributors, and so on.”

And in another article published in 1975 – At that time in Switzerland – Gmür wrote:

“The Swiss Left was subjected to particular pressure during the war…After the outbreak of the war, the Federal Council, out of anti-Communism no less than out of servility to the Third Reich, had suppressed Freiheit, the organ of the Communist Party, and the two daily newspapers of the Left Socialists of Vaud and Geneva, which had split from Social Democracy. After the French surrender, the Communist Party, the left socialist parties of French-speaking Switzerland, the German-Swiss Socialist Party Opposition (a faction working against the right-wing course of the party leadership) and the Switzerland-Soviet Union Society were banned outright. Their property – printers, bookshops, even office inventory – was confiscated and never returned even later.

Justifiable complaints by the Soviet press about the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war who had fled to Switzerland were rejected by the chief of justice and police.”

Gmür’s two articles were published in Weltbühne, a publication in the former Democratic Republic of Germany, under the pseudonym of Stefan Miller, certainly to avoid repression from the right wing in Switzerland.

However, the most compelling document about Switzerland’s bourgeoisie, its ceaseless war against the left and its uncompromising defence of capital above all else is the Bergier Report.

In December 1996, an independent commission was created by the Swiss Federal Council under the direction of the historian Jean François Bergier, with the mandate, according to Bergier himself:

“to answer a series of specific questions: on “unclaimed” assets, i.e. assets deposited in Swiss banks before the (Second World) War by future victims (of Nazism) and never later recovered by them or their heirs; on the treatment of refugees; on all economic and financial relations between Switzerland and nazi Germany – trade, industrial production, credit and capital movements, insurance, arms trafficking, the market in art works and property looted or sold by force, rail transit, electricity, forced labour in the German subsidiaries of Swiss companies.”

The Bergier Report as a whole consists of 11,000 pages distributed over 28 volumes. It is an immense and invaluable piece of work.

For Pietro Boschetti, author of a book that summarizes the Bergier Report titled Les Suisses et les Nazis [The Swiss and the Nazis], from which Bergier’s previous quote comes,

“the report in general confirmed what historians already knew: yes, asylum policy was extremely harsh during the war; yes, the National Bank bought a lot of suspicious gold from Nazi Germany, thus providing it with a much-appreciated service.”

In his book, Boschetti mentions a few examples of the cooperation of big business in Switzerland with nazi Germany as revealed by the Bergier Report. From the examples given by Boschetti, I mention some below, to give an idea of the scope of the Bergier Report.

On business between Switzerland and nazi Germany, Boschetti wrote: “Relationships between businessmen were obviously very close and lasting. Thus, after the war, the president of the [Bank] SBS [Rudolf Speich] and the director of the [Bank] UBS [Alfred Schaefer] supported the only Nazi banker [Karl Rasche, member of the SS, of Dresdner Bank] before the International Tribunal in Nuremberg.”

On ‘aryanisation’: “Aryanity certificates to prove racial purity appear to have been a fairly common practice. For example, in order to obtain the right to land in Munich, Swissair accepted that its crews prove their aryanity. Nestlé did the same, as did insurance companies.”

And again, about Nestlé: “From Vevey, Nestlé remained in contact throughout the war with the Swiss Hans Riggenbach, who was in charge of the multinational’s German operations in Berlin. Nestlé sold its Nescafé to the Wehrmacht during the Russian campaign, despite the difficult of importing of coffee beans.”

On forced labour by prisoners of war:

“‘Struck, like their competitors, by the lack of workers, Swiss firms resort to forced labour. …at the Lonza factories in Waldshut, where 150 Frenchmen landed between July 1940 and April 1942. From then until the end of the conflict, more than 400 Russian prisoners of war worked there. Georg Fischer, BBC, Maggi, Nestlé and many others did not hesitate to draw on this pool of labour.”

“Ill-treatment was commonplace, including in the Swiss subsidiaries… Until August 1944, Switzerland repatriated fleeing forced labourers, especially Russians and Poles, to Germany.”

For Bergier, the authorities and the people responsible for Swiss companies at the time, “did not fail to justify each of the measures they took, or their refusal to take them, or their hesitation. But their explanations rarely stand up to scrutiny”, as he wrote in the introduction to Boschetti’s book.

However, the public debate that should have taken place after the Report was published – the ultimate goal of all the effort employed – was thwarted. In the words of Pietro Boschetti:

Curious country all the same! While it has just completed a praiseworthy work of historical introspection recognised almost everywhere as exemplary, while it has invested considerable resources to enable historians to work seriously and independently, while it has gone through an ‘identity crisis’ caused by the scandal of unclaimed assets which gave rise to all sorts of exaggerations and excesses, this country, at a time when it has the historical material necessary to have a serene debate, refuses to hold it…. What a pity!

The suppression of this debate was a fundamental victory for the bourgeoisie and big business in their endeavour to protect their own image and maintain within Switzerland the space and credibility needed to continue the expansion of the neoliberal agenda. Were it not for this, institutions as different as the World Economic Forum and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), both based in Switzerland and both heirs and proponents of the neoliberal vision of the world, i.e., the market as the main instrument for organizing society and even the ‘saviour’ of the planet, might not have achieved such renown.

2022 marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Bergier Report. It is an occasion to hold the suppressed but still necessary discussion about this document, not only for a deeper understanding of the role of the Swiss bourgeoisie and big business and their ideology at the time of the Second World War, but above all to understand current developments. After all, the neoliberal world view and its representatives still hold enormous political power in this country, hostility against the left remains as aggressive as it was during the Cold War, and Switzerland continues to be an important partner in the construction and dissemination of the fake U.S. narratives supporting anti-democratic campaigns against Cuba and Venezuela, to cite just these two examples. The political forces and economic interests that led to the collaboration of large Swiss companies with nazi Germany are the same as those behind the proposals to reorganize the state according to the interests of capital as advocated by the Mont Pélerin Society and the World Economic Forum; they are also the same forces that prevented public discussion of the Bergier Report.

Neoliberal capitalism continues to be advanced in Switzerland as the only possible solution to the various problems facing humanity today, from the ecological crisis to the health crisis represented by the pandemic. The role of neoliberal capitalism as the cause of these same problems is never even mentioned.

When the climate movement dared to question neoliberalism in Switzerland, the reaction was brutal and repressive legislation. Despite the Mont Pélerin Society and the Geneva School, the World Economic Forum and the WWF, there is another tradition in Switzerland, one that was embodied in Harry Gmür, in the Bergier Commission and is now reappearing in the climate movement. It is now up to this tradition to reopen the necessary debate and challenge neoliberalism in one of its most important and influential centres, Switzerland.

*

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***

This text  was first published in 2010 following the investigation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe into the H1N1 swine flu pandemic.

“We were told this was a ‘flu which would threaten humanity, and millions would fall ill”

“With H1N1, did the WHO, once again, frighten the world without any substantial evidence?”

“Millions Vaccinated for No Good Reason”

***

Paul Flynn (United Kingdom, SOC), appointed to prepare a PACE report on this subject, for possible debate in June 2010:

The world has been frightened by a serious of health scares – SARS, Avian ‘Flu and now Swine ‘Flu. We now know, in hindsight, that the fears that were aroused do not appear to be justified. So we want to know how decisions on pandemics are taken – are they taken on the best scientific, epidemiological evidence, or are they influenced by other interests? That is the basis of this complaint. With H1N1, did the WHO, once again, frighten the world without any substantial evidence?

Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, medical expert specialising in epidemiology and former Chair of the PACE Sub-committee on Health:

We were told this was a ‘flu which would threaten humanity, and millions would fall ill. This is why millions of dollars of medications were bought. The WHO basically held the trigger for the pandemic preparedness plans, they had a key role to play in deciding on the pandemic. Around 18 billion dollars was spent on this pandemic worldwide.

 “. It was only this change of definition which made it possible to transform a run-of-the-mill ‘flu into a worldwide pandemic – and made it possible for the pharmaceutical industry to transform this opportunity into cash, under contracts which were mainly secret.

Millions were vaccinated for no good reason. It is not even clear that the vaccine had a positive effect, because it was not clinically tested.

In my view, the WHO undertook an incomprehensible action, which cannot be justified by the scientific evidence. The Council of Europe should investigate this to see how WHO can undertake this kind of dangerous nonsense.

Dr Keiji Fukuda, Special Advisor on Pandemic Influenza to the Director-General, World Health Organisation (WHO):

There is much to learn about how the world can improve its handling of such events and a need to separate fact from rhetoric. Again, we welcome this opportunity. ‘Flu viruses mutate constantly and are notoriously unpredictable. History has shown that influenza pandemics can range enormously in their impact, but that it is impossible to accurately predict the eventual impact at the beginning. What is seen early may be very different from what has been experienced by the end. The 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, started with relatively mild waves of illness and then evolved into the most severe influenza pandemic in history. The new virus spread with unprecedented speed, reaching 120 countries and territories in about 8 weeks, and now has been reported from virtually all countries.

The H1N1 pandemic is not the same as seasonal influenza and differs in major respects. Large outbreaks occurred outside the usual season for influenza. The virus caused a striking and unusual pattern of severe illness and deaths in younger people, with many deaths caused by viral pneumonia, an especially aggressive form of pneumonia. This pattern is not typically seen during seasonal influenza.

The pandemic is not over, but to date, more than 14,000 laboratory confirmed deaths have been reported. We often see the number of deaths compared with figures from seasonal influenza. The is comparing apples with oranges. Deaths from seasonal influenza are based on statistical models. Deaths from the pandemic have been confirmed one by one through laboratory tests and unquestionably are much lower than the true number.

WHO takes seriously providing independent advice. The ‘flu pandemic policies and responses were not improperly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry. Co-operation with a range of partners, including the private sector, is necessary, but numerous safeguards are in place to avoid conflict of interest.

WHO is confident of the scientific validity of its recommendations. The labelling of the pandemic as “fake” is to ignore recent history and science and to trivialize the deaths of over 14,000 people and the many additional serious illnesses experienced by others.

Dr Luc Hessel, European Vaccine Manufacturers:

The EVM rejects this motion, particularly the accusation of inappropriate response of vaccine manufacturers in their response to H1N1. The vaccine industry did what it was asked to do. The industry’s role is to produce safe vaccines in a timely manner and respond to government’s requests. It is governed by stringent international health regulations and rigorous safeguards against conflict of interest. Decision-making regarding vaccine needs can only be based on the best available data at the time.

The industry responded quickly effectively and was able to deliver the vaccines ordered by governments. Our industry responded to requests from WHO and governments who wanted to have fast access to a large quantity of vaccines. It is too early to speculate on the overall return for the industry, but in my view the industry has been a responsible and reliable partner.

Pandemic vaccines were properly developed and tested – for the first time in history, vaccines were available shortly after the declaration of a pandemic. This was only possible thanks to a decade of research and development and 60 years of experience.

Professor Dr Ulrich Keil, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Epidemiology at the University of Munster:

A number of scientists and others are questioning the decision of the WHO to declare an international pandemic. The H1N1 virus is not a new virus, but has been known to us for decades. The H1N1 vaccination campaign was stopped abruptly when it was realised that the effects were milder than anticipated. I am asking for a reconsideration of this pandemic announcement by the WHO.

In Germany, about 10,000 deaths are attributed to seasonal ‘flu, especially among older and frail people. Only a very small number of deaths, namely 187, can be attributed to the H1N1 virus in Germany – and many of those are dubious.

The Director General of WHO declared the H1N1 pandemic in June 2009, triggering a cascade of actions by individual countries who were prepared for this by the SARS and Avian ‘Flu scares.

We are witnesssing a gigantic misallocation of resources in terms of public health. Governments and public health services are wasting huge amounts of money in investing in pandemic diseases whose evidence base is weak.

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First published on November 11, 2013

In the night of February 13-14, 1945, the ancient and beautiful capital of Saxony, Dresden, was attacked three times, twice by the RAF and once by the USAAF, the United States Army Air Force, in an operation involving well over 1,000 bombers. The consequences were catastrophic, as the historical city centre was incinerated and between 25,000 and 40,000 people lost their lives.[1]

Dresden was not an important industrial or military centre and therefore not a target worthy of the considerable and unusual common American and British effort involved in the raid. The city was not attacked as retribution for earlier German bombing raids on cities such as Rotterdam and Coventry, either. In revenge for the destruction of these cities, bombed ruthlessly by the Luftwaffe in 1940, Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and countless other German towns big and small had already paid dearly in 1942, 1943, and 1944.

Furthermore, by the beginning of 1945, the Allied commanders knew perfectly well that even the most ferocious bombing raid would not succeed in “terrorizing [the Germans] into submission,”[2] so that it is not realistic to ascribe this motive to the planners of the operation. The bombing of Dresden, then, seems to have been a senseless slaughter, and looms as an even more terrible undertaking than the atomic obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which is at least supposed to have led to the capitulation of Japan.

In recent times, however, the bombing of countries and of cities has almost become an everyday occurrence, rationalized not only by our political leaders but also presented by our media as an effective military undertaking and as a perfectly legitimate means to achieve supposedly worthwhile objectives. In this context, even the terrible attack on Dresden has recently been rehabilitated by a British historian, Frederick Taylor, who argues that the huge destruction wreaked on the Saxon city was not intended by the planners of the attack, but was the unexpected result of a combination of unfortunate circumstances, including perfect weather conditions and hopelessly inadequate German air defenses.[3]

However, Taylor’s claim is contradicted by a fact that he himself refers to in his book, namely, that approximately 40 American “heavies” strayed from the flight path and ended up dropping their bombs on Prague instead of Dresden.[4] If everything had gone according to plan, the destruction in Dresden would surely have been even bigger than it already was. It is thus obvious that an unusually high degree of destruction had been intended. More serious is Taylor’s insistence that Dresden did constitute a legitimate target, since it was not only an important military centre but also a first-rate turntable for rail traffic as well as a major industrial city, where countless factories and workshops produced all sorts of militarily important equipment.

A string of facts, however, indicate that these “legitimate” targets hardly played a role in the calculations of the planners of the raid. First, the only truly significant military installation, the Luftwaffe airfield a few kilometres to the north of the city, was not attacked. Second, the presumably crucially important railway station was not marked as a target by the British “Pathfinder” planes that guided the bombers. Instead, the crews were instructed to drop their bombs on the inner city, situated to the north of the railway station.[5] Consequently, even though the Americans did bomb the station and countless people perished in it, the facility suffered relatively little structural damage, so little, in fact, that it was again able to handle trains transporting troops within days of the operation.[6] Third, the great majority of Dresden’s militarily important industries were not located downtown but in the suburbs, where no bombs were dropped, at least not deliberately.[7]

It cannot be denied that Dresden, like any other major German city, contained militarily important industrial installations, and that at least some of these installations were located in the inner city and were therefore wiped out in the raid, but this does not logically lead to the conclusion that the attack was planned for this purpose. Hospitals and churches were also destroyed, and numerous Allied POWs who happened to be in the city were killed, but nobody argues that the raid was organized to bring that about.

Similarly, a number of Jews and members of Germany’s anti-Nazi resistance, awaiting deportation and/or execution, were able to escape from prison during the chaos caused by the bombing,[8] but no one claims that this was the objective of the raid. There is no logical reason, then, to conclude that the destruction of an unknown number of industrial installations of greater or lesser military importance was the raison d’être of the raid. The destruction of Dresden’s industry – like the liberation of a handful of Jews – was nothing more than an unplanned “by-product” of the operation.

It is frequently suggested, also by Taylor, that the bombing of the Saxon capital was intended to facilitate the advance of the Red Army. The Soviets themselves allegedly asked their western partners during the Yalta Conference of February 4 to 11, 1945, to weaken the German resistance on the eastern front by means of air raids. However, there is no evidence whatsoever that confirms such allegations. The possibility of Anglo-American air raids on targets in eastern Germany was indeed discussed at Yalta, but during these talks the Soviets expressed the concern that their own lines might be hit by the bombers, so they requested that the RAF and USAAF would not operate too far to the east.[9] (The Soviets’ fear of being hit by what is now called “friendly fire” was not unwarranted, as was demonstrated during the raid on Dresden itself, when a considerable number of planes mistakenly bombed Prague, situated about as far from Dresden as the Red Army lines were.) It was in this context that a Soviet general by the name of Antonov expressed a general interest in “air attacks that would impede enemy movements,” but this can hardly be interpreted as a request to mete out to the Saxon capital – which, incidentally, he did not mention at all – or to any other German city the kind of treatment that Dresden received on February 13-14.

Neither at Yalta, nor at any other occasion, did the Soviets ask their Western Allies for the kind of air support that presumably materialized in the form of the obliteration of Dresden. Moreover, they never gave their approval to the plan to bomb Dresden, as is also often claimed.[10] In any case, even if the Soviets would have asked for such assistance from the air, it is extremely unlikely that their allies would have responded by immediately unleashing the mighty fleet of bombers that did in fact attack Dresden.

In order to understand why this is so, we have to take a close look at inter-Allied relations in early 1945. In mid- to late January, the Americans were still involved in the final convulsions of the “Battle of the Bulge,” an unexpected German counter-offensive on the western front which had caused them great difficulties. The Americans, British, and Canadians had not yet crossed the Rhine, had not even reached the western banks of that river, and were still separated from Berlin by more than 500 kilometers. On the eastern front, meanwhile, the Red Army had launched a major offensive on January 12 and advanced rapidly to within 100 kilometers of the German capital. The resulting likelihood that the Soviets would not only take Berlin, but penetrate deep into Germany’s western half before the war ended, greatly perturbed many American and British military and political leaders. Is it realistic to believe that, under those circumstances, Washington and London were eager to enable the Soviets to achieve even greater progress?

Even if Stalin had asked for Anglo-American assistance from the air, Churchill and Roosevelt might have provided some token assistance, but would never have launched the massive and unprecedented combined RAF-USAAF operation that the bombing of Dresden revealed itself to be. Moreover, attacking Dresden meant sending hundreds of big bombers more than 2,000 kilometers through enemy airspace, approaching the lines of the Red Army so closely that they would run the risk of dropping their bombs by mistake on the Soviets or being fired at by Soviet anti-aircraft artillery.

Could Churchill or Roosevelt be expected to invest such huge human and material resources and to run such risks in an operation that would make it easier for the Red Army to take Berlin and possibly reach the Rhine before they did? Absolutely not. The American-British political and military leaders were undoubtedly of the opinion that the Red Army was already advancing fast enough.

Towards the end of January 1945, Roosevelt and Churchill prepared to travel to Yalta for a meeting with Stalin. They had asked for such a meeting because they wanted to make binding agreements about postwar Germany before the end of the hostilities. In the absence of such agreements, the military realities in the field would determine who would control which parts of Germany, and it looked very much as if, by the time the Nazis would finally capitulate, the Soviets would be in control of most of Germany and thus be able to unilaterally determine that country’s political, social, and economic future. For such a unilateral course of action, Washington and London themselves had created a fateful precedent, namely when they liberated Italy in 1943 and categorically denied the Soviet Union any participation in the reconstruction of that country; they did the same thing in France and Belgium in 1944.[11] Stalin, who had followed his allies’ example when he liberated countries in Eastern Europe, obviously did not need or want such a binding inter-allied agreement with respect to Germany, and therefore such a meeting. He did accept the proposal, but insisted on meeting on Soviet soil, namely in the Crimean resort of Yalta.

Contrary to conventional beliefs about that Conference, Stalin would prove to be most accommodating there, agreeing to a formula proposed by the British and Americans and highly advantageous to them, namely, a division of postwar Germany into occupation zones, with only approximately one third of Germany’s territory – the later “East Germany” – being assigned to the Soviets. Roosevelt and Churchill could not have foreseen this happy outcome of the Yalta Conference, from which they would return “in an exultant spirit.”[12] In the weeks leading up to the conference, they expected the Soviet leader, buoyed by the recent successes of the Red Army and enjoying a kind of home-game advantage, to be a difficult and demanding interlocutor. A way had to be found to bring him down to earth, to condition him to make concessions despite being the temporary favourite of the god of war.

It was crucially important to make it clear to Stalin that the military power of the Western Allies, in spite of recent setbacks in the Belgian Ardennes, should not be underestimated. The Red Army admittedly featured huge masses of infantry, excellent tanks, and a formidable artillery, but the Western Allies held in their hands a military trump which the Soviets were unable to match. That trump was their air force, featuring the most impressive collection of bombers the world had ever seen. This weapon made it possible for the Americans and the British to launch devastating strikes on targets that were far removed from their own lines. If Stalin could be made aware of this, would he not prove easier to deal with at Yalta?

It was Churchill who decided that the total obliteration of a German city, under the noses of the Soviets so to speak, would send the desired message to the Kremlin. The RAF and USAAF had been able for some time to strike a devastating blow against any German city, and detailed plans for such an operation, known as “Operation Thunderclap,” had been meticulously prepared. During the summer of 1944, however, when the rapid advance from Normandy made it seem likely that the war would be won before the end of the year, and thoughts were already turning to postwar reconstruction, a Thunderclap-style operation had begun to be seen as a means to intimidate the Soviets. In August 1944, an RAF memorandum pointed out that “the total devastation of the centre of a vast [German] city…would convince the Russian allies…of the effectiveness of Anglo-American air power.”[13]

For the purpose of defeating Germany, Thunderclap was no longer considered necessary by early 1945. But towards the end of January 1945, while preparing to travel to Yalta, Churchill suddenly showed great interest in this project, insisted that it be carried out tout de suite, and specifically ordered the head of the RAF Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, to wipe out a city in Germany’s east.[14] On January 25 the British Prime Minister indicated where he wanted the Germans to be “blasted,” namely, somewhere “in their [westward] retreat from Breslau [now Wroclaw in Poland].”[15] In terms of urban centres, this was tantamount to spelling D-R-E-S-D-E-N. That Churchill himself was behind the decision to bomb a city in Germany’s east is also hinted at in the autobiography of Arthur Harris, who wrote that “the attack on Dresden was at the time considered a military necessity by much more important people than myself.”[16] It is obvious that only personalities of the calibre of Churchill were able to impose their will on the czar of strategic bombing. As the British military historian Alexander McKee has written, Churchill “intended to write [a] lesson on the night sky [of Dresden]” for the benefit of the Soviets.

However, since the USAAF also ended up being involved in the bombing of Dresden, we may assume that Churchill acted with the knowledge and approval of Roosevelt. Churchill’s partners at the top of the United States’ political as well as military hierarchy, including General Marshall, shared his viewpoint; they too were fascinated, as McKee writes, by the idea of “intimidating the [Soviet] communists by terrorising the Nazis.”[17] The American participation in the Dresden raid was not really necessary, because the RAF was undoubtedly capable of wiping out Dresden in a solo performance. But the “overkill” effect resulting from a redundant American contribution was perfectly functional for the purpose of demonstrating to the Soviets the lethality of Anglo-American air power. It is also likely that Churchill did not want the responsibility for what he knew would be a terrible slaughter to be exclusively British; it was a crime for which he needed a partner.

A Thunderclap–style operation would of course do damage to whatever military and industrial installations and communications infrastructure were housed in the targeted city, and would therefore inevitably amount to yet another blow to the already tottering German enemy. But when such an operation was finally launched, with Dresden as target, it was done far less in order to speed up the defeat of the Nazi enemy than in order to intimidate the Soviets. Using the terminology of the “functional analysis” school of American sociology, hitting the Germans as hard as possible was the “manifest function” of the operation, while intimidating the Soviets was its far more important “latent” or “hidden” function. The massive destruction wreaked in Dresden was planned – in other words, was “functional” – not for the purpose of striking a devastating blow to the German enemy, but for the purpose of demonstrating to the Soviet ally that the Anglo-Americans had a weapon which the Red Army, no matter how mighty and successful it was against the Germans, could not match, and against which it had no adequate defenses.

Many American and British generals and high-ranking officers were undoubtedly aware of the latent function of the destruction of Dresden, and approved of such an undertaking; this knowledge also reached the local commanders of the RAF and USAAF as well as the “master bombers.” (After the war, two master bombers claimed to remember that they had been told clearly that this attack was intended “to impress the Soviets with the hitting power of our Bomber Command.”)[18] But the Soviets, who had hitherto made the biggest contribution to the war against Nazi Germany, and who had thereby not only suffered the biggest losses but also scored the most spectacular successes, e.g. in Stalingrad, enjoyed much sympathy among low-ranking American and British military personnel, including bomber crews. This constituency would certainly have disapproved of any kind of plan to intimidate the Soviets, and most certainly of a plan – the obliteration of a German city from the air – which they would have to carry out. It was therefore necessary to camouflage the objective of the operation behind an official rationale. In other words, because the latent function of the raid was “unspeakable,” a “speakable” manifest function had to be concocted.

And so the regional commanders and the master bombers were instructed to formulate other, hopefully credible, objectives for the benefit of their crews. In view of this, we can understand why the instructions to the crews with respect to the objectives differed from unit to unit and were often fanciful and even contradictory. The majority of the commanders emphasized military objectives, and cited undefined “military targets,” hypothetical “vital ammunition factories” and “dumps of weapons and supplies,” Dresden’s alleged role as “fortified city,” and even the existence in the city of some “German Army Headquarters.” Vague references were also frequently made to “important industrial installations” and “marshalling yards.” In order to explain to the crews why the historical city centre was targeted and not the industrial suburbs, some commanders talked about the existence there of a “Gestapo headquarters” and of “a gigantic poison gas factory.” Some speakers were either unable to invent such imaginary targets, or were for some reason unwilling to do so; they laconically told their men that the bombs were to be dropped on “the built-up city centre of Dresden,” or “on Dresden” tout court.[19] To destroy the centre of a German city, hoping to wreak as much damage as possible to military and industrial installations and to communication infrastructures, happened to be the essence of the Allied, or at least British, strategy of “area bombing.”[20]

The crew members had learned to accept this nasty fact of life, or rather of death, but in the case of Dresden many of them felt ill at ease. They questioned the instructions with respect to the objectives, and had the feeling that this raid involved something unusual and suspicious and was certainly not a “routine” affair, as Taylor presents things in his book. The radio operator of a B-17, for example, declared in a confidential communication that “this was the only time” that “[he] (and others) felt that the mission was unusual.” The anxiety experienced by the crews was also illustrated by the fact that in many cases a commander’s briefing did not trigger the crews’ traditional cheers but were met with icy silence.[21]

Directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, the instructions and briefings addressed to the crews sometimes revealed the true function of the attack. For example, a directive of the RAF to the crews of a number of bomber groups, issued on the day of the attack, February 13, 1945, unequivocally stated that it was the intention “to show the Russians, when they reach the city, what our Bomber Command is capable of doing.”[22] Under these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that many crew members understood clearly that they had to wipe Dresden from the map in order to scare the Soviets. A Canadian member of a bomber crew was to state after the war to an oral historian that he was convinced that the bombing of Dresden had aimed to make it clear to the Soviets “that they had to behave themselves, otherwise we would show them what we could also do to Russian cities.”[23]

The news of the particularly awful destruction of Dresden also caused great discomfort among British and American civilians, who shared the soldiers’ sympathy for the Soviet ally and who, upon learning the news of the raid, likewise sensed that this operation exuded something unusual and suspicious. The authorities attempted to exorcize the public’s unease by explaining the operation as an effort to facilitate the advance of the Red Army. At an RAF press conference in liberated Paris on February 16, 1945, journalists were told that the destruction of this “communications centre” situated close to “the Russian front” had been inspired by the desire to make it possible for the Russians “to continue their struggle with success.” That this was merely a rationale, concocted after the facts by what are called “spin doctors” today, was revealed by the military spokesman himself, who lamely acknowledged that he “thought” that it had “probably” been the intention to assist the Soviets.[24]

The hypothesis that the attack on Dresden was intended to intimidate the Soviets explains not only the magnitude of the operation but also the choice of the target. To the planners of Thunderclap, Berlin had always loomed as the perfect target. By early 1945, however, the German capital had already been bombed repeatedly. Could it be expected that yet another bombing raid, no matter how devastating, would have the desired effect on the Soviets when they would fight their way into the capital? Destruction wreaked within 24 hours would surely loom considerably more spectacular if a fairly big, compact, and “virginal” – i.e. not yet bombed – city were the target. Dresden, fortunate not to have been bombed thus far, was now unfortunate enough to meet all these criteria. Moreover, the British American commanders expected that the Soviets would reach the Saxon capital within days, so that they would be able to see very soon with their own eyes what the RAF and the USAAF could achieve in a single operation. Although the Red Army was to enter Dresden much later than the British and the Americans had expected, namely, on May 8, 1945, the destruction of the Saxon capital did have the desired effect. The Soviet lines were situated only a couple of hundred of kilometers from the city, so that the men and women of the Red Army could admire the glow of the Dresden inferno on the nocturnal horizon. The firestorm was allegedly visible up to a distance of 300 kilometers.

If intimidating the Soviets is viewed as the “latent,” in other words the real function of the destruction of Dresden, then not only the magnitude but also the timing of the operation makes sense. The attack was supposed to have taken place, at least according to some historians, on February 4, 1945, but had to be postponed on account of inclement weather to the night of February 13-14.[25] The Yalta Conference started on February 4. If the Dresden fireworks had taken place on that day, it might have provided Stalin with some food for thought at a critical moment. The Soviet leader, flying high after the recent successes of the Red Army, would be brought down to earth by this feat of his allies’ air forces, and would therefore turn out to be a less confident and more agreeable interlocutor at the conference table. This expectation was clearly reflected in a comment made one week before the start of the Yalta Conference by an American general, David M. Schlatter:

I feel that our air forces are the blue chips with which we will approach the post-war treaty table, and that this operation [the planned bombing of Dresden and/or Berlin] will add immeasurably to their strength, or rather to the Russian knowledge of their strength.[26]

The plan to bomb Dresden was not cancelled, but merely postponed. The kind of demonstration of military potency that it was supposed to be retained its psychological usefulness even after the end of the Crimean conference. It continued to be expected that the Soviets would soon enter Dresden and thus be able to see firsthand what horrible destruction the Anglo-American air forces were able to cause to a city far removed from their bases in a single night. Afterwards, when the rather vague agreements made at Yalta would have to be put into practice, the “boys in the Kremin” would surely remember what they had seen in Dresden, draw useful conclusions from their observations, and behave as Washington and London expected of them. When towards the end of the hostilities American troops had an opportunity to reach Dresden before the Soviets, Churchill vetoed this: even at that late stage, when Churchill was very eager for the Anglo-Americans to occupy as much German territory as possible, he still insisted that the Soviets be allowed to occupy Dresden, no doubt so they could benefit from the demonstration effect of the bombing.

Dresden was obliterated in order to intimidate the Soviets with a demonstration of the enormous firepower that permitted bombers of the RAF and the USAAF to unleash death and destruction hundreds of kilometers away from their bases, and the subtext was clear: this firepower could be aimed at the Soviet Union itself. This interpretation explains the many peculiarities of the bombing of Dresden, such as the magnitude of the operation, the unusual participation in one single raid of both the RAF and USAAF, the choice of a “virginal” target, the (intended) enormity of the destruction, the timing of the attack, and the fact that the supposedly crucially important railway station and the suburbs with their factories and Luftwaffe airfield were not targeted. The bombing of Dresden had little or nothing to do with the war against Nazi Germany: it was an American British message for Stalin, a message that cost the lives of tens of thousands of people. Later that same year, two more similarly coded yet not very subtle messages would follow, involving even more victims, but this time Japanese cities were targeted, and the idea was to direct Stalin’s attention to the lethality of America’s terrible new weapon, the atomic bomb.[27] Dresden had little or nothing to do with the war against Nazi Germany; it had much, if not everything, to do with a new conflict in which the enemy was to be the Soviet Union. In the horrible heat of the infernos of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War was born.

Notes

[1] Frederick Taylor. Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945, New York, 2004, pp. 354, 443-448; Götz Bergander, Dresden im Luftkrieg. Vorgeschichte, Zerstörung, Folgen, Weimar, 1995, chapter 12, and especially pp. 210 ff., 218-219, 229;

“Luftangriffe auf Dresden“, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftangriffe_auf_Dresden,  p. 9.

[2] See for example the comments made by General Spaatz cited in Randall Hansen, Fire and fury: the Allied bombing of Germany, 1942-45, Toronto, 2008, p. 243.

[3] Taylor, p. 416.

[4] Taylor, pp. 321-322.

[5] Olaf Groehler. Bombenkrieg gegen Deutschland, Berlin, 1990, p. 414; Hansen, p. 245; “Luftangriffe auf Dresden,” http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftangriffe_auf_Dresden,  p.7.

[6] “Luftangriffe auf Dresden,” http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftangriffe_auf_Dresden,  p. 7. 

[7] Taylor, pp. 152-154, 358-359.

[8] Eckart Spoo, “Die letzte der Familie Tucholsky,” Ossietzky, No. 11/2, June 2001, pp. 367-70.

[9] Taylor, p. 190; Groehler, pp. 400-401. Citing a study about Yalta, the British author of the latest study of Allied bombing during World War II notes that the Soviets “clearly preferred to keep the RAF and the USAAF away from territory they might soon be occupying,” see C. Grayling, Among the Dead Cities: Was the Allied Bombing of Civilians in WWII a Necessity or a Crime?, London, 2006, p. 176.

[10] Alexander McKee. Dresden 1945: The Devil’s Tinderbox, London, 1982, pp. 264-265; Groehler, pp. 400-402.

[11] See e.g. Jacques R. Pauwels, The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War, Toronto, 2002, p. 98 ff.

[12] Ibid., p. 119.

[13] Richard Davis, “Operation Thunderclap,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 14:1, March 1991, p. 96.

[14] Taylor, pp. 185-186, 376; Grayling, p. 71; David Irving. The Destruction of Dresden, London, 1971, pp. 96-99.

[15] Hansen, p. 241.

[16] Arthur Travers Harris, Bomber offensive, Don Mills/Ont., 1990, p. 242.

[17] McKee, pp. 46, 105.

[18] Groehler, p. 404.

[19] Ibid., p. 404.

[20] The Americans preferred “precision bombing,” in theory if not always in practice.

[21] Taylor, pp. 318-19; Irving, pp. 147-48.

[22] Quotation from Groehler, p. 404. See also Grayling, p. 260.

[23] Cited in Barry Broadfoot, Six War Years 1939-1945: Memories of Canadians at Home and Abroad, Don Mills, Ontario, 1976, p. 269.

[24] Taylor, pp. 361, 363-365.

[25] See e.g. Hans-Günther Dahms, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, second edition, Frankfurt am Main, 1971, p. 187.

[26] Cited in Ronald Schaffer. “American Military Ethics in World War II: The Bombing of German Civilians,” The Journal of Military History, 67: 2, September 1980, p. 330.

[27] A. C. Grayling, for example, writes in his new book on Allied bombing that “it is recognized that one of the main motives for the atomb-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to demonstrate to the Russians the superiority in waponry that the United States had attained…In the case of Dresden something similar is regrettably true.”

The Myth of the Good War
The USA in World War II

by Jacques Pauwels

James Lorimer, Toronto, 2002.
First published in October 2002. 264 Pages / Paperback/ $24.95.

Visit the publisher’s page for this book

This book offers a fresh and provocative look at the role of the USA in World War II. It spent four months on the nonfiction bestseller lists in Europe when it was first published in Belgium in 2001. Since then it has been translated into French, German and Spanish.

Popular historian Jacques Pauwels attacks the widely held belief that World War II was the “good war,” the war in which America led the forces of democracy and freedom to victory over fascist dictatorship and Japanese militarism. He argues that the role of the USA in World War II was determined not by idealism, but by the interests of America’s corporations and by the country’s social, economic, and political leaders.

JACQUES R. PAUWELS has taught European history at the University of Toronto, York University, and the University of Western Ontario.

If you would like to order the book from Lorimer:

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• toll-free phone 1-800-565-1975 Monday-Friday 8am – 4 pm Eastern time
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The fact, that Matteo Renzi was received in Riyadh by His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman and praised Saudi Arabia, aroused criticism. No criticism raised, however, but substantial consent, when Renzi himself, as President of the Italian Government and Secretary of the Democratic Party, in November 2015 went on an official visit to Riyadh to consolidate relations between the two countries. And at the time Saudi Arabia was substantially the same and had already started the war against Yemen. The visit was part of the traditional Italian policy of friendly relations with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Monarchies. Just recall Emma Bonino who, as Foreign Minister of Premier Letta’s Government, declared in 2013: “Italy and Saudi Arabia really have a lot in common and there are profound reasons for strengthening our ties.”

The visit that Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio made to Saudi Arabia on  January 10 (more than two weeks before Renzi) fits in the same line. Here he  did not only meet Prince Mohammed bin Salman, extolling “the constant strengthening of friendship and cooperation relations,” but he performed a much more important official act: he signed with the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, a memorandum of understanding on the “strategic dialogue” between Italy and Saudi Arabia. This act, far more serious than Renzi’s declaration on the “New Renaissance” of Saudi Arabia, did not arouse criticism in Italy and  practically passed over in silence.

The new agreement links Italy even more to an absolute monarchy, in which the Sovereign holds political and economic, legislative, executive, and judicial powers. It is currently in the hands of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who seized power with an act of force within the ruling family. There is no Parliament in Saudi Arabia, only an Advisory Council appointed by the Sovereign. Political parties and trade unions are illegal. The judicial system is based on Quranic law, administered by religious courts. Frequent are the sentences of beheading or cutting off hands, carried out in public. Opponents and critics are jailed, tortured, and murdered. Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and his body was dismembered to make it disappear. About 10 million immigrants, half of the workforce in Saudi Arabia, live in conditions of over-exploitation and slavery: over 4 million have been arrested in 3 years for alleged violations of immigration laws. 

The “strategic dialogue” agreement strengthened the ties between the Italian military-industrial complex and Saudi Arabia, one of the biggest buyers of weapons. While the Italian government is revoking the sale of bombs to Saudi Arabia as a measure against Saudi Arabia’s war massacring Yemen, Leonardo, Italy’s largest military industry, is assisting Saudi Arabia in using the Eurofighter Typhoon fighters that bomb Yemen. Riyadh bought 72 fighters from the Consortium where Leonardo holds 36% of the industrial share. The Eurofighter Typhoon, as the manufactory industry itself certified, is “combat-proven” having already been “tested in operations in Libya, Iraq and Syria,” and Yemen must be added too. Leonardo itself documented that “for over 40 years we have supplied the avionics and communication systems of the Typhoon and Tornado operated by Saudi Arabia Royal Air Force ” and we offer the Saudi Arabia Royal Air Force aircraft without pilot and target acquisition solutions “(i.e. drones capable to identify targets to be bombed). Leonardo itself also stated that “we have personnel in the Kingdom’s military bases.” At the same time, the Italian Public Company Fincantieri is building in the United States 4 warships of the most advanced type (Multi-Mission Surface Combatants)  for Saudi Arabia on the basis of a “multi-billion-dollar order.” There is, therefore, a solid foundation for the “strategic dialogue” development between Italy and Saudi Arabia.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is CC BY-SA 4.0

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We already know based on objective, impartial, empirical data, that there is effectively no difference in covid case counts/hospitalizations/deaths in states that mandate masks and business restrictions (such as North Dakota) vs states which do not (such as its southern neighbor).

So, perhaps while looking at this graphic, the CDC had a brilliant idea: ok, one mask does not work, but what about… two masks!

That’s right: starting Wednesday, the CDC (aka the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) began recommending that Americans wear two masks, or specifically a cloth mask over a medical mask to slow the spread of Covid-19.

The guidance followed the release of an agency study (because “scientists”) that found double masking can boost protection from aerosolized particles.

Whereas government officials previously said the CDC was waiting to gather evidence on double masking, they now appear to have a greenlight to mandate double-masking. The new study, part of the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, also examined the efficacy of modifications made to improve the fit of a medical mask. Either double masking or tightening a mask’s fit reduced exposure to aerosols that could be infectious by about 95%, the research concluded.

“These experiments highlight the importance of good fit to maximize mask performance,” the authors wrote.

“There are multiple simple ways to achieve better fit of masks to more effectively slow the spread of Covid-19.”

The findings came from experiments done by the agency last month, which tested how double masking and changes to improve mask fit worked amid coughing, which the researchers simulated. Knotting the loops of a surgical mask and tucking in extra fabric near the face was found to reduce exposure, as was wearing a cloth mask over a surgical mask.

As a result, the CDC’s new guidance now recommends that Americans should ensure that masks fit tightly on their face and have layers, both of which improve protection.  There are several routes to do that, including wearing a disposable mask beneath a cloth mask or choosing a mask with multiple layers of fabric, according to the recommendation.

That said, double-masking with two disposable masks, or with a KN95, isn’t recommended.

“The bottom line is this: Masks work and they work best when they have a good fit and are worn correctly,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing on Wednesday.

And while the CDC may argue that “the bottom line” is whatever it wants it to be, at least until it changes its mind in a month to suit some political interest du jour, the reality is that wearing just one mask has shown no tangible improvement on infection numbers.

In fact, none other than Dr Anthony Fauci said one week ago that “there’s no data that indicates that [double masking] is going to make a difference.”

Fauci on double masking:

“There’s no data that indicates that that is going to make a difference” pic.twitter.com/ptVivQfuwt

— Eli Klein (@TheEliKlein) January 31, 2021

But that was science in January. We now have February science. As a result, it’s time to reset the count and start with two…. then three masks…. then four…. until eventually we all will look like this…

… at least for a few minutes before everyone dies from asphyxiation.

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With changes of presidential administrations, radical departures in policy are always exaggerated.  Continuity remains, for the most part, a standard feature.  It is precisely that continuity being challenged by groups fearful of the continuing prosecution of Julian Assange. 

The effort by the US Justice Department to extradite Assange from the UK on eighteen charges based on the Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act met a stumbling block in the courts on January 4 this year.  The decision by District Judge Vanessa Baraitser proved exceedingly unsympathetic to the press and to Assange in general, but found his “the mental condition … such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America.”

Undeterred, the Justice Department promised to appeal (the February 12 deadline looms), while President Donald Trump showed little interest in dropping the case or using his pardoning powers.  With the Biden administration still finding its feet, advocacy groups have gathered to press for the dropping of the case against the founder of WikiLeaks.  On February 9, the Freedom of the Press Foundation sent a letter to President Joe Biden making the case.  Signatories included Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, the Knight First Amendment Institute, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders.  

“While our organizations have different perspectives on Mr Assange and his organization,” states the letter, “we share the view that the government’s indictment of him poses a grave threat to press freedom both in the United States and abroad.”  The letter distils the implications of the continued prosecution to model simplicity.  The indictment is a threat to press freedom given that it covers the sort of conduct “journalists engage in routinely – and that they must engage in in order to do the work the public needs them to do.”  Journalism entails speaking with sources, seeking clarification or further documentation and receiving and publishing “documents the government considers secret.”

Biden is weakly kitted out in the garb of a press defender, having positioned himself against Trump’s designation of the fourth estate as “the Enemy of the People”.  In May last year, he promised that a Biden White House would ensure that there was “no bullying of the media from the press room podium or by tweet.”  But for a good stretch of the presidential campaign, Biden tended to ignore the press, part of a general strategy to avoid his famed bumbling.  For three months he did not hold a single news conference, even in virtual format.

Biden was also Vice President in an administration that preached mightily about the values of the press while regularly resorting to the Espionage Act in prosecuting journalistic sources and whistleblowers.  Parker Higgins of the Freedom of the Press Foundation even argues that the Obama administration created a model Trump would grasp with glee, one characterised by the Espionage Act, efforts to “eviscerate reporter’s privilege,” the use of surveillance and the “abuse of the classification system”.

The new president does not count himself among Assange’s fans.  In the aftermath of the publication of US State Department cables by WikiLeaks in 2010, Biden went so far as to call the publisher a “high-tech terrorist”, a position almost intemperate relative to other White House officials.  The point is worth reiterating, given the Obama administration’s general reluctance to prosecute either Assange or WikiLeaks given the proximity of their activities to journalism.  In 2013, Obama’s officials fell back on precedent, sparing WikiLeaks, and by virtue of that other press outlets, from legal action.

In that unfortunate interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, an irony that eluded him at the time, the then Vice President revealed that the Justice Department was “taking a look” at possible charges.  If conspiracy could be proven behind obtaining “these classified documents with a member of the US military that is fundamentally different than if someone drops on your lap … if you are a press person, here is classified material.”

Biden also threw cold water on any claims that the publications had been anything like the Pentagon Papers released during the Nixon administration.  Assange had “done things that have damaged and put in jeopardy the lives and occupations of people in other parts of the world.”  There was also a complaint that meeting world leaders had become more onerous.  “For example, in my meetings … there is a desire to meet with me alone, rather than have staff in the room.  It makes things more cumbersome – so it has done damage.”

Such reasoning has been essentially duplicated in the current indictment, despite a paucity of evidence as to what actual harm the disclosures are said to have caused.   Daniel Ellsberg, the man behind the release of the Pentagon Papers, told the court in Assange’s extradition trial that US authorities had “not been able to identify a single person at risk of death, incarceration or physical harm.”

Given Biden’s previous form on the subject, it is hardly surprising that his administration is promising to continue the prosecution.  On February 9, Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi revealed that there would be no change of tack in pursuing Assange. “We continue to seek his extradition.”  The new is looking awfully like the old on this point.

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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 Another Day in the Empire

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

***

Trillions of barely visible pieces of plastic are floating in the world’s oceans, from surface waters to the deep seas. These particles, known as microplastics, typically form when larger plastic objects such as shopping bags and food containers break down.

Researchers are concerned about microplastics because they are minuscule, widely distributed and easy for wildlife to consume, accidentally or intentionally. We study marine science and animal behavior, and wanted to understand the scale of this problem. In a newly published study that we conducted with ecologist Elliott Hazen, we examined how marine fish – including species consumed by humans – are ingesting synthetic particles of all sizes.

In the broadest review on this topic that has been carried out to date, we found that, so far, 386 marine fish species are known to have ingested plastic debris, including 210 species that are commercially important. But findings of fish consuming plastic are on the rise. We speculate that this could be happening both because detection methods for microplastics are improving and because ocean plastic pollution continues to increase.

Researchers at California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium have found microplastic particles from the surface to the seafloor, where they can be ingested by a wide range of sea creatures.

Solving the plastics puzzle

It’s not news that wild creatures ingest plastic. The first scientific observation of this problem came from the stomach of a seabird in 1969. Three years later, scientists reported that fish off the coast of southern New England were consuming tiny plastic particles.

Since then, well over 100 scientific papers have described plastic ingestion in numerous species of fish. But each study has only contributed a small piece of a very important puzzle. To see the problem more clearly, we had to put those pieces together.

We did this by creating the largest existing database on plastic ingestion by marine fish, drawing on every scientific study of the problem published from 1972 to 2019. We collected a range of information from each study, including what fish species it examined, the number of fish that had eaten plastic and when those fish were caught. Because some regions of the ocean have more plastic pollution than others, we also examined where the fish were found.

For each species in our database, we identified its diet, habitat and feeding behaviors – for example, whether it preyed on other fish or grazed on algae. By analyzing this data as a whole, we wanted to understand not only how many fish were eating plastic, but also what factors might cause them to do so. The trends that we found were surprising and concerning.

Leopard sharks swim past plastic debris in shallow water off southern California. Ralph Pace, CC BY-ND

A global problem

Our research revealed that marine fish are ingesting plastic around the globe. According to the 129 scientific papers in our database, researchers have studied this problem in 555 fish species worldwide. We were alarmed to find that more than two-thirds of those species had ingested plastic.

One important caveat is that not all of these studies looked for microplastics. This is likely because finding microplastics requires specialized equipment, like microscopes, or use of more complex techniques. But when researchers did look for microplastics, they found five times more plastic per individual fish than when they only looked for larger pieces. Studies that were able to detect this previously invisible threat revealed that plastic ingestion was higher than we had originally anticipated.

Our review of four decades of research indicates that fish consumption of plastic is increasing. Just since an international assessment conducted for the United Nations in 2016, the number of marine fish species found with plastic has quadrupled.

Similarly, in the last decade alone, the proportion of fish consuming plastic has doubled across all species. Studies published from 2010-2013 found that an average of 15% of the fish sampled contained plastic; in studies published from 2017-2019, that share rose to 33%.

We think there are two reasons for this trend. First, scientific techniques for detecting microplastics have improved substantially in the past five years. Many of the earlier studies we examined may not have found microplastics because researchers couldn’t see them.

Second, it is also likely that fish are actually consuming more plastic over time as ocean plastic pollution increases globally. If this is true, we expect the situation to worsen. Multiple studies that have sought to quantify plastic waste project that the amount of plastic pollution in the ocean will continue to increase over the next several decades.

Most global plastic waste is discarded

Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND Source: Our World in Data Get the data

Risk factors

While our findings may make it seem as though fish in the ocean are stuffed to the gills with plastic, the situation is more complex. In our review, almost one-third of the species studied were not found to have consumed plastic. And even in studies that did report plastic ingestion, researchers did not find plastic in every individual fish. Across studies and species, about one in four fish contained plastics – a fraction that seems to be growing with time. Fish that did consume plastic typically had only one or two pieces in their stomachs.

In our view, this indicates that plastic ingestion by fish may be widespread, but it does not seem to be universal. Nor does it appear random. On the contrary, we were able to predict which species were more likely to eat plastic based on their environment, habitat and feeding behavior.

For example, fishes such as sharks, grouper and tuna that hunt other fishes or marine organisms as food were more likely to ingest plastic. Consequently, species higher on the food chain were at greater risk.

We were not surprised that the amount of plastic that fish consumed also seemed to depend on how much plastic was in their environment. Species that live in ocean regions known to have a lot of plastic pollution, such as the Mediterranean Sea and the coasts of East Asia, were found with more plastic in their stomachs.

WATCH: People are ingesting plastic from drinking water but also through foods like shellfish, which tends to be eaten whole so the plastic in their digestive systems is also consumed https://t.co/ADCNQQAcRG pic.twitter.com/dtciVhybuY

— Reuters (@Reuters) December 16, 2020

Effects of a plastic diet

This is not just a wildlife conservation issue. Researchers don’t know very much about the effects of ingesting plastic on fish or humans. However, there is evidence that that microplastics and even smaller particles called nanoplastics can move from a fish’s stomach to its muscle tissue, which is the part that humans typically eat. Our findings highlight the need for studies analyzing how frequently plastics transfer from fish to humans, and their potential effects on the human body.

Our review is a step toward understanding the global problem of ocean plastic pollution. Of more than 20,000 marine fish species, only roughly 2% have been tested for plastic consumption. And many reaches of the ocean remain to be examined. Nonetheless, what’s now clear to us is that “out of sight, out of mind” is not an effective response to ocean pollution – especially when it may end up on our plates.

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At the behest of Trump regime hardliners, truth-telling investigative journalist/whistleblower Assange was politically imprisoned in Britain on spurious US charges with no legitimacy.

On January 4, UK District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser rejected the Trump regime’s request to extradite Assange to the US, saying:

“I have decided that extradition would be oppressive and I order his discharge.”

Instead of ordering him released straightaway from unjust confinement under harsh conditions, she denied his legal team’s bail request — based on the following phony reason, saying:

“I am satisfied that there are substantial grounds for believing that if Mr Assange is released today he would fail to surrender to court to face the appeal proceedings (sic),” adding:

“As far as Mr Assange is concerned, this case has not yet been won…The outcome of this appeal is not yet known.”

Assange remains in harsh Belmarsh prison confinement.

Injustice against him continues with no near-term prospect for resolution.

Biden regime hardliners are no different from their predecessors.

According to their injustice department spokesman Marc Raimondi:

“We continue to seek (Assange’s) extradition.”

On February 8, speech, media, and academic freedom advocates — along with champions of civil liberties and human rights groups — wrote to Biden regime’s acting attorney general Monty Wilkerson as follows, saying:

“We…share our profound concern about the ongoing criminal and extradition proceedings relating to Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, under the Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,” adding:

“(W)e share the view that the government’s indictment of him poses a grave threat to press freedom both in the United States and abroad.”

“We urge you to drop the appeal of the decision by Judge Vanessa Baraitser of the Westminster Magistrates’ Court to reject the Trump administration’s extradition request.”

“We also urge you to dismiss the underlying indictment.”

“The indictment of Mr. Assange threatens press freedom because much of the conduct described in the indictment is conduct that journalists engage in routinely—and that they must engage in in order to do the work the public needs them to do.”

“Journalists at major news publications regularly speak with sources, ask for clarification or more documentation, and receive and publish documents the government considers secret.”

“In our view, such a precedent in (Assange’s) case could effectively criminalize these common journalistic practices.

A total of 24 organizations signed the letter, including:

• The ACLU
• Center for Constitutional Rights
• Committee to Protect Journalists
• Defending Rights and Dissent
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• First Amendment Coalition
• Free Press
• Freedom of the Press Foundation
• National Coalition Against Censorship
• Roots Action
• Press Freedom Defense Fund of First Look Institute
• Whistleblower & Source Protection Program (WHISPeR) at ExposeFacts

The above and other calls on Biden to drop spurious charges against Assange and order his release were rejected.

Criminalizing his truth-telling journalism continues — a US dagger thrust into the heart of constitutionally affirmed First Amendment rights bipartisan hardliners want undermined by repressive legislation.

If occurs, extraditing Assange to the US for politicized show trial persecution will be another major body blow to digital democracy, the last frontier of media freedom.

Crucifying him for truth-telling journalism and whistleblowing revelations of government wrongdoing reflects the hallmark of totalitarian rule.

Censorship of what’s vital to know is likely prelude for much greater harshness to come.

We’re all Julian Assange. His fate is ours.

Free and open societies in the US and West hang in the balance.

Growing tyranny threatens their elimination altogether.

If digital democracy goes, what remains of fundamental freedoms will go with it.

When truth-telling and dissent are considered existential threats, free and open societies no longer exist.

That’s the slippery slope where the US and other Western states are heading.

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

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

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

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

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

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

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

Featured image is from Lawyers for Assange

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

***

Pfizer and Moderna mRNA inoculations aren’t what they’re promoted to be.

As medically defined by the CDC, vaccines are supposed to stimulate the “immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease.”

Immunization is a “process by which a person becomes protected against a disease through vaccination.”

The above is not what mRNA inoculations are designed to do. They’re something else entirely.

They’re gene modifying delivery systems that don’t produce immunity —what Moderna calls “gene therapy technology.”

Not designed to prevent seasonal flu-renamed covid illness, at most they may somewhat reduce symptoms short-term.

Promoting mRNA technology as vaccine protection from covid is part of a state-approved/media proliferated mass deception scam.

The above technology is unapproved by the FDA for human use because it’s experimental, inadequately tested, and high-risk — especially for the elderly with weakened immune systems.

The nanoparticle-based delivery system is unapproved.

mRNA inoculations contain hazardous polyethylene glycol (PEG) to deliver their DNA-altering technology to human cells.

The risk of adverse events increases greatly from follow-up inoculations, including to potentially life-threatening anaphylactic shock.

In 2017, Moderna abandoned mRNA technology and lipid nanoparticles because tests caused large numbers of adverse effects.

Yet the same gene therapy and nanoparticle delivery system are used by Moderna and Pfizer in their misnamed mRNA “vaccines” that aren’t what they’re called.

According to statnews.com, “mRNA is a tricky technology.”

“Several major pharmaceutical companies have tried and abandoned the idea, struggling to get mRNA into cells without triggering nasty side effects.”

“(N)anoparticles created a daunting challenge: Dose too little, and you don’t get enough enzyme to affect the disease.”

“(D)ose too much, and the drug is too toxic for patients.”

“Moderna could not make its therapy work, former employees and collaborators said.”

“The safe dose was too weak, and repeat injections of a dose strong enough to be effective had troubling effects on the liver in animal studies.”

Moderna earlier admitted that its lipid nanoparticles (LNP) risked “significant adverse events,” adding:

“No mRNA drug has been approved in this new potential category of medicines, and may never be approved as a result of efforts by others or us.”

“mRNA drug development has substantial clinical development and regulatory risks due to the novel and unprecedented nature of this new category of medicines.”

“(T)here can be no assurance that our LNPs will not have undesired effects.”

According to virologist Judy Mikovits, LNPs can enter the brain, risking pathologic neuro-inflammation that could cause multiple sclerosis, ALS, or other serious diseases.

Johns Hopkins explained that potentially serious adverse events may occur after receiving follow-up mRNA inoculations.

According to Children’s Health Defense, “doctors link Pfizer (and) Moderna ‘vaccines’ to (a) life-threatening blood disorder.”

Health Impact News reported the following:

“An entire school district in Ohio canceled classes on Monday this week after so many of the staff suffered side effects from one of the experimental COVID mRNA injections over the weekend.”

Fox News Cleveland reported that “(t)wo days after employees were given their first round of COVID-19 vaccinations, the Fairless Local School District canceled classes, attributing it to many developing side effects and becoming ill.”

Similar events to the above are happening in the US and European countries after Pfizer and Moderna inoculations.

The more people jabbed, the more adverse events that at times are fatal.

Going along with experimental mRNA inoculations is playing Russian roulette with human health.

There’s high risk of things turning out badly in the short or longer-term.

Deceased 39-year-old Dr. Keshav Raman Sharma is an mRNA statistic.

Inoculated on January 5, he was found dead at home five days later.

He’s not alone. Others suffered the same fate.

Protecting health and well-being requires avoidance of these experimental, inadequately tested high-risk, unapproved inoculations.

*

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

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

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

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

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

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

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

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

First published on June 29, 2020

Lockdowns and hygienic measures around the world are based on numbers of cases and mortality rates created by the so-called SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests used to identify “positive” patients, whereby “positive” is usually equated with “infected.”

But looking closely at the facts, the conclusion is that these PCR tests are meaningless as a diagnostic tool to determine an alleged infection by a supposedly new virus called SARS-CoV-2.

Unfounded “Test, Test, Test, …” mantra

At the media briefing on COVID-19 on March 16, 2020, the WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said:

We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test.”

The message was spread through headlines around the world, for instance by Reuters and the BBC.

Still on the 3 of May, the moderator of the Heute journal — one of the most important news magazines on German television— was passing the mantra of the corona dogma on to his audience with the admonishing words:

Test, test, test—that is the credo at the moment, and it is the only way to really understand how much the coronavirus is spreading.”

This indicates that the belief in the validity of the PCR tests is so strong that it equals a religion that tolerates virtually no contradiction.

But it is well known that religions are about faith and not about scientific facts. And as Walter Lippmann, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and perhaps the most influential journalist of the 20th centurysaid: “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”

So to start, it is very remarkable that Kary Mullis himself, the inventor of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technology, did not think alike. His invention got him the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1993.

Unfortunately, Mullis passed away last year at the age of 74, but there is no doubt that the biochemist regarded the PCR as inappropriate to detect a viral infection.

The reason is that the intended use of the PCR was, and still is, to apply it as a manufacturing technique, being able to replicate DNA sequences millions and billions of times, and not as a diagnostic tool to detect viruses.

How declaring virus pandemics based on PCR tests can end in disaster was described by Gina Kolata in her 2007 New York Times article Faith in Quick Test Leads to Epidemic That Wasn’t.

Lack of a valid gold standard

Moreover, it is worth mentioning that the PCR tests used to identify so-called COVID-19 patients presumably infected by what is called SARS-CoV-2 do not have a valid gold standard to compare them with.

This is a fundamental point. Tests need to be evaluated to determine their preciseness — strictly speaking their “sensitivity”[1] and “specificity” — by comparison with a “gold standard,” meaning the most accurate method available.

As an example, for a pregnancy test the gold standard would be the pregnancy itself. But as Australian infectious diseases specialist Sanjaya Senanayake, for example, stated in an ABC TV interview in an answer to the question “How accurate is the [COVID-19] testing?”:

If we had a new test for picking up [the bacterium] golden staph in blood, we’ve already got blood cultures, that’s our gold standard we’ve been using for decades, and we could match this new test against that. But for COVID-19 we don’t have a gold standard test.”

Jessica C. Watson from Bristol University confirms this. In her paper “Interpreting a COVID-19 test result”, published recently in The British Medical Journal, she writes that there is a “lack of such a clear-cut ‘gold-standard’ for COVID-19 testing.”

But instead of classifying the tests as unsuitable for SARS-CoV-2 detection and COVID-19 diagnosis, or instead of pointing out that only a virus, proven through isolation and purification, can be a solid gold standard, Watson claims in all seriousness that, “pragmatically” COVID-19 diagnosis itself, remarkably including PCR testing itself, “may be the best available ‘gold standard’.” But this is not scientifically sound.

Apart from the fact that it is downright absurd to take the PCR test itself as part of the gold standard to evaluate the PCR test, there are no distinctive specific symptoms for COVID-19, as even people such as Thomas Löscher, former head of the Department of Infection and Tropical Medicine at the University of Munich and member of the Federal Association of German Internists, conceded to us[2].

And if there are no distinctive specific symptoms for COVID-19, COVID-19 diagnosis — contrary to Watson’s statement — cannot be suitable for serving as a valid gold standard.

In addition, “experts” such as Watson overlook the fact that only virus isolation, i.e. an unequivocal virus proof, can be the gold standard.

That is why I asked Watson how COVID-19 diagnosis “may be the best available gold standard,” if there are no distinctive specific symptoms for COVID-19, and also whether the virus itself, that is virus isolation, wouldn’t be the best available/possible gold standard. But she hasn’t answered these questions yet – despite multiple requests. And she has not yet responded to our rapid response post on her article in which we address exactly the same points, either, though she wrote us on June 2nd: “I will try to post a reply later this week when I have a chance.”

No proof for the RNA being of viral origin

Now the question is: What is required first for virus isolation/proof? We need to know where the RNA for which the PCR tests are calibrated comes from.

As textbooks (e.g., White/Fenner. Medical Virology, 1986, p. 9) as well as leading virus researchers such as Luc Montagnier or Dominic Dwyer state, particle purification — i.e. the separation of an object from everything else that is not that object, as for instance Nobel laureate Marie Curie purified 100 mg of radium chloride in 1898 by extracting it from tons of pitchblende — is an essential pre-requisite for proving the existence of a virus, and thus to prove that the RNA from the particle in question comes from a new virus.

The reason for this is that PCR is extremely sensitive, which means it can detect even the smallest pieces of DNA or RNA — but it cannot determine where these particles came from. That has to be determined beforehand.

And because the PCR tests are calibrated for gene sequences (in this case RNA sequences because SARS-CoV-2 is believed to be a RNA virus), we have to know that these gene snippets are part of the looked-for virus. And to know that, correct isolation and purification of the presumed virus has to be executed.

Hence, we have asked the science teams of the relevant papers which are referred to in the context of SARS-CoV-2 for proof whether the electron-microscopic shots depicted in their in vitro experiments show purified viruses.

But not a single team could answer that question with “yes” — and NB., nobody said purification was not a necessary step. We only got answers like “No, we did not obtain an electron micrograph showing the degree of purification” (see below).

We asked several study authors “Do your electron micrographs show the purified virus?”, they gave the following responses:

Regarding the mentioned papers it is clear that what is shown in the electron micrographs (EMs) is the end result of the experiment, meaning there is no other result that they could have made EMs from.

That is to say, if the authors of these studies concede that their published EMs do not show purified particles, then they definitely do not possess purified particles claimed to be viral. (In this context, it has to be remarked that some researchers use the term “isolation” in their papers, but the procedures described therein do not represent a proper isolation (purification) process. Consequently, in this context the term “isolation” is misused).

Thus, the authors of four of the principal, early 2020 papers claiming discovery of a new coronavirus concede they had no proof that the origin of the virus genome was viral-like particles or cellular debris, pure or impure, or particles of any kind. In other words, the existence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA is based on faith, not fact.

We have also contacted Dr Charles Calisher, who is a seasoned virologist. In 2001, Science published an “impassioned plea…to the younger generation” from several veteran virologists, among them Calisher, saying that:

[modern virus detection methods like] sleek polymerase chain reaction […] tell little or nothing about how a virus multiplies, which animals carry it, [or] how it makes people sick. [It is] like trying to say whether somebody has bad breath by looking at his fingerprint.”[3]

And that’s why we asked Dr Calisher whether he knows one single paper in which SARS-CoV-2 has been isolated and finally really purified. His answer:

I know of no such a publication. I have kept an eye out for one.”[4]

This actually means that one cannot conclude that the RNA gene sequences, which the scientists took from the tissue samples prepared in the mentioned in vitro trials and for which the PCR tests are finally being “calibrated,” belong to a specific virus — in this case SARS-CoV-2.

In addition, there is no scientific proof that those RNA sequences are the causative agent of what is called COVID-19.

In order to establish a causal connection, one way or the other, i.e. beyond virus isolation and purification, it would have been absolutely necessary to carry out an experiment that satisfies the four Koch’s postulates. But there is no such experiment, as Amory Devereux and Rosemary Frei recently revealed for OffGuardian.

The necessity to fulfill these postulates regarding SARS-CoV-2 is demonstrated not least by the fact that attempts have been made to fulfill them. But even researchers claiming they have done it, in reality, did not succeed.

One example is a study published in Nature on May 7. This trial, besides other procedures which render the study invalid, did not meet any of the postulates.

For instance, the alleged “infected” laboratory mice did not show any relevant clinical symptoms clearly attributable to pneumonia, which according to the third postulate should actually occur if a dangerous and potentially deadly virus was really at work there. And the slight bristles and weight loss, which were observed temporarily in the animals are negligible, not only because they could have been caused by the procedure itself, but also because the weight went back to normal again.

Also, no animal died except those they killed to perform the autopsies. And let’s not forget: These experiments should have been done beforedeveloping a test, which is not the case.

Revealingly, none of the leading German representatives of the official theory about SARS-Cov-2/COVID-19 — the Robert Koch-Institute (RKI), Alexander S. Kekulé (University of Halle), Hartmut Hengel and Ralf Bartenschlager (German Society for Virology), the aforementioned Thomas Löscher, Ulrich Dirnagl (Charité Berlin) or Georg Bornkamm (virologist and professor emeritus at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Munich) — could answer the following question I have sent them:

If the particles that are claimed to be to be SARS-CoV-2 have not been purified, how do you want to be sure that the RNA gene sequences of these particles belong to a specific new virus?

Particularly, if there are studies showing that substances such as antibiotics that are added to the test tubes in the in vitro experiments carried out for virus detection can “stress” the cell culture in a way that new gene sequences are being formed that were not previously detectable — an aspect that Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock already drew attention to in her Nobel Lecture back in 1983.

It should not go unmentioned that we finally got the Charité – the employer of Christian Drosten, Germany’s most influential virologist in respect of COVID-19, advisor to the German government and co-developer of the PCR test which was the first to be “accepted” (not validated!) by the WHO worldwide – to answer questions on the topic.

But we didn’t get answers until June 18, 2020, after months of non-response. In the end, we achieved it only with the help of Berlin lawyer Viviane Fischer.

Regarding our question “Has the Charité convinced itself that appropriate particle purification was carried out?,” the Charité concedes that they didn’t use purified particles.

And although they claim “virologists at the Charité are sure that they are testing for the virus,” in their paper (Corman et al.) they state:

RNA was extracted from clinical samples with the MagNA Pure 96 system (Roche, Penzberg, Germany) and from cell culture supernatants with the viral RNA mini kit (QIAGEN, Hilden, Germany),”

Which means they just assumed the RNA was viral.

Incidentally, the Corman et al. paper, published on January 23, 2020 didn’t even go through a proper peer review process, nor were the procedures outlined therein accompanied by controls — although it is only through these two things that scientific work becomes really solid.

Irrational rest results

It is also certain that we cannot know the false positive rate of the PCR tests without widespread testing of people who certainly do not have the virus, proven by a method which is independent of the test (having a solid gold standard).

Therefore, it is hardly surprising that there are several papers illustrating irrational test results.

For example, already in February the health authority in China’s Guangdong province reported that people have fully recovered from illness blamed on COVID-19, started to test “negative,” and then tested “positive” again.

A month later, a paper published in the Journal of Medical Virology showed that 29 out of 610 patients at a hospital in Wuhan had 3 to 6 test results that flipped between “negative”, “positive” and “dubious”.

A third example is a study from Singapore in which tests were carried out almost daily on 18 patients and the majority went from “positive” to “negative” back to “positive” at least once, and up to five times in one patient.

Even Wang Chen, president of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, conceded in February that the PCR tests are “only 30 to 50 per cent accurate”; while Sin Hang Lee from the Milford Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory sent a letter to the WHO’s coronavirus response team and to Anthony S. Fauci on March 22, 2020, saying that:

It has been widely reported in the social media that the RT-qPCR [Reverse Transcriptase quantitative PCR] test kits used to detect SARSCoV-2 RNA in human specimens are generating many false positive results and are not sensitive enough to detect some real positive cases.”

In other words, even if we theoretically assume that these PCR tests can really detect a viral infection, the tests would be practically worthless, and would only cause an unfounded scare among the “positive” people tested.

This becomes also evident considering the positive predictive value (PPV).

The PPV indicates the probability that a person with a positive test result is truly “positive” (ie. has the supposed virus), and it depends on two factors: the prevalence of the virus in the general population and the specificity of the test, that is the percentage of people without disease in whom the test is correctly “negative” (a test with a specificity of 95% incorrectly gives a positive result in 5 out of 100 non-infected people).

With the same specificity, the higher the prevalence, the higher the PPV.

In this context, on June 12 2020, the journal Deutsches Ärzteblattpublished an article in which the PPV has been calculated with three different prevalence scenarios.

The results must, of course, be viewed very critically, first because it is not possible to calculate the specificity without a solid gold standard, as outlined, and second because the calculations in the article are based on the specificity determined in the study by Jessica Watson, which is potentially worthless, as also mentioned.

But if you abstract from it, assuming that the underlying specificity of 95% is correct and that we know the prevalence, even the mainstream medical journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt reports that the so-called SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests may have “a shockingly low” PPV.

In one of the three scenarios, figuring with an assumed prevalence of 3%, the PPV was only 30 percent, which means that 70 percent of the people tested “positive” are not “positive” at all. Yet “they are prescribed quarantine,” as even the Ärzteblatt notes critically.

In a second scenario of the journal’s article, a prevalence of rate of 20 percent is assumed. In this case they generate a PPV of 78 percent, meaning that 22 percent of the “positive” tests are false “positives.”

That would mean: If we take the around 9 million people who are currently considered “positive” worldwide — supposing that the true “positives” really have a viral infection — we would get almost 2 million false “positives.”

All this fits with the fact that the CDC and the FDA, for instance, concede in their files that the so-called “SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests” are not suitable for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis.

In the “CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel“ file from March 30, 2020, for example, it says:

Detection of viral RNA may not indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms”

And:

This test cannot rule out diseases caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens.”

And the FDA admits that:

positive results […] do not rule out bacterial infection or co-infection with other viruses. The agent detected may not be the definite cause of disease.”

Remarkably, in the instruction manuals of PCR tests we can also read that they are not intended as a diagnostic test, as for instance in those by Altona Diagnostics and Creative Diagnostics[5].

To quote another one, in the product announcement of the LightMix Modular Assays produced by TIB Molbiol — which were developed using the Corman et al. protocol — and distributed by Roche we can read:

These assays are not intended for use as an aid in the diagnosis of coronavirus infection”

And:

For research use only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.”

Where is the evidence that the tests can measure the “viral load”?

There is also reason to conclude that the PCR test from Roche and others cannot even detect the targeted genes.

Moreover, in the product descriptions of the RT-qPCR tests for SARS-COV-2 it says they are “qualitative” tests, contrary to the fact that the “q” in “qPCR” stands for “quantitative.” And if these tests are not “quantitative” tests, they don’t show how many viral particles are in the body.

That is crucial because, in order to even begin talking about actual illness in the real world not only in a laboratory, the patient would need to have millions and millions of viral particles actively replicating in their body.

That is to say, the CDC, the WHO, the FDA or the RKI may assert that the tests can measure the so-called “viral load,” i.e. how many viral particles are in the body. “But this has never been proven. That is an enormous scandal,” as the journalist Jon Rappoport points out.

This is not only because the term “viral load” is deception. If you put the question “what is viral load?” at a dinner party, people take it to mean viruses circulating in the bloodstream. They’re surprised to learn it’s actually RNA molecules.

Also, to prove beyond any doubt that the PCR can measure how much a person is “burdened” with a disease-causing virus, the following experiment would have had to be carried out (which has not yet happened):

You take, let’s say, a few hundred or even thousand people and remove tissue samples from them. Make sure the people who take the samples do not perform the test.The testers will never know who the patients are and what condition they’re in. The testers run their PCR on the tissue samples. In each case, they say which virus they found and how much of it they found. Then, for example, in patients 29, 86, 199, 272, and 293 they found a great deal of what they claim is a virus. Now we un-blind those patients. They should all be sick, because they have so much virus replicating in their bodies. But are they really sick — or are they fit as a fiddle?

With the help of the aforementioned lawyer Viviane Fischer, I finally got the Charité to also answer the question of whether the test developed by Corman et al. — the so-called “Drosten PCR test” — is a quantitative test.

But the Charité was not willing to answer this question “yes”. Instead, the Charité wrote:

If real-time RT-PCR is involved, to the knowledge of the Charité in most cases these are […] limited to qualitative detection.”

Furthermore, the “Drosten PCR test” uses the unspecific E-gene assay as preliminary assay, while the Institut Pasteur uses the same assay as confirmatory assay.

According to Corman et al., the E-gene assay is likely to detect all Asian viruses, while the other assays in both tests are supposed to be more specific for sequences labelled “SARS-CoV-2”.

Besides the questionable purpose of having either a preliminary or a confirmatory test that is likely to detect all Asian viruses, at the beginning of April the WHO changed the algorithm, recommending that from then on a test can be regarded as “positive” even if just the E-gene assay (which is likely to detect all Asian viruses!) gives a “positive” result.

This means that a confirmed unspecific test result is officially sold as specific.

That change of algorithm increased the “case” numbers. Tests using the E-gene assay are produced for example by Roche, TIB Molbiol and R-Biopharm.

High CQ values make the test results even more meaningless

Another essential problem is that many PCR tests have a “cycle quantification” (Cq) value of over 35, and some, including the “Drosten PCR test”, even have a Cq of 45.

The Cq value specifies how many cycles of DNA replication are required to detect a real signal from biological samples.

“Cq values higher than 40 are suspect because of the implied low efficiency and generally should not be reported,” as it says in the MIQE guidelines.

MIQE stands for “Minimum Information for Publication of Quantitative Real-Time PCR Experiments”, a set of guidelines that describe the minimum information necessary for evaluating publications on Real-Time PCR, also called quantitative PCR, or qPCR.

The inventor himself, Kary Mullis, agreed, when he stated:

If you have to go more than 40 cycles to amplify a single-copy gene, there is something seriously wrong with your PCR.”

The MIQE guidelines have been developed under the aegis of Stephen A. Bustin, Professor of Molecular Medicine, a world-renowned expert on quantitative PCR and author of the book A-Z of Quantitative PCR which has been called “the bible of qPCR.”

In a recent podcast interview Bustin points out that “the use of such arbitrary Cq cut-offs is not ideal, because they may be either too low (eliminating valid results) or too high (increasing false “positive” results).”

And, according to him, a Cq of 20 to 30 should be aimed at, and there is concern regarding the reliability of the results for any Cq over 35.

If the Cq value gets too high, it becomes difficult to distinguish real signal from background, for example due to reactions of primers and fluorescent probes, and hence there is a higher probability of false positives.

Moreover, among other factors that can alter the result, before starting with the actual PCR, in case you are looking for presumed RNA viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, the RNA must be converted to complementary DNA (cDNA) with the enzyme Reverse Transcriptase—hence the “RT” at the beginning of “PCR” or “qPCR.”

But this transformation process is “widely recognized as inefficient and variable,” as Jessica Schwaber from the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine in Toronto and two research colleagues pointed out in a 2019 paper.

Stephen A. Bustin acknowledges problems with PCR in a comparable way.

For example, he pointed to the problem that in the course of the conversion process (RNA to cDNA) the amount of DNA obtained with the same RNA base material can vary widely, even by a factor of 10 (see above interview).

Considering that the DNA sequences get doubled at every cycle, even a slight variation becomes magnified and can thus alter the result, annihilating the test’s reliable informative value.

So how can it be that those who claim the PCR tests are highly meaningful for so-called COVID-19 diagnosis blind out the fundamental inadequacies of these tests—even if they are confronted with questions regarding their validity?

Certainly, the apologists of the novel coronavirus hypothesis should have dealt with these questions before throwing the tests on the market and putting basically the whole world under lockdown, not least because these are questions that come to mind immediately for anyone with even a spark of scientific understanding.

Thus, the thought inevitably emerges that financial and political interests play a decisive role for this ignorance about scientific obligations. NB, the WHO, for example has financial ties with drug companies, as the British Medical Journal showed in 2010.

And experts criticize “that the notorious corruption and conflicts of interest at WHO have continued, even grown“ since then. The CDC as well, to take another big player, is obviously no better off.

Finally, the reasons and possible motives remain speculative, and many involved surely act in good faith; but the science is clear: The numbers generated by these RT-PCR tests do not in the least justify frightening people who have been tested “positive” and imposing lockdown measures that plunge countless people into poverty and despair or even drive them to suicide.

And a “positive” result may have serious consequences for the patients as well, because then all non-viral factors are excluded from the diagnosis and the patients are treated with highly toxic drugs and invasive intubations. Especially for elderly people and patients with pre-existing conditions such a treatment can be fatal, as we have outlined in the article “Fatal Therapie.”

Without doubt eventual excess mortality rates are caused by the therapy and by the lockdown measures, while the “COVID-19” death statistics comprise also patients who died of a variety of diseases, redefined as COVID-19 only because of a “positive” test result whose value could not be more doubtful.

Addendum: We thank Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos and Val Turner in particular who made valuable contributions to the realization of this article.

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Torsten Engelbrecht is an award-winning journalist and author from Hamburg, Germany. In 2006 he co-authored Virus-Mania with Dr Klaus Kohnlein, and in 2009 he won the German Alternate Media Award. He has also written for Rubikon, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Financial Times Deutschland and many others.

Konstantin Demeter is a freelance photographer and an independent researcher. Together with the journalist Torsten Engelbrecht he has published articles on the “COVID-19” crisis in the online magazine Rubikon, as well as contributions on the monetary system, geopolitics, and the media in Swiss Italian newspapers.

Notes

[1] Sensitivity is defined as the proportion of patients with disease in whom the test is positive; and specificity is defined as the proportion of patients without disease in whom the test is negative.

[2] E-mail from Prof. Thomas Löscher from March 6, 2020

[3] Martin Enserink. Virology. Old guard urges virologists to go back to basics, Science, July 6, 2001, p. 24

[4] E-mail from Charles Calisher from May 10, 2020

[5] Creative Diagnostics, SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus Multiplex RT-qPCR Kit

The Relationship Between Income and Wealth Disparities and Negative Real Interest Rates

By Prof Rodrigue Tremblay, February 10 2021

Has a forty-year trend reached an apex? Indeed, official measures of economic disparities are at an all-time high. A question that begs to be answered is: to what extent can such a record inequality be traced back, at least partly, to the public policies that have been followed over the last forty years?

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

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, February 10 2021

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

UK Bans China’s CGTN for Being Too Much Like the BBC

By Brian Berletic, February 10 2021

The British Office of Communications (Ofcom) has pulled the license for China Global Television Network (CGTN) effectively terminating its ability to operate in the UK.

Facebook Hires NATO Press Officer as Intelligence Chief

By Alan MacLeod, February 10 2021

Ben Nimmo, a former NATO press officer and current senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, has announced Facebook has hired him to “lead global threat intelligence strategy against influence operations” and “emerging threats.”

Who Are the Ultimate War Profiteers? A U.S. Air Force Veteran Removes the Veil

By Christian Sorensen, February 10 2021

While war corporations, or so-called “defense contractors,” make billions in profits, Wall Street is the ultimate beneficiary of today’s nonstop wars. The prosaic nature of war profiteering—far from the work of a shadowy cabal—is precisely why the collusion is so destructive and should be outlawed.

The Narrative Coup. Real News vs. Fake News

By Nowick Gray, February 10 2021

The mainstream media (MSM) has demonstrated how to stop the spread of real news, under cover of stopping the spread of a fake virus. In this perverse phase of our cultural evolution, the simulation is designed to outcompete reality.

Germany’s Ministry of the Interior Hired Scientists to Justify “Tough Corona Measures”

By Anette Dowideit and Alexander Nabert, February 10 2021

The following text is a translation of an article published in Die Welt am Sonntag, which reveals a secret plan by Germany’s Ministry of the Interior to justify repressive social measures pertaining to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Big Pharma’s COVID Vaccine

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 10 2021

The plan to develop the Covid-19 vaccine is profit driven. The US government had already ordered 100 million doses back in July 2020 and the EU is to purchase 300 million doses. It’s Big Money for Big Pharma, generous payoffs to corrupt politicians, at the expense of tax payers.

Immunologist: Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines Could Cause Long-Term Chronic Illness

By Children’s Health Defense, February 10 2021

 

Crisis & Critique: A Trumpist Hangover Prevails in Venezuela

By Prof. Ociel Alí López, February 10 2021

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

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The following text is Chapter VII of  Prof Michel Chossudovsky’s E-Book entitled:

The 2020 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset” , (December 2020, revised January 2021)

click the above link to access the complete E-book consisting of a Preface, Highlights and Nine Chapters.

Introduction

The plan to develop the Covid-19 vaccine is profit driven.

The US government had already ordered 100 million doses back in July 2020 and the EU is to purchase 300 million doses. It’s Big Money for Big Pharma, generous payoffs to corrupt politicians, at the expense of tax payers.

The objective is ultimately to make money, by vaccinating the entire planet of 7.8 billion people for SARS-CoV-2.

The Covid vaccine in some cases envisages more than one shot. If this initiative were to go ahead as planned, it would be the largest vaccine project in World history and the biggest money making operation for Big Pharma.

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

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

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

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

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

The Drive to Develop a Corona Vaccine is Profit

It would appear that the standard lab tests using ferrets and mice will not be conducted.

Pfizer has “gone straight to human “guinea pigs.” … (See Incisive analysis by F. William Engdahl, Global Research, November 2020)

“Human tests began in late July and early August [2020]. Three months is unheard of for testing a new vaccine. Several years is the norm.”

This caricature by Large + JIPÉM  explains our predicament:

Mouse No 1: “Are You Going to get Vaccinated”,

Mouse No. 2: Are You Crazy, They Haven’t finished the Tests on Humans”

Un grand merci aux caricaturistes Large et JIPÉM

Dr. Michael Yeadon, a former Vice President of Pfizer has taken a firm stance: 

“All vaccines against the SARS-COV-2 virus are by definition novel. No candidate vaccine has been… in development for more than a few months.”:

“If any such vaccine is approved for use under any circumstances that are not EXPLICITLY experimental, I believe that recipients are being misled to a criminal extent.”

In early December,  Dr Michael Yeadon together with Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg “filed an application with the EMA, the European Medicine Agency responsible for EU-wide drug approval, for the immediate suspension of all SARS CoV 2 vaccine studies, in particular the BioNtech/Pfizer study on BNT162b (EudraCT number 2020-002641-42).

It is important to review the complex history of the novel vaccine.

History of the SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Project 

There are many contradictions. The analysis below addresses the earlier stages of the vaccine project as well as the role of the 201 Simulationunder the auspices of the John Hopkins School of Medicine held in New York on  October 19, 2019.

The Covid vaccine is a multibillion dollar Big Pharma operation which will contribute to increasing the public debt of more than 150 national governments.

Supported by the fear campaign, Money rather than Public Health is the driving force behind this initiative.

The GSK-Pfizer Partnership 

Five months before the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, two of the largest Worldwide Pharma conglomerates decided to join hands in a strategic relationship. In August 2019, GSK confirmed the formation of a major partnership with Pfizer entitled the Consumer Health Joint Venture.

The coronavirus was initially named nCoV-19 by CEPI and the WHO: exactly the same name as that adopted in the WEF-Gates-John Hopkins Event 201 (2019-nCov) pertaining to a coronavirus simulation exercise held in Baltimore in mid October 2019.

The Event 201 John Hopkins simulation addressed the development of an effective vaccine in response to millions of cases (in the October 2019 simulation) of the 2019 nCoV. The simulation announced a scenario in which the entire population of the planet would be affected: “During the initial months of the pandemic, the cumulative number of cases [in the simulation] increases exponentially, doubling every week. And as the cases and deaths accumulate, the economic and societal consequences become increasingly severe.”

The scenario ends at the 18-month point, with 65 million deaths. The pandemic is beginning to slow due to the decreasing number of susceptible people. The pandemic will continue at some rate until there is an effective vaccine or until 80-90 % of the global population has been exposed. From that point on, it is likely to be an endemic childhood disease.

According to the WEF Video below, produced in relation to the 201 Simulation, “we ran a massive viral pandemic simulation.., 65 million deaths Worlwide.”.

See also the analysis of  F. William Engdahl on the 201 Simulation

Video Produced by the World Economic Forum in association with the 201 John Hopkins Simulation

Ironically, on January 30th 2020, the WHO defined the new virus as 2019-nCoV, i.e. the same name as that used in the 201 simulation in October 2019.

It was only later that Covid-19 was identified by the WHO not as a virus but as a disease: coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the Virus was identified as “severe acute respiratory syndrome” coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)

Two weeks after the virus had been formally identified by the People’s Republic of China (Jan 7, 2020), a vaccine for the novel coronavirus was announced by CEPI at the Davos World Economic Forum, January 20-24, 2020.

The Central Role of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)

The lead entity for the novel coronavirus vaccine initiative is the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) an organization sponsored and financed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Note the chronology: The development of the 2019 nCoV vaccine was announced at the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) a week prior to the official launching by the WHO of  a Worldwide Public Health Emergency (January 30) at a time when the number of “confirmed cases” Worldwide (outside China) was 83. (see Chapter II)

The pandemic was launched by the WHO on March 11. And five days later, barely covered by the media, the first tests involving human volunteers were conducted by Moderna in Seattle on March 16.

According to Richard Hatchett, CEO of  the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) the project to develop a vaccine commenced not only prior to the discovery and identification of the coronavirus (January 7, 2020) but several months prior to the October 2019 Scenario 201 simulation exercise.

“We did that in the last year or so [early 2019]. … ”

(scroll down for interview with Richard Hatchett)

CEPI is seeking a “monopoly” role in the vaccination business the objective of which is a “global vaccine project”, in partnership with a large number of “candidates”.

It announced funding for its existing partnership with Inovio and The University of Queensland (Australia). In addition, CEPI confirmed (January 23, 2020) its contract with Moderna, Inc. and the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been instrumental in waging the fear and panic campaign across America: “Ten Times Worse than Seasonal Flu”. (See WEF Video)

CEPI was dealing simultaneously with several pharmaceutical companies. The Moderna- NIAID agreement was implemented. The mRNA COVID-19 vaccine was launched in the US in late November 2020.

On January 31st, 2020 the day following the WHO’s official launching of the global public health emergency (PHEIC) and Trump’s decision to curtail air travel with China, CEPI announced its partnership with CureVac AG, a German-based  biopharmaceutical company.

A few days later, in early February 2020, CEPI “announced that major vaccine manufacturer GSK would allow its proprietary adjuvants— compounds that boost the effectiveness of vaccines — to be used in the response”. (The pandemic was officially launched on March 11).

There were many “potential vaccines in the pipeline” with “dozens of research groups around the world  racing to create a vaccine against COVID-19”.

The COV-19 Global Vaccination Program 

CEPI (on behalf of Gates-WEF, which funded the 201 simulation exercise) is currently playing a key role in a large scale Worldwide vaccination program in partnership with biotech companies, Big Pharma, government agencies as well as university laboratories.

The foregoing statement by CEPI was made nearly two months prior to the official declaration of a pandemic on March 11.

“We’re having conversations with a broad array of potential partners”. And critical to those conversations is: What’s the plan to make very large quantities of vaccine within a time frame that is potentially relevant to what people seem to be increasingly certain will be a pandemic, if it isn’t already there? …” [Richard Hatchett, CEPI CEO in interview with stat.news.com].  …

The underlying focus was to develop a global vaccine:

And part of that was doing a global survey of manufacturing capacity to think about where we wanted to plant the manufacturing of any successful products we were able to bring forward.

Of significance, Hatchett  confirmed that the project to develop a vaccine commenced not only prior to the discovery and identification of the coronavirus (January 7, 2020) but several months prior to the October 2019 201 simulation exercise.

“We did that in the last year or so. [early 2019]…  We are using the information that we have collected and have that team now thinking about opportunities for scaling vaccines of various different types. That is a work in progress. For some of the technologies the tech transfer [to a manufacturer] may be something that could be done in a time frame that was pertinent to the epidemic, potentially.

I think it is going to be really important to engage those folks who have access to really substantial production capacity. And having the big producers at the table — because of their depth, because of their experience, because of their internal resources — would be very, very important.

The candidate vaccines will be very, very quick. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID [who has been spreading panic on network TV], is out in public as saying he thinks the clinical trial for the Moderna vaccine may be as early as the spring. (emphasis added)

What is now unfolding in real life is in some regards similar to the October 2019 201 Simulation exercise at John Hopkins.

The scenario is how to produce millions of vaccine shots on the presumption that the pandemic will spread Worldwide, and for that you need the Covid-19 “positive cases” to go fly high.

The CEPI sponsored vaccine conglomerates had already planned their investments well in advance of the global Worldwide health emergency (PHEIC) (declared by the WHO on January 30, 2020):

I [Hachett] think part of the general strategy is to have a large number of candidates. [and] you want to have enough candidates that at least some of them are moving rapidly through the process.

And then for each candidate, you need to ask yourself the question: How do you produce that? … [And] how are you going to get to that point with production at a scale that is meaningful in the context of a disease that is going to infect the whole of society? (Interview conducted by Helen Branswell, statsnews, February 3, 2020)

Moderna Inc 

Moderna Inc based in Seattle was one of the several candidates involved and supported by CEPI.

Moderna announced on February 24th the development of “an experimental mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, known as mRNA-1273″. “The initial batch of the vaccine has already been shipped to U.S. government researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)” headed by Dr. Antony Fauci.

While Moderna Inc initially stated that the first clinical trials would commence in late April, tests involving human volunteers started in mid-March in Seattle: (bear in mind the pandemic was officially launched on March 11)

The Covid Vaccine and “Herd Immunity”: Changing the Definitions 

Herd immunity is an important concept in medicine. According to Healthline:

“It happens when so many people in a community become immune to an infectious disease that it stops the disease from spreading.

This can happen in two ways:

1. Many people contract the disease and in time build up an immune response to it (natural immunity).

2. Many people are vaccinated against the disease to achieve immunity.

Herd immunity can work against the spread of some diseases. There are several reasons why it often works.” (See Healthline)

The WHO has redefined herd immunity with a view to supporting the multibillion dollar Covid vaccine initiative:

Below (Left) is the official WHO definition (June 2020). And in November (Right) the WHO decided unilaterally to  redefine a fundamental medical concept, focussing solely on the role of vaccination in achieving herd immunity.

To our knowledge, the peer reviewed definition of herd immunity has not changed.

The new “definition” of the WHO visibly serves the interests of Big Pharma.

Flashback: The 2009 H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic

Michael Fomento  concludes:

Even within the agency, the director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Epidemiology in Munster, Germany, Dr. Ulrich Kiel, has essentially labeled the pandemic a hoax. “We are witnessing a gigantic misallocation of resources [$18 billionso far] in terms of public health,” he said.

They’re right. This wasn’t merely overcautiousness or simple misjudgment. The pandemic declaration and all the Klaxon-ringing since reflect sheer dishonesty motivated not by medical concerns but political ones.

Unquestionably, swine flu has proved to be vastly milder than ordinary seasonal flu. It kills at a third to a tenth the rate, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. Data from other countries like France and Japan indicate it’s far tamer than that.

The above text is Chapter VII of  Prof Michel Chossudovsky’s E-Book entitled:

The 2020 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset” , (December 2020, revised January 2021)

click the above link to access the complete E-book consisting of a Preface, Highlights and Nine Chapters.

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

***

Too much propaganda is merely propaganda. —Wm. T. Vollman, Europe Central

The mainstream media (MSM) has demonstrated how to stop the spread of real news, under cover of stopping the spread of a fake virus. In this perverse phase of our cultural evolution, the simulation is designed to outcompete reality. The beta test for this new generation of societal software was called Event 201, and the official release, Covid-19. The coding templates are known as Lockstep, Agenda 2020, Agenda 2030, and The Great Reset.

The open source software known as free-thinking humanity knows enough to look outside the narrative box the MSM has constructed to capture the entire human race, indeed reality itself. Because we have seen this movie before and we have reached the point of revelation.

Look at your television at night. Watch the ‘stories’ made up of everything fake. It’s all nonsense. All of it. It’s all totally fake. The anchors, the pundits, the ‘experts’ and interviews; fake, fake, fake and FAKE! The stories, the narratives, the ‘science’, the numbers; fake, fake, fake and FAKE! ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, the FOXNews Channel; ALL FAKE! You can see it on their faces, and you can hear it in their voice. They don’t believe a damn thing that they’re saying, and you know you’re right! You’re not crazy! –RealStewPeters, Telegram

“All the News That’s Fit to Print” —New York Timesmotto

The BBC in their piece on the above NYT motto mentions a longstanding debate on its exact meaning. At the outset it was “to differentiate the Times from… the yellow press” (BBC) with its “indecencies” and “reckless sensationalism.” Gabriel Snyder, NYT “Public Editor” and a contributing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, describes the competition, with “their brightly colored and richly illustrated front pages, loud headlines, and heavy coverage of lurid crime, political scandals, and tear-jerking human-interest stories. The style was called ‘yellow journalism.’ Today it’d be called ‘clickbait’ or ‘fake news.’”

Of course, insider Gabriel Snyder fails to note that this 120-year script was flipped by the Trumpian revolution, which branded the MSM itself as the epitome of Fake News.

The Times, nicknamed “The Gray Lady,” was said to stand aloof, with the “intention to report the news impartially” (web). Snyder lets slip the key to this kingdom of truth when he proclaims, “This alignment in outlook of the powers that be and the Times newsroom allowed the Times to set itself above the fray: it could report and leave it to the politicians to fight it out.” That shocking admission “of alignment with the powers that be”—standing above the divide-and-conquer battles the paper reports and fuels—certainly paints a privileged, self-appointed role as arbiter (and unannounced sponsor) of partisan conflict. Or rather, as a mouthpiece for those entities (“powers that be”) who hold themselves above reproach, accountability, or challenge… and now, imperatively beyond discussion in its pages.

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them.
—Harold Pinter Nobel speech, quoted by Edward Curtin

Thus the meaning of the motto becomes clear. It is not all the news there is to report. It is neither complete nor balanced. The conditional filter “fit” is entirely fit to the ruling directive. One way this has manifested itself is the CIA Mockingbird program which explicitly targeted the Times, among a media spectrum of infiltration and censorship.

Source: instarix.com

Gabriel Snyder by June of 2020 was already seeing the threat to his crumbling hold on the high ground of Truth, and paints the narrative war in the pandemic context as:

a matter of life and death—of relying on science, facts, and expertise to guide society’s actions or adopting a political program that would junk them altogether. Given what is at stake, it is not enough to present conspiracy theories unchallenged—as, just to cite a single example, an April report on a Texas protest against lockdowns did when it quoted the right-wing internet fabulist Alex Jones’s pronouncement on covid-19 (“America knows it’s a hoax”)—in the hopes that readers will simply conclude on their own that they are beyond the pale. On matters where there is a very right and a very wrong answer—and not competing political talking points—such “both sides” coverage is irresponsible.

Snyder disparages Mark Zuckerberg for the remark “I think that’s kind of a dangerous line to get to in terms of deciding what is true and what isn’t.” Oblivious to the hypocrisy of Zuckerberg doing just that, with his own censorship campaign on Facebook, Snyder’s beef seems to be that Zuckerberg was too wishy-washy in his fake confession. Snyder says the NYT should double down on its championing of the one-and-only truth, and now, in times of greatest need, even become “adversarial.”

Like, even admit, maybe, you’re a Propaganda Rag for the Democrat Party?

Source: Cari Keleman, twitter

Attempting to play it both ways, Snyder falls flat, larding his language with supposed certitudes: life, death, science, facts, expertise, beyond the pale, very right, very wrong, irresponsible, cynical, misinformation…”

The esteemed editor should review legendaryNew Yorker editor E. B. White’s advice to avoid the word very, as it adds nothing substantial, and instead advertises a weak position. But such is the criteria for that absolute standard of truth, in the same vague and subjective terms claimed by an equally unimaginative political party and class, indeed the global elite itself when speaking directly from its perches in Davos or Brussels or the UN.

In short, what is inherently subjective is claimed to have a definite political meaning. Whichever party wins power—and whichever media buys market share—gets to rebrand subjective as objective (the newly anointed one-and-only Truth) through its own lens.

Source: Fox News

Snyder comes to the inevitable conclusion of the totalitarian mindset:

“Perhaps it’s time, as we confront two pandemics—one a virus, the other cynical misinformation peddled mostly for financial gain—that the Times stopped focusing on all the news, and took a stand once more on what is fit to print.”

Does he imagine that the average citizen cannot see the mirror image of his position: that the Times itself has become the chief purveyor of “cynical misinformation peddled mostly for financial gain”?

The result of certitude on either side is that “Right” and “Wrong” becomes “Us” and “Them.” Deniers of the ruling party’s version of truth become “Domestic Terrorists,”enemies of the state. All-out narrative war is declared.

Source: Narrative reframes, telegram

Follow this logic farther, and it ends one way: in genocide. The student of history will recognize the unfolding now of “a dangerous agenda built on a foundation of deception and delusion.”

At this point in 2021 it looks bleak for lovers of liberty, but the fight has just begun.
The coming deadly reckoning of this Fourth Turning will require tremendous courage, guile, personal sacrifice, dreadful alternatives, survival skills, intelligence, strategic thinking, and an audacity to win at all costs. Those still caught in the mindset of voting in good guys to change the outcome are delusional, as the outcome of this past election confirmed voting does not matter.

There are wealthy, powerful, sociopath, globalist oligarchs who constitute the real power in this world and unless they are confronted and defeated, the outcome of this Fourth Turning will result in a dark future for humanity and the final obliteration of our Constitution. There is no way to avoid the coming conflict. Sides must be chosen. You will not be able to sit this one out. They will come for you, whether you like it or not.
—Jim Quinn, Fourth Turning Detonation

That vision might be considered just the darker side of the same big-picture reality being foisted upon the world by the psychopathic elite. The difference is, Quinn is basing his view on evidence before us on every street in the world, indeed trumpeted proudly by that same elite. Whereas their justifications to the public, via their propaganda arms such as the NYT, are constructed from a tapestry of false flags, faked science, and big lies. The result, a narrative coup on reality itself.

In such a world, we cannot even utter the word reality anymore without invoking its political context: the officially sanctioned occupation of Reality itself. Yes, by none other than that supreme guardian of Truth, the New York Times, with a recent op-ed“ exploring the concept of a ‘Reality Czar’ to deal with our ‘Reality Crisis.’” (C.J. Hopkins).

The idea of a coup on reality is not new, after all; it is simply a plagiarism of Orwell’s infamous Ministry of Truth, aiming to rewrite not only the past and the present, but the future. The NYT’s partner in narrative crime, the Wall Street Journal, announces that the fake virus is “here to stay”; and (misnamed) “public health officers” such as BC’s Bonnie Henry are following in lockstep to extend their Orwellian orders “indefinitely.”

Source: Kulvinder Kaur MD

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Nowick Gray writes from Salt Spring Island, BC. His books of genre-bending fiction and creative nonfiction explore the borders of nature and civilization, imagination and reality, choice and manifestation. Connect at NowickGray.com to read more. A regular contributor to The New Agora,Nowick also offers perspectives and resources on alternative culture and African drumming, and helps other writers as a freelance copyeditor at HyperEdits.com. Sign up for the “Wild Writings” email newsletter for updates and free offers.

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First published May 29, 2020

See the latest report on the German Ministry of Interior scandal revealed by Die Welt am Sonntag, (English)

***

Germany’s federal government and mainstream media are engaged in damage control after a report that challenges the established Corona narrative leaked from Germany’s Ministry of the Interior.  

Wir machen unsere Leser auf die Zusammenfassung dieses wichtigen durchgesickerten Berichts aufmerksam, der im Auftrag des BMI – Bundesministerium des Innern, erstellt wurde.

Klicken Sie hier, um den vollständigen Bericht in deutscher Sprache anzuzeigen.

Some of the report key passages are:

• The dangerousness of Covid-19 was overestimated: probably at no point did the danger posed by the new virus go beyond the normal level.
• The people who die from Corona are essentially those who would statistically die this year, because they have reached the end of their lives and their weakened bodies can no longer cope with any random everyday stress (including the approximately 150 viruses currently in circulation).
• Worldwide, within a quarter of a year, there has been no more than 250,000 deaths from Covid-19, compared to 1.5 million deaths [25,100 in Germany] during the influenza wave 2017/18.
• The danger is obviously no greater than that of many other viruses. There is no evidence that this was more than a false alarm.
• A reproach could go along these lines: During the Corona crisis the State has proved itself as one of the biggest producers of Fake News.

So far, so bad. But it gets worse.

The report focuses on the “manifold and heavy consequences of the Corona measures” and warns that these are “grave”.

More people are dying because of state-imposed Corona-measures than they are being killed by the virus.

The reason is a scandal in the making:

A Corona-focused German healthcare system is postponing life-saving surgery and delaying or reducing treatment for non-Corona patients.

Berlin in Denial Mode. The scientists fight back.

Initially, the government tried to dismiss the report as “the work of one employee”, and its contents as “his own opinion” – while the journalists closed ranks, no questions asked, with the politicians.

But the 93-pages report titled “Analysis of the Crisis Management” has been drafted by a scientific panel appointed by the interior ministry and composed by external medical experts from several German universities.

The report was the initiative of a department of the interior ministry called Unit KM4 and in charge with the “Protection of critical infrastructures”.

This is also where the German official turned whistleblower, Stephen Kohn, work(ed), and from where he leaked it to the media.

The authors of the report issued a joint press release already on Mai 11th, berating the government for ignoring expert advise, and asking for the interior minister to officially comment upon the experts joint statement:

“Therapeutic and preventive measures should never bring more harm than the illness itself. Their aim should be to protect the risk groups, without endangering the availibilty of medical care and the health of the whole population, as it is unfortunately occurring”

“We in the scientific and medical praxis are experiencing the secondary damages of the Corona-measures on our patients on a daily basis.”

“We therefore ask the Federal Ministry of the Interior, to comment upon our press release, and we hope for a pertinent discussion regarding the [Corona] measures, one that leads to the best possible solution for the whole population”

At the time of writing, the German government had yet to react.

But the facts are – sadly – vindicating the medical experts’ worries.

On Mai 23 the German newspaper Das Bild titled: “Dramatic consequences of the Corona-Measures: 52,000 Cancer Ops delayed.”

Inside, a aeading medical doctor warns that “we will feel the side-effects of the Corona crisis for years”.

Shooting the Whistleblower. Ignoring the Message.

As Der Spiegel reported on Mai 15th: “Stephen Kohn [the whistleblower] has since been suspended from duty. He was advised to obtain a lawyer and his work laptop was confiscated.”

Kohn had originally leaked the report on May 9th to the liberal-conservative magazine Tichys Einblick one of Germany’s most popular alternative media outlets.

News of the report went mainstream in Germany during the second week of May – but already in the third week media and politicians alike stopped discussing the issue by refusing to comment upon it.

Emblematic was the approach taken by Günter Krings, the representative for Interior Minister Horst Seehofer – the whistleblower’s boss:

Asked it he would treat the document seriously, Krings replied:

“If you start analyzing papers like that, then pretty soon you’ll be inviting the guys with the tin foil hats to parliamentary hearings.”

Men in tin foil hats – Aluhut in German – is a term used to describe people who believe in conspiracy theories.

Indeed one article by Der Spiegel adressing the Corona protest movement and the consequences of the leaked report contained the word “conspiracy” no fewer than 17 times!

And no discussions of the issues raised by the report itself.

Outside Germany the news has virtually gone unreported.

The Protest Movement – or “Corona-Rebellen”

Germans begun demonstrating against Lockdowns as early as April.

And thousands of citizens keep showing up at demos every week-end, even as the government is easing the restrictions.

The demos are not merely against restrictions, which have actually been comparatively mild compared to many other Western countries.

The demos question the entire Corona Narrative, and even more its principals, especially the role Bill Gates is playing, as the WHO second biggest donor (the first one since Trump suspended U.S. contribution).

Indeed the biggest such demos took place in Stuttgart on May 9th, where tens of thousands people assempled to say no – to the NWO.

Germans are saying no to any orwellian solution the government might one day impose out of a questionable “emergency status”, from mass surveillance Apps to mandatory vaccinations.

The leaked report has proved their fears to be well founded.

At least as far as the fake nature of the “Corona pandemic” is concerned.

The rest might soon follow.

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While war corporations, or so-called “defense contractors,” make billions in profits, Wall Street is the ultimate beneficiary of today’s nonstop wars. The prosaic nature of war profiteering—far from the work of a shadowy cabal—is precisely why the collusion is so destructive and should be outlawed.

The U.S. ruling class deploys the military for three main reasons: (1) to forcibly open up countries to foreign investment, (2) to ensure the free flow of natural resources from the global south into the hands of multinational corporations, and (3) because war is profitable. The third of these reasons, the profitability of war, is often lacking detail in analyses of U.S. imperialism: The financial industry, including investment banks and private equity firms, is an insatiable force seeking profit via military activity.

The war industry is composed of corporations that sell goods and services to the U.S. government and allied capitalist regimes around the world. Investment banks and asset management firms hold most shares of every major public war corporation.

The best-known financial firms holding the stock of war corporations include: Vanguard Group, BlackRock, State Street, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Wellington Management.

Consider Parsons, a corporation that sells goods and services pertaining to construction, command and control, espionage, and day-to-day military operations. Parsons’ initial public offering in May 2019, valued at roughly $3 billion, earned it an industry Corporate Growth Award. The top holders of Parsons stock are investment banks and asset management firms—including the familiar Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and State Street.

Cyber Wars and Intelligence Go Mainstream as Emerging Corporate Frontiers

New business sectors of war are created and then flooded. For example, the provision of “cyber” was virtually nonexistent in U.S. military contracting until roughly four years ago. A war industry push to militarize IT infrastructure has yielded a bonanza in cyber contracts. Today, “cyber” goods and services are sold stand-alone or as additions to previous contracts.

Nearly every major war corporation sells cyber goods and services.

The top public war corporations include Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris, Textron, SAIC, Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, CACI, Honeywell, PAE, Accenture, KBRWyle, Amentum, Jacobs, and AECOM.

They all sell cyber. The main exception is Huntington Ingalls, a major shipbuilder, which does not sell stand-alone cyber goods, although it does mandate cybersecurity as part of its supply chain. The top private war corporations—Sierra Nevada Corp. and General Atomics, run by the billionaire Ozmens and Blue Brothers, respectively—also sell cyber goods and services.

This single business sector of war, cyber, is worth billions annually. Claims of Chinese and Russian cyber hacks, fabricated or hyped by war industry think tanks and media affiliates, fuel government purchases of cyber goods and services. For its part, the U.S. government—first to use devastating new weaponry, from atomic weapons to cyber weapons, and first to attack Moscow with cyber weapons—positions its aggression as purely defensive.

Accusations of Russian hacking lend support to huge investment in cyber-security. [Source: theintercept.com]

In November 2018, Parsons—whose leadership is packed with bankers, career war profiteers, military and intelligence retirees, and a coal tycoon—was contracted for cyberspace operations mission planning in Centerville, Virginia. In May 2019, Parsons was contracted with nine other corporations to expand the cyberspace backbone of the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific of San Diego, California, a military unit whose mandate is to dominate all forms of space (cyberspace, airspace, and Earth’s orbit).

In January 2020, Parsons and other corporations were contracted by the same unit to further develop, oversee, and employ broad cyber technology integral to that mandate, from the continental United States, to Guam, Japan, Australia, and Singapore, to Bahrain, Djibouti, and Italy. This is just one example of one corporation. Corporate America blankets U.S. military cyber operations worldwide.

No business sector of war is off limits.

As recently as the early 1990s, it was considered sacrilege for corporate employees (“contractors”) to be involved in intelligence matters. Not anymore. U.S. intelligence (both civilian and military) is corporatized.

Consider the Defense Intelligence Agency. DIA was established in the 1960s to consolidate the military’s disparate intelligence activities. It did not consolidate much, as the individual military branches continued to run distinct military-intelligence operations.

Since the 1960s, DIA has expanded dramatically in size. Corporations carrying out DIA’s activities during the most recent fiscal year included work in its Science & Technology Directorate (five years, $990,000,000), its National Media Exploitation Center, and its Missile & Space Intelligence Center (MSIC).

Parsons carries out modeling and simulation and analysis within DIA’s MSIC. Corporations also run planning and analysis of DIA’s workforce, sell technical support to DIA, conductemployee vetting and background investigations, and work on technology transfer analysis and assessment.

Corporations even develop and run software that aids “in the identification of intelligence requirements, management of priorities, planning and production of intelligence products, enterprise data analytics, communication and other associated processes,” offering further opportunities for profit-hungry entities to steer the espionage ship. Corporations (e.g., Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI, General Dynamics, Leidos, L3Harris, ManTech, PAE and SAIC, whose stocks are owned mostly by financial firms) functionally run U.S. military-intelligence, the operations of which ultimately enrich the U.S. ruling class.

Wall Street: the Ultimate War Profiteers

Wall Street plays the foundational role in the war industry by outright owning war corporations. Consider PAE, a subtle, potent corporation, which operates such diverse business sectors of war as vehicle maintenance, base operations, military construction, and military training. Gores Holdings III acquired PAE from Platinum Equity in early 2020. Gores then adopted the name PAE and took PAE public. PAE has since acquired the corporations CENTRA and Metis Solutions, which further increase PAE’s operations carrying out former governmental tasks within the U.S. military establishment and espionage agencies.

Again, all military and intelligence activity is up for grabs, even the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC), a military range for testing and evaluating the war industry’s technology (e.g., anti-submarine weapons, sonar tracking, and communications). Some have nicknamed AUTEC the “Navy’s Area 51” because of the testing of high-tech unconventional weapons. [Area 51 is a testing range in Nevada where classified programs are worked on and experimental aircraft are flown.]

The Navy established AUTEC on Andros Island in the Bahamas to take advantage of the deep oceanic trench that runs along the east coast of the island. PAE is traditionally the go-to corporation that operates and maintains AUTEC, though a newly formed corporation known as Amentum recently took over some of these functions.

The private equity firm Lindsay Goldberg owns Amentum, which was created in 2020 when AECOM, a massive engineering and project management firm, sold its management services business. Amentum now directs this business. Overseas, this management services business has recently transported equipment, cargo, and personnel around Europe; run logistics for prepositioned matériel in Germany, Kuwait, and Qatar; supported drone operations in the Middle East; and repaired support equipment and helped with maintenance at Navy sites in Comalapa, El Salvador. These operations now all belong to Amentum.

In November 2020, Amentum made another move: It acquired DynCorp, a corporation reported to have a deep history of mercenary activity in Latin America and the Middle East.

DynCorp CEO Lewis “Lou” Von Thaer (featured with DynCorp cap) visits with security contractors and soldiers in Afghanistan. [Source: twitter.com]

According to contract announcements, DynCorp has recently overseen war reserve matériel in the U.S., Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE; maintained military aircraft around the world, including in Honduras, Germany, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait; sold aircraft maintenance to Sweden and Saudi Arabia; and run substantial worldwide training and equipping of forces, emergency construction, and logistics.

Big Finance wheels and deals war corporations, viewing bases, troops, and warzones as numbers through which to profit.

Another prominent financial player is Veritas Capital, which once owned DynCorp and now owns such corporations as Alion and Peraton, the latter of which is about to acquireNorthrop Grumman’s IT business. Peraton’s recent sales to the U.S. military establishment have included: portable systems to foil radio-controlled explosive devices that sundry groups use to attack Western military forces that invade or occupy their countries; work on undersea drones; work to ensure nuclear missiles reenter Earth’s atmosphere properly; IT work that “directly supports American national security interests on the continent of Africa,” according to the contracting announcement; cyber activities for the Air Force Research Lab; and commercial satellite communications for Central Command. All is fair in profit and war.

Big Finance sits at the top of the war industry by purchasing most shares of war corporations and by owning war corporations. Insatiable demand for profit places immense structural pressure on the Pentagon and Capitol Hill for sky-high U.S. military and intelligence budgets, broad deployment of troops overseas, and the opening up of governmental jobs to corporations.

The most well-known industry pressure comes in the form of lobbying both political parties and funding their congressional campaigns (with extra focus on members of pertinent committees, such as Armed Services, Intelligence, Appropriations, and Foreign Relations).

This produces tangible results. As Steven Semler of the non-corporate Security Policy Reform Institute calculated, Democratic votes on the National Defense Authorization Act

Warmonger-In-Chief

The Executive Branch is not exempt. Rapacious financiers—including hedge fund chiefs and venture capitalists—top the list of donors to the Biden Administration, though dark money groups prevent a full understanding of the overall campaign finance picture. Between July and September at least 67 billionaires and their spouses made contributions of more than $100,000 to committees supporting Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Biden’s campaign received over $9 million from Donald Sussman, CEO of Palmora Partners, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund, which has more than 260,000 shares in Raytheon, a preeminent weapons manufacturer and supplier of weapons to Saudi Arabia, which recently won a $100 million contract for Afghan Air Force training.

Another of Biden’s top donors, Jim Simons, who gave over $7 million, founded Renaissance Capital, which owns 1.2 million shares in Raytheon worth over $75 million, and 130,000 shares in Lockheed Martin worth $50 million.

Big Tech is positioned prominently among donors to the Biden inauguration celebration. Biden has been clear on the campaign trail that he does not intend to cut the military budget, even going so far as stating, “I’ve met with a number of my advisors and some have suggested in certain areas the budget is going to have to be increased.” Biden’s advisors are part and parcel of the military-industrial-congressional complex. Cozying up to wealthy donors, Biden infamously assured them that “nothing would fundamentally change” in a Biden presidency.

Corporate Media Kool-aid

Corporate media prevent the public from understanding the nature of the problem. A handful of business interests owns media outlets in the United States. Profit drives corporate media. U.S. corporate media (e.g. CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews) share the same business model: air what attracts the highest ratings in order to get more advertising revenue.

Corporate media air info-tainment, designed not to inform or foster critical thinking. Informing the public is not a priority. Maintaining the existing economic order is.

To the extent that corporate media air any information at all, the information reflects the opinions of the ruling class and the dogma of Corporate America.

Politically conditioning the U.S. public, corporate media never blame the military-industrial-congressional complex or capitalism for any of the problems in the world. Aiming for high ratings and lucrative advertising revenue, corporate media self-censor and taper the spectrum of acceptable foreign policy debate. War corporations purchase advertisements on corporate “news” shows to further confine the debate. Corporate pundits and newscasters do not speak out against advertisers.

Corporate media hire career militants (e.g. former CIA Director John Brennan, MSNBC; former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morrell, CBS News; retired General Jack Keane, FoxNews) who further confine the debate. Retired generals and admirals regularly contribute to all forms of corporate media, often without disclosing existing ties to war corporations or financial investments in war.

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 allowed government to increase its propaganda in corporate media. Drawing funding from the wealthy donor class and large corporate interests, National Public Radio is similarly confined. NPR’s new CEO as of September 2019 is John Lansing, who recently led U.S. propaganda at the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

Other industry pressure comes in the form of funding and running pressure groups [e.g. National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA), Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), Association of the United States Army (AUSA)] to dominate the Pentagon, administer arms fairs, and push favorable policies; funding think tanks to keep the narrative neoliberal and pro-war; recruiting retired generals and admirals (e.g. Dunford at Lockheed Martin, Mattis at General Dynamics, Winnefeld at Raytheon) to leverage their knowledge for financial gain; and flooding the Pentagon’s civilian offices with corporate executives (e.g., Esper and then Austin, Secretary of Defense; Lord, Undersecretary for Acquisition and Sustainment; McCarthy, Secretary of the Army).

Wars must be created and expanded, and military bases, through which to route goods and services, must be established and entrenched to satisfy investors. Notwithstanding, ending the wars first requires addressing the embedded profit motive, otherwise it is business as usual.

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Christian Sorensen is an Air Force veteran and author of the new book entitled Understanding the War Industry. See CAM’s review of the book: Wars R Us: A Review of Christian Sorensen’s New Book.

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

***

Africa No Filter is a not-for-profit organization set up to help shift harmful and stereotypical narratives about Africa through research, advocacy and grant-making to storytellers. Interestingly, one-third of all African stories in news outlets on the continent are sourced from foreign news services according to a new report from Africa No Filter.

The ‘How African Media Covers Africa’ highlights the fact that stories about Africa continue to be told through the same persistent and negative stereotypes and frames of poverty, disease, conflict, poor leadership and corruption. 

“In response to the persistent and ongoing framing of Africa as a broken continent, dependent on donors with its people lacking agency to make change. We do this through research, grant making and advocacy. Media is an influential platform on which these narratives are carried so we wanted to understand better what role African media had in perpetuating some of the stereotypical narratives,” Moky Makura, Executive Director of Africa No Filter, said in an interview.

The research surveyed 38 African editors, analyzed content from 60 African news outlets in 15 countries (Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, DRC, Egypt, Tunisia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal) between September and October 2020. In addition, four facilitated focus groups were held with 25 editors of African media, editors of Pan African outlets and international correspondents.

The results confirmed challenges and experiences that are common knowledge within the industry: advertising revenue and newsrooms are shrinking, influencing the kind of news that Africans read and that news is largely negative and conflict filled.

Key findings from the report show that the sources for news gathering on African countries are problematic, the resulting content continues to feed old stereotypes, and often the quality of local journalism doesn’t allow for nuanced and contextualized storytelling that is critical for telling stories about the 54 countries in Africa.   

• 63% of outlets surveyed don’t have correspondents in other countries in Africa  
• 1/3 of all coverage on Africa was from non-African sources, with AFP and BBC  accounting for ¼ of all stories found in African outlets about other African countries. African news agencies contributed minimally.  
• 81% of the stories analyzed were classified as “hard news” e.g. conflicts and crises driven by events – they were also largely political in nature.   
• 13% of the news focused specifically on political violence, civil unrest and armed conflicts.  
• South Africa, followed by Egypt were the countries with the most diverse coverage that was not necessarily linked to newsy events meaning that those two countries are probably the ‘best known’ on the continent. 

“Media is incredibly influential in setting the agenda and determining narratives about Africa. The research clearly shows that despite years of independence, Africans still don’t hold the pen when it comes to writing our stories. More importantly, we continue to promote the narratives about Africa being broken, dependent and lacking agency through the stories we share in our media about each other. We need to take back the pen,” Makura said. 

According to her, the media is constrained by its business model so this is not so much about leadership and management. Advertising is the key revenue driver and that essentially pays for and influences what is written about in the media. But media leaders in Africa need to think up new models and reinvent themselves to maintain their relevance in a market where direct channels exist and where their very existence is threatened. 

“We need investment in media. We need better trained journalists and storyteller, investment in infrastructure and resources to be able to cover soft and hard news, fact check and keep up with the digital pace,” she explained, adding that it is necessary to make grants to support projects, and for capacity building of media.

Africa No Filter is on a mission to make some impact into how the continent is perceived by Africans and the rest of the world. It is funded by the Ford Foundation, Bloomberg, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Luminate, Open Society Foundation, Comic Relief, the Hilton Foundation and the British Council.

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Featured image is from the author

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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps received 340 new speedboats during a ceremony at the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.

The delivered speedboats are co-produced by the IRGC Navy and the Defense Ministry and are capable of carrying various types of missiles to attack enemy targets. The delivery took place alongside the celebration of the 42nd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. These boats are to be actively used in the Persian Gulf, Sea of Oman, and the Caspian Sea.

The IRGC Navy is focused on smaller vessels, aimed at swarming a potential adversary. The newly-delivered speedboats were described as agile, maneuverable and equipped with radar-evading stealth technology.

Tehran is continuing to reinforce its positions and pursue its interests. This is prompted by the fact that US President Joe Biden’s vow to rejoin the Nuclear Deal turned out to be entirely hollow. Iran demanded that the sanctions imposed by the Trump Administration be removed, otherwise rejoining the deal meant nothing.

On February 8th, Biden confirmed that sanctions on Iran wouldn’t be lifted, with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki saying that such a “big policy change” wasn’t planned.

To show some “reduction in pressure”, the USS Nimitz carrier strike group was pulled out of the region, in a signal that an escalation with Iran isn’t planned. That happened as Tehran, Moscow and Beijing announced they would hold joint naval drills.

In response, US Central Command’s Gen Kenneth McKenzie said that Iran was the “Main Driver of Instability”, in his first public address since Biden became president. McKenzie repeated a usual a US accusation against Tehran, claiming that for more than forty years it “has funded and aggressively supported terrorism and terrorist organizations.” The “maximum pressure” campaign is simply “on hold”, but is not canceled.

Iranian allies in the Middle East continue actively operating, hammering US interests and those of their allies.

US convoys continue suffering regular attacks in Iraq, with two being subject to attacks on February 7th. In Lebanon, Hezbollah said that it would continue targeting and downing Israeli drones and more. Israel’s lack of activity in the previous days is quite notable.

The most significant success is being achieved in Yemen, by the Houthis. The Ansar Allah movement is pushing the Saudi-led coalition back, as it destroyed ammunition depots and weapons in Marib. Riyadh also intercepted a swarm of suicide drones attributed to the Houthis, but there was no confirmation.

Saudi Arabia is also remaining active in airstrikes, and violating the al-Hudaydah ceasefire, but with few results to show.

US and allied interests are being pressured all around the Middle East, as the Biden administration refuses to turn its back on any of Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies. The withdrawal of the USS Nimitz CSG is a likely a welcome sign, but the sanction regime remaining, surely, spoils the party.

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The government’s admission that Covid-19 has not been categorised a “serious” workplace risk was described as “beyond belief” today.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has three categories of risk – serious, significant and minor.

Employment Minister Mims Davies said in a written statement that Covid-19 has been deemed by the HSE to be a “significant” risk to workers, as its effects are “non-permanent or reversible, non-progressive and any disability is temporary.”

The HSE has received 134,000 complaints since the pandemic started but issued just 192 enforcement notices (0.1 per cent).

Andy McDonald, Labour’s shadow employment rights and protections secretary, said:

“Given that almost 113,000 people have died from Covid-19 and as many as one in five people are suffering from the effects of ‘long Covid,’ it is beyond belief that the government does not consider the virus to be a serious risk to working people.

“With workplace health and safety enforcement almost non-existent and after a decade of cuts that has left agencies under-resourced, the government must urgently recategorise Covid-19 as a serious risk and bring in new safety rules and enforcement to protect workers’ lives.”

In the Commons, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that travellers required to quarantine in hotels in England from Monday – nearly a year after the pandemic hit Britain – will be charged £1,750 for their stay.

British nationals or residents returning from 33 “red list” countries will have to spend 10 days in one of 16 government-designated hotels and take two Covid tests.

Mr Hancock also announced fines of up to £10,000 for those who fail to quarantine. Arriving travellers who lie on their passenger locator forms face up to 10 years in jail.

During the Commons session, Plaid Cymru MP Hywel Williams, asked whether Mr Hancock would commit to increasing sick pay to “enable working people to self-isolate safely.”

Mr Hancock said that there was a £500 self-isolation payment for those on low incomes who cannot work from home.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth noted that Mr Hancock had “boasted of the £500 payment” last Tuesday, but that over 70 per cent of requests for financial support are rejected.

Four in 10 people who needed financial support to self-isolate at the end of 2020 said that they could not access it, a new Red Cross survey suggests.

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The British Office of Communications (Ofcom) has pulled the license for China Global Television Network (CGTN) effectively terminating its ability to operate in the UK.

CGTN had asked for its license to be transferred to an entity called China Global Television Network Corporation, but “crucial information” was missing from the application, and the new owner would be disqualified from holding a license as it would be controlled by a body ultimately directed by the Chinese Communist Party, Ofcom said.

The article would also claim:

Ofcom is required by law to prevent bodies whose goals are mainly political from becoming or remaining TV license holders. Last year Ofcom found CGTN breached impartiality rules in its coverage of Hong Kong protests. 

Yet if CGTN was actually guilty of this, and this standard was practiced as an international norm, it would spell the end of the UK’s own British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) – British state media that admittedly exists to promote UK interests globally.

Accusing CGTN of Being Too Much Like the BBC?

The BBC’s own website claims:

The BBC should provide high-quality news coverage to international audiences, firmly based on British values of accuracy, impartiality, and fairness. Its international services should put the United Kingdom in a world context, aiding understanding of the United Kingdom as a whole, including its nations and regions where appropriate.

While there is no doubt that the BBC operates under and to promote British values, it is doubtful at best that those values include “accuracy, impartiality, and fairness.”

Even studies carried out in the UK itself regarding the BBC’s “accuracy, impartiality, and fairness” reveal quite the opposite.

A 2003 Guardian article titled, “Study deals a blow to claims of anti-war bias in BBC news,” would note:

Downing Street’s complaints about anti-war bias within the BBC appear to be disproved by an academic analysis that shows the corporation displayed the most “pro-war” agenda of any broadcaster.

Of course, the US-led invasion of Iraq, eagerly promoted by the British state and British state media like the BBC was predicated on a deliberate lie regarding Iraq’s possession of “weapons of mass destruction.”

The BBC’s lies were promoted specifically in service of UK special interests including corporate-financiers who sought to remove Iraq – as well as other nations – from the list of potential collaborators with a re-emerging Russia and a rising China.

The BBC’s deliberate campaign of lies about Iraq was not its first nor last role in supporting illegal armed aggression around the globe – including armed aggression the British military participated in.

Similar lies would be spread by the BBC regarding Libya and Syria – with at one point in the Syrian conflict BBC staff rode with militant extremists as they invaded Syria from Turkey.

Regarding Hong Kong – an area Ofcom cited as a breach of its impartiality rules – the BBC itself presented one-sided reporting, omitting mention of US government funding behind the Hong Kong protests and deliberately downplaying or omitting egregious violence carried out by the so-called “pro-democracy” protesters.

The BBC’s framing of the “One Country, Two Systems” arrangement was also decidedly leaning heavily toward the interests of the UK and far from any genuinely objective assessment of the colonial roots of that arrangement or the duress Beijing agreed to it under at the time.

The West’s Censorship Spree will Boomerang

In reality – shutting down CGTN and restricting other media operations from Eurasia is aimed at maintaining the West’s primacy within the global information sphere as a whole, and continuing its unimpeded intrusion into the information space of other nations.

However, habitually and transparent hypocrisy, coupled with the West’s waning economic and military power, will open the door for other nations to take the UK’s own practices of strangling alternative media within its own information space to finally and fully purge the BBC and other Western state media operations from their own, respective information spaces.

Members of the Western media – who often organize themselves into “Foreign Correspondent Clubs” in foreign nations and operate more like public relations agents, intelligence operators, lobbyists, and agents of foreign interests than actual journalists – have already been exposed in recent years as the public grows increasingly aware of their role in Western-backed political interference around the globe in places like Libya and Syria in 2011, Ukraine in 2013-2014, and more recently in places like Hong Kong, Thailand, and now Myanmar.

Coupled with Ofcom’s campaign of censorship is US-based social media giants purging their networks of alternative media – both independent and state-sponsored.

If allowing alternative voices to speak to international audiences on US-based social networks or to operate in the West is no longer permissible, why are US-based social media networks and Western media operations allowed to operate abroad with impunity? It is a lopsided equation that has long-since needed balancing – and one nations need to – and in some cases already are – addressing.

Just like Western sanctions against an ever-growing list of nations who refuse to submit to the West’s “international order” have ultimately begun isolating the West itself from the rest of the world – the same will happen to its media if the West finds itself incapable of striking a better balance and more respect for the nations its media operates in.

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Brian Berletic 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.

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“All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice.”—George Orwell, 1984

Let’s be clear about one thing: the impeachment of Donald Trump is a waste of time and money.

Impeaching Trump will accomplish very little, and it will not in any way improve the plight of the average American. It will only reinforce the spectacle and farce that have come to be synonymous with politics today

While the nation allows itself to be distracted by yet more bread-and-circus politics, the American kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians and corporate thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of the people) continues to suck the American people into a parallel universe in which the Constitution is meaningless, the government is all-powerful, and the citizenry are powerless to defend themselves against government agents who steal, spy, lie, plunder, kill, abuse and generally inflict mayhem and sow madness on everyone and everything in their sphere.

So here’s what I propose: let’s impeach the Deep State and its cabal of government operatives from every point along the political spectrum (right, left and center) for conspiring to expand the federal government’s powers at the expense of the citizenry.

We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long—sold to us in the name of national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined to maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but we’re certainly on that downward trajectory now, and things are moving fast.

Even now, we are being pushed and prodded towards a civil war, not because the American people are so divided but because that’s how corrupt governments control a populace (i.e., divide and conquer).

These are dangerous times.

These are indeed dangerous times but not because of violent crime, which remains at an all-time low, or because of terrorism, which is statistically rare, or because the borders are being invaded by foreign armies, which data reports from the Department of Homeland Security refute, or because a pandemic is spreading like a contagion, or even because raging mobs of so-called domestic terrorists are trying to overthrow elections.

No, the real danger that we face comes from none other than the U.S. government and the powers it has granted to its standing armies to rob, steal, cheat, harass, detain, brutalize, terrorize, torture and kill American citizens with immunity.

The danger “we the people” face comes from masked invaders on the government payroll who crash through our doors in the dark of night, shoot our dogs, and terrorize our families.

This danger comes from militarized henchmen on the government payroll who demand absolute obedience, instill abject fear, and shoot first and ask questions later.

This danger comes from greedy, power-hungry bureaucrats on the government payroll who have little to no understanding of their constitutional limits.

This danger comes from greedy politicians and corporations for whom profit trumps principle.

This danger comes from a surveillance state that grows more and more ominous.

Consider, if you will, all of the dastardly, devious, diabolical, dangerous, debilitating, deceitful, dehumanizing, demonic, depraved, dishonorable, disillusioning, discriminatory, dictatorial schemes inflicted on “we the people” by a bureaucratic, totalitarian regime that has long since ceased to be “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

Americans have no protection against police abuse. It is no longer unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later. What remains all-too-usual, however, is the news that the officers involved in these incidents get off with little more than a slap on the hands.

Americans are little more than pocketbooks to fund the police state. If there is any absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off. This is true, whether you’re talking about taxpayers being forced to fund high-priced weaponry that will be used against us, endless wars that do little for our safety or our freedoms, bloated government agencies such as the National Security Agency with its secret budgets, covert agendas and clandestine activities.

Americans are no longer innocent until proven guilty. We once operated under the assumption that you were innocent until proven guilty. Due in large part to rapid advances in technology and a heightened surveillance culture, the burden of proof has been shifted so that the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty has been usurped by a new norm in which all citizens are suspects. This is exemplified by police practices of stopping and frisking people who are merely walking down the street and where there is no evidence of wrongdoing. Likewise, by subjecting Americans to full-body scans and license-plate readers without their knowledge or compliance and then storing the scans for later use, the government—in cahoots with the corporate state—has erected the ultimate suspect society. In such an environment, we are all potentially guilty of some wrongdoing or other.

Americans no longer have a right to self-defense. In the wake of various shootings in recent years, “gun control” has become a resounding theme. Those advocating gun reform see the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms as applying only to government officials. As a result, even Americans who legally own firearms are being treated with suspicion and, in some cases, undue violence. In one case, a Texas man had his home subjected to a no-knock raid and was shot in his bed after police, attempting to deliver a routine search warrant, learned that he was in legal possession of a firearm. In another incident, a Florida man who was licensed to carry a concealed firearm found himself detained for two hours during a routine traffic stop in Maryland while the arresting officer searched his vehicle in vain for the man’s gun, which he had left at home.

Americans no longer have a right to private property. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure—it belongs to the government. Likewise, if government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you’re no longer the owner of your property.

Americans are powerless in the face of militarized police. In early America, citizens were considered equals with law enforcement officials. Authorities were rarely permitted to enter one’s home without permission or in a deceitful manner. And it was not uncommon for police officers to be held personally liable for trespass when they wrongfully invaded a citizen’s home. Unlike today, early Americans could resist arrest when a police officer tried to restrain them without proper justification or a warrant—which the police had to allow citizens to read before arresting them. (Daring to dispute a warrant with a police official today who is armed with high-tech military weapons and tasers would be nothing short of suicidal.) As police forces across the country continue to be transformed into outposts of the military, with police agencies acquiring military-grade hardware in droves, Americans are finding their once-peaceful communities transformed into military outposts, complete with tanks, weaponry, and other equipment designed for the battlefield.

Americans no longer have a right to bodily integrity. Court rulings undermining the Fourth Amendment and justifying invasive strip searches have left us powerless against police empowered to forcefully draw our blood, strip search us, and probe us intimately. It’s no longer unusual to hear accounts of men and women being subjected to what is essentially government-sanctioned rape by police in the course of “routine” traffic stops. What remains to be seen is how the emerging hypervigilance over COVID-19 vaccines will impact that right to bodily integrity.

Americans no longer have a right to the expectation of privacy. Despite the staggering number of revelations about government spying on Americans’ phone calls, Facebook posts, Twitter tweets, Google searches, emails, bookstore and grocery purchases, bank statements, commuter toll records, etc., little to nothing has been done to counteract these abuses. Instead, we are daily being accustomed to life in this electronic concentration camp.

Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice. The U.S. Supreme Court was intended to be an institution established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds. Yet through their deference to police power, preference for security over freedom, and evisceration of our most basic rights for the sake of order and expediency, the justices of the Supreme Court have become the architects of the American police state in which we now live, while the lower courts have appointed themselves courts of order, concerned primarily with advancing the government’s agenda, no matter how unjust or illegal.

Americans no longer have a representative government. We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age, let’s call it the age of authoritarianism. In fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups.

It is not overstating matters to say that Congress, which has done its best to keep their unhappy constituents at a distance, may well be the most self-serving, semi-corrupt institution in America.

In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism: a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.

Rest assured that when and if fascism finally takes hold in America, the basic forms of government will remain: Fascism will appear to be friendly. The legislators will be in session. There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the entertainment and political trivia. Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply. Actual control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes.

Sound familiar?

Clearly, we are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests. We have moved into “corporatism” (favored by Benito Mussolini), which is a halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism. Corporatism is where the few moneyed interests—not elected by the citizenry—rule over the many.

History may show that from this point forward, we will have left behind any semblance of constitutional government and entered into a totalitarian state where all citizens are suspects and security trumps freedom.

Even with its constantly shifting terrain, this topsy-turvy travesty of law and government has become America’s new normal.

From Clinton to Bush, Obama to Trump, and now Biden, it’s as if we’ve been caught in a time loop, forced to re-live the same thing over and over again: the same assaults on our freedoms, the same disregard for the rule of law, the same subservience to the Deep State, and the same corrupt, self-serving government that exists only to amass power, enrich its shareholders and ensure its continued domination.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the powers-that-be want us to remain distracted, divided, alienated from each other based on our politics, our bank accounts, our religion, our race and our value systems.

Yet as George Orwell observed, “The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.”

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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].

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“The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.” Carroll  Quigley (1910-1977), American historian, 1966.

“There are no nations. There are no peoples… There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today… We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies… The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business.” Network, 1976, (a corporation executive talking in the American satirical drama film ‘Network’.)

“By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens… By this method they not only conficscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some.” John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), British economist, 1936.

Has a forty-year trend reached an apex? Indeed, official measures of economic disparities are at an all-time high.

For example, in 2017, the three richest Americans (Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett) owned more wealth than all the people in the bottom 50 percent of the U.S. population. And although income disparity has increased in most advanced economies, the United States is leading the way with levels of income disparities not seen since 1928, just before the Great Depression (1929-1939). All this is happening while the U.S. federal minimum wage has remained fixed at $7.25 an hour since 2009!

A question that begs to be answered is: to what extent can such a record inequality be traced back, at least partly, to the public policies that have been followed over the last forty years?

Since the early 1980s, indeed, governments and central banks in Europe, the United States and in other industrialized economies have adopted an unusual mix of fiscal policy and monetary policy. Governments became the de facto bankers of the corporate world through large tax subsidies. For their part, central banks have been busy creating bubbles in the stock and bond markets. Sooner or later, that house of cards is bound to crash.

For one, governments have relied less and less on progressive income and wealth taxes and more on regressive taxes to finance public spending programs.

Secondly, central banks have  initiated round after round of money creation through a wholesale purchase of government bonds and other securities, such as mortgage-backed securities (MBS). This was labeled a process of ‘quantitative easing‘ (QE), through which central bankers pushed nominal interest rates to the floor and real interest rates (adjusted for inflation) into negative territory.

In some European countries (Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and France) even nominal interest rates have turned negative for ten-year safe investments. Paradoxically, this means that some savers pay borrowers to accept their money. It’s the world upside down.

Such a super-aggressive monetary policy has created unintended consequences for some classes of consumers—for retirees, students, etc.—whose incomes and spending fell. In many cases, they were forced to go deeply into debt, in order to sustain a livable level of consumption.

Consequences of economic and financial globalization

Under the guise of financial and corporate globalization, governments became more and more responsive to the demands of international corporations, mega banks and rich individuals, to lower their taxes and to reduce regulations. Their argument was that this was a requirement to remain competitive and retain industrial investment at home. Moreover most governments abandoned domestic industrial policies and let corporate and banking world decisions structure their economies.

The process of de-industrialization in advanced economies and the shift of the tax burden

Many large corporations found it profitable to abandon their domestic production base and began searching the world for the lowest wages they could find, while collecting the most advantageous financial inducements from local governments to locate new industrial investments. International free trade of goods and services, which is in general beneficial to all counties, was extended to encompass the more controversial concept of a free international movement of financial capital and of industrial capital.

In such an international context, national governments were forced to enter into a zero-sum game competition to lower taxes and regulation for industrial investors and to extend subsidies to encourage new investment and employment at home.

Over time, this resulted in two important structural changes.

First, some advanced industrial economies began a gradual process of de-industrialization, when large companies began moving their high-productivity manufacturing activities abroad. This was accompanied by a relative structural shift in domestic employment from the high-productivity manufacturing sector to the generally less productive service sector. Among the latter, some high-knowledge service industries have been paying above average wages, but some labor-intensive service industries are paying relatively low wages. As a consequence, over the last forty years, real wages in advanced economies have remained relatively stagnant.

All the while, some high-income earners and the super rich strata of the population benefited from huge tax deductions. The most recent example is the ten-year $1.5 trillion tax cuts passed into law, in December 2017, by the Trump administration. That measure slashed the corporate tax rate in the U.S. from 35 percent to 21 percent, but with few new benefits for the economy. Contrary to what was expected, many corporations used the tax returns to buy back their own stock shares, rather than to invest in new plants or machinery.

Moreover, since labor is generally immobile internationally, the overall domestic tax burden on income, consumption and profits began to shift more heavily onto workers, consumers and middle class taxpayers, and away from large corporations and mega banks, and from rich investors. To alleviate such a taxation shift, governments were saddled with larger operating deficits and their national debtrose, even during prosperous times.

This has raised a tax fairness issue with the growing gap of income and wealth inequalities among different categories of taxpayers.

A worldwide glut of savings, a decline in real investment spending and a shifting of profits and incomes to low-tax jurisdictions

The impact of economic and financial globalization and the constant rise in income and wealth inequalities since the 1980s—the latter having been exacerbated by the Great recession of 2008, and by the current pandemic crisis—has produced a glut of global savings (supply of funds) as compared to investment spending (demand for funds).

When too much saving is withdrawn from the operating economy and is not properly recycled into productive uses, this can lead to a drop in the circulation of money, even when the supply of money increases. If the velocity of money declines during a period of expansionary monetary policy, this can offset the increase in money supply and could paradoxically lead to deflationary pressures, at least for a while, and sluggish economic growth rather than to inflation and faster economic growth.

The glut of global savings is related to the growing concentration of income and wealth in favor of owners of financial capital and of super rich individuals. The fact that many trillions of dollars of such extra savings have ended up in offshore tax havens, sometimes under the veil of secrecy of cryptocurrencies, has undoubtedly played a role. It has also been a source of demand for bonds and other securities, resulting in higher bond prices and lower interest rates.

The building up of a glut of global savings among mega corporations and super rich individuals, who own most of the stock wealth, was occurring just as another phenomenon took place. Indeed, the ‘baby boomers‘—the generation born between 1946 and 1964 in the United States, and between 1947 and 1966 in Canada—felt obliged to increase their savings rate, in order to better prepare for their imminent retirement, and also, in part, because of the economic impact of the current pandemic on their spending and the low rates of return on their financial investments.

Consequences of the half-century long rise in income and wealth inequalities

As income and wealth became more and more concentrated, the financial sector tended to grow faster than the real economy. Such a structural change, past a certain threshold, can slow down economic growth and be a factor in creating financial crises. This was demonstrated when new esoteric financial productscatering to the very rich led to the Great recession of 2008.

Some economists fear that the advanced economies of the Western world have entered into a prolonged period of “Secular Stagnation“. Indeed, in many advanced economies, the expansion of the financial sector has been such that it has become oversized relative to the real sector. A too-high rate of financial sector growth relative to GDP may be a harbinger of future financial contractions.

Conclusion

There is a link between the great disparities in income and wealth that we see today, in several industrialized countries, and the extraordinarily low interest rates that have become the curse of savers. And, as we have seen, the causal relationship goes both ways, one reinforcing the other. They both enriched an aristocracy of the super rich. How should governments go about breaking this economically and socially damaging relationship?

First, it would seem that there is a need to reorient fiscal policy toward equilibrating the tax burden and income inequality between high and low-income taxpayers, as well as re-evaluating consumption taxes. Maybe an international conference could be held to assist governments in coordinating their efforts in that direction, especially considering the growing reliance on tax havens.

Secondly, central bankers could find it appropriate to review the current policies of monetizing the public debt and the debts of other financial entities on a high scale. Besides evaluating their sustainability, they may also wish to take into consideration the high risk of creating dangerous bubbles and speculative maniasin the stock and bond markets. indeed, history shows that when such financial bubbles burst, as they inevitably do, the real economy suffers badly in production and employment losses.

As for citizens, they should be careful not to vote for clueless and corrupt politicians who are bought and sold by special interests. They should demand that big money and dark money stop dominating politics and government policies. Theirs and their children’s economic welfare depend upon it.

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International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book “The code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles” of the book “The New American Empire“, and the recent book , in French, “La régression tranquille du Québec, 1980-2018“. He holds a Ph.D. in international finance from Stanford University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

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Ben Nimmo, a former NATO press officer and current senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, has announced Facebook has hired him to “lead global threat intelligence strategy against influence operations” and “emerging threats.” Nimmo specifically named Russia, Iran and China as potential dangers to the platform.

His announcement was greeted with joy by several NATO officials but was not met with such enthusiasm by others. “More censorship on the way as the former NATO press officer turned Pentagon-funded ‘researcher’ who labeled real people as Russian bots and peddled disinformation to link Jeremy Corbyn to Russian active measures moves to big tech,” responded investigative journalist Max Blumenthal.

More censorship on the way as the former NATO press officer turned Pentagon-funded “researcher” who labeled real people as Russian bots and peddled disinformation to link Jeremy Corbyn to Russian active measures moves to Big Tech https://t.co/XcfGbdPJtv

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 7, 2021

Nimmo’s questionable past certainly raises questions over whether such an official having a substantial say in what 2.8 billion Facebook users worldwide see in their feeds is such a positive step for the free and open exchange of information.

“Disinformation agents”

For example, in 2019, U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn revealed secret Conservative Party documents showing negotiations the Tory government had with the U.S. over the privatization of the National Health Service (NHS). With just days to go before the U.K. general election, the scandal could have toppled the government and brought into power the most radical antiwar, anti-establishment government in the country’s history. Corporate media went into overdrive to spin the news, and Nimmo was a key part of this, immediately announcing, without evidence, that the documents “closely resemble…a known Russian operation.” His supposedly expert conjecture allowed the story to become “Corbyn’s links to Russia” rather than “Tories privatizing the NHS in secret.” Nimmo’s work helped the Conservatives to an election victory and consigned Corbyn to the scrapheap.

This was much to the relief of Nimmo’s Atlantic Council, who had branded Corbyn the “Kremlin’s Trojan Horse” — someone pushing Moscow’s agenda abroad. A British Army general was of a similar opinion, claiming that if Corbyn were to win the election, the military would respond. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said that the U.S. government was “doing its best” to prevent a radical leftist from winning power in the U.K.

Nimmo has been extremely liberal with whom he labels Russian disinformation agents. In 2018, his research identified one Twitter user, @Ian56789, as a “Kremlin troll.” In reality, the user, Ian Shilling, was a British pensioner, as Sky News was easily able to confirm, interviewing him on air and asking him the patently absurd question if he was actually a Russian bot or not. Despite clearly being a flesh and blood human, Shilling’s account was later deleted anyway.

In the past, Nimmo has also insisted that Ruslana Boshirova was an influential Russian bot. In reality, she is an internationally known concert pianist, as one Google search would have shown. This sort of behavior does not augur well for those critical of Western foreign policy, who have faced constant harassment, suspension, or outright bans from social media.

NATO's Atlantic Council "analyst" @benimmo has called me an influential Russian bot.
Influential? You bet.
With 170 000 000 YouTube views
and 400 000 subscribers.
Russian? Oh well, Ukrainian-American🙄, but take it as a compliment. 😉
Bot? Yeah. Humans can't play like this. pic.twitter.com/pReCwBBaZ5

— Ruslana Boshirova Альянс пианистов (@ValLisitsa) March 27, 2018

Pro-war putsch

The Atlantic Council began as an offshoot of NATO itself and maintains extremely close connections to the military alliance. It continues to receive major funding from Western governments and weapons contractors, and its board of directors is filled to the brim with senior American statespersons, such as Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Henry Kissinger. Also appearing on the board are no fewer than seven former CIA directors and a number of top military generals, such as Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis, Wesley Clark, and David Petraeus.

In recent years, the council’s employees have penetrated deep into big tech and social media organizations. In 2018, it announced it had partnered with Facebook to aid in the curation of Facebook news feeds of users worldwide, giving it considerable power over what sort of views to highlight and which to demote. One year previously, Jessica Ashooh left the position of the council’s Deputy Director of Middle Eastern Strategy to take the position of Director of Policy at Reddit, the eighth-most visited website in the United States. However, as with many intelligence agencies, it is unclear whether one truly “leaves” the Atlantic Council.

It is not just Russia that is in NATO’s crosshairs. Last week, the Atlantic Council published an anonymous, 26,000-word report stating that their goal for China was regime change and advising President Biden to draw a number of “red lines” around it, beyond which the U.S. would respond militarily. Meanwhile, the head of STRATCOM, Admiral Charles A. Richard, wrote that the U.S. must prepare for a potential nuclear war with Beijing.

Greater control

The military escalation has been mirrored by an intensifying online propaganda war, where the U.S. has attempted to isolate China economically and stop advancing Chinese technologies such as Huawei’s 5G network, mobile phone, and semiconductor manufacturer Xiaomi, and video sharing app TikTok. Nimmo has played his part in ramping up suspicions of nefarious Chinese activity online, claiming the existence of a wide-ranging pro-Beijing bot network encouraging Americans to believe that China has handled the COVID-19 pandemic far better than the United States. That Americans might have come to that conclusion on their own appears not to have been considered.

There is an enormous government effort to convince its population of the existence of (foreign) government efforts to manipulate their opinions online. In a massive case of projection, Western governmental organizations point the finger at their enemies, all the while securing greater access and control over the means of communication themselves, to the point where it is now difficult to distinguish where the deep state ends and the fourth estate begins. Nimmo’s move from NATO to NATO-aligned think tank to Facebook is just another example of this phenomenon. Perhaps the reason Nimmo is not looking for any Western influence operations online is that he is part of one.

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Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

Featured image: George Washington University School of Media & Public Affairs | Additions and editing by MintPress News

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The UK government is considering a plan to despatch council staff to knock on the doors of those who have refused to take a coronavirus vaccine, in an effort to coerce refusniks into taking the shot, according to a report.

The London Metro reports that Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi told MPs he wanted to identify ‘at an individual level’ those who have been offered the vaccine but turned it down.

The report states that the plan is being hatched amid fears that a sizeable amount of the population are ‘sceptical’ of the vaccine.

Zahawi said that the role of the council staffers would be to determine why people are refusing the vaccine and then “see what might convince them” to change their minds.

Zahawi refused to confirm how the Government will know who has not taken the vaccine, but did admit during a radio appearance on the BBC that everyone who has taken the shot has been registered in a national immunisation vaccination system.

“We absolutely will look at how we are addressing the issue of refusal rates,” Zahawi said.

While Zahawi touted a high uptake of vaccines among British people, it emerged that around 20% of social care workers have refused to take the vaccine.

In December, a poll found that around a third of people in the UK do not want to take the vaccine.

The notion of government staff knocking at the doors of refusniks has prompted fears that the British government is keeping a database of vaccine skeptics.

A similar scheme has been implemented in Spain.

With so called ‘vaccination passports’ looming, a non-vaccinated database could enable the government to cross check who they are issuing the ‘freedom passes’ to, and ensure that only the vaccinated are allowed to integrate back into society.

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In new research published in Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, immunologist J. Bart Classen warns the mRNA technology used in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines could create “new potential mechanisms” of adverse events that may take years to come to light.

Back in 1999, leading U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official Dr. Peter Patriarca contended that modern advances in vaccine technology were rapidly “outpacing researchers’ ability to predict potential vaccine-related adverse events.” Patriarca mused that this could lead to “a situation of unforeseen and unpredictable vaccine outcomes.”

In a new research article published in Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, veteran immunologist J. Bart Classen expresses similar concerns and writes that “RNA-based COVID vaccines have the potential to cause more disease than the epidemic of COVID-19.”

For decades, Classen has published papers exploring how vaccination can give rise to chronic conditions such as Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes — not right away, but three or four years down the road.

In this latest paper, Classen warns that the RNA-based vaccine technology could create “new potential mechanisms” of vaccine adverse events that may take years to come to light.

Classen’s study establishes the potential for the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna to activate human proteins to take on “pathologic configurations” — configurations associated with chronic degenerative neurological diseases. Although his specific interest is in prion diseases (conditions associated with misfolded versions of normal proteins), Classen also outlines a handful of other mechanisms whereby RNA-based vaccines could give rise to “multiple other potential fatal adverse events.”

Ensuring that patients clearly understand risks — including known risks as well as potential unknown risks — is an important component of the informed consent process. This is all the more true when the intervention is experimental and lacks long-term safety data, as is the case with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines against COVID-19. The FDA authorized the two vaccines for widespread emergency use based on just two months of clinical trial data.

Unfortunately, it is not unusual for researchers’ communication of risks to be perfunctory. In October, researchers at New York University and Tulane reported that the information communicated to participants in the coronavirus clinical trials about a worrisome problem known as pathogenic priming was “sufficiently obscured” as to make “adequate patient comprehension” of risks “unlikely.”

It would be interesting to know what those researchers would say about Classen’s blunt conclusion that “Approving a vaccine, utilizing novel RNA technology without extensive testing is extremely dangerous.”

Those contemplating COVID injections may be ignoring potential risks at their own peril.

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U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) acknowledged that U.S. sanctions on Venezuela have killed tens of thousands of people and harmed the country’s economy, especially by depressing its oil production.

In a new report, GAO also recalled that the sanctions imposed on the country under former Barack Obama’s and Donald Trump’s administrations are also hindering U.S.-backed humanitarian aid to Venezuela.

The report “offers more evidence that the unilateral and illegal U.S. sanctions are a punishment against the Venezuelan people and they should be ended immediately,” Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said.

GAO noted that the financial sanctions imposed on Venezuela since 2015 led to a drop in oil production of 797 tons per day, which at current oil prices would represent US$16.9 billion per year in foregone oil revenues.

#Venezuela | The U.S. blockade has frozen almost all Venezuelan accounts abroad as cut relationships with banking institutions.https://t.co/4DSkb0v6kZ

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) February 3, 2021

“This drop means fewer imports, including of food, medicines, medical equipment, and other health-related necessities,” Weisbrot added.

President Joe Biden ordered a review of U.S. economic sanctions on countries such as Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba to determine their humanitarian impact.

“This is positive. However, there is not much to assess. There is no reason to allow this crime from the Trump administration to continue,” the expert recalled.

#Venezuela | The anti-governmental coalition assumed a role against democracy back in 2015. pic.twitter.com/N38XUoPVqF

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) January 6, 2021

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Featured image: A group of children on their home’s rooftop in Petare, Venezuela, Dec. 20, 2021. | Photo: EFE

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Elliot Abrams has gone missing in the last few days. He seems to have lost some of his proactivity.

Maybe the now former White House special envoy for Venezuela tired himself out in his last weeks on the job, drafting sinister decrees willy-nilly, such as blocking Venezuela’s diesel purchases and sanctioning opposition politicians and businessmen. As he wrote them, horned men attacked Washington’s sacrosanct Capitol, just a few blocks away from his office, which failed to draw comment from the diplomatic expert.

Abrams isn’t the only one who has gone AWOL. Former Vice President Mike Pence was forced to deal with other “dictators” closer to him in the final days of his term and stopped touring the globe to discuss the “serious humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.” [Florida Senator] Marco Rubio has also seemed to forget about the Latin American “tyrants,” while US Southern Command no longer has sudden “concerns” about drug trafficking in the Caribbean.

The Magazolans, as Venezuelan Trump supporters are called, especially in Florida, no longer dare to call the new president a “communist” or accuse him of “selling out to the Russians and Chinese” as they did weeks ago. The election campaign is over and they now have a new president. Many, though, are waiting for Trump to call on them to start another adventure.

Undoubtedly something is going to happen in Washington. What it is will have repercussions in Latin America, especially in Venezuela, because the US government has been telematically overseeing what has been happening in the Caribbean country for the past four years, especially among the opposition.

First, the US designed a system of economic sanctions not seen in decades, going after any company that did oil-based or other trading with Venezuela. Equally, in the military area, Abrams notoriously orchestrated the violent military coup attempt of April 30, 2019. During the attempted coup, opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, now exiled in Spain, broke his house arrest and dozens of military personnel tried to take the La Carlota airbase before marching through some Caracas avenues. As the coup attempt failed, Abrams himself admitted that the officials contacted to lead the coup had “turned off their phones.”

This was the most notorious failure of the Republican government’s Venezuela policy, but it wasn’t the only one. Others included implementing a parallel presidency and attempting a military landing called Operation Gedeon, which was orchestrated by a US military company, in which two U.S. citizens were imprisoned.

It all happened during the Trump years, in which he “green lighted” any adventure in Venezuela because “all options [were] on the table.”

Things are hardly rosy with new President Joe Biden, but the point is that Trumpism is in decline. This decline has been solidified due to the way that Trump challenged and ridiculed the transition period in a style akin to that of the Venezuelan right: throwing the toys out of the pram and failing to concede.

This shift allows a respite for the Venezuelan opposition which hasn’t fled the country and was desecrated, persecuted and even sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for betting on the electoral strategy. In fact, many of the Office of Foreign Asset Control’s recent sanctions were against opposition politicians and entrepreneurs. The opposition that remains in Venezuela can breathe a bit easier without Trump.

A sanctioned opposition

Without Trump, Guaido has found it increasingly difficult to legitimise his “interim administration” amongst the parties of the former National Assembly. As such, he has been forced to concede to their demand to eliminate the “government center coordinator” position, which he created to house his political mentor Leopoldo Lopez.

The monster created through the interim administration has gone on to devour its maker. The hangover after Trump’s intoxication reached the heart of the imaginary government that Washington itself built.

A chain of micro-events has equally been set off in sectors of the Venezuelan opposition which has disobeyed this radical, foreign-bred strategy that had its main support in Republican officials.

Within a few days of the US transition, opposition leader and former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles left the Republican script by calling for a change of strategy and talks with Chavismo.

The following day, Democratic Action Henry Ramos Allup, his natural contender, reported that his party is “cold-headedly” discussing its participation in the regional and local elections to be conducted this year. Democratic Action leaders, as well as Ramos Allup’s relatives, have previously been sanctioned by the US.

Both are the most important opposition leaders remaining in Venezuela and belong to the opposition’s most voted parties.

Post-Trumpism has resulted in a kind of thawing of positions that were forced to freeze when US government officials decided on an aggressive strategy against Venezuela in 2016. What is normal in any country — for opposition leaders to prepare to go to elections — is in Venezuela a real sacrilege against Washington’s current interests.

Meanwhile, the unravelling of Guaido’s international recognition continues at full speed.

Allied support for Washington starts to break down

The first international player to change its position was the European Union.

As of its 6 January communiqué, the EU no longer grants Guaido any protagonism but rather the same status as any other political actor. It includes him, but without any recognition of office.

France24 interpreted this as such:

“The words ‘interim president’ no longer describe Juan Guaido in the EU’s latest statement on Venezuela’s political situation. While recognising him as a leading opposition voice, the twenty-seven countries removed this title from Guaido after control of the National Assembly returned to President Nicolas Maduro’s government.”

The German government was also explicit. Since January 17, it ceased to recognise Guaido as “interim president” following the “recommendations of the EU State Council,” according to Christofer Burger, a spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs.

In Latin America, winds of change are also beginning to be felt: Dominican Republic backtracked on Guaido’s recognition at the end of January, stating that if they didn’t, they would be setting a “terrible precedent.”

No policy changes have yet been seen from Biden’s government. At the moment, lowering the tone on Venezuela already seems like a major change because it gives national and international actors room to finally emerge from the Trump period that dominated the region over the past four years.

Amidst all this, it is not known whether Abrams (or any new Abrams) will be making calls to the region’s governments, as he once recognised vociferously that he did, or whether he is calling them as we speak but they are behaving as the Venezuelan officers who did not answer their phones during the 2019 coup attempt.

We’ll know soon enough, and we’ll be analysing it all in Crisis & Critique.

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Featured image: Trump’s lingering legacy prevails in Venezuela, especially in the opposition’s ranks. (Venezuelanalysis)

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On Monday, February 8, Cuban newspaper Granma published a review of US government financing for subversive programs against the Cuban government.

In the last two decades, the United States has allotted about $250 million to subversive programs targeting Cuba, reported Granma.

Those millions, distributed through agencies, companies, and organizations such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), finance activities whose purpose is to overthrow the Cuban Revolution.

US organizations that have financed subversive programs against the Cuban government (Photo: Granma)

The report by journalist Tracey Eaton, entitled “The business of democracy in Cuba is booming,” and published in Cuba Money Project, details that in 2020 alone agencies such as USAID dedicated around $2.5 million to subversive activities, among them those of the San Isidro Movement, with the aim of generating internal conflict.

The actions of various media outlets have also been financed with gringo money, as revealed by Cuban media. These include the media show of ADN Cuba blogger Nelson Julio Álvarez in front of Cuba’s Ministry of Culture on January 27, for which he received between $150 and $200, according to a video posted by Álvarez himself on the Telescopio Cubano Facebook group. The Cuba Money Project reported that the ADN website, administered from the United States, received over $400 thousand last year through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Eaton notes that since Donald Trump took office in 2017, at least 54 groups operated programs with funding from USAID or the NED in Cuba.

The data was gathered from information that North American organizations have made public on their websites. As such, it is considered a partial figure, as there are many secret programs funding unknown recipients.

The combination of these actions and the economic pressures generated by the intensification of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba, and the establishment of other unilateral coercive measures against Cuba, reflected the Trump administration’s commitment to destroying the social fabric and political stability of the Caribbean island.

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Featured image: USAID and NED dollars are behind the San Isidro Movement, among other anti-Cuban programs (Photo: José Luis, Cuban cartoonist).

A Revolução Russa em 1917 colocou em pânico a alta burguesia da Europa, já muito desacreditada e enfraquecida pela gigantesca tragédia da  Primeira Guerra Mundial, resultado de sua própria irresponsabilidade, ganância e incompetência. A crise de 1929, que levou  quase à ruína a maioria dos países industrializados capitalistas, mas que praticamente não afetou a jovem União Soviética,  fortaleceu ainda mais a alternativa colocada pela Revolução Russa. Esta burguesia tinha então que enfrentar duas dificuldades: reconstruir a ordem capitalista internacional e responder ao desafio colocado pela crítica Marxista e pela Revolução Russa. Um grupo de intelectuais hostis ao comunismo, à esquerda em geral, e mesmo ao capitalismo  do New Deal nos EUA, procurou desenvolver e impôr uma reconstrução mais autoritária e profundamente anti-democrática do capitalismo: o neoliberalismo. Como mencionado em meu texto anterior , (https://www.globalresearch.ca/o-perigoso-caminho-da-suica-para-a-extrema-direita/5736109) a Suíça foi o primeiro país a acolher e financiar estes intelectuais, exercendo um papel fundamental na construção da ordem neoliberal.

Quinn Slobodian, autor da obra Globalists, criou um termo para designar a contribuição da Suíça para o neoliberalismo : a Escola de Genebra. 

Segundo Slobodian, a Escola de Genebra inclui pensadores que ocuparam posições acadêmicas em Genebra, Suíça, entre eles Wilhelm Röpke, Ludwig von Mises, e Michael Heilperin;

“aqueles que aí prosseguiram ou apresentaram investigações chave, incluindo Hayek, Lionel Robbins, e Gottfried Haberler; e aqueles que trabalharam no Acordo Geral sobre Tarifas e Comércio (GATT), tais como Jan Tumlir, Frieder Roessler (…) os neoliberais da Escola de Genebra transpuseram a ideia ordoliberal da ‘constituição econômica’ – ou a totalidade das regras que regem a vida econômica – para a escala além da nação.”

Ainda segundo este autor, Genebra – eventualmente a sede da OMC – tornou-se a capital espiritual do grupo de pensadores que procuraram resolver o enigma da ordem pós-imperial.Esta ordem pós-imperial refere-se ao período subsequente ao fim do Império Austro-Húngaro e grande parte do ‘enigma’ mencionado se refere ao desafio colocado pela Revolução Russa. O que os neoliberais da Escola de Genebra  procuram não é uma proteção parcial, mas sim completa dos direitos do capital privado, e a capacidade dos órgãos judiciais supranacionais como o Tribunal de Justiça Europeu e a OMC de se sobreporem à legislação nacional que possa interferir com os direitos globais do capital , ou seja, uma constituição econômica para o mundo.

Para a Escola de Genebra, ainda Slobodian, os compromissos de soberania e autonomia nacional eram perigosos se levados a sério.(Os proponentes da Escola de Genebra) eram críticos firmes da soberania nacional, acreditando que, após o império, as nações devem permanecer inseridas numa ordem institucional internacional que salvaguardasse o capital e protegesse o seu direito de circular pelo mundo. O pecado capital do século XX foi a crença na independência nacional sem restrições, e a ordem mundial neoliberal exigia uma isonomia executável – ou ‘mesmas leis’, como Hayek lhe chamaria mais tarde – contra a ilusão de autonomia, ou ‘leis próprias’,

Para os neoliberais da Escola de Genebra, as leis promovendo a defesa dos ‘direitos’ do capital, devem ser sobrepor às leis nacionais referentes aos direitos dos trabalhadores ou à proteção ambiental, por exemplo.

Muitos dos participantes da Escola de Genebra  estavam entre os fundadores da Sociedade  Mont Pélerin também na Suíça, uma entidade que teve um papel fundamental na construção intelectual do neoliberalismo e na difusão internacional de suas  propostas. A Sociedade Mont Pélerin serviu de inspiração e modelo para outras organizações importantes da rede da direita internacional como a Atlas Network e o Atlantic Council.

Frente ao desafio colocado pela Revolução Russa, a burguesia Suíça colocou-se desde muito cedo ao lado do capital, abraçando mesmo os extremos mais autoritários do capitalismo como representado pelo neoliberalismo, tudo para deter a ‘ameaça’ da esquerda, sempre mais perigosa, do ponto de vista do capital, que qualquer ameaça totalitária da direita. Um testemunho importante da cruzada da burguesia da Suíça contra o comunismo e a esquerda em geral nos é dado pelos escritos de Harry Gmür, escritor e comunista suíço. Nascido em Berna em 1908, Gmür testemunhou a ascenção do fascismo na Europa e a reação neoliberal na Suíça. Ao contrário de muitos de seus contemporâneos, Gmür abraçou a esquerda e seus valores humanitários. Em um texto publicado em 1965 com o título A Guerra de Hitler e a Suíça , Gmür escreveu:

Após o início da guerra, o  governo em Berna, sob pressão alemã, mas certamente aproveitando a oportunidade com demasiada facilidade, apressou-se a proibir e a policiar todos os partidos, associações, jornais, distribuidores de livros, etc. consistentemente antifascistas.

E num outro artigo, publicado 10 anos depois, em 1975, com o título de Naquele tempo, na Suíça, Gmür voltou a este tema escrevendo:

A esquerda suíça foi sujeita a uma pressão particular durante a guerra (…). Após o início da guerra, o Conselho Federal, não menos por anti-comunismo do que por servilismo ao Terceiro Reich, tinha suprimido o “Freiheit”, órgão do Partido Comunista, e os dois jornais diários dos socialistas de esquerda de Vaud e Genebra, que se tinham separado da social-democracia. Após a catástrofe francesa, o Partido Comunista, os partidos socialistas de esquerda da Suíça Ocidental, a Oposição do Partido Socialista Alemão-Suiço (uma facção que trabalhava contra o rumo de direita da liderança do partido) e a Sociedade Suíço-Soviética  foram banidos por completo. Os seus bens – impressoras, livrarias, até inventário de escritório – foram confiscados e nunca foram restituídos.

As queixas justificadas da imprensa soviética sobre o tratamento dos prisioneiros de guerra soviéticos que tinham fugido para a Suíça foram rejeitadas pelo chefe da justiça e da polícia.

Estes dois artigos foram publicados no Weltbühne, uma publicação da ex- República Democrática da Alemanha, sob o pseudônimo de Stefan Miller, certamente para evitar a repressão da direita na Suíça.

Entretanto, o documento mais contundente sobre a burguesia  da Suíça, sua guerra incessante contra a  esquerda e sua defesa intransigente do capital acima de tudo é o Relatório Bergier.

Uma comissão independente  foi criada pelo Conselho Federal da Suíça  em dezembro de 1996 sob a direção do historiador Jean-François Bergier, com o mandato , segundo o próprio Bergier, de responder ‘ a uma série de perguntas precisas sobre os bens ‘não reclamados’, ou seja, os bens depositados antes da (segunda) guerra em bancos suíços por futuras vítimas (do nazismo ) e nunca posteriormente recuperados por elas ou pelos seus herdeiros; sobre o tratamento dos refugiados; sobre todas as relações econômicas e financeiras entre a Suíça e a Alemanha nazi – comércio, produção industrial, crédito e movimentos de capitais, seguros, tráfico de armas, mercado de obras de arte e bens saqueados ou vendidos à força, transito ferroviário, electricidade, trabalho forçado nas filiais alemãs de empresas suíças.’ 

Em sua totalidade, o Relatório Bergier se compõe de 11.000 páginas distribuídas por 28 volumes. Um trabalho imenso e de um valor inestimável.

Segundo Pietro Boschetti, autor de um livro de ampla divulgação do Relatório Bergier com o título Les Suisses et les Nazis – de onde vêm a citação anterior de Bergier –  o relatório, em geral, confirmou o que os historiadores já sabiam: sim, a política de asilo foi extremamente dura durante a guerra; sim, o Banco Nacional comprou muito ouro suspeito da Alemanha nazi, prestando assim um serviço muito apreciado.

Em seu livro, Boschetti menciona alguns poucos exemplos da cooperação do grande capital da Suíça com a Alemanha nazistas conforme revelados pelo Relatório Bergier. Dos exemplos dados por Boschetti, menciono abaixo alguns, apenas para dar uma idéia da amplitude e seriedade do Relatório Bergier:

Sobre os negócios entre a Suíça e a Alemanha nazista, Boschetti escreveu:

‘As relações entre homens de negócios eram obviamente muito próximas e duradouras. Assim, após a guerra, o presidente do (banco) SBS (Rudolf Speich) e o director do (banco) UBS (Alfred Schaefer) apoiaram o único banqueiro nazi (Karl Rasche, membro das SS, Dresdner Bank) perante o Tribunal Internacional em Nurembergue.’

Sobre a ‘arianização’ :

 ‘Os “certificados de Arianeidade” para provar a pureza racial parecem ter sido uma prática bastante comum. Para obter o direito de aterrisar em Munique, a Swissair aceita, por exemplo, que as suas tripulações provem a sua arianeidade. A Nestlé faz o mesmo, tal como as companhias de seguros.’

E ainda sobre a Nestlé:

‘De Vevey, a Nestlé permaneceu em contacto durante toda a guerra com o suíço Hans Riggenbach, que era o responsável pelas operações da multinacional alemã em Berlim. (…)

A Nestlé vende o seu Nescafé à Wehrmacht durante a campanha russa, apesar da difícil importação de grãos de café .’

Sobre os trabalhos forçados realizados por prisoneiros de guerra:

‘Atingidas, como as suas concorrentes, pela falta de trabalhadores, as empresas suíças recorrem ao trabalho forçado. (….) nas fábricas de Lonza em Waldshut, onde 150 franceses desembarcaram entre Julho de 1940 e Abril de 1942. Desde essa data até ao final do conflito, mais de 400 prisioneiros de guerra russos trabalharam no local. Georg Fischer, BBC, Maggi, Nestlé e muitos outros não hesitaram em recorrer a esta reserva de mão-de-obra.

Os maus tratos são comuns, mesmo nas filiais suíças (…).

Até Agosto de 1944, a Suíça enviou trabalhadores forçados em fuga, especialmente russos e poloneses, de volta para a Alemanha.’

Para Bergier, as autoridades e os responsávies por empresas suíças na época não deixaram de justificar cada uma das medidas que tomaram, ou a sua recusa em tomá-las, a sua hesitação. Mas as suas explicações raramente resistem ao escrutínio, como ele escreeveu na introdução ao livro de Boschetti.

No entanto, o debate com a sociedade que deveria ter acontecido após a publicação do Relatório –  o objetivo final de todo o esforço empregado – foi impedido. Nas palavras de Pietro Boschetti:

Que país curioso! Embora tenha acabado de completar um louvável trabalho de introspecção histórica reconhecido por quase todos como exemplar, enquanto investiu recursos significativos para permitir aos historiadores trabalharem com seriedade e independência, enquanto passou por uma ‘crise de identidade’ causada pelo escândalo dos fundos não reclamados que deu origem a todo o tipo de exageros e excessos, este país, justamente quando dispõe de todo o material histórico necessário para ter um debate sereno … recusa-se a realizá-lo. Que pena!

A supressão deste debate foi uma vitória importante  da burguesia e do big business da Suíça, que assim protegeram sua  imagem e puderam manter, dentro da Suíça, o espaço e a credibilidade necessárias para continuar a expansão da agenda neoliberal. Não fosse por isso, instituições tão distintas como o World Economic Forum e o World Wide Fund for Nature – WWF –  ambos sediados na Suíça e ambos herdeiros e proponentes da visão neoliberal do mundo, ou seja, do mercado como principal instrumento de organização da sociedade e mesmo ‘salvador’ do planeta, talvez não tivessem tido tanto sucesso.

Em 2022 celebram-se  os 20 anos da publicação do Relatório Bergier. É a ocasião  de realizar o debate  suprimido mas ainda necessário, não apenas para uma compreensão mais profunda do papel da burguesia e do big business da Suíça e de sua ideologia na época da Segunda Guerra, mas sobretudo compreender seus desdobramentos atuais. Afinal, a visão de mundo neoliberal e seus representantes ainda mantém um enorme  poder político neste país, a hostilidade contra a esquerda continua tão agressiva como nos tempos da Guerra Fria e a Suíça segue sendo um parceiro importante na construção e disseminação das narrativas fake dos EUA que dão suporte às  campanhas antidemocráticas contra Cuba e Venezuela, para citar apenas estes dois exemplos. As forças políticas e os interesses econômicos que facilitaram a colaboração das autoridades e de grandes empresas da Suíça com a Alemanha nazista, são os mesmos por trás das  propostas de reorganização do Estado em função dos interesses do capital como defendidas pela Sociedade Mont Pélerin e pelo World Economic Forum; são ainda os mesmos que impediram o debate público sobre o Relatório Bergier.

O capitalismo neoliberal continua a ser defendido na Suíça como a única solução possível para os diversos problemas que a humanidade enfrenta atualmente, da crise ecológica à crise sanitária representada pela pandemia. O papel do capitalismo neoliberal como causa desses mesmos problemas não é sequer mencionado. Quando o movimento dos jovens pelo clima ousou questionar o neoliberalismo na Suíça, a reação foi uma legislação brutal e repressora.No entanto, apesar  da Sociedade Mont Pélerin e da Escola de Genebra, do World Economic Forum e do WWF, existe uma outra tradição na Suíça, uma tradição que se encarnou em Harry Gmür, no trabalho da comissão Bergier e reaparece, hoje, no movimento dos jovens pelo clima. À esta tradição cabe, agora, reabrir o debate necessário e desafiar o neoliberalismo num de seus mais importantes e influentes centros, a Suíça.

Franklin Frederick