Global Research

The recent conflicts in the Russian zone of influence have attracted attention around the world. But little has been said about the possibility that such conflicts are part of a single common plan, designed to geopolitically destabilize Russia. This possibility is what we can deduce when we recall some recent writings of the renowned think tank RAND Corporation, which, in 2019, openly defended the adoption of a series of measures to weaken Moscow, exploiting its vulnerabilities. Among such measures in the economic sphere the document proposed the manipulation of oil and gas prices that affect the Russian defense budget, as well as the imposition of increasingly rigid sanctions and in the political sphere – the spread of regional conflicts in its “periphery” which could perfectly include Nagorno-Karabakh, Kyrgyzstan and others.

Several of the points highlighted in the RAND’s document entitled “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia”, in its more than 350 pages, have been implemented so far, especially in the “immediate periphery”. The recent Belarusian political crisis itself, for example, highlights the role of external agents interested in the destabilization of this historic Russian ally – something that is openly defended in such a document which proposes a colorful revolution in Belarus. In addition, the incitement of conflicts in the Caucasus and Central Asia, the deterioration of the Syrian and Ukrainian situations, among others, are also strategic points raised by the dossier.

RAND’s goal is to define the areas where the US can compete most effectively, providing reports and proposals based on concrete data. Such reports must accurately define the vulnerabilities in the economic and military spheres of each nation against which the United States is competing, helping Washington to create its strategies. Several of the policies adopted by the US are the result of advices from RAND’s analysts. In this sense, RAND’s analysis about Russia and its draft strategy for a competition between the US and Russia today proposes that the best way to weaken Moscow is through a siege of conflicts in its territorial proximities. Obviously, it is not proposed to attack Russia, but to create wars along its entire border, destabilizing international security in the region – a scenario from which many other possibilities arise.

Despite all the complex political and military strategy, in the RAND document it is highlighted that the biggest Russian weakness in a dispute with the US is the economic issue. The think tank’s proposal focuses on heavy investment in energy production, mainly renewable energy, as well as encouraging domestic production of such energy sources in countries allied to the US, with the aim of reducing Russian exports – which would strongly affect Russian defense budgets. The central role of the US in the boycott against the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is a clear example of how such strategies are being put into practice.

Another type of measures that RAND recommends is in the ideological and informational spheres. The Corporation advises a vigorous pro-Western information campaign aimed at highlighting aspects allegedly present in the Russian regime, such as endemic corruption. In any case, RAND considers this disinformation strategy to be “risky”, as it would encourage Moscow to highlight the weaknesses of Western democracies, leading to a new ideological war through disinformation campaigns.

Interestingly, Russia is constantly accused of interfering in the American electoral process through campaigns of disinformation and cyber war since the rise of Donald Trump four years ago. Now, with the new elections, the tendency is for such accusations to grow exponentially, showing a strategy of mass disinformation meticulously planned by strategists with clear goals.

In fact, there is no doubt about the power of influence of RAND Corporation’s analysis in the construction of US foreign policy strategies. The siege that is being proposed in the document gradually materializes, with strategies of economic suffocation, disinformation and inciting regional conflicts, but it remains to be seen what the consequences for the US domestic scenario will be. The RAND report had no way of predicting the emergence of a global tragedy such as the new coronavirus pandemic. In the context of more than 220,000 deaths due to the virus in the US, popular rebellions and inflamed racial tensions across the country and in the midst of a decisive electoral process, will the Washington be able to maintain such a siege strategy? Is it sustainable for the US to stir up conflict in the vicinity of Russia when its internal bases are crumbling?

Perhaps the strategies designed by RAND last year are absolutely useless today. The pandemic structurally changed the dynamics of world geopolitics and currently the idea of an American siege against Russia is not conceivable. The tendency is that all conflicts will diminish as no major military power will intervene. The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh shows how the tendency is for conflicts to gradually stabilize. On the contrary, within the US, everything just tends to get worse. Perhaps Washington is taking a step beyond its reach. Or perhaps the interests of strategists at RAND Corporation and the American Deep State do not exactly imply what is best for the US.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

I have recently completed a large painting (oil on canvas), exploring the emotional and spiritual side of mandatory masks, and what they symbolize. Visual art can serve as a medium to express sentiments from an angle that cannot be achieved verbally. (Jordan Henderson)

***

This painting is the culmination of a long, careful, visual exploration of the world that I see today, the world that I see when I go to get groceries, or run an errand.

The mundane world only looks boring because we are used to it, we see it everyday, but the prosaic has never been more than a deceptively simple facade for a fascinating place where nearly everything we do has spiritual, and ethical significance.

Often we must observe the everyday world with great care to perceive these things, but sometimes they surface in an obvious manner.

Imagine throwing dust on an otherwise invisible person, masks are like that; power struggles, and beliefs are now proclaimed, for all to see, with a prominent symbol.

Link to the painting webpage.

Oil on Canvas – 30 x 48 inches

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Jordan Henderson is a renowned artist from Washington State. He works in oil on canvas and charcoal on paper. A portfolio of his works can be viewed at jordanhendersonfineart.com

US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Study Refutes Official Covid-Sars-2 Narrative

By Makia Freeman, October 27 2020

CDC (Center for Disease Control) scientists made some COVID admissions that totally destroy the official COVID narrative in a study published in June 2020.

U.S. Empire, Trumped. “The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World”

By Asad Ismi, October 27 2020

Trump nonetheless takes his place in the pantheon of violent U.S. presidents who have, since King’s judgment, left millions of people dead in the Global South in the wake of incompetent military escapades and cruel economic warfare.

“Mask Mouth”: Wearing Facemasks Causes Decaying Teeth, Gum Disease, Skin Blemishes, Pimples, Acne

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, October 27 2020

Mask Mouth, is basically a new term coined by doctors located in New York City who describe the new phenomenon of arising dental problems that are associated to wearing facemasks on a consistent basis.

Trump Regime Approves Large-Scale Taiwan Arms Purchase. Another Blow to Bilateral Relations with Beijing

By Stephen Lendman, October 27 2020

China’s Foreign Ministry stressed that US arms sales to the “breakaway province” breaches the one-China principle both countries agreed to decades earlier.

Mass Rebellion in Nigeria: #EndSARS Protests Met with State Repression and Police Brutality

By Abayomi Azikiwe, October 27 2020

A series of incidents involving the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad police unit (SARS) in the Federal Republic of Nigeria has brought to the surface underlying societal contradictions which have been simmering for many years.

China: The Upcoming Global Superpower

By Kester Kenn Klomegah, October 27 2020

Despite its large population of 1.5 billion which many have considered as an impediment, China’s domestic economic reforms and collaborative strategic diplomacy with external countries have made it attain superpower status over the United States.

Global Debt Disaster with No Escape. Under the “New Normal”, Poor Countries Worldwide are Heading for a Catastrophe

By Michael Roberts, October 27 2020

According to the IMF, about half of Low Income Economies (LIEs) are now in danger of debt default.  ‘Emerging market’ debt to GDP has increased from 40% to 60% in this crisis.

Unenforceable Nuclear Ban Treaty to Become International Law

By Dennis Riches, October 27 2020

The real victory will come when the ratifiers, and other nations that might join them, find collective power and real leverage to establish the conditions for peace and to enforce the treaty.

The New Tyranny Few Even Recognize. The Digital Dollar and the Fed’s Big Money Power Grab

By Charles Hugh Smith, October 27 2020

It’s pretty much universally recognized that authorities use crises to impose “emergency powers” that become permanent. This erosion of civil and economic liberties is always sold as “necessary for your own good.” 

New Report: Crowded Sky, Contested Sea: Drones over the South and East China Seas

By Joanna Frew, October 27 2020

Amid naval patrols, live military drills, island building, trade wars and diplomatic breakdown, drones are making an increasing impact on the security situation in the South China Sea and the relationship between China and the US.

In June of 2018, Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi was arrested in Germany on his way back to Vienna. He has been accused of involvement in a plot to bomb a rally of supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization (MEK), a terrorist group that seeks the overthrow of the Iranian government. Mr. Assadi has been incarcerated since his arrest, without trial.

There are many troubling aspects to this arrest. In order to better understand them, we contacted Professor Eileen Denza, a globally known and distinguished Professor of International Law. She has no close association to Iran; in fact, she has criticized the Iranian government when she felt it was in violation of international law. She looks at the law, without regard to political considerations. Her responses to our questions are below.

***

Robert Fantina: As you know, Assadollah Assadi, a diplomat of the Islamic Republic of Iran, was arrested on his way back to work in Vienna while crossing Germany in July 2018, and his case was sent to court in July 2020 after two years. Was the German Government authorized to do so under the 1961 Vienna Convention?

Professor Eileen Denza: On the information given to me, Mr Assadi was a member of the diplomatic staff of the Iranian Embassy to Austria, and at the time of his arrest he was in transit through Germany in order to return to his post. Under Article 40 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations he was therefore entitled to ‘inviolability and such other immunities as may be required to ensure his transit or return.’ Germany was therefore not entitled to arrest him.

RF: Given the text of Article 40 of the Convention and the emphasis on the duty of the third State vis-à-vis a diplomat returning to his workplace, has there not been a clear violation of the Convention concerning our country’s diplomats?

PED: On the information given to me, Germany was in violation, but I have not seen the judgments of the German court and so do not know the reasons why they took a different view.

RF: Were the actions of the German and Belgian Governments contrary to the purpose of the Convention on Diplomatic Relations enshrined in its preamble, that is to develop friendly relations between States and to ensure the effective functioning of diplomatic agents?

PED: On the assumption that there was a breach, it would clearly have an effect on relations between Germany and Iran and on relations between Belgium and Iran.

RF: In your opinion, legally speaking, what should be the response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to this violation of international law?

PED: On the assumption that Iran believes there was a breach of the Vienna Convention, their first response should be to protest to the Governments they believe to be in breach.

RF: In your opinion, what can be the role of the legal community and lawyers, especially professors and researchers of international law, in this case?

PED: In the first instance to ensure that they are fully informed as to the facts of the case and the reasons why courts in Germany and in Belgium took the view that Mr Assadi was not entitled to inviolability under Article 40 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

***

During this time of global instability, caused mainly by the United States, it is increasingly vital that all nations adhere to international law. There are two main issues in this situation:

• Germany violated international law by arresting Mr. Assadi, and holding him for so long without trial, and
• The MEK is recognized in most countries, with the United States being the most notable exception, as a terrorist organization. Germany must answer for why it was allowing a known terrorist organization, with a history of deadly violence, to hold a rally within its borders.

Much of the world seems to take its cue from the United States, a violent, racist and brutal regime. The administration of President Donald Trump, which may or may not be ending in three months, has torn the mask off any semblance of support for self-determination and respect for international law that the U.S. pretended to encourage. Without the rule of law there will be total chaos internationally, a situation that the U.S. has sewn in many nations and wants to sow in Iran. Terrorist organizations must be condemned, and people around the world must be supported in choosing their own form of governments.

The words and judgment of Professor Denza support law, and the rogue nations of the world, such as the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, must abide by international norms.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Are international relations a field for cautious minds, marked by permanent setbacks, or terrain where the bold are encouraged to seize the day?  In terms of dealing with the existential, and even unimaginable horror that is nuclear war, the bold have certainly stolen a march. 

The signature of Honduras was the 50^th required for the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Parties to the treaty are barred from possessing, developing, acquiring, testing, stockpiling, transferring, stationing, or threatening the use of nuclear weapons, amongst other prohibitions.  The treaty also makes it illegal for any of the parties to “assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited” by the document. 

Set to enter into force on January 22, 2021, the signing was cheered by the UN Secretary General António Guterres through his spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, who saluted “the work of civil society, which has been instrumental in facilitating the negotiation and ratification of the Treaty.”  It was also a harvest for those who had survived nuclear explosions and tests, “the culmination of a worldwide movement to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequence of any use of nuclear weapons.” 

Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), was also celebratory in calling the coming into force of the TPNW as “a new chapter for nuclear disarmament.  Decades of activism have achieved what many said was impossible: nuclear weapons are banned.” 

ICAN, in a statement released on Sunday, promised that this was “just the beginning.  Once the treaty is in force, all States’ parties will need to implement all of their positive obligations under the treaty and abide by its prohibitions.” In a pointed warning to those states yet to join the TPNW, the organisation suggested that the document’s “power” would reverberate globally in discouraging companies from continuing to manufacture nuclear weapons and institutions from investing in those companies. 

In looking at the debates on nuclear weapons, one tension remains ineradicable.  Those who do not possess such weapons, nor put their stake in their murderously reassuring properties, have little interest in seeing them kept.  They can moralise, stigmatise, and condemn from summits of humanitarian principle.  They aspire to the credit of sanity. 

Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) and their allies promote themselves as the world weary adults, soberly reliable in the face of such immature flights of fancy.  The opposite is true; their philosophy is a cultivated lunacy accepting of the very thing they wish to do away with.  Everyone might well agree to the abolition of nuclear weapons but disagree on how, exactly, the goal is to be achieved.  If changes are to take place, the school of cultivated lunacy insists it be done gradually, achieved through more acceptable, if constipated fora, such the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  The result is that disarmament takes place slowly or suffers, as is happening now, reversals, usually in moves to modernise current arsenals.   

The march of the TPNW is something nuclear weapons states have fought from negotiating rooms to chambers of ratification.   US Assistant Secretary for International Security and Non-proliferation Christopher Ford stated the common wisdom on that side of the fence in August 2017.  The TPNW suggested that advocates for the ban were “fundamentally unserious about addressing the real challenges of maintaining peace and security in a complicated and dangerous world, and unserious about trying to make that world a genuinely safer place.”   

The joint statement released by the United States, United Kingdom and France on July 7, 2017 was sternly disapproving, even ill-wishing.  The countries promised to avoid signing, ratifying or ever becoming parties to it.  Obligations towards nuclear weapons on their part had not, and would not change.  It would, they stated menacingly, do nothing to alter or add to the nature of customary international law.  They could point, triumphantly, at the absence of other nuclear weapon states and those relying on nuclear deterrence in the creative process. 

Such sentiments have been reiterated with the promise that the TPNW will enter into force.  In a letter to signatories from the Trump administration obtained by Associated Press, the United States claimed that the five original nuclear powers (US, Russia, China, Britain and France), along with NATO, stood “unified in our opposition to the potential repercussions of the treaty”. The document “turns back the clock on verification and disarmament” and threatened the NPT, “considered the cornerstone of global non-proliferation efforts.”  Already divisive, the TPNW risked “further entrenching divisions in existing non-proliferation and disarmament that offer the only realistic prospect for consensus-based progress”. 

The two words – “nuclear deterrence” – remain ludicrously attractive to policy classes who learned to love the nuke from its inception.  The nuke is paternally comforting, a stabilising foothold in a treacherous world.  While it has, at its core, a terrifying rationale, it brings with it, claim its defenders, the power to keep the peace, albeit through terror.  As the joint statement served to remind the starry-eyed abolitionists, nuclear deterrence had been vital “in keeping the peace in Europe and North Asia for 70 years.”  The TPNW did little to address the security dimension and would not serve to eliminate “a single nuclear weapon and will not enhance any country’s security, nor international peace and security.” 

Countries such as Australia insist that their alliance obligations with powers possessing nuclear weapons – in their case, the United States – make signing and ratifying the TPNW incompatible.  Under the Security Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States (ANZUS), goes this argument, Australia would be expected to participate in joint operations that might involve the deployment of nuclear weapons.  In the blunt assessment of Australia’s former foreign minister, Gareth Evans, joining the TPNW would effectively see Canberra “tearing up our US alliance commitment”.  A very orthodox reading, though not necessarily accurate, given that the ANZUS regime is not, strictly speaking, a nuclear one. 

More to the point is the elevation of extended nuclear deterrence to the level of a state religion, streaked with schizophrenia.  The Australian 2013 Defence White Paper discloses this in full: “As long as nuclear weapons exist, we rely on the nuclear forces of the United States to deter nuclear attack on Australia.  Australia is confident in the continuing viability of extended nuclear deterrence under the Alliance, while strongly supporting ongoing efforts towards global nuclear disarmament.”  Richard Tanter of the Nautilus Institute could only describe such a policy as “absurd, obscene and reckless,” not least because it is premised on an assurance that has never been given. 

Certain voices earning their keep in this field argue that the regimes of the TPNW and the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty are not exclusive but complimentary projects.  A claim has been made that the TPNW, far from diverging from the NPT with heretical defiance, is compatible with it.  As Thomas Hajnoczi suggests, the NPT was not intended as a complete and “comprehensive regulation of all aspects that were indispensable for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, non-proliferation, and nuclear disarmament.”  The TPNW added to the “existing ‘building’ a layer necessary to realize a world without nuclear weapons.”   

The international law fraternity is divided on this.  Arguments rage over the vagueness of the TPNW about legal obligations, along with potential tensions vis-à-vis the NPT.  Newell Highsmith and Mallory Stewart go so far as to see the lineaments of discrimination in the TPNW, seeing it as an unviable “legal vehicle for disarmament” with prospects to harm non-proliferation.  The result? Two estranged regimes, parallel and never meeting. 

For the establishment veterans and their converts in the nuclear disarmament business, nuclear weapons remain a perverse form of reassurance and currency.  It keeps arms chair theorists, planners, technicians and engineers in jobs.   Abolishing them would be tantamount to altering the power balance of international relations.  It might discourage that daily quotient of self-hate and suspicion that makes the human world go round.  For the fantasists of nuclear deterrence, this would be even more diabolical. 

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

As explained many times before, Security Council members alone may legally impose sanctions on nations, entities and individuals.

When used by countries against others, they breach the UN Charter, how the US, NATO and Israel operate time and again.

The Charter’s Article II mandates all member states to “settle…disputes” according to the rule of law.

US/Western sanctions are weapons of war by other means — used to pressure, bully and terrorize targeted nations into submission.

Though widely used, most often they fail to achieve intended objectives.

US sanctions war and other hostile actions against Cuba for 60 years, Iran for 40 years, Venezuela for 20 years, and against countless other nations largely shot blanks.

Most often, they’re counterproductive.

Hardships imposed on people in targeted nations fuel anti-US sentiment — blaming Washington, not their governments, for what they endure.

Under international law, nations are prohibited from intervening in the internal affairs of others.

Military action against an adversary is only legal in self-defense if attacked — never preemptively for any reasons.

Hardcore US bipartisan policy targets all independent nations unwilling to subordinate their sovereign rights to its interests.

That’s what US hostility toward China, Russia, Iran, and other targeted countries is all about.

Since WW II, no nations threatened the US militarily or politically.

Like all other empires in world history now gone, a similar fate awaits the US — because of its counterproductive geopolitical policies, over time making more enemies than allies, weakening, not strengthening, the state.

Last week in response to US sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the following:

“(T)his unfriendly and destructive policy of constant introduction of various restrictions in relation to us, our economic operators, our economy, unfortunately, this has already become an integral part of unfair competition, undisguised hostile takeover competition on the part of Washington.”

Last month, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed the US, saying:

“We condemn (US) calls for forging a certain coalition against the pipeline, wherein German and other companies have already made multi-billion dollar investments.”

In response to EU sanctions on Russia over the Navalny novichok poisoning hoax, its Foreign Ministry demanded to know “who is behind the anti-Russian provocation,” adding:

“In response, we get aggressive rhetoric and outright manipulation of the facts” — by the EU in cahoots with the US.

Sergey Lavrov slammed Berlin for being in breach of its international obligations for failing to provide Moscow with information it claims to have about the Navalny incident — because none exists.

In mid-October, protesters outside the US embassy in London accused Washington of attempting to “strangle” Cuba’s economy by a virtual blockade on the island state.

The so-called Rock Around The Blockade solidarity campaign called for breaking the illegal action, chanting “Cuba si! Yankee no! Abajo el bloqueo/Down with the blockade!”

Despite annual UN General Assembly measures against US blockade of the island state, it’s been in place for decades without success because of Cuban resiliency.

Trump regime Office of Foreign Assets Control threatened to sue “anyone who trades with Cuba” or has property in the country.

Despite decades of US war on Cuba by other means, aiming to regain imperial control over the island state, policies of Republicans and Dems consistently failed.

US war on China by sanctions and other means widens the breach between both countries.

On October 21 in a Foreign Affairs article titled “How China Threatens American Democracy” (sic), Trump regime national security advisor Robert  O’Brien invented nonexistent threats.

Instead of fostering productive bilateral relations with all nations, policies of both right wings of the US one-party state go the other way against nations Washington doesn’t control — how the scourge of imperialism operates.

China fosters cooperative relations with other nations, threatening none — polar opposite longstanding US policy, seeking dominance over planet earth, its resources and populations.

Undeclared US initiated Cold War against China, Russia, and other targeted nations threatens to turn hot by accident or design — especially in East Asia, the Middle East, and near Russia’s borders.

On Sunday, O’Brien expressed frustration, saying:

“One of the problems that we have faced with both Iran and Russia is that we now have so many sanctions against these countries that we have very little (opportunity) to do anything about it,” adding:

“But we are looking at all possible deterrent measures that we can apply to these countries, as well as others…”

Last Thursday, the US Treasury Department announced new sanctions on Iran’s IRGC, its Quds Force, and Bayan Rasaneh Gostar Institute “for having directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign interference” in US November 3 elections.

Fact: Throughout US history, no evidence showed that any foreign nations ever interfered in its electoral process — a US specialty against scores of nations throughout the post-WW II period.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh slammed the hostile action, saying:

Its government “strong(ly) reject(s) baseless and false claims” by the US, adding:

“(I)t makes no difference for Iran who wins the US election.”

On core domestic and foreign policy issues, both right wings of the US one-party state operate largely the same way.

Rare exceptions prove the rule.

On Monday, Pompeo announced more illegal sanctions on Iran — part of longstanding US war on the country by other means.

Tehran’s “Ministry of Petroleum and Minister of Petroleum, the National Iranian Oil Company, the National Iranian Tanker Company, and 21 other individuals, entities, and vessels” were targeted for unjustifiable reasons.

Iran, its ruling authorities, and entities foster cooperative relations with other countries — hostile actions toward none, except in self-defense if attacked, the legal right of all nations.

US imperial policy targets all countries, entities and individuals not subservient to its rage to rule the world unchallenged.

US maximum pressure on Iran and other nations is all about wanting them transformed into vassal states.

Separately on Monday, convicted felon/US envoy for regime change in Iran and Venezuela Elliott Abrams said the following:

“The transfer of long-range missiles from Iran to Venezuela is not acceptable to the United States and will not be tolerated or permitted,” adding:

“We will make every effort to stop shipments of long-range missiles, and if somehow they get to Venezuela they will be eliminated there.”

Was the above threat a possible US declaration of hot war on Venezuela, on Iran as well?

Last week, Pompeo announced new US sanctions on “the State Research Center of the Russian Federation FGUP Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics (TsNIIKhM).”

He falsely claimed the research institute conducts “malware attacks (that threaten) cybersecurity and critical infrastructure (sic).”

No evidence was cited because none exists, including alleged Russian malware against “a petrochemical plant in the Middle East,” along with “scann(ing) and prob(ing) US facilities.”

Pompeo falsely accused Russia of “engag(ing) in dangerous and malicious activities that threaten the security of the United States and our allies (sic).”

The above is what the US and its imperial partners do time and again — falsely blaming others for their own high crimes.

The Trump regime also imposed unlawful sanctions on Iran for supplying Venezuela with gasoline — the legal right of both nations to conduct bilateral trade relations.

Last month, former Trump regime acting DNI Richard Grenell met secretly with Venezuelan Vice President for Communications Jorge Rodriguez in Mexico, according to Bloomberg News.

It was a futile attempt to get President Maduro to step down ahead of US November 3 elections, Trump seeking a foreign policy success to tout that failed.

US war on Venezuela by other means, notably by Trump, imposed great hardships on its people alone — failing to achieve regime change.

US-designated puppet-in-waiting Guaido’s involvement in the scheme made him widely despised by the vast majority of Venezuelans.

Separately, Russia’s US embassy responded to unacceptable tightening of visas for its journalists by the Trump regime, creating “artificial barriers (that impede) their normal work,” adding:

“In particular, the limitation of the period of stay for foreign media employees to 240 days (with the possibility of extension up to 480 days) will not allow them to consistently cover local events.”

Journalists “will have to leave the United States for a considerable time to obtain a new visa.”

This new policy flies in the face of what “freedom of speech and equal access to information” is supposed to be all about.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed US accusations of alleged Moscow cybersecurity threats, calling them “unfounded,” adding:

“(T)his time (the US outdid itself) in anti-Russia rhetoric with extremely harsh statements occasionally bordering on bizarre rudeness.”

“Such an approach will not benefit the State Department and is indicative of the fact that they treat the culture and norms of state-to-state communication with disdain.”

Businessman Trump sought improved relations with Russia — the aim thwarted by surrounding himself with Russophobic hardliners.

The same holds for US hostility toward China, Iran, and other countries on its target list for regime change.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from podur.org

Until the 1970s, the constant flow of energy that Earth receives from the sun was offset by heat reflected back into space, so the planet’s overall energy level did not change very much over time. The amount of incoming solar energy has not changed, but rising concentrations of greenhouse gases are trapping ever more of the reflected heat, preventing it from leaving the atmosphere. Climate scientists call this Earth’s Energy Imbalance.

The excess energy is not distributed evenly through the Earth System. Although global warming is usually expressed as increased air temperatures, the ocean is actually much better at storing heat than the atmosphere — one degree of ocean warming stores over 1000 times as much heat energy as one degree of atmosphere warming — so it isn’t surprising that the ocean has taken up most of the excess solar energy. Just seven percent warms the air and land and melts snow and ice — 93 percent is absorbed by the ocean.[2]

Scientists measure the ocean’s heat content in joules — the amount of energy required to produce one watt of power for one second. In a commentary on the latest data, Lijing Cheng of China’s Institute of Atmospheric Physics calculates that the increase in ocean heat content over the past 25 years required the addition of 228 sextillion joules of heat — that’s 228 followed by 21 zeroes.

“That’s a lot of zeros indeed. To make it easier to understand, I did a calculation. The Hiroshima atom-bomb exploded with an energy of about 63,000,000,000,000 Joules. The amount of heat we have put in the world’s oceans in the past 25 years equals to 3.6 billion Hiroshima atom-bomb explosions.”[3]

That’s about five Hiroshima bombs a second — and the rate is accelerating.

Since 1987 the ocean has warmed 4.5 times as fast as in the previous three decades. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that even if emissions are substantially reduced, by 2100 the ocean will heat 2 to 4 times as much as it has since 1970 — and if emissions are not cut, it will heat 5 to 7 times as much.[4]

By absorbing and storing immense amounts of heat, the ocean delays the impact of Earth’s Energy Imbalance on the global climate system. In oceanographer Grant Bigg’s words, the ocean “acts as a giant flywheel to the climate system, moderating change but prolonging it once change commences.”[5] The price paid for that storage and delay is record-setting ocean heat that is disrupting the world’s largest ecosystem in a multitude of ways.

• Since 2010, the Atlantic ocean has been hotter than at any time in the past 2900 years.
• The Arctic is warming two to three times as fast as the rest of the world. Summer sea ice may disappear entirely by 2035.
• Sea levels are rising, threatening coastal communities and destroying sensitive wetlands. Depending on emission levels, by 2100 the oceans will be from 0.5 to 2.0 meters higher than today.
• Warmer water contains less oxygen, causing many fish species to shrink. A recent study found an average five percent reduction in maximum body size for each 1.0ºC increase in water temperature.
• Animal migration towards the poles is happening much faster in the ocean than on land. Marine biodiversity in tropical areas is declining, and food webs in cooler areas are being disrupted by the entry of new species.
• Populations of organisms that cannot migrate are shrinking. Half of the corals in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef are dead.
• Hurricanes and tornadoes that form over warmer water tend to be stronger, wetter and more destructive. Climate models indicate that by 2100, the number of Category 5 storms will increase 85% globally and 136% in the Atlantic.

Permanent Heatwaves

Most climate change forecasts emphasize long-term global average changes. Those are important metrics, but they can be misleading when the average conceals serious short-term or regional changes and events. For example, although climate negotiations focus on future global average temperatures, regional heatwaves with atmospheric temperatures much higher than historical averages are already increasing in intensity, frequency and duration.[6]

The same is happening in the ocean.

The very idea of marine heatwaves is new: the term itself first appeared in 2011, in a government report on “a major temperature anomaly” in which “water temperatures off the south-western coast of Western Australia rose to unprecedented levels.”[7] As recently as 2015 only five articles in English-language scientific journals had marine heatwave in the title, but in 2019 there were 92 — an increase that reflects what the journal Nature recently said is “the appearance an entirely new subdiscipline: the study of marine heatwaves (MHWs), discrete periods of unusually warm temperatures in the ocean.”[8]

The sudden growth of scientific interest in marine heatwaves is no accident. It reflects a real shift in the ocean’s climate in the past two decades: a radical increase in the frequency, intensity and duration of periods of when water temperatures are much higher than normal. Such extreme events can have devastating impacts on ocean ecosystems: organisms that have evolved to live within a limited temperature range must adapt, flee or die when that range is exceeded.

Marine heatwaves are usually defined as five or more consecutive days in which sea surface temperatures are in the top ten percent of the 30-year average for the region. Using an even stricter definition — temperatures in the top one percent — the IPCC recently concluded that since 1982, marine heatwaves

“have doubled in frequency and have become longer lasting, more intense and more extensive,” and “the observed trend towards more frequent, intense and extensive MHWs … cannot be explained by natural climate variability.”[9] Climate scientists at the University of Bern, Switzerland, report that “the occurrence probabilities of the duration, intensity, and cumulative intensity of most documented, large, and impactful MHWs have increased more than 20-fold as a result of anthropogenic climate change.”[10]

The 21st century has seen particularly devastating marine heatwaves in the Mediterranean (2003), Bay of Bengal (2010), western Australia (2011), northwest Atlantic (2012), northeast Pacific (2013–2016), Tasman Sea (2016), and New Zealand (2016). All had profound and lasting impacts on plant and animal life. Off the coasts of western Australia and Tasmania, for example, high temperatures killed massive kelp forests, home to innumerable fish species, and invasive warm water sea urchins then took over the seafloor, preventing kelp and other plants from regrowing.

The 2013–2016 northeast Pacific heatwave was largest, longest and deadliest MHW to date. It was nicknamed The Blob after the 1958 science fiction movie, and, like its space monster namesake, it grew rapidly and destroyed much of the life it enveloped. After forming in the Gulf of Alaska in the autumn of 2013, in less than a year it expanded south to Mexico, ultimately covering about 10 million square kilometers and penetrating up to 200 meters down.

Food webs that have sustained life for millennia collapsed in unprecedented heat. Populations of phytoplankton, copepods, krill and other small heat-sensitive creatures plummeted, and animals that normally eat those creatures, including over 100 million cod and millions of seabirds, starved to death. So did thousands of sea lions when their prey disappeared. Hundreds of kilometers of kelp forests wilted and died. Heat killed 95% of Chinook salmon eggs in the Sacramento River. The largest toxic algae bloom ever seen released deadly neurotoxins, forcing the closure of clam and crab fisheries from Vancouver Island to California.

The Blob finally dissipated in 2016, but intense marine heatwaves continue to affect the northeast Pacific. The second and third largest marine heatwaves ever seen in that area occurred in 2020 and 2019, respectively. As I’m writing this, in October 2020, the latest iteration covers 6 million square kilometers, down from 9 million a month ago.

Until five years ago, no one imagined that a marine “temperature anomaly” might encompass an area as large as Canada and last over two years. Past research on ocean climate change has focused on the effects of long-term changes in average water temperatures but now, as eighteen leading specialists in the field write, “discrete extreme events are emerging as pivotal in shaping ecosystems, by driving sudden and dramatic shifts in ecological structure and functioning.” They warn that marine heatwaves “will probably intensify with anthropogenic climate change [and] are rapidly emerging as forceful agents of disturbance with the capacity to restructure entire ecosystems and disrupt the provision of ecological goods and services in coming decades.”[11]

A major study published in December 2019 projects that the size and frequency of marine heatwaves will increase so much that many parts of the ocean will reach “a near-permanent MHW state” by late in this century. The researchers project that even if greenhouse gas emissions start falling by mid-century, by 2100 about half of the global ocean will experience heatwaves 365 days a year. If emissions don’t decline, by 2100 there will be permanent heatwaves in 90% of the ocean, and over two-thirds of those will be Category IV, the most extreme level. (For comparison: the Blob, which disrupted ecosystems in 10 million square kilometers of the Pacific, killing millions of fish, birds and marine animals and displacing millions more, was only Category III.)

It may then be necessary to introduce new categories, “allowing for identification of increase in ‘extreme extremes,’ as Category V, Category VI, etc.” By 2080, if emissions remain high, the Earth System will be in a “time when the MHW climate has changed completely from the range that species have previously experienced, and represents a qualitatively different climate.”[12]

‘Misery on a global scale’

All by itself, ocean warming is a major threat to the stability of the world’s largest ecosystem — but ocean warming does not occur “all by itself.” The deadly trio of ocean warming, loss of oxygen and acidification are all consequences of disrupting the global carbon cycle. Burning massive amounts of long-buried carbon has changed the ocean’s chemistry, heated the water and driven out oxygen. Those processes take place simultaneously and reinforce each other, making the ocean increasingly inhospitable, even deadly, for living things from microbes to whales.

Worse, the deadly trio isn’t acting alone. Overfishing has wiped out many species, and it’s predicted that most wild fish populations will be 90% depleted by 2050. Pollutants, including tons of plastics that essentially last forever, are poisoning marine life from coastlines to the deepest trenches. Nitrogen fertilizer run-off has created a thousand or more dead zones in coastal waters and estuaries. Off-shore oil wells are leaking deadly hydrocarbons, and mining companies are preparing to dredge rare minerals from the deep sea floor, destroying some of the few remaining undamaged parts of Earth’s surface.

As environmental geologists Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams write, “a wholesale refashioning of the marine ecosystem” is now underway. If business as usual continues, “pervasive changes in the physical, chemical and biological boundary conditions of the sea … [will] transform, irreversibly, and for the worse, the Earth and its oceans.”[13]

The effect of that transformation was summed up by Agence France-Presse, in its account of the IPCC’s 2019 report on the oceans: “The same oceans that nourished human evolution are poised to unleash misery on a global scale unless the carbon pollution destabilizing Earth’s marine environment is brought to heel.”[14]

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Notes

[1] Lijing Cheng et al., “Record-Setting Ocean Warmth Continued in 2019,” Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, February 2020.

[2] Kate S. Zaital, “Disrupting the Deep: Ocean Warming Reaches the Abyss,” Earth, March 8, 2018.

[3] Chinese Academy of Sciences, “Record-setting Ocean Warmth Continued in 2019,” News Release, January 14, 2020.

[4] Lijing Cheng et al., “Record-Setting Ocean Warmth Continued in 2019,” Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, February 2020.

[5] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate(IPCC, 2019), 62.

[6] Grant R. Bigg, The Oceans and Climate, 2nd ed. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006), x.

[7] S. E. Perkins-Kirkpatrick and S. C. Lewis, “Increasing Trends in Regional Heatwaves,” Nature Communications 11 (July 2020)

[8] A. Pearce et al., The “Marine Heat Wave” Off Western Australia During the Summer of 2010/11 (Western Australian Fisheries and Marine Research Laboratories, 2011), 1. The quote marks around “Marine Heat Wave” indicate that this was not yet the accepted term.

[9] Mark R. Payne, “Metric for Marine Heatwaves Suggests How These Events Displace Ocean Life,” Nature 584 (August 8, 2020), 43.

[10] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate(IPCC, 2019), 67, 607.

[11] Charlotte Laufkötter, Jakob Zscheischler, and Thomas L. Frölicher, “High-impact Marine Heatwaves Attributable to Human-induced Global Warming,” Science 389 (September 25, 2020), 1621.

[12] Dan A. Smale et al., “Marine Heatwaves Threaten Global Biodiversity and the Provision of Ecosystem Services,” Nature Climate Change 9, no. 4 (March 04, 2019).

[13] Eric C. J. Oliver et al., “Projected Marine Heatwaves in the 21st Century and the Potential for Ecological Impact,” Frontiers in Marine Science 6 (December 2019). doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00734). The study used the IPCC emissions scenarios RCP4.5 and RPC8.5, and the climate modelling system CMIP5.

[14] Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams, “The Anthropocene Ocean in Its Deep Time Context,” in The World Ocean in Globalisation, ed. Davor Vidas and Peter Johan Schei (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 34.

[15] “Oceans Turning From Friend to Foe, Warns Landmark UN Climate Report,” Agence France Presse, August 29, 2019.

Featured image: In this handout picture released by the U.S. Army, a mushroom cloud billows about one hour after a nuclear bomb was detonated above Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. 6, 1945. Japanese officials say a 93-year-old Japanese man has become the first person certified as a survivor of both U.S. atomic bombings at the end of World War II. City officials said Tsutomu Yamaguchi had already been a certified “hibakusha,” or radiation survivor, of the Aug. 9, 1945, atomic bombing in Nagasaki, but has now been confirmed as surviving the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier as well. (AP Photo/U.S. Army via Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, HO) ** NO SALES, CREDIT MANDATORY **

“Every day I ask myself the same question: How can this be happening in America? How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d think I was having a hallucination.”—Philip Roth, novelist

Things are falling apart.

How much longer we can sustain the fiction that we live in a constitutional republic, I cannot say, but anarchy is being loosed upon the nation.

We are witnessing the unraveling of the American dream one injustice at a time.

Day after day, the government’s crimes against the citizenry grow more egregious, more treacherous and more tragic. And day after day, the American people wake up a little more to the grim realization that they have become captives in a prison of their own making.

No longer a free people, we are now pushed and prodded and watched over by twitchy, hyper-sensitive, easily-spooked armed guards who care little for the rights, humanity or well-being of those in their care.

The death toll is mounting.

The carnage is heartbreaking.

The public’s faith in the government to do its job—which is to protect our freedoms—is deteriorating.

It doesn’t take a weatherman to realize when a storm is brewing: clouds gather, the wind begins to blow, and an almost-palpable tension builds.

It’s the same way with freedom.

The warning signs are everywhere.

“Things fall apart,” wrote W.B. Yeats in his dark, forbidding poem “The Second Coming.” “The centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned … Surely some revelation is at hand.”

The upcoming election and its aftermath will undoubtedly keep the citizenry divided and at each other’s throats, so busy fighting each other that they never manage to present a unified front against tyranny in any form. Yet the winner has already been decided. As American satirist H.L. Mencken predicted almost a century ago:

“All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

In other words, nothing will change.

You cannot have a republican form of government—nor a democratic one, for that matter—when the government views itself as superior to the citizenry, when it no longer operates for the benefit of the people, when the people are no longer able to peacefully reform their government, when government officials cease to act like public servants, when elected officials no longer represent the will of the people, when the government routinely violates the rights of the people and perpetrates more violence against the citizenry than the criminal class, when government spending is unaccountable and unaccounted for, when the judiciary act as courts of order rather than justice, and when the government is no longer bound by the laws of the Constitution.

For too long, the American people have obeyed the government’s dictates, no matter now unjust.

We have paid its taxes, penalties and fines, no matter how outrageous. We have tolerated its indignities, insults and abuses, no matter how egregious. We have turned a blind eye to its indiscretions and incompetence, no matter how imprudent. We have held our silence in the face of its lawlessness, licentiousness and corruption, no matter how illicit.

We have suffered. Oh how we have suffered.

How much longer we will continue to suffer at the hands of a tyrannical police state depends on how much we’re willing to give up for the sake of freedom.

It may well be that Professor Morris Berman is correct: perhaps we are entering into the dark ages that signify the final phase of the American Empire. “It seems to me,” writes Berman, “that the people do get the government they deserve, and even beyond that, the government who they are, so to speak. In that regard, we might consider, as an extreme version of this… that Hitler was as much an expression of the German people at that point in time as he was a departure from them.”

For the moment, the American people seem content to sit back and watch the reality TV programming that passes for politics today. It’s the modern-day equivalent of bread and circuses, a carefully calibrated exercise in how to manipulate, polarize, propagandize and control a population.

As French philosopher Etienne de La Boétie observed half a millennium ago:

“Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.”

The bait towards slavery. The price of liberty. The instruments of tyranny.

Yes, that sounds about right.

“We the people” have learned only too well how to be slaves. Worse, we have come to enjoy our voluntary servitude, which masquerades as citizenship.

This presidential election is yet another pacifier to lull us into complacency and blind us to the monsters in our midst.

I refuse to be pacified, patronized or placated.

Here’s my plan: rather than staying glued to my TV set, watching politicians and talking heads regurgitate the same soundbites over and over, I’m going to keep doing the hard work that needs to be done to keep freedom alive in this country.

That’s why, almost 40 years ago, I founded The Rutherford Institute: as a nonpartisan, apolitical organization committed to the principles enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights that would work tirelessly to reshape the government from the bottom up into one that respects freedom, recognizes our worth as human beings, resists corruption, and abides by the rule of law.

It’s a thankless, never-ending job, but someone’s got to do it. And I can promise you that when I do eventually turn on the TV, John Carpenter—not Donald Trump or Joe Biden—will be my pick for escapist entertainment.

Carpenter’s films, known primarily for their horror themes, are infused with strong anti-authoritarian, overarching themes that speak to the filmmaker’s concerns about the unraveling of our society, particularly our government. Even among a pantheon of dystopian films such as Minority Report, Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Matrix, V for Vendetta, and Land of the Blind, Carpenter’s work stands out for its clarity of vision.

Carpenter sees the government working against its own citizens.

Yet while Carpenter is a skeptic and critic, there’s also a strange optimism that runs through his films. “A close view of Carpenter’s work reveals a romantic streak beneath the skepticism,” John Muir writes in his insightful book The Films of John Carpenter, “a belief down deep—far below the anti-establishment hatred—that a single committed and idealistic person can make a difference, even if society does not recognize that person as valuable or good.”

In fact, Carpenter’s central characters are always out of step with their times. Underneath their machismo, they still believe in the ideals of liberty and equal opportunity. Their beliefs place them in constant opposition with the law and the establishment, but they are nonetheless freedom fighters. When, for example, John Nada destroys the alien hypno-transmitter in They Live, he restores hope by delivering America a wake-up call for freedom.

This is the theme that runs throughout Carpenter’s films—the belief in American ideals and in people. “He believes that man can do better,” writes Muir, “and his heroes consistently prove that worthy goals (such as saving the Earth from malevolent shape-shifters) can be accomplished, but only through individuality.”

Thus, John Carpenter is more than a filmmaker. He is a cultural analyst and a keen observer of the unraveling of the American psyche. “I’m disgusted by what we’ve become in America,” said Carpenter. “I truly believe there is brain death in this country. Everything we see is designed to sell us something. The only thing they want to do is take our money.”

The following are my favorite Carpenter films.

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976): This is essentially a remake of Howard Hawks’ 1959 classic western Rio Bravo—much beloved by Carpenter. A street gang and assorted criminals surround and assault a police station. Paranoia abounds as the police are attacked from all sides and can see no way out. Indeed, Carpenter repeatedly has his characters comment, in disbelief, that “This can’t happen, not today!” or “We’re in the middle of a city … in a police station … someone will drive by eventually!” Or will they?

Halloween (1978): This low-budget horror masterpiece launched Carpenter’s career. Acclaimed as the most successful independent motion picture of all time, the story centers on a deranged youth who returns to his hometown to conduct a murderous rampage after fifteen years in an asylum. This film, which assumes that there is a form of evil so dark that it can’t be killed, deconstructs our technological existence while reminding us that in the end, we all may have to experience Orwell’s stamping boot on our faces forever.

The Fog (1980): This is a disturbing ghost story made in the mode of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). Here the menace besieging a small town is not a pack of winged pests but rather a deadly fog bank that cloaks vengeful, faceless, evil spirits from which there may be no escape.

Escape from New York (1981): This is the ultimate urban nightmare. A ruined Manhattan of the future is an anarchic prison for America’s worst criminals. When the U.S. president is captured as a hostage, the government sends a disgraced, rebellious war hero into Manhattan in what seems to be an impossible rescue mission. In fact, this film sees fascism as the future of America.

The Thing (1982): Considered by many as one of Carpenter’s best films, this is a remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic of the same name. A team of scientists in a remote Antarctic outpost discover a buried spaceship with a ravenous, mutating alien that eventually creates a claustrophobic, paranoid environment within their compound. The social commentary is obvious as the horrible creature literally erupts and bursts out of human flesh. This film presupposes that increasingly we are all becoming dehumanized. Thus, in the end, we are all potential aliens.

Christine (1983): This film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel finds a young man with a classic automobile that is demonically possessed. The car, representing technology with a will and consciousness of its own, goes on a murderous rampage. Do we now face the same possibility with the predominance of artificial intelligence?

Starman (1984): An alien from an advanced civilization takes on the guise of a young widow’s recently deceased husband. The couple then takes off on a long drive to rendezvous with the alien spacecraft so he can return home. Surprisingly, as John Muir recognizes, this film is a Christ allegory with the alien visitor possessing extraordinary powers to heal the sick, resurrect the dead, and perform miracles. The question posed is whether the only hope for humanity is a visitor from another world.

They Live (1988): This film, which I explore in detail in my books, assumes the future has already arrived. John Nada is a homeless person who stumbles across a resistance movement and finds a pair of sunglasses that enables him to see the real world around him. What he discovers is a monochrome reality in a world controlled by ominous beings who bombard the citizens with subliminal messages such as “obey” and “conform.” Carpenter makes an effective political point about the underclass (everyone except those in power, that is): we, the prisoners of our devices, are too busy sucking up the entertainment trivia beamed into our brains and attacking each other to start an effective resistance movement. As the Bearded Man in They Live tells us:

The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are non-existent. They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices . . . They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.

In the Mouth of Madness (1995): A successful horror novelist’s fans become so engrossed in his stories that they slip into dementia and carry out the grisly acts depicted in his books. When this film was being conceived, politicians were criticizing horror movies for promoting violence. Carpenter parodied this argument while noting that evil grows when people lose “the ability to know the difference between reality and fantasy.” As we lose ourselves in ever-evolving technology, we are increasingly blurring that distinction. Does that mean evil will eventually overcome us all?

Madness. Delusion. Denial. Paranoia. Inhumanity. These are some of the monsters of our age.

In the cinematic world of John Carpenter, whenever freedom falls to tyranny, it is because the people allowed it to happen.

It works that way in the real world, too.

The lesson, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People: they—the tyrants, the bogeymen, the strongmen, the enemies of freedom—live, because “we the people” sleep.

Time to wake up, America, and break free of your chains.

Something wicked this way comes.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Per la Festa di San Francesco, il ministro della Difesa Lorenzo Guerini (Pd) ha inviato i caccia delle Frecce Tricolori a sorvolare la Basilica di Assisi. «È l’omaggio più forte che la nostra Italia abbia potuto rendere al Poverello, a cui si affidano migliaia di persone mentre la pandemia aggrava la povertà», ha scritto la rivista dei Francescani.

Omaggio discutibile: un’ora di volo dei nove caccia delle Frecce Tricolori costa oltre 40.000 euro in denaro pubblico, cifra con cui si potrebbero pagare 27 stipendi medi netti mensili.

A sorvolare Assisi, l’anno prossimo, saranno i nuovi, più potenti caccia da addestramento avanzato T-345A prodotti dalla Leonardo, di cui l’Aeronautica sta acquistando 23 esemplari con una spesa di circa 380 milioni di euro. Essi assicureranno una migliore «efficacia addestrativa», preparando i piloti all’uso degli F-35 e altri aerei da guerra.

«Il nostro grazie va ai Generali e al Ministro della Difesa Lorenzo Guerini. – hanno scritto i Francescani dopo il sorvolo delle Frecce Tricolori – Stasera andremo tutti a dormire con la speranza di un giorno migliore».

Parole tranquillizzanti, pronunciate mentre altri caccia italiani, i Tornado PA-200 di Ghedi che stanno per essere sostituiti dagli F-35A, erano già in Germania per partecipare alla Steadfast Noon, l’esercitazione annuale Nato di guerra nucleare sotto comando Usa. Vi partecipano, con le proprie forze aeree, Italia, Germania, Belgio e Olanda, che mantengono sul proprio territorio, pronte all’uso, le bombe nucleari Usa B-61, tra non molto sostituite dalle più micidiali B61-12.

Violano in tal modo il Trattato di non-proliferazione e rifiutano il Trattato Onu sull’abolizione delle armi nucleari che, avendo raggiunto le 50 ratifiche il 24 ottobre, entrerà in vigore entro 90 giorni. Non vi aderiscono però i nove paesi dotati di armi nucleari e i trenta della Nato. In Europa, il Trattato Onu è stato ratificato solo da Austria, Irlanda, Malta, Liechtenstein, San Marino e Santa Sede.

Perché si possa realizzare il vitale obiettivo del Trattato, è indispensabile una vasta mobilitazione dell’opinione pubblica per il disarmo nucleare, attualmente inesistente poiché la minaccia di guerra nucleare viene taciuta dagli apparati politico-mediatici, oggi ancor più di prima dato che parlano solo della minaccia del virus.

Vengono così nascosti i sempre più pericolosi passi che l’Italia sta facendo nella preparazione della guerra e della conseguente crescita della spesa militare.

Alla riunione dei ministri della Difesa della Nato, il 23 ottobre, il ministro Guerini ha confermato la partecipazione dell’Italia a un nuovo Centro Spaziale Nato a Ramstein (Germania) e al potenziamento delle forze nucleari necessario, secondo il segretario generale della Nato Jens Stoltenberg, a «mantenere sicuro ed efficiente il nostro deterrente nucleare», di fronte alla «grave sfida del crescente arsenale di missili nucleari della Russia».

Il ministro Guerini ha inoltre firmato per conto dell’Italia, con altri nove paesi Nato, una lettera di intenti per la realizzazione di un sistema missilistico con base a terra, formalmente quale difesa contro missili a raggio corto e intermedio, in realtà utilizzabile per il lancio di missili nucleari a raggio intermedio, analoghi agli euromissili Usa degli anni Ottanta.

Infine, il ministro Guerini si è impegnato ad accrescere ulteriormente la spesa militare dell’Italia, dagli attuali 26 a 36 miliardi di euro annui. Per tale obiettivo sono già stati stanziati 35 miliardi aggiuntivi, soprattutto da parte del Ministero dello sviluppo economico, più altri 30 miliardi di euro che si vuole trarre dal Recovery Fund.

«Le risorse destinate alla Difesa – ha dichiarato il ministro Guerini – rappresentano una leva strategica per l’economia del Paese». Occorre quindi «far meglio comprendere ai nostri concittadini che nell’industria del settore dell’Aerospazio, della Difesa e della Sicurezza c’è un pezzo rilevante della competitività dell’Italia, che potrà garantire il futuro delle giovani generazioni».

Il futuro non è quindi così nero: parafrasando il noto film, finché c’è guerra c’è speranza.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 27 ottobre 2020

The IMF-World Bank semi-annual meeting starts this week. Earlier the IMF kicked off the show with a warning that the poor countries of the world are heading for a catastrophe from the pandemic slump, leading to defaults on the debts that their governments and companies owe to investors and banks in the ‘global north’.

According to the IMF, about half of Low Income Economies (LIEs) are now in danger of debt default.  ‘Emerging market’ debt to GDP has increased from 40% to 60% in this crisis.

And there is little room to boost government spending to alleviate the hit. The ‘developing’ countries are in a much weaker position compared with the global financial crisis of 2008-09. In 2007, 40 emerging market and middle-income countries had a combined central government fiscal surplus equal to 0.3 per cent of gross domestic product, according to the IMF. Last year, they posted a fiscal deficit of 4.9 per cent of GDP.  The government deficit of ‘EMs’ in Asia went from 0.7 per cent of GDP in 2007 to 5.8 per cent in 2019; in Latin America, it rose from 1.2 per cent of GDP to 4.9 per cent; and European EMs went from a surplus of 1.9 per cent of GDP to a deficit of 1 per cent.

For example, Brazil is now running a consolidated government deficit of 15% of GDP.  India’s is 13%.  Both countries will see their sovereign debt levels rise towards 90% of GDP by the end of next year and approach 100% of GDP in 2022.

New World Bank chief economist Carmen Reinhart warned that the global south faces “an unprecedented wave of debt crises and restructurings”.  Reinhart said: “in terms of the coverage, of which countries will be engulfed, we are at levels not seen even in the 1930s.”  Debts owed by non-financial companies in the 30 largest emerging markets rose to 96 per cent of gross domestic product in the first quarter of this year, more than the amount of corporate debt in advanced economies, at 94 per cent of GDP, according to the IIF.

Over the next two years the top 30 emerging economies face the highest level ever of maturing debt, both private and public.

And so these poor countries will be forced to raise even more debt to deal with the pandemic slump and meet repayments on existing debt.  Nevertheless, Reinhart argued that “while the disease is raging, what else are you going to do? First you worry about fighting the war, then you figure out how to pay for it.”

This was ironic coming from somebody who is best known for her work with fellow Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff on the economic damage inflicted by high debt levels throughout history.  In their famous (infamous?) book, This time is different, they argued that high public debt levels were unsustainable and governments would have to apply ‘fiscal austerity’ to reduce them or face a banking and debt collapse.

Worse, much of the debt is denominated in US dollars and as that hegemonic currency increased in value as a ‘safe haven’, the burden of repayment will mount for the dominated economies of the ‘south’. The level of EM corporate ‘hard currency’ debt is significantly higher now than in 2008. According to the IMF’s October 2019 Financial Stability Report, the median external debt of emerging market and middle-income countries increased from 100 per cent of GDP in 2008 to 160 per cent of GDP in 2019.

Capitalist investors and banks are now no longer investing in the stocks and bonds of the ‘global south’ – apart from China.  So the flow of private capital has dried up to fund existing debt.

As a result, the currencies of the major emerging markets have dived relative to the dollar and other ‘hard’ currencies, making it even more difficult to repay debts.

This impending debt crisis only compounds the impact of the pandemic slump on the global south.  In its report for the semi-annual meeting, the World Bank reckons that the pandemic will push between 88m and 115m people into extreme poverty this year, which the bank defines as living on less than $1.90 a day (a pathetically low threshold anyway).

More than 80 per cent of those who will fall into extreme poverty this year are in ‘middle-income’ countries, with south Asia the worst-hit region, followed by sub-Saharan Africa. “We are likely to see people who previously escaped poverty falling back into it, as well as people who have never been poor falling into poverty for the first time,” said Carolina Sánchez-Páramo, director of the bank’s poverty and equity division. “Even under the optimistic assumption that, after 2021, growth returns to its historical rates . . . the pandemic’s impoverishing effects will be vast,” the World Bank said.

The global economy is expected to contract by between 5 and 8 per cent this year on a per-capita basis, and that would set poverty levels back to their 2017 levels, undoing three years of progress in improving living standards, the World Bank estimated.

Progress in reducing poverty had been slowing before the pandemic, according to the report. About 52m people worldwide rose out of poverty between 2015 and 2017 but the rate of poverty reduction had slowed to less than half a percentage point a year during that period, after reductions of about 1 per cent a year between 1990 and 2015.

What is also clear from the report is that all the reduction in poverty rates since 1990 have been in Asia, in particular East Asia, and in particular China. Strip China out and there has been little or no improvement in absolute poverty in 30 years.

Nearly 7 per cent of the world’s population will live on less than $1.90 a day by 2030, the report said, compared with a target of less than 3 per cent under the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

In an attempt to head off the impending debt defaults, a debt service moratorium was approved by the G20 and runs until the end of this year. The IMF has also provided about $31bn of emergency financing to 76 countries, including 47 of the poorest countries under the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust. Most of these countries had high economic dependence on single commodity exports or tourism and suffered a classic external financing seizure and economic collapse when Covid-19 struck.

But mostly it’s all talk; with speeches like those of IMF chief Georgieva and Reinhart at the World bank.  As Oxfam says in a devastating new report on inequality and the lack of public services and workers’ rights, “emergency programmes have focused on closing the huge budget and balance of payments financing gaps produced by coronavirus-related revenue collapses, and on allowing more space for health and limited social protection spending to confront the crisis.” And the “IMF’s global, regional and national reports are already warning of the need for ‘fiscal consolidation’ i.e. austerity, to reduce debt burdens once the pandemic has been contained.”

Virtually all the national emergency loan documents emphasize the need for governments to make anti-corona virus spending temporary and to take fiscal adjustment measures to reduce deficits after the pandemic. For example, in June 2020, the IMF agreed a 12-month, $5.2bn loan programme with Egypt, which detailed a FY2020/21 primary budget surplus target of 0.5% to allow for spending related to the coronavirus pandemic, but demanded that it be restored to the pre-crisis primary surplus of 2% in FY 2021/22. The IMF has also been linked to large cuts in health spending, which have left countries ill-prepared for the crisis.

The World Bank has pledged $160bn in emergency funding over the next 15 months, and has advocated debt relief by other creditors, but has so far refused to cancel any debt owed to it, despite low-income countries repaying $3.5bn to the World Bank in 2020. Oxfam’s analysis shows that only 8 of 71 World Bank COVID-19 health projects included any measures to reduce financial barriers to accessing health services, even though a number of these projects acknowledge high out-of-pocket health expenditure as a major issue. Such expenditures bankrupt millions of people each year and exclude them from treatment.

The only effective way to avoid debt defaults is to cancel the debts of the poor countries owed to the banks and multinationals.  But that is the one policy that is no going to happen.

The Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC) called for the IMF to sell some of its stockpile of gold to cover the debt payments owed by the world’s poorest countries for the next 15 months.  The JDC said selling less than 7% of the IMF’s gold would generate a $12bn profit, which is enough to cancel the debts owed by the 73 poorest countries until the end of 2021 and still leave the Washington-based organisation with $26bn more gold than it held at the start of the year.  The JDC and others have also called for a new issuance of Special Drawing Rights (SDR), in effect international money, to fund the poor countries.  Both these suggestions have been rejected.

Reinhart wails that “At the country level, at the multilateral level, at the G7 level, who has the financing to fill in all the big fiscal gaps that have been created or exacerbated by the pandemic?”  Answer there is none.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

On October 24, 2020, the United Nations announced that 50 countries had ratified the treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Passing this threshold means that the treaty will become international law within ninety days. The next day, the people who worked so hard on the treaty celebrated their victory. But now it’s time for the sober assessment that must ask whether this changes anything. The real victory will come when the ratifiers, and other nations that might join them, find collective power and real leverage to establish the conditions for peace and to enforce the treaty.

Within the global hegemon, there are many current and retired government officials (the likes of Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell) who support the abolition of nuclear weapons because they know the United States has superiority in non-nuclear weapons and military spending. It is the smaller nuclear powers who insist on having nuclear deterrence because they feel threatened by the excessive advantages of the United States. They also insist on keeping their nuclear deterrence because they point to the United States’ long history of using its military and economic superiority offensively. As long as the weaker nations insist on keeping their deterrence, the United States will keep its nuclear arsenal, and nothing will change.

Thus before we get too excited about nuclear weapons being banned by international law, as if that meant they were about to disappear, we will have to start working on a treaty to ban military aggression between states, including aggression that involves overt and covert interference in the affairs of sovereign nations. Wouldn’t the world be a great place if we had such a treaty? Oh, wait, actually we have had such a treaty since October 24, 1945 when the United Nations Charter entered into force. Note the date: the nuclear ban treaty ratification threshold was announced on the same date seventy-five years later.

The UN Charter was created because of the failures to avoid two world wars in the 20th century. The drafters of the Charter were influenced by the Nuremburg trials that defined aggressive war by one state against another the highest crime. Article 2, paragraph 4 declared:

All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

The addition of the words “any other manner consistent with…” seems to make Article 2 refer also to acts of covert and overt non-military interference in the affairs of other sovereign nations. The UN Charter gives United Nations members the right to act collectively to stop wars of aggression, but it denies the UN the right to interfere in the internal affairs of nations once a military threat has been stopped. This right to interfere collectively has been hotly contested and bent since the concept of R2P arose in the 1990s—the Right to Protect inside nations where human rights violations were said to warrant international action. Ask people being sold as slaves in Libya how that’s been working out since the intervention there in 2011.

When the United States signed the UN Charter it became a treaty obligation, and treaty obligations, under Article 6 of the US constitution, become the law of the land. That means that every time a US president and his government waged aggressive war or interfered in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, that president and that government were violating the constitution in addition to violating international law. Congress never tried to impeach any president for these crimes. Likewise, none of these crimes have ever been prosecuted in any international court because the US is, by its own definition, outside the reach of international courts.

The scholar Lance deHaven-Smith has done much work on this subject of the non-prosecution of state crimes against democracy. There is a stunningly long list of state crimes that American citizens and political parties have shown no interest in prosecuting, and these are often crimes that involve or lead to violations of international law, so the entire international community has also proven itself impotent against these crimes.

Ruins of the Al-shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, destroyed by US cruise missiles in 1998. It stands as one testament to the many war crimes—violations of international law—that have never been prosecuted. See this eleven-minute video listing additional indictable war crimes of US Presidents since 1945.

Thus the ratification of the treaty banning nuclear weapons cannot be seen, unfortunately, as a transformative change in world affairs. Article 2 of the UN Charter, written in 1945, already implicitly made the manufacture, possession and use of nuclear weapons illegal when it outlawed “the threat or use of force.” Other proscriptions of international law also implicitly cover nuclear weapons because their use would amount to genocide, mass atrocities, violation of human rights, targeting of civilian populations, violation of the principle of proportionality, and so on. Nuclear weapons have always been morally abhorrent and illegal. The problem, as it always has been, is how to enforce international law when the hegemonic power is not only the perpetrator but also the largest financial contributor to the United Nations.

Nothing fundamentally changes with the ratification of the treaty banning nuclear weapons, but it does serve as a powerful message from the weaker nations to the stronger ones, and that in itself could lead to progress in solving the problem of enforcement. Will the fifty ratifying nations now be willing or able to collectively use diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions against the possessors of nuclear weapons? Could they ever stop using the US dollar or denounce the demonization of Russia and China by the US and its allies? Could they carry out new “Nuremburg  or Tokyo trials” for all the violations of international law since 1945? Those tribunals have turned out to be history’s exceptions to the norm.

Fundamentally, the problem is that we are focused on the physical manifestation of the enmity between nations (nuclear weapons) and not on the enmity itself that is pushing us dangerously close to nuclear war. I might stop worrying about nuclear weapons completely if NATO forces would retreat from Russia’s borders and the US fleet would stay on its side of the Pacific Ocean.

I don’t enjoy saying what I’ve written here because I’ll be accused of raining on the parade or having betrayed the cause. I wrote similar essays after ICAN won the Nobel Peace Prize for making the treaty a reality and I was politely ignored by many friends in the anti-nuclear movement. The essays weren’t shared and my views didn’t catch on, obviously, because here we are three years later and everyone is celebrating as if international law, or even domestic law, really meant something in this world. I’m against the creation of false hope and the neglect of history, and, considering President Obama’s 2016 visit to Hiroshima, I hate to see the aging Japanese hibakusha being set up yet again for disappointment. These days I would much rather focus on getting US military bases out of Okinawa and working toward ending the occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom. That nation has been waiting since 1893 for international law to be enforced. This de-militarization and de-nuclearization of the “Pacific” region would be change I could believe in.

Honorable mention goes to the Marshall Islands, one of the most nuclear-bombed countries on earth. It has not even signed, let alone ratified, the nuclear ban treaty. It depends on the United States for compensation for the damage from nuclear tests and, in exchange for ongoing compensation, it hosts US military bases where long-range missiles are tested. I don’t mean to single out the unfortunate Marshall Islands for condemnation. This sovereign nation is actually just a dramatic example of the relationship that many countries, and many of the treaty ratifiers, have with the United States. As the saying goes, the US has hostages, not allies, so, like the Marshall Islands, the countries that ratified the treaty will also lack the means and the will to follow up with the boycott, divestment and sanctions that could force the US to pack up its military empire and lead the world, by example, toward nuclear disarmament. And the last two US presidential election campaigns have made it quite clear that the majority of US citizens have absolutely no interest in applying such pressure themselves.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Dennis Riches writes on his blog site, Lit by Imagination, where this article was originally published. 

Featured image is from Nevada State Museum

Here’s my speech to the crowd in attendance at the Stand Up X protest event in Millennium Square, Leeds, on Sunday 18th October 2020. (I would have said ‘peaceful protest,’ but the order-following thug police saw to it that things didn’t end up that way.)

I’ll stop when they stop.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

A new agreement of enormous importance to the Middle East has followed Israel’s peace deals with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – the normalization of relations between Israel and Sudan. The agreement marks a new direction in Israel’s normalization with the Arab World, especially since Sudan, a country of 40 million people, was only until very recently “supporting terrorism”, including for Al-Qaeda and Hamas.

The normalization treaty between Israel and Sudan is seen as an electoral blessing for U.S. President Donald Trump who is just days away from the next elections. He will claim credit for “paving the way” for its implementation and promote it as another foreign policy victory.

“The State of Israel and the Republic of Sudan have agreed to make peace,” Trump told reporters at the White House Oval Office during a teleconference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Sudanese counterpart, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

“Do you think Sleepy Joe could have made this deal, Bibi?  Somehow, I don’t think so,” Trump said to the Israeli prime minister in reference to Democrat Presidential Candidate Joe Biden.

To his disappointment, Netanyahu shunned the obvious electoral ploy and replied: “one thing I can tell you is we appreciate the help for peace from anyone in America.” For Israel, this is more than a partisan issue, it is part of a major regional transformation.

The Sudanese government has made it clear that this is not a peace deal but rather Khartoum will seek to normalize relations between the two countries. What has been confirmed is that Israel will provide assistance and private investment in the technological and agricultural sectors in Sudan. This will likely be accepted as the current Sudanese government is struggling to improve the economic situation of the country after coming to power last year when it toppled a decades old military dictatorship.

In addition to U.S. election goals, the deal has geopolitical implications, mainly by deepening Iran’s already significant isolation in the region. As Netanyahu hinted: “Iran is unhappy. Hezbollah is unhappy. Hamas is unhappy. But most everybody else is very happy, and they should be, because peace is a good thing.” This comment came as Sudan recognized Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

Sudan has traditionally been one of the strongest supporters of the Palestinian cause. This agreement and other two with Bahrain and the UAE, undermines the historical Arab consensus that normalization with Israel cannot take place until an independent Palestinian state exists.

The Sudanese normalization with Israel is much more transformative than the peace deals with Bahrain and the UAE. Netanyahu was not exaggerating when he said it is a “new world, and I can’t tell you how — how excited we are for cooperating with everyone, cooperating with Sudan to build a future — a better future for both of us.”

The UAE is a strong regional power that exerts its influence militarily and economically. Bahrain’s normalization with Israel is seen as precursor to Saudi Arabia doing the same eventually when considering Manama’s near reliance on the Saudi Kingdom.

Unlike the UAE and Bahrain, Sudan has been a rogue state for quite some time and is perhaps best known for the genocide in Darfur between 2003 and 2009. Sudan had provided a safe haven for terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda and Hamas. To compensate for their role in international terrorism, Sudan has agreed to pay $335 million to U.S. victims of previous terrorist attacks and their families. This compensation is due to the logistical support Sudan provided Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in the late 1990s.

The North African country has sought a more pro-Western orientation with a renewed vigor since the powerful Omar al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, was ousted in a coup last year. Days before the agreement was signed, the Trump administration signed a resignation letter to remove Khartoum from the list of state terrorists.

Traditionally, Israeli relations with Sudan has been hostile. In 1967, shortly after the Israeli victory over the Arabs in the Six Day War, the Arab League announced the Khartoum Resolution. This expressed the will of the Arab states for “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiation with it.”

Following this symbolic act, and in retaliation for Sudan’s involvement in the war, the Israeli government began to actively support separatist groups operating in the southern region of Sudan. By providing high-quality weapons and training, Israel helped improve South Sudan’s military to the point where it established an autonomous zone. Israel has also been a staunch supporter of South Sudan’s successful bid for independence, which finally came in 2011.

The South Sudanese government in Juba is concerned that rapprochement between Israel and Khartoum will reduce its traditional proximity to the Jewish State. However, they refrained from acting against normalization because it is a top American project headed by Trump and on the eve of presidential elections. Juba would find it difficult to operate without American and Israeli support. Also, relations between Sudan and South Sudan have improved, and both are more concerned with their own internal affairs than with each other.

The Sudan-Israel agreement is therefore not only a triumph for Israeli foreign policy but also for the U.S. While Israel’s agreements with the UAE and Bahrain only reinforces its existing foreign policy orientation, the Khartoum agreement marks a new direction for a country of 40 million and a step away from a dark past related to fostering terrorism. It also demonstrates that Israel is willing to normalize relations with countries who have directly supported terrorism, which makes this deal more significant than the one with the UAE and Bahrain.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Despite its large population of 1.5 billion which many have considered as an impediment, China’s domestic economic reforms and collaborative strategic diplomacy with external countries have made it attain superpower status over the United States. While United States influence is rapidly fading away, China has indeed taken up both the challenges and unique opportunities to strengthen its position, especially its trade, investment and economic muscles.

On October 22, Vladimir Putin took part, via videoconference, in the final plenary session of the 17^th Annual Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club. The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004, with a goal is to promote dialogue between Russian and international intellectual elite, and to make an independent, unbiased scientific analysis of political, economic and social events in Russia and the rest of the world.

It is worth noting that Putin touched on a wide range of different issues at meting. What particularly interesting was his assessment of the changing politics and the economy, and rating of the global superpower.

“The world has changed several times. Meanwhile, time increasingly and insistently makes us question what lies ahead for humanity,” he said during his interactive speech with the participants.

In effect, the post-war world order was established by three victorious countries: the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain. The role of Britain has changed since then; the Soviet Union no longer exists, while some try to dismiss Russia altogether, according to Putin.

Indeed, the Soviet Union is no longer there. But there is Russia. In terms of its economic weight and political influence, China is moving quickly towards superpower status. Germany is moving in the same direction, and the Federal Republic of Germany has become an important player in international cooperation. At the same time, the roles of Great Britain and France in international affairs has undergone significant changes, he further explained.

The United States, which at some point absolutely dominated the international stage, can hardly claim exceptionality any longer. Generally speaking, does the United States need this exceptionalism? he asked rhetorically, and further cited that powerhouses such as Brazil, South Africa and some other countries have become much more influential in the world.

Amid the current fragmentation of international affairs, there are challenges that require more than just the combined capacity of a few states, even very influential ones. Problems of this magnitude, which do exist, require global attention. International stability, security, fighting terrorism and solving urgent regional conflicts are certainly among them; as are promoting global economic development, combating poverty, and expanding cooperation in healthcare. That last one is especially relevant today.

Arguably, China has worked on all aspects of its economy and external investment footprints, these combined is now recorded as its grandiose achievements. Still, for example, China is engaging a long-term competition with the U.S., and that is the challenge for the United States. China’s global investment and trade is just unimaginable and give the country the global power.

It has systematically transformed its economy at the same time, maintained the political structure. Its major cities and coastal areas are far more prosperous compared to rural and interior regions. Of course, the United States has also developed its individual states, while Russia’s regions look not too far different from the typical Soviet-era.

Experts vehemently argue and vividly show how useful the population (demography) is a factor for China’s success down the years. It is a matter of how to put the population to support the growth of the economy. With the 1.5 billion population, China has brought more people out of extreme poverty than any other country in history. China reduced extreme poverty by 800 million.

The United States has 380 million population, two times more than Russia, which has a meagre 146 million in relation to the size of the country. The population moves forth and back, Russia has to support its economy with increasing population. Since 2006, the Russian government started simplifying immigration laws and launched a state program for providing assistance to voluntary immigration of ethnic Russians from former Soviet republics. In one of his previous speeches, Putin declared that Russia’s population could reach 146 million by 2025, mainly as a result of immigration

As expected of any development process, there are still problems. Nonetheless, the level of public support for the government and its management of the country is high, with 80 – 95% of Chinese citizens expressing satisfaction with the central government, according to a 2019 survey.

That compared with Russia, Putin explained that Russia has to begin from the scratch. Lenin spoke about the birthmarks of capitalism, he reminded, and added that “It cannot be said that we have lived these past 30 years in a full-fledged market economy. In fact, we are only gradually building it, and its institutions. Russia had to do it from the ground up, starting from a clean slate. Of course, we are doing this, taking into consideration, developments around the world. After all, after almost one hundred years of a state-planned economy, transitioning to a market economy is not easy.”

On other way round, it is necessary to take a closer look at approach, economic capability and the services by the Chinese. China has such a diverse landscape, with investment and trade around the world. According to the World Bank, China has the largest economy and one of the world’s foremost infrastructural giants. China is the world’s largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods.

China holds 17.7% of the world’s total wealth, the second largest share held by any country. It has the world’s largest banking sector, with assets of $40 trillion and the world’s top 4 largest banks all being in China. In 2019, China overtook the US as the home to the highest number of rich people in the world, according to the global wealth report by Credit Suisse. It has the highest number of rich people in the world’s top 10% of wealth since 2019. There were 658 Chinese billionaires and 3.5 million millionaires.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative has expanded significantly over the last six years and, as of April 2020, includes 138 countries and 30 international organization. Along with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa, China is a member of the BRICS group of emerging major economies.

In recent years, Russia has significantly strengthened bilateral ties with Asian countries such as China and India, with Latin American countries. An important aspect of Russia’s relations with the West is the criticism of Russia’s political system and over human rights. On the other hand, Putin’s leadership over the return of order, stability, and progress has won him widespread admiration.

Russia still has to develop its regions, modernize most the Soviet-era industries to produce export goods, not only for domestic consumption. It has oil and gas, military equipment constitute its export product abroad. Its overseas investment and trade only developing at a snail pace compared to China. After the United States, the European Union and other countries imposed economic sanctions after the annexation of Crimea and a collapse in oil prices, the proportion of middle-class could decrease drastically.

Sprawling from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, Russia has more than a fifth of the world’s forests, which makes it the largest forest country in the world. With it’s extensive mineral and energy resources, Russia is a major great power and has the potential to become a superpower. Russia can regain part of its Soviet era economic power and political influence around the world. Certainly, superpower status has to be attained by practical multifaceted sustainable development and maintaining an appreciably positive relations with the world.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Kester Kenn Klomegah is a frequent and passionate contributor to Global Research.

During the past century, we have witnessed a long and tragic history of domestic policies that have targeted persons of Arab descent. We have been subjected to discriminatory treatment by law enforcement, immigration authorities, and by both Democratic and Republican Administrations. In addition to these hurtful policies, it is important to note the role played by the scapegoating of Arabs in American politics.

In the “The Politics of Exclusion”, published in 1990 by the Arab American Institute, we have documented painful experiences of Arab American candidates who were targeted by their opponents for their Arab ancestry or the instances in which candidates for local and federal posts baited their opponents for accepting contributions from Arab Americans or for having an individual of Arab descent on staff. As a result, some candidates became afraid of accepting the support of Arab Americans.

Examples abound. In 1983, a Democrat running for Mayor in Philadelphia was challenged by his Republican opponent for accepting contributions from Arab Americans. He responded by returning the donations. In 1984, Walter Mondale running for president returned money to Arab American donors and in 1988, Michael Dukakis’ presidential campaign rejected an Arab American endorsement. In the years that followed, a Republican Congressman running for Senate asked Arab American leaders not to contribute to his campaign as did a Democrat running for Mayor in New York City.

All of these acts of discrimination were motivated by fear of alienating Jewish voters and were prompted by a campaign launched by a number of major American Jewish organisations, including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and AIPAC, who published “blacklists” warning of the emergence of Arab American leaders and groups who were deemed “anti-Israel” and were therefore to be shunned.

During the next two decades, especially following the signing of the Oslo Accords, this exclusion somewhat subsided, only to make a disturbing comeback during the 2008 presidential campaign. It resurfaced as an exclusively Republican-led effort and morphed into a largely anti-Muslim phenomenon.

Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin stoked anti-Arab and anti-Muslim fires in framing her opposition to the Democratic nominee Barack Obama. This effort of focusing on Obama’s “otherness” resulted in the encounter Senator John McCain, the GOP’s nominee, had at a town hall. When accosted by a questioner who insisted that Obama was an Arab, McCain famously responded “No he’s not, he’s a decent family man.” While heralded by some in the media as a sign of McCain’s nobility, Arab Americans, many of whom were “decent family men,” were less than impressed.

In 2010, we witnessed distinct Muslim-baiting used in a national campaign for the first time.

It was utilised by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich who latched onto a local New York City controversy involving plans to build an Islamic Community Centre a short distance from Ground Zero.

Using the language of anti-Muslim bigots, Gingrich said that Muslims were intending to construct a “Victory Mosque” to mark their conquering America. In that year’s Congressional elections, 17 Republican candidates ran ominous TV ads accusing their Democratic opponents of being “soft” in their opposition to the “Victory Mosque”.

While only two of the 17 won their races, the die was cast. Fuelled by the nativism and xenophobia Republicans had utilized to build the anti-Obama Tea Party and Birther Movement, they embraced anti-Muslim bigotry as a major theme in their political repertoire. By 2012, during a Republican primary presidential debate, the majority of contenders pledged that they would either refuse to appoint an American Muslim to a post in their administration or, at the very least, would insist they first take a pledge of allegiance to the US before considering them.

While this view was not shared by the eventual nominee, Mitt Romney, Muslim-baiting continued to grow within the GOP setting the stage for Donald Trump in 2016. During that year’s campaign, Muslims were one of candidate Trump’s favoured targets, along with Mexicans, refugees and immigrants, in general. In addition to building a wall to keep out Mexicans, he pledged to stop more Muslims from coming into the country and to keep a close eye on those who were here.

It was, therefore, no surprise that shortly after his inauguration, President Trump issued an executive order suspending and placing restrictions on immigrants or refugees coming from seven mostly Arab and Muslim-majority countries. It was punitive and not justified. Those excluded were mostly students, visiting family members, or businesspeople. Visas were cancelled for between 60,000 to 100,000 innocents who were detained, interrogated and many sent back to their countries of origin.

In reaction to negative court decisions that he was unfairly singling out Muslims, Trump issued new executive orders increasing the countries covered in his ban. Nevertheless, the list remained largely focused on and adversely affected Arab and Muslim-majority countries.

In an equally cruel act, Trump reduced the annual number of refugees admitted into the US, from Obama era highs of over 110,000 to less than 20,000. And while his administration has made much of its concern for Christians, this severe contraction of refugee slots coupled with the ban on immigration from targeted countries has severely impacted Arabs without regard for their faith.

The point to note in all of this is that the rhetoric espoused and the policies pursued by the Trump Administration, in fact, have their foundation in a decades-long effort by the GOP to target Arabs and Muslims, and by the failure of Democrats to vigorously confront and defeat these policies. And a by-product of this insidious history has been the role that this bigotry has played in promoting hate crimes against our communities.

The well has been poisoned and it will not be easy to undo the damage done. The challenge, however, is clear. We must put our immigration policy back on a sound non-discriminatory basis. We must dramatically increase our admission of refugees and asylees to meet the growing world demand. We must close the loopholes that make Arabs and Muslims fair game for Customs and Border Patrol officials. And we must fight xenophobia, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies and base our relationships with these communities on their being fellow Americans and not on security concern.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury released on Friday a new measure against sending remittances to Cuba, as part of the policies adopted by the Donald Trump administration against the island.

As reported by OFAC, the amendment will restrict any transaction with entities on the so-called Cuba Restricted List, a State Department list that includes more than 200 Cuban entities and sub-entities prohibited by the US government, including those which process and distribute remittances on the island, such as Fincimex, AIS, CIMEX, and others.

The final rule will be officially published in the Federal Register on October 27. The Donald Trump administration had previously limited the possible amount of shipments to only $1,000 per quarter (September 2019). Western Union suspended financial transfers to Cuba from anywhere globally except the United States (February 2020).

The current US administration noted that the new measure is intended to restrict access by such entities and sub-entities to funds obtained in connection with remittance-related activities, including in their role as intermediaries or their receipt of fees or commissions for processing remittance transactions.

With its new remittances discriminatory measure, the gov. of #UnitedStates makes Cuban emigrants the only ones in the world who cannot help their relatives, also affected by the largest worldwide system of illegal and unilateral coercive measures. #NoMasBloqueo #UnblockCuba pic.twitter.com/7o7HlR7Lar

— Johana Tablada de la Torre (@JohanaTablada) October 23, 2020

For his part, the Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, declared that the new measure against remittances reaffirms that “there are no limits for a criminal government in imposing policies that limit contacts, communication and mutual aid between the families of both countries.”

For the Cuban representative, the United States Government has intensified in an extreme and unprecedented way the blockade to the island, taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Far from alleviating the coercive measures in the context of the pandemic, the United States has proposed to provoke maximum punishment to the Cuban people. The new measure against remittances damages the population and confirms that the blockade is real,” the diplomat said this Thursday through Twitter.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from Twitter/@BrunoRdgzP

Clearly, the Fed reckons the public is foolish enough to believe the Fed’s money will actually be “free.”

It’s pretty much universally recognized that authorities use crises to impose “emergency powers” that become permanent. This erosion of civil and economic liberties is always sold as “necessary for your own good.” Of course the accretion of ever greater power in the hands of the few is for our own good. How could it be otherwise? (Irony off)

In this environment of “emergency powers”, it’s almost refreshing to find a power grab so blatant that its sheer boldness boggles the mind. I’m talking about the Federal Reserve’s FedNow, a proposed system of instant payments and digital dollars.

This paper from the Cleveland Fed describes the system: FedNow paper from clevelandfed.org (PDF) (via Cheryl A.)

The rationale for the system is two-fold: The Fed sees the current ACH (automatic clearing house) payment system used by banks as too slow and limited. Payments need to be instantaneous and there must be a way to reach unbanked households, the roughly 9 million U.S. households without a bank account. In the current system, stimulus payments couldn’t reach these households quickly.

The solution is a new payment system in which every household and business in the nation would have an account at FedNow, so the Fed can transfer funds directly and instantaneously into every household account (and presumably every business that the Fed has chosen to fund).

The second part of FedNow is the creation of a digital dollar which is just like the existing dollar with one tiny little difference: unlike cash (for example, a $20 bill), the digital dollars won’t be anonymous. Each newly created digital dollar will be trackable.

The Fed’s rationale is that panic-hoarding of coins and cash by households is a problem, as the Treasury has to go to a lot of trouble to mint more coins and print more cash. The FedNow digital dollars will be quick and easy to create and distribute–and, ahem, track.

Do you see the monstrous power grabs this we’re-here-to-help system would institute?

1. The power to borrow and distribute money that is currently reserved for the elected representatives in Congress would be bypassed by FedNow. Why wait around for slow, corrupt Congress to agree on stimulus, Universal Basic Income (UBI), etc.? With FedNow, the Fed can create trillions out of thin air and distribute the dough to households without any Congressional approval.

What’s interesting about this is that Congress has no power to stop the Fed from printing endless trillions and distributing the money however the Fed chooses. As an independent quasi-public agency, intended to be apolitical and outside the reach of corrupt politicos, the Fed is free to create and distribute as much new digital currency as it sees fit.

With FedNow, Congress has lost the government’s monopoly power to distribute funds. Congress can still borrow and spend money, of course, but the citizenry’s elected officials no longer have the monopoly granted by the Constitution.

2. The anonymity of the nation’s money will be lost to the Fed’s digital dollars.Perhaps the Fed will declare that only those who wear their underwear outside their clothing will avoid penalties. (Referencing the 1970s film Bananas.) Who’s to say what the Fed will track, and for what purposes? The Fed, that’s who.

There’s a whiff of desperation in these FedNow power grabs. It’s possible that the Fed has concluded that the elected legislative branch of government is now so thoroughly corrupt and dysfunctional that the Fed is forced to save the day, so to speak, by grabbing the power to create and distribute endless trillions to keep the increasingly impoverished and powerless citizenry from rebelling against the status quo.

The irony of course is that the primary source of the impoverishment of soaring inequality is the Fed itself, as the Fed’s “permanent emergency powers” of sluicing trillions in free money for financiers has goosed the wealth of the top 0.1% while leaving 95% of the citizenry worse off as wage stagnation and rising inflation has eroded the standard of living / purchasing power of labor.

It’s a nice trick, isn’t it? First the Fed creates the inequality that makes rebellion inevitable and then it rides to the rescue with a power grab that nullifies the monopoly over governmental allocation of money the Constitution grants to Congress, and it destroys the anonymity of the “free money” it plans to distribute in the ultimate bread and circuses.

Clearly, the Fed reckons the public is foolish enough to believe the Fed’s money will actually be “free.” Check out what you’ve lost before declaring anything “free.”

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

The Supreme Court declared in 1943, “There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority.” In reality, the cardinal doctrines of contemporary democracy are layer upon layer of mystical claptrap. The phrases which consecrate democracy seep into many Americans’ minds like buried hazardous waste.

If Joe Biden wins the presidential election, voters will be told that our political system is redeemed: the “will of the people” is now clear, Biden will rule with “the consent of the governed,” and Americans are obliged to again trust and obey the federal government. If Donald Trump is reelected, much of the same media will continue howling about imaginary Russian plots. But these notions remain dangerous delusions regardless of who is declared the winner on Election Day.

The notion that election results represent the “will of the people” is one of the most shameless triumphs of democratic propaganda. Rather than revealing the “will of the people,” election results are often a one-day snapshot of transient mass delusions. Votes which only reveal comparative contempt for competing professional politicians are transmogrified into approvals for blueprints to forcibly remake humanity.

Americans are encouraged to believe that their vote on Election Day somehow miraculously guarantees that the subsequent ten thousand actions by the president, Congress, and federal agencies embody “the will of the people.” In reality, the more edicts a president issues, the less likely that his decrees will have any connection to popular preferences. It is even more doubtful that all the provisions of hefty legislative packages reflect majority support, considering the wheeling, dealing, and conniving prior to final passage. Or maybe the Holy Ghost of Democracy hovers over Capitol Hill to assure that average Americans truly want every provision on every page of bills that most representatives and senators do not even bother reading?

A bastard cousin of the “will of the people” flimflam is the notion that citizens and government are one and the same. President Franklin Roosevelt, after five years of expanding federal power as rapidly as possible, declared in 1938, “Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us.” President Johnson declared in 1964: “Government is not an enemy of the people. Government is the people themselves,” though it wasn’t “the people” whose lies sent tens of thousands of American conscripts to pointless deaths in Vietnam. President Bill Clinton declared in 1996, “The Government is just the people, acting together—just the people acting together.” But it wasn’t “the people acting together” that bombed Serbia, invaded Haiti, blockaded Iraq, or sent the tanks in at Waco.

President Barack Obama hit the theme at a 2015 Democratic fundraiser: “Our system only works when we realize that government is not some alien thing; government is not some conspiracy or plot; it’s not something to oppress you. Government is us in a democracy.” But it was not private citizens who, during Obama’s reign, issued more than half a million pages of proposed and final new regulations and notices in the Federal Register; made more than 10 million administrative rulings; tacitly took control of more than 500 million acres by designating them “national monuments”; and bombed seven foreign nations. The “government is the people” doctrine makes sense only if we assume citizens are masochists who secretly wish to have their lives blighted.

Presidents perennially echo the Declaration of Independence’s appeal to “the consent of the governed.” But political consent is gauged very differently than consent in other areas of life. The primary proof that Americans are not oppressed is that citizens cast more votes for one of the candidates who finagled his name onto the ballot. A politician can say or do almost anything to snare votes; after Election Day, citizens can do almost nothing to restrain winning politicians.

A 2017 survey by Rasmussen Reports found that only 23 percent of Americans believe that the federal government has “the consent of the governed.” Political consent is defined these days as rape was defined a generation or two ago: people consent to anything which they do not forcibly resist. Voters cannot complain about getting screwed after being enticed into a voting booth. Anyone who does not attempt to burn down city hall presumably consented to everything the mayor did. Anyone who does not jump the White House fence and try to storm into the Oval Office consents to all executive orders. Anyone who doesn’t firebomb the nearest federal office building consents to the latest edicts in the Federal Register. And if people do attack government facilities, then they are terrorists who can be justifiably killed or imprisoned forever.

In the short term, the most dangerous democratic delusion is that conducting an election makes government trustworthy again. Only 20 percent of Americans trust the government to “do the right thing” most of the time, according to a survey last month by the Pew Research Center. Americans are being encouraged to believe that merely changing the name of the occupant of the White House should restore faith in government.

If Biden is elected, we will hear the same “redemption” storyline that was trumpeted when Obama replaced (temporarily) disgraced George W. Bush. The same media that ignored Biden’s corruption during the presidential campaign will insist that his inauguration purifies Uncle Sam. With Biden in charge, pundits and pooh-bahs will swear that it is safe to expand federal control over healthcare, education, housing, the economy, the environment, and anything else that moves.

But the benevolence of government rarely transcends the perfidy of politics. Washington will remain as venal as ever, regardless of the hallelujah chorus of PBS NewsHour panelists. When scandals erupt, citizens will be told to trust politically approved fixes to the system—even though most Washington reforms are like fighting crime by hiding the corpses of victims.

It is time to demystify democracy. The surest effect of exalting democracy is to make it easier for politicians to drag everyone else down. Until presidents and members of Congress begin to honor their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, they deserve all the distrust and disdain they receive. Americans need less faith in democracy and more faith in their own liberty.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

James Bovard is the author of ten books, including 2012’s Public Policy Hooligan, and 2006’s Attention Deficit Democracy. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, and many other publications.

Featured image is from Mises Wire

A series of incidents involving the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad police unit (SARS) in the Federal Republic of Nigeria has brought to the surface underlying societal contradictions which have been simmering for many years.

This year represents the 60^th anniversary of national independence in Nigeria from Britain.

Moreover, 2020 marks yet another commemoration being the 1960 “Year of Africa”, where 18 former colonies won recognition and statehood amid a continental resurgence in resistance to colonialism. Events during the immediate post-World War II period throughout the continent took place at the same time as former colonies and semi-colonies in Asia and Latin America as well, experienced a yearning for genuine political power and economic liberation.

Nonetheless, the declaration of independence by numerous African colonies prior to and proceeding 1960 has been thwarted by the advent of neo-colonialism. Although most African states have been recognized by the United Nations, the former Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor of the African Union (AU), founded in 2002, along with both capitalist and socialist states, the economic dependency of these post-colonial nations is  continuing to hamper their ability to achieve genuine development and the consequent sovereignty required to determine the destiny of its people.

#EndSARS Mass Demonstrations Met with State Repression

In Nigeria, with its population of 206 million, the initial demonstrations beginning on October 5 were largely peaceful. Young people held mass rallies and demonstrations in the commercial capital and financial hub of Lagos which eventually spread to other regions of the country.

Later in Abuja, the political capital and home to the national legislative structures, were the center of demonstrations as well that were brutally repressed by the police forces. After days of unrest, the military publicly threatened to intervene to restore order.

A Reuters news dispatch on the situation in Abuja on October 9 quoted participants as saying:

“They poured teargas on each and every one of us, it’s so hot I had to put water on my face. This is what Nigeria has turned into. We just got there with our placards and decided, they started throwing us teargas. That was it.” (See this)

At the Lekki Toll Plaza in Lagos, youth and their supporters had been blocking the area in order to make their voices heard in the demands being put forward to the All-Progressive Congress (APC) government of President Muhammadu Buhari. On the evening of October 20, it is reported in many accounts that armed units of the military entered the area, shutting off the streets lights only to suddenly open fire on the people engaged in the occupation.

The atmosphere prior to the evening of October 20 at Lekki Toll Plaza was one of a cultural festival where young people engaged in musical presentations, speeches, the waving of the Nigerian flag, the singing of the national anthem and other patriotic songs. Therefore, it was a shock to many when the military engaged in repressive tactics in order to clear the area of protesters.

A report documenting the reaction of demonstrators quoted them as saying:

“We never imagined they would start shooting at us because we were peaceful and not carrying weapons. The worst we expected was for the soldiers to throw tear gas to disperse us.” (See this)

There are contradictory claims related to the number of casualties and deaths on October 20 and the early morning hours of the 21^st. However, events in response to these acts of state repression were swift and violent.

Lagos State governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, addressing protesters gathered at Alausa, Lagos (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Several governmental institutions and private properties including the Nigerian High and Appeals Court, prisons in several areas of the country, the family home of the Lagos state governor, 25 police stations, the ports authority, transport vehicles at the BRT, the Nation newspaper and the leading satellite television network in the country, TVC Nigeria, were attacked and set a light by roving groups of youth. Lagos State Governor Sanwo-Olu visited victims of the shootings by the security forces at the hospitals yet did nothing to restrain the actions of the police and military units deployed in the commercial capital city Lagos home to some 20 million people.

The governor’s social media posts calling for calm and the announcement of a commission of inquiry were sharply criticized by youth and others from various political tendencies. Nigerian Human Rights lawyer Femi Falana was interviewed over Arise Television on October 22 where he accused the government of failing to seriously address the legitimate grievances of the #EndSars Movement.

President Buhari delivered a televised address on October 21 where he urged calm while strongly suggesting that the youth and community people halt their demonstrations while threatening even more repressive measures. There was no mention of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of 69 people, including 51 civilians along with 18 members of the police services and the defense forces.

Buhari’s statement was condemned by a broad array of political forces for its lack of compassion and strategic vision for the immediate future of the country. Some of the protesting youth have called for the resignation of the president and the state governor of Lagos.

Neo-Colonialism and the Economic Crisis

Undoubtedly the mass demonstrations against police brutality were influenced by events in the United States since the police execution of George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis. Historically, there has been an intersection between the struggles for civil rights and self-determination among the tens of millions of people of African descent in the West and their allies, where political convergences during the 1950s and 1960s linked the movements against racism in North America with the independence campaigns to end colonialism on the African continent.

Nigeria is a vast oil-producing state where multi-national firms such as Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Total, among others, are involved with the extraction of petroleum and natural gas resources. Despite its tremendous wealth in energy, the character of the neo-colonial system of dependency has deprived the majority of people from benefiting from its advances in the economic sphere.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic during the early months of 2020, the world capitalist system has undergone a significant downturn. In the U.S. and Western Europe, millions of confirmed cases of the virus have forced the partial shutdowns and attempted restructuring of economies. Millions are losing their jobs placing them in danger of food deficits, foreclosures and evictions.

With states such as Nigeria being dependent upon the sale of its energy resources to capitalist corporations for national consumption, when there is a drastic decline in demand for oil, natural gas and other export commodities, the foreign exchange earnings of these African nations are negatively impacted. Some countries such as Zambia in Southern Africa, has already reported the threat of financial default as it relates to their obligations to international financial institutions.

EndSARS protesters in Lagos (CC BY-SA 4.0)

On October 22, the S&P rating agency declared Zambia’s bond holdings as being in what they describe as “selective default.” According to a news article:

“We view the nonpayment of debt service and the statement that the government will not make debt service payments as a default on its commercial debt obligations….With most debt denominated in dollars, sharp kwacha (Zambian currency) depreciation has exacerbated Zambia’s fiscal problems and pushed debt from around 36% of GDP in 2014 to 92% by the of 2019.” (See this)

In specific reference to Nigeria, a financial publication has cited a recent statement by the African Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which accurately views the current unrest as a by-product of the economic crisis. The IMF has acted as an major impediment to African development since the 1960s through the conditionalities placed on governments, limiting their capacity for the strengthening of state institutions and a more equal distribution of income generated by the export of national resources.

This article stated in reference to the IMF report that:

“The Board blamed the civil unrest and the social instability in the Nation on the economic difficulties in the country as well as Nigeria’s economy low growth prospect. IMF reiterated that the protest in the country is not just against police brutality, but also unemployment, poverty. The Department explained that the difficult event that followed since the wake of the decline in oil prices in 2015-16 in Nigeria, has made economic prospects low in the country, and this dislocation has exerted pressure on standards of living, which fueled the protest.” (See this)

Therefore, the long-term objectives in African mass struggles is to wrestle control of the resources of the countries in order to develop the states based upon the interests of the majority of working people, youth and farmers. These efforts must take place on a continental basis through the breaking of the stranglehold of economic dependency imposed by imperialism.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Resting protesters in Lagos, Nigeria (CC BY-SA 4.0)

As of October 26, Azerbaijan and Turkey kept their operational initiative in the war with Armenia in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region. Their forces continue developing their offensive in southern Karabakh by trying to remove Armenian forces from of the Lachin corridor area in order to cut off the link between the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Armenia itself.

Attempts of Armenian forces to retake the initiative and counter—attacks near the Iranian border did not lead to any breakthrough results. In turn, the Armenian Defense Ministry was forced to admit that it in fact has lost the south of Karabakh. Nonetheless, according to its version of events, the towns of Fuzuli and Hadrut are still not controlled by Azerbaijan. This goes contrary to videos from the ground. At the same time, the Azerbaijani advance on the town of Qubadli faced particular difficulties and in fact the town remains contested. Further development of the Azerbaijani forces’ advance poses a direct thereat to the town of Shushi, near the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic capital, Stepankert, and the Lanchin corridor. Both these directions are considered as strategically vital by the Armenian leadership and it will likely contribute every possible effort to prevent this scenario.

On October 25, the General Prosecutor’s Office of Armenia announced that it has factual evidence that numerous operators of Turkish Special Forces took part in clashes in Karabakh. According to the report, since August, Turkish personnel have been training the Azerbaijani military and participating in the conflict. Earlier it became known that after the joint Turkish-Azerbaijani drills in August a large number of Turkish military specialists, service members and equipment remained in Azerbaijan. The presence of Turkish F-16 fighter jets at the airbases of Ganja and Qabala were confirmed by satellite images. The Armenian side insists that the Turkish F-16s were involved in the shooting down of Armenian aircraft and providing air cover for Azerbaijani combat drones bombing Armenian positions in Karabakh. Turkish weapon supplies and the contribution of Turkish intelligence and top officers to the planning and employment the Azerbaijani advance in Karabakh are another open secret. The presence of members of Turkish-backed Syrian militant groups in the combat zone area was also confirmed by photo and video evidence.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev insists that the Turkish military and Syrian militants do not participate in the war while simultaneously making loud statements about victories of Azerbaijani forces. During an operational meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and commanders of units on the front line, Aliyev claimed that his forces eliminated or captured about 300 Armenian battle tanks and destroyed 6 S-300 air defense systems. The Azerbaijani leader also stated that Armenia received modern weapons every day somehow forgetting to mention various Turkish and Israeli weapon systems employed by the Azerbaijani military.

Meanwhile, Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov met with Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun in Washington and agreed on the establishment of another humanitarian ceasefire, the third one since the start of the war on September 27. Nonetheless, it does not look like it will allow for any strategic breakthrough as the previous two ceasefires collapsed immediately after their formal start. Moreover, the current situation on the frontline does not sit well with the goals of both sides.

The Turkish-Azerbaijani bloc still seeks to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh question by military means dismantling the Armenian republic there and pushing the Armenians out of the region. At the same time, for the Armenians the current configuration of the frontline, even if the conflict is temporarily frozen, will be a source of permanent threat to the vital infrastructure of Karabakh. In these conditions, the resumption of the Azerbaijani advance will be almost inevitable.

The Iranian leadership is also skeptical regarding the diplomatic settlement of the conflict. Iran has deployed large forces to the border with Karabakh and launched large-scale military drills in the area.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

SUPPORT SOUTHFRONT:

PayPal: [email protected], http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

China’s ping-pong team invited members of the US team to China on April 6, 1971, and the momentum was begun to establish warm relations between the two nations. However, during the current Trump administration, we have seen the relationship drop to its lowest point.

The US and China have mutual political, economic, and security interests, such as in the area of the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but there are unresolved conflicts relating to the role of the US as a bully toward nations who do not share their same political ideology.

To better understand the relationship, and where it may be headed, Steven Sahiounie of MidEast Discourse reached out to Pepe Escobar for his expert analysis.

Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian journalist, who writes a column ‘The Roving Eye’ for Asia Times Online, and works as an analyst for RT and Sputnik News, as well as Press TV, while previously having worked for Al Jazeera. Escobar has focused on Central Asia and the Middle East.

***

Steven Sahiounie (SS):  US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has said former US President Richard Nixon created a monster by establishing relations with The Peoples Republic of China decades ago.  Pompeo and others in the Trump administration are warning that the Chinese Communist Party is actively trying to export their political ideology beyond their borders.  These ‘China-Hawks’ are trying to instill fear among western democracies while pinning a label on China as the ‘bogey-man’. Should the US be dictating what other nations choose for their political system?

Pepe Escobar (PE):  Nixon in China was a clever Kissinger move to further split China from the USSR and in the long term create an additional, immense market for US capitalism. Deng Xiaoping clearly saw the opening – and after Mao’s death masterfully exploited it for China’s benefit. Pompeo is no strategist – just a lowly spy, with a Christian Zionist apocalyptic mindset. The crude, primitive ideology underneath the massive propaganda attack on the CCP comes from opportunist Steve Bannon. Himself and assorted China hawks completely ignore China’s history, the Confucianist mindset, and the fact this is a civilization-state not interested in war, but in trade and development, internal and with foreign partners. That is captured by the official mantra “community with a shared future for mankind.” Increasingly, governments and public opinion across the Global South are beginning to understand what’s really at stake.

SS:  American tycoons, business executives, and Wall Street barons have encouraged Trump to moderate his policies and tone with China. The American business community and their western counterparts want to share in the Chinese leaps in science, technology, and education.

Can the western business community affect moderating trade and diplomatic relations between the US and China?

PE:  Wall Street is dying to get deeper into business in China because that’s where the action is for US capitalism, and increasingly so as the economic crisis bites deeper inside the US. The top destinations for international capital in the near future are in Asia – and mostly China. Trump’s “advisors” on the trade war are criminally myopic: not only they don’t understand how global supply chains work – and how major US capital is integrated with them – but also they assume mere sanctions will slow down China’s inevitable tech drive, which will be consolidated by the myriad strategies inbuilt in Made in China 2025. It’s an open question of what develops next, depending on the result of the US elections. Top Chinese scholars are discussing that Trump – free from campaigning for re-election – may even revert to those days when he extolled his friendship with Xi. In the case of a Dem administration, pressure on China may be slightly relieved, but quite a few sanctions will remain in place.

SS:  The US is in a process of dismantling decades of political, economic, and social engagement with China while shifting to a new tactic of confrontation, coercion, aggression, and antagonism. The US revoked the special status of Hong Kong in diplomatic and trade relations and declared that China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea were illegal. In your opinion, will the US tactics lead to a military confrontation with China, or is this going to be a ‘Cold War’?

PE:  It’s impossible – under the current Sinophobia hysteria – to have a meaningful discussion in the US on why Beijing updated Hong Kong’s national security law. It has to do as much with subversion – as Beijing examined the Hong Kong conflagration last year – as with money laundering in Hong Kong by dodgy characters from the mainland.

As much as the Caribbean is considered an “American lake”, the South China Sea is being configured as a “Chinese lake”. As a matter of national security, the South China Sea is absolutely crucial for the Maritime Silk Road. Moreover, China will never accept being encircled and/or “patrolled” by a foreign power in its maritime borders. The ultimate aim is to expel the US Navy from the South China Sea. The US Navy and the Pentagon know very well, after gaming it extensively, that a military confrontation with China – in the South China Sea or Taiwan – will never be a cakewalk and may result in a serious imperial humiliation. In a nutshell, Cold War 2.0 will remain – in different levels, way more rhetorical and heavy on propaganda than yielding military facts on the ground.

SS:  The US presidential election is November 3.  Some have said that regardless of whether Trump or Biden wins, the US-China relationship may not change in policy, since both American parties and the general American public opinion has changed into a negative view of China over the last 4 years. In your opinion, can the US-China relationship be repaired?

PE:  The clash is inevitable for myriad reasons. The US National Security Strategy considers China as an existential threat, so this is a bipartisan issue. The ever-evolving Russia-China strategic partnership is the ultimate nightmare for the US Deep State. China is already the top economy in the world by PPP; the top global trade power; and by 2025 may be on the way to become the top tech power as well. In sharp contrast to endless wars and NATO saber-rattling, China’s proposal, especially for the Global South, is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a development model centered on increased connectivity. It’s impossible for the Empire of Chaos – insolvent and completely polarized internally – to accept the emergence not only of a peer competitor, but a strategic partnership (Russia-China) bent on shaping international relations away from war and crude exploitation.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiouni is an award-winning journalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump in a file image. Image: Youtube

The purpose of journalism is to uncover truth – especially uncomfortable truth – and to publish it for the benefit of society. In a free society, we must be informed of the criminal acts carried out by governments in the name of the people. Throughout history, journalists have uncovered the many ways governments lie, cheat, and steal – and the great lengths they will go to keep the people from finding out.

Great journalists like Seymour Hersh, who reported to us the tragedy of the Mai Lai Massacre and the horrors that took place at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, are essential.

Ten years ago last week, Julian Assange’s Wikileaks organization published an exposé of US government wrongdoing on par with the above Hersh bombshell stories. Publication of the “Iraq War Diaries” showed us all the brutality of the US attack on Iraq. It told us the truth about the US invasion and occupation of that country. This was no war of defense against a nation threatening us with weapons of mass destruction. This was no liberation of the country. We were not “bringing democracy” to Iraq.

No, the release of nearly 400,000 classified US Army field reports showed us in dirty detail that the US attack was a war of aggression, based on lies, where hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed and injured.

We learned that the US military classified anyone they killed in Iraq as “enemy combatants.” We learned that more than 700 Iraqi civilians were killed for “driving too close” to one of the hundreds of US military checkpoints – including pregnant mothers-to-be rushing to the hospital.

We learned that US military personnel routinely handed “detainees” over to Iraqi security forces where they would be tortured and often killed.

Ten years after Assange’s brave act of journalism changed the world and exposed one of the crimes of the century, he sits alone in solitary confinement in a UK prison. He sits literally fighting for his life, as if he is successfully extradited to the United States he faces 175 years in a “supermax” prison for committing “espionage” against a country of which he is not a citizen.

On the Iraq war we have punished the truth-tellers and rewarded the criminals. People who knowingly lied us into the war like Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, the Beltway neocon “experts,” and most of the media, faced neither punishment nor professional shaming for their acts. In fact, they got off scot free and many even prospered.

Julian Assange explained that he published the Iraq War Diaries because he “hoped to correct some of the attack on truth that occurred before the war, and that continued on since that war officially ended.” We used to praise brave journalists not afraid to take on the “bad guys.” Now we torture and imprison them.

President Trump has made a point of singling out the US attack on Iraq as one of the “stupid wars” that he was committed to ending. But we wouldn’t know half of just how stupid – and evil – it was were it not for the brave actions of Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning. Journalism should not be a crime and President Trump should pardon Assange immediately.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is by Massoud Nayeri

Facemasks are causing many problems, but the medical establishment and governments around the world who impose mandates to wear facemasks in public seem to be oblivious to the damage they are causing in order to protect us.  In this case, the cure is worst than the disease.

As many of us know, there is no credible evidence to support the claim made by doctors, scientists and the mainstream media (MSM) who are in the pockets of major pharmaceutical corporations and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation that facemasks protect us from deadly viruses.  Now there are new consequences of wearing facemasks that the MSM rarely mentions, and that is a rise of dental and acne problems that are affecting people who comply with the facemask mandates imposed by governments on behest of the so-called “medical experts” such as Dr. Anthony Fauci of the CDC and others.

Mask Mouth, is basically a new term coined by doctors located in New York City who describe the new phenomenon of arising dental problems that are associated to wearing facemasks on a consistent basis. In early August, The New York Post headlined with ‘Mask mouth’ is a seriously stinky side effect of wearing masks’ interviewed Dr. Rob Ramondi who is a certified dentist and a co-founder of One Manhattan Dental said that

“We’re seeing inflammation in people’s gums that have been healthy forever, and cavities in people who have never had them before,” said Dr. Ramondi, “about 50% of our patients are being impacted by this, [so] we decided to name it ‘mask mouth’ — after ‘meth mouth.”

Meth Mouth is described as addicts who smoke crystal meth (methamphetamine) that eventually develop serious dental problems such as “cracked, black- and brown-stained teeth because the stimulant causes sugar cravings, teeth grinding and jaw clenching.” Dr. Marc Sclafani, who is also one of the co-founders said that“Gum disease — or periodontal disease — will eventually lead to strokes and an increased risk of heart attacks.” He said that wearing a face mask increases the dryness of the mouth leading to an increase in unwanted bacteria.

“People tend to breathe through their mouth instead of through their nose while wearing a mask” said Sclafani “The mouth breathing is causing the dry mouth, which leads to a decrease in saliva — and saliva is what fights the bacteria and cleanses your teeth” adding the fact that “saliva is also what neutralizes acid in the mouth and helps prevent tooth decay and gum disease.”

He recommends to drink water and to practice extensive oral hygiene on a daily basis.

Despite their findings, doctors who are the opposite side of the spectrum such as Dr. Shruti Gohil, an associate medical director of Epidemiology & Infection Prevention at UC Irvine said that if masks caused dental issues, others in the medical field would also have the same problems since they wear masks all of the time according to a Los Angeles Times report from mid-August, “even dentists wear masks themselves all day long,” she said “this flies in the face of any type of known information and really is concerning to me.” Dr. Gohil was responding to a Anaheim council meeting led by councilwoman Lucille Kring who said that “dentists are finding that it’s causing very serious dental problems — cavities, gum disease and halitosis. So keep that in mind when you’re snuggling up to a mask.” Dr. Gohil also promotes vaccines. During a measles outbreak in 2015, she claimed that adults should get the measles vaccine even though they most likely received one when they were adolescents.

“The vaccine is 99 percent effective, but that can wane over time. Even people who, as a child, received the two doses required by the state might consider getting another booster,” said Dr. Shruti Gohil, “Measles is the most contagious virus known to man at this time,” Gohil said. “you can actually do something about preventing it. So why wouldn’t you?”

Sounds like Dr. Gohil is in the pockets of Big Pharma.

Not only facemasks are causing dental problems, facial issues such as pimples, zits and other forms of acne are becoming problematic as CNN, the premier propaganda channel that promotes facemasks and social distancing admitted in a headline from last June titled ‘Maskne’: Why your face is breaking out under your mask and how to stop it’ reported that “for many people that is leading to an embarrassing and unpleasant side effect: blemishes, pimples, zits — or what dermatologists call acne.” CNN interviewed Dr. Whitney Bowe, clinical assistant professor of dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center who said that “I have patients calling in despair saying ‘What is going on? I’ve never had a breakout before and now my face looks like a teenager’s!’ and Dr. Seemal Desai, an assistant professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center who said that “we’re seeing lots of flares of acne, especially a type called perioral dermatitis, which tends to happen typically around the mouth and in the areas around the nose.”

The dental and facial problems for those who wear facemasks on a consistent basis to supposedly protect themselves from an over-exaggerated disease is just another example of unintended consequences in the making.  Facemasks are causing many problems, but the medical establishment and governments around the world who impose mandates to wear facemasks in public seem to be oblivious to the damage they are causing in order to protect us.  In this case, the cure is worst than the disease.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from howstuffworks

Today Mitch McConnell’s Republican Senate confirmed its third ultra conservative Supreme Court nominee, Amy Barrett, as Supreme Court Justice. Coming in the midst of America’s current dual crisis—economic and Covid health—both now worsening, the Barrett appointment ensures the emergence of historic political instability in the USA. The dual crisis is about to become a triple crisis.

As US unemployment claims rise, rent evictions accelerate, food lines grow, the prospect of a fiscal stimulus bill in Congress fades, and as a third Covid 19 wave creates record level infections & hospitalizations, each deterioration has begun reinforcing the other.

Potentially exacerbating all the above, political instability and conflict of historic dimensions is around the corner. And the Barrett confirmation today, October 26, 2020 will put the US Supreme Court at the center of this dynamic.

The Consequences of the Barrett Confirmation

Democrats correctly complain Barrett’s confirmation will mean the end of women’s right to choose, a destruction of what’s left of the Affordable Care Act, the ending of many gay rights, a further US retreat from climate change, more deregulation of business, and a long list of other social programs of recent decades. They are right on all that. But even all that may not prove the worst of it.

Perhaps the most serious, and most immediate, consequence of the Barrett appointment to the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) will be that Court’s interference once again in a presidential election—as in the 2000 national election when the Court played the central key role in stopping counting of votes and thus ‘selecting’ George W. Bush as president.

The Barrett appointment to the Court means Trump will have his 6-3 majority on the court just in time for the election and the counting of ballots. Even if chief Justice Roberts becomes an occasional swing vote, Barrett’s appointment will still ensure a 5-4 vote in favor of Trump.

The historic question thus arises: will Barrett, along with the other two Trump SCOTUS appointees Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, vote to stop the counting of mail in ballots in swing states and thus give Trump a second term? Would they dare? In particular would Barrett, being just confirmed to the Court?

More specifically, will the 6-3 SCOTUS Trump majority perform again its role of usurper of Democracy in America and intervene in Trump’s favor—as it did In 2000 when it ordered a halt to a vote re-count in Florida by declaring it “prejudiced George Bush’s’ campaign”? Is this possible again? You bet it is.

Guess who two of Bush’s main defense lawyers were in 2000 who demanded and argued to the Court at that time that it halt the vote re-count in Florida in favor of Bush? Both Barrett and Kavanaugh!

The Pusillanimity of Democrat Leadership

Democrats have been gnashing their political teeth, pounding their desks in the Senate, boycotting committee voting on the nomination, and making empty threats about stacking SCOTUS after the election. But recent history shows the Democrats themselves are complicit, and therefore responsible in part, for Barrett’s appointment, as well as for the appointments of her two radical right predecessors, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.

It was the Democrats who capitulated when their nominee to SCOTUS, Garland, was nominated by Obama in early 2016. Garland’s nomination was stopped dead when the Senate’s leader, McConnell, refused to even have hearings on Garland—let alone take his nomination to a vote. McConnell used a phony Senate rule that there must be no nominations in a year of a presidential election, to halt the Garland nomination. And what did the Democrats do? Nada! They thought they would win in 2016 and push through Garland then. Bad strategy. Hillary and the Democrat party corporate moneybags who ensured Hillary was the party’s candidate in 2016 scuttled that. The Democrats capitulated to McConnell and did nothing.

That wasn’t the first time either. Remember the do-nothing Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Court? No fewer than 11 Democrats in the Senate voted for him too? Now in 2020 they’re being ‘sandbagged’ once again by McConnell, who arbitrarily changed Senate rules a few weeks ago to get Barrett approved in a mere week before the national election! Democrats couldn’t get a hearing for Garland 11 months before an election; Barrett gets approved less than 11 days before the election! Democrats didn’t fight him in early 2016. They gave tepid resistance to the Gorsuch nomination by Trump. He flew through the confirmation hearing with little Democrat resistance. Kavanaugh was a wake up call for Democrats. They fought but, as usual, with an ineffective strategy.

Democrats’ failure to effectively resist McConnell is not new. Senate leader McConnell has played hard ball with the Democrats for years, striking them out repeatedly. Their batting average is pathetic. McConnell arbitarily broke Senate rules whenever it suited him, created new ones on the fly, and has generally ran roughshod over the Democrats at will. Meanwhile, Democrats keep crying ‘foul’ with each rule change, demanding McConnell play by the (old) rules and stop throwing them curve balls they can’t hit. So McConnell just threw them a fast ball past them in the Barrett case they couldn’t even swing at. Now they can’t even step up to the plate.

It all began with Obama back in 2009. He continually tried to establish a ‘bipartisan’ consensus with the Republicans to pass legislation for economic recovery. Obama listened to their demands to reduce his stimulus. But when he did not one Republican voted for it.

But they did vote when they convinced Obama in August 2011 to cut social spending programs by $1.5 trillion—i.e. more than Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill of $787 billion. Obama kept pursuing his futile ‘bipartisanship’. But he was tricked into cutting $1.5 trillion in education and other social programs, on the Republican promise that Defense spending would be cut as well by $500 billion. Republicans later found a way around that and Pentagon spending cuts were eventually restored. Outfoxed again, Obama fell in line in 2013 in the name of ‘bipartisanship’, when he and Democrats supported the Republican demand to extend George W. Bush’s 2001-03 massive $3.4 trillion tax cuts for business and investors for another decade. That added ten years of business tax cuts cost taxpayers another $5 trillion! Obama ended up actually cutting business-investor taxes by $trillions more than George W. Bush!

Time and again Obama extended his hand to the Republican dog which repeatedly bit him. Obama kept extending it nonetheless; and McConnell kept biting. That’s the history of legislation in Congress over Obama’s entire term, 2008-2016. And it explains a lot why millions of voters abandoned the Democrats in 2016—although Hillary’s ineffective campaign helped a lot.

With Trump’s election, Republicans shifted strategy from just thwarting Democrat policies to plans to destroy the Democrats politically for a generation. The Obama era bipartisanship strategy continued for a while into the Trump era. Trump was permitted to keep raising US defense spending by hundreds of billions of dollars every year, in exchange for his agreement not to cut social program spending. He gained; they kept what they had. Meanwhile, the US budget deficit reached $1 trillion a year, during what was vaunted to be a robust economy. Lasts year, 2019, the Dems woke up to the failure of bipartisanship with Trump and his transformed Trump-worshipping Republican party out to destroy them, but too late.

Now the Barrett confirmation will enable Trump and McConnell to bite off at least a couple more fingers of the Democrat hand: womens’ right to choose and the Affordable Care Act. But not just Obamacare or women’s right to choose are about to be severed. Soon Barrett will be the decider on the Supreme Court again—as in 2000—determining the outcome of the upcoming presidential election. Trump and McConnell may slice off a thumb.

With the Barrett confirmation, the US Supreme Court—with no right to select the president— may nevertheless do so again. An institution not even mentioned in the US Constitution, with Barrett providing Trump a secure 6-3 (or at minimum 5-4) majority the Supreme Court may once again usurp the sovereignty of the American people. Here’s how it may occur:

Creating One, Two, Three….Many Floridas!

In just a few short weeks, it will become apparent the USA in 2020 has entered a déjà vu contested election as in 2000. ‘Contested’ is an unfortunate term. Every election is contested. What the media really means by choosing such a safe, neutral term like ‘contested’, is that the election may be stolen… once again. And this time it may usher in a deeper coup d’etat, not just a personality change at the top, as Trump radically attacks his opponents and the last vestiges of Democracy in America upon consolidating his victory coup.

The November 3, 2020 election may be Florida 2000 all over again! Only this time, unlike 2000 when vote re-counting was halted in three counties in Florida to give George W. Bush the election, it will be two, three, many Floridas. And it won’t be vote recounting. It will be counting of initial mail-in ballot votes.

All indications are Trump clearly plans to challenge and halt the mail in ballot vote counting in swing states where the direct in person vote tally will be close—i.e. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, and maybe even Georgia or Florida. He already has more than 250 of his lawyers stationed in the swing states to file injunctions to stop the mail in ballot counts. More will be coming, poised in the wings to swoop down into the swing states if needed. They’ll demand and get preliminary injunctions to halt the mail in vote counting. Hundreds of McConnell judge appointees in the swing states in recent years will move quickly to approve injunctions and move them along quickly; ditto for McConnell Appeals Court appointees who’ll cooperate and hand off the appeals to the Supreme Court. The matter will quickly rise to the new Trump SCOTUS with 6-3 majority with Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch recent appointees to the Court. They’ll pick the most favorable to Trump case to decide on, creating a de facto precedent that can be used to halt mail in ballot counting in other swing states.

The disruption and delays in vote counting will give Trump time to declare he has won the key swing states based on direct in person voting. He’ll likely declare himself the winner late on November 3 or certainly early on November 4 based on in person voting on November 3. Mail in ballot counting will be further delayed by legal maneuvers as long as possible. Trump will publicly hammer the message he won via direct votes and mail in votes are suspect, even fraudulent, and shouldn’t be ever counted but impounded.

Democrats will again gnash their teeth, jump up and down, and declare ‘foul’. Trump’s not playing by the rules. (Of course, he’s rewriting the rules in his favor, dummies, as he has always done).

Following Trump’s November 3 or 4 declaration of himself as winner, people will take to the streets to protest and demand resumption of the mail ballot vote counting. Trump will likely call on his supporters to hit the streets as well.

Demonstrators and counter-demonstrators will clash, sometimes violently. It may well make the Antifa vs. Proud boys conflicts of recent months look like a high school play dress rehearsal.

But those clashes and growing violence will benefit Trump. His lawyers can then argue that the social and political disruptions will only worsen, unless SCOTUS puts an end to it by permanently halting the mail ballot vote count. SCOTUS will comply, as it did in 2000. Or perhaps punt the ball and declare Congress should resolve the issue—but immediately to quell the social unrest and not after the new Congress takes office. That means with the existing Congress, dominated by the Republican Senate. Intensifying social disruptions in November-December will help to push the Court to decide in his favor, whichever of the two possible outcomes. He’ll therefore incite his followers incessantly through November-December.

It’s not coincidental that Wall St. and business interests are now buying insurance and hedging their investments in expectation of a scenario not unlike that just described. Nor coincidental that police forces and local governments are quietly preparing for mass confrontations in November, even as the mainstream media is purposely refusing to report on those preparations and scenarios.

Feeble Democrat Party Counter Strategies

Biden and Democrats are hoping that by generating a mass voter turnout they can avoid the close election results on November 3 in the swing states that, should that occur, would set in motion Trump’s plans and a SCOTUS repeat of Florida 2000 now in multiple swing states.

But a record voter turnout may occur in both sides—for Trump and for Biden—in the same swing states, with neither overwhelming the other and thus resulting in a close election in the swing states with record turnout for both sides! Turnout in such a case will be irrelevant. The election results will still be close, allowing Trump to still declare himself victor early.

The fact that far more Republicans will vote directly on November 3 than will Democrats (and conversely more Democrats vote via mail than Republicans) enables Trump to declare early victory and try to stop the mail in vote count. CNN polls show nationally that 55% Republicans will vote in person November 3, and only 22% Democrats. The percentages are reversed for the mail in voting. The swing state spreads will likely be even greater than the national CNN poll percentages.

Democrats and their media (CNN, MSNBC, etc.) keep talking today about national polls showing Biden with 8-10% lead over Trump in the popular vote nationwide. National polls are totally irrelevant. Only state wide polls and winning enough small states to accumulate a required 270 electoral votes to take the president. And the swing state polls show Trump and Biden virtually tied. Trump’s halting of mail in ballot counting could tip more swing states in his favor.

This election is not about maximizing voter turnout. It’s about not fully counting voter turn out in the form of mail in ballots in the swing states!

The US Supreme Court As Bulwark Against Democracy

America is a truncated Democracy. It does not have a direct democracy form of presidential election. There is no one person one vote. There never has been.

The USA has the electoral college, created in 1789, that was designed to check the popular uprisings of the 1780s following the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783. Read the minutes of the US Constitutional Convention. The electoral college was a concession to those who feared the direct action and voting by the general population. Following the revolutionary war’s end in 1783, Yeoman farmers rose up everywhere protesting the economic depression of 1784-87.

They occupied and in some cases even seized control of their state legislatures in protest to the unpaid debts owed them by their governments and rising taxation.

The US Constitution of 1789 was created in response to their protests, designed to centralize power in the hands of northern Merchants and southern Plantation owners in order to check the popular uprisings. No women or slaves could vote was one outcome of that Constitution. Another was no direct election of Senators. Another was the electoral college, designed to allow state politicians and their appointed electors to determine the presidency. The right of women to vote, freeing of slaves and ensuring their right to vote, and Americans’ right to directly elect Senators were all achieved by means of mass popular movements that amended the original un-democratic constitution. But the electoral college still remains unamended. Neither party wants to amend it. They fear the uncontrolled will of the people still.

Here’s another fact that most Americans don’t know about their own Constitution: no where in it does it call for or authorize a US Supreme Court! Just that the Congress after the ratification of the Constitution by the States would legislate some kind of judiciary. The Congress created the court by means of legislation after the Constitution. So SCOTUS is subordinate to the authority of Congress, to whom the people in turn delegate their ultimate sovereignty periodically by means of elections. And take it back in elections.

So Congress can change anything it wants about the Supreme Court. It can add or delete justices. It can limit their terms in office, no longer for lifetime. It can make the justices serve by means of elections. It can even abolish SCOTUS altogether and replace it with something else.

The Supreme Court is thus not a co-equal to the Congress in the Constitution. It is not a co-equal institution. SCOTUS was purposely omitted by the framers of the Constitution because they didn’t want an institution of judges who were not directly elected by the people and who served for a lifetime to have any power to negate the sovereignty of the people or its elected Congress. That’s what the founders argued in the minutes of the Constitutional Convention of 1787!

Even less so was the Supreme Court given the authority to rule a law passed by Congress was unconstitutional. The legislation passed by Congress creating a court system did not give the Supreme Court authority to negate laws. That power is called ‘judicial review’, i.e. a power the Supreme Court usurped for itself in 1803 when it simply assumed the power of judicial review for itself. In short, the power of the Supreme Court to declare a law unconstitutional is not provided by the US Constitution nor passed by any law of Congress! It is therefore unconstitutional.

Even more so, neither the Constitution, nor Congress, nor any other institution ever gave the Supreme Court the authority to intervene in an election for president and decide on suspending a vote count, or any way interrupt a vote count, in order to favor one candidate for president over the other. That is, not until 2000 in Florida. And now again soon most likely in 2020!

Those who believe SCOTUS does have the right to intervene in elections, or that the Supreme Court can rule a law unconstitutional, or even that it is a co-equal branch of government simply don’t know their own US Constitution. Or how the Supreme Court usurped and declared its powers in 1803.

The usurpation was declared in 1803 by then Supreme Court chief justice, John Marshall. Who was he? He was a former Secretary of State for John Adams, president 1797-1800, who lost the election of 1800 and quickly appointed Marshall, his Secretary of State, as Chief Justice, in order to try to check the incoming new president, Thomas Jefferson, from reforming Adams’ corrupt business dominated government. Adams also tried to stack the lower courts before Jefferson took office. Sound familiar?

The purpose of all this explanation of the origins of the Supreme Court is not to provide an academic history lesson. It’s to point out that the US Supreme Court is not an institution of American Democracy. It’s an institution created by business interests more than two hundred years ago, the primary purpose of which is to check and prevent the exercise of direct democracy and direct voting rights of the American people. It’s been doing just that for two centuries!

In recent years the Supreme Court has become even more active in thwarting Democracy in America.

In 2013 SCOTUS struck down the even weak voting rights act of 1965. It passed the infamous Citizens United decision in 2010 that gave businesses and wealthy investors virtually unlimited right to spend money for their candidates in elections, presidential and all other! It has repeatedly allowed and endorsed various ‘red’ states voter repression efforts in recent years, including allowing conservative and radical right state legislaturess and governments to throw out hundreds of thousands of registered voters before elections. It ‘selected’ George W. Bush as president in 2000. And it’s about to do the same—given the Barrett approval to join the Supreme Court today—for Trump in 2020.

America’s Rolling Coup D’Etat

Readers should remember all this when they watch the news tomorrow, as Barrett takes her seat on the Supreme Court before next week’s November 3 election—i.e. just in time perhaps to do the ‘selecting’ of another president contrary to the popular vote and will of the majority of the American people!
There is a rolling coup d’etat’ in progress in America today led by Trump and the radical economic and political interests supporting him.

And the Supreme Court of the USA, now firmly in his camp with the Barrett appointment, may well prove to be one of his essential tools in pulling off that coup d’etat.

A good part of the American people will no doubt resist, setting in motion street protests and demonstrations, counter-demonstrations with associated violence, and a period of great political instability in America in coming months perhaps not seen since the 1850s. That instability will exacerbate the growing concurrent economic and Covid 19 health crises, already mutually exacerbating each other. The dual economic-health crisis may thus soon become a ‘Triple’ crisis: economic, health, and political.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Jack Rasmus writes on his blog site, Jack Rasmus, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is an official White House photo

In a 1967 speech, Martin Luther King Jr. called the United States government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” He identified economic profit as the motivator of this violence. The record of Washington’s international aggression since then has been horrendous, as tacitly recognized even by Donald Trump in his promises, before and after the 2016 election, to end the United States’ “endless wars.” Trump nonetheless takes his place in the pantheon of violent U.S. presidents who have, since King’s judgment, left millions of people dead in the Global South in the wake of incompetent military escapades and cruel economic warfare. 

What distinguishes Trump’s foreign policy is a pronounced nihilism borne of the decline of U.S. empire, which appears clearer under his administration than any other. Alfred McCoy, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin and the author of In the Shadows of the American Century (Haymarket Books), told The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill in July 2017 that Trump is “accelerating perhaps markedly, even precipitously, the U.S. decline.” McCoy predicts that China will overtake the U.S. both militarily and economically by the year 2030, but he claims Trump is a byproduct, and not the root cause, of this erosion of dominance.

In foreign and trade policy, the Trump administration has lashed out not just at rival states but also Washington’s allies, which only reinforces the appearance of waning imperial influence. U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement on climate change, the U.S.-Russian intermediate missile treaty, and Trump’s threats to not renew the START agreement limiting the number of deployed nuclear warheads offer prime examples, according to Conn Hallinan, a columnist with Foreign Policy in Focus, a project of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies. To this list we can add Trump’s pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, the Iran nuclear agreement and the Palestinian peace process.

Image on the right: This file photo shows US guided missile destroyer USS Mustin, which intruded into Chinese territorial waters in South China Sea.

At the same time, the administration has demonized China—for all its domestic economic woes and the high U.S. death toll from COVID-19—while increasing U.S. military operations and surveillance in the South China Sea, making a nuclear military conflict more likely. Trump’s unmitigated hostility toward Washington’s main rivals on the world stage, China and Russia, has resulted in uniting them against him. Aside from withdrawing from the arms control treaty with Russia, Trump has imposed heavy sanctions on Moscow and is pressuring European countries who depend on Russian supplies of natural gas to stop construction of Nord Stream 2, a new pipeline that will expand Russian gas supplies to Europe (see John Foster’s article, “Canada, black swans and oil,” in the July/August 2020 issue of the Monitor).

“Trump’s campaign against China has mixed results,” Hallinan tells me. “The trade war is mostly a joke…but the relentless war on China does have an impact, partly by forcing China to spend money on its military, and to pursue policies that alienate many countries in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.”

China’s claims in the South China Sea violate international law, Hallinan continues, but they are also a reaction to the U.S. military buildup in the region beginning under the Obama administration. “In the short run, the U.S. has made some inroads in isolating China, but in the long run, the U.S. is losing influence. The Chinese economy is simply too big to suppress, and Trump’s trade war has damaged the U.S. more than China.”

Hallinan claims the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accords alienated many in Asia.

“By 2030, 600 million Indians will  not have access to sufficient water, a direct result of climate change,” he notes. “Countries all over Asia will be deeply affected by the loss of glaciers, and the U.S. position currently contributes to that looming crisis. China is making efforts to combat climate change and that sits well with many countries in the region.”

As with China, Trump has increased the prospect of nuclear war with Russia by abrogating arms control treaties and moving U.S. troops closer to Russian borders. But all this, along with economic sanctions, has failed to make Russia capitulate to U.S. dictates.

“Losing Nord Stream 2 will hurt Russia, but not enough to force it to knuckle under to the U.S.,” says Hallinan. “Russia has been developing its relations with Iran, India and China for several years, so it has outlets for its oil and gas and industrial goods.”

It’s worth noting that Russia has more nuclear weapons in storage than the U.S., rendering comments from Trump’s arms-control negotiator—“We know how to win these races and we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion,” said Marshall Billingslea in May—virtually moot.

*

Abraham Accord (Official White House photo)

In the Middle East, Trump has alienated the Arab majority by supporting Israel more than any other U.S. president, especially through his moving of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, which signified his absolute repudiation of the Palestinian peace process. To further isolate the Palestinians and strengthen Israel even more, Trump recently brokered a deal between Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain (all three countries are U.S. client states) in which the latter two agree to recognize Israel and normalize relations.

“These agreements are designed to give an Arab stamp of approval to Israel’s status quo of land theft, home demolitions, arbitrary extrajudicial killings, apartheid laws, and other abuses of Palestinian rights,” says Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the U.S. women-led peace group CODEPINK and co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange.

“The deal should be seen in the context of over three years of Trump administration policies that have tightened Israel’s grip on the Palestinians: moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, and creating a so-called peace plan with no Palestinian participation or input. All of these have hurt the U.S. reputation among Arab people of the region.”

Benjamin points out that the Israel-UAE-Bahrain deal is also aimed at isolating and weakening Iran, considered an enemy by all three countries.

“This dovetails with Trump’s anti-Iran obsession, which includes U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal,” she tells me.

Earlier this year, the U.S. came very near to all-out war with Iran when Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. Patrick Cockburn notes in War in the Age of Trump (Verso) that the targeted killing of Soleimani at Baghdad airport, where he was allegedly en route to meet the Iraqi prime minister, initially rallied Iranian public opinion behind the general. This opportunity for the Iranian regime was wasted, says Cockburn, when its army mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian airliner killing 176 people, half of them Canadian citizens and permanent residents, which redirected public anger on the government.

Benjamin says she sees the imposition of severe U.S. economic sanctions and military pressures on Iran as having made life more difficult for millions of Iranians. But as far as the Iranian government goes, this aggressive policy has “empowered the more conservative factions [who are more anti-U.S.], who won the majority of seats in the recent national assembly elections and may well win the upcoming presidential election,” she says.

Trump’s Iran policy has also divided the U.S. from its closest allies in Europe such as Germany, who wanted to preserve the Iranian nuclear deal, and has isolated the U.S. internationally, according to Benjamin. She notes the recent U.N. vote in which the Dominican Republic was the only member of the Security Council to support the U.S. insistence on extending the arms embargo against Iran. “Trump has diminished U.S. power in the Middle East,” concludes Benjamin. “After 20 years of war and occupation, the U.S. has not only shed blood and trillions of dollars but has lost influence and the respect of many of the region’s people.”

*

In Latin America, too, Trump’s policy has been largely destructive. He has been successful in obliterating relations with Cuba, in backing the overthrow of the elected leftist government of Evo Morales in Bolivia, in 2019, and in helping to prevent Brazil’s popular leftist former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from returning to power in the 2018 elections. Trump has tried (and, so far, failed) to overthrow governments in Venezuela and Nicaragua and has put a $15 million bounty for the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“In 2017 and 2018, the U.S. unleashed its most lethal and successful weapon: the illegal economic blockade that is restricting food and medicine to the people of Venezuela,” says Maria Páez Victor, a Venezuelan-Canadian sociologist and former instructor at the University of Toronto and York University. “The sanctions are a crime against humanity, and U.N. experts have stated so, because they directly target and hurt a human population. In just one year the sanctions directly killed 40,000 Venezuelans,” she adds, citing numbers in a 2019 study from the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

Alexander Main, director of international policy at CEPR, tells me “there is no doubt that the U.S. played a role in subverting democracy in both Brazil and Bolivia.” He points to recently produced evidence that Brazilian prosecutors, with support from the U.S. Department of Justice, “colluded with a judge (Sérgio Moro) to design a strategy, with clear political objectives, to ensure that the popular former president Lula da Silva would be jailed and barred from running in the 2018 presidential election. The banning of Lula’s candidacy, which had been leading in the polls, effectively enabled the electoral victory of far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro.”

In Bolivia, former president Evo Morales was overthrown in a military coup in October 2019 after being accused of committing electoral fraud. Main points out that this accusation from the Organization of American States (OAS) was later shown to be false by various independent analyses, including at CEPR and the New York Times. “The Trump administration immediately voiced support for the far-right de facto government that illegally took power following Morales’ ouster,” he says.

Main emphasizes that these undemocratic developments in Bolivia and Brazil have had “terrible consequences for both countries.” Bolivia, for example, “has endured a racist government that has sought to roll back Indigenous rights in the country and that has massacred protesters,” he tells me. “In Brazil, the Bolsonaro government has encouraged illegal clearing of the Amazon for farming and mining and has engaged in frequent attacks on the rights of the Indigenous, Afro-Brazilians and LGBTI persons.”

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Asad Ismi reports on international affairs for the Monitor.

Featured image is from CCPA

Biden’s description of Russia as “the biggest threat to America” and China as its “biggest competitor” is an intriguing attempt to unite the anti-Russian and anti-Chinese factions of America’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) even if it’s ultimately insincere (to say nothing of being unsuccessful in the event that he tries) and intended more as a tactical short-term distraction from his son Hunter’s alleged corruption scandals.

***

CDC (Center for Disease Control) scientists made some COVID admissions that totally destroy the official COVID narrative in a study published in June 2020 entitled Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 from Patient with Coronavirus Disease, United States. The interesting thing about this whole scamdemic is that when you dig deep enough, the truth is out there – and it is admitted by official sources – however it does take a lot of persistence to cut through the propagandistic maze of disinfo. In this article, we’re going to take a look at the significance of what the CDC scientists revealed, namely that for their research involving the allegedly new virus SARS-CoV-2, they only used 37 base pairs from actual sample tissue and filled in the rest (around 30,000 base pairs) with computer generated sequences, i.e. they made it up! The other of the COVID admissions is equally as stunning: after testing they found that SARS-CoV-2 could not infect human tissue.

#1 COVID Admission: The Computer-Generated Frankenstein Virus: CDC Scientists Admit Only Using 37 Base Pairs from Real Tissue to Assemble SARS-CoV-2

In a previous article, I talked about how SARS-CoV-2 is a stitched-together, Frankenstein virus, because it is a computer-generated, digital, abstract creation, not a real living virus. It has never been properly purified and isolated so that it could be sequenced from end-to-end once derived from living tissue; instead, it’s just digitally assembled from a computer viral database. The CDC scientists state they took just 37 base pairs from a genome of 30,000 base pairs! That means that about 0.001% of the viral sequence is derived from actual living samples or real bodily tissue. Here is the quote:

“Whole-Genome Sequencing

We designed 37 pairs of nested PCRs spanning the genome on the basis of the coronavirus reference sequence (GenBank accession no. NC045512). We extracted nucleic acid from isolates and amplified by using the 37 individual nested PCRs.”

Interestingly enough, in the next paragraph, the CDC scientists say they used “quantitative PCR” for further analysis/construction, which goes against what Kary Mullis, the inventor of PCR, once said – namely that “quantitative PCR is an oxymoron” since PCR is inherently a qualitative technique not a quantitative one. I have covered how badly the PCR test is being misused throughout this entire COVID scamdemic in other articles such as this one. In his article Only Poisoned Monkey Kidney Cells ‘Grew’ the ‘Virus’ Dr. Thomas Cowan highlights this scientific fraud:

“… we find that rather than having isolated the virus and sequencing the genome from end to end, they found 37 base pairs from unpurified samples using PCR probes. This means they actually looked at 37 out of the approximately 30,000 of the base pairs that are claimed to be the genome of the intact virus. They then took these 37 segments and put them into a computer program, which filled in the rest of the base pairs.

To me, this computer-generation step constitutes scientific fraud. Here is an equivalency: A group of researchers claim to have found a unicorn because they found a piece of a hoof, a hair from a tail, and a snippet of a horn. They then add that information into a computer and program it to re-create the unicorn, and they then claim this computer re-creation is the real unicorn. Of course, they had never actually seen a unicorn so could not possibly have examined its genetic makeup to compare their samples with the actual unicorn’s hair, hooves and horn.”

Pure or true science attempts to prove whether something is so; hence true science has no room for politics, majority rules or consensus. Yet, according to Cowan, consensus was used to determine which digital SARS-CoV-2 model was the most real fake model:

“The researchers claim they decided which is the real genome of SARS-CoV-2 by “consensus,” sort of like a vote. Again, different computer programs will come up with different versions of the imaginary “unicorn,” so they come together as a group and decide which is the real imaginary unicorn.”

#2 COVID Admission: CDC Scientists Found that SARS-CoV-2 Didn’t Infect Human Tissue

A big part of the official story we were told was that COVID was a new, dangerous and unpredictable disease that was both fast-spreading and lethal. Well, it’s apparently not very lethal since the CDC scientists found that it couldn’t even infect human cells in vitro. They tested the ‘virus’ (not really, but solutions they claim contain samples of SARS-CoV-2) on 3 different types of human tissue cultures (human adenocarcinoma cells [A549], human liver cells [HUH 7.0] and human embryonic kidney cells [HEK-293T]). The ‘virus’ was not able to infect any of the 3 human tissue cultures. Here’s the quote:

“… we examined the capacity of SARS-CoV-2 to infect and replicate in several common primate and human cell lines, including human adenocarcinoma cells (A549), human liver cells (HUH7.0), and human embryonic kidney cells (HEK-293T), in addition to Vero E6 and Vero CCL81 cells. We also examined an available big brown bat kidney cell line (EFK3B) for SARS-CoV-2 replication capacity. Each cell line was inoculated at high multiplicity of infection and examined 24 h postinfection … No CPE was observed in any of the cell lines except in Vero cells, which grew to >10⁷ PFU at 24 h postinfection. In contrast, HUH7.0 and 293T cells showed only modest viral replication, and A549 cells were incompatible with SARS-CoV-2 infection. These results are consistent with previous susceptibility findings for SARS-CoV and suggest other common culture systems, including MDCK, HeLa, HEP-2, MRC-5 cells, and embryonated eggs, are unlikely to support SARS-CoV-2 replication. In addition, SARS-CoV-2 did not replicate in bat EFK3B cells, which are susceptible to MERS-CoV. Together, the results indicate that SARS-CoV-2 maintains a similar profile to SARS-CoV in terms of susceptible cell lines.”

CPE stands for cytopathic effect or cytopathogenic effect and refers to structural changes in cells caused by viral invasion. No CPE was found in any of the human tissue cells, but only in the vero cells (animal cells, in this case monkey cells). The key takeaway from the above quote is that 2 cultures had only modest viral replication, the other tissue had none, and that other common human cultures are “unlikely to support SARS-CoV-2 replication” meaning SARS-CoV-2 will not infect them! So, even by the rules of their own game, SARS-CoV-2 is not an infectious agent for humans. Here’s Dr. Cowan’s analysis:

“What does this language actually mean, and why is it the most shocking statement of all from the virology community?  When virologists attempt to prove infection, they have three possible “hosts” or models on which they can test. The first is humans. Exposure to humans is generally not done for ethical reasons and has never been done with SARS-CoV-2 or any coronavirus.  The second possible host is animals. Forgetting for a moment that they never actually use purified virus when exposing animals, they do use solutions that they claim contain the virus. Exposure to animals has been done once with SARS-CoV-2, in an experiment that used mice. The researchers found that none of the wild (normal) mice got sick. In a group of genetically modified mice, a statistically insignificant number lost some fur. They experienced nothing like the illness called Covid 19.

The third method virologists use to prove infection and pathogenicity — the method they most rely on — is inoculation of solutions they say contain the virus onto a variety of tissue cultures. As I have pointed out many times, such inoculation has never been shown to kill (lyse) the tissue, unless the tissue is first starved and poisoned.

The shocking thing about the above quote is that using their own methods, the virologists found that solutions containing SARS-CoV-2 — even in high amounts — were NOT, I repeat NOT, infective to any of the three human tissue cultures they tested. In plain English, this means they proved, on their terms, that this “new coronavirus” is not infectious to human beings. It is ONLY infective to monkey kidney cells, and only then when you add two potent drugs (gentamicin and amphotericin), known to be toxic to kidneys, to the mix.

My friends, read this again and again. These virologists, published by the CDC, performed a clear proof, on their terms, showing that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is harmless to human beings. That is the only possible conclusion, but, unfortunately, this result is not even mentioned in their conclusion.”

These 2 COVID Admissions Sink the Official Narrative Even More

So there you have it: more scientific fraud in the form of these 2 COVID admissions, and yet more evidence showing there is no real virus, and whatever the ‘virus’ is, it certainly is not anything to be worried about if you are a human – which I guess you probably are if you’re reading this. These COVID admissions go to show that the truth is often hidden in plain sight, and that people in positions of power must always be carefully scrutinized. We must apply critical thinking to everything that comes from official sources.

Hat tip to Sally Fallon Morrell and Dr. Thomas Cowan of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published in The Freedom Articles.

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

Sources

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/6/20-0516_article

https://thefreedomarticles.com/sars-cov-2-stitched-together-frankenstein-virus/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/covid-19-umbrella-term-fake-pandemic-not-1-disease-cause/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/busted-11-covid-assumptions-based-on-fear-not-fact/

https://drtomcowan.com/only-poisoned-monkey-kidney-cells-grew-the-virus/

Featured image is from Dreamstime.com

China considers Taiwan a breakaway province to be eventually reunited with the mainland.

Since Jimmy Carter ended US recognition of Taiwan in 1979, one China has been official US policy.

What Beijing considers “nonnegotiable…an internationally recognized fact…no one can change,” Trump earlier said “everything” is on the table in bilateral relations with China.

Last month, reports indicated that Washington intends a major weapons sale to Taiwan.

China’s Foreign Ministry stressed that US arms sales to the “breakaway province” breaches the one-China principle both countries agreed to decades earlier.

Taking this step by the Trump regime is another blow to bilateral relations with Beijing — already more dismal than at any time in the past half century.

Weeks earlier, China’s official People’s Daily broadsheet accused the Trump regime of “ratchet(ing) up its anti-China campaign in the days leading up to the (November 3) election,” adding:

Continued “provocations on the Taiwan question have seriously damaged China-US relations, posed serious threat to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and may lead to a crisis of conflict in the region.”

On Wednesday, Trump’s State Department approved the sale of US sensors, missiles and artillery to Taiwan, a package worth around $1.8 billion.

According to Reuters, the White House is set to approve the sale of five weapons systems worth around $5 billion, including drones, anti-ship and cruise missiles.

A Taiwan Defense Ministry statement said the following:

“This arms sale shows that the United States attaches great importance to the strategic position of the Indo-Pacific region and the Taiwan Strait, and is actively assisting our country in strengthening our overall defense capabilities.”

The announced sale is the most significant US one to Taiwan since one-China became official US policy.

The latest announced sale to Taiwan is the 8th one since Trump took office in January 2017.

New York-based Taiwan Security Analysis Center director Mei Fu-hsing called the newly announced package “a breakthrough in US arms sales for Taiwan.”

According to Professor Alexander Huang Chieh-cheng, Twiwan will be the first foreign buyer to have AGM-84H cruise missiles, using F-16V fighter jets, adding:

“These systems have the range to be projected to targets along the Chinese coastal area and can perform counter-strike missions, but with limited numbers and complex targeting requirements, they are primarily for deterrence purposes.”

Supplying Taiwan with sophisticated US weapons is part of Washington’s escalated hostility toward Beijing.

On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian slammed the Trump regime for “seriously violating the one-China principle,” adding:

“This not only utterly damages the national interest of China, but also sends a wrong signal for Taiwan’s separatists, which the Chinese side resolutely opposes.”

US hardliners from both wings of its war party find new ways to alienate nations over prioritizing cooperative relations in pursuit of world peace and stability — notions they long ago abandoned.

A Final Comment

On Monday, Trump’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced the sale of around 100 Harpoon Coastal Defense Systems (anti-ship missiles) and related weapons to Taiwan.

The $2.37 billion sale throws more fuel on a growing fire of anti-China actions by the US — widening the breach between both countries.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

“At the moment when the facts of the case were presented to her, this arbiter of justice freely chose to side with mistruths. Judge Coney Barrett’s responses are factually inaccurate, scientifically unsound, and dangerous.”

***

More than 70 science journalists have signed an open letter warning that Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett‘s close ties to the fossil fuel industry and refusal to publicly acknowledge the established science behind human-caused climate change make her an enabler of “the ecological crisis of our times.”

First published in Rolling Stone on Sunday, the letter slams Barrett’s responses to basic climate questions during her confirmation hearings as “factually inaccurate, scientifically unsound, and dangerous.” As Common Dreams reported, the right-wing judge insisted she has “no firm views” on the climate crisis and, in later written responses, called the science of climate change “controversial.”

“It is frightening that a Supreme Court nominee—a position that is in essence one of the highest fact-checkers in the land—has bought into the same propaganda we have worked so hard to dispel,” reads the letter, which was signed by author and environmentalist Naomi Klein, 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, and other prominent climate writers.

“How can Judge Coney Barrett rule on pending issues of climate change liability, regulation, finance, mitigation, equity, justice, and accountability if she fails to accept even the underlying premise of global warming? The answer is that she cannot,” continues the letter, which came hours before the Republican-controlled Senate cleared a procedural hurdle and paved the way for a final vote on Barrett’s confirmation Monday.

Having a justice who is hostile to science on the Supreme Court for decades to come is a supreme threat to the planet in this era of climate emergency.

Proud to sign this letter.https://t.co/yiZEKxlBOM

— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) October 25, 2020

Below is the full letter and list of signatories:

We are science and climate journalists. We are researchers and weavers of information, creating a fabric that explains the work of scientists who themselves are working to describe our natural world and universe. We are published in the nation’s leading outlets, both large and small, including Scientific American, Nature, National Geographic, MIT Technology Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New Yorker and many more. Over decades of reporting on the threats and now deadly and devastating harms of worsening climate change, we have succeeded in at least one respect. The vast majority of the world’s people, including those in the United States, not only acknowledge the scientific certainty of climate change, but also want action taken to address it.

We have succeeded because the science is clear, despite there being a massive well-orchestrated effort of propaganda, lies, and denial by the world’s largest fossil fuel corporations, including ExxonMobil and Koch Industries and fossil-fuel-backed institutes and think tanks. It is frightening that a Supreme Court nominee—a position that is in essence one of the highest fact-checkers in the land—has bought into the same propaganda we have worked so hard to dispel.

And it is facts—a word under repeated assault by the Trump administration, which nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett—that are at issue here. “I’m certainly not a scientist…I’ve read things about climate change. I would not say I have firm views on it,” Judge Coney Barrett told Sen. John Kennedy during the Senate confirmation hearings on October 13th.

The next day, Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked Judge Coney Barrett if she believed “human beings cause global warming.” She replied: “I don’t think I am competent to opine on what causes global warming or not. I don’t think that my views on global warming or climate change are relevant to the job I would do as a judge.”

When asked that same day by Sen. Kamala Harris if she accepts that “COVID-19 is infectious,” Coney Barrett said yes. When asked if “smoking causes cancer,” Coney Barrett said yes. But when asked if “climate change is happening, and is threatening the air we breathe and the water we drink,” Judge Coney Barrett said that while the previous topics are “completely uncontroversial,” climate change is instead, “a very contentious matter of public debate.” She continued: “I will not express a view on a matter of public policy, especially one that is politically controversial because that’s inconsistent with the judicial role, as I have explained.”

Judge Coney Barrett repeatedly refused to acknowledge the scientific certainty of climate change. This is an untenable position, particularly when the world’s leading climate scholars warned in 2018 that we have just 12 years to act to bring down global average temperature rise and avert the most dire predictions of the climate crisis.

At the moment when the facts of the case were presented to her, this arbiter of justice freely chose to side with mistruths. Judge Coney Barrett’s responses are factually inaccurate, scientifically unsound, and dangerous.

How can Judge Coney Barrett rule on pending issues of climate change liability, regulation, finance, mitigation, equity, justice, and accountability if she fails to accept even the underlying premise of global warming? The answer is that she cannot.

Judge Coney Barrett’s ties to the fossil fuel industry have already proved problematic, forcing recusal from cases involving Shell Oil entities related to her father’s work as a long-time attorney for the company. She may also need to recuse herself from future cases due to her father’s former position as chairman of the Subcommittee on Exploration and Production Law of the American Petroleum Institute—the nation’s leading fossil fuel lobby.

Climate change is already an increasingly dominant aspect of American life, and an issue of growing import in American law. On the Supreme Court docket is BP P.L.C v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore—a case that involves Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and other major oil companies, and could impact about a dozen U.S. states and localities suing Big Oil over its contribution to climate change.

Judge Coney Barrett says, “I’m certainly not a scientist,” but she does not need to be a scientist, rather she needs to have faith in science. Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, is an ardent supporter of action on climate change, releasing in 2015 the “Encyclical on Climate Change & Inequality: On Care for Our Common Home.” The Pope embraces hard science in order to keep close to his faith.

Judge Coney Barrett has displayed a profound inability to understand the ecological crisis of our times, and in so doing she enables it.

Signed,

Bill McKibben, journalist and author, the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College

Rebecca Solnit, author and journalist

Sonia Shah, science journalist and author

Jonathan Weiner, Pulitzer Prize winning author, science journalist, and professor at Columbia Journalism School

Jeff Goodell, climate journalist and author of The Water Will Come

Naomi Klein, journalist and author

Michelle Nijhuis, science journalist and author

Amy Westervelt, climate journalist

Rachel Ramirez, environmental justice reporter

Iris Crawford, climate justice journalist

Anoa Changa, movement and environmental justice journalist

Tiên Nguyễn, multimedia science journalist

Eric Holthaus, meteorologist, climate journalist at The Phoenix

Jenni Monet (Laguna Pueblo), climate affairs journalist and founder of Indigenously

Nina Lakhani, environmental justice reporter

Samir S. Patel, science journalist and editor

Clinton Parks, freelance science writer

Meehan Crist, writer in residence in biological sciences, Columbia University

Elizabeth Rush, science writer, author of Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore

Anne McClintock, climate journalist, photographer and author, professor of environmental humanities and writing at Princeton University

Ruth Hopkins (Oceti Sakowin, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), tribal attorney, Indigenous journalist

Wade Roush, science and technology journalist and author

Kim Stanley Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of climate science fiction, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards

Jason Mark, editor in chief, Sierra

Kate Aronoff, climate journalist

Richard Louv, journalist and author

Heather Smith, science journalist

Judith Lewis Mernit, California climate editor, Capital & Main

Madeline Ostrander, climate journalist

Julie Dermansky, multimedia environmental and social justice journalist

Kenneth Brower, environmental journalist and author

Alexander Zaitchik, science and political journalist and author

Hillary M. Rosner, science journalist and scholar in residence, University of Colorado

Wudan Yan, science journalist

Debra Atlas, environmental journalist and author

Rucha Chitnis, climate, environmental justice and human rights documentarian

Drew Costley, environmental justice reporter

Jonathan Thompson, environmental author and journalist

Carol Clouse, environmental journalist

Brian Kahn, climate journalist

Geoff Dembicki, climate journalist and author

Peter Fairley, energy and environment journalist

Nicholas Cunningham, energy reporter

Nina Berman, documentary photographer focusing on issues of climate and the environment, professor of journalism at Columbia University

Michele C. Hollow, freelance journalist

Ben Depp, documentary photographer, focusing on issues of climate and the environment

Virginia Hanusik, climate photographer

Philip Yam, science journalist and author

Maura R. O’Connor, science journalist and author

Chad J. Reich, audio and visual journalist covering energy and environment in rural communities

Steve Ross, environmental writer/editor, former Columbia environmental reporting professor

Starre Vartan, science journalist

Michael Snyder, climate photographer

Brandon Keim, science and nature journalist

Tom Athanasiou, climate equity writer and researcher

Hope Marcus, climate writer

Jocelyn C. Zuckerman, freelance journalist

Dana Drugmand, climate journalist

Tom Molanphy, climate journalist

Roxanne Szal, associate digital editor, Ms.Magazine

Dashka Slater, author and climate reporter

Jenn Emerling, documentary photographer, focusing on issues of climate and culture in the American West

Christine Heinrichs, science writer and author

Clayton Aldern, climate and environmental journalist

Karen Savage, climate journalist

Charlotte Dennett, author, investigative journalist, attorney

Carly Berlin, environmental reporter

Ben Ehrenreich, author and journalist

Ibby Caputo, science journalist

Lawrence Weschler, former New Yorker staff writer, environmental author, most recently with David Opdyke, of This Land: An Epic Postcard Mural on the Future of a Country in Ecological Peril.

Justin Nobel, science journalist

Antonia Juhasz, climate and energy journalist and author

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is an official White House photo

Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) welcomes the 50th ratification of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – reached late yesterday – which means the treaty will now enter in force on 22 January 2021.

The treaty bans the production, testing, possession and use of nuclear weapons by signatory nations, along with other activities that could enable or assist any other nation to acquire or use these weapons of mass destruction. The treaty now puts nuclear weapons in the same category as other weapons of mass destruction – i.e. biological and chemical weapons – which are banned by international treaty.

The treaty is the culmination of the efforts by campaigners led by ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) – 2017 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize – of which SGR is a partner organisation.

Dr Philip Webber, Chair of SGR, said,

“Since SGR’s forerunner Scientists Against Nuclear Arms was formed in 1981, we have argued that nuclear weapons pose an unacceptable threat to human civilisation and indeed all life on Earth. There are still currently 1,800 nuclear weapons deployed and ready to fire at short notice – and some of these deployed by the UK. We strongly urge the UK government and other nuclear nations to support this treaty.”

Dr Rebecca Johnson, peace activist and first president of ICAN, said

“The treaty exists now because of 75 years of humanitarian activism, from the ‘Hibakusha’ and indigenous survivors of nuclear weapons and testing, to the Aldermaston marchers and Greenham Common peace women who helped to ban nuclear testing and get US cruise missiles removed from British soil. Together we persuaded UN governments to bring this ground-breaking nuclear disarmament treaty into international humanitarian law.”

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Notes

1. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was agreed by the UN in 2017. Honduras became the 50th nation to ratify on 24th October. For more details on the treaty and the wider campaign, see: https://www.icanw.org/the_treaty

2. Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) is a UK membership organisation promoting responsible science and technology. Its 700 members include natural scientists, social scientists, engineers and others with expertise in peace and environmental issues. SGR has been a partner organisation of ICAN from soon after it was formed. For more information, see: https://www.sgr.org.uk/

3. Dr Philip Webber, a physicist by training, has written and campaigned about the threat from nuclear weapons for 40 years. He is an author of the 1982 book, London After the Bomb, as well as numerous SGR briefings and articles on the issue, including some used by ICAN in a range of international meetings in Norway, Mexico and Austria in the run up to the agreement of the treaty. For a list of SGR’s key outputs on nuclear weapons, see: https://www.sgr.org.uk/projects/nuclear-weapons-threat-main-outputs

4. For more details on the current numbers of nuclear weapons, see: Federation of American Scientists (2020). Status of World Nuclear Forces. https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/

In March, it was just a three-week lockdown, to flatten the curve so as not to overwhelm the NHS. The narrative has quickly evolved. It has progressed from what seemed a reasonable idea of keeping NHS bed space free based on the completely false Neil Fergusson prediction that hospitals would be overwhelmed by patients suffering from COVID19.

This never happened. Many weeks passed where face masks were not needed and then suddenly in July, long after the majority of supposed COVID19 deaths had occurred, face masks were made compulsory.

Indeed, the UK government advice from the likes of Chris Whitty and the World Health Organisation was that face masks were not effective in stopping the spread of COVID19 or in contracting it; science does not change that quick – anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar.

The result is that we have now fallen deep into a Covidian Cult, a totalitarian psychotic narrative that has little connection to reality or to the facts.

The opposition to official government narratives regarding Covid19 are well known. I will not bother again telling you what is already known or can be readily ascertained.

Suffice to say, one just needs to type into Google “The Great Barrington Declaration” or ACU2020, where one can read about the doctors, scientists and lawyers who are opposing multi-governmental COVID19 restrictions and laws of social distancing, lockdown, mandatory/coerced consent to vaccines, and mandatory face masks, amongst other things.

Their essential argument, contra the multi-government policy on COVID19, is that virus is not the danger we are being told it is; the data on COVID19 is clear: we do not need to lockdown society, wreck the economy, or frighten people into death as they are scared to leave home for fear of catching COVID19 or seek medical treatment for non-COVID19 illness, which has happened.

Specifically, many doctors and scientists argue that face masks are not protective and could be very harmful. Dr Jay Bhattacharya, a signatory of the Great Barrington Declaration, which 40,000 medical, public health scientists and medical practitioners have signed, said that the use of face masks are not supported in the scientific literature. There is no randomised data to indicate if they are effective in reducing the spread of COVID19.

Indeed, face masks have no effectiveness in the spread of influenza. This is backed up by the fact that social distancing and face masks have not made a difference on yearly rate of influenza deaths in the UK.

On the 15th October 2020 the stark reality that we are being led by a psychotic Covidian cult narrative became even more evident; Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, announced with great glee that couples marrying would no longer have to wear face masks when tying the knot. Of course, the Priest, Vicar, or Registrar etc conducting the ceremonies never had to wear a mask to conduct the marriage ceremony. What kind of political leader would impose on couples, who for all intent and purposes will be living together and spending the night together after the wedding, have to wear a mask during their wedding ceremony? Would a mask be required for the happy couple to consummate their marriage on their wedding night?

This ridiculous face mask rule imposed by Nicola Sturgeon shows quite clearly the dark side of Scottish politics. It is ridiculous because Nicola Sturgeon (as well as all the other MSP’s and Holyrood staff) has met many people from other households indoors in parliament (before and after face masks were imposed), whilst at the same time continually telling the masses that they cannot meet people from other households indoors. One rule for me, one for thee.

The paranoid fuelled COVID19 rules delivered by Sturgeon on a daily basis during the week and even reiterated on her twitter account on a frequent basis, and the blatant inconsistent and illogical nature of these rules, are not meant to console or comfort the masses. No, they are a deliberate attempt to disorientate and control the minds of the masses.

Cult leaders do this to their followers to short circuit their critical thinking. Cult leaders will also change the rules or the narrative at a whim for no apparent reason. Hence the change of now being able to get married without a face mask, even though the COVID19 restrictions are being tightened again all over the UK; it makes no sense, its not meant to, and the masses are meant to follow, not question and obey.

Cult leaders want to make the masses follow chaos.

This kind behaviour is equally applicable to the realm of BDSM (bondage, domination, sado-masochism) or the Master-Slave dialectic. In the world of BDSM, a master or mistress will impose illogical rules, but demand to be obeyed. As a slave in BDSM scenario might say, “Mistress is correct even when Mistress is wrong”.

This forms the basis for a human subject becoming an object, of becoming alienated from themselves. This logical structure underpins the dictates from politicians in relation to COVID19 restrictions. The blatant flaunting of the dictates by the likes of Catherine Calderwood, Neil Fergusson, Dominic Cummings, Margaret Ferrier (and the many more we have not heard about yet) is testament to the fact that they don’t really take this COVID19 restrictions all that seriously.

This abusive objectification and alienation are what totalitarians and cult leaders want to achieve and impose on their followers. Initiation rituals like mask wearing (especially when getting married) and social distancing, attack a person with terror, pain, humiliation and subjugation. Of course, anyone who has been in an abusive relationship will tell you that pointless rituals or behaviours are demanded by the abusive and sadistic abusive partner to wear the other person down.

As is so often found in cults and individuals in abusive relationships, the cult members or abused partner will even go to great lengths to defend the cult leader’s demands or the person who abuses them. In our current predicament, this is highly ironic as the Scottish government have recently introduced psychological abuse as a crime.

This abusive dialectic that is playing out between the UK government/Scottish government/devolved assemblies and the masses might explain why so many people cannot perceive the totalitarianism that is being inflicted upon them right in front of them, or right on their faces in the guise of masks and up till recently masked up in front of the alter getting married.

The problem we have is this: people generally find it very difficult to recognise the delusional nature of a totalitarian master narrative. One case in point was Nazi Germany; cognitive dissonance was a prevalent characteristic of people during these times. People who cannot see the totalitarian moves made upon them are not ignorant or unintelligent; they have been initiated into a cult through the methods of initiation, chaos, confusion and the short circuiting of critical thinking.

We are being initiated and conditioned for a future way of life where there will be no return to normality, and it has nothing to do with a virus. This is why children are being socially distanced in schools, are made to wear masks in certain contexts, are treated like bio-hazards by their teachers and are frightened half to death by being made to obsessively wash their hands multiple times a day with an abrasive hand sanitiser.

Drawing on psychoanalytic thought, such directives pushed onto children will ensure that many children will grow up to be socially anxious and fearful of social interaction. It begs belief that the Adverse Childhood Experiences “movement” (ACEs) in Scotland are utterly silent about the harms being committed upon children as a result of these scientifically challengeable COVID19 restrictions and rules.

As the Centre for Disease Control state, the survival rate estimates for people aged 0-19 years for COVID19 is 99.997%, 20-49 years is 99.98%, 50-69 years 99.5%, and 70 years+ 94.6% respectively. And now we have a casedemic where the rates of false positives (89%-94% of positives potentially false) and the PCR test does not even test for COVID19 (See ACU, 2020). Of course, the politicians ignore the fact that the PCR test was never intended to be a diagnostic instrument to be used to inform public health policy, never mind mandate it.

The culture of deindividuation that the totalitarian abusive cult-like rituals of social distancing, mask wearing and not being able to meet people freely is also primed to be ramped up even further; Nicola Sturgeon has stated that she is considering face masks to be compulsory even in outside spaces-seven months into this COVID19 nightmare-another illogical and ridiculous idea with no basis in science.

We are now entering a precarious tipping point; not from the virus, but from deindividuated members of the cult slavishly following these new rules and not challenging the wearing of masks outside. No doubt the “nudging” from the Government will work a treat on the masses

This is because the UK and Scottish governments are manipulating, coercing and frightening us into following the rules and shaming us when we don’t. The UK and Scottish Governments are using applied behavioural psychology, breaking the ethical guidelines for psychologists, to deliberately ramp up fear in the population. A group of psychologists called Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) of SAGE have been tasked with advising the UK and Scottish Governments how to get people to adhere to COVID 19 restrictions.

From their document which is freely available on the UK Government website, it is written:

A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened.”

And:

The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.”

The psychologists of SPI-B and the UK government knew fear alone would not be enough. Therefore, SPI-B suggested to government to use and promote social approval for desired behaviours, to consider enacting legislation to compel required behaviours, and to consider the use of social disapproval for failure to comply.

They have used the Mainstream Media and Social media, along with false fact-checking and censorship to get their message across and it has been working.

The tactics of the SPI-B psychologists informing UK and Scottish Governments’ policies on the COVID19 response are in my opinion contrary to the ethical and practice guidelines of The British Psychological Society (BPS); the psychology equivalent of the Hippocratic oath for medicine.

The mainstream media are silent on these unethical practices of deliberately ramping up people’s sense of personal threat, creating a culture of feeling shame to follow COVID19 regulations and encouraging people to shame others for not following regulations. From the reports of several mental health charities, UK and Scottish Government reports, mental ill-health is in a crisis because of the COVID19 response/measures.

Suicide risk factors have undoubtedly been hugely multiplied (house repossessions, unemployment, poverty and stress etc); when the official figures are completed, I have no doubt that there will have been, and there will be to come, many suicides because of the COVID19 lockdown and associated measures.

Our political leaders, despite their lip service to mental health, are aware of the mental health and suicide crisis that now engulfs us, yet they proceed onwards with the COVID19 agenda regardless complicit in more psychological abuse being foisted upon people, knowing full well that this will cause untold misery.

Vladimir Bukovsky, a Soviet dissident who was imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital (enforced incarceration for political dissidents) described well our current predicament:

The peculiar features of the Soviet political system, the Communist ideology, the uncertainties and difficulties of the science of psychiatry, the labyrinths of the human conscience-all these have weirdly woven themselves together to create a monstrous phenomenon, the use of medicine against man.”
Forward from Russia’s political hospitals, 1977 (S. Bloch and P. Reddaway) by Vladimir Bukovsky.

Like the Soviet Union today the monstrous phenomenon is again the use of science and medicine against the masses by many Governments in the battle against COVID19. Not only do our political leaders want to “keep us safe until a vaccine” but they seem to want to destroy the economy, create huge unemployment and destroy businesses. They also want to monitor our every move and impose restrictions on work, travel and social and family life.

There will be no end to this nightmare; there never is an end when one is in an abusive relationship. The goalposts always keep moving. The victim is broken down until they can offer no resistance.

Indeed, Bill Gates recently indicated that even if we get a vaccine for COVID19, there will be no return to normal as it will probably take a second or third generation vaccine to get us back to normal. Of course, we know full well, when we get that second or third generation vaccine, it will not herald a return to the old normal.

Unfortunately, at the moment there is not enough people (especially politicians and mainstream media journalists) with the necessary courage to call out the tyranny and call out the abuser. Historically this has also been a problem; politically and within an abusive context (e.g., the victim finds great difficulty calling out their abuser). In a critical remark and warning to the West, Alexander Solzhenitsyn said in his Harvard address in 1973:

A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations…..Should one (have to) point out that from ancient times declining courage has been considered the beginning of the end?”

Is this Scotland’s beginning of the end? Will the masses start to wake up to the dictatorial and totalitarian measures? Only time will tell. It might be too late. If it is the end, just don’t say you didn’t see it coming or nobody told you.

There is hope. We can learn from history and enact that famous dictum after World War II; it should never happen again. Perhaps our politicians should mediate upon the Nuremberg Code of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime and UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights Article 6.

The Nuremberg Code and UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights Article 6 make for sobering reading when it comes to governmental mandates or ideas in the pipeline regarding COVID19.

Just think of face masks (especially for children), social distancing, travel restrictions, work restrictions, immunity passports and ideas about giving people a rushed out unlicensed vaccine for COVID19 (which will be indemnified) which has not been assessed for the long-term side effects.

The cult-like nature of the Brave New Normal that is COVID19 is insidiously pervading more and more aspects of our lives, with seemingly less and less science to back it up, and curiously being seen by those in power as an opportunity to reshape our society, not for our good, but for the good of those in power.

Perhaps we should all think about what all this means for us, our children, our grandchildren and democracy in the UK and wider world.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Dr Bruce Scott is a Psychoanalyst in Edinburgh/Scottish Borders who trained with the Philadelphia Association, London. He is the author of Testimony of Experience: Docta Ignorantia and the Philadelphia Association Communities (2014) and a contributor to RD Laing: 50 Years since the Divided Self (2012, edited by Theodor Itten and Courtenay Young), both published by PCCS Books Ltd. He is also the English language Edition Editor of Psychotherapy with life: intensive therapeutic life, by Alexander Alexeychick (2019), Published by Angelika Belolipetskaya. He can be reached through his website, twitter, youtube and bitchute.

Amid naval patrols, live military drills, island building, trade wars and diplomatic breakdown, drones are making an increasing impact on the security situation in the South China Sea and the relationship between China and the US.  Smaller nations in the region are also acquiring further reaching surveillance UAVs, while a number of states are looking to bring armed drones in to service over the next few years.

A new report from Drone Wars UK, Contested Sea, Crowded Sky, looks at the steady acquisition of drones by smaller states in South East Asia and their deployments in the South and East China Seas that are contributing to destabilisation in the region and deteriorating relations between China and the US.

Just last week, Congress received notification from The Whitehouse of a proposed sale of a maritime version of the Reaper drone to Taiwan, while US drone crews have been recently training for Reaper operations in the pacific region (“With an Eye on China, Reaper Drones Train for Maritime War”) as part of the ‘pivot away from the Middle East’.  Both incidents have greatly angered China.  Caught in a super-power stand-off, smaller states in the region also have security concerns regarding contested island chains, natural resources under the sea bed and access to fishing waters. China claims many of the small island chains but most are also claimed by several smaller states. The tensions over ownership and resources are contributing to military build-up in the South and East China seas. As well as upgrading jets and naval vessels, states are investing in longer range, more persistent unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to enhance security.

For new weapons systems, South East Asian states have primarily looked to Israel, China and the US – the major drone exporters – for the latest surveillance technology and some are also investing heavily in their own capabilities, in order to acquire armed systems.

Currently, it is only China that has the capacity to operate armed drones in the region, although Indonesia has purchased Chinese CH-4B drones and is designing their own version, the MALE Elang Hitam (Black Eagle), which the manufacturers hope will be fully certified by 2024. Thailand too, are working towards an armed drone – an upgraded version of the SkyScouttactical drone.

Unarmed surveillance drones are also adding to air and maritime capabilities. The report covers the recent US deal with four South East Asian nations for Scan Eagle 2 drones, worth $47mn. Meanwhile, Taiwan, has fielded a tactical drone, the Chung Shyang 2 in 2019 for coastal monitoring.

There are also a growing number of larger drones in service, primarily Israeli exports. Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines have signed deals for or have in service Heron and Hermes models respectively. The US has also sanctioned the export of Northrop Grumman’s HALE Global Hawk to Japan and South Korea, while Singapore is exploring a future Global Hawk purchase.

The report also covers China’s drone use in South and East China Sea. Having first escalated tensions with Japan in 2013 in the East China Sea by flying the BZK-005 in contested airspace over the Senkaku/Daioyu islands, there is now a new drone programme with the Ministry of Natural Resources that observers think may be connected to the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Either way, its gives Chinese authorities much more surveillance capacity in disputed areas where neighbouring states are also ramping up security and surveillance.

Drones make up only part of this military build-up in the South and East China Seas, where island and peninsular nations rely on other aircraft and naval vessels for security. However, drones are increasingly favoured for their wide-ranging surveillance capabilities, particularly models that can be launched from frigates, such as the Scan Eagle. China’s project with the Ministry of Natural Resources, noted above, will allow it specifically to collect surveillance from around disputed islets and reefs. And if the Japanese deal with the US for Global Hawk goes ahead, for example, this will give Japanese defence forces wide ranging and persistent surveillance potentially over disputed East China Sea territories like the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.

Report author Joanna Frew discusses drone proliferation and the South China Sea

The problem with an increasing array of drones over these contested seas are that, although mostly unarmed (for now), they can enhance targeting capacity, can take more risks than manned aircraft and are thus more likely to be used in contested air space. However, this is not a region where state authority has broken down allowing a ‘permissive’ airspace – such as in Libya or Afghanistan and Somalia. Rather, missteps or overreach could result in serious repercussions from neighbouring states.

As the proliferation of drones continues without any international agreements on standards for use, the increasing of addition of drones in the South and East Asian region highlights how another region is succumbing to a drone race to retain a strategic advantage over neighbours and adversaries.  The reality is that drones lower the threshold for the use of force and make armed conflict more likely. Adding this dangerous technology into this highly militarised zone could fan the flames of any smouldering conflict and turn it into a conflagration.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Dear Readers,

As freedom of speech online continues to be curtailed, running an independent counter-current news media in 2020 is no easy feat. With recent publications appearing in the mainstream media aimed at discrediting the vital work of Global Research and the independent media at large, support from our readership has never been so crucial.

We have been bringing you independent news and analysis for over 19 years. Our intention is to continue to relentlessly promote independent voices that speak out on issues too often neglected by the corporate media. There are no two ways about it: to deliver on this intention, we need your help. If you value the uniquely broad perspective we bring to world events every day (for free!), please support us: donate or become a member now by clicking below.

Click to donate:

Click to make a one-time or a recurring donation

Click to become a member (receive free books!):

Click to view our membership plans

We thank you for your essential support!

First published August 4, 2020

1. Studies on the effectiveness of face masks

So far, most studies found little to no evidence for the effectiveness of cloth face masks in the general population, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control.

1. A May 2020 meta-study on pandemic influenza published by the US CDC found that face masks had no effect, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control.
2. A July 2020 review by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medince found that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of cloth masks against virus infection or transmission.
3. A Covid-19 cross-country study by the University of East Anglia came to the conclusion that a mask requirement was of no benefit and could even increase the risk of infection.
4. An April 2020 review by two US professors in respiratory and infectious disease from the University of Illinois concluded that face masks have no effect in everyday life, neither as self-protection nor to protect third parties (so-called source control).
5. An article in the New England Journal of Medicine from May 2020 came to the conclusion that cloth face masks offer little to no protection in everyday life.
6. A July 2020 study by Japanese researchers found that cloth masks “offer zero protection against coronavirus” due to their large pore size and generally poor fit.
7. A 2015 study in the British Medical Journal BMJ Open found that cloth masks were penetrated by 97% of particles and may increase infection risk by retaining moisture or repeated use.

Additional aspects:

Japan, despite its widespread use of face masks, experienced its most recent influenza epidemic with more than 5 million people falling ill just one year ago, in January and February 2019. However, unlike SARS-2, the influenza virus is transmitted by children, too.

Several countries and states that introduced mandatory face masks on public transport and in shops in early summer, such as California and Argentinia, nevertheless saw a strong increase in infections from July onwards, indicating a low effectiveness of mask policies.

There is increasing evidence that SARS-2 is transmitted, at least indoors, not only by droplets but also by smaller aerosols. However, due to their large pore size, cloth masks cannot filter out aerosols.

The WHO admitted to the BBC that its June 2020 mask policy update was due not to new evidence but “political lobbying”:

“We had been told by various sources WHO committee reviewing the evidence had not backed masks but they recommended them due to political lobbying. This point was put to WHO who did not deny.” (Deborah Cohen, BBC Medical Corresponent).

2. Studies claiming face masks are effective

Some recent studies argued that cloth face masks are indeed effective against the new coronavirus and could at least prevent the infection of other people. However, most of these studies suffer from poor methodology and sometimes show the opposite of what they claim.

Typically, these studies ignore the effect of other measures, the natural development of infection numbers, changes in test activity, or they compare countries with very different conditions.

An overview:

1. A German study claimed that the introduction of compulsory masks in German cities had led to a decrease in infections. But the data does not support this: in some cities there was no change, in others a decrease, in others an increase in infections (see graph below). The city of Jena was an ‘exception’ only because it simultaneously introduced the strictest quarantine rules in Germany, but the study did not mention this.
2. A study in the journal PNAS claimed that masks had led to a decrease in infections in three hotspots (including New York City). This did not take into account the natural decrease in infections and other measures. The study was so flawed that over 40 scientists recommended that the study be withdrawn.
3. A US study claimed that mandatory masks had led to a decrease in infections in 15 states. The study did not take into account that the incidence of infection was already declining in most states at that time. A comparison with other states was not made.
4. A Canadian study claimed that countries with mandatory masks had fewer deaths than countries without mandatory masks. But the study compared African, Latin American, Asian and Eastern European countries with very different infection rates and population structures.
5. A much-cited meta-study in the journal Lancet claimed that masks “could” lead to a reduction in the risk of infection, but the studies considered mainly hospitals (Sars-1), medical (not cloth) masks, and the strength of the evidence was reported as “low”.

Mandatory masks in German cities: no relevant impact. (IZA 2020)

On October 23, Sudan became the third Arab state to normalize relations with Israel.

The UAE in August and Bahrain last month took this step — what Hamas called “a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause…serv(ing) only the Israeli occupation and crimes.”

A Palestinian Authority (PA) statement also slammed what it called surrendering to Israeli occupation and annexation of West Bank territory.

Following Sudan’s announced normalization with Israel, the PA “condemn(ed) and reject(ed)” it.

Hamas called on the Sudanese people to “fight all forms of normalization and have nothing to do with the criminal enemy.”

The Trump regime arranged the deal through typical US pressure tactics and a benefit at a stiff price handed to Sudan’s transitional government.

Khartoum was delisted from the State Department’s state sponsors of terrorism list.

It’s comprised of nations unwilling to sell their soul to the US and its imperial allies.

Currently, they include North Korea, Iran and Syria — nonbelligerent states threatening no one.

In stark contrast, the US, other NATO countries, Israel, and their imperial partners threaten humanity by their endless wars and other hostile actions.

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and chairman of the country’s transitional Sovereignty Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan agreed to bow to the will of Washington and Tel Aviv.

They agreed to pay $335 million in compensation for two 1998 truck bomb explosions at US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya — causing large numbers of deaths and injuries, few US citizens harmed.

When the incidents occurred, US envoys were not in the facilities.

Weeks before both incidents, Israeli intelligence told US embassy officials to ignore information suggesting a security threat to both facilities.

Security cameras were conveniently turned off. Israeli special forces and Mossad agents were first on the scene after these incidents.

At the time, bin Laden and al-Qaeda were accused of the bombings.

Bin Laden was a CIA asset, al-Qaeda a US creation. If responsible for what happened, they were acting on orders from Washington.

No evidence links Sudan to what either the US, Israel, or regimes in both countries were responsible for.

The US falsely accused bin Laden of all sorts of incidents, including 9/11, the mother of all state-sponsored false flags he had nothing to do with.

According to retired Italian Carabinieri officer Capt. Aurelio dell Acqua at the time, a diplomatic security expert:

“We don’t know yet who was at the wheel of those car bombs. But we do know that the long fuse leading to these terrorist flare-ups was lit in Israel.”

An unnamed Gulf nation official accused Israel of “staging a new regional crisis.”

The US Dar es Salaam embassy earlier was an Israeli compound.

Following a call from Trump and Netanyahu with Hamdok and Burham, a pre-drafted statement said the following:

Sudanese “leaders agreed to the normalization of relations between (their country) and Israel and to end the state of belligerence between their nations,” adding:

They “agreed to begin economic and trade relations, with an initial focus on agriculture.”

They “also agreed that delegations would meet in the coming weeks to negotiate agreements of cooperation in those areas as well as in agriculture technology, aviation, migration issues and other areas for the benefit of the two peoples.”

“The United States will take steps to restore Sudan’s sovereign immunity and to engage its international partners to reduce Sudan’s debt burdens.”

“The United States and Israel also commit to working with their partners to support the people of Sudan in strengthening their democracy (sic), improving food security, countering terrorism and extremism and tapping into their economic potential.”

It’s unclear what the US and Israel will do for Sudan, other than exploiting the country and its people.

The unacceptable deal hasn’t gone down well in Khartoum.

On Sunday, Sudanese parties rejected normalization with Israel, some officials saying they’ll form an opposition bloc against the deal they reject.

Street protests occurred over the weekend in Khartoum.

Sudan’s Popular Congress Party said the following:

“We see that our people, who are being systematically isolated and marginalized from secret deals, are not bound by the normalization agreement.”

“Our people will abide by their historical positions and work through a broad front to resist normalization and maintain our support for the Palestinian people in order for them to obtain all their legitimate rights.”

Former Sudanese Prime Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi denounced the deal, saying:

It “contradicts the Sudanese national law…and contributes to the elimination of the peace project in the Middle East and to preparing for the ignition of a new war.”

He withdrew from a state-sponsored religious conference on Saturday in protest.

Popular Congress Party leader Kamal Omar said “(t)his transitional government hijacked the Sudanese position to satisfy regional and international intelligence agencies.”

Sudanese Baath Party leader Muhammad Wadaa warned that he and other parties involved in the transitional government will withdraw support if official Sudanese normalization with Israel occurs.

Protesters in Khartoum chanted “no peace, no negotiation, no reconciliation with the occupying entity,” expressing support for Palestinians.

A statement by Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the following:

“Pay enough ransom, close your eyes on the crimes against Palestinians, then you’ll be taken off the so-called ‘terrorism’ blacklist.”

“Obviously the list is as phony as the US fight against terrorism. Shameful!”

A Final Comment

Israel’s creation and establishment of the CIA happened around the same time in the late 1940s.

The spy agencies of both countries have a long history of state-sponsored criminality.

It’s unsurprising that Israel’s dirty hands may have been all over the 1998 US embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi.

Maybe Mossad and the CIA partnered in what happened.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

In his latest book, ‘This Land – The Story of a Movement’ (Penguin, ebook version, 2020), The Guardian’s Owen Jones charts the rise and fall of Jeremy Corbyn.

Jones depicts Corbyn as a ‘scruffy,’ (p.8), ‘unkempt’ (p.50), thoroughly shambolic backbench MP, ‘the most unlikely’ (p.50) of contenders for the Labour leadership. In May 2015, Corbyn reluctantly dipped his toe in the water of the leadership contest, saying: ‘You better make fucking sure I don’t get elected’ (p.54), only to be swept away on a tide of popular support.

As this suggests, Jones argues that while Corbyn was indeed relentlessly savaged by forces both inside and outside the Labour Party – including the ‘mainstream’ media, with ‘profound hostility’ from ‘the publicly funded, professedly impartial’ BBC (p.68) – he was out of his depth, his team making constant, massive mistakes from which all progressives must learn. It is not at all inevitable, says Jones, that future leftist movements need suffer the same fate.

Much of this analysis is interesting and useful; Jones interviewed 170 insiders closest to the action, ‘people at the top of the Labour Party right down to grassroots activists’, who supply important insights on key events.

Jones portrays himself as someone who fundamentally agrees with much that motivated Corbyn, emphasising that his disagreement lies in tactics and strategy. But, once again, we note a remarkable pattern of omissions in the work of Jones, an ostensibly outspoken, unconstrained leftist, and by his serious misreading of the antisemitism furore that engulfed Corbyn.

Jones recognises that people loved Corbyn because, unusually for a UK politician, he was made of flesh rather than PR plastic; he told the truth:

‘While other contenders refused to give direct answers to questions, and were caught squirming between their principles and their political compromises, he spoke with immediacy – sometimes rambling, always authentic, always passionate.’ (p.57)

Ironically, Jones does plenty of his own ‘squirming’ between ‘principles’ and ‘political compromises’ as he airbrushes out of existence facts, views and voices that are consistently and conspicuously Guardian-unfriendly. He writes:

‘Corbynism… was woven together from many disparate strands: from people who marched against the Iraq war in 2003’ to people hit by the ‘trebling of college tuition fees in 2010’ and ‘the millions more frightened by a looming climate emergency’. (p.10)

Above all, of course, ‘Corbyn’s entire career had been devoted to foreign affairs’. (p.29) Andrew Murray of the union, Unite commented: ‘Corbyn was very prominent in the anti-war movement.’ (p.33)

Thus, deep popular outrage at the Iraq war is key in understanding Corbyn’s popularity. And yet, in discussing this central feature of the movement, Jones makes no mention at all of Julian Assange (or WikiLeaks), of Noam Chomsky, or John Pilger – the most important anti-war voices – exactly as he made no mention of them in his previous book, ‘The Establishment’, published in 2014.

Jones has not mentioned Assange in his Guardian column in the last twelve months. Indeed, his sole substantive mention came in April 2019.

Corbyn became Labour leader in 2015, but Jones mentions NATO’s catastrophic, 2011 war on Libya, opposed by Corbyn, once in passing, noting merely that Labour MP Chris Williamson had ‘supported the war in Libya’. (p.251)

Jones’ previous book, ‘The Establishment’, published three years after NATO’s assault, similarly granted ‘Libya’ a single mention, noting that UK voters were ‘Weary of being dragged by their rulers into disastrous wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya…’. (Jones, ‘The Establishment – And how they get away with it’, Penguin, ebook version, 2014, p.275. See our discussion.)

The fact that the US-UK assault resulted in mass death, ethnic cleansing, mass displacement for millions of Libyans and the destruction of the entire country was not mentioned in either book.

Elsewhere, Jones has been more forthright. In February 2011, with NATO ‘intervention’ clearly looming, he tweeted:

‘I hope it’s game over for Gaddafi. A savage dictator once tragically embraced by me on left + lately western governments and oil companies.’ (Jones, Twitter, 20 February 2011)

On 20 March 2011, one day after NATO bombing had begun, like someone writing for the ‘Soaraway Sun’, Jones commented:

‘Let’s be clear. Other than a few nutters, we all want Gaddafi overthrown, dead or alive.’ (Jones, ‘The case against bombing Libya’, Left Futures, March 2011)

Similarly, in 2012, Jones reacted to news of the killings of Syrian ministers in a bomb explosion with:

‘Adios, Assad (I hope).’ (Jones, Twitter, 18 July 2012)

After all, Jones tweeted, ‘this is a popular uprising, not arriving on the back of western cruise missiles, tanks and bullets’. (Jones, Twitter, 18 July 2012)

As was very obvious then and indisputable now, Jones was badly mistaken – the West, directly and via regional allies, played a massive role in the violence. The New York Times reported that the US had become embroiled in a dirty war in Syria that constituted ‘one of the costliest covert action programs in the history of the C.I.A’, running to ‘more than $1 billion over the life of the program’. (Mark Mazzetti, Adam Goldman and Michael S. Schmidt, ‘Behind the sudden death of a $1 billion secret C.I.A. war in Syria’, New York Times, 2 August 2017)

As though tweeting from the NATO playbook, the same Guardian columnist now analysing the peace movement supporting Corbyn, wrote:

‘I’m promoting the overthrow of illegitimate and brutal dictatorships by their own people to establish democracies.’ (Jones, Twitter, 18 July 2012)

In ‘This Land’, Jones mentions Saudi Arabia’s disastrous war in famine-stricken Yemen exactly once, again in passing:

‘…Labour MPs refused to back Corbyn’s call for a UN investigation into alleged Saudi war crimes in Yemen’. (p.81)

There is no mention of the UK’s support for these crimes since 2011, no discussion of the horrors the UK has inflicted (See our discussion). The word ‘Yemen’ was unmentioned in Jones’ previous book in 2014. To his credit, he has written several Guardian pieces on the war in Yemen, the most recent in 2018.

Gaza was mentioned once, in passing, in Jones’ previous book and three times, in passing, in ‘This Land’. Our media database search found that, since he joined the Guardian in March 2014, Jones has made three substantive mentions of Gaza, in 2014 (a philosophical piece focusing on ‘How the occupation of Gaza corrupts the occupier’, with few facts about the situation in Gaza) a brief piece here, and one in 2018 (with a single paragraph on Gaza).

‘This Land’ simply ignores the Western propaganda wars on Iran and Venezuela.

Remarkably, while recognising the role of climate fears in the rise of Corbyn and discussing the UK’s ‘Climate Camp’ in the late 2000s, Jones makes no mention of Extinction Rebellion or of Greta Thunberg, both strongly supported by Corbyn, further fuelling popular support for his cause.

There is no mention of the Guardian’s lead role in destroying Corbyn; although, ironically, Jones does celebrate the fact that, ‘I wrote the first pro-Corbyn column to appear in the mainstream media: a Guardian piece’. (p.53)

The silence is unsurprising. In 2017, Jones tweeted:

‘I’m barred from criticising colleagues in my column.’ (Jones, Twitter, 19 November 2017)

He wasn’t joking:

‘Guardian colleagues aren’t supposed to have these public spats…’

Of his own opposition to Corbyn, in the Guardian and elsewhere, Jones writes:

‘Although I voted for him again in 2016, I had a period of disillusionment before the [June 2017] general election – something which still riles his most ardent supporters.’ (p.14)

In fact, the ‘period of disillusionment’ was extensive and began long before the 2017 election. In July 2016, fully one year earlier, Jones wrote:

‘As Jeremy Corbyn is surrounded by cheering crowds, Labour generally, and the left specifically, are teetering on the edge of looming calamity.’

He added:

‘As things stand, all the evidence suggests that Labour — and the left as a whole — is on the cusp of a total disaster. Many of you won’t thank me now. But what will you say when you see the exit poll at the next general election and Labour is set to be wiped out as a political force?’

Similar comments followed in February, March and April 2017. For example:

‘My passionate and sincere view is Jeremy Corbyn should stand down as soon as possible in exchange for another left-wing MP being allowed to stand on for leadership in his place: all to stop both Labour and the left imploding, which is what is currently on the cards.’ (Jones: ‘“I don’t enjoy protesting – I do it because the stakes are so high”’, Evening Standard, 3 February 2017)

Blaming The Victim – The Great, Fake Antisemitism Scandal

Time and again, Jones criticises the Corbyn leadership for failing to deal adequately with antisemitism claims: ‘there was no coherent strategy within the leader’s office on how to tackle claims of antisemitism’. (p.227)

While Jones accepts that there were ‘bad-faith actors opposed to Corbyn’s policies’, his emphasis is focused elsewhere: ‘ultimately there were severe and repeated errors by the leadership, which resulted from those two characteristic failings: a lack of both strategy and emotional intelligence’. (p.254)

Remarkably, Jones concludes that the crisis ‘need never have happened’. (p.254)

This is nonsense. The crisis had to happen because sufficiently powerful forces within the Labour Party and Conservative Party, and across the corporate media ‘spectrum’, were determined to make it happen.

Compare Jones’ account with that of Norman Finkelstein, whose mother survived the Warsaw Ghetto, the Majdanek concentration camp and two slave labour camps. Finkelstein’s father was a survivor of both the Warsaw Ghetto and the Auschwitz concentration camp. In an interview with RT in May, Finkelstein commented:

‘Corbyn, he did not present a threat only to Israel and Israel’s supporters, he posed a threat to the whole British elite. Across the board, from the Guardian to the Daily Mail, they all joined in the new anti-semitism campaign. Now that’s unprecedented – the entire British elite, during this whole completely contrived, fabricated, absurd and obscene assault on this alleged Labour anti-semitism, of which there is exactly zero evidence, zero.’

He added:

‘Yeah, there’s some fringe members of Labour who, you know, play the anti-semitic [interrupted by interviewer]… I read the polls, I read the data – it hovers between six and eight per cent are hardened anti-semites in British society. It’s nothing! Yeah, so there are a few crazies, but there’s no “institutionalised” anti-semitism in the British Labour Party. There’s no threat of anti-semitism in British society. I’ve read all the data, I’ve studied it closely. It just doesn’t exist. It’s all being designed and manipulated… I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, as you know, but this is a conspiracy.’

Jones accepts that ‘the former leadership and the vast majority of Labour’s membership abhor antisemitism’, arguing that the problem lay with a ‘small minority’. (p.254) But Jones does not cite an October 2016 report by the Commons home affairs committee, which found:

‘Despite significant press and public attention on the Labour Party, and a number of revelations regarding inappropriate social media content, there exists no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other political party.’

And he does not cite a September 2017 report by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, which found:

‘Levels of antisemitism among those on the left-wing of the political spectrum, including the far-left, are indistinguishable from those found in the general population… The most antisemitic group on the political spectrum consists of those who identify as very right-wing: the presence of antisemitic attitudes in this group is 2 to 4 times higher compared to the general population.’

Instead, Jones pours scorn on leftists who ‘still were in denial, claiming that the antisemitism crisis had been entirely manufactured by a media “out to get” Corbyn…’ (p.254)

Rational commentators have always accepted that antisemitism exists within the Labour Party. The point is that making that ugly reality a ‘crisis’ specifically for Labour, rather than for other parties and other sectors of society, and above all making it a ‘crisis’ for Corbyn – reviled as a dangerous antisemite – was entirely manufactured.

Jones cites ‘the passionately anti-Corbyn editor of the Jewish Chronicle’, Stephen Pollard, who grotesquely claimed to perceive ‘nudge, nudge’ (p.253) antisemitism in one of Corbyn’s self-evidently anti-capitalist critiques. Such outlandish claims, Jones notes, only encouraged leftists to believe the whole furore was a smear campaign:

‘It was a vicious circle, and it turned to nobody’s benefit – least of all Corbyn’s, while causing more hurt and distress to Jewish people.’ (p.253, our emphasis)

But this is absurd. Quite obviously, the smear campaign was to the very real benefit of the political and media forces trying to crush Corbyn’s version of socialism.

The claims targeting Corbyn were fake and they depended on ignoring as non-existent a mountain of evidence indicating that Corbyn is a passionate, committed and very active anti-racist. What is so outrageous is that this was accepted by essentially everyone before Corbyn stood for the leadership in 2015. As Jones comments:

‘Anti-racism is core to Corbyn’s sense of identity. He believes, proudly, that he has fought oppression all his life, so being labelled a racist was a cause of profound personal trauma to him.’ (p.228)

Corbyn’s chief of staff, Karie Murphy, commented on the impact of the smear campaign:

‘This was a man who was beyond broken-hearted, that, as a proud antiracist campaigner, he was being accused of racism. So he was paralysed… It wasn’t true – no one will convince me that he has an antisemitic bone in his body…’ (p.242)

Genuine racists are not left ‘beyond broken-hearted’ by claims that they are racist. They are not ‘paralysed’ by a sense of injustice and grief.

Jones comments on Corbyn: ‘no one close to him believes for a moment that he would ever willingly associate with a Holocaust denier’. (p.222) And Corbyn ‘could point to an extensive record opposing antisemitism and showing pro-Jewish solidarity’ (p.221). Jones lists some of Corbyn’s efforts in this regard: helping to organise a counter-mobilisation to a demonstration by National Front fascists in the so-called Battle of Wood Green in 1977; taking part in a campaign to save a Jewish cemetery from being sold off to property developers in 1987, calling on the British government to settle Yemeni Jewish refugees in 2010.

Before the sheer intensity of propaganda caused most commentators to find truth in lies, Corbyn’s deep-rooted opposition to racism was simply unquestioned. Chris Mullin, who did not vote for Corbyn to either become or remain leader, commented:

‘I’ve always liked him as long as I’ve known him. He’s a thoroughly decent human being, almost a saintly man.’ (p.30)

As Jones writes of Corbyn at the time he stood for the leadership in 2015:

‘Corbyn had no personal enemies. Everyone liked him. Relentlessly cheerful, endlessly generous with his opponents, he exuded integrity.’ (pp.50-51)

Despite this, Jones says of the antisemitism crisis:

‘The damage to Corbyn’s Labour was grievous. The crisis led to months of media coverage.’ (p.254)

In fact, the media coverage was the crisis! It was this real crisis that was the cause of the ‘crisis’. The antisemitism ‘crisis’ was just one more fabrication by an awesomely corrupt and immoral media system willing to throw, not just the kitchen sink, but – God help us! – Nazi gas chambers at Corbyn.

The key to understanding the anti-semitism ‘scandal’ was explained by Jones himself:

‘Anybody who knows anything about the British press knows that it is almost unique in the Western world for its level of commitment to aggressively defending and furthering right-wing partisan politics… the media onslaught that greeted his [Corbyn’s] leadership win in 2015 was as predictable as it was unrelentingly hostile.’ (p.67)

Jones lists only a few of the endlessly fabricated stories used to smear Corbyn: he supposedly planned to ‘abolish’ the army, refused to bow his head on Remembrance Day, danced happily on Remembrance Day, didn’t sing the national anthem loudly enough, and so on. The London School of Economics reported in 2016:

‘the British press systematically delegitimised Jeremy Corbyn as a political leader’ through a ‘process of vilification that went beyond the normal limits of fair debate and disagreement in a democracy’. (p.68)

Corbyn’s great anti-semitism ‘scandal’ was a non-story, a fabricated non-event, a Soviet-style propaganda smear. Sufficient numbers of people wanted it to be true because they wanted to be rid of Corbyn. Everyone else bowed their heads to avoid being subject to the same career-destroying smears.

Jones often mentions Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite Union, in ‘This Land’. McCluskey commented in the New Statesman last week on Corbyn’s press chief Seumas Milne and chief of staff Karie Murphy:

‘Having given a brilliant and detailed polemic of the history of anti-Semitism, he [Jones] veers away to lay blame at the [door of] Milne and Murphy, based on a distorted view of what it was like trying to deal with the constant daily attacks.

‘When you are in a war – and be under no illusion, from day one of his leadership, Corbyn was subjected to an internal and external war – you develop methods of defence and attack that change by necessity almost on a daily, if not hourly basis.  Being in your living room, observing with a typewriter, is a damn sight easier than being in the ditches on the front line, trying to dodge bullets flying at you from all angles, especially from your own side.’

Establishment forces were out to destroy Corbyn with antisemitism, or whatever else they could think of, no matter what he did, how he replied. And it worked. The incompetence of Corbyn’s team may have made things worse, but the truth that matters is that a form of ruthless fascism arose out of British society to crush an attempt to create a more democratic politics.

Needless to say, Jones has not one word to say about the lead role of his employer, the Guardian, in the antisemitism smear campaign.

Conclusion

Why do we focus so intensely on popular progressives like Owen Jones, George Monbiot and loveable, NATO-loving loon Paul Mason?

The reason is that they breathe life into the faded dream that progressive change can be achieved by working within and for profit-maximising corporations that are precisely the cause of so many of our crises. Even the best journalists cannot tell the truth within these undemocratic systems of top-down power. As Jones freely admits, they have to compromise, to self-censor. Guardian colleagues may not be criticised! Ultimately, they have to compromise in ways that allow the state-corporate status quo to thunder on.

Our most celebrated public radicals – almost all of them made famous by corporate media – function as dissident vaccines that inoculate the public against a pandemic of authentic dissent.

Corporate media are careful to incorporate a tiny bit of progressive poison, so that we all hang around for a whole lot of propaganda-drenched news and commentary, and a perma-tsunami of unanswered corporate advertising persuading us that status consumption, status production and paper-thin concern for the problems of our world are all there is.

Ultimately, corporate dissidents are the final nail in the corporate coffin, normalising the blind, patently doomed rush to disaster called ‘business as usual.’

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Capitalism Is Double-billing Us: We Pay from Our Wallets Only for Our Future to be Stolen from Us

By Jonathan Cook, October 26 2020

As we shall see, externalities mean someone other than the company itself pays the true cost behind its profits, either because those others are too weak or ignorant to fight back or because the bill comes due further down the line.

Sesame Street Offers “New Normal” Brainwashing for the Very Young and Vulnerable

By John C. A. Manley, October 26 2020

This clumsy puppet also makes a guest appearance on World Economic Forum’s The Great Reset Podcast where he offers more dehumanizing advice to lonely and depressed children.

The Global Takeover Is Underway

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, October 26 2020

The World Economic Forum public relations video, “8 Predictions for the World in 2030,” short as it may be, offers a telling glimpse into what the technocratic elite has in store for the rest of us.

FDA Lets Pfizer Test Experimental COVID-19 Vaccine on U.S. Children

By Children’s Health Defense, October 26 2020

Pfizer announced that it had received FDA permission to administer the unproven vaccine to children as young as 12, becoming the first company in the U.S. to include young participants in Phase 3 trials.

Will the Next Head of the WTO Impose a Gates-Davos “Great Reset” Agenda?

By F. William Engdahl, October 25 2020

She presently heads an organization created by the seeming omnipresent (not omniscient) Bill Gates together with the Davos World Economic Forum—both involved in implementing the Great Reset–and she is deeply tied to the prime institutions of globalization and international finance. 

“Democracy” vs. COVID: A No-Go. The Great Reset is the Antidote of Democracy

By Peter Koenig, October 25 2020

On 21 October 2020, the German Press Agency (dpa) reports that Germany pledges NATO soldiers for possible Covid-19 operations.

US-China Confrontation: The Hijacking of the United Nations Security Council Continues

By Carla Stea, October 25 2020

The Security Council meeting on October 5^th, 2020, during the Russian Presidency,  is a dramatic demonstration of US and allied manipulations and falsifications, the very manipulations and falsifications they accuse China of.

Video: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: International Message for Freedom and Hope

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr, October 26 2020

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Chairman of Children’s Health Defense, provides an inspirational message for freedom and hope to activists around the world.

Coronavirus: Killer Virus or Common Flu

By Michael Welch, Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, and Prof Mark Crispin Miller, October 24 2020

This is part one of a special series devoted to the global pandemic that has coordinated an unprecedented attack on lives and civil liberties everywhere. In this chapter, we have two guests concluding that the threat is not nearly catastrophic as to demand lock-downs and masks.

50 Years Ago: The Assassination of René Schneider, Chile’s Constitutionalist General

By Adeyinka Makinde, October 26 2020

The assassination of Chilean General René Schneider who died on October 25th 1970 from wounds sustained in an an attack three days earlier is worth recalling because of his stand in protecting the constitutional process in his country, as well the circumstances of his murder.

Impunity and Carefree Violence: Australia’s Special Forces in Afghanistan

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, October 26 2020

In 2016, Australian Major General Jeff Sengelman approached the then chief of the Australian army Lieutenant General Angus Campbell with a nagging worry. The concern lay in allegations that Australian special forces had committed various war crimes in Afghanistan. 

Death, Money, and the Dueling Frauds: Trump and Biden

By Edward Curtin, October 25 2020

Only people who still believe in professional wrestling would think these clowns don’t work for the same bosses – the Umbrella People, aka the power elites, the national security state, etc., who own the country and choose their stooges to represent their interests in the White House.

The assassination of Chilean General René Schneider who died on October 25th 1970 from wounds sustained in an an attack three days earlier is worth recalling because of his stand in protecting the constitutional process in his country, as well the circumstances of his murder.

He was a pro-democratic military official who affirmed that the role of the armed forces should be apolitical. During a General Staff meeting on July 23rd 1970, Schneider said the following:

The armed forces are not a road to political power nor an alternative to that power. They exist to guarantee the regular work of the political system and the use of force for any other purpose than its defence constitute high treason.

Schneider had issued this powerful statement at a time when there was agitation within the Chilean army to block the confirmation of Salvador Allende, a Marxist-influenced politician, as the President-elect of Chile. It came to be known as the “Schneider Doctrine”.

His murder, at the hands of a right-wing faction of the army led by General Roberto Viaux, a retired officer who had previously engineered a mutiny over soldiers pay and conditions, was a state-sponsored enterprise involving the United States Central Intelligence Agency with the knowledge of Henry Kissinger, the National Security Advisor during the Nixon presidency.

The “Schneider Doctrine” would be challenged and finally destroyed on September 11th 1973, when a violent military coup deposed President Allende and brought to power a military dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet. And on March 30th 2004, Schneider’s murder was the subject of a legal complaint brought by his estate against Kissinger in the United States. The action was dismissed and finally ended in 2006.

The threat of the rise of governments which could be perceived as anti-American in Latin America, had of course obsessed the United States for decades before the enunciation of the Schneider Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine, through which the United States demarcated its Western Sphere of influence, applied not only to the old European powers but to the emerging power of the USSR. The reported plan by the Socialist Junta to confiscate wealth while operating a soviet form of government caused a great deal of apprehension in Washington when the Government Junta of Chile was established in June 1932. American interventions in Latin America were persistent and in the Cold War era, Allende, who pursued a policy of nationalisation, and who was a self-described “implacable enemy of Yankee imperialism” drew the ire of the United States which subsequently aided his overthrow.

Although the era of the military junta appears to be in the distant past, the relevance of the Schneider Doctrine remains. The military coup which overthrew Honduran president Manuel Zelaya in 2009, has been followed more recently by the pivotal role played by the Bolivian military in securing the resignation and resulting exile of President Evo Morales, as well as President Jair Bolsonaro raising the prospect of military intervention in Brazil to protect his hold on power.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. He writes on his blog site where this article was originally published.

Featured image: Chilean Stamp commemorating the second anniversary of the death of General Rene Schneider (Source: author)

In his new book, “The Event Horizon: Homo Prometheus and the Climate Catastrophe”, Dr. Andrew Glikson discusses the impact of the mastery of fire, presents global climate change and its consequences and provides projections of future evolution.

About the book

With the advent of global warming and the nuclear arms race, humans are rapidly approaching a moment of truth. Technologically supreme, they manifest their dreams and nightmares in the real world through science, art, adventures and brutal wars, a paradox symbolized by a candle lighting the dark yet burning away to extinction, as discussed in this book. As these lines are being written, fires are burning on several continents, the Earth’s ice sheets are melting and the oceans are rising, threatening to flood the planet’s coastal zones and river valleys, where civilization arose and humans live and grow food.

With the exception of birds like hawks, black kites and fire raptors, humans are the only life form utilizing fire, creating developments they can hardly control. For more than a million years, gathered around campfires during the long nights, mesmerized by the flickering life-like dance of the flames, prehistoric humans acquired imagination, a yearning for omnipotence, premonitions of death, cravings for immortality and conceiving the supernatural. Humans live in realms of perceptions, dreams, myths and legends, in denial of critical facts, waking up for a brief moment to witness a world that is as beautiful as it is cruel. Existentialist philosophy offers a way of coping with the unthinkable. Looking into the future produces fear, an instinctive response that can obsess the human mind and create a conflict between the intuitive reptilian brain and the growing neocortex, with dire consequences. As contrasted with Stapledon’s Last and first Man, where an advanced human species mourns the fate of the Earth, Homo sapiens continues to transfer every extractable molecule of carbon from the Earth to the atmosphere, the lungs of the biosphere, ensuring the demise of the planetary life support system.”

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Andrew Yoram Glikson, an Earth and paleo-climate scientist at the Australian National University, studied geology at the University of Jerusalem and graduated at the University of Western Australia. He conducted geological surveys of the oldest geological formations in Australia, South Africa, India and Canada, underpinning the effects of large asteroid impacts, including their effects on the atmosphere and oceans and the mass extinction of species. Since 2005 he studied the relations between climate and human evolution.

The Event Horizon: Homo Prometheus and the Climate Catastrophe

Author: Andrew Glikson

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-54734-9

Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-54733-2

Number of Pages: XI, 134

Click here to order.

Turkish President Recep Erdogan’s recent comments regarding his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron’s mental state has led to the recall of the French ambassador from Ankara. His assertion that Macron was “in need of mental health treatment” was not his first barb aimed at the French president. Back in August, he accused Macron of having “colonial aims” in Lebanon and referred to Macron’s visit to Beirut as a “spectacle”. But if there is any truth to Erdogan’s accusation, it is almost certainly a case of psychological projection. Erdogan himself has been explicitly engaged in a perennial quest aimed at restoring Turkish grandeur and influence to the great cost and the irritation of his country’s neighbours and traditional allies. 

That Recep Erdogan would be sensitive to comments construed as anti-Muslim in sentiment, is not particularly surprising. He is by all accounts a devout Muslim. Further, many consider his ideological roots when he began a path into politics as akin to that professed by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. He is today perceived by many to be an al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun in a suit.

But his publicly uttered umbrage at President Macron’s speech cannot merely be interpreted as a spontaneous reaction of a pious statesman. His failure to express regret over the beheading of a French History teacher by an Islamist student who was offended by the display of two cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad alongside other cartoons during a discussion on freedom of speech speaks volumes. Those who know the man well will be bound to see it as a calculated move geared toward building up his image at home, as well as promoting himself as a righteous leader of the Muslim world.

Erdogan is a man who is adept at self-promotion. He is also consistently involved in one or other conspiratorial endeavour aimed at expanding Turkey’s geopolitical sphere of influence. It is neither inaccurate nor lazy to attribute his agenda as being that of attempting to facilitate the emergence of a neo-Ottoman state.

Yet, all his designs have so far ended in failure.

His attempt at weaving this Ottoman dream in Central Asia went awry in the 2000s because his Turkic cousins wanted more money than Erdogan could afford. Erdogan was knee-deep in the attempt to balkanise Syria in concert with the Saudis, Israelis, and US-led NATO states. But this was frustrated by the actions of Russia, Iran, and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. More recently, Erdogan tried to bolster his prestige at home by asserting a Turkish sphere of influence across the Mediterranean by threatening the Greeks and intervening in the Libyan mess created by NATO’s overthrow of Gaddafi. He was frustrated in this endeavour not only by Egyptian and Greek actions which called his bluff, but also by Macron’s stated intent to militarily oppose any overt acts of Turkish aggression in the region.

Ever the troublemaker, Erdogan has been revealed as an active backer of the Azeri attack on Armenian-controlled Nagorno Karabakh, an action that has brought back memories among the Armenian populace and the Armenian Diaspora of the Ottoman orchestrated anti-Armenian genocide of the early 20th century.

Back in July, Erdogan’s decision to sign a decree which will turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque will signal the final nail on Christendom in what used to be the Christian city of Constantinople. An ineradicable opportunist, he likely chose this moment in time to capitalise on the recent schism in the Eastern Orthodox Church, which is based on the geopolitical animus between Russia and Ukraine.

Through all of this he has lost friends: Erdogan has fallen out with President Bashar Assad of Syria, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, as well as the Saudis. The European Union, which Erdogan once aspired to join, has become wary of him -if not hostile- because of his intermittent attempts to extort money through the threats of coercive engineered migration. And his relationship with the United States has been poor since the 2016 coup which he believes was a NATO-backed operation using the followers of the exiled Fethullah Gulen.

Through all his adventures, he has burnt bridges as well as his fingers. The “Zero Problems with Neighbours” policy which he trumpeted at the beginning of his tenure in office has long been in tatters. But the parlous state of the Turkish economy which had been steadily contracting prior to the global recession caused by the covid-pandemic may mean that his endless scheming and posturing will not abate.

The question that now remains is when will the world be finally rid of this meddlesome and mischievous neo-Ottoman sultan?

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. He has a keen interest in issues pertaining to global security. He writes on his blog site where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Long-suffering Iraqis have legitimate grievances in the post-Saddam Hussein era.

Notably they include rampant corruption, high unemployment, impoverishment affecting millions — the nation’s youths notably affected — and lack of essential to life public services.

Saddam ruled despotically but he wasn’t all bad. According to UNESCO, he established one of the region’s best educational systems that was free to the highest levels.

Healthcare was near-universal, available in nearly all urban areas and most rural ones, according to UNICEF.

Pre-Gulf War, it ranked with the region’s best. Since that time, things changed dramatically for the worst.

For the last 30 years, the US waged wars on Iraq by hot and other means.

Sanction following the Gulf War caused about 1.5 million deaths.

Mostly young children, the elderly and infirm, about 7,000 died monthly — a US-imposed system former UN humanitarian coordinator Denis Halliday called “genocide.”

The US-launched Gulf and 2003 wars erased the cradle of civilization.

An occupied wasteland/US controlled free-trade zone replaced it.

US “shock and awe,” followed by “shock therapy” produced repression, daily killings, deprivation, mass detention and torture.

US regimes bear full responsibility for wrecking the country to plunder its resources.

Iraq under Saddam was no rose garden. Decades of US rampaging made life for the vast majority of Iraqis far worse than any time under his rule.

Before his death from imprisonment and mistreatment by US occupying forces, former Iraqi foreign minister and deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz said the following in 2013:

“There is nothing here any more. Nothing. For thirty years Saddam built Iraq, and now it is destroyed. There are more sick than before, more hungry.”

“The people don’t have services…We are all victims of America and Britain. They killed our country.”

The US killed Aziz slowly by neglect and other mistreatment, the same thing true for Iraq.

The prosperous nation of long ago no longer exists, destroyed by US rapaciousness.

Ordinary Iraqis suffered hugely since the US-orchestrated 1980s Iran/Iraq war — followed by the Gulf War, genocidal sanctions, Bush/Cheney’s aggression and its violent/chaotic aftermath to the present day.

A year after Iraqis took to the streets in 2019 because their rights and welfare were unaddressed, they’re protesting again because promises made remain unfulfilled.

In Baghdad, Basra, Najaf and elsewhere, they demand fundamental change.

Instead of addressing their justifiable concerns, security forces attacked them with tear gas, stun grenades, and other harsh tactics, making a bad situation worse.

Chanting “(o)ur our souls, we sacrifice for you Iraq,” they marched through Baghdad’s Tahrir Square.

One protester likely spoke for others, saying “(t)oday is an important day as it marks a year since October 25, 2019 and our revolution for which we gave our blood and sacrificed many martyrs.”

“On the top of our demands is holding the killers and kidnappers accountable. Justice must be achieved and we’ll keep coming until we see that.”

Other protesters gathered outside the US-controlled/heavily fortified Green Zone.

A year ago, tens of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets, hundreds killed or wounded before energy waned and relative quiet returned.

Then-Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi was forced from office. Mustafa al-Kadhimi replaced him.

According to a 2020 Arab Opinion Index survey, most Iraqis and others in the region said they don’t have enough income for their basic family needs.

Iraqi regimes give short shrift to public rights and needs.

According to Iraqi analyst Sajad Jiyad, “protests have continued for over a year and are being renewed today (because) the ruling elite (instituted) no significant reforms…”

“The size of protests have not reached the numbers from a year ago but given that the economic situation has deteriorated and trust in the political system continues to fall, it will be very likely that protests will gain momentum.”

Along with failure of Iraqi  governance to address fundamental rights and needs of all Iraqis, as long as US forces occupy the country and remain in the region, they’ll never be free from want and the threat of more Pentagon-led aggression.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

“Hello everybody! It’s your old pal Grover with some health tips…” begins the spindly blue monster in a Sesame Street PSA.

After teaching kids to wash their hands Grover transitions into some new normal brainwashing: “Another way for everyone to stay healthy is by practicing physical distance and staying six feet away from people in public. That is right, six cute little feet like this…”

Grover takes a step to his left, yells and slips on the soap he dropped during his hand washing class. When his furry blue head appears on camera again a pink mask is draped overtop.

“Here’s another tip to stay healthy,” he continues with dwindling scientific efficacy. “Wear a mask in public to protect yourself and others…. You should wear a mask securely on your face covering your mouth and nose. Everyone can do their part to stay healthy and…” He then slips again.

This clumsy puppet also makes a guest appearance on World Economic Forum’s The Great Reset Podcast where he offers more dehumanizing advice to lonely and depressed children in lockdown: “At first it was hard when nobody could go to school. And I could not visit my friends like Elmo or, well, even Oscar the Grouch. But then we learned to have video play time; which was a lot of fun and made us feel better.”

In Your Guide to the Great Reset, James Corbett sums up “this propaganda for the whole family” rather succinctly: “Remember kids, wash your hands, wear a mask and keep six feet away from other human beings — because they are icky, biological being that can shed their disgusting viruses around you and we have to be protected at all times. Yay!”

Rather appropriately, the Muppet Wiki says that Grover “loves to help people, but is very bad at it.” This appears to be the case when we can consider that there is no evidence social distancing works and SickKids warns it “could cause significant psychological harm.” Likewise, masks have many known and potential harms, including tooth decay. And “video play,” formerly known as “screen time,” is the very thing the Journal of Pediatrics attributes to rising obesity among teens; and the Journal of Mental Health cites as a major cause of depression among youngsters.

Hey Grover! what about time-tested health advice like running around and playing ball, eating your vegetables and getting kids to bed before nine?

Just goes to show you and your children shouldn’t take health advice from a propaganda puppet — whether it looks like a monster, government official or a newscaster.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

John C. A. Manley has spent over a decade ghostwriting for medical doctors, as well as naturopaths, chiropractors and Ayurvedic physicians. He publishes the COVID-19(84) Red Pill Posts – an email-based newsletter dedicated to preventing the powers that should not be from using an exaggerated pandemic to violate our health, livelihood and humanity. He is also writing a novel, Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story. You can visit his website at: MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

This CTV Report confirms police violence in Poland directed against Covid Lockdown Protesters

Protesters gathered without face masks, saying curbs are not needed and holding up banners saying “Let us work, and let us decide on our own.”

Police responded with force, including tear gas, on several occasions. Protests are banned in light of the pandemic, Warsaw police spokesman Sylwester Marczak said, adding some in the crowd were aggressive at times. CTV

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Our thanks to Julian Rose for bringing this to our attention.

Since the re-election of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko on August 9, deemed a rigged election by the West, protests have persisted for nearly three months. Led by opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the protests do not only continue to persist, but neighboring countries are actively intervening in the domestic affairs of Belarus in the hope that Lukashenko will be toppled, and thus, in their view, weaken Russian influence.

Just days after the election, a faction of the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats in the Seimas, the unicameral parliament of Lithuania, called for the immediate announcement of Lithuanian sanctions against 39 of the most influential representatives of the “Alexander Lukashenko regime,” as they termed it.

“Lithuania must clearly, quickly and unambiguously formulate and consolidate strategic provisions for the Belarusian regime at the European Union and transatlantic level, be an icebreaker in the fight for freedom and against tyranny. Sanctions must also send a signal to other influential members of the regime that continue to support Lukashenko, will mean a stalemate and further sanctions against a wider range of the current elite,” said leader of the Seimas opposition, Gabrielius Landsbergis.

With full backing from the opposition, decision makers in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius achieved complete unanimity to pressure Belarus on behalf of NATO and the European Union. Taking on the so-called responsibility of dealing with the situation in Belarus, Lithuania developed a plan to challenge the legitimacy of Lukashenko by providing visas, housing and financial support to opposition figures; promoting Belarusian activists in Lithuanian universities, including awarding educational scholarships at the expense of the Lithuanian Ministry of Education, Science and Sports; simplified employment in the Lithuanian labor market; and, free medical services.

In addition, separate assistance is also provided to the Belarusian opposition in the form of a €200,000 grant to the Belarusian European Humanitarian University, a private liberal arts university founded in Minsk in 1992 shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. It has however been operating in exile in Vilnius since 2004 after being shut down for “unsuitable classes,” but more likely for aggressively promoting liberal ideology.

While Vilnius may be proud of its role in the Belarusian conflict, Lithuanians are beginning to realize the economic consequences of such assistance, especially since a Ukraine-style color revolution was averted and Lukashenko’s position is consolidated and secure. Despite the fact that Vilnius annually receives visible support from the European Union, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda and his government ineffectively allocates resources received towards anti-Lukashenko activities.

Social protection spending in Lithuania is among the lowest in the Europe Union while the poverty rate is among the highest. Lithuanian citizens do not have enough employment opportunities, which is why they seek for it in Western Europe. Many educated Lithuanians travel abroad for work opportunities but often end up doing mundane work, irrespective of their university qualifications. In the United Kingdom it is common to find Lithuanians doing construction, nannying or maid work. According to a statement by representatives of the Ministry of Social Security and Labor, the situation with unemployment in Lithuania is absolutely critical.

Belarusian migrant workers to the Baltic country are just worsening the situation, especially since 2,360 labor permits were issued since the beginning of the year, a significant amount considering Lithuania’s population is only about 2.7 million. This would be especially frustrating for Lithuanians considering unemployment in Belarus was 4.6% in 2019, lower than Lithuania’s 6.35%. Belarus is also capable of consistent GDP growth without having to rely on remittances unlike Lithuania which is experiencing a population decline due to immigration to the West because of the lack of employment opportunities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not been any kinder to Lithuania’s prospects as a negative trend continues in almost all sectors of the economy, including wholesale trade and retail business, transportation, food services, industrial output, the scientific and technical service sector, construction and tourism.

Vilnius’ priority in favor of the Belarusian opposition instead of Lithuanian citizens has seen a degradation of living quality. In fact, crime is beginning to explode in Lithuania, partially because of the lack of opportunities. In all of the EU, Lithuania had the second highest number of intentional homicides in 2017. It was only behind Latvia and recorded 4 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. It can only be assumed until the next release of official statistics that crime in Lithuania has only become worse as a result of the downturn in the economy because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Primary care and public health measures in Lithuania are underfunded but there is no shortage for the defense sector, whose funding is steadily growing. While Lithuania spends 2.02% of their GDP on defense, parliamentary parties signed an agreement pledging to increase the country’s defense spending to 2.5% of the GDP by 2030. An increasing military budget and prioritized funding for the Belarusian opposition will only see more Lithuanians become dissatisfied with the domestic situation.

Lithuania claims its bloated military budget is part of their NATO responsibilities and is a deterrence against Russia. Although Lithuania cannot match Russia militarily, the justification of stalling the Russians long enough so that NATO can intervene in a hypothetical war is being actively used. Of course, Russia has no ambitions of conquering the Baltic States as they would try to have us believe, but this permanent paranoia cannot be shaken off. This paranoia and servitude to Atlantic-Euro interests drives Vilnius’ anti-Lukashenko policies.

Whereas Lukashenko is believed to be a Russian puppet, he was actually far more dynamic as he attempted to balance Moscow and the West. In fact, Lukashenko often prioritized relations with the West over Moscow. However, given Belarus’ recent negative experience with the West, largely spearheaded by Lithuania, it has only forced Lukashenko to return to Russia’s sphere of influence. Effectively, rather than pressuring Lukashenko into capitulation, Lithuania has only driven him back to Moscow, thus weakening their own geopolitical positioning and failed to strengthen. While Lukashenko is secure in Minsk, Lithuanian citizens are increasingly impoverished as their government does everything it can to topple the Belarusian leader.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Alfred Nobel himself might see the irony. The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry – named after  the inventor of dynamite and founder of one of the largest bomb factories in the world – has been awarded to researchers who developed the genetic engineering technique CRISPR-Cas9. 

Some of the applications of this technology could have such an explosive effect on nature and people that it has been called a “gene bomb”.

CRISPR itself is not an invention. It is a natural mechanism that allows bacteria to recognize viruses.  The award-winners J. Doudna and E. Charpentier, published a paper in 2012 describing a means by which this feature of bacteria could be artificially constructed, and added a construct that allows it to cut DNA:  Cas9, a “Crispr associated system”.

Risk 

The design allows genetic engineers to recognize a specific site in the DNA of an organism where CRISPR-Cas9 is introduced and cut the DNA strands at that site. In this way, geneticists can for instance, prevent gene expression and  introduce new genetic material, which then result in a new transgenic organism.

CRISPR seemed at first to be a faster and more accurate means of genetic engineering than previous approaches that had no control over the site where foreign genetic material is inserted. But it was not long before several researchers showed that CRISPR is not as accurate as the hype had claimed.

Although it can reach and modify a particular site in an organism’s  genome, the technique also alters other sites in the genome, with the potential to produce a multitude of “off-target effects”, even erasing or rearranging long sequences outside the target site, causing changes that can cause serious disease.

In 2018, a study by the Karolinska Institute (the organisation that awards the Nobel Prize for medicine), argued that manipulating human cells with CRISPR and then introducing it in humans, could increase cancer risk. Other scientific studies have argued a series of other potential harmful impacts of CRISPR use, in animals, plants and human cells, to the point that George Church, biotechnology pioneer from Harvard University, in 2019 called CRISPR “a blunt axe“, whose use is “genome vandalism”.

Since its release in 2012, and despite the bitter patent dispute that arose shortly thereafter with another US team, which also claims to have been the inventors – the technology has been licensed and applied to a large number of experiments.  These have taken place using plants, animals, human cells and even in humans (an illegal experiment in China with pregnant women, at least one of whom gave birth to twins).

Danger

Doudna and Charpentier, have made millions of dollars from patents on the technology, and have founded or have financial interests in several spin-off and other companies.

The government allocated $65 million to the US Defense Research Agency (DARPA) for the “Safe Genes” project, to defend the US against potential bioweapons that other developers could create with CRISPR. However, the line between developing bioweapons and researching how to defend against them is blurred: this program could be working on developing bioweapons as well.

This program funds research projects in the United States and other countries to develop “gene drives,” an application of CRISPR to change the laws of inheritance in sexually reproducing species in order to make engineered genes dominant in such species. For example, manipulating the genetics so that only males are born, which would quickly lead a species becoming extinct.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funds the development of this same technology, but they do not call attention to the bioweapons aspect, instead, they try to highlight only its alledged potential in health projects. The UN tried to establish a moratorium on this dangerous application, but Gates’ money sabotaged it.

Jennifer Doudna herself has stated that CRISPR has tremendously dangerous uses, even referring to a nightmare in which Hitler asks her for the CRISPR formula. Both the projects financed by DARPA and the Gates Foundation, as well as the experiments with humans, transgress fundamental ethical, ecological and political boundaries. Such developments should be prohibited.

Industry 

A more immediate threat to humanity is the pressure from transnational companies to commercially release the so-called gene editing (“new GM”) in plants and animals for the agricultural and livestock industry.

The GM industry has made a deceitful campaign to make believe that the products of technologies like CRISPR do not need to go through biosafety evaluations, or at least they should be more lax than the existing ones. They have done so in the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Honduras and Guatemala, countries that are lackeys of the GM agribusiness and in treaties with the United States.

They are now advancing these regulatory changes in further countries, by taking advantage of the limited information and restrictions due to the pandemic. The European Union, thanks to protests and a collective lawsuit put forward by La Via Campesina and other organizations, has so far stopped these changes to biosafety regulations.

CRISPR and all forms of genetic editing introduce new risks to the environment and health, so existing biosafety regulations – contrary to what the industry claims – are completely inadequate.

These new forms of manipulation must not be allowed anywhere near our food systems or into the wider environment.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Silvia Ribeiro is a journalist and the Latin American Director of ETC Group, based in Mexico City. She is a well-known lecturer, writer, editor and educator on emerging technologies including geoengineering and biotechnology. 

Featured image is from Flickr/National Human Genome Research Institute Follow

Here is a word that risks deterring you from reading on much further, even though it may hold the key to understanding why we are in such a terrible political, economic and social mess. That word is “externalities”. 

It sounds like a piece of economic jargon. It is a piece of economic jargon. But it is also the foundation stone on which the west’s current economic and ideological system has been built. Focusing on how externalities work and how they have come to dominate every sphere of our lives is to understand how we are destroying our planet – and offer at the same time the waypost to a better future.

In economics, “externalities” are usually defined indifferently as the effects of a commercial or industrial process on a third party that are not costed into that process.

Here is what should be a familiar example. For decades, cigarette manufacturers made enormous profits by concealing scientific evidence that over time their product could prove lethal to customers. The firms profited by externalising the costs associated with cigarettes – of death and disease – on to those buying their cigarettes and wider society. People gave Philip Morris and British American Tobacco their money as these companies made those smoking Marlboros and Lucky Strikes progressively unhealthier.

The externalised cost was paid – is still paid – by the customers themselves, by grieving families, by local and national health services, and by the taxpayer. Had the firms been required to pick up these various tabs, it would have proved entirely unprofitable to manufacture cigarettes.

Inherently violent 

Externalities are not incidental to the way capitalist economies run. They are integral to them. After all, it is a legal obligation on private companies to maximise profits for their shareholders – in addition, of course, to the personal incentive bosses have to enrich themselves, and each company’s need to avoid making themselves vulnerable to more profitable and predatory competitors in the marketplace.

Companies are therefore motivated to offload as many costs as possible on to others. As we shall see, externalities mean someone other than the company itself pays the true cost behind its profits, either because those others are too weak or ignorant to fight back or because the bill comes due further down the line. And for that reason, externalities – and capitalism – are inherently violent.

All this would be glaringly obvious if we didn’t live inside an ideological system – the ultimate echo chamber enforced by our corporate media – that is complicit either in hiding this violence or in normalising it. When externalities are particularly onerous or harmful, as they invariably are in one way or another, it becomes necessary for a company to obscure the connection between cause and effect, between its accumulation of profit and the resulting accumulation of damage caused to a community, a distant country or the natural world – or all three. 

That is why corporations – those that inflict the biggest and worst externalities – invest a great deal of time and money in aggressively managing public perceptions. They achieve this through a combination of public relations, advertising, media control, political lobbying and the capture of regulatory institutions. Much of the business of business is deception, either making the externalised harm invisible or gaining the public’s resigned acceptance that the harm is inevitable.

In that sense, capitalism produces a business model that is not only rapacious but psychopathic. Those who pursue profit have no choice but to inflict damage on wider society, or the planet, and then cloak their deeply anti-social – even suicidal – actions.

Psychopathic demands 

A recent film that alludes to how this form of violence works was last year’s Dark Waters, concerning the long-running legal battle with DuPont over the chemicals it developed to make non-stick coatings for pots and pans. From the outset, DuPont’s research showed that these chemicals were highly dangerous and accumulated in the body. The science overwhelmingly suggested that exposed individuals would be at risk of developing cancerous tumours or producing children with birth defects.

There were huge profits to be made for DuPont from its chemical discovery so long as it could keep the research hidden. So that’s exactly what its executives did. They set aside basic morality and acted in concert with the psychopathic demands of the marketplace.

Not every day a Hollywood movie – Dark Waters, on DuPont's intentional, profit-driven poisoning of America (and the planet) – concludes that the system is rigged to protect corporations from being held accountable for their psychopathic criminality https://t.co/BMpJSinso9

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) January 19, 2020

DuPont produced pans that contaminated its customers’ food. Workers were exposed to a cocktail of lethal poisons in its factories. The company stored the toxic waste products in drums and then secretly disposed of them in landfills where they leached into the local water supply, killing cattle and producing an epidemic of disease among local residents. DuPont created a chemical that is now everywhere in our environment, risking the health of generations to come. 

But a film like Dark Waters necessarily turned a case study in how capitalism commits violence by externalising its costs into something less threatening, less revelatory. We hiss at DuPont’s executives as though they are the ugly sisters in a pantomime rather than ordinary people not unlike our parents, our siblings, our offspring, ourselves.

In truth, there is nothing exceptional about the DuPont story – apart from the company’s failure to keep its secret hidden from the public. And that exposure was anomalous, occurring only belatedly and against great odds.

An important message the film’s feelgood ending fails to deliver is that other corporations have learnt from DuPont’s mistake – not the moral “mistake” of externalising their costs, but the financial mistake of getting caught doing so. Corporate lobbyists have worked since to further capture regulatory authorities and to amend transparency and legal discovery laws to avoid any repetition, to ensure they are not held legally liable, as DuPont was, in the future.

Victims of our bombs 

Unlike the DuPont case, most externalities are never exposed. Instead they hide in plain sight. These externalities do not need to be concealed because they are either not perceived as externalities or because they are viewed as so unimportant as to be not worth factoring in.

The military-industrial complex – the one we were warned about more than half a century ago by President Dwight Eisenhower, a former US general – excels in these kinds of externalities. Its power derives from its ability to externalise its costs on to the victims of its bombs and its wars. These are people we know and care little about: they live far from us, they look and sound different to us, they are denied names and life stories like us. They are simply numbers, denoting them either as terrorists or, at best, unfortunate collateral damage. 

The externalities of the west’s war industries are opaque to us. The chain of cause and effect is nowadays obscured as “humanitarian intervention”. And even when war’s externalities come knocking at our borders as refugees flee from the bloodshed, or from the nihilistic cults sucked into the power vacuums we leave behind, or from the wreckage of infrastructure our weapons cause, or from the environmental degradation and pollution we unleash, or from the economies ruined by our plunder of local resources, we still don’t recognise these externalities for what they are. Our politicians and media transform the victims of our wars and our resource grabs into, at best, economic migrants and, at worst, barbarians at the gate.

Exclusive footage of a beach landing at St Margaret's Bay, Kent. More illegal migrants hit the jackpot. pic.twitter.com/BqNaWaTIzU

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) August 1, 2020

Snapshots of catastrophe

If we are entirely ignorant of the externalities inflicted by capitalism on victims beyond our shores, we are gradually and very late in the day waking up to some of capitalism’s externalities much closer to home. Parts of the corporate media are finally admitting that which can no longer be plausibly denied, that which is evident to our own senses.

For decades politicians and the corporate media managed to veil two things: that capitalism is an entirely unsustainable, profit-driven, endless consumption model; and that the environment is being gradually damaged in ways harmful to life. Each was obscured, as was the fact that the two are causally connected. The economic model is the primary cause of the environmental damage.

People, especially the young, are slowly awakening from this enforced state of ignorance. The corporate media, even its most liberal elements, is not leading this process; it is responding to that awakening.

Last week the Guardian newspaper prominently ran two stories about externalities, even if it failed to frame them as such. One was about micro-plastics leaching from feeding bottles into babies, and the other about the toll air pollution is taking on the populations of major European cities.

The latter story, based on new research, specifically assessed the cost of air pollution in European cities – in terms of “premature death, hospital treatment, lost working days and other health costs” – at £150 billion a year. Most of this was caused by pollution from vehicles, the profitable product of the car industry. The researchers admitted that their figure was an under-estimate of air pollution’s true cost.

But, of course, even that underestimate was arrived at solely on the basis of metrics prioritised by capitalist ideology: the cost to the economy of death and disease, not the incalculable cost in lost and damaged human lives, and even less the damage to other species and the natural world. Another report last week alluded to one of those many additional costs, showing a steep rise in depression and anxiety caused by air pollution. 

The other story, on baby bottles, is part of a much bigger story of how the plastics industry – whose products are derivatives of the fossil fuel industry – has long been filling our oceans and soil with plastics, both of the visible and invisible kind. Last week’s report revealed that the sterilisation process in which bottles are heated in boiling water resulted in babies swallowing millions of micro-plastics each day. The study found that plastic food containers were shedding much higher loads of micro-plastics than expected.

These stories are snapshots of a much wider environmental catastrophe unfolding across the planet caused by profit-driven industrialised society. As well as heating up the climate, corporations are chopping down the forests that don’t burn down first, ridding the planet of its lungs; they are destroying natural habitats and soil quality; and they are rapidly killing off insect populations.

As should be obvious by now, the ecological destructiveness of capitalism is baked in: whether it's climate breakdown, pollution or the imminent extinction of most of the insect life on which wider life depends. Ignoring one doesn't make the others go away https://t.co/1pEojqcBiy

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) November 13, 2019

These industries’ externalities are, for the time being, impacting most severely on the natural world. But they will soon have more visible and dramatic effects that will be felt by our children and grandchildren. Neither of these constituences currently has a say in how our capitalist “democracies” are being run. 

Perception managers 

Capitalism isn’t only harming us, it’s double-billing us: taking first from our wallets and then depriving us of a future. We have now entered an era of deep cognitive dissonance.

Unlike a few years ago, many of us now understand that our futures are at grave risk from changes in our environment – the effect. But the task of today’s perception managers, like those of yesteryear, is to obscure the main cause – our economic system, capitalism.

The increasingly desperate effort to dissociate capitalism from the imminent environmental crisis – to break any perception of a causal link – was highlighted early this year. It emerged that counter-terrorism police in the UK had included Extinction Rebellion, the west’s main environmental protest group, on a list of extremist organisations. Under related “Prevent” regulations, teachers and government officials are already required by law to report anyone who they suspect of being “radicalised”.

Extinction Rebellion's demands are the very minimum rationale response to an imminent climate catastrophe, and yet UK security services have been outed internally classifying it as an ideological equivalent to terrorism https://t.co/V9iJKSHEx2

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) January 11, 2020

In a guide explaining the purpose of the list, officials and teachers were told to identify anyone who speaks in “strong or emotive terms about environmental issues like climate change, ecology, species extinction, fracking, airport expansion or pollution”.

Why was Extinction Rebellion, a non-violent, civil disobedience group, included alongside neo-Nazis and Islamic jihadists? A whole page is dedicated to the threat posed by Extinction Rebellion. The guide explains that the organisation’s activism is rooted in an “anti-establishment philosophy that seeks system change”. That is, environmental activism risks making apparent – especially to the young – the causal connection between the economic system and damage to the environment.

Once the story broke, the police hastily rowed back, claiming that Extinction Rebellion’s inclusion was a mistake. But more recently establishment efforts to decouple capitalism from its catastrophic externalities have grown more explicit.

Last month England’s department of education ordered schools not to use any materials in the curriculum that question the legitimacy of capitalism. Opposition to capitalism was described as an “extreme political stance” – opposition, let us remember, to an economic system whose relentless pursuit of growth and profit treats the destruction of the natural world as an uncosted externality.

Paradoxically, education officials equated promotion of alternatives to capitalism as a threat to free speech, as well as an endorsement of illegal activity, and – inevitably – as evidence of antisemitism.

Suicidal trajectory 

These desperate and draconian measures to shore up an increasingly discredited system are not about to end. They will get much worse.

The establishment is not preparing to give up on capitalism – the ideology that enriched and empowered it – without a fight. The political and media class proved that with their relentless and unprecedented attacks on Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn over several years. And Corbyn was offering only a reformist, democratic socialist agenda.

The establishment has also demonstrated its determination to cling on to the status quo in its relentless and unprecedented attacks on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is locked away, seemingly indefinitely, for revealing the externalities – the victims – of the west’s war industries and the psychopathic behaviour of those in power.

Efforts to end the suicidal trajectory of our current “free market” system will doubtless soon be equated with terrorism, as the Prevent strategy has already intimated. We should be ready.

There can be no escape from the death wish of capitalism without recognising that death wish, and then demanding and working for wholesale change. Externalities may sound like innocuous jargon, but they and the economic system that requires them are killing us, our children and the planet.

The nightmare can end, but only if we wake up.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This essay first appeared on Jonathan Cook’s blog: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/

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. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Donald Trump, the Mr. Magoo of geopolitics, has shot his big mouth off again and incited warfare between Egypt and Ethiopia.

Trump said, according to the BBC, that Egypt cannot accept the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that is being built on the Blue Nile, which the government of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi believes will reduce water flow to Egypt. Trump went on to crack that Egypt might “blow it up.”

The head of state of a superpower cannot afford to speak this way. What Addis Abbaba heard was that al-Sisi likely said some such thing to Trump, which the blabber-mouth-in-chief was now inadvertently making public.

Ethiopia’s foreign minister, Gedu Andargachew, angrily summoned the US ambassador in Addis Ababa, Michael Raynor, on the mat to explain Trump’s wild comments. Raynor is a career foreign service professional and must be really tired of having to explain Trump to people. Andargachew told Raynor, “It is unacceptable for the current American president to incite war between Ethiopia and Egypt.”

Egypt’s minister of water resources and irrigation, Muhmmad `Abd al-`Ati, complained last week that no progress has been made with Ethiopia on negotiations over the Renaissance Dam, despite a 2015 agreement on principles. After Trump’s comment, `Abd al-`Ati came out to blame Ethiopia for having caused the failure of Washington’s diplomatic initiative to resolve the conflict.

The two goliaths of northeast Africa are at odds over this giant dam of Ethiopia’s. There are two Niles below Sudan, which flow together as one river through Egypt up to the Mediterranean. The White Nile originates in Tanzania and is unaffected by the dam. The Blue Nile originates in Ethiopia and flows up to Sudan, where it joins the White Nile and proceeds through Egypt.

Ethiopia is building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile in its territory to generate electricity. This seems a shame because Ethiopia is rich in sunlight and wind and if it had spent as much money on wind and solar farms as it is putting into the dam, I think it could have had the electricity without putting Sudanese and Egyptians in danger of not having enough water. 

Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed maintains, like his predecessors, that the dam will not interfere with the flow of water to water-poor Egypt. It is true that if the reservoir created by the dam is filled very, very slowly, over years, the impact on the Egyptian water supply can be reduced. In wet years, thereafter, the dam should not have a significant impact on Egypt. But a recent study in Nature suggested that if there is another multi-year drought, the Renaissance Dam could act as a multiplier in reducing Egypt’s water supply.

The reservoir also has a bigger surface than the river, and as global heating advances, it could lead to substantial evaporation of precious water.

I lived in Egypt altogether something like three or four years on and off between 1976 and 2014, and I think I was rained on three times, briefly. Egypt would just be the northeastern edge of the Sahara if it were not for the Nile. Most people live along its banks. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus called Egypt “the gift of the Nile,” and he was not wrong. Egypt, with 100 million people, does not have enough water. It needs to build some solar-driven water purification plants, but has not done so yet.

Egypt did once fight a modern war with Ethiopia, in 1874-76, when Cairo had expanded south into the Sudan and beyond in search of land on which to grow cotton for the world market. The Ottoman viceroy or Khedive Isma`il prosecuted this war. I once saw some documents on it in the Egyptian archives. Egypt was decisively defeated, and the loss contributed to Ismai`il’s weakening and the loss of confidence in him of the European Powers. He was deposed in 1879.

As for the Mr. Magoo reference, I was a little afraid it was a Boomer thing that wouldn’t be any longer widely understood. But I checked and there is a new ‘Mr. Magoo’ series on CBS All-Access just this year. For those who don’t know, in the cartoon he is a near-sighted older gentleman whose inability to see clearly leads him into hilarious misunderstandings and confuses everyone around him. Whatever is wrong with Trump seems to operate similarly.

Ironically, Trump’s nickname for Jeff Sessions was ‘Mr. Magoo.’ Talk about the pot calling the kettle black:

Mr. Magoo sometimes in the cartoons imagines that he has been conscripted and caught up in a war. I don’t know if he ever provoked one.

Trump is much more terrifying, if equally cartoonish.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Featured image is a screenshot from the WaPo video above

With the victory of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) in the Bolivian elections on October 18, the de facto coup government presided over by Jeanine Áñez, has requested visas from the United States for its officials according to a US-based network.

***

NBC news network journalist Tom Brokaw reported Thursday on a letter from Jeanine Áñez, in which he has requested 350 visas from the U.S. government for officials of his de facto coup government.

The report, cited by the communication platform Resumen Latinoamericano, indicates that the reason behind the request is the concern that the Bolivian de facto government has about being prosecuted by the government of President-elect Luis Arce Catacora.

The news has gone viral on social networks under the title: “Time to Escape?”

On Sunday, the candidate of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), Luis Arce, managed to win the first round of elections in Bolivia, elections that took place 363 days after the coup d’état orchestrated by the opposition and supported by the US, after which Evo Morales resigned as President of the country.

This triumph has been possible despite the efforts of the de facto government of Jeanine Áñez, which was installed after the coup d’état of November 2019, to perpetuate itself in the government with measures such as the postponement of the elections and repression of MAS leaders and sympathizers.

Jeanine Añez begins to plan her escape from Bolivian justice, she has already applied for 350 visas to the United States#Bolivia pic.twitter.com/AYgxtaqdF7

— Anon Candanga EN🌍🌎🌏 (@anon_candanga) October 23, 2020

Despite her attempts to prevent the return to power of the MAS in Bolivia, Áñez has even been forced to recognize Morales’ party’s resounding victory in the elections, thus ending her mandate with several unfulfilled promises and acts of crime and violence.

Now, the MAS has returned to power, after a year, with the commitment to resolve the serious problems that afflict the Andean nation, above all the economic crisis.

#Bolivia | While Indigenous people are protesting the regime, the country’s oligarchy is financing and equipping far-right paramilitary groups. pic.twitter.com/ifuGihTOTW

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) August 10, 2020

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from EFE/Joédson Alves

Former intelligence officials, Democratic leaders, and media outlets dismissing the Hunter Biden story as “Russian disinformation” are spreading more Russiagate disinformation, ex-CIA officer Ray McGovern says.

Media outlets are amplifying the claims of former intelligence officials, including John Brennan and James Clapper, as well as of top Democrats, including Joe Biden and Adam Schiff, that the Hunter Biden laptop revelations are “Russian disinformation.”

They have done so even though no one from the Biden camp has disputed the authenticity of a single leaked email or document, or denied that the laptop belongs to Hunter Biden. Ray McGovern, a former career CIA officer who served as chief of the CIA’s Soviet analysts division and chaired National Intelligence Estimates, discusses the widespread disinformation about “Russian disinformation,” and why it raises new questions about the conduct and claims of the intelligence officials behind Russiagate.

Guest: Ray McGovern. Former longtime CIA officer, who served as chief of the CIA’s Soviet analysts division, chaired National Intelligence Estimates, and prepared the President’s Daily Brief. He is also the co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Aaron Maté is a journalist and producer. He hosts Pushback with Aaron Maté on The Grayzone. He is also is contributor to The Nation magazine and former host/producer for The Real News and Democracy Now!. Aaron has also presented and produced for Vice, AJ+, and Al Jazeera.

Amnesty International has catalogued how the actions of Boris Johnson’s Conservative government led to the deaths of thousands of elderly people in care homes during the first stage of the coronavirus pandemic.

Amnesty’s report was largely ignored by the media or relegated to inside pages. Yet it presents evidence that the government’s policy of herd immunity was responsible for what could easily be accepted by many families as little more than mass murder. The government was entirely aware of the probable outcome of their policy and went ahead regardless of the risk to thousands of lives.

The report, “As if expendable: The UK government’s failure to protect older people in care homes during the Covid-19 pandemic”, details how, between March 2 and June 12, 18,562 residents of care homes in England died with COVID-19. The vast majority (18,168) were aged 65 and over, representing almost 40 per cent of all deaths involving the virus in England during this time frame. Of these, 76 per cent (13,844 deaths) occurred within care homes for the elderly.

In the meantime, the care home industry is literally on the brink – with many going out of business at a crucial time. A typical story was published recently in the mainstream media about an 85-year-old resident at Newfield Nursing Home in Sheffield, where 25 people living there died with the virus after more than 110 residents and staff members tested positive. The result is that the care home is closing for good, with 38 nurses and carers facing redundancy.

And it is as if the lessons from the first wave were completely ignored, as Boris Johnson has decided that the very same strategy should take place once again.

Even the right-wing Daily Mail wrote in dismay last week – “Care homes are once again being asked to take in elderly hospital patients infected with coronavirus to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed this winter. The sensational decision has sparked widespread fears No 10 has not learnt from its catastrophic errors during the first wave of the pandemic, which led to the disease killing tens of thousands of elderly residents.”

Amnesty International said through its Crisis Response team  – “A series of “shockingly irresponsible” Government decisions put tens of thousands of older people’s lives at risk and led to multiple violations of care home residents.” Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK went on to say:

“The Government made a series of shockingly irresponsible decisions which abandoned care home residents to die. … The appalling death toll was entirely avoidable – it is a scandal of monumental proportions.”

Amnesty International UK has launched a new campaign calling for a full independent public Inquiry into the pandemic, with an interim phase starting immediately focusing on older people in care homes.

Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s Senior Crisis Response Adviser, said:

“It is as if care home residents were seen as expendable. Despite thousands of empty beds they were de-prioritized when it came to getting access to hospital care, and had blanket do not resuscitate orders imposed on them without due process. Such abuses are deeply disturbing. It is imperative that lessons are learned so that the same mistakes are not repeated, and that those responsible for such disastrous decisions are held accountable.”

Amnesty received multiple reports of care home residents’ right to NHS services – including access to general medical services and hospital admission – being denied during the pandemic. Care home staff and relatives told Amnesty how sending residents to hospital was discouraged or outright refused.

The son of one care home resident who passed away in Cumbria said that sending his father to hospital had not even been considered:

“From day one, the care home was categoric it was probably COVID and he would die of it and he would not be taken to hospital. He only had a cough at that stage. He was only 76 and was in great shape physically. He loved to go out and it would not have been a problem for him to go to hospital. The care home called me and said he had symptoms, a bit of a cough and that doctor had assessed him over mobile phone and he would not be taken to hospital. Then I spoke to the GP later that day and said he would not be taken to hospital but would be given morphine if in pain… He died a week later.”

Amnesty received multiple reports right across the country of doctors refusing to enter care homes and only being available for consultations by phone or video call, regardless of a sick resident’s symptoms or even in the case of end-of-life support.

The misuse of ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ forms, inadequate access to testing, insufficient PPE and the devastating impact of prolonged isolation were also highlighted in Amnesty’s report.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from TP

In 2016, Australian Major General Jeff Sengelman approached the then chief of the Australian army Lieutenant General Angus Campbell with a nagging worry. The concern lay in allegations that Australian special forces had committed various war crimes in Afghanistan.  Sengelman was then special forces commander; Campbell was chief of the army.  Sociologist Samantha Crompvoets was duly commissioned to write a report on “Special Operations Command Culture interactions”.  It was leaked in 2018, and claimed that Australia’s special forces had engaged in the “unsanctioned and illegal application of violence on operations” aided by a timorous leadership and perception of impunity. 

Campbell duly tasked the inspector-general of the Australian Defence Force, James Gaynor, with the role of investigating war crimes allegations connected with the Special Operations Task Group during stints in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.  Paul Brereton, a New South Wales Supreme Court judge and major general in the Army Reserve, was given the task of leading the inquiry.  For four years, it has been conducted under conditions of utmost secrecy.  The instrument directing the inquiry, and the terms of reference of the inquiry, remain unpublished. 

Screenshot from aph.gov.au

The report is expected to be completed by year’s end, though some preparations for softening the blow are already being made.  The IGADF annual report  of 2018-9, tabled in parliament in February, at least alludes to the fact that more than 338 witnesses have been examined since March 2016, noting “55 separate incidents or issues under inquiry covering a range of alleged breaches of the Law of Armed Conflict, predominantly unlawful killings of persons who were non-combatants or were no longer combatants, but also ‘cruel treatment’ of such persons.”  Exclusions are already clear: decisions made during the “heat of battle,” for instance, are of no concern.  Focus, instead, “is on the treatment of persons who were clearly non-combatants or who were no longer combatants.”

In an interview with journalist Stan Grant in an online conference series, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds was not optimistic about what would be unearthed. 

“I think that will make some very significant findings, ones that I’m certain will make Australians uncomfortable and also dismayed at.  So, I think we do need to prepare ourselves for that.” 

While she had not seen the report, she felt that there was enough to be troubled by, though “that in no way reflects on our current serving men and women both here and overseas who are doing an extraordinary job for your nation.”

The Senator is keen to push the point that things have improved since those dark days.  Army Commander Lieutenant General Rick Burr also made the point in a note to Australia’s soldiers that,

“This is not who we are and not what we stand for.” He seemed to show some fondness for the bad apple theory, “concerned about the impact of those findings on those of you who served in Afghanistan and other operations and who served as professionals with pride and integrity.  You did the right thing.”   

The ADF establishment has been particularly concerned with what is seen as the isolation of the special unit arm from the rest of the army.  Over the course of 20 rotations over 11 years in Afghanistan, “catastrophic and cultural shortfalls” have been identified within the Special Operations Command.  The Special Air Service Regiment and commandos have also been at each other’s throats in what can only be described as competitive viciousness.

Lying behind such lines of inquiry is a policy of containment: the idea that atrocities can be stemmed, cordoned off, and identified as the work of a few rotters within a rotten culture.  Identify the culture and its advocates; neutralise them.  Burr is confident that this has already taken place, using the insufferable language of organisational management in describing “substantial cultural and professional transformation.”  The question as to why such outfits should be deployed in the first place is never asked, leaving politicians and commanders immune and smug from the horrors of war and the stupidities of armchair planning.  

While the IGADF inquiry has been moving slowly along, the exposes have come thick and fast.  The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has become the main font of disturbing revelations, its Afghan Files a trove of bloody and brutal adventurism.  The impact of their exposure led to investigations by the Australian Federal Police, not into allegations of such atrocities, but those who wrote about them.  Only this month, ABC journalist Dan Oakes received the comforting, if cold news, that he would not be prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions in the aftermath of raids conducted on the national broadcaster last year.  The CDPP waved the magic wand of public interest, and thought it poor form to be pursuing a journalist for exposing the misdeeds of Australia’s military effort in Afghanistan.  But more troubling for Oakes, the CDPP thought that any prosecution would have stood a reasonable chance of success.

Another matter of concern regarding the future efficacy of the inquiry has also surfaced.  This month, the ABC obtained an internal Defence Department bulletin noting the placing of an embargo on the shredding of any records relating to ADF operations in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2015.  The embargo stemmed from the Afghanistan Inquiry Task Force established with the “primary role” of preparing “Defence to receive and respond to the IGADF Afghanistan Inquiry report.”  Startling that this should have taken four years, but the Defence Department saw little trouble with it.  According to the dull formulation of a spokesperson, “In accordance with these requirements, key operational records relating to planning and conduct become eligible for destruction after 20 years.”

This should have caused a flurry of consternation.  For Rawan Arraf, director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, the timing of the embargo raised “serious questions about whether the Defence Department has had the proper processes in place; whether it has been complying with its regulations and international guidelines on record keeping and data protection, especially where it’s relevant to investigating any potential violations of international humanitarian law or the laws of armed conflict.”

While the findings of such inquiries will duly fill the books of military history, they will not alter the central problem in Australian military and foreign policy: that constant craving to deploy personnel to harsh foreign theatres without obvious strategic necessity.  Australia’s SAS and the commandos can rightly be seen to be the Ghurkhas of the US military, an elite annexe serving as auxiliaries for foreign power.    

Troubled and ruined, Afghanistan has been killing, maiming and driving the imperially minded insane for centuries.  It has mocked and derided invaders, swallowed up armies.  The tag of military professionalism is mere dinner table formality in the face of unconventional warfare; when engaged in such areas of battle, the rules will go out the window.  By all means, hold the soldiers to account for such cruelties, but the same could be said about those who sent them there in the first place, decision makers who remain perennially immune from a prosecutor’s brief.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

Damascus confirmed the visit of President Donald Trump’s Special envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens and Senior Director for Counterterrorism Kash Patel to Syria and their meeting with the Syrian Director of the National Security Ali Mamluk (sanctioned by the European Union and the US administration). It was the last of three visits the US took to Damascus where the first one was in 2017 when the United Arab Emirates arranged for a visit of a political and a military US delegation whose plane landed at Damascus airport and met with Mamluk.

The title of the US visit concerned the release of US prisoners arrested in Damascus. More than one of these captured have double Syrian-American nationalities and others who visited the country without going through the official channel but were ‘sold’ by rebels.

Sources in Damascus said that “the leadership has no intention to boost President Trump’s election and no American captured is expected to be released this year as long as Trump is in power”.

“Brigadier general Ali Mamluk asked from the US officials who visited his office in the Syrian capital if they have a plan of the US withdrawal from the Syrian occupied territory starting with the oil and gas-rich area in north-east Syria. If the Syrian Army is allowed to cross the river to regain control of the sources of energy, then Syria is ready to look into the matter seriously not before”, said the source.

Mamluk rejected an offer by the US senior diplomatic delegation to ease sanctions on Syria imposed by the EU and the US in exchange for an immediate release of at least one hostage. The US delegation members were pressing for the time of release. Still, they had no authority to discuss the withdrawal of all US forces from the occupied Syrian territory in north-east Syria.“

Click here to access full article.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

On October 2 Canadian peace activists held their second pan-Canadian Day of Action against the purchase of 88 new fighter jets. At some locations activists also underscored their objections to the purchase of 12 armed drones at a projected cost of $5 billion. The activists delivered letters to 27 Members of Parliament opposing the purchase of these killing machines and urged actions for peace, protecting the environment and a just economic recovery.

The October 2 Day of Protest, like the July 24 Day of Protest, was spearheaded by Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and allied peace and solidarity organizations. October 2 was also the International Day of Non-Violence named in honour of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2, 1869.

At some of the protests at the offices of Members of Parliament, peace councils affiliated with the Canadian Peace Congress handed out a leaflet prepared by the Congress executive. Referring to the reasons for the purchase of the fighter jets they stated, “the true purpose is to prepare for war against the people of Russia, China or any other country unwilling to comply with demands coming from the US empire.” They also referred to Canada’s membership in the “aggressive NATO alliance which still operates on the dangerous premise that it can start and win a nuclear world war.” The Congress leaflet also pointed out that “Canada has participated in NATO wars of destruction against Yugoslavia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Libya (2011) and Syria (2011).”

The Peace Congress suggests another vision for Canada:

“We see a Canada upholding international law and the UN charter. We see a country emphasizing peaceful co-existence of all states and actively opposing policies and actions that worse international relations. We see a Canada out of NATO.”

The leaflet concluded by urging its readers to take the threat of a Third World War seriously; to join a local peace council or group and participate in building a strong and engaged Peace Network across Canada.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on People’s Voice.

Ed Lehman is a member of the Canadian Peace Congress Executive and the Regina Peace Council

Featured image is from People’s Voice

This evening, Mr. Markus Haintz, a prominent and courageous human rights lawyer in Germany was brutally arrested by Berlin police. His assistant, Frederike, was also brutally arrested. The arrest was filmed.

It is important to report this arrest worldwide and denounce such terror tactics by the German police.

Please inform your friends how the German authorities are directing the police to escalate violence.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

2020 marks the 75th Anniversary of the world’s most important and visionary organisation, the United Nations. Everything TFF has done during its 35 years of existence has been based on one mission – namely, to promote the UN Charter’s Article 1 which states that peace shall be brought about by peaceful means.

That is a typical Gandhian inspiration – “the means are the goals in-the-making” – as he said. You cannot use destructive means to achieve constructive goals.

Regrettably, one hears many – thoughtless – voices accusing “the UN” of being too expensive, too bureaucratic, too ineffective, too corrupt, too this and that.

Why must this be seen as an indicator of intellectual poverty?

First, as stated by its first Secretary-General, Norwegian Trygve Lie – the UN shall never become stronger or better than its member states want to it to be. And, sadly, they are more nationalist than globalist.

Lie’s words are still spot-on correct and mean, simply, that it is the member-states (some more than others) that behave internationally and in their UN policies in such a manner that the world organisation and its norms are weakened, its power and role undermined and its operations marginalized.

Secondly, those who say that the world could just as well close down the “outdated” UN just don’t consider how small its budget is and how impossible it would be to make the world a better place with so little funds given the destructive forces that are pitted against the UN and its norms.

The fact is that the United Nations and its organisations operate on a regular administrative budget of US$ 3 billion and that the total annual expenditures of all its member agencies (such as WHO, UNICEF etc) is US$ 50-60 billion. That is 3 per cent of the costs of global militarism which are US$ 2000 billion annually.

What fires can you prevent or extinguish against militarist pyromaniacs having 30-40 times more resources at their disposal to start new fires?

Thirdly, whether intended or not, these critics implicitly say: We’d rather have a world run by the US (and a few others) than by the UN. This is a dangerous way of thinking that totally undermines international law and the extremely important UN Charter – the most Gandhian document the world’s governments have ever signed.

There is no doubt that saving humankind and our common global future goes through the United Nations and its Charter norms – not as the only change-maker but as the most central.

Yes, the UN needs reform. But as we show below, there is a much larger need for government and peoples to reform their attitudes and policies concerning the United Nations.

As a matter of fact, it’s part of a much larger process of democratizing decision-making beyond the national and regional level and begin to think of global governance in completely new, future-oriented ways.

If and when humankind develops something far better than the UN – then we may switch to that and close down the UN as we know it today. Not a second before!

And that new institution shall not be located in the member state that has harmed the UN the most. But until that moment, let’s make the present UN stronger so it can eventually do what it was intended to: Serve the common good and abolish.

Only “we, the peoples” can do that – from below since “they, the governments” have consistently violated that tremendously important Article 1!

Below please find 23 proposals for global democracy and a strong UN.(1)

Let us first focus on democracy in relation to the United Nations. It deserves emphasis that there are many problems pertaining to democracy and the international community.

First, democracy itself is a complicated term, an essentially contested concept.

Second, what to do with the fact that democracy, athough perhaps being the best so far, is considered “pseudo” and ineffective and is systematically circumvented by a number of power elites in the Western world (and Japan).

Third, it is Western-biased concept and most often taken to imply only elements such as multi-party system, equality before the law, free speech, and a set of social institutions such as parliaments and the free press. Thus, many consider the Soviet Union a dictatorship because it has one party and the United States a democracy because it has two parties. India is called the world’s largest democracy while thousands starve to death unnecessarily, and China in which the people’s basic welfare is satisfied is called authoritarian, or worse.

Fourth, democratization is desirable but how do we avoid, on the one hand, the cultural imperialism of universalizing a deeply Western definition and, on the other, the cultural particularism in which any system or dictator is permitted to call a society democratic with reference to local interpretations?

Fifth, there is no democracy at the international level, no institutions that resemble those of the nation-states; therefore, we will have to build on the only institution that can be reformed in the direction of a multi-cultural democratic institution at the supranational level, the U.N. But that itself must be democratized and it must come to embody, sooner rather than later, a democratized world order. It is time to take “we, the peoples” serious and look into which peoples should be given a say in world – and UN – affairs. The catchword, of course, is popular sovereignty, i.e., a systematic acknowledgement of the principle that sovereignty resides with the people.

Sixth, as pointed out by Gandhi, democracies are based on regress to violence (armies, state repression, prisons, courts, capital punishment etc.) to uphold its order. And all democracies with exceptions such as Costa Rica, Iceland and perhaps a few more benefit from arms exports and support, more often than not, political interventionism and nuclearism.

Seventh, the same could be said about the attitudes in most democracies about the relationship between society and Nature. The complete, general entanglement of modern democracies in capitalism entails environmental destruction. It is the democratic world, not communism or dictatorships, that chop down rain forests and kills species, languages and “primitive” cultures.

Fortunately, both the environment and the development serve more convincing than any other problematic as an argument for restructuring existing international organizations, creating new ones and changing the meaning of government politics.

This is what eco-politics is about.

Today, the United Nations is totally unable to deal effectively with this civilizational challenge. The fact that sustainable development is a concept that has come to stay justifies the establishment of an entirely new organization within the United Nations. The 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Brazil must deal effectively with this and like-minded ideas.

After all, the environmental agenda is the only: one that reflects the common interest of all humankind.

The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF, in Sweden recently published a TFF Statement entitled A United Nations of the Future. What ‘We, the Peoples’ and Governments Can Do to Help the U.N. Help Ourselves.

In it, we suggest radical reforms in peacekeeping, development and environment and democratization of the U.N. itself and of the world community.

Here follows the 23 proposals relating to the latter:

1. The UN Security Council must undergo reforms and the veto power be restricted.

The exceptionally strong influence of the five permanent Security Council members is incompatible with democracy.

The veto power of the permanent members of the Security Council (SC) ought to disappear or its use restricted to certain areas and situations. Instead of the veto power, the SC could work with a double majority among the permanent members and among the elected members. Whatever we prefer, we can no longer ignore the need for, a comprehensive reform of the Security Council, its membership criteria, and modes of operation.

We believe that a gradual fading away of the veto power is not only desirable but also possible. Furthermore, it is important to strengthen the remunerative, peaceful and democratic powers of the General-Secretary and a new leadership structure as well as the General Assembly in the future rather than relying on the negative power of the veto. Hence:

The provisions for the functions of the Secretary-General (particularly Article 99 and 100) are, in fact, the only concession made in the Charter to supra-nationality. However, it demands a super human being to fulfil all the requirements of a Secretary-General laid down in the Charter and practices developed since then, not to speak of the personal qualities demanded.

Collective leadership in the top echelon is now a necessity. It could consist of five: the Secretary-General him- or herself, the three deputies – for peace and security, economic and social matters and for administration and management. The fifth would be a new deputy in charge of relations with the public, the non-governmental and private sector.

3. The General Assembly should be invigorated.

Maybe the most important role for the General Assembly (GA) in the future will be to raise political awareness on global issues. It could sponsor Special Sessions to get the facts and evaluations as well as the urgency expressed to a wide audience.

The legislative authority of the GA needs to be binding and linked to actions decided upon at the same time (as well as their financing). It has to be consensus decisions. There need to be legally binding conventions. The “United Action for Peace” Resolution from November 1950 provided that the General Assembly would meet to recommend collective measures in situations where the Security Council was unable to deal with a breach of peace or act of aggression.

The United Nations is, in fact, the United Governments. It is beyond doubt that a number of the governments are “non-peoples organizations” (NPOs) whereas many so-called NGOs are, in reality, People’s Organizations (PO) but have no access to UN forums.

So, new actors should be brought into the picture in various ways and with guarantees that they are truly independent of states. We suggest the following categories: a) international organizations, b) transnational organizations, in which people represent causes or worldwide issues but not parties or countries, such as various movements and initiatives, c) minorities and indigenous peoples, d) refugees and displaced persons, e) children and youth and f) transnational corporations.

Consultative status, direct participation in commissions and agencies, an elaborate system of hearings throughout the UN system, sounding of analyses and proposals and inviting statements, commissioning fact-finding, research etc. with these organizations – are all measures that would facilitate such a democratization.

Tapping non-governmental resources effectively would lead to a tremendously enriched UN and would turn the organization into a much more dynamic body perceived by citizens worldwide to be relevant to them.

We think they should be granted direct decision-making power in the not so distant future. The often proposed Second Chamber or “parallel structure” is an idea we fully endorse. The 1992 Conference Environment and Development could be a starting point for such an assembly, being formed and growing initially outside but parallel with the General Assembly. We find it wise to introduce it gradually and to establish first which constituencies it should have (see a-e above) and how to elect them. And this is the next point:

Today, Ministries of Foreign Affairs appoint by far the majority of UN civil servants. This leaves no chance for citizens to influence who will represent them – “We, the peoples.”

This creates a sense of distance. However, nothing in the statutes of the United Nations seems to forbid any member from appointing their representatives by direct election, but obliging them to do so would hardly be possible today.

For other bodies than the General Assembly such as for agencies and the proposed Second Chamber of non-governmental actors, citizens should be given the opportunity to vote for candidates.

Why are totally unnecessary products and glittering pseudo messages broadcasted constantly worldwide while an organization such as the United Nations has no commercials, no educational programs, no campaigns, no reports and no debates and analyses that reach us?

Most UN documents and even public information materials appear anything but stimulating to ordinary citizens. Year after year, public information has decreased as a share of the total budget. We live in the age of electronic communication and the UN must have creative media competence as well as sufficient funds to reach into our living rooms. There are not only ample opportunities for using satellite broadcasting, local stations and cable networks for global communication. We can also use these new technologies creatively for conflict-resolution.

And, now, what can the member governments do?

Obviously, the nation-state as such is losing influence vis-a-vis transnational actors and the environment. Governments should acknowledge that while they give up some sovereignty now, they harvest the benefits of cooperation, early solutions to problems and order instead of chaos later. Taking others into account in new ways is the sine qua non of survival for all.

Any national moves towards purely defensive military and/or civilian postures and doctrines would solve – automatically – a number of serious problems that would otherwise be dumped on the Secretary-General or settled through naked force in the battlefield.

It would indeed be illusory to expect the United Nations – armed with an annual budget for all UN activities of 5/1000 of world military expenditures – to solve the cumulative problems arising from the fact that practically all member states, to some degree, practice national defence policies in contradiction with the spirit, if not also the letter, of the United Nations.

Each member, through national law-making, ought to make it possible for any citizen otherwise eligible for military service to seek recruitment with the United Nations, for military and civilian peacekeeping, on an equal basis.

Recent analyses show that only around 32% of all disputes involving military operations and fighting have been referred to the UN during the 1980s, the lowest share since 1945.

Imagine that the whole range of ecological conflicts that are developing these years will also be referred – and you have the perfect argument for transnational management and a considerable boost in the capacity and budgets of the UN for these types of activities.

This applies particularly to those relating to non-use of force and the peaceful settlement of disputes, respect for the spirit and letter of the Charter combined with a firm commitment to make available all kinds of civilian and military peacekeeping forces as well as all expertise relating to non-violent, peaceful conflict-resolution.

There is a need for a “new, common-sense coalition” consisting mainly of middle size and non-aligned countries, determined to use the UN machinery effectively. The Soviet Union of 1990, with its new support for the UN, certainly belongs to such a commonsense coalition. Common sense coalitions will be needed not only in the field of peacemaking but also in creating genuine, globally sustainable development and ecological security. The UN is no substitute for governmental action.

No member should be allowed to exert political pressure within the organization because of the size of its financial contribution. No member should contribute more than, say, 15% of its budget. Sharing in relation to size of population and/or GNP may be the easiest, with compensation for the poorest, i.e., resembling some kind of progressive taxation.

There is no doubt that the UN, unfortunately, is a huge bureaucracy, but reality is also that it is also pitifully lacking funds; the entire staff of 50,000 is equivalent to 1/8 of all military researchers and engineers worldwide or l/3 of the British Railways.

We doubt the bureaucratic problem within the UN is that much worse than in most other large organizations. Evidently it should be rationalized and better coordinated, and deep cuts should hit extravagant salaries, per diem and travel costs.

Having said so, the UN will need resources many times what it has today to be an effective actor in the future world community. It is a shame upon humanity that the UN is constantly forced to live close to bankruptcy while Hollywood films make multibillion-dollar business.

There are at least two ways in which the United Nations could supplement its budget: members could earmark a certain percentage of personal incomes and consumption taxes, and the United Nations and its organizations could raise funds from not-for-profit foundations, private donators, big and small throughout the world. The criteria must, of course, be that no formal or informal strings be attached.

They should be staffed with experts, politicians, public servants and representatives of movements, minorities, refugees, children and youth and charged with raising issues, presenting proposals, holding hearings, etc.

Each such national committee would in various ways monitor all the nation’s policies and programs for the UN and its agencies and help create a much wider public consciousness on world affairs. It should carry out “global impact assessments” of national decision-making, preferably in cooperation with UN agencies and regional bodies.

It could also facilitate better national and regional coordination of UN activities. While governments often demand “improved coordination” of the UN, they themselves have created a loose system and often fail to coordinate their own policies in different forums within the UN system.

They could operate together with the United Nations associations and monitor security, development and environmental policies and actions and report back to regional organizations, UN agencies and central UN bodies on these matters. Naturally, they should place their advice and analyses at the disposal of governmental, non-governmental groups and associations as well as explain UN affairs to media.

In other words, they would serve as “go-betweens” in each country, with consultative and observer status and no more. They would make the presence of the UN and its norm system felt locally and balance the governments’ representatives to the UN. This is an obvious solution to the problem of the very low worldwide profile of the UN.

Now is the best chance ever! If humanity has a common future and shares common interests at all, one of them certainly is that of using and developing the United Nations and transform it into a global authority of the future.

Surveys unequivocally show that people worldwide want the UN. Change means struggle. Paradoxically, we must cooperate to create that regime of cooperation without which there will not be a better world for humankind.

The struggles for change at all levels by all actors converge naturally at the United Nations. The more we help it, the more we are all helped by it. Nations can make a difference – if united!

Hopefully, human energies will be employed to take stock of what we have and, sooner rather than later, take stock of what we need.

The Charter does not mention environmental problems or ecological balance at all. Peace is understood as non-war between governments and not as harmony between Nature and human beings.

Few would dispute today that the two are intimately linked and that peace with Nature is of the highest priority.

It will have to have very extensive non-violent powers but operate in a manner totally different from the present Security Council. It should deal with all matters related to issues such as global warming, ozone layer depletion, pollution, waste, ecological assessment (also of consumerism in rich countries), clean water and air, urbanization, transport systems and infrastructure. Further it should decide global environmental standards and depletion quotas of threatened resources and energy sources.

The United Nations, its Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are “anthropocentric.” The UN should strive to establish a normative framework which integrates humankind and Nature.

Whether we cherish and care for Nature and its bio-diversity in consideration for human beings or believe that Nature has rights and values in and of itself, we shall not solve the environmental problems and learn to live in sustainable ways without a concept of human duties and obligations vis-a-vis Nature.

It is time that the United Nations, in cooperation with all relevant constituencies, begin the work of drafting a “Universal Declaration of Human and Governmental Duties and Obligations”.

The ESC should cooperate with the SC in demilitarizing the common heritage and developing a global governance over the parts of the earth not now under national sovereign control: outer space, Antarctica and the high seas.

Today it is virtually without tasks and could be given authority over the common heritage areas, resources and culture. The modalities for such a new, much larger role for the Trusteeship Council should be investigated and proposals made.

If territories, resources and various objects could, either permanently or for limited periods be entrusted to the United Nations, it would solve many problems and reduce environmental damage.

We think here of resources such as oil, rain forests and resources threatened by depletion that could be protected and managed by the Trusteeship Council. Depending on circumstances, the Council would cooperate with the ESC and perhaps the SC. Setting depletion quotas for resources and reduction standards for threatened species should become the prerogative of the UN system.

The first step would be to coordinate already existing institutions worldwide. For the first time, the word “regional” would not mean political or geographical but biological or ecological regions. Governments and many other actors would cooperate in new bio- or eco-regional patterns, often crisscrossing other types of boundaries, and the commissions would report directly to the Secretary-General.

To summarize it all: the United Nations is … we.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

1. What follows from that point in the article was written in 1991 when I served as a visiting professor at the International Christian University, ICU, in Tokyo. It was published in “Alternatives To World Disorder In The 1990s” – Educational Series Nr 25, Institute of Asian Cultural Studies.

Over these almost 30 years, world disorder has only increased – particularly since the West chose the triumphalistic response to the demise of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. And now the US, NATO and other West is in decline and will fall.

How much better it would have been for the West itself – and the world as a whole – to have worked instead for the common good and given the UN the power and resources to serve the common good of all humanity!

Still, we feel that good ideas should never be scrapped just because they are not picked up in the micro-historic time frame that 30 years are.

There will come a day when the world is looking intensely for good ideas about global governance – after nationalism and militarism and other constructs of lesser minds have declined too.

Featured image is by edgarwinkler / Pixabay

Since the CIA elevated Augusto Pinochet to power on an earlier 9/11 day of infamy in 1973 — replacing social democracy with tyrannical fascist rule — Pinochet’s ghost still haunts most Chileans.

Billionaire Sebastian Pinera governs the country with an iron fist, enforcing neoliberal harshness under police state rule.

Since 2019, millions of Chileans took to the streets against deep-seated corruption and inequality, high prices, poverty wages, and governance for privileged interests exclusively at the expense of most others.

For nearly half a century, Chilean ruling authorities followed Chicago School fundamentalist/IMF diktat policies.

They privatized state enterprises, handing them to corporate predators.

Mass layoffs, deregulation, deep social spending cuts, wage freezes or cuts, free market accesses for corporate America, business tax cuts, and tax increases for ordinary Chileans followed.

So did harsh repression against labor and other ordinary people.

Among 27 OECD member states,  Chile ranks highest in income inequality.

Most Chileans demand Pinera’s resignation and a new constitution.

He remains in office. On Sunday, Chileans are voting up or down on drafting a new constitution to replace the current repressive one.

Ahead of Sunday’s vote, Chileans filled Santiago streets and elsewhere in the country for fundamental changes they demand.

They include higher wages, affordable prices, pension reform, free education and healthcare, along with a nation fit to live in.

Voting age Chileans are expected to turn out en masse for democratic change over fascist repression and a constitution that reflects it.

Widely despised Pinera has rock-bottom support of around 10% or less.

Choice for voters on Sunday is twofold: whether or not to draft a new constitution and if approved, what type body to prepare it.

On the latter issue, voters have two choices:

A constitutional convention with equal numbers of legislators and popularly elected delegates or a body comprised entirely of voter-elected members.

According to results of an Activa Research poll published on October 10, nearly 85% of Chileans want a new constitution, only 15% against drafting a new one.

Nearly 78% of respondents favor a “constitutional convention” option — MPs excluded, all delegates popularly elected.

If majority Chileans approve preparation of a new one, a vote to elect drafting body delegates will follow on April 11, 2021.

Once assembled, the Constitutional Convention will have nine months to draft a new document.

It must be approved by a two-thirds majority.

Within 60 days of approval, Chileans will have final say up or down on the new document by a simple majority through a national plebiscite.

If approved, it would become effective in 10 days.

It’ll be months to complete the process that begins on Sunday — with no assurance of the outcome no matter what changes most Chileans demand.

They’ve lived under repressive rule for nearly half a century.

Based on large-scale protests since last year, Chileans want equity and justice over ongoing fascist rule.

If the referendum and constitutional drafting process don’t deliver it, they’ll likely be back in the streets again demanding their fundamental rights.

A Final Comment

Chile has around 15 million eligible voters. They include citizens aged-18 or older and foreign nationals who’ve lived in the country over five years and have not been convicted of a crime.

Chileans abroad may vote at consulates where they reside.

Voting is scheduled from 8AM to 8PM or later at stations if queues remain.

Special voting hours for Chileans aged-60 or older exclusively are from 2PM – 5PM.

Individuals diagnosed with covid disease are prohibited from taking part in the process.

Official results of Sunday’s referendum may not be known until late November.

Electoral officials have until November 27 to announce them.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Today, October 24, 2020, there are many rallies around the world. Activists in these countries are joining in a common voice: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay, Italy, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, France, and Austria.

Citizens of all countries are paying an enormous price for the pandemic. They have not only lost their loved ones, but their freedoms, their livelihood, their joy. Children and youth are suffering due to this crisis too. Without their friends and social activities, mental health problems in our young are at an all-time high. People around the world are demanding to be spared from the devastating consequences of the pandemic.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Chairman of Children’s Health Defense, provides an inspirational message for freedom and hope to activists around the world.

Full transcript by Transcript by Rawan R. Mahmasa

Hey, everybody, it’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr. here, and I cannot tell you how happy I am to be able to have this opportunity to talk to thousands of citizens in 15 countries and all the continents in the world who have come together today to protest this coup d’etat by big data, by big telecom, by big tech, by the big oil and chemical companies, and by the global public health cartel led by Bill Gates and the WHO  that now amounts to two trillion dollars and wants to magnify and amplify its wealth and its power over our lives, over our liberties,

It wants to subvert our democracy and wants to destroy our sovereignty and our control over our lives and our children’s health.

And I want to remind you, those of you who are not Americans, of something that every American child learns when we’re growing up in this country about our history. And during the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt, who was one of the greatest presidents in American history, said to the American people: “the only thing that we have to fear is fear itself”

And we grow up hearing that but  people don’t really understand what it means. And it was a very, very profound warning by Roosevelt because he saw what the Great Depression was doing in Eastern Europe, in Italy and Germany and Spain, where that crisis was turning people towards fascism in the eastern countries, where the same crisis was turning citizens and governments towards communism and also causing the collapse of governments all over the world. And in our country, In the United States, it’s hard for people to remember today that almost a third of the people in our country were completely disillusioned with capitalism and wanted to turn to communism and another third wanted to turn to fascism. And Franklin Roosevelt wanted to preserve our country for democracy, for free market capitalism, for civil rights and to preserve our Constitution.

And he recognized that the weapon of authoritarian control was going to be fear. And when I spoke a few weeks ago in Berlin, I reminded the people of Germany of a very famous story that happened during the Nuremberg trials after World War Two, when Hitler’s closest lieutenant  the head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering, was asked by one of the prosecutors, how did you get the German people?, the German people are the most educated people in the world,

They were some of the most tolerant people in the world. The Weimar  Republic was one of the strongest democracies in the world. How did you take them? These people were so well educated and so awakened and so tolerant and turned them into obedient slaves who had committed some of the worst atrocities in human history? and Goring said, ” oh, that’s a simple thing.” And any of you can look up his quote and I urge you to do so. And he said, “And it works not just in the fascist government, but it works in a democracy, in a monarchy and in a communist government, and any government that you want, the job of the government is to put the people in fear. And and if you can keep them in fear, you can get them to do anything that you want them to do, that they will turn into sheep.

And there’s a famous book by Naomi Klein and all of us should read called Disaster Capitalism. And that book shows it’s a historical chronology of all of the times in American history, the history of the world during the Great Depression and during the financial collapse in 2008, during the financial collapse in Chile, for example, in 1973, during the time of the World Trade Center bombing, that authoritarian elements in a society and large corporations and wealthy plutocrats and oligarchs, wealthy families and individuals use crises to shift wealth upward to obliterate the middle classes of those countries and to clamp down totalitarian control.

And of course, that’s an obvious thing that people who are used to voting for their governments are not going to vote for policies that make the rich people richer and give corporations even more power over their lives, that reduce democracy and reduce civil rights. These are not good vessels for populism, in order to transform the government so that it will reward the rich with even more wealth.

The people who want to do that, the large corporations who orchestrate that kind of change, have to get rid of civil rights. The first civil right that they begin with is freedom of speech. They need to clamp down censorship because censorship is the most important right. And our country, we put it, number one, the First Amendment of the Constitution, because all the other rights depend on it. If a government can hide what it’s doing, it can get away with anything it wants.

If a corporation can lie to you and conceal information, if there’s no transparency in a democracy, you do not have a democracy. So, if you want to get rid of all the other rights, like freedom of assembly, which you are exercising today, some of you are exercising it at grave threats. Some of you will suffer, some of you will be jailed, some of you will suffer injuries.

But that is a basic right, the right to freedom of expression, the right to a jury trial, the right to freedom of religion, the right to privacy, the right to have governments don’t spy on you and keep your information.

All of those other rights can only be subverted if they begin imposing censorship, by being able to silence people who want to speak. So the coup d’état that we are all fighting today, is a coup d’etat that starts with a conspiracy between the government agencies and the big technology companies that Silicon Valley billionaires, people like Zuckerberg and Bill Gates and the people who run Google and Facebook and Pinterest and all of these other Silicon Valley corporations who are now in this conspiracy to make sure that we cannot talk about our grievances, we cannot say bad things about pharmaceutical products.

We can not question government policies that make no sense to us. And I’m going to say a few things about some of those government policies. Number one, I am not a conspiracy theorist. I follow the facts. I don’t know that the covid illness was laboratory generated in Wuhan. There is plenty of evidence that  it was, but  not enough evidence for me to say that it’s a fact. My question is, why don’t we know the answer to that?

Why is Tony Fauci not being asked that question? Why is President Trump not launching an investigation? or President Xi Jinping or the presidents of any of these countries? Saying, “Where did this come from?”  Because we need to know that, but global citizens, this is the worst calamity in history. And nobody seems curious about where this actually comes from?

We know it didn’t come from a bat in the wet market in Wuhan.

And that story was a fable that now has no basis, in fact.

There are many other questions that I’d like to know the answer. Questions about masks. I’m very willing to accept if the masks work. Then I want to wear them, if they’re going to protect other people from tansmissibility then I want to wear them, but the studies I have seen indicate that they do not work against viral transmission for the most part, there’s some that  say they may work under limited circumstances. What I don’t want to be told is: they work and you’re going to wear them, and you’d better not ask questions about it.

Most Americans and most of people on this planet, we want leadership but we don’t want bullying. And we know the difference between bullying and leadership. We want to know the truth about hydroxychloroquine, we want to know why are we spending 18$ billion on vaccines and only 1.4$ billion on therapeutic drugs.  What is the sense of that? There are many, many other questions that we, in a democracy, have a right to have answered, without being called conspiracy theorists, without being vilified as “inconsiderate” or being bad “citizens”.

Everybody who’s part of these demonstrations is people who are striving with their lives to become good citizens. Now let me tell you what we need to do to win this battle, the only way we can win it is with democracy. We need to fight to win our democracy back, to reclaim our democracy from these villains who are stealing it from us. And you notice the people who are getting richest from this quarantine are the same people who are censoring criticism of the quarantine.

Who’s becoming the richest? Jeffrey Bezos, $83 billion he’s made, and he owns Amazon, and he’s censoring books that criticize the quarantine. Zuckerburg, who owns Facebook, who’s made tens of billions of dollars by this quarantine and he is censoring information that is critical of the quarantine. He censors my Instagram, he censors my Facebook, my Twitter page is also censored. And all of these people are people who are making billions of dollars on the quarantine. And what I want to know is a simple question: is the quarantine actually effective?

You know we’ve had plenty of pandemics in the past. In 1969, we had a Hong Kong Flu pandemic that killed 100,000 people in the United States. It’s the equivalent of 200,000 people today who are being killed by coronavirus. Did we go into lockdown? No. Did we wear masks? No. We went to Woodstock. We went to the Democratic Convention in Chicago and had huge crowds of people. Nobody was told to lockdown, and don’t see your girlfriend, and wear a mask and don’t go out of your house, and shutdown your business and bankrupt every business in the country.

Last year, there were 1.6 million people in the world who died from tuberculosis. We have 1.6 million people die every year from tuberculosis. We’re not wearing masks. We’re not on lockdown. What’s the difference between tuberculosis and coronavirus? Tuberculosis has a vaccine, and the vaccine costs about $3 and that’s why we’re not on lockdown because nobody is making $39 a vaccine, or $300 a vaccine, the way that Moderna, and AstraZeneca, and Johnson  & Johnson are making from this catastrophe, and that is the only reason that I can think of. And I’m happy if somebody tells me there’s another reason, but let’s hear it. Don’t just shut me up. Don’t just tell me that I can’t debate. Here’s what we need to do. We need to do exactly what you’re doing today. We need to come out on the street and we need to stick together.

What the Big Tech villains and scoundrels, and Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeffrey Bezos, and Bill Gates, and Toni Fauci want you to do is they want us fighting with each other, they want blacks fighting against whites, they want republicans fighting against democrats, they want everybody polarized, they want everybody fragmented, cause they know if we all get together, we’re going to start questions, and those are questions that they can’t answer, “why are you getting rich?” And “Why are we all getting poor?” And “What’s the difference between tuberculosis and coronvirus?” And “Why are we not wearing masks for tuberculosis but we are for the coronavirus?” And “Where did it all come from?” And all of those questions that we deserve an answer to that we’re not getting answers, we need to stick together.

If you’re a republican or a democrat, stop talking about that. Stop identifying yourself. The enemy is Big Tech, Big Data, Big oil, Big Pharma, the medical cartel, the government totalitarian elements that are trying to oppress us, that are trying to rob us from our liberties, of our democracy, of our freedom of thought, of our freedom of expression, of our freedom of assembly, and all of the freedoms that give dignity to humanity. And the last thing that all of us need to do is we need to stay educated and informed.

One of the things that I want to announce to you today is that Children’s Health Defense, my organization with the help of many of you who are in these crowds, is launching a journal, a daily journal, and we are going to  weaponize information for you, we’re going to tell you what the newest science is.

We’re going to take all the information that is censored everywhere else and we’re going to reprint it in our publication, and you can get that everyday, so, if you see something that is censored, we want to hear about it because we want to put it up.

We are going to be the enemies of censorship. We are going to be the refuge, and we’re going to allow debate. We’re going to make sure it’s civil debate. We’re going to encourage people to be non-partisan. But we’re going to allow people to comment and have different opinions than us, we are not scared of debate, the way pharmaceutical companies and Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeffrey Bezos, and Toni Fauci, are terrified of debate. We welcome debate, we want to hear if we’ve got a different opinion than me, I want to hear about it, and I want to see your science. And I want the public to hear us talking about it and debating about it because the free-flow of information, the cauldron of debate is the only thing that allows governments to develop rational policies in which self-governance will actually work and triumph.

You are on the front lines of the most important battle in history and it is the battle to save democracy and freedom and human liberty and human dignity from this totalitarian cartel that is trying to rob us simultaneously in every nation in the world of the rights that every human being is born with.

So thank you for your courage, thank you for your commitment, so thank you for your brotherhood, and I can pledge to you, I will go down dying with my boots on, fighting side-by-side with all of you to make sure that we return these rights and preserve them from our children.

And I will see all of you on the barricades, thank you.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is a screenshot from the video 

According to reports on the ground, Azeris are using Israeli-supplied cluster munitions in Nagorno-Karabakh.

More on this below.

***

The 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) bans production use, transfer, and stockpiling of these terror weapons that scatter submunition bomblets over a wide area.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams called CCM “the most important disarmament and humanitarian convention in over a decade.”

Brightly colored, children mistake cluster bomblets for toys. Picking them up risks serious injury or death.

The US and Israel notoriously use these and other banned weapons in their preemptive wars.

Both countries failed to join over 100 others that are parties to the CCM.

Cluster munitions can be fired by artillery, rockets, and missiles, or air-dropped by warplanes.

Most often, they open when airborne, dispersing multiple submunitions (bomblets) over a wide area.

Acting like landmines, they remain dangerous for years unless professionally destroyed.

In November 2017, a Trump regime war department memo indefinitely delayed implementation of a ban on these weapons.

Current US policy gives military commanders discretion to use them “until sufficient quantities” of “enhanced and more reliable” versions are developed and deployed.

Despite years of research, no  safer substitutes were found.

The US, NATO, and Israel use chemical, biological, radiological, and other banned weapons in all their wars of choice — the human toll never an issue, nor the rule of law.

The Cluster Munition Coalition promotes nonuse of these weapons — a futile initiative as long as they continue to be used by US-led Western countries and Israel.

Reportedly, Azeri forces are using cluster munitions indiscriminately in terror-bombing Nagorno-Karabakh (NK below) residential areas, including in Stepanakert, NK’s capital.

Remnants of unexploded Israeli Mo95 submunition bomblets were found on the ground.

No evidence indicates that Armenian or NK forces have these terror weapons — either self-produced or obtained from foreign suppliers.

Reports on the ground indicate that Azeri forces used these weapons nearly straightaway after launching war in NK on September 27.

According to Southfront on October 3, “the Armenian Unified Infocenter shared photos showing the remains of Israeli-made M095 submunitions found in a civilian settlement that was the target of an Azerbaijani rocket strike.”

“According to the Infocenter, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces carried out the strike using a LAR-160 multiple rocket launch system (MRLS).”

“At least 30 LAR-160 MRLS are reportedly in active service with the Azerbaijani Armed Forces. The Azerbaijani systems are apparently armed with Mk.”

“II cluster rockets, which are known to carry M095 submunitions.”

Use of these terror weapons against combatants or civilians — designed to indiscrdiminately kill or maim over a distance of several hundred yards — constitutes a war crime.

Preemptive wars of course are the ultimate high criminal actions — the US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial partners guilty time and again.

Separately on Saturday, Armenian President Armen Sarkissian’s press office said the following:

“In the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russia is a trusted and pro-active mediator between the conflicting sides. Russia plays a crucial role here, and it demonstrated its commitment to finding a peaceful solution to the conflict by brokering a ceasefire on 10 October.”

“We must admit that this was a courageous and timely move, even though the Azeri side remained aggressively stubborn and destructive.”

After nearly a month of Azeri launched war in NK, it continues because Baku and Turkey’s Erdogan want conflict, not resolution.

Erdogan earlier said the following:

“We support the friendly and fraternal Azerbaijan in every way possible and we will continue to do it. This struggle will continue until Karabakh is liberated from occupation.”

On Friday, he expressed willingness to work with Moscow on conflict resolution — adding that he wants a seat at the table along with Minsk Group countries Russia, France and the US.

At the same time, he added: “Azerbaijan is putting its righteous demand forth” — wanting control over NK instead of Armenia.

That’s a prescription for continued conflict, resolution only possible through diplomacy and compromises by both warring sides.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

An outspoken proponent of government-led tactics to influence public opinion on policy and to undermine the credibility of “conspiracy theorists” will lead the World Health Organization’s (WHO) efforts to encourage public acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine, Children’s Health Defense has learned.

Last week, WHO’s general director, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, tweeted that he was glad to speak with the organization’s Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health to “discuss vaccine acceptance and uptake in the context of COVID-19.”

In his next tweet Ghebreyesus announced that Cass Sunstein, founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School, will chair the advisory group, which was created in July.

Sunstein was former President Barack Obama’s head of Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where he was responsible for overseeing policies relating to information quality.

In 2008, Sunstein wrote a paper proposing that governments employ teams of covert agents to “cognitively infiltrate” online dissident groups and websites which advocate “false conspiracy theories” about the government. In the paper, Sunstein and his co-authors wrote:

“Our principal claim here involves the potential value of cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, designed to introduce informational diversity into such groups and to expose indefensible conspiracy theories as such.”

The government-led operations described in Sunstein’s paper would work to increase faith in government policy and policymakers and undermine the credibility of “conspiracists” who question their motives. They would also maintain a vigorous “counter misinformation establishment” to counter “conspiracy” groups opposed to government policies that aim to protect the common good.

Some of this would be accomplished by sending undercover agents, or government-paid third parties, into “online social networks or even real space groups.”

Sunstein also advocated in 2008 that the government pay “independent experts” to publicly advocate on the government’s behalf, whether on television or social media. He says this is effective because people don’t trust the government as much as they trust people they believe are “independent.”

WHO has already contracted the public relations firm, Hill + Knowlton. The PR giant, best known for its role in manufacturing false testimonies in support of the Gulf War, was hired by WHO  to “ensure the science and public health credibility of the WHO in order to ensure WHO’s advice and guidance is followed.”

WHO paid Hill + Knowlton $135,000 to identify micro-influencers, macro-influencers and “hidden heroes” who could covertly promote WHO’s advice and messaging on social media, and also protect and promote the organization’s image as a COVID-19 authority.

There’s no evidence that WHO has yet implemented any “cognitive infiltration” policies similar to what Sunstein advocated in 2008. If the organization were to adopt such a strategy, and use it to convince hesitant populations to take a COVID vaccine, it would raise questions of legality.

As put forward in a report by the Congressional Research Service, illegal “publicity or propaganda” is defined by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to mean either (1) self-aggrandizement by public officials; (2) purely partisan activity; or (3) “covert propaganda.” By covert propaganda, GAO means information which originates from the government but is unattributed and made to appear as though it came from a third party.

Because WHO is a multinational organization and not a U.S. Government agency, covert “cognitive infiltration” policies could fall into a gray area, or even be considered legal.

Dr. Margaret Chan, former general-director of WHO, once stated that the organization’s policies are “driven by what [she called] donor interests.”

According to a 2012 article in Foreign Affairs, “few policy initiatives or normative standards set by the WHO are announced before they have been casually, unofficially vetted by Gates Foundation staff.” Or, as other sources told Politico in 2017, “Gates’ priorities have become the WHO’s.”

WHO’s current general director, Ghebreyesus, was previously on the board of two organizations that Gates founded, provided seed money for and continues to fund to this day: GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, a public–private global health partnership focused on increased access to vaccines in poor countries, and the Global Fund, which says it aims to accelerate the “development, production and equitable global access to safe, quality, effective, and affordable COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.”

If, as Politico put it, “Gates priorities have become the WHO’s,” and if WHO’s policies are driven by “donor interests,” this raises questions as to what online groups, people and websites would be targeted by such covert programs.

The idea of government agents carrying out psychological operations on social media is not far fetched. Earlier this year the head of editorial for Twitter’s Middle East and Africa office was outed as an active officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare unit, known as the 77th brigade, which specializes in online behavioral change operations.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Jeremy Loffredo is a reporter for Children’s Health Defense.

Featured image is from CHD

“The truth is, the technocrats have no intention of ever letting us go back to normal,” writes Dr. Joseph Mercola in Fear Secures Obedience in COVID-19 War. “The plan is to alter society permanently. Part of that alteration is the removal of civil liberties and human rights, and it is now happening at breakneck speed.”

It may seem like we are outnumbered in an impossible battle against the Corona World Order. The majority of the population have already succumbed to the mass brainwashing operation underway.

Yet, 605 years ago, King Henry V found his army outnumbered by six-to-one on the fields of Agincourt in Northern France.

Before the battle, in Shakespeare’s King Henry V, the king overhears his cousin lamenting how so many men in England were sleeping in bed that morning of the battle. King Harry responds:

Despite being so outnumbered, the English won the battle. Partly, the historians say, because 80% of the army was made up OF soldiers skilled in the use of the longbow.

Likewise, we may not have great numbers, but we have facts and figures on our side. Truth seems a far sharper weapon than the mind control dribble the other side is showering upon the public.

So best hope have I, too.

Now, for a stirring dose of inspiration, on this the 605th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt check out Kenneth Branagh’s performance of speech that roused fearful men to victorious battle. And for the cutest rendition, check out my son reciting the speech at age six.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

John C. A. Manley has spent over a decade ghostwriting for medical doctors, as well as naturopaths, chiropractors and Ayurvedic physicians. He publishes the COVID-19(84) Red Pill Briefs – an email-based newsletter dedicated to preventing the governments of the world from using an exaggerated pandemic as an excuse to violate our freedom, health, privacy, livelihood and humanity. He is also writing a novel, Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story. Visit his website at: MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: John Gilbert – The Morning of the Battle of Agincourt (1884), Guildhall Art Gallery (Public Domain)