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“A student who developed blood clots after getting her second Covid-19 vaccine shot and her left leg was amputated has since died of a haemorrhagic stroke after brain surgery”.
Developing blood clots requiring amputation following the Covid-19 vaccine jab is not an isolated event, as reported by the Bangkok Post. This is happening all over the World.
Our thoughts are with Ketsiree and the victims of Big Pharma’s killer vaccine.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, October 29, 2021
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Ketsiree Kongkaew, 20, a student at Phangnga Community College, died on Monday morning at Songklanagarind Hospital, Thai media reported on Tuesday.
She had been inoculated first with the Sinovac vaccine, and then given AstraZeneca as her second dose.
Her grandmother Harlia Kongkaew, 85, of Ban Thadan village in Muang district of Phangnga, took the young woman’s body from Songkhlanagarind Hospital on Monday afternoon for Islamic funeral rites in Ao Luk district of Krabi prvonce.
They travelled by a rescue foundation vehicle.
The old woman has a small grocery shop in Ban Thadan and her granddaughter lived with her there.
Adul Chuthong, chief of Muang Phangnga district led local officials and teachers in offering moral support to the old woman and other relatives. Ketsiree’s body was to be interred at Ban Bagan burial ground in Au Luk district.
After the ceremony, the grandmother was to return to her house on Koh Panyee in Phangnga province.
Anupong Thammarong, 25, a classmate of Ketsiree from the same village, said a doctor from Songklanagarind Hospital had phoned the grandmother late on Friday night, asking for permission to perform surgery. The doctor said Ketsiree had bleeding in her brain.
The grandmother and relatives gave their permission. After the operation, the young woman remained unconscious. She was reliant on a ventilator and was pronounced dead on Monday morning after a haemorrhagic stroke.
The doctors said the brain haemorrhage was a side effect of the thrombolytic drugs used to treat blood clots, Mr Anupong said.
Ketsiree was reported to have earlier suffered an acute arterial occlusion, or blockage of a limb artery, after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine as her second shot.
According to Jamras Khanadpol, director of Phangnga Community College, she began feeling unwell after her second shot on Aug 13.
She complained of a fever and chest pains about three days later, her classmate Anupong said. She went to see a doctor at Phangnga Hospital, who diagnosed her with a bladder infection.
Ketsiree was later rushed back to the hospital after she experienced severe pain in her left leg. She was referred to Surat Thani Hospital, where an X-ray revealed blood clots that required urgent surgery.
As her condition continued to worsen, the hospital transferred her to the better-equipped Krabi Hospital, then to Songklanagarind Hospital in Hat Yai, where doctors decided to amputate her leg, Mr Anupong said.
The National Health Security Office has given Ketsiree’s family financial assitance of 400,000 baht.
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Featured image: Rescue volunteers take the body of 20-year-old student Ketsiree Kongkaew to Ao Luk district of Krabi province on Monday night for funeral rites and burial. (Capture from @nbtpng-Radio Thailand Facebook page)
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One of the biggest and most costly construction projects on Samos in recent years is now open. I cycled around the completed site this past week. It is awesome in its scale (over 6 hectares) and is a dramatic addition to the island’s infrastructure. The new camp for refugees at Zervou comes with a 43 million price tag and can accommodate up to 3,000 refugees. Currently there are around 400 men , women and children inside. It is a closed camp with entrance and exit scrutinised between 8am and 8pm. A mini bus shuttle will take them into Samos Town for 1.6 euro one way. The camp has invested heavily in surveillance and security systems including magnetic identity cards, high security gates, cameras and drones all of which allows for close monitoring of the refugees.
Being familiar from my work in the UK with prison design and function I can assure you with confidence that the Zervou camp has been designed along modern prison lines. But this is no low security prison. Enclosing the site behind double high meshed fences topped with razor wire is but one obvious sign of its intent. Just as the site itself, on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere (10km to the nearest village) with not a shred of shade from the summer heat or the winter cold holds no comfort. It stands in stark contrast with the army barracks that cover the island where there are trees or gardens amongst the barracks which house the soldiers. At Zervou, all is grey, brutal and uniform – the cabins, the concrete roads and open areas and the endless wire. This is a deliberate design common to prisons where the physical lay-out is intended to convey clear messages as to its purpose to all those detained inside and those outside.
But Zervou is not a prison. It is a camp for refugees who have arrived in Samos to be cared for while they make their applications for asylum. They are not criminals but a wide range of vulnerable people from many societies seeking refuge and a future. “Zervou will be the first of the [new] planned hotspot camps on the Aegean islands. They all share a common characteristics: Due to their geographical location, they cut the camp residents off from access to the cities and their supply structures. And thus also from everyday life: from the light-heartedness of the cafés, from the liveliness of the marketplaces. But it is these places that enable people to forget, at least for a short time, that they are – or are supposed to be – refugees. “ (Samos: A place in the middle of nowhere Medico International, 21 Sept 2021).
The evidence is now overwhelming of the negative and inhumane consequences of detention in places such as Zervou. The impact of the camp’s isolated and remote location alone can be expected to have a severe impact on the mental health of already stressed and vulnerable people. We don’t need to waste time debating the evidence except to note that these truths are widely known but have little or no impact in shifting the practices of those in charge of such prisons.
For those of us who live on Samos the presence of Zervou is certain to pose challenges and problems. At the very least our biggest construction project in recent times will do little to enhance Samos’ reputation as a holiday destination. It is hard to see tourist buses stopping by. And there are certain to be those who will now think twice before visiting our beautiful island because of the cruelties experienced by refugees in places such as Zervou.
In that context, our silence is hardly an option. It will be interpreted by many as signalling consent to Zervou.
Places like Zervou illustrate the extent to which the EU policy of deterrence remains as a guiding principle in the treatment of refugees arriving on our shores. On no account make their arrival welcoming so that a clear message is sent of not being wanted. This has been a consistent feature of EU and Greece’s approach to the refugee challenge for many years now and shows no sign of shifting.
But as we are seeing with climate change things can and do begin to shift when the truth can no longer be ignored. As with EU refugee policies there is now mounting evidence that they fail on so many levels. The testimony of refugees, the reports of the NGOs working in the camps and countless academic and scientific accounts without exception all highlight the damage done to refugees who are incarcerated in such places. In a powerful critique of Zervou by MSF Samos they cite the experiences of their psychologists:
“As psychologists working with the people who are at the frontline of Europe’s tightening migration policies, we witness on a daily basis the deterioration of these people’s mental and physical well-being. The opening of the new prison camp is changing the collective identity of the refugees, their self-esteem and image: their dignity. Europe is breaking them.
What do you want us to say to a young boy who, even though has not committed a crime, is forced to remain locked up in a prison-like centre?” (MSF September 2021)
There is now growing evidence of the acute trauma and stress inflicted on refugees as they wait often for years in Greece whilst their asylum claims are processed. Isolated, cut off from Samos Town and incarcerated in a prison on a barren hillside is not going to make it any better. It is amazing that one of those responsible Manos Logothetis, from the General Secretariat for Reception of Asylum Seekers can claim that the new prison marks a decisive step in humanitarian care for refugees in that they now get a cabin with a kitchen and air conditioning (Euro News 23 Sept 2021) ? And he continued, “for the first time in the history of migration, a beneficiary will be able to sit in a restaurant that is air-conditioned and safe.” (Guardian 19 Sept 2021)
This is what Djina from Mali, who is now in the new camp had to say:
“We are here in the new camp, the containers are cosy but we didn’t come here to sleep. Some of us left their home two years ago. We haven’t any good food nor good health. We are prisoners, and nothing can replace freedom, so here it’s total traumatism.Also, the place is very isolated. They cut the financial aid, for them we are merchandise. The European Union is aware of everything. We can have 4 or 5 rejections. It’s weird here, don’t ask me any more.”
Ahmed from Iraq says:“I feel like I’m in prison. I feel lonely, lazy, and like I’m in another world.The new camp is definitely better than the tent, there is a bathroom, kitchen, water, electricity, refrigerator and air conditioners. But I stayed in the tent for three years, then now what, I moved to another camp? I ask myself these questions: how long will I be called a refugee? When will I become a human? A human who works, goes out, travels, does what any other person would do?(Both cited by Europe Must Act, October 11, 2021)
We on Samos cannot pretend that we don’t have a big prison now in our midst. A prison built for refugees and not convicted criminals brings shame to Samos even if there was little we could do to stop it. But at least we can speak up and express our concerns and demand a change. It does not have to be like this. On the Canary Islands empty hotels were turned over to arriving refugees with great success.
These are early days for Zervou. It is not at all clear how this prison is to be developed or deployed. But what we can be clear about is the threat it poses for the future of Samos if it comes to be closely identified by its relationship to a prison. There are many in the world now who know the truth of this and their numbers will grow. Can we remain silent?
“The new camp is not a good thing for Europe. I think it is criminal to criminalise us. It is a shame to keep people in such a situation. When they tell me, ‘Oh, we have a nice bed, we have a nice kitchen for you,’ I’m not concerned with a nice bed or a nice place to sleep. It’s about having the freedom to move around and live with others. I am not just speaking for myself, but for all those who live with me in the camp on Samos. “
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Dr. Peter McCullough gave a talk about vaccine safety and efficacy and the importance of early COVID-19 treatment in Phoenix, Arizona.
In the video below, Dr. McCullough answered questions regarding the subject.
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The second day of appellate proceedings by the United States against Julian Assange saw the defence make their case against the overturning of District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s January ruling. Any extradition to the US, she concluded, would be so oppressive to the publisher as to render it unjust under UK extradition law. Before the UK High Court, both Edward Fitzgerald QC and Mark Summers QC sought to preserve the status quo.
The morning session was focused on defending the action of the defence witness Michael Kopelman, whose initial psychiatric assessment of Assange’s wellbeing omitted reference to Stella Moris and the existence of their two children. The prosecution had contended that this impaired Kopelman’s partiality before the court, notwithstanding his correction to the account in the final court submission. The omission, Fitzgerald contended, was justified given fears of the surveillance operation in the Ecuadorian embassy mounted by the Central Intelligence Agency, and concerns about potential abduction and assassination. This point had been confirmed in the now famous Yahoo! News report.
A day prior to the submission of the initial report, Kopelman had sought legal advice from the head of the solicitor’s firm acting for Assange, Gareth Peirce. But as Peirce was facing an avalanche of documents to be served at the time – surveillance, allegations of kidnapping and poisoning, among other things – she was unable to furnish him with timely advice. Baraitser duly found that Kopelman’s conduct, while misleading, was not that of a dishonest individual but “a very human response”. The judge also knew about the identity of Moris prior to reading the initial report.
To bolster Kopelman before the attacks of the prosecution, the defence adduced the opinion of consultant forensic psychiatrist Keith Rix, a noted authority on the ethical duties of psychiatric experts. Kopelman had, in Rix’s view “acted ‘professionally’; responsibly’ and he ‘exercised appropriate and reasonable caution’” in omitting reference to Moris and the children in his initial report.
The defence also suggested that the US government could not have been surprised by the relationship between Moris and Assange and their children. Nigel Blackwood, one of prosecution’s doctors of choice, was informed of the children’s existence in March 2020.
Fitzgerald, mindful of addressing Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett, reminded him about the parallels between the Assange case and the hacktivist Lauri Love, whose extradition was overturned in 2018. Love’s extradition to the US was initially approved by the Westminster Magistrate’s Court but was overturned in the High Court with Burnett presiding. Love had also been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a contributing factor to his suicide risk in a US prison facility. The court there had accepted a “predictive function” so frowned upon by James Lewis QC, whose submission the previous day insisted that current medical valuations – and notably those of the prosecution – were the only ones that counted.
Burnett took issue with the characterisation. “It’s a completely different case,” he interjected, citing the fact that the district judge in Love’s case had found that preventive measures were adequate and would prevent suicide. District Judge Baraitser had found the opposite with regards to Assange. Fitzgerald contended the mental disorders in question were the same in both cases and that these would have a role in depriving intelligent individuals of volition in being at risk of suicide.
The defence submission to the High Court also makes the point that District Judge Baraitser “found that the cause of both the urge to commit suicide and the determined circumvention of suicide measures would be Mr Assange’s mental disorder itself.” This was based on the evidence from consultant neuropsychiatrist Quinton Deeley about the effects of Assange’s Autism Spectrum Disorder and Kopelman’s submission on the effects of Assange’s depression.
After lunch, Summers took aim at the prosecution’s package of “assurances” regarding Assange’s fate in the pre-trial and post-trial phase. These included an undertaking that Assange would not be subject to oppressive Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), face solitary confinement or even end up in the ADX Florence supermax prison facility if convicted. They also include a promise that Assange would receive appropriate “clinical and psychological treatment” as “recommended” by the relevant prison clinician. If convicted, the US government would permit him to apply for a prisoner transfer to serve his sentence in Australia subject, of course, to Australian approval.
In the view of the defence, the entire package was unreliable. Even assuming they would be acted upon, they would be inadequate. They were also oddly timed and untestable, being given only after Baraitser’s ruling. They only addressed two of the seven grounds for finding that Assange faced a substantial risk of suicide, and even then, inadequately addressed those limited issues. And how could you trust such pledges from a power whose officials had considered abducting and killing Assange?
The previous day, Lewis had argued that the onus was on the judge to seek those assurances on how Assange would be treated in the first place. This rather odd interpretation was given a deserved shredding by Summers. Through the extradition hearing, the discussion about SAMs, ADX Florence and solitary confinement was frequent. The prosecution might well have taken these conditions off the table but as Baraitser herself observed, “Mr Kromberg acknowledged that their imposition is possible.”
Furthermore, these new “conditional assurances do not in fact remove the real risk of detention on SAMs or on ADX. They certainly do not remove the very real risk of detention or administrative segregation.” The US authorities still reserved, according to the filed submission, “the power to impose SAMs on Mr Assange ‘in the event that, after entry of this assurance, he was to commit any future act that met the test for the imposition of a SAM’.” Even leaving the matter of SAMs and ADX Florence, Assange would still risk facing “other severely isolating prison regimes or other notorious prisons in the US about which the [District Judge] heard copious evidence.”
Lewis, for the prosecution, suggested that such regimes as Administrative Segregation (AdSeg) could not be equated to solitary confinement. But the US prison system is replete with terminology designed to conceal what amounts to the same thing. “Prisons often hide behind these rhetorical labels [the hole, AdSeg, protective custody, SMU, SHU] to avoid scrutiny under legal sanctions that prohibit indefinite placement in solitary confinement and require due process for those who are sentenced,” claims the US-based human rights body, the National Immigrant Justice Center.
The defence’s High Court submission also notes the crude reality that, “One agency with power to recommend SAMs to the attorney general (on the basis of some unspecified ‘act’ they perceive Mr Assange to have committed) is the CIA – the very same agency whose criminal acts Mr Assange has sought to expose and who are under active investigation in Spain for plotting to kill him.”
Continuing the focus on the role of the CIA, Summers reminded the judges that this was the “first time the US had sought the assistance of a UK court in obtaining jurisdiction” over an individual a US government entity had considered poisoning or assassinating. “That is worthy of an investigation in relation to the assurances.” The CIA had shown an “obsession for vengeance”; there was “credible evidence of US government plans at some length to do serious harm to Mr Assange”.
Drawing from the Yahoo! News report, Summers noted “discussions in the Oval Office about killing [Assange]” and “sketches drawn in the summer of 2017 as matters escalated to render him back to America from the UK. But the UK refused to go along with this.” The then CIA director Mike Pompeo was “on the record that some things are true and it’s under Congressional investigation.”
The assurance that Assange could be transferred to an Australian prison also deserved some measure of scorn. “Mr Assange will most likely be dead before [this assurance] can have any purchase, if it ever could.” Precedent also showed that the US could not be trusted to keep the undertaking.
The case of Spanish drug trafficker David Mendoza Herrarte was cited by Summers. In that instance, a Spanish court was given an assurance that Mendoza, if extradited to the US to face trial, could serve any prison sentence in Spain. The US Department of Justice had something else in mind, initially refusing the transfer application when it was made. The pledge, it was subsequently claimed, had been to secure Mendoza the liberty to apply for a transfer; the DOJ retained the right to reject it. It took six years of diplomatic tussling between Madrid and Washington, with the encouragement of the Spanish Supreme Court, to eventually secure the prisoner release.
In his rebuttal, Lewis, who omitted any reference to the role of the CIA, having previously dismissed such claims as “palpable nonsense”, made light of the tardiness of the US offer of assurances. “It is proper to deal with assurances at any stage. This is not a sea change. Assurances are not evidence. The fact is it is common sense that an assurance will be reactive in nature.” Conditions might change. Even if a person was released, Lewis proposed, citing precedent, the extradition process might well be restarted on the basis of assurances given by the requesting state. “We could start again with Assange.” A promise of perennial legal purgatory.
This second and concluding day was illuminating in casting light on the barbarously defective nature of the entire effort against Assange. The fact that it had reached the appeal stage is itself a grotesque reflection on British justice. The fact that these proceedings could even assume that Assange might either get a fair trial or be treated fairly in a US prison after officials had chewed over the possibility of abducting or killing him can only be described as disturbed lunacy. The US government, Fitzgerald remarked at one point, was happy to submit such declarations as those of Assistant US Attorney Gordon Kromberg, but not “subject themselves to cross-examination. They cross-examine till the cows come home the defence experts.”
The High Court justices will now consider whether to continue this lamentable, sadistic enterprise. The defence team are considering cross-appealing parts of the original decision on the grounds that it constitutes a grave threat to press liberties. Whatever the outcome, an appeal to the Supreme Court is likely. In the meantime, the torture of Assange by process will continue.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
Featured image: Julian Assange court sketch, October 21, 2019, supplied by Julia Quenzler.
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While the fight against fake news becomes one of the main agendas in the Western world, the hegemonic media continues to disseminate unproven information with the aim of attacking non-aligned governments. In October, several Western media agencies published a report about an alleged launch of a Chinese hypersonic missile, whose technology would be able to evade the entire apparatus of the current American anti-missile system. The news quickly spread, even without any plausible proof of what had really happened, which generated hostile and worrying comments from major US military authorities in response. Now, a new scenario of tensions is formed due to a possible media mistake.
Earlier this month, an important media outlet published an article reporting an alleged Chinese test of a hypersonic glide vehicle launched from a low-Earth orbit rocket that could theoretically be able to evade US missile defense systems. The sources mentioned in the article are anonymous. Immediately, the news went viral and was republished by many agencies around the world. The speed with which the Chinese supposedly developed this new weapon surprised US national security officials. The main fear is that Beijing has developed a modern space weapon with no equivalent in the world and that it could launch missiles at any country from space, not being detected by the current US anti-missile system. In the same sense, the apparent Chinese ability to hide the possession of such technology from the world is also a cause of great surprise.
However, Beijing denies any involvement in this type of operation. Commenting on the case, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian claimed that the event described by the media was related to the launch of a spacecraft, not a hypersonic missile. These were his words:
“This test was a routine spacecraft experiment to verify the reusable technology of spacecraft, which is of great significance for reducing the cost of spacecraft use. It can provide a convenient and cheap way for humans to use space peacefully. in the world have carried out similar experiments”.
However, regardless of the discussion if it occurred or not, the repercussion of the episode was absolutely negative, boosting global tensions. Washington interpreted the case as a sign of threat in the modern space and military race. During an interview, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, compared the launch of the missile to the Soviet Union’s launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, in the 1950s. The general emphasized that Beijing has shown itself to be winning the contemporary space race and that the US is currently at a similar disadvantage to that when the Soviets launched Sputnik.
“What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system. And it is very concerning. I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that. It has all of our attention (…) They have gone from a peasant-based infantry that was very large in 1979 to a very capable military that covers all the domains and has global ambitions (…) The Chinese military capabilities are much greater than that single test (…) They’re expanding in space, in cyber and then in the traditional domains of land, sea and air (…) China is very significant on our horizon”.
The comparison pointed out by the general is quite suggestive: if the US sees the current Chinese test as it saw Sputnik in 1957 (or in a “very close” way), then surely Washington’s reaction will also be analogous to that taken earlier. At that time, the American government made massive investments in the space race with the aim of overcoming Soviet technological power. Currently, something in this direction is to be expected, but in a fully militarized direction, with a race to build new hypersonic missiles and other space weapons. In practice, this would be the beginning of a process of militarization and nuclearization of outer space – something that is already a trend in the contemporary world, but which can reach even higher levels.
As we can see, the repercussion of a dubious article with of unproven allegations can be catastrophic, generating much more than a scandal, but a real military race. Beijing continues to fully deny the military nature of the launch, claiming it is an experimental spacecraft. Obviously, claims made by nation states must be respected and taken as true when confronted with claims made by media agencies. In addition, there is a matter of principle of justice: the burden of proof must lie with the agencies that released this information, as it is up to the accuser to prove their allegations are right and not the accused to prove them wrong. It remains to be seen whether there will be time for this.
Since the creation of Space Force, Washington has been progressively more aggressive in developing projects for the militarization of outer space. And maybe the current “Sputnik moment” is the perfect excuse for that. Creating more advanced protection systems and missiles with greater destructive power will be the American agenda to increase its defense potential against supposed Chinese weapons.
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Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
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People around the globe are protesting the loss of liberty, illegal mandates and tyrannical government overreach. Over the last eighteen months we’ve witnessed a removal of the liberties we hold dear. Every man, woman and childs’ basic human rights are under attack and we believe the power is with the people.
We know the impact of organized, coordinated acts of peaceful civil disobedience. Beginning on November 3, Children’s Health Defense joins citizens from around the globe for ‘Worldwide Walkouts’ to demand a return to freedom and democratic principles.
People Everywhere are Joining the Fight for Freedom
We’re witnessing a Great Awakening unfold in the citizenry as ignorant government leaders and corrupt politicians continue to implement mandates that threaten jobs, livelihoods, children’s education, and our way of life…
Americans and citizens around the world need to take back their power, stand up, walk out and just say NO. We will unify for freedom and commit acts of peaceful civil disobedience to make our point: no masks, no vaccines, no testing, no green passes. No coercion. No mandates.
Kickoff is November 3rd!
In his short video, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. CHD Board Chair and Lead Counsel called for everyone to participate in Worldwide Walkouts that kick off on November 3rd.
He shared that
“No government in history has ever surrendered power in the absence of a demand. We need to tell these governments and their friends in the technocracy, the Silicon Valley billionaire boys club, the mainstream media, and the pharmaceutical industry that we will no longer tolerate their trampling of citizens’ rights.”
The WORLDWIDE WALKOUTS are a call for a global shutdown to stop business as usual, protesting these unlawful mandates and to celebrate human rights.
“Coercive mandates of shoddily tested medical products and segregationist passports violate international human rights law,” said CHD President and General Counsel Mary Holland. “We need brave citizens to peacefully refuse to comply with unlawful and unethical edicts that for the past year and a half have been allowed to trump individual rights and freedoms. Those days are over. There will be no business as usual until segregationist and coercive medical policies advanced by government authorities end once and for all.”
Standing in Solidarity for Freedom
Our vision is to see thousands of towns in America and around the world come to a standstill while doctors, nurses, educators, businessmen, first responders, police officers, firemen, travel engineers and more demand their freedom. We are millions. Let’s show ourselves and stand in solidarity against tyrannical mandates.
CHD chapters, coalition partners, and local community organizers are planning mass gatherings of people in peaceful noncompliance to take place in high-exposure areas in many cities and states. Check WorldWideWalkOuts.org for locations and details. If you’re not seeing one for your area, reach out to others in your community to plan an event. Pick a place that is easy to get to and can be seen by many. Once your date, location and time are in place, tell us your plans so we can help amplify your message.
Courage is contagious so be willing to step up as a leader in your community. Encourage everyone you know to walkout and stand in solidarity against mandates. Tell them to refuse to show up for work, take a sick day and pull their kids from school. The only way we win is united.
Freedom transcends party lines and unites us all as one human race. We must ban together with concerned citizens from all walks of life with one goal in mind, to preserve freedom and the right to choose what goes on and in our bodies.
Get the Message Out by Sharing
Share this video message and more details from the Chairman of Children’s Health Defense, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to encourage everyone you know to participate.
Never has there been a more important time to fight back and protect our rights to stop this tyranny and government overreach.
Be a defender of truth, freedom and health. Help us kick off Worldwide WalkOuts beginning on November 3rd.
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The latest trade data shows that the American business community doesn’t agree with continuing former US President Trump’s counterproductive trade war, nor are they boycotting Chinese products due to the tensions that incumbent US President Biden has provoked with the People’s Republic.
China released its latest trade data in early October showing that trade surged 35.4% from January to September compared to the same period last year to reach $543 billion. This should be celebrated by both sides despite the administration of former US President Donald Trump and his successor Joe Biden regarding it as a sensitive issue. The reason for this is that such data is a sign of mutually beneficial relations considering the economic and geopolitical context.
Regarding the first, this proves that China is playing a major role in helping American retailers refill bare shelves, according to unnamed economists quoted by the Associated Press. The US’ ongoing supply chain crunch is beyond China’s control to fix because it’s due to domestic issues related to the American labor market and other such factors, but it nevertheless shows that Chinese imports are beneficial for that country’s consumers. Without them, their economic crisis would be much more challenging.
Concerning the geopolitical context, the latest trade data shows that the American business community doesn’t agree with continuing former US President Trump’s counterproductive trade war, nor are they boycotting Chinese products due to the tensions that incumbent US President Biden has provoked with the People’s Republic. This community is the epitome of pragmatism and their reasonable interests should be listened to in Washington. Policymakers must realize that trade can de-escalate tensions, not exacerbate them.
These two observations combine to inspire a new path forward for Chinese-American relations. Quite clearly, the US government’s anti-Chinese hostility has had no negative affect on bilateral trade. To the contrary, as the latest data confirms, trade remains surprisingly strong. The latest trade data demonstrates the complex economic interdependence between China and the US, which has been made all the more important as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Imagining for a moment that former US President Trump had succeeded in “decoupling” their economies or that the business community boycotted Chinese products out of solidarity with incumbent US President Biden, the economic situation for ordinary Americans would have been much worse than it presently is. It’s precisely because those two leaders’ anti-Chinese policies have failed in the economic sense that American living standards haven’t plummeted even more. China is therefore responsible for helping the American people.
Some might deny this “politically incorrect” claim for self-interested ideological reasons, but it’s undeniable considering the two contexts that were earlier examined. Although American policymakers might be loath to admit it, they nevertheless acknowledge the positive role that China is playing in helping their people, even if they hadn’t ever intended for it to do so. This gives cautious optimism that they might not further escalate the hitherto static trade war between them for pragmatism’s sake, at least not in the near future, hopefully.
Of course, the influential military-industrial complex’s congressional lobbies and the neoconservative ideologues in the US government have selfish reasons to hope that relations comprehensively worsen between China and the US, but policymakers must realize how counterproductive this would be. The ruling Democrats cannot afford for the American economy to suffer any more than it already is by curtailing trade ties with China if they hope to retain control of Congress during next year’s midterm elections.
The ideal scenario would be for the Biden Administration to seriously consider a meaningful rapprochement with China. The continuance of former US President Trump’s anti-Chinese policies has failed to “decouple” their economies, which are more intertwined than ever before and at such a crucial moment in world history at that. Trade should form the basis upon which bilateral ties can improve. Selfish forces mustn’t be allowed to sabotage this promising possibility. Hopefully common sense, pragmatism, and mutual interests will prevail.
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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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Dr. McCullough speaks about vaccine safety, efficacy, and the continued need for early treatment.
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On the latest episode of “Doctors and Scientists,” host Brian Hooker interviewed Jessica Rose, Ph.D., a computational biologist and Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) analyst. Rose discussed the problematic flaws in the VAERS system.
On the latest episode of “Doctors and Scientists” on CHD.TV, host Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E., interviewed Canadian Jessica Rose, Ph.D., a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) analyst and computational biologist who specializes in biomathematics and molecular research.
Rose and Hooker discussed the results of Rose’s work studying VAERS, and what she believes are the systematic flaws that prevent the passive reporting system from working as it was intended.
Beginning in December 2020, Rose anticipated the number of vaccine adverse events would increase. She analyzed the death count and missing data and found the number of fatalities after COVID vaccines was higher than the number of reports to VAERS of deaths after COVID vaccines.
In September, Rose testified at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meeting that underreporting was not considered in the VAERS data.
“I wasn’t wrong,” she said. “There was this missing data issue — that’s what sparked this.”
Rose published her findings in “Science, Public Health Policy and the Law.” The title of the study explains its purpose: “Critical Appraisal of VAERS Pharmacovigilance: Is the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) a Functioning Pharmacovigilance System?”
Her results found VAERS does not accurately track adverse reactions due to several flaws, including a “huge” backlog of data waiting to be entered into the system — she put the number at “hundreds of thousands.”
Rose said health professionals were missing safety signals, and the system was not being applied properly. Additionally, she found data were getting lost during updates.
“The most important thing I found in my determination is whether or not this tool — which can be a pharmacovigilance tool — is being used as such,” Rose said.
“All of this data is being entered by human beings,” Rose said. “Probably nice people who aren’t being paid enough, who have too many things to do, so everything isn’t necessarily nefarious.”
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What’s happening is that foreign forces aim to instrumentalize this issue so as to manufacture doubts among the international community about Ethiopia’s commitment to ensuring food security for its people, especially those in Tigray. This is intended to advance the ‘genocide’ narrative that’s meant to maximize foreign pressure on its government in an attempt to coerce it into unilateral political concessions.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed‘s pragmatic remarks in late October about reducing his country’s wheat imports were maliciously misreported by some foreign media. The UK’s Telegraph falsely headlined an article at the time titled “Ethiopian PM Threatens To Stop Food Aid Entering The Country”, which propagated the weaponized information warfare narrative that he’s personally carrying out a so-called “genocide” in the terrorist-controlled northern Tigray Region that’s presently occupied by the TPLF.
To their credit, the BBC was more balanced in their piece about this at the end of the month titled “Ethiopia Food Crisis: Why Does PM Have A Problem With Wheat Aid?”. That outlet accurately reported on his words warning about the risk of importing agricultural diseases from such aid as well as his spokeswoman’s clarification about him “talking more generally about the need to move away from wheat and towards healthier local produce.” Nevertheless, their dramatic description of this as a “crisis” contributes to fearmongering.
What’s happening is that foreign forces aim to instrumentalize this issue so as to manufacture doubts among the international community about Ethiopia’s commitment to ensuring food security for its people, especially those in Tigray. This is intended to advance the “genocide” narrative that’s meant to maximize foreign pressure on its government in an attempt to coerce it into unilateral political concessions. Particularly, the plan seems to be comprehensively erode the country’s sovereignty by making it more dependent on others in all respects.
To elaborate, even the comparatively more balanced BBC tried to sow the seeds of doubt in their piece by writing that PM Abiy’s spokeswoman’s response “doesn’t explain why the government only has an issue with imported wheat and not the locally produced crop, which provides three-quarters of the country’s overall supply.” According to the outlet, locally produced crops might also spread certain diseases, so they’re implying that Ethiopia has ulterior motives in sharing its explanation. This might fuel the “genocide” conspiracy theory.
In reality, not only is no so-called “genocide” occurring in the Tigray Region – and if anything, ethnic cleansing and disturbing signs of a genuine genocide are evidenced through the TPLF’s indiscriminate killings of non-ethnic-Tigrayans in the Afar and Amhara Regions that they invaded over the summer – but Ethiopia isn’t weaponizing its wheat. To the contrary, it ambitiously aspires to become more agriculturally self-sufficient in order to reduce its dependence on such imports that hostile foreign forces could weaponize against it.
Despite its representatives’ regular rhetoric to the contrary, the West is actually opposed to Global South nations like Ethiopia ever sustainably ensuring food security. One underdiscussed aspect of the American Hybrid War on Ethiopia is how it politicizes agricultural issues – in this case food aid – as part of its increasingly intensifying information war against that country. Not only does it understand how emotive this issue is for the international audience in terms of shaping their perceptions, but it also knows its importance inside Ethiopia.
The BBC’s report notes that the country imports a quarter of its wheat, approximately a quarter of which (so around 6% of its total) it receives as food aid, mostly from the US. Although this ratio might not seem too significant, it can still have a powerful impact on domestic stability during the ongoing conflict if it’s instrumentalized to put further pressure on the government. This agricultural aspect of the American Hybrid War on Ethiopia is also inextricably connected to the economic war against it.
As Ethiopia attempts to reduce its dependence on foreign food aid, it must first seriously consider switching suppliers in order to not remain as vulnerable to the West’s possible weaponization of this aid during the interim. Russia has become an agricultural superpower in recent years, ironically enough largely due to its response to Western sanctions according to President Putin during his remarks at the latest Valdai Club plenary session. It should therefore have more than enough supply to meet Ethiopia’s needs.
The Eurasian Great Power is incomparably more politically reliable than the West as evidenced by its support of Ethiopia during its ongoing anti-terrorist campaign in Tigray. The two countries even signed a military agreement over the summer which aims to revive their Soviet-era strategic partnership. From the Ethiopian perspective, it would be wise to rely more on Russian wheat imports – including through possible food aid – than on Western ones while it transitions towards sustainably ensuring its food security, which will take time.
Altogether, PM Abiy’s comments about wheat shouldn’t be politicized, but praised. He deserves to be applauded for his ambitious vision of reducing Ethiopia’s dependence on foreign imports. Precisely because this is against Western interests, especially in the context of the American Hybrid War on Ethiopia, the issue is being politicized so as to manipulate foreign perceptions of him and his government. Be that as it may, the reality is that Ethiopia is becoming more sovereign under his leadership, which can inspire other African countries.
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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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During the past two years, I’ve made comments about what goes on in research labs. The lunatic “science,” the cruelty visited on humans and animals, who are the test subjects.
My work on this goes back to the 1980s, when I was writing my first book, AIDS INC. After reading renegade and leaked literature at that time, I made the following assessment:
To prove their hypotheses about germs causing diseases, researchers will first do anything to weaken animals, so it then seems injecting them with (purported) germs is infecting them and making them sick.
This “prep work” to weaken animals includes:
Destructive genetic modification;
The injection of toxic chemicals and drugs;
The removal of the animals’ immune systems;
The injection of toxic serums composed of material taken from other animal species;
Exposing the animals to high doses of radiation;
The grafting of material on to the animals from other species;
The caging and isolation of the animals for long periods, which produces great stress and immune-system suppression;
Drilling holes in animals and attaching restraints and sensors to them and inside them;
Berating the animals, treating them as objects;
Conducting research in unsanitary and unclean facilities.
And then, finally—issuing falsified records to support lies about outcomes, in order to prove pre-destined conclusions.
The entire catalog of torture is couched and concealed in dry technical language and euphemism. Medical journals describe NOTHING about the animals’ reactions to this brutal savagery. If they did, the researchers would be exposed as rank sadists, their work would be discredited, and eventually there would be a public uproar.
As for human test subjects, perhaps you’ve heard of the radiation experiments performed on patients in US hospitals during World War 2.
Bottom line: Scientists and government officials decided they needed to know how much radiation would kill a human. After all, workers at The Manhattan Project were trying to build an atomic bomb. They were being exposed to radiation.
So “terminally ill” patients were selected. Informed consent was out of the question. The unknowing patients were secretly injected with high doses of radioactive elements. Tissue samples were taken and analyzed. As it turned out, some of the patients were not terminal. They had been misdiagnosed, or doctors knew up front that they were relatively healthy. The whole study was highly classified, and few people knew of its existence.
From the Atomic Heritage Foundation’s 2017 report, Human Radiation Experiments, here are descriptions of two of the patients:
“Ebb Cade was the first test subject. Cade was a 53-year-old African American male who worked for an Oak Ridge construction company as a cement mixer. On March 24, 1945, he was involved in an auto accident, which caused fractures in his arm and leg. Documents from the time show that he was otherwise healthy. Over the next two weeks, he was given the codename HP-12, with HP standing for Human Product [!]. Dr. Friedell wrote to Dr. Hempelmann at Los Alamos that he had found a primary subject for the plutonium experiment.”
“On April 10, 1945, Dr. Joseph Howland administered a plutonium dose of 4.7 micrograms to Cade, who was awaiting a procedure to set his bones. From 1943-1945, the maximum possible body burden (MPBB) for plutonium had been 5 micrograms, based on limits adopted for radium. Based on animal experimentation, Langham and Friedell had recently concluded that because plutonium remained in the bone for longer than radium, the MPBB should actually be set at 1 microgram. Cade’s dose was nearly five times that limit.”
“Cade was not treated for his arm and leg injuries until April 15, five days after the injection, so that the doctors would be able to biopsy his bone samples. This included extracting 15 of his teeth, which were subsequently shipped to Wright Langham at Los Alamos. It is unclear if Cade suffered from legitimate tooth decay. Shortly after his bones had been set, Cade suddenly discharged himself from the hospital. He moved out of Tennessee and died of heart failure on April 13, 1953, 8 years after the Oak Ridge injection.”
“Another questionable case was CAL-2, a four-year old boy named Simeon Shaw suffering from terminal bone cancer. He was flown with his mother to the UCSF hospital in a US military plane from Australia, apparently under the advisement of a physician in Australia. He arrived in California in April 1946 and was admitted to the hospital. For some time, he was separated [from] his mother, who was only allowed visits periodically. Simeon received a plutonium injection at UCSF under the oversight of Joseph Hamilton and was discharged from the hospital within a month. The Shaws returned to Australia and no follow-ups were ever conducted. Simeon died eight months later.”
“The physicians involved [in the entire project] knew that the procedures had no therapeutic benefits and would be detrimental in the long run if the patients lived. Human experimentation was justified by the claim that the patients were terminally ill; however, this was not true in all cases. Repeated errors in diagnosis, procedure, documentation, and research were made, ultimately calling into question the efficacy of the experiments themselves.”
The doctors and bureaucrats didn’t even have the ethics or common sense to make their reports usable.
Nothing has changed. The COVID vaccines are injuring and killing huge numbers of people all over the world—and governments and media insist on covering up and twisting the facts about the largest grand experiment in human history.
From government leaders in scores of countries, down to decrepit pundits like Noam Chomsky, the word is out: the unvaccinated are lepers and must be isolated from the rest of society.
But sometimes the test subjects rebel and break out of their cages. When they do, they aren’t good little boys and girls.
Then they’re called insurrectionists and terrorists. But the truth is much simpler.
Living beings don’t like to be tortured.
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The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
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For the past two days, I have been watching the extradition hearing for Julian Assange via video link from London. The United States is appealing a lower court ruling that denied the US request to extradite Assange not, unfortunately, because in the eyes of the court he is innocent of a crime, but because, as Judge Vanessa Baraitser in January concluded, Assange’s precarious psychological state would deteriorate given the “harsh conditions” of the inhumane US prison system, “causing him to commit suicide.” The United States has charged Assange with 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count of trying to hack into a government computer, charges that could see him imprisoned for 175 years.
Assange, with long white hair, appeared on screen the first day from the video conference room in HM Prison Belmarsh. He was wearing a white shirt with an untied tie around his neck. He looked gaunt and tired. He did not appear in court, the judges explained, because he was receiving a “high dose of medication.” On the second day he was apparently not present in the prison’s video conference room.
If Assange is extradited and found guilty of publishing classified material, it will set a legal precedent that will effectively end national security reporting, allowing the government to use the Espionage Act to charge any reporter who possesses classified documents, and any whistleblower who leaks classified information, under the Espionage Act.
Assange is being extradited because his organization WikiLeaks released the Iraq War Logs in October 2010, which documented numerous US war crimes — including video images of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other unarmed civilians in the Collateralmurdervideo, the routine torture of Iraqi prisoners, the covering up of thousands of civilian deaths and the killing of nearly 700 civilians that had approached too closely to US checkpoints. He is also being targeted by US authorities for other leaks, especially those that exposed the hacking tools used by the CIA known as Vault 7, which enables the spy agency to compromise cars, smart TVs, web browsers and the operating systems of most smart phones, as well as operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux.
If Assange is extradited and found guilty of publishing classified material, it will set a legal precedent that will effectively end national security reporting, allowing the government to use the Espionage Act to charge any reporter who possesses classified documents, and any whistleblower who leaks classified information.
If the appeal by the United States is accepted Assange will be retried in London. The ruling on the appeal is not expected until at least January.
Assange’s September 2020 trial painfully exposed how vulnerable he has become after 12 years of detention, including seven in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He has in the past attempted suicide by slashing his wrists. He suffers from hallucinations and depression, takes antidepressant medication and the antipsychotic quetiapine. After he was observed pacing his cell until he collapsed, punching himself in the face and banging his head against the wall he was transferred for several months to the medical wing of the Belmarsh prison. Prison authorities found “half of a razor blade” hidden under his socks. He has repeatedly called the suicide hotline run by the Samaritans because he thought about killing himself “hundreds of times a day.”
James Lewis, the lawyer for the United States, attempted to discredit the detailed and disturbing medical and psychological reports on Assange presented to the court in September 2020, painting him instead as a liar and malingerer. He excoriated the decision of Judge Baraitser to bar extradition, questioned her competence, and breezily dismissed the mountains of evidence that high-security prisoners in the United Sates, like Assange, subjected to Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), and held in virtual isolation in supermax prisons, suffer psychological distress. He charged Dr. Michael Kopelman, emeritus professor of neuropsychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, who examined Assange and testified for the defense, with deception for “concealing” that Assange fathered two children with his fiancée Stella Morris while in refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He said that, should the Australian government request Assange, he could serve his prison time in Australia, his home country, after his appeals had been exhausted, but stopped short of promising that Assange would not be held in isolation or subject to SAMs.
The authority repeatedly cited by Lewis to describe the conditions under which Assange will be held and tried in the United States was Gordon Kromberg, the Assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Kromberg is the government’s grand inquisitor in cases of terrorism and national security. He has expressed open contempt for Muslims and Islam and decried what he calls “the Islamization of the American justice system.” He oversaw the 9-year persecution of the Palestinian activist and academic Dr. Sami Al-Arian and at one point refused his request to postpone a court date during the religious holiday of Ramadan. “They can kill each other during Ramadan, they can appear before the grand jury. All they can’t do is eat before sunset,” Kromberg said in a 2006 conversation, according to an affidavit filed by one of Arian’s attorneys, Jack Fernandez.
Kromberg criticized Daniel Hale, the former Air Force analyst who recently was sentenced to 45 months in a supermax prison for leaking information about the indiscriminate killings of civilians by drones, saying Hale had not contributed to public debate, but had “endanger[ed] the people doing the fight.” He ordered Chelsea Manning jailed after she refused to testify in front of a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. Manning attempted to commit suicide in March 2020 while being held in the Virginia jail.
Having covered the case of Syed Fahad Hashmi, who was arrested in London in 2006, I have a good idea of what waits Assange if he is extradited. Hashmi also was held in Belmarsh and extradited in 2007 to the United States where he spent three years in solitary confinement under SAMs. His “crime” was that an acquaintance who stayed in his apartment with him while he was a graduate student in London had raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks in luggage at the apartment. The acquaintance planned to deliver the items to al-Qaida. But I doubt the government was concerned with waterproof socks being shipped to Pakistan. The reason, I suspect, Hashmi was targeted was because, like the Palestinian activist Dr. Sami Al-Arian, and like Assange, he was fearless and zealous in his defense of those being bombed, shot, terrorized and killed throughout the Muslim world while he was a student at Brooklyn College.
Hashmi was deeply religious, and some of his views, including his praise of the Afghan resistance, were controversial, but he had a right to express these sentiments. More important, he had a right to expect freedom from persecution and imprisonment because of his opinions, just as Assange should have the freedom, like any publisher, to inform the public about the inner workings of power. Facing the possibility of a 70-year sentence in prison and having already spent four years in jail, much of it in solitary confinement, Hashmi accepted a plea bargain on one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism. Judge Loretta Preska, who sentenced the hacker Jeremy Hammond and human rights attorney Steven Donziger, gave him the maximum 15-year sentence. Hashmi was held for nine years in Guantanamo-like conditions in the supermax ADX [Administrative Maximum] facility in Florence, Colorado, where Assange, if found guilty in an American court, will almost certainly be imprisoned. Hashmi was released in 2019.
If the government will go to this length to persecute someone who was alleged to have been involved in sending waterproof socks to al-Qaida, what can we expect the government to do to Assange?
The pre-trial detention conditions Hashmi endured were designed to break him. He was electronically monitored 24-hours a day. He could only receive or send mail with his immediate family. He was prohibited from speaking with other prisoners through the walls. He was forbidden from taking part in group prayer. He was permitted one hour of exercise a day, in a solitary cage without fresh air. He has unable to see most of the evidence used to indict him which was classified under the Classified Information Procedures Act, enacted to prevent US intelligence officers under prosecution from threatening to reveal state secrets to manipulate the legal proceedings. The harsh conditions eroded his physical and psychological health. When he appeared in the final court proceeding to accept a guilty plea he was in a near catatonic state, clearly unable to follow the proceedings around him.
If the government will go to this length to persecute someone who was alleged to have been involved in sending waterproof socks to al-Qaida, what can we expect the government to do to Assange?
A society that prohibits the capacity to speak in truth extinguishes the capacity to live in justice. The battle for Assange’s liberty has always been much more than the persecution of a publisher. It is the most important battle for press freedom of our era. And if we lose this battle, it will be devastating, not only for Assange and his family, but for us.
There is no legal basis to hold Assange in prison. There is no legal basis to try him, an Australian citizen, under the US Espionage Act.
Tyrannies invert the rule of law. They turn the law into an instrument of injustice. They cloak their crimes in a faux legality. They use the decorum of the courts and trials, to mask their criminality. Those, such as Assange, who expose that criminality to the public are dangerous, for without the pretext of legitimacy the tyranny loses credibility and has nothing left in its arsenal but fear, coercion and violence. The long campaign against Assange and WikiLeaks is a window into the collapse of the rule of law, the rise of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of inverted totalitarianism, a form of totalitarianism that maintains the fictions of the old capitalist democracy, including its institutions, iconography, patriotic symbols and rhetoric, but internally has surrendered total control to the dictates of global corporations and the security and surveillance state.
There is no legal basis to hold Assange in prison. There is no legal basis to try him, an Australian citizen, under the US Espionage Act. The CIA spied on Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy through a Spanish company, UC Global, contracted to provide embassy security. This spying included recording the privileged conversations between Assange and his lawyers as they discussed his defense. This fact alone invalidated the trial. Assange is being held in a high security prison so the state can, as Nils Melzer, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, has testified, continue the degrading abuse and torture it hopes will lead to his psychological if not physical disintegration.The architects of imperialism, the masters of war, the corporate-controlled legislative, judicial and executive branches of government and their obsequious courtiers in the media, are guilty of egregious crimes. Say this simple truth and you are banished, as many of us have been, to the margins of the media landscape. Prove this truth, as Assange, Chelsea Manning, Jeremy Hammond and Edward Snowden have by allowing us to peer into the inner workings of power, and you are hunted down and persecuted.
Assange’s “crime” is that he exposed the more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians. He exposed the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys, aged between 14 and 89, at Guantánamo. He exposed that Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered US diplomats to spy on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and other U.N. representatives from China, France, Russia, and the UK, spying that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and personal passwords, part of the long pattern of illegal surveillance that included the eavesdropping on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. He exposed that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the CIA orchestrated the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya, replacing it with a murderous and corrupt military regime. He exposed that George W. Bush, Barack Obama and General David Petraeus prosecuted a war in Iraq that under post-Nuremberg laws is defined as a criminal war of aggression, a war crime, which authorized hundreds of targeted assassinations, including those of US citizens in Yemen. He exposed that the United States secretly launched missile, bomb, and drone attacks on Yemen, killing scores of civilians. He exposed that Goldman Sachs paid Hillary Clinton $657,000 to give talks, a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe, and that she privately assured corporate leaders she would do their bidding while promising the public financial regulation and reform. He exposed the internal campaign to discredit and destroy British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by members of his own party. He exposed how the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency permits the wholesale government surveillance of our televisions, computers, smartphones and anti-virus software, allowing the government to record and store our conversations, images and private text messages, even from encrypted apps.
He exposed the truth. He exposed it over and over and over until there was no question of the endemic illegality, corruption and mendacity that defines the global ruling elite. And for these truths alone he is guilty.
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Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of the Emmy Award-nominated RT America show On Contact.
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On 8 October, the renowned scientific journal “The Lancet” published a study on the frequency and burden of COVID19 pandemic measures worldwide in 2020.
According to the researchers and collaborators from the Australian University of Queensland and the University of Washington, the psychological interactions of lockdowns, warnings, “social distancing” and ever new “variants” led to a drastic increase in depression, anxiety disorders and permanent worry.
Women and younger people were most affected (1). According to UNESCO’s findings in this study, “COVID-19” also led to the “most serious disruption of global education in history” (2).
No one can or should remain silent about these research results – as well as about the deaths caused by the so-called COVID “vaccine”. If, as an educationalist and psychologist, one also takes into account that psychological and social injury inflicted in childhood can have an effect on future generations beyond adulthood, then the urgent question arises as to when we citizens of this world will finally break or end this vicious circle.
Supplement to the study in “The Lancet” by publication in “Save the Children”.
I would strongly recommend that every reader reads the entire Lancet study. It was originally published under the title: “Global prevalence and burden of depressive and anxiety disorder in 204 countries and territories in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic” (3). “RT.DE” made the same point under the title “Study confirms: COVID measures led to massive increase in depression and anxiety disorders” on 10 October, drew attention to the study. The article is introduced with the following words:
“For the past year and a half, the Corona crisis has had people firmly in its grip. So far, little official attention has been paid to the psychological collateral damage. Now a study has appeared that took on this topic and provides explosive figures.” (3)
A qualified supplement to this study was published by “RT.DE” on 11 October with a reference to an article by the aid organisation “Save the Children”, which refers to data from the “Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker”. Title: “Lockdown consequences: Number of mental illnesses in children rises sharply”. The lead of the RT.DE article states:
“According to one study, government-imposed restrictions in the Corona crisis have led to a significant increase in mental illness among children – particularly in cases of depression, anxiety, loneliness and also self-harm.” (4)
According to the charity, more than 83 percent of the children reported an increase in negative feelings. If this is not responded to, it is subsequently said, long-term damage can occur – even if the restrictions are lifted.
What conclusions do we want to draw from these study results?
According to the RT-DE article, the authors of the Lancet study called on governments and policymakers to “take urgent action to strengthen mental health systems around the world and meet the increased demand” (5). The charity Save the Children called on governments to “prioritise children’s mental health and regulated learning during and after the Covid crisis” (6).
But are these measures really enough? Wouldn’t it rather be about saving both the most affected women and all other people and especially the young generation on this globe from death and despair.
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Dr Rudolf Hänsel is an educationalist and a qualified psychologist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Comments Off on The Psychological Impacts of Covid-19 Pandemic Measures: Lockdowns, Warnings, “Social Distancing”, “New Variants”. Drastic Increase in Depression and Anxiety
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The two-day U.S. appeal against the denial of extradition of Julian Assange has ended in London with the U.S. promising humane prison conditions and Assange’s lawyers saying the CIA tried to kill him.
Consortium News had remote video access to the courtroom for the two-day hearing.
The United States vowed that only a “moderately depressed” Julian Assange would serve time in a humane U.S. prison if he is extradited, while lawyers for Assange told the High Court that the Central Intelligence Agency plotted to assassinate him, as a two-day U.S. appeal hearing came to a close on Thursday in London.
The U.S. is seeking to overturn a lower court decision in January not to extradite the imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher on the grounds that he is at high risk of suicide if he faced time isolated in a harsh American prison.
A prosecutor for the U.S. set out over the course of the hearing to convince the two High Court justices to reject that ruling, arguing that Assange is not seriously ill and would not be placed in solitary confinement should he be sent to the U.S.
Assange’s lawyers on the other hand defended the lower court finding of severe mental conditions and high likelihood of committing suicide and sought to dismiss American assurances to Britain that Assange would not be put under Special Administrative Measures (SAMS) or housed in the maximum security ADX Florence prison in Colorado.
They went further, telling the court that the foreign intelligence service of the government requesting Assange’s extradition had seriously considered murdering or kidnapping him.
CIA Plot
Assange lawyer Mark Summers QC essentially told the court that before the United States tried to legally extradite him from Britain it discussed concrete plans to extract Assange from Britain by kidnapping him and rendering him to the United States, possibly through a third country.
Summers began by pointing out that it would be the very Central Intelligence Agency, which plotted to harm him, that would ultimately determine whether Assange would be imprisoned in SAMS. “The relationship between the CIA and Mr. Assange is vast and it’s not before this court,” said Summers.
Chief Justice Ian Burnett, one of the two High Court judges, interjected, “It’s not contested that the CIA is intensely interested in Mr. Assange.”
“Yes, but what they are prepared to do,” Summers said. “I invite my Lords to understand the lengths they went to against Mr. Assange.” He then ran through the details of a Yahoo News! report in September about how the CIA plotted against Assange.
“It seems there were discussions in the Oval Office about killing him and sketches were sketches drawn in the summer of 2017 as matters escalated to render him back to America from the U.K.,” Summers said. “But the U.K. refused to go along with this.”
Former CIA director Mike Pompeo “is on the record that some things are true and it’s under Congressional investigation,” Summers said. He referred to testimony in Assange’s September 2020 hearing when former employees of the Spanish security firm UC Global first talked about plans to kidnap or poison Assange.
James Lewis, QC, the prosecutor for the U.S. said nothing about this in his 30-minute rebuttal at the end of the hearing. During the September 2020 extradition hearing Lewis called talk of threats to assassinate Assange “palpable nonsense.”
Assurances Challenged
Lewis spent most of that time defending the assurances the U.S. has given Britain that Assange would not face harsh conditions in a U.S. prison. He first addressed the defense contention that because these assurances came after the lower court judgement that they are new evidence and should be rejected.
“All that has happened is that the requesting state had every opportunity to give assurances and chose otherwise, and then ran a case for two years and lost,” Summers for the defense had earlier said. “Nothing justifies the U.S. changing its case in this way.”
“it is absurd to say we had every opportunity” to provide the assurances before the judgement, Lewis responded. “It is proper to deal with assurances at any stage. This is not a sea change. Assurances are not evidence. The fact is it is common sense that an assurance will be reactive in nature. You can’t anticipate area a judge is focused on until the judge puts out a judgement.”
WikiLeaks Editor in Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson addressing supporters of Julian Assange outside the High Court where the U.S. appeal hearing was held. Oct. 28. (Don’t Extradite Assange Campaign)
Lewis cited a case when the High Court in an extradition case gave a government an additional 14 days to come up with assurances. He cited another case in which the requested person was freed but then the extradition process was restarted when assurances were provided. “We could start again with Assange,” Lewis said ominously.
Summers brought up several cases in which a requesting government had received assurances from the United States that were not fulfilled. He called U.S. assurances “conditional” and “aspirational” citing the language of the assurances that if Assange after imprisonment harmed U.S. national security he could be placed in harsh isolation. Summers said one must stick to the letter and not the spirit of U.S. assurances. He again referred to the CIA plot against Assange.
“Nothing about this is case normal,” he said. “This is a case of credible evidence of U.S. plans to do serious harm to Assange, contemplating assassination, rendering, kidnapping and poisoning and it is worthy an investigation of these assurances that this same government asks us to believe.”
But Lewis said,”The U.S. has never broken diplomatic assurance.”
And because of this, “Mr. Assange now knows he is not going to SAMS or ADX Florence so his suicidal ideology [sic -ideation] should subside,” Lewis said. “He now knows he will get adequate medical care.”
Then Lewis quoted three expert witness from the September hearing, including one from the defense, who each said Assange was only “moderately depressed” rather than beset with a combination of mental conditions that would drive him to suicide if extradited, as the lower court ruling said.
Lewis’ message to the judges was that both pillars of the lower court judgement were demolished: Assange is not seriously ill and he won’t be going to a harsh U.S. prison.
“You have given us much to think about and we’ll take time to consider it,” Burnett told the lawyers as he closed the hearing.
He did not give a date when the High Court’s decision will be made.
*
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Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former UN correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London and began his professional work as a stringer for The New York Times. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe.
Featured image: Stella Moris, Julian Assange’s partner, addressing his supporters outside the High Court on Thursday during the U.S. appeal hearing in London. (Don’t Extradite Assange Campaign)
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During the pandemic many deaths have occurred, approaching 2 million Americans. Ponder this: Have large numbers of excess deaths over pre-pandemic years resulted from something other than COVID infections?
There have been increasing articles and studies about excess deaths during the pandemic. Too many of these seem aimed at getting attention rather than being accurate and balanced. The concept of excess deaths is simple: deaths above what was normally observed before the pandemic. But why are more people dying even after accounting for COVID infection deaths? Getting to the correct answer is the goal of this article.
The core issue in seeking truth is how to evaluate excess deaths during the pandemic and then explain them if they are not caused by COVID infections. If there really are non-infection excess deaths, then the goal is to rise above often bad and uncertain data from government agencies to correctly figure out whether something especially concerning is happening. Perhaps something that governments do not want to acknowledge and deal with, as we shall see.
Classification of deaths
To get to the truth about excess deaths it is important to make a critical distinction by defining two classes of deaths.
Class 1: First, direct pandemic effects are twofold.
Most attention is needed to assess the magnitude of deaths from COVID infection. These include breakthrough cases that are COVID infections despite full vaccination.
The other direct impact is deaths from COVID vaccines.
Class 2: The second class is very different. They are indirect health impacts resulting from actions other than from direct medical actions aimed at addressing COVID.
These are the many collateral deaths resulting from severe contagion controls used by federal and state governments, especially lockdowns, stay at home mandates, limited hospital and physician access, school closings, job losses, travel restrictions and widespread impacts on personal and medical freedom.
These many indirect impacts cause large numbers of deaths across the entire population. They are the collateral damage caused by pandemic government authoritarian actions, but not infections nor COVID vaccines. They are done, supposedly, in the name of public health.
The government does not collect comprehensive data on these indirect deaths. Be clear about this category of deaths. They are caused by all the public health systems to address the pandemic.
To be clear, deaths directly associated with COVID infections cover a range of situations. Government agencies report COVID related deaths. That word “related” is very important, because proving causality has proven contentious. Most physicians see causality when deaths occur soon after COVID symptoms or a positive test result.
There are reasons why there are legitimate concerns and criticisms of official COVID death data. It comes down to what criteria are used to declare a death as either caused by COVID or just, in some way, related to the infection.
US federal and state agencies have, for the most part, been very liberal in declaring deaths as COVID ones. This has resulted from financial incentives, political motivations (maintaining public fear and acceptance of authoritarian government actions) and procedural government guidance.
In the latter category are guidelines from CDC for death certificates issued in March 2020 that replaced a practice used for the previous 17 years. This change allowed physicians, medical examiners and coroners to place less importance on all kinds of health problems contributing to a death and, if there was any evidence of COVID virus infection from testing (before or after death) or symptoms, to declare a death as a COVID one.
In other words, many people, especially the elderly, could have died with COVID but NOT from COVID. They may have died from their underlying medical problems and weakened immune system more than effects directly associated with COVID infection. Some die because they have been given the very expensive approved drug remdesivir that causes acute liver and kidney problems, and has a death rate of over 25%. Yet their deaths go into the COVID death column.
On the other side, is the view that some people have died from COVID infection but their death has not been officially declared as a COVID death. Most likely these have been people who have died at home without medical attention. It is difficult to believe that the numbers of deaths in this class could account for a large excess death figure. Why? Because people who die from COVID infection almost always experience severe symptoms as they move from stage one viral replication to stages two and three when vital organs are attacked, especially breathing problems. These typically cause them to seek medical attention, usually hospitalization where so many COVID deaths occur.
Not to be dismissed, is the reality that many COVID deaths have preempted a number of normally occurring deaths, such as from the seasonal flu and many types of accidents in a more mobile population. The latter are subsumed in the COVID death data. They do not explain excess deaths. If anything, they reduce non-infection excess deaths.
Taking all this into consideration means that COVID death totals are most likely to overstate the lethality of COVID. In fact, as I have discussed elsewhere, COVID lethality for the whole population was initially overstated by Fauci to justify extreme government actions and mass vaccination. He started the pandemic by wrongly saying that the China virus was so much more deadly than the seasonal flu. Only the elderly had a high risk of death (and younger people with serious underlying medical problems) that warranted focused government attention, initially by using safe and effective generics, namely ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, and later vaccines.
In seeking truth about excess deaths, it is most important to recognize the countless and not quantitatively reported indirect impacts of the pandemic on health and deaths of very large numbers of people who were not actually at significant risk from COVID infection.
Deaths have resulted, for example, from people not getting normal pre-pandemic health care from treatment to prevention and suffering from extreme mental stress (often pushing addiction and suicide) caused by abnormal living and negative economic conditions. Unlike direct pandemic deaths there is hardly any useful tabulation of indirect pandemic death impacts by government agencies. In the name of public health government agencies have harmfully impacted the lives of nearly all Americans.
There is need for caution when seeing numerical excess deaths beyond official COVID deaths, in coming up with explanations that involve controversial causes. The big example is blaming what seems as major excess deaths on COVID vaccines. Especially if the many indirect pandemic causes of death are not addressed, mainly because data are not readily available.
Also note that breakthrough COVID infections in fully vaccinated people that sometimes cause death are appropriately categorized as direct COVID deaths.
As I have discussed, declining vaccine ineffectiveness (especially for variants) make the fully vaccinated vulnerable to dying from COVID infection. But it would be wrong to say that these deaths are different than COVID ones. And wrong to place these deaths in a category of vaccine deaths. Moreover, as I have analyzed, breakthrough deaths in the US most likely account for tens of thousands of deaths, much smaller than true excess deaths. Though their numbers are likely to increase in coming months and years as mass vaccination continues. For example, recently this was reported: “Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said that more than 40 percent of people who have died from Wuhan coronavirus in the state of Maryland over the last 6-8 weeks were fully vaccinated.”
To recap, it is important to focus on the many causes of vaccine induced deaths and collateral deaths that do not result from the viral infection. Make no mistake, there are now widely recognized medical explanations of vaccine induced deaths, including a broad array of serious blood problems that this author has reviewed. Data on vaccine deaths will be examined below.
Indirect health impacts
A March 2021 study examined how the pandemic caused non-infection health impacts and made it clear that they cannot be ignored.
“The COVID-19 pandemic and global efforts to contain its spread, such as stay-at-home orders and transportation shutdowns, have created new barriers to accessing healthcare, resulting in changes in service delivery and utilization globally.”
“One hundred and seventy studies were included in the final analysis. Nearly half (46.5%) of included studies focused on cardiovascular health outcomes. The main methodologies used were observational analytic and surveys. Data were drawn from individual health facilities, multicentre networks, regional registries, and national health information systems. Most studies were conducted in high-income countries with only 35.4% of studies representing low- and middle-income countries.”
“Healthcare utilization for non-COVID-19 conditions has decreased almost universally, across both high- and lower-income countries. The pandemic’s impact on non-COVID-19 health outcomes, particularly for chronic diseases, may take years to fully manifest and should be a topic of ongoing study.”
A November 2020 article Death by Lockdown “forecasted more than 100,000 excess deaths due to drug overdoses, suicide, alcoholism, homicide, and untreated depression – all a result not of the virus but of policies of mandatory human separation, economic downturn, business and school closures, closed medical services, and general depression that comes with a loss of freedom and choice.” What was recognized is “that as bad as a virus is, policies that wreck normal social functioning will cause massive and completely unnecessary suffering and death. “
A new article from the New York Post made these wise observations:
“Instead of keeping calm and carrying on, the American elite flouted the norms of governance, journalism, academic freedom — and, worst of all, science. They misled the public about the origins of the virus and the true risk it posed. Ignoring their own carefully prepared plans for a pandemic, they claimed unprecedented powers to impose untested strategies, with terrible collateral damage. We still have no convincing evidence that the lockdowns saved lives, but lots of evidence that they have already cost lives and will prove deadlier in the long run than the virus itself. A few scientists and public-health experts objected, noting that an extended lockdown was a novel strategy of unknown effectiveness. In April 2020, John Ioannidis, Jay Bhattacharya and other colleagues reported that the fatality rate among the infected was considerably lower than the assumptions used to justify lockdowns.”
The TB case has been one of worst collateral health impacts of the pandemic. This was documented in a detailed story. “Tuberculosis killed roughly 1.5 million people in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, up from 1.4 million in 2019. And researchers say COVID is to blame.” And there is every indication that it has gotten much worse worldwide. “The COVID-19 pandemic has reversed years of progress and efforts in the fight against tuberculosis,” said Dr. Tereza Kasaeva, head of WHO’s global TB program. Kasaeva said that COVID lockdowns, limited access to health care and patients’ concerns about visiting medical clinics made TB far more deadly during the pandemic.”
Justin Hart of Rational Ground said in October 2021 that “It’s estimated that 50% of regular child immunizations were missed in the spring of 2020. You can do some actual math and I feel confident in saying that more children will die from missed vaccines in a year’s time than died of COVID-19.” This is just another example of a collateral impact of the pandemic.
Another study “found that COVID-19 was cited in only 65% of excess deaths in the first weeks of the pandemic (March-April 2020); deaths from non–COVID-19 causes (eg, Alzheimer disease, diabetes, heart disease) increased sharply in 5 states with the most COVID-19 deaths.”
The conclusion is that when examining excess deaths, it is important to recognize indirect deaths resulting from pandemic control actions by governments.
The Economist article
Here are highlights from a discussion of this widely addressed article titled “The pandemic’s true death toll.”
This conclusion was the attention grabber: “Fifteen million more people have died during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to historical norms, according to a recent October report by the Economist. This figure is more than three times the reported COVID-19 deaths, which stands at 4.6 million people.” In other words, about 10 million excess deaths over direct COVID infection deaths.
“And what about people who died of preventable causes during the pandemic because hospitals full of COVID-19 patients could not treat them? If such cases count, they must be offset by deaths that did not occur but would have in normal times, such as those caused by flu or air pollution.” These ideas fall into the class of indirect COVID impacts.
The Economist had to invoke indirect pandemic impacts in addition to vaccine induced deaths. When speaking of many millions of excess deaths globally, the only rational explanation are the widespread indirect pandemic impacts that have devastated the entire global population. This means that it has not been the virus that has killed most people, but rather government actions. It is quite plausible that for every COVID death two more people have died from the indirect impacts of pandemic management.
Here are the data reported for North America: 675,000 COVID deaths and 843,000 excess deaths (middle uncertainty). That is a very large number of excess deaths that could only be explained by health impacts of government actions. For the US it was reported that the cumulative COVID-19 infection deaths have reached close to 650,000, and excess deaths are 820,000, presumably indirect deaths. Updating, for the current US 730,000 infection deaths that implies 921,000 indirect collateral deaths.
Important NIH and other results
Here is an important observation from a recent report from the NIH. “Roughly 2.9 million people died in the United States between March 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020. Compared with the same period in 2019, there were 477,200 excess deaths, with 74% of them due to COVID-19.” That amounts to 343,584 COVID deaths during the first year of the pandemic; it is consistent with the over 730,000 COVID deaths reported since 2020.
For 2020 when COVID began ravaging the country, compared to pre-pandemic 2019, that leaves 133,616 deaths to be explained. The answer cannot be deaths associated with COVID vaccines for this pre-vaccination period. That is the key point – pre-vaccination, which means that the plausible explanation for the significant excess deaths of 133,616 are the many negative health impacts causing deaths from the expanding government pandemic control actions in 2020. These included many lockdowns, stay at home mandates, disruptions in health care and loss of jobs. In other words, collateral deaths.
In agreement with this statement was the finding in a medical journal article titled “Excess Deaths From COVID-19 and Other Causes in the US, March 1, 2020, to January 2, 2021.” It said deaths attributed to COVID-19 accounted for 72.4% of US excess deaths, leaving 27.6% explained most likely from collateral deaths.
A June 2021 Scientific American article said 18 percent of excess deaths across the U.S. last year (2020) were not assigned to COVID. Thus, 78% was related to COVID infections. Reported was that Andrew Stokes, Boston University, and his colleagues calculated excess deaths for each of more than 3,100 U.S. counties. To do so, they compared provisional 2020 mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics with predicted death rates based on previous years. The researchers then compared the proportion of excess deaths attributed to COVID on death certificates with those assigned to other causes. Their data showed that 18 percent of excess deaths across the U.S. in 2020 were not assigned to COVID. That infers about 77,000 indirect deaths, reasonably explained by collateral deaths.
A journal article published in April 2021 said this: “Between March 1, 2020, and January 2, 2021, the US experienced 2,801,439 deaths, 22.9% more than expected, representing 522 368 excess deaths… Deaths attributed to COVID-19 accounted for 72.4% of US excess deaths.” That leaves 27.6% or a little over 144,000 non-COVID infection deaths. Detailed data were given on specific non-COVID deaths, including: heart disease, Alzheimer disease/dementia and diabetes.
A September 2021 article titled “Impact of COVID-19 on excess mortality, life expectancy, and years of life lost in the United States” found that for 2020: There were 375,235 excess deaths, with 83% attributable to direct, and 17% attributable to indirect effects of COVID-19. So, about 64,000 deaths were collateral deaths.
Data focused Our World Data website said the following:
“The raw death count gives us a sense of scale: for example, the US suffered roughly 472,000 excess deaths in 2020, compared to 352,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths (75%) during that year.” That leaves 25% or 120,000 collateral deaths.
A new report “Collateral Damage from COVID”said this:
“In the first year of the U.S. COVID pandemic (the 52 weeks ended February 27, 2021) there were 665,000 excess deaths (deaths above the normal seasonal death rate) reported by the CDC. The official COVID death toll for that span was 514,000 (77%). Shockingly, this means that non-COVID deaths caused by the pandemic and possibly by our policy choices, are likely to total at least this 151,000 difference.”
The latter would logically be collateral deaths.
And this is how that 151,000 difference was explained:
“Excess deaths due to unnatural causes surged by an estimated 82,000 above the normal levels, from March 2020 through August 2021. Unnatural causes are dominated by homicides, suicides, overdoses, and accidents. And, excess deaths due to the Big Four natural causes (heart and lung disease, cancer, and stroke) soared by over 86,000 over those same 18 months, mostly during 2020. These two categories alone total 168,000 excess deaths.”
Clearly, many deaths were caused by government pandemic controls that made lives extremely difficult and stressful.
On this point, the report noted:
“The death toll from unnatural causes has risen sharply and is not likely to fall as quickly. Research shows that collateral effects on health, direct and indirect, following unemployment and other economic disruption remain elevated for several years. The same seems likely to be true for overdoses and homicides, due to lingering mental health effects, though perhaps not for accidental deaths.”
In contrast to the above, it was reported in October 2020 that a report by CDC said that overall, an estimated 299,028 excess deaths occurred from late January through October 3, 2020, with 198,081 of them (66 percent) caused by Covid-19. But that left nearly three months in later 2020 unaccounted for, when COVID infections probably mounted. So, some 100,947 (or 134,596 for 12 months) excess deaths not related to COVID infection is mostly in agreement with the above figures. These CDC numbers are the least credible.
Thus, despite data variations, most of these reports were fairly consistent in attributing 72 to 83% of US excess deaths over pre-pandemic years to COVID infection deaths, leaving a fairly broad range of about 64,000 to 151,000 excess deaths to non-infection causes. These would be the collateral impacts of pandemic control actions by federal and state governments, but are much lower than what The Economist estimated; but these are not systematically measured by the government.
The average of the above reports is 25.3% for non-infection deaths and for these an average of 117,745 such collateral deaths annually, and before vaccine deaths would be a significant fact.
Dr. Joseph Mercola views
Receiving major attention on alternative news sites in October 2021 are the views of Dr. Mercola that will now be summarized. He has been a strong proponent for explaining non-infection deaths on the basis of COVID vaccines.
“The number of Americans who have died between January 2021 and August 2021 is 16% higher than 2018, the pre-COVID year with the highest all-cause mortality, and 18% higher than the average death rate between 2015 and 2019. Adjusted for population growth of about 0.6% annually, the mortality rate in 2021 is 16% above the average and 14% above the 2018 rate.”
Mercola asked the key question: “Did COVID-19 raise the death toll despite mass vaccination, or are people dying at increased rates because of it?”
“The death toll from the jabs is estimated to be between 200 and 500 deaths per million doses administered. With 4 billion doses having been administered around the world, that means 800,000 to 2 million so-called ‘COVID-19 deaths’ may in fact be vaccine-induced deaths.”
This range is a high fraction of about 5 million total global COVID infection deaths. In the US 414 million doses have been given; using the above range that yields a range of 82,800 to 207,000 vaccine deaths on top of the 730,000 infection deaths given by CDC.
[To be clear, vaccine induced deaths are definitely real and significant. The issue is their magnitude. Nor is it fair to argue that vaccine induced deaths are to some degree hidden within COVID death data. And clearly it is unreasonable to argue that high COVID deaths after mass vaccination, which has been widely observed, should be counted as vaccine deaths.]
The key question is whether the high level of US vaccine deaths is compatible with what the public is seeing.
Mercola also references the following:
“According to this whistleblower, the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) under-reports deaths caused by the COVID shots by a conservative factor of five or more. She claims the number of Americans killed by the shots was at least 45,000 as of July 9, 2021. At that time, VAERS reported 9,048 deaths following COVID injection. That number is now 16,310 (as of October 1, 20218). Using an under-reporting factor of five, that gives us an estimated vaccine death toll of 81,550.”
That is at the low end of the range calculated above.
Another source is also used by Mercola:
“Steve Kirsch, executive director of the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund, has come up with even more drastic numbers. In the video ‘Vaccine Secrets: COVID Crisis,’ he argues that VAERS can be used to determine causality, and shows how the VAERS data indicate more than 212,000 Americans have already been killed by the COVID shots.”
That is at the high end of the range calculated above.
To recap, Mercola’s reporting provided different sources to support the range of 82,800 to 207,000 for vaccine deaths to date.
Rose and Crawford study
The September 2021 study “Government’s Own Data Reveals that at Least 150,000 Probably DEAD in U.S. Following COVID-19 Vaccines.” by Jessica Rose and Mathew Crawford is the most detailed and impressive effort to determine vaccine deaths. It has been criticized by FDA: “Although under reporting is a limitation in VAERS, with regard to COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring, there currently is not evidence to suggest it would underestimate the amount of COVID-19 vaccine-related deaths to such a large degree.”..This author disagrees with FDA. Here is the official view of CDC: “’Underreporting’ is one of the main limitations of passive surveillance systems, including VAERS. The term, underreporting refers to the fact that VAERS receives reports for only a small fraction of actual adverse events.” As you will see below, the 150,000 figure for vaccine deaths is a low, conservative estimate.
This is the summary of its findings: “Analysis of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database can be used to estimate the number of excess deaths caused by the COVID vaccines. A simple analysis shows that it is likely that over 150,000 Americans have been killed by the current COVID vaccines as of Aug 28, 2021.” This is close to the high end of the range given above.
The study is both long and complex. Here are some highlights.
On the problem of underreporting of vaccine deaths: “In our informal physician surveys we saw a bias to under-report serious adverse events in order to make the vaccines look as safe as possible to the American public since most physicians believe they are hurting society if they do anything to create vaccine hesitancy. Secondly, we’d estimate that at least 95% of physicians have completely bought into the “safe and effective” narrative and thus any event that they observe they deem as simply anecdotal and don’t bother to report it since it couldn’t have been caused by such a safe vaccine that appeared to do so well in the Phase 3 trials.”
On the search for quantifying underreporting in the CDC VEARS system: “The point of this paper is not to find the exact number of deaths, but merely to find the most credible estimate for deaths. We think that anaphylaxis is an excellent proxy for a serious adverse event that, like a death, should always be reported so we think 41X is the most accurate number.” That means multiplying CDC numbers by 41.
To get estimates of vaccine deaths: “There are three ways to estimate the number of excess deaths caused by the vaccine. Using these three methods we can estimate the low and high likely bounds for the number of excess deaths caused by the vaccine:
Subtract the average number of background deaths in previous years: estimate is 252,109
Use 86% based on the analysis in the Mclachlan study; estimate is 252,073
This was the explanation for looking at other studies: “In order to validate that our estimates are reasonable (or simply that the evidence was more likely consistent with the hypothesis that the vaccine does more harm than good), we looked at four different quantitative methods from very small to very large and summarized their estimates:”
Excess Case Fatality Rate analysis done in Europe: 72,000-180,000
Excess death analysis for 23 nations: 147,960
Small island study: 171,000
Analysis of Norway deaths: 150,000
“In summary, the qualitative and quantitative confirmation techniques we used were all independent of each other and of our main method, yet all were consistent with the hypothesis that the vaccines cause large numbers of serious adverse events and excess deaths and are inconsistent with the null hypothesis that the vaccines have no effect on mortality and have a safety profile comparable to that of other vaccines.”
“We were not able to find a single piece of evidence that supported the FDA and CDC position that all the excess deaths were simply over-reporting of natural cause deaths.”
In wrapping up a very complex analysis this was said:
“In 1976, they halted the H1N1 vaccine after 500 GBS cases and 32 people died. However, there is no stopping mortality condition for these [COVID] vaccines. We are likely at 150,000 deaths and counting and nobody in the mainstream medical establishment, mainstream media, or Congress is raising any concerns. No member of the medical community is calling for any stopping condition nor autopsies. We find this troubling.”
Here is the most important reason for respecting this study. As you can see the final estimate of 150,000 vaccine deaths is lower than other figures in various studies but consistent with the range from Mercola’s reporting. Overall, this figure of 150,000 vaccine deaths is conservative.
Here are more concluding insights that the public should greatly think through, especially when deciding whether or not to get a vaccine shot, initial or booster:
“In short, say our vaccine reduces the risk of dying from COVID by 2X. But it came at a cost, e.g., increasing your risk of dying from a heart attack by 4X. And let’s say both events are equally likely (which they aren’t). Then you’ve made a bad decision… you’re more likely to die if you took the vaccine.
“When you combine (1) the negative efficacy of the vaccine with (2) the negative all-cause mortality benefit, it’s impossible to justify vaccination. Either alone is sufficient to kill the benefit; both of them together makes things even more difficult for recommending vaccination.”
“The bottom line is clear: If you got the vaccine, you were simply more likely to die. The younger you are, the greater the disparity.”
As more Americans succumb to pressure, propaganda and mandates it is very likely that the figure of 150,000 vaccine deaths will become an underestimate of the lethality of COVID vaccines.
Lastly, it is relevant to note what the eminent medical researcher Dr. Judy Mikovits has said. Her medical science credentials are impeccable, including a long stint at the National Cancer Institute. Her views may seem extreme to some people, but they are based on a deep scientific understanding and are consistent with the highly frightening forecasts of other scientists and physicians.
She said:
“I just can’t even imagine a recipe for anything other than what I would consider mass murder on a scale where 50 million people will die in America from the vaccine.”
Time will tell whether this dire prediction will materialize as more people get the shot. The shot that kills.
Israel death situation is important
Since the start of the third booster shot on July 30 the COVID death rate in Israel has been reported to have jumped from about .15 to 3.5 per million in early September. A 22 percent increase. Is it possible that a similar negative impact will happen in the US?
In an August 2021 paper entitled “Young adult mortality in Israel during the COVID-19 crisis,” noted Israeli researcher Dr.Steve Ohana examined a surge in Israeli youth deaths which he says are unexplained by anything other than a surge in vaccinations for the age group 20-49.“ Specifically, he noted that “, the surge in mortality coincided with the rollout of the Israeli vaccination campaign for the 20 s to 49-year-olds, which reached more than 75% of individuals in this age group.” Dr.Ohana concluded that his findings should “urgently prompt a pause in the vaccination campaign, until the reasons of the youth excess mortality observed in mass vaccination countries are clarified.”
Finally, here is perhaps the most interesting development in Israel recently reported. “There are a million people that are currently about to surrender their freedoms instead of getting a booster.” This means that one million people in the most vaccinated country on the planet were letting their Green Pass expire.” This would greatly curtail their freedom to access many places.
A report from Israel examined excess deaths for one period and reported the following: “According to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), during January-February 2021, in the midst of the vaccination operation, there was a 22% increase in overall mortality in Israel compared to the bi-monthly average mortality in the previous (pre vaccination) year. In fact, the period of January-February 2021 is the deadliest one in the last decade, with the highest overall mortality rates, when compared to the corresponding months over the last 10 years. The report highlights that younger people between the ages of 20-29 appear to be the demographic that saw the most dramatic increase in mortality following the rollout of the Pfizer vaccine. “In this group, during the same vaccination period, January-February 2021, there has been a 32% increase in overall mortality compared to the bi-monthly average mortality in 2020.”
As the US pushes booster shots for everyone, including young people, there may be lessons to learn from Israel.
Conclusions
It is challenging to reconcile the average of 117,745 excess deaths beyond infection deaths given above with the conservative figure of 150,000 vaccine deaths. Add in the indirect, even higher collateral deaths across society broadly, probably what The Economist found, namely for the current US 730,000 infection deaths and some 921,000 indirect collateral deaths. The latter seems reasonable when you consider that most of the population, several hundred million people, had their lives devastated by government pandemic controls. In other words, a collateral death rate of around .5%.
As to the latter, though taken in the name of public health, most government actions have had no basis in medical science. Considering all the deaths, pandemic management has been a colossal failure with the highest level of COVID infection deaths globally in the US.
Adding up the infection, vaccine and collateral deaths gets to a total approaching 2 million pandemic deaths. And note that breakthrough infections of the fully vaccinated are escalating, as vaccines lose effectiveness, and are at least 10,000 to 20,000.
Public health officials failed to promote early wide use of generics and foolishly pushed mass vaccination that has not proven effective. The former could have prevented over 600,000 infection deaths.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that public health officials have stubbornly refused to admit their mistakes.
The government has made no attempt to systematically account for the non-infection indirect collateral pandemic deaths. And surely more and more Americans are dying from the onerous pandemic controls – now emphasizing vaccine mandates – that are destroying and disrupting the lives of millions of people. Especially in view of the above estimates for vaccine deaths.
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This article was originally published on NOQ Report.
Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn, author of Pandemic Blunder and many articles and podcasts on the pandemic, worked on health issues for decades. As a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he directed a medical research program between the colleges of engineering and medicine. As a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association, he directed major studies on health-related subjects; he testified at over 50 US Senate and House hearings and authored hundreds of articles and op-ed articles in major newspapers. He has served as an executive volunteer at a major hospital for more than 10 years. He is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and America’s Frontline Doctors.
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Israeli forces continued to commit crimes and multi-layered violations against Palestinian civilians and their properties, including raids into Palestinian cities that are characterized with excessive use of force, assault, abuse, and attacks on civilians, turning the West Bank into isolated blocks of land. This week, Israeli Defense Minister, Benny Gantz, designated six pioneering Palestinian civil society organizations as terrorist organizations, allegedly for affiliations with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), aiming to free Palestine and abolish the State of Israel. This is an obvious ploy to silence and end these leading organizations, who expose the occupation’s crimes, aim to prosecute them before the international criminal court, and support Palestinian people’s resilience.
The Israeli settlement expansion works continued on Palestinian lands and properties. Meanwhile, the Gaza Strip enters its 15th year under closure, exacerbating the humanitarian hardships across the territory.
Persecution of Palestinian civil society organizations and human rights defenders:
Israeli occupation authorities designated six pioneering Palestinian civil society organizations as terrorist organizations, allegedly for affiliations with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, aiming to free Palestine and abolish the State of Israel.
According to the Israeli decision the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Al-Haq, Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International – Palestine, and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees are all terrorist organizations based on information supplied by NGO Monitor, a right-wing organization known to be anti-Palestinian.
These organizations are well known, each pioneering in their field with significant achievements over the course of their decades long work in the occupied Palestinian territory. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli decision and asserts that it is an obvious ploy to silence and end these leading organizations, who expose the occupation’s crimes, aim to prosecute them before international justice, and support Palestinian people’s resilience. PCHR warns that the Israeli decision is an attempt to provide legal coverage to persecuting these organizations, targeting their personnel, and liquidating them.
Army shooting and violation of right to bodily integrity:
Soldiers shot and wounded 7 civilians in excessive use of force in the West Bank: 3 wounded in an army assault on Kufur Qaddoum weekly protest, Qalqilia; 2 others as soldiers protected a group of settlers attacking farmers in Ramallah; 1 wounded in Bidu; and another during an army incursion into Ya’bad, Jenin.
In the Gaza Strip, the Navy confiscated 2 rowboats and destroyed the contents of a third at sea. PCHR documented 6 incidents of the Navy shooting at fishing boats in the Gaza Sea, and two incidents of the army on agricultural lands in eastern Gaza.
Army incursions and arrests of Palestinian civilians:
The army carried out 94 incursions into the occupied West Bank. Those incursions included raids of civilian houses and shootings, enticing fear among civilians, and attacking many of them. During this week’s incursions, 61 Palestinians were arrested, including 7 children.
In the Gaza Strip, the army conducted a limited incursion into eastern Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Demolitions:
PCHR documented 9 incidents:
Occupied East Jerusalem: 2 Palestinians forced to demolish their homes; another family forced to destroy an entire floor of their house in Wadi Joz. Razing and demolitions continue in al-Shuhadaa graveyard in Bab al Asbat.
Hebron: cease-construction notice served against a house, water well and sheep barn. Sit-in tent demolished in eastern Yatta. Four houses receive cease-construction notices in western Ethna.
Tubas: classrooms dismantled in al-Maleh in the Jordan valleys.
Ramallah: 4 shops destroyed in Dayr Qadis.
Settler-attacks:
Ramallah: two farmers assaulted during olive harvest in Turmus Ayya; a vehicle set on fire and tires of three other vehicles punctured.
Salfit: shepherd assaulted and an attempt to steal his sheep in Jabel Natif.
Bethlehem: 25 olive tree seedlings uprooted in southern al-Masara.
Israeli closure policy and restrictions on freedom of movement:
The Israeli occupation authorities continued to ban the entry of dozens of goods, including construction materials, in collective punishment measures against the Gaza Strip as the Israeli closure imposed on the territory entered its 15th year, without an end in sight that would fulfil Palestinians’ right to enjoy their economic, social, and cultural rights.
Meanwhile, occupation authorities continued to divide the West Bank into separate cantons with key roads blocked by the Israeli occupation since the 2000 Second Intifada -still closed to this date- and with temporary and permanent checkpoints, where civilian movement is restricted, and they are subject to arrest, especially at al-Karama border crossing, alongside the Palestinian-Jordanian border.
Attacks on civil society organizations and human rights defenders
On Friday, 22 October 2021, Israeli Defense Minister, Benny Gantz, designated six pioneering Palestinian civil society organizations as terrorist organizations. According to the Israeli decision the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Al-Haq, Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International – Palestine, and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees are all terrorist organizations, affiliated with the leadership of the PFLP which aims to destroy Israel and free Palestine. The decision also claimed that these organization are run and operated by PFLP leaders and activists.
According to Israeli allegations, the designation was the result of a collaboration between the Israeli Shin Bet and the National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing of Israel that started early this year.
Shooting and other Violations of the Right to Life and Bodily Integrity
At approximately 12:30 on Friday, 22 October 2021, soldiers stationed on the northern entrance to Kufur Qaddoum village, northern Qalqilia, suppressed a peaceful protest led by dozens of Palestinians. Soldiers chased the protestors and clashed with them; the army fired live bullets, tear gas canisters and stun grenades. As a result, 2 Palestinians sustained bullet wounds in their extremities, and 1 in the back.
At approximately 15:00 on Friday, dozens of Palestinians gathered near Bidu village, northwestern occupied East Jerusalem, and threw stones at the army and their military vehicles in protest to the detention of the bodies of three Palestinians from the village who were killed by the army a month ago. Immediately, soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets and tear gas canisters at the protestors, wounding Ahmed J. Abdulqaher (21) with a rubber bullet in the back. He was taken to Palestine Medical Complex for treatment.
At approximately 17:00, soldiers assaulted the weekly march in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood against settlement expansion activities. Participants were physically assaulted, particularly after they attempted to raise the Palestinian flag. Mohammed Kh. Abulhomes (55), an activist, was pushed to the ground, kicked, and beaten, as well as Nafisa Khwaiseh, an elderly woman, and Iyad Sab-el-laban, who was summonsed to interrogation for refusing to turn in his cellphone and for allowing his son to hold the Palestinian flag.
At approximately 18:00, a joint Israeli security and intelligence force backed by a helicopter raided Raed Syam’s house in Jabel Mukaber, southeastern occupied East Jerusalem. They ransacked through the house and assaulted all residents. They withdrew after arresting 4 members of the family.
Raed Syam stated that at approximately 17:30 a reconciliation meeting was scheduled between his family and neighbors in the area. As more than 20 persons were gathered in the house yard, they were shocked to see Israeli forces raid the area. Soldiers broke the front gate, and within moments, dozens of Israeli soldiers surrounded the house and assaulted all those inside, including women, children, and elderlies. Soldiers struck them with their rifle butts and sprayed pepper spray at them. They forced everybody to the ground in order to cover the Israeli intelligence forces as they broke into the house. They ransacked through the house, took down AC units to search them, and searched each of the vehicles parked in front of the house.
Syam pointed out that he requested the soldiers show him a search warrant, but they refused, assaulted him, and threatened to shoot him. They yelled at him, demanding that he present his Palestinian passport, but he denied having any identification documents issued by Palestinian authorities. They searched through his personal files. Syam said that soldiers assaulted his cousin, Alaa, who recently underwent a critical kidney surgery despite their pleads for them to stop; the soldiers did not care and continued to beat him more intensely as they said, “let him die.”
Syam mentioned that soldiers assaulted the women who were praying inside the house before pushing them out forcibly and putting them to the ground. Soldiers arrested Ibrahim M. Syam (72), Ibrahim R. Syam (26) Alaa A. Syam (42), Omar A. Syam (30). They were interrogated for several hours before release. All the arrestees suffered bruises and cuts in the face and entire bodies; no medical attention was provided.
At approximately 20:00, soldiers moved into the road leading to al-Fawwar refugee camp in Hebron and stationed by its entrance. Dozens of young Palestinians gathered and threw rocks at the military vehicles. The soldiers deployed in the area, shot stun grenades, tear gas bombs and rubber-coated bullets at the stone-throwers, causing them to suffocate. The clashes continued until 23:00. No arrests were reported.
At approximately 21:30, Israeli Navy gunboats in the northern Gaza sea chased Palestinian fishing boat sailing at 3 nautical miles, pumped water at them and opened heavy fire at them, stirring fear among the fishermen and forcing them to flee. No casualties were reported.
At approximately 02:30 on Saturday, 23 October 2021, Navy gunboats in the northern Gaza sea chased Palestinian fishing boat sailing at 3 nautical miles, pumped water at them and opened heavy fire at them, stirring fear among the fishermen and forcing them to flee. No casualties were reported.
At approximately 08:30, soldiers stationed along Gaza border area opened fire in eastern Khan Younis at nearby agricultural lands. No casualties were reported.
At approximately 19:30, soldiers stationed along Gaza border area opened fire sporadically in northern Beit Lahia at nearby lands. No casualties were reported.
At approximately 08:00 on Sunday, 24 October 2021, Israeli Navy gunboats in the northern Gaza sea chased Palestinian fishing boat sailing at 3 nautical miles and opened heavy fire at them. The attack recurred at 11:00, stirring fear among the fishermen and forcing them to flee. No casualties were reported.
At approximately 05:30 on Monday, 25 October 2021, Navy gunboats in the northern Gaza sea chased Palestinian fishing boat sailing at 3 nautical miles and opened heavy fire at them. The attack continued on and off until 08:00, stirring fear among the fishermen and forcing them to flee. No casualties were reported.
At approximately 21:00, soldiers moved into Yabad, southwestern Jenin; a group of Palestinians gathered and threw rocks at Israeli military vehicles. Soldiers fired tear gas canisters and sound bombs at them, as well as rubber-coated bullets. As a result, a Palestinian male sustained a bullet in the left thigh and was transferred to hospital for treatment.
At approximately 08:00 on Wednesday, 27 October 2021, Navy gunboats in the southern Gaza sea confiscated a 2 rowboats and took them to an unknown destinations. The gunboats opened fire in the area at a 3rd rowboat and destroyed its contents.
The Fishermen Syndicate in Rafah stated that the Israeli naval forces confiscated two rowboats anchored at 7 nautical miles. The boats area used for lighting purposes as each holds a generators and at least 25 flashlights. The boats belong to Mohammed Omar al-Bardawyl (35) and Mohammed Adel al-Bardawyl (30). The Navy also fired at another rowboat, destroying two generators and 26 flashlights, property of Mohammed Adel al-Bardawyl.
Incursions and arrests
Thursday, 21 October 2021:
At approximately 01:00, soldiers arrested Nour Ishaq Ghaith (20), after raiding and searching his house in Hebron.
Around the same time, soldiers arrested Tayseer Azmi Manasra (25), after raiding and searching his house in al-Dawha village, west of Bethlehem.
At approximately 02:00, soldiers arrested Hamza Mahmoud al-Wahsh (23) along with his brother, Mohannad (21), after raiding and searching their house in al-Khader, southwest of Bethlehem.
At approximately 04:00, soldiers arrested (3) civilians, including a child, after raiding and searching their houses in Bayt Fajar village, south of Bethlehem. The arrestees are: Rabea’ Ahmed Taqateqa (17), Mohammed Wajeeh Thawabtah (18), and Yousef Mohammed Thawabtah (18).
At approximately 15:00, soldiers arrested Omar Mo’amar Abu al-Hawa (24), from al-Tur neighborhood, east of the occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City, while present in Bab al-Amud area, in the city.
At approximately 19:30, soldiers arrested (3) civilian from al-Isawiya village, northeast of the occupied East Jerusalem, while present near the entrance of al-Eizariya village, east of Jerusalem. The arrestees are: Omar Marwan Obaid (23), Mohammed Ayman Obaid (22), and Mohammed Fo’ad Abu Rajab (18).
At approximately 22:30, soldiers arrested Abdullah Abu Romouz (23), after raiding and searching his house in al-Tur neighborhood, east of the occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City.
The army carried out (2) incursions in Dura and Samu villages in Hebron. No arrests were reported.
Friday, 22 October 2021:
At approximately 16:00, soldiers arrested No’man Naser and Saleem Ayed after raiding and searching their houses in Silwan, south of the occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City.
Saturday, 23 October 2021:
At approximately 01:00, soldiers arrested Mo’tasem Faraj Obaido (20), after raiding and searching his house in Hebron.
At approximately 02:30, soldiers arrested Na’el Riyad Omar (47) along with his son, Saher (20), after raiding and searching their house in Far’un village, east of Tulkarem.
At approximately 16:00, soldiers arrested Naseer Ya’qoub Jaradat (26), after stopping him on a temporary military checkpoint established at the entrance of Beit Einun village, north of Hebron.
The army carried out (4) incursions in Shuyukh, Yatta, Dayr Samet and Idhna villages in Hebron. No arrests were reported.
Sunday, 24 October 2021:
At approximately 02:30, soldiers arrested Nader Ramzi Zahida (25), after raiding and searching his house in Hebron.
At approximately 06:00, soldiers arrested (3) civilians after raiding and searching their houses in Husan, west of Bethlehem. The arrestees are: Qassam Ramzi ‘Amira (18), Qusai Adli Hamamera (22), and Mohammed Ra’ouf Abu Yabis (22).
At approximately 17:30, soldiers arrested a child, Mohammed Mahmoud Owda (13), after raiding and searching his house in Silwan, south of the occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City.
At approximately 20:00, soldiers arrested a child, Na’el Rebhi Taqateqa (15), after referring to “Gush Etzion” investigation center, south of Bethlehem, on a prior summons.
At approximately 21:40, soldiers arrested two children, Yaser Arafat Shuqair (11) and Yazan Na’eem Qadous (10), after raiding and searching their houses in al-Zawiya village, west of Salfit.
Monday, 25 October 2021:
At approximately 02:00, soldiers arrested (3) civilians after raiding and searching their houses in the occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City. The arrestees are: Amir Adnan al-Karaki (22), Yehya Ziyad Sharaf (20), and Saif Ibrahim Samrin (20).
At approximately 02:15, soldiers arrested Abdul Baset Mohammed Mo’tan (48), after raiding and searching his house in al-Bireh, north of Ramallah governorate. It should be noted that Mo’tan is a cancer patient and former prisoner who is receiving cancer treatment and needs a medical follow-up.
At approximately 04:00, soldiers arrested Anas Adnan Hamarsha (21) and Mus’ab Belal Hirzallah (22), after raiding and searching their houses in Ya’bad, southwest of Jenin governorate.
At approximately 04:10, soldiers arrested (3) civilians after raiding and searching their houses in Beita, southeast of Nablus governorate. The arrestees are: Eyad Diab Shamsah (29), Salah Salama Shamsah (33), and Yehya Mohammed Diab (21).
At approximately 07:00, soldiers reinforced with several military vehicles moved dozens of meters to the east of al-Fukhari village, southeast of Khan Younis. They levelled and combed lands adjacent to the border fence, heading to the south, before they deployed again inside the border fence.
Around the same time, soldiers arrested Ahmed Salah Abu ‘Azab (26), after raiding and searching his house in al-’Am’ari refugee camp, southeast of al-Bireh, north of Ramallah governorate.
At approximately 13:00, soldiers arrested Khaled Fawwaz Salah (30), after raiding and searching his house in al-Khader village, southwest of Bethlehem.
At approximately 18:00, Israeli Intelligence Services arrested Abdul Rahman Bkairat, head of Zaid Bin Thabit School for Quran Memorization, after referring to al-Maskobiya investigation center in West Jerusalem, on a prior summons.
At approximately 22:00, soldiers arrested Murad Sami Asakra, after stopping and searching his vehicle at a temporary military checkpoint established at the entrance of Teqoa village, east of Bethlehem.
The army carried out an incursion in Azzun Atme village, south of Qalqilia. No arrests were reported.
Tuesday, 26 October 2021:
At approximately 01:00, soldiers arrested Ibrahim Munir Arafa (29), after raiding and searching his house in Dheisha refugee camp, southwest of Bethlehem.
Around the same time, Israeli soldiers arrested Suhaib Mohammed al-Qawasmah (23), after raiding and searching his house in Hebron.
Around the same time, Israeli soldiers arrested Montaser Yousef Abu Ayyash (33), after raiding and searching his house in Beit Ummar, north of Hebron.
At approximately 02:00, Israeli soldiers arrested Mohye Ayman al-Shirwana (24) and Hazem Husain al-Shirwana (25), after raiding and searching their houses in Dura, southwest of Hebron.
At approximately 13:00, soldiers arrested Ehab Rakiz Huweity (27), from Tulkarem governorate, while passing through al-Container military checkpoint, east of Bethlehem. It should be noted that al-Huweity had a car accident 20 days ago, and he was heading to Beit Jala Governmental Hospital to complete his treatment.
At approximately 18:00, soldiers raided and searched a supermarket belonging to Ghawadera family, in ‘Arraba, southwest of Jenin governorate, and arrested Alaa Hisham Ghawadera (20), from Mirka village.
At approximately 21:40, soldiers arrested As’ad Ziyad Shadeed (34), after raiding and searching his house in Illar village, north of Tulkarem.
At approximately 10:00, soldiers stormed the yard of Abouna Ibrahim Monastery in Ras al-’Amud neighborhood, east of the occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City. They banned organizing art or culture events for the students and their families in Jerusalem with a decision signed by the Israeli Minister of Interior, under the pretext that the event was sponsored by the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Marwan al-Ghoul, director of Silwan Sports Club, confirmed that the events organized by Silwan sports club were in cooperation with the Palestinian National Theater (Hakawati), National Conservatory of Music and moving theater, with the sponsorship of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Al-Ghoul stated that he received a phone call from the Israeli Authorities to inform him to cancel the events which were scheduled to begin at approximately 10:00 on Tuesday, 26 October, and finish on Thursday evening. He added that the administrative board of the club refused to cancel the events because they did not receive any official decision. As soon as they started the first event in Abouna Ibrahim Monastery’s yard, they noticed soldiers stationing at the monastery’s gates without storming the place because the French consul participated in the event. Al-Ghoul stated that, as soon as the French consul left the monastery, the Israeli soldiers stormed the monastery’s yards wearing civilian clothes and handed him a summons to refer to al-Qishla investigation center. Furthermore, soldiers handed the director of the monastery a decision that bans any future events sponsored by the PA.
Al-Ghoul emphasized that when he referred to Moscovia Investigation Center, the Israeli Intelligence Services informed him that the Israeli Security Chief issued a decision that bans such events, claiming that they pose threat to the alleged Israeli sovereignty in occupied Jerusalem under the pretext that they were sponsored by the PA. Also, al-Ghoul highlighted that the events aimed to spread joy among children and students in the occupied Jerusalem, by performing music shows and theatre performances, in addition to evening shows special for families.
Wednesday, 27 October 2021:
At approximately 02:30, soldiers arrested two children, Yazan Amer Sabbah (15) and Ibrahim Sameer Sabbah (15), after raiding and searching their houses in Teqoa, east of Bethlehem.
At approximately 03:00, soldiers arrested (5) civilians after raiding and searching their houses in Bir village, southwest of Jenin governorate. The arrestees are: Mohammed Mahmoud Ghawadera (35), Marwan Mohammed Ghawadera (27), Ahmed Ali Ghawadera (25), Laith Hamza Ghawadera (24), and Ragheb Emad Ghawadera (20).
Settlement Expansion and settler violence in the West Bank
a. Land razing, Demolitions, and Notices
On Saturday afternoon, 16 October 2021, Jaber family were forced to self-demolish their house in Wadi al-Joz neighborhood, east of occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City, pursuant to the Israeli Municipality’s demolition decision allegedly for unlicensed construction.
Nader Jaber said that his father built the house in 1991 on an area of 92 sqms in Wadi al-Joz neighborhood. Jaber said that the Israeli municipality has haunted the family since 1998 and imposed fines on his mother after his father passed away. His mother has paid fines for 14 years, and although the Israeli municipality decided to exempt her from paying the fines as she was over 90 years old, it notified the family of demolishing the house after she passed away. Jaber said that his mother died in 2019 and the house had become a reunion for the 100 family members. However, authorities again haunted them and the Israeli court issued a final decision to demolish the house, forcing the family to self-demolish their house to avoid paying the demolition costs for the municipality or arresting any of the family members in case the municipal crews implemented the decision. Jaber stressed that the Israeli municipality has not given a construction license for tens of years specifically in this area, which is of a strategic location and connects many areas with each other.
At approximately 11:30 on Sunday, 24 October 2021, soldiers backed by military vehicles and accompanied with an Israeli Civil Administration vehicle moved into At-Tuwani village, east of Yatta, south of Hebron. The Civil Administration distributed notices to stop construction works in several facilities under the pretext of unlicensed construction in Area C.
The notices included the following:
1. A 3-storey house belonging to Ghanem Hussein al-Hreini;
2. A 70-cubic meter water well belonging to Fo’ad Fadel al-‘Amour; and
3. A sheep barn of shed cloth and a tinplate bathroom belonging to Ghandi Na’im al-‘Amour.
At approximately 17:20 on Monday, 25 October 2021, soldiers accompanied with a bulldozer, a truck-mounted crane and a Civil Administration SUV moved into al-Maleh area in the Northern Jordan Valley in eastern Tubas.
Soldiers surrounded al-Tahadi School, levelled and a confiscated a 150-sqm metal shed. The workers brought by the Civil Administration from private companies dismantled and confiscated 2 barracks of 25 sqms; one was used as a classroom and the other as a clinic, under the pretext of their presence in Area C.
In the same afternoon, Jaber family self-demolished a floor in Wadi al-Joz neighborhood, east of occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City only 2 days after demolishing the second floor, pursuant to the Israeli municipality’s decision under the pretext of unlicensed construction.
Nader Jaber said that 2 days ago, the family self-demolished their deceased mother’s house that was built in 1991; it was a 92-sqm second floor, pursuant to the Israeli municipality’s decision and to avoid paying tens of thousands of shekels for the municipality crews’ demolition costs. Jaber explained that the family sent photos of the demolished second floor to the municipality, which ordered the family to demolish the first floor as well, giving them only 48 hours to demolish the 40-sqm residential room and its facilities or it will send the bulldozers to do so. Jaber stressed that his family was forced to self-demolish the first and second floors with hand tools like thousands of other Palestinian families who self-demolished their houses for fear of Israeli municipality’s prosecution.
In the same afternoon as well, Isma’il ‘Aramin self-demolished his house in Wadi al-Joz neighborhood, east of occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City, pursuant to the Israeli municipality’s decision under the pretext of unlicensed construction.
‘Aramin said that his house was built in 2010 replacing his old family house, which was demolished by the Israeli municipality under the pretext of unlicensed construction. ‘Aramin added he has lived in his 90-sqm house with his wife and two children for 8 years, and the municipality started pursuing him around a year ago. Only few months ago, the Israeli court issued a final decision to demolish the house, without the possibility of appealing the decision, giving him until last August and then postponed the demolition until the end of October. ‘Aramin said that he had to self-demolish his house, fearing that the occupation municipality would send its crews to implement the decision and fine him with tens of thousands of shekels.
At approximately 10:30 on Monday, 25 October 2021, soldiers backed by military vehicles and accompanied with an Israeli Civil Administration vehicle and a bulldozer moved into at-Tuwani village in eastern Yatta, south of Hebron. The bulldozer demolished a tent of 50 sqms set up by activists in the area in solidarity with al-Mafqarah village, east of the city. The demolition came under the pretext of unlicensed construction.
At approximately 07:00 on Tuesday, 26 October 2021, soldiers accompanied by military vehicles and a bulldozer moved into Deir Qaddis village, west of Ramallah and demolished an under-construction facility of 4 stores on an area of 300 sqms. The demolition was carried out without any prior warning under the pretext of its presence in Area C.
The facility’s owner, Ayman ‘Adnan Steih (44), said to PCHR’s fieldworker that,
“I was surprised in the morning with the army’s incursion into the village and closure of its streets. Soliders, accompanied with a military bulldozer surrounded my facility of four under-construction stores in the eastern side of the village and demolished it. I approached the soldiers trying to talk with them, but they shouted at me and fired sound bombs in the air to keep me away from the area. The Israeli authorities handed me a notice to demolish the facility last June, but I filed a complaint at the competent authorities, including Jerusalem Centre for Legal Aid. Although there was a lawful complaint, the army carried out the demolition without a prior warning, noting that the construction cost me around 170,000 shekels.”
In the same morning, the Israeli municipality bulldozers and the Nature Authority continued excavation works in al-Shuhadaa’ Cemetery adjacent to al-Yousifiyah Cemetery in al-Asbat Gate area in central occupied East Jerusalem. The municipality intends to turn the cemetery into a biblical park and started building a metal wall around it as well as piling sand berms to bury its features, according to the Israeli court’s decision issued last week.
Tens of outraged men and woman gathered to confront the Nature Authority workers but soldiers pushed and beat them as well as arresting 3 of the protesters after severely beating them. The arrestees were identified as Laith al-Shalabi, Mousa Khalaf and Nawwaf al-Salaymah.
‘Alaa Nabatah, an eyewitness said that soldiers assaulted the protesters and banned them entry into the cemetery. the army also fired sound bombs at them after performing al-Maghrib (sunset) prayer near the cemetery. Nabatah added that an Israeli female soldier beat her more than once when she was near her son’s grave in the cemetery.
It should be noted that the Israeli Magistrate’s court refused last week, a request applied by Jerusalem Cemeteries Committee to obtain a decision that would ban the Israeli municipality and Nature Authority from continuing the excavation works in the graves at al-Shuhadaa’ Cemetery near al-Yousifiya Cemetery near al-Asbat Gate. It should be noted that the Israeli police banned Mustafa Abu Zahrah, Head of the Islamic Cemeteries Committee in Jerusalem, from entering al-Yousifyah Cemetery for 10 days and handed him a map showing the path he should take in order to reach al-Aqsa mosque.
It is noteworthy that the al-Shuhadaa’ and al-Yousifyah cemeteries have been under systematic attack over the past years. the Islamic Cemeteries Committee resorted to the Israeli court and submitted documents proving that the cemetery belongs to the Islamic Endowments. At the time, the court issued a decision to ban any works in the cemetery, but after a while, a person was buried there; as a result, the grave was taken as an excuse to abolish the decision. In late July, the court’s judge responded to the Israeli municipality and Nature Authority’s request to resume razing the cemetery land after seven months of issuing a precautionary order to stop it. Al-Yousifiyah cemetery is one of the most famous Islamic cemeteries in Jerusalem. It is located to the north of Al-Asbat Gate and houses the graves of Palestinian families who live in Jerusalem. It also includes to the north al-Shuhadaa’ Cemetery, where the Jordanian soldiers martyred in 1967 are buried.
An Israeli soldier assaults a grieving mother at her son’s gravesite in the al-Yousofiyya cemetery in occupied Jerusalem. Photo: Silwanic
At approximately 10:00, soldiers backed by military vehicles and accompanied with an Israeli Civil Administration vehicle moved into Khelet Harb area, west of Ethna village, west of Ramallah. The Civil Administration officer handed 4 notices to stop construction works under the pretext of unlicensed construction.
The notices included the following:
1. A 100-sqm house belonging to ‘Adnan Ibrahim ‘Awad;
2. An 80-sqm house belonging to Sa’diyah Ibrahim ‘Awad;
3. An under-construction 270-sqm house belonging to ‘Abdel Fattah Ahmed ‘Awad; and
4. An under-construction 170-sqm house belonging to Jamal Ahmed Nofal.
On Wednesday, 27 October 2021, the Israeli Civil Administration approved 3,144 new settlement units in the West Bank, noting that last Sunday the Israeli Land Authority opened tenders for marketing of 1,355 new settlement units in the West Bank.
Israeli Settlers’ attacks on civilians and their property
At approximately 13:00 on Saturday, 23 October 2021, a group of illegal Israeli settlers from Adei Ad settlement, northeast of Ramallah, assaulted farmers while harvesting olives from their lands in eastern Turmous Ayya village, northeast of the city. The settlers pepper-sprayed ‘Abdel Naser (48) and Montaser (47) Naji Hizmah; as a result, they suffocated and sustained minor burns in the face. The settlers also pushed Nabihah Mahmoud Jbarah (80) and set fire to a vehicle as well as puncturing tires and breaking windows of three other vehicles belonging to Taysir Jbrarah, Montaser Naji Hizmah, Nabihah Mahmoud Jbarah and ‘Abdel Naser Naji Hizmah.
At approximately 14:00 on Sunday, 24 October 2021, Israeli settlers assaulted sheep belonging to Fozan Rayan while shepherding in the pastoral area on al-Nweiteif Mountain in Qarawet Bani Hassan in Salfit. The settlers attempted to steal the sheep and take them to Havot Yair settlement, but the villagers managed to retrieve the sheep.
On Tuesday morning, 26 October 2021, a group of settlers uprooted 25 olive tree seedlings in southern al-Masara, southwestern Bethlehem. According to Hassan Breijiyeh, Director of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission in Bethlehem, settlers uprooted 25 olive tree seedlings belonging to Mohammed Ahmed Breijiyeh.
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Just like the Palestinians living in occupied East Jerusalem, the dead in al-Yusufiya cemetery are not left in peace in their graves.
Israeli authorities have been desecrating Muslim cemeteries for decades, including through exhumations, excavation works that have uncovered bones, and construction projects where graves once stood.
The latest plans to build a biblical-themed park atop al-Yusufiya cemetery have provoked Palestinians and led to confrontations with Israeli forces, the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem, and staff from Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority.
The latest round of exhumations began three weeks ago in the part of al-Yusufiya known as the Martyrs’ Cemetery, which lies adjacent to one of the historic walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, and is where Alaa Nababta is buried.
Ola Nababta, a 54-year-old Jerusalemite, spends her days guarding the grave of her son Alaa, who died four years ago.
Every day, she leaves her house in Shuafat refugee camp north of East Jerusalem, in case officials from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, or the Israeli municipality, come to exhume the grave or cover it with soil as a prelude to building the park.
Alaa’s younger brothers Ihab was shot dead in 2015 and Bahaa in 2016 by unknown assailants in Shuafat camp, where Bahaa ran youth groups and was well known for his social activism.
A widow who has lost three sons, Ola Nababta has already witnessed the devastation left behind by Israeli bulldozers in the area, most recently several weeks ago, when exhumation works uncovered bones, skulls and dentures.
“On that particular day I broke down and collapsed to the ground when I saw that the graves being exhumed neighboured that of my son Alaa, and I realised that his grave would undoubtedly be next,” she told Middle East Eye.
‘Pour the earth over me’
The mother’s intuition proved right, as on Monday officials returned with trucks full of steel and soil to cover the remaining graves, including Alaa’s.
As workers started pouring the soil, Nababta clung to the grave with all her might to prevent them from burying it.
WATCH: A Palestinian woman desperately tries to stop Israeli authorities from bulldozing her son’s grave.
Dozens of families fear their relatives’ graves will be exhumed from Al-Yusufiya Cemetery to make way for a Jewish national park. pic.twitter.com/ylT7jzsWni
All attempts by Israeli soldiers to move her failed, as she told them: “Pour the earth over me and bury me beside him, oh my son Alaa, I am here, I will not leave.”
Nababta told MEE that representatives of the Committee for the Care of Islamic Cemeteries in Jerusalem had confirmed she could bury her son in the cemetery, which has held the bodies of deceased Muslims for centuries.
However, neither Nababta – who has been subpoenaed repeatedly by Israeli intelligence for questioning – nor the remains of her son have been left alone.
“I used to visit the tomb of my son just like any mother would,” she said. “But Israeli intelligence subpoenaed and interrogated me about the identity of the person who gave us permission to bury in this place, saying that it is prohibited.
“Nine months after Alaa’s death, the Israeli Ministry of Health tried to persuade me to move his body to another cemetery, but I adamantly refused because I want Alaa’s body to rest in peace,” she added.
“What makes them think I will allow them to cover his tomb and deprive me of the opportunity of visiting him and watering the flowers I have planted above his grave?”
Israeli bulldozers uproot centuries-old trees in Martyrs’ Cemetery (MEE/Aseel Jundi)
Nababta isn’t just worried about Alaa’s tomb – her fears extend to the graves of his brothers Ihab and Bahaa who are buried in Bab al-Rahmeh Cemetery, adjacent to Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Whenever CCTV cameras show her visiting the graves of her two other sons, Nababta says Israeli police officers rush her out and claim that Ihab and Bahaa too were buried in a restricted zone.
So far, only the grave of her husband, who died in 2018 and is also buried in al-Yusufiya, has been spared from harassment.
“I feel so painful because my sons were harassed and imprisoned prior to their death,” she said.
“Now, they (Israeli authorities) don’t want their bodies to rest in peace in their graves, and they want to cover them and build public parks.
“Which law on earth allows for the desecration of graves?”
Bodies dug out
Jerusalem is home to several historic Muslim cemeteries, including al-Yusufiya, Bab al-Rahmeh, Mamilla and Prophet Daoud.
At present, Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem only have access to Bab al-Rahmeh and al-Yusufiya, after Israeli authorities took over control of the other two cemeteries.
Mamilla Cemetery, also known as Ma’man Allah, was partially demolished in order to build the controversial Museum of Tolerance.
Al-Yusufiya, which is located only a few metres from Al-Aqsa on the eastern side of the Old City wall, occupies a space of around 14 dunams (14,000 square metres).
Muslims have been burying their dead in the cemetery, whose construction was ordered by Salah al-Din ibn Ayyub, known in the West as Saladin, for 800 years.
After graves were exhumed in Martyrs’ Cemetery earlier this month by Israeli authorities, Jerusalemites reburied the remains in the same place and identified the grave with stones (MEE/Aseel Jundi)
Excavation and exhumation works by Israeli authorities have been taking place in the Martyrs’ Cemetery section of al-Yusufiya, an area of around four and a half dunams (4,500 square metres).
Jordanian, Iraqi and Palestinian soldiers killed while fighting against Israeli forces in Jerusalem during the 1967 war are buried there, as is Alaa.
In 2014, Israeli authorities banned Jerusalemites from burying their dead in Martyrs’ Cemetery, demolishing more than 20 tombs and covering the area with cement.
In December, bulldozers resumed further dredging and construction works at the cemetery – however a complaint brought before the Israeli courts temporarily succeeded in halting the works until September this year.
On 10 October, Jerusalemites came out to protest as Israeli police and bulldozers dug out bodies, and were able to rebury the remains in the cemetery on the following day.
Disinformation and forgeries
The Committee for the Care of Islamic Cemeteries in Jerusalem looks after the city’s Muslim cemeteries, laying tiles, removing weeds, and other general upkeep.
The committee has submitted objections to Israeli courts to stop the bulldozing at the Martyrs’ Cemetery.
Mustafa Abu Zahra, the head of the committee, told MEE that the introduction on Monday of large quantities of soil to fill in the remaining graves, as well as the erection of a steel fence to separate the Martyrs Cemetery from the rest of Al-Yusufiya, indicates that the conversion of the area into a theme park is imminent.
Zahra reiterated that an Israeli court had allowed workers to continue excavation works despite an appeal, after human remains were found in an area that the municipality claims was never a cemetery.
Hamza Quttaineh, a Jerusalemite lawyer advocating for the Martyrs Cemetery before the Israeli courts, told MEE that the municipality and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority have deployed various forms of disinformation and forgeries to deny the existence of the cemetery.
In attempting to convert the cemetery into a park, Quttaineh said authorities had also shown no respect whatsoever to the sanctity of the deceased.
“There are huge machinations undertaken by the occupation municipality, along with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the judicial system, that provide the legal coverage needed for the Judaisation project encompassing the historical wall of Jerusalem’s Old City,” he said.
The municipality is insisting on classifying the land as a green zone that must be turned into a park within the premises of the Sacred Dock Project, said the lawyer.
“So far this piece of land did not join the project and it should not be dislodged from it due to its importance.”
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Featured image: As workers started pouring the soil, Ola Nababta clung to the grave with all her might to prevent them from burying it (MEE/Aseel Jundi)
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Even patriotic Brits know that their hero Winston Churchill did not win World War 2 or fly a Spitfire. What they, and others, may not know is how his statements often shed a clear light on British imperialism. From Britain’s reliance on colonies, to the political rationale for giving the working class some welfare services, Churchill’s rhetorical flourishes in speeches, newspaper articles, and deliberations with his peers, illuminate things all too often absent from contemporary political consciousness.
The text cited below is in chronological order. Information is taken from many sources,[1] including articles previously on this blog and from other material I have put onto Twitter and Facebook. But it should not overtax the modern attention span. I do not claim or aim to cover everything, and will give a few lines of context where these might be helpful.
When all of these statements were made, except one, Churchill had a senior position in the British government of the day, or had even been Prime Minister. They are not just the musings of a random reactionary and empire enthusiast.
Social welfare and a stake in the country, 1909
Social welfare measures have often been introduced by the ruling class to boost loyalty to the state, apart from the need to have a reasonably healthy and educated workforce. It has worked in rich countries. Here is Winston Churchill backing unemployment benefits in a Daily Mail article from August 1909:
“The idea is to increase the stability of our institutions by giving the mass of industrial workers a direct interest in maintaining them.
With a ‘stake in the country’ in the form of insurances against evil days these workers will pay no attention to the vague promises of revolutionary socialism.”
Splendid colonial possessions, 1914
In a comment to his British Cabinet colleagues in January 1914, Churchill noted:
“We are not a young people with an innocent record and a scanty inheritance… We have engrossed to ourselves an altogether disproportionate share of the wealth and traffic of the world. We have got all we want in territory, and our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force, often seems less reasonable to others than to us.”
Colonial terror, 1919-1921
This is his support for the RAF’s request to use mustard gas in Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq):
“I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas … I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gases against uncivilised tribes. … Gases can be used which … would leave a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effect [!] on most of those affected.”
Unfortunately for the RAF, no gas bombs were available at that time (April 1919). Churchill had already used most of them against the Bolsheviks! But he did find some later for use in Mesopotamia, in 1920 to help put down a rebellion. I would add that the RAF was also seen as a good, inexpensive means of putting down colonial revolts and encouraging tax payments with machine guns and regular bombs, not just gas.
And here is his opinion on using gas to subdue Afghanistan, in May 1919:
“The objections of the India Office to the use of gas against natives are unreasonable. Gas is a more merciful weapon than [a] high explosive shell … The moral effect is also very great. There can be no conceivable reason why it should not be resorted to.”
In line with his general view of the world, he only thought such gas was ‘hellish poison’ when used on white people, eg British soldiers in the First World War.
Gold Standard, Imperial status, 1925
Britain returned to the gold standard in 1925, in a move roundly condemned by JM Keynes. But Keynes, always wanting to be a helping hand for British imperialism, gave no indication that he understood the logic of the move. Churchill, by contrast, was very clear in his comments at the time:
“If we had not taken this action, the whole of the rest of the British Empire would have taken it without us, and it would have come to a gold standard, not on the basis of the pound sterling, but a gold standard of the dollar.”
And
“I have only one observation to make on the merits. In our policy of returning to the gold standard we do not move alone. Indeed, I think we could not have afforded to remain stationary while so many others moved. The two greatest manufacturing countries in the world on either side of us, the United States and Germany, are in different ways either on or related to an international gold exchange. Sweden is on the gold exchange. Austria and Hungary are already based on gold, or on sterling, which is now the equivalent of gold. I have reason to know that Holland and the Dutch East Indies – very important factors in world finance – will act simultaneously with us today. As far as the British Empire is concerned – the self-governing Dominions – there will be complete unity of action. The Dominion of Canada is already on the gold standard. The Dominion of South Africa has given notice of her intention to revert to the old standard as from 1st July. I am authorised to inform the Committee that the Commonwealth of Australia, synchronising its action with ours, proposes from today to abolish the existing restrictions on the free export of gold, and that the Dominion of New Zealand will from today adopt the same course as ourselves in freely licensing the export of gold.”
Pro-Italian fascism, against ‘beastly’ Leninism, 1927
Here is a page from Ponting’s book on Churchill’s trip to Italy in 1927:
So much for Churchill being the steadfast anti-fascist!
Britain’s imperial parasitism & the welfare payoff, 1929
On 15 April 1929, Churchill spoke in Parliament about the City’s revenues, and its role as a global broker, as well as the big returns on British foreign investments:
“The income which we derive each year from commissions and services rendered to foreign countries is over £65,000,000, and, in addition, we have a steady revenue from foreign investments of close on £300,000,000 a year, 90 per cent of which is expressed in sterling. Upon this great influx there is levied, as a rule, the highest rates of taxation. In this way we are helped to maintain our social services at a level incomparably higher than that of any European country, or indeed of any country.” (Hansard)
Note that both kinds of revenue noted in the quotation above do not all come from the colonies, at least not directly, and most will have derived from transactions with and investments in other major countries. Nevertheless, such revenues were important for social services even before the post-1945 ‘welfare state’. I give an updated, contemporary assessment of these in my book, The City.
Britain’s colonies and its status in the world, 1939
This is from Churchill’s address to West Indies sugar plantation owners! It is cited in Peter Fryer’s book, Black People in the British Empire, 1988, Pluto Press:
The ‘cradle to the grave’ welfare state, state ownership, NHS, etc, 1943
These are excerpts from a 1943 speech from Churchill as Prime Minister during World War 2. The measures introduced by the Labour Government from 1945 were largely prefigured in this address.
Thanks for the bomb, 1952
To finish with a bang, here is Churchill as Prime Minister again, thanking the Labour Party for its efforts in making the UK a nuclear weapons power:
“All those concerned in the production of the first British atomic bomb are to be warmly congratulated on the successful outcome of an historic episode and I should no doubt pay my compliments to the Leader of the [Labour] Opposition and the party opposite for initiating it.” Hansard, 24 October 1952
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Tony Norfield is based in London whose academic training is in economics and mathematics. He worked for 8 years as an economic consultant, and for close to 20 years in bank dealing rooms in the City, latterly as Executive Director in charge of analysing global FX markets for a major European bank. He has travelled to some 40 countries on business. At present he is researching imperialism and the world economy.
Notes
1 Where not otherwise indicated, the quotations are taken from Clive Ponting’s excellent book, Churchill, 1994.
All images in this article are from Economics of Imperialism
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A handful of mega corporations — private investment companies — dominate every aspect of our lives; everything we eat, drink, wear or use in one way or another. These investment firms are so enormous, they control the money flow worldwide
While there appear to be hundreds of competing brands on the market, like Russian nesting dolls, larger parent companies own multiple smaller brands. In reality, all packaged food brands, for example, are owned by a dozen or so larger parent companies
These parent companies, in turn, are owned by shareholders, and the largest shareholders are the same in all of them: Vanguard and Blackrock
No matter what industry you look at, the top shareholders, and therefore decision makers, are the same: Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street and/or Berkshire Hathaway. In virtually every major company, you find these names among the top 10 institutional investors
These major investment firms are in turn owned by their own set of shareholders. One of the most amazing things about this scheme is that the institutional investors also own each other. They’re all shareholders in each other’s companies. At the very top are Vanguard and Blackrock. Blackrock’s largest shareholder is Vanguard, which does not disclose the identity of its shareholders due to its unique structure
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Until recently, it appeared economic competition had been driving the rise and fall of small and large companies across the U.S. Supposedly, PepsiCo is Coca Cola’s competitor, Apple and Android vie for your loyalty and drug companies battle for your health care dollars. However, all of that turns out to be an illusion.
Since the mid-1970s, two corporations — Vanguard and Blackrock — have gobbled up most companies in the world, effectively destroying the competitive market on which America’s strength has rested, leaving only false appearances behind.
Indeed, the global economy may be the greatest illusionary trick ever pulled over the eyes of people around the world. To understand what’s really going on, watch Tim Gielen’s hour-long documentary, “MONOPOLY: Who Owns the World?” above.
Corporate Domination
As noted by Gielen, who narrates the film, a handful of mega corporations — private investment companies — dominate every aspect of our lives; everything we eat, drink, wear or use in one way or another. These investment firms are so enormous, they control the money flow worldwide. So, how does this scheme work?
While there appear to be hundreds of competing brands on the market, like Russian nesting dolls, larger parent companies own multiple smaller brands. In reality, all packaged food brands, for example, are owned by a dozen or so larger parent companies.
Pepsi Co. owns a long list of food, beverage and snack brands, as does Coca-Cola, Nestle, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Unilever, Mars, Kraft Heinz, Mondelez, Danone and Associated British Foods. Together, these parent companies monopolize the packaged food industry, as virtually every food brand available belongs to one of them.
These companies are publicly traded and are run by boards, where the largest shareholders have power over the decision making. This is where it gets interesting, because when you look up who the largest shareholders are, you find yet another monopoly.
While the topmost shareholders can change from time to time, based on shares bought and sold, two companies are consistently listed among the top institutional holders of these parent companies: The Vanguard Group Inc. and Blackrock Inc.
Pepsi and Coca-Cola — An Example
For example, while there are more than 3,000 shareholders in Pepsi Co., Vanguard and Blackrock’s holdings account for nearly one-third of all shares. Of the top 10 shareholders in Pepsi Co., the top three, Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street Corporation, own more shares than the remaining seven.
Now, let’s look at Coca-Cola Co., Pepsi’s top competitor. Who owns Coke? As with Pepsi, the majority of the company shares are held by institutional investors, which number 3,155 (as of the making of the documentary).
As shown in the film, three of the top four institutional shareholders of Coca-Cola are identical with that of Pepsi: Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street Corporation. The No. 1 shareholder of Coca-Cola is Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
These four — Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street and Berkshire Hathaway — are the four largest investment firms on the planet. “So, Pepsi and Coca-Cola are anything but competitors,” Gielen says. And the same goes for the other packaged food companies. All are owned by the same small group of institutional shareholders.
Big Tech Monopoly
The monopoly of these investment firms isn’t relegated to the packaged food industry. You find them dominating virtually all other industries as well. Take Big Tech, for example. Among the top 10 largest tech companies we find Apple, Samsung, Alphabet (parent company of Google), Microsoft, Huawei, Dell, IBM and Sony.
Here, we find the same Russian nesting doll setup. For example, Facebook owns Whatsapp and Instagram. Alphabet owns Google and all Google-related businesses, including YouTube and Gmail. It’s also the biggest developer of Android, the main competitor to Apple. Microsoft owns Windows and Xbox. In all, four parent companies produce the software used by virtually all computers, tablets and smartphones in the world. Who, then, owns them? Here’s a sampling:
Facebook — More than 80% of Facebook shares are held by institutional investors, and the top institutional holders are the same as those found in the food industry: Vanguard and Blackrock being the top two, as of the end of March 2021. State Street Corporation is the fifth biggest shareholder
Apple — The top four institutional investors are Vanguard, Blackrock, Berkshire Hathaway and State Street Corporation
Microsoft — The top three institutional shareholders are Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street Corporation
You can continue going through the list of tech brands — companies that build computers, smart phones, electronics and household appliances — and you’ll repeatedly find Vanguard, Blackrock, Berkshire Hathaway and State Street Corporation among the top shareholders.
Same Small Group Owns Everything Else Too
The same ownership trend exists in all other industries. Gielen offers yet another example to prove this statement is not an exaggeration:
“Let’s say we want to plan a vacation. On our computer or smart phone, we look for a cheap flight to the sun through websites like Skyscanner and Expedia, both of which are owned by the same group of institutional investors [Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street Corporation].
We fly with one of the many airlines [American Airlines, Air France, KLM, United Airlines, Delta and Transavia] of which the majority of the shares are often owned by the same investors …
The airline we fly [on] is in most cases a Boeing or an Airbus. Again, we see the same [institutional shareholders]. We look for a hotel or an apartment through Bookings.com or AirBnB.com. Once we arrive at our destination, we go out to dinner and we write a review on Trip Advisor. The same investors are at the basis of every aspect of our journey.
And their power goes even much further, because even the kerosene that fuels the plane comes from one of their many oil companies and refineries. Just like the steel that the plane is made of comes from one of their many mining companies.
This small club of investment companies, banks and mutual funds, are also the largest shareholders in the primary industries, where our raw materials come from.”
The same goes for the agricultural industry that the global food industry depends on, and any other major industry. These institutional investors own Bayer, the world’s largest seed producer; they own the largest textile manufacturers and many of the largest clothing companies.
They own the oil refineries, the largest solar panel producers and the automobile, aircraft and arms industries. They own all the major tobacco companies, and all the major drug companies and scientific institutes too. They also own the big department stores and the online marketplaces like eBay, Amazon and AliExpress.
They even own the payment methods we use, from credit card companies to digital payment platforms, as well as insurance companies, banks, construction companies, telephone companies, restaurant chains, personal care brands and cosmetic brands.
No matter what industry you look at, the top shareholders, and therefore decision makers, are the same: Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street and/or Berkshire Hathaway. In virtually every major company, you find these names among the top 10 institutional investors.
Who Owns the Investment Firms of the World?
Diving deeper, we find that these major investment firms are in turn owned by their own set of shareholders. One of the most amazing things about this scheme is that the institutional investors — and there are many more than the primary four we’ve focused on here — also own each other. They’re all shareholders in each other’s companies.
“Together, they form an immense network that we can compare to a pyramid,” Gielen says. Smaller institutional investors, such as Citibank, ING and T. Rowe Price, are owned by larger investment firms such as Northern Trust, Capital Group, 3G Capital and KKR.
Those investors in turn are owned by even larger investment firms, like Goldman Sachs and Wellington Market, which are owned by larger firms yet, such as Berkshire Hathaway and State Street. At the top of the pyramid — the largest Russian doll of all — we find Vanguard and Blackrock.
“The power of these two companies is something we can barely imagine,” Gielen says. “Not only are they the largest institutional investors of every major company on earth, they also own the other institutional investors of those companies, giving them a complete monopoly.”
Gielen cites data from Bloomberg, showing that by 2028, Vanguard and BlackRock are expected to collectively manage $20 trillion-worth of investments. In the process, they will own almost everything on planet Earth.
BlackRock — The Fourth Branch of Government
Bloomberg has also referred to BlackRock as the “fourth branch of government,” due to its close relationship with the central banks. BlackRock actually lends money to the central bank, the federal reserve, and is their principal adviser.
Dozens of BlackRock employees have held senior positions in the White House under the Bush, Obama and Biden administrations. BlackRock also developed the computer system that the central banks use.
Who Owns BlackRock?
While Larry Fink is the figurehead of BlackRock, being its founder, chairman and chief executive officer, he’s not the sole decision maker, as BlackRock too is owned by shareholders. Here we find yet another curiosity, as the largest shareholder of BlackRock is Vanguard.
“This is where it gets dark,” Gielen says. Vanguard has a unique structure that blocks us from seeing who the actual shareholders are. “The elite who own Vanguard don’t want anyone to know they are the owners of the most powerful company on earth.” Still, if you dig deep enough, you can find clues as to who these owners are.
The owners of the wealthiest, most powerful company on Earth can be expected to be among the wealthiest individuals on earth. In 2016, Oxfam reported that the combined wealth of the richest 1% in the world was equal to the wealth of the remaining 99%. In 2018, it was reported that the world’s richest people get 82% of all the money earned around the world in 2017.
In reality, we can assume that the owners of Vanguard are among the 0.001% richest people on the planet. According to Forbes, there were 2,075 billionaires in the world as of March 2020. Gielen cites Oxfam data showing that two-thirds of billionaires obtained their fortunes via inheritance, monopoly and/or cronyism.
“This means that Vanguard is in the hands of the richest families on earth,” Gielen says. Among them we find the Rothschilds, the DuPont family, the Rockefellers, the Bush family and the Morgan family, just to name a few.
Many belong to royal bloodlines and are the founders of our central banking system, the United Nations and just about every industry on the planet. Gielen goes even further in his documentary, so I highly recommend watching it in its entirety. I’ve only summarized a small piece of the whole film here.
A Financial Coup D’etat
Speaking of the central bankers, I recently interviewed finance guru Catherine Austin Fitts, and she believes it’s the central bankers that are at the heart of the global takeover we’re currently seeing. She also believes they are the ones pressuring private companies to implement the clearly illegal COVID jab mandates. Their control is so great, few companies have the ability to take a stand against them.
“I think [the central bankers] are really depending on the smart grid and creepy technology to help them go to the last steps of financial control, which is what I think they’re pushing for,” she said.
“What we’ve seen is a tremendous effort to bankrupt the population and the governments so that it’s much easier for the central bankers to take control. That’s what I’ve been writing about since 1998, that this is a financial coup d’etat.
Now the financial coup d’etat is being consolidated, where the central bankers just serve jurisdiction over the treasury and the tax money. And if they can get the [vaccine] passports in with the CBDC [central bank digital currency], then it will be able to take taxes out of our accounts and take our assets. So, this is a real coup d’etat.”
The Spartacus Letter
Again, I urge you to watch the documentary at the top of this article, and keep an eye out for my interview with Austin Fitts, which will be published in the near future. In closing, I want to highlight a mysterious letter posted by an anonymous individual who goes by the name “Spartacus.”
“COVID-19 — The Spartacus Letter” was originally posted on docdroid.net, but has since been deleted. Another copy can be found on mega.nz.1 The Automatic Earth2 and ZeroHedge3 have also published the letter in full. The letter starts out saying, “My name is Spartacus, and I’ve had enough”:
“We are watching the medical establishment inject literal poison into millions of our fellow Americans without so much as a fight. We have been told that we will be fired and denied our livelihoods if we refuse to vaccinate. This was the last straw.”
What follows is a compilation of data showing the COVID pandemic was a biowarfare attack that has been kept going using sophisticated psychological warfare tactics. It also reviews the dangers of the COVID shots, noting that the virus and the “vaccines” were made by the same entities.
A summary of Spartacus’ findings is as follows. Each summary point is elaborated upon in later sections of the letter, which you can read in any of the three references provided.
COVID-19 is a blood and blood vessel disease. SARS-CoV-2 infects the lining of human blood vessels, causing them to leak into the lungs.
Current treatment protocols (e.g. invasive ventilation) are actively harmful to patients, accelerating oxidative stress and causing severe VILI (ventilator-induced lung injuries). The continued use of ventilators in the absence of any proven medical benefit constitutes mass murder.
Existing countermeasures are inadequate to slow the spread of what is an aerosolized and potentially wastewater-borne virus, and constitute a form of medical theater.
Various non-vaccine interventions have been suppressed by both the media and the medical establishment in favor of vaccines and expensive patented drugs.
The authorities have denied the usefulness of natural immunity against COVID-19, despite the fact that natural immunity confers protection against all of the virus’s proteins, and not just one.
Vaccines will do more harm than good. The antigen that these vaccines are based on, SARS-CoV-2 Spike, is a toxic protein. SARS-CoV-2 may have ADE, or antibody-dependent enhancement; current antibodies may not neutralize future strains, but instead help them infect immune cells. Also, vaccinating during a pandemic with a leaky vaccine removes the evolutionary pressure for a virus to become less lethal.
There is a vast and appalling criminal conspiracy that directly links both Anthony Fauci and Moderna to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
COVID-19 vaccine researchers are directly linked to scientists involved in brain-computer interface (‘neural lace’) tech, one of whom was indicted for taking grant money from China.
Independent researchers have discovered mysterious nanoparticles inside the vaccines that are not supposed to be present.
The entire pandemic is being used as an excuse for a vast political and economic transformation of Western society that will enrich the already rich and turn the rest of us into serfs and untouchables.
A Criminal Conspiracy
It’s a long letter, so I won’t reproduce the whole thing here. However, the following sections are of particular interest, with regard to a criminal elite that is orchestrating the destruction of life as we know it, in an effort to usher in a technocracy-led system of global governance and control:4
“In November of 2019, three technicians at the Wuhan Institute of Virology developed symptoms consistent with a flu-like illness. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak, and Ralph Baric knew at once what had happened, because back channels exist between this laboratory and our scientists and officials.
December 12th, 2019, Ralph Baric signed a Material Transfer Agreement (essentially, an NDA) to receive Coronavirus mRNA vaccine-related materials co-owned by Moderna and NIH.
It wasn’t until a whole month later, on January 11th, 2020, that China allegedly sent us the sequence to what would become known as SARS-CoV-2. Moderna claims, rather absurdly, that they developed a working vaccine from this sequence in under 48 hours.
Stephane Bancel, the current CEO of Moderna, was formerly the CEO of bioMerieux, a French multinational corporation specializing in medical diagnostic tech, founded by one Alain Merieux. Alain Merieux was one of the individuals who was instrumental in the construction of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s P4 lab.
The sequence given as the closest relative to SARS-CoV-2, RaTG13, is not a real virus. It is a forgery. It was made by entering a gene sequence by hand into a database, to create a cover story for the existence of SARS-CoV-2, which is very likely a gain-of-function chimera produced at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and was either leaked by accident or intentionally released. The animal reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 has never been found.
This is not a conspiracy ‘theory.’ It is an actual criminal conspiracy, in which people connected to the development of Moderna’s mRNA-1273 are directly connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and their gain-of-function research by very few degrees of separation, if any. The paper trail is well- established.
The lab-leak theory has been suppressed because pulling that thread leads one to inevitably conclude that there is enough circumstantial evidence to link Moderna, the NIH, the WIV, and both the vaccine and the virus’s creation together.
In a sane country, this would have immediately led to the world’s biggest RICO and mass murder case. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak, Ralph Baric, Shi Zhengli, and Stephane Bancel, and their accomplices, would have been indicted and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Instead, billions of our tax dollars were awarded to the perpetrators.
The FBI raided Allure Medical in Shelby Township north of Detroit for billing insurance for ‘fraudulent COVID-19 cures.’ The treatment they were using? Intravenous Vitamin C. An antioxidant. Which, as described above, is an entirely valid treatment for COVID-19-induced sepsis, and indeed, is now part of the MATH+ protocol advanced by Dr. Paul E. Marik.
The FDA banned ranitidine (Zantac) due to supposed NDMA (N-nitrosodimethylamine) contamination. Ranitidine is not only an H2 blocker used as antacid, but also has a powerful antioxidant effect, scavenging hydroxyl radicals. This gives it utility in treating COVID-19.
The FDA also attempted to take N-acetylcysteine, a harmless amino acid supplement and antioxidant, off the shelves, compelling Amazon to remove it from their online storefront. This leaves us with a chilling question: did the FDA knowingly suppress antioxidants useful for treating COVID-19 sepsis as part of a criminal conspiracy against the American public?
The establishment is cooperating with, and facilitating, the worst criminals in human history, and are actively suppressing non-vaccine treatments and therapies in order to compel us to inject these criminals’ products into our bodies …
Conclusions: The current pandemic was produced and perpetuated by the establishment, through the use of a virus engineered in a PLA-connected Chinese biowarfare laboratory, with the aid of American taxpayer dollars and French expertise …
Either through a leak or an intentional release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a deadly SARS strain is now endemic across the globe, after the WHO and CDC and public officials first downplayed the risks, and then intentionally incited a panic and lockdowns that jeopardized people’s health and their livelihoods.
This was then used by the utterly depraved and psychopathic aristocratic class who rule over us as an excuse to coerce people into accepting an injected poison which may be a depopulation agent, a mind control/pacification agent in the form of injectable ‘smart dust,’ or both …
They believe they can get away with this by weaponizing the social stigma of vaccine refusal. They are incorrect. Their motives are clear and obvious to anyone who has been paying attention.
These megalomaniacs have raided the pension funds of the free world. Wall Street is insolvent and has had an ongoing liquidity crisis since the end of 2019. The aim now is to exert total, full-spectrum physical, mental, and financial control over humanity before we realize just how badly we’ve been extorted by these maniacs. The pandemic and its response served multiple purposes for the Elite:
Concealing a depression brought on by the usurious plunder of our economies conducted by rentier-capitalists and absentee owners who produce absolutely nothing of any value to society whatsoever …
Destroying small businesses and eroding the middle class.
Transferring trillions of dollars of wealth from the American public and into the pockets of billionaires and special interests.
Engaging in insider trading, buying stock in biotech companies and shorting brick-and-mortar businesses and travel companies, with the aim of collapsing face-to-face commerce and tourism and replacing it with e-commerce and servitization.
Creating a casus belli for war with China, encouraging us to attack them, wasting American lives and treasure and driving us to the brink of nuclear Armageddon.
Establishing technological and biosecurity frameworks for population control and technocratic- socialist ‘smart cities’ where everyone’s movements are despotically tracked, all in anticipation of widespread automation, joblessness, and food shortages, by using the false guise of a vaccine to compel cooperation.
… The Elites are trying to pull up the ladder, erase upward mobility for large segments of the population, cull political opponents and other ‘undesirables,’ and put the remainder of humanity on a tight leash, rationing our access to certain goods and services that they have deemed ‘high-impact,’ such as automobile use, tourism, meat consumption, and so on.
Naturally, they will continue to have their own luxuries, as part of a strict caste system akin to feudalism. Why are they doing this? Simple. The Elites are Neo-Malthusians and believe that we are overpopulated and that resource depletion will collapse civilization in a matter of a few short decades.
They are not necessarily incorrect in this belief. We are overpopulated, and we are consuming too many resources. However, orchestrating such a gruesome and murderous power grab in response to a looming crisis demonstrates that they have nothing but the utmost contempt for their fellow man.
To those who are participating in this disgusting farce without any understanding of what they are doing, we have one word for you. Stop. You are causing irreparable harm to your country and to your fellow citizens.
To those who may be reading this warning and have full knowledge and understanding of what they are doing and how it will unjustly harm millions of innocent people, we have a few more words. Damn you to hell. You will not destroy America and the Free World, and you will not have your New World Order. We will make certain of that.”
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Rishi Sunak, the UK chancellor, has published a report announcing billions in road spending, cuts to taxes on polluting domestic flights and cancelled long-delayed fuel duty rises on the eve of crucial COP26 climate talks.
It is almost as if the financial wing of the UK Government is deliberately embarrassing its government colleagues hosting the climate conference. But that isn’t the only problem.
Having polluters as sponsors of climate talks is a bit like letting tobacco companies sponsor hospital cancer wards. It lets them pollute the process of curing the underlying problem.
Net-zero
Major polluters Air France, gas and electricity company Engie and carmakers BMW and Renault were among the sponsors of COP21 in Paris in 2015, when countries agreed to limit global temperature rises to “well below 2C” by the end of the century, with the added ambition of making 1.5C the maximum permitted upper limit.
Poland’s leading coal company Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa (JSW) sponsored COP 24 in Katowice, at the heart of the country’s coal-producing region, as recently as 2018. The Polish pavilion memorably advertised coal-shaped bars of soap.
Corporate accountability groups accused Spain of allowing its biggest polluters to use the climate summit in Madrid the following year to “wrap themselves in the green branding of the COP”.
COP26 in Glasgow announced that it will not accept sponsorship from companies without clear short-term plans to go towards net-zero emissions.
Even allowing for issues to do with framing of ‘net zero’ and how it typically relies on unproven carbon removal technologies, and flawed and misleading so-called carbon ‘offset’ schemes, advertising may turn out to be another matter.
Pledge
The advertising industry has been waking up to the scale of climate destabilisation by setting up different climate initiatives.
In the UK, for example, Purpose Disruptors, a network of advertising professionals, is calling for a reset of their industry in order to tackle the high carbon consumerism fuelled by advertising campaigns.
And, COP26 in Glasgow prompted the UK Advertising Association to release a five-step plan on how the sector can meet net zero emissions called Ad Net Zero.
These, though, are mostly broad, general pledges that companies in the industry can sign onto, which say nothing about the sector’s underlying responsibility in fuelling materialism and over-consumption, and promoting high-carbon lifestyles.
One recent exception is the Clean Creatives initiative that calls on agencies to refuse work on marketing campaigns for major polluters, and to drop specifically fossil fuel companies as clients. At the time of writing, 400 individual workers in the sector had signed the pledge alongside 132 agencies.
Aggressive
According to the UK government, COP26 would only accept sponsors that would help make “COP26 a success and help to deliver international action on climate change”. And who, “are making real contributions to the fight against climate change, and are aligned with the aims of COP26… (and) Have strong climate credentials.”
It appears to be a step forward, and is at least an acknowledgement that it matters to have sponsors who are, at least, aligned with the purpose of what they are sponsoring.
But for some reason, this did not prevent them from including the SUV-manufacturer, Jaguar Land Rover – which is currently under investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority for environmentally irresponsible advertising after it was the subject of multiple complaints.
In September, the UK government announced that among the sponsors Jaguar Land Rover would be providing transport for the conference site.
Another COP26 sponsor is the Boston Consulting Group, or BCG, one of the big three management consultancies in the world, and currently trying to position itself as a global thought leader on sustainability.
One of BCG’s services is to the so-called “upstream oil and gas industry” in which it promises to unlock “new opportunities for oil and gas companies around the world”.
For the uninitiated, the ‘upstream’ industry is to do with exploration for new fossil fuel sources and production. It has now become a touchstone of climate policy that only a small proportion of already known fossil fuel sources can be safely used.
That means that any new exploration and production is incompatible with climate targets – and therefore in direct contradiction to the purpose of COP26.
Gadget
A global campaign is now calling for a Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty to end new exploration and production. BCG also promises to work with oil and gas companies “to stay competitive by helping them improve operational efficiency, (and) reduce costs.”
It boasts of its database of ‘unconventional assets’ meaning highly polluting shale oil and gas, and specifically of helping one Indian corporate client (unnamed) to “aggressively expand into the faster-growing petrochemicals market.”
The article points to its use of 134,414 tonnes of palm oil or palm oil products in 2019, for which it relies, “on a slew of mills based predominantly in Indonesia and Malaysia.” Palm oil production is associated with widespread problems including deforestation which is a major contributor to global heating.
Other sponsors include supermarket Sainsbury’s, gadget manufacturers Hitachi, and three UK power companies, SSE, Scottish Power and the National Grid.
Polluting
Hitachi’s purpose is to sell energy-hungry hi-tech gadgets to as many people as possible. Subsidiary Hitachi Metals has not even set any greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.
SSE and Scottish Power don’t appear on any lists of the greenest energy providers, and SSE recently ranked among Scotland’s top polluters with its gas station at Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, emitting 1.6m tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2019.
Sainsbury’s came last in a 2018 survey of supermarket plastic policies and was found to have made the least progress on plastics reduction since January 2018.
While Sainsbury’s may perform relatively well compared to other major supermarkets, in comparison to more localised and independent retail and supply chains, such supermarkets lock-in a model which is energy inefficient, encouraging car-based shopping, has centralised logistics vulnerable to disruption, and is poor in terms of spreading local economic benefits.
In one advert displaying its credentials as a sponsor of COP26, Sainsbury’s promoted a beef dish, and beef notoriously is one of the most polluting, high-carbon of foodstuffs.
Ambitious
Bankers NatWest are also a sponsor which – the company says – “builds on our commitments to make our operations carbon net zero by the end of 2020 and to at least halve the climate impact of our financing activity by 2030.”
The problem is that, while NatWest’s commitment may be real, it is still being listed by Banking on Climate Chaos as one of the top 50 polluting banks in the world – with investments in coal all around the planet.
They are also just a subsidiary company of one of the biggest retail banks in the world, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). Share Action put RBS, with its significant investments in polluters, at number 15 out of 20 where its approach to the climate challenge represented only a ‘business as usual’ no-change approach, not one of responding to the crisis.
“Worryingly,” wrote Share Action researchers, “our research found that only two of the thirty six companies reviewed clearly demonstrated effective plans to reduce their carbon impacts in time, with 94 per cent of retail banks failing to convince on climate strategy.”
NatWest’s commitment on measurement appeared one of the most ambitious, stating that it aimed “to quantify our climate impact and set sector-specific targets by 2022”.
Umbrella
Yet owners RBS provided $1.1 billion to the fossil fuel industry from 2015-17, which makes it one of the world’s largest financiers of fossil fuels, exemplifying the short-termism of the capital markets which prioritises profit maximisation over other concerns.
Fossil fuel infrastructure is normally planned to be operating for at least 40 years, ten years beyond the UK government’s own target of getting to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. In other words, any apparent commitment by NatWest is compromised and contradicted by simply being a brand name used by a major fossil fuel funder.
This is in 2021. But whole process of negotiating any kind of solution to global warming – starting with the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 – has involved fossil fuel companies lobbying heavily at various levels to secure their interests and slow or avoid the action necessary to reverse climate breakdown.
To achieve this, the corporates began by forming a number of umbrella groups, like the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) and the Climate Council which presented their interests as those of business in general.
Emissions
In fact, the core membership of these groups, particularly the GCC and those like it, were coal and oil companies, particularly from the USA – though chemical companies and car manufacturers were also well represented.
The GCC, which described itself as ‘the leading business voice on climate change’, included among its members a number of familiar names like the American Petroleum Institute, Du Pont, Dow, Ford, General Motors, Texaco, Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Shell.
Such tactics were well tested by American tobacco companies when they fought against legislation to prevent them from advertising.
These included: emphasising remaining scientific uncertainties; engaging in highly misleading campaigns in the mass media; arguing that the costs of action will be too high; and threatening nations to prevent the adoption of policies to limit emissions.
Industries
Part of the problem is that COPs have become like trade fairs, set up in such a way that they create lobbying opportunities for well-funded major energy companies who can afford large scale presences and displays, often more so than whole nations from the Global South.
At the height of the pandemic, a Swedish civil society initiative proposed ways to improve virtual access which could also better control corporate lobbying.
To make sure that sponsorships and advertising never undermine the purpose of the COPs, and to prevent corporate capture and greenwash attempts by big polluters within and outside COP events, conference hosts need to carefully regulate sponsorship and advertising activities taking place within a reasonable distance of the conferences.
Like the regulations applied to tobacco companies by the World Health Organisation, hosts of COP events should apply the same principles to high-carbon companies and sectors including airlines, car manufacturers and fossil fuel industries.
Debate
More specifically, climate conference hosts need to:
1. Turn down any sponsorship deal by high-carbon companies, sectors and trade associations.
2. Regulate advertising and marketing activities by high-carbon companies within the conference centre. In addition, hosts should take steps to work with local authorities to prevent these same companies from advertising their products and services within a reasonable proximity of the conference centre. And, building upon these demands, the recommendations from Glasgow Calls Polluters Out could be used to:
3. Lock polluters out’ by adopting a conflict of interest policy that blocks high-carbon companies from access to accreditations, expert and advisory bodies and UNFCCC posts, and ends sponsorship deals.
Instead, greater participation should be prioritised for those communities in the Global South most affected by climate breakdown.
Measures could include equity based quotas for physical delegation sizes complemented with online participation and financial support for attendance.
Climate conferences, and the climate debate itself have to stop being billboards for the influence of the very interests who make the climate crisis worse.
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The late Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was South Africa’s anti-apartheid revolutionary, who served as president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, after his release from prison for 27 years in 1990. His lifelong commitment to Peace, Fundamental Human Rights and his legacy will live for all humanity.
The High Court hearing that will decide whether or not Julian Assange can be extradited opened with a mighty lie. The prosecutor, James Lewis QC, listed ‘assurances’ by the US (see below) which were ‘binding’. They are not binding and never will be.
Brian Dressen, Ph.D., who is a chemist with an extensive background in researching and assessing the degree of efficacy in new technologies, told the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Pfizer’s vaccine “failed any reasonable risk-benefit calculus in connection with children.”
Nicaragua has an election to choose their president and national assembly on November 7. According to polls, the Sandinista Front (FSLN) currently in government is expected to win the presidency and a majority of seats in the assembly. At the same time, the Sandinista government is intensely disliked by Washington and there has been a steady stream of negative news and accusations.
A board-certified pathologist who runs a diagnostics lab said he’s been seeing “clotting” in the “lungs,” “vessels,” and “brain” in patients due to the COVID-19 jabs.
Enciso had gotten his hands on and publicly released Colombia’s confidential contracts with AstraZeneca and Pfizer for the Covid vaccine — an act that he believed was in the public interest but nonetheless let loose an avalanche of criticism, thousands of insults, and even threats on his personal safety.
Did someone forget to tell Benny Gantz that Donald Trump is no longer the United States president? It certainly looked that way last Friday as Israel’s defence minister – who has been presented as a force for moderation in an Israeli government led by the settler right – declared six leading Palestinian human rights groups to be “terrorist organisations”.
Workers in the United States are reaching a boiling point with their bosses due to the impact of the pandemic and the failure of the government to provide adequate assistance to the majority proletarian population.
In a judgment poor on press liberties and publishing but sound on the issue of mental health and wellbeing, Baraitser held that Assange’s extradition to the US to face espionage and computer intrusion charges would exacerbate his suicide risk and be oppressive.
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There is no America. There is no democracy. . . . The world is a college of corporations inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. . . . [a] perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and brutality — one vast and ecumenical holding company . . . in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel. — Network
The pharmaceutical companies are an amoral bunch. They’re not a benevolent association. . . Once one is dancing with the devil, you don’t always get to call the steps of the dance. —A psychiatrist, quoted in the Boston Globe, 2002. [1]
The main reason we take so many drugs is that drug companies don’t sell drugs, they sell lies about drugs. — Dr. Peter Gotzsche. [2]
A Marriage Made in Hell: Drug Companies and War
War has long been one of the best ways to make money. But now Big Pharma may be superseding the arms industry in profitability. And with money comes power. The vast profits in drug dealing by the world’s pharmaceutical companies stagger the imagination.
Drugs have long been used as weapons of war, so what could be more fitting than arms dealers joining forces with drug dealers? Not of course, merely in a sordid and clandestine manner befitting adventures with intelligence agencies and criminal pushers, funding ‘black ops,’ while the politicians prate about ‘the war on drugs.’
No, no, we are long past that sort of titillating under-the-table footsie. Now we have the glorious, ecumenical, and ubiquitous combination of war, bioweapons, and lucrative corporate skullduggery delivered in a planet-encompassing press kit of theatrical excitement. Fun for the whole military-intelligence-industrial-congressional complex extended family.
Drugs as Weapons Against Enemy Populations
States have a long history of making use of chemicals and disease agents to make war on their enemies. Wikipedia classifies drugs as an ‘incapacitating agent.’
States have also a long history of experimenting on their own populations with a callous disregard quite equal to the rapacity with which soulless corporate entities exploit their victims, a.k.a. customers, and lay waste to the environment, placing their faith in ‘externalities’ to pick up the slack. Why pay for damage to people and planet when you can get someone else to foot the bill?
‘Ray Anderson . . . describes the corporation as a “present day instrument of destruction” because of its compulsion to “externalize any cost that its unwary or uncaring public will allow.”’ [4]
Now, many seemingly sovereign nations have taken it into their collective heads to march in lockstep to make war on the handiest enemy of all: their own people. And, as profiteers rub their hands with glee at the prospect of a new war, and arms dealers break out the champagne, so Big Pharma and their fellow biotechnology travellers have gotten into the act.
They have gone the old-fashioned highwayman’s ‘Stand and deliver!’ one better. Not just your money or your life: they want both. Of course it may take a while to kill you, but in the meantime they will fleece you of all you possess.
Taking to heart the dictum of Thomas Hobbes that ‘the two cardinal virtues of war are force and fraud,’ drug companies are eager to help out state health bureaucrats, as they climb to new heights of mendacity and coercion.
From these breezy mountaintops, they can survey the world laid out before them, as a ten year old can gaze at his troops lined up in a video game. Heady indeed to play with the compliant, to perform experiments on them, to toy with them for their own pleasure and profit, making their victims pay for their own victimization—the cruelest cut of all.
‘As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.’ William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4, Scene
Pacification for the Nation
The conqueror, whether of the military or corporate variety, needs to have his idea of himself reinforced. He needs to recruit the people he controls in order to successfully suppress and oppress them. He needs, not only to control the body, but also the mind of his subjects. He needs, as an occupying army, to “pacify them.”
Snake oil has long been a lucrative business and the sale of opium has featured in the diabolical dance of drugs and war for several centuries, as any historian can tell you. And many have stated that the opioid epidemic is largely the result of sweetheart deals for doctors and drug companies, as Dr. Gary Kohls has pointed out. in America’s Hidden Iatrogenic Epidemic of Drug and Vaccine-induced Disorders. [5]
Joel Bakan’s The Corporation:The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power quotes from commodities broker Carlton Brown: “there is always “opportunity in devastation.” And Chris Hooper, an ad director says: “I’m sucking Satan’s pecker.”
If the natives get restless under the yoke of oppression and exploitation, sick from food that has no nourishment, drugs that do not cure, and vaccines that provide no immunity, drug companies are only too ready to seize the opportunity to provide surcease from pain, whether of the mind or the body. After all, relief is only a prescription away, as full page magazine ads and television commercials will seductively tell you.
Such power must be intoxicating, even a kind of addiction, for the providers of such aid. And surely that sort of power cannot be corrupting, as motivated by the desire to do good. The billions involved must be merely incidental.
How impossible to believe such as they could be corrupted, putrified and petrified into stone idols, with hearts as hard as obsidian.
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S.M. Smyth was a founding member of the 2006 World Peace Forum in Vancouver, and organized a debate about TILMA at the Maple Ridge City Council chambers between Ellen Gould and a representative of the Fraser Institute.
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It isn’t merely the domains of cultural warfare and religious cults that Xi Jinping has to worry about, but additionally hives of foreign-directed agents operating on a multitude of domains within China’s government and business community.
The first two parts of this series can be found here and here.
While there have been many honest and good Jesuit missionaries in China with names like Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), Adam Schall (1591-1666), Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688), and Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766) something darker appears to lurk within the Byzantine structure of controls that manage the Society of Jesus founded by Spanish mercenary Ignatius Loyola in 1540. Anyone wishing to get a full grasp on the sorts of operations being conducted to destroy both China and the USA from within these days would do well to take the time to consider this secretive force of world history.
Prior to our current age, the subversive role of Jesuit operations were much more widely known by republican forces who understood the reality of conspiracies as a part of life and world history (1).
Penetrating Minds Shed Light on the Jesuits
The noted poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller took time to compose “The Jesuit Government of Paraguay” of 1788 where he documents the role of Jesuit missionaries whose arrest revealed a coded manual for training natives to kill European settlers “who are cursed by god”. The Jesuits in Schiller’s report had created a hybrid religion using Christian motifs and passed themselves off as angelic Kau. Describing their teachings (written in a native language) as “angels of God, who descended to the people, to teach them how one comes into heaven and the art to destroy the enemy of God.”
A century earlier, the famed scientist/priest Antoine Arnauld wrote:
“Do you wish to excite troubles, to provoke revolution, to produce the total ruin of your country? Call in the Jesuits… and build magnificent colleges for these hot-headed religionists; suffer those audacious priests, in their dictatorial and dogmatic tone, to decide on affairs of State.”
Describing Jesuit operations in Canada which had created quasi-synthetic cults blending native beliefs with the Bible and deployed to conduct terror operations on colonists, historian Graham Lowry wrote in his How the Nation Was Won (1987):
“Northern tribes converted by the Jesuits- the Hurons, Algonquins, Penobbscots, Pequawkets and especially the Abnakis- were repeatedly hurled against the northeastern and western frontier of New England. Led by Jesuit priests, with only an occasional French officer, the Indians attacked down the Kennebec, Connecticut and Merrimack Rivers, massacring and burning as they went… this threat to the northeastern colonies was not removed until the American Revolution”.
The American revolution did not only ensure a respite from Jesuit-run raids on colonists (provoking often brutal and unjust retaliations in response as part of a broader divide-to-conquer strategy), but the Pope Clement XIV passed a Papal Bull forcing the dissolution of this insurrectionary society in 1773 saying quite ominously:
“The suppression is accomplished, I do not repent of it, having only resolved on it after examining and weighing everything, and because I thought it necessary for the church. If it were not done, I would do it now. But this suppression will be my death.”
It was only a matter of months before the pope was to die of poisoning.
Although they got revenge on the belligerent Pope, the order took a major hit and removed their base of operations to safer terrain in Russia for a period of nearly 50 years. During this time, their intrigues never ceased, provoking French revolutionary Marquis de Lafayette to write during the heat of the American Revolution that:
“It is my opinion that if the liberties of this country – the United States of America – are destroyed, it will be by the subtlety of the Roman Catholic Jesuit priests, for they are the most crafty, dangerous enemies to civil and religious liberty. They have instigated MOST of the wars of Europe.”
The ban on the order was lifted by Pope Pius VII in 1814 amidst the early days of the Congress of Vienna. This was the Congress that Kissinger declared his most beloved period in history which re-instated an oligarchical iron fist onto all of Europe ravaged by 20 years of Napoleonic wars. Working closely with Austrian Prince Metternich and the new Holy Alliance, the Jesuits became instrumental in maintaining controls throughout Europe as a secret mercenary force.
“Let us examine the operations of this Austrian Society [the St. Leopold Foundation], for it is hard at work all around us, yes, here in this country… With its headquarters in Vienna, under the immediate direction and inspection of Metternich, …it makes itself already felt through the [American] Republic. Its emissaries are here. And who are these emissaries? They are Jesuits. This society of men, after exerting their tyranny for upwards of two hundred years, at length became so formidable to the world, threatening the entire subversion to all social order, that even the Pope [Clement XIV] was compelled to dissolve them [in 1773]. They had not been suppressed, however, for fifty years, before the waning influence of Popery and Despotism required their useful labors to resist the light of Democratic liberty, and the Pope (Pius VII) simultaneously with the formation of the Holy Alliance, revived the order of the Jesuits in all their power. And do Americans need to be told what Jesuits are? If any are ignorant, let them inform themselves of their history without delay; no time is to be lost; their workings are before you in every day’s events; they are a secret society, a sort of Masonic order with super added features of revolting odiousness, and a thousand times more dangerous. They are not merely priests, or priests of one religious creed; they are merchants, and lawyers, and editors, and men of any profession, having no outward badge (in this country) by which to be recognized; they are about in all your society. They can assume any character, that of angels of light, or ministers of darkness, to accomplish their one great end, the service upon which they are sent, whatever that service may be.”
Image on the right: Dostoevsky in 1872 (Source: Public Domain)
Even the Russian writer Dostoyevsky noted their evil ways stating:
“The Jesuits . . . are simply the Roman army for the earthly sovereignty of the world in the future, with the Pontiff of Rome for Emperor . . . that’s their ideal . . . It’s simple lust of power, of filthy earthly gain, of domination – something like a universal serfdom with them as masters – that’s all they stand for. They don’t even believe in God perhaps.”
Cecil Rhodes’ Jesuit Constitution
In his 1877 will even Cecil Rhodes called for modelling a new Church of the British Empire around “the Jesuit constitution”, and the Fabian Society directly modelled their techniques on this method of permeation theory in order to gain influence over all levers of culture, taste, and politics.
One of Cecil Rhodes’ leading Round Table controllers W.T. Stead wrote that
“Mr. Rhodes was more than the founder of a dynasty. He aspired to be the creator of one of those vast semi-religious, quasi-political associations which, like the Society of Jesus, have played so large a part in the history of the world. To be more strictly accurate, he wished to found an Order as the instrument of the will of the Dynasty, and while he lived he dreamed of being both its Caesar and its Loyola.”
During his time running much of South Africa and Zimbabwe, Rhodes ensured that the order was granted generous land upon which many churches were built soon becoming the largest land owners in South Africa
“In the early part of the 20th century, the Catholic Church, like many churches at the time, received land grants from the colonial administrators for missionary work. Cecil Rhodes, one of the entrepreneurial giants of the British colonial era, invited churches, the Catholic Church among them, into his newly acquired territories. Subsequently, the Catholic Church worked closely with colonial governments, particularly in British Africa.”
Snow Becomes Black: The Case of Tavistock
London Tavistock social engineers like William Sargent emersed himself in studies of Jesuit techniques for mind control in his influential Battle for the Mind (1955) which profoundly influenced cultural warfare for the next 70 years. Tavistock affiliated philosopher Bertrand Russell stated in his Scientific Outlook (1930) that:
“Psychology as pursued everywhere in the past was incapable of giving practical control over mental processes, and never aimed at this result. To this general statement there is, however, one important exception, namely psychology as studied by the Society of Jesus. Much that the rest of the world has only recently understood was apprehended by Ignatius Loyola, and impressed by him upon the Order which he founded. The two tendencies which divide progressive psychologists in our day, namely, psycho-analysis and behaviourism, arc both equally exemplified in Jesuit practice. I think one may say on the whole that the Jesuits relied mainly on behaviourism for their own training, and upon psycho-analysis for their power over penitents.”
Only eight years prior to writing this work, Russell had taught in Beijing where he brought his peculiar interpretation of “western philosophy and science” into the minds of young elites emerging into influential positions in the Bolshevik-inspired climate of republican China.
Just as Ignatius Loyola’s meditations featured a self-hypnotic mantra that induced the practitioner into believing white is black if god willed it be so believed (2), Russell’s extension of this same mantra was elaborated upon in his 1953 Science and Society where he called for teams of psychiatrists to see how much it would cost to convince young people that snow is black writing:
“It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment… This subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship. Anaxagoras maintained that snow is black, but no one believed him. The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray.”
While China has gone far to heal the spiritual wounds caused by the Cultural Revolution which turned an armada of youth into radical red guards antagonistic to all deeper Confucian traditions under a cultural great reset, it is important to remain awake to lurking dangers even now since the minds and souls of the youth are still the primary battlefield on which humanity’s destiny is being fought.
But what about the young elite who will emerge as leaders of the future? Is cracking down on videogame addiction and celebrity cultism adequate to protect them? What sort of additional dangers are being faced on this level?
The Foundation for the Eternal Feminine
Without going into great depth, I invite the reader to review the multi billion-dollar Foundation of the Eternal Feminine founded in 2015 by systems analysis guru David Hawk (protégé of Tavistock’s Eric Trist). This strange Beijing/US-based foundation professes to shape a new generation of Chinese Joan of Arcs among the billionaire heiresses of China who represent a surprisingly large quotient of China’s young elite due to the post 1979 one China policy undertaken by Malthusian followers of the Club of Rome associated with Zhao Ziyang.
Describing the organization’s origins to a group of students in 2020, Hawk said:
“In 2015 I feared Donald Trump would become our next president. So I started a foundation in China which was called the Foundation for the Eternal Feminine and got some people to help me with it. Those people convinced some of the richest men in China owning some of the largest companies but also which only had a daughter. No son. They contributed $650 million to this foundation… it was to prepare humans for climate change and particularly to prepare women to be in charge and to be leaders of organizations during this thing we’re gonna call climate change. So this was about climate change and how to find leadership in the next 30, 40, 50 years.”
Young Chinese women recruited to this operation, are given heavy doses of conditioning across the foundation’s several elite resorts in the USA, offering to re-connect the young ladies with the harmony of nature, Daoism and cure the world of the masculine toxicity of Confucianism and Platonism.
Describing a debate with leading members of China’s Executive Committee over which philosophical pathway was the best for China in the 21st Century, Hawk stated:
“I argued China should get beyond Confucius. That Confucius was not serving them well. Too much orderliness. Too much stability. Too much obeying the rules. That in essence, China needed to go back to the wisdom of Lao Tzu and dump Confucian thinking.”
The Foundation describes that it’s purpose “is to tap into the feminine and the difference it allows for an end state. We wish to see if can make a difference to improving our relations to our various worlds via a wider perspective on who we are and what we shall become. We believe the female perspective on life offers a difference that can be very helpful and make a difference to living systems. Institutions are based in time and space, where the space of the Foundation is seen in the action in its two urban settings, Shanghai and New York, and its two rural retreats for reflection in the Eastern and Midwestern United States. These give a sense of the basis of and futures to be discovered in the Foundation. All institutions need a symbol, an icon of what they protect as they eternally become.”
On the Foundation’s website, MK Ultra’s Gregory Bateson figures prominently, alongside imagery of children, Chinese poetry, Leonard Cohen music, butterflies and dominatrixes.
Anyone ignoring this cultural inroad attempting to penetrate the soul of China’s upper crust princess-lings should pause and consider what happened when the role of Tavistock’s multifaceted war on the western baby boomer generation was overlooked in the 1940s and 1950s. As I outlined in my previous article How China’s Gorbachev was flushed in 1989, the principal use of Zhao Ziyang by the western oligarchy was to force closed systems of static equilibrium onto the management of China premised upon the supposed universal law of entropy.
Following this trend of thinking, Hawk’s foundation states that the eternal feminine “is consistent with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, a rule of science virtually ignored in education.”
Luckily, it appears that Xi Jinping understands the dangers posed by Hawk’s foundation as the Chinese government intervened to block Hawk’s desires to lead the organization placing in his stead a young heiress to China’s largest beer company into its presidency leading Hawk to state that the current government likely wishes that he be arrested.
Pope Francis Tries to Cozy Up to China
On a more direct level of Jesuit influence currently pressing onto China’s future, Jesuit Pope Francis’ efforts to bring the Vatican back into the controlling position of the Chinese Catholic Church (whose bonds were severed by Mao in 1951) has resulted in a 2018 China-Vatican provisional agreement. This agreement demands that Beijing must submit all potential church officials to the Pope for approval before they can play a role in China’s catholic community. Considering the Pope’s efforts to green Christianity by uniting the faith with the deconstruction of civilization, Paris Accords, and Green New Deal, it is an alarm bell that should not be ignored.
When one takes these facts into consideration, even the most devoted reader of Epoch Times should understand why China has found the use of social credit systems, CCTV surveillance and regulating religious movements to be of high importance.
Purging the Traitors
It isn’t merely the domains of cultural warfare and religious cults that Xi Jinping has to worry about, but additionally hives of foreign-directed agents operating on a multitude of domains within China’s government and business community.
Still others have been purged during the sweeping anti-corruption program launched by President Xi since 2012 including the recent purge of ex-Minister of Security Sun Lijun and his conspiratorial entourage affiliated with the networks of former President Zhang Zemin.
In expelling Sun, the party’s disciplinary committee wrote that the ex-minister had “created and spread political rumors, taken actions against others, wove a web of deceit to obtain political capital and … used unscrupulous means … to form gangs, cliques, and interest groups within the party and build his personal power.”
This battle between opposing paradigms within China gives one a clear insight into the sort of danger posed by World Economic Forum Trustee Jack Ma (member of Jiang Zemin’s Shanghai faction of the CPC) when he arrogantly criticized the CPC’s economic paradigm until he was removed to his mansion in Hangzhou and forced to eat some heavy servings of humble pie.
Much like the USA in 1776, many “united empire loyalists” chose to remain behind while other loyalists left to safer ground in British Canada. Those who remained behind forming a new local oligarchy wearing a patriotic veneer while working covertly for their chance to strike and bring the renegade colony back into the imperial fold as outlined by Cecil Rhodes.
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(1) Organized along masonic levels of initiation and penetrating psychological exercises, and constant examinations, talented Jesuits who are found to “pass” the many tests placed along their path and deemed to have the right stuff are brought to certain realizations. One of the most important realizations is that the acts of sin are not the fault of the person carrying out the sin. Rather than owning sin, arduous psychological conditioning outlined within Loyola’s Meditations persuades the devotee to give over the sin of their deeds to whichever commander passes down orders from on high, with the Supreme general at the top of the hierarchy being the ultimate source of sin.
(2) Loyola’s 13 Rule in his Spiritual Meditations reads: “To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His Bride, there is the same Spirit which governs and directs us for the salvation of our souls.”
Featured image: Visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the Jesuit-run Pontifical Gregorian University (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5)
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Jair Bolsonaro became Brazilian president by modelling himself as the “Tropical Trump” and securing support from the pro-US and formerly CIA funded Christian Evangelical churches. However, according to the latest Datafolha survey, only 29% of Evangelicals consider the Bolsonaro government to be excellent or good, the lowest recording since he took office.
When Bolsonaro was elected in 2018, Evangelicals were partly responsible for his success. This is a relatively new phenomenon for Brazil since Evangelicals were previously more involved in legislative campaigns by electing senators, councillors and federal deputies. They were traditionally never really involved in presidential candidacies.
Previously, some Evangelicals voted for class reasons rather than religious ones. This changed in 2016 due to the impeachment of leftist president Dilma Rousseff, a time when Brazil’s poorest were especially suffering from the economic situation. In the 2016 election, forces against Dilma and the ruling Workers’ Party (PT) cooperated, eventually culminating into an Evangelical wave around some candidates. It is in this wave that Bolsonaro emerged, especially in the lead up to the last presidential election. In the 2018 election, Bolsonaro had 70% of Evangelical votes.
The economic situation made PT-supporting Evangelicals, who are mostly poor and black, abandon the party in favor of Bolsonaro as he portrayed himself as a devout Christian with an economic solution. Bolsonaro has a great deal of dialogue and relations with key Evangelical figures, especially as his wife and all his children are Evangelicals too. Despite the unchristian rhetoric of Bolsonaro, such as calling for the murder of leftists, when an ensemble of Evangelical figures became more associated with him, his candidacy became more palatable.
Bolsonaro latched onto the economic crisis, knowing that this was a major election talking point, and found much popularity despite having no economic policy of his own other than allow Milton Friedman-taught Paolo Guedes run riot with neoliberal policies. The second point to his popularity in 2018 was his political manoeuvring, identifying that he needed the support of Evangelical Christians to secure the presidency, just as Donald Trump had done. He knew how to exploit a narrative that he is the protector of Christian values and Brazil’s natural conservatism, and an opposer of all progressivism and gender ideology. For most Evangelicals, they believed that Bolsonaro was fighting these so-called malign forces, causing them to support him.
However, after several years in charge, the economic situation in Brazil has not improved at all. 65% of Evangelicals earn only one minimum wage (about $200) and 57% of Evangelicals are black, i.e. living at the base of the Brazilian social pyramid and suffering the most from inflation and deteriorating working conditions.
The pandemic and the non-improved economic situation will emerge as major topics in the lead up to next year’s election. One thing is for sure though, it is nearly impossible to predict what will happen in the 2022 election as Brazilian politics is famously volatile. The fact is that people are concerned about the economic issue, including most Evangelicals.
Even with an 11-point drop in the approval of the Bolsonaro government among Evangelicals, his likely presidential rival, former leftist President Lula, is failing to attract votes from this electorate. Lula and Bolsonaro are on an equal footing among the Evangelical electorate now. Although most Evangelicals are poor, the ultra-rich and mega-influential preachers carry out a very strong anti-PT campaign.
In addition, there is difficulty for the left to have an open dialogue with Evangelicals as they are usually middle class, more intellectualized and from the central neighborhoods. Because of this, they are usually detached from understanding the importance of the church to poor populations in the slums or rural areas. Effectively, the church is the community center for the periphery of Brazilian society.
88% of Brazil is religious, indicating that religion has a lot of weight in Brazil. Although Bolsonaro used this to his advantage to come to power and implement economic and geopolitical policies that serve US interests rather than Brazil’s, neither Trump or current President Joe Biden have given the South American country any importance for its servitude.
Rather, under Bolsonaro, Brazil’s formerly non-aligned policy that brought it closer to China and Russia has been diminished. Latin America’s largest country is now mostly isolated with few real friends or partners. Although Bolsonaro ideologically aligned himself to Washington by utilising US-inspired Evangelical churches, it appears that they are now abandoning the president as the economy is still struggling and he catastrophically failed to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to the deaths of over 600,000 people.
Therefore, it appears that the Evangelical electorate will once again become a deciding bloc in the 2022 election. Although preachers of Evangelical churches will undoubtedly support Bolsonaro or another reactionary leader, the parishioners may once again favor a leftist candidate believing that their economic interests will be better protected after Bolsonaro not only failed to improve the economy, but actually made working conditioners more difficult.
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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
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The late Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was South Africa’s anti-apartheid revolutionary, who served as president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, after his release from prison for 27 years in 1990.
His lifelong commitment to Peace, Fundamental Human Rights and his legacy will live for all humanity.
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The High Court hearing that will decide whether or not Julian Assange can be extradited opened with a mighty lie.
The prosecutor, James Lewis QC, listed ‘assurances’ by the US (see below) which were ‘binding’. They are not binding and never will be.
The High Court hearing that will decide whether or not Julian #Assange can be extradited opened with a mighty lie. The prosecutor, James Lewis QC, listed 'assurances' by the US (see below) which were 'binding'. They are not binding and never will be. https://t.co/aTNArFgLPR
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Many British elected MPs are paid-up members of the CFI, Conservative Friends of Israel (the AIPAC-affiliated, London lobby) in the House of Commons, that has supported the Likud government of Israel for over 10 years. The head of that lobby sits openly as a Conservative peer in the House of Lords, in Westminster.
The ultra, Right-wing Likud party of the State of Israel is headed by a politician who is now on trial for corruption and bribery in office having been Prime Minister of Israel for over a decade.
His wife was indicted on fraud charges. But those facts did not stop him from standing for election again in a country where the electorate obviously admire his policies of harassment and containment of the Palestinian Arab minority by a 14-year illegal blockade of essential goods and the destruction of power supplies to nearly two million civilians in Gaza.
This is the politician whose manifesto includes the forced annexation of the Palestinian West Bank, Arab East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the strategic Golan Heights. Such a policy often includes ethnic cleansing: a frightening phrase that can include the mass killing of an indigenous people. The Holocaust was exactly that – ethnic cleansing on an international scale that was perpetrated in Nazi-occupied Europe during WW2.
The Israeli navy now has a fleet of nuclear-armed, state of the art, submarines, (built by a ThyssenKrupp shipyard in Germany and subsidised by the Merkel government), that has a second-strike capability, and which is assumed to be secretly patrolling the Mediterranean and the Gulf 24/7, with its lethal WMD that that have the ability to destroy major strategic targets, at the press of a button.
The State of Israel is the only undeclared nuclear-weaponised state in the world and as such is completely outside the IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency and its UN inspectorate. Israel refuses to ratify the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to which a total of 191 States have joined, including the five nuclear-weapon states of US, Russia, France, Britain and China. More countries have ratified the NPT than any other arms limitation and disarmament agreement, a testament to the Treaty’s significance. Iran, of course, has no nuclear weapons but signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in 1968 as a non-nuclear weapons state and it ratified the NPT in 1970. It is subject, of course, to IAEA inspection – which nuclear-weaponised Israel is, astonishingly, not.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention, which entered into force on 29 April 1997. The OPCW, with its 193 Member States, oversees the global endeavour to permanently and verifiably, eliminate chemical weapons. 193 States have committed to the Chemical Weapons Convention to date and 98% of the global population live under its protection. As of 2020, the majority of the chemical weapons stockpiles declared by possessor states have been verifiably destroyed. However, Israel is a signatory state that has not ratified the Convention, and Egypt, North Korea and South Sudan, have neither signed nor acceded to it.
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Being fully vaccinated is painted by the MSM (Mainstream Media) as a civic duty, a moral responsibility and ‘the right thing to do.’ Putting aside the outrageous propaganda involved in that claim for a minute, let’s focus for now on what that even means.
What is fully vaccinated? 1 shot? 2 shots? 3 shots (2 shots plus a booster)? 4 shots? The answer not only depends where you are but when you are.
Many Israelis protested when their government required a 4th COVID vax shot for them to keep their vaccine passport (called a Green Pass) valid. Perhaps it finally dawned on them that being fully vaccinated was going to be something whose definition their government, not they, decided. But it’s not just about location, it’s also about what point in time you’re occupying. Fully vaccinated means different things at different points in the scamdemic. That’s the whole point: the term fully vaccinated is designed to mean whatever the New World Order (NWO) controllers want it to mean at any given time.
Washington Post Spells out the NWO COVID Agenda: You Will Never Be Fully Vaccinated
In an article published on October 22nd 2021, the Jeff Bezos-owned MSM Washington Post tries to explain away the very basis for why it was telling people to get vaxxed in the first place. It’s one of countless contradictions in the official COVID narrative (see others here) which, if it were a high-school student, would have scored an F for internal coherency and logic. One of the dominant and prevailing mantras of the COVID plandemic has been “vaccination is the only way out of this” and “the vaccine is the path back to normalcy.” Truth be told, gene-modifying vaccines are the path to the New Normal, part of the WEF’s Great Reset (a rebranding of the NWO) through introducing nanotechnology into people’s bodies. The idea that COVID vaccines are the only way out relies on so many assumptions, such as that the virus exists, that Big Pharma vaccine manufacturers had a real specimen of it when they made the vaccine, that COVID is a new disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 and many more. Remember, even Big Pharma companies have admitted that the vaccine was never designed to stop COVID transmission or stop serious COVID infection.
The Washington Post admits the definition of “fully vaccinated” is a moving target:
“All of this boils down to, essentially, an ongoing attempt to define “fully vaccinated.” Who is “fully vaccinated” against covid-19, and for how long? The honest answer is that the target is moving before our eyes. Until 2021, “fully vaccinated” was not a standard phrase, any more than “fully married” or “fully graduated from college.” Typically a person is considered “vaccinated” or “unvaccinated.” … Early this year, as coronavirus vaccines began to become available to the public, the term was useful … Ten months later, abundant new evidence has actually made it less clear whether our vaccine regimens should consist of one, two or three doses. Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people are fully vaccinated “2 weeks after their second dose” of Pfizer or Moderna, or “2 weeks after a single-dose vaccine” such as Johnson & Johnson. This definition is already obsolete; as of last month, the agency also recommends third doses of the Pfizer shot for high-risk groups after six months. Soon the recommendation is expected to extend to everyone over 40.”
Being a MSM rag, of course, it continues by trying to justify the unjustifiable, blaming those around the vaccinated person. Blaming the unvaccinated has become a significant COVID trend in the last few months:
“The answer is that [the vaccinated] can still die in the same way a person who is “fully seatbelted” still can. The degree to which any of us are protected by vaccination depends on more than simply how many shots we receive and how effectively our immune system responds. It also depends on those around us.”
What I’d like to focus on, however, is not the MSM’s constant blame of the unvaccinated, but rather its admission that you can never be fully vaccinated, which paves the way for an endless series of shots required to keep up your “immunity passport” or government-granted privileges. This enriches Big Pharma, provides more control to government (by giving them a way to shut out disobedient citizens from society if they fail to repeatedly comply) and provides the NWO controllers more access to people’s bloodstreams, and thus more opportunity to inject and nanotech and alien-like lifeforms into people’s bodies.
The CDC’s Definition Trickery: Changing the Meaning of Vaccination and Vaccine
Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), was recently reported to have said that her agency “may need to update” its definition of fully vaccinated against COVID. However, it’s important to note that the CDC has already been engaging in definition trickery and manipulation throughout the scamdemic. One example is that it insists on defining those who have taken the COVID vaccine as “unvaccinated” if it is only 14 days since they took it. This way, if those people get injured or die from complications or adverse effects, they are counted in official statistics as unvaccinated injuries or unvaccinated deaths.
Another example is the CDC’s role in changing the definition of the word ‘vaccine’ itself. Sharyl Attkisson reports on this discovery which was publicized by Congressman Thomas Massie:
“The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has carefully “evolved” the definition of vaccination to meet the declining ability of some of today’s “vaccines,” including the Covid-19 vaccines. The original definition, prior to 2015, stated that vaccines “prevent…disease.” Starting in 2015, the definition was altered to say that vaccines “produce immunity,” without necessarily preventing disease. After the Covid-19 vaccines were introduced, and it was discovered they do not necessarily “prevent disease” or “provide immunity,” CDC altered the definition of vaccines again to say that they merely “produce protection.”
The discovery was publicized by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) who tweeted the definitions.
Check out @CDCgov’s evolving definition of “vaccination.” They’ve been busy at the Ministry of Truth: pic.twitter.com/4k2xf8rvsL
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) September 8, 2021
Instead of requiring medicine to meet the definition of “vaccine,” it appears CDC has changed the definition of “vaccine” to accommodate what the medicine does.”
“So in a week, a vaccine went from being something that “produces immunity to a specific disease” to something that merely “stimulates the body’s immune response against diseases,” and a vaccination no longer “produces immunity” to a disease, just “protection” from a disease.
Does anyone else find this disturbing? Why did the CDC suddenly redefine “vaccine” and “vaccination” to make them sound similar to your basic non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug or a prescription drug you have to keep taking regularly?”
All this word-obfuscation and chicanery comes on top of the fact that the so-called COVID ‘vaccine’ is not a vaccine anyway, by standard and long-held legal and medical definitions, because it does not contain an attenuated or weakened virus.
The WHO Also Changed the Defintions of Herd Immunity and Pandemic
There is also further background to all this on the international level: the Gates-funded WHO (World Health Organization) has changed its definitions of ‘herd immunity’ and ‘pandemic.’ As this article explains, the WHO changed the definition of herd immunity to mention vaccination and to avoid any mention of naturally acquired immunity gained from prior infection. The WHO definition used to be:
“Herd immunity is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.”
Now it is:
“‘Herd immunity’, also known as ‘population immunity’, is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached. Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it. Vaccines train our immune systems to create proteins that fight disease, known as ‘antibodies’, just as would happen when we are exposed to a disease but – crucially – vaccines work without making us sick. Vaccinated people are protected from getting the disease in question and passing it on, breaking any chains of transmission.”
It’s a war on human perception. The article’s author, Peter Gyel, writes:
“This perversion of science implies that the only way to achieve herd immunity is via vaccination, which is blatantly untrue. The startling implications for society, however, are that by putting out this false information, they’re attempting to change our perception of what’s true and not true, leaving people believing that they must artificially manipulate their immune systems as the only way to stay safe from infectious disease.”
Similarly, the WHO changed the definition of pandemic. Their original definition of a pandemic from May 1st 2009 specified simultaneous epidemics worldwide:
“An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in several, simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness.”
Gyel writes:
“This definition was changed in the month leading up to the 2009 swine flu pandemic, removing the severity and high mortality criteria and leaving the definition of a pandemic as “a worldwide epidemic of a disease.” This switch in definition allowed WHO to declare swine flu a pandemic after a mere 144 people had died from the infection, worldwide, and it’s why COVID-19 is still promoted as a pandemic even though plenty of data suggest the lethality of COVID-19 is on par with the seasonal flu.”
What Does All This Definition Manipulation Mean?
The manipulation of the definition of words is firstly an attempt to confuse people and obstruct critical thinking and analysis. Many people are told to just blindly “trust the science” when they can’t figure out the truth among all these contradictions. It is secondly an attempt to fit whatever the scenario is (e.g. COVID or Operation Coronavirus) into the current definitions of certain terms (pandemic), whatever the pre-planned solution or toxic remedy is (e.g. gene-modifying nanotech devices) into the current definitions of certain terms (vaccine), and whatever the goal is (endless vaccination) into the current definitions of certain terms (fully vaccinated).
In short, it’s straight out of Orwell’s 1984. Words, pharses and terms mean whatever the ruling party wants them to mean at that time, period. We were always at war with Eastasia! Stop trying to make sense of all this, you dirty little prole. Just put your head down, shut up, mask up and vax up – but make sure you keep shopping. And, let your wise and beneficent leaders do all your thinking for you.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, the manipulation is designed to justify what the end goal already is: to inject as many people as possible as many times as possible to create a society where injection and ‘vaccination’ is standard, commonplace and the right of the government to inflict upon its citizens. To put it another way, to create a world where all inherent rights are eviscerated and only privileges exist, and that to earn those privileges, citizens must forgo bodily autonomy and medical sovereignty to allow the government to inject them whenever the government wants. This changes the power dynamic from a scenario where sovereign beings delegate others to represent them in a limited manner, to a scenario where citizens must beg for scraps (privileges) from an out-of-control centralized authority in a two-tiered society that some world leaders (like New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern) openly admit they are trying to construct.
A big part in turning the tide against the advancement of the NWO COVID op will be when a critical mass of people realize the horror of what being fully vaccinated really signifies – when enough people get that being fully vaccinated is an endless destination.
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Brian Dressen, Ph.D., who is a chemist with an extensive background in researching and assessing the degree of efficacy in new technologies, told the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Pfizer’s vaccine “failed any reasonable risk-benefit calculus in connection with children.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) advisory committee on Tuesday endorsed Pfizer’s COVID vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, despite strong objections raised during the meeting by multiple scientists and physicians.
Brian Dressen, Ph.D., is one of the scientists who testified during the 8-hour hearing.
Dressen is also the husband of Brianne Dressen, who developed a severe neurological injury during the Utah-based portion of the U.S. AstraZeneca COVID vaccine trial in 2020. After being injured by the first dose, Brianne withdrew from the trial.
During his 3-minute testimony, Dressen, a chemist with an extensive background in researching and assessing the degree of efficacy in new technologies, told the FDA advisory panel Pfizer’s vaccine “failed any reasonable risk-benefit calculus in connection with children.”
Dressen said:
“Your decision is being rushed, based on incomplete data from underpowered trials, insufficient to predict rates of severe and long-lasting adverse reactions. I urge the committee to reject the EUA [Emergency Use Authorization] modification and direct Pfizer to perform trials that will decisively demonstrate that the benefits outweigh the risks for children. I understand firsthand the impact that you will or will not have with the decision you’re going to make today.”
Dressen told the FDA how his wife was severely injured last November by a single dose of a COVID vaccine administered during a clinical trial. He said:
“Because study protocol requires two doses, she was dropped from the trial, and her access to the study app deleted. Her reaction is not described in the recently released clinical trial report — 266 participants are described as having an adverse event leading to discontinuation, with 56 neurological reactions tallied.”
He said he and his wife have since met participants from other vaccination trials — including Pfizer’s trial for 12- to 15-year-olds — who suffered similar reactions and fate.
Dressen said:
“Injured support groups are growing. Memberships number into at least the tens of thousands. We must do better. Those injured in a trial are a critical piece of vaccine safety data. They are being tossed aside and forgotten. The FDA has known first-hand about her case and thousands of others. The FDA has also stated that their own systems are not identifying this issue and that VAERS is not designed to identify any multi-symptom signals. The system is broken.”
Dressen said his family’s lives have changed forever.
“The clinical trials are not appropriately evaluating the data,” he said. “The FDA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the drug companies continue to deflect the persistent and repeated cries for help and acknowledgment, leaving the injured as collateral damage.”
He added:
“Until we appropriately care for those already injured, acknowledge the full scope of injuries that are happening to adults, please do not give this to kids. You have a very clear responsibility to appropriately assess the risks and benefits to these vaccines. It is obvious that isn’t happening.
“The suffering of thousands continues to repeatedly fall on deaf ears at the FDA. Each of you hold a significant responsibility today and know that without a doubt, when you approve this for the 5-11-year old’s, you are signing innocent kids and uninformed parents to a fate that will undoubtedly rob some of them of their life.”
“I will react to the vaccine regardless of the brand, and so if my kids have this same genetic makeup, there is the high potential now that the same thing could happen to them,” she said.
Since his wife’s injury — diagnosed by doctors at the National Institutes of Health — the Dressens have met with other trial participants and families with children who also believe they were injured by the COVID vaccines. They formed a support group and website called, C19 Vax Reactions, to share their stories of vaccine injuries.
On June 26, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) held a news conference to discuss adverse reactions related to the COVID vaccines — giving individuals, including Brianne, who have been “repeatedly ignored” by the medical community a platform to share their stories.
According to KUTV, the group continues to push the FDA and CDC for answers and help. Largely ignored, they reached out to Utah Senator Mike Lee, who wrote a letter to the CDC and FDA on their behalf.
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Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.
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“Adverse events from drugs and vaccines are common, but underreported. Although 25% of ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Likewise, fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported. Low reporting rates preclude or slow the identification of “problem” drugs and vaccines that endanger public health.”
Yet, according to Fauci, the vaccine is 100% safe and effective!
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Nicaragua has an election to choose their president and national assembly on November 7. According to polls, the Sandinista Front (FSLN) currently in government is expected to win the presidency and a majority of seats in the assembly.
At the same time, the Sandinista government is intensely disliked by Washington and there has been a steady stream of negative news and accusations.
One theme of accusations concerns the indigenous peoples. In October 2020, PBS Newshour broadcast an episode claiming the US is importing “conflict beef” from the indigenous regions of Nicaragua. This story relied on an Oakland Institute report which alleges rampant violence against indigenous communities and a complicit Nicaraguan government.
The PBS story and Oakland Institute accusations were criticized at the time, but there was no retraction or serious response.
One month later, in November 2020, Stephen Sefton travelled to eastern Nicaragua to interview indigenous community leaders and determine the facts. He asked the elected indigenous leaders about the situation, the challenges and whether the PBS story and Oakland Institute reports were accurate.
Sefton, a community worker who has lived in Nicaragua for 25 years, has published the interviews in a 79-page PDF booklet titled “Nicaragua’s Indigenous Peoples: the Reality and the Neocolonial Lies”.
Sefton interviewed an impressive set of indigenous leaders. With photos at bottom they are:
Arisio Genaro Selso (President Mayangan Indigenous Territorial Government) ; Eloy Frank Gomez (Secretary Mayangna Indigenous Territorial Government); Fresly Janes Zamora (President of the Miskito Indigenous Territorial Government Twi Yabra); Ronald Whittingham Dennis (President of the Indigenous and Afro Descendant Territorial Government Karata); Rose Cunningham Kain (Mayor of Waspam and President of the Indigenous Territorial Government of Wanghi Awala Kupia); Dr. Loyda del Carmen Martinez Rodriguez (District Judge of Waspam, Rio Coco); Lejan Mora (President of Indigenous Territorial Government of Wangki Twi / Tasba Raya).
Rose Cunningham Kain (Mayor of Waspam and President of the Indigenous Territorial Government of Wanghi Awala Kupia).
Lejan Mora (President of Indigenous Territorial Government of Wangki Twi / Tasba Raya)
Fresly Janes Zamora (President of the Miskito Indigenous Territorial Government Twi Yabra).
Ronald Whittingham Dennis (President of the Indigenous and Afro Descendant Territorial Government Karata)
Dr. Loyda del Carmen Martinez Rodriguez (District Judge of Waspam, Rio Coco)
Nicaragua’s Autonomous Zones
In 1987, the Sandinista government passed Law 28 which gave legal support to indigenous land claims. After the Sandinistas lost a hotly contested election in 1990, neoliberal policies took over and progress on indigenous claims was stopped and reversed. In 2005, the FSLN was still in opposition but secured passage of Law 445.
As a result of these laws, approximately 31% of Nicaragua’s territory is considered communal property owned by the indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples of the country.
Key Questions and Answers
Question: Are cattle being raised for export in the autonomous zones?
Rose Cunningham Kain: Cattle here have been like pets in other countries. And little by little we have been making a shift to having more cattle. But here there has been no certification process to permit meat exports.
The people here supply the local market and, as often as not with some difficulty, we manage to find someone who wants to butcher their cattle for the local market. Of course, in the last few years we have been encouraging people to improve their cattle stock, so that IPSA (Institute of Agricultural Protection and Health) can do its work teaching us how to improve our cattle rearing.
But we keep animals on a very small scale. So, this report saying that settlers are killing us for land to raise cattle on is not true either. That is not true. Not one cattle rancher has died here, not one Miskito involved in any kind of cattle related killing. It’s a Disney World story, maybe, a Mickey Mouse story, who knows. But it is not a real story of this municipality Waspam or any of these municipalities where there are indigenous peoples.
Question: What about media claims that a little girl was shot in the face by a land invader?
Lejan Mora: In that case, a 13-year-old boy was handling his father’s handgun inside the house. The gun went off and the bullet pierced through here and came out here on a nearby girl. What did they do when that accident happened? The creators of fake news took charge of spreading the word through the media, through Facebook, claiming that a lot of men appeared, 200 men and attacked the community. And we showed that was false. We went to the house and to the community.
We interviewed people. We even visited the site where it happened. Everything was false. But that information spread internationally as if it was something real, which is untrue. Today even we could go… if we go to the community, we can go and talk also to the mother of the girl about what happened, and she can tell us the truth.
Question: Some mestizo farmers purchased land in the indigenous regions. How did this happen?
Eloy Frank Gomez: Yatama (indigenous opposition political party) mayors and deputies of Yatama were involved in the sale of indigenous lands. The community members didn’t know. The mestizos came in big numbers, families after families entering indigenous territories, for example in the area of the Rio Coco.
In certain areas of our communities in the Bosawas Reserve, which borders with Miskito land, many mestizo settlers came to enter our Mayangna lands. But how? Through these sales authorized by politicians from Yatama.
It’s no secret that Liberal mayors and municipalities with mayors opposed to the government also promoted land trafficking, even financed organized groups, armed groups to invade indigenous lands and to dispossess the indigenous people of their lands. There is evidence of that.
Lejan Mora: YATAMA leaders were the ones who started selling land. We have documents showing they were the vendors. Who were the buyers? People from the Pacific, who don’t have land. So, they began selling, they began doing business, and that is where the problem of land invasion arose.
Question: How are relations between indigenous and mestizo settlers?
Fresly Janes Zamora: From the 1980s to date, if that person lives in that area, in that community, they already know the language, the culture, they already live with the same culture. The children, for example, are already over 30 years old. So, all these things give them that right.
But what happened? The problem of the invasions started after the year 2000.It was difficult for the communities… they didn’t even have the authority to make decisions. So, what happens then? From 2013 onwards, we do have that dominion.
We have that dominion, and we do still have that conflict, not with the government, not with the State of Nicaragua, but the people, the mestizos themselves are invading properties. Because as I told you, we conserve areas. Our ancestors, that is our culture. We are few but we have large tracts of land, because they are the areas where we go out to hunt animals, to sow our crops, to fish. So, these are areas where we as indigenous peoples abide. That is our culture.
So, we now have the title. We have … dominion, we do have now, and the government, the State recognizes it. The only problem we have is that sometimes outsiders want to invade us or are invading our property. So, something that we must teach them is to recognize that they are our lands, and that this land is not empty and unclaimed.
It has an owner. And the owner is the indigenous peoples. Therefore, although they do need land, they must coordinate, to reach an arrangement, to engage in dialogue, a negotiation with the owners
Sometimes we have a conflict. With two or three of the ten mestizos that are within our lands, not all of them agree to recognize us. Always, in everything, there are two or three families that do not agree, that do not want to recognize us. So, what do we do?
When this is the case, we visit the place, because it is our land, and we go in a commission to explain to them the internal regulations of our communities, or the internal regulations of the territory. If they agree, we can reach an understanding.
We can sit down and start a dialogue, negotiate. Because the lands cannot be sold, even if I want to sell, I cannot, even if I want to give them away, I cannot. Because that’s a crime. But yes, the land can be leased.
So, what we are doing is, as Twi Yabra, we are leasing land. We are leasing land, after several lawsuits, there was even bloodshed. But what good is that?
Rose Cunningham Kain: Here in Waspam we are practicing coexistence with those who have come to settle in Waspam. So, in this municipality we have different models of relations with non-indigenous peoples, with non-indigenous settlers. At this moment in the context of the hurricane, we have also had news of agricultural losses these non-indigenous people have suffered too. And as the mayor’s office we have to listen to them because they are Nicaraguan citizens. They have human rights. They are human too.
What is true is that we always call on them to reach agreement with the indigenous peoples. Either they leave or they come to an agreement with the owners of the land. The last violent activity must have been in about 2013/14. We have not had violent activities in this part of our territory. Here we have seen meetings where people speak their minds. We have documented meetings that have taken place in the mountains between non-indigenous settlers and indigenous settlers where 17 communities, leaders of 17 communities, come together and walk to meet at a certain point.
Question: The last stage of the transition in the autonomous zones is remediation (‘saneamiento’). What is the status of this?
Lejan Mora: We’re in the last phase of the remediation, which is clearing the boundaries, the inter-territorial limits and so on. So, we are at that stage right now. I remember very well indeed that in 2015 there were clashes between Miskitos and those who were invading the land.
The political opposition are insisting on self-remediation. So, the people in the communities rise up, get involved in confrontations, and then they persist, and that’s how it happened that, I think there have been four or three deaths, something like that.
We invited the settlers and we sat there under a tree. We started to make a presentation of the real situation there because they know very well they are on land that does not belong to them, we presented this to them. And we have shown them what and how might be the most appropriate way forward. It is a negotiated way, not through confrontations or anything like that.
We talked and reached an agreement that… because there are people who have been on that land for several years. And that land where they are located, they got it because another territory sold it. One territory agreed the sale, but it is a piece of land that belongs to a different territory.
So, it is a bit of a complicated situation. So, we talked with them, and precisely this coming Wednesday we have planned to go and prepare the ground for to another type of approach, namely leasing. We as the territory of Wangki Twi have not yet taken that approach but seeing the situation and to alleviate it a little, we must take that step. To what end? To a point we regard as feasible for creating a calmer and more durable situation, so that there are no conflicts.
Question: What about “self-remediation”?
Fresly Janes Zamora: The opposition is promoting violence between indigenous and mestizos… Self-remediation means promoting violence between indigenous against mestizos.
So, when they throw a stone, someone else will throw stones.
Why do they send NGOs and programs for this? … On paper it says one thing, but on the ground it’s something else. That’s it. So that’s what they are promoting. When there is no fire, there is no money. As I told you, things are calm, things are resolved, but that’s what they do.
So, we as Twi Yabra territory are against those people. That is why we are not involved with any organization. Because at the beginning we thought they entered in good faith to support us. But during the execution of these projects, of these visits, which they did in my absence, they were already doing other things. We immediately prohibited their visits to our communities because they were trying to destabilize the structure of the territorial government, the structure of the communal authorities and at the same time to bring violence between the Miskito peoples and outsiders, so we are against it.
Question: When do you negotiate with non-indigenous people?
Ronald Whittingham Dennis: There are people who say remediation is to clear out, to get everyone out …. But some people say no, remediation is to seek an understanding, to remediate is to reach an understanding. And part of that understanding is the well-known term of reordering. That is the concept.
So, what does it mean to reorder? It is not that the mestizos or the outsiders that are within your territory, within your area, that they are going to decide where they are going to be. You will tell them where they are going to be. That is reordering. And how much you can give in the portion of land. That is the zoning.
It is a component for solving problems. Now in that reordering you also have to see who will go and who can stay. That is reordering.
The State provides that through the Army and the Army’s Ecological Battalion, and no territory can say that’s not the case. They have indeed provided accompaniment. They have provided accompaniment.
If a member of the community sold a certain portion of land for whatever reason, you are forced to sit down and negotiate. To see what can be done. And to negotiate you have to do so in a spirit of wanting to solve the problem. But if there is no will to resolve the problem rather than to create more problem, then you will never solve the problem.
So, you have to look for strategies on how you are going to resolve it. Because these people who have already, imagine, who have already come to live here for fourteen years, fifteen years, they came to plant their crops, they have their own livestock, they have their animals, they are already well established.
And that is what we in the territories have to understand. The damage is already done. What we have to look for is how to resolve the problem.
Question: What happens to settlers who are violent or refuse to leave the indigenous areas?
Dr. Loyda del Carmen Martinez Rodriguez: The State has vindicated the indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples’ right to the land, and the State is also a guarantor in the efforts to secure social peace in our country and in our region. It is a process in which the State has guaranteed and has given those peoples this right, but the political opposition always does not see this. They also say that the cases we have prosecuted are of little importance. But no. The indigenous peoples are being protected and the rights the indigenous peoples are being vindicated. And the State has contributed a great deal to this because no other government had ever recognized the indigenous peoples, giving them a title to what before was only private property, where only the oligarchy and the bourgeoisie had the right to own land.
Also, I have participated in dialogue between mestizos and Miskitos in which there are territories that want to resolve the remediation process by means of a leasing agreement with the territory. They make the proposal, then the territory, its president will decide if they are going to lease or not. So, we have carried out these procedures as a judicial authority… by way of accompaniment, then. So, you see, we have participated listening to both parties, the mayor of the municipality has invited me to participate and listen to proposals made by the non-indigenous party.
Likewise, we have made progress in this aspect of property remediation, and we are not trying to drag it out, although the opposition always sees it like that. But there has been a lot of progress, because there is a dialogue between mestizos and Miskitos in which the State guarantees as established in Law 445 that those communities, that now have their legal title, can lease their land and that is allowed by law. But this is something that as regards the State and the territories, each territory president is able say whether they want to lease or not.
Lejan Mora: We’ve stopped the invasion that was taking place. By applying that law, we are able to get people imprisoned via a judicial process. We get them imprisoned and they end up with three-year prison terms.
And that is how we are trying to calm the situation. And later, we seek to reach a peaceful solution, without confrontations or anything else. The issue of territorial rights here in Nicaragua is something new for us. What the current government has done for us is a very good thing.
Question: What is the role of foreign funded NGOs?
Arisio Genaro Selso: There are organizations, NGOs that use the name of the indigenous peoples and indigenous organizations to make accusations against the government, to denigrate the government, to try to destroy the government’s image and that of the work it does within the protected areas, for example, in the case of the Río San Juan, for example, or in the case of the Indio Maíz Reserve, and here in the case of the Bosawas Reserve.
Rose Cunningham Kain: I think that, like this person, there are many who take advantage of the poverty and conflict of others. That is not and never has been the spirit of the creation of non-governmental organizations. For me, non-governmental organizations should not want to profit from poverty or people’s conflicts. And when I say poverty, it’s not that we are poor.
We have been impoverished by the same people who have funded the people who say that we live in conflict.
It is a big lie. We have not had that kind of conflict for many years. We are building peace. Peace is not just words. Peace is a process. And the social reinsertion after the eighties, when the counterrevolution was also financed from the north, that peace process that led us to Autonomy, we continue to weave it, we continue to build it, and we continue to strengthen it. And today, after 33 years of Autonomy, we feel, and I feel proud to see how our community leaders are able to give you an interview and tell you the reality. And they know where the bad is and where the good is.
Question: What is the role of the Center for Justice and Human Rights in the Atlantic District of Nicaragua (CEJUDHCAN) and its leader Lottie Cunningham?
Arisio Genaro Selso: CEJUDHCAN is not the institution she claims or projects at the international level, as an organization or institution defending indigenous rights.
Why doesn’t she ever consult us? Why doesn’t she come to the communities to consult us? Why not our national leadership, which is who we are, leading the national government of the Mayangna Nation, or else to the presidents in our territorial governments…? She is not present. She speaks from afar. She uses the indigenous name. She uses it without having been there when the events are taking place. For example, when the Alal case occurred, up there in the Reserve, she said that the government was not defending the indigenous people.
In practice, Lottie works with opposition activists. They are people who live as we Nicaraguans say, making accusations against the government, talking badly about the government. So, she takes that and exploits it to say that the government does such and such, but really if it were the organization, she says it is, she should be open to consultation. But she is not. She just turns up for a short while. And sometimes she exaggerates things. And she makes use of the indigenous peoples.
Fresly Janes Zamora: CEJUDHCAN does training on the rights of indigenous peoples. But at the same time, they have another interest. Two programs came to my territory, that they are going to help me, that are going to help me with remediation, this, and that… We said, look, these are our conditions and priorities. So, help me on such and such a matter.
For example, when in my second year as president, they saw things were going to improve, change, become more formalized, they did not like that. Why? Well, as long as there are incidents, then there are conflicts, so for them that means there is always funding. So, what did I do? I told them, I sent two letters, saying that we want nothing to do with them. We no longer want to have a relationship with them.
Lejan Mora: I have seen the video that Lottie released. She says every pound of meat that sold to the United States is a drop of blood of the Miskito. Which is totally false. I don’t know what her objective is in spreading so many lies. Because it has nothing to do with anything real, nothing at all. These are not right. I mean, a lie of such magnitude.
Question: How are relations between the indigenous leaders and the Nicaragua government?
Arisio Genaro Selso: Before there was this great project for Bosawas it was worse. There was no consultation, the decisions weren’t taken by the indigenous communities.
Now things are different. This is an opportunity for the indigenous peoples, this recognition, this respect of the government towards indigenous institutions, towards indigenous peoples. This also allows indigenous peoples to participate directly and broadly in the decisions that are being taken.
Progress has been made. Why? Because the government authorized the creation of a body within the courts, namely the figure of Defenders of Indigenous Peoples was created, wherever there is the presence of indigenous population. What is the function of these Defenders? It is the direct accompaniment these Defenders provide to the indigenous organizations for the judicial process of settlers, those who are destroying the environment, all these types of cases. So, there is greater accompaniment.
And the other important element is that we have also achieved within the judiciary, our indigenous officials also hold positions in the courts. So now the recent appointments of the Defenders of Indigenous and Afro-descendant Peoples are also indigenous people who speak the indigenous languages. That is the other element, which for us is vital.
The government has guaranteed that in all the municipalities where indigenous peoples are present, there will also be functionaries who speak indigenous languages.
Summary
Readers who are interested to learn more facts and perspectives on the situation in Nicaragua’s autonomous regions are encouraged to read Sefton’s entire book. While there is much in common, the indigenous leaders have different experiences and perspectives on certain issues. There are many rich insights and subtleties in the full text. What comes through very clearly is that the news and analysis of the situation in Nicaragua is being hugely distorted.
In the last month (October 2021) a violent attack took place in the Bosawas indigenous territory. Again, Stephen Sefton travelled to the remote area by car and horse to ascertain the facts about what really happened. It turns out that the conflict was over a mining operation and both the victims and perpetrators were indigenous. This is documented in Sefton’s article The Truth about Recent Violence in Bosawas. From the misinformation about “conflict beef” and other accusations last year, to the recent events in Bosawas, the common thread is that information about Nicaragua is being manipulated for geopolitical ends. That is why these first person interviews and statements from indigenous leaders are so crucial to hear.
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Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be reached at [email protected].
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A board-certified pathologist who runs a diagnostics lab said he’s been seeing “clotting” in the “lungs,” “vessels,” and “brain” in patients due to the COVID-19 jabs.
“Under the microscope, we see clotting in the lungs, we see clotting in the vessels, we see clotting in the brain, not from the virus, but from the spike [protein] from the vaccine itself.”
“In our data around the world, from the United States, from the U.K., from the EudraVigilance in Europe, we have seen more death and damage from this one medical product than all other vaccines combined in the last several decades, in just a short 8-month window of time.”
Corroborating Cole’s statements, the recent data from America’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), co-managed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), shows that there have been over 16,000 reports of COVID-19 vaccine deaths since the rollout in 2020, which is 5,000 more deaths than have been recorded since 1990 from all other vaccines combined.
According to American attorney Thomas Renz, who has analyzed the VAERS data with the help of a government whistleblower, VAERS underreports adverse effects “by a conservative factor of at least 5” and the real death total is at least 45,000 in the U.S. alone.
Cole said the COVID vaccines have done “more damage than any other medical product, therapy, shot, modality, of anything we’ve ever allowed to stay on the market to this point.”
“Do I mean to sound alarmist? No, I’m being factual. And when I look at it under the microscope, and I see the parts of people, or people that are no longer with us, the damage and the disease is caused by that spike protein,” he emphasized.
In a video produced by the Idaho state government in March, Cole said that since the rollout of the vaccines, he has seen a staggering increase in cancers among those who have received the abortion-tainted jabs.
“Since January 1, in the laboratory, I’m seeing a 20-times increase of endometrial cancers over what I see on an annual basis,” reported Cole in the video clip. “I’m not exaggerating at all because I look at my numbers year over year, I’m like ‘Gosh, I’ve never seen this many endometrial cancers before.’”
This doctor trained at the Mayo Clinic and runs the largest independent testing laboratory in Idaho.
Cole explained that the COVID-19 vaccines seem to impact the immune system function responsible for combatting the growth of cancer cells and other viruses, referring to the phenomenon as a “reverse HIV response.”
Cole explained that the vaccines cause a suppression of a person’s “killer T-cells” similar to how HIV suppresses a person’s “helper T-cells”, and how both types of cells are integral to fighting off cancer cells and other damaging viruses.
In addition to endometrial cancer, Cole reported an “uptick” in melanomas, herpes, shingles, mono, and a “huge uptick” in HPV, which he attributes to the damage done to the immune system by the experimental shots.
Despite FDA approval, the COVID-19 vaccines have not completed clinical testing, with the earliest date for clinical trial completion set well into 2023.
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On August 25, Camilo Enciso, a 41-year-old anti-corruption advocate and attorney, says he was walking inside the Walled City of Cartagena, Colombia, a popular tourist destination known for its colonial architecture and spacious plazas. He had traveled there from his home in Bogotá for a wedding, and was taking a nighttime stroll. Suddenly, he recalls, a group of men nearby started menacing him — he says they reminded him of hooligans you’d see “in a street of any random European city after a soccer game.”
“At first the group simply stared aggressively at me,” Enciso says, “but after some seconds they began to shout and try to call my attention.” He recalls, “they started whistling, and kind of shouting.” He says he took a closer look. “The guys were very well dressed. You could tell they were part of Cartagena’s elite.” The men weren’t targeting him randomly, he realized. “They knew who I was. Their aggressive demeanor had to do with me.”
The group, he believes, was a “collection of right-wing, pro-government radicals” that had recognized him. Such an assumption is certainly understandable. Just 15 days earlier, Enciso had gotten his hands on and publicly released Colombia’s confidential contracts with AstraZeneca and Pfizer for the Covid vaccine — an act that he believed was in the public interest but nonetheless let loose an avalanche of criticism, thousands of insults, and even threats on his personal safety. His name was trotted out by right-wing media, and he was denounced by high-ranking Colombian officials, all the way up to conservative President Iván Duque. Press outlets and politicians declared that by releasing the contracts, which detail the prices and conditions the government agreed to for the vaccines, Enciso had angered pharmaceutical companies and very well could have jeopardized the entire country’s vaccine supply. Seemingly overnight, he had become national enemy number one, all for the crime of, as he puts it, pushing for the most basic transparency around high-dollar agreements between the Colombian government and powerful multinational pharmaceutical companies.
The firestorm itself, which haunts Enciso far beyond the streets of Cartagena, reveals a great deal about the upper hand the pharmaceutical industry has over the South American country, which is being ravaged by coronavirus, with just 38 percent of its population is fully vaccinated (above the global average, but still well below the vaccination rates of wealthy countries). The media and government narrative “was driven by fear of pharmaceutical companies and the power they have to impose conditions or not sell vaccines to the Colombian government,” says Daniela Rojas Molina, legal advisor for Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa, a press freedom organization.
Before publishing the documents, Enciso had tried the official route. He is the director of Colombia’s Anti-Corruption Institute, a non-profit organization that was created in 2018 to combat corruption and promote access to public information. At the time Enciso publicly shared the contracts, the organization was in the midst of its own legal effort to compel their disclosure — an effort that, to that point, had been unsuccessful. “We’d been trying to get clarity on the prices of purchases of vaccines and the full text on contracts signed by the Colombian government since at least December of last year,” he says. His organization has invoked Colombia’s transparency laws that were enacted in 2014 and similar to America’s Freedom of Information Act, which requires release of documents deemed public.
The Colombian government fought vigorously against the effort, one of its main arguments being that it had agreed to confidentiality as a condition of the contracts. Yet, the Anti-Corruption Institute won a significant victory when a key legal body, Colombia’s Tribunal Administrativo de Cundinamarca, ruled in May 2021 in the organization’s favor, arguing that details of vaccine information should be public. But the government then used a series of tactics to delay and obstruct the release, including by saying the ruling had not been precise enough in its directive.
Johnson & Johnson, meanwhile, petitioned another court, Colombia’s Consejo de Estado , to force the Tribunal to withdraw the decision, arguing that the company’s due process had been violated. “The Consejo de Estado asked the Tribunal to send it the contracts,” Enciso explains. “They wanted to see them.”
What happened next was a colossal government blunder—or gift, depending on how you look at it. Someone in the State Council, the top tribunal for administrative matters, accidentally, and very briefly, made Colombia’s contracts with Pfizer and AstraZeneca public.
Enciso remembers being stunned.
“A journalist called me and said, ‘I’m confused. I’m looking at this document that’s a contract with the vaccines,’” explains Enciso. The journalist sent the PDF to Enciso, who realized that the document had been accidentally released from another case (the Anti-Corruption Institute wasn’t the only entity pursuing litigation). “Because I was not a party to that case, I did not have access to those documents in my role as an attorney, I was okay with publishing it,” says Enciso.
Concerned that the litigation process was only going to bring more delay, he decided to take things into his own hands: He published the contracts on the website of the Anti-Corruption Institute and on Twitter. (Notably, he was not the first to publish. Before Enciso released the documents: El Tiempo newspaper published a piece that included information about the contracts, according to the source code of the webpage, while Caracol Radio published the full documents.)
Burcu Kılıç, the research director for Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines Program, a U.S.-based watchdog effort, says the public sharing of vaccine contracts is vitally important — not only for Colombia, but for the world.
“Every country on this planet is negotiating contracts with companies, and every official who’s been part of these discussions needs guidance and assistance and information,” she says. “Unfortunately there isn’t much out there.”
She adds, “Colombians have a right to know what’s in their contracts.”
But when Enciso shared this information, all hell broke loose.
Enciso is no stranger to the nastiness of political fighting in Colombia, and he himself has been a part of government. He was employed from 2014 to 2017as secretary of transparency for the administration of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, more liberal than the right-wing Duque.
Enciso says that were he someone with less “thick skin,” the resultant condemnation and pile on for the release of the contracts would be “a psychological struggle.”
The government’s rebuke of Enciso was swift. Less than half an hour after the contracts were published on August 10, Víctor Muñoz, director of the administrative department for the president, published a tweet proclaiming that, “Irresponsibility in handling vaccine information puts the national vaccination plan at risk and, as such, the life and health of Colombians.”
High-ranking officials repeated this charge. In a press release, Fernando Ruiz Gómez, Colombia’s health minister, said that the disclosure constituted a breach of the contracts. He asserted that Pfizer brought the issue to their lawyers. “We are waiting for their response,” he added forebodingly.
“of course there is concern. I spoke yesterday with the president of the State Council; she is also very worried, first because it is about confidential information to guarantee compliance with the contracts for the supply of vaccines.”
A government narrative quickly emerged: By releasing the contracts, Enciso had violated the conditions of their agreement and, as a result, the pharmaceutical companies may choose to withhold supply. The release, therefore, threatened the public health of Colombians, the argument went. This was an incredible charge: Enciso may be responsible for some unknown amount of future deaths.
Enciso rejected this narrative whole-heartedly, and took to the media to defend his actions. “If the pharmaceutical companies do not sell vaccines to Colombia, they are solely responsible for this immorality,” he said in an August 12interview. He argued that he did not breach any agreements since the contracts were made publicly available by the State Council: “After that, we published the contracts that were already in the public domain as they were in an open access place.”
The same day as that interview, Enciso’s organization released a statement arguing that, in no way did the release of the contracts give the companies the green light to withhold supply — this was a misreading: “Under the terms of the contracts, it is NOT appropriate for the pharmaceutical companies to unilaterally cancel the contracts in the event of this information being published by third parties.”
But there was little Enciso could do to stop the narrative — the wheels were already in motion.
The contracts instantly became a major national media story, promptly covered by prominent papers. Semana, whose new owners seek to emulate Fox News, ran a media offensive repeating the government’s narrative that Enciso may have blood on his hands.
On August 11, Semana ran an article suggesting Enciso had a political agenda as a former official of the Santos government. In that piece, the publication said that it was “irresponsible” to have disclosed the contracts because the release could jeopardize the country’s vaccination plan. Carlos Hernández from the University of the Andes was quoted as saying that Enciso’s decision to publish the contracts “risks the health of Colombians in exchange for likes and media presence. The Anti-Corruption Institute is acting in a corrupt, irresponsible and political manner.” Santiago Tobón, from Eafit University, said that Enciso’s publication put current and future purchases at risk, which “implies the possible death and illness of many Colombians.”
In a segment published August 11, a commentator for Semana also criticized the release of the contracts, claiming that “accepting prices, clauses and confidentiality made the difference between whether Colombia had vaccines or not.”
Enciso has done his own media sparring with the right. In January, he published an op-ed criticizing the fact that a defeated mayoral candidate for Bogotá, Miguel Uribe Turbay, was put in charge of the account (subcuenta) that administers the resources to combat the pandemic in the country. Uribe Turbay is a protégé of former President Alvaro Uribe — a right-winger who opposed the country’s peace accords with the FARC, a guerrilla group. (They are not family related). Iván Duque, the current president of Colombia, also belongs to this political group.
But Enciso’s colleagues say the media discourse around the publication of the documents is particularly unhinged. Rojas of Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa, which supported the Anti-Corruption Institute’s litigation to release the contracts, says that any scrutiny of the companies was largely missing from the conversation — let alone concern that the contracts would be secret in the first place. “The whole public discussion about this should have been completely different,” she says. “There’s a huge misunderstanding of how access to information should be applied to these cases, even if pharmaceutical companies impose a lot of contractual conditions. This whole discussion didn’t take into account that the contracts are public information and have always been public information.”
Enciso describes this as a frenzied time during which he was tracking a right-wing media response while doing his own press appearances. The day after the documents went public, he says, “I went to the media all day — I must have had 30 interviews that day.”
By then, the media and government attention had touched off a different kind of reaction.
“The day we published the contract, I received 1,800 messages saying, ‘You are the worst person on the planet.’ ‘I would like to see you in the street.’ ‘You are a traitor of Colombia.’ ‘I hope your mother dies,’” says Enciso.
One message he received on August 12 said,
“Damn politician of the worst kind, creep, trash, if the vaccination plan is at risk, you will be the culprit of thousands of deaths, which we will remind you in case you happen to campaign for any public office, you will pay for that ‘mistake.’”
The message appeared to take aim at any future plans Enciso might have to be involved in politics. (Enciso says he has no plans to run for a political office.)
One only has to look on Twitter to confirm this pile-on. Tweets generally fall into two categories: that Enciso had been “irresponsible” for releasing the contracts and he would be to blame for the deaths of Colombians, or that he is an idiot (pendejo) and a son of a bitch (hijueputa) — common insults in Colombia. Many of the accounts appear to be loyal to Duque and Uribe, and criticize Enciso for his affiliation with the Santos administration.
That anger, according to Enciso’s recollection, spilled over into the streets of Cartagena. Enciso says he emerged from the incident unharmed.
“I kept walking straight and didn’t bite the bait,” he says. “If I had, things could have evolved really badly for me.”
But then Enciso’s mother says she was targeted with verbal intimidation. After Enciso left Caragena, she says she stayed there for a few weeks. About 20 days ago, she says she received a call while there from an unidentified number. A man insulted her, told her that her son is corrupt, and called him a “hijueputa.”
The pharmaceutical companies themselves steered clear of public remarks about the release of contracts. But in a statement to In These Times, Pfizer denied that it did anything to encourage the condemnations of Enciso’s actions.
“The agreements we have signed with the Colombian government have rigorously followed all required legal, regulatory and ethical procedures,” said the company. “The negotiation process for the distribution of Covid-19vaccines with governments of different countries is the same, both in Latin America and worldwide. This is the result of a joint work between local, regional and global teams, which follow the same policies, guidelines and directives established by Pfizer and BioNTech. To date, Pfizer has complied with all its contractual obligations and maintains the firm commitment to complete the delivery of all the doses that correspond to Colombia.”
Asked whether it had threatened to withhold vaccine supply, the company said “no.” The company said the release of the contracts will not affect vaccine delivery.
AstraZeneca did not respond to a request for comment sent over email.
But according to Kılıç,
“They don’t even need to say anything. When there is a limited supply, the seller becomes the king. Even if they don’t say much, they are creating pressure. They can say they haven’t done anything. They don’t really need to. No one can take the risk of making Pfizer unhappy. They have so much power.”
She added that she’s not sure she believes their account.
Muñoz did tell the press that pharmaceutical companies had expressed their concern and annoyance with the leak. Duque added that he was in dialogue with the pharmaceutical companies and had confidence that “there will not be any kind of sanction that affects the development of the national vaccination plan.”
According to Enciso,
“The reality is the government has done what I would think is the dirty job: try to hold the contracts confidential while the companies present themselves as committed to saving human lives, period.”
In addition to the uproar itself, the contracts themselves are revealing — evidence, Enciso’s supporters say, that the revelations were in the public interest.
In particular, Kılıç says the contract with Pfizer is “very one-sided. It is obvious Pfizer calls the shots.” The Pfizer contract states that “under no circumstances will Pfizer be subject to or liable for any late delivery penalties.” Even if Pfizer fails to deliver in accordance with the delivery schedule, there will be no implications for the company.” Colombia “waives all rights and remedies that it may have at law” concerning “any failure by Pfizer to deliver the contracted doses in time,” the contract states. Colombia also waives its “sovereign immunity” from liability claims arising from the vaccine or its use.
“I’ve seen a few government purchase contracts before but never seen such a seller-takes-it-all one,” says Kılıç.
The AstraZeneca contract showed that Colombia was being charged $6 per dose, well above the $2 per dose the European Union was paying for the vaccine. Pfizer, meanwhile, charged $12 per dose, the contract shows — compared to $19.50 per dose in the United States.
This is in keeping with other actions the company has taken in Latin America. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism found in a February 2021 report that “Pfizer has been accused of ‘bullying’ Latin American governments in Covid vaccine negotiations and has asked some countries to put up sovereign assets, such as embassy buildings and military bases, as a guarantee against the cost of any future legal cases.”
Meanwhile, there are other signs that the country has been reluctant to ruffle the feathers of the pharmaceutical industry: It has steered clear of supporting an effort at the World Trade Organization, led by India and South Africa, to suspend global patent rules in order to expand international access to cheaper, generic versions of the Covid vaccine. The proposal is fiercely opposed by the pharmaceutical industry.
Enciso says he’s motivated to do the work he does because “at some point I realized corruption and lack of transparency are at the heart of many of our biggest problems. They enable all sorts of crimes, human rights violations, abuse of power, depletion of natural resources, unfair trade.”
He is not the only person in Colombia concerned about transparency. This spring and summer saw massive protests against the Duque government, which were touched off by a proposal for regressive tax reform in Colombia, but expanded to encompass outrage over inequality, the killing of social movement leaders, police violence, corruption, and lack of government transparency. The protess were met with tremendous violence on the part of the Duque administration.
When discussing his own ordeal, Enciso strikes a tone that is remarkably unflappable. The Colombian government has threatened to take legal action against him for releasing the contracts, but he says he is “not really” concerned. “I am a criminal lawyer myself and I am quite sure I didn’t commit any illegal conduct,” he says. “Even more, it would be great to defeat such stupid prosecution in court.”
Some in his orbit, however, are a bit more troubled.
“If I were in the position of Camilo, I would be concerned about my future and also my personal safety,” says Juan Carlos Upegui, the director of the human rights and technology research team at Dejusticia, a research and advocacy organization. “The release of information could put you at risk.”
Enciso has his supporters, like Rojas, who says that the documents belong in the public domain, and their release is justified.
But amid the frenzy of denunciations, such perspectives are drowned out by a government narrative that leaves no room for the possibility that pharmaceutical companies, and not the man who released the agreements, would be responsible if Colombians were deprived of a life-saving vaccine.
According to Kılıç, the uproar in Colombia is an indictment on the whole system of vaccine distribution.
“This is a power thing,” she says. “They [pharmaceutical companies] have the intellectual property, they have the exclusivity, they have the power. Take away their intellectual property, and they won’t behave like this. We must change this whole system.”
As Upegui of Dejusticia puts it, “the government is kind of working as a lawyer for pharmaceuticals.”
To date, the only Colombian vaccine contracts that have been revealed to the public are those shared by Enciso and some media outlets. There is no immediate sign, at this point, that the release of the contracts will impact Colombia’s vaccine supply. Yet, the mark on Enciso’s name isn’t so easily washed away.
“The impact of the media and public,” says Enciso, “is that I did engage in some form of wrongdoing.”
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Ambi Colón Nuñez contributed research to this article.
Sarah Lazare is web editor and reporter for In These Times. She tweets at @sarahlazare.
Maurizio Guerrero is a journalist based in New York City. He covers migration, social justice movements and Latin America.
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).
Today the UK High Court begins a two-day hearing of a United States government appeal aimed at securing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the US.
The hearing is the culmination of a campaign of rampant criminality by American imperialism and its allies, stretching over a decade. Its character is summed up in revelations during the last two years that Assange has been the subject of CIA plots for his surveillance, kidnap, and assassination.
Last month, Yahoo News reported that the Trump administration tasked the CIA with drafting “options” for Assange’s murder. “Sketches” were drawn up and conversations held on “whether killing Assange was possible and whether it was legal”. In the event of Assange’s attempted escape from the embassy, possibly aided by Russian agents, the UK government had agreed “to do the shooting if gunfire was required.”
In 2019, it emerged that UC Global, the security firm at Ecuador’s embassy in London where Assange claimed asylum for nearly seven years, had been working with American intelligence to spy on the WikiLeaks founder and his associates. Last year, during Assange’s extradition hearing, evidence was given by a former employee of UC Global that plans were discussed to kidnap or poison him in the embassy.
Such relentless state persecution is payback for Assange’s courageous role in exposing the war crimes by the US, British and Australian governments in Iraq and Afghanistan. WikiLeaks’ collateral murder video, Afghan War Diaries, Iraq War Logs and Cablegate releases galvanised mass popular opposition to war, torture, and state repression worldwide.
The imperialist powers’ murderous agenda has been backed by a pseudo-legal witch-hunt against Assange, including the impanelling of a secret Grand Jury that indicted him in 2019, and Sweden’s manufactured sexual assault investigation into the WikiLeaks founder. The Australian government refused any defence of its citizen.
Assange has suffered arbitrary detention, psychological torture, revocation of his Ecuadorian asylum and citizenship, and vindictive sentencing and imprisonment in Belmarsh maximum-security prison. He has been detained on remand without charge, repeatedly and unjustifiably denied bail and subject to relentless attacks on his right to legal representation. The case against him has trampled due process and the factual record and made use of the admitted fabrications, given in exchange for US immunity, of hacker, convicted fraudster and sex offender Sigurdur Thordarson.
By every conceivable legal standard Assange should not only win his case, but have it thrown out of court. The US is appealing a decision that Assange cannot be extradited due to his risk of suicide in America. Now the extradition is openly exposed as a plot to put him in the hands of his would-be murderers.
However, the UK court is not considering matters of law or human rights in this case. The decision before the judges is whether Britain can be seen to rubber stamp what amounts to the extraordinary rendition of the most significant journalist of the 21st century.
The path for Assange’s extradition has been laid by Britain’s judiciary. In January, amid open preparations for a fascist coup by Trump, District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser delivered a ruling designed to leave Assange’s fate hanging by a single thread. Accepting every rotten plank of the US government’s extradition request, she objected solely on medical grounds, finding that Assange is likely to suicide if extradited.
Baraitser’s intentions were clear. She refused to release Assange from prison, keeping him in Belmarsh until the American government made its appeal. The US has since taken the highly unusual step of offering worthless assurances on Assange’s treatment and been granted grounds to appeal the legitimacy of medical evidence provided to the court by an experienced and respected psychiatric expert.
Baraitser’s original ruling also set the tone for the High Court’s response to Yahoo’s CIA revelations, which will form a major element of the defence case this week. Responding to arguments concerning UC Global-CIA spying on privileged legal conversations, Baraitser stated that she could not reach a judgement on whether US surveillance had taken place. She then added that even if it had occurred, “there is no reason to assume this related to these proceedings” and that the “fruits of any surveillance would not be seen by prosecutors assigned to the case.”
Whichever decision the High Court arrives at on this occasion, Assange faces continued prolonged imprisonment. A ruling is not expected for several months and would be followed either way by legal challenges. His partner Stella Moris has warned that Assange could face years more incarceration if he is not swiftly extradited, possibly as soon as next summer. “Both prospects,” she said, “are terrifying”. Either outcome will see Assange silenced, his life placed in jeopardy. Moris explained that he was “looking very unwell” during her prison visit last weekend.
The Assange case rides roughshod over legal and democratic principles because his persecution is a matter of fundamental political and strategic interest to the world’s leading imperialist power. From the beginning, the US and its allies have sought to destroy Assange both as a warning and a precedent to prevent any serious reporting of imperialist war crimes, human rights abuses, diplomatic intrigues and mass state surveillance—to cover up past crimes and to prepare new ones.
These motivations have only strengthened. The danger of war, on a scale which would dwarf the atrocities carried out in the imperialist invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, continues to grow as the US ramps up its aggression against China in Taiwan and the South China Sea. Provocations abroad are coupled with “big lie” propaganda at home, including baseless accusations of a Wuhan Lab origin of COVID-19, and of “genocide” against the Uyghur population of Xinjiang.
Meanwhile, the world’s governments are engaged in unprecedented criminality and corruption in their handling of the pandemic, which reasonable estimates suggest has claimed between 10 and 19 million lives.
A freely functioning WikiLeaks, described by Assange as an “intelligence agency of the people”, or anything like it cannot be allowed by the imperialist powers to exist in such a world. Their biggest fear is that future exposures could help ignite the enormous oppositional sentiment that exists in the working class in every country. If Assange is to be freed and defended, it is this social force which must be mobilised.
Immense resources have been deployed in the Assange manhunt, which has proceeded with the blessing of every imperialist government and major political party in the world. The corporate media have either actively backed his persecution or attempted to smother knowledge of the case while formally opposing Assange’s extradition. The explosive Yahoo and Thordarson revelations went practically unreported.
Moral appeals to these forces, or fond hopes in the eventual wisdom of the UK judiciary, of the kind promoted by the official Don’t Extradite Assange campaign, are worse than useless. Attempts to put forward handfuls of tame parliamentary representatives and “activists” as an opposition to this vast conspiracy are a cruel farce. These figures are epitomised by Jeremy Corbyn, who as Labour leader did nothing to defend Assange and will mobilise no one now.
A mass campaign to free Assange must be based on an appeal to the international working class, for whom the struggle against imperialism, its wars and social inequality, is a life-and-death question. The cost of the pandemic and the ruling class’s murderous response in human lives, wages and conditions is driving a global wave of working-class struggle, with the US at its centre.
More legal appeals are open to both sides following today and tomorrow’s hearing, but all require the agreement of the courts and would almost certainly mean lengthy additional imprisonment for Assange if granted. Averting a railroaded extradition process and ending the continued isolation of Assange and destruction of his health in Belmarsh requires the urgent, organised intervention of workers all over the world.
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In a week, the Supreme Court will decide if it will consider diminishing long-standing protections for the freedom of the press. Here is the backstory.
In 1964, at the height of the Civil Rights movement, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed a jury verdict by an Alabama state court and in doing so changed the law of defamation in such a manner as to enhance substantially and materially the freedom of the press.
The case was Times v. Sullivan, in which the police commissioner of Montgomery, Alabama, sued The New York Times for publishing a full-page advertisement that, he argued, though it did not mention him by name, had defamed him.
The libel law in Alabama and all states at the time permitted an aggrieved plaintiff to recover damages from a publisher for a defamatory inaccuracy in a publication by showing simple negligence.
In the advertisement about which Commissioner L.B. Sullivan complained, there were some inaccuracies, and so the Alabama Supreme Court upheld his half million-dollar verdict. The Times appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In reversing, the Supreme Court ruled that when a public official is the plaintiff in a defamation case, the First Amendment is implicated since the press is the eyes and ears of the public, and the public has the right to know what the public official is doing.
This was a radical and judge-made change in defamation law. The court held that, to safe-guard transparency about government and to protect free speech about public officials, a higher bar than simple negligence was needed. The court fashioned a bar called “actual malice.”
Actual malice requires that the plaintiff who is a public official prove by clear and convincing evidence that the offending piece was published with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard for whether it was true or false. This bar is so high that it has rarely been met in any trial court, state or federal, since the Times v. Sullivan case.
Many of my colleagues in the constitutional law community, particularly those on the right, have criticized this decision because it was crafted out of thin air by nine justices, rather than debated and legislated by Congress or state legislatures.
As a conservative law student in the mid-1970s, I was a harsh critic of judges creating laws. To me at the time, the Times v. Sullivan case was analogous to the court putting its thumb on the scales of justice on the side of a liberal press.
Today, as a libertarian legal scholar and commentator, and a former judge, I rejoice in this decision as perhaps the greatest defense of a free press in American history.
The Times case implicates two profound value judgments. The first is protection of a free press and the second is the role of the judiciary when liberty clashes with power.
The Times case and its extensive progeny recognize the Madisonian proposition that the whole purpose of the First Amendment is to encourage open, wide, robust, even caustic and unbridled speech about the policies and the personnel of the government. Its companion purpose is to keep the government entirely out of the business of speech.
In respect of these values, the Times case has worked to the fullest. It has removed the fear of criticism of public officials by the public and the press. It lets everyone, from the average Joe to the largest media companies in the world, think as they wish, say what they think and publish what they say.
Without this protection, the public discourse on everything from abortion to immigration, from taxes to foreign policy, from President Joe Biden’s mental acuity to former President Donald Trump’s character traits would be dumbed down and only whispered because of fear of litigation.
And the case cuts both ways. If, for example, one were to express a caustic opinion about Biden or Trump or any public official, they each have a huge megaphone, so to speak, with which to rebut their critics. In the give and take between critics and targets, the public watches, listens and learns if the target is a person worthy of its political support. Americans have benefitted immeasurably from this process.
The other value underlying the Times case is the Jeffersonian view that our rights are natural because they come from our humanity, which is a gift from God. The ratifiers of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights agreed. So, what to do when a legislative body or a jury tramples these rights — say, by punishing speech?
This is where an independent judiciary comes in. The whole purpose of an independent judiciary, to paraphrase Harvard’s professor Laurence Tribe, is to be anti-democratic — to preserve the rights and property of the minority (it could be a minority of one) from invasion by the majoritarian government. Stated differently, since our freedoms are natural, freedom is the default position.
That means wherever there is a clash between liberty and power, because liberty is the natural starting point and power is artificially imposed by force, the benefit of the doubt — the judge-made rules of procedure — should favor liberty.
Regrettably, this bias for liberty over power only exists with respect to the First Amendment. Yet, whenever the government wants to take life, liberty or property from any person, or permit others to do so, that person should enjoy the benefit of the pro-personal liberty bias of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
Later this month, the Supreme Court will announce whether it will revisit Times v. Sullivan in an effort to undo it. If it does undo it, it will crush the freedom of the press as surely as any petty tyrant has done who can’t stand the heat. It will dumb down our public discourse in favor of those in power. We will have a press afraid to be free.
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Beirut’s determined and daring Judge Tarek Bitar has once again scheduled key figures to testify in the investigation of the August 2020 explosion at Beirut port, which killed 219, wounded 6,500 and rendered 300,000 homeless when it devastated nearby neighbourhoods. Former prime minister Hassan Diab has been summoned for today’s session, ex-ministers Nouhad Mashnouk and Ghazi Zeiter for tomorrow’s interviews. When first called, Diab fled to the US but has recently returned. The latter are sitting members of parliament and have previously claimed immunity and can be expected to do so again as parliament is in session. However, since the judge issued his summons before parliament returned, their immunity might not protect them.
Bitar has also summoned ex-ministers Ali Hassan Khalil and Youssef Fenianos and has issued warrants for their arrest. They and the other two former ministers have lodged legal complaints against Bitar with the aim of removing him from the probe which was suspended twice while Lebanon’s high court and court of cassation considered and rejected their suits.
When Bitar’s predecessor Fadi Sawan was following the same line and procedure he was accused of bias because his home was damaged in the blast and was compelled to stand down in February. However, the real reason for his removal was that he crossed a “red line” by investigating and charging leading politicians with neglecting 2,700 tonnes of volatile ammonium nitrate stored unsafely in a crumbling warehouse in Beirut port, although there had been repeated warnings since the material was off-loaded from an unseaworthy vessel in 2014. Sawan’s ouster was seen as a major set-back for the inquiry.
Since Bitar was appointed to replace Sawan, the probe has been suspended twice by challenges brought by the four ex-ministers, who argue he is incompetent and biased. Incumbent Prime Minister Najib Mikati has warned that a third suspension could put an end to the probe, which is precisely what they and their political allies want to accomplish.
A Christian from north Lebanon who heads Beirut’s criminal court, Bitar, 47, is known to be honest and apolitical. Having initially refused the appointment because it meant he would be wearing two hats, he accepted the job after Sawan was removed. While Bitar faces opposition from the Amal and Hizbollah movements and the Marada Party, he has the firm support of civil society activists representing the “Lebanese Opposition Front” formed after protests erupted on the streets of Lebanon’s cities, towns and villages in October 2019. Front spokesman, Dr Ziad Abdel Samad told Arab News,
“They want to dismiss Judge Bitar using all arbitrary means and threats because he has come so close to the truth after they managed to dismiss the former judge. [They are] hiding behind their immunities, although they know they are involved in the crime.”
While Judge Bitar has not revealed the evidence he has accumulated about the involvement of the men he has summoned for questioning, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has compiled a detailed report which was released on August 3 this year, ahead of the first anniversary of the port blast. This report is damning.
HRW crisis and conflict director Lama Fakih stated at the launch of the 127-page document,
“The evidence overwhelmingly shows that the..explosion in Beirut’s port was caused by the actions and omissions of senior Lebanese officials, who failed to accurately communicate the dangers posed by the ammonium nitrate, knowingly stored the material in unsafe conditions and failed to protect the public.”
To place the blame squarely where it belongs, HRW systematically laid out evidence it has gathered from unpublished documents and interviews with individuals.
Despite repeated warnings, the ministry of public works and transport under Fenianos and Zeiter failed to investigate the dangers, communicate to the judiciary the dangers posed by the material and to closely supervise repairs which might have triggered the August 4 blast at the warehouse where the deteriorating ammonium nitrate was stored along with fireworks and paint.
Customs officials answerable to the ministry of finance, headed by Khalil, sent six letters to the judiciary requesting the sale or removal of the material. Court records revealed that this approach was incorrect since customs “did not need judicial authorisation to sell, re-export or destroy the material”.
Military intelligence which is responsible for munitions, drugs and violence at the port took no action to secure the material or develop an emergency plan in case of an explosion. The interior ministry, under Mashnouk, claimed it knew about the material but did nothing because “it was not in their jurisdiction”.
State security claimed it was aware of the material but delayed until July 20th, 2020, two weeks before the blast, to report the precarious situation to President Michel Aoun, who said dealing with it was not his job, and Prime Minister Hassan Diab, who took no action.
The ex-ministers under investigation belong to the Amal movement headed by parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, the Future Party under former prime minister Saad Hariri and Marada chaired by Suleiman Frangie. Amal’s close ally Hizbollah has led the campaign against Bitar although none of the movement’s leading politicians are embroiled in the probe. Diab is an ex-academic without powerful political backing. The two other prime ministers who were in office while the ammonium nitrate was stored in the port, Hariri and Tamman Salam, have not been called.
HRW has called on the UN Human Rights Council to initiate an independent investigation and urge countries which mandate sanctions for human rights violations and corruption to ensure that officials implicated in the blast are held accountable. However, as Lebanon’s politicians have traditionally enjoyed immunity from prosecution, they can be expected to resist with all their means and might.
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Did someone forget to tell Benny Gantz that Donald Trump is no longer the United States president?
It certainly looked that way last Friday as Israel’s defence minister – who has been presented as a force for moderation in an Israeli government led by the settler right – declared six leading Palestinian human rights groups to be “terrorist organisations”.
The move effectively outlaws the most prominent organisations in the Palestinian human rights community.
Despite the eternal bonds so often lauded by Israeli and US officials, President Joe Biden’s administration appeared to be caught off-guard by the announcement, despite claims from Israel that Washington had been forewarned.
Israeli officials were reported on Sunday to be preparing to fly to the US to share intelligence justifying the new “terror list”.
The targeted groups – most funded by European states – include those assisting farmers and promoting women’s rights and democratic values, as well as others documenting Israeli violations of the rights of prisoners and children, and exposing war crimes.
Israel offered no evidence that any of the Palestinian lawyers, field researchers, community organisers, and press officers that staff these organisations are carrying weapons or making bombs.
“Gantz says we are a terror organisation, when he himself is a war criminal”.
Al-Haq has been at the forefront of efforts by the Palestinian human rights community to supply evidence to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague that Israeli military commanders and politicians have been responsible for war crimes against Palestinians.
Gantz, for example, was head of the Israeli military back in 2014 when it laid waste to parts of Gaza, killing at least 1,450 civilians, including some 550 children. He later boasted that he had sent Gaza “back to the Stone Age”.
Murky narrative
So how exactly does Israel think most of the Palestinian human rights community qualifies as “terrorists”?
The indications so far are that Israel plans to construct a murky narrative for western capitals based on supposedly secret evidence tying the organisations financially to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
It has spoken vaguely of the human rights groups being “controlled by senior [PFLP] leaders” and acting as a “central source” of money for the PFLP by redirecting “large sums of money from European countries and international organisations”.
There is a twofold advantage for Israel in presenting its claim this way.
The first is that almost certainly the intelligence – given its classified nature – will be all but impossible for the organisations to refute. The US and Europeans will largely have to take Israel’s word for it.
We have been here many times before. Israel makes extravagant claims about links to terror groups no one is in a position to check. If an investigation does eventually take place, by the time the truth emerges everyone has moved on and the false impression is rarely corrected.
This is what happened when Israel bombed a tower block in Gaza back in May that had been serving as a base for many media organisations. Israel claimed it also housed Palestinian militants, though it never produced any evidence to support such an improbable claim.
It was also Israel’s approach after soldiers shot dead Ahmad Erekat in his car in June 2020 at a West Bank checkpoint as he was doing errands for his sister’s wedding. Israel said it was a terrorist car-ramming. A reconstruction by experts, however, indicated that Erekat’s brakes had malfunctioned.
The case of Mohammed el-Halabi is even more pertinent. A charity worker in Gaza, he has spent five years in an Israeli prison without trial, accused of diverting huge sums of international aid money to Hamas. Israel’s claims against Halabi have proved so obviously unsupportable that even the western media has started to doubt them.
Distinction blurred
Secondly, Israel will hope that the central thrust of its allegations will be treated uncritically: that any connection by anyone in these groups to the PFLP can be cited as definitive proof of the organisation’s ties to terrorism. It is doubtless true that some staff in these human rights groups have an ideological affiliation with the PFLP – and for good reason.
Most Palestinian political leaders have either been co-opted by Israel, as with Fatah, which is invested in a “sacred” security cooperation with Israel’s occupation forces, or they have prioritised a struggle that, through its Islamist character, fails to represent large sections of the Palestinian population, as with Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The only significant political alternative is provided by the PFLP. Its vision is of a secular, single democratic state offering all inhabitants of the region, Jews and Palestinians, equal rights. That platform is growing politically more powerful, for Palestinians and solidarity activists, as Israel makes it even clearer that it has no interest in ever allowing partition of the land and the establishment of a Palestinian state.
But, as with most national liberation movements, there have been historic divisions within the PFLP about how best to achieve its goal of decolonisation and a single democratic state.
As in Fatah and Hamas, some believe liberation will require armed resistance, which is allowed under international law against a belligerent occupier like Israel, while others are committed to political struggle.
Israel, of course, is keen to blur these distinctions and avoid any examination of the PFLP’s central political aspiration: a state based on equal rights rather than absolute rule by one ethnic group exported by Israel into the Palestinian territories through military occupation.
Instead, Israel has issued a blanket proscription on the PFLP, hounding all its prominent members. That has included Khalida Jarrar, a PFLP legislator, who was recently released by Israel after two years’ imprisonment. Jarrar worked on Palestine’s application to the ICC. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Israel “never claimed that she had any personal involvement in armed activities”.
Apartheid state
There should be no doubt that these six Palestinian human rights organisations have prioritised organised, communal resistance to Israel’s occupation rather than armed struggle.
Some, like the Union of Agricultural Work Committees and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, are there to internally strengthen Palestinian society. They hope to make Palestinian communities better able to withstand Israel’s relentless efforts to drive Palestinians off their land to be replaced by illegal Jewish settlements – a process Israel ominously calls “Judaisation”.
These agricultural and work committees encourage a long-standing Palestinian principle known in Arabic as sumud, or steadfastness. But given Israel’s desire to ethnically cleanse Palestinians and destroy any hope of a future Palestinian state, steadfastness is easily equated in the Israeli imagination with terrorism.
The other groups on the list, such as al-Haq, Addameer, and Defence for Children International, have been highly effective at documenting Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians, from killing civilians and abusing Palestinian children and prisoners to forcible transfer policies and settlement building.
The data collected by Palestinian groups is shared with international and Israeli human rights organisations such as HRW and B’Tselem, both of which recently issued reports declaring Israel an apartheid state.
Israel has been targeting these groups too.
Omar Shakir, the regional director of HRW, was expelled by Israel two years ago. Last year, Israel refused to renew work visas for United Nations human rights officials after they published an investigation into the collusion of international firms with illegal West Bank settlements.
And B’Tselem, Israel’s foremost occupation watchdog, and Breaking the Silence, a group of whistleblowing former Israeli soldiers, are denied the right to speak in Israeli schools and are regularly vilified by Israeli politicians and the media. This assault by Israel on the entire human rights community – at home and abroad – is obviously explained.
These organisations have been gradually making an unassailable case: both for Israeli leaders to be prosecuted at the ICC for war crimes, and for boycotts and sanctions to be imposed on Israel of the kind that was used against apartheid South Africa.
For Israel, all this is truly terrifying – and therefore those responsible for it must be deemed terrorists.
Ending EU funding
Gantz’s suggestion that Israel has new information tying these Palestinian human rights groups to terror is belied by the fact that Israel has been abusing them for many years.
Staff have been arrested and jailed or denied the right to travel abroad. Jerusalem residency permits for their workers have been revoked. And the army has raided their offices, seizing computers and documents. Those abuses have intensified as these organisations have found more purchase at international forums for their research into Israeli war crimes and apartheid practices.
Israel will now be able to exploit its new “terror list” to justify intensifying the crackdown. It will be even easier to find pretexts for harassing and jailing staff.
But there are other advantages for Israel. It will make it even harder for international and Israeli partners to collaborate with Palestinian groups on work exposing the crimes of Israeli occupation.
And undoubtedly Israel and its advocates abroad will use the terror designation to further vilify these groups and discredit their findings.
Labelling Palestinian human rights activists as “terrorists” will serve the same goal as labelling western activists seeking to end Israel’s oppression of Palestinians as “antisemites”, or labelling Jews acting in solidarity with Palestinians as “self-hating” and “traitors”.
Israel will bundle all this supposed “hate” into its existing narrative that it is facing a campaign from all sides to “demonise” the only Jewish state in the world.
The reality is that Israeli leaders are conflating their own terror at being held to account for their crimes with an imagined “terrorism” being waged by lawyers and researchers trying to show the reality of occupation.
Will anyone fall for it? The record suggests western governments just might.
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Jonathan Cook is the the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at: www.jonathan-cook.net
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The Brazilian Senate’s Parliamentary Investigation Commission (CPI) approved the final report on Tuesday, promoted by Senator Renan Calheiros, which accuses the head of state, Jair Bolsonaro, of various crimes, including crimes against humanity.
After almost six months of debates, the final report was approved with seven votes in favor and four against. The president and other officials of the Executive are accused of their actions and omissions during the Covid-19 pandemic that has left thousands of deaths in the country.
“The CPI ends its work after six months with the report approved by the collegiate and now it is a new stage, we must send it to the competent bodies so that we can do justice,” said the president of the ICC, Omar Aziz.
The document exceeds a thousand pages and indicates that Bolsonaro is responsible for punishable actions of violation of preventive health measures, irregular use of public resources; incitement to crime; falsification of private documents; crime of trespass; quackery; crime against humanity; and crime of responsibility.
After confirming the approval of the report, Senator Calheiros emphasized that Justice must collect all the penalties detailed in the document.
“We have seen gruesome crimes and inhuman atrocities, contempt for pain and ridicule with life,” he added.
“The atrocities committed by this Government will not be forgotten (…) The chaos of Jair Bolsonaro will go down in history as the lowest rung of human and civilizing poverty; it brings together the most rudimentary, infamous and dark side of humanity,” he said. Calheiros.
The parliamentarians who supported the report against Bolsonaro are: Omar Aziz, Eduardo Braga, Humberto Costa, Otto Alencar Randolfe Rodrigues, Renan Calheiros and Tasso Jereissati.
While senators Eduardo Girão, Marcos Rogério, Jorginho Mello and Luis Carlos Heinze, voted against.
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Where’s Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote power? Celebrated as the first U.S. woman vice president, Harris would also head the U.S. Senate, Congress’s more powerful wing. Endowed with casting a critical senate vote, Harris was thereby placed to push through the democratic agenda promised with the Party’s victory last November.
To understand what they are still hiding and why they are still hiding it, it’s necessary to go back to the 1990s during the era of the Assassination Records Review Board — and even further back than that to November 22, 1963 — the day that Kennedy was assassinated.
The Woolworths mandate will be imposed on all staff members across its 1,200 retail outlets and Big W discount department stores; workers at its warehouses, distribution centers and offices will also be required to get the jab. Most Woolworths stores serve around 20,000 in-store customers every week.
Today Mind control or brainwashing in academia is commonly referred to as coercive persuasion, coercive psychological systems or coercive influence. The short description below comes from Dr. Margaret Singer professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley the acknowledged leading authority in the world on mind control and cults.
A pulmonary nurse of 31 years testified before the South Carolina State Legislature on “therapeutic options” for the alleged COVID-19. During his testimony, he explained that he began to realize the protocols he was following were killing his patients not helping them.
A military coup was carried out in the Republic of Sudan on October 25 as the contradictions within the Sovereignty Council (SC) burst asunder. This coalition of political and military interests was formed in the aftermath of tumultuous political events between December 2018 and June 2019.
The Covid-19 lockdown has weakened the country’s institutions, it has created social divisions, it has impoverished Cuba’s population. It has also created conditions for a US inspired “color revolution”. Yet at the same time the legitimacy of the Covid-19 narrative, which emanates from Washington and Wall Street, has been accepted and endorsed by the Cuban people and their government.
On October 24, German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer gave an interview to Deutschlandfunk radio in which she threatened Russia with the use of nuclear weapons if the country did not bow to NATO’s guidelines.
Let’s analyse the analogy Chomsky offers: Are people who do not take the vaccine really behaving as if they think there should be no traffic laws and we should all be able to drive as we please?
In a podcast episode released last Tuesday, New York Times best-selling author, Alex Berenson, who was permanently suspended from Twitter, appeared on “The Joe Rogan Experience” to discuss the latest reports on the COVID vaccines out of the UK.
It has become common practice in the alternative media, especially those parts of the alternative media which provide detailed, and often quite accurate data about the manner in which COVID-19 “vaccines” are employed to kill off the population and to offer insights into the enormous frauds engineered by corporate elites using the names of the United Nations and the World Health Organization.
Through its acts of power grabs, brutality, meanness, inhumanity, immorality, greed, corruption, debauchery and tyranny, the government has become almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, disease, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.
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Workers in the United States are reaching a boiling point with their bosses due to the impact of the pandemic and the failure of the government to provide adequate assistance to the majority proletarian population.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began during the early months of 2020, over 20 million people lost their jobs as factories, schools, public sector institutions and service-oriented businesses closed across the country.
Reports indicate that in excess of 200,000 small and medium-sized enterprises were forced to end operations permanently. People out of work with youth at home had to seek online education programs for students which in many cases were not feasible as a result of the lack of available internet connectivity and teachers.
Ruling class propaganda for several months has attacked the pandemic relief measures provided to working people. Employers accused the government of paying people not to work and as a result many firms were closing because they could not find workers.
Yet no consideration was given in these arguments to the social impact of hundreds of thousands of deaths from the coronavirus along with the millions sickened and suffering long term medical consequences. Healthcare insurance for workers in the U.S. are largely determined by employment and possible retirement benefits. In addition, with the astronomical costs of childcare coupled with the dislocation in K-12 educational systems, millions of working families have been incapable of resuming the same activities engaged in prior to March 2020.
Therefore, it is not surprising that organized labor is demanding a far greater return on their work. They want recognition of the economic and social crises gripping the U.S. while numerous multinational corporations have increased their profit margins since the advent of the pandemic. Extended and enhanced unemployment payments have been discontinued by the federal government. Although there were rumors and news reports of a possible fourth stimulus check, it appears that another round of assistance to working and poor households will not be forthcoming.
Bloomberg, an important journal reporting on the interests and concerns of Wall Street, has keenly observed the shifting mood among the working class. The news outlet covers trends within business as well as labor serving as a barometer for the ruling class in their assessments related to policy development and advocacy.
“American workers—the ones involuntarily benched during the pandemic and the ones who labored through it at great risk so others could stay fed or entertained or alive—are now doing their best to be impossible to ignore. Private-sector union members are authorizing strikes at a rate rarely seen in modern America, with more than 100,000 workers recently threatening or mounting work stoppages in health care, higher education, telecommunications, transportation, television, mining, manufacturing, music, metals, oil, carpentry, whiskey, and cereal. The internet dubbed October #Striketober.”
More than 10,000 John Deere workers went out on strike October 21 representing the largest industrial action in the agricultural machinery sector in over three decades. Kellogg’s corporation was struck by thousands of workers who have remained off the job for several weeks. Nabisco workers recently ended a three-week walkout.
There was a last-minute tentative deal on October 23 which averted a strike among 60,000 film and television workers. These threatened and actual strike activities reflect a heightened level of class consciousness among the working class. A Gallup poll conducted in September indicated that U.S. support for unionization reached its highest level since 1965, as 68% of workers stated they approved of labor unions.
In regard to unorganized workers, they too have been expressing dissatisfaction with the terms of their employment. This same Bloomberg report notes: “Nonunion workers are voting with their feet as well, fueling a labor market reckoning that’s become known as the Great Resignation. On Oct. 12 the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that an unprecedented 2.9% of the entire workforce, some 4.3 million people, quit their jobs in the month of August, even as the government was confirming it would nuke extra jobless benefits in hopes of forcing people to work.”
Strikes Could Have Long Term Implications for the Health and Welfare of the Working Class
As the world system becomes more integrated and interdependent, disruptions to production and supply chains in one geo-political region has a profound effect on the entire globe. During the early phase of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., there were acute shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) since a considerable amount of the manufacturing of these commodities was done in the People’s Republic of China.
Although the former administration of President Donald Trump routinely condemned China and imposed tariffs on imports, the U.S. government, corporate retail outlets and private medical systems were forced to purchase PPE and other products from Beijing. Various consumer goods including household items and food began to fly off the shelfs after March 2020 creating scarcity for millions.
The lack of income partially due to the bureaucratic delays in processing jobless benefits for tens of millions of workers beginning in the first quarter of 2020 resulted in significant food deficits. Thousands showed up at distribution centers across the U.S. to obtain donated food in desperate attempts to avoid severe malnutrition and hunger. Significant percentages of households reported not having enough food to meet their daily and weekly needs.
A report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) indicates that the burgeoning problem of food deficits eased after the CARES Act was implemented under Trump in 2020 and the American Rescue Plan (ARP) enacted in the first few months of the administration of current President Joe Biden during 2021. However, since the discontinuation of most of the benefits for working adults, only the child tax credit payments to families have served to provide relief to struggling households.
A CBPP post on its website under a research category called “COVID Hardship Watch” entitled: “Tracking the COVID-19 Economy’s Effects on Food, Housing, and Employment Hardships” says:
“Black and Latino adults were more than twice as likely as white adults to report that their household did not get enough to eat. 17 percent for Black adults and 16 percent for Latino adults, compared to 6 percent of white adults. Adults who identify as American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, or as multiracial, taken together, were more than three times as likely than white adults to report that their household did not get enough to eat, at 19 percent.”
Finally, the emerging problems of the inability to pay mortgages and rents threatened to make millions more working people homeless. After many of the state moratoriums on evictions expired in late summer 2020, Trump allowed the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to impose a halt to ejecting people from their homes because it poses an extreme threat to public health, which could only prolong the pandemic.
Associations representing property owners filed suit in federal court claiming that the moratorium on evictions went beyond the authority of the CDC. In late August, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the landlords and in their ruling said that Congress would have to pass legislation to make the CDC orders lawful. Subsequently, the House of Representatives and the Senate have failed to act, placing the burden on local housing advocacy organizations to apply political pressure on municipalities and district courts to prevent evictions. Under the ARP, $46 billion in rental assistance has been allocated. However, local governments and agencies do not have the necessary infrastructure in place to distribute the funds to working families who are delinquent in rent and utility payments. This, therefore, makes the case for the declaration of moratoriums on evictions by local and state governments along with the courts, until the COVID Emergency Relief Assistance funds (CERA) are exhausted.
The same CBPP research report emphasizes:
“The number of adult renters reporting to the Census Bureau that their household was not caught up on rent has fallen from a peak of 15 million people — 1 in 5 adult renters — in January 2021 but has remained above 10 million people — about 1 in 7 adult renters — since the end of March. These households, particularly those who have lost employment during the pandemic, may be accumulating debt from multiple months of back rent and late fees. Renters of color and families with children have consistently reported higher rates of rent hardship throughout 2020 and 2021.”
Consequently, the wave of strikes and mass resignations provides a ray of hope for the working class and oppressed peoples in the U.S. Under the present conditions of economic and social hardships, workers are rejecting the stagnation in wages, speed ups, forced overtime, the absence of adequate job benefits and the lack of employment security.
A political response is now needed to bring together the active workers, jobless and temporary employees to form organizations based upon their own economic interests. These mass groupings would be in a position to demand permanent guarantees related to jobs, incomes, housing, utility services, healthcare, education, public transportation and the other necessities of modern society.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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It’s time to ready yourself for ghoulishly bad behaviour. Shred your bill of rights or whatever charter of liberties you have handy. Flatulent, dangerous and fatuous, the US prosecution of Julian Assange took to the UK High Court on October 27, opening its effort to overturn the January ruling by District Judge Vanessa Baraitser. In a judgment poor on press liberties and publishing but sound on the issue of mental health and wellbeing, Baraitser held that Assange’s extradition to the US to face espionage and computer intrusion charges would exacerbate his suicide risk and be oppressive.
Despite her finding, the judge still left the door open for her own bit of oppression by refusing Assange bail as the US appeal process got underway. To date, he remains in the high security Belmarsh prison facility.
James Lewis QC of the Crown Prosecution Service opened proceedings by directing several salvos at Baraitser’s decision. Reliance was placed on five grounds: that the district judge did not correctly apply UK extradition law; that Baraitser should have sought assurances from the US authorities after deciding to deny the request; that she ought to have disqualified the expert psychiatric evidence of defence witness Michael Kopelman; that she erred in assessing the evidence of suicide risk; and that the UK government was issued a number of assurances going to the problems identified in the court decision.
According to Lewis, the judge had adopted the wrong test in considering the decline of Assange’s mental health and “should have weighed crucial factors in the psychiatric evidence significantly differently.” She should not have speculated about “future uncertain events”. Do not concern yourself with the “risk of a medical condition getting worse in the future if certain events do or do not occur”.
The proffering of “binding” assurances that the US government would not subject Assange to Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) or condemn Assange to the ADX Florence supermax facility in Colorado was also meant to convince the court. Those undertakings had, Lewis argued, the effect of negating the force of the medical testimony submitted on Assange’s behalf and should therefore be discounted. “Once the conditions of SAMs and ADX are removed, once there is assurance of appropriate medical care, once it is clear he will be repatriated to Australia to serve any sentence, then we can safely say the district judge would not have decided the relevant question in the way that she did.”
In court, Lewis assumed the role of performing witchdoctor. “Assurances can be issued at any time in these proceedings according to the jurisprudence in this court.” The fact that these had not been given prior to Baraitser’s judgment was because “it was highly unlikely [Assange] would ever be put in SAMs so opportunity never arose”.
Diplomatic assurances of this sort are often counterfeit, usually written in water and evaporated by time. As was curtly put by Assange’s defence team, these were “meaningless”. Amnesty International legal adviser Simon Crowther’s assessment of their value and veracity is disturbingly accurate. “They’re based on diplomatic relations between states, they’re not legally binding under international law.” The enumerated list in a Human Rights Watch report from 2014 makes for grim reading on precisely that point. There would be nothing holding the US government to any given pledge, despite the breezy claim by the prosecution that Britain had never complained about assurances given by the US authorities in extradition cases.
For all that, the US, argued Lewis, would still reserve the right to impose SAMs if needed. Paradise was also possible: one of the justices considered that, even if the sword were to fall on Assange, his head would somehow escape its full force. Conviction did not entail a stiff sentence, if, indeed, he would suffer sentence at all. Lewis, wooing, keen to impress, fed the presumption. The defence, he said pointedly, had exaggerated the risks of a petrifying life sentence. Consider the 45-month sentence handed to the “drone” whistleblower Daniel Hale or the 63-month sentence imposed on NSA whistleblower Reality Winner.
Assange could be dealt with swiftly in US court proceedings (unlikely, given prosecutions using the Espionage Act are larded by security protocols and procedures). The defence would then use the shield of the First Amendment. Assange, protected, would walk free of shackles. For a person so insistent on discrediting the lower judge’s decision for having been too speculative about Assange’s treatment (the “crystal ball approach”), this was rich indeed. Prosecutions using the Espionage Act to target the unauthorised disclosure of information tend to succeed, trumping free speech protections.
What, then, might await Assange in lieu of SAMs or the supermax? Communications Management Units (CMUs) at Federal Correctional Institution, Terre Haute in Indiana, or the US Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, were suggested. Both were created by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to segregate and isolate prison inmates from the rest of the BOP population. They have been disproportionately used for Muslim prisoners convicted on terrorism charges and “prohibited activities related to communication”.
Undeterred by this history, Lewis drew upon a declaration from Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia Gordon Kromberg on the nasty merits of these secretive centres. “CMU inmates are afforded the same opportunities to communicate with individuals outside of prison as regular inmates.” However, Kromberg qualifies this. “Their communications may be more extensively monitored … or the BOP may impose certain limitations, as noted in the Bureau Program Statement, to prevent them from engaging in additional criminal conduct.” Were Assange to find himself in a CMU, he could be potentially subjected to even more onerous restrictions that the policy afforded under SAMs.
Attention then turned to demolishing the expert evidence of neuropsychiatrist Kopelman, who had convinced Baraitser that Assange was at a “very high” risk of attempting suicide if he was extradited to the US. According to Lewis, the failure by Kopelman to note the existence of Assange’s partner Stella Moris and their children in the initial report, was “actively misleading” despite the correction being made in the final court report. The omission had the effect of discolouring the suicide risk and was “not an honest statement of truth”. According to the prosecution, the Kopelman testimony should have been ditched, leaving the US witness assessments as the only credible alternatives.
Baraitser, for her part, had found the omission a “very human response” given the risk posed to Moris and Assange, notably in the wake of the espionage operation against the publisher mounted by the Spanish security firm UC Global, at the behest of US intelligence.
From the outset, the prosecution’s overall thrust on evidence of Assange’s mental wellbeing was one of scornful scepticism. Showing a pitiful comprehension of how the potentially suicidal might operate, Lewis suggested that Assange had drunk coffee in the company of other prisoners, been “alert”, making “good eye contact”. The mentally ill would be incapable of hosting a TV chat show on Russia Today, negotiate the processes of seeking asylum or aid Edward Snowden escape from Hong Kong.
Edward Fitzgerald QC, taking the stand to defend the merits of Baraitser’s ruling, called it “carefully reasoned and considered”. The court, he argued, should “respect the findings of facts from the judge of first instance who lived through the hearing.” His counterpart was seeking “reasons for reasons” when Baraitser had given “cogent reasons why she prefers Kopelman.” The judge had been best placed to make her own assessment and found that he had given “impartial evidence to the court.” The notion that Kopelman was “a lone wolf is absolute nonsense.” There was also backing for his evidence from autism expert Quinton Deeley, and even some from the US government’s own expert witness, Seena Fazel.
As for the submission by Lewis that Assange showed cool, level-headed judgment in his behaviour, Fitzgerald was indignant. “This is not Cato or Cleopatra committing suicide rather than face their enemies,” he told the court. “This came out of a man who is suffering from a mental disorder.” The impulse to commit suicide was not governed by rational decision-making or volition but mental illness.
During the latter part of the day’s proceedings, Fitzgerald had a moment of reflection that has become something of a trademark. “I sometimes wonder whether my learned friend is reading the same judgment we are.” He is, but doing so through his own version of crystal ball jurisprudence.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
Featured image: Julian Assange in Belmarsh Prison in 2019 (Source: WSWS)
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Where’s Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote power? Celebrated as the first U.S. woman vice president, Harris would also head the U.S. Senate, Congress’s more powerful wing. Endowed with casting a critical senate vote, Harris was thereby placed to push through the democratic agenda promised with the Party’s victory last November.
It wouldn’t matter if all 50 senate Republicans were opposed to a Democrat-sponsored bill. She would ensure its passage. Humane, racially equitable, climate-transformative, gender-balancing, socially-aware, justice-promoting, anti-war Democratic policies:–all would pass into law. Voting rights legislation would sail through too.
What have we instead? Joe Manchin of Virginia, a once-little-known Democratic senator essentially holding the Democratic Party hostage. He is also rejecting the will – not to forget the needs — of 80% of Americans who purportedly approve of the most progressive, far-reaching program drawn up by legislators in two generations.
Manchin is as pig-headed, as resolute, as overconfident as any Republican. And he’s usurped Harris’s role as the clinching vote. (His party can’t handle him or his cohort Kyrsten Sinema.)
The Congressional Progressive Caucus’s 100 house members so adroitly managed to ensure Speaker Pelosi linked the two massive infrastructure bills. After a promise that truly progressive legislation would be on the table, look how far the Democratic agenda has fallen. By early October, it seems fewer than 50 CPC members would hold the line on what’s called the “Reconciliation” package (whose slippery title I’ll return to.)
Manchin’s loyalty to the fossil fuel industry is to be expected. What elected representative isn’t swayed by their state’s economic priorities? E.g. Senator Sanders’ favoring military spending that assures Vermont’s share of Pentagon largesse. (Moreover, so-called climate friendly corporations are reportedly funding Manchin too.)
It’s not economic self-interest behind this recalcitrant senator’s obduracy. He and Senator Sinema have identified a flaw in the party itself. Call it decorum, congeniality, political correctness. Democrats can’t stand up to a bully. (I witness it working among my courteous and timid county Democrats who tremble when their candidate’s yard sign is defaced.) Then there’s the widespread naiveté that makes many Democratic activists believe theirs is the party embraced by all immigrants and jobless, the party that owns every single Black and Hispanic vote.
Sinema and Manchin, by daring to defy the Democratic leadership, have leapt onto the national stage. As they persist with their obduracy — they seem to be prevailing — they have somehow achieved a kind of heroic status.
In his latest blog Michael Moore has articulated a sentiment I’ve dared express only in private:—a wish that the American ‘left’ (the decent, the smart, the progressive) were possessed by a rage and determination parallel to what propelled others (the dumb, the villainous) into illegal and violent action. He identifies this yearning (hedged by abundant caveats) as “insurrection envy”.
After (after, not before) Trump’s election millions of disgusted Americans bearing pink pussy ears and arty slogans marched through cities and towns across the land. The result of that massive show of goodness? Inconsequential. (Don’t claim the 2020 Democratic victory as an outcome of that action.)
Today, when so much is at stake, with pandemic restraints lifted, Moore asks where’s a parallel show of rage over the downfall of this once-in-half-a-century-plan to restore democracy, avoid climate catastrophe, raise all children out of poverty, care for our elders, moderate medical costs, establish tax equitably, lower community college costs? (If our vocal transgenders were in charge, we’d have surely seen more progress.)
Today we’re informed that taxing provisions to pay for this “soft” bill may be excluded. Why was the wealth tax proposal not inserted into the “hard infrastructure” package rather than into the bill prioritizing health and education, and climate control?
As noted by others, the evasive and constantly changing title of this diminishing bill may be partially responsible for its fate. In desperation, one of its designers, Senator Sanders now speciously labels it ”the damn bill”, as in “pass the damn bill”, and “what’s in the damn bill?” Not a smart choice by Sanders’ aides.
The “reconciliation” label is equally unhelpful. “Build Back Better” hardly improves on that. Neither does “soft infrastructure”.
Maybe these shifting monikers explain why media choose the simpler “$3.5 trillion” tag. A frightening figure, too unimaginable to be attainable.
So why not talk about the bill as just $350 billion, annually, for the coming decade? Juxtapose that with the $768 billion annual U.S. defense budget, with its $24 billion increase just passed by both houses of Congress, every billion of it with hardly a whisper of dissent.
Last Sunday one NPR reporter referred to the bill as Biden’s “domestic spending agenda”, another as the “social safety net and climate plan”. For a few weeks it was just “the climate bill”, probably following heavy lobbying by climate-priority media. Others view it as a taxing proposal. One has to peruse written reports for details, seeking assurance that educational and medical components are really there. Till today one finds scant reference to how this bill impacts 50 % of the population, namely American women. Whereas the “hard infrastructure” bill funding roads and bridges will be awarded the construction industry that largely employs men, the advantages for women carried by the “reconciliation” package are not emphasized. Few of its proponents link pre-K funding, elder care programs, expanded health services to massive job opportunities for women, as well as relief for women bearing the burden of child and elder care.
CPC leader Pramila Jayapal along with other members of the progressive caucus had proposed a smart and painless compromise. If cuts must be made, they offered, identify some programs to receive funding not for a decade but five years. If they prove worthwhile during that time, they can be refinanced for a second five years. Totally reasonable, unarguably doable. Yet it seems to have gone nowhere.
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A century ago Yogmaya and Durga Devi, two women champions of justice, emerged from a remote corner of rural Nepal to offer solutions to their nation’s social and political ills. Then they were forgotten.
Years after their demise, in 1980 veteran anthropologist Barbara Nimri Aziz first uncovered their suppressed histories in her comprehensive and accessible biographies. Revelations from her decade of research led to the resurrection of these women and their entry into contemporary Nepali consciousness.
This book captures the daring political campaigns of these rebel women; at the same time it asks us to acknowledge their impact on contemporary feminist thinking. Like many revolutionaries who were vilified in their lifetimes, we learn about the true nature of these leaders’ intelligence, sacrifices, and vision during an era of social and economic oppression in this part of Asia.
After Nepal moved from absolute monarchy to a fledgling democracy and history re-evaluated these pioneers, Dr. Aziz explores their legacies in this book.
Psychologically provocative and astonishingly moving, “Yogmaya and Durga Devi” is a seminal contribution to women’s history.
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Wherever Victoria Nuland goes, she brings trouble.
Nuland is the third most powerful person in the State Department.
In February 2014, she famously handed out cookies to demonstrators in the Maidan Square in Kyiv.
The demonstrators were mounting a coup against Ukraine’s democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovich, which set off a deadly seven-year war that has resulted in 14,000 deaths.
In mid-October 2021, Nuland visited Beirut, Lebanon.
A few days before, protests had broken out over the government’s handling of an explosion in the Port of Beirut in August 2020 that caused 218 deaths, 7,000 injuries and $15 billion in U.S. property damage.
The protests were suppressed, and six demonstrators were killed and 32 wounded.
Nuland also spoke in Beirut with members of the ultra-right-wing political party called the Lebanese Forces (LF) of which Samir Geagea is the leader.
A Christian Maronite, Gaegea is a notorious war criminal, responsible for the death of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990).
Gaegea served eleven years in solitary confinement from 1994-2005 after being convicted for ordering four political assassinations, including of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Rashid Karami in 1987.
Lebanon has been in bad shape for a long time. The quality of life of its people has been eroded by government corruption, the decline of social services, and by an influx of Syrian refugees.
The plight of the Lebanese is so bad right now that war-ravaged Syria is supplying them with electricity along with sanction-stricken Iran.
The United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia have helped sow divisions in the country by spreading anger at Hezbollah—the resistance group—and the Shia political Amal movement.
For many of Lebanon’s people, however, Hezbollah and the Amal represent their only salvation and hope; they provide them with free education and economic help.
Even many of the Christians speak well of them—as they know that Hezbollah and Amal parties are the ones who will help the needy and poor.
Port Explosion and protests
Lebanon’s divisions threatened to boil over following the August 2020 port explosion, which was set off when a cargo of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate (equivalent to around 1.1 kilotons of TNT) had been stored in a warehouse without proper safety.
Initially, blame for the explosion—considered the largest non-nuclear one in recent history—was placed on those responsible for managing the port and on the Lebanese government.
When Secretary-General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah invited reporters to tour a warehouse in the Beirut suburb of Jnah, they did not find any missile factory though various Lebanese news sites reported images and videos taken from that particular warehouse showing there was ammonium nitrate stored—but by the Lebanese government and not Hezbollah.
The current judge on the case, Tarek Bitar, and several Lebanese MP’s have placed blame with the last sitting prime-minister, Hassan Diab, who was informed about a dangerous situation four days before the accident by the port authorities.
However, governments before him, like that led by Premier Saad Hariri (son of the murdered Rafic Harriri) knew all too well about the deadly cargo in the port of Beirut and even received complaints and letters, but never did anything about it.
The protests that surrounded Nuland’s visit were led by Hezbollah and the Amal Party and were directed against Judge Bitar.
Hezbollah spokesmen claimed that Christian snipers from the Lebanese Forces (LF) faction were the ones to fire at the crowd to drag Lebanon into strife—a claim denied by the LF.
Nuland’s recent visit brings fear among the Lebanese that the U.S. is about to pour fire on an already volatile situation.
Besides her exploits in Ukraine of 2014, Nuland has been a key figure advocating for regime change in Russia (an article she published in Foreign Affairs last year was called “Pinning Down Putin,”) and served as a principal foreign policy advisor to Dick Cheney during the Iraq War.
Additionally, she was U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from 2005-2008 when it was pushing for expansion along Russia’s border and leading the fight in Afghanistan.
The Lebanese have experienced hardship for many years and do not want another civil war.
Like in Syria, the countries’ sectarian divisions have been provoked largely by the West and Israel—the Zionist state and not Jewish people—which has long sought to elevate the Maronite Christians and weaken and divide Lebanon.
The campaign to demonize Hezbollah is part of a hybrid war between Israel and Iran that is one major source of the country’s current predicament.
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Sonja is a freelance journalist from the Netherlands who has written about Syria, the Middle East, and Russia among other topics. Sonja can be reached at: [email protected].
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No matter how many times it has been said that relations between Russia and Western countries can no longer get worse, the news agenda proves us the opposite time and again. On October 24, German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer gave an interview to Deutschlandfunk radio in which she threatened Russia with the use of nuclear weapons if the country did not bow to NATO’s guidelines. Even though Germany itself does not possess nuclear weapons, it was implied that an attack could be launched by an American arsenal from European territory.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu commented on his German colleague’s dreams of a new war, saying in particular that “we must remember how the pulling of forces to Russia’s borders ends”. Quite a fair comment on the country that started the two world wars. Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin also spoke about the aggressive military plans of Western partners and pointed to the futility of the attempts to seize Russian territory.
Prior to that, Russia decided to suspend the work of its permanent mission to NATO as of November 1 in response to the decision to withdraw accreditation of eight mission members. The NATO Information Office at the Belgian Embassy and the Military Liaison Mission in Moscow were also closed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke about this issue, saying that “relations between Russia and NATO cannot be called catastrophic, because they simply do not exist”. The closure of diplomatic missions is in itself an alarming signal in terms of military security, but it is only the tip of the iceberg.
As we can see, Russian politicians have become more active in expressing their views on the prospects of military conflicts with the West, which means that this issue is already being thoroughly considered by Russian elites, and they take the risks of military conflicts near their borders seriously. Continuing this theme, it is necessary to mention a recent article by former Russian President and current Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev on Ukraine. In that article he considered current Ukraine government as completely unprepared for negotiations and scrutinize no prospect for peaceful cooperation either with Ukrainian political elites or their Euro-Atlantic handlers.
We may also recall the words of U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin about guarantees of military assistance to Kiev in case of aggression from Russia and the British project of military-material assistance in the form of supplies of Brimstone missiles and joint construction of warships. These political gestures demonstrate that the Anglo-Saxon elites are just as ready for an escalation of the conflict with Russia, and they have chosen the territory of Ukraine as the point of force application.
The situation in the Eastern Europe does seem appropriate for an escalation of the military situation in the eastern part. The coronavirus pandemic, due to low vaccination rates, is again breaking records in morbidity and mortality, and a lockdown is being one more time imposed in Russia, which means additional damage to business and the well-being of citizens. In Europe, the situation can’t be regarded better in comparison with Russia, because of the emerging energy crisis and gas supply disruptions, with the risk of a cold winter. The EU economies also bear a heavy burden in the form of the costs of building a green economy, and not everyone is coping with it.
The pressure on Russia from the West through Ukraine is an extremely convenient position, because on its southern borders, i.e. in the Caucasus and Central Asia, it already has to be distracted by destabilization processes generated by Turkey as part of its policy of expansion in Eurasia. Furhermore, the case of the fall of the old regime in Afghanistan and the coming to power of the Taliban government, which is also not the problem of one particular country, but it seems to be a powerful signal for all inhabitants of Central Asia suffering from low living standards, ignorance and insolvent and corrupt local elites. By a very strange coincidence, hotbeds of tension are being created around Russia’s borders. Or was the creation of these hotbeds planned as part of someone else’s strategy?
Speaking of Central Asians, there is another major Russian domestic policy related to them. The country is home to a huge number of legal and illegal migrants from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, who almost entirely occupy certain sectors of unskilled labor, like housing and utilities. And they also commit a significant portion of criminal offenses in large cities, stealing and raping on a regular basis. According to statistics, during the first lockdown in Moscow in 2020, when most migrants from Central Asia were returned home, the number of crimes committed in Moscow dropped by 75 percent. Despite such an obvious threat to its citizens, the government recently amnestied 300,000 migrants previously deported for crimes, unable otherwise to make up for the shortage of cheap labor. Of course, should the domestic situation deteriorate, whether due to military conflict, economic crisis or other reasons, migrants will become another destabilizing factor, dramatically worsening the crime situation.
The coming winter will be a serious test for peace cooperation initiatives due to the objective circumstances described above, and the onset of the spring period in northern latitudes is often associated with an increase in military activity. The previous large-scale act of Ukrainian aggression in the Donbass took place in April of this year; in the time remaining until next spring, NATO instructors will have time to train the Ukrainian army in addition to American and British military supplies. The likelihood of a new conflict is quite high, and its primary goal is precisely the diversion and weakening of Russia.
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It has become common practice in the alternative media, especially those parts of the alternative media which provide detailed, and often quite accurate data about the manner in which COVID-19 “vaccines” are employed to kill off the population and to offer insights into the enormous frauds engineered by corporate elites using the names of the United Nations and the World Health Organization.
But in many of these blog reports the blame of the actions pertaining to Covid-19 are casually attributed to the Chinese Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China.
In some cases, the conclusion of these reports is that the United States is under assault from communists in China and that the Democrats in the United States who abet its acts of treason are “Leftists.”
Concerns about actions of the Chinese Communist Party CCP in the United States, and globally, are not without evidence.
There are examples of powerful business interests, and the super-rich, in China making use of the authority of the Chinese Communist Party to advance their interests. Yet, the simplistic and reductive manner in which the crimes committed by corporate elites and billionaires in the United States are fobbed off on the CCP, and attention is diverted away from “the true sources of evil” at home, suggests that we are looking at a carefully organized disinformation campaign, most likely one that is funded by the financial elites at Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, et al.
The point of attacking the CCP is to throw us off of the scent, to keep us from identifying the enemy within. Familiar brands like Microsoft, Coca Cola, Facebook, Oracle, Walmart and Amazon are the primary source of the rampant criminal policies at home that are turning the nation into a concentration camp.
Those corporations are the playthings of the superrich—who make their deals, sometimes with the Chinese elites as well, behind closed doors.
To put it simply, this psychological operation of blaming the Chinese Communist Party is meant to delay understanding among citizens of the bitter reality of fascism at home until the last possible moment and to obscure the growth of a radical class society.
The hyping of the “China threat” is a distraction set up by the super-rich. The point is to get you foaming at the mouth over foreigners from an alien civilization and thus unable to comprehend the conspiracy of the rich to destroy the lives of ordinary people.
The vast majority of information about the political actions of corporate interests, under the cloak of government, in the United States, China, Russia, Israel, Turkey, Germany, Japan and other major powers, is classified and completely inaccessible to ordinary citizens. We must first understand just how little we know.
Focusing exclusively on the CCP, however, makes sure that no one asks any serious questions about who the important foreign powers besides China are in DC. Moreover, citizens assume that Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft are “American” companies even as those criminal organizations plot to take the United States apart.
Most bloggers who discuss geopolitics limit themselves to sensationalist stories created for public consumption and they cannot even mention the possibility that Chinese and American elites created a bogus cold war so as block meaningful dialogue between ordinary citizens and increase their profits.
That oversight is not an accident. Those self-appointed experts refuse to address the question of class.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is a massive institution that is a part of the government of the People’s Republic of China and it represents, in theory, the people.
The CCP previously was strictly regulated. Over the last 20 years, however, it has been deregulated and large sections of the organization are run today like the Lion’s Club. Large sections of the CCP form a network of the powerful who pursue profits for friends and family, and not functioning as a government agency.
This is no secret to the Chinese and there are demands at home for reform, and serious efforts.
There are also factions within the CCP who wish to revive the traditions of the party from the 1940s and 1950s, to stand with the workers, not with multinational banks. Their numbers are growing.
The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are worse than the CCP in that they make national policy behind closed doors, but their role is not defined by the Constitution and they are not an accountable part of the government.
There are specific goals behind the push by the corporate media, and the conservative blogs, that set the CCP up as the bad man so as to distract from the institutional decay in the United States.
1) To deviously attribute the loss of freedom and the intentional destruction of the US economy to “communism” and “leftism” rather than to the corporate fascism that is the offspring of American finance.
Intentionally mislabeling “corporate fascism” as “communism” and attributing the criminal plans of American CEOs to a devious CCP that belongs to an alien civilization is a psychological operation orchestrated at the highest levels that reinvents the “Yellow Peril” mythologies that dominated the United States in the 19th century as a tool of political control.
2) The projection of rampant criminality onto China, and away from Washington D.C., through the creation of a drama dominated by an alien and mysterious CCP serves to obscure just how close to home is evil in the United States.
The criminality born of familiar brand names in the United States such as Amazon, Facebook, Bank of America, Coca Cola, Walmart and Microsoft is obscured, and Americans are even encouraged to embrace these dangerous foreign entities as “American” corporations in response to a perceived Chinese threat.
But these multinational corporations have no more right to give testimony in Congress and lobby than does the CCP. They provide profits to the superrich, men who know no country, and to stockholders around the globe.
3) The demonization of the CCP is supported by the military industrial complex because this invented existential threat is central to the establishment of a war economy in the United States that assumes that there will be a war with China.
As the United States economy collapses into anomy as a result of the radical deregulation of finance, a war-time economy is increasing perceived as the salvation. Making sure that war economy is run through the Pentagon assures multinational corporations that get a thick slice of the pie.
Moreover, the decay of the judiciary, the legislative and the executive in the United States has created an environment in which the military has an increasingly important role because it is the only part of government that is still partially functional.
4) It is critical for the “new cold war” that no discourse between ordinary Chinese and Americans is possible, no alliances between concerned citizens in both countries are established, no conversations between intellectuals in the two countries can be pursued.
If citizens spoke with citizens, they might figure out how multinational corporations are playing Chinese and American workers off against each other as they proceed to destroy the economies of both countries.
5) The attack on the CCP and on the “leftists” in the Democratic Party found in the conservative alternative media serves to brand the term like “communism,” “socialism” and “leftism” as negatives in the public imagination that are falsely associated with the social and economic consequences of the policies of “corporate fascism”.
The manner in which the Communist Party USA led the battle for civil rights, and the left fought for many of the benefits that workers enjoy today is intentionally obscured in these anti-leftist campaigns that tie “socialism” to a threatening Chinese culture.
6) Perhaps the most devious game of all is forcing Americans to choose an anti-leftist, anti-Chinese (and by extension anti-Asian) ideology if they want to find a voice that criticizes the COVID-19 regime.
The “leftists” who appear in the media are pro-vaccine and the only opposition to vaccines we see are the followers of Donald Trump. This political configuration makes it possible for the liberals and progressives to dismiss the obvious dangers of vaccines without fear of backlash.
7) Blaming everything on a devious CCP is a sneaky way of avoiding any serious analysis of who owns what in the United States and what the true implications of the concentration of wealth has been for ordinary people.
If citizens knew how these billionaires made their big fortunes, not through innovation and imagination, but by stealing cash from the Federal Reserve that belongs to the citizens of the nation—and creating inflation that punishes citizens, they would be calling for those billionaires to be put in jail.
Blaming things on a vague CCP that is beyond the understanding of citizens helps people to avoid any discussion about who owns what, and how they took it over.
There are examples of corruption and influence peddling involving the Chinese Communist Party. That part of the story is true. But the ultimate goal of the demonization of the CCP is clearly not to reduce foreign influence in Washington D.C. (which is skyrocketing these days) but rather to find a convenient and wrong way of explaining the deep moral corruption in American society.
Washington D.C. (which is skyrocketing these days) but rather to find a convenient and wrong way of explaining the deep moral corruption in American society.
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This article was originally published on usprovgov.asia.
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 frequent contributor to Global Research.
I Shall Fear No Evil
Why we need a truly independent candidate for president
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When you read the Russian State controlled media, TASS, you begin to see the truth accidentally (yet on purpose) creep / leak out. The Russian fake media Tass reports… See this.
“The system of QR codes for vaccination against coronavirus, introduced in a number of regions of Russia to improve the epidemiological situation, should stay in place until the level of herd immunity in the country reaches at least 80%, Alexander Gintsburg, head of the Gamaleya Center (developer of Sputnik V vaccine), told TASS.
“Until at least 80% are vaccinated, we should keep this tight distance between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated by means of QR codes. This approach has already shown its effectiveness in many countries, where they have kept restrictions for the unvaccinated to visit certain places, use the infrastructure,” he said.
“Until at least 80% are vaccinated, we should keep this tight distance between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated by means of QR codes. This approach has already shown its effectiveness in many countries, where they have kept restrictions for the unvaccinated to visit certain places, use the infrastructure,” he said.
So it is revealed now that they will use QR codes to regulate theunvaccinated in Russia yet the QR code is being rolled out in every country (to use infrastructure).
Because every government regardless of politics is untrustworthy and will always ‘creep’ towards authoritarian control, we see that in Russia they will use the QR code to regulate human access and freedom of movement until vaccinated.
It is now openly revealed that the Russian government which pretends to be free is still authoritarian and we in the so called ‘free west’ can expect the same policies.
“…..the authorities ensure strict control over the availability of QR codes. But if it is not done properly and there is no strict divide between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated…….”
The availability of QR codes means access and the freedom /restriction of movement.
How do you divide the vaccinated / compliant from the noncompliant / unvaccinated?
Australia
Australia is building possible quarantine / concentration camps such as ‘Wellcamp’, the camp that comes with its own airport and defence facility! Does this sound normal? YES! Australia’s ‘Wellcamp’ comes with its own defence precinct. See this.
This article gave some statistics. Queensland had 6 deaths yet it had conducted 2,042,714 tests. The statistic does not mention if those deaths include other infections or causes of deaths (or age).
It does mention people can be taken to ‘Wellcamp” and not have any interaction with the public whatsoever.
The nazi’s tattooed a version of the QR code onto their concentration camp residents.
Source: Alamy
The following map shows the nazi locations of their ‘Wellcamps”,
This article expresses how you can have a QR code which can be used to monitor how much you consume from a public water fountain.
When you press “pour,” the screen tells you what percentage of your daily goal you’ve met, and reminds you that you’re “making an impact.”
This is certainly ‘Orwellian’. Because today it can count how many times you refill your water bottle and tomorrow it can restrict how many times you refill your water bottle.
In the link below you can use the public water fountain to obtain free water or be a really good person and donate money via a QR code to underprivileged communities in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Tanzania or Uganda.
Also note the first of these charity-free water fountains was released at NORTHWOOD MILITARY BASE in North West London.
Yet at the end of the article promoting ‘free water’ it clearly states “The scheme has been designed to make it very simple for consumers to contribute, with the QR code allowing payment via Paypal, Apple Pay, Credit or Debit card.”
The sign shows how to use ‘double speak’ it promotes ‘Free Water when you Buy A Bottle.’ If you are an idiot you will agree with this.
So let’s do some maths. It’s possible to get your own personal QRcode when you get vaccinated and the QR code can be used to obtain free water but also to stop you obtaining free water because you buy the bottle. 1 + 1 + 1 = our future.
Below is a picture of a sign that was made at the Colorado School of Mines. It was worth going through the effort to make the sign promoting a QR code bottle filler but not to fix the free water fountain.
Here is a public water fountain where you can see the introduction of modern technology and the QR code for access.
The way you can access this water source is to scan your phone, in the future it will be your embedded microchip and personal QR code.
Your unborn children will be allocated their QR code at their birth. Your birthed children will be allocated their QR codes sometime in the near future. Keep checking your renewed ID’s, drivers license and passports for a QR code. It’s coming! Globally. Especially as it is being unleashed in Australia today.
“Minister for Digital and Customer Service, Victor Dominello….There is no excuse not to check-in everywhere you can – businesses and customers all have a part to play to keep NSW safe,”
“In the same way customers routinely check into cafes, restaurants and bars, we need them to adopt the same approach when visiting a supermarket, retail store and workplace. Inspectors have been asked to monitor the situation alongside the NSW Police.”
Its coming for you and your family members.
Mandatory QR codes for access and freedom!?! Just trust Ronald Mcdonald.
At McDonalds a QR code campaign is being introduced. See this.
“I took a scan of the QR code on my cup to find out where McDonalds wants to lead customers.”
I made the effort to read the article and commentary. I noticed every comment was entered twice word for word. The lazy programmer only used a photo once per double comment to pretend they were public comments.
We are entering a dark period in our so-called free societies. Our societies are Orwellian and totalitarian. We were given apparent free choice and with fake Coronavirus and modern technology being used against us it is going to be a dark period with the imaginary Coronavirus ending our freedoms on a global scale.
Yet that isn’t the scary information.
Are we entering a deliberate depopulation period? Also known as genocide? Remember Rwanda.
We will all require a Health passport soon!
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As a doctor first, and surgeon second, who was educated at St Mary’s W2 and qualifying in 1964, I need to respond to the article in last week’s MDA entitled ‘Trialling blood tests which could detect cancer earlier’. There is obvious irony.
Months ago it was noted that as a result mostly of HMG’s policy in reaction to Covid_19 there were at least 300,000 humans in the UK waiting to be seen with symptoms of potential cancer. A good many would have had cancer within them. For most cancers, time is of the essence. Delay in diagnosis means advance of those cancers in a majority, and when and if they came to the specialists, treatment would need to be more complex, suffering greater and eventual death more likely.
Before the plandemic, there was already an obvious deterioration in UK medical services. Patients were more often ‘going private’ eg. finding those £14,000 to get a total hip replacement to relieve pain and disability. More often patients had to ‘consult’ their GP over the telephone – when they could eventually get through. Since the HMG mandated quarantining of the healthy, all has got worse for those patients. They are for instance being asked to send photos of skin conditions, including rashes caused by inoculation of experimental ‘vaccines’. The necessary third phase trials have instead been taking place in vast populations and without proper surveillance as to adverse reactions. (I could expand on this in a further letter.)
The meeting of doctor and patient face to face is a vital part in our sacred calling as doctors. I use ‘sacred’ in a non-religious sense here, but it is also at the heart of the religions too.
Take two cancers which are becoming more frequent. Breast cancer is most often detected by the woman. Some fearing doctors and hospitals, especially now through thought of the contagion, will hide their cancers and be worse for it. Most will see their GP and palpable lumps confirmed. In most, malignant potential will be obvious. We trust they will be seen quickly by specialists and the best course of treatment decided.
Prostate cancer will rely first on the history – the symptoms of disturbed urination etc. As always the history comes first as was drummed into us in the last century. Taken carefully by doctor from patient, this gives the diagnosis before any following examination in about 70% of all those presenting. A rectal examination will determine, using the gloved forefinger, whether that prostate gland is smooth and soft, or craggy. That examination will lead to further investigation by specialists if necessary and after the PSA blood test in the general practice, though there are traps in that.
Why am I ‘bothering’ to write this letter at age 81? I have had the great privilege, and the vast satisfaction, of healing many thousands of patients with wonderful teams at my side. I cannot stand seeing as I live, the truthful and fine traditions of the British medical services withered weekly.
A renaissance is vital for those present and future patients (not ‘clients’ or ‘customers’). This has to come from the profession WITH the public. Consider. The fine conception of OUR NHS on which a large majority will need to depend on more and more, was brought to life when GB was bankrupt from fighting for freedom. With the billions of ‘funny money’ being spewed out now via Westminster, GB is bankrupt now. In March this year the Office of National Statistics recorded that government borrowing was then 106% of UK Gross Domestic Product!
Many do not know that and some do not care. All the opposite of ‘balancing the books’ and that ‘austerity’ post 2008. Some will know that to bail out the irresponsible banks, we gave £540 billion from our Exchequer, a sum equivalent then to 5 years worth of spending on OUR NHS!
Yours faithfully,
David Halpin MB BS FRCS
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A pulmonary nurse of 31 years testified before the South Carolina State Legislature on “therapeutic options” for the alleged COVID-19. During his testimony, he explained that he began to realize the protocols he was following were killing his patients not helping them.
Albert Spence gave moving testimony recently concerning his assistance in the killing of patients that had been labeled as having COVID by just “doing what I was told.”
Ireland: Doctor’s Daughter Got The COVID Shot & Look At What Happened That’s Being Ignored (Video)
Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb: “Nobody Knows” The Origins Of The 6-Foot Social Distancing Rule – That May Not Be True (Video)
Doctor Pulls Back Curtain On Genetic BioWeapons Industry (Video)
Whoa! You’re Not Going To Believe What This Hidden Camera Caught From HHS Medical Professionals Concerning The COVID Shot (Video)
Sound familiar? It should and Spence made reference to Auschwitz in his testimony.
Take a listen.
Spence said that in all his years of nursing, what he was told to do what went against most of how he had been trained, but it was the medical system that wanted him to treat them that way. However, once he began to see his patients dying, and that the CDC fraudulently changed the PCR tests dramatically, just like we reported that they would do to cover for the shots, it frightened him and he had to speak out.
According to Spence’s testimony:
I lost sleep over it. I was having chest pain over it. It woke me up in the middle of the night – hit me hard. I could not sleep.
Because my first week or two there (COVID ward), I didn’t lead them to the gate, but I’m the guy that euthanized people.
They call it “comfort care.” But when you get to the point where you can’t take (oxygen mask) off, you get so upset. You haven’t seen your family except through maybe an iPad, in weeks.
And you’re never going to come off the high flow, and the doctor says: “You’ve done your best. But this is going to be it for you.”
And so the patients get all teary eyed and upset, and they call in the palliative team, and they all hold their hands and cry.
But they said: “We can keep you comfortable.”
Here comes Albert (referring to himself). He’s got the morphine and ativan, and I load them up and take off the high flow, and they gas themselves to death.
And I’m the guy who was pushing the buttons, like in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
I’m glad he does realize now and repented. Many more doctors and nurses need to do the same and we need to eliminate the CDC, the FDA and corrupt criminal politicians, along with Big Pharma and begin proceedings in a new Nuremberg trial and not stop with convicting a mere handful, but the entire lot of them.
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On Sunday, October 24th, representatives from more than six independent activist groups led by the Bolivarian Circle of Miami joined forces at the foot of the statue of Latin American hero, Simon Bolivar, in the Miami Torch of Friendship Park, to demand Venezuelan Ambassador Alex Saab’s immediate release from U.S. prison and repatriation to Venezuela.
The Venezuelan diplomat was kidnapped twice by Washington. First, Alex Saab was kidnapped under orders of the Trump administration on June 12, 2020, while his plane refueled in Cape Verde, then again, under the Biden administration, on Saturday, October 16th from Cape Verde to Miami. Ambassador Saab was abducted from Cape Verde without the knowledge of his legal team or family the day before the island’s presidential election. It was rightfully feared by Washington that the sure-to-be-elected opposition government would resist their criminal dictates and immediately free Ambassador Saab – and thus no longer be a stooge for the U.S. diplomatic hostage-taking and its infliction of physical and psychological torture.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro explained on state TV that interrogators in Cape Verde used electric shocks to torture Ambassador Saab and extract a false confession that in the end never came.
“They wanted to force him into becoming a monster, a false accuser against Venezuela, against me, and against the Bolivarian revolution — something he never allowed.”
Nonetheless, Ambassador Saab released a statement that he “is of sound mind and not suicidal”. He is rightfully concerned that the authorities will fake his murder. Diplomat Saab also pledged his fidelity to President Maduro and the Venezuelan people.
Ambassador Saab also urged everyone to “be strong and always stay united” for justice for the people of Venezuela and all those oppressed worldwide by illegal U.S. unilateral economic sanctions – which amounts to nothing less than gangster imperialism.
According to U.S. authorities, Ambassador Saab is being held in a federal prison in Miami near its courthouse. This could not be confirmed by his legal team or his supporters and remains a point of concern at this time – as Ambassador Saab was only permitted to view his Miami court arraignment on Monday, October 18th by video.
Alex Saab’s next court appearance is scheduled for Monday, November 1, and support groups are busy organizing events. Washington’s actions against Diplomat Saab contradict both international and humanitarian laws.
First, in Cape Verde Diplomat Saab was illegally arrested since it was carried out in advance of Interpol’s “red-notice”. Additionally, on March 15th, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court ruled that the continued detention and push for extradition of Venezuelan diplomat, Alex Saab by the Cape Verde government was illegal.
Second, charges of money laundering were dropped by the Swiss upon review by a Genevan investigation for inadequate evidence.
Third, the United States has no legal standing. It erroneously claims that Ambassador Saab was bribing Venezuelan Govt officials. If this is the case, then clearly this matter belongs in Venezuelan court, not in Miami using up federal and state tax dollars. Seriously, the U.S. is beset with the highest drug abuse numbers in the world. Why are we wasting millions on alleged “money laundering” charges that were at worst used to supply food and medicine to Venezuelans?
Without question and by admission, unilateral coercive economic sanctions are done routinely to “make the economy scream” and “enable regime change” in the targeted country. However, in the longstanding cases of both Cuba and Iran this strategy hasn’t worked. In the case of Venezuela, it is hoped by Washington that the starvation and illness of its people will somehow facilitate the giveaway of its oil reserve, the largest in the world, to Exxon Mobil.
Let’s stop subsidizing corporate plunder. The U.S. has already committed theft and piracy against Venezuela and Iran with the unlawful seizing of Citgo and its transiting oil tankers. Also, why aren’t the alleged and unnamed U.S. Miami banks that are involved in Ambassador Saab’s case put on trial? The Manhattan district attorney has no problem fining foreign banks for “sanction” violations.
U.S Magistrate Judge John J. O’Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida is presiding over the case of Ambassador Saab:
Clyde Atkins U.S. Courthouse
301 North Miami Avenue, 5th floor
Miami, Florida 33128 (305) 523-5920
Alexander Kramer, of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kurt K. Lunkenheimer, of the Southern District of Florida, are prosecuting the case.
Kurt K. Lunkenheimer
Assistant U.S. Attorney
Court ID No. A5501535
99 N.E. 4th Street
Miami, Florida 33132-2111
TEL (305) 961-9008 [email protected]
Alexander Kramer, Trial Attorney
Criminal Division, Fraud Section
U.S. Department of Justice
Court ID No. A5502240
1400 New York Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20005
TEL (202) 768-1919 [email protected]
The aforementioned judge and prosecutors are responsible for the illegality of these charges and for Ambassador Saab’s continued health & safety.
Fourth, with diplomatic status, Alex Saab cannot be arrested or imprisoned under international law. Outrageously, Washington claims Alex Saab isn’t a diplomat because “the State Department hasn’t approved him”. They also claim Nicolas Maduro, who won over 67% of the popular vote for his second term, “isn’t the president of Venezuela.” Instead, they anointed Juan Guaido as interim president. Guaido, a traitor to the Venezuelan people and a U.S. sock puppet, wasn’t even a candidate in the 2018 election. Yet, with Washington’s lawlessness, what would be a farce in any other context remains a threat – as Guaidó, left to his own devices, is merely a self-appointed president and a self-appointed leader of a self-appointed assembly.
Fifth, charges levied against Ambassador Saab involve his circumventing U.S. unilateral coercive economic sanctions waged against the Venezuelan people – which are illegal under both international and humanitarian law. This charge makes Ambassador Saab a hero for his repeated delivery of food and medicine to the impoverished. And as such, all people of conscience in and on behalf of 39 countries illegally oppressed by U.S. unilateral economic sanctions stand with Simon Bolivar and Alex Saab against Yankee imperialism today and always.
Alexa Weber, leader for the Bolivarian circle of Miami, provided interviews to independent press, and the following speakers were informative and energizing, leading the diverse group in chants to support President Maduro’s leadership, freedom for Diplomat Alex Saab, and Hands-off Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua:
Please follow the above-referenced groups for evolving information on Ambassador Saab’s next court appearance scheduled for Nov 1st. Washington be warned, Alex Saab is already considered a humanitarian in the international community and with U.S. activists. If he’s incapacitated or murdered in custody, Ambassador Saab will be elevated to martyr status and his image will be used worldwide in perpetuity to rally millions against illegal U.S. unilateral coercive economic sanctions that kill the impoverished.
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Lauren Smith is an independent journalist and member of the Green Party and Sanctions Kill.com. Her work has been published by Alliance for Global Justice, Black Agenda Report, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Global Research, CA, Monthly Review, and Telesur amongst others. She holds a BA in Politics, Economics, and Society from SUNY at Old Westbury and an MPA in International Development Administration from New York University. Her historical fiction novel based on Nicaragua’s 1979 revolution is due out in 2022.
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).
While the world, for very good reasons, is relying on medical research in order to save the lives of millions, the “powers that be” are hardly listening to what climate science is saying about the existential threat to billions posed by global heating.
“The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO₂ was 3-5 million years ago, when the temperature was 2-3°C warmer and sea level was 10-20 meters higher than now”, Prof. Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization said in a news release.
The rise of atmospheric greenhouse gases to levels >>400 ppm has the potential to rapidly transform the atmosphere into conditions similar to those of the Miocene and even the Eocene — a catastrophe for life on Earth.
Figure 1. Comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO₂ has increased since the Industrial Revolution. (Credit: NASA, data: Luthi, D., et al. 2008; Etheridge, D.M., et al. 2010; Vostok ice core data/J.R. Petit et al.; NOAA Mauna Loa CO2 record.)
Figure 2. Percent rises of CO2, CH4 and NO2 since 1750 (after Sam Carana)
According to the IPCC
“the effects of +1.5°C of warming (relative to mean pre-industrial temperature), plus the projection that half a degree Celsius, 2°C versus 1.5°C, will make quite a considerable difference in the livability of planet Earth […] the trajectory of warming based on historical trends will see increases certainly above 3°C and possibly much more if emissions aren’t cut […] the whole world must become carbon neutral by 2050.”
Figure 3. Global mean temperature deviation from 1880-1900: all 19 years since 2002 rank among the 20 warmest. (Image by Munichre.com based on NOAA data)
Average global temperatures may be misleading. According to NASA, “The impacts of climate change haven’t been spread evenly around our planet [..] The strongest warming is happening in the Arctic during its cool seasons, and in Earth’s mid-latitude regions during the warm season”. The reduced albedo of the melting polar ice sheets are driving global warming at a rate faster than elevated temperatures in the tropics.
While the focus of international policies is on the essential reduction in emissions, it is the cumulative effect of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which drives global warming. The 2020 CO₂ level being 413.30 ppm, exceeding pre-industrial levels by more than 133 ppm. Unless civilization finds a way to down-draw CO₂ from the atmosphere, amplifying feedbacks from land and oceans will continue to heat the Earth, due to:
The polar albedo (reflection) decline due to large-scale lateral and vertical melting of ice;
Reduced CO₂ intake by the warming oceans. Currently the oceans absorb between 35-42 percent of all CO₂ emitted to the atmosphere and around 90 percent of the excess heat;
An increase in evaporation, particularly in arid zones, raising atmospheric vapor levels which enhances the greenhouse gas effect.
These feedbacks result in an accelerated climate change, as projected by Wally Broecker and others, and potentially in mass extinction. A climate chain-reaction is believed to have pertained about 55 million years ago during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM). According to Peter Ward and others, early examples of mass extinctions triggered by biological processes were related to ocean anoxia and acidification leading to methane (CH₄) and hydrogen sulfate (H₂S) release by “purple” and “green” algae and sulphur bacteria. In a similar sense anthropogenic global warming constitutes a geological/biological process for which the originating organism (sapiens) has not to date discovered an effective method of control.
Sequestration of CO₂ is essential due to the amplifying feedbacks of global warming, which are pushing temperatures up in a chain reaction-like process.
Whereas the aim of the Glasgow COP26 Conference is to reach agreement for limiting mean global temperature to <1.5°C, the short-term mitigating effect of aerosols on global temperatures, namely ~0.5 – 1.0°C, means global temperatures are already nearing ~2.0°C.
Hopes that the Glasgow climate meeting would help save the world from a climate catastrophe would depend on:
Binding agreements for the most abrupt reduction of carbon emissions rates to pre-peak rates of about 1 ppm/year or lower, requiring a world-wide transformation of agricultural, industrial and transport systems;
Attempts at sequestration/drawdown of greenhouse gases aimed at reducing the current atmospheric CO₂ levels to near-350 ppm or lower (Hansen et al. 2013). Whereas the engineering efforts and costs of such attempts cannot be overestimated, such could in principle be achieved by diversion from the astronomical budgets invested in defense industries, eventually aimed at future wars and further catastrophe.
The concept of a “carbon budget”, allowing the world to constrain emission to a particular amount of greenhouse gases in order to limit warming, does not take into account the amplifying feedbacks to warming from land and oceans, nor possible reversals due to the flow of cold water from melting ice sheets into the oceans.
The critical criterion definitive of global warming, namely the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, rising by nearly ~50% since pre-industrial time, is only rarely mentioned. Nor are other quantitative measures of climate change, such as the level of methane and nitrous oxide, which have risen by about 3-fold being highlighted. While opinions by journalists, politicians, economists and social scientists proliferate, less attention is given to what is indicated by climate science. This reluctance renders the global response to the looming climate calamity increasingly irrelevant.
It is the ethical duty of scientists to advice governments and the public of dangerous developments, but it incurs a heavy price to pay for communicating worrying news Cassandra-like, including social and professional isolation. Don’t envy scientists aware of the ultimate consequences of global warming. Many have either self-censored or their work suppressed or dismissed within institutions and the media, including in governments and academia.
The reluctance of too many to undertake effective defense of the Earth’s climate, since nearly 40 years ago, can only culminate in devastation of the planet’s life support systems—one of the greatest catastrophes the planet has undergone since the dinosaur extinction about 66 million years ago.
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This article was originally published on Arctic News.
Dr Andrew Glikson is an Earth and Paleo-climate scientist, Canberra, Australia. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: People hold signs during the March for Science in Melbourne, Australia on April 22, 2017. (Photo: Takver/flickr/ccc)
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Interactions between the Russian and Chinese navies have special significance after the US, UK and Australia indirectly announced their aim to put pressure on both countries and turn the Asia-Pacific region into an Anglo lake. Facing an unprovoked threat, Moscow and Beijing are demonstrating their cooperation to jointly protect their interests against foreign provocateurs.
Russian and Chinese naval ships for the first time in history passed through the Tsugaru Strait between Honshu and Hokkaido in northern Japan, which connects the Sea of Japan with the Pacific Ocean. The two navies carried out joint training and tactical exercises. During the voyage, the ships covered more than 1,700 nautical miles.
For many years, the US Navy and its allies have conducted unilateral or multilateral patrols in international waters. In recent years, the Chinese Navy has also coordinated with partners, such as the Vietnamese Navy to conduct a number of joint patrols in the Gulf of Tonkin where the two countries share a common maritime border that has been demarcated in an agreement since 1999. The Vietnamese Navy also coordinates with the Cambodian and Thai Navies to conduct joint patrols in some areas in the Gulf of Thailand.
From the Russian and Chinese perspective, the recent joint naval exercise is a message that both countries want to send to AUKUS and their peripheral allies. The joint exercises took place in the context of the US and its NATO allies increasing anti-Russian activities, such as military exercises close to the Russian border. This has caused diplomatic issues, with Moscow suspending the work of its official mission to NATO in Brussels.
In the East, the US, along with its fellow Anglo allies Britain and Australia, signed the AUKUS treaty, forming an alliance to contain China in the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans. AUKUS is also alongside the QUAD formation that comprises of the US, Japan, India, and Australia. Due to the emergence of AUKUS and QUAD, Beijing and Moscow are finding that their partnership must have a stronger military element if they want to be able to push back Washington-instigated aggression. This too of course is especially important for Russia as it mostly faces pressure from its Western borders, and will certainly not want a new pressure front on its East.
Talking about a close military alliance between Moscow and Beijing at this point may be premature though. Although the US and its allies have not yet made a definite military move against both countries, the unusual increase in naval activities in the Western Pacific has forced both countries to take action. The fact that the Russian-Chinese joint patrol took place right after the “Sea Cup” competition, which had the participation of Vietnam, Russia, China, Azerbaijan, Iran, Myanmar, and Kazakhstan and was within the framework of the “Army Games 2021”, signals that they want to warn their adversaries that they are fully prepared to take action to defend their sovereignty.
The joint Russian-Chinese maneuvers are also a signal to Washington that its policy of attempting to manipulate Russia against China or enticing China against Russia, like Richard Nixon did during the Vietnam War years, is impossible. However, it is not excluded that if the US and the West continue to increase their hostile activities against Russia and China, causing more tension, Moscow and Beijing could increase the level of their political and military links to “eliminate threats” emanating from common adversaries.
The AUKUS bloc was created to put pressure on China in the Asia-Pacific region, but it can easily extend to include Russia’s East. In such a situation, it is important to demonstrate that Moscow and Beijing are willing to cooperate and jointly protect their interests. The joint patrol by the Russian and Chinese fleets in the Pacific Ocean is one form of that.
By also sailing through the Tsugaru Strait, Russia and China are also sending a warning to Japan that they will utilize every advantage available if AUKUS or QUAD escalate tensions. Tokyo only claims three-nautical miles in the Tsugaru Strait instead of a 12-nautical mile maritime boundary as permitted by international law. This situation emerged during the Cold War so that US nuclear-armed vessels could pass through the strait, cutting travel time between the Pacific Ocean and Sea of Japan without violating Japan’s “Non-Nuclear Principles.” Japan does not permit nuclear weapons on its territory, including its maritime space.
However, this arrangement also means that all navies from across the world can pass through the Strait, therefore coming within touching distance of Honshu and Hokkaido islands. Whilst Japan is a willing participant of the anti-China QUAD formation and will surely assist AUKUS in their activities, they have left themselves vulnerable just for the sake of accommodating US nuclear vessels.
With the Pacific region heating up as the Anglo alliance continues to pressure Russia and China, both countries are now making bold steps to demonstrate that they are more than willing to defend their sovereignty, so-much-so that they will conduct joint exercises together in not only a show of force, but to also expose the vulnerability of Japan.
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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
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How things have changed since Donald Trump came and went as US president. Until then, I was able to identify myself as firmly on the progressive left. Now – with the Covid pandemic only reinforcing the post-Trump trauma – I find myself in some weird no-man’s land, trapped and squeezed between two ballooning ideological tribes that sound too much alike on too many questions.
That was driven home by a new interview with Noam Chomsky – someone whose influence on me is such that it has shaped the evolution of my intellectual journey over the past two decades. Like many on the left, I am in Chomsky’s eternal debt for helping to liberate me from decades of mind manipulation that is the fate of anyone who passes through our schools and universities, watches the billionaire-owned media (or in my case, once worked in it) or pursues a professional career.
But still, there is only so far a debt even of this magnitude justifies indulging assumptions of the kind expressed in the Chomsky interview.
In it, the famous linguist and political thinker argues that those who are not vaccinated against Covid should be socially shunned, required to isolate and – in the final assault on a social solidarity he cites as the justification for his argument – even potentially put in danger of destitution. They have only themselves to blame for their plight, he concludes.
Yes, Chomsky really did say that – though doubtless many on the left will rush to parse his words to suggest there was a “nuance” in the interview I missed. And worse, judging by the comments, lots of people on the left – and right – seem to agree with him. There certainly doesn’t seem to be much nuance in their views.
You can watch the relevant section of the interview, and an earlier one, here:
Noam Chomsky doubles down on his previous call for the state to segregate The Unvaccinated from society:
"How can we get food to them? Well, that's actually their problem."
Let’s analyse the analogy Chomsky offers: Are people who do not take the vaccine really behaving as if they think there should be no traffic laws and we should all be able to drive as we please?
Strangely, Chomsky appears to be including in this “lawless” group of unvaccinated people those who have actually had Covid and who, the medical research suggests, now have better natural immunity to the disease than the immunity induced by medical assistance. (Note that new research suggests that those taking the Janssen vaccine have only 3% immunity after five months, while Pfizer’s is about 50%.)
It is hard to ascribe this lacuna in Chomsky’s argument to some kind of oversight. Given that he is normally such a careful and precise thinker, we must assume that Chomsky wants all unvaccinated people – whatever their immunity status – to be forced into isolation, even if that puts them at risk of destitution.
In Chomsky’s telling, it seems, the only basis on which to determine who is “safe” to the rest of society is those who have been vaccinated. That is also what Big Pharma and the billionaire-owned media insist on too. But they have a better excuse: after all, they profit from our exclusive reliance on vaccines.
Tyranny of the majority
Back to Chomsky’s analogy. The problem with it is that it obscures far more than it illuminates.
His point is that, if people were allowed to make up their own rules of the road, to act on their own selfish impulses and ideas of advantage, there would be carnage. Which is why we have those traffic laws.
Let’s set aside a debate about whether carnage would actually be the outcome, and just assume it would. How does that help us understand the phenomenon of people being hesitant or resistant to getting vaccinated and clarify how we should treat them?
In democratic societies, the social contract is based on a compromise – between individual freedoms, on one side, and the wider needs of the social group for security, on the other. There is often a tension between those two things. In healthy societies, a resolution is reached after weighing those conflicting needs and deciding, ideally through a general consensus, which should take priority in each case under consideration.
In western societies we have, for good or bad, traditionally given a great deal of autonomy to the individual. So much so that in a trend that created our current neoliberal form of capitalism, corporations have been accorded the protected status of individuals – as Chomsky has helpfully explained – allowing them to get away with corporate murder. They poison our water and air, kill off the insects that support life, destroy trees that are the lungs of the planet, and so on.
What most people expect of the social contract is that it offers a balance between the tendency towards authoritarianism of the state and a tyrannical majority, on one side, and the rights of the minority, on the other.
There is an essentially selfish basis to this for each of us: today I am in the majority, but tomorrow I may find myself in the minority. The only people who generally favour tyrannical majorities are those who lack the ability to imagine the day when they may no longer belong in the majority.
Balance sheet
So how does all this apply to Covid and the vaccines?
The issue with mandating people to take the current vaccines – or, as Chomsky does, insisting that only the vaccinated be allowed to engage in the most basic acts of life, like going to buy food – is that it ignores the principle of proportionality. It sweeps aside the idea of compromise at the heart of the social compact.
Proportionality is important in democracies – both as a principle for the social group and as a practical measure by which individuals judge how best to act. We use it as a yardstick all the time.
If someone shouts at me in the street and I punch them in the face in response, most people would agree that my act was disproportionate. If the police arrest me for writing a rude tweet to a celebrity, most people (though possibly fewer than a year or two ago) would think that is also disproportionate.
In each case, we are making a judgment about what constitutes socially acceptable behaviour, and where the dividing lines lie between classifying things as normal, inappropriate and downright unlawful. In reaching that conclusion we must also weigh what harm is being done to the individual and to the group by treating something that was once acceptable as unacceptable, or something that was formerly frowned upon as now illegal.
There is a balance sheet in every one these judgments, even if we rarely run through the pros and cons consciously.
Thought experiment
So how should we balance the right to bodily autonomy of the individual in refusing the vaccine and the desire of society to protect itself from the Covid pandemic?
As with all other cases, there is no abstract principle that can be adduced – plucked from the ethers – to reach a decision. In difficult cases, the balance sheet has to be examined particularly carefully and appeals to emotion or hysteria avoided.
How this bears out in the case of Covid can be better underscored if we do a small thought experiment. Imagine for a brief moment that we are not facing Covid, but instead a global pandemic of Ebola.
Imagine that Ebola is as transmissible as Covid and has become as endemic in our communities. Ebola has an average death rate of about 50 per cent – one in two people who catch it are likely to die from it.
In those circumstances, how would we weigh forcing vaccine mandates on the general population? How would we treat those who resisted vaccination? And would we be okay with forcing them into isolation, even if that put them in danger of destitution?
No profiteers
I suspect most people would feel far more comfortable in this scenario forcing people to be vaccinated and requiring parents to vaccinate their children. But maybe more to the point, the need to force people to vaccinate – outside of a few Jehovah’s Witnesses – would surely barely arise. The problem wouldn’t be vaccination hesitancy; it would be the stampede by members of the public to be the first vaccinated.
Faced with an Ebola pandemic, nobody sane would have doubts about whether the virus was dangerous, let alone whether it existed. The dangers would be so great and so obvious, there would be no room for doubt.
And for that reason, we wouldn’t be complacently letting a few pharmaceutical companies exploit the pandemic for profit. Our whole economies would be put on a war footing to find better vaccines and a wider array of treatments. Shunning profiteers from the pandemic would surely take precedence over shunning those unfortunates who were not vaccinated.
In other words, the situation would be entirely different from the one we have now with Covid.
Breaking point
My imaginary scenario, of course, doesn’t settle the matter of what we do about Covid. But it does highlight that in the case of our real Covid pandemic – unlike my imaginary Ebola pandemic – there are issues to be weighed about the right of the individual to autonomy and the right of society to security. In the case of Covid, the answers aren’t anywhere near as clearcut as Chomsky is claiming. We aren’t facing Ebola, or anything even vaguely like it.
Let’s revisit the traffic analogy.
Even with traffic laws being universally observed, we still have substantial numbers of drivers and pedestrians killed and badly injured each year on our roads. Rightly or wrongly, few people call for the banning of cars on those grounds. We have weighed our freedom and convenience against road deaths, and decided that the freedom of the open road is more important to us.
In a post-vaccine world especially, we are not facing the road carnage caused by an Ebola virus. The danger to those who are vulnerable – at least in the hyper-selfish “developed” world – has been gradually diminishing from a mix of vaccines, boosters and better treatments. The dangers in much of the west, even for the vulnerable, are gradually starting to look closer to those from flu.
The biggest problem at this stage appears to be that we have Covid and flu, which may push our already strained and underfunded health services closer to breaking point this winter. Our health services are struggling to adapt to the new reality primarily because of long-standing political failures to prioritise public health care over private profit.
Who is a hazard?
That some people are still dying of Covid is on one side of the ledger, just as it is when considering deaths from flu or deaths from cars. But for decades almost no one demanded vaccine mandates for flu, or the enforced isolation of people who refused to take a flu shot. And – again for good or bad – few people demand that people with cars should be fined or socially isolated.
And if they did, most of us would rightly think that there was a debate to be had first, a careful weighing of society’s priorities, rather than instant denunciation and isolation of those not vaccinated against flu or those who continued to own cars.
In the case of Covid, there are additional factors to be weighed – on the other side of the balance sheet – before agreeing that an individual’s autonomy must be violated by forcibly vaccinating them or imposing draconian punishments on them for refusing:
The vast majority of those who need or wish to be protected from the virus, or the threat posed by the unvaccinated, can be through vaccination.
It is not only the unvaccinated who pose a hazard to vulnerable fellow citizens. So do the vaccinated, because vaccine protection wanes rapidly, meaning the current vaccines will have a limited effect on transmission unless we forcibly vaccinate everyone every few months.
The vaccines are a new technology whose short-term effects, if disappointing in terms of immunity, appear to be relatively safe. But the longer term effects cannot yet be fully gauged, and we should be cautious in ignoring or discounting any individual’s concerns about being required to take these new vaccines – or making their children take them.
People may be risking their own health by refusing the vaccine, but – for good historical reasons – we should be extremely wary of establishing a precedent that they may be forced to do something against their will because others deem it in their best interests.
You may agree that all, some or none of these factors are relevant. But neither you nor I get to decide on our own. They need to be given a proper airing and to be weighed. The problem is we live in profit-driven societies, engineered to uphold the power of elites, that are incapable of airing such matters fairly or allowing us to weigh them dispassionately. Which is precisely the reason for the social breakdown that so concerns Chomsky – and me.
Divisive rhetoric
There is a final way in which Chomsky’s traffic analogy may be helpful, if not in the way he intended.
For decades our media have preferred to focus on the problems caused by drunk drivers, or speeding motorists, or even car pollution. But these issues, however significant they are in our daily lives, are overshadowed by the far more terrifying reality that our car and oil-dependent economies are taking a suicidal toll on our species by destroying the climate.
Fixating on one can be a way to avoid thinking about the other.
Something similar seems to be happening with Covid. We fixate on vaccines and “anti-vaxxers”, on mandates and passports – on blaming each other – rather than the reality that our societies and our social contracts were long ago hollowed out by corporate interests that captured the state.
If there is hesitancy over the vaccines it is because a portion of society is not afraid enough of the virus either to overcome their fear of a pharmaceutical industry that long ago put profits ahead of people or to set aside their doubts about the capture of our regulatory authorities by those same corporations.
Calling for the unvaccinated to be forcibly isolated makes for an easy and emotionally satisfying soundbite. If Tucker Carlson or Trump said it, most of the left would immediately understand it as unhelpful, divisive rhetoric. It doesn’t stop being that just because Chomsky is the one saying it.
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Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.
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In a podcast episode released last Tuesday, New York Times best-selling author, Alex Berenson, who was permanently suspended from Twitter, appeared on “The Joe Rogan Experience” to discuss the latest reports on the COVID vaccines out of the UK.
Berenson showed Rogan a report entitled “COVID-19 Vaccine Surveillance Report Week 38” from Public Health England (PHE), which is equivalent to the Center for Disease Control in the United States. He pointed to the fact that the British Government’s own data shows the majority of COVID cases and deaths occurred in the fully vaccinated during the month of September, or more specifically, between the weeks of 34 and 37 2021. Berenson said:
“I have to keep saying this to people because they almost don’t believe it. In the UK, more than 70% of the people who die now from COVID are fully vaccinated.”
According to Table 4 from the PHE Report, during the month of September, there were a total of 3,158 COVID deaths in England. PHE defines deaths as occurring “within 28 days of a positive specimen (COVID-19 test) or COVID-19 reported on death certificate”. And, they define fully vaccinated as “14-days or more after the second dose of a 2-dose vaccine”. In total, 2,284 of the 3,158 total COVID deaths in England for the month of September were fully vaccinated. In other words, 72.32% of COVID-19 deaths in England during September were fully vaccinated.
Berenson continued,
“I’m going to keep saying it because nobody believes it, but the numbers are there in the government documents. They are not a secret. It’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s not somebody saying I heard this from my cousin. It’s in British government documents.”
“What I want everyone to see,” he said. “Is that the vast majority of people in Britain who died in September were fully vaccinated. Those are the numbers.”
Berenson also discussed England’s “case rates by vaccination status” featured in Table 2 of the same PHE Report. Berenson said:
“This is UK Government data and what it says is that the idea that it is a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’ is a total lie. You are more likely to become sick if you are vaccinated than if you are not if you are older than 40.”
According to Table 2, during September, there were a total of 256,686 cases recorded for people above the age of 40. In total, 205,197 of the 256,686 cases in England during September were fully vaccinated. More specifically, 79.94% of the COVID-19 cases in England above the age of 40 during September were fully vaccinated. Furthermore, for those 40 and older, the average rate of COVID-19 per 100,000 was higher in the fully vaccinated at 724 per 100,000 compared to the unvaccinated at 520 per 100,000. This means in England during the month of September, if you were 40 or older, you were more likely to catch COVID-19 if you were vaccinated, rather than if you were unvaccinated.
The rate of cases per 100,000 classified by age group and vaccination status can be better visualized with Figure 2 from the same PHE Report. Note, the 40 and older age groups, where the fully vaccinated (blue) have a higher chance of catching COVID-19 than the unvaccinated (pink). Now, on the other hand, for those 39 and below, according to this data, the unvaccinated have a higher chance of contracting COVID-19, but considering the 10,000-fold difference in mortality rates between the old and the young, high COVID-19 rates in people under the age of 40 is exponentially less of a risk of hospitalization and death compared to high COVID-19 rates among the elderly. For example, according to the UK Government, between March 2020 and January 2021, 436 of 80,820 total COVID-19 deaths were 39 and below, representing half of one percent of the countries deaths, while the median age of death was 82 and the mean age of death was 80.
Alex Berenson came on the “Joe Rogan Experience” as it is now established fact across the medical community that these vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission. They are by definition “leaky vaccines”. In other words, they are vaccines that lower the chance of severe illness but still allow for infection and transmission of the virus. The real revelations here are the extent of cases and deaths occurring in the fully vaccinated in England during the month of September. How is it possible that public health officials and media pundits in the United States continue to call it a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” when 72.32% of COVID deaths in England occurred in the fully vaccinated last month? Why is no one in the mainstream media acknowledging the United Kingdom’s publicly available data showing for the 40 and older age groups, 79.94% of COVID-19 cases in England during September were fully vaccinated?
There is simply no way that England has completely contradictory data to the United States with the same virus and vaccines. Similar patterns to Public Health England’s data can be found in other countries around the world. For example, data from Israel, Iceland, and Singapore also show the majority of COVID cases in the fully vaccinated. In summary, U.S. public health and political officials with the help of corporate media outlets are lying, manipulating, and deceiving the American public. Meanwhile, an independent journalist like Alex Berenson will continue to seek out publicly available data from foreign nations to hold U.S. officials accountable.
In contrast, the fact-checkers at Reuters, the Associated Press, and the New York Times will debunk these statements by saying that the majority of people over the age of 40 are fully vaccinated in England, therefore it is to be expected that the majority of COVID-19 deaths would be fully vaccinated. Which does not change the fact that 72.32% of COVID deaths in England last month were fully vaccinated. Nor, does it debunk the fact that, if you are above the age of 40, you are more likely to catch COVID-19 if you are vaccinated rather than if you are unvaccinated according to this report from Public Health England.
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Now that Kiev is in possession of such potentially game-changing offensive weapons that have already been proven to have emboldened its aggression in the ongoing civil war over its eastern region’s future political status, there’s nothing that Ankara can do to restrain its partner.
I wrote earlier this summer that “Turkey’s Military Engagement With The Lublin Triangle Aims To Balance Russia”, which prognosticated the strategic impact of that country’s drone sales to Ukraine, Poland, and perhaps soon also Lithuania as well. Humbly speaking, my work accurately assessed the strategic dynamics in hindsight after one of Kiev’s Turkish drones just struck Donbass, prompting Russian presidential spokesman Peskov to once again warn about their destabilizing impact on regional conflicts such as that one.
Turkey’s “drone diplomacy” has become the primary pillar of its larger “military diplomacy”, which refers to the use of military means to advance political and strategic ends. In the case of Turkish-Ukrainian military cooperation, this aims to asymmetrically “balance” Russia’s military superiority in the Black Sea region. It can also be interpreted as tacit Turkish backing of NATO’s regional goals despite Ankara’s problems with many of that bloc’s Western members in recent years.
President Erdogan is practicing a very careful “balancing” act between East and West, which explains the unexpected diplomatic de-escalation between Turkey and the West a few days ago following 10 Western ambassadors’ joint statement last week demanding the release of a jailed businessman who they regard as a “political prisoner”. Turkey would prefer not to become too dependent on East or West, to which end it still tacitly coordinates with NATO in the Lublin Triangle while simultaneously enhancing ties with Russia and China.
The problem is that the proverbial genie is already out of the bottle when it comes to that country’s “drone diplomacy” with Ukraine. Now that Kiev is in possession of such potentially game-changing offensive weapons that have already been proven to have emboldened its aggression in the ongoing civil war over its eastern region’s future political status, there’s nothing that Ankara can do to restrain its partner. To the contrary, it’s now compelled to continue providing more equipment, spare parts, and maintenance.
This counterproductively serves to make Turkey an unofficial military participant in the Ukrainian Civil War. Although its role is much less than other NATO countries, it’s disproportionately significant because of the impact that its “drone diplomacy” has already had in reviving Kiev’s destabilizing aggression. If left unchecked, which is extremely likely for reasons of “military diplomatic” inertia, then this development could contribute to further complicating Russian-Turkish relations.
President Erdogan might therefore have gone a little bit too far in his attempts to “balance” Russia in the Lublin Triangle, which represents the northern reaches of the increasingly tense Black Sea region. Selling drones to NATO-member Poland and potentially to that country’s Lithuanian neighbor are one thing since neither are involved in any hot conflicts at the moment while providing them to Ukraine is another matter entirely because of its ongoing civil war that’s regarded (whether rightly or wrongly) as a NATO-Russia proxy war.
For comparison’s sake despite being an imperfect example, it would be as if Russia outfitted Syria with similar offensive weaponry then let it loose to bomb Turkish-backed “rebels”. Selling unarmed drones to Ukraine or Syria on the condition that they not be deployed until Turkey or Russia approves and then subsequently provides their armaments could be a creative use of “military diplomacy”, but exporting these wares already armed, ready to go, and under the full control of the recipient can lead to an uncontrollable situation.
Just as Russia unofficially seems to regard Turkey as an undeclared military participant in the conflict, so too would Turkey regard Russia as the same in the above example, especially if Turkish-allied “rebels” were struck by Syria’s Russian drones in that admittedly imperfect example. One can only imagine the Turkish reaction in such a scenario, yet Russia is remaining cool for now considering the immensely sensitive nature of its relations with Turkey. Be that as it may, as was already written, the genie is out of the bottle and won’t be put back in.
The new regional reality in Eastern Ukraine is that Turkey provided potentially game-changing weapons to Kiev which have already been proven to have emboldened it to carry out more acts of destabilizing aggression. Turkey might not have thought everything fully through, or perhaps it did and decided to up the stakes in its regional competition with Russia with the expectation that it can succeed in asymmetrically restoring a sense of military “balance” with it in the broader Black Sea region.
The first possibility would be the best-case scenario since it would at least enable Turkey to retain a degree of “plausible deniability” over its potentially hostile intentions towards Russian interests. The second, meanwhile, would worsen bilateral relations, especially if any of Turkey’s representatives – especially President Erdogan – publicly lent credence to these motives. Hopefully that won’t happen and this potentially major challenge to Russian-Turkish relations can be responsibly managed as effectively as possible given the new circumstances.
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This article was originally published on OneWorld.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
We investigate why the USA, unlike Canada and Western European countries, has a sustained exceedingly large mortality in the “COVID-era” occurring from March 2020 to present (October 2021). All-cause mortality by time is the most reliable data for detecting true catastrophic events causing death, and for gauging the population-level impact of any surge in deaths from any cause.
September 19, 2019: The ID-2020 Alliance. Establishing a Vaccine Digital Passport. GAVI held their Summit in New York, entitled “Rising to the Good ID Challenge”. The focus was on the establishment under the auspices of GAVI (Alliance for Vaccine Identity) of a vaccine with an embedded digital passport. The stated objective was the creation of a global digital data base.
They produce a lethal spike protein in insensitive organs like the brain or the heart or elsewhere. The spike protein damages blood vessels, damages organs, causes blood clots. So it’s well within the mechanism of action that the vaccine could be fatal. Someone could have a fatal blood clot.
10 months into the COVID-19 mass vaccination campaigns in the UK, statistics provided by the UK’s Health Security Agency now clearly show that those who have been fully vaccinated are suffering far worse health and are susceptible to infections at greater rates than the unvaccinated.
Well, a lot of negative information is now known, but it isn’t being provided on the “Fact Sheets”. And people are not being given the right to refuse. Furthermore, as the Governor points out, employees are not being issued religious and medical waivers, as required by federal law.
Suddenly there has been an re-awakening in the case of “Pfizer-vaccinated” nurse, Tiffany Dover, who was recorded as having died following the injection. Her place of employment, CHI Memorial Hospital, Tennessee, deny that she is dead and told me in a short email: “We have made several statements. Tiffany is alive and continues her work as a nurse manager.”
Many academic institutions and athletic organizations are requiring vaccinations as a condition of participation. This puts increased pressure on teens and young adults to take the vaccine despite any concerns of side effects. Many parents are also willing and eager to face the risks.
As walls separating east and west along Manichean Cold War lines of “democratic/free” vs “authoritarian/enslaved” are quickly being erected before our eyes, it is worth pondering not only the deeper implication of the Russian president’s message but also those healthier pathways out of the coming storm before it is too late.
NATO has ended up in the attic,” wrote the political commentators of several newspapers a month ago, after France had withdrawn its ambassador from Washington on September 16.
As reported October 25 by the reputable state media, Al Arabiya, Sudanese army and a cross-section of its population have returned, expressing dissatisfaction about the government. What is really at stake all these years is closely linked to the level of development and the living standard of the majority among the estimated 45 million population.
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Sudan was subject to another military coup, two years after its previous one.
October 26th dawned with General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de-facto leader of the country, dissolving the military-civilian Sovereign Council.
It was previously established to guide the country to democracy following the overthrow of long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir two years ago, that was also carried out by the military.
In the entire history of Sudan, the military has always played a significant role and intervened in politics, essentially defining it.
On October 25th, General Burhan announced a state of emergency, saying the armed forces needed to protect safety and security.
He then vowed to hold elections in July 2023 and hand over power to the elected civilian government, until then a military junta would be in charge.
The Sudan information ministry, which is still loyal to ousted Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, said that the transitional constitution gives only the prime minister the right to declare a state of emergency and that the military’s actions are a crime.
Some citizens opposed to the coup barricaded streets and clashed with troops, but a significant part of the population supported the military.
The main opposition coalition, Forces of Freedom and Change said that it was calling for peaceful actions in the streets to overthrow the military takeover, including demonstrations, the blocking of streets and civil disobedience.
That didn’t work, as at least 7 people have been killed and 140 have been injured, so far.
The information ministry urged resistance saying tens of thousands of people are opposed to the takeover and many have even been subjected to live fire near the military headquarters in Khartoum.
Meanwhile, social polls demonstrated that the majority of the population was dissatisfied with the work of the overthrown government.
The government under Prime Minister Hamdok was mostly guided by the recommendations of the IMF, and as a result brought the country’s economy almost to collapse.
With much of the population starving.
In addition, the United States said that it was withholding $700 million in economic aid until further notice.
The United States supports the ousted government, as do the the United Nations, Arab League and African Union all of which expressed concern.
Great Britain condemned the coup, while Egypt said all sides needed to exercise restraint.
Sudan is in a strategic area, and can be considered as the “gateway” to the Central African Republic and neighboring regions.
It is of great interest for world and regional leaders.
Sudan has always been famous as one of the key transport hubs in the northeast of Africa.
This includes various kinds of illicit smuggling as well.
It is also no surprise that the military could quickly mobilize and take power in their hands, as it is quite capable, as well as being well-equipped according to regional standards.
Both Russian and Belarusian military instructors have made sure that the soldiers and officers are primed for most scenarios.
However it is difficult to say that foreigners, whether Russians, Turks or Americans, take any active part in the ongoing events.
The Sudanese army elite simply does not need it.
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“You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they’re people just like you. You’re wrong. Dead wrong.” — They Live
We are living in an age of mayhem, madness and monsters.
Monsters with human faces walk among us. Many of them work for the U.S. government.
What we are dealing with today is an authoritarian beast that has outgrown its chains and will not be restrained.
Through its acts of power grabs, brutality, meanness, inhumanity, immorality, greed, corruption, debauchery and tyranny, the government has become almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, disease, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.
We have let the government’s evil-doing and abuses go on for too long.
We have bought into the illusion and refused to grasp the truth.
We’re being fed a series of carefully contrived fictions that bear no resemblance to reality.
We’re living in two worlds: the world we see (or are made to see) and the one we sense (and occasionally catch a glimpse of), the latter of which is a far cry from the propaganda-driven reality manufactured by the government and its corporate sponsors, including the media.
Indeed, what most Americans perceive as life in America—privileged, progressive and free—is a far cry from reality, where economic inequality is growing; pandemic lockdowns (both mental and physical), real agendas and real power are buried beneath layers of Orwellian doublespeak and corporate obfuscation; and “freedom,” such that it is, is meted out in small, legalistic doses by militarized police armed to the teeth.
The powers-that-be want us to feel threatened by forces beyond our control (terrorists, shooters, bombers, disease, etc.).
They want us afraid and dependent on the government and its militarized armies for our safety and well-being.
They want us distrustful of each other, divided by our prejudices, and at each other’s throats.
Most of all, they want us to continue to march in lockstep with their dictates.
Tune out the government’s attempts to distract, divert and befuddle us and tune into what’s really going on in this country, and you’ll run headlong into an unmistakable, unpalatable truth: the moneyed elite who rule us view us as expendable resources to be used, abused and discarded.
In fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups.
In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.
Not only do you have to be rich—or beholden to the rich—to get elected these days, but getting elected is also a surefire way to get rich. As CBS News reports, “Once in office, members of Congress enjoy access to connections and information they can use to increase their wealth, in ways that are unparalleled in the private sector. And once politicians leave office, their connections allow them to profit even further.”
In denouncing this blatant corruption of America’s political system, former president Jimmy Carter blasted the process of getting elected—to the White House, governor’s mansion, Congress or state legislatures—as “unlimited political bribery… a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over.”
Rest assured that when and if fascism finally takes hold in America, the basic forms of government will remain: Fascism will appear to be friendly. The legislators will be in session. There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the entertainment and political trivia. Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply. Actual control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes.
Sound familiar?
Clearly, we are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests.
We have moved into “corporatism” (favored by Benito Mussolini), which is a halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism.
Corporatism is where the few moneyed interests—not elected by the citizenry—rule over the many. In this way, it is not a democracy or a republican form of government, which is what the American government was established to be. It is a top-down form of government and one which has a terrifying history typified by the developments that occurred in totalitarian regimes of the past: police states where everyone is watched and spied on, rounded up for minor infractions by government agents, placed under police control, and placed in detention (a.k.a. concentration) camps.
For the final hammer of fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial ingredient: the majority of the people will have to agree that it’s not only expedient but necessary.
But why would a people agree to such an oppressive regime?
Fear is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government. And, as most social commentators recognize, an atmosphere of fear permeates modern America: fear of terrorism, fear of the police, fear of our neighbors and so on.
The propaganda of fear has been used quite effectively by those who want to gain control, and it is working on the American populace.
Despite the fact that we are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack; 11,000 times more likely to die from an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane; 1,048 times more likely to die from a car accident than a terrorist attack, and 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist, we have handed over control of our lives to government officials who treat us as a means to an end—the source of money and power.
As the Bearded Man warns in John Carpenter’s film They Live: “They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.”
In this regard, we’re not so different from the oppressed citizens in They Live, which was released more than 30 years ago, and remains unnervingly, chillingly appropriate for our modern age or Carpenter’s other dystopian films.
Best known for his horror film Halloween, which assumes that there is a form of evil so dark that it can’t be killed, Carpenter’s larger body of work is infused with a strong anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, laconic bent that speaks to the filmmaker’s concerns about the unraveling of our society, particularly our government.
Time and again, Carpenter portrays the government working against its own citizens, a populace out of touch with reality, technology run amok, and a future more horrific than any horror film.
In Escape from New York, Carpenter presents fascism as the future of America.
In The Thing, a remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic of the same name, Carpenter presupposes that increasingly we are all becoming dehumanized.
In Christine, the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a demon-possessed car, technology exhibits a will and consciousness of its own and goes on a murderous rampage.
In In the Mouth of Madness, Carpenter notes that evil grows when people lose “the ability to know the difference between reality and fantasy.”
And then there is Carpenter’s They Live, in which two migrant workers discover that the world is not as it seems. In fact, the population is actually being controlled and exploited by aliens working in partnership with an oligarchic elite. All the while, the populace—blissfully unaware of the real agenda at work in their lives—has been lulled into complacency, indoctrinated into compliance, bombarded with media distractions, and hypnotized by subliminal messages beamed out of television and various electronic devices, billboards and the like.
It is only when homeless drifter John Nada (played to the hilt by the late Roddy Piper) discovers a pair of doctored sunglasses—Hoffman lenses—that Nada sees what lies beneath the elite’s fabricated reality: control and bondage.
When viewed through the lens of truth, the elite, who appear human until stripped of their disguises, are shown to be monsters who have enslaved the citizenry in order to prey on them.
Likewise, billboards blare out hidden, authoritative messages: a bikini-clad woman in one ad is actually ordering viewers to “MARRY AND REPRODUCE.” Magazine racks scream “CONSUME” and “OBEY.” A wad of dollar bills in a vendor’s hand proclaims, “THIS IS YOUR GOD.”
When viewed through Nada’s Hoffman lenses, some of the other hidden messages being drummed into the people’s subconscious include: NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, CONFORM, SUBMIT, STAY ASLEEP, BUY, WATCH TV, NO IMAGINATION, and DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.
This indoctrination campaign engineered by the elite in They Live is painfully familiar to anyone who has studied the decline of American culture.
A citizenry that does not think for themselves, obeys without question, is submissive, does not challenge authority, does not think outside the box, and is content to sit back and be entertained is a citizenry that can be easily controlled.
In this way, the subtle message of They Live provides an apt analogy of our own distorted vision of life in the American police state, what philosopher Slavoj Žižek refers to as dictatorship in democracy, “the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom.”
From the moment we are born until we die, we are indoctrinated into believing that those who rule us do it for our own good. The truth is far different.
Despite the truth staring us in the face, we have allowed ourselves to become fearful, controlled, pacified zombies.
We live in a perpetual state of denial, insulated from the painful reality of the American police state by wall-to-wall entertainment news and screen devices.
Most everyone keeps their heads down these days while staring zombie-like into an electronic screen, even when they’re crossing the street. Families sit in restaurants with their heads down, separated by their screen devices and unaware of what’s going on around them. Young people especially seem dominated by the devices they hold in their hands, oblivious to the fact that they can simply push a button, turn the thing off and walk away.
Indeed, there is no larger group activity than that connected with those who watch screens—that is, television, lap tops, personal computers, cell phones and so on. In fact, a Nielsen study reports that American screen viewing is at an all-time high. For example, the average American watches approximately 151 hours of television per month.
The question, of course, is what effect does such screen consumption have on one’s mind?
Psychologically it is similar to drug addiction. Researchers found that “almost immediately after turning on the TV, subjects reported feeling more relaxed, and because this occurs so quickly and the tension returns so rapidly after the TV is turned off, people are conditioned to associate TV viewing with a lack of tension.” Research also shows that regardless of the programming, viewers’ brain waves slow down, thus transforming them into a more passive, nonresistant state.
Historically, television has been used by those in authority to quiet discontent and pacify disruptive people. “Faced with severe overcrowding and limited budgets for rehabilitation and counseling, more and more prison officials are using TV to keep inmates quiet,” according to Newsweek.
Given that the majority of what Americans watch on television is provided through channels controlled by six mega corporations, what we watch is now controlled by a corporate elite and, if that elite needs to foster a particular viewpoint or pacify its viewers, it can do so on a large scale.
If we’re watching, we’re not doing.
The powers-that-be understand this. As television journalist Edward R. Murrow warned in a 1958 speech:
We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.
This brings me back to They Live, in which the real zombies are not the aliens calling the shots but the populace who are content to remain controlled.
When all is said and done, the world of They Live is not so different from our own. As one of the characters points out, “The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent. They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices. Their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness. We have been lulled into a trance. They have made us indifferent to ourselves, to others. We are focused only on our own gain.”
We, too, are focused only on our own pleasures, prejudices and gains. Our poor and underclasses are also growing. Injustice is growing. Inequality is growing. Human rights is nearly nonexistent. We too have been lulled into a trance, indifferent to others.
Oblivious to what lies ahead, we’ve been manipulated into believing that if we continue to consume, obey, and have faith, things will work out. But that’s never been true of emerging regimes. And by the time we feel the hammer coming down upon us, it will be too late.
So where does that leave us?
The characters who populate Carpenter’s films provide some insight.
Underneath their machismo, they still believe in the ideals of liberty and equal opportunity. Their beliefs place them in constant opposition with the law and the establishment, but they are nonetheless freedom fighters.
When, for example, John Nada destroys the alien hyno-transmitter in They Live, he delivers a wake-up call for freedom. As Nada memorably declares, “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubblegum.”
In other words: we need to get active.
Stop allowing yourselves to be easily distracted by pointless political spectacles and pay attention to what’s really going on in the country.
The real battle between freedom and tyranny is taking place right in front of our eyes, if we would only open them.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the real battle for control of this nation is taking place on roadsides, in police cars, on witness stands, over phone lines, in government offices, in corporate offices, in public school hallways and classrooms, in parks and city council meetings, and in towns and cities across this country.
All the trappings of the American police state are now in plain sight.
Wake up, America.
If they live (the tyrants, the oppressors, the invaders, the overlords), it is only because “we the people” sleep.
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A military coup was carried out in the Republic of Sudan on October 25 as the contradictions within the Sovereignty Council (SC) burst asunder.
This coalition of political and military interests was formed in the aftermath of tumultuous political events between December 2018 and June 2019.
The Chair of the SC, Maj. Gen. Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan engineered the removal and detentions of the interim Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok along with several other leading cabinet ministers within the transitional regime. Events leading up to the military coup can be traced back to the announced arrest of 40 people including military officers and civilians on September 21 ostensibly for plotting a seizure of state power.
A very limited and sketchy amount of information was published about the personalities and motivations of those arrested in September in what was described by Prime Minister Hamdok as a preemptive act. Differences among the political and military leadership of the SC had become well known over the last several months. The attempted coup in September was blamed on the supporters of former President Omar Hassan al-Bashir who remains in detention in Sudan pending the outcome of criminal charges levelled against him. Also, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands has warrants out for the arrest of al-Bashir yet he has not been extradited by the administrations which have governed since April 2019.
An agreement between the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) which led the demonstrations against the former administration of ousted President Omar Hassan al-Bashir beginning in December 2018, and the Transitional Military Council headed by al-Burhan and the commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (aka, Hemeti), created the political atmosphere for the formation of an interim administration. Hamdok, an economist who has held several administrative and diplomatic posts, was selected to be the political face of the SC.
During the early morning hours of October 25, reports emerged from Khartoum that a military coup was underway. Hamdok had been moved to an undisclosed location while the media remained silent on the rapidly unfolding events.
Later Gen. al-Burhan made a videotaped statement to the people of Sudan and the international community acknowledging the removal of Hamdok and other officials of the interim government. He claimed that the actions of the military were designed to carry out the ideals and objectives of the “December 2018 Revolution.”
Such an assertion is counter-intuitive since it was the military under the direction of the generals that seized power from President al-Bashir in April 2019. These actions were taken by the military in order to stave off a genuine popular revolution in Sudan.
Soon enough the military revealed its brutal and undemocratic character by carrying out a massacre of protesters on June 3, 2019. The attack on demonstrators occupying areas around the Ministry of Defense in the capital of Khartoum resulted in more than 100 deaths. Hundreds of others were wounded and injured while assaults on women and youth continued for several hours.
The October agreement which jump-started the SC set a timetable of 39 months for the transferal of power to a civilian government after multi-party elections. This deal resulted in placing Gen. al-Burhan as chairperson for the first 21 months. Later the civilian members of the SC were slated to take over the leadership of this alliance. The events since October 25 have
aborted this accord, known as the Draft Constitutional Declaration, while at the same time placing the negotiations for the end to rebel insurgencies in Darfur, Blue Nile, North and South Kordofan in jeopardy. A Juba Agreement was signed in South Sudan in October 2020 between the transitional administration and various rebel groups aimed at bringing the armed elements into a political process.
After it became clear that a coup had occurred on October 25, the Associated Press reported that:
“As plumes of smoke rose, protesters could be heard chanting, ‘The people are stronger, stronger!’ and ‘Retreat is not an option!’ Social media video showed crowds crossing bridges over the Nile to the center of the capital. The U.S. Embassy warned that troops were blocking parts of the city and urged the military ‘to immediately cease violence.’ Pro-democracy activist Dura Gambo said paramilitary forces chased protesters through some Khartoum neighborhoods. Records from a Khartoum hospital obtained by The Associated Press showed some people admitted with gunshot wounds.” See this.
One day after the coup it was reported that at least seven people had been killed and 140 injured in demonstrations across the country. Mass demonstrations began almost spontaneously after the announcement of a coup. Internationally, the African Union, the United Nations as well as the U.S. has issued statements opposing the military takeover.
Another Failure in U.S. Africa Policy
For decades now the political affairs of the Republic of Sudan have been a preoccupation of the U.S. State Department, Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Prior to the partition of the country in 2011, Sudan was the largest geographic nation-state in Africa. The country of 50 million was becoming an emerging oil-producing state maintaining ties with both the West and the developing countries.
During the 2000s, Sudan had good relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran and the People’s Republic of China through trade agreements and other forms of bilateral and multilateral relationships. However, international pressure from the U.S. under the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, sought to balkanize and destabilize the country. The U.S. engineered the creation of the Republic of South Sudan along with Britain, the former colonial power, and the State of Israel. Today, both North and South Sudan are in economic and political turmoil. The governments in Khartoum and Juba in the South are beholden to the whims and caprices of imperialism and its allies.
Since the overthrow of al-Bashir, the monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have pledged monetary assistance. The U.S. then pressured Hamdok into accords that are at extreme variance with the priorities and needs of the Sudanese people.
Hamdok and al-Burhan knelt to U.S. pressure and revoked without any legitimate authority, the Israel Boycott Act of 1958 which prohibits recognition and trade with Tel Aviv. In addition, the interim government accepted a proposal from the administration of President Donald Trump to pay hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars to survivors of victims of terrorist acts carried out in 1998 in Kenya and Tanzania and in 2000 in the Port of Aden off the coast of Yemen. There was no concrete evidence presented to the international community which could link the government of al-Bashir, which was toppled, to these bombings. Yet the people of Sudan will be forced to pay restitution for crimes ostensibly committed during a previous deposed administration.
This reckless disregard of the political and economic sovereignty of Sudan could only serve to weaken its national institutions and foment social chaos among the working class, youth, women’s organizations and professional associations. The coup has been condemned by numerous opposition groupings including the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) which has called for mass resistance against the putsch.
Biden Administration Maintains Same Imperialist Policy
The current administration of President Joe Biden has paid limited attention to foreign policy. His orientation has been quite similar to that of his predecessors Obama and Trump. Biden has continued and enhanced the hostility towards China, Iran, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Cuba, Venezuela, among other states. The potential for an international conflict over the strategic control of geo-political regions could very well erupt in the coming months. The failure of the Biden administration to intervene constructively in the Horn of Africa is fostering greater discord and instability.
With the seizure of power by the Sudanese military, this scenario lays focus on the need for a political revolution in the country along with several others. Despite the promises of monumental economic and security assistance from Washington and Tel Aviv, the Sudanese people continue to be mired in a cycle of declining wages, rising prices and political uncertainty.
It will be up to the workers, youth, women, professional associations and genuine political parties to build a coalition of popular forces that can secure victory over the military apparatus and construct a domestic and foreign policy independent of Washington and Wall Street. The intervention of the military in governmental affairs is once again becoming widespread on the African continent. In Chad, Mali and Guinea, similar developments have taken place. The African Union must address this crisis in order to prevent a further deterioration of the security situation on the continent.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: In this frame taken from video, the head of the military, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, announced in a televised address, that he was dissolving the country’s ruling Sovereign Council, as well as the government led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, in Khartoum, Sudan, Monday, Oct. 25, 2021. Burhan said the military will run the country until elections in 2023. His announcement came hours after his forces arrested the acting prime minister and other senior government officials. (Sudan TV via AP)
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