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Introduction

The COVID narrative is falling apart,[i] and the great post-pandemic cover-up has begun.

On Saturday January 22, 2022, Canada’s Globe and Mail ran a retrospective on the pandemic by well-known psychiatrist and author, Dr. Norman Doidge – entitled “Vaccines are a tool, not a silver bullet.”[ii] 

The next day the article was tweeted to me:

Curious, I read over what turned out to be a 7,113-word limited hangout[iii] justifying the Covid-19 response – and shared Mr. Farquharson’s anger about what had not been addressed.

This may be the first serious media attempt to gloss over mounting evidence that the world was made to endure the prolonged Covid-19 disaster unnecessarily.

Why did the Globe and Mail publish a near book-length rationale[iv] for a two-year horror show in which the media and Big Tech systematically suppressed all expert medical divergence from the official public health narrative?

Coincidentally, the Globe article appeared the same day, January 22, as a two-hour podcast entitled “Collapse of the Public Health Narrative, & the Gathering Storm,” featuring two of the organizers of the Worldwide Freedom March that was to be held the next day in Washington DC.

These organizers, Dr. Bret Weinstein and Dr. Chris Martenson, are two very concerned evolutionary biologists.

Scheduled to speak at the Washington rally were a group of practising, highly successful early treatment doctors – including Dr. Pierre Kory, Dr. Paul Marik, and Dr. Peter McCullough, along with pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole and vaccinologist Dr. Robert W. Malone.

Dr. Malone, who holds some of the earliest patents for mRNA technology, had earlier become known to Americans during a drug safety interview with Dr. Weinstein and philanthropist Steve Kirsch in a June 2021 podcast that went viral.[v]

Many Malone interviews followed, and on the last day of 2021 he was heard by 50 million people in a 3-hour interview with Joe Rogan, who is more popular than CNN.

They discussed one of the most mysterious aspects of the official narrative:  why is a cheap, safe, and plentiful early treatment drug like ivermectin, listed by the WHO as an essential medicine, so maligned as “horse paste?” And why, given its strong evidence of efficacy with Covid,[vi] are doctors prevented from prescribing it?

This growing controversy was threatening to spill over into the mainstream, which needed a famous psychiatrist to cool things down before the Freedom March and the truck convoys began.

We will turn first to the Globe’s marathon op-ed, and then to its coincident same-day antithesis, the Weinstein-Martenson podcast.

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Part I:  The Globe

The Globe reports that in April 2020 (early in the pandemic), following WHO financier Bill Gates’ emphatic statement that “the only thing that really lets us go back completely to normal and feel good…is to create a vaccine,”

“we put our faith in the vaccines, while other approaches – such as drugs for early treatment, or a role for our natural immunity, or lowering our personal risk factors, for instance – got comparatively less attention.”

Indeed these “other approaches” received virtually no attention. Successful early treatments were entirely suppressed during the eight months the world waited for rushed clinical trials that would usher in the experimental mRNA vaccines by late December 2020.

“Our personal risk factors”, such as obesity and Vitamin D deficiency, which between them were present in at least 78% of US hospitalizations,[vii] were never mentioned by NIH’s Dr. Fauci or the media.

The vaccines were the only thing that could help us. All we could do was lock down and maintain six feet while we endured the long lonely months of 2020. If we got sick, we were to wait until we couldn’t breathe, then go to emergency.

The Globe continues:

So why hasn’t treatment focused more on repurposed drugs?

First, because the master narrative, once it took hold, directed our attention away from this possibility. Second, in North America, the first repurposed drug that came to public attention was hydroxychloroquine. When it was endorsed by then-president Donald Trump it became highly politicized. People’s opinions about it often had more to do with their political affiliation than whether they had read any of the (now) 303 studies. Third, agencies that regulate drugs, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Health Canada, mandate that any drug they evaluate have a sponsor, usually a drug company agreeing to assume liabilities for the drug. It’s an extremely expensive process. If an old, cheap generic drug shows promise for repurposing, it still needs a sponsor to get approved for that. But drug companies have no financial incentive to do so. So usually there are no sponsors, and the drugs languish.

Yes, there was indeed a master narrative, managed and policed by the Trusted News Initiative’s[viii] early warning system and an army of vigilante fact-checkers.

But in other respects, the Globe claims in the paragraph above depart from well-known facts:

1. Public political affiliations have little to do with the WHO/FDA/CDC drug approval process;
2. The FDA regulators had long approved hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and ivermectin (IVM), both of which have been on the WHO list of essential medicines for decades. Neither needed a sponsor.
3. There was never any need to approve physician off-label prescriptions for Covid. Instead, the FDA recommended against prescribing of hydroxychloroquine to outpatients in June, 2020,[ix]causing untold thousands of deaths while the world awaited the experimental injections.
4. The drugs did not languish. They were actively suppressed by state pharmacy boards, medical regulating bodies, medical journal editors, leading public health agencies, the media, and Big Tech.[x]

The Globe’s psychiatrist then devoted 5,000 words to the psychological state of being at war with the virus – the need to fight nature with a weaponized vaccine – rather than allowing natural processes, such as inborn immunity – to heal the 99% of infected under-70-year-olds whose immune systems had worked perfectly well.

Towards the end of the piece, from his January 2022 perspective, Dr. Doidge concludes:

“What is called for is not more scapegoating and coercion, but healing, and more early treatment for both groups, now that we have it…”

…as if thousands of doctors had not been shut down, losing their licenses, and watching patients die unnecessarily for two years for want of hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin. Professor Paul Marik MD was brought to tears by his frustration during January 2022 testimony.[xi]

Next, the Globe acknowledges the ridicule – without identifying the deadly mainstream hecklers[xii] – against the Great Barrington Declaration’s traditional public health wisdom, written by top epidemiologists, to provide focused protection for the vulnerable:

More and more officials are saying openly what the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration[xiii] (the ridiculed view of 60,000 public health scientists and physician signatories) said some time ago: Our goal is not eradication of the virus, or a one-size-fits-all policy, but lessening of deaths in the vulnerable through focused protection, and focused vaccination. The immunity we have will be a mix of vaccine immunity and natural immunity, depending on the person.”

 And ending with a psychiatrist’s acquittal:

It’s been a blow to our Baconian narcissism to be upended by nature these past two years. That thin-skinned Baconian within seems almost offended to admit that protection has come not only from scientific advances, but from natural immunity. Others might see this as a reassuring reminder that natural processes are not always and only the enemy. We shall find out, as we observe the unvaccinated, to what extent natural immunity, accumulating in waves of infection over time, does or does not protect, for the current or future variants.

Till then, let’s give infallibility the day off.[xiv]

So the whole two-year misery was due to narcissistic fallibility. No wonder my Twitter friend was upset.

Urgent, Important Issues the Globe did not Address

1. Unprecedented changes in public health policy: The common cold is usually either a coronavirus or a rhinovirus, and often moves to the lungs as pneumonia. According to the World Health Organization, this particular SARS-2 coronavirus kills only 0.23% of those infected.[xv]

However, coronavirus lockdowns are unprecedented. Passports are unheard of. And the words “pandemic,” “vaccine,” and “herd immunity” were redefined to support this global Covid-19 coronavirus policy.[xvi] These aberrations must be reversed to regain standard public health practise.

2. The Globe’s absolution does not address the origin of the virus: the US-sponsored gain-of-function research and resulting Wuhan laboratory leak that was confirmed by a startling FOIA document from the US military a week before its article was published.[xvii] Nor does the Globe mention Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the NIAID research-sponsoring agency, located within the US National Institutes of Health.
3. Nor does the Globe mention the unprecedented numbers of mRNA injection injuries and deaths that have been posted to the US, UK, and EU vaccine adverse reactions databases[xviii] – or the number of world class athletes who have collapsed or died following injection.[xix]

There are so many omissions and inaccuracies in this easy comfortable acquittal of public health policy that one wonders what is being hidden – was it simply mismanagement, or incompetence, or something more sinister?

One thing is certain:  if we hadn’t been saved from the two-year furor by the relatively gentle omicron variant, which as of January 22, 2022, constituted 99.9% of the circulating strain,[xx] the boosters chasing the variants and the accompanying repressive mandates may have continued indefinitely.

Let us now turn to Dr. Martenson and Dr. Weinstein, who explore the murky underside of this massively coordinated public policy assault on humanity, and why it is essential to identify and investigate its architects – at this particular moment in time, before it gets further glossed over – so that it never happens again.

Part II:  The Weinstein-Martenson Podcast, January 22, 2022[xxi]

Who are Dr. Martenson and Dr. Weinstein?

Chris Martenson, PhD in pathology/toxicology (Duke), MBA (Cornell), is an economic researcher and futurist specializing in energy and resource depletion, and distillation of the interconnected forces in the Economy, Energy and the Environment.  His insights are used by institutions such as the UN, the UK House of Commons and US State Legislatures.[xxii]

Brett Weinstein, PhD in biology (Univ. of Michigan) is a theoretical evolutionary biologist focused on adaptive patterns within complex, dynamic systems, and former professor of evolutionary theory. He has an interest in the evolution of wisdom and moral self-sacrifice. His main focus is on a current path that we will not survive – on “a way of living on the earth that evolved, and if we are to change it, we must take evolution from autopilot and into our own hands.”[xxiii]

We see that they share not only long-term biology backgrounds, but a strong interest in patterns and interconnections – which gives them mutual perspective as both specialists and generalists.

The theme is set early in the podcast by Dr. Weinstein: “My sense is that something is over, but something else is about to begin – and I think people need to see it clearly so it doesn’t catch them off guard.”

Their discussion is informed by the people who have “stared down the stigmas that were thrown at us to enter a much better, smarter conversation than what the public is being exposed to.”

These people are, among other things, “the global resistance to the fervor for mandates.”

What specifically are they resisting?

Dr. Weinstein: “In the resistance movement, everybody knows that all-cause mortality is an important thing that is rarely conveyed” – whereas PCR tests and hospitalization data are notoriously unreliable.

“We know that we want autopsies done, because autopsies tell you something we can’t find out otherwise, and we know that the level of autopsies has been artificially reduced, and that suggests that there is an obvious desire not to know what kind of harm is being done” by the injections.”

Dr. Martenson: Every single time if there was something favourable that they didn’t like, e.g., the [British] data Dr. John Campbell was talking about where there were 17,300 people in the whole Covid experience, all two years, who had died of Covid specifically, who weren’t burdened with a comorbidity – that came out because of a freedom of information act request. It was shocking. That data had to be pried out – and that should have been put out there and broadcast by that same organization, if they were doing the right thing, but instead they had to pry it out.

Dr. Weinstein: You go looking for something that isn’t consistently wrong – something that is open to various possibilities and you’ll find that that’s a very vibrant discussion – it’s just that the interesting stuff is on the fringe.

Why?  Because it was driven there.  Right, the natural people who would be at the head of the conversation of figuring out what’s going on with Covid, and what we should do about it – those people have been driven to the edge.  They’ve either been silenced, or they’ve been threatened, or they’ve chosen to self-censor.”

The Earliest Sign of Trouble with the Narrative

To an evolutionary biologist, the sudden appearance of a coronavirus that had seemingly skipped many generations of natural mutation to become a highly aggressive zoonosis (animal-to-human disease), raised disturbing questions about a laboratory origin.

The lab escape idea first gained widespread attention following a long investigation into the circumstantial evidence of SARS-2 gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab (“Who Opened Pandora’s Box at Wuhan? People or Nature?”) by former NYT author Nicholas Wade in May 2021.[xxiv]

On January 11, 2022, a Project Veritas FOI request confirmed, from the US military’s DARPA files, “that SARS-CoV-2 matches the SARS vaccine variants the NIH-EcoHealth program was making in Wuhan.”[xxv] This research had been financed by the National Institutes of Health under the leadership of Dr. Anthony Fauci.[xxvi]

Dr. Weinstein calls such gain-of-function research – which was made illegal in the US by President Obama in 2014 – “a recipe for disaster.”

He likened an engineered virus lab escape to the introduction of the mongoose into remote and isolated Hawaii, where it thrived, playing havoc with natural evolution, and threatening birds and wildlife. Similarly, a lab-manufactured virus introduces a menacing evolutionary jump:

You’re going to create something in a lab and think that you’re its master… you’re just playing with fire – and what’s more you’re not playing with fire in the way that people used to play with fire. They would just blow themselves up.

You’re talking about the whole world.

Somebody made an error. In fact, people were wise enough to see it coming and they tried to ban this research, but Anthony Fauci decided to override them. That error – Anthony Fauci overriding a gain-of-function research ban – very likely resulted in a particular viral particle escaping off a particular lab bench into a particular human being and then Covid-19. That is the capacity to take a tiny error – literally a microscopic error – and turn it into a global catastrophe.

That’s the power of the process you’re playing with, and if you don’t respect it we’re going to be facing this again and again…

Understanding the laboratory origin of Covid-19 is enormously important for how we go into the future – yet Weinstein said it was very difficult to establish:

“That was a surprise win. I didn’t think we were going to win that…

Having won it there are now two others:  there’s the question of early treatment and there’s the question of vaccine safety and efficacy. If the public wakes up on all three of those fronts, suddenly we know something: that the following systems have completely failed to protect us and in fact have steered us into greater danger:  the academy, the press, Big Tech, the public health apparatus, and all of the government structures it is plugged into.

The Coordinated Suppression of Effective Early Treatment

What will it will take to put our institutions back on track?

The story of Ivermectin may be the best clue.

In March, 2021, a world-class review paper on Ivermectin (IVM) by prominent toxicologist Dr. Jacques Descotes showed that it is among the safest and most well-tolerated drugs ever introduced to the market.[xxvii]

Indeed, penicillin, aspirin, and ivermectin belong to a select group of drugs that has had the greatest beneficial impact on the health and well-being of humanity. All three are of natural origin and all three led to a Nobel Prize.

Ivermectin has improved the lives of millions of people since its discovery in 1975.  Our environmental biologists were astonished by how it was targeted:

Dr. Martenson: From a toxicology standpoint, Ivermectin is literally the safest compound I’ve ever looked at; its curve between effective dose and lethal dose is SO wide…in 500 studies zero deaths had ever been ascribed to it.

Then we watched the Pharma campaign come out where all of a sudden it was horse dewormer everywhere because somebody had decided that’s what needed to happen now – some people sat in a room and said, “look we can’t get this on safety – what do we do with this?”

And they had enough power to blanket the airwaves, have major articles appear in all the major newspapers, have it show up on CNN, MSNBC, even have the FDA itself tweet out a little “y’all stop taking horse dewormer.” So that’s power.

The use of this media and Big Tech power to prevent the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC, established March 2020)[xxviii] from treating people with Ivermectin has been nothing short of criminal:

Dr. Martenson:  I remember six to eight months ago their FLCCC Facebook page would get taken down; they were getting YouTube strikes left and right and having channels pulled down.

They were highly qualified medical doctors discussing data. That was it. They weren’t out there railing against Pfizer or anything like that – there was nothing that would rise to libel. They were very careful – and watching that level of friction and hostility that came at them was astonishing. I’d never seen anything like that before.

Dr. Weinstein:  That was astonishing in a way I’d never seen it, and there was something just impossible to stomach about watching these obviously highly dedicated people who actually save lives for a living – they do it day in and day out – being treated as if they were UP to something.

It just couldn’t possibly be more the inverse of what was happening.  You had doctors trying to be doctors, trying to sort out a live situation that we’ve all been told is of utmost importance, and being demonized for the effort because their conclusion didn’t match the public health authority, which was obviously wrong – and then to watch the Tech sector leap to attention and start treating them as if these were somehow dangerous monsters.

It was just such a preposterous show a force on the part of whatever the thing is that is arranging the narrative.

The broken narrative continues. Why? Because after withholding and suppressing IVM and other life-saving therapies for so long, the health agencies and the media cannot now admit that early treatment works.[xxix]  Once the public knows this, all the hospitals will be overwhelmed with lawsuits.

What will it Take to Expose and Accept the Truth about Vaccine Injuries?

The issue of vaccine safety and efficacy was identified above by Dr. Weinstein as the third battle for truth. Officially, vaccine injuries are claimed to be exceedingly rare, so vaccination continues to be rigorously pursued through endless boosters.

In reality, vaccine injuries are off the charts – that is, according to three DOD whistleblowers who have released medical billing data for 2021 from the US Defense Medical Epidemiology Database.[xxx]

During testimony at a Senate hearing on January 24, 2022, the whistleblowers reported a 300% increase in cancers and a 1000% increase in neurological injuries over the 5-year baseline average during 2021, the first year of Covid-19 vaccinations.[xxxi] [xxxii]

Regarding deaths, the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System (VAERS) reports Covid-19 vaccines as relating to 78% of all vaccine deaths.

From Page 1 of their January 21, 2022 report:

Page 2 of the report shows the comparative death percentages for influenza and measles vaccines, which are also given to millions of people:

Millions also receive mumps, polio, tetanus, and others vaccines:

Early in 2022, startling news emerged from Indiana, where “we are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business,” OneAmerica CEO Scott Davison reported. The head of OneAmerica insurance said the death rate [for the first mRNA vaccine year, 2021] is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people.”[xxxiii]

Martenson and Weinstein decry suffering from the mRNA injections:

Martenson: How awful it must be to be like the mother of Maddie De Garay, Stephanie De Garay,[xxxiv] and know that you were doing the right thing, and then as soon as things went a little wrong, the system basically said we think your daughter’s just nuts, and no support…

Weinstein: There’s something about watching the gaslighting of the injured…if this was an honest effort to control the pandemic and people had been injured because we had a vaccine that worked but had an unfortunately high price, a certain number of people rolled the dice and it came up bad for them, we would take care of those people.

The point is, they did this so that we could be safe, and we could go back to life. These would be heroes. We would not be gaslighting them. We would be accepting that they were harmed. They would be getting free care for the rest of their lives for the cost that they paid on the rest of our behalf – and to watch them gaslit tells you what kind of monsters we’re dealing with.

The other thing that does that for me, is the withdrawal of treatments that work early. You’re going to simultaneously tell us that we have this very dangerous disease as you withdraw therapies in which there is no profit – but that work. That is a level of indifference to human suffering that is almost impossible to imagine…

No process that is capable of those two things can be defended. It’s not an accident, and there is no decency to it.

Is Societal Reform Possible?

The two doctors next discuss whether our system and its institutions, which “failed across-the-board,” is reformable. How do we organize ourselves, when the crisis has been about money and power, and damning the consequences to human suffering?

Dr. Weinstein: I am certain that the system must be reformed – that’s the only thing we can do. You cannot rebuild the system. You’re going to have to take the edifice and figure out how to make it function in spite of the fact that it is completely riddled with corruption of various kinds.

As the narrative comes apart, I don’t need to see Fauci punished…he has visited one of the most colossal catastrophes on planet Earth that we have ever seen…What I do need is for him never to be anywhere near control over anything important ever again.

And we can say that about many other people whose names we don’t necessarily know who have been integral to the response, which has been so disastrous.

Now we have also learned the names of many people who are willing to stand up to garbage narratives and tell us what we need to know rather than what we want to hear.

So there is an obvious solution but we’re going to watch everything thrown at the question of how to avoid it; everything will be thrown at the process of derailing an attempt to simply take the people who make sense and put them in positions where they can do good.

But there is a bright side:

Dr. Weinstein:  I know from long experience that there are three kinds of people in all these systems. Some, not very common, are those who will pursue their own interests, no matter what. There are people who will do the right thing no matter how costly it is to them, also not very common. Then there is the vast middle ground of people who will do what they have to do

but they might prefer to do the right thing.  We can’t spot them because at the moment they are doing the wrong thing. Why? Because they don’t have a better choice.

So my hope is that if we actually do manage to put decent people with the proper expertise in the roles at the heads of these organizations – yes, they have some bad apples but also a lot of decent people who haven’t been given a decent choice – and that maybe suggests that reform could work…

Dr. Martenson: The fear that they have been putting out has been very contagious, but I’ve watched the opposite:  courage can be just as contagious. And so it’s really important that the people who have that capability to be courageous do so…

Watching somebody like Dr. Pierre Kory, who’s just dripping with integrity…watching what happened when he ripped his mask off in that Senate testimony, and I could just feel the galvanizing effect. I thought wow, that is really impressive and they’re going to come after him, and they did.

This is the time for us to stand up and stand together as courageously as we can. It is the biggest moment in history I’m aware of, so many things are going to be decided in the next few years.

Dr. Weinstein: Back at the beginning of the pandemic, I was asked, “Well, when will be go back to normal,” and I heard myself say, “We’re never going back to normal. This is the biggest thing that’s ever happened on planet Earth.”

This is a truly global process that has unfolded… Something that can amplify a microscopic error into a global catastrophe, that tells you where we are and how much danger there is…You can’t roll the dice with these processes running loose for very long and have it always come up your way.

This is telling us that our lives – whether we like it or not – are overlapping a moment on which everything hangs. We are stuck with the responsibility of solving a problem no one has seen before and we have to get it right.

Getting it right means somehow getting the media to stop playing the narrative game – or at least enough of the media to provide an accessible alternative.

Media Propaganda Must be Identified and Eliminated

There is no question that the media has been insanely corrupt during the pandemic. Dr. Christian Perronne, who held top positions on vaccine policy for France and the WHO, “pointed to the French government which,” in addition to tens of millions of Euros they give to primary media each year, for two years has given 3 billion Euros to media.”[xxxvii]

A major problem in our relationship with the media is that the difference between problems and predicaments is not understood. Problems have solutions, and can be solved, whereas predicaments have outcomes that require management.

The media has been relentlessly focusing our attention on problems of often marginal interest to society as a whole, and of moderate importance to our ultimate welfare.

We do not hear as much news about the predicaments that require concerted, unifying cooperation to address:  world poverty and hunger; overfishing and plastic contamination of the rising oceans, land and soil degradation, deforestation, and increasing drought and wildfires. Yet we are collectively responsible for catastrophic neglect in these areas.

In the grand scheme of things, Covid-19 fits in the problem category, although it was given a mighty boost by the enormous coordination of media and Big Tech under the umbrella of the “Trusted News Initiative” (TNI) and its early warning system – for which there is a full accounting in the essay cited below:

“An international process of editorial standardization has delivered unprecedented news coverage of the monopolized message:

    The pandemic threatens the survival of all humanity

    There is no therapy to cure the sick

    It is necessary to confine the whole population, and

    The delivery will come only from a vaccine.”

Many people have been dismayed by the singularity of this propaganda.”[xxxviii]

The TNI rigorously linked government agencies, the corporate media, and the tech companies – who together have given pharmaceutical companies the leverage to censor anyone who raised medical evidence supporting early Covid treatment, or exposing vaccine injuries.

The public has been so propagandized for two years that its irrational acceptance of insanely contradictory Covid-19 claims has been described by clinical psychologist Dr. Mattias Desmet as a mass psychosis phenomenon[xxxix] – in which an estimated half to two-thirds of the public mind simply will not or cannot question the meandering narrative.

Indeed, most of the public would prefer to believe that their two-year ordeal was caused by an honest response to a natural event, such as the Globe has presented.

Weinstein supports Desmet:

Something has captured our focus and it has mesmerized us into behaving in a way that is actually harming us – and waking up from that is not going to be fun for a lot of people, but the longer you wait the less fun it’s going to be.

The main point here is we have got to put a stop to this now. The way mass psychosis or formations are stopped is with brave people standing up, and saying, “No. Let’s stop.  Just let’s stop.”

Our Opportunity for Future Survival Has a Narrow Window

As Dr. Weinstein noted earlier:

We now know that the following systems have completely failed to protect us and in fact have steered us into greater danger:  the academy, the press, Big Tech, the public health apparatus.

That is an amazing across-the-board failure, and no one who is paying attention could possibly look at a failure of all of those things and come away with the impression that anything small could possibly put us back on track.

Dr. Martenson concurs:

I don’t know that in our lifetimes we will get a better opportunity to have the conversation we need about civilizational collapse, which is looming, because our systems have stopped doing what they’re supposed to do. So my greatest fear is waking up one day and Biden and Macron and all the other leaders are going say:  this is just like the seasonal flu, it’s endemic, we’re done, and let’s move on.

Why is that a fear? Because it means that we won’t have the accounting that we need – they’ll just try and slide past those failures.  I think those failures need to be brought forward…because they’re indicative of a larger system issue.

I think this is one of the most pivotal moments in human history… and the way we begin to address this is we have to have really open honest conversations where no ox is too sacred to gore – everything is on the table.  We need all hands on deck…

Dr. Weinstein echoes the point:

What we have said is, the level of dysfunction in the system will be fatal for humanity in short order.  Covid reveals those failures, but the point is somebody has unhooked all of the things that are supposed to allow you to steer the ship back on course and away from the iceberg.

But sooner or later there will be an emergency of the highest order.  It’s not the Covid emergency, but Covid reveals the emergency. Covid, because of the across-the-board failure of everything, reveals the problem. There’s no reason to think we are going to get a better chance in our lifetimes to actually discuss it. The curtain is never going to be pulled this far back again, or if it is it may be too late for the next emergency.

The next emergency may not be such a survivable one so we have to figure out what’s gone wrong and we have to fix it because our job is to leave the planet intact for future generations. They have to have a decent place to live.

 Going Forward: The Role of Wisdom and Integrity

The needed transformation is too important to leave to chance.  We need to ensure that the kind of people who lead us forward are the high integrity kind, not the kind who do things for themselves.

We have seen the wisdom of two minds exploring the extent of our failed institutions, and how we must view this moment as a vital demarcation between past and future – a precious window in time – in which to finally address the problems and predicaments we have been neglecting.

Perhaps it should begin with recognition of our vulnerability, as Dr. Martenson points out:

The good news about Covid-19 is that it showed how vulnerable we are, and not just at the level of our biology.  It showed how vulnerable we are to propaganda and to being induced to viciousness toward each other, and to demonizing those who are trying to tell us things we need to know.

So this was a trial run, and if we learned the lesson of it we could come out of it much stronger, but that’s the reason I’m afraid the lesson is going to be buried.

We cannot bury Covid-19 and go back to normal.

Normal is what caused this pandemic.

We need the honesty and wisdom and determination to seize this moment, and to make our institutions reform normal.

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[i] Scott Morefield, “The Covid Narrative Falls Apart in South Africa,” Brownstone Institute, 26 January 2022 (https://brownstone.org/articles/the-covid-narrative-falls-apart-in-south-africa/).

[ii] Norman Doidge, “Vaccines are a tool, not a silver bullet,” Globe and Mail, 22 January, 2022   (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-vaccines-are-a-tool-not-a-silver-bullet-if-wed-allowed-more-scientific/).

[iii] A limited hangout or partial hangout is “spy jargon for a gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting some of the truth while withholding the key and damaging facts. The public is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further.” (https://www.definitions.net/definition/limited+hangout).

[iv] Incredibly, this Globe article is the same length as the May 2020 NYT hit piece (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/magazine/didier-raoult-hydroxychloroquine.html) on France’s leading microbiologist, Dr. Didier Raoult – who was having encouraging results with the legendary safe drug hydroxychloroquine – and appeared the same week that the Lancet published its astonishingly corrupt hit piece on hydroxychloroquine heart toxicity – retracted under massive protest (https://www.palmerfoundation.com.au/global-research-media-sabotage-of-hydroxychloroquine-use-for-covid-19-doctors-worldwide-protest-the-disaster/).

[v] “How to save the world, in three easy steps: Darkhorse Podcast with Robert Malone, Steve Kirsch & Bret Weinstein,” June 2021 (https://open.spotify.com/episode/2GkYPouJqLMnMqDzMsdaeh?si=0424e0517c2f424b&nd=1)

[vi] “Ivermectin for COVID-19: real-time meta analysis of 78 studies: Covid Analysis,” 2 February 2022 (https://ivmmeta.com/).

[vii] Berkeley Lovelace Jr. “CDC study finds about 78% of people hospitalized for Covid were overweight or obese,” CNBC, 8 March 2021 (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-cdc-study-finds-roughly-78percent-of-people-hospitalized-were-overweight-or-obese.html).

[viii] “What is the Trusted News Initiative?” 13 August 2021 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5gJz3PHitE).

[ix] Harvey Risch, “FDA obstruction: Patients die, while Trump gets the blame,” Washington Examiner, 19 October 2020 (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/fda-obstruction-patients-die-while-trump-gets-the-blame).

[x] See my other articles on these actions at (https://www.globalresearch.ca/author/elizabeth-woodworth).

[xi] “Dr. Brought To Tears As He Recounts Watching His Patients Die When He Wasn’t Allowed To Treat Them,” 24 January 2022 (https://brandnewtube.com/watch/dr-brought-to-tears-as-he-recounts-watching-his-patients-die-when-he-wasn-039-s-allowed-to-treat-t_G2vWLGNseXzVIsC.html). Dr. Marik was professor of medicine and chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School.

[xii] Oxford Professor of Epidemiology, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, was warned by a BBC producer not to discuss the Great Barrington Declaration just before going on air. Toby Young, “Why can’t we talk about the Great Barrington Declaration?” The Spectator, 15 October 2020 (https://spectatorworld.com/life/great-barrington-declaration/).

[xiii] Great Barrington Declaration (https://gbdeclaration.org/).

[xiv] Doidge, ibid.

[xv] Ioannidis J. “The infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data,” Bull World Health Organ., Epub Oct. 14, 2020
(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33716331).

[xvi] Sarah Mae Saliong, “CDC And WHO Redefine ‘Vaccine’ And ‘Herd Immunity’ To Manipulate People Into Getting The Jabs,” Christianity Daily, 21 September 2021 (https://www.christianitydaily.com/articles/13341/20210921/cdc-and-who-redefine-vaccine-and-herd-immunity-to-manipulate-people-into-getting-the-jabs.htm).

[xvii] Memo from Maj. Joseph P. Murphy to Captain xxxxx (redacted), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), circa August 21, 2021      (https://assets.ctfassets.net/syq3snmxclc9/2mVob3c1aDd8CNvVnyei6n/95af7dbfd2958d4c2b8494048b4889b5/JAG_Docs_pt1_Og_WATERMARK_OVER_Redacted.pdf).

[xviii] https://vaersanalysis.info/; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions; https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/overview/public-health-threats/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/treatments-vaccines/vaccines-covid-19/safety-covid-19-vaccines

[xix The Covid World, “A List of World Class Athletes Who Died Or Suffered Severe Injuries After COVID-19 Vaccine,” 7 November 2021 (https://thecovidworld.com/world-class-athletes-who-died-or-suffered-severe-injuries-after-covid-19-vaccine/); “318 Athlete Cardiac Arrests & 178 Deaths in 2021 After COVID Shot,” Belizean Rights and Justice Movement, 17 December 2021, (censored),   (https://web.archive.org/web/20220122042215/https://brjm.org/2021/12/318-athlete-cardiac-arrests-after-covid-vax/).

[xx] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “COVID Data Tracker,” 22 January 2022 (https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions).

[xxi] “Bret Speaks with Chris Martenson – Collapse of the Public Health Narrative, & the Gathering Storm,” 22 January 2022 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOT6nzzKrO8&list=PLjQ2gC-5yHEug8_VK8ve0oDSJLoIU4b93&t=5533s).

[xxii] “About Chris Martenson,” (https://www.peakprosperity.com/about/).

[xxiii] “Bret Weinstein: Theoretical Evolutionary Biologist,” (https://www.edge.org/memberbio/bret_weinstein).

[xiv] Nicholas Wade, “Origins of COVID-19: Who Opened Pandora’s Box at Wuhan – People or Nature?” The Wire, 10 May 2021 (https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/origins-of-covid-19-who-opened-pandoras-box-at-wuhan-people-or-nature/).

[xxv] Memo from Maj. Joseph P. Murphy to Captain xxxxx (redacted), DARPA, circa August 21, 2021      (https://assets.ctfassets.net/syq3snmxclc9/2mVob3c1aDd8CNvVnyei6n/95af7dbfd2958d4c2b8494048b4889b5/JAG_Docs_pt1_Og_WATERMARK_OVER_Redacted.pdf).

[xxvi] Glen Owen, “REVEALED: U.S. government gave $3.7million grant to Wuhan lab…,” Updated 16 May 2020 (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211291/U-S-government-gave-3-7million-grant-Wuhan-lab-experimented-coronavirus-source-bats.html).

[xxvii] Jacques Descotes, “Medical Safety of Ivermectin,” Medincell, 5 March 2021 (https://c19ivermectin.com/descotes.html), (https://invest.medincell.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/PR_MDCL_safety_ivermectine-50321.pdf).

[xxviii] https://covid19criticalcare.com/

[xxix] “COVID-19 early treatment: real-time analysis of 1,375 studies” (https://c19early.com/).

[xxx] Daniel Horowitz, “Horowitz: Whistleblowers share DOD medical data that blows vaccine safety debate wide open,” 26 January, 2022 (https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-whistleblowers-share-dod-medical-data-that-blows-vaccine-safety-debate-wide-open).

[xxxi] “Ron Johnson – Senate Hearing – COVID-19: A Second Opinion – January 24, 2022” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciuRLFLoLL0&t=13s) (at 0:35 minutes). Full Hearing at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asw_FBipVpg.

[xxxii] Stacey Lennox, “Military Whistleblowers May Blow Up the COVID Vaccine Narrative,” 25 January 2022 (https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2022/01/25/military-whistleblowers-may-blow-up-the-covid-vaccine-narrative-n1552966).

[xxxiii] Margaret Menge, “Insurance CEO says deaths up 40% among working age people, and it’s not just COVID,” 1 January 2022 (https://justthenews.com/nation/states/indiana-life-insurance-ceo-says-deaths-are-40-among-people-ages-18-64).

[xxxiv] Tucker Carlson, “Mom details 12-year-old daughter’s extreme reactions to COVID vaccine, says she’s now in wheelchair,” 2 July 2021 (https://www.foxnews.com/media/ohio-woman-daughter-covid-vaccine-reaction-wheelchair).  Maddie had volunteered for the Pfizer coronavirus trial and then nearly died.

[xxxv] “Top French vaccine expert: We have flouted science and flouted rights,” Israel National News, 30 January 2022 (https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/321386).

[xxxvi] Elizabeth Woodworth, ‘COVID-19 and the Shadowy “Trusted News Initiative”:  How it Methodically Censors Top World Public Health Experts Using an Early Warning System,’ 22 January 2022 (https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-19-shadowy-trusted-news-initiative/5752930).

[xxxvii] “Why People WILLINGLY Give Up Their Freedoms W/ Prof. Mattias Desmet |Mass Formation Psychosis,” 20 October 2021 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqPJiM5Ir3A). Dr. Mattias Desmet is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at Ghent University in Belgium.

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The Maghreb region, with an estimated population of over 100 million people, has been an interesting geographical region for key global players due to its tremendous untapped natural resources. Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia established the Arab Maghreb Union in 1989 to promote cooperation and economic integration. The union included Western Sahara implicitly under Morocco’s membership, and ended Morocco’s long cold war with Algeria over this territory. However, this progress was short-lived, and the union is now dormant.

That however, the region is an important gateway to Europe and to sub-Saharan Africa. Europe particularly has some investment, so also the United States. Now Russia is steadily making its way through war-thorn Libya and politically troubled Morocco and Tunisia. That compared Russia has significant trust-based relations with Egypt.

As Russia feverishly preparing for the second all-African leaders summit, Kester Kenn Klomegah held an emailed interview focusing on some aspects of Russia-Maghreb relations with Dr. Chtatou Mohamed, a senior professor of Middle Eastern politics at the International University of Rabat (IUR) as well as education science at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco.

The following are excerpts from the interview.

Kester Kenn Klomegah: In terms of geopolitical diplomacy, how do we assess Russia’s interest and approach since Soviet collapse in the Maghreb region? Do the current political changes pose challenges for Russia?

Dr. Chtatou Mohamed: Given its geographical remoteness, the Maghreb did not constitute – unlike the Middle East – a pole of major strategic interest for the Soviet Union, and this until the period of decolonization in the 1950s. From this point on, and especially with the Algerian war of independence, Moscow began to invest in this sub-region of the Arab world. In fact, as in the Mashreq, the Soviet position strategic criteria, which explained the choice of a partnership with Algeria as early as 1962, and then, to a lesser extent, with Colonel Qadhafi’s Libya after he took power in 1969.

However, it was more in the name of the “anti-imperialist” struggle than of a real ideological proximity that these alliances were formed. Indeed, during the entire Cold War period, Soviet power could not count on local relays to strengthen its influence. The Maghrebi parties of communist persuasion were indeed far from having the weight and influence of their Middle Eastern counterparts, such as in Iraq or Iran. They were promptly removed from power and even repressed after independence, even if some of their leaders were later co-opted by the regimes in place, particularly in Morocco and Algeria. Nevertheless, the revolutionary Third Worldism claimed by Algiers as well as by Tripoli, even if it did not claim to be based on Marxist-Leninist ideology, was perceived by the USSR as conforming to its interests and its politico-strategic projections.

For all that, the leaders of the two “friendly” Maghreb countries, while taking into account the interest that an extended cooperation with Moscow (which also passed by links with satellite countries of Eastern Europe, particularly in terms of security with the German Democratic Republic), they were careful to keep a certain distance from this partner, refusing any form of subjection according to the principles of non-alignment.

Today, the Maghreb is not a fundamental interest for Russia, but rather a source of economic and political opportunities. The Russian redeployment in the Maghreb, which began during Vladimir Putin’s second term in 2004 and has been over the last decade, relies on new vectors, distinct from the old anti-imperialist aura from which the Soviet Union had benefited in Algeria and Libya. Three in particular stand out: (1) Investment in the economic sphere; (2) Increased cooperation in the security field, and; (3) A shared vision of international and regional issues.

Today, the federal state of Russia is increasingly present in the countries of North Africa; strategic partnership with Algeria, Morocco and Egypt, and is among the key players in the Libyan crisis.

Russia and the Maghreb countries seek above all to cultivate their economic relations. These relations cover various fields such as energy, agricultural products, tourism, space or, in the case of Algeria, the sale of arms. For Moscow, this also responds to the need to deal with the sanctions of the European Union imposed following the annexation of Crimea in 2014, seeking alternatives to European products, especially agro-food. Russia meets a similar desire on the Maghreb side, where there is a desire to diversify the partnerships dominated until now by the countries of the European Union. In 2016, Russia thus became, by passing France, the first supplier of wheat to Algeria and has remained so since. It should be noted that the Russian economic projection in the region does not necessarily responds to a state strategy driven by the Kremlin, but often satisfies commercial ambitions in search of new opportunities, although the political authorities can facilitate contacts with the various Maghrebi economic actors.

The North African countries have considerably developed their relations with Russia, as they did before with China, without however prohibiting themselves from cooperating with the other Western powers. Their objective is to take advantage of any opportunity that arises to develop their economies and avoid remaining aligned and dependent on a single pole as in the days of the Cold War, given that the world is increasingly multipolar.

Therefore, questions arise, what are the mutual interests behind this revival in relations between Russia and the countries of North Africa, and what are the future prospects of these relations?

Russia has a war fleet and a merchant fleet in the Black Sea. This sea is located between Europe, the Caucasus and Anatolia, it is a semi-enclosed sea since it only communicates with the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus Strait, the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles Strait. Therefore, the Mediterranean is an unavoidable access corridor for Russian ships, connected to its Black Sea ports, to go to the Atlantic Ocean via the Strait of Gibraltar, or to the Indian Ocean via the Suez Canal.

For the Kremlin, the countries of North Africa are of paramount geostrategic importance on the maritime level, because its merchant ships and warships transiting in the Mediterranean Sea cross 3 obligatory passages which are bordered by: Egypt for the Suez Canal, Tunisia for the Strait of Sicily and Morocco for the Strait of Gibraltar. These compulsory passages are, from the point of view of freedom of navigation, locks that can be easily controlled by the countries that border them on both sides.

On the geo-economic level, the five Arab countries of North Africa present themselves for the Kremlin as an unavoidable interface to enter the African continent, rich in raw materials and presented as the great world consumer market in the future because of the demographic explosion of its population. It was during his visit to Algeria in 2006 that Putin laid the first milestone for Russia’s return to Africa. It is also Egypt, which played a leading role in the organization of the 1st Russia-Africa summit in October 2019 in Sochi.

Russia’s economic interests in Africa are increasingly growing in recent years, Moscow’s trade with African countries exceeded $20 billion in 2019. This figure is still lower than that of China ($204 billion), the US and even some European countries such as France and Germany.

Russia aims to diversify its trade with African countries by focusing on high technology, such as civil nuclear power (in Egypt) and satellite launches (in Angola and Tunisia). Russia is also very active in the medical sector in Africa, vaccination campaign against the Ebola virus in Guinea, etc…

KKK: United States and European Union have concrete strategic instruments, for instance, the U.S.-Maghreb FTA and Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. What could be described as Russia’s strategic economic tool in North Africa?

DCM: While China has been the focus of public attention on the African continent for some years, Moscow is no longer behind. After a prolonged absence since the demise of the Soviet Union, Russia is becoming more and more active, mixing armed forces presence, arms sales, economic investment, soft power and diplomatic support.

At the BRICS summit in Johannesburg on July 27, 2018, the Russian President raised the idea of a Russian-African summit bringing together all the continent’s leaders and himself. This ambitious initiative does not leave the traditional players established in this field worried that the Russian proposals will prove attractive enough for a number of local heads of state.

Indeed, Russia intends to return to the continent where its presence has often been fluctuating. Even in the 1970s, the height of the Soviet grip on Africa, its presence was episodic, with rare exceptions, such as in Algeria, Libya and Angola. Then the gradual removal of many heads of state who were allies of the Soviet Union led Mikhail Gorbachev, from 1988 onwards, to gradually weaken ties with the continent. These did not survive the disappearance of the USSR in 1991, and the Yeltsin period sounded the death knell for these friendships. It was not until the second term of Vladimir Putin, from 2008, that timid initiatives were taken to remind certain countries of Russia’s past role.

One of the notable changes from the Cold War era is that the new Russian policy in the Maghreb no longer relies solely on the historical partner of Algeria, but also extends to previously neglected states, namely Morocco and Tunisia, because of their political and historical ties to the Western world. Libya is a special case.

Russia’s renewed interest in the Maghreb is based on a number of parameters that have already been essentially well identified. First and foremost, there is the development of economic partnerships, whether in the fields of armaments, energy, infrastructure or agriculture. Next, in order of priority, are security issues, with the fight against terrorism and jihadism, but more broadly the effects of the Libyan crisis, even if Russia’s investment in this issue appears less developed and partisan than it appears at first glance.

The emphasis placed on the political-diplomatic aspect, crystallized from the Arab uprisings and more particularly since the overthrow of the Libyan regime following NATO’s intervention in 2011, constitutes the most novel parameter of this Russian reinvestment. As in the rest of the Arab world, Moscow is defending the status quo, or rather a “principle of conservation” defined by its support for the regimes in place, non-interference in the internal affairs of a state, and its opposition to regime change through foreign military intervention.

While Russia’s preferred visions and modes of action in the Maghreb seem to be fairly well identified, the perceptions and expectations, but also the possible reservations on the Maghreb are more rarely expressed by the leaders of these countries and little studied at the academic level. Perhaps we should look at this, as far as the powers that be are concerned, a concern for discretion regarding the sensitive aspects of this foreign policy component – this is particularly true for Algeria – an area on which they generally communicate little and for the academic research community in North Africa, a lack of knowledge related to the history, geography and culture of contemporary Russia.

If there is undoubtedly, on the Maghreb side and with important nuances from one country to another, a manifest interest in a development or a deepening of the partnership with Moscow, questions may remain about Russia’s objectives, especially in Rabat and Tunis. Despite this, the general and regional orientations of Russian policy are generally well perceived in the Maghreb capitals, because they correspond to local visions without, however, having the intrusive character that sometimes reproached to the historical European partners (France, Italy, Spain) and American partners.

Thus, the Russian approach responds to expectations of diversification in terms of partnership which correspond to an economic rather than a strategic necessity. This relationship appears to be facilitated by a convergence of views on major regional issues and the principles governing international relations, perhaps also because of the limits set for it. However, certain expectations on the Maghreb side could be disappointed, particularly concerning economic investments, but also a possible attempt at Russian mediation to facilitate a settlement process for the Libyan crisis, knowing that Moscow has some conditions.

One of the discreet tools used by the Russia in the Maghreb and Africa is the Wagner Group that is present in Algeria providing tactical help to the Polisario Front fighting Morocco over the Western Sahara and in Libya, on the side of Marshal Haftar forces.

The Wagner Group should be approached as a nebulous or informal entity, since it is a structure without any legal existence. Unlike other Russian private military companies, of which there are many and of which RSB-Group is a well-known example, Wagner is not registered as a commercial company. Wagner’s lack of a defined legal status is advantageous for the Russian government, as it allows it to deny responsibility for its actions when the group is mobilized in different fields.

The links between the Russian executive and Wagner are important and take various forms. First, logistically, the training of the members of the Wagner group took place in Russia, in a military base belonging to the Russian armed forces. Some of the weapons available to Wagner members in Syria and Libya came from the Russian military surplus, and their deployment is usually carried out by Russian military aircraft. The Wagner Group is furthermore financed by a businessman considered close to Vladimir Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has secured some fairly large contracts in the Kremlin, particularly in the catering business.

Thus, there are obvious military logistical links and personal affinities between the Wagner Group and the Russian government. However, the link between the two entities is not organic and not all of Wagner’s interventions are linked to the Russian executive. Sometimes they proceed from a more lucrative logic, specific to the personal interests of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

First of all, the Wagner Group is able to participate in armed operations. In this, it is not just a private military company but a mercenary company. As examples, the group was employed by the Syrian government to liberate the Syrian Al Sha’er oil field in Homs from the Islamic State after the battle of Palmyra in 2016, but also as support to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in the fighting in Khusham in February 2018. Wagner has also provided support for Marshal Haftar’s offensives against Tripoli in 2019 and 2020. The group has participated in armed operations in northern Mozambique against Islamist insurgents seeking to establish an independent state in Cabo Delgado province, and more recently engaged with the Central African Republic’s army against the Patriot Coalition.

With regard to Russian strategy in the region, there has been a renewed interest in sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade. Defence diplomacy, that is, strengthening the country’s presence via the military tool (training or physical presence), has been an important instrument for Russia since 2014-2015, and particularly in this region. About twenty agreements have thus been signed between Moscow and sub-Saharan African countries in the field of defence since that date.

Economic issues also motivate the renewed Russian interest in the region. In the field of armaments, the countries of the zone are an interesting clientele for Russia. In 2010, they represented 10% of Russian arms sales. Today they account for 30%, making Russia the leading supplier of arms to the region.

Finally, the Russian strategy has a geopolitical dimension. While the context between Russia and Western countries is highly troubled, and characterized in particular by a regime of sanctions and counter-sanctions, Moscow has more room for manoeuvre with the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. However, the tensions between Russia and Western countries are also present in sub-Saharan Africa: the issues surrounding the Wagner group are one of the facets of this crisis.

KKK: Do you detect any competition and rivalry among key foreign players for influence in the region? In your opinion, how effective and useful the emerging China-Russia alliance could be in Maghreb countries?

DCM: The impression is striking of a flashback to the West-Russia tensions that characterized the second half of the 20th century, from the aftermath of World War II until the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The two rival camps are beginning to openly sketch out the comparison, although observers note significant differences.

Following the gradual advent of the multi-polarity of the world since the beginning of the 2000s, most Mediterranean Arab countries have opened up to practically all the major world powers, the USA, China, Russia, the European powers and the powers emerging. The objective is to better serve the interests of their peoples and find solutions to the problems that prevent their development by exploiting the opportunities presented by each of these powers.

Currently the geopolitical relations of most Mediterranean Arab countries with Russia are good, even for those who were allies of the USA during the period of world bipolarity along the years of the Cold War (the case of Egypt and from Morocco).

Algiers, October 2, 2021, the Algerian government decides to recall its ambassador in Paris and close its airspace to French military aircraft. This decision was prompted by a speech by Emmanuel Macron on the Algerian memory issue, which was deemed disrespectful.  This incident represents the second act of a political-diplomatic standoff between Algeria and France, which decided in late September to drastically reduce the issuance of visas to nationals of Maghreb countries. Since this measure, relations between the two countries have continued to deteriorate, further weakening the popularity of France on an African continent that is already attracting the covetousness of many powers such as Russia, a historical ally of Algeria, whose eyes are now turned towards Mali.

Since the early 2000s, Russia has placed Africa and the Mediterranean at the center of its foreign policy. This position became even more important in 2015 when Moscow saw Syria as a way to reaffirm its status as an international power while defending its security and economic interests, which are the fight against terrorism and the development of trade agreements around energy.

In such a paradigm, the regional power that is Algeria is a choice ally, especially since their relations have been at a good level since the end of the Cold War. Moscow and Algiers share a similar conception of domestic and foreign policy. The report of the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies highlights this:

“In the end, Russia and Algeria share many common representations and biases: a focus on the sacrosanct stability (particularly through the importance given to the fight against terrorism), a preference for flexibility in diplomatic relations and a willingness to contribute – through mediation – to the resolution of conflicts. The two countries share the same aspiration to assert themselves as an independent power and to establish themselves as a regional and international power, respectively. This convergence of vision pushes the two states to help each other. One example is the case of Vladimir Putin who does not hesitate to relay the anti-colonialist speeches of Algiers by encouraging African countries to mobilize for political and economic independence. The Russian president thus urged “African countries to stop their dependence on France and to work to develop the continent considered the richest in the world” (Algérie Patriotique. (21 octobre 2020). « Alger et Moscou ne veulent plus laisser Rabat et Paris jouer seuls en Afrique »).

However, once we move away from political statements, it is easy to see that, behind its airs of mentor, Russia is an actor who enjoys a form of dependence from Algeria via unequal cooperation in several key areas. Thus, in 2017, Dmitri Medvedev, then head of the Russian state, signed with Algiers no less than six (6) documents on Russian-Algerian cooperation in a multitude of areas such as justice, energy, education or health. It is also not anecdotal that the choice of vaccine in the fight against Covid-19 was the Sputnik-V vaccine. Such a choice clearly reflects Algeria’s distrust of other Western powers, but above all Russia’s unavoidable position as the sponsor of an Algerian state that is too weak to prosper alone. By offering its help to a fragile Algeria, Russia ensures, without exposing itself, a real anchorage on the African continent.

After the 2008 crisis, Beijing’s geopolitical positioning on the international stage remains highly ambiguous. On the one hand, China is described as a developing country because of the domestic economic and political problems it faces (the nature of its economic growth, environmental challenges, the fight against inequality, social tensions). These structural obstacles require reforms that slow down its international deployment. On the other hand, China is perceived as a major emerging country, given its strong economic growth and its status as the world’s second largest economy, which mechanically pushes it to take a greater interest in international issues and to move away from its policy of “non-interference.

Today, Beijing’s positioning is characterized by approaches that are sometimes cautious when the issues concern it less, and sometimes more assertive when it comes to neighborhood issues where its interests may be directly at stake. In the end, this ambivalent policy and its internal problems explain China’s positioning: a true emerging power on the economic level, it is not yet completely so on the geopolitical level.

Nevertheless, China already carries so much weight on the international scene that it is changing the world order. The question is to know how willing and able it will be to transform the functioning of the international system. In many ways the emergence of Russia-China alliance will strengthen the hand of these two countries politically, economically and socially in the Maghreb. Many see the emergence of such important block as a viable alternative to the West that has oppressed and exploited the region for centuries. Today many Maghrebi students go east to study and many businessmen go there to do commerce.

KKK: How is “soft power” working in this region? What could be the expectations from Maghreb bloc during the forthcoming second Russia-Africa summit planned this November 2022?

DCM: The North Africa region has undergone extremely rapid modernization. Growing literacy (in less than fifty years, societies in the region have achieved a literacy rate of over 70% among adults and close to 100% in all countries among 15-24 year olds, including women) or the affirmation of the place of women are signs of a modernization in progress. The demographic and socio-cultural structures of these countries are changing and the political order of their societies, which explains some of the instability in the region and the “Arab Spring”. Other countries, where frustrations are great and where the states are struggling to respond to the political and economic aspirations of their populations could experience similar episodes.

In recent years, the alleged return of Russia to the African continent has attracted attention. It is not only the media that are interested in it, but also diplomats and governments of countries that, since the fall of the USSR, are in economic competition on the continent.

The increase in this interest began with the holding of the first Russia-Africa summit in Sochi in October 2019. The second summit, scheduled for 2022, is helping to reinforce the hypothesis of Russia’s repositioning on the continent. Is this a real geostrategic turning point? Or can we rather suspect tactical re-compositions in search of arms export markets or the exploitation of rare minerals?

The private security company Wagner, run by a man close to Vladimir Putin, has become the main instrument of Moscow’s reengagement on the continent, against a backdrop of rivalry and tension with the West.

Is this the beginning of a strategic shift that would see a new “Russafrique” supporting “Chinafrique” in an anti-Western conspiracy? Or a media fantasy dramatizing punctual and opportunistic, often fragile, breakthroughs? The arrival of Russian instructors and paramilitaries from the private security company Wagner, which is close to the Kremlin, in Mali at the end of 2021, is raising questions in Europe and the United States about Moscow’s plans in Africa. Through the multiplication of defence agreements and the activities of the Wagner Group, Russia has succeeded in meddling in several African countries: Mali, Libya, Sudan, Central African Republic, Mozambique… An advance that is sometimes erratic, contested or deceptive, and which extends over about five years.

In Egypt, in 2014, Russia got closer to the newly elected President Al-Sissi. It took advantage of the American disengagement following the Arab Spring and signed a $3.5 billion arms contract. Other agreements will link the two countries: military cooperation treaties (supply of arms and training), an agreement for the construction of the first Egyptian nuclear power plant, an economic outlet for its grain, et cetera. More recently, the two countries signed a contract to supply Russian Su-35 fighter planes to Egypt.

Russia is thus rapidly becoming the main arms seller in Africa. Over the period 2014-2019, it provided 49% of the arms sold to the continent, far ahead of the other main contributors: the United States (14%), China (13%) and France (6.1%).

However, these contracts mainly concern North Africa, the picture being much more mixed for West Africa, for example. Russia has not been involved in any major arms agreement with Mali, with the exception of the 2016 agreement where Mali signed a contract with Russia for four Mi-35M combat helicopters.

Russia’s return to Africa is not limited to debt cancellation and arms sales. In 2018, Russia’s trade with the African continent reached $20 billion (17.2% more than the previous year) and its investments reached $5 billion (a far cry from the $130 billion invested per year by China). Its ability to offer technologies sought after by African countries gives it a place of choice. For example, it cooperates with Algeria, Nigeria, Zambia and Egypt in the nuclear field. Moreover, its companies are particularly present in the exploitation of minerals, oil or gas. Gazprom, Rosneft and Lukoil are very active in the Sahara, North Africa, Nigeria and Ghana.

These links have also been strengthened from a diplomatic point of view, with the organization of the first Russia-Africa summit in Sochi in October 2019, which will have enabled Russia to bring together some thirty African heads of state and to sign several bilateral treaties (the joint statement mentions “92 agreements, contracts and memoranda of understanding […] with a total value of 1,400 billion rubles”. This is in line with Russia’s goal of doubling its trade with African states by 2024 (which would make it a direct competitor of France).

Russian realpolitik may explain Russia’s growing influence in Africa. Unlike other actors such as the United States or France, which may make the granting of aid or the signing of partnerships conditional on the respect of certain principles, Russia does not demand any conditions related to democracy or human rights. This is the case in Nigeria, where the United States cancelled a contract that had already been signed for human rights violations by Nigerian forces in the fight against Boko Harm. This withdrawal allowed Russia to sign a new arms contract with the country.

With the decision to return and raise its influence on the continent, and especially the Maghreb region, Russia has to make consistent efforts, at least, in addressing significant aspects of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa. That however, the worsening of the Libyan crisis and the deterioration of relations with European states are the only two obstacles that could limit or more seriously slow down this nascent economic cooperation. The next few years will undoubtedly be decisive for the realization of structuring projects between the Russian Federation and the Maghreb.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a frequent contributor to Global Research. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

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***

President Joe Biden called for American citizens in Ukraine to leave the country as soon as possible after revealing the potential for a “world war” and warning that “things could go crazy quickly” between the US and Russia. Biden’s bombastic rhetoric was preceded by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meeting with British Secretary of State Liz Truss, where she embarrassed herself by failing to grasp the basic geography of the region. The Anglo escalation is part of their effort to derail dialogue between Moscow and the two European Union powerhouses of France and Germany to overcome the Ukraine crisis.

“American citizens should leave now,” Biden said in an interview with NBC News on February 10. “It’s not like we’re dealing with a terrorist organization. We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. It’s a very different situation, and things could go crazy quickly.”

When asked what could prompt his order to send troops to Ukraine, Biden said:

“There’s not. That’s a world war when Americans and Russia start shooting at one another. We’re in a very different world than we’ve ever been.” The American president also sent a message to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, saying that if he “is foolish enough to come in, he’s smart enough to actually do nothing that could negatively impact American citizens.”

Tensions between Washington and Moscow are at their highest point since the Cold War, especially as the West manufactures an “impending Russian invasion of Ukraine” narrative. This manufactured crisis is being used as a pretext to send more NATO military equipment to Russia’s borders as the Kiev government seeks to conquer the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine instead of finding a peaceful solution.

However, the West still remains deeply divided about escalating tensions in Ukraine, mostly between the Anglo Alliance (US, UK and Australia, or AUKUS) and EU members France and Germany. Even their manner of engagement with Moscow points to stark differences, with the French and Germans taking the matter seriously, whilst Truss seemingly has little knowledge of geography. This is what triggered Lavrov to say in a press conference following his meeting with Truss on February 10: “It’s like they’re listening to us but not hearing.”

Britain’s top diplomat demanded Russian soldiers to withdraw from the border with Ukraine, prompting Lavrov to reiterate that they are stationed within their own sovereign territory and Russia has the right to conduct such maneuvers.

According to Russian media, Lavrov questioned whether London recognizes Moscow’s sovereignty over the Rostov and Voronezh Oblasts, in which Truss replied: “[the UK] will never recognize Russia’s sovereignty over these regions.” British Ambassador to Moscow Deborah Bronnert had to embarrassingly intervene and reminded Truss that the two oblasts are actually considered Russian territory by London and are not claimed by any other country, including Ukraine.

This embarrassment follows on from Truss saying on January 30 that “we are supplying and offering extra support to our Baltic allies across the Black Sea” – the Baltics and the Black Sea are on the opposite sides of Europe to each other.

The Anglo Alliance demonstrates that their collective effort to provoke Moscow is disjointed, but none-the-less united behind the common propaganda that the Russian military is on the verge of invading Ukraine. Although Biden was certainly harsher in his tone towards Moscow and created hysteria by using buzzwords like “world war” and warning that things “can go crazy quickly”, he none-the-less managed to embarrass himself like Truss on February 10 by saying: “there is no way we were ever going to unite Ukraine — I mean, excuse me, Iraq… Afghanistan.”

Given that Biden said this on the same day that Truss revealed she did not know the differences between the Russian Oblasts of Rostov and Voronezh [East of Kharkiv] and the Donbass People’s Republics in eastern Ukraine, it was an embarrassing day for Anglo diplomacy. The dangerous language used though, especially from Biden, threatens to undermine the recent work of French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The German and French leaders are critical of Russia, but unlike AUKUS, they still seek genuine dialogue to resolve the Ukraine impasse to avoid war on the continent.

It is for this reason that Brandon Weichert, a former US congressional staffer and geopolitical expert, warned that Germany and France would surely “[throw] the Americans under the bus, which they will because Paris thinks that would weaken America’s unwanted hold over European affairs.” Biden’s threats of “world war”, as well as Truss struggling to grasp the basic geography of a region that she berates Moscow about, highlights that the Anglo Alliance is only becoming increasingly desperate in maintaining tensions and instability as the Europeans attempt to find a solution.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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As I have warned for some time, sooner or later the Kremlin will lose its patience with Washington and its European puppet states.  Signs of this are now appearing.  The normally very diplomatic Russian Foreign Minister, Lavrov,  just compared his discussion with his British counterpart, Liz Truss, with talking to a deaf person.  He added: “Russia has been cheated and wronged for many years, many times, when it comes to agreements and obligations from other states.” 

At a February 10 press conference, Lavrov said his Ukrainian counterpart was “lying with a straight face” and is a member of the “school of Goebbels, and maybe even surpasses the art of the chief propagandist of the Third Reich.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Russia will not attend this year’s Munich Security Conference because the conference “has been increasingly transformed into  a transatlantic forum” and has lost “its inclusiveness and objectivity.”  This is a sign that Russia is learning to give up on endless talk.

Russia’s UN ambassador, Gennady Gatilov, said Russia’s “serious concern is that the US and its allies are exacerbating the situation to the point where the game of raising the stakes could turn into a real tragedy.”

Even Putin is losing patience: 

“Not an inch to the East they told us in the 1990s, and look what happened – they cheated us, vehemently and blatantly.”

Russia’s anger is long overdue. I wouldn’t have been able to keep my patience so long.  Nevertheless, I don’t understand why Russia goes on about it.  Russia made it clear at the security talks that it means war if Ukraine is made a member of NATO. The West understood the message. When Blinken and Stoltenberg say it is up to them and Ukraine whether Ukraine becomes a NATO member, they are merely saving face by asserting a right they dare not use.  No NATO country would invite its own destruction by knowingly provoking Russia to war. The US and NATO lack the capability of confronting Russia in conventional war, as the few droplets of troops and equipment sent to Europe “to deter Russian aggression” testify. Even as insane as Washington is, Washington will not destroy itself and its European empire over Ukraine or Poland or Romania.

The Donbass republics, the flashpoint for military confrontation, have already begged the Kremlin to reabsorb them into Russia, their home country. The Kremlin could erase the flashpoint by reabsorbing the Donbass Russians and reminding the West to “get off our doorstep before you are driven off.”  But the Kremlin doesn’t want Donbass any more than it wants Ukraine. The Kremlin came up with the Minsk Agreement, because the Kremlin wants to keep the Donbass Russians in Ukraine for the same reason that the Soviet government put them there–to water down the Ukrainian neo-Nazis and prevent a train wreck. The Kremlin does not want the responsibility for Ukraine, and the Kremlin doesn’t want to give Western propagandists support for their claim that Putin wants to restore the Soviet empire. The only reason Russia would invade Ukraine would be to forestall US missile bases being located there.

I don’t believe there is a crisis.  It is an illusion of crisis produced by endless talks that the Russians find frustrating.  They should stop talking. Ukraine will never be put in NATO unless Russia collapses militarily.  If Donbass is again part of Russia, no one will attack Donbass.  The flashpoint for the past seven years will be gone.

The alleged “Ukraine Crisis” has proved that NATO has no capability of defending Ukraine or any Eastern European member, nor in my opinion any Western European member.  The Polish and Romanian governments know this as well as anyone. The US missile bases endanger them, not defend them.  They will have the bases removed. The bases serve no Polish or Romanian purpose.

It is obvious that Washington, its British puppet, and Stoltenberg are doing their best to provoke Russia into invading Ukraine. The question is why?  One reason could be that a show of Russian teeth will frighten the NATO countries back into Washington’s arms, but why does Europe, or some of it, support this?  Do European countries prefer to be puppets instead of sovereign states?

Those years in the past when the US had a media instead of a collection of whores, reporters would be asking Biden and Blinken why they are trying to provoke a Russian invasion of Ukraine.  But of course, whores don’t ask such questions.  They just take the money and perform the necessary act.

I wonder if the Kremlin has an explanation why Russia is being provoked in this way.  If Russia decides to attack, I doubt that Shogu would waste Russian military resources on such a non-threat as Ukraine, which is being used by Washington as a pawn.  Russia, one assumes, would focus its attention on the real threat.  The best way to do that is to ignore Washington and go about Russia’s business.

It is time for Russia to get on with its partnership with China, setting up a new payments system and a new reserve currency and developing the Asian trade relations to which both countries have committed. It is inexplicable why Russia and China got themselves entangled in Washington’s financial tentacles. It is difficult to believe that Putin and XI are as gullible as the average American. It is long past time for both countries to jettison the neoliberal economics that holds both countries back.  As Michael Hudson and I have made clear, there is no validity to neoliberal economics.  Russia should use its exports of energy to Europe to strengthen the ruble by billing in rubles.  Why should Russia strengthen the Euro and dollar by billing in those currencies?

Russia and China should simply exit the Western world. They don’t even need diplomatic contact.  The West is dying. Its economies are shot. As Covid mandates and forced vaccinations proved, the Western leadership class is committed to tyranny. Australia even has citizens in concentration camps. The Canadian and American governments have declared peaceful protest to be “domestic terrorism” and are trying to blame the truckers’ protest on Russia. The Western media does nothing but lie for the governments.  The culture is rotten and sordid, civil liberty eroded. 

Russia and China have emerged from the tyranny associated with Stalin and Mao, while the West has fallen into tyranny.  If there is any hope for mankind, it is not in the West, which is demonizing its own founding fathers, demolishing its own historical monuments, black-listing its own classic literature, demonizing its own ethnic populations and permitting  immigrant-invaders to dilute national ethnicities  by overrunning national borders.  Western countries are becoming Towers of Babel, devoid of a nationalist consciousness that patriotism requires.  Countries with populations that have nothing in common can only be held together by force. Such countries are weak and are incapable of standing up to unified countries.

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

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***

Children’s Health Defense said it is poised to take legal action against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel if the committee recommends Pfizer’s Emergency Use Authorization vaccine for children under 5.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD), along with Chairman and Chief Legal Counsel Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., today delivered a letter to top public health officials and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) urging them to reject Pfizer’s application for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of its COVID vaccine for children 6 months through 4 years of age.

The letter reads, in part:

“We are writing to put you on notice that should you recommend this pediatric EUA vaccine to children under five years old, CHD is poised to take legal action against you.

“CHD will seek to hold you accountable for recklessly endangering this population with a product that has little, no, or even negative net efficacy but which may put them, without warning, at risk of many adverse health consequences, including heart damage, stroke and other thrombotic events and reproductive harms.”

VRBPAC will meet Feb. 15 to consider Pfizer’s application for EUA status for this age group.

“There is absolutely no COVID emergency for children under 5 years old,” said CHD president and general counsel Mary Holland. “Considering that healthy children have virtually zero risk of complications or death from COVID and that the adverse events being reported following COVID vaccination are at historic rates and climbing, it’s outrageous that the FDA is even discussing an EUA vaccine for this age group.”

The latest data from the U.S. government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System shows a total of 1,088,560 reports of adverse events from all age groups following COVID vaccines. This includes 23,149 deaths and 183,311 serious injuries between Dec. 14, 2020, and Jan. 28, 2022.

Vaccine makers including Pfizer cannot be held liable for injuries and deaths following vaccination with EUA vaccines.

The letter to VRBPAC and health officials, including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky and acting FDA Director Dr. Janet Woodcock, points out the following:

• A large study conducted in Germany showed zero deaths for children under 5 and a case fatality rate of three out of a million in children without comorbidities.
• A Johns Hopkins study monitoring 48,000 children diagnosed with COVID showed a zero mortality rate in children under 18 without comorbidities.
• A study in Nature demonstrated that children under 18 with no comorbidities have virtually no risk of death.
• Data from England and Wales, published by the UK Office of National Statistics on January 17, 2022, revealed that throughout 2020 and 2021, only one child under the age of 5, without comorbidities, died from COVID in the two countries, whose total population is 60 million.
• Another study in Nature from April, suggests children’s bodies clear the virus more easily than adults.
• A study published in December in Nature demonstrated how children efficiently mount effective, robust and sustained immune responses to COVID.

CHD this week asked the general public to also contact VRBPAC and public health officials with their concerns on granting EUA status for COVID vaccines targeting infants and young children.

“If the vaccine does attain EUA status, it will be an important milestone on the pharmaceutical industry’s path to the ultimate goal of getting COVID shots on the federally-recommended childhood schedule,” said Holland.

“This will then ensure immunity from liability for injuries and deaths in perpetuity to manufacturers and healthcare providers. Our children deserve better.”

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***

The waters are choppy at the point where the São Francisco River meets the Atlantic Ocean, but Jailton Souza, a fisherman since he was a boy, calmly guides the boat along. He’s used to taking tourists to the river’s mouth, which marks the border between the eastern Brazilian states of Sergipe and Alagoas.

Meandering 2,830 kilometers (1,760 miles), the São Francisco is the longest river that runs entirely through Brazil. And its mouth is a spot of extreme beauty — a dazzle of mangrove forests and white sandy beaches where turtles lay their eggs — but one where, increasingly, signs of degradation are evident. “The seawater killed off the coconut palm groves and the rice plantations,” Jailton says, pointing.

The impacts of oil exploration on the São Francisco River are already being felt by fishermen like Jailton Souza. Image by Ailton Rocha da Cruz/Agência Pública.

Velho Chico, or Old Francis, as the river is known by the locals, can no longer contain the sea’s advance inland. The strength of the river’s flow has declined in recent years, the result of hydroelectric dams being built upstream and the diversion of large volumes of water to supply communities affected by extreme drought.

The most recent threat comes from oil and gas exploration in the area surrounding the river’s mouth. U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil has plans to drill 11 oil wells in the area immediately surrounding the estuary, in the Sergipe-Alagoas Basin.

The area that would be affected directly and indirectly by Project SEAL, as it’s known, is vast, stretching some 2,000 km (1,240 mi) from Alagoas south through the states of Sergipe, Bahia, Espírito Santo, to Rio de Janeiro. In the event of an oil spill, at least 52 conservation areas would be directly affected, including the Costa dos Corais Environmental Protection Area, one of seven areas considered crucial for the protection of Brazil’s coral reefs.

ExxonMobil is still awaiting an environmental license from IBAMA, the Brazilian environmental regulator, before it can start drilling. However, the company has already started to train local communities on how to deal with possible oil spills.

Local fishers told Agência Pública how the company had paid daily fees of up to 2,500 reais ($480) per boat to teach them things such as how to contain an underwater oil spill. Agência Pública’s reporters traveled more than 400 km (250 mi) by land and sea through Alagoas and Sergipe to visit the communities that would be most affected but that continue to be excluded from discussions surrounding the project.

IBAMA told news site InfoSãoFrancisco that it had not authorized the training sessions on how to deal with oil spills. The agency didn’t respond to Agência Publica’s request for comment on whether carrying out such training is a necessary stage in the licensing process. ExxonMobil’s history of environmental disasters includes one of the biggest oil spills in history, the 1989 episode known as the “black tide,” when one of the company’s tankers, the Exxon Valdez, spilled 37,000 metric tons of oil in Alaska.

For its Project SEAL, training activities have reportedly already taken place in at least four municipalities across Alagoas — Piaçabuçu, Coruripe, Jequiá da Praia, and Barra de São Miguel — as well as in the village of Saramém in Sergipe. The training sessions in each place usually lasted around 10 days, and were often announced and publicized by the local councils. In a statement, the Piaçabuçu municipal authoritiestold local residents about the installation of a structure, next to the town hall, that would be used for “practical training for the protection of the coast.”

For Divaneide Sousa, a coordinator from the civil society group Articulação do São Francisco, the local authorities are being co-opted by the oil giant. “They have an eye on the royalties from the oil,” she said.

The training sessions were jointly run by U.S. emergency management consultancy Witt O’Brien’s and Brazilian company OceanPact, which specializes in contingency plans for the oil industry and in environmental disaster response efforts. The two companies teamed up in a joint venture in 2011.

Witt O’Brien’s also signed off on the impact assessment for ExxonMobil’s project in the São Francisco estuary. In October 2019, the company was subject to a number ofsearch and seizure warrants after being named as a “qualified individual” in the investigation into the Greek oil tanker Bouboulina, belonging to Delta Tankers Ltd., which was identified as being responsible for an oil spill along the Brazilian coast between 2019 and 2020.

At the time, nearly 5,000 metric tons of oil were removed from more than 1,000 sites across 11 states in Brazil, nine of them in the country’s northeast. Some 3,000 km (1,900 mi) of coastline were contaminated by oil, in what was the biggest environmental crime in Brazil’s history in terms of the total area affected.

The Federal Police only concluded their investigation into the disaster in December last year, in which it named a Greek oil tanker as the ship responsible for the spill, but stopped short of confirming whether it was the Bouboulina. They also didn’t disclose the name of the company at fault, or clarify whether Witt O’Brien’s had any links to the vessel.

Pools of oil on a beach show the extent of the 2019 spill along Brazil’s northeast coastline. Image by Brenda Alcântara/Agência Pública.

‘The end for the river’

In the event of an oil spill from ExxonMobil’s Project SEAL, the company’s own studies show that the town of Piaçabuçu would be one of the first places to be hit by such a disaster. The beach of Pontal do Peba, close to the town, is the last strip of sand at the point where the São Francisco River flows into the sea. Piaçabuçu, with just over 19,000 inhabitants, was once an important point of rice cultivation. But the increasing saltwater intrusion into the water table, caused by the weakening of the river’s flow, has effectively ended that industry.

With the loss of rice farming, fishing remains the major source of economic activity. The waters off Piaçabuçu are home to the largest shrimp population in northeastern Brazil, and the fourth largest in the whole country. Tourism is also a key revenue source for the municipality, but income from both industries has dwindled in recent years — first because of the 2019 oil spill, then followed by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Environmental Protection Area of Piaçabuçu, which protects threatened species such as sea turtles, is run on scarce resources. In September 2021, in response to ExxonMobil’s proposed project, the Federal Public Ministry in Alagoas quizzed protection areas across the region about their operating conditions in the event of an accident. The management of the Piaçabuçu Environmental Protection Area responded in an official letter, stating that the area has just “two employees and one vehicle,” and therefore doesn’t have the “operational capacity to neither protect against nor minimize the impacts that would result from an oil spill.”

At the end of 2021, representatives from ExxonMobil visited the fishing community in Piaçabuçu. “They asked us to nominate some fishermen for their training sessions,” says Antônio Amorim, president of the local fishing community, which has nearly 4,000 members. Sixty boats were chosen to take part in the training sessions, with the larger ones receiving 2,500 reais ($480) a day, and the smaller boats 2,000 reais ($380). “It was helpful for those who were out of work and relying upon Bolsa Família [a social welfare program] for their income,” Amorim says. He’s reluctant to criticize the project, but say another potential accident in a region that has already suffered an oil spill “is a massive worry.”

For Jasiel Martins, founder of the NGO Olha o Chico, the money from the training sessions was a means of “silencing people.” The organization is part of the managing council of the Piaçabuçu Environmental Protection Area, which was dismantled by the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro — one of a whole range of structures that fostered civil engagement and participation in public management that have been dissolved by the government. The NGO, along with more than 100 other organizations, has signed a public letter speaking out against the construction of the oil well in the river’s mouth. The letter raises concerns about flaws in the project’s environment impact assessment and calls for the communities threatened by the project to be consulted through in-person public hearings, which have not taken place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the front line of the fight for the São Francisco River, Martins says he’s certain that “any accident would be the end for the river.” “It’s already a struggle to survive here. The aningas [freshwater plants] have disappeared, fish have migrated. Those of us living here on the banks of the São Francisco have it tough, we’re dependent on water trucks to bring us drinking water because the water supply here is too saline.”

Quilombos at the oil’s mercy

The only way to get from Piaçabuçu in Alagoas to Brejo Grande in Sergipe is across the São Francisco River. The small ferry takes about an hour to reach the outskirts of Brejo Grande, the closest point of the coastline to the project’s drilling site, just 50 km (30 mi) away. In the event of a serious oil spill, oil slicks would reach this point of the coast in about two days, according to ExxonMobil’s own estimations.

Four quilombos — communities formed by Quilombolas, or Afro-Brazilian descendants of runaway slaves — are found in the municipality: Brejo Grande, Santa Cruz, Resina and Carapitanga. For the 480 families who live here, mainly traditional fishers and farmers, life is uneasy.

Studies show that the municipality of Brejo Grande, in the state of Sergipe, would be one of the first places to be hit in the event of an oil spill in the São Francisco river estuary. Image by Ailton Rocha da Cruz/Agência Pública.

Running water is scarce in the homes in the quilombos, and an internet connection even scarcer. An invitation to a digital hearing about ExxonMobil’s project therefore makes little sense.

“They asked us to come and watch the hearing on a big screen in Aracaju [the Sergipe state capital], a four-hour drive from here,” says Domenicio dos Santos, one of the quilombola community leaders. “And that was just for us to watch the proceedings, not even to have our voices heard.”

“They [ExxonMobil] turned up and started bothering us, offering us money and training sessions,” says Enéas Rosa, a fisherman and leader of the Resina quilombo. “We didn’t get involved because we understood what was at stake.”

Tired from her daily chores, Maria Isaltina Silva, a leader of the Brejão dos Negros quilombo, leans on the window ledge of her house. From here, she can see the Sumidouro Lagoon, a place known for its tales of magic and witchcraft. Her family has lived in this area going back at least 300 years, fishing and harvesting crabs. “People talk about emancipation, but we weren’t emancipated. We’re still being persecuted, just in different ways,” she says. “If we want to preserve the marshes we have here, they turn up and destroy them. Our livelihood comes from the river and the marshes. We don’t know anything else.”

Online public hearings without internet

Jane Teresa and Jerônimo Basílio, environmental lawyers from the Canoa de Tolda Society in Sergipe, signed a public civil lawsuit seeking to stop the public hearing on the project from taking place online, InfoSãoFrancisco reported. They said the scheduling of the hearing, a vital stage in the process of attaining an environmental license, didn’t meet legal requirements, such as prior consultation of the traditional communities as stipulated in Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization, which Brazil has ratified.

The Federal Public Ministry in both Sergipe and Alagoas states tried to cancel the online public consultation, in an attempt to guarantee the local population a fair and in-person hearing that would also abide by pandemic-related health protocols. However, the request was rejected by the courts. On Sept. 14, 2021, environmental regulator IBAMA carried out an online public hearing, broadcast via YouTube, featuring representatives from ExxonMobil and Witt O’Brien’s. Although some people received a link to participate and speak during the event, connection issues and problems with audio and video were the subject of constant complaints.

Questions during the hearing were selected and read out by Jônatas Trindade, the director for environmental licensing at IBAMA. Trindade even interrupted a representative from the fishing community as he was reading out an open letter from the communities against the project, alleging that the fisherman had passed his allotted time limit.

According to lawyer Jane Teresa, there are at least 116 quilombola communities in the region that would be affected by the project. “Many of these communities don’t have internet access, so how were they even going to participate?” She adds that ExxonMobil had submitted its environmental impact assessment after the deadline had already passed, “thereby prejudicing the principle of transparency.”

He colleague, Jerônimo Basílio, says it’s necessary to carry out more than one online hearing, “as established by Resolution 9/87 from the Nation Council for the Environment (CONAMA), given the complexity of the impacts that project would have, involving at least five states and 76 municipalities in its zone of influence,” he says.

Juliana Câmara, a lawyer with the Federal Public Ministry, sought to cancel the online hearing because of the loss of any effective popular participation. She filed a public civil lawsuit with an immediate injunction to urgently request the scheduling of a new, in-person public hearing with the participation of the traditional fishing communities who were excluded from the initial debate because of a lack of internet access. The request also calls for multiple public hearings to take place, “given the geographic range of the environmental impacts,” and for “a 10,000 reais [$1,900] fine for each administrative act carried out without the scheduling of the new in-person public hearing with the participation of traditional communities.” The courts have not yet responded to the request.

Câmara is used to monitoring activities that have a large socioenvironmental impact. But some aspects of this case in particular have grabbed her attention, she says. First and foremost, she says, is the way the environmental licensing process was rushed through. “What is also interesting is the way IBAMA has behaved, highlighting issues with the project, but then quickly accepting the company’s justifications,” she says. She adds the ExxonMobil, which had hoped to start drilling in the second half of the year, has made clear its dissatisfaction with the inquiries coming from the Federal Public Ministry and the resistance from the communities. “They have said that the delay in acquiring the environmental license will impact business interest in their concession.”

Câmara says she sought out expert analysis of the environmental impact assessment. “The experts highlighted the use of obsolete data, which did not take into account the synergistic nature of the activities, which go beyond the drilling and extraction itself and also include the movement of ships transporting the oil, gas and waste products, which will be taken to be treated in Niterói [in Rio de Janeiro state],” she says.

‘The last thing you would do’

Emerson Soares, a professor at the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL), recalls the moment he spotted the first signs of the oil as he walked along the beach in August 2019. “I came across some sand dollars” — an animal similar to a sea urchin “that had oil stains. I took them with me so I could analyze them later. A couple of weeks later, a turtle washed up that was also covered in oil.” A fishing engineer with a Ph.D. in biotechnology, Soares led the task force that responded to the oil spill in Alagoas and coordinated scientific expeditions along the São Francisco River, collecting data and promoting efforts to raise environmental awareness.

“If common sense was taken into account at all, drilling for oil at the mouth of the river would be the last thing you would do,” he says. He questions the modeling used for Project SEAL’s environment impact assessment and the studies on the spread of potential oil spills, saying they’re outdated. “They don’t take into account the most recently published research on the flow of the São Francisco River, which is constantly changing. Nor does it take into account the levels of heavy metals present in the water, which increased significantly since the 2019 oil spill, and which polluted the area around the mouth of the river.”

In the event of an oil spill, Brejo Grande would be at risk of being polluted within approximately two days, according to modeling carried out by ExxonMobil. The map on the left shows the extent of a spill during summer, and the one of the right during winter. Image by ExxonMobil.

Given that the true socioenvironmental impacts of the 2019 oil disaster were never truly measured, let alone dealt with, Soares says he’s concerned by the high risks associated with new activity on the river. Although experts from ExxonMobil have made assurances that the risk of a leak from the oil wells targeted for extraction is low — a one in 30,000 chance — the projections made by Soares are alarming.

Because of the weakened flow of the river, owing to the water crisis and the construction of dams along the river’s course, among other factors, the São Francisco River would not be able to contain the spread of any oil spill in the river’s estuary. The whole region surrounding the river’s mouth would be severely contaminated by such a spill. In the worst-case scenario, Soares says, the oil would reach municipalities across the northern coast of Sergipe and the southern coast of Alagoas.

The severity of such an oil spill would depend entirely upon the extent of the leak, the response time, the time of year during which it occurred, and the currents. However, even in the most modest of scenarios, the municipalities surrounding the mouth of the São Francisco River would be the most vulnerable to contamination. What this would mean in effect is that all of the Environmental Protection Areas, the local communities and highly important economic activities for the region, such as tourism, fishing, and shrimp, oyster and clam harvesting, could be affected by such a disaster.

“That’s without even taking into account the São Francisco mangrove forests, which are home to nearly 50% of the region’s species,” Soares says. “And it’s not just about accidents, as the act of drilling for oil in and of itself has an impact in terms of the release of toxic waste materials and the increase in the number of vessels on the waterways that are involved in the extraction process, which would completely change the local dynamics and also bring invasive species to the region on the hulls of the ships.”

In response to questions from Agência Pública, ExxonMobil gave the following statement:

“With regard to the maritime oil wells in the Sergipe-Alagoas basin, ExxonMobil is following every recommendation and protocol coming from the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Natural Resources (IBAMA). Our priority is to preserve the health and security of the community and the environment. We would like to reinforce that numerous meetings took place with representatives from the communities in the project’s area of influence, as well as an online public hearing, led by IBAMA, which took place on September 14, 2021. The hearing was open to the public and was transmitted via Zoom, YouTube, and local radio stations, and is available for access via the following link: www.audienciapublicaExxonMobil.com.br/seal.”

In a statement, Witt O’Brien’s said that the consultancy was “not involved in any way in the oil disaster on the Brazilian coast” in 2019, nor did it have “any type of relationship with Delta Tankers.” The company also stated that “it was not named in the police inquiry,” as was suggested by the document released by the Federal Police in November 2019, but rather that it was contacted by the Federal Police in the course of investigations in order to “supply further information needed that could help with investigations.”

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This article was first published here in Portuguese by Agência Pública and translated into English by Matty Rose from the Latin America Bureau.

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Never before have Americans foisted the fear of sickness in adults onto children and traded the risk to adults for risk to children. Clearly, some in the US think it’s okay to inject fear of harming others into the hearts and minds of children for the sake of adults. This, to me, reveals the selfishness inherent in individuals who have a self-aggrandized sense of entitlement. Adults who have not cared well for themselves have placed themselves at risk of severe COVID-19 are now expecting to use children as a buffer for their own health

Granted, some of them have not had the chance to learn of effective means of reducing their personal risk of contracting the SARS-CoV-2 virus, nor of means to reduce their risk of serious COVID-19 due to censorship and disinformation by LMOs (legacy media outlets). In projecting fear of COVID-19 onto children, adults have mandated futile public health measures, such as masking in school – a mistake based on a fallacy propagated by Fauci and CDC that many states are now waking up to as complete a waste of time as lockdowns.

On Tuesday, February 15, VRBPAC, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, will be meeting to consider an application from Pfizer for an EUA for kids 6-months to 4-years old.

The likelihood that the vaccine will prevent a single case of COVID-19 in adults is nearly zero.

The fact is, there is no emergency in this age group. Even NIAID Director Anthony Fauci doubts the number of hospitalizations attributed to COVID-19 in children is actually due to COVID-19.

From Newsweek (12/31/2021):

“Speaking to MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin, who was filling in for Rachel Maddow on Wednesday night, Fauci suggested that some of the children currently being treated at medical facilities were hospitalized with COVID as opposed to ‘because of COVID.’

He added that some children who are currently listed as being in hospital with COVID may actually be receiving treatment for ‘a broken leg or appendicitis,’ rather than for a severe reactions (sic) to the virus.”

This means there are a number of important breaches of ethical and legal standards involved in the activities undertaken to render the data to be considered by FDA.

(1) Under the US Code of Federal Regulations, it is illegal to conduct medical experiments on a person and enroll them in a clinical trial unless there is a direct potential personal benefit to them via their participation. Since there is no COVID-19 emergency in this age group, the studies conducted by Pfizer may well have been illegal – and are certainly immoral.

(2) Post-EDU Vaccine adverse event surveillance is a form of clinical research, and parents will not be provided, as required under the Common Rule and the rest of US 45-CFR-46, the opportunity to decline on the basis of refusal to participate in medical experimentation on their children.

(3) The EUA sought will be based on data from a scant 2 months of follow-up on safety. If the EUA is sought, millions of children will be vaccinated based on 2 months’ data for a biologic known to cause harm in adults; this is utterly unacceptable.

(4) Post-EUA vaccine adverse event surveillance studies will involve reports of vaccine-related injuries and deaths to VAERS. Causality will be denied due to the design of the VAERS reporting system. These include that not all events must be reported; contract to testimony by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, events following vaccines do not have to be reported. There are no penalties for doctors who fail to report, and many physicians will lie to the parents of their patients and state, without any scientific evidence, that the adverse event or death could not have been caused by the COVID-19 vaccine.

(5) In the studies that led to the EUA for COVID-19 vaccines for adults, vaccine manufacturers skipped Phase 2 by conducting Phase 1 trials followed by combined Phase 2/3 trials. In this study leading up to their bid for EUA for children, Pfizer combined Phases 1, 2 and 3 into a Phase 1/2/3 trial. This prevents the generation of data confirming prior adverse events found in separate Phase 1 and 2 trials. This is utterly reprehensible.

(6) The causality of injuries and deaths following COVID-19 vaccines in this age group will not be able to file for compensation via the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program’s “Vaccine Court,”, in which the Health and Human Services (HHS) is both the defendant and the administrator. Parents who file vaccine injury claims for their children in the NVICP have to seek experts for testimony linking, at the cellular and molecular level, the constituent parts of COVID-19 vaccines and the specific physiological basis of injuries or deaths in specific patients. Arguing causality using a single patient is the status quo of the culture of the Vaccine Court, which any scientist worth their salt will tell you is next to impossible. HHS medical experts will provide testimony arguing against each and every single death or injury following COVID-19, and no participants in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program will be able to access the testimony from other cases – including rulings, nor will they be able to cite precedent.

The rules in the NVICP abrogate a number of important fundamental precepts of Western Law. The HHS, which falls in the Executive Branch of US Government, is both the defendant and the administrator of the NVICP, which is (ostensibly) part of the US Judiciary branch of government, a clear violation of the separation of powers doctrine of the US Constitution.

From Cornell.Edu:

“Separation of powers is a doctrine of constitutional law under which the three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial) are kept separate. … Each branch has separate powers, and generally each branch is not allowed to exercise the powers of the other branches.”

How do we know all of this? We know this because these facts have been established for a long time as the status quo for all other pediatric vaccines on the CDC’s recommended vaccine schedule.

However, for COVID-19 vaccine-related injuries and deaths, parents will have to file in a program called the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). The CICP has been in play since 2013, long before COVID-19. Parents will have to file a “request for benefits” package. Unlike the NVICP, in which one can file up to three years following initial symptoms linked to the vaccine, CICP requires that parents file within one year.

Parents have twelve months to link their children’s death or injury to COVID-19 vaccines based on 2 months of follow-up for safety. And, of course, Pfizer will not be liable for any damages.

Some Predictions Based on Leaked Data

We’ve had a peek at the data that will be reviewed by VRBAC – and we need to insist that they consider absolute risk reduction, as opposed to relative risk reduction. From the New York Times:

“One person familiar with the data, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said children 2 to 4 years old who were given two shots were infected at a rate 57 percent lower than the children in the placebo group. Children 6 months to 2 years old who got shots were infected at a rate 50 percent lower than the placebo group. There were fewer than 100 cases of symptomatic infection — a small fraction of the participants overall.”

Here, we see a leak from Pfizer, designed to inspire confidence in their stocks, offered without any caveat as a forward-looking statement (alert Security Exchange Commission). I can tell from the language, however, that the data are representing rates of diagnosis (not reductions in hospitalizations), and that they are prepared as relative risk reduction. That’s the thing about percentages: a 57 percent reduction in diagnosis can involve a handful of children (1% is 50% of 2%, after all), and this practice of reporting only relative risk is par for the course for VRBPAC and other committees, such as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) committee.

The futile continued use of vaccines that target extinct variants, however, may make VRBPAC’s job of cheerleading difficult: the data appear to not support protection against Omicron (Source: New York Times).

The results are also likely to be arbitrarily subdivided into subjective age groups (“6 mos-2 years” and “over 2 years old”) because the results may not have been impressive using all of the data from all children in the study in a single analysis.

The evidence of “immunity” will also likely be restricted to antibody production, and we know that high antibody production is (1) not indicative of long-term immunity and (2) desirable given the possibility of pathogenic priming.

The FDA Committee will not be told by Pfizer that the scientific evidence is mounting that the use of vaccines designed for extinct COVID-19 variants is linked to the easier spread of the virus from cell to cell in infected individuals. You can read my article on Dr. Fantini and colleagues’ findings on this here, published Dec 26, 2021.

How to Contact VRBPAC and Urge Them to Deny the EUA

You can participate with the VRBPAC meeting, scheduled for Feb 15th, 2022, here

1. Take some time and draft, in your own words, a message outlining your concerns.
2. Be sure to reference that you are addressing the Pending FDA EUA Consideration of the Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Use in Children Ages 6 months through four years of age, Docket FDA-2022-N-0082.
3. Pfizer’s Press release is here.
4. The New York Times Article with the evidence of the data leak is here(subscription required).
5. Also send your message as email to SEC Chair, Gary Gensler [email protected] and remind him that earlier press releases related to COVID-19 vaccines did not include the required “Forward-Looking Statements” and that you are concerned that the data leak violates SEC requirements.

The Roster for the VRBPAC Committee is here.

Address your message as follows:

To: Hana El Sahly, M.D., Chair and the entire VRBPAC Committee

Subject: Pending EUA Meeting, Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine in Young Children

Feel free to use any or all of the text of my articles as inspiration, but please try to make your message your own.

And, as always, you can help defeat censorship and share this article with your family, friends and your neighbors.

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On Saturday 5 February 2022 lawyers gave their opening statements at the Grand Jury Proceeding by the Peoples’ Court of Public Opinion, an international natural law court.  Attorney at Law Dr. Reiner Fuellmich from Germany gave his opening statement which included an overview of the expert witnesses that will testify before the court. 

Below is the video of Dr. Fuellmich’s opening statement and the transcript.

Good aftenoon.

My name is Reiner Fuellmich and it is my pleasure to serve as one member of a group of distinguished international attorneys and lawyers who have been collaborating on this very important case for many months now.

This case involving the most heinous crimes against humanity committed under the guise of a “corona pandemic” on a global scale looks complicated only at first glance. But when you put together all those pieces – all those little pieces of the puzzle, as we will do this for you with the help of many renowned experts and other witnesses during this proceeding – you will see four sets of facts.

One, there is no corona pandemic but only a PCR test plandemic fuelled by an elaborate psychological operation designed to create a constant state of panic among the world’s population. This agenda has been long planned – its ultimately unsuccessful precursor was the swine flu some 12 years ago – and it was cooked up by a group of super rich psychopathic and sociopathic people who hate and fear people at the same time, have no empathy, and are driven by the desire to gain full control over all of us, the people of the world. They are using our governments and the mainstream media, both of which they literally own, to convey their panic propaganda 24/7.

Two, the virus itself can be treated safely and effectively with vitamin C, D, zinc etc and also with off-label use of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine etc. But all these, not alternative methods of treatment but, real methods of treatment were banned by those who are using the guise of this plandemic to push their ultimate goal which is to get everyone to receive the, as we will show in this proceeding, not only ineffective but highly dangerous – yes lethal – experimental injections.

Three, the same people who made the swine flu, which ultimately turned out to be a mild flu, into a pandemic 12 years ago – by first changing the definition of what a pandemic is and then, creating panic – created this corona pandemic.

The swine flu was their first real attempt at creating a pandemic. And just as one of its purposes then was to divert our attention from the blatantly fraudulent activities of their financial industry – more aptly to be called a financial mafia which had become visible through the Lehman crisis – this is also one of their major purposes of this corona pandemic now.

Had we taken a closer look then, during the Lehman crisis, instead of blindly believing our government’s promises that the perpetrators of those financial crimes will be held liable, we would have seen then that they had been looting and plundering our public coffers for decades. And we would have seen that our governments are not our governments anymore, rather, they have been taken over by the other side through their main platform the World Economic Forum which had started to create their own global leaders through their Young Global Leaders program as early as 1992. Two of the first graduates being Angela Merkel and Bill Gates. And we would have understood, already then, what we will show you now through this proceeding – these financial crimes went unchallenged by our politicians because they are aiding and abetting those who commit them and profiting from these crimes.

Four, ultimately however, we will show to you – the jury – that the other side’s main purpose is to gain full and complete control over all of us. This involves the finalisation of their looting and plundering by deliberately destroying our small and medium-sized businesses, retail businesses, hotel and restaurants so that platforms such as Amazon can take over.

And this involves population control which, in their view, requires both a massive reduction of the population and manipulating the DNA of the remaining population with the help, for example, of mRNA experimental injections.

But it also requires, in their view, the deliberate destruction of democracy, of the rule of law and of our constitutions through chaos so that ultimately we will agree to losing our national and cultural identities and instead will accept: a one world government – under the UN [United Nations] which is now under the full control of them and their World Economic Forum – a digital passport through which each and every move is monitored and controlled and one digital currency which we will only be able to receive from one world bank, theirs of course.

At the conclusion of the case and after you have heard all the evidence, we are confident that you will recommend indictments against all six putative figurehead defendants: Christian Drosten of Germany; Anthony Fauci of the United States; Tedros of the World Health Organisation; Bill Gates; BlackRock and Pfizer.

Ladies and gentlemen, this case is about a long-planned agenda of a group of ultra-rich people and their financial mafia based in the City of London and on Wall Street, to use a pseudo-pandemic as the guise behind which – while our attention is on the pandemic – they want to complete their decades-long efforts to gain full and complete control over all of us.

There are numerous platforms on which this group has been meeting and discussing this agenda. But the most important one is that of the World Economic Forum which was invented in 1971 by, a then 33-year-old, Klaus Schwab. Its members are: a thousand global corporations with at least 5 billion US dollars in annual sales; politicians; media representatives; scientists; and, other so-called high-profile personalities. They meet once a year in Davos but there are other such meetings for example, in China.

And since 1992 they have created and presented to us their own group of political leaders for the world. Among the first graduates, as I mentioned before, are Angela Merkel and Bill Gates in 1992. Others are: Sebastian Kurz, up until recently chancellor of Austria; Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada; Jacinda Ardern, prime minister of New Zealand; Francois [Emmanuel] Macron, president of France; and, many, many more.

This group, which is now called the “Davos Clique,” is openly – the publication ‘The Great Reset’ by Klaus schwab is one of the most important sources for this information – promoting the shifting of the world’s assets to this group of super-rich people so that in 2030 ordinary people “will own nothing and be happy” as it explicitly states there, under their one world government with a digital currency given to us by their one world bank and they’re also openly promoting – in close cooperation with people like the putative defendant Bill Gates, the Rockefellers and others – the drastic reduction of the world’s population and the manipulation of the remaining population’s DNA all the way into transhumanism.

Their most important goal is, however, the controlled, by them of course, implosion of the completely looted financial system and simultaneous introduction of a digital currency issued by one world bank, controlled by them, and, just as important, the introduction of a world government under the UN, which has come under their full control in 2019. For this purpose, they have made concrete plans for this corona plandemic since at least the spring of 2001, operation “Dark Winter,” followed by:

• Another such rehearsal the “Lockstep” exercise by the Rockefeller foundation in 2010; and finally,
• “Event 201” in October of 2019 in New York sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security, the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Members of the jury, we will call a number of different highly renowned expert witnesses from all walks of science, but also witnesses who will testify to the damage that they suffered as a result of getting the experimental injections, in this trial.

After our opening statements we will start off, in a week from now, by calling:

• a former member of the US military, James Bush, who participated in operation Dark Winter in 2001;
• former members of the British intelligence services Brian Gerrish and Alex Thomson; and
• investigative journalists Whitney Web and Matthew Ehret;
• former World Health Organisation employees and advisors Dr. Sylvia Behrend and Dr. Astrid Stuckelberger.

They will explain to us the historical and geopolitical background of what we are confronted with. And they will show to us how this agenda has been planned for at least 20 years start starting with operation Dark Winter in 2001 and, some 10 years later, the Lockstep Scenario by the Rockefeller Foundation, ending with the dress rehearsal Event 201 in October of 2019. In the end they will explain how, when there were no cases which they needed to declare a public health emergency of international concern, they created them by having defendant Drosten invent the story of asymptomatic infections, which don’t exist, and how this PCR test can detect, through mass screening of perfectly healthy people, those who are infected is a lie, as we will show.

We will continue with the next group of witnesses:

• Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, an experienced lung specialist and former member of the German Bundestag and the Council of Europe, who managed to expose the other side’s first attempt at a pandemic, the swine flu of 12 years ago, as a mild flu;
• Professor Ulrike Kämmerer, biologist from Würzburg University;
• Dr Mike Yeadon former Vice President of Pfizer;
• Dr Sylvia Behrend; Dr. Astrid Stuckelberger; Professor Dolores Cahill of Dublin University; Professor Antonia Gatti from Italy; Professor Berkholtz from Germany.

These experts will explain to us what is behind the legend of the Wuhan wet market outbreak. They will show that: the virus is no more dangerous than the common flu; the PCR test cannot tell us anything about infections but is the only basis for all anti-corona measures including the ultimate measure the so-called “vaccines”; and, the so-called “vaccines” are not only ineffective but extremely dangerous.

Regardless of the natural or man-made origin of the virus, our immune system is perfectly well capable of dealing with the virus as evidenced by an infection fatality rate of between 0.14 and 0.15, or even less, percent. There was no excess mortality anywhere until the experimental injections started. There were not even any cases in early 2020, however they needed cases in order to declare a public health emergency of international concern as this was the only basis on which it would be possible, according to their own made-up rules which all governments of the member states of the world health organization had agreed to, to use untested new drugs – the experimental injections – on people.

After a first failed attempt at announcing this public health emergency of international concern because there were no cases, they tried again in late January of 2020 – after they had created cases with the help of that now infamous Drosten PCR test – and announced this public health emergency of international concern two weeks later. We will hear from these experts that these cases were almost all false positive test results, nothing else.

The next group of experts are:

• Dr Thomas Binder from Switzerland;
• Dr Bryan Ardis from Texas;
• Dr. Shankara Chetty from South Africa
• Dr Wolfgang Wodarg from Germany; and,
• John O’Looney undertaker from England.

These experts will tell us how right from the start we were witnessing a deliberate, completely senseless banning of normal, effective and safe methods of treatment of respiratory diseases. And instead, a mandate of treatments that must now be considered serious medical malpractice – intubation, remdesivir, midazolam. John O’Looney will explain how he first, believing the other side’s allegations about a pandemic, even helped the BBC in pushing their panic propaganda until he realised how under the guise of the pandemic people were intentionally being killed.

We will then call the next group of experts including:

• Professor Alexandra Henrion-Caude from France;
• Dr Mike Yeadon;
• Professor Sucharit Bhakdi from Germany;
• Professor Luc Montagnier from France;
• Dr. Vanessa Schmidt-Kruger from Germany;
• Dr Robert Malone inventor of the mRNA vaccine technique from the US; and,
• Professor Arne Burkhardt pathologist from Germany.

They will show us that: while the virus did not cause any excess mortality it has a survival rate of 99.97 percent; the shots are now killing people and have been causing excess mortality of up to 40, since September, as a result of a poisoning with the spike protein and of shutting off our immune system. Dr. Mike Yeadon will tell us how a group of scientists has even found concrete evidence that the makers of the vaccines are experimenting with lethal dosages to see how the lethal side-effects can be manipulated in such a way that the population will not immediately understand what is happening.

The next group of experts will explain to us how it could have come to this. This group includes:

• Professor Mattias Desmet from Belgium;
• Dr. Ariane Bilheran from France;
• Dr Merideth Miller from the US;
• Professor Harald Walach from Germany; and,
• Stefan Cohen employee of the German Department of the Interior.

These experts will walk us through how the other side, after having established the public health emergency of international concern, in quick succession introduced us to the lockdown, the nonsensical and dangerous mask mandates, and the very harmful, both physically and psychologically, social distancing until they arrived at their ultimate goal – the ineffective and dangerous even lethal injections. And they will explain to us in detail how our acquiescence to all this was made possible through a gigantic psychological operation whose panic message we kept receiving through the mainstream media and our politicians’, both owned by the other side, relentless propaganda.

The next group of experts includes:

• Leslie Manukian a former investment banker from the US;
• Naomi Wolfe, journalist and author from the US;
• Ernst Wolff a German economist;
• Professor Christian Kreiss German economist;
• Professor Holger Reichel a German economist; and,
• Marcus Kroll a German economist.

This part of the proceeding will have these experts explain to us in great detail about the intentional destruction of our economies and how the other side is working on a controlled crash of the financial system to both: get away with the crimes that they have already committed over the past decades – looting and plundering our public coffers until there’s nothing left – and, to introduce a one world bank and digital currency plus digital passport.

The final group of experts include:

• Matthew Ehret an investigative journalist from Canada;
• Vera Sharav a holocaust survivor;
• Ilana Rachel Daniel from Israel;
• Rabbi Smith from New York;
• Patrick Wood an expert on technocracy from the US;
• Avital Livny from Israel.

This final part of the investigation will have these experts tell us how an important part of the other side’s agenda has to do with population control, or rather eugenics. After World War II eugenics had a bad name – Julian Huxley who founded the UNESCO set. But he and the very large group of people who supported the idea of eugenics would soon be able to continue with their efforts in this direction he openly explained. The parallels between what happened then 80 years ago and what is happening now shall not be ignored. Vera Sharav will remind us of this.

After you have heard all the evidence, we have no doubt that you will recommend indictments against all our putative defendants for crimes against humanity.

Thank you.

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Submitted February 10, 2022 to the Federal Register.

Regarding February 15 FDA meeting.

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The British government is spending tens of millions on media projects in Eastern Europe which are often presented as fighting “Russian disinformation”, but which may involve the UK’s own information operations.

The British government ploughed at least £82.7m of public money into media projects in countries bordering or near Russia in the four years to 2021.

The projects, which take place across 20 countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, are run through the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF), a cross-government pot of money with the stated aim of preventing “instability and conflicts that threaten UK interests”.

The National Security Council, which is chaired by the prime minister, sets the fund’s strategic direction. But a parliamentary committee found the CSSF was “being used as a ‘slush fund’ for projects” which “do not meet the needs of UK national security.”

The findings come as tensions between Britain and Russia are high over Ukraine. The UK has accused Russia of planning to invade or launch a coup in Ukraine to install a pro-Moscow government.

Last month Britain began supplying the eastern European country with new anti-tank weapons. Some of the UK-funded media projects appear focused on Ukraine.

Britain is funding media projects in 20 countries (orange) bordering or near Russia (black). (Image: Datawrapper/DCUK)

‘Counter-disinformation’ 

The project most clearly directed at Russia is the Counter Disinformation and Media Development programme. It is run around Russia’s western border, from the Baltic States to Central and Eastern Europe, although project documents do not disclose specific countries.

It cost £60.4m in the four years to 2021.

The programme ”supports [the government’s] Russia Strategy’s objective to protect UK national security by reducing the harm to democracy and the rules-based international order caused by Russia’s information operations”.

It also “complements” the UK’s Ukraine Strategy – and appears to be focused on the country.

The project is likely part of the ongoing information war between Russia and Nato. The funds, UK documents note, aim to “understand and expose disinformation across the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) space.”

The project was launched in 2016 and initially called the Russian Language programme. It sees the UK “work with a range of partners to enhance the quality of public and independent Russian language media”. It later expanded to include non-Russian language media.

The support to grantees includes “mentoring with UK media organisations”, “consultancy on programming” and “funded coproductions”. The UK is also supporting media outlets with “the collection of open-source information”.
The Foreign Office, which runs the programme, refused to give Declassified the names of media outlets that have received UK funds.

It also refused to name the UK media organisations that have been “mentoring” through the programme.

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Featured image: Communication towers in Ukraine. Britain financed the installation of 16 radio transmitters in eastern Ukraine to broadcast to Russia-backed rebel regions. (Photo: Anton Petrus / Moment)

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The computation is based on the Ukrainian government stating the U.S. had delivered 500,000 tons of military assistance as of February 1. There have been four more deliveries since then, at 80 tons per consignment.

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Tenth plane with ammo arrives in Ukraine from USA – Reznikov

By Interfax-Ukraine

February 10, 2022

The tenth plane has delivered a batch of ammunition to Ukraine as part of the United States’ military-technical assistance, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov has said.

“Today is an ‘open day’ at Boryspil airport! Right behind after the ninth bird from the United States, the tenth bird flew. More than 80 tonnes of ammo for the Ukrainian Armed Forces yet,” Reznikov said on Twitter on Wednesday evening.

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Tenth plane carrying U.S. military aid arrives in Ukraine

By Ukrinform

February 10, 2022

Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov welcomed to Ukraine the tenth plane carrying military assistance from the United States.

“Today is a ‘open doors day’ at the Boryspil Airport! The 10th bird arrived from the United States immediately after the 9th bird. More than 80 tonnes of ammunition for the Armed Forces of Ukraine from our partners! Welcome to Kyiv,” the minister posted on Facebook on the evening of February 9.

As reported, the ninth plane carrying U.S. military aid arrived in Ukraine on February 9.

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Rick Rozoff, renowned author and geopolitical analyst, actively involved in opposing war, militarism and interventionism for over fifty years. He manages the Anti-Bellum and For peace, against war website.

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

Featured image is from Donbass Insider

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***

On Feb. 5, more than 55 cities and towns rallied with the message: “Disband NATO! No War on Russia!” The day of action was sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition, Code Pink, Black Alliance for Peace, Peace Action, Maryland Peace Action, Popular Resistance and others. 

From Huntsville, Alabama, to Providence, Rhode Island, from Dallas to Milwaukee to Seattle — people nationwide are standing up against war with Russia. Biden has escalated an already tense conflict with Russia, despite Ukrainian President Zelensky telling Biden that Russia is not about to invade and that Biden’s escalations are causing “panic” in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.

In Washington, D.C., protesters spoke at the White House and demanded Biden and the U.S. foreign policy elites stop their threats against Russia. While Biden has already sent U.S. troops to countries surrounding Ukraine, people made their demands heard to stop this war in its tracks.

ANSWER Coalition Director Brian Becker was among those who spoke to the crowd. He explained how the United States gets away with their insatiable war drive, saying:

“The only way to get the American people to say ‘yes’ to spending a trillion of their dollars every year is to fear or hate others. So we’re told to fear the Russians. Hate them. Fear the Chinese. Hate them. Fear the Cubans and the Venezuelans. Fear the Palestinians. And as long as you hate and fear them, you can say maybe the government has a point in spending a trillion dollars of our money every year for death and destruction. Because fear and hatred are a form of collective deflection away from what people know to be the real problem.”

Hear our National Director @BrianBeckerDC explain how demagogy is the only way the ruling class can justify a $1 trillion war budget year after year, which it uses to crush independent nations. pic.twitter.com/Lr3qPMr0Q3

— ANSWER Coalition (@answercoalition) February 5, 2022

People mobilized and came from around the area to protest in front of the White House and show their support for ending this war on Russia before it’s too late.

Other cities with demonstrations that day included New York City, Seattle and Boston.

In Boston, braving the wind and cold, 75 anti-war activists assembled at Park Street Station in Downtown Boston on February 5. The protesters came from local groups including the Green-Rainbow Party, Veterans For Peace, Committee for Peace and Human Rights, the Massachusetts People’s Party, United Against War and Militarism, Boston May Day Coalition, the ANSWER coalition and others.

Jackie King from Massachusetts Peace Action spoke to the heart of the matter: “We are here today to tell our government, both Democrats and Republicans, that the dangerous actions and words must stop. Step back from the brink! Instead of ratcheting up the tension, the U.S. should deescalate and pursue a path of vigorous and sincere diplomacy.”

ANSWER organizer Nino Brown spoke to the clear U.S. aggression: “The United States has installed bases in Romania, in Latvia, in Poland, all pointing to Russia. [Now] you have U.S. troops in over 800 military bases all over the world. There’s not even 800 countries all over the world!”

By coming together, anti-war activists in Boston exposed the cracks in this foundation of U.S. hegemony. Cracks through which flowers of hope bloom, in the form of multinational working-class unity, organized around one simple slogan: “They say more war. We say no war!”

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***

Just one day following Kennedy’s Presidential Proclamation formalizing the economic blockade of Cuba, on February 4, 1962, in José Martí Plaza de la Revolución, more than a million people ratified what became known as the Second Declaration of Havana, an emphatic response to the aggression, sabotage and crimes against our country, financed by the United States.

“We will resist in all arenas… the homeland does not work for today, the homeland works for tomorrow. And no one will be able to steal from us a tomorrow so full of promises, no one will be able to prevent it, because with the fortitude of our people… with the courage and heroism of our people, we are going to conquer it,” Fidel insisted at the time.

He condemned U.S. maneuvers to isolate Cuba on the very day that, in Punta del Este, Uruguay, the Organization of American States expelled our nation from the organization, with the votes, under pressure, of the continent’s countries, with the honorable exception of Mexico.

The Second Declaration of Havana reaffirmed the socialist and internationalist character of the Cuban Revolution, with emphasis on its significance for Latin American, examining the historical roots of the continent’s peoples, constantly facing imperialist intervention.

Precisely “to the peoples of America and the world” Fidel addresses the ideas that would be approved by that massive national general assembly, and pointed out that the U.S. did not fear the Cuban Revolution, but rather the Latin American Revolution.
“By crushing the Cuban Revolution, they believe they can dispel the fear that torments them, the ghost of the revolution that threatens them.  By liquidating the Cuban Revolution, they believe they are liquidating the revolutionary spirit of the peoples.

They allege, in their delirium, that Cuba is an exporter of revolutions,” adding, “In response to the accusation that Cuba wants to export its Revolution, we reply: revolutions are not exported, they are made by the peoples. What Cuba can give the peoples, and has given, is its example.”

Fidel concluded with the phrase that Che would later quote at the United Nations:

“This great humanity has said: Enough, and has begun to move. And this march of giants will not stop until true independence is won, for which they have already died, more than once, in vain.”

This had been Cuba’s fate, but the nascent Revolution ended the era of useless sacrifice and consummated our emancipation. True to this inspiring example, Fidel asserted:

“Now, in any case, those who die, will die like those of Cuba, those of Playa Girón, they will die for their definitive, true, irrevocable independence!”

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Recently, Copenhagen and Washington announced they are about to conclude a new defense pact, integrating the European country into the American government’s plans in light of the general security crisis on the continent. The deal, in short, allows Denmark to receive American troops in its territory without any control of quantity, which has generated contrary opinions, criticism and controversy, as it directly affects the sovereignty of the Danish state.

Pressured by tensions in Ukraine and by NATO’s narrative about an imminent risk of war, Denmark is deciding to completely abdicate its military sovereignty, allowing American troops to occupy all of its national territory, using local military bases, allocating new equipment, and carrying out all type of activity deemed necessary by the US, without any request for authorization or any prior notice to the Danish authorities. The only limit to American activities is the installation of nuclear weapons on Danish soil, which remains prohibited.

The deal is similar to the pact previously signed between the US and Norway last year, basically consisting of an abdication by the receiver country of the command of its own military forces, which will be at the service of US troops. In fact, these are not “cooperation” agreements since a relevant role is not established for the armed forces of the receiving countries. What happens is simply the total and unrestricted surrender by Norway and Denmark of their territories, military bases, soldiers, weapons and equipment to the US, in exchange for a supposed “protection” from Russia.

Although the agreement is considered strategic, appropriate and necessary by the Danish government, many critical opinions have been generated due to the truly humiliating aspect of this type of situation. Obviously, all Danish public opinion is in favor of the country having its defense capabilities improved and becoming strong in the face of any threat, guaranteeing protection to its people and territory.

The Socialist Party, for example, despite its opposition to the government, maintains a moderate stance, considering ties with NATO to be important, but severely condemns such a deal as it violates Danish sovereignty, intensifying polarizations within the alliance itself. In this regard, these were the words of Karsten Hønge, spokesperson for the Socialist Party, on a social network: “Thanks, but no thanks to American wishes for troops and materiel in Denmark. The NATO countries are being played off against each other, and Danish sovereignty is being pressured. The US is our ally, but cooperation should be kept within NATO”.

This differentiation between “cooperation” and “violation of sovereignty” has been strongly emphasized by critics of the agreement, who consider it insulting to Denmark, not beneficial to national defense. In the same vein, Red-Green Alliance’s spokeswoman Eva Flyvholm said:

“It’s fine enough with collaboration, but you don’t have to sell out completely the basic sovereignty over your own land and legal control over it”.

The agreement is not yet in force, although negotiations are being concluded quickly. The only challenge faced by the government at the moment is to form a parliamentary majority that supports the measure, but, interestingly, the case seems to be resolving. Through an alliance between conservatives and liberals, the government has had a positive dialogue with Venstre, the largest opposition party, gaining support for a possible approval of the deal.

This has been possible because the rightist orientation of Venstre, despite condemning a major part of the current government’s policies, tends to support any measure to integrate of Denmark to NATO and the US. In short, it is a party that supports the anti-Russian discourse and sees Moscow as a threat to the country. In this regard, Venstre’s spokesperson Michael Aastrup Jensen said the following: “We are clearly positive about it. It is important that we work as closely together across the Atlantic as possible. It is necessary in light of the fact that we have unfortunately got this Cold War 2.0, going on where we have a Russia that is doing some violent sabre-rattling”.

In fact, while government and opposition dialogue, time passes and the existence of a supposed Russian invasion plan seems less and less credible. NATO’s pressure to deploy American troops in as many countries as possible grows day after day, while, on the other hand, Moscow remains inert, without showing any kind of aggression, despite the insults and maneuvers of the West. That says a lot about which side really shows an interest in fomenting conflict in Europe.

Considering that such an invasion plan does not exist and the possibility of a war in Europe is practically zero, the European countries that are rushing and desperately accepting to hand over their territories to Washington in exchange for a supposed “protection” are making a big mistake. Soon, the tensions will calm down and public opinion will stop believing in the supposed Russian plan and so Denmark will understand that it has destroyed its own sovereignty for nothing.

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

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***

In the heyday of the Cold War during the seventies and eighties, Western corporate media insidiously mounted a smear campaign against communists, maliciously branding them “infidels and heathens” having the nefarious agenda of forcibly converting pious Muslims to “Satanic atheism” in order to create a rift between devoutly religious and traditionalist Islamic World and the progressive communist bloc, despite being aware of the clear distinction that Marxism is simply an egalitarian economic theory having nothing, whatsoever, to do with religio-cultural affairs.

Then Western security establishments alongside their Middle Eastern client regimes nurtured Islamic fundamentalists as regional proxies, generously providing funds, training and weapons to Islamic jihadists while internationally legitimizing them as “freedom fighters” battling Soviet hegemony, and encouraged them to mount a holy jihad against “Godless communists” all the way from Afghanistan in the Central Asia to Chechnya in the North Caucasus and Bosnia and Kosovo in the Balkans.

Similarly, following the rise of China as a major economic power in the 21^st century, the mainstream media has once again been tasked by the security establishments to demonize the global rival by blowing out of proportions the sheer fabrication of alleged “genocide and ethnic cleansing” of Uyghur Muslim’s in China’s western Xinjiang province in order to drive a wedge between the rising industrial power and the Islamic World.

Unlike several hapless Islamic countries in the Middle East, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, that went through US military occupation or intervention through regional proxies and where countless large-scale massacres have taken place creating millions of refugees, no such massacre or forced displacement of ethnic Uyghurs has ever been recorded in China’s Xinjiang, not even by the corporate media, the foremost purveyor of presumed Uyghur persecution in China.

After the deadly Urumqi riots in July 2009 between the Han and Uyghur ethnic groups in Xinjiang’s provincial capital in which scores of rioters on both sides were killed, China went through a series of violent terror attacks that rocked Xinjiang and the rest of China in the following years.

Dozens of civilians were hacked to death at a busy train station in China’s south. A Uyghur drove a car into crowds at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Forty-three died when militants threw bombs from two sports utility vehicles plowing through a busy market street in Urumqi. When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Xinjiang in 2014, bombs tore through an Urumqi train station, killing three and injuring 79.

After experiencing the spate of Islamist-inspired terror attacks, Chinese authorities initiated de-radicalization programs in Xinjiang in which Uyghurs were encouraged to participate, as in the Western countries where Muslim immigrants were kept under surveillance and suspects with history of violent crimes were asked to attend de-radicalization programs in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attack when anti-Muslim paranoia was at the peak.

Most of the aforementioned terror attacks in China were claimed by East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a formidable transnational terrorist organization of Uyghurs that has taken part in Islamist insurgencies as far away as Afghanistan and Syria. The militant group has been declared a proscribed terrorist outfit by China, the United Nations and many regional countries, though the Trump administration removed its terrorist designation in 2020.

Much like the Uyghur diaspora in the Western countries being patronized by the security agencies and the corporate media to malign a global rival, there is another clandestine organization of Chinese dissidents based in the US that until the November 2020 presidential election enjoyed the protection of the US security establishment and was used as a trump card to mount psychological warfare against the Chinese government.

Image on the right: Portrait of Li Hongzhi (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

Falun Gong was founded by its leader Li Hongzhi in China in the early 1990s. Today, Falun Gong maintains an informal headquarters, Dragon Springs, a 400-acre compound in upstate New York, located near the current residence of Li Hongzhi. Falun Gong’s performance arts extension, Shen Yun, and two closely connected schools, Fei Tian College and Fei Tian Academy of the Arts, also operate in and around Dragon Springs.

Since 1998, Li Hongzhi has settled as a permanent resident in the United States and maintains high-level contacts not only in the governments of the US and China but also enjoys immense political clout among Chinese diaspora across the world, thanks to the deep pockets of several billionaire Chinese oligarchs that Falun Gong boasts in its ranks, who generously contribute to finance the clandestine organization’s anti-China propaganda operations.

Forget about criticizing the secretive society, up until the elections it wasn’t even permitted to mention the name of Falun Gong on mainstream news outlets. It was simply described as “a religious and spiritual movement” that teaches “meditation techniques” to its members in all the information available in the public domain about the objectives and activities of the religio-political cult.

But in an explosive article [1] for the New York Times in October 2020 to dispel a flurry of reports about the “Chinagate scandal” implicating the Biden campaign in the run-up to the US presidential election, Kevin Roose blew the lid off on the subversive organization and its media outlet The Epoch Times, widely followed by Trump supporters, and alleged:

“For years, The Epoch Times was a small, low-budget newspaper with an anti-China slant that was handed out free on New York street corners. But in 2016 and 2017, the paper made two changes that transformed it into one of the country’s most powerful digital publishers.

“The changes also paved the way for the publication, which is affiliated with the secretive and relatively obscure Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong, to become a leading purveyor of right-wing misinformation.

“First, it embraced President Trump, treating him as an ally in Falun Gong’s scorched-earth fight against China’s ruling Communist Party, which banned the group two decades ago and has persecuted its members ever since. Its relatively staid coverage of U.S. politics became more partisan, with more articles explicitly supporting Mr. Trump and criticizing his opponents.

“As the 2016 election neared, reporters noticed that the paper’s political coverage took on a more partisan tone. ‘They seemed to have this almost messianic way of viewing Trump as the anti-communist leader who would bring about the end of the Chinese Communist Party,’ Steve Klett, who covered the 2016 campaign for the paper, said.

“Where the paper’s money comes from is something of a mystery. Former employees said they had been told that The Epoch Times was financed by a combination of subscriptions, ads and donations from wealthy Falun Gong practitioners.

“Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist of the White House, is among those who have noticed The Epoch Times’s deep pockets. Last year, he produced a documentary about China with NTD. When he talked with the outlet about other projects, he said, money never seemed to be an issue. ‘I’d give them a number,’ Mr. Bannon said. ‘And they’d come back and say, We’re good for that number.’”

The Times report wasn’t the first instance of the mainstream media implicating Chinese dissidents in the electoral politics of the US. In a tit-for-tat response to the pro-Trump New York Post’s bombshell report exposing Hunter Biden’s murky financial dealings with Ukrainian and Chinese oligarchs in the run-up to the US presidential elections, the Daily Beast came up with a scoop [2] in October 2020 that the hard disks on which Hunter’s emails were found were provided to Rudy Giuliani by a Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui on behalf of dissident members of the Chinese Communist Party.

According to the report:

“Weeks before the New York Post began publishing what it claimed were the contents of Hunter Biden’s hard drive, a Sept. 25 segment on a YouTube channel run by a Chinese dissident streamer, who is linked to billionaire and Steve Bannon-backer Guo Wengui, broadcast a bizarre conspiracy theory.

“According to the streamer, Chinese politburo officials had ‘sent three hard disks of evidence’ to the Justice Department and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi containing damaging information about Joe Biden as well as the origins of the coronavirus in a bid to undermine the rule of Chinese President Xi Jinping …

“While Guo’s ties to Steve Bannon have long been known—Bannon was arrested for defrauding donors in August on a 152-foot-long yacht reportedly owned by Guo—the billionaire appears to have also joined forces with Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in the former New York mayor’s relentless anti-Biden dirt-digging crusade.

“Guo Wengui has been in the Trumpworld orbit pretty much from the beginning, paying the $200,000 initiation fee to become a member of the president’s Florida golf resort Mar-a-Lago, which Trump has dubbed the ‘Southern White House.’ But Guo’s membership soon became a headache for the administration in the run-up to Trump’s first summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2017, due to Guo’s fugitive status in China.

“At one point, Trump had reportedly considered deporting Guo after the Chinese government called for his extradition in a letter delivered to Trump by casino mogul Steve Wynn in 2017. After presenting the letter during a policy meeting, the president reportedly said, ‘We need to get this criminal out of the country,’ only for aides to remind him that Guo was a Mar-a-Lago member, eventually talking him out of the decision and ensuring the deportation was scuttled …

“Guo has framed himself as a stalwart critic of the CCP and China’s corrupt elite, but his efforts have divided China’s exile community. Guo has enthusiastically attacked other critics of Beijing as jealous poseurs, including most recently a Texas Christian pastor and Tiananmen protester named Bob Fu—who was imprisoned in China for his faith before escaping to the U.S.—whom Guo accuses of being a secret agent for the CCP. Fu has lobbed the same charge back at Guo and his followers.”

Although the Daily Beast article didn’t even once mention the name of the clandestine organization Falun Gong, Guo Wengui is known to be a trusted associate of Li Hongzhi, the founder and veritable prophet of the religio-political cult presumed to be having “supernatural powers” by brainwashed followers.

Regardless, it’s noteworthy that it wasn’t just financial inducements offered by billionaire Chinese oligarchs that lured the Trump campaign into the Falun Gong orbit, but also the political mileage that could be obtained by initiating a trade war against China.

In order to understand the real and perceived grievances of Donald Trump’s “alt-right” electoral base, it would be pertinent to point out that during the last decade, all the manufacturing has outsourced to China. Although the bankers and executives of multinational corporations are the beneficiaries of outsourcing, the middle and working classes that constituted Trump’s electoral base are finding it hard to make ends meet.

Besides the Trump supporters in the United States, the far-right populist leaders in Europe are also exploiting popular resentment against market fundamentalism. The Brexiteers in the United Kingdom, the Yellow Vest protesters in France and the “right wing” movements across Europe are manifestations of a paradigm shift in the global economic order in which nationalist and protectionist slogans have replaced the free trade and globalization mantra of the nineties.

Trump withdrawing the United States from multilateral treaties, restructuring trade agreements, bringing investments and employments back to the US and initiating a trade war against China were some of the salient features of the “alt-right” economic reforms agenda that appealed to the working class constituency he represented, and won over 74 million popular votes, likely the largest number of votes won in the US history by a losing presidential candidate.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Af-Pak and the Middle East regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of meticulously researched and credibly sourced investigative reports to Global Research.

Notes

[1] How The Epoch Times Created a Giant Influence Machine

[2] Chinese Billionaire’s Network Hyped Hunter Biden Dirt Weeks Before Rudy

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On February 8, 2022, Nobel Prize winning virologist Dr Luc Montagnier passed away.

Since the earliest moments of COVID-19’s appearance, Montagnier was slandered and ridiculed for his challenges to the underlying assumptions of the disease’s causes and remedies despite the constant slings and arrows of the deep state which sought to shut the door on all such dangerous discussion.

More important than Montagnier’s claims of laboratory origins of a disease (which appears to have more to do with bacteriological than viral causes), are found in an overlooked domain of optical biophysics which the good scientist completely revolutionized during the last 15 years of his fruitful life.

It is this lesser understood, yet infinitely more important aspect of Montagnier’s contribution to human knowledge which have fallen under the radar of too many analysts and citizens, which I believe he would want to be remembered by.

What is Optical Biophysics and What did Montagnier Discover?

Optical biophysics is the study of the electromagnetic properties of the physics of life. This means paying attention to the light emissions and absorption frequencies from cells, DNA, and molecules of organic matter, how these interface with water (making up over 75% of a human body) and moderated by the nested array of magnetic fields located on the quantum level and stretching up to the galactic level.

Not to discount the bio-chemical nature of life which is hegemonic in the health science realm, the optical biophysician asks: which of these is PRIMARY in growth, replication, and division of labor of individual cells or entire species of organisms? Is it the chemical attributes of living matter or the electromagnetic properties?

Let me explain the paradox a bit more.

There are approximately 40 trillion highly differentiated cells in the average human body, each performing very specific functions and requiring an immense field of coherence and intercommunication. Every second approximately 10 million of those cells die, to be replaced by 10 million new cells being born. Many of those cells are made up of bacteria, and much of the DNA and RNA within those cells is made up of viruses (mostly dormant), but which can be activated/deactivated by a variety of methods both chemical and electromagnetic.

Here’s the big question:

HOW might this complex system be maintained by chemical processes alone- either over the course of a day, month or an entire lifetime?

The simple physics of motion of enzymes which carry information in the body from one location to another simply doesn’t come close to accounting for the information coordination required among all parts. This is where Montagnier’s research comes in.

After winning the 2008 Nobel Prize, Dr. Montagnier published a revolutionary yet heretical 2010 paper called “DNA Waves and Water” which took the medical community by storm. In this paper, Montagnier demonstrated how low frequency electromagnetic radiation within the radio wave part of the spectrum was emitted from bacterial and viral DNA and how said light was able to both organize water and transmit information! The results of his experiments were showcased wonderfully in this 8 min video:

Using a photo-amplifying device invented by Dr. Jacques Benveniste in the 1980s to capture the ultra low light emissions from cells, Montagnier filtered out all particles of bacterial DNA from a tube of water and discovered that the post-filtered solutions containing no material particles continued to emit ultra low frequency waves! This became more fascinating when Montagnier showed that under specific conditions of a 7 Hz background field (the same as the Schumann resonance which naturally occurs between the earth’s surface and the ionosphere), the non-emitting tube of water that had never received organic material could be induced to emit frequencies when placed in close proximity with the emitting tube! Even more interesting is that when base proteins, nucleotides and polymers (building blocks of DNA) were put into the pure water, near perfect clones of the original DNA were formed!

Dr. Montagnier and his team hypothesized that the only way for this to happen was if the DNA’s blueprint was somehow imprinted into the very structure of water itself resulting in a form of “water memory” that had earlier been pioneered by immunologist Jacques Benveniste (1935-2004), the results of which are showcased in this incredible 2014 documentary “Water Memory”.

Just as Benveniste suffered one of the most ugly witch hunts in modern times (led in large measure by Nature Magazine in 1988), Montagnier’s Nobel prize did not protect him from a similar fate as an international slander campaign has followed him over the past 10 years of his life. Nearly 40 Nobel prize winners have signed a petition denouncing Montagnier for his heresy and the great scientist was forced to even flee Europe to escape what he described as a culture of “intellectual terror”. In response to this slander, Montagnier stated to LaCroix magazine:

“I’m used to attacks from these academics who are just retired bureaucrats, closed off from all innovation. I have the scientific proofs of what I say”.

Describing the greatest challenges to advancing this research, Montagnier stated:

“We have chosen to work with the private sector because no funds could come from public institutions. The Benveniste case has made it so that anyone who takes an interest in the memory of water is considered… I mean it smells of sulphur. It’s Hell.”

The Long Wave of Discovery (and the Clash of Two Sciences)

Montagnier’s fight is merely a shadow of a much larger clash within western science itself. While many people think simplistically that there is one singular branch of science from Galileo to Descartes to Newton to the present, the reality upon closer inspection shows us that there are actually two opposing paradigms- one of which has been obscured systematically by politically-motivated witch hunts since even before the days of Huxley’s X Club and the 1869 founding of Nature Magazine.

Since this fight is so often overlooked, a few words should be said here and now.

In opposition to the materialist tradition which has attempted to impose “material causes” onto natural phenomena, the more potent school of optical biophysics embodied by Montagnier was set into motion by none other than Louis Pasteur. Long before the Beschamp-Pasteur controversy arose, and long before conducting work on pasteurization, Pasteur’s early scientific work was shaped by discoveries into the optical properties of living matter and the handedness phenomena of life. In short, during his early creatively potent period, Pasteur discovered that solutions which had organic material dissolved within them had the incredible property of rotating polarized light to the “left” while liquid solutions devoid of organic material did not hold that capability.

In an 1870 letter, Pasteur described his cosmological insight into the dissymmetrical property of life to a friend Jules Raulin stating:

“You know that I believe that there is a cosmic dissymmetric influence which presides constantly and naturally over the molecular organization of principles immediately essential to life; and that, in consequence of this, the species of the three kingdoms, by their structure, by their form, by the disposition of their tissues, have a definite relation to the movements of the universe. For many of those species, if not for all, the Sun is the primum movens of nutrition; but I believe in another influence which would affect the whole organization [geometry], for it would be the cause of the molecular dissymmetry proper to the chemical components of life. I want by experiment to grasp a few indications as to the nature of this great cosmic dissymmetrical influence. It must, it may be electricity, magnetism…”

This left handed property to life still confounds astrobiologists over a century later.

With the mysterious 1906 death of Pierre Curie whom had advanced upon Pasteur’s research, and as World War I derailed this course of investigation (many of the brightest young minds of Europe were sent into a four year meat grinder of trench warfare), the baton was dropped in Europe, only to be taken up again by two Russian-Ukrainian scientists who worked together closely at the University of Crimea: Vladimir Vernadsky  (father of Russian atomic science and the founder of the school of biogeochemistry 1863-1945) and his friend Alexander Gurwitsch (1874-1954).

Vernadsky Revives Pasteur’s Insight

Vernadsky used Pasteur’s work extensively in his own construction of the biosphere and always made a point that the electromagnetic properties of life were the driving force of biochemistry. Going further than anyone alive to define the mechanisms of the biosphere, Vernadsky explained that the true scientist must not start with individual organisms and “work from the bottom up” as too many radical Darwinians were apt to do, but rather start, as Louis Pasteur had beforehand, with the galaxy and an awareness of the driving force of electromagnetic/cosmic radiations which shape the directed flow of biospheric evolution.

In his 1926 book the Biosphere, Vernadsky began his description of the biosphere with the following remarks:

“The biosphere may be regarded as a region of transformers that convert cosmic radiations into active energy in electrical, chemical, mechanical, thermal, and other forms. Radiations from all stars enter the biosphere, but we catch and perceive only an insignificant part of the total. The existence of radiation originating in the most distant regions of the cosmos cannot be doubted. Stars and nebulae are constantly emitting specific radiations, and everything suggests that the penetrating radiation discovered in the upper regions of the atmosphere by Hess originates beyond the limits of the solar system, perhaps in the Milky Way, in nebulae, or in stars.”

While Vernadsky spent his life focusing upon the macro-states of the biosphere, and how it interacted with the lithosphere and noosphere (the nested domains of non-life, life and creative reason) organized within arrays of magnetic fields moderating the flux of cosmic radiation through the universe, his colleague Gurwitsch focused upon the intersection of light and magnetic fields within the micro-states of living cells.

Alexander Gurwitsch’s Mitogenic Radiation

Vernadsky used Pasteur’s work extensively in his own construction of the biosphere and always made a point that the electromagnetic properties of life were the driving force of biochemistry. While Vernadsky spent his life focusing upon the macro-states of the biosphere, and how it interacted with the lithosphere and noosphere (the nested domains of non-life, life and creative reason) within nested arrays of magnetic fields moderating the flux of cosmic radiation through the universe, his colleague Gurwitsch focused upon the intersection of light and magnetic fields within the micro-states of living cells.

Describing his discovery in a 2011 study on Cosmic Bio-Radiation, researcher Cody Jones described Gurwitsch’s basic insight:

“Gurwitsch developed three nested levels of field structures, arranged according to complexity and spatial extent, ranging from the molecular (molecular constellations), to the cellular (relations among cells), to the organismic levels (the different organs and systems that constitute a single organism). Each nested field could be described in terms of different mechanisms as to how the morphology advanced for any particular structure, yet they were all unified towards the realization of a definite future state of existence.”

Gurwitsch first revolutionized life sciences by shaping an elegant experiment which demonstrated that cells emit weak bursts of ultraviolet light as they went through mitosis. To prove his theory, Gurwitsch set up two onion roots growing in perpendicular directions and found that the higher rates of light emissions which occurred on the newer tip of the roots induced cell growth of 30-40% when brought into proximity of an older onion root. Although no instruments sensitive enough to pick up these ultra-weak frequencies existed during his lifetime, Gurwitsch demonstrated that light from the ultraviolet spectrum must be generated from new cells by separating the old and new onion roots by various types of lenses which blocked out different parts of the spectrum and found that only when UV light was blocked did the effect of 30% cell growth increase come to an end. Gurwitsch called this “Mitogenic Radiation”.

Alexander Gurwitsch and his original onion root experiment. Two onions (Z1 and Z2) grow perpendicularly with point W representing the point of intersection of the younger root emitted from Z1 and the older root of Z2 separated by a quartz lens blocking the emissions of ultra violet emissions from Z1 to Z2.

While Gurwitsch was ostracised by the scientific establishment during his life, technologies arose among the astrophysics community in the 1950s which permitted scientists to measure extremely weak light frequencies in the range of Gurwitsch’s mitogenic radiation (obviously useful for picking up faint signals from other galaxies in deep space). When teams of Italian astronomers applied their equipment to organic material, Gurwitsch’s discovery was verified experimentally for the first time.

One would have thought such a discovery would have revolutionised all of biology, medicine and life sciences on the spot- however after a brief spike in interest, the discovery was soon forgotten and relegated to a “negligible” secondary feature of life which had no causal role to play in any of the mechanics or behaviour of organic activity. The materialists and reductionists who wished to maintain that all life was merely the sum of parts won the day.

Then another biophysicist named Fritz-Albert Popp arose onto the scene.

Fritz Popp’s Biophotonic Discoveries

During the 1970s, Popp was a cancer researcher trying to figure out why only one of the two isomers of Benzpyrene caused cancer. An isomer is sometimes known as a mirror image configuration of a molecule which are chemically identical, yet whose properties can differ vastly. Under the materialist/reductionist’s logic, there was no reason why one isomer (Benzpyrene 3,4) which is found in cigarettes and tar would induce cancer growth in lung tissue while another isomer (Benzpyrene 1,2) would be completely benign.

After discovering the work of Gurwitsch, Dr. Popp began measuring the ultra-weak light emissions from the Benzpyrene molecules and their effects upon cell growth in liver tissues and found that the extremely high light absorption/emission properties of Benzpyrene 3,4 were the cause of the disharmony of cell regulation. Measuring the photon activity from cancerous vs healthy liver cell growth is a striking way to clearly see that cancerous growth coincides with exponential photon emissions while healthy liver photon emissions are very stable.

Over the course of his highly productive lifetime, Dr. Popp discovered that these light emissions occurred at different wavelengths according to the cell types, function and species.  When Popp brought two biological samples into proximity, things became additionally interesting as the “rhythm” of their photon emissions synchronized beautifully when close together and fell out of sync when separated. This was outlined in his paper On the Coherence of Biophotons.

Describing the clinical application of these discoveries, Dr. Popp stated:

“Light can initiate, or arrest, cascade-like reactions in the cells, and that genetic cellular damage can be virtually repaired, within hours, by faint beams of light. We are still on the threshold of fully understanding the complex relationship between light and life, but we can now say, emphatically that the function of our entire metabolism is dependent on light.”

Popp’s discoveries amplify those of the great Russian scientist A.B. Burlakov who found that the ultra weak light emissions emanating from two sets of fertilised fish eggs separated by a glass demonstrated a powerful harmonizing effect. If one set of eggs were older, then the younger eggs would mature and develop much faster if brought into proximity. However if the age difference between the two sets were too great, then the scientist found that the younger set would see a higher rate of death, deformities and retardation of development.

This mode of thinking about life has the mind of the scientist approach life in a manner more in common with a musician tuning his instrument to an orchestra or a conductor holding multiple sound waves in his mind simultaneously as a whole musical idea which is greater than simply the sum of its parts. It is a much more natural and effective mode of thinking than the materialist/reductionist approach today dominant across most western universities that treats the organism like a machine and the whole as a sum of chemical parts.

A fuller sweep of these discoveries was presented in a 2020 lecture presented by this author, which can be viewed in full here:

Casting Montagnier’s Research in a New Light

Returning once more to Luc Montagnier with a renewed appreciation for the longer wave of scientific tradition which he is a part of amplifying, we may appreciate some of the conclusions which he has drawn from often ignored yet completely verifiable properties of light waves, structured water, bacteria and DNA which may cause us to redefine our understanding of “life”, “disease” and “medicine” forever. This exercise will possibly cause us to appreciate the importance of an international crash program in optical biophysics research and light wave/interference therapy to treat diseases plaguing humanity including COVID-19.

In a 2011 interview, Dr. Montagnier recapitulated the consequences of his discoveries:

“The existence of a harmonic signal emanating from DNA can help to resolve long-standing questions about cell development, for example how the embryo is able to make its manifold transformations, as if guided by an external field. If DNA can communicate its essential information to water by radio frequency, then non-material structures will exist within the watery environment of the living organism, some of them hiding disease signals and others involved in the healthy development of the organism.”

With these insights in mind, Montagnier has discovered that many of the frequencies of EM emissions from a wide variety of microbial DNA is also found in the blood plasmas of patients suffering from influenza A, Hepatitis C, and even many neurological diseases not commonly thought of as bacteria-influenced such as Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Alzheimers. In recent years, Montagnier’s teams even found certain signals in the blood plasmas of people with autism and several varieties of cancers!

Over a dozen French doctors have taken Montagnier’s ideas seriously enough to prescribe antibiotics to treat autism over the course of six years and in opposition to conventional theories, have found that amidst 240 patients treated, 4 out of 5 saw their symptoms either dramatically regress or disappear completely!

These results imply again that certain hard-to-detect species of light emitting microbes are closer to the cause of these ills than the modern pharmaceutical industry would like to admit.

A New Domain of Thinking: Why Big Pharma Should Be Afraid

As the filmed 2014 experiment demonstrated, Montagnier went even further to demonstrate that the frequencies of wave emissions within a filtrate located in a French laboratory can be recorded and emailed to another laboratory in Italy where that same harmonic recording was infused into tubes of non-emitting water causing the Italian tubes to slowly begin emitting signals! These DNA frequencies were then able to structure the Italian water tubes from the parent source a thousand miles away resulting in a 98% exact DNA replica!

Standing as we are, on the cusp of so many exciting breakthroughs in medical science, we should ask: what could these results mean for the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industrial complex which relies on keeping the world locked into a practice of chemical drugs and vaccines?

Speaking to this point, Montagnier stated:

“The day that we admit that signals can have tangible effects, we will use them. From that moment on we will be able to treat patients with waves. Therefore it’s a new domain of medicine that people fear of course. Especially the pharmaceutical industry… one day we will be able to treat cancers using frequency waves.”

Montagnier’s friend and collaborator Marc Henry a professor of Chemistry and Quantum Mechanics at the University of Strasbourg stated:

“If we treat with frequencies and not with medicines it becomes extremely cost effective regarding the amount of money spent. We spend a lot of money to find the frequencies, but once they have been found, it costs nothing to treat.”

Whether produced in a lab as Montagnier asserts or having appeared naturally as Nature Magazine, Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci assert, the fact remains that the current coronavirus pandemic has accelerated a collapse of the world financial system and forced the leaders of the world to discuss the reality of a needed new paradigm and new world economic order. Whether that new system will be driven by Pharmaceutical cartels, and financiers running global health policy or whether it will be driven by nation states shaping the terms of that new system around human needs, remains to be seen.

If nation states manage to stay in the driver’s seat of this new system, then it will have to be driven by certain fundamental principles of healthcare for all, science practice reform and broader political/economic reform whereby the sacredness of human life is placed above all considerations of monetary profit. In this light, such crash programs into long term projects in space science, asteroid defense, and Lunar/Mars development will be as necessary in the astrophysical domain as crash programs in fusion energy will be in the atomic domain. Uniting both worlds, is the domain of life sciences that intersects the electromagnetic properties of atoms, cells and DNA with the large scale electromagnetic properties of the Earth, Sun and galaxy as a whole.

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Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , and Senior Fellow at the American University in Moscow. He is author of the ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series and Clash of the Two Americas. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation .

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

The news of an ISIS leader elimination, Abu Ibrahim al-Quraishi, by the US forces in Syria’s Idlib went around the whole world last week. On the night between Wednesday to Thursday, American commandos had airdropped from helicopters in the town of Atmeh that located near the Turkish border, and then they stormed a house, where allegedly the Daesh’s boss was hiding. Al-Quraishi blew himself up during the erupted clashes. According to the White Helmets, 13 people were also killed in the explosion, including 4 children and 3 women.

It is worth noting that this operation has become the most successful for the US special forces in two years. The previous “Caliph”, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was also eliminated by Americans in the same area on October, 2019. Most notably, both leaders of one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations were hiding in northwestern Syria near the border with Turkey.

The incident of al-Quraishi elimination triggered a lot of questions from military analytics. The main of them is – how did the Turkish special services allow a presence of such high-ranking terrorist in the area of their influence. Many experts agree that Ankara is directly involved in harbouring ISIS militants, because Turkey has dozens of observation posts in the province of Idlib, which has already become a “Turkish patch.”

No less important are long-standing ties of al-Quraishi with Turkey. He ran negotiations between the ISIS and Ankara in relation to the Turkish consulate in Iraqi Mosul in June, 2014. At that time al-Quraishi personally moved a staff of embassy in a safe area, from which they were transferred to Turkey. Moreover, according to available information, the “second ISIS Caliph” had Turkoman origin, which demonstrates a sympathy for him from the Turkish leadership.

In turn, locals are also concerned about such close proximity with ISIS militants. A resident of Afrin city, who called himself Nizar, pointed out the people’s fear related to their security. “A lot of questions come to our minds, the first of them is – how could such a high-ranking terrorist get territories that are fully controlled by the Turkish side and its intelligence, which claims that it is struggling against terrorism, including the ISIS,” Nizar said.

Other citizen of Afrin, who hided his name, also expressed his concern after the recent events. “How could al-Quraishi residence be situated in a few kilometers from the Turkish border? Moreover, this area has always been considered safe, especially since a Turkish military facility and HTS checkpoint are located from several meters of it,” – he said.

And besides, a part of Daesh terrorists, who had previously escaped from Hasakah’s al-Sina’a prison, fled to Turkey. Moreover, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, two runaway ISIS “Emirs” with their supporters are currently in Jarabulus city of northern Aleppo, which is held by Turkish-backed groups.

It becomes obvious that Ankara continues to support terrorist factions in Syria despite its statements of fighting international terrorism. ISIS militants are living in peace in Turkish-controlled areas side by side with civilians, who do not even know it. Thus, a logical question arises – either the Turkish special services are incompetent or involved in harbouring ISIS terrorists.

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Armen Tigranakert is a freelance journalist based in the city of Aleppo.

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***

In 1990, NATO promised to never enter Russia’s sphere of influence in eastern Europe. Since then, the alliance has expanded to include 14 European nations, including Russia’s neighbours.

Palki Sharma tells you about NATO’s betrayal.

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***

As of February 10, several military events took place in Syria, the most notable of which was a major Israeli air attack targeting the outskirts of the capital Damascus.

The attack, which took place in the early hours of February 9, consisted of two waves of strikes:

The first one was carried out by fighter jets of the Israeli Air Force. The fighter jets launched a number of air-to-ground missiles at military targets around Damascus while flying inside the airspace of Lebanon, specifically to the southwest of Beirut.

The second wave of strikes was carried out by the Israeli Defense Forces, which fired a salvo of ground-to-ground missiles from the occupied Golan Heights at air defense sites near Damascus.

The Syrian Air Defense Forces intercepted several Israeli missiles. However, they were not able to prevent losses. The strikes claimed the life of a Syrian service member and wounded five others. Material losses were also reported.

The IDF ignored the first wave of strikes on Syria. However, it said that the second wave was a response to Syria’s air defense fire, in particular to an anti-aircraft missile that penetrated Israel’s airspace before exploding over the northern town of Umm al-Fahm.

The attack on Damascus was likely a part of Israel’s “War-Between-Wars” military campaign, which is meant to push Iran and its allies out of Syria.

The Israeli attack was not Syria’s only problem. The country’s northern and northeastern regions are still experiencing unrest as a result of a conflict between Turkish forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has been getting more involved in this conflict as a result of Turkey’s never-ending attacks on Kurdish-held areas.

On February 9, a Turkish-backed militant was killed and three others were wounded when the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) targeted the Abu al-Zandin crossing in the northern countryside of Aleppo with guided munitions. Two truck-mounted heavy machine guns were also destroyed.

The strike was likely a response to recent Turkish attacks on Kurdish-held areas that wounded a number of Syrian soldiers.

The attack didn’t deter Turkey, who hit back in northeastern Syria on the very same day. Turkish combat drones targeted two vehicles on Amuda-al-Darbasiyah road and near the town of Bherah in the northern countryside of al-Hasakah. The Turkish strikes killed a child and wounded three other civilians.

Despite the unrest in Syria’s north and northeast, the situation in the northwestern region, known as Greater Idlib, is still surprisingly calm. As of February 10, no major ceasefire violations were reported in the region.

The situation in Syria’s central region is also still under control, mainly thanks to the efforts of the Russian Aerospace Forces. Between February 6 and 8, more than 80 Russian airstrikes hit ISIS hideouts in the region, especially near the town of al-Resafa in the southern Raqqa countryside. The intense airstrikes prevented the terrorists from launching any attack.

Meanwhile, in Syria’s southern region, the situation appears to be deteriorating, once again. At least two serious attacks were reported in Daraa.

On February 9, Shadi Bajbuj, a local commander who is reportedly close to the Syrian Military Intelligence Directorate, was killed when an improvised explosive device struck his vehicle in Daraa city.

On the same day, Abdel Ilah al-Masri, near the town of Sahem al-Golan in the western Daraa countryside. However, he survived the attack.

The surprise escalation in the southern region reflects the unstable nature of the conflict in Syria, which will not likely end anytime soon.

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All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

This MintPress study reveals that ninety percent of recent opinion articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have taken a hawkish view on the Ukraine conflict written by pundits tied to the national security state promoting NATO as a defender of the free world & describe Putin as Hitler incarnate.

Amid tough talk from European and American leaders, a new MintPress study of our nation’s most influential media outlets reveals that it is the press that is driving the charge towards war with Russia over Ukraine. Ninety percent of recent opinion articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have taken a hawkish view on conflict, with anti-war voices few and far between. Opinion columns have overwhelmingly expressed support for sending U.S. weapons and troops to the region. Russia has universally been presented as the aggressor in this dispute, with media glossing over NATO’s role in amping tensions while barely mentioning the U.S. collaboration with Neo-Nazi elements within the Ukrainian ruling coalition.

Periodic hysteria

Western media and governments have expressed alarm over a suspected buildup of Russian military forces close to its over-1200-mile border with Ukraine. There are reportedly almost 100,000 troops in that vicinity, causing President Joe Biden to warn that this is “the most consequential thing that’s happened in the world in terms of war and peace since World War II.”

Yet this is far from the first media panic over a supposedly imminent Russian invasion. In fact, warning of a hot war in Europe is a near yearly occurrence at this point. In 2015, outlets such as Reuters and The New York Times claimed that Russia was massing troops and heavy firepower, including tanks, artillery and rocket launchers right on the border, while normally sleepy frontier towns were abuzz with activity.

In 2016 there was an even bigger meltdown, with media across the board predicting that war was around the corner. Indeed, The Guardian reported that Russia would soon have 330,000 soldiers on the border. Yet nothing came to pass and the story was quietly dropped.

With the next spring came renewed warnings of conflict. The Wall Street Journal claimed that “tens of thousands” of soldiers were being deployed to the border. The New York Times upped that figure to “as many as 100,000.” A few months later, U.S. News said that thousands of tanks were joining them.

In late 2018, The New York Times and other media outlets were again up in arms over a fresh Russian buildup, this time of 80,000 military units. And in the spring of last year, it was widely reported (for instance, by Reuters and The New York Times) that Russia had amassed armies totaling well over 100,000 units on Ukraine’s border, signaling that war was imminent.

Therefore, there are actually considerably fewer Russian units on Ukraine’s border than there were even 11 months ago, according to Western numbers. Furthermore, they are matched by a force of a quarter-million Ukrainian troops on the other side.

Thus, many readers will be forgiven for thinking it is Groundhog Day again. Yet there is something different about this time: coverage over the conflict has been enormous and has come to dominate the news cycle for weeks now, in a way it simply did not previously. The possibility of war has scared Americans and provoked calls for a far higher military budget and a redesign of American foreign policy to counter this supposed threat.

Russia, for its part, has repeatedly rejected all allegations that it plans to attack Ukraine, describing them as “fiction.” “Talks about the coming war are provocative by themselves. [The U.S.] seems to be calling for this, wanting and waiting for [war] to happen, as if you want to make your speculations come true,” said Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia.

Perhaps more surprisingly, the Ukrainian government appears to agree, recognizing that any conflict would prove devastating to both the Russian and Ukrainian economies and that even the saber-rattling and prospect of such conflict is already having an impact on business and investment. “[W]e don’t see any grounds for statements about a full-scale offensive on our country,” said Oleksiy Danilov, the chief secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. In an interview with the BBC, Danilov also revealed his exasperation with the media for unreasonably ginning up fears and tensions.

Searching NYT, WSJ, and WaPo

To test Danilov’s claim that Western media have been among the loudest voices cheering for war, MintPress conducted a study of three of the most prominent and influential American outlets: The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Together, these three outlets often set the agenda for the rest of the media system, and could be said to be a reasonable representation of the corporate media spectrum as a whole. Using the search term “Ukraine” in the Factiva global news database, all opinion pieces on the conflict published in the previous three weeks (Jan. 7 – Jan. 28) were read and studied. This gave a sample of 91 articles in total; 15 in the Times, 49 in the Post and 27 in the Journal. For full information and coding, see the attached viewable spreadsheet.

Overall, the tone from the three newspapers studied was exceedingly hawkish, with around 90% of the columns expressing a “get tough” message. There was little to no variation among the outlets in their tone. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin aims beyond Ukraine. Checking him right now is crucial,” ran the headline of former general Wesley Clark’s Washington Post article. Columnist Max Boot claimed that Putin “definitely wants to resurrect the Soviet empire.” Boot’s colleague at the Post, Henry Olsen, launched a bitter attack on Biden for not being hawkish enough, describing the president as a weakling who is unfit to lead. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal took the opportunity to denounce the American left for focusing on non-existent U.S. imperialism when it should be uniting with Washington to combat imperialism in the only places it exists any more: Russia and China. The little pushback to the incessant drum beats for war came from voices such as Peter Beinart in the Times, Katrina vanden Heuvel in the Post, or from more isolationist conservative voices. However, these were few and far between.

There was essentially complete unanimity in presenting Russia (and not NATO) as the aggressor, with 87 of the 91 articles presenting the issue as such (four articles did not identify any entity as the aggressor). There was overwhelming support for sending in both huge quantities of what the Biden administration has termed “lethal aid” (i.e., weapons), and also deploying American troops in the region – a move that would rapidly escalate the threat of terminal nuclear war. As Bret Stephens wrote in the Times:

The best short-term response to Putin’s threats is the one the Biden administration is at last beginning to consider: The permanent deployment, in large numbers, of U.S. forces to frontline NATO states, from Estonia to Romania. Arms shipments to Kyiv, which so far are being measured in pounds, not tons, need to become a full-scale airlift.

The Post went much further, however, with one column demanding that the U.S. send around 85,000 soldiers to the region immediately, a figure that it said must be matched by other NATO members as well.

However, the Journal went furthest of all, calling for the U.S. to be turned into a global military state in order to fight two world wars at once. With more than a hint of delight, columnist Walter Russell Mead claimed:

Military budgets will have to grow as the U.S. increases its capacity against both Russia and China. The fantasies of withdrawing from some regions to focus on others will have to be set aside; Europe, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America all require more American and allied focus and attention, even as we continue to gear up in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. will have to spend less time inspecting the moral shortcomings of potential allies and more time thinking about how it can deepen its relationships with them.

A sitting US Senator said on live tv today that use of first strikes nukes wasn’t off the table and I’m not sure why more people aren’t freaking out about that 😳

— Jason Call for Congress (@CallForCongress) January 25, 2022

A long history and a broken promise

Context, it is said, is everything. The U.S. government’s view of the situation is that Russia is a perennially destabilizing influence. Putin, who has previously stated that Ukraine is “not a country,” has funded separatist groups in the Donbass region, illegally annexed Crimea, and bombards Ukraine with propaganda on a daily basis. From a war in Georgia to sending troops into Kazakhstan to quell a recent uprising, Russia is fighting a rearguard action to prevent the spread of democracy. It has also taken a confrontational stance to the U.S., hacking the 2016 and 2020 elections to help its preferred candidate.

However, many Russians would dispute these claims and begin the story in the ninth century with the Kievan Rus Federation, a nation whose capital was Kiev and from where the word “Russia” comes from. Fast forward a thousand years, and the broken promises made by the U.S. government to the U.S.S.R. also figure prominently. The first Bush administration, as well as the governments of West Germany and Great Britain, all assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would never expand “one inch” to the east of Germany. This, of course, proved a promise made to be broken, and the anti-Russian military alliance has advanced across Eastern Europe, now including three former Soviet Republics that border Russia.

The U.S. has been extremely active in Ukraine’s domestic affairs, as Russian-American journalist Yasha Levine has highlighted, forcing the government to hike gas prices and raise taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. It has also bankrolled NGOs and local media outlets and threatened to jail Ukrainian oligarchs if further American demands were not met.

Washington’s role in the 2013-2014 Maidan Revolution, however, is the clearest example of American interference. Trying to play the two blocs off against each other, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych negotiated with both the European Union and with Russia on trade deals at the same time. In the end, he chose the superior Russian offer. Instead of accepting defeat, however, the West immediately began organizing a coup, funding and supporting street protests across the country. Senior U.S. officials like Senator John McCain and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland flew to Ukraine to lead the demonstrations, the latter even famously handing out cookies to protestors in Independence Square in Kiev. Yanukovych was eventually overthrown in February 2014.

That the Maidan affair was organized, at least in part, by the U.S. is not in doubt. Indeed, leaked audio of Nuland talking with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt showed that Washington effectively hand-picked Ukraine’s next government. “I don’t think Klitch should go into the government. I don’t think it is necessary. I don’t think it is a good idea,” Nuland can be heard saying, referring to the boxer-turned-politician Vitali Klitschko. “I think Yats [Arseniy Yatsenyuk] is the guy who has got the economic experience, the governing experience,” she continued. The two also discussed plans for implementing the new administration. Sure enough, less than one month after the audio leaked, Yatsenyuk became the next prime minister.

Since 2014, the Ukrainian government has pursued a campaign of privatization, as well as entering into deals with the E.U. that Yanukovych previously rejected. It has also aggressively purged the Russian language from schools and media, jailed opposition politicians, and shut down media outlets opposing it. Around one-third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their first language.

This context was barely referenced in the three newspapers; but, when it was, it was usually described in glowing terms. The Washington Post claimed that the Ukraine-Russia trade deal amounted to a Russian “invasion of Ukraine” and was simply Putin’s effort to “bribe Ukraine with an offer of $15 billion in loans and lower prices for gas.” The Wall Street Journal defamed Yanukovych as merely “Mr. Putin’s puppet.” Meanwhile, The New York Times cheered on what it approvingly called “the process of Ukrainization” as “the Russian language is being pushed out of schools and Russian television out of the media space.” The Times currently accuses China of doing something very similar in its western province of Xinjiang, denouncing the process as a “genocide.”

Not seeing fascism where it is – and seeing it where it’s not 

The Maidan Revolution’s muscle was provided by far-right paramilitaries like the infamous Azov Battalion, a Neo-Nazi militia that has now been incorporated into the Ukrainian military. The U.S. government channeled huge amounts of money and resources to these groups, with fascist leaders like Oleh Tyahnybok sharing a stage with McCain and Nuland. Nuland’s leaked audio makes clear that she held some influence over Tyahnybok and his forces. Since at least 2015, the CIA has been directly training fascist militias inside the country.

Today, Ukraine has openly Nazi elements within its government, which has passed laws designating World War II-era fascist Ukrainian death squads that perpetrated the Holocaust as heroes and freedom fighters. Every January 1 in Kiev there is a large torchlight march to honor the Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, with chants of “Jews out” being very common. There are now hundreds of monuments to fascist collaborators all over the country.

For two years in a row now, Ukraine and the United States have been the only countries to vote against resolutions “combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism.” The U.S. government calls the resolutions “Russian disinformation.”

The three newspapers studied solved the problem of Ukraine’s troubling fascist links by simply not mentioning them – even in articles where reporters appeared to be embedded with the Ukrainian military, a hotbed of far-right organizing. Only in one article in the sample of 91 – a calm and thoughtful Washington Post op-ed by alternative-media journalist Branko Marcetic – was it mentioned at all. And judging by the comments section underneath it, his thoughts were received with little short of rage from the Post’s readership.

Boot, an infamously hawkish columnist, might have obliquely referenced these bothersome facts when he wrote that “In [Putin’s] telling, nefarious foreign powers, ‘radicals’ and ‘neo-Nazis’ pursuing an ‘anti-Russia project’ have sought to lure Ukrainians from their rightful place under Moscow’s wing,” but immediately brushed this off as “incessant regime propaganda.” Apart from that, there was no mention of the far-right. On the contrary, the Ukrainian government was largely portrayed as a laudable, fledgling democracy fighting for survival.

This is not to say that there were no mentions of Nazis. In fact, the press is full of them. Over 10% of the articles studied directly or indirectly compared Vladimir Putin to Hitler. For example, The Washington Post’s editorial board began their January 8 editorial on Ukraine thus:

A brutal dictator, having staked a claim to power based on conspiracy theories and promises of imperial restoration, rebuilds his military. He begins threatening to seize his neighbors’ territory, blames democracies for the crisis and demands that, to solve it, they must rewrite the rules of international politics — and redraw the map — to suit him. The democracies agree to peace talks, hoping, as they must, to avoid war without unduly rewarding aggression.

What happened next at Munich in 1938 is a matter of history: Britain and France traded a piece of Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler’s Germany in return for his false pledge not to make war.

It continued throughout to hammer home the idea that Putin = Hitler. Editorials are supposed to represent the collective wisdom of the senior staff, and set the tone for the rest of the reporting team and across the wider media landscape. Thus, the editorial board were making their feelings about what sort of coverage was required very clear.

The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both regularly warned against the “appeasement” of Putin – a term usually reserved for the period of Western soft collaboration with Hitler’s regime before they changed track and opposed it. Earlier this week, the Times claimed that the world was “holding its breath waiting for Vladimir Putin to bite off a slice of Ukraine the way another revanchist European dictator once took a slice of Czechoslovakia” – another reference to Hitler. The message conveyed was simple: this is a repeat of World War II.

While Vladimir Putin could reasonably be called many things, Hitler-incarnate is stretching credulity. Unable to introduce relevant context that would deviate from this line, however, the armchair generals demanding war took to psychoanalyzing the Russian leader, as well as throwing all manner of insults his way. In just this three-week sample, Putin was declared an “evil dictator,” a “thug,” a “KGB sociopath,” and a “pathetic throwback.” Longtime Timescolumnist Thomas Friedman, in his unique style, described him as “America’s ex-boyfriend-from-hell,” continuing:

Putin is a one-man psychodrama, with a giant inferiority complex toward America that leaves him always stalking the world with a chip on his shoulder so big it’s amazing he can fit through any door.

Yet for all the psychoanalysis, it was Western pundits who appeared to be in their own heads, and were obsessed with the supposed need to look tough in front of Putin. Citing South Carolina congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC), the Post declared that “weakness is provocative.” “Vladimir Putin does not think like we do,” warned hawkish former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, going on to assert that Putin saw destroying America and the global order as his “sacred destiny.”

Putin’s allegation that Ukraine was being groomed to join a hostile military alliance was met with contempt and derision in Western media. “None of the fears the Kremlin’s propaganda play (sic) on have any foundation in reality… No one was seriously contemplating NATO membership for Ukraine or Georgia. Plans for U.S. missiles in eastern Ukraine targeting Russia are pure fantasy,” a Post opinion piece informed its readers last week, its editorial board then adding:

This entire crisis has been manufactured by Mr. Putin as part of his long-range effort to thwart the democratic development and growing Western orientation of Ukraine and restore Russian hegemony over the former Soviet empire. It has nothing to do with expansion by NATO, whose founding treaty authorizes only defensive military action.

Readers in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Somalia or Libya might have differing ideas about whether NATO has been used purely defensively.

Yet, at the same time as categorically denying Ukraine would join NATO, the articles studied dismissed Putin’s core request that the alliance simply put that in writing as “silly” “extravagant” “unrealistic” and a “nonstater”  – something that is hard to understand if this was all that was needed to avert World War III. In reality, NATO is indeed looking to admit both Ukraine and Georgia, having promised to both countries that they would do so as far back as 2008.

Pipeline politics and cracks in the NATO alliance

Last week, Washington Post columnist Daniel Drezner proclaimed that “Putin has succeeded in creating his worst strategic outcome: unifying NATO.” Yet this seems wishful thinking. Germany and France, the most powerful nations in Western Europe, have both openly expressed reluctance to escalate the situation. The German government did not allow British warplanes carrying weapons to Ukraine to pass over its airspace, and it blocked shipments of German-made arms from the Baltic States to Ukraine. Even more significantly, Kay-Achim Schönbach, vice-admiral of the German Navy, publicly condemned what he saw as a reckless buildup of tensions. Schönbach stated that the West was refusing to give Putin even a modicum of respect and that we should accept the Crimea annexation as a fait accompli. For this outburst, he was forced to resign.

Across the border in France, President Emmanuel Macron is so alarmed by the U.S./U.K. push to escalate tensions that he has called on the EU to start its own negotiations with Russia – negotiations that exclude the U.S. and U.K. Germany and France were written off as “appeasers” of a dictator by The Washington Post, and as puppets of Putin and of Chinese premier Xi Jinping by The Wall Street Journal.

Much of the EU’s reluctance to get behind an American-led war on Russia is attributable to their energy dependence on Moscow. Currently, Russia supplies nearly half of the EU’s gas and around one-quarter of its oil. This is likely only to increase with the imminent completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which runs undersea from Russia’s Baltic coast directly to northern Germany. The United States has repeatedly demanded Europe cancel this project, insisting that Europe service its energy needs from Middle Eastern dictatorships under U.S. control or directly from the U.S., at around four times the price of Russian gas. The U.S. is currently considering placing sanctions on German companies involved in Nord Stream 2.

“If Biden can’t stand up to Germany, how can he stand up to Putin?,” asked one Washington Post columnist last week, the same article demanding that Germany be “punished” with the removal of U.S. troops from its territories. “Why should Germany…continue to be rewarded with the economic benefit of U.S. bases?” the writer asked, framing the American occupation in a light that some readers might not share.

Meanwhile, the climate change skeptic board of The Wall Street Journal took the opportunity to assert that Russia had infiltrated the European environmental movement, convicing the movement to take up stupid positions like being against fracking or coal plants. This was, they claimed, all part of a successful effort to keep Europe dependent on Russian gas.

The war machine’s checklist

If Russian troop movements are mostly ordinary and not dissimilar to those that have happened almost every year since 2014, what explains the media circus?

To answer this question, we must examine a policy report prepared for Biden in March by NATO think tank The Atlantic Council. Titled “Biden and Ukraine: A strategy for the new administration,” it lays out a set of goals for the new president to achieve; under its “key recommendations” headline, it outlines a number of actions the Biden government should take. Among them are included: “Work[ing] with Congress to increase military assistance to Ukraine to $500 million per year;” “Deepen Ukraine’s integration with NATO” by potentially “establishing a permanent U.S. military presence” in the country; and “launching a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) for Ukraine,” if Russia remains “intransigent.” “Stay the course on Nord Stream 2” and a “Strategic approach to sanctions” are also included on the list of key bullet points, as well as supporting a host of free-market privatization drives inside Ukraine.

Compiled by former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine, Poland and Russia, as well as the ex-deputy secretary general of NATO, the report’s recommendations serve almost as a checklist of everything the U.S. is currently trying to push through. Last week, Congress began rushing through an emergency $500 million weapons bill that would make Ukraine the world’s third highest recipient of U.S. arms, rivaled only by Egypt and Israel. The U.S. is sending thousands of troops to Eastern Europe; its Nord Stream 2 opposition remains as loud as ever; while the Ukrainian government under President Volodymyr Zelensky is indeed moving towards the sort of economic shock therapy the Atlantic Council wants to see. All this might lead a cynic to see the current crisis as little more than an excuse to force through long-held U.S. establishment goals.

“We don’t need this panic”

None of this helps ordinary people living in the country White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has termed “our Eastern flank.” Ukrainians are concerned with the dire economic situation, which has plunged over half the country into poverty – the highest rate anywhere in Europe. Inflation and the rising cost of heating and electricity are the highest concerns among citizens, according to a poll conducted by the U.S. government-sponsored International Republican Institute. The same poll found the country was split on where it wants to head politically, with 54% wishing to join NATO and 58% the European Union, but significant minorities preferring more integration with Russia. Ukrainians perceive both Russia (63% of the population) and the United States (51%) to be a threat, according to a recent report from a NATO-aligned think tank.

Meanwhile in the United States, despite the media saber-rattling, there is limited public appetite for any conflict with Russia. Last week, a Rasmussen poll found only 31% of Americans think U.S. troops should be sent to Ukraine, even if Russia launches an invasion. President Biden himself has even tried to pour cold water on the flames of war, claiming that the U.S. would not react to a “minor incursion” by Russia – a statement that outraged hawks in Washington.

War profiteers are clearly expecting increased orders. Last week, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes confidently said, “I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from [the Ukraine crisis].” Raytheon and Northrop Grumman stocks are currently approaching all-time highs. Weapons industry-funded media like Politico publish content wondering whether the U.S. should “rattle Putin’s cage,” and journalists at White House press conferences continue to goad the administration into more aggressive posturing.

President Zelensky himself has chastised Western press for their hyperbolic coverage of the situation. “The image that mass media creates is that we have troops on the roads, we have mobilization, people are leaving for places. That’s not the case. We don’t need this panic,” he said. Studying the opinion pages of America’s three most prestigious outlets suggests that Zelensky is right: nobody wants war, except for hawkish elements in the national security state and among the press that increasingly does its bidding.

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Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

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Short Video: January 29, 2022. When It Commenced. Commentary in French by Jean Francois Girard

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Anna De Buisseret talks about trying to help a community shut down a ‘vaccine clinic’, and how shocking it was to realise that nurses were still injecting people – despite the criminal investigation into the COVID injections which is currently underway in the UK. When the clinic was informed that a live criminal investigation was underway, the nurses had patients leave the building only to line up again outside. She reports that none of the staff at the clinic had any interest in what she was saying, and only wanted to continue injecting people.

She talks about how injecting people with an experiment without necessity and before obtaining valid consent is a violation of the Nuremburg code, the rulings of the Geneva convention, and basic human rights. She ends her first speech of the day by talking about how dangerous it is that state schooling fails to teach children about the law, and questions whether or not government and state leaders even care about the laws they breaking.

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Our thanks to Mark Taliano (CRG Research Associate) for bringing this to our attention.

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Earlier this month, NHS England tweeted out a video to its half million followers to try to promote the Covid vaccine among children. The video cited a series of worrying, but inaccurate, statistics about the risks that Covid apparently represents to children; one in a hundred children will get sick enough with Covid to be admitted to hospital; 136 children in the UK have died of Covid-19, and 117,000 children are suffering from long covid.

The response duly ‘went viral’, attracting re-tweets from some of the biggest public health influencers online, who shared the report with their hundreds of thousands of followers, endorsing it as “an important message”, “an excellent piece”, “a great video”, and using it to lobby JCVI “when will be able to protect our children?”, and alerting people to “the misinformation out there”, no doubt with good intentions.

But when I watched the video I was left quite concerned and confused. As both a parent and scientist who has been involved in research on symptom duration and severity of covid in children, the cited statistics didn’t make sense to me. The idea that 1% of children with Covid are hospitalised for it didn’t pass the ‘sniff test’. I know how contentious the debates about prolonged symptoms after covid infection have been, and likewise the challenges of estimating covid mortality among children. So the idea of broadcasting confident numbers on this seemed odd, especially from NHS England.

What’s more, the powerful — and important — sharing of a story about “long covid” in a 11-year-old seemed at odds with current UK vaccination guidance, which does not currently advise vaccination of this age group. As a parent of an 8- and 6-year-old, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with this ‘information’. Even more so when I was aware that there is not currently evidence to show that vaccination prevents “long Covid” in children.

What was even more surprising to me was the reaction from both NHS England and many commentators when I raised these points on Twitter and with NHS England directly. I previously worked in government, where every statistic that made it into official comms or a Ministerial speech came with a ‘method note’ to explain it if asked. Yet there was a deafening silence from @NHSEngland when I, and others, asked.

Several people agreed with me, sharing their working for why these numbers are at best long outdated, may be orders of magnitude out, and risk undermining confidence in vaccine communications and uptake.

But others seemed to dig in, praising both the content and tone of the messaging when challenged, and directing the discussion into an important, but different, one about the merits of extending Covid vaccination to children rather than the need for accurate and honest communication about vaccination.

My impression was that some, including influential ‘experts’, felt that the accuracy of the numbers used was secondary to advocacy objectives, i.e. the ends (promoting vaccine uptake) justified the means (using inaccurate, and emotive, statistics and powerful stories). This feels like extremely dangerous ground to me, especially given what we know about the importance of trust in vaccine confidence and uptake, and the recent worrying falls in childhood vaccination.

Having raised this with the Statistics Regulator, I was relieved to have today received the following message:

It took four days, 150,000+ views, and many hundreds of thousands of shares and impressions before NHS England finally deleted the tweet. I hope in due course these investigations will lead to improvements in the process through which statistics, especially on such an important issue as childhood vaccination, are vetted, ideally before, rather than after, publication/broadcast.

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Dr Robert Hughes is a clinical research fellow at Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He tweets at @R_Hughes1

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Emmanuel Macron is no Talleyrand. Self-promoted as “Jupiterian”, he may have finally got down to earth for a proper realpolitik insight while ruminating one of the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs key bon mots: “A diplomat who says ‘yes’ means ‘maybe’, a diplomat who says ‘maybe’ means ‘no’, and a diplomat who says ‘no’ is no diplomat.”

Mr. Macron went to Moscow to see Mr. Putin with a simple 4-stage plan in mind.

1. Clinch a wide-ranging deal with Putin on Ukraine, thus stopping  “Russian aggression”.

2. Bask in the glow as the West’s Peacemaker.

3. Raise the EU’s tawdry profile, as he’s the current president of the EU Council.

4. Collect all the spoils then bag the April presidential election in France.

Considering he all but begged for an audience in a flurry of phone calls, Macron was received by Putin with no special honors. Comic relief was provided by French mainstream media hysterics, “military strategists” included, evoking the “French castle” sketch in Monty Python’s Holy Grail while reaffirming every stereotype available about  “cowardly frogs”. Their “analysis”: Putin is “isolated” and wants “the military option”. Their top intel source: Bezos-owned CIA rag The Washington Post.

Still, it was fascinating to watch – oh, that loooooong table in the Kremlin: the only EU leader who took the trouble to actually listen to Putin was the one who, months ago, pronounced NATO as “brain-dead”. So the ghosts of Charles de Gaulle and Talleyrand did seem to have engaged in a lively chat, framed by raw economics, finally imprinting on the “Jupiterian” that the imperial obsession on preventing Europe by all means from profiting from wider trade with Eurasia is a losing game.

After a strenuous six hours of discussions Putin, predictably, monopolized the eminently quotable department, starting with one that will be reverberating all across the Global South for a long time: “Citizens of Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia have seen how peaceful is NATO.”

There’s more. The already iconic Do you want a war between Russia and NATO? – followed by the ominous  “there will be no winners”. Or take this one, on Maidan: “Since February 2014, Russia has considered a coup d’état to be the source of power in Ukraine. This is a bad sandbox, we don’t like this kind of game.”

On the Minsk agreements, the message was blunt: “The President of Ukraine has said that he does not like any of the clauses of the Minsk agreements. Like it, or not – be patient, my beauty. They must be fulfilled.”

The “real issue behind the present crisis”

Macron for his part stressed, “new mechanisms are needed to ensure stability in Europe, but not by revising existing agreements, perhaps new security solutions would be innovative.” So nothing that Moscow had not stressed before. He added, “France and Russia have agreed to work together on security guarantees.” The operative term is “France”. Not the non-agreement capable United States government.

Anglo-American spin insisted that Putin had agreed not to launch new “military initiatives” – while keeping mum on what Macron promised in return. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not confirm any agreement. He only said that the Kremlin will engage with Macron’s dialogue proposals, “provided that the United States also agrees with them.” And for that, as everyone knows, there’s no guarantee.

The Kremlin has been stressing for months that Russia has no interest whatsoever in invading de facto black hole Ukraine. And Russian troops will return to their bases after exercises are over. None of this has anything to do with “concessions” by Putin.

And then came the bombshell: French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire – the inspiration for one of the main characters in Michel Houellebecq’s cracking new book, Anéantir – said that the launch of Nord Stream 2 “is one of the main components of de-escalating tensions on the Russian-Ukrainian border.” Gallic flair formulated out loud what no German had the balls to say.

In Kiev, after his stint in Moscow, it looks like Macron properly told Zelensky which way the wind blows now. Zelensky hastily confirmed Ukraine is ready to implement the Minsk agreements; it never was, for seven long years. He also said he expects to hold a summit in the Normandy format – Kiev, the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, Germany and France – “in the near future”. A meeting of Normandy format political advisers will happen in Berlin on Thursday.

Way back in August 2020, I was already pointing to which way we were heading in the master chessboard. A few sharp minds in the Beltway, emailing their networks, did notice in my column how “the goal of Russian and Chinese policy is to recruit Germany into a triple alliance locking together the Eurasian land mass a la Mackinder into the greatest geopolitical alliance in history, switching world power in favor of these three great powers against Anglo-Saxon sea power.”

Now, a very high-level Deep State intel source, retired, comes down to the nitty gritty, pointing out how “the secret negotiations between Russia and the US center around missiles going into Eastern Europe, as the US frantically drives for completing its development of hypersonic missiles.”

The main point is that if the US places such hypersonic missiles in Romania and Poland, as planned, the time for them to reach Moscow would be 1/10 the time of a Tomahawk. It’s even worse for Russia if they are placed in the Baltics. The source notes, “the US plan is to neutralize the more advanced defensive missile systems that seal Russia’s airspace. This is why the US has offered to allow Russia to inspect these missile sites in the future, to prove that there are no hypersonic nuclear missiles. Yet that’s not a solution, as the Raytheon missile launchers can handle both offensive and defensive missiles, so it’s possible to sneak in the offensive missiles at night. Thus everything requires continuous observation.”

The bottom line is stark: “This is the real issue behind the present crisis. The only solution is no missile sites allowed in Eastern Europe.” That happens to be an essential part of Russia’s demands for security guarantees.

Sailing to Byzantium

Alastair Crooke has demonstrated how “the West slowly is discovering that that it has no pressure point versus Russia (its economy being relatively sanctions-proof), and its military is no match for that of Russia’s.”

In parallel, Michael Hudson has conclusively shown how “the threat to US dominance is that China, Russia and Mackinder’s Eurasian World Island heartland are offering better trade and investment opportunities than are available from the United States with its increasingly desperate demand for sacrifices from its NATO and other allies.”

Quite a few of us, independent analysts from both the Global North and South, have been stressing non-stop for years that the pop Gotterdammerung in progress hinges on the end of American geopolitical control over Eurasia. Occupied Germany and Japan enforcing the strategic submission of Eurasia from the west down to the east; the ever-expanding NATO; the ever de-multiplied Empire of Bases, all the lineaments of the 75-year-plus free lunch are collapsing.

The new groove is set to the tune of the New Silk Roads, or BRI; Russia’s unmatched hypersonic power – and now the non-negotiable demands for security guarantees; the advent of RCEP – the largest free trade deal on the planet uniting East Asia; the Empire all but expelled from Central Asia after the Afghan humiliation; and sooner rather than later its expulsion from the first island chain in the Western Pacific, complete with a starring role for the Chinese DF-21D “carrier killer” missiles.

The Ray McGovern-coined MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex) was not capable to muster the collective IQ to even begin to understand the terms of the Russia-China joint statement issued on an already historic February 4, 2022. Some in Europe actually did – arguably located in the Elysée Palace.

This enlightened unpacking focuses on the interconnection of some key formulations, such as “relations between Russia and China superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era” and “friendship which shows no limits”: the strategic partnership, for all its challenges ahead, is way more complex than a mere “treaty” or “agreement”. Without deeper understanding of Chinese and Russian civilizations, and their way of thinking, Westerners simply are not equipped to get it.

In the end, if we manage to escape so much Western doom and gloom, we might end up navigating a warped remix of Yeats’ Sailing to Byzantium. We may always dream of the best and the brightest in Europe finally sailing away from the iron grip of tawdry imperial Exceptionalistan:

“Once out of nature I shall never take / My bodily form from any natural thing, / But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make / Of hammered gold and gold enameling / To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; / Or set upon a golden bough to sing /To lords and ladies of Byzantium / Of what is past, or passing, or to come.”

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

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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As Canadian police forces continue to cut off protesting truckers’ food and fuel supplies, Ottawa police said they are “having discussions” with the Children’s Aid Society about how to protect an estimated 100 children living in trucks.

As protests against Canada’s COVID vaccine mandates entered their 12th day, Ottawa police continued to cut off food and fuel supplies for hundreds of truckers.

Police Tuesday told reporters they are “having discussions with the Children’s Aid Society about what steps to take” to protect children living in what they estimated to be about 100 of the 400 trucks parked in the city.

The Freedom Convoy left Canada’s westernmost province, British Columbia, on Jan. 23 and arrived Jan. 29 in Ottawa.

It has inspired protests around the world, including in 27 European countries which are planning their own convoys.

Here’s the latest news on the Freedom Convoy:

• Police said discussions are underway with the Children’s Aid Society for the possible removal of the children from their protesting parents. Ottawa’s Deputy Police Chief Steve Bell cited noise, carbon monoxide fumes, lack of sanitation and noise levels as possible safety hazards. “We’re not at the stage of looking to do any sort of enforcement activity around that,” Bell told CTV News. “We’ll rely on the Children’s Aid Society to give us guidance.”
• In a news release, groups of retired and active-duty police officers from across Canada, along with members of parliament and other advocacy groups, expressed support for the truckers: “The government’s decision to block refueling of the trucks puts fellow Canadians and their families including their young children in danger due to the extreme cold temperatures currently occurring in Ottawa. Regardless of where one stands on this topic, these actions are inhumane and do not align with Canadian principles,” the release stated.
• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s bodyguard resigned stating that he could not abide by the government’s dictates which he felt contravened the human rights enshrined in the Canadian Constitution.
• Nick Motichka, a 10-year veteran of the Calgary Police Service, delivered a strong message on Facebook to his fellow regulation enforcement officers: “Police are here to help and protect people” not “to do the politicians’ dirty work… What is happening in Ottawa, with the clear political influence on the police, to physically exert political will on peaceful protesters for nothing more than possible political gain is so very wrong, on so many levels.”
• Alberta Premier Jason Kenny dropped his province’s vaccine passport program at midnight, promising to lift other public health restrictions by March 1, depending on the number of hospital admissions.
• Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced Tuesday he will end his province’s vaccine passport policy by Monday, Feb. 14. Other public health policies, such as masking, will remain in effect until the end of the month.
• Provincial Parliament Member Randy Hillier is organizing another “Blue-collar Convoy” of tractors to join the truckers in Ottawa this weekend, as he did last week. The proposed routes are listed on the Facebook page.
• Freedom Convoy truckers and Canadian doctors sent a message that vaccine mandates must be removed and they pleaded for a meeting with Trudeau.

Beyond Canada’s borders:

• The current blockade by truckers of the bridge from Windsor, Ontario to Detroit is preventing much of the daily “$300 million in car and truck parts, agricultural products, steel and other raw materials” to reach its destinations, according to the Financial Post. “Almost 20% of all Canada-U.S. trade moves across the Ambassador Bridge, and 30% of cross-border freight moved by truck uses that route.”
• According to Politico, convoys are now being organized across the U.S. and “regional protests have been planned in states from Alabama to Wyoming, based on Politico’s review of social media activity.”
• “Anti-mandate protesters in France, inspired by the ‘Freedom Convoy’ in Canada, plan to make their way to Paris, then Brussels, to demand an end to vaccine passports,” according to the Financial Post. “Around 200 protesters gathered in a parking lot in Nice today, waving Canadian flags in solidarity with protesters in Canada. Their convoy is made up of motorcycles and cars, but no trucks.”

Similar protests erupted in the last few days in Australia and New Zealand, the Washington Post reported. The “Convoy to Canberra” involves only a couple of 18-wheelers as few Australian truckers own their own vehicles. Protestors brought camping gear — setting up an occupation which has been compared to “Occupation Wall Street.” According to CNN, a convoy of trucks and camper vans has blocked the streets near New Zealand’s Parliament in Wellington.

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Summary

DHS is getting tough on COVID misinformation spreaders, i.e., people who spread information that “undermines public trust in government institutions.”

Since DHS has finite resources to pursue all these perpetrators, as a public service, I have created a list of what I believe are some of the country’s top misinformation spreaders.

I sincerely hope that the DHS will focus their efforts on these individuals since they have made statements and/or taken actions (or refused to take action) that result in the undermining of public trust in US government institutions.

It is extremely easy to tell who is telling the truth here: it’s the people who are not afraid of debate. The one thing everyone on our list has in common is that they will never agree to debate anyone with opposing views.

These people need to be stopped now and I’m grateful that DHS is finally taking this seriously as innocent lives are being lost.

The DHS memo

Read this memo issued yesterday, Feb 7, entitled Summary of Terrorism Threat to the U.S. Homeland.

In particular, check this out this section:

Hmmm…I couldn’t come up with any “violent extremist attacks during 2021” that were inspired by this alleged COVID-19 misinformation. Can you?

To make their job easier to pursue these spreaders of COVID-19 misinformation, I’ve compiled a list of the Disinformation Dozen, the top spreaders of COVID disinformation that are literally killing people through spreading misinformation about COVID.

My Disinformation Dozen list

I believe that all of these people are involved in “The proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions” and have collectively led to the tragic death of over 1M Americans.

All of these people should be detained for questioning.

I’ve also provided a handy list of questions that none of them will be able to answer with satisfactory answers.

Note that the list is subjective. Different people will likely have different lists but most people would agree on the top five.

1. President Joe Biden
   Told the public the vaccines were safe and effective even though the data said the opposite. Wore ineffective face masks in order to mislead the public into thinking these masks could protect them. Refused to meet with any qualified scientist or doctor with opposing viewpoints before and after mandating the vaccines. Deliberately refuses to meet with scientists with opposing viewpoints so continues to spread misinformation today. He tried to scare the unvaccinated by claiming the unvaccinated would experience a winter of severe illness and death. Continues to erode public trust in the office of the President with approval ratings that are at all time lows:
2. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky
   Told people the vaccines are safe and effective and that masks work. Withheld information about early treatment protocols.
3. NIAID Director Anthony Fauci
   Funded the virus, covered it up, knowingly spread misinformation about the source of the virus, lied about it all in Congress when questioned by Senator Rand Paul, and told Cliff Lane to not approve any early treatments in the Guidelines.
4. US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy
   Told people the vaccines are safe and effective and that masks work and said nothing about effective early treatment protocols. Compounded the error by labeling people trying to spread life-saving information as “disinformation” spreaders.
5. Bill Gates
   Funded the misinformation campaigns (the fact checkers) including GAVI.
6. FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock
   Said she would investigate the Maddie de Garay case that proved fraud in the Pfizer trial and then did nothing. The FDA also denied the EUA application on fluvoxamine, a drug later proven to reduce mortality by 12X in a large Phase 3 trial.
7. COVID-19 Guidelines Chairman Cliff Lane
   Discredited every single working COVID early treatment including fluvoxamine which has a 12X reduction in fatalities. Ignored all COVID-19 early treatments that work.
8. Tom Shimabukuro (CDC vaccine expert)
   Never mentioned the VAERS URF which underplayed the danger of the vaccines by at least 41x and deliberately misled people about causality and VAERS by claiming you can’t determine causality. Ignored all the safety signals in VAERS on all but a few symptoms. Ignored the death safety signal. Ignored every safety signal in DMED.
9. John Su (CDC, VAERS expert)
   See Tom Shimabukuro
10. Steven A. Anderson (FDA), the top vaccine safety official at the FDA
    Deliberately ignored all the VAERS and DMED safety signals and ignored all attempts to meet about the safety signals.
11. Gavin Newsom, Governor of California
    Mandated vaccination in California even though he was injured by the COVID vaccine. Will not vaccinate his own kids. He knows the vaccines are dangerous from first-hand experience and deliberately misleads the people of California by claiming they are safe.
12. Richard Pan, California State Senator
    Introduced legislation in the California legislature to close the Personal Exemption Loophole for COVID-19 School Vaccinations which will lead to the death of an unknown number of children. All done with no scientific evidence.

Top corporate spreaders of misinformation

These companies refuse to censor doctors and scientists who claim that the vaccines are safe and effective and masks work. Instead they actually compound the problem censor people who are telling the truth. Net result: hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by censoring the wrong people.

1. YouTube
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. LinkedIn
5. Medium
6. Nextdoor
7. Wikipedia (they mislabel people telling the truth as misinformation spreaders and people believe it)
8. All “fact checker” organizations

The actions of the Disinformation Dozen cost lives

Collectively, these people are responsible for the deaths of over 1M Americans.

For example, they have done things such as:

1. Encouraging and/or mandating people to take “vaccines” that data shows are more likely to kill them than to save them. And even when people aren’t killed, the scientific evidence shows that these vaccines are making people more likely to be infected from the latest variant. This has led to the untimely death of an estimated 400,000 Americans and to the permanent disablement of a roughly equivalent number.
2. Telling people to wear masks when they know full well that all of the randomized trials showed that masks were ineffective. By misleading people to think they were protected, people then ventured into dangerous situations believing they were protected when they were in fact not protected at all. Masks are not harmless interventions. IQ has dropped dramatically (22 points) due to this “harmless” intervention. DHS needs to stop these terrorists now inside the CDC who are promoting this.
3. Ignoring all attempts to challenge them on their views by refusing to debate qualified scientists and doctors
4. Spreading misinformation about the VAERS system by deliberately not calculating the underreporting factor using their own methodology and then not applying that in public statements, thus misleading the CDC and FDA outside committees into making erroneous decisions. Also ignoring all the safety data in the VAERS database and refusing to take any meetings to discuss it.
5. Deliberately trying to censor doctors and scientists from spreading the truth that will save lives through intimidation tactics and directing social networks to cancel their accounts
6. Sandbagging early treatment drugs that have been shown in clinical trials to save lives. They literally told people not to use these life-saving protocols leading to the unnecessary death of close to 900,000 people.

See Incriminating Evidence for details on all of the above points.

I believe they need to be silenced immediately before more harm is done.

See this article for more details but here’s the summary:

• Follow advice based on science: < 7,500 dead
• Follow the advice of the Disinformation Dozen: > 1.3M dead

Toby’s list

This list was created by Dr. Toby Rogers.

The corporate kingpins trial docket

1. Bill Gates (Gates Foundation)
2. Julie Gerberding (Merck)
3. Albert Bourla (Pfizer)
4. Alex Gorsky (J&J)
5. Stéphane Bancel (Moderna)
6. Pascal Soriot (AstraZeneca)
7. Kenneth Frazier (Merck)
8. Emma Walmsley (GSK)
9. Paul Hudson (Sanofi)

The institutional trial docket

1. Tony Fauci (NIAID)
2. Francis Collins (NIH)
3. Peter Hotez (Baylor)
4. Paul Offit (UPenn)
5. Tedros Adhanom (WHO)
6. Rochelle Walensky (CDC)
7. Frank DeStefano (CDC)
8. Tom Shimabukuro (CDC)
9. Ezekiel Emanuel (UPenn)
10. Michael Osterholm (Univ. MN)
11. Neil Ferguson (Imperial College London)
12. Dorit Reiss (UC)

The political trial docket

1. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY)
2. Phil Murphy (D-NJ)
3. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI)
4. Ned Lamont (D-CT)
5. Gavin Newsom (D-CA)
6. Thomas Frieden (D-NY)
7. Tom Wolf (D-PA)
8. Jay Inslee (D-WA)
9. Kate Brown (D-OR)
10. Janet Mills (D-ME)
11. Tim Walz (D-MN)
12. Ralph Northam (D-VA)
13. Jared Polis (D-CO)
14. Richard Pan (D-CA)
15. Lorena Gonzales (D-CA)
16. Brad Hoylman (D-NY)
17. Kyle Mullica (D-CO)
18. Justin Trudeau (Liberal Party, Canada)

The media trial docket

1. Susan Wojcicki (YouTube)
2. Sundar Pichai (Google)
3. Mark Zuckerberg (Meta, Facebook, Instagram)
4. Jack Dorsey (Twitter)
5. Lisa Sherman (The Ad Council)
6. Sanjay Gupta (CNN)
7. Anderson Cooper (D-CNN)
8. Rachel Maddow (MSNBC)
9. Leana Wen (Wapo/CNN)
10. Imran Ahmed (CCDH)
11. Joe Smyser (Project VCTR)
12. Brandy Zadrozny (NBC)

Honorable mention (inside US)

Not included in the lists above, but worthy of investigation. Not in any particular order.

1. All state medical boards who investigated any physician for issuing waivers, speaking out against the vaccines or masks, or mandates, or prescribing live-saving drugs
2. AMA
3. IDSA
4. Biden White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients and Biden’s Chief of Staff Ron Klain
5. Rick Bright, former head of BARDA who didn’t fund early treatment and sabotaged HCQ
6. Robert Redfield, former CDC director
7. Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough
8. Chris Cuomo, Jeff Zucker and everyone else at CNN, ESPN, MSNBC
9. CNN’s Jake Tapper who accuses RFK Jr of being a grifter, but will not accept an open debate. Seriously?
10. Jen Psaki
11. Sonia Sotomayor, US Supreme Court
12. Kathy Hochul, Governor of NY
13. Eric Topol (Scripps)
14. Zubin Damania (aka Zdoggmd)
15. Monica Gandhi (UCSF)
16. “Ed” (if you read the comments to my posts, you’ll know who I’m talking about)
17. Donald Trump (although he’s more recently spoken out against mandates, he has not spoken out against the vaccines themselves)
18. Mike Pence
19. Deborah Brix
20. Vinay Prasad (even though he’s right on masks and calling out the misinformation on myocarditis, he’s wrong on vaccines and is costing lives)
21. Nancy Pelosi
22. Anna Eshoo
23. Big Bird
24. Other members of Congress (with the notable exception of Senator Ron Johnson who is heroic)
25. Ralph Baric, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
26. Peter Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance, without whom we wouldn’t have a pandemic
27. Jens Kuhn and Sina Bavari
28. Most local officials within our towns/cities/municipalities who supported vaccine/mask mandates
29. School Boards who supported vaccine/mask mandates
30. Teachers unions
31. Medical doctors who recommended the vaccines/masks, especially for kids and who ignored early treatment for their patients
32. Hospitals who took the grift and complied with CDC directives and forbade the use of ivermectin and other life saving treatments
33. Businesses who fired people who didn’t comply with vaccine mandates
34. Churches who tell people to get vaccinated
35. Governor Eric Holcomb (Indiana) as well as other governors pushing the narrative (Notable exception: Ron DeSantis)
36. Mike DeWine (R – governor of Ohio). Multiple times said that vaccines were “100% effective.” His current health director minion has flat out lied multiple times about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, particularly their safety data in kids.
37. JB Pritzker, Governor of Illinois and Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot (Chicago)
38. The Economist, Forbes, Reuters, Kamala Harris, NPR
39. All legacy media (previously known as “mainstream media”)
40. London Breed, Mayor of San Francisco
41. Eric Feigl-Ding aka Dr. Dingleberry
42. Federation of State Medical Boards who wrote to state medical boards and physicians saying that doctors who spread misinformation should have action taken against their licenses.
43. Every hospital corporation CEO, COO, CFO and Administrator in the US and anywhere that there is $ incentive to eliminate patients for profit bonuses. Any doctors, nurses , and technicians who also gain under the table by murdering patients.
44. American Academy of Pediatrics. They lobbied DC Council members to pass the DC Minor Consent Bill – before Covid so that 11 year olds could get GARDASIL without parental knowledge or permission – and are pushing Covid vaccines for kids
45. Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Sharon Stone for spreading misinformation about vaccine safety, choosing censorship over scientific debate, and attempting to use intimidation tactics to silence Joe Rogan’s guests
46. Spotify’s new “fact-based” COVID-19 hub
47. Sara Cody and Bonnie Maldonado, Teachers’ Union in California, Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors who let Dr. Cody act dictatorially,
48. All FDA and CDC outside committee members
49. Admiral Rachel L. Levine, MD, Assistant Secretary for Health (ASH)
50. LA Mayor Eric Garcetti
51. The medical licensing board of Maine, who declared that Meryl Nass must undergo a psychiatric evaluation for prescribing IVM and HCQ, and if she doesn’t it’s “an admission of guilt.” This is so fascistic and out of control it is jaw dropping.
52. Joy Reid MSNBC & the “ladies” of the View
53. Jerome Adams, former US Surgeon General
54. Rob Davis, the current CEO of Merck
55. Google (for skewing the search results, especially on “mass formation psychosis” which I caught on video)
56. Fact checkers who work for legacy media company or standalone fact checker organizations (pretty much without exception. I have yet to run across an honest fact checker that works for legacy media.)
57. All Hollywood types that did vaccine and booster commercials.
58. Chelsea Clinton (who is on a mission to stamp out correct information about COVID-19). Here’s an excerpt from the article: Clinton emphasizes that parents who are wondering if they should vaccinate their kids need to be “trusting science and scientists and listening to your local pediatrician.” Wow. Forget about the evidence. Do whatever the “experts” say. Chelsea is a huge part of the problem.
59. All the people mentioned in RFK’s book who helped Fauci
60. Katelyn Jetelina aka Your Local Epidemiologist
61. Jessica Malaty Rivera (who claims to want to stop COVID misinformation but refuses to debate them)
62. Rockefeller Foundation (for supporting people like Jessica Malaty Rivera who spread misinformation)
63. Oregon Health Authority…and all hospital administrators

Honorable mention (outside US)

1. Klaus Schwab
2. Pope Francis (who called for wide scale vaccination)
3. Canada
   • Theresa Tam, Canada’s Chief Medical officer
   • Bonny Henry, British Columbia’s “Top Doc”,
   • Eileen DeVilla, Medical Officer of Health for the City of Toronto
   • All the public health officers in the provincial and municipal governments, plus all the federal and provincial ministers of health in Canada
   • All of the Canadian legacy media, especially CBC
   • All lawmakers wearing masks

4. Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand
5. Germany
   • Angela Merkel,
   • Olaf Scholz,
   • Karl Lauterbach,
   • Christian Drosten
6. Zhengli Shi
7. New Zealand
   • Ashley Bloomfield (Director General of Health – NZ),
   • Chris Hipkins (Covid Response Minister – NZ Labour Party)
8. Sebastian Kurz, former Chancellor of Austria
9. People in Australia:
   • Scott Morrison (PM)
   • Daniel Andrews (Victoria Premier)
   • Annastacia Pałaszczuk (QLD Premier)
   • Gladys Berejiklian (former NSW Premier)
   • Kerry Chant (NSW Chief Health Officer)
   • Brad Hazzard (NSW Minister of Health)
   • Mark McGowan (WA Premier) [check out West Australia Nazi-Like Police State Run By A Thug Named Mark McGowan]
   • Michael Gunner (Chief Minister of the Northern Territory)
10. WHO doctors who approved the vaccines

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The COVID-19 crisis has tightened the noose on truth-tellers. Ongoing developments on COVID mandates reinforce the interplay between the Deep State and the Global Elite which dictates the global COVID narrative under the guise of fact-checking. 

Independent voices are the object of censorship, shadowban and smear campaigns. While these important voices are silenced, the truth becomes buried until it is already impossible to expose it. 

As George Orwell said, “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”

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The February 7 Times featured an opinion column by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, laying out Britain’s plans for a military escalation in Eastern Europe and Ukraine, targeting Russia.

The Times led with the headline, “Britain will not flinch over Ukraine, says PM. Defiant message to Putin as Marines and Typhoon jets prepared for deployment.”

Times front page article: “Britain will not flinch over Ukraine, says PM” (Credit: screenshot/Times)

Johnson was cited saying UK support to Europe and Nato will remain “unconditional and immovable.” The Times lists as immediate measures sending 350 Royal Marines to Poland, adding that “Johnson says that he is prepared to go further and is considering sending Typhoons [fighter jets] and warships to southeastern Europe. Plans have been drawn up to deploy jets to Romania and Bulgaria and send warships to the Black Sea.”

The troops bound for Poland from 45 Commando were being diverted from cold weather exercises in Norway. They will join 100 Royal Engineers already in Poland, where they will carry out contingency planning, including “working up responses to threats they could face” and joint exercises.

Johnson’s opinion piece, misleadingly titled, “Diplomacy can prevail”, threatens, “British sanctions and other measures will be ready for any renewed Russian attack.” He stresses that “Nato allies are agreed that we are willing to send more forces to guarantee the security of our allies on the eastern flank. The foreign ministers of Latvia and Estonia have called for extra support due to the Russian military build-up in Belarus. We stand ready to provide it”.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hold a press conference at the Mariyinsky Palace in Kiev, Ukraine. 01/02/2022. (Picture by Andrew Parsons /No 10 Downing Street/Flickr)

As well as preparing to “reinforce the British-led Nato battlegroup in Estonia”, he lists the possibility of “deploying RAF Typhoon fighters and Royal Navy warships to protect southeastern Europe. And HMS Prince of Wales, our newest aircraft carrier, is now the command ship of Nato’s Maritime High Readiness Force.”

Turning directly to Ukraine, Johnson boasts,

“Since 2015, the UK’s Operation Orbital has trained 22,000 Ukrainian troops. Last month we sent 2,000 anti-tank missiles, causing God Save the Queen to trend on Ukrainian twitter, and placing Britain among the handful of countries to have supplied lethal aid. When I met [Ukrainian] President Zelenskyy last week, I announced another £88 million of UK aid to strengthen Ukraine’s energy independence.”

Addressing Russian President Vladimir Putin, Johnson warns,

“If he launches another invasion, he will force the West to bring about much of what he seeks to prevent. In fact, this is already happening. Because of his build-up, America, France, Italy and other allies are deploying forces to Nato’s southeastern flank, just as the UK reinforces the northeast.”

Johnson fails to list the most provocative move yet carried out during the military build-up against Russia. Last week the UK sent more than 100 special forces (Special Air Service, Special Boat Service, Special Reconnaissance Regiment and Special Forces Support Group) to Ukraine to train its armed forces, focusing on counter-insurgency tactics, sniping and sabotage. ‘They have a wide skill set which will no doubt be very useful to the Ukrainian forces,’ a military source told the Sun, February 6. The United States already has a force of 200 Rangers stationed in Ukraine, which is still not a NATO member.

Just how deliberately inflammatory the UK’s moves are was underscored by the Mirror reporting February 7 that the planned deployment of troops to Poland is part of a joint operation with the US. It writes that “defence chiefs are thrashing out plans for a dramatic UK-US parachute jump into Poland as a massive show of force against Moscow.

“UK military chiefs at Permanent Joint HQ in Middlesex have been going over plans to project British military strength as a gesture of solidarity with Ukrainian forces. One plan under discussion is to parachute members of 2 Para and 82nd Airborne into Poland as a dramatic signal of defiance towards Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It adds, “It is believed members of 2 Para will be asked to join US airborne troops in demonstrating what the Army calls a Joint Forcible Entry, dramatically dropping into Poland. They are part of 16 Air Assault Brigade—the UK’s high readiness troops mostly made up of Paratroopers, with signallers, medics and engineers attached.

“After jointly parachuting into Poland they would then launch a 14-day wargaming exercise—as a huge two-finger gesture to the Kremlin, whose troops are currently exercising in Belarus.”

The Mirror continues,

“The plan is to jump with the 82nd Airborne who have already arrived, but there is concern and confusion at senior level that any drop will be seen as aggressive and we are waiting for a decision.”

This is not an improvised move. The Mirror reports,

“The Paras are listed as the UK’s Global Response Force, are already part of an operational readiness capability which was formed with US forces in 2015. More than 200 British Paras dropped into Ukraine in September 2020, in a joint exercise with local forces and witnessed by the Daily Mirror.”

The newspaper also notes,

“More than 120 members of 2 Para’s B Company are already in Estonia on winter warfare exercises with NATO units including soldiers from the Yorkshire Regiment.”

Johnson’s actions point to the right-wing forces being unleashed by the crisis of British imperialism, with his factional opponents no less committed than he to military aggression and warmongering. One of the first Tory MPs to publicly call for Johnson’s resignation was Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the defence committee and a former captain in the Royal Green Jackets.

In a February 5 interview with the Times, Ellwood complained that on Ukraine, Johnson could not provide “the statecraft that’s necessary for Britain to make its mark and bring together a very timid, risk-averse West.” His task was to rally “other nations to stand up to Putin, to stand firm in Ukraine and make this our Cuban missile crisis moment.” This would mean emulating Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan. The sanctions discussed by Johnson with President Zelensky of Ukraine “is no threat,” said Ellwood. He wanted NATO to put a division of 15,000 troops into Ukraine—“That would be ample to make Putin think twice” with a four-star general “put in charge of the Downing Street operation.”

For its part Labour is intent on positioning itself to the right of Johnson. Welcoming the dispatch of troops to Poland, it complained again that he “has been preoccupied by protecting himself rather than protecting our national security”. Shadow Defence Secretary John Healey added, “With threats increasing and growing Russian aggression, ministers must halt their plans to cut the Army by another 10,000 troops in the next three years.”

As the Socialist Equality Party explained in its statement, “The working class must mobilise to bring down the Johnson government!”, the policies of austerity, militarism and war pursued by the ruling elite and all its parties and factions are dictated by an escalating global crisis of the profit system, characterised above all by an unprecedented polarisation between the broad mass of the working class and a super-rich and socially criminal oligarchy.

“Like the Biden administration, [Johnson] is responding to a desperate domestic crisis by seeking to channel discontent outwards, against an external threat, with Putin’s regime a convenient scapegoat. Johnson’s diversion has assumed the most dangerous form imaginable—a provocation against a military power with close to 4,500 nuclear warheads.

“The war drive is fully supported by the Labour Party, which combines declarations of common purpose with the Tories with an attack on Johnson’s ability to lead an anti-Russian offensive.”

Opposing this drive to war demands the independent political mobilisation of the working class on an anti-capitalist, internationalist, anti-imperialist and socialist perspective.

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The February 1st Amnesty International report on Israel’s treatment of Palestinians broke a new ground. Amnesty became the first major international human rights organisationto state explicitly that since its establishment in 1948, Israel has always practiced apartheid against Palestinians living under its rule.

In the 211-page document entitled, Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity”, Amnesty provided the historical context  and documented “Israel’s institutionalised and systematic discrimination against Palestinians”  and its use of “attack” to maintain this system which “amounts to the crime against humanity of  apartheid”.

Amnesty pointed out that the Zionists who established Israel found that before 1948 Palestinians constituted  70 per cent of the population of the country and possessed 90 per cent of privately owned land while Jews were 30 per cent and owned only 6.5 per cent. Therefore, the Zionists transformed the situation in 1947-48 by displacing “in what amounted to ethnic cleansing” 800,000 of the 1.2 million indigenous Palestinians. The 150,000 who remained were granted citizenship but were placed under military rule until 1966 and have faced discrimination, dispossession and deprivation of the same rights accorded to Israeli Jews.

Since then, Amnesty stated, “Israel has pursued an explicit policy of establishing and maintaining Jewish demographic hegemony and maximising its control over land to benefit Jewish Israelis while minimising the number of Palestinians and restricting their rights and obstructing  their ability to challenge” this policy. After Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem, the West  Bank and Gaza in 1967, Israel drove another 350,000 Palestinians into Jordan and extended apartheid to the newly conquered territories.

Israel employs both its military and settlements to dominate the Palestinians, Amnesty argued, adding,

“All Israeli settlements in the [occupied Palestinian territories] are illegal under international law, regardless of their status under Israeli law.”

Amnesty summed up by saying that, while Palestinians “overwhelmingly regard themselves as Palestinian and have deep and shared political, ethnic, social and cultural ties” wherever they reside,  Israel “considers and treats Palestinians as an inferior non-Jewish racial group.”

During the four years Amnesty was assembling its well documented case, the Israeli human rights organisation, B’Tselem reported that Israel has imposed “Jewish supremacy” through apartheid in “all the territory it controls” the from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.  B’Tslem wrote on January 12, 2021, “The key tool Israel uses to implement the principle of Jewish supremacy is engineering space geographically, demographically and politically. Jews go about their lives in a single, contiguous space where they enjoy full rights and self-determination. In contrast, Palestinians live in a space that is fragmented into several units, each with a different set of rights — given or denied by Israel, but always inferior to the rights accorded to Jews.”

Human Rights Watch followed B’Tselem with a report, “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution”,  which contended that in the land inhabited by 6.8 million Jewish Israelis and 6.8 million Palestinians, “Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians. Laws, policies and statements by leading

Israeli officials make plain that the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land has long guided government policy. In pursuit of this goal, authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity to varying degrees of intensity. In certain areas, as described in this report, these deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”  This conclusion is a bit less forthright than that reached by B’Tselem andAmnesty.

All three reports have been roundly condemned by Israel and its loyal friends in high places and the organisations which published them stand accused of anti-Jewish racism.  But, this does not deflect from the gravamen of the charge of apartheid, which the state of Israel adopted  at its founding in 1948, the sameyear it was enforced in South Africa to formally separate whites and blacks.

It is significant that due to these three reports the word “apartheid” has finally gained respectable currency among organisations and individuals characterising the situation in Israel and the occupied territories although it has applied for nearly 74 years to the state of Israel.

While the Hebrew word, “hafrada”, meaning “separation”, is used to describe the policy adopted by the Israeli government towards the Palestinians, Israel objects to the application of the word “apartheid” which means “aparthood” because of its South African origin.  The cruel policy towards black Africans was designated as a crime under the 1973 Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid adopted by the UN General Assembly.

Apartheid has been applied to Israel but ignored for decades. Asa Winstanley, writing in Middle East Monitor on February 6th, revealed this designation was put forward as early as 1965 by Palestinian diplomat Fayez Sayegh who represented Kuwait at the UN. He wrote, “Whereas the Afrikaner apostles of apartheid in South Africa… brazenly proclaim their sin, the Zionist practitioners of apartheid in Palestine beguilingly protest their innocence.”   Sayegh’s reference to “Zionists” is appropriate because their colonists practiced apartheid long before the state emerged.

In a 2007 report, UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine John Dugard, a South African, stated, “elements of the Israeli occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law”. His successor Richard Falk also used apartheid to describe the situation in a 2014 document.

Rima Khalaf, executive director of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia  and under secretary general said a 2017 report drawn up by the Commission “clearly and frankly concludes that Israel is a racist state that has established an apartheid system that persecutes the Palestinian people.”

In 2020, Yesh Din, another Israeli human rights organisation, said that Israeli treatment  of the West Bank Palestinian population amounts to apartheid as defined by international statutes.

More timid organisations and personalities dared to use this characterisation in 2021 after the Human Rights Watch report appeared.  An opinion poll released in August 2021 found that 65 per cent of academic experts on the Middle East described Israel as a “one-state reality akin to apartheid”. Seven months earlier, the figure was 59 per cent.

At the launch of this month’s Amnesty report, Secretary General Agnes Callamard stated,

“Governments who continue to supply Israel with arms and shield it from accountability at the UN are supporting a system of apartheid, undermining the international legal order and exacerbating the suffering of the Palestinian people. The international community must face up to the reality of Israel’s apartheid, and pursue the many avenues to justice which remain shamefully unexplored.”

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Americans use the slang “lockstep” recalling a characteristic trait of their prisons of the 19th century when inmates had to shuffle step due to the chain that linked their legs. But the US President Joe Biden used that powerful evocative metaphor to convey on Monday that his country and Germany are aligned on fighting any Russian aggression in Ukraine. 

“Germany is one of America’s closest allies,” he said, adding the two nations were “working lockstep” to address the alleged Russian aggression. Biden was speaking ahead of his bilateral meeting with new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House. 

For Russia, “lockstep” is a horrific 20th century metaphor that harks back to Nazi Germany. Disregarding the pejorative tone, Biden casually tossed it around to drive home German-American solidarity and discipline. Scholz simply responded, “I’m looking forward to working closely together with you.” Scholz said the US is one of Germany’s “closest allies.” 

Much has been made out of Scholz’s reluctance to mention the Nord Steam 2 project at this joint press conference with Biden. But did it really matter? Biden spoke for him, suggesting firmly that the Nord Stream 2 issue should not get in the way of ties with Germany. 

Indeed, Biden, who’s been a leading figure in American foreign policy for nearly half a century, recognises the delicate politics Scholz is facing with the project. He also knows Scholz is new to his job and is unable to unite the transatlantic alliance in a response to Russia, as his predecessor Angela Merkel would have. 

Overall, Biden has reason to feel pleased that the relations between the US and its European allies are strong despite apparent  disagreements on certain aspects of a response to Russia. Fundamentally, the alliance agrees that a Russian military intervention in Ukraine cannot go unchecked. 

Washington is also not losing sleep over the French-led talks with Russia and sees President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to engage with the Kremlin as a way to amplify France — and therefore himself — as a more influential player than Biden or Boris Johnson. Macron is only two months away from the presidential election where he seeks a second term. 

After the visit to Moscow, Macron traveled to Kyiv on Tuesday. He told reporters that “the next few days will be decisive and will require intensive discussions which we will pursue together.” But Moscow cannot be in two minds that when the chips are down, the US’ allies will inevitably line up behind Biden, as history testifies. 

The unknown unknown, if at all, is how the allies might react if the Russian intervention were to fall short of a large scale military move and is limited to, say, an operation confined to the Donbass region of Ukraine. This probably explains why Scholz would not publicly commit on the future of Nord Stream 2 pipeline.  

The CNN speculated that Scholz would have reached some sort of understanding with Biden. The point is, German economy is closely tied to Russia’s, and scrapping the Nord Steam 2 could hit it hard as well as Scholz’s political standing.

At such a sensitive juncture, it is also part of Washington’s tool box to confuse Moscow by playing the good cop, bad cop. The so-called Berlin Declaration of the Weimar Triangle between Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday called on Russia “to de–escalate the situation at the Ukrainian border and engage in a meaningful dialogue on security on the European continent.” 

It said,

“France, Poland and Germany express willingness to engage constructively in meaningful and result–oriented discussions on security issues of mutual concern.” Yet, it added, “In line with the Alliance’s dual–track approach the leaders agreed that the Alliance needs to continuously keep its deterrence and defence posture under review and be ready to adapt as necessary to a further deterioration of the security environment, including in the framework of NATO’s enhanced forward presence.” 

The moribund Weimar Triangle’s sudden appearance can only confirm Moscow’s suspicion that Washington is playing games. While Germany and France have so far opted for a more diplomatic approach towards Russia and continuously emphasised the need to resume dialogue with Moscow, Poland has taken a tougher stance. The trilateral format is a clumsy attempt to recalibrate Europe’s approach to the Kremlin. 

Clearly, Russia is being wooed by such diverse quarters in the West, in different permutations and combinations. British Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss is landing in Moscow on Thursday and Scholz himself next Tuesday. But on the core issues as such, namely, NATO’s rollback and Russia’s security demands, there is no movement.

In fact, none of these countries — UK, France, Germany or Poland — is even qualified to negotiate the core issues with Russia. At best, they can provide an “exit route” for Russia to “de-escalate” by withdrawing troops far away from the Ukraine border, without loss of face. 

Frustration is building up in Moscow. The Foreign Ministry lashed out at Germany today calling it an “occupied state” where American ambassadors “are giving orders to German officials” and are “backed up by 30,000 American boots on the ground.” 

The Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova implied that Scholz caved in under US pressure. She said,

“Germany needs this gas not because they like Russia or want to please us – they just need it, it’s what feeds their economy, it’s a resource their industrial development hinges on, it’s what they need to live, basically… a vital issue.” 

Zakharova lamented that not only with Germany but with the rest of Europe too, it’s the same case. “There’s been no talk of any sovereign interests for a long time now,” as she put it. 

The timing of this outburst cannot be accidental. Certainly, it deliberately scattered the “feel-good” lingering in the air following Macron’s visit. Russia is not impressed that European leaders are making a beeline for Moscow. It sees a strategy to wear it down in inconsequential diplomatic gyrations. 

And, all this is while NATO is substantially building up its forces on Russia’s borders and continues to develop military infrastructure on adjacent territories. Also, the Russia-Ukraine relations are deteriorating with both sides massing large numbers of military personnel and equipment along their borders. 

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Featured image: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (L), French President Emmanuel Macron (C) and Polish President Andrzej Duda (R) met in Berlin on February 8, 2022 in the format of the so-called Weimar Triangle.  (Source: Jakub Szymczuk/KPRP)

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The Canadian “Freedom Convoy” started pulling into Ottawa January 29, 2022, gathering in front of the Parliament building. They have vowed to stay put until the Canadian government agrees to roll back all federal mandates, including the vaccine mandate and the vaccine passport

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has tried to downplay the protest, referring to it as a “small fringe minority” of people “who hold unacceptable views” and don’t represent the views of Canadians

As the convoy descended on Ottawa, Trudeau moved out of his residence and then claimed to have contracted COVID and that he would remain in isolation for a week

Inspired and encouraged by the Canadian trucker movement, truckers in other countries are now organizing their own Freedom Convoys. In Europe, a European Freedom Convoy will meet up in Brussels, February 14, 2022, and remain there “until vaccination passports and associated restrictions are abolished” across the European Union

Australia also organized a Freedom Convoy to gather outside the Parliament House in Canberra, starting January 31, 2022, and in the U.S., American truckers are planning a DC Freedom Convoy

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Did you know there’s a massive trucker convoy protesting COVID jab mandates in Ottawa, Canada? You’re forgiven if you missed it, because this gigantic movement received very minimal coverage in the conventional press for the first week or so. Ditto for similar trucker protests forming in other countries, such as Australia and Germany.

The Canadian Freedom Convoy

The Canadian “Freedom Convoy” started pulling into Ottawa January 29, 2022, gathering in front of the Parliament building. According to The New York Times:¹

“The convoy was organized in response to a regulation, implemented this month, that requires truckers returning from the United States to show proof of vaccination. But it recent days, it has broadened to include Canadians critical of pandemic restrictions in general, and of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau …

Private cars and pickup trucks greatly outnumbered the heavy trucks that made up the convoy in its first days. Throughout Saturday, the vehicles clogged the streets in and around Parliament, most of them bearing flags or signs denouncing public health measures related to the pandemic.

Thousands of protesters on foot, many carrying handmade signs on hockey sticks, wandered through the parked vehicles and the slow-moving traffic or gathered on the lawn in front of Parliament … Few people appeared to be following Ontario’s rules requiring social distancing and masks at crowded, outdoor gatherings …

Several Canadian news outlets reported that Mr. Trudeau and his family had been moved out of their official residence by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as a precaution.”

Trudeau Shows His True Colors

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau initially tried to downplay the protest, referring to it as a “small fringe minority” of people “who hold unacceptable views” and don’t represent the views of Canadians. It boggles the mind to think how rapidly our countries have spiraled into authoritarianism where the very idea of freedom is now “unacceptable.”

We can’t be surprised, however. It’s no secret that the World Economic Forum, which is leading the technocratic takeover of the whole world, has penetrated the cabinet of Trudeau and many other countries. WEF head and founder Klaus Schwab admitted it in 2017.²

Once this “fringe minority” descended on Ottawa, however, Trudeau ran. Not only was he escorted out of his official residence, as reported by The New York Times, he’s also said to have tested positive for COVID and will be in isolation for a week.³

Countless videos illustrate just how out of touch Trudeau’s comments are, and that’s putting it kindly. Along highways and overpasses, in the city and outside of it, Canadians have gathered in astounding numbers to cheer the truckers on, everywhere thanking them for taking up this peaceful fight for freedom.

While the actual number of trucks involved is still unknown, it seems reasonable to assume it’s in the thousands. According to Local 12 News,⁴ the convoy could be a “world-record setter” in terms of its size — an estimated 70 kilometers or some 43.5 miles.

The truckers have vowed to stay put until the Canadian government agrees to roll back all federal mandates, including the vaccine mandate and the vaccine passport.⁵

In the video above, Jimmy Dore plays an interview with Benjamin Dichter, one of the organizers of the Freedom Convoy, who describes how Canada has already rolled out previously unknown technology that scans and reads a trucker’s passport and vaccine status on approach, without them actually having to show any papers or display their vaccine QR code on their phone.

Their cell phones pop up automatically on the border agent’s screen as they approach the station, and the cell phone is automatically linked to the driver’s passport and vaccine card, which are also displayed automatically.

So much for right to medical privacy! The secret surveillance and tracking we’ve been warning about is here, or at the least at the Canadian border. The question is, where else it might be deployed without our knowledge?

Google Runs Is Part and Parcel of the Surveillance State

For years, I’ve warned people about the creeping surveillance state, of which Google is a significant part. If you still haven’t ditched Google products from your life (which include Android), now’s a good time to start. In early 2020, I interviewed Robert Epstein, Ph.D., who for the last decade has helped expose Google’s manipulative and deceptive practices. As noted by Epstein, Google’s powers pose three very specific threats to society:

In his article⁶ “Seven Simple Steps Toward Online Privacy,” Epstein outlines his recommendations for protecting your privacy while surfing the web, most of which don’t cost anything.

Vaxxed or Unvaxxed — People Want Freedom

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Jimmy Dore as we both grew up in a poor neighborhood in Chicago and I love his humor. But for the record, while Dore tells his audience that the COVID jab will protect you from severe illness and death, I disagree. Mounting evidence suggests it might actually destroy your natural immune function, especially after the third dose.

Be that as it may, Dore rightfully states that being against mandates and vaccine passports isn’t a cause restricted to the unvaccinated. He, Dichter and countless others who have received the jab did so because they wanted to protect themselves, but they’re not willing to give up their freedoms and live in a totalitarian state.

A Political Tsunami

The good news is that, for whatever reason, the Canadian Freedom Convoy has captured the attention and hearts of the global population — even with mainstream media ignoring and/or minimizing it for days. As noted by Ron Paul in the Liberty Report above, it’s turning into “a political tsunami.”

Truck driver is one of the most common jobs in North America, and perhaps around the world, which might explain the wide appeal of this movement, and how news of it spread so rapidly and organically despite media blackouts and social media censorship. Another reason is probably because people recognize the leverage truckers as a group have.

For example, nearly 70% of all goods freight transported annually in the U.S. are delivered by truck.⁷In Canada, that percentage is closer to 90%.⁸ When thousands of truck drivers stop delivering goods and instead honk their air horns outside a government building, the effects are bound to rapidly become noticeable in the form of empty shelves.

Anyone tired of living in Orwellian dystopia recognizes that this kind of leverage over the political class is far more significant than people marching in the streets with signs — which is what Europeans have been doing every weekend for months on end, to no avail.

The Rise of Global Freedom Convoys

Inspired and encouraged by the Canadian trucker movement, truckers in other countries are now organizing their own Freedom Convoys.⁹ In Europe, a European Freedom Convoy will meet up in Brussels, February 14, 2022, and remain there “until vaccination passports and associated restrictions are abolished” across the European Union.^10,11

Australia also rapidly started organizing a Freedom Convoy to gather outside the Parliament House in Canberra, starting January 31, 2022.^12,13 Within days, the Official Convoy to Canberra Facebook page had gathered 170,400 members.¹⁴ Facebook has now removed the group.

In the U.S., American truckers are planning a DC Freedom Convoy. Facebook was quick in deleting their page, though — a move its organizers blasted as “Censorship at its finest.” As reported by Fox News:¹⁵

“The group, titled ‘Convoy to D.C. 2022,’ acted as a place for truckers to plan and coordinate their trek from California to Washington, D.C. Jeremy Johnson, who set up the Facebook group, said his personal account was also removed, prompting him to contact a civil rights attorney to discuss the next steps …

[Mike] Landis, a trucker involved in the freedom convoy, told host Carley Shimkus that this movement is ‘a long time coming.’ He said Americans are tired of the ‘government overreach’ and criticized politicians for, as he believes, not following the Constitution.

‘The presence of that amount of people that show that they are unhappy with what’s going on is a good way to hopefully get their attention,’ he said. Johnson and Brase anticipate a wide range of Americans, not only truckers, will come out to support their cause.

‘This crosses all genders, all races, all sexual orientations, all occupations,’ Brase said. ‘Truckers might be standing up, but it’s not about the truckers. It’s about America.’ The group’s goal is to end vaccine mandates through peaceful protests. ‘The government needs to really take a look at what the American people want,’ Johnson said. ‘And they don’t want mandates.'”

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Notes

¹ New York Times January 29, 2022 (Archived)

² Twitter Mercola January 31, 2022

³ The Truth About Cars January 31, 2022

⁴ Local 12 News January 28, 2022

⁵ Fox News February 2, 2022

⁶ Medium March 17, 2017

⁷ TruckInfo Trucking Statistics

⁸ Canada Statistics Commodity Flows

⁹ Blog.weaccuse.org January 28, 2022

¹⁰ Twitter European Freedom Convoy 2022

¹¹ Twitter James Melville January 28, 2022

¹² National Times Australia February 1, 2022

¹³ Wentworth Report January 30, 2022

¹⁴ Facebook 2022 Official Convoy to Canberra

¹⁵ Fox News February 2, 2022, US truckers slam Facebook for removing page organizing DC freedom convoy: ‘Censorship at its finest’

Featured image is from The Last Refuge

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Understandably enough, commentaries on the crisis between Russia and the West tend to dwell on Ukraine. After all, more than 100,000 Russian soldiers and a fearsome array of weaponry have now been emplaced around the Ukrainian border. Still, such a narrow perspective deflects attention from an American strategic blunder that dates to the 1990s and is still reverberating.

During that decade, Russia was on its knees. Its economy had shrunk by nearly 40%, while unemployment was surging and inflation skyrocketing. (It reached a monumental 86% in 1999.) The Russian military was a mess. Instead of seizing the opportunity to create a new European order that included Russia, President Bill Clinton and his foreign-policy team squandered it by deciding to expand NATO threateningly toward that country’s borders. Such a misbegotten policy guaranteed that Europe would once again be divided, even as Washington created a new order that excluded and progressively alienated post-Soviet Russia.

The Russians were perplexed — as well they should have been.

At the time, Clinton and company were hailing Russian President Boris Yeltsin as a democrat. (Never mind that he had lobbed tank shells at his own recalcitrant parliament in 1993 and, in 1996, prevailed in a crooked election, abetted weirdly enough by Washington.) They praised him for launching a “transition” to a market economy, which, as Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich so poignantly laid out in her book Second Hand Time, would plunge millions of Russians into penury by “decontrolling” prices and slashing state-provided social services.

Why, Russians wondered, would Washington obsessively push a Cold War NATO alliance ever closer to their borders, knowing that a reeling Russia was in no position to endanger any European country?

An Alliance Saved from Oblivion

Unfortunately, those who ran or influenced American foreign policy found no time to ponder such an obvious question. After all, there was a world out there for the planet’s sole superpower to lead and, if the U.S. wasted time on introspection, “the jungle,” as the influential neoconservative thinker Robert Kagan put it, would grow back and the world would be “imperiled.” So, the Clintonites and their successors in the White House found new causes to promote using American power, a fixation that would lead to serial campaigns of intervention and social engineering.

The expansion of NATO was an early manifestation of this millenarian mindset, something theologian Reinhold Niebuhr had warned about in his classic book, TheIrony of American History. But who in Washington was paying attention, when the world’s fate and the future were being designed by us, and only us, in what Washington Post neoconservative columnist Charles Krauthammer celebrated in 1990 as the ultimate “unipolar moment” — one in which, for the first time ever, the United States would possess peerless power?

Still, why use that opportunity to expand NATO, which had been created in 1949 to deter the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact from rolling into Western Europe, given that both the Soviet Union and its alliance were now gone? Wasn’t it akin to breathing life into a mummy?

To that question, the architects of NATO expansion had stock answers, which their latter-day disciples still recite. The newly born post-Soviet democracies of Eastern and Central Europe, as well as other parts of the continent, could be “consolidated” by the stability that only NATO would provide once it inducted them into its ranks. Precisely how a military alliance was supposed to promote democracy was, of course, never explained, especially given a record of American global alliances that had included the likes of Philippine strongman Ferdinand Marcos, Greece under the colonels, and military-ruled Turkey.

And, of course, if the denizens of the former Soviet Union now wanted to join the club, how could they rightly be denied? It hardly mattered that Clinton and his foreign policy team hadn’t devised the idea in response to a raging demand for it in that part of the world. Quite the opposite, consider it the strategic analog to Say’s Law in economics: they designed a product and the demand followed.

Domestic politics also influenced the decision to push NATO eastward. President Clinton had a chip on his shoulder about his lack of combat credentials. Like many American presidents (31 to be precise), he hadn’t served in the military, while his opponent in the 1996 elections, Senator Bob Dole, had been badly injured fighting in World War II. Worse yet, his evasion of the Vietnam-era draft had been seized uponby his critics, so he felt compelled to show Washington’s power brokers that he had the stomach and temperament to safeguard American global leadership and military preponderance.

In reality, because most voters weren’t interested in foreign policy, neither was Clinton and that actually gave an edge to those in his administration deeply committed to NATO expansion. From 1993, when discussions about it began in earnest, there was no one of significance to oppose them. Worse yet, the president, a savvy politician, sensed that the project might even help him attract voters in the 1996 presidential election, especially in the Midwest, home to millions of Americans with eastern and central European roots.

Furthermore, given the support NATO had acquired over the course of a generation in Washington’s national security and defense industry ecosystem, the idea of mothballing it was unthinkable, since it was seen as essential for continued American global leadership. Serving as a protector par excellence provided the United States with enormous influence in the world’s premier centers of economic power of that moment. And officials, think-tankers, academics, and journalists — all of whom exercised far more influence over foreign policy and cared much more about it than the rest of the population — found it flattering to be received in such places as a representative of the world’s leading power.

Under the circumstances, Yeltsin’s objections to NATO pushing east (despite verbal promises made to the last head of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, not to do so) could easily be ignored. After all, Russia was too weak to matter. And in those final Cold War moments, no one even imagined such NATO expansion. So, betrayal? Perish the thought! No matter that Gorbachev steadfastly denounced such moves and did so again this past December.

You Reap What You Sow

Russian President Vladimir Putin is now pushing back, hard. Having transformed the Russian army into a formidable force, he has the muscle Yeltsin lacked. But the consensus inside the Washington Beltway remains that his complaints about NATO’s expansion are nothing but a ruse meant to hide his real concern: a democratic Ukraine. It’s an interpretation that conveniently absolves the U.S. of any responsibility for ongoing events.

Today, in Washington, it doesn’t matter that Moscow’s objections long preceded Putin’s election as president in 2000 or that, once upon a time, it wasn’t just Russian leaders who didn’t like the idea. In the 1990s, several prominent Americans opposed it and they were anything but leftists. Among them were members of the establishment with impeccable Cold War credentials: George Kennan, the father of the containment doctrine; Paul Nitze, a hawk who served in the Reagan administration; the Harvard historian of Russia Richard Pipes, another hardliner; Senator Sam Nunn, one of the most influential voices on national security in Congress; Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a one-time U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; and Robert McNamara, Lyndon Johnson’s Secretary of Defense. Their warnings were all remarkably similar: NATO’s expansion would poison relations with Russia, while helping to foster within it authoritarian and nationalist forces.

The Clinton administration was fully aware of Russia’s opposition. In October 1993, for example, James Collins, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Russia, sent a cable to Secretary of State Warren Christopher, just as he was about to travel to Moscow to meet Yeltsin, warning him that NATO’s enlargement was “neuralgic to Russians” because, in their eyes, it would divide Europe and shut them out. He warned that the alliance’s extension into Central and Eastern Europe would be “universally interpreted in Moscow as directed at Russia and Russia alone” and so regarded as “neo-containment.”

That same year, Yeltsin would send a letter to Clinton (and the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany) fiercely opposing NATO expansion if it meant admitting former Soviet states while excluding Russia. That would, he predicted, actually “undermine Europe’s security.” The following year, he clashed publicly with Clinton, warning that such expansion would “sow the seeds of mistrust” and “plunge post-Cold War Europe into a cold peace.” The American president dismissed his objections: the decision to offer former parts of the Soviet Union membership in the alliance’s first wave of expansion in 1999 had already been taken.

The alliance’s defenders now claim that Russia accepted it by signing the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act. But Moscow really had no choice, being dependent then on billions of dollars in International Monetary Fund loans (possible only with the approval of the United States, that organization’s most influential member). So, it made a virtue of necessity. That document, it’s true, does highlight democracy and respect for the territorial integrity of European countries, principles Putin has done anything but uphold. Still, it also refers to “inclusive” security across “the Euro-Atlantic area” and “joint decision-making,” words that hardly describe NATO’s decision to expand from 16 countries at the height of the Cold War to 30 today.

By the time NATO held a summit in Romania’s capital, Bucharest, in 2008, the Baltic states had become members and the revamped alliance had indeed reached Russia’s border. Yet the post-summit statement praised Ukraine’s and Georgia’s “aspirations for membership,” adding “we agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.” President George W. Bush’s administration couldn’t possibly have believed Moscow would take Ukraine’s entry into the alliance lying down. The American ambassador to Russia, William Burns — now the head of the CIA — had warned in a cable two months earlier that Russia’s leaders regarded that possibility as a grave threat to their security. That cable, now publicly available, all but foresaw a train wreck like the one we’re now witnessing.

But it was the Russia-Georgia war — with rare exceptions mistakenly presented as an unprovoked, Moscow-initiated attack — that provided the first signal Vladimir Putin was past the point of issuing protests. His annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, following an illegal referendum, and the creation of two “republics” in the Donbas, itself part of Ukraine, were far more dramatic moves that effectively initiated a second Cold War.

Averting Disaster

And now, here we are. A divided Europe, increasing instability amid military threats by nuclear-armed powers, and the looming possibility of war, as Putin’s Russia, its troops and armaments massed around Ukraine, demand that NATO expansion cease, Ukraine be barred from the alliance, and the United States and its allies finally take Russia’s objections to the post-Cold War security order seriously.

Of the many obstacles to averting war, one is particularly worth noting: the widespread claim that Putin’s concerns about NATO are a smokescreen obscuring his true fear: democracy, particularly in Ukraine. Russia, however, repeatedly objected to NATO’s eastward march even when it was still being hailed as a democracy in the West and long before Putin became president in 2000. Besides, Ukraine has been a democracy (however tumultuous) since it became independent in 1991.

So why the Russian buildup now?

Vladimir Putin is anything but a democrat. Still, this crisis is unimaginable without the continual talk about someday ushering Ukraine into NATO and Kyiv’s intensifying military cooperation with the West, especially the United States. Moscow views both as signs that Ukraine will eventually join the alliance, which — not democracy — is Putin’s greatest fear.

Now for the encouraging news: the looming disaster has finally energized diplomacy. We know that the hawks in Washington will deplore any political settlement that involves compromise with Russia as appeasement. They’ll liken President Biden to Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister who, in 1938, gave way to Hitler in Munich. Some of them advocate a “massive weapons airlift” to Ukraine, à la Berlin as the Cold War began. Others go further, urging Biden to muster an “international coalition of the willing, readying military forces to deter Putin and, if necessary, prepare for war.”

Sanity, however, can still prevail through a compromise. Russia could settle for a moratorium on Ukrainian membership in NATO for, say, two decades, something the alliance should be able to accept because it has no plans to fast-track Kyiv’s membership anyway. To gain Ukraine’s assent, it would be guaranteed the freedom to secure arms for self-defense and, to satisfy Moscow, Kyiv would agree never to allow NATO bases or aircraft and missiles capable of striking Russia on its territory.

The deal would have to extend beyond Ukraine if it is to ward off crises and war in Europe. The United States and Russia would need to summon the will to discuss arms control there, including perhaps an improved version of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty that President Trump ditched in 2019. They would also need to explore confidence-building measures like excluding troops and armaments from designated areas along the NATO-Russian borderlands and steps to prevent the (now-frequent) close encounters between American and Russian warplanes and warships that could careen out of control.

Over to the diplomats. Here’s wishing them well.

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Rajan Menon, a TomDispatch regular, is the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations emeritus at the Powell School, City College of New York, director of the Grand Strategy Program at Defense Priorities, and Senior Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace at Columbia University. He is the author, most recently, of The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention.

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The role of the Canadian media in this crisis. How it destroys people’s lives.

Kristen Nagle shames CBC workers in the streets of Ottawa.

CBC people have no heart.

This is a must watch.

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Video: Brian Peckford, Signatory of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, on Trudeau and the COVID-19 Mandates

By Brian Peckford, February 10, 2022

Watch Brian Peckford speaking to a crowd in December 2021 on Trudeau’s vaccine mandate and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Video: Trudeau Ripped for Labeling Protesters as ‘Nazis’ and ‘Fringe Minority’

By Fox Business, February 10, 2022

‘Freedom Convoy’s’ lead attorney Keith Wilson and former Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford call out the Canadian prime minister for characterizing the protesters as ‘Nazis’ and a ‘fringe minority.’

Video: The True Causes of The Environmental Crisis. Why and How Do Corporations Keep You Addicted to Fossil Fuels?

By Emanuel Pastreich, February 09, 2022

I have watched the sad sight of sincere high school students led by Greta Thunberg, or other climate activists, demanding of politicians that they change policies and receiving from those so-called “leaders” sorrowful apologies and inspiring promises only to discover, to their surprise, that absolutely nothing has changed after six months, or after a year.

World Economic Forum’s “Young Global Leaders” Revealed

By Jacob Nordangard, February 09, 2022

Through its Young Global Leaders program, the World Economic Forum has been instrumental in shaping a world order that undermines all democratic principles. For several decades, this program has nurtured compliant leaders acting as WEF agents in governments around the world. The consequences are far-reaching and may turn out to be devastating for humanity.

The Truckers Take Abuse in Ottawa: COVID Crimes Committed Behind the Cover of “Emergency Measures”

By Prof. Anthony J. Hall, February 09, 2022

In the name of a supposed health emergency, governments have assigned to themselves all sorts of new powers. This state of emergency was deemed to be a necessary requirement to facilitate the fight against the spread of the supposedly new coronavirus.

Insane: Austrian Government Authorizes Dystopian Vaccine Registry and Imposes COVID Restrictions Through January 2024 – Will Begin Pulling Drivers Over at Random and Fining Un-Boosted Citizens Next Month

By Julian Conradson, February 09, 2022

This week, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen imposed new Covid restrictions that require all adults in the country to be fully vaccinated and boosted or risk being fined. The new authoritarian law runs through January 31st, 2024, and will go into effect next month.

Austrians Being Stopped Randomly by Authorities and Forced to Prove They Are Vaccinated

By Steve Watson, February 09, 2022

After Austria became the first European country to mandate COVID vaccines for the ENTIRETY of its population, details have emerged on how the government plans to enforce the measure. Reports note that citizens will be stopped randomly in the street and pulled over in their vehicles and forced to comply with vaccine status checks by the ‘authorities.’

How Fact Checking Is Controlled and Faked

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, February 09, 2022

Prior to 2015 or 2016, you could still read what you wanted online without much interference. This has since changed, as propagandists have infiltrated the media and, along with other major players, like Big Tech and government, set out to control information. Fact-checking — a once-obscure term that’s since gone mainstream — is one part of the campaign to control what you see online, and therefore what you think and how you perceive reality — but it’s all a ruse.

History of World War II: The Japanese March Through Southern Malaya and to Singapore’s Outskirts, 80 Years Ago

By Shane Quinn, February 09, 2022

After the successful Japanese amphibious landings at Kota Bharu, northern British Malaya on 8 December 1941, in the 5 weeks that elapsed Tokyo’s forces had advanced more than 200 miles to capture the Malayan capital city, Kuala Lumpur, on 11 January 1942.

Slovakia: 1000s Protest U.S. Military Pact. Official Says Worse Than 1968 Soviet Deal

By Rick Rozoff, February 09, 2022

The U.S. securing air bases in Slovakia would mark the Pentagon and NATO already or soon having air bases in no less than nine former Warsaw Pact nations: Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Those are all the former Warsaw Pact countries in NATO except for the Czech Republic.

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Chris Sky of the people, for the people. Ottawa Freedom Rally, February 7, 2022.

Watch him speak to the freedom fighters in the video below.

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‘Freedom Convoy’s’ lead attorney Keith Wilson and former Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford call out the Canadian prime minister for characterizing the protesters as ‘Nazis’ and a ‘fringe minority.’

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Fist published on August 17, 2022

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Government officials said the program is “the electronic equivalent of a recognized proof-of-identity document,” such as a driver’s license or passport, which “confirms that ‘you are who you say you are’ in a digital context.”

The Canadian government, building on a partnership with the World Economic Forum (WEF), is developing a new federal “Digital Identity Program.”

The aim of the new initiative is to develop a digital proof-of-identity document, which could be used across different systems and environments ranging from government services to airports and border control, according to Slay News.

Officials revealed details of the program in the government’s sprawling “Canada’s Digital Ambition 2022” report, published Aug. 4.

According to the report, the “Digital Identity Program” is part of Priority 2.2 of Canada’s “Digital Ambition,” which seeks to “build and use common solutions for digital service delivery.”

“Our next step in enabling digital government is adopting a ‘government as a platform’ service delivery model,” the report states. The federal Digital Identity Program is the “next step in making services more convenient to access.”

Officials said the program is “the electronic equivalent of a recognized proof-of-identity document,” such as a driver’s license or passport, which “confirms that ‘you are who you say you are’ in a digital context.”

According to the report, “The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for government services to be accessible and flexible in the digital age.”

However, Canada’s partnership with the WEF began prior to the pandemic. Under Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a member of the WEF’s Young Global Leaders program, Canada has since 2018 participated in the “Known Traveler Digital Identity” (KTDI) program, the WEF’s pilot program to develop a digital ID.

The WEF described KTDI as “the first global collaboration of its kind” that “brings together a global consortium of individuals, governments, authorities, and the travel industry to enhance security in world travel.”

Canadian government officials in 2018 stated the aim of the KTDI initiative was “to test emerging digital technologies and how they can improve security and the seamless flow of legitimate air travellers,” in light of an expected increase in air travelers globally from 1.2 to 1.8 billion by 2030.

2030 is the target year of the United Nations’ “Agenda 2030” and its “Sustainable Development Goals,” or SDGs.

The WEF characterized the KTDI program as “the disruptive innovation the global travel security ecosystem needs,” and as a “paradigm shift to an interoperable digital identity system that prioritises traveller-centricity, upholds privacy by design, and enables the trustful cooperation between international public and private sector partners required for ensuring the safe and secure movement of people across borders.”

According to the WEF,

“The KTDI pilot offers greater control over personal information, putting passengers in charge of when and how data is shared through a ‘traveller-managed digital identity.’”

Claims that individuals will have “greater control over personal information” are a common theme in such digital identity initiatives, including digital vaccine passports, as previously reported by The Defender.

The WEF in a 2019 press release explained how the KTDI is linked more broadly to government-issued identification documents of all stripes, stating that “KTDI is based on an interoperable digital identity, linked directly to government-issued identity documents,” through the use of “cryptography, distributed ledger technology and biometrics.”

The system “ensure[s] portability and … safeguard[s] the privacy of personal data,” while the digital ledger “provides an accurate, tamper-proof record of each traveller’s identity data and authorized transactions,” the press release stated.

Blockchain technology figures prominently in KTDI, with its primary function described as being to “cryptographically issue, revoke, and verify credential identifiers without the need of a centralized intermediary (like a certification authority).”

Using “identity data that is usually stored on a chip on a passenger’s passport,” this digital appwould be “securely stored and encrypted on [a] mobile device,” and is checked by authorities “using biometrics … without the need for a physical passport.”

The WEF press release and other documents don’t explain why the use of physical passports is now apparently burdensome and don’t specify whether the “identity data” that would be digitally stored would include vaccine credentials — in effect, an extension of vaccine passports.

Andrew Bud, CEO of biometric ID company iProove, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security contractor, recently described vaccine certificates as driving “the whole field of digital ID in the future,” adding they are “not just about COVID [but] about something even bigger” and that “once adopted for COVID [they] will be rapidly used for everything else.”

Under the KTDI program, passengers can establish a “known traveller status” over time by accumulating “attestations” from “trusted partners,” such as “border agencies and recognized airlines” — a feature that seemingly resembles “social credit score” systems currently being tested in China.

Also of interest are some of the WEF’s partners in the KTDI pilot program. They include:

• Amsterdam’s Schiphol International Airport, the site of major delays recently and where air traffic has been capped due to purported environmental concerns (the Netherlands is also part of the KTDI pilot program).
• Toronto-Pearson International Airport — which also saw major delays recently.
• Montreal-Trudeau International Airport, named after the current Canadian prime minister’s father, former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and also the site of significant delaysthis past summer.

These partners are “supported” by the Irish-American information technology company Accenture, which helped Australia develop its digital vaccine passport system.

In turn, the idea for the KTDI was “initially conceptualized by a multi-stakeholder Working Group launched in 2015,” including several governments and entities such as Google, Visa, Marriott International, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the International Air Transport Association and INTERPOL.

Even though Canada has begun to loosen or eliminate some of the country’s COVID-19-related restrictions — among the world’s most restrictive over the past two-plus years — citizens and public officials continue to face penalties for violations of vaccine mandates and for refusing to use digital vaccine passports.

An Ontario councilor was docked 90 days’ worth of pay for allegedly violating her municipality’s vaccine mandate — specifically, by attending two council meetings in May without furnishing proof of vaccination against COVID-19. The penalty was levied even though the mandate in question has since been lifted.

And as recently reported by The Defender, in June, a Canadian doctor was fined $6,255 upon her return to the country, over her refusal to use the country’s ArriveCAN health information app.

According to Global Government Forum, Canada is one of eight countries that formed a working group for digital ID in 2020. The group also includes Australia, Finland, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, the Netherlands and the U.K.

Countries that have either implemented digital ID systems or are working on doing so include Estonia, Germany, the U.K. and Australia, as well as the EU.

Canadian government officials plan to launch public consultations on a digital ID framework for federal government services but have not yet announced when.

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Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Athens, Greece.

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Excerpts: 

The Treasury Department this week reported that the total national debt of the United States surpassed $30 trillion for the first time in history, an amount equal to nearly 130% of America’s yearly economic output, known as gross domestic product. The eye-popping figure makes the U.S. one of the most heavily indebted nations in the world.

The federal debt has been high and rising for decades, but the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, which involved massive infusions of cash into the U.S. economy, greatly accelerated its growth.

… While the $30 trillion figure, by itself, has no significant meaning, it may serve to focus attention on what some see as a major concern for the future health of the country.

The $30 trillion in outstanding debt is owed to a wide variety of creditors, including the federal government itself.

However, with the Federal Reserve poised to begin raising interest rates in an attempt to ward off rising inflation, the rate the Treasury has to pay on newly issued debt will likely rise, meaning that the overall cost of servicing the federal debt will likely go up in the relatively near future.

“$30 trillion in debt is an obscene number, but what’s even more depressing is the fact that most politicians in both parties don’t really care,” Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, said in a statement. “Someone is going to have to pay that money when these politicians are long gone, and — spoiler alert — it won’t be paid by them but instead by our kids.”

To read the full article on the VOA click here

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We live in times of the greatest civilisation transformation since the birth of capitalism and the greatest technological change since the dawn of industrial production.  But do we really catch all circumstances related?

Energy technologies as social constructs

To understand what is a social construct is in Foucault’s meaning we have to assume that our perception shapes social reality surrounding us.  So how we call and how we feel any phenomenon – in fact determines it.  Thus it should be noted that energy is that particular kind of good that allows people to satisfy their demand for other goods.  This positions both the demand for energy and energy technologies in a wider social and awareness context. 

We do not consume energy (only) for its own sake, e.g. in the form of heat – but it defines our position in relation to the entire consumption chain.

The way we perceive energy technologies often reflects our attitude to such recognised social constructs as the market, state, economical system, community, but also the perception of humanity and its place in the universe.  And in line with the dialectic of social constructionism – these are variational phenomena, undergoing transformations along with changes in the dominant trends of social awareness.

Although modern generations may find it hard to believe – the oil industry has presented itself and has been perceived not only as the avant-garde of modernity, but also as an outpost of egalitarianism.  The American Petroleum Institute commercials from the 1950s are easy to find – especially with the emblematic “Destination Earth” (1956).

Of course, today the story of the liberation of Mars from the tyranny of the Stalin-like emperor through the discovery of the blessed impact of oil refining – may be associated with another slogan, from a similar propaganda cuisine, saying that “DDT is so safe, that you can eat it” because “DDT is good for me-e-e!”.

However, today not only our ecological awareness is different – our consumer experiences also differ.

We are the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Fordism, mass consumption and universal availability of almost everything is so obvious to us that some of us are worried about that.

For the post-war generations, however, none of this was obvious.  Not only in terms of the seasonality of agri-food production (typical even for the 1980s and 1990s), but also because limited availability of industrial goods from the era before the massification of plastics, which was also a consequence of the oil boom.  The World has been subjectively shrunken thanks to oil becoming the main energy resource, and global capitalism has gained the catalyst of its presumed endless development thanks to the continual increase in consumption.  And here is where the key feedback took place.

Capitalism to exist – needed an energy based on oil (and other fossil fuels), thanks to which it was possible to produce more and more, transport goods around the globe and sell more and more, constantly stimulating demand. Including, in particular, by constantly striving to improve one’s status, also expressed in the amount of individually consumed oil and its derivatives.

But such a boom also meant increased human-nature interaction.  Global hyperproduction and hyperconsumption, synonymous with the success of mankind in its supposedly “best period in history” – had an unprecedented impact on the climate, not only polluting the environment, but also leading to the threat of annihilation of life on Earth, as it was announced one day.  First, a few believed, then the slogan was picked up by those more and more influential.  That triggered a change of consciousness aimed at finding a new paradigm.  And the new consciousness needed a new social construct, also, and perhaps above all, in the energy sector.

Image on the right is from Pixabay

The dichotomy of the old and new paradigm was initially particularly visible in the antagonism of nuclear energy and the first proposals for renewable energy (RE) technologies.  The nuclear industry was perceived not only as potentially dangerous due to the possible effects of technological disasters, with the most emblematic example of Chernobyl. Nuclear power plants evoked negative social reactions in the Western world through their association with the nuclear arms race and the entire military-industrial complex, as well as the organisational formula clearly associated with great capital, top-down attitude, imposing the strenuous path of modernisation through industrialisation.  In the realities of the Eastern Bloc, where the effects, including the social ones, of Chernobyl, were felt even more strongly – opposition to nuclear technology was clearly oppositional.  Such a strongly counter-cultural character was, for example, the campaign conducted by ecologists and pacifists against the construction of a nuclear power plant in Żarnowiec, Poland.

Meanwhile, in opposition to the atom, a positive solution was searched for, which could at least aspire to the position of an energy alternative, and at the same time would reflect the social aspirations of the circles that were active in the 1970s and 1980s.  Renewable energy (initially mainly onshore, then also solar energy) was at this stage strongly associated with bottom-up attitude, self-sufficiency beyond the reach of large-scale industry and capital, dispersion and organic. Nuclear vs. renewable energy conflict had then this strongly conscious nature.  Supporters of the former identified it with order, free competition or a strong state (depending on their own preferences), progress and modernisation through industrialisation (depending on geopolitics – capitalist or real socialist). The opponents thus appeared as anarchists, hippies, and even neo-Luddites or potential “ecological terrorists”.

What is important – in fact, these early divisions, at least to some extent, influenced the very course of the energy transition in the countries where they occurred particularly clearly, such as in Germany.  The technological change was therefore associated with a paradigm shift, thanks to which, in Germany and Denmark, it was possible to maintain a more bottom-up, dispersed and communitarian nature of the renewable energy sector.  Interestingly, the contemporary clash between the social model associated with RE and its industrial opposite based on the atom also followed to some extent the path marked out in the 1970s and 1980s, while the role of the fictional Ventana and the real Chernobyl was repeated by Fukushima.

In California directing to the RE path was a response to the trauma of the Vietnam War, and kind of displacement of Ronald Reagan neoconservative governance and then his presidency.  Former hippies and beatniks, and their children after them, maybe they cut their hair and grabbed credit cards, but to buy Priuses and build smart houses powered by RE. Involvement on this side has become the expression and main manifestation of social participation.

Albeit more detailed studies bring an interesting imposition of the awareness of RE as a certain social concept – based on the classification by gender or education (although not by age).  So as we can see – reality confirms the weaving of energy technologies into existing and new social constructs.  The dominant social attitude may be a barrier to transformation, but in fact that is the committed minority that can be the catalyst for universal change.  Changes take place not only and not primarily with the formation of a new dominant paradigm and its universal acceptance, but through the coexistence and conflict of various constructs. That is, as Moscovici (1961) pointed formulating and implementing the assumptions of the Theory of Social Representation.

Also crises have a significant impact on our perception of energy technology as a socially active factor.  They are shock impulses that stimulate change by creating an image of the future.

A shock and opposite, the human ability to “adaptation and vulnerability”, in this case to a progressive climate crisis – both currently determine the social position of energy technologies.

Even despite some of their technical or performance weaknesses, which are no secrets at all. That is why this process must be bilateral, and the social implications must remain no less important than the technological ones also from the point of view of managers and engineers directly interested in implementing changes.

The oil-based energy technology was representative and itself co-created the reality of the Golden Age of post-war capitalism. 

Supplementing with nuclear energy corresponded to the dominant paradigm of the triumph of neoliberalism, the mirage of “Star Wars” and “the end of history” vision.  RE have not (yet?) brought the expected decentralisation, nor increased participation, and they still are not an undisputable tool for transition to post-growth.  On the contrary, like their predecessors, they have simply become tools of great capital, only under the cover of new social constructs, doctrines and ideologies, with profits for the same financial and industrial players as always.  This does not mean, however, that the process of transformation is over and that the RE as a social construct will not become the beginning of the end of the of capitalism as we know it, or even the end of capitalism itself.  After all, it is primarily a matter of our awareness and the ability to imagine the unimaginable.

Lock-in and path dependence

It could seem that we are dealing with a paradox.  Especially enthusiasts could doubt how technologies and projects associated with innovation and diversification could enter the path dependence and find themselves in a lock-in situation.  Thus similar to lock-in on carbon, the breaking of which is still a key element of the entire transition process.

This doubt, however, comes from a basic misunderstanding that technological, financial and social systems naturally tend to stasis, irrespective of the benefits of transient, possibly controlled gaps and shocks.  The risk of lock-in increases with the increase in the market position of a given technology. Including the recognition by the market of the prospects of its further development, of course in the sense of accelerating and increasing returns on investment.  Also states, as those entities which, in the case of energy policy, create a legal momentum for technological change – want to operate in a predictable and possibly planned environment that can be used in the rhythm of election campaigns.  Therefore the lock-in mechanism can by no means be considered a thing of the past as the carbon footprint is reduced.   But with all the negative connotations attached to it – lock-in is also a periodic stabilization within a path dependence and that how it should be analysed without prejudice.  Lock-in is sometimes chosen on purpose or is treated as inevitability, mainly due to the investment policy, the payback period, depreciation of assets etc.  This is i.a. why it was so difficult to break the coal lock-in – since the lifetime of coal-fired power plants was calculated on 40 years, and climate change announcement created social pressure for transition before the end of that period.  RE technologies, as still relatively young and developed in a distributed manner, should theoretically have a natural defence mechanism against lock-in.  However, because often they are introduced in a kind of shortcuts, due to the extraordinary situations, including external shocks – it leaves gaps for inertial tendencies.

Following the list of main lock-in mechanisms by Klitkou et al. (2015) – we must note that there is nothing to prevent them from occurring also with the development of the RE. When it comes to the economy of scale, for example, there is a sudden increase in the number of BEV cars.  Alternative technology based on hydrogen as less popular – is also less available.  And it is less available because it is less popular when BEV production is now closer to mass scale – so its consumers faced a typical lock-in risk of resources shortage, with lithium, nickel and cobalt instead of oil.   This, in turn, leads us to the economics of scope, in which the consumer himself is ready to reject diversity in the market, considering it excessive and burdensome.  And since it is produced and sold in a specific technology – learning effects are growing, also being an element introducing path dependence.   It is strengthened by the infrastructure created for the locked-in technology, the development of complementary technologies and, as a result increasing interest in informational returns.  An informal social norm takes shape, then a custom, then a tradition, all with a propensity for further reproduction. Especially when institutional actors, crucial in the case of energy technologies become more engaged, introducing an element of differentiation of power and institutions.

A very interesting case of lock-in stimulated by the German government policy of financial incentives was described by Haelg, Waelchi and Schmidt (2018) with the example of solar technologies: thin film vs. crystalline silicon.  The former dominates among larger installations, above 100 kW, especially open ones, while the latter have an advantage among roof installations.  So diversity has been preserved – one could question.  The problem is that it depends on the adopted research perspective, and simultaneously confirms the susceptibility of RE technology to lock-in mechanisms, even sectorally.  We have already dealt with similar situations, e.g. when wind energy was temporarily stopped at the onshore stage and the transition to offshore was clearly delayed by already implemented investments in the first technology.  Apart from car problems mentioned above – the lock-in mechanism is also noticed in the field of battery storage and the heating use of electricity from RE.  Path dependence is a continuous process, even if the path is still relatively short.

Meanwhile, lock-in is considered to be an objectively undesirable, reducing innovation, threatening future performance and potentially cost-intensive in the case of lock-in using non-optimal technology.  In the case of the RE, the key argument for using them was not only their compliance with the climate target, but also the potential to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and thus their supply shocks.  While in practice, we are witnessing a lock-in indirectly related to the transition to RE – concerning gas technology, considered complementary to RE.  And there were warnings about such a threat (Haelg, Waelchi and Schmidt 2018).  Since it was rightly pointed out that a lock-in on nuclear energy as an allegedly bridge technology can only ultimately change an oil shortage into a uranium shortage – the more such a hazard should have been seen in the case of gas.

The lock-in mechanism is therefore not a past or could be closed at any time.  In research on the subject, there is a tendency to consider this process, and especially its effects, to be negative, or at least potentially dangerous for technological development (Scrase and MacKerron 2009).  However, there are also voices in favour of a more neutral approach, seeing the path dependence and lock-in scheme as a more natural process and, at certain stages, perhaps even inevitable.  Therefore, it is rather an evolution to which technologies in the economic environment are subjected, at the time of gaining even a subjective advantage over competitive solutions.

It also touches upon another important issue, i.e. considerations whether a transition, especially such a far-reaching is and should be made in a manner adopted for deliberative democracy (evidently declining) or by gaining a discursive hegemony, what is happening before our eyes, especially during a pandemic.  Theoretically, the first mechanism would seem to favour the gradual generation of path dependency in the process of reconciling and averaging positions.  However, it is not obvious whether a sudden change, due to the rapid use of the “window of opportunity”, opened especially in the reality of a shock – could constitute a protection against further lock-in, especially if the previous conditions are restored.  We can investigate it directly by observing the situation related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the recovery path that is just being adopted.  It may be a momentum that facilitates, even partially, shaking off the already existing dependencies to achieve the assumed climate and energy goals faster and more effectively.  However, reverse feedback may also occur.  But as well, all negative socio-economic effects of a pandemic and the frequently raised postulates of “stabilization and normality”, understood as the past that must be restored – can be used as arguments also for maintaining previous path dependence.  For the study of the lock-in mechanism in the RE sector – it is therefore a breakthrough moment.

Golden Path 

The main trends of modern economy work since decades around “Zero-Growth” idea.

Whether reaching it as a necessity forced by climate circumstance or considering as an objective result of exhausting the possibilities of capital accumulation.  However it is also known that permanent growth is an inherent feature of capital.  So, in fact it does not matter much whether the World economy stops by itself or should be forced to it. The shock is indispensable.  A shock supposed to manage disruptions in the supply chain (which in fact has not necessarily wanted to occur), as well as deal with weakening of demand, which also has not appeared on a satisfactory degree, so had to be caused intentionally.  But anyway – is the World of financial markets really false economy today, and production and services remain real ones? Or is it already opposite?

Maintaining the appearances of Not-Completely-Globalised Capitalism in the North-Western hemisphere seems to have lost its sense.  Sooner or later, we will be confronted with the problem of delabourisation anyway.  The problem what to do with people whose work is redundant in practice, at least in the present dimension.  Until now, however, their consumption was needed.  We checked that people can be paid to refrain from working.  And where to get for it?

By allocating a small percentage of capitalist rent obtained from the turnover of assets, considered optimal, to keep it all going somehow without nominal development and growth.  Characteristic changes known from the last two years: greater virtualisation of the remaining work, the almost complete digitisation of money, the mere increase in power of states, but only acting as actors of capital – are just details to complete a picture.

This is why COVID is the most important transformation of our times, a change at the level of the essence of Capitalism and civilization as such.  And it is a transition made jointly and inextricably with the use of energy instruments, to maximize profits from the energy market and to obtain a specific civilisation effect, in order to maximize profits from the energy market and to achieve a specific civilization effect, measurable using energy indicators.  And as it happens with transformations – we cannot even imagine their final effect, but we already know that we are led to it. Almost certainly – inevitably.

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Konrad Rękas is a renowned geopolitical analyst and a regular contributor to Global Research.

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I have watched the sad sight of sincere high school students led by Greta Thunberg, or other climate activists, demanding of politicians that they change policies and receiving from those so-called “leaders” sorrowful apologies and inspiring promises only to discover, to their surprise, that absolutely nothing has changed after six months, or after a year.

This “tragicomedy” is no accident; it is the result of a systematic strategy for misinforming the public through the media, through universities, and through government pronouncements concerning how policy decisions are made about energy.

We are so completely misinformed about how our environment is being destroyed by multinational interests that many citizens honestly believe that climate change is a hoax precisely because the fairy tales about carbon trading, electric cars, smart grids and the promotion of government corporate cooperation are exactly that: a hoax.

The recent COP 26 (October, 2021) meeting of government heads to discuss climate change in Glasgow reflected perfectly the fantastic farce to which citizens are subjected. This corporate show, funded by multinationals like Unilever, Hitachi and Microsoft that have deep ties to the promotion of petroleum, was not about policy or progress, and most certainly not about a greener planet. It was a show meant to brainwash us into thinking that a gradual, progressive shift in behavior by individuals will solve the environmental crisis.

It suggested that electric automobiles, wind farms, smart cities and smart electric grids, all run by multinational corporations funded by multinational banks would save humanity and that we need only hand over decision-making power to these criminal syndicates known as “public-private partnerships.”

COP 26 was silent about how to reduce the need for energy by creating a healthier culture and moving away from the cult of consumption, growth and trade that corporations have foisted upon us. Most countries are in a bind because their forced to prioritize growth in economic planning even though growth, as defined by the World Bank, is damaging, unsustainable and lacks any scientific, or even rational, basis.

The focus at COP 26 was on dazzling new technologies, all extremely expensive, and all with patents controlled by the few.

The true sources of the environmental crisis were covered up.

The collapse of biodiversity, the death of oceans, the plague of micro-plastics, the destruction of soil by chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the spread of deserts because of foolish “development,” and the destruction of drinkable water, and its replacement by bottled water controlled by those same multinationals, all these topics were taboo.

These trends are altering our climate but they are not related to “climate change” as the corporations defined it for us.

Their green revolution will result in the control of food, water, energy and money by a handful of billionaires and they punish the individual citizen for the destruction of the environment when the culprit is those multinational corporations who waste immense amounts of energy and rig up the economy in such a way that the citizen has no choice but to use fossil fuels.

We are supposed to believe that the best way combat climate change is to purchase a horribly overpriced Tesla, or to take out a massive loan to buy solar panels for our homes. Or, for our government to tax us, or to dilute the value of our money, by funding massive green projects which are run entirely by those multinational corporations.

I recently spoke with a professor who specializes in environmental policy. He told me that there was tremendous opposition to a wind farm being constructed of the coast in the United States from local residents. He made it sound as if these ignorant, rural Trump supporters opposed the wind farm because they had no understanding of the need for a green economy, or of the environmental crisis.

When pressed, however, he confessed that the entire project had been planned by multinational banks and that the local residents gained no jobs from this project and had not been consulted at any level before it was pronounced by the mighty. They had not stake in the wind farm and if they had applied for a loan to build a wind farm for 7 billion dollars, they would have certainly been turned down.

If we could get the sweetheart loans from the government that the multinational corporations receive, we would be happy to switch to solar power tomorrow. If you could get 30-year low interest loans to weatherize your home and install solar panels everywhere, it would be cheaper to pay off that loan than to pay for your gas and electricity—effective immediately. But no, that option is not on the table in the new “green economy” –except if you are a multinational corporation!

For that matter, you cannot generate electricity when riding your exercise bike and sell it to your neighbor. You do not have the basic rights of economic exchange in this “green economy.”

No one at COP 26 mentioned that we did not use fossil fuels much 100 years ago outside of manufacturing, and that individuals were able to use wind power, water power and horse power on a regular basis, to grow their own food, the mill their own wheat, and to travel without using automobiles while living in rationally-planned communities that did not require travel by highway.

No one at COP 26 said that the narcissistic culture that has led us to all live separately, as opposed to living together as extended families, can be reversed, or that we can build houses, or furniture or vehicles that last for hundreds of years—saving enormous amounts of energy.

Frugality and energy self-sufficiency at the local level, not smart cities and high tech automobiles, are the answer to the crisis.

No one at COP 26 suggested that the investment banks linked to fossil fuels, and the politicians and think tank experts who take kickbacks from fossil fuel concerns, should not have been invited in the first place. The reason was simple. The investment banks funded the whole show.

We are heading for an environmental crisis of Biblical proportions. You do not have to be a fundamentalist Christian anymore to believe in the Apocalypse. Hallelujah, I believe!

The true source of the crisis is not the personal decisions of individual citizens, but the creation of, and cultivation of, a sick culture based consumption and waste, on needless production and travel, that has become the norm, the ideal, for the entire world.

Most pollution comes from production sites around the world run by multinationals that are immune from regulation, from factory farms also run by multinationals that poison our soil and water, and from needless shipping of products back and forth across oceans burning coal and petroleum—an evil act considered necessary for “growth.”

All the important decisions in government are made by banks and corporations, and then fed to the heads of nation states via a network of consulting firms, lobbyists and privatized intelligence operatives.

The national leaders who appear on television to entertain us have no more impact on economic and energy policy than the clown has on the acts in the other two rings of the circus.

The inability of citizens to grasp the true nature of the environmental crisis is also a result of the decay of intellectual debate in universities and in journalism. The newspapers, the television news, and the textbooks used in schools, do not promote inquisitive debate, a search for truth, but rather promote false assumptions about science and economics favorable to corporations. Deep thinking about the future of the nation by citizens has vanished and democracy is impossible.

Intellectuals, who could help citizens to understand the climate crisis, are forced by new requirements promoted by universities—under financial pressure from corporations—forced to write articles for obscure academic journals that almost no one will read, and they are barred from participation in the debate on energy policy which is run entirely by paid lobbyists for multinational fossil fuel corporations.

We witness today the flowering of a long process that started out with the scheme of John D. Rockefeller to force complete dependence on petroleum on the citizens of the United States, and of the world, as a means of making a fortune and dominating every aspect of the economy and society, starting with the monopoly of Standard Oil.

The players have changed, the names have changed, but the game remains virtually unchanged.

If you do not control the mass media, you do not exist in the policy debate. That means anyone serious about the environment does not exist because the same global finance institutions, like BlackRock, who control the corporate media, also control fossil fuels.

They will do everything in their power to make sure that this economic parasitism rooted in the control of energy (petroleum, coal, nuclear, solar or wind) is dominated by corporations whose interests and whose administrative structure is hidden from sight and never discussed.

If you eat food, drink water, travel, receive an education, seek treatment at a hospital or are buried in a cemetery, the bankers want to make sure that they get a part of the monetary transaction, that they get their pound of flesh. They want to make sure that fossil fuels, which they control, are part of that process.

We can find cultural and spiritual depth in our lives by reading books and newspapers, writing for ourselves, creating our own art, and otherwise participating in a complex local cultural system. We do not need that much energy. We not even need computers for a healthy and meaningful life. Although the increase in human population has increased demand for energy, that demand could be radically reduced through changes in our culture, starting with the elimination of growth, production, and trade as indicators of the wellbeing of the economy.

The institutional investors that push for the use of petroleum to generate energy, to make plastics, and who promote biotechnology and pharmaceuticals that rely on petroleum want us to be dependent on them and to no longer able to produce what we need locally.

Those institutional investors also push for massive military and intelligence spending, much of which is classified, and much of which is unregulated, and therefore consists of the transfer of funds to offshore accounts.

Why do we need such a large military? We need it, they say to defend the import, and the transport, of petroleum, gas and coal over oceans, through straits, and across continents.

The obvious answer to this security problem is to produce energy at home and to minimize usage through rational city planning, organic local farming, and low cost public transit that reduces to near zero the amount of energy imported. For the cost of those F35 fighter planes the United State collects like bad nickels, we could easily pay to have solar and wind power generators installed across the nation.

But no! The powers that be want to make even more money by defending their inefficient and dangerous sources of energy.

The arguments for growth and consumption as a standard for assessing the health of society, for spending trillions of dollars to defend the transport of fossil fuels, for encouraging city planning that wastes energy are made by experts.

The banks and the fossil fuel interests, which include automobile manufacturers, and companies involved in construction and logistics, have showered billions of dollars on foundations that fund research and journalism, on universities and research institutes that produce authoritative studies, on experts for testimony, and on politicians at the local and national level.

These corporations have created a lineup of public intellectuals who rubber stamp their false assumptions.

If we want to save the Earth from climate collapse, we must first make sure that all citizens know why we have been forced to rely on petroleum, and by whom. They must know which banks and which billionaires are involved, and why. They must comprehend the manner in which those players forced us into an addiction to fossil fuels a hundred years ago, and how they plan to continue this scheme under a new green cover.

We must make manifest the hidden strategies of investment banks and hedge funds, uncover the massive investments by billionaires like Warren Buffett, Elon Musk and Bill Gates in industries seeped knee-deep in oil. We make sure that everyone sees not only that there is something deeply wrong, but also that they understand what exactly is the cause of this distortion in the economy.

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This article was originally published on US Provisional Government.

Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

The most dangerous form of tyranny has raised its head simultaneously in Canada and the United States. The exercise of civil liberty is being criminalized. In Canada the city government of Ottawa with the aid of the US FBI and US Department of Homeland Security is criminalizing the truckers’ peaceful protest as “a threat to democracy” and is identifying organizers and participants for arrests and charges. Simultaneously, the US Department of Homeland Security has declared a domestic terrorism threat in the United States. Truth and all dissent from the official Covid narrative and Russian narrative have been labeled “false and misleading, misinformation, and conspiracy theories.” These alleged threats are “amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors.” See this.

What is the point of a peaceful protest when authorities and media lie and brand it violent and a threat to democracy? What has happened in Canada is that the elite now know who the Canadians are who will stand up for freedom. They have identified themselves, and being peaceful they will be easily taken down.

In the US, free speech is now classified as a threat to democracy. A recent DHS announcement associates all dissent from official narratives with “ideological beliefs and personal grievances that pose an ongoing threat to the nation.” Such “threat actors” are seeking to “sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions.” The ruling elite are very disturbed that the Covid and Russian narratives are losing public support and is desperate to stop the exposure of these two official lies.

Like Joseph Stalin, the US DHS is creating with its own disinformation a legal framework for prosecuting or confining to indefinite detention any and every person who confronts official lies with truth. Included in the misinformation that sows discord and undermines public trust in government are allegations of electoral fraud. The DHS adds to the massive file of dangerous speech the airline companies’ warnings about 5G cellular technology. The establishment is going to use force to protect its lies.

The DHS has no legislative power to criminalize civil liberty, but is nevertheless doing so. The courts would probably block some or all of the attempted prosecutions. But remember, the George W. Bush regime claimed the right to hold American citizens indefinitely without presenting evidence to a court. The American people made fearful by an alleged “terrorist threat” went along with this and other infringements of our constitutional protections. The day the PATRIOT Act passed marked America’s turn toward tyranny.

In the early days of Nazi Germany before the Nazis had set up their own court system, Nazi prosecutions were often dismissed by German courts. However, as soon as the released person walked out of the court, the Gestapo again arrested him and subjected him to indefinite detention in a concentration camp. This, I fear, will be the fate of all dissenters from the lies ensconced as official narratives throughout the “free West.”

Notice that no one in the Ottawa government and no one in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation respects freedom. Unless people from all over Canada pour into Ottawa in support of the truckers, thereby creating a cause too large to be suppressed, the truckers will suffer the fate of the “Trump insurrectionists.” If the Ottawa government survives the truckers’ protest, it will no longer be possible to hold government accountable. Voting Trudeau out will achieve nothing as his replacement will be the same servant of the ruling elite serving secret agendas. By the end of this year we should know whether accountable government is any longer possible in the “free West.”

Here Is Steve Kirsch’s List of the real Covid Disinformation Spreaders

• President Joe Biden
• CDC Director Rochelle Walensky
• NIAID Director Anthony Fauci,
• 
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy
• 
Bill Gates
• FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock
• COVID-19 Guidelines Chairman Cliff Lane
• Tom Shimabukuro (CDC vaccine expert)
• John Su (CDC, VAERS expert)
• Steven A. Anderson (FDA), the top vaccine safety official at the FDA
• Gavin Newsom, Governor of California
• Dr. Richard Pan, California State Senator
• YouTube
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Medium
• Nextdoor

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

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This week, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen imposed new Covid restrictions that require all adults in the country to be fully vaccinated and boosted or risk being fined.

The new authoritarian law runs through January 31st, 2024, and will go into effect next month.

Beginning on March 15th, law enforcement authorities will begin checking people’s vaccine status by conducting random traffic stops, and spot checks, in order to find dissenters. Anyone caught violating the mandate can be fined “up to four times a year,” with the penalty increasing with each violation. An individual’s first offense will result in a €600 (~$687) fine and can go as high as €3,400 (~$3,890) by the fourth.

According to reports starting on March 15, authorities will begin conducting random checks for vaccination certificates, including traffic stops.

The new law also allows the Austrian government to create a dystopian vaccine registry that will record everyone who has been vaccinated and give those who have been found disobeying a date they must be vaccinated by, allowing the government to fine them repeatedly.

Only certain people will be exempt from the mandate, including pregnant people, those with health conditions affected by vaccines, and those who have been previously infected with COVID-19, according to SchengenVisaInfo News.

The latest health data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) shows that almost 73% of the Austrian population is two-dose vaccinated, with just over 54% having received the booster shot. But thanks to another mandate that went into effect earlier this month and requires a booster shot to be in compliance with government requirements, nearly 3.8 million Austrians will be impacted by the new law.

Unfortunately, not all of them will be able to provide proof of natural immunity. The World Health Organization has estimated a total of 1,968,963 Covid cases in the country since the beginning of the pandemic, which includes boosted individuals. Even if you account for all of the undocumented cases, there will still be countless Austrians that will be punished for not taking the experimental jab – and the booster, and the next booster, and so on.

The Austrian government also shortened the period in which vaccinations remain valid. Now, citizens are required to receive their next dose about 90 days earlier than before.

From SchengenVisaInfo News:

“‘From February 1, 2022, two-dose vaccinations are only valid for 180 days in Austria (exception: 210 days for under 18-year-olds). However, for ENTERING, the 270 days remain in place. The booster vaccination is valid for 270 days in both scenarios,’” the Austrian authorities explained.”

Meanwhile, as Austria steps up its crackdown on dissenters, several other countries in the European Union have started lifting Covid restrictions, and some have even done away with them altogether – Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, to name a few.

The fact that Austria put a timeframe of January 2024 on this Covid tyranny, is insane.

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After Austria became the first European country to mandate COVID vaccines for the ENTIRETY of its population, details have emerged on how the government plans to enforce the measure.

Reports note that citizens will be stopped randomly in the street and pulled over in their vehicles and forced to comply with vaccine status checks by the ‘authorities.’

If, heaven forbid, a person is found to be unvaccinated they will be fined on the spot, with the penalty increasing for each violation.

"government plans to send a letter to all Austrians [] giving them a month to comply [] That changes in mid-March, when the police are to start conducting random checks of vaccination status — including during traffic stops."https://t.co/0MCN0LqAdR

— tomitka crow (@tomitkacrow) February 5, 2022

A first ‘offense’ will mean a €600 ($687) fine, with subsequent violations reaching up to €3,400 ($3,890).

The Austrian government will check citizens’ vaccination status against their vaccine registry. Anyone found to not have two vaccines plus a booster will be punished accordingly.

The development confirms previous reports that the Austrian government will hire people to “hunt down vaccine refusers.”

Indeed, this is merely an official confirmation of what has already been happening in the country. After the government placed the unvaccinated under an unprecedented lockdown, footage emerged showing police patrolling shops and highways checking people’s vaccination status.

🇦🇹 #Austria's police and military have began manhunts for unvaccinated people.

They patrolling the streets, public spaces and shopping areas and asking for vaccine passports. pic.twitter.com/vUC87oGHW5

— Terror Alarm (@terror_alarm) November 16, 2021

Austrian police demand people show proof of vaccination as they shop in one of Vienna’s busiest shopping streets Mariahilferstraße pic.twitter.com/Rs6Fu4gX6S

— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) November 16, 2021

Days after imposing the lockdown on the unvaccinated, Austria hit a new COVID case record.

In addition, the Austrian government has shortened the period in which vaccinations remain valid, meaning citizens are required to receive their next dose 90 days earlier than previously.

SchengenVisaInfo News reports that “‘From February 1, 2022, two-dose vaccinations are only valid for 180 days in Austria (exception: 210 days for under 18-year-olds). However, for ENTERING, the 270 days remain in place. The booster vaccination is valid for 270 days in both scenarios,’” the Austrian authorities explained.”

The government has put a sunset on the law, for January… of 2024, meaning Austrians face at least another two years of COVID tyranny.

As we have previously reported, an amendment to the law could also see those who refuse to pay the fines for being unvaccinated imprisoned.

The amendment also orders people who are jailed to pay for their own imprisonment.

“If detention is carried out by the courts, the associated costs shall be recovered by the courts from the obligated party in accordance with the provisions existing for the recovery of the costs of enforcing judicial penalties,” it states.

No one will be “forcibly brought” to a vaccination center to get jabbed against their will, although rest assured, they will be “forcibly” placed behind bars if they continue to refuse.

It remains to be seen whether other European countries will follow suit. Several countries have begin to scrap restrictions, including vaccine passports. However, the EU wants to keep the passes in place for another entire year.

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February 8th press conference with Dr. Roger Hodkinson & Dr. Paul Alexander on efforts to get the government to engage in a scientific discussion of Covid mandates.

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Our thanks to Mark Taliano (CRG Research Associate) for sending us this video.

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After two years of empowering every aspect of the authoritarian insanity that is COVID Mania, the American ruling class has started to awaken to the reality that citizens have had enough of the Safety Regime’s tyrannical edicts.

Governor Phil Murphy (D-NJ) announced this morning that New Jersey (not exactly MAGA country) will no longer require children to wear masks in school. These barbaric mask policies, which remain entirely unsupported by actual scientific evidence, has been in place in much of Safety Regime-compliant America for almost two years.

Effective March 7, the statewide mask mandate in schools will be lifted.

Balancing public health with getting back to some semblance of normalcy is not easy. But we can responsibly take this step due to declining COVID numbers and growth in vaccinations. https://t.co/CjnIYZycCe

— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) February 7, 2022

The new policy, and the governor’s sudden embrace of reality, is a vast departure from Murphy’s previous insistence that COVID must be entirely eliminated in order for society to return to normal.

In August of 2020, he stated that COVID deaths must go to zero in order for this “fight” against a virus to be over.

New Jersey has now lost 14,134 members of our broad and diverse family to #COVID19.

In their memories, we must continue to do all that we can to fight this pandemic. We cannot give up until the number is ZERO.

— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) August 26, 2020

Congressman Ted Lieu, who represents a 70/30 Democrat district in Los Angeles County, struck a similar tone in his messaging, going as far as to acknowledge natural immunity to COVID-19. Acknowledging natural was once a great sin, and it remains greatly upsetting to the Branch Covidians who remain true believers.

With the rapid decline of Omicron, pandemic restrictions will be lifted sooner rather than later. In considering when to do so, health officials must factor in natural immunity, not just vaccination rates. This CDC chart recognizes natural immunity and so should health officials. pic.twitter.com/6Hk0f4NRhC

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) February 7, 2022

The White House has mentioned that polling exists showing restrictions are becoming deeply unpopular. White House spox Jen Psaki said Monday that the polling shows “the public is tired of COVID.”

"We certainly understand and have seen in polling that the public is tired of Covid. We understand that. So are we," says Jen Psaki.

Says they are in “constant touch” with public health experts about updating guidelines

— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) February 7, 2022

Even noted COVID hysteric Leana Wen, who has routinely advocated for a two tiered segregation system that discriminates against the “unvaccinated”, has acknowledged that restrictions might need to come to an end.

PS- Here's yet another one. Memo CLEARLY went out. pic.twitter.com/MdZHtdaQGn

— IT Guy (@ITGuy1959) February 7, 2022

The pattern is obvious. The polling must be really bad for the restrictionists. This ruling class is indeed seeking the exits to protect their power, and they will attempt to do so without acknowledging that this two year campaign of destruction was all for nothing.

A slow drift of Democratic state and local leaders away from emergency COVID-19 measures comes as polling shows voters are growing impatient with restrictions.

From Denver to Chicago, here are some of the restrictions that could be lifted shortly:

https://t.co/dRI0hNBHAe

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) February 4, 2022

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***

These days, major European actors have a chance to make a good step towards a detente in Europe or plunge the region into war.

France, Germany, and Russia are trying to find common ground and avoid the outbreak of hostilities. The United States and Great Britain are striving to pursue their own warmongering agenda, without risking bloodshed within their own territories.

While French President Emmanuel Macron headed to Moscow for a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz held talks with US President Joseph Biden.

During the press conference, Putin once again stated the fact that NATO ignores Moscow’s concerns about security guarantees in Europe. The Kremlin has clearly outlined its interests and signals its readiness for any further developments, including a big war.

The recognition of Crimea as Russian territory and the provision of guarantees of Ukraine’s non-entry into NATO are necessary conditions for Russia’s retaliatory actions. Moscow seems to be ready to recognize Ukraine as a zone of Western interests. While the Donbass is a debatable issue.

Putin stressed in his speech that European countries cannot avoid bloodshed if Ukraine joins NATO and attempts to regain Crimea. “The military potential of NATO and Russia is not comparable, we understand that. But we are a leading nuclear power. There will be no winners,” Putin said, stressing that neither Russia nor France are interested in a military scenario.

Macron’s statements were quite optimistic, and expressed Paris’ hope for a peaceful path for Europe and a readiness to cooperate with Russia on the security issue.

At the same time, Washington and Berlin agreed on their positions, which are marked by a lack of unanimity.

Despite the loud statements about the growing Russian threat near the borders of Ukraine and Russia’s use of energy resources as a weapon, Germany still chooses the position of “strategic uncertainty”. The US and European leaders did not disclose the content of possible sanctions against Russia. Scholz also did not mention Nord Stream 2 when discussing sanctions and possible measures against Moscow.

The day before, Biden had a phone conversation with Putin, which apparently led to no positive results. Also at the initiative of the United Kingdom, Putin spoke with Boris Johnson.

The visit of UK Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs Liz Truss to Moscow as part of the current diplomatic round of negotiations is likely not to take place. At least the Kremlin is sending such signals.

Moscow has clearly demonstrated that it is no longer willing to listen to the moral teachings from the West, especially from London, and does not intend to retreat from its position.

Amid the round of high-level talks, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visited Kiev. According to the results of negotiations with her Ukrainian counterpart, Berbock made ambiguous statements. “The interruption, of energy resources to Ukraine as well as the cyber attack are more serious threats for Kiev than a “tank attack” – declared Baerbock following the US agenda to clear the way to further justify aggressive actions against Russia. Simultaneously she moved away from Anglo-Saxon-style war hysteria.

Later, on the evening of February 7, Berbock refused to meet with Zelensky. She said she would not talk with the President, as the French Foreign Minister, who was also supposed to participate in the negotiations, canceled his trip to Ukraine and went to Moscow.

In general, this diplomatic carousel started by the West is being swung due to two opposing vectors within NATO. The desire of the Anglo-Saxons elite to set its European competitors on fire faces the dreams of the major continental European powers not to get burned in this fire, during the traditional Anglo-Saxon fun – dragging chestnuts with their hands and at the expense of the Germans and the French.

The role of Ukraine by all parties to the negotiation process is defined as an object, but not a subject of international relations. Putin spoke most vividly about this: “Cutie’s pleasure isn’t our measure”.

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***

Although liberal detractors would refuse to acknowledge, Trump is a charismatic demagogue revered by conservative Americans and has remained a persistent thorn in the side of political adversaries. Despite losing the re-election bid, he won over 74 million popular votes, likely the largest number of votes won in the US history by a losing candidate, and could stage a comeback anytime.

The storming of the Capitol by a frenzied mob on January 6, 2021, was clearly a conspiracy orchestrated by the US deep state in connivance with the political establishment to undermine Trump’s leadership of the Republican Party and forestall his re-election bid in 2024, as he was deemed a “national security risk” and derisively sneered at as a “toddler-in-chief” by the Pentagon’s top brass.

Following the riots and deaths of four unarmed Trump supporters, notably Ashli Babbitt who was shot, he was petrified to the extent that, for once, he appeared to concede defeat and pledged “the transition would be smooth,” though he later recanted and went back to the characteristic defiant attitude.

It’s not too hard to imagine that the deep state must have inserted moles inside the Trump campaign who were feeding false information to Trump. In all likelihood, they misled Trump that the outcome of the election was still far from settled and then-Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to certify the electors’ confirmation of Biden’s electoral victory.

Trump’s obvious intention in motivating the mob was that demonstrators would stage a protest in front of the Capitol to exert moral pressure on Veep Pence and the electors to refuse to certify Biden’s confirmation. But the Capitol’s security was overwhelmed by the size and fervid passion of the crowd. The chief of the Capitol Police acknowledged on the record that his repeated requests to send reinforcements were denied, not by the White house but by certain “other quarters” that I would identify later in the article.

Reuters reported following the riots [1]:

“’We are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,’ President Donald Trump exhorted his screaming supporters before they marched on the US Capitol last week, saying he’d go with them.

“Trump had wanted to join the thousands of hardcore followers who assembled at Capitol Hill on Jan. 6. He told aides in the days leading up to the rally that he planned to accompany them to demonstrate his ire at Congress as it moved to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s November election victory.

“But the Secret Service kept warning him that agents could not guarantee his safety if he went ahead, according to two people familiar with the matter. Trump relented and instead hunkered down at the White House to watch television images of the mob rioting he is accused of triggering.”

Clearly, Trump’s intention wasn’t to storm the Capitol. He simply wanted his followers to go to the Pennsylvania Avenue and register their protest outside the Capitol. Furthermore, Trump wanted to accompany the demonstrators, but was advised against it by the intelligence agencies. Had Trump accompanied the protestors, they would’ve remained peaceful. But in the absence of leadership, the frenzied mob became rudderless and stormed the building.

The obvious beneficiaries of the ensuing melee clearly were Trump’s political adversaries, because the Republican Party has been divided following the storming of the Capitol. Ten Republican representatives lent their voice favoring the House resolution for Trump’s second failed impeachment bid and he is finding it hard to maintain his hold over the leadership of the GOP.

According to another informative report [2] by the Washington Post following the protests, the Pentagon top brass restricted the authority of the commander of the D.C. National Guard to send reinforcements ahead of the Capitol riots that could have prevented the ensuing violence and bloodshed.

The report notes:

“The commander of the D.C. National Guard said the Pentagon restricted his authority ahead of the riot at the U.S. Capitol, requiring higher-level sign-off to respond that cost time as the events that day spiraled out of control.

“Local commanders typically have the power to take military action on their own to save lives or prevent significant property damage in an urgent situation when there isn’t enough time to obtain approval from headquarters.

“But Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the commanding general of the District of Columbia National Guard, said the Pentagon essentially took that power and other authorities away from him ahead of the short-lived insurrection on Jan. 6. That meant he couldn’t immediately roll out troops when he received a panicked phone call from the Capitol Police chief warning that rioters were about to enter the U.S. Capitol.”

Notwithstanding, with all the political and corporate lobbying, super-PACs and smear campaigns in the media, the US presidential contests are never smooth-sailing affairs. But the presidential contest in November 2020 was far more unpredictable and tumultuous even by the American standards.

From the bombshell New York Times report [3] in May 2019 detailing leading Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s murky dealings in Ukraine to the impeachment proceedings against Trump lasting from September 2019 through February 2020, and then an unprecedented second impeachment trial in January last year after Trump had already left the office.

Clearly, both the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump were nothing more than show trials. The Democrats initiated the impeachment inquiry against Trump in September 2019 as a diversionary tactic to cover up the sleazy dealings of Hunter Biden with Burisma Holdings of Ukraine, and consequent discrediting of leading Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden.

Although the Democrats had a thin majority in the House of Representatives to impeach Donald Trump, the Senate was controlled by the Republicans. Besides, convicting a president of impeachment requires two-third majority in the Senate that the Democrats never had. Then what was the purpose of initiating the proceedings if not to distract public attention away from the media trial of Hunter Biden, which was bringing damning press coverage not only to Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden but to the Democratic Party in its entirety?

The Capitol riots and impeachment hoaxes weren’t the only instance when the deep state flagrantly interfered in the US politics to discredit and, at times, even brazenly assassinate American presidents who dared to refuse to toe the national security policy formulated by the high-command of the world’s most powerful military force.

It’s worth recalling that at the height of the Cold War in the sixties when the US domestic politics was infested with the McCarthyite paranoia and communists were persecuted all over the country, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of John F. Kennedy, was picked up as a scapegoat because he had visited Russia and Cuba before the hit-job in order to put the blame for the high-profile political assassination on the communists.

Not surprisingly, he was silenced by Jack Ruby before he could open his mouth and prove innocence in the courts of law. The cold-blooded murder of a pacifist and non-interventionist American president was obviously perpetrated by a professional sniper on the payroll of the deep state.

It was not a coincidence that Kennedy was killed in November 1963, and months later, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorized Lyndon B. Johnson to directly engage in the Vietnam conflict in August 1964 on the basis of a false flag naval engagement.

It’s obvious that the American national security establishment was the only beneficiary of the assassination of Kennedy. Most likely, the deep state turned against Kennedy after the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis and Kennedy’s pacifist rhetoric and conciliatory approach toward Washington’s arch-rival, the former Soviet Union, in the backdrop of the Cold War.

Besides the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, another reason the Kennedy administration fell from the grace of the deep state was the botched Bay of Pigs invasion by the CIA operatives and the Cuban exiles in April 1961 to topple the government of Fidel Castro that JFK approved but later severely castigated the CIA for the fiasco and sacked CIA director Allen Dulles and several employees. The Pentagon wanted Kennedy to immediately invade Cuba following the foiled plot but he “vacillated” and let a golden opportunity to dismantle a security threat close to the US soil slip by.

Similarly, JFK’s brother Robert F. Kennedy was a leading Democratic candidate for the presidential office when he was shot dead by a Palestinian Christian Sirhan Sirhan in June 1968. Being a pacifist himself, Bobby Kennedy opposed the US involvement in the Vietnam War and wrote a book on the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 in which he credited his brother, JFK, for showing restraint and amicably resolving the crisis.

As the former attorney general of JFK, Bobby probably had good leads on the masterminds of the JFK assassination, and wanted to avenge his brother’s shocking murder by exposing the assassins after being elected president. This was the only reason he, too, was silenced before he could be elected president.

Though serving a life sentence at a California penitentiary, Bobby Kennedy’s murderer Sirhan, now 77 years old, is a suspicious and deranged character, who frequently backtracked on his testimonies and confession during and after the trial, had no recollection of the murder and subsequent events, and his defense team had pleaded for a retrial several times but the request was summarily denied. He was due to be released on parole in August but California Governor Gavin Newsom decided against setting him free in January.

Shortly before the murder of Bobby Kennedy, Sirhan joined the occult organization Ancient Mystical Order of the Rose Cross, commonly known as the Rosicrucians in 1966. In fact, Sirhan’s esoteric faith closely resembles a medieval cult “Hashishin,” from which the English word “assassin” has derived.

The Order of the Assassins was a Nizari Ismaili sect which lived in the mountains of Persia and Syria between 1090 A.D. and 1275. During that time, they founded a clandestine organization that orchestrated the assassinations of leading figures in the Middle East that were considered enemies of their medieval “deep state.”

The Nizari Ismaili State was ruled by Hassan as-Sabbah from 1090 A.D. until his death in 1124. The Western world was introduced to the assassins by the works of Marco Polo who understood the name as deriving from the eponymous narcotic hashish, which indeed was used to put the assassins under a spell for political assassinations.

The more recent examples of such murderous cults are the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a cultist political organization founded by the Rajavis of Iran that relocated first to Iraq and then to Albania, or the Fidayeen or suicide bombers of Islamic jihadist organizations who are promised paradise in return for mounting terrorist attacks against adversaries.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Af-Pak and the Middle East regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military industrial complex and petro-imperialism.

He is a regular contributor of meticulously researched and credibly sourced investigative reports to Global Research.

Notes

[1] Inside Trump’s Final Days: Aides Struggle to Contain an Angry President

[2] Pentagon restricted commander of D.C. Guard ahead of Capitol riot

[3] Joe Biden faces conflict of interest questions

Featured image: TRUMP SPEAKS IN WINSTON-SALEM, NC, SEPT. 8, 2020. SCREENSHOT FROM NBC NEWS VIDEO.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

Fact-checking is one part of the campaign to control what you see online, and therefore what you think and how you perceive reality

Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson explains how virtually everything you see and hear online has been co-opted, or taken over to serve a greater agenda

Instead of real journalists and reporters, the media is infiltrated with propagandists who dictate what’s “fake news” and what’s not

The public is being manipulated to want their information censored by third-party “fact”-checkers, which were introduced as a tool to confuse and control the public further

“Conspiracy theory”, “debunked”, “quackery” and “antivaccine” are examples of terms that are being used as propaganda tools; if you hear them, it should make you dig deeper for the truth

Those who rely solely on the internet for their information are at serious risk of being controlled; you can fight back by doing your own research, trusting your cognitive dissonance and using your common sense

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Prior to 2015 or 2016, you could still read what you wanted online without much interference. This has since changed, as propagandists have infiltrated the media and, along with other major players, like Big Tech and government, set out to control information. Fact-checking — a once-obscure term that’s since gone mainstream — is one part of the campaign to control what you see online, and therefore what you think and how you perceive reality — but it’s all a ruse.

Speaking with Jan Jekielek, The Epoch Times senior editor and host of the show “American Thought Leaders,” investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson explains how virtually everything you see and hear online has been co-opted, or taken over to serve a greater agenda:¹

“One has to understand that nearly every mode of information has been co-opted, if it can be co-opted by some group. Fact checks are no different either, they’ve been coopted in many instances or created for the purpose of distributing narratives and propaganda.

And your common sense is accurate when it tells you that the way they chose this fact check and how they decided to word it so they could say this thing is not true when at its heart it really is true, but the message they’re trying to send is that you shouldn’t believe it, your common sense is right.

That’s been created as part of a propaganda effort by somebody, somewhere, as part of a narrative to distribute to the public so virtually every piece of information that can be co-opted has been.”

The Information Landscape Is Being Controlled

Attkisson calls out several common online sources that are heavily manipulated — Wikipedia, Snopes and most “fact” checkers to name a few, along with HealthFeedback.org, which is a fake science group used by Facebook and other Big Tech companies to debunk science that is actually true.

Fact checkers are often referred to as scientists, but this, too, is “part of a very well-funded, well-organized landscape that dictates and slants the information they want us to have.” While there have always been efforts to shape the information being given out by the media, it used to be that news reporters would push back against organizations to ensure the public had the other side of the story.

Beginning in the early 2000s, Attkisson noted a shift from efforts to simply shape information to those that attempt to keep certain information from being reported at all. This was particularly true among the pharmaceutical companies she was covering at that time. Attkisson described “efforts by these large global PR firms that have been hired by the pharmaceutical industry, by government partners that work with the pharmaceutical industry, to keep the story from being reported at all.”²

Now, suppressing and censoring information that those in charge don’t want to be heard is really common. Attkisson believes the practice really took off in 2015 to 2016, “with Donald Trump proving to be a unique danger perceived by both Democrats and Republicans, and by that I mean by the interests that support and pay for them to be in office and make certain decisions.”³

With a wild card in office, a campaign was organized that exploited a media that was already conflicted and less apt to report what was actually going on. “This all dovetailed together to create this crazy information landscape we have today,” she said. Instead of journalists seeking to uncover the truth, we have “writers seeking to spread whatever establishment scientists or politicians want them to say, uncritically and at the expense, oftentimes, of accuracy.”

Now, instead of real journalists and reporters, the media is infiltrated with propagandists who dictate what’s “fake news” and what’s not. Many believe that fake news is a product of Trump, but Big Tech was brought into the campaign early on. A lobby campaign by behind-the-scenes propagandists met with Facebook and said you’ve got to start censoring and “fact” checking information, Attkisson said.

The term “fake news” was popularized after Trump was elected, but it actually got its start before that — it was an invention of political activist website First Draft News, which is partially funded by Google.⁴

Inviting Propagandists Into the Newsroom

We’re in the midst of an information war where it’s difficult to tell truth from fiction or lies. Journalists are no longer the watchdogs; instead, they take information from obviously conflicted sources and then try to convince the public to believe that particular viewpoint. Other information that’s in conflict is censored or “debunked.”

It’s an unusual time in history where efforts are even underway to manipulate the public to want their information censored and appreciate third-party “fact”-checkers, which were introduced as a tool to confuse and manipulate the public further.⁵

Yet, when you only hear one side of the story, and you can’t access other information to the contrary, it’s nearly impossible to uncover the truth — and that’s precisely the point. Is this all just a matter of reporters not knowing how to think critically and ask the right questions, or believing that they’re doing the right thing?

Attkisson states that it goes much deeper. A lot of propagandists have become part of the media, and while there used to be a firewall between reporters and the people they reported on, “that’s long gone.” She says:⁶

“We’ve not just invited them to influence what we report, but we’ve hired them, not just as pundits and analysts but they are reporters. They are editorial presences within our newsrooms. Now we are one and the same.

It’s hard to say that there’s a distinctive difference in many instances between the people trying to get out a message and the messengers in the media who should be doing a more independent job of reporting accurately.”

The COVID Misinformation Campaign

In early 2020, as the pandemic first started brewing, Attkisson talked to everyone she could, including scientists with the government and outside the government. “Pretty quickly, I could see that certain things that were being said publicly were bearing out as not true, and certain things that other scientists were telling me privately rang true, and in hindsight have actually been proven to be true.”⁷

Early on, quite a few scientists she talked to were questioning the advice being given by government scientists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and lead spokesperson for the president’s COVID response. She asked them if they should say something and speak out about their concerns, but they all came back with the same response:⁸

“They said they dared not speak out for fear of being controversialized and for fear of being called coronavirus deniers, because that phrase was starting to be used in the media. And secondly, they feared contradicting Dr. Fauci, who they said had been kind of lionized or canonized in the press for reasons that they couldn’t understand, because they really didn’t think that his guidance that he was giving publicly was the right guidance.”

Certainly, those scientists’ opinions deserved to be heard, but the fear of speaking out silenced them. They feared losing their grants, as most grants for research are funded by the government. If the government doesn’t like what you say or do, you can get fired or never get a grant again, ending your career and threatening your very livelihood.

“That started to strike me as, this is a really dangerous environment, when esteemed scientists who have valuable information and opinions are afraid to give them, and instead we’re hearing a party line that many of them disagree with but won’t say so,” Attkisson said.⁹

She mentioned the controversial U.S. government funding of gain-of-function research in China, and the notion that SARS-CoV-2 could have come from a Chinese laboratory — both were glaring issues that no one would talk about.

“These are the kinds of things early on that were sort of a red flag to me that says somebody’s trying to shape the information,” she continued. “They’re using reporters to do it. Public health figures are involved in some instances and that makes me want to know what’s really behind it.”¹⁰

‘Conspiracy Theory’ Was Devised by the CIA

The term “conspiracy theory” is now used to dismiss narratives that go against the grain. According to Attkisson, this is intentional, as the term itself was devised by the CIA as a response to theories about the assassination of JFK.

“It was shown in documents that there was a suggestion that agents go out and talk to reporters about these things as conspiracy theories — and again, common sense should tell you, as it does me, I’m married to a former law enforcement official who has said to me many times, you know the conspiracy theory phrase in its use doesn’t make sense. Nearly everything is a conspiracy.”¹¹

Anything that involves two or more people is technically a conspiracy, but now when people hear the term, they’re conditioned to think it’s false. “That’s designed to pluck this little part of your brain that says, ‘well that thing’s not true.’” When Attkisson hears the term, however, she thinks that information may well be true. “If somebody’s trying to debunk it, it usually means a powerful interest is behind it and it makes me want to go search for more information on that thing.”

The term “conspiracy theory” has lost meaning now because it’s used so much. “Debunked”, “quackery” and “antivaccine” are all terms that are similarly being used as propaganda tools. “There’s a whole cast of propaganda phrases that I’ve outlined that are cues. When you hear them, they should make you think, ‘I need to find out more about it,’” Attkisson says.

Fact Checkers Pounce on Accurate BMJ Investigation

In another example of the lengths that fact-checkers will go to discredit a story — even if it’s true — take an article published in the BMJ, titled, “COVID-19: Researchers blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial.”¹² Written by investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker, it details a series of problems with laboratory management and quality control checks by Pfizer subcontractor Ventavia Research Group, which was testing Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

According to a regional director formerly employed by Ventavia, she witnessed falsified data, unblinded patients, inadequately trained vaccinators and lack of proper follow-up on adverse events that were reported. After notifying Ventavia about her concerns, repeatedly, she made a complaint to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — and was fired the same day.¹³

Soon after Thacker’s investigative piece was published in BMJ, it was “fact checked” by a group called Lead Stories, which referred to the investigation as a “hoax alert” in the related URL. Along with “correcting” statements that Thacker did not make, Lead Stories disparaged the investigation for “missing context,” but as investigative reporter Matt Taibbi explained, “‘Missing context’ has become a term to disparage reporting that is true but inconvenient.”¹⁴

Lead Stories took further issue with the BMJ investigation because it was shared by people such as Dr. Robert Malone and Robert F. Kennedy, who themselves have been targeted by fake fact checkers. Taibbi added:¹⁵

“The real issue with Thacker’s piece is that it went viral and was retweeted by the wrong people. As Lead Stories noted with marked disapproval, some of those sharers included the likes of Dr. Robert Malone and Robert F. Kennedy. To them, this clearly showed that the article was bad somehow, but the problem was, there was nothing to say the story was untrue.”

Thacker also called the “fact check” against his BMJ investigation “insane,” telling Taibbi:¹⁶

“Here’s what they do. They’re not fact checking facts. What they’re doing is checking narratives. They can’t say that your facts are wrong, so it’s like, ‘Aha, there’s no context.’ Or, ‘It’s misleading.’ But that’s not a fact check. You just don’t like the story.”

Reality Is Being Altered in Real Time

As it stands, information is being changed in real time to meet the common agenda. This includes definitions in dictionaries and on official government websites. Examples of definitions that have been changed recently include those for pandemic, herd immunity, vaccines and anti-vaxxer. Attkisson reiterates:¹⁷

“Virtually every form of information and sourcing that can be co-opted has been. That includes the dictionary definitions; that includes everything because these are important ways to influence thought. Language is very powerful. People don’t want to be affiliated with certain names and labels.

It reminds me of ‘1984,’ the George Orwell story about the futuristic society, under which history was being rewritten in real time to jive with the version that the government wanted or the party wanted it to be. Definitions now are being rewritten and changed in real time to fit with the vision that the establishment wants people to think.”

For now, you can still use the Internet Archive, commonly known as Archive.org and IA, as a historical archive. In addition to digitally hosting more than 1.4 million books and other documents, Archive.org acts as a historical vault for the Internet, preserving cached versions of websites that are no longer accessible to the public.¹⁸

Archive.org’s Wayback machine preserves digital information that has been removed or deleted, whether intentionally or for other reasons, but it, too, could one day disappear. Attkisson says:¹⁹

“It’s been a fascinating way to prove the effort to change our perception of how things are and the reality and what we thought we remembered from the other day, because all we really have now is the electronic record, by and large, and if that can be manipulated, there could be a time when — if they get rid of the Wayback machine, for example — that we can’t ever prove that anything was any different.”

Attkisson is maintaining a running list of things the media or public policy got wrong during the pandemic, which can still be verified using the Wayback machine, but which were not acknowledged for being wrong or corrected by the press. They include:²⁰

You Can Be Controlled if You Live Inside the Box

Attkisson references a whole generation of people who live inside the box, meaning the internet. Those who rely solely on the internet for their information are at serious risk of being controlled. She explains:²²

“They didn’t know a time when information was to be gathered elsewhere by looking around and seeing what you hear, and seeing what you saw, and talking to people around you and looking at books and research and so on.

And the people that want to control the information understand that if they can only control really a few basic sources — we’re talking about Google, Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia — they’ve got a lock on information, because we’ve all been funneled to those few sources, and that’s been the goal.

So if you think of it that way, there’s a whole lot of people that get pretty much everything they know through the internet. And the goal of the people trying to make the narrative is to make people live online and to think that’s reality.”

The danger of this is that the internet paints a picture that’s different from reality. You may read something that doesn’t sound quite right, or that you don’t agree with, but the internet makes you feel like you’re in the minority — even if you’re really not.

“Understand that you may actually be in the majority,” Attkisson says, “… but the goal of what they do online is to make you think you’re an outlier when you’re not, to make you afraid to talk about your viewpoint or what you think, because you may actually be the majority opinion but they want to control that and make you think you’re the one who’s crazy.” The solution? Live outside the box:²³

“You can be made to believe that — if you live in the box. So, I’m constantly telling people live outside the box. Yes, you can get information there and do what you do online, but certainly trust your cognitive dissonance, talk to the people around you. If you travel, talk to the people in the places you go. You’ll get a whole different picture, as I do, of what’s really happening out here than if you look online.”

The Truth Finds a Way To Be Told

While there are powerful forces at play to control information, all is not lost. Attkisson is aware of three entities that are actively working on a solution, which include:

1. Investors who want to invest in independent news organizations
2. Technical people trying to invent platforms that can’t be controlled and deplatformed by Big Tech
3. Journalists who want to work or contribute to these efforts

Outlets like Substack newsletters and the video platforms Rumble, Bitchute and Odysee, which don’t censor videos for ideological reasons, are actively getting around the censorship of Big Tech, and Attkisson believes that these efforts will accelerate in the next couple of years.

Further, she says, “The propagandists may have overplayed their hand by being so heavy-handed and obvious about the control of information and the censorship. It’s no longer deniable. Even people who want their information curated, they can’t always be happy with the notion that they’re not going to be able to get the full story, or that they’re only getting one side of something.”²⁴

Ultimately, she adds, “I think the truth finds a way to be told … it may take some time and there may be a lot of people that don’t want the truth out, but we inherently as humans seek it.”²⁵ On a personal level, you can go a long way toward finding the truth by following your own common sense and reason, and Attkisson agrees.

“I always say, do your own research, make up your own mind, think for yourself. Trust your cognitive dissonance, use your common sense. You’re going to be right more often than you think, but open up your mind, read a lot, think a lot and don’t buy into the prevailing narrative at face value.”²⁶

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Notes

¹ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 2:43

² The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 5:44

³ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 6:23

⁴ First Draft News – About

⁵ The Epoch Times January 23, 2022

⁶ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 15:28

⁷ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 17:00

⁸ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 17:46

⁹ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 18:50

¹⁰ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 20:00

¹¹ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 22:26

^12, 13 BMJ 2021;375:n2635

^14, 15, 16 Substack, TK News by Matt Taibbi February 1, 2022

^17, 19 The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 25:31

¹⁸ Vox June 23, 2020

²⁰ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 30:00

²¹ N Engl J Med 2020; 382:1268-1269

^22, 23 The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 39:30

²⁴ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 53:50

²⁵ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 51:10

²⁶ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 58:30

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***

As police escalate pressure on the Freedom Convoy of truckers protesting Canada’s COVID vaccine mandates and Twitter bans the group’s account, public support for the protesters continues to grow.

Ezra Levant, journalist and founder of Canada’s Rebel News, on Monday told Tucker Carlson Canadian police forces are hoping to “starve or freeze the truckers out.”

“I don’t think it’s going to work though,” Levant said.

Levant questioned the legality of police confiscating diesel fuel from protesters:

“Taking away the diesel fuel is a low blow [because] it’s very cold in Ottawa and most of these truckers are living in the little cab in their truck so they need diesel fuel for heat. So by taking away their diesel fuel [Trudeau] is really freezing them out … I don’t know what legal justifications they have. The fuel is not illegal. Selling it, owning it, having it, is not illegal.”

The protest against COVID vaccine mandates is gaining popular support, according to Levant, who said:

“There was an opinion poll that showed 32% of Canadians see themselves reflected in the truckers. And in our multiparty system that would make them the leading party of Canada if the truckers formed a political movement.”

The truckers may have the support of the Canadian people but they’re facing strong resistance from Canadian police who’ve facilitated armed raids against the protestors, stolen their supplies and even arrested organizers.

Meanwhile, Twitter permanently suspended the Freedom Convoy account. A spokesperson for Twitter told Newsweek: “The account you referenced has been permanently suspended for violating the Twitter Rules on ban evasion.”

Last week, GoFundMe seized millions of the trucker’s funds, but protestors are receiving support across the border in Alaska, where Alaskan truckers formed their own anti-mandate convoy.

Here’s the latest:

• Ottawa Police tweeted: “Anyone attempting to bring material support (gas, etc.) to the demonstrators could be subject to arrest. Enforcement is underway.”
• Protesters blocked the busiest international crossing in North America as Freedom Convoy drivers hindered travel Monday at the Ambassador Bridge that links Windsor, Ontario and Detroit. Canadian-bound traffic was still shut down this morning, while U.S.-bound traffic was flowing with limited bridge access.
• Canada’s Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom warned Ottawa police would be breaking the law if they attempted to intimidate people who bring food or other supplies to truckers who are peacefully exercising their Charter rights and freedoms in Ottawa.
• Draped in full paramilitary gear, Ottawa police made their “strongest show of enforcement yet” when they raided a parking lot serving as a staging area for anti-mandate protestors. The police confiscated at least a tanker of fuel and arrested two protesters. “Any other place that they’ve displaced to, we are attacking that as quickly as possible to make sure they don’t take root again.” said Ottawa Police Chief, Peter Sloly.
• According to Ottawa City News, Canada’s law enforcement agencies are launching “enhanced intelligence operations” against the protestors, collecting financial and digital information “that will be used in criminal prosecutions.”
• Farmers, in solidarity with the trucker protest, successfully moved their tractors and heavy farming equipment to the border crossing between Alberta and Montana, helping truckers “completely obstruct” border crossings.
• Towing experts told Canada’s CBC that it will be “difficult or impossible” to tow away or remove the hundreds of big rigs that protestors hauled into Ottawa’s downtown area.
• Armed police raided the home of political activist Pastor Artur Pawlowski and arrested him. Undercover police took him into custody the morning he was scheduled to speak to the anti-mandate truckers.
• GoFundMe has successfully seized $9M in fundraising money which was meant to support the truckers. Critics have called the move “pure theft.”

Yep! “Unfortunately GoFundMe caved to the political pressure and threats of legal action and announced they wouldn’t be dispersing the money to the truckers.” @KimIversenShow https://t.co/uFgScP4PJI

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) February 8, 2022

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Jeremy Loffredo is a freelance reporter for The Defender. His investigative reporting has been featured in The Grayzone and Unlimited Hangout. Jeremy formerly produced news programs at RT America.

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***

After the successful Japanese amphibious landings at Kota Bharu, northern British Malaya on 8 December 1941, in the 5 weeks that elapsed Tokyo’s forces had advanced more than 200 miles to capture the Malayan capital city, Kuala Lumpur, on 11 January 1942. This was a remarkable achievement by the Japanese 25th Army, led by the 56-year-old General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who would earn the nickname “The Tiger of Malaya”.

Mark E. Stille, a former United States Navy commander, wrote that “Of all the armies fielded by Japan during the war, the 25th Army was the best led and equipped” (1). On the ground, the distance that Yamashita’s divisions had covered to capture Kuala Lumpur was much greater than 200 miles. They had to take arduous, roundabout routes in the face of substantially larger enemy forces, advancing through the Malayan jungle and along the coastline, before they entered Kuala Lumpur unopposed in central Malaya.

The island of Singapore, another 200 miles to the south-east of Kuala Lumpur, was now very vulnerable. Were Singapore to be taken by the Japanese it would constitute “the worst disaster” in British history, Winston Churchill wrote (2). This calamity for the British did unfold, on 15 February 1942, which will be the subject of the next article.

Almost immediately, the Japanese had gained command of the air over British Malaya (comprising today mostly of Malaysia), and they also dominated the surrounding seas. On 10 December 1941, Japanese aircraft had sunk the famous British warships the ‘Prince of Wales’ and ‘Repulse’, off the east coast of Malaya. News of the battleships’ destruction came as a real blow to prime minister Churchill in London.

English military historian Antony Beevor wrote,

“Churchill, who had exulted in the great ships of the Royal Navy from his times as First Lord of the Admiralty, was stunned by the disaster. The tragedy felt even more personal to him, after his voyage in the Prince of Wales to Newfoundland in August [1941]. The Imperial Japanese Navy was now unchallenged in the Pacific. Hitler rejoiced at the news. It augured well for his declaration of war on the United States, announced on 11 December”. (3)

One indirect result of the early Japanese victories in south-east Asia, was that it had boosted the spirit of the Germans, at a time when their invasion of the Soviet Union was hitting the rocks. Japanese morale itself was very high, and a central factor in their advance through Malaya and elsewhere. The prominent British commander John Dill, in a memorandum to Churchill, had outlined that Singapore held more importance to Britain than the oil rich Middle East; because Singapore was “the most important strategic point in the British Empire” and “a stepping stone to Australia”. (4) (5)

In the final days of 1941 the British had already lost a prized possession, Hong Kong in south-eastern China, which was captured in a rapid Japanese assault. At this time, Japan’s forces were advancing through other Asian states namely British Borneo, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and the Philippines.

Like with the Japanese, the British had no rightful claim to territories such as Hong Kong. American intellectual and analyst Noam Chomsky said, “Hong Kong was stolen from China by British savagery, as part of their effort to destroy China in their huge narco-trafficking operations”. (6)

Regarding some of Britain’s other conquests Chomsky wrote,

“In extenuation, it could be noted that fostering drug production is hardly a US innovation: the British empire relied crucially on the most extraordinary narco-trafficking enterprise in world history, with horrifying effects in China and in India, much of which was conquered in an effort to gain a monopoly on opium production”. (7)

On 7 January 1942 the British General and Commander-in-Chief of India, Archibald Wavell, arrived in Malaya. He promptly attributed the Japanese successes, to date, as being due to errors committed by the British, refusing to give Yamashita’s men credit (8). Yet on the very day that General Wavell had landed in Malaya, along the Slim River the British-led divisions had suffered “The single most disastrous engagement of the entire Malaya campaign”, Stille stated (9); which he also described as “one of the most dramatic and significant actions of the entire Pacific War”. (10)

Stille is referring to the Battle of Slim River on 7 January 1942, which took place about 50 miles north of Kuala Lumpur. Thirty Japanese tanks supported by motorised infantry “rumbled down a single road machine-gunning and shooting up everything in their path”, inflicting 500 fatalities and capturing more than 3,000 British and Indian troops. By contrast the Japanese recorded fewer than 80 casualties during this battle.

The consequences were severe. Stille observed,

“It ensured the loss of central Malaya, and reduced the chances of holding southern Malaya long enough to enable the reinforcements flowing into Singapore to become fully effective”. (11)

Not resting on their gains the Japanese resumed their march southward, and 4 days later Kuala Lumpur was taken. In the capital, Japan’s soldiers found large quantities of ammunition and supplies, left behind by the British (12). These reverses compelled Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival – in overall command of British and Commonwealth divisions in Malaya – to order a withdrawal to southern Malaya, towards the Muar District and Johore.

Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita (seated, center) insists upon the unconditional surrender of Singapore as Lt. Gen. Percival, seated between his officers, demurs (photo from Imperial War Museum) (Licensed under the public domain)

Allied to the British, the Australian forces laid a devilish trap at Gemencheh, around 150 miles north-west of Singapore. Soldiers from the Japanese 5th Division were in the process of crossing Gemencheh Bridge, at 4 pm on 14 January 1942. They were unaware that the Australians had mined the bridge with explosives. As the Japanese tanks, trucks and cyclists were traversing the bridge, a huge detonation erupted sending bodies, bicycles and armour hurtling into the air, a surreal and terrible sight.

Australian sources claimed to have inflicted 1,000 casualties on the enemy here; but the tally may have been as few as 70 deaths and 57 wounded, initially at least as the fighting continued (13). The Japanese quickly recovered from the shock at Gemencheh Bridge, and in following hours forced the Australians on to the backfoot. By nightfall on 16 January, the Japanese had captured Muar town and the harbour.

As early as 18 January 1942, Lieutenant-General Percival was mulling over whether to pull out of southern Malaya, and to relocate all of his forces to Singapore slightly further south, in order to bolster that island’s defence. On 20 January, General Wavell instructed Percival to defend the southern Malayan region of Johore for as long as possible.

Also on 20 January, an angry Churchill issued an order demanding,

“I want to make it absolutely clear that I expect every inch of ground to be defended, every scrap of material or defences to be blown to pieces to prevent capture by the enemy, and no question of surrender to be entertained until protracted fighting among the ruins of Singapore city”. (14)

By 24 January, Percival had no choice but to compose an outline plan for a total withdrawal from the Malayan mainland, across the narrow Strait of Johore to Singapore (15). Churchill later expressed some sympathy for his beleaguered commander, writing that a “terrible load” had fallen “upon the shoulders of General Percival” (16). Between the 24th and 31st of January, the Australian troops retreated southward through Johore under Japanese pressure. The 11th Indian Infantry Division withdrew along the Malayan coastline, and was pursued by the Japanese Imperial Guards Division.

By the end of January 1942, some Indian and Australian units successfully reached Singapore, either by bridge or vessel across the Strait of Johore. The only road and rail lines, connecting Malaya to Singapore, was the Causeway at Johore Bahru, a kilometre long, 70 foot wide bridge. At 8:15 am on 31 January, the last British troops were safely over the Causeway and had entered Singapore. The Causeway was then destroyed with depth charges to prevent the Japanese from using it.

Seldom lacking in pride even in the most desperate circumstances, the British had conducted their retirement to Singapore in an orderly fashion. A Japanese lieutenant, Teruo Okada, when asked after the war what he thought of Britain’s forces, had said, “We thought the British officer was a very good fighter, although the ones we captured they always said to me ‘We will win the war, you see’. This I couldn’t understand because here is a man who has surrendered, and he still said ‘We will win the war’.” (17)

There was, amazingly enough, no hint of panic from the British soldiers, and no congestion of armour or infantry over the Causeway to Singapore, a commendable action personally overseen by Percival, who has been much criticised.

Stille wrote that this “was certainly Percival’s best-conducted operation of the campaign, and thwarted Yamashita’s plans to destroy British forces before they could reach Singapore” (18). Yamashita was furious to learn that the Japanese aircraft, for some baffling reason which has never been properly explained, had failed to bomb the Causeway at Johore Bahru – which the British and their allies were pouring across, the most ideal target for enemy planes.

Otherwise, Yamashita should have been exuberant with how the fighting had proceeded. In less than 8 weeks, the Japanese had reached the Strait of Johore on 31 January 1942, a lot sooner than they had expected (19). The battle for the Malayan mainland was now over and the battle for Singapore was imminent. From the second half of January 1942, Singapore had been the primary target of Japanese air raids, which occurred each day and were launched against the British naval base in Singapore, along with the nearby airfields and port. The Japanese air superiority contributed to a sense of futility in defending Singapore for long.

The population of Singapore according to one source was 1,370,300 in 1939 (20); but a detailed study shows that the island’s population in 1931 was 557,745, when the last census was compiled (21). About 75% of those living in Singapore by the 1930s were ethnic Chinese, with the remaining percentage consisting largely of Malays (11.7%) and ethnic Indians (9.1%). (22)

Singapore’s majority Chinese population presumably viewed with alarm the Japanese approach – as they should have, considering how Japan’s soldiers had conquered much of eastern China and sometimes committed dreadful atrocities. Of the approximately 70,000 combat soldiers and 15,000 service troops defending Singapore, only 13 of the 38 battalions in all were British, 17 were actually Indian battalions, and the remainder mostly Australians.

Just one of the 17 Indian battalions was at full strength. They had taken a pounding in the earlier fighting for Malaya. The British-led forces, despite suffering heavy personnel losses on the Malayan peninsula, still outnumbered the Japanese by at least 2-to-1, but the defenders for the most part were poorly trained and under-equipped. (23)

Singapore was a fortress in name only. There were no field defences or fortifications on the northern part of the island. Percival was determined to fight the Japanese on the beaches, and to prevent them from establishing a bridgehead. His plan had little chance of succeeding, due to the terrain’s unsuitability and the lack of depth in defence (24). What’s more, none of the officers subordinate to Percival had confidence in his strategy for defending Singapore, particularly the Australians, who were to endure most of the serious fighting.

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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 Mark E. Stille, Malaya and Singapore 1941–42: The fall of Britain’s empire in the East (Osprey Publishing; Illustrated edition, 20 Oct. 2016) p. 92

2 Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate (RosettaBooks, 11 May 2014) p. 81

3 Antony Beevor, The Second World War (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2012) Chapter 16, Pearl Harbor

4 Piers Brendon, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (Vintage Digital, July 6, 2010) p. 417

5 Donald J. Goodspeed, The German Wars (Random House Value Publishing, 2nd edition, 3 April 1985) p. 381

6 Jenny Li, “Who Rules Asia? An Interview with Noam Chomsky”, 16 September 2021, New Bloom Magazine

7 America’s Other War: Terrorizing Columbia, Doug Stokes, Foreword by Noam Chomsky, Bloomsbury Collections

8 Stille, Malaya and Singapore 1941–42, p. 68

9 Ibid., p. 62

10 Ibid., p. 67

11 Ibid.

12 Alan Chanter, C. Peter Chen, Thomas Houlihan, Hugh Martyr, David Stubblebine, “Kuala Lumpur in WW2 History”, World War II Database

13 Stille, Malaya and Singapore, 1941–42, p. 71

14 Ibid., p. 72

15 Ibid.

16 Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, p. 82

17 The World At War: Complete TV Series (Episode 14, Fremantle, 25 April 2005, Original Network: ITV, Original Release: 31 October 1973 – 8 May 1974)

18 Stille, Malaya and Singapore, 1941–42, p. 73

19 Ibid.

20 C. Peter Chen, “Singapore in World War II”, January 2018, World War II Database

21 Saw Swee Hock, Population Trends in Singapore, 1819-1967, Journal of Southeast Asian History, Cambridge University Press, March 1969, p. 4 of 14, Jstor

22 Ibid., p. 6 of 14

23 Stille, Malaya and Singapore 1941–42, p. 79

24 Ibid., p. 80

Featured image: General Tomoyuki Yamashita plans a successful assault by Japanese troops in Malaya (Licensed under the public domain)

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***

A group of Republican lawmakers has introduced a bill to ban US arms shipments to Ukraine while there are unresolved security issues at the southern border. The attitude is a direct consequence of Republicans’ dissatisfaction with the mismanagement of border problems, which has already become a hallmark of Joe Biden. Illegal immigration, drug trafficking and armed militias significantly affect the country’s domestic security, but the White House insists on prioritizing foreign incursions, which do nothing to benefit the American people.

In a recent official Republican statement, it is possible to read: “Today, Representative Rosendale introduced the Secure America’s Borders First Act. This bill would prohibit the US government from providing military and security assistance to Ukraine until the border wall system on the southern border is completed, and operational control of the southern border is achieved”. The bill aims to stop the Biden administration’s lack of priority for US domestic security issues.

As is well known, in recent months Washington has been making Ukraine its main political agenda. The Biden administration continually spreads the fallacious narrative about the existence of a “Russian invasion plan” and states that there is a “need” to strengthen protective measures for Kiev within the NATO framework – despite Moscow constantly making it clear that there is no possibility of such an invasion plan to exist, and that its troops are only deployed within the country’s own territorial limits.

In response to this scenario, Washington frequently approves military aid packages to Kiev, sending money, weapons, military equipment, and soldiers to help the country deal with such alleged Russian threat. In addition, Washington also encourages other countries to do the same, especially the UK and Baltic states, which increasingly send weapons to Kiev. But, while the White House worries about spending large sums to help another country in a non-existent conflict in Eastern Europe, the US’ own internal security deteriorates day after day, with countless problems on the southern border.

One of the biggest criticisms by Republicans against the Biden administration since its inauguration has been precisely the terrible management of the border problems. Since Biden came to power, illegal immigration has become commonplace in the southern region, with entire caravans of irregular migrants crossing the border every day, without the authorities being able to exercise any kind of control. There is no police contingent or sufficient equipment to contain the transit of immigrants, due to the dwindling government funding for border security.

The Democrat president simply ignores the criticism received. For him, there is no problem with the issue of border security, simply because he agrees with the absence of rules for immigration. This is part of Biden’s liberal and humanitarian ideology, which values ​​unrestricted immigration as a “human right”, regardless of the consequences for national security.

In fact, many criminals are taking advantage of Democrat’s humanitarianism and sending drug dealers, terrorists and vandals amid the caravans. Undoubtedly, there is a humanitarian issue, as most immigrants are ordinary people in search of better living conditions, but it is wrong to ignore the profit that criminal networks have made of this type of situation. Some sort of control is needed.

Some months ago, a CIA consultant stated that the US is close to civil war due to its social and security problems. There are still other intelligence reports and analysis that point something in this direction. The problem arising from uncontrolled illegal immigration goes far beyond the security crisis as an extreme opposite pole is also created, with radical political groups demanding the automatic expulsion of immigrants and acting with violence in the streets – generally affecting normal and innocent people.

All these factors make the issue of the southern border the main contemporary American problem. The country faces a challenge of national integrity and emergency measures must be taken by the government in order to prevent further polarization and complete social chaos. But this will not be possible as long as the American priority is to encourage war plans on another continent.

It is necessary to remember that, encouraged by the US and NATO, the Ukrainian government has significantly advanced in its incursions against Russian-speaking populations in the Donbass region in recent weeks. The attacks and bombings have escalated, and, with that, the separatist militias are forced to also react more incisively. American weapons (tanks, rocket launchers, planes, among others) have been used on a large scale by Ukrainians to pursue a policy of ethnic extermination that is currently the topic of a lawsuit in the European Court of Human Rights. So, wouldn’t this be something much more incongruous with Biden’s humanitarianism than a legality control on migrations?

In fact, it urges Washington to review its priorities, or it will risk facing an irreversible scenario of civil conflict.

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Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

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***

The U.S. securing air bases in Slovakia would mark the Pentagon and NATO already or soon having air bases in no less than nine former Warsaw Pact nations: Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Those are all the former Warsaw Pact countries in NATO except for the Czech Republic.

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Slovaks protest defense treaty with US as lawmakers debate

By Associated Press

February 8, 2022

Excerpt from the article

Thousands of Slovaks rallied Tuesday to protest a military defense treaty between their nation and the United States, which are both members of NATO.

Waving national flags and banners such as “Stop USA Army,” the protesters gathered in Bratislava in front of Parliament, where lawmakers were debating the Defense Cooperation Agreement. Police prevented some protesters from entering the building.

 …

The opposition claims it would compromise the country’s sovereignty, make possible a permanent presence of U.S. troops on Slovak territory, enable a deployment of nuclear weapons in Slovakia and provoke Russia….

The treaty allows the U.S. military to use two Slovak air force bases – Malacky-Kuchyna and Sliac – for 10 years while Slovakia will receive $100 million from the U.S. to modernize them.

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General prosecutor: 1968 invasion agreement more advantageous than the US defence deal

By Slovak Spectator

February 8, 2022

Excerpt from the article

The parliament launched a discussion on the Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) between Slovakia and the United States on February 8.

The agreement was recently signed by Defence Minister Jaroslav Naď (OĽaNO) and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington, but it still needs the approval of the parliament and subsequently the president.

…

General Prosecutor Maroš Žilinka came to the session, expressing his will to read an address concerning the DCA. He is known as the critic of the agreement. During the interdepartmental review process, he submitted 35 fundamental objections to the draft and his office has rejected it as a whole.

…

He called the interpretation clauses attached to the agreement by both Slovakia and the USA insignificant, and even called the agreement on the stay of Soviet soldiers on the territory of Czechoslovakia after the 1968 invasion more advantageous than the current defence deal with the USA.

“A person’s own opinion and will are actually his honour,” he claimed.

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Rick Rozoff, renowned author and geopolitical analyst, actively involved in opposing war, militarism and interventionism for over fifty years. He manages the Anti-Bellum and For peace, against war website.

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

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***

LANCELOT: Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of
the knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his
own child. Well, old man, I will tell you news of
your son: give me your blessing: truth will come
to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man’s son
may, but at the length truth will out.

Shakespeare:  The Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene 2

Truth will out.  Eventually, given enough time, the good, the bad, and the ugly will be revealed.

Such is the case with Monsanto’s dubious herbicide glyphosate.  The long-winding story on how Monsanto and its governmental enablers at the Environmental Protection Agency first registered the weedkiller Roundup under at best dubious circumstances is sickening.

In March 2015 U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California allowed public release of internal Monsanto documents showing how Monsanto influenced EPA to reclassify glyphosate from a Class C carcinogen to a Class E category which paved the way for glyphosate Roundup production.

It was nothing short of a cover-up that put greed ahead of public safety.

And now ironically we learn the cover-up may have included Monsanto’s own investors.  Bayer AG purchased Monsanto and dumped the company name back in 2018.  As if….that would be helpful.  Bayer has lost a string of jury trials where glyphosate was believed to be responsible for cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Now Bayer investors are saying the German agri-giant played fast and loose with the facts,  misleading them on 1) the safety of glyphosate and Roundup; 2) Bayer’s efforts at due diligence; and 3) the legal risks in the acquisition of Monsanto.  Their lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California makes for some interesting reading:

“Defendants specifically downplayed the liability risks related to Monsanto’s Roundup product, emphasizing that Bayer conducted a “thorough analysis” during the due diligence process and “undertook appropriate due diligence of litigation and regulatory issues throughout the process” which led Bayer to finalize the Acquisition. These and similar statements made by Defendants during the Class Period were false and misleading. In truth, Defendants knew or recklessly disregarded that the Acquisition would not result in the benefits for Bayer that Defendants had represented, due to Monsanto’s significant exposure to liability risk related to Roundup.”

Naturally Bayer tried to get the case – Sheet Metal Workers National Pension Fund v. Bayer Aktiengesellschaft – thrown out of court.  But in October the court ruled against Bayer, finding, among other things, that:

“As for the differences between glyphosate and Roundup, Plaintiffs have pled that Monsanto was aware the Roundup formulation was possibly more dangerous than glyphosate, ¶ 141, and that (Bayer CEO Werner) Baumann stated during a conference call, “there is no difference” between glyphosate and the Roundup formulation, ¶ 250. By showing that an executive’s statement was in contradiction to Monsanto’s own assessment of the science, Plaintiffs have adequately pled a material misstatement concerning the safety risks of Roundup as compared to glyphosate.”

So now we’re going to get yet another layer of court discovery on glyphosate.  Given all we already know Roundup and glyphosate should have not been unleashed on the world.  But how companies like Monsanto are willing to go to almost any length – including duping its own investors – is a new low.

Truth will out.

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Dickey spent nearly 30 years at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s NPR member station WILL-AM 580 where he won a dozen Associated Press awards for his reporting. For 13 years, he directed Illinois Public Media’s agriculture programming. His weekly column for the Midwest Center covers agriculture and related issues including politics, government, environment and labor. His opinions are his own and do not reflect the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. Email him at [email protected].

Featured image: Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, is the most heavily-used agricultural chemical in history. (Photo: Mike Mozart/Flickr/cc)

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US President Joe Biden said after his meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that he will “end” the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Europe if Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.

“If Russia invades … there will no longer [be] a Nord Stream 2,” Biden said during a joint press conference with Scholz. “We will bring an end to it.”

When pressed for more details on just exactly how the US can achieve this, Biden could only mutter:

“I promise you, we’ll be able to do it.”

The American president of course found it difficult to answer this question because his country is not involved in the Nord Stream 2 project and has very little influence over it – the only thing Washington can hope for is that sustained pressure on European allies will make them capitulate to their demands.

However, the reality is that Germany, Europe’s most important country alongside France, has its own economic interests that must be served and not compromised for the sake of the US. Berlin has defended its ability to complete the pipeline, despite the fact that the US opposes the project in any way possible. Washington has no interest in the fact that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is vital for the German economy and industry.

None-the-less, to try and appease Washington, Scholz stressed to journalists that Germany was “absolutely united” and that “we will do the same steps, and they will be very, very hard to Russia.”

This is on the assumption though that Russia will invade Ukraine, something that the Kremlin has continually stressed it has no ambition of doing despite the constant warnings and rhetoric emanating from Washington. Both Berlin and Paris understand that Russia does not want to invade Ukraine and desperately want the manufactured crisis to end.

Brandon Weichert, author of “Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower” and a former US congressional staffer, said to the Express newspaper this week:

“Paris is hesitant about getting too bogged down in a Russo-American fight over Ukraine for the same reason that Germany is desperate to avoid escalation in the particular fight over Ukraine.”

“Paris, like Berlin, fears the prospects of their own countries becoming frontline states yet again in either a renewed Cold War between Russia and the US or, more frighteningly, an actual war,” he added.

Following talks on Friday in Moscow between Russian and French Presidents Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron, the Financial Times, citing French sources, reported that Russia had “moved” towards de-escalating the situation around Ukraine.

Specifically, the meeting was said to revolve around the withdrawal of Russian troops from Belarus after the end of their exercises in the country. According to sources, this will lead to further meetings and the signing of an agreement on “structured dialogue on collective security.”

Macron had previously proposed a re-format of the European security system to include Moscow in it, but this offer went unanswered. This time, the French leader again noted that it is impossible to normalize the international situation without dialogue with Russia.

“We must protect our European brothers by proposing a new balance capable of preserving their sovereignty and peace. This must be done while respecting Russia and understanding the contemporary traumas of this great people and great nation,” the French president added.

In this way, Macron, despite some differences with Putin, has an immense respect for the Russian leader. Macron, just like his German colleague Scholz, is a realist and understands that discounting Moscow’s interests and concerns is not a realistic prospect if order, stability and peace is to be maintained in Europe, something that the Anglo Alliance (US and UK) are not interested in as they would not be directly affected by a potential continental war.

As Weichert noted, among other reasons, France and Germany are also dependent on Russian energy supplies. Because of this, the two countries do not want to enforce the harsh restrictions that Biden demands.

In the view of the former Congressional official, the two key allies would surely “[throw] the Americans under the bus, which they will because Paris thinks that would weaken America’s unwanted hold over European affairs.”

In this way, the two European powerhouses, ignoring the incessant complaints from Poland and the Baltic states, are themselves deescalating a crisis in Ukraine that Washington and Kiev manufactured seemingly out of nowhere. In addition, although the Europeans are vowing to respond to any Russian invasion of Ukraine, and in this way shows “unity” with the US, they fully understand that Moscow has no plans for such an invasion. For this reason, Germany is completely unwilling to sacrifice its energy and industrial needs for the sake of appeasing Washington’s hostile anti-Russian policies.

*

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation

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Memo to Congress: Diplomacy for Ukraine Is Spelled M-i-n-s-k

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, February 08, 2022

You would think Congress would be echoing the public sentiment that a war with Russia is not in our national interest. Instead, taking our nation to war and supporting the gargantuan military budget seem to be the only issues that both parties agree on.

Video: Group of Moms Helps Truckers in Ottawa. This Is What It Means to be a Citizen

By Jean-François Girard, February 08, 2022

Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau portrayed Ottawa’s protesters as violent, racists, and more… Here is one of many trucker’s tales showing this is as far from reality as it can go.

Video: Support for Freedom Convoy by Candice Bergen – New Conservative Leader

By Marcel Irnie, February 08, 2022

The Conservative Party of Canada has named Portage-Lisgar MP Candice Bergen as its interim leader. The announcement came Wednesday evening after a vote by caucus members. Bergen is among a growing number of Conservatives allying themselves with the protesters – a position that politicians across the political spectrum have criticized.

Freedom Convoy Is Being Threatened: Preemptive SOS Press Conference. Trudeau Is a Liar

By Global Research News, February 08, 2022

The Trudeau government has refused to enter into dialogue. The Prime Minister has portrayed the protesters (without a shred of evidence) of conducting acts of violence, racism and anti-semitism. Watch videos in the link.

Video: Freedom Convoy, Threats of Mass Arrests. Trudeau Refuses to Enter into Dialogue, SOS Press Conference

By Freedom Convoy, February 08, 2022

The leaders of the Convoy are prepared to talk to the government. We want tangible results. It is a political theater on the part of the Trudeau government. There has been no response from the City of Ottawa. They refuse to sit around a table. We are prepared to meet with Trudeau.

Video: The Powder Keg of Donbass

By Manlio Dinucci, February 08, 2022

The situation in Donbass is increasingly critical: 150 thousand soldiers of the Ukrainian Army and National Guard are deployed in front of Donetsk and Lugansk, inhabited by Russian populations. In the front line there is the neo-Nazi battalion Azov, promoted to regiment of special forces, distinguished for its ferocity in the attacks on the Russian populations of Ukraine, commanded by Andrey Biletsky who educates young people to hatred against the Russians with his book “The Words of the White Führer”.

Regional Power Play and Killing of Bin Laden and ISIS Caliphs

By Nauman Sadiq, February 08, 2022

As a Saudi citizen and belonging to the powerful Saudi-Yemeni clan of Bin Ladens, which has business interests all over the Middle East, Osama bin Laden was almost a royalty.

‘Pure Theft’ — GoFundMe Withholds $9 Million Donated to Truckers Protesting Vaccine Mandates

By Jeremy Loffredo, February 08, 2022

It all started when Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson announced the city was contemplating legal action against GoFundMe, in the hope of diverting the donations raised on behalf of the truckers to the city’s coffers.

This Medical Data from the US Department of Defense Is Explosive – Mainstream Media Has Been Ordered to Ignore It

By Steve Kirsch, February 08, 2022

On February 1st, 2022, US Senator Ron Johnson sent a letter to DoD Secretary Lloyd Austin highlighting the dramatic rise in adverse events reported in the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) after the vaccines were rolled out to the military.

China’s Belt & Road Already Delivering for Southeast Asia

By Brian Berletic, February 08, 2022

The West’s propaganda campaign against China is attempting to convince the world that Beijing and its policies pose a global threat. China is accused of everything from presenting an outright military threat to its neighbors and the world, to sinisterly trapping nations in debt for infrastructure projects the West insists are unnecessary in the first place.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò Endorses Canadian Truck Drivers, Calls for Prayers to Defeat ‘Infernal’ Great Reset

By His Excellency Carlo Maria Viganò, February 08, 2022

The global coup that in these two years of psycho-pandemic farce has been carried out by the globalist elite appears most clearly if we do not limit ourselves to considering what happened in individual Nations, but broaden our gaze to what has happened everywhere. 

NATO Holds Drills with Three Carrier Strike Groups, Seven Interceptor Warships in Eastern Mediterranean

By Rick Rozoff, February 08, 2022

The USS Bainbridge, USS Gonzalez, USS Gravely and USS Ross are Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers designed to fire Standard Missile 3 anti-ballistic missiles of the sort stationed in their so-called Aegis Ashore version in Romania and Poland.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

The Conservative Party of Canada has named Portage-Lisgar MP Candice Bergen as its interim leader. The announcement came Wednesday evening after a vote by caucus members.

Bergen is among a growing number of Conservatives allying themselves with the protesters – a position that politicians across the political spectrum have criticized.

The protesters want governments to end all pandemic restrictions and vaccination and mask mandates. On Thursday, organizers again said they won’t leave until their demands are met, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has rejected.

In the House of Commons on Monday, Ms. Bergen described the protesters as “passionate, patriotic and peaceful.”

On Twitter, she posted pictures of her meeting with some of the people blockading the streets and said they “deserve to be heard and they deserve respect.”

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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.

The Freedom Convoy is being Threatened

The Trudeau government has refused to enter into dialogue.

The Prime Minister has portrayed the protesters (without a shred of evidence) of conducting acts of violence, racism and anti-semitism.  (See Second Video below)

On the 2nd of February, he added the following tweet to his unsubstantiated accusations.

It is unclear whether the precise wording of his tweet was part of an unanimous vote of the House of Commons.

Why all these Lies on the Part of the Prime Minister of Canada 

Who are the Criminals? 

The Trudeau government’s decisions are in blatant derogation of fundamental human rights. 

All the Covid-19 Mandates implemented since March 2020 are Illegal. 

Amply documented the Covid-19 vaccine has resulted in an upward trend in mortality and morbidity.

It is a dangerous “drug” which is being imposed on Canadians without Informed Consent.  

All the data is there to Confirm that the mrNA vaccine is a dangerous “drug” which should be immediately withdrawn.

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Video: Press Conference

Video: Trudeau’s libellous and defamatory accusations directed against the Freedom Convoy are without substance or evidence