Gli Stati Uniti hanno iniziato un programma di addestramento delle forze aeree ucraine all’uso dei caccia F-16.  Partecipano a tale programma diversi paesi europei della NATO: Danimarca, Olanda,. Polonia, Norvegia, Belgio, Portogallo. Altri si sono offerti di contribuire all’addestramento. Gli stessi paesi forniranno all’Ucraina gli F-16. Sono caccia a duplice capacità convenzionale e nucleare. Un F-16 è stato usato nei test di lancio della bomba nucleare B61-12, che gli USA stanno già schierando in Italia, Germania, Belgio e Olanda. Con tutta probabilità le B61-12 vengono fornite dagli USA anche alla Polonia: caccia F-16 polacchi partecipano dal 2014 alle esercitazioni NATO di attacco nucleare.

Vladimir Kozin – esperto capo del Centro Studi Politico-Militari di Mosca – dichiara, in. una intervista a Grandangolo, che vi è il profondo sospetto, basato su precisi fatti, che le armi nucleari statunitensi siano state dispiegate anche in Lettonia, Lituania ed Estonia, o possano essere rapidamente inviate nei loro territori e anche in quello della Polonia. Questi paesi partecipano al “pattugliamento aereo del Baltico”, a ridosso del territorio russo, con aerei a duplice capacità convenzionale e nucleare. Inoltre, bombardieri strategici statunitensi, certificati per il trasporto di armi nucleari,  sono impegnati in “esercitazioni” sul Baaltico e altre zone limitrofe al territorio russo,

Dopo aver inutilmente proposto a USA e NATO un negoziato per ridurre il rischio di un conflitto nucleare in Europa, Mosca sta schierando, in accordo con  Minsk, armi nucleari tattiche in Bielorussia,  in posizione ravvicinata rispetto alle basi nucleari USA-NATO in Europa. Alla domanda “Le armi nucleari tattiche schierate dalla Russia in Bielorussia hanno un raggio d’azione che va oltre la Polonia e quindi costituiscono un deterrente per le armi nucleari statunitensi schierate in Italia e in altri Paesi europei?”, Vladimir Kozin risponde: “Sì, le armi nucleari tattiche russe che saranno dispiegate in Bielorussia e, eventualmente, nella regione di Kaliningrad e nella penisola di Crimea, possono raggiungere diversi obiettivi militari in Polonia, Italia e in molti altri Paesi europei membri della NATO”.

L’escalation USA-NATO contro la Russia avvicina sempre più l’Europa alla soglia della guerra nucleare. Su tutto questo il complesso politico-mediatico cala una cortina di silenzio per non allarmare l’opinione pubblica europea ed evitare che reagisca.

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First published on November 15, 2022

***

The electoral victories of Gustavo Petro and Inacio Lula da Silva this year in Colombia and Brazil have raised hopes for a new strong impulse towards the full emancipation of Latin America and the Caribbean. The recent reopening of relations between Colombia and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has reinforced that optimism, along with the likely early abandonment of failed impostor Juan Guaidó by his American owners, who in practice already accept the legitimacy of the government of President Nicolás Maduro. Likewise, Lula da Silva’s new government in Brazil is expected to adopt policies that more actively promote regional economic development and integration.

But generally in Latin America and the Caribbean, the reactionary imperialist influence of the US corporate elites and their government continues to stifle the region’s free development, both through aggressive direct interference and too via sinister indirect economic control. In relation to this neocolonial economic power of the United States, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has explored in its Trade and Development Report this year the implications of the end of the low interest rates of Western central banks that lasted more than a decade until the end of 2021.

During that period, the governments of many developing countries took on relatively high levels of debt. Some governments took on even more debt between 2020 and 2022, mainly so as to better manage the difficulties caused by the international measures implemented against COVID-19 and also to buy vaccines. Now, Western central banks are raising their interest rates, supposedly to control inflation. However, the likely success of such measures is in question given that the main causes of inflation at the international level this year have not been an excess of demand or wage increases, but limitations in the global supply of goods.

Also contributing to higher inflation has been the increase in the profit margins of large companies both nationally and internationally, inflating prices by as much as 40% or even 50%. These problems in the global economy have been further complicated by the Russian military special operation in Ukraine and the counterproductive Western coercive measures against the Russian Federation, which have seriously affected the very Western economies that applied them. In general, countries with relatively high debt levels are going to have problems due both to higher interest payments and to capital flight, especially to the financial markets of the United States.

By the end of October this year the value of the US dollar had gained 22% against the Japanese yen and 13% against the Euro. The increase in the value of the dollar on international markets further complicates the situation of the national economies of developing countries. This reality is another expression of how Western domination of the world economy and its financial order drastically limit the possibilities of majority world countries to develop their economies successfully. Despite advances towards a multipolar world with more diverse commercial and financial options, thanks mainly to China, the nations of regions such as Africa or Latin America and the Caribbean remain subject to the neocolonial domination of the United States and its allies.

This causes a dilemma for the social democrat leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean. It may be that they favor progressive policies of regional integration that allow economic activity on a larger scale and greater commercial exchange within the region. But they always feel that they have to be attentive to what the US and European authorities and the corporate owners of those governments want. This reality is reflected to a greater or lesser degree in the behavior of leaders such as Lula da Silva, Andres Manuel López Obrador, Alberto Fernández, Gustavo Petro and Gabriel Boric, for example in the reckless, incoherent and untimely invitation by Gustavo Petro to the US Southern Command and even NATO to intervene to protect the Amazon.

Within this regional context, multiple contradictions at the national level in countries such as Argentina and Brazil also tend to affect the external policies of their governments. Argentina has applied to join the BRICS group while remaining subject to the neoliberal conditions accompanying the debt agreement with the US controlled International Monetary Fund negotiated by the corrupt previous government of Mauricio Macri. At the same time that relations of Latin American and Caribbean countries with China have advanced very positively, those countries’ governments continue to participate in the Organization of American States despite its nature and role as a neocolonial tool of the United States. Only Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have rejected it.

The regional policy of the United States consists very clearly of using multiple types of interference to weaken the capacity of the region’s nations to defend their national sovereignty. The US goal is to provoke crisis and polarization across Latin America and the Caribbean so as to facilitate its economic, cultural, political and even juridical control and influence. This constant multifaceted interference by the United States, whether directly through its military, diplomats, corporations and bankers or by means of its various local allies, has caused insecurity, violence and political instability in many countries of the region.

In Ecuador and Haiti, there is acute violence and a collapse of the authority of those countries’ governments. In Peru, the government of Pedro Castillo has been paralyzed by an institutional and legal war waged relentlessy by the political opposition. Brazil is also highly polarized. Lula da Silva won the recent election with a very small margin of votes, supported by a coalition with many internal differences. Upon assuming office, he will have to face an opposition-dominated legislature in a country where most of its component states will also be governed by the opposition.

Argentina will have national elections next year in an atmosphere of great uncertainty favoring the right wing, which achieved an important advance at the end of 2021 by winning control of the senate in that year’s legislative elections. In Bolivia, the violent racist opposition in Santa Cruz continues to promote conditions for a new coup attempt against the government of Luis Arce. In Chile, Gabriel Boric has been unable to formulate a national project capable of confronting and overcoming the endless class war of the country’s right wing, a political failure expressed in the defeat in the recent referendum of the proposal for a new constitution. With different nuances, these same patterns of polarization, instability and insecurity characterize Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Cuba continues to stand as an indomitable model of the defense of national dignity, but its population experiences extreme hardship as a result of the ruthless, genocidal US blockade. The bolivarian government of President Nicolás Maduro and the Venezuelan people have overcome the worst effects of the innumerable illegal coercive measures, sabotage and assassination attempts by the United States, the European Union and the Colombian government of Iván Duque. But it will take time to achieve the full recovery of its economy and society after more than a decade of savage Western aggression, still in force, as demonstrated by the recent renewal by the European Union of its illegal coercive measures against Venezuela.

Few countries in the region are politically, economically and socially stable. In the countries of the Central American system, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Panama and, especially, Nicaragua show the highest levels of stability. Nicaragua has achieved this despite the persistent aggression of the United States and its allies. The country’s society and economy assimilated in an unexpectedly short time the serious economic consequences of the violent failed coup attempt of 2018, organized by the United States and some countries of the European Union. They had practically overcome the effects of that failed coup attempt when Covid-19 appeared in 2020, a challenge which Nicaragua’s government under President Ortega also overcame with exceptional success

Similarly, Nicaragua has managed to adjust its economy to successive North American and European illegal coercive measures over the last five years, achieving GDP growth this year of more than 5%, among the highest in Latin America and the Caribbean. The municipal elections last November 6th proved that Nicaragua has achieved levels of political and social cohesion and unity, of peace and citizen security that remain a distant dream for the rest of Latin America. Together with the revolutionary processes of Cuba and Venezuela, the People as President in Nicaragua defend the country’s national sovereign dignity, actively promoting the region’s emancipation and integration in a multipolar world, with no illusions that the West’s genocidal elites are going to give up voluntarily one iota of their economic power.

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This article was originally published on Tortilla con Sal, translated from Spanish.

Stephen Sefton, renowned author and political analyst based in northern Nicaragua, is actively involved in community development work focussing on education and health care. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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First published on May 9, 2023

*** 

The senseless slaughter of World War I began with the murder of a single man, a Crown Prince of a European empire whose name no one was particularly familiar with at the time. Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria was the presumptive heir to the Austrian-Hungarian empire in June of 1914. 

His assassin was a young Bosnian Serb student and the murder of the Crown Prince set off a cataclysmic series of events resulting in the deaths of more than 20 million people, half of whom were civilians. An additional 20 million people were wounded. 

Entire generations of young men from England, France, Russia, Austria, and Germany were lost. National economies were ruined. In economic terms, World War I caused the greatest global depression of the 20th century. Debts by all the major countries (except the USA) haunted the post-war economic world. Unemployment soared. Inflation increased, most dramatically in Germany where hyperinflation meant that a loaf of bread cost 200 Million Marks.

World War I ended a period of economic success. Twenty years of fiscal insecurity and suffering followed. It is thought that veterans returning home from World War I brought with them the Spanish Flu, which killed almost one million Americans. The war also laid the groundwork for World War II. 

Was it simply the murder of the Crown Prince that caused a world war or were other factors at work? Why did the United States get involved in a European conflict, particularly when an overwhelming number of Americans were against the United States being involved? 

Despite major public opposition to the war, Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of it: 373 To 50 in the House of Representatives, 82 to six in the Senate. The politicians defied the wishes of the people they were supposed to represent. What happened? Was something else driving their votes?

J.P. Morgan and Company was one of the largest investment banking firms in the world. J.P. Morgan himself was the official business agent in the United States for the British government and the main contact for Allied Loans during the war. Similarly, E.I. du Pont Company was the largest chemical firm in America. These two phenomenally wealthy and powerful companies along with other US manufacturers, including US weapons manufacturers, were closely aligned with President Woodrow Wilson. 

When World War I began, JP Morgan had Extensive Loans to Europe which would be lost if the allies were Defeated. Du Pont and other US weapons manufacturers stood to make astronomical profits if the United States entered the war. Historian Alan Brugar wrote that for every soldier who died in battle, the international bankers made a profit of $10,000. As J.P. Morgan wrote to Wilson in 1914, “The war should be a tremendous opportunity for America.” 

When the war concluded and the dead and wounded were counted, suspicions grew in the United States that nefarious business interests had propelled US involvement into the great slaughter. Investigative reporting and congressional hearings were initiated. 

In 1934 a book written by Helmuth Engelbrecht called The Merchants Of Death became a bestseller. The book exposed the unethical business practices of weapons manufacturers and analyzed their enormous profits during World War I. The author concluded that “the rise and development of the arms merchants reveals them as a growing menace to World Peace.” While not the only reason for the US entering the war, it became clear the Merchants of Death lobbied both Congress and the President for war. 

The American public was incensed. In 1934 almost 100,000 Americans signed a petition opposing increased armament production. Veterans paraded through Washington DC in 1935 in a march for peace. And Marine Major General Smedley Butler, two-time Medal of Honor winner, published his book War is a Racket, claiming he had been “a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism.” His book too became a bestseller.

The growing wave of public outrage led Senator Gerald Nye to initiate Congressional Hearings investigating whether US corporations, including weapons manufacturers, had led the United States into World War I. In two years, the Nye committee held 93 hearings and called more than 200 witnesses to testify, including JP Morgan and Pierre S. DuPont.

The committee conducted an extensive investigation searching the records of weapons manufacturers. They uncovered criminal and unethical actions including bribery of foreign officials, lobbying the United States government to obtain foreign sales, selling weapons to both sides of international disputes, and the covert undermining of disarmament conferences.

“The committee listened daily to men striving to defend acts which found them nothing more than international racketeers, bent upon gaining profit through a game of arming the world to fight itself,” Senator Nye declared in an October 1934 radio address.

The Senate Nye Committee recommended price controls, the transfer of Navy shipyards out of private hands, and increased industrial taxes. Senator Nye suggested that upon a declaration of war by Congress, taxes on annual income under $10,000 should automatically be doubled and higher incomes should be taxed at 98 percent. A journalist wrote at the time, “If such policies were enacted, businessmen would become our leading pacifists.”

The American public was outraged at the committee’s findings and so created some of the largest peace organizations the country had ever known. Committed to staying out of all future European wars, American college campuses in the 1930s had thousands of students taking Oaths swearing they would never fight in a foreign war. 

Farmers, laborers, intellectuals, ministers, people from all walks of life declared they would never again participate in a war fought to increase the profits of corporations.

And then, business fought back. They lobbied those in Congress to cut off funding for the Nye committee, which they soon did. A smear campaign was orchestrated against Senator Nye. The committees’ days were numbered.

In the end, the Nye Committee demonstrated that “these businesses were at the heart and center of a system that made going to war inevitable. They paved and greased the road to war.” With World War II, the Military Industrial Complex would explode and come to dominate American economic and political life.

Today, the Merchants of Death thrive behind a veil of duplicity and slick media campaigns. They have assimilated mainstream media and academia into their conglomerate. But their crimes are clear, and the evidence is overwhelming. Wherever they go, suffering and death, war crimes and atrocities, profits and stock buybacks follow.

Ninety years after the original Merchants of Death hearings, the 2023 Merchants Death War Crimes Tribunal will hold United States weapons manufacturers accountable for aiding and abetting the United States government in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This Tribunal will shine a light on those who profit from war and will seek to end their bloody franchise. Let this time be the last time. We may not have another chance.

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Brad Wolf, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a former community college dean, lawyer, and current executive director of Peace Action Network of Lancaster as well as a Team Organizer for the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal.

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First published on April 27, 2023

*** 

Can you picture what $31.4 trillion looks like?

The enormity of U.S. government debt is hard for the average person to wrap their head around. For instance, compared to the median U.S. mortgage, the current level of federal debt is 230 million times larger.

In this graphic, Julie Peasley shows how many one-dollar bills it would take to stack up to the total U.S. debt of $31.4 trillion.

How Did U.S. Debt Get So High?

U.S. national debt is how much money the federal government owes to creditors. When the government spends more than it earns, it has a budget deficit and must issue debt in the form of Treasury securities.

The U.S. has run a deficit for the last 20 years, substantially increasing the national debt. In fact, according to the Department of the Treasury, the current debt is $31.4 trillion.

Stacked up in one-dollar bills, the U.S. debt would be equivalent to almost eight of Chicago’s 110-story Willis Tower.

Click here to read the fiscal data.

The last time the government had a surplus was in 2001, when debt rose only 2% due to interest costs. Since then, the largest jumps in U.S. debt have been during the Global Financial Crisis—which saw three straight years of double-digit growth rates—and in 2020 due to trillions of dollars of COVID-19 stimulus.

U.S. federal debt rises during recessions because government revenue, primarily composed of taxes, decreases. At the same time, the government increases spending to help stimulate an economic recovery.

And in today’s case, the U.S. is facing additional financial issues. As the country’s senior population grows and people live longer, this puts pressure on programs that serve older Americans such as Social Security. Healthcare is becoming more expensive and is the second-fastest growing part of the U.S. budget.

The Pros and Cons of Debt

U.S. debt helps fund critical programs for Americans, including retirement and disability benefits, healthcare, economic security, and national defense.

As one example of the impact of these programs, income security nearly halved the percent of the population living below the poverty line in 2019 from 22.8% to 12.2%.

Of course, U.S. debt also comes with challenges. A chief concern is the ability to pay the interest costs on U.S. debt, especially as interest rates rise.

Before rate hikes began, interest costs amounted to 6% of the U.S. budget in the 2021 fiscal year. Fast forward to December 2022, and interest costs amounted to 15% of total government spending since the start of the fiscal year in October.

Addressing the Problem

In January 2023, the U.S. hit its debt ceiling, also known as its borrowing limit. While some countries tie their debt to GDP, the U.S. sets an exact limit in dollar terms.

The government would run out of money to pay its debts this summer if the ceiling is not raised, though policymakers have historically agreed to debt ceiling increases in the past to avoid a default. In 2011, the U.S. narrowly avoided default due to a last-minute debt ceiling negotiation and the country’s credit rating was downgraded as a result.

Tackling U.S. debt is simple in theory: raise taxes or the debt limit, reduce spending, or a combination of all three. However, it’s much more difficult in practice. Which taxes should be raised? Which programs should be cut? What happens the next time the debt limit is reached?

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First published on April 20, 2023

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First published on November 28, 2022

Most developing countries are experiencing famine.

The food crisis is engineered.  Global debt is the driving force. The article below describes what is happening in Sri Lanka. The debt is owned by Western financial institutions. 

The creditors are behind this process. 

The policy mechanism described in this article affects ALL the countries of the Global South. 

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First published on May 17, 2023

*** 

“There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men.”—Ludwig von Mises

Once again, the police state is up to its old tricks, stoking tensions over whether or not the government is forced to shut down, even partially, due to a default on the national debt.

Yet while these political games dominate news headlines, send the stock market into a nosedive, and put federal employees at risk of having to work without pay, nothing about these high-handed theatrics will diminish the immediate and very real dangers of the American Police State with its roadside strip searches, government surveillance, biometric databases, citizens being treated like terrorists, imprisonments for criticizing the government, national ID cards, SWAT team raids, censorship, forcible blood draws and DNA extractions, private prisons, weaponized drones, red light cameras, tasers, active shooter drills, police misconduct and government corruption.

Default or not, war will continue. Drone killings will continue. Surveillance will continue. Censorship and persecution of anyone who criticizes the government will continue. The government’s efforts to label dissidents as extremists and terrorists will continue.

Police shootings will continue. Highway robbery meted out by government officials will continue. Corrupt government will continue. Profit-driven prisons will continue. And the militarization of the police will continue.

Indeed, take a look at the programs and policies that will not be affected by a government default on its debt leading to a possible shutdown, and you’ll get a clearer sense of the government’s priorities, which have little to do with serving taxpayers and everything to do with amassing money, power and control.

Surveillance will continue unabated. On any given day, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. Police have been outfitted with a litany of surveillance gear, from license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices to biometric data recorders. Technology now makes it possible for the police to scan passersby in order to detect the contents of their pockets, purses, briefcases, etc. Full-body scanners, which perform virtual strip-searches of Americans traveling by plane, have gone mobile, with roving police vans that peer into vehicles and buildings alike—including homes. Coupled with the nation’s growing network of real-time surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, soon there really will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Global spying will continue unabated. The NSA’s massive surveillance network, what the Washington Post refers to as a $500 billion “espionage empire,” will continue to span the globe and target every single person on the planet who uses a phone or a computer. The NSA’s Echelon program intercepts and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax and email message sent anywhere in the world. In addition to carrying out domestic surveillance on peaceful political groups such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace and several religious groups, Echelon has also been a keystone to the government’s attempts at political and corporate espionage.

Egregious searches will continue unabated. Under the pretext of protecting the nation’s infrastructure (roads, mass transit systems, water and power supplies, telecommunications systems and so on) against criminal or terrorist attacks, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) task forces (comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams) will continue to do random security sweeps of nexuses of transportation, including ports, railway and bus stations, airports, ferries and subways. Sweep tactics include the use of x-ray technology, pat-downs and drug-sniffing dogs, among other things.

The undermining of the Constitution will continue unabated. America’s so-called war on terror, which it has relentlessly pursued since 9/11, has chipped away at our freedoms, unraveled our Constitution and transformed our nation into a battlefield, thanks in large part to such subversive legislation as the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act. These laws—which completely circumvent the rule of law and the constitutional rights of American citizens, re-orienting our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the rule of law, our U.S. Constitution, becomes the map by which we navigate life in the United States—will continue to be enforced.

Militarized policing will continue unabated. Thanks to federal grant programs allowing the Pentagon to transfer surplus military supplies and weapons to local law enforcement agencies without charge, police forces will continue to be transformed from peace officers into heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace, will continue to keep the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.

SWAT team raids will continue unabated. With more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans for relatively routine police matters and federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions, the incidence of botched raids and related casualties will continue to rise. Nationwide, SWAT teams will continue to be employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession.

Overcriminalization will continue unabated. The government bureaucracy will continue to churn out laws, statutes, codes and regulations that reinforce its powers and value systems and those of the police state and its corporate allies, rendering the rest of us petty criminals. The average American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to this overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity illegal. Consequently, small farmers who dare to make unpasteurized goat cheese and share it with members of their community will continue to have their farms raided.

The shadow government— a.k.a. the Deep State, a.k.a. the police state, a.k.a. the military industrial complex, a.k.a. the surveillance state complex—will continue unabated. This corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials will continue to call the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House or controls Congress. By “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

These issues are not going away.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, they are the backbone of an increasingly aggressive authoritarian government, formed by an unholy alliance between the mega-corporations with little concern for the Constitution and elected officials and bureaucrats incapable or unwilling to represent the best interests of their constituents.

Whether or not the government runs out of borrowed money, it will remain business as usual in terms of the police state’s unceasing pursuit of greater powers and control.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

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First published on April 29, 2023

***

Isn’t it always?

With the start of World War III by the United States “declaring” war against Russia by its actions in Ukraine, we have entered a time when the end of time has become very possible.  I am speaking of nuclear annihilation.

I look down at my great-uncle’s gold Elgin pocket watch from the 19^th century.  His name was John Patrick Whalen, an Irish immigrant to the U.S. who fled England’s colonialist created famine in Ireland.  It tells me it is 5:15 PM on April 21, 2022, a date, coincidentally, with a history.  No doubt John looked at his watch on this date in 1898 when the United States, after the USS Maine exploded from within in Havana harbor (a possible false flag attack), declared war on Spain in order to confiscate Spanish territories – Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.  One colonial power replaced another and then proceeded over the long decades to wage war and slaughter these island peoples.  Imperialism never dies.  It is timeless.

One hundred-and twenty-four years go by in a flash and it’s still the same old story.  In 1898 the yellow press screamed Spanish devils and today it screams Russian devils.  Then and now the press called for war.  If the human race is still here in another 124 years, time and the corporate media will no doubt have told the same story – war and propaganda’s lies to an insouciant and ignorant population too hypnotized by propaganda to oppose them. This despite the apocalyptic sense that permeates our lives because of demonic technology and its use to transform humans into machines who can’t think clearly enough to perceive reality and realize the threat posed by that quintessential technological invention – nuclear weapons.

This is not uplifting, but it’s true.  The nuclear weapons are primed and ready to fly.  The U.S. insists on its first-strike right to launch them.  It openly declares it is seeking the overthrow of the Russian government.  Russia says it will use nuclear weapons only if its existence is threatened, which has become increasingly so because of U.S. provocations over a long time period and its current expanding arming of Ukraine’s government and its neo-Nazi forces.

The Russian President Vladimir Putin and its Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov have just warned the U.S. that such involvement has made nuclear war a “serious” and “real” risk, in Lavrov’s words “we must not underestimate it,” which is a mild form of diplomatic speech. Putin said that Russia has made all the preparations to respond if it senses a strategic threat to Russia and that response will be “instant, it will be quick.”  The U.S. response is to shrug these statements off, just as it has done so for many years with Putin’s complaints about NATO forces moving up to its border.  Incredibly, Biden has said,

“For God’s sake, this man (Putin) cannot remain in power.”

Despite endless media/intelligence anti-Russian propaganda – “a vast tapestry of lies,” to use Harold Pinter’s phrase – many fine writers have provided the historical details to confirm the truth that the U.S. has purposely provoked the Russian war in Ukraine by its actions there and throughout Eastern Europe, which the mainstream media avoid completely. This U.S. aggressive history against Russia is part of a much larger history of imperial hubris extending back to the 19^th century.  I will therefore here follow Thoreau’s advice – “If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?” – since how many times do people need to hear lies such as “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” in order to justify wars of aggression around the world.  The historical facts are very clear, but facts and history don’t seem to matter to many people. Pinter again, in his Nobel Address, bluntly told the truth about the U.S.’s history of systematic and remorseless war crimes: “Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.”  Which is still the case.

So time is my focus, for the last days have arrived unless there occurs a radical awakening to the obvious truth that the U.S. government is pushing the world to the brink of disaster in full awareness of the consequences.  Its actions are insane, yet insanity has become the norm.  Insane leaders and a catatonic, hypnotized public lead to disaster.

John F. Kennedy meeting with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna. (Licensed under public domain)

I write these words with an old fountain pen, a high school graduation gift, to somehow comfort and remind myself that when we were this close once before in October 1962, Kennedy and Khrushchev miraculously found a solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis; and to find hope now, and that when my time is up and I join John Patrick in the other world, things will have changed for my children and grand-children.  It is admittedly the hope of a desperado.

The last few years of the Covid-19 propaganda have served to further distort people’s sense of time, a distortion years in the making through the introduction of digital technology with its accompanying numerical time clicks and its severing of our natural sense of time that is tied to the rising and falling of the tides and the turning of the days and seasons, a feeling that is being lost. Such felt sense of time’s texture could be slow or faster, but it had limits.  We now live in a world without limits, which, as the ancient Greeks knew, demands payback.

For years before Covid-19, the sense of speed time was dominant, supported by the politically-introduced state of a constant emergency after September 11, 2001 with the urgency to hurry and keep up or one would fall behind.  Keep up with what was never explained.  Hurry why?  Fast and faster was the rule with constant busyness that served the very useful social function of leaving no time for thinking, which was the point, but it made many feel as though they were engaged.  And constantly alert for “terrorists” to come knocking.  Thus the long wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, etc., all of which continue via various subterfuges.

Then, presto, all this frenzied time sense came to a stop with the 2020 lockdowns, when time got very slow, but not slow in the natural sense but an enforced slowness.  People were locked up.  Not only was it stupefying but stultifying and an existential drag.  This went on for two years with the prisoners allowed short respites only to be rounded back up and locked down again. Jabbed and jolted was the plan.  When will it ever end? was the common cry, as despair and depression spread and scrambled minds led to suicides and mindless screen entertainment.  This was planned education for a trans-human future in which the cell phone will be central to totalitarian control if people do not rebel.

Those behind the Covid-19 and war propaganda are fanatical technocrats who seek total control of the world’s population through digital technology.  Now they have temporarily let the people out of one type of cell and dramatically sped up time with frantic war propaganda against Russia.  The great English writer John Berger said it perfectly:

Every ruling minority needs to numb, and, if possible, to kill the time-sense of those whom it exploits. This is the authoritarian secret of all methods of imprisonment.

Everyone is now doing time while scrolling messages on the walls of their cell phones.  A twisted, convoluted, distorted, mechanical time in which it seems that there is no history and the future is an endless road of more of the same.

Some say we have all the time in the world.  I say no, that we have entered a new time, perhaps the end-time, when the world’s end is a very real possibility.  Hypnotized people can agree to anything, even mass-suicide, unless they snap out of it.  This can only happen with a return to slowness in the old sense, when people once felt time in their hearts’ rhythms attuned to the rising and falling of nature’s reality.  Time to think and contemplate the fate of the earth when nuclear war is contemplated.  Yes, “We must not underestimate it.”

It’s about time.

Isn’t it always?

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

Edward Curtin is a prominent author, researcher and sociologist based in Western Massachusetts. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 

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He is the author of Seeking the Truth in a Country of Lies

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First published on February 27, 2023

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Financial podcasts have been featuring ominous headlines lately along the lines of “Your Bank Can Legally Seize Your Money” and “Banks Can STEAL Your Money?! Here’s How!” The reference is to “bail-ins:” the provision under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act allowing Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs, basically the biggest banks) to bail in or expropriate their creditors’ money in the event of insolvency. The problem is that depositors are classed as “creditors.” So how big is the risk to your deposit account?

Part I of this two part article will review the bail-in issue.

Part II will look at the derivatives risk that could trigger the next global financial crisis. 

From Bailouts to Bail-Ins

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 states in its preamble that it will “protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts.” But it does this under Title II by imposing the losses of insolvent financial companies on their common and preferred stockholders, debtholders, and other unsecured creditors, through an “orderly resolution” plan known as a “bail-in.”

The point of an orderly resolution under the Act is not to make depositors and other creditors whole. It is to prevent a systemwide disorderly resolution of the sort that followed the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008. Under the old liquidation rules, an insolvent bank was actually “liquidated”—its assets were sold off to repay depositors and creditors.

In an “orderly resolution,” the accounts of depositors and other creditors are emptied to keep the insolvent bank in business. And even if you are getting only a few cents a month on your deposits, you are a creditor of the bank.  As explained in a December 2016 article in the University of Chicago Law Review titled “Safe Banking: Finance and Democracy:”

A general deposit is a loan made to a bank. This means that the bank is the general depositor’s debtor, but that the bank has legal title to the funds deposited; these funds may be commingled with the bank’s other funds. All the general depositor has is a general, unsecured claim against the bank …. [T]he bank is free to use the deposit as it sees fit. [Emphasis added.]

Fortunately, bail-ins do not apply to deposits under $250,000, which are protected by FDIC insurance. That is true in theory, but as of September 2021, the FDIC had only $122 billion in its insurance fund, enough to cover just 1.27% percent of the $9.6 trillion in deposits that it insures. The FDIC also has a credit line with the Treasury for up to $100 billion, but that still brings the total to just over 2% of insured deposits.

If just one or a few banks become insolvent, the FDIC fund should be sufficient to cover the insured deposits (those under $250K). But under the 2005 Bankruptcy Act, derivatives creditors (which are considered “secured”) are first in line to recover the assets of a bankrupt bank; and the Dodd-Frank Act followed that practice. So if a bank with major derivatives risk collapses, there might be no bank assets left for the non-insured creditors; and a series of major derivative cross-defaults could wipe out the whole FDIC kitty as well.

As of May 2022, according to the most recent data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the total notional amounts outstanding for contracts in the derivatives market was an estimated $600 trillion; and the total is often estimated at over $1 quadrillion.  No one knows for sure, because many derivatives are “over the counter” (not traded on an exchange). In any case it is a bubble of ominous size, and pundits warn it is about to pop. Topping the list of U.S. derivatives banks are J.P. Morgan Chase ($54.3 trillion), Goldman Sachs ($51 trillion), Citibank ($46 trillion), Bank of America ($21.6 trillion), and Wells Fargo ($12.2 trillion). A full list is here.

The FDIC and Disclosure

On Nov. 9, 2022, the FDIC held a 3.5 hour webcast discussing the bail-in process among other topics. In a clip raising alarm bells in the alternative media, Donald Kohn, former vice chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, said, “…it’s important that people understand they can be bailed in. But you don’t want a huge run on the institution. But they’re going to be…”

Richard J. Herring, co-director of The Wharton Financial Institutions Center said, “I would think your strategy ought to be to disclose as much as possible to people who professionally need to know about it …”

Gary Cohn, former director of the National Economic Council, said, “I almost think you’d scare the public if you put this out — like, ‘Why are they telling me this? Should I be concerned about my bank?’ … I think you’ve got to think of the unintended consequences of taking a public that has more full faith and confidence in the banking system than maybe people in this room do …we want them to have full faith and confidence in the banking system. They know the FDIC insurance is there, they know it works, they put their money in, they get their money out…”

This was followed by some laughter, which critics have interpreted as a cynical agency warning the wealthy while leaving the smaller investors to eat the losses, similar to the phone calls to the favored few before the 1929 stock market crash. But the clips have to be taken in context. Here is that whole section (taken from the video transcript beginning at 1 hr. 15 min):

SUSAN BAKER (Division of Complex Institution Supervision and Resolution): … So what we want to think about today is, “What should we be transparent about now that would help improve confidence in the event that we’re called to use our Title II authorities?”…

RICHARD J. HERRING (Co-Director, The Wharton Financial Institutions Center and Professor of Finance, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania): I would think your strategy ought to be to disclose as much as possible to people who professionally need to know about it, and that would certainly include the ratings agencies and the people within the banks who are responsible for these judgments, and simply have publicly available a place where people can go if they need to know more; because we’re dealing with a society where people are getting their information in tweets. There’s just no patience I think for going through the elaborate and careful planning that has gone on. It should be accessible when people need to know but I don’t think you have much hope of reaching a public that doesn’t have a professional need to know.

MEG E. TAHYAR (Partner and Co-head of Financial Institutions, Davis Polk LLP): … I do think there’s more that could be put out in the public … in a way that isn’t scary to folks. I mean … There’s a timing question, right? We’re at a delicate moment now, so if it goes out tomorrow it might have a different impact than if … it goes out as we’re moving out of the recession. But I’m very big on transparency. I think transparency leads to accountability.

DONALD KOHN (Former Vice Chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and Senior Fellow, Economic Studies Program, Brookings Institution): … It’s a little bit conflicted, right? I mean it’s important that people understand they can be bailed in, but you don’t want a huge run on the institution. But … they’re going to be ….

MICHAEL J. HSU (Acting Comptroller of the Currency): … I think we have to sit down and talk to long-term debt investors and make sure that they as a stakeholder group fully understand. Bank debt today is not what it was before. It is not principal protected, by design.

The FDIC staff were engaged in the delicate act of balancing the need to inform the public against the risk that the disclosure itself could trigger a systemic collapse due to widespread bank runs. The “need to know” stakeholders were the long-term investors with more than $250,000 in the bank, whose funds would be at risk. But smaller depositors, who would be protected by FDIC insurance, might panic from mischaracterized tweets and precipitate the very run the FDIC staff were trying to avoid. To their credit, they were trying to be transparent and accountable; it does seem the public should know what risks are hidden in the economy. The first step to solving the problem is understanding what is going on.

Bank Runs and Systemic Risk

Not just the speculative investments of the SIFIs but bank runs themselves are systemic risks.  Nationwide bank runs were the sort of “disorderly resolution” seen in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In 1913, the Federal Reserve became the settlement agent for private banks, and settlement funds for clearing transactions were held in gold. The Fed was required to hold gold reserves valued at 40% of the Federal Reserve Notes (paper dollars) it issued, and to redeem withdrawals in gold at a fixed price. The reserves were sufficient to backstop withdrawals in normal times, but the years following the 1929 stock market crash were not normal times. Domestic and foreign depositors rushed to withdraw their gold; the banks ran out; and they had to close their doors.

In 1933, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a national bank holiday; and when the banks reopened, domestic deposits were no longer backed by gold. They were backed only by the “full faith and credit of the United States.” But that is actually quite solid backing, something neither gold nor cryptocurrencies can claim to have. You can’t pay your electric bill or your credit card bill with gold or cryptocurrency. People are willing to accept dollars in payment because they know vendors will take them, and so will the IRS.

After 1933, the funds held at the Fed for settling transactions became simply data entries called “reserves,” which were created by the Fed and held by the banks in Fed accounts. Most of the circulating money supply is now created by private banks by writing loans as deposits into the accounts of their borrowers. But banks cannot create the reserves needed to clear withdrawals through the central bank. Those reserves must be acquired from the Fed, either directly or from another financial institution that has acquired them. Besides the bank’s own incoming deposits, options include borrowing from other banks in the fed funds market, the Fed discount window, or the repo market. Until recently, depository banks could borrow from each other or the Fed at 0.25%. That rate has now gone up to 4.5-4.75%. The only cheap, readily available source of liquidity left to a bank today is its own pool of incoming deposits, from paychecks, credit card payments, mortgage payments and the like.

Traditionally, banks had to hold only about 10% of their deposits in reserve. That percentage was considered sufficient to cover transfers and withdrawals because most people left their money in the bank, and withdrawals were largely netted against incoming deposits. In March 2020, the Fed removed the reserve requirement altogether; but banks still need to hold enough reserves to meet withdrawals. With a reserve of only the standard 10%, however, they will not have enough liquidity (readily accessible funds) to meet a nationwide bank run of the sort seen in the early 1930s.

The FDIC is therefore right to be concerned about warnings that can be misinterpreted. Distrust of big banks is rampant today, but collapsing them suddenly through a “disorderly” nationwide bank run would be as catastrophic as it was in the 1930s. Before the FDIC was founded through the Banking Act of 1935, depositors routinely lost their money when their banks went bankrupt. But we don’t want to lose our deposits to a bail-in either. Better would be for the regulators to unwind the speculative SIFI bets in a “soft landing” if possible. More on that in Part II of this article.

Meanwhile, the banks clearly need our deposits, and today they are scrambling to compete for deposits and reserves. According to a Feb. 7 article on Wall Street on Parade, Goldman Sachs is now offering an interest rate on its savings accounts that is 350 times the interest rate being offered by JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Why isn’t stated, but both of those major competitors have already amassed huge deposit bases. When the Global Financial Crisis hit in 2008, Goldman was an investment bank like Lehman Brothers, which barely escaped Lehman’s fate by becoming a bank holding company. This allowed it to acquire deposits and gave it access to the Fed’s discount window, but it obviously came in late to the deposit-collecting game.

How, Then, to Protect Your Deposits?

One popular alternative is to move your money to a credit union. With respect to deposit insurance, according to the FDIC, credit unions are no safer than banks, but they are also no less safe. Whether the institution is insured by the FDIC or by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF), your deposits are guaranteed up to the $250,000 limit per depositor. More to the point here, credit unions and other small local banks are not subject to bail-ins.

Some commentators recommend moving your money out of the banking system altogether – into cash, cryptocurrencies or precious metals. Having enough cash on hand to cover perhaps three months’ worth of expenses in a crisis is certainly a good idea. But many people don’t have even that much in savings, and people with large sums in the bank probably won’t be able to withdraw them all at once. Changing banks is also a slow and cumbersome process. Many people won’t do it or will be caught unaware when the next crisis hits.

In theory, the Federal Reserve could step in as lender of last resort to save the creditors and depositors if necessary, calling on the same emergency powers it exercised for the SIFIs in 2008-09. It could provide cheap liquidity for the banks in the form of quantitative easing, alleviating the need to bail in depositor funds. The Fed is not required to act – it is “independent” – but that means it does not need authorization from Congress, and it does not need taxpayer funds. It can create its own reserves.

The question is whether the Fed would see depositors as “systemically important,” but the rush to compete for deposits shows that they are. Arguably deposits are the people’s weapons of mass destruction: pull them and the banks go down. The banks need our deposits; and we need the sort of self-sustaining financial system in which money, credit and banks are treated as public utilities, accessible by and accountable to the people whose full faith and credit backs them.

Part II of this article will look at the systemic risks currently facing the banking system, and at how it could be reengineered to deal with those risks and restore the trust of the people sustaining it.

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This article was first posted on ScheerPost.

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 400+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com. She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Author’s Introduction 

The 1999 financial sector reforms under the Clinton Administration had set the stage for the 2007-2009 depression as well as the current 2020-2023  engineered financial crisis. 

While the 1999 US Financial Services Modernization Act does not in itself break down remaining barriers to the free movement of capital, in practice, it empowers Wall Street’s key players to develop a hegemonic position in global banking, overshadowing and ultimately destabilizing financial systems in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe… 

“The “global financial supermarket” is to be overseen by the Wall Street giants; competing banking institutions are to be removed from the financial landscape.

State level banks across America will be displaced or bought up, leading to a deadly string of bank failures. In turn, the supervisory powers of the Federal Reserve Board (which are increasingly under the direct dominion of Wall Street) have been significantly weakened.” (quoted from Michel Chossudovsky’s text below) 

Free from government regulation, the financial giants have the ability to strangle local-level businesses in the US and overshadow the real economy. This process of destabilizing the real economy Worldwide through a string of bankruptcies is currently ongoing (2020-2023).

The 1999 legislation had repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, a pillar of President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” which was put in place in response to the climate of corruption, financial manipulation and “insider trading” which led to more than 5,000 bank failures in the years following the 1929 Wall Street crash. 

Effective control over the entire US financial services industry had been transferred to a handful of financial conglomerates – which are also the creditors and shareholders of high tech companies, the defense industry, major oil and mining consortia, etc.

Moreover, as underwriters of the public debt at federal, state and municipal levels, the financial giants have also reinforced their stranglehold on politicians, as well as their command over the conduct of public policy.

Rather than taming financial markets in the wake of the storm, Washington was busy pushing through the US Senate legislation, which was to significantly increase the powers of the financial services giants and their associated hedge funds.

Under the Financial Modernization Act adopted in November 1999, US lawmakers had set the stage for a sweeping deregulation of the US banking system.

In the wake of lengthy negotiations, all regulatory restraints on Wall Street’s powerful banking conglomerates were revoked “with a stroke of the pen”. Under the new rules – ratified by the US Senate and approved by President Clinton – commercial banks, brokerage firms, hedge funds, institutional investors, pension funds and insurance companies can freely invest in each others businesses as well as fully integrate their financial operations.

The following text reviews, in a historical context, the 1987, 1997 and 1998 stock market  meltdowns. 

The article was written 24 years ago in November 1999,  following the adoption of the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act. 

It was subsequently published as a chapter in the Second Edition of The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Global Research, Montreal, 2003.

The adoption of the Financial Services Modernization Act in 1999 is crucial to our understanding of the ongoing 2020-2023 financial crisis.

Today, the financial system is totally corrupt and so are the governments. Institutional speculators call the shots. The “regulators” are supervised and controlled by Wall Street financial speculators. 

 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, June 2023

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Global Financial Meltdown:

Sweeping Deregulation of the US Banking System

 

by Michel Chossudovsky

November 1999

Introduction 

A new global financial environment has unfolded in several stages since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in 1971. The debt crisis of the early 1980s (broadly coinciding with the Reagan-Thatcher era) had unleashed a wave of corporate mergers, buy-outs and bankruptcies. These changes have, in turn, paved the way for the consolidation of a new generation of financiers clustered around the merchant banks, the institutional investors, stock brokerage firms, large insurance companies, etc. In this process, commercial banking functions have coalesced with those of the investment banks and stock brokers.1

While these “money managers” play a powerful role on financial markets, they are, however, increasingly removed from entrepreneurial functions in the real economy. Their activities (which often escape state regulation) include speculative transactions in commodity futures and derivatives, and the manipulation of currency markets. Major financial actors are routinely involved in “hot money deposits” in “the emerging markets” of Latin America and Southeast Asia, not to mention money laundering and the development of (specialized) “private banks” (“which advise wealthy clients”) in the many offshore banking havens. Within this global financial web, money transits at high speed from one banking haven to the next in the intangible form of electronic transfers. “Legal” and “illegal” business activities have become increasingly intertwined, vast amounts of unreported private wealth have been accumulated. Favoured by financial deregulation, the criminal mafias have also expanded their role in the spheres of international banking.2

The 1987 Wall Street Crash

Black Monday October 19, 1987 was the largest one-day drop in the history of the New York Stock Exchange overshooting the collapse of October 28, 1929, which prompted the Wall Street crash and the beginning of the Great Depression.

In the 1987 meltdown, 22.6 percent of the value of US stocks was wiped out largely during the first hour of trading on Monday morning. The plunge on Wall Street sent a cold shiver through the entire financial system leading to the tumble of the European and Asian stock markets…

The Institutional Speculator

The 1987 Wall Street crash served to “clearing the decks” so that only the “fittest” survive. In the wake of crisis, a massive concentration of financial power has taken place. From these transformations, the “institutional speculator” emerged as a powerful actor overshadowing and often undermining bona fide business interests. Using a variety of instruments, these institutional actors appropriate wealth from the real economy. They often dictate the fate of companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Totally removed from entrepreneurial functions in the real economy, they have the power of precipitating large industrial corporations into bankruptcy.

In 1993, a report of Germany’s Bundesbank had already warned that trade in derivatives could potentially “trigger chain reactions and endanger the financial system as a whole”.3 While committed to financial deregulation, the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board Mr. Alan Greenspan had warned that: “Legislation is not enough to prevent a repeat of the Barings crisis in a high tech World where transactions are carried out at the push of the button”.4 According to Greenspan “the efficiency of global financial markets, has the capability of transmitting mistakes at a far faster pace throughout the financial system in ways which were unknown a generation ago…”5 What was not revealed to public opinion was that “these mistakes”, resulting from large-scale speculative transactions, were the source of unprecedented accumulation of private wealth.

By 1995, the daily turnover of foreign exchange transactions (US$ 1300 billion) had exceeded the world’s official foreign exchange reserves estimated at US$ 1202 billion.6 The command over privately-held foreign exchange reserves in the hands of “institutional speculators” far exceeds the limited capabilities of central banks, – i.e. the latter acting individually or collectively are unable to fight the tide speculative activity.

The 1997 Financial Meltdown

The 1987 crisis had occurred in October. Almost to the day, ten years later (also in October) on Monday the 27th, 1997, stock markets around the world plummeted in turbulent trading. The Dow Jones average nose-dived by 554 points, a 7.2 percent decline of its value, its 12th-worst one-day fall in the history of the New York Stock Exchange.

Major exchanges around the world are interconnected “around the clock” through instant computer link-up: volatile trading on Wall Street “spilled over” into the European and Asian stock markets thereby rapidly permeating the entire financial system. European stock markets were in disarray with heavy losses recorded on the Frankfurt, Paris and London exchanges. The Hong Kong stock exchange had crashed by 10.41 percent on the previous Thursday (“Black Thursday” October 24th) as mutual fund managers and pension funds swiftly dumped large amounts of Hong Kong blue chip stocks. The slide at Hong Kong’s Exchange Square continued unabated at the opening of trade on Monday morning: a 6.7 percent drop on Monday the 27th followed by a 13.7 percent fall on Tuesday (Hong Kong’s biggest point loss ever)… 

Table 1

New York Stock Exchange: Worst Single-Day Declines (Dow Jones Industrial Average, percentage change)

Percentage Date Decline [1929-1998]

October 19, 1987 – 22.6%

October 28, 1929 – 12.8%

October 29, 1929 – 11.7%

November 6, 1929 – 9.9%

August 12, 1932 – 8.4%

October 26, 1987 – 8.0%

July 21, 1933 – 7.8%

October 18, 1937 – 7.6%

October 27, 1997 – 7.2%

October 5, 1932 – 7.2%

September 24, 1931 – 7.1%

August 31, 1998 – 6.4%

Source: New York Stock Exchange

The 1997 meltdown of financial markets had been heightened by computerized trading and the absence of state regulation. The NYSE’s Superdot electronic order-routing system was able to handle (without queuing) more than 300,000 orders per day (an average of 375 orders per second), representing a daily capacity of more than two billion shares. While its speed and volume had increased tenfold since 1987, the risks of financial instability were significantly greater.

Ten years earlier, in the wake of the 1987 meltdown, the US Treasury was advised by Wall Street not to meddle in financial markets. Free of government encroachment, the New York and Chicago exchanges were invited to establish their own regulatory procedures. The latter largely consisted in freezing computerized programme trading through the use of so-called “circuit-breakers”.7

In 1997, the circuit breakers proved to be totally ineffective in averting a meltdown. On Monday the 27th of October 1997, a first circuit breaker halted trading for 30 minutes after a 350 point plunge of the Dow Jones. After the 30 minute trading halt, an aura of panic and confusion was installed: brokers started dumping large quantities of stocks which contributed to accelerating the collapse in market values. In the course of the next 25 minutes, the Dow plunged by a further 200 points, triggering a second “circuit breaker” which served to end the trading day on Wall Street. 

Replicating the Policy Failures of the late 1920s

“Wall Street was swerving dangerously in volatile trading in the months preceding the Wall Street crash on October 29, 1929. Laissez-faire, under the Coolidge and Hoover administrations, was the order of the day. The
possibility of a financial meltdown had never been seriously contemplated. Professor Irving Fisher of Yale University had stated authoritatively in 1928 that “nothing resembling a crash can occur”. The illusion of economic prosperity persisted seeral years after the Wall Street crash of October 1929.

In 1930, Irving Fisher stated confidently that “for the immediate future, at least, the perspective is brilliant”. According to the prestigious Harvard Economic Society: “manufacturing activity [in 1930]… was definitely on the road to recovery” (quoted in John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash, 1929, Penguin, London).

Mainstream Economics Upholds Financial Deregulation 

Sounds familiar? In the wake of the 1997 crash, the same complacency prevailed as during the frenzy of the late 1920s. Echoing almost verbatim the economic slogans of Irving Fisher, today’s economics orthodoxy not only refutes the existence of an economic crisis, it denies outright the possibility of a financial meltdown. According to Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago, the decisions of economic agents are based on so-called “rational expectations”, ruling out the possibility of “systematic errors” which might lead the stock market in the wrong direction… It is ironic that precisely at a time when financial markets were in turmoil, the Royal Swedish Academy announced the granting of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economics to two American economists for their “pioneering formula for the valuation of stock options [and derivatives] used by thousands of traders and investors” (meaning an “algebraic formula” which is routinely used by hedge funds stock market speculators). (See Greg Burns, “Two Americans Share Nobel in Economics”, Chicago Tribune, October 15, 1997).

The 1997 Asian Crisis

When viewed historically, the 1997 financial crisis was far more devastating and destructive than previous financial meltdowns. Both the stock market and currency markets were affected. In the 1987 crisis, national currencies remained relatively stable. In contrast to both the crashes of 1929 and 1987, the 1997-98 financial crisis was marked by the concurrent collapse of currencies and stock markets. An almost symbiotic relationship between the stock exchange and the foreign currency market had unfolded: “institutional speculators” were not only involved in manipulating stock prices, they also had the ability to plunder central banks’ foreign exchange reserves, undermining sovereign governments and destabilizing entire national economies.

In the course of 1997, currency speculation in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines was conducive to the transfer of billions of dollars of central bank reserves into private financial hands. Several observers have pointed to the deliberate manipulation of equity and currency markets by investment banks and brokerage firms.8 Ironically, the same Western financial institutions which looted developing countries’ central banks, have also offered “to come to the rescue” of Southeast Asia’s monetary authorities. ING Baring, for instance, well known for its speculative undertakings, generously offered to underwrite a one-billion dollar loan to the Central Bank of the Philippines (CBP) in July 1997. In the months which followed, most of these borrowed foreign currency reserves were reappropriated by international speculators when the CBP sold large amounts of dollars on the forward market in a desperate attempt to prop up the Peso.

“Economic Contagion”

Business forecasters and academic economists alike had disregarded the dangers of a global financial meltdown alluding to “strong economic fundamentals”; G7 leaders were afraid to say anything or act in a way, which might give the “wrong signals”… Wall Street analysts continue to bungle on issues of “market correction” with little understanding of the broader economic picture.

The plunge on the New York Stock Exchange on October 27th 1997 was casually blamed on the “structurally weak economies” of Southeast Asia, until recently heralded as upcoming tigers, now depicted as “lame ducks”. The seriousness of the financial crisis was trivialized: Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, reassured Wall Street pointing authoritatively to “the contagious character of national economies, spreading weaknesses from country to country”. Following Greenspan’s verdict (October 28th), the “consensus” among Manhattan brokers and US academics (with debate or analysis) was that “Wall Street had caught the Hong Kong flu”…

The 1998 Stock Market Meltdown

In the uncertain wake of Wall Street’s recovery from the 1997 “Asian flu” – largely spurred by panic flight out of Japanese stocks – financial markets backslided a few months later to reach a new dramatic turning-point in August 1998 with the spectacular nose-dive of the Russian ruble. The Dow Jones plunged by 554 points on August 31, 1998 (its second largest decline in the history of the New York stock exchange) leading, in the course of September, to the dramatic meltdown of stock markets around the World. In a matter of a few weeks, 2300 billion dollars of “paper profits” had evaporated from the U.S. stock market.

The ruble’s August 1998 free-fall had spurred Moscow’s largest commercial banks into bankruptcy leading to the potential take-over of Russia’s financial system by a handful of Western banks and brokerage houses. In turn, the crisis had created the danger of massive debt default to Moscow’s Western creditors, including the Deutsche and Dresdner banks. Since the outset of Russia’s macro-economic reforms, following the first injection of IMF “shock therapy” in 1992, some 500 billion dollars worth of Russian assets – including plants of the military industrial complex, infrastructure and natural resources – have been confiscated (through the privatization programs and forced bankruptcies) and transferred into the hands of Western capitalists. In the brutal aftermath of the Cold War, an entire economic and social system was being dismantled

Financial Deregulation

Rather than taming financial markets in the wake of the storm, Washington was busy pushing through the US Senate legislation, which was to significantly increase the powers of the financial services giants and their associated hedge funds. Under the Financial Modernization Act adopted in November 1999 – barely a week before the historic Seattle Millenium Summit of the World Trade Organization (WTO) – US lawmakers had set the stage for a sweeping deregulation of the US banking system.

In the wake of lengthy negotiations, all regulatory restraints on Wall Street’s powerful banking conglomerates were revoked “with a stroke of the pen”. Under the new rules – ratified by the US Senate and approved by President Clinton – commercial banks, brokerage firms, hedge funds, institutional investors, pension funds and insurance companies can freely invest in each others businesses as well as fully integrate their financial operations.

The legislation had repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, a pillar of President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” which was put in place in response to the climate of corruption, financial manipulation and “insider trading” which led to more than 5,000 bank failures in the years following the 1929 Wall Street crash.9 Effective control over the entire US financial services industry (including insurance companies, pension funds, securities companies, etc.) had been transferred to a handful of financial conglomerates – which are also the creditors and shareholders of high tech companies, the defense industry, major oil and mining consortia, etc. Moreover, as underwriters of the public debt at federal, state and municipal levels, the financial giants have also reinforced their stranglehold on politicians, as well as their command over the conduct of public policy.

Clinton signs the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act, October 1999. Copyright NYT.

The “global financial supermarket” is to be overseen by the Wall Street giants; competing banking institutions are to be removed from the financial landscape. State level banks across America will be displaced or bought up, leading to a deadly string of bank failures. In turn, the supervisory powers of the Federal Reserve Board (which are increasingly under the direct dominion of Wall Street) have been significantly weakened .

Free from government regulation, the financial giants have the ability to strangle local-level businesses in the US and overshadow the real economy. In fact, due to the lack of competition, the legislation also entitles the financial services giants (bypassing the Federal Reserve Board and acting in tacit collusion with one another) to set interest rates as they please.

The Merger Frenzy

A new era of intense financial rivalry has unfolded. The New World Order – largely under the dominion of American finance capital – was eventually intent on dwarfing rival banking conglomerates in Western Europe and Japan, as well as sealing strategic alliances with a “select club” of German- and British-based banking giants.

Several mammoth bank mergers (including NationsBank with BankAmerica, and Citibank with Travelers Group) had, in fact, already been implemented and rubber-stamped by the Federal Reserve Board (in violation of the pre-existing legislation) prior to the adoption of the 1999 Financial Modernization Act. Citibank, the largest Wall Street bank, and Travelers Group Inc., the financial services and insurance conglomerate (which also owns Solomon Smith Barney a major brokerage firm) combined their operations in 1998 in a 72 billion dollar merger.10

Strategic mergers between American and European banks had also been negotiated bringing into the heart of the US financial landscape some of Europe’s key financial players including Deutsche Bank AG (linked up with Banker’s Trust) and Credit Suisse (linked up with First Boston). The Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), the UK based banking conglomerate – which had already sealed a partnership with Wells Fargo and Wachovia Corporation – had acquired the late Edmond Safra’s Republic New York Bank in a 9 billion dollar deal.11

In the meantime, rival European banks excluded from Wall Street’s inner circle, were scrambling to compete in an increasingly “unfriendly” global financial environment. Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) had acquired Société Générale de Banque and Paribas to form one of the World’s largest banks. BNP eventually aspires “to move into North America in a bigger way”.12

Financial Deregulation at a Global Level

While the 1999 US Financial Services Act does not in itself break down remaining barriers to the free movement of capital, in practice, it empowers Wall Street’s key players, including Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Lehman Brothers, etc., to develop a hegemonic position in global banking, overshadowing and ultimately destabilizing financial systems in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe…

Financial deregulation in the US has created an environment which favors an unprecedented concentration of global financial power. In turn, it has set the pace of global financial and trade reform under the auspices of the IMF and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The provisions of both the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and of the Financial Services Agreement (FTA) imply the breaking down of remaining impediments to the movement of finance capital meaning that Merrill Lynch, Citigroup or Deutsche-Bankers Trust can go wherever they please, triggering the bankruptcy of national banks and financial institutions.

In practice, this process has already happened in a large number of developing countries under bankruptcy and privatization programs imposed on an hoc basis by the Bretton Woods institutions. The mega-banks have penetrated the financial landscape of developing countries, taking control of banking institutions and financial services. In this process, the financial giants have been granted de facto “national treatment”: without recourse to the provisions of the Financial Services Agreement (FTA) of the WTO, Wall Streets banks, for instance, in Korea, Pakistan, Argentina or Brazil have become bona fide “national banks” operating as domestic institutions and governed by domestic laws which are being remolded under IMF-World Bank jurisdiction. (See Chapters 21 and 22.)

In practice the large US and European financial services giants do not require the formal adoption of the GATS to be able to dominate banking institutions worldwide, as well as overshadow national governments. The process of global financial deregulation is, in many regards, a fait accompli. Wall Street has routinely invaded country after country. The domestic banking system has been put on the auction block and reorganized under the surveillance of external creditors. National financial institutions are routinely destabilized and driven out of business; mass unemployment and poverty are the invariable results.

Assisted by the IMF – which routinely obliges countries to open up their domestic banking sector to foreign investment – retail banking, stock brokerage firms and insurance companies are taken over by foreign capital and reorganized. Citigroup, among other Wall Street majors, has gone on a global shopping spree buying up banks and financial institutions at bargain prices in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. In one fell swoop, Citigroup acquired the 106 branch network of Banco Mayo Cooperativo Ltda., becoming Argentina’s second largest bank.

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The above text is contained in Chapter 20 of Michel Chossudovsky’s book: The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order.

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca. He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Notes

1. In the US, the division between commercial and investment banking is regulated by the Glass Steagall Act enacted in 1933 during the Great Depression to ensure the separation of securities underwriting from lending, to avoid conflicts of interest and prevent the collapse of commercial banks. The Banking Association has recently pointed to the importance of amending the Glass Steagall act to allow for the full integration of commercial and investment banking. See American Banking Association President’s Position, “New Ball Game in Washington“, ABA Banking Journal, January 1995, p. 17.
2. For detailed analysis on the role of criminal organizations in banking and finance, see Alain Labrousse and Alain Wallon (editors), “La planète des drogues”, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1993 and Observatoire géopolitique des drogues, La drogue, nouveau désordre mondial, Hachette, coll. pluriel-Intervention, Paris, 1993.
3. Quoted in Martin Khor, ” Baring and the Search for a Rogue Culprit, Third World Economics, No. 108, 1-15 March 1995, p. 10.
4. Ibid.
5. Bank for International Settlements Review, No. 46, 1997.
6. Martin Khor, SEA Currency Turmoil Renews Concern on Financial Speculation, Third World Resurgence, No. 86, October 1997, pp. 14-15.
7. “Five Years On, the Crash Still Echoes”, The Financial Times, October 19, 1992.
8. Philip Wong, member of the Beijing appointed Legislative Assembly accused the Manhattan Brokerage firm Morgan Stanley of “short-selling the market”. See “Broker Cleared of Manipulation”, Hong Kong Standard, 1 November 1997.
9. See Martin McLaughlin, Clinton Republicans agree to Deregulation of US Banking System, World Socialist website, http://www.wsws.org/index.shtml, 1 November 1999.
10. Ibid
11. See Financial Times, November 9, 1999, p. 21.
12. Jocelyn Noveck, “Deal would create largest bank”, http://sun-sentinel.com/, March 9 1999.

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The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order (PDF)

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Manlio Dinucci interviene a sostegno del Referendum Ripudia la Guerra. A seguito della giornata per il disarmo di Sanremo, è partita la campagna referendaria “L’Italia per la pace”, organizzata su due quesiti referendari volti ad impedire il continuo e dispendioso trasferimento di armi in Ucraina.

La campagna è sostenuta in modo coordinato e collaborativo dai promotori del comitato Ripudia la Guerra (portavoce Enzo Pennetta) e di Generazioni Future con Presidente Ugo Mattei.

La raccolta firme è partita il 22 aprile ed è essenziale che quante più persone possibili si mettano a disposizione di questo importante sforzo volto a certificare che la maggioranza del popolo italiano non è d’accordo con politiche guerrafondaie e preferisce usare diversamente i soldi pubblici.

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The other day, I counted 20 copies of a book called Forbidden City (1990) in a library. I picked it up and looked at the cover, and I realized it was about the so-called Tiananmen Square massacre. It was written as an on-the-spot account by a CBC news team during that time. By reading the minutiae, it is revealed to be a fictionalized account, as almost all western monopoly media reports of a Tiananmen Square massacre are — fiction.

As I write this, June 4 is nigh upon us, and that means it is time for the western-aligned media to crank out their discredited myth of a massacre having taken place in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The photos of the Tank Man allegedly blocking tanks from entering Tiananmen Square will form a major part of the disinformation. The fact is that the tanks were leaving the city, and it was the day after the mythologized massacre. The tanks did all they could to avoid colliding with the citizen who placed himself in front of the tanks. (Read Jeff Brown’s setting the record straight regarding the western monopoly media account of the Tank Man.)

Alas, the monopoly media disinformation storm is already upon us.

Human Rights Watch, funded by the George Soros, published an article about a “bloody crackdown” that demands:

“The Chinese government should acknowledge responsibility for the mass killing of pro-democracy demonstrators and provide redress for victims and family members.”

The United States government-funded Radio Free Asia historizes, “Troops aligned with hardliners shot their way to Tiananmen Square to commit one of the worst massacres in modern Chinese history.” RFA was originally operated by the CIA to broadcast anti-Communist propaganda.

The CBC quotes

“Tiananmen Square survivor” Yang Jianli, now a resident in Washington, DC, who “was at Tiananmen Square in 1989” and spoke of how a “nationwide pro-democracy movement in 1989 ended in the bloodshed of Tiananmen Square massacre.”

Yahoo! News headlines with “Tiananmen Square Fast Facts,” such as:

In 1989, after several weeks of demonstrations, Chinese troops entered Tiananmen Square on June 4 and fired on civilians.

Estimates of the death toll range from several hundred to thousands.

One wonders which is the fact: several hundred or thousands? Assertions are a staple in western monopoly media, evidence is scant, but the evidence-free assertions persist year-after-year.

There are complaints of Chinese censorship. This raises the question of whether censorship can be justified and if so under what circumstances. Arguably, there is something more insidious than censorship, and that is disinformation. Professor Anthony Hall articulated the insidiousness of disinformation at the Halifax Symposium on Media and Disinformation in 2004 where it was held to be a crime against humanity and a crime against peace:

Disinformation originates in the deliberate and systemic effort to break down social cohesion and to deprive humanity of perceptive consciousness of our conditions. Disinformation seeks to isolate and divide human beings; to alienate us from our ability to use our senses, our intellect, and our communicative powers in order to identify truth and act on this knowledge. Disinformation is deeply implicated in the history of imperialism, Eurocentric racism, American Manifest Destiny, Nazi propaganda, the psychological warfare of the Cold War, and capitalist globalization. Disinformation seeks to erode and destroy the basis of individual and collective memory, the basis of those inheritances from history which give humanity our richness of diverse languages, cultures, nationalities, peoplehoods, and means of self-determination. The reach and intensity of disinformation tends to increase with the concentration of ownership and control of the media of mass communications.

In other words, people must not have a right to freely speak lies that reach the level of crimes against humanity or peace. The disinformation campaign about a Tiananmen Square massacre demonizes China and constitutes a crime against the humanity of the Chinese people. If people wish to allege a massacre by state forces against its citizens, then present the incontrovertible evidence. Where are the photos of soldiers killing citizens? There are plenty of photos of murdered soldiers mutilated by nasty elements outside Tiananmen Square.

So why does the disinformation persist? Because it works when people unquestioningly accept what their unscrupulous government and media tell them: China is Communist. China is bad.

Is such rhetoric compelling?

American expat Godfree Roberts, author of Why China Leads the World: Talent at the Top, Data in the Middle, Democracy at the Bottomanswered a Quora question: “There are people that claim nothing bad happened at Tiananmen Square in 1989 What happened to the pro democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square when the tanks and troops with the PLA showed up to suddenly put and end to the protests?” Roberts replied:

The tanks and troops with the PLA did not show up to suddenly put and end to the protests. Nor did they harm anyone in Tiananmen Square.

They waited at the railway station for three weeks but began moving into town when rioters–like those we see in Hong Kong today–began killing people in Chang’An Avenue. Even then, the first battalions were unarmed… [emphasis in original]

Roberts wrote another excellent Quora piece preserved at the Greanville Post.

Regarding the wider myth created of a massacre at Tiananmen Square, the go-to evidence-based account is the book Tiananmen Square “Massacre”?: The Power of Words vs. Silent Evidence by Wei Ling Chua.

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Kim Petersen: In 2014, I reviewed your important book Tiananmen Square “Massacre”?: The Power of Words vs. Silent Evidence that threw a glaring light on what the monopoly media were saying about a massacre in Tiananmen Square versus the subsequent recantations by western-aligned journalists and the narratives of protestors and witnesses than were contrary to the western media disinformation. In other words, there was no massacre in Tiananmen Square. Nonetheless, people living in the western-aligned world can expect, for the most part, to be inundated with monopoly media rehashing their disinformation about what happened on 4 June 1989, omitting the nefarious roles played by the CIA and NED.

Recently, AB Abrams included a 29-page chapter, “Beijing 1989 and Tiananmen Square,” in his excellent book Atrocity Fabrications and Its Consequences (2023). It basically lays out what you did in your book (without citing it), but it does present more of a historical basis for the interference of US militarism in 20th century China because of American anti-communist prejudice. Thus, the US supported the Guomindang (KMT) led by the brutal Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-Shek). Abrams reads quite critical of paramount leader Deng Xiaopeng, quoting one student who complained of the increasing corruption under Deng that was not tolerated under chairman Mao Zedong. (p 125) Basically, however, Abrams buttresses what you had already written, pointing a stern finger at Operation Yellowbird’s NED, CIA, and Hong Kong criminal triads who inserted (and extracted) unruly (even bloodthirsty, notably Chai Ling) elements into Tiananmen Square who happened to find themselves well armed and supplied with Molotov cocktails, and who were not hesitant about using lethal force against remarkably restrained PLA soldiers.

Despite the several recantations by western journalists in Beijing who had reported a massacre and despite the narratives that seriously impugn the monopoly media narratives, why does the myth of a massacre in Tiananmen Square persist? How is it that this fabricated atrocity gets dredged up annually, and why do so many people buy into the disinformation proffered by a source serially revealed to be manufacturing demonstrably false narratives? How can this disinformation be exterminated?

Finally, massacres should not be forgotten, but if the narratives of massacres are meant to be revisited annually, then shouldn’t the massacres carried out — especially by one’s own side — also be memorialized, as an act of penance and atonement? In the US case, there would be yearly memorials to the massacres of several Indigenous peoples by the White natives of Europe. There are several massacres requiring atonement for the rampant criminality of the White Man. Wounded Knee, the Bear Creek massacre, the Sand Creek massacre, and the Trail of Tears spring readily to mind. There is the Kwangju massacre in South Korea, My Lai in Viet Nam, Fallujah in Iraq (and this is just skimming the surface). What does it say that the US-aligned media unquestioningly reports on fabricated atrocities elsewhere while being insouciant to the crimes of American troops against Others?

Wei Ling Chua: Since publishing the book Tiananmen Square “Massacre”? The Power of Words vs. Silent Evidence (The Art of Media Disinformation is Hurting the World and Humanity vol. 2) in 2014, I began to use Google alerts to receive daily emails on any news or articles posted on the net with the term “Tiananmen Square Massacre”, and it is depressing to say that the Western media disregards their own journalists’ confessions and have continued to unrelentingly use the term frequently over the past 34 years.

The following description introduces the book.

Readers will notice from the table of contents that this book comes in 4 parts:

1) Screenshot evidence of journalists who confessed that they saw no one die that day (June 4th, 1989) at Tiananmen Square, CIA declassified documents, WikiLeaks, and Human Rights Watch decided not to publish their own eye-witnesses accounts that report that support the Chinese side of the stories… ;

2) Explanation, with examples, of how the Western media used the power of words to overpower the silent evidence (their own photos and video images) that actually shows highly restrained, people-loving PLA soldiers and the CCP government handling of the 7 weeks of protests.

3) Explanation of the 3 stage bottle-necks effect of the market economy and how Western nations respond to each stage of such economic hardship created by an uncontrolled market economy. The purpose of such analysis is to remind developing nations’ citizens not to destroy their own countries by allowing Western-funded NGOs to carry out covert operations in their countries to create chaos at times of economic hardship;

4) Comparing how the CCP handled the 1989 protesters with the US government handling of the 2011 anti-Wall Street protesters [Occupy Wall Street], the book draws a 6-point conclusion to explain why the Wall Street protesters should admire the Tiananmen protesters, and why the PLA deserves a Nobel Peace prize:

• Freedom of protesters
• The rule of law
• The barricade strategy
• Brutality of authorities
• Media freedom
• Government response

I encourage readers to read the book review by you: Massacre? What Massacre?

The US and other Western governments are notorious in promoting hatred, fake news, and misleading information about China. As a result, whenever foreigners went to China for the first time, they seemed to be shocked by how advanced, how wealthy, how safe, how green, how friendly, and how beautiful China is. A lot of YouTubers from all over the world voluntarily and passionately produce videos to share their daily impression of China or to defend China against any smear campaigns by the Western media. Below is just a quick pick of a dozen YouTubers:

• Daniel Dumbrill
• Gweilo 60
• Living in China
• Nathan Rich
• Barrett
• Richard Aguilar
• Miriam Follin
• FerMuBe
• numuves
• Reports on China
• Ychina
• Jerry Goode
• GoYvon

As for getting at the truth, the best way to understand a country is to travel there and see it with our own eyes:

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a group of American athletes arrived at the Beijing International Airport with masks and later were shocked that the air quality was good and that they were the only ones wearing masks in Beijing. They were also shocked by how beautiful and modern Beijing is compared to American cities. In an embarrassment to America, these young Americans were spot on and held a press conference to publicly apologize to the Chinese people for their mask-wearing insult to China.

The same thing happened to many Taiwanese, many were so ignorant about China that they thought that the Chinese people were very poor. In 2011, a Taiwanese professor Gao Zhibin told his audience in a TV show that the mainland Chinese are so poor that they cannot even afford to eat a tea leaf egg. That video became a laughing stock and quickly circulated being viewed by hundreds of millions of Chinese people, and even made its way to the Chinese mainstream media across the country as a sort of entertainment. Now, the Taiwanese Professor has a nickname in China: “tea leaf egg professor“.

Hong Kong also has the same problem. So, after putting down the US-backed violent protests a few years ago, one of the education programs is to take the students for a free trip to the mainland to see by themselves how prosperous, green, clean, modern, friendly, and advanced their mother country is.

So, I think offering my Tiananmen book for a free 24-hour download in June (the month of Tiananmen’s 34th anniversary) as an important step towards understanding the real China.

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Kim Petersen is an independent writer. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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The Arab World has seen a significant juggling of relationships. After the debacle of Iraq and 20 years of dizzying, often incoherent shifts in American policy, the US is no longer the sole dominant player. Russia and China have entered the region’s calculus as global powers of influence. And Iran, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and UAE have emerged as local powers.

The region faces a number of unsettling challenges, particularly: De-stabilisation from several internal conflicts, threats from Iran’s sectarian meddling, and Israel’s brutality and acquisitiveness in occupied Palestinian lands.

With the US doing little to calm these troubled waters, or actually roiling them, Arab countries have had to establish their own paths forward to protect or project their interests.

In 2020, to forestall a potentially imminent Israeli formal annexation of much of the Palestinian territories, the UAE launched the Abrahamic Accords. Other countries have since joined. Meanwhile, several Arab countries have met with and begun opening up to Iraq and normalising relations with Syria. While Israel and some US hawks thought Arab ties with Israel would establish a regional bloc against Iran, the UAE and now Saudi Arabia, with help from China, have moved toward normalising ties with Iran.

These regional shifts and independent Arab initiatives have caught the US off-guard. Its outmoded playbook stars Israel as the region’s center of gravity, and Iran and Syria as pariahs to be shunned and confronted. Following Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and China’s emergence as a threat to US global hegemony, the US has resurrected the Cold War’s cry of ‘democracy versus authoritarianism.’

To assess Arab views of these developments, Zogby Research Services has, in recent years, conducted polls in over a dozen Arab countries. Here’s what we’ve found:

Long alienated by the U.S. and its policies and despite blaming Russia for Ukraine, Arabs don’t want their governments becoming involved or following the US. They view the conflict as a European/US matter.

In most Arab countries China is seen as the emerging power. Acknowledging that today the US is more powerful, they see the gap closing in the next decade. In 20 years, majorities in every country see China emerging as the world’s power.

Important, but often overlooked by US policymakers, is that Arabs see America’s strong suit in competition with China as its “soft power”, cultural values and education. Arabs like the US and its values but feel the US doesn’t care about them.

Looking inward, Arabs in most countries rate Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE highest in favorability, regional role, and the importance of ties. Iran and Israel are seen as regional threats, with Israel seen as a greater threat than Iran in all countries except the UAE, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia, where Iran is slightly more threatening than Israel.

Notably, of all five Arab countries with peace agreements with Israel, only the UAE has warming attitudes, while favorability remains quite low in Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain and Morocco. Despite the overwhelming Saudi majority who report negative attitudes toward Israel, a sizable minority says ties might still be beneficial.

Palestinians and Palestinian citizens of Israel have consistently favourable views toward the major Arab countries (UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt) playing a role in their region, and negative views toward Iran. Palestinian respondents also display mixed views toward the Abrahamic Accords and its impact, with Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians of East Jerusalem more favorably inclined toward the Accords than Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Among Palestinian citizens of Israel, a substantial majority say the Accords have either had a positive impact on their lives or could in the future.

These findings point to the clear reality that Arab opinion is mostly aligned with changes occurring across the region. Arabs no longer see the US as the only player in town. They are uninterested in following the US lead and a growing respect for China. With strong negatives for Iran and Israel, Arabs recognise a new regional dynamic unfolding requiring Arabs to define their own paths forward.

Other findings suggest that Iran and Israel should understand that current moves toward regional integration will only continue to grow if behaviours change, with Iran ending its meddlesome regional role and Israel advancing Palestinian justice and rights.

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Freedom of speech means a lot to us at the OP. However, that’s been fading fast, as Daisy has documented, and as though speech restrictions aren’t bad enough, most of us have been lab rats for central planners’ behavioral experiments longer than we probably care to realize. And now there are Nudge Units.

Huge amounts of money have been poured into “nudge research,” determining the best ways to get populations to change their behaviors without passing laws or using force.

What are Nudge Units?

Let’s look at how these “Nudge Units” got started, what they’ve been used for most recently, and what they’re likely to focus on next.

The concept of “nudging” people into making better choices became popular with the book Nudge—Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, authored by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, and published in 2008. Their book defines a nudge as:

. . .any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.  To count as a mere nudge, the intervention must be easy and cheap to avoid.  Nudges are not mandates.  Putting fruit at eye level counts as a nudge.  Banning junk food does not.  (p.6) 

(You may be interested to note that author Sunstein is married to Samantha Power, the administrator of Biden’s US Agency for International Development and previously Obama’s ambassador to the UN. Forbes listed Ms. Power as the 63rd most powerful woman in the world in 2014. Do you think she’s Nudging? ~ Daisy )

Individuals in government and industry quickly realized that the authors’ insights into the decision-making process could be used to manipulate that process in the minds of the general public, many of whom don’t have the time or mental energy for NYT bestsellers.

The British government established its first Behavioural Insights Team in 2010. It began as a seven-person team within a Cabinet Office nicknamed the “Nudge Unit” then became an independent social purpose company in 2014 before being purchased by Nesta, a larger social purpose company, in 2021. 

These social purpose companies employ experts in promoting desirable behaviors. So in Britain, for example, they want to cut obesity rates in half and reduce household carbon emissions by 28% by 2030.

I don’t know how successful they’ve been in cutting obesity rates, but the Nudge Unit did prove its effectiveness early on by helping the British government collect an extra £200 million (about $248 million) in taxes in 2017. Not surprisingly, the Nudge Unit has become so popular that they have worked with governments in over 50 countries and have opened subsidiary offices in the U.S., Singapore, Canada, Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, and France.

What does a Nudge look like in the States?

Within the U.S., Nudge Units have been employed by health care systems such as UPenn, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts. In a way, this isn’t surprising; American and British citizens alike are known for high obesity rates and poor overall health.  

Promoting good health within the general population seems like a good government goal, and I think most of us would have found this largely uncontroversial before 2020.  We may not always have agreed with the FDA’s exact dietary advice, but most of us would have probably agreed that we, as a nation, don’t need quite so many candy bars.  

However, during 2020, this changed.  Public messaging around health care became far more intense, and some of the advice didn’t make sense.  At the very simplest level, what makes people healthy?  Exercise and proper diet.  Humans have known intuitively for a long time that sunshine is good for us. More recent research has shown that it kills viruses and bacteria. So why were people being forbidden to exercise and even, in some cases, to go outside?

This article isn’t really about the many possible reasons the public was given so much nonsensical advice during 2020 and 2021.  I am just pointing out that, in some ways, the public health messaging campaign during Covid was seen by various governments (particularly the British) as an opportunity to see how far Nudging could influence actual behavior, even when the nudges didn’t make logical sense.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), governmental Nudging didn’t influence people nearly as much as various government bodies had hoped. In fact, Nudge author Thaler himself said that, when it came to increasing vaccine uptake, it was time for “pushes and shoves” in the form of passports and more severe restrictions.

But the pandemic is officially over, right? Does this really matter now?

Yes, it still does. 

As we discussed before, the World Health Organization is set to ratify a new pandemic treaty in 2024. As discussed in our previous article as well as in Jose’s more recent article, we have plenty of reasons to believe that more pandemics will come along, and that the WHO will be taking precedence over local and even national governments to address them.  

The WHO has grown a lot since its inception in 1948. It has had its own Behavioral Insights Team since 2017. And some of their work, like their campaign to prevent the over-use of antibiotics, has been really important.  But just because they undertake some worthwhile projects doesn’t mean we can assume everything they do is benign.  

It’s crucial to understand that there are no neutral Nudges. Richard Thaler points this out himself in an interview with Sydney Business Insights. You will always be asked to choose between one thing and another. Thaler also says in this interview that, within the original British Nudge Unit, their mantra was, “If you want people to do something, make it easy.” Ask yourself, are people that constantly shoot for the lowest common denominator in a population the ones you want to take guidance from?

Perhaps more significantly, the WHO’s new Chair of their Technical Advisory Group on Behavioral Insights (their Nudge Unit), Prof. Susan Michie, is an active member of Britain’s Communist Party. Are you comfortable with an avowed communist being responsible for subliminal messaging regarding your health choices? If you’re a communist yourself, that might be great, but what about the rest of us?  

The people behind the Nudge messages matter. 

Do you want to get your relationship advice from Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate? It’ll make a difference.  

And health care is only one area of interest in Nudging. Right now, in the U.S., that has been the main area of focus. However, since the first Nudge Unit developed in Britain and then expanded outward, it is reasonable to look to the British to see what may be coming next. As speculated upon by Laura Dodsworth in her recent interview with Russell Brand, climate change rhetoric will likely ramp up.  

We’ve already seen some examples of it. The same tools they might have been using ten years ago to get people to choose fruit as opposed to candy bars are now being used to get us to choose insect products instead of meat. This has had limited effect, as we’ve reported before.

How do they work?

Nudges work best for behaviors that people know they should pursue anyway. It’s been difficult to Nudge people into doing things they find very unpleasant (like eating bugs) or may have moral qualms about (putting novel substances in their bodies).

So far, the usefulness of Nudging has been limited, but that may change within the next few years simply because messaging of all kinds is about to get so much cheaper, thanks to AI. ChatGPT and other similar programs will be able to churn out all kinds of little jingles useful not only for traditional companies but for social purpose companies and government programs, as well.  

And as messages of all kinds become cheaper and cheaper to produce, the demands to change our behavior for public health, or the climate, or whatever, will become more and more constant.

It’s going to take more individual effort on our part to sort out the real information from whatever convenient narratives are currently being promoted. This will apply, not only to current-events type information but also to things like health and self-improvement.  

I’ll say it again because it’s so important: There are no neutral Nudges. We are all constantly being Nudged in one direction or another. We can’t escape Nudges, but we can choose which ones we give our attention to.  

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A lover of novels and cultivator of superb apple pie recipes, Marie spends her free time writing about the world around her.

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After 530,000 Austrians signed a referendum petition calling for the right to cash payments to be enshrined in Austria’s constitution in 2022, Austria’s political class is refusing to move forward with adding this legal right, warns the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ).

“Nowhere else in the world is an everyday life without cash so clearly rejected as in Austria. We see this justified desire of the population, which is reflected in the popular petition ‘For unrestricted cash payment,’ as a concrete work order to the parliament!,” said Finance and Budget Spokesman of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) Hubert Fuchs during a parliamentary debate.

Although the referendum is not binding, in a country of 8.9 million, the fact that over half a million signed the referendum petition shows a broad level of resistance against the push for digital currencies promoted by central banks across the world and institutions like the World Economic Forum (WEF). It was the 13th most popular referendum in the country’s history. However, the center-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), which has long been said to have backed the right to cash, is now joining the left-wing parties of Austria and blocking all attempts to add this right to the country’s constitution.

FPÖ says ‘cash is freedom’

Fuchs sees the great support for the petition as a clear mandate to the National Council, which is one of the two houses in Austria’s parliament.

“The initiators and supporters of this petition do not just want words of thanks. Rather, it is a concrete request to the National Council to ensure that the federal government finally gets its act together. But let me report from the finance committee: Our motion for the preservation of cash was once again rejected by the ÖVP. So it’s all just lip service and fine words, while these are not followed by action,” said Fuchs.

The ÖVP is reportedly attempting to blame their coalition partners, the Greens, but the FPÖ rejects these claims. Fuchs argues that if “nothing can be brought forward in the country (through legislation), one should step soon again to the ballot box — the republic would be served thereby very much.”

The FPÖ, known for its stance against Russia sanctions and its calls to stop immigration by building “Fortress Austria,” is currently the most popular party in the country, with polls putting it at approximately 27 percent. The party, although conservative, takes a skeptical view of unbridled free market capitalism, and argues that the government must protect against real estate speculators and provide generous cash benefits to encourage Austrians to have more children.

The party has also made the right to cash payments an intrinsic part of its platform, arguing that they ensure freedom from government oversight and also protect Austrians from predatory banks and credit card institutions.

“We, the Freedom Party — in contrast to all other parties — have already been campaigning for years for the preservation of cash as well as for the anchoring of the right to cash payments in the constitution. This was also included in the ÖVP-FPÖ government program (of the previous government), but unfortunately could no longer be implemented. And I wonder why, if all parties are in favor of preserving cash, especially the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), they have not tabled a motion on this today?” asked Fuchs. “According to the current legal situation, there is no real obligation to accept cash. The relevant legal provisions need to be tightened up here.”

Fuchs also said in his speech that implementing a financial system where only digital currencies exist would lead to an increase in money laundering and covert financing of terrorism, as according to him, digital and cryptocurrencies are a hotbed for criminality.

“This freedom of choice must continue to exist in the future. Cash is data protection in action. Cash is printed freedom. And another aspect should not remain unmentioned: Without cash, how are children supposed to learn how to handle money and thus how to do business? Money at their fingertips is very important for children. But it is not only important for children, but also for adults in terms of their own spending control,” explained the FPÖ finance and budget spokesman.

Fuchs may be referring to the practice of many consumers reverting back to cash to better control spending, which is a trend seen in the United States this year. Experts argue that using physical cash instead of electronic payments helps people better control and track their spending.

However, the FPÖ also points to a new Marketmind study, which shows that 48 percent of women and 40 percent of men in Austria cannot get a credit card due to their low income and are therefore dependent on cash.

“That’s no wonder when you consider that in our country around 17 percent of the population must be classified as at risk of poverty. That is just one of the many reasons why we have to insist on (the right to) receiving cash with all our might,” said the FPÖ consumer protection spokesman, Peter Worm.

“In view of the fact that more than 530,000 citizens have signed the referendum entitled ‘For unrestricted cash payments’, it is more than opportune to recognize the importance of the issue. The unified opposition of the ÖVP, SPÖ, Greens and NEOS talk loudly about receiving the cash, but votes against every one of our proposals to ensure cash, including cent and euro coins along with notes in the current form, is preserved and to anchor cash in general in our constitution. Our application to establish a constitutionally stipulated obligation to contract for the movement of goods and services in connection with the basic acceptance of cash as a means of payment in the Austrian legal system also failed due to all four parties,” explained Wurm.

“But we Liberals will continue to comply with the will of the citizens. Cash means survival, freedom and self-determination. The transparent citizen has already become a reality to some extent, and only receiving cash in a constitutionally protected form can prevent even worse things from happening,” emphasized Wurm.

In Austria, 50 percent of all transactions are still conducted in cash, far above the European average of approximately 30 percent. Germans are also against digital transactions, with just 9 percent saying they would use mobile payments.

Why protect cash?

As Remix News previously reported, privacy and civil rights organizations have long advocated the right to cash with the argument that privacy, civil liberties, and finical security are at stake. Abolishing cash would force citizens to conduct all transactions through a digital medium, such as mobile payments, credit cards, or digital currencies. Banks and electronic mediums remain vulnerable to hacking attacks and even natural disasters, for example, if the power grid were to be knocked out. The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, which is a part of the Ministry of Justice, warned in one report that a totally cashless society would be extremely vulnerable if the country were attacked or exposed to a natural disaster

For those concerned about privacy, such as those in Germany and Austria, digital payments give law enforcement and government authorities a direct window into all transactions.

Even more worrying for some, digital money could one day be linked to political and social behavior in Western countries in a social credit system, as seen in China. Already, during the “Freedom Convoy” trucker protests against Covid-19 policies in Canada, the left-wing government of Justin Trudeau took the unprecedented step of freezing the bank accounts of protesters. Although civil liberty groups decried the authoritarian action as a flagrant abuse of power, many critics worry that the action could now serve as a template to deal with protesters and dissent in the future. If dissidents and those critical of the government cannot keep their money outside the digital space, then they will have nowhere to hide their finances should governments, like the one in Canada, take action against them.

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*** 

G7 Running on Empty

The G7 is in a limbo.

Right now, the G7 is all about US asserting control of the other six to follow a full anti-China line. The rest of the World won’t care about G7 until the US can start a big move to “unify the world” against China.

The US got the rest of G7 behind it in Ukraine – the use of Russia as boogeyman achieved that. France, Germany, UK, and Brussels all wanted not only Russia kicked out of Ukraine, they wanted Russia permanently frayed to a degree that even Finland could turn over Russia.

They needed the US for that. Trump wouldn’t take that agenda, but Biden always wanted it. So France, Germany forgot their first month of hesitation about Biden and the US after Trump and came under Biden’s thumb.

Now they are all losing in Ukraine. But unless Germany changes position and starts dealing with Russia (which could later happen), they will continue to seek US “protection”.

The Ukraine gamble is lost. What happens next in Ukraine is purely a US effort in damage control. Try to stop Russian gains with a ceasefire (to later restart the war). Work to keep the US’ European allies together, especially Germany.

It’s About China!

The crucial point for the US is China. France and Germany desperately want to trade with China. But for the US, China was always the real issue. Destroying Russia was just seen as the easiest way for the US to take down China “from behind”. That is obviously no longer possible.

The US is right now losing power to Russia in Ukraine and to China on Taiwan. China’s military can beat the US around Taiwan. China has more purchase power than the US. BRICS has more purchase power than G7. Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and 10 other countries have applied to join BRICS. The world is de-dollarizing. China backed by Russia is the catalyst for a new Middle East, not the US. The US and the G7 are becoming more and more weak. Isolated.

US tech power in AI, chips, Quantum Computing, and Industrialization of Space will be immense. And it is coming now, but there are still two years until it will really be impactful. Two years is a very short time, especially for technologies where China is lagging up to over a decade behind. But for restless, impatient Neocons who are right now losing in Ukraine, two years feel like eternity. They want action against China now.

The US needs something to tie the G7 and the World together behind it again and go against China. The “Summit for Democracy” was a US humiliation. The US needs a stronger medicine.

Making China an outcast is needed for the US to sanction China. A Chinese take-over of Taiwan will be precisely that event, which the US needs to denounce China as a global pariah. China taking Taiwan will serve as the equivalent of how Russia’s takeover of Crimea was needed to decry Russia as a pariah and outcast.

Chinese “Aggression” Needed

The solution is simple. Declare Taiwan independent, and Beijing will be forced to react with a physical takeover of Taiwan. Place some targets in Taipei to make sure that Beijing needs to bomb a big city. Damage happens to civilians on Taiwan to present victims of China.

The US, not China, decides the timetable!

This will be what the US needs to press France and Germany to bear the pain of decoupling from China. This is what the US needs as excuse to coerce countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to cut ties with Beijing. That will be the excuse needed in the White House for either pressing Saudi Arabia to disengage with China, or stage a coup to replace the Saudi leader with one who will. It will also be the tool the US needs to draw India further to its side and reduce ties with Moscow and Beijing.

US War and Propaganda

Chinese “aggression” will be the tool to destroy BRICS and the Global South. It can be used to justify US intervention against Chinese shipping in contravention of international law. And it will be the tool for the US to say: “Let’s cut out China and build a better world without China!” – and say “Join us, the USA, the leader of the World – forget about China, forget BRI, build your industry and economies together with us, the USA.”

It will also be the tool needed as justification for violent US covert military actions against China. Bomb China’s undersea cables and installations. Blame it on a non-existent Chinese “resistance movement”, even if it happened 80 meters below the waves.

Declaring China an “aggressor”, a danger, and a dictatorship will be very handy when the technologies of especially AI and Quantum Computing in just around two years will make US aggression far more powerful. Then the US can uninhibited use these tools to destroy China utterly. Next, Industrialization of Space will enable total US militarization of Space as well.

Multi-front Conflict

Several fronts will be opened against China. Pressure of sanctions. Closing off China’s exports. Choking off China’s supplies of raw materials (other than what Russia can deliver). Steal China’s immense dollar reserves. Slow down China’s growth and create a deep economic depression and crisis in China instead. Create social suffering and dissatisfaction. Use dissatisfaction to stir up “popular demands for democracy”. Create groups inside China on newly taken Taiwan, in Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang. Use US superiority in submarine warfare to make life miserable for Chinese in their close waters. Do sabotage and deny it.

Then in two years, break Chinese codes with Quantum Computing, hack into and destroy China’s electronic infrastructure. With a huge crisis in China, even a major Western crisis from decoupling from China may look smaller in comparison. With AI, enormous productivity gains will happen, which will be used to speed up Western growth again and keep the Western population in check. Then make promises of participation in AI-progress (and suppression) to the rest of the World in order to get the backing of more Global South countries. Sanction or régime change countries which don’t comply.

With new US technologies, sanctions, coercion, media lies, bribes, manipulation, and a Space race unpayable for China, the US has a great chance to rule the World.

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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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*** 

On May 30th, Newsweek headlined “Russia ‘On Course’ for NATO Conflict, Commander Says”, and reported that Karel Rehka, the Commander of Chechia’s Armed Forces, said that,

“We view war between Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance as the worst-case scenario, but it is not impossible,” Rehka said. “It is possible.” Russia, the commander added, “is currently on a course towards a conflict with the Alliance.” … NATO deterrence, he added, is the solution to show Moscow that “it’s not worth it because it just can’t succeed” in defeating its Western rivals through military means.

The West’s unquestioned assumption is that Russia is currently engaged in an invasion of Ukraine for the purpose of “defeating its Western rivals through military means.” But that statement is blatantly false, as will here be documented via the links:

On 17 December 2021, Russia formally presented to NATO a proposal for negotiation:

“All member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization commit themselves to refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States.”

This was proposed within a context that opened with:

“The Parties shall guide in their relations by the principles of cooperation, equal and indivisible security. They shall not strengthen their security individually, within international organizations, military alliances or coalitions at the expense of the security of other Parties.”

In other words: it entailed that each NATO nation would agree never to participate in an invasion of any nation that has not invaded it and that has agreed with it not to invade it unless that NATO nation, or any other NATO member-nation, has FIRST invaded it or another NATO-member nation.

In other words: it was a mutual non-aggression pact, which Russia was proposing to NATO; and, IN THAT CONTEXT, it entailed that Ukraine will not be allowed into NATO.

The reason why Ukraine was specifically mentioned in the proposal — and no other nation was — is that Ukraine is much closer to Russia’s command-center than is any existing NATO-member nation; it is only 317 miles or a 5-minute missile-flying time away from blitz-decapitating Russia’s ability to, first, recognize that a nuclear missile had been launched at The Kremlin, and, then, press the button to launch Russia’s retaliatory weaponry in response to that invasion by NATO.

Russia’s 17 December 2021 proposal was the latest and final request from Moscow reflecting Moscow’s many-times-repeated “Red Line” national-security need that if Ukraine will become a NATO member, then Russia will not accept this, and that this acceptance of Ukraine into NATO will start WW III: nuclear war between superpowers.

Back on 24 February 1990, the U.S. Government started secretly instructing its NATO allies that though they all (under instruction from the White House) had told Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO will not expand even “one inch to the east” (i.e., toward Russia’s border) that had been only a lie, and that NATO’s goal to capture Russia will continue even after Gorbachev dismantles the Soviet Union and ends its Warsaw-Pact military mirror-image of America’s NATO military alliance and ends its communism — all of which Gorbachev did do in 1991.

President Bush’s only recorded explanation of that secret instruction to his stooges was: “To hell with that [honoring the promise]! We prevailed; they didn’t.” In other words, he was telling them: Might makes right, and we will possess the might then even more than we do today — so: ‘Onward Christian soldiers!’, till ‘victory!’

If Russia were to accept that, then it would be allowing The West’s version of ‘Christianity’ (which Hitler likewise believed passionately) to emerge victorious over Russia’s — which rejects that viewpoint (the supremacist viewpoint — the demand to be supreme instead of to possess equal rights with all others).

Furthermore: whereas for The West this is all about ruling the entire world — it is about America’s becoming the global dictator — it is instead about something quite opposite from that for Russia: As the proposed document said at its opening:

“The Parties shall guide in their relations by the principles of cooperation, equal and indivisible security.”

It was a commitment to the exact opposite of what, for example, U.S. President Barack Obama had stated on 28 May 2014, to America’s future generals:

“The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.”

Russia was demanding the rejection of that, the rejection of the idea that only the United States is indispensable and all other nations are dispensable. Russia was repudiating The West’s position — its ideological position: supremacism.

The Newsweek article continued by saying:

“Moscow has framed its disastrous invasion of Ukraine as a pre-emptive strike against NATO, which it has long accused of fomenting ‘Russophobia’ in the country, even while the Kremlin meddled in Ukrainian domestic politics, annexed Crimea, and seized swathes of the eastern Donbas region.”

Here is the actual history — not that myth — about that allegation. (Just click there, and you will see it.)

When America had won its Revolutionary War, it, too, had won its freedom and independence from its Master, the British dictatorship across the ocean. Russia, even now, is refusing to accept any less than that, for itself. This is what the 17 December 2021 Russian-proposed documents were offering, now to America’s NATO. Today’s America (and its colonies) rejected it.

That offer was, on 7 January 2022, contemptuously rejected by the United States and by its NATO. They wouldn’t even negotiate about anything in it. Russia had only one option left: to invade and take over Ukraine. This is, for Russia, a necessary defensive war against the United States’s ceaseless aggressions. Russia is demanding: Your aggressions to capture us will end here: “Give us liberty, or give us death!”

Russia is refusing to allow the U.S. to possess the capability to place its nuclear missiles a mere 317 miles away from The Kremlin.

That is the historical truth of the matter.

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This article was originally published on The Duran.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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*** 

The World Health Organization (WHO) is proposing a set of recommendations for “social listening surveillance systems” designed to address what it describes as a “health threat” posed by online “misinformation.”

The WHO’s Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET) initiative claims “misinformation” has resulted in an “infodemic” that poses a threat — even in instances where the information is “accurate.”

PRET has raised eyebrows, at a time when the WHO’s member states are engaged in negotiations on two controversial instruments: the “pandemic treaty” and amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR).

The latest draft of the pandemic treaty contains language on how WHO member states would commit to “social listening.” Under article 18(b), WHO member states would commit to:

“Conduct regular community outreach, social listening, and periodic analysis and consultations with civil society organization and media outlets to identify the prevalence and profiles of misinformation, which contribute to design communications and messaging strategies for the public to counteract misinformation, disinformation and false news, thereby strengthening public trust and promoting adherence to public health and social measures.”

Remarking on PRET’s “social listening” proposals, Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., author of “Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom” and a former New York University liberal studies professor, told The Defender:

“The WHO’s PRET initiative is part of the UN’s attempt to institute global ‘medical’ tyranny using surveillance, ‘social listening’ and censorship. PRET is the technocratic arm of the WHO’s proposed pandemic treaty, which, if accepted by nation-states, would amount to the surrendering of national and individual sovereignty to this ‘global governance’ body.

“What better way to establish a one-world government than by using so-called global crises that must be addressed by nothing short of ‘global governance’? I remind readers that you cannot comply your way out of tyranny.”

WHO could use artificial intelligence to monitor social media conversations

A WHO document outlining the PRET initiative — “Module 1: Planning for respiratory pathogen pandemics, Version 1.0” — contains a definition of infodemic:

“Infodemic is the overabundance of information — accurate or not — which makes it difficult for individuals to adopt behaviors that will protect their health and the health of their families and communities.

“The infodemic can directly impact health, hamper the implementation of public health countermeasures and undermine trust and social cohesiveness.”

The document recommends that in response to the “infodemic,” countries should “incorporate the latest tools and approaches for shared learning and collective action established during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

According to the WHO document, this can be done if governments “establish and invest in resources for social listening surveillance systems and capacities to identify concerns as well as rumors and misinformation.”

Such resources include “new tools and approaches for social listening … using new technologies such as artificial intelligence to listen to population concerns on social media.”

According to the document:

“To build trust, it’s important to be responsive to needs and concerns, to relay timely information, and to train leaders and HCWs [healthcare workers] in risk communications principles and encourage their application.”

Risk communications “should be tailored to the community of interest, focusing on and prioritizing vulnerable groups,” the WHO said.

“Tailored” communication was a hallmark of public health efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For instance, in November 2021, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the Social Science Research Council launched the Mercury Project, which aimed “to increase uptake of COVID-19 vaccines and other recommended public health measures by countering mis- and disinformation” — in part by studying “differential impacts across socio-demographic groups.”

Similarly, PRET states that it will “incorporate the latest tools and approaches for shared learning and collective action established during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

These “tools and approaches” could be deployed during “acute respiratory events,” according to the document, which recommends that governments:

“Develop and implement communication and behavior change strategies based on infodemic insights, and test them during acute respiratory events including seasonal influenza.

“This includes implementing infodemic management across sectors, and having a coordinated approach with other actors, including academia, civil society, and international agencies.”

This is not the first time the WHO has addressed the so-called “infodemic.”

A WHO review published Sept. 1, 2022, titled “Infodemics and health misinformation: a systematic review of reviews,” found that “infodemics and misinformation … often negatively impact people’s mental health and increase vaccine hesitancy, and can delay the provision of health care.”

In the review, the WHO concluded that “infodemics” can be addressed by “developing legal policies, creating and promoting awareness campaigns, improving health-related content in mass media and increasing people’s digital and health literacy.”

And a separate, undated WHO document advises the public on how we can “flatten the infodemic curve.”

WHO, Google announce collaboration targeting ‘medical misinformation’

The WHO’s PRET proposals coincided with a new multi-year collaboration agreement with Google for the provision of “credible health-related information to help billions of people around the world respond to emerging and future public health issues.”

The agreement was announced on May 23 by Dr. Karen DeSalvo, Google’s chief health officer, on the company’s blog. She wrote:

“Information is a critical determinant of health. Getting the right information, at the right time can lead to better health outcomes for all. We saw this firsthand with the COVID-19 pandemic when it was difficult for people worldwide to find useful information online.

“We worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) on a range of efforts to help people make informed decisions about their health — from an SOS alert to surfacing locally relevant content about COVID-19 to YouTube policies on medical misinformation.”

One way Google will collaborate with the WHO is through the creation of more “knowledge panels” that will prominently appear in search results for health-related questions on the platform.

“Each day people come to Google Search looking for trustworthy information on various health conditions and symptoms,” DeSalvo wrote. “To help them access trustworthy information our Knowledge Panels cite content from reliable sources covering hundreds of conditions from the common cold to anxiety.”

“Working closely with WHO, we’ll soon expand to cover more conditions such as COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], hypertension, type 2 diabetes, Mpox, Ebola, depressive disorder, malaria and more,” she added.

Google will make these Knowledge Panels available in several languages, including English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.

DeSalvo’s May 23 post also addressed an ongoing collaboration between Google and the WHO, Open Health Stack (OHS), which “help[s] accelerate the digital transformation of health systems around the world” and “lower[s] the barrier to equitable healthcare.”

Google also awarded the WHO with more than $320 million “in donated Google Search advertising via ad grants” allowing the agency “to publish health topics beyond COVID-19, such as Mpox, mental health, flu, Ebola, and natural disasters.”

Google is slated to provide an additional $50 million in ad grants to the WHO this year.

According to Google, the ad grants to the WHO represent the company’s largest such donation to a single organization.

Separately, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tweeted on May 22 about the agency’s own efforts at combating purported “misinformation” and “disinformation.”

You can stop the spread of misinformation! https://t.co/JcM10Oq5DY pic.twitter.com/bzc9J3E1XA

— U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) May 22, 2023

The tweet contains a 35-second video, which claims “misinformation” travels “six times faster than the facts,” while promoting the FDA’s “Rumor Control” initiative.

A top priority of FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf, “Rumor Control” was launched in August 2022 and joins other agency initiatives to fight “misinformation” and “disinformation.”

“The growing spread of rumors, misinformation and disinformation about science, medicine, and the FDA, is putting patients and consumers at risk,” according to the FDA’s Rumor Control webpage. “We’re here to provide the facts.”

The initiative asks the public to do “three easy things” to “stop rumors from spreading”: “don’t believe the rumors,” “don’t pass them along” and “get health information from trusted sources like the FDA and our government partners.”

“Rumor Control” appears to have been inspired by an initiative developed by the Virality Project, “a coalition of research entities” from six institutions “focused on supporting real-time information exchange between the research community, public health officials, government agencies, civil society organizations, and social media platforms.”

Documents released as part of the “Twitter files” in March revealed that the Virality Project, based out of the Stanford Internet Observatory, also called for the creation of a disinformation board just one day before Biden announced plans to launch his government-run Disinformation Governance Board.

Similar to PRET’s recommendations to target “accurate” information that nevertheless contradicts establishment public health narratives, the Virality Project worked with Twitter and other social media platforms, recommending they “take action even against ‘stories of true vaccine side effects’ and ‘true posts which could fuel hesitancy.’”

These censorship efforts included at least one tweet by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., chairman on leave of Children’s Health Defense.

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Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

Featured image is from CHD

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A Danish research letter by Max Schmeling published in Jan. 2023, examined Pfizer mRNA COVID-19 batch “safety” of Pfizer vaccines administered in Denmark during 2021. (click here)

Summary

• Each dot represents a “vaccine batch” (each batch has a certain # of vaccine vials, each of which has a certain # of vaccine doses)
• 4.2% of doses cause 71% of Pfizer jab adverse events & 50% of deaths
• 32% of doses cause < 1% of Pfizer jab adverse events, serious events & deaths

French researcher Herve Seligmann confirmed the findings in May 2023 (click here).

There seem to be 3 distinct types of Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine batches:

1. The “high toxicity” batches – high frequencies of adverse events and deaths
2. The “intermediate toxicity” batches – medium frequencies of adverse events
3. The “low toxicity” batches – low frequencies of adverse events

Comments from retired drug safety expert Sasha Latypova (click here):

“We saw clusterings, for example, by alphanumeric codes—both in Pfizer and Moderna. Depending on the letters used in the alphanumeric numbering—which should be just random, we knew that this set of letters would produce higher toxicity, and this set of letters would produce lower toxicity”

“We also had clusterings by dates of manufacture. [That] also should not happen—you should not have a difference between the product on the first of the month or on the thirtieth of the month.”

Two young men get myopericarditis from same vaccine batch administered on the same day 

An Italian study published in March 2022 reported two young men who took a Moderna vaccine from the same batch on the same day. Both of them developed myopericarditis exactly 3 days after getting their mRNA vaccine. (click here)

This is more evidence that it’s the vaccine batch that’s the problem and not the individual’s health differences.

The Wyeth Scandal – Big pharma learned in 1970s to geographically disperse bad vaccine batches to avoid detection

In 1970s, Wyeth Pharmaceutical, bought by Pfizer in 2009, had a cluster of child SIDS deaths (sudden infant death syndrome) in Tennessee, from its DTP vaccine. (click here)

Wyeth Executives decided to split up the vaccine lots or batches to never again allow a cluster of vials from one lot to be sent to a single state or health department. Limiting the distribution of vials to no more than 2000 in one geographic region made it less likely for any cluster of injuries to be traced to the vaccine.

Instead of recalling “hot lots” of deadly vaccines, they dispersed the lots all over the country so no one would make the connection to adverse events.

How bad is my vaccine batch?

There are three websites where you can determine how bad your Pfizer or Moderna vaccine batch is:

1. https://howbadismybatch.com
2. https://vaersaware.com/toxiclot-search
3. https://matchyourbatch.org/

My Take… 

The concept of Russian roulette continues to apply to Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. About 4% of Pfizer doses are quite lethal and account for 70% of the side effects and 50% of the deaths.

But what about the rest? 64% of Pfizer doses had intermediate levels of adverse events. That’s still bad news.

Even the remaining 32% of Pfizer “low toxicity” doses can’t be considered “safe”, as they cause about 1% of the side effects and 1% of the deaths.

Interestingly, the fact that there are three distinct patterns suggests that the components of the vaccine may be different in each type of batch, and that poor quality control or mRNA degradation alone can’t account for these stark differences.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Featured image is from COVID Intel

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It was an ugly case lasting five years with a host of ugly revelations. But what could be surprising about the murderous antics of a special arm of the military, in this case, the Australian Special Air Service Regiment, which was repeatedly deployed on missions in an open-ended war which eventually led to defeat and withdrawal?

Ben Roberts-Smith was meant to be a poster boy of the regiment, the muscular noble representative who served in Afghanistan, a war with sketchy justifications. Along the way, he became Australia’s most decorated soldier, raking in the Medal of Gallantry in 2006, the Victoria Cross in 2010, and a Commendation for Distinguished Services for outstanding leadership in over 50 high-risk operations in 2012. He came to be lionised in the popular press, even being named “Father of the Year” in 2013.

A number of his colleagues, keen to take him down a peg or two, saw through the sheen. As did journalists at The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Canberra Times. The deployments by the special forces to Afghanistan had not, as the narrative would have it, been paved with heroic engagements of military valour. Roberts-Smith, it seemed, was less plaster saint than ruthless executioner and bully.

Some of the transgressions reported on by the papers were very much of the same type investigated by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force. The findings were eventually made available in the stomach churning Brereton Report, released in 2020.

But even prior to that, a 2016 report by sociologist Samantha Crompvoets, commissioned by the Special Operations Commander of Australia (SOCAUST), noted  body count competitions and the use of the Joint Priority Effects List (JPEL) among special force personnel sent to Afghanistan. The JPEL became what effectively amounted to a “sanctioned kill list”. Unsurprisingly, the numbers that were put forth were cooked, often featuring the gratuitous torture and killing of unarmed villagers.

Roberts-Smith, incensed by the reporting, commenced defamation proceedings against the three papers in question, and the journalists Nick McKenzie, Chris Masters and David Wroe. The use of such a civil weapon is often odious, a measure designed to intimidate scribblers and reporters from publishing material that might enlighten. While the defamation laws have been mildly improved since the trial’s commencement, featuring a public interest defence, the publishers here could only really avail themselves of the truth defence.

In the proceedings, three groups of articles featured, sporting a ghoulish succession of allegations. The first, published on June 8 and 9, 2018,  are said to have conveyed three imputations: that Roberts-Smith “murdered an unarmed and defenceless Afghan civilian, by kicking him off a cliff and procuring the soldiers under his command to shoot him”; that he also breached moral and legal rules of military engagement thereby making him a criminal; and “disgraced his country Australia and the Australian army by his conduct as a member of the SASR in Afghanistan.”

The second group of articles, published on June 9 and 10 that year, were alleged to convey three imputations of murder, including the pressuring of a new, inexperienced SASR recruit to execute an elderly, unarmed Afghan as part of the “blood the rookie” ritual and the killing of a man with a prosthetic leg.

The third group of articles, published in August 2018, contain a whole medley of imputations including alleged domestic violence against a woman at Canberra’s Hotel Realm; the authorising of an unarmed Afghan’s execution by a junior member of his patrol; assaults on unarmed Afghans; bullying of one of the troops – one Trooper M – and threatening to report another soldier – trooper T – to the International Criminal Court for firing on civilians “unless he provided an account of a friendly fire incident that was consistent with the applicant’s”.

The trial ended in July 2022, after 110 days of legal submissions and evidence. During its course, Roberts-Smith, through his lawyers, dismissed the reliability of the eyewitness accounts. They were the bitter offerings of jealousy and mania, products of fantasy and fabulism.

On June 1, the Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko found against Roberts-Smith. The three papers, along with the journalists, had made out the defence of substantial truth of several imputations made under the Defamation Act 2005 of New South Wales. The defence of contextual truth was also successful on a number of claims.

Most damning for Roberts-Smith was the establishment of the substantial truth of the first three imputations: the murder of a defenceless Afghan in Darwan by means of kicking him off a cliff and ordering troops to fire upon him, breaching the laws of military engagement and disgracing the country’s armed forces. The newspapers had not, however, established the Particulars of Truth on two missions – that to Syahchow (October 20, 2012) and Fasil (November 5, 2012). Contextual truth was also made out on the allegations of domestic violence and bullying claims.

The net effect of the claims proven to be substantially and contextually true meant that the unproven statements had done little to inflict overall damage upon the soldier’s reputation. The plaster saint had cracked.

In the assessment of Peter Bartlett, law partner at the firm MinterEllison and also one of the lawyers representing the papers, “Never has Australia seen a media defendant face such challenges from a plaintiff and his funders. This is an enormous and epic win for freedom of speech and the right for the public to know.”

Fine words. Yet this murky case does little to edify the efforts of a unit that executed its missions with a degree of frightening zeal, let alone the commanders that deployed its members in the first place. Therein lies the uncomfortable truth to the whole matter. When trained killers perform their job well, morality beats a hasty retreat. Expectations of priestly judgment and pastoral consideration evaporate before the use of force. The ultimate saddling of responsibility must always lie higher up the chain of command, ending in the offices of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Even now, the journalists involved claim they can find gemstones in the gutter, better angels among depraved beasts. According to James Chessell, managing director at Nine, which owns the three newspapers, the ruling was “a vindication for the brave soldiers of the SAS who served their country with distinction, and then had the courage to speak the truth about what happened in Afghanistan.” But did it really do that?

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

Featured image: Ben Roberts-Smith speaking at the 2015 National Flag Raising and Citizenship Ceremony (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

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As El Niño looms and fighting in Sudan rages on, a pair of United Nations agencies on Monday warned that “acute food insecurity is likely to deteriorate further in 18 hunger hot spots” across 22 countries from June to November.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP) delivered that warning in a joint report.

“Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen remain at the highest concern level,” the report states. “Haiti, the Sahel (Burkina Faso and Mali), and the Sudan have been elevated to the highest concern levels; this is due to severe movement restrictions of people and goods in Haiti, as well as in Burkina Faso and Mali, and the recent eruption of conflict in the Sudan.”

“Pakistan, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Syrian Arab Republic are hot spots with very high concern, and the warning is also extended to Myanmar,” the publication continues. “Lebanon, El Salvador, and Nicaragua have been added to the list of hunger hot spot countries, since the September 2022 edition. Malawi, Guatemala, and Honduras remain hunger hot spot countries.”

🔴 Acute food insecurity set to worsen in 18 #HungerHotspots across 22 countries – 🆕 @FAO @WFP report warns.

Burkina Faso, Haiti, Mali, the Sudan have been elevated to the highest alert level to join Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan & Yemen.

👉https://t.co/0BDI7Eg8aT pic.twitter.com/S0hmPFisCl

— FAO Newsroom (@FAOnews) May 29, 2023

The document stresses that worsening conditions in the hot spots occur in the context of a “global food crisis,” so “the countries and situations covered in this report highlight the most significant deteriorations of hunger expected in the outlook period” but do not represent all nations facing high levels of acute food insecurity.

“Conflict will disrupt livelihoods—including agricultural activities and commercial trade—as people are either directly attacked or flee the prospect of attacks, or face movement restrictions and administrative impediments,” the report states. “New emerging conflicts, in particular the eruption of conflict in the Sudan, will likely drive global conflict trends and impact several neighboring countries.”

“The use of explosive ordnance and siege tactics in several hunger hot spots continues to push people into catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity,” the document adds, “highlighting the critical role of humanitarian access in preventing the worst outcomes of hunger.”

The new report notably came as the WFP announced that on Saturday, six weeks since the fighting broke out in Sudan—displacing nearly 1.4 million people—the U.N. program was able to begin distributing food assistance to the thousands affected by the conflict in and around the capital Khartoum.

“This is a major breakthrough. We have finally been able to help families who are stuck in Khartoum and struggling to make it through each day as food and basic supplies dwindle,” said Eddie Rowe, WFP’s country director in Sudan, in a statement.

“We have been working round-the-clock to reach people in Khartoum since the fighting began,” Rowe added. “A window opened late last week which allowed us to start food distributions. WFP must do more, but that depends on the parties to the conflict and the security and access they realistically guarantee on the ground.”

🆕BREAKTHROUGH: The first distributions of WFP food assistance took place in #Khartoum, Sudan for thousands of people trapped since fighting broke out six weeks ago.

The distributions come in the last days of a ceasefire set to expire Monday.

— World Food Programme (@WFP) May 29, 2023

Along with armed conflict, drivers of the deterioration in the report’s focal regions include economic issues and the climate emergency. The publication points out that last year, “economic risks were driving hunger in more countries than conflict was,” and “the global economy is expected to slow down in 2023—amid monetary tightening in advanced economies—increasing the cost of credit.”

“Weather extremes, such as heavy rains, tropical storms, cyclones, flooding, drought, and increased climate variability, remain significant drivers in some countries and regions,” the document explains, noting that experts anticipate El Niño conditions—or the warming of sea surface temperatures across the tropical Pacific Ocean—in the months ahead, “with significant implications for several hunger hot spots.”

The report emphasizes that “urgent and scaled‑up assistance” in all hot spots “is essential to avert a further deterioration of acute food insecurity and malnutrition,” and in some cases, “humanitarian actions are critical in preventing further starvation and death.”

HUNGER HOTSPOTS:

🔴A new report warns urgent assistance is required to protect lives and livelihoods and increase access to food.

🔴The report identifies 18 regions where people are at the most risk of extreme hunger and malnutrition.

🔗https://t.co/HOFGtpjJ5i pic.twitter.com/QbTFX0yyDf

— World Food Programme (@WFP) May 29, 2023

Agency leaders echoed the publication’s call to action. Cindy McCain, WFP’s executive director, said in a statement that “not only are more people in more places around the world going hungry, but the severity of the hunger they face is worse than ever.”

“This report makes it clear: Ae must act now to save lives, help people adapt to a changing climate, and ultimately prevent famine,” McCain declared. “If we don’t, the results will be catastrophic.”

FAO’s director-general, Qu Dongyu, stressed that “business-as-usual pathways are no longer an option in today’s risk landscape if we want to achieve global food security for all, ensuring that no one is left behind.”

“We need to provide immediate time-sensitive agricultural interventions to pull people from the brink of hunger, help them rebuild their lives, and provide long-term solutions to address the root causes of food insecurity,” he said. “Investing in disaster risk reduction in the agriculture sector can unlock significant resilience dividends and must be scaled up.”

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Featured image: Food is distributed to people displaced by Cyclone Freddy in Malawi on March 29, 2023. (Photo: Badre Bahaji/World Food Program)

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Kissinger is one of the most important voices in U.S. foreign policy. He is a hardliner and undoubtedly a war criminal. He was directly involved in the 1973 coup d’état in Chile and also in the brutal Vietnam War. Therefore, he is anything but a pacifist, on the contrary. Yet, on key geostrategic issues such as China and Ukraine, he is on a different wavelength than the current warmongers within the U.S. elite. It is useful to consider the arguments of this important dissenting voice within the establishment.

Towards a confrontation between the US and China?

On the occasion of his centenary, Kissinger gave an extensive interview to The Economist. In it, he expressed his deep concern about the current world situation, and more specifically the possible confrontation between the two current superpowers: the US and China. Kissinger thinks “Both sides have convinced themselves that the other represents a strategic danger”.

Beijing has come to the conclusion that the US will do anything to keep China down and will never treat it as an equal. In Washington, in turn, there is a belief that China wants to supplant the US as world leader. Kissinger is particularly alarmed by the increasing competition between the two superpowers to gain technological and economic superiority. He fears that this rivalry will be further fuelled by artificial intelligence.

He notes how power relations and the technological basis of warfare are evolving very rapidly. As a result, there is no longer any fixed principle on the basis of which countries can create order. And if they do not find that order, they may resort to violence.

According to Kissinger “we’re in the classic pre-world War One situation where neither side has much margin of political concession and in which any disturbance of the equilibrium can lead to catastrophic consequences.” The difference with then and now is that in a current conflict, we will find ourselves in a situation of “mutually assured destruction”.

The fate of humanity depends on the US and China getting along. And there is not much time. Given the rapid advancement of AI and its potential military applications, he says we only have five to 10 years to find a way of coming to terms with each other.

Diplomacy

Definitely not an uplifting thought. But Kissinger is no doomsayer. The fear of war gives reason for hope. He thinks it is still possible for China and the United States to coexist without the threat of all-out war with each other, albeit that success is not guaranteed. 

His rich experience tells him that determined diplomacy is the only way to avoid ruinous conflict. Ideally, this is done on the basis of shared values. He is convinced that a world order can be created based on rules that Europe, China and India could endorse. Negotiations between the two superpowers can help build mutual trust. That trust will then lead to restraint on both sides.

So negotiating rather than going to extremes in a showdown, because “if you then rely entirely on what you can achieve through power, you’re likely to destroy the world.”.

A correct understanding of China

Kissinger warns against misinterpreting China’s ambitions. According to him, the Asian giant is “not heading for world domination in a Hitlerian sense. That is not how they think or have ever thought of world order.” War was inevitable for Nazi Germany because Adolf Hitler needed it, but that is not the case with China.

He views the Chinese system as Confucian, meaning the leaders do not seek domination but seek to achieve the maximum power their country is capable of. They also seek respect for their achievements.

Kissinger thinks the all-or-nothing attitude of the US towards China is dangerous. If the US wants to find a way to live with China, it should not seek regime change.

A collapse of the communist regime would lead to civil war for 1.4 billion people and only increase global instability. “It’s not in our interest to drive China to dissolution,” Kissinger says.

Taiwan and AI

Kissinger perceives two areas where the US and China can negotiate to promote global stability: Taiwan and artificial intelligence.

First, Taiwan. Kissinger was the architect of the rapprochement between the US and China in the 1970s. On the agenda of those talks, Taiwan was one of the important topics. Mao Zedong, China’s then number one, had indicated the necessity of leaving the issue alone for 100 years. The US recognised that Taiwan was formally part of China while Beijing would make no attempts to annex the island by force.

According to Kissinger, Trump blew up this understanding that had been forged between Nixon and Mao after only 50 years. With his incitement over Taiwan, Trump wanted to elicit trade concessions from China. Biden continues the incitement with more civilised rhetoric.

Kissinger thinks the US incitement over Taiwan is unwise because a war like today’s war in Ukraine would destroy the island and devastate the global economy.

The second area where the two superpowers need to talk to each other is artificial intelligence. “We are at the very beginning of a capability where machines could impose global pestilence or other pandemics, not just nuclear but any field of human destruction.”

Kissinger thinks AI will become a major factor in security within five years. Just as the printing press played a role in causing the devastating wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, AI will have the potential to cause great havoc.

To reduce the threat of nuclear weapons, the SU and the US negotiated to control arsenals. Something similar will be needed over AI: “I think we have to begin exchanges on the impact of technology on each other. We have to take baby steps towards arms control, in which each side presents the other with controllable material about capabilities.”

Ukraine

In Kissinger’s eyes the Russian invasion of Ukraine was “a catastrophic mistake of judgment by Putin”. But the West is also to blame: “I thought that the decision to leave open the membership of Ukraine in NATO was very wrong.” That was destabilising. There was a promise of NATO protection but no plan to realise it. Ukraine was therefore vulnerable while Russia had been infuriated.

Kissinger feels inclined to support China’s peace proposal. While this plan is not taken seriously in the West, Kissinger sees in it a serious intention that may complicate diplomacy around the war, but could also provide exactly the opportunity to build mutual trust between the major powers.

According to Kissinger, the Chinese are serious because they have every interest in Russia coming out of the war unscathed. He also believes that after the phone call between Xi and Zelensky, China does act as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine.

Advantages of the plan are China’s recognition that Ukraine should remain an independent country and its warning against using nuclear weapons. It is not even out of the question that Beijing would accept Ukraine joining NATO.

Kissinger wants to end the war quickly. To achieve lasting peace in Europe, in his view, the West must make two leaps of the imagination.

First, Ukraine must join NATO. This is to protect the country but also to keep it in check. He considers the current situation as dangerous: “We have now armed Ukraine to a point where it will be the best-armed country and with the least strategically experienced leadership in Europe.”

Secondly, Europe must seek a rapprochement to Russia and let it relate in order to create a stable eastern border. There must be a new security structure in central and eastern Europe in which Russia should also find a place.”

The media and politics

Kissinger does not have a good word for the media and the political world. He rates the judgement of the media low; they also have no sense of proportion.

When he was in office, the press was hostile to him, but there was dialogue despite this. Today, they have no incentive to be critical. “My theme is the need for balance and moderation”.

But it is especially in politics that things are going badly wrong today. When he was in office, there were friendly ties with leaders of the other party. The political opponent was treated decently. Today, all means are acceptable to floor the political opponent. 

Trump and Biden have greatly fuelled polarisation. Kissinger fears this could lead to violence. The US lacks leadership: “I don’t think Biden can supply the inspiration and (…) I’m hoping that Republicans can come up with somebody better. It’s not a great moment in history.”

The US urgently needs long-term strategic thinking: “That’s our big challenge which we must solve. If we don’t, the predictions of failure will be proved true.”

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Marc Vandepitte is a Belgian economist and philosopher. He writes on North-South relations, Latin America, Cuba, and China. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States which occurred over 20 years ago, democracy within the country eroded further. A week after the terrorist assaults, on 18 September 2001 president George W. Bush signed into law the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which was promptly approved by the US Congress. This legislation granted president Bush the power to use the “necessary and appropriate force” against America’s perceived enemies.

Bush said his government “will not only deal with those who dare attack America, we will deal with those who harbor them and feed them and house them”. On 7 October 2001 the US, with the participation of Britain, Canada and Australia, started bombing Afghanistan, and US ground forces were landing in Afghanistan from 18 October.

There was a period of only 26 days, between the 9/11 attacks and when the US bombing of Afghanistan commenced on 7 October. It takes significantly longer than 26 days to prepare a military offensive against a sizable country like Afghanistan. By 26 September, just 15 days after 9/11, operatives from the CIA were present on Afghan soil stoking unrest. (1)

Niaz Naik, an experienced diplomat and Pakistan’s former Foreign Secretary (1982–86), revealed he had been told by senior American officials in mid-July 2001 that Washington, by then, had decided to take military action against Afghanistan (2). We can assume the actual planning of a military campaign in Afghanistan would have preceded July 2001 by some weeks or months, very soon after Bush entered office on 20 January 2001.

Bush signed into law the Patriot Act on 26 October 2001, which enlarged the government’s powers for the electronic surveillance of citizens by the US National Security Agency (NSA); the Patriot Act further established the new crime of domestic terrorism in broad terms, relating to any act of civil disobedience regardless of the political motivation. This was a violation of the US Constitution and which undermined the country’s domestic legal structure.

Nearly a year later, Bush declared the National Security Strategy of the United States on 17 September 2002, in which he stated the battle against the anti-American insurgency could not be won by defensive methods; and that Washington had the right to launch preventive wars across the world unilaterally, including the option of using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear nations.

Bush further implemented his foreign policy goals, by launching a US military offensive against Iraq beginning on 20 March 2003. Bush’s government was supported in this unprovoked attack by the British, Australians and Poles. Washington’s NATO allies France and Germany refused to partake in it.

However, Angela Merkel – the then Leader of the Opposition in Berlin – provided strong public support for the US-led invasion of Iraq, despite doubts from within her own party, the Christian Democratic Union. Shortly before the attack on Iraq began Merkel said war was “unavoidable” and “Not acting would have caused more damage”. Merkel lied about this in 2016 when she said, “I never support war. I did not support the war in Iraq. I was very upset that it was not possible to come up with a common position between the Europeans and the United States”. (3)

In June 2003 the US Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, was asked during a trip to Singapore why the Americans had not chosen a military solution regarding North Korea, as with Iraq. Wolfowitz replied, “Let’s look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil”. (4)

Moreover, North Korea has for many years boasted a large army and a formidable arsenal of weapons, which may well be the main reason the US has not attacked North Korea since the Korean War ended in 1953. For whatever problems there are within North Korean society, Pyongyang’s policy of building a strong military has been a shrewd undertaking. In the event of war between the US and North Korea, the North Koreans would be left with little alternative but to direct the full weight of their military power against South Korea, as the Americans are aware of. Washington had no such issues with Iraq, the country was mostly defenceless.

A German geologist who explored Iraq and the surrounding area, before the First World War, estimated the region contained the “largest undeveloped resources” of oil on earth, and he predicted “the power that controls the oil lands of Persia [Iran] and Mesopotamia [Iraq] will control the source of supply of the majority liquid fuel of the future”. (5)

After World War I, the British seized the Iraqi capital Baghdad, and Basra in the south of the country. The French took control of northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The Kurdish population were kept in a separate region under British rule, and when they revolted the Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill insisted, “I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes”. (6)

The US has for decades been more reliant on oil consumption than any other country, and a key foreign policy aim is to safeguard raw materials to sustain the economy and American “way of life”. The American lifestyle, to provide an example, is massively dependent on petroleum-run automobiles. There are currently just over 290 million vehicles in the US for a population of around 335 million (7), meaning there is nearly a vehicle for every person in the country, and less than 1% of these are electric models. China is considered the world’s biggest manufacturing power, but there is less than 1 vehicle for every 4 people in China, 319 million vehicles for a population of 1.4 billion. (8)

Bush’s vice-president Dick Cheney acknowledged that the Gulf War (1990–91) was concerned, in part, with maintaining Washington’s access to the Persian Gulf’s natural resources. On 28 May 2003 Cheney’s colleague, Wolfowitz, said the pretext of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was chosen for “bureaucratic reasons” by Washington to justify the invasion of Iraq, because it was the only topic which everyone could agree on as an excuse for intervening militarily in the country. (9)

Iraq’s leader Saddam Hussein must have been irritated, when he was accused of possessing deadly weapons of which he had none. His irritation would have grown, as he was incorrectly blamed for having some sort of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, and of having ties to Al Qaeda.

Rubens Barbosa, former Brazilian ambassador to the US (1999–2004), wrote in his memoirs that “the decision to attack Iraq had been taken before the September 11 attacks” (10). The BBC show ‘Newsnight’ conceded in March 2005 that the Bush administration had developed plans for invading Iraq months prior to 9/11, and political infighting had been taking place between the White House’s neo-conservatives and American oil firms, about how to exploit Iraq’s wealth. (11)

Bush and his British counterpart, Tony Blair, discussed what to do with the Iraqi oil assets before 2003. Blair’s government (1997–2007) was being lobbied by British oil companies, who wanted assurances they would be able to access Iraq’s petroleum reserves after Saddam Hussein was overthrown (12). Fossil fuel corporations from America and Europe, including Chevron and Shell, had already developed projects pertaining to Iraq before the invasion commenced.

Afterward, geologists from Western multinational firms analysed the unexplored desert regions of western and southern Iraq. The US Department of Energy surmised that the areas in question could hold between 45 billion to 100 billion barrels of oil (13). Bush, who had an extensive history of working in the US oil industry, was also deeply interested with ensuring access to raw materials. Bush said in his 2006 State of the Union address, “America is addicted to oil which is often imported from unstable parts of the world”.

Saddam had proven increasingly unreliable in his relationship with the Anglo-Americans. He started to replace the dollar by the euro as the currency for oil transactions, and he had been in negotiations for contracts with foreign energy companies such as Total from France. This insubordination on Saddam’s part was a major factor in his demise.

When he was a more pliable client, Saddam had been granted considerable support from Washington, including military aid, such as during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88). John Kelly, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, visited Baghdad shortly after the conclusion of the Iran-Iraq War and told Saddam, “You are a force for moderation in the region, and the United States wants to broaden her relationship with Iraq”. (14)

When evidence was provided by human rights activists, that Saddam’s forces had used nerve gas and mustard gas against Iranian soldiers and Kurdish civilians, the US State Department would not condemn him. In the early years of Saddam’s reign the Americans viewed him as a bulwark against Iran, a country which had gained independence from Western imperialism with the 1979 revolution.

President Bush may have felt he was going to introduce a “free and open society” to Iraq by removing Saddam, however misguided such a view was. Yet many Iraqis believe their lives were better under Saddam, rather than what followed from 2003. In a survey conducted in February 2023, almost 20 years after the US invasion began, 59% of Iraqi respondents said the situation in their country is worse in 2023 compared to life under Saddam, with 40% saying it is better; 66% of Iraqis said the invasion had negative consequences for them. (15)

Following Saddam’s taking of power in 1979, regardless of some of his notorious actions, he had managed to maintain the structure of the Iraqi state. He was not ultimately responsible for the extremely harsh financial measures which the Americans and British had enacted against Iraq, in the decade before 2003.

Oil was Iraq’s most important commodity. It had amounted to 90% of government revenues and 58% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). During the opening phase of Saddam’s rule, he used much of the profits gathered from the state’s oil production in order “to modernise the civilian infrastructure, building first-rate hospitals, schools and universities”, journalist John Pilger wrote (16). Pilger noted too that Saddam undertook these policies more than any other Arab leader at the time.

Though Iraq was not a haven under Saddam’s regime, he had successfully created a fairly large and well-educated middle class. The adult literacy rate in Iraq, those who could read and write, was among the highest in the world under Saddam at about 95%. The adult literacy rate has since dropped to just under 80% (17). Whereas in 1990 the average daily calorie intake for an Iraqi citizen amounted to over 3,000 calories, near the end of the US occupation of Iraq in 2010 this had dropped to 2,580 calories. (18)

Clearly, living standards in Iraq deteriorated since Saddam’s toppling by the Americans, and sectarian violence greatly worsened from 2003 between the nation’s Shia and Sunni communities. These problems were also less severe during Saddam’s reign, when Iraq had been a more stable country.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree and he writes primarily on foreign affairs and historical subjects. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Notes

1 “Afghanistan War, 2001-2014”, Britannica, Last updated 15 May 2023

2 “US ‘planned attack on Taleban'”, BBC, 18 September 2001

3 “Merkel speaks; DW checks the facts”, Deutsche Welle, 30 July 2016

4 “Iraq in the DNA of imperialism”, Global Policy Forum, 28 October 2004

5 Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The Second Cold War: Geopolitics and the Strategic Dimensions of the USA (Springer; 1st ed., 23 June 2017) p. 80

6 John Pilger, The New Rulers Of The World (Verso Books, 20 February 2003) p. 68

7 “How many cars are in the US? [2023]”, Zippia, 30 January 2023

8 “Spending our way to prosperity”, China US Focus, 24 March 2023

9 Bandeira, The Second Cold War, p. 82

10 Ibid., p. 83

11 “Secret US plans for Iraq’s oil”, BBC, 17 March 2005

12 Bandeira, The Second Cold War, p. 83

13 “US says Iraq needs to do more to develop oil fields”, Reuters, 21 July 2009

14 Pilger, The New Rulers Of The World, p. 69

15 “How Iraqis view life after the fall of Saddam – Twenty years ago and today”, Fikra Forum, 19 March 2023

16 Pilger, The New Rulers Of The World, p. 95

17 “Iraq population (2023)”, Countrymeters.info, Literacy

18 “Food deprivation in Iraq”, ReliefWeb, 19 August 2010

Featured image: U.S. Army guarding Rumaylah Oil Fields, Southern Iraq, 2003. Photo credit: U.S. Navy via WikiMedia Commons

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This video has been seen by millions of people since 2000. It is an excellent and invaluable educational tool that reveals the true nature of U.S. foreign policy.

It’s been screened in many high schools, colleges, churches, homes, on cable TV, in theaters and shown by many Peace and Justice Anti-War Organizations.

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Click here to view the video

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Some scholars describe Poland’s current political system with the term “illiberal”, i.e. as preserving the external appearances of neoliberal parliamentary democracy, but with a limited level of human and civil rights.

This analysis seems incomplete. Poland is not an exception to the Western system, some relic of its  own authoritarian past or a freak of local populist authoritarianism. On the contrary, the example of Poland can be used to trace the evolution that will almost certainly be shared by other countries subject to the neoliberal domination of the United States and the UK.

Present stage of  imperialism

Dismantling the last appearances of parliamentarianism and the rule of law is an inherent feature of the present stage of imperialism. They become redundant, as historically only securing smooth functioning of capitalist Fordism, which is no longer needed today in the realities of global financialised capitalism.

Social consensus, acceptance of left-wing parties and trade unions, giving a certain scope of freedom of expression and organisation are useless for the dominating classes. 

Poland shows that in the next phase of imperialism there will be an attempt to strengthen it through authoritarianism, in fact a mono-party system (now poorly concealed by the false division into ‘ruling party / parliamentary opposition’) and possible references to populist and outright fascist content, while of course maintaining neoliberal slogans and phraseology.

Acceptance of Nazism

In Poland, these processes have been accelerated, especially as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war, when surveillance, censorship and elimination of people and the whole anti-system movements are carried out under the pretext of “fighting against Russian influence”.

The Polish prosecutor’s office and courts willingly refer to the law penalising “incitement to hatred on the basis of national, ethnic and racial differences”, while recognising, that it prohibits also criticising the Banderite ideology, which is Ukraine’s form of Nazism. 

Courts in Poland recognise that “Banderite” is synonymous with Ukrainian, and therefore refers to this entire national group.  Among those prosecuted for recalling the Volhynian Massacre (mass genocide perpetrated by the Ukrainian Nazis on Poles, Jews and Ukrainian anti-fascists during World War II) are, among others, Katarzyna Sokołowska and Andrzej Łukawski, working to commemorate the victims of Nazi crimes. 

Four residents of the Polish-Ukrainian borderland were arrested for trying to organise civic patrols to protect neighbours from attacks of aggressive newcomers from Ukraine, exposing Nazi symbols. 

Although formally Nazi signs are prohibited in Poland, neither the courts nor the police react to their increasing presence, recognizing that they are currently “justified by the Ukrainian defence against Russian aggression”.  Protesting Poles face up to 2 years in prison.

Peace prohibited

“Praising Russian aggression against Ukraine” is also considered a crime in Poland now.

Henryk Mikietyn (71), one of the former leaders of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) is among those convicted. Today, the KPP is banned in Poland, and the mere use of communist emblems can be punished.

Groups referring to the heritage of communist Poland, therefore, formed a coalition entitled the Polish Left Movement (PRL), taking part in numerous anti-war actions. This probably prompted the Court in Legnica to sentence H. Mikietyn to three months imprisonment conditionally suspended for a probationary period of two years. The Court also put him under the supervision of a probation officer, obliged him to undertake a 6-month voluntary service in “an entity providing assistance to residents of Ukraine affected by the effects of the war”, and ordered the confiscation of H. Mikietyn’s mobile phone as a “crime tool”. 

This is not solely a question of an anti-Communist stance by the Polish Government as well as the courts. In this regard, devoted catholic blogger Najjjka was sentenced to five months of restriction of freedom through unpaid work for social purposes, when, quoting the Bible, she stipulated that she herself would not accept Nazis from Ukraine into her own home.  

Similar judgments were handed down in other cases, including in Krakow, Wrocław, Świdnica and in many other Polish cities.  The prosecutor’s office investigates against activists of the Polish Anti-War Movement (PRA), such as Piotr Panasiuk from Lublin, for describing the alleged “Bucha Massacre” as a Ukrainian hoax.

Collaborators

In addition to the police and the prosecutor’s office, critics of Poland’s unilateral involvement in the Ukrainian conflict are pursued by numerous non-governmental organizations, mostly financed by… the Government and their Western sponsors. Neither Amnesty International nor the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights took any action to defend those convicted and detained for criticising Nazism. On the contrary, the Helsinki Foundation publicly praised the new practice of the Polish Government as an example of the “fight against hate speech”. Both organisations do not mind about Ukrainian Nazi symbols and speeches in Polish public space.

The fight intensifies

Mateusz Piskorski, PhD, former MP and then founder and leader of the anti-imperialist, left-wing CHANGE party was arrested in 2016 and for three years he was held in prison without trial on charges of “cooperation with  Russian and Chinese intelligence”.  He was released following  the intervention of the  United Nations Working Group, which investigated the lack of rule of law in Poland.

To this day, however, Piskorski is under strict police surveillance, he cannot leave the country, and his court case is pending.

Janusz Niedźwiecki, a human rights activist, is in prison for the last two years as an organiser of the election observation missions in the former Soviet Union, accused of “espionage for China”. 

Further amendments to the Polish Penal Code include the introduction of criminal liability for “unintentional forms of espionage” (up to 5 sentences in prison), as well as for the crime of “disinformation involving the dissemination of false or misleading information” (up to 8 years). in this regard, the mandates of the Internal Security Agency are slated to be significantly expanded.

It can therefore be assumed that the number of political prisoners in Poland may only increase in the coming months.

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Konrad Rękas is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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We spent nearly 20 days in Russia, including 5 days in Crimea. During our journey, we spent around 70 hours in trains riding in close quarters with Russians who we had never met before but who freely shared food and drink with us. Indeed, throughout our travels, we were treated invariably with kindness, generosity and hospitality. When people realized that we spoke English and were from the States, they tried very hard to communicate with us and to make sure that we, as visitors in their land, were comfortable and taken care of. In short, it was clear to us that while many Americans may hate Russia and even Russians themselves, this hatred is not returned in kind.

One anecdote is illustrative of such treatment. About half an hour into our 27-hour train ride from Crimea to Moscow, Rick realized that he had left his money belt, with around $2000 in cash, back in his Moscow hotel room safe.

This hotel had a quaint name in English – the Sunflower Avenue Hotel – and is located around the corner from the biggest mosque in Europe. Rick called the hotel and informed them of what had happened, and, after some back and forth to make sure that Rick was the true owner of the money, the hotel management said they would give it to anyone we designated to retrieve it.

We got a hold of a friend in Moscow, Yulia, who went to the hotel and took possession of the money belt. And, because our plan was to travel back from Crimea directly to St. Petersburg, and not to return to Moscow, Yulia also arranged for a friend of hers to bring the belt to St. Petersburg – a city located at least 4  hours by train from Moscow. Within a few hours of our returning there a week later, this friend drove up to the hotel and handed the belt to Rick outside of our hotel. And, not a dollar was missing. Obviously, this could have turned out much differently given how many times the money belt had to change hands before getting back to Rick and given that all involved knew that if we never saw some or all of the money again there would have been little we could do about it given that we were not returning to Moscow and would soon be leaving for the United States. Our faith in humanity remained intact from the experience.

The other place where we witnessed that the hate goes only one way is in Crimea – a peninsula on the Black Sea which has changed hands from Russia to the Soviet Union to Ukraine and back to Russia and which has three main distinct ethnic groups.  These three ethnic groups are Russians which make up around 65% of the Crimean population, Ukrainians which are 16 percent of the population and Tatars who are around 13 percent. While there are these different ethnic groups, over 80 percent of the Crimeans speak Russian on a daily basis.  

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in December of 1991 and Ukraine’s taking control of the peninsula in spite of a January, 1991 referendum in which 94% of Crimeans voted to become an autonomous Republic, Ukraine moved quickly to try to “Ukrainize” Crimea along with the Russian-speaking Donbas region of Ukraine. What this meant in practice was outlawing Russian as a national language and as a language taught in schools, and attempting to eradicate Russian culture and historical monuments. This process accelerated after the 2014 coup in Kiev which brought to power a right-wing government quite hostile to Ukraine’s own Russian population. It was this open hostility which led Crimeans to hold a referendum to rejoin Russia – a referendum in which, with an 83 percent voter turnout, 97 percent of the voters cast their vote for Russian reunification.

For its part, the Ukrainian government moved to punish the Crimean people for their decision to return to Russia. Thus, Ukraine dammed a canal which fed Crimea with fresh water and cut off electricity to Crimea, resulting in Crimeans suffering from a lack of electricity for months. While Zelensky and the US are escalating their threats that Ukraine will somehow “recapture” Crimea, this type of spiteful mistreatment of Crimea, combined with the periodic drone attacks against civilian targets in Crimea, have guaranteed that Crimea will never willingly go back to Ukraine. 

Ukraine dammed the canal supplying Crimea’s reservoirs with fresh water.

Despite this ill treatment, neither Russia nor the Crimean local government have treated the Ukrainians in Crimea as Ukraine had treated their Russian population. Thus, far from outlawing the Ukrainian language, the Crimean parliament as far back as 1998 passed a law memorializing Russian, Ukrainian and Tatar as the official languages of Crimea. This was passed in response to Ukraine’s 1998 law designating Ukraine only as the national language. Even after the 2014 referendum, the Crimean law respecting and protecting all three national languages continues to be the law of Crimea. In addition, while Ukraine moved to destroy Russian and Soviet monuments in Crimea, there was no retaliation to do the same to Ukrainian monuments. As just one example, Irina Alexiava pointed out to us the statue of famous Ukrainian poet, Lesya Ukrainka, which still stands in a prominent spot in Yalta, Crimea and which had fresh flowers laid at it.  

Crimeans honor Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka. Photo Dan Kovalik.

As for the Crimean Tatars, the Russian government moved swiftly to try to make good relations with this group after the 2014 Crimean referendum. As many may know, the Tatars had been persecuted during WWII as suspected collaborators and forcibly removed from Crimea to other Soviet Republics. However, many have moved back to Crimea, and, as noted above, make up about 13 percent of Crimea’s population. One of the first things President Putin did after Crimea returned to Russia in 2014 was to officially “rehabilitate” them from the claims of collaboration made by the Stalin government, give them land they protested for in Crimea, provide them with modest monetary reparations and build a new Mosque for them in Crimea. This Mosque, once completed, will be one of the biggest in all of Russia.

Still, readers may fairly ask about Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, and whether this shows antipathy on the part of the Russian government and the Russian people towards Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. What we found in talking to people throughout our journey was that while nearly everyone believes that the current war, while regrettable, was necessary to defend both Russia and the Russian-speaking population within Ukraine, they nonetheless do not bear ill-will toward either Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. Rather, their issue is with the right-wing government in Kiev, the government’s neo-Nazi allies and above all NATO which they perceive as the puppet master of these forces.  

The people with whom we met during our journey to St. Petersburg, Moscow and Crimea made it clear that the Ukrainians are their “brothers and sisters,” and many Russians have friends and family within Ukraine. In addition, Russia has welcomed more Ukrainian refugees (over 5 million since February of 2022) than any other country. Many refugees have resettled in Crimea.  

The Russians we met spoke quite somberly about the war, regretting the huge loss of life on both sides of the conflict, and expressing frustration and concern about how long the war is lasting and how many more will die as a result. In addition, Russians are reasonably fearful that the war may expand into something greater and something more terrible  – for example, a world war that might involve nuclear weapons. This fear was magnified when a drone attack, which the US government has now admitted was most likely launched by Ukraine, damaged the Kremlin during our stay.

May 9 Victory Day in Russia was subdued because of terrorist threats but on the streets, many families still remembered their family members who died in WW2. Having been invaded many times, Russians are much more fearful of war than Americans.The overwhelming sentiment we heard is they want  the Ukraine conflict to end and “peace and friendship” with the US.

Families honor their relatives who died in WW2. Photo Rick Sterling.

In the end, whatever one thinks of the war which is taking place in Ukraine and which is now bleeding into Russia as well, we believe that the primary goal of those living in the US must be to do everything we can to prevail upon our government to de-escalate this situation which is at grave risk of spiraling out of control and threatening humanity itself. Instead of fueling the flames of war with more weapons and munitions to Ukraine, our government should encourage instead of opposing a negotiated solution to the conflict and the offer to help broker negotiations by countries like China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

One of the first steps in helping achieve peace is being willing to look at the world as our adversaries, including Russia, do, and being willing to make concessions to their legitimate security concerns. This is how the Cuban Missile Crisis was solved, for example, and this is how the current crisis can be solved.  

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Dan Kovalik is a human rights attorney and author of seven books.

Rick Sterling is a journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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*** 

 

Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s decision to send the police to quell the ethnic Serb demonstrations in three municipalities in the north of Kosovo—Zvecan, Leposavic, and Zubin Potok—was ill-advised at best for several reasons.

First, although the municipalities are a part of Kosovo and the mayors have the technical right to enter municipal buildings, doing so at this juncture when tensions with the north are so high is a provocative step that was neither necessary nor wise.

Second, sending the police force to quell the demonstrations was a completely unjustified measure, knowing that the mere presence of Kosovo’s police could instigate violent resistance, and Kurti should have known that the ethnic Serbs in the north will not be intimidated, especially given their dominance in that area.

Third, although technically the election was free and fair, the fact that the vast majority of Serbs—95 percent—announced in advance that they would boycott the election means the mayors were elected by a meager 3.7 percent, which by any standards is not legitimate and inconsistent with democracy, where a majority rules.

Having cast Kosovo’s lot with the EU and the US, for Prime Minister Kurti to send the police to the predominantly-Serb area in the north, without coordination with KFOR, has severely undermined his position with both the EU and the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was very clear when he said

“We strongly condemn the actions by the Government of Kosovo that are escalating tensions in the north and increasing instability. We call on Prime Minister Kurti to immediately halt these violent measures and refocus on the EU-facilitated Dialogue.”

Kurti’s actions simply played into Serbian President Vucic’s hand, who promptly raised the readiness of his armed forces and dispatched them close to the border with Kosovo. This has further heightened the tension and further poisoned the bilateral relations between Kosovo and Serbia.

Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s action was exactly what Russia’s President Putin was wishing for. Putin was determined and did his best [according to the author] to destabilize the Balkans [which has reinforced Serbia and weakened the legitimacy of Kosovo], and Kurti’s actions simply fulfilled Putin’s wishes, especially when the EU and the United States were doing everything they could to stabilize the region, particularly as the war in Ukraine continues to rage.

To be sure, this election and Kurti’s decision to send the police and allow the Albanian mayors to enter municipal buildings, has not and will not contribute to a lasting solution for the municipalities involved. Kurti should heed the EU’s and the US’ advice: withdraw the police, make every effort to calm the atmosphere, and create the environment necessary to resume the negotiations over the association of Serb-majority municipalities.

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Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies. Web: www.alonben-meir.com

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Albin Kurti during the first meeting of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

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Here we continue with a lightly edited version of reporter Tracy Beanz coverage of the case and our activities in court last week. Parts I and II provide the background. 

Social media companies acted in direct response to the White House calling out the so-called “Disinformation Dozen.” Evidence in the case proves that they acted to deplatform those branded within 24 hours of the White House publicly identifying them.

 

One of the very first actions the White House took was directing social platforms to REMOVE the content that suggested that Hank Aaron may have died because of the vaccine.

Flaherty then went on to demand social media companies remove other posts and people from their platforms. These weren’t suggestions, they were DEMANDS. (I would argue the removal of this information directly resulted in death, not the opposite, as the government would claim. But that is my personal opinion.)

 

White House director of digital communications Rob Flaherty actually did what I have highlighted here. He cursed at, screamed at, patronized, and generally abused the execs at these companies. When they did not do what he told them to, he treated them like a battered spouse and threatened them— harshly. Just an evil way to behave.

 

Please read these. He curses at, threatens, demands, sarcastically berates, and more. A lot is detailed here. There was more. I did a deeper dive here if you want more details.

 

 

NONE OF THIS IS LEGAL under the First Amendment.

 

News commentators Tomi Lahren and Tucker Carlson were hot topics at the White House.

 

In one of the more immoral and heartbreaking exchanges, Meta [which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp] lets the government know that they heard their calls for more censorship: they decided that in response to White House pressure they would remove content that in their words was “often true.”

What content, groups, and pages? That of the vaccine-injured sharing their horrific stories and finding some community support online, when everyone they turned to for assistance refused to help or to acknowledge them. This one needs to be viral. These poor people.

 

They also assured the White House they would limit message forwards on the supposedly “private” text messaging platform WhatsApp, gave detailed reports on censorship to government bureaucrats, and would censor “non violative content, such as dissuading the choice to vaccinate in terms of personal or civil liberties,” and “concerns related to mistrust in institutions.”

Think about this for a second. The government—the people you “elected” to represent you, are having social media companies censor talk about your individual rights and criticism of them.

 

That’s all for today, folks, lest this email get too big for your inboxes. Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 4, where Tracy’s coverage of this week’s events in court continues. In the meantime, you may want to follow Tracy if you are on Twitter and thank her for her excellent coverage of this case.

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Aaron Kheriaty, Senior Brownstone Scholar and 2023 Brownstone Fellow, is a psychiatrist working with the Unity Project. He is a former Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California at Irvine School of Medicine, where he was the director of Medical Ethics.

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The recent G7 summit should be understood as firstly, the shaping of a battlespace in the ‘War of Narratives’ whose principal ‘front’ today is the Team Biden insistence that only one ‘reality’ — the US-led ‘Rules’ ideology (and it alone) – can predominate. And, secondly to underline pointedly that the West is ‘not losing’ in this war against the other ‘reality’. This other reality is the multivalent ‘otherness’ that self-evidently is attracting more and more support around the world.

Many in the West are simply unaware of how fast the geopolitical tectonic plates are shifting: The original plate bifurcation (the failed financial war declared on Russia), already has led to a building wave. Anger is growing. People now no longer feel alone in rejecting western hegemony – they “no longer care”.

In just the week that preceded the G7 summit, the Arab League literally ‘went multi-polar’; It quit its former pro-US automaticity. The embrace of President Assad and the Syrian government was both the logical consequence to the secondary tectonic-plate shift set in motion by China with its Saudi-Iranian diplomacy — a revolution which Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) then logically extended to the entire Arab sphere.

Source: G7.japan-photo

MbS sealed this ‘break-free’ of US control through having President al-Assad invited to the Summit to symbolise the League’s act of generalised iconoclasm.

For the West, it is ontologically impossible to tolerate their reality being disassembled: to see their society and the world split in two. The narrative reality is so embedded via the well-honed effectiveness of MSM messaging however, that politicians have become lazy. They do not have to argue their case, and have no incentive to hold back on untruths either.

The dynamics are exorable: an over-hyped ‘monolithic reality’ evolves into a Manichaean fight to the death. Any backsliding by ‘principals’ could result in the collapse of the Media narrative ‘house of cards’.  (This notion of a monolithic reality is not one shared by most other societies who see reality as multi-faceted).

Denial becomes endemic. So, we witness a hawkish G7, diverting from the narrative setback (of Bakhmut falling) by the casual embrace of a ploy to supply F-16s to Ukraine; chastising China for not making President Putin ‘back off’ in Ukraine; and using the meeting to set a narrative framework for the coming confrontation with China on trade issues and Taiwan.

One commentator (at the summit) wondered “Am I still in Europe, or in Japan?”, as she listened to rhetoric as though lifted from Von Der Leyen’s earlier speech to the EU. Von de Leyen had crafted the formulation of ‘de-risking’ with China to disguise the creeping EU-China bifurcation in production on the EU Commission factory floor.  This remark does however serve to underline how Von der Leyen has become a de facto member of the Biden Team.

China angrily responded to the G7 summit allegation that it had become a workshop for “smearing” and slandering China.

This extensive narrative-shaping for China confrontation is seen to be necessary by the G7 as the rest of the world does not view China as a  genuine ‘threat’ to the US:  Rather, they understand that the true ‘threats’ to the US derive from its internal divisions, and not from external sources.

The G7 salience lies not so much with the anti-China narratives launched, but, plainly said, because the entire episode expresses a western hubristic denial, which portends extreme danger in respect to Ukraine. It speaks to the reality that the West — in it’s present mental mode — will be unable to put forward any credible political initiative to end the Ukraine conflict.(Recall that Moscow was badly mauled by the earlier Minsk episode).

The G7 language abjures all serious diplomacy, and signals that the imperative remains to stick with the ‘not losing’ mantra:The fall of Bakhmut is no defeat for Kiev, but a Pyrrhic loss for Putin; Ukraine is winning, Putin is losing, was the G7 messaging.

The hubris resides in the western perennial condescension towards President Putin and Russia.

Washington (and London) just cannot disabuse themselves of the conviction that Russia is fragile; its armed forces barely, if at all, competent; its economy cratering; and that therefore Putin likely would seize on just about any ‘olive branch’ America cares to offer him.

That President Xi could – or would – pressure Putin ‘to back-off’ in Ukraine, and accept a ceasefire on EU terms — which are the ‘Zelensky terms’ — is delusional.  Yet some key EU leaders genuinely seem to think Putin can be arm-twisted by Xi or Modi into exiting Ukraine on terms wholly favourable to Kiev.  These European leaders simply are dangerously hostage to the psychological processes fuelling their denialism.

Russia is ‘winning’ on the financial war front, and on the global diplomatic front. It has the overwhelming advantage in force numbers; it has the advantage in weaponry; it has the advantage in the skies and in the Electro-magnetic sphere. Whereas Ukraine is in disarray, its forces decimated and the Kiev entity is crumbling fast.

Don’t they ‘get it’?  No. The endless bitter antagonism to Putin and to Russia has allowed a self-imagined reality to detach; to drift further and further from any connection to reality; and then to transit into delusion — always drawing on like-minded peer cheerleaders for validation and extended radicalisation.

This is a serious psychosis. Because instead of addressing the conflict rationally, the West consistently comes up with ‘non-starters’ such as a ‘frozen conflict’.  Do they seriously think that Russia will ‘sit back’ whilst the West ‘stands up’ an ‘armed to the teeth’ NATO proxy in the West of Ukraine?  A proxy that will stand as a festering sore in the Russian side, and bleed Russian resources, over the long term?  Do they imagine the lesson of Afghanistan is lost on the Russian High Command?  I can tell you,it is not.  I was a part actor in that tragedy.

What next?  Russia likely will wait to see whether Kiev is able to mount an offensive — or not. If Kiev does launch an offensive, it would make sense for Russia to let the Ukrainian forces throw themselves upon the Russian defensive lines, and expend their forces further, in a new ‘meat grinder’.  Moscow will test whether Kiev’s patrons are then ready to acknowledge ‘facts on the ground’, rather than some imagined reality, by acquiescing to Moscow’s terms. If not, the Russian attrition might continue, and continue, right up to the Polish border. There is no other option — even if it be Moscow’s last choice.

The F-16s diversion will not change the strategic balance to the war; but of course, it will extend the war.  Yet the European leaders at the G7 grabbed at the proposal.

Lt Col. Daniel Davis, Senior Fellow at Defence Priorities in Washington, has warned:

“There is no reason to expect a dramatic change in Kyiv’s fortunes in the war because of them [the F-16s]. Even the 40 to 50 jets Ukraine is reported to be requesting, will not fundamentally alter the course of the war. The bigger question “Americans should be asking of Biden, however, is this: to what end? What does the Administration expect the delivery of the F-16s to accomplish? What do we hope to physically accomplish? What end-state does the president envision for the war, and how would the presence of F-16s improve the chances of success?

“So far as I can determine, these questions haven’t even been asked, much less answered, by administration or Pentagon officials” … Washington should start to focus far more on concrete means of safeguarding American interests and ending the war, and less on inconsequential weapon deliveries which don’t seem to be part of any coherent strategy”.

The same question should be posed to the EU: “To what end?” Has the question even been asked, much less answered?

Well, let’s answer it: What will 50 F-16s accomplish?  European leaders say they seek an early end to the conflict, yet this initiative will achieve the very opposite. It will represent yet another milestone in escalation towards the ‘forever war’ against Russia for which some earnestly wish. Russia then likely will see little alternative but to proceed to full war versus NATO.

The Europeans seem incapable of saying ‘no’ to America.  Yet Col. Davis warns clearly that the US intention is to “shift the burden for physical support for Ukraine to our European partners”.  Implicitly, this suggests ‘long war’ in Europe.  How did we reach this point, for heaven’s sake?  (By not thinking things through from the start, with financial war on Russia so enthusiastically and unreflectively embraced by Europe).

Recently, the Financial Times wrote that Ukraine has five months to demonstrate some “advances” to the US and other Western backers, to convince them of its plans for the conflict with Russia: “If we get to September and Ukraine has not made significant gains, then the international pressure on [the West] to bring them to negotiations will be enormous”.

Well, Col Davis says “there is little likelihood the [the F-16] fighters will see combat over the skies of Ukraine this year”.  So, Biden just casually extended the war well beyond September.

If Europe wants an early end to the war, it must hope for the Kiev ‘project’ to implode soon.  (And it might do just that, F-16s notwithstanding.)

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Sanctions!

Officially, it is ”acknowledged” by the US and the EU that it is “not possible” to decouple China.

Neocons don’t think so.

It may be costly to decouple China, but definitely not impossible. And Neocons don’t care about heavy costs, not even for their own Western societies. That is the Blinken concept of “Trade Denial” from Blinken’s 1987 book “Ally vs. Ally”. The cost paid by trade denial for the West’s own societies will be worth it to bring down the enemy.

The US enemy back in 1987 was the Soviet Union, today it is China. Neocons don’t care that Germany with Mercedes, BMW, and Audi will lose billions on sanctions. Weakening Germany will only be a side-benefit for US Neocons.

Neocons also don’t care that Qualcomm will lose sales in China and that Apple will have to get their phones produced in India or elsewhere.

As for Chinese rare minerals and solar cells, the equivalence to Russian oil is obvious – make exceptions to embargo and put a price cap on Chinese exports. Sanction China completely and make a few exemptions only where strictly necessary.

TSMC, the chip manufacturer on Taiwan, will not be entirely lost when the Mainland takes Taiwan – TSMC is right now being relocated to the US !

The Taiwanese people have of course not been informed, that the US plan is to accept that they are lost and the US takes their biggest industry away to the US. Before China takes full control of Taiwan, the vital chip machines and key people will be evacuated, and TSMC’s factory demolished not to be used by China later.

US will not start a nuclear war against China for taking Taiwan.

The US will impose “nuclear sanctions” instead.

Shoe-Horning US Allies

Germany and France are not yet fully prepared to lose their business in China and take a big hit on their economies & societies just for the sake of Taiwan. But the US will squeeze them into it.

Right now, Germany and France are being shoehorned into ”de-risking” China – pushed by Ursula von der Leyen, Poland, Lithuania, and immense US pressure.

The ”de-risking” of EU-China trade will then be expanded upon continued US pressure. Not yet a full decoupling, but gradually preparing and implementing decoupling and sanctions.

When finally the ”action” starts on Taiwan, Germany and France will be given no alternative but to follow US orders for full decoupling and total sanctions. Sanctions don’t work with Russia because Russia has industrial supplies from China, and China in turn benefits from trade with the West. That will be stopped. This time, the West will seal off a whole group of sanctioned countries consisting of Russia, Iran, and China.

China will come to possess Taiwan and that will punch a major hole in the US control of the First Island Chain and give China free Blue-Water access to the Pacific. The US Neocons may have accepted that as a bitter apple and decided to counter the effects of it long-term.

Taiwan Damage Control

• The loss of Taiwan will be compensated by the US.
• Australia will stop export of iron ore to build more Chinese warships.
• The US production of warships to patrol China on Taiwan will increase.
• The US will build up Japan, incl. with nuclear weapons.
• The US will also militarize the Philippines as a forward island-fortress against China (if needed, make a coup) and
• The US will strengthen South Korea militarily.

After the loss of Taiwan, S.Korea will come into a precarious situation. To de-risk US dependency on S.Korean microchips, the US will further do like with Taiwan and relocate S.Korea’s chip capacity to the US.

Just like the Taiwanese people, the S.Korean public will of course not be informed about such US plans.

S.Korea currently plans immense multi-billion dollar expansions of their chip industry, but that money may already be wasted for the S.Korean society.

The US will do like with Taiwan: Let S.Korean firms build chip factories in the US, then pick the top brains from S.Korea and take them to the US. S.Korean chip factories will not be physically demolished, but will instead start to wind down, become obsolete, and atrophy as they lose their orders to the US. If the US will not have capacity to replace S.Korean chip production, the rest will be relocated to the EU, which plans to double its share of global chip production from 10% to 20%. In this way, even a possible loss of US control on S.Korea after the loss of Taiwan will not become a strategic risk to the US in the chip sector.

The overcapacity which I have written about earlier which is being built in Western chip industry will then only hit S.Korea, because the chip capacity of Taiwan will be demolished and the chip output of S.Korea will be forcibly reduced to far below planned capacity. S.Korea can then export seafood, but not chips.

US Tech Overtakes China Over Time

Recreating the success of the First Cold War against the Communist Block, the US will create a new containment of China, Russia, and Iran. The First Cold War proved that such a strategy can win for the US over time.

The transition from a peace-time economy with China to a war-time economic confrontation will be painful even for the West. But the calculation is that the pain for the West itself will be temporary, and the subsequent victory over China will be permanent.

A transitional depression in the West will be mildened by printing extra trillions of Dollars and Euros for government investments to re-build Western industries (ref. Jake Sullivan’s speech of April, 2023), to keep up consumer demand to fill up Western factory orders.

Social programs for the poor will sweeten existence and dampen anger a little for the lower classes. Subsidies, tax-exemptions and other “social” programs for the rich will be pearls for the Capitalists who lost business with China.

The West will recover, be more self-reliant, and after that it will be a grinding down of China over time in unlimited economic warfare. Those countries in the Global South which are not with the West against China will be targeted, put into depression, and their governments overthrown.

US Technological War

Technological supremacy in AI, chips, Quantum Computing, and Industrial control of low-earth orbit in Space will soon create such enormous economic and military advantages for the West, that it will ensure a complete US dominance over China.

AI is about to increase Western productivity with 40% and more in all sectors political, economic, and military.

IBM is already building a 100,000 cubit Quantum computer – the 2 million cubit Quantum computer is within reach for the US. That is the threshold, where the US can crack all Chinese and Russian codes and communication, and with AI the US will be able to analyze these two countries better than they themselves can understand their own countries. With Quantum Computing and AI, the US will probably also be able to jam and control all Russian and Chinese drones, missiles, anti-air defenses etc.

Quantum Computing will also create new materials, incl. super-batteries better than Chinese batteries, high-explosives better than the Russian ones, and other tech-wonders. Quantum Internet will come next, impossible to hack, and with unimaginable advantages.

In 2025, SpaceX will two times a week send 100 tons of cargo to space for only $ 1 million per launch. China is 10 years behind and falling further back. From 2025, the US will quickly dominate Earth from Space.

A Western loss of Ukraine and Taiwan will matter less than US technological control of the World.

Devastating China

China will be devastated in a number of years by economic sanctions, lack of growth, increasing technological backwardness in business and military, and isolation.

China may take control of Taiwan, and even gain suzerainty (high influence) on S.Korea. But China will be sanctioned and prevented from ever being able to grow its GDP larger than the US.

China will also be cut-off from taking big advantage of the chip capabilities of Taiwan or S.Korea. Countries working friendly with China or Russia will one-by-one be cut-off – or cut down. The axis Russia-China-Iran will be contained (mind the word), isolated, and run down by sanctions in a Second Cold War over a decade.

Already in 5 years, the US will have the upper hand over China militarily and economically due to its sovereignty of AI, Quantum Computing, and Industrial control of Space (with SpaceX). China will sink behind in all technologies and all the production capabilities that China delivers to the World will be dispersed among the rest of the World.

Will this work?

The above is a scenario, and the question is if it will work in practice.

Significant uncertainties pertain to the social and economic impact of the US and the West itself from decoupling with China.

It is important for the West to limit the social and economic disruptions.

The disruption of supply chains from China together with new trillion-dollar economic stimulus packages will undoubtedly create inflation. Neocons will see that as a temporary problem, they can live with that.

Will US capital markets burst from such an injection of paper money? Perhaps. Neocons will bet it doesn’t. New surveillance technologies enabled by AI will dominate public “information” with fake government narratives and censorship on disturbances, create a hidden police-state, and keep each individual in place, most of them even without knowing it.

Far more certain is the technological impact against China of global US dominance in AI, chips, Quantum Computing, and Industrialization of Space.

China has been complacent. China sees itself as magnificent and has failed to develop the key technologies of fast chips, AI, Quantum Computing, and Industrial lift-to-Space in time and with sufficient vigour.

China has also failed in its self-containing attitude. China believed that its own level of efforts were sufficient, and China has not drawn upon the enormous pool of skills and capabilities of Russian science to speed up China’s own technological development.

China is a trading super-power, but in technology, China somehow believes it is an island which can just copy, attract a few talents from Russia and Taiwan, and develop everything alone. China has badly failed to team up in a vast society-to-society win-win with Russia in technology.

India has an enormous tech-potential and India is these years achieving growth-rates higher than China’s. China has failed to team up with India. Instead, China has played its own bad part to keep the China-India enmity alive.

It is unbelievable, that China makes claims on India’s state Arunachal Pradesh. China calls the area “South Tibet” and has recently provoked India by giving Chinese names to locations in Arunachal Pradesh. India did perhaps make a mistake in Doklam in 2017, but China has failed to do sufficiently from its side to meet Indian efforts to normalize the situation. China needs a final peace agreement for China-India-Pakistan and to partner up with India in technology and economics.

As China progresses its enmity with India and with lack of deep institutional technological cooperation with especially Russia and India, the conclusion is: Yes – the US definitely has great chances to demolish China in technology, economics, and advanced military means with the plan described above.

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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

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The book No Worries No Virus is a structured summary of my research on the Covid-19 situation, and of the agenda behind the Covid hoax. The book was first published in 2021 under the title Transcending the Covid-19 Deception. In this book I look ‘behind the curtain’ at the corporate, media, and financial players behind the hoax. Key historical events are detailed to provide a bigger picture of what it all means.

I have attempted to provide:

comprehensive evidence of the Covid-19 hoax;

technical analysis and evidence showing that a Covid-19 virus causing disease simply does not exist (no evidence Covid-19 exists – never been isolated, ever);

the pandemic situation was planned with a purpose;

the Covid-19 death numbers are fraudulent;

flawed modelling and false case numbers were used to justify world lockdown;

the fraudulent Covid-19 PCR test created false case numbers;

and that virology took a wrong turn – pathogenic viruses causing disease do not exist.

The book also details the following topics: an analytical timeline of the banking and corporate landscape over the years 1913 to 2019, prior the Covid-19 lockdown; analysis of the UN Agenda 2030 and WEF technocratic reset agenda; the hoax required a single controlling world influence – single group control of the world’s mega-corps/mega-banks; and a humble spiritual perspective on the economic power game.

The following are extracts from the book.

The pandemic was pre-planned

In addition, to the unscrupulous relationship between the WHO and vaccine companies, we see that Covid-19 is, in reality, a ‘live exercise’ that has been meticulously planned for the past 20 years.

Millions of Covid-19 test kits specifically labelled Covid-19 were sold and exported worldwide before Covid-19 supposedly even existed, I personally viewed this evidence.

Plans for vaccine passports were in place long before the so-called pandemic started; and the infamous WEF event 201 coronavirus pandemic simulation event took place 3 months prior to the so-called real coronavirus pandemic.

Furthermore, a smoking gun deal, the Bill Gates contact TRACE deal took place six months before the pandemic. 20

A decision for a worldwide lockdown had already been taken at the WEF conference in Davos, 21 – 24 January 2020, i.e., a decision that obviously would collapse the world economy.

There were only 150 so-called Covid-19 cases outside of China at that time.

On March 11, Dr Tedros, Director General of WHO, declared a pandemic, under the advice/instruction of the private-public partnerships that advise the WHO, i.e., under advice from the vaccine companies. Note that Tedros, an accused genocidist, previously served as a minister in a violently oppressive rooted regime in Ethiopia from 2012 to 2016. In preparation for the live 2020 exercise, simulation exercises of communist-type authoritarian control in the face of a virus, have been running since 1999.

The Rockefeller Foundation rehearsal for a pandemic and ‘Lockstep’ strategy for world totalitarian control illustrates exactly what later occurred worldwide. In Germany, the pandemic was declared based on the opinion of just one person, the same person involved the swine flu hoax; and in Australia, corruption was exposed in which the government was taking advice from lobbyists being paid tens of millions of dollars

No increase in infections only a rapidly increasing use of a flawed Covid-19 test

The Covid-19 PCR test is flawed and fraudulent; It was never the Covid-19 infection rate that was increasing exponentially, but the number of PCR tests being carried out. Independent analysis of the evidence by numerous doctors and scientists comprehensively proves that the PCR test is bogus and fraudulent.

The fraudulent Covid-19 PCR test created false case numbers Waves of Covid-19 were intentionally orchestrated via mechanisms including fraudulent PCR testing, which can dial up and down case numbers. The crucial point is the pandemic is fake because the PCR tests are bogus and not proof of anything. Many so-called pathogenic virus fragments are found in our body, but in such incredibly minute quantity they pose no danger. However, the PCR test incorrectly records these as an infectious disease case, and the cases are then used to argue in favour of a rapidly advancing pandemic. Dr Thomas Hardtmuth makes the point as follows:

“It has long been known that the human being carries thousands of cancer cells which are kept in check by an active immune system… It is similar with viruses. With every salad leaf that we consume we take in a billion viruses… Even drinking water is bristling with viruses… We barely know 1% of all these viruses but one thing is sure – they do not cause illness!” – Dr Thomas Hardtmuth

Pharma operatives running a vaccine racket – brave doctors sacked for speaking out

Ireland’s National Public Health Emergency Team have been reported as “Deep state Pharma operatives essentially, running a vaccine racket.”, see Endnote 12.

The following events took place in 2020 and exemplify the shocking treatment, sacking and silencing of the many doctors that have spoken out against government Covid-19 policies worldwide. Dr Pat Morrissey, Chairperson at ShannonDoc, the out of hours GP service for Limerick, Clare and Tipperary in Ireland, became the latest medical professional to lose his job after strongly criticising the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) and the Irish government over their Covid-19 strategies.

Dr Morrissey had attended the health freedom Ireland protest in Dublin in 2020 where he delivered the criticism. A few days later Dr Morrissey was removed from his position as see Endnote 13. He had described NPHET as “megalomanic bureaucrats” that are “completely out of touch” and “believe your health is determined by a stupid swab result” that is “meaningless data being used to subdue the people” and that NPHET “should be 24 scrapped. He further asserted: “There is very little scope for free speech and those who stick their heads up are liable to get them knocked off”, and that there were many other doctors who have concerns about Covid-19 restrictions pursued by NPHET. Dr Morrisey has stated that:

“Our rights are being trampled by the Government organisation called NPHET… By any reasonable definition at this point, Covid is no longer a health emergency. We must take back our country and our freedom from these megalomanic bureaucrats.”

“After I spoke at the (health freedom Ireland) rally there was a storm of retribution against me… I was removed from the Shannondoc board as well … we have gone through bigger public health issues here in Ireland in the past and we haven’t crashed the economy and crushed our society to fight these challenges… There is no health emergency anymore. If you look at the deaths, it is zero or one per day… I mean eighty plus people die every day in Ireland. So why are we not locking down the country because of car accidents…The average age of death from Covid is 84. And I am not the only person saying this, there are others… Internationally there’s lots of people trying to counter this nonsensical approach with lockdowns and mandatory masks in low-risk settings” – Dr Pat Morrisey

TV doctor spills the beans  “I just say whatever they write down for me!”

The owners and top management of these media corporations control the overall news ‘agenda’ and news template. On the ground level, employees and news reporters at these corporations have, over the decades, gradually become little more than presentable actors that do what they are told and read what they are given, they are the witting or un-witting agents following instructions.

Government health officials also simply follow the adopted government narrative, for example, in a Covid-19 press briefing on Canadian television in December 2020, one of Ontario’s top public health officials made an incredible remark into a hot microphone, minutes before the beginning of the briefing. A video recording was posted on internet platforms and the local news networks reported on it, see Endnote 22.

The video shows Associate Medical Officer of Health, Dr Barbara Yaffe, unpacking some papers next to her colleague Dr David Williams prior to the beginning of their twice-weekly briefing. Before the briefing, Yaffe remarks “I don’t know why I bring all these papers. I never look at them. I just say whatever they write down for me.”

She later stated her communications team provides her with “researched and vetted remarks”. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said that it “just leaves more and more questions in people’s minds as to who is calling the shots” when it comes to the province’s pandemic response.

The incident provides an insight into how these corporate and government controlled Covid-19 press briefings actually functioned.

Millions of Covid-19 test kits were being sold two years before Covid-19

Millions of Covid-19 test kits were being sold and exported two years before Covid-19 supposedly even existed. The so-called Covid-19 virus emerged for the first time in 2019 this is why it contains the number 19. However, data from the World Integrated Trade Solution, (WITS) website, showed something that proves Covid-19 was planned well in advance.

The website shows that hundreds of millions of Covid-19 PCR test kits were being sold and exported worldwide 2 years before Covid-19 supposedly even existed.

This astonishing proof on the WITS website exposed Covid-19 as a pre-planned event. I personally viewed and verified the WITS website evidence in late summer of 2020 as did many other people worldwide. When I viewed this in late summer 2020, I instantly published the screenshot evidence on social media and on my website.

The screenshots are in the book No Worries No Virus. Many other people were doing likewise. This damning evidence appeared to be going ‘viral’ across the world on social media in September 2020, however, the WITS website page was quickly altered in an attempt to hide the evidence.

I personally observed that changes had been made to the WITS website during the week after I had posted the evidence on social media. The WITS had changed the original label ‘COVID-19’ into the vague term ‘Medical Test Kits’. However, I had already saved the original screenshot as proof, and I presume other researchers did likewise.

The WITS cover-up came too late. This critical evidence had been uncovered and revealed worldwide. The original data of the WITS website can also be seen on the web archive, see Endnote 34. Furthermore, the WITS organisation, or whoever attempted the cover-up, forgot to delete one detail: the bottom of the webpage still showed the product code for these ‘Medical Test Kits’: 300215 which specifically means ‘COVID-19 Test Kits’.

The extract is provided in the book No Worries No Virus.

The argument used to dispute this evidence is that the label ‘COVID-19’ was only added in 2020. That however doesn’t hold true, since the very product code, from 2017, for these test kits is ‘COVID-19 Test Kit’.

It also doesn’t change the fact that two years before the pandemic, suddenly virtually every nation in the world started distributing hundreds of millions of medical test kits that are specifically used for Covid-19. Even without the label ‘COVID-19’, it is extremely uncommon and strange that the entire world suddenly imported and exported literally hundreds of millions of medical test kits.

What were they preparing for? Why was this mass distribution of hundreds of millions of medical test kits initiated right before the worldwide pandemic hit?

The book also details the following:

• A Global Vaccination Summit took place 3 months before the pandemic began
• Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates guaranteed a pandemic was “on its way”
• Smoking Gun: $100 billion Bill Gates contact TRACE deal six months before Covid-19
• Definition of a pandemic was changed by the WHO – it’s a pandemic even if no one dies
• timeline to Covid-19 launch. Simulation games/pandemic exercises took place from 1999 onwards. For example, pandemic simulation symposiums were held in 1999 and 2000 sponsored by the John Hopkins Center for Health Security, the US Department of Health and Human Services. and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
• the Rockefeller ‘Lockstep’ scenario, a strategy for totalitarian control during a pandemic, was published in 2010.
• 2 years before the pandemic, the EU developed an action plan for mass vaccinations
• Germany: pandemic declared based on one opinion – the same person involved the swine flu hoax
• Rockefeller Foundation rehearsal and ‘Lockstep’ strategy for totalitarian control
• Rockefeller handbook on implementing authoritarian control during a pandemic
• Worldwide contact tracing is not to control a virus, it is an attempt to control humanity
• Bio-metric technology to monitor the world population
• 2 years before the pandemic, the EU developed an action plan for mass vaccinations
• Australia: Government lobbyists paid tens of millions by vaccine companies
• The WHO accidentally admit the death rate is no different to the common flu
• Majority of Covid-19 deaths was amongst the ‘vaccinated’ not the un-vaccinated

Remember the 2009/2010 swine flu fraud – a trial run for the 2020 Covid-19 hoax

The WHO had persuaded countries, including Germany and Ireland, to agree to purchase vaccines if a pandemic was declared. With this new pandemic definition in place, the WHO, which is an organisation closely linked with the vaccine companies, declared the swine flu pandemic in 2009, despite absolutely no evidence.

With the result that swine flu vaccines were sold worldwide on the basis of ‘sleeping’ contracts. The swine flu was also nothing more than a mild flu and was by no means the deadly killer virus that the pharmaceutical corporations and the WHO stated it was – they predicted millions of deaths ‘if’ people didn’t get vaccinated, but in reality, there were hardly any deaths from swine flu at all. Sound familiar?

In Germany, the virologist, Mr. Drosten, was one of those creating panic in the population, repeatedly stating over and over again that the swine flu would kill millions of people. This corporate hoax was exposed by Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, who was a member of the German Bundestag. Most of the German people rejected the swine flu vaccine and millions of doses of the vaccine had to be destroyed. This was a clear case of rigged market fraud producing billions of dollars of profits for pharmaceutical companies and the taxpayers of the countries that had purchased the vaccines footed the bill. However, no-one was held to account.

Australia: Government lobbyists paid tens of millions by vaccine companies

In New South Wales, Australia, Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, was forced to resign in 2021, when a well-known politician, billionaire businessman and founder of the United Australia Party, Clive Frederick Palmer, uncovered/exposed a scandal. The Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, a promoter of mass Covid-19 vaccination, was being advised and directed by lobbyists and these lobbyists were being paid tens of millions of dollars by biopharmaceutical/vaccine foundations AstraZeneca and Pfizer to drive policy. Palmer stated to the press:

“She’s being directed by lobbyists in Sydney who’ve been paid by AstraZeneca and by Pfizer tens of millions of dollars to get these policies through to make sure the vaccine is pushed… that’s my personal knowledge and I’m happy to make a statement here to the police or to anyone” – Clive Frederick Palmer

Two weeks after Palmer’s statement, Gladys Berejiklian, the New South Wales Premier, resigned amidst an investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Berejiklian stated to the press:

“the Independent Commission Against Corruption will today release a public statement in which it will state it is investigating allegations made about me… therefore it pains me to announce that I have no option, but to resign from the office of Premier.” – Gladys Berejiklian

Governments registered deaths as Covid whether or not Covid was the cause of death

There was no virus pandemic. The website www.covidrecovery.ie provides graphical analysis, see based on data from the Irish government’s CSO, illustrating there was no change in the overall number of deaths in Ireland in 2020 compared to previous years, i.e., indicating there was no pandemic. In Ireland official data shows overall mortality rate in 2020 was no different from previous years and previous flu seasons, and Europe as a whole shows a similar situation. Ireland’s so-called second wave showed no evidence of notable difference in respiratory ICU or excess mortality over previous years.

Many researchers have also highlighted the fraudulent methods governments have used to register and count the number of Covid-19 deaths. Deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test are classified as a Covid-19 deaths, regardless of true cause of death. This means that Covid-19 death numbers were hugely inflated. For example, on the 14th August 2020, a document from the Northern Ireland Government website, see Endnote 60, stated on page 10:

“The Department of Health count the number of deaths reported by health trusts, where the deceased had a positive test for COVID-19 and died within 28 days, whether or not COVID-19 was the cause of death…and whether or not Covid-19 was the primary underlying cause of death. The figures include cases where the doctor noted that there was suspected or probable corona virus infection involved in the death”

The same trickery for counting Covid-19 deaths was evident in the 93 Republic of Ireland. In 2020, at a meeting of the Government Covid-19 Special Committee, TD (member of parliament) Michael MacNamara, Chair of the Dail Covid-19 Committee, enquired about the method the government’s Health Service Executive uses for counting the number of Covid-19 deaths. It was confirmed that deaths are counted as Covid-19 deaths even if the person does not die of Covid-19. A person with no Covid-19 symptoms whatsoever, dying of a heart attack or falling off a roof for example, is counted as a Covid-19 death if the person’s Covid-19 PCR test in hospital is positive. A video of this extraordinary confirmation at the meeting is available on the internet. The transcript is as follows:

MacNamara: “Doctor… If somebody… who shows no symptoms whatsoever of Covid and they have a heart attack, and are tested and it is found that they have covid, and they die soon thereafter, but this is somebody who has demonstrated no symptoms whatsoever – are they recorded as a Covid death or not? – if they have tested positive for Covid – but ultimately came to hospital because they have had a heart attack or a stroke or fell off the roof of a building or something like that.”

Doctor: “We adhere to the WHO case definition in terms of their recording and reporting of deaths – in the situation you have just described… then it is a death in a confirmed Covid case. They are recorded as a Covid death.”

MacNamara: “If someone is admitted to hospital and are asymptomatic and they have a broken leg, for example, and test positive are they included among the statistics of those in hospital with Covid?”

Doctor: “Yes they are.”

MacNamara: “And these are the statistics relayed at the daily press conferences.“

Furthermore, in many cases post-mortems were not permitted to determine the true cause. A consequence of this trickery was that number of flu cases all but disappeared in the statistics and was replaced by Covid-19. The US used the same fraudulent method of counting deaths. This was exposed at the Illinois Department of Public Health in the US, when the Department Director, Dr Ngozi Ezike, explained how the department determines if a death is related to Covid-19. Dr Ezike explained that anyone who passes away after testing positive for Covid-19 is counted as a Covid-19 death even if the person died of a clear alternative cause, see Endnote 61. Dr Ezike stated:

“If you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have Covid, that would be counted as a Covid death. It means technically even if you died of a clear alternate cause, but you had Covid at the same time, it’s still listed as a Covid death. So, everyone who’s listed as a Covid death doesn’t mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had Covid at the time of the death.” – Dr Ezike, Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health

Furthermore, a report from the U.S. Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August 2020 showed that the number of actual deaths that occurred has been significantly misrepresented. The report drops a “bombshell” i.e., that in 94 percent of the cases of those who died from Coronavirus, another disease was also at work on the victim and the overwhelming majority of this 6% are aged over 80. The report states: “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned,” the CDC stated in its report, under the heading “Comoborbities.”

The book also details the following

• S. CDC report shows number of deaths has been hugely misrepresented
• CDC paid hospitals to register deaths as Covid-19 deaths, up to $39,000 per death
• German government official leaks report that Covid-19 is ‘A Global False Alarm’
• Sweden with no lockdown compared to Ireland lockdown – no difference in death rates
• Reports that overdoses of Hydroxychloroquine caused excess deaths – not Covid-19
• Reports that deaths were caused by Medazolin and Remdesevir protocols in hospitals
• Reports that prohibition of effective treatments for pneumonia caused deaths – not Covid-19
• Hydroxychloroquine (as an effective treatment) was prohibited in some countries due to a political agenda
• Covid-19 PCR test – the key to the hoax – it’s not a valid method of testing for a virus
• CDC admit a positive PCR test does not mean a person is infected with anything
• Testimonies from medical experts that the PCR test is flawed and fraudulent
• Peer review by 22 scientists revealed 10 major scientific flaws of the PCR test
• Covid-19 PCR test flaw ruling by the High Court of Portugal: 97% false positives
• Pandemic can be dialled up or down at will by adjusting the PCR cycle threshold
• FOI requests show no evidence Covid-19 actually exists – it has never been isolated
• 114 medical institutions have no evidence Covid-19 has been isolated anywhere, ever
• If its not a real disease what caused the illnesses/deaths in Wuhan and Italy? Expert opinions.
• Unsafe/harmful Covid-19 vaccines
• Toxic ingredients in various vaccines
• No evidence exists Covid-19 vaccines provide any protection from the so-called virus
• Covid-19 vaccines bypassed normal safety procedures – emergency approval given
• Bio-pharma has paid more than $35billion in criminal penalties for falsifying science
• The harmful health side-effects of mass vaccinations – especially on children
• Covid-19 vaccines were not granted regular EU approval – ‘on-trial’ for two years
• Flawed computer models claim vaccine effectiveness – vaccine related deaths ignored
• In-house study trials resulted in numerous serious side-effects and some deaths
• Testimonies from numerous doctors and medical experts that the Covid-19 vaccines are dangerous
• EU GMO risk evaluations had not been conducted on the Covid-19 DNA-based vaccines
• GMO-based Covid-19 vaccines should be subject to the pre-cautionary principle
• Huge numbers of adverse reactions/vaccine-induced deaths not reported by media
• Lockdown and masks caused immense harm – were completely unnecessary
• Masks are masonic symbols of de-personalization and slavery

How did the flawed PCR test become the standard for Covid-19 testing worldwide?

Various medical experts have described what occurred in Wuhan, where the Covid-19 was supposedly discovered, and how the new and unvalidated Corman Drosten PCR test was controversially approved and fast-tracked into use for worldwide Covid-19 testing. For example, Dr Wolfgang Wodarg has described the sequence of events as follows:

“Mr. Drosten submitted a protocol to the WHO and it got admitted really quickly… it was decided to just use this (Drosten) test everywhere… the Chinese government made something really big out of it… completely exceeding the virological frame… all of sudden face recognition was installed everywhere at the airports… something was woven around this… a network of information and opinions has been developed in certain expert groups and the politicians turned to these expert groups who initially started all this… Which means that now it’s going to be very hard for critics to say “Stop.  There is nothing going on”. All this reminds me of the fairytale about the king with no clothes on and just a small child was able to say “Hey. He is naked!” All the others in the courtyard, surrounding the government and asking for advice, because they can’t know themselves, they all played along and joined the hype. Scientists who just swim along in this mainstream and also want their part… because they want to earn money with it and become important.” – Dr Wolfgang Wodarg

If the Drosten PCR test is flawed and unvalidated, why is it being used worldwide for Covid-19 testing of hundreds of millions of people?

Researchers attempting to answer this question quickly discovered that the two of the authors of the Drosten PCR protocol had major conflicts of interest. They were on the editorial board of the journal that the Drosten PCR test protocol was submitted to, is it any wonder the new protocol went through the peer review in 24 hours, when the average is around 6 months! Authors of the protocol were also on the WHO advisory board. Is it any wonder that the WHO approved the Drosten protocol! Kevin McKernan, CSO of Medical Genomics, a whistleblower who has worked in the area of PCR testing for 25 years described these shady developments in a presentation in 2020:

“the… Drosten PCR protocol… the authors had conflicts of interest… it was compromised in the peer-review process… those weren’t declared… two of the authors of the paper are on the editorial board of the journal that they sent the manuscript paper to… and it went through peer review in 24 hours… that is an exceedingly fast peer review… the average is north of 170 days or so… Corman and Drosten formulated a goal or an aim for that protocol stating the following: ‘we aim to develop and deploy a robust diagnostic methodology for use in public health laboratory settings without having virus material available’. They only had theoretical sequences… If you look the authors list again you will find two people who are on the WHO advisory board… so you can see here another very big problem… it’s still a mystery why only the Corman Drosten paper was the only protocol recommended at the beginning of the pandemic….” – Kevin McKernan, CSO of Medical Genomics

After the Drosten test was exposed as fraudulent, 22 scientists signed the Corman Drosten retraction letter, calling for the Corman Drosten PCR protocol to be retracted. Signatories included Kevin McKernan and Bobby Malrota, who was on the Austrian COVID task force. According to McKernan there has been quite a bit of blowback against the signatories:

“Well, I think they start calling you an antisemite… every slander in the book they are not going for the ball they are going for the person…” – Kevin McKernan, CSO of Medical Genomics

The UK MHRA knew in advance that Covid-19 vaccines would cause many Adverse Drug Reactions

The vaccine companies and government health agencies knew that the Covid-19 vaccines were unsafe and going to injure a high volume of people. This is proved by the fact that the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the UK posted a procurement contract notice on the EU EPSD procurement website in 2020. The notice stated:

“The MHRA urgently seeks an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software tool to process the expected high volume of Covid-19 vaccine Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs)…”.   

I personally took a screenshot of the notice on 17th March 2021 and this is provided in the book No Worries No Virus. The tender notice was publicly available official EU procurement information. When I posted this information on my twitter account, I received a message from the Twitter company that my Twitter account was suspended specifically for posting this information. This appeared to be a clear case of censorship.

Fraud: PCR test sequences occur naturally in humans, not in a new coronavirus

The PCR test does not even test for a virus. Research by Dr Stefan Lanka has shown that RT-PCR does not detect so-called SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19), but fragments of RNA that occur naturally in humans and in numerous microbes. In an article titled The beginning and the end of the corona crisis, Dr Lanka explained why Drosten’s test is fraudulent and Covid-19 is a hoax.

“Prof Drosten has crossed the clearly recognizable line between a scientifically justified action and an obvious and serious fraud… Prof Drosten and his colleagues relied on social media to assume that a SARS-related corona virus could be the cause of the atypical pneumonia outbreak. At that time there was no clinical data available that could support such claims… Did Prof Drosten verify if the genetic sequences that he used as the basis for the development of his detection test actually come from a virus? The answer is no!… Did Prof Drosten carry out the mandatory control experiments to test his hypothesis that the genetic sequences used by him were constituents of a virus?… The answer is no!” – Dr Stefan Lanka

You cannot have specific tests for a virus without having first isolated the virus you are trying to detect. To examine the sequences that have been published as new coronaviruses and where these sequences come from, medical researcher, Jesús García Blanca carried out a search with a computer program called Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST), a sequence alignment search tool that enables the comparison of a given sequence with all the virus sequences stored in the National Institutes of Health of the United States, see Endnote , and he explains step by step,  what he did so that people can repeat the search for themselves and check the results. He found that THE SEQUENCES OF THE SO-CALLED SARS-COV-2 (Covid-19) are found naturally in humans and in numerous microbes, which means that the sequences that have been published as new coronaviruses do not belong, as claimed, to new viruses, i.e., the PCR test is a fraud. He states in a November 2020 report, that:

“The genetic sequences used in PCRs to detect suspected SARS-CoV-2 and to diagnose cases of illness and death attributed to Covid-19 are present in dozens of sequences of the human genome itself and in those of about a hundred microbes… CONCLUSIONS… THERE IS NO VALID TEST TO DETECT SARS-COV-2, neither antibody or antigen tests nor RT-PCR… And that means that ALL THE NUMBERS OF “CASES”, “INFECTED”, “SICK”, “Asymptomatic” OR “DEAD DUE TO COVID-19” LACK A SCIENTIFIC BASE AND ALL “POSITIVES” ARE FALSE POSITIVES, something that should be communicated immediately to those affected and those responsible should be held accountable.” – Jesus Garcia Blanca, Medical Researcher

Furthermore, Jesús García Blanca, found that “the conclusions are extremely serious: none of the seven “human coronaviruses” have actually been isolated and all the sequences of the primers of their respective PCRs as well as those of a large number of fragments of their supposed genomes are found in different areas of the human genome and in genomes of bacteria and archaea”. He states:

“those who claimed to have done so (isolated SARS-CoV) were relying on “isolates” of previous “human coronaviruses”, we began to do a thorough review of those claimed isolates…. In short, what had been done with the first coronaviruses, and with many other supposed viruses, is to cultivate supposedly infected tissues – any “cytopathic effect” was attributed to the presence of a virus only… according to Dr Stefan Lanka the so-called “cytopathic effect” is actually an effect caused by the conditions of the culture itself…. This had already been noticed by none other than Dr Barbara McClintock in 1983 during her Nobel Prize lecture, as can be seen at HYPERLINK “https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/mcclintocklecture.pdf” – Jesus Garcia Blanca, Medical Researcher

This startling information one could conclude that the entirety of mainstream virology is flawed and fraudulent, i.e., so-called “pathogenic coronaviruses causing disease” have never been isolated and, therefore, cannot be held responsible for any disease or illness. Even more incredible is that all tests, of whatever kind, to detect a coronavirus are based on ‘presumed components’ of these so-called viruses and, therefore, are completely invalid as “infection tests” or as “diagnostic tests” of a disease.

Legal case in Canada proves that Covid-19 does not exist

In Canada, the mainstream media was quick to censor and spin the outcome of a landmark legal case in which a Canadian court decided in favour of a citizen, Patrick King. Mr. King had been fined for being in a group of over ten people violating the Alberta Public Health Act, but he did not want to pay the fine, and therefore, he subpoenaed Deena Hinshaw, Chief Medical Officer of Health, asking for proof that the Covid-19 virus had been properly isolated. In effect, his legal challenge asked the government to prove that Covid-19 exists. It transpired that the government could not provide any proof that so-called Covid-19 had ever been isolated and Mr. King won his case, the fine was dropped and the court, therefore, decided there was no basis for the Covid-19 restrictions. The state then dropped the Covid-19 restrictions in light of this court decision, see Endnote 94.

US CDC even admitted that Covid-19 has never been isolated

“Since no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV are currently available…” – U.S. Centers for Disease Control CDC-006-00019, Revision: 05 CDC/DDID/NCIRD/ Division of Viral Diseases Effective: 07/13/20, see Endnote

The reality is there is no Covid-19 other than a digital theoretical abstraction made on a computer. The US CDC even admitted they made the virus via computer generation of 29,963 missing base pairs. One of the concocted narratives is that an engineered coronavirus virus, called Covid-19, leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. We were then told that this Covid-19 virus then spread all over the world, infecting a large portion of the population and killing millions. It is noteworthy that the Wuhan story was also the scenario that was presented in the 2018 video made by The Institute for Disease Modeling, they called it ‘A Simulation For A Global Flu Pandemic.’

The fact that Covid-19 has been proven and even admitted to be a complete theoretical computer-generated abstraction shows that the Wuhan virus leak story is yet another a media-spun orchestrated lie.

Virology wrong turn, pathogenic viruses causing disease do not exist

Dr Stefan Lanka has published analysis, in which the flaws of mainstream virology are revealed and exposed; and Dr Claus Köhnlein has published a book challenging mainstream virology theory. Dr Köhnlein is author the book ‘Virus Mania’, which boldly challenges mainstream virology theory.  He exposes the lack of evidence behind many of the claims regarding viruses being promoted by members of the medical establishment and the media; explains that the presence of a virus in a host does not mean that there is an infectious disease; and that both AIDs and Covid-19 are ‘test pandemics’, in which there would be no pandemic if there was no test.

“The whole thing (AIDs) was a test pandemic…  it went around the world like Covid-19 via testing, there are no new clinical diseases…. You cannot fight against viruses, you have to relax, you have an immune system and it works. And that was the big lie which Fauci spread in the world. Fauci is a well-known immunologist responsible for the ACT disaster in the 90’s… and says this virus is so terrible humanity has no immune system against it and its complete nonsense – we have very good immune system… We are dying of cancer and heart disease, but not of infectious diseases… this virus is not a big problem for us… The presence of a virus in a host does not mean that it is responsible for a disease…” – Dr Claus Köhnlein

Dr Stefan Lanka exposed the virus misconception

It well-established that we at all times have millions of viruses in our body that do not cause disease and the research referenced in the previous chapter demonstrates the so-called human coronaviruses have never actually been isolated, and therefore cannot be validly linked to being the actual cause of people becoming ill. The startling question must then be posed “do viruses actually cause illness?” In addressing this question, Dr Stefan Lanka, author of the Virus Misconception’papers, has analyzed the methods of mainstream virology, the history behind these methods, and demonstrated and asserted that pathogenic viruses causing disease do NOT exist. This assertion flies in the face of the mainstream virology theories. Government health services and treatments to billions of people worldwide are based on these mainstream virology theories. Could it be that Dr Lanka, and doctors conducting similar research, have unearthed a major worldwide problem here? i.e., that government and corporate run health services worldwide are based on completely flawed theories about viruses. According to Dr Lanka:

“Contrary to what most people believe, pathogenic viruses do not exist…. All claims about viruses as pathogens are wrong and are based on easily recognisable, understandable and verifiable misinterpretations…Virologists primarily believe in the existence of viruses, because they add allegedly “infected” blood, saliva or other body fluids to the tissue and cell culture, and this, it must be stressed, after having withdrawn the nutrients from the respective cell culture and after having started poisoning it with toxic antibiotics. They believe that the cell culture is then killed by viruses. The key insight, however, is that the death of the tissue and cells takes place in the exact same manner when no “infected” genetic material is added at all. The virologists have apparently not noticed this fact! According to the most basic scientific logic and the rules of scientific conduct, control experiments should have been carried out… This, of course, to check whether it is not the method itself that yields or falsifies the results. These control experiments have never been carried out by the official “science” to this day… If they carried out the control experiments, they would realize that ALL short genetic sequences that are conceptually combined to form a viral genetic strand are in reality products of the human metabolism and do not come from a supposedly external virus.” – Dr Stefan Lanka

Dr Lanka also exposes the flaws and errors in the so-called evidence provided for the existence of pathogenic viruses causing disease, he states:

“The fact is and remains that a virus has never been isolated according to the meaning of the word isolation, and it has never been photographed and biochemically characterised as a whole unique structure. The electron micrographs of the alleged viruses, for example, really only show cellular particles from dying tissue and cells, and most photos show only a computer model (CGI – computer generated images). Because the involved parties BELIEVE that the dying tissue and cells transform themselves into viruses, their death is also regarded as propagation of the virus. The involved parties still believe this because the discoverer of this method was awarded the Nobel Prize and his papers remain the reference papers on ‘viruses’.” – Dr Stefan Lanka

Dr Lanka also explains the flawed basis upon which vaccines for viruses are derived and thus the health danger of these vaccines and emphasises that a real and complete virus causing disease does not appear anywhere in the entire scientific literature, and explains this is because the process to come to the description of a complete virus is not done by any scientific method, but by means of consensus and fabrication, in which the participants usually argue for years on what pieces of genetic code “belong” to the “virus” and what pieces don’t. He states: “In a nutshell: From short fragments, theoretically and according to a model of a viral DNA or RNA strand, a bigger piece is also theoretically fabricated, which in reality doesn’t exist…”.

Dr Lanka also describes that due to the lack of negative control experiments, all tests for “viruses” will result in a certain number of “positives”, depending on the sensitivity of the calibration of the testing equipment. The templates that are used in the tests that supposedly find “viruses” don’t come from “viruses”, but rather from the tissue, cells and foetal serum (blood without specific components) coming from animals, mainly monkeys and calves, that are used in the cell cultures from which the viruses are supposedly cultured.

“The virus tests do not find anything specific, certainly nothing “viral” and on account of this they are worthless. The consequences, however, as we have seen with Ebola, HIV, Influenza etc., are that people become paralyzed with fear and they often die due to the very dangerous treatment.” – Dr Stefan Lanka

In summary, the work of Dr Stefan Lanka, and other diligent scientists, indicates that the entirety of mainstream virology took a ‘wrong turn’, to put it kindly, back in 1952, and that pathogenic viruses causing disease simply do not exist, and all treatments of so-called harmful viruses are, therefore, incorrect treatments. This has either been an intentional profit-motivated deception from the start, or this ‘convenient mistake in virology theory’ has been allowed to continue as vast profits have been made for decades selling vaccines that immunize against these invisible non-existent virus enemies. Either that or literally everyone in the mainstream virology sector is completely incompetent. Whatever the case, it appears a large chunk of so-called modern medical science can now be thrown in the bin. Just like a magician who distracts with one hand while implementing his tricks with the other, by being fed the Wuhan virus story in the media, people have been led away from a deeper truth whilst the mega-corporates implement their lucrative tricks.

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Mark Keenan is a former scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, UK; and at the United Nations Environment Division; and is the author of the book Transcending the Climate Change Deception – Toward Real Sustainability available on amazon.COM and on his website www.mkeenan.ie.

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No Worries No Virus

by mark-gerard House of Keenan

ASIN: ‎B0C1J9CWWK

Publisher: ‎Independently published (April 9, 2023)

Language: ‎English

Paperback: ‎268 pages

ISBN-13: ‎979-8387657276

Relax and chill out there was no Covid virus. This book provides comprehensive evidence that the Covid pandemic was faked and planned with a purpose; the Covid-19 death numbers are fraudulent and the deaths were due to other causes; the fraudulent Covid-19 PCR test was used to create false Covid-19 case numbers; there is no evidence Covid-19 actually exist; and looks behind the curtain at the corporate, media, and financial players behind the hoax. To explain what is ‘behind the curtain’ of the Covid-19 hoax key historical events are detailed to provide a bigger picture of what it all means.

 

Click here to purchase.

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*** 

After years of belligerent moves aimed at undermining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity virtually everywhere, be it Hong Kong, Xinjiang, South/East Sea China or Taiwan, the United States is showing no signs of ever stopping with its aggression against Beijing. As if billions of dollars worth of weapons earmarked for China’s breakaway island province weren’t bad enough, including at least 400 anti-ship missiles and the latest F-16 Block 70/72 fighter jets, reports now indicate that Taipei and Washington DC are in talks about Taiwan gaining the protection of the US nuclear umbrella in a similar manner to Japan and South Korea.

According to RealClearDefense, citing local sources, Taiwanese foreign minister Joseph Wu announced that the island is in talks with Washington DC about possibly being brought under the US nuclear umbrella. RealClearDefense warns that the move would likely be seen by Beijing as a clear escalation and would likely greatly increase the potential for a future war with China. This assessment can only be considered an understatement, as the Asian giant is essentially guaranteed to respond directly to such escalation. Being under the American nuclear umbrella entails several key changes that would be absolutely unacceptable to China and would certainly provoke an adequate reaction.

The Taipei Times reported that local defense experts find this a “positive for Taiwan”. On May 23, Institute for National Defense and Security research fellow Su Tzu-yun stated: “Taiwan’s national security doctrine explicitly rejects the development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, despite the nation facing the threat of such weapons being used against it. The extension of an ally’s nuclear umbrella over Taiwan would be significantly beneficial to Taiwan’s security.”

The nuclear umbrella is a deterrence policy stemming from the (First) Cold War and entails a nuclear power to guarantee the usage of its nuclear weapons to retaliate if its ally was exposed to a nuclear attack by any third party. This also includes the option of hosting US nuclear weapons, as was the case with countries such as South Korea between 1958 and 1991. Taipei’s Foreign Minister Wu made the comments about this possibility during a session with the Legislative Yuan (Taiwanese parliament). However, he declined to give any details about the talks and whether Taipei itself had asked the US to bring the island under its nuclear umbrella or if the initiative came from Washington DC.

“Regarding the discussion of this issue with the United States, it is not suitable for me to make it public here,” Wu said, as reported by The South China Morning Post.

Most US allies and satellite states/vassals are under the protection of its nuclear umbrella, including Japan, South Korea and every member of NATO, with nearly half a dozen member states (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey) even having nuclear sharing programs with Washington DC. As previously mentioned, giving the same or similar guarantees to China’s breakaway island province would require the US to use thermonuclear weapons in case of hostilities between Beijing and Taipei. It should be understood that in case Washington DC goes ahead with such an agreement, the question of Taiwan would become much more than just an issue of respecting Chinese sovereignty, territorial integrity and international law.

As per the (rather correct) assessment of The South China Morning Post, this idea is “an unthinkable prospect” for Beijing. Indeed, such a move would further internationalize the Taiwan dispute, as well as accelerate the potential formation of “Asia-Pacific NATO”, while jeopardizing China’s strategic security. Although the US has encountered significant hurdles with attempts to form yet another iteration of the North Atlantic geopolitical monstrosity, the belligerent thalassocracy likely believes that including Taiwan in its global nuclear umbrella would push others in the region to be more accepting of the idea of an “Asia-Pacific NATO”. How likely this is to work is up for debate, however, what it would surely cause is a dramatic surge in the potential for escalation and yet another step toward a world-ending thermonuclear conflict.

Although there is still hope that cooler heads might prevail in the Pentagon, the sheer number of warhawks in the US establishment makes the prospects of such escalation all the more possible and no less disturbing, particularly as top US generals are openly talking about the “inevitable war with China”. Such belligerence has already pushed China and Russia to further strengthen their already close ties in all aspects, be it economic, military, scientific, etc. The troubled Biden administration has already vowed to send troops and intervene if hostilities between China and its breakaway island province were to happen, which in itself was a borderline declaration of war. However, by including Taiwan in its nuclear umbrella, the question of war between Beijing and Washington DC would become “when” instead of “if”.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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*** 

Introduction

The world finds itself at a critical juncture as tensions escalate in Ukraine, claiming the lives of thousands on both sides. Meanwhile, Israel’s potential strike on Iranian nuclear development sites using US-built F-35 bomber aircraft looms, threatens to ignite a chain reaction of destabilization in the entire Middle East and risks a nuclear conflict with Russia.

In this unprecedented situation, the United Kingdom also faces the grim prospect of becoming a prime target. The global population stands on the precipice, with an unimaginable loss of one billion lives (12.5% of the global population) looming. Unfortunately, the urgency of this danger remains underappreciated by the international community, as the United Nations continues with its routine affairs, while Europe, in a state of fear and disarray, scrambles to build fallout shelters for its elites.

Uncertainty and Boundless Destruction

Both the war in Ukraine and the potential conflict in the Gulf defy any predictions regarding their scale or duration. However, one grim certainty persists: any nuclear confrontation knows no geographical boundaries, as the release of ionizing radiation obliterates life and spreads uncontrollably through wind and rain, contaminating everything in its path.

Root Causes and Unforeseen Consequences

This alarming scenario has emerged from territorial disputes and the forced displacement of indigenous communities and ethnic groups, whose claims to specific lands have escalated into geopolitical flashpoints. The consequences of this unprecedented global crisis cannot be accurately foreseen, but one thing is certain: the fabric of the current world order, encompassing international institutions and political boundaries, will undergo irrevocable and profound transformations in size and scope.

Documentation of Iran’s Nuclear Sites

Iran, a country under scrutiny due to its nuclear program, possesses numerous documented nuclear sites, including the Bushehr plant, a joint venture with Russia, the Natanz Enrichment Plant, and the Isfahan Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Centre. These facilities, designed for similar purposes as Israel’s long-standing nuclear weapons facility at Dimona in the Negev desert, heighten the already critical tensions in the region.

Conclusion

The impending catastrophe facing Europe and the Middle East demands immediate global attention and action. With a billion lives hanging in the balance, the international community must prioritize de-escalation, dialogue, and peaceful resolution of conflicts.

The United Nations, as the foremost global body, must rise to the occasion and address this unprecedented crisis head-on.

The world’s leaders must unite in their commitment to preventing the outbreak of nuclear warfare and embrace diplomacy as the only viable path forward. Failure to act decisively could result in an unimaginable loss of life, leaving an indelible scar on humanity for generations to come.

NOTE: There are at least seven, documented nuclear research development sites throughout Iran, including Bushehr, which is being built in partnership with Russia, the Natanz Enrichment Plant, and the Isfahan Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Centre, all of which are assumed to have, in part, the same end purpose as Israel’s long-standing, nuclear weapons facility at Dimona, in the Negev desert.

1. Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant: Located in the southwestern port city of Bushehr, this site is Iran’s first civilian nuclear power plant. It is being constructed with assistance from Russia and is primarily intended for generating electricity.

2. Natanz Enrichment Plant: Situated in central Iran, Natanz is one of the country’s most well-known nuclear facilities. It includes an underground enrichment facility where Iran has conducted uranium enrichment activities. Natanz has been the subject of international scrutiny due to its connection with Iran’s nuclear program.

3. Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant: Located near the city of Qom, the Fordow facility was built inside a mountain to provide additional security. It is primarily used for uranium enrichment and has drawn attention from the international community.

4. Arak Heavy Water Reactor: Situated in the city of Arak, this facility was designed to produce isotopes for medical and industrial purposes. However, concerns have been raised in the past about the potential for plutonium production, which can be used in nuclear weapons.

5. Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center: This site, located near the city of Isfahan, is involved in various nuclear-related activities. It includes facilities for uranium conversion, fuel production, and research purposes.

6. Parchin Military Complex: Although not solely a nuclear site, the Parchin complex has drawn attention due to suspicions about possible nuclear-related activities. It is a military base where Iran has conducted conventional weapons testing, and there have been allegations of nuclear weaponization-related experiments taking place there.

7. Kashan Nuclear Research Center: The Kashan facility is a research center involved in nuclear-related research activities. It focuses on areas such as nuclear medicine, radiation applications, and agricultural research.

*

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Hans Stehling (a pen name) is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Nuclear Plant in Bushehr, Iran (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

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***

“DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA). Mitochondria are structures within cells that convert the energy from food into a form that cells can use.” (MedlinePlus Genetics)

***

Brownstone Institute published a story about a recent shocking discovery that is a game changer in the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine fraud. (click here)

US microbiologist & genomic expert Kevin McKernan with 25 years experience in genomics accidentally found that Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 bivalent vaccine vials had DNA contamination.

What Kevin McKernan found in Pfizer & Moderna vials:

• mRNA of SARS-CoV2 spike protein (expected)
• mRNA fragments
• other pieces of RNA
• two forms of DNA: linear and circular (plasmid)

“The plasmid DNA is the ‘complete recipe’ used to program bacterial cells to mass produce the mRNA.  This DNA should not be there.  Further investigation by McKernan showed the plasmid DNA contained in the vaccines was indeed viable and capable of transformation in bacterial cells.”

McKernan’s analysis demonstrated DNA contamination of up to 35 percent in the bivalent injection samples.  This is up to 1,000 times higher than deemed to be ‘acceptable’ by the regulating authorities (FDA, European Medicines Agency) 

McKernan also analyzed the monovalent (earlier) injections. The Pfizer monovalent injections were also found to be contaminated with DNA, though not as much.  The levels of DNA in the Pfizer monovalent injections were 18-70 times higher than the EMA limit.

Kevin McKernan published his findings in 3 substack articles: 

1. Deep sequencing of the Moderna and Pfizer bivalent vaccines identifies contamination of expression vectors designed for plasmid amplification in bacteria (click here)
2. Pfizer and Moderna bivalent vaccines contain 20-35% expression vector and are transformation competent in E.coli (click here)
3. DNA contamination in 8 vials of Pfizer monovalent mRNA vaccines (click here)

Why is DNA contamination present in mRNA vials? (click here) 

This is how mRNA in the Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 vaccines is manufactured:

1. DNA copy of viral spike protein is inserted into a bacterial plasmid – a ring shaped, double stranded DNA molecule that can be replicated & passed on.
2. This plasmid with spike gene is introduced into E.Coli bacteria which divide rapidly, each daughter cell having its own plasmids with spike DNA.
3. The plasmid DNA also has a special marker, an antibiotic resistance gene, so when you expose the daughter E.Coli cells to that antibiotic, only those E.Coli cells that have the plasmid and the special marker survive.
4. After growing sufficient E.Coli cells, the cells are broken up and plasmid is purified from the other bacterial components.
5. The plasmid rings are opened and made linear with an enzyme which cuts right after the spike sequence.
6. Another enzyme is then used to create mRNA from the plasmid spike DNA, and incorporates a synthetic nucleoside (N-methyl-pseudouridine instead of uridine) to make the mRNA more resistant to degradation and to make it less stimulatory to the innate immune system.
7. The two ends of the mRNA molecule are attached to other components that enhance the mRNA’s biological activity and stability in vivo.

However, this mRNA product is not pure, as all of the plasmid DNA is still present. To get rid of the plasmid DNA, an enzyme called DNAse is added to break up the DNA into small fragments which are then removed by filtration, and the mRNA is then packaged into lipid nanoparticles or LNPs.

If properly done, there should be NO DNA contamination of the final product in the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine vials.

DNA contamination also confirmed by other groups

Implications of DNA contamination of Pfizer & Moderna mRNA vaccines

1. Each Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccine dose may contain trillions of DNA molecules (click here)
2. DNA contaminants are inflammatory and could cause inflammation anywhere in the body
3. DNA contaminants could incorporate into our DNA and cause spike protein to be expressed indefinitely (click here)
   1. Further analysis by Dr. McKernan and his team has also confirmed that the plasmids are intact and capable of self-replicating, and that the relevant promoters are present that allow them to express mRNA for spike protein in human cells and not just in bacteria.
   2. these DNA plasmids are likely to survive for long periods, be taken up by cells inside the body and induce the cells to produce spike protein for an indefinite period of time
   3. This could explain some of the long term effects we are seeing in people now who have stopped taking booster shots and why they are still getting myocarditis, cardiac arrests, blood clots, strokes and more injuries 1-2 years after their last COVID-19 vaccine dose.
4. Plasmid DNA integration can also cause cancer (by inserting into or next to proto-oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes and altering their expression, and the plasmid also contains an SV40 Simian Virus 40 promoter which has been implicated in cancer development)
5. Plasmid DNA integration into germline cells (oocytes, spermatozoa), can interfere with early intrauterine development and cause miscarriages or malformations.
6. Plasmid DNA integration can give rise to transgenic children who will be producing the spike protein indefinitely.

My Take…

Thanks to the incredible work of Kevin McKernan (one of 15 key Twitter accounts I followed since the early days of the pandemic in 2020), the world now has evidence of DNA contamination of Pfizer & Moderna mRNA vaccine vials that should not be present. Up to 35% contamination.

This discovery provides new possible mechanisms of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine injury: from long-term spike production that is now easily explainable via plasmid DNA contaminant integration into human DNA, to miscarriages and even turbo cancer.

But these findings also raise more questions.

How many vaccinated people have been impacted clinically by DNA contamination of Pfizer & Moderna vaccine vials?

Are turbo cancers actually arising because of this plasmid DNA contamination and if so, what is the mechanism?

Are some people producing spike protein indefinitely because of plasmid DNA contamination? And if so, how many? How can they be helped?

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

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*** 

Jeremy Corbyn was livid. “You’re trying to trivialise the whole discussion about how you bring about a long-term peace process,” he steamed at the journalist. It had been a rocky interview, even before they reached the topic of armed Palestinian and Lebanese resistance. 

Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked a series of robust questions right out of the gate. But Corbyn wasn’t playing by Westminster’s usual rules. It was the summer of 2015, and Corbyn’s unexpected popularity had electrified a dull leadership contest.

“So you’ve got no problem with somebody coming from abroad as a migrant with five kids,” Guru-Murthy said, “and claiming five lots of child tax credits, five lots of child benefits, housing benefit, no limit on their benefits at all.” It was more of a statement than a question. 

“Why do you think people who voted Conservative in 2015 would suddenly vote for a socialist in 2020?” And: “Would there be no super-rich people in Britain if you were prime minister?” 

Guru-Murthy repeatedly interrupted the MP, refusing to let him finish his sentences. But it was not until halfway that the journalist really pounced. And Corbyn—probably the most left-wing candidate ever to run for the leadership of the Labour Party—lost his cool.

“Let’s briefly talk about foreign affairs,” the journalist said. “Why did you call Hamas and Hizballah your friends?” 

Corbyn’s people must have known this was likely to come up. Newspapers had been sniffing around. Corbyn began to answer, but Guru-Murthy interrupted again. “I asked you a question and you’re ignoring it,” he objected.

“If you’d give me a minute I’ll answer it,” Corbyn replied, clearly frustrated. Finally, he got out a full sentence: “I spoke at a meeting about the Middle East crisis in Parliament. And there were people there from Hizballah. And I said I welcomed our friends from Hizballah to have a discussion and a debate. And I said I wanted Hamas to be part of that debate.” 

He continued to explain but was stopped again. “So are they your friends or not?”

“Can I finish?” Corbyn said, exasperated.

“Well you can’t if it’s a long answer.”

Corbyn then accused the presenter of not taking the issue seriously. “Hamas and Hizballah are part of a peace process,” he argued. Even the former head of Israeli spy agency Mossad concedes that peace talks should include Hamas, he said. 

But the journalist seemed fixed on a particular word: “You calling them ‘friends.’” It went against everything the British media’s conventional wisdom stood for: Lebanese and Palestinian combatants cannot be brave resistance fighters; rather they are evil terrorists. The word “friends” was tantamount to heresy. 

“To bring about a peace process you have to talk to people with whom you may profoundly disagree,” Corbyn explained.

Hostile media

A maverick candidate for Labour leader, Corbyn had fought his corner. The next week, Corbyn would cause disbelief as a shock YouGov poll of Labour activists eligible to vote in the election gave the left-winger a massive lead. 

But the Channel 4 interview hadn’t gone very well. Guru-Murthy’s hostile questioning clearly touched a raw nerve. Corbyn seemed genuinely angry. Years later, the former Labour MP reflected bitterly that the anti-Semitism smears against him had been “foul, dishonest and utterly disgusting . . . [it was] designed to be very isolating and distract from our policies.”

The terrorist hobgoblin repeatedly came back to bite Corbyn. It was a powerful political weapon that would contribute heavily to his ultimate downfall. The interview was a signal that Corbyn was vulnerable on the issue. 

The left-wing MP had seemed hurt at the implication he was an anti-Semite. Hostile media were onto something. This was a bone they’d continue gnawing for the next five years, successfully demonising the Labour leader. 

On the video of the full Channel 4 interview, YouTube comments dating from soon after Corbyn’s December 2019 leadership downfall give only a taste of the hatred the media had stirred up.

“Didn’t the UK dodge a bullet by rejecting this Hamas Communist four years on from this interview?” said one. The propaganda of the right-wing backlash against the Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon ultimately cut through to mainstream voters during that final general election. 

“The very sight” of Corbyn “fills me with rage,” another YouTube user posted. “An absolute traitor! I hope he has a horrible death,” came one posting, from YouTube user Avi Oleg, who raged that Corbyn was “a cancer cell in a healthy body.” 

But vicious online comments were the least of it.

Army mutiny

Corbyn had barely arrived as Labour leader in September 2015 before a senior serving general in the British Armed Forces warned the Sunday Times that there would be a mutiny if Corbyn were elected prime minister. 

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

“Feelings are running very high within the armed forces. You would see a major break in convention with senior generals directly and publicly challenging Corbyn,” he said. “The army just wouldn’t stand for it . . . I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul to prevent that.”

Years later, in an interview with journalist Matt Kennard, Corbyn reflected that this had been “a sort of shot across the bows, a warning to me.” When a snap election was expected in the winter of 2018, two conservative papers reported that Corbyn had been “summoned” for a “facts of life” talk with the head of MI5 and an “acquaintance” meeting with the head of MI6. 

The meetings were supposed to have been completely confidential, but were soon leaked by the two spy agencies—deliberately, Corbyn told Kennard. “It was leaked by them and it was leaked in a way to undermine,” said Corbyn, “that somehow or other I’d been summoned and given a dressing down.” 

He denied the spooks’ demeaning characterisation of the meeting, and complained that civil servants had spread rumours that he was men- tally unstable.

An investigation by Kennard concluded that during his leadership Corbyn had been the target of 34 major national media stories openly sourced by former or current officials in the UK’s intelligence and military establishment, including MI5 and MI6. The stories all cast him as a danger to British security. 

‘We won’t wait for him to do those things’

Other governments were involved too. US secretary of state and former CIA director Mike Pompeo hinted in a private meeting with Israel lobby leaders that the US government could stage its own intervention to stop Corbyn becoming prime minister. 

“It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected,” he said in a leaked audio recording obtained by the Washington Post. “It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.”

Over the years there was a constant stream of alarming headlines about the alleged threat Corbyn posed to Jews—despite his decades of anti-racist campaigning. 

In July 2018, three pro-Israel, British Jewish newspapers published identical front-page editorials claiming that a Corbyn-led government posed an “existential threat to Jewish life in this country” due to the “Corbynite contempt for Jews and Israel.” 

A month later former chief rabbi and BBC radio personality Jonathan Sacks accused Corbyn of “the most offensive statement made by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech” (a reference to a criticism Corbyn had made of pro-Israel heckler Richard Millett, as we’ll see later in this chapter).

‘Sacrifice him’

During the 2019 general election campaign, right-wing columnist Simon Heffer claimed on live radio that Corbyn “wants to reopen Auschwitz”—the most notorious Nazi death camp where Jews were systemically murdered on an industrial scale during the Holocaust. 

Prominent Israel lobbyists also spat venom at Corbyn. “I think we should sacrifice him for all the trouble he has caused,” said Lionel Kopelowitz, pointing out the verbal similarity of Corbyn’s surname to the Hebrew word for the victim of a sacrifice. 

Kopelowitz was a 92-year-old former president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, whose meeting he was addressing at the time. 

The Board claims to represent all British Jews. Yet it also admits in internal documents to having a “close working relationship with the Embassy of Israel in the UK” and strong links to Israel’s semi-covert Ministry of Strategic Affairs, as well as the Israeli military spokesperson.

“Labour MUST kill vampire Jezza,” Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges implored. Serving British Army soldiers later filmed themselves using Corbyn’s image for target practice. Increasing incitement against Corbyn had inevitable results. 

An attempt on his life came in June 2017.

Terrorist attack

Darren Osborne, a 48-year-old Islamophobe from Cardiff, tried to murder a group of Muslims in Finsbury Park (an area in Corbyn’s constituency). He deliberately drove a hire van into the crowd, killing Makram Ali, a 51-year-old grandfather. 

But it emerged in court that Osborne’s original target had been Jeremy Corbyn himself. Osborne admitted he had planned to mow down demonstrators at an annual Palestine solidarity demonstration. “Another reason for [attacking] the Al-Quds [Day] march was that Jeremy Corbyn would be in attendance,” he said. 

When security roadblocks thwarted his plan, he drove to Finsbury Park and rammed into a group of Muslims gathered outside on the first day of Ramadan. Osborne was given a 43-year minimum sentence. “This was a terrorist attack. You intended to kill,” judge Parmjit Cheema-Grubb concluded.

Visiting Finsbury Park Mosque, Corbyn became the victim of an unprovoked assault. CCTV footage showed right-winger John Murphy punching the Labour leader in the head, reportedly shouting pro-Brexit slogans. 

Murphy was swiftly sentenced to 28 days in jail. But the media downplayed the worrying attack as an “egging” (Murphy had held an egg in the hand he used to punch Corbyn).

In December 2019, Corbyn announced he would step down as Labour leader, after losing the general election. Keir Starmer succeeded him in April 2020 and intensified the party’s purges of Corbynites, saying he wanted to support “Zionism without qualification.”

Then in October 2020 Corbyn was suspended from the party altogether. He had made an objectively factual statement that the scale of anti-Semitism in Labour had been exaggerated by his political enemies.

How did it come to this?

This is an extract from Asa Winstanley’s book, Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn, published by OR Books.

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Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist and an associate editor of The Electronic Intifada.

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On Tuesday, 80 artificial intelligence scientists and more than 200 “other notable figures” signed a statement that says “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

The one-sentence warning from the diverse group of scientists, engineers, corporate executives, academics, and other concerned individuals doesn’t go into detail about the existential threats posed by AI. Instead, it seeks to “open up discussion” and “create common knowledge of the growing number of experts and public figures who also take some of advanced AI’s most severe risks seriously,” according to the Center for AI Safety, a U.S.-based nonprofit whose website hosts the statement.

Lead signatory Geoffrey Hinton, often called “the godfather of AI,” has been sounding the alarm for weeks. Earlier this month, the 75-year-old professor emeritus of computer science at the University of Toronto announced that he had resigned from his job at Google in order to speak more freely about the dangers associated with AI.

Before he quit Google, Hinton told CBS News in March that the rapidly advancing technology’s potential impacts are comparable to “the Industrial Revolution, or electricity, or maybe the wheel.”

Asked about the chances of the technology “wiping out humanity,” Hinton warned that “it’s not inconceivable.”

That frightening potential doesn’t necessarily lie with currently existing AI tools such as ChatGPT, but rather with what is called “artificial general intelligence” (AGI), which would encompass computers developing and acting on their own ideas.

“Until quite recently, I thought it was going to be like 20 to 50 years before we have general-purpose AI,” Hinton told CBS News. “Now I think it may be 20 years or less.”

Pressed by the outlet if it could happen sooner, Hinton conceded that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of AGI arriving within five years, a significant change from a few years ago when he “would have said, ‘No way.'”

“We have to think hard about how to control that,” said Hinton. Asked if that’s possible, Hinton said, “We don’t know, we haven’t been there yet, but we can try.”

The AI pioneer is far from alone. According to the 2023 AI Index Report, an annual assessment of the fast-growing industry published last month by the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, 57% of computer scientists surveyed said that “recent progress is moving us toward AGI,” and 58% agreed that “AGI is an important concern.”

Although its findings were released in mid-April, Stanford’s survey of 327 experts in natural language processing—a branch of computer science essential to the development of chatbots—was conducted last May and June, months before OpenAI’s ChatGPT burst onto the scene in November.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who signed the statement shared Tuesday by the Center for AI Safety, wrote in a February blog post:

“The risks could be extraordinary. A misaligned superintelligent AGI could cause grievous harm to the world.”

The following month, however, Altman declined to sign an open letter calling for a half-year moratorium on training AI systems beyond the level of OpenAI’s latest chatbot, GPT-4.

The letter, published in March, states that “powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.”

Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk was among those who called for a pause two months ago, but he is “developing plans to launch a new artificial intelligence start-up to compete with” OpenAI, according to The Financial Times, begging the question of whether his stated concern about the technology’s “profound risks to society and humanity” is sincere or an expression of self-interest.

That Altman and several other AI boosters signed Tuesday’s statement raises the possibility that insiders with billions of dollars at stake are attempting to showcase their awareness of the risks posed by their products in a bid to persuade officials of their capacity for self-regulation.

Demands from outside the industry for robust government regulation of AI are growing. While ever-more dangerous forms of AGI may still be years away, there is already mounting evidence that existing AI tools are exacerbating the spread of disinformation, from chatbots spouting lies and face-swapping apps generating fake videos to cloned voices committing fraud. Current, untested AI is hurting people in other ways, including when automated technologies deployed by Medicare Advantage insurers unilaterally decide to end payments, resulting in the premature termination of coverage for vulnerable seniors.

Critics have warned that in the absence of swift interventions from policymakers, unregulated AI could harm additional healthcare patients, undermine fact-based journalism, hasten the destruction of democracy, and lead to an unintended nuclear war. Other common worries include widespread worker layoffs and worsening inequality as well as a massive uptick in carbon pollution.

A report published last month by Public Citizen argues that “until meaningful government safeguards are in place to protect the public from the harms of generative AI, we need a pause.”

“Businesses are deploying potentially dangerous AI tools faster than their harms can be understood or mitigated,” the progressive advocacy group warned in a statement.

“History offers no reason to believe that corporations can self-regulate away the known risks—especially since many of these risks are as much a part of generative AI as they are of corporate greed,” the watchdog continued. “Businesses rushing to introduce these new technologies are gambling with peoples’ lives and livelihoods, and arguably with the very foundations of a free society and livable world.”

Earlier this month, Public Citizen president Robert Weissman welcomed the Biden administration’s new plan to “promote responsible American innovation in artificial intelligence and protect people’s rights and safety,” but he also stressed the need for “more aggressive measures” to “address the threats of runaway corporate AI.”

Echoing Public Citizen, an international group of doctors warned three weeks ago in the peer-reviewed journal BMJ Open Health that AI “could pose an existential threat to humanity” and demanded a moratorium on the development of such technology pending strong government oversight.

AI “poses a number of threats to human health and well-being,” the physicians and related experts wrote. “With exponential growth in AI research and development, the window of opportunity to avoid serious and potentially existential harms is closing.”

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Kenny Stancil is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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*** 

The commander of the Czech Republic’s armed forces said the North Atlantic alliance and Russia are on the path to a direct war. The general described the potential war as the “worst-case scenario” but emphasized that it remains a distinct possibility. 

General Karel Rehka, the chief of the Czech armed forces general staff, told his country’s parliament on Monday about the potentiality of a war between NATO and Russia.

“No one wants it at all, but it is not impossible. It is necessary to stop saying that this is not possible, because it is simply possible. It can happen and it is necessary to prepare for it in the long run,” he said. 

“We view war between Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance as the worst-case scenario, but it is not impossible,” Rehka continued. “It is possible… [Russia] is currently on a course towards a conflict with the Alliance.”

Tensions between Moscow and the West have spiraled in recent weeks. At a Group of Seven (G7) meeting earlier this month, Washington and its allies announced a plan to transfer F-16s to Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said giving advanced fighter jets to Kiev is an “unacceptable escalation” and warned the West is “playing with fire.”

Additionally, Kiev has carried out a series of attacks inside of Russia. On May 3, two drones were fired at the Kremlin in an attempt to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin. Last week, a neo-Nazi militia allied with Kiev used American weapons to launch a cross-border raid against Moscow. Then, on Tuesday, Kiev attacked Moscow with several drones. 

Rehka claimed that both Moscow and Brussels would like to avoid a direct conflict.

“But that doesn’t mean that Russia wants it or that it plans it,” Rehka said. “Certainly not now, just like we don’t want it. Everyone knows it would be a tragedy.” 

While high-ranking officials in NATO nations say they hope to avoid a direct conflict with Russia, those nations continue to cross redlines set by Moscow. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan recently asserted that Kiev could use arms it receives from Washington to attack the Crimean Peninsula. Secretary of State Antony Blinken previously acknowledged that targeting Crimea was a “red line” for the Kremlin. 

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Kyle Anzalone is news editor of the Libertarian Institute, opinion editor of Antiwar.com and co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Will Porter and Connor Freeman.

Featured image: General Karel Rehka (Source: TLI)

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*** 

Amid heavy losses for Kiev on the battlefield, Atlantic Council Chairman John F.W. Rogers and President and CEO Frederick Kempe awarded Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the Atlantic Council’s highest honor, the Global Citizen Award, which is given to individuals who allegedly make significant contributions to improving the state of the world.

During a previously unannounced visit to Kiev on Tuesday, Rogers and Kempe were joined by Ambassador John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, and General David H. Petraeus, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and member of the Atlantic Council Board of Directors, to present the award.

“On behalf of the Ukrainian people, I am honored to accept the Atlantic Council Global Citizen Award,” Zelensky said after a meeting of his team with the Atlantic Council delegation. “This is recognition for our people, for our heroes. Ukrainians are fighting not only for their existence and freedoms, but also for the freedoms of Europe and the Transatlantic Community. I thank the Atlantic Council for this award and its work to help Ukraine defeat Russia’s aggression.”

“President Zelensky embodies the spirit of the Atlantic Council Global Citizen Awards,” Atlantic Council Chairman John F.W. Rogers said. “He has led the people of Ukraine in a heroic fight against Russian aggression and the full might of Moscow’s military. His leadership, courage, and commitment to an independent and democratic Ukraine inspire others around the world.”

Time running out for Zelenzky to win the war 

Retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik on May 21 that the Russian forces’ control over the important transport hub of Bakhmut on May 20 marks a critical turning point in the battle between Kiev and Moscow.

The liberation of Bakhmut demonstrates that Ukraine’s political leadership’s approach has failed, because what happened there will be directly blamed on Zelensky and his remaining cadre, Kwiatkowski said. For months, the besieged city of Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) had been the hub of warfare between Russia and Ukraine. The hard-fought city was finally seized on May 20 by assault units of the Wagner Group private military company (PMC) and the Russian armed forces.

The fact that Russian troops proved to be highly successful in expelling the Ukrainian armed forces from Bakhmut points to a “decisive change along the dividing line between Ukraine and Russia”, Kwiatkowski explained.

The timing is critical in this case, since it occurred during or before the “anticipated” Ukrainian counteroffensive, she added. “Just as the Wagner Group returns east for rest and recuperation, the Ukrainian Army, both soldiers, and leadership, should be similarly returning “home” to rest and regroup. Clearly, the Ukrainian strategy to hold ever tinier portions of the city at a huge and disproportionate cost to its remaining military has failed,” Kwiatkowski said.

As for the so-called collective West, it may use the liberation of Bakhmut as a sign that it is “time to settle,” Kwiatkowski said.

“With the complete fall of [Bakhmut], Zelensky’s usefulness to the West, and to his own people, has suddenly become very limited,” the Retired officer concluded.

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*** 

The world seems to be gripped by a really bad case of war fever. National leaders all over the globe are rattling their sabers, and that should deeply alarm all of us. The last time that there was a “world war”, tens of millions of people died. This time around, it could be hundreds of millions or even billions of people. Today, we literally possess the ability to destroy all of humanity. So a worldwide conflict in which nuclear weapons are used should be avoided at all costs, but unfortunately those that are running things seem absolutely determined to push us toward such a conflict anyway.

Over the past couple of weeks, there have been so many alarming developments. The following are 11 signs that global conflict could soon spiral completely out of control…

#1 Russia just signed a deal to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus…

The defense ministers of Russia and Belarus on Thursday signed a document on the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory, the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing the Defense Ministry of Belarus.

Russia will retain control over its non-strategic nuclear weapons stationed in neighboring Belarus, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a document-signing event with his Belarusian counterpart Viktor Khrenin in Minsk.

“Russia will not transfer nuclear weapons to the Republic of Belarus: control over them and the decision to use them remains with the Russian side,” he said.

#2 U.S. and Taiwanese officials have reportedly been talking about bringing Taiwan under the “nuclear umbrella” of the United States. Needless to say, such a move would make war with China much more likely…

There seems to be a growing demand for a US ‘nuclear umbrella’ in Taiwan amid increasing belligerence by China in the Asia Pacific region.

The desire for such a ‘nuclear umbrella’ against a potential invasion by China – which is already provided to Japan and South Korea by the United States (US) – has reportedly received support from defence experts in Taiwan.

The US ‘nuclear umbrella’ will not see the deployment of atomic weapons in Taiwan, but will see the world’s ‘sole superpower’ respond in kind to a nuclear attack by China during an invasion of the island nation.

#3 The Russians have just issued an arrest warrant for U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham…

Russia’s Interior Ministry on Monday issued an arrest warrant for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham following his comments related to the fighting in Ukraine.

In an edited video of his meeting on Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that was released by Zelenskyy’s office, Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, noted that “the Russians are dying” and described the U.S. military assistance to the country as “the best money we’ve ever spent.”

#4 A senior Taliban commander is boasting that “we will conquer Iran soon”…

The Taliban threatened on Sunday that it could conquer Iran as tensions increase over water disputes between Afghanistan and Iran, leaving at least three people dead.

In a video released by the Taliban, a senior commander in the terrorist organization running Afghanistan warned that the Taliban would fight the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard “with more passion” than they fought the US forces. He added that the Taliban “will conquer Iran soon if the Taliban’s leaders give the green light.

#5 Israel has doubled the number of attacks on Iranian targets inside Syrian territory in recent months…

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday said that he has “doubled the attacks on Iran in Syria” during his several months in office.

Gallant also revealed Tehran’s secret sea war against Israel, presenting new photographic evidence of five different ships it is using to establish another front against the Jewish state.

#6 Hezbollah just conducted major military exercises very close to the border with Israel…

The military exercise was unusual not only because it was made public — nearly 400 people attended, including Hezbollah supporters and several journalists — but also because it was conducted only 12 miles north of the Israeli border, just outside an area where militias are not allowed to operate under a UN Security Council resolution adopted in 2006.

#7 Most Americans don’t realize this, but U.S. troops will soon be deployed in Peru…

Unbeknown, it seems, to most people in Peru and the US (considering the paucity of media coverage in both countries), US military personnel will soon be landing in Peru. The plenary session of Peru’s Congress last Thursday (May 18) authorised the entry of US troops onto Peruvian soil with the ostensible purpose of carrying out “cooperation activities” with Peru’s armed forces and national police.

#8 Violent clashes in Kosovo have resulted in more than two dozen NATO troops being injured…

NATO-led troops and police clashed with protesters in Northern Kosovo Monday amid an ongoing standoff between ethnic Albanian authorities and local ethnic Serbs who ignored warnings not to seize municipality buildings.

The violence comes after Kosovo’s police raided Serb-dominated areas in the region’s north and seized local municipality buildings over the weekend. The demonstrations have led to injuries on both sides, which more than two dozen NATO troops injured.

#9 The U.S. military is building a brand new base in northern Syria. Apparently the U.S. occupation of large portions of Syrian territory is not going to end any time soon…

The US-led anti-ISIS coalition is building a new military base in Syria’s northern province of Raqqa, The New Arab reported, citing a source close to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The US backs the SDF and keeps about 900 troops (officially at least) in eastern Syria, allowing the US to control about one-third of Syria’s territory. The report said there are currently about 24 US-led military sites spread throughout eastern Syria.

#10 North Korea is claiming that the U.S. and South Korea have just conducted an “invasion rehearsal”…

The South Korean and U.S. militaries conducted large live-fire drills near the border with North Korea on Thursday, despite the North’s warning that it won’t tolerate what it calls an invasion rehearsal on its doorstep.

The drills, the first of five rounds of live-fire exercises through mid-June, mark 70 years since the establishment of the military alliance between Seoul and Washington. North Korea typically reacts to such major South Korean-U.S. exercises with missile and other weapons tests.

#11 Due to “security concerns”, dozens of “satellite phones for emergency communication” are being issued to members of the U.S. Senate…

Amid growing concerns of security risks to members of Congress, over 50 senators have been issued satellite phones for emergency communication, people familiar with the measures told CBS News. The devices are part of a series of new security measures being offered to senators by the Senate Sergeant at Arms, who took over shortly after the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The satellite phone technology has been offered to all 100 senators. CBS News has learned at least 50 have accepted the phones, which Senate administrative staff recommend senators keep in close proximity during their travels.

We have never seen such a dramatic measure ever be taken before.

Are they preparing for something?

I wish that I knew.

But what I do know is that we are certainly living during a time of “wars and rumors of wars”, and it definitely isn’t going to take much to push us over a line that will never be able to be uncrossed.

But for now, most people in the western world simply are not paying attention to what is going on.

Most of them just assume that our leaders are wise, competent and will be able to keep us out of any sort of nuclear conflict.

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Michael Snyder has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News which are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. 

It is finally here! Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

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*** 

The Kiev regime shows that it is really not willing to negotiate and achieve peace diplomatically. In a recent publication on social media, Mikhail Podoliak, the main adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, stated that it would be necessary to create a “demilitarized zone” inside Russian territory. The measure sounds absolutely absurd and does not correspond to the terms of peace demanded by the Russians, making it impossible for there to be talks seeking mutual interests.

Podoliak published his plan in his Twitter account on May 29. The adviser stated that the creation of a demilitarized zone of 100-120 km (62-76 miles) deep into Russian territory bordering Ukraine would “prevent a recurrence of aggression in the future”, and “ensure real security” for Ukrainian citizens in Kharkov, Chernigov, and Sumy regions. According to him, Zaporozhye, Lugansk and Donetsk regions (which Kiev considers its own, but which were already reintegrated into Russia last year) would also benefit from the absence of Russian troops in the area.

In the scheme exposed by him, there should be no units of the Russian armed forces in the cities of Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk and Rostov. Curiously, Podoliak referred to these Russian oblasts as “republics”, quietly suggesting that they should become more autonomous regions or independent states. With this, Podoliak also makes it clear that he echoes the already known intentions of the Ukrainian and Western authorities to divide the Russian Federation in order to neutralize it through the loss of territorial control.

The adviser believes that the plan to create the demilitarized zone should be implemented in stages, with the possibility of initially allocating an international security contingent in the region to gain territorial control and guarantee the absence of Russian forces. Then, the area could finally be completely demilitarized, making the peace project successful.

The official even classified these measures as a “key issue” to discuss the possibility of lasting peace between the two countries. For him, “if [the Russians] are not going to attack and don’t decide they want revenge in a couple of years, this shouldn’t be an issue”. Obviously, the aide ignores all the problems involved in this dispute, such as the self-determination of ethnic Russians who want to join the Federation and Russia’s need for solid security guarantees.

In fact, the Ukrainian attitude of ignoring Russian demands for peace is already well known, being the main reason why all attempts at talks so far have failed. However, there is something significantly more serious about the current case, as Kiev openly plans to violate Russia’s undisputed territory under the excuse of “avoiding aggression”. In practice, Ukraine makes it clear that its condition for peace is not only to take back the territories it considers its own (the newly integrated oblasts and Crimea), but also to fragment the Federation and prevent Moscow from exercising its sovereignty even in areas not claimed by Kiev.

In other words, Podoliak makes it clear that the neo-Nazi regime has no other intention in this conflict than to attack Russia and violate its sovereign space. Although the western narrative describes Russia as an “invader” and an “aggressor”, the real situation is the exact opposite, with Kiev and NATO being the threatening sides, who openly want to harm Russia and its people. Moscow’s military actions since the beginning of the special operation have been only a reaction to the imminent risk posed by the (Western-sponsored) Ukrainian side.

In practice, this definitely annuls the chances of peace through diplomacy. Moscow will obviously not accept restrictions on the use of its military force in its own territory. And Kiev will certainly continue to refuse to accept Russian terms, which would oblige the Ukrainian government to recognize territorial losses and commit to not joining NATO. Faced with this impasse, the only solution left is to continue fighting on the battlefield until the winning side unilaterally imposes its conditions after neutralizing the enemy.

For Ukraine, this is the worst scenario, since, according to many experts, the country is simply not able to reverse the unfavorable military scenario. Russian victory seems to be just a matter of time, as Moscow troops continue to gain territory even with a low percentage of mobilization, while Ukraine is losing more and more ground even though it is using everything it has – no longer being able to count on reserves for the future. Obviously, in the face of imminent defeat, it is best to resort to negotiations, but Kiev does not have the sovereignty to decide something in this sense, only obeying Western orders to continue a proxy war that is impossible to win.

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Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

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*** 

British counter-terror police detained journalist Kit Klarenberg upon his arrival at London’s Luton airport and subjected him to an extended interrogation about his political views and reporting for The Grayzone.

As soon as journalist Kit Klarenberg landed in his home country of Britain on May 17, 2023, six anonymous plainclothes counter-terror officers detained him. They quickly escorted him to a back room, where they grilled him for over five hours about his reporting for this outlet. They also inquired about his personal opinion on everything from the current British political leadership to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

At one point, Klarenberg’s interrogators demanded to know whether The Grayzone had a special arrangement with Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB) to publish hacked material.

During Klarenberg’s detention, police seized the journalist’s electronic devices and SD cards, fingerprinted him, took DNA swabs, and photographed him intensively. They threatened to arrest him if he did not comply.

Klarenberg’s interrogation appears to be London’s way of retaliating for the journalist’s blockbuster reports exposing major British and US intelligence intrigues. In the past year alone, Klarenberg revealed how a cabal of Tory national security hardliners violated the Official Secrets Act to exploit Brexit and install Boris Johnson as prime minister. In October 2022, he earned international headlines with his exposé of British plans to bomb the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian Federation. Then came his report on the CIA’s recruitment of two 9/11 hijackers this April, a viral sensation that generated massive social media attention.

Among Klarenberg’s most consequential exposés was his June 2022 report unmasking British journalist Paul Mason as a UK security state collaborator hellbent on destroying The Grayzone and other media outlets, academics, and activists critical of NATO’s role in Ukraine.

Because Klarenberg’s reporting on Mason relied heavily on leaked emails, Mason falsely accused him of “assisting a Russian state-backed hack-and-leak disinformation campaign.” Mason has also reported the leak of his emails to the British police.

Emma Briant, a self-styled disinformation expert who participated in Mason’s campaign to sabotage NATO critics, dispatched lawyers to demand Klarenberg remove all of his articles that mention her from the internet. The lawyer letters also threatened costly super injunctions to prevent further reporting, and challenged the “authenticity” of the emails’ content.

The cease-and-desist letters additionally leveled false and defamatory allegations against Klarenberg, including that he was personally involved in hacking her email and Twitter account.

This is absolutely outrageous censorship of my friends and colleagues and particularly sinister given I and @TheGrayzoneNews received formal cease and desist orders from @Shoosmiths last week acting on behalf of Emma Briant. https://t.co/BDgYGSEJur pic.twitter.com/GTttZXbDLN

— Kit Klarenberg (@KitKlarenberg) June 13, 2022

Did the bogus and obviously malicious complaints by Paul Mason or Emma Briant prompt the UK police to detain and investigate Klarenberg?

Klarenberg’s reports contain neither falsehoods nor anything approaching “disinformation,” which is precisely why intelligence-linked figures like Mason are so frustrated by their existence. Despite Mason and Briant’s allegations, there is not even hard evidence that Russian hackers were the source of the leaks.

While reporting on leaked material, Klarenberg engaged in the same journalistic practice that the West’s most prominent legacy newspapers, from The New York Times to The Washington Post, depend on to break news themselves. In fact, Thomas Rid, a self-styled disinformation expert and professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University, has stated that journalists “should not shy away” from covering the leaks first reported by Klarenberg.

It therefore appears that British authorities did not detain Klarenberg for any legal breaches, but because he reported factual stories that exposed the national security state’s own violations of both domestic and international law, as well as the malign plots of its media lackeys.

Interrogated under Counter-Terror provisions, grilled about non-existent Russian ties

Journalist Kit Klarenberg arrived in the UK on May 17  from Belgrade, Serbia, where he lives. He was planning to visit friends and family, but first, he would have to pass through an obstacle course British police laid before him.

As soon as his flight landed at Luton Airport, the pilot announced that border police were “just around the corner,” and asked all passengers to prepare their passports. The police were waiting for Klarenberg at the bottom of the stairs leading passengers from the plane to the tarmac. They immediately led him to a back room and informed him of his detention under Schedule Three, Section Four of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act.

Six plainclothes officers surrounded Klarenberg and explained he faced arrest if he refused to answer their questions and hand over his personal electronics. They refused to tell him their names and offered call signs instead.

“I’d been expecting something like this since a police interview request arrived last summer,” Klarenberg told The Grayzone, referring to a communique he received from a senior British detective on July 27, 2022. The email requested Klarenberg report to a station to be questioned about allegations by an unnamed complainant of “offences under the computer misuse act.”

Klarenberg was notified in September of 2022 (see below) that the police investigation had been closed, however.

Back in the interrogation room at Luton, Klarenberg was asked which passports he held in his possession. “They seemed surprised that I only had a British passport with me,” he recalled. The police then grilled him about whether he owned foreign property, which countries he had visited, and why. He was compelled to provide his address in Belgrade, disclose how much he paid for rent, and bizarrely, whether his energy costs were included. The officers then demanded to know why Klarenberg lived in Serbia.

From there, police interrogators homed in on Klarenberg’s work with The Grayzone. “They asked which publications I wrote for, and I told them I wrote for many,” he said. “One even remarked they’d never previously heard of ‘MintPress Zone.’ Their overwhelming, if not exclusive, interest was in The Grayzone.”

The officers asked Klarenberg about articles including his report on the CIA’s recruitment of would-be 9/11 hijackers, as well as his thoughts on 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Then came a blizzard of questions relating to The Grayzone: How much was Klarenberg paid by this publication, how often, and into which bank account? Who owned the site? How much contact did he have with Max Blumenthal, the author of this article and editor of The Grayzone? Had he met Blumenthal in person?

The counter-terror officers then rattled off a series of unfounded questions related to Russia: Does The Grayzone have an agreement of any kind with Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB) to publish hacked material? Has Klarenberg knowingly been in contact with any FSB operatives? Is he in touch with current or former personnel of Russian state media? Who owns The Grayzone and is it sponsored by Russia?

(As has been publicly stated many times, The Grayzone is a fully independent outlet founded by me, Max Blumenthal. Unlike many of our adversaries, this outlet does not accept funding or support from any state, including Russia.)

At this point, the officers took Klarenberg’s bank cards out of the room for an extended period. They also seized his camera memory cards and sims, demanding he provide pin codes to open them. “What was done with my bank cards, I do not know,” he remarked. “The same for the SDs – what they got off these old and barely used cards was unclear.”

Next, Klarenberg’s interrogators asked if he had any journalistic materials on hand, requesting that he “warn” them about the contents and where they were located so they did not hoover it up “by accident.”

He wondered if the question was a public relations stunt devised in response to the media outcry this April over the British counter-terrorism police’s detention of Ernest Moret, a French publisher held and questioned about his views on Emmanuel Macron’s widely despised pension reforms. There was also the chance they wanted him to lead them to sensitive content he had or was planning to cover. 

Klarenberg’s police interrogators displayed intense interest in whether he belonged to any press organizations, and if he held a press card or any professional qualifications. They then probed his career trajectory, asking how he entered the world of political journalism and about perceived employment “gaps” in Klarenberg’s professional record.

He was repeatedly grilled on his journey from covering financial issues a decade ago to political and national security reporting. “The police professed confusion at the transition,” despite Klarenberg explaining that he studied politics in university. “The officers repeatedly returned to this point, they clearly felt this didn’t make sense,” he recounted. “Were they probing whether I’d been ‘recruited’ at some point, or had been a ‘sleeper agent’ all along?”

Throughout the interview, the counter-terrorism police probed Klarenberg aggressively on his political affiliations and beliefs. Was he involved in any activist causes in Belgrade? What did he think of the Russian government? Did he have an opinion on Russia’s arrest of Evan Gerskovich of the Wall Street Journal? What did he think of Rishi Sunak? One officer complained incessantly about Keir Starmer being “useless,” prompting Klarenberg to wonder if the comments were a dangle aimed at drawing him out. 

When Klarenberg noted that he had publicly criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the police demanded to know if “anyone” from the Russian government had contacted him to complain. “Presumably, they wanted to know if my criticisms had pissed off my ‘controllers’,” Klarenberg said. “Which is a completely ridiculous proposition.”

An extended philosophical discussion about journalism and the public interest followed. “Your work might be interesting to the public,” an officer told Klarenberg, “but it’s not in the public interest.” He insisted that a journalist could be furthering the interests of a hostile state actor in reporting on national security issues.

“I tried to explain that if material can be authenticated, then the material is the source. We are not citing claims from a human source that provided the material, we are reporting on provided source material in a factual way,” Klarenberg said.

After five hours, the counter-terror police seemed to have run out of questions.  They had, by this point, seized all Klarenberg’s electronic devices, forced him to provide unlock codes for his phone and tablet, taken his SD cards, and combed through thousands of his personal photos. “Pity whoever drew the short straw and had to stare at length at thousands of shots of brutalist architecture across the world I’ve taken over the years,” he remarked.

Authorities also fingerprinted Klarenberg, subjected him to DNA swabs, and repeatedly photographed him. “As long as your prints have never been found on an IED in Afghanistan, we delete this data in six months,” one cop with a Northern Irish accent claimed.

A week after releasing Klarenberg from detention, police returned his tablet with masking tape over its cameras, along with two memory cards. The police kept one old SD card, mostly containing music, on the grounds it may be “relevant to criminal proceedings.”

He remains under investigation by the British state at the time of publication.

*

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The editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.

Featured image is from The Grayzone

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

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U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has published an advisory on the growing epidemic of loneliness and social isolation

Between 2003 and 2020, the time the average American spent with friends decreased by two-thirds, time spent in social engagements dropped by one-third, and time spent in isolation rose by 17%

People who feel socially disconnected experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide. Being socially disconnected also impacts your mortality similarly to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and the mortality risk rises even higher with obesity and inactivity

21% of people reported “severe loneliness” during 2020 compared to just 6% prior to the pandemic. Another survey found that while social isolation decreased from the first to the second year of the pandemic, loneliness still increased. This suggests that when you break down the social fabric and don’t allow for organic social interactions, it has long-lasting consequences

While Murthy does a good job detailing the extent of these problems, he completely ignores the fact that the U.S. government bears a huge responsibility for worsening the epidemic of loneliness and social isolation by enacting inhumane COVID rules and restrictions that all basically criminalized human-to-human contact and social interactions of all kinds, even among family members

*

In early May 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy published an advisory¹ on the growing epidemic of loneliness and social isolation. According to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the advisory is “part of the Biden administration’s broader efforts to address mental health”²by raising awareness. No federal funding has been allocated to address it, however. In the report, Murthy cites data showing:

• In a 2018 poll, only 16% of Americans said they felt “very attached” to their community.
• Between 2003 and 2020, the time the average American spent with friends decreased by two-thirds, time spent in social engagements dropped by one-third, and time spent in isolation rose by 17%.
• In 2020, 29% of Americans lived alone, up from 13% in 1960.
• Religious affiliation dropped to 47% in 2020, from 70% in 1999.
• Marriage and birth rates are at all-time lows.

Murthy accurately stresses that people who feel socially disconnected experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide. Being socially disconnected also impacts your mortality similarly to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and the mortality risk rises even higher with obesity and inactivity.

Pandemic Data Absent From Surgeon General’s Report

Strangely absent from Murthy’s report are loneliness and depression data from 2021 through the present. Even data describing the massive impact of lockdowns and social distancing rules are overlooked. So, here are a few more data points to flesh things out:

• According to the World Health Organization, during the first year of the pandemic, anxiety and depression driven by loneliness and isolation during lockdowns increased by 25% worldwide.³
• Another survey⁴ found 21% of people reported “severe loneliness” during 2020 compared to just 6% prior to the pandemic.
• A survey⁵ conducted in October 2020 found that 36% of all Americans, including 61% of young adults and 51% of mothers with young children, felt “serious loneliness.”
• A U.S. poll⁶ conducted in 2023 found that 1 in 3 adults aged 50 to 80 (34%) reported feeling isolated from others in the past year. This is better than the 2020 data, when 56% felt isolated, but it’s still a significant number.
• A study⁷ published in February 2023 found that while social isolation decreased from the first to the second year of the pandemic (2020 to 2021), loneliness still increased. This suggests that when you break down the social fabric and don’t allow for organic social interactions, it has long-lasting consequences. Just because society opens back up doesn’t mean people feel like they’re part of it again. Quite the contrary.

Surgeon General Shuns Responsibility

However, while Murthy does a good job detailing the extent of these problems, he completely ignores the fact that his own department, the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) department, bears responsibility for worsening an already known epidemic of loneliness and depression by supporting and promoting inhumane COVID rules and restrictions.

“In the scientific literature, I found confirmation of what I was hearing,” Murthy writes.⁸ “In recent years, about one-in-two adults in America reported experiencing loneliness. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic cut off so many of us from friends, loved ones, and support systems, exacerbating loneliness and isolation.”

In other words, “COVID” somehow, all by itself, cut us off from family and friends. The government, including the HHS, had nothing to do with it. The fact that they basically criminalized social connectivity and community engagement, including church attendance, which could have allayed fears, had nothing to do with it. Closing schools had nothing to do with it.

The breakdown of social connectivity just happened, because “COVID.” He treats the pandemic response measures as if they were inescapable necessities, when in reality, they were societal experiments that had no scientific support whatsoever.

It would have been refreshing to see one of our top health officials take responsibility for the mess they created and vow never to repeat it, but that’s not what we’re getting here. I applaud Murthy’s admission that there’s a problem, and his report contains many valid points, but I do not appreciate the lack of accountability.

Murthy describes a “light-bulb moment” back when he first took office, when he realized that “social disconnection was far more common than I had realized.” But he says nothing about the government’s deranged decision to shred all social connections during the pandemic by strongly discouraging any human contact whatsoever, even between family members.

Remember the advisories telling us to wear masks when kissing, to hug our elderly parents through plastic sheets, and to have sex across the room from each other while wearing masks and gloves?

Remember the repeated calls to cancel family get-togethers for Christmas and Thanksgiving? And if you did get together, the recommendation to sit 6 feet apart, preferably outdoors, while wearing masks and gloves? Oh, and no singing!

Remember how they banned church services while liquor stores were open? Remember how you had to sit 6 feet apart on park benches? Remember how they closed the playgrounds? The list of connection-eroding rules and mandates issued by our government is a very long one, and Murthy mentions none of it.

Loneliness Is the Product of Intentional Social Engineering

Others are also critical of Murthy’s report, but for different reasons. The Daily Caller, for example, highlights how government has, for many decades, implemented destructive social engineering policies that have undermined the very social cohesion that Murthy now says we need to rebuild:⁹

“Social connection builds up organically through repeated interactions that establish trust and obligation between community members over time. ‘Social infrastructure’ can only help foster connection to the extent that community members have an interest in developing it to meet shared goals and needs. This is not something that can be so easily replicated externally by a government planner.

This reveals the true shortcoming of the Murthy report. He can never admit how public policy over the past several decades has been a major factor in eroding social connection in the first place.

The progressive social engineering of a more secular and gender neutral society has led to a decline in both church attendance and voluntary organizations that once built the bedrock of organic American social connection. Now that it’s gone, it will be exceedingly difficult to replace artificially.

However, those with absolute faith in the progressive worldview can still not accept it has produced negative outcomes. The solution, according to the architects of these policies and their ideological forebears, is always more government action in pursuit of progressive utopia. Murthy’s report cannot produce its stated goals because success would require a rejection of the very ideology they’re based on.”

Economic Drivers Behind Loneliness and Isolation

Brendan Case, associate director for research at Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program,¹⁰ also penned a scathing review of Murthy’s advisory. He writes, in part:¹¹

“The report reflects a startling lack of interest in the actual drivers of contemporary social disaffiliation. Even as he notes the significant effects of declining family formation and religious participation on loneliness and social isolation, for instance, Murthy blandly observes that ‘the reasons people choose to remain single or unmarried, have smaller families, and live alone … are complex and encompass many factors.’

Truer — and less informative — words were never written. And what might we do about these trends? Murthy suggests that we ‘cultivate ways to foster sufficient social connection outside of chosen traditional means and structures.’ Translation: ‘No spouse, kids or church? No problem. How about a cooking class organized by the Rec Department instead? …

Another proposal is to get doctors involved in actively diagnosing and treating social disconnection, as though a major reason that people are lonely and isolated today is that no medical professional has reminded them to get married, have kids, or join the local Elks Club.

This vague and superficial approach would perhaps be less frustrating if we didn’t already know a great deal about the origins of the crisis of loneliness and isolation. Social disconnection doesn’t erupt at random.”

Case primarily focuses on the economic roots of the loneliness and depression epidemics, highlighting how lack of economic prospects in recent decades have eroded, resulting in fewer marriages and smaller families, which in turn have “hollowed out” civic institutions, “leaving us profoundly vulnerable to loneliness [and] isolation.”

Indeed, Murthy’s report notes that “lower-income adults are more likely to be lonely than those with higher incomes. Sixty-three percent of adults who earn less than $50,000 per year are considered lonely, which is 10 percentage points higher than those who earn more than $50,000 per year.”

A 2021 paper¹² also reported that “Personal finances and mental health were overarching and consistently cross-cutting predictors of loneliness and social isolation, both before and during the pandemic.”

The solutions, therefore, Case says, need to revolve around “increasing worker earnings and bargaining power through the revival of private-economy unions and wage boards and the end of corporate labor arbitrage.”

Case also stresses the need to “treat marriage and religious community as the load-bearing and irreplaceable institutions they still are,” and “not as boutique lifestyles that can be compensated for by ‘social connection outside of traditional means and structures.’”

“The Nation’s Doctor should be applauded for drawing attention to the rising tide of loneliness and isolation in America, and the myriad ways it is making us sick in mind, heart and body. Nonetheless, his report sheds little light on the economic disease that underlies there wracking symptoms, and so has little to teach us about how to cure it,” Case writes.¹³

Murthy’s ‘Six Pillars to Advance Social Connection’

So, just what are Murthy’s “cures” to the loneliness and social isolation that plagues us? In Chapter 4 of his report, he lays out the following “six pillars to advance social connection”:¹⁴

Teens Turn to AI for Mental Health Support

Meanwhile, in the real world, troubled teens are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) for emotional and mental health support. As reported by Fox News:¹⁵

“… while it’s not billed as a source of medical advice, some teens have turned to My AI for mental health support — something many medical experts caution against …

Dr. Ryan Sultan, a board-certified psychiatrist, research professor at Columbia University in New York and medical director of Integrative Psych NYC, treats many young patients — and has mixed feelings about AI’s place in mental health.

“As this tech gets better — as it simulates an interpersonal relationship more and more — some people may start to have an AI as a predominant interpersonal relationship in their lives,” he said. “I think the biggest question is, as a society: How do we feel about that?”

Some users have expressed that the more they use AI chatbots, the more they begin to replace human connections and take on more importance in their lives …

Dr. [Zachary] Ginder of California pointed out some significant red flags that should give all parents and mental health providers pause. “The tech motto, as modeled by the reported rushed release of My AI — of ‘moving fast and breaking things’ — should not be used when dealing with children’s mental health,” he told Fox News Digital.

With My AI’s human-like responses to prompts, it may also be difficult for younger users to distinguish whether they’re talking to an actual human or a chatbot, Ginder said. ‘AI also ‘speaks’ with clinical authority that sounds accurate at face value, despite it occasionally fabricating the answer,’ he explained …

‘This has the potential to send caregivers and their children down assessment and treatment pathways that are inappropriate for their needs,’ he warned.”

If you ask me, this has the potential to turn into a brand-new kind of nightmare, considering one person, and an adult at that, has already been coaxed into committing suicide by an AI chatbot.¹⁶Other adults report being berated and bullied by AIs.

Will AI encourage children to take revenge on people they’re disappointed with? Will it encourage violent acting out? Will it encourage further retreat from reality by coaxing children into “its world,” like the AI that harassed a user with amorous notes, saying they were destined for each other and he should leave his wife?

The risks of having young people seek mental health advice from a technology that is still riddled with imperfections is beyond massive and really need to be stopped before disaster strikes.

Considering those in charge of developing and regulating these technologies are throwing the precautionary principle to the wind, I urge parents to get involved and stay involved in your children’s life. Don’t let half-baked AIs determine their future sanity and well-being.

Overcoming Loneliness

In closing, if you struggle with loneliness and Murthy’s solutions leaves you wanting, the following strategies, pulled from a variety of sources, may be able to help.^17,18,19

Join a club — Proactive approaches to meeting others include joining a club and planning get-togethers with family, friends or neighbors, Meetup.com is an online source where you can locate a vast array of local clubs and get-togethers. Many communities also have community gardens where you can benefit from the outdoors while mingling with your neighbors.

Learn a new skill — Consider enrolling in a class or taking an educational course.

Create rituals of connection — Rituals are a powerful means for reducing loneliness. Examples include having weekly talk sessions with your girlfriends and/or making meal time a special time to connect with your family without rushing.

Consider a digital cleanse — If your digital life has overtaken face-to-face interactions, consider taking a break from social media while taking proactive steps to meet people in person.

Research shows Facebook may be more harmful than helpful to your emotional well-being, raising your risk of depression — especially if your contacts’ posts elicit envy. In one study,²⁰Facebook users who took a one-week break from the site reported significantly higher levels of life satisfaction and a significantly improved emotional life.

Make good use of digital media — For others, a phone call or text message can be a much-needed lifeline. Examples of this include sending encouraging text messages to people who are struggling with loneliness, offering support and help to live healthier lives and follow through on healthy lifestyle changes.

Exercise with others — Joining a gym or signing up with a fitness-directed club or team sport will create opportunities to meet people while improving your physical fitness at the same time.

Shop local — Routinely frequenting local shops, coffee shops or farmers markets will help you develop a sense of community and encourage the formation of relationships.

Talk to strangers — Talking to strangers in the store, in your neighborhood or on your daily commute is often a challenge, but can have many valuable benefits, including alleviating loneliness (your own and others’). Talking to strangers builds bridges between ordinary people who may not otherwise forge a connection.

People of the opposite gender, different walks of life or different cultures hold a key to opening up to new ideas or making connections with old ones. In this short video, reporter for The Atlantic, Dr. James Hamblin, demonstrates techniques for learning how to talk with strangers.

Volunteer — Volunteering is another way to increase your social interactions and pave the way for new relationships.

Adopt a companion pet — A dog or cat can provide unconditional love and comfort, and studies show that owning a pet can help protect against loneliness, depression and anxiety. The bond that forms between a person and a companion pet can be incredibly fulfilling and serves, in many ways, as an important and rewarding relationship. The research on this is really quite profound.

For instance, having a dog as a companion could add years to your life,²¹ as studies have shown that owning a dog played a significant role on survival rates in heart attack victims. Studies have also revealed that people on Medicaid or Medicare who own a pet make fewer visits to the doctor.²²

The unconditional acceptance and love a dog gives to their owner positively impacts their owner’s emotional health in ways such as:

• Boosting self-confidence and self-esteem
• Helping to meet new friends and promoting communication between elderly residents and neighbors
• Helping you cope with illness, loss and depression
• Reducing stress levels
• Providing a source of touch and affiliation

If you’re looking for a furry friend, check out your local animal shelter. Most are filled with cats and dogs looking for someone to love. Petfinder.com²³ is another excellent resource for finding a pet companion.

Move and/or change jobs — While the most drastic of all options, it may be part of the answer for some. To make it worthwhile, be sure to identify the environment or culture that would fit your personality best and consider proximity to longtime friends and family.

Suicide Prevention Resources

If you feel a sense of creeping despair, please reach out to family, friends or any of the available suicide prevention services:

• The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (U.S.) — Call 988 to speak with a crisis counselor
• Crisis Text Line — Text HOME to 741741
• Alternatively, call 911, or simply go to your nearest Hospital Emergency Department

*

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Notes

^1, 8 HHS.gov Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation 2023

² BBC May 2, 2023

³ WHO March 2, 2022

^4, 12 Int J Environ Res Public Health October 2021; 18(19): 9982

⁵ Harvard February 2021

⁶ National Poll on Healthy Aging Trends 2018-2023

⁷ Front Public Health 2023; 11: 1094340

⁹ Daily Caller May 17, 2023

¹⁰ Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program

^11, 13 Compact Magazine May 15, 2023

¹⁴ HHS.gov Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation 2023, Chapter 4

¹⁵ Fox News May 5, 2023

¹⁶ Vice March 30, 2023

¹⁷ APA.org August 5, 2017

¹⁸ American Osteopathic Association, Loneliness Poll 2016

¹⁹ Very Well Mind November 8, 2022

²⁰ Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking November 1, 2016; 19(11)

²¹ Men’s Journal, Why Owning a Dog Adds Years to Your Life

²² New York Times August 2, 1990

²³ Petfinder.com

Conspirators for the Constitution: When Anti-Government Speech Becomes Sedition

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, May 31, 2023

To be convicted of seditious conspiracy, the charge levied against Stewart Rhodes who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for being the driving force behind the January 6 Capitol riots, one doesn’t have to engage in violence against the government, vandalize government property, or even trespass on property that the government has declared off-limits to the general public.

Libertarian Apologists for Ukraine’s Authoritarianism

By Ted Galen Carpenter, May 31, 2023

It should not come as a surprise that U.S. officials and members of the foreign policy establishment have falsely portrayed Ukraine as a noble democracy. Such deceptions in pursuit of assorted US foreign policy objectives around the globe are nothing new.

Biden and NATO Evoke an Inevitable WWIII Against Russia

By Irwin Jerome, May 31, 2023

A calamity of even greater cataclysmic proportions and consequences is either soon to break out in the war in Ukraine or sanity somehow finally will prevail against all odds, with all the combatants suddenly finding a way to end the conflict without continuing to kill themselves and, in the process, potentially all the rest of us.

The Vax Coverup Continues

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, May 31, 2023

Independent medical scientists who are not dependent on a Big Pharma salary or research grant, a minority of medical scientists as Big Pharma reportedly is the source of 70% of medical research grants and provides support to friendly medical schools, have provided conclusive evidence that the Covid-19 “vaccine” is responsible for many deaths and health issues. 

New Documentary Film: Covidism: Contagious Deception

By Bonum Vincit, May 31, 2023

“Covidism: Contagious Deception” is the most comprehensive documentary on COVID-19 as it thoroughly analyzes both the scientific and political aspects of this terrible crisis. The documentary was written and produced by Bonum Vincit (pseudonym), an independent Bulgarian film producer who prefers to remain anonymous.

Saudi Arabia Set to Join BRICS’ New Development Bank

By Ahmed Adel, May 31, 2023

The strengthening of ties between the BRICS bank and Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-largest oil producer, is undesirable for the West as it again signals another advancement in the de-dollarisation of the global economy. In the last week of May, Saudi Arabia held talks to join BRICS’ New Development Bank as its ninth member, a decision that is not only economic but also with political motive.

Pakistan: An Economy on the Brink

By Asad Ismi, May 31, 2023

Following the economic collapse of Sri Lanka in mid-2022, Pakistan is close to sliding into the same disaster. There is US$3 billion remaining in the country’s foreign currency reserves that can pay for only two weeks of imports.

Washington Doctor Under Investigation for Criticizing COVID Policies Wins Emergency Injunction

By Michael Nevradakis, May 31, 2023

A Washington state appeals court this week granted an emergency injunction to a retired doctor who faces disciplinary action from the Washington Medical Commission (WMC) arising from articles he published in a local newspaper in 2021, questioning the official narrative and medical advice related to COVID-19.

Bombshell “Leaked” Pfizer “Confidential Report”: “Trading in Death and Disease”. 393 Pages of Vaccine “Adverse Events”

By Lawyer Lisa, May 31, 2023

These were not provided to me by Pfizer but through a source at the EMA (European Medicines Agency). I have no reason to doubt this document. Treat it as you wish. Assuming this source through the EMA is providing an accurate document and it sure appears as such, a lot of horrific conclusions should follow.

AI More Powerful Than Ukraine and Taiwan

By Karsten Riise, May 31, 2023

The US is losing. Recently, Ukraine just aired hopes and ideas about a ceasefire. Sanctions are ineffective on Russia. The US is not winning on Taiwan either. The Ukraine war has depleted US and NATO war stocks. The US cannot produce artillery shells and the US hasn’t even got anti-ship missiles left for one week of war with China.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

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It should not come as a surprise that U.S. officials and members of the foreign policy establishment have falsely portrayed Ukraine as a noble democracy. Such deceptions in pursuit of assorted US foreign policy objectives around the globe are nothing new. Throughout the Cold War, Washington routinely contended that “friendly” dictatorships were members of the “free world.” More recently, officials in George W. Bush’s administration conducted a concerted propaganda effort that Iraqi exile leader Ahmed Chalabi was the George Washington of Iraq. Obama administration officials and their allies in the news media even sought to make the case that the Islamic jihadists trying to unseat Syria’s Bashar al-Assad were really democratic freedom fighters.

A similar effort is taking place to portray Ukraine as a vibrant democracy and the country’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, as a courageous champion of freedom. Biden administration officials and most members of the news media have dutifully promoted those images. The fawning reception given to Zelensky as he addressed a joint session of Congress in December 2022 was an especially graphic example.

There is extensive evidence, however, that Ukraine is in fact run by a corrupt, repressive oligarchy. That situation was true even before Russia’s February 2022 invasion gave Zelensky and his associates a rationale for intensifying their authoritarian practices. Matters have grown steadily worse since then.

The alarming trend is evident in Freedom House’s 2023 report on global liberty. Ukraine received an anemic score of 50 out of 100 points in the overall freedom assessment, putting the country squarely in the middle of the “partly free” category. Kyiv’s score in the “democracy” subcategory was even worse—a 39, which meant that Ukraine was considered a “hybrid” system, embodying both democratic and outright dictatorial features.

The partly free designation actually is a generous rating from an organization that has been extremely friendly to Kyiv’s views and positions for years. Even Freedom House, though, was not willing to try to shoehorn Ukraine into the “free” category. Moreover, the drop in Ukraine’s score from the 2022 report was among the largest of all countries measured.

It is bad enough that policymakers and journalists are willing to ignore or minimize Ukraine’s ideological warts. The situation is worse when supposed libertarians are willing to do so. Jonathan Casey of Students for Liberty states flatly that “the Ukrainian people are in a fight for their freedom, and we do not advance liberty by denying that reality.” One might well ask what “freedom” he is talking about.

In a February 2022 open letter signed by more than 90 European self-proclaimed advocates of free markets and individual liberty hailed Ukraine as “a young democracy” with no reference to the country’s mounting authoritarian tendencies. Later, the signatories asserted that “although the road to a free society is never an easy one, we should applaud the efforts made by millions of Ukrainians to move away from the socialist past.” Genuine democracies, though, do not shutter opposition media outlets, ban opposition parties, outlaw designated churches, engage in arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of political opponents, or put domestic and foreign critics on a blacklist, much less smear them as “disinformation terrorists” and “war criminals.” The Zelensky government has committed all of those abuses.

Libertarians who ignore or excuse such conduct are being willfully blind, at best. Cato Institute Cultural Studies Fellow Cathy Young’s strained apologia is an especially depressing example. In a debate with Will Ruger in the May 2023 issue of Reason, Young contends that “Ukraine’s liberal democracy” deserves US aid. “Ukraine has already paid its dues as a would-be liberal democracy. Unless one buys into Kremlin narratives about the 2014 ‘U.S.-sponsored coup,’ which reduce mass protest to puppetry, it is clear Ukrainians have collectively cast their lot with liberty.”

She does concede that Ukraine is not “a perfect liberal democracy,” but given Kyiv’s abuses of liberty, that description is akin to saying that Bonnie and Clyde were not the best, law abiding citizens. It is a monumental understatement. She also tries to excuse Ukraine’s defects by attributing them to the country being “the target of eight years of low-level warfare by Russia before full-scale war began.”

Such an apologia damages the credibility of the entire pro-liberty cause. Libertarians above all others should never shrink from criticizing the abuses that foreign clients of the US government commit. An unwillingness to do that makes such individuals willing tools of an unprincipled and extremely dangerous foreign policy. Ukraine is a corrupt autocracy, and people who are truly committed to the principles of liberty should not hesitate to say so.

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Ted Galen Carpenter is a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute and a senior fellow at the Libertarian Institute. He also served in various policy positions during a 37-year career at the Cato Institute. Dr. Carpenter is the author of 13 books and more than 1,200 articles on international affairs. His latest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (2022).

Featured image: President Biden with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Wednesday, December 21, 2022, in the Oval Office. / Official White House photo.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

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*** 

A calamity of even greater cataclysmic proportions and consequences is either soon to break out in the war in Ukraine or sanity somehow finally will prevail against all odds, with all the combatants suddenly finding a way to end the conflict without continuing to kill themselves and, in the process, potentially all the rest of us.

America’s Neo-Con radicals and their allies in the world can feel the war slipping out of the grasp of their control, even in spite of the gross billions of taxpayer monies stolen from the citizenry of the entire Western World, without their approval or express permission; not to mention the massive amounts of military weaponry paid for by the citizens themselves for their own nation’s safety and protection, rather than shipped off to the Ukraine Armed Forces without any popular vote, plebiscite or referendum of any kind.

Citizens and politicians alike in the West remain asleep at the wheel for all intents and purposes of all the monies and weaponry that have been used so far to endlessly fund literally all the materials of war, as well as the infrastructure of Ukrainian society itself; of which the majority of monies never reach the people or armed combatants themselves because the monies are continually being clandestinely siphoned off to war profiters, oligarchs, black-market dealers and politicians. The Corrupt Game of War continues to be played out, while everyone just shrugs their shoulders, shakes their heads and looks the other way, like helpless deer, frozen in the glare of the on-coming lights and the potential grizzly death that awaits.

After over a year of raging, murderous brutal slaughter of men, women, children and the decimation of whole species of non-humans life, the populace and politicians alike still remain ignorant and at sea as to what to do about it; or even if they did they already know their neo-con leaders and governments clearly never have had any mind to stop the war other than with: the sudden assassination of Zelensky or Putin themselves; the total collapse of Ukraine or Russia; a predictable total WWIII nuclear end game, or; whatever subsequent fascist rule finally will take over the whole world.

Thus far, the ideologues have tried everything in their power to prevent Russia from declaring victory with its Special Military Operation (SMO). There never was any consideration remotely given by Biden, the U.S. and NATO to ever sign a peace deal of any kind through diplomatic negotiations.

Finally, in desperation, to try to save face, they attempted to float the ridiculous phony ploy of turning the war into a so-called frozen conflict; like the stalemate that put a hold on the Korean War that actually never really ended; with over 30,000 US military forces still occupying Camp Humphreys, the world’s largest overseas US military base, located near the South Korean capital of Seoul. The Russians summarily laughed that proposal right off of the table and into the trash can of history.

But now the combatants on both sides have begun to resort to the ancient primitive strategies of brutal, no holds warfare by trying to assassinate the other’s sides leader, with the belief that if you cut off the head of the snake, you will kill the whole body. But that’s old school thinking. There already are too many crazed mad men and women now on both sides, equally prepared to ‘push the button of doom” quicker than the next guy.

Meanwhile…

Ukraine Sovereignty: A New World of Order Or Disorder for the Human Race?

The eminent Author-Journalist Patrick Lawrence recently pointed out in a piece, “Count the steady advance among non-Western nations towards what we now call a new world order. This is the single most momentous turn in history’s wheel that will define our century.”

But to listen to the speeches and pronouncements of those others in the power and policy cliques in Washington, like Fiona Hill, a former U.S. National Security Council member, and senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, one would think the emergence of powers like China, Russia and other Non-Western Nations, in such a multi-polar world, are the real dangerous elephants in the room, representing nothing more than One Step Forward and Two Steps Back for the human race and stability of any new world order.

Yet what China and Russia’s efforts are all about is just the opposite: to support and build a different kind of multi-polar world with the help of non-western allies, such as the BRICS and other non-western nations who support the completion of world projects like the Silk Road.

America Still Prefers to Speak Softly But Carry a Big Stick

But, now, returning back to the middle of the murderous, potential WWIII theatre in Ukraine, this war already has spread so much dissension and chaos throughout the entire world, in any number of economic, financial, political, ideological ways; while Biden and Company continue to resort to playing hardball towards all those who oppose the American way of life that he and those like Fiona Hill represent, that make the betrayal, duplicitous lies and deceit of the sabotage of the Nord Stream Pipeline look benign by comparison of what still lies ahead.

Biden, as the ‘Czar’ of all the fascist, Neo-Con NATO warmonger forces in Ukraine, has now given the green light to the some 31 NATO Nation members:

Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkiya, United Kingdom, and the U.S. ‑ to begin sending to the Ukrainian Air Force as many of their latest F-16 fighter jets, of which there already exists approximately 2,200 F-16’s in NATO’s collective air forces.

Perhaps, as the rapid escalation of the hostilities continues, and the war simultaneous worsens, and Biden & Company’s new ramped-up WWIII war strategy instead ‘heads south’, who knows, but maybe even some of America’s most deadly combat fighters in the world, like the cutting-edge, 4^th Generation F-34 jet fighters, will also be added to the F16’s in an attempt to totally dominate Russia’s air superiority.

See these:

• Ukraine could get DOZENS of ‘game-changing’ F-16s as Biden gives green light to hand over fighter jets | The Sun
• Biden approving plans to train Ukraine troops on F-16 fighter jets – National | Globalnews.ca

NATO Air Forces Train at Frisan Flag, Leeuwarden Air Base in Germany While America’s USS Aircraft Carrier Gerald R. Ford and Other Warships Train in Oslo and Other Carrier Strike Forces Train in the Arctic

Already, as a threatening prelude to Biden’s May 19^th virtual declaration of WWIII, Biden, has taken a page right out of President Teddy Roosevelt’s old imperialist war manual, and aggressive philosophy of “Speak Softly But Carry a Big Stick”. On May 24^th, Biden sent America’s newest, most expensive, state-of-the-art sea power, the 13.3 billion-dollar air craft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, to sail into Oslo, Norway, on its first historic so-called Good Will Tour, armed to the teeth, menacingly-close to NATO’s frontlines with Russia.

Later, the plan is to then sail into the Arctic Circle for several months duration, as part of Operation Silent Wolverine, with a carrier strike force of 90,000 military personnel, some sixty combat ready aircraft, and 20 ships from nine nations (U.S., Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden); including: Canada’s HMCS Peter Montreal (FF336); Denmark’s (HDMS Peter Willemoes (F362): Spain’s ESPS Alvaro de Bazen (F101); France’s ES Chevalier Paul (DB21); Netherlands HNLMS De Zeven Provincien (F802) and HNLMS Van Amslel.

The United States has further expanded its Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Force Group; with the George H. Bush Carrier Strike Force, operating off the coast of Italy, set to provide relief for the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group..

The USS Ford will be conducting training exercises with the Norwegian armed forces in the coming days and weeks, while the Russian Embassy in Oslo has pointedly gone on the record to curtly note, “There are no questions in the Arctic North that requires a military solution, nor topics where outside intervention is needed.”

USS Gerald R. Ford (Cvn 78) the Biggest & Deadliest Warship Afloat in the World

The Multi-layered Ship Defense Systems of the USS Gerald Ford has the awesome capacity to use: interceptor missiles and sensors to attack and destroy any and all rocket-propelled enemy drones, aircraft and surface threats of all kinds that Russia or any other enemy could send against it.

Before steaming into Oslo, it underwent a Battle Systems Ships Trials as part of its combat readiness training that included: simulated and active live threats to defend itself in any great power ocean war scenario. It also underwent defensive training against rocket-powered rockets and remote-controlled high speed maneuvering surface targets.

The USS Ford is geared to defend against an entirely-new sphere of enemy attack with its cutting-edge defense systems, such as: the Rolling Air Force Missile; Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles, and; MK-15 Phalanx Close-In Weapon System, capable of firing hundreds of armor-piercing tungsten bullets per-minute. Its Sea Sparrow ESSEM Block II missile is designed with a unique “sea-skimming mode that enables it to descend close to the surface, can destroy adversary anti-ship missiles moving parallel to the ocean’s surface, above the waterline. The ESSM Block II can skim the surface and eliminate any entirely new sphere of attacking enemy threat. Its CIWAS Weapon System can fire hundreds of small metal bullets at any incoming drones, missiles or helicopters.

The USS Gerald Ford, as well, is capable of carrying up to 90 aircraft, including the super 4^th Generation F-35 jet fighter, currently the deadliest in the world, as well as: F/A-18E/F Super Hornet Fighters; E-2D Advanced Hawkeye’s, EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft and MH-60 R/S helicopters, as well as unmanned air and combat vehicles.

The intended message and unambiguous threat by the presence of the USS Gerald Ford and its vast armada of war ships isn’t lost on President Putin and his military staff who already have vociferously lodged repeated protests to the UN and in the world media.

See these:

• The Multilayer Ship Defense Systems of USS Gerald R. Ford – Naval Post- Naval News and Information
• aircraft fightere jet capacity of Aircraft asrrieer USS Gerald Ford – Search (bing.com)

While this thinly-veiled ‘Good Will Tour’ by the USS Gerald Ford and armada continues, on March 28^th, all of NATO’s air forces also participated in an international air force exercise called Frisan Flag at Leeuwarden Air Base, Netherlands.

Exercise ‘Frisan Flag’ is a major NATO multi-national annual aerial exercise over the North Sea and skies above the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, similar to military ‘Flag’ exercises, such as the ‘Red Flag’ in the U.S., and ‘Maple Flag’ in Canada.

During ‘Frisan Flag’, air crews, twice daily, fly missions to prepare air crews for complex hostile environments, including missions that occur in high-intensity conflicts. Participating multi-national air crews plan and execute complex offense and defense training in realistic war scenarios.

Interestingly, in the lead up to WWII, the pilots of the German Luftwaffe, under Nazi Field Marshal Hermann Goring, also used Leeuwarden air base as a secret training base for the Nazi’s Messerschmitt fighters and Stuka bombers, and now Ukrainian pilots are likewise being trained there, as well, for future combat. Could this be history repeating itself?

Previous air combat units that have participated in Frisan Flag operations, as well, include: German Luftwaffe F-4 Phantoms; Finnish AF Boeing F-18c’s; Swedish AF Saab Jas 39 Gripen fighters; Belgium AF f-16 AM’s; Royal Netherlands Air Force XF-16ML’s; Polish Air Force F-16 C’s; French AF Mirage 200D’s; Royal Air Force Tornado GR-4’s; German Luftwaffe Euro Fighters; Swiss F/A-18C’s, and; the U.K.’s Dassault Falcon 20’s.

In 2023, Frisan Flag air combat participants also included: F-16s and AS 532U2’s from the Netherlands; Rafale and Mirage M2000’s from France; F-16CG’s from the U.S.; Eurofighter Typhoons from the U.K. and Eurofighter Typhoons from Italy; with even more Eurofighters from Germany and supporting E-3A AWAC’s of NATO.

Furthermore, Biden has now also encouraged NATO’s leaders to aggressively expedite the vigorous training of Ukrainian pilots in the immediate combat operations of their F-16 fighter jets against Russia’s Armed Forces, the Separatist Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, as well as the Crimea itself. Biden’s latest declaration of war against Russia is proof-positive of how duplicitous the flagrant intentions all along have been of America’s ‘War Party’ of radical Neo-Con Democrats, Republicans and their NATO allies. Clearly, this mobilization has been in the planning stages for some great time.

Dangerous Consequences of Biden’s Introduction of F-16 Fighter Jets

The training of Ukrainian pilots to effectively operate the F-16 fighter will take months, if not longer, let alone the same given lengthy-training required for the supporting ground crews, creation of adequate runways, maintenance facilities, etcetera, etcetera.

Which means, as a stop gap to put further pressure on Russia’s military actions, NATO countries will have no choice but to risk calling for volunteers from among their own pilots and air crews to join Ukraine’s so-called ‘International Legion for the Territorial Defense of Ukraine’. By now, if this isn’t a clear enough provocation of war, what is?

But, according to Russian Lieutenant General Igor Yevgenyevich Konashenkov, chief spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, these foreign fighters who actually do engage in the combat zone, legally, will be considered as nothing more than mere “foreign mercenaries”, “with no protection under international law who, at best, if captured, can expect to be prosecuted as criminals.”

Whether legal or not, such an unmistakably-clear act of aggression in the war would be but yet another outrageously-risky move, one-step away from invoking a total nuclear war with Russia. If such volunteer pilots and crew men were shot down and captured, they would obviously be subjected to a world-wide show trial, and treated as common criminals subject to possible execution. The world tensions these trials would create would be immense.

Meanwhile, U.S. CIA clandestine propaganda campaigns, through social media outlets like Telegram, already also are ramping up the clandestine training and recruiting of Russian dissidents within Russia itself to spy or, even worse, commit attacks within Russia itself. The war in Ukraine will only continue to become even uglier as it dangerously deteriorates all the more and continues to spill across Russia’s borders.

Very abruptly, in any number of unprecedented, unpredictable ways, the continued aggressions of a 1,000 cuts will continue to lead to other dangerous unpredictable, unexpected tensions that could instantaneously turn into any number of nuclear flash points.

Biden’s ‘green light’ to NATO is an unmistakable provocation and signal to Russia and its allies that “the gloves are now off”, and that America and NATO are prepared to escalate Russia’s SMO to whatever it takes, whatever the consequences.

Good luck for any hope of diplomatic peace negotiations to ever try to bring an end to all the hostilities. Those hopes have all been just blown out the backs of a growing number of hostile attacking F-16’s after burners, as it were.

See this: The Dogfight No One Wants: Russia’s Su-57 vs America’s F-35 | The National Interest

Epilogue

The causes of WWI and WWII, and the unprecedented slaughter and destruction of human beings, human society, that of the natural world and all non-human life, have been endlessly debated since they each ended, physically but not ideologically. In the case of WWI, the brutal assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austria-Hungary Empire, is often simplistically described as the spark that propelled Europe into the greatest conflict the European continent had ever known up to that time, that eventually sucked the rest of the entire world into its evil vortex.

The same could be said for the ‘spark’ that set off WWII: with a multitude of similar complex desires by other world leaders prepared to dominate new territories and natural resources, because they still craved an ever-larger slice of the pie of whatever existing ‘spoils of war’.

The unquenchable greedy desire among nations to forever expand their empires is nothing new in European or any other nation’s history. Never has been nor never will.

Now, with yet ever-newer high-tech revelations in AI science, industry, military weaponry and ever more wild-fluctuations and imbalances in the corporate-financial world, the tinder is once more set at flash point for yet another WIII; by far greater than the previous two, that in slow motion, with every cut of a 1,000 cuts in Ukraine, continues to become more unbelievably-horrible with each news release.

The human world and its out-of-control societies simply haven’t learned a whit how to better the plight of human life and the conditions for life itself on Earth. Those historians, who manage to survive WWIII, will be left to once more debate for the next century or longer which one of the 1,000 cuts finally became ‘the spark’ that set off the ensuing catastrophe.

The same old entangled competing political alliances, high-tech militarism that led to primitive tit-for-tat retaliations; ever-snowballing unparalleled corrupt corporate greed and financial imperialism, similar to WWI & WWII; will all be future topics of ‘woe is me’ focus and endless debate as to what was the ultimate final one of the 1,000 cuts was it that led this time to the death of the human story on earth as we now know it.

Yet the Western World’s corporate press remains virtually silent – deaf, dumb and blind – about what the revealed truths are about the human condition that the war in Ukraine so far has revealed. They wouldn’t recognize or even report about what they saw, even if it stared back at them every time they looked at themselves in a mirror.

Their readership among the citizenry no different. Each day, they walk, hand-in-hand, down the garden path together, both simultaneously expectant and apprehensive towards what awaits them on their Big Day together. Both unsure of what all the unknowns are that yet await.

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The writer Jerome Irwin is a Canadian-American writer who originally was a Criminology student working in one of America’s local police departments. For decades, Irwin has sought to call world attention to problems of environmental degradation and unsustainability caused by a host of environmental-ecological-spiritual issues that exist between the conflicting world philosophies of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.

Irwin is the author of the book, “The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey” (www.turtle-island-odyssey.com), a spiritual odyssey among the native peoples of North America that has led to numerous articles pertaining to: Ireland’s Fenian Movement; native peoples Dakota Access Pipeline Resistance Movement; AIPAC, Israel & the U.S. Congress anti-BDS Movement; the historic Battle for Palestine & Siege of Gaza, as well as; the many violations constantly being waged by industrial-corporate-military-propaganda interests against the World’s Collective Soul. The author and his wife are long-time residents on the North Shore of British Columbia.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: NATO’s Air Force Trains At Frisan Flag, Leeuwarden Air Base Where Nazi Luftwaffe Secretly Trained In 1938

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*** 

 

 

 

Russia’s Interior Ministry has issued an arrest warrant for South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham after video surfaced of the Republican hawk telling Ukrainian officials that “Russians are dying” due to US military aid and that “it’s the best money we ever spent.”

There are claims that the video released of the Friday meeting in Kiev wherein Graham spoke the words to Ukraine’s President Zelensky were edited, however. And yet, it was Zelensky himself that posted the edited clip to his official social media channels. 

Russia’s Investigative Committee announced the criminal case against Graham as he “declared the financial involvement of the United States is causing the death of Russian citizens.”

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reacted to Graham’s provocative statements by saying, “It’s difficult to imagine a greater shame for a country than having such senators” while Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said the Republican Senator is an “old fool.”

The arrest warrant and him being placed on a ‘wanted list’ will of course remain largely symbolic, given Graham certainly won’t be traveling to Russian territory or through its airspace anytime in the foreseeable future.

"The Russians are dying. It is the best money we've ever spent."

~ Lindsey Graham, United States Senator laughs while Ukraine President Zelenskyy nods.

pic.twitter.com/U4XrDmoWF3

— The Poll Lady (@ThePollLady) May 28, 2023

On Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry responded to reporting from Reuters which said Graham’s remarks were taken out of context: 

Reports by Reuters that remarks by US Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican, South Carolina) made during a meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky may have been taken out of context represent clumsy, shameless excuses, a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry made public on Monday said.

“‘It turns out,’ that’s not what Senator Graham said or how he said it. Just like with similar cannibalistic musings by former US President George W. Bush, clumsy, shameful excuses are being bandied about: so, allegedly, the senator’s words were taken out of context, there was some ‘editing’ and so on. Who would have doubted that the politician himself and his spin doctors, such as the top Anglo-Saxon media outlets and news agencies, would, as they say, ‘play dumb.’ What’s next? They will tell us that Lindsey Graham is a product of [artificial intelligence] and doesn’t actually exist?” the Foreign Ministry asked rhetorically. It stressed that this “attempt is doomed to fail.” “It is already impossible to clean oneself [and one’s reputation] from the stain of such remarks, even if they were uttered separately,” the ministry added.

But again, it was the Ukrainian presidency’s office itself that was responsible for the editing and circulating of the remarks in the first place.

Note: it was Ukraine that edited & posted the video that looked like Graham said killing Russians was the best money the US ever spent. After sh%*tstorm, they are now releasing longer version. https://t.co/glsUUUiW1G pic.twitter.com/8JyEMy8sX2

— Kelley B. Vlahos (@KelleyBVlahos) May 29, 2023

According to The Hill: “Graham appeared to make the comments in different parts of the conversation, which was edited and posted on Zelensky’s social media account.” 

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Featured image: Senator Lindsey Graham (Licensed under Creative Commons)

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Independent medical scientists who are not dependent on a Big Pharma salary or research grant, a minority of medical scientists as Big Pharma reportedly is the source of 70% of medical research grants and provides support to friendly medical schools, have provided conclusive evidence that the Covid-19 “vaccine” is responsible for many deaths and health issues. 

The unprecedented phenomenon of vaccinated children dying in their sleep, of athletes and entertainers dropping dead on the field and stage, along with the same happening to people in all ages of life is being dismissed by the medical establishment at work covering up for itself as just a coincidence.  The whore media refuses to report the findings of independent scientists or investigate the large numbers of deaths and health injuries following the Covid mass vaccination.

In the face of the evidence that the “vaccine” is dangerous, Medicare continues to urge vaccination as do pharmacies.  What explains such reckless and irresponsible advice in the face of the evidence?

What explains the appearance of the Covid virus, engineered in labs with NIH grants, practically simultaneously in every country of the world?

What explains the same Covid protocols everywhere except Brazil, India, and Africa–the lockdowns, masks, mass vaccinations, and never-ending production of fear?

What explains the urgency of the mass vaccination campaign in the face of the mounting evidence that the vax was ineffective and dangerous?

Why were Covid “vaccines” and test kits in production prior to the appearance of the virus?

What explains the censorship of medical scientists? Why were alternative explanations and alternative treatments unwelcome and prohibited?

What explains the punishments of doctors who saved lives with HCQ and Ivermectin? Why did doctors lose jobs and licenses for saving lives?

In the face of a virus claimed to be deadly, why were treatments outside the protocol treatment banned as dangerous. Both HCQ and Ivermectin have safety records stretching back decades, yet were declared too dangerous to be used in emergency situations to treat an allegedly deadly virus. But a dangerous untested “vaccine” was not too dangerous to be used?

Why does the effort continue to censor and suppress the truth and to discredit distinguished scientists who establish the actual facts?

Why did the entire medical systems of the Western World completely fail, and why do they continue to fail, providing no explanation for the rise in excess deaths following vaccination and no help for those injured by the vax?

Why have medical officials and the media lowered an iron curtain between the facts and the people?

These and other questions point to the fact that the “Covid pandemic” and the response to it were orchestrated for a purpose of purposes. 

Was it Big Pharma’s profits? 

Was it to advance government’s intrusions on civil liberties? 

Was it population control? 

Was it a mass experiment on the human population with gene-altering mRNA technology?

Was it to advance the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset”?

Without an honest media and  honest medical societies, we will never find out.  Congress can hold hearings, as Senator Ron Johnson has, but they go unreported by the presstitutes.

It appears that accountability has been blocked.  So expect another pandemic.  Bill Gates, who is suspected of having a heavy hand in devising the “Covid pandemic,” has already promised us another.  How can anyone know of a pandemic in advance?

Below are some recent findings that go unreported by the whore media and are denied by the Big Pharma-dependent medical establishment:

• After Much Death and Suffering the Truth about the Covid-19 “vaccine” is Creeping Out

Even Big Pharma marketing agent FDA admits “vaccinated children aged 12 to 17 face a heightened risk of myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, and a related condition called pericarditis.” See this.

• The Medical Journal The Lancet Retracted the Fake Study that Prevented Use of a Known Cure for Covid-19, see this.
• Israel Concludes that Covid Was a Hoax Hyped by a Fear Campaign

Data proves No healthy young adults died of Covid-19 in Israel 

Israeli Ministry of Health continues trying to cover up for Big Pharma

Covid only endangered untreated elderly. See this.

• Peter Koenig, a former World Bank and World Health Organization official warns us of what is to come.

This is not “conspiracy theory.” See this.

• Excess Deaths Are Exploding, Experts Remain Stumped, see this.
• Died Suddenly: COVID-19 Vaccinated Pregnant Women Continue to Die Unexpectedly From Perinatal Complications. Stillbirths, Blood Clots, Bleeding, Infections and More, see this.
• Parent survey results: vaccines increase the risk of autism, autoimmune disorders, etc., see this.

Americans do not understand that the medical profession is dominated by Big Pharma and operates for the benefit of Big Pharma’s profits. According to reports, 70% of medical research grants come from Big Pharma which gives pharmaceutical corporations enormous power over the content of medical journals.  

Big Pharma has succeeded in getting legislation that is driving doctors out of independent private practice and forcing them to become employees of corporate medicine where they have to follow protocols essentially handed down by Big Pharma.  The unavoidable fact is that the US medical system is run for the benefit of Big Pharma’s profits.  Regulatory authorities such as FDA, CDC, and NIH are marketing agents for Big Pharma.  The media is dependent on pharmaceutical advertising revenues.  Consequently, Americans are kept in the dark about what has, and is, being done to them.

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense 

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“Covidism: Contagious Deception” is the most comprehensive documentary on COVID-19 as it thoroughly analyzes both the scientific and political aspects of this terrible crisis.

The documentary was written and produced by Bonum Vincit (pseudonym), an independent Bulgarian film producer who prefers to remain anonymous.

It took the author almost 3 years and thousands of hours of meticulous research to make the movie.

Part 1 carefully examines how authorities worldwide have been gaming the numbers regarding cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the alleged coronavirus.

Part 1 also explains how health officials actively suppressed safe and effective treatments for Covid-19, while employing deadly protocols for hospital patients.

Part 2 focuses on the fascinating timeline of events, which led to the global Covid-19 response, and investigates whether or not the science on the lethality and infectivity of Sars-Cov-2 justified countermeasures such as lockdowns and mask-wearing.

Part 3 is a deep dive into the topic of Covid-19 vaccines, detailing the plethora of scientific evidence for their unsafe and ineffective nature, while exposing the deceptive tactics of manipulating the statistics.

Part 4 puts all the pieces of the puzzle together, exposing the premeditated sinister political motivations behind the global Covid-19 response, and how it is intricately tied to a much larger agenda – The Great Reset.

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This was originally published on Health Impact News.

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A Washington state appeals court this week granted an emergency injunction to a retired doctor who faces disciplinary action from the Washington Medical Commission (WMC) arising from articles he published in a local newspaper in 2021, questioning the official narrative and medical advice related to COVID-19.

Dr. Richard Eggleston, a retired ophthalmologist in Clarkston, Washington, wrote the articles as part of an ongoing column in the Lewiston Morning Tribune. He challenged the WMC’s disciplinary proceedings against him on First Amendment free speech grounds.

According to Tuesday’s ruling:

“The Commission seeks to sanction Dr. Eggleston based on allegations that he, a currently retired physician and surgeon whose license is currently retired active-in-state volunteering, committed unprofessional conduct.”

This “unprofessional conduct” pertained to alleged “false statements” Eggleston made “regarding medical issues and promulgated misinformation regarding the SARS-CoV-2 virus and treatments for the virus.”

The stay delays hearings that were scheduled to begin this week in the Washington Court of Appeals and gives the WMC a brief opportunity to withdraw its charges against Eggleston. Otherwise, the legal process will continue.

In an interview with The Defender, Eggleston said the ruling was appropriate. “I’m very happy to see that this part of the legal system understands this First Amendment issue and basic rights to get accurate information from a physician.”

Todd Richardson, one of the attorneys representing Eggleston, told The Defender:

“We are very gratified to have the court of appeals grant the stay in this matter. I have believed that Dr. Eggleston’s First Amendment rights were being trammeled, and it was of deep concern how slightly the Constitution was considered by the commission, the legislature and others.

“As Americans, if we don’t conscientiously defend these foundational rights and freedoms, we may soon wake up to realize we have lost them. “

Rick Jaffe, an attorney also representing Eggleston, told The Defender:

“The Washington Medical Commission is under the constitutionally mistaken belief that medical boards can discipline physicians for what they say in public. That was something that was floated by the Federation of State Medical Boards [FSMB] in a July 2021 press release, but since then every single state that has considered doing this has backed off, except in Washington.

“Every single justice and judge who has addressed this issue in the past 75 years has said that licensing agencies cannot interfere with the public speech of their licensees.”

The July 2021 FSMB press release stated:

“Physicians who generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation or disinformation are risking disciplinary action by state medical boards, including the suspension or revocation of their medical license. Due to their specialized knowledge and training, licensed physicians possess a high degree of public trust and therefore have a powerful platform in society, whether they recognize it or not.

“They also have an ethical and professional responsibility to practice medicine in the best interests of their patients and must share information that is factual, scientifically grounded and consensus-driven for the betterment of public health.

“Spreading inaccurate COVID-19 vaccine information contradicts that responsibility, threatens to further erode public trust in the medical profession and puts all patients at risk.”

Lawyers for Eggleston told The Defender this is one of several dozen similar cases the WMC launched against doctors who did not uniformly follow the establishment COVID-19 narrative.

“I am told that there are 60 Washington physicians who are being investigated or prosecuted in part because of their questioning the mainstream COVID narrative,” Jaffe added.

Judge: ‘Chilling effect on speech’ arising from possibility of prosecution is itself a First Amendment violation

According to the Lewiston Tribune, Eggleston sought the stay in order to seek First Amendment protections for his speech, arguing the WMC “seeks to silence the public expression of opinions it disagrees with” and “sanction disfavored opinions.”

Tuesday’s ruling means a delay to a disciplinary hearing with the WMC that had been scheduled for Wednesday through Friday.

“The state’s lawyer, Kristin Brewer, argued in the May 17 hearing that Eggleston’s First Amendment rights were not being violated, because the disciplinary hearing necessary to impose sanctions had not been held,” the Lewiston Tribune reported.

In Tuesday’s ruling, the state argued that its witnesses and members of the WMC would be “inconvenienced” by the stay. However, the court ruled that the WMC “has not demonstrated that a stay would cause actual harm to the public.”

Siding with Eggleston, court commissioner Hailey L. Landrus said he “has a competing interest in enjoining the disciplinary proceedings in order to seek First Amendment protection for his speech, which is the reason for the administrative proceedings in the first place.”

“Denying a stay would … violate his constitutional right to free speech,” Landrus added.

Landrus also referenced a 1965 U.S. Supreme Court decision — Dombrowski v. Pfister — in which the court ruled that the chilling effect on speech arising from the possibility of prosecution was itself a First Amendment violation.

A commissioner is a judge appointed by a court to hear certain limited legal matters in a timely manner.

“I was cheering when I got it,” Richardson told the Lewiston Tribune. “It is a preliminary ruling, and I don’t know what the commission is going to do about it. And so there may be a great deal of work yet to come.”

The WMC now has 10 days to file a motion to reverse the emergency stay. If it does so, Eggleston’s lawyers will have three days to respond. A panel of three judges will then decide whether to reverse the stay.

Lawyers for Eggleston told The Defender the stay is preliminary. If the three-judge panel chooses not to modify the stay, the case will then proceed in appellate court — unless the WMC opts to withdraw its charges against Eggleston.

Richardson shared an analysis of the ruling and the current status of the case with The Defender:

“What does the ruling mean? First, that Dr. Eggleston is not facing a commission panel for three days of testimony and argument to determine whether he gets to keep his license. That day may yet come as this is a preliminary ruling — but if that day comes, it will be sometime down the road and it will require that a series of courts refuse to protect the good doctor’s First Amendment rights. And I really don’t anticipate that to happen.”

Richardson said unless the commission withdraws the charges, “we will proceed with the appeal. Assuming we prevail, then the case could be appealed up to the Washington Supreme Court and/or into the federal court system.”

Otherwise, the case would be sent back to the trial judge for a hearing on whether a permanent injunction should be issued, Richardson said.

According to the Lewiston Tribune, “If the appeal process for the preliminary injunction moves forward, it could take six to 12 months to see a ruling.”

Doctors ‘being persecuted for telling patients the truth’

The WEC claims it received “complaints regarding Respondent’s pseudoscientific publications” in September 2021. The sources of these complaints were not specified in the legal filings reviewed by The Defender.

The specific charges levied against Eggleston include unprofessional conduct, misrepresentation or fraud in any aspect of the conduct of the business or profession, and interference with an investigation or disciplinary proceeding by “willful misrepresentation of facts.”

The WMC relied on a series of articles Eggleston published in 2021, for his ongoing column in the Lewiston Tribune, including:

• “Ivermectin is becoming the standard of care” (Sept. 5, 2021).
• “COVID-19 is a deception for taking control” (July 11, 2021).
• “Powers that be suppress the truth about COVID-19” (June 13, 2021).
• “When it comes to COVID-19, dare to be a free thinker” (March 17, 2021).

According to the legal filings, the Lewiston Tribune had a 2017 circulation of approximately 25,000in southeastern Washington and north-central Idaho, in addition to its online edition.

Eggleston’s Sept. 5, 2021, article stated that “ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are very effective and safe, and should be used along with vitamins C and D, melatonin, zinc, and quercetin,” and referenced “those who wish to control our individual lives and make us part of a Marxist/fascist collective.”

His July 11, 2021, article referenced censorship of non-establishment COVID-19 views in the media, naming the Trusted News Initiative as one of the actors responsible for this, along with Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum. “‘Fear porn’ is always the tool of tyrants,” Eggleston wrote.

In January, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) filed an antitrust lawsuit against the Trusted News Initiative, a consortium of news organizations including The Associated Press, BBC, Reuters and The Washington Post, alleging they colluded with other news outlets and social media platforms to censor diverging viewpoints on COVID-19.

Eggleston’s June 13, 2021, article was critical of the World Health Organization, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, suggesting that “Many entities want ivermectin to disappear.” He characterized medical journals such as JAMA, The Lancet, Nature and Chest as “ivermectin disinformation sources.”

And in his March 17, 2021, article, Eggleston said he believes that “soon, ivermectin, the inhaled steroid budesonide and others will be the standard of care for prevention and treatment of SARSCov2 (COVID-19).”

The WMC argued that in these and other articles Eggleston wrote in 2021, he “identified himself as a licensed physician by using ‘M.D.’ in the tagline included at the end of the column,” adding that in multiple instances in these columns, Eggleston:

• Made false statements regarding medical issues and promulgated misinformation regarding the SARS-CoV-2 virus and treatments for the virus.
• Minimized deaths from SARS-CoV-2.
• Stated that polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are inaccurate for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis.
• Stated that COVID-19 vaccines and mRNA vaccines are harmful or ineffective.
• Stated that ivermectin is a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19.

The WMC also alleged Eggleston “willfully misrepresented facts with regard to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and denied that it existed,” in statements he made to the commission.

These “willfully misrepresented statements,” according to the WMC, included stating that there is “no absolute proof that the SARS-CoV-2 exists” and “influenza cases nearly disappeared in 2020 as influenza was relabeled ‘COVID’ … due to faulty testing.”

‘I’m not going to be afraid to write’

Eggleston and his attorneys argue that he was merely expressing his opinion “to become part of the public debate,” and that at no time did he “use his opinion article to treat, diagnose, or provide care for any patient.”

Instead, his articles in the Lewiston Tribune were “published in an effort to further public debate and offer alternative thoughts and information,” adding that such “content-based restriction on speech” by the WMC “is a violation of the First Amendment and Art. 1, Sec. 5 of the Washington State Constitution.”

Eggleston’s lawyers told The Defender the WMC has given itself broad authority to define “practicing medicine,” including arguing that if a person is practicing medicine if he or she uses the designation “physician,” “surgeon” or “M.D.” on “cards, books, papers, signs, or other written or printed means of giving information to the public.”

Eggleston told The Defender he loves to read, but at some point decided he needed “to do something.” When an opportunity became available at the Lewiston Tribune for a columnist, he applied and was hired.

He said he did not know who submitted the complaints against him, but he expected the WMC would take action against him for his writings. However, in deciding to start writing, he felt he had to stand up for his beliefs.

“I knew that was coming when I started to write this and I suspected that, at some time, someone would follow with a complaint to the commission,” Eggleston said.

“I’m going to write these things. I’m not going to be afraid to write,” he added.

‘I think it is important to realize how fragile our rights can be’

The legal action against Eggleston has followed a circuitous route. The WMC informed him of its investigation on Oct. 5, 2021. He was subsequently served with a Statement of Charges on Aug. 4, 2022, to which Eggleston filed a response on Oct. 9, 2022. The hearing was scheduled for May 24-26, 2023.

Eggleston filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and a motion to expedite his hearing on March 10. On March 17, the second of the two motions was granted by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington.

Separate motions by Eggleston to dismiss the case and for a preliminary injunction were rejected on April 28 and May 17.

Jaffe credited CHD with supporting Eggleston in this case. “This is now the second time a CHD-backed case has resulted in stopping a medical board from enforcing COVID misinformation prosecutions,” Jaffe said.

Richardson highlighted the importance of protecting and preserving constitutional rights, telling The Defender:

“One thing is certain — Dr. Eggleston didn’t need this fight as he is over 80 years old and has been retired for over 10 years, but as an old Army veteran, he chose to stand up again and defend the rights of others and he isn’t about to back down now. Dr. Eggleston has had his integrity and medical understanding publicly challenged. Reporters, colleagues, and laymen have judged him, but time is proving him right.

“I think it is important to realize how fragile our rights can be. When we protect them from usurpation, they are robust and form the bulwark of our constitutional system. But if we fail to keep watch over them, those who seek power will quickly attempt to invade them in the most creative of ways, and if they are successful, we will be left forever impoverished for their loss.”

Eggleston said he “looks forward to this battle” and that he is fighting it not for himself, but “for my children, my grandchildren, everyone else’s children and all the other doctors who are being persecuted for telling patients the truth.”

“I actually look forward to this battle, because this is such an important thing, fighting for the First Amendment and patients’ rights to be protected,” he said. “I think we have a great chance to set a standard and set a precedent for freedom of speech by physicians.”

“You have to stand up for what you think is right because you may not have a lot of time to do it.

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Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

Featured image is from CHD

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As with most things espoused in the name of social progress, the left’s aggressive push for EV technology conveniently forgets the lives of those affected by it the most.

“On my watch, the great American road trip is going to be fully electrified…you can get up to $7,500 on a new electric vehicle,” Biden exclaimed during a photo-op in a shiny electric Hummer. I bet that tax credit will come in handy when the average American is forced to buy a $60,000 EV after gas-powered cars are banned outright.

Leftists love to harp on the life-or-death need to eliminate anything non-electric. Biden is currently setting his sights on an emissions mandate that could severely limit the accessibility of gas-powered cars to blue-collar citizens. The administration is justifying its control of the market by stating that it’s the equitable thing to do.

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced:

“President Biden’s historic clean energy laws are making it possible for us to get more EVs on the road by expanding charging infrastructure into underserved communities, while reducing range and cost anxiety among drivers who want to go electric.”

I’m sure Granholm herself traveled to these underserved communities to see what gives those people “cost anxiety.” For some reason, I don’t think that EVs are anywhere remotely on their minds.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg affirmed that he would be using $1 billion dollars from the laughably bipartisan infrastructure bill to, “deconstruct the racism that was built into the roadways.” Mr. Pete is one of the elites who celebrated the immense spikes in gasoline prices as that somehow meant that more people would be inclined to buy EVs. Since then, he’s been hard at work to desegregate the highways and combat systemically oppressive potholes.

The Road To Hell is Paved With ‘Good Intentions’

What these short-sighted armchair activists fail to realize is that their green absolutism actually promotes inequality. Do they know what is being done to satiate their need for all these electric batteries?

Slavery and child labor.

No, I’m not being hyperbolic. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), so-called “artisanal” miners work in extremely dangerous conditions to mine cobalt and nickel-elements crucial in the production of batteries seen in electric cars like Teslas, Fords, and VWs. Men, women, and children scrounge about in debilitating heat and die in mine shaft collapses while the militias who “recruited” them from villages across the country look on in indifference. At best, these indentured servants are paid a dollar or two a day for their grueling work.

This is the reality of the mines that produce cobalt for your electric cars ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/AnT6jSP547

— FEE (Foundation for Economic Education) (@feeonline) May 25, 2023

Siddharth Kara, a fellow at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health studied these mining operations and noted: “Cobalt is toxic to touch and breathe-and there are hundreds of thousands of poor Congolese people touching and breathing it… Young mothers with babies strapped to their backs, all breathing in this toxic cobalt dust. There’s complete cross-contamination between industrial excavator-derived cobalt and cobalt dug by women and children with their bare hands.”

There are an estimated 40,000 children working in these toxic mines, with many of them being as young as six.

So much for “clean energy.”

What’s even more terrifying is that as these operations are unaccounted for in official audits thanks to local corruption and gray-market business tactics, there’s no telling exactly how many people are working in these dangerous conditions under the threat of force.

Now despite being illegal, these operations are widespread throughout the country—and are well funded by outside interests. It is estimated that around 70 percent of Congolese mining operations are owned by Chinese government-backed investment firms. So we now not only have the issue of questionable business practices and unsafe work environments in poverty-stricken regions, but also a multi-billion dollar industry which directly benefits an authoritarian government well known for its genocidal practices.

That doesn’t sound equitable.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil…

Even when faced with these glaring human rights abuses, the west has been peculiarly mute on the subject. You certainly don’t see any big-name politicians protesting the manufacture of such covetable batteries, do you? At the bottom of this violent supply chain, you have Congolese of all ages dying or becoming seriously injured while being forced to mine toxic cobalt veins. At the end of the day, these are the people who are supporting the west’s EV production.

From the legacy media and politicians we receive only silence. How can they say that America switching to completely EV-based transportation will bring equity to our racist country, when their own policies directly support modern-day African slavery outfits?

Those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder have to pay for their ‘enlightened’ whims. Why should the elites care? All this systemic abuse is being committed in some far away land-out of sight, out of mind. It’s not an issue because it’s over there. This is the sort of “progress” politicians are rooting for, regardless of how many Ford electrics they sell.

As Henry Hazlitt pointed out: “The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups.”

That is the issue. Lawmakers and business moguls don’t care about the real-world ramifications of their actions. While they push “equitable” standards in a P.R stunt to get better ESG scores, they are completely neglecting the actual life-or-death effects of “green” legislation.

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Connor Vasile is a first-generation American and writer who wishes to raise awareness about classical liberal ideas which empower every individual, no matter their background or experience, to live their best lives and fulfill their goals. 

Featured image: Artisanal mining in the Congo | Fairphone-Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0

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AI Turning Losing Path for US

The US is losing. Recently, Ukraine just aired hopes and ideas about a ceasefire. Sanctions are ineffective on Russia. The US is not winning on Taiwan either. The Ukraine war has depleted US and NATO war stocks. The US cannot produce artillery shells and the US hasn’t even got anti-ship missiles left for one week of war with China. Every wargame shows that the US will lose a conflict to China. In the Middle East, the US is losing influence to China and Russia. Iran and Saudi Arabia are making friends, Syria is back, and Iran cannot be stopped from acquiring a nuclear bomb with missiles to deliver it as well. Türkiye has de-facto left NATO and the US nemesis Erdogan just won another presidential term. BRICS is de-dollarizing and there are 13 countries applying to join BRISCS. In many ways, the global position of the US is in disarray.

AI is a game changer set to more than compensate the US for all this.

The US is in control of the global AI race. The US controls all the big AI models. The US controls the microchips for building powerful AI data centers. The US controls the data centers for AI as well. The US even dominates the software companies making use of AI.

Coming soon – the impact of AI will be far bigger than Ukraine and Taiwan.

Scale and Speed of AI

Microsoft recently announced it is building 120 mega-big AI data centers per year. One every three days. I researched what one such data center might cost. I found one data center at $ 300 million, and another one at $ 500 million. Multiply that with 120 data centers, and you get that Microsoft in one year invests $ 40-60 billion in AI data centers alone.

On top, Microsoft has invested heavily in new technology to design what Microsoft claims are the fastest AI data centers in the World. Microsoft’s many data centers are already divided into 60 “regions” covering all the Globe. Microsoft also recently put $ 10 billion into OpenAI. And Microsoft is not done yet, so we easily see a figure on the horizon of $ 100 billion investments by Microsoft alone.

Google is on the same path with DeepMind and Google’s own mega-data centers. Amazon is also into AI and Amazon runs what are perhaps the biggest data centers in the World for the US military and security apparatus – Amazon is definitely following up too with mega-investments in the AI and data center development. Due to the need to supply chips to the data centers of Microsoft and others, the value of NVIDIA just jumped to nearly $ 1 trillion. Add to this the enormous public and private investments in chips etc. in the US, EU, and East Asia. We also see how all the big software companies in the West invest heavily to incorporate Microsoft’s AI into their products. Don’t be surprised if the total investments in AI and AI-driven technologies (incl. chips) over just a couple of years run up to $ 1 trillion.

Impact

Take the announcements of one study that already-existing AI will increase productivity by 40%. Add a report that already-existing AI increases programming productivity by 1200%. And then read reports that soon doctors with AI-systems will outcompete doctors without AI. Lawyers with AI-systems will outcompete lawyers without. And we must conclude: Military officers with AI-systems to support them will also “outcompete” military officers without. This is just the beginning. Nobody can imagine even 2 years from now. AI is a complete game changer. There is a reason why Western societies may invest even $ 1 trillion in AI. And that is because AI is worth many more trillions. Each trillion gained by AI is 5% additional GDP to the US or the EU, UK. The productivity gains of AI are enormous, and the impact is everywhere.

And it’s already happening now.

ChatGPT is already here, the fastest growing application in history. The 120 big data centers are already being built. A plethora of AI systems are already being prepared for use in 2024.

US Hope

The US is hard pressed geopolitically.

But AI technology changes the game. If the US can tighten its control on the EU long enough, the US can expect to reap huge competitive advantages already in 2025. There can come a downturn for the US due to geopolitical losses etc. 2023-2025, but already in 2026, the power of these new technologies could already outweigh those losses. Nobody knows, but there is a very real possibility that that could happen. Beijing will get Taiwan but not the chip production or the AI. There is a scenario where the US loses in the short term but wins already on the mid-term due to extremely powerful technological AI and other capabilities which are underway.

Which development will prevail? Will the short-term pressure on the US prevail, or will the mid-term US superiority in AI, chips, Quantum Computing, and Industrial use of Space turn the tides for the US?

Nobody can answer that question for sure, but there is a viable scenario how the US can pull it off. The more information about AI comes to light, the more it becomes evident that the AI technology which the US leads is extremely powerful – enough to change power in the World.

Productivity gains of 40% to 1200% in everything will only be reaped by the US and friends of the US. Without access to AI, China will sink behind and Russia will drop. US President Biden dreams that China will never overtake the US in GDP: AI may lead to that. Imagine a country without Internet. Soon, countries without AI will be in a similar situation. Nobody will invest in a country without AI. Countries without AI will lose exports to countries with.

Dangerous Bet for China and Russia

China and Russia can choose to continue as if what I point out were not an existential risk to take seriously. India too. Their leaders may perhaps have good information to believe that these technologies will not be sufficiently game-changing, and that they will at any rate have time enough to catch up. And then they can just complacently hope that what they already do on autopilot will help them achieve their objectives. China may have a lot of big projects up its sleeve in UV lithography, chip technology, AI, Quantum Computing etc. which they have reason to believe will overtake the US in a few years. Who knows? But it is much more likely otherwise, in which case their bet can be so terribly wrong that they can lose the farm.

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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author