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A source close to California Gov. Gavin Newsom today told The Defender the governor experienced an adverse reaction to the Moderna COVID vaccine he received Oct. 27, the last day he was seen in public.
A source close to California Gov. Gavin Newsom today told The Defender the governor experienced an adverse reaction to the Moderna COVID vaccine he received Oct. 27.
The source, who asked not to be identified, said Newsom’s symptoms were similar to those associated with Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS), a known side effect of many vaccines.
GBS is a neurological disorder in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks part of its peripheral nervous system — the network of nerves located outside of the brain and spinal cord — and can range from a very mild case with brief weakness to paralysis to leaving the person unable to breathe independently.
The governor has not been seen in public since he was photographed Oct. 27 getting his COVID booster.
On Oct. 29, Newsom’s office issued a statement referring to unspecified “family obligations” as the reason the governor canceled his scheduled appearances, including his planned meetings at the global COP 26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
A local ABC News outlet reported that when “the surprising announcement was made,” a spokesperson said Newsom planned to participate virtually in the climate conference. However, Newsom’s name was removed from the schedule and he did not participate.
The Defender reached out to Newsom’s office today by phone and email, but the office did not respond before publication.
According to Fox News, Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, on Sunday tweeted — then quickly deleted — a message urging people to “stop hating” while her husband has been out of the public eye.
Commenting on the situation, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chairman of Children’s Health Defense, today said he “prays for Newsom’s family” and wishes him a quick recovery.
Kennedy added:
“However, if it’s true the governor has suffered debilitating neurological injuries following vaccination, it raises grave ethical questions about his seemingly dishonest efforts to conceal his injuries while implementing aggressive policies to force the children and working people of California to endure similar risks.”
Newsom has been an outspoken advocate of COVID vaccines and mandates. On Oct. 1, he announced California’s schoolchildren will be required to get the COVID vaccine once it is fully approved by the FDA. It’s the first such mandate in the country.
In a Nov. 3 press release, the governor’s office said California was launching a “robust” vaccination program for 5- to 11-year-olds. The governor has allocated more than 1.2 million vaccines for the 5-11 age group and is setting up 4,000 vaccine sites throughout the state.
According to Times of San Diego, Newsom got the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID vaccine in April 2021 when his age group became eligible. In July, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration added a warning to the J&J COVID vaccine noting the vaccine had been linked to GBS.
The latest data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System show that between Dec. 14, 2020, and Oct. 29, 2021, there were 705 reports of GBS following COVID vaccines, with 41% of cases attributed to Pfizer, 31% to Moderna and 28% to J&J.
In April, The Defender reported on a teen who was diagnosed with GBS after his first dose of a COVID vaccine. And last week, The Defender reported on a 63-year-old cancer survivor diagnosed with GBS after her second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
GBS is included as a possible risk for many vaccines including Adacel, Afluria, Engerix-B, Fluarix, Flulaval, FluMist, Fluzone, Gardasil/Gardasil 9, Havrix, Menactra, Menomune, MMR-II, PedvaxHIB, Pneumovax-23, ProQuad, Recombivax, Tenivac, Vaqta and Varivax.
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Edward Curtin returns to discuss deep politics and what links the assassination of JFK, 9/11, and Covid-19.
No president since Kennedy has dared to buck the Military-Industrial-Complex, including Trump, who is part of the same system that produced both Obama and Biden.
He discusses the 1967 CIA memo which told mainstream media to use the disparaging term “conspiracy theory” to quell all deviation from the official narrative, and how this propaganda technique has continued to function from JFK to 9/11 to Covid-19.
Many of the same actors involved in the MIC and 9/11 continue to be involved with the drug companies, CDC, WEF, WHO, Gates Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. It’s very obvious, but the story is so frightening people don’t want to do any homework.
Too many people think there is this war going on between the right and the left, in the larger frame of reference there is no difference, it’s the warfare state against the regular people, the rich versus the poor.
The 4IR is an effort for total political and economic control of peoples all over the world. He believes the purpose of the vaccine mandate is for political control. Ultimately, we are in a spiritual war.
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Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
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Most serious students of Sino-Russian relations are well aware that the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, a twenty-year strategic treaty that was signed by the leaders of the two countries in July 2001, was set to expire in February of 2022. However, the end of this formal agreement between China and Russia did not appear to be on the radar of most (supposed) regional experts – nor, seemingly, of Western mainstream media organizations – until it was announced on June 28th during a video call between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping that the treaty would be extended for another 5 years.
There is value in examining the growing partnership between China and Russia with a view towards identifying what the latter half of 2021 will bring for these two great powers. Whereas 2020 will invariably be written about in the history books as the darkest year of the devastating Covid-19 pandemic, the arrival of 2021, which held more promise than perhaps any other year since the end of the Second World War, will likely be seen as a huge disappointment, with the pandemic continuing to ravage the world’s citizens and economies. As we now (finally?) begin to emerge from lockdowns and learn to live again, and as the United States reasserts itself internationally, the Dragon and the Bear will likely be looking for opportunities to hunt together, as evidenced (at least in part) by the formal renewal of their strategic partnership.
To be clear, emerging from the societal and economic ruin wreaked upon a large swath of the globe by the coronavirus pandemic will prove an immense challenge for even the most resilient of the world’s societies and economies.
China and its people suffered immensely during the early days of the pandemic, but by the latter half of 2021, it has become evident that while China is still facing structural challenges and a number of trade disputes, the country will likely be among the first in the world to fully recover from the ill effects of the pandemic.
In contrast, the long-term effects on Russia’s economy, and the prospects of an eventual recovery, are far less clear at this point, though most will agree that Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, will not allow his country to suffer unnecessarily, and will do whatever is needed to rescue his country’s economy. What do these divergent paths to recovery mean for the relationship between these two countries as they seek to renew a strategic treaty between them signed twenty years ago, when nobody could have foreseen the events of the past twenty months?
To start, it had seemed unlikely that a treaty extension would be signed between China and Russia – primarily because one is not needed. While more than merely a symbolic entente, the treaty itself is largely inconsequential to the continuance or development of economic cooperation between the two countries, particularly within the context of China’s insatiable demand for energy and raw materials and plans for economic modernization. Articles of the treaty centering on defense and military cooperation could have been maintained pragmatically so long as both sides agree that they remain beneficial, and Russia’s stance in relation to Taiwan (i.e. that it remains a part of China) is unlikely to change. In addition, the economic and military co-dependencies that existed when the treaty was signed have shifted so dramatically in the past twenty years that the renewal of the treaty was unlikely to be viewed as necessary other than to serve some symbolic need in the face of growing Western aggression. As noted by Jonathan E. Hillman, Senior Fellow, Economics Program, and Director, Reconnecting Asia Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in discussing four dimensions of China-Russia connectivity (1):
“Collectively, these factors reveal a partnership of unequals that will become even more lopsided in the future. China already towers over Russia in nearly every dimension, and if it can navigate its own domestic challenges, it will loom even larger in a decade. During that period, Beijing will need Moscow’s help, or at least its acquiescence, to continue expanding westward. No country is positioned better than Russia to spoil China’s overland ambitions. But isolated from the West, Russia has few alternatives to deepening economic ties with China.”
Hillman accurately notes that while the relationship between China and Russia will continue to skew in China’s favour, the two strategic partners will not stop needing each other to accomplish their respective goals, both domestically and on the world stage. And while this reality is particularly evident from an economic standpoint, it is also clear that China and Russia have much to gain from their ongoing alliance in countering the influence of Western powers such as the United States, the EU and NATO. Going it alone against such formidable foes (however weakened the latter may have become in recent years) is far less appealing than having a reliable partner in one’s corner.
How much China is willing to spend to support Russia with the latter’s post-pandemic recovery – both in terms of actual dollars and cents (or, more accurately, yuan), as well as in political capital – will be a telling indicator of how much the two countries will be willing (and able) to continue marching arm-in-arm in the same direction as the world emerges from the pandemic. However, while Russia will invariably have the most to gain from the “partnership of unequals”, China, though a master in its own right at wielding “sharp” power abroad, is still engaged in a trade dispute with a U.S. President who is proving (at least in some respects) to be as skeptical and critical of China as his predecessor, and can potentially learn a trick or two from Russia about how to get what it wants without needing to break the bank. After all, if there’s one thing that Russia has been able to prove over the past few years, it’s that there is more to leveraging influence than simply who has the most money or the biggest aircraft carriers.
There is little doubt that, in 2022 and beyond, the strategic partnership between China and Russia will continue to evolve beyond the stipulations set forth in the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation. What remains to be seen is how each partner will seek to maximize its respective returns on investment in the relationship – and ultimately, which partner will be most successful in leveraging those gains to accomplish its goals. As most of the world is desperately waiting for the pandemic to take its final breaths, the Dragon and the Bear have perhaps the most to look forward to in the year ahead.
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Nicholas Meyers writes with a focus on Russian and Eurasian issues, and draws on his military background to provide a unique perspective on geopolitics. Nicholas can be reached at [email protected].
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Cuban Version of the Violent Barricades in Venezuela?
Amplifying November 15 Internationally
A “Leftist” Feature of Archipiélago and Annexationism: Is This Possible?
The Left in North America: Where Does It Stand?
15N: What Are Cubans at the Grass-Roots Level Presently Saying?
On July 10–11, 2021, regime-change demonstrations of the “colour revolution” type broke out in several cities across Cuba, turning violent in some instances. , They were driven mainly by pro-US social media prompts, with some Cuban citizens joining in for legitimate reasons in the context of the current system and not against it. Since then, the same forces, operating under a new banner and a private, two-month-old Facebook group named Archipiélago, are gathering for a second round of demonstrations to take place on November 15. To delve into it, I applied to become a member and was eventually (and surprisingly) accepted.
Peaceful?
Several points stand out. Despite what they profess, Archipiélago is far from being a peaceful organization. This Facebook group of supposed “pacifists” features a riot in which a vehicle was overturned.
Even more explicitly, they ask below, “If violence is not the way to demand justice… why is it the way to establish ‘order’?” Reading between the lines, is this a barely veiled justification for the use of violence?
Furthermore, the following post calls for “a peaceful monthly march, if the people have no breathing space, the dictatorship will have none either.”
The incitement to chaos is evident as they stir up hatred, with a group member pleading in a comment: “Monthly is too long to wait, weekly is better as they will die more quickly.”
However, the incitement to simple individual violence also gives way to a collective genocidal policy. In response to the US threat to sanction Cuba if the Cuban government interferes in the planned November 15 march, Archipiélago ups the ante by demanding that “the sanctions not be limited to insignificant individuals” – that is, by calling for more sanctions “against the regime.” This in effect would further punish the Cuban people as part of the drastic tightening of the blockade from Trump to Biden.
We must recall here the genocidal basis of the US blockade against Cuba as expressed in the 1960 Memorandum from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Mallory) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Rubottom): “denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”
“Peaceful” Miami-Based Exiles?
During the course of a special edition of the popular Cuban TV program Mesa Redonda, Rogelio Polanco Fuentes, the head of the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, released a recording of a telephone conversation between Ramón Saúl Sánchez and Archipiélago coordinator Yunior García Aguilera.
Who is Ramón Saúl Sánchez? This is a very abbreviated list of his terrorist activities:
“[He was] born in 1954 in Cuba, at the age of 13 he went to live in the US.
Several declassified FBI reports outline the dangerousness of this terrorist. One of them, reports that in December 1980, hours after the explosion of a bomb at the Cuban consulate in Montreal, the alleged perpetrators were arrested on the Canada-United States among them Ramón Saúl Sánchez Rizo.
Another 1982 FBI report deals with an attempted attack against the Cuban ambassador to the UN, detonating a bomb in his car, states: ‘Ramón Saúl Sánchez built the remote-controlled bomb with the help of others members of Omega 7.
Omega-7 came to be considered by the FBI as ‘the most dangerous terrorist organization in the United States.’
In 1984, Ramón Saúl was sentenced to a four-year prison sentence for refusing to appear before a North American grand jury in New York that tried to clarify the activities of Omega-7.
He was a protagonist in the sinking of the fishing boats near the Bahamas, injuring two fishermen, as well as promoting the kidnapping of people in Venezuela, México and the US.
He is the leader of the terrorist organization Jóvenes de la Estrella, a group with which he carried out a dynamite attack at the Miami airport on October 17, 1975.
Second in command of CORU, which carried out more than 90 terrorist attacks against Cuban facilities in various countries, including within the United States itself, the most notable being the blowing up of the Cubana de Aviación plane over Barbados, where 73 people died.
He was a very active element among those who promoted fundraising to help Luis Posada Carriles and the rest of the terrorists arrested in Panama for planning an attack against the Cuban president (Fidel Castro) during the X Ibero-American Summit.”
Here is the full transcript translated from Spanish between Ramón Sánchez (RS) and Yunior García (YG).
“RS: Yunior?
YG: Yes?
RS: This is Ramón Saúl, how are you?
YG: Hi, how are you, Ramón? So, I don’t know if you saw the announcement we made to move it up to the 15th.
RS: We, the Movimiento Democracia and the Movimiento de Opositores por una Nueva República, are a hundred percent in agreement with what Archipiélago is saying, with what you are saying. So we are with you. One question: Do you think it would be fruitful, or would it be counterproductive, if we managed to shine the freedom lights from offshore of Cuba on that day?
YG: It’s complicated, I think that has to be thought through. I do agree that we need the support of the whole exile community, wherever they are.
RS: We are with you one hundred percent. We have great admiration for you and Otero Alcántara [another star dissident.] We have very good access to the media. So, anything you want to publicize, send it over here and we’ll take care of getting the word out. Or anything else where you think we could be useful. I feel proud to be able to support what you guys are doing.” (Emphasis added)
Yunior had to respond to the leaked telephone conversation. In an interview with a dissident media outlet in Spanish, 14yMedio, he complained that there were “missing parts of the conversation,” but does not (English version) say what was missing. However, he did not deny the most important part of the recorded conversation, namely when he said they “need the support of the whole exile community.” Furthermore, Archipiélago actually takes a stand in favour of working unconditionally with the exile community by saying in the post below, “When exiles contribute to the cause it is not mercenaryism, we are all Cubans, they are part of the same nation and have the right to contribute to the cause.”
Cuban Version of the Violent Barricades in Venezuela?
In Polanco’s Mesa Redonda presentation, he referred to “his personal experience in Venezuela, a country where he served as a diplomatic official. In this sense, he recalled that in 2013, 2014 and 2017 the so-called guarimbas [barricades] were developed. These were violent actions by representatives of opposition sectors in Venezuela to overthrow the Bolivarian government that caused innumerable economic and human damage to society.” (Below is a scene from the guarimbas in Venezuela posted as a “model” by the Cuban Archipiélago.)
Polanco continues:
“There is a report from the Venezuelan state, ‘The truth of Venezuela against infamy: data and testimonies of a country under siege,’ published in September 2020 that has elements that are related to the actions that are intended to be carried out in our country. This report states that the total number of deaths during the violent protests in February 2014 was 43 people, while in the protests from April to July 2017 the Public Ministry registered 121 deaths and 1958 injured, however, in relation to the protests of 2014 the then Secretary of State of the United States John Kerry issued a statement in which he affirmed that ‘the demonstrations were peaceful and accused the Venezuelan government of confronting peaceful protesters by force,’ he said.”
“A detailed examination, says the report, of the events that occurred reveals that most of the demonstrations provoked and promoted by opposition leaders between April and July 2017 were carried out in violation of current national and international legislation. These demonstrations led to actions of extreme violence characterized by the use of firearms, Molotov cocktails, mortars and homemade weapons, the placement of barricades, death traps on public roads, damage to institutions, schools, health centres, and siege against military and police facilities. There were three unprecedented practices in the recent history of the country: setting fire to people designated as supporters of the government, using children and adolescents to prepare firebombs, guarding barricades and attacking the security forces, as well as the combination of high levels of violence with religious and patriotic symbols.”
Regarding the well-known NED and USAID funding of state subversion, Polanco explained that among those organizations born in Latin America is CADAL (Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America), which is part of a wide network of non-governmental organizations that the United States uses to channel financing for its political operators through NED and USAID. The links between the United States and its political operators in Cuba are obvious.
He revealed that two Cuban citizens are part of the generous beneficiaries of the funds of these US organizations: Manuel Cuesta Morúa and Yunior García Aguilera, signatories of the documents delivered to the Cuban authorities regarding the intention to carry out marches in various cities of the country. Both, he explained, travelled to Argentina in 2018 to participate in a CADAL promoted event pushing for subversion in Cuba by the Armed Forces (a pipe dream if ever there was one).
Polanco denounced the fact that both CADAL and its director, Gabriel Salvia, have been very active in supporting the provocations leading up to 15N in Cuba.
“In 2019, Cuesta Morúa and García Aguilera continued their preparations in a workshop sponsored by the Universidad San Luis Campus Madrid. There they received lessons from Richard Youngs, an expert on public protests as a method of political change.”
As Youngs points out, riots are increasingly a major route through which ordinary people seek to achieve social, political and economic transformation. “Protesters must make tough decisions, do they just disengage from politics or build new kinds of civic campaigns? Do they join existing political parties or do they move away from mainstream politics altogether?”
The official [Rogelio Polanco] also highlighted how the report itself acknowledged with concern the fact that the media intended to present these events as peaceful demonstrations. ‘Some here are beginning to look for so-called non-violent methods of struggle to obtain advice and carry out some of these actions in Cuba.’”
In fact, during the July 11 protests, we actually witnessed the inception of what the US and its allies would like to happen all over Cuba and on a sustained basis. A riot occurred in Cárdenas with the use of projectiles, rocks, the overturning of a car, looting, yet the media persisted in portraying this as “peaceful protests” while highlighting the Cuban government “crackdown.
“Peaceful” was the keyword used in July as part of the narrative to blame Cuba for the arrest of those violent elements. Yet, as we head toward November 15, it is no accident that the Miami press has been all over the fact that a car was overturned in Cárdenas on July 11. The mainstream media knows full well that erecting barricades and weaponizing objects such as cars constitutes a key ingredient in destabilizing the state and creating chaos, injuries and even deaths, as occurred in Venezuela. Thus, it delights in reporting that a “large crowd of people overturn a car in a protest.”
Yunior García Aguilera is clearly an agent of the US playing out the role he was trained for by the US. Here is further information released on November 1.
On that day, Dr. Vázquez González, a Cuban who for more than 25 years has been the agent Fernando of the Cuban State Security Organs, came out in public after having infiltrated the counterrevolutionary groups.
Dr. Vázquez González confirmed what Polanco asserted regarding the meetings abroad in which “agent Fernando” participated along with Yunior García, his collaborator Manuel Cuesta Morúa and others, including two non-Cuban army generals. “Agent Fernando” revealed photos and videos as the iron-clad proof of Yunior directly working with the US over a period of several years. “Agent Fernando” indicates that the playwright Yunior perfectly fits the role of promoter for the provocative march on November 15. In a new video, “agent Fernando” explained that the:
“strategy is not new, since Yunior García Aguilera tries to reissue an event from three decades ago, when on a similar date playwright Václav Havel, defender of the hegemonic purposes of the US administration, addressed the public in Prague, the capital of then Czechoslovakia. On the night of November 26 of last year [2020], prior to his presence in front of the Ministry of Culture, Yunior published on his Facebook wall the question ‘Cuba, and what should we do now?’ [Similar to] Havel’s statement: ‘Something must be done,’ during the Prague protests. It was that November 27, 2020, when Yunior appeared as an agent of change, a role rehearsed by the United States in the color revolutions. Dr. Vázquez González added that what is sought is to cause chaos, disobedience in society, so that international organizations apply sanctions and that this then leads to military intervention and the imposition of an alternative government in our country.”
The Archipiélago post below: “Communism fell in Prague. So must it be in Cuba!”
Vaclav Havel saluting a huge crowd in Wenceslao Square in Prague on December 10, 1989.
The overall narrative on the “peaceful” Cuban protests is presented courtesy of The Washington Post in its Editorial Board publication on October 15, “Opinion: Cuba’s peaceful opposition mounts a comeback.” Irrespective of what happens on November 15, the script has already been worked out. The “protesters” are the victims while the government is at fault. Thus, buzzwords such as “peaceful protests” or “pro-democracy protests” are completely arbitrary, based on the objectives of the US and its allies.
If a movement anywhere in the world is against a government not to the liking to the US, it is dubbed a “pro-democracy movement,” thus justifying any means used by its perpetrators. On the other hand, any movement that is in defense of an “anti-US government” is dubbed “terrorist” or “extremist.” The most glaring example of this false dichotomy is in the US itself. No matter how many millions of people demonstrate in the US against the antidemocratic and racist nature of the US state, they are never called “pro-democracy movements.”
Thus, people should be aware, and not be fooled by the cacophony of the “peaceful protests” mantra that is bound, in one way or another, to accompany the events of November 15 and their aftermath.
Amplifying November 15 Internationally
A key ingredient of the Archipiélago destabilization effort is to internationalize it. Members maintain a regularly updated chart which indicates where pro-November 15 marches are to take place outside Cuba. Almost all of them are located in North America and Europe where the Cuban exiles are located.
The goal is now to build on July 11, thus making for a caustic mix of local incidents within Cuba to be amplified outside the country using the hashtags #15NovCuba or #15Nov (which, by the way, can be used by supporters of the Cuban government to attract attention while nevertheless opposing the counterrevolutionary forces).
The counterrevolution has experience going back many years with links in Cuba, the US and elsewhere. For example, one of the key players, Manuel Cuesta Morúa, is a close collaborator of Yunior. He was one of a select group of dissidents who met with then President Obama during his trip to Cuba in March 2016. In the picture, Cuesta Morúa is seated on Obama’s left.
One of the specialities of Cuesta Morúa in the current situation is to amplify 15N to the Miami counterrevolutionary press, which supports any type of terrorist activity. For example, here he retweets a post that thanks ADN Cuba, one of the main US-based and funded counterrevolutionary outlets, for giving visibility to the work of Archipiélago and the upcoming 15N.
Here is Cuesta Morúa’s retweeted thank-you note to USAID-funded CubaNet, another US-based outlet amplifying the 15N march:
US-based and fundedDiario de Cuba (DDC) also gets the nod from Cuesta Morúa when it declares, following July 11, that the “Cuban government can no longer speak in the name of the Cuban people.” While it may seem to be an innocuous comment, this is how the US and its allies act: based on this false narrative, they float an “alternative” government as the real representative of the people, as they do in Venezuela, and justify interference, including military intervention, to back up their choice.
A “Leftist” Feature of Archipiélago and Annexationism: Is This Possible?
This is not the only feature that Cuesta Morúa and his collaborators learned from their training in Argentina and Spain with CADAL. He possibly learned from CADAL the need to portray their movement as not openly right-wing but rather as pseudo left. Believe it or not, he has picked up the popular #DefundThePolice slogan in some Western capitalist countries and applied it to the so-called violence of the Cuban police.
If readers believe that the attempt by the counterrevolution to provide a “left” image to the movement is an exaggeration, below is an Archipiélago post that quotes Fidel Castro’s famous statement that “Revolution is to change everything that needs to be changed.”
The quote is almost verbatim from Fidel, minus the words “Revolution is…” Nonetheless, one should not take this lightly. After all, Cuesta Morúa and Yunior were probably trained to use “left”-sounding phrases to recruit sections of Cuban society, especially intellectuals.
Sadly, the fact is that some “pro-Cuba” intellectuals and artists in Cuba also use this Fidel phrase to push for their interpretation of change such as capitalist reforms, a multi-party system and a more “open” Cuba policy toward the US, as if the decades-long Cuba-US standoff is the fault of both the US and Cuba. Every indication is that these elements are already indirectly on board with the colour revolution by “both siding” the events: they are opposed to the violence of the colour revolution and that of the Cuban government.
These Cuban intellectuals living in Cuba are not ashamed to complain that the current post-July 11 period is plagued by “two extremes” – the Cuban government (which they now casually describe as a “regime”) and the agitators, with no room for a “reasonable perception.” They also promote the November 2020 San Isidro Movement that arose out of a wide-open debate and polemic in Cuba regarding Decree 349 on the Cuban government’s policy on culture and involved in November 15.
Junior was featured in this San Isidro Movement along with other US-supported individuals. It was the forerunner of July 11 as, and according to some intellectuals, a “made in Cuba opposition.” Of course, in order to remain in the good books with the elites in the West, the intellectuals abundantly use the buzzwords “cracking down hard” and “repressive violence” in reference to the Cuban government.
For a very precise analysis of how these intellectuals operate in Cuba and abroad, see the video presentation in a recent Geopolitical Economy Research Group webinar on Cuba by Cuban revolutionary blogger Iroel Sánchez, with English subtitles. This 15-minute YouTube is worth viewing in its entirety, as Iroel is not one of the “go to” Cubans sought after by the mainstream media and academia. The exact portion where he deals with these intellectuals is from 5:03 to 5:15.
Furthermore, in carefully diving into the pages of the Archipiélago Facebook group, one notices, for example, that it features some out-of-context left quotes from Martin Luther King. Furthermore, its main spokesperson Yunior said in an interview with the Miami Herald, “I am calling on the left worldwide, which is usually complicit and unfortunately usually behaves in a hypocritical way, to tell them that there are no left or right dictatorships, good or bad, there are dictatorships, and we must oppose them all.”
Why does Yunior feel confident in appealing to the left? Does the adage “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” apply? Are some on the left – and not only abroad but also in Cuba –sympathizing with the Archipiélago movement? Yes, indeed, we have seen above how some Cuban intellectuals on the island have quite an affinity with colour revolution. However, how does anyone reconcile being “progressive” and “left” while hobnobbing with those whose policies favour Cuban annexation to the US?
Every country must be analyzed on its own merits. For Cuba, being left or, more precisely, being communist, or pro-communist or respecting Fidel Castro and his legacy is based solidly among not all but the majority of the population since the early 1960s. Thus, it does not matter how much the Archipiélago folks scream anti-communist slogans, flash “down with the dictatorship” placards or grossly insult their leaders past and present. Not only does this go over like water off a duck’s back for the majority of Cubans, but it actually consolidates and deepens their appreciation of their ideological/political outlook, which they see as the safeguard to maintaining Cuba’s precious sovereignty, patriotism and dignity.
Hard facts and figures speak volumes. For example, in the 2019 constitutional referendum vote, which included a clause to safeguard the ultimate goal of communism (on the insistence of the grassroots), here are the results:
Thus, of those voting, over 86% voted in favour or their economic/political “communist” system. This ratio coincides with my own experience living in Cuba for extensive periods of time on and off since 1997: not all, but the vast majority of the population supports and works for their system. Even though the Archipiélago will not admit it, they must deal with this situation. Thus, at times, they must attack the system from the “left,” as Yunior does above and Cuesta Morúa also with his #DefundThePolice.
Is it an exaggeration to extrapolate from the Archipiélago pages and Yunior’s interview with the Miami Herald to claim that they use left rhetoric to cover up their goals of pro-US regime change? It does not seem to be a fabrication. However, readers can come to their own conclusions. On October 30 (appropriately the day before Halloween), in another attempt to explain his telephone conversation with the terrorist Ramón Saúl, Yunior dressed up as a virtual “firebrand leftist.”
In chameleon-like fashion, he said in the above recording that he was against “savage capitalism” as an option for Cuba. At the same time, he asserted that there is “no socialism” in Cuba but rather a “primitive, ferocious state capitalism.” To make himself even more palatable to some of the left in Cuba and abroad, he stated that he had signed a petition to President Biden demanding the lifting of the blockade. (Notes taken by the author from the El Toque recording and translated into English.)
This latter revelation is not very impressive. First, in the interview with the Miami Herald cited above, he said that “they always complain about the ‘blockade, he said, referring to the U.S. embargo. ‘There is no worse blockade than the internal blockade on every Cuban citizen in this country.’” Second, as we have seen above, an Archipiélago post called on Biden to increase the blockade sanctions.
To add to his “left credentials,” Yunior said in the same recording that he is “against apartheid.” Okay, but where? In the US racist state, or in Israel, perhaps? No, in Cuba as he refers to its “ideological apartheid” that prohibits thinking outside the official ideology. (Notes taken by the author from the same audio interview with El Toque, one of the main subversive outlets and, of course, fully involved in 15N, as can be seen below, where it is promoting Archipiélago and its coordinators such as Yunior.)
El Toque proudly provides the faces of Archipiélago on the right of the post.
However, while it is increasingly difficult to get people inside and outside of Cuba to swallow the “left” narrative, who comes to the rescue to provide Yunior with “left” credentials? The CNN Havana correspondent on November 4 provided him with the ultimate certification as a “left-leaning playwright.” This is not all. We see in the report based on an interview with Yunior in his home with his bookcase in the background, the two volumes by Fidel Castro, The Strategic Counter Offensive, detailing the epic struggle in the Sierra Maestra leading to the January 1 victory.
We do not know if the playwright, with a natural flare for drama, placed the Fidel volumes there to impress CNN in order to buttress the usual narrative of turn coats being former “supporters” of the Revolution but later “disaffected by the outcome.” One such example of betrayal is Samuel Farber, born in Cuba and having participated in the anti-Batista movement, emigrated to the US in 1958. For quite some time, from the “left,” he is supporting the US narrative against the Cuban leadership by writing among others for a “left alternative” pro colour revolution outlet in Cuba, La Joven Cuba.”
In any case, in the course of scouring Yunior’s Facebook group Archipiélago, one of the most important recurring features of the “left-leaning” Yunior is the utter disdain and hatred for Fidel accompanied with the most insulting cartoons and photos, surpassing anything that can be seen – even in the extremist hard-core anti-Castro Miami press.
The Yunior posture of being “neither left or right,” also known as the “end of ideology,” is a particular minority feature in Cuban political culture. It rears its head at every important turning point in Cuban history in recent decades. My 2017 article titled “The End of Ideology in Cuba?” on this controversy is more relevant than ever. I wrote, “Objectively, this so-called neutrality against extremes consists in throwing a life jacket in support of capitalism. The real defiance is against socialism.”
We have touched on the role of the “left face” of Cuban subversion. What about annexation to the US? Likewise, each country must be analyzed on its own, as we have briefly done above with regards to socialism and communism. Now, with regards to US projects to dominate countries in Latin America, for example, the US is threatening the sovereignty of Venezuela and Nicaragua, Bolivia and Peru.
However, for obvious geopolitical reasons, outright annexation is not part of their plans in these countries. The situation that Cuba faces is very different. Think of Puerto Rico. Given Cuban historical ties to the US since the 19th century, even when it was fighting Spanish colonialism, annexation to the US was a secondary part of the political culture on the island and it still exists today. Thus, while Archipiélago does not openly advocate annexation, the movement it is fostering does indeed lead to some kind of 21st-century Cuban “annexation” to the US.
In fact, among the Miami terrorist groups it solicits help from, annexation is still a goal, as they dream of another Playa Girón-like invasion, but one that succeeds in order to convert Cuba into another Puerto Rico. Furthermore, the Archipiélago trove contains innumerable photos comparing in a favourable light the situation that existed before the Revolution compared with today. What was the US–Cuba relationship before 1959, especially in the 1950s under Batista? Cuba’s neocolonialist status was as close as possible to actually being “annexed” to the US. In fact, while painfully navigating through Archipiélago, one cannot help but notice how it is so impregnated with sycophantic pro-US prejudices, that it reminded me of what José Martí said regarding his long exile in the US just before being killed in action in Cuba in 1895: “I have lived in the monster and I know its entrails.”
Controversy arose from my article cited above (“The End of Ideology in Cuba?”) around this statement:
“I have always maintained that the most dangerous opposition to the Cuban Revolution comes from the so-called left, and not from the openly right-wing annexationists.”
Most readers praised the article, while many others participated in the serious debate. Only a few strongly objected to it, mainly singling out that sentence about the “most dangerous opposition.” In responding to detractors, my second piece was penned in Spanish as a columnist for Cuba’s Prensa Latina (and published in English, titled Cuban “Left” Opposition and Annexationists: Two Wings of the Same Eagle).
This piece created more controversy, as well as complaints, and thus in the third installment of this trilogy, I wrote:
“Their common main complaint has been that my articles do not name individuals. Some of their social media accounts even try to dictate to me in referring to the dissidents’ posts. They ‘are asking for names’; ‘Name names!’ they demand. They are oblivious to the fact that by so doing they name themselves and that they do not, and cannot, in any way shame me into citing names. Perhaps the most remarkable proof that there is no need to name names, since worms will surface after rain, comes from Miami. On Feb. 2, 2017, the US-financed CUBA NET published a front-page article on the controversy provoked by my two columns.”
See the screenshot below, for my original Spanish version of the piece published in La Pupila Insomne, edited by Cuban blogger Iroel Sánchez. Perhaps the best example of the boomerang effect is the attack by the CIA-financed and extreme right-wing Miami-based CubaNet against my person and articles, while defending the Cuban “left,” titling their piece: “The Annexationist Left: Arnold August Is the New Agent of Castroism,”.
Thus they inadvertently prove my point that Cuba’s “Leftists” and Annexationists are two wings of the same eagle, and why, as can be read here: I do not name them.
The concern about the ideological/political annexationist war being waged against Cuba in the current period goes back to at least 2016, as my piece in Black Agenda Report points out:
“What does it mean when American flags appear on the streets of Havana? Is President Obama winning his war against Cuban socialism by non-military means? Obama confirmed once again that the US is dispensing with openly antagonistic tactics, in favor of diplomatic tactics that he hopes will attain the goal of snuffing out the Cuban Revolution. The Cuban people, themselves, are engaged in a great debate about their future – and ours.”
The Left in North America: Where Does It Stand?
Given the fully documented proof that, despite all the rhetoric, the 15N is not peaceful but is in fact US-driven – even to the point of threatening a military intervention – what can we do to defend Cuba?
The left in the US must be applauded. Virtually all the left alternative independent web-based media in the US has unconditionally opposed the US narrative on Cuba, including Black Alliance for Peace, Black Agenda Report, MintPress News, People’s Dispatch, The People’s Forum, Code Pink, Lee Camp – Redacted Tonight, The Socialist Program, BreakThrough News, The Grayzone, Popular Resistance, CounterPunch and others.
The only major holdout is the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), which serves as the virtual official organ of regime change in Cuba. A guide to the alternative left can be found here. NACLA is not listed, yet it is not clear if it is because of its right-wing swing toward Latin America. In any case, it is good thing it is not included.
Here in Canada, we are not blessed with this situation. In fact, the contrast with the US is startling. Only a very small number of outlets stand unconditionally against the US “colour revolution” narrative, while the vast majority either buy into the US agenda or are ominously silent on one of the most important issues for the left today: the Cuban Revolution. Is there a reason for this? Is it perhaps due to Liberal poster boy Justin Trudeau’s barely concealed support for colour revolution in Cuba, which was so appreciated by Archipiélago. Trudeau: “Cuba deserves democracy and freedom?”
It proudly displays the latest feather in its cap, listing Canada among its supporters along with other countries such as Colombia, US, Sweden, Germany, Uruguay and Spain. The article was taken from “Radio and Television Martí,” the US-funded subversive media based in the US. This position by Justin Trudeau, given the current US-led subversive context, is perhaps one of the most right-wing reactionary statement taken by any Canadian government on Cuba since 1959.
It is far from being “ambiguous,” as some Trudeau apologists would have it. The US-trained Yunior and company have possibly been trained in capturing dog-whistle diplomacy, that is, hearing what music to their ears is, amplifying it while discarding the rest. Not one member of the Canadian Parliament – all the parties, including the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) – has yet to take a public stand against Trudeau encouraging colour revolution for Cuba.
After the July 11 event, the first out of the gates against the Cuban government was Canadian Dimension. The Canada Files produced an extended YouTube video based on my presentation at the August 29 panel on Cuba, organized by the Geopolitical Research Economy Group. We completely deconstructed the two Canadian Dimension articles written by Cuban dissidents and its related Trudeau position. Since then, Canadian Dimension has largely stayed clear of Cuba after publishing these two hit pieces. This is hardly a positive step in light of those dangerous precedents. A “left” publication that is neutral at a time that the Cuban Revolution is under attack, more than ever since 1959, is not encouraging. More on that below, as this Canadian disease of “neutrality” is rampant.
In any case, two other “Canadian left” media outlets picked up the baton from Canadian Dimension to try outracing each other, as to which one could cross the anti-Cuban Revolution finish line first.
First, there is Rabble. In a July 19, 2021 article, readers were confronted with several key pro-US regime change stereotypes:
“As a result of horrific conditions there and very likely [emphasis added] American provocation (the U.S. spends tens of millions annually on anti-government media and on-the-ground and social media campaigning), Cubans are demonstrating en masse against the government… They are blaming the Cuban government for the country’s state of affairs, claiming it is caused by Cuban leaders who are enriching themselves at the expense of the public… There are many things not to like about Cuba’s government. It isn’t democratic and there is widespread corruption, but other countries with un-democratic or corrupt governments are not bullied and starved by the U.S … I personally know people who can’t feed their families regularly, who stand in lines in the hot sun for hours every day to meet basic needs, who can’t rely on their excellent health care system anymore and who now fear absolute chaos. An orderly transition to some form of democratic government is impossible to imagine. Chaos is more likely, with widespread poverty, inequality and insecurity.”
Rabble may not realize it, but this “chaos and failed state” mantra was applied to Cuba by Biden, but ripped to shreds in The Canada Files YouTube mentioned above.
In another Rabblearticle, dated July 23, 2021, the litany of nonsense goes shamelessly beyond the pale by comparing Haiti to Cuba.
“Cuba, you might say, has in recent days had the same problem [as Haiti] – dissent – but in a very different setting [mild concession to Cuba]… Like its sheer longevity: despite a crippling US economic blockade, it has lasted as a one-party communist state, for only about a decade less than the Soviet Union did. Health care and education have been impressive, including a COVID-19 vaccine, though production is hampered by the blockade. Its flaws are many, among them repression of dissent – including the unprecedented current rallies and marches. The government says all economic trouble is due to the blockade, and protests are down to U.S. plots.
Now, one may be tempted to excuse Rabble for this, as this second one was reprinted from one of Canada’s flagship corporate media outlets, the Toronto Star. On the other hand, if Rabble can reprint from the Toronto Star, why did it not attend the two Geopolitical Economy Research Group (GERG) webinars on Cuba, on July 26 and August 29, to report on them and/or republish reports on them? The Rabble accusation above of Cuba as being guilty of “repression of dissent” rings somewhat hollow as our “dissenting voices” against the mainstream narrative on Cuba right here in Canada is repressed. Unless, of course, Rabble knuckles down in the future and reprints articles from TheCanada Files on Cuba. Nothing yet.
Moreover, on November 1 it carried an article encouraging Canadian tourism to the island to be inaugurated on November 15. It did this without mentioning the US-led November 15th attempt to disrupt just that. Nor did it take a stand against the Canadian government’s treacherous stand lending credibility to the US-backed colour revolution narrative.
In addition to Rabble, The Breach outdid them all in an October 22 article:
“Well, I don’t think people like Blair and Clinton deserve any kind of left label. The people who understand themselves as being on the left, who are actively part of left campaigns, and who’ve really accepted an End of History narrative, are I think those people who don’t believe we can do any better than the defense of states like China, Syria, Cuba, and sometimes even North Korea, as building blocks in a feeble global antagonism against the overwhelming dominance of American power… When workers in Cuba are concerned about a year of economic brutality caused by both the imperialist American blockade and the collapse of tourism revenues – because of COVID and by mismanagement by a bureaucratic elite that lives a more luxurious life than ordinary Cubans – they can only be imperialist agents… So we oppose, for example, the American blockade on Cuba, but we don’t oppose it in the name of defending the state that these imperialists oppose. Instead, we oppose it in the name of supporting a politics of human freedom against imperialist power, above all, but also against those perverted and deflected forms of supposedly socialist politics that are bureaucratic states.”
However, the supposed rebuttal to this from what amounts to the “left” of Canadian Dimension, Rabble and The Breach is that it is wrong to lionize a leader simply because they are being attacked by the U.S. These words, paternalistically warning people in the North against glorifying Third World leaders, may fly under some of the left radar. It is very convenient for the middle-of-the-roaders.
Thus far, they refuse to purge themselves of the White Man’s Burden complex or US-centric notions that stop them from taking an unconditional stand in favour of leaders who are actually leading their peoples in fighting US imperialism, such as Miguel Díaz-Canel in Cuba.
This “left” seems to be incapable of bringing itself to overcome the ingrained superiority of the “left” in the comfortable North, which cannot refrain from being “father knows best” for the leaders in the South. Thus, their difference with The Breach’s stark anti-communist, or anti-revolution stance, is just a matter of degree: how far can each of them go to avoid differentiating themselves from the leaders in the South who are vilified by the mainstream media, while maintaining the veneer of being “leftists”?
Is this exaggerated? Not so. How else can one explain that the current three most important Canadian left media – Canadian Dimension, Rabble and The Breach – have all taken stands in favour of a colour revolution in Cuba, while The Tyee and Ricochet have not yet carried any post-July 11 articles on Cuba at all.
On the other hand, The Georgia Straight, L’aut’journal in Quebec and The Canada Files (leading the way by a long shot) have carried favourable articles on Cuba. Aside from The Canada Files, not one of the independent “left” media outlets has taken a stand against Trudeau’s pro-colour revolution statement. Let that sink in: Cuba is being bled by the US now more than ever, and some “leftists” cannot take a stand? However, it is not too late. Now is the time, as the US and its allies are preparing a major offensive for November 15 against Cuba, as my recent article in The Canada Files points out. It is not too late. As Howard Zinn indicated, “You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.”
15N: What Are Cubans at the Grass-roots Level Presently Saying?
Even if we show without a shadow of doubt that 15N is being US-driven and supported, in recent telephone conversations with some of my Cuban colleagues, they all say that the situation is complicated. Let these Cubans speak for themselves on 15N:
Havana:
1) “Some think it is not US manipulation but rather coming from the base. Others are of the opinion that it is planning destabilization and change in government. I do not think that it will succeed. Last July was a surprise, not now, the government is prepared.”
2) “Many people ask questions, and they are not those who take to the streets to protest or shout offenses against revolutionaries but rather working men and women who see no future anywhere, and brother, they feel they are being let down.”
3) “All those who reside here (a two-generation household) say that regarding all those involved (in 15N), we have already accumulated enough ‘merits’ for them to be detained and accused of collaborating with a foreign power, punishable by our laws. I think we all agree on that here in the house. I really do not know ‘what card’ we will have up our sleeve to face these provocations if in the end they decide to take to the streets. And in these things, as Fidel always did, you have to be one step ahead, not act or riposte blindly. And I do not think that everything that we disseminate here on TV and others, the acts of reaffirmation, etc., have the repercussion that we need them to have outside of Cuba, because I think the propaganda outside is very strong, and people believe everything that the media says.”
4) “There must be a different preparation by the leadership of the country (for 15N) and I think that people were also a bit surprised about 11J. What worries me are the actions to face 15N.”
5) “One member of the family says that they should not be imprisoned now, because they would start a campaign against us, but I think that the campaign to bring them to court will take place at any time convenient for us; the measures should be taken that politically WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO TAKE THEM.”
6) “We were not prepared for 11J. However, for 15N we are. Let us see how it unfolds.”
7) “Hi Arnold, I haven’t heard anyone talk about 15N in my neighbourhood. It is not a matter of concern. Today I was in a queue to buy oil, and the neighbours commented on the length of the queue…Chicken is available, and that there is mincemeat for the month’s quota at the butcher shop. However, I saw everyone in their daily routine, as if there is an event to celebrate and that it’s the day (15N) that the students will resume face-to-face classes in the schools [in-person school attendance was suspended as a result of COVID-19]. And that is happiness for everyone.
8) Since the latest revelations on November 1 by agent Fernando proving without a shadow of doubt that Yunior and Archipiélago are a of creation of the U.S. to foment violent regime change, some Cubans are asking: “if it may be true that some people were confused and joined in the July 11 anti-government protests, will they be confused on 15N?
Just in from Santa Clara and elsewhere on the island:
9) “Taking into account the complaints that have been made public, including the uncovering of a Cuban security agent Fernando who was infiltrated in that group, I believe that if there was someone confused with the true objectives of the supposed ‘march’, it has already been clarified and I do not believe that they can manage to deceive many people to continue with their plans. If they continue, they will be accumulating crimes for which they can be prosecuted and convicted in Cuba according to the law.”
10) “Characters like these have no opportunity to carry out their subversion plans in Cuba, even if their trolls, influencers and bots on social networks want us to believe otherwise. The reality is that it is our revolutionary organizations can mobilize thousands of people in a short period to come out in defense of the Revolution.”
11) “These people are either paid, or they are fascists, or they are not really Cubans. I will never understand the hatred they have for us when we only want the best for all humanity.”
12) (It is no secret, in general terms, how the supporters of the Revolution act in a situation such as November 15.) Several sources across the island, especially in Havana, indicate for example that “the Cuban government is well informed about the activities of the counterrevolutionary media activists, the most known of whom is Yunior in Havana. The CDRs (Comités de Defensa de la Revolución- neighborhood committees) are organized with the intention of following them if they leave their houses, so that any action would immediately have revolutionaries on the streets to outnumber the counterrevolutionaries.” It confirms what other sources have stated as quoted above: “our revolutionary organizations can mobilize thousands of people in a short period to come out in defense of the Revolution.”
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Arnold August is a Montreal-based author and journalist whose articles are published in web sites across North America, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East in English, Spanish and French. He is a Fellow at the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute.
He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
All images in this article are from The Canada Files
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Last Thursday, the flagship of the US 6th Fleet, USS Mount Whitney, entered the Black Sea as NATO forces prepared for large-scale military exercises in the Mediterranean. USS Mount Whitney joined the guided missile destroyer USS Porter that was already present in the area to conduct a “routine patrol” – over 8,000km away from the North American continent.
Later, the Russian frigate Admiral Essen conducted exercises simulating a response to an enemy air attack. The Russian fleet said in a statement that “during the exercises, the [Admiral Essen] frigate’s air defense team fixed the targets in their crosshairs and destroyed them by firing anti-aircraft missiles.” The exercise was a clear demonstration that Russia is fully prepared to defend its sovereignty in the Black Sea. This was perfectly encapsulated by an image of what appears to be the Admiral Essen frigate monitoring the actions of USS Porter, USS Mount Whitney and Bulgaria’s BGS Gordi in the Black Sea.
The Russian warship is one of the three frigates from Project 11356 that is operating in the Black Sea. The ships in this series have a displacement of about 4,000 tons, a speed of 30 knots and an autonomy of 30 days. Admiral Essen is equipped with Kalibr cruise missiles, the Shtil-1 anti-aircraft defense system and 100mm caliber artillery batteries, among other things. In short, by using the Admiral Essen frigate, Russia is sending a powerful message to NATO that it is taking the defense of its maritime space seriously, especially since the June debacle of Britain’s HMS Defender is still fresh in the memory.
Russia has repeatedly warned NATO that the bloc’s growing activity near Russian waters could result in unwanted incidences. By sending warships to the Black Sea, Washington is not contributing to stability in the region. On the contrary, the US is trying to push regional Black Sea countries, such as Bulgaria and Georgia, towards confrontational policies against Moscow.
Washington wants the global community to get used to the idea that the Black Sea is in its sphere of influence. Due to the US’ attempts to assert its authority over the Black Sea, the location of several Russian ice-free ports and the country’s only direct access to the Mediterranean Sea, tensions are developing.
Russia already demonstrated its resolve in defending its sovereign territory when HMS Defender was humiliated after attempting to violate Russian maritime space. Knowing that Russia takes its security seriously, Washington is provoking tensions between two nuclear powers. There is an impression that the US is providing psychological support to Ukraine and other peripheral NATO partners like Georgia. However, as was demonstrated during the 2008 South Ossetia War and the 2014 Donbass War, the US is willing to embolden and encourage these countries into wars that will involve Russia, but leave them abandoned and isolated when faced against the Russian military.
It is worth noting though that the Russian exercise is not a direct response to the presence of American warships, but rather because Russian forces in the Black Sea area need constant training as the region is becoming more tense. The latest Russian exercise occurred just as American warships entered the Black Sea. It is common for an American ship to appear in the Black Sea on a rotating basis. What makes the current situation with the USS Mount Whitney and USS Porter different is that this time two ships entered at the same time. This is alarming, especially if it will become a regular trend to see multiple American warships in the Black Sea.
Due to this escalation, Russia needed to respond in one way or another, and its latest exercise in the Black Sea aligned with the rare entrance of multiple US warships in the Black Sea. By responding in such a way, even if it was an accidental alignment, the US and its NATO allies will always need to consider what the Russian response will be if the Atlantic bloc decides to engage in hostilities.
Despite Britain’s humiliation in June, US-led NATO forces have evidently not given up their challenges against Russia at sea. It is recalled that in October, the US Navy destroyer USS Chafee tried to violate Russia’s national border in the Sea of Japan, but was forced to withdraw under pressure from Russia’s large anti-submarine ship Admiral Tributs. Although the US is undoubtedly pulling its resources to focus on opposing China in the Pacific region, it does not mean that the US has completely withdrawn from challenging Russia elsewhere. In fact, by sending USS Mount Whitney and USS Porter to the Black Sea simultaneously, the US has only escalated tensions and made its intentions clear.
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The so-called “booster shots” for employees at the University Clinic in Münster (UKM) were stopped on Friday. The reason: an unusually large number of side effects were noted. Just hours earlier, the hospital had announced that it would give all 11 000 employees the third vaccination.
According to a media report, the suspension was confirmed by a spokeswoman for the UKM after a request from the Münster radio station. Only hours earlier it had been announced that all 11 000 employees would be given an “offer” for the “booster vaccination” by the end of the year.
The onset of these adverse “vaccination reactions” must therefore have been correspondingly alarming and rapid.
According to a report in the Westfälische Nachrichten, these booster gene jabs for the staff working in the intensive care units were temporarily suspended in view of the long weekend. “That was too much for us,” commented the UKM’s nursing director to the newspaper.
They had feared that because of side effects it would have been impossible to maintain the work roster. However, they want to catch up on the “boosters” in a “coordinated” manner later. For this purpose, the hospital has set up its own vaccination center for the third shots, as can be seen on the UKM website.
The German medical president Klaus Reinhardt stated on Saturday that there was currently no scientific evidence for the necessity of the booster for everyone, reported a daily newspaper.
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU), Germany’s vaccine salesman, is however calling for more antibody tests and booster vaccinations for all age groups.
In Austria, several hundred employees from the care and health sector have started a Facebook page #soschautswirklichaus to campaign against vaccine mandates. They protest against compulsory vaccination and bullying in the workplace against those who do not want to be injected. Many of them fear losing their jobs.
One medical staff member noted that she had worked in a Corona ward for a year. The “experiences do not correspond to the image in the mainstream media,” she revealed.
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Featured image: In Upper Austria nurses and doctors campaign against forced jabs. Their “experiences do not correspond to the image in the mainstream media”. (Source: Facebook/FWM)
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Sesame Street’s Big Bird is making headlines today after tweeting he had received the COVID vaccine.
The fictional children’s character is supposed to be 6 years old, which if he were real, means he became eligible for the COVID vaccine last week when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine for emergency use in children ages 5 through 11.
Big Bird’s endorsement of the COVID vaccine for children isn’t an isolated incident — it’s just the latest example of Sesame Street endorsing federal health agencies’ COVID messaging for young children, with the help of corporate media.
But the announcement was met with backlash from elected officials and media pundits who accused the character of spreading government propaganda.
On Nov. 6, Sesame Street and CNN collaborated on a special the news outlet described as, “Familiar faces from Sesame Street and experts from CNN and across the country will be ready to answer children’s questions about the Covid-19 vaccine and staying healthy, and coping with big feelings as they continue to face unprecedented challenges in their young lives.”
The program featured Sesame Street muppet Rosita, who after getting her first COVID shot, told CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Sesame Street viewers, “My mommy and my papi said that it will help keep me, my friends, my neighbors, my abuela all healthy.”
Commenting on the use of popular children’s characters to promote vaccines, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chairman of Children’s Health Defense, today said:
“The use of trusted and beloved figures in this propaganda assault to induce children into submitting as guinea pigs to injections with an experimental high-risk zero-liability medical product with no proven benefits for kids is unconscionable and revolting.
”Big Pharma has turned Big Bird into a child predator.”
The Nov. 6 program is the most recent example of the CNN and Sesame street collaboration that began early on in the pandemic.
In October 2020, Sesame Street collaborated with CNN to create pandemic-centered content for children by producing a 10-part series, “The ABC’s of COVID.” The series featured Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster and other Sesame Street characters.
In several episodes of the series, Dr. Leana Wen, former Baltimore health commissioner, is a guest who fields COVID-related questions from fictional Sesame Street characters and children.
When the news broke that the FDA authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine for emergency use in children, Wen described it as “fantastic news” that “gives much needed peace of mind to so many parents who want additional protection for their kids.”
Wen, an advocate for stricter vaccine mandates, national digital proof-of-immunity certificates, is a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, and a fellow at the Brookings Institute, a think tank heavily funded by Johnson & Johnson and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — potential conflicts of interests she does not disclose in her media appearances.
During an Oct. 20, 2020, episode of “ABC’S of COVID,”CNN’s Gupta stressed the importance to Sesame Street viewers of “wearing a mask outdoors.” When a child asked Gupta if they can go to the store with their mom if they have a mask, Gupta said no, saying “it’s important to just stay home.”
Dr. Amy Acton, director of health at the Ohio Department of Health, told Elmo “wearing a mask makes you a superhero.”
Episode 5 introduced the idea of death-by-COVID to the young children by presenting a collage of people who supposedly died from the virus. “There are people getting very sick and sometimes the people who got sick are no longer with us,” Gupta told Big Bird.
In Episode 6, Gupta is asked by a child if they can go back to school without a COVID vaccine. Underscoring that children will in fact be getting the shot eventually, Gupta responds by saying the “COVID vaccine is certainly going to help [go back to school]…”
In the series finale, the featured guest was none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci, who facilitated a child-oriented conversation around COVID vaccines. Fauci told children not only do they need a COVID vaccine to stay safe, but it’s possible they will need a shot every year because “we don’t know how long protection lasts.”
Fauci then told Sesame Street viewers the COVID vaccine is the reason they’re getting Christmas presents this year.
“I took a trip up to the North Pole and vaccinated Santa Claus myself,” Fauci said. “So now he can come down the chimney and safely leave the presents.”
Sesame Street’s corporate leadership and their fictional characters have been featured on The World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset Podcast,” where Sesame Street’s Grover sat alongside Sesame Workshop’s President of Global Impact, Sherrie Westin, as she told listeners that the “pandemic has created a [financial] opportunity” for investors.
Sesame Street’s private foundation of the co-founder and permanent board director, Joan Ganz Cooney, is funded by those with a direct vested interest in the uptake of COVID vaccines. The foundation, called Sesame Workshop’s Joan Ganz Cooney Center, receives “generous funding” from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and from the philanthropic foundation of pharmaceutical behemoth Johnson & Johnson.
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Jeremy Loffredo is a freelance reporter for The Defender. His investigative reporting has been featured in The Grayzone and Unlimited Hangout. Jeremy formerly produced news programs at RT America.
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There is no such thing as “disinformation” or “misinformation”. There is only information you accept and information you do not accept.
You were not born with a requirement to believe everything you are told; rather, you were born with a brain that allows you to process the information you receive and make independent decisions.
Today, the Marine Corps Commandant blames ‘disinformation‘ for the fact that 12,500 marines are still refusing the vaccination and may end up departing military service if they do not comply. The essential ranks once again defined as non-essential over their healthy and free choice not to take an experimental vaccine for a virus that poses no significant threat.
VIA NBC – Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger cited “disinformation” as the reason there are thousands under his leadership who have not yet been vaccinated for the coronavirus.
[…] Each Marine must be vaccinated by Nov. 28, but troops are not considered fully vaccinated until two weeks after the final dose of a two-shot vaccine or that same time period after a one-shot dose. This means the final shot will actually have to be given by this Sunday. “We have to be ready to go every day, all the time,” Berger explained. “We are the ready force. We have to be ready to go.”
If the vaccination rate of the Marines remains the same until the deadline, it would leave more than 12,500 Marines unvaccinated, according to Military.com. (read more)
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For too many Americans, turning on their faucets for a glass of water is like pouring a cocktail of chemicals. Lead, arsenic, the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS and many other substances are often found in drinking water at potentially unsafe levels, particularly in low-income and underserved communities.
From the lead contamination crisis in Flint, Mich., to widespread radium pollution in Brady, Texas, the perils of unsafe water are finally prompting lawmakers and regulators to weigh how to act.
What’s needed is major new federal funding to improve drinking water quality, pay for much-needed lead line replacements, help disadvantaged areas and start to tackle the widespread PFAS problem that has made headlines across the country.
EWG’s landmark Tap Water Database shows how polluted drinking water can be, and why the efforts to fix it at the source are vital. The database collects mandatory annual test reports from 2014 to 2019, produced by almost 50,000 water utilities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
It reveals that when some Americans drink a glass of tap water, they’re also potentially getting a dose of industrial or agricultural contaminants linked to cancer, brain and nervous system damage, fertility problems, hormone disruption and other health harms.
And those risks likely increase in underserved communities, particularly those with higher Black or Latino populations. EWG’s research finds that people living in such areas might have a greater collective risk of cancer from the contaminants in their drinking water supplies than people in other parts of the country.
Why does this unacceptable situation persist? One reason is that there is not enough funding to help replace lead pipelines and clean up our drinking water. Another is that federal water safety standards aren’t keeping pace with the latest science on contaminants – some regulations haven’t been updated in more than 50 years, and the Environmental Protection Agency is not moving fast enough on new drinking water rules.
Ambitious efforts to safeguard the water we drink must achieve that goal for every American.
It’s easy to be pessimistic about whether that idea is realistic, given that Flint is in its seventh year of the lead catastrophe. Yet an increased focus by Congress on drinking water funding, the rising and necessary role of environmental equity, and firm commitments for improvements by those with the power to make them happen all provide reason to be hopeful.
Tackling historic inequities in drinking water supplies
A growing number of Democratic and Republican lawmakers are advocating for legislation that would significantly boost funding to improve the quality of drinking water and end long-running pollution problems. Such spending would be an important move toward correcting a historic wrong – the fact that marginalized and low-income communities have the least access to safe drinking water.
A recent report by the Environmental Policy Innovation Center that analyzed the EPA’s drinking water funding program from 2011 to 2020 found that drinking water systems serving smaller communities and communities with greater numbers of people of color were less likely to receive assistance through the program. And without the resources to improve water quality, their systems will continue to suffer.
Flint, a majority-Black city of roughly 100,000 people, may be the most prominent of many recent examples of people suffering with dirty drinking water.
This type of situation occurs when water systems don’t get the funds they need to replace harmful lead pipes.
It happens when people living in these areas have no option other than to buy filters to achieve cleaner water, even though they might not be able to afford them.
It happens when rural communities have no choice but to drink polluted water from wells fouled by industrial agriculture – because there are no resources that provide safe drinking water supplies.
It happens when pollution emergencies occur and communities are told to use bottled water. But this is not a long-term solution. And bottled water can contain contaminants and costs hundreds of times more than tap water.
This means these communities are the ones that suffer most from the harmful effects of consuming unsafe drinking water.
Fixing the situation requires a new approach – ensuring that much-needed aid is prioritized for underserved areas, so all communities can benefit from safer water.
Just because the scale of the problem is vast does not mean it can’t be solved. Newark, N.J., took almost five years to replace 20,000 lead lines following detection of high lead levels in the city’s drinking water supplies. But the work is almost done, and just because it requires time and money is no reason not to do it.
Disadvantaged communities that have shouldered an unfair burden of some of the most-polluted drinking water in the country must finally get the help they need, and only a major federal funding boost can achieve community-level improvements.
But achieving true water equity also requires stricter safety standards to ensure that drinking water supplies no longer have pollution levels harmful to human health.
Ensuring water safety standards are adequate and enforceable
The EPA and states do have some standards in place to protect drinking water supplies, but these limits on specific pollutants are often too weak to make the water safe to drink. Even when the standards are sufficiently stringent, a lack of resources to enforce the limits means the water remains unsafe, or that drinking water systems can’t fund the upgrades necessary to clean their supplies.
The federal Safe Drinking Water Act , or SDWA, has helped to improve U.S. water quality. Enacted in 1974 and updated in 1986 and 1996, it established EPA standards for some contaminants, such as arsenic, copper and lead. But progress on regulating pollutants has stalled instead of keeping up with current science.
The last time the EPA set a new legal limit for a drinking water pollutant was in 2000, when the agency took steps to lower uranium levels in tap water. Since then, Americans have continued to suffer from widespread drinking water contamination, particularly from emerging contaminants.
This inaction at the federal level continues to exempt from adequate regulation PFAS, hexavalent chromium and more than 160 other unregulated contaminants that pollute tap water. Millions of people are exposed to unsafe drinking water as a result.
For some other chemicals, the EPA’s maximum contaminant levels, or MCLs – the upper limit on a pollutant legally allowed in drinking water – haven’t been updated in 50 years.
Yet there is extensive scientific research to justify the agency’s pursuit of much more stringent MCLs. The legal federal standard for nitrate, for example, is based on a recommendation from 1962, even though studies support lowering the current MCL by several orders of magnitude to protect against the risk of cancer.
Drinking water standards are often based too heavily on cost concerns and political considerations. That’s why EWG, focused solely on what’s necessary to protect public health within an adequate margin of safety, has suggested stricter standards for several contaminants that would truly protect public health.
Here’s the well-kept secret about existing drinking water standards: Legal doesn’t necessarily mean safe. The vast majority of the nation’s drinking water supplies get a passing grade from federal and state regulatory agencies. But many of the 324 contaminants detected by local utilities’ tests are found at levels that may be legal under EPA’s SDWA standards or state regulations – though they far exceed levels authoritative scientific studies have found to pose health risks.
Even for chemicals that are regulated, the legal limit is often hundreds of times higher than the health standards recommended by scientists and public health agencies. Too often, legal limits are based more on what can be achieved in terms of treatment costs, and less on public health.
And water treatment facilities in many communities, especially in rural areas, are outdated, overloaded or underfunded, as urgently needed investments in water infrastructure get postponed year after year.
But even here, there’s reason for optimism. The EPA has announced plans to initiate a rulemaking to regulate a limited number of industrial PFAS discharges. It falls far short of what’s needed to truly tackle these forever chemicals, but it’s a move in the right direction that shows some regulators can act when needed.
A common purpose: Safe drinking water for everyone
Polluted tap water is not and should not be a partisan issue; it affects everyone. And finally, it appears that the regulators and lawmakers with the power to address drinking water safety on a community-wide level are starting to listen.
But far more resources are needed from the federal government to thoroughly address all forms and sources of drinking water contamination.
The EPA also needs to consider drinking water quality as one of the metrics it uses to decide how to distribute its drinking water program funds more equitably, so the worst-affected areas receive the most help.
The quality of U.S. drinking water remains uneven across America. For many, access to safe tap water has been an impossibility for too long.
But with more funding, stronger federal safety standards and a greater focus on helping historically disadvantaged areas, the state of American drinking water can eventually be strong in every community.
There are challenges when it comes to delivering safe drinking water to millions of families who currently don’t have it. But they can be solved when the public and our elected officials come together around a common purpose: the right of every American, regardless of race, region or income, to have clean water.
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While the United States continues to rule the global arms trade, Australia is pushing to increase its role in the deadly industry. Yemenis are paying the price.
‘You’ve got to…get your hands covered in blood if you want to be one of the big 10’ was the warning for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull when he announced Australia’s goal to become a top global weapons exporter. ‘[You’ll]…be selling to Saudi Arabia, to the United Arab Emirates…to these very authoritarian countries…engaged in major conflict…in places like Syria…in Yemen. You’ve really got to get your hands dirty.’
That warning came from Andrew Feinstein, one of the world’s foremost experts on the arms trade, interviewed on ABC radio in early 2018. He was soon proved correct.
Australia had already been doing secret arms deals with the countries fighting the catastrophic Yemen war, despite large numbers of civilian casualties and mounting evidence of war crimes. News of the deals emerged publicly in late 2018: Australia had approved dozens of military export permits to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the key nations fighting in Yemen. By March 2021, Australian military export approvals to these two nations had topped 100: eighty to the UAE, twenty-three to Saudi Arabia.
Australia’s Yemen war
The ongoing Yemen war is now widely known to have caused the world’s biggest current humanitarian catastrophe. But even as early as October 2016 the UN was warning of likely war crimes and calling for nations to stop supplying weaponry to the countries fighting there: ‘Since the beginning of this conflict in Yemen, weddings, marketplaces, hospitals, schools—and now mourners at a funeral—have been hit, resulting in massive civilian casualties and zero accountability for those responsible’.
The world was aware of the horror being inflicted on Yemeni civilians by the Saudis and the UAE by the time Christopher Pyne, as Australia’s new defence industry minister, flew to both countries in late 2016 to spruik Australian weaponry. Just months later, Pyne returned to the UAE for further talks. While in Abu Dhabi, he attended the Middle East’s largest weapons expo, the International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX). Pyne said he was discussing a possible $1 billion worth of arms deals with the UAE, adding that Australian companies could finalise hundreds of millions of dollars in sales at IDEX 2017.
His prediction came to pass when, in early 2018, Canberra-based weapon-maker Electro Optic Systems (EOS) announced a $410-million contract with an unnamed customer for EOS’s remote weapons systems. The secret customer was later exposed as the UAE, and the deal size increased to $450 million. In October 2017, Pyne again flew to the Middle East, for more meetings in Riyadh.
Cosying up to repressive regimes
In August 2018, a Saudi-coalition missile strike on a school bus in Yemen killed forty children and eleven adults and injured dozens more. Despite this atrocity, the Australian government wanted to get closer to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The following month the Saudi assistant minister for defence visited Australia and attended one of Australia’s largest weapons expos, Land Forces. Pyne had just been appointed defence minister. During Land Forces 2018, Pyne said Australia was looking at signing new formal ‘defence industry’ agreements with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. It was startling news that Australia was considering locking itself into arms-supply arrangements with these two repressive regimes.
In October 2018 the question of arms sales to Saudi Arabia erupted as a global issue. The gruesome murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul dominated headlines for weeks. On this subject, Australia’s new prime minister found a moral voice. ‘We are appalled beyond description by what has happened’, said Scott Morrison.
In the wake of Khashoggi’s murder, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said ‘all options are on the table’ when asked whether Australia would follow the lead of several European countries and stop exporting weapons to Saudi Arabia. Defence Minister Pyne said future military exports to the Saudis would be assessed with regard to the ‘deplorable’ events.
Meanwhile, Pyne tried to distance himself from the Saudis by perpetuating the myth that Australia can dictate what Saudi Arabia does with Australian-supplied weapons. Pyne was reported as saying that strict export controls ‘prevent’ our equipment being used in the ongoing conflict in Yemen. But Australia’s ‘strict export controls’ can prevent no such thing. In weapons deals with Saudi Arabia or the UAE the only point of strict control is the decision on whether to approve the export. If we want to be strict, Australia can say, ‘No’. Once an export is despatched, the chance of Australia exercising control over how those weapons are used plummets to virtually zero.
Military export applications
A freedom of information request by this author revealed that Defence has denied three applications for military exports to Saudi Arabia since 1 July 2019 and approved six. Before that date it had not denied any applications for military exports to Saudi Arabia since the Yemen war started. Twenty-three Saudi applications were approved from mid-2015 to the end of March 2021. No applications for military export permits to the UAE have been denied; eighty were approved.
Illegal weapons transfers
Governments routinely attach ‘end-user certificates’ to military exports that prohibit the retransfer of the weapons to third parties without approval. Despite this, unauthorised third-party transfers occur regularly. There are rarely any repercussions for offending nations.
A German public broadcaster partnered with the Jordan-based Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism in 2018 to investigate weapons transfers into Yemen. The investigation found, ‘No penalties have ever been levied for breaching end user agreements’.
During the year-long investigation, Egyptian journalist Mohamed Abo-Elgheit uncovered hundreds of examples of weapons and military vehicles supplied by Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and others either being used in Yemen by al-Qaeda and other non-state armed groups or offered for resale, still brand new, on the black market. Western governments had sent the weapons and equipment to Saudi Arabia and the UAE with ‘strict’ end-user agreements in place supposedly preventing transfer to third parties.
The investigation found:
armoured vehicles supplied to the UAE and Saudi Arabia by the United States being used by non-state armed groups (one later added to a terrorist watch list) in Yemen, some draped in UAE flags. The United States said it would investigate.
large armoured vehicles the United Kingdom had supplied to Saudi Arabia were also found in use by armed groups in Yemen, one being driven by a known fundamentalist Islamist leader. The UK government refused to engage with the journalist, saying the investigation was politically motivated.
Germany initially claimed it would investigate breaches, but, when provided with serial numbers and photographs of German weapons for sale on the black market, it stopped responding to the journalist.
the Austrian government did not respond to evidence of hundreds of its rifles supplied to Saudi Arabia being used in Yemen, some by children, others for sale in markets.
Swiss grenades supplied to the UAE were filmed in the hands of Yemeni fighters. Switzerland said it would investigate.
Does the Australian government have a greater ability than any of these countries to exert control over the Saudis and the UAE as to how Australian weapons and other military exports are used? Can Australians trust bland assurances from the defence department that Australia’s ‘strict export controls’ prevent the illegal use or transfer of Australian weapons?
Flouting international law
After the launch of Australia’s Defence Export Strategy, Pyne gave a commitment that Australia would only authorise military exports to countries ‘like ourself who support the rules-based international order’. He’d broken this commitment before he even made it. Or, to put it more plainly, he lied.
On top of extensive documented breaches of international law in Yemen by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabia, the UAE is widely known to be illegally arming and supporting rebel Libyan forces trying to overthrow Libya’s internationally recognised government, in defiance of a UN arms embargo. Following repeated breaches over many years by multiple countries, including the UAE, the UN has labelled the embargo ‘totally ineffective’. Regardless, Australia has continued selling weapons and other military equipment to the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
‘Australia’s actions in approving arms exports to countries that are known to be committing serious violations of human rights, and its failure to be transparent about this, are inconsistent with its obligations under international law’, says former Australian politician and international lawyer Melissa Parke, who is now one of the UN’s group of experts on Yemen. ‘Having signed up to…these international laws, the Australian government can’t just cherry pick what aspects it’s going to abide by, especially when it…lectures other countries, such as China and Russia, about the importance of the international rule of law.’
Is there another way?
Nearly 2.3 million children under the age of five in Yemen will suffer acute malnutrition this year and 400,000 could die if they do not receive urgent treatment, said UNICEF in February. Save the Children says 1.71 million children are in displacement camps in Yemen, and 90 per cent of these children don’t have sufficient access to food, clean water, or education. ‘Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster’, says Philippa Lysaght, humanitarian policy and advocacy adviser at Save the Children Australia. ‘To think that Australia is somehow complicit in this catastrophic war is horrifying. It is time to stop the war on children.’
Bruce Riedel from prestigious US think tank The Brookings Institution has called the Yemen war ‘America’s war’. He says Barack Obama could have stopped the war right at the start in 2015 by cutting off military, diplomatic and intelligence support for the Saudi-led coalition. Riedel notes the huge proportion (86 per cent) of Saudi Arabia’s weaponry supplied by the United States and the United Kingdom and says, ‘It is time to stop the carnage in Yemen and stop fueling the arms race in the Middle East’. America’s loyal ally Australia should do the same.
Arms-trade campaigner Ann Feltham is succinct: ‘The arms trade fuels war, exacerbates regional tensions, gives succour to human rights abusers, and squanders resources’. Earlier this year, Australia confirmed it would not ban arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
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German newspaper Berliner Zeitung has published a report seeking to answer why an “unusually large number of professional and amateur soccer players have collapsed recently.”
Headlined ‘Puzzling heart diseases in football,’ the report begins by highlighting the case of FC Barcelona’s Sergio Agüero, the 33-year-old striker who recently had to be withdrawn from a match after 41 minutes suffering from dizziness and breathing difficulties.
The article lists a large number of recent cases of footballers who have had heart problems or collapsed on the field, in some cases leading to death.
That list is republished here:
As we previously highlighted, other professional athletes have also recently suffered similar health problems, including 24-year-old Slovak hockey player Boris Sádecký, who tragically died after collapsing on the ice during a match last Friday.
28-year-old bodybuilder Jake Kazmarek also died “unexpectedly” four days after taking the COVID jab.
The Berliner Zeitung article doesn’t speculate as to whether reactions from COVID vaccines had anything to do with the rash of collapses and heart problems.
However, it does note that “heart muscle inflammation (myocarditis)” can “already occur in the course of banal virus infections” and lead to “life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias.”
A “small number” of vaccinated people have suffered heart inflammation problems as a result of the vaccine, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Researchers are now investigating reports that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines “are likely causing the inflammatory heart conditions myocarditis and pericarditis.”
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It has for a while been discussed that China has the World’s largest navy, with 355 ships.
Chinese navy-vessels are on average smaller in tonnage than the US Navy – so measured in tonnage, the US Navy is for a short while still largest.
This greater US tonnage is largely due to the super-heavy aircraft carriers of the US. China is building her 3rd carrier, the Type 003 which will be around 80% the tonnage of a US carrier, and China is already preparing her 4th carrier Type 004 which will have nuclear propulsion, electric catapults for accelerating the aircraft, and will be fully comparable to the newest and heaviest US carriers.
Aircraft carriers are, however, beginning to look like dinosaurs. Carriers are vulnerable to long range “carrier killer” missiles and instead of carriers, long range aircraft like the Su-35 on distributed bases can do the job. Which is why I propose that a country like India contemplates to not build more carriers and instead invest in super long-range combat aircraft for sea command.
Notably – measured in naval missile tubes, China’s PLA Navy has been referenced to have 90% as many launch tubes as the US Navy. This means, that in stand-off firepower, the surface navies of the two countries are largely equal. This gives China a decisive theatre advantage out to Guam both in naval force and land based Chinese theatre missiles and aircraft launched long-range missiles.
Qualitatively, China is also closing in, but in subsurface warfare the US still has a large lead. Which makes the USS SN-22 “Connecticut incident” more conspicuous, since this is the stealthiest and most advanced US ”Seawolf” attack submarine class, of which even the US only has three. Now, China has probably been able to locate and decapacitate one unit – or one third – of the ”Seawolf” fleet of the most advanced US subs. Really a huge Chinese achievement, if this is the case, which it most likely is.
Even more importantly – China has the World’s largest ship-building output – also in naval vessels.
This is very interestingly confirmed in a report, which states that the PLA Navy will presumably grow to 460 ships in less than 10 years, by 2030.
The US is a loser
Since Obama, the US has feverishly and vainly tried to make up for China’s superior naval program.
First was Obama’s “pivot to Asia” – concentrating a larger percentage of US global navy assets to encircle China around Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Second, and simultaneously, for the past many years, the US has in a frenzy tried to increase the operational tempo and up-time of their US Navy ships – effectively running the US Navy vessels down due to over-use and cut-downs in time for maintenance. We see the result in US Navy accidents.
Thirdly, the US Navy has every year lobbied for building a larger US Navy – the US Navy has hoped for something in about 15 years on the order of 350 US naval ships – which China already has. And in 15 years, China (ref. link above) will have have surpassed the expected 460 ships for 2030.
Fourthly, the US is calling upon its vassals, the UK, France (before the US put dirt on France, like the US often does with even its partners), Australia, and Japan to join the US Navy to encircle China. Each of them only contribute marginally. For instance, the once mighty UK Navy could only contribute with one single feeble mini-carrier, the Queen Elizabeth II with a small contingent of the short-range F-35B. Ridiculous in the long-range theater of the Western Pacific.
The UK even did not have ships enough to supply its own escort fleet for the QE II propaganda-tour to Asia, so the US and even the small Netherlands had to supply escort ships to protect the helpless Queen Elizabeth II. France is the same thing, wanting to patrol both the Indian Ocean and the French colonies in the Pacific with a single French basket-case carrier. Germany sent a frigate to “frighten China” – yes, so low can you go. Australia will only have new submarines in such a long-distant future day that doomsday will be long over. Only Japan is doing something serious, but far from decisive, mostly annoying China.
Fifthly, the US is trying to recruit India. India’s problems with China in the Himalayas is very much due to this, and due to India’s abrogation of Kashmir’s autonomy. India’s problems with China are to a large degree self-made. The US does not care about India’s problems in Himalaya – or about India per se at all. All the US talk about “democracy” is just to please the Indians. For the US, it is all about recruiting the Indian Navy as a subsidiary force into the naval game of the US.
All this maniac US ado is in vain for the US.
The US cannot keep up.
Taiwan will go to Beijing – and US global power will go to the bottom.
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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
Featured image:PLA Navy – Karsten Riise and Stiven Sanchez, Unsplash CC0
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In the lead up to the February 25, 1990 elections, President George H.W. Bush told the Nicaraguan people that the U.S. would keep funding the Contras (counter-revolutionaries recruited, funded and directed by President Reagan, the State Department and the CIA in 1980s illegal war), block loans and maintain the brutal economic blockade where Nicaragua couldn’t even get medicine or parts for an x-ray machine.
Although half a million people came out to show support for the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) days before the vote, the FSLN lost to the U.S. hand-picked candidate, Violetta Chamorro, because of the blackmail and coercion.
With the election result, Nicaragua turned over power effectively, to the U.S., which imposed 17 years of neoliberal austerity. Just about everything was privatized, leading to a reversal of social gains like the glass of milk for children program.
Thousands of people joined the ranks of the unemployed, tried to migrate to the U.S., or went to the cemetery before their time.
This is exactly what the U.S. has again attempted: Brutal sanctions in the form of the 2018 Nica act; and days before the election the State Department pushed a new package of sanctions called RENACER through Congress—screaming to the Nicaraguan people: “you vote Sandinista and we will make your lives hell.”
U.S. agents inside and outside Nicaragua and foreign leaders like the president of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, told Nicaraguans to boycott Sunday’s election and not to vote.
This message came through to Nicaraguans on all the media created and funded by the United States since the Sandinistas returned to the presidency in 2007. In the weeks and months before the November 7 vote, the U.S. government and its media echo chamber continued to spread misinformation about Ortega and the FSLN to create the idea that the vote would not be fair.
Ballot [Source: Courtesy of Nan McCurdy]
Polling place board President explains the ballot in Sunday’s election in the Barrio Guadalupe, Leon. [Source: Photo Courtesy of Nan McCurdy]
On Monday, the results of the election were announced: the FSLN won by a landslide with 75.92% of the vote. Voter turnout was 65.23% of all eligible voters, higher than in the last U.S. election where voter turnout is measured by registered, not eligible voters.
The Constitutional Liberal Party placed second, like in the 2016 elections, with 14.15%; the rest of the vote was spread among the other four parties.
[Source: Courtesy of Nan McCurdy]
The Sandinistas (2.1 million card-carrying in a country of 6.3 million) danced in the streets all night long throughout the country to celebrate their victory.
[Source: Courtesy of Nan McCurdy]
Polling Station minutes were pasted on the wall of the school, so people know the results almost immediately.
Polling Station Board President looks for voter’s name and picture on that polling station’s voter role. [Source: Photo courtesy of Nan McCurdy]
Previously, Blinken had accused Ortega of orchestrating a “sham election” and seeking to establish with his wife, Rosario Murillo, an “authoritarian dynasty.”
In 2018, the U.S. used cyberwar to launch a coup against the FSLN—through bott farms in Miami and El Salvador.
In the first few days of the coup attempt, millions of messages saying the government and police were repressing students flooded Facebook—total lies.
When protests erupted, the first three deaths were caused by the opposition—a policeman, a young Sandinista defending the Tipitapa mayor’s office and a passerby.
Since then, many Sandinista citizens have learned well how to use social media to defend the truth about the advances of their revolution.
So, the State Department joined forces with META—the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and others. They disappeared the personal accounts of nearly 1,000 Sandinistas as well as dozens of pages of digital communicators.
This was to silence the Sandinistas in the last days before the election and turn people against the FSLN. Dr. Timothy Bood, who covered the elections in Nicaragua, was blocked from Facebook for three days for giving his opinion about the U.S. attempted coup in 2018:
[Source: courtesy of Nan McCurdy]
I am one of 67 international journalists covering the elections. There are also 165 people from 27 countries accompanying the elections. We went to Nicaragua’s 15 departments and 2 regions.
I was in León—one of the historic colonial cities which houses the country’s first university and its most famous cathedral.
Cathedral in León. [Source: Photo courtesy of Nan McCurdy]
I visited some 70 polling stations in 5 Voting Centers—all schools. Election day was a very peaceful day—kids were in the parks—and young adults were playing basketball. The police didn’t report even one violent incident in the whole country.
Nicaragua’s electoral process is very well organized with about 245,000 people volunteering to make the elections come off without a hitch. Every party has the right to have a poll watcher—a party election observer—in every one of the 13,459 polling stations.
Each station has a voting board of three people (president, first and second member) from different parties who run the election on the micro level. A voter enters, shows their official ID card—they find her on the voting rolls, then they find her on another page with her name and picture and she signs there.
They explain the ballot to her and she goes to mark the ballot behind a cardboard divider, then folds the ballot and puts it in the ballot box—a process that takes about 6 to 10 minutes. At the end her thumb is stained with ink that takes about three days to come off.
As we were leaving one of the Voting Centers, I started talking to two young men who told me that together with two other friends they made a Facebook Page called La Consigna. Their page was eliminated a week before the elections.
They have been able to re-establish it—unlike many people who tell me that they have not been able to make new accounts. Writer Roger Harris was with me and he asked if they are paid by the government—they cracked up!
They explained that after the attempted coup they wanted to establish a page to defend the revolution and share all the advances the county has in health, education, recreation, food sovereignty, infrastructure, etc.
I asked them what they did for a living—Yasser Hermida is an agro-ecologist and Ricardo García is a graphic designer who teaches at the university
When I looked for La Consigna on Facebook; I scrolled down and they had a picture of our group of U.S. journalists and others covering the elections!
As we left they asked us to tell people in the U.S. that Nicaraguans just want to be left alone to live in peace.
Secretary of State Blinken claims the Sandinistas have no mandate to govern—however the voter turnout rate of 65 percent on Sunday was much higher than the total for the U.S. election—and the 76% victory tally much higher than the vote garnered by the Democratic Party.
It’s hard to imagine in fact how a government could have a greater mandate!
Just after voting himself, late on election day President Ortega said “Today, November 7, … we are holding these elections and we are sure that in this battle, which is a historic battle where we have to decide between … confrontation, war or peace, we are sure that regardless of the political, ideological, religious thought of each one, there are different parties to choose from, and in this way we are burying war and giving life to peace.”
On November 7, most Nicaraguans voted to continue with the amazing advances they have enjoyed since 2007, building a country that has become a very good example for others—despite the ongoing U.S. bullying and war through sanctions.
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Nan McCurdy works for the United Methodist Church of the U.S., currently in the state of Puebla, Mexico. She lived in Nicaragua more than thirty years. Nan can be reached at [email protected].
Notes
1. For a classic account of this campaign, see Holly Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua(Boston: South End Press, 1999).
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In these posts I try to highlight how our social, cultural and political structures are rigged to reflect the interests of an economic elite and maintain their power. Because the forces that shape those structures are largely invisible – we mainly notice the people and buildings inside these structures – the way power operates can be difficult to describe and to understand.
To use a familiar analogy, we are like a fish that cannot see the water in which it is submerged. Water completely orders its life: how it swims, that it swims, the limits of where it can swim, and so on.
Power orders our lives similarly. The difference is that the way power is organised in our societies is not natural – “the normal order of things” – in the way water is for a fish. A wealth elite engineers our environment to perpetuate itself and sustain the power structures on which it depends.
My latest: Power needs to be rid of Sanders, just as it earlier rid itself of Corbyn, because they are not chained to the current power paradigm. By refusing to serve the power-cult like most politicians, they threaten to shine a light on its true nature https://t.co/Um9t170547
It is because we are largely blind to this engineered environment that we don’t get out of bed each morning determined to overthrow our governments for maintaining financial systems that tax nurses and teachers at a higher rate than they do transnational corporations; or that protect private, usually inherited, wealth parked offshore; or that reward corporations for “externalising” their costs– that is, offloading them in ways that destroy the environment and the future of our children.
Resignation – our assumption that this is just the way things are – is made possible only because every day we face endless propaganda: in our schools, in our places of higher education, in the workplace, and most especially from the so-called “mainstream” – code for billionaire-owned or state-run – media.
Our minds are battered each day into submission, so much so that fairly quickly our childhood exuberance, curiosity and wonder, and our sense of fairness and justice, is crushed into a soulless technocrat’s ideas of order, efficiency and pragmatism. We are sidetracked into, at best, debates about how we can improve the status quo, rather than whether the status quo works or, even more usefully, whether the status quo is dangerous and eco-cidal.
A pandemic caused either by our pillage of natural habitats or by our meddling with viruses. And a solution to the pandemic that further ravages nature with our plastic waste.
The propaganda system tightly constrains our understanding of political and ideological realities to make them dependent on the economic priorities of the ultra-rich. We become unconscious lobbyists for the lawless and immoral activities of corporations and billionaires.
This ideological capture was neatly illustrated by one liberal analystwho bewailed the danger posed by those who seek to challenge the status quo:
If you want to replace the current system of capitalism with something else, who is going to make your jeans, iPhones and run Twitter?
The layers of ideological protection around this system – the degree to which our intellectual and cultural life is entirely captured by the billionaire class – was highlighted, inadvertently as ever, in an exclusive report this week in the Guardian.
Under the headline “Watchdog stopped ministers breaching neutrality code in top BBC and BFI hires”, we get an insight into how our “watchdogs” operate – not primarily to protect our interests from high-level corruption, but to preserve the existing system of power by preventing it from being discredited.
The Guardian report is based on the response from the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments to a Freedom of Information request. That response reveals that Peter Riddell, who served until last month as the Commissioner overseeing public appointments, blocked efforts by the government of Boris Johnson to rig the system to make it even easier for Tory party donors and cronies to head the UK’s most important public bodies.
Image of democracy
Riddell was appointed to the Commissioner’s position in 2012 by the Conservative government of David Cameron.
Riddell is a former journalist, and one, it should be noted, who is about as establishment as they come. He worked his way up through the economic elite’s house journal, the Financial Times, for 20 years. Then he joined the Times, the political elite’s house journal, where he spent a further two decades, first as a political commentator and then as assistant editor.
Riddell was an early member of the secretive Gibson inquiry that was supposed to investigate British complicity in the US-led torture and rendition programme. The inquiry, with its tightly delimited remit, didn’t even manage to reach the level of a whitewash. It failed to get to grips with the most pressing issues around systemic law-breaking by the UK and US, and what modest findings it did reach were quietly shelved by Cameron’s government.
Riddell has also held senior roles at the Hansard Society and the Institute for Government, both elite institutions concerned with strengthening the substance and image of parliamentary democracy in the UK to avert growing criticism of its glaring deficiencies.
So Riddell – who was honoured by the Queen in 2012 as a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to journalism – is very much integrated into the establishment that runs the country for its own benefit. But he is also on the wing of it that is most anxious about the masses getting restless if the failures inherent in a system designed to uphold the establishment’s power become too apparent.
Carefully selected
Riddell’s ostensible job as Commissioner for Public Appointments is to assess whether appointments to the bodies that control or regulate public life in the UK are being properly conducted – from the BBC to the various regulatory Of-bodies, cultural institutions like the British Film Institute, the commission that regulates charities, the health and safety executive, museums and galleries, and education oversight bodies like the Office for Students.
Riddell was an ideal person for the job, as Cameron doubtless understood, because he cares deeply about the image of elite institutions.
The candidates for these public bodies – including, of course, Riddell himself – have already been carefully filtered for ideological sympathy to elite goals. The vast majority, like Riddell, have attended private schools and/or gone on to elite universities such as Oxbridge. Like Riddell, they have then typically served in the status-quo adoring, advocacy-trained elite professions, as lawyers or journalists, or they have spent decades working in the various temples to late-stage capitalism, such as banks, investment firms and fund management companies.
Traditionally, the ideological pluralism represented by those appointed to public bodies has varied from a moderate, gently reformist identification with turbo-charged capitalism (neoliberalism) to a complete, dog-eat-dog identification with neoliberalism. Riddell is on the more moderate wing of that already narrow spectrum.
The appointments system has always been heavily rigged – as one would expect – to maintain class privilege. Cliques have no incentive to invite in outsiders, those who might disrupt the financial and ideological gravy train the elite has been growing fat on. The appointments system, by its very nature, is deeply conservative.
Crony appointments
Any challenges to the status quo come not from the left – or so rarely from the left that they can be quickly snuffed out with corporate media-led propaganda-vilification campaigns, as happened with Jeremy Corbyn – but from the right. Which is why the system has a consistent tendency to shift rightwards, even as reality moves leftwards, in the sense that the failure of financial institutions and the collapse of environmental support systems become ever harder to conceal or ignore.
That is the context for understanding the “exposure” of Riddell’s concerns about “interference” by Boris Johnson’s government in the appointments system.
The system Riddell oversees is supposed to ensure that one member – and one member only – of the selection panels that decide who will head the bodies influencing our cultural, intellectual and environmental spaces is “independent”.
The charade of this should be obvious. Riddell’s job is to make sure that, even though the rest of the panel deciding, for example, who gets to run the BBC can be packed with Boris Johnson’s cronies, one member of the panel must be “a non-political senior independent panel member”. They even have an acronym for this sticking plaster: a SIPM.
What does “independent” mean in this case? Only that these solitary figures on the appointments panels should not be “politically active” in public – perhaps to encourage us to imagine that, in secret, there are lots of socialist bankers and hedge fund managers who pick the people who head our most important public bodies. And that, unlike the other panellists, the “independent” one should have some minimal technical understanding of the principles of making public appointments.
In other words, Riddell’s role is to make sure there is one person like him on these selection panels – a moderate apostle for neoliberalism – rather than only dog-at-dog cheerleaders for neoliberalism. And the reason is as cynical as it looks: that it benefits the system that not too many overtly dog-eat-dog candidates get appointed to our most important, visible and cherished public bodies.
Feeble rules
Riddell earnt his place as Commissioner for Public Appointments after a lifetime of working to salvage the image of establishment structures – persuading us that inherently corrupt institutions are basically respectable and well-meaning.
The Guardian fulfils the same role. In its report on the public appointments system, it highlights a supposed battle to maintain the system’s already non-existent integrity – as though Riddell serves as a check on government power over regulatory bodies in the same way the Guardian claims to act as a check on the rest of the billionaire-owned corporate media.
In reality, both are trying to stop real scrutiny of out-of-control power structures that are ultimately destroying economic health and environmental health on a global scale.
The Guardian report summarises Riddell’s actions in its introductory paragraph:
A watchdog had to prevent ministers breaching a strict code on political neutrality and independence during the search for new chairs for the BBC and the British Film Institute (BFI), the Guardian can reveal.
What does this “prevention” amount to in practice? In the main cases cited, Riddell insisted on onemember of the appointments board not being someone who trumpets their allegiance to Boris Johnson’s brand of politics.
Riddell compares the Johnson government’s rule-breaking with the situation under Johnson’s predecessor: the much blander, rightwing Conservative leader, Theresa May. He says of her: “May was, as you would expect, rather correct [enforced the “senior independent panel member” rule] and she was concerned with getting good people to do things. She was quite robust on that.”
This is what we are supposed to be excited about? This is what we are supposed to champion as proper regulation? And given how low expectations are – from Riddell, from the Guardian and from us the public – the Johnson government’s efforts to break this feeble rule are presented as some kind of special threat to good governance.
Human warehousing
Riddell and his principles of good governance actually make no substantial difference to the appointments process he is supposed to oversee – as is apparent from the results.
Even though Riddell insisted on an “independent” member on the panel that picked the chair of the BBC, the winner was Richard Sharp, a major donor to the Tory party and former adviser to Johnson’s Chancellor, the billionaire former banker Rishi Sunak. Sharp’s business ventures include funding a firm accused of “human warehousing” – stuffing benefit recipients into “rabbit hutch” flats to profit from a Conservative government scheme.
New BBC chair Richard Sharp is not only a major donor to the Conservative party but he helped to fund a firm accused of 'human warehousing', stuffing benefit recipients into 'rabbit hutch' flats to profit from a Conservative government scheme https://t.co/nR4wOeZozv
The man appointed – under Riddell’s ultimate oversight – to head the Office for Students, which regulates higher education in England, is James Wharton. He is a senior figure drawn from the inherently corrupt world of corporate lobbying whose only qualifications for the job are that he is a Conservative peer and served as Johnson’s campaign manager.
The problem here is not the one Riddell or the Guardian are peddling. Johnson’s government is indeed a threat but not in the way they are highlighting. There is no system of transparent, honest governance and regulation Johnson is undermining and that Riddell and the Guardian are seeking to protect.
Through his clownish incompetence, Johnson is threatening to expose the system’s corruption by making it even more corrupt – so corrupt, in fact, that its corruption can no longer be concealed from the public. Johnson is threatening to make a system designed to covertly maintain elite privilege explicitly do so. He threatens to discredit it, to bring it into disrepute.
To make us, like the fish, aware of the water all around us.
Sticking plaster
The Guardian and Riddell are waging a battle – one presented as critically important – to ensure that the sticking plaster continues to stick.
We are being sidelined into trivial debates about upholding rules over panels having one, solitary “independent” member. That “independent” panellist, let us note, has no influence over the shortlist of candidates. He or she has no meaningful influence over who gets picked. And more importantly still, the “independent” panellist is not even independent – they are selected, as were Ridell and the editor of the Guardian, precisely because they have spent a lifetime identifying with establishment priorities.
Riddell personifies the only permitted struggles going in our political, cultural and economic spaces.
On one side are those who have grown so confident in the elite’s ability to rig the system to its advantage that they are contemptuous of those outside their own class and no longer care how bad the system looks.
And on the other side are those who fear that, if the system’s corruption becomes too gross, to offensive, the masses may turn on the elites and end their privileges just as revolutionaries sent the French elite to the guillotine nearly 250 years ago.
Appointments to public bodies are critically important. The leaders of them shape our cultural, intellectual and social lives. But let us not pretend that anything Riddell or the Guardian are doing will bring pluralism to our public bodies or protect democracy. They will simply maintain the veil a little longer over the charade that is elite privilege masquerading as the pubic good.
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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.
Comments Off on “The Propaganda System”, “Ideological Capture”: Economic Elites Buy Us Off with Trivial Protections – While They Raid the Common Wealth
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There is so much scientific communication published on the non-mainstream media, pointing repeatedly and again and again to the absolute lack of justification for vaccinating children, for vaccinating adults, there is simply no justification for vaccination. Period. And this especially not with an experimental mRNA-genome altering injection – there is no justification for the entire criminal Covid hoax, period.
Covid’s mortality rate is about 0.07%, or less. Anything else is a lie.
The very Dr. Anthony Fauci said so in a peer-reviewed paper, New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), “Navigating the Uncharted”, March 2020.
Yet the steamroller bulldozes on, rolling over all the scientific evidence, and since the steamroller pays and corrupts the media, the media keep lying and corrupting people, and the governments keep corrupting, threatening, blackmailing, coercing certain vulnerable scientists into continuing with the lie despite their better knowledge.
Deceit-propaganda has no end with a narrative that is a total lie. The steamroller consists of the governments and their corrupted media, the entire UN system, in particular WHO and this powerful elitist cult, whose members are not be named, but are generally known.
This is all fact.
Repeating the “non-justification” over and over again — that it is unconstitutional, that it is illegal, that it is criminal, that it is against human rights, that it is not justified by any science that holds its ground – is useless. As only the converted will listen. While the steamroller doesn’t listen, rolls on, rolls over everything, over any opposing opinion, doesn’t even seek dialogue. The steamroller is right – by sheer crushing any opposition, and forcing them into tyranny.
Some may spread the truth. But we see what damage has already been done in the course of less than 2 years — millions, perhaps tens of millions have died — not from Covid, but from the poison that is called Covid vaccine. Yet, the steamroller ignores all that… never mentions this fact, just forces more and more people into getting the poison jab. And it rolls on over all the evidence, lying to you, to us, that’s what the very governments, elected and paid for by us, the people, are doing – all of them, all 193 UN member countries.
The few honest and transparent ones (most of them in Africa, one in Haiti), they were punished by death, through poison, by strangulation, by guns — they are to be deterrents for others, who may possibly want to follow in their footsteps and defy the Big Crime UN Agenda 2030.
This has to be said.
This has to be known by the people.
It’s not just a question of vaccination or not vaccination.
YOU must understand what is behind the false vaccination, to understand that it is much more than believing the governments nice-talk of protecting your health – all these governments have sold themselves to the devil, to hell, to say it bluntly, because they all know the true agenda behind this UN Agenda 2030, that started with the midnight gong of entering 1 January 2020 – not by accident. The vaxx agenda is a question of life and death.
No pandemic starts at once worldwide…. except when it had been prepared by a long hand before, through several publicly known events, but not disseminated by the bought mainstream media, such as the 2010 Rockefeller Report, Event 201 of 18 October, 2019 in NYC sponsored by the Gates Foundation, by Rockefeller funded Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and by – who else – the all-commanding NGO – the World Economic Forum, the WEF.
Believe it or not, the WEF is an NGO of the elite, of the richest of the rich, of the Wall Street heads, Corporate Heads, Hollywood Heads – and some other heads. Yes, the WEF is an NGO that orders the UN to behave and to tell lies they (the WEF) want them (Guterres and his UN clan) to tell the world, and to repeat the lies over and over again.
And the real agenda is:
1) Massive population reduction – as part of the Gates, Rockefeller, Kissinger, et al eugenist agenda. That’s their number one goal. That’s why you are not getting a true vaccine, but a killer vaccine, it undermines your immune system, it results in mortality and morbidity. Deaths and injuries may occur within 2 to 3 years, so that strong believers in the vaccine, and deniers of the truth, will never accuse the vaccine, or the vaccine manufacturers, or WHO, of your or your relative’s death – that’s part of the plan, because the consequences of the “vaxx” are multiple but some of their main characteristics are:
i) the substances in the injection attack the human reproductive systems, male and female, often by cancer, miscarriages and more;
ii) they cause blood clots – that lodge mainly in the lungs, impairing your breathing capacity, but they can and often do migrate to the heart, causing heart strokes, or heart embolies, or heart attacks, or they move to the brain, where they may cause a brain stroke, or death;
iii) they may attack — and often do — your immune system through the overproduction of Spike proteins created by the “vaccine”, so you may fall for any infectious disease, that otherwise you would have resisted by your natural immune system.
2) They convert your body through the graphene oxide in the injection into a magnetic field that will respond to 5G and soon 6G ultra-microwaves’ commands, converting your brain into a computer and converting you, Humans, into robots or Transhumans, that can be surveyed and controlled by every step “it” takes – no longer you but the transhuman. If not behaving according to orders, it, the transhuman, may also be extinguished, by remote-control.
Sounds too fantastic to be true? Read Klaus Schwab’s book, “Covid-19: The Great Reset“, and watch his 2016 interview (less than 2 min) with the Swiss French TV (see also first segment in video below), where he intimates and predicts that by about 2025 humans will be chipped, so they can receive commands from 5G / 6G waves, and, he literally adds, will become Transhumans.
3) The fabricated Covid crisis is bankrupting as many small and medium and even large enterprises as possible around the globe, creating untold unemployment and misery and leaving a stock of bankrupted assets to be transferred for a penny on the dollar – or less – to the top elite, to those who are engineering the biblical crime we are experiencing since almost two years.
This is not conspiracy, these are facts, facts which we, the People, still may stop if we wake up NOW and act in solidarity.
Getting back to the beginning, where the point is made, that it is no good to keep endlessly repeating the illegality of the “Covid measures”, the unconstitutionality of the Covid passes, or the Green Passes, or the vaxx-passes, or all that is stored in the infamous QR-code, for now on your cell phone, soon to be implanted under your skin, already predicted in 2016, by Klaus Schwab.
Repeating what those of us, who do not follow the mainstream have captured long ago, is no good, unless you also explain the whole story, namely that Covid and the vaxx hoax around it, is but an instrument for a much larger agenda, of which the number one goal is massive population reduction, and you may be part of it. Knowing what the eugenists real goal is, you might faint. Let it suffice to say that their objective is reducing the world population by considerably more than half. And that beginning by the rich western world, where most unrenewable resources are used, where most capital can be stolen and transferred to the top elitist cult-clan, so that you, surviving citizen, may be happy with a basic income, that allows you to survive.
Or, as Klaus Schwab says: “You will own nothing and be Happy.”
Unless you are aware of this entire background, not only of the unconstitutionality of the fake and deadly “vaccine”, you will just roll over in your comfort zone, letting it happen, being tyrannized, without noticing – and at the end, when it is too late, you will wake up and say “nobody told me” — exactly. Doesn’t that sound familiar? As familiar as to almost believe that Hitler’s Nazi Germany and the ensuing WWII was just a trial run for what is unfolding in front of our eyes – as UN Agenda 2030.
Be aware. We can stop it. If we want to. We are many. They are few.
We still have 9 years to go. But once you have been jabbed – you have lost a fair amount of your capacity to resist, of your autonomy, as you may die, or become incapacitated. So, don’t get vaxxed, don’t accept tyranny, don’t accept a discriminating vaxx- certificate. Say NO – to the covid crime being committed by “our” authorities upon us, the People.
And talk to the police, the military. They should also know. Because in the end, they are sitting in the same boat as we, the People, especially since their constitutional role is defending the people, not the tyrants at the head of governments. Talk to them. Peacefully – with reason. As they are also being lied to.
Stop it NOW.
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020)
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
To access the archive of his Global Research articles, click Peter Koenig.
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“I think it’s highly likely that the next phase will involve death on a scale which will dwarf the claims of “covid-19 deaths” to date.” Dr. Mike Yeadon, former Pfizer Vice President
Question– Why is mortality in Scotland higher in 2021 than 2020?
Answer– Because more people are dying. And the reason more people are dying is because more people have been vaccinated. In other words, there’s a link between rising mortality and the Covid-19 vaccine.
Question– You can’t prove that.
Answer– You’re right, I can’t. The evidence is all circumstantial. But it is compelling, all the same. For example, rising mortality isn’t just happening in Scotland. It’s happening in many of the countries that launched mass vaccination campaigns earlier in the year. They’re all seeing a significant uptick in all-cause mortality. Why is that? What are they doing differently in 2021 than they did in the years before?
Question– I can see what you’re getting at, but I still don’t think you have enough evidence to make your case.
Answer– Okay, then you tell me: Why are more people dying in 2021 than 2020? And, keep in mind, all-cause mortality isn’t just up a bit; it’s smashing the five-year average. Check out this recent post from Alex Berenson at Substack:
Scotland is 87% adult vaccinated; weekly deaths are now 30% above normal
Oct 14, This is from the Public Health Scotland’s Covid-19 Daily Dashboard:
“The 315 excess deaths logged last week represents a 30% increase on the five-year pre-pandemic average for this time of year. This marks the 20th consecutive week with excess deaths above the five-year average and the highest since the week ending January 10, 2021.”
Question– But how can you build a case on data from just one country? It’s ridiculous.
Answer– But it’s not just Scotland. The same rule applies to many of the countries that launched vaccination campaigns earlier in the year. Here’s more from Berenson:
Add Germany – Europe’s most populous nation – to the countries seeing unusually high all-cause mortality that is NOT Covid-related.
In September, Germany reported almost 78,000 deaths, more than 10 percent higher than the expected figure, German government demographers said earlier this week.
And then there’s this is from Data Analyst’s Twitter account (check out the charts):
Data Analysis @Data_is_Louder
Oct 26
COVID mystery Denmark, Finland and Norway excess deaths are higher than in their worst Covid outbreak. These mysterious excess deaths happened in time conjunction with vaccination rollout.
Denmark ––“5 months is a row 2021 has broken the 10-year record of people dying from all causes…..Covid-19 deaths close to zero during the same period.”
The same is true in Ireland, UK and Israel. Take a look at England (Ages 10 to 59 years old.)
What’s so disturbing about this chart is that it shows how the vaccines target the young. “While the COVID death toll has been largely confined to the elderly… it’s the young who are bearing the brunt of vaccine injury. According to VigiAccess, the adverse event database for the World Health Organization, 41% of the more than 2.4 million vaccine injuries reported so far are among those under age 44, and just six percent are among people over age 75.” (“The real pandemic has just begun, and it’s COVID shot-induced heart attacks in the young”, Lifesite News)
That’s something you’re not going to read in the media, and for good reason, too. Because it would undermine their lethal objective to continue hyping the vaccine.
Here’s more from quantitative analyst Joel Smalley:
Weekly deaths update from the CDC. “Despite” being over 80% fully vaccinated, since 24-Jul, over 65s deaths in Florida are 14% higher than same period last year. “Despite” at least 50% full vaccination in the under 65s, deaths are up 46% and will rise as reporting catches up.
The examples are everywhere across the Internet. You don’t have to look very far. Wherever mass vaccinations took place, there, too, morality has risen. And–once again–these are not Covid deaths. These are mainly heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, circulatory diseases and neurological issues; the same vaccine-induced ailments we were warned about by the physicians and scientists who’ve been telling us the truth from the start. Turns out they were right after all.
Simply put, the vaccines are increasing fatalities, not reducing them. They are making matters worse not better. They are perpetuating the crisis not ending it. And that is why the red line in the chart is pointing upward. It’s an indication that the death toll will continue to rise as long as we continue to do what we are doing now, inoculating millions of people with a cytotoxic pathogen that triggers blood clots, inflammation and autoimmunity. Here’s another chart of Scotland with a short comment from The Daily Skeptic:
“…. the presence of a Covid epidemic was not seen in summer 2020, but is seen in summer 2021. What differs between the two years? The glaringly obvious answer is the rollout of COVID-19 vaccination. There was no COVID-19 vaccination programme in 2020, but there was rollout of Covid vaccinations in a sequential way to increasingly younger age groups in 2021, a pattern that we see in the manifestation of excess deaths. …. The Yellow Card adverse events reporting system,…. has already recorded over 1,700 deaths in the U.K. population associated with the COVID-19 vaccines. There is therefore a prima facie case for COVID-19 vaccination being a contributing factor to the dramatic rise in summer excess deaths in Scotland in 2021.”
(“Are Vaccines Driving Excess Deaths in Scotland, a Professor of Biology Asks”, The Daily Skeptic)
Have you noticed how the media is trying to cover-up the sudden surge in mortality? Here’s a good example from an article at the UK Telegraph:
“While focus remains firmly fixed on Covid-19, a second health crisis is quietly emerging in Britain. Since the beginning of July, there have been thousands of excess deaths that were not caused by coronavirus. According to health experts, this is highly unusual for the summer. Although excess deaths are expected during the winter months, when cold weather and seasonal infections combine to place pressure on the NHS, summer generally sees a lull.
This year is a worrying outlier.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), since July 2 there have been 9,619 excess deaths in England and Wales, of which 48 per cent (4,635) were not caused by Covid-19.
So if all these extra people are not dying from coronavirus, what is killing them?
Data from Public Health England (PHE) shows that during that period there were 2,103 extra death registrations with ischemic heart disease, 1,552 with heart failure, as well as an extra 760 deaths with cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke and aneurysm and 3,915 with other circulatory diseases.” (“Thousands more people than usual are dying … but it’s not from Covid“, Telegraph)
So, according to the article, there were:
24% more heart failure deaths than baseline
19% ischaemic heart disease
16% cerebrovascular disease (strokes)
18% other circulatory diseases
All of these cerebrovascular, cardiac and circulatory ailments didn’t suddenly drop from the sky in 2021. They are vaccine-generated injuries. Can you see that?
And they are all linked to the spike protein which is the “biological mechanism of action” that “damages blood vessels, organs, and causes blood clots, and that can kill a human being?” (Quote: Dr Peter McCullough)
Have you wondered why more people died this year of Covid than in all of 2020? According to Johns Hopkins, Covid killed 353, 000 people in the United States in 2020. But in just 10 months in 2021, 390,000 people have died. How can that be? After all:
Many of the extremely vulnerable have already died
The experts say Delta is not as lethal as the original Wuhan infection
100 million people (according to the CDC) have already survived Covid and now have natural immunity
And 190 million people have been double-vaxxed
These are four reasons why deaths should be decreasing. But they’re not decreasing, they’re increasing.
Why?
The vaccine, that’s why.
And why are the countries with the highest Covid-19 death rates, also the most vaccinated countries?
But don’t take my word for it. Check it out for yourself. Do your own research.
Just recently, Professor Norman Fenton at Queen Mary London University sifted through the government’s statistics (ONS) to see if he could “determine the overall risk-benefit of Covid-19 vaccines” by comparing “the all-cause mortality rates between the vaccinated and unvaccinated in each age category.”
His thinking on the matter was simple:
“If Covid is as dangerous as claimed – and if the vaccine is as effective as claimed – we should by now have seen many more Covid related deaths among the unvaccinated than the vaccinated….(and) If the vaccine is as safe as claimed, then there should have been very few more deaths from causes unrelated to Covid among the vaccinated than the unvaccinated (in each age group). So, the count of all-cause deaths should be higher among the unvaccinated than the vaccinated (in each age group), confirming that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks.” (Discrepancies and inconsistencies in UK Government datasets compromise accuracy of mortality rate comparisons between vaccinated and unvaccinated”)
Simple, right? In other words, if the vaccine is so great, then it should be clear from the data. But that’s not what Fenton found. What he found was the opposite. He found that all-cause mortality is higher among vaccinated people than the unvaccinated. (And depending how you interpret the data, it could be significantly higher.) Fenton hoped that his analysis would impact the debate on the ongoing vaccination program, but instead, he’s been viciously denounced as a right-wing extremist, which is what happens to anyone who dares to to challenge the official narrative. Here’s more from NPR:
“Inside the emergency department at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Mich., staff members are struggling to care for patients who are showing up much sicker than they’ve ever seen. Tiffani Dusang, the emergency room’s nursing director, practically vibrates with pent-up anxiety, looking at all the patients lying on a long line of stretchers pushed up against the beige walls of the hospital’s hallways. “It’s hard to watch,” she says in her warm Texan twang.
But there’s nothing she can do. The ER’s 72 rooms are already filled.
“I always feel very, very bad when I walk down the hallway and see that people are in pain or needing to sleep or needing quiet.”
Even in parts of the country where COVID-19 isn’t overwhelming the health system, patients are showing up to the ER sicker than they were before the pandemic, their diseases more advanced and in need of more complicated care.
Months of treatment delays have exacerbated chronic conditions and worsened symptoms. Doctors and nurses say the severity of illness ranges widely and includes abdominal pain, respiratory problems, blood clots, heart conditions and suicide attempts, among others.” (“ERs are now swamped with seriously ill patients — but many don’t even have COVID”, NPR)
Repeat: “abdominal pain, respiratory problems, blood clots, heart conditions.” In other words, the overcrowding in Emergency Rooms could as easily be linked to vaccine-induced injuries as they could to “delayed treatments”. And notice how the author seems genuinely concerned about the burgeoning ERs but never once mentions the elephant in the room; the vaccine. Was that just a slip-up on his part or was his real intention to bamboozle his readers from the start?
Then, there’s this gem in the New York Post that tries to prepare the public for the onslaught of “thromboembolic” disorders we’ll be facing in the very near future. The article is appropriately titled “The little-known heart attack that’s striking ‘fit and healthy’ women as young as 22.” Here’s a clip from the article:
“When you think of a heart attack, you immediately picture someone who is older and might already have underlying health issues. But experts have warned that women as young as 22 could be struck down by a little-known condition.
Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) happens when a tear forms in a blood vessel in the heart, the New York Post reports. It can slow or block blood flow to the heart, causing a heart attack, abnormalities in heart rhythm or sudden death, experts at the Mayo Clinic say.
In general, it’s an uncommon condition, but doctors are urging women to push for a diagnosis and care when it comes to the symptoms. The condition is most common in women ages 30 to 60 – but experts have warned that it is reaching fit and healthy women as young as 22.” (The little-known heart attack that’s striking ‘fit and healthy’ women as young as 22, New York Post)
Got that? So –according to the Post– it’s perfectly normal for a fit 22 year-old to be struck-dead by a heart attack. Do you think, perhaps, the author is trying to soften attitudes towards vaccine-induced injuries before they hit us like a ton of bricks? Indeed, he is, just like the article in the Times of India about celebrity superstar and fitness nut, Puneeth Rajkumar, who died just days ago from cardiac arrest. He was 46. According to The Times of India:
Rajkumar’s sudden death has once again highlighted the perils many in their 30s and 40s are facing today, which is the increasing risk of heart ailments and cardiac arrests….(Rajkumar) suffered from a massive cardiac ailment while he was exercising in the gym. Known to be overtly fit and healthy, Rajkumar used to workout often…
There’s been a shocking rise in the number of cardiac arrests being observed amongst those in their early ages, or even their 20s. While heart ailments and cardiac arrests were generally taken to be an ‘old people’s condition’, that’s no longer the case, and now a warning sign doctors urge people to be critically aware of. …
Can you see what’s going on? These cookie cutter articles were all concocted with the same goal in mind, to hoodwink the public into believing that the extraordinary wave of deaths among healthy young people is completely normal. (“Nothing to see here. Move along.”) But, of course, none of this is normal. It’s all appallingly weird and shocking which is why we are so focused on excess deaths and all-cause mortality. Because, we think, these will provide the evidence we need to show that the vaccine is a critical part of the elite’s depopulation agenda aimed at slashing global population by billions of people. We still believe that’s what’s really going on. The big money guys have decided to eradicate a few billion of us cockroaches so they have more room to park their Learjets. As it happens, they settled on the vaccine as a “less messy” alternative to mowing us down in the streets with machine guns. Not that they’d lose any sleep over it.
So, how’s the plan going, you ask? Check it out:
“According to all-cause mortality statistics, the number of Americans who have died between January 2021 and August 2021 is 18% higher than the average death rate between 2015 and 2019.”
And here’s a clip from an article that extracted its data from more divers reseach. Take a look:
“Is the COVID Jab Responsible for Excess Deaths?…
Matthew Crawford of the Rounding the Earth Newsletter, examined mortality statistics before and after the rollout of the COVID shots… Crawford goes on to look at data from countries that have substantial vaccine uptake while simultaneously having very low rates of COVID-19. This way, you can get a better idea as to whether the COVID jabs might be responsible for the excess deaths, as opposed to the infection itself.
He identified 23 countries that fit this criteria, accounting for 1.88 billion individuals, roughly one-quarter of the global population….. Crawford goes through a number of adjustments to remove outliers that might skew the data sets,(but) after removing nations with more than 100 COVID deaths per million before their vaccination program, he came up with 13 countries with a combined population of 354 million.…
Remarkably, though, the number of COVID deaths in these 13 countries is 11.61 times higher post-vaccination, compared to before the jabs were rolled out. In five of the 13 countries, a whopping 90% of their COVID-19 fatalities have been logged after their vaccination campaigns began.
“On face, these results reinforce the case that the experimental vaccines are killing people,” Crawford writes. “At the very least, this is one more dramatic safety signal that should spur authorities who care about our health to come to the table for a discussion about how to refine the data they’re not analyzing to anyone’s knowledge …” (“Are The COVID Jabs Responsible For Rising Mortality Trends?” Mercola.com)
Interesting, eh? So, if you take the countries where there’s not much virus, and inoculate a ton of people anyway, then you can really see how many people are being killed by the vaccine. At least 10-times as many!
In contrast– in countries where there’s alot of viral spread– the damaging effects of the vaccine are much less visible. But no matter how you cut it, the spike protein erodes the body’s vital infrastructure weakening the vascular system, killing healthy cells and mitochondria, depleting the killer lymphocytes, and short-circuiting the immune system. The knock-on effects of this ferocious attack can be any of the myriad ailments that inevitably evolve from a pathogen-ravaged circulatory system, including cardiac arrest, stroke, pulmonary embolism, autoimmunity and a host of others. At present, heart attacks appear to top the list. Check out this brief post by Dr Peter McCullough:
The world is now witnessing a pandemic of N-STEMI heart attacks caused by blood clots
A certain type of heart attack is on the rise around the world. Healthcare professionals in Scotland have seen a sharp uptick in a potentially fatal type of heart attack called an N-STEMI attack. This condition is the result of partially blocked arteries that cut off the blood supply to the heart. It presents less tissue damage than a regular STEMI attack but can be equally fatal…. Cases of STEMI attacks have remained stable for years, (but) have recently spiked… Over the summer, the hospital had to increase its number of cardiology beds by 44 percent, as front line healthcare workers dealt with an increased demand of heart attack patients….
A pandemic of heart attacks that is brought on by a cytotoxic injection that inflicts damage on its victims whether they die or not. Is that an accurate summary of the Covid-19 vaccine?
It is. Here’s more from The Expose:
“Data available from the Centre for Disease Control in the USA shows that since the Covid-19 vaccination programme got underway in the US, deaths due to ‘abnormal clinical findings not elsewhere classified’ have increased exponentially compared to pre-Covid-19 vaccination levels…
Deaths in this category include cases for which no more specific diagnosis could be made…or symptoms were hard to determine… or cases were referred elsewhere.)
“…the number of deaths due to abnormal clinical findings … maintained a steady average of just over 1,000 a week since February 2020, and was also at these levels prior to the alleged pandemic hitting the USA. However, around the end of March / early April 2021 there was a sudden uptick in the number of abnormal deaths registered per week, suddenly climbing … to over 7,000 a week by the middle of September, representing a 600% increase on the average seen every week prior to the start of the Covid-19 vaccination roll-out.
The question of course is, why?
…The one thing that millions of people have in common since abnormal deaths began to rise against the expected average, is that millions of people have been given an experimental injection, for which there is no long term safety data to know what the consequences of that will be.
The article is consistent with the many stories we have heard from nurses reporting on patients presenting with unusual ‘oddball’ symptoms that elude traditional diagnosis. This should not be surprising given the unique properties of the spike protein whose stealthy attack on the vascular system has already touched off a tsunami of cardiovascular, neurological and immunological diseases unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. All of these deaths can be traced back to a “poison-death shot” that is relentlessly pushing all-cause mortality higher while killing people that are younger and younger. If you doubt this, then take a look at how many athletes are dropping dead shortly after they’ve been injected. It’s a story that’s bound to depress the hell out of any normal human being.
Also, check out this illuminating 2-minute video dealing with cardiac arrest and our phony vaccine injury reporting system. (VAERS)
Dr. Mike Yeadon summarized recent developments in a comment he posted on the Morningstar Channel just last week. He said:
“There’s no logical end game … but totalitarian tyranny… and mass depopulation… Some colleagues agree with the tyranny part, but balk at depopulation. (But) The evidence points firmly to it.”
Indeed, it does.
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Michael Whitney, renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
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On November 7th, the people of Nicaragua went to the polls to reaffirm the commitment to their democratic project, a project that began in 1979 when the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) defeated (the) a vicious regime of Anastasio Somoza that was put in power by the United States only to have those efforts reversed by a U.S. imposed counterrevolutionary war that resulted in the electoral defeat of the FSLN in 1990.
With the return of the FSLN to power in 2007, it once again became a target for U.S. aggression and electoral subversion. The U.S. and its European allies questioned the legitimacy of the FSLN despite its overwhelming electoral victories that the U.S. characterized as fraudulent.
Ahead of the Nicaragua Election, The Black Alliance for Peace deployed an Observatory Committee to travel to Nicaragua in an effort to provide keen oversight into the electoral process and clear the pathway for the people of Nicaragua to establish a more sovereign, self-disciplined democratic process, devoid of U.S. interference.
Both Netfa Freeman and Margaret Kimberley, Co-Coordinator(s) of Africa Team and Coordinating Committee member have accompanied the Nicaragua Delegation as well and will be readily available for press inquiries beginning November 9, 2021, 1pm – 6pm EST.
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Although Moscow and Beijing potentially stand to gain from the humiliating U.S. retreat by pushing for an inclusive government in Kabul, the rebranded Pashtun-based group must first be removed as a designated terrorist organization.
Absolutely bombshell and major reveals on what is in the vaccines, with use of electron and other kinds of microscopy from original research by Dr. Robert Young and his team, confirming what the La Quinta Columna researchers found — toxic nanometallic content with cytotoxic and genotoxic effects as well as an identified parasite.
A highly organized Covid testing apparatus was established. The mandate was Test Test Test. The flawed PCR-RT test (which does not identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus) was used Worldwide to generate millions of erroneous Covid positive cases. These in turn were used to sustain the illusion that the alleged pandemic was Real and that the Covid disease was spreading to all major regions of the World.
What is presented by the CDC regarding myocarditis is but the tip of the iceberg. It concludes with a contradictory statement calling for “everyone aged 12 years and older get vaccinated for COVID-19″ intimating that the “known risks” of Covid-19 far outweigh the “potential risks” of myocarditis.
The Biden vaccine mandate appears to be falling apart before it’s even in place. From first responders to truck drivers to everyone in-between, the message is clear: many thousands are willing to be fired from their jobs rather than be forced to take a medical procedure they do not want.
In 2017, following new U.S. sanctions against Venezuela, assets worth $7 billion were “frozen” by the U.S. and 31 tons of gold deposited by the Venezuelan state at the Bank of England and Germany’s Deutsche Bank were seized.
Leading experts on flawed U.S. COVID policy issued an urgent warning at a summit Saturday: Young children will be harmed in an ill-advised rush to vaccinate a population with very little chance of severe infection from the virus.
Through Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, a covert backdoor deal was made in 2020 with the Big Pharma giants to maintain secrecy of the money trail. Making billions, by mid-December 2020, Pfizer’s first Covid-19 vaccine needles were jabbed into unsuspecting arms of anxious Americans desperately seeking safety from the big bad pandemic wolf.
Barbarossa’s intelligence details were also poorly worked out. Nazi estimates on Soviet military capacity were based more on guesswork than reliable information, and this underestimation of the enemy would come back to haunt them.
The current collapse of post-pandemic merchandise traffic and the brutal rise in energy and fuel prices could end up weighing down the incipient and fragile global economic recovery and lead to scenarios of secular economic stagnation (secular stagnation), since the phenomenon of economic globalization has ensured that all rational elements of the economy are interrelated with each other due to the consolidation of oligopolies, technological convergence and tacit corporate agreements.
Justin Trudeau lurched into yet another minority government following the recent federal election. In spite of his failure to win even the popular vote, let alone a majority of seats in the House of Common, Trudeau continues to rule as Vaccination Czar of a totalitarian regime.
COP26 has been sold as a conference where world leaders will finally tackle climate change. But for its corporate sponsors, the conference is an opportunity to greenwash their practices of polluting for profit.
Nuove armi si stanno aggiungendo all’arsenale delle politiche economiche e finanziarie dell’Occidente. Per comprenderne la natura e portata, occorre partire da quelle sinora usate: le sanzioni – compresa quella più pesante, l’embargo – attuate soprattutto da Stati uniti e Unione europea contro interi Stati, società e persone.
Fondamentale è comprendere il criterio con cui vengono decise: Usa e Ue decretano a loro insindacabile giudizio che uno Stato o altro soggetto ha commesso una violazione, stabiliscono la sanzione o l’embargo totale, e pretendono che gli Stati terzi lo rispettino, pena ritorsioni.
Nel 1960 gli Stati uniti imposero l’embargo a Cuba che, liberatasi, aveva violato il loro «diritto» a usare l’isola come proprio possedimento: il nuovo governo nazionalizzò le proprietà delle banche e multinazionali Usa che controllavano l’economia cubana.
Oggi, 61 anni dopo, l’embargo continua, mentre le compagnie Usa richiedono rimborsi per miliardi di dollari. Nel 2011, in preparazione della guerra Usa-Nato contro la Libia, le banche statunitensi ed europee hanno sequestrato 150 miliardi di dollari di fondi sovrani investiti all’estero dallo Stato libico, di cui successivamente è sparita la maggior parte.
Nella grande rapina si è distinta la Goldman Sachs, la più potente banca d’affari statunitense, di cui Mario Draghi è stato vicepresidente. Nel 2017, in seguito a nuove sanzioni Usa contro il Venezuela, sono stati «congelati» dagli Usa beni per 7 miliardi di dollari e sequestrate 31 tonnellate d’oro depositate dallo Stato venezuelano presso la Banca d’Inghilterra e la tedesca Deutsche Bank.
Su questo sfondo si colloca la nuova, colossale operazione finanziaria lanciata dalla Goldman Sachs, la Deutsche Bank e le altre grandi banche statunitensi ed europee. Apparentemente speculare a quella delle sanzioni, essa prevede non restrizioni economiche o sequestro di fondi per punire i paesi giudicati colpevoli di violazioni, ma la concessione di finanziamenti a governi e altri soggetti virtuosi che si attengono all’«Indice ESG: Ambiente, Società, Governance».
Scopo ufficiale dell’Indice ESG è stabilire le norme per evitare l’imminente catastrofe climatica annunciata dalla Conferenza di Glasgow, per difendere i diritti umani calpestati dai regimi totalitari, per assicurare il buon governo sul modello delle grandi democrazie occidentali. A fissare tali norme sono soprattutto il Dipartimento di stato Usa, il World Economic Forum, la Rockfeller Foundation, la Banca Mondiale, affiancati con ruolo subalterno da alcune organizzazioni Onu. La massima garanzia per i diritti umani è rappresentata dal Dipartimento di stato Usa, il cui embargo all’Iraq con l’avallo Onu provocò, nel 1990-2003, un milione e mezzo di morti tra cui mezzo milione di bambini.
L’operazione finanziaria si concentra sul cambiamento climatico: la Conferenza Onu di Glasgow ha annunciato, il 3 novembre, che «la Finanza diventa verde e resiliente». Nasce la Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, cui hanno aderito da aprile 450 banche e multinazionali di 45 paesi, la quale si impegna a «investire nei prossimi tre decenni oltre 130 trilioni (130 mila miliardi) di dollari di capitale privato per trasformare l’economia fino a zero emissioni nel 2050». I capitali vengono raccolti attraverso l’emissione di Green Bond (obbligazioni verdi) e investimenti effettuati da fondi comuni e fondi pensione, in gran parte con i soldi di piccoli risparmiatori che rischiano di ritrovarsi in una ennesima bolla speculativa.
Ormai non c’è banca o multinazionale che non si impegni a realizzare le zero emissioni entro il 2050 e ad aiutare in tal senso i «paesi poveri», dove oltre 2 miliardi di abitanti usano ancora la legna quale unico o principale combustibile. Solennemente impegnata per le zero emissioni è anche la compagnia petrolifera anglo-olandese Royal Dutch Shell che, dopo aver provocato un disastro ambientale e sanitario nel delta del Niger, si rifiuta di bonificare le terre inquinate.
Così, in attesa delle zero emissioni, gli abitanti continuano a morire per l’acqua inquinata dagli idrocarburi della Shell.
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“capsid is the protein shell of a virus, enclosing its genetic material”.
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Absolutely bombshell and major reveals on what is in the vaccines, with use of electron and other kinds of microscopy from original research by Dr. Robert Young and his team, confirming what the La Quinta Columna researchers found — toxic nanometallic content with cytotoxic and genotoxic effects as well as an identified parasite.
This is major revelation. Please stay tuned for a major article reporting this at ECC. Meanwhile please share this video widely!
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According to Edgar Ocampo, every year, the world engulfs half of the reserves of a major oil country (Mexico) and given that alternative energies still need huge subsidies to be viable in developing countries, the practice of fracking (kind of a universal panacea that will solve humanity’s energy problems) is still incipient and raises environmental concerns and the inertia of oil assets will not allow large companies to abandon their current equipment and infrastructure, it follows that the world economy will continue to weigh on the dependence on oil in the next decade.
However, the current collapse of post-pandemic merchandise traffic and the brutal rise in energy and fuel prices could end up weighing down the incipient and fragile global economic recovery and lead to scenarios of secular economic stagnation (secular stagnation), since the phenomenon of economic globalization has ensured that all rational elements of the economy are interrelated with each other due to the consolidation of oligopolies, technological convergence and tacit corporate agreements.
Decline in conventional crude oil production (Peak Oil)
According to the Association for the Study of Oil and Gas (ASPO), the world production of conventional crude oil has already begun its decline, a phenomenon that is explained through the methods of analysis of the geologist King Hubbert on the oil production of the the United States, a method known as the “Hubbert curve” who calculated in 1956 with extraordinary precision the date when the United States could not produce more oil in a conventional way even if more wells were drilled. Thus, conventional oil production in the US reached its maximum level in 1970 and then began to decline, having to import almost double the total crude produced in that country in 2005 until the appearance of the revolutionary and controversial fracking technique, daughter of engineer George Mitchell.
This technique consists of the extraction of unconventional natural gas through the fracturing of the mother rock (shale) for the extraction of shale gas and light oil (shale oil), a technique in which the United States would be a pioneer in its application, Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, New Mexico, California, Colorado and Montana stand out. However, the abrupt fall in the price of crude oil to $ 50 made it impossible for the operating companies to obtain competitive prices (around $ 80) that would allow the necessary investment in energy infrastructure and the search for new exploitations, which together with the determined impulse of the Biden Administration to renewable energies, has caused many of these companies to find themselves in bankruptcy and since the domestic consumption of the United States would move in the range of 16 to 20 million barrels per day, it will continue to be a net importer of crude oil. Until 2035.
On the other hand, the current oil production comes in more than 60% from mature fields, (which have been intensively exploited for more than 25 years), so new prospects are carried out in more remote regions (Arctic, Amazon), with a higher production cost ($ 120) and lower profitability, often threatening reserves and natural parks (Arctic, Alaska, Amazon). Likewise, the lag between world consumption and the discoveries of new exploitations would be abysmal (in a ratio of 4 to 1) and the time required to start up a field at full capacity is around 6 years. Thus, 90% of Saudi crude production comes from just five mature fields and up to 60% would come from the Ghawar megafield and given that the new oil infrastructure projects for crude extraction considered “large,” (those of more than 500 million barrels). in Saudi Arabia by 2021 they are practically non-existent and that a sustained increase in the production of Saudi crude oil is foreseeable to supply the endemic shortage of global crude supply estimated at 1 million barrels per day, will cause a noticeable reduction of its idle reserves.
Is the oil shortage already endemic?
The International Energy Agency (IEA), in a recent report entitled “World energy investment prospects”, warns that it will be necessary to invest $ 48 billion until 2035 to cover the growing world energy needs but the abrupt collapse of the price of crude oil up to $ 50, made it impossible for producing countries to obtain competitive prices (around $ 80) that would allow the necessary investment in energy infrastructures and the search for new exploitations, so the oil shortage in the next five-year period would not be ruled out as the cuts in crude oil production with the economic recovery of the main driving economies (USA, EU, China).
All of this will presumably cause a psychosis of shortages and the spectacular increase in the price of crude oil to 2008 levels (around $ 120) which will be reflected in a savage increase in transport freights and agricultural fertilizers, which together with Unusual droughts and floods in the traditional world granaries and the consequent application of restrictions on the export of commodities from these countries to ensure their self-sufficiency, will end up producing a shortage of world markets, an increase in prices to stratospheric levels and the consequent crisis. world food. The famine will especially affect the Antilles, Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Egypt, the Horn of Africa, Mongolia, North Korea, India, China, Bangladesh and Southeast Asia, attacking sub-Saharan Africa with special virulence.
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German Gorraiz Lopez is a political and financial analyst.
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Tensions are on the rise in the Baltics. Recent NATO military exercises in Lithuania show that the organization really plans to maintain a constant siege strategy, with no interruptions. Troops from the US, Canada, Portugal, and Spain participated in the last week of October in extremely complex military operations in that region, carrying out air warfare exercises in order to train Western forces for a possible war situation. Interestingly, the tests were conducted with discretion, having only been revealed in early November. The intense participation of Portuguese and Spanish militaries reveals a worrying process of adhesion of European countries without great defense potential to NATO’s anti-Russian speeches.
On October 29, NATO war exercises were carried out in the Baltic Sea, with the participation only of American, Canadian, Portuguese, and Spanish military personnel and equipment. The main purpose of the operation was to carry out a comprehensive test of air policing and train tactics of “anti-surface” war, which is a modality of combat using air weapons against targets at sea or on land. Among the various points of the tests, the media was informed that the main ones were to strengthen techniques to integrate air and naval vehicles and weapons during combat situations, optimize location and identification procedures, and qualify NATO troops for the use of anti-surface weapons, which is still a less worked topic than direct naval combat or land warfare.
In addition to usual American and Canadian equipment and vehicles, the large-scale use of Portuguese and Spanish weapons surprised experts. The Portuguese Air Force F-16M fighters acted in combination with the Portuguese frigate NRP Corte Real F332 in operations simulating an air and naval war scenario. The NRP frigate is one of the most powerful weapons of the Portuguese Navy, having extensive electronic warfare and anti-missile systems, defense and long-range surveillance equipment, in addition to heavy artillery pieces, Harpoon and Sea Sparrow missiles and MK46 torpedo tubes. The frigate’s crew includes nearly 200 people and has Lynx Mk95 helicopters among its equipment.
The Spanish frigate ESPS Admiral Juan de Borbón also participated in the operation. ESPS’ F-100 class ships are among the most advanced weapons in the entire Spanish naval arsenal, having equipment similar to those of the Portuguese frigate. The USS Arleigh Burke DDG-51 and Canadian HMCS Fredericton FFH-37 frigates completed the drills’ scenario.
Although exercises restricted to a few countries occasionally occur, in general, NATO tests, particularly those carried out in the Baltics, mobilize troops from many states. This test, however, seems to have been almost completely limited to the troops of the Iberian Peninsula, with a role of coordination and leadership operated by the forces of Washington and Ottawa. The case is quite curious because it reveals something beyond the mere intention of NATO to keep troops in the Baltics constantly, signaling a possible interest on the part of Lisbon and Madrid in maintaining an active participation in the European military scenario.
Obviously, it is the just for every state to want to expand its military participation in its regional space, but the situation must be analyzed taking into account the intentions behind such operations. It is a well-known fact that NATO attitudes in the Baltic States and across Eastern Europe are focused on provoking Russia, creating an atmosphere of tension and hostility, in addition to a policy of siege, in countries geographically closest to the biggest geopolitical rival of the US.
These measures are “justified” by the discourse of the supposed “Russian threat”, which is increasingly recognized as fraud. The growth of a critical view of NATO’s role in Europe is evident, with a diminishing interest on the part of the largest European states to participate in operations that attend only to Washington’s strategic plans. Currently, France, which is the greatest military power in the European space, advocates the creation of a European military organization, independent from NATO. In contrast, apparently, smaller states with low military potential are acting in the opposite direction and seeking to expand their role in the Western alliance.
It is a natural process that with the decreasing participation of the greatest European powers in NATO, some weaker states seek to increase their role, in search of international status, expansion of regional influence and investments in the military industry by Washington. But it is clear that Portugal and Spain have more to lose than gain by getting involved in these disputes.
Historically, the space in which Portugal and Spain try to assert influence is North Africa, trying to maintain friendly ties with nations in the Mediterranean and without involvement in conflicts at the other pole of the European continent. Rivalries with Russia were never part of the Iberian reality. Portugal and Spain are historically neutral nations in major global conflicts, having even refused to participate in World War II. To attempt a more active role in NATO would be to break with a diplomatic tradition of neutrality and friendship that makes these countries great peaceful places on the European arena.
Furthermore, it is evident that these countries are unable to participate militarily in large-scale operations, considering that even their most advanced equipment – the frigates seen in Lithuania – are far below the current military technology of the great powers. So, indeed, Lisbon and Madrid think they are acting strategically, but they are being used and harmed by NATO.
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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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“We are dealing with evil in case you haven’t noticed.” – Dr. Robert Malone, MD, virologist, immunologist, mRNA inventor
Through Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, a covert backdoor deal was made in 2020 with the Big Pharma giants to maintain secrecy of the money trail. Making billions, by mid-December 2020, Pfizer’s first Covid-19 vaccine needles were jabbed into unsuspecting arms of anxious Americans desperately seeking safety from the big bad pandemic wolf.
Back in May 2021, AstraZeneca started testing UK children aged 5 to 12.
By October 13, 2021, in the US Pfizer announced that FDA granted permission to begin testing children as young as 12 in its Phase 3 Trials. As of November 2nd, 2021, Pfizer and its vaccine-killing minions were parasitically salivating over their CDC and FDA lapdogs rubberstamping greenlight approval for jabs to kids as young as 5. Last Tuesday CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky and FDA advisors officially authorized Pfizer shots for the ever-younger population. Pfizer, the world’s second largest biotech drug company, is being given carte blanche treatment by government Big Pharma whores, the CDC and FDA, despite Pfizer’s dubious distinction in 2009 receiving the biggest fine of $2.3 billion in history at the time, for fraudulent, illegal promotion of four dangerous drugs.
Now it’s déjà vu all over again, aggressively pushing its unsafe drug vaccines on innocent young children. No surprise that Pfizer’s also the biggest spender of them all, donating the most to both state and federal elections, since January 2019 over three-quarters of a million and $1 million respectively, even outspending Big Pharma industry’s own lobbying group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRM). Throwing its bribery weight around in either campaign contributions or record setting court fines, Pfizer seems to always get its way, now successfully coming after your kids.
But the CDC website wants to reassure you, how confident it is touting its vaccine efficacy for children:
Similar to what was seen in adult vaccine trials, vaccination was nearly 91 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 among children aged 5-11 years.
Meanwhile, kids are dropping dead daily from those “91% effective” non-vaccines.
It’s odd how so soon after the September 10, 2021 New York Timesheadline “F.D.A. Warns Parents Against Getting Children Under 12 Vaccinated,” that on October 29, 2021, a mere 7 weeks later the FDA’s own official website reads the headline “FDA Authorizes Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine for Emergency Use in Children 5 through 11 Years of Age.” That same NYT September 10th piece stated:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is ‘working around the clock’ to make Covid vaccines available to young children, it said in a statement on Friday. In the meantime, however, the agency urged parents not to seek out the shots for children who are under 12, and therefore not yet eligible for vaccination.
The same Times September article quotes Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting FDA commissioner, and Dr. Peter Marks from the FDA’s Center for Biologics Research and Evaluation:
Just like every vaccine decision we’ve made during this pandemic, our evaluation of data on the use of Covid-19 vaccines in children will not cut any [safety] corners.
The audacity of boldface lies prevail while millions of innocent people are being harmed and murdered all over the world by experimental, clinically untested, unproven Big Pharma injections is egregiously mind-blowing to no end.
Firstly, there’s a Covid-19 survival rate of 99.997% for the age group 0-19.
Secondly, even Mainstream Media is reporting serious adverse vaccine effects – heart inflammation and myocarditis, life-threatening medical conditions especially common in young males after receiving the jab.
Thirdly, the eminent danger warranted the FDA to impose label warnings on mRNA manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna. These three facts alone indicate that the potential risk of vaccine harm for very young children far exceeds any benefits. Yet the CDC, FDA and American Medical Association, along with all their corporate media minions, rigidly maintain the false narrative dogma that Covid-19 vaccines have been proven extremely safe for very young kids. Straight from the CDC website comes their worn out, repeated lie:
COVID-19 vaccines have undergone – and will continue to undergo – the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history.
Yet the above statement conflicts with FDA advisory committee panel member Dr. Eric Rubin saying:
We’re never gonna learn about how safe the vaccine is until we start giving it. That’s just the way it goes.
Looking past all the CDC and FDA deception and cover-up, Dr. Rubin lays down the cold hard fact that American kids aged 5 to 11-years old are merely viewed as the latest human guinea pigs trapped in their slaughterhouse.
Meanwhile, scientific experts such as the noted Yale epidemiologistDr. Harvey Risch, when confronted with school vaccine mandates, weighed in with this response:
If it were my child, I would homeschool them. Honestly, I would organize with other parents to take them out of the school and create homeschooling environments. On the average the benefit is higher for homeschooling than it is for vaccination and being in school.
Following actual science, parents by the millions are pulling their kids out of the public-school system.
The standard measure of drug efficacy according to the CDC Guidance document is measured in terms of the Number Needed to Treat (NNT), or in the case of vaccines, the Number Needed to Vaccinate (NNTV), in order to prevent a single case, hospitalization, ICU admission, or death.
Available data for the number needed to prevent a single case of Covid-19 virus runs between 200 and 700 jabs.
To prevent a single death using the Pfizer vaccine, a large study determined between 9,000 and 100,000 injections were needed, with the aggregate point of 16,000 jabs to save one person’s life. That’s a huge number of jabs weighed against the 15% of vaccine recipients on average reported as adverse events per VAERS, the CDC’s own tracking website.
That’s why the CDC and FDA refuse to even mention much less examine the NNTV for hospitalizations, ICU, and deaths, as it surely would prove the risks far exceed whatever paltry benefit. The bottom line is Big Pharma would be out of its whopping $93 billion a year in revenue.
There are so many overexposed, gaping holes in the FDA risk-benefit analysis of the Pfizer death jab for kids. Toby Rogers, PhD, has dissected the cost of autism through a political economist lens, and more recently the faulty risk-benefit analysis of the FDA assessment leading to recent emergency use authorization (EAU), undeservedly gifted to Pfizer as the first Big Pharma jab inoculating children 5 to 11. As noted earlier, kids rarely die from Covid-19, and in the clinical trials both the treatment and control group had no children die, so there’s no real emergency that would warrant experimental vaccination.
Secondly, the clinical trials were intentionally small in size in order to avoid and hide harmful effects. Thirdly, Pfizer by design avoided kids that already had Covid-19. A British study shows that vaccines lower acquired natural immunity from previous viral exposure and the Pfizer trials ensured avoidance of that outcome by excluding children who already had the virus. Fourthly,
Pfizer never did a 2-month follow-up with 4.9% of its test subjects, and with the small sample size already, that lost information only skews and weakens the results. Another weakness in the study is the short follow-up, by design again to avoid having to report adverse events. The FDA cost-benefits analysis only screened for myocarditis, avoiding the host of other known medical conditions caused by Covid-19 vaccines.
As standard criminal practice, Pfizer, and in fact J&J, AstraZenica and Moderna all purposely wipe out their control groups by giving them shots in order to eliminate any chance of long-term safety studies. The system is rigged and CDC and FDA are paid to look the other way.
The Pfizer clinical trials had zero cases with severe Covid symptoms, so the fiction writers had to get arbitrarily creative in studying antibodies which is a poor predictor of immunity anyway. Again, the claims of benefits are baseless fiction used to criminally pass muster with a complicit wink and a nod from the corrupt FDA and CDC. Again, a thoroughly rigged, putrid system. The FDA model assessed vaccine protection for only six months and it’s been learned that vaccine efficacy wears off quickly in just four months. Yet the FDA analysis made the broad leap misassumption that immunity remains strong throughout the six months, which has been proven false.
Former Gates Foundation virologist Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche, PhD, has stated that vaccinated children are turned into shedders of more infectious variants, and should never be injected with the Covid-19 jab. Neither the Pfizer test trials nor the FDA cost-benefit analysis are based on science at all, but exemplify premeditated, rigged outcomes for gain of profit and power.
Again, the Hippocratic Oath means nothing to the Rockefeller controlled medical healthcare industry that has been relegated to simply follow its death protocol orders. Dr. Bryan Ardis and other medical professionals are boldly asserting that the NIH and CDC protocols dictated to hospitals across the nation are causing more Covid-19 deaths than the virus itself.
Even the prestigious British Medical Journal released a separate, independent report trashing Pfizer’s shoddy Phase 3 Trial. The BMJ report is based on whistleblower Brook Jackson’s allegations against Pfizer. Serving as regional director at Ventavia Research Group, the company contracted to assist Pfizer in its critical third test trial, Brook cited multiple problems that fail to uphold even minimal professional and ethical standards. Per a November 3, 2021 article in RT:
[The BMJ report] expos[ed] faked data, blind trial failures, poorly trained vaccinators, and a slow follow-up on adverse reactions in the phase-three trial of Pfizer’s Covid jab.
Meanwhile from multiple sources, the FDA’s cost-benefits model of analysis has been determined to be criminally fraudulent, cooking up fake numbers to artificially bolster false, nonexistent benefits of the Pfizer kill shot for children.
Clearly the FDA, CDC and Pfizer have been caught red-handed promoting and ramrodding the lethal death jab even on our youngest children. It’s one big medical holocaust experiment.
Recall that the Bill Gates controlled WHO declaring the Covid-19 virus a pandemic in February 2020, is based on another false mathematical model belonging to disgraced UK professor Neil Ferguson, bogusly predicting a half million UK deaths and 2.2 million US deaths from the so-called novel CoV-2 virus never isolated or found to even exist beyond fake theoretical models.
Meanwhile, in desperation to keep the lie alive, the corporate media recently made the bogus claim that the SARS-2 virus has globally killed 5 million, while in actuality it’s the biowarfare death jab as the true Grim Reaper likely killing millions.
Respected biochemist, microbiologist and clinical nutritionist Dr. Robert Young has estimated that the Covid-19 vaccines have already resulted in upwards of a half billion people injured and an additional 35 million killed worldwide. And with Big Pharma already pushing their third and fourth booster shots allegedly becoming even deadlier, combined with the upcoming “Dark Winter” months, the number of deaths facing humanity will be staggering and the crime cabal will be unable to cover up the genocide.
With the already observed enormous spike in deaths this year over both last year and the past half-decade, especially in highly vaccinated nations like Scotland (87% jabbed), recent mortality rates are shooting up by 30%, providing compelling, if not overwhelming evidence that the elites’ genocidal kill shots are the primary causal difference.
The globalists first created the pandemic hoax as their sucker punch to freak out their paranoia-induced global masses to line up in droves for “lifesaving vaccines,” disguised as a Trojan horsebio-weapon of mass destruction.
From the very outset of this preplanned pandemic hoax, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Operation Lockstep in 2010 served as the step-by-step Coronavirus blueprint, implemented en vivo a decade later utilizing the Fauci US tax paid, made-in-China, gain-of-function bioweapon for diabolical genocidal purposes, the same one Fauci keeps perjuring himself at a Senate hearing in response to Senator Rand Paul.
The recent FDA flip flop from no inoculation for children under 12 in September followed in October with the CDC/FDA authorized Pfizer kill shot illustrates their pervasive pattern of one contradiction after another, a countless array of seemingly bumbling flip flops throughout the two year Covid-19 disaster still-in-the-making, epitomizing how Fauci, Gates, the WHO and all their federal public health agencies confusingly mislead both US and world citizens down their ever-dangerous, gaslighting rabbit hole. Covid-19 is nothing less than the premeditated, all-time crime of the ages for a Satanically driven world depopulation scheme, to usher in New World Order’s one world government takeover, blatantly marketed as front man Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset.
Each national government’s disinformation campaign, complete with repeated flip flops, endless inconsistencies and constant policy changes, all emanate from a globally coordinated, centralized propaganda machine platform, delivering the same scripted false narrative, built-in and intentionally designed to further misinform, disinform, confuse, frighten…
But the most heinous aspect of this entire diabolical agenda is the systematic targeting of our youngest, most vulnerable population – children.
A September 21, 2021 USA Today article opens with:
Eighteen months into the COVID-19 pandemic, with the delta variant fueling a massive resurgence of disease, many hospitals are hitting a heartbreaking new low. They’re now losing babies to the coronavirus.
Just in time prior to the reopening of US schools in September, suddenly the so-called virulent delta variant erupts over the summer with even more suspiciously false reporting:
Nearly 30% of COVID-19 infections reported for the week that ended Sept. 9 were in children, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Doctors diagnosed more than 243,000 cases in children in that same week, bringing the total number of COVID-19 infections in kids under 18 since the onset of the pandemic to 5.3 million, with at least 534 deaths.
During the entire prior year and a half while the so-called pandemic was raging out of control in adults, all the while children were reportedly asymptomatic even when after contracting Covid-19, with their acquired natural immunity and robust resistance to the “killer” virus, children scarcely even got sick as hospitalizations were extremely rare and deaths almost unheard of. Yet by “back-to-school” time, the AP was busily reporting that 94 children aged 5-11 had died out of their 28 million age group, a miniscule mortality rate of only .000335714%, or 1 death in nearly 300,000 US children.
But then wouldn’t you know it, just when states are opening up, with the long awaited lockdown letup, far less mask mandates, and schools scheduled to finally reopen, the nasty mean delta variant suddenly blows up during back-to-school week with nearly a quarter million kids suddenly afflicted with the virus.
Somehow the timing of all this bad Covid news for kids, with MSM for the first time suddenly emphasizing child susceptibility to the Covid-19 illness and even deaths, just weeks ahead of the FDA/CDC Pfizer vaccine approval rollout to inject 5 to 11-year olds, is anything but coincidental, again, all malevolently, deceitfully preplanned for genocidal control purposes.
ICAN (Informed Consent Action Network) recently explained in a letter to 15 US Congress members as well as in its November 6, 2021 website article why the November 2nd CDC and FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine for young kids is so deadly wrong:
It is illegal and unethical because there is no COVID-19 emergency as it relates to children ages 5-11, the clinical trials are inadequate, the harms exceed the risks, and Pfizer failed to properly document at least one serious injury to a child in its clinical trial.
The federal public health agencies designated to protect the American people especially our youngest population have chosen to ignore the true science in order follow their puppet masters’ orders to blindly carry out crimes against all of humanity including extremely young children. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla assures the public that his company’s already hard at work conducting clinical trials on infants 6 months to 2-years old. According to America’s funding gatekeeper Frankenstein Fauci’s sordid past, he grafted aborted human fetus scalps onto rats, tortured and killed beagle pups and murdered 200 orphaned foster kids in New York with lethal, experimental AIDS drugs. For his next criminal act, Dr. Fauci’s promising to make his death jab available for your babies and toddlers by early next year.
Every human awake should be outraged over this demonic agenda as Nuremburg trials 2.0 must begin immediately.
Speaking of criminal arrests, Nancy Pelosi, the onetime aunt by marriage to current California Governor Gavin Newsom, are ensuring that their state be the first to force vaccination mandates on all children entering kindergarten through public high school by January 2022.
Moreover, it should not be a shocker that Pelosi’s congressional district and former Mayor Newsom’s city of San Francisco just passed an ordinance requiring 5 to 11-year old children to show proof of vaccination in order to enter various buildings like restaurants and gyms. Incidentally as a related aside, one internet website just broke the story that both Pfizer CEO Bourla and Gov. Newsom have just been separately arrested. Of course, hopium pied pipers have been talking about pending arrests of the compromised yet so far seemingly still protected Bush, Clinton, Obama, Biden, Cheney crime families forever, so seeing is believing. In the end, God willing, all the Luciferian cabal players will soon be paying for their ungodly crimes against humanity.
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Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate, former Army officer and author of “Don’t Let the Bastards Getcha Down,” exposing a faulty US military leadership system based on ticket punching up the seniority ladder, invariably weeding out the best and brightest, leaving mediocrity and order followers rising to the top as politician-bureaucrat generals designated to lose every modern US war by elite design.
After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In Los Angeles he found himself battling the largest county child protective services in the nation within America’s thoroughly broken and corrupt child welfare system.
The experience in both the military and child welfare system prepared him well as a researcher and independent journalist, exposing the evils of Big Pharma and how the Rockefeller controlled medical and psychiatric system inflict more harm than good, case in point the current diabolically lethal pandemic hoax and genocide.
As an independent journalist for the last 8 years, Joachim has written hundreds of articles for many news sites, particularly Global Research and lewrockwell.com. As a published author of a 5-book volume series entitled Pedophilia& Empire: Satan, Sodomy & the Deep State, Joachim’s books and chapters are Amazon bestsellers in child advocacy and human rights categories. His A-Z sourcebook series fully documents and exposes the global pedophilia scourge and remains available for free at Joachim’s blogsite at http://empireexposed.blogspot.com/ and https://pedoempire.org.
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New weapons are being added to the arsenal of the West’s economic and financial policies. In order to understand their nature and scope, it is necessary to start from those used up to now: sanctions – including the heaviest one, the embargo – implemented mainly by the United States and the European Union against entire states, companies and individuals. Fundamental is to understand the criterion by which they are decided: the U.S. and EU decide at their sole discretion that a state or other entity has committed a violation, establish the sanction or total embargo, and demand that third countries comply with it, under penalty of retaliation.
In 1960, the United States imposed an embargo on Cuba, which, having freed itself, had violated its “right” to use the island as its own possession: the new government nationalized the properties of U.S. banks and multinationals that controlled the Cuban economy. Today, 61 years later, the embargo continues, while U.S. companies are demanding billions of dollars in repayments from Cuba.
In 2011, in preparation for the U.S.-NATO war against Libya, U.S. and European banks seized 150 billion dollars of sovereign wealth funds invested abroad by the Libyan state, most of which subsequently disappeared. In the great robbery, Goldman Sachs, the most powerful U.S. investment bank, of which Mario Draghi was vice president, stood out.
In 2017, following new U.S. sanctions against Venezuela, assets worth $7 billion were “frozen” by the U.S. and 31 tons of gold deposited by the Venezuelan state at the Bank of England and Germany’s Deutsche Bank were seized.
Against this backdrop is the new, colossal financial operation launched by Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and other major US and European banks. Ostensibly mirroring that of sanctions, it involves not economic restrictions or seizure of funds to punish countries found guilty of violations, but the granting of funding to governments and other virtuous entities that adhere to the “ESG Index: Environment, Society, Governance.”
The official purpose of the ESG Index is to establish standards to avoid the imminent climate catastrophe announced by the Glasgow Conference, to defend human rights trampled by totalitarian regimes, to ensure good governance on the model of the great Western democracies. To set these standards are mainly the U.S. Department of State, the World Economic Forum, the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Bank, supported with a subordinate role by some UN organizations. The greatest guarantee of human rights is represented by the U.S. State Department, whose embargo on Iraq with UN approval caused, in 1990-2003, a million and a half deaths, including half a million children.
The financial operation focuses on climate change: the UN Conference in Glasgow announced, on November 3, that “Finance goes green and resilient”. The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero is born, joined by 450 banks and multinationals from 45 countries since April, which commits to “invest over the next three decades more than 130 trillion (130,000 billion) dollars of private capital to transform the economy to zero emissions in 2050.” The capital is raised through the issue of Green Bonds and investments made by mutual funds and pension funds, largely with the money of small savers who risk finding themselves in yet another speculative bubble.
By now, there is no bank or multinational company that is not committed to achieving zero emissions by 2050 and to helping “poor countries” in this sense, where over 2 billion inhabitants still use wood as their only or main fuel. Solemnly committed to zero emissions is also the Anglo-Dutch oil company Royal Dutch Shell that, after causing an environmental and health disaster in the Niger Delta, refuses to reclaim the polluted land. So, while waiting for zero emissions, the inhabitants continue to die from water polluted by Shell’s hydrocarbons.
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This article was originally published on Il Manifesto. Translated from Italian.
Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
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With thousands of illegal immigrants attempting to storm into Poland from Belarus, European attention has been fixated on the repercussions that President Alexander Lukashenko could face. Lukashenko has manufactured a migrant crisis on Poland’s border, a likely response to the daily pressure Belarus faces from its Baltic and Polish neighbors. What stands out from this migrant crisis though is the European response to it when compared to the similarly manufactured migrant crisis that Turkey frequently conjures on Greece’s borders, most notably in February and March of 2020.
During the recent meeting in Brussels between the ambassadors of EU countries, Polish ambassador Andrzej Sadoś explained the current situation on the Poland-Belarus border. He announced that Poland will present evidence next week to high-ranking European Commission officials and ambassadors on the activities of Belarussian authorities on the border.
Following this meeting, calls for sanctions against Belarus have intensified.
In recent months, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland have been struggling with an increase in the number of illegal migrants entering from Belarus. Lukashenko stated that Minsk would no longer hold back the influx of illegal migrants to the EU because the country has “neither the money nor the strength” for it due to the already existing sanctions.
Despite Lukashenko’s claim that Belarus does not have the resources to deal with the migrant crisis, there is overwhelming evidence that his country is instigating the crisis by increasing flights from migrant hotspot countries, such as Iraq and Turkey, without the need for visas. One Syrian who organized migrants to go from Iraqi Kurdistan to Belarus told the BBC that with the easing of visa rules, “I knew it’s going to be the same as what happened in 2015 with Turkey.”
In 2015, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was in dispute with the EU as he could not secure enough support for his war against Syria. He allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to pass through Turkey and flood into Greece until the EU finally agreed to a €6 billion deal to help the country meet the cost of the influx. This was despite the fact that Ankara’s funding, arming and training of terrorist organizations, including ISIS and Al-Qaeda, was the very cause for millions of Syrians to flee to Turkey.
Turkey continually violates the deal made with the EU by weaponizing migration against Greece, a long used Turkish strategy. It is recalled that during the 1990s, the then president of Turkey, Turgut Özal,provocatively boasted: “We do not need to make war with Greece. We just need to send them a few million immigrants and finish with them.” Despite the EU and Turkey signing an agreement on March 18, 2016, to stem migration and refugee flows to Greece, Ankara never truly stopped the flows. In fact, Turkey instigated a new migrant crisis in February-March 2020 by falsely claiming that Greece was open and by bussing migrants to the border.
The reaction from Europe between the Turkish-instigated migrant crisis and the Belarussian one is starkly different though. Although individual countries, including Poland, assisted in Greece’s efforts to deal with the 2020 migrant crisis, the calls for sanctions against Turkey were quickly shot down from all corners of the EU. However, there is a near unison of calls for further sanctions to be imposed against Belarus.
Norbert Röttgen, Chairman of the German Foreign Affairs Committee and Member of the Bundestag, said on Twitter: “We have to sanction Lukashenko much more consistently. His attempt to destabilize the EU is at least tolerated, if not supported, by Putin. The fact that the EU remains silent about this Russian policy is unacceptable.” It is recalled that during the 2020 Greek migrant crisis, Röttgen never suggested sanctions against Ankara, but rather called for a renegotiation to reward Turkey with even more money despite having never truly stopped migrant flows to Greece.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urged EU member states on Monday to impose new sanctions against Belarus, saying: “I call for approval of extended sanctions, possible sanctions on third-country airlines involved. We also want to prevent a humanitarian crisis and ensure safe returns.” During the 2020 Greek migrant crisis, the European Commission opposed all sanctions against Turkey, but now with Belarus it is urging for sanctions to be passed.
This contradictory behavior highlights that the EU is not united behind stopping migrant flows, but is rather using the current crisis as an opportunity to target Belarus and even Russia as Aeroflot is being implicated in transporting migrants. As much of Europe is deeply tied to Turkey in the financial sector, they are unwilling to sanction the country. However, Belarus does not enjoy such a privilege, and despite behaving in a similar manner to Turkey, it will likely face sanctions that the latter has always managed to avoid.
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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
Featured image: Migrants on the Belarusian-Polish border. Leonid Shcheglov/BelTA/TASS
November 9th, 2021 by Center for Disease Control and Prevention
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While the report does not question the legitimacy of the experimental mRNA vaccine, it nonetheless provides details which acknowledge the health risks.
Amply documented, children Worldwide are dying as a result of the vaccine. The evidence of mortality and morbidity resulting from vaccine inoculation both present (official data) and future (e.g. undetected microscopic blood clots) is overwhelming.
Numerous scientific studies published independently confirm the nature of the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine which is being imposed on all humanity.
What is presented by the CDC regarding myocarditis is but the tip of the iceberg.
It concludes with a contradictory statement calling for “everyone aged 12 years and older get vaccinated for COVID-19″ intimating that the “known risks” of Covid-19 far outweigh the “potential risks” of myocarditis.
The known risks of COVID-19 illness and its related, possibly severe complications, such as long-term health problems, hospitalization, and even death, far outweigh the potential risks of having a rare adverse reaction to vaccination, including the possible risk of myocarditis or pericarditis.
If you or your child has already gotten the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, it’s important to get the second dose unless a vaccination provider or your doctor tells you not to get it.
Michel C. Global Research, November 9, 2021
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CDC Text
CDC and its partners are actively monitoring reports of myocarditis and pericarditis after COVID-19 vaccination. Active monitoring includes reviewing data and medical records and evaluating the relationship to COVID-19 vaccination.
Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis is inflammation of the outer lining of the heart. In both cases, the body’s immune system causes inflammation in response to an infection or some other trigger. Learn more about myocarditis and pericarditis.external iconSeek medical care if you or your child have symptoms of these conditions within a week after COVID-19 vaccination.
After mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna), especially in male adolescents and young adults,
More often after the second dose
Usually within several days after vaccination
Most patients with myocarditis or pericarditis who received care responded well to medicine and rest and felt better quickly.
Patients can usually return to their normal daily activities after their symptoms improve. Those who have been diagnosed with myocarditis should consult with their cardiologist (heart doctor) about return to exercise or sports. More information will be shared as it becomes available.
Both myocarditis and pericarditis have the following symptoms:
Chest pain
Shortness of breath
Feelings of having a fast-beating, fluttering, or pounding heart
Seek medical care if you or your child have any of these symptoms, especially if it’s within a week after COVID-19 vaccination.
If you have any health problems after vaccination, report them to VAERSexternal icon.
Yes. CDC continues to recommend that everyone aged 12 years and older get vaccinated for COVID-19. The known risks of COVID-19 illness and its related, possibly severe complications, such as long-term health problems, hospitalization, and even death, far outweigh the potential risks of having a rare adverse reaction to vaccination, including the possible risk of myocarditis or pericarditis.
If you or your child has already gotten the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, it’s important to get the second dose unless a vaccination provider or your doctor tells you not to get it.
If you have concerns about COVID-19 vaccination, talk with your or your child’s doctor, nurse, or clinic.
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The Biden vaccine mandate appears to be falling apart before it’s even in place. From first responders to truck drivers to everyone in-between, the message is clear: many thousands are willing to be fired from their jobs rather than be forced to take a medical procedure they do not want.
They have leverage and they are using it. We should support them.
Grocery shelves are bare, shipping containers continue to float offshore, firehouses in New York are shut down, the Los Angeles County Sheriff warns that, in the middle of a crime wave, half of his deputies may quit or be fired. Airlines are citing non-existent “weather problems” to excuse the fact that their employees are rebelling against forced covid shots.
The country is teetering on the edge of an economic abyss and the Biden Administration is doubling down. The only question is how far down the President is willing to drag his party and his own approval numbers to continue to push an unconstitutional, deeply unpopular, and thoroughly tyrannical forced vaccine on the population.
If the vaccine provided a high level of immunity from the virus that did not wane over time, encouraging people to take the shot – which uses experimental technology – might make some sense, though mandating it would still be immoral and illegal.
But Biden’s own senior health officials such as CDC Director Wallensky have been telling us since August that the shot does not prevent against infection from the virus and does not prevent transmission of the virus. So it is not a “vaccine” by any definition of the term. That’s why the CDC itself in September changed its official definition of the term “vaccine” to exclude the term “immunity.” The deception is so transparent.
They say you must take the shot because it may prevent serious illness from the virus. But we know there are plenty of other things that may prevent serious illness from the virus. Media personality Joe Rogan was widely ridiculed for using ivermectin and other drugs and procedures to treat his bout of Covid-19. But it seems to have worked. Likewise, Green Bay Packers legendary quarterback Aaron Rodgers successfully treated his Covid with ivermectin and other procedures. Even though he now has natural immunity to the virus, he has been attacked by the mainstream media for not following Fauci’s demands. Success means nothing. Only obedience matters.
A new study of the effectiveness of the Covid shots is not good news for the Biden Administration. Published November 4th in the scientific journal Nature, researchers followed 800,000 US veterans for six months after receiving the shot. Between March and November, Moderna effectiveness fell from 85 percent to 58 percent – just a little better than a coin flip. The Pfizer/BioNTech two-dose fell in effectiveness from 87 percent to 45 percent, and the Johnson & Johnson fell in effectiveness from 86 percent to 13 percent!
As the Washington Times wrote about the important new Nature study, “Factor in natural immunity and a case could be made these vaccines are nearly worthless.”
So why is the Administration pursuing this scorched earth policy on vaccine mandates? Maybe we should look at how many lobbyists Big Pharma has on Capitol Hill. Maybe look at the revolving door between the FDA, CDC, and Big Pharma. The word is “corruption,” and if the CDC’s own adverse reaction database is accurate it is killing thousands of Americans. Hold the line and resist the mandate!
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Opposition to 5G has been ongoing worldwide since long before COVID-19 came into our lives. Since 2017 doctors and scientists have been asking for moratoriums on Earth and in space (see 1, 2) and the majority of scientists oppose deployment. Since 2018 there have been reports of people and animals experiencing symptoms and illnesses after it was activated (see 1, 2, 3, 4). Of course, there are health and environmental risks associated with other sources of cell phone and wireless radiation too (see 1, 2, 3). In fact, a few months ago, a federal court ruled in favor of petitioners who sued the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for not protecting Americans from harmful radiation exposure (see 1, 2).
Thanks to the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH) for having Dr. Joel M. Moskowitz host a webinar about health risks from exposure.
Health Effects of Cellphone & Cell Tower Radiation: Implications for 5G Center for Occupational and Environmental Health Webinar
Nov 4, 2021
Health Effects of Cellphone & Cell Tower Radiation: Implications for 5G by Dr. Joel Moskowitz
Speaker: Joel M. Moskowitz, PhD
Center for Occupational and Environmental Health Webinar
97% of U.S. adults own a cellphone of some kind. The vast majority, 85%, own a smartphone. This presentation will summarize research on biologic and health effects from exposure to radio frequency radiation emitted by cell phones and cell towers. Learners will also discuss the implications of this research for 5G, the fifth generation of cellular technology. At the completion of this activity, the learner will be able to: – Describe what wireless or radio frequency (RF) radiation is, including 5G, and its relationship to ionizing radiation – Summarize the biologic and health effects caused by, or associated with, RF radiation exposure – Explain why current national and international RF radiation exposure limits fail to protect the health of humans and other species
Joel M. Moskowitz, PhD, has directed the Center for Family and Community Health in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley since 1993. Dr. Moskowitz has published research on disease prevention for 40 years. In 2009 he served as the senior author on a hallmark paper reviewing research on mobile phone use and tumor risk published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Last year he updated this meta-analysis in a paper published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. This year he co-authored a paper on electrohypersensitivity published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
Since 2013 he has translated and disseminated research on the biologic and health effects of wireless radiation through his website (See this). In 2017, with legal representation from the UC Berkeley Environmental Law Clinic, he won a lawsuit against the California Department of Public Health for suppressing its own scientists’ cell phone safety guidance for eight years. This resulted in the Department finally publishing cell phone health warnings. He serves as an advisor to Physicians for Safe Technology and to the International EMF Scientist Appeal which was signed by over 250 scientists who published more than 2,000 papers and letters in professional journals on electromagnetic fields and biology or health.
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Phones of Palestinians working for human rights organisations recently designated by Israel as “terrorist organisations” were hacked using the Israeli-made spyware at the heart of a global surveillance scandal, a rights group has found.
Dublin-based Front Line Defenders (FDL) examined 75 phones belonging to Palestinian human rights workers and detected that six were infected with Pegasus spyware between July 2020 and April 2021, according to a report released on Monday.
Four out of the six phones belong to staff members at NGOs that were blacklisted last month for alleged ties to a group labelled by some states as a “terrorist organisation”, a move that has sparked international condemnation.
Those alleged to have been hacked include US citizen Ubai al-Aboudi, who heads the Bisan Center for Research and Development, and French national Salah Hammouri, a researcher at Addameer.
At a press conference in Ramallah on Monday, representatives of the six organisations called for the international community to take action.
“We call on the United Nations to launch an investigation to disclose the party that stood behind using this programme on the phones of human rights activists, a move that put their lives at risk,” Tahseen Elayyan, a legal researcher with Al-Haq, told Reuters.
Who is behind the hacking?
FDL’s findings, which were reviewed and confirmed by Citizen Lab and Amnesty International Security Lab, will raise further concerns about Pegasus, the controversial spyware alleged to have been used to hack heads of state, journalists and activists in a series of explosive stories published this summer.
NSO Group, the Israeli-based tech firm behind Pegasus, only licences the product to sovereign states or the law enforcement or intelligence agencies of those states.
Haaretz reported on Monday that the export licence issued by the Israeli defence ministry to NSO Group only permits Israeli security services to monitor Israeli phone numbers.
An FDL spokesperson told Middle East Eye on Monday that the organisation does not know which state was behind the hacking it uncovered, but believes that the timeline of events over the past month may be critical in answering that question.
On 16 October, three days before the organisations were designated, Al-Haq approached FDL, suspecting that a staff member’s phone had been hacked. The same day, an FDL investigator found initial traces of Pegasus on the phone.
The following day, on 17 October, FDL said it held a meeting with all six organisations to inform them of the initial findings and see if others would want their phones investigated.
On 18 October, Israel’s interior ministry notified Hammouri of its decision to revoke his permanent residency in Jerusalem and deport him on the basis of his alleged “breach of allegiance to the State of Israel”.
Then on 19 October, Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz designated all six organisations which had gathered with FDL as “terrorist organisations.”
At this point, the organisations were reportedly only considered “terrorist” groups in Israel. But on 3 November – just ahead of the release of FDL’s findings – Israel’s commander-in-chief of the Central Command issued an order to outlaw the organisations in the West Bank.
“It seems to us that [Israeli officials] were slow to react to what was transpiring and they were unprepared,” FDL spokesperson Adam Shapiro told MEE. “It suggests we caught them doing something they didn’t want us to.”
However, Shapiro emphasised that FDL could not say definitively what state was behind the hacking, a comment echoed by Addameer’s director, Sahar Francis.
“We don’t have evidence. We can’t accuse a certain party since we don’t have yet enough information about who carried out that action,” she told Reuters, calling on the UN to launch an investigation.
Israeli officials have not made a public statement yet about FDL’s findings. NSO Group told Reuters the company “does not operate the products itself … and we are not privy to the details of individuals monitored”.
The US government last week blacklisted the NSO Group and a second Israeli spyware firm, Candiru, saying their activities are contrary to US foreign policy and national security interests.
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COP26 has been sold as a conference where world leaders will finally tackle climate change. But for its corporate sponsors, the conference is an opportunity to greenwash their practices of polluting for profit.
This month’s COP26 conference in Glasgow brings together world leaders behind a promise to finally take effective action on climate change. The profiles of those leaders themselves, whose grand statements have been plastered across the TV screens of the world, leave plenty to be desired: Most of the evidence suggests that they are unfit to lead on an issue that the rest of the year they basically ignore.
But beyond the sound bites, a more realistic understanding of the conference can be found by taking a deeper look into the “principal partners” that the conference’s website so proudly presents. If mainstream commentators were surprised by Greta Thunberg’s description of COP26 as a “greenwashing festival” and a “celebration of blah blah blah,” there was plenty of evidence for this trajectory in its list of corporate sponsors.
First up is Unilever, one of the world’s largest polluters, which produces enough plastic to cover eleven football pitches per day. A quick look at some plastic pollution NGOs confirms a considerable overlap between companies involved in initiatives supposedly intended to reduce plastic waste and those who produce the most plastic waste. Last year, Unilever elicited widespread praise for making moves toward sustainable palm oil production, but that shift only came after a long-standing history of relationships with rogue actors destroying rainforests, according to the Rainforest Action Network. (Another similar consumer giant partnered with COP is IKEA, which produces more emissions when shipping its cargo around the world than even Amazon.)
Unilever is followed by Scottish gas giants SSE and Scottish Power. In October last year, SSE was named as Scotland’s second-biggest polluter. One study from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in 2019 found that SSE produces more than 1.6 million tons of carbon dioxide from their Peterhead power station each year. Another partner, National Grid — the company responsible for running the country’s electricity network — has faced challenges by activists over its decision not to meet the standards set by the 2015 Paris Climate Accords.
Then we come to the tech giant Microsoft. Microsoft is famous for its questionable work practices, including the alleged use of child labor. In environmental terms, a quick Google search confirms that Microsoft is doing everything it can to tackle climate change and you shouldn’t investigate any further. The company makes the bold statement of intent to be carbon-neutral by 2025, and indeed, it looks as though it may be successful — but its collaboration with major extractors throws the usefulness of this label into doubt. In Texas, for example, Microsoft has to help extract more than 50,000 barrels of oil per day from the Permian basin.
The example of Microsoft shows the major limitations that come with individualizing “carbon-neutral” goals. Failing to consider the collective processes through which these companies profit from one another enables them to evade meaningful criticism and change. Another example is Sky, which claims to be headed towards carbon neutrality; Sky’s partnership with Qatar Airways paints a different picture of the media group’s commitment to zero emissions. Similarly, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is in partnershipsin a number of carbon-emitting industries despite its claim to be going “carbon-neutral.”
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which also features among the list of partners, was found in 2019 to be one of the highest pollutingcompanies in Scotland. To be fair to GSK, a large proportion of that pollution comes from the greenhouse gas contained in the inhalers it manufactures, which, according to the Financial Times, is 1,500 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
There is an alternative type of inhaler — a “dry powder” inhaler — that is common in Scandinavia, but these are not suitable for everyone, so GSK is looking into other options. It’s hard not to wonder whether the impetus to find those green alternatives is reduced when the polluting version currently sells in the United States for between $250 and $350 per unit — lasting about a month — to asthma suffers who have no other choice.
COP26’s retail backing comes from Sainsbury’s, one of the UK’s largest supermarket stores with over 1,400 locations nationwide. In 2019, Greenpeace named Sainsbury’s as “the worst” supermarket for reducing plastic waste. The appearance of another British-based consumer goods company, Reckitt, on the list of official partners also raised the hackles of climate campaigners, given its reliance on Wilmar International for palm oil resources. Wilmar has been criticized not only for the deforestation commonly associated with palm oil production, but also implicated in alleged human rights abuses, including the use of child labor, according to Amnesty International.
Finally, we come to the transportation giant Jaguar Land Rover. This company has, as recently as 2019, had to recall over 40,000 vehicles for emitting more carbon emissions than officially stated. A 2017 white paper found Land Rover to be the worst performing car manufacturer on the planet in terms of emissions, with new Land and Range Rover models producing several times more nitrogen oxide emissions than the average new car. The now merged company has even faced fines for “lagging behind” their competitors in the race to reduce emissions.
Not every company involved in sponsoring COP26 has such explicitly poor climate credentials as some of those listed above, and nearly all of them have made commitments to become carbon-neutral in a maximum of a couple of decades. But these corporate giants have already done serious environmental damage, and the evidence gives strong indication that their latest commitments are not to be trusted.
Private companies do not exist to serve the needs of the people or the fight against climate change. Their single goal is to profit, and the imperative for profit will reliably outweigh any of their green concerns. For many, sponsoring COP26 serves that goal by acting as an opportunity to greenwash their own responsibility in the crisis we now face.
For climate action to be successful, it must do away with the notion of corporate sponsors. World leaders cannot take hospitality, money, and direction from those they should be fighting in the battle to save the planet. What we need is an economic system that puts people and planet before profit — and that can never be built with the support of corporate interests.
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Robbie Kirk is a student at Aberdeen University.
Featured image: Greta Thunberg leads protests in Italy ahead of COP26. Credit: Radio Habana Cuba
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Speaking from the private jet and super yacht owners gathering, otherwise known as the COP 26 summit, Al Gore touted his latest solution to curb carbon emissions, mass surveillance via satellites, sensors and artificial intelligence.
In the interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, Gore declared that technology created by the so called Climate TRACE coalition will monitor greenhouse gas emissions and root out the culprits.
“We get data consistently from 300 existing satellites, more than 11,000 ground-based, air-based, sea-based sensors, multiple internet data streams and using artificial intelligence,” Gore explained, adding “All that information is combined, visible light, infrared, all of the other information that is brought in, and we can now accurately determine where the greenhouse gas emissions are coming from.”
Insert Man Bear Pig gif here.
Gore, who in 2008 said there would be no polar ice caps left within five years, continued, “And next year we’ll have it down to the level of every single power plant, refinery, every large ship, every plane, every waste dump, and we’ll have the identities of the people who are responsible for each of those greenhouse gas emission streams.”
And what, pray tell will happen to these climate criminals Al?
“If investors or governments, or civil society activists want to hold them responsible, they will have the information upon which to base their action and holding them responsible,” Gore proclaimed.
Watch:
What Gore and his 300 satellites will find is that it is the elite super rich luxury class who are the world’s largest polluters.
New research by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) has found that by 2030, the carbon footprints of the wealthiest 1% of humanity are on track to be 30 times larger than the size compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century, the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious temperature target.
The report notes that should current trends continue, the richest 1% will account for 16% of global CO2 emissions in 2030.
The paper notes that “They increasingly drive the extent of global inequality, and likely have a greater impact on the political and social acceptability of national emissions reduction efforts,” adding “It is therefore notable that in all of the major emitting countries, the richest 10% and 1% nationally are set to have per capita consumption footprints substantially above the 1.5⁰C global per capita level.”
“The emissions from a single billionaire spaceflight would exceed the lifetime emissions of someone in the poorest billion people on Earth,” Nafkote Dabi, Oxfam’s climate policy lead, said in a further statement.
Dabi added that “A tiny elite appear to have a free pass to pollute. Their oversized emissions are fueling extreme weather around the world and jeopardizing the international goal of limiting global heating.”
“The emissions of the wealthiest 10% alone could send us beyond the agreed limit in the next nine years,” Dabi continuing, urging that “This would have catastrophic results for some of the most vulnerable people on Earth who are already facing deadly storms, hunger, and destitution.”
As we noted last week, the COP Climate Summit has drawn in elite dignitaries on over 400 private jets, with conservative estimates suggesting that this will equate to 13,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
The likes of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Prince Charles, who live their lives on on private jets, super yachts and space flights, immediately took to lecturing the rest of the world on their carbon footprints.
They’re jet setting around the planet to meet with each other, gorge on prime venison and beef steaks, while telling everyone else to shut up, stay home and eat bugs:
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Looking back over an eight decade timespan at the design for Operation Barbarossa, the June 1941 German-led attack on the USSR, its invasion plan betrays a pathological overconfidence. The strategic planning, of advancing across a breadth of many hundreds of miles of terrain, was excessively ambitious to the point of being grotesque.
Barbarossa’s intelligence details were also poorly worked out. Nazi estimates on Soviet military capacity were based more on guesswork than reliable information, and this underestimation of the enemy would come back to haunt them.
On 13 May 1941 in preparation for the invasion, Adolf Hitler’s close colleague Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel issued an order outlining that, upon capture, all Soviet commissars were to be executed immediately. The commissars were Communist Party officials attached to military units, in order to imbue Red Army troops with Bolshevik principles and loyalty to the Soviet state.
It was because of this that Hitler designated the commissars to be liquidated in their thousands. The order signed, on 13 May, continued that Soviet civilians suspected of committing offences against the Wehrmacht could be shot, on the request of any German officer. Most maliciously of all, it was made clear that German soldiers found perpetrating crimes against non-combatants need not be prosecuted.
Those Wehrmacht officers that did not believe in Nazism, i.e. because they were monarchists or conservatives, could still reprimand German troops for misdeeds if they wished to, and this did occur. One of the most prominent German Army commanders in the early 1940s, Field Marshal Fedor von Bock leading Army Group Center, was an avowed monarchist who disliked Nazism.
The Jewish Virtual Library, overseen by American foreign policy analyst Mitchell Bard, acknowledged that von Bock “privately expressed outrage at the atrocities” committed by SS killing squads on the Eastern front; but the field marshal was “unwilling to take the matter directly to Hitler” though he did send “one of his subordinate officers to lodge the complaint”. The Jewish Virtual Library noted that the crimes committed against Soviet civilians further “outraged many of von Bock’s subordinate officers”.
This is not to suggest the Wehrmacht, as a whole, was clean in its conduct in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. It was by no means that, which came primarily as a result of staunch Nazis being placed in positions of authority in the German Army; like the Chief-of-Staff Franz Halder and Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau, commander of the German 6th Army.
Among the invasion’s goals was flagrant exploitation, looting and annexation. With this in mind, the Nazis established the Economic Office East, which was placed under the authority of Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering, the second most powerful man in the Third Reich. Goering informed Benito Mussolini’s son-in-law, Count Galeazzo Ciano, that “This year [1941] between 20 and 30 million persons will die in Russia of hunger. Perhaps it is well that it should be so, for certain nations must be decimated. But even if it were not, nothing can be done about it”. Count Ciano, who was the Italian Foreign Minister since 1936, passed on Goering’s comments to Mussolini.
More than three weeks after the German attack, Goering wrote on 15 July 1941, “Use of the occupied territories should be made primarily in the food and oil sectors of the economy. Get to Germany as much food and oil as possible – that is the main economic goal of the campaign”.
It is still not entirely clear whether the Nazi method of systematizing the plunder and administering the occupied territories (known as Plan Oldenburg) was based on the belief that the Reich required this amount of foodstuffs, with the deaths of millions of Russians and Jews from starvation being a side effect; or whether their desire was the depopulation of the conquered regions, with starvation used as a convenient process for mass murder. Whatever the principal motive, the prospects of Soviet citizens unfortunate enough to fall under Nazi occupation was grim.
The German march onto Russian soil was hardly a new historical occurrence. A generation before, the eastern divisions of the Imperial German Army, commanded by Erich Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg, had from late 1914 captured chunks of the Russian Empire’s territory; which on that occasion came after the Imperial Russian Army had marched into East Prussia.
German eastern expansion under Ludendorff and Hindenburg was concerned too with conquest, but theirs was more humane than Nazi policy, as it did not descend to the widespread killing of civilians or Jewish populations. Instead, Ludendorff and Hindenburg sought to commandeer livestock and horses, while exploiting “the extensive agricultural and forestry resources for the German war effort”, historians Jens Thiel and Christian Westerhoff observed.
Hitler’s East Prussian gauleiter Erich Koch, who would be in charge of ruling Nazi-occupied Ukraine, said that, “Our task is to suck from the Ukraine all the goods we can get hold of, without consideration of the feeling or the property of the Ukrainians. Gentlemen: I am expecting from you the utmost severity toward the native population”.
The 1941 German invasion force consisted of 136 divisions, which amounted to 3 million men. They were supported at the beginning by over half a million Finnish and Romanian troops, commanded by Gustaf Mannerheim and Ion Antonescu, two experienced career officers who for differing reasons desired the USSR’s destruction. Field Marshal Mannerheim of Finland, a monarchist and more moderate figure than General Antonescu, had never forgiven the Bolsheviks for shooting Tsar Nicholas II and his family on 17 July 1918; Mannerheim wept bitterly when he heard of the Tsar’s death, for he was both well acquainted with the Russian monarch and had served under him in the Imperial Russian Army.
Of the 136 Wehrmacht divisions which would attack the USSR on 22 June 1941, a modest 19 of them were panzer divisions and 14 comprised of motor divisions. In all, about 600,000 German motor vehicles would roll to the east, but the Germans deployed up to 750,000 horses in the invasion. It demonstrates that the Wehrmacht was not the ultra-modern, motorized army that Nazi propaganda insisted it was.
Facing the Germans across the border, in the western USSR, were three very large Soviet Army Groups, comprising of 193 equivalent divisions. Fifty-four of these were tank or motor divisions, significantly more than the Germans had. Since 1932, Joseph Stalin spent huge sums in equipping the military with motorized machines and heavy armor. In particular, the Russians possessed a far greater number of tanks than the enemy; but the experience and quality of Soviet tank crews was noticeably inferior to the Germans, who were battle-hardened and well-versed in the Blitzkrieg (Lightning War) style of combat.
There were other serious Russian weaknesses. Stalin’s purge of the Red Army high command from May 1937 “affected the development of our armed forces and their combat preparedness”, Marshal Georgy Zhukov wrote, the most lauded Russian commander of the 20th century. The purges, though they targeted a minority of the entire Soviet military corps, had inflicted “enormous damage” on “the top echelons of the army command” Zhukov stated. It meant that paralysis was endemic in the Red Army’s decision-making apparatus, which would have serious implications around the time of the German invasion.
Hitler’s calculations for attacking the USSR were audacious, to put it mildly. The Fuehrer expected to overthrow Stalin’s Russia in about 8 weeks, and once that was accomplished, he intended to turn back and finish off Britain. Hitler estimated that he would not really be embroiled in a two-front war and, in this he was right, for now. The British were in no position in 1941 to interfere with the Nazi plan for eastward enlargement.
The German offensive was indeed to be launched across a massive front, but the Schwerpunkt – the heaviest point of the German blow – was to land north of the Pripet Marshes in Soviet Belarus. Here, two formidable forces, Army Group North led by Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb, and Army Group Center led by Field Marshal von Bock, would implement a giant pincers movement against the Soviet armies opposing them. They would then as envisaged continue advancing and take the capital city, Moscow, European Russia’s communications hub. This indicates that Hitler had originally assigned Moscow as a primary objective.
Von Leeb’s Army Group North comprised of the German 16th Army (commanded by Ernst Busch) and the 18th Army (Georg von Kuechler), supported by four panzer divisions under Colonel-General Erich Hoepner.
Army Group Center was, by some distance, the biggest of the three Army Groups which attacked the USSR. It consisted of the German 2nd Army (Maximilian von Weichs), the 4th Army (Günther von Kluge) and the 9th Army (Adolf Strauss), bolstered by two armored groups totaling 10 panzer divisions and commanded by Generals Heinz Guderian and Hermann Hoth.
Gerd von Rundstedt’s Army Group South was made up of the German 6th Army (Walter von Reichenau), the 17th Army (Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel), a German-Romanian Army (Eugen Ritter von Schobert), and supported by four panzer divisions under Colonel-General Ewald von Kleist. Von Rundstedt’s Army Group was designated to advance south of the Pripet Marshes.
In doing so, von Rundstedt was expected to move rapidly in conquering eastern Poland and, specifically, to capture the ancient Polish city of Lublin, close to the Ukrainian border. This would provide a launching pad for Army Group South’s panzers to thrust into the Ukraine, and take its capital Kiev, the Soviet Union’s third largest city with 930,000 inhabitants. Thereafter, von Rundstedt’s divisions would be requested to occupy all of the Ukraine, with Hitler wanting that country’s resources for pillaging, such as wheat, for it to become “the breadbasket of the Reich”, as he put it.
While Hitler gathered his 136 divisions along the Nazi-Soviet frontier, he left 46 divisions behind to guard the rest of mainland Europe. That number does seem excessive and many of those German formations would be left idle. Military historian Donald J. Goodspeed wrote, “Certainly far fewer than 46 divisions could have countered any British initiative on the continent, a possibility that was in any case unlikely”.
Although the Soviet Army proved much larger than the Nazis thought, it was unprepared for the attack that was to come. A considerable proportion of the Red Army in June 1941 was positioned too close to the Nazi-Soviet boundary which, since 1939, had been extended across Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Romania.
The Stalin Line, a series of fortifications constructed from the late 1920s, and which guarded the western USSR’s pre-1939 frontiers, had merely been partially dismantled. The new forward defense positions were incomplete by mid-1941. The Soviet military’s armored formations had also been broken up, and the tanks allotted to infantry divisions. The latter error was corrected by Stalin as he repositioned the armored divisions, but they were still in the process of entering full working order when the Germans attacked.
Furthermore, Stalin and the Red Army high command believed the focal point of the German assault would fall south of the Pripet Marshes – that is through the Ukraine – whereas the Germans would, as mentioned, strike most heavily north of the Pripet Marshes across Soviet Belarus. The Russian defenses were placed at their strongest in the wrong sector of the front. This misjudgment in part enabled Army Group Center to advance rapidly into the heart of Belarus, where the Red Army was not fortified so strongly.
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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree and he writes primarily on foreign affairs and historical subjects. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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Once again, gallons of ink are being spilled on articles arguing for and against US efforts to secure a new nuclear weapons pact with Iran. Will Iran return to the talks? Will the US agree to Iranian terms (and vice versa)? And at this point, do the Iranians even want a deal?
While at times interesting, the entire discussion is focused on an issue that I feel is a dangerous diversion. Similar to my thoughts during the negotiations that led to the JCPOA, I find myself asking again why we are expending so much political capital, imposing so many sanctions and involving so many important countries to address a problem that doesn’t exist, while doing nothing to address real problems plaguing the region.
The simple fact is that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear bomb and, as difficult as it may be for some to accept, even if it did have one, it could never use it. Meanwhile, the real problem posed by Iran is the meddlesome role it’s playing across the region. Let’s look more closely at both of these matters.
First, Iran has no bomb and even if it did it could not use it for two reasons. In the age of “mutually assured destruction”, Iran’s use of a nuclear warhead would result in its becoming a radioactive parking lot within minutes. Even if it were not flattened by a counterattack, its use of such a horrible weapon would ensure not only worldwide condemnation, but also repercussions that would mark the end of the Islamic Republic. Further, Iran could never use a nuclear bomb because of the consequences of the explosion’s fallout. If it bombed Israel, radioactivity (depending on the direction the wind was blowing) would also take countless Palestinian, Jordanian, and Lebanese lives and possibly many others as well. And if Iran were to use a nuclear bomb across the Gulf, the impact would devastate the entire region, including Iran itself.
For these same reasons, Israel, despite reportedly possessing hundreds of nuclear warheads, has never used them in any of its many wars with its Arab neighbours, nor can it use them in the future. The same is true for India, Pakistan, and North Korea.
Given this, the only apparent reason for possessing such a weapon is the bragging rights. In reality, our obsessive preoccupation with Iran’s “programme” is giving it more attention and bragging rights than Iran would ever get from actually having a bomb it couldn’t use. Iran sits centre stage with all of the world’s powers meeting with and cajoling its leaders. It’s exactly the type of attention “bad boys” crave and we’re giving it to them, while not paying attention to the really dangerous things Iran is doing across the region.
Ironically, it was Israel who pushed the Iranian “nuclear threat” to the front burner. When the Obama administration took the bait and negotiated the “nuclear deal”, Israel then led the charge against the deal. There are two reasons for this: First, Israel and Iran need each other as foils. Second, their intended audience is the Arab World that lies between them.
When Israel was bombing Lebanon, Iran was able to play to the Arab masses saying: “Look at what Israel’s doing and only our ally, Hizbollah, is standing against them and the US.” As a result, a little more than a decade ago, Iran and Hizbollah had extraordinarily high favorable ratings in most Arab countries. But during the past decade, as Iran’s machinations in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have become increasingly clear, Iran’s ratings plummeted across the region and some Arabs came to see Israel as a possible source of support against the Islamic Republic’s meddlesome behaviours.
It was for this reason that I could never understand why so much effort was expended on stopping Iran’s nuclear programme while ignoring its dangerous and unsettling regional role. These are exactly the issues we should be addressing.
At this point, the P5+1 nations and their negotiators should focus on ways of assisting Iraqis and Lebanese in building non-sectarian governments that can rein in Iranian-backed militias, bringing them under the control of their respective governments. Our polling in both countries makes clear that strong majorities support this. There should also be a concerted effort in Yemen to stop the Houthi assault on Ma’rib and press for negotiations that can bring an end to that horrible conflict.
At home, Iran has problems on all sides that must be addressed, facing unrest with their substantial Azeri population in the north and their Arab citizens in the Ahwaz region. Iran also faces the renewed threat from the unsettling situation resulting from the Taliban victory in Afghanistan. And, if that were not enough, young Iranians in major cities continue to demand more jobs and personal freedoms.
These are the issues that need to be on the table. Rather than focusing on a bomb that doesn’t exist, we should direct diplomacy and apply economic pressure on efforts to make Iran see the benefits of becoming responsible citizens in the Gulf and Arab East by reining in their meddlesome behaviours and putting their own people’s needs first. Such an effort might not yield immediate results or even work at all. But it would at least be focused on the right issues.
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The writer is president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute.
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Leading experts on flawed U.S. COVID policy issued an urgent warning at a summit Saturday: Young children will be harmed in an ill-advised rush to vaccinate a population with very little chance of severe infection from the virus.
“The real risk for healthy kids is about zero — it does appear to be lower than the flu,” said Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA technology on which the vaccine is based. Inoculating 28 million children 5 to 11 years old, Malone told attendees of the Florida Summit on Covid, could lead to “a thousand or more excess deaths.”
“That’s a thousand kids,” he told the audience of 800 doctors, nurses and advocates. “It’s a thousand kids too many.”
In addition to other pressing COVID issues, the summit addressed three central questions about childhood vaccination. Do young children need vaccination against COVID? Are the vaccinations safe? Are unvaccinated children a threat to adults? On each, they found the government’s near-universal vaccination policy wanton and unsupported.
“Children don’t get severely ill. Children don’t die from this infection,” said Paul Alexander, a clinical epidemiologist and former senior advisor on pandemic policy in U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “We’ve been fed a lot of misleading information.”
Though harshly criticized for keeping schools open, “Sweden had not a single death of a child from COVID,” said Dr. Richard Urso, a Texas ophthalmologist citing published data.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control counts 576 U.S. children under 18 who succumbed to COVID from Jan. 1, 2020 to Nov. 3, 2021, among 60,811 who died in that period. But the CDC figures offer no perspective on whether another illness or COVID caused the deaths. In a study of 48,000 COVID-infected children under 18, no deaths were reported among those without comorbidities like leukemia or obesity. In other words, healthy kids did not die, suggesting vaccines are not needed for them.
‘Willful blindness’
With the risk of serious illness low, panelists said the potential toll of vaccinating was unacceptably high, pointing to thousands of officially downplayed but real side effects and deaths. The risks to children include – but aren’t limited to – serious inflammation of the heart called myocarditis, which has been reported at three to six times the expected rate in vaccinated adolescents. A CDC study reported 14 vaccine-related deaths and 849 serious reactions in children 12 to 17 years old.
“There will be children lost with the vax — far more than ever happened with COVID,” said Dr. Peter McCullough, a widely published cardiologist and leading voice on a rational pandemic response. Doctors are guilty of “willful blindness” to vaccine hazards, he said, having “bought into this…dream that this vax if both safe and effective. It is shattering their dreams that it is not sufficiently safe.”
The summit met just after the Pfizer vaccine was recommended by the CDC and as rollout began in pharmacies and clinics.
In Florida, where debate on vaccine mandates is vigorous, summit organizers see child vaccination as a line not to be crossed in a state that could set an example for the nation. They hope to stop the expanded vaccine program with an executive order by Gov. Ron DeSantis or legislation in an upcoming emergency session called to address vaccine mandates.
“We need to pull out all the stops,” Dr. John Littell, an Ocala physician who spearheaded the summit, told me. “We’ve only begun to fight for our children.”
With virtually universal media support, pressure is intense to vaccinate the pint-sized. On Twitter, the Muppet character Big Bird told of doing his duty for the public good. “I got the COVID-19 vaccine today!” he tweeted on the day of the summit. “My wing is feeling a little sore, but it’ll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy.”
A Pfizer video, meantime, widely shared on social media, showed “superhero” boys and girls, in capes, masks and wings, celebrating vaccination. Mouthing words written by a pharmaceutical giant, they praised other kids who took the needle for their “courage,” willingness to “try new things” and “helping the whole entire world.” Another video, of 13-year-old Madeline De Garay injured after vaccination during a trial, tells quite a different story but, sponsors say, was rejected for airing as a television ad.
‘One and done’
The six-hour summit included a premier lineup of COVID doctors who, based on treatment experience and available science, also raised two other urgent concerns:
The effective suppression of physician freedom to treat early COVID with ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, fluvoxamine and other drugs that could keep patients out of hospitals and save lives.
The protective value of having had COVID, which offers immune benefits that panelists said exceed – and forego the need for — vaccination.
“Natural immunity is robust; it’s complete; it’s durable,” Dr. McCullough told the group. “If it was possible to get it again, it would’ve happened hundreds of millions of times. It’s one and done.” Just 100 or so cases have been reported in the literature, he said, but there is confusion over whether they were actually second infections.
“With COVID, you develop immunity to 50 or so proteins” that spur production of antibodies, Malone said in his talk. “With the vaccine, you develop immunity to one structural protein,” namely the spike protein. “It’s a huge difference.”
“Don’t let them tell you that recovered-from-COVID does not lead to long-lasting immunity,” Dr. Ryan Cole, an Idaho pathologist, told the group, pitting a report on 106 science articles in favor of infection-acquired immunity against a single CDC “pretend paper” saying vaccines offer more protection.
The implications of natural immunity are enormous. The CDC estimates that 120 million Americans – a third of the population — have had COVID. If their immunity was recognized, that would dramatically reduce the lucrative market for vaccines and boosters – what many panelists believe motivates the rush to jab. More than 200 million Americans will have been infected after the Delta wave, McCullough estimates, broadening that population greatly.
Physicians at the summit left room for some to be vaccinated, including people whose compromised health puts them at risk for severe illness. Malone supports vaccination for high-risk groups, though he told me, “That may change as additional data become available.”
As it stands, however, the vast majority of Americans would be vaccinated under government recommendations that, if mandated by workplaces, schools and municipal governments, leave few exceptions.
‘Unmitigated corruption’
While the urgency of vaccinations took center stage, the failure to treat people at the first sign of COVID – and its immense consequences — was cited as the product of a corrupt, Pharma-controlled system and government.
In a stirring talk, Pierre Kory, president of Frontline Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance and a voice for early treatment, pointed to a litany of methods that science journals, media and government have used to effectively deny care with inexpensive “repurposed” drugs like ivermectin.
Among them: Refusal to publish pro-treatment scientific papers and retraction, under pressure, of others. Insistence on pricey randomized control trials while not funding them. A double standard that has Merck’s expensive molnupiravir poised to become a prime outpatient drug, based on one pharma-sponsored trial, while tossing aside dozens of studies favoring ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and other potential treatments. Rejection of the clinical experience of hundreds of doctors who have seen early treatment drugs keep people out of hospitals and coffins.
Having had “a front-row seat on the war on ivermectin,” Kory described in two words the reason for the monumental failure to treat COVID: “Regulatory capture.” In short, the alphabet agencies – NIH, CDC, FDA – aren’t making the decisions.
“It’s well described that all of those agencies are literally run by Pharma,” he said. “If you want to keep your job, you let the leaders do what they do.” This has led, he said, to “unmitigated and repeated acts of corruption, which are hurting public health.”
‘Get sicker’
While Kory has strongly supported ivermectin – and several doctors in the audience said they had great success with it – he and others said there are other perhaps two dozen compounds that could help early. Nonetheless, public health leaders are silent on recommending any. Among them: aspirin, budesonide, colchicine, curcumin, melatonin, nitazoxanide, quercetin, zinc and vitamins C and D. Even a highly favorable trial on fluvoxamine has failed to earn the government’s endorsement.
“They tell you to go home and get sicker and come back and see us when you’re really sick and your body’s damaged,” Malone said. “Ask yourself, ‘does this make sense?’”
At the same time, speakers dismissed the unsupported contention that unvaccinated children are a threat to adults — who even when vaccinated can themselves get and spread COVID. “Children are not superspreaders,” said Urso. Further, said Malone, “It’s not the kids responsibility to protect the elders.”
It is, however, the responsibility of public health agencies to live up to protecting the public. Instead, said Dr. Bruce Boros, owner of three urgent care centers in the Florida Keys, they thwart doctors at every turn.
“We’re getting the shit kicked out of us, there’s nowhere to go,” he told me.
“The CEOs and administrators of hospitals are threatening us. You’re going to be fired. You must walk in lockstep with our standard of care.”
After recounting harrowing experiences in New York City ICUs early in the pandemic, a critical care physician, Dr. Mollie James, concluded with this: “Doctors must not be blocked from prescribing life-saving medicine in the hospital. Doctors must not be blocked from giving life-saving treatment outpatient.”
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Mary Beth Pfeiffer is an investigative journalist and author of two books; she has written more than 20 articles on early treatment of COVID since March of 2020. Follow her on Twitter: @marybethpf
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Since November 4 of 2020, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has been under attack by former rulers of this East African state.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has openly defied the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who was recently elected by a wide margin to establish an inclusive administration representing the various regions and ethnic groups inside the country.
A TPLF-controlled Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) party took power in May 1991 at the aegis of the former President of the United States George H.W. Bush, Sr. The TPLF-EPRDF regime remained in charge of the country over a period of 27 years when they were ousted in a popular uprising during the early months of 2018.
Since the ascendancy of Abiy he has lifted a years-long state of emergency, released thousands of political prisoners, opened up avenues for broader participation of women in political life and negotiated a resolution to a border dispute with neighboring Eritrea. Abiy signed agreements with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki which ended hostilities between the two Horn of Africa states which went to war in 1998 and 2000. Prior to the independence of Eritrea in 1991, the political leadership of the country, a former Italian colony, waged a thirty-year war against Ethiopia.
As a result of these measures enacted during his first few months as leader of the vast country of 115 million people, Prime Minister Abiy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway in 2019. Prior to receiving the Nobel Prize, he was awarded the Peace and Reconciliation Award for his efforts in resolving a 27-year split within the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church (EOTC), one of the oldest Christian denominations in the world.
Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed with the First Lady and Church Patriarch (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)
Yet despite these achievements, the TPLF and its allies refused to recognize the new emerging political dispensation. During 2020, the central government proposed a postponement of the regional and national elections due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The TPLF, which still controls the northern Tigray province, rejected the government’s delay and held their own separate elections. Later reports emanating from the government of Prime Minister Abiy stated that the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) stationed in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, were attacked by the TPLF-aligned military units.
After the attacks on November 4, 2020, the Ethiopian federal military forces moved into Tigray and took control of the provincial administration. The government declared the deployment a “police operation” to bring the province under federal authority.
Nonetheless, the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF), the TPLF military wing, regrouped and continued to launch attacks on the ENDF in the province. In July of 2021, Abiy announced a unilateral ceasefire with the TPLF and withdrew federal forces from Mekelle and other areas. However, the Tigray military units continued to advance outside of the area launching attacks in neighboring Amhara and Afar provinces.
In recent weeks reports indicate that the TPLF has taken control of two towns in the north central region of the country, Dessie and Kombolcha, located in the Amhara province. The seizure of these two towns prompted a response from the prime minister who reimposed a state of emergency in Ethiopia and called for a countywide mobilization of all citizens against the attempted takeover of the government in Addis Ababa.
An editorial published in the state-owned Ethiopian Herald on November 6 said:
“[R]esidents across Ethiopia have been expressing their readiness to defend the sovereignty and unity of Ethiopia against the satanic divisive prophecies of the terrorist groups Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and OLF-Shane with their western coalitions. Yesterday, tens of thousands of Ethiopians from different regional states including Oromia, Gambela and Dire Dawa rallied in support of the unity and territorial integrity of their beloved Ethiopia, and denounced the war waged against the state in a concerted manner by both internal and external elements. What has been chanted loud among the people is that: ‘We, Ethiopians, at home and in every corner of the world reaffirm commitment to repeat the victory secured as a result of the fallen fathers at the Adwa Battle (1896).’ They said it loud and clear: ‘We have never, and we will never, compromise on our sovereignty and unity. Rather, we defend them by defeating the conspiracies of terrorist TPLF and its local and external allies.’”
Western Imperialists Led by the United States Behind the Current Conflict
Another major factor underlying the recent attacks on Ethiopia is the plan by the government to make operational the Grand Renaissance Dam Project (GERD). Neighboring Egypt, a close ally of Washington and the second largest recipient of U.S. aid after the State of Israel, has vehemently opposed the filling of the dam saying it would threaten its dominance over the water flow from the Blue Nile.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump during 2020 attempted to impose an agreement on Ethiopia which was contrary to its national interests. Trump suggested that the Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi would have no alternative than to blow up the project. Such provocative language set the stage for the armed insurrection against the central government in Addis Ababa.
President Joe Biden, the successor to Trump, has maintained the same interventionist and imperialist foreign policy towards Ethiopia. Several months ago, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, issued threats against the Ethiopian government accusing the Abiy administration of preventing humanitarian aid from reaching Tigray.
These threats signaled to pro-U.S. elements in the U.N. to echo such accusations prompting the Ethiopian government to expel several officials of the international body. These expulsions led to further condemnations of the Abiy administration within the U.S. and western media outlets.
In early November, the Biden administration suspended Ethiopia from eligibility for the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a program adopted in 2000 under the presidency of Bill Clinton which provides incentives for corporations to establish light industrial production facilities in various continental states. Biden placed the Ethiopian government in the same category as Mali and Guinea, where the U.S.-trained military officers have staged coups against elected governments in 2020-2021.
The political situation in Ethiopia must be viewed separately from the developments in Mali and Guinea. In Ethiopia, the recently elected administration of Prime Minister Abiy and the Prosperity Party, are struggling to maintain civilian rule and national unity. In Mali and Guinea, a clique of military officers trained in Pentagon war colleges overthrew the governments in defiance of the 15-member regional organization the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the 55-member states African Union (AU). Guinea and Mali are operational centers for the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) which has thousands of Pentagon troops stationed on the continent.
In another public relations maneuver, nine opposition groupings including the TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), signed a pact in Washington, D.C. on November 5 pledging to overthrow the existing government in Ethiopia. Such an action would not have been allowed if these organizations were not working in the interests of U.S. imperialism.
Spokespersons for the Ethiopian government immediately denounced the opposition groups’ announcement in Washington, D.C., saying that the majority of the organizations involved in the press conference have no real presence on the ground inside the country. Although the Biden administration has recently called for a cessation of hostilities, its actions in providing diplomatic and other forms of support to the rebels reveals that they are working on behalf of the State Department.
“Ethiopia’s government on Friday (Nov. 5) called the alliance ‘a publicity stunt,’ asserting that some of the groups involved ‘are not really organizations that have any traction.’ It also asserted that life in the capital had a ‘sense of normalcy’ and rejected any notion of a siege. The prime minister’s spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, addressed the alliance when she tweeted that ‘any outliers that rejected the democratic processes Ethiopia embarked upon cannot be for democratization,’ pointing out Abiy’s opening-up of political space after taking office in 2018. His reforms included welcoming some opposition groups home from exile.”
These events related to Ethiopia illustrate clearly the role of imperialism in fostering division and balkanization in Africa. The continent needs greater unity among its governments and people in order to realize genuine development and sovereignty. The Biden administration’s posture towards Addis Ababa follows the same pattern as its destabilization efforts against Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran, China, the Russian Federation, Syria, Zimbabwe and many other states within various geo-political regions internationally.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Ethiopians protest US intervention in their affairs on Nov. 7, 2021 (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)
There have now been 2,433 fetal deaths recorded in VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) from pregnant women who have been injected with one of the COVID-19 shots. (Source.) The vast majority of these have been from the Pfizer shot (1,862 deaths) and the Moderna shot (656 deaths.)
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act removed liability for all vaccines recommended by the CDC for children. Since 2016, they’ve also removed liability for vaccines given to pregnant women, a category that has become the latest “gold rush” for vaccines.
The E-book includes analysis of curative and preventive drugs as well as a review of Big Pharma’s Covid-19 “messenger” mRNA vaccine which is an “unapproved” and “experimental” drug affecting the human genome.
Chilean laboratory shares, through the Dirección Correcta radio program, exclusive photos of graphene oxide found in vaccination vials from Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Sinovac.
There is no evidence that Big Pharma’s Covid “vaccines” are effective and no evidence that they are safe. Indeed, all the evidence is to the contrary. The “vaccines” were rushed into use before they were tested or approved on the basis of the falsehoods that there was a deadly pandemic afoot for which there were no cures.
Only if we citizens muster the courage to show solidarity with these “enlightened people” and stand by their side in comradeship will we survive as a human species, preserve our previous “humanity” and be able to cushion the economic and social consequential damages of this undeclared war.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has been vilified for making a very simple statement – that parents (and presumably patients themselves) should have the freedom to choose whether to vaccinate their children. I have been asked for years what I thought about vaccination, so let me lay out the issues.
According to the latest data, 75% of the U.S. population has had at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, while 67% are considered to be “fully vaccinated,” although the administration has now endorsed “boosters” since the vaccines’ efficacy wears off so quickly. Covid cases are down over 50% since September, even as Covid vaccines do not prevent transmission or significantly slow the spread of Covid.
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter suspended hundreds of influential pro-Sandinista journalists and activists days before Nicaragua’s November 7 elections, falsely claiming they were government trolls. The Grayzone interviewed them to reveal the truth.
We are always in-between, and it is our attitude and conduct that allows us to freely will the meaning of our lives, no matter what. Frankl came to call this search for meaning logotherapy, or meaning therapy, by which an individual is always free to choose one’s stance or course of action, and it is by such choosing that the greatness of life can be measured and meaning confirmed in any single moment, even retrospectively.
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The rising costs of synthetic nitrogen (N) fertilisers, triggered by a spike in natural gas prices, has governments panicking about a catastrophic global food crisis.[1] At the same time, new research shows that synthetic N fertilisers are a major driver of the climate crisis, responsible for 1 out every 40 tonnes of GHGs currently pumped into the atmosphere.[2] As the 26th UN Climate Change Conference gets underway, now is the time for the world to kick its addiction to synthetic N fertilisers and urgently transition to farming without fossil fuels and chemicals.
The new research– undertaken by three scientists working with Greenpeace, IATP and GRAIN– provides the first estimate of the global climate impacts of synthetic N fertilisers to cover the entire production chain, from manufacturing to soil application. It finds that the production and use of synthetic N fertiliser accounts for 2.4% of global emissions, making it one of the top climate polluting industrial chemicals. The synthetic N fertiliser supply chain was responsible for estimated emissions of 1,250 million tonnes of CO2e in 2018, which is roughly 21.5% of the annual direct emissions from agriculture (5,800 million tonnes). For comparison, the global emissions from commercial aviation in 2018 were around 900 million tonnes of CO2.[3]
The majority of emissions from synthetic N fertilisers occur after they are applied to the soil and enter the atmosphere as nitrous oxide (N2O)- a persistent greenhouse gas with 265 times more global warming potential than CO2. But, what is less discussed is that almost 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions of synthetic N fertilisers occur in production and transport, largely in the form of CO2 caused by the burning of fossil fuels during manufacture. Added up, a full accounting of emissions from synthetic N fertiliser shows how it is a major source of climate pollution that needs to be rapidly and drastically reduced.
Synthetic N fertilisers have increased by a whopping 800% since the 1960s according to the IPCC[4], and the new research confirms that climate pollution from their production and use is on course to get much worse if actions are not taken to reverse these trends (Graphic 1). Worldwide use of synthetic N fertilisers is set to increase by over 50% by 2050, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.
The research also finds that emissions from synthetic N fertilisers are highly concentrated in certain geographic areas. The main emitters are China, India, North America and Europe. But, on a per capita basis, the highest emitters are the big agricultural export countries of North America (US and Canada), South America (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) Australia/New Zealand and Europe (Denmark, France, Ireland, Ukraine). Worldwide, emissions keep growing every year, including in Africa, where fertiliser use is now growing rapidly.
A not-so-green revolution
Since the 1960s, there has been a concerted effort on the part of the multilateral development banks such as the World Bank, governments, donors and agribusiness corporations to support the widespread adoption of a so-called “green revolution” model of agriculture. This model is based on the development and adoption of varieties of certain staple crops (mainly wheat, rice and maize) that are short and stocky (called semi-dwarf) and capable of producing high yields when heavily dosed with chemical fertilisers and sprayed with pesticides.
By way of massive government programmes and subsidies, the green revolution varieties quickly replaced local varieties and generated a huge boom in the global use of chemical fertilisers. They also kicked in a vicious cycle, in which more and more chemical fertilisers had to be applied to sustain yields. Today, only around 20-30% of the synthetic N fertilisers applied to fields are converted to foods, with the rest running off into water bodies and entering the environment as pollution.[5] Not only is this heating up the planet, but it is also destroying the ozone layer and causing a global crisis of algae blooms and oceanic “dead zones”.[6]
Some say the green revolution enabled production to meet the increasing global demand for food, but the narrow focus on a small number of crops and on varieties dependent on chemical inputs caused numerous environmental and social problems.[7] It also distracted from other approaches that could have increased food production without generating the massive consumption of chemical fertilisers. And it has left the world vulnerable to food price spikes and shortages triggered or exacerbated by rising prices for chemical fertilisers and their inputs, as we are now seeing with the energy crisis hitting many countries. Today, these agro-chemicals are controlled by a small number of global corporations that wield enormous political clout, such as the Norwegian nitrogen fertiliser giant Yara.
The fertiliser lobby has spent several decades maintaining that the excessive use of synthetic N fertiliser can be resolved through more precise application– what they call “precision agriculture” or “climate-smart agriculture”.[8] Yet the new research on synthetic N fertiliser emissions finds no evidence that programmes to increase efficiency have had any significant impact. In most world regions, there has been no significant increase in crop production per unit of synthetic N fertiliser applied (Graphic 2). In Canada, for instance, farmers participating in the fertiliser industry’s “4R Nutrient Stewardship Programme” have actually ended up using more fertilisers and using them more inefficiently.[9] Canada’s emissions from synthetic N fertilisers have accelerated in recent years, alongside use rates, making it one of the top emitters of greenhouse gases from synthetic N fertilisers on a per capita basis (Graphic 3).
Another key driver behind today’s excessive use of N fertilisers is the ongoing decoupling of crops and livestock. A growing percentage of the world’s livestock is now raised on factory farms, and feedlots that dependent on industrial animal feeds, often produced in other countries. As a result, those farms now growing feed crops utilise synthetic N fertilisers, rather than the animal manure that would have traditionally provided their fields with nitrogen. The separation of livestock and crops, and the concentration of export production in certain parts of the world, has broken the soil nutrient cycle, and greatly increased the use of chemical fertilisers.[10]
What needs to be done?
If the world stands a chance at effectively dealing with the climate crisis, industrial farming systems that depend on synthetic N fertilisers and other chemical inputs must be replaced with agroecological farming systems that do not use chemicals and local food systems in which animals and feed sources are fully integrated.
This phase-out of synthetic N fertilisers must begin by replacing the green revolution varieties of crops with seeds that can thrive without the use of chemical fertilisers. The seed companies that now dominate the global seed market have not and will not pursue plant breeding in this direction. As pesticide manufacturers, they have a vested interest in the green revolution model. Change has to come from revitalising and supporting the farmer-based seed and knowledge systems that are best able to provide seeds and practices adapted to local conditions and able to produce nutritious and abundant food without chemicals. Similarly, farmer knowledge of organic fertilisers and alternatives to building soil fertility, which has been lost to much of the world, needs to be rebuilt, shared and implemented so that the current dependency on chemical fertilisers can be overcome.[11]
A global phase-out of synthetic N fertilisers must also be accompanied by a phase-out of industrial livestock. Industrial feed, meat and dairy production is not only a major driver of synthetic N fertiliser use, but a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions and a major killer of forests and biodiversity.[12]
Technical and economic obstacles are not what is standing in the way of a global phase-out of synthetic N fertilisers. It is the hold of the agribusiness lobby on powerful governments that must be confronted and broken to affect meaningful change. The fertiliser industry, and its business and government allies, are peddling a false notion that emissions can be sufficiently reduced through a more precise application of fertilisers, without any major changes to the industrial model of agriculture and the structure of the global food system. This is simply not true, and a dangerous distraction from the industry’s ongoing efforts to ramp up fertiliser use, especially now in Africa.
Agribusiness corporations have a vested interest in the heavy use of synthetic N fertilisers– from the giant N fertiliser companies like Yara and CF Industries, to the seed and pesticide companies like Bayer and Syngenta, to the corporations that control the trade in meat, dairy and animal feed like Cargill and Bunge. The market for synthetic N fertilisers alone is worth over US$70 billion.[13] They will continue to promote and defend synthetic N fertilisers at all policy-making levels, including at COP 26.
People and the planet must come before corporate profits. There needs to be a global phase-out of N synthetic fertilisers if we are to end agriculture’s contribution to the climate and other ecological crises. That phase-out must start now.
Graphic 1. Consumption of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser from 1961 up to 2018, in tonnes of nitrogen
Graphic 2. Crop production (tonnes) per unit of synthetic N fertiliser applied
Graphic 3. Synthetic N fertiliser carbon footprint per capita (tCO2e/capita)
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[2] Stefano Menegat, Alicia Ledo and Reyes Tirado, “Greenhouse gas emissions from global production and use of nitrogen synthetic fertilisers in agriculture”, Research Square Preprints, 22 October 2021: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1007419/v1
[4] IPCC, “Special Report on Climate Change and Land”, 2019: Summary for Policy Makers page 8. https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/
[5] Billen, G., Garnier, J. & Lassaletta, L. The nitrogen cascade from agricultural soils to the sea: modelling nitrogen transfers at regional watershed and global scales. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B: Biol. Sci.368, 20130123 (2013).
[7] For a discussion, see for example, John Daisy and Babu Giridhara, “Lessons From the Aftermaths of Green Revolution on Food System and Health,” Front Sustain Food Syst, June 2021, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7611098/
[10] J. Wang, et al, “International trade of animal feed: its relationships with livestock density and N and P balances at country level,” Nutr Cycl Agroecosyst 110, 197–211 (2018): https://doi.org/10.1007/s10705-017-9885-3
[12] Kate Dooley, Doreen Stabinsky, “Missing Pathways to 1.5°C”, Climate Land Ambition and Rights Alliance, 2018: https://www.clara.earth/missing-pathways
[13] Business Research Company, “The Nitrogen Fertilizer Market Grows With Government Initiatives In Agriculture,” 11 October 2021: https://tinyurl.com/vd7mase9
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There are five (5) sets of documents/videos below. The third document article includes a link to a particularly interesting set of letters to the CDC and FDA’s CBER, from a California ICU MD physician and from her attorneys.
Documents 1 and 2 (below) are slide presentations by the U.S. CDC and by the U.S. FDA’s Center for Biologics and Research (CBER) to FDA heads on October 22, 2020, two months prior to the start of Covid-19 vaccinations here in the U.S.
Within each slide presentation is one slide which lists the possible serious adverse event outcomes known, as of October 22, 2020, to be associated with the Covid-19 vaccines. Since these presentations, the FDA has not provided either of these two Covid-19 serious adverse event outcome lists (hereafter: “FDA C-19VAE lists”) to the medical community, nor to authorized dispensers, nor to potential Covid-19 vaccine recipients.
Thus, most, if not practically all, doctors, dispensers, and allied healthcare personnel are not aware that the FDA fully expected the diseases in these lists to start being reported to the FDA and CDC following the start of Covid-19 vaccinations. Consequently, reporting of these serious Covid-19 vaccine adverse event outcomes to the FDA and CDC has been thwarted by the FDA.
1) Available here is the presentation by Tom Shimabukuro, MD, MPH, MBA of the CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force, Vaccine Safety Team. Page/Slide 31 is titled, “Preliminary list of VAERS AEs of special interest”. AE signifies Adverse Event.
2) Available here is the presentation by Steve Andersen, PhD, MPP, who is the Director, Office of Biostatistics & Epidemiology, CBER. Page 17, known as “slide 16”, is the “FDA Safety Surveillance of COVID-19 Vaccines : DRAFT Working list of possible adverse event outcomes”. This CBER slide presentation has been the subject of the article, FDA knew COVID vaccines would lead to severe adverse events, sanitized info was given to people to prevent vaccine-hesitancy, which includes an interview of Dr. Bryan Ardis, who first uncovered this list.
These two lists are essentially the same, since multiple sclerosis (MS), optic neuritis (ON), chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), ataxia, and vaccine enhanced disease (also known as Antibody Dependent Enhancement, or ADE) are autoimmune diseases.
Since, as Dr. Ardis noted, there are eighty (80) autoimmune diseases, each of these FDA C-19VAE lists represents approximately one hundred and ten (110) possible serious adverse event outcomes, including “Death”, which were expected to start being reported to the CDC and FDA following the start of public vaccination.
If the medical community and, eventually, the general public were to be made fully aware of these FDA C-19VAE lists, the public narrative would be vastly different than it is at the moment, as the alleged Covid-19 “vaccines” would begin to lose all legitimacy and the public would start to think twice about having one of these alleged Covid-19 “vaccines” injected into their bodies. As we’ve witnessed during this “Plandemic”, fear can be a great motivator; but, in light of these FDA C-19VAE lists, fear would motivate people to not receive any of these jabs.
3) On 10/13/21, The Children’s Health Defense newsletter, The Defender published an article titled, Physician to FDA, CDC: In 20 Years of Practicing Medicine, ‘I’ve Never Witnessed So Many Vaccine-Related Injuries’, where California ICU MD physician, Dr Patricia Lee’s letter to the CBER/FDA and CDC specifies the vaccine-related injuries she’s seeing in her patients. Dr. Lee also apparently has no idea these FDA C-19VAE lists exist. The vaccine-related injuries Dr. Lee names are the same as those in the FDA C-19VAE lists.
To view Dr. Lee’s and her attorneys’ letters to the CBER/FDA and the CDC, go to the above article and, in the first paragraph, click on the “a letter” link (or click on it here), which will provide you the opportunity to download these letters or open them in Adobe Reader or in your browser. Note that the letters are addressed, in part, to Tom Shimabukuro of the CDC, who presented the Document 1) list above, which likely explains why, as of October 6, 2021, neither the CDC or CBER had responded to Dr. Lee’s inquiry.
Now, less than a month later, Dr. Patricia Lee’s attorney, Aaron Siri of Siri | Glimstad, has revealed eleven (11) more physicians who have come forward, from “…across the country attesting to serious harms from Covid-19 vaccines. …Worse, many of these physicians were injured by a Covid-19 vaccine themselves and despite being physicians, the physicians from whom these injured physicians sought treatment also typically dismissed their injuries.” These eleven physician declarations are included in the following communication from Aaron Siri:
Hospital physician assistants, nurse case managers, nurses (also the four in the link above), physical therapists, occupational therapists, and other hospital healthcare personnel are now coming forward as whistleblowers, many stating that it is now primarily the vaccinated, not the unvaccinated, who are presenting to hospital, but not with Covid-19 symptoms, but symptoms indicative of one or more apparently vaccine-induced diseases; and, although these whistleblowers apparently have no idea of the existence of the FDA C-19VAE lists, the diseases they name are those in those FDA C-19VAE lists.
We need to get these FDA C-19VAE lists into the hands of every physician and allied healthcare worker, across the U.S., and stop this nonsense that the vaccinated have to beware of the unvaccinated, when the truth is actually vice versa; and, it is the vaccinated who need to become aware of what they’ve done to themselves. Only then, will the physicians and allied healthcare workers who are still doubters begin to realize that the diseases they are witnessing in their vaccinated patients are the vaccine-associated diseases in these FDA lists.
(Fuellmich’s translations to German have been removed from this particular copy of the video)
Dr. Bryan Ardis uncovered the CBER FDA C-19VAE list of document 2) above; and, has been working full time to get this information out to the medical community and to the public.
The interviewer is international trial attorney Dr. Renier Fuellmich who is at the forefront, globally, of exposing the fraud that was, and still is, employed to perpetrate this Covid-19 “pandemic”. Dr. Fuellmich is licensed in Germany and California and owns a ranch in northern California. He has successfully sued large multinational corporations such as Deutsche Bank for financial fraud, Volkswagen for their recent emissions fraud, and is now suing the world’s largest shipping company.
The 2nd half of the video, starting at Time = 32:15, deals with the CBER FDA C-19VAE list of possible serious adverse event outcomes (of Document 2 above); and briefly discusses the tens of thousands of apparently vaccine-related deaths reported to the VAERS and to the CMS (Medicare/Medicaid) reporting systems.
At Time = 54:32, attorney Fuellmich asks, “Ah, again, um, it’s bizarre. What is this about? It’s never been about health. This is about genocide, isn’t it?” – To which Dr. Ardis responds, “That’s what it appears to me. Genocide through infertilizing and sterilizing the world and, then, of course, there’s been tons of deaths, also. It appears there’s been no respect for life, or humanity at all, for the individuals who have been putting this in place and these mandates.” (and more about why are we trusting the FDA with our lives).
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Comments Off on The FDA’s “Intentional Malfeasance”: Vaccine Injuries include “Deadly Strokes, Bizarre Rashes, Cardiac Arrest, Blood Clots, Neurological Symptoms
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Russia’s weak economic presence in Africa has become a thing of concern for some experts in the country and they wonder why the nation is not aggressive with this like its ally, China.
In July 2021, participants at the Association of Economic Cooperation with African States (AECAS), established under the aegis of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum (RAPF), agreed that lack of financial support was the major reason for this.
The forum, which had in attendance some leading Russian companies and banks, discussed an effective system of financing projects and supporting investment in Africa.
Financing projects in Africa is one of the important keys and, at the same time, the most difficult issue for major Russian companies attempting to expand to Africa, and the financial instruments at their disposal are insufficient, according to Anna Belyaeva, Executive Director of AECAS.
“We explicitly understand that the current funding mechanisms are not enough. We have analyzed the experience of European and Western colleagues from developed countries, our direct competitors in Africa: all of them already have mechanisms and funds focused on Africa,” she said.
Nikita Gusakov, Head of the Russian Export Credit and Investment Insurance Agency (EXIAR), reiterated that Africa was a priority for the agency, outlining a number of deals that EXIAR has been involved in on the continent.
He was also critical and frank on a few points relating to finance mechanisms and slowness in delivering on investment pledges and the extent these have affected effective economic cooperation between Russia and Africa.
“We have the desire and the capacity to finance projects in Africa. In our experience, there are two problems that need to be addressed: the low level of project planning by Russian companies wishing to enter the African market, and the lack of awareness among Russian companies of the opportunities available on the African market,” Gusakov unreservedly underlined.
The meeting collectively acknowledged Africa as a huge continent that still requires economic development. Its active demographic growth and abundance of natural resources offer conditions to become the world’s biggest market in the next few decades.
Russians are searching for long-term businesses and entrepreneurship in a wide range of sectors, citing the presence of the strong presence of the United States, European Union members, China, India, and many others in the continent.
The current geopolitical developments and the scramble for emerging opportunities by external countries in Africa is the stacked reality.
Perspectives and outlook for future development are immense, some African leaders and particularly corporate business leaders with foreign players are consistently collaborating and fixing their strategic partnership networks within the continent, striving to understand the emerging challenges and mapping out how to seize the opportunity to build businesses in Africa.
In addition to that, foreign players are investing research and development (R&D) with their African partners. As Nikita Gusakov, Head of the Russian Export Credit and Investment Insurance Agency (EXIAR), reiterated at the meeting, one of the roadblocks is the lack of adequate knowledge among Russian companies about the opportunities available in Africa. It is partly due to limited interaction with the private sector actors and civil society.
There should be an emphasis on employing policy strategists who actually understand business cultural ideas, the current political and economic trends in Africa. Russians must also invest in more R&D collaborations with their African partners.
In order to raise the economic influence, Russians have been making efforts to identify a structured finance mechanism for mega infrastructure projects such as nuclear power and energy, natural resources exploration and to significantly increase trade with Africa.
For instance, the United States, European Union members, Asia countries such as China, India and Japan, have provided funds to support companies ready to carry out projects, and that include some basic researches, in various sectors in African countries. Some have publicly committed funds, including concessionary loans, for Africa.
During the last Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Chinese President Xi Jinping said:
“China will expand cooperation in investment and financing to support sustainable development in Africa. China provided US$60 billion of credit line to African countries to assist them in developing infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing and small and medium-sized enterprises.”
It fully understands Africa’s needs and its willingness to open the door to cooperation in the field of scientific and technological innovation on an encouraging basis.
The method for financing the building of infrastructure is relatively simple. In general, governments obtain preferential loans from the Export-Import Bank of China or the China Development Bank, with the hiring of Chinese building contractors.
The Chinese policy banking system allows leading Chinese state-owned enterprises to operate effectively in Africa, with the majority of these activities in infrastructure and construction in Africa.
China has always been committed to achieving win-win cooperation and joint development with Africa. Russia could consider the Chinese model of financing various infrastructure and construction projects in Africa.
Official proposals for all kinds of support for trade and investment have been in the spotlight down the years.
In May 2014, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wrote in one of his policy articles published on the ministry’s website:
“we attach special significance to deepening our trade and investment cooperation with the African States. Russia will provide African countries with extensive preferences in trade.”
Lavrov wrote:
“At the same time, it is evident that the significant potential of our economic cooperation is far from being exhausted and much remains to be done so that Russian and African partners know more about each other’s capacities and needs. The creation of a mechanism for the provision of public support to business interaction between Russian companies and the African continent is highly on the agenda.”
After the first Russia-Africa Summit in the Black Sea city, Sochi in October 2019, Russia and Africa have resolved to move from mere intentions to concrete actions in raising the current bilateral trade and investment to appreciably higher levels in the coming years.
“There is a lot of interesting and demanding work ahead, and perhaps, there is a need to pay attention to the experience of China, which provides its enterprises with state guarantees and subsidies, thus ensuring the ability of companies to work on a systematic and long-term basis,” Foreign Minister Lavrov strongly suggested that year, back in 2014.
According to Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Ministry would continue to provide all round support for initiatives aimed at strengthening relations between Russia and Africa.
“Our African friends have spoken up for closer interaction with Russia and would welcome our companies on their markets. But much depends on the reciprocity of Russian businesses and their readiness to show initiative and ingenuity, as well as to offer quality goods and services,” he stressed.
Senator Igor Morozov, a member of the Federation Council Committee on Economic Policy, and Chairman of the Coordinating Committee on Economic Cooperation with Africa noted during one of the meetings that in conditions of pressure from sanctions, it has become necessary to find new markets, new partners and allies for Russia.
“This predetermines the return of Russia back to Africa, makes this direction a high priority both from the point of geopolitical influence and in the sphere of trade and economic context,” he underscored his objective comments.
“It is important for us to expand and improve competitive government support instruments for business. It is obvious that over the thirty years when Russia left Africa, a number of countries such as China, India, the United States and the European Union have significantly increased their investment opportunities there in the region,” Morozov stressed.
With a renewed growing interest in Africa, Russians are feverishly looking for establishing effective ways of entry into the huge continent.
As result, Senator Igor Morozov unreservedly suggested creating a new structure within the Russian Export Centre – an investment fund, explaining that “such a fund could evaluate and accumulate concessions as a tangible asset for the Russian raw materials and innovation business.”
His Coordinating Committee has the responsibility for adopting a more pragmatic approach to business, for deepening and broadening economic collaborations and for the establishment of direct beneficial contacts between entrepreneurs and companies from Russia and African countries.
The Coordinating Committee for Economic Cooperation with African States was created as far back in 2009 on the initiative of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation and Vnesheconombank with support from the Federation Council and the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. It has had support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economy and Trade, the Ministry of Natural Resources, as well as the Ministry of Higher Education and Science.
President of the Russian Chamber of Chamber and Industry, Sergei Katyrin, added his voice for the establishing a finance mechanism, saying “the primary task now is to accelerate Russia’s economic return to African continent, from which we practically left in the 90s and now it is very difficult to increase our economic presence there in Africa.”
According to Katyrin, Russia’s economic presence in Africa today is significantly inferior in comparison to the positions of leading Western countries and BRICS partners. “It’s time to overcome this yawning gap. Today, we face a difficult task to ensure the activities of Russian entrepreneurship on the African continent in the new conditions, taking into account all the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.”
Katyrin, in addition, said
“we need a state financial mechanism to support the work of Russian business in Africa otherwise it will be very difficult to break through the fierce competition of Western companies with such support. We need to focus on those areas where we can definitely count on success.”
According to UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2020, the top five investors in the African continent are European Union (Netherlands, France, Germany, United Kingdom), United States and China. There are also the Gulf States, United Arab Emirates and Turkey consistently playing active roles, and have had excellent results on the continent.
As the situation develops with many foreign players, Africa finds itself in an excellent advantageous position of having many suitors – each offering something it needs for its sustainable development.
In practical reality, the introduction of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), gives an additional signal for foreign players to take advantage of this new opportunity in Africa. It aims at creating a continental market for goods and services, with free movement of business people and investments in Africa. As trumpeted, the AfCFTA has a lot more on offer besides the fact that it creates a single market of 1.3 billion people.
Some policy researchers said in separate interviews that the Institute of African Studies under the Russian Academy of Sciences, with highly experienced researchers from the Soviet times, most probably has speedy answers to any searching questions on Africa. It can readily provide an appropriate and ready-to-go balanced broad sheet or outline comprehensive economic engagement strategies for Africa.
With its human resources, it has the capability of drawing up effective workable ways to accelerate the implementation of, at least, the decade-old bilateral agreements that were signed, and gamut of pledges that have largely remained undelivered in Africa.
Notwithstanding the setbacks down these years, Russians are still full of skyline optimism and hope to make some progress under the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum (RAPF), which is overseeing the organizational and practical preparations of future summits. At least, after the last summit RAPF should have worked on concrete “three-year African Action Plan” – to set comprehensive step-by-step working programme for the period till next summit, instead it prefers working with its ad hoc agenda, during these years.
That said, however, Russia has its own approach towards Africa. It pressurizes no foreign countries neither it has to compete with other key external players, as it has its own pace for working with Africa. After the first Russia-Africa Summit, there is a well-functioning organizational structure. It looks forward to achieving more practical and comprehensive results from the new phase of relations between Russia and Africa.
With the same optimism towards taking emerging challenges and opportunities in Africa, Russia has to show financial commitment and ready itself for any investment risks especially now when the joint declaration adopted from the first historic Summit held in October 2019 ultimately sets the path for a new dynamism and provides an impetus for scaling up the existing Russia-Africa relations.
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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a frequent and passionate contributor to Global Research. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.
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Progressives shouldn’t buy or wear red poppies. Remembrance Day promotes martial patriotism and the militaristic, imperialistic, Royal Canadian Legion owns the copyright to the red poppy.
Red poppies commemorate Canadians who have died at war. Not being commemorated are the Afghans, or Libyans killed by Canadians in the 2000s, or the Iraqis and Serbians killed in the 1990s, or the Koreans killed in the 1950s, or the Russians, South Africans, Sudanese and others killed before that. By focusing exclusively on “our” side Remembrance Day poppies reinforce a sense that Canada’s cause is righteous. But, Canadian soldiers have only fought in one morally justifiable war: World War II.
Red poppies were inspired by the 1915 poem “In Flanders Fields” by Canadian army officer John McCrae. The pro-war poem calls on Canadians to “take up our quarrel with the foe” and was used to promote war bonds and recruit soldiers during World War I.
Remembrance Day marks the end of WWI, which was a capitalist, colonialist, horror show. The ruling elites of France, Germany, England and Russia saw war as a way to weaken working class challenges in their countries. The other major force that spurred WWI was inter-imperial rivalry in Europe. It was a struggle for global supremacy between up-and-coming Germany and the imperial powers of the day, Britain and France. In fact, support for the British Empire was Ottawa’s primary motive in joining the war. As Canada’s Prime Minister Robert Borden saw it, the fight was “to put forth every effort and to make every sacrifice necessary to ensure the integrity and maintain the honour of our empire.”
During WWI Canadian troops supported the colonial system in the Caribbean. Canadians also fought to conquer German West and East Africa, as well as Iraq and Palestine. In East Africa alone about one million died as a direct result of the war.
The horror of the war in Europe is hard to wrap one’s head around. Over four days nearly 16,000 Canadian were killed or gravely wounded fighting for a few yards of terrain at Passchendaele. During the battle for Hill 70 9,000 Canadian suffered casualties while militarists boast that Canadians “killed or wounded an estimated 25,000 Germans” fighting for the largely inconsequential hill.
Every year the Royal Canadian Legion sells about 20 million red poppies in the lead-up to Remembrance Day. To help the historically racist and homophobic organization fundraise, the federal government granted it a monopoly over poppy distribution in 1927.
While its core political mandate is improving veterans’ services, the Legion has long advocated militarism and a reactionary worldview. In the early 1930s it pushed for military build-up and its 1950 convention called for “total preparedness.” In 1983 its president, Dave Capperauld, supported US cruise missiles tests in Alberta and into the early 1990s the Legion took “an uncompromising stand on the importance of maintaining a strong Canadian military presence in Europe through NATO, and by supporting the United States build-up of advanced nuclear weapons.”
The Legion has also espoused a racist, paranoid and pro-Empire worldview. In the years after World War II it called for the expulsion of Canadians of Japanese origin and ideological screening for German immigrants. A decade before WWII, reports Branching Out: the story of the Royal Canadian Legion, “Manitoba Command unanimously endorsed a resolution to ban communist activities, and provincial president Ralph Webb…warned that children were being taught to spit on the Union Jack in Manitoba schools.”
Long after the end of the Cold War the organization remains concerned about “subversives.” Today, Legion members have to sign a statement that begins: “I hereby solemnly declare that I am not a member of, nor affiliated with, any group, party or sect whose interests conflict with the avowed purposes of the Legion, and I do not, and will not, support any organization advocating the overthrow of our government by force or which advocates, encourages or participates in subversive action or propaganda.”
The veterans group has sought to suppress critical understanding of military history. In the mid-2000s the Legion battled Canadian War Museum historians over an exhibition about the World War II allied bomber offensive. After shaping its development, the Legion objected to a small part of a multifaceted exhibit, which questioned “the efficacy and the morality of the…massive bombing of Germany’s industrial and civilian targets.” With the museum refusing to give the veterans an effective veto over its exhibit, Legion Magazine called for a boycott. The Legion’s campaign led to hearings by the Senate Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs and a new display that glossed over a bombing campaign explicitly designed to destroy German cities. It also led to the director of the museum, Joe Guerts, resigning.
A decade earlier the Legion participated in a campaign to block the three-part series The Valour and the Horror from being rebroadcast or distributed to schools. The 1992 CBC series claimed Canadian soldiers committed unprosecuted war crimes during World War II and that the British-led bomber command killed 600,000 German civilians. The veterans groups’ campaign led to a Senate inquiry, CRTC hearing and lawsuit, as well as a commitment from CBC to not rebroadcast The Valour and the Horror without amendments.
Canadians of conscience should not help fund the reactionary Royal Canadian Legion. Nor should they promote the martial patriotism red poppies/Remembrance Day represents. To remember all victims of war support peace organizations’ white poppy campaign.
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Yves will be launching his new book Stand on Guard for Whom?: A People’s History of the Canadian Military in Vancouver, Nanaimo, Duncan and Victoria between November 10–16.
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Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter suspended hundreds of influential pro-Sandinista journalists and activists days before Nicaragua’s November 7 elections, falsely claiming they were government trolls. The Grayzone interviewed them to reveal the truth.
Just days before Nicaragua’s November 7 elections, top social media platforms censored top Nicaraguan news outlets and hundreds of journalists and activists who support their country’s leftist Sandinista government.
The politically motivated campaign of Silicon Valley censorship amounted to a massive purge of Sandinista supporters one week before the vote. It followed US government attacks on the integrity of Nicaragua’s elections, and Washington’s insistence that it will refuse to recognize the results.
The United States sponsored a sadistically violent coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018, which resulted in hundreds of deaths in a desperate effort to overthrow the democratically elected government of President Daniel Ortega.
Silicon Valley’s crackdown on pro-Sandinista journalists and activists was part and parcel of the US government’s political assault on Nicaragua.
Facebook and Instagram – both of which are owned by the newly rebranded Big Tech giant Meta – suspended 1,300 Nicaragua-based accounts run by pro-Sandinista media outlets, journalists, and activists in a large-scale crackdown on October 31.
Days before, Twitter did the same, purging many prominent pro-Sandinista journalists and influencers.
On November 1, Sandinista activists whose accounts were suspended by Facebook and Instagram responded by posting videos on Twitter, showing the world that they are indeed real people. But Twitter suspended their accounts as well, seeking to erase all evidence demonstrating that these Nicaraguans are not government bots or part of a coordinated inauthentic operation.
Twitter’s follow-up censorship was effectively a double-tap strike on the freedom of speech of Nicaraguans, whose apparent misdeed is expressing political views that challenge Washington’s objectives.
Insane! Facebook/Instagram falsely claimed left-wing Nicaraguans are govt-run bots, censoring them. So they posted videos on Twitter showing they're real. But now Twitter is suspending them too!
The thousands of accounts censored by Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter collectively had hundreds of thousands of followers, and represented some of the biggest and most influential media outlets and organizations in Nicaragua, a relatively small country of 6.5 million people.
US Big Tech companies suspending all of these accounts mere days before elections could have a significant, tangible impact on Nicaragua’s electoral results.
The purges exclusively targeted supporters of the socialist, anti-imperialist Sandinista Front party. Zero right-wing opposition supporters in Nicaragua were impacted.
Facebook published a report on November 1 claiming the Sandinistas it censored were part of a “troll farm run by the government of Nicaragua and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party” that had engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”
This is demonstrably false. In reality, what Facebook/Instagram did is purge most high-profile Sandinista supporters on the platforms, then try to justify it by claiming that average Sandinista activists are actually government-run bots.
Facebook implicitly admitted this fact by conceding in the report that there were “authentic accounts” purged in the massive social media crackdown. But Facebook refused to differentiate between the authentic accounts and the alleged “inauthentic” accounts, naming none and instead lumping them all together in order to justify erasing their digital existence.
Unlike Facebook’s investigators, this reporter, Ben Norton, is based in Nicaragua and personally knows dozens of the Nicaraguans whose accounts were censored, and can confirm that they are indeed real people organically expressing their authentic opinions – not trolls, bots, or fake accounts.
I interviewed more than two dozen Sandinista activists whose personal accounts were suspended, and published videos of some of them below, to prove that Facebook’s claims are categorically false.
Facebook’s security team is run by former high-level US government officials
The Facebook report falsely depicting average Sandinista activists as government trolls was co-authored by Ben Nimmo, the leader of Meta’s “Threat Intelligence Team.”
The Grayzone has exposed Nimmo as a former press officer for the US-led NATO military alliance and paid consultant to an actual covert troll farm: the Integrity Initiative, which was established in secret by British military officers to run anti-Russian influence operations through Western media.
Nimmo has served as head of investigations at Graphika, another information warfare initiative that was set up with funding from the US Defense Department’s Minerva Institute, and operates with support from the Pentagon’s top-secret Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The latest Nimmo-engineered pseudo-scandal highlights Facebook’s role as an imperial information weapon whose security team has been essentially farmed out of the US government.
The head of security policy at Facebook, Nathaniel Gleicher, promoted Nimmo’s report, echoing his false claims.
Before moving to Facebook, Gleicher was director for cybersecurity policy at the White House National Security Council. He also worked at the US Department of Justice.
Gleicher clarified that when Facebook accused Nicaragua of running a supposed “troll farm,” it “means that the op is relying on fake accounts to manipulate & deceive their audience.”
According to this definition, Facebook’s report is completely wrong. Many of the accounts it suspended were run by everyday Nicaraguans, and The Grayzone has interviewed them and posted videos below.
1/ Today we shared the removal of a domestic CIB network in Nicaragua that was run by the government of Nicaragua and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party.https://t.co/505nHhgljV
Facebook’s “director of threat disruption,” David Agranovich, also shared Nimmo’s false report.
Like Gleicher, Agranovich worked at the US government before moving to Facebook, serving as director of intelligence for the White House National Security Council.
1/ Today we shared our latest monthly CIB report, which includes a deep-dive into a network in Nicaragua that was run by the government of Nicaragua and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party. https://t.co/2S36MInjeh
Both of these US National Security Council veterans actively promoted Facebook’s coordinated purge of pro-Sandinista Nicaraguans.
Facebook basically merged with the US government.
Head of security policy at FB, Nathaniel Gleicher @ngleicher, was director for cybersecurity policy at the White House National Security Council. Before that he worked at the DOJ.
The Grayzone contacted Facebook with a request for comment. The head of security communications, Margarita Z. Franklin, replied without any comment, simply linking to Nimmo’s report.
When The Grayzone followed up and asked Franklin about Facebook suspending many real-life Nicaraguans who support their government but are very much not bots, she did not respond.
Meet the Nicaraguans censored by Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
The Grayzone spoke with more than two dozen living, breathing Sandinista activists, whom this reporter knows and has met in person, and who were purged in the social media crackdown.
Multiple activists said they are afraid Washington will sponsor another coup attempt or destabilization operations following Nicaragua’s November 7 elections, and because they were banned on social media, the Sandinista supporters will be unable to inform the outside world about what is actually happening in their country.
Ligia Sevilla
Here is Nicaraguan Sandinista activist Ligia Sevilla @ligiasevilla_, who was censored by Facebook@Meta falsely claimed she's a "fake account," part of a government-run "troll farm"
Sandinista influencer Ligia Sevilla, who had more than 5,500 followers on her personal Instagram account, which was suspended along with her Facebook profile, proclaimed, “I’m not a bot; I’m not a troll. And my social media accounts were censored. Maybe Facebook doesn’t allow us to be Sandinistas?”
After Sevilla shared this video to verify her authenticity, Twitter suspended her account as well – a sign of a coordinated censorship campaign targeting Sandinistas on social media.
Franklin Ruiz
And here is Nicaraguan Sandinista activist Franklin Ruiz G. @ElChequelito, whose personal account was censored by Facebook, which falsely claimed he is a government-run bot/troll.
Sandinista activist Franklin Ruiz, whose personal Facebook page was suspended, published a video message as well: “I want to tell you that we are human beings; we are people who, on Facebook, are defending our revolution, defending our country. We are not bots, as Facebook says, or programmed trolls.”
After Ruiz shared this video on Twitter, the platform purged him too.
Hayler Gaitán, another Sandinista activist censored by Facebook, published a video explaining, “”I am a young communicator. I am not a troll, as Facebook says, or a bot.”
“I am a young communicator who shares information about the good progress in Nicaragua,” he continued. “We enjoy free healthcare, free education, and other programs that benefit the Nicaraguan people, and that we have been building throughout our history. And they have wanted to take that from us, but they will never be able to.”
Darling Huete is a Nicaraguan journalist whose personal Facebook account was also censored.
“I’m here to tell you that Facebook censored my account, according to it because my account is a troll account or fake account, something that is not true. My account has been active for more than seven years,” she said in a video she posted on Twitter.
“This is clearly political censorship,because I support the government of Nicaragua, so they have decided that my opinion, or my way of thinking, is not appropriate according to the absurd policies of Facebook,” Huete lamented.
Huete told The Grayzone this is the second time her Facebook and Twitter accounts were suspended. The first time was during the violent US-backed right-wing coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018.
Daniela Cienfuegos
This is another Nicaraguan Sandinista supporter, Daniela Cienfuegos @dani100sweet, an activist in the Red de Jóvenes Comunicadores, which Facebook/Instagram suspended and falsely claimed is a gov't bot farm.
Daniela Cienfuegos, an activist with the pro-Sandinista Red de Jóvenes Comunicadores (Network of Youth Communicators), posted a video on Twitter saying, “I wanted to tell you that, no, we are not trolls. We are people who dedicate ourselves to communicate from the trenches, to inform the Nicaraguan people, and on the international stage.”
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter censor top pro-Sandinista Nicaraguan journalists and media outlets
The above are just a small sample of Nicaraguans who were falsely smeared as “government-run trolls” by Facebook and erased from social media.
But it wasn’t just individual Nicaraguans who were censored. Major Nicaraguan media outlets that provide a pro-Sandinista perspective were also removed.
On the night of October 31, Facebook removed 140 pages and 24 groups, 100% of which were pro-Sandinista. Among those deleted were:
the Red de Jóvenes Comunicadores, or Young Communicators Network, which brings together journalists and media activists from the Sandinista Youth social movement, and which had more than 71,000 followers
and the individual profiles of dozens of Nicaraguan journalists, activists, and influencers.
At the exact same time as the Facebook purge, its sister platform Instagram took down many of the same pages:
and, once again, the personal pages of dozens of Nicaraguan journalists, activists, and influencers.
Instagram also suspended the account of the fashion organization Nicaragua Diseña, which is very popular in Nicaragua, and had more than 42,700 followers.
Unlike the other purged accounts, Nicaragua Diseña is decidedly not a political organization. It is run by Camila Ortega, a daughter of the president, but Nicaragua Diseña intentionally goes out of its way to avoid politics, trying to bring together opposition supporters and Sandinistas in apolitical cultural events.
Just a few days before the coordinated Facebook-Instagram purge, Twitter also removed the accounts of the most prominent pro-Sandinista journalists and influencers on the platform.
On October 28, Twitter suspended the accounts of media activists @ElCuervoNica, @FloryCantoX, @TPU19J, @Jay_Clandestino, and numerous others. Together, these pro-Sandinista communicators had tens of thousands of followers.
Many of them, such as @CuervoNica and @FloryCantoR, had been censored before. This was the second or third account they had created, only to be censored for their political views.
Twitter's politically motivated censorship is again targeting Latin American leftists:
Silicon Valley’s censorship of Nicaragua always goes in one direction: It is leftist, anti-imperialist supporters of the Sandinista government who are censored, while right-wing opposition activists, many of whom are funded by the US government, are verified and promoted by the social media monopolies.
Numerous Nicaraguan journalists whose individual social media accounts were suspended told The Grayzone they were upset and angry, as they had spent countless hours of work over years building their pages, doing journalism, and sharing information. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter deleted all of that labor in mere seconds.
Some said they fear this censorship will also harm them financially, as they had relied on their social media accounts as a source of income.
In addition to clearly infringing on their rights to freedom of the press and freedom of expression, the latest wave of Silicon Valley censorship has done concrete economic damage to working-class Nicaraguans who had relied on Facebook and Instagram to run small businesses. Several of those affected told The Grayzone they are now locked out of the Facebook and Instagram pages they had used to sell products like food, clothing, or homemade jewelry.
This Silicon Valley censorship thus not only greatly hinders these working-class Nicaraguans’ ability to do their work as journalists, given social media is an integral part of contemporary journalism, but also deprived them of extra sources of income they had relied on to support their families.
Given the US government’s hyperbolic claims of Russian meddling in its 2016 presidential election, the social media purge it has inspired in Nicaragua is stained with irony. After years of investigations, and billions of dollars spent, the only ostensible evidence Washington found of Russian interference was some Facebook posts, including absurd humorous memes.
If these alleged Russian Facebook memes constitute a Pearl Harbor-style attack on North American democracy, as top US government officials have claimed, then what does it mean for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to censor highly influential pro-Sandinista media outlets, journalists, and activists mere days before Nicaragua’s elections?
For their part, the Nicaraguans censored by Facebook and Twitter have vowed to continue their work.
Redvolución wrote that it will keep struggling in the “digital trenches” to “defend the revolution.”
Quenri Madrigal, a prominent Sandinista activist and social media influencer, commented, “We have already witnessed the forms of online censorship targeting other countries, like Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, and Iran. There is a tyranny of transnational technology and social media corporations. They are instruments that don’t belong to the peoples.”
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Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @crg_globalresearch. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the assistant editor of The Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with editor Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.
Na continuação desta análise** sobre as reflexões de Caio Prado Júnior acerca do fascismo, vejamos como o marxista brasileiro entende o golpe de Getúlio Vargas (de fins de 1937), que instaura o Estado Novo, pouco antes do início da Segunda Guerra: período em que considera que o Brasil vai se “fascistizando”.
Em 18/07/1937, Caio Prado – em alusão à manobra que Vargas iniciava pelo monopólio do poder – anota em caderno manuscrito (parte de seus “Diários Políticos”) que Plínio Salgado, o chefe integralista, após passeata em que houve confusão e morte, tinha sido proibido de falar, pelo governo.
Um mês depois (18/08/1937), profetizando a farsa, ainda hoje obscura, dita Plano Cohen, Caio comenta que circulam boatos sobre um “golpe comunista”. Mas pondera que o que “há na realidade é a ameaça de um golpe integralista”: um golpe “tolerado pela polícia” e “bafejado pelo governo”. E acrescenta: há um “nervosismo geral” no país.
Na data do golpe de Estado (10/11/1937), o marxista, recentemente libertado da prisão em que permanecera dois anos, estava em Paris, onde tinha se exilado há poucas semanas. Em seu caderno (10/11/1937), faz a seguinte anotação: “Getúlio desencadeia um golpe. A nova constituição de caráter nitidamente ditatorial, inaugura no Brasil um regime de tendência fascista”.
“1937”: um ensaio inédito e ainda atual
No mês seguinte, havendo maturado a ideia do golpe, Caio teceuma longa consideração acerca dos aspectos sócio-históricos internos e externos que concorreram para o acontecimento. Trata-se do inédito ensaio “1937” (Paris, dezembro de 1937), parte de seus “Diários Políticos” (todas as citações adiante, salvo menção em contrário, referem-se a este texto).
Logo na abertura, ele expõe o caráter paradoxal do ocorrido – um Getúlio que, de progressista em 1930, se voltaria, alguns anos depois, a um autoritarismo de nuance fascista. Vale aqui notar que – como em Evolução política do Brasil – neste artigo ele já delineia sua clássica concepção de “sentido” evolutivo histórico, pouco mais tarde sistematizada em Formação do Brasil contemporâneo:
Com o ano de 1937 encerra-se uma das mais importantes e movimentadas fases da história política do Brasil, e inicia-se outra, cheia ainda de incertezas e perspectivas obscuras. Politicamente o golpe de Novembro é o epílogo de uma evolução no sentido de fortalecimento crescente do poder executivo com o paralelo enfraquecimento e desmoralização dos demais poderes. Paradoxo histórico: a fase que se segue à Revolução de 1930, desencadeada sob uma bandeira liberal, antiautoritária(…), essa fase se encerra justamente com o advento de regime em que o autoritarismo presidencial resulta não apenas duma situação de fato, contrária à constituição vigente (como foi o caso até hoje), mas está inscrito expressamente no texto da lei orgânica do país. [obs.: a grafia original foi atualizada]
Na sequência do ensaio, Caio passa a sumarizar os elementos que levaram ao que ele chama de “medidas fascistizantes” de Vargas, as quais conduziriam a “evolução política do país no sentido da ditadura” – culminando com o golpe que se delineava como soluçãotransitória e cuja função era tão somente disfarçar as contradições socioeconômicas do país.
Fatores sumamente complexos concorreram para um tal desenlace. Fatores de ordem interna combinam-se com outros de natureza externa e é muito difícil destacar fatos e analisá-los isoladamente. Eles se ligam e interdeterminam de tal forma que não é possível chegar a conclusões dentro de pontos de vista particulares ou parciais. Talvez o historiador do futuro, tendo diante de si o quadro completo dos acontecimentos – por enquanto ainda estamos acantonados num pequeno setor e a maior parte do drama político representado ainda está por passar – talvez o historiador do futuro possa destrinçar a meada que são os fatos que presenciamos. Hoje isso é impossível, e temos de nos contentar com alguns traços gerais.
Conforme explica o autor, a “Revolução de 1930” – com a queda da República Velha – marcou “incontestavelmente o fim de um regime, de um sistema político caduco”. No evento de 1930, diz ele, está o marco de superação do velho regime, caracterizado pelo predomínio da “autonomia estadual imposta sobretudo por S. Paulo”; um “mecanismo político” que estava “fundado em pequenas oligarquias locais, com eleições de fachada”; um “Estado [nacional] sem iniciativa no plano econômico e social” – cuja inação fora chacoalhada pela crise capitalista de 1929. “A impopularidade de todos os governos, do federal aos municipais – completa –, chegara então ao seu auge”.
Com a Revolução de 1930, contudo, modificaram-se apenas as “condições objetivas”, mas não a “tradição antiga”; este foi o motivo nuclear que levou o Brasil a vivenciar o “renascimento de um sistema que parecia abolido”: “não se extirparam os velhos costumes”; não ocorreu no país uma “maturação política”, e os quatro anos que se seguiram a ela foram de “agitação e desorganização”.
O que parece mais grave no caráter do parlamento da República Nova – que aliás reflete um vício de toda a reorganização política do país – é o traço regionalista, herança do passado, que nele se manifesta. Numa palavra, a nova ordem política reproduzia, embora já muito atenuada e apenas como um resíduo do passado, uma boa parte dos defeitos da política anterior a 1930. O sistema político antigo(…) tornara-se de todo incompatível com as novas condições do país(…).
Este quadro, todavia, começaria a se modificar a partir do delineamento de duas organizações: o “integralismo” e a “Aliança Nacional Libertadora”. Apesar disto, reflete Caio, a “opinião geral” do país não se mostrou aberta a nenhum destes dois grupos. O extremismo integralista, assim como o radicalismo da ANL – e destaco aqui a diferença, sempre omitida pela imprensa corporativa, entre a posição “extremista” (desmedida, sectária), e a “radical” (oriunda na análise precisa da raiz do problema) – deve-se a fatores internos, mas “sobretudo a circunstâncias de ordem internacional”.
O integralismo, movimento de inspiração eurofascista, tinha seu extremismo curiosamente evidenciado não em seus líderes, mas no “espírito de seu movimento e nas massas que o acompanhavam”; aliás, esta foi justamente sua debilidade: a “insuficiência” de seus chefes – cujo perfil era por demais “conservador”.
Já quanto ao movimento de esquerda, ele afirma que“faltava aos grupos e classes sociais capazes de lavá-lo adiante maturidade e eficiência”: o “pavor comunista” mobilizou contra a Aliança “todas as forças conservadoras” do país. “O levante de novembro de 1935, simples conspirata de quartel”, foi o “último espasmo” da ALN antes de desaparecer – gesto este, por sinal, fruto mais do “heroísmo” de um punhado de oficiais, que de um “largo movimento coletivo”.
O integralismo, de sua parte, foi menos incisivo em sua ação. Freado pelos chefes, mostrou-se bastante moderado: “apesar dos modelos que o inspiraram – o fascismo italiano e alemão”. Isto se deve também a que o integralismo “nunca teve larga popularidade” – pelo contrário, sofreu “forte repulsa” por parte “sobretudo do proletariado”. “Quanto às classes conservadoras – observa Caio Prado, bom conhecedor da elite xucra nacional – elas olhavam com certa simpatia um movimento que se apresentava como vanguarda da luta anticomunista”: “deram-lhe mesmo apoio financeiro”, apesar de esse movimento lhes causar “certo temor”.
***
Neste momento, Caio faz um aparte, em seu texto, para analisar o fascismo de um modo geral: um regime que “em toda parte onde se implantou, foi sempre recebido como um último recurso” – como uma ação extrema para amainar a “convulsão social”.
A implantação do fascismo, se de um lado representa a garantia da estabilidade social, pelo menos para um futuro imediato, traz doutro inconvenientes consideráveis para as próprias classes interessadas na conservação social. Aceitando a ditadura fascista, elas abdicam de boa parte de seus direitos e sua liberdade de ação. Aceitam um controle rigoroso, econômico, político e social que não deixa de ser pelo menos incômodo. O preço que as classes conservadoras, aceitando o fascismo, pagam para garantir o essencial, que é a sua existência, é assim muito elevado; e só se dispõem a pagá-lo quando não existe ou julgam não existir outro remédio. [obs.: grifo meu]
Entretanto, este não foi o caso brasileiro: na interpretação de Caio, a “debilidade” de “todo o movimento de esquerda no Brasil” não chegou a inspirar um “temor tão grande” a ponto de se optar por “medidas extremas como o fascismo”. Mesmo o “levante de 1935” acabou sendo “tão facilmente abafado, que não chegou a provocar gestos desesperados”.
Se não vieram, contudo, “medidas extremas”, como na Itália e Alemanha, o levante comunista seria o pequeno pretexto que Vargas esperava para implantar “medidas fascistizantes” – as quais desembocariam afinal na ditadura.
Já do lado reacionário, tampouco o integralismo “encontrou ambiente” no Brasil, mas apenas “vegetou até 1935”, e foi incapaz de reagir à ofensiva de Vargas contra sua organização.
Assim, embora o país – seus “problemas” e “equilíbrio político” – exigisse uma renovada “política nacional”, contraditoriamente, o dilema que acabaria por se colocar foi:
ou voltar para trás, isto é, reconstituir a antiga situação política, de base essencialmente regional(…), ou suprimir toda e qualquer política, impondo em substituição a ela uma estrutura de certa forma artificial, fundada exclusivamente numa situação de fato amparada na força.
Caio Prado conclui o ensaio “1937” afirmando que, diante da “iminência de um retorno ao passado”, e como forma de esmagar um (improvável) desenlace mais radical, as elites brasileiras escolheram a segunda opção: uma estrutura de Estado fascistizada e artificial que viria a “suprimir” a política nacional por meio de uma ditadura “instável” que não passa de uma “solução provisória”, e que pode levar o país a uma “guerra civil, uma luta sem tréguas que se prolongará por muito tempo”.
Yuri Martins-Fontes : Filósofo e escritor, com doutorado em história; pesquisa o socialismo, os saberes originários e a literatura contemporânea. Coordena projetos de educação popular do Núcleo Práxis-USP e colabora com a imprensa independente. Autor dos livros “Marx na América” e “Cantos dos Infernos”, entre outras obras.
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There’s the chance that the US’ Hybrid War on Nicaragua could become a proxy struggle for influence with Russia, which has more strategically substantive relations with that country than China does.
Nicaragua’s presidential elections on Sunday were slammed by US President Joe Biden as a so-called “pantomime” in a statement that he released later that same day. He described incumbent President Daniel Ortega as “no different from the Somoza family that Ortega and the Sandinistas fought four decades ago.” Biden also promised that “the United States, in close coordination with other members of the international community, will use all diplomatic and economic tools at our disposal to support the people of Nicaragua and hold accountable the Ortega-Murillo government and those that facilitate its abuses.” This can be interpreted as a threat to intensify his country’s HybridWar on Nicaragua.
Objectively speaking, the US is manufacturing another crisis in Nicaragua. The first major one in recent memory was when former President Reagan supported the anti-Sandinista “Contras” during a decade-long proxy war. That conflict was fought on the pretext that Nicaragua might represent another “domino” whose “fall” to socialist rebels risked triggering a chain reaction throughout the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. In the contemporary context, no such fears are credible, yet that didn’t stop former US President Trump from setting the gears into motion for the impending crisis that his successor seems slated to worsen.
I covered Trump’s initial aggressions over the years in the following analyses:
The strategic context has evolved since then, which necessitates some analytical clarifications.
First, the originally suspected reason for this Hybrid War – to stop China’s reported plans to build a Transoceanic Canal – aren’t relevant any longer since no tangible progress was ever made in this respect. Second, the primary motivation in the present day is to destroy all regional countries in the US’ self-proclaimed “sphereofinfluence” that don’t bend to its hegemonic will. Third, this is the latest in a series of hemispheric regime change campaigns that can be described as “Operation Condor 2.0”. Fourth, Nicaragua has thus far withstood the US’ prior pressure campaign, which is why it’s poised to be intensified in the coming future. And fifth, this intensification might pose serious threats to its stability.
If the US’ pressure campaign that it plans to advance in coordination with its regional vassals doesn’t succeed in weakening Nicaragua’s “Democratic Security” (counter-Hybrid Warfare tactics and strategies such as those against Color Revolution threats that were implemented ahead of the election in order to avert that regime change scenario), then it can’t be ruled out that it might once again resort to kinetic proxy warfare. Neighboring Honduras, which is under the control of a US-installed leader, could easily reprise its historical role in supporting such forces. Any significant destabilization of Nicaragua could trigger a refugee crisis that could quickly spread throughout the region and worsen the existing one.
There’s also the chance that the US’ Hybrid War on Nicaragua could become a proxy struggle for influence with Russia, which has more strategically substantive relations with that country than China does. A 2019 article titled “Russia And Nicaragua: Progress In Bilateral Cooperation” provides a detailed summary of the most important developments in their ties over the past few decades. It reveals that relations, especially in the military dimension, were comprehensively strengthened over the last 10 years. With this in mind, Moscow might decide to support Managua during any forthcoming crisis through the emergency provisioning of more arms and perhaps other forms of support like advisors.
The US might cynically benefit from that scenario, at least in terms of the optics that it intends to project to the domestic and foreign audiences. Its perception managers could expand their fearmongering narratives about Russia by misportraying it as “supporting a rogue dictator against the democratic will of his people”. This could also be exploited as the pretext for expanding the US’ regional military presence, which would serve the ulterior purpose of distracting from its recent humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan. Further pressure could also be applied against Nicaragua’s Cuban and Venezuelan allies too on the pretext of responding to their potentially similar Russian-like assistance to that country.
Should this be part of the motivation behind intensifying the US’ Hybrid War on Nicaragua after that country’s latest elections, then observers can conclude that it’s most likely being led by the neoconservative faction of its permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”). They’re obsessed with “containing” Russia and are opposed in principle to some of their more pragmatic peers’ efforts to broker a so-called “non-aggression pact” with it for responsibly regulating their rivalry. If they can succeed in worsening this Hybrid War and prompting some form of Russian military support to Nicaragua in response, then they might sabotage incipient progress on that front.
It’ll of course remain to be seen what form this intensified pressure campaign will take and whether Russia will respond to it through any meaningful military support for Nicaragua, but everything appears to be moving in that general direction considering Biden’s latest hostile statement of intent. What this goes to show is that he’s continuing his predecessor’s policy of overthrowing independent regional governments, which was itself built upon the progress that Obama made in this respect. The US will never allow independent governments to peacefully develop within its so-called “sphere of influence”. It demands full compliance with its hegemonic demands under the threat of Hybrid War if they refuse.
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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.
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Tunisia has issued an international arrest warrant against former president Moncef Marzouki, it was reported on November 4. The charges may be connected to allegations Marzouki had conspired against state security after he had asked France to end support of the current administration last month.
President Kais Saied accused “traitors that seek refuge overseas” of threatening Tunisia’s sovereignty and urged the new Justice Minister Leila Jaffel to open an inquiry.
Marzouki fled Tunisia for France, the former colonial power in Tunisia, and he told Al Jazeera TV he was not surprised by the arrest warrant. He had been President from 2011 to 2014. Al Jazeera TV is the state media of Qatar, which supports the Muslim Brotherhood globally.
“Tunisia is a free and independent state and there can be no interference in its affairs,” Saied said at the first meeting of a new cabinet.
Marzouki has called Saied’s moves a “coup d’etat”, and urged French President Macron to “reject any support for this regime and this man who has plotted against the revolution and abolished the constitution”, while addressing anti-Saied demonstrators in Paris on October 30.
“Democratic France should not be on the side of the dictatorial regime,” Marzouki said, in a speech that was widely shared online.
Analysts have said Tunisia is in a revolt against the Muslim Brotherhood, and also in a struggle for accountable government.
Supporters on the main street in central Tunis shouted, “The people want the dissolution of parliament,” and “We are all Kais Saied, we are all Tunisia.”
Saied introduced a new government in October and has promised a national “dialogue”, after first naming geologist Najla Bouden as prime minister on September 29, as Tunisia’s first woman prime minister.
Saied said on Thursday that he intended to speed up the end of the exceptional measures announced on July 25.
“These exceptional measures were decided in an attempt to rescue the country and our people,” Saied saidin a video.
In his speech to the ministerial council, Saied said he was determined to “guarantee the rights and freedom of all citizens, in accordance with the constitution.”
“Tunisia has entered a new phase that requires new approaches and visions to manage public affairs,” he added.
Many in Tunisia wondered whether a single ruler, who had the power to get things done, might be better than political chaos and economic failure.
Corrupt members of Parliament combined with increasing inflation and poverty among the people were at the root of the street protests and general dissatisfaction.
Despite Saied’s increasingly authoritarian actions, he told Tunisian rights groups Monday that he remains committed to civil liberties and the democratic process, and he has said the freeze of parliament will be temporary.
Saied’s move to freeze the legislature and fire the prime minister on July 25 followed protests that appeared largely aimed at the Ennahda party, with videos on social media showing demonstrators vandalizing local party offices.
Supporters of Saied poured into the streets of the capital and other cities to celebrate after his announcement. Ennahda called Saied’s moves a coup d’état.
Tunisians have been portrayed as people who have liberated themselves from an oppressive Islamist government, and many have lamented they got nothing out of the 2011 revolution which brought the Muslim Brotherhood party Ennahda to power.
While many demonstrators demanded democracy, others chanted for more tangible outcomes, such as an end to corruption, lower food prices, and jobs.
A Constitution, the ballot box and a Parliament did not automatically give prosperity or accountability. Parliament descended into divisions with political parties forming without offering better ideas, amid the spread of corruption.
Some western leaders had thought a liberal democracy could be parachuted in after the Arab Spring in 2011.
Saied was elected on an anti-system ticket in late 2019 and has said his action seeks to “save” Tunisia from “imminent peril” and a socio-economic crisis aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tunisia faces a looming fiscal crisis, with billions in debt coming due this fall. An economic collapse would pose problems not only for Tunisia but also for Europe, whose shores draw desperate Tunisian migrants in boats by the thousands each year. The International Monetary Fund officials are wanting to negotiate a bailout.
“In just 48 hours, our crew has rescued over 800 people,” the German nongovernmental organization (NGO) Sea-Eye tweeted.
Italy is one of the main points of entry into Europe for migrants from North Africa, and according to figures from the interior ministry, nearly 55,000 migrants have disembarked in Italy this year, with arrivals “well distributed” between Libya and Tunisia.
Tunisia was the birthplace of the so-called “Arab Spring” which toppled Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. “Get out, get out” was the slogan that started in December 2010 and triggered protests in several countries.
The decade that followed saw Tunisians adopt a new Constitution, gain freedom of speech, and vote in free and fair elections.
In Syria and Libya, the wars which were started by the US, UK, NATO war machine have devastated the countries, killed thousands, but have not brought any peace.
Egyptians elected a Muslim Brotherhood president, Morsi, after an American NGO was successful in rigging the election, but had a second revolution to throw off the Islamist dictator, and have transitioned to President Sisi in 2013.
Saied’s popularity stems from the same grievances that propelled Arabs to protest a decade ago: corruption, unemployment, repression, and an inability to make ends meet.
Calls grew for the dissolution of parliament, which was helmed by Ennahda’s highly unpopular leader Rachid Ghannouchi.
Demonstrators gathered in front of the parliament headquarters in Tunis, raising slogans denouncing Ghannouchi’s control. “Oh Ghannouchi, you thug, you fight souls,” “Down with the rule of the Leader,” were some of the slogans raised in videos and photos posted online.
Tunisian party leader Abir Moussi accused Muslim Brotherhood members of receiving foreign funding, having links with terrorism, and she has also called for the Muslim Brotherhood to be designated as a terrorist organization in Tunisia, as has been done in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and UAE.
The Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia was founded in 1981 by Ghannouchi, and in the 2011 parliamentary elections, it won a plurality of 37% of the popular vote and formed a government.
In 2018, lawyers and politicians accused Ennahda of forming a secret organization that has infiltrated security forces and the judiciary and also claimed the party was behind the 2013 assassinations of Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, two progressive political leaders.
Media coverage in Turkey, which is ruled by President Erdogan of the AKP party, which is a Muslim Brotherhood party, reflects support for Ghannouchi.
Saied met US Ambassador Donald Blome on October 14, coinciding with a US congressional meeting entitled “Tunisia: Examining the State of Democracy and Next Steps for US Policy”. Saied “informed (Blome) of the State of Tunisia’s annoyance at the situation in Tunisia being included in the proceedings of the American Congress”, according to the presidency’s Facebook page.
The US-NATO ‘regime change’ projects in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria have failed and created horrific suffering. The west tried to use the Muslim Brotherhood to topple governments, but in Tunis, Egypt, Libya, and Syria the people have resisted the Radical Islamic political ideology.
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U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) Tuesday held a roundtable discussion on federal COVID vaccine mandates with a panel of people injured by COVID vaccines and scientists from some of the most prestigious research organizations in the world, including The BMJ and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Peter Doshi, a senior editor at The BMJ and associate professor of pharmaceutical health services research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, and Retsef Levi, a health system and analytics professor at MIT, expressed doubts about COVID vaccine efficacy and the failures of the scientific community.
“I’m saddened we’re super-saturated as a society right now in the attitude of ‘everybody knows,’ which has shut down intellectual curiosity and led to self-censorship,” said Doshi.
Doshi said we’re not in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” If hospitalizations and deaths are almost exclusively occuring in the unvaccinated “why would booster shots be necessary?” Doshi asked. “And why would the statistics be so different in the UK, where most COVID hospitalizations and deaths are among the fully vaccinated?”
“There’s a disconnect there, and something to be curious about,” Doshi said. “There’s something not adding up.”
Doshi argued the public was lied to in early 2021, when health officials including Dr. Anthony Fauci, claimed COVID vaccine trial data proved the vaccine saved lives.
After presenting the trial data for the vaccines authorized for use in the U.S., Doshi pointed out “there were similar numbers in the vaccine and placebo groups.” He argued those “who claimed the trial showed the vaccine was highly effective in saving lives were wrong” and that “the trials did not demonstrate this.”
Doshi talked about anti-vaxxers and criticized the official definition of the term. He presented the panel the official Merriam-Webster definition of anti-vaxxer: “A person who opposes the use of vaccines or regulations mandating vaccination.”
“The second part [of the definition] stunned me,” said Doshi.
“There are entire countries from the United Kingdom to Japan which do not mandate childhood vaccines,” he said. “There are no mandates, and I would wager that perhaps a majority of the world’s population meet this definition of an anti-vaxxer.”
Doshi told the panel that “vaccine” is another definition “worth checking on.”
“I argue these products which everyone calls MRNA vaccines are qualitatively different from standard vaccines,” Doshi said. “So I found it fascinating to learn that Merriam Webster changed the definition of vaccine early this year.”
“mRNA products did not meet the definition of vaccine that has been in place for over 15 years, but the definition was expanded such that mRNA products are now vaccines,” Doshi said.
He then argued that just because we’re calling the COVID shot a “vaccine” doesn’t mean “these new products are just like all other childhood vaccines which get mandated.”
“Each product is a different product, and if people are OK with mandating something simply because it’s a vaccine, I believe it’s time to inject some critical thinking into the conversation,” Doshi said.
He also criticized the fact that society is vaccinating and mandating the vaccine for large portions of the public despite the raw data on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines not being available yet.
“So while we are told to keep following the science, what we are following is not a scientific process based on open data, we are following a process where the data are secret, and in my view there is something very unscientific about that,” Doshi said.
Levi told the panel “scientists in the most prestigious journals assert that the vaccine is safe, failing to report on serious side effects such as deaths.”
He explained that national emergency services calls in Israel for cardiac arrest among young individuals under 40 years old saw a dramatic increase — more than 25% — in parallel to the COVD vaccination campaign.
“We wrote an academic paper raising concerns regarding these statistics and called on the authorities to check on this … needless to say they never got back to us.”
Levi claimed the government attempted to censor the research by calling its credibility into question. “They called the research fake,” Levi said.
Levi warned the panel:
“These vaccines have serious and unknown side effects, and we need to use them with caution.”
Watch here (Doshi starts at 1:18:40 and Levi starts at 1:49:07):
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Jeremy Loffredo is a freelance reporter for The Defender. His investigative reporting has been featured in The Grayzone and Unlimited Hangout. Jeremy formerly produced news programs at RT America.
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Hegemony requires a coordinated mechanism to be in place for a belligerent entity to designate enemies, attack the leader(s) of the designated enemy, control the narrative (i.e., lie), launch unprovoked attacks that murder a citizenry, destroy the economic basis of the named enemy, loot its resources, topple the enemy’s leadership, and replace the leadership with one deemed acceptable to the attacking entity. Such a mechanism is multifaceted, and it requires a government, industry, military, and media that operate as a unit, along with other supporting facets. The United States is an entity that functions to support capitalism, imperialism, militarism, and situate itself as the global hegemon. The profit from the violence is funneled to the American plutocratic class.
One supporting facet of empire is the think tanks that are called upon to produce propaganda and disseminate disinformation through its mass media. In the US, one highly influential think tank is the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
In the book Wall Street’s Think Tank, author Laurence Shoup examines the CFR think tank. In its review of Shoup’s book, the socialist magazine Monthly Reviewwrote:
The Council on Foreign Relations is the world’s most powerful private foreign-policy think tank and membership organization. Dominated by Wall Street, it claims among its members a high percentage of past and present top U.S. government officials as well as corporate leaders and influential figures in the fields of education, media, law, and nonprofit work… Shoup argues that the CFR now operates in an era of “Neoliberal Geopolitics,” a worldwide paradigm that its members helped to establish and that reflects the interests of the U.S. ruling capitalist class.
If the US is going to wage serial wars, then it knows that it needs to stir up patriotic fervor to rally public support for the fighting forces. Therefore, it is critically important to control the narrative. In the case of the CFR, it has its own in-house media to assuage the message — the journal Foreign Affairs.
In an article on 2 November, Foreign Affairs (FA) continues to demonize China, but it also cautions against the US putting all its militaristic eggs in the China basket. It calls for a balancing of US foreign policy. After all, there are plenty of other designated enemies out there.
FA: “In view of its global economic weight, rapidly expanding military capabilities, illiberal values, and growing assertiveness, Beijing poses a formidable long-term threat to American security and freedom.”
Analysis: From the Chinese perspective, the same could be said of the US — but magnified. The US is still the largest economy by the GNP metric. It has by far the largest military budget in the world, one that exceeds the spending of the next 11 countries. Moreover, the US has been deeply immersed in warring ever since its founding in 1776 — a founding based in the genocide of the Original Peoples. How is that for assertiveness? In contrast, China has not been at war for over 40 years, and this war lasted less than four weeks. So who poses “a formidable long-term threat” to who? Is the Chinese navy conducting so-called freedom-of-navigation exercises through waters off the coast of the US?
Why this tendentious freedom-of-navigation descriptor? When has China ever stated that marine traffic was not permitted through the South China Sea? Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, “With the joint efforts of countries in the region including China, passage through the South China sea has been smooth and safe for a period of time, and not a single vessel has ever reported that its navigation is hindered or safety threatened in the South China Sea. The US allegation of ‘freedom of navigation’ in the South China Sea threatened is simply untenable.”
Yet, FA says that Biden must keep challenging China on passage through the South China Sea. Obviously, there is nothing peaceful about US maneuvers in the South China Sea as Zhao noted, “[T]he US willfully sends large-scale advanced vessels and aircraft to the South China Sea for military reconnaissance and drills and illegally intruded into China’s territorial waters and space and water and air space adjacent to islands and reefs. Since the beginning of this year, the US side has conducted close-in reconnaissance for nearly 2,000 times and over 20 large-scale military drills on the sea targeting China.”
Moreover, is China encircling the US with military bases, as the US has encircled China?
Lastly, what is launching wars if not a decidedly illiberal value. It seems that right off the bat that FA has been hoisted on its own petard.
FA: “Biden has said that Chinese President Xi Jinping is ‘deadly earnest on becoming the most significant, consequential nation in the world.’”
Analysis: What level of readership intelligence is FA targeting? Isn’t the proper response: so what? After all, which country strives to be insignificant or inconsequential? Isn’t striving for esteem bound with the essence of patriotism, love of country? Cheer for your team?
FA: “At the Pentagon, China is said to be the ‘pacing threat,’ while Secretary of State Antony Blinken describes U.S. relations with it as ‘the biggest geopolitical test’ of the twenty-first century. Going further, the undersecretary for policy at the U.S. Defense Department has described China strategy as involving not one element of national power, or even the entirety of the U.S. government, but rather a ‘whole-of-societyapproach.’”
Analysis: As for pacing threat, US Department of Defense chief Lloyd Austin defined it thus: “It means that China is the only country that can pose a systemic challenge to the United States in the sense of challenging us, economically, technologically, politically and militarily.” Do Austin and his colleagues mean that everything is hunky dory so long as China doesn’t develop too much to upset the US top dog?
FA: “And among the primary rationales for Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan has been to free up resources for China instead.”
Analysis: Should the US have continued to sacrifice the lives and well-being of its soldiers in Afghanistan? And it should be mentioned to continue threatening the lives and livelihoods of Afghanis? Wasting trillions of dollars to subdue goat herders with AK-47s is usually not a great strategy (with all due respect to goat herders bravely resisting foreign invaders).
In the aftermath of the US pullout, China sits well positioned to engage in win-win trade with Afghanistan and expand the Belt and Road Initiative.
FA: “In view of Beijing’s ascendance, it is entirely reasonable for American policymakers to seek to devote new diplomatic, economic, and military resources to the challenge.”
Analysis: How long do the American politicians figure they can keep a nation of 1.4 billion people down? And they can’t do this because China is rising. It has eliminated poverty. It leads in supercomputer technology. China has built the world’s fastest programmable quantum computers, said to be 10 million times faster than the world’s current fastest supercomputer. China has built the world’s first integrated quantum communication network, “combining over 700 optical fibers on the ground with two ground-to-satellite links to achieve quantum key distribution over a total distance of 4,600 kilometers for users across the country.” In AI, China claimed 35% of the global robotics patents between 2005 and 2019 (25,000), almost three times more than the 9,500 robotics patents received by the US during the same time. China has also made massive strides in space exploration. And this is just a snippet of China’s growing technological and scientific prominence. (For more see Godfree Roberts’s extremely informative China resource).
FA: “Defending Asia against Chinese hegemony is important…”
Analysis: In The Governance of China (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2014, location 3918) chairman Xi Jinping said with crystal clarity,
As China continues to grow, some people start to worry. Some take a dark view of China and assume that it will inevitably become a threat as it develops further. They even portray China as a terrifying Mephisto who will someday suck the soul of the world. Such absurdity couldn’t be more ridiculous, yet some people, regrettably, never tire of preaching it. This shows that prejudice is indeed hard to overcome.
The American side, however, likes to think that if it parrots the China-hegemon mantra often enough that it must be so in the minds of others; this is despite Chinese officials on several occasions stating otherwise. Do not actions speak louder than words?
I mean, everyone talks about the threat. When everyone says the same thing about some complex topic, what should come to your mind is, wait a minute, nothing can be that simple. Something’s wrong. That’s the immediate light that should go off in your brain when you ever hear unanimity on some complex topic. So let’s ask, what’s the Chinese threat?
FA: “Beijing sees the United States and Europe as two power centers rather than one allied bloc and has long sought to drive wedges into the transatlantic relationship… China needs to understand that the United States and its allies are united in countering its economic and military pressure…”
Analysis: The fact that FA merely opines that this is so (and opinion it is since no substantiation was provided for such a claim) is hardly compelling. Besides a simple comparison between China and the US reveals the inanity of the FA article: Which country resorts to initiating sanctions against other countries? Which country is engaged in warring against other countries?
The FA article ends with a rather damning quotation: “As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said, ‘In the 40 years since Vietnam, we have a perfect record in predicting where we will use military force next. We’ve never once gotten it right.’”
If the US would ever decide to use military force against China (which it won’t because that would risk a nuclear conflagration in which there are no winners as that would end life on Earth as we know it), then it would have gotten it wrong for the last time.
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Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter who lived several years in China. He can be emailed at: kimohp@gmail. Twitter: @kimpetersen. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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This article defines a more effective public health strategy for the current COVID pandemic. The core issue is that there is a huge array of reactions to both COVID infections and vaccines based on diverse biology, genetics and medical conditions of individuals. Missing from current policy is recognition and support of personalized medical methods.
First, medical history tells us the wisdom of making the medicine fit the person. This is the cornerstone of what is called personalized or individualized medicine. Good physicians also find the combination of drugs to best address an illness or disease. This contrasts with mass use of off-the-shelf, one-size-fits all drugs. Proposed here is an approach to tailor or fine tune medical solutions to individual biologic and genetic characteristics, and personal medical needs and circumstances.
As an example of how trying to get the public to accept a mass medicine is the case of seasonal flu vaccines. A large fraction of the public does not take them. During the 2019-2020 season, 63.8% of children between six months and 17 years got a flu shot. Among adults, just 48.4% of people got flu shots.
Why is this? Because it is common knowledge that their efficacy rate is relatively low. On average, people who get the flu shot are between 40% and 60% less likely to catch the virus than unvaccinated individuals. The truth is that the annual flu vaccine does not fit every individual. Even though there is little medical evidence that taking a flu vaccine poses significant health risks. But people know that the flu infection fatality rate is relatively low. Many individuals make a sensible risk/benefit analysis, concluding that there are insufficient benefits. Others, especially older people with serious medical conditions and possibly weak immune systems get annual flu shots. The public health system has allowed a personalized approach to seasonal flu vaccines.
And it turns out, based on government data, that low risk is also the case for the current COVID pandemic. For the vast majority of people getting coronavirus infection either means no symptoms or only mild ones not much different than the flu or a very bad cold, and which pass in relatively few days. Here is the reported truth about low coronavirus death risks for healthy people: “CDC showed that 94 % of the reported deaths had multiple comorbidities, thereby reducing the CDC’s numbers attributed strictly to COVID-19 to about 35,000 for all age groups.” This stands in contrast to the widely reported total of over 730,000 COVID related deaths. What this shows is the huge variations in how people respond to COVID infections because of their innate differences.
What COVID infected people do get is natural immunity to this virus that abundant medical research and clinical studies have shown is better than vaccine immunity. The latter declines in about six months, whereas natural immunity lasts longer and better defends against new variants.
Combination of medicines
Besides making the medicine fit the patient. is established clinical wisdom for using a combination of drugs. And often, in this pandemic, some doctors use a combination that includes more than several generic medicines and, especially in hospitals, government approved drugs. Also widely used are vitamins and supplements. The eminent Dr. Peter McCollough has been the leading proponent of using individualized combinations to treat and prevent COVID infection disease. All this is an alternative to the strategy of mass vaccination for everyone.
Today, anyone without too much work can find a host of combination protocols to treat and prevent COVID.
The missed opportunity discussed early in the pandemic
Between the early 2020 months of the pandemic and the roll out of mass vaccination in late 2020 there was interest in applying the personalized medicine approach to managing the pandemic.’
Consider what the Mayo Center for Individualized Medicine said for the COVID-19 response. The document detailed a number of initiatives Mayo was pursuing to address the pandemic by obtaining medical data that could lead to personalized pandemic solutions. This is what Mayo wanted to do:
“When COVID-19 spread across the U.S. in March 2020, the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine urgently responded to accelerate research, development, translation and implementation of novel tests, lifesaving treatments and diagnostics. Now, collaborative teams of scientists are continuing to unravel the mysteries of the novel virus, including using advanced genetic sequencing technologies to investigate how the virus can infiltrate a person’s immune system and wreak havoc on organs, tissue and blood vessels, leaving some patients with long-term effects.”
A September 2020 article had the intriguing title “How to use precision medicine to personalize COVID-19 treatment according to the patient’s genes.” Here are excerpts:
“In recent years, a gene-centric approach to precision medicine has been promoted as the future of medicine. It underlies the massive effort funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health to collect over a million DNA samples under the “All of Us” initiative that began in 2015.
But the imagined future did not include COVID-19. In the rush to find a COVID-19 vaccine and effective therapies, precision medicine has been insignificant. Why is this? And what are its potential contributions?
If precision medicine is the future of medicine, then its application to pandemics generally, and COVID-19 in particular, may yet prove to be highly significant. But its role so far has been limited. Precision medicine must consider more than just genetics. It requires an integrative “omic” approach that must collect information from multiple sources – beyond just genes – and at scales ranging from molecules to society.
The situation becomes yet more complicated for infectious diseases. Viruses and bacteria have their own genomes that interact in complex ways with the cells in the people they infect. The genome of SARS-CoV-2 underlying COVID-19 has been extensively sequenced. Its mutations are identified and traced worldwide, helping epidemiologists understand the spread of the virus. However, the interactions between SARS-CoV-2 RNA and human DNA, and the effect on people of the virus’s mutations, remain unknown.”
…there is an opportunity to begin gathering the kinds of data that would allow for a more comprehensive precision medicine approach – one that is fully aware of the complex interactions between genomes and social behavior.
“The National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program has announced a significant increase in the COVID-19 data available in its precision medicine database, adding survey responses from more than 37,000 additional participants, and virus-related diagnosis and treatment data from the nearly 215,000 participant electronic health records (EHRs) that are currently available.”
The specialty germane to a personalized pandemic strategy is called pharmacogenomics. It is the study of the role of the genome in drug response. It combines pharmacology and genomics to discover how the genetic makeup of an individual affects their response to drugs, including vaccines.
It deals with the influence of acquired and inherited genetic variation on drug response in patients by correlating genetic factors of an individual with drug or vaccine absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination. It deals with the effects of multiple genes on drug and vaccine response.
The central goal of pharmacogenomics is to develop rational means to optimize drug therapy, including vaccination, with respect to the patients’ genotype, to ensure maximum efficiency with minimal adverse effects.
By using pharmacogenomics, the goal is that pharmaceutical drug treatments, including vaccination, can replace or at least complement what is dubbed as the “one-drug-fits-all” approach. Pharmacogenomics also attempts to eliminate the trial-and-error method of prescribing, allowing physicians to take into consideration their patient’s genes, the functionality of these genes, and how this may affect the efficacy of the patient’s current or future treatments (and where applicable, provide an explanation for the failure of past treatments).
An August 2020 journal article was titled “Pharmacogenomics of COVID-19 therapies.” Here are its optimistic views and findings:
“Pharmacogenomics may allow individualization of these drugs thereby improving efficacy and safety. …Pharmacogenomics may help clinicians to choose proper first-line agents and initial dosing that would be most likely achieve adequate drug exposure among critically ill patients; those who cannot afford a failure of ineffective therapy. It is also important to minimize the risks of toxicity because COVID-19 particularly affects those with comorbidities on other drug therapies. … We found evidence that several genetic variants may alter the pharmacokinetics of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, ribavirin, lopinavir/ritonavir and possibly tocilizumab, which hypothetically may affect clinical response and toxicity in the treatment of COVID-19. … These data support the collection of DNA samples for pharmacogenomic studies of the hundreds of currently ongoing clinical trials of COVID-19 therapies. One of the biggest success stories in the field of pharmacogenomics was for a drug used to treat another, highly lethal, infectious disease: abacavir for HIV. … In an acute illness such as COVID-19, pharmacogenetics would only be useful if the genetic test results were already available (i.e., pre-emptive pharmacogenetic testing) or rapidly available (i.e., point-of-care genetic testing). … In the face of unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, collaborative efforts among the medical communities are more important than ever to improve the efficacy of these treatments and ensure safety. Some large national COVID-19 trials are evaluating pharmacogenomics, which will inform the role of pharmacogenomics markers for future clinical use.”
A July 2020 NPR show was titled “Research On Personalized Medicine May Help COVID-19 Treatments.” This was deemed newsworthy:
The nationwide All of Us Research Program aims to tailor medical treatments of all kinds, including treatments that may be developed for the new coronavirus. So far more than 271,000 people nationwide have signed up to share data with the initiative. All of Us started under President Barack Obama in 2018 and involves institutions across the country.
“This is an exciting opportunity for our participants to have a direct impact on COVID-19 research, watching how their participation in this historic effort is truly making a difference,” said Dr. Elizabeth Burnside. “This focused initiative could be especially important for members of communities that are often underrepresented in health research and who may question the overall and personal benefit of research participation.”
In sum, there was legitimate medical interest early in the pandemic to use personalized medicine, in which drugs and drug combinations are optimized for individuals or certain population demographics. The central goal is minimization of drug and vaccine toxicities and adverse reactions and deaths.
But one thing is now clear. The personalized approach to managing the COVID pandemic has not been aggressively pursued by public health agencies. They have placed their resources and hopes with mass vaccination, both encouraged, coerced and increasingly mandated. The hope that we can vaccinate ourselves out of this pandemic has lost credibility.
In contrast, an alternative personalized approach, used by hundreds of physicians, based on generic medicines, vitamins and supplements have been more blocked than supported by the public health establishment as detailed in Pandemic Blunder.
Proposed new public health strategy
Part One: Individuals decide either on their own or with the advice of their personal physician to be vaccinated for COVID. And to accept what government officials have decided are the best COVID medical solutions for outpatients and inpatients.
Part Two: Individuals choose a preferred medical professional who, on the basis of their education, training, experience and successful clinical results, offers alternatives to vaccination and government promoted medical solutions for outpatients and inpatients. The medical professional uses the patient’s medical history, conditions, needs and unique personal biologic and genetic circumstances to reach the best personalized medical solution.
The new public health strategy is, therefore, twofold. Widely available vaccination becomes focused or finely tuned to meet the desires and needs of part of the population. Along with use of the second part there is no sacrifice of true public health protection in the pandemic.
Part Two of the strategy directly addresses the widespread resistance to COVID vaccination by some Americans.
This is a rational perspective consistent with the belief in medical freedom. If one believes that there are some certain medical benefits of COVID vaccines, then traditional medical practice supports use of them on an individual therapeutic basis. This is a free personal decision, perhaps in consultation with their physician to accept that COVID vaccine risks are outweighed by its benefits.
Risks and benefits may be based on personal research of available medical information on vaccines. Or on information from government agencies, often without advice from their doctor.
Not to be ignored is increasing negative information on COVID vaccines reaching the public. One recent example from a published medical research article is that “cost-benefit analysis showed very conservatively that there are five times the number of deaths attributable to each inoculation vs those attributable to COVID-19 in the most vulnerable 65+ demographic.” From this same study: within “eight days post-inoculation (where day zero is the day of inoculation), sixty percent of all post-inoculation deaths are reported in VAERS.” This study concluded: “It is unclear why this mass inoculation for all groups is being done, being allowed, and being promoted.”
In seeking to implement the wisdom of fit the medicine to the person, requires accepting the science that no two people, medically, genetically and biologically speaking, are exactly the same; this cannot be disputed. This is why using pharmacogenomics has a role to play. Looking at average statistical vaccine outcomes ignores and disrespects individual biologics, medical conditions, concerns and needs. This is an overselling of vaccines.
Americans have always wanted to see themselves as unique individuals. This translates to medical actions. Mass vaccination for everyone ignores and devalues this traditional belief by Americans.
There are also legitimate concerns that giving informed consent to a shot has not been based on a full, easily understood presentation of data on risks for different kinds of people with various medical histories.
Those who are resisting vaccination have a right to question that government agencies have not strictly followed medical science, data and experience. For example, a vast literature concludes that stay-at-home mandates, lockdowns and masking have not been effective in controlling pandemic impacts.
And there is now considerable evidence that those who are vaccinated can get breakthrough infections and spread the virus. “We have data now through the first week of August from the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services, showing that… over 60 percent of seniors over the age of 65 in the hospital with Covid have been vaccinated,” noted the esteemed Dr. Peter McCullough recently.
This erodes the credibility of public health agencies and their medical authority and destroys public trust in federal agencies implementing pandemic policies.
The fallacy of only one medical solution
If the government would let some part of the public choose personalized treatment to deal with COVID infection and another part to choose vaccination (and other government actions) why is that not an acceptable public health policy? The two-part strategy will become increasingly important as the government promotes or mandates regular booster shots over months or years.
Choice is rational if, indeed, there are personalized treatment options other than vaccination that can be obtained from some medical professionals. Indeed, there is now a vast medical literature on treatment protocols not only to cure but also to prevent COVID infection. They are being used very successfully by hundreds of American physicians.
And some information reaching the public like the very successful use of the generic ivermectin in India and Indonesia reinforces the inclination of some people to seek alternative medical solutions. Also, that 100 to 200 members of Congress have used this generic.
Moreover, now there is also a vast medical literature, increasingly known to the public, supporting the strong effectiveness of natural immunity obtained through previous COVID infection. It is a rational personal decision to conclude that one’s natural immunity is sufficient medical protection without taking on any vaccine risks. They have the right to seek a medical professional that agrees with that medical reality.
The only conceivable “loser” for this approach would be vaccine makers having a smaller market.
Physicians should have the freedom to advise their patients to either use a generic medicine treatment protocol or help document their natural immunity (with valid testing) to allow patients to embrace personalized medical action rather than be vaccinated.
In this two-part policy approach, of promoting a choice between personalized medical protection versus mass vaccination, the entire population could be fully protected without sacrificing medical freedom and without various forms of vaccine mandates. Public health does not require totalpublic acceptance of one medical solution.
This strategy is consistent with what many physicians said early in the pandemic. Namely that vaccination should be targeted on those with the highest risks of serious COVID impacts, not the entire population. It is widely known by the public and accepted by the medical establishment that this pandemic does not pose a serious threat of either illness or death for people below the age of about 70, unless they have serious comorbidities or serious illnesses. Infection fatality rates for most of the public do not argue for vaccination.
Much of the public wants and deserves the choice to use something other than a vaccine shot to protect themselves. That choice becomes operational only if the government allows and supports medical professionals to offer their patients alternatives to vaccines.
Here is the ethical and medical truth: Protecting individual health trumps protecting public health but is not antithetical to protecting public health. Overly coercive public health actions, such as vaccine mandates, are antithetical to protecting individual health for many people who fear even low probability negative reactions to vaccines.
Here is the ultimate medical truth: When all available medical science and means are fully used then the result is safely protecting public health without sacrificing medical freedom of both physicians and individuals.
The current strategy has failed
As we approach two years of dealing with this pandemic there is abundant evidence that the emphasis on mass vaccination has largely failed. The US has the highest number of COVID deaths on the planet. Even now, after wide use of the mass vaccination approach, recent 2,000 daily deaths are related to COVID infection. Every week more people are counted as COVID deaths than the 3,000 people who died in the 9/11 disaster.
Not to be ignored is the widely cited journal study titled “Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States.”
Breakthrough infections among the fully vaccinated are mounting. Because after about six months vaccines lose much of their effectiveness, especially against variants. And fully vaccinated people can and do carry and transmit the coronavirus.
If one wants first-hand accounts of how US physicians have documented their own negative impacts of COVID vaccines as well as those of their patients, then read a number of their affidavits.
Conclusions
A new public health strategy that no longer adheres to single-minded mass vaccination can obtain broad public support. Now is the time to endorse and support personalized medicine applied to the pandemic.
Much of the public may not yet know this. But missing from the new CDC definition of vaccine as of September 1, 2021 are these key phrases: “protecting the person from that disease” and “to produce immunity.” The new vaccine definition should reduce public confidence in current COVID vaccines. In fact, these changes reflect what is now known about the limitations of these vaccines. Fully vaccinated people can still get COVID disease and really do not have long lasting effective immunity to it.
Promoting choice is a far better public health approach than wide use of authoritarian pandemic controls that have devastated lives and produced mental stress and many collateral deaths.
On that last point, CDC has now recognized mood disorders put people at high risk for severe COVID cases. Compare pre-pandemic 2019 to 2020 when there were 53 million new cases of depression globally, a 28% increase, as reported in The Lancet. Surely, promoting more medical choice for addressing COVID would help people stay both mentally and physically healthy.
Resistance to vaccine mandates should not be seen as unpatriotic or as creating harm for others. Supporting personalized medicine is a way to avoid negative impacts on the American economy because of rigid, inflexible vaccine mandates that compel many Americans to accept job loss that in many ways imperil public safety.
Lastly, staying alive and safe surely is the presumed goal of all people. We have more tools than vaccines to help people meet their goal. Now we need the public health establishment to let all the tools be freely chosen.
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Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn, author of Pandemic Blunder and many articles 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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Phil Taylor: We are joined by John Philpot, a distinguished lawyer from Montreal who represented the accused before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. We want to talk to John today because the leading personality in the Tribunal – you can almost say a target of the prosecution – Colonel Théoneste Bagasora, has died recently in Mali at the age of 80 and because the Western media in their coverage has been using a very inflammatory language about the Colonel which in my view is not accurate. Fortunately we have John Philpot who was in the courtroom many times and has been very familiar with the tribunal and the cases since the beginning. John, welcome to the programme.
John Philpot: Thank you. We are all saddened by the death of this fine man.
PT: Well I think that’s a good note to start with because when we read the headlines, the NY Times called Colonel Bagasora the « architect » of the genocide, others said he was the « kingpin » of the genocide, or said the « mastermind » – I guess that’s the favourite one. Now I was in the courtroom myself for the testimony of general Dallaire on the matter. His name is coming up in relation with Bagasora and the Canadian media is making a link between the two as if there is some of a good guy-bad guy story. Now you’ve just described the Colonel in positive terms, tell us about what the court said on the issue of the « mastermind », the « conspirator », the « organiser », etc.
JP: He had a long trial, was very well defended and after 7 or 8 years of trial he was found not guilty of conspiracy and that was the key finding. For the conspiracy to commit genocide he was acquitted and this tribunal spent one or two billion dollars, they spent a lot of money, they had a lot of investigators, they made a tremendous effort to try and convict mister Bagasora of minding the horrible events which happened in Rwanda and the prosecutor lost despite all the efforts that the UN put behind the prosecutor.
He was found guilty at the trial of ordering some killings, in different localities, and on appeal he was cleared of ALL individual acts, that is ordering to kill someone or, for example, ordering his underlings– which he didn’t have – to kill people, he was acquitted of all those. He was only found guilty of being negligent because he should have known and he had to know that his underlings were going to carry out some killings in those 3 days from the 7th to the 10th of April 1994. So he was found guilty of something you might call « criminal negligence », saying that « should have known », and this doesn’t event exist I don’t think in Canadian law. Here he would have been acquitted because that’s not a crime in Canadian law. And on appeal they reduced his sentence from life to 35 years which to me is much too much.
His trial was a relative victory against the claim of the genocide being planned and organised by a senior military figure.
PT: Yes it is so striking. They accused the four – there were four colonels – and the were allegedly conspiring and you just laid out that at the end of the day the charges against Bagasora were « command issues » or « should have known », etc. , and in the case of General Kabiligi – he was a general – who was allegedly one of the conspirators, he was completely acquitted …
JP: …because he wasn’t there!
PT: I want to read to you the words of someone from the CBC radio programme « As it happens » introducing their interview with General Dallaire about Col Bagasora. They begin saying « In the words of Romeo Dallaire, Bagasora was the kingpin of the Rwandan genocide and the court that sentenced Col Bagasora to prison agreed ». So Dallaire said he was a kingpin and the court agreed, said the CBC announcer. But you just said that they didn’t agree!
JP: No, of course not, they had no evidence. I repeat myself, after spending a large amount of money to try and prove it, and the judges had quite a trend to accept the prosecutors’ views, but the defence proved, raised more than a reasonable doubt in my opinion, that this wasn’t true and he was acquitted of conspiracy. And in fact, the global conspiracy was not accepted by ANY judgment.
There were some minor agreements, alledged conspiracies in localities where the accused got together and planned but the national conspiracy did not exist. The alledged planning never existed. And it’s shocking when you think that this tribunal said certain things and all the media and all the so-called think-tanks and all the so-called intellectuals still carry on with this story, they have no respect for the rule of law and the rule of law at the ICTR was biased in favor of the prosecution, but even then it didn’t pass the test.
PT: I assume it is – for lawyers like you and others who follow this – rather frustrating to go through the courts, hear the testimonies and at the end of the day the reporters go back to telling the same stories they had in 1994, so one can ask « why did you bother to have a trial, the are just going to repeat the same lies ». Maybe the conclusion about Colonel Bagasora is that because he has the title of Colonel, people assume that he was a major military leader. What was his role?
JP: He was the head of the Ministry of Defense, he was not even a soldier at the time, he was a political figure and he was not in the army, he didn’t do anything in the army, and they had to make a construct saying that he had the effective control but he was not a soldier at the time.
PT: That’s because his Minister was abroad, he was what they call the cabinet officer, so he had to assume responsibility, right?
JP: He had some responsibility, he was involved in some of the negotiations, but he was not in charge of the army, he was not acting and giving orders to the army.
PT: I want to make sure we also talk about another matter that came up: the case of your client, mister Zigiranyirazo. When his case came up there was a similar attention to it because he was called Mister Z and he already had a reputation in Canadian media and Belgian media. They had created the idea that there was a group called Zero Network. Now I was surprised to hear Dallaire talking to « As it happened » referred to the Zero Network and said that Bagasora was a part of it and also that the French took the leading members of the Zero Network out of Rwanda in the first 48 hours. Your client was the one individual that was claimed to be the leader or member of the Zero Network. Tell us about him.
JP: Well, Mister Zigiranyirazo was allegedly head of the Zero Network, also called the Akazu, a little group of people around the President. They allegedly conspired prior to the attack on the plane to exterminate Tutsis and led the conspired to exterminate Tutsis after the plane was shot down. Well he had a trial which lasted about 6 years of procedures and he was a acquitted on everything. And the opposition parties came to the court and testified that these terms Akazu and Zero Network were simply terms invented by the opposition in the political disputes which began in 1991-92 up until the assassination of Pres. Habyarimana in 1994. So this is all lies and was not retained by the court. Mr Zigiranyirazo was acquitted of conspiracy and of all the other charges that he allegedly ordered such and such person to be killed, etc. So their whole organisation of a plan of how this happened pretty much fell apart. This is the story at the ICTR, but the world don’t seem to care, they really don’t seem to care. Stories have been written, books have been written and these people who were acquitted are still sitting as you know in Arusha. Most of them cannot be transferred and cannot go to their families which are based in Europe in general now.
PT: Yes that is one of the great injustices, you have people acquitted, which means they are innocent and should be permitted to be with their families, but the UN that put them on trial doesn’t fight to return them their rights that the declaration of innocence would give them and doesn’t defend them.
JP: That’s a lesson which we should all learn and all lawyers and all interested persons should understand that international criminal law does not have the standards that national legal systems sometimes have. I don’t want to phrase on national legal system but if Phil Taylor is acquitted on drunk driving, he is acquitted and that’s over.
PT: I am very glad we have a chance to talk about this because you were in that courtroom and won that battle. It would be helpful if we could develop some interest in actually making the court records of the ICTR available in the media here. I think it’s bizarre that Dallaire is talking a fairy tale about the Zero group. His credibility in this, in my opinion, is absolutely zero. They did not find that Bagasora was a kingpin, but yet Dallaire is pirated as the guy who got it right, but he didn’t get it right on that, he’s talking about a Zero Network you just showed that there wasn’t one, the courts found. Part of the problem is that the legend of Dallaire is confusing everyone, the media here is so protective of him, they don’t actually treat him as a human. Because of his post traumatic stress problems he is like irreproachable. But unfortunately he went into a courtroom and gave evidence of trying to do a lot of damage with his evidence. I wonder, if you look at the judgments, they are saying here that Bagasora’s evidence was somehow crucial, I did not get that sense myself, reading the judgment, that they tought that his testimony had any significant value.
JP: It was not particularly based on it. His acquittal was based on the weakness of the prosecution’s evidence, not necessarily on his own evidence, which is a good thing for Mr. Bagasora because they were so biased against him that had the case depended on his testimony they would have just thrown it out. But the prosecution evidence was so weak and nonsensical that Mr. Bagasora was acquitted. And then they made this artificial construct that he is liable because he should have known the intention of his so-called underlings which weren’t his underlings.
PT: Yes! Another element that strikes me about the reporting, the journalists did not actually look into the actual trial records or the judgment, they are going by popular anecdotes, and they are very parochial I noticed. For example, Dallaire is cited continuously in reference to Bagasora, it’s not mentioned that Colonel Luc Marchal, a Belgian, testified in this case for the defense. He was a major figure, he was in charge of the security for the Kigali sector and the Belgian troops were major part of the drama. Yet here you have everyone saying that Dallaire testified, he didn’t like him, in fact he literally demonizes Bagasora, he calls him a devil, but they don’t mention that the Belgian Colonel did not have the same view as Bagasora.
JP: Yes, Luc Marchal wrote to me two days ago because I wrote a small article basically about what we are talking today and sent it around to our friends and he wrote to me personally saying that he is so sad that such lies are propagated, that the media are making all these stories about Bagasora which is contrary to the truth.
PT: Isn’t it striking? Here is a man who put himself on a stand, took the oaths and testified for the defense, largely for Kabiligi, but he had a different view of what was going on in Kigali in 1994, April 6th, 7th and 8th. And again just to be clear, Bagosora’s authority ended on the 9th of April. Three days where he actually had authority, some legal responsibility!
JP: Yes, exactly!
PT: And the leaders of the various units of the Rwandan Army were not taking orders from him, they were fighting as soldiers, people forget that the war began on the night of the assassination of the President on April 6th, and two armies engaged on that moment. And since I have mentioned Colonel Luc Marchal, I want to talk about another aspect to that, which is ignored by the media here: Bagasora was given responsibility for the deaths of the Belgian soldiers. Now that has always been highly problematic to my mind and I want to review with you what I know and tell me what you can recall of this.
PT: On the morning of April 7th there was a meeting of the Rwandan Army officers to which General Dallaire was invited – these are allegedly the conspirators in the mind of Dallaire – they have a meeting of 20 or 30 officers at Kamp Kigali. He goes to the meeting and on his way he sees a Belgian UN soldier on the ground in a struggle with Rwandan soldiers and he continued onto the meeting. He says he saw it, he continued onto the meeting. He walked into the meeting with Rwandan Army officers, I don’t think it could have been more than a quarter of a mile from where he saw what he saw and did not say anything until the end of the meeting. I understand you might want to talk about Bagasora being an officer and having some responsibility, but where is Dallaire culpability for not acting himself on behalf of his own fallen soldier?
JP: Well had he seen what you are just describing, he could have – I am sure he had a radio, he had a driver- he could have intervened and called for immediate intervention to try and protect that person and so he was being negligent, and by the same talking that Mr. Bagasora was allegedly guilty, well Mr Dallaire would probably be guilty of the same negligence.
PT: If it’s negligence, you have at least two officers negligent, anyone who heard about it in a position of authority is culpable to some degree if they did not act.
JP: Absolutely!
PT: And they were not dead at that point, he could have stopped, by that story he would have a good chance of preventing it to happen, he would have had a reasonable chance of preventing the murder of the Belgian soldiers.
PT: Had he stood up among those army officers and said « I have soldiers down here » , that was a diverse group of officers. I have to say my own opinion is that he seems to have been treating them like an enemy, but to what end? If he didn’t want to trust them to try to save the Belgians then he should have taken the responsibility himself with people he had the command of and see what he could do.
JP: Maybe he had another agenda which is that there was an offense of the RPF on their way north of Kigali, he may have had a second agenda that he wanted the other party, the invaders, to take power, that might have been his plan, his understanding.
PT: We should bring out a rather important detail for all this talk about the evil conspiracy and how they were all devils, how Bagasora was a devil.
PT: Bagasora and Gen. Ndindiliyimana were the two key people at the meeting. Ndindiliyimana was also acquitted of all charges. He (Bagasora) was co-chairing both the meetings that Dallaire attended while the Belgians were being beaten to death, struggling for there lives, and they did something else which doesn’t match the story of the great conspiracy. They chose a new commanding officer for the entire Rwandan Armed forces, Gen. Gatsinzy. Who is he today?
JP: He is in Rwanda, I don’t know whether he is still a military but he did join the RPF, yes.
PT: He joined the RPF and at the time that they appointed him to lead the entire Rwandan Army, gave him command, he was already known to be an officer not being particularly enthusiastic about Habyarimana, and had actually no great interest in the war, but they gave him the job largely out of old rules of seniority, he was the senior commander after Gen. Nsabimana who was killed along with the president.
JP: They brought him from Butare on the 9th I think.
PT: And they gave him command! This was Bagasora who Dallaire is calling a devil on CBC! Bagasora chaired the meeting where the chose Gen. Gatsinzy to lead the army. This is pathetic, is it not ?
JP: For sure.
PT: It is high comedy.
JP: I’d like to say something about Mr Bagosora. He is now at the 2/3 of his time in prison and he did not get the lease at his 2/3 of his time, unlike people in the past who were getting it. He wanted to have a few years being free either in Europe or Mali. And he was refused that by the president of the tribunal. I think it’s shocking that they bend the rules and found a way to not let people out, saying, once again, that he did not regret what he had done and pointed out the same thing we point out today about the nature of his conviction. He did not have proper medical care in the last years. It’s very important that we understand that because there is a lot of other aging prisoners and I think it’s important for us to work hard to try and improve medical services. We had some success but with the aging prisoners they have to be treated in the same way an aging prisoner would be treated in a Canadian prison.
PT: Well I think those are all good points. The job before us I believe is to take this strange missionary, quasi theological and racial language out of the mouths of mainstream media who think they can call someone a devil, whom they don’t know, he definitely is not the devil – I understand the devil has his own work. To speak in that way and happily say things like « I shook hands with the devil », like other journalists have repeated, it’s like we are getting in line with this idea of demonization of the African accused. They are all very comfortable in saying the most terrible things like « it’s another country, it’s another language, it’s another culture ». As you said and illustrated in your remarks, this is completely inappropriate, it’s an embarrassment to have a tribunal and to go through a whole process only to find ourselves with this kind of insulting and misleading and misinforming talk out of our journalists.
PT: I hope, John, that we can speak to you again in the future about these notions of the Akazu and the Zero Network, because it’s a myth, it’s a legend, and if we are permitted to go on lies about what happened in Rwanda, we will go on.
JP: I know the family would be very happy that you raise these issues.
PT: Thank you.
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There have now been 2,433 fetal deaths recorded in VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) from pregnant women who have been injected with one of the COVID-19 shots. (Source.)
The vast majority of these have been from the Pfizer shot (1,862 deaths) and the Moderna shot (656 deaths.)
There have been more fetal deaths in the past 11 months following COVID-19 shots than there have been for the past 30+ years following ALL vaccines (2,198 – Source.)
Last month (October, 2021) the New England Journal of Medicine admitted that the original study used to justify the CDC and the FDA in recommending the shots to pregnant women was flawed. (Source.)
Since then, researchers in New Zealand have conducted a new study on the original data, and concluded:
A re-analysis of these figures indicates a cumulative incidence of spontaneous abortion ranging from 82% (104/127) to 91% (104/114), 7–8 times higher than the original authors’ results. (Source.)
And yet, the CDC and FDA still continue to recommend the shots for pregnant women, even though a correct analysis on the original data shows that 82% to 91% of pregnant women will suffer miscarriages if their unborn child is less than 20 weeks old. (Source.)
VAERS is a passive system that is severely under reported. The CDC and FDA have never conducted a study to determine what this under-reported factor is, but independent scientists have, and we have previously published the analysis conducted by Dr. Jessica Rose, who has determined that a conservative under-reported factor would be X41. See: STUDY: Government’s Own Data Reveals that at Least 150,000 Probably DEAD in U.S. Following COVID-19 Vaccines
This means that there have probably been at least 99,753 fetal deaths following COVID-19 injections so far.
Here is a video report we made on this last month with some very unfortunate gruesome examples of what these shots are doing to unborn babies.
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Pfizer/BioNTech’s Comirnaty COVID shot was approved (licensed) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in late August 2021, but only for adults, and only when carrying the Comirnaty label. No other COVID shot has been FDA approved. However, Comirnaty is currently not available, and while the experimental, emergency use authorized (EUA) Pfizer shot is substituted for Comirnaty, the two products are clearly legally distinct and not the same
A licensed vaccine is not shielded from liability until or unless it’s added to the recommended childhood vaccination schedule by the CDC. So, if you were injured by Comirnaty, you could sue Pfizer. You cannot sue if injured by the EUA Pfizer shot (or any of the other EUA COVID injections)
Even though several hundred claims have been filed with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) for injuries resulting from the COVID shots — which is the only possible avenue to obtain damages — not a single claim has been paid out
Natural immunity is much stronger than what you can achieve from the injection, which only provides antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and wanes within a few months. The shots may in fact permanently limit the kind of immune response you would make were you to later be exposed or infected with COVID
Children’s Health Defense has filed a lawsuit arguing you cannot have a vaccine that is both an emergency use product and a licensed product at the same time. That’s against the law, but the government has done it anyway. Remarkably, the request for an injunction was initially thrown out, but the CHD has not given up and is still pursuing the case
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In this interview, Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist specializing in toxicology, vaccine-induced illnesses and Gulf War illness, shares her insights into the dangers of the COVID jab, which received an emergency use authorization October 26, 2021, for children as young as 5.
We also discuss the conflicts of interest within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that seem to be behind this reckless decision, and how the agency pulled the wool over our eyes with its approval of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Comirnaty COVID injection.
Is the COVID Jab Approved or Not?
As explained by Nass:
“All of the COVID ‘vaccines,’ and most of the COVID treatment products, have not been [FDA] approved. Approved means licensed. All except one, which is the Pfizer vaccine for adults, age 16 and up, which got approved, i.e., licensed on August 23 [2021].
But every other vaccine, and for every other age group, including the boosters, have only been authorized under emergency use authorizations (EUAs). There’s a critical difference [between licensing and EUA]. Once a drug is fully licensed, it is subject to liability.
If the company injures you with that product, you can sue them, unless it later gets put on the CDC’s childhood schedule or is recommended by the CDC [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] [during] pregnancy, in which case it obtains a different liability shield.
It then becomes part of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP, established under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act), and 75 cents from every dose of vaccine that is sold in the United States goes into a fund to pay for injuries that way.”
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act removed liability for all vaccines recommended by the CDC for children. Since 2016, they’ve also removed liability for vaccines given to pregnant women, a category that has become the latest “gold rush” for vaccines. Naturally, once a company is no longer liable for injuries, the profitability of the product in question increases dramatically.
Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program Is Nearly Useless
Products under emergency use have their own special government program for liability called the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). “It is a terrible program,” Nass says. CICP is an offshoot of the 2005 PREP Act.
“The PREP act enabled the CICP to be created by Congress,” Nass explains. “Congress has to allocate money for it. If you are injured by an emergency use product, you don’t get any legal process. The companies have had all their liability waived. There is a single process that is administered through HHS [Health and Human Services].
Some employees there decide whether you deserve to be compensated or not. The maximum in damages you can obtain is about $370,000 if you’re totally disabled or die, and the money is only to compensate you for lost wages or unpaid medical bills.”
So far, even though several hundred CICP claims have been filed for injuries resulting from the COVID shots, not a single claim has been paid out. This is important, because the statute of limitations is one year. “It’s getting close to running out for people who were vaccinated early,” Nass says.
If you fail to apply in time, you lose the opportunity to get any compensation entirely. “Of course, in fact, it’s really ‘an opportunity’ to apply and get nothing because almost nobody gets paid,” she says. At that point, you have no further recourse. There’s no appeals process to the judicial system.
“You can ask the HHS twice to compensate you, and if they say no, that’s it,” Nass explains. “You can attempt to sue the company that made the product, if you’re convinced it was improperly made, but the secretary of HHS has to give you the permission to sue.
You have to prove that there was willful misconduct and no one has ever reached that bar. So, there has never been a lawsuit under this. Anyway, that’s what you’re looking at. If you get the vaccine under EUA and are injured, you’re on your own. People have no idea about this when they vaccinate themselves or their children.”
Why Were the Shots Mandated?
As you know by now, president Biden decided to mandate the COVID jab for most federal employees (but not all) and private companies with 100 employees or more. “We don’t know why that is,” Nass says. It doesn’t make sense, as large numbers of Americans have already recovered from COVID-19 and have durable, long-lasting immunity already.
As correctly noted by Nass, natural immunity is much stronger than what you can achieve from the injection, which only provides antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and wears off within a few months. The shots “may in fact permanently limit the kind of immune response you would make were you to be infected with COVID later,” Nass says.
For these reasons, there’s absolutely no good reason to vaccinate people who have recovered from the infection and several bad reasons. There’s evidence showing the shot can be more harmful for those with existing immunity.
“But for reasons best known to itself, the Biden administration feels so certain it needs to vaccinate everybody that it has used illegal means to tell employers they will lose federal contracts if they don’t force their employees to be vaccinated immediately, and must fire them — if they’re health care workers, for example, or government employees, or military — if they have not been vaccinated.
Obviously that is creating a great deal of chaos, particularly within the health care industry, particularly in my state, Maine, where these draconian rules have gone into effect and many fire department, police, EMTs, nurses and doctors can no longer work.
The one thing that was necessary to push mandates forward was for the government to be able to say it had a licensed product. Before the emergency use authorization was created in 2005, you had licensed drugs and you had experimental drugs and nothing else.
There was no gray area between them. Any use of a medication or vaccine that is not fully licensed is still experimental, despite the fact that a new category of drugs has been created with emergency use authorizations.
These are still experimental drugs, so under emergency use, you can’t force people [to take them]. You have to offer them options and they have the right to refuse. Since that is part of the statute, the federal government can’t get around it.
Therefore, attorneys in the Biden administration knew they could not legally impose mandates under an EUA, and so they demanded that FDA provide a COVID vaccine full approval, aka, an unrestricted license. This was believed to enable them to impose mandates.
They must have put pressure on the FDA, and FDA gave them what they wanted, which was a license for the Pfizer vaccine called Comirnaty on August 23 [2021].”
Comirnaty Approval Includes Important Caveats
In the documents released August 23, 2021, by the FDA, there were some interesting caveats. They said the Comirnaty vaccine is essentially equivalent to the EUA vaccine and the two vaccines may be used interchangeably. However, they pointed out that the two are legally distinct. Curiously, FDA didn’t specify what these legal distinctions are.
“I concluded that the legal distinctions were the fact that under EUA, there was essentially no manufacturer liability, but once the vaccine got licensed, the manufacturer would be subject to liability claims unless and until the vaccine was placed on the childhood schedule or recommended in pregnancy, in which case it would then fall … under the NVICP,” Nass says.
“Right now, Comirnaty is still not in that injury compensation program, and it’s licensed, so it no longer falls under the CICP. So, it is in fact subject to liability if you get injured with a bottle that says Comirnaty on it. Of course, if you’re Pfizer, what do you want to do?
You don’t want to make that licensed product available until several months have gone by and Comirnaty has been put into the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. So, Pfizer and FDA have not made the licensed product available yet.
What has happened instead, in the military, is the FDA has made a secret deal with the military and said, certain emergency use lots can be considered equivalent to the licensed vaccine, and [told military medical staff] which QR codes — which lots can be used. [These specific lots] can then be given to soldiers as if they’re licensed.
Subsequently, we’re told that military clinics are actually putting Comirnaty labels onto bottles that are under EUA. Now, that probably can happen in the military, but only in the military, because there are likely to be memoranda of understanding within the military that we haven’t seen yet that say soldiers cannot sue Pfizer for injuries …
In the military, the government and Pfizer feel like they have set up a situation where nobody can sue, but in the civilian world, that has not happened, and so there is no Comirnaty available.
Yet, on the basis that FDA licensed this product, the federal government is still telling employers that they can mandate it and that they must fire employees that have not taken the vaccine, or they will lose government contracts. We’re in a very interesting situation that is ripe for litigation, and Children’s Health Defense, which is an organization I represent, is litigating some of this.
However, the litigation situation has been very difficult since the pandemic began. Cases that normally would’ve been easy wins are being thrown out by the courts, both in the U.S. and in Europe. Something strange has happened and the judges are looking for any way out, so they don’t have to rule on the merits of these cases.”
The organization Children’s Health Defense has filed a lawsuit arguing you cannot have a vaccine that is both an emergency use product and a licensed product at the same time. That’s against the law, but the federal government did it anyway. Remarkably, the request for an injunction was initially thrown out, but Children’s Health Defense hasn’t given up and is still pursuing that case.
COVID Jab Is Authorized for 5- to 11-Year-Olds in the US
As mentioned, the FDA recently authorized the EUA COVID jab for children between the ages of 5 and 11, which is simply appalling, considering they are at virtually no risk from COVID-19. I’ve not seen a single recorded case in the entire world of anyone in that age group dying of COVID that didn’t have a serious preexisting comorbidity, such as cancer.
If you have a healthy child, they are at no risk from the infection, so there’s only danger associated with this shot, which in this age group would be one-third the adult dose. Typically, when you’re giving a drug to a child, the dose is calculated based on the child’s weight. Here, they’re giving the same dose to a 5-year-old as an 11-year-old, despite there being a significant difference in weight. So, it’s pure guesswork.
Worse yet, the mRNA vaccines produce an unpredictable amount of spike protein, and even if they produce much too much, there is no way to turn off the process once you have been injected.
Despite clear safety signals, the FDA’s advisory committee authorized the Pfizer jab for 5- to 11-year-olds unanimously, 17-to-0 (with one abstaining vote). However, when you look at the roster of the FDA’s committee members1 who reviewed and voted to authorize the Pfizer shot for children as young as 5, the unanimous “yes” vote becomes less of a mystery.
Abhorrent Conflicts of Interest
As reported by National File2 and The Defender,3 the membership of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) has had staggering conflicts of interest. Members have included:
In addition to that, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb is currently on Pfizer’s board of directors. As noted by Nass, two of the members, one permanent and one temporary, are also CDC career employees whose job it is to push vaccines at the CDC.
“If they voted against authorizing a vaccine, they would be out of a job,” Nass says. “They have no business on that committee … It’s a very unethical stew of advisory committee members …
What happened is Pfizer delivered a large package of information to the FDA on October 6, 2021. FDA staff had to go through this large packet of information on the 5- to 11-year-olds and produce their own report, which was about 40 pages long, and create talks to give to the advisory committee, and they did all of this in 17 days.
There was apparently very little critical thought that went into their presentations. Before the meeting, Children’s Health Defense, and I was one of the authors, wrote to the committee and to FDA officials saying, ‘Look, there’s all these reasons that don’t make logical or medical sense for vaccinating kids in this age group, because they almost never get very ill or die, and the side effects of the vaccine are essentially unknown.
We know there are a lot of side effects, but the federal government has concealed from us the rate at which these side effects occur. But we know that the rate from myocarditis is very high, probably at least 1 in 5,000 young males … which is a very serious side effect. It can lead, probably always leads, to some scarring. It can lead to sudden death, to heart failure.”
Trials in Young Children Were Insufficient
As explained by Nass, in the clinical trial, there were two groups of children. The first group was enrolled for two to three months, while the second group was enrolled for just 17 days after receiving the second dose. (Pfizer added the second group because FDA claimed there weren’t enough volunteers in the first group.)
These two groups comprised over 3,000 children who got the jab and 1,500 or 2,000 who got a placebo. None suffered serious side effects. This was then translated into the claim that the injection was safe. However, as noted by Nass:
“They didn’t look at safety in all these kids. Even though FDA had said, ‘Add kids to your clinical trial,’ Pfizer created a ‘safety subset’ of one-tenth of the vaccinated subjects.
It was this small number of kids from whom they drew blood to show they had adequate levels of neutralizing antibodies, which was a surrogate for efficacy, because they didn’t have enough cases of COVID in this abbreviated trial to show that the vaccine actually works in this age group.”
Even though the advisory committee acknowledged that the blood test done for efficacy had not been validated, and wasn’t reliable evidence of effectiveness, they still decided that all children, regardless of health status, would benefit from the injection.
They also ignored the fact that at least half the children are already immune, and giving them the injection will provide no additional benefit in terms of immunity, while putting them at increased risk for serious side effects.
“Nobody said, ‘Look, the parents of healthy kids may be dying for a vaccine, but that’s because we haven’t told them the truth about the vaccine. We haven’t told them their kids don’t need it. We haven’t told them it’s going to potentially damage future immunity.
We haven’t told them they’re at higher risk of side effects than if they never had COVID. We’re not allowing them to go get antibody tests to establish that they’re already immune and therefore should be waved from being vaccinated.’
The committee members were aware of all this stuff, but in the end [they voted yes] … apart from one very smart member of the committee who works for the National Institutes of Health. He abstained. He didn’t have the guts to vote no, but he knew this was a bad idea.”
Children Are Being Injected Without Parental Consent
While all of that is bad enough, parents of young children now face the possibility of their children being injected against their will and without their knowledge. Nass comments:
“As I said, we don’t know why the government wants everybody vaccinated, but there’s probably a reason that goes beyond protecting us from COVID.
The government got the FDA to authorize the vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds on May 10 [2021], and subsequently that group, which is about 6 million kids, has been getting vaccinated across the country. That’s under emergency use so, again, you can’t sue.
But something kind of evil happened, which was many cities began vaccinating 12- to 15-year-olds in the absence of parental permission. So, a child could show up with their friends or a friend’s mother at a vaccine center and get vaccinated with no one asking about their medical history, nobody calling the parents. No notation got entered into the child’s medical record that they were vaccinated.
Vaccinators were told to make their own assessment. If they thought this child could give consent, go ahead and vaccinate. Now, that is a gross violation of our laws, and yet it was happening in Boston, in Philadelphia, in Seattle, in San Francisco, and we have good documentation of it.
The government currently is planning for mobile vaccination clinics for kids and vaccinations in schools, and they may take this program of vaccinating without parental consent down to the 5- to 11-year-olds …
In fact, we may see clinics popping up that don’t require informed consent in the 5- to 11-year-old group. Let me just mention that the chief medical officer in Canada’s British Columbia said they have brought laws that allow children of any age to consent for themselves. Think about that. A baby can consent for vaccinations for itself. It would be funny if it wasn’t so diabolical.”
All of this goes against the most basic concept of medical ethics, which is informed consent. No one has the right to perform a medical procedure on you without your consent, or the consent of a legal guardian. The government, again, without establishing any new laws, is simply bypassing the legal system.
Will Young Children Be at Risk for Myocarditis?
Based on her review of the scientific literature, Nass suspects younger children in the now COVID jab-approved, 5- to 11-year-old age group will be at exponentially higher risk of myocarditis and other side effects compared to the 12- to 15-year group, where we’ve already seen a documented increase.
“In the letter that Children’s Health Defense wrote to the advisory committee for the FDA, we created a graph based on the reporting rate of myocarditis versus age, and we showed there was an exponential curve.
Men aged 65 and up had a rate that was 1/100th the rate of boys aged 12 to 17. If that exponential curve keeps going up, the rate in the 5- to 11-year-olds could be even dramatically higher. In those young men, a 1 in 5,000 rate was reported to VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System]. That’s not a real rate.
That just tells us how many people got diagnosed with myocarditis, and then went to the trouble of reporting it to the FDA. The FDA and CDC have a large number of other databases from which they can gather rates of illness.
VAERS is considered passive reporting. It is not considered fit for purpose to establish illness rates because we don’t know how many people report. Do 1 in 10 report, 1 in 100, 1 in 50? Nobody knows.
However, again, because everything is crazy since the pandemic came in, the CDC has tried to pull the wool over our eyes and has claimed that the rate of anaphylaxis in the population from COVID vaccines is identical to their reporting rate to VAERS. We know that’s not true.
On the CDC’s website, that’s what they have. Elsewhere on the website, they say you can’t take a VAERS rate and call it an actual rate of reactions, but they’ve done that [for anaphylaxis]. And they’re trying to obfuscate the fact that they’re not giving you real rates, and sort of pretending that the myocarditis rate is probably the VAERS reporting rate of myocarditis, although they’re not saying so directly.”
Nass goes on to recount an example from the smallpox vaccine, which also caused myocarditis. A military study that just looked at cases sent to specialists found roughly 1 in 15,000 developed myocarditis. A military immunologist then dug deeper, and drew blood on soldiers before and after vaccination, and found a myocarditis rate of 1 in 220 after receiving the smallpox vaccine.
However, 1 soldier in 30 developed subclinical myocarditis where troponin rose from normal to more than two times the upper limits of normal. While asymptomatic, 1 in 30 had measurable inflammation of the heart. “Right now, in terms of what the rate is for COVID, nobody is looking, no federal agency wants to find out the real rate,” Nass says.
You Can’t Find Problems You Refuse to Look For
A simple study that measures troponin levels — a marker for heart inflammation and damage — before and after each dose, could easily determine what the real rate of myocarditis is, yet that is not being done.
“This is what we’re dealing with,” Nass says. “All these databases, which is about a dozen different databases, that CDC and FDA said they could access to determine the rates of side effects after vaccination with COVID vaccines, they’re either not being used or being used improperly,” Nass says.
“It was discovered that a new algorithm was being used to study the VAERS database that only came into use in January 2021, immediately after the vaccines were authorized, and the algorithm was developed such that you compare two vaccines to each other.
If the pattern of side effects was similar between the two vaccines — which is often the case because there’s a limited number of general vaccine adverse reactions — even if one vaccine has a thousand times more side effects as the one it is being compared to, by using this flawed algorithm, if the pattern of reactions was the same, even though the rates were 1,000 times higher for one, the algorithm would fail to detect a problem.
That is the algorithm they’re using to analyze VAERS [data]. They’re also using bad methods … to analyze the vaccine safety database, which encompasses 12 million Americans who enrolled in HMOs around the country. The CDC pays for access to their electronic medical records and their data.
Somehow when these databases have been looked at carefully, they’re finding very low rates of myocarditis in boys, approximately equal to the VAERS reporting. It was said months ago, ‘We can’t find a safety signal for myocarditis. We’re not finding an anaphylaxis signal. we’re not finding a Bell’s palsy signal.’
The FDA’s and CDC’s algorithms couldn’t pick up for most known side effects. So, there’s something wrong with the analytic methods that are being used, but the agencies haven’t told us precisely what they are. What we do know is that the rates of side effects that are being reported to VAERS are phenomenal.
They’re orders of magnitude higher than for any previous vaccines used in the United States. An order of magnitude is 10-fold, so rates of reported adverse reactions are 10 to 100 times higher than what has been reported for any other vaccine. Reported deaths after COVID in the United States are 17,000+. It’s off the charts.
Other side effects reported after COVID vaccinations total over 800,000. Again, more deaths and more side effects than have ever been reported for every vaccine combined in use in the U.S. cumulatively over 30 years.”
Despite all this shocking data, our federal agencies look the other way, pretending as if nothing is happening, and no matter how many people approach them — with lawsuits, with public comments, reaching out to politicians — they refuse to address blatantly obvious concerns. This is clear evidence that they’re acting with intentional malice.
The FDA and CDC are supposed to protect the public. They’re supposed to identify safety concerns. They’re not supposed to act as marketing firms for drug companies, but that’s precisely what they’ve been converted to.
New Formulations Have Never Been Tested
Another truly egregious fact is that Pfizer has altered its formulation, allegedly to make it more stable, but this new formulation has never been included in any of the trials. Nass explains:
“During the October 26, 2021, VRBPAC [Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee] meeting, Pfizer said, ‘Look, we want to give the vaccines in doctor’s offices and we’ve found a way to stabilize the vaccine so we don’t need those ultra-cold fridges anymore. We can put these vials in a doctor’s office and, once defrosted, they can sit in a regular fridge 10 weeks and they’ll be fine.’
Some committee members asked, ‘OK, what’d you do? How did you make this marvelous discovery?’ And they said, ‘We went from the phosphate buffered saline buffer to a Tris buffer, and we slightly changed some electrolytes.’ A committee member asked, ‘OK, how did that make it so much more stable?’ And everybody in the meeting from FDA and Pfizer looked at each other and said, ‘We don’t know.’
An hour later, Pfizer had one of their chemists get on the line, but he couldn’t explain how the change in buffer led to a huge increase in stability, either. Then, later in the meeting, one of the members of the committee asked, ‘Did you use this new formulation in the clinical trial?’
And Dr. Bill Gruber, the lead Pfizer representative, said, ‘No, we didn’t.’ In other words, Pfizer plans, with FDA connivance, to use an entirely new vaccine formulation in children, after their clinical trials used the old formulation. This is grossly illegal. They’ve got a new formulation of vaccine. It wasn’t tested in humans. And they’re about to use it on 28 million American kids.”
It’s nothing short of a dystopian nightmare. Completely surreal. You can’t make this stuff up. Yet as shocking as all this is, earlier this year, Dr. Anthony Fauci projected that these COVID jabs would be available for everyone, from infants to the elderly. Now they’ve got the 5-year-olds, and there’s every reason to suspect they’ll go after newborns and infants next.
Whose Babies Will Be Offered Up as Sacrificial Lambs?
According to Nass, Pfizer and the FDA have struck a deal that will allow Pfizer to test on babies even younger than 6 months old, even if there’s no intention to inject infants that young. Those trials may begin as early as the end of January 2022.
“This arrangement between FDA and Pfizer will give Pfizer its extra six months of patent protection, whether or not these vaccines are intended to be used in those age groups. So, you can look at these trials as a way of almost sacrificing little children, because when you start a trial, you don’t know what the dangers are going to be.
I could be wrong, but I doubt we’re going to give these to newborn babies the way we give the hepatitis B vaccine on the date of birth, yet they will be tested in very young babies. The question is, whose babies get tested? In the past, sometimes the babies that got tested were foster children, wards of the state. Sometimes parents offer up their children. But there will be clinical trials.”
When will we get the data from those trials? It turns out that in the agreements reached between Pfizer and the FDA, some of those trials won’t conclude until 2024, 2025 and 2027. The goal here is to vaccinate all Americans, children and adults, within the coming few months or a year, yet it’ll be five years before we actually know from clinical trials what the side effects may be.
We’re Living in Clown World
As noted by Nass, this is yet another crime. It may fulfill the letter of the law, but it doesn’t fulfill the meaning of the law. It makes no sense to run clinical trials that won’t be completed until five years after your mass vaccination program has been completed and the entire population is injected.
“It’s just a joke to do that,” Nass says. “But FDA has become Clown World, and what they do now is to perform a charade of all the normal regulatory processes that they are expected to do, but they’re only doing them in an abbreviated or peculiar manner so that they don’t really collect the important data.
For example, the control group has been vaccinated two months into the Pfizer trials, which effectively obscures side effects that develop after two months. Blood is not tested for evidence of myocarditis or blood clots using simple tests (troponin and D-dimer levels).
For all the Americans out there who haven’t spent 20 years examining the FDA procedures like I have, these FDA advisory committee meetings are it’s designed to make you think a real regulatory process is going on, when it’s not. Instead we are all guinea pigs, but no one is collecting the data that would normally be required to authorize or approve a vaccine. Therefore, in my opinion, nobody should get these shots.“
To make matters even worse, it’s actually illegal to grant EUAs for these vaccines, because there are drugs that can prevent the condition (COVID), as well as treat it. EUAs can only be granted if there are no existing approved, available alternatives to prevent or treat the infection.
The effective drugs most have already heard of are ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, but there are a number of other drugs that also have profound effects on COVID, Nass says, including TriCor and cyproheptadine (Periactin).
TriCor, or fenofibrate, emulsifies lipid nanoparticles and fatty conglomerations that contain viruses and inflammatory substances. The drug essentially allows your body to break down the viral and inflammatory debris better. As such, it might also help combat complications caused by the nanoliposomes in the COVID shot.
According to Nass, Pepcid at high doses of up to 80 milligrams three times a day is also useful for treatment. Dr. Robert Malone is starting a clinical trial using a combination of Pepcid and celecoxib (brand name Celebrex). Many are also recommending aspirin to prevent platelet activation and clotting.
I believe a far better alternative to aspirin is lumbrokinase, and/or serapeptase. Both are fibrinolytic enzymes that address blood clotting. You can develop sensitivity to them, so I recommend alternating the two on alternate days for about three months if you’ve had COVID.
You could rule out blood clotting by doing a D-dimer test. If your D-dimer is normal, you don’t need an anticlotting agent. If clotting is a concern, you could also use NAC in addition to these fibrinolytic enzymes. It too helps break up clots and prevent clot formation.
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Chilean laboratory shares, through the Dirección Correcta radio program, exclusive photos of graphene oxide found in vaccination vials from Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Sinovac.
Just as Dr. Pablo Campra Madrid published a study on the actual content of COVID vaccines, a similar one is being written in Chile on the vaccines administered in that country.
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San Francisco plans to extend its indoor proof-of-vaccination requirements to children 5 to 11 years old, the first major U.S. city to do so, following the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s announcement Wednesday recommending the Pfizer-BioNTech lower-dose Covid vaccine for this age group.
The city, which has a proof-of-vaccination mandate for everyone 12 and older to access indoor activities, like restaurants, gyms and sporting events, said that San Franciscans should start preparing to show immunization cards for children 5 to 11 in the coming months.
“We definitely want to wait and make sure that children have an opportunity to get vaccinated,” San Francisco Health Officer Dr. Susan Philip said during a Tuesday town hall on Covid-19 vaccination. “That will happen no sooner than about eight weeks after the vaccine is available to kids. So there will be a limited time in which there will not be those requirements, but then at some point, 5 to 11-year-olds will also have to show proof of vaccination to access some of those same settings.”
The CDC announcement expands immunization recommendations to about 28 million children across the country. Regardless of possible proof-of-vaccination mandates, Dr. Michael Cabana, the physician-in-chief at The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in New York, said that vaccinating younger children is “another step towards returning to normalcy.”
“It not only protects children but protects anyone that might be around kids, so there’s a community protection that’s going to occur as more people get vaccinated,” Cabana said.
Cabana also said that younger children might experience “some discomfort” from the shot, but that for most children, the Pfizer vaccine is “generally very, very safe.” He said the risk is low for community safety, which Philip echoed as she closed the town hall by saying she plans to have her own children vaccinated.
“I believe in this vaccine and the process it has taken to get to us, and I’m very eager to have both my 9 and my 6-year-old get vaccinated as soon as we possibly can,” Philip said.
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Austria has moved closer to imposing a full lockdown on the unvaccinated after those who haven’t had the jab were banned from entering a long list of public spaces.
“The entry ban will come into effect next week and will apply to cafes, bars, restaurants, theaters, ski lodges, hotels, hairdressers and any event involving more than 25 people,” reports RT.
The measures will impact the 36 per cent of residents who haven’t been fully immunized and have been introduced in response to rising COVID cases.
“The evolution is exceptional and the occupancies of intensive-care beds are increasing significantly faster than we had expected,” said Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg.
After providing a four week buffer period for those who have received one dose of the vaccine and can provide a negative PCR test, the option to provide a negative test will be removed.
As we highlighted last month, the government has put a limit on the occupancy of intensive care units which, if breached, will trigger lockdown measures being imposed solely on the unvaccinated.
Once the number reaches 600, or one third of total capacity, the new rules will be triggered. That number now stands at 352 but is rising by 10 per day.
Such measures will extend beyond vaccine passports, mandating that people who are unjabbed stay at home and only leave for “essential” reasons such as buying food.
This will probably be enforced in a similar way to how the first lockdown was enforced, with police performing spot checks on people asking if they have permission to be outside.
Austria would be the first major country to exclusively impose ‘stay at home’ measures on the unvaccinated, but it could eventually be replicated elsewhere, despite the waning immunity that the vaccine itself offers.
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The US climate envoy John Kerry is getting down to the real business at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Glasgow after President Joe Biden has had his photo-ops, made his idiosyncratic public remarks and flew back home.
The Xinhua new agency reported that Kerry and the Chinese delegation will “continue their dialogue and exchanges” at Glasgow — that is, with Xie Zhenhua, China’s special envoy for climate change, and Zhao Yingmin, head of the Chinese delegation to COP26 and vice minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.
For Kerry’s negotiating brief at Glasgow in the coming days, China will be the single most important interlocutor.The Chinese President Xi Jinping in his written speech at the Glasgow summit has put forward three proposals:
“First, we need to uphold multilateral consensus…Second, we need to focus on concrete actions. Visions will come true only when we act on them.
“Parties need to honour their commitments, set realistic targets and visions, and do their best according to national conditions to deliver their climate action measures. Developed countries should not only do more themselves, but should also provide support to help developing countries do better. Third, we need to accelerate the green transition… and explore a new pathway forward that coordinates development with conservation.”
It is against such a backdrop that Biden tried to walk and chew the gum at the same time at Glasgow by publicly ridiculing his Chinese counterpart and then leaving the stage to Kerry to do the real business.
But a forceful commentary by Xinhua reminded Biden that “China and the United States are the world’s top two economies. They are not destined to be rivals as some narrow-minded China hawks in Washington predict… This is even truer when the global community has to face a torrent of pressing planetary challenges, like climate change and terrorism.”
To be sure, climate finance and climate justice will be the key templates that the world community is watching.Kerry hinted Tuesday that major announcements on climate finance are in the offing.“A hundred billion dollars doesn’t do it, folks,” Kerry said to a gaggle of press.
“It’s trillions of dollars that are needed. And the only way that we will get this done is if trillions of dollars are forthcoming… there are tens of trillions of dollars announced that are available to be invested in this transition,” he said.
But developing countries have been hearing similar pledges for 13 years now and need them to become a reality quickly. The rich countries’ reaction to the Covid pandemic shows that when they feel the need to act, they can act rapidly. But the massive amount of inequity in the vaccine distribution also mirrors the dynamic that surrounds the climate crisis.
What was on display on the part of political leaders at the Glasgow summit can only be described as dishonest recalcitrance, as an activist told the BBC. Inequities are at the heart of the climate crisis.
While raising high expectations, Kerry was actually referring to a pledge that developed countries had made in 2009 to mobilise $100 billion by the year 2020 to help the developing countries to reduce emissions and adapt to the impact of climate change. In Paris six years ago, they actually pledged to increase this to 2025 — that is $100 billion each year from 2020 to 2022.
The reporting on climate financing is opaque. So, some eye-rolling is warranted and it is too soon to celebrate. Especially, as it’s unclear who will provide the “tens of trillions” of dollars Kerry promised.
Yahoo News, reading the tea leaves, anticipates that it sounds like the private sector will play a major role in climate finance.
“Let me give you an example,” Kerry said when asked by Yahoo News who would be providing the funds. “My office worked with the six largest banks in America — Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, State Street, Bank of America and JPMorgan — they publicly stood up a number of months ago, it wasn’t much noticed, and they announced that they will, over the next 10 years, they will invest $4.1 trillion.”
So, that’s it. The big buck will be coming as loans and investments (as against grants.) Wall Street is moving in.
Significantly, Xi Jinping had emphasised in his written speech that China “will foster a green, low-carbon and circular economic system at a faster pace, press ahead with industrial structure adjustment…We will speed up the transition to green and low-carbon energy, vigorously develop renewable energy, and plan and build large wind and photovoltaic power stations…
‘Specific implementation plans for key areas such as energy, industry, construction and transport, and for key sectors such as coal, electricity, iron and steel, and cement will be rolled out, coupled with supporting measures in terms of science and technology, carbon sink, finance and taxation, and financial incentives. Taken together, these measures will form a “1+N” policy framework for delivering carbon peak and carbon neutrality, with a clearly-defined timetable, roadmap and blueprint.” read more
Clearly, China’s “dual carbon” goals are expected to unleash vast market opportunities for US companies to hitchhike on what will be the biggest “green revolution” in the coming decades.
As the 4th China International Import Expo (CIIE) began in Shanghai on Thursday, Chinese media reported that “low carbon became a buzzword” at the event. Chinese organisers set up a special area called “low-carbon energy and environmental protection technology exhibition zone,” and about 50 global companies are exhibiting carbon-related products and technologies that can help Chinese companies shift to clean energy.
In a keynote address at the opening ceremony of the CIIE titled Let the Breeze of Openness Bring Warmth to the World, Xi Jinping stressed that “opening up is the hallmark of contemporary China.” He said, “China will firmly promote high-standard opening up… China will deeply engage in international cooperation on green and low-carbon development and the digital economy, and work actively for joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement.” read more
Xinhua reported that around 200 American companies are attending the CIIE, which is the world’s first dedicated import exhibition. The exhibition area taken by the US companies has been one of the largest.
For sure, while Kerry talks of climate finance in Glasgow, China walks the talk in Shanghai. On Thursday, China’s Sinopec announced the signing of two mega contracts with US companies to buy 4 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) annually for 20 years, the largest long-term LNG deal ever signed between the two countries.
Apart from its relevance to China’s energy transition, the massive LNG deal marks advancement of phase one of China-US trade deal (committing Beijing to increase energy imports from the US by $52.4 billion), which in turn opens the pathway to resolve other pending trade issues, especially removal of tariffs on Chinese products as reciprocal move by Washington.
Quite obviously, the deck is being cleared for a productive meeting between Xi Jinping and Biden that is expected to take place within this year, with cooperation in climate change providing its most profound breakthrough.
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Featured image: Low-carbon Energy and Environmental Protection Technology Special Exhibition Zone, 4th CIIE, Shanghai, Nov. 4, 2021 (Source: Indian Punchline)
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Nach Auffassung des weltweit respektierten Wirtschaftsprofessors Michel Chossudovsky erleben wir derzeit die „schlimmste Krise der modernen Geschichte“ (1). Nach der Devise „Divide et impera“ wird gegen die Zivilgesellschaft ein Wirtschafts- und Sozialkrieg geführt. Dabei wird versucht, die Bevölkerung in Untergruppen – Geimpfte versus Ungeimpfte – aufzuspalten, die sich gegeneinander wenden, anstatt sich als Gruppe gegen den gemeinsamen Feind zu stellen, die mächtige Finanz-„Elite. Um die beabsichtigte Etablierung ihrer diabolischen Weltherrschafts-Agenda durchzusetzen, wird die zahlenmäßig immer größer werdende Gruppe der Aufklärer und freien Geister aus verschiedenen Berufsgruppen medial auf das Schlimmste diskreditiert und mit illegalen Gewaltmaßnahmen aus der Volksgemeinschaft auszugrenzen versucht. Nur wenn wir Bürger den Mut aufbringen, uns mit diesen „Aufklärern“ zu solidarisieren und ihnen kameradschaftlich zur Seite zu stehen, werden wir als Spezies Mensch überleben, unser bisheriges „Menschsein“ bewahren und die wirtschaftlichen wie sozialen Folgeschäden dieses unerklärten Krieges abfedern können. Doch noch zögern die meisten Bürger, obwohl die Lage bereits bitter ernst ist.
Kropotkin: Mit dem Prinzip der gegenseitigen Hilfe erfolgreicher überleben
Der russische Universalgelehrte Peter Kropotkin (1842 bis 1921) kritisiert in seinem 1902 erschienenen Buch „Gegenseitige Hilfe in Tier- und Menschenwelt“ die Thesen herkömmlicher sozialdarwinistischer Auffassungen und stellt dem „Kampf ums Dasein“ das Konzept der „Gegenseitigen Hilfe“ gegenüber. Beide zusammen sieht er als Faktoren der Evolution. Die höher organisierten Lebewesen leben in Verbänden, Gruppen und Herden; in ihnen hat sich ein Herdeninstinkt herausgebildet, der mitunter die Arterhaltung über die Selbsterhaltung stellt. Diejenigen Lebewesen, die das Prinzip der gegenseitigen Hilfe umsetzen, würden erfolgreicher überleben.
In der Menschenwelt spielen soziale Gefühle und gesellschaftliche Verbundenheit sicherlich eine ebenso große Rolle wie der Wille zur Macht und der Eigennutz. Der Mensch ist der Hingabe und der Selbstaufopferung fähig. Nach den Erkenntnissen der naturwissenschaftlichen Tiefenpsychologie, die auf Kropotkins Forschungen aufbaut, ist der Mensch ein naturgegeben soziales, auf die Gemeinschaft der Mitmenschen ausgerichtetes Wesen. Vor ihm müssen wir keine Angst haben. Er möchte in Freiheit und Frieden leben, ohne Gewalt und Krieg – so wie wir alle. Assoziieren wir uns mit ihm, um als Spezies zu überleben.
Rabelais: „Habt den Geist frei und werfet ab alle Ängstlichkeit!“
Francois Rabelais (1494 bis 1553) war ein Schriftsteller der Renaissance, Humanist, Arzt sowie Pfarrer. Seine Maxime lautete: „Nicht nach Satzung leben, sondern nach eigener freier Wahl!“ Folgerichtig verweigerte er jede Autorität (2). Seine Worte und Lebenshaltung möchte man gerne auch heutigen Zeitgenossen nahelegen.
Derjenige erwachsene Bürger, der um die Entstehung seiner irrationalen Ängste, seiner Dämonenfurcht und seiner Autoritätsgefühle in der Kindheit weiß, wird sie eines Tages überwinden können. Das absichtliche Schüren von Ängsten skrupelloser Herrscher wird er als bewährtes Disziplinierungs- und Herrschaftsinstrument durchschauen und den üblichen Reflex des absoluten Gehorsams nicht mehr zeigen. Auch freut er sich darauf, sich mit seinen Artgenossen zusammen zu schließen und mit ihnen zusammen zu wirken. Er hat dann keine Angst mehr vor ihnen.
Auch wird er Politiker nicht mehr als respektable Autoritäten ansehen und zu ihnen aufblicken wie ein Kind, ihnen nicht mehr leichtfertig die Macht übergeben und die Lösung der Menschheitsprobleme delegieren. Er bringt vielmehr den Mut auf, sich seines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen und seinem gesunden Menschenverstand zu vertrauen.
Eine große charakterliche Herausforderung wird es sein, sich von den Aubeutern des real existierenden Kapitalismus nicht korrumpieren zu lassen wie viele Politiker, Ärzte und Wissenschaftler. Es ist grässlich, was der Kapitalismus mit seinem Geldproblem, was dessen Ausbeutung mit dem Menschen macht. Das Geld vernichtet den Menschen, vernichtet die Beziehung, macht ihn korrupt. Es ist immer der Kampf um das Brot. Das Geld ist das kapitalistische Prinzip des Lebens. Würden wir dieses System aufgeben und eine Gemeinschaft bilden, wo das alles nicht in Frage kommt, dann gäbe es keine Ausbeuter, keine Kapitalisten, keine Kriege und keine Angst. Dann entstünde ein anderer Mensch.
Hopkins: „Auf der Straße in den Totalitarismus“
Noch haben wir die Wahl, doch die Falle schnappt bald zu: Entweder entscheiden wir uns für die uneingeschränkte Solidarität mit den Aufklärern und freien Geistern oder wir entscheiden uns für die Gewalt, das heißt, für die staatliche Gewaltherrschaft nach der Devise „Teile und herrsche“.
In einem neueren Artikel prangert der US-amerikanische Schriftsteller C. J. Hopkins die totalitären Corona-Maßnahmen scharf an und sieht den Westen auf der Straße in den Totalitarismus. Beendet wird der Artikel mit der Aufforderung:
„Entscheiden Sie sich für eine Seite…jetzt…oder es wird eine Seite für Sie gewählt“ (3)
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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel ist Rektor a.D., Erziehungswissenschaftler und Diplom-Psychologe.
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According to the globally respected economics professor Michel Chossudovsky, we are currently experiencing the “worst crisis in modern history” (1). According to the motto “divide et impera”, an economic and social war is being waged against civil society. The attempt is to divide the population into sub-groups – vaccinated versus unvaccinated – which turn against each other instead of standing as a group against the common enemy, the powerful financial “elite”. In order to enforce the intended establishment of their diabolical world domination agenda, the numerically ever-growing group of enlightened and free spirits from various professional groups is discredited in the worst possible way by the media, and attempts are made to exclude them from the national community by illegal violent measures.
Only if we citizens muster the courage to show solidarity with these “enlightened people” and stand by their side in comradeship will we survive as a human species, preserve our previous “humanity” and be able to cushion the economic and social consequential damages of this undeclared war. But most citizens are still hesitating, although the situation is already bitterly serious.
Kropotkin: Surviving more successfully with the principle of mutual aid
In his book “Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution”, published in 1902, the Russian polymath Peter Kropotkin (1842 to 1921) criticises the theses of conventional Social Darwinist views and contrasts the “struggle for existence” with the concept of “mutual aid”. He sees both together as factors of evolution. The more highly organised living beings live in associations, groups and herds; in them a herd instinct has developed which sometimes places the preservation of the species above self-preservation. Those living beings that implement the principle of mutual aid would survive more successfully.
In the human world, social feelings and social connectedness certainly play as great a role as the will to power and self-interest. Man is capable of devotion and self-sacrifice. According to the findings of scientific depth psychology, which builds on Kropotkin’s research, man is a naturally social being, oriented towards the community of fellow human beings. We do not have to be afraid of him. He wants to live in freedom and peace, without violence and war – just like all of us. Let us associate ourselves with him in order to survive as a species.
Rabelais: “Have a free mind and cast off all fearfulness!”
Francois Rabelais (1494 to 1553) was a Renaissance writer, humanist, physician as well as a priest. His maxim was: “Do not live by statute, but by your own free choice!” Consequently, he refused all authority (2). His words and attitude to life are something we would like to encourage our contemporaries to follow.
The adult citizen who knows about the origin of his irrational fears, his fear of demons and his feelings of authority in childhood will one day be able to overcome them. He will see through the deliberate stoking of fears by unscrupulous rulers as a tried and tested instrument of discipline and domination and will no longer show the usual reflex of absolute obedience. He also looks forward to joining forces with his conspecifics and working together with them. He will then no longer be afraid of them.
He will also no longer regard politicians as respectable authorities and look up to them like a child, no longer lightly hand over power to them and delegate the solution of humanity’s problems. Rather, he will muster the courage to use his own mind and trust his common sense.
It will be a great character challenge not to be corrupted by the predators of real existing capitalism like many politicians, doctors and scientists. It is horrible what capitalism does with its money problem, what its exploitation does with the human being. Money destroys people, destroys relationships, corrupts them. It is always the struggle for bread. Money is the capitalist principle of life. If we would give up this system and form a community where all this is out of the question, then there would be no exploiters, no capitalists, no wars and no fear. Then a different human being would emerge.
Hopkins: “On the road to totalitarianism”
We still have a choice, but the trap is about to snap shut: either we choose unrestricted solidarity with the enlightened and free spirits or we choose violence, that is, state tyranny according to the motto “divide and rule”.
In a recent article, the US writer C. J. Hopkins strongly denounces the totalitarian Corona measures and sees the West on the road to totalitarianism. The article ends with the exhortation:
“Choose a side…now…or a side will be chosen for you” (3).
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Dr Rudolf Hänsel is a retired rector, educationalist and psychologist.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
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This is a fascinating and beautiful book, one of those gems you serendipitously discover and shake your head at your good fortune. Although it is new and I received it as a gift, it reminds me of a few books I have discovered over the years while rummaging through used bookstores that have startled me into a new perspective on life. Ironically, these books have advised me, whether explicitly or implicitly, to be done with books, because what I was seeking cannot be found in them, for it floats on the wind. But this paradox is their secret. Such discoveries are memorable, and this is a memorable book in so many ways.
Despite having read more books than I wish to remember, I had never heard of David Lorimer until being informed by a friend. A Scottish writer, poet, editor, and lecturer of great accomplishments, he is the editor of The Paradigm Explorer and was the Director of the Scientific and Medical Network from 1986-2000 where he is now Program Director. He has written or edited over a dozen books.
He is one of a dying breed: a true intellectual with a soul, for his writing covers the waterfront, by which I mean the vast ocean of philosophy, science, theology, literature, psychology, spirituality, politics, etc. A Quest for Wisdom[isbn.nu] is precisely what its name implies. It is a compendium of wide-ranging essays written over the past forty years in pursuit of the meaning of life and the sagacity to realize one never arrives at wisdom since it is a process, not a product. Like living.
His opening essay on Victor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz and wrote so pofoundly about it in Man’s Search for Meaning, [isbn.nu] sets the stage for all the essays that follow. For Frankl’s life and work, and the stories he tells about it, are about experiential, not theoretical, discoveries in the world where one finds oneself – even Auschwitz – where he learned that Nietzsche’s words were true: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” He discovered that along life’s path – between life and death, happiness and suffering, peaks and valleys, yesterday and tomorrow, etc. – is where we always find ourselves by responding to the questions life asks us. He tells us, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
We are always in-between, and it is our attitude and conduct that allows us to freely will the meaning of our lives, no matter what. Frankl came to call this search for meaning logotherapy, or meaning therapy, by which an individual is always free to choose one’s stance or course of action, and it is by such choosing that the greatness of life can be measured and meaning confirmed in any single moment, even retrospectively. He maintains that modern people are disorientated and living in “an existential vacuum,” pursuing happiness when it cannot be pursued since it is a derivative, a side effect, and “it is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.” Happiness falls out of our pockets when we aren’t looking. Additionally, as Lorimer writes about Frankl, “He rejects psychoanalytical determinism…and the actualization of the self through any form of gratification.”
So does Lorimer, for he is an in-between man (as we all are if only we realized it), whether he is writing about Frankl, the absurd and the mysterious, the Tao, science and spirituality, the brain and the mind, near death experiences (“near” being the key word), Albert Schweitzer, Dag Hammarskjöld, freedom and determinism, ethics and politics, etc.
Whatever subject he touches, he illuminates, leaving the reader to interrogate oneself. I find such questions in every essay in this book, and the path to answer them snaking through its pages.
I was especially touched by his 2008 essay, which was originally a memorial lecture, about his friend the Irish writer and philosopher John Moriarty, who died in 2007. Moriarty’s work was rooted in the wild land of western Ireland, a place whose rugged beauty has sprouted many a passionate artist and visionary who have drunk deep of the mythical spiritual connections of Irish culture and natural beauty. He was a brilliant thinker and storyteller – that mysterious quality that seems so Irish – who left an academic career to seek deeper truths in nature. Influenced by D. H. Lawrence, Wordsworth, Yeats, Boehme, Melville, and Nietzsche, among other visionary seeking artists, he discovered a Blakean sense of reality that counteracted the deification of Reason and emphasized the need to recover our souls through sympathetic knowing that involved an embrace of intuition that went beyond cognition. Lorimer writes:
Or, as John would put it, we have fallen out of our story and need to find a new one. Not only a new story, but also a new way of seeing and being, of relating as a part to the whole, as individuals to society, as cells to the body…To be is to have the potential to become something else, a potential which we don’t always fulfill, in spite of life’s invitations and initiations…We too easily retreat into fear, we batten down the hatches in the name of security, which is a mere shadow of peace.
Lorimer is clearly not anti-science, since for thirty-five years he has been deeply involved with the Scientific and Medical Network. But he has long realized the limitations of science and all the essays touch on this theme in one way or another. Wisdom is his goal, not knowledge. He mentions Iain McGilchrist’s work in this regard – The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World – wherein McGilchrist argues for a reemphasis on the master right hemisphere “with its creative and holistic mode of perception,” rather than the left hemisphere with its logical, scientific mode of perception. “Two voyages,” says Lorimer, “two modes of perception, which should coexist in a state of mutual respect. The rational and the intuitive are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.” Nevertheless, in his pursuit of wisdom, Lorimer, despite his nod to this mutuality, has discovered that the recovery of soul and meaning can only be found beyond cognition and Kantian categories.
His essay on “Tao and the Path towards Integration,” drawing on Carl Jung and Herman Hesse, et al., is a lucid exploration of what Jung calls “the vocation to personality.” This is the call life puts to everyone but many refuse to hear or answer: “Become who you are,” in Nietzsche’s enigmatic words, advice that is as much a question as a declaration. Lorimer writes:
Those who have not been confronted with this question will often consider those who have as peculiar, adding that there is no such thing as a vocation to personality, and their sense of being isolated and different is a form of spiritual arrogance; they should concern themselves with the really important things in life, viz ‘getting on’, and leading an inconspicuously normal existence.
These restless-busyness people are caught on the treadmill of getting and spending, and in their alienation from their true selves must disdain those who seek wholeness by grasping life’s polarities and paradoxes. Stillness in movement, being in becoming. Paradox: from Latin para = contrary to, and doxa = opinion. Contrary to common belief or expectation.
In “Cultivating a Sense of Beauty,” Lorimer uses his etymological understanding – which is so important for deep thinking and which he uses liberally throughout the book – to explain “the beauty of holiness, and the correspondence between beauty and truth.” He is not some bliss-ninny who is in the interior soul decoration business devoid of political consciousness and care. Far from it. He understands the connection between real beauty in its deepest sense and its connection to love for all existence and the responsibility that this confers on everyone to resist war and all forms of political oppression. What Camus tried to do: To serve beauty and suffering. “The English word ‘beauty’, like the French ‘beauté, is derived from the Latin ‘beare’ meaning to bless or gladden, and the ‘beatus’, blessed are the happy.” Appropriately, Lorimer quotes Wordsworth from “Intimations of Immortality.”
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, its fears,
To me the meanest flower that grows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
Whether he is writing about Albert Schweitzer, Swedenborg, Voltaire, Dag Hammarskjöld, Peter Deunov (a Bulgarian mystic I first learned about here), he weaves their thought and witness into his overarching theme of the search for wisdom. Wisdom not in the navel-gazing sense but in the larger sense as wisdom for creating a world of truth, peace, and justice.
In the middle of the book’s three sections, called “Consciousness, Death, and Transformation,” he offers various intriguing pieces that explore near death experiences and the philosophical, experiential, and scientific arguments for their reality. In this rejection of the materialist conception of mind, brain, and consciousness, he relies on thinkers such as William James and Henri Bergson, but especially the Swedish scientist, philosopher, theologian, and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) who had many psychic and spiritual experiences that have been both accepted as inspired and rejected as hokum. Lorimer reminds us that Swedenborg was not some nutcase but was a brilliant and accomplished thinker. “It’s not well known that Swedenborg wrote a 700-page book on the brain, in which he was the first to suggest complementary roles for the two hemispheres.” Likewise, Lorimer’s work with The Scientific and Medical Network and the Galileo Commission over the decades roots his writing on this topic in the work of many prominent neuroscientists and is far from New Age gibberish. It is serious work that demands serious attention. He accurately writes:
The problem of death will not disappear if we ignore it. Sooner or later we must come to terms with our own nature and destiny.What is the nature of man, of death, and what are the nature of the implications of death for the way in which we live our lives? The first two questions amount to asking about the nature of consciousness.
In the third and final section – “Taking Responsibility: Ethics and Society” – Lorimer, drawing often on Albert Schweitzer who has deeply influenced him, applies the natural consequences of the soulful wisdom he embraces in the first two sections. In the face of endless wars, poverty, ecological degradation, and the threat of nuclear war, etc., he writes, “Those who have the interests of humanity at heart cannot simply stand back in helplessness and despair: they must act themselves and arouse those around them to similar action or else abdicate their humanity by not shouldering their responsibility.” This can be accomplished through a commitment to truth, love, peaceableness, kindness, and non-violent action, first at the individual level but crucially then when a sufficient number of people can be organized for this effort. “This in turn demands a spiritual commitment and an initial step of faith or confidence, which the person who wishes to devote him- and herself to humanity cannot not afford to make.”
His essay on Dag Hammarskjöld, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, who was a key ally of President John F. Kennedy in their work for peace and decolonialization and who, like JFK, was assassinated by CIA organized forces, is a perfect example of such faith and commitment in a true public servant. Hammarskjöld was a deeply spiritual man, a mystical political man of action, and Lorimer, drawing on Hammarskjöld’s own writing, shows how he embodied all the qualities found in one who was truly wise: self-effacement, stillness in action, detachment, humility, forgiveness, and courage in the face of the unknown. He quotes Hammarskjöld:
Now, when I have overcome my fears – of others, of myself, of the underlying darkness – at the frontier of the unheard-of: Here ends the known. But, from a source beyond it, something fills my being with its possibilities.
I am reminded of JFK’s love of Abraham Lincoln’s prayer, which Kennedy lived by in the dark times before his assassination, which he anticipated: “I know there is a God – and I see a storm coming. If he has a place for me, I believe that I am ready.”
The last essay in this illuminating and inspiring book – “Towards a Culture of Love-an Ethic of Interconnectedness” – was written in 2007, and all of them go back many decades, but in case a reader of this review may wonder where Lorimer stands today, he has added an afterword with a postscript in which he writes briefly about today’s assault on heresy, dissidence, and those who have been falsely called “conspiracy theorists” in the CIA’s weaponized term. I mention that to make clear that A Quest for Wisdom is not an encouragement to navel gazing and some sort of pseudo-spirituality. It is a call to a spiritual awakening in today’s fight against radical evil. He makes clear that the conspiracy theorist label is being unjustly used against those who question the JFK assassination, the 9/11 Commission Report, Covid-19, etc. He says we are being subjected to a major information war and extensive censorship of non-mainstream views.” He sums it up this way:
Over the past few months we have witnessed a new episode of Inquisition and the implicit creation of an online Index of Prohibited Material. There has been a steep rise in censorship by social media companies of views at variance with mainstream narratives: dissident content is summarily removed. Heretical and subversive views are not tolerated, open debate is stifled in favor of officially sanctioned orthodoxy, whistle-blowers are abused and demonized. Manipulated by fear and on a flimsy pretext of security, we are in danger of abjectly surrendering the very freedom of thought and expression that our ancestors fought so courageously to secure in the eighteenth century and which constitutes the essence of our Enlightenment legacy…
These are the words of a wise man and the author of a wonderful book.
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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Behind the Curtain.
Edward Curtin is a prominent author, researcher and sociologist based in Western Massachusetts. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Featured image is from Amazon
He is the author of Seeking the Truth in a Country of Lies
“Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies is a dazzling journey into the heart of many issues — political, philosophical, and personal — that should concern us all. Ed Curtin has the touch of the poet and the eye of an eagle.” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“Edward Curtin puts our propaganda-stuffed heads in a guillotine, then in a flash takes us on a redemptive walk in the woods — from inferno to paradiso. Walk with Ed and his friends — Daniel Berrigan, Albert Camus, George Orwell, and many others — through the darkest, most-firefly-filled woods on this earth.” James W. Douglass, author, JFK and the Unspeakable
“A powerful exposé of the CIA and our secret state… Curtin is a passionate long-time reform advocate; his stories will rouse your heart.” Oliver Stone, filmmaker, writer, and director
The Mandatory Vaccine Agenda is a worldwide plan which has been picking up steam lately. Unfortunately for the causes of individual rights, medical autonomy and sovereignty, natural health and freedom in general, many countries and US states have been accelerating the push to force all children to be vaccinated.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has been vilified for making a very simple statement – that parents (and presumably patients themselves) should have the freedom to choose whether to vaccinate their children. I have been asked for years what I thought about vaccination, so let me lay out the issues.
The pandemic is contrived for sinister motives. Everything connected with Covid is Junk Science foisted on a fearful and gullible world. The virus, the lock downs, the masks, the abuse of PCR for diagnosis, the temperature checks at commercial entrances, the ubiquitous little bottles of alcohol, the relentless propaganda and most especially the soon-to-be-mandatory lethal injections are all Junk Science.
The Italian Higher Institute of Health has drastically reduced the country’s official COVID death toll number by over 97 per cent after changing the definition of a fatality to someone who died from COVID rather than with COVID.
Assuming that 10% of deaths and adverse events are reported (a very conservative assumption according to Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Inc, p. 6) The mRNA “Vaccine” would have resulted in at least 380,000 deaths and 63 million “adverse events” for a combined population of approximately 830 million (UK, EU, US).
The panel of three judges on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Shreveport issued a temporary restraining order on October 28, blocking Ochsner Health System from firing or disciplining any of its 32,000 employees who have refused to comply with the system’s COVID-19 injection requirement.
The Number Needed to Treat (NNT) in order to prevent a single case, hospitalization, ICU admission, or death, is a standard way to measure the effectiveness of any drug. It’s an important tool because it enables policymakers to evaluate tradeoffs between a new drug, a different existing drug, or doing nothing.
The Nicaraguan elections are on Nov. 7, 2021. The U.S. government, the media that does its bidding, and even some self-described “leftists,” present a Nicaragua in “turmoil” and “crisis”—and the elections as a farce.
Pilots are required to be in tip-top physical condition, but in 2021, the entire airline industry conspired against the pilot’s individual health and threatened them with termination if they did not partake in the covid-19 vaccine experiment. As a result, over one hundred young pilots have mysteriously passed away in 2021, as countless other pilots suffer silently from adverse events and depleted immune systems.
A total of one hundred eleven pilots died in the first eight months of this year! This is a 1,750% increase from 2020, when the world was supposed to be in the middle of a pandemic. A list of the deceased individuals was published in the Air Line Pilot Association magazine. In comparison, there were 6 airline pilot deaths in 2020, and only one death in 2019.
Surge in pilot deaths is a warning sign to all
Most of the 111 deaths occurred after the covid-19 jabs were rolled out en masse. Because there are no medical codes for vaccine-induced death, most of the deaths are blamed on other causes. These causes may be related to the pathological evidence behind vaccine injuries, but are never coded as such. Pathological evidence is often ignored, and the deaths of young men and women are often referred to as “sudden” or “unexplained” – with no pathological investigation.
Only 5 deaths were recorded from January-March in 2021, when vaccine uptake was low. Peculiarly, a total of (39) deaths occurred in July and (34) occurred in August — right after governments and private companies used vaccine mandates to violate the privacy of their employees and punish them. Even though these intimidation tactics are illegal, these vaccine mandates were used to scare pilots into submission. Like in many professional fields, pilots went against their own beliefs and against their private medical situation, accepting the subjugation. Many complied with the vaccine mandates because the discrimination was so strong, equal opportunities were being shuttered and personal health decisions were not being honored. Many were afraid to lose their job and their future career prospects, so they lined up, hoping for the best while justifying the medical tyranny.
Deadly vaccine issues have been pushed aside for decades, as the world wakes up to the industry’s hidden horrors
Young, previously healthy athletes are seeing the same trend in mortality as the pilots are. Goodsciencing.com tracked over 300 post-vaccine medical incidents from January 1 to December 10. These incidents involved young, previously healthy athletes who suddenly collapsed on the playing field in 2021. Out of these unexplained medical incidents, 170 of the athletes ended up dead. These trends are not surprising, because pharmacovigilance data collected around the world shows that the mRNA vaccines are causing heart inflammation, autoimmune issues, and immune depletion, leading to sudden cardiac arrest, neurological dysfunction and severe infections. CovidVaccineVictims.com retains a memorial for people who passed away as a result of this horrendously forceful, ghastly genetic experiment.
The issues with vaccination have been brushed aside for decades, ever since the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Act granted legal protections for vaccine companies in the United States. Enjoying legal immunity for over thirty years, vaccine makers made a mockery of the rule of law, exempting themselves from legal accountability when their products harm people. Today, mRNA vaccine makers have entered into contracts with governments around the world to exempt their operations from any judicial responsibility or a jury trial. Vaccine makers are operating above the law and will continue to get away with genocide if the rule of law is not restored. The mRNA vaccine makers have plans for endless boosters now. Their dominion over governments and their endless money supply will allow them to steal, kill and destroy using propaganda, coercion and force.